The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

MM The Educational Screen ing discussed, are valueless. Conse- quently the Clavilux enthusiast is apt to be regarded as temporarily insane by those of his friends who have not at- tended one of these unique recitals. Externally the instrument is a large ob- long steel box with several apertures all of which focus on a single screen. It is played by means of a keyboard not un- like the console of an organ. At the mouth of each aperture is a series of delicately graduated color-slides; careful manipulation of these produces the most subtle and enchanting chromatic nuances. Behind the slides lies the secret mechan- ism, perfected after countless heartrend- ing failures, which is responsible for the thematic material and its bewildering transformations, transformations the more incomprehensible by reason of their per- fect naturalness and freedom from me- chanical rigidity. Only a few favored in- dividuals have been permitted a peep into this "holy of holies," and these few are not at liberty to reveal what they have seen. Mr. Wilford is quite right in guard- ing his secrets against possible theft and debasement by unscrupulous commercial interests. (A well-known scientific jour- nal, after vain attempts on the part of its representatives to obtain a glimpse of the cabinet's interior, has recently published a ludicrously erroneous explanation of the principle on which it operates.) When I read of the Clavilux perform- ance j in New York it seemed to me inex- plicable that the inventor should insist on dispensing with musical accompaniment, preferring that his compositions should be presented in absolute silence. When, several months later, I had the privilege of a lengthy conversation with Mr. Wil- fred, imagine my astonishment at learn- ing that this aesthete who disdained the assistance of music was himself an ac- complished musician. It required only a few moments of his first Philadelphia recital to convince me how right he had been from the first in avoiding any inti- mate association of the two arts. Music is enlisted merely as an emotional prepa- ration for the silent color compositions, just as in the overture or entra'acte it at- tunes our sensibilities to the mood of the impending drama. The orchestra opens the program wiM a melancholy, exotic serenade, one of Rachmaninoff's lighter compositions but deeply tinged with his abysmal Slavic pes- simism. Slowly the lights grow dim, the muted strains become fainter, then cease. For an appreciable interval we are left in absolute darkness, awaiting we hardly know what. There is no sudden blaze of light, pierc- ing the gloom like a trumpet blast. In- stead, by almost imperceptible changes, the hitherto invisible screen becomes a stage for the play of vague, groping, half- defined shapes. Two gossamer-like cur- tains appear, their silken folds agitated by a breeze whose breath we do not feel. They are drawn to the sides of the frame leaving a central space free for the en- trance of the theme. The latter emerges from below—some simple adaptation of a motif drawn from nature, but lacking the stiffness of most conventionalized forms. It proceeds upward, slowly, ma- jestically, as though floating in a trans- parent fluid, and pauses at the center of the picture. Here the transformations begin. It is impossible to picture in cold print the beauty of these subtle metamorphoses which at times suggest the unfolding of a symphony, a- sonata, a series of variations. A flowerlike motif enters as a simple green bud which gradually opens, reveal- ing first the rosy outer petals and finally, in a delirious burst of maddening color, the blood-red heart of the blossom. Not a photographic reproduction of any par- ticular flower, mind you; no effort is made to secure a literal representation of any existing forms. The intent here is much