Scan 16
Musical Courier 1894-03-14: Vol 28 Iss 731, 1894
72 lines. Read by computer on 19 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.
1choice, the ridiculous position in which these inferior singers placed themselves can readily be appreciated. Ladies, don't do it again! Heed the admonition of the Gotham Gossip man! Well, Mrs. Scott is certainly the right one in the right place. She came to New York from Indianapolis a year or so ago and became the solo soprano of Grace Church at a handsome salary. She is almost the only soprano I know of whom all the other sopranos speak in complimentary terms. Her beautiful voice and artistic temperament are universally recognized. Nobody seems able to criticise her adversely. Certainly there is no better soprano in Gotham for church work. The church has been dickering for some weeks with Mrs. Scott, and the terms are at last satisfactorily arranged. Her voice will balance and blend finely with the rich, full contralto of Miss Ada Foresman, who, singularly enough, is likewise a Grace Church graduate. There was a strong rumor not long ago that Miss Gonzalez would return, but Mrs. Scott's engagement disposes of all that.
3Miss Emily Baetz, the charming contralto, will leave the Fourteenth Street Presbyterian Church on May 1 and join the choir of the First Presbyterian Church, Newark, with her salary more than doubled. This is as it should be, for Miss Baetz has been very much underpaid for a long time. She has an exquisite voice with 'cello tones in it, and is constantly studying to improve. It is safe to predict that within a couple of years she will be the match of almost any contralto in town. Good luck to her at her new post.
5The Central Congregational Church, Dr. Loyd's, in Fifty-seventh street, near Eighth avenue, is fortunate in securing Miss Alice Purdy as solo soprano for the coming year. The last place filled by Miss Purdy was at the Bloomingdale Reformed Church, which she was obliged to resign on account of poor health. Her strength is now fully restored, and she is singing better than ever before. Miss Purdy is very attractive in appearance as well as in voice, and possesses every requisite for a successful musical career.
7B. F. Miller, the next tenor of William R. Chapman's choir, succeeding George E. Devoll, is a pupil of Francis Fischer Powers, and has a lovely pure tenor voice, together with good style, fine enunciation and intelligent method. Mr. Chapman was on the point of engaging Albert Lester King, when the First Baptist Church heard him sing and gobbled him up at one very large mouthful. However, in Mr. Miller Dr. Kittredge's church has secured a valuable man, who coming to New York a stranger will soon make himself known. Another of Mr. Powers' pupils, Miss Lilian Kent, contralto, was offered a fine salary at Dr. Kittredge's, but she had just signed with her present church in Elizabeth, N. J., for another year.
9Gerrit Smith's Monday afternoon free organ recitals at the South Church continue to attract lovers of good substantial organ music. On March 5 he was assisted by Mrs. Adele Laeis Baldwin, and last Monday Miss Alice Mandelick was the soloist. Dr. Smith gave a recital on March 6 at the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, where his work was highly appreciated.
11H. E. Krehbiel's lecture on "Dramatic Dances and Children's Games," last Thursday afternoon, at the Woman's University Club, was in many ways the most interesting and instructive of all the lectures yet delivered here or anywhere else by this noted musical scholar and critic. Mr. Krehbiel's friends wonder how he finds time to do so much work, and would like to possess his secret on the conservation of energy. The lecture to-morrow afternoon will be all about "Hiawatha" and the rites of the bold, bad, big injun.
13William C. Carl is to-day moving his studio from 57 West Seventeenth street to 6 West Twenty-first street. George L. P. Butler, Mr. Carl's new tenor, will have a studio at the same address. Mr. Carl opened a new organ last Thursday at St. Albans, Vt., and played in Montreal the following day.
15Mrs. Adele Laeis Baldwin, the contralto, sang recently in Hoboken at a concert given for the benefit of the Y. M. C. A. connected with the West Shore Railroad Company. Her reception was most cordial and enthusiastic.
17George Grossmith is as funny as ever, and his entertainments last week were well patronized. It is a wonderful art to be able to interest and amuse a critical and highly educated audience for two whole hours alone on the stage, with no scenery or change of costumes, and nothing but a grand piano in the way of assisting artists. Mr. Grossmith is brimful of humor, wit and clever satire, and everything he says and does is original. None of our own funny men can hold a candle to him.
19John Francis Gilder, the pianist and composer, and Master Charles Meehan, the boy soprano, assisted by local talent, will give a concert next Tuesday at Flushing, L. I. This will be Mr. Gilder's first appearance in Flushing for thirty years. He was once organist of St. George's Church in that town, so that his return smacks of the old Rip Van Winkle act. One of Mr. Gilder's choir boys in those days was the distinguished preacher, the Rev. Dr. Van De Water, rector of St. Andrew's Church, Harlem. This statement almost gives Gilder's age, or rather youth away, but it is true and correct, anyhow.
21Cincinnati Cinders.
23I label this letter is intended to point in two directions—first, toward those feathery flakes which fall from the raven wing of manufacture and not the snow plumage from the wings of winter, in which sooty decorations our city is always abundantly arrayed; and secondly, to point in a symbolic way to the fact that our musical memories have time to cool in the long intervals between concerts.
25Among the notable things with which we have been blessed lately I will mention first the second chamber concert of Mrs. Carrie Bellows-Johnson. This lady is one of our very first local pianists. Cincinnati is especially proud of her because her talent has been chiefly fostered in this city, and although she spent one significant year in Berlin with Moszkowski, she was an artiste before she left us. Having returned this year her three concerts rank among the most important musical events of our season. Her audience is made up of the fashionable and musically élite. The lady's gifts adapt her to the interpretation of what is coquetishly dainty and sparkingly piquant. Technically she has astonishing speed and a fairy-like grace most bewitching. Her programs are of good metal, as may be judged when I state that a part of the Brahms's sonata for piano and violin, op. 100, and the Grieg sonata in F, op. 8, were presented. Among her solo numbers a charming melody in E minor, from a suite, op. 50, by Moszkowski, found place and produced a most favorable impression.
27She was assisted at this concert by the violinist Wilczek and a tenor named Einstein.
29Our young and vigorous society, the Orpheus Club, gave last week its second concert, and the favorable verdict drawn forth by the first performance was rewritten, but with illuminated letters. The Orpheus Club originated in a strong wave of reactionary feeling against the management of the Apollo Club, and I have never seen such rapid progress in the evolution of an artistic body.
31In the second program there was a marked gain in softness and refinement, the pianissimos being more mellow and the shadings more delicate, while the manly vigor which gave such a thrill to the listening public at the first concert had in no measure abated.
33The director, Mr. Charles Graninger, is a sterling musician, and it is perfectly obvious that his scholarship—united to the enthusiasm of the club—will in a short time bring us results as near perfection as we are likely often to hear. Some of the more interesting numbers were "Salamis," by Gernsheim; "St. John's Eve," by Rheinberger, and the "Three Fishers," by Robert Goldbeck, sung without accompaniment. The solo attractions of the evening were Miss Adele Aus de Ohe, who roused the public to enthusiasm with her magnetic playing, and a dramatic soprano of fine gifts and high attainments, Miss Rita Elandi, who some years ago graduated under Miss Tecla Vigna at our own College of Music. This lady is unquestionably an artist with what I should call a rounded artistic equipment, for her chest tones are sonorous, at times almost to an extreme, while her sotto voce is lovely and her agility far above mediocre. Mr. Graninger is also the director of the Orpheus Club, at Columbus, Ohio, and the approaching anniversary of George Washington and James Russell Lowell, the 22d, is to be made a red letter day in Columbus by a concert from the two societies conjoined. Mr. Blauvelt and Mr. Slivinski are to appear as soloists. The president of the Cincinnati Orpheus Club is a prominent young business man of this city, Mr. Frank Joyce, son of the popular Methodist Bishop Isaak Joyce.
35On Monday, February 12, at the Cincinnati Conservatory was delivered a lecture by your correspondent upon Franz Schubert. This lectureship at the Conservatory dates from October, 1880, and during that time nearly 100 subjects have been treated. Additional importance to the occasion was given by an illustrative musical program, in which that fine pianist, Theodore Bohlmann, with his talented pupil Mr. Louis Schwebel, furnished piano numbers for two and four hands, while solo and concerted singing was added by Miss Georgia Myers, Miss Ida Pierpont, Miss Frances Moses, Miss Stella Charles and Mr. G. Morgan Stricklett, all of whom owe their vocal art to the distinguished teacher, Miss Clara Baur.
37The audience in attendance upon the Apollo Club concert at Music Hall last Thursday evening, was somewhat less than usual, although the program was of more interest than ordinary. The first part of the time was occupied by a series of selections from Handel's "Acis and Galatea," and the second by the usual varied program of contrasted selections. The music to "Acis and Galatea" is exceedingly beautiful, and in all respects rhythm, melody, harmony is the quintessence of Händelanism. Miss Ethel Chamberlain, who took the part of "Galatea," has a voice of flutey suavity, and in certain respects her singing is artistic; however, it is somewhat tame and colorless. Mr. Lemmon sang "Acis" as I have never heard this gentleman sing. His voice was of charming timbre, his tone production was nearer to freedom and ease than is customary with him, and the animation of his delivery was much above par. Dr. Carl Dufft, although his attempts at diminuendo on the high "E" resulted in a breezy wheeze, like a collapsing bellows, nevertheless sang many of his phrases in both the heroic and melting moods most admirably. As for Miss Marguerite Hall, the Boston soprano, her groups of songs were delivered with such consummate art as to leave nothing lame or faulty. A delicious voice produced with liquid fullness, perfect intonation, intelligent phrasing, clean cut enunciation and expression so discreet as never to sin against the "modesty of nature," yet not to fall into languor; all these were there, and the result was a rare pleasure, especially for the most discriminating listeners. As for the singing of the club it was up to its usual mark, though the runs were not perfectly clear, and in the Carnival from Saint Saëns they flatted a semi-tone, having started in A minor and ending serenely on the major triad of A flat. Fortunately there was no abortive attempt to use the orchestra, but reliance was placed upon the musically piano accompaniments of Mr. Louis Ergott.
39John S. Van Cleve.
41Milwaukee.
43MILWAUKEE, March 6, 1894.
45THE musical season in our Cream City is very prosperous in spite of the hard times.
47On looking back, it would seem as if Providence had especially loved Milwaukee, for certainly it has had more than its share of disasters.
49Between immense fires, bank and business house failures and men running off after swindling people out of almost all they possessed, it is a wonder that the whole city has not applied to the Chicago soup houses for support. But as our sister city has no great amount of affection for us (I wonder if it is because we can never be considered a suburb), we have established free soup houses of our own, and enjoy a musical season surpassing anything of the kind, say, in five years back.
51There are two good reasons for this—the return of Mr. W. L. Tomlins to the directorship of the Arion Club and the newly organized Philharmonic Society.
53Mr. Tomlins was director of the Arions for ten years; then, for some reasons best known to himself and the club, he resigned, and no amount of urging would induce him to reconsider his resignation.
55From that time—six years ago—the club has had a very sad experience with its different directors. These were four in number, I believe, and among them Frederick Archer, the organist, and Arthur Weld, of Boston. The latter had the chorus three years, and was by far the most successful.
57However, old members still yearned for Mr. Tomlins, and have at last succeeded in their efforts to secure him.
59The club now numbers about 300 members, of which 125 are ladies. While many of the voices are new and harsh, still they are doing some very good work, and have given three concerts this season.
61The first was a part song concert, the club doing really excellent work in "Sands o' Dee," "Two Lovers," &c. Mrs. Van Duyn, a contralto, who at one time was president of the Cecilian Choir (which constitutes the ladies of the Arion Club), but who since then has studied in Paris and London, made her début to a Milwaukee audience as a singer at this concert. Her first number was the cavatine, from Gounod's "Queen of Sheba." Of course the club and her many friends were eager to hear her. She was disappointing in this aria, her voice being too small in volume and range. There was no decided climax, and she did not let herself out; but her second number, a cradle song by Brahms, with violoncello obligato, she sang admirably. Her phrasing was very fine, and she seemed to feel her work, proving that she was at home in this class of music rather than the first.
63Bruno Steindle, a very talented 'cellist, from the Chicago Orchestra, was the other soloist of the evening.
65He has a very brilliant technic and round full tone, but his playing is as cold as ice.
67He is a typical German and exhibited his native stubbornness before a large audience when he played for the Liederkranz concert a few weeks later.
69It was on account of the piano accompaniment, or the piano, I don't know which; but this much I do know, that there is no excuse under any circumstance for an artist to show off his Adam nature in public. It is an insult to the audience. In this case it is ignorance, for outside of music Steindle is not a cultured man in any sense of the word.
71Times are gone by when a musician of any kind can bring his temper on the stage. Refinement, education and good nature
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