The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 14, 1906, Page 11

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL S Por PRANI CONTRALTY] TENORI N ~ ~ 10rz9.18 N ~ here — ~ ~ X0 N N\ N\ B youfnew fumt ~~ Cum Sancto “um Sanefo Spi - ri-tu in Cum Sancto Spi- ri-tu in after the canter of word, ze exack w xpress him g ve » st lig marked by La Scala as written for Lon- Vienna and for in great our pwa exposition habit and to Buffalo and St then you have ging. dancing and composed by Giorza 6r the grand spec- tacles at each of these expositions, and you know by your own ears some- thing of his versa- tility and gayety and power of glving delight. Sardou would have none other but him to compose the music his drama of “Don Quixote,” and it is is woven fancies t give an added 1 to the “Mid- Nights It is Glor- was com- o invent, quadrille td the measure of which the Dukes and Du- chesses of Devon- nd of Port- ved on that ndous occa- It Giorza, too, who spun out of the nagic of - his’ mind such frivolities as I 2 and such fantasti »al splendor Ven- * which y&u may® Les fce iits de in their t the house the a ntinople” *onst that spectacle you on Giorza, ghted King, by his Victor Emmanuel, te produ tion “Cor- of his nd the can- for recep- his Majesty e wrote national of in 1860 Th was a ago and knighted long tim e was then because of his gifts alreadsy of creation the own land made of his to 1 just Giorza to the world, and he weare his knig he is st honors modestly and inconspicuously. He Is weaving beautiful fabries of fanc from the color threads of sound. He is working. mnot for 'any greater but just for the joy of working. then, figure the most Gic rza is an important ive in the ai I n ter in autiful of arts—but not oppressive or formidable in spite world-wide reputation Sitting facing me in the snug little his friend, where he has come meet me, laughing and talking in many languages, tossing back the mop of lovely white hair, or running his through it the better to unravel nguistic perplexitics, he is just a dear. He old child naivete in confidingness. is sweet in a in gayety is an artist through and through, in his creations, and not one of gents very last cent just modern smart commercial knows to the uch is in a sirain of melody, a or a square foot of color-laid Hle is made for loving attentions. In another half hour I'm sure I ouldn’t trust myself not to straighten his tie and button his waistcoat aright, and I am happy to sec a splendid young woman come in and fuss him tenderly. “Why is he sitting in the cold? “Why bas he not a fire? “Why has he been 50 neglected; Sacre bleu! Who has treated him so?” With her own hand® in their pretty gloves, she crumples the paper, cracks the kindling, deposits the coal with precision and the tongs, applies the match, and, presto! thers is a fire for N AJS S e (544 R - =Y SN > lfié;,’,- 4 L B, £ T ALy T monsieur, who sweetly smiles his thanks as one who is accustomed to be- ing fussed, and hands her the matches on demand with the courtly grace of your truly fine gentleman. Perhaps this has nothing to do with music, or the composing of musiec, but T've a notiop that I shall always find Giorza's the sweeter because Giorza is a dear, because Glorza is a white-haired, smiling old child living in the beautiful world of his own crea- music tion. omewhat improvident, I suspect —and taking little heed of sordid things. Indeed, he tells me as something of a Joke on himself how, when he was here once before, “‘as conductor for Emma Ne- vada, when Nevada was young, very young—just a liitle more than a child"— how he was taken out to Van Ness ave- nue bv a friend and a real estate broker and urged to buy the vacant lots that then abounded where fashion—and fash=> ionabls boarding-houses—now hold forth. I would have been reech man now,"” he laughs, “but I spent my money other way.” Glorza, you see, is not a good man of business. He has often been ‘“done” because of his happy deficiency in this respect, but there are no lines of sourness or discontent upon his gen- tle, round old face , because of it. His riches are of another kind —of memories of artistic triumphs, ~of struggles for the suke of his art, of friendships with artists. No bank can break and sweep away these posses- sions, and so little does he care about the other things, the poor things he was robbed of, he laughs, he actually chuckles as he tells me of them. There is the story of his first great composition—ot his Mass Number One. 1t is known all over the world, sung in all the Catholic churches, and do you know how much Giorza, the man who created it, got out of it? Not one cent. Not one little red cent. He tells me this with a chuckle, and only Incidentally in the course of the story. The story, the real stéry of Mass Number One is this: 2 He composed it when he was a little, dreaming, inspired boy of nine. His father was a barytone, and so he came by his love for music naturally, He lived in"a world of music. He was instructed early. of course. His father was a patriot, too—and so, but Giorza doesn’t say so, he came by his fervor gnd his imagination (the es- sence of the artist) naturally. % He was born in Milan, and lived in mlmmm!t-thdmmmhn.' but because the father was a pgtriot he was banished "to a little village with the sea on one side and the mountains on the other, and there the little boy of nine, between the two great wonders’ of nature, conned over in his mind the words in which his church praised God, and set them to music. The reward of his Jabor was in the pleasure of doing. He had expressed himself and he was satisfied. He showed his work to a publisher, and the publisher said it was good, quite good, and he would print it if it ‘would make the littie boy happy to see it in print. The little boy most enthus = astically thought it would; it was print- ed, and there, so far as the little boy knew, the matter ended. His own copy or two he treasured. The work itself, having Dblossomed, gave out its sweetness unquestioningly. It was enough that it was sweet. The boy went on" with the work of studying and creating. His father died and left him alone to fight his way. He went back to Milan and the world of music, and being very poor, he tells me, he somctimes had to decide wheth er his needs demanded more his dinner or the opera. “BEet was' always ze opera,” he tells me with glee still boyish. “Zen I was young, an’ ze yout' can stan' more. I went to ze opera, an’ zer I forget zee Cum Saneto Spi - ri-tu i e e in glo-ria De- - EETR RIS ST == = = dinner. Ah-h, se mu- seec! Wat pleazir eet geeve, an’ ze ar- teests. “Many time, I did zat.” Then when he wa: 18 his first success came to him—La SBcala recognized him as a composer, accepted his work. At 19 Milan al- ready seemed cramped, and he went to Paris, a boy in the great capital. There he knew Rossini and Gounod, and lesser lights, as he had already known Auber and Verdi. Auber, he tells wag already ar man, “but elegant, & very elegant man,” with a splen- did room in which to work, where be was surrounded by tae beagutiful wom- en he had known, great artists who had sung his operas. “Not,” says Glor- za, with exquisite appreciation, ‘‘by their photographs or common portraits, but by beautiful paintings of the beautiful women.” Rossini was espe- clally his friend — Rossini, who “was a god in Paris, who could have anything without paying for 1t Rossinl was dead and Glorza was a young man before L was born, but for a moment I may visit Rossin! with Giorza when he is young. “Rossini,”" he says, telling me his de- lightful stories of his artist friends, “was the best of them all, charming, full of life—but sar- casteek. *“Rossin had a fine house in Paris, but his own room was plain—an alcove withy a bed, and off that a large rcom with just his table and a chair for himself— no other chairs in The first time I went to see him I stood so—at the corner of his table,” and he illustrates his young-man attitude of reverent humility. “He talk, and ask me about myself and what I have done, and I stand on one foot, zen on ze other. “The next time it was the same, only he talk more, and I stand longer. Then he ask me if T have heard his opera, then just produced—William Tell.’ I say I have not and he told me to go, and then come back and tell him what I think of it. “I do so and again I stand.’ I tell him just what [ think of it, and my truth makes him friendly. He tallyed so long that I looked this way and that for some place to sit—my legs got tired. He saw how I looked and he laughed and said ‘you want to sit down—well, I will get you something to sit on,’ and he brought me a box. “Then he sald, ‘You want to know why T have no chairs in my room. I will tell you: Everybody who comes to Parls asks to see Rossini. They go to their friends, to the Embassadors, to my friends and get letters and cards to me, so I must sce them. But when they come I have no chairs, else they would never go away—and what would Rossinl do then? When could Rossinl work? He laughed and I laughed with him.” That was, as I sald, when Giorza's lovely white hair was black, and I was not borh-but 1 laugh with them, so close does he bring Ressini and the room where there were no chairs. *“Rossinl,” he goes on, “was sar-rcas- teek; he could say things. When Meyer- beer died theres was an ambitious young man who wrote a funeral march for Meyerbeer, but he had not the courage to 'take it to the great Rossin: himself. He got a friend to take it and ask Ros- sini's opinion. “‘Well,' sald Rossini, when he heard it, ‘you can tell your friend that it would be better if he had died and Meyerbeer \ had written tfe funeral sint from Glorz: sinl's own 1 such good company. “Verdl,” he tells me, and quiet. He had a f park—no, almost park rounc he would invite his fr I have visited there. E a to them, ‘Make yourself at hom: n breakfast is served, eat it. W 33 is served, eat oyt w 2 please. Come back when you please, but if you do t see ot mir t.” That was Verdi's way al it imself up to work when telt lke work, and would see “Verdi could be - tle bit. Von Bulow At Verdi's ope “Verdi answered were right before now. and are He tells me “Faust” failed 1 and ¢ Ge ¥ disappointme How could he understandingly. him. Then “Faust” at singers, th last succee relp ‘It was very 1 him a f es he was ssini gave him a card to the d of the Grand Opera—some I did for any one else—and ng due to Rossini's protege. s king knighted him; Londen, Berlin, Vienna accepted and petted him. to America. And he came Here at a music publisher the music on the counter, he Mass Number One. He hear: churches. Here was played and sung. “I never got anything for it,” he says, “but I wrote other compositions for the church, and was m by the publishers, so it is all right.” This is/the story of Mass Number One. But the most wonderful thing about it is that the imagination of a little boy of nine conceived it, and it was accepted here not as the work of an infant prodigy but because -:j its own beauty. Giorza has written many things for the church since them, and he is sorrowful now over the Pope’s order that the musia of the Roman Catholic church shall be in no form except the Gregorian chanty and that women’s voices are excluded. “The Gregorian chant is monotonous and unexpressive. It gives no meaning to the words. Music in the church should be expressive to uplift the soul. I8 should express the grandeur of God In our pralse to him; it should express jo¥ in our hosannas. The influence of musie upon the feelings cannot be measuredj why should it be excluded from the church where(our highest feelings should be aroused?” Particularly sad is Glorza over the ex» clusion of women's Voices from the church, “I would respectfully like to ask the reason for excluding women from singing the glory of God from the choirs. Did not God create Eve? Did not Jesus honor woman highly? Is not the most beautiful’ figure in the church that of the Holy Mother?” Giorza laments the new order as an artist, and ag an artist he protests tha§ the coloriess volces of the boy choir and the monotonous Gregorian chant can never satisfactorily take the place of sult- able and expressive music and women's voices. Giorza is here for the winter writing an opera, and the whils he is here the musical folk and members of the Itallan colony are petting him, as it is Glorza’'s fate to be petted everywhers. Of his opera he says it 1 to de an opera comique, “not that atrocious thing, a comic opera, with which you people are spoiling your musical taste,” and he asks me at parting -will I send him a tenor. “Soprano voices I can get in plenty, barytone, too, but tenor—the good tenor— is so_scarce. So If you will do me one favor, do me this one—send me a tenor; one that will study. “There 1s the trouble in America—you have many good voices/in America, fine natural voices in California, but Amer- jcans will not study. A few lessons, a few months’ gtudy and they want to go vight on and be stars, And worst of all it is with the temor. So, please, i you rning over it