Scan 17
Musical Courier 1902-05-14: Vol 44 Iss 1155, 1902
46 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 18. See the scan on archive.org.
1727 EMMA SPRECKELS BUILDING,
2SAN FRANCISCO, May 3, 1902.
4mUSIC is at a discount in San Francisco at the present writing, it being almost time for the annual flitting to the seaside. Still there are now and again a few good things, though they are mostly of the amateur sort and pupils' recital order. A splendid entertainment, though of the latter class, was the piano pupils' recital given at Sherman-Clay Hall, by the pupils of the California Conservatory of Music, last Tuesday evening. As usual, there was an immense audience, and the work was exceptionally good. The program, which I gave in my last week's letter, was of a very high order and executed as one has by experience learned to expect they will be at the hands of any of Mr. Bendix's pupils. Miss Lily Hansen and Miss Alice Toklas have both done beautiful work in the past and have been steadily climbing, till now they are to graduate with honors from the conservatory, and start life from a professional standpoint. Unfortunately I had but one program, the one I sent on in my last week's letter, so it would be difficult to name the participants, but it is unnecessary to enumerate, as the work is assured to success when it is placed upon a program by Mr. Bendix, and those who went expecting a great deal from a standard of the highest excellence were not disappointed. As the conservatory will ere long occupy its splendid new quarters there will be an opportunity for work of this description that has never been afforded it before, and the results will be beyond anything the school has accomplished before, particularly as the corps of teachers has been greatly increased to meet the rapidly increasing demand of a larger clientele.
6The Junior Saturday Club, of Sacramento, of whose work I have from time to time kept you informed, has branched out for itself in a manner never undertaken before, inasmuch as the members have, unaided, given their first public recital, all business and the entire management being transacted entirely by the "Juniors" themselves. It was a most creditable recital and was given to an audience of flatteringly large proportions. The young people had engaged Masonic Hall, and the decorations of flowers, in which the capital's lovely gardens abound, interspersed with ferns and various lovely greens, made the place a bower in which the musical débutantes made their first public bow. The Junior Saturday Club has grown from so modest a beginning to its present proportions that it really deserves more than a passing notice for the work accomplished. The work has been carried on at the houses of members previous to this and the recital just given assumes an importance in relation to this fact that should for its success win all possible encouragement, for these youngsters, whose ambition and "stick-to-it-iveness" have made for success. The program, which was well conceived and gotten up, went through without a break. Some of the more ambitious numbers were well treated, and the friends of the young performers sent many lovely floral tokens over the footlights. The program is so good I give it below:
7Essay, Junior Saturday Club and Its Work. Ethel Backrath.
8Trio, Dance of the Gnomes…………………………………………………Bear Gesina Shaden, Emma Newman and Mila Landis.
9Piano, Rigaudon (Holberg Suite)………………………………………Grieg Anna Thorp.
10Song, Could I?…………………………………………………………………..Tosti Duo, Dance Macabre………………………………………………………..Saint-Saëns Grace Foizey and Ethel McLaughlin.
11Piano, The Nightingale………………………………………………………..Liszt Bertha Leslie Genung.
12Song, In the Shade of the Palms………………………………………Stuart Charlotte Burns.
13Piano, Die Lorelei………………………………………………………..Liszt Olive Sheehan.
14Quartet, Funeral March (Sonata, op. 26)………………………..Beethoven Elizabeth Hanrahan, Mabel Peterson, Hazel Pritchard and Anna Thorp.
15Piano, The Juggleress………………………………………………………..Moszkowski Jane Leason.
16Song, Two Marionettes…………………………………………………….Cook Florence Grau.
17Mandolin, Mandolinata…………………………………………………….Singelee Helena Biewcner.
18Duo, Coronation March (Prophet)………………………………….Meyerbeer Helen Peterson and Alma Eldred. one of two readings
19Duo, Coronation March (Prophet)………………………………………Meyerbeer Helen Peterson and Alma Eldred. one of two readings
20Piano, Hark, Hark, the Lark!……………………………………………..Liszt Edith Trainor.
21Song, Lullaby of the Night…………………………………………………Brackett Mabel Peterson.
22Sparks………………………………………………………..Moszkowski Hazel Pritchard.
23Quartet, La Regata Veneziana………………………………………Liszt Hulda Engstrom, Susie van Horn, Lulu Lombard, Estelle Burns.
24The date of the recital was April 25.
26Invitations are out for a recital to be given by Miss Lida Benedict, assisted by Mary, Susan and Dorothy Pasmore, at the studio of H. B. Pasmore, 1424 Washington street, Wednesday, May 7, with a program that promises to be interesting. It reads as follows:
27Spring Song………………………………………………………..Mendelssohn Zuleika………………………………………………………..Mendelssohn New Love………………………………………………………..Mendelssohn Romance from Third Suite………………………………………Ries Woman's Love and Life……………………………………………..Schumann Trio in E flat, op. 1, No. 1………………………………………Beethoven Scene from Der Freischutz………………………………………Weber
28MRS. A. WEDMORE JONES.
30"Carmen" by the American School of Opera.
31BERKELEY LYCEUM was filled to the doors Tuesday evening, May 6, to hear the American School of Opera sing "Carmen." The performance was a success from start to finish. Miss Cecelia Quinn sang the title role. She is the possessor of a charming voice and considerable ability as an actress.
32Walter Wheatley's singing of Don José was so far above the average that it was a real treat. Mr. Wheatley has been engaged by the management of the Terrace Garden summer opera season as leading tenor. This young man will be heard of in the near future.
33Miss Zetti Kennedy was cast for Frasquita, and the part was certainly placed in good hands.
34Miss Marguerite Palmier was an ideal Michaela. Miss Freda Busing, Mercedes, was dashing and sang beautifully. Mr. Madison Smith looked and sang the role of Zuniga well. The Escamillo was in the hands of Andreas Schneider. The young man and his voice are so well known that it would be waste of space to comment. Other members of the cast were Harvey Merwin, Charles Hillman and H. L. Williams. The latter is a very versatile young man, can sing, act, manage and do almost anything.
35Mr. Williams is the secretary of the school.
37J.S.V.C. on O.F.
38Editor of The Musical Courier:
39In a recent number of your widely read journal, the veteran critic, Otto Floersheim, thinks it necessary to allude to me in a way which illustrates several things, which are, first, his capacity for being totally in the wrong; second, his colossal self-conceit; third, his gratuitous spleen, and fourth, his brevity of memory.
40The fact is simply this: My article upon Paderewski's "Manru" was written for a Western syndicate of papers, and appeared as soon as Mr. Floersheim's pronouncement. At the request of the editor of the COURIER I sent to that journal one of the carbon copies. He did me the honor to reproduce it in full, quite to my surprise. At the time I wrote it I had not read one word of Mr. Floersheim's article, nor did I read that production till ten days after my own was disposed of. The fact that I used the same anecdote as Mr. F. was a coincidence, and nothing else. Does Mr. F. really suppose that he is the only man who knows that story about Brahms? I was first told it by Theodore Bohlmann, in Cincinnati, two years ago, and afterward heard it from Moriz Rosenthal and from several others, besides which I have told it myself at least a dozen times at various places. That I chanced upon the same idea is nothing. When a hundred men in the world are all writing upon the same little subject, is it strange that similar ideas should arise in different minds? I commend to Mr. Floersheim's perusal the wise remarks of J. R. Lowell on literary plagiarism, to be found in his essay on Keats, and for musical plagiarism the clever remarks of Felix Weingartner.
41Can it be possible that Mr. F. after all these years of experience is so naive as to really believe that I or any one would deliberately copy an article of his, and that in the same journal within a week or two? He is so utterly mistaken that when I read his statements in future I shall certainly mix plenty of salt with them before swallowing. A man who shoots a mile from the target once may do it again. There is a good expression in the South, "Barking up the wrong tree."
42When, in hunting coons, a canine quadruped is very positive in his barking, and it is ascertained that he has selected the wrong tree, as the refuge of his prey, he loses cast as a coon catcher. As for Mr. Floersheim's sneer, "whoever he may be," I will give a few people who may be able to supply him with the information as to what personage the initials J. S. V. C. represent: Theodore Thomas, Frank van der Stucken, Walter Damrosch, Victor Herbert, B. J. Lang, W. H. Sherwood, Mme. Carrefio, Mme. Bloomfield-Zeisler, Mme. Rive-King, Miss Clara Baur, H. C. Eddy, G. E. Whiting, Marc A. Blumenberg, H. E. Krehbiel, Theodore Presser, A. L. Manchester, W. S. B. Mathews, M. Halstead and practically all the visiting instrumentalists and vocalists of America and Europe. In case these are not sufficient, I will furnish a few hundred more. Mr. Floersheim had a much clearer notion as to whom the initials J. S. V. C. stood for a few years back, when a composition of his was played by the Cincinnati orchestra. Then he showed a very commendable zeal to ascertain in what issue of the Commercial the verdict of J. S. V. C. might be found.
43This is positively refreshing. I have, like Mr. Floersheim, been writing musical criticism for a quarter of a century, and have been told a thousand times that I was almost culpably independent in my judgment, and possessed a style so personal and unique that it could be recognized whether the initials were signed or not. So that this entertains me as a new sensation.
44I have the honor to remain yours in excellent health and undampened spirits, J. S. V. C., which, being interpreted, is
45JOHN SMITH VAN CLEVE.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.