Scan 17
Musical Courier 1902-03-05: Vol 44 Iss 1145, 1902
68 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 18. See the scan on archive.org.
1RUBEN'S THIRD MORNING CONCERT.
2First Presentation of "The Flight of the Eagle."
3WHEN the musical novelties of the present season are reviewed an interesting chapter might be written on "The Flight of the Eagle." The text of this latest dramatic song cycle is taken from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," and the musical setting is by Homer Norris, of Boston. The initial performance of the work was given in Boston last Wednesday afternoon and last Friday morning the first New York presentation was heard at L. M. Ruben's third operatic and dramatic concert at the Waldorf-Astoria.
5When the advice of Robert Schumann is recalled regarding the hearing of a new musical composition no critic will condemn Mr. Norris' score. As original as the poem was evidently the aim of the composer, and in point of originality Mr. Norris has been successful. The score is strongly dramatic, strangely weird and uncanny in parts, and frequently impressively ugly. These are the first impressions upon hearing the work sung by Miss Esther Palliser, Ellison van Hoose and Walter Drennan, the last-named a young baritone from Alabama.
7The subjoined explanation published on the program for the morning gives an idea of the composer's fancy narrated in friendly vein:
9Mr. Norris' work is based on a scale of whole steps. He has seen that Whitman's rugged lines cannot be trimmed and planed to fit the stereotyped musical molds, and has done away with arbitrary boundaries of tonality and rhythmical regularity. The music moves with perfect freedom of melodic contour and phrase; the composer has striven to have his music follow the genius of the language in matters of inflection, accentuation, rhythm, &c. It is this principle of downright insistence upon the thing to be said that marks Mr. Norris as a worthy disciple of Whitman, and makes his work typically American, as Whitman is coming to be regarded as the representative American poet.
11Whitman was a genius who wrote the American poetry of the future. He foresaw the great destiny of this nation, the United States, and expressed his thoughts in lines of rugged beauty. His idea of Democracy was that of a race who had fought valiantly and conquered in a world of harsh and barbarous inequalities. But the equality of which Whitman so eloquently sings is that won by brave and heroic souls. To compose a musical setting for such wondrous verse was no easy task.
13The singers did nobly with the difficult music. Miss Palliser sang her high notes thrillingly, and her conception was all that could be desired. Mr. van Hoose belongs in the front rank of dramatic tenors and he, too, did his share in a highly acceptable performance.
15Mr. Drennan, a new-comer here, possesses a baritone voice of good quality and he sings with expression and taste. But perhaps the music allotted to the baritone in Mr. Norris' score requires a voice of heavier timbre and a singer of the dramatic school. Mr. Bispham, who was announced to sing the baritone part, was ill.
17A good word must be said for Miss Edith Currie, who played the piano part with sympathetic appreciation. The singers, the pianist and the composer, who was present and directed the performance of his work, were enthusiastically recalled by a large and distinguished audience.
19Many persons in the audience were interested in the second half of the concert, at which Miss Cornelia Roosevelt Scovel made her début as a public singer. The débutante is a second cousin of President Roosevelt, her mother, who was Miss Cornelia Roosevelt, being the President's first cousin. Miss Scovel's father, Edward Scovel, is a tenor, who has sung in opera in Europe and this country. The daughter was born in Paris, and the family have lived abroad many years, principally in France and Italy. Miss Scovel's voice is sweet and pleasing in quality. She sings French songs exquisitely. Her selections for the morning included "Noel Païen," Massenet; Berceuse, Chaminade, and "Air de Leonore," "Tasso," Godard. Miss Scovel was recalled several times with great cordiality and compelled to add another song.
21Miss Palliser sang two songs charmingly, "Clair de Lune," by Fauré, and "Pourquoi," written for and dedicated to Miss Palliser by Chaminade. Mr. van Hoose delighted his admirers by sing three songs, "O Come With Me in the Summer Night," by Van der Stucken; "Irish Love Song," by Ruth Lang, and "I'll Sing Thee Songs of Arab," by Clay. Signor Centanni accompanied the singers. Miss Martha Hicks-Dye gave a series of recitations by Brooks and Thomas Nelson Page.
23The fourth and last of Mr. Ruben's mornings is announced for Friday, March 7. Mme. Eugenia Mantelli, who recently returned from her triumphs in South America, will make her reappearance at this concert. Mme. Sophie Traubman, formerly a member of the Grau Company, will also appear, and the dramatic features will be contributed by Mrs. Louise Thorndyke-Boucicault.
25Eugenia Mantelli.
27ME, EUGENIA MANTELLI, who, as stated last week, has returned to the United States after a long tour on the west coast of South America, had tremendous success. We annex some extracts from the journals of Lima, recording her triumphs:
29With the usual select attendance and with results equal to those of the previous night, Señora Mantelli appeared on Saturday evening. The opinion of this celebrated diva which this performance induces us to form strengthens the impressions of pleasure derived from her first concert. Señora Mantelli combines all the good qualities of a singer and artist; she attracts with her melodious and skillfully managed voice; her style of singing is irreproachable, while her slender figure and winsome face contribute powerfully to the completion of that aureole of sympathy which attaches to her personality. In each number of the Saturday program she received a genuine ovation, being obliged to repeat the "Habanera," from "Carmen," and the graceful "Cuando baile."
31We have only to add to the critical judgment upon Señora Mantelli which we published on Friday that the public has known how to judge better than we did, lavishing upon her, in its enthusiasm, superabundant and well-merited honors.—El Nacional.
33This evening's performance, the last of the series offered to the public of Lima by the celebrated diva, Eugenia Mantelli, was quite a social and artistic event. The Olímpo Theatre was filled as it rarely is, and all parts of the house were occupied by the most select of our elegant society.
35A large number of those who this evening took the opportunity of admiring the Mantelli for the last time thought that they found her better than at former hearings. But this was pure illusion; the Mantelli has always been equal to herself, always admirable as singer and as actress throughout the four evenings we have heard her. The illusion is due only to the fact that each time it has been possible to appreciate the artist better, each time she had something more for her audience to enjoy, because she but confirmed the first impression and even improved upon it with apparently new merits and new perfections.
37And the reason is that Eugenia Mantelli has everything which can aid in constantly attracting upon her the attention of the public—a delicate and slenderly elegant figure, indisputable interpretative talent, soul, much soul, and a style of singing so excellent as to be hardly surpassed.
39Here is the greatest matter for study in the Mantelli's singing. She knows how to do with her voice whatever she wishes; impresses upon it nearly, glittering qualities of sound, qualities passionately ductile or resonant tonalities, sighs of tenderness and inflexions of sorrow which entwine themselves with all the caprices of her privileged vocal organs. And when the Mantelli sings there is also her physiognomy to consider, that flexible physiognomy which, as the notes come forth like the trills of sweet-sanged birds, constantly expresses all the psychological changes corresponding to those which succeed each other in her spirit—all the intensity of sentiment of her thoroughly artistic and thoroughly responsive soul.
41What we have said since the first day, and what we now repeat without the very least partiality, has been ratified in a solemn and definitive way, with the overwhelming manifestations, truly triumphal, which an intelligent and select audience has made at each of the celebrated artist's appearances.
43To-night, as became the last, these proofs of admiration and sympathy reached their culmination. All the musical gems which the Mantelli sang ended amid outbursts of applause, and at the conclusion of the performance the audience summoned her to appear on the stage, bidding her farewell in the most affectionate manner.—El Commercio.
45That accomplished diva, Eugenia Mantelli, ought to feel satisfied with the grand artistic results obtained in the three concerts she has now given in Lima. They have been three nights of genuine triumph, three splendid successes which she must undoubtedly add to the many she has already obtained on the principal stages of Europe and America.
47Yesterday's concert was one of continuous applause for the clever and distinguished artist, who revealed herself in all her splendor before her large and select audience. She sang all her numbers with the singular mastery which characterizes her, bringing to light all the excellencies of her magnificent style of singing. Her finer pieces were "Stride la vampa," from "Trovatore"; "Connais tu le pays," from "Mignon," and the card song from "Carmen." Here Mantelli appeared sincerely admirable.—El Commercio.
49The second concert of the celebrated mezzo-soprano, Eugenia Mantelli, may be said to have been another compliment to her, since those of the public who formed the select assemblage seen at the Olímpo last night were more distinguished than on the first day.
51The best eulogium of Mantelli that can be made in regard to her second appearance is to declare that to-night she has been consecrated with overwhelming tempest of applause as an artist of incontestable merit and grand power.
53To-day will be given the last concert of the celebrated diva, with an attractive and varied program, from which it may be expected that the theatre will be full to the limit.—El Commercio.
55Herbert Witherspoon.
57MR. WITHERSPOON, the basso, continues to book numerous engagements for the spring season. He will sing in St. John, N. B., in two important miscellaneous concerts, March 12 and 13, and, returning to New York for several local engagements, will end the month in Brooklyn, singing the solo part in the first American production of Dr. Bridge's cantata, "The Forging of the Anchor," at the Baptist Temple, at the yearly concert given by this church. The first two weeks in April he will be in the West.
59The fact that Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon teach together is a matter of special interest to pupils; both having studied with the same masters, their method of teaching is identical, and when Mr. Witherspoon is out of town filling concert engagements his lessons are given by his wife, thereby avoiding any interruption in the pupil's course of study. They are now giving over sixty lessons a week, and their studio, at 571 Park avenue, is a scene of constant activity.
61A SERRANO PUPIL.—Miss Rosemarie Campbell, a pupil of Mr. and Mrs. de Serrano, of 323 East Fourteenth street, recently made a hit at Providence, R. I. The Apollo Club of that city gave "Aida" in concert form, and Miss Campbell sang the part of Amneris. The papers spoke of her as follows:
63Miss Campbell's rendition of the entire work assigned her was pure and sympathetic, even at times approaching grandeur.—Providence News.
65Miss Campbell, who made many friends here by her good singing in the summer opera season of last year, fulfilled all expectations by her excellent work in the part of Amneris.—Providence Journal.
67Karl Goldmark, it is reported, has nearly finished the score for his "Gotz von Berlichingen." No less a person than Haydn wrote some stage music to this drama of Goethe; Reichardt wrote some inserted pieces for it, and for "Clavigo," "Egmont," "Tasso" and "Faust." In 1787 Schultze wrote some inserted pieces for "Gotz." About twenty years ago Salvagri composed an "Egmont" opera; "Tasso" was taken by Donizetti, "Faust" by Spohr, Gounod, Boito and H. Zoellner. Naturally Goethe's vaudeville pieces were seized on by composers. "Claudine von Villa Bella" has been set to music eighteen times, including Reichardt, Franz Schubert and von Hochberg, and "Jery und Bactely" has been a text for composers from 1790 to 1875.
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