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Musical Courier 1891-08-19: Vol 23 Iss 600, 1891
80 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026. Printed page 183. See the scan on archive.org.
1History in Song.
3FEW readers are aware how much of history has been preserved to the world by the agency of music. The early ballads often held the history of the northern nations intact through ages, where but for the association of the recital with music it would certainly have perished. It is a noteworthy fact that the ancient Greeks did not possess the ballad. The epos was the nearest approach to it which we find in their musical and poetic forms. This fact was probably the result of their possession of actual written history and of the drama in its perfection. But in the North, where these lofty modes of recording past events did not exist, there rose the saga, and the historic songs of the bards, which were practically ballads and in England actually became so. Even the children's songs in that country often recorded ancient events. At times the historians of the Middle Ages did not scruple to incorporate the tales which had been preserved by ballads into their ancient chronicles. Some of these ballads exist even to this day, and "Sir Patrick Spens" tells of a disastrous voyage to the coast of "far Norway," which cost many a Scottish noble his life, while the old ballad of "The Jew's Daughter" tells of persecution and prejudice of days long since gone by.
5In Germany, in the times preceding the days of the Minnesingers (1150-1318), there were ballads of robbery and violence which preserved the deeds of many a robber baron for centuries after he had passed away. The music to most of these tales was of the simplest and was in the strophe form, repeating itself as many times as there were stanzas in the poem. Often there was attached to each line or verse a burden or refrain. Sometimes these refrains carry us back to the most remote times, and many phrases used as refrains in even our modern music at times have an unexpected meaning. "Tol-de-rol," for example, which is so often heard in bacchanalian choruses, had anything but a rollicking significance even when it was first used, for it was originally "Troly-loly," and was equivalent to a sigh, or our English word "Alas!"
7NEW YORK COLLEGE OF MUSIC,
8ALEXANDER LAMBERT, DIRECTOR.
9Mme. FURSCH-MADI, Principal of Vocal Department.
10ALL BRANCHES OF MUSIC TAUGHT.
11Faculty comprises the most eminent instructors.
12NOTICE.—The New York College of Music WILL REMOVE
13September 1, from 163 E. 70th St., to its new and handsome building
14128 and 130 EAST 58th STREET.
16Many of the old English songs have as refrain the words "Hey Derry Down." There is such a number of songs with this burden as chorus that they are known as the "Derry Down Choruses." But all attempts to find the origin of the words have failed, and the phrase has been traced to such a remote antiquity that the historians have concluded that the words were originally a druidical incantation. The ballad in modern days has been elaborated into a great dramatic form by Schumann and Carl Loewe, but the simple and archaic ballad of ancient days has a charm all its own, and has, besides, the advantage of telling history in a most popular guise; only the old bards were often too prone to mingle fancies with their facts, and the modern commentator may sometimes find difficulty in disentangling the one from the other.—Louis C. Elson in Boston "Musical Herald."
18Neitzel's Tests
20IT is the privilege of those who live in this age of change to be perpetually revising the verdicts not merely of our ancestors, but of ourselves. It was a common habit of the past generation, a habit which has not wholly passed out of vogue in the present day, to associate pianism with effeminacy. The logic by which this conclusion was arrived at was somewhat of the following sort: All musicians are effeminate. A pianist is a musician; therefore a pianist is effeminate. This syllogism, however, will no longer work in the face of the battery of facts brought to bear upon it by Dr. Otto Neitzel, of Cologne. Dr. Neitzel, struck, as many of us cannot fail to have been struck, by the prodigious power displayed by many of our later day pianists, has devoted his leisure to an exhaustive investigation of the subject. He has based his calculations on the minimum weight necessary to depress completely one of the keys of the piano so as to produce a pianissimo sound.
22Having settled this, and all the other degrees of expression up to fortissimo, Dr. Neitzel advances to the consideration of particular works. For example, he takes a passage from the "Funeral March" of Chopin, the prevailing nuance of which is pianissimo, and discovers that if faithfully executed—for Dr. Neitzel is a musician as well as a man of science—it will demand from the executant the expenditure of a force equal to about 750 pounds. Etude 12 (op. 35), by the same composer, contains a passage the performance of which lasts two minutes five seconds, and which, so to speak, weighs upward of 2 tons. Rubinstein or Carreño, according to our doctor, play at the rate or the weight of 100 tons in the hour. Evidently the strong man is to be met with in the concert, as well as the music hall, and when might is right, under the new socialistic régime, the pianist, in the opinion of Dr. Neitzel, will not share the fate of those who have neither toiled nor spun. On the contrary, he pictures the revolutionary, torch in hand, pausing before the door of the musical athlete and saying: "You are safe. You earn your bread by the strength of your hands and the labor of your thews. Come to my arms, citizen pianist!"
24Musical Items.
26PADEREWski PLAYS WITH SEIDL.—Paderewski plays his first concert in the United States in November at the Metropolitan Opera House, under the direction of Anton Seidl.
28SEIDL IN PHILADELPHIA.—The Metropolitan Orchestra, Anton Seidl conductor, will give a week of concerts at the Grand Opera House in Philadelphia, beginning October 19. This orchestra, under the management of Mr. A. J. King, will give a series of important concerts in all the principal cities of the East.
30AN ORGANIST DESIRES A POSITION.—Wilhelm Mattfeld, a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Munich, Germany, is open for engagement as organist or choir director. References from clergymen. Address Wilhelm Mattfeld, 523 East Eighty-fifth street, city.
32Speaking of the ancient city of Cracow, Miss Ménie Muriel Dowie, the adventurous authoress of "A Girl in the Karpathians," observes: "Suddenly a choir of trumpets breaks out into a chorale from the big church tower, the melancholy of which I shall never forget—the very melody seemed so old and tired, so worn and sweet and patient, like Cracow. Those trumpet notes have mourned in that tower for hundreds of years. It is the hymn of timeless sorrow that they play, and the key to which they are attuned is Cracow's long despair. Hush! it is her voice, the old town's voice, high and sad she is speaking to you. Dear Cracow! never, never again, it seems to me, shall I come so near to the deathless hidden sentiment of Poland as in those first moments." These words point to the widespread Eastern custom of sounding some form of summons other than by bells from a church tower or other lofty eminence, of which perhaps the music of the silver trumpets in the dome of St. Peter's, Rome, is the best known European instance, and the singing of an old hymn on the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, on May Day is the only English example.
34VIRGIL PRACTICE CLAVIER.
36This instrument should be in every Musical Conservatory, in every School of Music and in every family and household where a piano is used.
38SOME OPINIONS:
40Rafael Joseffy, New York, says: "The principles of touch involved are entirely correct and meet my full approbation."
42Dr. Hans von Bülow says: "I shall take pains to recommend your instrument everywhere, and to everybody; it is most excellent. I can already announce you a benefactor of humanity, as your instrument would disinfect the atmosphere of unnecessary piano thumping plague."
44S. B. Mills, New York, says: "The principles of touch in the instrument are entirely correct"
46E. M. Bowman, President American College of Music, says: "It is my experience, which is coincident with the existence of the Clavier, that the influence on touch of practice on the Clavier is to make it accurate, firm, vigorous, elastic, sensitive, discriminative, delicate, enduring and finished."
48Mme. Rive-King, New York, says: "The Practice Clavier, in my opinion, is by far the most useful and complete ally of the piano in existence."
50Carlyle Petersilea says: "The Virgil Practice Clavier is infinitely superior to the piano or organ for all keyboard technique."
52J. G. Huneker, National Conservatory of Music, New York, says: "The Practice Clavier as it stands to-day is a triumph over that most puzzling and ever difficult question that confronts the earnest student of music at the outset of his career i.e., technique."
54Henry G. Andre, Cincinnati, says: "The Practice Clavier furnishes a means for the development of correct finger action that the tones and action of the piano cannot give."
56A. R. Parsons says: "It is the best means I ever had at my disposal for teaching the piano correctly and thoroughly."
58Special Terms to Teachers and Schools on Instruments for Personal Use. Correspondence Solicited. Address the
59VIRGIL PRACTICE CLAVIER CO., 26 W. 15th St., New York.
61THE VIRGIL PIANO SCHOOL OPENS SEPTEMBER 28.
63Foundational instruction and the training of teachers in the methods of the Clavier are the specialties. The Practice Clavier will be made use of for all Technique Teaching and Practice. The piano will be brought into use when the pupil has acquired playing movements such as will produce musical effects. The piano will be used for its legitimate purpose, namely, music and the study of musical effects. The examination and enrolment of pupils will begin September 21. A course of Free Lecture Lessons, by A. K. Virgil, will begin October 5. Teachers and players are especially invited. Subject: "How to Play and How to Teach the Piano." For further particulars address as above.
65W. S. B. Mathews says: "I now see that fifteen minutes on the Clavier is worth more for technical purposes than an hour upon the piano."
67Moritz Rosenthal, Berlin, Germany, says: "Technical difficulties may be conquered upon your instrument more quickly and accurately than in any other way."
69Mrs. Jeanie Maury Patten, Washington, D. C., says: "I find the Practice Clavier of the most unbounded assistance in my technical work. I feel that in the eight months in which I have used it, on an average of an hour and a half a day, that I have accomplished more than in any five years before."
71Robert Goldbeck says: "Every teacher ought to have such an instrument at his or her music room, and pupils ought to have one at home."
73Alex. Lambert, Director of the New York College of Music, says: "I thoroughly believe in silent keyboard practice and in the judicious use of different weights of touch. In the Practice Clavier the degrees of key force are so perfectly graduated, and the changes from one weight of touch to another are so easily effected, that your new instrument in this respect is all that can be desired."
75H. P. Chelius, Boston Conservatory of Music, says: "The silent mechanical work enlightens mind, helps memorizing, compels thinking and eventually ensures success."
77Sam. S. Sanford says: "With the system of double clicks it seems almost an impossibility to avoid acquiring an absolutely perfect legato touch."
79Dr. F. Ziegfeld, Director Chicago College of Music, says: "I heartily indorse the idea that a more complete separation of technique from music and practice from playing than is possible with the use of the piano only is highly important."
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