Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
w\w
ARTISTS' DEPARTMENT.
EMILIE FRANCES BAUER, Editor.
TELEPHONE
NUMBER.
1745.--EKJHTEENTH
STREET
The Artists' Department of The Review is
published on the first Saturday of each month.
HAPPY NEW CENTURY.
""THERE are many who waited to see th e
new year in who will see many, many
more, but those who let in the new cen-
tury, it is safe enough to assert, will not be
likely to witness the birth of another.
Neither will they experience that little
tinge of sorrow which must be present at
the solemn hour of death of the old one,
and it were well if we could look ahead
and know that it would close over such
colossal attainments in the history of the
world as does the dear, dead nineteenth
century.
In all sciences, inventions and material
sides of life, there would seem to have
been more advance than in music, litera-
ture or the ancient arts. In a measure,
only, this is true. The nineteenth cen-
tury has given us no greater composer
than Palestrina, Bach, Beethoven, followed
in the very early part of the eighteen
hundreds, by Schumann, Liszt, Mendels-
sohn, Wagner, Berlioz and others of more
or less importance, but that is by no means
proof that we have not advanced musically.
The dissemination of music has been
very wonderful towards the close of the
century. It has not only produced Brahms,
Tchaikowsky, Grieg, Dvorak, Richard
Strauss and others of great importance,
but hordes of people now appreciate, un-
derstand and accomplish things in a smaller
way. If everybody were as great as Bee-
thoven, there would be no merit in being
so. There has been no advance so notice-
able as in pianism. There is a large num-
ber of great pianists, an enormous number
of good ODes, and those too numerous to
mention who get enough out of pianism to
amuse themselves and to enjoy music in a
broad way.
The probable reason for this, as well as
the proof that pianism is much more ad-
vanced than it was even fifty years ago,
will be demonstrated by a glance at the
pianos of the old days and then at the
massive works of art that they are to day.
For this advance America must receive the
gratitude of the whole world, for directly
to Jonas Chickering, Steinway, Weber,
Knabe, and a host of others, must this ad-
vance be attributed.
The simple ballad has done much among
the people to bring music into the home.
Such ballads as Stephen Foster's which
yet find a warm spot in many hearts, and
Septimus Winner's, ( Winner by the way is
still living), come in for their share of
credit for reaching the homes and hearts of
many.
The most noticeable advance of music
however, is among women, and that may
be traced back twenty-five years, before
which time Clara Schumann and Fannie
Mendelssohn were the most noted com-
posers and pianists. To-day many are in
the field as composers, orchestra players,
pianists, and they are equally as successful
as their confreres of the sterner sex.
All of this is significant of the fact that
music in general has undergone enormous
advances, notwithstanding the fact that
we have produced no rival to Beethoven.
Neither has Wagner a rival, nor has
Brahms. Each has performed his duty in
the world; each is unique. There are
those who will say that Wagner is greater
than Brahms, or that Beethoven is greater
than either; but after all, that is only a
matter of opinion, and opinion, at best, is
only a matter of education, or prejudice,
or environment, or last but not least, di-
gestion.
ART AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.
/"~\NE of the most glaring incongruities
that must strike anyone with artistic
sensibilities is the total lack of continuity
of art in the New York concert halls.
With brutal frankness, the house pro-
grams of both Carnegie and Mendelssohn
Halls cannot be termed other than dis-
gusting, and to a sensitive, refined nature
they contain such repulsive advertising
matter a» to divert the attention entirely
and absolutely from the most attractive
musical program. It is well known that
house programs are a source of considerable
revenue to him who holds the contract to
furnish them, as he makes of them an
advertising medium to reach the musical
public. One might find no fault with ad-
vertisements of the several piano firms,
publishers, etc., one might even enjoy look-
ing through announcements of concerts to
occur, but when it comes to advertising
cures for deformities, and to publish cuts
of those deformities it is unpardonable of
our managers to subject their audiences
to such treatment, to say nothing of the
wretched taste of the compiler of the
program. In the commercialism of to-
day, everything seems to be permissible
from the great gilt name on the side
of a piano to a minute description of a
chiropodist's art. But for the atmosphere
of music pure and simple, there is no
room, as the onward march of commerce
pooh-poohs at idealism, derides art for
all other purposes than as medium to
carry advertising matter for a barber or a
hairdresser.
j*
THE DKCAUENT VOCAL ART.
T H E number of great singers is dimin-
ishing with alarming rapidity. No
one is in sight to take the place of Lilli
Lehmann, no one is within the radius of
Sembrich. This exists not only among
the women, but when De Reszke the Great
says adieu instead of au revoir, there will
be no one to replace him. If there were
men or women to take these places they
would already now be great enough to
make themselves heard from, and they do
not exist.
True, there are little excitements from
time to time that ruffle the waters, and
reports reach interested parties of the
marvelous progress of this or that one of
the hundreds abroad for study. This one
is studying under the advice of Melba,
that one under direction of Sembrich and
marvelous, yes, wonderful, things are to
occur, but they never occur. Can it be
that vocal art is decadent ? No, not while
that admirable man Delle Sedie is active,
and if Sbriglia made Jean De Reske
there should be hope for others. Marchesi
is still in the field ruining some and mak-
ing others. It is true Lamperti is no more,,
and Garcia, too, is of the past, but that
should be no reason for vocal art to drop
out of existence. Liszt is dead, Rubin-
stein is no more, Tausig has passed away,
still we have Hamburgs, and Bauers, and
Dohnanyis Leschetizky will give his last
lesson and yet pianism will go on. But the
singers—that seems to be a very different
question.
When Savage presented English Opera
at the Metropolitan there is no doubt that
he secured the very best singers that Eu-
rope or America had to offer, excepting, of
course, the older ones or rather those al-
ready known to America. It is unneces-
sary to go into detail so that, briefly stated,
he had not one man or woman, with the
possible exception of Clarence Whitehill,
that could properly be termed a great art-
ist or furthermore that gave any promise
of ever becoming so.
It may be the commercialism of the age
that is driving hundreds of incapable
teachers into the field; that is permitting
the very best ones to allow pupils liberties
which are ruinous to art simply to retain
them; that creates such a hurry and flurry
that no satisfactory results could possibly
be expected; that compels students to use
their voices for financial revenue; but what-
ever it be, it is serious and demoralizing.
Teachers are to blame for much, for
more than is apparent in a cursory