Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Poems have been written, and tunes have
been made to them, by the hundred, but
not one has appealed effectively to the
popular ear or taken hold of the popular
heart as "Tramp, the Boys are March-
ing*" "John Brown's Body," "When
Johnny Comes Marching Home," and
some half score other songs did in the
North, and as " Dixie " and "My Mary-
land " did in the South during the civil
war. Why this should be so is hard to ex-
plain; perhaps it may be quite as difficult
to show why it should be otherwise; and
yet, it would seem that there is no lack of
incentive to the expression of timely senti-
ment in verse and of spirited outpouring
in melody. Up to date the verse written
for music has been, for the most part,
threadbare platitudes about the "starry
flag of freedom," and contemptuous allu-
sion to Spain and Spaniards, while the
tunes have been without individual charac-
ter, except that which has fastened upon
conventional comic opera and variety hall
songs. Of strong rhythm and singing
melody that set the pulse beating and that
fasten themselves irresistibly in the
memory, that are hummed almost auto-
matically and sung with enthusiasm, there
has not been a trace.
Other tunes pour forth in plenty and
reach an instant popularity, but war tunes
that fall in with the sentiment of the
moment and meet with an immediate
recognition as a sympathetic part of it are
wholly lacking. It is true that there is no
such source of inspiration in the present
crisis as there was during the rebellion to
stir poet and musician, and yet it would
appear that the situation does not present
a wholly barren field to either. However
this may be, the fact remains that the war
is poemless and songless as far as popular-
ity is concerned. It is not intended here
to echo the old lament that we have not a
fitting national anthem of home make, but
to comment on the strangeness of the fact
that the war should not have produced
even a catchy jingle, either of verse or
tune, that has appealed successfully to the
nation and been whistled, sung, played
and barrel-organed and brass-banded
through the land.
*
TT is said that Verdi has not yet retired
* from the field of composition, and that
a new opera on the subject of Nero may
still be expected from his pen. We only
hope the news is true.
*
T H E real difference between the musical
* and the non-musical is that the first
in listening has his mind full of musical
ideas so that his consciousness is taken up
by thoughts on music even if the actual
music performed does not claim all his at-
tention, and that the second has so very
little musical subject-matter in his mind
that he even cannot listen to music unless
he associates it with some other idea, un-
less, of course, the music so carries his
mind away that all his mental faculties
are concentrated; but this necessarily can-
not happen very often and never if the
music is complex without exhibiting a
broad outline that can be readily recog-
nized (a fact Wagner well understood).
And this is one of the strangest aspects of
modern music, that while appealing to
the musician it also appeals to the non-
musician's habit of connecting foreign
ideas with music, so that we find many
people who admire Wagner and the sym-
phonic-poem writers and yet have no
knowledge of music or even any very
great natural taste for it. By knowledge, I
should say, is not meant merely a practical
culture but the experience that is derived
ductors. Until his engagement he was as-
sistant conductor at Berlin.
*
A T the first concert to be given by the
**• New York Philharmonic Society at
Carnegie Hall, in this city, Adele Aus
Der Ohe, the noted pianiste will be heard
as soloist.
»
JVARS. OVIDE MUSIN, whose portrait
* " * appears elsewhere is certain to re-
ceive a hearty welcome on her contem-
plated tour of the States this fall. Mrs.
MRS. OVIDE MUSIN.
from having heard much music for many
years.
But I am sorry the concentrating powers
of the human mind are so weak. I should
personally like to have only one con-
sciousness so that, for instance, I could
enjoy the sunshine and the flowers as if I
were a part of them; one can do it for a
few minutes, but it would be so pleasant
if we could so concentrate ourselves for
hours, days and weeks. I should like to
have the steady enjoyment of a cat bask-
ing in the sun, or of my dog stretched at
full length on the grass. But the cat
arches its back and stretches out its paws
and the dog yawns as if he had enough of
a master who writes, and it seems to me
that to stretch one's limbs from weariness
or to yawn presupposes boredom, and
boredom presupposes the possession of
ideas, so that perhaps the only living
things in the whole garden that come up
to my ideal of concentration are the
flowers themselves.
Musin is a soprano who needs little intro-
duction to the American public. Before
her marriage, as Anna Louise Tanner, she
was widely known and deservedly popular
as a singer. Her appearance with Gil-
more's Band on concert tours won her no
end of applause and favorable notices.
Since that time she has studied with many
eminent masters, and now comes back to
us a greater artist than ever before. She
was born in Buffalo.
As announced in previous issues Mr.
Musin has just opened a violin school in
this city for the training of students who
intend to finish their musical education
abroad, and especially at the Liege Con-
servatory, where Mr. Musin is conductor
of the superior violin class. He will
spend six months each year in this coun-
try, and the balance of the time attending
to his duties in Belgium.
*
ARRANGEMENTS have been com-
**• pleted by Rudolph Aronson with
Chas. A. E. Harriss, manager of Dan
IT ERR SCHALK will conduct the Ger- Godfrey's British Guards Band for an
* *• man performances at the Metropoli- American tour by that famous organiza-
tan Opera House next winter, succeeding tion during the coming season, under the
to the place left vacant by the late Anton joint direction of the gentlemen named.
Seidl. The selection of Herr Schalk by The brief engagement of the band in New
Mr. Grau has caused some surprise, as he York early last month, during extremely
has never ranked among the great con- hot weather, and at an unseasonable time