Scan 4
Musical Courier 1897-07-14: Vol 35 Iss 906, 1897
72 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MUSICAL COURIER.
3THE THIRTEENTH SILESIAN MUSIC FESTIVAL—PUCCINI'S OPERA LA BOHEME—BOETEL AS GUEST—BERLIN NOTES.
5June 26, 1897.
7I THINK I have beaten the record this season for attending music festivals. Four of them in as many weeks is a record breaker, is it not? Anyhow, it seems like a good deal to me, and I am glad it is all over now. The last one, from which I returned a few days ago, was the thirteenth Silesian Festival, held at Goerlitz on the 20th, 21st and 22d inst., and I give you my impressions of it in a translation of my daily reports for the Berliner Tageblatt, for which paper on this occasion I acted as special correspondent in place of its regular critic, my valued friend and confrère, Heinrich Neumann, who was prevented from attending by reason of other engagements, the most important and excusable among which is his matrimonial one.
9GOERLITZ, June 21, 1897.
11The thirteenth Silesian Festival began under the most favorable conditions. The clear, bright and cool weather that prevailed made the auditorium a pleasant abiding place, and conspired with the enthusiasm of the large and discriminating audience in calling forth the highest capacities of the performers.
13The first meeting was opened by a short address of greeting from Olenbrügermeister Büchtemann. The climax of the mayor's speech was his expression of thanks to Graf Hochberg, the intendant general, the founder and the faithful protector of the Silesian music festivals. The audience indorsed the mayor's sentiments by standing up to applaud him.
15The first number of the musical program was Beethoven's C minor symphony, which, under Dr. Muck's direction, was performed with the greatest possible swing and fire and with painstaking care, even to the smallest details. I have never heard our opera orchestra play the fifth with greater effect—never with more rhythmical precision nor finer adjusted dynamic gradations. Thanks to the excellent acoustics of the auditorium, the tonal effects were sonorous, despite the unfavorable position of the orchestra—stretched out in a long line between the divisions of the festival chorus.
17Graf Hochberg had selected Friedrich Kiel's oratorio Christus to follow the symphony. I confess that I had anticipated this performance with some apprehension, and it therefore gave me an agreeable surprise.
19Christus is not entirely the creation of a master of tonal resources. It is not the work of a contrapuntist only; it contains episodes of overpowering beauty and inspired invention, such as occur to real creators only. This is especially the case in the first part of the work, which contains such pearls of beauty as the alto solo Das Zeostossene Rohr, and the chorus in D minor (6-8) Unser Reigen ist in Wehklagen Verkehrt. The highest art and noblest inspiration are found combined in the chorus episode, Wie Lieblich sind auf den Bergen. I regard this number as the climax of the work. Kiel treats choral melodies harmonically, much in Bach's style; indeed in Christus Kiel seems to lean on the Matthew Passion, and once in the chorus, Kreuzige, Kreuzige ihn, he goes further—he borrows.
21The performance under Dr. Muck's baton was perfect. It is wonderful that he is capable of securing dynamic and rhythmic unity and powerful climaxes from these 900 singers and 120 instrumentalists collected from all parts of Silesia, and prepared for these performances by many different conductors.
23Of the soloists the first alto has the most grateful part—not less than three long and beautiful soli. Frau Marie Goetz, from the Royal Opera, sang these nobly with her sympathetic voice and clear understanding. Herr Perron, from Dresden, phrased beautifully, as usual, and his high baritone voice was even more sonorous than when I recently heard him in Aachen, but the musical quality most essential to a singer of the part of Christ in this oratorio is purity of intonation, and Herr Perron is not satisfying in this respect. Court Opera Singer Sommer's beautiful lyric tenor voice sounded delicious, and Fräulein Levalle (Breslau), Fräulein Stephan (Berlin), and Herren Fiedler (baritone, Görlitz) and Franck (bass, Dresden) distinguished themselves in the small incidental soli.
25***
27GOERLITZ, June 22, 1897.
29The crowd was even greater on the second day than it was on the first of the festival. The hall was filled with enthusiastic music lovers, not only at the evening performance, but also at the general rehearsal in the forenoon. The program was more varied than the first, but might have been somewhat shorter, for the performers and audience became noticeably weary before its close. Four hours of music are too much for the average man, and a truly musical person cannot remain receptive for that length of time.
31The transformation music and closing scene of the first part of Parsifal received a round and sonorous but not a convincing performance. No concert performance of this Richard Wagner's swan song, however perfect, can do it justice. Only a small part of the festival chorus was employed in this selection, but this part did nobly, and the boy choir of ninety school children placed at the top of the podium sang more purely, and therefore produced a more sublime effect than I have ever heard at Bayreuth.
33Perron was in his element in the role of Amfortas, although his voice sounded tired. Franck's sonorous bass, Sommer's sweet tenor and Fiedler's simple but expressive style were quite in keeping with the respective parts of Gurnemanz, Parsifal and Titurel. Dr. Muck conducted in his usual comprehensive and convincing manner. But he and the Royal Orchestra distinguished themselves still more in the thoughtful, and richly colored reading of Raff's fascinating, fresh and poetic Im Walde symphony. It was indeed a performance of real virtuosity by the orchestra, particularly the scintillating scherzo, which was given at a terrific tempo and with almost unimaginable clarity on the part of the wood instruments. In the second movement, Träumerei (the most beautiful in invention), Herr Schubert played the clarinet solo with inimitable purity of phrasing and with the most ravishing tone. Loud and persistent was the applause given the festival conductor after each movement and particularly at the close of the symphony, all of which he turned over, with his accustomed modesty, to the orchestra.
35The soli came in the second part of the program. Frl. Anna Stephan, a concert singer very highly thought of in Berlin, sang with a pleasant mezzo soprano voice and carefully studied interpretation Schumann's song-cycle, Frauenliebe und Leben, and was forced to sing an encore. I shall not leave unmentioned the charmingly modest and sympathetic accompaniments played by the sister of the vocalist.
37A pupil of Rubinstein, Frl. Sandra Drouker, played Chopin's F minor concerto in a surprisingly poetical and most fluent manner. When I heard this pretty young lady in Berlin she seemed a shade too full of temperament, too wild and unbridled. But here she appeared as a pianist of fine order, which she especially proved in the recitative episodes of the slow movement. Her technic is as yet, however, neither overpoweringly imposing nor sure. As encore, after repeated recalls, she played Rubinstein's G major barcarolle. Both of the soloists were the recipients of manifold laurel wreaths and bouquets.
39The Triumphed of Brahms closed the program. I cannot count myself among the admirers of this work. The opening of the eight voiced chorus is very promising, and indeed much of the workmanship is highly interesting, but on the whole the Triumphed lacks really inspired thematic invention. The festival chorus sang this work, which is written very high for the soprani, not entirely without effort, and a certain weariness made itself apparent, not only among the performers, in spite of the energetic and strong efforts of Dr. Muck, but in the audience also. "Enough's as good as a feast."
41***
43GOERLITZ, June 23.
45The third and closing day of the festival rivaled in brilliancy the first two. It was distinguished, as is usually the case at music festivals, by the preponderance of soli upon its program, and was consequently a day of triumph for the soloists.
47But before allowing the exceptionally large audience a taste of the solo work, Herr Hofkapellmeister Dr. Muck gave them a hard musical nut to crack. I must admit that this was not met, on the part of the public, with such complacency as the previous performances of the same sort have been. I doubt whether the choice of the Seventh Symphony of Bruckner (in E major) was particularly happy, as one is hardly justified in supposing a music festival audience drawn from all parts of the Province possessed of the necessary knowledge, or more particularly the sympathy, to understand at the first and only hearing so difficult and complicated a work. Herr Dr. Muck has a particular affection for this work, written by a composer who followed markedly in the footsteps of Wagner and Beethoven, and this he shares with Mottl, Nikisch, Richard Strauss, Anton Seidl and many other noted musicians and directors, who find in the work a deeper meaning than it is granted to the ordinary mortal to discover. It must be conceded that the thematic workmanship is for the most part interesting, and that of a master, that the theme of the first movement is very beautiful, and that the slow movement is possessed of an almost Beethovenian greatness of spirit and simplicity. The only movement, however, which is really convincing is the scherzo, while the last movement appears to me absolutely abstruse. Then, too, the orchestral effects, in spite of the enormous orchestra called into play, are not overpowering and are not often even beautiful. The performance of the work, technically so difficult, was one of singular surety, in which the repose of the conductor played no unimportant role. However, it would have been better on the whole had there been more rehearsals.
49The royal orchestra made a very different impression with its two "war horses," the Carnival Romain, of Berlioz, and the Oberon overture, of Weber, which brought the festival conductor innumerable laurel wreaths of all dimensions, and the most enthusiastic applause from the audience.
51The first on the list of solo performances was that of one youthfully beautiful soprano prima donna, Frl. Hiedler, of the Royal Opera, who was expressly requested to sing in Goerlitz the aria of Agatha, from Freischütz. I do not need to inform any of your Berlin readers of the manner in which she performed this number, as we have all marveled at this vocally gifted singer in her favorite part. As an encore Frl. Hiedler finally consented to sing Schumann's Widmung.
53Herr Perron, of Dresden, was to-day particularly well disposed, and sang the imposing recitative Du Entscheideat ihr Loos and the aria of Agamemnon which follows, from Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis, with noble, manly impressiveness and rich voice.
55Frau Kammersängerin Marie Götze rejuvenated with her soulful performance the already somewhat hackneyed aria of Dalilah, of Saint-Saëns, and she was forced to repeat the number.
57Herr Prof. Halir then gave his well-known reading of the Beethoven violin concerto, which though slightly academic in atmosphere is nevertheless very remarkable and artistically simple and excellent, and made in consequence a very deep impression. To the enthusiastic applause of the audience the orchestra added its commendation in a truly generous manner.
59In Frl. Lavalle, from Breslau, I became acquainted with a Liedersängerin possessed of a beautiful voice and a masterly pronunciation. The voice itself, in spite of the great range (to high D), has a somewhat dark timbre, which is very exceptional and particularly pleasing, as coupled with this dark color there is very great flexibility. Frl. Lavalle sang Beethoven's Ich Liebe Dich with natural feeling, although a little constrainedly, while in Schubert's Forelle and Brahms' O Liebliche Wangen she displayed to the full her talent, and in Ritter's Die Jüngle Spinnerin a by no means unimportant ability for coloratura.
61Herr Sommer, of the Royal Opera, came last on the list of soloists, and sang Brahms' Mainacht, E. E. Taubert's deeply conceived Wie soll ich's borgen and the charming Sicilian song of Count Hochberg. The composer, all the soloists and, as already mentioned, Herr Dr. Muck were rewarded by a most lavish presentation of laurel wreaths. Herr Sommer gave as an encore his hobby horse, the aria from the Postillion von Lonjumeau, which, to be sure, did not exactly fit in the frame of the music festival program, but in which he took a high chest tone on B, and a falsetto D, which were received with acclamation by the audience.
63Once again was Count Hochberg honored as founder and protector of the Silesian Music Festival in a speech by the president of the Common Council and through a spontaneous and general uprising on the part of the large audience, and then with a spirited performance of the Hallelujah chorus, from The Messiah, the beautiful festival came to an end.
65***
67Arriving in Berlin, I attended the second performance of Puccini's opera La Bohème, the première of which had taken place at the New Royal Opera House (Kroll's) on the previous evening. I had read several of the Berlin criticisms written upon the first performance and they were as varied as doctors' utterances could possibly be. Of course this made me all the more curious about the new work, but my own judgment seems to disagree with that of my assistant, young Leonard Liebling, who had been present at the première and appears to be very enthusiastic on the subject.
69To be entirely candid I find little to admire in Puccini's La Bohème from either a musical or a dramatic, and consequently also not from a musico-dramatic, standpoint. The book of the opera by Giacosa and Illica, which was offered in a very unsatisfactory German translation by Ludwig Hartmann, brings four loosely joined scenes from Henry Murger's celebrated novel Vie de Bohème.
71When I read the novel a good many years ago I was immensely interested in its minutely accurate descriptions of the student and artists' life of the former Quartier Latin, the artistic touches of Murger's pen, which must have been as refined as Meissonier's brush. But I never dreamed that this novel ever would or could be dramatized. In fact I doubt even now whether the book is at all adapted for such a purpose, in spite of the fact that I am assured that the stage version of Clyde Fitch, which was played in the United States a few seasons ago, but which I never saw, is a very interesting and effective one. Well, in spoken dialogue you can at least preserve and make distinguishable to the ear the fine French wit and playing on words which
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.