MUSICAL “POTTERISM”

Potterism is a clever, amusing satire on the British philistine which has had considerable vogue in London and New York. It was written by Rose Macaulay, who is said to have a dozen novels to her credit. The lady has evidently read Shaw profitably; that is, Nietzsche strained through the Shaw sieve, for G. B. S. never had an original idea. She defines Potterism as a frame of mind, not a set of opinions. Potterism is only a new word for an old thing—cant, or, as we say, humbug, and, on its more serious side, hypocrisy. Smug self-satisfaction is its keynote. Will Irwin in a flash of divination defined the particular quality as “highbrow,” a species of sterile intellectualism which irritates sensible people because of the lofty, condescending attitude assumed by certain persons who, terribly at ease in Zion, are seemingly in the secret councils of the Almighty. Don Marquis daily tilts at æsthetic sham in his stimulating Sun Dial column, and Gelett Burgess, the author of the deathless Purple Cow, long ago hit out at the Potterism of his time. Potterism, like the rich, is always with us. We are all of us more or less Potterites. Dickens painted the tribe, beginning with Mrs. Leo Hunter, not forgetting Podsnappery. Thackeray’s scimitar prose cut through snobbish pretenses, while a French philosopher, Jules de Gautier, in his Bovaryisme, has demonstrated that we are victims of the world illusion—to pretend to be otherwise than we are. It is a law of life, a superstition, this game of self-illuding, and superstition is the cement of civilization.

Therefore, Miss Macaulay has dealt with nothing novel, but she has written an agreeable variation on the theme of human weakness, and the most engaging quality of her formula is its elasticity. No matter the department of life, Potterism lurks thereabouts. Musical Potterism, for example, is everywhere rampant. It bobs up in music criticisms and peeps forth in daily intercourse. “Give me good old Mozart,” cries the classical Potterite, “and keep your modern kickshaws. Mozart is good enough for me!” Alas, we think Mozart is too good for this bonehead, who no doubt prefers a Broadway comic opera to The Marriage of Figaro. Another of the exasperating Potterites is the haunter of concert halls who spends his time in comparing violinists, pianists, singers, orchestras. Criticism thrives on comparisons. That we know; but the infernal hair-splitting over this bald subject gets on your nerves. Music and morals is another favorite grouping of two widely sundered things. Not so, asserts the uplifter who seeks sermons in running Bachs and usually finds immoral rubble. Of all the damnable nuisances in the Vale of Tone, commend me to your moralizer. He is too much in evidence nowadays, and his pernicious influence will, I feel certain, close every theatre, opera-house, picture-gallery, and book in our present United States of Slaves.

There is too much critical cant concerning the classics of music. How uncritical we are! We say Mozart and Beethoven just as we say Goethe and Schiller. Such bracketing is bubbling bosh. It is almost Hegelian in its identification of opposites. We can understand the conjunction of Mascagni and Leoncavello in Cavalleria and Pagliacci, a managerial marriage, with our eye on the box office. But Bach and Beethoven. Or Schumann and Chopin. How absurd and lazy-minded is such association of names! One of the most ingrained of Potterisms is that the gallery at the opera is the repository of the most precious criticism. For gallery, read the standees at our opera—the rail birds, so called. As a matter of fact, the most illegitimate applause comes from these quarters. Does a tenor bawl, a basso bellow, a soprano scream, thunderous explosions prove our contention. When Galli-Curci sang off key at the Lexington Theatre last season she was hailed in an unmistakably cordial manner. We have noticed the same lack of taste at the San Carlo, Naples; at La Scala, in Milan; in Paris, Berlin, and London. Italian audiences, especially of the top gallery, are supposed to possess finer ears than other people. More musical Potterism. They applaud in Italy, as they applaud in New York or London, the singers with the stentorian or extremely high voices; whether they sing in tune or not, whether they rhythmically distort the musical phrase or not, matters little to these fanatics for noise. And invariably they drown the orchestra if the singer happens to end a few bars before it. That the composition should be allowed to terminate logically does not enter into their unmusical comprehension. To bruise their muscular palms and shout is their idea of sensibility. We do not refer now to the official claque, if there be one at the opera, but to the diabolical hand-clapping and hurrahing which is becoming a formidable menace to the enjoyment of the musical portion of the audience. No applause is tolerated during Parsifal until act-ends, no applause is tolerated at Tristan and Isolde until the curtain falls, and what a relief it is not to be forced to endure the belching enthusiasm and vulgar fist-thumping in the middle of a musical phrase! Why, then, are not Italian and French operas given the same chance? We are indeed barbarians in this cult of noise. We can’t even escape noise within our opera-house. It would be a wise regulation if applause could be confined within legitimate limits—at the end of each act. It might not please some singers, who are so avid of applause that they actually hire it by the yard, but it would be a boon to the occupants of the stalls and boxes at the Metropolitan. Hasta la vista!

We blush to utter such Potterisms. There should be no necessity for these obvious criticisms. Another annoying Potterism is the growing hero-worship of conductors—nothing rare, by the way, in the history of art. We remember Theodore Thomas in his palmy days; remember that smoothly fitting dress coat of his. Yes, there were many women who attended the Philharmonic Society concerts to gaze ecstatically upon the shapely back and harmonious movements of this handsome conductor. Another prima donna conductor was Arthur Nikisch of the Boston band. He waved lily-white hands; his weaving motions fascinated the eye. They seemed in their rhythmic variety the externalization of the music he was interpreting, and, according to Delsarte and Dalcroze, they were. But both Thomas and Nikisch were great conductors—Nikisch still is; indeed, he is the dean of great conductors. His personal mannerisms were and are taken as a matter of course. We do not include Arthur Bodanzky among the prima-donna bâton heroes. Nevertheless, he is a hero, and a hero always in a hurry. He is the most precise and business-like of our conductors. He seems as if he were making a train to Eldorado. Yet it is only a fancy. He is absolutely master of his technical and intellectual resources. The enormous dynamic energy of the man, his driving power, are concentrated at the tip of his stick. If the Boston Symphony Orchestra boasts a demon drummer, the National Symphony Orchestra can boast a demon conductor. Bodanzky is demoniacal when he cuts loose. At the second Tristan performance he galloped his men at such a pace that the singers could only pant after them. A great conductor is Artur with the Weber profile and the propulsive right hand. If he had a calm left hand like Thomas or Nikisch his readings would benefit thereby. But how stimulating is his conducting! You swing along on the crest of exaltation and forget the composer’s intentions in the tumultuous symphonic sea. A brilliant apparition, a stroke of genius, but with brains, always brains. The dark horse of American conductors is Ossip Gabrilowitsch. That young man will bear watching.

His antipodes is Walter Damrosch, who is as familiar a spectacle nowadays as Trinity Church. Walter leaves nothing to chance. He doesn’t believe in the imprévu; with him the unexpected never happens. There is a sense of security at his Symphony Society, the sort of security that appeals to you when sitting under a long beloved preacher. Since 1881, on and off, we have sat metaphorically at the feet of Walter Damrosch, and not once has he startled, not once has he altogether disappointed us. He is safe, sane, and—sometimes—soporific. But he never uses rouge or pencils the eyebrows of his interpretations; perfume is to him abhorrent. Good old Walter! His has been a long race, and his a sober victory. Leopold Stokowski is a pocket edition of Nikisch, a Nikisch without genius. He is the ideal prima-donna conductor and exudes sweetness and light (Einstein says that light exudes), and as regards the technique of the bâton he has all his contemporaries beaten to a frazzle—save one, Arturo Toscanini. Such economy of gesture, such weighty significance in every motion are praiseworthy. His musicianship is excellent, his memory remarkable, although commanding intellectuality is absent. He too has a sinuous line in his back that enchants his feminine audience. He is graceful, and inevitably makes his entrance carrying his bâton as if it were a baby. The Philadelphia Orchestra is largely composed of mediocre material, but thanks to the admirable disciplinarian, that is, Stokowski, it sounds at times as if of prime quality. And tonal quality is precisely what it lacks. Its conductor hypnotizes his audience into thinking it is so. Ah, these Poles! The Oriental mango magic trick over again. Stokowski is young, blond, and has a Chopinesque head, but in profile his chin is as diffident as a poached egg. Pierre Monteux, like a happy nation, has no personal history. He is an accomplished chef. We enjoy his cuisine. There is a savory touch of the Midi in his musical ragouts. And to my horror I find myself indulging in the most reprehensible musical Potterism.