Scan 7
Musical Courier 1898-01-19: Vol 36 Iss 933, 1898
83 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 8. See the scan on archive.org.
1former pupil of Joachim, Prill is well initiated in the secrets of good reading of chamber music, and has genuine musical bone and tissue in his artistic make-up. The quartets of Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven were excellent tests of skillful interpretation in the special style and spirit of each. Sulzer, of the Hof Oper; Siebert, of the Quartet Rosé, and Rutschiska form the associates of Prill in his new undertaking. The program consisted, at the Philharmonic, of the Leonore Overture No. 3, a concerto, by Händel, in G minor, for strings, and the Brahms Third Minor Symphony.
3The first pianist worthy of note in the field this year was that genuinely musical and truly delightful little artist Iliona Eibenschütz, whose growth and expansion from the time of her first début is well shown by her fine, appreciative interpretation of the "Romanesque" in the Beethoven Sonata, op. 109. Iliona Eibenschütz enjoys the name of the "Piano Fay." Numbers from Schumann, Brahms and Scarlatti attested her claims to wonders that only good fairies can work. Little Queen Mab was probably her godmother.
5Little Max Wolfsthal, who, as I have just said, is another new wonder among the child prodigies of this prodigious age, also gave a concert of his own, in which he excited a general sensation, and is said will surpass all that was ever known or heard of the little Hubermann of the violin. Both the "naturel" and the "personnel" of this lovable, sweet-faced little fellow are certainly more attractive than Huberman's graceless exterior and manners.
7The concert of the violinist Keming, and the Lieder and Ballade evening of Ludwig Strakosch I did not attend. Josef Hofmann gave two piano concerts here. Mr. Floersheim has given you his opinion and that of the Berlin critics. Hofmann aroused about the same comments here and a corresponding difference of opinion. I did not find Hofmann's technic especially wonderful, and his interpretations were often painfully precise, calculated and sometimes even rigid. The best things I heard were the first and last movements of the Chopin B flat minor Sonata, which were really most excellent, but the funeral march and the second theme in the Scherzo seemed entirely devoid of musical feeling or poetic conception. Never did I hear anything more stereotyped, more mathematically measured and thought out than these parts. This may sound flippant and irrelevant, but I must say that I never saw anyone with a very small nose, suggesting the "pug," who ever seemed capable of lofty or noble conception of anything! However, Hofmann is still young, and perhaps his nose may grow!
9The audience was most enthusiastic, and outwardly, at least, Hofmann enjoyed the most enthusiastic appreciation. His first program was the same as given in Berlin. I did not attend the second concert. Van Roog gave two concerts here, the last one with orchestra. This suddenly famous Wotan, at Bayreuth last season, did not create the impressions here we were led to expect he might. Van Roog is certainly most enjoyable from a musical standpoint. His musical and poetical artistic instincts make him deservedly a prominent figure among artists and in the foremost place. But his intonation was throughout the entire evening never reliable, and sometimes painfully untrue, and I do not think he has a very remarkable voice, to begin with, especially for lyric songs. Schumann's "Ich grolle nicht," some of the Brahms selections and also the "Sörenbrant" of Schumann were master performances in interpretation, and called forth warm, most spontaneous recognition from his listeners.
11I did not hear him in his concert, with orchestra, with the Wagner selections in the Grosser Musik Verein Saal, because of conflicting engagements, but I understand he created there a far better impression in the higher roles requiring his especial "timbre" of voice and with the inspiriting support of a good orchestra. The Bösendorfer Saal is one of the worst places for a large voice imaginable. Would that Vienna had a suitable music hall! It is a crying need, and unfortunately there is no Viennese Carnegie to take pity and support an enterprise among these slow-going, backward Viennese, whom no number of ropes can drag out of the ruts of complete conservatism, always satisfied and contented with everything just as it was and is and ever shall be, world without end.
13The appearance at the same time here of Carreño and Sophie Menter instituted many invidious comparisons as well as contrasts not always favorable to our Carreño.
15Menter has not appeared before the Vienna public for eleven years, hence people had almost looked upon her as retired, and I expected nothing but rather stiff, ancient or old-fashioned playing as cultivated by feminine talent some thirty years ago.
17The Beethoven Es dur Concerto was the first number, and although at the beginning of the quasi cadenza she met with one or two disasters in her attack, still after a time her nervousness disappeared, and she played the closing movement in a manner so brilliant and convincing as is seldom heard.
19The Liszt A major Concerto followed. As there is nothing in this composition but a display of pyrotechnics, I wondered that so refined and musical an artist as Menter should have chosen such a piece except for the magnificent display of digital wonders it affords. The superb grace and repose and the consummate skill with which Menter acquitted herself in this was a nine days' wonder afterward, and at the moment aroused a scene of excitement which almost took the form of an ovation for this great artist, whom the Viennese know so well how to appreciate.
21Carreño was also superbly "virtuose." Such thunderous octaves and technical canonnading, such temperament in the bravura playing entitle her to the name ascribed to her by Hanslick—"The Lioness of the Piano." Still, when it comes to all that constitutes the real artist Carreño must fall back in the rear. Many and conflicting impressions were made upon her hearers, of which a large number were critics and students. I found her playing of Bach unwarrantably rubato, the Moonlight Sonata a simple fiasco, in every sense a mechanical one. Some did not like the Brahms' Variations on a theme by Händel, but I found her marvelously clean, technical reading of a composition usually so "punched," so hammered and banged—not to say crashed—refreshing in the comparison.
23She did not repeat a single variation, thus shortening its tremendous length by almost half, for which, notwithstanding the disapproval of the strictly orthodox, I felt grateful. To those who don't like "variations," even when composed by Brahms or Beethoven, this repeating of these lengthy variations is a trial of grace and patience difficult to endure. The magnificence of Carreño's technic was in this, the Schubert Tausig Marche Militaire, and in the encore of the Sixth Rhapsodie of Liszt, never better displayed. What I said of the Variations I will also declare of the March Militaire, which I never before heard played with such absolutely clean technic, not a blur or crash or a bang, not a disaster.
25And how enjoyable it was to listen to it and to see the splendid ease, the quiet triumph of it all! The tempo in the Liszt Rhapsodie I fancy surpassed anything on record. Carreño's style of temperament was best displayed in the Chopin A flat Waltz, and the polonaise in the same key. Carreño belongs to the dance hall, to the triumphal car, to the gorgeous scenes of the carnival, but she knows nothing of that great, tender, loving, throbbing heart of Beethoven. She can tell us nothing of the tender idyll of the moonlight nor the grand climaxes of the storm, the celestial beauty of love, nor the soul-rending struggles after triumph or resignation. This is the field that only Rubinstein, Liszt, Paderewski, Chopin—I hear "The Raconteur" adding Rosenthal and Joseffy, and I will not dispute it, especially as I never heard Rosenthal—can occupy, and I know of no woman who has a better claim than Sophie Menter. But, ah! all ye horde of pianists, it does not belong to any of you who have never suffered, who have never allowed "les grands sentiment" to dominate you even against your own interests. It does not belong to any of you who truckle and succumb, yea, who pander after the petitesse, the liliputian meanness of the world, nor to you who have carried a false face to your friend, nor to you who allow petty spite, envy, hatred and malice to warp what little microscopic goodness you had. You, who have good hands, see to it that you have good hearts. Otherwise you can never hope to be a great pianist, even if you are a great virtuoso.
27I have still volumes to tell you about Saville and Naval in "Romeo and Juliet," "Eugene Onegin," a host of new "guests" in the Court Opera, Leoncavallo's "La Bohème," about which a disagreement has arisen between Mahler and the composer; about the "Golettante" and Herr Link, Blumen, Marz and Palmy; Mahler's invitation to Schläger to sing in the "Huguenotten," once more in the Court Opera, Mark's disappearance from the stage and her intended marriage with her physician, Dr. Muedder. In the drama, Réjane in "Ma Cousine" and "La Douleureuse"; about a great "discovery" of a new actor, Kainz, in the Burg Theatre, and the two pieces, "Katherl" and "Bürgermeister Wahl," by Dr. Burchard; about our countryman and humorist, Mark Twain; our new American Legation, most of it old news, but all of it interesting. Then I should like to tell you of my visit to Materna's home, and to that, also, of her two interesting pupils, the Misses Schuyler and their work; a discovery of a very talented young American here, Miss Helen Herbert; Van Dyk's American engagement and his début here as Siegmund, and last, but not least, some beautiful poems sent to me by Miss Wieser, but written by the Greek Christomanus, "Vorleser," to the queen and professor of modern Greek in the University, who has composed these exquisite bits as prefaces to the Chopin preludes.
29I have also forgotten to speak of the two concerts by two pianists, Sandra Dronker and Dagmar Walle-Hansen; also of the sad history of Mr. Gutmann's enterprise with the "New Symphonie Orchestra," which fell through here because the Viennese are fonder in these days of their waltzes and operettas than they are of their Bach and Beethoven, and cannot be led to support any other than their beloved Philharmonic orchestra. Mr. Gutmann's "prologue" and "epilogue" tell a sad tale for Vienna since the days when music as an art was handed down by the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie, i.e., to the people—days of advance in one sense, but of deterioration in another. How sad is Vienna's decadence!
31To all or many of these items I shall refer at greater length very soon, as I hope, but for the present I see I shall have to adjourn for lack of space.
33E POTTER FRISSELL.
35W. Theodore Van Yorx.
37Theo. Van Yorx sang "The Messiah" in Milwaukee, Wis., last month, when the leading papers commented as follows:
39Van Yorx was heard here for the first time on this occasion and proved to be gifted with a voice of considerable strength and beauty and decidedly flexible. His singing of "Comfort Ye My People" and "Thy Rebuke," &c., indicated an artist who promises to occupy a most prominent position in the concert room.—Milwaukee Sentinel.
41Beautiful as was the singing of Mr. Bispham the others of the quartet did not suffer by comparison. Theodore Van Yorx was given abundant reason for feeling kindly toward a Milwaukee audience. His singing surpassed the work of any tenor heard here in years. It is pure, sympathetic, with none of the overdone sentimentality of many tenors, every tone rich, full, vibrant and thrilling.
43Perhaps no greater praise can be bestowed than was conveyed to Mr. Van Yorx in the immediate overtures made by the Musical Society to engage him for their next concert in February. That he is to be heard here again is a wish in which all who heard him last night will heartily concur.—Evening Wisconsin.
45Mr. Van Yorx, the tenor, has a most pleasing lyric voice, and it is exceedingly well trained.—Milwaukee Journal.
47WANTED—A few select pupils for one day in the week by a vocal teacher engaged in private school during the balance of week. Special attention given to the eradication of physiological defects, and the remedying of acquired faults. Highest reference. Address Voice, care MUSICAL COURIER, New York.
49JOHN HERMANN LOUD,
50ORGANIST.
51Pupil of Alexandre Guilmant. • CONCERTS AND ORGAN OPENINGS
52Associate of the Royal College of Music. • A SPECIALTY.
53Organist at First Church, Springfield.
54ADDRESS: 45 Mattoon Street, Springfield, Mass.
56ADELE LAEIS
57Concert and Oratorio.
58BALDWIN,
59CONTRALTO.
60Studio: Carnegie Hall, New York.
61A limited number of pupils received.
63MISS
64Dora Valesca Becker,
65SOLO VIOLINISTE.
66Address 120 East 89th St., New York.
68JOHN HERMANN LOUD,
69ORGANIST.
70Pupil of Alexandre Guilmant. • CONCERTS AND ORGAN OPENINGS
71Associate of the Royal College of Music. • A SPECIALTY.
72Organist at First Church, Springfield.
73ADDRESS: 45 Mattoon Street, Springfield, Mass.
75GERMAN CHARITY BALL,
76GIVEN UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
77Bachelor Circle (German Liederkranz), Jung Arion (Arion)
78Beethoven Bachelors (Beethoven Maennerchor),
79AT THE
80METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE,
81Thursday, February 3, 1898.
82Tickets for sale at the Club Houses of the three Societies.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.