Scan 16
Musical Courier 1898-06-22: Vol 36 Iss 955, 1898
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1sented by Hanslick, Davison, Chorley, et al. Wagner and beer are associated in his mind; such is the force of early prejudice. But start Mr. Bennet on the subject of Mendelssohn and he can swamp a ream of paper with his admiration. It all sounds very funny in 1898. Soon the last of the anti-Wagnerians, whoever he may be, will be left, and with his dying breath he will call attention to the fact that he opposed Richard Wagner. Mr. Bennet must begin to feel rather lonely in England.
3J. A. FULLER-MAITLAND has an article in the June Nineteenth Century entitled "Wanted—An Opera." It contains the old plea for opera in the vernacular and also demands a chance for the English composer. As London has been for several centuries the stamping ground for foreign music makers, this demand of Mr. Maitland's is quite natural. At last the foreign shoe is beginning to pinch, and the English musician longs for one of home make. America is in the same condition; even worse. Our battle cry is "Remember the main thing, which is musical America for the Americans."
5THE Fortnightly Review for June contains two interesting articles relating to Wagner. One is entitled 'Wagner's 'King' and its Philosophy," by Ernest Newman, and the other, "Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Wagner," by Beatrice Marshall. The last named tells of some interesting facts regarding the much discussed rupture of Wagner and Nietzsche. Wagner's leaning toward the Roman Catholic ritual and his belief in the doctrine of renunciation filled the soul of Nietzsche with horror. "Parsifal" drove him into open warfare with the composer, and we got "Der Fall Wagner." The fact is, Nietzsche soon tired of any philosophical system. He threw aside Schopenhauer as he repudiated Wagner. He outgrew his intellectual idolatries and at the end worshiped himself only.
7Mr. Newman pricks the Wagner philosophical bladder, showing most dispassionately that Wagner was above all not a philosophical thinker; that he was incapable of any but a priori ideas. His idea of setting to music a gigantic philosophical poem as in the "Ring" is subjected to Mr. Newman's hard logic and the utter failure—a magnificent failure, be it said—is demonstrated. Much stress is laid by Mr. Newman on the achievements of Wagner as a musician, and the fact is deplored that this superb musical organization should be misled into the perilous tracks of the polemical pamphleteer, vegetarianism, anti-vivisection, shallow socialism, Buddhism and the other "isms" with which Wagner wasted his precious time. On the other hand, Mr. Newman forgets that Wagner at the start had to fight single handed, had to be his own expositor. And that is why he became a political pamphleteer.
9Is the solo performer to vanish from our concert stage? W. F. Apthorp, the Boston critic, thinks so. It is the age of the conductor—the age when the conductor has ousted the prima donna. In a recent article in a contemporary Mr. Apthorp concludes as follows:
11"The wind instrument concerto has already gone the way of all flesh; the violin and the 'cello concerto will soon follow it. Can you doubt it? How many such concertos, written within the last ten or fifteen years, have you heard in which the mind's ear cannot plainly hear the composer exclaim 'Thank God!' whenever he gets rid of the solo instrument and can disport himself freely in a tutti? I cannot remember one. * * * To be sure, the violin and the 'cello concertos have not quite gone by the board yet; singers, too, still sing with orchestra, and with more or less difficulty make themselves audible. But their position is yearly getting less and less tenable; their doom may be sealed at any time. Save the athletic pianist alone, solo performers, whether vocal or instrumental, must hail the all-subduing orchestra, like the gladiators of old, with Ave, Caesar, Imperator, morituri te salutamus!"
13Yes, it does seem as if the music drama would pre-empt the interest of the musically inclined in the twentieth century. In the meantime there is no necessity for undue anxiety on the part of our singers and solo instrumentalists. It will be a long time before the solo vanishes from the concert stage. The solo supplies the human interests that the best controlled orchestra in the world will always lack.
15PADEREWSKI.
17PADEREWSKI'S features are always interesting to the musical world, especially the feminine portion; so we need hardly apologize for giving in this issue an excellent portrait of the popular Polish virtuoso. Just when New York will hear his liquid touch and romantic interpretations of Chopin is difficult to tell. His next American tournee will begin in Mexico, and no doubt will extend to the United States.
19As already announced in THE MUSICAL COURIER, Paderewski did not play at the Netherhenish festival, Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler substituting for him. Another thing of great interest to the ladies is the rumor that Paderewski is to marry—who or when we are not prepared to say.
21BOSTON SYMPHONY.
23THE musical season here seems to be delayed as late as possible, each year showing greater limitations in this respect. This will be seen from the following dates among others of the concerts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which will probably take place hereafter at Carnegie Music Hall, and which, as originally announced in this paper, will consist of public rehearsals and evening concerts instead of evening concerts as heretofore. The dates are as follows:
25Public rehearsal, Wednesday, November 9.
26Evening concert, Thursday, November 10.
27Public rehearsal, Wednesday, December 14.
28Evening concert, Thursday, December 15.
29Public rehearsal, Wednesday, January 18.
30Evening concert, Thursday, January 19.
31Public rehearsal, Wednesday, February 22.
32Evening concert, Thursday, February 23.
33Public rehearsal, Wednesday, March 22.
34Evening concert, Thursday, March 23.
36DE RESZKÉ'S OFFENSE.
37His Action in London Arouses Indignation Among Opera Goers.
39(Special Cable Dispatch to the Sun.)
41LONDON, June 13.—The action of Jean de Reszké in refusing to sing in the "Götterdämmerung" on Saturday night, on the plea of indisposition, but really because he had not learned certain portions of the music-drama, has aroused the hottest indignation in many quarters, as is shown in letters published by the newspapers.
43The committee of the Wagner Society has sent a protest to the management of the Covent Garden Theatre, where the performances were given, expressing the expectation that the management will fulfill its agreement to give unmutilated representations at the forthcoming cycles, and requesting the engagement of other singers if those engaged are unable to properly undertake their parts.
45DE RESZKÉ IN "SIEGFRIED."
47(Special Cable Dispatch to the Sun.)
49LONDON, June 14.—Jean de Reszké will sing in an uncut presentation of "Siegfried" at the Covent Garden Theatre on June 21.
51THE Sun has had a special correspondent on the operatic work in London. His reports are supplemented by a New York department devoted to the same object, and from it we reproduce the following:
53Mottl has always been most strict in his own control of the Wagner operas, and under his direction in the Baden capital they are sung usually without "cuts" of any kind. What he thought of Jean de Reszké's omissions it would be interesting to know, and it is scarcely possible that he allowed them to pass without a protest. The failure of that opposition and the triumph of the tenor go a great way toward explaining the reluctance of Hans Richter to come to London after his experiences in the Wagner performances at St. Petersburg. He doubtless would have wanted to control the matter of the cuts and the wrath of artistic London would not have fallen on the tenor's head if they had not been satisfactory. How the audiences discovered that cuts had been made and how they knew that the performances had been seriously impaired by them are questions that it would be difficult to answer. Doubtless the operas were considerably cut whenever they were given there before, and "Siegfried" was sung that night just as it was a year ago. But that was before London had its own Bayreuth.
55The critics discovered it just as they did here, but it was considered an offense here to refer to it. This paper was most viciously assailed for criticising Jean de Reszké and we do not fancy that he had the least knowledge of this, much less that he had any relations with those who questioned the motives of this publication. An artist such as de Reszké is too busy with his own individual work to control time for the purpose of influencing public opinion—even if he does, advisedly or not, cut Wagner.
57The "cutting" of Wagner is a form of emasculation that appeals to those who look to the sensational features, the climaxes and anti-climaxes of the acts and the works of Richard Wagner and an abundance, a most lavish amount of material is supplied by him for such purposes—most inartistic and unbalanced though it be—which can be created by and through manipulated "cutting."
59But that is not Richard Wagner.
61It is not Richard Wagner, according to Wagner, no matter who assumes the responsibility.
63It may be Richard Wagner, according to Grau, and de Reszké may find it necessary to conform with Grau's idea of gaining time and saving expense and applying the fiduciary methods of the Metropolitan to the bard of Bayreuth, but it is not Wagner and it is not art, and therefore it is not truth, even though the whole of London had remained as silent when the crime was committed as New York did when no whisper could be heard and no protest was made except by THE COURIER.
65But London did not remain silent, and so the truth burst forth so much more violently, as it had been penned up. All of this can be readily explained by applying to it the text of THE COURIER, which has for years shown and proved that we can have no artistic success in opera when the fundamental principle of opera is entirely submerged by the star system supplemented in the United States by the high salary crime, of which the foreign system makes us its victims.
67We cannot have opera without ensemble, for that is what opera is. We cannot have ensemble when the whole force of the work is centred upon a star or stars who absorb the attention, who "cut" to suit their individual inclinations, who transpose without reference to the tone color intended by the composer, who overshadow the purpose and object of the plot and its development, who are necessarily surrounded by mediocrities unable to aid them in bringing out the beauties of the composition, who are the opera itself. We can never have opera under such thraldom, under such a yoke, and we never shall. We shall have bankruptcy, and that is what opera under foreign auspices means here; the terms are synonymous in the United States.
69It is not intended to make any one singer the object of the attack intended to put an end to this thing here. As it is, this paper has already done sufficient to illustrate the power of the press when it represents a phase of public opinion and when it is heartily supported by public opinion. Jean de Reszké happens to be a leading unit, a leitmotif as it were, in this movement, but he is personally no more responsible for it than was Campanini before him, or Brignoli before Campanini. These were all modified forms of the same disease we are suffering from here, and the tenors are not the only ones to blame. When a
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