imposing list of published works available for performance. It is a pity that Mr. Carnegie did not think of founding a similar trust for the country of his adoption and success. He did not, and therewith he left the field open for some other benefactor of music. The most logical candidate for such honors is the Juillard Foundation, and I doubt not that the trustees will give the idea their most serious consideration, if it be endorsed by such national organizations as the M. T. N. A. Perhaps they have already done so, as the idea is one of those that lie in the air. In that case I hope that they have perceived the one fundamental weakness of the Carnegie Scheme. That weakness consists in this, that the scheme does not provide for performances.

Frequency of performance is impossible without publication, but publication without performance is still more galling to a composer than sporadic performances without publication. Printed music is merely a jumble of black spots on white paper unless it is heard, and not much more than a souvenir for deaf posterity. In my opinion, then, any American scheme should avoid the weakness of the British Carnegie scheme and should be so broad in scope as to insure not only publication, but also at least first performances of the published works by the principal organizations fit for the task. Such an arrangement could easily be worked out by the Publication Trustees and organizations located in our music centres and such national organizations as the National Federation of Women's Music Clubs. That organization has already done impressive work for the performance of American music. If the Juillard Foundation fails us, perhaps the Federation will add the project to its fruitful activities. Such a combination of publication and performance opens up vistas of achievement and opportunity for the American composer compared with which the results of the propaganda so far conducted in his behalf-and I am the last to underestimate them—may dwindle into insignificance as to sustaining and propelling public value.

P

VIEWS AND REVIEWS

By CARL ENGEL

ERISHED is the fame of Johann Georg Hoffmann (17001780), organist and composer. Oblivion has blotted out his music. Of his temper only may we take the measure by the simplicity and unaffected godliness which mark his autobiographical contribution to Mattheson's "Ehrenpforte." I translate here, with your leave, the closing paragraph of that account, written about 1740:

Although my manner of life-because of the constant seeking after information-may seem very irksome and at times even painful, I thank GOD that He has permitted me, in some degree, to recognize, through music, the greatness of His majesty and the sweetness of His nature, which He has thus accorded me to sing and praise. Though in His providence He has not yet seen fit to place me in a quieter and softer berth, He has raised me from out the dust so far, and has given me of His grace so much, that I may earn my bread in honesty, and may with reason, patience, and a heart at peace, submit to the pleasure of His wisdom. May this same great GOD bestow His gracious blessing upon the toil of sincerely minded musicians, and grant that in this world such music be performed, as may be rational and Christian, chiefly to do Him honor, but also to delight mankind.

If in reading these lines we cannot repress a smile, it is one of regret that the confessions of the interviewed or the disclosures of rapturous reporters no longer ring with a tone so cheerfully humble. Yet, now and then we may still hear the echo of that spirit, and not among the least illustrious voices. Indeed, a very recent instance was precisely what stirred a memory of the forgotten Hoffmann.

Gabriel Fauré has been deservedly exalted. With the death of Saint-Saëns, he has advanced automatically to deanship in the ranks of French composers. National tribute was paid him with a performance of some of his works at the Sorbonne. Public enthusiasm ran high. Eulogies abounded like mushrooms after rain. The "Revue Musicale" devoted to him an entire number. His younger colleagues amused themselves by whittling little tunes

out of his name-theme (fa, la, sol, ré, mi!), with the success that usually attends the musical carving of hearts and letters. It is also rumored that the venerable master, since he retired from the Conservatoire's direction, has not been altogether free from worldly cares. Bitter words have been spoken about the publishers of his youth, but not by him.

Asked by one of the leading Paris journals the customary questions put by discreet inquisitors of the Press, Fauré answered them modestly and serenely, as befits the man of years and penetration. He did not deny that the material trials of life had often been severe, that he had been much in the company of sorrow. But there have been good friends to consort with; and when one is ignored by the masses, the comprehending friendship of a few is balm and solace. Duparc, d'Indy, Chabrier, Messager, were his staunchest companions. Everything of his, published more than fifteen years ago, was issued seven or eight years after it was first put to paper. (Fauré told an American friend and admirer that he had worked for months over one bar in the setting of Verlaine's Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit, si bleu, si calme.) He believes it to be a boon if heaven will grant obscurity to a composer until his thirty-fifth year. Fauré's musical education began under a rule that was excessively stringent. In the Niedermeyer school the "erratic" music of Chopin and Schumann was held to be dangerous and corrupting; pupils were forbidden to play it. Fauré unconsciously introduces us to his affinities. Mendelssohn, according to his estimate, is far too neglected. He likes Gounod, and maintains that the composer of Faust and of Mireille must be credited with the rare achievement of having given a new twist and turn to the language of tones. He also likes Debussy, and for the same reason. "Voyez-vous, je suis éclectique, dans le domaine musical comme dans tous les autres."

Eclecticism, most of us will agree, is the only comfortable path to follow; one which opens to changing vistas, enlivened by the encounter with different faces, different mentalities, different faults and virtues-different, that is, from our own, and therefore all the more alluring. For attraction is strongest between contrasts. The more sides there are to our nature, the greater will be the variety of opposite planes and curves that invite a contact. Enviable is the many-faceted mind, thrice enviable the man who looks about him in all directions, sure to find in each one of them

something to like, and not afraid to say so, because he knows why he likes it. In the eyes of some, it takes courage to admit a liking for the music of Gabriel-Urbain Fauré. Yet his songs-especially some of the later ones-are worthy of standing beside Schubert's and Schumann's best (and least known) Lieder. Their essence is purest, sensuous beauty.

But, alas! that article is not in great demand at present. There is not now a seeking after new forms and expressions of beauty, but a determined abandoning of beauty for beauty's sake. We have grown weak and become sterile in our efforts to "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." To recover, we must abjure.

In the preface to an album of "Grotesques" for the piano (Universal Edition, Vienna), the editor and compiler, Mr. Carl Seelig, takes pains to assure us in three languages that the "merely beautiful" does no longer still our artistic craving. Very significant is that little word "merely." The learned editor is right; beauty, at any rate, is not a noticeable ingredient of the piano pieces by Messrs. Bartók, Grosz, Haba, Křeneck, Petyrek, Rathaus, Réti, and Wellesz, which form this unique collection. Nor need we fear to be confounded by the demand for a definition of beauty. Here beauty of any kind is strictly and conveniently ruled out, and for once we are not asked to discover "new values" where limited comprehension may discover only old orts. If not all of these pieces come up to our idea of grotesqueness, we must blame our wrong conception for the personal disappointment. We must also blame the influence exerted by certain bad examples of poetry and sculpture that would set Gotthold Ephraim Lessing spinning in his grave, and cause him to wish that he had never set himself down the dolt he was, by publishing "Laocoon." What remnants of melodic semblance intrude upon the ear, are often tormentingly chromatic or precariously disjointed. The harmonic procedure, in general, is obvious enough; it does not disdain the Teuton thirds and sixths which-when contracted into naughty seconds or expanded into wanton sevenths-have all the airs of a provincial Biedermann on an incognito visit to the metropolis, and out for a riotous night. His vices lack finesse, authority.

Bartók knows his business much better than his associates in the album. Whatever he does, interests. The Waltz and Polka by Grosz are amiable, sane and rather polished; the one grotesque thing about them is that both end on the tonic triad of D-major. The first of the two pieces by Haba is the more successful one; it is genuinely spookish and offers good material for the advanced movie organist in quest of "misteriosos" wherewith

to illustrate anything, from the unaccountable and embarrassing loss of a button to the terrors of "The Bat." Petyrek's "Wurstelprater," an amusing take-off, lacks subtlety and diablerie in order to be all that it might have been. His "Official Reception" apes Satie, in music and textual comment. The "Burlesque" by Wellesz has moments of exquisite charm. To be sure, the shadows of Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel too closely enwrap the assembly.

On the whole, the claim of having definitely done with mere beauty, and of having found what young Siegfried went into the woods for, is not convincingly upheld. The grotesque and gruesome are primitive expressions given by man to his personification of the supernatural, the ineluctable foe who seems to track and hound him everywhere. Satan and hell are the creations of a tired, hysteric imagination. The powers of evil, the glories of stark ugliness, lord it in life and art whenever the vital conditions of mankind have prepared the periodic coming of their kingdom. And when the ministry of Breughels, Holbeins, Grüns, Schongauers, Callots-products of a battle-smit and plague-ridden epoch-breaks up, with the end of war and the subsiding of pestilence, there are isolated prophets, like Beardsley or Wiertz, who keep on preaching the evangel of the strange and grotesque.

Music has a perfect right to attempt what painting, sculpture and poetry have so long and so well succeeded in doing. Yet, we want more than a grim mask clapped to the face of a timid tune, not hiding the vacant stare. It must not be disguise and mummery, but perverse candor. Like Goya's Caprichos or Hokusai's "Burnt Lantern," it must not be "merely" grotesque, but beautifully done.

Of a different sort is the grotesqueness in Mr. John Alden Carpenter's "Krazy Kat,” a Jazz Pantomime based on the popular cartoons of George Herriman (G. Schirmer, Inc., New York). That the composer of the brilliant and whimsical "Perambulator" suite should have been tempted by the idea of setting the comic strips to music, is not surprising. Mild humor, gentle philosophy, are at the bottom of the "plot." Mr. Carpenter has overlaid it with appropriate music that is always clean cut and crisp, though not conspicuous for that indefinable "cleverness" which was needed to make the most of that grand and final Fox-trot. They do order this matter better in Broadway. And even Debussy,