Werrenrath, Famous Baritone, Defends America's Lack of Talented Composers--Predicts Great Future for Vitaphone

"It is undoubtedly true that America is not turning out the composers and musicians that Europe is producing," said Reinald Werrenrath, famous baritone, to a CRIMSON reporter just before his Symphony Hall concert last Sunday. "But give us time. Europe was brimming over with first rate men when there were nothing but Indians on Broadway. Europe has centuries of culture back of it, while America is just getting on her feet, musically. The only man I know of here who has done consistently, excellent work in composing is Mr. Deems Taylor, who certainly deserves his position as leader of American composers."

When asked whether he considered the Vitaphone a step forward in musical presentation. Mr. Werrenrath said that he thought it surpassed the radio in its possibilities. He further stated that he had just received notice from the Vitaphone Corporation stating that it would be necessary to delay his tentative engagement with them for some months, since their equipment was undergoing such radical changes every day that they had decided to defer all engagements until the machines could be more adapted to the new inventions which were constantly altering them.

"I expect to see entire operas staged for the Vitaphone in a few years. Whether or not it will do away with the stage presentation is another matter, but it is certain that heretofore we have had nothing that even remotely approached the vivid manner in which the 'talkies' present a story," he said.

Mr. Werrenrath stated that he considered the new English classical jazz as presented by George, Gershwin, worthy of consideration with the best classical music, saying. "In Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, there is nothing more nor less than a classical melody which Gershwin has written in a jazz idiom. I think that this jazz adaptation in no way decreases the merit of the selection, but, on the contrary, any other manner of presentation, for in stance, the classical, would have completely altered the charm of the theme. Then, too, you must, consider that Gershwin speaks well only in a jazz vein and he might have meased things up if he had attempted to do anything so far out of his line as to do anything in a classical way."