Scan 33
Musical Courier 1896-03-04: Vol 32 Iss 835, 1896
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1THE first of a series of three chamber music concerts by Mlle. Antoinette Szumowska, pianist, assisted by Messrs. Timothée and Josef Adamowski, violin and 'cello, occurred on Thursday afternoon last, February 27, in Mendelssohn Glee Club Hall, and attracted a good sized audience. Brahms' Trio in C minor engaged the three performers in a genial and intelligent ensemble. Mlle. Szumowska and Mr. T. Adamowski played Grieg's sonata, op. 8, in F major, and the violinist further gave two solos, Beethoven's Romanza in F major, and Wieniawski's Valse Caprice, to which he had the piano accompaniment of Mr. Zach, a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
3The program, in addition to the merit of a sympathetic performance, in which the players were on terms of good understanding, had also the merit of rational brevity. Mr. Adamowski made a success with his solos, and Miss Szumowska held a discreet, intelligent position in her ensemble work.
5Appreciation ran high, and the popular as well as artistic success of these entertainments would seem assured.
7MISS JESSIE SHAY'S RECITAL.
9Miss Jessie Shay gave a piano recital on Monday evening last, February 24, in Carnegie Chamber Music Hall. The clever young pianist was assisted by Mr. Hans Seitz, baritone, who was in turn accompanied by Victor Harris.
11Nicodé's variations and fugue, two concert studies of Schloezer and Moszkowski, three short pieces of Jadassohn, Schumann and Schütt and a Liszt rhapsody completed Miss Shay's program. Mr. Seitz confined himself principally to German songs, which he delivered with some feeling and intelligence, but the singer has to struggle with a voice of naturally hard, inflexible quality, so that despite judicious management results are not always wholly agreeable.
13Miss Shay played excellently. She has developed a wonderful amount of force and authority since her formal professional début with the New York Symphony Orchestra last season. At the same time she retains the pearly limpidity, the poetic grace, and facile fluency which were her first distinguishing characteristics. The sonority of her tone and her sterling, firm grasp of matters are a pleasing surprise to many who have associated Miss Shay hitherto as a pianist chiefly of delicacy and finesse. All the shorter pieces rippled off with the delightful clarity and ease we are accustomed to from this charming artist, while the two studies were models of performance. This young lady has a wonderfully sure left hand. Schumann's Vogel als Prophet she took very slowly, but played it with charming taste. Other pianists have taken it quite as slowly, and others again haven't, and those who "haven't" seem to have chosen the better part. The piece is apt to get too spun out.
15Miss Shay, who looked dainty and winsomely ingénue, had a large audience, which received and applauded her with plenty of enthusiasm.
17LOUIS SCHMIDT CHAMBER AND SONG RECITAL.
19The first chamber music and song recital of Louis Schmidt, Jr., assisted by Miss Marguerite Hall, mezzo soprano, and Miss Lotta Mills, pianist, was given on Thursday evening, February 27, in Carnegie Chamber Music Hall. The program included Grieg's sonata in G minor, for piano and violin; Lalo's violin solo, Symphonie Espagnol, some short piano pieces by Miss Mills, and songs of Schubert and Bizet by Miss Hall.
21Despite the fact that it was Boston Symphony night, a large audience managed to be present, and testified its satisfaction cordially with what proved a successful initial concert. Mr. Schmidt handles his violin in an experienced, authoritative manner, and ordinarily gives a musicianly interpretation of the work in hand. The Grieg sonata had an intelligent, sympathetic reading, and a precise, finished performance by both players. In the Lalo work, however, Mr. Schmidt showed the greatest brilliancy and technical facility and dash, but the handicap of a piano accompaniment in its poverty and futile attempt at orchestral replacement seriously marred the effect. Mr. Schmidt's performance, however, roused immense enthusiasm, and certainly deserved to have been heard with its original support.
23Miss Mills played with smoothness and a firm, sympathetic control. She is, we understand, a Leschetizky pupil, and certainly brings a sure finger to her work, and not a little poetry and decision. She is a reliable ensemble pianist, and in a group of short solos by Chopin, Schütt and Leschetizky played with much taste and finish. She deserves to be heard from.
25The fine, warm, sympathetic singing of Miss Marguerite Hall is always a pleasure to hear. She sang admirably, as usual, with true, fervid power and feeling, and superior cultivation and finish. Her dramatic instinct is also just and convincing, and her delivery of Schubert's Death and the Maiden—which she had to repeat—was finely felt and impressive. More of these recitals will be welcome.
27NEW YORK TRIO CLUB.
29The third concert of the New York Trio Club took place on Tuesday evening, February 25, in Carnegie Chamber Music Hall. Schubert's E flat trio, op. 100, and Beethoven's trio, No. 1, in D major, were the ensemble numbers. Mr. Paolo Gallico, the pianist of the club, who is an excellent soloist, played Schumann's Papillons, and Mr. J. H. McKinley, tenor, who assisted, sang the Prize Song from Die Meistersinger.
31The club did intelligent, precise and sympathetic work. The ensemble has been good from the beginning, but older association improves matters, and induces a greater freedom and abandon in delivery grafted on the individual accuracy and decision which could not be expected in the first case to unite themselves spontaneously in the same degree. The New York Trio has a large following, so that the hall was crowded, and duly appreciative of the good work done.
33Mr. Gallico played extremely well Les Papillons. He is a piano soloist of no mean order, interprets a composer's meaning intelligently, and commands the medium of a fluent and certain technic. Mr. McKinley's singing of the Prize Song produced much satisfaction. We almost prefer to hear him, however, in the English lyric school.
35SUNDAY POPULAR CONCERT.
37Soloists were forthcoming with the same liberality as at the first concert at the second popular concert in Carnegie Hall on Sunday evening last. Mme. Clementine de Vere-Sapio, Sig. G. Campanari, M. Rivarde and M. Aimé Lachaume were heard in conjunction with a nicely balanced, precise orchestra, directed by Victor Herbert.
39Mme. de Vere-Sapio sang the O luce di quest anima from Linda di Chamouni very fluently, and with excellent style, but the voice itself was slightly sharp and squeezed at the top. She was also down for Hear ye, Israel, from Elijah, in the second part of the program. The most enjoyable singing of the evening came from Sig. Campanari, who gave the Dio possente from Faust nobly, with abundant pure tone and great beauty of phrase. He also sang Rossini's Largo al factotum. M. Rivarde played the veteran Mendelssohn concerto with charming smoothness in the andante. The finale was not overclear technically, and might have had more abandon. It was on the whole, however, a satisfying performance. Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso was his second number, which he has played in New York excellently on another occasion.
41Some rather heavy, but attractive, Oriental-colored ballet music of Pierné was played by M. Lachaume, with the orchestra. This pianist is at times delightful, and in every phrase displays refinement and finesse.
43Victor Herbert conducted among other numbers his own Badinage, and got a half dozen rounds of applause. There were no encores. The house was fair, weather considered.
45More Grenelli Notices.—The popular soprano Miss Inez Grenelli is meeting the same success West which attended her work in the East. Following are some recent press notices:
47The Philharmonic Club is accompanied this season by Miss Inez Grenelli, who is making her first visit to the West.
49Miss Grenelli has a beautifully cultivated voice, which she knows well how to use. She had a slight hoarseness, which was scarcely noticeable after she commenced. Her first number was the aria Casta Diva, and second two songs, Der Hidalgo, by R. Schumann, and one of the most eccentric and at the same time charming of songs, He Loves Me, Loves Me Not, by Mascagni. Almost the entire effect is in the vocal and facial expression, for the words are simply those of the title repeated and repeated. It was a delicate and chaste bit of singing, and the audience was delighted that she was recalled and sang Comin' Thro' the Rye with much grace.
51Miss Grenelli is an accomplished musician and linguist.
53At one of the towns visited recently the music was lost, and she sat at the piano and played all the accompaniments without any notes.—The Indianapolis Journal, February 13, 1890.
55Miss Inez Grenelli, a young American singer who studied in Paris with Madame Desirée Artôt de Padilla is making her first Western tour as soloist with the Philharmonic Club. She has a clear, sweet soprano voice, and a cultivated and artistic delicacy of style. As an artist she throws her personality into her song and carries her audience in perfect sympathy. She gave the aria, Casta Diva, from Norma, in a thoroughly artistic manner, and was charming in a little songs Der Hidalgo, R. Schumann, and He Loves Me, Loves Me Not, Mascagni. For encore number she gave Comin' Thro' the Rye.—Indianapolis Sentinel, February 13, 1890.
57The Philharmonic Club is accompanied by a delightful singer, Miss Inez Grenelli, whose fine soprano, of great compass, seemed to fit in so well with the rich tones of the instruments around her. She sang the Casta Diva to charm the audience, to an encore for which she sang the delicate child song, Where Did You Come From, Papa? Der Hidalgo she also sang, Hidalgo, and a beautiful He Loves Me, Loves Me Not, and, as an encore, Comin' Thro' the Rye. Altogether this was the principal event of the season, and most gratifying.—Terre Haute Express, February 14, 1890.
59Foreign Items.
61Mascagni.—A new mass by Mascagni was performed at Rossini's birthplace, Pesaro, on his birthday, February 29.
63Spanish Opera.—A Spanish opera troupe has been formed in Barcelona to make a tour in Germany. Its repertory consists of twelve zarzuelas by Breton, Barbieri and Chapy.
65Leipsic.—The organist Bernhard Pfannitichl is giving a series of concerts in German cities; he has engaged Fritz Spahr to assist him. Spahr will play Bach's Chaconne and some of his own compositions.
67Franchetti.—The millionaire composer Baron Franchetti knows the arts of the press agent. He now announces that the new opera on which he is working is not a comic opera, M. de Pourceaugnac, but a very serious one—Saint Mary of Egypt.
69Rameau.—The name of Rameau seldom appears in Paris programs, but the Viennese Society of Friends of Music lately opened one of its concerts with the overture to his Nais for chorus and orchestra. It produced an excellent impression.
71Joseph Beck.—The baritone Joseph Beck, a few years ago connected with the Metropolitan Opera House, has emerged from his seclusion at Vienna and appeared at Presburg in Rigoletto, Pizarro, &c. He is also the stage manager of the theatre.
73Burmeister Petersen.—Mrs. Burmeister Petersen, of Baltimore, gave her first piano concert at Kroll's Theatre, Berlin, February 29, in the presence of a large and distinguished audience. Princess Frederick Leopold, sister of the Empress, warmly congratulated the artist upon her technic.
75The Bayreuth Festival.—The Bayreuth festival is announced to begin on July 19. The Monde Artiste gives the following as the order of the performances: Sunday, 19th, Rheingold; Monday, 20th, Valkyrie; Tuesday, 21st; Siegfried, and Wednesday, 22d, Götterdämmerung. The four other performances will succeed at intervals of one week.
77Mrs. Rudolph Aronson.—Mrs. Rudolph Aronson, whose professional name is Alma Almira Dalma, and who for the past three years has been studying with Madame Laborde in Paris, has embarked on an operatic career in Europe. In March she will create a rôle in a new opera, André Chenier, by Gordiano, at the Scala in Milan, where also the novelties this season will be Massenet's Werther, Saint-Saëns' Henry VIII., and Mascagni's Zanetto.
79Leonowa.—The celebrated Russian singer Dapfa Michailowna Leonowa died lately at St. Petersburg. For more than twenty years her beautiful voice and dramatic power delighted all Russia. She was unsurpassed as Wanja and Ratmir in Glinka's operas, Life for the Czar and Ruslan.
81Budapest.—The last Philharmonic concert at Budapest was directed by Ernst Schuchter, of Dresden. During the whole evening he was applauded and called out. Great admiration was roused by an orchestral novelty, produced for the first time, an orchestral ballad, The Nixe, by Edmund von Michalovich. Although it was composed twenty years ago it seems quite modern, so well does it employ all the conquests of later orchestral technic.
83Paer's Revised Opera.—The late Italian recital of Paer's Maestro di Cappella followed exactly the first representation at the Paris Opéra Comique March 29, 1821. That is, instead of two acts of which the work consists only one was given, so that the piece really had neither head nor tail, and Sophie Gay's libretto was unintelligible in consequence. Moreover the manager boldly described it on the bills as "comic opera in one act."
85Libellous Photos.—The scandals connected with Rosenthal, the Jacques Saint-Cère of the Paris Figaro and the New York Herald, having caused a demand for his portrait, an enterprising photographer of Paris reproduced the likeness of a singer of the Grand Opera who is rather like Rosenthal, and issued thousands of copies with the name of Jacques Saint-Cère beneath them. The singer has prohibited the sale of the copies and will probably take steps to obtain further satisfaction.
87Donizetti and the Czar.—Donizetti is to have his monument. It will be set up in the little public square of Bergamo, upon which looks the Conservatoire, the nursery of his genius from the age of eight. The great composer, in addition to his musical gifts, possessed a phenomenal memory. In his youth he applied to Mayr, the director of the theatre at Bologna, for the score of an opera that was then being played. This request was refused, so Donizetti attended the performance twice, and then wrote out the whole from overture to finish. Another anecdote illustrates the maestro's susceptibility and quick wit. During his long stay at St. Petersburg he played by command before the Czar Nicholas, who entered into conversation with a bystander in the course of the piece. Donizetti at once broke off the performance. "Why have you stopped?" asked the autocrat. "Sire," was the reply, "when the Czar is speaking, everybody else should be silent."
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