Music Trade Review

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50
THE
STRAUSS' LATEST WORK
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
COMPOSING F0R_ VAUDEVILLE.
Wins the Plaudits of Otto H. Kahn—Will Be Prominent Composers Yielding to the Demand
for Musical Productions in Tabloid Form.
Produced at the Metropolitan—The Music
Is Exquisite According to the Critics.
Apparently, the time is coming when composers
Mr. Strauss' latest work, "Ariadne auf Naxos," —or at least, the minor composers—are being
which was given its premiere in Stuttgart last week, •obliged to bow to the dictates of a new kind of
excited the enthusiastic praise of Otto H. Kahn, a tyrant, the managers of variety shows. Leonca-
prominent New York banker and official of the vallo and Mascagni are but leading the procession
Metropolitan Opera House, who visited that Ger- To please their new employers they have boiled
man city especially for the occasion. In a chat down their operas so they can figure on vaude-
with the New York Times' correspondent in Ber- ville programs. From this, it was but a step to the
lin, Mr. Kahn said that the production of this opera latest fashion of having tabloid operas especially
at the Metropolitan may confidently be anticipated written for the vaudeville stage. Leoncavallo took
this step when he undertook to write "The Gyp-
at no distant date.
" 'Ariadne' is exquisite music," said Mr. Kahn. sies" for the London Hippodrome, at which it was
"It is, indeed, so delightful from the purely tonal produced not long ago. The "time limit" imposed
standpoint that I very much hope the Metropolitan on him was seventy minutes. Consequently, he left
will elect to produce it without the accompanying out all "trimmings," such as introductions and reci-
and wholly superfluous Moliere comedy, 'Le Bour- tatives, deluging the audience at once with the pas-
sionate accents of dispairing love.
geois Gentilhomme,' which precedes it and which
Dr. Strauss intends to be a general part of the
production. The score is so distinctly separate
USING TWOjGOOD NUMBERS.
from the playlet that the latter can be entirely cut "Telegraph Four" Make Good in Vaudeville
without artistic loss of any kind."
Singing the Feist Successes.
When asked whether Richard Strauss, who pre-
One of the prominent and successful vaudeville
vented the production of "Der Rosenkavalier" in
New York, primarily because of the financial con- acts using the Feist hit is the "Telegraph Four," a
ditions he tried to impose, would be more tractable clever quartet which has long been playing over the
in connection with the American rights of
"Ariadne," Mr. Kahn said: "Undoubtedly."
CLARKE MAKESJiTT AS SOLOIST.
Prominent Cornetist Plays Own Number at
Sousa Concert.
At the New York Hippodrome on last Sunday
evening the first New York concert of the season
was given by Sousa and his band, when the most
pronounced hit of the evening was made by Her-
bert L. Clarke, the distinguished cornet soloist,
who played "The Southern Cross," his own com-
position, and for an encore his own arrangement
of "Carnival of Venice." These solos, as well as
others by Mr. Clarke, are published by M. Wit-
mark & Sons.
PLEASING THEPRIMA DONNA.
How Composers Have Been Compelled to Ar-
range the Arias to Satisfy the Singer—
Handel the First to Overcome Rebellion of
Artists.
Time was when composers had to make their
arias to suit the style of a particular singer, just
as tailors make the prima donna's gowns to meas-
ure. Even Mozart had to do this when he went to
Italy to learn the tricks of the trade. Handel, to
be sure, rebelled on one occasion. He seized an
obstreperous prima donna round the waist and
threatened to throw her out of the window unless
she promised to sing his aria as he had written it.
But Handel was the exception that proved the rule.
McKINLEY MUSIC CO'S NEW HIT.
leading circuits and is at present in the East. The
'Telegraph Four" are using "That's How I Need
You" and "When I Get You Alone To-night," and
feature the numbers well. As a matter of fact, it
is hard to discover a vadueville show or a cabaret
performance during which one or the other of the
songs mentioned is not sung.
MILLION COPY HIT
Down By The Old Millstream
Also New Hits
New WHEN WE WERE SWEETHEARTS New
New
UNDER THE OLD OAK TREE New
New
WAY DOWN SOUTH
New
New
RAG RAG RAG
New
New
THAT SUBWAY RAG
New
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FRANKIE AND JOHNNY New
TELL TAYLOR, MUSIC PUBLISHER
WtMDJ BY
OHYQUSATURDAYNIGHT!
Roger Lewis
r.HenriKUclanann
Compojensofi
NEW YORK
Question Asked as to Why the Composers Do
Not Satisfy That Demand with Florid Song
Which Arouses the Enthusiasm of the Audi-
ence— How Strauss Met the Situation in His
Recent Opera—Making the Singer's Voice
Sensational.
In Success in Music the question was put to
composers why they do not supply the evidently
great public demand for colorature—for florid song
like that with which the prima donnas used to
arouse the frantic enthusiasm of the public, and
still do when a Tetrazzini comes along. The ques-
tion has been answered—by whom do you sup-
pose? By Signor Riccardo Strauss, the'man who
has heretofore treated the human voice with the
utmost indifference to its use by the masters of
yore. Read the following from the account in the
London Times of the first performance of Strauss's
latest work, "Ariadne auf Naxos," in Stuttgart:
The trio of the Louis XIV nymphs is Strauss
amusing himself with the conventions of operatic
concerted music; and in the Zerbinetta scenes we
get the Strauss of "Der Rosenkavalier"—or per-
haps we should rather say, the Strauss of Mme.
Margarethe Siems, for without her one can scarce-
ly suppose that this music would have been writ-
ten at all. Was ever a song filled with such won-
derful coloratur as the one which Strauss has
written for her here anil the wordless cadenza
which follows it? The old coloratur singers em-
broidered in conventional patterns; Strauss' far-
flung arabesques come from the voice of Mme.
Siems as though she were making them up at the
moment, and they suggest that even he can scarce-
ly find enough for her wonderful voice to do.
This song, and the use of the orchestra with the
voice, is the chief point of the opera; yet one can-
not help asking what it is all done for. Here in
one work Strauss brings together the lyrical dram-
atic style which Wagner initiated and he has ex-
panded and the coloratur style which he (with
Mme. Siems to help him) has carried to unsMs-
pected possibilities. Both are treated with the ut-
most elaborateness.
ATLANTIC CITY_DEALER MOVES.
Frank C. Helmick, who for several years has
conducted a piano store at 7 North Florida avenue,
Atlantic City, N. J., has recently opened handsome
new quarters at 2408 Atlantic avenue, that city.
The increased floor space offered by the new loca-
tion on the main street of the city was badly
needed to take care of Mr. Helmick's growing
trade.
NOW PLAYING IN NEW YORK
Four Big Musical Successes.
At the Globe Theater
"The
Lady of the Slipper"
Book by Ann Caldwell and Lawrence McCarty.
Lyrics by James O'Dea.
Music by Victor Herbert.
CHICAGO
At the Park Theatre
FROM
Book and Lyrics by Frank Pixley.
Music by Gustav Luders.
"The Gypsy"
BUY
YOUR
IVMJSIC
BOSTON
Publishers
WALTER JACOBS
187 Tremont St.,
BOSTON, MASS.
Publisher of
Kiss *f Spring." "Somt Day When Drtams Com* Trut."
And Soac Outers World Famous
OLIVER
DITSON
COMPANY
BOSTON
NEW YORK
vnticipate and Supply Eyery Requirement of Music Dealers
WHITE-SMITH MUSIC PUB. CO.
Published in Chicago.
PUBLIC DEMAND FOR COLORATURE.
PUBLISHERS, PRINTERS & ENGRAVERS OF MUSIC
Mala Offices: 6S-64 Stanhope St, Boston
Braaoh Houses: New Yo#k sad Chicago
At the N. Y. Hippodrome
"Under Many Flags"
Conceived by Arthur Voegtlin.
Book by Carroll Fleming.
Music and Lyrics by Manuel Klein.
At the Casino
"The Merry Countess"
Book by Gladys Unger.
Lyrics by Arthur Anderson.
Music by Johann Strauss.
All the Music Now Ready.
M. WITMARK & SONS
Witmark Bldg.. 144-146 West 87th St., N. Y. City.
Chicago San Francisco London Paris Melbourne