New Magazine

Music is the laconic title of a new monthly magazine. The first number has appeared. Editor-in-Chief is Deems Taylor, composer-critic. He promises to keep its pages free from artist advertising, and ipso facto from press-agent blurbing. It is to be "edited and written for the listener and the amateur musician; entertaining, easily understandable, yet thoroughly sound and authoritative." Thus it seeks to find a place somewhere between publications like Musical America and The Musical Courier ("trade journals" for professional musicians) and The Musical Quarterly (organ of the intellectually elect).

The issue now at hand contains an Overture, explaining its mission; All Dressed Up and No Place to Go, a discussion by Mr. Taylor of the possibilities of jazz; Is There a Beethoven in Hoboken?, by Richard Washburn Child; a spoofy bit called The Truth About Wagner, by Newman Levy, professional funnyman. W. J. Henderson, veteran critic, in All Things Considered, reviews the late concert season. Articles by Pitts Sanborn, Albert Spalding, Kenneth MacGowan, drama and cinema talk by Ruth Hale ("Lucy Stone"-spouse of Colyumist Heywood Broun), reviews of books by Mary Ellis Opdyke complete the current 40 cents' worth.

Music seems determined to be witty and gay. It grits its teeth to attain ; that end. Sometimes one can hear the I gnashing, as (one imagines) the contributor takes his little joy out of life to insert it in Music's well-printed columns. Still, most musicians are an overserious lot, and most writing about music is overburdened with gravity. To sprinkle over the whole tragedy-ridden field of harmony a goodly dash of gaiety and critical comedy, sensitive, sensible, neatly pointed, delicately and effectively driven home, is no mean intention.

Taylor has been known, for the past two years at least, as both wit and musician. Earlier in his career, musicians had been rather dimly aware of his novel, brightly written songs; readers of literary ephemera had been vaguely conscious of his no less brightly written contributions to Franklin P. Adams's famed Conning Tower* Then, a sudden bound landed him under the gilded dome of the Pulitzer Building, as music critic of The New York World, to form with Adams and Heywood Broun a unique triumvirate of the liberal arts.

His larger musical works, unheard before, were soon accepted for performance by prominent orchestral conductors. His suite Through the Looking Glass (TIME, Apr. 7) has been rendered by practically every orchestra of note in the nation during the past season.

In the meantime, his active little figure had been acquiring added effulgence, reflected from the lights of Broadway. His name began to appear with increasing frequency in theatre-programs as the composer or arranger of incidental music. Liliom audiences may still recall and whistle his Look Out, Here Come the Damn Police, as vividly as they remember the acting of Schildkraut. He composed the pantomime used as a prelude to John Drink-water's Mary Stuart. He arranged the old songs used in Fashion, and wrote A Kiss in Xanadu, which provided the loveliest moments in Beggar on Horseback. He is now the official "incidentalist" for the serious metropolitan stage.

Taylor's music, like his writing, is distinguished by elegance and refinement, coupled with a good sense of climax and dramatic values. It is sufficiently modernistic to tickle the ear with tricky surprises, cleverly produced as from a convenient bag, without being discordant enough to baffle or antagonize those of conventional tastes. Personally, following (as always) the latest musical fashion, Taylor wears his hair short, dresses well, is an animated conversationalist. Twenty years ago, no one would have taken him for a real musician. Times have changed in St. Cecilia's realm.

*"Funny Colyum" in The New York World.