Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE
has a wonderful voice and can fairly hope to
reach the highest position in the field of opera,
he can do better in some other calling. Wo-
men, of course, are well satisfied if they can
learn to sing well enough to get a church
choir position and take a few pupils. That
does not satisfy the alert American man. It's
a plain business proposition, that's all."
Thus does commercialism, hated of Rich-
ard Wagner, continue to invade the sacred
precincts of art.
MME. EDWARDS' OPERA CLASS.
I ONG ago it was visible to anyone who
*-* knew Mme. Etta Edwards, of Boston,
that her class would enjoy privileges of rare
and immeasurable value. That she has the
ability that few have to perfect the tone pro-
duction is past the necessity of mention be-
cause all of those who study with this remark-
able teacher have gained a beautiful quality
and a thorough musical and intelligent style..
But Mme. Edwards was not satisfied with
this; she had in her class those who were
ready for operatic study and she was not will-
ing to relinquish her care of their tone pro-
duction, being thoroughly intimate with the
conditions as they exist when young girls are
sent abroad to study and to struggle. From
this sentiment grew the determination to en-
gage the best talent in America—or had she
deemed it necessary she would have brought
it from Europe—to open a class of operatic
study for her own pupils.
For this purpose Mme. Edwards engaged
Signor Vianesi who has spent his entire life
in operatic conducting and stage management
in Italy, to come to Boston from New York,
where she herself can give attention to the
voice as he instructs the pupils in the roles.
The first recital occurred Jan. 9, when the re-
sults created astonishment among all those
present for it demonstrated what can be ac-
complished under the direction of a woman
like Mme. Edwards and such people as she
sees fit to entrust with the welfare of her pu-
pils.
While one must marvel at what the pupils
have accomplished, there is still more than
credit due a woman who works with such af-
fection and such intelligence for those whose
interests she has at heart. One teacher like
Mme,. Edwards in America is reason enough
to feel that singers can remain in this coun-
try and gain the best of vocal treatment as
also every advantage that it is possible to se-
cure.
Among the pupils who gave the first recital
were Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Martin, Miss
Alice Wetmore, Miss Edith Ellsbree, Miss
Sigrid Oleson, Miss Bernadine Parker and
several others, assisted by Robert Hall.
Mme. Edwards has now three large elegant
rooms in Steinert Hall, where she conducts
her work and holds her recitals.
JEAN DE RESZKE HONORED.
' T ' H E recent announcement that Jean De
* Reszke has been made a Chevalier of the
Legion of Honor, is of special significance
inasmuch as he is the first singer to receive
this honor while still active in his career.
Others have been similarly honored, but for
their services as teachers or composers after
they have retired from active work.
DYNAMICS IN MUSICAL ART.
sive modern music, when we have had our
T H E gentle spirit of Arnold Dolmetsch is souls laid bare for us by some wizard of the
* pained by the development of powerful orchestra, when we have had our intellects
dynamics in modern art. He shudders at the spurred to unwonted labor by the problem
massing of instruments, at the complicated compositions of a Richard Strauss, we are
mechanism of expression used by composers glad, indeed to go back to the musical an-
in their efforts to make the communicative tique and rest among the compositions of a
possibilities of music larger, more direct and period when the emotional outlook was so
more overwhelming. He asks us to believe small that to us it is imperceptible. It is good
that the olden times, when ladies played ami- for us to do this. It is well for us that we
ably on harpsichords the suites of Rameau can from time to time hear music which
and Handel and Couperin, or sang the sweet seems to us to seek for nothing deeper than
songs of Arne and Lawes and Carey, were pure external beauty, though doubtless to
better times than these, when professional its contemporaries it seemed to be extraordin-
athletes thunder the Herculean rhapsodies of arily communicative. So the children of the
Liszt and expensively educated singers de- next century, in whose musical vocabulary the
claim the problematic lyrics of Brahms and worst dissonance of Strauss and his staccato
cackling of clarinets in their uppermost regis-
Strauss.
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ter will be as the chord of the seventh and the
That an elder time is a better time is a hymning of the horns are in ours, will go
pleasing or rather displeasing delusion of back to the lusciously melodious and simply
many. To condemn one's own period because constructed old music of Wagner and lull
it does not stand where another period did their weary brains with the cradle song of
is a sort of post hoc ergo propter hoc attitude, Briinnhilde and the pretty love ditty of Tris-
which will not bear close examination, as W. tan and Isolde.
J. Henderson correctly says. This whole mat-
In that day Bach will be as Gounod in the
ter of musical progress may be reduced to a mouths of the people. But there is such a
simple basis. It has all been the result of a thing as being too visionary. Mr. Dolmetsch
search after expression. What is called the is captivating. His wife is a delightful virtu-
romantic element in music is nothing but the oso on the harpsichord and her singing of the
motive called impulse. The classic or con- archaic songs sounds like a phonographic re-
servative element is the motive called idea. production of not only the voice but the spirit
M. Taine in his work on English literature of the time. Miss Johnston plays the viola da
says: "Two special powers lead mankind— gamba in a platitudinous, abstracted, tonal
impulse and idea." Here we have them in speech, as far removed from the music of this
musical art—classicism and romanticism.
day as the voice of the mediaeval schalmei.
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The music which they play is delightful in its
Instrumental music has made progress sim- simplicity, its calmness, its utter freedom
ilar to that of the other forms of art, and no from sturm und drang.
amount of humorous comment will suffice to
But the world will move, and music will
convince men and women of to-day that this
make progress, even if it has to offend deli-
progress is deleterious to the art. If one be-
cate ears by seeking after large masses of
gins with such reformatory measures as are
tone. For the composers are ceaselessly
suggested by the deprecatory remarks of Mr.
driven by the romantic impulse and are striv-
Dolmetsch, where is he to end ? Shall music
ing with every lustrum to deepen and widen
go back as far as the symphonies of Haydn
the expressive power of their art. As they
and stop there ? That is not quite so far back
are the leaders, the rest of us must be follow-
as the chamber music compositions offered
ers.
for our consideration by this interesting
WAS IT PLAGIARISM ?
apostle of the archaic. The apparatus of the
Haydn symphony, even if it were reduced to T* HOSE who have followed the defence in
the proportions of the Esterhazy orchestra,
the recent libel suit of Victor Herbert
for which Haydn wrote so many of his works, against a notorious trade editor, will be in-
might be much too heavy for ears attuned to terested in the discovery made by Dr. Hugo
combinations of harpsichord, viola d'amore Riemann regarding Schumann's G r e a t
and viola da gamba.
Quintet, which, it will be remembered Pugno
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and the Kaltenborns played at Men-
All this vast and complicated modern or- delssohn Hall recently. It is that the ener-
chestra, with its army of strings and wood, getic first five notes of the first movement are
has grown by degrees with the persistent identical with the opening bars of an E-flat
search of composers after means of expres- major trio by Anton Fritz, who died in 1760.
sion.. The romantic impulse has been at work Dr. Riemann has lately edited "Collegium
here, too. It set Beethoven, Schumann and Musicum," a collection of chamber music
Liszt altering the symphonic form; it set works by composers preceding Haydn.
Berlioz exploring the resources of instruments
"COLUMBUS", A SYMPHONIC POEM.
and combinations of instruments. To say
\T
ICTOR
HERBERT, the director of the
more and more, to make music a larger and
Pittsburg
Orchestra, has written a sym-
more influential means of expression has been
phonic
poem,
"Columbus,"
which was per-
the effort of composers from the infancy of
formed
for
the
first
time
by
the
Pittsburg Or-
the art. If the development of the method of
chestra
at
a
regular
concert
in
Carnegie
Mu-
expression has moved toward the employment
sic
Hall,
Pittsburg,
on
Jan.
2.
The
title
of
of a larger volume of tone, how does that in-
the descriptive movements (descriptive of the
jure the art?
landing of the discoverer in America) are
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It is true that when we have for a time ''Sunrise on Granada," "At La Rabida,"
suffered under the magic of fiercely expres- "Murmurs of the Sea" and "Triumph."