Scan 42
Musical Courier 1892-12-21: Vol 25 Iss 668, 1892
102 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 35. See the scan on archive.org.
1atic expression, created nothing short of a furore with the large and critical audience. The lady has lost none of her power since heard here last and her magnificent execution stamps her as a leading soprano.
3The United Singers, numbering 129 voices, showed careful training, and encores were numerous, while the work of the orchestra left nothing to be desired.
5This was the first concert given by the United Singers, and artistically and financially it was the most successful in the history of the organization.—Cincinnati "Enquirer."
7Henrietta Corradi.
9This excellent vocalist and teacher is an artist of wide experience, having reaped laurels as an opera, concert and oratorio singer, and also as a church soloist. Miss Corradi's musical education was commenced in New York, but continued and completed at the Paris Conservatoire, where she was awarded the three first prizes, together with the choice of a début on any of the three lyric stages of Paris.
11She left Paris for Milan, where she made her début as "Gilda," in Verdi's "Rigoletto." She then appeared in all the important cities of Italy, singing the first rôles of "Lucia," "Moschettieri," "Saffo," "Sonambula," "L'Afri- caine," &c.
13Pacini, the composer of "Saffo," attributed to Miss Corradi's efforts the success of this opera. Immediately after the appearance of Patti and Frezzolini, in Florence, she sang as "Amina" in "La Sonambula" twelve nights, with a success that was made noticeable by the remembrance of the two great stars who preceded her.
15At Rome she received an ovation, her greatest triumph being achieved in Rossini's "La Gazza Ladra." She then appeared in Brussels, Liege, Louvain and Lyons, singing in all the principal rôles in the French repertoire, and winning praise from audiences and eminent critics, one of whom—Mr. Fetis, the world-famed critic of the "Indépendance Belge"—expressed himself in the following terms: "Miss Corradi has over many cantatrices the advantage of knowing how to sing, and fully masters the art of directing the voice. She does not shake (chevrotte), but sings perfectly true. Her voice is of a superior quality of tone (timbre). In 'Les Huguenots,' as in 'Lucia,' Miss Corradi showed herself an accomplished and finished cantatrice."
17Miss Corradi's superb singing of "Elijah" with the New York Oratorio Society will be remembered as an artistic treat very rarely heard. She was equally successful in the concerts of the New York Philharmonic Society, the Peabody Symphony concerts in Baltimore and her appearance in conjunction with Richard Hoffman, Camilla Urso, and many other eminent artists.
19Miss Corradi is an artist by nature, and the thorough training and experience which have been added to this divine gift have made her a wonderfully successful teacher and she now has a large number of pupils.
21Charles Whitney Coombs.
23Charles Whitney Coombs—to the public more generally known as Whitney Coombs—is an American musician whose reputation has been of gradual and unobtrusive growth.
25Eight years ago his first songs, "A Serenade," "Bedouin Love Song," and "Break, Break," were published by Zumsteeg, in Stuttgart, and Schirmer, in New York. These were followed by "The Journey is Long," and "Across the Dee," issued simultaneously in England and America, and meeting with immediate success.
27The next few years he published nothing. Then came a series of works, both sacred and secular, including "The Evening Shadows," "Bethlehem," "The Heavenly Message" (written for Scheidmantel), and the passionate and poetic songs, "I Arise from Dreams of Thee," and "Song of a Summer Night," all of them showing a far higher order of talent than his earlier work promised.
29For thirteen years Mr. Coombs lived abroad, imbibing the best of the artistic life of Germany, Italy, France and England. Last year he returned to America, and on Ash Wednesday he assumed charge of the organ and choir of the Church of the Holy Communion, the first church in this country to have a so-called "boy choir." As the outcome of his long and severe training in foreign schools, coupled with his exalted standard of what church music should be, he applied himself at once with an enthusiastic assiduity to the cultivation of the boys' voices, aiming to develop both head and chest tones. Then he took hold with both hands earnestly of the men of the choir, meeting them collectively and separately, in order that he might bring them up to his standard of requirement. Last of all he enlisted a body of ladies, which has become an essentially auxiliary part of the choir. The result of his wise and indefatigable planning is this, that he has created a choir of sixty voices, which has exalted the character of the music of a church long known for the stress it lays, through its founder, Dr. Muhlenberg, upon the important part of music in divine worship.
31Mr. Coombs is distinctively not an organist and choir master in the ordinary acceptation of the meaning of this office. He is a minister of the church, who has made it his duty to do for its music exactly what those do who serve at the altar, in the pulpit and in the daily ministries.
33Rev. Henry Mottet, D. D., Rector.
35Dvorak at the Philharmonic Concert.
37LAST Saturday night Dr. Antonin Dvorák, the director of the National Conservatory of America and a world famous composer, conducted his symphony in D at the second concert of the Philharmonic Concert, of New York. This was indeed an event of great musical significance in the history of the musical art in this country. Though just out of our hundredth year as a nation we have eagerly absorbed the culture of the Old World, and in 1892, thanks to a happy combination of circumstances, are enabled to see a great composer wield the baton at one of the concerts of an institution which is the fortress of our musical activity in this city—aye, in this country.
39Little avail to quibble about Dr. Dvorák's exact position in the musical firmament. Suffice to know that he is a fixed star of the first magnitude and of the lineage of the great masters. In his veins runs musical blood of the richest and bluest. He, like Brahms, in his music treads reverently in the footsteps of the great ones who have preceded him. With all his individuality he reverences the great forms of absolute music, and fills them with the creations of his own genial and incomparable imagination.
41In Dvorák's music we find a naive gift of melody, a rare expressive power, and besides all, the technic of the great masters. His is an important and satisfying personality, and his presence at a Philharmonic concert was an honor to that body, an honor to New York city and a credit to the culture and energy of President Jeannette M. Thurber of the National Conservatory, who brought him to America. Let us honor this Bohemian guest of our's, for he is a great genius and has a still greater heart, full of natural simplicity and purity of artistic purpose.
43Music in Boston.
45BOSTON, December 18, 1892.
47MR. ARTHUR WHITING gave a concert in Steinway Hall, Tuesday evening, December 13. He was assisted by Mr. Kneisel, violin; Mr. Svecenski, viola, and Mr. Schroeder, 'cello. The program was as follows:
49Sonata, D minor, for 'cello and piano………………………..Corelli one of two readings
50Sonata, D minor, for 'cello and piano……………………………Corelli one of two readings
51Three character pieces—
52Allegro appassionato………….Schermzando…………………A. Whiting one of two readings
53Capriccio……………………..Rhapsody, G minor…………………Brahms one of two readings
54Ballade, A minor……………………Chopin one of two readings
55Quartet for piano and strings, op. 23………………………..Foote one of two readings
56Allegro appassionato………….{…………………………..A. Whiting one of two readings
57Scherzando……………………..{…………………………..A. Whiting one of two readings
58Capriccio………………………..{…………………………..A. Whiting one of two readings
59Rhapsody, G minor……………………………Brahms one of two readings
60Ballade, A minor……………………………Chopin one of two readings
61Quartet for piano and strings, op. 23……………………………Foote one of two readings
63The feature of the evening was Mr. Foote's quartet. It is a thoroughly spontaneous and genial work. When it was first played, early in 1891, at a Kneisel Quartet concert, it made a marked impression, and the favorable impression is confirmed by a second hearing. It is fresh in melody. The development of the themes is ingenious, and there is little or no smell of the lamp. There is rich coloring; there is a feeling of proportion, and the work is in the true sense of the word a quartet, in which there are four instruments of equal importance. It was played delightfully by Messrs. Whiting, Kneisel, Svecenski and Schroeder, and the different numbers were applauded loudly. Mr. Foote tells me that he has revised his work since it was first heard. I think that the adagio, which is the strongest movement, might now be improved if it were shortened a little. But it is a painful task for a composer enamored of his own creation to apply the knife to the flesh of his begetting.
65Mr. Whiting is a composer who commands respect, for his taste is refined, his technic is ample and his ideal is pure and lofty. But there is a lack of humanity in many of his compositions. He prefers to appeal to the intellect rather than to the senses. He compels admiration; he excites curiosity, but he seldom touches the heart. His melody is too often without warmth; his harmonies are too often merely ingenious. A dash of honest, manly sensuousness would be a boon to him as a composer. Of these three character pieces for the piano, the scherzando was characteristic, piquant, musical. The other two numbers seemed dry, and the result of much thinking without the assistance of sudden and irresistible prompting. Mr. Whiting's performance of his own pieces and the rhapsody by Brahms was fluent and tasteful. In the Chopin number he was less successful, for he is not of the romantic school.
67But Johannes Wolff, violinist, and Joseph Hollmann, violoncellist, are pre-eminently of the romantic school. They made their first appearance in Boston, at the Hollis Street Theatre, Thursday afternoon, the 15th inst. Would that they had played in another room! Our theatres are admirably adapted for theatrical purposes, but neither the Hollis Street Theatre nor the Tremont Theatre is suitable for player of instrument, singer or orchestra. With all our boasted cultivation of music, we have here no concert hall that in all respects is the proper home of chamber music.
69The violinist or the singer who appears in the theatres above mentioned is in a measure handicapped, for it is difficult for the hearer to appreciate fully the quality and the sonority of tone.
71You have listened to these distinguished artists and you have already reviewed their work. It is not therefore necessary for me to go into matters of detail. I may be permitted to say that I agree in substance with the report of your own reviewer. It is possible that the players were warned in advance of the solemn attitude of the concert goer of Boston, for their deportment was free from the eccentricities which excited the ire of certain reviewers of your own town. There was little playing to the eye; there was no inaudible pianissimo; there was no hoarse cue for applause. Messrs. Wolff and Hollmann were welcomed heartily, and after their respective selections they were imperatively recalled. Mr. Wolff played the concert romantique of Godard, a polonaise and sundry sentimental pieces. Mr. Hollmann was heard in the A minor andante and finale of Goltermann and in two compositions of his own, a romance and mazurka of conventional pattern and little merit.
73Miss Alice Mandelick pleased both layman and musician. Her voice seemed sympathetic and well trained; her personal appearance would have atoned for musical sins. She sang songs by De Koven, Moszkowski and Vogrich. The song by Vogrich is a panorama. Maidens, camels, fierce Bedouins, the desert—they are all there and they were exhibited by the singer, while Mr. Hollmann accompanied the exhibition with his 'cello obligato.
75Mr. Whelpley was the pianist. He assisted the visitors in the first three movements of the Rubinstein B flat trio. Sandwiched as he was between the violinist and the 'cellist later in the program, he had a difficult task; but he played pieces by Schumann, Handel and Raff modestly and with musical intelligence.
77(no line here) one of two readings
78* * * one of two readings
80The eighth symphony concert was given last evening. The program was out of the common run. In honor of the anniversary of the baptism of Beethoven it was as follows:
82Symphony No. 8………….Symphony No. 9…………………Beethoven one of two readings
83Symphony No. 8 ……………{…………………………..Beethoven one of two readings
84Symphony No. 9 ……………{…………………………..Beethoven one of two readings
86The solo parts in the choral symphony were taken by Miss Priscella White, soprano; Miss Louisa Leimer, alto; Mr. Wm. J. Winch, tenor, and Mr. Heinrich Meyn, bass. The chorus is known as the Boston Symphony chorus. It includes certain singers from other vocal societies, such as the Cecilia, &c.
88The eighth symphony seems to be a favorite with Mr. Nikisch. Last evening its performance did not call for special remark. But of course the colossal ninth is seldom given, and so there was a crowd of listeners. So far as the orchestra was concerned, there was much to praise in the performance. The famous sustained pianissimo in the first movement, the passage mentioned by Wagner in his book, "Ueber das Dirigiren," was not sufficiently steady in subdued tone. The drummer in the scherzo might have displayed a more sensitive ear in the tuning of his drums, and in the adagio there was a tendency to fret the cantabile whenever it fell to the first violins.
90On the other hand the reading was eminently virile, and in the first three movements there was a well-defined rhythmic pulse. The strings in the scherzo were excellent; the wood-wind in the adagio was not always tuneful and its performance was occasionally ragged. But in the main the first three movements were well given, the reading was intelligent and magnetic, and the players as a rule met the demands of the conductor.
92Neither the solo singers nor the chorus were effective in the finale. I grant cheerfully that in connection with this choral part of the symphony "effective" must be used in a comparative sense. I have never had the good fortune to hear the finale sung with great effect in German or American cities. The most successful attempt that I remember was in Berlin about ten years ago, when Franz Wüllner directed the Philharmonic Orchestra, assisted by the famous Riedelschenverein, of Leipzig. The worst performance that I remember was in the same city in 1888, under the direction of Joachim.
94Mr. Foote was patient and intelligent in rehearsing the Boston Symphony chorus, but there was not enough heroic stuff or iron endurance in the singers themselves. The sopranos appeared to best advantage, but it is not surprising that the task was too much for them. The very qualities that at times war against enjoyment of the singing of Mr. Meyn in a small room served him well in the finale of the symphony. He was heard, and he kept up with the orchestral procession. As for the other solo singers of the evening—the rest is silence.
96(no line here) one of two readings
97* * * one of two readings
99I understand that the authors of the comic opera "The Continentals," which was brought out at the Park Theatre the 1st inst., are busily at work in the revision of the text. The "Bostonians" will play a two weeks' engagement at the Tremont Theatre, and the first night will be the 26th. It is proposed to produce "The Knickerbockers" during the second week of the engagement.
101Mr. Ferruccio Busoni, who played with such flattering
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