had gone away-but where? What became of her? Was she mending? Somehow, for reasons not clear to myself, I could not bring myself to ask father or mother about it.

T

HEN one day, as early autumn was weaving her crimson brocade on the hillsides of Kameoka, grandmother came back. She was all right again. At the first sight of her sunshine came back into the skies all of a sudden. At the time I was adding a finishing touch or two on a wooden horse upon which I had lavished the concentrated and loving labor of more than a month. I kicked it out of my way with a vicious kick. I didn't even know what I was kicking. I hurled myself pell-mell at grandmother. I threatened to knock her down again then and there, with the savage outburst of my joy.

"Oh, grandmother-madam, where have you been so long-so long?"

"Have you missed your grandmother --very much?"

I saw that the first one she took into her arms on her home-coming was me. So there was not a single drop of tear in my eyes; they were shining bright and merry. It was grandmother's turn to have a considerable trouble with her welling eyes and with her voice.

Long before I went to bed that day grandmother had told me all about her trip. She had gone to her native town of Sasayama, in the country of Tango, to have a famous surgeon there attend to her injured arm. She had stayed away all those months to recover from internal injuries caused by her fall from the veranda.

But what she told me did not clear away another mystery-why I had never

been called into father's room. I had expected the punishment almost every day every hour, each day, in fact. And the constant thought of it in my mind. spoiled everything for me. Can it be possible that a miracle of grace was fighting for my escape? I was a mere boy then, with all the boy's optimism for

a happy turn of things. But I suffered from a touch of sanity off and on. And the very thought of an escape from punishment had all the monkey appearances

of utter idiocy. As a matter of fact, I had been punished time and again for offenses which were mere flea-bites compared with this one. And punished,

too, so severely sometimes that I never could erase their scars.

To go scot-free for the worst thing I had done so far was simply absurd. It was coming, I knew, and I felt mortally sure that it was going to be worse for taking such a long time in coming. And it got so it actually affected my appetite. I didn't have the courage to come right out and ask father about it, and so ending once for all the torture of suspense "with a stroke of the blade," as our old saying goes. For that seemed so like going out of the way and calling down the wrath of the gods upon

my unwilling head. But the longer I

kept still, the more I felt as if I were

carrying a sealed volcano inside of

me.

FINALLY, in a fit of desperation, I

went to my grandmother:

"I was a very bad, wicked boy," I told her abruptly.

"Why, child-an evil karma trapped you again?" said the old lady, somewhat surprised: "What have you done now?"

"I mean when I hurt you so terribly that time. And-and-you have never punished me, grandmother-madam. Why?"

Grandmother put her arm about me and drew me closer to her. A touch of her hand always spoke to me in about the same way that the touch of a master musician's speaks to a violin or to a koto. It somehow used to make me forget things. And because she did not say anything for a long time, I looked up at her. Grandmother's eyes were rather misty and her lips quivered a good deal when she said:

"Have you ever been punished by your grandmother? Have I ever punished you?"

I had never thought of that.
(Continued on page 31)

I

I

N the month of April of the year 1922 a demonstration perhaps unprecedented in the history of the institution took place in the Metropolitan Opera House. Though not being of the fortunate ones present on that occasion, the reverberations of the goings-on reached even to the quiet Sicilian hillside where we were living at that time, trying without any marked success to mind our own business. The event that caused the commotion was the farewell performance after a brilliant career of sixteen years on that stage of a great artist, Geraldine Farrar.

That her return after four years of retirement would be an occasion of more than usual interest was to be expected, but it is to be doubted if even her most enthusiastic admirers could have foreseen the reception accorded this singer who, coming to us as Juliette and leaving as Zaza, returned to us once more, this time in concert.

As she came onto the stage an audience that jammed Carnegie Hall to the doors rose to its feet as one man, cheering and applauding for a good five minutes before she was allowed to begin her first group of songs. That she got through the first number as well as she did is little short of a miracle, as the emotional strain must have been great, but get through it she did, and extremely well at that. Mention must be made of a wonderful dress of cloth of silver and green ostrich feathers with its long train, the train that has now gone down in history for having caused the lady to make a somewhat deeper curtsey than she intended!

Miss Farrar wisely refrained from singing any arias from the operas associated with her name and, with the exception of the air from "Figaro," confined herself to songs by Handel, Beethoven, Gluck, Schumann, Schubert, Franz, Rachmaninoff, and others. That her voice has benefited greatly by her long rest is obvious; her high tones suffer, as always, from her peculiar method of attack, but she has developed a velvety middle register, hitherto absent, which is peculiarly suitable to the type of songs that composed her program. Her singing of the "Ich liebe dich" of Beethoven and the Schumann "Loreley"

By EUGENE BONNER

HEREAFTER, each week, Eugene

Bonner-musician, composer, and critic-is going to give us news and criticisms on affairs in the musical world. Mr. Bonner's interests and his life make him eminently qualified for his task. He is thoroughly acquainted with what is going on in music both here and abroad.

New operas, new experiments, happenings of note-all will be reported in these pages. It will give uş an intelligent view of a subject which has been too much neglected in a country so passionately devoted to music in all its forms—from jazz to grand opera.

was marked by a beautiful simplicity, while the manner in which she did the "Figaro" aria and "L'Eventail" gently reminded us that the actress as well as the singer was before us.

After the last number a goodly portion of the audience surged like an avalanche down the aisles to the stage, and finally, after two encores added to those she had given earlier in the proceedings, the singer made a short speech, thanking the audience for its applause and for the encouragement given her to go on.

In appearance Miss Farrar is handsomer than before, her silver-gray hair making her look younger than ever, and, while she has not grown thinner, we feel that she will have no trouble when she is ready to get once more into her Tosca, Butterfly, and Manon costumes, which we hope, in spite of rumors to the contrary, are still hanging in some convenient closet waiting for their owner.

torio," as it is called, was written by one Feo Belcari, a Florentine of the fifteenth century, who, according to Henry Bellamann in his program notes, wrote some of the best of these plays, which were "related in matter and manner to the Miracle Plays of England and the Mystères of France, but were a higher dramatic development growing out of superior intellectual and social conditions. . . . They differed from the Miracles, Moralities, and Mysteries, in that they were midway between religious ceremonies and actual dramatic representations."

Symonds in his "Renaissance in Italy" gives us further data on this particular form of entertainment: "It must be remembered that these texts were written for boys and were meant to be acted by boys. Thus came into existence a peculiar type of sacred drama, displaying something childish in its style, but taxing the ingenuity of scene painters, mechanicians, architects, musicians, and poets, to produce a certain calculated theatrical effect."

The version used by Pizzetti of this particular play is an adaptation by Onorato Castellino of the text of d'Ancora, who, it seems, collected and edited many of these rappresentazioni. As done the other afternoon it was a naïve and not very interesting play, read, not acted, with very beautiful musical interludes. Although the Narrator, Paul Leyssac, read extremely well, he was hampered in that he had to interpret the rôles of five different characters, which made for a certain monotony, to say the least. Editha Fleischer, soprano of the Metropolitan Opera Company, sang the two Angels, while the voices from heaven were sung by the chorus of the Friends of Music trained by Stephen Townsend. Artur Bodansky, as usual, conducted.

Of the music of Pizzetti it is difficult for us not to burst into a shower of superlatives. While, comparatively speaking, a young man, for some reason or other he is not reckoned among the "modern" composers, though why such should be the case it is difficult to understand, as, while he has not indulged in some of the more extravagant phases of modernism, he is scarcely what might be termed a conservative. In this particu

Miahkin

Geraldine Farrar, who has returned to public life, this time on the concert stage

lar case he has written music such as the rather naïve character of the play calls for, music of great simplicity and tenderness, skillfully scored. Madame Fleischer

sang the music allotted to her with great intelligence and purity of tone, while the chorus and orchestra

were more than equal to the demands made upon them. Mr. Bodansky,

A

VISIT from the Cleveland Orchestra is always an affair of interest, but when its conductor, Nikolai Sokoloff, includes two such items on the program as the splendid Israel symphony of Ernest Bloch and the rarely given "Demoiselle Elue" of Debussy the visit becomes an event.

nearly always at his best in these concerts, conducted with understanding and sympathy. The chorus and dance at the end, perhaps the longest and most complete of all the fragments that compose the work, was particularly effective. As the whole proceedings occupied only an hour, half of which was given over to spoken recitative, it will be seen that, good, genuine music, my music. It is

while the musical fare was rich in quality, it left something to be desired in the matter of quantity. Let us hope that Mr. Bodansky will see fit to let us

The Bloch symphony was composed between 1912 and 1916. The composer conceived it as an expression of the sorrows of Israel. To use his own words: "I hold it of first importance to write

the Jewish soul that interests me, the complex, glowing, agitated soul that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible: the freshness and naïveté of the patriarchs;

the violence that is evident in the prophetic books, the Jew's savage love of justice; the despair of the Preacher in Jerusalem; the sorrow and immensity of the Book of Job; the sensuality of the Song of Songs. . . . All this is in me, and it is the better part of me. It is all this that I endeavor to hear in myself and

to transcribe in my music: the venerable emotion of the race that slumbers deep down in our soul."

The profound sincerity of the music, its power and its tragic tenderness, were well brought out by Mr. Sokoloff, who conducted the work with a fine authority and understanding. This young chef d'orchestra brings an enthusiasm, a vitality, to his performances which is contagious.

"La Demoiselle Elue" of Debussy was written by that composer during his sojourn in the Eternal City as winner of

the Grand Prix de Rome, in 1885. It is not often given, which is a pity, as it is perhaps the most interesting example of his earlier period. It is founded on Rossetti's poem "The Blessed Damozel" and is for women's voices, solo and chorus. Its sweet and at times almost saccharine phrases are admirably suited to the Rossetti poem, which, in spite of its beauty, is undeniably affected. There is a distinct foreshadowing of "Pelleas and Mélisande" in harmonic style and in the thematic material.

The other numbers included "La Procesion del Rocio," by Joaquin Turina, an interesting composer of the contemporary Spanish school; the overture to the "Magic Flute;" and the introduction and march from the "Coq d'Or" of Rimsky-Korsakoff.

THE English Singers are back and

have given another one of their perfect concerts, this time with a program made up principally of Christmas carols. Everything that can be said has been said many times over where these fine artists are concerned. "Corpus Christi" arranged by Peter Warlock was as thrilling as ever, "The Dying Swan" made her usual pessimistic remarks about mankind in general, while "Wassail-Song," with its cheerful toasts to the ox and his right eye, horn, and tail, swept over the audience like a flurry of Christmas snow.

There is one thing, however, we would like to know. As any one who has heard them knows, the six of them sit round a table and sing without accompaniment of any kind. Where, when, and how do they get their pitch?