Music Trade Review

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THE:
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ARTISTS'
TELEPHONE
NUMBER,
DEPARTMENT.
1745.--EIQHTEENTH
STREET
The Artists' Department of The Review
published on the first Saturday of each month.
SOME GRAU REVELATIONS.
D R E V I O U S to leaving for Europe, Mau-
*
rice Grau chatted regarding his meth-
ods of conducting grand opera. Some of
his admissions will come in the nature of
a surprise to opera goers. He actually con-
fessed that he'never in his life discovered a
great voice, and is not musician enough to
know one if he heard it—that he never
gave the first production of an opera—that
he never examined an opera score, and
moreover, that he rarely attended the re-
hearsals of his own performances. In
brief he says further: " I have treated grand
opera as a commercial proposition and han-
dled it as a business enterprise. T o me
opera is little less than cold, calculating
business. Some persons have said that I
make it 'bargain counter' business. Let it
go at that, if it means that I have reduced
it to a purely commercial basis."
There have been some persons in the
past, devoted to music as an art, who have
accused Mr. Grau of conductine opera en-
tirely from the ticket box view-point, and
that his only test of success was commer-
cial instead of artistic. His friends indig-
nantly denied this from time to time, but
now as the Chicago Tribune pertinently
says: "Mr. Grau himself, having aban-
doned the operatic field, has taken the pub-
lic into his confidence and frankly admits
the truth of the charge and concedes that
he was running an operatic 'bargain coun-
ter' business as did his uncle and the
Strakosches before him." This sufficiently
explains why grand opera as conducted by
tiiese impresarios has done nothing for the
progress of musical art in this country and
why the only advancement has been made
b " tne few great orchestras of the country,
those of Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
Pittsburg and Chicago, not one of which
can be charged with commercialism in view
of its annual deficit.
*t
A PHENOMENON FULL OF WONDER.
I T is worthy of note that periodically the
English speaking races on several con-
tinents are swayed in their emotional
senses by some song of the hour, some sim-
ple ballad of sentiment, or some lay of mer-
riment, which we hear, travel where you
will these days. All the highest efforts of
the press, all the pulpit utterances of our
great divines, all the wisest and most ear-
nest exhortations of our orators, cannot
touch and control the masses as can one of
these little songs, which are caught from
the mysterious fount of inspiration.
Here is a phenomenon full of wonder.
While the popular instinct has in the past
recognized many little compositions, full of
refined simplicity and homely tenderness,
some of the latest effusions are feeble ef-
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
forts, senseless in their language, with only
a tingling melody that seems to catch.
If we are to believe current reports, the
authors of many of these songs have ac-
cumulated fortunes, and yet we descant
wisely on "the survival of the fittest" in
human competition and human achieve-
ment. W h a t a stock phrase this has be-
come.
•6
QUEER ANTICS OF THE PARISIANS.
UEER people those of France—we
should say Paris, for it is only in
Paris that such queer happenings occur—
as have been chronicled in The Review
and other papers recently regarding the
conduct of audiences at orchestral con-
certs in that city. Another demonstra-
tion of Parisian politeness was that exhib-
ited during the second representation of
the "Damnation of Faust," by Berlioz.
The uproar was caused by reason of the
fact that M. Cazeneuve replaced M.
Alvarez, the tenor of the opera, who was
down on the bills for the nart of the re-
juvenate doctor. No one in the house
would listen to M. Cazeneuve, who had to
leave the stage. Then the manager in-
formed the public that M. Alvarez was too
fatigued to be able to sing, and he asked
that M. Cazeneuve should be heard. The
latter returned to the stage, but hardly
had he done so when he burst into tears,
tore off his wig, dashed it to the ground,
and then went back to the wings. T h e
manager again came forward and offered
to return their money to persons who
would not listen to M. Cazeneuve. Several
people left the theatre, but the majority
kept their seats, having been assured that
no other singer had been replaced except
M. Alvarez, and gave the poor substitute a
round of applause when he came back to
the stage for the third time to sing the part
of Faust. He was told by the audience
that they had no grievance against him,
but they objected to an alteration which
they did not expect. How trying!
Q
people. This summer there will be about
1,200 performances in the different parks
of the city by fifty-six bands. Carl Arm-
bruster, the musical adviser of the London
County Council, has effected notable im-
provements in the quality of music given
at these free concerts. Concerning this
feature of them The London Telegraph
gives this interesting information; the
facts are undoubtedly as applicable in
New York as they are in London:
"Bandmasters were slow to believe that
the public—especially residents in the
poorer districts—would, for instance, ap-
preciate the works of Wagner. Yet the
workingman and his family have mani-
fected a very decided liking for the sound-
ing and complex compositions of the Bay-
reuth master, and nothing draws more fer-
vent applause than the Trannhauser over-
ture. The repertory of the bands is being
constantly increased, and while there nat-
urally exists a desire to gratify all tastes,
the proportion of pieces of serious aim set
forth in the programmes is much larger
than formerly. As time goes on and lis-
teners achieve a higher level of cultiva-
tion, the demand for a better class of
music is certain to increase, and the tone
of the performances will be still further
raised."
New York will give 182 of such free con-
certs, as was announced the other day by
Commissioner Wilcox, in fourteen parks
by twenty bands.
JOHN C. HAYNES.
\ A 7 H E N we consider the important part
which the great music publishing
houses of America have played in the devel-
opment of musical taste, it must be conceded
that such a house as the Oliver Ditson Co.
has contributed largely to the musical history
of this country, and by the success of this
great house may be estimated the growth of
the United States in musical taste and culture.
At the head of the Ditson Co. is a man
well advanced in years—a man who by sheer
intellectual and physical force has worked his
SUMMER REFLECTIONS.
' " P H I S is the season of flowers and joy- way up from the lowest to the topmost
ousness and open air band perform- rounds of the business ladder, for John C.
ances. W h a t picture more pleasant than Haynes began as an errand boy with Oliver
Central Park or Prospect Park, on one of Ditson in 1845. Oliver Ditson was attracted
these beautiful summer days with a great by the brightness of the young man and in
wind orchestra echoing back, in the intelli- 1857 he was advanced to a partnership in the
gible language of music and tone color, the concern.
mysterious forms of nature. Could there
Mr. Haynes has controlled the destinies
be anvthing more humanizing than the pic- for many years of the great house of Ditson,
tures possible on this occasion?
and to-day is as keenly watchful of the inter-
It is not the time for close analysis, as ests in every department as in the early years
to the merits or character of the music of his young manhood. He has a remarkable
played—suffice it that thousands find en- memory, and his large fund of information
joyment and that their too brief outings from which he can draw at will readily makes
from unhealthful abodes are made so enjoy- him a most interesting talker. He is largely
able.
interested in philanthropic enterprises, being
Personally we might wish for better vice-president of a home for students and
musical organization in the parks and bet- working girls.
ter programmes, but the summer weather
That Mr. Haynes has a keen appreciation
is not the time to be critical. W e have of humor may be seen in the twinkle which
enough of that when the thermometer is gathers in his blue eyes as he relates some
low, and musical affairs come to us three incident which happened in days agone when
or four a day.
his millions were not won.
London, like New York, makes large
The frontispiece which we present is one
provision for out-of-door music in the of the best portraits that we have ever seen of
city parks for the entertainment of the Mr. Haynes. Many photographers have
people, especially the poorer classes of the failed to catch his expression, but this one is