Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York, sunday, May 4, 1930.

We Have Bach's B Minor Mass Again; Some Statistics of Orchestral Season

The Orchestral Season

by Edward Cushing

A Brief Resume of Six Months of Orchestral Concerts in Manhattan and Brooklyn—Chiefly

Concerning Novelties

[...]

Under the direction of Mr. Stokowski, the Philadelphia Orchestra introduced two important

works by Arnold Schoenberg; The Variations and Finale, played at the first Carnegie

Hall concert of the season, and the opera, "Die Glueckliche Hand," presented at the

Metropolitan two weeks ago. Mr. Stokowski also included other novelties among the works

performed at his concerts in Carnegie Hall; An Overture by Prokofiew; an Ode to the Memory

of Lenin, by Krein. and the Tenth Symphony of Misakowski. These, however, proved less

rewarding. The F minor Piano Concerto of Abram Chasins was played by the composer at a

Philadelphia Orchestra concert conducted by Mr. Gabrilowltsch.

Mr. Koussewitsky's novelties were: Walton, Overture, "Portsmouth Point"; Bax, Second

Symphony; Prokofiew, Second Piano Concerto. Pick-Mangiagalli, Prelude and Fugue;

Gruenberg, Jazz Suite; Bach-Schoenberg, Prelude and Fugue in E-flat; Sibelius, Sixth

Symphony; Lazar, Concerto Grosso In the Old Style— a list from which we conclude that Mr.

Koussewitsky was [?] the most enterprising of these conductors, and the one, as well, to exert

the greatest taste and perspicacity in his selection of new music for performance. The

symphonies of Sibelius and Bax played by the Boston Orchestra, and the Schoenberg

Variations, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, were, incontestably, the outstanding

disclosures of the season—the only novelties, indeed, which we recall with interest and with a

desire to hear them again, once at least, perhaps many times.

[...]

Are these findings disappointing? Not more so than those of other and recent seasons.

Contemporary music is not fruitful of masterpieces, as was the music of a period fifty, or even

twenty-five, years ago. The present Is a time of transition; the characteristic music of today is

a music of experiment. Musicians seek new means to an end, and until those means are

mastered the end cannot be achieved. Who are outstanding among the living, outstanding by

virtue of originality of thought, salient creative power? The enigmatic Sibelius, half genius,

half mediocrity? Or perhaps Schoenberg and Strawisky? To whom, among our

contemporaries, has the sovereignty of the masters of the last century passed? For a time it

appeared that Strauss might enjoy the succession. For a time, too, we saw a potential heir

in Strawinsky; even in Schoenberg and among the disciples of Debussy. But these hopes have

been disappointed. Both Strauss and Strawinsky were exhausted before the war, and among

younger men none has as yet proven his claim to recognition. Thus the problem is difficult

which faces our conductors in their efforts to discover and to perform new music of salience.

Where shall they seek to find it? They would waste as little as possible of our time and theirs

over the trivial productions of the times. They prefer to devote themselves to the great music

of the past, and to bide their time until there shall be great music of the present to be played

and heard.