Scan 15
Musical Courier 1895-06-05: Vol 30 Iss 796, 1895
107 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 16. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Musical Courier.
2PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY
3BY 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: – – 1953-18th. 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.
13Single copies for sale at the music store of Ed. Bote & G. Bock, Leipziger Strasse, 39 W.
15THE LONDON, ENGLAND, Branch Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 15 Argyll St., Oxford Circus, W., is in charge of Mr. Frank Vincent Atwater.
17THE LEIPZIG, GERMANY, Branch Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER is at Elster Strasse, 27.
18Single copies for sale at P. Pabst, Neumarkt, 26.
20THE PARIS, FRANCE, Branch Office of THE MUSICAL COURIER, 86 Rue Lafayette, is in charge of Fannie Edgar Thomas.
22THE CHICAGO OFFICE of THE MUSICAL COURIER is at 225 Dearborn Street.
24THE BOSTON OFFICE of THE MUSICAL COURIER is at 17 Beacon Street.
26THE PHILADELPHIA OFFICE of THE MUSICAL COURIER is at No. 410 Betz Building, Broad Street and South Penn Sq.
28LONDON: Single copies, Principal London Publishers.
29PARIS: Single copies, BRENTANO'S, 37 Avenue de l'Opéra.
30DRESDEN: Single copies for sale at H. Bock's, Pragerstrasse, 12.
32Subscription (including postage), invariably in advance:
33Yearly, $4.00; Foreign, $5.00; Single Copies, Ten Cents.
35RATES FOR ADVERTISING.
36PER INCH.
37Three Months………….$25.00 Nine Months………….$75.00
38Six Months……………..50.00 Twelve Months………..100.00
39An additional charge of 50 per cent. above these rates is made for advertisements on reading pages.
40Special rates for preferred positions.
41All remittances for subscriptions or advertising must be made by check, draft or money orders, payable to THE MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY.
42Advertisements for the current week must be handed in by 5 P. M. on Monday.
43All changes in advertisements must reach this office by Friday noon preceding the issue in which changes are to take effect.
45American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents.
46Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents.
48ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1880,
49NO. 796.
51NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1895.
53NOTICE.
55"THE MUSICAL COURIER" DOES NOT CLUB WITH ANY OTHER PUBLICATION, AND ALL REPRESENTATIONS OF THAT NATURE ARE WITHOUT AUTHORITY FROM THE MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY.
57"THE 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.
59NEW SUBSCRIBERS TO INSURE PROMPT DELIVERY OF "THE MUSICAL COURIER" SHOULD REMIT THE AMOUNT OF THEIR SUBSCRIPTION WITH THE ORDER.
61IT 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.
63IF ANY OF OUR READERS ARE UNABLE TO PURCHASE THE CURRENT ISSUE OF "THE MUSICAL COURIER" AT THE NEWS STANDS, BOOK STORES OR AT ANY PLACE WHERE PERIODICALS ARE OFFERED FOR SALE, WE CONSIDER IT A FAVOR IF THEY WILL NOTIFY THIS OFFICE, GIVING THE ADDRESS OF THE STORE OR STAND AND THE DATE ON WHICH "THE MUSICAL COURIER" WAS ASKED FOR.
65We learn that Paderewski has nearly finished his four act opera. The book is built on a modern subject, and the scene is located in the Carpathian Mountains on the border line of Hungary and Galicia. Sir Augustus Harris is to produce the work at Covent Garden. It will be sung in French, but at Budapest it will be given in Hungarian, and at Dresden in German. Abbey & Grau own the American rights.
67ARGE crowds can be attracted to the Seidl concerts this summer at Brighton Beach if the managers will but advertise the concerts and programs in this city of New York, which receives, even during the summer months, about one hundred thousand strangers a day. These strangers do not go to Brooklyn; they never see a Brooklyn paper, and they are not even aware of the existence of a Seidl orchestra, much less of the concerts that take place at the beach. Why not at least give them the opportunity of learning of all this?
69THE cable on Monday informed us that Marcella Sembrich sang in La Fille du Régiment in Berlin on the preceding evening at the Royal Opera House. Mme. Sembrich will find that a great change has taken place in the eleven years since her appearance in New York, and that when she comes here, no matter how great a vocalist she is, the people of New York will not pay any money to listen to this superannuated little opera of Donizetti.
71La Fille du Régiment was produced for the first time at the Opéra Comique, Paris, on February 11, 1840, just fifty-five years ago. It never had any justification, except as an opportunity for a high soprano to show her powers. It has the usual stupid libretto of the operas of that period, and the whole dish of commonplace music was hashed by Donizetti in a few days.
73The most surprising feature of this, however, is that the people of Berlin will listen to it.
75ONDRIECK IN LONDON.
77THE following cablegram was received from the British office of THE MUSICAL COURIER:
79LONDON, May 27, 1895.
80Franz Ondricek, the famous Bohemian violin virtuoso, achieved a grand success at the Philharmonic concert. He played Dvorák's concerto, and in answer to imperative encores gave Schumann's Abendlied.
82FRANK V. ATWATER.
84ITALY IN HAMBURG.
86THERE is an Italian exposition at Hamburg, Germany. An orchestra of seventy musicians belonging to a Bersaglieri regiment of Rome, under Maestro Belisario Saddi, furnishes the daily promenade concerts. The different squares, streets and restaurants are enlivened by the Orchestra San Carlo, thirty-five musicians, under Professor Della Rosa; the singing chorus of Milan, twenty-five voices, under Professor Svabaglia; the Tarantella Troupes, Nos. 1 and 2, of Naples, of eleven and sixteen members respectively; two mandolin and guitar troupes of eleven persons each; bagpipes and dancers under Cocozza; players and female dancers, nine persons, under Luigi Arcari. At the Concert Hall, Bimboni, with ninety musicians of the Scala orchestra of Milan, is giving concerts daily.
88THE WAGNER MUSEUM.
90WE published in our issue of April 3 an article on the origin and the progress of the collection which Nicolaus Oesterlein made as a labor of love to perpetuate the memory of Wagner. We stated then that Oesterlein felt that he had neither the capital nor the time necessary to do justice to the ever increasing collection which he had succeeded in housing in Vienna, and that the museum had been acquired from him by the city of Eisenach. That city has now the custody of this large and valuable gathering of objects all pertaining to the great master's life and work. We reviewed at that time the catalogue of the museum in three volumes, and now we have before us the fourth, which has been issued lately by Breitkopf & Härtel in elegant form, containing a well executed photolithograph of the interior of the Wagner Museum at Vienna.
92The volume is not a separate work from the others, but is only to be regarded as completing them. Its contents give the collections, like the others, only up to the death of Richard Wagner, February 13, 1883, and we find in it much that has been already classified in the other volumes. Mr. Oesterlein announces in a preface that with this completing volume he thinks that, for the present at least, the catalogue has reached its end. It embraces everything that he could gather from the first period to the death of Richard Wagner. Much that is valuable is still held in private possession, which it is hoped will ultimately find its way to the collection. This will be matter for a future catalogue, but such a work Mr. Oesterlein will leave for his successors to compile. The self-sacrificing and painstaking work that he has accomplished is deserving of the highest praise on the part of the whole civilized world.
94THE QUESTION OF ENUNCIATION.
96THE subject of bad enunciation with vocal artists is one which crops up incidentally through the various critiques of a season. Reference is made especially to English speaking singers in the English tongue. The importance of French, German and Italian for vocalists is by no means underestimated, but with native born Americans can hardly be accepted as primary. When an American girl or youth begins to sing we would take it that charity in the matter of languages should rightly begin at home.
98The fact also remains uppermost that a distinctly developed enunciation in any one language means a simpler mastery over the syllables of another.
100We have concert after concert of English songs given here by professionals during a season. We have also—worse hope—class after class of pupils from first-rate voice teachers brought forward to sing us lyrics in the English tongue, from neither of whom can we extract a syllable of meaning. Absolute care is taken by teachers in the matter of tone production. The study of the text and the coloring of tone in sympathetic adaptation to it is made a subject of equal care, but the clear and telling delivery of this text, by which alone an audience can comprehend and appreciate its appropriateness or beauty of its vocal setting, is growing more and more an affair of negligence with the teaching world. From out the thousand vocal classes of our metropolis those who sing distinctly enough to be understood might almost be numbered on our fingers.
102It is of no practical consequence that a pupil have an innate dramatic conception of the meaning of a song, if he cannot make it patent to an audience through his utterance; their tranquil, tender phrases may have to do with the innocent babble of green fields or with those thoughts beneath which a well of tears is prone to lie; their impassioned climaxes may mean equally a rage of atmospheric elements or the tumultuous ardors of a love. How can an audience know if they do not tell them? And because the teachers and pupils know so thoroughly well between them just what the lyric tale is all about, they begin to forget more and more the necessity to tell them.
104Our episodes of English opera confirm most emphatically this imperfection of enunciation. Except in rare cases or in incoherent fragments can anyone tell what on earth the members of an English opera company are singing about? At the present moment there is being initiated in the courts a suit by a singer against a manager for breach of contract. The singer pleads an engagement for a number of nights to sing leading rôles in English opera. The manager admits the contract, but states that it was violated not by him, but by the singer, who sang Italian instead of English at the first performance. Now, the artist in question was not heard on this occasion, but if we are to judge from contemporaneous example the manager is pretty apt to have it his own way, as it would be hard to pick a jury of twelve good listeners from an audience who might aver with positiveness that they had been listening to any one language in particular. Judging from average experience of the enunciation of home trained English singers it would be quite a coup on the manager's part to decide even upon the Italian. Nothing but an ear trumpet in the wings oftentimes would convince us as to where the half formed stifled syllables we hear have had their birthplace.
106We all know the potent effects sometimes gained by a singer of medium voice, who can tell his song-story with a meaning over the singer of more brilliant organ, whose bad enunciation leaves the tale a mystery. A notable success has been scored during this past season by two or three teachers who have paid strict attention to this enunciation. Slender vocal material has been made to do marvellous duty in garbing intelligently a distinct sympathetic tale, where larger voices have had the raison d'etre of all their brilliancy and warmth and color satisfactorily explained through their clearly delivered text. But these cases were marked exceptions. The general idea within the studio seems to be that so long as the idea
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.