Scan 8
Musical Courier 1895-11-06: Vol 31 Iss 818, 1895
87 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 9. See the scan on archive.org.
1greatest complaint this opening is that all her "beginners" are not beginners. They have all sung more or less and all have to be more or less undone. She would rather teach the poorest voice from the commencement than to repair and correct an advanced one.
3Of M. Sbriglia's pupils at present in the city are Mlle. Grosse, engaged at the Opéra Comique; a baritone engaged for Lyons; Mme. Brazzi, on the Boulevard Haussmann, preparing for an engagement at Lyons and for London in April; M. Dôme, a good tenor, is to make his début in grand opera here this season in Lohengrin, and is to be married to a charming American singer next year; Mlle. Phoebe Strakosch, dramatic soprano, is to sing with Patti at Nice; Paul Arthur, baritone; Miss Helen Driver, of Chicago, a rich amateur, and Mr. Whitehead, from Boston; also Nordica, who, I believe, took some lessons of him.
5In Mr. Juliani's class this year is a Mr. Cyril Dwight Edwards Clarke, of Memphis, Tenn., later of Toronto, Canada, who has a tenor voice such as one seldom hears. It is worth the highest enthusiasm and best training, and, other things being equal, will make him famous. He is poetic and dramatic besides. What he needs most is money to secure a profound training. Providence send it to him! Providence does those things sometimes.
7There is also a Mr. Anderson, highly endowed in many ways; a Mr. Frank, of Vienna, and a large, handsome Frenchman, whose name I forget, who will each surely do something worth while. And they all swear by Juliani. The Misses Garrigues and Stelle stay with him another year.
9M. Bouhy, Mme. Roger Miclos, M. Bertin, M. Jancey, Mme. Laborde, Mme. Richards, Mme. de la Grange have all recommenced and are busy at work. More about them and others later.
11Marsick and Mme. Marsick left for America Saturday. I bespeak for them a hearty welcome in America. Mr. Bagby passed through Paris on his way to London. Miss Sandmeyer and Miss Mason have returned from Switzerland and are at the charming home of Mme. Chatel, 128 Avenue Wagram. Here they are cared for as if in their own homes and hear nothing spoken but French. Miss Rondebush sang, at a concert at the Palais d'Industrie yesterday, an air from Oberon, with orchestra. Mlle. Nuola was out riding on the Bois with the Infanta Eulalie yesterday.
13Las Miettes.
15Two stars fall out of the Parisian sky this week—Calvé and Lola Beeth.
17"And grandmother, grandmother, where do all the stars go to when they go?"
18"To America, to America, my dear, where they would all go if they could, and when they can't go they say it is because they would not."
19Massenet, returning from Austria and Belgium, stopped in Paris for two days and left immediately for Lyons to rehearse Le Cid. Yet he has just finished two operas in the meantime.
20It seems that Wagner wrote but three songs to French words: Dors mon Enfant and l'Attente by Victor Hugo, and Mignonne by Ronsard. On the back of one of the city papers this morning is printed the latter, bearing the date of 1869, and the following anecdote, due to Durand, the publisher. It seems that owing to the slender popularity of the composer in France at that time it was proposed that the song should be dedicated to a certain Baroness de Caters, daughter of Lablache, who, being a society singer, would bring the song into repute through the newspapers.
21Wagner replied in two lines that he was not depending on anything for help, neither salons nor newspapers; a letter which spoke volumes of philosophy.
23FANNIE EDGAR THOMAS.
25Verdier.—M. Verdier, director of the theatre of Tournai, was lately run over by a railroad train at Tournai and killed.
27Mme. Guthrie-Moyer.
29It is a pleasure to present to the readers of this paper on its first page this week an admirable likeness taken from a recent photograph of Mme. Francesca Guthrie-Moyer, one of America's representative prima donna sopranos.
31Mme. Guthrie-Moyer takes her name from her native city, San Francisco. She is the great-granddaughter of Capt. Joshua Whitney, of Revolutionary fame, a fact entitling her to membership in the societies of Daughters of the American Revolution and Colonial Dames. Her studies were completed under the greatest masters, mainly in Paris, Milan and Berlin, and she speaks fluently Italian, French, German and Spanish.
33Her great natural ability and magnificent voice have made her what she is—one of the leading and most reliable dramatic sopranos of her time. The Milwaukee Daily Sentinel of September 27 says: "It was gratifying to listen again to Mme. Guthrie-Moyer, about whose name are entwined so many memories of grand opera—English, French, German and Italian—in which her superb performances were among the best ever witnessed in Milwaukee.
35"Mme. Guthrie-Moyer is one of the most satisfying singing voices in the concert room as well as on the lyric stage. Her long experience as an opera singer, a field in which she has gained enviable distinction, has given her that ease and assurance—that routine—which so few concert singers possess. Gifted with a voice of great volume and power, of wide range and rather unusual flexibility, she sings the dramatic music of Wagner's operas with the same success as the florid arias and cavatinas of the Italian composers. The music of Elizabeth in Tannhäuser and that of Senta in The Flying Dutchman is sung with all the fervor and dramatic intensity of the German school, to which is added the elegance of the Italian. Something which is found in Lilli Lehmann, in the De Reszkés and in some of the great French singers like Lasalle and Maurel. Last night she sang the grand air Dich Theure Halle, from Wagner's Tannhäuser, and another from Gounod's Queen of Sheba, with several encores in response to the usual recalls and floral offerings."
37This artist was heard last season in 180 concerts, embracing every large American and Canadian city from Montreal and Portland, Me., to San Antonio, Tex., with signal success.
39In New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, &c., each, she appeared in four or five concerts. Her season began with the Artists' Night concert at the Worcester Music Festival, September 27, 1894, where as leading soloist she was specially engaged with Herr Schatt to interpret the difficult Wagner music dramas, and she achieved a genuine triumph. Then followed in quick succession important engagements with symphony orchestras and musical societies East and West, a continental tour with Sousa's famous band, and last June she was accorded a magnificent reception as principal soloist at the Binghamton, N. Y., Music Festival.
41Last spring Mme. Guthrie-Moyer organized her own company and gave a series of twenty Wagnerian concerts. The favorable issue of this venture, both financially and artistically, induced Mme. Guthrie-Moyer to organize her own grand operatic concert company, which commenced the season's work at the Academy of Music in Milwaukee on September 26, and has just completed a tour of twenty-five Northwestern cities, meeting everywhere with remarkable success. This fine organization, including in its personnel Mme. Guthrie-Moyer, soprano; Henry F. Stow, tenor; Signor Svedelius, basso; Miss Fanny Losey, violinist and Herr J. Erich Schmaal pianist, is now visiting the principal cities east of Chicago, and later will visit the Southern States, with flattering offers from Mexico and the Pacific Coast for January and February.
43The large répertoire and superior musicianship of these artists enable them to present matchless programs, including trios, duos and solos from Faust, Lohengrin, Romeo and Juliet, Tannhäuser, Carmen, Les Huguenots, Cavalleria Rusticana, &c., given in costume with telling climax and scenic effect.
45A Reply to Dr. Cole.
47Editors The Musical Courier:
49Being a regular reader of The Musical Courier I have seen an article by Dr. E. H. Cole, in which he makes several statements in regard to what lines should be and should not be followed in the teaching of singing, one of which in particular I desire to comment on.
51It may appear presumptuous that a person but little known in the musical world should criticise anything coming from a musician of Dr. Cole's standing, but I hope that three years of instruction from Mme. Marchesi and one year from Sbriglia, together with succeeding years of study, will be a sufficient excuse.
53No one can take exception to the climatic influences upon voices, noted by Dr. Cole, nor to the fact that perfect care of one's self and a proper mode of living are essential to the best welfare of the voice.
55Dr. Cole, however, seems to complain that too many teachers "constantly harp on breathing." If one teaches what I believe to be the proper method, and is obliged to constantly harp on breathing, it is only because of the pupil's incapacity to grasp one of the fundamental principles of singing, namely, proper breathing.
57A conclusive reply to Dr. Cole's advice to breathe naturally would be to induce him to so breathe, and sing. Should he do so, what would be the result? As the volume of sound is increased, the amount of breath given out must accordingly be increased. Any enlarging of the volume of breath, causing a sound greater than the normal speaking tone, is necessarily the result of different breathing from the natural. A person shouting, for instance, breathes differently than one speaking.
59Every singer knows that upon the proper control of the breath depends in a great measure her art. When she trills, executes a run, sings pianissimo or sustains a tone she does it by being master of her breath, and she always holds a supply in reserve, which is not the case naturally. Numberless points in singing which are credited to the singer's consummate art are merely "tricks of the breath."
61Not only must the lungs act as a reservoir and the flow of air from them be perfectly controlled, but this flow must be guided correctly and accurately to the hard palate back of the teeth. Unless this is done the tone is muffled or throaty, and consequently has no roundness, ring or carrying power. If the breath strikes the throat or the soft palate, the tones are unmusical and the throat becomes irritated.
63It is impossible to have the tones placed as they should be unless the breath is controlled and guided as above indicated. I have seen a few singers most of whose tones were placed correctly by nature, but the majority of voices are not.
65Assume the improbable, namely, that a person's tones are all perfectly placed by nature. She or he cannot sing anything but the simplest "tunes" while breathing naturally, and those even as they should be sung. Phrasing, that most important part of perfect singing, cannot be accomplished successfully except by a mastery of the breath.
67If a woman's voice is throaty or breathy, and she continues to breathe naturally, reaching the volume of tone desired by forcing the breath, she will never sing.
69If she controls her breath so as to produce perfect tones, musically, and lacks an emotional and sympathetic nature, she will never sing in the true meaning of the word.
71If she is blessed with such a nature, and has learned the mastery of the breath, she will find as she sings that her breath is controlled without an effort by her emotions and sympathies, producing what all will recognize as truest song, God's highest gift.
73Is it any wonder, then, that teachers who are competent harp on breathing when it is necessary?
75LILIAN FITZHUGH CROSS.
77MR. and MRS. GEORG HENSCHEL IN AMERICA
78During April and May, 1896.
80First production of GEORG HENSCHEL's phenomenally successful
81STABAT MATER
82under the composer's personal direction. Also in
83SONG RECITALS.
84For particulars address
85WOLFSON'S MUSICAL BUREAU,
86131 E. 17th Street, New York.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.