Scan 34
Musical Courier 1896-12-23: Vol 33 Iss 877, 1896
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1Mr. Bispham's Concerts.
3M R. H. M. HIRSCHBERG definitely announces the dates and assisting artists for Mr. David Bispham's three subscription concerts, to be given in Carnegie Lyceum, as follows:
5First concert, Tuesday, January 12, at 8:30, Miss Marguerite Hall, mezzo soprano, and Gregorowitsch, violinist; Mr. Victor Harris, accompanist.
7Second concert, Friday, January 22, at 3:30, Kneisel Quartet, of Boston, and Corinne Moore-Lawson, soprano; Mr. Isidore Luckstone, accompanist.
9Third concert, Tuesday, February 9, at 8:30, Miss Lilian Blauvelt, soprano; Mr. Amhurst Webber, accompanist.
11Several novelties will be sung for the first time in New York at these concerts, and there is every reason to believe that from the great popularity already gained by Mr. Bispham in this country these events will figure among the most pleasant and enjoyable of the season, fully equaling those given by him in London, which are looked upon as the foremost artistic concerts of the season.
13The Klein Concert.
15O N Saturday night last a concert was given in Carnegie Hall by Mr. Bruno Oscar Klein the program of which was entirely devoted to his own compositions. This is, in itself, a daring thing to do, for in New York the American composer has the minimum of chance for a successful hearing. Therefore this concert must be considered as something out of the ordinary run of concerts, and being so to speak in one key—one individual key—when we praise it for its variety it means that Mr. Klein has, in addition to his skill as a musician, the gift of versatility, of not only changing his mood but of faithfully reproducing that mood in the difficult and hieroglyphic art of tone.
17Here was the scheme of the evening's entertainment:
18Overture (in the old style) ………………………………………Orchestra
19Concerttueck, for piano with orchestra ……………………….Pezzi
20Miss Florence Terrel (pupil of Mr. Alexander Lambert) ………Pezzi, for orchestra—
21Scènes de Ballet.
22Dialogue (for strings only).
23Liebeslied and Hochzeitsklange.
24Excerpts from the opera Kenilworth—
25Prelude …………………………………………………….Orchestra
26Amy's Prayer ……………………………………………..Miss Caroline Montefiore
27Varney's Song of the Storm ……………………………Mr. Max Treumann
28Introduction to Act III ………………………………….Orchestra
29Tressilian's Monologue ………………………………….Mr. Charles Kaiser
30Leicester's aria ……………………………………………..Mr. Charles Kaiser
31Quintet …………………………………………………….Soprano, mezzo soprano, tenor, baritone and bass
32Grand March ……………………………………………..Orchestra
34The most characteristic trait of Mr. Klein's music is his cantilena. He has always a good tune to sing and he always sings. In a word he is a melodist and he never sings other men's music. He has assimilated all masters, all methods, so that at times in the spirit, rather than in the letter, we get hints of Schumann, of Wagner and at rare intervals of Grieg. He is a colorist who rejoices in warm tintings. The set of pieces, scenes de ballet, the fragrantly sweet dialogue and the fresh Lieberlied testify to his devotion to rich, sensuous and highly flavored musical moods.
36In the overture in old style—which, if we mistake not, we heard in Boston in 1886—Mr. Klein shows an easy mastery of form, a keen, agile sense of the joys of counterpoint. Indeed the man revels in technical difficulties, and while he is lush to luxuriance at times, he has plenty of control and mastery of large, austere, harmonic masses. The prelude to Kenilworth is very broadly conceived, scored broadly, and altogether has the pomp and power of a prelude to a tragedy.
38The piano piece with orchestra follows as far as form in the trend of Schumann. It is a delightful bit of writing and thoroughly idiomatic to the instrument. Florence Terrel plays like a virtuoso in embryo. She has ease, fluency and a native brilliancy. She handled the cadenza like an experienced artist.
40The excerpts from Kenilworth were thoroughly criticised in The Musical Courier by Mr. Otto Floersheim on the occasion of the performance of the work in Hamburg, when the gifted and lamented Klafsky sang the rôle of Amy. The trouble about all concert room performances of operatic works is that so much has to be taken for granted. It is extremely difficult for conductor or singer to recreate the dramatic atmosphere in the conventional surroundings of a concert hall. So the instrumental extracts were heard to more favorable advantage than the vocal. The quintet, a characteristic piece of writing, suffered from a lack of smoothness in the execution. The voices did not blend.
42Mr. Treumann sang with fire his numbers, the monologue being particularly well declaimed.
44Miss Caroline Montefiore, a pretty and interesting looking young woman, sang the Prayer with great breadth and intensity. Her upper tones are powerful and luminous and she sings with great intelligence, dramatic feeling and freedom. Particularly agreeable is her tonal surety. She uses her voice like a well practiced instrument and her work made a highly favorable impression. It is girls of the Montefiore type that honor our American concert stage, for there are talent, earnestness, genuine musical temperament, and later the absolute authority is bound to come.
46Mr. Klein's march is very massive and virile. It is pulse stirring, and the trio exemplifies the composer's skill in using Scotch melodic material.
48Mr. Klein should be proud of his artistic achievements. If a new comer, forcibly imported, came here with such a program, such a fertile, various, interesting and cultivated talent, how the daily press would ring with his praise! The few timid and tentative notices of the affair prove the lack of interest, the lack of genuine culture on the part of newspaper proprietors.
50Mr. Otto Lohse, who is a conductor among conductors, worked most faithfully and successfully. His band played eloquently, brilliantly, and Nahan Franko did more than his quantum toward the triumphs of the night.
52Mr. Klein was called out and given flowers. He deserved them.
54Gregorowitsch's Western Triumphs.
56G REGOROWITSCH returned from a short Western trip on Saturday last. He played on the 14th and 15th in Minneapolis and St. Paul in conjunction with Nordica. His success was most phenomenal, the violinist receiving fully as great an ovation as the famous prima donna. The following are the eulogiums accorded him by the press of these cities:
58Charles Gregorowitsch, the new Russian violinist whose star is in the ascendant, was scarcely less a favorite with the audience, which refused to be satisfied with less than an encore for every appearance. In his four numbers, Wieniawski's Concerto de Moscou, Cui's Berceuse, his own arrangement of Popper's weird Elfentanz and Sarasate's Gypsy Airs, he exhibited a mastery of the greatest of all instruments that was little short of miraculous in one apparently so young. His selections were of widely contrasting character, and among his encores was a Chopin nocturne that completed the circle. His execution is, of course, wonderful, but it is the sympathetic quality of his playing that most engages one. He enters into the soul of the music and takes you with him.—Minneapolis Journal, December 15.
60The second soloist of the evening, Charles Gregorowitsch, was thoroughly worthy of the chief star. A foreigner to the Minneapolis public, he proved a most agreeable acquaintance. And it was surprising to see so young an artist give evidence of such maturity of conception and depth of feeling. His tone possessed a happy combination of manly force and almost feminine softness. In one moment he could dream and sigh, only to give himself up to merry pranks in the next one. His reverent rendition of the Souvenir de Moscou seemed to whisper of his admiration for the master who died just as the young artist had become his pupil. As an encore he gave a Chopin nocturne, using it to display another side of his nature—the sensitive dreamer. His playing of Popper's charming Elfentanz, arranged by himself, defied description. It almost seemed sprightly enough to make a modern skeptic believe in all the old fairy tales. But the number which gave a full and concentrated view of Gregorowitsch's mastery of the bow was Sarasate's Zigeunerweise, that wonderful conglomeration of contrasts that are as startling as they are charming. It was beautiful in every detail.—Minneapolis Times, December 15.
62But the Nordica concert was noteworthy in another respect, as it served to introduce a rare artist in the person of Charles Gregorowitsch, the Russian violinist. It is seldom the pleasure of the most inveterate patron of the concert to hear so admirable an exponent of the violin as Gregorowitsch. His opening selection consisted of the andante and finale from Mendelssohn's famous concerto. Later he played a berceuse by Godard, and an original arrangement of Popper's Elfentanz. This artist excels in the interpretation of those exquisite compositions of the masters that find a responsive vibration in the chords of the heart. His technic is skillful in the highest degree. He draws from his instrument tones of rare softness, vibrating with a wealth of music. The soul of the musician animates every sweep of his bow. He was enthusiastically received and encored again and again.—St. Paul Globe, December 16.
64Somewhat of a pleasant surprise was the introduction of Mr. Gregorowitsch, a violinist practically unknown in the West. Many violinists have come to the Northwest heralded with even greater encomiums, but few, if any, have proved more genuinely satisfying. He was particularly happy in his choice of compositions, his numbers illustrating the possession of adequate technical control, and, furthermore, a charming manner and exquisite delicacy of interpretation. To students of the instrument the greatest delight was derived from the occasional shades of expression possible with one sweep of the bow, enabling him to tell the story of the composition almost with the bow alone. The audience united in genuine ovations after each selection and all won by sterling and artistic readings, free from the innumerable tricks familiar to all violinists. Hardly more could be said in the way of favorable mention.—St. Paul Pioneer Press, December 16.
66Gregorowitsch was accorded a reception not even second to that of the prima donna. We have had violinists with more finished technique, those who could draw a broader tone, but never one who so appealed to an audience through personal magnetism. His technic is ample, marked by both easy bowing and facile fingering, absolute purity of intonation and pellucid clearness. There is this and more: marvelous sensuous beauty of tone, soft and caressing, combined with a manly, vigorous musical feeling which lifts his interpretation to the serenest atmosphere of art.
68A silence that was almost awesome rested over the vast audience during the andante of the Mendelssohn concerto. For pure beauty, for delicate phrasing, for varying changes in light and shade with one magic sweep of the bow, nothing here has ever equaled it. Other selections revealed other powers, and later on an aptitude for tricks which rivalled Remenyi. That a Keltic jig could be played by a Slav schooled in a Teutonic Hochschule was ample proof of versatility.—St. Paul Dispatch, December 10.
70Metropolitan Opera Musicales.—The fifth of the Metropolitan Opera House musicales was held at the Waldorf on Tuesday afternoon, the soloists being Mmes. Yebba and Oltizka, and MM. Lassalle and Salignac. Richard Burmeister, the pianist, also appeared.
72Aus der Ohe Will Replace Rosenthal.—Owing to the continued illness of Herr Rosenthal Miss Aus der Ohe has been substituted as the soloist at the next concerts of the Symphony Society on January 1 and 2. There will be no change in the program, as Miss Aus der Ohe will play the same numbers that Mr. Rosenthal would have played had he been able to appear. The orchestral numbers will be Symphony No. 5 (in C minor), Beethoven, and prelude to Parsifal, Wagner.
74Anton Hegner's Valuable Instruments.
76I T is well known among the musicians of this country that no artist possesses a finer 'cello than Anton Hegner, the celebrated 'cello virtuoso. Everybody in the musical world has heard him play on his beautiful Andreas Guarnerius 'cello, made in 1679, and knows that the artist values his instrument as his dearest treasure. He paid $8,000 for it, but says he would not part with it for any financial consideration possible. "It is priceless to me," the 'cellist says himself.
78It is not probably so well known that in addition to this rare 'cello Anton Hegner is also the possessor of two precious Amati violins. To view this valuable collection of instruments was the object of a visit last week made to Mr. Hegner at his residence, 64 West Thirty-sixth street, by a member of The Musical Courier staff. The visitor was received with genial amiability by Mr. Hegner, who enjoys nothing more thoroughly than to find somebody who may take a truly connoisseur interest in his rare group of instruments. He drew them forth with a loving care and pride, and handled them with a carelessness in his touch which showed the tender sentiment of a true musician for some treasure which to him is a speaking, sentient thing.
80"Yes," Mr. Hegner said, as he displayed first his two violins, darkened by age, and laid them gently side by side on the table, "I am, as you see, the proud owner of two noble and rare violins, and I love them beyond expression. They live for me as children live for their parents.
82"Here is a Geronimo Amati, built in 1624, and here is a Nicolas Amati, built in 1635," and the artist's eyes flamed with affectionate pride as he touched them. "I presume I need not show my 'cello to you, as you say you have heard me play on it more than once. I am absolutely jealous of this 'cello, as jealous as many men find themselves of living things which they dearly love. It is mine, mine alone, and my whole artistic life is devoted to my idol.
84"It is different with the violins. I am attached to them, but they are after all only step-sisters to my idolized 'cello. With my 'cello, my own instrument, the chosen medium of my art, nothing could ever induce me to part. I could, if called upon, part with my violins, and feel only a partial pang, because they have not for years responded to my touch as has my precious 'cello. Look at it again. Is it not a perfect instrument? For me this 'cello is the first thing in life, the art life in which I am absorbed."
86Bispham in The Messiah.—David Bispham has been engaged to sing in The Messiah by the Händel and Haydn Society, of Boston, on Sunday and Monday.
88Froehlich School Recital.—The first piano and violin recital, which also included zither music, by pupils of the Froehlich School of Music, was given on Saturday evening, December 19, at the school, 2117 Madison avenue. The pupils all played with confidence and intelligence, showing plainly the advantage gained from repeated public appearance.
90Samuel Blight Johns.—Samuel Blight Johns, who recently located in New York, has been engaged as tenor at the Washington Street Temple in Newark, N. J. Mr. Johns is English by birth, and he has been pronounced by critics as having a typical English tenor voice. Mr. Johns will give his time to oratorio and recital work, aside from his church engagement.
92Mrs. E. G. Coleman.—At the musical given recently by Wm. R. Chapman, at the Madison Avenue Hotel, Mrs. E. Gardner Coleman, a soprano possessing a most beautiful voice of great range, created a decided sensation by her most artistic singing of Elsa's dream, from Lohengrin. Her entire musical training has been under the eminent baritone and instructor Townsend H. Fellows, who brought her to this city last spring to fill the soprano position at the Bloomingdale Reformed Church, which position she still holds. She is a decided acquisition to America's leading soprano soloists, and will be heard during the season in concert in this city.
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