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Musical Courier 1902-01-01: Vol 44 Iss 1136, 1902
82 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 21. See the scan on archive.org.
1ices in carrying it out.' They all promised. Then said the old man: 'You must bring the maiden who mocked the young man in the basket. She is the cause of all the trouble; she alone can cure it.' In spite of her resistance the girl was brought from her house to the market place. 'Now bring a table,' said the wizard, 'and candles enough to go round.' When all was ready he ordered the girl to strip, and when very reluctantly she had doffed her garments, a flame burst out from her back, and at this flame the citizens each lighted a candle. As one candle could not be lighted from another, this went on for hours, amid shouts of laughter, as each worthy burgher applied his candle to her phosphorescent spine."
3This was the scene represented in the bas-relief in the Katzenstrasse of Audenaerde, which we may suppose inspired Richard Strauss.
5THE sixth volume of the correspondence of Liszt with the Princess Wittgenstein brings it down to 1872, when the master laid the foundation stone of the theatre at Bayreuth. At this period Liszt had not seen his daughter Cosima since her divorce from Bülow. Liszt, being the Abbé Liszt, was too good a Catholic to countenance such violation of the law of the Church, and his absence from Bayreuth gave rise to a report that Wagner had not invited him. In the Wittgenstein letters are copies of a letter from Wagner to Liszt and Liszt's reply:
7"MY GREAT AND DEAR FRIEND:
9"Cosima asserts that you would not come, even if I invited you. We shall then be obliged to bear that, as we have had to bear much already. Still, I cannot fail to invite you. And that I say to you when I say to you, Come!—You have entered into my life as the greatest man to whom I have ever been able to address the name of friend. You have been separated from me because, perhaps, I have not entered into your inmost life as much as you in mine. In place of you, it is your inmost being, born anew, which has drawn near to me and filled me with an ardent desire to know you in absolute 'intimité' with me. You live, then, in full beauty before me and in me—and now we are reunited as in some tomb.
11"You were the first who ennobled me by your love. In a higher second life I find myself at present united with Her, and I can do what I could never have done alone. So you have been able to become all for me, while I have remained so little for you! How much have I not been benefited! If I say to you at present, Come, I say by those words, Come home, for here you will find yourself in your home. May you be happy and beloved whatever be your decision.
13"Your old friend,
15"RICHARD."
17"BAYREUTH, 18 May, 1872."
19In this letter the second person singular is used throughout. In Liszt's letter there is an interchange between the singular and the plural forms, the latter doubtless to include Cosima:
21"SUBLIME (ERHABNER) AND DEAR FRIEND:
23"Profoundly moved by thy letter, I cannot thank thee in words. But I ardently hope that all the shadows, all the considerations which chain me afar, will disappear, and that we shall meet soon. Then thou wilt see clearly how much my soul remains inseparable from you and is inwardly reborn in 'thy second higher life, by which thou canst do what thou couldst not have done by thyself alone.' In that I see the grace of heaven. May God bless you as my entire love.
25"F. L."
27"20 May, '72, WEIMAR."
29Some weeks later Liszt wrote to the Princess on June 21: "One turns always to the side to which one inclines. God will pardon me for turning to the side of pity, imploring His, and abandoning myself entirely thereto." The shadows disappeared after Liszt's first interview with his children in September, 1872. As Wagner wrote "reunited as in some tomb," so it came to pass. Liszt reposes in the cemetery, beneath the sepulchre that bears the epitaph he had chosen for himself in 1869: "Et habitabant recti cum vultu tuo."
31SIDNEY STEPHEN and Leslie Lee have just published in London a volume—"Lives of the Lustrious"—embracing the biographies of important personages on the contemporary stage of events. Its gravity and the seriousness of the object can be gleaned from the following extracts:
33SIR HENRY IRVING.
35Irving, Sir Henry Washington, American actor, was born at Boston, in 1838. Sir Henry, who is known in his own country as Colonel Irving, has occasionally visited England, but has so great an objection to performing out of America that only mere glimpses of him have been obtained here. On one of his brief trips to London, however, the opportunity was found to make him a knight, and the few performances in which he was then seen filled all English playgoers with the desire to know more of his superlative gifts. Sir Henry Irving is perhaps better known by his books, especially "Bracebridge Hall" and "Rip Van Winkle." His son, H. B. Irving, the distinguished criminologist and Lombroso of the footlights, is now playing the principal part at the St. James' in his brother's play, "The Likeness to the Knight." Sir Henry's motto is "Hail, Columbia!"
37M. MAETERLINCK.
39Maeterlinck, Maurice, Bee-master, was born at St. Ives in 1862. As a small child he was given Dr. Watts' hymns to read; but coming upon the question, "How doth the little busy bee?" he refused to read further until he could find a sufficient answer. Thereupon he removed to Belgium, for no other reason than that it begins with B, and has since pursued the even tenor of an apiarist's life, diversified only by stings. For these M. Maeterlinck uses common blue, and it is while waiting for them to heal that his plays have been written. As a variant upon the trite conventions of the drawing room drama M. Maeterlinck has composed a new series of musical tragedies, to be played by marionettes after dark in a coal hole, to the accompaniment of a B flat drone bass performed on muted celluloid combs. He is also alleged to be engaged on a Biblical pantomime, entitled "Huz and Buz." His motto is: Honey soit qui mal y pense.
41M. PADEREWSKI.
43Paderewski, Ignaz Jan, president of the House of Keys, was born in St. James' Hall, 1890, having previously studied under Sovinski, Roguski, Leschetizky and Prtké-vitchsvntchchizky (pronounce Bertrand). His first recital was sparsely attended, but before the end of the season he was obliged to seek police protection from the embarrassing attention of his admirers. Thanks, however, to the application of the new Orling-Armstrong system of wireless telephony, Sir Edward Bradford is not without hopes that M. Paderewski, who has recently taken to using a Panhard 8 horse power 4.7 q. f. over-strung grand, with pom-pom pedals and Vickers-Maxim resonator, will be rendered fully audible to the naked ear in St. James' Hall without quitting his estate in Galicia, where he is now immersed in agricultural pursuits. M. Paderewski, who keeps wicket for the Warsaw eleven in order to harden his hands, plays all composers with impunity, and scores with astonishing rapidity.
45MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE.
47Carnegie, Andrew Bodley, Maitre de Forges, was born at John o' Groat's, in 1837, and leaving Scotland with the proverbial half crown, he settled at Pittsburg, and placing the coin beneath the Nasmuth steam hammer enlarged it to a dollar. Upon this slender foundation he amassed his comfortable independence, and returned to Great Britain in a four-in-hand with £40,000,000 and the finest collection of begging letters in the world. As a successful contractor, Mr. Carnegie is a strong anti-expansionist, while as the champion founder of free libraries he has done more to promote the perusal of fiction than Messrs. Mu die. To counteract this taste, however, he has devoted £2,000,000 to the endowment of higher education in Scotland, the result of which is expected to be an indefinite multiplication of kailyard "idylls." Mr. Carnegie, having sold Pittsburg to Pierpont Morgan, no longer takes delight, he has said, in anything but Shakespeare, Passmore Edwards and Wagner.
49The biographers evidently forgot the important fact that Mr. Carnegie decided recently to conduct the New York Philharmonic Society, and contemplates a series of 22 concerts and public rehearsals next season.
51APPLAUSE AT THE MUSIC FESTIVAL.
52Should the Chorus Lead or the Audience?
53SINGERS DO NOT LIKE IT.
55Criticisms by the Press and Comment from Various Quarters.
57"Now that the music festival is a matter of memory," said a devotee of the concert to-day, "it is interesting to note the comments of members of the chorus and others on the way the chorus has been drilled to applaud and wave their handkerchiefs frantically on frequent occasion; in fact, it is said with entire justice that the chorus never failed to lead the applause, and in this respect the audience usually followed the example of the singers.
59"It is well known, of course, that the chorus is drilled to applaud and to look for the signal to grow enthusiastic. The leader was always to be greeted with a round of applause on his first appearance, though the audience might covet that privilege for itself. Each singer, according to his acceptance with the managers of the festival, was to be applauded liberally or sparingly, as might be indicated at the time. All this has the effect to discourage the audience and make the listeners seem to be nothing more than an incidental factor in the success of the festival."
61DISAPPROVED BY THE PRESS.
63The Musical Courier has condemned this practice and it has been commented on by others at more or less length. On this subject the Maine Journal of Medicine and Science has the following:
65"It may seem rather churlish and savoring somewhat of bumptiousness to intrude anything in the way of criticism at this time, and yet, because we all have the good of the festival at heart, we venture to suggest a few things that might be remedied.
67"There is one little point in connection with the concerts, which, from the standpoint of the audience, is open to criticism, and that is that the matter of applause is overdone.
69"After making all allowances for enthusiasm and for that spirit of camaraderie which seems to animate the whole working force of the festival—and which spirit of camaraderie is a much more commendable thing than the envy, jealousy, and bickering which are apt to be prevalent in the musical profession—after giving all the credit that can be given to these good things, it must nevertheless be said that the applause of the chorus for the director and even for the distinguished soloists is just a trifle overdrawn and becomes before the concerts are over rather a trial upon the good taste of the members of the audience. For the chorus to applaud their own director upon his appearance, before he has done anything, is not only a thing of questionable taste but also something which, if carried too far, savors of affectation, serves only to belittle him, and throw doubt upon the spontaneity of the tribute.
71RATHER OVERDONE.
73"Anyway, whatever may be the reason for this slight feeling of dissatisfaction, and whether or not any member of the audience could give a reason which would be adequate on paper for the feeling that passed over him, the fact remains, and the feeling was quite general in the audience that the applause business was rather overdone."
75CHORUS TIRED OF IT.
77In this connection it may be said that the members of the chorus say they are getting rather tired of this applause, whether in their opinion it is deserved or not. They say that they are not allowed to judge for themselves as to whether they shall applaud or not, but the thing must be done on signal, and if they do not come forward with ready made enthusiasm they get a reproof either spoken or implied.
79THIS is reprinted from the Portland (Me.) Advertiser of November 22, and it is good to remind the Maine chorus and all other choruses that it is not only impudent for it or its members to applaud at concerts, but inartistic and decidedly unartistic; not only out of the realm of art, but against the artistic instinct; it proves that those who indulge in it are not acquainted with their proper relation to the performance.
81We maintain that the encore nuisance, which interferes so seriously with the atmosphere of the classic concert or performance, and which is decried by conductors, cannot be modified or eliminated as long as conductors themselves applaud the solo performers. Mr. Gericke, Mr. Paur and all other conductors should cease applauding, for when the audiences find the conductors leading the applause
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