Scan 6
Musical Courier 1893-10-18: Vol 27 Iss 710, 1893
59 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Musical Courier.
2PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY
3—BY THE—
4MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY,
5(INCORPORATED)
619 Union Square W., New York.
7ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1880.
8No. 710.
9EDITORS:
10MARC A. BLUMENBERG. OTTO FLOERSHEIM.
11JAMES G. HUNEKER. HARRY O. BROWN
12HUGH CRAIG.
13BUSINESS DEPARTMENT:
14SPENCER T. DRIGGS. FRANK M. STEVENS.
15A. T. KING.
16EUROPEAN BRANCH OFFICE:
17OTTO FLOERSHEIM, 17 Link Str.,
18Berlin, W. Germany.
19CHICAGO OFFICE: 226 Wabash Ave.
20JOHN E. HALL, MANAGER.
21J. E. VAN HORNE, ASSISTANT MANAGER.
22BOSTON OFFICE: 32 West St.
23LEIPSIC, GERMANY: GEBRÜDER HUG, Königstrasse 16.
24VIENNA, AUSTRIA, V Kettenbrückengasse 7.
25LONDON: J. B. CRAMER & Co., 201 Regent St.
26PARIS: BRENTANO'S.
27Subscription (including postage) invariably in advance.
28Yearly, $4.00; Foreign, $5.00; Single Copies, Ten Cents.
29RATES FOR ADVERTISING.
30PER INCH.
31Three Months………….$20.00 | Nine Months………….$60.00
32Six Months……………..40.00 | Twelve Months…………80.00
33Special rates for preferred positions.
34Advertisements for the current week must be handed in by 5 P. M. on Monday.
35All remittances for subscriptions or advertising must be made by check draft, or money orders, payable to the MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY.
36American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents.
37Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents.
38NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1893.
39Telephone — 1253-18th.
40SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.
41MISS FANNIE EDGAR THOMAS, who has been on the staff of THE MUSICAL COURIER for several years, especially engaged in the department of church music, to which she has contributed the now well-known "Organ Loft Whisperings," leaves on Saturday for Europe as special correspondent of THE MUSICAL COURIER to write up "Organ Loft Whisperings" in Paris, London and other European cities.
42This step is a direct result of the widespread agitation in organ and organist circles coming from the visit of Alexandre Guilmant to this country. Miss Thomas travels on the same steamer with Guilmant and her first reports may be expected in the issue of November 15, if not earlier.
43This enterprise is unprecedented in the history of music journalism, but in direct line with the many preceding steps taken by this paper as the chief musical authority of the globe.
44If the music teachers of New York State who belong to the State Association mean it well with the National Association they will make an effort to adjourn their annual State meeting until the summer of 1895, instead of holding it in 1894, when the meeting of the National Association takes place at Utica.
45We will say this much about it: every time other State meetings attempted to interfere with national meetings both sides suffered, but particularly the small State meetings. As it is very probable that an orchestra and chorus will participate at the Utica meeting, the State meeting will necessarily find its attendance cut down to nothing.
46This is what is somewhat wanting with us, where the instrumentalists, in spite of their incontestable value personally, play sometimes with some indecision; but I am convinced that in a very little while we shall remedy this. Even since the first time great progress has been accomplished, owing to the intelligent direction of Mr. Colonne and Mr. Taffanel, and I do not doubt that we shall arrive, little by little, at an execution superior to that of Munich.
47"There is nothing more but to speak of the staging, which is intelligent and simple, but much less brilliant than in Paris. The scenery was very good, and the 'spring' of the first act did not pull down the whole house; it was content to open the door and to let the country be seen, lit by the moon. It is more poetical and more rational.
48"In revenge the effects of the 'Walküren Ritt' are completely spoiled, and the whole tableau is very inferior to ours.
49"I have communicated to you very faithfully my impressions: it is only by perfection of detail that we shall arrive at rendering altogether superior the execution at the Opéra to that at Munich. I hope that Mr. Taffanel will be present at the last series; he will be able to give an account of the performances for himself and take notes with a view to representations, I hope soon, of 'Siegfried' and the 'Götterdämmerung.'"
50THE ORGAN REVIVAL.
51AS Mr. Clarence Eddy very truly remarked "this visit of Guilmant to the United States marks a new period in our organ history, and a stimulus has been given in the direction of a better class of organ music. It is a revival."
52Coming in touch with such a personality as Guilmant will in itself give a new direction to thought on the organ, and will aid in developing organ literature here—something in which we have been deficient. While great strides have been made in the mechanical development of the king of instruments, the literature of organ music and of the organ has been moribund. Guilmant's visit will awaken us from this condition.
53In all the cities visited by the renowned organist there has been an outpouring of local organists, and perhaps the most remarkable assemblage of organ players ever gotten together, here at least in this country, was the one at the Fifth Avenue Hotel reception on Tuesday night.
54Guilmant returns to Europe next Saturday on the steamship La Touraine.
55A NEW OPUS BY TSCHAIKOWSKY.
56A NEW opus from the pen of a composer of Tschaikowsky's magnitude is an event of no mean importance in the music loving world. And when that work consists of eighteen small pieces of a genre character for piano solo the subject becomes one of great interest to the adherents of the most popular instrument in the world. There have been no remarkable contributions to the literature of the piano recently. Even Brahms' op. 116 and 117 created a sensation, showing how little good piano music we get. Grieg is repeating himself; Scharwenka has vouchsafed us nothing half so good as the first concerto; Sgambati is a disappointment; Saint-Saëns has dried up, for his "African" fantasia, Walter Damrosch declares, is weak stuff. Really, where are the great piano composers of the day? D'Albert is completely under the influence of Brahms and spends his time in unraveling geometrical harmonic puzzles. Moszkowski is a salon composer, and, Ludwig Schytte and E. A. MacDowell are the only two young men who have done anything of late years.
57Paris is still the hotbed of the arpeggio, and young Italy is writing music dramas. Paderewski has contributed some charming specimens of his graceful, poetic muse, but they are rather promises than fulfillments. When therefore we get an opus 72 signed Peter Tchaikowsky we are prepared for something good. The little masters of the North, like Cui, Borodini, Rimski-Korsakoff, Liadoff, Stcherbatcheff, Balakireff and others too numerous for detailed mention, are all facile in the technic of writing, but they are hopeless imitators of the forms invented by Schumann and Chopin. Rubinstein's name is not included for several reasons. He has done nothing of late; he is more Teutonic than Slavic, musically speaking, and he can be summed up in his fourth concerto, the superb one in D minor, which is an epitome of his genius.
58Tschaikowski, however, has managed to keep himself aloof from German influences—that is, more so
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.