says that this is ‘programme for Ornstein’), _The Waltzers_ and
_Night_. A long sonata by Cyril Scott (almost entirely in the
whole-tone scale, sounding consequently like Debussy out of Bach,
for there was a fugue and a smell of the academy) followed. Ravel’s
_Oiseaux Tristes_ twittered their sorrows prettily in the treble, and a
sonatina by the same composer seemed negligible. Albeniz’s _Almeria_, a
section of the twelve-parted _Iberia_, was a Spanish picture of worth.
Ornstein followed with his own pieces, _Improvisata_, a vivid bit of
colour and rhythm, and _Impressions of the Thames_, in which an attempt
was made to picture the heavy smoking barges, the labours on the river,
the shrill sirens of the tugs. The limited (is it, I wonder?) medium
of the piano made all this sound rather Chinese. But some got the
picture. A few laughed. _The Wild Men’s Dance_ convulsed certain parts
of the audience. It always does (but this may well be hysteria); others
were struck with wonder by its thrill. Certainly a powerful massing of
notes, creating wild effects in tone, and a compelling rhythm. In the
_Fairy Pictures_ of Korngold, which closed the programme, Ornstein was
not at his best; nor, for that matter, was Korngold. They were written
when the composer was a very young boy and they are not particularly
original, spontaneous, or beautiful. The difficulties exist for the
player rather than for the hearer.... Ornstein did not bring out their
humour. Humour, as yet, is not an attribute of his playing. He has
always imparted to the piano a beautiful tone; his touch is almost as
fine as Pachmann’s. But his powers are ripening in every direction.
Formerly he dwelt too long on nuances, fussed too much with details.
His style is becoming broader. His technique has always been ample.
There is no doubt but that he will become a power in the music world.”
Some time later I met Leo Ornstein and we talked over a table. He is
fluid in conversation and while he talks he clasps and unclasps his
hands.... He referred to his début at the New Amsterdam. “My ambition
then was to play the concertos of Rubinstein and Tschaikowsky ... and
I satisfied it. Soon after that concert I went abroad.... Suddenly the
new thing came to me, and I began to write and play in the style which
has since become identified with my name. It was music that I felt and
I realized that I had become myself at last, although at first, to be
frank, it horrified me as much as it has since horrified others. Mind
you, when I took the leap I had never seen any music by Schoenberg
or Strawinsky. I was unaware that there was such a generality as
‘futurism.’
“I spent some time in Norway and Vienna, where I met Leschetitzky”
(this incident is referred to elsewhere in this volume) “and then I
went down to Paris. I was very poor.... I met Harold Bauer and one day
I went to play for him. We had a furious argument all day. He couldn’t
understand my music. But he asked me to come again the next day,
and I did. This time Walter Morse Rummel was there and he suggested
that Calvocoressi would be interested in me. So he gave me a note to
Calvocoressi.
“Calvocoressi is a Greek but he speaks all languages. He read my
note of introduction and asked me if I spoke French or English. We
spoke a little Russian together. Then he asked me to play. While I
played his eyes snapped and he uttered several sudden ejaculations.
‘Play that again,’ he said, when I had concluded one piece. Later
on he asked some of his friends to hear me.... At the time he was
giving a series of lectures on modern musicians, Strauss, Debussy,
Dukas, Ravel, Schoenberg, and Strawinsky, and he included _me_ in the
list! I illustrated two of his lectures and after I had concluded
my performance of the music of other composers he asked me to play
something of my own, which I did....” Ornstein looked amusingly
rueful. “The auditors were not actually rude. How could they be when
I followed Calvocoressi? But they giggled a little. Later on in London
they did more than giggle.
“I went to London because my means were getting low. I had almost no
money at all, as a matter of fact.... In London I found Calvocoressi’s
influence of great value (he had already written an article about me)
and some people at Oxford had heard me in Paris. These friends helped;
besides I played the Steinway piano and the Steinways finally gave me a
concert in Steinway Hall. At my first concert (this was in the spring
of 1914) I played music by other composers. At my second concert,
devoted to my own compositions, I might have played anything. I
couldn’t hear the piano myself. The crowd whistled and howled and even
threw handy missiles on the stage ... but that concert made me famous,”
Ornstein wound up with a smile.
He is a hard-working youth, serious, it would seem, to the heart. His
published music is numbered into the thirties and his répertoire is
extensive. He spends a great deal of time working hard on the music of
a bygone age, although he finds it no stimulation for this one, but to
be taken seriously as a pianist he is obliged to prove to melomaniacs
that he has the equipment to play the classic composers. Of all the
compositions that he learns, however, he complains of his own as the
most difficult to memorize; a glance at _The Wild Men’s Dance_ or more
particularly at a page of his second sonata for violin and piano will
convince any one of the truth of this assertion. The chords will prove
strangers to many a well-trained eye. I wonder if so uncannily gifted
a sight reader as Walter Damrosch, who can play an orchestral score on
the piano at sight, could read this music?
Of his principles of composition the boy says only that he writes what
he feels. He has no regard for the rules, although he has studied them
enough to break them thoroughly. He thinks there is an underlying basis
of theory for his method of composition, which may be formulated later.
It is not his purpose to formulate it. He is sincere in his art.
Once he said to me, “I hate cleverness. I don’t want to be clever. I
hate to be called clever. I am not clever. I don’t like clever people.
Art that is merely clever is not art at all.”
With Busoni and Schoenberg he believes that there are no discords, only
chords and chords ... and that there are many combinations of notes,
“millions of them” which have not yet been devised.
“When I feel that the existing enharmonic scale is limiting me I shall
write in quarter tones. In time I think the ear can be trained to
grasp eighth tones. Instruments only exist to perform music and new
instruments will be created to meet the new need. It can be met now on
the violin or in the voice. The piano, of course, is responsible for
the rigidity of the present scale.”
Ornstein never rewrites. If his inspiration does not come the first
time it never comes. He does not try to improve a failure. His method
is to write as much as he can spontaneously on one day, and to pick the
composition up where he left off on the next.
His opinions of other modern composers are interesting: he considers
Ravel greater than Debussy, and speaks with enthusiasm about _Daphnis
et Chloë_. He has played music by Satie in private but does not find
it “stimulating or interesting.” ... Schoenberg ... “the last of the
academics ... all brain, no spirit. His music is mathematical. He does
not feel it. Korngold’s pieces are pretty but he has done nothing
important. Scriabine was a great theorist who never achieved his goal.
He helped others on. But Strawinsky is the most stimulating and
interesting of all the modern composers. He feels what he writes.”
Most of Ornstein’s music is inspired by things about him, some of it by
abstract ideas. His social conscience is awake. He wanted to call _The
Wild Men’s Dance_, _Liberty_ (“I attempted to write music which would
dance itself, which did not require a dancer”), but finally decided
on the more symbolic title. “I am known as a musical anarch now,” he
explained to me, “I could not name a piece of music _Liberty_--at least
not _that_ piece--without associating myself in the public mind with a
certain social propaganda.” Just the same he means the propaganda. In
the _Dwarf Suite_ he gives us a picture of the lives of the struggling
Russian Jews. These dwarfs are symbols.... He is fond of abstract
titles. He often plays his _Three Moods_. “In Boston they did not like
my _Three Moods_. They found my _Anger_ too unrestrained; it was vulgar
to express oneself so freely.... But there is such a thing as anger.
Why should it not find artistic expression? Besides it is a very good
contrast to _Peace_ and _Joy_ which enclose it.” The _Impressions of
the Thames_ I have already referred to. With the two _Impressions of
Notre Dame_ it stands as his successful experiment with impressionism.
The _Notre Dame_ pictures include gargoyles and, of course, bells....
I have not heard the violin and piano sonata, opus 31. Nor can I play
it. Nor can I derive any very adequate idea of how it sounds from a
perusal of the score. Strange music this.... Some time ago some one
sent Ornstein the eight songs of Richard Strauss, Opus 49. The words
of three of these songs (_Wiegenliedchen_, _In Goldener Fülle_, and
_Waldseligkeit_) struck him and he made settings for them. Compare
them with Strauss and you will find the Bavarian’s music scented with
lavender. “In the _Wiegenliedchen_ Strauss gives you a picture of
the woman rocking the cradle for his accompaniment. I have tried to
go further, tried to express the feelings in the woman’s mind, her
hopes for the child when it is grown, her fears. I have tried to get
_underneath_.” But the _Berceuse_ in Ornstein’s _Nine Miniatures_ is
as simple an expression as the lover of Ethelbert Nevin’s style could
wish. Not all of Ornstein’s music is careless of tradition. He was
influenced in the beginning by many people. His _Russian Suite_ is very
pretty. Most of it is like Tschaikowsky. These suites will prove (if
any one wants it proved) that Ornstein can write conventional melody.
Ornstein has also written a composition for orchestra entitled _The
Faun_, which Henry Wood had in mind for performance before the war.
It has not yet been played and I humbly suggest it to our resident
conductors, together with Albeniz’s _Catalonia_, Schoenberg’s _Five
Pieces_, and Strawinsky’s _Sacrifice to the Spring_.
Leo Ornstein was born in 1895 at Krementchug, near Odessa. He is
consequently in his twenty-first year. He is already a remarkable
pianist, one of the very few who may be expected to achieve a position
in the front rank. His compositions have astonished the musical world.
Some of them have even pleased people. Whatever their ultimate value
they have certainly made it a deal easier for concert-goers to listen
to what are called “discords” with equanimity. His music is a modern
expression, untraditional, and full of a strange seething emotion; no
calculation here. And like the best painting and literature of the
epoch it vibrates with the unrest of the period which produced the
great war.
_June 14, 1916._
THE END
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Transcriber’s Note
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenation
was standardized.
Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following
changes:
Page 44: “Greig’s _Peer Gynt_” “Grieg’s _Peer Gynt_”
Page 73: “_l’Heure Espagnole_” “_L’heure Espagnole_”
Page 77: “colour of Zurburan” “colour of Zurbaran”
Page 77: “Juan de Juares” “Juan de Juarez”
Page 84: “_Fantasy_ of Farrega” “_Fantasy_ of Tárrega”
Page 136: “oder Der misverstandene” “oder Der missverstandene”
Page 178: “is a _pointe de depart_” “is a _point de départ_”