Scan 19
Musical Courier 1895-04-17: Vol 30 Iss 789, 1895
104 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 20. See the scan on archive.org.
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: – – – 1953-18th. one of two readings
8TELEPHONE: – – – 1953-186th. one of two readings
9Cable Address, "Pegujar," New York.
10MARC A. BLUMENBERG, – – – Editor-in-Chief
12THE BERLIN, GERMANY, Branch Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 17 Link Str., W., is in charge of Mr. Otto Floersheim.
13THE LONDON, ENGLAND, B.ench Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 15 Argyll St., Oxford Circus, W., is in charge of Mr. Frank Vincent Atwater. one of two readings
14THE LONDON, ENGLAND, B. cench Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 15 Argyll St., Oxford Circus, W., is in charge of Mr. Frank Vincent Atwater. one of two readings
15THE PARIS, FRANCE, Branch Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 86 Rue Lafayette, is in charge of Fannie Edgar Thomas.
16THE CHICAGO OFFICE OF THE MUSICAL COURIER is at 220 Wabash Ave.
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18THE PHILADELPHIA OFFICE OF THE MUSICAL COURIER is at No. 410 Betz Building, Broad Street and South Penn Square.
19LEIPZIG, GERMANY: GEBRÜDER HUG, Königstrasse 16.
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35American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents.
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38ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1880.
39No. 789.
41NOTICE.
43THE MUSICAL COURIER does not club with any other publication, and all representations of that nature are without authority from The Musical Courier Company.
45THE MUSICAL COURIER does not have any free list, and its complement of exchanges has assumed such proportions that it is impossible to make any additions thereto.
47New subscribers to insure prompt delivery of THE MUSICAL COURIER should remit the amount of their subscription with the order.
49It is not always possible to fill orders for back numbers of THE MUSICAL COURIER upon the day of their receipt, because in many instances the edition is entirely out, and it is necessary to wait for such returns as may come from the distributing agencies. Each order is entered in its turn and filled in its turn, but delays are at times unavoidable.
51NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1895.
53THE musical season so far from abating in activity has never been livelier. The number of recitals, song, piano and mixed, is great. The musical season of 1894-5 has altogether been a red letter one.
55If it is true that Verdi is writing an opera on Shakespeare's The Tempest, then this wonderful old man will completely throw into the shade all the hitherto accredited efforts of octogenarians. M. Victor Maurel is responsible for the news, which he has only known positively for the past few days. He, it is said, will sing the part of Caliban. When The Tempest is finished it will complete the Verdian Shake-
57spearian trilogy, Otello, Falstaff and The Tempest. What a superb achievement, and how it does put to blush the wailings of the young men of our day, the true degenerates, who mask their laziness with fine philosophical terms like pessimism and world sickness and such hollow, idle phrases! Look at Bismarck, at Verdi, at Leo XIII., at Gladstone, men all enjoying mental health, and simply because they have worked and continue to work. These be examples for the younger generation of men and women, who should cease to hearken to the despairing cry of false and sick-brained prophets.
59A LTHOUGH Mr. Van Der Stucken has again been impertuned to conduct a permanent orchestra in Cincinnati he has refused the offer. He will remain in New York, where as conductor of the Arion Society, director of the choir of Temple Emanu-El and also conductor of the Arion Society of Newark, his time is fully occupied.
61HOW HUMPERDINCK WROTE AN OPERA.
63IT is not so long ago that we gave an account of how Humperdinck came to write Hänsel and Gretel. Now his younger sister, Mrs. Adelheid Mette, tells the story in Wiener Mode. This lady was born September 4, 1858, at Siegburg, and engaged herself in her seventeenth year to Hermann Mette, now a physician and a writer in Cologne. Soon after her engagement her father accepted the position of director at the Ladies' Seminary in Xanten. She there had opportunity to indulge in her favorite pastime, organizing entertainments, with reciting of her own and other poetry, and private family representations.
65It was not long, however, before she was joined in marriage to H. Mette, with whom she then resided at Cologne. In the course of time five children were born to the happy couple, and this brought out her talent as a composer of fairy tales, with which she entertained her children. "Onkel Engelbert" had to furnish the music for them. At the request of the two older children she composed the verses to Hänsel and Gretel and sent them to her brother, with the wish that he might compose some music for them. He did this promptly, and wrote:
67"DEAR ADELHEID—I send you the desired music almost by return of mail, and hope that you may like it as much as I do your verses. Write soon and let me know how you like the songs.
69"Hearty greetings, ENGELBERT."
71The music manuscript bore the title Hänsel and Gretel, a nursery Christmas play by A. M., set to music by Onkel Ebb. This was the name the children gave him. From this small composition grew the opera, which has made such an international success.
73INGWELDE.
75THE opera Ingwelde, by Schilling, will be given at Magdeburg before the close of the opera season. The work will also be staged for next season at Frankfort, Stuttgart and Munich. Max Schilling was born April 19, 1868, at Düren, in the Prussian Rhine province, and he had for his first music teacher his own mother, who was a niece of the well-known poet Brentano. Later on he studied at Munich. Count Spork, who is the librettist of the opera Ingwelde, gave him the idea to devote himself to composition. This work met with surprising success, and it will be interesting to our readers to become acquainted with its plot.
77The four sons of Thorstein—Klaufe (the Viking King), Bran (a Skald or Bard), Siwart and Gorm—stand in unquenchable feud with Glandulf of Gladwald. His foster son, Gest, is betrothed to his own daughter, the heroine of the work. Ortolf, the speaker of the Thorsteiners, comes to demand her hand on behalf of Klaufe. On the refusal thereof the Thorsteiners attack the Gladwalders, but are temporarily beaten back. Klaufe, while Ingwelde is left alone, thinks to carry her off. She defies him and sets fire to the castle, but Klaufe rescues her. Gest appears with others and tells Klaufe, who is thought to be dead. Thereupon Siwart and Gorm claim her under their laws of war. She vows she will marry nobody but the presumably dead Klaufe, who revives and holds her to her word, and she is borne off a captive to his castle, where he strives to gain her love. She promises it provided he reconciles himself with her father. Only Bran remains with them. He is deeply enamored of her. Klaufe has started to visit her father. She persuades Bran to light the pair with a torch, which he does, and then, filled with thoughts of love for her, soliloquizes.
79It suddenly dawns upon him that the torch was a signal of treachery. This is confirmed by the ghost of Klaufe, who makes him vow vengeance on her. He sharpens an old axe, develops into a seer and dominates his brothers and everybody. Glandulf has been slain; she and Gest are united. Bran interrupts their love scene, slays Gest, but cannot find the heart to kill her, so begs her to give him "the happy dispatch." The love becomes mutual, but they decide that only after this life can they be happy. The corpse of Gest is transported on to the death ship; they put off in the vessel, light the funeral pyre, and as the ship sinks the voice of Klaufe is heard announcing that peace and love reign in Walhalla.
81A TANNNHÄUSER PANTOMIME.
83A TANNNHÄUSER performance was announced to take place at Geneva, with Mr. Engel, of the Grand Opéra, Paris, in the title rôle. As this artist was taken ill, the opera was postponed. On the night that the opera was to be definitely given, the house being sold out, Mr. Engel's condition grew worse, but as he had to leave the city on the morrow and another postponement was impossible, the artist was induced to appear in the rôle, and as he could not sing he went through it by pantomime. A dumb Tannhäuser is doubtless something new in the annals of the opera.
85A BERLIOZ LETTER.
87THEODORE RITTER, a Parisian piano virtuoso and a favorite Liszt pupil, will be remembered here, having accompanied Carlotta Patti on her American concert tour. He was a friend of Berlioz, and in Le Temps, of Paris, was recently published this letter, hitherto unpublished, from the great composer to the pianist:
89LONDON, Tuesday morning, 1855.
91MY DEAR THEODORE—(I detest surnames, nicknames, terms of friendship, and such nonsense. That is why I do not use them: My dear Tintin. * * *) Your letter gave me great pleasure, and if I have been somewhat long in answering it, it is that since you left, I have had a very bad time, any amount of visits, dinners, piano trios, correspondence in the Musical World with the amateur performers whom I was unwilling should sing in Romeo and Juliet, breakfast with Beale, rehearsal with Glover, riots in Regent's Park, a hundred men arrested, the workmen wishing to help their "frères," several wounded, my wife coming back terrified, then a sick headache, a lecture on the Samson of Händel, increase of the headache. Yesterday a terrible performance at Exeter Hall, Glover's cantata, very lively in style, but difficult, and which made me perspire; the finale of Harold, and a noisy concerto of Henselt, executed by Mlle. Klindworth in fine style, which made me, as it were, dance on a tight rope for an hour, and Cooper, our first violin, not being able to contain himself, calling out: "Sempre tempo rubato," and the cornets who were not able to come on account of the military band of the "Etoile du Nord," which detained them in Covent Garden. It is always the "Etoile du Nord" on Glover's evening when Meyerbeer ought to come; the great man's excusers allege his indisposition.
93Then at last on Meyerbeer arriving when everybody has given up regretting, there are congratulations on his recovery, a ramble in the streets of London by moonlight, while I rejoin my wife at Ernst's house. Mme. E. asks me if I like Molière. "Good Heavens!" and straightway: "Je vais vous en réciter ou déclamer quelque chose." A scene from the Mésantrope (sic), after which the chessboard is brought in and Ernst sits down with M. Louis Blanc, and there they are checkmating each other in those idiotic moves until 3 o'clock in the morning. Ella's matinée, where the said Ella introduces to his public Meyerbeer, between two bishops. Departure of Wagner after good Mr. Hogarth has introduced him in his turn to Meyerbeer, asking these two celebrities if they know each other. Delight of Wagner on leaving London. Excess of indignation against him among all the critics after the last concert at Hanover square—indeed he conducts in the same fashion that Klindworth plays on the piano, but he is very amusing in his ideas and conversation. When we go to drink punch with him after the concert he renews his acquaintance with me, eagerly welcomes me, saying that he was much prepossessed by me, he sheds tears, stamps on the floor, hardly has he taken his departure than the Musical World publishes the passage in his book in which he cuts me up in the most amusing and witty manner. Great delight on the part of Davison on translating it for me. "The world is a stage," Shakespeare and Cervantes have said. Ella makes me a present of a splendid volume, the complete works of this same Shakespeare—"Poet," as they have taken the precaution of informing visitors to the Crystal Palace. one of two readings
94Then at last on Meyerbeer arriving when everybody has given up regretting, there are congratulations on his recovery, a ramble in the streets of London by moonlight, while I rejoin my wife at Ernst's house. Mme. E. asks me if I like Molière. "Good Heavens!" and straightway: "Je vais vous en réciter ou déclamer quelque chose." A scene from the Mésantropie (sic), after which the chessboard is brought in and Ernst sits down with M. Louis Blanc, and there they are checkmating each other in those idiotic moves until 3 o'clock in the morning. Ella's matinée, where the said Ella introduces to his public Meyerbeer, between two bishops. Departure of Wagner after good Mr. Hogarth has introduced him in his turn to Meyerbeer, asking these two celebrities if they know each other. Delight of Wagner on leaving London. Excess of indignation against him among all the critics after the last concert at Hanover square—indeed he conducts in the same fashion that Klindworth plays on the piano, but he is very amusing in his ideas and conversation. When we go to drink punch with him after the concert he renews his acquaintance with me, eagerly welcomes me, saying that he was much prepossessed by me, he sheds tears, stamps on the floor, hardly has he taken his departure than the Musical World publishes the passage in his book in which he cuts me up in the most amusing and witty manner. Great delight on the part of Davison on translating it for me. "The world is a stage," Shakespeare and Cervantes have said. Ella makes me a present of a splendid volume, the complete works of this same Shakespeare—"Poet," as they have taken the precaution of informing visitors to the Crystal Palace. one of two readings
96"W. Shakespeare."
97"Poet."
99(You were very kind to tell me that), and I embrace you and sign myself (German style) yours devotedly, H. BERLIOZ, the man of letters without stops, which one reads in one breath if one is able, if one has plenty of breath, that is to say if one is not out of breath, if one knows "se servir de son âme." This is smart without being witty, but it is better to go without puns. God Bless you and Farewell (!) No pineapples! We have been robbed, but plenty of strawberries. "Nous avons jusqu'à des fraises de veau." Vile phrase! that's an English pun.
101My wife has found the Key of the Chinese tomahawk, she told me to tell you.
103The book of Wagner to which Berlioz refers is no other than his Opera and Drama, a summary of which the Musical World was at that time publishing. Madame Henriette Fuchs does not quote it. For the rest, Berlioz is mistaken about his depreciatory remarks. Wagner, it is true, separates himself from him very decidedly as regards aesthetic tendencies.
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