Scan 10
Musical Courier 1897-11-24: Vol 35 Iss 925, 1897
44 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1were begun in such a manner as to lead one to look for endings that would bring everybody to their feet, but in both cases the end was rather disappointing, for his strength did not seem adequate for the tremendous climaxes looked for. This was specially noticeable in the "Erlkönig." His working up toward the climaxes was beautiful and artistic, as is all his playing, but at the grand finale he seemed to fall short. No doubt if he had played the "Erlkönig" in the first part of the program his strength would have been more adequate to the demands upon it. In the rhapsody, his fine accentuation and perfect rhythm set everyone's pulses beating in time with his playing, and made one almost forget that he was playing one of those much dreaded pieces that made a number of people leave the Singakademie before he began.
3Probably the most satisfactory thing on the program was his reading of the Rubinstein barcarolle in F minor, which was an absolutely perfect performance.
5The audience was well pleased, and, as at his former concert, clamored loudly for encores, and got three, all delightfully played, Chant Polonaise (Maiden's Wish), Chopin; Etude, G flat major, by Moszkowski, and the "Spinning Song," by Mendelssohn.
7An amusing little incident made everyone in the audience laugh heartily. A very small boy, about eight or nine years old, but a regular familiar concert-goer, became so very enthusiastic that while they were clamoring for a second encore he jumped upon the podium and planted himself closely to the piano stool, and refused to stir when Hofmann wished to sit down, so that the latter had to good-naturedly pick him up bodily and set him aside. He was the little fellow who started "Bravo!" at the top of his voice earlier in the program. It was a most delightful and satisfactory evening.
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11Last night we had the third of the Royal Orchestra's symphony evenings. It was not conducted by Weingartner, but by Dr. Karl Muck. A few evenings ago Court Conductor Weingartner, after a performance of "Hansel und Gretel" at the Royal Opera, had one of his fainting fits, and on the next day sent in one of his regular demands for a furlough of three months on account of bad health. There was nothing to do for the Intendency but to grant the furlough right in the beginning of a very busy operatic season. Dr. Muck at once took upon himself to conduct the symphony evenings of the Royal Orchestra, and he, with the other conductors, have to share in the opera directing, just as they did all last spring. What Weingartner is up to now I don't know, but that he is not a very sick man those who saw him yesterday and even the very next day after his fainting confirm with emphasis.
13I cannot surmise anything else but that Weingartner, who is not very fond of operatic conducting, because there he is not the only and perhaps not even the most prominent personage in the eyes of the public, would like to be pensioned by the Intendency and then devote his time to composition and occasional concert conducting.
15Last night's symphony evening proved what I have maintained on the unfortunately rare occasions when I heard Dr. Muck direct in concert, that he is an equally great symphony as well as operatic conductor and that is saying a great deal. Moreover it showed conclusively that the royal symphony evenings can be and will be a success even without Weingartner. The audience last night and even at the public rehearsal were equally and at moments even more enthusiastic over Dr. Muck's conducting than they had ever been over that of Weingartner. It was really a sort of sensational success and the audience seemed to applaud demonstratively in order to convince the new conductor of their appreciation and to show him that he was as welcome to them upon the conductor's stand as Herr Felix Weingartner.
17The program remained the one which Weingartner had selected for this concert, beginning with Mendelssohn's "Calm Sea and Happy Voyage" overture. The opening of this was taken a trifle too slowly, but the allegro seemed as glorious and as fresh as a fine spring day. Really in some of his works Mendelssohn does not seem antiquated, even to the lover of Tchaikowsky. The great Russian was represented with his fourth symphony, which I heard for the first time here since I am in Berlin. Better late than never do the Germans come to the understanding of Tchaikowsky's music. Surprising was the enthusiasm with which even the complicated and lengthy first movement was received, a Satz which is surely more interesting to the musician than to the general public. But the applause grew from movement to movement, and the "stinging shower of pizzicati," as James G. Huneker so graphically describes the scherzo of this symphony in his perfectly admirable essay on Peter Illitsch Tchaikowsky, was irresistibly redeemed. Dr. Muck was four times recalled upon the platform after the close of this symphony, and was no less successful with Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony, which formed the second half of the program.
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21The following paragraph regarding the plans of Weingartner was penned before the startling news of the fainting fit and the three months' furlough became known to me. I leave it standing unchanged, nevertheless, for I believe that in the main it will prove correct after all:
23The laurels which Arthur Nikisch as conductor gathered in Paris last spring cause sleepless nights to Felix Weingartner, and so our Royal Opera House and Symphony court conductor has accepted Lamoureux's invitation to wield the baton over the Lamoureux Orchestra in two concerts in Paris some time in the near future. Besides at Paris, Weingartner will conduct concerts at Munich, Moscow and at the Leipsic Liszt Verein. He declines to conduct at Hamburg, leaving Manager Wolff in the lurch with his subscription concerts. Some say, and I am not disinclined to believe it, that this is done out of spite and in order to revenge himself upon Wolff for not having taken him (Weingartner) to Paris instead of Nikisch to conduct those concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which created such a furore in the French capital last May or June.
25Wolff, however, was not in the lurch very long. When he found that Nikisch had no time and Weingartner no inclination to conduct his Hamburg concerts, he engaged Richard Strauss, and the young Munich composer-conductor made a tremendous hit the night before last at Hamburg, where he directed the first of the Wolff subscription concerts.
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29After the foregoing the most important piece of musical news I have to communicate this week is that the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra will in all probability make a concert tournee through the United States next spring under the conductorship of Arthur Nikisch and under the management of the Wolff concert agency. The Berlin season will close on April 15, and on the next day the orchestra will leave Berlin for New York. The Scheveningen Kur committee has been very obliging toward the Philharmonic Orchestra, which always plays there in summer time, and has granted them an extra furlough of ten days. What, with allowing twenty days for the time of the crossings, this gives the orchestra full six weeks for a short tournee through the big cities of the East and West as far as Chicago, and I doubt not that the trip will prove an artistic and financial success.
31I want to make special mention of the fact that the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra undertakes this tournee upon its own financial risk, and that no guarantee fund or anything of the sort has been subscribed for either on this side or the other side of the Atlantic.
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35The Russian operatic plans of Director Dr. Theodore Loewe, of Breslau, have now matured so far that it is possible to give a few dates and facts. The enterprising impresario will give a short season of Wagner opera at the imperial Maria Theatre, at St. Petersburg, beginning in March of next year. The conductors engaged are court conductor Dr. Karl Muck, of Berlin, and Hans Richter, of Vienna. Our old friend Theodore Habelmann will be the stage manager. Of definitely engaged artists Dr. Loewe enumerated to me the following pretty complete and satisfactory personnel: Therese Malten (Dresden), Frau Fanny Moran-Olden, Sophie Sedlmair (Vienna), Frau Wiesner (Stuttgart), Mme. Litvinne (Paris), Miss Olitzka (London), Miss Deppe (Berlin), Mrs. Stavenhagen (Weimar), Messrs. Jean and Edouard de Reszke, Gudehas (Dresden), Sommer (Berlin), Reichmann (Vienna), Von Reichenberg, Dippel (Vienna) and Friedrichs (Bayreuth). This ensemble looks better by a big majority than Walter Damrosch's next winter's German opera cast.
37As director Dr. Loewe is known to be a very careful man and one who rarely, if ever, undertakes anything in which he runs a financial risk. It is, and not without a show of truth, asserted here that the Breslau manager only lends his name and experience as an operatic director to this Russian Wagner opera scheme, and that he is financially backed and the whole affair guaranteed by the de Reszke brothers. They are especially eager to make an appearance now in their native country, where they have only recently been granted patents of nobility.
39The negotiations for their "guesting" appearances here in Berlin seem to have fallen through, for, although it had been announced that the de Reszke brothers would sing here in German at the Royal Opera House in the early part of November, everything is now silent about the affair and their names are no longer mentioned in the preliminary notices given out for publication by the Intendency.
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43The Berlin press has been commenting, and some of the papers not over favorably, upon the fact that both Mendelssohn prizes, the one for productive and also the one for reproductive art, have been awarded this year to foreigners. (The prize for the best playing was secured by Leonora Jackson, a young American violinist.) Thereupon the administration of the Royal High School of Music, which has the decision in these and similar matters, re-
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