Scan 12
Musical Courier 1895-03-20: Vol 30 Iss 784, 1895
62 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 13. See the scan on archive.org.
1PARIS, March 3, 1895.
3MORE ABOUT OUR FOLKS IN PARIS.
5MOST of them sick in bed, poor things! From a class of twenty-two, which Madame Marchesi was preparing for a concert-musical this week, but four were in singing condition! The affair was put off, but will be resurrected in March in form of an anniversary—the forty-first year of madame's professorship.
7Think of forty-one years of throat tillings! Surely, if experience brings wisdom, this celebrated teacher must be an authority.
9On this occasion the girls of the opera class will be the stars, singing scenes from the various répertoires they are studying. Among them will be our little friend Willy Sandmeyer, a member of both concert and opera classes, who will sing a scene from Mignon in Italian. Most of her rôles are at present in the Verdi tongue, but she intends utilizing this, her last year, in achieving them also in French.
11Miss Sandmeyer is one of those valuable students who thinks as she goes along. A few of her thoughts as to why she should come abroad to study, &c., may help some girl who is trying to decide about coming.
13"Hearing good music is half a musical education," she says. "The opportunities in America are not as many as abroad and they are more expensive. You can get a ticket in Paris for 3 frs. for which you would pay 12 frs. at home. In Mecklenberg I heard the best operas nine times in twelve days. The ordinary people there know the operas by heart. Opera is food for a student. It should be heard at least once a week. In the English season of six weeks one gets a surfeit of musical things. In France the character of the four weekly concerts is of the first order, and though they are more expensive than in Germany, they are as nothing compared with America.
15"Besides this, there is the seriousness of the whole art structure in Paris. Teachers, students, conversation and listening are all in dead earnest, and concentrated upon the end in view in a way we have no conception of in America. The new pupil gets drawn into it as under a maelstrom and is held there while she studies. There is too a general intelligence on musical matters which even office boys and newspaper sellers do not escape. They know what is going on; they can hum things of value, and they can criticise. Last of all it is conceded so far that European approval is necessary to secure élite New York's respectful attention. It won't make a singer a ruling queen in New York, but it will give her a chance to be a ruling queen.
17"America," Miss Sandmeyer continued, "gives an insight as to what one needs to do, but one must come abroad to do it. It makes one anxious to come to hear foreign singers and read about them."
19She first went to Germany through friends, but was not long in discovering that, although they can teach the piano, they cannot build voices there. The method is not the one to make the most, and the most beauty, out of the voice. It makes tones dark and grave, and much time and trouble are required to counteract this. They cannot impart brightness or style, the essential qualities of the French way. One hears good music well interpreted there, however—better even than here—but then there is no oratorio in Paris. French finesse, and French taste as to finesse, are among the leading advantages.
21"The student's expense here," says Miss Sandmeyer, "is much greater than anyone living in a city of comfortable American homes can estimate. There is so much comfort lacking in the ordinary Paris home, especially in winter, that the supplements of heat, light, bath and air that one is obliged to hunt up and carry in make expense double. Added to this the fact that there are no civilized means of getting about the town any more modern than in the Middle Ages, and you may see that purse strings are drawn upon in a way that would make home eyes open.
23"Also, one must dress well while studying. You never know the moment when you are under the eyes of manager, director or agent, with whom appearance counts a good one half. You must look well every minute of the day in Paris.
25"Getting acclimated is one of the most serious troubles with the American student here. The difference in climate, food, customs and air must be met at a time when overwork seems an absolute necessity, for every American student comes to do five years' work in two, beginning at the wrong end at that.
27"The voice depends on constitution. They eat less here than we do at home and we must buy extras to keep up strength; and douches and baths are dear, but cheaper than medicine. If girls only knew what was necessary to do before coming! But it seems as if they must come here to learn. They should all take more physical exercise. Men have gymnasiums, but there is little or no provision for the women. One teacher here actually spends a good six months acclimating her pupils, in order to save her ranks from the enemy 'aenemia' later on.
29"One could prepare much at home in constitution, in language and in music knowledge. It is ridiculous to think of beginning in Paris. Pupils should be free from worry. No one can live on nothing. At a rough average, at the very least, 2,000 a year should be counted on. (Miss Sandmeyer is at present taking nineteen lessons a week, and every one necessary.)
31"Students should regulate their living so that they are obliged to take a good, brisk walk every day, else they won't take it. The best way is to live within walking distance of their teacher. Otherwise the time all goes in horrible omnibuses. They are always sitting, always in a hurry and in a chronic state of nervousness.
33"Fifteen minutes a day four times a day is enough practice for both voices. One must never sing immediately after eating. To get over nervousness sing easily.
35"A busy pupil can save much time by having suitable clothing. A becoming tailor-made gown that can be thrown on and yet look neat is a necessity for work. There is no play or occasion in which a French woman cannot look elegant in adjustable waists and skirts. No reason why an American cannot do the same.
37"It is a great mistake that American girls know so little about sewing. Substantial and chic skirts can always be bought here for a song. Any girl who can mend, make bows, put in or take out linings or make over a sleeve can keep fresh and neat as a pin without loss of time and money to a couturière. Especially should girls be able and willing to mend. Otherwise what is to become of that frayed dress braid? And what is to become of the girl on whom a French man or woman sees a frayed dress braid? A frayed reputation may be worn with grace in Paris, but the skirt bindings must be trim. A girl should be able to trim a hat after the perfections in the windows. She can do it for a couple of sous, and no one's hat ever looks shabby in Paris.
39"It is a mistake to take private lessons. One should always study in a class, in order to have their knowledge practical. Nervousness and gaucherie ruin many chances. One who can stand up under the criticism of a class of fellow students can do so without trepidation before crowned heads."
41Mme. Glatz's French-American home, No. 45 rue de Clichy, was again the scene of a charming soirée musicale this week, given by Mr. G. Waring Stebbins, the Brooklyn organist, who, with many other well-known American artists, makes his home there.
43Mlle. Mery, pianist; Miss Grace Gregory, the New York contralto; M. Raymond Marthe, violoncellist; M. Guide, violinist; the Spanish guitar specialist, Paco de Lucena; M. Robert, the harpist, and Mr. Stebbins interpreted the program.
45There were a Schumann trio; works by Lalo, Wienawski, Marthe, Lucena, and four compositions of Mr. Stebbins' own writing: A Barcarolle in G, The Four Seasons; How Shall I Love You, and Carillon de Marriage for harp, cello and organ. This last was ordered of the young American by a French artist who heard one of his other compositions and was impressed by it.
47The audience, composed of distinguished French and American people, was treated to an elegant supper after, and dancing closed the evening. Madame Glatz is one of those rare women who know how to unite art, social pleasure and home comfort, and she has for reward the love and gratitude of scores of American hearts.
49At the second monthly reception of the American Art Association in Paris, Miss Maude Roudebush, of New York, sang with excellent effect Les Larmes from Massenet's Werther, and Air de l'Enfant from Le Cid. She received warm applause. Indeed with her blonde prettiness, graceful manners, and voice as well, she was one of the brightest stars of the assembly.
51Miss Alice Breen is located here in the classic rue Théophile Gautier, where she is safe, comfortable, cared for as by a mother by her hostess, and making rapid vocal progress under Madame Laborde, teacher of Calvé and Delna. She means to remain in Paris three years longer. She thinks that possibly she might have learned much in New York, but the opportunity of coming abroad being afforded her it was not to be resisted.
53She has a strong conviction that girls should study with women and not with men, an opinion shared by her friends and counsellors, Madame Maurice Strakosch and Miss Emma Thursby. She is taking lessons in French diction and stage deportment besides the French language. She has had many offers to sing at musicales, &c., but has wisely decided that there is time enough for renown after study is done. She goes frequently to the Opéra with her French chaperone, and always takes the score with her, making of it a musical study.
55Friends are the worst enemies of home study, she says. Social duties are forever interfering. Here one is literally buried. A girl student must live the life of an old woman if she would keep her strength and profit by her instruction. She wishes she had studied piano playing and accompaniment. She thinks that when a mother can she ought to come to Paris with her daughter, at least to show her protection and see that she is comfortably located. In their inexperience and in the pressure of musical occupation girls make many mistakes which they regret later on.
57Miss Breen began her career in her teens, singing in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, and later in the Brick Church, New York.
59When I hear the girls talking about their diction lessons, their pronunciation lessons, their French for singing lessons and their lessons for French for talking, each at from 7 to 15 frs. a lesson, I grow impatient for the extension of the Yersin phonetic system of learning French among our girls at home and abroad.
61By it, you see, at one stroke one learns—is obliged to learn—diction, pronunciation, accent and all the rest of it. In other words one learns French—not English-French, Scotch-French, American-French, but French-French, unaccented, unalloyed, undiluted, correct, just as a foreigner is compelled to drop his brogue and speak Webster-English after a thorough course of phonics found in the pages of our best readers at home. It is the only way under God's heaven to learn a language properly, and it is infallible in its results. Witness the results in our normal schools (God
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