Scan 48
Musical Courier 1895-12-25: Vol 31 Iss 825, 1895
47 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. Printed page 49. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1Vienna Letter.
2VIENNA, December 3, 1895.
4LIKE Micawber, your correspondent has been waiting for something to turn up. The season did not begin until quite late, and there has been but little stirring in the musical atmosphere.
6Mascagni has come and gone and left the Viennese very cool. An entire evening was devoted to his works, in which he directed the orchestra, but there were no enthusiasm, no encores and no recalls. In classical Vienna there is no middle line apparently. It is either Bach and Beethoven or Strauss at the other extreme.
8But now comes the news from Mailand that a pamphlet against Mascagni has lately appeared there which has aroused a great deal of attention in the home of the tone poet. The pamphlet leaves are divided into two columns; on the left side appears a selection from a composition of Mascagni, on the right a corresponding selection from the work of another composer, both bearing a striking resemblance. It is the old cry of plagiary. The Cavelleria Rusticana prelude looks as if it had been copied from the opera Lina, of Ponichelli, with scarcely any change. The Kirchenthor is compared with Massenet's König von Lahore. A motif in the scene between Turridu and Santuzza appears to have been taken from the last scene of Bizet's Carmen. He is also accused of stealing from the Othello of Verdi and the Africanerin of Meyerbeer for scenes in Ratcliff.
10Mascagni is expected to give a satisfactory reply to this accusation. I once heard an artist say he had never heard a new tune, and a wiser man than he has told us there is nothing new under the sun, and he made no especial exception of musical composition. In my humble opinion, these and similar accusations are "trumped up" by the envious nine-tenths of the time, and are worse than futile.
12Händel, from this standpoint, was one of the worst thieves that ever put notes on paper; but who wishes his admiration and enjoyment of the oratorio lessened and his ardor dampened as this attempt to debase the moral currency fills his mind with doubts about the honesty of the composer?
14Later it was reported that in Graz, at the performance of Cavalleria Rusticana, every seat was sold; Mascagni was stormed with applause, and called out numberless times. Enthusiasts surrounded his carriage later on and constrained him to give his autograph. Was ist los mit den Wienerin?
16Speaking of Strauss, the waltz king, a pretty little story is going the rounds here—that one day in a collection of popular songs he accidentally came across A Song to a Miller Maid, which he recognized as his own. It was written years ago in his extreme youth (when he was paying his addresses to a pretty maid of that description) to indicate the condition of his heart toward his fair captivator. He immediately seized upon it, assigned it to his heroine in a scene in the Waldmeister, and it was sung not long since in the Theater an der Wien, where it has just passed the Generalprobe, and the première is to be performed to-day with Strauss as director, after which he will hand it over to Kapellmeister Müller, who has given this last work of Strauss thorough study.
18Das Modell, of Suppé, has run a hundred nights before large audiences, and may fairly be pronounced a success. Boieldieu's Rothkäppchen has already been given three or four times.
20Its première was performed in the Hofoperhaus two weeks ago. Rothkäppchen is another Volksmärchen in musical setting à la Humperdinck, Wagner, and, lastly but not leastly, Boieldien. In the overture he attempts the pictorial in portraying two situations of the play: How Rothkäppchen went a-walking in the forest and met the gruesome wolf; how the wolf began to run, in order to reach the grandam first; how he imitates the child-voice (flute) and the Grandmother answers (fagott), but at the moment the latter recognizes the wolf the composer takes the music out of the painter's hands and runs his own way in a straight through presto to the close of the overture. In the text the fairy tale disappears or rather takes an allegorical form. Rothkäppchen, for instance, is an orphan living with her adopted parents in the woods and growing up in great beauty, but protected from seduction by the power of her little red hood so long as she wears it. The Baron Rudolf (the wolf), a wild Mädchen Jäger, tries his luck with Red Riding Hood, but his witchcraft has no power over the little red cap. Once when she unconsciously takes it off and is in great danger an old Hermit of the Woods appears instantaneously on the scene. This forest brother is acquainted with certain mysteries of the neighborhood. He knows, too, the story of Rothkäppchen's parents, the feud that exists between the families of Couut Hugo, their landlord, and Baron Rudolph on account of the refusal of the latter to give his sister (Rothkäppchen's mother) to the count in marriage. Here everything sinks into mystery and intangibility, and is as difficult to relate as it is impossible for it all to have happened.
22Looking away from the real genius of the composer, there is much happy coincidence in the history of musical comedy to lend to his part in it a striking significance. The thread of old French tradition is woven through all his education. Haydn and Mozart were living sources of help. Rossini grew up with him as an artist and breathed upon him the warmth of genius. In all the fullness of this inspiration, however, he retains his individuality. He remains a Frenchman. He is melodious and imaginative. But, always ruled more by his intellect than by his song instinct, he strives in his technic before everything for clearness and Wohlklang (that last word is more expressive than anything we have in English). Says the critic of the Fremdenblatt:
24Many a thing seems flat and tasteless to us that his contemporaries relished as very piquant bits. Next to the salt we miss that which, however, seldom is wanting—the pepper. We find certain cadences, certain ever recurring forms, quite obsolete. In Rothkäppchen nearly everything in the history of village music is obsolete. In an altogether different manner do we conceive the song of the shepherd and peasant—the rural life. With us the dream life is more nervous than with Boieldieu; the wonderful, more mysterious. The French are characterized by more rationalistic traits. In this music many will find a red cheeked health, but to us it appears rather as an interesting sickness.
26Rothkäppchen did not arouse enthusiasm, but it certainly excited much pleasure. In Renard Red Riding Hood found a charming representative. She takes the part of Hänsel quite as well and better from certain standpoints, since in the latter rôle she must drop completely her natural feminine identity and act the wild, heedless, romping boy. Sir Augustus Harris may have imported Hänsel and Gretel, but he has not brought Mark and Renard to you, than whom two more charming and delightful impersonators would be difficult to find. Renard has a velvety, clear and tuneful voice, united with much beauty of person and a real genius as an actress. But Mark, while she has perhaps a superior voice and has highly perfected and refined her art, is not beautiful, but has great charm of personality. Both her voice and person indicate a high type of refinement. She is, in fact, exquisitely refined and her magnetism is almost of a spiritual force. In Margarethe (Faust) one feels a sense of disappointment on her first appearance, for Gretchen should certainly be beautiful, but in every step, in every tone, her grace and winsomeness and that perfection of charm found always in simplicity are more and more apparent. In the tragic parts these traits appear more and more prominent, and what is more tragic than such a mind in ruins? From Gretel to Margarethe is a wide leap, but she is equal to the demands of each, widely differing as they do. Americans should try to import Mark and Renard (Renard) for a season at least.
28Norma has been revived and was given not long since before a crowded house, with Lehmann (Frau Kalisch), who is here as Gastspielerin in the principal part. Her conception of Norma meets with enthusiastic praise from the Viennese, who remember her in former days as always able to sing either "nach der Schule oder gegen der Schule," just as she pleased, equally well, but always with a flexible voice and a wonderful velocity in passages. This time she appeared with her sister, who stands side by side with her in opera singing. But they had the misfortune to sing once out of tune (both were too high on the same note), and in the repetition of a colatura cadenza they lost their ensemble completely.
30Van Dyck is another singer (tenor) that Americans should try to import. Speaking of Margarethe reminds me to say that Ben Davies, the famous London tenor, has been here and sang to a great audience in the Grosser Musik Verein Saal. One number was Sei mir gegrüsst, which Van Dyck sings as no mortal man but him can sing. I cannot say that I enjoyed Davies' performance or execution of this so much as I might have if I had never heard Van Dyck. A better Faust, more appropriate in person and more wonderful in voice, both as to range, mellowness and flexibility, has not been heard either on this or the other side of the Atlantic, in my humble opinion.
32Eugen d'Albert is expected to play here next week. After him comes Stavenhagen. My tickets for Anton Færster, the Berlin pianist, came so late that I lost the opportunity of hearing him; but there has been a pianist here, Roderick Bosz, very young, whose first concert in the Bosendorfer Saal has almost made him great. He received storms of applause, was repeatedly encored, and Ben Davies was so much pleased with him that he invited him to play at his concert in Graz.
34Louis and Susanne Reé, the celebrated Künstler paar, were lately invited to play before the Hochprinzessin Stefanie, who received them with a cordiality and pleasure that come rarely except in personal friendship. Louis Reé is busy on a work of dedication to the Princess, which he will present to her as a souvenir. Susanne Reé received enthusiastic applause last month in a concert given in the
36Farewell Trans-Continental Tour
37OF
38FRAU AMALIA
39MATERNA,
40The Great Wagnerian Soprano.
41Under the exclusive management of
42Leon Margulies' Concert Bureau,
43C. L. GRAFF,
44Business Manager.
45CARNEGIE HALL,
46NEW YORK.
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