Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1901 Vol. 32 N. 14

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
tHE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
I N his book, "The Theatre and Its People,"
Franklin Fyles gives us much interest-
ing information and commentary upon the
subject with which it is concerned. There
are 5,000 theatres in the United States, of
which 3,000 may properly lay claim to that
title of splendid recommendation, "legiti-
mate." Capitalists have ventured to invest
$100,000,000 in these 3,000 legitimate thea-
tres, and it is well known that some of them
have been fairly well rewarded. Inasmuch
as 1,500,000 persons sit in the legitimate
theatres every night when they are open,
having paid the admission price, and inas-
much as the sum of their annual deposits in
the box office is rather more than $70,000,-
000, it will readily be seen that the purvey-
ors of dramatic entertainment in America
are not necessarily destined to become pau-
pers.
|\J EXT year's season of opera at the Met-
ropolitan will begin during Christmas
week and continue until the first of April.
It will be preceded by a long tour to extend
as far as San Francisco, where a stop of two
weeks will be made. Many small towns not
hitherto visited by such a large organization
will have their first experience of grand op-
era, and will, it is hoped, show the proper
degree of interest to assure its support. The
Maurice Grau Opera Company, which has
a lease of the theatre for two years more, | \ ] OT long ago Emil Paur expressed the
belief that the next marked step in the
will in all probability, says the Sun, accept *•
evolution
of musical art would be made by
some of the various offers for its use. The
the
Russian
composers. Perhaps he believes
English opera enterprise last autumn was
in
a
geographical
progression of musical de-
created chiefly with this end in view, as any
velopment,
and
assumes
that Russia will be
occupancy of the theatre during the absence
the
first
to
depart
from
the German stand-
of the opera company is of course clear gain
ards,
just
as
Germany
broke
away from the
to the lessees. Mr. Grau gave utterance to
Italian
traditions.
At
any
rate,
his opinion
his feelings on the opera subject a few days
does
not
seem
to
be
shared
by
one of the
ago. "I wish," he said, "that the newspapers
foremost
of
Russian
critics,
M.
Ivanov,
who
would say that anybody who wants to man-
looks
for
nothing
particularly
new
in
musical
age the Metropolitan had better come for-
ward now. He will have an excellent oppor- art, but thinks, rather, that by a cyclical pro-
tunity, for I would gladly give place to him." cess there will be a return to the original
The premature announcement that a vaude- forms of simple melody.
ville performance will be given there during
/VA USICAL life in Berlin is of a thorough-
the absence of the opera company has re-
*
ly cosmopolitan character. This is in-
called an experiment of that kind made five
dicated
by the fact that during the month of
years ago. Orchestral concerts were given
January
no less than thirty foreign artists
in the auditorium for one week with vaude-i
|sang
or
played
before public audiences there.
ville in the club room upstairs. When the
There
were
five
from France, five from Bo-
venture came to an end after six nights,
hemia,
four
from
Italy, three from Holland,
more than $5,000 had been lost.
three from America, two from Russia, two
from Poland, two from Sweden and Nor-
\lICTOR HERBERT, the famous operat- way, one from Hungary, one from Roumania,
ic composer and director of the Pitts- one from Finland, and one from England.
burg Orchestra, sailed for England with the
Alice Neilsen Opera Company on March 21. 1\J OVELLO, EWER & CO. announce that
the American allotment of seats for
Although Victor Herbert is an Irishman,
born in Dublin and educated in Europe, yet the Bayreuth festival this summer has been
his compositions are not as well known entirely sold out, with hundreds of applica-
abroad as in America, and as they deserve tions left over and many still coming in.
to be. Herbert is sure to receive a hearty This does not look as though the Bayreuth
welcome from his countrymen, who have a festivals were losing in popular favor over
"soft spot" in their hearts for the grandson here. There is to be an elaborate production
of Lover, whose songs and writings are dear of the "Flying Dutchman," two repetitions
of the "Ring of the ISTibelung," and seven
to the Celt.
performances of "Parsifal." Nearly all of
NE of the "weaknesses" of Robert the principal singers who will be heard in
Franz was that he did not care much these works have sung at the Metropolitan
for the composers who were his contempora- Opera House. Among them are M. Van
ries. He expressed his dislike of Wagner Dyck, Herr Kraus, who sang here some
and Liszt in particular—though he knew years ago, and Miss Sara Anderson, of New
they admired him immensely. One modern York, whose second season at Bayreuth this
composer, however, he liked. In 1886 he will be; Herr Van Rooy and Mr. Robert
wrote a letter to the Baroness von Pilsach, Blass. Herr Felix Mottl and Herr Sieg-
in which he stands up for the compositions fried Wagner will conduct.
of—D'Albert, the like of which, he declares,
all the composers of Berlin could not dupli- C NTERTAINING reminiscences contin-
ue to be printed about the late Sir Ar-
cate. Still, he adds, in substance, "if D'Al-
bert expects a future for his music, he must thur Sullivan. A letter to his friend Rev.
do what I have done—write in the strict Mr. Helmore, acknowledging the receipt of
Bach style with modern means of expres- a translation of Thomas a Kempis, contains
the following interesting passage: "It seems
sion."
to me, from the hasty glance I have been
able only to throw at the book, that the lines
require no music. The rhythm itself is mu-
sic, and of a most beautiful character. It
sounds paradoxical, but there are times to
me when the music would be more beautiful
and more complete without notes. I sup-
pose it is that the diatonic and chromatic
scales are so limited. How often have I
longed to be free of fixed intervals; more es-
pecially in the prologue to the 'Golden Leg-
end' I felt myself hampered by having to ex-
press all I wanted to say by voice and instru-
ments of limited means and definite, un-
changeable quality. After all, it is only hu-
man to be longing and striving for some-
thing more than we have got."
j»
""T HE methods adopted by French singing
1
masters have been amusingly bur-
lesqued by a French writer. Take M. Del-
sarte, for example, who lives on a sixth floor
at Montmartre.
When a young woman goes to this pro-
fessor something like the following scene
takes place:
"Have you courage?"
"Yes."
"I warn you my way is severe. But we
will try it. Run down my six flights of
stairs as quickly as possible and then run up
again, crying out 'Bonifaccio' in varying
tones. Do that for eight days, an hour and
a half each day. Then we shall see about
beginning lessons."
The famous M. Wartel is less severe,
though equally original. He asks a candi-
date to vocalize with closed mouth, and if a
protest be entered against the possibility of
such a thing exclaims: "So much the worse.
You must do it if I am to be your profes-
sor."
But a well-known tenor employs a stranger
method still. A young lady goes to him, for
example) and is met by an order to stretch
herself at full length upon a couch. She re-
monstrates, but finally obeys and then the
master piles upon her a heap of books, sur-
mounting the whole with a glass filled with
water.
"Now sing," he commands.
"Sing, sir?" exclaims the victim.
"Yes, my child; in singing you must re-
spire as little as possible. When you sing
thus, so as not to spill the water, I will un-
dertake your training—not before."
OR the impending opera season in Lon-
don the engagement of Signor Tama-
gno has now been settled. Mllc.Paquot will
be among the newcomers, and among the
artists are: Sopranos—Calve, Eames, Ter-
nina, Suzanne Adams, Breval, Gadski, Stra-
kosch, Sobrino, Bauermeiste'r; contraltos and
mezzos—Brema, Misses Olitzka, Delmar,
Aldridge, Maubourg; tenors—Tamagno,
Knole, Walther. There will be two new
singers, a young Italian named Anselmi, who
has had a good reputation in Naples, and a
French Canadian of the name of Mercier.
Other strangers to Covent Garden will be
Riesse, whose voice is said to be one of the
finest in Germany, and Forgeur, who comes
from Brussels. Others who will appear are
Vandyck, Saleza, Van Rooy, Plangon, Scotti,
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Bispham, Blass, De Clery, and Gilibert.
The conductors will be Mancinelli and Flon
Lohse.
Two new operas will be produced, Lalo's
"Roi d'Ys," in which Suzanne Adams, Mile.
Breval and MM. Saleza and Plancon will
appear,and Dr. Stanford's new opera,"Much
Ado About Nothing," the libretto of which
was written by Julian Sturges. In this Bre-
ma will take the part of Beatrice and Su-
zanne Adams will sing Hero. David Bisp-
ham will be the Benedick. Ivor Foster will
sing Dom Pedro and Pol Plancon the Friar.
The American singer, Blass, will sing Dog-
berry. The opera will be sung in English.
Calve, by her own wish, adds to her reper-
toire the part of Messalinein De Lara's opera.
Mme. PZames will sing A'ida for the first time
at Covent Garden. "Hansel and Gretel"
may be revived, and Verdi's "Otello" with
Signor Tamagno is promised.
REMtWLETS.
DADEREWSKI has suffered the loss of
his only son, who was an invalid from
birth. The great Polish pianist mourns his
loss bitterly, and will go into retirement for a
year.
Aus dcr Ohe sailed for Europe after re-
ceiving news of the severe illness of her
sister. She was attended by Mathilde Aus
der Ohe, her sister, who always accompanies
her.
Owing to the ill health of Mme. Sembrich,
the operatic tour under Clarence Graff has
had to be abandoned. Scare heads are only
too willing to state that she has lost her voice
and will never sing again ; but with such a
method as Sembrich uses there is little dan-
ger that this is the case. She may be tem-
porarily disabled, but that she will never de-
light and instruct enormous audiences again,
we will not believe. Not any more than we
feared for Jean De Reszke during his Lon-
don experience.
The Leipsic Philharmonic Orchestra met
with financial disaster, and canceled engage-
ments after finishing the Atlanta concert.
Nothing else could possibly have been ex-
pected, for the organization was one that en-
tailed enormous expense, and they ran into
ill luck with blame to no one except lack of
interest and support on the part of the people.
They were offered return engagements in al-
most every place where they appeared.
Harold Bauer sailed for Europe March 5.
Dohnanyi' sailed April 2, and each day the
ranks of our musical visitors will grow small-
er. Some will leave a lasting memory, oth-
ers will go without leaving the same vacancy
that is left after drawing your hand out of a
pail of water.
O Tempora! O Mores ! The Metropolitan
Opera House is to be turned into a vaude-
ville house when opera is not there.
Zelie De Lussan has been engaged to appear
there. Comment is unnecessary, for we
doubt the truth of the story.
Villiers Stanford's new opera will be nota-
ble for more than one novelty; not least, in-
deed, Planc,on's first attempt at singing Eng-
lish text. The opera is founded upon
Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing."
Mancinelli will conduct when it will be given
its initial production at Covent Garden.
Friends of Putnam Griswold, a young bari-
tone of San Francisco, will be pleased to
know of his appearance in this opera in such
company as Suzanne Adams, Marie Brema,
Bispham, Plangon and Blass. Others in the
cast are: Ivor Foster, Mercier and Coates.
The annual "Feis-Ceoli Agus Seanachas,"
or festival of Irish music, given by the Gaelic
Society, will take place at Lenox Lyceum on
April 9, under the patronage of prominent
Irish-Americans. The Hon. William Mc-
Adoo, ex-Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
will preside, and deliver an address on "Irish
Ideals and the Gaelic Revival." The pro-
gram has been arranged from the works
of the best of the old Irish bards, and will
enjoy the services of a quartet of eminent
soloists with John Cheshire at the harp.
Let no thoughtless soul say a woman's
abilities for money making are limited, in
the presence of Lillian Nordica, unless it
fears not to meet with a derisive smile, for
that fair singer, who will soon carry away a
few of United States eagle-embossed silver
pieces, has acquired $40,000 up to date this
season, and is adding to that sum at a rate
to drive a plodding quilldriver into hopeless
envy. Truly, devotion to art is not as chi-
merical as it seems.
HENSCHELS STABAT MATER.
EORG HENSCHEL directed his Stabat
Mater at Symphony Hall, Boston, last
week. The performance was given by a
chorus composed of the Cecilia Society, an
orchestra of players from the Boston Sym-
phony, under Franz Kneisel, B. L. Whelpley,
organist, and Mrs. Henschel, Miss Ed-
munds, Leo Lieberman and Charles W.
Clark, soloists. Other compositions of Hen-
schel's given at the same concert were a
Morning Hymn for chorus and orchestra,
and a cycle of romances for vocal quartet
with piano accompaniment. The last reci-
tal in New York by Mr. and Mrs. Henschel
occurs to-day at Mendelssohn Hall.
SIR JOHN STAINER DEAD.
London, April 1.—Sir John Stainer, vice-
president of the Royal College of Organists,
formerly professor of music at Oxford Uni-
versity, organist at St. Paul's Cathedral, Lon-
don, and the author of numerous publications
on church music, died at Verona, Italy, Mon-
day last. He was born in 1840. Stainer,
was the composer of "The Crucifixion" and
of other church music. He also published a
number of educational works on harmony,
composition, organ playing and similar sub-
jects.
nnE. EDWARDS.
HE noted Boston teacher, Mme. Edwards,
has had the busiest season in her exper-
ience. She has a large waiting list, and is
teaching every available hour. This summer
she will go to Europe, and with her will go
three or four of her pupils, who will continue
their studies under her while enjoying the
benefits of Paris, and what it has to offer the
student. Mme. Edwards herself, is a pupil
of that most valuable master of singing, Delle
13
Sedie, and she may well be proud to show
him her excellent work in furthering his prin-
ciples. She will also make her selections of
music for the coming season.
;
CARNEGIE AS ilUSICIAN.
A NDREW CARNEGIE, according to all
accounts, accepted the presidency of the
NewYork'Philharmonic Society, and in doing
so he said before starting on his trip abroad
that he considered it the greatest honor ever
conferred upon him. It will not be known
definitely for some time just what the new
president will do with the new office. It is
known, however, that he is an ardent ad-
mirer and personal friend of the present di-
rector, Emil Paur.
It is expected that the number of concerts
of the Philharmonic Society will be increased
by Mr. Carnegie from eight to twenty-four,
thus enabling the patrons to have a genuine
musical season of their own, in the same man-
ner that Boston has. That New York is
"music hungry" is proved by the fact that
she annually opens her doors to various visit-
ing orchestras of various degrees of excel-
lence and the reverse. The Philharmonic
Society, it is also said, should visit Pittsburg,
Boston and other places just as the orches-
tras of those cities visit New York.
Since Mr. Paur accepted the directorship
of the Philharmonic Society he has recreated
it. Mr. Carnegie's idea of his duties as pres-
ident means much to New York. The com-
bination of Andrew Carnegie as president
and Emil Paur as director has a force, sig-
nificance and purpose which justify New
York in expecting unusual achievements,
and it is a combination unexcelled, perhaps
unequalled.
v\ oriAN IN n u s c .
A N enormous concert was given in Balti-
more March 14, for the benefit of the
United Women of Maryland. The program
was made to show the progress of creative
power of woman in music, and was given
by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under
direction of Ross Jungnickel, assisted by the
following soloists : Miss Sara Anderson, Miss
Grace Preston, Leo Lieberman, Jos. Baern-
stein, singers, and Leopold Winkler pianist.
Winkler who played the Chaminade "Con-
cert-Stuck" with orchestra, met with great
enthusiasm from audience and press for his
very finished and delightful presentation of
this work.
The program is herewith reproduced be-
cause of its value to those who may desire
to give a like instructive and interesting en-
tertainment. All the accompaniments were
played by the orchestra.
Margaret Ruthven Lang, BALLADE, in D minor. O , u s 3 6
Orchestra.
Mrs H. H. A. Btach,
GRADUALE, from Mass in E flat. Opus 5
" T h o u Glory of Jerusalem." Tenor Solo.
SCENIA AND ARIA, Mary Stuart Opus 18
"Wandering Clouds." Contralto Solo.
Liza Lehmann,
SONG CYCLE, " I n a Persian Garden."
(Adapted for Orchestra by Ross Jungnickel.)
Ceclle Chaminade,
PIANO SOLO, Concert-Stuck, E major. Opus 40
Piano and Orchf ssra.
Ad le Lewing,
"Proposal."
Helen Wood,
" T h e Violet."
Songs for Soprano with Piano.
flarva Blazejewlcs,
" L o v e Song." Opus ico
Prances AllUten,
"A Song of Thanksgiving."
Songs for Bass with Piano.
Cecil Chaminade, SUITE DE BALLET, "Callirhoe." Opus 37
a. Prelude, b. Scarf Dance, c. Scherzettino.
d. Cymbal Dance.

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