MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2416, 23 March 1915, Page 9

MUSIC.

Mix Tbuble Cus.l Harold Bauer and Australia. From the American manager of Harold Bauer, the "Musical Courier" is in roceipt of the following letter:—"ln ' view of the fact that Harold Bauer gavo fourteen recitals in Melbourne and an equal number in Sydney, in addition to appearances in Adelaide and other cities, it seems hardly fair to characterise his Australasian tour as 'a disaster,' as you did in your issue of January 13. * The tour was certainly Mt what should have been for an artist of Mr. Bauer's international reputation, tier the reasons which are amply set forth by tho Australian paper in which his interview appeared. On the other hand, there is no doubt whatever that Ml'. Bauer attracted in every city all the real music lovers, as the number of his concerts fully testifies." The writer of tlio letter no doubt is kindly in his intention (says the "Courier"), but he seems to misunderstand the tenor and purport of the "Musical Courier" editorial, which was a defence of Harold Bauer, and no reflection on him as an artist or as an attraction commercially regarded. The "Musical Courier" was merely quoting remarks from an interview authorised by Mr. Bauer in the "Sydney and Melbourne Theatre Magazine." Ho is authority for the statement that the Australian public does not patronise good concorts liberally. Assuredly if such a well-known player as Mr. Bauer finds cause to be dissatisfied with the attendance at his concerts, that is a dire musical "disaster" and reflects heinously on Australia. The word disaster, as we used it,- signifies a calamity. We consider the Australian happening to be such, and endorse Mr. Bauer's severe strictures on the indifferent attitude of that country toward dignified mu6ical matters. By way of supplement, may I say that when I (the compiler of this column) heard Bauer at the Melbourne Auditorium, there was a large audience present, and 110 lack of appreciation. To condemn Australia broadly because the public did not make a god of Bauer is merely stupid. Melba, Ada Crossley, Mischa Elman, John M'Cormack, Paul Dufault, and a lot of others people can testify strongly that there are audiences for concerts in Australia and New Zeaalnd. Verdi as an Antl-Cerman. The London "Times" prints a communication from Professor Carlo Paladini, of Florence, says the New York "Evening Post," who declares that "the secular action of Germany consists in a continuous and wild attempt at lording it over all other races," and encloses a letter written by Verdi to the Countess Clarina Maffei on November 30, 1870, of which the following is a translation :— "This calamity of France puts a desolation in my heart, just as it does in yours. It is true that the bluff impertinence and presumption of the French are insupportable, but then France has given our modern world its liberty and civilisation, and if she falls let us not deceive ourselves, our liberty and civilisation will fall, with her. Our men of letters and politicians well may boast of German knowledge and science and—God forgive them—even of the arts , of those conquerors, but a glance backward would, let them see that the old blood of the Goth is still running in German veins; hard, intolerant, despisers of all that is not German, and inclined to a boundless rapacity. Men of brains, but heartless, strong but uncivilised; And that King (William II) who, in the name of God and Providence constantly on bis lips, destroys the best part of Europe and thinks himself destined to reform the manners and punish the vices of our modern world 111 What a missionary! Attila of olden times— another missionary—stopped before the majesty of the ancient world's capital, but this one is going to bombard the capital of the modern world, and now that Bismarck wants people to know , that Paris will be spared, I fear all the more that it will, at least, be partly ruined. Why? Perhaps in order that there may no longer exist so beautiful a capital, suoh a one as they will never be able to create. Poor Paris, that I saw so beautiful, so gay, to splendid, last April! And afterwards? I should . have liked a more generous policy on I our' part and a debt of gratitude paid i off. One hundred thousand of our men . could perhaps have saved France. At all events, 1 should have preferred signing a peace defeated with the French to this inertia that will cause us to be . despised one day. The European war we shall not avoid, and we shall be de- ; voured. It will not be to-morrow, but it will be some day. An excuse is easily i found. It may be Rome, the Mediterranean, and then is there not the Adriatic Sea they have already proclaimed German?"

Irving Berlin. Irvine Berlin, the twenty-six-year-old Jew, who wrote "Alexander's Rag-time Band" and achieved world-wide fame by it, is one of the wonders of America. He has just had produced in New York his first all-night musical play, entitled "Watch Your Step," which is extra<ordinarily successful and he hopes later on to write the big American music drama. Highbrows may turn up their nose at rag-time, but who can keep the toes from tapping and the body from swaying when Berlin's "International Rag" is being played, or any other of the hundreds of "rags" he has breathed his infectious fever of rythvm intoP Six years ago Berlin was a singer in East Side (New York) cabarets, with an ambition towards popular song-writing. To-day he has no rival in his class; his songs are tho most popular in the world. His favourite composers are the modern Russians, but no does not pretend to understand'them. He bows to the spell of their music •unquestioning. He is a Russian Jew, son of an itinerant cantor, and was brought up in the cheerful poverty of East Side. He does not understand music, and can only finger out the melodies that come to him in the one key—F sharp. "I suppose we all work, best under pressure," he said in a recent interview. "I can't get to work until my partners tell me that sales are falling, that the rent is increasing, that salaries are going up—all because I'm not on tho job. Then I sweat blood. Absolutely, I sweat blood between 3 and 6 many mornings, and when' the drops fall off my forehead hit paper they're notes. "That's the way I wrote 'Interna-, tional Rag.' I was in London. I had a grip full of stuff; nothing especially new, nothing characteristic enough, they said. . I composed the melody and. wrote the first verse of 'International Rag' in the Hot-el Savoy at 4 o'clock the morning of the day before I opened, having thrown all my bath towels into the piano to deaden its resonanoe. _ I wrote the next verse the following morning, and sang the song that afternoon. "Do I believe in inspiration? In having things hit you from nowhore? Big things you've never dreamed of? Occasionally—yes. I have never given Irving Berlin any credit for 'Alexander.' It was simon-pure inspiration. I had long admired certain of its progressions, but tho melody came to me right out of the air. I wroto the whole thing in eighteen minutes, surrounded on all sidos by roaring pianos and roaring vaudeville actors." "Rag-time is the one distinctive American contribution to the musical materials of the world. And as far as my meagre studies have shown me, no country's composers ever grew great if they failed to represent their time, their-natlon, slid their people's artistio lasfflu J