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Musical Courier 1895-01-09: Vol 30 Iss 774, 1895
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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., Oxf. &c. Circus, W., is in charge of Mr. Frank Vincent Attecker.
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.
14THE BOSTON OFFICE of THE MUSICAL COURIER is at 17 Beacon Street.
15LEIPZIG, GERMANY: GEBRüDER HUG, Königstrasse 16.
16LONDON: Principal London Publishers.
17PARIS: BRENTANO'S, 37 Avenue de l'Opéra.
18Subscription (including postage), invariably in advance:
19Yearly, $4.00; Foreign, $5.00; Single Copies, Ten Cents.
20RATES FOR ADVERTISING.
21PER INCH.
22Three Months………….$25.00 Nine Months………….$75.00
23Six Months……………..50.00 Twelve Months………..100.00
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. 774.
32NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1895.
33NOTICE.
34New subscribers to insure prompt delivery of THE MUSICAL COURIER should remit the amount of their subscription with the order.
35THE attention of our readers is called to an article entitled "Annual Meeting" in the Musical Instrument department of this issue.
36A STEP far in advance of any yet made by the Broad Street Conservatory, of Philadelphia, is the engagement of Leopold Godowsky as principal piano teacher at the school. Mr. Godowsky will prove of inestimable artistic value to the conservatory.
37TALK about artistic rivalry—just read the story of the man who was recently expelled by the police from the Theatre Royale, at The Hague. The man was hissing and he hissed the "Song to Aegir." He was a composer and probably felt jealous of his royal rival. And yet they say Europe is not a hotbed of anarchy!
38PROBABLY only a few guileless persons in country neighborhoods still cling to the idea that people make money by the ordinary concert—that is, the kind of concert which has most artistic value or most interest for lovers of music. An orchestral conductor may in the course of many unprofitable seasons gradually form an audience of paying subscribers, and ultimately make his concerts self supporting: but the balance of profit, even after the undertaking has achieved success, is such as would be considered ludicrously small by financial experts. And if the larger concerts do not pay, the smaller affairs in which one performer's name figures as "giving the concert" are scarcely nearer the point of solvency, if the thing is looked at soberly.
39Though the concert giver usually makes what seems a large sum, he is laid under so many obligations to the artists who have helped him gratuitously, and to the kind "patrons" who have taken tickets, that the net pecuniary advantage to himself is uncommonly small. What seems like an interchange of civilities between artists is as a matter of business nothing more or less than a mutual mortgage of services. I do not for a moment mean to imply that so sordid a view is commonly taken by artists, who, as a rule, are the kindliest of the human race in such respects as these, and who, to put the thing on lower grounds, know well that it is to their advantage to be heard under any conditions.
40WARDEN PATRICK HAYES, of the Kings County Penitentiary, believes in music as a factor in keeping peace and breeding content among his lambs. So he allowed them the musical instruments such as their relatives and friends provided, and also the privilege of singing. "The Recorder" in a news article describes the effect:
41Promptly at 7 o'clock a keeper in the long and short term prison rang a big gong four times. This was the signal for the music to begin, and 1,050 convicts went to work with all their might to make as much noise in rhythmic waves as possible. The owners of the 150 instruments struck up different tunes and songs, and for the first ten or fifteen minutes it seemed as if everybody was singing a different song at the top of his voice, and each fellow was trying to make more music than his neighbor. The combined roar from over a thousand throats was more than any ordinary tympanum could stand, and the keepers went anxiously about the corridors with their hands over their ears.
42We think that it would only be a just punishment to send to this jail the music critic that calls Wagner's music noisy. A course of symphonic concerts in Mr. Hayes' concert halls would convert the most incorrigible hater of Wagner.
43THE following quotation shows the mysterious union which existed between religion and music in the early ages of India, and the intensity of feeling which realized the sacramental character of nature:
44"Listen to the Voice which filleth all, thy Master's Voice, the Sevenfold Breath of the One Soul, the inner sound.
45"The first is like the nightingale's sweet voice chanting a song of parting to his mate.
46"The second is the sound of a silver cymbal awakening the twinkling stars.
47"The third breathes the melodious plaint of the ocean sprite imprisoned in her shell.
48"The fourth is the chant of Vina.
49"The fifth shrills in thine ear like the melody of the bamboo flute.
50"The sixth changes into a trumpet blast.
51"The seventh vibrates like the peal of a lowering thundercloud, swallowing up all other sounds, which die and are heard no more.
52"Thus shalt thou climb upward by the mystic stair to the Power Divine, and merge thyself in Him."
53FOR the benefit of students and lovers of the violin we have opened a new department in musical criticism. Mr. Arthur M. Abell, our Berlin correspondent and assistant of Mr. Floersheim, will from now on make a specialty of writing on violin playing. The number of violin virtuosi appearing in Berlin each season is surprisingly large, much larger than in any other city of the world. This makes such a special line of criticism feasible. As to its advisability, we think no one will deny that detailed critical and analytical accounts of the playing of these artists by an expert can fail to be of great interest, and, what is more, of value to students of the instrument all over our country, the most of whom enjoy limited advantages in the way of hearing violin playing of a high order.
54Mr. Abell's criticisms will not necessarily be limited to violin solos; 'cello playing and chamber music performances will also receive his attention. He will deviate somewhat from the course of the ordinary critic, in that he will devote considerable attention to the technical methods pursued by representative artists of the different schools, with a view to giving information that will be of practical benefit to the students and teachers—a feature of criticism which, on account of the difficulties and complications of the violin, is of course beyond the scope of the general critic.
55A talented and enthusiastic violinist himself, Mr. Abell has for the past four and a half years been studying under the greatest masters abroad, and is eminently fitted for this particular line of work.
56We trust that all those of our readers who are interested in the violin and its ever increasing popularity will be glad to learn of this new and unique feature of our foreign correspondence.
57SOUR ON PAUR.
58MR. HENDERSON wrote the following in the "Times" last Sunday:
59"Be ye faithful unto death" is the motto of the Boston scribes. This is how Philip Hale rejoices in the "Journal" that Boston got Paur instead of Richter:
60"Here is a remarkable instance of narrowness, if the statements are true. Hans Richter loved Wagner so that he therefore felt obliged to hate Rubinstein. He has prohibited the members of the Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he is the leader, from playing at the Rubinstein Festival to be held at the Singakademie, and Rubinstein's works are not allowed on the programs of the Philharmonic concerts. This deplorable attitude is the cause for much comment in musical circles in Vienna.
61"It is in many ways an excellent thing for Boston that Hans Richter did not succeed Mr. Nikisch as leader of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In the first place, he is in his fifty-second year, and good judges say that he is careless in drill and slovenly at times in his public conducting. He is an ultra Wagnerite, 'sot' in his notions, and narrow in his ideas concerning modern music. He is a fine example of the old saying, 'No bigot like a radical.'
62"When, in the natural course of events Mr. Paur decides to return to his fatherland—for it is not likely that he looks forward to a family vault in Jamaica Plain—why should we not have a Frenchman, an Italian, a Russian, a Swede, or, better yet, an American, for a leader? Why do otherwise sensible and reasoning creatures believe that music was a special revelation to the Germans, and that German conductors are born with batons in their hands? There is no more ridiculous fetish in the world than this slavish and unreasonable adoration of the German Muse.
63"Yes, but there is a cloud no bigger perhaps than a man's hand on the musical horizon. There is an undercurrent of grumbling in Boston about Mr. Paur and his cast iron beat, and the grumbling is done by the music critics. Mr. Hale's effusion, quoted above, might profitably be read between the lines. Whether Mr. Paur is or is not a great conductor is not the question now. What principally concerns Mr. Higginson is that the Boston Symphony orchestra has unquestionably lost some of its prestige during the past year.
641894.
65THE musical record of 1894 in this city opened with a performance of "Lohengrin" on January 1 at the Metropolitan Opera House with the De Reszkés, Lassalle, Emma Eames and Fursch-Madi in the cast. On January 2 Pachmann began a new series of recitals at Chickering Hall. On January 8 "I Maestri Cantori" was sung at the opera, and on January 9 Mascagni's "L'Amico Fritz" was received coldly. On January 13 Mme. Melba made her first appearance in "Semiramide." On the same evening the Kneisel Quartet produced Dvorák's quartet in F, op. 96, and quintet in E flat, op. 97. On January 15 the Bostonians produced T. P. Thorne's "The Maid of Plymouth" at the Broadway Theatre. On January 18 the Church Choral Society produced Harry Rowe Shelley's "Vexilla Regis." On January 29 the Paris version of "Tannhäuser" was sung in Italian at the Opera, and on January 31 Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" was revived.
66On February 9 the Kneisel Quartet produced a new quartet by D'Albert. On February 11 the Philharmonic Society produced Christian Sinding's D minor symphony, op. 21. On February 13 "Die Walküre" was sung in German at Music Hall. Bach's "St. Matthew" Passion was sung by the Oratorio Society on February 24. On the same evening the American Symphony Orchestra made its début. February 24 was also the last night of the Winter opera season. On March 3 Courtlandt Palmer, pianist, made his début. On March 9 the Philharmonic Society produced Victor Herbert's second 'cello concerto. On March 15 Peri's "Euridice" was performed by Franklin Sargent's pupils. On March 16 Mme. Adelina Patti made her last appearance here. On March 16 the Symphony Society produced Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony. On March 26 Gilbert & Sullivan's "Utopia" was produced at the Broadway Theatre. On March 27 Arthur Friedheim produced his own piano concerto at Music Hall. "Die Göttterdammerung" was given in German at the Opera House on March 28. Ben Davies, the English tenor, made his début on March 31.
67The spring opera season opened on April 16. Massenet's "Werther" was sung for the first time in America on April 19. The opera season closed on April 27. Barnet & Chadwick's "Tabasco" was produced on May 14 at the Broadway. The German Saengerfest took place at Madison Square Garden June 23 and 24. Della Fox appeared in "The Little Trooper" at the Casino on August 30. De Wolf Hopper produced "Dr. Syntax" at the Broadway September 3. Mr. Wilson brought forward "The Devil's Deputy" on September 10 at Abbey's. Mme. Melba and several others of the opera company appeared in concert on October 10. The Maud Powell Quartet made its début on October 26. Smith & De Koven's
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