Trade
May Music
20th, i88r.
Review THE
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MUSICAL
CRITIC AND TRADE
REVIEW.
an audience merry? Do they hurl darts at the follies of society with such
She always did as she was told,
good temper that those who feel the blow are among the first to laugh? If
She never spoke when her mouth was full,
so, their modest, yet not unuseful purpose is answered, and their right to
Or caught blue bottles their legs to pull;
applause asserted. Wherefore should it be said that in "Patience," Mr.
Or spilt plum jam on her nice new frock,
Gilbert repeats himself a good deal, that the idea of unselfish love as worked
'
Or put white mice in the eight-day clock,
out by his heroine complicates the story without proportionate effect, and
Or vivisected her last new doll,
that the denouement is weak, the best answer lies in the peals of joyous
Or fostered a passion for alcohol.
merriment that accompany the play from beginning to end. As regards
And when she grew up she was given in marriage
technical workmanship, we only anticipate a general opinion when we say
To a first class earl who keeps his carriage !
that the dialogue here and there lacks the brilliancy expected from Mr.
Gilbert, and that the lyrics are models of easy rhyme and rhythm, as well as This is followed by another recital :
Teasing Tom was a very bad boy ;
full of mingled humor and pathos. Mr. Sullivan's share in this piece should
A great big squirt was his favorite toy ;
command the warmest praise. Sensible people do not look to operas like
He put live shrimps in his father's boots,
" Patience " for startling music, or even for that which absorbs the atten-
And sewed up the sleeves of his Sunday suits, (etc.)
tion. Indeed, music of such a kind would be out of place. It would disturb
the balance of the entire work, because while some modern criticisms con- The duet in which Bunthorne prevails upon Grosvenor to abandon the
tends against resolute opposition that on every lyric stage music should take simplicity of sestheticism without on his side giving up its grotesqueness is,
a subordinate place, here its inferiority admits of no debate. "The play's in a literary point of view, perhaps the best thing in the opera. Grosvenar
the thing " beyond all question; Mr. Sullivan's work being simply to supply on the point of committing artistic and moral suicide, sings :—
for its lyrics such graceful, refined, and artistic strains as please without dis-
Conceive me, if you can,
traction. This duty he has performed most admirably. In the first place,
An every day young man :
he again illustrates a happy and, for a task of the kind, indispensable power
A common place type,
of seizing the idea of the verse and giving it expression by the simplest of
With a stick and a pipe
purely artistic means. Mr. Sullivan never pulls against but always with his
And a half bred black and tan.
poet, while if beguiled into the regions of commonplace, he knows how to
Who thinks suburban " hops"
say even ordinary things with an accent of superiority that compels atten-
More fun than Monday Pops.
tion. For proof of all this we need not look beyond the music of " Patience,"
Who's fond of his dinner,
no fewer than seven numbers of which were encored and repeated on Satur-
And doesn't get thinner
day night. The strength of the composer is not put forward at the outset.
On bottle beer and chops.
His introduction, for example, would on ordinary occasions pass unnoticed,
and the numbers immediately succeeding, though pretty, are not remarkable. The deceitful Bunthorne, on the other hand, has every intention of remain-
When however, we come to the Colonel's song about the Heavy Dragoons, ing—
A Japanese young man—
Mr. Sullivan's humor flows in a full stream, while the ensemble for officers
A blue and white young man—
and ladies appears as a capital example of its kind. Other noticeable
Francesca di Rimini, miminy, priminy,
pieces are Bunthorne's song, " If you're anxious for to shine," with its deli-
Je-ne-sais-quoi young man.
cate and charming orchestration ; the duet for Patience and Angela, " Long
years ago, fourteen may be,-" also beautifully scored ; the charming madri-
A pallid and thin young man—
galian dialogue, " Prithee, pretty maiden," for Patience and Grosvenor ;&
A haggard and lank young man—
well-written sestet and chorus, "jl hear the soft note ; " Lady Jane's mock
A greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery,
sentimental ditty, "Silvered is the raven hair," with its Handelian recita-
Foot in the grave young man.
tive; the spirited duet for Bunthorne and Lady Jane, " So go to him, and say
London Daily Telegraph.
to him," and its thoroughly funny companion for Bunthorne and Grosvenor,
" When I go out of door," In all these appear the ideas and the hand of a
musician who has something to say and knows how to say it. What though
the work be not of an exalted kind ? Excellence consists largely in fitness.
MUSICAL
CH A T .
ABROAD.
Of the performance we can only speak briefly, nor is there need, seeing its
well nigh uniform merit, for the many words that provoked criticism de-
The rehearsals for M. Rubinstein's " II Demonio" will be held under
mands. It will be understood that the scenery and dresses were as perfect the composer's direction during the first week of June. The composer will
as thought and money could make them ; that the stage under Mr. Gilbert's personally direct the first two performances, which will probably be givea
exacting eye, was a model of well ordered arrangement; and that every per- on June 9th or 11th, and June 13th or 14th.
former, down to the humblest, knew what he had to do, and was competent.
"Rosa di Perona," music by Signora Teresa Guidi-Lionetti, is the title
A better ensemble could hardly have been desired. As Patience, Miss of a new
opera to be produced at the Circo Nazionale, Naples.
Leonora Braham looked pretty enough to account for her hold upon the
rival poets' hearts, while she acted throughout with the simplicity becoming
A performance of Sir Julius Benedict's cantata, " St. Cecilia," was given
her character, and sang like the clever artist the public have for some time at Hamburg on Good Friday, and met with unqualified success.
known her to be. Miss Alice Barnett, provided with a part written up os-
Mdlle. Anna Driese has made a successful d4but as Aennchen, in "Der
tentatiously to her wealth of physical development, kept the audience in a
roar. Her merit as a comedian could have had no better assertion, while her Freischiitz," at the Royal Opera House, Berlin.
delivery of the song already referred to showed vocal powers of no mean or-
Vincenzo Merlato, master of the chorus of the Teatro Comunale at
der. Misses Bond, Gwynne, and Fortescue were graceful and pleasing re- Trieste, Italy, died recently aged 51 years.
presentatives of the leading rapturous ones ; while the quaint humor of Mr.
G. Grossmith as Bunthorne, the dry fun of Mr. Barrington as Grosvenor, the Edmund Kretschmer's opera, " Du Fluchtling," has been produced at
energy of Mr. Temple as the Colonel, the true comedy of Mr. Thornton as Ulm.
the Major, especially in the aesthetic scene, and the good singing of Mr.
Ueberlee's oratorio, " Golgotha," was given, under his own direction,
Lely as the Duke, all more or less contributed to the success indubitably on Good Friday, at the Concerthaus, Berlin.
gained. Mr. Sullivan conducted, and, at the close, was called forward, with
The announcement of the Carl Rosa company, in the prospective ar-
Mr. Gilbert, to receive an assurance that "Patience ; or,{Bunthorne's Bride,"
rangements for the autumn and winter of the Glasgow (Scotland) Gaiety,
had set sail with a favoring gale.—London Musical World.
and other theatres, will, it is supposed, put a stop to the rumor that Mr.
Carl Rosa contemplates an American season next winter.
"PATIENCE. " EXTRACTS FBOM LIBRETTO.
All Paris is talking about the success of a new tenor named Prevost, who
The Colonel sings a song in reference to his uniform, one verse of which made his debut on the operatic stage in "II Trovatore " at the opening of
run:
the Opera Populaire at the Theatre du Chateau d'Eau. Prevost was, like
I said, when I first put it on,
Sellier, a workingman; formerly and previous to his debut in opera he had
" It is plain to the veriest dunce
only sung in the music halls.
That every beauty
Professor G. A. Macfarren is commissioned by the Leeds Festival direc-
Will feel it her duty
tors to compose an oratorio for the meeting of 1883.
To yield to its glamor at once."
A cable despatch announces the death on May 17th, at Vienna, of the
noted German poet, Franz Dingelsted, aged nearly sixty-seven years. In
But the peripatetics
1840 he married Jenny Lutzer, a well known prima donna; was afterward
Of long-haired aesthetics
Intendant of the court theatres of Munich and Weimar, was ennobled by the
Are very much more to their taste—
Emperor of Austria and made director of the Imperial Opera House at
Which I never counted upon
Vienna.
When I first put this uniform on!
Sir Conrad Schlenitz, director of the Leipsic Conservatory of Music, is
In a recitative Bunthorne (alone) owns that he is "an sesthetic sham,"
the following song including a capital satire on "mediaeval affectation," the dead.
receipt for which is:—
Mr. G. W. Martin, recently died at Bolingbroke House Pay Hospital,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them Wandsworth, England, in his 54th year. He was one of the choir boys at
Westminster Abbey at the Coronation of the Queen. Mr. Martin conducted
everywhere,
National Schools Choral Festival at the Crystal Palace, in 1859, and in
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your com- the
1863 he organised a choir of 1,000 voices for the " Macbeth " music at the
plicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind. 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. He was the author of eight prize
glees and edited several musical journals. He had at one time gained a con-
And every one will say
siderable fortune, but he died in distressed circumstances.
As you walk your mystic way,
" If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Maurice Bourges, an excellent musician and musical savant, died at
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!" Paris, at the age of sixty-eight. He was the composer of an opera, " Sul-
tana, " produced in 1846 at the Opera-Comique, as well as of numerons
The idyllic poet now enters, followed by admiring maidens, each playing instrumental and vocal pieces of undoubted merit.
on an archaic instrument, and begging him to recite some of his poetry,
The French musical papers speak admiringly of the performances of
which he does by declaiming
Mr. Aptommas, the harpist, in Paris. The Progres Artistique says he
Gentle Jane waa as good as gold,
possesses prodigious talent, and that his success has been very great.