Page Eight

PERSPECTIVES

PageE h PERSPECTIVES

The Children's Crusade
Copper nickels, silver gin
Pay my way to peep-show sin.
Pied the piping, pied the typing
Tatoo of the drummer's wand
Tuning breathing to the seething
Boogie-woogie vagabond.
Juke the jinxer, juke the knave
Bewitching children to the cave.
The silver trumpet's screamin'
The snaky clarinet demon
Lure my pumping heart to blast her
Capillary food-stuff faster
While the tinny cocktail beater
Bounces ice in two-four meter.
Silver soda, copper slug
Buys a ride on Sinbad's rug.
I can rhyme in time' with Lime
House blues; refuse the booze,
My dear, a beer, :but please, not here,
Yes, oh, the song says no, not wrong
This treble C shrilling at me
Is certainly eternity.
Piping playing jazz betraying
My archaic pedigree,
Hi-ho-heying bodies swaying
In a jungle jubileq
Juke the jinxer, juke the way.
To hamlinize the U.S.A.
Martha- Ann Dieffenbacher

El Fangito
Sprawls
on weak abortive legs above the salt marsh
flats an architectural triumph of despair
leans crazily baroque in petrol tins hand
flattened to the roof and garish cornice formed
from Coca Cola signs and hung about with such
o Rococco palm tree mats the coucarachas weep.
Juan
Sebastian moves from mud to wrest
his house from flies that swarm up as he
moves and settle back to suck the honeyed filth.
For him no door no waistcoat archway lintel mantel
piece or newel post but on the box board
walls a glowing Varga bids him "tome Coke."
Thoreau
at Walden had his hut exhale the scent
of pine, a place he fancied "gods might
stop at on celestial jaunt". Here even
lower gods of hiberos would hesitate to
pull up platter to the rice and beans
and suck barracuda flesh away from bones.
Fangito
huts exude no sweet pine gum
exude instead the salt-smoke urine smell
of palm leaves burning on a charcoal fire
a garlic haze of fish-heads softening
in a pot of mush, or smell of hair
that moves without a wind.
Exudes
as often as the times conjoin and
quite in keeping with the ripening
sun as many children as the case admits
depending for statistics on accessory
facts how many women stop how many men may
pass in happenstance along Camino Real.
Juan
the architect contractor of his fate
consigns to selling tickets for .the
lottery along San Justo Street and means
to sell as many as he may but means to
win a prize as well that he may build
again there on the salt marsh flat a new. . .
Fangito
thatched with brand new petrol tins
in Renaissance baroque and cornice
garnished with a brick or two and so
may sit behind a shuttered door at
last in Florentine rococco sipping
rum and lemon with his "tome Coke".
-Virgil Clark

SQUEEKY
(Continued from Page Three)
"God, but I love you Squeek," she had
said, flinging her arms around his
neck.
"No; you don't," he- said, laughing
and- pouring another drink, "You're-too
stupid to love anyone."
Three days later on a sunny Septem-
ber afternoon while on a practice flight.
for the Admhiral Nimitz day celebration
hop, Captain Squeeky pulled out of
formation and dived straight down ten
thousand feet and crashed into the
earth.
"He wasn't in a spin, that was ob-
Vious."
"He made no attempt to pull out
whatever . . . just zoom! straight in,"-
they said over at the "C" club that
night.
Tiny cried when she first heard about
it and told every one that she had loved
him. But later, when she found out
that she was pregnant, she cursed him
bitterly because she was sure he had
done it on purpose.

COMPOSER AND CRITIC
By Max Graf
W. W. Norton & Co., 1946
TH E FACT THAT COMPOSER AND
CRITIC is the first work specializ-
ing in the history of music criticism
places it among the year's important
literary publications. Music criticism
has been more or less taken for grant-
ed, or what is more inexcusable,- nar-
rowly placed in the field of journalism.
Instead it should be treated as an in-
fluencial branch of music history that
sorely needs clarification. Mr. Graft,
in his foreword, states the. problem
most satisfactorily:
"The art that, ever since the mid-
dIe of the eighteenth century, has ac-
companied composer and performer
on his road to fame or oblivion-now
in the guise of a ,stern judge, now as
a mentor, now as a jester-has been
surveyed historically only in great
dictionaries of music.. .These sur-
veys are all short. None of them
gives any adequate idea of the
wealth of literary figures of which
musical criticism can justly boast or
of the role played by music critics in
the development of esthetic ideas and
of taste in general."
The reader who has not been exposed
to the literary side of music will enjoy
the extensive material in this book. Mr.
Graf integrates the development of mu-
sic criticism with the development of
the characteristic ideas of each period.
Thus, scientific and far-sighted critics
of the eighteenth century like Mathhe-
son, Scheibe, and Karpurg, may be
likened to the rationalistic Descartes
and Boileau. In the nineteenth cen-
tury, one meets men like E. T. A. Hoff-
man, J. F. Reichardt, Ludwig Rellstab,
whose articles are the epitome of nine-
teenth century sentimentality. Their
only criterion seemed to be the emo-
tional impact their musical contempor-
aries could effect. Even Mozart and
Beethoven were revered in this fashion.
Article upon article of saccharine and
wistful foolishness emanated from their
pens,
COMPOSER AND CRITIC deals pre-
dominantly with writers of Germany
and Austria. This is understandable,

BA GAIN
(Continued from Page Seven)
started down the hall. At the landing
he turned around and looked back, then
went down and out.
I wish I knew, in a way, where he had
gone. Even though I feel now that he
can't have existed, when I think of his
not being able to speak, to say what he
.4 means to say, to utter thoughts, ideas,
opinions, this nonsensical guilt comes
to me. Life's short at best and if I
let everyone affect mie that comes along
I'll never get anything done. Still, ev-
erything isn't in order now. I can't find
clearly the point of separation where
walking through the day stops and sit-
ting here at night with my books be-
gins, yet I know that my work is vital
and necessary. Perhaps my logic will
be clearer tomorrow. It is the basis of
all things, I know.

since during the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries these two countries
provided the intellectual world with the
most intense originality in instrumental
music. Moreover, the operatic form had
been fully developed by Mozart and
was ready for Wagner's revolutionary
modifications.
The latter part of the nineteenth
century is most vividly portrayed. Since
Mr. Graf was music critic in Vienna
from 1890 to 1938, his emotional reac-
tion to it is felt quite keenly. One can-
not help responding to the nostalgic
and sentimental reminiscences of one
who was witness to the transition of
his country from a center of intense
activitiy to one destined to a period of
unimaginable intellectual sterility.
Unfortunately, the author has em-
phasized the contributions of Austria
and Germany, while minimizing the
achievements of France and England.
Furthermore, the efforts of Italy's crit-
tive in significance attributed to these
countries makes this survey rather in-
complete.
It is often difficult for us to realize
the tremendous influence that critics of
the past two centuries possessed. Mu-
sician after musician came upon the
scene almost continuously offering cre-
ative talent that sparkled with origin-
ality and vitality. In fact there were
many composers of considerable merit
who are entirely unknown today. It
was the privilege of these musical dic-
tators to weed out those of mediocre

talent and to laud the geniuses accord-
ing to rigid musical criteria. Contrary
to public opinion the great critics of
the past did not scorn the talents of
those musicians whom we consider to
be immortal. Those narrow-minded
men who were not open to new ideas
are not the great prophets who recog-
nized the genius of a Bach or Brahms.
Since the great period of musical
genius in composition seems to have
passed for the present it is small won-
der that modern critics are cubby-hol-
ed as concert reporters. After reading
this book one should immediately real-
ize the different role played by the mod-
ern critic namely, appraising or de-
nouncing a performer's interpretation.
For development on this problem and
other problems of the modern critic,
COMPOSER AND CRITIC leaves some-
thing to be desired. Perhaps this ob-
servation may be condoned since the
author realizes limitations in his work.
However, it seems that any survey that
includes modern material should in-
clude the problems that confront the
modern critic. Moreover, the survey
of modern criticsm in this volume is
very scant indeed. Mr. Graf's excuse
that no living critic has been given con-
sideration, because his achievements
have not been compiled, seems to be
insufficient justification.
Despite these shortcomings, Mr. Graf
has succeeded in writing a stimulating
account of musical criticism.
-Kay Engel