Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
the summit, filled the horizon. In the
direction of the dramatic, the poetic, the
human mind, in my judgment, in Shakes-
peare's plays reached its limit. The field
was harvested, all the secrets of the heart
were told. The buds of all hopes blossom-
ed, all seas were crossed and all the shores
were touched.
"With these two exceptions, the Grecian
marbles and the Shakespeare plays, the
nineteenth century has produced more for
the benefit of man than all the centuries of
the past. In this century, in one direction,
I think the mind has reached the limit. I
do not believe the music of Wagner will
ever be excelled. He changed all passions,
longings, memories and aspirations into
tones, and with subtile harmonies wove
. tapestries of sound, whereon were pictured
the past and future, the history and proph-
ecy of the human heart."
T H E rewards of the popular woman com-
*
poser are very much greater than per-
sons usually suppose. There are conse-
quently a great many struggling for the
success which may come to them eventual-
ly. Mrs. Beach, of Boston, is probably
entitled to rank first among the women
composers of this country. None has at-
tempted such ambitious works as she and
her results have been remarkable in view
of the field she has entered. Iiij 1892 the
Handel & Haydn Society, Boston, gave
her first work, a mass in E flat fur quar-
tet, orchestra and chorus. Since that time
she has composed a symphony and various
orchestral works, which have been played
from time to time. Her songs cover a
wide variety of subjects, and they range
from children's melodies to the most im-
passioned love songs. She composed a
"Jubilate" for the opening of the World's
Fair, and is constantly at work on such
ambitious efforts as those at which her
reputation was made. She has never com-
posed a grand opera, as Augusta Holmes
did, and it would probably be found im-
possible to do anything with it, even if she
did.
Men cannot make use of grand
operas in this country.
Another woman who might be supposed
to represent the opposite extreme is Emma
Steiner.
She does not attempt such
serious forms as the symphony, but she
has composed three comic operas that have
been played continuously in spite of the
fact that their performance has generally
been confined to such small towns that
New York has heard little or nothing of
them. .They were played in the South.
•
•JVAME. LIZA LEHMANN, who wrote
••*»»• the song cycle, " I n a Persian Gar-
den," has never received any profits on
the great popularity of the work in this
country, as it was not copyrighted. She
had hard work to get a publisher for it, as
nobody could foresee ihe great vogue which
the composition would ultimately attain.
It is as much in demand here as it ever
was and is sung from one end of the coun-
try to the other. Her father is Rudolf
Lehmann, the painter, and she is the wife
of Herbert Bedford, also an artist. She
was a singer before her marriage five years
ago.
Maude Valerie White, whose songs
have been sung here by David Bispham
and Emma Eames, is said to make more
money from her compositions than any
other woman composer in England. Mme.
Guy d'Hardelot, who came here three years
ago as Mile. Calve's companion, but did
not return for a second season, has lately
begun to be popular in England as a writer
of songs.
*
T H E songs composed by actresses should
*
be regarded with some suspicion by
the public. These ladies are always suffi-
ciently talented to do whatever they want.
If they turn their fancy to the composition
of negro songs they should probably be
able to write them very well, but there is a
fascinating publicity about the honor of
musical composition which tempts them
sometimes to allow their names to be added
to works which may have been composed
by others. This temptation may be made
stronger by the readiness with which some
composers are willing to abandon the
laurels of the composer in view of the in-
creased sales that would come from the
name of a popular actress attached to the
song and a sum paid in advance in case
neither the music nor the actress's reputa-
tion pleases the public.
*
HTHE leading editorial in the always in-
*
teresting ^Eolian Quarterly is entitled
"Evolution in Music Making." It is a
comprehensive and erudite review of the
impression whicn the ^ o l i a n and Pianola
have already made, and are making on the
musical life of this country.
Limited
space will permit us to make only a brief
excerpt from this unusually interesting ar-
ticle: "What shall become of the piano-
and organ-player, and how can we look to
the professional to endorse a music-making
instrument which seems to strike at his
livelihood? We wish the piano-player well,
and have no designs upon his trade. It is
not unnatural for him to consider our in-
vention inimical, subversive in fact, to
his very existence. Let him have no fear.
We do not think it is as bad as that. Our
cause being common, the knowing pianist
should be our friend.
Will it not be
pleasanter to work in future with better
aids, to exorcise the demon technic, and
have merely the mental and emotional ele-
ments to deal with? Why should he dis-
dain the assistance of an instrument which
gives him, without effort on his part, a
sort of idealized technic? In lightness,
accuracy, crystalline clearness of touch,
combined with the acme of speed, its re-
sources far surpass the utmost skill of the
human player. Now, why not use the re-
sources to musical and teaching ends? You
cannot produce genuine artistic effects
through the agency of the Pianola unless
you are musical; but, as we have to iterate
so often, playing with the Pianola makes
you musical. Is not true music self-ex-
planatory, in a sense, giving up its secret
after repeated hearings, even to the un-
trained mind?
"We know of persons entirely innocent
of music, who had grasped by themselves
the sense of important masterworks merely
through hearing repetitions of the notes.
Nothing was ever lost through the progress
of inventions—i. e., that was not regained
by counter compensation.
The factory-
hand of to-day, notwithstanding countless
labor-saving devices, is better off than he
ever was. His labor belongs to a higher
category, that is all. His employer can
afford to make shorter working-hours, and
his economic status is also improved. In-
stead of one, he now controls twenty or
one hundred pairs of hands. Why, then,
should the professional musician oppose
the entrance of a labor-saving device into
the art of pianoforte-playing? Do not his
fingers ache with the labor he must force
them to do? Does he not feel that his
hours of piano practice tend to dwarf the
other side of his musical development? If
musical instruments with an automatically
supplied technic continue to grow in favor
and influence and eventually supplant the
human performer, will it not be a step
ahead ?
" It is clear that in the evolution of piano-
forte-playing we have reached the mechan
ical age—piano playing has become labor.
As might have been foreseen, when it comes
to technical execution fingers must give
way to labor-saving substitutes.
" Not so very long ago an elderly man
used to tell his friends that he remembered
being present at a lecture on gas when the
lecturer was openly laughed at for prophe-
sying that the time would come when the
streets of London would be lighted by gas.
" Similarly we suppose the whole artistic
world will ' rise ' at the suggestion we are
about to make.
" Nevertheless, standing on our Mount
of Vision, this inevitable thing we see:
" The time is not far off when the piano-
forte virtuoso, as we know him, will be as
extinct as the megatherium.
"And why not?
"Why is it unreasonable to interpose be-
tween the strings of a piano and the human
brain a new aid? Consider the whacking
and thumping of ivory keys that goes on
all over the land through years of appren-
ticeship, the pitiful ineptitude of students
to whom advantages have been denied.
What is the common result? Into how
many real musical works is insight afforded
by this process? How is the mind broad-
ened by the hours spent at the keyboard?
Is it not often narrowed?
"We can scarcely believe in the amelior-
ating effect of all this. We believe much
of it may be spared and time saved. What
money and time go into the work of not
learning to play!
"One might probe the subject deeper.
What does the desire to learn to play spring
from but (largely) vanity and the wish to
show off?
"Eighty per cent, of all practicing is as
good as valueless, any way, from not being
intelligent. Any candid pianoforte teacher
will tell you that. Why? Because it is
mechanical. So there are mechanical per-
formers too!