Scan 16
Musical Courier 1898-04-27: Vol 36 Iss 947, 1898
76 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
1BROOKLYN, April 23, 1898.
3PLACE aux dames! A political symposium musicale was given by the Woman's Republican Union League at the Pouch Gallery, 345 Clinton street, on April 20. Prominent speakers and artists took part. Reception at 10 o'clock; dancing, refreshments. It was a gala symposium.
5The Arion Society, Arthur Claassen conductor, gave a German comic opera at the Academy on Tuesday evening. The opera, "The Poacher," by A. Lortzing, had never been heard in Brooklyn before. The cast included the following well-known singers: Dr. W. John Schildge, Frl. Annie Winkopp, E. C. M. v. Cronau, Frl. Mignon Frl. Marie Maurer, John Bierschenk, Frau Kurth-Sieber, Ducos and Richard Beck. The chorus was drawn from the men's, women's and children's branches of the Arion, and the result was as pretty as the operettas the same club has given in its own house on Wall street.
7The second concert of the Clinton Vocal Club took place at Memorial Hall on Thursday evening. Frederic Reddall is conductor. The club was assisted in the program by Mrs. Georgia Rogers Irving, contralto, and Louis Mollenhauer, violinist. The club numbers sixty voices.
9Mrs. Cornelius Zabriskie issued invitations for a musical given by the circle of the Students' Guild to meet the members of the board of directors of the Packer Associate Alumnae on Wednesday afternoon.
11The tenth anniversary of the reorganization of the Brooklyn Institute was celebrated by a dinner for gentlemen given in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music Tuesday, April 19. A reception took place at 6:30, followed by the dinner at 7.
13Wednesday evening Scandinavian folk songs and ballads were sung by the Brooklyn Swedish Glee Club, Arvid Akerlind conductor. Agnes Staberg Hall, soprano; Henry Schradieck, violin, and Ernst Bystrom, pianist, took part.
15The next Vesper services takes place May 4 at the Baptist Temple, E. M. Bowman, organist, assisted by Mrs. A. D. Brownley, soprano.
17On Friday night Misses Grace Estelle Hodgson, pianist, and Mattie E. Croscup, reader, gave a recital at Memorial Hall, with the assistance of Salvator Ferrer, tenor, and John Brady, accompanist.
19The Brooklyn Quartet Club have issued a souvenir program for their concert on Sunday evening, April 24, when the first performance of Carl Fique's comic opera "Papa Friesewitz" will take place.
21The soloists will be Mrs. Katherine Noack-Fique, Miss Anna Eleonora Jung, William Bartels and Herman Koeln. There will be a mixed and male chorus, and the orchestra will be composed of members of the Seidl Orchestra. The first part of the program is made up of miscellaneous music, including "Malbrouk," done into German, while the opera occupies all of Part Two. Both words and music are by Mr. Fique.
23The first of the Vesper series of organ concerts took place on the evening of April 20, at the New York Avenue M. E. Church. Harry Rowe Shelley, the well-known organist and composer, was assisted by Miss Marion Walker.
25Alexander Rihm, piano; Maurice Kaufmann, violin; Leo Taussig, 'cello, assisted by Mrs. Alex. Rihm, soprano; Miss Dorothy Moller, contralto, and Miss Carrie Quade, pianist, will give a concert at Historical Hall, Pierrepont and Clinton streets, on Friday evening, April 29, when a fine program will be given.
27New Songs.
29The attention of our readers is again called to two new and beautiful songs by Samuel Eppinger, director of the Eppinger Conservatory of Music. These songs—"Slumber Song" and "My Thoughts"—are melodious and not at all difficult. They are dedicated to the celebrated contralto, Josephine S. Jacoby, who will sing them frequently in the near future.
31The songs are published by Luckhardt & Belder, 10 East Seventeenth street.
33Oscar Franklin Comstock.
35Oscar Franklin Comstock has had an exceedingly busy season in Meadville, Pa. Besides being active at the Conservatory of Music, where, in addition to other work, he has delivered a fine course of lectures on "Music Forms," he has directed the Glee Club connected with Allegheny College, which has won him much praise. Mr. Comstock has had much experience with chorus training, and his work with the Glee Club has been highly appreciated.
37Mr. Comstock recently opened a fine new organ in Erie with great success, his organ playing being most satisfying and truly artistic. Upon this occasion Mr. Comstock had the assistance of Mrs. Juvia O. Hull, a singer of wide reputation and well known in New York. Mr. Comstock's other engagements have taken him to Conneautville, Cambridge Springs, Pittsburg and other places. His work in Meadville has been recognized, and has met with the success which work of the highest class always deserves.
39Church Music in Detroit.
41The Detroit churches have given much good music this Easter, but none have surpassed the Episcopal choir of St. John's, either in the matter of elaboration or excellence of execution. Frank Fruttchey, the organist and choirmaster and one of the "old boys" of Trinity Church, New York, has a vested choir of forty picked voices, and his methods, traditional experience, united with unstinted hard work, has resulted in the creation of one of the best balanced and efficient choirs to be found anywhere in the country. At the principal service at St. John's Church on Easter Sunday the music given was of the very highest character, Dudley Buck, Shelley, Von Weber, Gounod, Schubert and Messiter being represented among other well-known church writers. At the High Celebration the "Benedictus," "Agnus Dei" and "Gloria" were particularly well given, as well as, during the offertory, "The Trumpet Shall Sound," admirably sung by J. N. Krolik, and followed by the "Hallelujah Chorus." St. John's has a particularly fine soprano in the person of Master B. Wright, and Mr. Joy, the leading tenor soloist, always sings with a fine quality of tone and a due appreciation of the theme interpreted. Mr. Fruttchey has abundant reason to be proud of his choir and St. John's Church of Mr. Fruttchey.
43The Fifth Hofmann Recital.
45THE fifth and last Hofmann piano recital was given in Carnegie Hall, and this excellent program was offered:
47Thirty-two Variations ……………………………………… Beethoven
48Ballade ……………………………………………………….. Grieg
49Nocturne ……………………………………………………… Chopin
50Preludes ……………………………………………………… Chopin
51Polonaise ……………………………………………………. Chopin
52Funeralles …………………………………………………… Liszt
53Impromptu ………………………………………………….. Chopin
54Guitarre ……………………………………………………… Moszkowski
55Tannhäuser Overture ……………………………………… Wagner-Liszt
57The juxtaposition of the two sets of variations—for the Grieg G minor Ballade is a romantic version of the old passacaglia form—gave one an adequate idea of the classical and modern manner of varying a theme. Not that the personal equation is in Beethoven's case eliminated, for his reticence and objectivity is as truly a native quality as a product of his time. In Grieg's case the point of view is wholly personal, ultra-emotional, and the music is suffused in a tender, almost feminine and sometimes mystic atmosphere—an atmosphere telling us of the north and its long, sunlit nights. The C minor variations, on the contrary, are bigger, broader, more restrained in feeling, although the composer moves as freely in the bold, semi-improvised sketches as Grieg in his restless, wandering mood pictures. The latter composer cracks more technical problems than Beethoven, whose forms are simple, even chaste. Hofmann played both sets with a fine discrimination of their varying intellectual and emotional content. His memory is faultless. The climax of the Grieg Ballade was made very effective. In response to frantic encores the young man responded with a faultless performance of Mendelssohn's "Spinning Song."
59The program gave misleading keys to the Chopin group or else Master Hofmann changed his mind. The Nocturne was the wonderfully conceived one in C sharp minor, Chopin's most gloomy, morbid and mysterious. The preludes were in the respective keys of B flat, E flat and G. The Polonaise, as correctly stated, was in F sharp minor, the most dramatic and thrilling creation of the Polish tone poet. Its power is often pathologic, and its emotional turbulence would be unendurable if it were not for the sweet flower-like mazourka that appears enclosed within the formidable walls of the polonaise. The young pianist could not grasp, of course, at his years the desperate content of the work, but he played it with power, if not pathos. The mazourka section, preceded by a climax of startling dimensions, was given with a richness of tone-color new in Hofmann. His touch was velvety, and even the most captious Chopinist could find no fault. Of the preludes the one in G was the most satisfactory, though that in E flat was a close second for grace and charm. He then gave as an extra number, and played with great tonal variety, Brassin's arrangement of the "Love Song," from "Die Walküre."
61Later the Schubert-Tausig "Marche Militaire" and Moszkowski's "Etincelles" were sensationally delivered, and one of the largest audiences that has thronged Carnegie Hall this season went away in a contented frame of mind.
63Omaha Exposition—June 1 to November 1, 1898.
65Miss Julia Officer begs to announce that she is sole manager of artists for the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition to be held at Omaha from June 1 to November 1, and that all communications must be addressed to her personally, as she has no agents.
67225 Dearborn avenue,
68Chicago, Ill.
70GEORG LIEBLING
71The Great Pianist.
72ON HIS WORLD'S TOUR
73Under the Direction of MR. N. VERT, 6 Cork St., London, W.
75Court Pianist to H. H. the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.