The Human Touch

ERNEST BLOCH has produced his “Sacred Service” in Turin and soon he will conduct the American premiere of that work in Carnegie Hall, with the Schola Cantorum, the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, the choir of the Pious X School, and Friedrich Schorr, baritone of the Metropolitan. Late next month he sails for Milan where, at La Scala, he will conduct two additional performances. But the most astonishing bit of news the composer brought back with him from Europe Monday was that the Hebrew Sacred Service would be given some time this Summer in Berlin, under the direction of Alexander Weissbaum of the Jewish Kulturbund.

To those reporters who expressed astonishment at the daring, or the impropriety of giving a musical work in Hebrew in Berlin, the elderly, but virile, composer replied:

“I believe my “Sacred Service” may be an answer to the accusations of Chamberlain [the philosophical font of anti-Semitism in Germany] as to the danger of “chosen people” seeking to usurp the world; a challenge, too, to those Jews who would limit their faith to their race. For its Judaism is not that of the Ghetto, but that of the prophets–messianic and universal. The faith it embodies, though inspired by the ancient service, transcends racial boundaries; the appeal it voices, though rooted in one religion, is to brotherhood. It addresses not Jews alone, but mankind.”

RADIO BOMBARDMENT

When Ernest Bloch came back from Europe a little less than a year ago with the manuscript of his “Sacred Service,” he expressed the seed of a thought, a wish, a desire, of which the projected Berlin performance is the fruit. It was his idea that Hitlerism was so deeply embedded in the German people, and Hitlerism in its anti-Semitic import especially, that it was a futile thing to argue, debate, reason against it. Anti-Semitism was not susceptible to anything but a counter-feeling, an opposing sentiment. And he then expressed the idea that Germany ought to be invaded, via the radio, by the Sacred Service, which was the expression of Jewish feeling at its noblest and most intense. Perhaps in saying this, Mr. Bloch was speaking not only as a Jew, but also as a composer with the natural vanity of any composer.

What the effect of a Berlin performance of the Sacred. Service will be it is difficult to imagine. The German reviewers will be free to say only what the Dictator of Nazi Culture will allow them to say. Perhaps the greatest service of the Sacred Service will be in fortifying the Jews who hear it, in making them realize that they are tied by bonds to a prophetic and a poetic heritage, that they are still the people of The Book, sons of the David who wrote the Psalms. If the Berlin performance of the Sacred Service does that much it will have done enough.

In the meantime, New York has a unique experience before it.

“THE SHATTER’D LAMP”

I think I may say without fear of successful contradiction that Leslie Reade’s. “The Shatter’d Lamp,” now current at the Maxine Elliott, is the best anti-Nazi play that has come to New York. The actors are intense but not overdrawn. The actors are in character and the Nazi inspector looks and acts like a Nazi. An actor performing the part of a villain can have no greater affirmation of his capacity than that of being hissed. The other evening John Buckler, who takes the part of the Nazi, Johannes Von Rentzau, had the pleasure of hearing himself thoroughly hissed Mr. Buckler, it seems to me, did a lot to make the whole drama of Hitlerism come true on the stage of the Maxine Elliott. He acted the embodiment of Young Ruthlessness.

The evening at “The Shatter’d Lamp” reminds me of the performance of the Ossip Dymow play, “Germany Aflame,” produced in Yiddish at the Second Avenue Theatre. Several Nazi Storm Troopers were supposed to be imprisoned in that drama. Theatre-goers had the pleasure of hearing actors impersonating Nazis speak in Yiddish. With the exception of one blond and lean Jew, all the others looked like anything but Nazis, and if their language and appearance weren’t sufficient to destroy the illusion of their being Nazis, their uniforms would have given them away. The hooked crosses on their armlets, for example, seemed to have been designed by guesswork. The hooked crosses worn on the uniforms of the “Shatter’d Lamp” storm troopers were authentic, and had they not been, a good deal of the force and of the reality of the play would have been lost, which leads to the probable conclusion that reality is made up of a hundred little touches of reality. By which conclusion are justified those producers who use diamonds when they want to give the illusion of diamonds.

A PROPAGANDA PLAY

“The Shatter’d Lamp” is cursed with the classification of “propaganda play” and of course it is. But it is also a play, and that is what matters. As to its effectiveness of its propaganda I had a curious illustration. Behind me were seated two women, one of whom was discussing the itinerary of her projected Summer trip through Europe. During the intermission between the first and the second act, the Summer tripper was saying that she would include Denmark, Norway, Austria and Germany.

“I’d stay out of Germany if I were you,” said her chum. “Oh, no, why should I?” was the retort. “Things aren’t as bad as they’re made out.” “Still, I’d stay out,” insisted the second woman.

Came the second act, and the second intermission. Things had become considerably worse with the Opals, with whose home life “The Shatter’d Lamp” is chiefly concerned. The Frau Professor, it appears, was a Jewess, and her son was so little aware of the Jewishness in his veins that he had joined the Storm Troopers and had even invited his Nazi chum–the aforesaid Von Rensau–to tell his folks about the ideals of Young Germany. Well, by the second intermission, the Summer tourist had made up her mind: “No, I guess I won’t go to Germany after all.” “That’s right,” said her friend approvingly.