Evening star., 1924-09-16
DARING NEW MUSIC
HEARD At FESTIVAL
American Conductors Find
SaIzburg Offerings Both
Fine and Indifferent.
BY CESAR SAERCHINGER.
Special Correspondence of The star aud I
chicago Dauv News.

Special Correspondence Of The star aud the
chicago Danv News.
SA14ZBCRG, Austria. August 10
Frederick Stock. conductor of the
chicago Symphony Orchestral: Adolph
Wedig and other leading American
musical personalities. together with
leading musicians. critics and music
lovers Of nearly every European
country, have been sitting. three
hours at stretch, in the gracefully
decorated hall Of the Mozarteum--as
the Salzburg conservatory is called,
after the citys most illustrious son
and listening TO new music, which
at first hearing is anything but Mo-
zartean.
Mr.. Stocks face has borne express
sionS ranging from amused tolerance
TO irrepressible hilarity. with an oc-
casional evidence of genuine admira-
ton. Mr. Weidig, contrapuntal ex-
pert and specialist in the infantile
diseases of composers. has watched
the proceedings with undiseuis ed
amusement.
.'ritics Declared Deficient.
Most of the listeners-a really in
tcrnational audience that comple1 q y
hiied the hali-Were ra ther more puz-
lied by what they heard. The COM
noserS and their eXponents however
are of opinion that the trouble is not
With them. but with the critics ears
The ears of these much to- be -pitied
folk, they say, have been spoiled by
what they have heard hitherto by
tempered" scales. by diatonic touali-
ties. by sentimentaiity and the hocus-
pocus of mere beautiful sound
standards of beauty. in short, that are
merely artificial and no longer apply
Down with Wagner and List and
'chalkowSky. they cry, down with the
whole nineteenth century, its roman
tic movement and its false gospel of
subjective art Back to music alb
Solute. to the play instinct OF the
classics. but forward to new "sonori-
ties. the objective play of movement
as such.
That. in nutshell, is the aesthetic
idea back of the musical revolution
that has found embodiment in the In
ternational Society for Contemporary
Music and the Salzburg festival. its
annual demonstration. The society.
which has taken root in % countries.
including the United States, was
founded three years a~o in Sa,zburg
where Mozart was born nearly two cen
turtles ago.
Society Grows Rapidly
What was then Il handful of ideal
lists. crazy radicals and Journalists
has become a worldwide organization
of peculiarly loose structure. with Ed
ward Dent. Cambridge University
scholar and Mozart authority as chair
man. Its destinleS are guided by
conference of delegates. meeting an
nually and frequently changing The
conference in turn. elects an annual
jury intruSted with the task of final
selection of the works to be presented
each year. The members Of this iurv
are musicians of interna tional renown.
No two of them may be of the same
Nationality.
Only chamber music is performed at
the Salzburg festival. Indeed a char
acteristic of the new musical style is
reaction against the inflated" sym
1boniSm-the mere bu1k OF Wagner
strauss. the emotionalists and the
'eaIlStS. Rut this years festival was
nreceded by an orchestral festival in
Irasue in May under the patronage of
the czech government
Leading Figures Mt Festival.
The programs Of the four concerts
this time included IS COMPOSERS, be-
longing to l. different nations. Since
history has shown that there are not
Is musical geniuses born in ali the
world in century. it is not surpris-
ing That the works performed were
not all works of genius. Yet it was
easy to discern traces of genius in at
least four or five
Igor Strav;nsKy. whose fame is wide
spread and whose influence is most
strongly felt in the work of the most
promising of the younger men. was
represented by most remarkable re-
cent, work. an octet for wind instru-
mentS. 1t easily scored the hit of the
FESTIVAL u spite its daring dis
sonances, eXcruCiating at times in the
slower sections, there was not a dis
sentfng voice-a significant symptom
OF progress in the educating of the
modern audiences ears.
While Stravinskys immediate dis
cipieS live. like himself. in France. it
IS obvious from this festival that his
influence has been great in Germany.
Indeed. the influence of Schoenberg
more fantastic and difficult in his
melodies, more ethical and metaphy-
sical in his content-seems to have
reccded in favor of the more mer-
cUrial and volatile S!av.
May Reveal Geniuses.
The two outstanding figures among
the young German generation--fau
Hindemith and Ernest krenek (polit.
icall- IL cZechD-both pay tribute to
Po~L CroaL N,,..e~,x