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Musical Courier 1892-05-11: Vol 24 Iss 638, 1892
82 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026. Printed page 8. See the scan on archive.org.
1court awarded the plaintiff $7 and costs. A host of other cases will now be entered against the managers on the same ground.
3Dean on Wagner.—Frederic Dean will begin a course of lectures on Wagner at the Scharwenka Conservatory of Music next Saturday.
5The Patti Festival.—The Patti musical and operatic festival at Madison Square Garden was to have begun last night. The second and third performances occur Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon. Patti and her opera company, a host of soloists, grand chorus and orchestra are to take part.
7Gilmore at the Garden.—The series of summer night concerts by Gilmore's band and assisting artists, at Madison Square Garden, begins on Decoration Day, May 30, and the roof garden will be opened on the same evening. The roof garden promises to be a delightful spot. It will be decorated with flowers, trees and fountains, there will be broad promenades and rustic tables and seats, and a mandolin orchestra will discourse dainty music. Refreshments will be served there, and the Garden and theatre audiences will have free access to it.
9The Musical Exhibit.—At Mrs. W. J. Henderson's booth at the Actors' Fund Fair over $2,000 was taken in during the week from the sale of sheet music and musical instruments. The largest sales were made by Mrs. Henderson and Miss Lambert. There wasn't much interest in the voting for the gift clock and the candelabra to the most popular prima donna. Mrs. Laura Schirmer-Mapleson received it by 218. Christine Nilsson received twenty-three votes and Patti five.
11Master Hartman's Concert.—Master Arthur Hartman gave a farewell concert last Saturday evening in the hall of the New York College of Music in East Fifty-eighth street, before an audience that filled the house. He had the assistance of Misses Lawrence, Arnsfeld, Clement, Donovan and Miss Jessie D. Shay.
13Master Hartman played in his usual pleasing manner and was warmly greeted, being recalled after each number. Miss Shay gave the Liszt Rhapsody No. 12 in good style, as well as playing the accompaniments to Master Hartman in a very satisfactory manner. The other numbers were all well given.
15Master Hartman sails for Europe on Saturday and will play in London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna.
17Callers.—Director Arthur Claassen and Emilio Pizzi, the talented young Italian composer, were callers at this office last week; also Miss Minnie Dilthey, the charming young soprano.
19Mrs. Everest's Success.—Mrs. Ellen Everest, the well-known soprano and teacher, of Philadelphia, gave a vocal and dramatic recital May 2 at the new Century Drawing Room in that city. Mrs. Everest sang numbers by Cowen and Herold. She had great success, as did her son, Mr. D. C. Everest, the young and talented violinist.
21A May Day Matinee.—The last concert of the season at Chickering Hall occurred Saturday afternoon last. An excellent program was presented, in which Vladimir de Pachmann, Mrs. De Vere-Sapio, Mrs. Scaichi and Messrs. Bologna and Campanini participated. Mr. de Pachmann made his last bow to a New York audience for at least two seasons. He never played the Henselt Bird study and the G sharp minor etude of Chopin better than on this occasion.
23A Song Recital.—Miss Esther Butler announces a song recital next Monday evening at Hardman Hall. Miss Butler will be assisted by Miss Maud Powell, Miss Florence Gale, Charles Herbert Clarke and Isadore Luckstone.
25Mrs. Ogden Crane's Loss.—Mrs. Ogden Crane, the well-known soprano, has had the misfortune to lose her fifteen year old son, who died last week from hip disease.
27Mr. Chase's Testimonial Concert.—Mr. E. P. Chase announces a testimonial concert to take place this afternoon at the Grand Lodge Room of Masonic Hall, corner of Sixth avenue and Twenty-third street. He will be assisted by Mrs. Gerritt Smith, soprano; Miss Emily Winant, contralto; Mr. Albert G. Thies, tenor; Mr. Harry Roe, basso; the St. Cecile Quartet of male voices; Mr. Homer Bartlett, pianist; Mr. Gerritt Smith, organist, and Emilio Agramonte, accompanist.
29Ida Klein's Success.—Ida Klein was last week in Nashville, being there as leading prima donna of the musical festival under Theodore Thomas. The Nashville "Banner" said:
31Miss Ida Klein captured the audience and received a triple recall, giving for an encore the beloved "Suwanee River," with piano accompaniment. She is beautiful in person and of winsome features, and her singing was of a high dramatic order. While she is not great, measured by the standard of vocal greatness, she has the capacity to please a miscellaneous audience in a remarkable degree, and there never has appeared before a Nashville audience a singer who more entirely fulfilled their desires.
33An Irish Concert.—There was a concert given last Sunday night, the program of which was devoted entirely to Irish music. William Ludwig, Victor Herbert, Harry Pepper, Jessamine Hallenbeck and Rosa Linde participated. Victor Herbert, the "Irish Wagner," played some old Irish melodies by his grandfather, Samuel Lever. Apropos of Herbert, several of his 'cello pieces have been played with great success in Berlin at a concert of the Free Musical Union.
35WANTED—Professional organist and choir master desires position, quartet, chorus or boy choir. Thorough musician, fifteen years' experience. Will give references and testimonials. Address "I. A.," THE MUSICAL COURIER office.
37WANTED—A well-known quintet club (piano, two violins, viola and 'cello) wants engagement in a first-class summer resort. They can be engaged either as a club of five, or in any other combination. Best references can be given
39Apply to C. V., 127 Schermerhorn street, Brooklyn.
41Miss Laura B. Phelps.
43SUCCESSFUL CAREER OF THE YOUNG VIOLINIST.
45MISS LAURA B. PHELPS, who has achieved some distinction in the world of music as a violinist, is a painstaking artist, and has done what she could by intelligent and well directed study to develop and strengthen that inherent talent which she undoubtedly possesses. She comes of a musical family, her father and brother both being musicians, the former a well-known American composer, writer of piano compositions and school books. He has taught music in the public schools for thirty years, and had the first orchestral work by an American composer performed in this country.
47Hard work has been the rock on which she has won her success, and to-day she recalls, with what must be real satisfaction, the many slow hours and days and weeks of her student days.
49To Dr. Damainville she lays the credit for her musical foundation and for her playing. It was from him that she began taking lessons at the age of nine years. It was through him that Miss Phelps went to the Paris Conservatory of Music, where she was presented by Albertini, and received an auditorship—an honor which she thoroughly appreciated.
51Her intention was to finish her education at the conservatory, but ill health proved a barrier, and after six months she was compelled to return home. Later she pursued her studies under Jacobsohn, at the Chicago Musical College, where she remained several years. Portions of the last year of her Chicago education she played with the professors of the college at all of their out of town engagements throughout the Northwest.
53Miss Phelps has played in nearly every State in the Union, where her work has been well received and favorably and flatteringly commented upon by the critics. Ovide Musin, some six years ago, was among the listeners at a concert in which Miss Phelps figured, and of her he writes:
55New York, February 25, 1885.
56I am happy to state that I have recently heard the young violinist Miss Laura B. Phelps, and am glad to say that she possesses a fine technic, heartful tone and precision; indeed, all the qualities demanded of the virtuoso, combined with youthful grace. I have great hope of a fine career and do not doubt but that she will meet with splendid success everywhere.
57OVIDE MUSIN.
59In personal appearance Miss Phelps is tall and slender, of the blonde type. A Brooklynnite by birth, she has always made that city her home and still lives in the same house in which she was born. She is a favorite socially in both New York and Brooklyn. Miss Phelps' violin at one time belonged to Vieuxtemps; later to the Waters collection. In 1885 her father purchased the instrument, presenting it to her, and it is with it that she has achieved her most signal success. To her it is priceless.
61De Pachmann.
63DE PACHMANN'S last recital at Chickering Hall on the afternoon of April 30 was one of uncommon interest, as the program was made up exclusively of Liszt's original compositions. Not a single "transcription" was on it, so that we had full opportunity to judge of Liszt as a composer, and it must be said that he stood the test splendidly. The concert began with his sonata, which is so rarely played as to be almost unknown. I, for my part, only recall two performances of it in this country, of which the remarkably fine one given by Friedheim last season was one. There is no use talking, it is impossible to write understandingly about what one does not understand, and I affirm that in order to follow this sonata intelligently and with genuine enjoyment one must have heard it at least six times. Then daylight begins to break and one hears it connectedly and recognizes the divine bits of melody in it, and the sublimity and beauty of the composition.
65As the critic of the "Evening Post" very properly remarks: "List's music, far more than Wagner's, is music of the future." This is perfectly true, and this sonata belongs to the very most advanced musical thought and deals with subjects above this world, ending in a sort of apotheosis, or, as De Pachmann reverently puts it, "God." I know not to what I shall compare it, unless to a beautiful discourse by some great philosopher or thinker—Ralph Waldo Emerson, for instance. Yes, it is like one of Emerson's transcendental lectures; when it is over you cannot remember anything exactly, but you have the consciousness that you have been led through delightful paths ending somewhere up in the empyrean. You get away from yourself and are merged in the great universe, and you feel soothed and elevated.
67De Pachmann adores and appreciates Liszt, and he brought all his powers to bear to give a faithful and loving interpretation of the sonata, and it was indeed an interpretation. He had evidently studied it in the closest and most analytical manner and had fully mastered it. In the beginning of the first movement he was perhaps a little dry, owing to his intense determination to keep cool and not let his nervous temperament get the better of him. Also in the adagio his pianissimos were a little too exaggerated, and at times one could not hear them at all. These were, however, but momentary defects in what was otherwise a splendid performance.
69The sonata was followed by eight miscellaneous compositions: the "Harmonies du Soir;" legende No. 2, "St. François de Paoli Walking upon the Waves;" polonaise No. 1; mazurka brillante; etude de concert, No. 2; eglogue, "Années de Pèlerinage;" "Cantique d'Amour" and tarantelle, "Venezia e Napoli."
71The legende No. 2 was the glorious one played by Friedheim last year, for the first time in this country, and as I wrote at length about it then I will only touch upon it now. How anyone who has ears can fail to be impressed by the grandeur and nobility of that melody and its magnificent rolling accompaniment, so like the heaving bosom of the ocean, I cannot understand. It is one of Liszt's very greatest inspirations. Heavens, how he must have played it himself! De Pachmann, however, played it superbly, though not always quite clearly in the storm or rising of the tide episode. Perhaps his strength gave out, or it was an indiscriminate use of the pedal, or he might have intended it so, since a general roar would best express the rush of waters. One occasionally missed the perfect definition of the chromatics, from whatever reason.
73The polonaise No. 1 in C minor is much more beautiful, though not so effective as a concert piece as the other oft played one. In speaking of it one day in Weimar Liszt said: "About the time I was composing this some of my Revolutionary friends in Paris were sent to the guillotine." Hence its sombre character and sinister close. There are many subtle and delicate passages in it, and De Pachmann's trained fingers threaded the mazes of them with exquisite delicacy and accuracy. When Liszt's polonaises were played to him in the class he always said with a half apologetic and deprecatory little air, "After Chopin no more polonaises should be written," so modest was he always.
75The "Mazurka Brillante" charmed the audience, and an encore was demanded, while the etude de concert in F minor was like fine lace work, it was so fine. Technical finish could no farther go than De Pachmann's in this piece. His fingers just rippled over the keys in a manner that forcibly recalled those of Liszt. "Harmonies du Soir," "Eglogue" and "Cantique d'Amour" were all dreamy and poetic compositions, and the program closed with the well-known and difficult tarantelle, "Venezia e Napoli."
77De Pachmann never played more superbly than throughout this entire concert, and he covered himself with glory.
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81LAURA B. PHELPS.
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