A handbook of information about symphonies, oratorios, etc. The desirable information for the enjoyment of music and the necessary information for the appreciation of music. Critical Works Great musicians have rarely been good critics of music. The great exception to this rule is Robert Schumann, who founded the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, still in existence, and wrote for it many excellent appreciations and criticisms which have been collected in his volumes of essays. Wagner's essay on Beethoven and Liszt's on Chopin are very secondary to other studies of those masters written by laymen. Some of the representative names among critics are as follows: BERLIOZ, HECTOR. 1803-1869. Musical Essays. Scribner. Berlioz, a French musician, who was the greatest orchestra master of his day, is regarded as the originator of the modern "tone school." His essays were very radical and subversive at that time. They are of interest today in throwing light on the beginnings of the Romantic Movement in France. COLEMAN, SATIS N. (Mrs.) Creative Music for Children. Putnam. 1922. Phases of Modern Music. Harper. 1904. o. p. Nature in Music and Other Studies in the Tone Poetry of Today. Dodd. 1914. (See also pp. 580, 586) Gilman is an up-to-date critic, as well informed on the new in music as on the old. His writings are always clarifying. HUNEKER, JAMES. 1860-1921. Mezzotints in Modern Music. Scribner. 1899. Overtones: A Book of Temperaments. Scribner. 1904. Huneker was the greatest musical critic America has ever had. He wrote out of a background of profound learning, and he had a gift of style and a power of expression that were inseparable from his personality. (See also pp. 226, 281, 314, 568, 580) LAVIGNAC, ALBERT. 1846 Music and Musicians. Holt. 1903. This work, translated from the French and edited by H. E. Krehbiel, is an all round treatise on music. It touches on the history of music, the grammar of music, the æsthetics, the instruments, and contains valuable comments on American composers in the appendix. (See also p. 582) A Musical Motley. Dodd. 1919. Studies of the bizarre in modern music by a leading English critic. (See also pp. 580, 581) VAN VECHTEN, CARL. 1880 Music and Bad Manners. Knopf. The Music of Spain. Knopf. 1918. 1916. o. p. The Merry-Go-Round. Knopf. 1918. o. p. Very spicy and enthusiastic criticism of the new in music. AUER, LEOPOLD. Musical Instruction 1845 Violin Playing As I Teach It. Stokes. 1921. The teacher of Elman, Heifetz, and others here gives his method. My Long Life in Music. Stokes. 1923. Piano Mastery. Stokes. 1917. Home Help in Music Study. Stokes. 1918. BROWN, L. and E. BEHNKE. Voice, Sound and Speech. Putnam. The singing method of two famous London specialists. EVANS, EDWIN. How to Accompany at the Piano. Scribner. 1917. HENDERSON, W. J. 1855— The Art of the Singer. Scribner. 1906. Practical hints about vocal technics. (See also p. 583) LEHMANN, LILLI. 1848 How to Sing. Macmillan. 1902. The methods of one who for thirty years was the leading interpreter of Wagner, proving that the singing of Wagner music does not ruin the voice if "sung and not shouted." Studies of Musical Forms GOEPP, PHILIP H. 1864 Symphonies and Their Meaning. 3 vols. Lippincott. 1898. GILMAN, LAWRENCE. 1878 Symphonic Music. Harper. 1907. (See also pp. 580, 584) Musical Instruments BACHMANN, ALBERTO. Encyclopedia of the Violin. With introduction by Ysaye. Appleton. 1923. Covers with authority the history of the violin, its construction, technique, and music. It contains also a dictionary of violinists. CLAPPE, ARTHUR. The Wind Band and Its Instruments. Holt. 1911. In books about the orchestra, wind instruments are dealt with as subordinate to stringed instruments. This is the only book that treats of wind instruments as instruments of distinct value. Violin Making As It Was and Is. Scribner. 1885. MASON, DANIEL GREGORY. 1873— Orchestral Instruments and What They Do. Doubleday. 1909. (See also p. 581) MONTAGU-NATHAN, M. The Orchestra and How to Listen To It. Dutton. 1917. Questions 1. Name a book on American music. 2. What other books contain chapters on American music? 3. What two books tell the history of familiar songs? 4. Describe Elson's "Book of Musical Knowledge." 5. What is the most monumental work on the history of music? 6. What three histories contain bibliographies on books on music? 7. What history contains sample examination papers on music? 8. Name two books which supplement without duplicating one another on the art of listening to music. 9. Name a work of musical criticism by Huneker, Gilman, and Van Vechten. 10. What is the most massive biography of Beethoven? 11. Name a biography of Chopin written by a musician. 12. Name a biography of an American musician. 13. Name a guide book to older operas and one to modern operas. 14. Name two books on the history of opera. 15. Name two collective biographies of contemporary composers. 16. What is the best biographical dictionary of contemporary composers? 17. What prima donna has written books on how to sing? CHAPTER XLII TRAVEL BOOKS "Travel is merely the desire to see life without living it." -A. C. BENSON. "He that would bring the wealth of the Indies back must take the wealth of the Indies out with him."-OLD PROVERB. It is very hard to separate travel books from history, they are so much alike. Travel books invariably contain a large amount of history. History books less often merge into the travel class. It might be said that travel books are more often like history than history books are like travel. When the emphasis is on the people, the book belongs to history, when the emphasis is on the place, it belongs to travel. Travel is bound to deal with geography; history with society. The literature of travel is of various kinds: scientific travel, for the sake of natural history; exploration, for the sake of commerce; missionary travel, for the sake of religion; professional travel, to earn a living for the writer of it; tourist travel, for personal pleasure; and last of all, travel for its own sake, to see and to observe the world. Travel implies sightseeing before anything else. Blind men may write history, but no blind man ever wrote travel. A man may stay at home and write history, but no traveler, except William Combe, ever stayed at home and wrote travel. Travel demands the seeing eye, and the writing of travel should always be graphic. Illustrations are indispensable to such writing. In fact, all travel books should be illustrated before they are written. One of the most marked characteristics of modern books of travel is their leisurely nature. The words, roving, loafing, wandering, ambling, sauntering, and vagabonding are familiar travel titles. In this rapid age we seem to live in haste but to travel at leisure. A second characteristic, connected with this roaming tendency of modern travel, is its unluxuriousness. Roughing it is the fad. |