Scan 6
Musical Courier 1894-11-21: Vol 29 Iss 767, 1894
54 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. 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.
9MARC A. BLUMENBERG, . . . . Editor-in-Chief.
10THE BERLIN, GERMANY, Branch Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 17 Link Str., W., is in charge of Mr. Otto Floersheim.
11THE LONDON, ENGLAND, Branch Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 15 Argyll St., Oxford Circus, W., is in charge of Mr. Frank Vincent Atwater.
12THE PARIS, FRANCE, Branch Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 86 Rue de Lafayette, is in charge of Fannie Edgar Thomas.
13THE CHICAGO OFFICE of THE MUSICAL COURIER is at 226 Wabash Ave.
14LEIPZIG, GERMANY: GEBRüDER HUG, Königstrasse 16.
15LONDON: Principal London Publishers.
16PARIS: BRENTANO'S, 37 Avenue de l'Opéra.
17Subscription (including postage), invariably in advance
18Yearly, $4.00; Foreign, $5.00; Single Copies, Ten Cents.
19RATES FOR ADVERTISING.
20PER INCH.
21Three Months………….$20.00 | Nine Months………….$60.00
22Six Months………….40.00 | Twelve Months………….80.00 one of two readings
23Six Months………….40.00 | Twelve Months………..80.00 one of two readings
24Special rates for preferred positions.
25All remittances for subscriptions or advertising must be made by check, draft or money orders, payable to THE MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY.
26Advertisements for the current week must be handed in by 5 P. M. on Monday.
27All changes in advertisements must reach this office by Friday noon preceding the issue in which changes are to take effect.
28American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents.
29Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents.
30ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1880.
31NO. 767.
32NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1894.
33LOVERS of violin playing will surely have no reason for complaint this season. With two such artists in the field as Thomson and Ysaye—representatives of two widely different schools—the violin will have a chance to be heard in the region where piano playing has hitherto dominated.
34IN the London "Daily News" we read with some surprise that Mr. Paderewski has entirely recovered from nervous debility and will begin a tour of the continent early in 1895. When this pianist canceled his engagements here for the season his excuse was that he was completely worn out and that his physicians forbade him playing in public for at least twelve months. His cure has been accomplished with remarkable celerity. What was Paderewski's "nervous debility," anyhow?
35SOME time ago we hinted at the possibility of a permanent orchestra being organized in London. The cable on Sunday last confirmed the news. George Henschel, so well known in this country, is to be the conductor and Daniel Mayer is the managing director of the orchestra which is to be formed in connection with the London Symphony Society. Mr. Henschel is an able musician, and Mr. Mayer's aptitude as business manager is indisputable. Altogether London's permanent orchestra begins its existence under the most flattering auspices.
36MASCAGNI is busy preparing his "Rantzau" for the International in Milan. He occupies in the Hotel Milan the Verdi apartments, so called from the fact that Verdi when at Milan has them at his disposal. Mascagni declares his pleasure to compose on the desk used by the old master. Lately the young man has become "King of Fashions." The dudes are beginning to imitate his ways and dress. No one would know to-day the former musical director of the "Cerignola" with his 100 lire a month salary! He sports a swallowtail coat with a white vest; his shirt bosom is adorned with large mother of pearl studs. His feet are encased in patent leather shoes, cut low so as to show his silk stockings, one of which is sky blue and the other red. This fad is much imitated by the would-be elegants. He remarked to a newspaper correspondent that he was the possessor of over 300 neckties, which were furnished him by Paris, Vienna, Berlin and London manufacturers. Besides the interest Mascagni evinces for stockings and neckties, it is said that he has time to do some composing.
37UNTIMELY APPLAUSE.
38COMMODORE ELBRIDGE T. GERRY, ex-commander of the New York Yacht Club and chief engineer of the Society for the Prevention of Singing and Dancing by Children, has not done many things to make himself notable in this world beyond wearing a fur cap in summer and building a private hospital in his new brick palace at Sixty-second street. But, owing to the persistence of the musical critic of the "Times" in quoting his words, he has become famous as the man who protested against the interruption of "the most delicious cavatinas" by "ill-timed applause." It does not affect his claims to immortality that the interruptions of which he complained were made by underbred people not occupying boxes during the reign of grand opera in German at the Metropolitan Opera House. The gallant steam commodore's protest seemed a trifle out of its course, owing to the infrequency of cavatinas in German opera; but he was nevertheless on the right tack.
39For when you come to think of it, most applause is untimely, even that which is given after the performance of a number. Have you, gentle and considerate reader, ever heard any musical performance that was not applauded? If you are a person of discernment in musical matters, you have doubtless often wished that the gods that sit far above galleries would launch their thunderbolts at the godless in the galleries and drive them into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of cable cars. For their untimely applause has often compelled you to listen to an encore number by a singer who ought to be crying bananas, a pianist who ought to be breaking rocks, or a fiddler who ought to be sawing wood.
40Then there are those unmentionable beings who burst into untimely applause after every solo passage in a concerto, destroying for the intelligent listener the organic unity of the composition, and unfitting his nerves for sympathetic vibration. And what shall we say of the beings who insist on applauding in the middle of a scene that ought to move one only to silence and tears? What must be the mental and emotional state of him who wishes to explode in noisy handclapping after the death of "Siegfried"?
41It is difficult to account for this habit, but there it is. Half a dozen men in the balcony of the opera house at a recent concert could not wait for the final pizzicato chords of an orchestral work, but must fire off their fleshly torpedoes before them, drowning them out and irritating every sensitive listener in the house. Again, the same fellows, when Gounod's "Ave Maria" was given, led a noisy demonstration at the close of the violin preface, thus drowning Mme. Melba's opening notes, and giving undue honor to the conspicuous fiddle sawyer who was gunning for just such notoriety.
42It would be interesting to know just what causes people to applaud so vigorously and so injudiciously. The undeniable fact that the great bulk of applause is injudicious proves that it does not in the majority of cases spring from an honest conviction that good work has been done and that it should be publicly approved; for, after all is said, the world is a pretty competent judge of artistic merit, and in music, as in politics, we can apply the famous words of Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time; but you can't fool all the people all the time."
43Is this untimely applause, then, the result of an irresistible emotion that must find some kind of an outlet? If we accept this solution of the problem we credit the majority of the human race with a susceptibility to musical influence which cannot be substantiated by any sound evidence. We suspect that the real causes of untimely applause are two: First, a desire to appear to know what is good, and second (and principally), from utter shallowness of feeling. Everyone knows that a pretty, superficial society woman, viewing for the first time some such sublime natural spectacle as Niagara, will exclaim, "Isn't it lovely!" The utter lack of just and profound appreciation and the silly desire to say something when one is not really moved to say anything lie at the bottom of ill-timed applause. The man or woman whose emotions are of a kind to be deeply touched is silent, while the person of cool, critical judgment will applaud from a desire to do justice, and will do it at the right time.
44WAGNER AS A BUSINESS MAN.
45IT is a matter of record that men of genius are extremely inexpert as financiers. One hardly knows just how to class Richard Wagner, however, for it appears that, although he was gifted by nature with especial facilities for getting rid of money, he also had a remarkable talent for acquiring that which he had not earned. It has frequently been said of him that he was perfectly right in his belief that the world ought to support him gratis while he was engaged in the herculean task of molding his majestic creations. But this claim might also be made for every man of genius that ever lived, and yet we all know that
46Seven cities claimed great Homer dead
47Through which the living Homer begged his bread.
48The world is a very hard-headed old customer, and it has decided that, like the Lord, it will help those that help themselves. The complaining Richard was no worse off than Mozart or Beethoven, though it must be admitted that the famous "Jew banker to whom it occurred to write music" had a little the best of him. Richard himself appears to have been pretty well aware of his incompetence to deal with more than one side of the financial ledger. "I am much better qualified," he wrote to Liszt, "to squander 80,000 francs in six months than to earn it." And in a letter to Praeger he said: "By nature I am luxurious, prodigal and extravagant, much more than Sardanapalus and all the old emperors put together."
49He began the exhibition of this facility for getting rid of money, even when he did not have it, when he borrowed cash to help him out in the production of "The Novice of Palermo," of which the failure left him uncomfortably deep in debt. While he dwelt at Riga these debts continued to grow, for the simple reason that he would not deprive himself of certain luxuries. As Mr. Finck notes: "He lived in an expensive suburb of the city, which compelled him to pay two or three times a day the cab fare between his house and the theatre." The only way out of trouble that Wagner saw was to write a begging letter to Manager Holtei, which concluded thus:
50"The opportunity to help me is present, and I am convinced you will seize on it joyfully, were it only in order that posterity might some day be able to say of you, 'He is the man who,' &c."
51The only result of this letter which is discoverable is the fact that Poor Richard's pecuniary embarrassments drove him out of Riga, and he went to Paris, where he came nigh unto starvation for lack of ability to distinguish between sous and centimes. It is hardly worth while to follow the constant flight of Wagner from creditors. It is true that his earnings in his early years were very small, but it is equally true that substantial sums were realized in after times, even in the early days of "Tannhäuser" in Paris. But it is on record that up to the very minute when Ludwig of Bavaria stepped in with the offer to keep the wolf from Poor Richard's door he was relentlessly pursued by men to whom he owed what he never would or could pay.
52Sauer, the king's emissary, hunted for the composer a week, and then met Baron Hornstein, who said: "I know where he is; he's at Stuttgart hiding from his creditors." Mr. Finck states on the authority of our old friend Vogl, the tenor, who had Wagner's own confirmation for his story, that the composer's "affairs had come to such a pass that he had decided to purchase a pistol to end his life, when he was saved by the timely arrival of the king's messenger."
53There was something radically defective in Wagner's organization or he would have driven better bargains than he did. According to the industrious and omniverous biographer whom we have already quoted the great master's income in the last year of his life amounted to $25,000. This seems, indeed, a princely sum for a musician dwelling in a very inexpensive country. But look at the absurd price which he received for the work of half a lifetime, "Der Ring des Nibelungen." The firm of B. Schott's Sons paid him $10,000 for the four dramas. Gilbert & Sullivan received in royalties for the "Pirates of Penzance," in England alone, $12,000. And for "Parsifal" Wagner got $15,000. Of course to these sums must be added such profits as accrued from the
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