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Musical Courier 1896-03-04: Vol 32 Iss 835, 1896
67 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 8. See the scan on archive.org.
1the warmest tints predominated; the technic in the G sharp minor study and in the polonaise, op. 53, was also remarkable, especially the octaves.
3I could not stay to hear the Saint-Saëns G minor concerto, which is said to have been the climax of the evening, and after which, as I was told, the public raved over Miss Panthès. I am only sorry that she had not reversed her program, and had boldly begun with the French concerto, which is so much more adapted for the display of her special gifts than the Beethoven E flat concerto. She would then have conquered at the first attempt.
5Miss Panthès will give two piano recitals in Bechstein Saal, and I shall be much mistaken if Mr. Wolff's prediction that she will prove a sensation will not turn out to be the truth after all.
7* * *
9An unassuming, very modest, and at the same time very talented young girl, Miss Agda Lysell, gave a concert of her own on the same evening in Bechstein Saal. She had the assistance of Miss Helene Jowien, a Liedersinger from Hamburg, who sang three songs by Fiedler, Massenet (Les Enfants) and Franz (Waldfahrt) in a pleasing but otherwise featureless style.
11Court Opera Singer Oberhauser also figured on the program, but he had come, sung and vanished before I reached the scene of action. I am thus not enabled to write anything about him.
13As for the concert giver herself she met with a warm reception at the hands of a numerous and evidently very well disposed audience. She is a pupil of Prof. Ernst Jedliczka, one of the best and most conscientious of the many good Berlin piano teachers. The efforts of the master in this case seem to have borne excellent results, for one rarely hears neater and more clean-cut piano playing than Miss Lysell gave in the case of the Rubinstein F major German waltz and a clever humoreske by the resident composer, critic and teacher E. E. Taubert, which latter composition was performed with great brilliancy and vivacity. Only in the case of Liszt's sixth Hungarian rhapsody Miss Lysell had over estimated her technical and physical resources, for her wrist and strength gave out in the difficult octave work demanded in that virtuoso number. Nevertheless, Miss Lysell was much applauded and her friends insisted upon several encores.
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17On Friday night I was confronted with the alternative of attending a Pachmann piano recital in the Singakademie or the first production of the newly mounted and newly studied Belle Hélène of Offenbach, with a new Scandinavian guest in the title rôle, which took place at the Linden Theatre. Of course I chose the latter entertainment, and I believe seven-eighths of you would have done the same. Moreover, I had no reason to regret my predilection for Jacques Offenbach, for whom I have always had a great weakness, despite the fact that he has been called "the despoiler of youth and the sacrileger of classicism." He has even been reproached with having destroyed all idealism through the very selections of his libretti, to which he wrote music in which there are more wit, talent and brains, real invention, than are to be found in dozens of great operas. Barring Strauss' incomparable Fledermaus, which, however, is more a subtle comic opera with dance music than an operetta, no music of this genre has been written since Offenbach that could hold a candle to either Orphée aux Enfers or La Belle Hélène. If you want any further excuses for my preferring Offenbach to Pachmann you can have them.
19The pretty Linden Theatre was well filled for the première, which, I am sorry to say, is not frequently the case. Director Fritzsch evidently does not understand his business any too well. If he did he would have better forces than those with which he habitually gives operetta at the three theatres controlled by him, and he would unquestionably have a greater success.
21That this is no chimera the good directors could easily notice last Friday night, and again on the occasions of the succeeding appearances of his new star, Mrs. Petterson-Norris, with whom he is now bargaining for a prolongation of her "guesting" engagement. This lady is one of the most charming and absolutely the most beautiful of all the beautiful Helenas I have ever seen, and there were quite a good many of them some twenty years ago when La Belle Hélène was in the standing repertory of all provincial opera houses. But not only is this Scandinavian lady very beautiful, she is also very graceful and yet stately, "every inch a queen." Her acting even in the most risqué moments was so unconsciously ladylike, so genuinely unaffected, and yet with all naïveté so artistic and so suggestive that the most blasé in the audience felt tickled by it. Her voice is not large, but what there is of it is of sweet quality, and she sings in tune as well as with good rhythmic feeling. There is a slight Northern tinge to her pronunciation of the German text, which to my ear enhanced its charm. Moreover, the lady was the only one in the cast who had really an idea of the style and manner that are wanted in Offenbach's operettas.
23Bruch as Paris is handsome and he has a nice tenor voice, but he takes himself too seriously, and, like most other tenors, he seems too much stuck on himself to be a good Offenbach operetta tenor. In the great dream scene of the second act he let Helena do all the dreaming, which, indeed, she did very charmingly, while he simply did the looking on. Klein was a very coarse Calchas, but he pleased the gallery gods, and that seemed all he was bent upon achieving. The chestnuts which he let loose took as they did a quarter of a century ago, and a few of them, modernized and refurbished up to suit the more advanced ideas of humor of our day and reflecting upon more recent events than Jupiter's visit to Leda in the form of a swan, were received with as much gaiety as if the Linden Theatre were situated in the Bowery. Mathias as Agamemnon and Frau Grimm-Einsedhofer as Kytemnestra, as well as Misses Kluge and Hornay as Orestes and Pylades, were conventional to a degree. Only Wellhof, as the hapless King Menelaus, had an idea of the self sacrificing irony which is heaped up in his part. He was really funny.
25The worst participant in the performance was also one of the most important ones—I mean the conductor, Federmann, who is but a mediocre accompanist at best and who has not much of an idea of the esprit in Offenbach's music.
27After La Belle Hélène, a new ballet with the promising title of Musical Jokes was given, but it didn't amount to anything.
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31Pachmann must have cut up his usual capers at the Singakademie while I was at the Linden Theatre. He had a fairly good audience, and a musical lady who was present tells me that some of the smaller pieces by Chopin he played exquisitely. Of course you know all about that, and a criticism on De Pachmann's pianism would seem more than superfluous. New to Berlin was his latest concert speech. He got out in one part of the Schumann Carnaval, and so treacherously did his memory treat him that do what he might he could not find himself again. After trying three times in vain Pachmann suddenly jumped to his feet and shouted, "Never mind, never mind; bravo, Pachmann, you played lovely anyhow!" This exhibition so flabbergasted the audience that at the first moment there was a complete silence, and people looked at each other in mute astonishment; then the humor of the situation broke in upon them and they began to applaud vigorously, and recalled the little Chopinzee.
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35On Saturday evening I heard first a portion of the song recital of Miss Marie Berg in Bechstein Saal. The young lady is a concert soprano from Nuremberg, who sings with taste, and although she has but a comparatively small voice she uses it intelligently and with good judgment. Among her selections were three rarely heard Liszt vocal compositions, an Italian romanza, beginning with the words Angiolin dal brondo crin, the German Lied 'O Komm im Traum, and (by request) the French chanson Comment disaient-ils?, which latter very difficult ditty was sung with a great deal of technic.
37Of special interest to me was a cycle Liebesleben, by E. E. Taubert, critic of the Post, whose name as a composer I mentioned before. These Lieder are really very charming and stimmungsvoll and the accompaniments are genuinely musical. The eighth and last song of the series, entitled Im Heim, is a perfect little gem which I recommend to American sopranos. The composer accompanied in person and was as much applauded as the concert giver.
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41The second half of the evening I gave up to the concert of Miss Régine Nicol, a pianist who made her first appearance in the Singakademie with the assistance of the Philharmonic Orchestra, under the conductorship of Moritz Moszkowski. She is a pupil of Moszkowski and a relative of Moritz Rosenthal. In spite of these two circumstances she is not a great pianist, but she is not entirely without talent and in the sweet by-and-by she may become an artist.
43I missed the Tschaikowsky B flat minor concerto, but I was told that Miss Nicol played it very well. It is curious that these débutantes always play just those songs well which a critic does not happen to hear. In the octave study, by Alfred Grünfeld, and in the Chopin E flat polonaise, op. 22 (with Erdmannsdoerfer's orchestration), neither her technic nor her physical strength was adequate to the demands of the composition. The andante spianato which precedes the polonaise she performed very neatly, however, albeit with a perceptible lack of feeling. For the remainder the program was not well arranged by either the pianist or her teacher, for it contained in immediate succession only modern imitations of old forms. There was the Holberg suite by Grieg, followed by a gavot in F sharp or G flat, by Rubinstein, and a sarabande and double in F, from Moszkowski's ballet Laurin, which, if this is a fair specimen, does not seem to be a very important musical work. All the rest of the program was likewise by Moszkowski, who evidently made the most of this occasion to appear before the public as teacher, conductor and composer. There was a Caprice Mélancolique in A minor, which Miss Nicol performed with good touch, and the Philharmonic Orchestra played, under Moszkowski's direction (besides the accompaniments to the Tschaikowsky and Chopin works), a cortège in A minor and Moorish fantaisie, which latter contains a very clever basso continuo and is scored very effectively. Moszkowski was much applauded, and so was Miss Régine Nicol, who at the close of the program, exhausted though she seemed, had to play a couple of encores.
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47One of the favorites of the Berlin public, an artist who is heard here at least once every year and who never fails to give great artistic delight to a numerous audience, is Miss Clotilde Kleeberg from Paris. I have frequently written about the finished and really exquisite style in which she plays smaller compositions and the earnestness and unaffected sincerity with which she approaches the larger ones. A vast audience listened to her playing at the Singakademie last Sunday night and great enthusiasm prevailed. Among the selections that most pleased the public were some of the Schumann Fantasiestücke, Saint-Saëns' Paraphrase over a melody by Paladilhe, and Stephen Heller's Annette et Agathe.
49As the program was compounded with particularly nice taste I herewith give it in full, as it may prove of interest to recital givers:
51Thirty-two variations, C minor…………………….L. v. Beethoven
52Suite, op. 78, E minor………………………………….J. Raff
53Fantasiestücke, op. 12………………………………….R. Schumann
54Intermezzo, op. 118, No. 2……………………………J. Brahms
55Ballade, op. 118, No. 3……………………………….J. Brahms
56Le rappel des oiseaux…………………………………J. P. Rameau
57Polonaise, op. 22, E flat……………………………..F. Chopin
58Romance, op. 36, F major…………………………..A. Rubinstein
59Scherzo, op. 44, A minor…………………………..A. Rubinstein
60Paraphrase sur la Isfelia……………………………..C. Saint-Saëns
61Cantilene, op. 32, No. 3…………………………….Ernest Redon
62Annette et Agathe (Dans les bois)…………………..Stephen Heller
63Nocturne, A flat, op. 33, No. 3……………………..Gabriel Fauré
64Capriccio from suite op. 50……………………………M. Moszkowski
66Last night we had at the Philharmonie a concert of the united Berlin and Berlin-Potsdam Wagner societies, which
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