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Musical Courier 1900-04-11: Vol 40 Iss 1046, 1900
40 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1Berlin Branch Budget.
3German Headquarters of The Musical Courier, Berlin, W., Linienstrasse 17. March 21, 1900.
5Looking through the issue of March 7 of The Musical Courier just received, I find the following editorial paragraph:
7After a number of conferences among an active set of people interested in giving grand opera in English in this city, it was decided to await the arrival of Reinhold Herman, who has been in Berlin and who is to report on details. Mr. Habelman, who is also to be interested in the project, will return to Europe soon after Mr. Herman's arrival. The sum of $100,000 is first to be subscribed before the matter assumes form. Subscription lists are out for the purpose. And yet we cannot see how this scheme is to be made artistic without the foundation of opera—a permanent orchestra and a permanent chorus. It seems that these are the elements essential to it as a beginning.
9If the writer of these highly sensible and timely remarks had been present at a concert at the New Royal Opera House (Kroll's), in which Reinhold L. Herman butchered in the most horrible style imaginable Berlioz's "Damnation of Faust," he would certainly have enumerated among the "essential elements," and in fact, the most essential one of all, for the establishment of grand opera in English, the presence of a competent conductor. Such a guiding spirit is, of course, a conditio sine qua non in any and every operatic undertaking, and it was just in this essential element where Mr. Herman was not at all in his element. More miserable conducting and a poorer interpretation of a grand work I have rarely witnessed.
11I do not blame Mr. Herman for the deficient quality of the second rate orchestra which had been gotten together under some difficulties for Manager Loewenstein's now defunct cycle of subscription concerts, although Mr. Fiedler, of Hamburg, showed what can be accomplished even with so heterogeneously mixed up a mass of musicians by a competent conductor. I will also in all fairness acknowledge that the chorus, which had been gathered ad hoc and was not in all of its departments (especially in the matter of tenors) constituted of extraordinary material, was fairly well trained. But there Mr. Herman's merits stopped. He would evidently make in the new English opera a pretty reliable and fairly efficient chorus master, such as he had also shown himself in the training of the New York Liederkranz chorus.
13But as a conductor he will never do. He lacks the most essential quality of all, the pronounced feeling for rhythm, as was evidenced in the namby-pamby way in which he conducted one of the most stirring orchestral episodes ever written, the Rakoczy March." He succeeded in this as well as in the other two well-known purely orchestral numbers of the Berlioz score, viz., in the ethereal "Dance of the Sylphs" and in the scintillating minuet of the "Will o' the Wisps," in not making a success with them. This is a difficult thing to accomplish, as anyone will concede who ever attended a concert performance of these most effective and popular excerpts. The minuet he took so slowly that the poor piccolo player had a hard time in economizing his breath, and the whole movement thereby became almost intolerably dragging. All through the performance Mr. Herman dragged everything unmercifully, so that I should rather see him in the position of a dragoman than in that of a first conductor.
15The soloists were also hampered by this injudicious conductor. Mrs. Herzog, who is musical to the tips of her taper fingers, managed to pull the orchestra along with her, despite the conductor, in her Gothic song of Marguerite, and, of course, she sang charmingly and purely as ever. But poor Sommer, our Royal Opera House first lyric tenor, who has only his good voice and ear, but is not overwhelmingly intelligent musically, just like ever so many other lyric tenors, had a hard time of it and I believe he thanked his stars when he got safely off the stage at the close of the concert.
17Entirely insufficient in every way musically, in point of tone production and tone quality, as well as characterization of the rôle, was the baritone, Steeger, whom I remember as a member of an operatic ensemble at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York many seasons ago. He evidently has not improved any since then.
19A performance of "Tristan and Isolde" at the Royal Opera House, of which I heard more than two-thirds, was interesting to me through the fact that Richard Strauss conducted. He is perhaps the best and certainly the warmest interpreter of the master's most passionate music drama of any now alive. He beats Dr. Muck all hollow for artistic fire and temperament, though, of course, not for quiet circumspection and natural precision. But those are not the principal qualities I care to look for in the close of the first and the better portion of the second act of "Tristan."
21The cast was of interest to our readers through the fact that the two title roles were impersonated by artists who have also been heard in the United States.
23Mrs. Saenger-Bettagune brings to her rôle a prepossessing stage presence and those grand, sweeping gestures and poses in which Rosa Sucher excelled. Otherwise, however, her Isolde did not come up to anywhere near the great musical and dramatic height which that lady formerly attained in this, her best part. I liked Mrs. Bettagune's singing in the final portion of the first act, especially in the scene in which she presents the love potion to Tristan. In the second act, however, she sang frequently so badly out of tune that I could not take pleasure, even in her impassioned acting.
25Lilli Lehmann has finally succeeded in making out of her beloved lyric tenor, Paul Kalisch, a heroic one. If this result of training, and perhaps overtraining, will in the end turn out as happy and desirable a one as the teacher and wife so fondly and so persistently anticipates, the impersonation of Tristan hardly fortells. On the contrary, I am inclined to believe that, as was the case with the unfortunate Max Alvary, and is naturally most always the case when a lyric tenor has forced his vocal means into the service of dramatic roles, the excessive demands made upon them will ultimately tend to destroy the voice not intended nor made for such use. That Paul Kalisch will not escape the same fate became clear to me at the close of the great love duet, when his upper notes had already lost nearly all their natural brilliancy, and the vibrating power of the middle and lower ones was so diminished that one could at times hardly distinguish them, although Strauss did his level best to hold his orchestral forces in check.
27Miss Reul, otherwise an estimable artist, did not please me much as Brangaeene; the difficult song from the tower she delivered rather poorly. Excellent, however, in fact one of the best Kurwenals I ever saw, was Baptist Hoffmann, who richly deserved the generous applause which a large audience bestowed upon the representatives in general, but upon the two first mentioned "guests" of the evening in special.
29I must not forget to mention the beautiful big bass voice of Wittekopf, as in sonority it could easily vie with the bass clarinet, so obligato and ostinato, employed in the music allotted to the "tired" king. But the very fact that it sounded so big and burly made it seem somewhat incongruous in the reproduction of the utterances of the said unfortunately mated monarch.
31A concert about the success of which I informed you by cable drew me to Leipsic on Thursday of last week. It was styled an "extra Philharmonic concert," and it turned out to be just what it promised. To me the pièce de résistance of the program—in fact, the work in behalf of which and its composer and performer I undertook the trip—was the new second piano concerto in G minor by our Leipsic correspondent, and my particular friend, Alvin Kranich. I feel somewhat of a personal responsibility for this young artist's musical future, inasmuch as it was upon my advice, given to the sixteen or seventeen year old New York piano tuning and regulating, piano manufacturing apprentice, he took up the study of composition. I find it difficult, under the circumstances, to pass judgment of an unbiased nature upon the work of so close a friend; but I think I can state, according to strict truth, that Kranich scored it with an outspoken success, being enthusiastically applauded after each of the three regulation movements of his concerto, and three or four times most heartily recalled after the close of the work, which he performed with great brilliancy and telling effectiveness. As regards the composition itself, although it is neither the work of Tschaikowsky or of a Brahms, but simply that of a talented young musician who has studied to honest purpose, I find it, first of all, an immense improvement upon his first work of this genre. Given a like advance in the right direction in the third piano concerto, which Alvin Kranich is now on the point of finishing and which will be in the Liszt one movement form, this latter work should turn out to be an important one. This adjective, however, I cannot conscientiously apply yet to the second concerto, although it contains some movements of great beauty, such as the introduction of the second theme in A major after the heavy chord opening in G minor of the first movement. The romanza in B flat is also very melodious and pleasing, and in the final movement I noticed a lot of novel finger passage work which sounded quite brilliant. The form is the classic one nearly throughout, and the orchestration, though sonorous, judiciously avoids cramping the solo instrument, as is the case in many modern piano concertos by young composers I recently heard.
33A genuine treat, and one worth making the trip to Leipsic, was the performance of the Tschaikowsky violin Concerto by Arno Hilf. The difficult work was reproduced here in the last years by half a dozen or more excellent violinists, not one of whom gave it the power and rhythmic pregnancy with which Hilf endowed his interpretation. He is to me one of the most interesting artists on the fiddle in existence, for he combines an infallible and very extraordinary virtuoso technic with a healthy, big tone and virile, as well as quite original, conception of the works he interprets.
35Besides the Tschaikowsky Concerto, Mr. Hilf contributed to the program a group of smaller pieces, embracing the Lalo "Norwegian Rhapsody," the writer's "Idyll," and a couple of Brahms-Joachim "Hungarian Dances," after which the large and fashionable audience insisted upon hearing some more.
37Something of a revelation to me was the Winderstein Orchestra and its energetic young organizer and conductor, Hans Winderstein, for I did not dream that the city which boasts of a Gewandhaus Orchestra, with a Nikisch at its helm, could display so excellent a second band of musicians and so thoroughly satisfactory a kapellmeister. The accompaniments to the two concertos, difficult as they are, were performed with precision and at the same time discretion, and in verveful and enthusiastic reading on the part of Winderstein. I heard a rousing, as well as technically finished, reproduction of Beethoven's "Coriolan" overture, and of the, to me, still novel and refreshing symphony, "From the New World," by Antonin Dvorák.
39I returned from Leipsic just in time for the Berlin première at the Royal Opera House of Siegfried Wagner's "Baerenhaeuter." The first opera of the master's son was received sympathetically by a representative audience and the fair success it achieved was a deserved one. I must acknowledge that I was pleasantly disappointed and not a little surprised over this first attempt rather late in life of a young composer whose talent was disputed him by no less an authority than his own father. The latter's and grandfather Liszt's blood, however, does not course in vain through the veins of Siegfried Wagner, albeit he is still far from being a second Richard. At any rate, the first two acts of his "Baerenhaeuter" are decidedly interesting and quite valuable, dramatically, however, more so than musically, while the third act has the great fault of being diffuse, and lacking both in inspiration and in logical development. What becomes apparent at once is that the young man has inherited the dramatic instinct of his father, and in his first work he shows himself a greater poet than composer, while Richard Wagner was pre-eminently an enormous composer and only in second place also a great dramatic poet. So much was also obvious at first hearing that the book of Siegfried Wagner's "Baerenhaeuter" is for the above-mentioned reason a far better one than the one furnished on the same subject to Arnold Mendelssohn by the poet, Dr. Hermann Wette. The latter's dramatization of Grimm's fairy tale is perhaps deeper
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