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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
the hour. In England, France and Ger-
many they take Bret Harte as they took
Hawthorne ; they accept' Howells as they
accepted Cooper. By an instinctive process
of selection, they disregard the trivial.
Language is no barrier to the spread of
American literature. The best of it has
gone everywhere. There are Walt Whit-
man societies in Russia, and a new Edgar
Allan Poe club has just been founded in
Italy. Poe and Whitman, Mr. Thompson
declares in the Criterion, are the two
greatest forces in modern literature—and
we have denied them.
*
T H E subjects chosen by the Italian com-
*
posers to-day are curious inspirations
to opera. After finishing "Roland of
Berlin," Ruggiero Leoncavallo is to make
an opera from Paul Bourget's " A Tragic
Idyl," which failed on the stage in Paris,
because it was analytical and psychological
rather than dramatic. Umberto Giordano
is to found his next opera on Hauptmann's
"Lonely People." Pietro Mascagni will
take a subject more closely related to the
genius of his own people. He will write
music to a libretto founded on Goldoni's
comedy "The Masks."
*
P R N S T VON DOHNANYI, the young
*-^ Hungarian pianist, has taken London
by storm. The critics are unanimous in
classing him as among the truly "great."
Information is lacking regarding the length
of his hair—an important consideration
should he contemplate visiting these shores.
*
\ 1 H L H E L M TAPPERT, who a num-
^"
ber of years ago wrote a fragment-
ary life of Wagner, has lately written an
article on Wagner's compositions for the
piano. He refers to three sonatas, in B,
A flat, and A, the one in A having never
been published; also a fantasia in F-sharp
minor, still in' MS. Besides these, three
"Album Leaves" are well known, and
Tappert refers to a fourth, which has
never been printed. It is a waltz of thirty-
two bars, the first draft of which, in pen-
cil, is preserved in the Siegfried Archive
in Bayreuth. It was written in the early
fifties for the sister of Frau Wesendonck,
who did so much to help Wagner, while he
was a penniless exile in Switzerland.
*
. HUGH A. CLARKE, Professor of
Theory and Composition at the Broad
Street Conservatory of Music, Philadel-
phia, delivered a lecture in the Concert Hall
of the Institution on Jan. 18th. The sub-
ject, "Curiosities of Musical History, "was
dealt with in a scholarly manner, the chief
object being to illustrate the progress of
music in spite of constant liability to error,
the varying estimation in which music and
musicians have been held in various eyes,
the beliefs that have been entertained as to
the power of music, and the vagaries of
musicians and writers.
T H E Wagner cycles at the opera will
*
probably not be repeated again. The
first was profitable to the management and
the second is likely to be, but there was no
such intense interest in the series as London
showed last year when three series of per-
formances were given.
*
T H E song recital given by M. Victor
*
Maurel at Mendelssohn Hall last
Monday afternoon, was a most delightful
treat and enjoyed by a cultured audience
that filled the house to the doors. The
program consisted of Italian, German and
French songs ranging from the 17th cen-
tury to the present day and selected in a
manner calculated to show that correct
interpretation has become one of the
essential qualities or." the singer. Each
song was prefaced by a brief analysis and
thus music lovers were enabled not only
VICTOR MAUREL.
to enjoy the singing, but to get at the
secret springs of this remarkable singer's
art. His phrasing is simply wonderful,
and his delivery exquisitely poetical.
M. Maurel will give two other recitals
on the afternoons of Feb. 10th and n t h ,
the programs of which will include songs
by classic as well as contemporaneous
writers in which the perfect adaptation of
note and word is the chief aim of the
musician, and the exactness of expression
remains that of the interpreter. On the
concert stage as well as in the theatre M.
Maurel seeks, above all, variety and just-
ness of expression, that is to say, with his
voice and admirable diction alone he sug-
gests what can only be obtained at the
theatre with the aid, not only of the voice,
but of gestures, costumes, attitude and
mise en scene. In fact he gives a true in-
terpretation of the songs he sings. M.
Maurel is truly a great artist and Messrs.
Gottschalk & Alpuente, his managers, are
to be complimented on their success in
securing his consent to a public appearance
in recital.
*
DADEREWSKI expects to spend four
*
months in America on a concert tour
next season. He will play in England in
March, and after a few weeks there will go
to Brussels, Frankfort on the Main, and
then to Paris, where he will rest for some
time before he undertakes his journey to
New York. In Paris, however, he will do
more than rest. There are more than
three hundred extremely difficult pieces of
concert music in which he is determined
to perfect himself before coming to Amer-
ica, and much of his time will be spent in
practising these.
Indeed, hardly a
day has passed
for some months
that Paderewski
h a s n o t spent
some hours pre-
p a r i n g himself
for his coming
tour, a fact which
will d o u b t l e s s
seem strange to
those who have
imagined that he
w a s a physical
wreck.
WICTORHER-
V
BERT has
b e e n re-elected
conductor of the
P i 11 s b u rg Or-
chestra for the
season of 1899-
1900. At a meet-
ing of the direc-
t o r s h e l d last
week Mr. Herbert
was warmly com-
plimented on the
success of t h e
season now clos-
ing. The orches-
tra season of 1899
-1900 will extend
over twenty weeks, comprising thirty-six
concerts.
The orchestra will consist of
seventy-two members, as at present. After
his return to New York, Mr. Herbert will
at once take the Twenty-second Regiment
Band, of which he has been conductor since
the death of P. S. Gilmore, on a two
months' tour through the South.
*
A T a meeting of the Folklore section of
**• the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, held in New
York last week, the session was enlivened
by the production of a number of Indian
songs through the mediumship of the
graphophone. Under the direction of Miss
Alice C. Fletcher, the machine sang war,
peace, love, funeral and death songs.
When she had finished with the wax
records of the genuine article Dr. Carl
Umholtz, an expert in Mexican Indian lore
sang several Indian songs which, delivered
in the voice of a white man, made more in-
telligible the Indian music which was