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Musical Courier 1891-10-14: Vol 23 Iss 608, 1891
74 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 419. See the scan on archive.org.
1Lohengrin Première.
2Paris, October 1, 1891.
3After months of preparation and public excitement the première of "Lohengrin" took place at the Grand Opéra, September 16, with a manifestation never before seen in the French capital attending a "première" representation. This was caused, as is well known, by the anti-Wagnerians in part, but more especially through the bitter political feeling which exists between France and Germany at the present time, and now taken advantage of by the members of the Boulanger party and lower classes. An attack on the opera was imminent, which postponed the first performance until this date, when the scene presented on the Place de l'Opéra was one never to be forgotten. The mob was in large numbers, and only by the aid of hundreds of the police force and cavalry was an attack on the building prevented. There were 1,000 arrests made during the performance and great excitement prevailed outside the building until the end.
5To the contrary, inside the theatre everything was calm, and a brilliant audience, who were there only by invitation, no tickets being sold, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding, enjoyed a remarkable première, such as one only sees at Paris. The work had been most carefully prepared, with Van Dyck, of Vienna, especially engaged to create the rôle of "Lohengrin," and the orchestra conducted by Lamoureux, the well-known conductor of the Concerts Lamoureux, and with Rose Caron as "Elsa." The orchestra, which numbers 100 musicians, played with great precision and most admirably throughout, the entire seating arrangement of the musicians being changed for this performance to conform with the manner prevalent in Germany, which proved to be a vast improvement.
7The success of Van Dyck was a triumph for the famous tenor, as was the interpretation given by Mrs. Caron. One of the principal points scored was by the chorus, the male voices excelling those of all other performances of this work I have heard elsewhere, the intonation being faultless and the entire work done by them being given with great precision and excellence.
9The performance, as a whole, was very interesting, but principally the work done by Mrs. Caron, Van Dyck, the male chorus and orchestra.
11There were many well-known musicians in the house, and prominent persons, notably Saint-Saëns, who occupied a box with Mr. Durand, the publisher.
13The scene during the entractes, when nearly the entire house retired to the balcony in front to witness the manifestation, was extraordinary, especially from the Place de l'Opéra.
15This has now proved a triumph for the works of Wagner in Paris, and it is expected that the "Meistersinger" will be produced at the Opéra Comique during the present season.
17William C. Carl.
19Some New Music.
20S. Brainard's Sons & Co., Chicago, are the publishers of a "Suite Romantique," or "Sketches from the Time of Margaret, Queen of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, 1353-1412," by August Hyllested, the well-known Chicago pianist. These delightful musical sketches, or rather tone pictures and moods, are six in all and are called respectively "The Troubadour," "Hunting Scene," "In the Rose Garden," "The Jester," "Serenade" and "Before the Tournament." These are generally what their title betokens, particularly "Before the Tournament," which is a vigorous bit of writing, and "The Jester," in which the composer's nationality peeps forth. Mr. Hyllested has a decided musical individuality, with that nice blending and assimilation of the composers that have affected him the most that renders his work delightful without being at all reminiscent. What has become of the gavot he wrote some years ago? It was a very finished replica of the old Bach spirit and should have become more widely known. Mr. Hyllested should rescue it from the oblivion into which it has fallen and put it in the hands of a more capable and enterprising publisher.
22He has also composed an impromptu in salon style, which commends itself to amateurs of refined style.
24Otto Hackh is well known as a writer of pieces for the piano, in which grace, elegance, spirited rhythms and brilliancy of style predominate. He has just put forth, through Edward Schubert, a "Bolero" and "Carmencita Morceau Caractéristique," of which the first is the better piece of writing. Both are full of Spanish color, and will be extremely effective in the hands of a capable performer.
26Francis, Day & Hunter, 1 and 3 Union square, have issued an American edition of Smallwood's "Method for the Piano," a work that is so exceedingly popular in London that over two hundred thousand copies have been sold already. It is simple, complete, condensed and cheap.
28"The Lord Is My Light," an anthem quartet with bass solo, by J. Lewis Browne, is published in Minneapolis by the Century Piano Company.
30Novello, Ewer & Co. have put forth in their most excellent edition, C. H. H. Parry's "De Profundis," a musical setting of the CXXX. Psalm for chorus, orchestra and soprano solo. It was composed especially for the Hereford Festival of 1891. "The Fairies' Spring," a cantata for female voices by Frederic H. Cowen (something for the Rubinstein Club). A. C. MacKenzie's "Veni Creator Spiritus," for chorus, solo, quartet and orchestra. Written for and produced at the Birmingham Musical Festival, 1891. C. Villiers Stanford's "Eden," a dramatic oratorio in three acts for solo, chorus and orchestra, and Dvorák's "Requiem Mass." This last is a most significant work.
32The Kansas City Piano Company publish a set of easy pieces entitled: "Six Stray Morceaux," by R. C. Amaryll. They consist of a Gavot, Valse Sérieuse, Menuet, Rondoletta, March, and Humoreske. They are pretty.
34August Wm. Hoffmann has composed an "Ave Maria" for soprano or tenor solo; a song, "All for You," and a cradle song, published by C. J. Wynne, St. Louis.
36Gustav Hille, of Philadelphia, has published through C. F. W. Siegels, Leipsic, a berceuse for violin with accompaniment of string quartet or piano. Like all of Mr. Hille's music, it is written with an intimate knowledge of his instrument and in an easy, unaffected manner.
38Interesting Reminiscences.
39Marietta, Ohio, September 21, 1891.
40To the Editors of The Musical Courier:
41In perusing the last number of your interesting paper, filled as it is with musical news from all parts of the globe, and teeming with evidence, in the shape of advertisements, of the immense progress during the last half century in the manufacturing of musical instruments, I cannot help indulging in a little retrospection which may be of interest to some of your readers. My mind carries me back nearly fifty years, when Palmo's Opera House flourished on Chambers street, when the Philharmonic Society had possession of the Apollo Rooms, on Broadway, and when Dodworth's brass band was the ne plus ultra of martial music. Permit me, first of all, to recall the prominent teachers of that period. Those of the piano were the genial H. C. Timm, the dignified William Scharfenberg, the mercurial Etienne (teacher of harp as well), Jules Fontana, A. W. Berg, and, later on, George Bristow (the pet of the Philharmonic), Herrman Wollenhaupt (the pet of the ladies), and Otto Dresel (the pet of himself). I might add W. A. King, but he ought to be classed among the organists rather than among the pianists. Speaking of organists I must not forget the lamented Alpers, who died very young, and who, with Dr. Hodges, of Trinity Church, and the above mentioned W. A. King, formed the prominent organ trio.
43When we come to vocal teachers the number is greatly narrowed down. With Baggioli as the only Italian teacher, Mrs. Chas. E. Horn, Mrs. Loder, and possibly Mrs. Seguin, we have already exhausted the list. By the bye, the Loder family with its ramifications, sisters, cousins and aunts, played no mean part in the musical development of those days.
45Foremost among them was George Loder, the conductor par excellence, but also pianist and organist. Henry C. Watson, the journalist and critic, also belonged to the Loder family. Criticism in those days was centred in said Watson, of the "Albion" (English you know), a good musician, but terribly handicapped by his English proclivities and predilections; Richard Grant White, of the "Enquirer," honest in his opinions but backed by very little musical knowledge, and Ullmann, of the "Herald," with no opinions but an ever itching palm.
47Of singers I can recall a goodly array, the English predominating. There were Mrs. Bishop, Mrs. Edward Loder, Mrs. Seguin, Mrs. Otto, Miss Julia Northall; Sanguricco, De Begnis, Seguin, all three distinguished by the size of their noses, if not by their singing; Chas. Horn, and the different birds of passage—Dempster, Phillipps, Russell, &c.
49Of instrumentalists I can recall but few: U. C. Hill, the first leader of the Philharmonic, probably the first American who pursued his musical studies in Europe; Boucher, the jovial French 'cellist; Kyle, the dude flutist; Reiff, fagottist, &c.
51Two more individuals that cannot be classed with any of the above deserve a mention here. One, Professor Heinrichs who, said to be a banker, devoted his declining years to composing grand symphonies in gold and morocco, and dedicating them to the crowned heads of Europe; the other, Professor von Heeringen, who was greatly disturbed by the flats and sharps of the musical notation, and who consequently invented a new system of notation, in which these wicked mosquitoes could find no lodging point. I remember that in order to prove the superiority of his system he caused to be engraved in his own characters the "Galop Chromatique" of Franz Liszt, and engaged a prominent pianist to play at some concert from his (Von Heeringen's) music. Now, considering that the same pianist had played the same composition a hundred times from the ordinary music—in point of fact was altogether independent of notes of any kind—he certainly could have had no great difficulty in deciphering this particular piece from Von Heeringen's music.
53As I write other reminiscences crowd upon me, but I hope I have written enough to enable the reader to appreciate the immense strides we have made, if not in the progress of music, certainly in the number of musicians who till the musical field.
55When we come to the piano industry the contrast between now and then is still greater. There were no action makers, no keyboard makers, no separate branches of the trade and possibly no stencil pianos in those days. I can remember only the firms of Nunns & Clark, Nunns & Fisher, Adam Stodart, Stodard, Worcester & Dunham and James Pierson in New York; Chickering, Hallet & Davis and Gilbert, of Boston; Knabe, of Baltimore, and perhaps two or three more scattered in the then far West constituted the sum and substance of the piano manufacturing interest. A glance at your own advertising columns saves all further comments on my part.
57The number of music dealers and publishers was in exact keeping with the above. Hoyer and Scharfenberg & Louis represented the foreign music trade. Domestic publications were scattered among Firth, Hall & Pond, Millet and Atwill (afterward Jolly). Perhaps it will be interesting to the reader to know that the afterward famous or infamous gift enterprises and gift concerts originated with this same Mr. Jolly or Jollie. In his case there was but one capital prize (a Chickering grand), but every holder of a ticket, which cost $1 and of which there were 4,000, was entitled to a copy of one of Jenny Lind's songs, retail price $1.
59The success of this enterprise soon enticed others to have gift concerts, with prizes varying from a toothpick to a well tilled farm, and degenerating rapidly into colossal swindling schemes.
61I am sorely tempted to keep on writing, but prudence says
63The Janko Keyboard.
64(Translated and Compiled by Emil K. Winkler.)
65V.
67On the new keyboard it is just as convenient to pass the thumb under the fingers as it is on the old keyboard when the thumb is to be placed on a white key after a black one. But on the new keyboard the thumb can be passed under as well from E to F sharp as from F sharp to G. This very circumstance facilitates and simplifies the playing of scales and runs. The thumb can even be passed under the little finger without any difficulty. Such fingering is mostly out of question on the old keyboard, as, for instance, F G flat to be played with the right hand with the fingering 51.
69Figure 1 shows the graphic position of two octaves of the C major scale.
71In playing arpeggios and similar figures containing wide intervals, where the right hand ascends and the left hand descends, it is an advantage to turn the hands outward from the wrists, or vice versa. This position is chiefly required by Chopin and aids the natural tendency of the hand to follow the movement.
73Yet very often the proportions of space on the old key-
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