NICOLAS SLONIMSKY Writings on Music VOLUME ONE Nicolas Slonimsky, Boston, 1927 NICOLAS SLONIMSKY Writings on Music VOLUME ONE Early Articles for the Boston Evening Transcript Edited by Electra Slonimsky Yourke ROUTLEDGE New York and London Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 http://www.routledge-ny.com/ Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE http://www.routledge.co.uk/ Copyright © 2004 by Electra Slonimsky Yourke Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or uti lized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any informa tion storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Slonimsky, Nicolas, 1894–1995 [Selections. 2003] Nicolas Slonimsky: writings on music. p. cm. Edited by Electra Slonimsky Yourke. Includes bibligraphical references (p.) and index. ISBN 0- 415-96865-8 (v. 1: alk. paper) 1. Music—History and criticism. I. Yourke, Electra. II. Title. ML60.S646 2003 780–dc21 2003011569 ISBN 0-203-97028-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-96865-8 (Print Edition) published in The Boston Herald, May 5, 1926 CONTENTS Preface x A Note from the Editor xiii Tansman’s Traits: Prodigious Youth, Prolific Composer, New Guest at the 1 Symphony Concerts 12/28/27 Stravinskiana 2/25/28 4 The Avierinos’ Concert 3/22/28 7 By Way of Introduction [Honegger] 3/30/28 10 A Welcoming Hail [Casella] 4/28/28 13 Young Modernists Hoe Their Own Row [Copland & Sessions] 5/11/28 15 By His Faith, By His Work, To The End [Gilbert] 5/26/28 18 The Hand That Evokes Music From the Ether [Theremin] 10/2/28 22 From the Ether A “New” Music In New Manner [Theremin] 10/8/28 25 New Stirrings in Ether-Wave Music [Theremin] 10/19/28 29 In Arthur Honegger the Symphony Concerts Receive a Notable Guest 1/10/29 31 The Patient, The Doctors, The Verdicts [American music] 1/29/29 35 Composer, Conductor, Cosmopolite [Goossens] 2/23/29 39 By Innovation Shall Hearers Recognize Him [Cowell] 3/9/29 43 Bouncing Into Fortune’s Lap And Out Again [Dukelsky] 3/14/29 46 Our Jazzing, Their Jazzing, Reasons Why 4/20/29 49 Modernist Sprung From the Ancients [Casella] 5/28/29 56 The Pit They Have Hollowed for Toscanini 11/2/29 59 Unalloyed, Undecorated, Undiminished [Musorgsky] 11/30/29 64 This America Deep in His Fervent Soul [Bloch] 12/27/29 67 A Single Line Is Glazunov’s Musical Life 1/15/30 71 Side-Glances at Prokofiev Now Returned 1/30/30 74 In Epitome The Career Of Roussel 10/23/30 77 Who Is Mossolov? And What Is He? 12/1/30 81 The Psalms and Pieties of Igor Stravinsky 12/13/30 83 The Strange Case of Arthur Vincent Lourié 1/3/31 86 Fortunate Years for Unfortunate Composer [Musorgsky] 4/11/31 89 With the New Concerto for Mirror [Stravinsky] 12/26/31 93 Florent Schmitt 11/26/32 98 Enter Lastly The Youngest Of the Angels [Markevitch] 4/20/33 101 Scientific Mind Turned on Music [Saminsky] 5/20/33 105 Welcome for The Incoming Modern Master [Schoenberg] 10/28/33 107 From the West Composer New To Bostonians [Harris] 1/24/34 112 Composer Who Has Clung To His Own Way [Ives] 2/3/34 116 Ranging Round the World of Music 11/3/34 120 Ranging Round the Music-World 11/17/34 124 Ranging Round the World of Music 1/5/35 128 Ranging Round the World of Music 2/9/35 132 Marginal Notes on The Russian Film 2/23/35 136 Memorandum About Unfamiliar Music 3/20/35 139 Ranging Round the World of Music 4/6/35 141 Music of Ives on New England Scene 5/4/35 145 Ranging Round the World of Music 6/8/35 147 Shostakovich, The Soviets’ Wonder Boy 11/2/35 150 Ranging Round the Music-World 12/35 153 Visitor from Mexico to Symphony Concerts [Chavez] 4/9/36 157 Vladimir Dukelsky, Alias Vernon Duke [date unknown] 160 New Placing of Rakhmaninov [date unknown] 164 Index 167