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Musical Courier 1892-03-09: Vol 24 Iss 629, 1892
80 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026. Printed page 6. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE OPERA.
3"Have Messrs. Abbey & Grau Got It?" is a headline in the "Herald" last Sunday. Yes, it looks as if they had.
5EUGEN D'ALBERT HERE.
7The "Herald," interviewing Eugen d'Albert last week, called him the "violinist," and credited Mr. d'Albert with saying that his wife, Teresa Carreno, "had a husband living in Tagliapietra." "Tag" must feel gratified at being called a State, Territory or city.
9Then, too, the "Herald" said that the announcement last week of Mr. d'Albert's marriage to Mrs. Carreno-Sauret-Tagliapietra caused "considerable surprise."
11As the news was printed in THE MUSICAL COURIER and New York "Recorder" two months ago there was no particular reason for surprise in the matter. Mr. d'Albert, who arrived on the Lahn last Thursday, will play next Friday afternoon and Saturday evening at Music Hall with Mr. Nikisch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The dates of his concert tour will be announced later. To a "Herald" interviewer Mr. d'Albert said:
13I have been composing more than playing. Since I left here I have begun and finished my first opera. The libretto is based upon a fairy story and there is more comedy than tragedy in it. If all goes well it will be produced in Berlin next autumn. Of piano pieces I have written scarcely anything new, but I shall play some things that I have never played here, notably a suite of Raff in D minor, a Bach prelude and fugue that I have arranged for piano and Bach's "Suite Anglaise."
15I saw Rubinstein about six weeks ago in Berlin. He is yet undecided as to whether he will come to this country. According to his arrangement with Abbey & Grau he need not give a final answer until July. He is in good health, but seemed to be rather worried by family troubles.
17My first appearance will be in Boston next Friday afternoon with Mr. Nikisch. I am to play in some recitals at your Madison Square Garden Concert Hall early next month. My wife was sorry not to come with me, as we have several important pieces that we have played together in concert on the other side. She is very fond of this country and hopes to come back next year.
19"PRELUDES AND STUDIES."
21"Preludes and Studies" is the happy title of a volume about music written by Mr. W. J. Henderson, the music critic of the New York "Times" (Longmans, Green & Co.). The book is in the author's best vein, and is in full his musical "Credo." It differs from most works on musical matters in English, because it contains so much original writing, and is not made up of translations from others' opinions. What Mr. Henderson has to say he says in no uncertain tone. As in his newspaper work there is expressed the conviction of a man whose mind is made up, though always open to the claims of the other side of the question.
23In music Mr. Henderson is an eclectic, a position that may safely be claimed by THE MUSICAL COURIER, for, after having fought the good fight for the Wagnerian cause in this country as no other monthly, weekly or daily publication dared, it can now afford to rest safely and look around at the activity of other composers. Mr. Henderson has also fought the good fight, but he was born, musically, at a more auspicious period, hence the liberal breadth and depth of his culture. The titles of his chapters are provocative of reading, and, while one may differ from the author in many points, no one can deny his sincerity or style of handling his subject. There is a study of "Der Ring des Nibelungen," to which four chapters are devoted, the most pregnant of which is "Some Objections to Leit Motiven." This should be read and pondered. In the main it is logically unassailable.
25There are also three chapters devoted to "Wagneriana," with the sub-titles "The Book of Parsifal," "A Study in Tristan" and "The Endurance of Wagner's Works." The last is significant. "The Evolution of Piano Music" is the history of piano playing up to date and contains many solid facts compressed within a few chapters. It does not seem, however, to the unbiased observer that Mr. Henderson has treated Rafael Joseffy quite fairly, or in fact seriously, in the article entitled "Some Living Players." There is much space devoted to Rosenthal, Joseffy's former pupil, space which probably delighted Mr. Joseffy, for he is, as everyone knows, personally fond of Rosenthal's playing. But—and it is a serious but—Rosenthal, unless he has changed his nature, is not to be compared with Rafael Joseffy as an artist.
27This superiority Mr. Rosenthal conceded while in New York a few seasons ago.
29Mr. Joseffy is primarily musical; Mr. Rosenthal is primarily technical. Mr. Joseffy's technic and tone, which has broadened considerably during his residence here, is aesthetically more beautiful than Mr. Rosenthal's. Last, and not least, the Hungarian virtuoso has a bigger conception of things musical, and to be dismissed by Mr. Henderson as an elegant trifler seems a bit severe. His playing is always beautiful and his readings lucid, intellectual and musical to a degree. There is the rub of the whole matter. Lots of pianists play Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin; but do they play musically? Little use here of referring to Joseffy's transcendental technical gifts. He is the supreme master, after all, of the keyboard on that side of his art, and as he is an incessant student and a young man yet, there is no reason why he should not be treated seriously and at length.
31Mr. Henderson's discussion on "Schumann and the Program Symphony" is the best chapter in the book and is earnestly recommended to musical students.
33Altogether, Mr. Henderson's book is one of the most original and readable contributions to musical literature that has appeared for some time.
35THE RACONTEUR.
37For to have no sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a mind; it is a test.—"Tragic Comedians."
39Do you know that I am really sorry that this is the last week of the opera. To be sure we have been treated to some awful performances, such as last Friday night's "Carmen," but then have we not had a "Faust" fit for the gods (barring the orchestra)? The "Don Giovanni," too, was excellent, and, thanks to our Capellmeister Seidl, we had a stunning performance of "Meistersinger," the music of which would probably sing itself if there were no human throats to interpret it.
41The "Meistersinger" was a sword which cut both ways last week, as the ultra admirers of the German tongue (I don't call them Wagnerites, for if they were Wagnerites they would enjoy Wagner music if it were sung in Portuguese) discovered that somehow or other the vocal phrases of the great master seemed all the more vocal because sung in Italian, and the anti-Wagnerites (stupid, purblind idiots) found out that Wagner's opera was really music and that Seidl could conduct it. Well, seven years is a long time to wait for all this, but better late than never, so shake hands across the bloodless chasm of prejudice and try to enjoy a work of art, no matter if it does not appeal to your tribal instincts. I will believe the millennium of universal brotherhood has arrived, not when the Chinese stop calling us "foreign devils," but when we begin to admire the indigenous art products of other widely dissimilar countries. Talk about a federation of the world by means of legislation, aye, or by dynamite. There is more cement in art that will make all the world kin than in all your treatises by Fourier, Lassalle, Marx and George or all your edicts of destruction, anarchistic or royal, from Bakunin to William the Fool, that have been penned or proclaimed. Some such vision of the future saw William Morris in his delightful volume, "News from Nowhere." The brotherhood of beauty, the hatred of ugliness (poverty is a crime), the spreading among the lower and ignorant classes of a knowledge of beauty in its simplest forms—there is the remedy for much that makes the life of three-fourths of the inhabitants of this planet unendurable. I know nothing of the means; I only see the faint outlines of a scheme so monstrously sublime that Apollo himself would come from heaven to perfect it and preach good will and good art on earth to men.
43In the meantime Aunt Adelina Patti is singing "Annie Rooney" in Chicago, and—pouf! my dream palace vanishes.
45This from the "World" last week:
47Eugene Field, in one of his moments of unusual veracity, says that Paderewski was a suitor for Helena Modjeska's heart and hand as far back as 1864, at which time he was professor of piano playing in the Conservatory of Cracow. But he was cut out by Count Charles Bozenta Chlapowski, political editor of the Cracow "Daily Polander."
49The spectacle of Paddy (then, of course, "a bud" chrysanthemum) making love at the advanced age of two must have driven Helena to the arms of "chappie, old boy." The following is also from the same source:
51Modjeska tells an interesting story of the first appearance in public of the great tenor, Jean de Reszké.
53"It seems so funny to hear of him now as a celebrity," she said a few days ago. "I remember so well the first time he ever sang in public. He was then such a wee bit of a tot that he was afraid to go on the stage alone, and I went on with him and held his hand while he sang. My husband came on with his sister. It was at a watering place in Germany and we had got up a concert for some charitable purpose. Even then Jean's voice was sweet enough to make one cry."
55Modjeska is a sort of artistic grand—no, godmother to all these talented young Poles, as Paddy, Alexander Lambert and the De Reszkés. Next season I fancy the influx of "Muffski's" "Uffiski's" will be something awful, for, lured by the success of the present batch of "skis" with us, they will invade us with their names trailing lazily behind them in the churning wake of the steamers' screws. And that reminds me of a good story about De Pachmann, but that is another tail, as Rider Rudyard says.
57What I want to know, and so do lots of resident German pianists, is why a man of Sclavonic or Magyar birth always attracts an audience more than the man from Berlin, the man from Leipsic or the man from Humperdinck-on-the-Rhine. I warn you, all you young pianists, that temperament is a mighty good slave, but "a mighty bad master, and as public taste is running toward temperament and the eccentricities thereof I presume that in a few years New York will hear something like this:
59Scene—Beinway Hall (uptown—ahem!). Enter a skeleton pianist, who bows, sits down to the piano and exhibits his temperament. Audience dumb with delight. Enter professional sneerer, "Hey! What's all this? That man can't play the piano; he has no technic." Chorus of delighted geese: "Yes, yes, we well know that; but then look at his temperament." Professional sneerer looks, blushes and rushes out to interview Anthony Comstock.
61Here is a clipping from the "Herald's" personal column:
63Apollo concert, Tuesday.—Will charming fair haired lady who sat in last row of parquet graciously communicate with admirer who stood behind chair, and grant interview? Address, Chorn, "Herald" office.
65You old rascal, Chopin, I always knew you had lots of Sand, but I didn't think you would get out of your grave to make dates with fair haired ladies. Not content with making inversions of the chord of the sixty-ninth while you were alive, here you are at your old tricks again. Fie, Frederic! No wonder Mayor Grant ordered the Poles to go, some years ago.
67If there was a lingering doubt in anyone's mind now that Emma Eames is not a full fledged prima donna it should have been dissipated by the robbery of her jewels, to the tune of $2,000. A genuine steal, too.
69What surprises me is that somebody does not steal their fair owner, for she is a lovely creature, a high bred woman, really too much of a lady to act foolishly emotional on the stage. Ergo, she never makes a popular hit like Scalchi.
71You have seldom heard me rave about a woman's good looks—in fact, I think this is the first time—though I have gone daft over women's musical abilities. But to look at Mrs. Story quite compensates one for the fire she is supposed to be lacking in. Then, everybody has temperament nowadays, and it is a distinction for a beautiful young woman to act in a cool, self possessed fashion—thorough mistress of herself. How frequently have I not admired the indecent manner in which female artists behave. How they heave, gasp, groan and froth at the mouth! Take, for instance, the "Carmen" of the other night at the opera! (She is not De Vivo's great-aunt, no matter what rumor says.) What an exhibition of herself she did make, laboring under the impression that she was Spanish, coquetish, subtle. Spanish forsooth, coquetish—diable! She sucked an orange and spit the seeds over Vianesi's large brain pan—that was naive. She twiddled the fingers of derision from the nose of scorn—that gypsy mockery. She—well, heaven knows what she didn't do, abetted by Valero. Then "Michaela" entered and told more with the uplifted eyebrow, the palpitant nostril, than all the bust wriggling and wild dancing of the "Charwoman." Such is Eames. I admit she freezes me at times, but "spine glacé" is sometimes a delightful beverage in its way and the rant of the footlights often grows exceeding banal. I clip this from the New York correspondence of the San Francisco "Argonaut." It is written by "Van Gryse." I don't know who she (?) is, but I do know that she (?) writes cleverly:
73In personal appearance Miss Eames is the most entirely successful "Marguerite" that has ever been seen on the American stage. She is almost a beautiful and undoubtedly an unusually pretty woman. She is the only one of the "Marguerites" of later years who really looks like a young girl. In "Faust's" vision of her she looks like a simple creature of eighteen. Her type of beauty is unusual and attractive. She is slender but not thin; her small throat is as round as the Venus of Milo's. Her face is a fine but perfect oval—a very small face, with high, proud, spirited features, the eyes large and somewhat hard, the nose having delicate, broad nostrils. In expression she is a trifle too much of the world for "Marguerite." She has a shrewd, New England look, but she is exquisitely fine, and finished and lovely.
75Her singing is, too, more than good. The voice is a bell-like, fresh, fine soprano—a voice nurtured by the clear, sharp, keen air of New England. It is the least thin and gives one the impression that it is a delicate voice like Emma Nevada's. But in this the voice is like the woman, both are fine, but strong as tempered steel. Both are wiry and have wonderful staying power. At the end of that tremendous opera her singing of the prayer was superb, the voice rising fresh and exultant and unfaltering "to the tingling stars." There was not a trace of fatigue in it, while she in her white robe and ethereal fragility looked as if in truth her soul might be about to part from its earthly tenement on the last wave of ecstatic song.
77Further is a description of Edouard de Reszké in "Faust" which is capital. Here it is:
79The honors of the evening were carried off by Edouard de Reszké as "Mephisto." Jean de Reszké, the tenor, is a graceful, romantic looking
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