Scan 2
Musical Courier 1892-02-10: Vol 24 Iss 625, 1892
122 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MUSICAL COURIER.
3THE RACONTEUR.
5MUSIC.
7Oh! take the lute this brooding hour for me—
8The golden lute, the hollow crying lute—
9Nor call me even with thine eyes; be mute,
10And touch the strings; yea, touch them tenderly;
11Touch them and dream, till all thine heart in thee
12Grow great and passionate, and sad and wild,
13Then on me, toss as on thine heart, O child,
14The marvelous light, the stress divine shall be,
15* And I shall see, as with enchanted eyes,
16The unveiled vision of this world flame by,
17Battles and griefs, and storms and phantasies,
18The gleaming joy, the ever seething fire,
19The hero's triumph, and the martyr's cry,
20The pain, the madness, the unsearched desire.
21—A. Lampman, in the November "Century."
23SOMEBODY or other has said that "a strong impulse is the logic of heroism;" and Mr. Wilson in a recent number of his journal—the Boston "Musical Herald"—after calling me a "case" sneered at my spontaneity by saying my stuff might after all be the product of persistent energy. Now, as I lack both heroism and logic and am a notoriously lazy man besides, writing only when deprived of food and—drink, I propose to show Mr. Wilson to-day that it really is as easy as rolling off a log if you have a good scissors and paste technic. I feel gloriously indolent, and instead of filling you up with horrific stories or gruesome aesthetics I will cull from my collection of clippings and give you all the benefit. If you are not amused it is not my fault.
25* * *
27First let me call your flagging attention to the fact that the parody on the "Cavalleria Rusticana," by Maximilian Kraemer, librettist, and Bogumil Zepler is almost as good as the original. It is delightfully comical and clever beyond doubt. It is called "Cavalleria Berolina, Berliner Brauer-Ehre ("Berlin Chivalry, or Berlin Brewers' Honor") instead of "Rustic Chivalry, or Sicilian Peasant Honor." The music just does for you what you are so continually expecting it to do in the original; it merges into the themes that Mascagni so often unconsciously or consciously borrows from other composers. Gounod's "Ave Maria" is heard in the prelude, and the curtain falls to the schluss of the first act of "Die Walküre." Those who have heard the work performed publicly in Berlin assure me that it is side splitting and full of local "gags." The orchestration is also said to be very bright, humorous and clever. Now, Mr. Franko, here is your chance for something new at the Amberg Theatre.
29* * *
31Let me ask you to read the following, which was sent me by somebody in Chicago. It is a literal transcription of the original:
33STUDIO OF MUSIC, HAMILTON, ONT., CANADA.
35T. G. Flewelling's New Theory for Piano and Organ.
37To parents and pupils who value their time and musical education: We offer our circular to the public for criticism, and feel confident you will arrive at a just decision, when we say that system and order should be preferred to method. This is the Creator's system in all His creation. It is nature's possession, a threefoldness in all its scientific completeness. We have made this most beautiful discovery and apply this theory to our musical instruction to assist the pupil, and as soon as it is heard it is seen to be correct. No intelligent student should fail to come and hear our explanation; then choose between system and method.
39A most valuable discovery for the teacher and learner, its quick results and certain success, with ten years' trial, proves to us that every teacher of music should understand our universal system for the pupil's benefit. No person can give an intelligent explanation of music without this system.
41It saves time, saves money, is short, easy to learn and is to the pupil just what he wants (system, not method). What science teaches and learned men accept.
43If the following subjects are true then our system is also true, being one of them:
451. Theology teaches…………………….3, a trinity in the creator.
462. Geology……………………………3, kingdoms of the earth.
473. Astronomy………………………….3, uses of the sun.
484. Chemistry………………………….3, changes produced.
495. Botany…………………………….3, classes of flowers.
506. Logic……………………………..3, ways of reasoning.
517. Electricity…………………………3, forms or uses.
528. Water……………………………..3, parts, 2 H and 1 O.
539. Sound……………………………..3, properties.
5410. Music…………………………….3, studies.
56Our copyright system teaches music in this form, and then explains them fully, thus:
573. Studies for the keyboard only, a specialty.
583. Studies for the instruction book only.
593. Kinds of clefs and their use.
603. Kinds of signature, and why.
613. Kinds of measures and time.
623. Octaves of sound in the staff.
633. Lengths from any note or sound.
643. Pitches and 8 degrees of power for any sound.
653. Kinds of bass, sounds 3, properties, and so on.
67Everything must have three signs to represent it.
68$100 to the person who can disprove our theory.
69Terms: Half hour lessons, 50 cents; hour lessons, $1; full course for teacher, $100.
70Thorough bass and harmony.
71Mr. Jerome Hopkins is certainly outdone by the above unique circular. It beats the Théâtre d'Art's new experiments in the transfusion of the arts.
73* * *
75Have you ever heard this? If you read the "Youth's Companion" you have, but if you do not it may be new:
77An American singer who has made an almost world wide reputation says that if he were ever tempted to consider himself famous he should only need to recall an experience which he had in a Western city one winter and his self esteem would instantly receive a check. He was announced to sing in an oratorio at this place, and his head was displayed in the windows of most of the stores as well as on a great many posters in conspicuous spots scattered over the city.
79While eating an orange one day he swallowed a seed which lodged in his throat in such a way as to be both painful and dangerous. In great haste he went to the nearest physician, who, by the aid of an instrument which descended his throat like a closed umbrella and came up like an open one, speedily removed the seed.
81After the operation the physician scanned his patient's throat with great interest for a few moments and then said: "What is your name, sir?"
83On receiving the desired information he said: "Have you ever studied singing?"
85"Why, yes, somewhat," replied the other, much amused.
87"Lately?" persisted the physician.
89"No, I haven't studied at all, lately," said the singer.
91"Well," said the physician, who was a short, florid, pompous man, "I think, sir, you are making a mistake. I sing a great deal myself and I've made a study of it. I don't want to encourage anyone unduly, but your throat, sir, is a good one for singing, and although it wouldn't probably pay you to give up your business to make music a profession, if you could get a chance to study under a good teacher I believe, sir, that in time and with proper cultivation your voice would give great pleasure to your friends."
93Pocketing his fee, in exchange for which he gave the inwardly convulsed singer a card bearing the address of a "first-class teacher" in that city, the musical doctor bowed his unknown patient out of the door.
95The sequel came two nights later, when the singer, who had consented to appear at a "grand concert," had the delight of seeing his quondam physician, with his eyes almost starting from his head, glaring at him from the front seat of the crowded hall.
97* * *
99Pachmann, the rhythmic riddle, is back once more with us. Who can play those dancing epigrams—the Chopin mazurkas—as he?
101His encores last Saturday were marvels of finesse. The hackneyed A flat Chopin impromptu and the F minor etude from op. 25 were deliciously played. He behaved himself, too, admirably throughout the performance (I mean admirably for Mr. de Pachmann), but he played the "Dante" sonata so, that he was encored and it turned his brain. At the end of the etude he introduced a run in double thirds (somebody ought to dub him "Vladimir Doppelgriffen") and then cried aloud in triumph.
103* * *
105How is this from the London "Telegraph?"
107It seems that there is really a whistling language. A French traveler, Lajard, has written a work on the subject which has just been occupying the attention of the Paris Academy of Sciences. It is in the Canary Islands that people whistle instead of speak when they hold converse with each other. Nor is the whistling language a mere language of conventional sounds. It is composed of words, as it were, like any other language, and the inhabitants of the Canary Islands attain great proficiency in it, so that they can converse on all sorts of subjects. The whistling noise is produced by placing two fingers inside the mouth. Lajard declares that the language has a great affinity with Spanish, being in fact a sort of whistling Spanish. He has jotted some of it down in a sort of musical notation, and it is found that any sentence has exactly one syllable more than the equivalent sentence in Spanish, the extra sound being accounted for by the fact that the first syllable serves as a mere explanation designed to attract the attention of the person addressed. Lajard learned enough of the language to converse to a certain extent with the natives.
109Then if Lady Alice Shaw, the siffleuse, went to the Canary Islands wouldn't she be crowned queen? Possibly the reason canary birds whistle so well—but this is becoming irrelevant.
111* * *
113Isn't this a rag bag "Raconteur?"
115* * *
117That one should not attempt to write or talk about a subject on which one is not well informed is a truism that is an impertinence for me merely to repeat. Yet in the case of the usually well posted writer, Mr. Laurence Hutton, that truism must be uttered. Mr. Hutton undertook to review H. E. Krehbiel's "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama" in Harper's Monthly for January, and Mr. Hutton said among other remarkable things this:
119The opera which Mr. Curtis listened to at the old Academy of Music eight and twenty years ago, when, as he describes it, "Faust," a mild, ineffective gentleman, sang his ditties and passionate bursts in Italian, while the poor 'Gretchen' vowed and rouladed in the German tongue," is, strangely enough, and despite its polyglot absurdities, more to the taste of the opera goers of the present than is the now fashionable, purely German music of the future. And the man who goes, in these days, to the new Metropolitan Opera House out of respect to the legitimate enthusiasm of a small portion of the cultivated community in which he lives, and who sits painfully through the many acts of the Trilogy grinding his teeth in a state of nervous anxiety to discover, if possible, what it is all about, can hardly be expected to write an intelligent or an impartial review of a volume entitled "The Wagnerian Drama."
121I would like to call the respectful attention of Messrs. Abbey & Grau to the fact that there exists in this community a very distinguished literary gentleman who labors under the impression that the Trilogy is still being sung at the Metropolitan Opera House, all of which reminds me of the story of the grizzly specimen of a backwoodsman who was recently encountered one dun colored November
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