Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
CROCHETS AND QUAVERS.
Dr. Hubert Parry has written an orches-
tral elegy on Johannes Brahms.
Miss Jessie Shay, the young American
pianiste, will return to America this
month.
An obelisk adorned with a medallion of
•Chopin has been erected at Retnerz, where
he gave his first concert.
There is some doubt whether Mile.
Chaminade's health will permit her to
come to this country next season.
A complete edition of the works of Liszt
will soon be published by The Associa-
tion of German Musicians.
Mascagni has a son eight years of age
now studying the violin in the Rossini
Academy of Pesaro. He will soon be
heard in public.
James P. Keough, secretary of the Mu-
sic Teachers' National Association, was
married on July 22. Miss R. Alice Killen,
the bride, is a well-known voice teacher.
Miss Celeste Cunningham, a former res-
ident of Columbia, S. C , has been appoint-
ed musical directress of one of the High
Schools of this city.
Ysaye, the eminent violinist, will open at
the Philharmonic Society of New York on
November 12 and 13, playing Brahms'con-
certo.
Mme. Nordica, who by the way has fully
recovered from her recent serious illness,
will receive $50,000 for forty concerts to
be given in the United States beginning
late in October.
Nicolini, perhaps now best known as the
husband of Mme. Patti, is suffering from a
complication of disorders of a serious nature
and although he may live for months, he
ma)' die at any time.
Victor Herbert and his Twenty-second
Regiment Band opened a month's engage-
ment at the Tennessee Centennial Exhibi-
tion on August 2. The band will after-
wards go on a tour until November.
William Armstrong, the distinguished
musical critic of Chicago, who recently
lectured in London on ' ' American Song
Composers," was well received, as also were
the compositions interpreted in the course
of his remarks.
An arrangement has been entered into
with the manager of the DeWolf Hopper
Co. to combine Sousa's band and the opera
for a six weeks tour beginning in April.
The double attraction will appear at
the Metropolitan Opera House for two
nights.
At the Annual Convention of the Illinois
Music Teachers held the early part of July,
in Kankakee, the following officers were
elected: President, John Thompson, Gales-
burg; vice-president, Allen Spencer, Chi-
cago; secretary and treasurer, C. W. Weeks,
Ottawa.
The annual entrance examinations of the
National Conservatory of Music will take
place as follows: Singing, Wednesday,
September 15; piano and organ, Thursday,
September 16; string instruments, wind
instruments and orchestra, Friday, Sep-
tember 17, and children's examination,
Saturday, September 18.
HISS THUDICHUn.
The original of this por-
trait, Miss Thudichum, a
distinguished soprano whose
magnificent voice has "turn-
ed the heads" of European
critics, will be one of the
galaxy of stars to appear
next season under Mr. Wolf-
s o h n ' s management. As
prima donna of the English
Opera Co., as in oratorio and
concert, she has attained en-
during fame. "MissThudi-
chum'sattractivenesslies not
more in the quality of her
voice," say the critics, "which
is in itself unusual in range
and charm, than in hei
splendid method of using it.
Her phrasing is admirable
and her voice is truly a won-
derful combination of sweet
ness and power."
Miss Thudichum on a re-
cent occasion in Glasgow
appeared in lieu of Mme.
Patti and achieved a most
brilliant artistic success.
ELECTRIC AID FOR SINGERS.
Electricity is now being used in Paris
for the purpose of strengthening the human
voice. Dr. Montier was the first to use it
in this way and his experiments in this line
are exceptionally interesting. He discov-
ered by mere chance that the vocal organs
could be benefited by the use of electricity,
and now he says, unhesitatingly, that there
is no greater boon for singers and all others
whose voices need to be strengthened than
franklinization, by which he simply means
the application of electricity. For tired or
weak voices it is especially the ideal tonic,
the "dynamogene" par excellence.
M. Granier, a member of the Paris Con-
servatory of Music, collaborated with Dr.
Montier in making his experiments, and
the result of their investigations was the
positive discovery that, while electricity
can benefit the human voice greatly, there
are certain limits beyond which it cannot
go. For example, in case of a lesion, it
can do no good. It cannot give speech to
the dumb, neither can it give new life to
vocal chords which are either broken or
utterly exhausted. It can do much but it
cannot resuscitate the dead. The physical
integrity of the organ is by no means all
that is required in the case of the human
voice, and especially of the singing voice,
which is a singularly delicate instrument,
and which if imperfect is of little use. The
slightest disturbance of the nervous system,
even though there be no apparent lesion, is
sufficient to spoil it, since in this way are
produced ailments which may be called
dynamic and in some cases immaterial.
Such troubles are usually the result either
of overwork or of violent emotions, or of
excesses of all kinds, or of that depression
which is produced by certain diseases such
as clorosis and neurasthenia. In all such
cases the singer, though he may not have
actually lost his voice, seems to have for-
gotten how to use it. The fact is he is un-
able to govern his breathing, and no one
who lacks power in this direction can hope
to sing properly. The singer who is unable
to control either the muscles of the chest
and throat or the sonorous vibrations of
the vocal chords, or the respiratory rhythm,
feels the same difficulty in singing that a
person suffering from locomotor ataxia
feels when he attempts to walk.
At this point electricity comes to the
rescue and in the simplest manner possible.
The patient seats himself on a stool with
glass feet, which is connected with the
negative pole of an electrical machine, and
while he is in that position the electricity
is administered in such a manner that his
throat feels the immediate effects of it.
This treatment lasts from ten to twenty-
five minutes, according to the impression-
ability of the patient. After twelve or fif-
teen seances of this treatment, which is
said to be delightful, sometimes even after
two or three seances, the voice is said to
recover all its scope and original power.
Almost always, too, it is said to receive a
new freshness and purity as a result of this
treatment. At the same time the sense of
weariness vanishes, the breathing becomes
more easy, more tractable and more ample,
and the passage from one register to the
other is made with more facility.
In a word, what Dr. Montier describes
is so thorough a transformation that per-
sons are now asking whether it will not
soon be possible to fashion entirely new
voices and even to give serviceable voices
to the deaf. Emile Gautier, too, asks in all
seriousness whether the hour may not be
close at hand when every lyric theatre will
have its electro-therapeutist, justas it has
its orchestra leader, who will be always on
duty and who will on demand be able to
furnish a new tenor or a new soprano.