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Musical Courier 1891-12-02: Vol 23 Iss 615, 1891
95 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 647. See the scan on archive.org.
1year, in order to produce a pathetic play in which he can show his skill both as an actor and a musician.
3More Mascagni.—Mascagni's third opera, "The Rantzaus," will be produced for the first time at the Pergola Theatre, Florence, in October next. The composer is now busy upon his fourth opera, the subject of which is based upon Heine's "Radcliffe."
5Piano Playing Pays.—In referring to the financial results of his farewell concerts in London the "Pall Mall Gazette" said: "The price of a pianist is an unknown quantity, but the earnings of Mr. Paderewski in the three weeks that preceded his departure to America afford a striking illustration of his unequaled popularity. The Polish pianist appeared on nineteen different occasions during that period, taking stated fees on eleven occasions and 'running the show' on his own risk at the other times. The result was a net profit to Mr. Paderewski of £2,430."
7FOR SALE—A fine old violoncello of sweet tone. Price $300. Address Joseph Hornsteiner, 27b Potsdamer strasse, Berlin, Germany.
9The Liederkranz Concert.
11THE German Liederkranz made, in our estimation, somewhat of a mistake when they left their beautiful and cosey private hall on Fifty-eighth street and Park avenue to give their first concert of the season on last Sunday night at the new Music Hall and before a paying audience. Not a mistake socially or financially, for the vast building was absolutely sold out, great enthusiasm prevailed and everybody seemed pleased with everybody else; but in point of judgment of their own abilities they made a slight overestimate. It is one thing to sing for one's fellow members and a few invited friends at your own home, and quite a different affair when you go and hire a public hall and give a concert to which you charge admission. The standard which usually applies to an amateur singing society is then raised, and it cannot truthfully be asserted that the members of the male chorus of the German Liederkranz came quite up to the required altitude.
13There were two factors present which made the performance of the overweighted program enjoyable. These were Ignace J. Paderewski and the female chorus of the Liederkranz. The latter sang Schubert's exquisitely beautiful serenade in F for female voices and alto solo charmingly, and so did Miss Olive Fremstadt, the alto solo; but why was the original pretty piano accompaniment changed to one of clumsy orchestration? Paderewski played the Schubert B flat impromptu, the Schubert-Liszt "Erlkling," and thereupon as an encore his own "Menuet à l'Antique;" afterward he was heard in Chopin's F sharp major impromptu, the same composer's C sharp minor waltz and the Liszt twelfth rhapsody. All these numbers have been spoken of at length in these columns, and it is therefore only necessary to state that the greatest pianist of recent date again demonstrated that he has no rival here for either beauty of tone, charm of expression and poetry of phrasing, and it goes without saying that he carried the house by storm.
15As for the singing of the Liederkranz they have done much better on many occasions in the concerts at their own hall. The Bach cantata for mixed voices went raggedly; the Storch "Nachtzauber" a capella chorus was not sung clearly, and in the Jungst encore they gave, short as it is, they began in D and finished in C. As for the male chorus work in "Columbus," they were entirely overweighted by its difficulties.
17Mr. Zollner's work was, as a composition, somewhat disappointing. If it was one of the uncrowned Milwaukee competitive compositions the judges' estimate was correct. It is an overambitious and very pretentious work. Mr. Zollner, like Wagner, wrote his own words and music, but it happens that in reality only the words are his own, while the music is all Wagnerian. The finale of the first act and the beginning of the third act of "Lohengrin," the Sword Motive (which Wagner himself cribbed from Weber) and the first half of the third act from "Tristan und Isolde" have all so boldly been imitated that one involuntarily, in the course of the hour and a half which the work lasts, asks one's self: "Is there, then, nothing original, nothing but Wagner imitation in this entire composition?" Yes, there is! There are two things in it which are not Wagnerian.
19The one is the introduction of "Yankee Doodle" in the finale of the first half of the work and at the moment when the Spaniards set out to find America. At this period it is certainly a stupid anachronism which could only have been introduced ad captandum. The other is a Spanish song in A minor for tenor, which is really very pretty and quite original and which was sung by Mr. Robert Kaufmann in a very artistic manner.
21The other soli were in the hands of Miss Emma Juch and Emil Fischer. The latter had lost the last remnants of his voice and had to be excused on account of hoarseness, and Miss Juch was not in much better trim, her voice sounding very tired and worn out. She had earlier in the program given the "Abscheulicher" aria from Beethoven's "Fidelio" and had added as an encore the "Freudvoll und Liedvoll" from "Egmont."
23ITALIAN OPERA IN CHICAGO.
25Second Week—Chit Chat.
27Nor grudge Romance's quaint, beguiling mask;
28Let truth the masquerade of fiction wear,
29To ease the toil worn laborer at his task
30And with the charm of fancy banish care.
32* * *
34Swans sing before they die. 'Twere no bad thing
35If certain folks would die before they sing.
37* * *
39Great is the truth and mighty above all things, and will prevail.
41* * *
43The critic must not be coerced by the "what is," but ever keep in mind "what ought to be."
45* * *
47Is this the land of song ennobled line?
48Is this the land where genius ne'er in vain
49Poured forth his lofty strain?
50— "Death of Chatterton," Coleridge. one of two readings
51—"Death of Chatterton," Coleridge. one of two readings
53* * *
55I have been seeking voice knowledge this week and have found for every supposed orthodox doctrine a heterodox dogma of equal strength. One may find plenty of register fiends, and again, "Every sound of the human voice is produced by the same means and generated in the same place."—Randegger.
57* * *
59Then:
60Mr. Behnke agrees with the best authorities that when singing in chest tone or falsetto the voice box rises gradually with each higher tone. "A teacher who insists upon his pupils keeping their voice boxes perfectly still commits a serious mistake."—Kofler.
62* * *
64But what about this?
65"There are teachers who instruct pupils voluntarily to raise the larynx to gain power, thereby stretching the trachea to its utmost. These teachers have not been successful singers."—Weber.
67* * *
69MANY state that a broad, declamatory style of vocalism is foreign to the Italian school, but in an essay Tomlins says: "Peculiar to the Italian method there is a throat expansion which partially resists and wholly controls the breath, intensifying the tone and by reaction on the system arousing the inner nature." Mrs. Brinkerhoff lays the vocal corner stone: "You must utter the vowels aright," and Mr. Patton adds mortar when he writes: "Tell me how you breathe and I will tell you how you sing." Capiani gives us a somewhat untruthful truth in "There is but one method, and that is to sing naturally." The ardent worshippers at the altar of early Italian vocal methods will be shocked by the following:
71(no line here) one of two readings
72"The Italian method, a supposed legacy of truth regarding voice training, is obstinately clung to despite the fact that nobody has shown it to have a distinctive existence. There are no earlier records of method than Francesco Tosi, 1728, and Mancini, 1756, and they demonstrate no fundamental doctrines. Sieber published in 1858 a complete theory of the art of singing, and he is supposed to be giving us the fruits of his fathers in voice—Porpora, Tedi, Pistocchi, Leo—but in no respect are his sayings wiser than those of the leading professors of this age."—Root.
74* * *
76I have wondered whether our leading vocal artists study psychology and apply it. For some rôles methinks a solitary thinking and reading course with McCosh, Dr. J. Baldwin, of State University, Austin, Tex., or Spencer in one's hands would be better than mere lessons or a coach, for the maxim of Solon, "Gnothi seauton" (know thyself), i.e., to know the motive power of good and evil and apply their action, seems to be to a degree neglected by many of our singers. Talking of coaches, we have Mr. A. D. Duvivier, late of London and Paris, with us in Chicago now. I hardly know what he will find to do in this country, for we do not have a great crying need of operatic coaching in the Windy City. His records seem to be brilliant, and his capabilities, according to his pamphlets, are of the highest. Another new comer is Adolph Carpe, pianist, who gave a début recital this week and was very severely criticised by the press.
78Mr. Carpe came, like myself, from Cincinnati, and I think it is a kind of grudge against that fine old city's past brilliant musical record that prepares for any of her late residents a warm reception here. You're all right, Carpe; a little rubbing against the grain won't hurt. I have come across some quaint little things in my last week's reading. Dr. Burney, in his "Musical Tour in Italy" (1771), tells of the famous St. Onofrio Conservatory, where Pergolesi was taught, as was Cimarosa at Santa Maria di Loreto in Naples. These were the first schools known as conservatories. He writes: "This morning I went to the conservatory of St. Onofrio and visited all the rooms where the boys practice, sleep and eat. On the first flight of stairs was a trumpeter screaming upon his instrument; in the second was a French horn bellowing. In the common practicing room there was a Dutch concert, consisting of eight harpsichords, as many violins and several voices, all performing different things and in different keys; others writing in the same room. The beds, which are in the same room, serve as seats for the players. Out of thirty boys practicing but two played the same piece. * * * The trumpets and horns fag on the stairs or on the top of the house. * * * During winter the boys rise two hours before it is light, from which time they continue their exercise, an hour and a half at dinner excepted, till 8 o'clock at night. * * * This constant perseverance for a number of years, with genius and good teaching, must produce great musicians."
80I also came across a fact in Anthony à Wood proving that Lulli and the "vingt-quatre violons du roi" were not alone a French institution, as he writes: "Thomas Baltzar, from Lubeck, was at the Restoration placed at the head of the king's celebrated band of 'four and twenty fiddlers all of a row,' as the old song has it, for viols were then began to go out of fashion and be replaced by violins which His Majesty considered 'more airie and brisk than viols.'" Thomas Mace, in his "Music's Monument," gives an account of a musical service in York Cathedral in 1664: "The church was cramming and squeezing full. * * * You must take notice that they had then a custom (which I hear not of in any other cathedral), which was before the sermon the whole congregation sang a psalm together with the choir and organ, and you must know that there was a most excellent, large, plump, lusty, full speaking organ, which cost (as I am credibly informed) £1,000. This being let out into all the fullness of its stops began the psalm. But when that vast concording unity of the whole congregational chorus came thundering in, even so it made the very ground shake. Oh, the unutterable, ravishing soul's delight, in the which I was so transported into high contemplation that no room was left in my whole man for anything below divine and heavenly raptures."
82I also read in an old magazine (1869) "that Messrs. Broadwood gave £2,000 for three logs of mahogany from Honduras (15 feet long by 33 inches); the grain when highly polished resembled the ripple of water moved by the wind and this wood was called ocean wood."
84Another curious item I found relates how at the Händel commemoration in 1784, "two learned and self sufficient musicians, Dr. Hayes, of Oxford, and Dr. Miller, of Doncaster, were determined to give their gratuitous services as conductors. It was arranged between themselves that one should conduct the first part and the other the second. When the time of the performance had arrived and Mr. Cramer, the leader, had given the signal tap with his bow, casting his eyes around he saw, to his astonishment, a tall, gigantic figure with an immense powdered toupee, in full court costume, with a bag and sword and a huge roll of parchment in his hand that was to serve him as a bâton. 'Who is that gentleman, pray,' was Mr. Cramer's natural inquiry. 'Dr. Hayes,' was the reply. 'And what is he going to do?' 'To beat time.' 'Be so kind,' rejoined Mr. Cramer, 'as to tell that gentleman that when he has sat down I will begin.' The discomfited doctor took his seat."
86The custom of having a conductor elevated before the band with a bâton is not, as we can therefrom glean, a very long standing one. In a note to Sallust's "Catilina," are found words to the effect that a right of the senators of Rome was to have a particular place set apart for them at public spectacles, called orchestra, next the stage in the theatre, and next the arena in the amphitheatre. This was first granted them by P. Cornelius Scipio the elder, 218 B. C. Hence the word orchestra is sometimes put for the senate itself. I have just read in a letter of Mozart, date, Vienna, 1771, a graphic passage as to the earliest transition from the ancient clavecin or harpsichord of his boyhood to the more modern instrument. "I have just come," he says, "from a person by the name of Steiner [should be spelled Stein], who has shown me a marvelous invention which he calls a pianoforte, and in which the sound is produced by the aid of a hammer falling on the string. It is a wonderful invention, especially when I come to think of all the charming effects which may be produced by it." It may be remarked that Beethoven commonly used a Stein piano.
88It will be remembered that Viator, the humble German mechanic to whom the first notion of the square piano occurred, never reaped any benefit from his ideas. The grand, as is well known (Schroeder or Christofali), existed prior to the square. In rereading the notable "History of the Clavier," by Dr. Oscar Paul, my revered teacher (Leipsic), a most admirable and philologically correct compendium, I noticed the eventful improvements of Johann Christoph Wiklef (Anspach, 1750), who introduced little strips of brass instead of raven's quills, thereby producing a much clearer tone and heavier touch; likewise the (1768) invention of Paschal Taskin, who caused the stripes to be struck by docks covered with buffaloskin. He named those instruments "Clavecins en peau Buffle." Every student of music and every manufacturer and dealer should possess Dr. Paul's inimitable monograph, which is a monument of careful research. (Published by H. A. Payne, Leipsic, 1868.)
90Is it generally known that huge xylophones were the early representatives of church bells? D'Ortigues, in his "History of Church Music," tells of these instruments being largely in use by Eastern prelates, laid on mats of straw and struck by sticks. In the famous tower of the "Giralda," in Seville,* a monster xylophone of this type, in the form of a great cross, still exists.
92But enough of this gossip. On Monday night we heard Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette" in French, libretto by Barbier and Carré, first played at the Théâtre Lyrique, April 27, 1867 (in French), and at Covent Garden in Italian, July
94*See new Madison Square Garden tower, New York, for clever imitation.
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