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Musical Courier 1891-10-14: Vol 23 Iss 608, 1891
60 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 416. See the scan on archive.org.
1Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert Clarke.
3WITH pleasure THE MUSICAL COURIER presents excellent pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert Clarke, the well-known vocalists of this city. A brief glance at the career of this talented young couple will prove interesting.
5Mr. Charles Herbert Clarke began his musical studies and career in Boston, where he was offered the position of tenor at the famous Old South Church, when the veteran baritone J. Q. Wetherbee (of late years located in London, England) and Miss Aline Osgood, soprano, were members of the choir. After two years there he was induced to take a position at King's Chapel, during which time he did a great deal of concert work as well as operatic, and sang with fine success the oratorios "Elijah," "Judas Maccabaeus," "Eli" and other works under Carl Zerrahn.
7He then visited Europe, studying in London and Italy. While in Milan he was offered an operatic engagement by San Giovanni, together with his friend George Sweet, the baritone, but engagements made on this side called him home. After a concert tour through the West he accepted the position of tenor and director of Trinity Church, Chicago, where he received the largest salary ever paid a tenor in that city, and having under his direction Miss Jennie Dutton and Miss Adelaide Foresman, now prominent church singers in this city. He soon had a large class of pupils.
9Mr. Whitney Mockridge, the popular tenor, began his musical career under Mr. Clarke's tuition, and his singing soon made him prominent in society and musical circles. Mr. Clarke had a large class of private pupils, and also taught at Miss Grant's fashionable school for young ladies. He was constantly in demand at concerts and private musicales.
11Mr. Clarke has been in this city only five years, but has already established himself as an artist and teacher of singing. He is solo tenor at the West Presbyterian Church (Dr. Paxton's). He is also director of music at the Madison Avenue M. E. Church.
13Mr. Clarke was asked to reorganize the choir and take full charge of rehearsals, which he did, and has succeeded in giving them one of the best quartet choirs in the city, and the people express themselves highly pleased. Mrs. Clarke, his charming wife, is the soprano, and Mr. F. W. Elliott, formerly of Buffalo, the tenor, both pupils of his. Mr. Clarke has a large répertoire of oratorios and standard works and several operas. He is a member of the Mendelssohn Quartet Club, which is doing fine work, and a recognized musician as well as singer. He has made some good engagements for the present season. Mr. Clarke has brought out some fine amateur pupils and has many letters from professionals to whom he has given valuable hints.
15Finding that his old Fourteenth street studio was becoming too limited to accommodate his large clientele he has secured a large studio in the new Music Hall, Fifty-seventh street and Seventh avenue, which will be his permanent address from October 15. Fortnightly musicales and pupils' recitals will be given there.
17Mrs. Charles Herbert Clarke began her musical career in Chicago, singing as an amateur at many fashionable soirées, her voice attracting much attention by its great purity and range. She was but a girl when she first sang in light opera, and despite her lack of experience showed decided histrionic talents. She was pronounced an ideal "Patience" in "Pinafore." But her social position precluded any idea of her adopting the stage as a profession. Until her marriage with Mr. Clarke she sang constantly in concert and church, and after she came to this city was the solo soprano at Dr. Behrends' church, Brooklyn, which position she retained until she moved to New York. Mrs. Clarke is now solo soprano of the Madison Avenue M. E. Church, having been there four years. She has given much attention to oratorio as well as to the concert room repertory. Among other engagements this season Mrs. Clarke will sing in "The Messiah," "The Bride of Dunkerron," "Holy City," and also with the Mendelssohn Quartet Club. Here are a few of the press notices of Mr. and Mrs. Clarke:
19NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
21The Hamilton "Daily Spectator," in speaking of the "Messiah" by the Hamilton Oratorio Society, said: "Of the soloists, Mr. Clarke, the tenor, gave the most complete satisfaction. He is a true artist, and he has a beautiful voice to use, smooth and delicious in quality, sufficiently strong and thoroughly controlled. In the vigorous and difficult air 'Thou Shalt Break Them,' the pathetic air 'Behold and See if There be any Sorrow,' the florid 'Every Valley' and the restful recitative 'Comfort Ye,' his singing was equally effective and successful. Mr. Clarke's merit as an oratorio singer was best displayed in the phrasing of his recitatives, which was perfect. He is the best oratorio singer that has been heard here for many years."
23The Springfield "Republican," in speaking of the concert given by the Hampden County Musical Association, said: "Mr. Charles Herbert Clarke has a fine, brilliant tenor of considerable range, which he manages in good style. He sang with great beauty a love song from the 'Voyage of Columbus,' in which Dudley Buck has shown to perfection his dainty and graceful genius for song writing. The audience would have been glad to hear him again, but he declined. The romance 'Regginiella' was a display of skill, and 'Lohengrin's' part in the prayer was effective."
25The Erie "Herald" says: "Mrs. Clarke, in her two solos 'Rejoice Greatly' and 'I Know That My Redeemer Liveth,' not only sustained the reputation as a vocalist that she has already earned, but won fresh laurels. She has sung her way into the hearts of music lovers of this city, and throughout the evening sang as she has never sung here before."
27Mrs. Clarke, whose voice is deliciously sweet and beautifully placed, was particularly pleasing in Bohm's "Spring Song."—Lakewood "News."
29Mrs. Charles Herbert Clarke has a pure soprano voice which has been highly cultivated, and the manner in which she rendered Proch's "Air and Variations" was very fine. Her staccato is one of the best features of her singing. Her singing of Bischoff's bright and coquetish little ballad charmed us particularly. Her manner is pleasing and her style is good throughout.—Chicago "News."
31Mrs. Clarke, whose voice we know to be lovely in music that abounds in floriture, gave the grand soprano aria, "Hear ye, Israel," from "Elijah" with surprising dramatic force, and she deserves nothing but praise and congratulations upon achieving such a vocal triumph.—Yonkers "Gazette."
33Mr. and Mrs. Clarke may be secured for oratorio, concert or private musicales by addressing Music Hall, or at residence, 25 West Forty-eighth street, New York city.
35Music in Berlin.
37ORCHESTRAL CONCERTS.
39BERLIN, September 24, 1891.
41IN no city of Europe, Leipzig not excepted, can one hear so much good orchestral music as in Berlin, and I might add in no city of the world is good orchestral music so inexpensive as in the German capital. The Königl. Hofkapelle and the Philharmonie each give from eight to twelve subscription concerts, besides special concerts for charitable and other purposes; in addition to this the Philharmonie gives three popular concerts per week, and at the Konzerthaus you can listen to a good orchestra of some seventy pieces every evening throughout the whole season. Prices of admission to the subscription concerts range from 1 to 5 marks, and to the pops from mark 1.50 to 50 Pfennige (12 cents). At the pops beer is served, and some evenings of the week even smoking is allowed. To say that the members of the American colony attend these pops regularly is putting it mildly; on symphony nights they literally rule the floor. And it is edifying to a degree to see the damsels with the blush of rosy morn on their youthful faces and venerable matrons with silvery curls peeping out from behind their pretty lace caps as they take their Beethoven and the extract of malt and barley "alf an alf," so to say; it is edifying, I assure you, particularly when you remember how odious the very name of beer is in the States; when you remember that saloon is a word which occurs only in the vocabulary of police reports and temperance speeches, when you remember that the average American lady never "indulges" or, if at all, "in the stilly silence of her chamber only." It opens a vista to one's mental eye of the golden millennium, when the wolf and the lamb shall peacefully lie together, and when beer and culture shall not exclude one another. But there is one feature to this which, to my mind, constitutes what you might call the square root of the liquor nuisance in the States, i.e., the girls, with an indescribable independent air, foot their own bill. No matter how well they may happen to like the young man sitting next to them they will insist upon not being treated. Here you can treat the American girl to flowers, to ice cream, to fruit, to walnuts, to a street car ride or to almost anything else, but they will pay for their beer themselves. It would be an encroachment upon their inalienable rights as beings who in every respect are equal to their bearded fellow creatures to deprive them of this privilege. I propose that Iowa and Kansas send their solons to the Berlin pops for a season; they will return wiser and happier men; they will condense their experiences in a rigid anti-treating law, and with one stroke the now really serious liquor question will be solved.
43But I am digressing, and to become serious, sacrilegious though it may sound, I really am of the conviction that Beethoven and beer combined when once introduced in every city of the Union will do more toward abolishing the whiskey nuisance than all the blue ribbons in the world. But to return to our subject.
45Foremost in the estimation of the musical world of Berlin stand the Philharmonic concerts conducted by Hans v. Bülow. There are several reasons for this. Above all, Hans certainly is a remarkable conductor. Perhaps he is more remarkable than wonderful, and—when you consider his stupendous memory—more wonderful as a leader than as an interpreter; in other words, his brain outweighs his heart; his intellect is never for even an instant biased by his emotions. As a result he conducts the classical works better than those belonging to the romantic school, and of the former the scherzos better than the adagios. His programs reflect this tendency of his most truthfully. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn, some of Mendelssohn, less of Schumann, still less of Wagner and of Liszt—nothing, absolutely nothing. And it is better thus; for after hearing the Vorspiel to "Tristan" under him I hardly think him in sympathy with the modern school sufficiently enough to grasp "the burthen of its song." That overwhelming elementary power found in the scores of the modern school is not his; those emotions which now in ecstatic accents rise to bewildering heights of human bliss, and which the next moment fall back to the abyss of black despair, these are not his, and as a result his readings of the modern works I heard under him were clean cut, precise, correct, perhaps, even in tempi—but they were cold, frigidly so. On the other hand, his phrasing is simply delicious (queer as the word may sound in this connection), the balancing of the three choirs of the orchestra ever perfect; every run, no matter in what instrument and however difficult, absolutely clear and beyond all, he conveys a rhythmic intensity to his readings (if I may express myself so) which is quite unique. Add thereto his stupendous memory, a perfect control of his men, who are to him but the live keys of a huge piano, and of course his well-known fine conception of the classics, and you may form a fair idea of the high charm of a Beethoven or Haydn symphony as produced at the Bülow concerts.
47Hans, who once dubbed himself "Conductor to its Majesty the German people," is becoming quite nervous, and at times it takes all the diplomacy of his manager, Mr. Wolff, to retain him at his post. It is probably due to Wolff's great influence over the man that he no longer plays the piano or makes speeches in public. I at least have heard him neither in the one nor in the other capacity this last season. His adversaries, however—and he has a great many in Berlin—say that now, having firmly established himself as conductor of the Philharmonie with both public and orchestra, he disdains using such mode of advertising himself. How much of calumny or truth there may be in this assertion I cannot say; so much is certain, he seems to have relegated his oratorical tendencies to "innocuous desuetude."
49The pops of the Philharmonie are conducted by a second leader; the programs are made up largely from the works performed at the Bülow concerts; the leader at the pops is therefore placed in the not very desirable position to either slavishly follow Bülow's tempi and conception or to render himself impossible with the members of his orchestra, who to a man simply idolize the great Hans. Mr. Kogel, the incumbent of the position, until recently realized the full import of his duties so admirably that, after several years of harmonious subordination, he was recommended by his chief to the position of conductor of the Museum concerts at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Of course the audiences of the pops are the sufferers by such a state of serfdom. Being denied a conception of his own, the assistant conductor will not and cannot lead with that enthusiasm born of inner conviction; on the other hand, the orchestra, despite Bülow's tempi, &c., will not and cannot play in the Bülow vein; they also feel the artistic impossibility of this crossing process. The result is mediocrity, pure and unalloyed. How much of individuality Mr. Kogel can lay claim to I am not prepared to say under these circumstances. This much is certain: he is the best orchestral accompanist I know of, and in this particular regard far superior to his whilom master, Dr. Hans von Bülow. In Frankfort he will have ample opportunity to develop whatever he may have in the way of originality. I will conclude by wishing the very best success in his new field of action.
51F. X. ARENS.
53(To be continued.)
55Politics and Music.—To represent politicians as a band of musicians is quite an old device. In the Bismarck Museum at Schönhausen is the present of a Russian, a colored drawing on a fan, with Prince Bismarck, as bandmaster, directing the Reichstag, Windhorst playing the harp. The "Grand Concert Européen" begins with the overture "The Treaty of St. Stefano," by Bismarck.
57Covent Garden.—The promenade concerts at Covent Garden (25 cents admission and the band of the Coldstream Guards as an attraction in addition to that of the Royal Italian Opera) will come to an end in a few days. But Manager Sir Augustus Harris will reopen Covent Garden on Tuesday, October 20, with a short operatic season in which the principal artists from the Paris Opéra will contribute their services for a solid consideration.
59Improved Concert Rooms.—"Notes and Queries" would evidently improve our concert room manners. To this end that useful and interesting paper explains, what persons of education know but what concert audiences so persistently neglect, that it is proper to applaud a male artist with the word "bravo," which changes in the plural to "bravi," applause to a female artist being given by the word "brava," which changes in the plural into "brave." This timely correction calls to mind an incident of a certain provincial concert room. A worthy country couple were heard exchanging confidences. The man was startled by the audience crying encore. His wife was able to explain that it was a demand or request for a repetition. The husband then became anxious under the not unjust nor unnatural idea that this demand for more music might involve a corresponding demand for more payment. Being, however, assured by his wife this was not the case, the somewhat benighted but none the less delighted auditor cried out vigorously at the end of almost every piece with other enthusiastic listeners, not only with a mind relieved, but with a truly British determination to get as much as possible for his money.
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