Radio digest (1922)

G< "This here six o'clock isn't so good on the Pacific coast." vouchsafes Rogers. "Of course, it s ten o'clock on the Atlantic coast, and maybe that's a hit late, just as six is early here. The Midwest, where it is eight and nine ! o'clock, gets the best break." This plain-spoken philosopher upsets iKHJ'S administration whenever he is on the program. Scores flock to the building, but seldom get a glance at the famous personage, for he gets there early and stays a few minutes late. Only a handful can glimpse into the studio via the medium of the curtained glass panel in the portal. THAT his audience in and around the Southwest wants to see him at the microphone, and that the switchboard of KHJ is swamped with calls when he is on the air is pretty sure proof of his continued popularity. His fan mail is prodigious. It comes from all sections. I venture to assume the role of prophet just long enough to foresee that Rogers' present series, which will just be coming to an end as this gets off the press, will be a revelation to the sponsors, to the chain network and even to Will himself. His Radio talks seem to have struck a popular fancy, even more than his daily writings in the newsprint. I don't mean by this that anybody could take his newspaper pieces and speak them over the Radio and get away with it. Not a bit of it. The thing that gets Will Rogers over on the broadcast racket is not entirely what he says. It is just as much how he says it . . . the, very evident sincerity, the spontaneous way he has through it all . . . the instinctive mannerisms that all geniuses are supposed to, and do have . . . and the fact that, no matter how wordy he may get, there is always a messags of genuine sympathy and human understanding. It's all right with us. Will. Lock 'em out of the studio, jot down notes on the cuff of your best shirt, chew up all the gum on the market, get temperamental or not. as you wish . . and scratch the ear all you want to. There will only be one W ill Rogers . . . just as history will record only one Al Jolson, one Lydia Pinkham and two Smith Brothers. Music Appreciation (Continued from page 7) directions, too. And that same year he assumed the conductorship of the New York Symphony Society — a post he held with unique success for forty years. The rest, of course, is history. The leadership of Wagner's operas was relinquished a few years afterward and from that time on, until 1926, he devoted all his efforts and zeal to the New York Symphony Society. His achievements as conductor of this orchestra were many. He gave the first American performances of Brahms' Fourth Symphony, of Tschaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony, of Wagner's "Parsifal." in concert-form (the last act of which was sent to him in manuscript as a gift from Wagner), Mahler and Bruckner, symphonies of Vaugham Williams and most of the "moderns." He was the first American conductor to receive an invitation from a foreign country to bring his orchestra abroad — and his overwhelming success in Paris and London in 1919 clearly showed that he was now a world-figure in music. He was the first composer to create an intrinsically American opera. The Scarlet Letter, based upon Hawthorne's celebrated novel. He was-the first conduc tor to penetrate into the West with his symphony orchestra, in an attempt to spread good music among those aborigines— and although he often encountered disagreeable incidents such as the one in Nebraska, where an interested music-lover in the balcony insisted upon spitting upon the bald heads of the bass players, his trips were successful and it was nothing unusual for a clumsy farmer to accost him at the end of the program, as one did in Fargo, North Dakota, and express his enthusiasm in these robust terms: "God dammit! 1 don't know why I like this music — but I do!" But whenever Damrosch is asked what his greatest distinction is,, he will smile sweetly and simply answer: "My wife. Margaret, of course — the daughter of James G. Blaine, the great American statesman — my friend and advisor for more than thirty-five years!". DESPITE the fact that Damrosch treasures leisure above everything else in the world, he is really a thoroughly busy individual. He arises at 7 o'clock each morning (it is a lifelong habit with him"), takes a brisk walk from his home at East Gist Street, New York, to and through Central Park for a full hour, indulges afterwards in a hearty breakfast and a thorough perusal of the "New York World." and then, at nine o'clock precisely each morning, he is ready for the day's work. First of all there is the mail to attend to and despite the fact that he receives something like 10.000 letters each week he reads them all assiduously and personally answers those that require reply. Then there are the musical manuscripts to look through: hundreds of them come to his desk each week from aspiring young composers who seek criticism, advice — and recognition'. At II o'clock each morning Damrosch receives his morning callers. Sometimes they are interviewers, journalists, newspaper reporters who question him on every existing human problem; sometimes it is a representative from the Society for the Promotion of Peace, seeking his co-operation: sometimes young composers come to him personally wJtli their many problems: sometimes publishers, magazine editors, solicitors, authors seek endorsements or other favors. The most frequent visitors, however, are young musicians who want to know just how they can become orchestral conductors. Once there came to Damrosch a very young man who was eager to learn the secret of great conducting. Damrosch took his baton from out the bottom drawer of his desk and handed it to the young man. "Beat fast time," Damrosch told him. The young man waved the baton in mid-air to imaginary strains of a waltz. "Now beat 4/4 slow time." Once again instructions were followed. "That." announced Damrosch, "is all there is to it. Only," a mischievous light glowed in his eye. "don't give away the secret to anyone!" At another time, a potential Stokowski confided to Damrosch that he sincerely felt that he had all the qualities that go to make up the great conductor. "Have you ever conducted, my young man?" Damrosch asked. The young man shook his head mournfully. "Then how do you know that you possess those enviable qualities?" The young man shrugged his shoulders lightly. He had seen—and heard — Stokowski, Toscanini. Koussevttsky. Damrosch. Mengelberg time and time again and he felt, after watching them, that he too was blessed with some of their talent. Damrosch looked at the young man for a few silent moments. At last he spoke: "Can you nlay at least a half-a-dozen orchestral instruments?" "No," answered the young man promptly. "Can you play at least a half-a-dozen with thorough mastery?" The answer was just as prompt: "No." "Have you mastered harmony, counterpoint, theory, orchestration?" "Not yet." "Do you know the classics so well that you can almost reproduce them note for note upon paper from memory?" "Oh. no!" "Then," Damrosch announced, looking for all the world as though he were about to make a most momentous announcement, "I guess you have all the requirements necessary for a great conductor!" MORE often, however, Damrosch answers these young men soberly. "Study your music thoroughly with a view towards becoming a composer rather than a virtuosi. When you have mastered every phase of your technique then go to Europe and try to get a po-on a small orchestra — it doesn't matter how small or insignificant the orchestra is. If you have a spark of greatness in you. leave the rest to time. A man of talent cannot possibly remain obscure for a long time in this glorious age of ours!" Afternoons are spent in quiet study, in reading prolifically and, a few days a week, in rehearsing the orchestra of the National Broadcasting Company for the coming Saturday night program. Evenings are invariably devoted to the theatre, to concerts, or at home with agreeable friends. But all work and no play certainly does not constitute Damrosch's daily program. During the winter. Damrosch's favorite hobby is to build elaborate pasteboard houses, designed, decorated and executed by himself. When he was a lad of eight he built a miniature Wagnerian theatre upon which puppet^ enacted the entire "Rheingold" while he. hidden, played the piano part. His cunning with, and his enthusiasm for, the pasteboards has not disappeared with the years. Just last winter Damrosch spent six full months in constructing an elaborate pasteboard home, a miniature of the home that he is having built for his family on Long Island this spring. During the summer his play brings him out-of-doors — and his hobby, then, is gardening. Although his mansion at Bar Harbor. Maine, is fully equipped with servants and help, he himself attends to all the gardening — of which he is as proud, if not prouder, than the sum total of his musical accomplishments. BUT. of course, his great passion remains music. His tastes are very catholic. He confesses that very little music beyond Wagner and Richard Strauss gives him any happiness — although he was the first to introduce most of our "modern" works to American audiences. However, he does believe implicitly in the talents of such younger men as George Gershwin and Deems Taylor. His greatest admiration among virtuosi is Arturo Toscanini — and he is purposely making a trip to Bayreuth this summer to hear Toscanini conduct "Tristan." Oh, yes! — he has one other profound admiration: the former President Theodore Roosevelt, who was his best friend for twenty years. And he will often say that if Beethoven had lived in our time and had dedicated his "Froica" Symphony to Roosevelt instead of to Napoleon, he would never have had to tear that dedicatory page.