Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
tion to good meals. The nose of a singer
is kept in a healthy condition by being
constantly needed for breathing purposes,
the injurious mouth breathing so much in-
dulged in by others being impossible in
this case. That the ear, too, is cultivated,
need not be added. In short, there is
hardly any kind of gymnastics that exer-
TELEPHONE NUMBER, 1745.-EIQHTEENTH STREET.
cises and benefits so many organs as sing-
The musical supplement to The Review is
ing does.
published on the first Saturday of each month.
OPERA THIS SEASON.
The plans for an operatic season at the
Metropolitan Opera House have been per-
fected by Walter Damrosch and Charles H.
Ellis. The season will cover a period of
five weeks and include twenty perform-
ances in Italian, German and French.
The company will include the following
artists: Sopranos and contraltos—Mmes.
Melba, Nordica, Gadski, Barna, Seygard,
Toronta, Staudigl, Mattfeld and Van Cau-
teren. Tenors—Messrs. Ibos, Rothmuhl,
Salignac, Van Hoose, Vanni and Kraus.
Baritones and bassos—Messrs. Bispham,
Campanari, Boudouresque, Staudigl, Steh-
mann, Rains, Viviani and Fischer.
This will be the first appearance in
America of Mme. Barna and Mile. Toronta,
both of American birth. M. Ibos is the
leading tenor of France and he will make
his American debut early in January as
will also M. Boudouresque, the French
basso.
Performances will begin on January 17
and be given every Monday, Wednesday
and Saturday afternoons. The twenty per-
formances will be about equally divided
between the French and Italian operas and
the German.
©
IN SINGING IS HEALTH.
Singers exercise their lungs more than
other people, and therefore have the strong-
est and soundest lungs, says Dr. Barth in a
recent contribution on "Laryngology."
The average man takes into his lungs 3,200
cubic centimeters of air at a breath, while
professional singers take in 4,000 to 5,000.
The tenor Gunz was able to.fill his lungs at
one gasp with air enough to suffice for the
singing of the whole of Schumann's song,
" T h e Rose, The Lily," and one of the old
Italian sopranists was able to trill up and
down the chromatic scale two octaves in
one breath.
A singer not only supplies his lungs with
more oxygen than other persons do, but he
snbjects the muscles of his breathing ap-
paratus to a course of most beneficial gym-
nastics. Almost all the muscles of the
neck and chest are involved in these gym-
nastics. The habit of deep breathing cul-
tivated by singers enlarges the chest capa-
city and gives to singers that erect and
imposing attitude which is so desirable
and so much admired. The ribs, too, are
rendered more elastic, and singers do not,
in old age, suffer from the breathing diffi-
culties to which others are so much sub-
ject. By exercising so many muscles, sing-
ing furthermore improves the appetite,
most vocalists being noted for their inclina-
O
HUSICAL GENIUS NO SPECIAL GIFT.
There is no special thing that we can
call genius; it is simply that a man is en-
dowed with a quicker and heavier brain
than the common; that his nervous system
is quick to feel. It is generally supposed
that a scientific man is the antithesis of an
artist or musician, but there is no real
reason for thinking so. The scientist feels
the same glow in hunting down a shadowy
fact as the musician feels in creating music.
There is the same abnormal quickness of
brain, and the same emotion. Only the
aptitudes of the musician and scientists
are different, and so their mental energy
works in different fields. The quickness
and powerful concentration of thought of a
Napoleon would have made a musical
genius of him if he had only possessed the
requisite sensitiveness of brain to sound,
the capability of mentally grasping sound
(which is what we call an ear for music).
The fact that the older musicians such as
Beethoven and Mozart seemed to have been
wrapped up entirely in their music is no
proof that musical genius is a special gift;
because in those days a musician had not
the modern advantages of education, and
genius without education is nearly help-
less. The history of music shows, on the
contrary, that a musical genius is a genius
in other directions. Berlioz had great
literary gifts, so had Schumann, so had
Wagner, so, too, had Mendelssohn, judging
by his letters.
be readily grasped by imitating the popu-
larity of others who have won success by
giving free scope to their own marked in-
dividualities. Hence is it that so much of
our home-made comic opera has a strong
second-hand aspect. Often he makes a
bolt in the direction of Arthur Sullivan;
but as the charm of that delightful melodist
lies in the graceful flow and spontaneous
naturalness of his tunes rather than in
choppy, ear-tickling rhythms, imitation is
trying and rarely successful; hence the
native composer has recourse to the less
exacting copying of the dance and march
music of Viennese composers, and the con-
sequences are that the score of one native
opera bears a wearisome and exasperating
resemblance to that of another, and that
home musical invention puts on the ap-
pearance of exhaustion."
0
WHAT TWO GREAT SINGERS SAY.
Mme. Marcella Sembrich, the great col-
orature singer, in a recent talk, advised
American girls to stick closely to old-
fashioned methods. This means that the
course of developments laid down by the
Italian school of singing is to be strictly
followed by no excursions into more violent
and thunderous spheres of harmony. She
points to Patti—the greatest singer alive
to-day—whose success has been won strict-
ly along what are called old-fashioned
lines.
Frau Julie Kopacsy, Hungary's greatest
opera-comedy artist, says: " The American
girl who wants to be a prima donna should
assure herself—first, that she has a voice;
second, that she has the talent necessary
for using it effectively; and third, that she
has industry. And the greatest of these is
industry, for the genius of a singer is pre-
eminently the capacity for taking infinite
pains."
Talking of failures and successes in the
vocal field, Frau Kopacsy says: " Of course
©
nine out of ten girls will fail; the nine
THE CURSE OF POPULARITY SEEKING.
failures can be accomplished quite as grace-
Some sensible remarks anent comic fully at home, and the successful girl will
opera were recently made by B. E. Woolf, succeed anywhere. It is absurd to fancy
the well-known critic of Boston. In his that European study is necessary."
opinion a pall seems to have settled on this
©
innately delightful species of entertain-
CALVE'S SUCCESS IN "SAPHO."
ment. The artistic element that was so
Jules Massenet's opera "Sapho," which
prominent in the operas of Offenbach,
is founded on Alphonse Daudet's novel of
Lecocq, Audran, and Sullivan is wholly
that name, was produced at the Ope"ra
lacking, especially in the scores of our na-
Comique, Paris, Nov. 27. Mme. Calve"
tive producers of comic opera; and as for
appeared as Sapho and sang the part mag-
the librettos, they are so silly in subject, so nificently. It was due to her that the
weak in treatment, and so flabby in humor production was a great success. The plot
that they are not worth considering in a of the novel was greatly altered to meet
spirit of serious criticism.
the exigencies of an opera. The music
"The native comic opera composer is was graceful.
not much better off," says Mr. Woolf. "He
©
has not yet gained the courage of his con-
THE MUSICAL MONARCH.
victions, if he have any, and is content to
" You are young, Kaiser William." the old man
go on his way as a plagiarist—if not liter-
said,
ally, yet in essence; and, unfortunately,
" And your knowledge of music is nil,
what he copies are invariably the vulgar- And yet you conducted an ode that you made—
ities and not the refinements of his origi-
What gave you this wonderful skill ?"
nals. Should he be possessed of musical -* In my childhood," the Kaiser replied, with a
smile,
individuality he resolutely stifles it and
41
My own little trumpet I'd blow,
seeks popularity, not the popularity that is And as I continue the practice, I style
difficult of achievement, but that which can
Myself a musician, you know."