Scan 17
Musical Courier 1898-08-22: Vol 37 Iss 963, 1898
89 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 18. See the scan on archive.org.
1Shaw. He declares that he misunderstands the former and the latter misunderstands him.
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5Massenet was evidently in delightful spirits when he penned me the following:
7"AUTEUIL, August 10.
8"Cher Garcon: I am glad that Philip Hale is enjoying himself at Oysterville-sur-mer. Also that he intends to resume his spiritual letters from the town of Boston. He is charming. He is a devil. Send him my regards, and you, do you not believe in any of the wild tales they tell on the boulevards. No; I am not writing an opera with M. Zola to be called 'Dreyfus, or he never wet his feet at Devil's Island.' It is false. Deny it. Je vous serrez the glad hand.
10"JULES MASSENET."
11Good old boy is Jules!
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15George Meredith wrote: "Dear Sir: I don't know who you are. I don't care to know. Your account of my 'Tragic Comedians' in a recent issue was all wrong. I never heard of the Countess Racowitza. I don't believe that she ever was in New York. Look after Zangwill when he arrives.
16GEORGE MEREDITH."
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20This is painful. The following is more painful:
22"LONDON, August 13.
23"Sir: Your criticism of my 'Evelyn Innes' was idiotic. I never intended her to go to Paris with Sir Owen Asher, but he being a wealthy Hebrew, persuaded her. She did not study with Marchesi. She studied Wagner. Her father was not Arnold Dolmetsch. I never heard of such a person. Evelyn is not immoral. You mistake utterly the scene in the dressing room at the first 'Tristan' performance. Evelyn and Ulick merely rehearsed the garden scene, nor was the cab episode borrowed from Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary.' Altogether I am displeased at your flippancy. I hope that you may find time to read Evelyn's further experiences in the convent. Until then I have the honor to sign myself, Yours truly,
24GEORGE MOORE."
26* * *
28Here is a cablegram dated from Carlsbad: "We are drinking the waters together. We may play duos for two pianos if Wolfsohn and Johnston can be fixed. Regards to Marc.
30"ROSENTHAL-SAUER."
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34There is surprising news for you!
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38A melancholy note this: "Please contradict news of my American tournée. My knee is still bad.
39"ALBERT EDWARD."
41* * *
43Alas, poor Prince!
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47And now for the last, the gem of the batch. Just read it. It's a wonder.
49"Craig y-nos, Wales, August 5.
50"Dear Willy":—My God, she calls me Willy—"Have given Alfredo Barili sealed orders regarding my next and last appearance in America. My manager has been selected. No, it is not M. M., but V. T. My larynx is bully. Love to the dear United States. I am so delighted with the war that I intend singing 'Carmen' in New York costumed as Columbia. It will be so novel. A. PATTI."
52I need not say that V. T. stands for Victor Thrane.
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56I must stop or death from lying may supervene. It's a pretty lot, isn't it—that is, if they were all real. I hasten to say they are not, for fear that I will have to face the trouble I had several years ago. I wrote, manufactured and fabricated a lot of anecdotes about some composers. Behold, many were quoted, in English papers, of course, and it hurt my conscience. This time, I hope such an error will be impossible.
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60During the recent series of Wagnerian performances in London Paderewski occupied a stall and settled himself comfortably for several hours' enjoyment of "Siegfried." Immediately behind him two young women were seated, who, previous to his entrance, had whiled away the time in execrating the management for obliging them to remove their hats, meanwhile accommodatingly scanning each other's coiffures to see if they were in a presentable condition, and deftly fastening a hairpin here and a comb there, as women will. They paid little heed to the noted musician until the rising or the curtain caused them to turn their attention to the stage. Then their consternation knew no bounds. His luxuriant locks swept out in every direction, and the maidens were obliged to dodge first one way and then another to get a glimpse of the actors. "Well, I never!" one of them at last exclaimed. "The idea of making women remove their hats and then oblige them to sit behind a thing like that!"
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64In one of the oldest and most picturesque villas of the environs of Florence, Gabrielle d'Annunzio, the poet of the beautiful, as they call him here, is living as in a hermitage to finish several works that are now overdue. The villa, called the Cappucina, dates from the fourteenth century and is most charmingly situated among the hills looking toward the towers and domes of the city of Dante. Here in this enchanted spot D'Annunzio works feverishly from 7 o'clock in the morning to noon, from 2 to 6, and from 9 to midnight. No one is admitted to see him, the invariable answer being that "the honorable member works." He has finished "The Dream of a Summer Afternoon," which is the continuation of the famous "Dream of a Morning in Spring." It is the second of the four "Dreams" which he intends to write.
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68Meanwhile D'Annunzio is preparing a new drama, taking his inspiration from the fresh and naive poetical thoughts of St. Francis of Assisi. It will be entitled "Frate Sole" (Brother Sun), as St. Francis used to call the great orb. But the work to which he is dedicating especial care is his new novel, "The Fire," which will be published next October, first in English, in Great Britain and in America, then in French, and lastly in Italian.
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72The proposal—principally his and Eleanora Duse's—to build on the banks of the Lake of Albano, near Rome, a theatre of the muses, which would have been an Italian Bayreuth for modern tragedy, seems to have been abandoned in favor of a more practical scheme—namely, that of starting a theatre in Florence, to be inaugurated by Signora Duse next spring. The Villa Cappucina, which belongs to the Marquis Viviani, has been rented by D'Annunzio for three years, which seems to indicate a long period of work.
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76Some fine old English engravings were sold at Christie's, in London, the other day. Among them were the following lots: "Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante," after Reynolds, by J. R. Smith, $575; "The Fortune Teller," after the Rev. W. Peters, R. A., by J. R. Smith, $315; "Venus Attired by the Graces," after Angelica Kaufmann, in red, by F. Bartolozzi, $272; "Travelers" and "Cottagers," after George Morland, in colors, by W. Ward, $346; "St. James' Park" and "A Tea Garden," after George Morland, in colors, by F. D. Soiron, $309; "Rural Enjoyment" and "Rustic Employment," after George Morland, in colors, by J. R. Smith, $478; "Flirtilla" and "Narcissa," by J. R. Smith, $315; "A Christmas Holiday," in three colors, by J. R. Smith, $525; "Hay Makers," after J. Ward, R. A., by W. Ward, $315, and "Hesitation," after J. Ward, R. A., by W. Ward, $304.
78I quote these prices to show that the rare, sweet old art of steel engraving—an art that has been temporarily shoved aside by photography and its bastard effects—is still appreciated by a few.
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82The following appeared over H. T. Parker's signature in last Saturday's Commercial Advertiser. It had to come some day:
84"Mr. Gibson has made the illustrations for the English edition of Mr. Hope's 'Rupert of Hentzau,' and they are not finding the acceptance on this side of the sea that his work usually enjoys on the other. They show the same figures that he has been drawing for years and setting in any required environment, congruous or incongruous. Except Sapt and the lieutenant of cuirassiers, Bernstein, none of them carry any suggestion of Zenda and the Ruritanian court or show much heed of Mr. Hope's descriptions. They are simply the trite commonplaces of Mr. Gibson's pencil none too carefully done. The reviewers were the first to speak ill of them, and now a much more numerous and influential sort of critics have taken up their complaint—critics, too, upon whose favor in his own country Mr. Gibson could ever rely. English girls read Mr. Hope's romances with joy and Rassendyll is one of their established heroes. Between the novelist and their own fancy they have a fairly clear notion of him. So far as I can gather from the conversation of two or three of them, who affirm that all their acquaintance is like-minded, they picture Rudolf as tall, supple, alert, with the unconscious carriage of a well-bred man of the world past his first youth but still young, with features that at least hint at his good birth and the finer qualities of his mind and heart. Nursing such an ideal, they speak despitefully of Mr. Gibson's beefy, self-conscious undergraduate, heavy and juvenile from top to toe. 'He doesn't even look like a gentleman,' declared one of my informants, as she tore out the offending picture."
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88I indignantly deny that George is Moore-bid. Dublin and County Mayo papers please copy.
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