Scan 19
Musical Courier 1895-06-05: Vol 30 Iss 796, 1895
150 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 20. See the scan on archive.org.
1office, and there he described himself as Daniel S. Arnold, a real estate broker, of 25 Monroe place, Brooklyn.
3"At 11 o'clock yesterday morning, he said, he sent his office boy to the City National Bank to deposit $4,100. The boy had dropped half of the money on the sidewalk, within 100 feet of the entrance to the bank.
5"Mr. Arnold was greatly relieved when he heard that the money had been found. He wanted it at once, but it had been sent over to the property clerk at Police Headquarters. To-day he will try to see the property clerk."
7* * *
9I call it "phenomenal," not because musicians are anything but honest, but because it illustrates in most glaring fashion the absolute impracticability and lack of business tact of the profession at large.
11* * *
13This from the Musikzeitung:
15Kullak, the famous pianist, was once invited to dinner by a wealthy Berliner, who was the owner of a large boot manufactory and had been a shoemaker in his time. After the repast Kullak was requested to play something, and he consented. Not long afterward the virtuoso invited the boot manufacturer, and after dinner handed him a pair of old boots.
17"What am I to do with these?" inquired the rich man.
19With a genial smile Kullak replied:
21"Why, the other day you asked me after dinner to make a little music for you, and now I ask you to mend these boots for me. Each to his trade."
23* * *
25Letters tell me of Emma Eames' great success in concert in Paris.
27* * *
29The Evangelist sends 300 organists to Europe for a six weeks' vacation. The gallant 300 will charge on the cathedrals of France, England and Belgium and each man is pledged to try every church organ wheresoever situated. What a boon to European organ builders and repairers! It's an ill wind that won't blow their organs.
31* * *
33Whatever you may think about her work, Helen Bertram, the soprano, has succeeded in attracting lots of attention. Mr. Abbey saw her Santuzza on Saturday night at the Grand Opera House, and so did Walter Damrosch. What the outcome will be I can't tell, only that the young woman has an operatic future of no mean pretensions. Her Santuzza is a vivid bit of portraiture, the colors laid on heavily, but effectively. She has a genuine dramatic temperament, and several years' experience will work wonders. Of course the story of the Abbey engagement was contradicted by Miss Bertram, who is the wife of E. J. Henley, a talented actor. She was made to say ridiculous things in print which she very promptly denied.
35Anoka Ladies' Musicae.—The Ladies' Musicae of Anoka, Minn., meets every alternate Thursday, its object being mutual improvement of its members as regards the playing of instrumental music. It has limited the membership to twenty-four members. Vocal numbers will intersperse the program, but to be rendered by those who are members, through their being able to perform instrumental music also. Its officers are: Mrs. T. J. Reid, president, and Mrs. Scipio Bond, secretary. Mrs. Dr. Reid, the president, is an accomplished musician.
37NEW CHICAGO MUSIC HOUSE.
38THE STRAUSS MUSIC CO.,
39267-269 WABASH AVENUE.
40Around the corner from STEINWAY HALL.
41Half a block from the AUDITORIUM.
42ALL STANDARD PUBLICATIONS. ALL EDITIONS.
43COMPLETE STOCK OF EVERYTHING.
45Oscar Franklin Comstock,
46Assistant Organist of St. Bartholomew's.
47LESSONS IN
48Voice Placing, Artistic Singing and Pianoforte Playing,
49100 ROSS STREET, BROOKLYN.
51Mr. H. M. HIRSCHBERG,
52Will Open a MUSICAL BUREAU,
53SEASON 1895-96,
54For the management of a limited number of RECOGNIZED ARTISTS.
55Full information may be obtained by addressing
56148 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK CITY.
57Office hours: 2:30 to 5 P.M.
59MUSIC IN BOSTON
61BOSTON, Mass., June 2, 1895.
63THE summer season of operetta at the Tremont Theatre, under the management of Mr. Harry Askin, opened the 27th ult. with the first performance on any stage of a new comic opera, The Sphinx, text by Mr. William M. Browne and music by Mr. Lewis S. Thompson. The conductor was Mr. Maurice Gould. The cast was as follows:
65Prof. P. Papyrus…………………………………………..Edwin Stevens
66This………………………………………………………..Walter Allen
67Neferkera………………………………………………….J. Aldrich Libbey
68Eratosthenes……………………………………………..A. L. Kingsley
69Neatanebo…………………………………………………C. Hartberg one of two readings
70Nectanebo…………………………………………………C. Hartberg one of two readings
71Mr. Ptimmins…………………………………………….T. Baldwin
72Pteecha…………………………………………………….Laura Joyce-Bell
73Shafra………………………………………………………Christie McDonald
74Amasis………………………………………………………Nannie Morse
75Hathor………………………………………………………Marie Millard
77* * *
79Of course the first duty of a conscientious reviewer who attends a performance "to verify his suspicions" is to acquaint himself thoroughly with the history, biography, geography, climatology and zoology suggested by the operetta.
81First of all I examined the pedigree of the Sphinx. At first it was all plain sailing. Ge at one time was the wife of Tartarus, and to them were born Typhon, a most unpleasant individual, and Echidna, who was murdered by Argus. Now our old friend Apollodorus swears that the Sphinx was the daughter of Typhon and Echidna and the sister of Chimera, Orthrus, the two-headed dog, and the Dragon of a hundred heads that guarded the golden apples in the golden remote wild west. What a delightful home life it must have been! No need of going over the threshold to freak museums or other places of amusement.
83But others say that the Sphinx was the daughter of Echidna and Orthrus, or of Chimera and Orthrus. At any rate the marriage was all in the family.
85* * *
87Then I pondered the essay by De Quincey, in which he objects to the ordinary solution of the riddle, in which he guesses at the mysterious last leave taking of Œdipus: "What language of earth or trumpet of heaven could decipher the woe of that unfathomable call, when, from the depth of ancient woods, a voice that drew like gravitation, that sucked in like a vortex, far off yet near—in some distant world, yet close at hand—cried: 'Hark, Œdipus! King Œdipus! Come hither! Thou art wanted!' Wanted! for what? Was it for death? Was it for judgment? Was it for some wilderness of pariah eternities? No man ever knew."
89* * *
91Why has not this wild and fantastic legend spurred opera makers? There is Œdipus, by Gebel (1751); Œdipe à Colone, by Sacchini (1787); Edipo a Colono, by an unknown (Munich, 1729). Then there is Œdipe à Thèbes, by Le Froid de Mereaux, produced at the Paris Opéra in 1791.
93The characters are Œdipe, Le Grand Prêtre, Phorbas, Icare, Jocaste. But where is the Sphinx?
95And here allow a digression. In this opera by Mereaux, Phorbas was with Laius when he was killed, and he was accused of the murder, but on account of lack of evidence he was put into prison and not executed. Ten years after Œdipus has Phorbas brought before him, and he orders him to tell the name of the assassin, to which Phorbas replies: "The assassin! And it is you who ask this?" This was all that Phorbas has to say. Now the part was taken by Adrien, a pupil of Talma, and he produced such a sensation by the realism of his speech, action and costume that the public rose at him. Talma had insisted that Adrien should be dressed as a wretched slave, emerging from the sepulchre of bondage—beard, white hair in confusion, tunic in shreds, a fugitive from the Theban galley.
97Now this same Adrien was called upon to play Œdipus in Sacchini's opera. The hairdresser of the theatre had provided him with a buckled and curiously powdered wig, a beard formed in corkscrew fashion. Adrien trampled them under foot. Then came the tailor, bearing a tunic with gold lace, and a cloak sparkling with a firmament of golden embroidered stars. Adrien, enraged, cried out "You mock me!" and insisted that spangles, stars, and lace should be at once torn off. The tailor refused. The actor took shears, removed the gewgaws, and cut holes and slits in tunic and mantle. As Œdipus he wore the beard and hair of Phorbas, and again he was acclaimed by the audience. And what was the result? A reform in costume? Oh no! The tailor complained that Adrien had mutilated, degraded and lacerated a new, costly, and elegant costume fashioned after the model of that worn by Chéron, who created the part. The administration condemned the "intelligent and judicious innovator" to pay the damages demanded. No doubt Jocasta held something in her hand throughout the tragedy, as was the custom. The Iaïre carried a handkerchief, Iphigenia a fan, Armide or Medea a rod of gold. I believe Albani still displays a delicate, filmy handkerchief even in the most trying circumstances.
99* * *
101There is no Sphinx in this old French opera, or at least she does not figure in the cast.
103There were two men who might have made much of the story—Wagner and Offenbach.
105* * *
107Imagine what Wagner would have done with the plot! The prelude should have been the warning of the oracle against childbirth in this royal Theban family. And for following scenes, the drunkenness and the forgetfulness of Laius; Œdipus at Corinth; the murder; the tête-à-tête with the Sphinx; the inquiry; the revelation.
109Did Œdipus venture alone to the dwelling of the Sphinx on Mount Phycæus? Or was there in the distance the shuddering Jocasta? Did she flush with joy or rage at the solving of the riddle?
111The Sphinx, who had the voice of a maiden, should have sung cold, metallic, deliberate, heartless soprano. Jocasta was undoubtedly a contralto, with tones thick or broken with passion. Of her we know little. Was she beautiful? I see her now, a tall woman, a fausse maigre, with fish pool eyes and hectic cheek. I never could reconcile her self destruction with the speech Sophocles puts in her mouth (Œdipus Tyrannus, 977-983), unless the outcry of impiety and freest love is merely hysteria.
113The name of Jocasta is enrolled in the list of "Women incestuous, Adulteresses, and such as have come by strange deaths," in the Fourth Book of old Thomas Heywood's work on women. She is in the illustrious company of Semiramis, Canace, Canusia, Julia the Empress, the sisters of Cambyses, Lollia Paulina, Cithalis, Cyborea, the mother of Judas Iscariot, and that rich and tragically unfortunate widow of whom Martin Luther talked with Manlius.
115But what a heroine for music-drama! What music for
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126The most complete and extensive Music Printing Establishment in America. Correspondence solicited.
128G. Waring Stebbins,
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130Pupil of ALEX. GUILMANT. Organist of Emmanuel Baptist Church, corner Lafayette Avenue and St. James Place, Brooklyn.
131Organ Concerts, Recitals and Openings.
132Lessons given on a large three manual organ. Address
13319 Verona Place, Brooklyn, N. Y.
135WILLIAM E. HILL & SONS,
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13738 New Bond Street, London, W.
138Violins by Stradivari and all the other great makers. Authenticity guaranteed. Bows, Cases, Strings and all other accessories, with the latest improvements and of the finest quality only.
140ARION, NEW YORK.
141THE MALE SINGING SOCIETY ARION, OF NEW York, wants a Conductor in place of Frank Van der Stucken, resigned. Early application is desired. Salary for the present, $2,000 annually.
142Address "ARION SOCIETY, NEW YORK."
144An Enormous Success!
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147Published in three keys with Violin, Organ and Harp obligato ad lib. HINTS ON SINGING by MANUAL GARCIA. The most practicable, useful and reliable singing tutor yet written.
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