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Musical Courier 1896-12-16: Vol 33 Iss 876, 1896
94 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. Printed page 12. See the scan on archive.org.
1Kill the Quacks.
2817 NEWHALL STREET,
3MILWAUKEE, Wis., December 9, 1896.
5Editors The Musical Courier:
7I READ with interest the article by Anna Lankow in your last issue upon The Spirit of the American Student. There is no possible doubt but that all the competent teachers in this country have had the same and even worse experiences than those which she relates. Now then, I for one am growing a little impatient at the way the blame for such proceeding is so generally thrown upon the American pupil. If there are inefficient, incompetent, ignorant, brainless pupils, there are teachers enough with the same qualities to match them. It is six of one and half a dozen of the other.
9The very fact that this huge floating mass of students has manifested interest enough in art to undertake the study proves conclusively that the rank and file of Americans are hungry for music, art—the beautiful life. But, all ignorant of the work this study requires, let them fall into the hands of one of these quacks, sans enthusiasm, education, everything, it is but natural that they finally acquire such ideas of method, perseverance and scholarship. Another thing: the number of pupils who enter a studio with the idea of receiving training for the stage is, comparatively, one in a thousand. Our pupils usually desire enough training to enable them to play or sing acceptably for their friends; all those ideas of stage life are knocked into their poor, silly heads by the teachers (?) they are studying with, who are themselves usually dismal failures musically and who teach as a last resort. If only the capable pupils could fall into the hands of the capable masters!
11I venture to make the assertion that nine-tenths of the trouble in this direction lies with the teachers. It is an outrage how the people of no use in the art world, whose vanity leads them to try to adopt the stage or concert platform as a calling, failing in that, immediately open a studio to instruct our restive young talent. These people are absolutely ignorant, not only in a musical way, but in every way. Yet, having sung in a concert or so, taken a dozen lessons from Signor —, they hang out their shingle and attract into their studios pupils who, placed in judicious, learned hands, might achieve great things. These pupils, who consider it unnecessary to sing scales for more than a month, have either in mind the rapid methods of these charlatans or the momentary achievements of some of their friends who may be there studying with them.
13You just ought to read the list of people who advertise in this town that their studios will reopen at such and such a date. Then you wouldn't blame the pupils so much. I had a friend who had a sweet little contralto voice. She was studying to play the piano and thought she might as well learn to sing a little too. Well, this is almost incredible, but she sang with one of the teachers of this school (?) and couldn't understand why she was unable to reach an octave above middle C, or the one line C. She worked morning and night, but it was no use because, as she soon discovered, her brilliant lady teacher was teaching her to use the chest tone exclusively. This poor girl is now dead, whether as a result or not we will never know. There is here also the teacher who tried to make a basso profundo from a high tenor robusto. There is another who keeps his pupils singing forte and fortissimo, and advocates the use of "frets" on the violin. We have young men of nineteen bravely expounding to their pupils the secrets of violin playing. There is the fearfully inferior son of a father only less inferior who teaches piano playing.
15He is businesslike, however, and goes from door to door seeking victims, an awful spectacle of complacency and limitations. There are two or three women who have studied abroad from one to three years. Ignorant beyond words of harmony, knowing no language, not even their own well, they teach the young idea.
17We have the piano teacher who once said to me: "All the combinations of notes are used up; it has been proved mathematically; no new melody can possibly be written."*
19He was a soulless machine run down. This same man also said to a young composer: "Don't you wonder how your music will sound when it is played?" As though he did not know how it would sound before he wrote it!
21You can ask any one of them why they mark your music in this or that way, their invariable answer is: "Why, Mrs. —— marked mine that way." Then there is another sect; some of our younger teachers have studied with our older ones, and having learned the little they have had to teach are now teaching young pupils themselves.
23We have some fine piano teachers that are a comfort to those who aim to master that instrument, but singing teachers! It is inexpressible! But they all make money. It is no wonder that American pupils have so small a conception of what music means, for who is there to teach them?
25Why, it is only reason that to be able to appear before the public ten or fifteen years' training is not too much, but to teach a lifetime of study is a necessity.
27There are as many quacks in the large towns as there are in the smaller ones. Now and then we send some ambitious, mentally mediocre girl to New York to cultivate her voice; the case is not an exception to the rule when she returns with a beautifully ruined organ.
29As for vocal art, the thing most necessary for success is not voice, it is brains. There are plenty of good voices, but they never come to anything because there are no brains back of them.
31To say one more word about our teachers. It is not pleasant for a pupil to stop her singing and say to her teacher who is accompanying her: "It is B flat you are looking for." Or, "It is the tonic triad I am waiting for." A pupil, I don't care what her abilities are, cannot progress with such teachers. If she were serious, scholarly, gifted, three terms with such a teacher would be sufficient to ruin whatever mental or vocal good there was in her for an indefinite period. The joke of it is, whenever we leave one teacher for another we are always regarded as the brand snatched from the burning.
33No, if we could kill off these quacks, remnants of stage and concert failures, could secure good, competent teachers, our pupils now running riot would be the first to rejoice and settle down to sober work, whether they desired a public career or not, and those qualities the lack of which has justly made Anna Lankow sad would soon develop. Without doubt good, conscientious, capable teachers have had bitter experiences, but they are not a marker to those every serious pupil has had, not as an exception, but as a rule. It is the need of universal culture, especially on the part of the instructors, who in turn could impart it to the pupils, and then only will American art begin to grow, a beautiful structure from a solid foundation.
35Respectfully, EMILY GRANT von GETZEL.
37Apollo Club
39AT the last concert of the Apollo Club, which was the first of this season and which was given in the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall, Mr. W. R. Chapman, the musical director, once more exhibited before a large audience the results of his capacity as a trainer in voice ensemble. Such a capella singing as is accomplished under his direction is unexcelled, if it is indeed approached, anywhere. It is true he has a remarkable aggregation of thoroughly trained male singers, but then they are trained only as individuals. As one homogeneous mass of tone with all its many shadings and its variety of color and its finish it represents artistically what Mr. Chapman can do with this aggregation.
41The soloists were not a happy choice for various reasons.
43[* That is substantially what De Koven stated over his own signature in the New York Herald, when accused of plagiarism in bodily taking melodies of other composers and constantly appropriating them to himself. He went so far as to attempt to illustrate the proposition. Isn't he as much of a musical ass as the Milwaukee party?—EDITORS MUSICAL COURIER.]
45Miss Littlehales, a talented 'cellist, had her 'cello injured in a cable car collision, and as she was compelled to use Mr. Kronold's instrument, which he kindly loaned to her, it would be manifestly wrong to judge of her work.
47Miss Seygard, a foreign importation of whom we have repeatedly spoken, emphasized the former impressions, which are to the effect that the register of her voice is unequal and many of the tones actually impaired. If she were a simple Miss Jones, of Jonesville, Jones County, Ohio, instead of an importation from Europe, and had the same voice and method she now has, she could not get any engagements, because she then would be an American. We do not care for domestic musical material here, although we make the most artistic pianos, organs and harps in the world. Strange contradiction, isn't it? And by the way, we have the greatest music paper in the world here. But as to singers and players we must go to Europe and bring foreigners over here, no matter how poorly they sing or play, so long as they are foreigners. All right! Let us keep it up. And yet in all Europe they have no such male chorus as this Apollo Club of Chapman's.
49Mr. Evans Williams attempted to sing Wagner's Meistersinger prize song and with piano accompaniment, something which never should be done, and Mr. Williams will not do it when he reaches the artistic zone. For ballads and simple songs Mr. Williams' voice and method are now equipped, but when he enters the realm of dramatic singing he is lost, for he lacks color and expression, although these essential and necessary features of song will no doubt be acquired by him after more eclectic experience.
51Della Rogers' Successes.
53CONSTANTINOPLE is stirred up over the first representation of Samson and Dalila, given there the second week of November, with Miss Della Rogers as Dalila. Natural enthusiasm in the Oriental subject and the powerful Saint-Saëns music was heightened by the young American singer, of whose voice, acting and beauty the papers cannot say enough. The Levant Herald prefaces an analysis of the piece by dwelling on the merits of the beautiful star and the enthusiasm she created.
55"No personality could anywhere be found," it says, "to better portray the dramatic rôle, and the intense passion and dramatic power of her playing were thrilling in the extreme. In the Air Amour viens aides ma faiblesse she was superb and brought the house to her feet and was equally successful in the duo following."
57The Stamboul further accents thus the general satisfaction felt in the young lady's performance:
59"Her splendid talent admirably portrayed the rôle, at once passionate, caline and vindictive. Her voice is superb, brilliant and warm; the lower register grave and dramatic, painting the very thought." Her generous blond beauty and rich costumes are equally subjects of comment.
61As Azucena in Trovatore Miss Rogers won similar triumphs; she was warmly applauded; also as Leonore in Favorita. As Carmen her conquest was complete, her beauty, diablerie and the ringing beauty of her tones stirring up effectively the "frissons" of the audience. She is called a "brilliant star" and "first-class tragedienne." Flowers and presents were numerous at every representation. Miss Della Rogers has ambition, talent, youth and is a hard student. She is forging ahead to a proud position in the musical world.
63Emma Stanley in Belgium.—Miss Stanley has accentuated the success she achieved as Rachel in La Juive at Ghent, Belgium, by a very successful representation of Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. The improvement of the young artist is marked. The foreign papers form a concert of praise, encouragement and compliments. Le Mephisto, Le Lorgnette and Le Reveil Théâtral have long articles of analysis and even biography. The attention she has secured in her début is quite beyond the ordinary expectations of the débutante. New Orleans and St. Louis have reason to be proud of their townswoman. Miss Stanley left the studio of M. Manoury, 13 rue Washington, Paris, to make her début. She had also studied with Mme. Krauss and Mme. Renée Richard.
65SEASON 1896-97.
67The Great Dutch Pianist
69SIEVEKING
71UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
73Mr. VICTOR THRANE,
7433 Union Square, W., New York.
76First New York Recital in Carnegie Hall,
77Tuesday Afternoon, December 8.
79NEW YORK SUCCESS.
81"SIEVEKING has a beautiful legato and his touch is extremely good."—New York Times, November 16, 1896.
83"He is a great, a wonderful pianist. He has a sufficient tinge of melancholy to imbue all his work with that touching note of sympathy which is the world-wide cordial note that alone rings out."—New York Sun, November 16, 1896.
85"His reading of the concerto exhibited a satisfactory if not brilliant technique and a decided poetic feeling."—New York Herald, November 16, 1896.
87"SIEVEKING has a singing touch, abundant technique, tremendous wrists, supple and sonorous and a most brilliant style. His success last night was marked."—New York Morning Advertiser, November 16, 1896.
89"He played it splendidly, betraying in his performance a good share of all the qualities that go to the making of a great pianist—sensuous, emotional intellectual. What strikes one first is the sensuous beauty of tone, so essential for real charm."—New York Evening Post, November 16, 1896.
91"His recitals in December promise to be well attended, judging from the flattering comments of last night."—New York Press, November 16, 1896.
93"When he has acquired it, he could accomplish wonders but he did them more as a matter of course and less for making a display than is the way of most artists. The audience felt at once that the man placed the forcible expression of thoughts or moods above mere musical fireworks."—The Mail and Express, New York, November 16, 1896.
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