Scan 6
Musical Courier 1900-04-11: Vol 40 Iss 1046, 1900
50 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1come, for I know no other composer, Richard Wagner not excluded, who has written a better first opera. He deserved the dozen or thereabout calls before the curtain, for which he brought out with him the principals concerned in the cast, as well as the conductor, Dr. Muck and stage manager Tetzlaff. When the audience applauded most vigorously Cosima Wagner, who occupied a box in the first tier with her daughter Eva and old Klindworth, smiled a genuine broad Liszt smile, exposing a gleaming set of teeth that could successfully vie with those of Frank Van der Stucken, only his, I believe, are genuine.
3The performance was excellent throughout, in fact, one of the very best I ever witnessed at the Royal Opera House. Kneupier found the most characteristic tones and histrionic expression for the dryly humorous part of his Satanic majesty. Mrs. Herzog was coy and maidenish in voice and style as Louise, and Gruening as Hans Kraft, Bachmann, with the saintly unctuousness of voice that befits the part of the "stranger," Miss Rothauser, Lieban, Hoffmann and Wittekopf completed the most excellent cast.
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7Last night the Society for the Furtherance of Art (Art with a capital A) gave a concert at the Philharmonic which I can describe only as a superfluous one. The aims of this excellent society are to further the understanding of the members for unknown, but deserving art works. Musically, therefore, they follow in the footsteps of the Wagner societies. But the program of last night contained no number that falls under that description. It consisted of two works by Richard Strauss, conducted by the composer in person, one of which, the symphonic poem, "Death and Apotheosis," is universally acknowledged as one of the best and most sublime tone paintings of the entire musical literature. The other one, Mr. Strauss' latest symphonic poem, "Hildenleben," will never be thus classed even if a thousand performances of it be given, for despite some moments of supreme beauty, it is a mental and musical aberration, full of cacophonous and obstreperous episodes, which have no raison d'être and failing in inspiration at the very moment where it is most looked for, in the musical depicting of the hero's love story and the illustration of his wife's beauty. For once here Richard Strauss is not only tame, but he really grows weak. I hope, however, that it will not prove lasting impotency and that he soon may give to the world creations that are as strong again as his first symphonic poem.
9Between the two Strauss works was placed the first act of Hans Pfitzner's music-drama, "Die Rose vom Liebesgarten." It does not fall under the head of "deserving art works," for it is the direst rot I ever heard in my life. I really was unable to decide what seemed to me more inane and more stupid and meaningless, James Grun's alleged poetry or the setting of Pfitzner, in which I could not discover a vestige of musical thought. In my dilemma I asked the witty Alexander Moszkowski, who happened to cross my way and he promptly and tersely replied: "I prefer the lex Heinze." If you have followed the recent developments in the German Parliament's legislative session, you will appreciate the joke, if not, I am sorry I have no time or space to explain.
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13Kapellmeister Richard Langenhan, second conductor of the Munich Kaim Orchestra, who only recently conducted a concert here in Berlin with the Philharmonic Orchestra, died suddenly at Munich on Sunday last.
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17Miss Augusta Cottlow will play at a diplomatic reception at Ambassador White's next Monday, March 26.
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21Professor Martin Blumner, who, as I wrote before, retired from his post as conductor of the Singakademie Chorus after fifty-five years of active service, has been nominated "honorary director" of the said institution, and retains his lodgings in the Singakademie buildings free of charge, while his full salary will be paid him as a pension to the end of his days.
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25The pianists, Siloti and Sapellnikof, have tendered to the Leipsc Gewandhaus committee a bust of Tschaikowsky, which is to be placed in the foyer of the Gewandhaus concert hall, where the busts of Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Reinecke have also found a place.
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29John Philip Sousa will perform at some of his European concerts D. M. Levett's "Columbus" symphonic poem and the "Harliquinade."
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33A most pleasant as well as musically and vocally interesting acquaintance was the one I made in the person of Georg Reinotts-Lilljeberg, the Swedish basso profundo. He, a relative on the mother's side of Olof Strandberg, Sweden's erstwhile greatest tenor, sang for me some of the earnest and tender music of his native land. He has a voice that extends in range from G, fourth space below the staff, bass clef, to baritone high G, with no vibrato or tremolo. In fact, it is one of the finest and most sonorous organs I have heard for a long time. Mr. Reinotts-Lilljeberg will spend the summer on the Continent and at the Paris Exhibition, but intends to return to Berlin in the fall, when arrangements for his early appearance with one or the other of our big choral societies will be made. The artist, who is equally as good a musician as he is a singer, will confine his operations to concert and oratorio work, and will in all likelihood not want for employment, as there is a palpable lack of genuine bass oratorio singers on account of the absence of high notes in the so-called basso profundo voices and still more the lack of deep notes in the ordinary bass-baritone voices.
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37Of other musical callers at The Musical Courier office during the past week I may mention Ernest Hutchison, who has just closed an engagement with Director Randolph as first teacher of the piano for the Peabody Institute at Baltimore. Daniel and Bertha Visanska of New York; Mrs. Clara Poole-King, contralto, and Mr. King, of New York; Misses Lyda and Catherine Bell, two young ensemble pianists from Indianapolis; Miss Claire Woodburg, from Philadelphia, like the two Bell sisters a pupil of Professor Jedliczka, and last, but not least, my old friend, D. M. Levett, of New York. O. F.
39Hadden-Alexander at Home.
41On the first Wednesday of each month Mrs. Hadden-Alexander is at home in her spacious Carnegie Hall studio, and at the last one Mrs. Raymond Brown's delightful talk on "The Rheingold" was the special feature; she has made a careful study of the operas, and is giving these talks professionally. The piano illustrations she gives herself, and with considerable orchestral effect. Others who participated were Miss Frances Jones, of Portland, Ore.; Miss Lansing, of Troy, and Morris Parkinson.
43Crane Normal Institute, Potsdam.
45Miss Crane sends The Musical Courier the handsome prospectus of the institute, containing much of interest, among other things statistics showing that 86 per cent. of the graduates have taught in public schools, of whom 67 per cent. taught in this State; nearly all the States of the Union have at present teachers from this school.
47Miss Roberts, of Elmira.
49By request of friends, Miss Roberts gave her talk on "Song" in Elmira last Saturday, being the same as given at the Waldorf-Astoria a month since. She was assisted by Miss Helen Mandeville, soprano, and Reinhold Ivanovitch Warlich, basso.
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