Scan 35
Musical Courier 1895-12-25: Vol 31 Iss 825, 1895
60 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. Printed page 36. See the scan on archive.org.
1Rudolph Neff was chosen president and has retained the position up to the present year. While the college has drifted from its original purposes it has attracted a large number of music students to the city, and has been conducted on sound and conservative business principles.
3The May Festivals have continued with but little art change. The manner of recruiting the chorus, however, now differs materially from the old Saengerfest plan. The chorus is now an independent organization, of which Mr. W. L. Blumenschein is the conductor. The wisdom of the change may be seriously questioned. The chorus is not what it should be; it does not attract to its ranks the representative Cincinnati singers. The only remedy that suggests itself is either to return to the old co-operative plan or to have the conductor a resident of Cincinnati. But Mr. Thomas is the father of the festivals, and to hint of giving a festival without him borders on sacrilege in the minds of many. Such in brief is the preface to the present state of music in Cincinnati.
5The year 1895 has proved an important one for the interests of music in Cincinnati. For the past ten years, with the exception of the biennial festivals and a few borrowed concerts, musical affairs have been at a low ebb, a reaction as it were from the mighty activity between 1875 and 1885. The festivals have always been loyally supported. But they serve to gorge the public at stated intervals rather than to supply them with the bread of musical life.
7The establishment of a symphony orchestra has long been the obvious need of the hour. And this at last is an established fact.
9The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is practically the creation of the women of Cincinnati. It was planned originally by the more prominent members of the Ladies' Musical Club. The conductor, as is now well known, is Mr. Frank Van der Stucken, formerly of New York, a musician of scholarly attainment and conductor of the very first order. Mr. Van der Stucken has been engaged for a term of six years as conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and as consulting director of the College of Music. The results of Mr. Van der Stucken's first concert have more than justified the confidence that has been placed in him.
11Even in the brief review of this city's progress one could not justly omit mention of Miss Baur's Conservatory of Music, which, from a small beginning in 1867, has grown into one of the most widely known music schools of the West. Miss Baur has joined hands with the college in furthering the interests of the new orchestra. She has recently given Mr. José Marien, late of Antwerp, concertmeister of the Symphony Orchestra, a position in her faculty.
13It can hardly be said that German singing societies play as important a part as in former years. There are several societies, however, that keep up something of the old activity. The German Orpheus, the oldest of them all, has been recently resurrected, and is now conducted by Mr. Andrew Nembach. The Liederkranz, Louis Ehrgott conductor, and the St. Caecilia Maennerchor, H. S. Boes conductor, are the other distinctive organizations. A large number of the smaller societies are grouped together for Saengerfest purposes under title of the Harmonie, conducted by Theodore Burck, and the Vereinigte Saenger, under Louis Ehrgott.
15Of the English singing societies the Apollo Club under Mr. Bush W. Foley has enjoyed a prosperous and highly creditable career. It was started twelve years ago as a male chorus, but a woman's choir was afterward added. The English Orpheus Club, C. A. Graninger conductor, is an exceedingly wideawake and energetic young society. During the past two seasons it brought the violinists Ysaye and Ondricek to this city.
17The Sunday popular concerts, conducted by Mr. Michael Brand during the winter, are a unique feature of Cincinnati musical life. They served to hold the Cincinnati musicians together when no orchestra of serious purpose existed.
19Cincinnati's musical future never looked as bright. The orchestra has been established with something of the spirit that distinguished the extravagances of a decade ago, but the public enthusiasm has been tempered by experience, and taught to encourage a steady, natural growth instead of the hothouse methods of former years.
21ROBT. I. CARTER.
23Frank Van der Stucken.
25FRANK VAN DER STUCKEN, the first permanent conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the auspices of the Orchestra Association, was born October 15, 1858, in Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, Tex., and is on his mother's side of German origin, while from his father he inherits Flemish blood, as his name indicates.
27He was a precocious child, and at the age of eight years, in 1866, he was taken by his parents to Antwerp, where he studied under Peter Benoît. There also, while he was yet at school, he wrote several pieces of music that were successfully performed. A Gloria, a Te Deum and other things of his were played in the churches, and a ballet received the most flattering approval on its production in the Royal Theatre.
29In 1876 Mr. Van der Stucken was in Leipsic, where he was helped by Carl Reineke, Eduard Grieg and Dr. Herman Langer. Here appeared his Opus 2 to Opus 5, which Grieg highly complimented. In the succeeding years he traveled through Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France, his Vlasda finally being given in Paris. In 1881 he was kapellmeister at the Breslau Stadt Theatre, for which he had composed music to Shakespeare's Tempest. Two years later he was in Weimar, giving concerts of his own compositions under the protection of Franz Liszt, and a flattering proposition was then made to him (on recommendation of Max Bruch) to undertake the musical direction of the Arion Society of New York, a very large and wealthy musical and social club. In this office he succeeded the late Dr. Leopold Damrosch, in 1884. There he remained till last May, when he resigned his position to become first conductor of the lately organized Symphony Orchestra at Cincinnati, and director of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, of which Theodore Thomas was once the head. He assumed his duties there this fall.
31Mr. Van der Stucken has borne a prominent part in various important musical enterprises, both in this country and in Europe. He was at the head of the novelty concerts in Steinway Hall, in New York, in 1884-85; the Symphony concerts in Chickering Hall, 1886-87; the American concerts, 1887-88; the Festival of the Music Teachers' National Association, in Indianapolis, in 1887; concert of his own compositions at the Philharmonie, in Berlin, in 1887; American concert at the Trocadero during the Paris Exposition in 1889, for which service he was made an officer of the Academy by the faculty; festival in the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in 1889; the Sixteenth National German Sängerfest at Newark, in 1891. In 1893 he was summoned to Antwerp by the Société Royale l'Harmonie to conduct his own compositions in a so-called American concert.
33The Festzug and other compositions were given last July in a concert at Cologne under the composer's direction
35Genial, competent, inspiriting and richly endowed with warm musical feeling, Mr. Van der Stucken's career in New York was marked by the utmost success and popularity. In leaving it he forsook a vast body of cordial friends and discriminate musical admirers. In all his musical enterprises the feeling was diffused that a spirit of earnest, veracious, musical temperament and reliable authority was at the helm, and the confidence and satisfaction inspired in his audiences are not easily replaced.
37The influence of Benoît on Van der Stucken's estimate of original composition was extremely powerful. His belief in the master is profound. "Benoît," he once remarked, "is the greatest living composer. I do not say the greatest musician, Brahms is the greatest musician, but Benoît is the greatest composer." Benoît's was the fount from which the ardent young student drew his first draughts of creative inspiration, and he remains as faithful and admiring as ever to the source.
39A popular, cordial, open-hearted man, a gifted, virile artist, musical to his finger tips, is Frank Van der Stucken, a significant factor in the musical history of America.
41Leandro Campanari.
43LEANDRO CAMPANARI was born in Rovigo, October 20, 1857, descendant of one of the oldest patrician families of Venice. Having completed his literary education in that city the family moved to Milan, where he graduated with the highest honors at that famous conservatory at the age of nineteen.
45The following two years Campanari held several prominent positions and traveled through the principal cities of Europe, gaining reputation and enjoying the friendship of many celebrated musicians of the day.
47At the age of twenty-one he made his first visit to America, and though unheralded he made a strong success at his violin début with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Georg Henschel, and later under Wilhelm Gericke. He then accepted engagements with several concert companies and finally settled in Boston, where he organized the Campanari String Quartet, which in a short time became a very popular institution. At the age of twenty-five he was elected director of the renowned choir of the Jesuit Church and was engaged by Dr. Eben Tourjée as head of the violin department of the New England Conservatory. There his success was phenomenal and created great enthusiasm among the crowds of pupils who came from all parts of the country to avail themselves of his instructions.
49In 1887 his health failing, by the physician's advice he returned to Italy, intending to remain there one year, but it eventually proved three. In the meantime he had reorganized his string quartet, which made him famous in his native land. In 1890, at the suggestion of John K. Paine, Geo. Whiting and L. C. Elson, he was engaged by President Peter Rudolph Neff as the head of the violin and orchestral department of the College of Music of Cincinnati.
51Leandro Campanari has written several valuable books for violin students, and is making a marked success also as a writer of songs.
53He is the brother of Giuseppe Campanari, the baritone of the Abbey & Grau forces, and another versatile musician. Leandro Campanari is characterized by a quiet, dignified modesty and a firm, sustained purpose in all that he undertakes. He commands a rare personal esteem and regard, as well as a sincere artistic admiration, from a large musically community.
55Lino Mattioli.
57THE following condensed sketch of Signor Lino Mattioli, the eminent teacher of voice and the graceful composer, is taken from the Biographical Brochure brought out by the John Church Company, of Cincinnati. It is a brief review of facts.
59"Lino Mattioli, the great 'cello virtuoso and well-known composer, was born in 1853 at Parma, Italy. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in that city and was graduated with high honors, being the recipient of four
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