Nonsense Syllables

The Bridgeport Oratorio Society and the New York Philharmonic Society combined forces at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan. The most amusing thing they did--and the most important--was an actual rendition of Percy Grainger's Marching Song of Democracy, under the composer's baton. The work was inspired by the uncouth verses of America's hoary revolutionary poet, "chanting the great pride of man in himself." It was composed in Germany, Australia, New York, between 1901 and 1918. The original plan was to write it for voices and whistlers only (no instruments), and to have it performed by a chorus of men, women and children singing and whistling to the accompaniment of their tramping feet as they marched along in the open air. But a later realization of the need fqr instrumental color, inherent in the character of the music from the first, ultimately led Percy to score it for the concert hall, remarking, by way of program note, that "an athletic out-of-door spirit must, however, be understood to be behind the piece from start to finish."

In its present bizarre, not to say impossible, form, it provides only "nonsense syllables" for the singers. Thus the basses open by chanting "easygoingly but richly," in the following language: "Ta da di da ra da da." The tenors enter with "Dum pum pum pum ti di diri diri"; then the ladies: "Tara dira dara diri didi di pum pum pam!"

Most understandable were Grainger's Colonial Song, and his eternally rollicking Shepherd's Hey. So many composers are so unfalteringly dedicated to the sombre and tragic that many listeners find genuine relief in the sunniness of Percy's music, even though it often dances on undeniably wooden .boots.

In Milan

In the midst of tumultuous scenes such as only Italian enthusiasts can supply, Arrigo Boito's Nerone was last week performed at the Scala. Toscanini conducted; the important singers were Aureliano Fertile, Rosa Raisa, Marcel Journet. Seats cost from 100 to 800 lire each. News of the opera was flashed by telegraph to Mussolini.

The work was begun in 1862, planned for five acts, never finished. Four acts were sketched out, but not orchestrated. The instrumentation was done by Tom-masini. The spectacles, upon which a whole school of painters, designers, costumers and stage managers have been engaged for more than a year, included the Appian Way, a temple, an orchard and the Circus Maximus of Imperial Rome. More than two million lire were spent on the preparations. The story, of course, ends with the devastating event of the burning of the city. All of which sounds like the text of an illustrated program of the latest D. W. Griffith cinema.

There are rumors that Maestro Gatti-Casazza is considering the work for a Metropolitan feature.

In Boston

Pierre Monteux made his farewell to Boston as the conductor of its Symphony Orchestra. Many claim that the Boston Symphony Orchestra holds the highest musical standard of any band of musicians in the world. That standard was set by Wilhelm Gericke, now old and retired in Vienna. The highest peaks of prestige and musical perfection were reached under the baton of Karl Muck, now conducting European orchestras, as "guest." The War, like an earthquake, shook this handful of musicians apart and they slid from off their pinnacle. Monsieur Rabaud was an ineffectual conductor during six perilous months oi further sliding. Then, in the Fall of 1919, Pierre Monteux came to lead the orchestra back to fame. Even the musicians' mutiny did not hinder the orchestra's ascent, for their leader was enabled by the strike to drop the deadwood over the precipice of incompatibility and to strengthen his phalanxes with the best that was to be had. He trained them until they became as one instrument.

Intellectually "as many sided as music itself," Pierre Monteux successfully fulfilled the gigantic task of giving all that is, has been and will be classic in music, in this generation. He dug up masterpieces, long neglected; he discovered, for his audiences, the best of the new; he was headlined in Boston as "the restorer, the sustainer, the broadener."

In Philadelphia

Technically, the Philadelphia Orchestra has passed out of existence with the completion of its final pair of concerts of the season. "I want to say good-bye," said Conductor Leopold Stokowski, at the last appearance--perhaps for good-- of his band. He went on to compliment his audience on its improved manners. " Lately no one has been late," he remarked, " nobody has coughed or sneezed or made any of those indescribable noises you used to be so unique in making . . ." Hereupon a cello string snapped with an indescribably violent report on the stage, and Leopold looked sadly at his rebellious, vanishing troupe.

In Cleveland

There never was such a prodigious Mephisto as Chaliapin in Faust; and there never was such a prodigious indoor-opera audience as the one which heard the great Russian in Cleveland.

The receipts were $23,879. The number of persons in the world-record-breaking indoor audience was 8,300.

And yet, Mephisto is not Feodor Chaliapin's favorite role. Boris Goudonov has that honor.

Said Patron Otto H. Kahn, apropos of Cleveland's record-breaking crowd:

"It is my hope that we shall see a number of operatic circuits established in this country, each of them embracing four, five or six cities within a radius of a few hundred miles, each of such cities to have a regular opera season of its own for the duration of three or four weeks annually. A plentiful supply of talent will be found available upon which to draw. No greater and more promising service could be rendered to American singers and composers. A stimulating rivalry would develop between the several 'circuits' and I feel sure that no city which has once joined the list of operatic centres and experienced the resulting benefits, materially, socially and spiritually, will relinquish its operatic season thereafter."

*Financial troubles continued among the harmony-dispensers of the brotherly city. The union musicians and the management were still at loggerheads. One day Thomas Rivel, president of the union, announced that a settlement had been reached, only to counter the following day with a statement that the Warring forces were just as far from peace as they were when the trouble began (TIME, April 21).