Scan 6
Musical Courier 1892-05-25: Vol 24 Iss 640, 1892
139 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1She maddened me by inartistic greeds,
2But for her sake—ah! sweeter were the rack—
3My feverous fingers, like strong, goaded steeds,
4Rushed through the jingles of an Offenbach.
6Until one night when, dreaming in the dark,
7She came to me and craved a senseless song;
8She saw not in my eyes the deadly spark,
9She could not hear my anger's throb and throng.
11I hushed her voice forever with cold steel;
12I felt my brain in utter frenzy burn
13And o'er her corpse inert with manic zeal
14I played sweet Chopin's worshipful nocturne.
16Many of us would, if we had the courage of our convictions, do just such deeds of darkness when writhing under the sounds of the piano in the flat overhead.
18* * *
20In looking through my "scrap book" (as John L. Sullivan probably calls his diary) I chanced on these gems of daily newspaper wit, and I give them to you without an apology:
22MORNING MUSIC.
24A BALLAD OF THE NIGHT NEWSPAPER MAN.
25When the feline operetta
26On the backyard fence has ceased,
27And the barcarolle falsetto
28Of the canine is increased:
29While the milkman on his rounds
30Fills the morn with merry clatter,
31And the neighborhood resounds
32With his musical can-tata;
33While the factory whistles shriek,
34And the opening shutters creak,
35And the cook within the kitchen 'mongst the dishes makes a splatter,
36Then I hie me to my bed,
37Draw the covers o'er my head,
38And in nasalized nocturne I perform my own sonata.
40* * *
42A REGRET.
43I've heard the music of every land,
44The songs of every clime;
45I am weary of Wagner and the rest,
46And I sigh for the bygone time
47When, with some tissue paper thin,
48Wrapped loosely round a comb,
49I'd sit and worry out the air
50Of dear old "Home, Sweet Home."
52* * *
54AMONG THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
55"There is no music in you," sneered the Drum to the Stick.
56"No? Well, I don't howl myself hoarse when I'm beaten!" was the tart response.
57And then the cymbals kissed each other so loudly that all discord was forgotten.
59* * *
61DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GENIUS AND INSANITY.
62A Vital Difference.—Vickars—I don't believe there is much difference between genius and insanity.
63Vickars—Oh, yes, there is; a heap. The lunatic is sure of his board and clothes.
65* * *
67"Is this song popular?" she asked of the music store clerk.
68"Well," he answered, "lots of people sing it, but as yet no one is sufficiently tired of it for it to be what you'd call a popular song."
70* * *
72At the Metropolitan Opera House.—Trustee—What's that infernal racket inside there?
73Attendant—Sh! That's one of the managers kicking himself around the room. It's the end of the operatic season.
75* * *
77THE IMPOSSIBLE.
78Jess—Miss Sears has a good voice, but she is always attempting the impossible.
79Bess—What did she sing last night?
80Jess—"Make me a child again just for to-night."
82* * *
84A scientific journal says that fish love music. There is no doubt that the shad is partial to bones.
86* * *
88That amiable, all round vocalist, Mr. "Pete" Daly, who supported Prof. J. Lawrence Sullivan on his recent histrionic tour, asserted that contiguity with the modern Hercules caused the development of large muscles on his (Mr. Daly's) vocal chords. He also, when asked what his voice was, declared in a falsetto that it was a "daring tenor," and being further pressed to define a "daring tenor" said that that was "a dark secret."
90And yet they say that God has given the Celt no sense of humor.
92I suppose my Bundelcund friend of postal card proclivities will be asking me where is the joke in a "daring tenor," and really do you know I shan't be able to answer him, but merely to suggest his having his skull trepanned and the joke gently dropped into the vacuum.
94(Incorporated May 1, 1891.)
96NEW YORK VOCAL INSTITUTE.
97FRANK HERBERT TUBBS, Musical Director,
9897 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
100COMPLETE EDUCATION IN VOCAL MUSIC.
101Singers naturally prefer study where Voice Culture and Singing receive chief attention. All the teachers use the same method. Homes selected for pupils. Circulars sent on request.
102NEW YORK VOCAL INSTITUTE, 97 Fifth Avenue.
104Organ Loft Whisperings.
105How sour sweet music is
106When time is broke and no proportion kept.
108TENOR—Have half my lemon? How ja like Patti?
109CONTRALTO—Thanks, enough; disappointed. Expected—ugh, how s-o-u-r-t!—expected a voice different from any I had ever heard. With my eyes shut I should have thought her one of our choir sopranos here, in good voice and not specially ambitious. Now, there's Kate—
110TENOR—That's the way with you folks, you hear so much about Patti and get your notions 'way up; then get disappointed—like seeing Niagara. But I tell you what, you just hear that Welsh rarebit sing right along six or eight times and you begin to think you never heard singing before. You get tired of other voices after a while; with her you grow more and more curious to see what she is going to do with her tones.
111GOOD NATURED DIRECTOR—Sh-sh-sh! His nibs is looking right this way. We—
112Yes, Mr. Tenor, Patti's voice is neither original nor thrilling in quality; but the faculty of which you speak—of inciting to hear again and again instead of wearying—is exactly that of which, almost universally, choir soloists stand in need. It is the faculty of coloring words with their peculiar sentiments; of talking in singing tones with all the inflection, punctuation, emphasis, flexibility, change and intelligence of ordinary conversation. Tamagnio did the same thing. Not half a dozen of our church choir singers have this power—or use it if they have.
113Tonal training leans toward a high regard for tones and little or none for words. A certain open position of the throat, mouth, and flatness of the tongue is insisted upon, and is all well enough as a fundamental, but by many carried into a hot-potato-in-the-mouth sort of enunciation that is anything but impressive. Patti, born with natural voice and correct placement of tone, passed possibly without restriction to the expression of language as the important feature of song, hence three-quarters of her power. She has a different tone color for every work.
114Church choir tones, dealing largely with spiritual thought, easily degenerate into an unyielding and unintelligent somberness that is anything but convincing of the joys they endeavor to depict.
115A hint to the wise is sufficient.
116Mr. John Pierpont Morgan is patron saint of the choir of St. George, Mr. W. S. Chester the organist and choir master, Mr. W. A. Prime tenor, Mr. W. Albert Arveschou baritone, Miss Della Nevins soprano and Miss Josie Bassett contralto. The choir, a volunteer one, numbers some eighty voices. Mr. Rainsford calls them his assistants who give him as much aid as his ministers, and deluges them with encouragement and interest.
117As for "good things" this choir has possibly the best of any in town. Adjoining the church is the beautiful Memorial House erected by Mr. Morgan in memory of his parents-in-law, costing some $200,000. Here after the first rehearsal of each month a big dance is given by the choir. Mr. Rainsford believes in dancing, so long as people "dance on earth and toward heaven, but not over the precipice into hell." He cannot see why people should be prohibited boating because of waterfalls in rivers. Here also every New Year's Eve a grand dinner is given the choir by Mr. Morgan, and in June all the singers, with "one friend each," are given an excursion to Great Neck on one of the Starin steamboats at the expense of the same beneficent choir lover. Everything is of the swellest order at these affairs—negro waiters with swallow tail coats, &c.
118Mr. Chester has been in his position five years, is a fine musician, a bright talker and a valuable friend. He leans to the Wagner school of music and extemporizes exquisitely, his improvisations during communion being something to be remembered.
119Mr. Prime has the faculty of singing one's imagination heavenward, of which all his hearers speak. His "Hark, Hark, My Soul," by Harry Rowe Shelley, is enough to translate more than the imagination. He has sung on fifty-six programs this year, and the Mendelssohn "Hymn of Praise" twenty-six times. He was the first to sing Liszt's "Thirteenth Psalm" in this city, at St. Thomas' Church, in the Church Choral Society. D natural is his highest note. He has sung two and a half years at St. George, and has signed for the coming year, the church wanting to make the contract read "five years."
120Mr. Arveschou has sung here "always." His thundering bass voice generally moves the floor as well as the heart. Miss Nevins is a pupil of Marchesi, has sung in the church one year and has been heard in the concerts of the Metropolitan Society. Miss Bassett, eight years a member of the choir, led the chorus in "Rob Roy," and one of the most interesting members of the chorus, Miss Christine Foster, of Forty-seventh street, was recently heard in "King Gallinniper" at the Manhattan Athletic Club. She is a tiny, piquant little creature, with charming manners and peculiar quality of voice that is fetching and with careful training will be very valuable.
121The choir is vested, i.e., black serge dress with white linen jacket reaching to the knees. The ladies of the chancel committee take charge of the linen, that of the boys being washed twice a month, that of the girls but once, giving the palm of superior purity to the fair sex even in the "organ loft." The girls wear small caps, under which they can arrange their bangs as they please, although one of the chancel dames—certainly not actuated by the liberal spirit of her pastor—did take exception to the dancing curls upon the pretty head of Miss Foster as "worldly" and ordered them tucked away.
122On the occasion of excursions, dinners, &c., the "big girls" take care of the "little boys," each one looking after one or more of her favorites.
123In the "chantry" of Grace Church services are held every day, requiring their special organist. Here Miss Bertha Thomas, a tall, slender blonde girl of German descent and strong musical ambition, presides. The burden of her work, aside from organ playing, is the direction of infantile mind in the direction of sacred song. In Grace Memorial Church, also, she teaches the little ones of the Day Nursery in the singing of church music. She has worked wonders with the little folk. It is a surprise as well as a curiosity to hear them sing the "Venite" and "Benedictus" and chants with all the gravity and reverence of church members.
124Miss Thomas played at the Church of the Conciliation four years, and has been one year at Grace. She does not think that organ playing is physically injurious to women or its mental scope too great for the feminine grasp, but finds that it requires unremitting study. She makes the original suggestion that owing to the impossibility of women's looking down at the pedals they make better pedalists than men who are constantly peeking between their knees. She thinks also that organs are not tuned sufficiently often, frequently being tuned only on "special occasions." The organ, she says, seems to resent strange handling and should not be used for miscellaneous practice. Some players, in the endeavor to produce an accent, jump about and pound the keys, much to their detriment. She thinks that an organist should vary organ practice with that of the piano, thus avoiding the inevitable stiffening of the muscles of the forearm that comes from continued organ practice. One thing that a woman must sacrifice to organ playing is the high heel.
126EDGAR.
128PERSONALS.
130The Knight of the Danneborg.—Asger Hamerik, Knight of the Danneborg, director of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore, is going to Europe this summer to select a piano teacher for the conservatory, to succeed Richard Burmeister, who is going off on a long vacation.
131Mr. Nikisch Invited.—Conductor Arthur Nikisch has been invited by Director Jahn to conduct one of the concerts at the Vienna Musical Exhibition. Mr. Nikisch had to decline the honor, as he will not leave this country during the present summer season.
132Death of Musicians.—John Farley, widely known throughout the United States and Canada as an interpreter of sacred music, died at Boston last week, aged sixty-three years. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he developed rare musical talent, and in early manhood he sang tenor parts in the opera houses of his native city. He emigrated to Canada, where he continued his musical career until 1865, when he moved to this city. He abandoned the operatic stage and became State Inspector of Emigration here for two years. For twenty years he had been connected with the choir of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Boston.
133Prof. Wilhelm Rust, the composer and cantor at the Thomasschule, an office once held by Johann Sebastian Bach, died at Leipzig, of heart disease, on the 2d inst. He was born in Dessau in 1822. He edited most of the works of Bach published by the Bach Society.
134Mrs. Ashforth's Vacation.—Frida de Gebele Ashforth will close her most successful season on June 9, when she will sail on the Augusta Victoria and spend her vacation on the Continent. Her classes are already fast filling up for September next.
135An Honor.—Luisa Cappiani has been appointed a member of the advisory council of the woman's branch of the world's fair auxiliary on music.
136Miss Joachim at Munich.—Miss Marie Joachim, the talented daughter of Joseph and Amelia Joachim, made a great hit at the Munich Court Opera House as "Brunnhilde" in "Die Walkure" on May 1. The "Allgemeine Zeitung" hails the young singer as the legitimate successor to Mrs. Vogl.
137Goldmark's Birthday.—Carl Goldmark, the composer, celebrated his sixtieth birthday at Vienna on the 18th inst. The occasion was marked by ovations on the part of the Vienna Tonkünstlerverein, of which the composer of the "Queen of Sheba" is an honorary member, and by presents and congratulations from the entire Viennese artists' guild.
138Pallez Visits Rubinstein.—Lucien Pallez, the Paris sculptor, who is to create the monument to Henry Litolff, the dead composer, has been in Dresden for the purpose of
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.