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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
in concert. William Paull and Chauncey
Moore are other baritones that I have en-
gaged, and Leslie Walker and Hanlin com-
T"HE annual Worcester Festival begins plete the list of bassos. Mr. Grau and I
* Sept. 24th and ends the 28th of the have heard voices in London, Paris, Berlin,
same month. It will include seven con- Munich, Dresden, Vienna and Nice, and I
certs and seven public rehearsals. Cesar think we have got together a company ad-
Franck's "Beatitudes," the "German Re- mirably arranged for our purposes. Some
quiem" of Brahms, Verdi's " Te Deum," of my former singers will appear with
and Sullivan's "The Golden Legend "are them from time to time, and I am confi-
the principal choral works. Glazounow's dent that we shall give admirable perform-
Sixth Symphony, Mendelssohn's Scotch ances of opera in English."
Symphony and the B minor of Schubert,
j*
the "Unfinished," are to be in the pro- T H E librarian of the Opera in Paris, M.
gram. The solo singers will be Lillian
* Malherbe, is exhibiting as a feature of
Blauvelt, Sara Anderson, Schumann-Heink, the Congress of the History of Music at
Evan Williams, Theodore Van Yorx, Giu- the Paris Exposition a collection of auto-
seppe Campanari and Gwilym Miles. graphs of all the famous composers in the
George W. Chadwick will conduct.
world, which is said to include " a piece of
stands for the hem of the garment of the
goddess."
TELEPHONE
NUMBER,
1745 --EIGHTEENTH
STREET
The musical supplement to The Review is
published on the first Saturday of each month.
" O H A L L the street piano grinders be
^
driven from the city? " seems to be
a "paramount issue" locally, judging- from
the agitation these days in the daily papers.
Our aldermanic assembly, so distinguished
for the many necessary things it leaves un-
done, has, after much arduous labor, actu-
ally discovered that the street piano is a
tremendous nuisance and must go—that
is, unless the Italian vote is in danger of
going over to the enemy at the forthcom-
ing election. Seriously speaking, from one
point of view the street piano may be a
nuisance, but isn't that viewpoint very
narrow? Musical cakes and ale the street
piano and its tribe may be, but when you
can't get anything else to eat, drink and
make merry with, or, yet more important,
when your appetites and appreciations have
not been whetted and civilized up to any
higher point—why, cakes and ale are just
about the best things going.
Many of our readers, at least the man
and woman with seventeen weeks of grand
opera every winter to look forward to, and
with an abundance of good music at all
seasons that they choose to pay for, may
have no need for the street piano. There's
just this, though—no man or woman
was ever truly musical who didn't love all
music. True musical affection levels all
ranks; it knows no caste; it is strictly
democratic. What's more, your true
music lover must have some other sorts of
love in him too; for one thing, sympathy
for his fellowman. He doesn't despise
another's liking for the street piano; he
recognizes it as kin to him and his in kind,
if not in degree, and he doesn't believe in
quenching tre spark of that liking—as that
clever writer of the woman's department
of the Sun, said in writing on this subject
recently: "It's the folk with neither love
of music nor love for their fellowman that
want to hush the street pianos. There
are a good many people in this world who
have no use for anything whose benefit to
the community cannot be gauged by
dollars and cents.
By them, large
libraries, fine-art museums and the like
are only allowed because they have the
sanction of dollars and cents; no commer-
cial benefit can, of course, accrue from
such things, but when endowed and in-
dorsed by persons representing dollars and
cents they acquire a certain dignity. But
the lesser, humbler'agencies to remind us,
that no matter how down we are on all
fours, there is such a thing as wings, and
right here in this workaday world, too—the
street musicians, the Punch and Judy shows
and others of their ilk—these, to the prac-
tical, commercial mind, are ' public nui-
sances,' and as such to be suppressed. The
hand-organ may not be high art, but it
LJENRY W. SAVAGE, who is to be as-
* *• sociated with Maurice Grau in the
season of opera in English to be given at
the Metropolitan Opera House next winter
and who has been abroad for two months
selecting artists for the new organization,
has just returned home. Some of those
whose engagements have already been
announced are Zelie de Lussan, Minnie
Tracey, Louise Meisseinger among the
women, and MM. Phillip Brozel, Lionel
d'Aubigne and Clarence Whitehall among
the men of the company. Signor Sepilli
and Richard Eckholdt are to be the con-
ductors. Mmes. De Lussan and Meis-
seinger have sung at the Metropolitan in
the regular seasons. Miss Tracey is a so-
prano who has sung with success in France
and was a member of the Hinrichs com-
pany in Philadelphia four years ago.
Lionel d'Aubigne made his debut in
grand opera at the Metropolitan five years
ago as David in "Die Meistersinger." He
has been singing abroad since that time.
Mme. De Lussan will sing with the regu-
lar company later in the season. The
English season will begin on Oct. 1 and
continue until Dec. 15, when the perform-
ances in French, German and Italian will
be resumed.
"In addition to the artists whose en-
gagements have been announced," said
Mr. Savage in the course of an interview,
"I have engaged as sopranos Phciebe
Strakosch, Ingelborg Balstrom and Rita
Elandi. Miss .Strakosch sang with great
success a year ago at Covent Garden, ap-
pearing as Santuzza, Marguerite, Elsa and
Hero. She has sung in the Italian cities
in the old repertoire, as well as in 'Sapho'
and 'Fedora.' Rita Elandi is a Cleveland
girl who has made a reputation abroad. I
do not think she has ever appeared here in
opera. Miss Balstrom is a brilliant so-
prano who has sung with success in Berlin
and Stockholm. Elsa Marny of Wiesba-
den is a contralto who will, in my opinion,
make a great success here.
"Lempriere Pringle is to be one of our
bassos, and another will be Clarence White-
hall, the only American basso who has ever
sung at the Opera Comique in Paris. I
had some trouble in getting him, as he was
under contract to sing at Nice, but it was
finally arranged. Francis Rogers is a young
Boston singer who has been heard here
music by the German Emperor which is
part of an opera by the Imperial com-
poser." This official recognition of the
Kaiser as a "composer" by France should
certainly help to wipe out old scores. (Not
a pun.) Meanwhile what will the party of
" revanche" say?
A CCORDINGto Andrew Lang most poets
** and literary men hate music. He
adds that while you need not look at pictures
or statuary, or read poetry, you cannot get
away from music. "There is no escape
from it any more than from the influenza."
When Andrew wrote this he was no doubt
in one of those whimsical moods which are
peculiar to genius—we shouldjhave said, to
A. L. Anyway a writer in a Glasgow paper,
like a great many other sensible men, does
not agree with Mr. Lang and says that
the latter probably speaks chiefly for him-
self, having frankly admitted that nature
did not make him musical. The writer in
question brings to notice a long line of
literary men who have been far removed
from hatred of music—Johnson and Scott
and Lamb, who, while proclaiming his
lack of musical ear, would visit Novello's
to hear him play on the organ and listen
to his daughter sing, to which list he adds
an even longer list of authors who de-
lighted in music—De Quincey, Browning,
Goldsmith, Rogers, Ruskin, Moore, Camp-
bell, and Shakespeare—who he thinks
must be included by virtue of his man who
"hath no music in his soul." He next
mentions Stevenson, to whose fondness
for music he devotes a column, proving
his statements by extracts from the for-
mer's letters. All readers of the Steven-
son letters will remember the frequency
with which music forms almost the con-
tents of a letter.
To this list might be added a long line
of poets, essayists and novelists to whom
music has evidently been a great delight,
including Goethe, whose advice to.hear
each day a little good music, read some
good writer, and hear a little sensible talk,
is so often quoted. To the list of poets
who have loved music, as shown by recent
books, must be added our own Celia Thax-
ter, Lanier—not only in his "Music and
Poetry," but in his more recent published
"Letters,"—and the charming "Prose
Works of Edward Rowland Sill," one of
whose most delightful essays is the one on