Scan 23
Musical Courier 1896-07-01: Vol 33 Iss 852, 1896
42 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 24. See the scan on archive.org.
1ST. LOUIS, Mo., June 27, 1896.
3If high art was the aim of music during the winter season, then its present purpose is unquestionably amusement and recreation, in which direction we have no cause to complain so far as the supply is concerned. In former times, say twenty years ago, we had Staehling's and Schneider's gardens as the most prominent places where concerts were given twice a week and Sundays, and music was an appropriate accompaniment to the amber fluid.
5Matters have considerably changed; there are at least half a dozen gardens now where music is nightly an attraction. First may be mentioned Koerner's Garden, where Conterno's New York Concert Band discourses music both afternoons and nights, proving a great drawing card; the admission is free. I am told that the place was crowded last Sunday by over 5,000 people.
7The roof garden on the sixteenth floor of the Union Trust Building is an elegant resort in the heart of the city. Here an admission of 25 cents is charged and 25 cents extra for reserved seats. No refreshments are served in the concert room. The entertainment consists of a galaxy of vaudeville stars, besides a small orchestra.
9At the Chutes we have music daily from 2 to 11 at night.
11A new candidate for public patronage is the opera company holding forth at the Oriental Theatre, Seventeenth and Pine streets. This is their second week. They opened with the well-worn Bohemian Girl and give Girofle-Girofia this week. I have not had time to visit the place, but the company is well spoken of.
13The old-time favorite spot for operas is Uhrig's Cave, which has catered to public patronage in that particular line for nearly twenty years; but it has only risen to its present prominence as a first-class summer resort for light operas within ten years. Great credit is due to the present proprietor, Mr. Frank McNeary, who has spared no money to make the grounds and theatre so attractive; also the musical director, Mr. Alexander Spencer, deserves high commendation for the energy and perseverance which he has shown in bringing out the operas in so praiseworthy a manner. For seven years he has worked indefatigably, producing every week a new opera, whereby the interest of the public has never flagged. This week the attraction consisted in a comic opera, the joint work of two local lights—Mr. Robert H. Hazard, who wrote the libretto, and who is one of the bright newspaper men of St. Louis, while the composer of the music, Mr. Augustus William Hoffman, is well known as an excellent pianist and composer. Although the severe rain on Monday night caused the audience to be rather slim, yet the work was warmly received by the composer's friends who attended the opening, and members of the mystic order, The Shriners, to which Mr. Hoffmann belongs, gave it a warm welcome. All these men wore their red fezes, and from certain slight side glances which they cast at each other I presume that certain parts of the first act of The Red Fez, the name of the opera, contain trifling allusions to their mystic work.
15As regards the music I can only speak in general terms that it is bright, sparkling and effective, and the orchestration clever throughout, all reflecting great credit on Mr. Hoffman. Miss Millard's first air, He Is Coming Home Tonight, as also her duet with Mr. Thomas, was encored, as was also the gentleman's solo, Picture It Is of the Girl I Love. Mr. Wilson made a capital Sultan. His song I Am the Great I Am made a capital hit. Several of the choruses were redemanded, especially One Hundred Years from Now, and the sailor's chorus, Heave, Ho! The costumes were excellent. On the opening night Mr. Hoffman was called before the curtain, when Mr. A. Moore Berry, in behalf of the Shriners, made an appropriate address and presented Mr. Hoffman with an elaborate and handsome floral design.
17W. Malmene.
19Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau Resume.
21OPERA UNDER THEIR MANAGEMENT CERTAIN NEXT SEASON.
23AFTER only a necessary delay and as has been predicted the firm of Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau will now be launched again as an operatic firm, and plans are well under way for the conducting of next season's opera. As this last form goes to press the hour is drawing nigh for the final meeting of the creditors, at which the last details will be arranged.
25The conditions under which the firm will operate are well known to the readers of THE MUSICAL COURIER, as they have been recorded from week to week in these columns since the assignment six weeks ago. It was then said that the creditors would be paid in full, and now this is all but certain, as up to noon yesterday Mr. William Steinway, chairman of the readjustment committee, told a MUSICAL COURIER representative that 97 per cent. of the creditors had consented to the plan. The remaining 3 per cent. are small creditors. The plan is about as follows:
27The new company is to be a corporation, and the members of the old company are to be the managing directors of it. There are to be four other directors, three of whom will be the members of the present committee of the creditors which has arranged the plan—William Steinway, Robert Dunlap and Thomas P. Fowler. The creditors are to receive 40 per cent. of their claims, according to the agreement which they have signed, in preferred stock of the new company, and the remaining 60 per cent. in notes of Messrs. Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau. This preferred stock may be called in and paid for by the company, and then the corresponding debts will be paid.
29The company will start with a capital of $50,000 besides this, from the sale of the preferred stock to that amount. It will have all the assets of the old firm of Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau, including its large and valuable equipment of scenery and costumes, and the Tremont Theatre, in Boston, which should prove hereafter a profitable property. It will have the advantage, furthermore, of the experience and skill in opera management of Messrs. Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau, who will receive an aggregate salary of $20,000 a year for their services.
31The new company will have the lease of the Metropolitan Opera House, and in substance it will be on the same terms as the former lease granted to Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau, which was forfeited when the firm made an assignment. There has never been any real doubt that the management of the opera would remain in the hands of Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau, in spite of the numerous contradictory rumors which have been rife since the assignment. Everybody connected with the opera wished the managers to remain in their places, and that wish and the intention of carrying it out were freely expressed, while the managers themselves showed their confidence in the final result by going on with their arrangements for the engagement of artists for next season.
33In an interview Mr. Abbey is quoted as follows:
35"I cannot say at all what will be done," he said, "till after the final meeting. Nothing is decided till then, and I have no right to assume anything. As to engagements with artists, we could not make any contracts yet that would be binding on either side. We had several contracts with the more important artists before they went away. The plan of reorganization that has been formed is the best, indeed the only one, I think, both for the creditors and for ourselves. By this plan the creditors will all receive their claims in full, with interest, and if an immediate settlement had been forced I do not believe that they could have received 30 per cent. Our assets are largely in the form of scenery, and other theatrical appliances, which cost a great deal, and if kept in use by us will be worth a great deal, but if they were sold they would bring almost nothing. Then the plan allows us to avail ourselves of our chief asset, the ability to continue to manage the opera. It is only through this that the creditors can be paid, and if an immediate settlement had been forced this and everything else would have been wasted. If we go on we can pay everything."
37A New Paper.—The first number of the Journal Musical has just been issued in Paris. It is an international critical bulletin of musical bibliography.
39Death of a Composer.—Carlos Gomez, the Brazilian composer, died recently at Para, where he was the director of the local conservatory of music. He was born in 1839 at Campinas, and his talent became manifest when he was very young. At the cost of the Brazilian Government he was sent to Milan, where he studied under Lauro Rossi. In 1867 he made his European début as a composer with the music of a review, produced at a small Milan theatre. A patriotic song, which, owing to temporary conditions, excited great enthusiasm, was the most notable feature of this work, but his opera, Il Guarany, given at La Scala three years later, was a complete success, and for a long time was a popular work on the operatic stage in the Latin countries. It was performed in New York at the Academy of Music and subsequently at the Star Theatre, but the success here and in London was slight. It was sung first in the English capital at Covent Garden in 1872 under the direction of the late Augustus Harris, and its principal interpreters then were Faure and Nicolini.
41Some of the numbers retained a popularity on the concert stage, but the opera is now rarely sung outside of the composer's native land. For a time Gomez was director of the conservatory founded at Pesaro under the will of Rossini, a post which Mascagni holds at present. Gomez resigned the office on account of ill health and returned to his own country. In 1876 a patriotic hymn, written by him and called Salut du Brésil, was performed under his direction at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. He was also the composer of a Brazilian national song.
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