Scan 23
Musical Courier 1894-12-12: Vol 29 Iss 770, 1894
95 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 22. See the scan on archive.org.
1of a newly published romanza for viola and piano by Michael Cross, dedicated to Mr. Roggenberger. The piece is a mellifluous one, and conceived in the gentle, idyllic vein which its composer fancies.
3* * *
4I remember, too, that Max Heinrich played the second fiddle part in a Haydn quartet after only a month's study. He always had lots of musical "nerve."
6* * *
7Anton Rubinstein's autobiography will doubtless be greatly in vogue. It is very interesting. As for the Rubinstein anecdotes, people are going down into their cellars and digging them up.
9* * *
10Here they come!
11"The following episode, as related by Miss Emma E. Clark, now of the faculty of Chicago National College of Music, illustrates Rubinstein's love of childish simplicity and humor. During the Berlin season of 1893, previous to a charity concert which Rubinstein was to conduct, the most intimate friends and noted musicians of that great musical centre were invited to a special recital given and conducted by that great artist. Herr Wilhelm Berger's little son Alvin, a special favorite of Rubinstein, was enjoying the special treat among the audience, and at the close of an orchestral composition, before the applause had broken forth, the little youth shouted: 'Bravo! bravo!' to the amusement of audience and orchestra, even Rubinstein himself smiling. At the close of the recital our lamented musician took little Alvin upon the platform and asked: 'Well, my little man, why did you say 'bravo' after Uncle Rubinstein's composition?' 'Because it was through with,' was the artless reply. 'Ah!' remarked the amused and disappointed composer, affectionately patting the little four year old, 'Children and fools always speak the truth.'"
13Here's another:
14In 1890 Rubinstein was to be impersonated at St. Petersburg, in a play called "The Symphony." The actor Davidoff, who was to take the rôle, called upon the composer for hints. "If you wish to look like me," exclaimed Rubinstein, "remember, above all things, little nose and much hair." Davidoff took the hint and made a great "hit."
16And yet another:
17"A well-known woman once asked Rubinstein, the famous pianist, for a ticket to one of his concerts. 'Madame,' he replied, 'I have only one seat at my disposition. But if you do not object to occupying it I shall gladly give it to you.' The happy woman asked where it was. 'At the piano,' replied the great musician, with a bow."
18This joke reminds me of the yet more antique one about Rubinstein declaring to someone that he was descended from one of the Crusaders who accompanied Richard Cœur de Lion to Palestine. "On the piano presumably, Cher Anton" was the smiling response. Rubinstein hated Von Bülow, and once at a banquet gave a toast to Liszt saying: "Vive notre feld-marechal Liszt; nous deux; mon cher Bülow nous ne sommes que de simple soldats du piano." To which Bülow replied not, but whispered: "Speak for yourself, you Russian bear." This is not authenticated.
20* * *
21I fancy that I could tell a Rubinstein story myself. Perhaps I will next week.
23* * *
24I begin to fear that Rubinstein had no musical message to deliver to us.
25His "Ocean Symphony," with its fatal fluency, its facile phrases, its lack of profile, its tremendous garulity and its want of individuality was a prolonged bore.
26You see, I am frank. I don't like Rubinstein's work in larger forms, and particularly does this symphony weary me.
27It says nothing new; broad as its composer endeavored to make his canvas, yet he never hints at the sublimity of his theme.
28Oh for even a wilderness of the muddy harmonic morasses of Brahms, rather than the endless phrase spinning of Anton Rubinstein!
30* * *
31The scherzo has a glimmer of his powerful personality, but even its trio is hopelessly Mendelssohn in idea.
32The last allegro throws out hopes at times, but the work in its endless entirety is a failure and reminds me of a two volume novel by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Rubinstein wrote many notes, yet he never added a sentence to the literature of the symphony.
34* * *
35Reginald De Koven chasing a fire engine one morning last week about 9:30 or so, was the most astonishing thing Irving place, near Twentieth street, has witnessed for many moons.
36And Mr. De Koven had good reason for sprinting after the valuable machine. When he pulled open the folding doors of his library a sheet of flame about as big as the one that blistered "Siegfried" on "Brunhilda's" rock leaned very viciously toward him.
37It didn't take the composer of "Rob Hood" and "Robin Roy" long to understand the situation. Yelling out a fire motif in C minor (Reggie studied singing with Vanucinni in Florence, you know), he reached the street in alla breve tempo.
38An alarm was sent, and he returned to the house to fight the fire fiend (as they say in Jersey City). Then the man who gave the signal got into a controversy with a policeman about the tint of Dr. Parkhurst's whiskers, and so it came to pass when the engines arrived there was no one to tell them that 83 Irving place was being gutted; but, like a patent stove, it was consuming its own smoke and gave no sign outside.
39Then it was that Mr. De Koven, casting dignity to the winds and recalling memories of athletic days in Oxford, chased the "machine" and brought it back. Damages, a rough estimate, $1,000.
40Mr. De Koven, when I saw him, was covered with scores and soot. He had, he said, local color for a new opera to be called "L'Enfer; or, Who Stole the Hose Pipe?"
42* * *
43Young Leonard Liebling writes to me that I did not do the cut of his hair justice in my remarks about long haired pianists. I humbly beg the young gentleman's pardon. He sends me his picture, and a handsome fellow he is, with about the same unbraggable growth on his skull as Captain Hinkey, of football fame. I only used the clipping that was sent me from a Utica newspaper, and which dwelt on the length of Mr. Liebling's locks. When I saw him last summer he looked normal, nor did I think for a moment of alluding to him when I spoke of untidy pianists. So with this clean bill of health I hope he will rest satisfied and scramble after the shekels and scales like his Uncle Emil, for whom I have an abiding admiration. He is young yet, and so ambitious. I wish I were both. Besides he bunched me with such short haired celebrities as Bülow, Rummel and Emil Liebling, and what poor, unfortunate chronicler of musical events can resist such flattery?
45* * *
46Mr. Liebling, by the way, is an athlete, and won the half mile dash of the German Athletic Association. His time was two minutes and eight and one-fifth seconds. That endears him more to my heart than if he played the octaves in the A flat polonaise faster than Pachmann, the master of gargonzola and grimaces.
48* * *
49I feel to-day very much as poor, crazy Gerard de Nerval did when he led about a lobster with a blue ribbon. He said: "Why is a lobster any more ridiculous than a cat, or a dog, or a gazelle, or any other beast that will follow man? Besides, I enjoy the company of lobsters. They are quiet; they are serious; they know the secrets of the sea; they do not bark." Poor, dead poet! he reminds me of Bartley Campbell, the dramatist, whom I once saw trailing a tin dog through Union square in broad daylight. We too in Arcady, dear reader, who has not pranked and become heady with the strong wine of youth? I remember once with Harry Shelley, who is as sober and as serious as Brooklyn, the town he adorns, seizing the hand organ of an Italian and playing crank duets opposite Chickering Hall one night. I blush as I score these words, but it is a fact. And all the while inside sang like an angel lovely Alice Mandelick and others of the winged choir of Frida de Gebele Ashforth. But those were the days when cider, like ginger, burnt hot in the mouth.
51* * *
52A query comes to me of this kind. A correspondent asks the question, "How should the parts in a quartet be placed? Is it right or wrong for the bass to stand next to the soprano?" Now this raises a delicate question. The parts of a quartet naturally depend on the quartet. If the bass stands next to the soprano, doesn't that largely depend on the soprano? If the soprano does not wish the bass to stand next to her let him be placed by the tenor, and let the tenor do the standing, for are not most tenors in good standing in society? Selah! Next!
54* * *
55Out in Minneapolis they have a Dean, Sudduth by name, who belongs to the University of Minnesota, who is hypnotizing a man into singing. We want Dean Sudduth badly in New York, and we want him soon. He might be able to hypnotize several singers I know into silence, for it's a poor rule that won't work both ways.
57* * *
58Fond Mother—"Do you think, professor, that my daughter will become a fine pianist?"
59Professor Von Thump—"I am afraid not, madame. But after another year's practice her fingers will be limbered up so dot she can make a brilliant success mit a typewriter."
61* * *
62Don't forget that MacDowell plays his D minor concerto at the Philharmonic concerts Friday afternoon and Saturday night next.
64* * *
65"Paur but honest" is what a Scotch violinist said to me the other night, referring to the reading of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony by the conductor of the Boston Orchestra.
67Where They Are.
68MANAGERS will please furnish us with advance dates of their routes to reach this office before Friday noon of each week to insure proper revision.
69LOUIS C. ELSON.—December 12, Miss Lougee's School, Boston; 13, Peabody, Mass.; 18, Brown University, Providence, R. I.; 28, Harvard, Mass.
70DORA VALESCA BECKER.—December 12, Brooklyn, N. Y., Cecelia Society; 13, Arion Society, Newark, N. J.; 14, Essex Lyceum, Newark, N. J.; 17, Carl Recital, New York; January 20, Chickering Hall, New York; April 10, 1888, Brooklyn, N. Y., Art Concerts.
71SOUSA'S BAND.—December 12, Washington, D. C.; 13, Baltimore, Md.; 14, matinée, Wilmington, Del.; 14 and 15, Philadelphia, Pa.; 16, Brooklyn, N. Y.; 17, Taylor Opera House, Trenton, N. J.; 18, Able Opera House, Easton, Pa.
72MAUD POWELL STRING QUARTET.—December 13, Rochester, N. Y.; 18, New York city, Madison Square Concert Hall.
73NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC CLUB. Eugene Weiner, Director.—December 14, Passaic, N. J.; 18, Plainfield, N. J.
74MOZART SYMPHONY CLUB OF NEW YORK.—December 13, Paterson, N. J.; 14, Dover, N. J.; 15, Flemington, N. J.; 17, Kutztown, Pa.; 18, Harrisburg, Pa.; 19 and 20, Tyrone, Pa.; 21, Elmira, N. Y.; 22, Iliion, N. Y.; 26 and 27, Washington, D. C.; 28, Pittsburgh, Pa.
76Ysaye.—The violinists of this city are to give a dinner to Ysaye at Martin's December 20. Richard Arnold is chairman of the committee having the matter in charge. Ysaye has signed for twenty supplementary concerts, and has also signed a contract to return to this country in the season of 1896-97.
78MUSICAL LITERATURE.
79"Germany's Famous Composers."
80By MAUDE ALLEN. A fascinating little book of biography. White and silver illumined cover. $1.00.
81"Ritter's Student's History of Music."
82From the Christian era to the present. Cloth, $2.50.
83"Ritter's History of Music."
84Carefully condensed. Very thorough. 2 Vols. Each, Cloth, $1.25.
85"Young People's Illustrated History of Music."
86Historical facts interestingly set forth, with short biographical sketches and portraits of famous musicians. $1.00.
87"Science and Art of Music."
88By ROBERT CHALONER. An invaluable book of reference, with marginal notes. 365 pages, $1.50.
89"Ludden's Pronouncing Dictionary of Musical Terms."
90A standard work. Boards, $1.00; Cloth, $1.25.
91Any book sent postpaid on receipt of price. Send for Catalogue of Musical Literature.
92Oliver Ditson Company
93453-463 Washington St., Boston
94C.H. DITSON & CO., N.Y. J.E. DITSON & CO., Phila.
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