Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
genial Irishman loves his work, and greater
things in the musical line may yet be ex-
pected from his pen.
*
JAPANESE war-songs, it appears, are
^
"officially compiled" by a high and
responsible public functionary. This is a
distinct improvement upon our primitive
practice of trusting in the random and
fortuitous work of private inspiration. If
during the recent lukewarm affection be-
tween Spain and the United States we had
had a well organized Bureau of Patriotic
Poetry, conducted by a capable man sworn
to fire the national heart with words that
burn, we would not have been tortured
with the hundreds of songs, or properly
speaking, "pot boilers," which obtained
for a limited time with the public. The
private songsmiths disclosed a reprehen-
sible tendency to make their work serve
domestic, rather than patriotic, interests;
the mother and the sweetheart subtended
too large an angle in it. They assumed
that in moments of supreme peril the
young soldier's fancy lightly turns to
moonlight walks and old New England
dinners which mother used to cook—
that the voices of the loved ones were
heard through rolling drums that beat to
battle where he stood; and therein the
songsmiths erred. Elevated sentiments en-
noble the mind, but the truth about this
matter is that when two unneighborly arm-
ies get themselves all tangled together—
when the blithe bullet is prevalent in the
circumambience and the cannon shot des-
cribes its inconsiderate parabola—the
soldier chap is more or less pre-occupied
and unable to execute reflections appro-
priate to the high theme of home and
mother. He is so keenly conscious of the
fewness of his days and his fullness of
trouble that the fact of his being born of
woman cuts very little figure in the matter.
Thus it was that the war-songs being build-
ed upon error as a foundation, added noth-
ing to the stability of the cause that they
were intended to buttress. Patriotic ar-
dor could have been kindled and sustained
far more effectively by a competent Com-
piler-General of War-Songs, the son of a
woman-suffragist, inaccessible to convic-
tions of maternal merit.
*
T H E career of Charles A. Kaiser, the
* celebrated tenor, who will be heard
in prominent musical affairs this season,
has been one continued chain of successes.
His voice is of great purity and wonderful
range. He possesses moreover a pleasing
personality. Mr. Kaiser has been received
with the greatest enthusiasm in Europe,
particularly in Germany, where he sang
his way into the affection of the public.
Mr. Kaiser was recently complimented by
the New York Sun for the excellence of his
voice, as evidenced at St. Patrick's Cathe-
dral. In this instance it was a compliment
well bestowed.
*
DIANO-ORGAN parties have been pop-
*• xilar throughout New England and
New York mountain resorts this past sum-
mer. The piano-organ takes a higher
place in the scale of street music than the
regular hand-organ, and for outdoor danc-
ing it has charms peculiarly its own. In
humor. It enables us to forget the vexa-
tions and disappointments of life. It gives
us an appetite and excellent digestion for
heavier things.
Light opera cannot be lessened in popu-
larity
by any effort of those who find no
TT is said that London audiences are de-
fun
in
its fancy. Happily, such ill-disposed
*• lighted at the rumors that Jean de
persons
are few. The man who does not
Reszke is to remain next season in Europe
relish
the
sprightly tunes of Herbert, Eng-
and will not come to London after a long
lander,
Sousa,
De Koven, Edwards and
and exhausting tour here. Some of the
Kerker has some defect in his hearing.
one town in Massachusetts a man has built
between his house and barn a big floor for
dancing. He hires a piano-organ and the
dances given there are very select affairs.
A N Englishman, whom we venture to
**• say never met an American girl, has
been making a study of the fair sex on the
other side of the water, and declares with
no small degree of omniscience that one
can judge of a girl by the music she plays.
And, mark you, he is not in the matri-
monial bureau business either. He says:
" There are worse ways of choosing a wife
than by the music she plays. If a girl
manifests a predilection for Strauss, she is
frivolous; for Beethoven, she is unpracti-
cal; for Liszt, she is too ambitious; for
Verdi, she is sentimental; for Offenbach,
she is giddy; for Gounod, she is lackadaisi-
cal ; for Gottschalk, she is superficial; for
Mozart, she is prudish; for Wagner, she is
SIG. ACHILLE ALBERTI.
idiotic. The girl who hammers away at
other singers showed in London the same ' The Maiden's Prayer' and • Silvery
results of their American campaign and, Waves ' may be depended upon as a good
in view of the difference between salaries cook and healthful, and if she includes
here and in London, the return which ' The Battle of Prague ' you ought to know
the artists give seems adequate enough. that she has been strictly nurtured. But,
They receive there less than half of the last of all, pin thou thy faith upon the
amount of fees paid at the Metropolitan. calico dress of the girl who can play 'Home,
The London season was again prosperous Sweet Home.' "
and the same policy will prevail next year
*
at Covent Garden in regard to quality of
IGNOR ACHILLE ALBERTI, the
the singers and the selection of new works.
celebrated baritone, who achieved such
A few great names will appear occasionally
a distinguished success with the Hinrich's
on the programmes, and two or three
Grand Opera Company in Philadelphia, is
novelties may be sung after a great many
now
filling an engagement in the City of
more have been announced.
Mexico. This versatile artist is considered
*
by some of the leading authorities the
IN a few more weeks comic opera will be equal of Campanari or Ancona. He is
well in evidence and bids fair to enjoy destined to advance in public estimation.
a larger measure of favor than ever before.
Comic opera is to the drama what piquant T H E success attending the series of sum-
*• mernight concerts now being given
sauce is to the dinner. It is true that the
light operatic works of to-day are not built by the Kaltenborn Orchestra at St. Nicho-
las Garden is increasing. The audiences
are large and filled with the kindliest dis-
position toward the players. It has been
decided to continue the season until the
middle of October or until the winter musi-
cal season begins when the Kaltenborn
String Quartette will inaugurate their us-
ual concerts at Mendelssohn Glee Club Hall.
*
T H E soloists for the Brooklyn Saenger-
1 fest, which takes place in Brooklyn
July, 1900, have already been engaged, the
principal ones being Mme. Schuman- Heink,
Miss Sara Anderson and Joseph Baernstein.
*
C E R R Y and excursion-boat music is al-
*• ways more or less of a torture, but to
none more than to those who have listened
to the same airs indoors all winter, says
CHAS. A. KAISER.
on the meritorious lines of their precursors, the Criterion. To the reflective minds it
which stood higher in musical merit, al- would appear as if the penalties of travel
though they were not as calculated to make on a crowded excursion boat were severe
audiences laugh. It seems, however, that enough, without the wailing of cracked
our citizens enjoy musical tomfoolery as violins and the twanging of disconsolate
much as they applaud sober drama. The harps. To add to the misery, the steam-
one entertainment does not interfere with boat musician has been busy collecting
the other. Comic opera puts us into good masterpieces while the craft was out of
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