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Musical Courier 1895-02-27: Vol 30 Iss 781, 1895
49 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 26. 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, February 25, 1895.
4THE Brooklyn Choral Society gave its second concert for the season on Wednesday night, producing on that occasion the new cantata by Joseph Krug-Waldsee, entitled King Rother. There was a conspicuously larger audience than on the occasion of The Messiah, and the fact was variously accounted for by the interest in a new work, by the interest in a renovated society, by public relief at the conclusion of a railroad strike that had lingered on for over a month and by an awakening enjoyment of choral music. As to the latter, it may be so. One finds here, as everywhere, that the habitual attendants on orchestral concerts are not invariable attendants at vocal performances, and vice versa. Vocal music seems to exercise a stronger influence on the great unschooled—musically unschooled—part of the public because, perhaps, the words explain so much that they are not sure about its instrumental works, therefore choral concerts are likely to be more popular than orchestral ones. In our city there are so many free choral concerts by various clubs like the Apollo and the Caecilia and the Cantata that a big and expensive organization, even though it sings a class of work that the smaller ones cannot touch, has thus far lacked patronage.
6On Wednesday night, however, the attendance was so large that it looks as if a new life had been entered upon by the choral society. One reason for its increase in size and skill I believe to be the introduction of Teutonic blood into it. Hitherto the German singers have been rather clannish, and have had their own societies and their own concerts in their own halls, rarely attending the concerts at the Academy of Music and such places where the singing was in English. Mr. Arthur Claassen's direction of the society has widened the interest in its performances, and not a few of the newcomers are Germans. The president is a German, and the front ranks of both bass and tenor choirs were composed of Germans. And, speaking of the ranks, do you ever get some fun in looking over the mass of faces at a great concert and picking resemblances? At this concert I discovered, among the basses alone, Lord Salisbury, Faure, Russitano, Dr. Parkhurst, Robert Browning and Bijah Slocum.
8That, of course, has nothing to do with the performance. The chorus has certainly improved under Mr. Claassen. He has put something of his earnestness into it. The tone is freer, if it is not fuller, and the work is more responsive and confident. The shading is not perhaps so subtle as it used to be under Mr. Wiske, but there was more life. The orchestra, too, is larger and better than any I had previously seen with this society. It was composed of musicians who play under Mr. Seidl and Mr. Mancinelli, but I learned long ago that you mustn't say Seidl's Orchestra unless Mr. Seidl is swinging the bat.
10As to King Rother, the libretto is rather a mushy affair and would be intolerable as a story if it did not wake up toward the close. That criticism does not apply to the music but to the tale. Rother is a little king of a Mediterranean state whose wife is stolen by Turks. He sits around and pines in gloomy and inefficient language that occasionally sounds as if it were intended for a comic opera. After a while his friends brace him up so that he goes to Byzantium and clubs the Turks and gets back his Oda. With a better book the thing might sound better, but one wants to advise Rother at every solo stage in the proceedings to get a move on, stop sniveling and do something. A sharp who had attended the rehearsals said to me: "To-night you will hear a hash of Lohengrin and Der Freischütz," but really I didn't. You can always find suggestions of things if you are looking for them. You can hear distinct Mendelssohn themes in some of Wagner's work if you listen; Mendelssohn, of all people! So by straining your ear and your imagination you could say of Krug-Waldsee that he had recently been to Faust, had admired the dance in The Flying Dutchman, had heard Pinafore and was fond of Berlioz and the Siegfried Idyll. Most of the time he suggested only himself, and if his personality is not commanding, it is engaging. His music is fairly tuneful, perhaps suggesting Weber melodically a little, and his choruses are spirited. He would give more solidity to his tone masses if he had to do the work over again, perhaps. Occasionally his harmonies are ingenious and interesting, and he treats the voice understandingly. The closing numbers were especially vigorous and were unusually enjoyable.
12In its soloists the Choral Society has been habitually unfortunate. It has either engaged singers with only past reputations or raw beginners with no reputations and no occasion for any. The gentleman who sang Rother's part at this concert meant well, and I doubt not was a useful chorus singer, but his voice is dry and small and shaky and he was not even dramatic. Mr. Ida Klein sang Oda with an experienced voice and some shrillness, and the brief appearances of Mr. Louis Williams, baritone, and, more particularly, of Mr. Alfred Gramm, bass, were satisfactory. Between two of the parts of the work one of those dreadful things happened that make one shrink in his seat and wish that he was at home. The president of the society made a speech. He had to read it, although it was a mere commonplace, and he lost his lines, repeated them like a schoolboy, went back and began them over and adorned them with Teutonisms that made the gallery laugh. When he said that "sometimes in the spring they would produce Mr. Victor Herbert's new piece"—which is The Captive, by the way—there was a laugh that would have sent most speakers back to their seats. The rage for making speeches is one that I could never understand. Everybody suffers from them; nobody wants them at a dinner, yet everybody goes resigned to listen, and even grand concert is not safe from them. Perhaps Mr. Paur and Mr. Seidl and Mr. Damrosch will now thank their audiences in more or less English for being there, and ask to be kept in mind and when they want good music to call around again. I should not omit to say that when Mr. Victor Herbert's name was mentioned he received a round of applause, and as he was one of the 'cello players that evening he arose and bowed his acknowledgments.
14The Rubinstein club of women, under direction of Mr. William R. Chapman, visited the Oxford Club over here on Wednesday night, and entertained it and were entertained by it. Several popular chorals were sung, and there were solos by Miss Carrie Teale, daughter of a popular member of our school commission, who is a promising player on the violin; Mrs. Guilym Miles and Miss Emily L. Bridges. It was a ladies' night at the club, and the parlors never looked gayer.
16The Amateur Musical Club closed its season early on Monday at its rooms in the Pierrepont Assembly Building. Some glees were sung with especial brightness under direction of Mr. Harry Rowe Shelley, who is becoming as busy as he is great, and there were solos by Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher Howard, Mrs. Skeffington Norton, Miss Bertha Bucklin, and by Misses Bissell and Armitage, of New York. Mr. Shelley's castanet song, that concluded the program, was especially enjoyed. Then there were tea and compliments, and a musical review of the season in Brooklyn by Miss Alice Howell, read by Mrs. Allison Hopkins.
18Mourning is heard on Myrtle avenue because the Apollo Musical Union, which has its headquarters on that street and lives with the elevated railroad in the making of sound, has had its gas cut off and its piano taken away for back rent. The saloon below has been closed by the sheriff, and even the stove that kept the Apollo warm is under a threat of removal. What we do suffer for art over here!
20Another of the Euterpe Society's concerts brought out a crowd to the Academy of Music on Tuesday evening, and the society, under Mr. Carl Venth's direction, played rather better than it ever did before. The orchestra used to be all out of shape, but it is fairly well balanced now. For example, the musicians have appeared with nearly as many wind and percussion instruments as strings, and with perhaps two basses and a 'cello against a violin corps as big as Seidl's, but the proportion now secured is about thirty-five violins, fairly balanced between first and second; nine violas, eleven 'cellos, six basses, three cornets, a horn quartet, three trombones, two clarinets, a pair each of bassoons, oboes and flutes, a piccolo and a battery of three. If Mr. Venth can only keep his control of them for a season or two longer and can persuade them not merely to practice, but to hear good orchestral music whenever it offers, there is no reason why he should not have the best amateur band anywhere about here. The selections at this concert were popular mostly, and included Emperor William's Song to Aegir, for which either Mr. Venth or his orchestra has achieved an unaccountable liking; the William Tell overture, Kretschmar's Folkunger march, Scharwenka's Polish dance, Czibulka's Fly Minuet and Mr. Venth's Meditation After Reading Trilby, also a rehearing. The solos by the Chevalier Arturo Marescalchi and Miss Josephine Russell were numerous and operatic, the chevalier making a special hit with his buffo aria from The Barber.
22The chevalier, by the by, is to have a concert of his own at Historical Hall on Saturday night, when he will bring out some of his pupils and will have the support of an instrumental quartet. Among his patrons are Mme. Scalchi, the big Tamagno and M. Maurel. On that same night Mr. Paul Tidden comes back to us out of his exile in New York to play some Chopin and Mendelssohn and Liszt pieces at Association Hall, to help out an evening for a Chicago elocutionist, Prof. S. H. Clark.
24Mr. Albert G. Thies showed off his new chorus, the Cantata Club, on Tuesday evening at Association Hall before a large audience. He has got together about fifty women with good voices and a desire to use them, and they filled the evening with interest. Mr. Thies has made them sing correctly first, and he has evidently had them long enough in hand to gain their respect and confidence. They not only sing with accuracy, but the shading is judicious and even admirable. Something should be allowed to the singers themselves, because they are not all mere amateurs. Some are choir singers of experience, though none of them has yet acquired international renown. The patrons include the wives of some of our best known divines and business men. Mr. Thies' bill comprised Smart's smooth, harmless and melodious Fisher Maidens, Liszt's O Salutaris, Hatton's April Showers, Chaminade's St. John's Eve and Evening Prayer in Brittany, Thomas' Nymphs' Chorus and Brahms' tender and beautiful Cradle Song, that shows him to be a man of heart after all, and not a musical mathematician or metaphysician. There were incidental solos by Mr. C. J. Bushnell, baritone, and Mme. Jeanne Franko, violinist. Miss Kate Chittenden played on the organ and Mrs. Emma Richardson Kuster on the piano to the satisfaction of all. Palms and pink decorations brightened the hall, and handsome toilettes were seen. The next appearance of the club before the public will be in April.
26Washington's birthday was celebrated at the Hotel St. George by a musciale, to which all the guests were invited. The singers and players were not famous. Music is usual at this hotel, and is occasionally served with dinner.
28Sousa had two roaring houses in the Academy of Music on Friday; one in the afternoon and another in the evening. Of course the band played the Washington Post, Liberty Bell and other marches of Mr. Sousa's, as well as ably chosen miscellany. The solos were by Miss Marie Barnard, soprano, whose voice is well schooled and of pretty good quality, and Miss Currie Duke, violinist, who plays more smoothly and with better expression than she used to do. Miss Barnard instanced the Trilby craze by singing Ben Bolt.
30We are to have Seidl and Ysaye here on Tuesday evening, and next Monday the Kneisel Quartet will play at Association Hall, both in the afternoon and evening, with Miss Gertrude Stein as soloist.
32Blumenberg's Spring Tour.
34ON March 4 Mr. Louis Blumenberg, the famous violincellist, will inaugurate a brief concert tour. He will be accompanied by the great operatic soprano, Sedchr Rhodes, introducing her, as well as Gertrude von Betz, a brilliant Hungarian pianist, to the American public. This combination is thoroughly high class, and will be sure to meet with success everywhere. Mr. Lionel Kremer has charge of the business management.
36Bizet's Don Procopio.
38"I T may interest your readers to know," writes Mr. John Towers, "that this opera, just unearthed from among Auber's papers, was composed in 1857-8 in Rome, about a year after Bizet had entered upon the privileges incidental to possession of the Grand Prix de Rome. Although he was then but barely twenty years old, it is evident from this score that he had formed every decided views as to the direction in which his creative energies should flow, and that he was even then a master in his craft. So far as is known, this particular Don Procopio has not been heard outside the walls of the Institute. Three other operas bearing this title, by Vin. Fioravanti, G. Tritt and G. Grassi, have, however, been put upon the stage, the one by the first named having been an immense success. In view of the brilliancy of Bizet's gifts, and the particularly favorable report given by the official rapporteur of this work at the annual public séance of the Academie des Beaux Arts at the time of its receipt from Rome, it is safe to predict a prolonged and successful career for this long-lost child of Bizet's fertile, poetic and inventive brain."
40Music, Home and Wife.
42THE club would not be so much blamed for keeping men away from home in the evening if the wives did not make the grievous mistake of giving up music after marriage.
44The average man is tired when he gets home from business, and after dinner he needs some diversion from the day's routine. It was her musical ability that attracted him to his sweetheart, perhaps, or even if not an expert in the art, he no doubt counted it a charming accomplishment that she could play Chopin expressively and sing old Scotch ballads with sentiment and feeling. But after marriage too many women seem to become entirely indifferent to the aesthetic influence of music in the home, though they are quick to bewail the fact if their husbands drop any of their efforts to please.
46In the days of courtship the sweetheart nearly always finds his fiancée at the piano, her willing fingers bringing forth soft, rippling strains that seem to envelop her in an atmosphere of ideal feminine refinement. But when sweetheart has become benedict the grating of his latch key in the lock is all the music that greets him on his home coming, unless the maid servant is humming "After the Ball," as she sets the dinner table.
48Holmes' Opera a Failure.—A telegram from Paris announces that the first production of La Montagne Noire, by Holmés, was a fiasco.
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