Self-Styled "Leader"
Invites Community Shanghai's Orthodox community was wildly stirred by an advertisement appearing in local Russian dailies on Saturday, in which followers of the "anticommunist" movement were invited to attend a mass which was to be held yesterday afternoon at the Orthodox Church on Kungping Road, and where the congregation was to pray for the health and well-being of thẹ Japanese army and its high command.
It was felt that the tenure of the witation" was more or less a led order to attend, especially as it was signed by Mr. M. N. Tretiakoff who, it will be remembered, was only recently released from jail having been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for the unlawful occupation of premises in: Wayside and for having obstructed the Shanghai police in the performance its duties. Mr. Tretiakoff, the self-styled leader of the "Anti-communist" movement, has been active politically, for quite some time.
Fears were allayed, however, when Colonel N. Serejnikoff, on behalf of the Bureau of Russian Emigrants living in the Japanese occupied territories, made an announcement in the local Russian papers yesterday, to the effect that the prayers for the Japanese had been arranged by Mr, Tretiakoff himself and were being devoted to Italian works, the possession of the majority of which has been made possible by the boun-of the Italian Government, also responsible for the much desired and welcome inclusion of a number of additional musicians.
The presence of the composers Pizzetti and Casella on the programme affords an interesting link with the all-French programme of the week before last, which contained.the names of Ravel and Roussel It has often been noted that the latter pair have much that is essentially dissimilar and this analogy can be applied to the former. If, then, the names of Pizzetti and Roussel are associated in opposition to the team of Ravel and Casella, and providing comparisons are not too searching, stock-taking on these lines is not unprofitable; Broadly, the difference appears to ^e the old one of. Subject and Object, Pizzetti and Roussel belong to that order of individual and thoughtful musicians who strive towards the expression of that which is intrinsic, employing such technical means in the process which are always subservient to the main issue. Roussel has stated his own ideal very plainly: "....a music satisfying in itself, liberated' from picturesque and descriptive associations, and permanently removed from any localization in space" In comparison with the foregoing, the musical roots of Ravel and Casella can often be traced to common termination in the soil of objectivity. In their formative years they were both nurtured by Faure, who brought so many of the posi Wagnerian school of French, composers into the world. Their principles and beliefs are, in the main, the negation of all that is mystic and philosophical, and their music becomes extrinsic, finding its outlet in the more tangible forms. Contemplation of the music of Ravel cannot be completely disassociated from the wizardry. of technical and instrumental means by which he attains his ends, and one is ever conscious of the extreme competence of Casells craftsmanship; indeed the world of Casella the pianist, com-Poser, critic and musicologist is of necessity intensely objective. He is tar too externalized and intelligently versatile ever to become a composer of the transcendental order. What is one to infer when the energies of. this intellectual giant are harnessed to the Herculean labours of reducing Mahler's hour-and-a-half Seventh Symphony to the compass of the piano or again of offering the solely pianistic tour-de-force "Islamey" in symphonic form?
However, there are usually excep. tions which crumple all carefully prepared rules: in this case it is the set of superlatively arranged Scarlatti—"'Scarlattiana." The orchestra dealt enthusiastically with the wealth of "material offered in Pizzetti's "Pisanella" and one hopes for an early reappearance of this deeply-felt music.—Casellüs "La Giara" comes from Don Lollo's olive farm in Sicily and is therefore breezily rustic, but is it necessary to deal so long and strong-windedly with such a simple countrified tale? Perhaps the ballet, with its added visual sense, would redeem much of it. Mr. Slobodskoy is to be praised for the clarity of his solo off-stage.
A symphony by G. B. Sammartini received its first performance which made pleasant hearing. With due deference to the copious and thoughtful programme notes, sure Sam-martini was not the first in the symphonic field. Didn't Peri and Monteverdi precede him by a good many years?
Mr. Foa wrestled heroically and for the most part convincingly with the enormous difficulties of one of Paganini's violin concertos, besides playing the cantilena passages with great beauty. There remains but to add that Respighi's "Paintings" received a more than usual warmth of rendition. Sections of the second movement, with its tenuity, were really superb. The 'Birth of Vehus' must exist'as one of the most exciting and effective of crescendos through. capture of 10 field gun: guns, two antitank guns, eight heavy machine guns, 74 light machine guns, 36 automatic rifles, 2952 r 10 motor vehicles, 278 hors. pistols and 22 sets of field telephone equipment. The Chinese abandoned 8,550 dead, while 286 others were taken prisoner, Japanese officers claimed.
'Taken' in these successive operations were the towns of Shwangkow, Tawangtsi, Suining, Sutsien, and Szeyang northwestern Kiangsu and Szehsien in northeastern Anhwei. Chinese troops in this area have been incorporated into the Fifth Mobile Army and into flying columns of the Communist Eighth Route Army.—Domei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.