Scan 24
Musical Courier 1902-01-01: Vol 44 Iss 1136, 1902
70 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 25. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1week. Eames was Marguerite, Carrie Bridewell Siebel. Dippel, always an earnest singer, was Faust. Journet's Mephisto was agreeable vocally and well studied. Scotti was the Valentine. Sepilli conducted with fire. Heavens! but we are sick of this music. Even Donizetti's "Don Pasquale," sung by Sembirch, Scotti, Tavecchia and Salignac, on Friday night proved a relief after Gounod's perfumery. At least there is lightness, clearness, comedy—thin, unreal and spun out at times, if you please—yet honest comedy, withal. "The Barber of Seville" was to have been given, but Campanari, seldom indisposed, succumbed to tonsilitis. Sembirch was at her brilliant best in "Quel Guardo il Cavaliere." Her trill was remarkable. The new buffo, Tavecchia, proved rather commonplace. Flon conducted without much life. Sepilli seems a better man for the purely Italian repertory. The orchestra is better this season than last.
3At the Saturday matinee, "Romeo and Juliet," Sibyl Sanderson returned here after an absence of seven years, returned for one performance. She is a charming woman of the Phryne, Thais, Esclarmonde type, not the type of Juliet, though her singing days are over. Of that sad fact there can be little doubt. The remainder of the cast was the same as on Wednesday, except that Declery, a newcomer, was the Mercutio. When Sanderson and Alvarez sang the "No, it is not yet day," even the nightingale sang off pitch.
5A noble, unselfish woman passed away when Jennie June died last week. Mrs. Croly, who was known and loved by every woman's club in the land, helped to organize the New York Women's Press Club at her home fourteen years ago. She was elected its president and held the office until her death. Founder of Sorosis as well, Mrs. Croly's life was passed in works of good. She was a personality; you felt that you were meeting a real woman when you shook her hand; and her death is the first rest of a brave, unselfish career.
7In the Feminine News and Views columns of the Evening Sun, I found this clever bit:
9"A famous and idolized tenor of the Metropolitan Opera House staff, who is made much of socially, has some friends in town with whom he is upon terms of close intimacy. Last season the tenor was late in paying his respects to this particular household, upon whom he usually calls immediately upon his arrival in town. At last, one afternoon, the tenor came, but not in his usual form. Instead of marching in boldly and openly, he appeared shyly between the portières and in hesitating accents demanded, 'Is all well here?' Astonished, the members of the family who happened to be present assured him that all was well, and then, in their turn, demanded what did he want to know for. 'Well,' smiled the tenor, glancing round the circle, 'When I called on Mr. —— the other day and asked, "How's your wife?" he turned an embarrassed red and answered, "She is now the wife of Mr. ——." Next day I called on Mr. ——, and asked him how his wife was. "She's very well," he replied, just a trifle stiffly. I thought, and then he added, "You know she—at least the one you mean is no longer my wife. She is Mr. ——'s wife now; my wife was formerly the wife of Mr. ——." At pretty much every place I've called since my return to New York I have been met with this kind of response when I inquired for the man's wife. Nearly all the domestic arrangements in existence when I departed from here two years ago seem to have been upset or in some way demoralized. That's why before entering your drawing room I took care to ask if everything was well. I didn't know but what this family, too, might have been keeping pace with the rest.'"
11The tenor in question knew whereof the reason he spoke. He had been a sufferer himself, for not many years ago in a certain city abroad some one slapped him on the back, crying, "Ah mon cher M. le Duc," which angered him grievously since he was not the duke, though the duchess was in Bayreuth last summer. Ahem!
13Says the London Saturday Review very aptly of real Latin Quarters and false Bohemianism:
15"Bohemians, unlike our minor poets, are born, not made. As we have remarked, there are few of them to be found in history. Shakespeare, certainly, and Cervantes, Steele, Dryden, Mozart, Beethoven, Verlaine—these were Bohemians. Robert Louis Stevenson tried hard to be one—for many years indeed seemed actually to be successful, but in the long run the canny Scot in him asserted itself in his practical life, as it had always asserted itself in his writings, and he settled down in his humdrum Samoa home, a respectable bourgeois maker of respectable bourgeois fiction, chiefly for boys. Doubtless in the past some true Bohemian spirits have found themselves entangled in the snares of bourgeois life, and have made their journey across the earth and into the final darkness, unremarked, stodgy, defeated by the forces and the chances to which the strongest must succumb."
17"When Jan Kubelik arrived from London," says a contemporary, "he had his first experience with an American dinner. Daniel Frohman invited the violinist and the other gentlemen in his suite, as well as Hugo Görlitz, and Prof. Alexander Lambert, to a Thanksgiving dinner at the Waldorf. As the steamer arrived a day late (on Thanksgiving Day), and the violinist (owing to the heavy storms) was not in his best physical condition, the festival dinner was at his request postponed until the next evening. Oscar was notified, and he prepared accordingly.
19"The first dish was the oysters. The foreigners looked at the bivalves, but rigidly refused to taste them. They said they did not like them, though they had never tasted American oysters. No solicitation made them yield. The celery was also refused, but when the green turtle soup was offered they sipped and found it not quite to their taste, whereupon the host sent it away and ordered vegetable soup. This suited his guests admirably.
21"In the meantime the host was hurrying on for the famous American terrapin, of which a bounteous quantity was prepared. Kubelik tasted it and laid down his fork; Herr Scrivan and Herr Friml merely glanced at it and sat rigid. It was explained that this was one of the most expensive dishes in America, but no blandishments on the part of the host were sufficient to induce them to partake of it. Finally, recourse was had to the roast turkey and pumpkin pie. The former dish was the only article in the menu that pleased the foreign visitors."
23Trepha?
25Maurice Portman, in the London Daily News, writes of Kipling's "Kim":
27"When we see Mr. Kipling's name to a tale of the sea serpent, we know he is romancing, and are amused to see how well he does it; but when he writes of the natives of the Punjab, we expect his details to be correct. It is not too much to say that the book is in great part an absurdity; Mahbub Ali is a stage comic villain; the two regimental chalains are caricatures; and Kimball O'Hara is an impossible boy with the head of Sherlock Holmes, the dialogue of Anthony Hope and the body of Lecocq. Hurry Chunder Mookerjee figures as a native surveyor and secret service agent; aspires to be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and yet talks English worse than that of an ordinary Bengali clerk. Why does Mr. Kipling write thus, for he knows his Babu? one of two readings
28"When we see Mr. Kipling's name to a tale of the sea serpent, we know he is romancing, and are amused to see how well he does it; but when he writes of the natives of the Punjab, we expect his details to be correct. It is not too much to say that the book is in great part an absurdity; Mahbub Ali is a stage comic villain; the two regimental chaps are caricatures; and Kimball O'Hara is an impossible boy with the head of Sherlock Holmes, the dialogue of Anthony Hope and the body of Lecocq. Hurry Chunder Mookerjee figures as a native surveyor and secret service agent; aspires to be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and yet talks English worse than that of an ordinary Bengali clerk. Why does Mr. Kipling write thus, for he knows his Babu? one of two readings
30"This ('Kim') is rather the work of an Indian novelist who may write from the libraries of the India Office and the British Museum, with perhaps the local color of a winter's tour through India, than of the author who has been hailed as the first to really show Englishmen what India, under the surface, is like. Or is it that he has not done so? Is his India the India of Kipling, not the India of Hindustan?"
32Says the San Francisco Wave:
34"Gen. W. H. L. Barnes contributes the following mite to the many other good jokes that the opera has given us: On Saturday last while being shaved he happened to ask his barber if he had attended the Grau performances at the Grand. The answer was in the affirmative.
36"How did you enjoy it?"
38"Not at all, sir. From my place in the gallery I could see your head below me and it mortified me to notice that I had not parted your hair straight."
40The Herrmann Chamber Concerts.—Edward Herrmann and Carl Herrmann gave last Saturday night in the Masonic Hall the concluding concert in a series of three chamber music concerts. They were assisted by Emil Schenck, violoncellist, and Otto K. Schill, viola player. An audience that overflowed the hall listened attentively to the following program:
42Quartet for piano and strings, op. 26, in A major………….Brahms
43Sonata for piano and violin, op. 105, A minor………….Schumann
44Quartet for piano and strings, op. 87, E flat major………….Dvorák
46These works were read intelligently and played smoothly and with spirit. Evidently the Brothers Herrmann and their associates must have studied diligently and rehearsed frequently; otherwise they could not have achieved such results.
48The National Institute of Music.—William M. Semnacher, the director of this institution, has just issued a handsome pamphlet.
50The faculty for the present season is:
52William M. Semnacher, principal of the piano department, assisted by Miss Paula Semnacher, Daniel H. Wilson and others; Ernst Bauer, principal of the violin department; Mme. Kate De Jonge-Levett, principal of the vocal department; Daniel H. Wilson, principal of the theory department.
54The present season promises to be the best the National Institute of Music has ever enjoyed.
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68SINGING, OPERA, PIANO, ORGAN, VIOLIN, CELLO, CONTRABASS, HARP and all other Orchestral Instruments;
69January 6 (Monday), 10 A. M. to 12 M., 2 to 4 P. M., and 8 to 9 P. M. (The Instruction in OPERA will be FREE.)
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.