Scan 27
Musical Courier 1902-04-09: Vol 44 Iss 1150, 1902
80 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1St. Louis, April 5, 1902.
3In some respects the most important musical organization in St. Louis has been the Choral Symphony Society, a combination of oratorio chorus and symphony orchestra. The society was organized a number of years ago, and conducted by one Joseph Otten, at present a resident of Pittsburgh, and actively engaged there in musical matters. Mr. Otten was a rare combination of musical ability and business sense. He was a good organizer, and was very largely responsible for the being and perpetuity of the Choral Symphony Society. His skill as a conductor is frequently called into question in these days by those who are inclined to believe that the new is always better than the old, but be that as it may, the Choral Symphony Society lived for about fifteen years under his guidance. Four years ago, after he had been superseded by Alfred Ernst, the present conductor, the society nearly went out of business, but three years ago, in consequence of the introduction of some business methods in its management, it took on new life and more than doubled its patronage. During the last two years its affairs have been managed by a board of management of forty ladies and gentlemen prominent in society and business, but entirely unskilled and untrained in the methods necessary to make such enterprises a success. As a consequence, the society is again threatened with dissolution. The Globe-Democrat of Friday, April 4, contained the following remarks on the subject:
5"A special 'benefit' concert is announced for May 2, the proceeds of which will apply on the deficit for the past season. The $10,000 guarantee fund is still about $2,000 short, and the bank is carrying the society's notes for that amount on the personal indorsement of a few of the guarantors.
7"Six thousand dollars or more is required to meet the deficit for the season just closed. St. Louis tries to maintain a first-class orchestra and chorus on about $20,000 annually. A few wealthy St. Louisans provide a guarantee fund of $10,000; the balance of the $20,000 is aimed to be raised by the sale of seats for the concerts. The men who have been meeting the deficit each year are naturally getting tired of doing so when there is so little public interest in the enterprise. At the present time the guarantee fund lacks something like $3,000 of reaching the required amount, and the seat sales for the season have fallen short in an equal or greater amount. It has been announced that unless 200 men will subscribe $100 each to meet the deficit and provide a fund for the coming year the society will disband. A guarantee fund is necessary, but what the society most needs is a big list of subscribers for seats.
9"The society has made little progress for two years, although the fixed and floating population of the city has increased and other musical and amusement enterprises have prospered. The expenses of the Choral Symphony Society are greater than before and the receipts have not grown proportionately. Ten concerts were given the past season. It is the testimony of the secretary that not to exceed 2,500 different individuals, all told, among the city's entire 600,000 people, heard one or more of these concerts. There have been concerts when not more than twenty-five people in addition to those holding season seats attended as paying patrons; and some holders of season seats have absented themselves from nearly every concert.
11"One explanation of this deplorable apathy is that the programs have not always appealed to the public; and the soloists engaged, while paid very liberal fees, have frequently been disappointments, inferior in ability and accomplishments to many local musicians. People have gone away from some of these concerts bored, and have not gone again. The orchestra has often played with chilling indifference, because the instrumentalists themselves were not interested in the works being performed, and the chorus has occasionally been apathetic for the same reason.
13"Another thing that is recommended to the management's consideration is the employment of local artists when that can be done without detriment, artistic and financial, to the concerts. If the past season has proven anything more conclusively than another, it is the superiority of St. Louis talent to much of that imported. The Choral Symphony Society is a St. Louis institution and it should encourage St. Louis artists whenever possible. That is not only good ethics, but it is good business. The local artists not only have talent but friends, and that means an increased interest in the concerts. The best obtainable artists from elsewhere should be engaged, and none engaged merely on the say-so of the artists' managers, as seems to have been done in more than one instance the past season; but home talent should be encouraged, not neglected.
15"It would be a good thing, also, if the instrumentalists constituting the orchestra were to revise their attitude and regard themselves more as artists having the musical welfare of St. Louis at heart, taking advantage of every opportunity to further that welfare and to improve their own performance, rather than as mere musical mechanics, which too many of them are now content to do."
17The season closed with the performance of "St. Paul," the solo parts being taken by Mrs. Marie Kunkel-Zimmerman, soprano; Mrs. Lawrence O. Weakly, contralto; Dr. Ion Jackson, tenor, and Homer Moore, baritone, and Charles Galloway assisted the chorus as organist. The attendance was fair and the performance, as a whole, creditable. However, both the audience and the performers seemed somewhat depressed, possibly by the unfavorable outlook.
19Theodore Thomas and the Chicago Orchestra have just given the last of a series of six concerts during the present season in groups of two, the first visit having taken place in November and the second early in March. The attendance seems to warrant the expectation that Mr. Thomas will return next season for another series of concerts, and it is hoped that his visits will be regular occurrences in the future. The following are the two programs just performed:
21FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 4.
22Marche Slave, op. 31……………………………………………..Tschaikowsky
23Overture, Tannhäuser…………………………………………..Wagner
24Morceau Symphonique, from Redemption…………………Franck
25Invitation to the Dance…………………………………………Weber
26Adapted for orchestra by Felix Weingartner.
27Suite, Peer Gynt, No. 1…………………………………………..Grieg
28Morning, Asa's Death, Anita's Dance, In the Hall of the Mountain King.
29Symphonique Poem, Phaeton………………………………….Saint-Saëns
30Largo…………………………………………………………………..Händel
31Mr. Kramer, orchestra and organ.
32Scherzo, Midsummer Night's Dream………………………….Mendelssohn
33Damnation of Faust……………………………………………….Berlioz
34Invocation.
35Minuet of the Will-o'-the-Wisps.
36Dance of the Sylphs.
37March, Rakoczy.
39SATURDAY, APRIL 5.
40Suite No. 3, D major……………………………………………..Bach
41Overture, Air, Gavotte, Bourée, Gigue.
42Symphony No. 6, Pastoral, F major, op. 68…………………Beethoven
43Concerto for violin, No. 1, G minor, op. 26…………………..Bruch
44Parsifal………………………………………………………..Wagner
45Good Friday Spell.
46Transformation Scene and Glorification.
47Overture, 1842…………………………………………………Tschaikowsky
48Orchestra and organ.
49Wilhelm Middelschulte, of Chicago, at the organ.
51The Castle Square Opera Company has been playing for the last few weeks to large audiences and considerable enthusiasm. Probably the most popular singer in the company is the well-known soprano, Miss Adelaide Norwood. Joseph Sheehan, tenor, is a close second, but if Winnfred Goff, with his fine voice and remarkable art, had been either a prima donna or a primo tenore, he would head the list. When Mr. Savage outgrows his idea, probably learned partly from the real estate business and partly from the Bible, that operatic artists are dust of the earth and realizes that the breath of life and the spirit of music or other principal ingredients, and when he changes his managerial methods so that they are not constantly worked to death. English opera under his direction will take a great stride upward in excellence and, at this longitude, in patronage. Among the operas produced this season are "Aida," "Trovatore," "La Bohême," "Martha," "Lohengrin" and "Faust."
53Madame Nordica, assisted by Mrs. Katharine Fisk, contralto, and E. Romayne Simmons, accompanist, will give an operatic recital in the Odeon Thursday evening, April 10. The following is the program to be performed:
54Air, Angels Ever Bright and Fair, Theodore…………………Händel one of two readings
55Air, Angels Ever Bright and Fair, Theodore…………………..Händel one of two readings
56Mme. Lillian Nordica.
57Air, Che Faro Senza Eurydice, Orpheus…………………….Gluck
58Mrs. Katharine Fisk.
59Canzone, Voi, Che Sapete, Figaro……………………………Mozart
60Madame Nordica.
61Recitative and air, Ah, Perdido……………………………….Beethoven
62Madame Nordica.
63Fides' air, Oh, My Son, Prophet……………………………Meyerbeer
64Mrs. Fisk.
65Polonaise, Mignon……………………………………………..Thomas
66Madame Nordica.
67Elsa's Dream, Lohengrin………………………………………Wagner
68Madame Nordica.
69Invocation to Love, Samson and Delilah…………………..Saint-Saëns
70Hungarian Aria……………………………………………….Mrs. Fisk
71Erkel
72The Sextet, Lucia……………………………………………..Donizetti
73Madame Nordica. one of two readings
74(no line here) one of two readings
75Madame Nordica, Mrs. Fisk and Messrs. George Carrie, James Rohan, Homer Moore and Jas. G. Stanley.
77At Vigevano, where the composer Cagnoni was for some years capellmeister at the cathedral, it is intended to produce a posthumous work by him, named "King Lear." His best known operas are "Don Bucefalo" and "Michele Perrine."
79The Château d'Eu of Paris will abandon drama and melodrama, and devote itself to a "special line which will attract the fashionable public." An artistic personage, name not revealed, will endeavor with the aid of powerful friends "to give to this theatre a new impulse in an art which is dear to it, and has won it so many successes still remembered by all." Its last performances were the "Götterdämmerung" and "Tristan."
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