Music Trade Review

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8
/COMMENTING on the general use by
^ - > our army during- the Santiago cam-
paign of that Ethiopian classic, the abbre-
viated title of which is " A Hot Time,"
Philip Hale holds that this much-abused
song fits the occasion. Hear him : " It is
defiant, full of hope, prophetic, American
in its flippant, reckless, slangy dash. It
is spontaneous. Compare it for a moment
with any new, machine-made, patented
set of verses 'to be sung to " T h e Star
Spangled Banner," or "John Brown's
Body." ' So far as the music is concerned,
' A Hot Time ' is immeasurably superior
to 'The Star Spangled Banner' for the
purposes of a national anthem."
*
""PHIS cry for the invention of " an orig-
*• inal national anthem " reminds Mr.
Hale of the passionate desire for the sud-
den apparition of "An American School
of Music," founded on imitation negro
melodies, on Indian tunes registered im-
perfectly by the phonograph, or put into
notation by enthusiasts who think that
folk-tunes should fit a Procrustean theory;
a school where American composers, born
in America, educated in America, and ad-
vertising in America, sit in high places,
twanging American lyres, crowned with
American laurel, to the everlasting dis-
comfiture of composers and critics of for-
eign and barren lands.
*
DOSENTHAL
is now in excellent
* ^ health, having played hi England
and Italy last month. At present he is
rusticating in the Tyrol, preparing for his
American tour, which opens in New York
City on the evening of October 26th, in
Carnegie Music Hall.
A MONUMENT to Johannes Brahms is
•**• to be erected in Vienna, where the
composer's active years were spent and
where he now lies buried between the
graves of Beethoven and Schubert. The
original promoters of the enterprise found
ready sympathizers outside of Austria.
An appeal for subscriptions which has just
been issued in England bears the signa-
tures of Lord Herschell, Mr. A. J. Balfour,
Sir Henry Irving, Sir Walter Parratt, Sir
C. H. Parry, Sir Edward Poynter, Sir
George Grove, Mr. Alma Tadema, Dr.
Stanford, Mr. Henschel, Canon Wilber-
force and others.
*
''THE performances of Innes' Concert
'
Band at Schenley Park, Pittsburgh
have evoked the most enthusiastic critiques
of a complimentary nature in the local pa-
pers.
As a program-maker as well as
composer and director Innes is unique.
I J E I N R I C H HEINE is said to be the
* poet who has been most set to music.
He may be found in music over 3,000
times, and by the best composers, too
Mendelssohn,
Schubert,
Rubinstein,
Brahms and others.
Thirty-seven musi-
cians have written after his " Loreley."
Two other poems have been set eighty-
five times. "Thou Art Like Unto a
Flower " is in 160 forms in song.
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
I T looks now as if the proposed perm an-
*• ant orchestra for which a guarantee
fund of $52,000 was collected just before
Seidl's death will not be a fait accompli
for quite some time, if at all. Seidl's
death and the failure to induce Richtcr,
Mottl or Weingartner to come to this
country have interfered materially with
the plans of the projectors and the matter
will not be considered again until late in
the fall. This fact and the failure to se-
cure a leader mean that nothing w r ill be
accomplished for a year at least.
*
p A U L KLENGEi: who has been selcc-
*•
ted as successor to Heinrich Zollncr,
as director of the Liederkranz of this city,
is a brother of John Klengel, the cele-
brated violinist. He is a first-class violin-
ist, pianist and composer.
OAINT-wSAENS has been one of the
^
musical lions of the London season.
His opera "Henry VIII." was one of the
novelties of the Covent Garden season,
and he appeared as pianist at a Philhar-
monic concert. At another concert he was
heard as an organist, in which capacity he
has no living superior. There are reasons
to believe that Saint-Saens will be known
to posterity as the French Bach, says the
musical critic of the Evening Post. Cer-
tainly no French composer has ever shown
his thorough knowledge of harmony and
counterpoint or played the organ in a more
masterly manner.
r \ E PACHMANN is said to be anxious
*~* to join the host of foreign pianists
who will visit us this coming musical sea-
son.
^
OIGNOR MANCINELLI entirely dis-
^
claims the suggestion that he had
been influenced at all by Wagner in writ-
ing his opera " Hero and Leander." Writ-
ing on the subject in the ^Eolian Quarterly
he says: " In composing the music I de-
termined to follow the lines laid down by
Verdi, especially in his last two operas,
' Otello ' and ' Falstaff,' and I believe that
all my countrymen will benefit and ad-
vance national art by following in those
footsteps."
*
P IGHT-YEAR-OLD Wolodia Rougitzky
•*—' hailed in London as a violinist, proved
to be a prodigy of the piano instead, when
he gave his first concert in the small
Queen's Hall. The technique of the Rus-
sian wonder was highly praised, but he
struck one critic as being "more intellec-
tual than emotional in his appreciation of
music."
O I L O T I , the pianist, is coming back
^
next year, and a new comer to these
shores will be Blanche Marchesi, daughter
of the Parisian vocal teacher of the same
name. She will arrive in January and
make an extended tour.-
*
IMS REEVES, the world-famous ten-
or, now in his old age is said to be in
dire want. Of course, England, always
loyal to her favorites, no sooner was
made envare of this condition of affairs,
than money commenced to pour in from
peer and peasant. From a purely practi-
cal standpoint it seems strange that an art-
ist like Sims Reeves, who has earned and
spent fortunes in his time could not save
sufficient to keep himself in comfortable
circumstances during the closing years of
his life.
*
A MONG the novelties that will probably
^*- be heard at the opera season which
will open in the Metropolitan Opera House,
December 12th, are Mancinelli's " Ero e
Leandro," with Emma Eames, and Masse-
net's "Sapho,"with Calve. Dr. Danger-
feld, scenic artist of Covent Garden, has
also been engaged.
M
ARCELLA SEMBRICH will come to
this country next Winter under a
contract with Maurice Gran for sixty ap-
pearances at the Metropolitan Opera
House. She has changed her plans in or-
der to come in November.
To accom-
plish this her engagements in Berlin and
Vienna have been set down for an earlier
date in the Autumn. Mme. Mclba will
probably be heard at only a few perform-
ances, and she explained, when the fact
that she was going to sing here with Mau-
rice Grau was definitely announced, that
she had agreed to sing at the Metropolitan
merely to accommodate the stockholders,
who had requested her to appear in opera
here several times merely as a favor to
them. The greater part of Mme. Melba's
time will be spent with the Ellis Opera
Company, in which she is financially in-
terested, just as she was last year.
So
Mme. Sembrich will take the roles that
formerly went to her in the allotment of
the operas at the Metropolitan. Another
interesting feature of the next opera sea-
son will be the appearance of an eminent
tenor as a rival to Jean de Reszke. This
has not happened since Tamagno's appear-
ance here, and the result of that season is
well remembered. The London reviews
of Van Dyck are not entirely favorable
this season, and the condition of his voice
is generally said to be poor. That may
prove unfounded, however. At the com-
mencement of nearly every season it is no-
ticed that two or three weeks' work is nec-
essary to put his voice in its best estate.
Persons here believe that London critics
who have found fault with his singing this
year must already have discovered their
mistake, if their criticism was founded on
any belief that his voice was impaired.
The interest in becoming acquainted with
a new tenor and the loyalty to one of the
most popular that ever came to this coun-
try will be the motives that will take au-
diences to hear the new one. It will be
interesting to see which proves more po-
tent.
„.
A LM A TADEMA, George Grove, George
**• Henschel, Villiers Stanford, Hubert
Parry, E. Prout, and a number of other
men known in the art and music world
have addressed an appeal to the London
papers in behalf of subscriptions to the
Brahms monum.ent which is to be erected
in Vienna,