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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
T~*HROUGH all time men of genius have
*• scoffed at and have ridiculed the at-
tempts of purse-proud old "richesse" to
create superior orders of manhood. Nor is
this a matter for wonder. They were and
are ridiculous. Yet these attempts are re-
peated every hour. Considering them one
would suppose that wealth, titles, digni-
ties, are talismans which insure virtue and
honor and personal worth and beauty in
those to whom they descend. Talismans
are ridiculous, and so are titles.
Nobility is of blood and not of garters,
royal .sponsors and christening robes. Ped-
igrees, portraits and family history when
truthful, tell us a great deal about the no-
bility of a race. Titles, quarterings and
patents are worthless, and the production
of a great genius is in general as bad a sign
as the production of a great profligate.
Races that produce geniuses should be
avoided. The best is the second best—the
normal.
Genius, as some one (Victor Hugo, I
think) has finely said, is a promontory
stretching out into the ocean of the infi-
nite. Look for the descendants of Shakes-
peare, Bacon, Macaulay, Wellington, Nel-
son, Gibbon, Swift, Voltaire, Carlyle, Bon-
aparte, Goldsmith, Spencer, Milton, Crom-
well, Disraeli—to take a few names at
random—and you will find that they are
not, for the genius is always a transgressor
of the normal—a "sport." He is never
symmetrical. Such a one nature likes not,
and she makes provision for the extinction
of his race.
*
IN cataloguing the causes of the pheno-
* menal success achieved by the Gran
'Company during their recent season of
grand opera in this city whereby they
were able to declare a dividend of thirty-
five per cent., Mr. Grau paid a neat tribute
to the press as an important factor in this
connection, adding:
In a community where governmental aid
or municipal subsidy for operatic enter-
prises cannot be hoped for, the support of
the press, which does so much to arouse
popular enthusiasm, furnished a not unwel-
come substitute for governmental support.
This is a recognition of the part that the
newspapers, play under a system which
confines government rigidly to its legiti-
mate functions. The press in this country
is not only the encourager of the arts but
their censor also. Without the official
censor's authority, the newspapers do his
work even better than it is anywhere
officially done. A comparison of New
York play-bills and picture catalogues with
those of European capitals will bear ample
witness to this fact.
There can be no more powerful leverage
for all that is good and uplifting than a
free and honest press. Its influence is
paramount to a large degree and it moulds
opinions in the fields of literature, com-
merce, politics and in government. The
tribute paid the press by Mr. Grau is
recognition well merited.
*
'"THERE is a report that Adelina Patti is
* to return next season to this country
and make a concert tour which shall posi-
tively be her last, One American impres-
ario, who went abroad last summer, wanted
to engage her for a tour here during the
past winter, but the negotiations came to
nothing. It is regarded as extremely un-
certain whether Mme. Patti would be able
to repeat the great successes she at one
time made here in concert. The kind of
concert tour which she used to give is out
of the question nowadays for any singer.
Mme. Melba tried it and so did Mme.
Sembrich, and the result seemed to estab-
lish the fact that such forms of musical en-
tertainment are no longer to be made suc-
cessful here. But Mme. Patti, whatever
the state of her voice may be, is one of the
best known persons in the world. Those
who have never seen her would probably
take advantage of the opportunity if she
came, and her recent marriage would stim-
ulate this part of the public's interest to
hear her. Others would go to discover if
she still sang as she did in the past. But
Mme. Patti's last tour here was less profit-
able than any that had preceded it.
*
ARTHUR NIKISCH, who speaks so
**• very highly of the Mason & Hamlin
piano in a recent letter, is considered
to-day the most esteemed concert conduct-
or in Europe, his income being over $15,000
a year—an enormous sum in Germany,
where, until a decade or two ago, $5,000 a
year would have been considered a princely
income for a man in his place. As con-
ductor of the Leipsic Gewandhaus concerts
Nikisch gets four times as much as his
predecessor Rt-inecke, and he deserves it;
Rcinecke was a time-beater, Nikisch is an
inspired interpreter. In a recent num-
ber of the Berliner Tageblatt, Franz
Fridberg relates how Nikisch first won
success. The eminent violinist, Wieui-
awski engaged him as accompanist on a
tour. On this tour he displayed such re-
markable refinement and entered so thor-
oughly into the intentions of the violinist
that the accompanist won almost as much
praise as the soloist. When Wieniawski
was asked afterwards about Nikisch, he ex-
claimed : "The rascal took away all my
laurels! "
*
the first time in years it looks now
as if those few New Yorkers who pa-
tronized summer concerts would have to go
without music during the approaching
months. They may take courage, how-
ever, from the fact that some trusting and
hopeful impresario always appears on the
scene with the thought that he can succeed
where all others have failed, and undertake
to give high-class orchestral concerts. All
recent attempts at this style of entertain-
ment have proved unprofitable, and the
last of these, made at the Madison Square
Garden, attracted such small audiences that
it is doubtful if the musicians who con-
ducted the season on a co-operative basis
ever before received so little for their ser-
vices. As they accepted outside engage-
ments it was difficult to keep the make-up
of the orchestra the same. That was ar-
tistically damaging to the concerts, but on
the whole they were quite good enough for
the small number that heard them. There
has been some talk of resuming the con-
certs at Brighton Beach, which were at one
time extremely prosperous under Anton
Seidl's direction, but that idea has not yet
reached any definite stage. It is proposed
to make Emil Paur the conductor in case
this is done. No other suggestion for
summer music of a high class has yet been
made. After the long musical season just
ended it seems less probable than ever that
a series of orchestral concerts would pros-
per.
*
C M I L SAUER who has duplicated his
*-^ Eastern successes on the Pacific
Coast, will give his farewell recital in this
city on Monday afternoon, May 22nd at
Carnegie Hall.
*
P H O U L D universities teach music? We
^
think, as does W. J. Henderson, that
they should. The university is laboring
all the time to produce lovers of art, of lit-
erature, of philosophic thought. It never
conceives it to be quite as much a part of
its business to teach the young to compre-
hend and enjoy the works of Mozart and
Beethoven as to revel in the luxurious
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