The Music of Spain

by Carl Van Vechten

"'Music and Bad Manners,' by Carl Van Vechten, tells many amusing stories to show what stupidities and brutalities may be perpetrated by persons of the so-called 'artistic temperament,' and on the other hand, what rudeness may be shown by an audience. These stories ... are vastly entertaining, but the title essay gives a misleading impression of Mr. Van Vechten's book, of its weight and poise, for it has much serious discussion and criticism and much historical information of value and significance. Music readers will skim with a smile the essay on 'Music and Bad Manners,' but they will read with absorbed attention the other half dozen essays of the volume. Mr. Van Vechten writes sound and not too technical English, and has the good taste and good temper to write without rancour."—"Vogue."

"Carl Van Vechten is one of the relatively few people in America to write about music neither as a press agent nor as a pedant, but as an essayist.... 'Music After the Great War' and 'Music and Bad Manners' are delightful reading whether the reader is a musician or not. 'Music and Bad Manners' ranges from a pretty thorough, if discursive, outline of the national music of Spain to the collection of lively anecdotes forming the essay from which the volume takes its name. The comments, always shrewd and based on wide experience, betray the rare quality of clear and independent thought. Moreover, Mr. Van Vechten, by the more than occasional heterodoxy of his ideas, stimulates a healthy desire to climb out of deep-worn ruts. The essays, in particular, on present musical tendencies are none the less illuminating because they are never ponderous.... The charm of the book is mainly due to the author's keen enjoyment of the grotesque, illustrated in scores of incisive phrases, and in a wealth of vivid anecdote."—Henry Adams Bellows in "The Bellman."

"This very interesting book is in the style of the essays of Charles Lamb. It breathes a very human spirit and is told in a very entertaining fashion. It is in the form of a series of essays and from the opening one regarding bad manners in music and musicians to the closing article on Leo Ornstein it is spicy and intensely personal in its style. Really it is one of the most interesting, as well as thoughtful and yet expository, books I have seen."—"The Music News."

"Of all the books that have been sent to me this past musical year none is so entertaining as 'Music and Bad Manners,' a little work in a violent green cover with a vivid blue edge from the house of Knopf. Mr. Van Vechten is a delightful young iconoclast who writes things about music that many people think but very few have courage enough to say, and his exaggerations so often contain trenchant truths, his style is so easy and merry, his ideas so sprightly, that you, if you are at all in sympathy with the 'moderns' will have a most agreeable hour if you devote it to this work."—"The Baltimore Evening Sun."

"'Music and Bad Manners' by Carl Van Vechten is one of the most readable books dealing with music that has been issued in a long time. The writer, a decidedly clever one, does not spend his energy on themes and theories that would prove interesting only to absorbed students of music but he writes in a delightful style that gives a universal interest to his themes. It is the kind of book that the average lover of music will find most invigourating and that will stimulate his love of music to a further examination of the thesis set forth by Mr. Van Vechten. It is sound and discriminating in its judgments and it is unique in its subject matter. There is always an eye for selecting the things of highest interest.... This is a book that will prove pleasing to all who read it. Its exhibition of the knowledge of music is not pedantic, and the author is one of the new forces in music."—"The Springfield (Mass.) Union."

"From the opening chapter until the final page the book is replete with interesting matter."—"The Buffalo (N. Y.) Commercial."

"'Music and Bad Manners' by Carl Van Vechten is a series of seven essays on musical topics that is intensely interesting.... The book will be of deepest interest to all musicians."—"New York Herald."

"Mr. Van Vechten considers modern tendencies with an open mind. He is to be no more deceived into disapproval of innovators by their apparent disregard for tradition than awed by tradition itself (in this case the Bayreuth tradition) into accepting the present specious and old-fashioned methods of staging Wagner as the sacred intention of the master.... Mr. Van Vechten is a well informed specialist, a bold champion, and an entertaining gossip."—"The New York Evening Sun."

"This volume of musical essays may be cordially commended to music-lovers who neither bow down to the youngest nor the eldest composer, but seek to listen honestly according to their powers. The author is a critic of discernment and sincerity."—"The Providence (R. I.) Journal."