THE JEW IN MUSIC

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2272, 5 October 1914, Page 3

THE JEW IN MUSIC

Nearly every groat composer has been called a Jow .some time in his career. Mozart (whose real name was Ozart, without the M) had Jewish features; when he was brought before 'Maria Theresa at Vienna, that great Empress sharply asked: "Has tho child been baptised?" On being told he had, sho said: "A genius must not be a Jew." Apocryphal or not, this is an' interesting story, though not so much so as Rossini's witty request: ."Don't bury me in a Jewish cemetery." Rossini was a Roman Catholic of Hebraic Verdi looked Jewish; so did Weber— tho latter "suspiciously" so. A. E. lveeton, in an .article a few years ago in "Contemporary Review" ("Tho' Jew in Music"),- didn't hesitate to suspect Chopin—Szopen was the real Polish name, a Jewish one; Chopin's father hailed from Nancy,. France, a city of many Jewish inhabitants; even Beethoyen does not escape. Saints Saons had Jewish blood in him, as had Borlioz, Borodine, Arthur Sullivan (Seligman), and Bizet, the composer of. "Carmen." Bach was more Jewish looking than Wagner, .but was of Hungarian origin. Wagner's mother's name, Bertz, is Jewish: she was as Jewish in appearance as Geyer. Schumann's name is Jewish-German, but he was pure Saxon. , Schubert was Austrian. Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer and Goldmark, of course, are Jewish. Richard Strauss is a puzzle. His name is. unqualifiedly Jewish, his father looked like one (he was first hornist in the Munich Opera), but Richard is an out and out Bavarian. His mother was a Faschorr, daughter of the Munich brewer. The music of Wagner, Strauss, and Goldmark is notably Oriental in colour and intensity. All the celebrated singers and virtuosi were, with few exceptions, of Jewish origin: Thalberg, Rubinstein, Paganini (who looked as Jewish as the "Kol Nidrei"), Joachim, Wieniawski, Karl Tausig, Josoify, Rosenthal, D'Albert, Busoni, Godowski, L'acbmann, Lilli, Lehmann, Milka Tcrnina. the Garcia family—Spanish Jews; I'atti, on the Patti, not the Barili side; Josef Hofmann, Mischa Elman—tho list is almost interminable. —"Puck."