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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TELEPHONE NUMBER. 1745—EIGHTEENTH STREET.
The musical supplement to The Review is
published on the first Saturday of each month.
j\]EW YORK is to have its permanent
* ^ cheap opera early this month. The
pecuniary success of the Castle Square
Opera Company last season has satisfied
the management that the scheme has pos-
sibilities of permanent success, and the en-
ergy formerly expended on the other com-
panies will be concentrated on the local
organization. Concurrently comes the an-
nouncement that heavier works will be
sung. Last year, one of the most profita-
ble performances was "Faust." Follow-
ing that intimation of the public desire,
"Lohengrin," "Aida," "Lucia," "Manon
Lescaut," (Puccini's), are announced for
this season, and the management says that
subscriptions have already begun to come
in from students who are anxious to make
themselves familiar with the standard
works and are unable to pay the prices
asked at the Metropolitan, and prefer not
to sit in the galleries.
That might be
taken to indicate that the educational
work of cheap opera was to begin here
next winter. There are, of course, vari-
ous opinions as to the efficacy of perform-
ing grand operas at prices which make it
a practical certainty that their greatest
merits will not be revealed. Some per-
sons think the end in such a case does not
justify the means. But to make a large
number of people acquainted with the best
musical works is thought by many to pro-
duce good results, even though their in-
terpretation is not faultless.
The only
really important opinion in the matter is
that of the public. If the people go to see
the operas, that settles the question. And
the managers of the cheap opera which
New York heard last winter had no ground
for complaint of poor attendance. The
public showed what opinion it held of the
desirability of cheap opera. If its mood
continues the same, the educational influ-
ences may be felt here. Quite apart from
any educational effects it may possess,
cheap opera would certainly seem to fill
one purpose well if it entertains, whether
it cultivates or not that share of the pub-
lic which calls for it.
DROF. RICHET says that it takes a
man about one-eleventh of a second
to think out each note of a musical scale.
He explains the practice that people will
often follow of bending their heads in
order to catch minute sounds, by the
fact that the smallest intervals of sound
can be much better distinguished with one
ear than with both.
Thus the separateness of the clicks of
a revolving toothed wheel were noted by
one observer when they did not exceed
sixty to the second, but using both ears
he could not distinguish them when they
occurred oftener than fifteen times a sec-
ond.
Among the various ways in which Prof.
Richet tried to arrive at conclusions as to
the amount of time necessary for realizing
any physical sensation or mental impres-
sion was the touching of the skin repeat-
edly with light blows from a small ham-
mer. The fact that the blows are separate
and not continuous pressure can be dis-
tinguished when they follow one another
as frequently as 1,000 a second.
We hear more rapidly than we can
count. If a clock clicking movement runs
more quickly than ten to the second we
can count four clicks, while with twenty
to the second we can count only two of
them.
*
T H E Kaiser has devised a new scheme
*• for the encouragement of vocal music
in the German Empire. It will be put
into operation in 1899, and it consists of a
singing competition to be held in a differ-
ent town every year. Cassel has been
selected for the first competition, the
chief condition of which is that each choir
taking part will receive an unpublished
musical composition about an hour before
the contest takes place. There will be no
accompaniment. The Kaiser's prize is a
valuable jewel, and the President of the
winning choir will be allowed to wear it
for a year, the names of each singer being
engraved upon it. If one choir wins the
prize three years in succession it will be-
come its absolute property, and the Kaiser
will have another jewel made.
our front page this month there ap-
pears an excellent portrait of Dudley
Buck, son of the eminent organist and
composer of the same name—one of the
most esteemed and talented men among
our musicians of native birth.
Dudley Buck, Jr., is a tenor of great
promise, and he has just returned, after
studying with the most distinguished mas-
ters in Europe. He will appear in concert
and oratorio this fall, making his debut at
the Worcester Festival. He is under the
management of Henry Wolfsohn, who has
already booked a surprisingly large num-
ber of engagements.
Dudley Buck, Jr., is certain of a warm
welcome, both for his individual talents
and the esteem in which his father is held.
*
f ^ I U S E P P E VERDI'S home for old
^~* and poor musicians, called in Italian,
" Casa di Riposo per Musicisti," is almost
completed, and now lacks only the interior
decorations to prepare it to receive the in-
mates. The architect was a brother of
Boito, the friend and librettist of Verdi.
Accommodation is provided for one hun-
dred musicians—sixty men and forty
women. The total area is about five
thousand square yards, and it contains a
large garden for the men and a smaller
one for the women. The central court is
about six hundred square yards. On the
right of the entrance hall are the quarters
of the director, on the left the porter's room
and administrative offices. One Bide of
the building is set aside for the rrien, the
other for women. Near the two vestibules
are the rooms for receiving stranger's. A
marble staircase leads to the separate
dining rooms and to a central roottl for
meetings and concerts. This room is
about sixty-five yards long by twenty-two
and one half wide. There is also another
common room and two open terraces,
where the residents may enjoy the fresh
air in summer and look on the summits of
the distant mountains. A private chapel
and an infirmary are provided. The build"
ihg stands outside the Porta Magenta in
Milan, and, while unpretentious, is in
good taste. Verdi has ordered that his
name shall appear nowhere on the build-
ing.
The house has already cost $200,000,
and it is said that Verdi will endow it with
$300,000 more.
+
p I C H A R D BURMEISTER, who is at
* ^ present on Mackinac Island, Michi-
gan, for a few weeks of rest, spent a part
of this summer with different tribes of In-
dians.
On the 4th of July he was at a
camp of about 1,000 Mandan Indians,
who, on this occasion, performed their
war-dances, sham battles and games.
Mr. Burmeister will bring home several
new compositions for piano, violin and
songs, and be back in New York about
September 15th, to resume his winter
work. He will be heard in New York in
recitals and symphony concerts with or-
chestra.
J\fl ASCAGNI has decided that his new
' * Japanese opera, " Iris," shall close
tragically. The heroine kills herself not
by committing hari-kari, but by jumping
out of a window. In the first act, Iris, a
beautiful Japanese girl who lives with her
blind father, is abducted by Osaka. He
comes to her house with a troup of dancers
and takes her away with him.
In the
second act her father discovers her where-
abouts, and in the last scene, when she
realizes that she is not to have the gratifi-
cation of her wishes, Iris throws herself
from the window, which ought not to do
her much harm if the Japanese houses are
as low as they look in the pictures.
*
T WISH to endeavor to make it clear to
*• the non-musical reader that all music
is a matter of expression in sounds, whe-
ther by voice or instrument, and that
nothing deserving the name of music can
possibly be produced by ignorant people
grinding out sounds by mechanical means,
says a writer in an English paper. Every
time this subject is discussed in the public
press, there are some dunces ready to
come forward and assert, with a show of
virtuous indignation, that we "are trying
to deprive the poor of their music."
The fact is that no influence could be
more vulgarizing and more vitiating to
the public taste than the grinding of com-
mon-place and threadbare tunes on a bar-
rel organ.
It can have no educational
effect but in the wrong direction; our pub-
lic is one of the most unmusical in the