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Musical Courier 1894-12-12: Vol 29 Iss 770, 1894
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1In the Concert World.
3MONDAY of last week the first of Albert Morris Bagby's "Morning Musicales" for this season took place at the Hotel Waldorf. The ball room, as on former occasions, was crowded to overflowing with the monde of the smartest. Mme. Libia Drog and Signor Ancona, from the opera, sang: Miss Martina Johnstone played the violin, and Mr. Orton Bradley furnished an opening piano solo and the accompaniments.
5It was a delightful concert. Mme. Drog sang Tessarin's "Sognai," and a song of Pinsuti's, "Libro Santo," with violin obbligato. The singer was in the mood to please, and readily accepted her encore to the first number. Sig. Ancona was in superb voice and sang nobly the prologue to "Pagliacci," Bemberg's "Chant Arabe," and for encore the "Toreador" song with splendid fire and dash. It's a noticeable fact that these artists of the opera of a rank with Sig. Ancona seem to sing better away from the glamour of the stage than when upon it. Vocally last season Calvé was never heard to the same advantage at the Metropolitan as at the few private musicales where she gave her services. It may be the absence of contrast; more probably the relief from the strain of dramatic action, but certain it seems that, to estimate the merits of a voice pure and simple, the private concert room affords the most flattering opportunity for the artist. Sig. Ancona had this largely feminine audience literally as well as virtually at his feet, and the incense of violets and flattering murmurs so unusually close to his nostrils and ears seemed to stimulate him to superlative effort.
7Miss Martina Johnstone played with grace and spirit a Wieniawski "Ballade et Polonaise." "She has a warm, sympathetic tone and always finds favor with an audience.
9On Monday afternoon at Hardman Hall Mr. Robert H. Hatch gave his eighth annual elocutionary recital in New York, assisted by Mrs. J. H. McKinley at the piano; Mr. J. H. McKinley, tenor, and Mr. Carl Dufft, erstwhile basso cantante, now billed "baritone." As discovered in other seasons, Mr. Hatch gives a good recitation and can hold the interest of an audience. He does best in mono-recitations, his voice not lending itself to sufficient variety for the impersonation of a number of characters.
11For this reason the "Winning Cup Race" was his best number, although his audience laughed moderately over the "Washington Swagger Coterie," where a variety of male and female personages talked almost inseparably alike.
13Mr. McKinley sang Flegier's "Stances," Foote's "Laughing Seas" and a charming song of Huntington Woodman, "Violet," all with sentiment and good taste. Two songs of Rubinstein and Rossini's "Pro Peccatis" were given with admirable feeling and sonority by Mr. Dufft. A piano solo, Moszkowski's "Etincelle," was played by Mrs. McKinley as an opening number.
15The second concert of the season by the Maud Powell String quartet was given at Chamber Music Hall on Tuesday evening, with the assistance of Mr. Henry Holden Huss, pianist. The program consisted of Dvorák's quartet in C major, sonata, op. 36, of Grieg, for piano and 'cello, and the Beethoven quartet No. 1 in F major. The hall was thronged and the enthusiasm and applause fairly unbounded. Maud Powell is a deservedly popular young woman, and as a solo violinist takes, even when measured by skilled male artists of native growth, an exceptional rank. Her finish, however, and beauty of tone have thus far not diffused themselves throughout the quartet. They phrase unanimously and play with precision and vigor—a great deal of vigor, which sometimes borders on crudity—but they are lacking in delicacy and shade. Later, when they have had more practice in approaching the level of their first violin, this should become an excellent quartet. At present, however, some of the leade.'s best effects are swallowed up in the unsympathetic obtrusion of her co-musicians.
17The two last movements of the Dvorák quartet, "Allegro" and "Vivace" went best because of their spirit and dash, and indeed were technically excellent. The quartet plays with commendable firmness.
19Mr. Henry Holden Huss played with Mr. Paul Miersch the Grieg sonata, of which the second movement with its sighing sobbing melody calls for so much sentiment and grace in performance. This charming "andante molto tranquillo" went dryly, and indeed while the entire "sonata" had some good moments on the part of both players the sympathetic spots were not predominant. Each man seemed to know his own share of the music, but did not know quite so well how to get along with his neighbor. More rehearsal was obviously needed.
21An evening of "Pantomime Readings," in which music played the principal part, was given on Tuesday by Miss Clementine Smedley, at the studio of Mr. Albert Thies, Carnegie Hall. The tenor himself sang among other numbers the "Du bist wie eine Blume" of Schumann—the first and real "Du bist"—with the truest feeling and purest artistic finish. Albert Thies sings delightfully, and it has always been contended by this concert goer that as a singer of songs he occupies a marked position. Miss G. Blackman, soprano, Miss C. S. Beach, violinist, and Miss Maud Kapral, a small maiden pianist, of about ten, contributed some agreeable numbers. The child pianist, a pupil of Miss Smedley, played Godard's "Second Waltz" surprisingly well, although she had to contend with the difficulty of a cinder in her eye.
23The American Concert Company, composed of Miss Lucia Nola, soprano; Miss Bertha Webb, violiniste; Miss Celia Schiller, pianist; Mr. William R. Squire, tenor; Mr. Adolf Dahm-Petersen, baritone; Miss Julia Levey, accompanist, gave a concert on Tuesday evening at Madison Hall, Madison avenue and 125th street. This concert company, lately sprung up, owes its inception to Miss Lucia Nola, who is a very ambitious and hard working soprano. Her voice is ample and agreeable, and as she has secured capable assistance, there would seem enough room for the combination to make a success. The program was lengthy but well selected, and was in general smoothly given.
25The most representative audience, musically speaking, of the week gathered at Chamber Music Hall on Wednesday afternoon to the Ethelbert-Nevin recital. They mustered so many scores strong that after the body and gallery of the hall both had been packed by standees the overflow had to take room in the hallways. They were here from the young woman who thumbs "Narcissus" to the educated musician who delights in the skill and grace with which Nevin has adapted the modern French mantle and expressed himself in his songs. They came for Nevin, and they got their Nevin "full measure and running over" to a surety. But as the young composer is at his very best when at Nevin, playing his own works charmingly, there was none too much of the individuality, and it was altogether one of the most delightful concerts in light and aerial vein heard in a long time in New York.
27Two études in form of "Romance" and "Scherzo" opened the program. The "Romance" has a Lisztian flavor, a singable melody set to a flowing left hand accompaniment, which Mr. Nevin played well. His left hand seems in better training than his right, as was emphasized later in Chaminade's "Lysonjera," where the theme in allegro is given to the left hand, and was one of Mr. Nevin's clearest bits of playing. The second theme of the "Scherzo" recalled wonderfully the "Pretty Gitana" chorus from "Maritana" in a new embroidered harmonic dress. Of course this was amusing, it being about as likely that Wallace should furnish an inspiration to Mr. Nevin as that Tschaikowsky should borrow a suggestion from "The Low-backed Car." Yet take the march movement of the "Sixth Symphony," and Peggy's tune appears note for note in the first phrases, with only altered rhythm. Harry Pepper unearthed Peggy's tune at his ballad concerts a season or two ago, so that it remains fresh in the public ear, and seemed to pop up again in the Sixth Symphony.
29As before said, Mr. Nevin played his own works well, his left hand in particular doing clean-cut service. When it came to Chopin the story was different. The Mazurka C sharp minor was hard and graceless. Of course the Pachmann association helped out the disappointment, but it was a surprise that the morceau lost its delicate sparkle in hands like Nevin's. The F minor fantaisie did not retrieve matters. The first movement was dry and much too fast, and the natural accent more than once strangely misplaced. Later, technic and phrasing alike became uncertain, and Mr. Nevin was obviously nervous. When the "Largo" was reached, however, he was in better form, and played it and the finale acceptably. The unexpected fact with Mr. Nevin was that, outside his own works, sympathy, grace, sentiment and his accustomed finesse seemed to forsake him and he became dully automatic. Again, in the Liszt "Liebestraum" he killed the spirit by a tempo too fast, and the tone was still further without a particle of lingering charm.
31A group of his own short pieces was delightful; a "Harlequin," modeled on Schumann; a "Love Song," "Song of the Brook" and "In Arcady," the latter divided into four short numbers, of which the "Shepherd's Tale," a bit of garrulity within the compass of two octaves in its first part, was originally clever. Mr. Nevin won unstinted applause, and when for the Rubinstein "Barcarolle" he substituted his own "Narcissus" the house came to his feet.
33Mrs. Julie L. Wyman sang with her usual feeling and fine warmth of tone a group of Nevin songs, of which the "Rappelle-Toi?" "Dites-Moi?" and "La Vie," were most charming. The latter is a setting of the famous Beranger lines, "La vie est vaine, un peu d'amour," &c., now popularized by "Trilby." In English Mrs. Wyman's pronunciation is against her. Where is the euphonious "of" which she can turn so musically in a foreign tongue? For encore she gave Nevin's "Oh, that We Two Were Maying," and the mellowness of her tone in medium register would suggest that by nature she belongs to the contraltos. She sang the low measures beautifully, although after her preceding high ones they had rather the effect of ventriloquism.
35On Wednesday evening the Orpheus Society, Arthur Mees, conductor, gave its first concert of the season at Madison Square Garden Concert Hall, assisted by Miss Bertha Harmon, soprano, and a string orchestra of a dozen pieces. Mr. Albert Greenhalgh presided efficiently at the piano.
37Mr. Arthur Mees is always sure to furnish a good program, including, as a rule, some number more elaborate than ordinarily put forward by kindred choral societies. This time it was Templeton Strong's dramatic chorus of the "Haunted Mill" with string orchestra and incidental soprano solo. As it was the most ambitious it was also the most successful work on the part of the singers, who present this season an excellent body of tone. The balance is equal and the bass section should be specially commended for its musical as well as sonorous quality. The "Jabberwocky" chorus, music set by Chadwick to words from Lewis Carroll's "Alice Through the Looking-glass," was effective and went well, while Werner's "Song of Harold Harfager" had to be repeated.
39Mr. Mees conducted spiritedly, and in the case of the little string band managed to draw some capital effects in Pierre's "Serenade," Grieg's "In Spring," the forever encorable "Loin du Bal" and other numbers. With his chorus Mr. Mees manages to exact precision, a clear, clean cut phrasing, without any of the spasmodic jerk, the positive guillotining of tone which finds favor with some conductors. The Orpheus Society sings with smooth accuracy and has no galvanic effects.
41Miss Bertha Harmon, who was well received, sang, among other numbers, the charming "Madrigal" of Victor Harris with much taste. She has a voice sweet and full in the upper register, but which loses resonance as she descends and in a mezza voce condition hardly travels beyond the footlights. Her solo work with the chorus was very well done.
43The chorus won immense applause. So did Miss Harmon. And the house that turned out was an extremely large and fashionable one.
45On Thursday morning at 11 Mr. Barend van Gerbig gave a Schumann piano recital in the ball room of the Hotel Waldorf to a good-sized audience. Mrs. Julie L. Wyman and Mr. Francis Fisher Powers assisted with some songs, accompanied by Victor Harris. Mr. Van Gerbig played the "Papillons," Nos. 2, 4 and 5 of the "Kreisleriana," the No. 8 "Novelette" and, by request, the "Faschingschwank" and the two short pieces, "Aufschwung" and "Warum." Mr. Van Gerbig is a Scandinavian, if we mistake not, and was first heard here in public three seasons ago, when he failed to create any emotional response in his audience, while at the same time leaving an impression of confirmed technical ability. He has not very much altered, and the apathy of his audience the other morning was strong enough to communicate itself to the player and evidently did deter him from doing himself full justice for a time. He warmed up, however, in the "Faschingschwank," which was well interpreted. Mr. Van Gerbig's chord playing is excellent, and a work like the "Faschingschwank" finds him at better advantage than compositions of fluency or sentimental grace. It brought him warm applause, which was cordially deserved.
47Mrs. Wyman, who apologized at the beginning for not feeling in the best voice, nevertheless sang as usual, delightfully. For songs of Chaminade and Tschaikowsky she substituted the less difficult ones of Nevin, "La Vie" and "The Merry, Merry Lark." She is indeed a charming artist and her return to New York is thrice welcome to lovers of pure lyric art.
49Max Spicker's "Erinnerung" and Victor Harris' "Nachtlied" were sung by Mr. F. F. Powers. The "Erinnerung" is a battle horse for Mr. Powers, bringing out his splendid tonal volume in full power, and again giving opportunity for that delightful mezza voce which he uses with such excellent art. It has a perfect calling quality. As a song Victor Harris' "Nachtlied," with its brilliant accompaniment, calls only for admiration, and Mr. Powers sang it exquisitely.
51Mrs. Anna Spanuth, a new mezzo-soprano, gave a concert on Friday evening at Steinway Hall, assisted by Xaver Scharwenka, pianist, and Anton Hegner, cellist. Mrs. Spanuth ran a large risk of self obliteration in the choice of her assistants, who certainly furnished the strong meat of the program. Nevertheless the lady was received with great warmth, which she quite duly earned. She sang songs of Franz, Rubinstein, Scharwenka and Schubert in a large, pure and even voice, which showed a pretty and tender coloring in Schubert's "Du bist die ruh." Scharwenka, like the true inward Schumann scholar that he is, acquitted himself nobly in the "Carnaval," and in the D minor sonata of Rubinstein for piano and 'cello both he and Mr. Hegner were on equal artistic terms. It was admirably played. Mr. Hegner played three solo compositions of his own for the first time—"Longing," "Gavot" and "à la Tarantella"—and Scharwenka closed the program with Liszt's "Rossignol" and a "Valse" and "Spanish Serenade" of his own. There was a large audience and much enthusiasm. Mr. Herman Wetzler accompanied.
53The New York Trio Club, an organization just formed, gave its initial concert also on Friday evening at the New York College of Music hall, assisted by Mr. Albert G. Thies, tenor. Paolo Gallico, pianist; Jan Koert, violin, and H. Kronold, 'cello, compose the trio, which in its new and special field may be looked forward to as accomplishing much interesting work with success. There is plenty for
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