Scan 5
Musical Courier 1891-09-30: Vol 23 Iss 606, 1891
53 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 354. See the scan on archive.org.
1Orchestra. It is no longer a question of law, it is a question of morals. Can the Boston Symphony Orchestra continue to ignore the situation and permit Bachert to transact business as manager of the "Boston Symphony Orchestral Club" with all that that name implies?
3He might go further under this decision and claim the very name of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The inaction of the latter organization may be used as the best evidence that he is the true owner of that title and that it is no longer the property of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
5Girls," when the 'cellist asks someone if he is a "musician or an American."
7Now I remember what I wished to tell you. The cut that adorns this column is not a picture of he who pens these lines (this last is quite in the style of the "Complete Letter Writer"), but a faithful portraiment of the classical features of the well-known Antoninus Strelezki, who is at present in London and Bucharest. Strelezki, who is known on both continents, is one of those elusive individualities who possess the enviable gift of projecting his astral body where he wills. Last winter he was in Andalusia writing Spanish rhapsodies for jewsharp and boy choirs. Later he indignantly denied this and said he was concertizing in Paris, and then Louis Blumenberg, the 'cellist, met the only Strelezki in Piccadilly a month ago, and so it goes. After reading Browning's fine careless poem, "Waring," I instinctively thought of Strelezki and his chameleon personality and almost unconsciously murmured: "In Vishnu Land, what Avatar?" But the Avatar refuses to Avatarize, and so Strelezki, like Browning's "Waring" prototype, "Alfred Domett," is in London.
9Seriously Strelezki has a fertile talent that needed the guano of application to make it bloom and blossom. I came across a lot of his music the other day and was struck by his inventive abilities if not positive originality. Those seven etudes published by Schirmer, with their Homeric spans, the "Skizzern," with their Schumann flavor, the "Album of Song" and grewsome B minor ballade, which latter sounds like the ghost of Grieg (that is if Grieg were dead) chasing Chopin's shade through a dark region where sinister harmonies form a gloomy, weird background. Believe me, Strelezki will do better work, as he is yet young and is growing (at last accounts he weighed nearly 300 pounds).
11I hear that Constantinople Sternberg was in New York last week after my scalp because I said that his compositions were not as immortal as those of Beethoven. Now this is not the first time Stern has thirsted for my gore, and I've noticed that whenever he encountered me on one of his butchering expeditions we spilt together quarts of blood—nice amber colored blood from Pilsen. My dear Sternberg, the weather has been very muggy and I also thirst for gore if you have finished your piano recitals in Detroit. So run over from Wanamakerville and have a bucket on me.
13Somebody said that the "Last Pianist" was a musical cobbler on Eleventh avenue. This is not so. The "Last Pianist" will in reality use the Janko keyboard, though I've been told that Frank Gilder is very successful as a last pianist. He leaves the stage last—long after the audience has fled.
15Speaking of last pianists reminds me of "milkman" pianists, but I will not dig up ghoulish memories, but content myself with publishing a program recently played by the redoubtable John Francis Gilder himself, and at the Hub, too; only think of ye musical spokes of that revolving periphery of a town! Here it is:
16Transcendental Grand March………………………………………Gilder
17"The Brook"………………………………………………………………Pape
18Tarantelle Fantastique…………………………………………………Gilder
19Andante and rondo capriccioso………………………………………Mendelssohn
20"La Gondolletta," barcarolla……………………………………….Gilder
21Tremolo, etude de concert…………………………………………..Gottschalk
22Dance Africaine……………………………………………………………Gilder
23Mountain Eagle mazurka……………………………………………..Gilder
24Transcription, "Battle Cry of Freedom"……………………………Gottschalk
25"II Trovatore"…………………………………………………………….Verdi-Sanderson
26Plantation Echoes……………………………………………………….Gilder
28The above is simply a sonorous sample of Senility, musical and otherwise.
30Great old days after all, those of Gottschalk and Harry Sanderson, the latter being known as the "octave thunderbolt." There are few left to perpetuate the brilliances of the school which played everything in octaves and in the crackling key of F sharp major. Can't you hear them yet? How the black keys did rattle, and then that left hand, with its banjo-like rhythms and recurrent bang on the one line F sharp. Verily, quieter days are upon us.
32None of the new people ever surpassed Gottschalk in his meretricious style (I don't speak of his more artistic efforts, which he readily commanded, but of his showy, humbug manner). Harry Sanderson, Gustav Satter, John Pattison, Frank Gilder, Oscar Newell, and in later days Adolf Glose, all play brilliantly, but we old graybeards miss something of that dazzle-razzle (I prefer it backward) glitter that alternately stunned and stifled the concert audiences of the later fifties. If you want to know all about the Gottschalk tradition just ask Arthur Ashforth (he is back from Europe). He traveled once with Gottschalk and is full of anecdote.
34And that reminds me:
36Back in '57 or '58 my father was president of the Philharmonic Society in Philadelphia, consequently when Thalberg and Gottschalk played at Musical Fund Hall or some old hall on Chestnut street (I wasn't there, you know) my father in his semi-official capacity was on the platform. When he appeared with members of the society the audience, misled by the strong resemblance he bore to Thalberg, applauded heartily and didn't discover their mistake until the original and only Thalberg glided out, sat down quietly and began to play. This little incident probably had a determining influence on my artistic career, for I was born with a hatred for music which the most assiduous practice has never corrected. Those were the old days when pianists came before the public with the opera hat (non-pancake) and white gloves, lots of fuss, feathers and octaves.
38Are you aware that you can't heave a brick on upper Broadway without hitting somebody who is studying "Rustic Chivalry" with a view to appearing in the musical melodrama? If Barnum were alive he would ere this have captured and exhibited as a curiosity the manager who had not called his brother manager a liar when the right of the production in this country was discussed. "Cavalleria Rusticana" has become a nightmare to musical people.
40I suppose that the solo for cacophone (low pitch) called "Angina Pectoris," from Spektakel's opera, "The Dead Heart," which is so popular in Deadwood at present, will soon invade New York, and then Mascagni will be as a joke in last week's "Puck"—forgotten.
42The man with the underdone baritone who said that there was a great similarity between women and music, because both could help a circus, a cathedral or an army, ought to have a dentist pull his voice for his want of gallantry.
44"You are not the young lady to whom I give lessons," said the piano teacher. "No; the young lady to whom you give lessons is sick and she has sent me to practice for her."
46Joseph Wieniawski, now giving piano recitals in London, is a brother of the late Henri Wieniawski, so famous as a violin virtuoso. Henri was giving on one occasion a concert in a German town and was much concerned at the small sale of tickets. He sauntered into a music shop outside which was displayed a placard announcing in large letters, "Wieniawski to-night," and was followed by a fat old gentleman, who asked for a whole row of tickets, expressing at the same time his admiration for Wieniawski's talents. Henri, who stood by unobserved, rubbed his hands and felt inches higher, but to his great dismay, the old gentleman, after paying, added, "He's a great pianist." The music seller corrected him. "Violinist you mean." "Ach Gott!" he shouted, "the only Wieniawski I know is a pianist. Give me back my money!"
48The dog orchestra will not be imported by the Rosenfelds this season, as was originally stated in the "Wacht am Avenue A," but will continue to delight London audiences with their tale of whoa. Their conductor, a trained goat, always sits down when he directs, as he can't stand the music.
50"Le Guide Musical" says: "An interesting work is Arsène Houssaye's 'Confessions Souvenirs d'un Demi-siècle.' It consists of six volumes, of which the last has just been published. In the sixth volume we read about Richard Wagner's stay as Venice. He inhabited the old Palace Giustiano, now an hotel, situated on the Grand Canal and close to the place of St. Marc. Its walls have seen in turn Meyerbeer, Verdi and Wagner."
52Arsène Houssaye says: "Meyerbeer wrote part of the 'Étoile du Nord.' Verdi composed the whole of 'Traviata,' and 'Rigoletto.' Wagner, residing at one time on the second floor, at another on the third, composed the 'Nibelungen,' and the first act of 'Parsifal.'" The hotel keeper relates the following anecdote: While Wagner was writing the first part of "Parsifal" he was informed that Verdi had used the same piano when composing "Aida." Wagner jumped up, throwing away his pencil and thumping the instrument with his fist, he exclaimed, "Make haste and give me another room." In the second he had a further surprise. Quite close to him a French lady traveler played the "Sérénade" of Métra. He listened and then rang the bell. "What fool wrote this valse?" he
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