Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-06-05
NJ u SIC
BY HELEN FETTER.

! clerk in the big music publishing
house of Chappell & Co. Then 1t
was discovered that attendance at
the one possible performance would
leave but half an hours leaway to
! catch the steamer for home at
Southampton that same evening
The uncertainty and delay IN the
train service the whole Summer, be-
cause of the strike earlier in the sea-
son, made the plan unfeasible:. AS 1t
turned out, the concert could have
been heard, for the steamer was
three hours late getting near enough
to port for the tender to leave
Southampton, and the connection
could have been easily made. Instead
of hearing Mr.. Dolmetsch's program,
the writer stood or sat in DRILLING
rain those three hours until the ten
der got under way to meet the
steamer so that the company that
owned the steamer would not have
to pay the heavy docking fine which
the British government exacts from
steamers that do not have tenders,
but dock directly at the port. But,
as one young American put it in a
resigned tone of voice, I'VE Ameri-
cans will travel!"
Also in Wales there will be the
usual Eisteddfod contests for those
who are interested to hear what is
being done in this very ancient form
of choral competitions at this time
in the British Isles. The exact dates
of these performances are not avail
able. either, at this time.
x X * X
FAIRLY in May there was very
~ interesting Polish Music Festival.
held in Prague, under the auspices
of the International Society of Mod
ern Music. Leading Polish and
Czechoslovak artists participated.
The Musical Standard is quoted in
an account of this festival published
in the New York Times. as saying:
IN this way the four days per-
formances of Polish music, under the
auspices of President Massaryk, IL
Illustrated Polish creative art down
the ages, and at the same time will
serve to improve the cultural rela-
tions of the two Slavonic nations.
The reciprocal cultural efforts be-
tween the Czechs and the Poles date
from the earliest times, in which a
role of no small mutual interest fell
to the share of musical art"
Another music festival held later
in May which is of international I'M
portance was the first Canadian Folk
Music Festival. Oscar Thompson,
who attended the festival as the rep
resentative of Musical America, re-
ports in the beginning of his inter-
esting account of the festival:
with some such refrain as
'Youpe! Youpe! Sur la Riviere'
ringing in their ears and likely to
return to plague the memory with
its buoyant, almost impudent, rhythm,
voyageurs from the States, as we'll
as many parts of the Dominion, took
their leave tonight of the first Cana
dian Folk Song and Handicraft Fes-
tival. So successful was the three
day experiment conducted in Chateau
trontenac, under the auspices of the
National Museum of Canada, in CO.
operation with the Canadian Pacific
Railway, that second festival next
year has been officially announced,
with every prospect that the celebra-
ton will take place annually among
the major musical enterprises of the
continent. John Murray Gibbon and
DIR. Marius Barbeau, representative
of the vision, on the one hand, of
the far-1ung transportation system,
eager to attract more travel to Can
ada, and on the other, the National
Museum, charged with the preserva-
ton of a distinctive folk lore, have
experienced the fruition of what un-
til last Friday was still something
OF fantastic dream. In some re-
spects the sponsors were themselves
surprised by the results of their own
efforts, as when hundreds of per-
sons, money in hand, had to be de-
MED admittance to the first of FIVE
concerts held in the spacious ball
room of the Chateau. Each concert
of the series brought capacity au-
diences." O
Thus it is easy TO see that music
is, indeed, the universal language.
Esperanto cannot compete. Also
when hundreds and thousands of
lust folks" travel from their native
land into another country to hear
musical performances, they aren't
very likely to want their armies
'straining at the leash to fight the
people who entertain them and give
them musical pleasure. 1t is a SIM
pie. common-sense method, which
works both ways, and what with the
foreign artists who come to this
country for money opportunities and
the Americans who go abroad for
that priceless something that is cul-
tural tradition, which those old coun-
tries have in such rich, we'll founded
abundance. who says that music is
an unnece ,sary luxury and only
stepchild to successful diplomatic
and business dealings between ma