Scan 7
Musical Courier 1895-03-20: Vol 30 Iss 784, 1895
75 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 8. See the scan on archive.org.
1Chabrier and Mascagni have been undergoing a fire of steady revilings by these knights of the pen. Consequently, although she may not deserve it, Madame Holmés finds herself in good company.
3After a young composer in Paris has finished an opera, if he puts any value on newspaper criticism he has only to do one thing—that is, to select the richest publisher here to produce his work. This is about the length and breadth of nine-tenths of the music criticism of Paris, for there is a great temple here built to Mammon, and those who worship at the shrine therein get all their prayers answered and have every wish fulfilled.
5The cast in La Montagne Noire was as follows
7Yamina…………………………………………..Madame Breval
8Hélène…………………………………………..Madame Berthet
9Dara……………………………………………..Madame Heglon
10Mirko……………………………………………Messieur Alvarez
11Aslar…………………………………………….Messieur Renaud
13Madame Breval has a fine voice and made an excellent Yamina. Her acting was replete with sensuous grace and beauty and she looked her part to perfection. As to Berthet's Hélène, her voice is one of the most disagreeable possible to listen to patiently. Instead of charming one's ears she rasps them. Alvarez acted and sang the part of Mirko most successfully. Renaud was excellent as Aslar and Heglon did good work in the rôle of Dara.
15As to the orchestra and the general representation, since November last Madame Holmés has been working to have it as perfect as possible, and her success was about as meagre as it could be under the circumstances.
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19Mme. Berthe Marx-Goldschmidt has been giving a series of historical piano recitals. She has given these recitals in more European towns than one, and since they were announced I have been trying to discover for what reason. She has a fairly good technic, but so have many others. As the pianist of the Sarasate concerts she was in her right element, but that she should aspire to a niche among the giants is really going a little too far. On a few of the fingers of one hand one can count the names of our great pianists capable of giving an adequate interpretation of the works in the vast field of piano literature from Scarlatti to Saint-Saëns.
21The same reckoning applies to the pianist who makes Chopin or Bach or Beethoven a speciality, and fail in all they attempt beyond this. After these come a long array—a frightful array—of pianists who finger the keyboard and make sounds. Pianists of this calibre all have a fair technic, but they are not interpreters. They play their notes more or less correctly; sometimes phrase well, sometimes phrase badly. Sometimes they startle you with a scale or a volley of octaves played so beautifully that you have to acknowledge that neither Liszt, nor Rubinstein, nor Paderewski could have done better, and then—well, then you sit and listen drearily while they play a series of notes, scales and chords, and you know these notes represent a composition of Schumann or Chopin.
23Pianists of this denomination—and Mme. Marx is one—when they have a fine ear for tone color, are apt to do excellent work in chamber music, but when they attempt historical concerts à la Rubinstein, they can only be reminded that patience and perseverance do not make genius, nor ambition guarantee success.
25Madame Marx played through her programs—that is, she committed a certain number of pieces to memory—and played most of these very indifferently indeed.
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29At the Lamoureux concerts Lilli Lehmann has been creating great enthusiasm, and at the Colonne concerts we have had a Berlioz cycle. The public seemed not only to understand but enjoy the music, and the orchestra played magnificently, yet the wisdom of giving Berlioz in large doses Sunday after Sunday might be questioned.
31Among the concerts of the month at the Salle Erard none have been more enjoyable than those of chamber music given by Monsieur L. Breitner. The programs were unusually interesting and some new compositions were produced for the first time, notably a suite for piano and violin, op. 44, by Schutt, which is bound soon to become indispensable in the répertoire of all violinists and pianists. It is finished, artistic and original. The opening movement, allegro risoluto, has extraordinary life and vigor in its themes; the scherzo vivace (second movement) is truly Mendelssohnian in its grace and lightness, its merry brillianc and its delicate harmonies. The third movement, canzonetta con variazioni, is a lyric gem, and in the rondo à la Russe Schutt has managed to depict all the melancholy, the abandon and the devil-may-care recklessness of the Slavonic nature. The entire composition, from beginning to end, shows power and genius, and is a veritable triumph of true inspiration. one of two readings
32Among the concerts of the month at the Salle Erard none have been more enjoyable than those of chamber music given by Monsieur L. Breitner. The programs were unusually interesting and some new compositions were produced for the first time, notably a suite for piano and violin, op. 44, by Schutt, which is bound soon to become indispensable in the répertoire of all violinists and pianists. It is finished, artistic and original. The opening movement, allegro risoluto, has extraordinary life and vigor in its themes; the scherzo vivace (second movement) is truly Mendelssohonian in its grace and lightness, its merry brillianc and its delicate harmonies. The third movement, canzonetta con variazioni, is a lyric gem, and in the rondo à la Russe Schutt has managed to depict all the melancholy, the abandon and the devil-may-care recklessness of the Slavonic nature. The entire composition, from beginning to end, shows power and genius, and is a veritable triumph of true inspiration. one of two readings
34Monsieur Breitner is a pianist of remarkable power. His execution is finished, his methods classical, and his four concerts were excellent in every way. He was assisted by MM. Rémy, Parent, Van Waefelghem and Delsart.
36Alex. McArthur.
38Franz von Suppé.—The well-known composer of operettas, Franz von Suppé, intends to bring out a new work next season, the first in eight years.
40Gleanings of Italian Music.
42IN sunny Italy, the land of poetry and song, music shared in the general reawakening of the Italian intellectuality which followed the inspiring period of national unity and independence, and the impulse given to art and science by a period of political stability and social tranquility.
44In the early days when Rome was Empress of the world, music, the most refined of all the arts, had a less lofty flight of ambition than in Greece, whence Rome inherited it, yet the Romans gained an intellectual insight into the true principles of music.
46About 50 A. D. Diodorus introduced the major third into the scale as a consonance, and thus established a prototype of our diatonic scale. At the beginning of the fourth century Pope Sylvester founded a school for singing at Rome. About 355 Bishop Hierothus, and Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, wrote the first original hymns which were added to the traditional church music.
48The organ, which had its origin in the classic ages, was known in an imperfect form among the Romans. Later organ building was extensively carried on in Rome.
50Macrobius in the fifth century elaborated the musical themes of Pythagoras, and Boethius produced a work upon Musical Theory, which contained and treated of the old Greek scales, and which later supplied the form for the music of the early Christian Church. It remained for the culture of the Christian faith to give a new and true ideal and mission to all art, and in an essential degree to that of music.
52St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (383-397), collected the melodies of the various Christian churches, and arranged them in a uniform hymnal and system of melody founded on the authentic modes borrowed from the Greek, thus establishing the traditional chant of Milan, which possessed enduring qualities which remained unchanged for a period of 200 years. It was perfectly adapted to the spirit and condition of the times.
54Pope Gregory I. (540-604) reconstructed and remodeled the work of St. Ambrose, and added to the Ambrosian or authentic modes four others called Plagal modes, thus establishing the traditional chant of Rome. The chant was no longer recited, but assumed the impressive character, elevated dignity, and continuous melodies which distinguished the Choral. St. Gregory established a musical academy at Rome whose fame soon extended to all lands.
56About 1087 Thomas of Celano, a Franciscan monk, created the grand Dies irae, dies illae, the Requiem of today. Guido Aretinus, or d'Arrezzo, who died in 1050, cultivated part singing, instituted the method called diaphony, and invented the system of solmisation or solfaing. In 1306, Jacopone produced a Stabat Mater, which endures to the present day.
58The folk songs, the spontaneous efforts of the people to give expression to longing aspirations for poetry and song, as a medium for the expression of the struggling emotions of mind and heart, early sprang into existence; these lyric ballads, love songs and serenades were first preserved and disseminated by the minstrels and jongleurs, and later they were absorbed and disseminated by the troubadours and minnesingers; the music of the people thus added the spontaneous gifts of nature to the polish and refinement for which these noble patrons of musical art are noted; the troubadours were the first to cultivate music from the pure love of art, and they became the means of giving a powerful impulse to musical progress. In Italy the music of the troubadours took its impress from the school of Provence.
60The Neapolitan school was founded by Johann Tinctor, a disciple of Okeghem. He was born at Brabant in 1435. He was a practical musician and a doctor of laws. He taught in Naples, where he was appointed chapelmaster and cantor to King Ferdinand I. He published several theoretical works. Among the prominent masters who built up and advanced the Neapolitan school were Wilhelm Guarnierius, royal chapelmaster; Bernhard Vkaret, Dentine, Primavera and Luggosch.
62THE VENETIAN SCHOOL.—The Venetian school was founded by Adrian Willaert, a Belgian, born in 1490. In 1526 he took up his residence in Venice, where he was made chapelmaster of the Church of St. Mark's. He formed a double choir and introduced double chanting. He introduced the form of the madrigal, which soon became popular all over Europe. He was a classical scholar and acquired great renown, not only in Venice, but abroad. He died in 1563. Cyprian di Rore succeeded Willaert as chapelmaster. He elaborated and systematized the use of the chromatic scale and chromatic intervals, and thus introduced a movement destined ultimately to break down the exclusive use of the ancient diatonic church modes and to prepare the way for a freer expression in the tonal art. He was born in Belgium in 1516 and died at Parma in 1565. Among the prominent composers of the Venetian school were Philip Verdelot, born in Belgium in 1490; he wrote psalms, motets and madrigals. Jacob Van Baes, born in Bruges in 1565; he composed motets and introduced the Ricercari art form for organ composition. Jacob Berchem, a Belgian by birth, composed a four-part capriccio to stanzas of Ariosto's Roland, which prepared the way for the renaissance era of music. Andrea Gabrielli, who flourished from 1510 to 1586, wrote cantatas and church music. Gioseffo Zarlino, the first Italian pupil of Willaert, was born at Chioggia in 1516; he was a learned theorist and wrote theoretical works which treated exhaustively of contrapuntal and harmonic laws; and Giovanni Gabrielli (1557-1613), who excelled in the blending of voice parts and instrumental music; his Symphoniae Sacrae introduced a richer tone coloring by the association of voice and instrument and led to the independence of instrumental music. With the death of Gabrielli ended the Venetian school.
64THE ROMAN SCHOOL.—Rome had never ceased to be a school since the days of St. Gregory, and always exerted more or less influence upon the development of musical art up to the time of Palestrina. For a long period, however, it drew its inspiration from the Netherlands, and the teachers of music in Italy were chiefly from Flanders. The early composers of the Roman School were Festa, Ferrabosco, Animuccia and Claude Gondimel. The sixteenth century witnessed the restoration of the Eternal City as the recognized centre of sacred musical culture, and it entered upon a general period of Italian ascendancy in the tonal art; the centre of this new renown and of musical culture, not only for Italy, but for the world, was Giovanni Pierluigi Santi, called, from his birthplace, Palestrina; he was born in 1524. In 1551 he became choirmaster of St. Peter's. In 1562 an event occurred which brought Palestrina into prominence as the leader, if not the originator, of a more exalted tone in sacred music. The famous Council of Trent condemned the frivolous character and complicated form of church music; Pope Pius VI., to meet these objections, prevailed upon the council to rest the decision upon a mass to be written by Palestrina, which should prove whether or not sacred music could be written which would meet the requirements of the church and still retain the beauties of the harmonic art. Palestrina accordingly composed three masses for six voices which were performed before a commission of cardinals April 28, 1565. Each mass was enthusiastically received, and won for the composer the title of Savior of Church Music. Had his music met with disapproval, church music would have relapsed into comparative barbarism by a revival of the ancient Gregorian plain chant.
66These masses were imbued with beauty of form and expression, freed from contrapuntal excesses and complications; the form was simplified and the expression intensified by a deep and impressive human feeling, and calculated to stir devotional emotions. The new spirit infused into music by Palestrina utilized all the progress and theoretical skill that had been acquired, stripped of its redundancy.
68While his predecessors had effected the triumph of form and beauty of expression over scientific attainment, he had invested the whole with deep, devotional feeling. The inherent force of genius embodied in the new Palestrina style was adopted all over Europe, and this period has been called the "Golden Age of Ecclesiastical Music." Palestrina founded the Roman school, of which the following composers were masters: Claudio Merulo (1532-1604), who developed organ music; his ricercari was the forerunner of the fugue; Giovanni Maria Nanini (1540-1607); Felice Anerio (1580-1608); Giovanni Anerio (1567); Gregorio Allegro (1586-1652); Mazzocchi; Orazio Benvoli, and Antonio Liberati.
70THE PURELY ITALIAN SCHOOL.—The rise of the purely Italian school was inaugurated by the compositions of Costanzo Festa, who was born in 1545. He was educated in the school of the Belgians, but rose above mere scholasticism and narrowing traditions. He composed church music and a Te Deum which has survived to the present time.
72Early in 1600 Gaspar Duiffoprugear, of Bologna, is credited with inventing the improved violin. The origin of the violin is obscure; it has gradually evolved from instruments resembling it which were in use from the earliest times. Cremona early became a centre for violin making, and the fame of its instruments continued for 200 years. The Cremona violin was carried to its utmost perfection by Antonio Stradivari (1680-1730); other noted makers are Gaspar di Salo, the Amati brothers and Joseph Guarneri. The golden age of violin making was from 1720 to 1760.
74From the seventeenth century music in Italy became an emotional medium; with the decline of Papal power music was no longer devoted to religious service and became degraded into a mere medium of pleasure, and the history of Italian music from this period becomes simply the history of Italian opera. The opera originated from an attempt to revive the Greek drama in Florence in the seventeenth century. This century was for music a period of great inventive activity and of creative industry; printing was more commonly used, instruments were perfected, and a new impulse was given to all musical effort. Florence now became the musical centre. The polyphonic school came to a close and the monodic school arose; the new school aimed at the restoration of the Greek system of independent choruses. Zarlino was the last great master to maintain the old order, and Galilei was the originator of the new. His monody met the requirements of dramatic music in the provision of a medium for the expression of indi-
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