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THE MUSIC TJkADE REVIEW
Gnito, Fannie Briscoe and Marguerita
Lemon.
The music of the opera is light and ex-
ceedingly catchy, the costumes striking,
scenic effects beautiful with a libretto that
seems to please large audiences nightly.
" T h e Three Dragoons" is evidently in
for a long and prosperous run:
*
T H O S E remarkable Silberfeld children
*• who achieved such a phenomenal suc-
cess last June at the concerts of the
National Music Teachers' Association, at
the Waldorf-Astoria, continue to win the
very highest tributes of praise for their
musical intelligence and ability as pianists.
The eldest of these children, Bessie, is a
little over thirteen years of age, and from
her earliest childhood gave evidence of
possessing a most acute and sensitive mu-
sical temperament. She was born in Aus-
tria, but came to this country with her
parents when four years old. She com-
menced to take piano lessons when eight
years old, and after a short preliminary
period was placed under the instruction of
Prof. Wm. M. Semnacher, director of the
National Institute of Music, 179 E. 64th
street, under whose careful and thorough
training she has developed rare musical
attributes which are now beginning to
manifest themselves in a very marked
manner.
As the result of Prof. Semnacher's good
work, this clever little pianist has at pres-
ent a repertoire of 115 solo numbers, which
she plays from memory at a moment's
notice. All schools are represented in her
repertoire, the classic writers by Bach,
Scarlatti, Mozart, Handel and Haydn;
the later writers: Beethoven, Mendelssohn,
Weber, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Raff,
Rheinberger and the writers of the present
day, by Godard, Schytte, Chaminade,
Joseffy, Heymann, etc.
She plays all of Haydn's sonatas, fan-
tasies and capriccios, a most remarkable
undertaking for one of her years.
Bessie played at the first morning musi-
cale of the Harlem Philharmonic Society,
November 17 th, and also at Peekskill, at
the Euterpe Society, under Henry T.
Fleck's direction, November 18th, with
great success, also at two private musicales
at Hy. W. Sonnbaum, 69 Montague street,
Brooklyn, and at a number of affairs in this
city. On Saturday, Jan. 28th, she played
at a private musicale at the home of Dr.
Ashton B. Talbot, 45 West Thirty-second
street, and on Feb. 21st she will play at the
Apollo Club concert under the direction of
Wm. R. Chapman at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Bessie and her sister Mamie, eight and
one-half years old, who was born in New
York and who has also studied with Prof.
Semnacher, have appeared in many con-
certs together with the greatest of success.
They played with the Philharmonic Club
in Plainfield, N. J., at concerts in this city
and at the Convention of the National
Music Teachers' Association.
They will
appear in a benefit concert at the Mendels-
sohn Hall this city on the evening of
March 1st under the management of Wm.
M. Semnacher assisted by Miss Katherine
Hilke, soprano, and Max Droge, 'cellist.
Last Winter these little artists played
for an hour before Madame Carreno, who
was greatly impressed by the musical
talent and playing of the children, and ex-
claimed, " I have never heard any children
who played so musically and showed such
talents as these, and who had received
such thorough instruction both from a
technical and musical point of view."
She was most generous in her praise and
predicted for them a most brilliant future.
*
C R A U LILLI LEHMANN, the Wag-
*•
nerian prima donna, is one of the
founders of the German society against
"the ornamenting of women's hats with
the dead bodies of birds." In this connec-
tion she was recently tackled by an absurd
Parisian writer, who asks whether she
slept in a feather bed. In reply she de-
THE SILBERFELD CHILDREN.
clared she slept upon a spring mattress,
but that if goose feathers are plucked from
the living bird, she would protest against
them as energetically as against any
cruelty, whether to animals or mankind.
If Frau Lehmann would only extend her
denunciations to the "matinee hat," as a
thing of cruelty to all who go to opera,
theatre and concert, she would earn the
lasting gratitude of mere man.
*
JOSEPH WEISS, a pianist who had
^
quite a degree of success on the Euro-
pean continent, made his American debut
at Mendelssohn Hall, on Jan. 17th. His
program embraced numbers by Brahms,
Tschaikowsky, Poldini and several compo-
sitions by the pianist himself. Mr. Weiss
is unquestionably a very fine player and
scored, as he deserved, an emphatic suc-
cess. A novelty in connection with his
appearance was the fact that he used a
Stein way parlor "grand" which achieved
success for itself, inasmuch as it demon-
strated tonal possibilities equal to many
concert grands.
At the second recital
given on Tuesday last, Mr. Weiss gave
further evidence of the possession of abili-
ties of a very high order.
*
?\/I ASCAGNI is at present the director of
*• * the Rossini Conservatory, at Pesaro,
which has an interesting history. Rossini
left $600,000 to Pesaro, his birthplace, and
the conservatory was erected in his honor.
Rossini intended to leave his fortune to
Bologna, but upon some occasion the
Bolognese hissed one of his operas, so they
only received $20. Mascagni's wife, who
encourages him in every way, prevented
him from throwing the manuscript of
"Cavalleria" into the waste basket, and
so made her husband famous. Mascagni's
opinion of the French and English is not
very complimentary. Mascagni is dubbed
" Maccaroni" by the Frenchmen, so he
asserts they have no taste for music.
*
AINT-SAENS, the famous French com-
poser, is just now employing his ver-
satile pen in behalf of the African ele-
phant.
Most admirers of the " Danse
Macabre " know of its composer solely in
his relations to the great art of music.
They may not have heard of him
as.awriter, a philosopher, an archae-
ologist, an astronomer, delving in
his leisure hours in mines of lore far
removed from studies and achieve-
ments in harmony, but we may find
in the list of his published "writings
not only such titles as "Harmony
and Melody," but also "Problems
and Mysteries," "Notes on Theatre
Scenery in Ancient Rome " and
various others.
His p a p e r on
"Lunar Revolutions" was read the
other day in the science section of
the French Institute.
This man of many talents has
been moved by pity and indignation
to plead the cause of the African
elephant, which is being hunted to
death by "pretended
European
civilization." He has demanded,
through a letter to the Chairman of a meet-
ing held in Paris, that means be consid-
ered for the elephant's protection and urges
the need of appealing immediately to the
French authorities and the King of the
Belgians to protect the elephant in the
French Congo and the Congo Free State.
While Saint-Saen's desire in this matter
is eminently proper yet what would piano
and organ manufacturers do for keys were
they not to aid in the extinction of the ele-
phant?
*
E
M I L SAUER has received many
decorations. The latest is the Com-
mander's Cross of the Civil Order of Merit
presented him by Prince _ Ferdinand of
Bulgaria.
*
ENJAMIN MERRILL was heard at the
Astoria in a piano recital on Jan. 24.
The program included numbers by Beet-
hoven, Chopin, Brassin, Schumann-Liszt,
Rubinstein and Wagner-Liszt. His inter-
pretation pleased the fashionable assem-
blage present.
W E R D I recently wrote to a friend in
*
Milan that the four sacred pieces
which he finished last year would form his
final work in the way of composition, and
that he had "nothing further to say."