Scan 6
Musical Courier 1895-05-15: Vol 30 Iss 793, 1895
74 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1Musical Progress
3Paris Office of The Musical Courier, 86 Rue Lafayette, April 24, 1895. one of two readings
4PARIS OFFICE OF THE MUSICAL COURIER, one of two readings
586 RUE LAFAYETTE, April 24, 1895. one of two readings
7It is not how high you go with your voice, or how low, that tells, but what you do with it while going.
9Pupils in Studios Here in Paris. one of two readings
10PUPILS IN STUDIOS HERE IN PARIS. one of two readings
12Mr. BOUHY'S studio, near the Champs Elysée, is a perfect nest of American folks. Among those of his pupils well known to us are Lillian Blauvelt, who was his faithful pupil four years; Miss Minna Gale and Miss Suzanne Adams, of the Paris Opéra. one of two readings
13MR. BOUHY'S studio, near the Champs Elysée, is a perfect nest of American folks. Among those of his pupils well known to us are Lillian Blauvelt, who was his faithful pupil four years; Miss Minna Gale and Miss Suzanne Adams, of the Paris Opéra. one of two readings
15Others of promise are M. Devraux, a young tenor; Miss Holton, Miss Pevny, Miss Roudebush, Mr. Hunt, of Kansas, a baritone; Miss Meyer, an English girl, with a mezzo soprano voice; Miss Reilly, of Philadelphia, intimate friend of Miss Adams; Mr. Jackson, of California; Miss Hosea, a pretty soprano from Connecticut; Miss Turner, of the Jersey City Tabernacle; Miss Grace Gregory, the New York contralto, whose sister is a painter of some name; Miss Shober, a soprano, also a violinist, and pupil of Joachim; Miss Hubbard, Miss Phillips, Mr. Harvey, of Boston; Miss Tennien, of New York, a gifted pupil of Miss Emily Winant, the contralto; of St. Thomas'; Mr. Shea, Miss Fish, Miss Wood, a beautiful soprano, with a future before her; Miss Wilson, Miss Anderson, very young, with much promise; Miss Bell, of Cleveland, friend of Miss Hyde, of Cleveland; Miss Werkheiser, Miss Ely, a soprano, I believe, of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York; Mr. Clark, Mr. Edgar Marwin and Miss Day.
17In a recent opera class session were heard to advantage Miss Roudebush, Miss Meyer, Mr. Harvey, Mr. Devraux and Mr. Hunt in scenes from Les Huguenots, Romeo and Juliette and Faust. Miss Roudebush, who is a nervous, sympathetic girl, sang with her whole soul, with a vibrant and well-posed voice, and, a difficult thing to do in a studio, was able to create an illusion in the Huguenots and also as Marguerite. Miss Meyer seemed as much at home in the rôles as if conversing, and the gentlemen showed both talent and training.
19The opera class is held on Mondays. Monsieur Valdajoe has charge of the class, which M. Bouhy simply observes, often taking part as replique.
21Miss Turner, in speaking of a French musical education, says that pupils are not made to work at home. She simply wastes her time at home. Pupils do not settle down to study, and teachers do not compel them. The French sense of perfection is so serious that unconsciously students become so. She believes that singers should consider themselves as members of a family, help and bear with and sympathize with each other, and that all pettiness and jealousy should be banished from among them. She also believes in singers being able to play their own accompaniments.
23Mr. Shea is from Pittsburg and is now engaged at the Royal Opera, The Hague. Miss Reilly is an exceedingly pretty blonde, and in America was a pupil of Kirschner. She is busy with the study of French rôles, and is a strong adherent of the Yersin phono-rhythmic method of losing the foreign accent, a method which Mr. Bouhy also advocates.
25Mr. Bouhy is young, strong, forceful, vibrant, with a splendid baritone voice, which he absolutely refuses to use in public on account of the distractions that personal achievement brings to the professor. He stopped stage-life in the midst of a brilliant career. His life and work are devoted to teaching, and more about his interesting plans and systems will be later given here. He does not believe much in concerts and séances for pupils, claiming that the distractions and excitements attendant are more harmful than beneficial to the study life. (A teacher may err in being too modest and quiet. Pupils, especially American pupils, grow restive under the pressure of merit alone. They must have a little "show-off," and if concert programs are made a résumé of classroom work, there need not be much extra effort. Besides, singing before people brings serenity and self-poise, necessary gifts for a singer.)
27Toréador in Carmen, Mephistophele, Noce de Figaro, Don Cesar de Bazan, Pygmalion, Maître Wolfram, Pardon de Ploërmel and Paul and Virginia are some of the rôles and operas in which Mr. Bouhy was known, both in opera and opera comique, in Paris and at Liege, where he commenced. More anon.
29A few weeks ago readers of The Musical Courier saw announcement of the decoration of M. Signor Trabadelo, a young Spaniard, who has become a leading factor in Paris as a vocal teacher.
31Perhaps the closest tie between Mr. Trabadelo and us at present is that he is teacher of the voice which has captivated the wealthiest girl in the world, and an American at that, Miss Anna Gould. One of the favored, and indeed one of the best looking, portraits in the studio is that of the young Count Castellane, who is a passionate lover of music, and has a light tenor voice of great flexibility and much sweetness, which he uses with expression. A careful and conscientious student, he was always regular in his hours and painstaking in preparation of his lessons. His preference was for the sentimental romance in song. A romance from Les Amants de Veronne, by Marquis d'Ivry, was one of his great favorites.
33Mr. Richard Peters, the young society New Yorker, a great friend of George Gould—in fact, "best man" at the wedding of Miss Anna—was also a pupil here. For a leisure hour American he is a very good student, very fond of music and has a fine baritone voice. Other interesting people who are studying voice with M. Trabadelo simply as amateurs are the Comte Pécy (Pechi), nephew of the Pope; the Marquise Wentworth, who is also an artist and has had pictures not only accepted at the Luxembourg, but bought by the State; Mr. Campbell, one of the Pope's chamberlains, who devotes the seasons not occupied by ecclesiastical duties to study in Paris. His sister, who with her mother is living here, is also cultivating a nice soprano voice. The Infanta Eulalie has also developed sweet soprano tones here; also the Duchess de Morny, the Princesse Murat, a mezzo soprano, and Baron de Bhar, officer d'escort to the Emperor of Germany, a favorite amateur in Berlin.
35Of interesting professionals Gayarre, the famous Spanish tenor, although much older than his professor, took counsel of him in regard to tenor methods, and Tamagno has done the same. Jean de Reszké is a firm friend of Trabadelo and has recently testified to his faith as singer by placing under his care unreservedly for vocal training Mlle. Adelsten, a young polonaise singer of whose future he is solicitous.
37M. Mierzwinzki, Kammersinger to the Emperor of Germany and Austria, is here at present having some defects of his voice removed. He takes lessons mornings and afternoons and is an indefatigable but judicious student. His voice is very like Tamagno's. Gerard Gerome, of whom you know in connection with the Marie Tempest Company, is back here having finishing touches put to his vocal education. Selier has been having vocal repairs done also. Perugini, Lillian Russell's present husband, was with Trabadelo for three years. Fay Templeton and Florence Monteith were both his pupils. Gordon Bennett and the Prince of Wales are among his friends.
39Born in Madrid, Trabadelo was sent by the state to study at Rome and Milan, also in Paris. He is a prix de Rome pupil, began teaching at fifteen, and created Cowen's Signa at Milan and les Amants de Veronne at Madrid.
41***
43In Delle Sedie's studio are a number of young people, not one of whom has a false method or could have it. When you want to find the pure, unadulterated column of air with a song floating out upon it go hear a voice that Delle Sedie is satisfied with. They can sing from 7 in the morning to 7 at night without feeling voice weary. There is no fanning or blasting or panting after the song. It is all easy as talking in rhyme. Seventy-two years of age, Delle Sedie's voice to-day is pure, easy and melodious. (Oh, for Delle Sedie, thirty, and in New York!) In his salon this afternoon he sang a Traviata duo with Mr. Ribolla, of Cincinnati. Leaning against the pianocorner, his hands clasped easily, a rim of white silk trimming the velvet studio cap, his brown cheeks flushed, the dark eyes flashing, the soft warmth, the accent, the expression of the olden days all there, one felt the beauty of the method that does not " yell nor gargle nor scoop," and that sustains, instead of breaking, through the years.
45There are people in New York who have it too: Madame Ashfort, Madame Bella Thomas-Nichols, Miss Nora Green and Miss Hilke, for example.
47Delle Sedie's is a regular school of solfege, acting, language and voice. Among his pupils are many interesting people.
49Mr. Ribolla has been in Paris about nine months with his wife, who is a Marchesi pupil. Both went first to England, where they studied with Shakespeare. They stay here a year longer then return to England to polish in English music, thence to the States. Their intended field is concert and oratorio work.
51Mr. Ribolla was a young business man of Cincinnati, who refreshed his spirits by singing duets with an extremely pretty girl, one of the most gifted pupils of the Cincinnati College of Music. Cupid kept time and turned the music so well that they decided to keep him at it always. They were married and commenced the study of music seriously. Mrs. Ribolla's distinctions in the College of Music have been already recounted. Of German descent, with a light, clear flexible soprano, very similar in quality to that of Augusta Schiller, of New York, she sings with special grace her German songs, which, as with Miss Schiller, are delightfully free from the heavy jowlings of the indigenous Teutons. Mr. Ribolla has a remarkably beautiful baritone voice. Dramatic, of Italian descent and very handsome, Italian opera would undoubtedly be his forte, but for his obligation to that same little Cupid chap, who must be kept in his position as family conductor, and so the field of concert and oratorio is chosen instead.
53Mr. Olof Lemon, of Stockholm, is a tenor of gift and stage experience for whom his professor predicts much.
55Miss Mary Carrington has one of those easy, breathless, bird-like voices which makes uninterested and uninteresting people stop and listen and which the true Italian method develops. A tiny girl, her voice can fill big spaces without effort, and she does not know what it is to feel throat fatigue.
57"I do not sing at all as I did when I came," she says. "It is not at all the same voice, because I use it differently." She goes to America to sing in concert, but returns later to prepare fully for the stage. She has sung here in Salle d'Harcourt with success. Her répertoire is Faust, Romeo and Juliet, Les Huguenots, Manon, Aida, Lakmé, &c. Miss Amy Fay was her instrumental teacher at home. Her mother, Mrs. C. D. Carrington, was a well-known singer in Chicago, their home.
59Mr. C. Lawrence Seker, choirmaster of the American Church, in Paris, Mme. Bjorksten, teacher of Miss Yaw, Mme. Bella Thomas-Nichols, of New York, Miss Munger, of Boston, Miss Fry, of Boston, M. Teza, M. Bjorksten, M. Furstenberg, M. Gignot are others of the Delle Sedie circle. Miss Yaw also blesses him for wise council.
61(To be continued.)
63A CHARMING DINNER PARTY.
65This Mr. Percy Jackson mentioned above is son of Col. J. P. Jackson, of California, who was sub-treasurer under Mr. Harrison's administration, one of the best thinkers and writers of his time, who was offered cabinet positions under Grant and Harrison, but whose ill health has always kept him in California. Percy was never out of the State until he came abroad under advice of Agramonte, Dvorák and Mr. MacDowell. For a boy, being only nineteen, he has a phenomenal bass voice. He is to stay five years with M. Bouhy. He works hard all day with diction, French, singing, piano and solfège. In fourteen months he has not missed a lesson except during a two weeks' visit to Bayreuth. The first six months he had four lessons a week. Nothing is being spared to make his life a success, and he is seconding all kind efforts.
67With Mr. Jackson in Paris, also a vocal student, is a cousin, Mr. Edgar Marwin, son Mr. Marwin, who will be remembered, as Consul at Vancouver, was the American centre of the British colony for many years. By reason of a few years difference in age and family ties, Mr. Marwin has constituted himself guardian and preceptor of Percy, seeing that he does not overwork and counseling and sympathizing with the young man generally for his best good. Himself a passionate music lover with excellent baritone voice, intense dramatic spirit and training and working with the same teacher, his aid is very material.
69By way of refreshment in a season of close study, on the occasion of his last birthday, Mr. Marwin organized a most charming dinner party in honor of his cousin. Ten very charming young ladies, American and English, all musical, assisted in the honors, and two sweet mothers acted as chaperones. Mr. Marwin, who was brought up in the entertainment spirit of his father's hospitable home, is a host par excellence. The affair, whose smallest details were arranged by his order, was a model of grace and skill worthy of an older man. The exquisite taste, free from extravagance or excess, which is a feature of French living, was apparent at the table. Music and song and story followed, and when the agreeable evening ended, no doubt more than one of the pretty guests reflected, "What a pity that such domestic gifts should be wasted on a young celibataire!"
71Among the young ladies were the Misses Minor, who are studying both vocal and instrumental music, the former with Trabadelo, the latter with Monsieur Breitner. Indeed at a recent concert in which M. Breitner himself was prevented from appearing, he intrusted the important artistic duty to Miss Judith Minor as being one of his most proficient representatives. Her reception certified his judgment, and a second appearance, in which she played Godard's Valse Chromatique, was an equal success. Miss Clarke, of Philadelphia, the Misses Guthrie and Miss West were also guests.
73In speaking of Wagner's music Miss West said that traveling in Scandinavia was the best Wagner education she ever had. A habit they have there of singing five-voiced unisons with organ accompaniment gives the effect of supernatural voicing, or the voice of gods surrounded by the music of nature, which envelops without obscuring. Then, too, nature voices there are all different from ours.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.