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Musical Courier 1894-06-20: Vol 28 Iss 745, 1894
64 lines. Read by computer on 20 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 under the Laws of the State of New York.)
619 Union Square W., New York.
7TELEPHONE: – – – 1253-18th.
8Cable Address, "Pegujar," New York.
9EDITORS:
10MARC A. BLUMENBERG. OTTO FLOERSHEIM.
11JAMES G. HUNEKER. HARRY O. BROWN.
12HUGH CRAIG.
13BUSINESS DEPARTMENT:
14SPENCER T. DRIGGS. FRANK M. STEVENS.
15EPES W. SARGENT. C. H. DITTMAN.
16A. T. KING.
17EUROPEAN BRANCH OFFICE:
18OTTO FLOERSHEIM, 17 Link Str.,
19Berlin W., Germany.
20CHICAGO OFFICE: 226 Wabash Ave.
21JOHN HALL, MANAGER.
22BROOKLYN OFFICE: 296 Fulton Street.
23J. E. VAN HORNE, MANAGER.
24BOSTON OFFICE: 32 West St.
25LEIPZIG, GERMANY: GESELLER HUG, Königstrasse 16.
26LONDON: J. B. CRAMER & CO., 201 Regent St.
27PARIS: BRENTANO'S, 37 Avenue de l'Opera.
28Subscription (including postage), invariably in advance:
29Yearly, $4.00; Foreign, $5.00; Single Copies, Ten Cents.
30RATES FOR ADVERTISING.
31PER INCH.
32Three Months………….$20.00 Nine Months………….$60.00
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36Advertisements for the current week must be handed in by 5 P. M. on Monday.
37All changes in advertisements must reach this office by Friday noon preceding the issue in which changes are to take effect.
38American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents.
39Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents.
40ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1880.
41NO. 745.
42NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1894.
43At the close of this week the great National Saengerfest, for which preparations have been made for the past year, will begin at the Madison Square Garden. The Festival will be conducted on a scale of magnitude which will simply throw into the shade all previous affairs of the sort. Full details will be found elsewhere in this issue.
44The management of the Thomas Orchestra of Chicago for local concerts is in the hands of a most energetic and intelligent woman, Anna Millar, who has made arrangements to have the permanent office in the warerooms of Lyon & Healy. The management of the concerts outside of the city of Chicago is in the hands of Mr. George H. Wilson, who will arrange the programs and routes.
45Next fall Wagner's "Lohengrin" will be produced at Milan under a German Wagner conductor. The opera will be given in Italian at the del Verme Theatre, though the artists will be Germans, who have made the Italian stage their own. In the cast will be Alfred Rittershaus as "Lohengrin," Mrs. Kupfer-Berger as "Elsa," and Mr. Luria as "Telramund." There are to be a number of representations, and the stage setting will be copied from that of Bayreuth.
46The official report of the fifth annual meeting of the New York State Music Teachers' Association has just been received. The meeting occurred at Rochester June 27, 28 and 29, 1893, and the cause for the delay in the publication of the volume is given on page 181 of the pamphlet as follows:
47This report is issued late in the season, owing to inability on the part of the finance committee to provide funds for publishing the same—circumstances over which the secretary and editor had no control. Much care has been given to make the membership list accurate and reliable. If any names have been omitted by mistake please notify the secretary promptly, with the date of last payment of annual dues.
48The Finance Committee wish to hereby exonerate Mr. Von der Heide, the secretary and editor, from the delay in issuing the annual report of 1893 of the meeting at Rochester. The great difficulty experienced in procuring advertisements, caused by the general depression in business and the absolute refusal of many persons and firms to renew their advertisements who have been advertisers in the report and program heretofore, have handicapped the committee in providing funds wherewith to pay for the printing of the report. The secretary had his part of the report ready for the printer before January last, but has had to wait for the advertisements, and the book will now have to be published with a deficit, which must be provided for at the meeting of the association in Buffalo.
49There has been some discussion in London as to the relative merits of Duse and Calvé in "Cavalleria Rusticana," which seems rather foolish, for as everyone knows Calvé modeled her conception of "Santuzza" after Duse's, and then it is difficult to institute comparisons between a singing and speaking actress. Calvé has the glamour of the music to aid her, Duse nothing but her own genius; but when you say that all is said. Eleonora Duse is incomparably the greater artist of the two.
50A CHESTER CHURCH SCANDAL.
51At Chester, England, a church scandal has disturbed the usually placid religious element, and the matter has now been settled in court in the following fashion. It may be remembered that a Miss Williams had been accused of being a "public nuisance," as her singing in the cathedral gave great offense. The chief witnesses against the defendant were the organist, the principal singer, several clergymen and the dean. All were unanimous in condemning Miss Williams' actions. They maintained that she not only had sung out of tune, but that she habitually interrupted the choir by her singing. The dean affirmed that he saw the boys of the choir often laugh or at least smile on account of this behavior. As for the organist, he stated that he was made actually sick. He declared that if this lady had only sung in tune he would not say much about it, but she sang in such an extraordinary and impossible manner! Every note she sang was false, and he had been forced repeatedly to stop the music on her account.
52Miss Williams pleaded her own case. She declared that she was not conscious of doing wrong, that she had comported herself always, when in the cathedral, in keeping with a deep religious feeling, and that if her singing appeared to come through her nose, it nevertheless came from the bottom of her heart, &c. The magistrate held that Miss Williams' zeal was excessive, and condemned her to pay the costs of the court, and to keep the peace for six months, under penalty of a fine of $50 for each infringement on this order.
53MORE WAGNER LETTERS.
54On the 21st of May the antiquarian, Albert Cohen, of Berlin, sold a very interesting collection of documents referring to famous poets and composers. Among them were letters of Goethe and Heine, Grillparzer and Kant, Lessing and Schopenhauer, Schiller and Kleist, Gluck and Beethoven. Here we may confine ourselves to Wagner, the young Wagner, the Wagner of his Riga days, and his hitherto unknown letters, in which we see his early struggles and his artistic self confidence.
55"Riga, 12 Nov." (1838) is the date of one closely written letter. On one page is, in a tone of exaggerated politeness, a summons of the members of the Riga orchestra to a rehearsal of Beethoven's A major symphony. On the reverse, and, when space failed on the front also, Wagner had written a sketch of a very characteristic and biographically interesting communication to August Lewald. He said that he offered an opera to Scribe, as "I am resolved rather to remain fifteen years 'in utter obscurity' than seek my fortune by means of the German hole-and-corner theatres," adding that he had sketched pretty fully the subject for a grand five-act opera based on König's romance "Die höwen Braut" and sent a passable French translation to Scribe which he could easily versify; "then I would compose the opera, and he could see that it was produced in Paris under its author's name and with his poetic prestige." The material results were to be at Scribe's disposal. Scribe had previously stated, in reply to a second letter in which Wagner had enclosed the score of his "Liebesverbot," that he had not received the first, and when Wagner had sent him a second copy of his scenario, Scribe had made no answer.
56He therefore begs Lewald to bring Scribe up to the mark. "In spite of my most ardent longing for the South my stupid fortune has pushed me still farther toward the North. But I cherish my hopes and plans. If the subject does not please Scribe I have another. I am already working on a grand opera, 'Rienzi.' This is undoubtedly a grander subject than the other, and I intend to compose it in German, just to make the experiment whether there is any possibility of seeing it at the Berlin Grand Opera in the next fifty years, if God gives me life. Perhaps it may please Scribe, and then 'Rienzi' will triumph in French." He wants a large theatre. God knows what he would have produced if he had only had the doors open to him. "If I am not emancipated in fifteen years I shall become so arrogant as to write operas for Frankfort on the Oder or Tilsit." He incloses the score of a poem in the "Livonian mode." The opera, however, God be thanked, is not Livonian. Then a postscript to Lewald urging him to persuade Scribe.
57Another letter, also dated from Riga, contains on one side a few jesting lines to his wife, and on the reverse the draft of a long letter to the stage manager of the Riga Theatre, a detailed account of his dealings with Director Holtes; that he had been actually music director after the departure of the first capellmeister, an enumeration of his work at the theatre, his services in the productions, &c.: "I am willing to work day and night, but I want to be helped. Therefore, short and to the point, I beg you to grant a complete abrogation of my contract, and in return I promise to undertake everything that you can lay upon my shoulders, with the exception of blacking boots and carrying water, for which last task my chest is too weak. I would even copy music if I did not fear that the melancholy occupation would darken my temperament." He is sure the manager will help him, and then future ages will be able to say of him: "This was the man, who," &c.
58An unpublished letter to Ernst Kossak is dated November 23, 1847, from Dresden. It begins, "Dear Friend: I have just now gradually arrived at the point of being pretty well free of all evil Berlin impressions. The number of my friends is small, and therefore I must more carefully see that I lose none of them. What must I do to keep you? My Berlin ambition is ended, and what consoles me is the knowledge that without it I can go farther forward." He speaks of an admirable performance of "Tannhäuser," at which the King of Prussia had assisted with the liveliest interest. "I am not ashamed to confess that this opera on that occasion gave me great pleasure." "My friend, what is all our preaching to the public? There is a dam to break through, and the means is Revolution!"
59There are not in the Cohn collection such interesting letters from other composers; the most interesting things are manuscript scores, such as the original of Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz," and a letter of Liszt, dated Buda-Pesth, February 15, 1882, in which he writes, "Of the concert business I refrain from speaking, for it is all dust and dirt."
60A STORY FROM LONDON.
61Lady Aberdeen, so it is said, had herself driven to a music store in London, where she selected the latest compositions—Cowen, Léoncavallo's "Berceuse," Sullivan's symphonies, in fact all the pieces en vogue at the present time. The handsome lady appeared to have finished her purchases. As she laid a gold piece on the counter—"Oh! I beg," she said to the music clerk, whose heart was fluttering under the glimmer of her pretty eyes; "Oh! I beg let me have 'One kiss before we part.'" "Wha—wha—what?" faltered the clerk, who expected anything but that. "'One kiss before we part,'" repeated the pretty purchaser in a most winning tone of voice.
62Could he withstand this seeming plea! No! Casting a furtive glance about the shop, he closed his eyes, shot out his arms, drew the elegant head of the handsome woman toward him and pressed a luscious kiss on her lips. A cry, a sound like a slap on the cheek, a commotion, a scene. The clerk was dismissed on the spot; no excuses were accepted. In the court followed a sequel—the countess complained on account of the kiss, which gave her great offense—the clerk sued for damages for the loss of his position.
63The first case is decided against him and his own suit dismissed. At an appeal he won the first case, as it was held that his action toward Lady Aberdeen was the result of her irresistible charms. His com-
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