Scan 16
Musical Courier 1893-06-07: Vol 26 Iss 692, 1893
56 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
15. Leighton's "How Lisa Loved the King" (after Boccaccio) shows a finely drawn viol d'amour.
26. Lockhart's "Swineherd" is engaged in blowing a huge conch shell with evident delight.
37. "Home, Sweet Home," by Leslie, depicts a party of school girls at a fine specimen of an old harpsichord.
48. Felix Moscheles sends "Reciter in an Arab Café," who has a haunting face.
59. Carl Haag's "One of Our Ancestors" would do very well for Hagen.
610. Miss Martineau's "In Sweet Music" represents a sweet girl playing a 'cello.
711. Morris has two excellent pieces in—
8 "Sons of the Brave," being the band of the boys of the Soldiers' Orphans' Hospital (see character in faces).
9 "Fête Dieu," Dieppe, with fine faces of singers.
1013. S. Fisher's "A Summer Night," is in Venice—an old man and his daughter play on guitar and mandolin. Most pathetic study.
11 The musician will profit by a nearer approach to this great sister art, and he may well gather coloring for his work in that even more subtle art of tone painting.
13Morris Steinert & Sons Company Make a Grand Historical Loan Exhibit.
14Without doubt, the most attractive spot to many musical visitors will be the magnificent loan exhibit of ancient musical instruments made by the above. Here the whole history and development of the stringed and hammer instrument families can be studied through all primary and intermediate stages.
15Studies in the touch and peculiar style of the technic of the precursors of the "hammer-clavier" and "fortepiano."
16Mr. E. A. Parsons, of New York, has charge of the exhibit in as far as making the mechanism and peculiarities of each specimen clear to the visitor. He will also give several recitals of music especially composed for the different instruments. To begin with, I do not suppose that it is known as a general thing that Bach composed the "Well Tempered Clavier" in the movable C clef; e.g., the prelude paraphrased by Gounod in the "Ave Maria" is written, in the original, in the soprano, or highest position of the C clef. Another point that I wish to make very clear from the very outstart is this, that Bach did not invent a new scientific method of tuning called "The Well Tempered" or "Even Temperature." I will explain myself at length. The early clavichords were what was designated as "Gebunden," i.e., two or three different tones were produced not by the pressure of the tangents on the same strings, but by pressing (not striking) two or three keys operating on the same string choir. This clavichord was named "Gebundener" or "Tangent," and could not be tuned perfectly for use in every key.
17"Bundfreie" (unbound) instruments were invented by the organist Daniel Faber about 1725 in Craylsheim. (The clavichord is said to have been made by Guido d'Arezzo in the eleventh century.) In this each string had its own key, thus practically making "well tempered" writing for every key a possibility. The clavichord was the favorite keyed instrument of Bach, because the tone was flexible, is pressed out and not hammered out, and can be varied in a way not possible on any more modern instrument. If you sweep the hand over the strings no sound will be emitted, but press subtly on the key and connect tones in extreme legato and you will get a naive, trembling, weak, it is true, but very singing quality of tone not heard in the "hammer" clavier. It will therefore be entirely unnecessary for me to say that it was a singing instrument only, and it would be a very good thing did pupils have to practice on it nowadays instead of on so many hand gymnasia. The "Art of Singing at the Piano," so ably championed by Thalberg, would thereby possibly be redeemed, and that were much to be hoped for, for the piano is now nothing but a pounding machine with the majority.
18The clavichord in its pure and early form had no supports and was laid on a table and was portable. It is claimed that Bach by writing the preludes and fugues in every key, both major and minor, sharp and flat, established firmly the system of having one semitone to each separate key so that all could be equally freely notated, and executed in any key and in perfect tune. The clavichord had in some of its forms legs, but no pedal or stops (registers).
19The second class of keyed instruments is composed of such as are brought to sound by the action of quills or leathern tangents (not of metal). These are named spinnett, virginal in the table like form, and harpsichord, clavicembalo, kielfluegel in the "wing" or "fluegel" form. Many of those in the second class have two manuals (keyboards), three or even four strings to each key, and stops by means of which one, two, three or four of these strings were brought into play, thus producing what was called a 4, 8 or 16 foot tone, either alone or one with another. These instruments were capable, as can readily be seen, of making a crescendo or dimenuendo in quite a different manner from those of the present. The primitive "hammer clavier" had unleathered little hammers that struck thin strings and produced very sharp tones. As there was in the beginning no liberation of the hammer after the stroke the playing of these was awkward, requiring skill in bringing the hammer back from the string. In this variety sordino stops were used to vary the tone color.
20It was left for the Vienna school of builders to remove this great difficulty and make the adequate execution of the fluent passage work of Clementi, Haydn and Mozart possible. The most noteworthy example of the Vienna school in Mr. Steinert's collection is the well preserved concertfluegel made by Nanette Stein, née Streicher, Vienna, 1816. Her father, Streicher, has been called the father of modern hammer mechanism. Gottfried Silbermann, the great organ builder, did more to perfect this mechanism than possibly any other man. The honor of the invention of the hammer mechanism has been attributed (disputed) alike to Cristofori, Italy; Christoph Gottlieb Schroeder (Schroeter), Germany; Nordhausen, Harznits, and Father Wood, a monk in Rome. Cristofori seems to have the best established claim with some writers, and the Italian with others. In the lead seems Cristofori.
21Mozart played by preference largely on a clavichord, and Philipp Emanuel Bach said, "If one plays continually on the Kielfluegel, one forms the habit of playing in one color, and the different gradations of touch, which only a good clavichord player can produce, remains hidden." The tone of the spinett is more intense and metallic than that of the harpsichord and much more so than that of the clavichord, but much less flexible than that of the latter. In the spinett the strings are crosswise to the keys, but in the more advanced clavichembel, cembalo and kielfluegel (English harpsichord), the strings are in the same direction as the keys. The clavichord has therefore the keyboard on the long side of the instrument; the harpsichord on the contrary, like to the modern grand, has the keyboard on the small side of the case.
22The harpsichord had always feet, whereas the clavichord and spinett were without the same, and were placed on a table. England made harpsichords, but no clavichords. The latter were at home in Germany and Italy. Models of the hammer mechanism of Cristofori were to be seen at the "International Musik und Theater-Austellung," in Vienna, in the summer of 1892, where Mr. Steinert's collection also celebrated great triumphs. These models, considering the time in which they were made, were astonishingly perfect and complicated. A very rare Collector's Beauty in this exhibit is the hammerclavier, 4 1/2 octaves, made by Johann Christoph Jeckel, Worms, February 18, 1783, with four registers and with strips of cloth over all strings as dampers.
23In the same classed instrument of Schneider, of Nurnberg, we find at last a complete system of damper. An interesting fact for the ladies in these days of "woman's congresses" will be the one that Nanette Stein, despite an adverse criticism of the illustrious Mozart, persevered, and became the intimate friend of Beethoven, for whom she made an especial instrument. This was for a long time in the studio of Franz Liszt on the "Altenburg" at Weimar, is now in the National Museum at Prague and was exhibited at Vienna. She was not only a fine executant and artist, but was a business woman of rare ability, and upon the death of her father undertook the management of the factory herself. A piano made by her is now in Balmoral Castle, the property of Queen Victoria.
24Frederich der Grosse was a great admirer of the work of Silbermann, and several of his instruments can be seen in the Schloss Babelsberg at Potsdam. The greatest triumphs in the art of piano building have been celebrated in America, and the makers whose works usually figure in collections are John Geib and John Kearsing, of New York, John Osborn and Alpheus Babcock, of Boston. In this most admirable and creditable collection in a beautiful square by Babcock, 1820, and one by Joseph Hiskey, Baltimore, 1820.
25Many more treasures could be described in the keyed varieties alone, but when I say that there are fine specimens of every kind of instrument mentioned in this letter, I have given some idea of the value of the collection.
26What a treasure such a thing is in an art centre may be judged from the following: Concerning a late performance of Bach's "Passion Music" according to St. John, I read in the Berliner "Tageblatt" the regret that there was not a genuine gamba available for use in the alto aria "It is finished." Now, were the Steinert collection in Berlin a gamba could be had! Again, I read in the same critique a complaint that the harp was used in place of the lute in the aria "Betrachte Meine Seele!" Here we have one.
27To select but one specimen from among the violin family—for this letter, at any rate—a very beautiful and well preserved arpeggione, or "fretted 'cello," can be inspected. It will be remembered that Schubert composed a sonata especially for this peculiar and rare instrument. I hope to write about the missals and facsimiles in another letter. In one grand old MS., Antiphon, can be noticed a queer little point, viz., that there is an addendum where the original scribe has omitted to finish out his line; also, the tabs, with metal knobs attached, to facilitate the finding of the most frequently used portions of the service.
28Let every musician visit and inspect carefully this glorious exhibit, for it is an honor not only to the name Steinert, but also to our country's art life and reputation. In my next I hope to finish my study of the Steinert exhibit and give cuts of the various instruments therein contained.
29W. Waugh Lauder.
30202 East Thirty-Seventh Street, Chicago, June 8, 1893.
32Music in Boston.
33BOSTON, June 4, 1893.
34JOSEPHIN PELADAN, or Sar Peladan as he is pleased to call himself, wrote in "Le Panthée" as follows: "And you, chaffers and worldlings, each time that you go to an operetta or to a café concert you assassinate the Bihns, the geniuses."
35Now no one, not even pessimistic Dr. Max Nordau, denies the ability of Sar Mérodack J. Peladan (I believe he found the name Mérodack in the book of Jeremiah, and he borrowed the title Sar from Assyrian kings); possibly he is in earnest when he writes against the operetta, as when he wears a blue or black satin doublet, arranges his hair after the manner of his favorite Assyrians, and has his entrance announced on solemn occasions—such as the gatherings of the Rosicrucians—by blasts of trumpet music, written expressly for him by a private composer.
36But the Sar forgets that his proposition is reversible; that many geniuses are assassinated by inadvertently listening to operetta.
38* * *
39This reminds me of the first performance in this city of "The Golden Wedding," the 29th ult., at the Park Theatre. "The Golden Wedding" was announced as "a Ballad Comedy Romance." The words and music are by Mr. Fred Miller, Jr., who, if I am not mistaken, was guilty of "Ship Ahoy," a species of entertainment which, under the skillful management of the Rev. J. M. Hill, aided by a kindly press, was played with a fervor and a persistence worthy of a better cause.
40Mr. Miller's piece was first tried on a dog, and the dog happened to be Worcester, Mass. I am told that the result of the experiment was an immediate overhauling of the libretto and a postponement of the performance in Boston.
41I wish to do justice to Mr. Miller's work, and I therefore wish that I could see it as it leaped from his brain, before the arrangers and the variety comedians acted as Compachicos, and molded and burned and cut the infant into a monster. Sir Thomas Browne once imagined "draughts of three passionate looks of Thyestes when he was told at the table that he had eaten a piece of his own son; of Bajazet when he went into the iron cage; of Oedipus when he first came to know that he had killed his father and married his own mother." I add to this list the countenance of Fred Miller, Jr., when he first saw on the stage the revised version of his ballad-comedy romance.
43* * *
44For the piece is without form and void. I am speaking of it from the standpoint of farce, comedy or burlesque. In these latter forms of entertainment there is, as a rule, a motive; there is at least a rudimentary plot, or the chemist finds traces of a plot. In Mr. Miller's piece the plot was treated so rudely in revision that it is now shy, very shy, and it only appears in a deprecatory manner, and for a moment, in the third act.
45There is Judge Blythe, the last lineal descendant of his family; he is a man of one song, and this song, although not of striking originality, is the most tuneful number and encourages whistling. There is a farce-comedy editor, Mr. Boliver, whose lines have not fallen to him in pleasant places. Mr. Philip Fairfield belongs to "one of the best families in Boston;" his manners are easy, just as if he were in the habit of drinking champagne cocktails daily at the Somerset Club and then visiting Berwick Park.
46Mr. Fairfield is also addicted to bursts of songs, on favorable and unfavorable occasions; thus, for instance, in the third act—everything happens, by the way, in the third act—while the action was resuscitated by charitable stage hands, Mr. Fairfield told in song the sad story of a policeman who shot a thief and found it was his brother, and then he assured the audience "'Twas in the moonlight, 'twas in the moonlight." (I wonder what Sar Peladan would say of this scene!)
47Then there is a gaunt Englishman who is tired and stumbles over furniture. "Robert" is a wandering sailor lad, who refrains from telling his secret because it would take hours; for this noble deed he is applauded by the audience, and he is a favorite until the marvelous third act.
49MANHATTAN OPERA HOUSE.
51FOR OPEN DATES, address
52MR. OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN,
53THIRTY-FOURTH STREET,
54Bet. Broadway and Seventh Avenue,
55NEW YORK.
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