Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
7VYUSIC TRMDE
spoke through the episode which permits
Jagu to sway "Manru" from wife and child
and duty by means of the melodies of the
gypsy tribe, which is a clear statement that
music has a psychic influence which is the
strongest of conflicting forces in the fearful
ARTISTS' DEPARTMENT.
rind wonderful construction of man. The
TELEPHONE NUMBER. 1745.--EIQHTEENTH STREET
amalgamation of Polish and gypsy music is
The Artists' Department of The Review is
published oh the first Saturday of each month. very fascinating and very powerful, for they
are two essentially distinct types.
VOCALISM.
In the same week Paderewski played his
I.
Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, own concerto with the admirable setting of
and the divine power to speak words;
Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This is
trial? from vigorous practice? from physique? a noble piece of writing, following the prin-
Do you move in these broad Iand9 as broad as
ciples of absolute music. It is almost classi-
they?
Come duly t» the divine power to speak words?
cal in its structure, yet essentially modern.
For only at last after many years, after chastity,
friendship, procreation, prudence, and na- It is colored with his-nationality and the note
kedness,
of suffering is there. The concerto was first
After treading ground and breasting river and
played
in America by Julie Rive-King in
lake,
After a loosen'd throat, after absorbing eras, Boston with the Symphony Orchestra under
temperaments, races, after knowledge, free-
dom, crimes,
After complete faith, after clarifyings, elevations,
and removing obstructions,
After these and more, it is just possible there
comes to a man, a woman, th« divine power to
speak words;
Then toward that man or that woman swiftly
hasten all—none refuse, all attend,
Armies, ships, antiquities, libraries, paintings,
machines, cities, hate, despair, amity, pain,
theft, murder, aspiration, form in close ranks,
They debouch as they are wanted to march
obediently through the mouth of that man oj
that woman.
II.
O, what is it in me that makes me tremble so at
voicei?
Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice,
him or her I shall follow,
As the water followc the moon, silently, with fluid
•teps, anywhere around the globe.
All waits for the right voices;
Where
is the practis'd and perfect organ? Where
1
is the develop'd soul?
For I see every word utter'd thence has deeper,
sweeter, new sounds, impossible on less terms.
I §ee brains and lips closed, tympans and temples
unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike
and to unclose,
Until that comes which has the quality to bring
forth that lies slumbering forever ready in all
words.
—WALT WHITMAN.
PADEREWSKI THE COMPOSER.
"T" HIS great pianist, who has long held
sway over the audiences of Europe and
of America, is no longer content to shine
nr the reflected light as interpreter, but he
aspires to the greater—perhaps it may be
called the greatest height—that of composer.
We have had Padcrewski this month at the
greatest advantage that any composer has
ever appeared. Whatever may have been the
sorrows in Paderewski's early life—and we
all know that they were keen and numerous
—his present position is one of exceptional
happiness, for he has seen the triumphant
reception accorded his opera, and other com-
positions have met with similar success. The
music of "Manru," for the greater part, is a
burst of inspiration, and inspiration in the
hands of one who knows how to use it to the
best possible advantage. The orchestration
and the general treatment show the master
hand, and the thematic matter shows the ge-
nius. As far as stagecraft is concerned,
Paderewski has some things to learn, and al-
though the musician is of imposing dimen-
sions, he shows the pianist in his treatment
! of the voices, which is not as skillfully done
as it might be. Just how much Paderewski
had to do with the book cannot be known,
yet it is distinct that the musician of him
wondrous instrument, the medium for all
emotions and passions. Nor is it the play-
thing of a dull or frivolous woman. It is
controlled by a musician richly endowed with
musical temperament."
S
MUSIC THE MOST EMOTIONAL
C R O M the commencement of civilization
great thoughts and great events have
demanded an outlet whereby, while losing
nothing of their spiritual intensity, they
might take upon them material guise. The
result has been Art. The most natural ex-
pression has been painting and sculpture;
these, reaching the already tutored eye, have
worked their purpose. The most intellectual
expression has been poetry; this has reached
the less ready brain and also worked its pur-
pose, but less well because less widely. The
most emotional has been music; and this,
dependent altogether upon the feelings
which are so elusive where two or more are
concerned, has served its intention least
clearly in the matter of revelation, but it has
at the same time sacrificed less of its spirit-
ual aspect than have the sister arts. Its
very elusiveness seems so bound up with that
same Something which has baulked every
metaphysical idea yet propounded that, at
least, it is always hovering on the borders
of a realm to which the other arts, by rea-
son of their more material modes of pres-
entation, will never soar. And over all and
giving nourishment to each is the haunting
shadow of philosophy.
. . • . ; •.
ORGANISTS' SALARIES IN ENGLAND.
HJNACE l'ADERKSWKI.
Nikisch in March of 1891. The same year
Paderewski played it in New York, and it
has not been heard since, consequently it was
interesting to a great degree. All of the art
that has been attributed to Paderewski was
perceptible in his playing of this number, and
it revealed to many a side of the artist which
had been as yet unknown. It was a mem-
orable event.
3
•
• •
MME. GERTRUDE STEIN.
R local organists who complain occa-
sionally of inadequate pecuniary com-
pensation can comprehend how much better
off they are than their brethren of Mcrrie
Kngland, on reading the following facts taken
from The Referee:
.
The average salary of an organist is £50
a year, and for this he is expected to play
not less than at four services, and to hold
two and three rehearsals a week, to train
his boys, and produce the voices of his choir
men. He must be a competent player of
the most difficult of instruments, and has
little chance of gaining a good appointment
without being a Fellow of the Royal Col-
lege of Organists, or holding some univer-
sity degree. Tn a large number of churches
the stipend is £25 or £30 per annum, and
the applicant is quietly told that he can in-
crease his salary by giving music lessons.
Matters have improved of later years, but,
considering the responsibilities, require-
ments of the position, and the enormous in-
fluence an organist exerts, it is the poorest-
paid branch of the profession.
.<
cover page this week is adorned by
an excellent portrait of Mme. Ger-
trude Stein, who, during recent years has
gained the enviable reputation of being
America's finest contralto. She has been the
soloist in the leading festivals and with the
choral and orchestral societies, and had the
honor of being the first soloist engaged for
the last Worcester Festival. Mme. Stein has
just been engaged to sing the contralto part
in the "Paradise and Peri" performance,
which is to be given in Carnegie Hall by the
VERDI THE IMMORTAL
Oratorio Society. In addition Mme. Stein HP HE full estimate of a man and his
is to be heard in many of the leading festi-
works is never conceived until he is
vals this spring.
dead. Tt is interesting to note in this con-
A distinguished critic speaking of Mme. nection that since the death of Verdi, his
Stein says: "Her voice is a remarkable one, operas have come more and more to the
not easily classified. The lower register is front in Italy, where they are gradually dis-
full and deep, with the luscious richness that placing the ephemeral products of the young
is found only in the true contralto. And yet Italian school. French composers—espec-
the range is mezzo-soprano, without a strik- ially Massenet and Saint-Saeiis—are much
ing contrast in quality. Her extreme upper in vogue, and three of the principal cities—
tones are neither pale nor shrill, nor are Naples. Rome, and Milan—opened their
there tubby, hollow tones about the middle C, season with Wagner operas, which, how-
as is so often the case in voices otherwise ever, were badly sang and inadequately
staged,
impressive or sensuous, This voice is a