Music Trade Review

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''THESE are incontrovertible facts; and
• with them before us it is mere folly to
talk as the professors talk of a standard or-
chestra. The right is questionable of any
professor, however many hoods he may
wear on his honest old stupid shoulders,
however long a selection from the alpha-
bet he may carry after his bourgeois name,
to select the orchestra of any short period
and say: This is the standard orchestra.
There has never been a perfect orchestra;
there is not a perfect orchestra yet; there
is not likely to be a perfect orchestra for
many years to come; and instead of
regretting that we are moving away
from the orchestra of Mozart's and Haydn's
time, we should rejoice on that very ac-
count. Why two flutes should be right
and three flutes a shameful extravagance;
why the double clarinet should be looked
upon as an unauthorized interloper; why
the tubas should be thought the inferiors
of the trombones (merely because they
came in later)—these and a hundred other
things pass the comprehension of everyone
who gives ten minutes of serious thought
to the orchestra. The truth is that instead
of repelling all the new instruments, we
should welcome them, welcome them as
helping to make the orchestra a gen-
uine instrument. It is time to be done
with the art of faking, which is the only
art explained in any book of instrumen-
tation yet written; it is time to say that
as there are plenty of players available
and we are no longer living around
the courts of petty three-square-mile
princelets, we should have a complete or-
chestra. And a complete orchestra would
include a complete flute group—a treble,
alto, tenor and bass flute; the complete
oboe group that the best bands have at
present; a complete clarinet group, first
and second clarinets, tenor clarinet, bass
and double bass clarinet; and so on right
through the orchestra. One of the most
important things would be to complete the
string group. We want a true tenor, run-
ning down to the G beneath the tenor C;
the violas would then play a true alto part
in their best register. We want also the
six-stringed double-bass with frets to avoid
the present sudden disappearances of the
bass part. When these things are done
we shall be on the way to getting an or-
chestra worth writing for.
TN spite of the justice of the complaint so
* often heard here that European singers
dominate the American stage, there is
another side to the question, and one that
it is pleasanter to contemplate. This hangs
on the fact that a considerable number of
American singers, especially among sopra.
nos and contraltos, earn both livelihood and
reputation across the Atlantic. Only by
noting the names that from time to time
appear on programmes of opera and
concert in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna,
Dresden, Munich, Leipsic, Brussels, Ant-
werp, Amsterdam, Marseilles, Liege and a
dozen other musical centres can one obtain
a fair notion of the number of Americans,
chiefly women, who are at work on foreign
opera or concert stages.
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
They sing first in one city and then in
another, gaining valuable ideas and train-
ing from different managers and theatre in-
tendants and a deal of hard-won experi-
ence. Now and again one of them comes
home to her own people, sometimes to be
found wanting, but more often to find suc-
cess and occasionally to take a high place
here, almost at the first bound.
MME. LILLIAN BLAUVELT.
Four American sopranos of varying de-
grees of experience are now occupying a
prominent place on the European operatic
stage. Mme. Lillian Blauvelt's name
properly heads the list. This singer, who
is well known here, and who has a light
soprano voice of unusual fullness and
sweetness, went to Italy some two years
ago, and had such remarkable success
there in concert that first German and
then English managers began to find work
for her. She has sung in most of the
prominent German cities, and since early
A.
B.
DEFRECE.
last spring she has become almost a fixture
in London, where, with her husband, Wm.
F. Pendleton, formerly of New York, she
has settled down at a pretty domicile in St.
John's Wood. Lately Mme. Blauvelt made
a very successful trip to Edinburgh and
Glasgow.
Miss Ellen Beach Yaw is the only other
member of this quartet of colorature Amer-
ican sopranos who has been heard in New
York. Miss Yaw came here five years ago
from California, and was injudiciously ad-
vertised as a vocal phenomenon. She
went abroad soon afterward and continued
her studies. Last November Miss Yaw
assumed one of the leading roles in Hood
and Sullivan's new operetta, "The Rose
of Persia," at the Savoy theatre, London.
The other two young women have both
chosen the title role of Delibes's "Lakme"
for operatic debuts. Miss Rose Relda,
sang it at the Paris Opera Comique last
month, while Miss Estelle Liebling will
soon make her first appearance in it at the
Royal Opera in Dresden, for which she
was recently engaged the other day. Miss
Liebling is a New York girl, and comes
from a well-known musical family.
HPHE annual banquet of the New York
* Press Club, held at Delmonico's on
the 21st ult. was perhaps in many respects
the most notable function ever given by
that famous organization. The manager
of Delmonico's said that the special fea-
tures which were a part of the celebration
were the finest, as well as the most novel
ever given in that celebrated hostelry. By
this utterance he paid a deserved compli-
ment to Col. A. B. De Frece, who had the
entire program under his direction.
Col. De Frece is one of the most remark-
able, as well as the most versatile men to
be found in this great metropolis where so
many brilliant minds are gathered. For
six consecutive years he has been the di-
rector of all entertainments given under
the auspices of the Press Club and he has
ever exhibited the happy faculty, the dis-
criminating taste, and the necessary in-
fluence to gather about him at will the
highest talent which has ever been heard
in this city.
Among the musical celebrities who con-
tributed to the enjoyment of the Press
Club affair were: Mile. Zelie De Lussan,
the celebrated prima donna; Signor G.
Campanari, the superb baritone of the
Maurice Grau Opera Co. ; Mile. Helene
Berger, who by her unique gifts is called
" L a Siffleuse," Frances and Grace Hoyt,
the well-known duettists, Madeleine Sum-
mers, danseuse from "Ben Hur," and
Lionel Kremer, accompanist.
In the elaborate menu, too, was again
evidenced the all-pervading influence of
the many-sided De Frece, for as an adept at
improvising rare and dainty dishes there is
not his equal in the land. When we un-
derstand the delicate and thoughtful man-
ner which is so characteristic in the Co-
lonel's management—the perfect system
to which he adheres with unvarying regu-
larity, we are not surprised at the phenom-
enal success which he has achieved dur-
ing the past ten years as manager of the
greatest functions ever held in this city,
among the most notable of which was the
Actors' Fund Fair which realized $200,000.
In all of these enterprises his services
have been cheerfully given with no other
remuneration save the grateful apprecia-
tion of those whose interests he has served.
To his other accomplishments he adds