Scan 12
Musical Courier 1898-04-27: Vol 36 Iss 947, 1898
88 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 13. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1York for some years, who spent a week here en route to another place. Permit me this opportunity to express my thanks for the many letters of sympathy received during my recent illness—from which I am slowly recovering—and to wish my friends who read THE MUSICAL COURIER a "Buona Pasqua"! J. F. von der Heide.
3LILLIAN BLAUVELT.
5The Roman journal, Il Popolo Romano, in a notice of the first performance of Verdi's "Requiem" in the Academy of Saint Cecilia, speaks in high praise of our countrywoman, Lillian Blauvelt:
7Miss Lillian Blauvelt is a predestined artist. At six years of age she commenced her career as violinist, and up to her fifteenth year played in concerts that were highly applauded. Then a New York maestro expressed a desire to hear her voice and to teach her singing. Her progress in the new art was so rapid that she won applause in America, in England and in France, and gained the name of the "Little Patti." In fact her voice possesses beyond other good qualities those most exceptional ones of purity of timbre and precision of intonation. Her highest notes come forth like a crystallized wave; her high notes have good color and vigor and lend themselves marvelously to all gradations of intensity. Her trill is silvery just as her style is most correct.
9The Don Chisciotte, of Rome, in its criticism of the same performance, says:
11When Miss Blauvelt sang the solemn "prago Libera nos" the applause grew louder and louder for this most gifted lady.
13And in a subsequent number says:
15Miss Blauvelt literally fascinated the audience by the melodious limpidity of her voice and the grace of her person. The performance of yesterday really brought before us an artist of a sweetness so spontaneous and a technic so sure that we have rarely, even in better years, had so grand an example. It is an honor to those who presided over the performance to have procured such great interpreters.
17Genevra Johnstone-Bishop.
19The soprano, Mme. Genevra Johnstone-Bishop, who will leave for Europe soon, has been at the Holland House in this city and in Washington this week.
21Mrs. Ada May Benzing.
23Mrs. Benzing is now under engagement with Sousa as sole soloist at all of the fifty-two concerts of the present tour throughout the West and East. Sousa proposes an innovation at his band concerts, having Mrs. Benzing costumed as the Goddess of Liberty when singing Sousa's new and popular composition, "The Stars and Stripes."
25Adele Laeis Baldwin.
27One of the most delightful song recitals of the season was given on Thursday afternoon at the residence of Mrs. Henry C. Tinker, 48 East Fifty-seventh street, by the distinguished contralto, Adèle Laeis Baldwin. With the assistance of Mackenzie Gordon, Reinhold Herman and Will C. Macfarlane, the following program was given:
29Furibondo spira il vento, from Partenope………..Händel
30Paraphrase Pastorale, from The Minstrel………..Herman
31Tarantelle …………………………………………..Heller
32Frühlingslied ………………………………………Mendelssohn
33Schlafloser Augen Leuchte…………………….Mendelssohn
34Waldeszauber ………………………………………Herman
36Accompanied by the composer.
37Ah, Moon of My Delight………………………..Lehmann
38(In a Persian Garden.)
39Lullaby ……………………………………………..Henschel
40Keramos …………………………………………….Mallard
41My Laddie …………………………………………..Wiggin
42Rondel de l'Adieux ……………………………….De Lara
43Wae's Me for Prince Charlie…………………..Old Jacobite melody
44Thine ………………………………………………….Bohn
45Prunelle en fleurs …………………………………Fischhof
46Serenade Lunaire …………………………………Missa
48Mrs. Baldwin was in splendid voice, and the warmth and richness of her tones, the magnificent breadth, combined with great expression and exquisite delicacy of her interpretations proclaim her an artist of the first rank. Mrs. Baldwin will be heard again on April 21.
50GENEVIEVE CLARK
51WILSON,
52SOPRANO.
53Address FRED. J. WESSELS,
54Auditorium Tower,
55CHICAGO, ILL.
57LEWIS WILLIAMS,
58BARITONE.
59Nordica Concert Tour, 1897-8.
60Address 205 West 102d Street,
61NEW YORK.
63MESSRS. Ysaye, Marteau, Max Bendix, Gérardy and Lachaume gave a concert yesterday afternoon in Music Hall. The program described it as an "ensemble concert artistique"—which is certainly neither English nor French. The program included Gabriel Fauré's first piano quartet, op. 15; six duettini (op. 18) for two violins and piano, which were played by Messrs. Ysaye, Marteau and Lachaume, and César Franck's piano quintet in F minor. I was surprised that Mr. Ysaye should be willing to play such cheap, exasperatingly cheap, stuff as the six duettini—only five were played; the Serenade, although announced, was omitted—but I remembered that as far back as 1894 the eminent violinist was in the habit of playing them with Miss Irma Sèthe. This music pleased the people yesterday. The audience, by the way, was a biting commentary on the alleged musical supremacy of Boston, although a smaller hall—one more suitable for chamber concerts—would not have looked so bare. Applause* rent the close air until the violinists played as an encore the largo from the Bach Concerto.
65César Franck is more and more a problem to me, and one not easy to solve. I wish "Psyche" or the "Beati-tudes" or the "Redemption" or "Ruth" might be given here that we could have at least an opportunity of judging the reasonableness of the claims put forward by his fanatical admirers. There is no doubt of the sincerity of his pupils—and the roll of them is long and honorable; prominent French musicians have told me that they consider him the first of French composers. I have read the various biographies and essays by Coquard, Imbert, Servières, Destranges and Derepas. I have the greatest respect for the man, affection for his sonata for piano and violin, admiration for his Mass for three voices, and wild enthusiasm for his organ pieces. I was disappointed in "Le Chasseur Maudit"—the performance was not distinguished by temperamental display—and this piano quintet staggered me, for at a first hearing I found portions absolutely dull. I understand what one Frenchman meant when he said of Franck: "He's a Bach that knows 'Parsifal'." But after hearing this quintet I appreciate the entry made by the tenor Roger in his diary April 1, 1847: "I went into Notre Dame de Lorette. It was Holy Thursday, and I heard devoutly the magnificent church music. I was seated by himself, a book in his hand, César Auguste Franck."
67It is absurd to try to come to any definite conclusion concerning a work like unto this quintet after one hearing, although the superb performance was most advantageous to the music. It was first played January 17, 1880, by Saint-Saëns, Marsick, Rémy, Van Waefelghem and Loys at a concert of the Société Nationale. (The sonata for violin and piano is dated 1886, the string quartet 1889, the symphony 1889.) I add these dates because there is a freshness of development, a spontaneity in the sonata that I do not find in the quintet. Of the two themes of the first movement the second is the more striking, although the melancholy phrase given to the piano at stages of the development is not without beauty. The second movement is practically the development of one of the themes of the preceding movement, a development in the form of a reverie, a romance for the first violin, which was played divinely by Ysaye; then the repetition is given to the strings with a change in accompaniment, and finally the piano has its turn. This second movement is spiritual, ecstatic, as though there were a revelation of the divine vision. The finale is brilliant in a perplexing way, but I must make the shameful confession that I was more or less bored, and that I found the coda incongruous, and the harmonic surprise like unto a slap in the face.
69Some say that Franck was influenced in his later years by Wagner, but I find no thought of Wagner in this quintet.
71It is a shame that we do not hear these works frequently, even if they are not played in such masterly fashion as that of yesterday.
73Let me suggest—and I do this almost timidly—that the feeling of monotony, or boredom, if you please, when you listen to certain pieces by Franck is due to these causes: The coloring is almost always gray, the themes are short, sometimes hints rather than themes; they return too persistently, and the composer's mastery of canonic form led him at times to abuse his science.
75And yet this work was declared by Gevaert to be of revolutionary tendency in the history of chamber music, and when Franck was buried, Emanuel Chabrier, speaking in the name of the National Society of Music, said: "His family, his pupils, immortal art—there you have his whole life. Toward the end of autumn, after he had returned to Paris, we would ask, 'Well, master, what have you done; what have you brought back?' 'You'll see,' he would answer with a mysterious air. 'I have worked hard and I think you'll be satisfied.' And he said this so modestly, with a faith so naively honest, with his full, expressive voice, taking your hands and holding them for a long time, in almost solemn fashion, thinking at the same time of the joy that he had known in composition and of the pleasure that it seemed likely to him you would also take in hearing the new works. These new works were in turn, the admirable quintet, the sonata for piano and violin, the 'Beati-tudes,' the 'Eolides.'"
77The quartet by Fauré gave more immediate pleasure, although it is not built on such firm foundations. I do not know when it was first performed, but it was composed about sixteen years ago (the second piano quartet was played for the first time in Paris early in 1887). The feature of the work is the ingenious and enchanting scherzo, with its pizzicato opening. The themes are slight and fanciful, elfish figures. A French student once told me that the adagio, which follows, was worthy of Beethoven. It is not necessary to go so far as this. There are fine moments, but the seriousness of a Frenchman in chamber music is too often more or less assumed, or portentous. There is spirit in the finale; but the first movement seems to me to be thought out a little laboriously.
79The ensemble was superb throughout. Here was a concert that was worth a pilgrimage, and yet how many "patrons and patronesses" of Boston passed it by!
81Mr. Loeffler told me a queer story the other day about the indifference of Maeterlinck to the musical glorification of his own works.
83It appears that Debussy has written an opera, "Pelléas et Mélisande," and there is talk, or there was talk, about producing it at Bruges. A friend of the composer went to Maeterlinck and tried to arouse his interest. He spoke of the talent of the composer, of his dramatic treatment of the text: he spoke of the new school of "pointillisme"—if you know what that means—and he suggested that contributions to the cost of stage production might be accepted from Maeterlinck's friends. The Belgian Shakespeare—as Mirbeau calls him—listened politely, but without interest, and to every attempt to excite his curiosity or use his self-pride, he would reply:
85"Why?"
87They say that Maeterlinck cares little or nothing for
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