New York Sun. April 23, 1930.

League of Composers' Concert

Schoenberg's Three Dimensional Musical Drama 'Die Glueckliche Hand' Is Presented.

By W. J. Henderson.

The League of Composers had a festival at the Metropolitan Opera House last night when,

with the aid of Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leonard Massine, master

of ballet; Robert Edmond Jones, dreamer of scenes, and other coadjutors, it gave the first

stage performance of Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" and the first in this country of

Arnold Schoenberg's three-dimensional musical drama, "Die Glueckliche Hand." The three

dimensions are music, action and lights.

The story of "Die Glueckliche Hand" has already been told here and it must suffice for the

present to remind the reader that it is about man's futile search for happiness. In this case he

seeks it in the love of a woman, but she leaves him for the possessor of a bank account. The

unfortunate man is last seen, as he first is, with a horrible creature called a chimera sitting on

this back and biting him. In his interpretation of this drama Mr. Schoenberg employs one

singing actor, the Man, whose utterances are in a kind of parlando, and a woman who is silent.

There is a small chorus which also employs the half spoken medium and which resembles that

of the Greek drama in that it comments and exhorts, but does not enter into the action.

Changing lights cooperate in colors with the orchestra in expressing the moods of the play.

The orchestra performs snort [?] thematic phrases and harmonies which are made to proceed

in time with the speeches of the actors and with the pictorial effects on the stage. The score is

extremely dissonant. Schoenberg is one of those who believe that the classic keys and their

relations are of little use to musical progress and indeed detrimental to it. To describe the 23

minutes of action in detail would require about two columns. Nor would any important

purpose be served.

The action is not complex. The wailing complaints of the man and the caterwauling of the

chorus have neither musical nor dramatic value. They are simply tonal eccentricities, fruit of

the deliberate and thus far unsuccessful attempt to destroy the fundamentals of musical art and

substitute for them a new chaos without form and void. Something may come of these

experiments some day, but it has not come yet. Schoenberg's "Die Glueckliche Hand" is not

even interesting.

But further discussion of it may be reserved for the future-if after a day or two it still seems

worth pondering. It was well enough performed, especially by Doris Humphrey, whose plastic

art as the woman had pictorial beauty and theatrical significance. Ivan Ivantzoff made a

gallant effort as the man, but he was battling against great odds. The scenic attire was good,

but the directions of the composer as to changing lights were not carried out. A white light did

most of the work.

Stravinsky's score is well known here. It has been heard several times since it was produced

on January 31, 1924, by the Boston orchestra, then under the baton of Pierre Monteux, who

conducted the original production in Paris by the Diaghileff ballet. but the music could never

attain its correct value when dissociated from the action which it was planned to illustrate and

intensify. When the ballet was first given the choreography was designed by Nijinsky, but this

was afterward laid aside and a new arrangement by Leonide Massine was disclosed at a

Parisian revival. Mr. Massine fortunately is now resident in New York where he is at the head

of the dance department of the Roxy Theater. Mr. Rothafel's courtesy permitted him to

cooperate with the League of Composers in last evening's production.

Stravinsky regards the music as abstract and asked for an abstract treatment of the action, by

which he meant action eliminating all anecdotic or symbolical detail. We confess after last

evening's revelation to some confusion of mind. It seemed to this observer that the Pagan rite

was itself symbolical. Youths and maidens stamp upon the earth and express worship of it.

There is a mock marriage by capture. Follows a khorovod, or choral dance. Then there is a

series of games of rival tribes. The Celebrant consecrates the soil for its renewal of

production. The second part shows us the preparation of the sacrificial victim, who must

dance herself to death. The whole drama of action is an appeal for fertility. Neither Mr.

Stravinsky nor Mr. Massine coud wholly avoid symbolism.

The dancers had been well rehearsed. They were accurate in rhythm and almost perfect in

unanimity of movement. Nevertheless the action cannot be said to have done much for the

music. The spirit of Stravinsky's stark and brutual style was excellently reproduced, but the

result was not stirring to the imagination. The probabilities are that most music lovers, with

the help of program notes, would create for themselves a more splendid dream, while

listening to the score.

Martha Graham as the sacrificial maiden accomplished much by her action and her facial

expression. Gould Stevens as the celebrant commanded praise. The Philadelphia Orchestra

played both scores admirably and Mr. Stokowski, looming above an elevated podium, looked

almost like one of the actors in the dramas. The stage settings and costumes for the Stravinsky

work were designed by Nicolas Roerich and were well suited to the requirements of the work.

There was a brilliant audience of music lovers, musicians, searchers after new thought and

cultivated lookers-on in the activities of the town.