Scan 9
Musical Courier 1900-11-28: Vol 41 Iss 1079, 1900
20 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 10. See the scan on archive.org.
1Berlin Branch Budget
3German Headquarters of The Musical Courier, Berlin, W., Linkstrasse 17, November 3, 1900.
5Here are no people I know of with whom over-puffing is so liable to turn out something like a boomerang as are the Germans, and the fact is easily comprehended if you consider how literally they take everything and the trust they are still wont to place in printed matter. With Americans it is different. They know when they see the Barnum & Bailey Circus posters that the lions in reality don't look quite as ferocious, or the elephants as huge, or the costumes as gaudy as they are pictorially represented, and consequently these wary citizens of a nation whose very wit and humor consist considerably in the exaggerating of things draw their own conclusions beforehand and deduct a certain percentage for advertising. Not so the Germans, and hence it may be explained why, though they never saw anything before that for variety and richness could approach the said circus, they declared the whole affair as not having come up to their anticipations, or, as some said, American humbug. A similar undeserved fate fell to the lot of a young prima donna who made her début here at the Theater des Westens a week ago to-day in the part of Rosina in "The Barber." She was not taken for an American humbug, simply because she happened to be a Spaniard, as her name, if it be her proper name and not a pseudonym, of Barrientos indicates. If this young lady had arrived here unheralded she would probably have "arrived," as the French say. But as some managerial Orlando Furioso let loose upon an unsuspecting German newspaper reading public daily and for weeks in advance the most preposterous preliminary puffs, the most exalted expectations, which could not have been fulfilled by a second Patti, were raised, and were, like the young "star" herself, doomed to disappointment. This is all the more regrettable as Miss Barrientos has really some remarkable vocal gifts. Her staccati alone are something quite phenomenal; in fact, I have never heard them with more absolute certainty and ease of execution. Her coloratura is fluent and the intonation always flawlessly pure. But when this is said, all is said, for, despite her youthfulness—the lady is in looks scarcely more than she is represented to be, viz., about twenty years of age—she is hardly of prepossessing stage appearance, and her inexperience in acting amounts almost to clumsiness. Of course one does not expect much depth of any sort in a high soprano of the coloratura denomination, but Miss Barrientos' whole art performance, vocally as well as histrionically, was unendurably flat, shallow and without meaning. Her Rosina was, and this is almost a difficult task to accomplish, devoid of all charm and coquetry, and of her Lucia, which was the only other role in which the young lady appeared here, I learn from reliable source that the impersonation had not the least nuance of that tragic feeling which the character calls for.
7As regards the remainder of the "Barber" cast and the general performance of that chef d'oeuvre at the Theater des Westens, the least said the soonest mended. It gave my friend Albert Steinberg the cold shivers, and this is not to be wondered at. He saw a far different performance of the same work at Kroll's only a few days previously, one of which I tried to give you a description in my last week's budget. Since then we have witnessed also almost matchless representations by the Sembrich Italian opera troupe of "Rigoletto," in which the tenor Bonci scored the greatest success as the Duke, and of "Traviata," which is in my estimation unquestionably Sembrich's best role. Next week we shall hear her in "Faust" and in a repetition of "Rigoletto." The Italian opera stagione is artistically a deservedly great success, although financially, just as I foretold, the result leaves much to be desired. The audiences are enthusiastic and fashionable, but not numerous, for 10 marks for a seat in the parquet and 3 marks for standing room are too high prices for Berlin, especially as Mrs. Sembrich is not exactly a novelty here.
9Of the two first concerts of the Meiningen Court Orchestra I spoke at length in my last week's budget, and can therefore be a little shorter in referring to the further ones, in which, moreover, the orchestra took a more prominent share than in the preceding two. The third program, for instance, contained only one solo number, the Brahms Violin Concerto, which the once famous, but lately somewhat neglected, Mary Soldat, now Mrs. Soldat-Roeger, performed in more pleasing than exactly adequate style. The Brahms Concerto was not written for a female violinist, and yet it is strange that just they seem to have quite a special predilection for toying with it. It is true that Mrs. Soldat succeeded in doing more than merely toying with the work, but she too came far from exhausting its musical possibilities. She played, however, cleanly and with a certain not over great degree of conceptional strength and technical ability.
11The orchestral works consisted in a rarely performed Serenade for two oboes, two clarinets, two bass horns, four horns, two bassoons and contra-bassoon, composed and rewritten allegedly in 1780 by Mozart. In its easy grace and fluency of invention it is a very Mozart cabinet piece, albeit not all of its seven movements are of equal value. Some, though, are veritable gems, notably the Menuetto, which is the forerunner of the celebrated minuet from the E flat Symphony.
13The Haydn E flat Symphony (No. 3 in the B. & H. edition) is one which places high demands upon the technical abilities of most of the performers, and as it was reproduced with perfect accuracy as to each, even the least technical detail, one could not help admiring the excellent style in which General Musikdirector Fritz Steinbach has drilled his men. This military word, however, is the one distinguishing characteristic also of nearly all of the performances, and just in so delicate and intime a work as this very Haydn Symphony, a little less robustness would have sounded more gratefully. The Brahms choral, "St. Antonio" variations, however, is one of the orchestra's best numbers; in fact, its chosen cheval de bataille.
15Of the final concert, which contained the Brahms E minor Symphony and the "Meistersinger" Vorspiel, I could hear only the first section, which brought an effective and telling reproduction of Bach's second "Brandenburg" Concerto in F for trumpet, flute, oboe and violin concertando, with accompaniment of two violins, viola and continuo (double bases), and for the first time a Suite in B flat for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, four horns, two bassoons and contra-bassoon, by Richard Strauss. This work, though composed in 1884, is still in manuscript, and had its first performance on this occasion. You will notice that the Besetzung is a similar one as that of the above mentioned Mozart Serenade, but while the latter is natural music, whose principal charm consists in its very fluency and the evident pleasure it afforded the composer in letting himself loose in this form, and in making use of the characteristics of his instruments, frequently in a sporting style, the younger Strauss begins to philosophize upon this peculiar orchestra and in this nonchalant form. Now this seems to me from the outset a somewhat mistaken idea, and if after all the modern revolutionizer of program music is able to offer some interesting, absolute music even despite this drawback, it evinces his early and great talent, which justified me in writing some time ago that Strauss is the only living German composer who still could write absolute music of importance, if he did not prefer to produce hyper-program music, which comes dangerously near being no music at all.
17The final fugue movement of this suite shows that Richard Strauss in 1884 already controlled the technical apparatus of composition to such a degree that it justified the high admiration which no less an authority than Hans von Bülow bestowed upon the young composer at that early stage of his career as a musical creator.
19On the same evening I attended a portion of the concert of a young American pianist at the Beethoven Hall. His name is J. W. Otto Voss, and he hails from New York. When I met him for the first time he was a very young fellow studying at Weimar, I think with Stavenhagen, and affecting the extraneous style of Paderewski in his way of dressing his hair and the wearing of a flowing white silk tie. Luckily he carried things further than mere outward copyings of his prototype, but also followed him in going to Leschetizky for his finishing lessons. The result, as I am glad to be able to state, was a fortunate one, and after hearing from Mr. Voss the Tschaikowsky
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