Scan 5
Musical Courier 1901-04-24: Vol 42 Iss 1100, 1901
55 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 6. See the scan on archive.org.
1seems the longest. There are the cycles by Schubert; the one by Beethoven is a black draught, a very dose; there is one by Von Fielitz that is admirably adapted for the better ventilation of a hall; but my vote would be Brahms' "Magelone," which, if I may use the colloquial language of the day, is the limit. I once heard a singer lecture on this same cycle. If she had only sung the lecture and spoken the music—but she was a faithful soul with a New England conscience and highly developed nasal enthusiasm.
3I see that Brahms had in his possession an imperfect libretto by Turgenieff. I remember vaguely to have read in a book of gossip or memoirs some allusion to a libretto by the Russian. But how did Brahms get hold of any such manuscript? Cannot Mr. Huneker tell us? I have not time to-day to hunt through the Diary of the De Goncourt Brothers.
5The program of the Twenty-second Symphony concert (April 20) included Beethoven's overture to "King Stephen"; Saint-Saëns' Concerto in G minor for piano (Heinrich Gebhard, pianist); Rhapsody for orchestra, by Gustave Strube (new, conducted by the composer); Brahms' Symphony No. 3.
7It is a wonder to me that in the pursuit of fetish worship all of the music written by Beethoven for Kotzebue's play is not performed at Symphony Hall with the choruses sung by the Cecilia in return for $400 or $500. I name this low sum not out of disrespect toward the thrifty society, but because there are only three choruses and a "Melodram mit chören und Schlusschor." Herbeck brought out all this music at Vienna in 1865; we should surely hear it in Boston. The overture is not unlike a sketch for a Hungarian Rhapsody. It is theatre music, written with an ear to the applause of the crowd and yet every now and then is a Beethovenish stroke that is unmistakable. King Stephen—not the worthy peer whose breeches cost him but a crown and yet he complained of the expense, but King Stephen I. of Hungary, who was zealous in establishing the Christian religion and turning the people from immoderate indulgence in Csardas and Zulasch. The performance in Vienna in 1865 moved Papa Hanslick to a reverential burst, but although Herbeck was the leader, I find nothing about the performance in the entertaining biography of the same by his son. Possibly the first performance of the Unfinished Symphony of Schubert a fortnight afterward drove out the recollection of the revival of Beethoven's music.
9Gustav Strube, who was born at Ballerstedt in 1867, joined the violins of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1891. An overture, a symphony and a violin concerto by him have been played in concerts of this organization, and you have heard in New York, I believe, the violin concerto, if not one of the purely orchestra pieces. He is an excellent and versatile musician, a sympathetic and authoritative conductor, and a composer with whom we must all reckon seriously. The rhapsody played last night calls for an extra large orchestra, cor anglais, small clarinet in E flat, bass clarinet, double bassoon, two extra trumpets, tub, glockenspiel, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, snare drum, harp, in addition to the usual symphony orchestra. The rhapsody is a rhapsody, not an academic composition ornamented with an incongruous title. This rhapsodist dreams dreams, and sees visions; his head is hot and his voice is excited, and he believes in apparitions and second sight, and spirits of good and evil in field and cave and river; yet is he of the people and their songs and dances, their joys and sorrows are a part of him. Here is a young man whose early training was under Reinecke and Solomon Jadassohn; he was even a teacher at the Conservatory of Mannheim; would you not say that all this were a fatal handicap? And yet Mr. Strube is most bold and audacious in his harmonic and orchestral thought. His music is of the ultra-radical school; but the composer, unlike some of his associates, has definite, well considered ideas, which are musical, not merely decorative or pictorial. He has themes of length and substance, not hints at themes which are tossed from one instrument to another; themes of instrinsic beauty, themes that are his own. His scheme of harmony is daring, but no one can say that it is an imitation of that of Strauss or Franck or Wagner. For instance, his basses seem more fundamental and indispensable than those of Strauss. No, Mr. Strube thinks for himself, and while he is not a nihilist in that which concerns beauty, he is certainly an anarchist so far as the old and established prohibitions are concerned. There are strange detail, there are singular groupings of instruments, there are tones that might come from the mouths of gargoyles. And there are pages of melancholy, twilight hues, pages of noon-day defiant splendor that blazes on a civic and bantered festival.
11Mr. Gebhard displayed a smooth, clear technic, and the performance was on the whole creditable to him. The chief demand made by this skillfully made concerto upon a player is elegance of supreme polish. This elegance in turn depends largely on unerring rhythm. Mr. Gebhard's rhythm was not flawless in the scherzo, and at times in the other movements his performance was too subdued and without sufficiently marked accentuation.
13I note that Pini-Corsi sang Mime when "Siegfried" was produced lately at Madrid. We saw Pini-Corsi here a few days ago as Alfio and Masetto.
15They did not like Dr. Muck's reading of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in Paris, and they found there that Steinbach did not know the existence of mezzo forte.
17Giacomo Orefice has written an opera "Chopin." The themes are all from Chopin's own compositions. The villain might appropriately be a pianist, and Chopin should be represented as madly in love with a woman who cannot play.
19Bisbee Pupils' Recital.
21The advanced pupils of Miss Genevieve Bisbee will be heard in a recital given at her studio in Carnegie Hall on Wednesday afternoon, May 1, at 4 o'clock. Miss Bisbee will be assisted by E. Theodore Martin, tenor of the Calvary Baptist Church, and Oley Speaks, basso of St. Thomas'.
23Katharine Fisk's Recital.
25IDEAL weather, ideal surroundings and an ideal program combined were the fortunate lot of the subscribers for the musicale which Katharine Fisk, the contralto, gave at the Hotel Netherland last Wednesday morning. Last Wednesday was the first day in at least a fortnight upon which the gods of the weather smiled without interrupting by winds, clouds or rains. The air was balmy, the sunshine warm and soothing, and the fragrance of the poet's spring was in the atmosphere. The refined elegance of the music room at the Netherland was in harmony with the climate, and lastly the program was a gem, beginning promptly on time, 11 a. m., and over at high noon, or five minutes after, to be exact.
27If there is anything in the reincarnation theory, Mrs. Fisk was either a queen or a grande dame in her former incarnation, one of your true blue noble women, who show method and heart, a rare combination in all that they do. To keep audiences waiting from fifteen to forty-five minutes after the advertised hour for beginning concerts and musicales is one of the most exasperating evils in society to-day, an evil that certainly demands the attention of some of our reformers. Since the middle of October the writer has reported about 200 concerts, musicales, recitals, &c., and the affairs where the music began at the hour announced were the exceptions to the rule.
29Without exaggeration the writer can state that she has wasted for this paper fifty hours of valuable time during this season, because functions that begin 'way after the advertised hour must necessarily be extended far into the night. It is because of the prevalent lack of method among managers, and those who give musical affairs, that one feels constrained to preface the report of Mrs. Fisk's musicale with a panegyric on her punctuality and goodness; and pray, What is goodness if it does not consider the rights and feelings of other people?
31The program which Mrs. Fisk gave was unique, and embraced, as the subjoined list will show, a wide range of composers:
33Willst du Dein Herz mir Schenken……………………………Bach
34In Questa Tomba……………………………………………..Beethoven
35Dance Song…………………………………………………….Händel
36L'Esclave………………………………………………………..Lalo
37Auf Wiedersehn (in MS.)…………………………………….Nevin
38Winternacht…………………………………………………….Holländer
39Ode (new)……………………………………………………..Goldmark
40(Dedicated to Katharine Fisk.)
42Two Folksongs—
43Love and Joy…………………………………………………Chadwick
44The Northern Day…………………………………………..Chadwick
45Barcarolle………………………………………………………MacDowell
46Love Is a Sickness…………………………………………..Parker
47Missgiving…………………………………………………….Black
48The Thrastle…………………………………………………..White
49La Ballade du Désespéré…………………………………….White
51Poésie de Henri Murger, musique de H. Bemberg.
52For contralto and reciter, with accompaniment of violin, 'cello and piano.
54The Bach song (Johann Sebastian Bach), written antedate con moto, was interpreted by Mrs. Fisk with winning sweetness and simplicity. The deeper and solemn note in Beethoven's "Dark Tomb" made a profound im-
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