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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TELEPHONE
NUMBER,
I745.--EIQHTEENTH STREET
The musical supplement to The Review is
published on the first Saturday of each month.
""THIS has been a busy week at the Met-
* ropolitan Opera House. The first
cycle of "Der Ring des Nibelungen" was
completed by performances of "Siegfried"
on Tuesday and "Goetterdaemmerung" on
Thursday. The other evenings of the
week were devoted as usual to the regular
subscription performances, two of which
were also monopolized by Wagner. Not-
withstanding the innumerable disappoint-
ments suffered by Manager Grau through
the indisposition of many of his leading-
singers, the performances have been very
satisfactory. Public indifference to the
Wagner cycle this year is, however, incom-
prehensible. "Das Rheingold" was new and
should have drawn a large audience. But
the house was pitifully small. "Die Walk-
uere" had been heard three times before
the cycle performance was given, and curi-
osity had been satisfied, so the small gath-
ering was less difficult to explain in that
case. " Siegfried " and "Goetterdaemme-
rung" should have attracted larger audi-
ences. Last year the first two cycles drew
more than $80,000. Even the third was
moderately profitable. This year there is
promise of no such returns and if the man-
agement comes through without loss, what
now looks like the best results possible will
have happened. The " R i n g " perform-
ances throughout were admirable, so far as
the singers were concerned. In this con-
nection Mile. Ternina augmented the ex-
cellent impression made during her open-
ing performances at the Metropolitan.
She has displayed uncommon musical and
dramatic genius, and her splendid efforts
set an example that gave sincerity, enthu-
siasm and spirit to all her associates. Ter-
nina is a valuable acquisition.
IN one of her essays, George Eliot speaks
*• of a man who "makes himself hag-
gard at night in writing out his dissent
from what nobody ever believed." Writ-
ers on music seem to take a special pleas-
ure in this form of exercise. One, for in-
stance, will write a pugnacious essay to
prove that music without melody is an
abomination. Every living soul who cares
for music, already holds the same opinion;
but that is of no consequence. He writes
his essay all the same, and its readers
imagine that someone, somewhere, must
have written in favor of music without
melody. Of course, it never dawns on the
author that another may find "melody"
where he hears only disconnected sounds;
or that, even where the perceptive powers
are equal, it is possible for two minds to
have widely different ideas of the condi-
tions essential to a good melody. Another
popular subject with the " two-and-two-
are-not-five" school of writers is that of the
"descriptive" or "representative" powers
of music. Here they have a still larger
field in which to play the exhilarating
game known as "kicking at an open door;"
and it is astonishing to reflect how many
intellectual athletes—from Hood down-
wards—have wasted energy in playing it.
The latest is a writer who contributes an
article on "Descriptive Music" in which
considerable acumen, much care, culture,
and thought have been expended in prov-
ing that music, without words, though it
can depict the feelings called up by a par-
ticular landscape, cannot convey a picture
of the landscape itself to the mind of a lis-
tener. But who, in the name of all the
Grecian gods, ever asserted that it could?
Already musicians are divided on the sub-
ject of music as a representative art, some
holding that it can depict a variety of
emotional or mental states of more or
less distinctness, and others denying
its representative powers altogether.
But surely no one, competent to speak
on the subject at all, ever suggested
that music, without the aid of words, could
depict things, as well as mental states—
mountains, for instance, as well as moods.
To write, as this gentleman does, as though
the " aims and methods of modern musi-
cians " were the representation, by music,
of "scenes," is to further bewilder the
mind of the amateur, already sufficiently
puzzled by the conflicting arguments of
doctors who disagree; and may even in-
duce the simple to suppose that a school of
musical thinkers exists who assert that
music can draw pictures of "beautiful land-
scapes and noble buildings "and that there-
fore such a view may be tenable. A pos-
sibility which is anything but comforting.
T H E share which woman has taken in
*• the development of the art of music
and her present position in the musical
profession, are deserving of our highest
consideration. As Dr. H. A. Harding re-
cently said in a lecture: Every day she is
playing an increasingly conspicuous part
in regard to mu'sic, and by her power and
intelligence sweeping away silly prejudice,
and proving beyond doubt her fitness, both
physically and mentally, for a high po-
sition among artistic musicians. Speaking
on the subject of woman composers he
said: Though I admit that woman has not
yet produced a great composer, I know no
reason why she should not do so in the
future. In almost every department of
literature and art, and even science, woman
is rapidly advancing. The development
of her intellectual and creative powers
during the last fifty years has been rela-
tively much greater than that of man, and
as the conventional limitations which have
retarded her progress in the past are
rapidly disappearing, we may confident-
ly hope that she will in the not distant
future achieve a high position among the
masters of our art. It is possible that
in copying men's modes her energies
may have been misdirected. Women
have beautiful thoughts and feelings
quite peculiar to themselves.
I believe woman has undoubted individual-
ity and force of character, and though, as a
rule, her intellect is more receptive than
inventive, it is because she shrinks from
daring to express her ideas if they are in
any way opposed to what is generally ac-
cepted. In composition, her great anxiety
is to avoid breaking the rules of harmony
and counterpoint, as if anything in music
worth hearing needed to be justified by
text books. Though she has often quite
mastered the technicalities of her art, ac-
quired a knowledge of the writings of the
great composers, and is, in short, amply
prepared for the attainment of her object,
she has not the audacity to free herself
from the leading strings, and bring her
knowledge to bear upon the fulfillment of
her mission. Let us remember that art
has not by any means reached its finality.
I know of nothing so full of hope to the
art patient as the onward march of wo-
man's musical progress. She has proved
herself a superlatively good executant and
teacher, and there is every hope that some
day a pioneer woman, courageous, pure
and noble artist woman, will arise, who
will captivate us all, compel us to regard
her as a composer as well as a musician.
page this week is illumined
O UR by cover
a portrait of that celebrated art-
ist, David Bispham, who during his pres-
ent season (the fourth) in America, will
sing at over one hundred concerts, recitals
and oratorio performances. He is now on
the Pacific Coast, and will return to this
city in April, when he will give his third
recital. During the month just closed Mr.
Bispham alone filled over twenty-two en-
gagements. This furnishes some idea of
the demand for his services.
Contrary to general opinion, David Bisp-
ham is not a European. He was born in
Philadelphia of Quaker origin on Jan. 5,
1857 and graduated at Haverford College
in the class of 1876. In keeping with the
old-fashioned regime, the study of music
was almost excluded from his early educa-
tion. His natural bent, however, was to
occupy himself largely with it, and the re-
sult was great experience as an amateur
and the constant acquaintance with, and
the friendship of, many leading artists,
instrumental and vocal, both in America
and Europe. He early became associated
with the leading musical organizations and
was the principal bass in the choir of St.
Mark's Church for several years.
Mr. Bispham's parents had mapped out
for him a commercial career, but music
called him with unmistakable voice, and he
went to Italy and studied seriously for the
profession to which he felt irresistibly
drawn. Vannuccini in Florence, the elder
Lamperti in Milan, and Shakespeare in
London, have been his masters in singing,
and after a few concerts of minor import-
ance and a short tour with the veteran
tenor, Sims Reeves, Mr. Bispham was en-
gaged as the result of his success in ama-
teur operatic performances in London, to
create, in English, the part of the Due de
Longueville in the Basoche, by Messenger,
at the Royal English Opera.