They have either ridiculed
him or written cordially about him without saying anything. There is
nothing more demoralizing for the artist. At present they are even
classing him with Prokofief. The virtuosi have shown a like timidity.
Scarcely a one has dared perform his music. Many have refrained out of
policy, unwilling to forfeit any applause. Others have no doubt quite
sincerely refused to perform any music that sounded cacophonous to them.
For the army of musicians is almost entirely composed of rearguard. Not
a single one of the orchestral conductors in New York has dared consider
performing his "Sinfonietta," to say nothing of the early and
comparatively accessible "Marche funebre" and "A la chinoise." Of the
Philharmonic Society, of course, one expects nothing. But one might
suppose that the various organizations allegedly "friendly" to music,
eager for the cause of the "new" and the "modern," would see to it that
the musician whom such an authority as Ernest Bloch has declared to be
the single composer in America who displays positive signs of genius,
was given his opportunity. The contrary has been the case. D'Indy's
foolish war symphony, the works of Henry Hadley, of Rachmaninoff, of
David Stanley Smith, even of Dvorsky, that person who exists as little
in the field of composition as he does in Biarritz, have received and do
receive the attention of our powerful ones.
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