Musical criticism, in
our great Calvinist republic, confines itself almost entirely to
transient reviewing, and even when it gets between covers, it keeps its
trivial quality. Consider, for example, the published work of Henry
Edward Krehbiel, for long the _doyen_ of the New York critics. I pick up
his latest book, "A Second Book of Operas,"[37] open it at random, and
find this:
On January 31, 1893, the Philadelphia singers, aided by the New
York Symphony Society, gave a performance of the opera, under the
auspices of the Young Men's Hebrew Association, for the benefit of
its charities, at the Carnegie Music Hall, New York. Mr. Walter
Damrosch was to have conducted, but was detained in Washington by
the funeral of Mr. Blaine, and Mr. Hinrichs took his place.
O Doctor _admirabilis, acutus et illuminatissimus_! Needless to say the
universities have not overlooked this geyser of buttermilk: he is an
honourary A.M. of Yale. His most respectable volume, that on negro
folksong, impresses one principally by its incompleteness.
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