Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
ARE NEW MELODIES EXHAUSTED?
A CLEVER FRENCH PIANIST.
SOME CONCERT STARS.
Some Interesting Remarks by J. F. Runciman
on This Subject.
We take pleasure in presenting herewith a por-
trait of Mile. Marthe Girod, a French pianiste,
who is designated "a rising star of great emi-
nence," having scored triumphs in most of the
leading cities of Europe, notably London, Paris,
Brussels, Marseilles, Baden Baden, etc., where
she has played with the leading Philharmonic
Orchestras such as Nikisch' Leipzig Gewandhaus,
the Berlin Philharmonic Society, the Lamoureux
and Colonne Paris orchestras. She has won the
most complimentary notices from the critics of
the leading papers in Paris, London and other
A Great Season in View, at Least Great in
Number of Artists Who Will be Heard—
Will the Financial Results be Ample?
Some years ago Mr. Reginald De Koven aston-
ished the musical world by the intimation that
the possibility of writing new melodies was near-
ly exhausted. A similar idea occurred to John
F. Runciman, of the London Saturday Review, on
reading a new book by Hermann Smith, "The
World's Earliest Music." Where, asks Mr. Runci-
man will the growing intricacy of modern music
end? Must we have resources to quarter-tones
and eighths of tones? Not, he believes, for many
a century:
"There are yet miracles to be worked with the
twelve notes of our scale, and those who spend
their time in working out its possibilities by
means of long arithmetical calculations and pro-
phesy that the end is near would be better em-
ployed in doing a little thinking. There are not
many great melodies in the world. A melody has
to be written many hundreds or thousands of
times and, as it were, cast back again and again
into the general melting pot until the lucky man
comes along and by an inspired touch gives it its
final form. There is not a great theme in exist-
ence that has not had many feeble forerunners.
Some of Beethoven's and Mozart's most marvel-
ous melodies are only fragments of the scale
transfigured by a divine touch. I am not the least
anxious about the future. We can no more guess
at. that than we can guess at the nature of the
first music; but as yet there is no need for
alarmed talk of exhausted resources."
PITTSBURG ORCHESTRA SEASON.
Thirty Concerts Under Emil Paur—Only One
American Listed on the Programme.
The Pitts,jurg Orchestra will open its tenth
home season in the first week of November. There
will be thirty concerts, fifteen of which will be
in the afternoon and fifteen in the evening. They
will be under the direction of Emil Paur, who
will beat his ward over sixty-five players, most
of whom received their training under his prede-
cessor, Victor Herbert. The list of works to be
played, strange to say, includes the name of only
one American composer—Mrs. Beach! Mr. Her-
bert used to be more hospitable to Americans.
Mrs. Beach will also be one of the soloists. The
other soloists are to be David Bispham, Lillian
Blauvelt, David Baxter, G. Campanari, Eugene
D'Albert, Muriel Foster, Johanna Gadski, E. P.
Johnson, Fritz Kreisler, Luigi Kunits, Maud
Powell, Emil Paur, Herbert Witherspoon—a good-
ly company of artists, undeniably. A commend-
able feature of the subscription sale is that some
rows of seats are reserved for music students at
less than half rates.
NEW ITALIAN OPERAS.
Besides Mascagni's "Arnica," several other
Italian operas are to be launched soon. Amintore
Galli, one of the young composers discovered by
Sonzogno, has nearly completed his "King
David," which is to be produced at Milan in No-
vomber. Giacomo Orefice, who wrote an opera
based on Chopin's life and his music, a few years
ago, has chosen Moses for his next hero. The San
Carlo, of Naples, is preparing for performance an
opera by Mugnone based on Pierre Loti's
"Pecheurs d'lslande"; it Avill also produce Leon-
cavallo's "Roland" after its premiere in Berlin.
Umberto Giordano and Franchetti are also hard
at. work on new scores. But Italy is still await-
ing a new Verdi.
A new Italian opera, entitled "Adagio," by
Maestro Suderri, of Treviso, was produced on
September 18 at the Theatre du Grand Cercle in
Aix les Bains. Mile. Bendazzi was the soprano,
and the tenor was Garulli, for whom the work
was expressly written. The performance was a
grand success, and it is intended to perform the
opera in the principal cities of France and Italy.
.MI.I.K. MAItTHE GIROD.
cities in France and England, as well as in Ger-
many, Belgium and Holland, who have all de
clared her to be one of the greatest contempo-
rary concert performers. g n e plays all schools of
composition with equal perfection. She has a
phenomenal memory, playing eight hundred con-
cert pieces by heart, and has a veritable mascu-
line technique, beautiful conception, sonorous
tone and a high degree of virtuosity.
In addition to her concert work, Mile. Girod
has a large clientele of pupils among the old aris-
tocratic families of the Faubourg, St. Germain in
Paris, and has also taught a number of American
girls, who speak very highly of her method and
the good results accruing from their study with
this teacher. Although Mme. Girod is still a
resident of Paris, it is not unlikely she will be
heard in concert at no distant day in this country.
YSAYE APPEARS DECEMBER 8.
Ysaye's first appearance in this city on his com-
ing visit will be on December 8 at Carnegie Hall
with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He will
play the Beethoven Concerto and the Scotch Fan-
tasie of Max Bruch. On December 18 he will
play again at Carnegie Hall, the Damrosch Or-
chestra assisting. On this occasion he will play
concertos by Saint-Saens and Mozart. Immediate-
ly after this Ysaye will give two recitals at Car-
negie Hall.
PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY CONCERTS.
The Philharmonic Society's preliminary an-
nouncement this week confirms the list of con-
ductors printed in The Review two weeks ago
and gives this schedule of dates for the eight Fri-
day matinee rehearsals and eight Saturday even-
ings: November 11-12, Kogel; December 2-3 and
1C-17, Colonne; January 6-7 and 27-28, Safonoff;
February 10-11, Weingartner; March 3-4, Karl
Panzner, the new man from Bremen, and March
24-25, Theodore Thomas. Subscription renewals
begin on October 17 and the general sale one
week later. This renewal of the plans so success-
ful last year is certain to insure another year of
great prosperity for the Philharmonic Society.
Two months only remain before the beginning
of New York's great musical season.
There are now in sight for New York eighty-
five performances of opera in foreign tongues,
perhaps forty in English, sixty-five orchestra con-
certs, a dozen or two of chamber music, eight or
ten great choral productions, and the usual half
a hundred of really important solo appearances
and debuts.
New York does not have music 365 days in the
year, but while the shows last they come three
and four a day, more's the pity.
Here are the concert stars: Mmes. Sembrich
Gadski, Russell, Melba, Blauvelt, De Montjau,
Maconda, Metcalfe, David and other sopranos;
Mmes. Foster, Homer, Lunn, Hall and Stein
among contraltos. Among the men concert giv-
ers will be Hans Schroeder, a Frankfort baritone,
as well as Plancon, Bispham, Campanari, Journet,
Francis Rogers, Van Hoose, Johnson, Van Yorx,
Witherspoon and Wheeler. There is also Senor
Don Francisco de Souza Coutinho., of Portugal,
who returned here to appear at the St. Louis
Fair.
Pianists: Paderewski, Pachmann, D'Albert,
Hofmann, Aus der Ohe, Ernst Schelling, Jose da
Motta, Mr. Paur, Mr. Joseffy, Mrs. Zeisler, Mrs.
Beach, Mr. Sherwood and countless others.
Ysaye is first violin among many, for he be-
gins a $60,000 contract on December 8. Franz
Von Vecsey on January 10 is successor to Kube-
lik. Fritz Kreisler reappears on January 3. Maud
Powell easily leads the women stars. Marie
Nichols will play for Mr. Gericke. Two solo 'cel-
lists will be Anton Hekking and Josef Hofmann.
Georg Henschel returns to lecture on Brahms,
Arnold Dolmetsch to exhibit his rare old musical
instruments, and Coleridge Taylor, London's well
known African composer of partly British parent-
age, to be the guest conductor of the Coleridge
Taylor Choral Society, of Washington, D. C.
Alexandre Guilmant, of Paris, with Eddy Carl
and other Americans, has been at the World's
Fair, and will be heard here in organ recitals.
GRAND OPERA IN ENGLISH
To Be Given in Brooklyn by the Savage Co. on
Oct. 9—To Tour This Country.
Henry W. Savage's English grand opera com-
pany will open its ninth season in a repertoire of
grand opera with an engagement of eight per-
formances at the Montauk Theatre, Brooklyn, be-
ginning Monday, October 10th. This company
will make a complete tour of the United States
and Canada this year, with engagements in sixty-
five leading cities. Until the first of the year it
will be heard in the East, after which it will visit
all the principal Southern cities for the first
time, including an opera season in New Orleans,
where heretofore the French opera company has
been in vogue. From New Orleans the company
goes west, giving a month of grand opera in Eng-
lish in San Francisco.
The feature of the opening week in Brooklyn
will be the first performance in English there of
Puccini's "La Boheme," that beautiful music
drama of the Latin quarter that first attracted
attention to the young Italian composer. Dur-
ing the week there will be performances also of
Verdi's "Othello," with "Carmen," "Lohengrin,"
"Tannhauser" and a double bill made up of "I
Pagliacci" and "Cavalleria Rusticana."
There will be a full grand opera orchestra
under conductors Emanuel and Schenck, and the
company will be considerably enlarged, both as to
principals and in the ail-American chorus.
Josef Hofmann is to be the soloist at the first
Philharmonic concerts in Carnegie Hall on Fri-
day afternoon and Saturday evening, November
11 and 12. Hofmann opened his tour in Portland,
Ore., last Monday evening and plays twenty-five
concerts along the Pacific coast and in the middle
West before being heard in this city.
-