Scan 17
Musical Courier 1897-09-15: Vol 35 Iss 915, 1897
70 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 18. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MUSICAL COURIER.
2PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY
3BY THE
4MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY.
5(Incorporated under the laws of the State of New York.)
619 Union Square, New York.
7TELEPHONE: 2437 18th.
82438 18th.
9Cable Address, "Pegujar," New York.
10MARC A. BLUMENBERG – – EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
11THE BERLIN, GERMANY, Branch Office of The Musical Courier, Linkstrasse 17, W., is in charge of Mr. Otto Floersheim.
12Single copies for sale at the music store of Ed. Bote & G. Bock, Leipzigerstrasse 89, W.
13THE LONDON, ENGLAND, Branch Office of The Musical Courier, 21 Princes Street, Cavendish Square, Oxford Circus, W., is in charge of Mr. Frank Vincent Atwater.
14PARIS, FRANCE, The Musical Courier, 107 Avenue Henri Martin, is in charge of Fannie Edgar Thomas.
15Single copies for sale at Brentano's, 37 Avenue de l'Opéra; 37 Rue Marbeuf; Galignani Library, 224 Rue de Rivoli; Shakespeare Library, 75 Avenue des Champs Elysées.
16THE VIENNA OFFICE of The Musical Courier, 8 Schlösselgasse II., Thür 31, is in charge of Emmeline Potter-Frissell.
17All advertising business in Germany and Austria-Hungary must be done through our Berlin Branch Office, W. Linkstrasse 17, or through our Leipzig business office, Hainstrasse 31, Treppe C III.
18THE LEIPZIG, GERMANY, Branch Office of The Musical Courier, Markt 3 II., is in charge of Mr. Oscar Neumann.
19CHICAGO OFFICE of The Musical Courier is at 226 Wabash Avenue.
20BOSTON OFFICE of The Musical Courier is at 17 Beacon Street.
21PHILADELPHIA OFFICE—2048 Chestnut Street.
22MILWAUKEE OFFICE—817 Newhall Street.
23BROOKLYN OFFICE of The Musical Courier is at 539 Fulton Street.
24LONDON: Single copies, Principal London Publishers.
25DRESDEN: Single copies for sale at H. Bock's, Pragerstrasse 12.
26Subscription (including postage), invariably in advance: Yearly, $4.00; Foreign, $5.00; Single copies, Ten Cents.
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36All remittances for subscriptions or advertising must be made by check, draft or money orders, payable to THE MUSICAL COURIER Company.
37Advertisements for the current week must be handed in by 5 P. M. on Monday.
38All changes in advertisements must reach this office by Friday noon preceding the issue in which changes are to take effect.
39American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents.
40Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents.
41THE MUSICAL COURIER TRADE EXTRA.
42Published Every Saturday during the Year.
43GREATEST ADVERTISING MEDIUM FOR ALL MANUFACTURERS AND IMPORTERS OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OR PARTS THEREOF.
44For particulars apply to "Trade Department," MUSICAL COURIER.
45ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1880.
46No. 915.
47NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1897.
48The London MUSICAL COURIER is published every Thursday from 21 Princes street, Cavendish Square, Oxford Circus, W., London, England. This paper, while containing the salient points of THE MUSICAL COURIER, of New York, devotes special attention to music throughout Great Britain and the British Colonies.
49Specimen copies, subscriptions and advertising rates can be obtained by addressing the London office, or
50THE MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY,
5119 Union Square,
52New York City.
53THIS amusing paragraph comes from an English contemporary:
54The annual "Bayreuth" nonsense is now over, and as there will be no festival next season we are safe for two or perhaps three years. When an opera season is in full vogue at Covent Garden I am always told that nothing is right, and the Bayreuth simile is hurled at me from all points. I have made a careful analysis of all this season's Bayreuth specials, and this is my summary of the result:
55(a) They cannot sing at Bayreuth. They only shout.
56(b) All Bayreuthian Sieglindes and Brunnhildes weigh 20 stone and sing out of tune.
57(c) The orchestra is villainous; the instruments have no tone.
58(d) Siegfried Wagner, by trying to conduct, is ruining Bayreuth.
59(e) Frau Wagner "will ultimately frighten everybody away with her policy of direction."
60Even the English have a glimmer of humor at times!
61ROSENTHAL
62AS AN INTERPRETATIVE ARTIST.
63II.
64MUSICAL criticism, even in an age essentially critical, is liable to the evils of conventional classification. With what ease do we not insist that Von Bülow is the objective pianist; Rubinstein the emotional artist; Joseffy the prince of Chopin players; Paderewski the great Liszt interpreter! whereas, Von Bülow was tremendously subjective, quite as subjective as Rubinstein, while the Slavic virtuoso often played Bach in an irreproachable fashion, and Joseffy reads Brahms as wonderfully as he does Chopin!
65This fitting an executive artist to a Procrustean scheme of criticism has even led the most careful and discriminating critics to needlessly emphasize the fact of Moriz Rosenthal's superb technic. We all know that he has greater executive ability than any living, or for that matter any dead pianist—with the exceptions of Tausig and Dreyschock. This enormous technical facility has often blinded contemporary criticism to Rosenthal's rarer faculties as an interpretative artist.
66Liszt, and Paganini before Liszt, declared that the secret of virtuosity was technic, technic, technic; and gave to each recurrence of the word a peculiar emphasis. The supreme technic of Rosenthal possesses the art that conceals art, the technic that to an overwhelming mastery of mechanism unites the insight of the poet, the architechtone of the creator, and the fine reserve and tactful omission that stamps every bar of his music with intellectual distinction and personal grace. Rosenthal is no mere technician of the bravura type, but an artist whose powers have mellowed and matured; a thoughtful musician, who sinks a potent personality in his performances, finding the mere vainglory of display thoroughly unpalatable and also incompatible with his lofty ideals.
67There literally is no such thing as an objective performance of a composition; some pulse beat, some of the blood and nerve of a player must manifest itself, no matter how high the tension or the adherence to a so-called classical standard. But for convenience sake we speak of objective and subjective, despite Ruskin's earnest warning; and by objective we mean an artist of the sort who avoids all obtrusion of the non-essential in his interpretations. That is to say, he plays Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Tschaikowsky, Brahms and Rubinstein with finely differentiated readings, with widely discriminated touches, all of course being enveloped in a personal aura, yet having the inevitable ring of sincerity. This gift of getting outside of one's skin, of thinking and feeling with another man's mind and nerves, is the touchstone of the great interpretative pianist, and it is precisely this gift that Rosenthal possesses.
68We have traced his artistic royal descent from Tausig by way of Joseffy; but his readings are his own and are the product of his own serious meditations. Rosenthal is the most intellectual pianist since Von Bülow, and richer, redder musical blood flows in his veins. He never allows the musical laboratory to become visible on the concert platform, as did Von Bülow, who elaborated and over elaborated his mental processes until they became purely structural and without the bud and bloom of poetical fancy.
69Take, for example, Rosenthal's Bach and Beethoven playing; how solid, how satisfying it is in accent and meaning! There is a crispness, a fullness and a mastery which never leaves dark or doubtful passages of double entendre, and the ictus is never too harshly insisted upon. In the later Beethoven Rosenthal revels, and the rhythmic life, the measured flow—which is the only true definition of rhythm—the virile attack, the deep feeling and lofty conception, stamp him as an ideal interpreter of Beethoven. He is essentially a masculine artist, despite his control of every imaginable dynamic shade; for him there are no puling languors in Chopin, but the charm and sweetness and delicacy he has in abundance. You hear the whizzing and cleaving of the battle axe in the polonaises and the martial tramp of warriors in stately dance, and he
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