Scan 4
Musical Courier 1892-02-17: Vol 24 Iss 626, 1892
86 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Musical Courier.
2PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY
3—BY THE—
4MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY,
5(INCORPORATED)
619 Union Square W., New York.
7ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1880.
8No. 626.
10EDITORS:
11MARC A. BLUMENBERG. OTTO FLOERSHEIM.
12JAMES G. HUNEKER. HARRY O. BROWN.
14BUSINESS DEPARTMENT:
15SPENCER T. DRIGGS. R. S. MAXWELL. A. T. KING.
17WESTERN OFFICE: Chicago, 238 Sta e St., John E. Hall, Manager.
18BOSTON OFFICE: 157 Tremont St., John E. Pinkham, Manager.
19BERLIN, GERMANY: PHILIPP ROTH, 66 Potsdamerstr.
20LEIPZIG, GERMANY: FRITZ SCHUBERTH, JR., Lindenstr., 20.
21LONDON AND PARIS: BRENTANO'S.
23Subscription (including postage) invariably in advance.
24Yearly, $4.00; Foreign, $5.00; Single Copies, Ten Cents.
26RATES FOR ADVERTISING.
27PER INCH.
28Three Months………….$20.00 Nine Months………….$60.00
29Six Months……………..40.00 Twelve Months………….80.00
30Advertisements for the current week must be handed in by 5 P. M. on Monday.
31All remittances for subscriptions or advertising must be made by check draft, or money orders, payable to the MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY.
33American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents.
35NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1892.
37PADEREWSKI will be the subject of two papers in the March "Century" and of a poem by the editor. There will be a frontispiece portrait engraved by Johnson and a sketch, by Irving Wiles, of the virtuoso at the piano. One of the papers is a critical study of his method by the well-known musician, Mr. William Mason, and the other a biographical sketch by Miss Fanny Morris Smith, for which Paderewski has furnished the material. The article has also had the advantage of Modjeska's suggestions, the distinguished Polish actress having been a friend of Paderewski from his boyhood.
39MORITZ ROSENTHAL recently gave his Berlin farewell concert for the present season, on which occasion he played the Liszt E flat and the Chopin E minor concerto, with orchestra. His success seems to have been something wonderful, and the Berlin "Boersen Courier" goes so far as to dub him "the most perfect of living pianists." The "Boersen Courier" seems to be utterly oblivious of the fact that neither Paderewski, nor Joseffy, nor Rummel, nor d'Albert, nor Rubinstein, nor a host of others too numerous to mention, have as yet departed this life. Praise is one thing and overpraise another, and the latter, by overshooting the mark, usually tends to make its object ridiculous.
41THE investigation in the methods of the Hermann Wolff concert agency at Berlin, first started by THE MUSICAL COURIER and which has lately been taken up and vigorously pursued by the Berlin "Kreuz Zeitung" and the Hamburg "Nachrichten," has cast such an odium upon that monopolistic institution that lately even Hans von Bülow, who owes a great deal to his Berlin success as a conductor, has seen fit to break with his former associate. It is authoritatively announced that the erratic Hans at the close of the present season will lay down his baton as conductor of the Berlin philharmonic concerts which are managed by Hermann Wolff, and that in future he will confine his activity to the concerts of the Hamburg Philharmonic. The break between Bülow and Wolff is the topic of the day in the German capital, Hans Richter, of Vienna, was of course the first one approached to take up Bülow's baton, but we learn that he has most peremptorily refused the honor or to have anything whatsoever to do with Mr. Hermann Wolff. Mr. Maskowski, who is now the conductor of the Breslau "Orchester Verein," has accepted the position left vacant by Bülow's resignation and will take his place next season. It shows the dearth of good orchestral conductors in Germany when one considers the rapidity of the rise of Mr. Maskowski, who formerly occupied an insignificant position in Coblenz. His predecessors in Breslau were the late Leopold Damrosch, Max Bruch and Bernhard Scholz.
43THE following, taken from the Buffalo (N. Y.) "Commercial," is a logical and valuable following up of an idea expressed in this column a fortnight ago:
45THE MUSICAL COURIER asks the question: "How many vocal teachers in this country—and in Europe—use tuning forks that have been scientifically tested and are in proper pitch? How many vocal teachers in giving lessons use piano out of tune?" The questions are timely, for the impression is general among students, and is also shared by some vocal teachers, that any piano is good enough when giving a singing lesson or to practice by, little realizing the effect upon the pupil's "ear for music." The same thing applies to those taking piano lessons, whose parents let them practice upon some ancient family relic, assuring the teacher that when the child is farther advanced a new and good piano will be bought. Might as well put the small and poor stones in the foundation of a building, and so e time after wonder why the structure collapsed. It is the foundation that needs the most attention; after that is properly taken care of your superstructure may vary, but you are sure of a foundation. If there is one time during which your children need good instruments more than at any other it is when the foundation is being laid, when the ears and hands are being directed into proper channels for future development. A piano with a mushy action won't strengthen your daughter's wrist and hand, neither will a twangy, out of tune piano properly train the singing student's ear.
47THE "Evening Post" contained the following last Saturday:
49It has been said repeatedly that the failure of "Cavalleria Rusticana" in Paris was due to French hostility toward Italy. The absurdity of this statement is evident from the fact that the leading Parisian critic, Mr. Weber, a German by descent, who has never shown the slightest hostility toward Italian music, is one of the severest critics of Mascagni. After pointing out that his opera failed to make any impression on the public at the Opera Comique, he continues in the "Temps" of January 25: "But Mascagni had been so highly praised! He had been proclaimed the successor of Verdi. Among his productions had been mentioned 'symphonies' by some writers who were obviously ignorant of the fact that in Italian every overture and every prelude of an opera or operetta is a sinfonia. Real symphonies are indeed not unknown in Italy. We have one by Sgambati which merits all honor. But this kind of symphony has so far been beyond Mascagni. Any pupil who has obtained a prize in harmony at the conservatoire is more clever than he. Instrumental coloring is a myth to him, whereas here the competitors for the Roman prize are not more unskilled in orchestration than in that of writing a fugue. It is not sufficient to put a flute here, a clarionet or horn there, to make an effect in grouping or an effect of ensemble, a crescendo or a tutti colla massima forza. To treat the orchestra as a big guitar is easy enough; one ought to know how to use it properly, and Mascagni is not a virtuoso. His orchestra is at one time dull, at another noisy or coarse; he does not shine by the qualities of expressiveness or picturesqueness. But why discuss as a master a simple beginner who has just left the music school in Milan?"
51All said and done, however, the "Cavalleria Rusticana" displays most precocious talent and perhaps those very young men at the Paris Conservatory, despite their superiority in the knowledge of orchestration, could not compose such a clever work, which fairly throbs with the headlong passion and faults of youth. Besides, Mr. Weber, the critic and a German by descent, though he has not hitherto shown any hostility to Italian music, may have in this instance been prejudiced. It seems so at all events.
53MESSRS. GOLDMARK & CONRIED, the representatives of the Paris firm of Choudens & Son, the owners of the rights to the operas of "Faust" and "Carmen," have served an order on Mr. Edmund C. Stanton, as representing the directors of the Metropolitan Opera House, to show cause why the directors should not pay royalties on all the productions of those operas made at the opera house. It is understood that the directors will fight this order and make a test case of it. Messrs. Goldmark & Conried have also brought suits against Miss Minnie Hauk for royalties on "Carmen," which she produced during her recent disastrous tour. The prima donna is now in Europe, and it is said that Goldmark & Conried want to get judgment by default and endeavor to establish a precedent. Mr. Maurice Grau when interviewed said that he had heard about the order sent Mr. Stanton. When asked what he would do if sued for royalties for "Faust" he said he would fight the case, as there were no rights to the opera in this country. Mr. Heinrich Conried said there were rights to the opera in this country and that his firm was prepared to prove them in court. An order was served on the directors of the opera house last season to pay royalties on "Carmen" and "Faust," but no notice was taken of it. It looks as if Messrs. Goldmark & Conried had a lien on the earth. The matter of the royalties in the Wagner operas has not been forgotten, and it is to be hoped that in this case the management will make a test trial.
55MR. PHILIP HALE, writing in the Boston "Journal," thus answers a question asked in an article on "The Modern Orchestra," recently published in "Harper's Weekly:"
57"How did it come that Thackeray, who loved music, and knew that which was current in the concert rooms, theatres and drawing rooms of his day, should credit Beethoven with having composed a 'Dream of St. Jerome,' which the king of novelists says always soothed and charmed him so that he fancied it was a poem of Tennyson's in music?"
59The answer is simple. In Thackeray's day the "Dream of St. Jerome," or "Love of St. Jerome"—for the two titles were in use—was frequently heard in drawing rooms. An andante written by Beethoven for the piano—it was from op. 26, if I am not mistaken—was arranged or disarranged as a vocal composition; the words of Thomas Moore, "And Who is the Maid?" were set to this arrangement, and it was known as "St. Jerome's Love." This arrangement may be found to-day in a volume of "Sacred Songs," edited by John Hiles. As the arrangement, even without the words, is tuneful, no doubt Thackeray often heard it in houses frequented by him, and it no doubt soothed him. Of all such literary offenders, however, "Ouida" is the most remarkable. In one novel her hero spends hours at the organ "playing the grand old masses of Mendelssohn." In "Motis" the tenor is never weary of singing exquisite "airs of Palestina," and here are only two of many instances. Marion Crawford, by the way, made a singular blunder in "A Roman Singer," by unjustly crediting a well-known composer with the authorship of an equally well-known opera. But who in these days of nervous haste is safe in throwing stones against the glass house of a neighbor?
61ABOUT a year ago there was a rumor that Rubinstein had sought for a divorce from his wife and intended marrying a young pupil of his. This rumor was promptly contradicted at the time in these columns by Alexander M'Arthur, Rubinstein's private secretary. Now the gossip has broken forth anew in Berlin, and people who are supposed to be on the "inside" assert that Rubinstein will next summer certainly wed his pupil, the very talented pianist, Sophia Poznanski, for whom report says the Muscovite composer has always displayed the greatest affection. The young lady is said to be a brilliant artist, and if this is mere lying gossip it is malicious cruelty on the part of those who gave it birth, doing as it will infinite injustice to the reputations of both Miss Poznanski and Rubinstein.
63THE JURIES ARE SELECTED.
65HERE are the names of the juries whose members have accepted the task of examining the manuscripts of the candidates for the prizes to be awarded by the National Conservatory of America:
67Grand Opera—Dr. Antonin Dvorak, George W. Chadwick, Arthur Nikisch, Romualdo Sapio and Anton Seidl.
68(no line here) one of two readings
70Opéra Comique—Dr. Antonin Dvorak, Paolo Giorza, Bruno Oscar Klein, Adolph Neuendorf and Frank Van der Stucken.
71(no line here) one of two readings
73Libretto—Dr. Antonin Dvorak, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Elwyn P. Barron, Eugene Field, George P. Goodale, Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, S. Seckendorff, Edmund C. Stedman, Benjamin Edward Woolf and William Winter.
74(no line here) one of two readings
76Oratorio and Cantata—Dr. Antonin Dvorak, Dudley Buck, William W. Gilchrist, Benjamin F. Lang and William L. Tomlins.
77(no line here) one of two readings
79Symphony, Suite and Cantata—Dr. Antonin Dvorak, Asger Hamerik, Rafael Joseffy, John K. Paine and Xaver Scharwenka.
81Prizes will be awarded for the best grand or comic opera (opéra comique), for the best libretto for a grand or comic opera (opéra comique), for the best piano or violin concerto and for the best symphony, suite, oratorio and cantata, each and all of these works to be composed or written by composers and librettists born in the United States and not above thirty-five years of age.
83The prizes shall be as follows: For the best grand or comic opera (opéra comique), words and music, $1,000; for the best libretto for a grand or comic opera (opéra comique), $500; for the best symphony, $500; for the best oratorio, $500; for the best suite or cantata, $300; for the best piano or violin concerto, $200.
85The general conditions are: (1) Each work must be in manuscript form and absolutely new to the public. (2) Its merits shall be passed upon by a special jury of five competent judges. (3) The
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