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Musical Courier 1891-02-18: Vol 22 Iss 574, 1891
100 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026. Printed page 153. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE RAconteur.
3Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren resolut zu leben.—Goethe.
4Nothing is beautiful but the truth.—Voltaire.
6HEIGH-HO—valentine week and I haven't had one, although Alex Lambert promised me one if I behaved myself when he plays the F minor concerto next Saturday evening at the Symphony Society.
7I promised, because I want a valentine from friend Lambert.
8A curious coincidence this. I heard a criticism of the "Raconteur" lately, to the effect that the element that was lacking in my work was sincerity.
9Now I want to take issue with the person who made the remark. Sincerity may mean anything or everything. A critic with temperament is undoubtedly a rare thing and also one who is often carried away by his theme. He follows intuitively Oscar Wilde's dictum that criticism is creation. I admit I allow my overheated skull to carry me into places that are, to say the least, superlative as to phrase, but—and here is the point—it is a mood of the moment (sometimes not grammatically I admit, but let that go) and must be valued as such. I feel at the time, and give my reader that impression; now, whether it is of lasting moment is no affair of mine. Sincerity, after all, is relative. We all feel that much of Bernhardt's wonderful acting is the result of technic—but there! don't be captious, don't look a gift horse in the mouth—the effect is all the same. Art is wonderful, let us be artistic.
11* * *
12While I do not subscribe to the idea that Wagner gains by concert performance, I must nevertheless contribute my mite of admiration for Sunday evening's performance of "Parsifal" at the Metropolitan Opera House. The cast comprised Pauline Scholler as "Kundry," Gudehus as "Parsifal," Emil Fischer as "Gurnemanz" and Theodore Reichmann as "Amfortas." Seidl conducted like a god. Still it must be confessed much of the interest is lost by the want of dramatic action. Despite the fact that three of the great motives of "Parsifal" are reflective, almost metaphysical in their character and their constant working over, I longed for something to tell me the vocal adjuncts were human, had life and limbs. This is possibly because Sara has affected my critical standard.
14* * *
15That reminds me that Anton Seidl has been to "Tosca," and, of course—great head—instantly seized the salient points in the Gallic artist's work.
17* * *
18Really, the new flutist of the Thomas orchestra is a sharp musician.
20* * *
21Oh, but wasn't it a funny answer that a certain manager gave a Boston conductor when the man of the baton complained of the difference of the pitch 'twixt the orchestra and piano! "That pitch was good enough for Seidl anyhow." Delicious from the absolute pitch standpoint.
23* * *
24Lilli Lehmann has simply had a walk over vocally in Paris. She sang last Sunday, eight days back, as they say in Mannheim, at the Lamoureux concert and the town became her thralls. She sings again, and, think of it, she sings nothing but Wagner! The sun do move!
26* * *
27Now don't make any mistake about the matter, even if Mr. Henderson does sneer in his bland style at the Music Club. It will be a go, and Mr. Henderson will be one of its most able members. Just such a conversation as he recorded in last Sunday's "Times" will not take place, for the simple reason that music talk will not be allowed. It is, a paradoxical as this sounds, a Music Club wherein music is not to be. I hope you understand. To tomorrow night at the Union Square Hotel, 8 o'clock I rely on you all.
29* * *
30An ideal program was it at the last Brooklyn Philharmonic Society concert. Theodore Thomas, when it comes to the composition of programs, is a marvel. Here you have it:
31That bit of glorious musical sunshine, even if it is in G minor—the symphony in that key of Mozart's; then the Brahms' variations on the St. Anthony chorale of Haydn, the veritable prince of "variationists," to quote Willy von Sachs, a new dramatic overture-fantaisie, "Hamlet," by Tschaikowsky, and some Berlioz "Romeo and Juliette." A musical feast, I hear you say! You all know what Thomas can do with the G minor Mozart. He lets that left palm of his relax and the orchestra simply scurries.
32The Russian's music is marvelous. A northern Hamlet, one of the steppes, one maddened by vodka, is a novelty. Tschaikowsky's Danish prince is no intellectual drweier who pauses or quibbles and quilletts. He is a man of action, whose madness is not feigned. It is "northwest" with a vengeance and he knows a hawk from a hernshaw, although the contra fagotte Friday afternoon was enough to bewilder the most ardent musical ornithologist. Tschaikowsky has written a great bit of music in his "Hamlet." The feminine glint of "Ophelia," delicately touched on by the oboe, to the martial hint of "Fortinbras," the altogether despairing motif in syncopated rhythms are so masterfully grasped, so synthetically handled, as to extort praise in superlative quantity. To be sure, the canvas is overladen. Tschaikowsky lays the color on thick; his reds are glaring and daring, but his management of middle tints is artistic. He is a musical Makart with the psycholoic element superadded. A Calmuck, if you please, but a musical one.
34* * *
35Thomas had his hands full, I tell you. Such a cross tangle of rhythms I never heard. Considering that only two rehearsals were held the architectonic of the orchestra was wonderfully clear and satisfying.
37* * *
38It has been a musical week for me. Thursday night I went to the second private concert of the A. C. C. A., which means the American Composers' Choral Association, conducted by my very good friend Mr. Emilio Agramonte. The concert was a success undoubtedly, for with such names as Chadwick, Klein, MacDowell, Brandeis, Herbert, Shelley and Korbay one can't very well complain.
40* * *
41Maud Powell has made great strides in her art lately, as everyone knows. She plays now with a color and warmth that have hitherto been absent. I am not enough of a Saint-Saëns fanatic to admire everything he has done, consequently I cannot praise without stint the second concerto that Miss Powell played at the last Brooklyn Philharmonic concert. But how she did play it!
42The cadenza was delivered in a manner that stamps Miss Powell as an artist hors ligne.
43If I were a conventional music critic I would speak of more ripeness of conception, &c., but being an everyday truthful mortal I confess at once that Miss Powell was the master of the work from the outset; it did not master her.
45* * *
46Being at present in a critical humor, let me tell you all about the American Composers' Choral Association last Thursday evening at Chickering Hall. With a program which comprised such names as Chadwick, MacDowell, Bruno Oscar Klein, Brandeis and Harry Rowe Shelley, one was sure in advance of a musical treat. Mr. Chadwick proved that he could write a piece d'occasion, like the "Pilgrims," and yet be natural and unforced. The work (in D minor, D major) is not a pretentious one, but I wish the fugue did not sound so much like the great fugue in the C mass of Beethoven. But after all this is mere hyper-criticism.
47Mr. Agramonte can be congratulated for the tremendous advance his chorus has made as to finish and dynamic effects. It is far yet from being ideal, but it is intensely musical and intensely enthusiastic, and a multitude of sins must be forgiven in consequence.
48Bruno Klein's two very pretty songs, "Evening Song" and "In Spring," were beautifully given, and I take issue with the composer, who told me they were mere trifles. Such trifles go far toward reconciling one for the pother of a music critic's existence.
49Victor Herbert made the hit of the evening by his finished playing of his own "Berceuse" and "Petite Valse." The latter is one of the happiest conceits of its happy Celtic-Teutonic composer. The handsomest man in the business (to be strictly technical) accompanied Mr. Herbert. Of course you know that I mean Harry Rowe Shelley. Mr. Shelley was part of the orchestra, being assisted by Misses Charlotte Welles and Marie Lang. The former young lady, a successor to Augusta Lowell at the Church of the Incarnation, is, I am told, a very clever organist.
50Shelley was represented on the program by the middle movement of his new 'cello concerto. It is a great big flowing melody that gave Herbert's warm cantabile style an opportunity seldom excelled. A very ingenious bit of contrapuntal work was particularly praiseworthy in the middle section of the movement. I am very curious to hear Shelley's new fiddle concerto, which will be played by Miss Powell in the concert of American composers next Monday night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Mortimer Wiske conducting.
52* * *
53An exquisite barcarolle, by E. A. MacDowell, taxed the tonality of the club. Such men as this composer are rare; for to a warm poetical fancy is superadded a technical finish that is remarkable.
54Do you notice I am in good humor to-day, but, nevertheless, discriminative.
55Francis Korbay, being a Hungarian, wrote "Where the Zizas Torrents," and it is rich in Magyar rhythms and melodies.
56Having a dash of Hungarian in my own veins, their music permeates me ever.
57I try to sneer at the Liszt rhapsodies, and musically they are rubbish; but let me hear them played by such a gypsy, for instance, as Emmanuel Moor—my feet follow my heart dance-wise, and the rest, as "Hamlet" remarks, is silence.
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60By the way, if "Hamlet" had been a musician his dying remark would have been superfluous—rests are always silent. And then the band played the W. J. Henderson motif.
62* * *
63Pachmann told me last Saturday that he was an ardent Lisztianer. He will vary his eternal Chopin recitals by giving Bach and Liszt ones. He plays the D minor concerto of Mozart at the next Nikisch concert. You can well fancy how dainty it will be. He plays the F minor of Chopin next Saturday in Boston, and is so delighted with America that—well, of course you know. Any man that can play to a $1,000 house on a rainy day must be a friend of the Yankees.
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66Willard, the actor, was at the "Parsifal" performance last Sunday evening. He seemed interested.
67His pose is very Irvingesque.
69* * *
70Mr. Henderson cannot conceal his trail even if he wanders into strange out of the way columns in the "Times." Am I right in ascribing the following to my brilliant hued (as to mentality) contemporary?
71For one moment, at least, during the performance of "L'Africaine" at the Metropolitan Opera House Tuesday evening the audience was happy. Things had not been going very well, either on the stage or behind the fence which formed the orchestra's only protection from possibly dangerous attack on the part of irascible Wagnerites. Some of the singers had lost the key so often that one felt like advising them to wear the little chains so much in use of late to prevent similar misfortunes befalling people who get home late and don't want to stand unduly long on the doorstep. Mild gloom had settled over the parquet. Depression reigned in the upper regions. Even the people in the boxes talked about the opera. That they talked is a matter of course, but that the music received comment proves a great deal.
72Just before the lonesome moment already mentioned, "Selika," while wandering about the centre of the stage, encountered a high and defenseless note. Seizing it firmly—one is tempted to say, by the throat—she advanced to the footlights and there held the victim of her prowess for all to wonder at. Suddenly the unfortunate note escaped, and in the silence which followed there came from one of the baignoir boxes, spoken in a clear, girlish voice, these words:
73"What time does the train leave?"
74Then everybody laughed, and the young woman, the end of whose suddenly audible conversation had sounded so much like sarcastic criticism, found herself the aim for scores of opera glasses and hastily withdrew to the foyer.
76* * *
77That Celtic daisy, Maggie Cline, who is popularly known as the Irish Queen of Vocalism, will sing a tender little effusion of mine this week at Antonio Pastori's.
78It is called "How Mother Plays upon the Piano."
79I have copyrighted the accompaniment.
81* * *
82I have a batch of letters; but that is another story. I will read them to you next week.
84* * *
85Don't make any mistake as to Mrs. Thurber's intention.
86The magnificent will power that was stifled momentarily in the American opera has reasserted itself in the national orchestra scheme.
87It will, take my word for it, be un fait accompli.
89* * *
90Franz Apel, of Detroit, writes me that Anton Strelezki is not at present in Spain. He, the pianist-composer, is in Paris. He threw up in disgust a good position in Barcelona, Spain, because his class, all boys, were not talented.
91Antonio is ever lucky.
93* * *
94I shrieked at Joseffy's syndicate article. To read a great pianist talking about piano playing seriously is too delightful.
96* * *
97Mr. Hale, who is ever refreshing as a critic, even when he is the acme of disgruntlehood (pardon the construction), writes as follows in last week's Boston "Home Journal:"
98The other numbers of the program were Saint-Saëns' "Youth of Hercules," "Waldwehen," from Wagner's "Siegfried," and Chadwick's second symphony in B flat, which was skilfully directed by the composer. This symphony is distinguished by its strength and originality. The first movement shows Mr. Chadwick's mastery of form, and at the same time it is eminently musical and never dry. The scherzo is the most characteristic of the movements. It is so tuneful, its jollity is so pronounced, and its fun is more American than European. It breathes the spirit of devil-may-care independence, it snaps its fingers at comments, it is not free from irreverence, and it is withal good natured. The other movements are serious; the largo is broadly conceived and is dramatic, and the finale sums up the whole matter like a judge's charge to a jury. The verdict of the audience was not merely one of acquittal, it was heartily and unanimously expressed in Mr. Chadwick's favor.
99I first heard George Chadwick's B flat symphony in Chicago. I have admired the man ever since. The remarks of Hale about the scherzo are a stroke of critical genius.
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