Show WHO NEWS THIS WEEK by LEMUEL F PARTON NEW YORK meeting francesco Mali piero at a party inthe in the hoyal danielli in venice soon after the world war 1 I 1 I thought he was wai one of the most charm Malt Mali piero ing and brilliant was person and at the same to remember time most mos cryptic men I 1 had ever seen there was in the company another italian musician a famous conductor who was the lion of the evening I 1 have forgotten his appearance pe arance and his name but everything about signor signer Mali piero is vividly remembered on the way home in a gondola I 1 asked the conductor tor for an appraisal of signor signer Mali piero as a musician there was considerable condescension in the reply Mali piero was gifted but erratic it was even hinted that he was unsound in some deeply subversive sense but my virgil eagerly agreed that the signor was a most extraordinary hu man personality As recently as four years ago a Mali Mall piero opera threw the royal opera house of rome into a tumult of howling and cat calls mussolini banned it as inimical to the faith and sound teachings of the new it aly but by this time piero had bad become a world famous musician and he was soon restored to favor this status is unquestioned as his symphony Elegia ca I 1 was given its first performance u of r in new york with music now john Barbir Barb irOlli oUi Is if lionized conducting for many years critical opinion discounted him as somewhat of an outlaw and disturber now how it has caught up with him as it did with stravinsky and richard strauss both the fire bird and salome were met with cat calls when they were first produced critics note some mysterious enervating erva ting influence in Mali pieros new symphony it may be an afterthought but the explanation seems I 1 clear as I 1 recall my conversation with him his face saddened and ahe he seemed ten years older when I 1 mentioned the war for his ballet he had written of the struggle of a soul hurling itself into the struggle for liberty only to find oblivion and death the war had be been en to hima tragic and devastating experience he said it bad profoundly shaken both his art and his hii life a never again would the suave flu fill enches or banalities of music have meaning for him he was impelled to A a deeper search i this athis disillusionment was sublimated in irony he was suspected of slyly sabotaging suspected suspect ed of the grandiose new sabotage in in italian state it new opera was in m march 1934 that his opera the fable of the exchanged so sons s with the text by luigi dello all but caused a riot in the royal opera house so far as I 1 could learn at t the time there was no brash heresy in the work but as elaborated by the text a subtle hint that ultimate truth is forever elusive and supreme power dead sia sea fruit that of I 1 course is dan dangerous gerou s doctrine in a totalitarian state and it was quickly ly and savagely resented the next day 11 II duce forbade another presentation sen tation Mali piero Is a poet and a mystic of dominant presence with sharply cut roman features and hair brushed back in a thick pompadour he is at the same time extraordinarily gracious friendly and unassuming he lives in a quaint stone villa forty or fifty miles from venice centuries old rambling and tumble down cut in the stone door lintel there is a latin text to the obscene all things are obscene 11 that was his answer to the critics of one of his operas the art of living en grosses him as much as the art of music and he studiously main has gift for bains a relation friendship ship of courtesy with animals dignity die and d friend nd ly intimacy with the creatures in his retreat he has a gift for friendship with animals and thinks that much of the trouble of mankind is due to its insensitiveness ti veness to the subhuman and superhuman pe his music is apt to range into those zones he was born in venice in i n 1882 beginning his violin studies in his sixth year his father was a political exile and the family was in germany for many years wagner was a crashing strain of modernity which profoundly affected his work 0 consolidated news features service |