Strings

Two famed European string quartets recently made U. S. debuts:

Aguilar Lutes. Some years ago a Spanish gentleman, by name Don Francisco Aguilar, was returning home after one of his days spent as royal physician at the Court of young King Alfonso. Passing through one of Madrid's ancient, crooked streets in the still twilight, he stopped to listen to a blind musician. The man's face was tinted and seamed like a Rembrandt burgomaster's. The instrument on which he played was even more unusual. Most people would have called it an outlandish guitar or mandolin. But Don Francisco, cultivated, scholarly, knew it for a lute.

From the 20th Century point of view the lute is antique, almost obsolete.* Its name is derived from the Arabic al'ud (the wood). It is akin to the biblical instrument called the psaltery.

The lute had its heyday from the 14th to the 17th Century. It has a pear-shaped body built of pine or cedar staves pieced together like the crescent divisions of a melon. Its neck (lengths varied) has a fretted keyboard over which are stretched perhaps four, perhaps as many as 24 gut strings. Lutanists (musicians who play the flute are flautists; musicians who play the lute are Internists or lutenists) plucked or twanged the strings either with their fingers or a plectrum. Because of its spoon-shaped body the instrument cannot be confused with the modern guitar which has a flat bottom joined to the sound board by separate ribs. In appearance it is more like the mongrel, wire-strung mandolin.

All these things the late Don Francisco Aguilar knew. He had once made a study of the lute and its literature. He was further aware that Johann Sebastian Bach had written for it, that Georg Friedrich Handel as late as 1720 had made a part for it in his Esther. He remembered, too, that a Granadan. Baltasar Ramirez, had been the greatest lute virtuoso in 16th Century Europe; that the art of lute playing had supposedly died in 1790 with the German Christian Gottlieb Scheidler. Hence he listened with a peculiar appreciation to the music of the blind man. He went home, spoke enthusiastically of its sweetness and its delicacy. Soon after four lutes were ordered for the Aguilar household and the four children, Ezequiel, Pepe, Paco and Elisa, were set to practising.

Today in Europe the young Aguilars are famed. Ezequiel is the eldest although it would be difficult to tell, so much alike are they with small sleek heads, black pop eyes. But Ezequiel is the leader, plays the first lute, shows his authority by wearing wherever he goes a flowing Spanish capa.

As musicians their reputations are uniquely and indissolubly bound into one. They are the only famed lutanists in the world. Spanish Composers Manuel de Falla, Isaac Albeniz and Joaquin Nin have written music for them. Paris, London, Brussels have applauded their playing. Fortnight ago they made their U. S. debut in Manhattan. Last week seven other cities heard them--Boston, Princeton, N. J., Greencastle, Ind., St. Louis, Lake Forest, Ill., Chicago, Providence. The verdict everywhere was the same: that here are musicians possessed of immaculate technique and a fine, poetic sense of unity. Lutes if played by lesser artists drop into the plunking monotony of mandolins, but the Aguilars make music marvelous for smooth, glowing patterns.

The Lener String Quartet comes from Budapest. Its members are Jeno Lener, first violin, Joseph Smilovits, second violin, Sandor Roth, viola, Imre Hartman, 'cello. They played in the Budapest Royal Opera until the outbreak of the 1919 Revolution when they retired to a distant Hungarian village, devoted themselves for two years to the cult of chamber music. Now the Lener is one of the world's first string organizations. In Manhattan last fortnight its tender, lush playing of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven won noisy approval from the audience, superlatives from critics; made recent performances by the London String Quartet seem over-fastidious, bloodless by comparison. The Roth Quartet, however, also from Budapest, remains for most critics unrivaled for its flawless finesse.

Taylor Predicament

When a manufacturer accepts an order, whether it be to his liking or not, that order must be filled. In such a curiously commercial predicament is Deems Taylor, manufacturer of musical criticism and music. After his King's Henchman had had a fair success three years ago, he was commissioned to write a second opera for the Metropolitan Opera Company. Since that time he has ostensibly been a musical handyman, editing Musical America, which under his regime went bankrupt, writing miscellaneous articles for magazines, expounding opera on the radio (TIME, Nov. 18). In secret he has struggled with the commissioned opera. His first choice of subject was Candle Follows his Nose, short story by his one-time (New York World) colleague Columnist Heywood Broun. Last spring he announced that he had shelved Candle in favor of Street Scene (TIME, March 18), current Pulitzer-prizewinning play by Elmer Rice, about Manhattan tene- ment life. Last week he announced that he had again changed his mind, that he is now moulding a libretto from George Louis Palmel la Busson Du Maurier's novel Peter Ibbetson, famed in the stage version acted by John Barrymore and Constance Collier. Metropolitan Director Giulio Gatti-Casazza has approved his last choice, ordered the opera complete and ready for delivery by spring.

Mussolinic Opera

Early this month in Italy a royal decree announced that Milan's famed La Scala opera would henceforth be under government control, that a Fascist commissioner would dictate its programs, the selection of artists. Many there were in Italy and the U. S. who linked this news with the resignation last fall of Arturo Toscanini after nine years as La Scala director. He, it is said, foresaw the Fascist rule. He, it is known, can brook no interference with a musical enterprise under his direction.*

Sorry Paderewski

Early this fall the music world worried while Ignace Jan Paderewski, 69, underwent an operation for appendicitis in Switzerland (TIME, Oct. 7). It marveled when he later announced that he would keep U. S. concert engagements scheduled for the winter and spring. Last week, however, he cabled his U. S. manager, George Engles:

"After second phlebitis, though feeling much better, am still in bed. Traveling December practically impossible.. Practicing at present unthinkable. Considering circumstances, tour should be postponed until next season. Inexpressibly sorry to have caused so much trouble and disappointment."

Oltrabella

Musetta in Puccini's Boheme should be a kittenish, sweet-voiced soubrette. Italian Soprano Augusta Oltrabella, making her debut at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, was kittenish enough but her voice was frequently hard, shrill, piercing.

*When Soprano Maria Jeritza made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Tote Stadt, Manhattan was scoured for a "property" lute called for in the book. No lute could be found; a guitar was used instead.

*Last week one of proud Toscanini's concerts with Manhattan's Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra was attended by proud Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony, who went backstage to congratulate Toscanini during intermission. The Italian is nearsighted. He peered blankly at his famed Polish visitor, who said:

"Don't you recognize me, Maestro? I am Stokowski."

Said Toscanini: "Then put on your hat or you'll catch cold."

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