Music Trade Review

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TH
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
TIMELY TALKS ON TIMELY TOPICS.
r\ AVID BISPHAM'S recent statement in
a London court that it would be profes-
sional suicide to live in his own country has
occasioned much comment in local musical
circles. To those unacquainted with the busi-
ness phases of a singer's profession, Mr.
Bispham's fiat may sound exaggerated, but
it is comprehensible enough not only to sing-
ers and musicians who live abroad and come
here to make money, but to all who have had
to do with musical affairs in this country, at
least in recent years. The American public
evidently requires in the artist the glamor
of a European prestige—about the same feel-
ing that makes our young women want Euro-
pean titled personages for their husbands.
This republican country of ours is so mon-
otonous, you know! There is little chance
now for American artists—unless they so-
journ in Europe and have sung for the king
of some little country not as large as New
York or hobnobbed with some prince, duke
or lord who have little to recommend them
outside of their titles.
Of course, no one can blame Bispham for
his candid statement. He has sized up the
situation accurately. It is not Bispham or his
fellow artists who have brought about this
condition; it is our snobocracy who lack faith
in their own people.
A prominent musical agent, when asked if
Mr. Bispham's contention was true and that
musical artists would suffer by residing per-
manently in their own country, said:
"There is very little doubt of the truth of
it. The wisest American singers are those
who can find employment for a certain part of
every year in Europe, and then return here
for the musical season only. I could give
you the names of several American singers
who had acquired very good places in Eng-
land—I don't mean the very highest—and
then to their grief came to this country to
live, thinking that, being Americans, they
had best settle here. They soon realized that
the people here are very loyal in their devo-
tion to American singers, but take a great
deal more interest in those who live abroad
than those who stay in the United States.
"The opera singers all realize that and try
to get out of the country as soon as they can
after the last performance. They are more
eager about it than the foreigners. Suzanne
Adams went abroad this spring because she
was going to sing at Covent Garden. But it
is highly probable that either Mme. Nordica
or Mme. Eames will sing before returning
here next winter. David Bispham appears
occasionally in London nowadays, but he
sings here twenty times for every one appear-
ance in England.
"Mme. Eames has practically appeared
during the past ten years only at the opera
house in New York. So one would suppose
that residence in this country would be much
more convenient for her. But 'she is shrewd
enough to see that her professional value
would diminish immediately if she became
identified with local singers.
"For that reason Mme. Nordica, too, gets
away as soon as she can, and so do all the
other American singers who are able to go.
They know how important it is commercially
for them to be identified with the foreigners
who come over every winter. If they stopped
here during the summer and had their per-
manent resilience in New York they would
soon find themselves left to sing in oratoria,
second-class concerts and musical festivals.
"Even the foreign artists who have decided
to settle here soon find that the public esti-
mate of them changes. They become a part
of the local crowd, and that is enough. I re-
member how popular Del Pucnte used to be
as long as he was an occasional visitor to this
country. Once he settled down here to live,
the public seemed to pay very little attention
to him. Look at the experience of Mme.
Fursch-Madi and Emil Fischer. They were
certainly appreciated enough when they were
on the operatic stage. But once they were
regular residents of New York, the feeling
toward them was very different.
"There was a time when not only the
American singers lived in their own country,
but the foreigners stopped here as well dur-
ing the summer. Christine Nilsson used to
spend her summers between tours here, while
Clara Louise Kellogg and Annie Louise Cary
were never ashamed to live in their own coun-
tries for some years. But now the shrewd
singer knows enough to fill her professional
engagements in the United States and have
her home in Europe so she may return to it
just as she would if she had been born in
Portland, France or Croatia.
willing to fall into the second rank of our
local church and concert singers, it will do
them no harm to be here."
A N invasion of New York by orchestral
conductors of European fame is an-
nounced for the coming winter. The list is
formidable, containing as it does the names
of Mottl, Weingartner, Colonne, Henry
Wood and Richard Strauss. The coming of
the latter is evidently a settled matter.
If the philharmonic concerts are to have
different conductors, the series will be inter-
esting in its offer of contrasts. The move is
a clever one from a business point of view.
There may be differences of opinion though
on the subject of artistic dignity.
his visit to Vienna a couple of
weeks ago, Heinrich Conried, director
of the Metropolitan Opera House, talked
about his plans very freely with old friends,
justifying his action in deciding to produce
"Parsifal" in the face of Cosima Wagner's
opposition. He said there was no way of get-
ting around Wagner's heirs. They persistent-
ly showed the clause in his will begging his
wife not to allow "Parsifal" to be performed
outside Bayreuth, but he thought Frau Wag-
ner's refusal was not based alone on a pious
determination to abide by her husband's wish,
but also upon a fear that she would lose the
American audience at Bayreuth.
But Mr. Conried has engaged Frau Wag-
ner's pet artists and her own pupils—Burg-
staller for Parsifal, Van Rooy for Amfortas,
Blass for Gurnemanz and Ternina for Kun-
dry.
Lautenschlager, of Munich, will make all
the stage arrangements, and Burkhart, of
"In England it makes no difference wheth- Vienna, will paint the scenery. The orchestra
er an artist lives there or not. Mme. Albani will consist of eighty-five thorough musicians,
had her house in London for years and Mme. with Hertz, from Dresden, to conduct, and
Melba has recently taken a house there. Clara Felix Mottl for a number of special perform-
Butt, Andrew Green, Eduard Lloyd and Ben ances.
Davies all live in London, but that does not
Mr. Conried has also signed a contract with
prevent them from getting the best engage-
Edith Walker, of the Vienna Opera, to sing
ments. They do not find it necessary to rush
Erda in "Rheingold" and "Siegfried." She
to the Continent as soon as the musical sea-
had just signed a contract for another three
son is over because their homes are there.
years with the Vienna Court Theatre, but
"Somebody tried to persuade Ben Davies, was released on appeal to the court marshal,
the English tenor, to settle in the United Prince Montenuovo, telling him that if she
States. But he declined laughingly.
continued under Director Mahler her singing
" 'I prefer to remain in England,' he said, would not be worth hearing.
'and come over for several months every year
as a singer from Europe. I'm afraid there
A CCORDING to a new theory advanced
would not be much interest in me if I stayed ** by Fere and Jaell, two French investi-
over here too many months in the year.'
gators, the influence of musical tones and in-
. "And he was right. Only a few years ago tervals on the physical organism is exactly
a young soprano came to me for advice. I the same with all persons. The only differ-
had already declined to book her again be- ence between a musical and an unmusical per-
cause I found that the last time I tried it son is that the former is able to realize the
there was very little demand for her services. aesthetic relations of these reactions while the
I could not even get half the fees that had other is not.
formerly been paid to her. She asked me
By means of Mosso's "ergograph," a sen-
what in the world to do.
sitive device by which the exciting or depress-
" 'Go to Europe, my dear child,' I told her, ing effect of any influence on the organism
'and stay there two or three years. You have can be measured, the experimenters have as-
money enough now and, besides that, you can certained which are stimulating combinations
of sounds and which are depressing ones.
get engagements over there.' She is an artist,
Thus they find that a discord has just the
has made a success there and will be as popu- same depressing physical effect on a person
lar as ever in her own country when she re- who "has no ear" as on one who is exquisite-
ly sensitive to tones.
turns.
"These experiments seem to prove," say
"Yes, Bispham was right. To keep in the
the writers, "that our musical culture makes
first class the singer or musician, even though more and more perceptible to us the uncon-
he or she be American born, must not settle scious relations that exist between musical art
down here. That is always fatal. If they are and the human organism."