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atr,> o r T ^ . . . . . .
V O L . XXIX. N o . 15.
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 3 East Fourteenth Street. New York, October 7,1899.
56 PAGES
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THE MUSICAL OUTLOOK.
with a host of petty masterpieces, full of settled conditions pass and the poise of a
T TPON the horizon of music there is not the chronicles of the drum and trumpet, perfect understanding comes again, then
^
a cloud as big as a man's hand. The and has enlivened our stage with the clash in the fullness of that time there will arise
era is a vast desert, and there is a host of of the long-forgotten rapier. It has brought some new genius to whom the new meth-
little things creeping on the sands of time. us back our D'Artagnan, and it has given ods and the new ideals will be the ready
Is it true that a man to be regarded as a us Cyrano and Rudolph Rassendyl. It has material of progress.
—W. J. Henderson.
great composer must be dead? Not at all. written a new lease of life for Flaubert and
*
For in their lives Rossini and Verdi saw Dumas, and it has made the wilderness
T H E tour of Rafael Joseffy has now been
the spread of their glory from the East rank "Ben Hur" as a classic.
* definitely settled. He will begin his
unto the West and heard their operas sung
But where is the genius in opera to-day?
in half the languages of Europe. Meyer- It is not this blusterer. Nor is it the season of recitals at the Academy of Music,
beer reigned an uncrowned king in the smart, smug Massenet with his familiar Brooklyn, Nov. 14, under the auspices of
art world of Paris, and greater men than patterns and his unpublished but quite the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and
he waited for the recognition of his nod. well-known recipe for a grand opera. It Sciences. He will then go directly west,
Liszt held the court of a petty autocrat at is not Puccini with his "Boheme," where he has been engaged for a number
Weimar. Male pianists came and went though the man has a gift of melody quite of recitals in the larger cities. He prob-
and the world wotted not of them, but extraordinary in these days of stertorous ably will appear in New York during the
Liszt patted them on the back of their phrases and coagulated chords. But some- first or second week in March.
*
pride and told them it was well with their thing more than a mere tune-maker is re-
technic. Women came, and went—not quired to sit in the seats of the mighty. DROF. HORATIO PARKER scored a
always so quickly as the men—and Liszt All these people are trying to reflect us to ^
tremendous success at the recent Wor-
kissed them into lifelong adoration of ourselves, but there is a vast difference in cester Musical Festival in England with
his touch. Verdi to-day walks the streets seeing yoiir face in a silver hand glass and his "Hora Novissima" which was given
of Genoa and the people shout "Viva seeing it in the sea.
for the first time in England, the composer
Maestro! "
No, the note of genius does not sound in conducting. The soloists were Albani,
No, a man need not rot in the grave to the opera of our day. The lyric drama, in Ada Crossly, Edward Lloyd and Plunkett
have the world acclaim him as a great spite of the so-called reforms of Wagner, Green. Much curiosity and expectation
composer. Yet aside from the grand old still smacks of the theatre. There is too had been enkindled in the English musi-
man of Italy, the illustrious creator of much of the musical stage carpenter in cal world by the production of a work of
"Aida" and "Falstaff," whose sun is set- its manufacture. It will find its way into one of America's representative musicians,
ting and whose time of labor is past, there the limbo of things ephemeral, while the and it is gratifying to say that the oratorio
is not a man living whom the world recog- dramas of Mozart and Wagner and the was heard not only with favor, but with
nizes as a great composer. Johannes operas of Verdi and Gounod will continue considerable enthusiasm. A desire has
Brahms was the last of the Titans. And to live on the stage of the opera houses been generally expressed to hear Prof.
he followed the lord of all the Russians, and in the hearts of the people. But if Parker's later work, "A Legend of Saint
the storming Tschaikowsky, into a past there is no sign of genius in the opera Christopher," which was produced in this
where both now sit in the shadow of the how much less is there in the field of or- country last year.
fathers, for Beethoven still towers the most chestral music. The greatest living sym-
majestic figure in the picture which they phonist is Dvorak; the greatest living
INCE Paderewski's marriage, the story
sought to fill. Who sees a Beethoven in composer of overtures is Goldmark. It is
is being revived by a well-known so-
the musical activities of our time? "If not a thing on which the round world can ciety woman who wrote to him for "a lock
any, speak, for him have I offended." If felicitate itself and make feasts of rejoic- of hair." She received this reply: "Dear
there be any composer who in this dull and ing. Dvorak is a man of extraordinary Madame: M. Paderewski directs me to say
prosaic time is worthy of a seat beside the talent, but he never sweeps the heartstrings that it affords him much pleasure to com-
mighty, will some good brother please point as the Russian bard of the horns and ply with your request. You fail to specify
him out to the dimming vision of one who bassoons did. Sgambati pleases, but so whose hair you desire, so he sends samples
does Moszskowski. It is not likely that of that of his valet, cook, waiter, and mat-
is weary with long watching?
There was a time, and that not long either of these men ever raises a feeling of tress belonging to M. Pullman, proprietor
ago, when many of us who were eager for antagonism in any breast, and no com- of the coach in which he traveled in Amer-
the strength of new blood in our holy art poser who had the Attic salt in his work ica."
thought that in Mascagni the promise was could fail to do so.
*
Yet in all this there is nothing to cause
to be fulfilled. His "Cavalleria Rusticana"
ME. PATTI, who is making a concert
imposed upon the whole round world by us discouragement. The truth is that, so
tour of some of the principal cities
the glow of the blood which it showed on far as we Americans are concerned, a breath- of Great Britain, will not, it appears, come
its surface. It burned with the fiery flush ing spell is really needed. New hopes, to this country this season, authoritative
of the new romarticism of our time. That new aspirations, lie before the exponents statements to the contrary notwithstand-
romanticism has enriched our literature of the tone art. When the present un- ing.
S
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