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Musical Courier 1901-01-23: Vol 42 Iss 1087, 1901
26 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1ing works of the greatest variety from the pianistic literature, starting, one might almost say of course, with the chromatic Fantasia and Fugue of Bach and winding up with Liszt's "Rigoletto" Fantasia, and such names as Rameau, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Rachmaninoff (the now well-known Prelude in C sharp minor), Edward Schuett (pizzicato waltz) and E. Monod (a very clever Scherzo) filling up the gap between Bach and Liszt.
3Mr. Monod, too, is reported to have gained success elsewhere before he appeared at Berlin, and in no less critical a town than Dresden, but either he must have been better disposed there than he was here, or the audience was, or, as is also often the case, the report was exaggerated, for certainly at Bechstein Hall Mr. Monod was neither very successful nor did he deserve a different fate. He is a fairly decent, but in no wise a remarkable pianist.
5The Royal Opera House intendency brought out another novelty just before the close of the year. It was Hans Pfitzner's first music-drama, "Der Arme Heinrich" (Poor Henry), which, on the occasion of its first productions at Mayence, where the young composer was then living, created such an extraordinary amount of comment, equaling something like a veritable tempest in a teapot. This was eight years ago, and it was then given out to the world at large that a second Richard Wagner had arisen who would continue and surpass the work done by the great reformer and creator of the music-drama. What a snare and delusion has this prophecy since turned out to be! Pfitzner's op. 1, a Sonata for 'cello and piano, which I heard in Berlin not long ago, was the work which first called attention to this young composer, and it really is an op. 1 as full of promise as one could possibly wish for. However, these promises have remained unfulfilled, and what I heard afterward from the same fluent pen seemed to me but dreary, and in his last work, the opera "The Rose from the Garden of Love," really unmusical, or anti-musical, meaningless, ill-sounding, cacophonous stuff. It is not quite so bad with his first music-drama, "Der Arme Heinrich," although I cannot help designating this also as sick music; but it too evinces at least some talent of a creative order and much sense for harmonic and orchestral colors. But those who hailed it as a masterpiece of the first rank and shouted at the top of their lungs, Hail to Richard Wagner II., are the cause of Pfitzner's early musical decay, for they have turned his head, and from an earnestly striving, sincere musician, such as he showed himself in this very opera, have made of him a poor wretch, suffering from that worst disease from which a composer can suffer, viz., megalomania.
7What is worse, however, in "Der Arme Heinrich" than the music is the libretto. If the former is sick, the latter may surely be termed sickening, and this to a pathological point. The librettist, James Gruen, has tried to turn the old Swabian legend of Hartmann von der Aue, upon which the book is based, into something like a physico-psychological study, but not only did he not succeed in making the subject more interesting, he also gave it a form which for lack of contents of action would alone suffice to bar it from being well fitted for the setting of a music drama. Gruen makes Heinrich appear, but only in words and description, not, however, in actions, as a courageous German knight and minstrel, who, on account of his debaucheries in early youth, is stricken down with a fatal illness. Left by all his friends, he lives in what Heine termed a "mattress grave" at the castle of his fiefdom, the noble minded Dietrich, whose wife and daughter tend to the nursing of the sick man. Dietrich meanwhile has made the dangerous journey to a miracle performing monk-physician who practices at a monastery in the old Italian university town of Salerno. This professional gentleman pronounces, without having seen the patient and without further diagnosis than the one which could have been based upon Dietrich's description of the case, that the only way Heinrich could get rid of his tertiary ailment, or whatever "bad" illness he was suffering from, was if a pure virgin would have her heart cut out of her bosom for his salvation's sake. To this sacrifice Agnes, the fourteen year old daughter of Dietrich, acquiesces, and after persuading her parents that such is the right religious course to pursue, whereby her mother falls into a sort of trance, all four parties make the tiresome trip from the castle in Swabia to Salerno.
9In Hartmann von der Aue's account of the affair, the maiden is a lass of sixteen, who is deeply enamored of the sick knight, and hence the sacrifice of her life for him seems psychologically comprehensible, although he also makes but little attempt at explaining why the knight, if he be a true, chivalrous, wholesouled knight, should accept the sacrifice. In Gruen's libretto the fourteen year old child is exalted by religious mania, which makes the sacrifice seem all the more deplorable and incongruous. In the third act, after some male chorus singing of the monks, the operation is to be performed before a large crucifix, and the girl is led to the dissecting table by the monk-physician, upon which dreadful scene the doors close. But just then the miracle takes place. Deity, satisfied with the intended sacrifice and the heroism displayed by the child, gives back to Heinrich his health and powers, he storms the doors and tears the virgin away from under the very knife which the monk has raised over her heart ready for action. In Hartmann von der Aue's narration the restored knight does the right thing in marrying the sixteen year old maiden, who loves him, and "all's well that ends well." Not so in Gruen-Pfitzner's "Der Arme Heinrich." To marry a fourteen year old child is against the law in Germany, if perhaps not in Italy, and so the good knight knows nothing better to do than to devote his further life to the service of the Lord, while the Dietrich parent and little Agnes return to Germany alone.
11Pfitzner's music to this lamentable libretto is Wagnerian to a degree. In the sick room sufferings of Heinrich, in the first act, it sounds the "Tristan" third act note, while in the religious exaltations of the wife and child of Dietrich the "Parsifal" mood prevails. Outwardly this style and garb of Wagner's expressions are copied or nachgefühlt with no small amount of imitative powers, especially in the way of orchestration and leitmotifish treatment of the themes. But this is all more or less merely of an outward nature, a mere copy of a great original, the essence, the spirit of which was either miscomprehended by the copyist or his own powers were too small, too insignificant to lead him into closer proximity to his prototype. To compare Pfitzner with Richard Strauss, as more than one Berlin critic did on this occasion, is blank heresy. He can be as ugly and cacophonous as Strauss, and a great deal more, as is shown in the contrapuntal exercise which serves for a prelude to the third act of "Der Arme Heinrich," but he can never approach even within hailing distance, the creator of "Tod und Verklarung."
13The performance was an extraordinarily good one. Our third lately engaged conductor Walter had studied this work of his personal friend, and the first one he actually brought out in its first performance at the Royal Opera House, in most careful and loving, as well as genial, manner. The orchestra was really superb throughout, and the four or five principals concerned in the cast did their utmost to help the composer and themselves to a success. Kraus was equally good as the sick and the health restored Heinrich. Hoffmann's voice sounded somewhat tired in the part of Dietrich, but histrionically he was excellent. Miss Reini, as Hilde, Dietrich's wife, did justice to her more difficult than grateful role. Mrs. Gradl looked and acted sympathetically in the part of the fourteen year old Agnes, but her voice could not assume the necessary child-like quality, and indeed it might be hard to find an artist to represent this part in the style to make it both look and sound credible. Kumpfer gave the part of the physician with rare dignity, and vocally he was as sonorous as clear in delivery.
15The success of the première cannot be denied, although I doubt very much that it will prove a lasting one. At any rate, the double or triple recall which brought all parties concerned in the cast, including, of course, the composer, and later on also the conductor, before the curtain, seemed to me less convincing than artificial, and the fine performance had surely more to do with it than the actual value or the impressiveness of the opera itself.
17Miss Sophie Heymann appeared at the Theater des Westens after Madame Prevosti's departure with much success in the part of Julia.
19Dr. Briesemeister is engaged for next summer's Bayreuth festival performances.
21Miss Helen Herbert, from New York, writes to say that she is re-engaged for the Magdeburg opera season of next year at a higher salary.
23Emil Sauer, the eminent piano virtuoso, has been decorated by the Grand Duke of Bade with the Knighthood Cross of the first class of the Zaehringer Lion "with oak leaf." The latter signifies a special distinction. O. F.
25Miss Henriette Weber, the pianist, besides being busy with teaching and coaching, has recently appeared in a number of private musicals and before some prominent clubs. Miss Weber will play for the Progressive Education Club, of Brooklyn, February 11.
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