Evening star., 1933-04-23

chamber music, Wnlcn De-
gins a three-day session at
a the Library Of Congress to-
day. will hold up for public COM
parison a leading exponent of
modern music from each of the
musically important countries of
the moment. Germany will be
represented through the compost
tiOnS of Hindemith, Italy by Piz-
zetti, Austria by Schoenberg,
France by Ravel, Czechoslovakia
by Martinu and America by Cop
land. These men have definitely
declared themselves for a new
order of things muSically and have
constituted themselves apostles OF
new ethics of expression meant
to be more sincere and realistic
than the objective heretofore held
to be the aim of musical compo-
Sition.
The trend of the new music"
Is animated by a spirit of inquiry.
It seeks to first analyze and then
to represent with fidelity the pc
culiar changes of thought and at
titude which have broken away
from the old order in ether de-
partmentS of life to a significant
degree. Through a detached and
lmperSonal point Of consideration
and passionate desire to be lOgl-
cal, the molderS of this new school
ferrit out the soul of the times
and put it into a dress as prac-
tical and unrOmantiC as the find
ings which they have unearthed.
The pattern does not lack beauty
or poetical color, but, on the con-
trary, has the beauty of truth in
its unadorned simplicity and the
poetical freshness of sincerity. The
bignesS of the scheme on which
it is built becomes more evident
with closer acquaintance and the,
as yet, but dimly guessed posi-
bilitieS of the future are there in
seed which the soil of time will
nouriSh.
Perhaps the most internation-
ally interesting composer of to-
day is Hindemith. He has pro-
claimed his intentions to make
his music human and purposeful
and to avoid impreSsionism and
Sentimentality. His complaint,
however, is with the people for
whom he writes. The problem of
modern music" he is. reported to
have said, is the creation of a
new audience. People are passive,
musically; they don't really live.
Old people want to hear old things
and the young go to the cinema.
The composer must create a new
contact and the new generation
itself must do something" This
is undoubtedly the gist of the
situation which today exists be-
tween the modern composer and
the modern listener.
Hindemith has striven unceaS-
ingly to reconcile life and art, to
elevate the one and to bring down
the other to the level of our COM
prehension. He has definitely
severed himself from the tradi-
tions of the past and lives ade-
quately and conStructively in the
present. He has carried his en-
thusiasm for, and belief in, mod
ernism to the extent of writing
for the mechanical! instruments
that supply a good part of the
music of today and has definitely
Haunted his banner in the toccato
which he wrote for pianola and
suite composed for a mechanical
organ. BY many he is regarded
as merely the follower up Of the
latest craze, but others recognize
that he is creating a new angle
from which to branch out into
a complete record of the stern
realities which make up the world
of today.
One of the most dominating
personalities that has aroused the
musical world to endless contrO-
versy is Arnold Schoenberg.
Back and forth, pro and con, the
decision as to his ranking has been
shifted in a war-like argument
much of the same type as seethed
around Wagner when his new doc
trines first startled the public. A
man of dynamic energy, vivid in
dividuality and wide interests, he
has succeeded in bewildering his
we'll WiSherS and his critics to al
most the same extent. In him,
more than any other of the mod
ernists, the modern formula
has exhausted itself and its eX-
travagant expression gone out OF
fashion to be replaced by Saner
methods. He, himself, has passed
through various periods. from his
early passionate radicahSm and
today finds himself not so far
away from the romantic tendency
which he sought to repudlate. A
recent performance in New York
of his "Pierrot Lunaire," generally
acceded to be his greatest compo-
sition, brought the same storm OF
criticism which its first perform
ance aroused in Berlin. Although
the musical world is more accuS-
toned to harsh realism of subject
and treatment, 1t hesitates to
cree Fundamentally that
Schoenberg's work has real ar
tistic vitality. The string sextet,
"rerklarte Nacht," which will be
performed at the Library on Tues
dav. is the best representative
composition of a certain period OF
Schoenberg'S development and is
one of the truest examples of his
fine sense of structure, his style
and real musicanship.
It was about Schoenberg that
Ildebrando Pizzetti waXed angry
and contemptuous when, on his
last visit to America, he was asked
his opinion regarding him: He
tore his modernism to shreds and
placed him back side by side with
Schubert as an inescapable ro-
manifest. At the same time ne
voiced his credo that no COM
poser or author should write the
Simplest thing until truly con-
yinced that what he feels con-
tains some germ Of greatness.
Pizzetti, a mVernist in, in { every J, ,ssy