Scan 27
Musical Courier 1895-01-09: Vol 30 Iss 774, 1895
66 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 28. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1BROOKLYN
2BROOKLYN, January 7, 1886.
4THE holidays brought something of a lull in musical affairs, but there are better prospects just ahead. The opera comes back to us this week—"Trovar," if you please, with Tamagno and the Drog—and our next hearing of the Boston Symphony Orchestra will be on Friday afternoon and Saturday night, when we shall know how Mr. Paur reads the seventh symphony, the "Midsummer Night's Dream" music, the prelude to "The Deluge" and Mr. Dvorák's new "Carnival"; and Miss Aus der Ohe, with her raven—no, I am not sure about the color of those braids that hang down her back, for it is so long since she played for us that her hair may have turned, like Patti's—Miss Aus der Ohe will play Schumann's A minor concerto.
6It is rare that the Boston Orchestra has apprised us of so much thus far ahead. When Mr. Thomas was conducting the Philharmonic concerts here we had the whole season's work printed in advance—all but the solos—but when Nikisch and Paur succeeded him the bills sometimes did not arrive until a day or two before the performance. Much complaint was made about that sort of thing, and the result is that this season we have practically a bill for the series. It used to be argued that the public would go to the concerts just the same whether it knew what was to be played or not. Many among the public would, no doubt, but there are a good many people who would not. Few men, for instance, would think of going to a theatre if they did not know what they were going to see there. It makes a difference to them whether it is to be Johnny Thompson or Henry Irving, and it makes a difference whether Mr. Irving is to play "Becket" or "The Lyons Mail." There are patrons of concerts—and I think Brooklyn has a considerable share of them—who take their music seriously, and go there as much to study as to be tickled. If they know far enough in advance what is to be played and sung they will run through their scores and read up their Krehbiel and Henderson notices so as to know which emotions to thrill with. If they read the bill for the first time after getting to their seats this is obviously impossible. I know one teacher in this city who has his pupils go through the principal numbers to be played at each of the great concerts, and they enjoy the music the better and more intelligently for that preparation.
8And it is a good thing about Mr. Seidl and his managers that they do not keep their programs under bushes. We know pretty well in advance what they are to do, and that was one reason why the house at the Seidl Society concert on Friday night was one of the largest of the season, and one of the most enthusiastic. It seemed to me that Mr. Seidl redeemed himself as a Beethoven reader that night. In my shadowy roost in the gallery, where I like to go on account of the peanut memories of old days, I followed the second symphony closely and discovered Mr. Seidl in only one transgression, if it is one—a ritardando that I confess did, for me, heighten the effect of the passage. But there was a lot of ginger in his work. He was as much on his mettle at that concert as he was indifferent or allowed his players to be at the preceding one. The symphony had suavity and charm no less than animation, and I have never heard its purely joyous character more efficiently asserted.
10"Phosphorescence" from Nicode's symphonic ode to the sea was new to us, over here in the country. The phenomenon that it paints is one that I am so fond of and have watched so many, many hours from decks of all sorts of things in various waters, that it interested me. When I heard that such a piece had been written I thought within myself, "It is impossible to paint phosphorescence as one sees it in mid-ocean, and more impossible to suggest it in music; but if I had to suggest it I would strike a muffled cymbal so that its tone would quiver softly up through a shifting theme for muted strings." And when I heard it there was the cymbal, hit with a stick, and over this ghostly luminous tone the violins were playing in crinkling waves. I had thought of my patent some months after Mr. Nicode had appropriated it, as usual. As a piece of writing it is fanciful in the extreme, yet I know of nothing in the range of music that has so much ocean in it. Strauss' "Death and Glorification" was new as a Brooklyn number, though it had been played at the concerts at Brighton Beach. What a prodigiously solemn thing it is, to be sure! And would it not have been as well if the glorification had taken the form of a triumphal march or choral instead of so close a suggestion of the glorification from "Parsifal"?
12The soloist was Mr. Eugene Ysaye. He found Brooklyn air inspiring. He has not played better since he landed. When he gave Saint-Saëns' "Rondo Capriccioso" for a recall you could see the little blue sparks flying off from the tips of his bow and fingers. Honest! Yet it is not to make sparks that Mr. Ysaye is an artist. It is to make music, and he does it. He played, in addition to the rondo, the B minor concerto of the same author, and Wieniawski's "Faust" fantasy; then he went and sat in a box and beamed oleaginously. Like all that Saint-Saëns has written, the concerto is dramatic. The opening allegro, with the solo violin relieved against the shuddering background, is even melodramatic, in the popular sense, for of course if it is musically dramatic it is melodramatic. The solo suggests the regulation heroine sniveling around in her black dress, wailing her poverty in a paper snow storm with her fingers covered with diamonds. Ah, but there is good music in it, too, and it is impossible not to admire the naïveté of expression in it, for without that the Saint whose other name is Saëns would be something other than a Frenchman. Of all the French who write music he seems to me the manliest.
14Ysaye's performance of the "Faust" fantasy was wonderfully like that of the author of it, and it had the advantage of being played with orchestral accompaniment, while Wieniawski himself was about as well content to do it with a piano. There used to be something half amusing as well as half touching in the appearance of that great, onion-shaped body with the round, fat head and dangling locks and unkempt whiskers—I am talking about Wieniawski now, you know—bending over the violin in so loving a fashion: the soul of a trouvère crying at its wrong fleshly environment, and whispering those lovely phrases from the tenderest of the operas. Ysaye is prettier to look at than Wieniawski, but he plays that piece like him and puts even more sentiment into it. His sentiment is sound, too, and deep. I believe he is to see us again ere long. The next of the Seidl concerts will occur on February 5.
16And while I am dwelling upon orchestras I should not neglect to record the fact that Warden Hayes' pets are rehearsing in the Penitentiary. The rehearsal on New Year, when every wearer of stripes seemed to be armed with a cornet or a drum, or some such dangerous implement, led people who lived half a mile or so from the scene of the disturbance to suppose that Crow Hill was being shaken by an earthquake, or that the prison was simultaneously smitten by stomach ache. It is easy to make fun of such things, but it is so sure that the art which can soothe a savage, rend a rock or split a cabbage, will be inevitably unavailing to touch the springs of feeling from which may flow impulses to a higher life? I for one would stake more on music than on tracts. So many convicts who go in for tracts do it to get favors, and they become sneaks. But who ever heard of music making a sneak of a man—unless he was a walking delegate of the union?
18Big Fred Innes will make no more music over here for the Thirteenth Regiment, and his rival, Mr. Connero, is dancing with delight, on general principles, I am told. But Mr. Connero may get the place. Mr. Innes is bumptious and has not made friends where it would have been politic to do so. Some people, like the musical critic of the "Tribune," have found fault with him, too, because in his public concerts he has played pieces like "A Trip to the Midway Plaisance," where the members of his band are represented as engaging in prayer before braving the terrors of the Cairo street. When the tourists had sung their prayer and experienced a storm on the lake they put their instruments down and whistled a few bars. And this the "Tribune" thought was not high art.
20Prof. T. V. Short holds on to his Thirty-second Regiment Band, in spite of the fact that there is no longer a Thirty-second Regiment to furnish work for it. He puts in his time composing cornet solos and things when he is not helping somebody to march or dance. He is to play at Prospect Hall on Wednesday night for a local battery, and will play some of his solos then for the first time. The Mayor and others have made a partial promise to go and hear them.
22There was a good deal of music of one kind and another—somewhat too much of the other—in town to welcome in the new year. We have no chimes like Trinity, but we have a few bells on Christ Church, Bedford avenue, and those were rung as the old year took its flight, while Mr. Thomas Lawrie, of St. Anne's, let himself out on the chimes of that edifice. After the tolling of midnight he broke into a passion of national song and made his best success with "The Relief of Lucknow" in which you could detect "The Campbells are Coming" and other Scotch airs without a microscope.
24Mr. John Hyatt Brewer's new song of local patriotism, for which he received the prize, the song of the anti-consolidationists, who don't want to belong to the greater New York, was published in the "Eagle" on Saturday, and in a few days the boys will be whistling it, and it will be sung at meetings held for the purpose of denouncing you wicked people on the wrong side of the East River. Mr. Brewer has not caught quite the vim of the "War Song of the Hussites" or the fire of the "Marseillaise," but he has written a dignified setting to the words that were given, and if he is to write the songs for our little nation, the lawyers at Albany will doubtless feel the need of greater moral support. Perhaps they will get it by appointing some one of Mr. Brewer's rivals to the place of composer in ordinary to the State legislature, and will pass bills to the sound of slow music in the galleries. Mr. Brewer, by the by, is to give a concert with his Hoadley Society, at the Criterion Theatre, on Thursday night.
26Stavenhagen-Gerardy Recital.
27PIANO and violoncello recital was given by Bernhard Stavenhagen and Jean Gerardy at Madison Square Concert Hall last Friday afternoon. The attendance was excellent and the program interesting:
28Sonata for piano and violoncello………………………………………E. Grieg
29M. Bernhard Stavenhagen, Master Jean Gerardy.
30Variations on a theme by J. S. Bach………………………………………Liszt
31Three piano pieces, op. 5……………………………………………..Stavenhagen
32Capriccio. Intermezzo. Menuetto Scherzando.
33(First performance in America.)
34M. Bernhard Stavenhagen.
35Sonata………………………………………………………..Boccherini
36Master Jean Gerardy.
37Two Studies………………………………………………………..Henselt
38"Repos d'amour."
39"Si oiseau j'étais."
40Two legends………………………………………………………..Liszt
41"La prédication aux oiseaux."
42"St. Francois marchant sur les flots."
43M. Bernhard Stavenhagen.
44Elegie (dedicated to Jean Gerardy)……………………………Th. Radoux
45Gavot………………………………………………………..Popper
46Master Jean Gerardy.
48The pianist was at his best in the Liszt numbers. The variations were well played. Mr. Stavenhagen's three little pieces are clever and musical. They were reviewed in these columns a few weeks ago. The capriccio (A flat) and the intermezzo (D flat) show the influence of Brahms, the latter particularly. The menuetto is a bright piece of writing in the antique style. Henselt's "Bird study" was very neatly delivered, the wrist work being admirable. Little fault can be found with Mr. Stavenhagen's mechanism. Forencore he gave the "Liebestod" from "Tristan." Gerardy was not in a particularly musical mood. Grieg's pretty sonata in A minor was carelessly played by both artists. The Boccherini number and the inevitable Gounod's "Ave Maria" were, however, charmingly interpreted by the talented young man. one of two readings
49The pianist was at his best in the Liszt numbers. The variations were well played. Mr. Stavenhagen's three little pieces are clever and musical. They were reviewed in these columns a few weeks ago. The capriccio (A flat) and the intermezzo (D flat) show the influence of Brahms, the latter particularly. The menuetto is a bright piece of writing in the antique style. Henselt's "Bird study" was very neatly delivered, the wrist work being admirable. Little fault can be found with Mr. Stavenhagen's mechanism. For encore he gave the "Liebestod" from "Tristan." Gerardy was not in a particularly musical mood. Grieg's pretty sonata in A minor was carelessly played by both artists. The Boccherini number and the inevitable Gounod's "Ave Maria" were, however, charmingly interpreted by the talented young man. one of two readings
51Mr. Fleck Is Mistaken.
52Editors The Musical Courier:-
53I was much pleased and at the same time amused with the account you gave of the last Harlem Philharmonic concert and rehearsal. The second movement opens with the subject which you will find on our program for wood wind, and is then taken up by the French horn as a solo supported by the strings. It was just at this point the peas came into play. As you will readily see the passage is one of great difficulty for the horn, even in the hands of the greatest player, and unfortunately our man failed in the rehearsal and concert. What amused me, however, and surprised me also, was that anyone connected with THE MUSICAL COURIER could fail in distinguishing the difference between a French horn and a trombone. I feel very sorry for the scandalous exhibition of ignorance, and it undoubtedly must have been a church singer who was so unfortunate. While we may be all wrong up this way, it seems to me unfair that you should send such people when Harlem has so many men who not only know the instruments when they hear them, but are at the same time able writers for the same. May I submit such names as Van der Stucken, Huss, Bartlett, Biedeman and others? May I also call your attention to the difference between your notice and the criticism in the "Tribune"?
54Cordially yours,
5551 East 132d street.
56HENRY THOMAS FLECK.
58THE critic of THE MUSICAL COURIER assigned to the concert of the Harlem Philharmonic Society said nothing about a French horn for the simple reason that he was writing about a trombone. The "Sun," in criticizing the affair next day, among other things said this: "The selections were ambitious, and included C. F. Koch's symphony, 'Am Nord See,' a very enjoyable composition, particularly in the third part, and it was in this part of the symphony, with its pleasant scherzo movement, that the orchestra accomplished the best result. The brasses were not delicately handled, and the eccentricities of the trombonist at one point almost precipitated a collapse."
60THE MUSICAL COURIER criticism reads thus:
61It would be p'asant to record that the orchestra scored honors, but truth compels us to state that even where the reading was good and the instruments kept in tune the harsh and obstreperous brass was strident enough to split the ears of the whole of Harlem's groundlings. It was without doubt the most whole hearted brass blowing heard here in a long time. The acoustics of the house are painfully good for this section of Mr. Fleck's orchestra, which recalls nothing so much as the bugle rally for the chase of the wild boar in the forest, or the German Emperor's favorite valveless trumpets, which a couple of seasons ago threatened the Madison Square Garden roof. The reeds still further lapsed from grace, and there was a horrible penny whistle sound occasionally from the flutes, but on the whole the strings were fair.
63The trombonist in one solo episode "chortled," as Lewis Carroll would say, but alack! there was no "joy" about it. It was the verge of an absurd catastrophe, and happened at both concerts. And surely some peas must have got down into a few other of the reeds. There were sundry cracks and bubble blowing sounds of an awful nature—but we won't say any more. The worst rocks were struck in the "Nord See" symphony, which has for the subject of its second movement a tranquil, flowing melody of much beauty.
65A trombone was referred to, Mr. Fleck, not a French horn.
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