Scan 7
Musical Courier 1891-11-11: Vol 23 Iss 612, 1891
133 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 540. See the scan on archive.org.
1later at Hanover at the palace under the direction of Marschner. She soon returned from there, on the invitation of Joachim, to take part in the ninth symphony. Toward the close of the year 1857 she sang at a concert in Cologne under the direction of Ferdinand Hiller, and she met with such success that she was invited to take part as soloist at one of the great Rhenish musical festivals. Among the nobility she was very well and favorably known. She was requested to sing in Babelsberg before the Prince Regent, the late Kaiser William I., who was so delighted with her voice that he gave her a very flattering letter of recommendation. At the beginning of the year 1859 she undertook a concert tour in England. In London Jenny Meyer found a kind reception and met with great success. She sang in Buckingham Palace before the Queen of England, and assisted in concerts in which the first musicians, such as Costa, Anderson, Sloper, Pauer, Hallé, and others took part. She returned to London the second time and met with the same brilliant reception and the same extraordinary success. She also undertook a large concert tour through Holland, meeting everywhere with the greatest favor. On November 1, 1865, she accepted a position in the Stern Conservatory; ten years later, November 1, 1875, ushered in the 25th year, the jubilee, of the Stern Conservatory of Music. But the founder of this celebrated institution did not live long to enjoy his work. In October, 1877, a severe illness paralyzed the work of Stern who, after resigning his position as director of the Union of Song, had devoted his whole time to the conservatory. Reinhold Hermann, one of his most talented young pupils, hastened over from New York, to take the heavy burden of leadership upon his shoulders. After his return to America, Robert Radecke undertook the work. In February following occurred the death of Stern, which was a heavy blow to the institution and threatened to shake it to its foundation. But a brilliant revival soon followed, when Jenny Meyer determined to obtain the conservatory by purchase. On October 1, 1888, it passed into her possession. It was a bold thing for a woman to undertake the management of such an institution, but her astonishing energy and her marvelous capacity for work overcame all difficulties; and now this Stern Conservatory of Music, so celebrated in the past, flourishes grandly, and bids fair to transmit the name of its founder to coming generations.
3With its college of teachers, its band of artists, its numerous pupils, and especially with its talented directress, Jenny Meyer, it must be rich in blessing to many who cultivate the noble art of music.
5Many of the noted musicians of the day have been instructors in the Stern Conservatory, such as Joachim, De Ahna, Barth, Hans von Bülow, Ernst, Theodore Kullak, Loschhorn and others.
7The pupils of the conservatory gave two concerts in the Singakademie, Berlin, in March. Saint-Saens' G minor piano concerto was played by Miss Auguste Götz-Lehmann, a young girl of seventeen years. It was the general opinion that it was the best rendition of it that had been given there for a long time. She is now an artist of rare ability, and great things may be expected of her in the future.
9The voice pupils of Jenny Meyer all show careful development and conscientious training. One always feels, upon hearing them sing, that they have been in the hands of a master. Miss Ottilie Fellwock's rendition of the aria from Gluck's "Orpheus" was charming. The D minor violin concerto, by Wieniawski, was played by Elly Fuchs, a nine year old girl. It seems almost incredible that one so young and small could play with as much technique, strength and expression as a man, but her rendition left nothing to be desired.
11W. G. E.
13The Salzburg Festival.
15BY AMY FAY.
17I.
19HAVING just returned from Europe, where I passed the summer, it occurred to me that possibly some of my late experiences might not be uninteresting to your readers. I suppose that everybody has special points of interest in going so far. I had three things in view—the Paris Salon, Bayreuth and the Mozart Festival in Salzburg. Of these the Mozart Festival was the most delightful, and I am sorry to say that scarcely any Americans, with the exception of a few professional critics and musicians, were present at it.
21I was enjoying Paris so much and got so absorbed in painting and sculpture that I could with difficulty tear myself away. Salzburg is a long way from Paris, and as I did not travel at night but stopped over at Basel and Innspruck, it took me from early Sunday morning till Tuesday afternoon to get there. The first day's ride was hot and uninteresting, and when I reached Basel in the evening I was too tired to go out and take a look at it, though it is the largest and richest city in Switzerland.
23The next morning I rose at 6 o'clock to take the fast train to Innspruck, another all day journey. We arrived in Zurich about 10 A. M., and had a charming view of it and of lovely Lake Constance, upon which it lies. The train ran along close to the water's edge, and we looked across to the gentle hills beyond, dotted with pretty cottages and trees. After we left the lake I took a nap, thinking there would be nothing more to see, when, after a brief slumber, I was aroused by the sudden stopping of the train. I lazily pulled aside the window shade and looked out, and there were two enormous mountains, twin giants, rising right up from the side of the track. They were just alike, and a cloud was softly rolling off the head of one of them like a whiff of smoke. They fairly took my breath away, and I sprang up and looked out of the window on the other side of the car.
25There we were, coming into an amphitheatre of mountains! It was the most glorious sight imaginable. They seemed to touch the sky and yet to detach themselves from it, their wonderful outlines standing out against the pure blue and the tallest peaks capped with snow. White clouds, lined with silver, played about their summits and intensified the effect, and snowy cataracts dashed down the gorges into the rapid rivers at the bottom, whose waters were pale green ruffled up with foam. Nothing could have been a greater contrast than the awful repose of those tremendous mountains and the lightning-like rapidity and changefulness of those cascades and rivers, twisting and curling themselves in every conceivable way. They were like so many Undines sporting at the feet of those hoary old fellows!
27I saw why it is that pictures of mountains are always tedious and uninteresting, and why they give no idea of them. It is because the artists utterly fail in reproducing the atmosphere at their tops, and that etherealness with which they lift themselves above. In nature they are light as well as heavy, whereas in art they are only heavy.
29I was so entranced by the beauty of all we were passing through that I exclaimed to a German who was sitting opposite me, "How magnificent this scenery is!" He replied, "Ya, ist ganz huesch!" (Quite pretty). I felt as if I should like to pound him, but a little later my enthusiasm boiled over again and I said, "It is so beautiful it is hard to make up one's mind which side of the car to choose." "Wird wohl dasselbe an beiden Seiten sein!" (It is probably the same on both sides) said he phlegmatically. It wasn't, of course, and I gave up trying to inspire him! He remained in his seat and never budged, as if he had been there since the world began, and is very likely sitting there yet!
31I went to the other side of the car and opened a conversation with an American lady, but with no better result. "Isn't this too beautiful!" I exclaimed.
33"Yes," she answered, indifferently; "did you know there are twenty-one cars on this train?"
35"No; how should I? It is all the same to me how many there are."
37"Aren't you afraid of accidents? We are so much more in danger of being run into in the tunnels when the train is so long."
39I told her my mind was not running on accidents just then. She added:
41"My son has been all through Switzerland this summer, and he wishes he might never see another mountain again. There he is."
43I turned to the son and asked: "Is it possible you don't enjoy this scenery?"
45"No," said he, "I hate it! I wish I was home."
47"Where is your home?"
49"In St. Louis."
51I thought to myself, of all things to wish to be in St. Louis in the middle of July! The hottest place on earth! Truly there is no accounting for tastes, or, rather, "everyone to his taste," as the old woman said when she performed that celebrated act that made her famous. I concluded to subside and to keep my emotions on scenery to myself, but here I made a mistake. Had I but addressed the one remaining passenger in the coupé I would have hit upon a charming Frenchman, who was as wild on the subject as I was myself. Shortly before the end of our journey I discovered him, literally at the "eleventh hour," but he made it more agreeable with his conversation than the ten preceding ones had been.
53We got to Innspruck about 6 in the evening, but the long day's ride seemed like nothing at all, for these glorious mountains and streams had accompanied us all the way. The field flowers, too, that grew along the railroad track were fascinating and varied. Sometimes the tops of the mountains were all rocks and they looked like natural fortresses crowning them. The fissures and shadows on them made beautiful effects of color, and their edges were like mother of pearl against the sky. Well, I never conceived what they were like till I actually saw them. The Swiss are a very religious people, and I was astonished at the number of large and small crucifixes in shrines, stuck up on posts, all through the country. Often in a rocky niche would be placed a sacred picture or a group of wooden statues, enacting some scene in connection with our Lord.
55We have heard of Innspruck all our lives, but little did I know the beauty those two short syllables inclose. It is most romantically situated between two grand and lofty ranges, and the river rushes through the middle of the city, spanned with bridges, and with the rapidity which seems to be the characteristic of these Alpine streams. All others seem dead and motionless after them.
57I was reminded of Oxford as I walked about Innspruck, as it has a mediæval aspect, and one keeps going under archways and into queer little alleys built right through the walls of the houses. I was looking for the "Church of the Franciscans," said to be one of the most remarkable churches in Germany. Suddenly I heard the subdued boom of a deep cathedral bell, and following the sound I came to it. Unfortunately it was locked, and it was too late to get in, much to my regret, for I was told there were twenty-five wonderful bronze statues in it, which stood on each side of the chancel, portraits of a family of knights in coats of mail. They must be strange and striking.
59Innspruck is a great summer resort, and there are beautiful excursions to be made into the mountains all around there. Nobody should come to Europe without making this trip between Basel and Innspruck. I never heard anyone speak of it, and the railroad was only lately built, I believe; but the fact is nobody knows anything about Europe till they go over for themselves, for people see these beautiful places and then forget them again under fresh impressions. By the time they return to America they do not think to mention what they have seen to those who have remained at home.
61All the way to Salzburg the scenery was enchanting, and the whole journey seemed like a path of glory leading up to the festival itself. Just before reaching the little city we passed between two high precipices of rocks scarcely wide enough to admit the railroad through it for a long distance.
63(To be continued.)
65The Gruenfeld Concerts.
67THE Gruenfelds, Alfred and Heinrich, still continue to attract large and enthusiastic audiences at the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall, on Twenty-sixth street. Their third recital took place last Thursday evening, on which occasion they played the following program:
69Sonata, D major, op. 18, for piano and 'cello………….Rubinstein
70Allegretto. Allegro molto.
71Alfred and Heinrich Gruenfeld.
72Ballad, in form of variations, on a Norwegian theme………..Ed. Grieg
73Alfred Gruenfeld.
74Adagio from concerto, E minor…………………………………….Popper
75Stück im Volkston…………………………………………………Schumann
76Danse Montagnarde……………………………………………..Lino-Mattioni
77Heinrich Gruenfeld.
78"Des Abends"…………………………………………………….Schumann
79"Aufschwung"…………………………………………………….Schumann
80"Warum?"………………………………………………………..Schumann
81Alfred Gruenfeld.
82Fantaisie on "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser"…………………Wagner
83Melody………………………………………………………..Gluck-Gruenfeld
84Little serenade…………………………………………………A. Gruenfeld
85Heinrich Gruenfeld.
86Menuetto………………………………………………………..Popper
87Nocturne, B major……………………………………………..Chopin
88Valse, A minor…………………………………………………Delibes-Gruenfeld
89Hungarian Dances (arrangement)……………………………….A. Gruenfeld
90Alfred Gruenfeld.
92The fourth concert occurred last Saturday afternoon, and the following program was played:
94"Variations Concertantes," op. 17, for piano and 'cello……Mendelssohn
95Alfred and Heinrich Gruenfeld.
96"Andante Favorit" (by request)……………………………….Beethoven
97Capricio………………………………………………………..Brahms
98"Isoldens Liebestod"…………………………………………..Wagner-Liszt
99Alfred Gruenfeld.
100Adagio, from concerto…………………………………………Haydn
101"Marcia"………………………………………………………H. Hofmann
102Adagietto………………………………………………………Bizu
103Heinrich Gruenfeld.
104"Kreisleriana," Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 8……………………………….Schumann
105Alfred Gruenfeld.
106Romanze………………………………………………………A. Gruenfeld
107Gavot………………………………………………………..Padre-Martini
108Guitare………………………………………………………Moszkowski
109Heinrich Gruenfeld.
110Serenade, B major…………………………………………….A. Gruenfeld
111Intermezzo……………………………………………………Moszkowski
112"Faust," fantasia……………………………………………..A. Gruenfeld
113Alfred Gruenfeld.
115Last night the fifth and last evening concert was to have taken place, and on Saturday afternoon, November 21, they will give their last matinée.
117(Incorporated May 1, 1891.)
119NEW YORK VOCAL INSTITUTE.
120FRANK HERBERT TUBBS, Musical Director.
12197 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
123COMPLETE EDUCATION IN VOCAL MUSIC.
124Singers naturally prefer study where Voice Culture and Singing receive chief attention. All the teachers use the same method. Homes erected for pupils. Circulars sent on request.
125NEW YORK VOCAL INSTITUTE, 97 Fifth Avenue.
127NEW YORK COLLEGE OF MUSIC.
128ALEXANDER LAMBERT, DIRECTOR.
129Mme. FURSCH-MADI, Principal of Vocal Department.
130ALL BRANCHES OF MUSIC TAUGHT
131Faculty comprises the most eminent instructors.
132NOTICE.—The New York College of Music WILL REMOVE September 1, from 163 E. 70th St., to its new and handsome building 128 and 130 EAST 58th STREET.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.