Scan 36
Musical Courier 1896-12-23: Vol 33 Iss 877, 1896
100 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
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1THE MUSICAL COURIER. one of two readings
3(no line here) one of two readings
4Brooklyn
6OFFICE THE MUSICAL COURIER. one of two readings
7Office The Musical Courier. one of two readings
8539 FULTON STREET, BROOKLYN, December 14, 1896.
10THE Academy of Music, filled to standing room only, was a brilliant spectacle on Tuesday night, at the first concert of the season given by the Apollo Club to an invited assembly. Full dress was the order of the evening, and the ensemble of pretty faces and brilliant evening gowns was a pleasing foreground to the rich setting which transformed the ordinary Academy stage into an elegant drawing room. If this was the work of the house committee Messrs. I. Preston Taylor, Wm. A. Avis and Wm. L. Gerrish are to be complimented upon their exquisite taste and savoir faire.
12The club was assisted by Miss Sophie Traubmann from the Metropolitan Opera Company, Mrs. Marian Van Duyn and Mrs. Jeanne Franko in making an artistic success of this concert. The numbers by the club were given with that virile volume which is so satisfying in concerted work, and which is due to care in selection and admission of active members. The precision in dynamic effects, in the attacks and the finales is of course the result of the master hand of Mr. Dudley Buck, who has held the directorship since the origin of the club. They gave the following numbers:
14Chorus of Bishops and Priests from L'Africaine………….Meyerbeer
15Maid and Butterfly…………………….Theodor Podbertsky
16My Children's Prayer…………………….Dudley Buck
17On the Sea………………………………………Dudley Buck
18God Bless Thee, Love, For Ever…………………Podbertsky
19Madrigal………………………………………Max Spicker
20Street Music………………………………….Hamilton Clarke
22The madrigal is one of the most musicianly male choruses that I have ever listened to.
24Another effective selection was Podbertsky's God Bless Thee, Love, For Ever. Full of dash, yet, subjective to the minor sense that permeates it, it is significant of a keen musical temperament behind it. Dudley Buck's On the Sea was another magnificent number.
26Miss Sophie Traubmann sang the Michaela aria from Carmen, and Gretchen and Spinnrade, Schubert, and Herzensfrühling, Wickede. She scored a brilliant success, which she well deserved.
28Mrs. Van Duyn's rich contralto was shown to the fine advantage which it merited in the aria O toi qui m'abandonnes from Le Prophète, and that beautiful encore, Oh That We Two Were Maying." In the duets which she gave with Miss Traubmann, the harmony of their voices made me think of the combination on a glorious organ of a flute and a viola.
30Mrs. Jeanne Franko, the well-known violinist, played with fine result Air Varié No. 2 of Vieuxtemps, and I think the encore she gave to a thunderous applause was a Sarasate gypsy dance. Among the women violinists Mrs. Franko easily stands with the first. She has much more virility than women are usually blessed with. Mr. J. H. Brewer was accompanist.
32On Tuesday evening Mr. Carl Fiqué and some of his pupils gave a recital in Wissner Hall. Mr. Fiqué had the assistance of Mr. Herman Dietmann, who, if he appears often, will exhaust my stock of adjectives very rapidly in the attempt to tell of the beauty of his voice as well as the finish of his interpretations. In the concerted piano numbers by Miss Jennie S. Liebmann, Miss Eleanor Treadwell, Mrs. Kathrine Noack-Fiqué and Mr. Carl Fiqué the realization was instantaneous that such surety of touch, fullness of tone and oneness of interpretation can only come from instruction which is nothing short of artistic. There was in the pupils a demonstration of unalloyed confidence in the teacher, a confidence well placed.
34The selections for two pianos were: Haydn's Symphony in G, Meyerbeer's Facketlantz, Bendel's Cinderella, Beethoven's Overture to Egmont.
36Mr. Robert Dods played the Regata Veneziana of Liszt and the Leschetizky Mazurka.
38Mr. Dietmann sang some Schubert and Schumann numbers exquisitely.
40A good program was presented to an interested audience at the Lincoln place studio of Mr. Louis Mollenhauer on Wednesday at 8:30, and a repetition of the same, with a change of vocal numbers, was given in the evening. Miss Cantine Heath, a pupil of Mr. Austin, appeared in the afternoon, and Mr. Wilbur Morris sang in the evening. Miss Ida Mollenhauer played Schumann's Des Abends and Chopin's Impromptu in a highly satisfactory manner. Other numbers were furnished by Mr. Louis Mollenhauer, Mr. Henry Mollenhauer, Miss Alice Varrelman and Mr. Edward Case.
42On Thursday afternoon Mr. H. E. Krehbiel, with the valuable assistance of Mr. Henry Holden Huss, gave another delightful talk on the program presented by the Boston Symphony on Friday night.
44Under the auspices of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences the Boston Symphony appeared on Friday night at the Academy of Music to a house whose numbers and appreciation gave evidence of the esteem in which Mr. Emil Pauer and his magnificent organization are held.
46The opening number was the Manfred overture of Schumann, and the closing one the great Ninth Symphony of Schubert, which, from the opening to the closing bars, is as replete with happiness as Schumann is with gloom. Here is another case where comparisons are impossible.
48The Carneval Romain of Hector Berlioz was of rather a more pyrotechnical nature than the music usually handled by the Boston Symphony, but it goes without saying that it was well received. Mr. Carl Halir made his first appearance in this city.
50On Saturday afternoon a smaller but not less appreciative audience heard the matinee concert. Mme. Szumowska played the G minor Saint-Saëns concerto. Mme. Szumowska is an artist of unquestionable merit. Her technic was impeccable throughout, and her artistic interpretation drew her audience with her through every measure of the intricacies of the concerto.
52There were many private affairs during the week, of which I would gladly have told but for the immense amount of other matter. At Mr. Reddall's musical morning I heard Mrs. Alice Jackson, a very fine pianist, in a number of selections well calculated to show her capacity. Miss Ruth Thompson sang with magnificent result My Heart at Thy Dear Voice. Mrs. Blanche F. Whitaker played the accompaniments in a manner which could not fail to attract attention to their degree of excellence. Other participants were Miss Marion G. Inglee, Miss Edythe Burger and Mr. Frederic Reddall.
54December 21, 1896.
56On Monday afternoon, in Association Hall, the Kneisel Quartet gave unqualified pleasure to a large audience. This was the second of the chamber music concerts under the patronage of the Brooklyn Institute. The third in the above series of concerts will be given by the New York Ladies' Trio, assisted by Mr. Mackenzie Gordon to-day the 23d. The next song recital is to occur on the 30th. Miss Ethel Chamberlain, soprano; Mr. Frrangcon-Davies, baritone, and Miss Lotta Mills, pianist, are to furnish the program.
58The violinist Huberman appeared with the Seidl Society on Tuesday night at the Academy of Music, where he was received with a considerable amount of pleasure. That the boy is a genius is unquestionable. He played the Mendelssohn concerto with ease that was astonishing, to say the least.
60The Leonore overture was admirably given by the orchestra under the baton of Anton Seidl, and the Tristan and Isolde was a masterpiece. Surely Gillet must have felt himself out of place on such a program had he known it and been consulted in the matter. However, the concert was highly enjoyable, and the volume of applause which was accorded it was proof enough that it met with public approval.
62On Thursday night the Hoadley Club gave an open session to its friends. The club is composed of amateur men and women, who under the direction of Mr. Carl Venth have formed an orchestra, and they do very acceptable work. Miss Carrie Teale was the solo violinist of the evening, and played a Scotch rhapsody by Mr. Venth exceedingly well.
64The Jeanne Franko Trio, assisted by Mr. Emil Senger, gave one of its interesting recitals in Wissner Hall that was largely attended. The trio met with much success here as everywhere else.
66There is little to note of interest, as all the church choirs are engaged in making elaborate preparations for the holiday services, and secular music is resting; many of them gave their services yesterday. The evening service at the Church of the Pilgrims under the direction of Mr. Albert L. Caswell, was very impressive. It contained many of the gems from The Messiah, and the solos cast with such a personnel as Miss Alice Merritt, Miss Ruth Thompson, Mr. William Lavin and Mr. Grant Odell, insured an excellence of a marked degree. An anthem arranged by Franck, In The Beginning; one by Steane, The Night is Far Spent, and a selection from Mendelssohn's Christus, Say Where is He Born, formed the excellent program.
68EMILIE FRANCES BAUER.
70Death of the "Singing Father."—St. Louis, December 14.—Martin Kaiser, the oldest active German singer in the United States, who has been known as the "Singing Father" among all the German singers from the Atlantic to the Rockies, died yesterday at the home of his son in this city. Kaiser was the grand marshal of the first great singing festival ever given, in his country, in 1857. He was one of the founders of the celebrated Germania Männerchor of Chicago.
7266 Pages.
74Bronislaw Huberman.
76ON the front page of this issue appears the portrait of Bronislaw Huberman, the boy violinist, a young genius who within a few short weeks since his arrival in America has succeeded in making his name a familiar musical word throughout the length and breadth of the land.
78Because Bronislaw Huberman is in very truth a genius. The child prodigy has been much overdone. We have had him in all stages of forced development, always with the realization that a pushed precocity has gone thus far, but can go no farther, and always consequently with the regret that we have had to listen to a talent forced into early ripeness and just as surely into early decay. This is the case with most of the child geniuses, but not with Bronislaw Huberman. The announcements "not a prodigy, but an artist," made before he played in this country, were absolutely judicious and the truth.
80The boy is already an artist. Some forward mood of nature has given him a soul beyond his years, a conception of musical thought adult in its depth and sincerity, while study, aided by extraordinary talent, has furnished him with a powerful technic, through which he can interpret with facility works of the most difficult and elaborate form. When this youthful lad with the strangely serious, boy-like face plays forth his themes of reflection, gladness, grief or absolute joy the tone is that of authority. One is moved to his mood magnetically, as may only happen through a player who feels deeply all he undertakes to express.
82So extraordinarily developed seems the emotional side of this boy's nature that we feel in hearing him play that we are following the workings of a man's mind and spirit set in the body of a child. There are the impassioned feeling, the freedom and the vigor in his performance which characterize a full grown virility, and when we look up and see the childish personality of this boy with the straight fringe on his forehead and the thick mass of dropping curls framing his pale, serious, young face, we feel ourselves confronted by a certain fascinating enigma.
84Huberman made his American début with the Seidl Orchestra in Carnegie Hall on November 19. He was not heard then at his best, the boy having been ill all day, and as a fact forbidden by the doctor to appear. But at his second recital at the same place on December 8 the youth was in superb form, played with extraordinary brilliancy and power and captivated his audience. He chose for his battle horse the tremendously difficult Goldmark concerto, and played it with an ease and sweep which were amazing. He has appeared in Boston with overwhelming success, and on Sunday night last his third New York appearance was made at the Metropolitan Opera House, when his genius and magnetism carried everything before them.
86A strangely precocious, rarely gifted boy is Bronislaw Huberman, a marvelous talent which it is of deep musical interest to study and enjoy. Already his name has become a synonym of musical genius and success. A great career in this country lies before him.
88Huberman Next Sunday.—Bronislaw Huberman, the violin wonder, plays at the next Sunday concert at the Metropolitan Opera House.
90Miss Webster, 'Cellist.—Miss Laura Webster, the violincellist, will play in Boston December 21; at a song recital of Antonia H. Sawyer, Hartford, Conn., December 27; at an operatic concert January 2, January 30 and February 20; at the Aeolian recitals in New York, and January 11, February 8 and March 29 at the chamber music concerts in New Bedford, Mass.
92"Miss Clary's Magnificent Voice."—"Not in many years has so fine a contralto been heard in this city." Under the above headings there appeared in both the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Evening Post of December 4 the following eulogistic notice of Miss Clary:
94Then came the bright particular star of the evening. Miss Mary Louise Clary, whose magnificent contralto voice fairly carried away the audience. Her first selection, Noble Signor, from Les Huguenots, showed dramatic conception and breadth of tone, combined with a wonderful sweetness and smoothness that were simply charming. No contralto since the days of Annie Louise Cary has appeared here who could compare with her. Answering an enthusiastic encore she gave a ballad, sung as ballads should be, with a simplicity and sweetness of tone, a pathos and fervor of expression that were enchanting. No one cared about her method; she sang—that was what was so delightful. Unquestionably she established herself as a prime favorite in Cleveland.
96The Erl King's Daughter, by Gade, closed the concert. The solo parts of mother and daughter both fell to Miss Clary, and she even bettered the impression she made in the first part by the dramatic fire and pathos with which she sang the part of the mother, and the seductive sweetness with which she woves Olaf in the part of the erl king's daughter. one of two readings
97The Erl King's Daughter, by Gade, closed the concert. The solo parts of mother and daughter both fell to Miss Clary, and she even bettered the impression she made in the first part by the dramatic fire and pathos with which she sang the part of the mother, and the seductive sweetness with which she wooes Olaf in the part of the erl king's daughter. one of two readings
99At the close of the concert many persons in the audience requested to be presented to Miss Clary, and complimented her highly.
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