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Everybody knows, further, that he and his orchestra have made a larger number of phonograph recordings of symphonic music than any other conductor and band, and that the Philadelphia organization was the first of its kind to dare the raised eyebrows of the musical tories by going on the air as a commercially sponsored attraction.
Once more the newspapers explained; the battle was won, and the no-encore rule has prevailed at the Philadelphia Orchestra concerts from that day to this, with the public entirely resigned to the idea and satisfied with the reason therefor. But the bewildered Bok could not make out exactly what had happened to his preconceived notion about symphonic music.
He quite lacks the noble restraint of the masters who, in their symphonic lyrics, wonderfully suggest the still waters that run deep. Feeling with Tschaikowsky was frenzy, violent passion, so that with all abandon there is a touch of the mechanical in his method. Emotion as the content of highest art must be of greater depth and more quiet flow.
Take heart of grace in the hope which I have by no means abandoned, that we shall see you here. Your faithful Johanna has been here this last week, and has sung Orpheus and Romeo with the MOST ENORMOUS applause. I shall have to tell you many things about her when we meet. By this post you receive the three first numbers of my Symphonic Poems, which have just been published.
The Piano Trio in A minor, "To the memory of a great artist," Op. 50, refers to his friend and former master, Nicholas Rubinstein, who passed away in Paris, in 1881. Tschaikowsky's opera, "Mazeppa," was his next important work. In the same year the Second Orchestral Suite, Op. 53, and the Third, Op. 55, followed. Two Symphonic Poems, "Manfred" and "Hamlet" came next.
"I would never have insisted," he wrote in 1899, "that this symphonic poem need mean 'Lancelot and Elaine' to everyone. It did to me, however, and in the hope that my artistic enjoyment might be shared by others, I added the title to my music."
He was, however, not averse to occasionally taking a hint from him when it would serve his purpose. It is the prerogative of genius to take its material wherever it can be found. "Plato," said Emerson, "plays sad havoc with our originalities." Beethoven's influence is plainly discernible in the preludes and overtures of the Wagner dramas, which are symphonic throughout.
Indeed, Strauss has done for the symphonic poem something of what Wagner did for the opera. And not an overwhelming number of classical symphonies contain music more eloquent than, say, the "sunrise" in "Also Sprach Zarathustra," or the final variation of "Don Quixote" with its piercing, shattering trumpets of defeat, or the terrifying opening passage of "Tod und Verklärung."
Taking the work of women as a whole, there are worthy examples of all the large forms to be found among their compositions. In the field of orchestral work, including symphonies, symphonic poems, overtures, and suites, we find such names as Augusta Holmes, Chaminade, Louisa Lebeau, Emilie Mayer, Mme. Farrenc, Comtesse de Grandval, Elfrida Andrée, Edith Chamberlayne, Mrs.
And where, on the other hand, Berlioz did succeed in being regardful of his program, as in the "Symphonic Fantastique," or in "Lélio," there resulted a somewhat thin and formless music. But Strauss, benefiting by the experiments of his two predecessors, realized the new form better than any one before him had done. For he possessed the special gifts necessary to the performance of the task.
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