Scan 33
Musical Courier 1897-09-15: Vol 35 Iss 915, 1897
75 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE PLAY'S THE THING
3THE DIFFERENCE.
4When in the parlor Janet sits,
5Her dimp'led fingers rilling
6To the responsive trilling
7Of frolicsome piano keys,
8We listen, languishing at ease,
9And muse until our drowsy wits
10Grow tranced as in some thrilling
11Dream of song, caught spilling
12From a wildwood revel!
13But when our Janet sits upstairs
14And does her daily drilling
15Without surcease or stilling,
16Repeating nerve-destroying scales
17Until one's very spirit quails;
18We say we do not like her airs,
19Although her music's killing:
20As if her tones were filling
21Dungeons of—the devil!
22—Boston Journal.
24MARY ANDERSON-NAVARRO always had a rich contralto voice, yet, despite the assertion of Maud Valerie White, the composer. I doubt if the American can become an artistic singer. She has not a particle of temperament, indeed seems to lack the artistic quality, and was at her very best a mediocre and uninteresting actress. The rumor that she intends singing in public has proved a false one.
25Good-bye to Summer would be about the top notch of her abilities.
27When Acton Davies (we call him Acteon because of his fondness for stag parties) was in London last summer he naturally enough frequently went to the theatre. One memorable night Miss Marbury, the play buyer, introduced him to Mr. G. Bernard Shaw, the play assassin.
28"We call Mr. Davies," said Miss Marbury, in her best manner, "the Shaw of New York."
29George scowled, and his moth-eaten face became yellower.
30"Is that what you call American humor?" he asked in Ibscene accents.
31"No, American youth," answered the lady. George withdrew in his usual depressing fashion.
33The Good Mr. Best proved to be the bad Mr. Wurst at the Garrick, and the company left for Detroit last Sunday night. Rich & Harris, who always insisted to May Irwin that author McNally made her, and not the reverse, think differently to-day.
34The night of the production here the author sweating blood, and after his curtain speech, in which he thanked the audience for their &c.—success, &c., rushed into the café next door to the theatre for a drink. An old star of his, "Pete" Daly, stood at the bar drinking in his usually good natured style.
35"Hello, McNally," he sang out, "have you seen that play next door?" McNally's answer is not reported.
37The piece was bad, simply vulgar and bad.
39Change Alley at the Lyceum needs more change and less alley. It is by Louis N. Parker and Murray Carson, and when it was described as a panorama in five acts all was said that could be said. The South Sea Bubble is used as a central theme—if there is any such thing as a central theme—and the scenery and costumes are the play. Mr. Sothern has a poor part, which he makes much of, and Virginia Harned looks lovely and plays a meagre role with intelligence. The cast is vociferous.
40Mr. Parker should cut Wagner lectures for a time and furbish up his dramatic technic.
42The death of Mr. David Lawrie, of Glasgow, is announced, says the Westminster Gazette. He was originally an oil merchant, and early in his career had his attention directed to violins. His business about that time took him to the Continent, and he began to purchase instruments, the first he acquired being a Nicolas Amati, for which he paid £35. He bought violins here and there, and thus gradually educated himself in the characteristics of the productions of the various masters. He had an unerring ear for tone, which he cultivated until he came to be recognized as a judge. By-and-by he left the oil trade and devoted himself entirely to dealing in violins. A great number of the famous violins of the world passed through his hands. He had long in his possession the Allard Strad and the King Joseph. He also had the Dolphin Strad, and he bought Ernst's Strad on his death, afterward selling it to Lady Hallé, who still has it as a cherished possession. It is an exceptionally fine instrument; indeed it is regarded as the finest solo violin at present in use. At one period Mr. Lawrie made the acquaintance of the maker J. B. Villaume, and brought to this country many specimens of his work. Then his violins were sold for £14, but now they easily command between £60 and £70. Mr. Lawrie, who had been failing in health for a long time, was sixty-five years of age.
44Following the Continental superstition that a successful literary man must be a good politician, Gabriele d'Annunzio is running for Parliament at Pescara and making poetic speeches. He wants to know, "What have the men who have ruled over Italy for thirty years done for beauty, art, culture, for all our richest treasures, for all the most noble ornaments of the Italian spirit?"
46This was in the Herald Sunday last:
47PARIS, September 11, 1897.—Mrs. Antonio Terry, née Grace Dalton Secor, died at her residence here on Friday. She had returned to Paris from Tréport a fortnight ago.
48Her death is due to cerebral congestion, from which she had suffered only two days.
50Now there is nothing to prevent that Terry-Sanderson marriage. Will it ever take place?
52William Philp, the tenor of the Bostonians, is reported to be engaged to Miss Caroline Howard, of Buffalo.
54Anthony Hope will read at the Lyceum Theatre October 25, 26 and 27.
56Marie Studholm has been suffering with rheumatism since she arrived, and of course the Knickerbocker people got off the old "gag" about the death of relatives in England.
58In Town is rubbish, with some pretty girls and a clever comedian, Mr. Bradfield, in it. It does not begin to compare with The Gayety Girl in sprightliness.
60The hot weather last week played the deuce with the shows in town. Every theatre suffered, although the usual interviews with managers appeared in the Sunday papers, and of course they were all coining money.
62The Manns—Louis and Clara Lipman—are not to star with Charles Dickson after all. They are to appear under George Lederer's management in a piece adapted from the French by Leander Richardson and Edgar Smith, called The Telephone Girl.
64Mr. Harry Rowe Shelley has just finished a new symphony, which will be heard during the winter at the Philharmonic concerts. It is in the key of D minor, and in my opinion a stronger, more compact and more original than his first symphony, which was so well received at the M. T. N. A.
66Here is some late cable news to the Herald:
67The Meistersinger, by the way, is being rehearsed night and day at the Opéra here. Acting as guardian angel to holy tradition, Frau Cosima has turned over the only authentic Wagner ideas of Edouard Risler, as the Grand Duchesse did the sabre of her sire. Risler, the clever pianist, will watch on behalf of the widow of Wagner that French frivolity does not creep into the interpretation of the artists. At any rate, during the rehearsals the roles of "maitres chanteurs" have been cast in double and triple, and in one or two cases in quadruple. Messrs. Alvarez, Courtors, Duffaunt as Walter; Demas and Fornets as Hans Sachs; Mesdames Breval, Bertet, Bosman and Loventoz as Eva.
68Meantime a surprise has been sprung on the French musical public by the first performance in French of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde at Aix les Bains, which was warmly praised and attended by all the fashionables at that watering place.
70The Edouard Risler mentioned is one of the most gifted of French pianists. I heard him play at Bayreuth. He is an ardent Lisztianer.
72Chevalier de la Salle, an oratorio of American discovery, the music by M. Frédéric Le Rey, was recently performed for the first time in a Dieppe church. French critics praise it highly.
74Among the new plays in verse promised by the Comédie Francaise for next season are Le Martyre, by Jean Richepin; Tristan et Yseult, by Armand
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