Aufführung der 3. Symphonie durch das Chicago Symphony Orchestra unter Frederick Stock um 20:15 Uhr in der Orchestra Hall in Chicago. Auf dem Programm stehen außerdem Werke von Mozart (Ouvertüre zu "Der Schauspieldirektor", Smetana ("Die Moldau") und Liapunow (Klavierkonzert mit Katharine Goodson). Wiederholung vom 27.2.1920 (*).

 

Das Inserat in der Chicago Tribune Nr. 51 auf S. 11 nennt nur die Uhrzeit, den Dirigenten und die Solistin, nicht aber die Werke (*a).

 

Die Stellung Bruckners im amerikanischen Konzertleben kommt in einem Artikel des Evening Public Ledger Nr. 143 (Philadelphiy, Pennsylvania) auf S. 12 zur Sprache:

"            THE CRITIC TALKS TO MUSIC LOVERS

VERY few persons realize what an exceedingly important part the public plays in dictating the programs that are chosen for public concerts by musicians great and small. [... wirtschaftliche Erwägungen vor allem bei kleineren Veranstaltern ...].

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IN THE end the public has the power of life and death over every musical organization. [... populäre Programme nach dem Publikumsgeschmack ... Beweggründe mancher Dirigenten unklar ... Chopin und Tschaikowsky als sichere Nummern ...].

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ALWAYS, in the end, the public is right, because there can be no permanent popularity, or even life, for any composer whose music the public will not go to hear. Perhaps it is a case of "might makes reght," but nevertheless the verdict stands. For years some of the great conductors of Europe tried to make the symphonies of Anton Bruckner popular, but the music-lovers wouldn't have them, and now they are rarely heard, although only a few weeks ago Mr. Bodansky [sic] gave the Fourth Symphony with the New Symphony Orchestra in New York, and it met the usual fate at the hands of the public.

     It is doubtless true that the friendship and high esteem of Richard Wagner, both spoken and written, which Bruckner enjoyed, was largely responsible for the assiduity with which certain really great conductors tried to popularize his works, but their efforts came to naught in the end, because the public refused to consider it great music and wouldn't listen to it. However, it must be admitted that of Bruckner had possessed a wealth of musical ideas equal to hus skill in composition and orchestration Brahms would have had a serious rival. But he didn't, and the public found that out evidently before some of the conductors did.

     Mr. Scheel played one of the Bruckner symphonies here (the seventh, if the writer is not mistaken), a number of years ago, and the only impression of the work that remains with the writer is a superb piece of horn playing, a long and exquisitely graduated diminuendo, performed by Mr. Anton Horner, in the horn solo of the slow movement.

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BRUCKNER is only a case in point to show that in the end the musical piublic will decide all moot questions and decide them permanently and probably rightly. In this case they decided against the conductors and some of the best musicians of Europe. Brahms was another case where the public decided against the critics, because Hanslick was the only prominent great critic in all Europe who championed Brahms' music from the start and accepted him at what later turned out to be his real value.

     [... das Empfinden des Publikums pflanzt sich in die nächste Generation fort ... mangelnde Resonanz ist ein Hinweis,] that these works lack some essential element of permanence. Therefore, for artistic as well as box office reasons artists are fully justified in choosing programs which their audiences will like, provided always that the compositions meet the musical and intellectual demands of the performer's artistic judgment." [keine Signatur] (**).