Scan 25
Musical Courier 1902-04-09: Vol 44 Iss 1150, 1902
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1BOSTON, Mass., April 6, 1902.
3A
5N interesting musical event of the past week was the concert of the Orchestral Club, George Longy conductor, at Chickering Hall, on the evening of April 1.
7This club is composed of amateur players from among the best social element in the city. Its active membership includes about sixty performers. A few musicians from the Symphony Orchestra complete the required list of instruments.
9The club has been under the able instruction of Mr. Longy, the eminent first oboe of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for three seasons now, until it plays with very little or no indication of amateur effort, its ensemble presenting good attack, precision, good intonation, splendid accent and good expression, there being a fine touch to the softer passages as well as elasticity and sonority in the forte playing. It is agreeable to see all the violins bow alike, a most important item, and to note the strict attention of the whole orchestra.
11Mr. Longy is by nature a conductor. His beat is quiet, but firm and plainly marked. He brings out the detail of the composition with splendid success. He gets repose, and marked contrasts into the playing and skillfully works up to the climax. More than that, he is possessed of temperament and has magnetism sufficient to arouse and control the best efforts of the players and secure the happiest results. His conducting is an object lesson in the proficiency of that difficult art.
13The program, a model of good judgment in the selection, was as follows: "Fantaisie sur des Chansons Russes," Rabaud; Adagio and Minuet, from Divertissement No. 2, Mozart; "Coppelia," ballad and Slave theme varied, Delibes; "Divertissement Espagnol," for orchestra and saxophone, Loeffler; Prelude "à L'Apres-midi d'un Faune," Debussy, and "Marche Heroique de Szabodi," Massenet. All of these numbers except the Delibes and Loeffler selections were played for the first time in America.
15The solos for violin, oboe, clarinet and flute in the "Coppelia" were remarkably well played.
17The saxophone obligato in Mr. Loeffler's piece was played by Mrs. R. J. Hall (to whom the work is dedicated) with so admirable an effect, both as regards an artistic rendering of the solos and the skillful handling of her instrument, that the audience were enthusiastic with applause and recalled the player, besides obliging the composer, who was present, to bow his acknowledgment, a compliment well deserved for the work is one of rare merit.
19Mrs. Morris Black sang some French songs with charming effect, displaying both passion and dramatic power. The audience was delighted with her singing and insisted upon an encore.
21I was really surprised to hear such admirable work, technically, from these non-professional players, and gratified as well in hearing every number played with due regard for its musical expression, an art that is well nigh lost to the superb organization that the munificence of Mr. Higginson has made a permanent fixture in our city.
23The second of the Eaton-Hadley Trio concerts occurred on the afternoon of April 3. The works performed were Beethoven's Trio in B flat major, op. 11, and Volkmann's Trio in B flat minor, op. 5.
25There was a good sized audience present that thoroughly enjoyed the concert, for the players gave an admirable interpretation of the two trios, clear and clean in the playing and expressive in the rendering.
27Last week the types made me speak of Mrs. Eaton's piano playing as possessing some execution, where it should have read fine execution.
29Leverett B. Merrill, the possessor of a splendid bass voice, sang a cavatina by Halevy and an aria by Gomez. Mr. Merrill has improved in a marked degree since I last heard him sing, a year or more ago, managing his voice now quite skillfully. He gained a well merited applause.
31A song cycle entitled "Florina," poems by Oliver Herford, from "Overheard in a Garden," set to music for four solo voices and piano by Arthur Whiting, was performed at the the small Chickering Hall on the afternoon of March 31. The soloists were Mrs. Alice B. Rice, Miss Adah C. Hussey, J. C. Bartlett and Arthur Beresford. Mrs. Jessie Downer-Eaton was the pianist.
33The music seems to lack a certain lightness of touch in its composition, although the singers exerted themselves to impart all the grace, brilliancy and humor it were possible for them to command.
35The solos were all nicely sung, if one excepts that for the bass, whose singing also in the concerted numbers was over heavy and not always tuneful.
37Miss Hussey, through whose enterprise the work was brought out here, anticipates giving it in conjunction with a miscellaneous program as an entertainment.
39The third and last concert of the Longy Club took place at Chickering Hall on the evening of March 31. The program was as follows: "Caprice on Danish Airs," for flute, oboe, clarinet and piano, Saint-Saëns; Trio for clarinet, 'cello and piano, op. 29, d'Indy; "Serenade," in E flat, for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons, Bird. Messrs. Schroeder, Brook, Lenom, Metzger, Helleberg, and Hein assisted. Owing to Mr. Debuchy's illness Mr. Gunzel played the first bassoon.
41The "Serenade," by Bird, the work that gained the Paderewski prize for chamber music compositions, was within the scope of the most conventional form of chamber music, and ran smoothly along upon simple lines, contrapuntally and otherwise.
43The middle movement of the d'Indy trio were original and charming at the same time. The first movement, however original it may be, was vague, and like the finale, protracted in its working out.
45The Saint-Saëns number was one of this author's polished musical structures that gave each instrument a good opportunity for display, if nothing of inspiration accompanied this opportunity.
47Mr. Gebhard has shown at these concerts true musicianly qualities in ensemble playing and displayed ample technical facility in overcoming the difficulties that the piano part must present in the higher grades of chamber music.
49It is to be hoped that the club finds something sufficiently encouraging in these concerts to warrant the giving another series during the coming season. The musical public should rally to the support of these exceptionally rare occasions.
51The Handel and Haydn Society closed its eighty-seventh season with a performance of Haydn's "Creation" at Symphony Hall on Easter Sunday evening. Emil Mollenhauer conducted and H. G. Tucker was organist. The orchestra was composed of players from the Boston Symphony Band.
53Mrs. Emma Juch and Miss Gertrude Miller divided the music of the soprano part. Ben Davies sang the tenor role and Joseph Baernstein the bass role.
55The chorus of the society was in its best form and sang splendidly.
57The effort of the society now is to raise funds sufficient to build a home of its own with a suitable hall for its rehearsals, with adjoining apartments for the comfort and convenience of its members. It is hoped by the society that its 100th anniversary in 1915 will find it thus happily located.
59It seems strange that among the many wealthy patrons of music in Boston there is not liberality and interest enough to at once subscribe the necessary amount to establish this time-honored and still active organization in a suitable structure, as a perpetual home, where it can
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