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PUBLIC LiB&ARY
THE
fflJJIC TIRADE
V O L . X X X I V , N o , l . Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 3 East Fourteenth Street, New York, Jan. 4,1902.
A PERMANENT ORCHESTRA.
"
\A/
T L L that king be found?
"
wrote
$2oo PER YEAR.
SINGLE COPIES io CENTS
As to the conductor, that question might
AUGUSTA COTTLOW.
well be left open. A permanent band once / ^ \ N E of the most attractive young girls
who has ever won laurels at home and
founded, its leadership would be less difficult
abroad
is Miss Cottlow, who is in personality
to provide for than might be supposed. Even
and
in
art alike charming. Miss Cottlow,
if mistakes were made the first year or two,
an
excellent
portrait of whom appears on
it would not be a serious matter. Given a
our
cover
page,
was born in Illinois, where
large salary—say $10,000—and a contract
at
the
age
of
three
she showed her talent in
not contingent upon concert receipts, the
right man would ultimately be obtainable. playing by ear. At four her mother gave
He might or might not be found on this side her instruction which led to such results
of the Atlantic, but that would make little that at seven she gave a recital before the
difference. This is too large a project to best local musicians of Chicago, at which
be tied down to the gain or loss of any one occasion she created a furore. When nine
years of age she studied with Carl Wolf-
musician.
sohn, also theory with Frederic Grant Glea-
son. She made her first public appearance
AN OMINOUS SIGN.
in her own town, Shelbyville, one month be-
TTHE strongest indication that Mr. Grau fore her sixth birthday. At ten she gave an
intends to keep his threat to give up entire recital program in Chicago before an
opera for good one year from next May, large and critical audience, the year follow-
when the Maurice Grau Opera Co.'s lease ing she played concertos of Beethoven and
comes to an end, is his decision not to at- Mendelssohn with orchestra. After this
tempt a tour of the West next year. Mr. she made a highly successful tour over the
Grau made this declaration first as soon as entire country only playing, however, in the
he reached San Francisco.
largest centers, where her triumphs were re-
It was thought that the profits of the com- markable. After a second tour through
pany there might have made the hardships America, she made an appearance in Berlin
of travel seem slighter. But the impresario with the Philharmonic orchestra in 1895.
is repeating his declaration that in no case She had a season of ensemble with Carl
will he undertake the long road tour.
Halir, and after her first year in Berlin she
The record season on the Pacific Coast began study with Busoni whose interest in
was formerly that given by Adelina Patti, the young artist was very great. It is due
under the direction of Abbey & Grau. The Miss Cottlow's American teachers to say
profits of that enterprise were larger than that at the time she made her first European
those of any company that went to the West successes she was purely and clearly the
before or since until the present year. But product of American teaching] and she was
the Maurice Grau Opera Co. exceeded even the first pianist to play in Berlin on Ameri-
these profits, which are said to have amounted can training and to achieve a triumph. Miss
to more than $80,000. Mr. Grau, who was Cottlow is to play with the great orchestras
connected with both engagements, is author- of this country this season and she will be
heard in recital January 8, at Mendelssohn
ity for this statement.
The present subscription shows the sub- Hall, when she will present an admirable
stantial basis on which opera rests here to- and unique program. Miss Cottlow is play-
day. Several years ago the advance sub- ing the Everett piano upon which she has
achieved admirable successes already this
scription amounted to $5,000 for every rep-
resentation. That was thought phenomenal season.
jt
and was unprecedented.
A TRUCE DECLARED.
This year when the season is likely to be A TRUCE has been declared between Bay-
at least two weeks shorter than ever before **• reuth and Munich. After next year
as the prospects of a supplementary seas^— Munich is to be at liberty to produce the
depend on various matters that cannot be "Nibelung's Ring" in summer at the Prince
settled until the regular season is well under Regent's Theatre Af the same time comes
way, the subscription assures to the manage- the signifies* 1
on that Siegfried
ment $6,000. No other city in the world
Wagner is
.lis third opera, and
ever supported opera so liberally.
that it is to be 1
:st at Munich.
Richard Wagner in the preface to
his "Ring of the Nibelung" text, published
without the music a dozen years before the
first Bayreuth festival of 1876. The king
was found in the person of Ludwig of Ba-
varia, and there were other rulers, including
the Emperors of Germany and of Brazil,
who came to the rescue and helped to make
possible the project that Wagner and his
friends had believed too large for fulfillment.
The rest is history, and the world now won-
ders why the favorable answer was so long
in coming to the great composer.
In behalf of another musical purpose,
Wagner's question might be paraphrased just
now in New York: "Will a man of wealth
and appreciation be found to establish a per-
manent orchestra for America's metropolis?"
The equivalent of this question has been
asked several times within the past half dozen
years, and it is being propounded now in
quarters whence encouragement may per-
haps be expected, if the case be stated prop-
erly and plainly. As a writer in the Mail
and Express says, nothing has yet come of
these most recent efforts, but plans of this
magnitude require time.
Permanent orchestra schemes in past years
have had two points of weakness. They have
been engineered by organizations torn by in-
ternal dissension, and they have been built
about the personality of some particular con-
ductor. Theodore Thomas, Walter Dam-
rosch, Anton Seidl and Emil Paur among the
number. Five year guarantees and other half
measures have proved ineffective. The band
that must some day be firmly established
here will not grow out of conditional at-
tempts ; nor can musical alchemy be per-
formed upon the Philharmonic Society,
whose customs of fifty-nine years are not to
be altered and whose members, some of them
past their prime, cannot afford to relinquish
in behalf of extra rehearsals their necessarily
casual and demoralizing employment at thea-
tres and dances.
The success of one-man generosity—own-
ership, if one likes—has been amply demon-
strated in the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
which cost HenryL. Higginson about $1,000,-
000 to found and keep alive, and whch now,
after twenty years of usefulness, more than
pays all expenses. The New Yorker who
J»
thus established a first-class orchestra would
Dvorak has changed his oratorio "Saint
secure the grateful perpetuation of his name Ludonilla," which he wrote to order for an
and fame.
English provincial festival, into an opera.
Paderewski's recent tour of Germany has
been spoken of by the local critics as an un-
precedented triumph.