Music Trade Review

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THE:
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Great Activity in the Musical World the Past Week—Opening of the Metropolitan a Gala
Event—Ganz' Success With the Mason & Hamlin—Damroschs' Experiment—important
Ditson Publication—De Pachmann Scores Great Triumph in Recital—Paderewski's Second
Recital To-day—Many Notable Concerts During the Past Week at Which the Steinway
Has Been Heard—Buhlig's Interesting Programme for His Concert This Afternoon—Louis
James's Clever Story—Carreno Arrives in America—Praise for American Pianos from
Father Hartmann—Italy to Have Its Bayreuth—Should Pianists Memorize Their Music?
The past week has been a busy one in the
musical world, opera occupying the boards at
both the Manhattan and Metropolitan which
opened under distinguished auspices last Monday
night. A visit to these great temples of music
affords an idea of the tremendous growth of
musical activity in New York. With seven or
eight thousand people at both opera houses and
innumerable symphony concerts and recitals on
other evenings, one is amazed at the rapacious
musical appetite 0*1 New Yorkers. The talk
about conservatism in financial circles and other
dissertations on finances have apparently little
influence on the opera, and after all, this is a
good sign. It shows that people will appreciate
meritorious productions whether times are good
or bad.
* * * *
And this reminds us that a writer in the New
York Times undertakes to account for six mil-
lions of dollars, which he declares will be paid
to foreign musicians in America this season.
Here is the table he has devised: Paderewski,
$160,000; Caruso, $160,000; Kubelik, $100,000;
Sembrich, $85,000; Calve, $85,000; Melba, $85,-
000; Nordica, $75,000; Garden, $30,000; chorus,
$60,000: orchestra, $20,000; corps de ballet, $43,-
000; other opera companies, $290,000; conduc-
tors, $100,000; pianists, $100,000; violinists and
'cellists, $100,000; concert singers, $200,000; mis-
cellaneous, $100,000; vaudeville stage, $50,000;
royalties, $250,000; Americans in Europe, $250,-
000. This makes a total of $2,343,200 and plus
some $3,000,000 spent by American students
abroad makes a grand total of $5,343,200.
* * * *
Rudolph Ganz and the Mason & Hamlin piano
were prominent figures on last Saturday and
Sunday. On the former day this clever pianist
played Beethoven's "little" C major concerto at
the Symphony Concerts for Young People under
the direction of Frank Damrosch. He also scored
a very gratifying success in Grieg's Concerto
with the New York Symphony Orchestra in a
very delightful concert Sunday afternoon, in
which Villiers Stanford's Irish Symphony and
German's Welsh Rhapsody, conducted by the
composer, figured.
*
•
*
*
An interesting experiment will be made hy
Walter Damrosch a t one of the Sunday after-
noon concerts of the New York Symphony So-
ciety in the near future. He has long felt that
the Wagner theory of an invisible orchestra and
conductor for operas could be applied with equal
justice to concerts, as the mechanism which the
conductor has to employ in obtaining his effects
from the orchestra, as well as the movements of
the musicians in performing on their respective
instruments, need not be visible to the audience,
they contributing nothing to the musical enjoy-
ment, which, after all, can only be obtained
through the sense of hearing. Mr. Damrosch
seems to have overlooked two significant facts
in thus putting his theory into practice, first,
that the American public likes musical person-
alities better than they do music, and, second,
that the invisible orchestra of Wagner was an
accompaniment to stage pictures intended to at-
tract and hold the eye, the primal factor in
emotional Impression.
* * • *
One of the latest publications of the Oliver
Ditson Co., of Boston, is "Music Club Programs
From All Nations" by Arthur Bison. This latest
contribution from this always interesting writer,
is worthy of the man, and should prove invalu-
able to musical clubs, classes and every execut-
ant who wishes material for recital programs.
The volume is unique in that it furnishes under
one cover what the student has hitherto been
obliged to collate from many books. Each chapter
is devoted to a national school of music. Pro-
grams are given to illustrate the various chap-
ters, and questions are added which can be used
for study in classes. The programs are in three
grades—easy, medium and difficult—and include
music for piano, violin and voice. There are por-
traits of over one hundred eminent composers,
and the volume is admirably printed and pro-
duced—in fact, it is a worthy addition to the
many important publications issued by this
famous publishing house of Boston, Mass.
*
•
•
•
De Pachmann, like Paderewski, has a strong
individual following in New York, and this was
apparent at his first farewell concert which oc-
curred at Carnegie Hall last Tuesday. He was
in splendid form after his conquests in the West
VLADIMIR DE I'ACHMANN.
and played a program of exceeding interest—
numbers which displayed this artist in his true
light. His Chopin numbers included Nocturne,
op. 27, No. 2; preludes, op. 28, Nos. 19 and 16;
etudes, op. 25, Nos. 1 and 3; mazurka, op. 56, No.
2, and "Grande Valse Brillante," op. 34, No. 1.
Preceding the Chopin group were : Sonata Dom-
inico Scarlatti; fantasia, Mozart; perpetuum mo-
bile, Weber; rondo capriccioso, Mendelssohn;
romance, Schumann; gavotte, Sgambati; "La Fil-
euse," Raff-Henselt; "En Automne," Moszkowski,
and polka, op. 9, No. 2, Tschaikowsky. De
Pachmann is a great admirer of the Bald-
win piano, and with the tonal resources of this
superb grand a t his power, he revealed the
passion, poetry and romance of his various num-
bers. At his will the piano sang like a human
being, and despite the usual mannerisms which
are inseparable from De Pachmann's playing,
the concert was one of rare delight.
* * * *
Jean Gerardy, the celebrated 'cellist was the
soloist at the first of a series of three concerts
by the Volpe Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie
Hall last Thursday evening. The orchestra con-
sisted of ninety-five musicians, an increase of
fifteen pieces over last year. The performance
was a finished one, and reflected the greatest
credit on Mr. Volpe and his band. Of Gerardy
little need be said, as he is an artist to his finger
tips, one whom it is always the keenest pleasure
to hear.
*
•
* *
Paderewski's second recital in Carnegie Hall
this Saturday afternoon, will have the following
program: Sonata, op. 21, E flat minor, Padere-
wski; sonata, B minor, the "Kundry" theme,
Liszt; nocturne, G major, op. 37, six etudes, op.
25, Nos. 1—3, 6, 8, 11; "Berceuse," polonaise, op..
44, and waltz, op. 34, A flat, Chopin. The tour
of this artist since his last concert in New York
has been a triumphal one, both for Paderewski
and the Weber piano, which he plays.
* * * *
Speaking of Paderewski, Lawrence Gilman
says in Harpers: "It is the obvious and familiar
distinction of Mr. Paderewski that he is, beyond
question, the most famous virtuoso now living;
but that is a distinction which he can well af-
ford to hold less precious than another garland
which he has long worn; that which honors him
as the most perfect master of a certain kind of
tonal utterance with whom the musical world is
acquainted.
"It is no new thing to say of Mr. Paderewski
that he alone, of all living virtuosos—and one
thinks not only of pianists, but of players upon
stringed instruments—is able completely to con-
vey, through the material agency of mere wire
and wood, the illusion of an idealized and living
voice.
"The quality of tone which he can summon
from hammers and strings, from the unyielding
and intractable throat of his Instrument, is a
thing to wonder at rather than to praise. It is
not the vibration of wires, it is a voice singing—
and (one hastens to make the point) a voice of
exquisite and absolute perfection. The charac-
terization is not fantastic; such a tone as his, at
its best, is evoked, from an inanimate source, by
him alone; justly to indicate its nature is, seem-
ingly, to part company with sobriety."
* * * •
Another concert this week was the very delight-
ful one given by the Adele Margulies Trio on
Tuesday evening.
Schubert's Trio op. 99;
Schutt's five tone pictures, op. 72, for piano, vio-
lin and 'cello, and Sinding's Quintette, op. 5,
formed the program. The Steinway was in evi-
dence, and as usual played a very important part
in the results achieved in the ensemble work.
Miss Mairgulies and Messrs. Lichtenberg, Schulz,
Smith and Franko are to be congratulated on
the good work achieved at this concert.
* * * •
The Steinway piano will also be in evidence
this afternoon at the third educational recital
given by Richard Buhlig a t Mendelssohn Hall.
The program follows: Beethoven, rondo, op. 51,
No. 1, G major, Albumblatt fur Elise, Minuet, E
flat major; Brahms, 4 Klavierstucke, op. 119;
Chopin, sonata, B flat minor, op. 35; Caesar
Frank, prelude, choral and fugue; Debussy, La
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