New York

The musical season now closing has witnessed at least one singular novelty--hissing. It is common enough in Europe for people to hiss a piece of music that they don't like, but Americans heretofore have been too decorous or too unconcerned to express their preferences in any such graphic manner. It is that cacophonious modernist, Schoenberg, who has brought hissing to America. In the height of the season the Philadelphia orchestra journeyed to New York, and gave Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie. At the close some hand-clapping sounded in the audience, but also a far stranger sound--hissing. That was curious, for the Kammersmyphonie is one of the composer's earlier works, and is not nearly so ear torturing as his later pieces, some of which had been given in former seasons without hissing. The next time a Schoenberg piece was given in New York it was hissed. The ice broken, audiences were getting up their nerve. It is now the custom to hiss Schoenberg.

In Europe, especially in Italy, hissing, whistling, booing and even missile throwing are accepted institutions. Audiences at La Scala have long been notorious for this. They tell how whenever Tamagno, who was personally unpopular, was billed to sing at La Scala, audiences went to the theatre determined to hiss him off the stage at his first phrase. When he sang, they applauded.

There is a famous story, vouched for as true, of a tenor in Venice who sang an aria so beautifully that the audience made him repeat the piece six times. The sixth time the weary fellow broke on the top note, and they hissed him off the stage.

They take music warmly in Italy. When the futurist Marinetti gives one of his "noise recitals" the people go armed with vegetables. A riot usually results. Fantastic stories are told of the famous Wagnerian riots in Bologna away back in the last century. The Wagnerian controversy ran loudly all over the world, but in Italy it reached the point of bloodshed. Lohengrin was given in Bologna, the first Wagnerian performance in Italy. The new sounds distressed most of the audience, and they manifested their feelings emphatically, shouting damnation. But there was a large element of advanced youth present, who were for Wagner. They expressed themselves vociferously. A fight broke out in the theatre. Pro-Wagnerian and anti-Wagnerian crowds in the streets took it up. There was a violent street fight all night, until the authorities had to call out the troops to suppress the disorders.

Certainly Americans are not going to ascend to such a peak of interest in music, but the unprecedented outbreak of hissing at a symphony concert, heretofore a most solemn and decorous affair, is a decided advance toward it.