The first performance was at a Concert Lamoureux, Paris, on December 23, 1888. The complete programme was as follows: Beethoven, Symphony No. 8; Fantaisie, d'Indy; selections from Gluck's "Orphée' (Miss de Montaland and Miss Landi, singers; Hennebains, flutist); Bernard, Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, first time (Berthe Marx, pianist); songs-Saint-Saëns, La Cloche; Bizet, Hôtesse arabe (Miss Landi); Wagner, Siegfried's Funeral Music from "Götterdämmerung”; Guiraud, Carnaval. The solo oboist was Albert Weiss.* The Fantasia arranged for oboe and pianoforte was first played in Boston by Messrs. Longy and Gebhard at a Longy Club concert in Chickering Hall, January 5, 1903. Mr. Longy had played it in Paris with orchestra in a concert of M. d'Indy's works. Messrs. Longy and d'Indy played the version for oboe and pianoforte in Potter Hall, Boston, on December 11, 1905. When the Fantasia was first played in Paris the folk themes were announced as those of the Cévennes. Strings and flute, preluding, Lent, G minor, 3-4, hint at the theme. After a figure for oboe, there is like preluding for horn and strings. The first theme is announced by the oboe, as is the second, Gaiement et pas trop vite, G major, 3-8. A third theme is first given out by the viola. D'Indy has always been a lover of nature. His family came originally from Berdieux, in Ardèche, a department formerly a portion of the province Languedoc. The mountains of the Cévennes are often naked, barren, forbidding. D'Indy has long been in the habit of spending his vacations in this picturesque country. He has also delighted in the Tyrol, the Engadine, the Black Forest. He has listened intently Albert Weiss, born at Paris on March 7, 1864, took the first prize for oboe playing at the Paris Conservatory in 1882, as a pupil of Gillet. There were seven competitors and the piece chosen was the second solo of Charles Colin. M. Pellegrin also took a first prize. For two seasons, 1896-97, 1897-98, Weiss was the second oboe of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He and his colleagues, Léon Pourtau, first clarinet, and Léon Jacquet, first flute of the same orchestra, went down with La Bourgogne in July, 1898. to what Millet called "the cry of the earth." In a letter written from Vernoux in 1887 he said: "At this moment I see the snowy summits of the Alps, the nearer mountains, the plain of the Rhone, the pine woods that I know so well, and the green, rich harvest which has not yet been gathered. It is a true pleasure to be here after the labors and vexations of the winter. What they call at Paris 'the artistic world' seems afar off and a trifling thing. Here is true repose, here one feels at the true source of all art." His love of nature is seen in "Poème des Montagnes," suite for pianoforte (1881); "La Forêt Enchantée," symphonic ballad (1878); the Symphony for orchestra and pianoforte on a Mountain Air (1886); the symphonic pictures, “Jour d'été à la montagne"; Fantasia for oboe and orchestra on some folk-tunes (1888); "Tableaux de Voyage," pieces for pianoforte (1889). Chamber music by him suggests the austerity of mountain scenery. A collection of folk-tunes collected by d'Indy in the Viverais and the Vercors, and arranged with a preface and notes by Julien Tiersot, was published at Paris in 1892. ENTR'ACTE. THE ABOLITION OF CONSONANCE. (From the London Times, May 30, 1914.) The latest phases in the art of musical composition have the appearance of being so subversive in their tendencies that it is extremely difficult to believe that they represent a real and vital development. In the past, what one may call the conservative point of view has suffered many a shock, but the result has always been that whatever was of a disturbing or even alarming nature has sooner or later shown its true character as a perfectly legitimate advance upon the existing state of affairs. But nothing like the latter-day experiments, such as Leo Ornstein's* "Impressions de Notre Dame" and "Préludes" (Schott, 3s. each), has been met with before. Of those who heard the composer * Mr. Leo Ornstein, whose music excited discussion in London and elsewhere last year, gave a pianoforte recital in Boston on November 9, 1911, when he played his own "Paris Street Scene at Night" and Nocturne in the style of Scarlatti.-P. H. Mrs. Mabel Mann Jordan Pupil of SILVESTRI, Naples, Italy MANDOLIN, GUITAR, and BANJO 90 Huntington Avenue, Boston Telephone, Back Bay 1427-R T.W.NORMAN CO. PICTURES and FRAMES 55 BROMFIELD STREET, BOSTON play them recently some wondered whether they could be written down. Now we have them before us, and though notation has been hard put to it, it has succeeded in conveying the wildest conglomerations of notes, the most extravagant suggestions of rhythm. Since the days of Monteverdi, always famous in musical history for his daring use of the dominant seventh, composers have consistently opened out the range of expression in the direction of dissonance; but it has been reserved for the so-called "futurists" to seek to abolish entirely a system of harmony based upon the triad and its derivatives. Extraordinary and far-reaching as many of Strauss's harmonies may be, they follow tradition this far, they have a direct relationship to the common chord and to tonality; their technical aspect has its logical basis and an ancestry direct enough. The super-imposition of one tonality upon another may or may not prove to be helpful in the future, but such a practice at any rate does not ignore keys, in fact, depends for its effect upon their recognition. In abolishing the triad, tonality and key must necessarily go too, and the point to be discussed here is how far a proceeding of the kind is artistically justifiable. The issue is so grave that for that reason alone one must seek to define æsthetic sensations on a physical basis. Just as the natural fact of the harmonic series, the overtones of a sounded note is beyond dispute, so must be their ready acceptance by the delicate mechanism of the ear and through that organ the emotional faculties. The overtones cannot be ignored nor the effect they produce. The simple instance of the natural feeling of satisfaction aroused by the sounding of a major triad in its root position makes this quite clear. The variety in musical expression, its range in emotional appeal, can be physically justified by the sympathetic appreciation of the auditory sense, always working upon the assumption that the triad is the natural starting-point from which all dissonant effects are derived and which, by reason of their dissonance, have the power of affecting the emotions. That is to say, dissonance only exists in relation to consonance. To abolish the latter is really to abolish the former, too. While, of course, one is not prepared to say that it is impossible to produce music of value consisting entirely of dissonances, it is quite another thing to believe that art of this kind can lead definitely for ward. One supposes that there will always be divergences into bypaths of some interest; and the question really is whether or not the present tendency is along the main path of musical development or simply a side-track leading out into an unexplored and unexplorable wilderness. More or less the same issue is raised when the structural side of "futurist" music is examined; on the point of rhythm alone how is one going to obtain expression worth the name when the natural instincts are abruptly and completely thwarted? Man's perception of the difference between the regular vibrations which produce a musical note and the irregular which only result in noise is proof enough that he is a rhythmical animal; and the simple and natural demand for a counterpart to every statement, the swing back of the pendulum, not only makes rhythm a necessity but also form, which is but an extension of rhythm. No effects of rhythmic subtlety, of concealment of the pulsations or any other device, have any value other than in relation to this solid fact. Melody of course is concerned with the three factors of tonality, rhythm, and form. So much interest is being manifested in the work of the "futurists" and rightly, too, for it is all extremely interesting-that there is some danger of our forgetting that music is, after all, primarily an emotional art, and when the intellectual faculties get absorbed in theoretical puzzles, in strange and new manifestations, there is the greater danger of sensation being mistaken for the genuine æsthetic appeal. It would seem that the "futurist" composers will not prove their case so long as they make use, as Ornstein does, of instruments which are built to produce musical sounds-the conflict is too one-sided; with an orchestra of noise machines perhaps they might succeed in evolving an art which will satisfy their cerebral impulses to self-expression, and the result, by reason of its complete and entire divergence, might have some attraction for musical folk as well; at any rate, it could not offend the musical perceptions. If, on the other hand, the connection between purely physical satisfaction and emotional stimulation be not accepted, then we are faced with a problem far greater than that which was solved by Sebastian Bach (as much as any one) when he wrote his "Forty-eight Preludes BARNARD STUDIO OF MODERN DANSE Dances of the moment Private Instruction only PIERCE BLDG., Room 610, COPLEY SQ. Underwood "THE MACHINE YOU WILL EVENTUALLY BUY" and Fugues" and established firmly the system of tuning known as equal temperament. Every one knows that our scale is but a compromise with nature, and that the fifths on the pianoforte are not exact. The difference is slight enough to be passable, although it gives to this instrument an unsatisfactory part to play when heard in combination either with the orchestra or in chamber music. Still the orchestra, the string quartet, and unaccompanied vocal music keep one alive to the perception of perfect intervals, and we are far from being blind to the contrast between consonance and dissonance. But to have to acquire an entirely fresh set of standards of discords such as the "futurist" would set up is a task which this generation, at any rate, can never hope to accomplish. One does not know where to begin. In time, perhaps, it might be possible to arrive at some definite conclusion as to certain dissonances being more penetrating than others; while a persistent course of training might eventually lead to so complete a derangement of the aural faculties that the natural demand for the satisfaction of the sounds of the fifth, third, or octave would cease altogether. This may or may not be worth while; it is at least interesting to speculate whether, should such a day ever come, all music as we know it would have to be "scrapped" as being no longer intelligible. ACADEMIC FESTIVAL OVERTURE, OP. 80. JOHANNES BRAHMS (Born at Hamburg, May 7, 1833; died at Vienna, April 3, 1897.) Brahms wrote two overtures in 1880,-the "Academic" and the "Tragic." They come between the Symphony in D major and that in F major in the list of his orchestral works. The "Tragic" overture bears the later opus number, but it was written before the "Academic,” -as Reimann says, "The satyr-play followed the tragedy." The "Academic" was first played at Breslau, January 4, 1881. The university of that town had given him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (March II, 1879),* and this overture was the expression of his thanks. The Rector and Senate and members of the Philosophical Faculty sat in "Q. D. B. V. Summis auspiciis Serenissimi ac potentissimi principis Guilelmi Imperatoris Auguste Germanici Regis Borussicae, etc., eiusque auctoritate regia Universitatis Litterarum Vratislavieusis Rectore Magnifico Ottone Spiegelberg Viro Illustrissimo Joanni Brahms Holsato artis musicae severioris in Germania nunc principi ex decreto ordinis philosophorum promotor legitime constitutus Petrus Josephus Elvenich Ordinis Philosophorum h. a. Decanus philosophiae doctoris nomen iura et privilegia honoris causa contulit collataque publico hoc diplomate declaravit die XI mensis Martii A. MDCCCLXXIX. (L.S.)" JACOB THOMA & SON 47 WINTER STREET, BOSTON, MASS. IMPORTERS, VIOLIN MAKERS, and REPAIRERS Superior Quality of goods and courtesy to our customers |