Music Trade Review

Issue: 1900 Vol. 30 N. 9

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''THESE are incontrovertible facts; and
• with them before us it is mere folly to
talk as the professors talk of a standard or-
chestra. The right is questionable of any
professor, however many hoods he may
wear on his honest old stupid shoulders,
however long a selection from the alpha-
bet he may carry after his bourgeois name,
to select the orchestra of any short period
and say: This is the standard orchestra.
There has never been a perfect orchestra;
there is not a perfect orchestra yet; there
is not likely to be a perfect orchestra for
many years to come; and instead of
regretting that we are moving away
from the orchestra of Mozart's and Haydn's
time, we should rejoice on that very ac-
count. Why two flutes should be right
and three flutes a shameful extravagance;
why the double clarinet should be looked
upon as an unauthorized interloper; why
the tubas should be thought the inferiors
of the trombones (merely because they
came in later)—these and a hundred other
things pass the comprehension of everyone
who gives ten minutes of serious thought
to the orchestra. The truth is that instead
of repelling all the new instruments, we
should welcome them, welcome them as
helping to make the orchestra a gen-
uine instrument. It is time to be done
with the art of faking, which is the only
art explained in any book of instrumen-
tation yet written; it is time to say that
as there are plenty of players available
and we are no longer living around
the courts of petty three-square-mile
princelets, we should have a complete or-
chestra. And a complete orchestra would
include a complete flute group—a treble,
alto, tenor and bass flute; the complete
oboe group that the best bands have at
present; a complete clarinet group, first
and second clarinets, tenor clarinet, bass
and double bass clarinet; and so on right
through the orchestra. One of the most
important things would be to complete the
string group. We want a true tenor, run-
ning down to the G beneath the tenor C;
the violas would then play a true alto part
in their best register. We want also the
six-stringed double-bass with frets to avoid
the present sudden disappearances of the
bass part. When these things are done
we shall be on the way to getting an or-
chestra worth writing for.
TN spite of the justice of the complaint so
* often heard here that European singers
dominate the American stage, there is
another side to the question, and one that
it is pleasanter to contemplate. This hangs
on the fact that a considerable number of
American singers, especially among sopra.
nos and contraltos, earn both livelihood and
reputation across the Atlantic. Only by
noting the names that from time to time
appear on programmes of opera and
concert in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna,
Dresden, Munich, Leipsic, Brussels, Ant-
werp, Amsterdam, Marseilles, Liege and a
dozen other musical centres can one obtain
a fair notion of the number of Americans,
chiefly women, who are at work on foreign
opera or concert stages.
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
They sing first in one city and then in
another, gaining valuable ideas and train-
ing from different managers and theatre in-
tendants and a deal of hard-won experi-
ence. Now and again one of them comes
home to her own people, sometimes to be
found wanting, but more often to find suc-
cess and occasionally to take a high place
here, almost at the first bound.
MME. LILLIAN BLAUVELT.
Four American sopranos of varying de-
grees of experience are now occupying a
prominent place on the European operatic
stage. Mme. Lillian Blauvelt's name
properly heads the list. This singer, who
is well known here, and who has a light
soprano voice of unusual fullness and
sweetness, went to Italy some two years
ago, and had such remarkable success
there in concert that first German and
then English managers began to find work
for her. She has sung in most of the
prominent German cities, and since early
A.
B.
DEFRECE.
last spring she has become almost a fixture
in London, where, with her husband, Wm.
F. Pendleton, formerly of New York, she
has settled down at a pretty domicile in St.
John's Wood. Lately Mme. Blauvelt made
a very successful trip to Edinburgh and
Glasgow.
Miss Ellen Beach Yaw is the only other
member of this quartet of colorature Amer-
ican sopranos who has been heard in New
York. Miss Yaw came here five years ago
from California, and was injudiciously ad-
vertised as a vocal phenomenon. She
went abroad soon afterward and continued
her studies. Last November Miss Yaw
assumed one of the leading roles in Hood
and Sullivan's new operetta, "The Rose
of Persia," at the Savoy theatre, London.
The other two young women have both
chosen the title role of Delibes's "Lakme"
for operatic debuts. Miss Rose Relda,
sang it at the Paris Opera Comique last
month, while Miss Estelle Liebling will
soon make her first appearance in it at the
Royal Opera in Dresden, for which she
was recently engaged the other day. Miss
Liebling is a New York girl, and comes
from a well-known musical family.
HPHE annual banquet of the New York
* Press Club, held at Delmonico's on
the 21st ult. was perhaps in many respects
the most notable function ever given by
that famous organization. The manager
of Delmonico's said that the special fea-
tures which were a part of the celebration
were the finest, as well as the most novel
ever given in that celebrated hostelry. By
this utterance he paid a deserved compli-
ment to Col. A. B. De Frece, who had the
entire program under his direction.
Col. De Frece is one of the most remark-
able, as well as the most versatile men to
be found in this great metropolis where so
many brilliant minds are gathered. For
six consecutive years he has been the di-
rector of all entertainments given under
the auspices of the Press Club and he has
ever exhibited the happy faculty, the dis-
criminating taste, and the necessary in-
fluence to gather about him at will the
highest talent which has ever been heard
in this city.
Among the musical celebrities who con-
tributed to the enjoyment of the Press
Club affair were: Mile. Zelie De Lussan,
the celebrated prima donna; Signor G.
Campanari, the superb baritone of the
Maurice Grau Opera Co. ; Mile. Helene
Berger, who by her unique gifts is called
" L a Siffleuse," Frances and Grace Hoyt,
the well-known duettists, Madeleine Sum-
mers, danseuse from "Ben Hur," and
Lionel Kremer, accompanist.
In the elaborate menu, too, was again
evidenced the all-pervading influence of
the many-sided De Frece, for as an adept at
improvising rare and dainty dishes there is
not his equal in the land. When we un-
derstand the delicate and thoughtful man-
ner which is so characteristic in the Co-
lonel's management—the perfect system
to which he adheres with unvarying regu-
larity, we are not surprised at the phenom-
enal success which he has achieved dur-
ing the past ten years as manager of the
greatest functions ever held in this city,
among the most notable of which was the
Actors' Fund Fair which realized $200,000.
In all of these enterprises his services
have been cheerfully given with no other
remuneration save the grateful apprecia-
tion of those whose interests he has served.
To his other accomplishments he adds
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
that of composer, and the wonder grows
how this tactful man of affairs has found
time in his busy life to augment his many
laurels by creditable productions in the do-
main of musical composition.
A GENTLEMAN of musical tastes and
** patriotic instincts writes to ask why
the states of the union should not have
state songs. "Yankee Doodle," he says,
"goes as a national air, but there is no
reason why each state should not have its
individual tune." This gentleman is mis-
taken ; he is off the key, so to speak. In
the first place, "Yankee Doodle" is not
recognized as the national air. Some
patriotic assemblages sing—or attempt to
sing—"America," a song with a tune
stolen (immediately) from "God Save the
King;" others murder "The Star Span-
gled Banner," others still attempt "Hail
Columbia," and in the northwest "The
Red, White and Blue " is the favorite.
"Yankee Doodle" isn't sung at all, except
by children. But the trouble with all these
songs is that no one seems to know all the
words, and few know the entire tunes.
That is the humiliating fact. The average
Fourth of July crowd will tackle "The
Star Spangled Banner " with patriotic fer-
vor, but by the time "the rocket's red
glare " is reached three-fourths of the sing-
ers will be silent and the remainder will
be trying to hum the air without singing
the words. State songs would only make
a bad matter worse. We don't know our
patriotic songs and we don't seem to care
to learn them.
sians, the "Poet of the Violin" and the
"Rubinstein of the Twentieth Century,"
accompanied by M. Aime Lachaume, the
eminent French pianist and ensemble play-
er, leave for San Francisco. There they
will give a great concert with orchestra,
Lachaume conducting, on Easter Monday,
April 16, and three recitals the same week
in San Francisco and Oakland, April 17,
18 and 20, respectively.
Mr. Thrane's representative, J. V. Gott-
schalk, is now in the far west, filling in
bookings for twenty or more concerts by
these two remarkable virtuosi who have
turned money away from Carnegie Hall
whenever they have appeared on the same
program this season; have created a sen-
sation, either alone or together when they
played in recital and with orchestra, by
their astonishing virtuosity, their scholarly
readings, their refinement, sincerity, re-
serve strength, and sound musicianship.
Yet the violinist and pianist are so totally
unlike in personality and temperament as
to make their artistic utterance varied and
intensely interesting when they are on the
same program.
It is not strange that artists of such dis-
tinction have commanded respect and com-
pelled enthusiastic admiration whenever
and wherever they have appeared. Press
and public alike have bowed to their re-
markable achievements, and their western
T H E musical supplement of this issue,-
* "Lasca," Danza Mexicana, is from
the pen of that distinguished cornet solo-
ist and composer, William Paris Chambers.
Like all of his efforts, it is a creditable
piece of writing which is winning deserved
popularity.
DETSCHNIKOFF and Hambourg are
*• going to the Pacific Coast for an ex-
tended tournee. The strongest and great-
est combination of instrumentalists that
has ever been sent out of New York, will
AIME LACHAUME.
tournee will without doubt be but a repeti-
tion of their Eastern triumphs, as that has,
in turn, succeeded the European victories
won and merited by both these really re-
markable young men.
j*
ALEXANDRE PETSCHNIKOFF.
be started this month under direction of
Victor Thrane, when the two great Rus-
MARK HAMBOURG.
we read in a French contemporary of
the establishment of a society called the
Fanfare Cycle, forty in number, all of
whom, when taking their rides abroad, per-
form simultaneously on the cornet. Quite
recently, on returning from a long excur-
sion in the country, they dashed through
a sleepy little village before the inhabi-
tants had time to realize the nature of the
visitation, and in consequence are said to
have mistaken the electrifying sound of
the forty cornets for the momentous blast
of the last trumpet. We cannot say that
the prospect of the importation of the
cycling cornet player fills us with rapture,
especially as he is, in all probability, only
the precursor of the cycling organ or mu-
sic box grinder. Within certain limits,
however, the system might have its ad-
vantages. For example, we can well
imagine that the weary record-breaker,
condemned by the perverse spirit of emu-
lation to his dreary twenty-four-hour task,
might from time to time stimulate his
jaded limbs to fresh activity by turning
on a tune on his own machine. But we
trust that at all hazards our country roads,
already desecrated by so much that af-
fronts the eye in the way of advertising
signs, may be spared the further auricular
atrocity of the cornet-playing cyclist.
A N ancient philosopher once observed
** that the face of the earth was changed
on the day that the wheel was invented,
and certainly the dominion of that mode of JU\ ME. MARIAN VAN DUYN, the cel-
locomotion was never more paramount— * " *• ebrated contralto, scored a tremen-
indeed, one might say tyrannical—than at dous success on her recent appearance
the present day. A young and uncultured with the Gounod Society in New Haven
athlete is reported to have asked whether when Mendelssohn's "Elijah" was given
the Wagner cycle was a good roadster, and under the direction of Emilio Agramonte.
then, of course, there is the story of the The other soloists were Evan Williams,
young lady, who, when asked if she was tenor; David Bispham, bass, and Miss
interested in the Psychical Society, replied Jenny Corea and Mrs. S. S. Thompson,
that her brother sometimes let her go out sopranos. Speaking of Mme. Van Duyn,
on his machine. With regard to music, the New Haven Register says: "Her voice
however, apart from the equivocal use of is of delightful quality, and she made a
the term cycle, the connection between favorable impression. Her singing of
wheeling and harmony is, undoubtedly, 'Woe Unto Him' was appealing in its ten-
on the road to becoming more intimate, derness and unaffected style. Equally
though whether this is a good thing for good was the familiar 'Oh, Rest in the
music is quite another matter. Cycling Lord.' Her voice is well toned and uni-
clubs have long had their buglers, but now form throughout its entire compass, and in

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