Scan 16
Musical Courier 1891-05-13: Vol 22 Iss 586, 1891
134 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 483. See the scan on archive.org.
1occupying the top floor, and he says that whenever he wanted to practice Tschaikowsky always wanted to sleep, so that trouble ensued daily.
3Well, Rubinstein looked through the concerto and dismissed it disdainfully. "Unclaviermassig, mein lieber Tschike." (He called him Tschike for short, and that reminds me that all rumors that are current about his inability to pronounce his own name were set at rest last week by the publication in the Novgorod "Bi-Daily" of an article on the "use and abuse of the letter 'j' in Russian proper names." Mr. Tschaikowsky is a member of the Moscow Philological Society, admission to which august body depends on the applicant's ability to pronounce his own name. It goes without saying that these learned men can carelessly remark "Prejavolowski" at any hour of the day.)
5Tschaikowsky bided his time and gave the work to Von Bulow, after erasing Rubinstein's name on the dedication and substituting that of Von Bulow. Rubinstein suddenly discovered the merits of the work and to him Tschaikowsky dedicated the second concerto in G.
7The brilliancy and daring of the great Russian are particularly well illustrated in his third suite, with its national coloring and complex rhythms. I like the fifth symphony better, and I am sorry he didn't conduct it while he was here.
9Tschaikowsky sometimes says great things in a great manner, and that is why I think he is the greatest man in the country at present, for we have many men saying things which are not great, nor are they said greatly.
11The figure of Tschaikowsky looms grandly over these petty personalities as a poetic, intense thinker, who in an age of self gain and grasping greed looks afar, as from a peak, and sees beautiful things, which he repeats to us afterward in his music. I like, I admire, I even reverence, his kindly love of his fellow men which throbs through his scores.
13He has suffered much. No man could pen that wonderful "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt," which interprets Goethe's idea better than Goethe himself, without having tasted at the acid spring of sorrow. He has loved, else his "Romeo and Juliette" overture is a farce and a make believe, and the passionate heart beats it causes in you are lies, too.
15That were hard to believe.
17He knows his Hamlet, he knows his counterpoint, and, above all, he knows himself.
19He has the Calmuck in him, and it breaks out, but is soon subdued, for his reason rules his temperament.
21He is a strong man.
23He says great things in a great manner, and that is why I call him the greatest man at present in this broad and fair land.
25For the rest, he is a pleasant appearing gentleman who perspires audibly and puts his pocket handkerchief in his left hand trousers pocket (Moscow etiquette I am told) and always looks for it during a fermata.
27I was amused at John Rietzel in the orchestra after the suite was finished. He stood up and in the most significant manner touched his forehead and pointed to Pete, who was bowing his acknowledgments, as one should say "a great head." Right you are, Mr. Rietzel, a great head indeed!
29I am in receipt of a peculiar letter which at once reproves, compliments and deplores.
31I think I will give it to you in entirety:
33Dear Raconteur:
35I was one of those who opened The Musical Courier last week and was pleased to read your entertaining column after missing it the previous week. I am glad "periods of mental exhaustion" do not overtake you often, for I enjoy greatly your mélange of sentiment and nonsense. But do not rail at the piano recitators so hard, please. It is rather hard that opportunities are so unequally distributed.
37I mean that you—the professional critic—who go so much that musical treats of almost any sort become worse than a bore, while we, the poor students of music—but lovers all the same—who have to pay $1 and cannot possibly hear half the concerts and recitals that we desire to, must stay away and read in our favorite musical paper these harsh paragraphs.
39Now, fortify yourself with a little patience, please, for I have something to say.
41I am sure that many of the humble unprofessional readers of the paper would be glad of a column of personal intelligence that might mention the goings and comings, or at least the deaths, of some of the less noted musicians of the city.
43A teacher of the piano, who had a large number of pupils, died about six weeks ago, and perhaps there are those even yet of his pupils who benefited by his instruction and loved and respected him as a man who are not acquainted with the facts of his sad and untimely end; at least it was a great shock to me to hear that he was dead, and that his last days were spent at Amityville, L. I., where he died after being treated unsuccessfully at the German Hospital months ago. Aug. Paul Pleninger, who came a young man from Vienna ten years or more ago, was too modest to bring himself into prominence or to seek notoriety by any aggressive means; but he was a thorough musician, a conscientious teacher, a kind and cultured gentleman, and the name will die and be forgotten with no word to his memory, and his scattered pupils drift away or resume study under other masters, with nothing but perhaps a memory of Mr. Pleninger, may seem grievous and unfair to some of us.
45"Art is long and time is fleeting" and the struggle for position and fame is often a bitter one; so perhaps one who enters into rest at forty-one years of age is, after all, most to be envied.
47L. M. N.
49P. S.—It was through my dear teacher's kindness that I first became a reader and admirer of The Musical Courier, and I know so little of music that I form my standards and judgments of musical performances largely by its criticisms.
51I wish I knew something of the standing, by those who are judges, of Mr. Edward Baxter Perry, the blind pianist, of Boston. He has recently been heard here in the wilderness, to which I must accustom myself until next October.
53I do not honestly think that all your judgments are fair and unprejudiced, as they ought to be. You men are so harsh in your judgments and seem oftener ready to say and write unkind things than otherwise.
55Sometimes you have to take back and make corrections, as about the orchestra players at the Stanton benefit. How do you like that?
57"Ah, there!" If we could all be happy, if we could all be geniuses, what a world it would be for
59L. M. N.
61I have been doing the operetta act this past week and went to see "Wang," at the Broadway, and "Apollo," at the Casino.
63The former is about the giddiest thing I ever witnessed. It is permeated by big De Wolf Hopper, with pretty, graceful Della Fox as a sauce piquante.
65"Wang" is as entertaining as an opium nightmare, and abounds in Cambodian Leitmotiven and simian harmonies. Plot it has none; music, well, as far as I could discover amidst the din of a pair of cymbals big enough to batter down the theatre, and the Chinese fury of the drums, it sounds very much like that of the "Merry Monarch," for Mr. Woolson Morse is the composer of both.
67The children's dance in the second act and the drunken elephant in the first are very clever, and of course "Wang" let himself loose and you all know what that implies when Hopper is in good spirits.
69"Apollo, or the Oracle of Delphi," at the Casino, is something different. The music is by Josef Hellmesberger, Jr., of Vienna, and Schnitzer's libretto has been done into English by H. D. Tretbar and Edgar Smith. Lillian Russell has never been seen and heard to better advantage. She certainly sings very well and has Cappiani to thank for it. Her costuming is superb and she looks radiantly young and beautiful. She isn't, you know, but what is the difference, for the effect is all the same.
71The rest of the cast was good, the action lively, situations funny, and Jeff de Angelis and Ed Stevens full of fun. Louise Beaudet, too, was very graceful in her dancing. Pretty Mabel Potter led the chorus.
73But why was Amberg's tenor, Schuetz, disinterred?
75The Boston "Musical Herald," which now has as its editors Mr. Louis C. Elson and Mr. G. H. Wilson, recently had an interesting editorial on fatness among musicians, evidently written by Mr. Elson, who is becoming quite portly himself.
77As I am watching with dismay my own growing rotundity I publish with interest the following, for it may interest many fat musicians:
79Probably the fattest person who ever appeared on the operatic stage was the great basso, Lablache. It is related of him that he was so enormously stout that while in London a special cab was used by him, as he could not enter an ordinary vehicle. On one occasion this cab did not appear and Lablache was obliged to venture into an ordinary "growler." Great exertions in the way of pushing and pulling on the part of his attendants finally brought him into the cab, but the weight was too enormous and the vehicle at once broke down, and the basso was pulled out with greater difficulty than there had been in getting him in. Lablache was, however, tall enough to carry off his portliness with some degree of grace. He was over 6 feet high and his face was remarkably expressive. On one occasion, however, his grace availed him nothing, for he was cast in the part of a prisoner in a deep dungeon and in the depths of misery. When the audience saw this living mountain come down to the footlights and sadly sing, "I am starving," it was too much for gravity, and roars of laughter drove the favorite singer from the stage. Such subjects should not be attempted on any stage. How often have we seen a stout tenor in Beethoven's "Fidelio" clapping a crust of bread, brought him by the faithful "Leonora," when his whole appearance denotes that he has been accustomed to solid beefsteaks instead of dry crusts.
81Verdi's opera "La Traviata" failed at its first presentation from a cause similar to the above. It was in Venice that the opera was first performed in 1853. It may be remembered that the heroine dies of consumption, superinduced by a life of dissipation. Verdi, with his usual carelessness of dramatic detail, allowed Mrs. Donatelli to take the part of "Violetta." The effect of the last scene, wherein the doctor shakes his head and tells the maid that in a few hours "Violetta" will be dead of consumption may be imagined when we state that Mrs. Donatelli weighed over 200 pounds!
83Handel was one of the fat composers, and this was due in a degree to his enormous appetite. This failing was so well known in England that a caricature was published during his life in which the composer is depicted with the head of a pig, seated at an organ playing, while the instrument is hung with sausages, hams and every other species of gross and coarse food.
85Rossini was another composer who grew stout under the guidance of an active stomach. He once presented his provision dealer with his photograph with the inscription underneath, "To my stomach's best friend."
87Dussek was another composer whose bulk and appetite were both enormous. It is said that his passion for gormandizing shortened his days. He, as well as Handel, on more than one occasion made away with a dinner that had been prepared for three persons. Altogether the above examples, and many others that might be cited, prove that a prosaic affection for solid food is not incompatible with a love of delicious sounds.
89Mr. Elson ought to mention the names of Antony Strelezki, Ferdinand Dulcken, Theodor Reichmann and Albert G. King, who are all big men and, as everybody knows, four of a kind.
91Here is an English idea of a joke:
92(no line here) one of two readings
94"Sir Arthur Sullivanhoe."
95(no line here) one of two readings
97See it? It was in "Punch" just after "Ivanhoe" was produced.
99"Minnie Hauk's Child" is the heading in last Sunday's "Times." This will be news to Chevalier Wartegg.
101I was very glad to see and welcome to New York Charles Woodruff Scovel, who writes the clever and readable music column in the Pittsburgh "Dispatch;" Joseph H. Gittings, the well-known pianist and all around good fellow from the Smoky City, and Leonard Wales, the organist of the city of Pittsburgh (the only man in the country who is a municipal organist), and Mr. G. H. Wilson, of the Boston "Traveller." I hope they had a good time. And now let us all be thankful that the May Festival is over and that we are all alive and kicking.
103Music critics when they are alive always do kick.
105The "Evening Sun" didn't do an amiable thing when it put in Mr. Stevenson's column, "What Goes on in Music," some of its funny young men's outbursts. It was to say the least undignified. But no one for an instant suspected Mr. Stevenson of being the offender.
107The Springfield, Mass., Music Festival.
109NOTHING that can be mentioned bears better proof of the generally growing tendency for the culture of the divine art in this country than the ever increasing number of cities which take up and interest themselves in the holding of musical festivals at least once a year. This presupposes the organization of singing classes and a subsequent festival chorus, the studying of works of a higher musical order and finally the engagement of an orchestra, soloists of prominence, and all under the control of some competent conductor.
111But if the growing number of festivals is a sure sign of growing musical interest, the improvement in the programs for the same is a still more pleasing feature, as it indicates a stride keeping and advance in musical culture. In few of the numerous festivals held all over this vast country this springtime has this latter improvement become more patent than in the programs of the music festival of the Hampden County Musical Association, held at Springfield, Mass., during the days of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week. These programs showed a far wider range and more modern tendency than did those of the much older rival association, that of Worcester, Mass., last fall, and they were superior to those of last week's New York music festival in one important point at least, in that they gave the American composer a chance and showing, the omission of which on the part of the New York program makers we deem an unpardonable one.
113The Hampden County Musical Association was incorporated on July 16, 1887.
115The first year of its existence was devoted to three concerts, given at different times during the season of 1887-8. In the fall of 1888 it was decided to give a three days' festival, and although the undertaking at that time looked doubtful for its pecuniary success, yet so thoroughly was it supported that the directors were much astonished and gratified at the result, which showed a profit of a few hundred dollars.
117At this festival Emma Juch was the leading singer, Rossini's "Moses in Egypt" and "Elijah" being the principal works.
119Frederick Zuchtmann and Carl Zerrahn were the conductors.
121After this festival Professor Zuchtmann declined a re-election, his professional duties being so arduous, and G. W. Chadwick, of Boston, was secured for the position.
123The standard of the chorus has been elevated each year, and the governing idea has been rather a singing chorus than one formidable chiefly by its size.
125No sketch, however brief, can be made of the association without mention of the earnest and painstaking pioneering efforts of Frederick Zuchtmann, the first conductor of the association.
127By his persistent energy good performances of great works had been given in Springfield from time to time, and it can be said that the meeting of a few earnest men on that July day in 1877 which crystallized into the Hampden County Musical Association was largely attributable to this man's indomitable pluck, which never knew what failure meant.
129One other name must appear in this sketch, that of Thomas W. Colum, who died in March, 1890, just after perfecting the arrangements of the second festival.
131Probably to no other one man is the very existence of the association and the success of the first festival so largely due as to the lamented first secretary.
133Passionately fond of music, a far seeing practical busi-
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