ch had been considered axiomatic before the redoubtable Oscar
introduced us to Alessandro Bonci, Maurice Renaud, Charles Dalmores,
Mary Garden, Luisa Tetrazzini, and others. With his productions of
_Pelleas et Melisande_, _Louise_, _Thais_, and other works new to us, he
spurred the rival house to an activity which has been maintained ever
since to a greater or less degree. New operas are now the order of the
day--even with the Chicago and the Boston companies--rather than the
exception. And without this impresario's courage and determination I do
not think New York would have heard _Elektra_, at least not before its
uncorked essence had quite disappeared. Lover of opera that he
indubitably is, Oscar Hammerstein is by nature a showman, and he
understands the psychology of the mob. Looking about for a sensation to
stir the slow pulse of the New York opera-goer, he saw nothing on the
horizon more likely to effect his purpose than _Elektra_. _Salome_,
spurned by the Metropolitan Opera Company, had been taken to his heart
the year before and, with Mary Garden's valuable assistance, he had
found the biblical jade extremely efficacious in drawing shekels to his
doors. He hoped to accomplish similar results with _Elektra_....

One of the penalties an inventor of harmonies pays is that his
inventions become shopworn. A certain terrible atmosphere, a suggestion
of vague dread, of horror, of rank incest, of vile murder, of sordid
shame, was conveyed in _Elektra_ by Richard Strauss through the adroit
use of what we call discords, for want of a better name. Discord at one
time was defined as a combination of sounds that would eternally affront
the musical ear. We know better now. Discord is simply the word to
describe a never-before or seldom-used chord. Such a juxtaposition of
notes naturally startles when it is first heard, but it is a mistake to
presume that the effect is unpleasant, even in the beginning.

Now it was by the use of sounds cunningly contrived to displease the ear
that Strauss built up his atmosphere of ugliness in _Elektra_. When it
was first performed, the scenes in which the half-mad Greek girl stalked
the palace courtyard, and the queen with the blood-stained hands related
her dreams, literally reeked with musical frightfulness. I have never
seen or heard another music drama which so completely bowled over its
first audiences, whether they were street-car conductors or musical
pedants. These scenes even inspire