The Merry-Go-Round

Produced by Bryan Ness, Diane Monico, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced
from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print
project.)









The
Merry-Go-Round

[Illustration]




_BOOKS BY_
_CARL VAN VECHTEN_

MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR              1915

MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS                  1916

INTERPRETERS AND INTERPRETATIONS       1917

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND                     1918

THE MUSIC OF SPAIN                     1918




The
Merry-Go-Round

_Carl Van Vechten_


_"Tournez, tournez, bons chevaux de bois,
  Tournez cent tours, tournez mille tours,
  Tournez souvent et tournez toujours,
  Tournez, tournez au sons de hautbois."_
                      PAUL VERLAINE


[Illustration]

New York   Alfred A. Knopf

MCMXVIII




COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




Contents


                                                     PAGE

IN DEFENCE OF BAD TASTE                                11

MUSIC AND SUPERMUSIC                                   23

EDGAR SALTUS                                           37

THE NEW ART OF THE SINGER                              93

_Au Bal Musette_                                      125

MUSIC AND COOKING                                     149

AN INTERRUPTED CONVERSATION                           179

THE AUTHORITATIVE WORK ON AMERICAN MUSIC              197

OLD DAYS AND NEW                                      215

TWO YOUNG AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS                        227

_De Senectute Cantorum_                               245

IMPRESSIONS IN THE THEATRE

    I _The Land of Joy_                               281

    II A Note on Mimi Aguglia                         298

    III The New Isadora                               307

    IV Margaret Anglin Produces _As You Like It_      318

THE MODERN COMPOSERS AT A GLANCE                      329

FOOTNOTES                                             330

INDEX                                                 331




     Some of these essays have appeared in "The Smart Set,"
     "Reedy's Mirror," "Vanity Fair," "The Chronicle," "The
     Theatre," "The Bellman," "The Musical Quarterly," "Rogue,"
     "The New York Press," and "The New York Globe." In their
     present form, however, they have undergone considerable
     redressing.




In Defence of Bad Taste


     "_It is a painful thing, at best, to live up to one's
     bricabric, if one has any; but to live up to the bricabric
     of many lands and of many centuries is a strain which no
     wise man would dream of inflicting upon his constitution._"

                        Agnes Repplier.




In Defence of Bad Taste


In America, where men are supposed to know nothing about matters of
taste and where women have their dresses planned for them, the
household decorator has become an important factor in domestic life.
Out of an even hundred rich men how many can say that they have had
anything to do with the selection or arrangement of the furnishings
for their homes? In theatre programs these matters are regulated and
due credit is given to the various firms who have supplied the myriad
appeals to the eye; one knows who thought out the combinations of
shoes, hats, and parasols, and one knows where each separate article
was purchased. Why could not some similar plan of appreciation be
followed in the houses of our very rich? Why not, for instance, a card
in the hall something like the following:

    _This house was furnished and decorated according
      to the taste of Marcel of the Dilly-Billy Shop_

or

    _We are living in the kind of house Miss Simone
        O'Kelly thought we should live in. The
          decorations are pure Louis XV and
             the furniture is authentic._

It is not difficult, of course, to differentiate the personal from the
impersonal. Nothing clings so ill to the back as borrowed finery and I
have yet to find the family which has settled itself fondly and
comfortably in chairs which were a part of some one else's aesthetic
plan. As a matter of fact many of our millionaires would be more at
home in an atmosphere concocted from the ingredients of plain pine
tables and blanket-covered mattresses than they are surrounded by the
frippery of China and the frivolity of France. If these gentlemen were
fortunate enough to enjoy sufficient confidence in their own taste to
give it a thorough test it is not safe to think of the extreme burden
that would be put on the working capacity of the factories of the
Grand Rapids furniture companies. We might find a few emancipated
souls scouring the town for heavy refectory tables and divans into
which one could sink, reclining or upright, with a perfect sense of
ease, but these would be as rare as Steinway pianos in Coney Island.

For Americans are meek in such matters.