Scan 24
Musical Courier 1902-05-28: Vol 44 Iss 1157, 1902
47 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 25. See the scan on archive.org.
1would be seen that little can be done by improving the servant while the masters remained unimproved.
3And I concur most heartily in his dicta on the subject of "Patriotism." His ire is particularly aroused at the patriotic blather, "our country, right or wrong." Justice for him is not merely geographical. This chapter might be read with special benefit by those Americans who see the Boer mote in their British brother's eye, yet fail to detect the Philippine beam in their own.
5Du reste, there are variations on many themes, and the coda of this noble career is summed up in the following significant phrase: "Of late years the consciousness that without origin or cause infinite space has ever existed and must exist, produces in me a feeling from which I shrink." With this stately harmony the lifework of Herbert Spencer closes, though it must not be construed, as surely it will by our religionist brethren, into a confession of intellectual doubt. Mr. Spencer was eighty-two years of age last April. His is the attitude of the brave thinker, whose bravely is nevertheless appalled and attenuated by the ghastly—the word is Thomas Hardy's—infinity of space. For the lame minded, remarked Thomas Huxley, are the crutches of religion. There is little fear of Herbert Spencer indulging in a conventional deathbed repentance, unless, as the wicked Voltaire said of a brother philosopher, the sacraments are "administered by main force."
7In the late 70's Gustave Flaubert wrote to Guy de Maupassant: "Do you read the works of Herbert Spencer? That is a man, and a real Positivist. A rare thing in France, whatever people say." This from a countryman of Comte is startling.
9Nietzsche in 1887 wrote his "Genealogy of Morals." In it I found these sentences: "Our socialists are décadents; Herbert Spencer, however, is also a décadent—he sees something desirable in the triumph of altruism. * * * One recollects what Huxley has reproached Spencer for—his administrative Nihilism'; it is a question, however, about more than administration!"
11Now that the devil is decreed dead by the recent Presbyterian council in this city and the Pope is no longer anti-Christ, may we not hope for more meat and drink in Dr. Van Dyke's fiction, a fiction hitherto fit for babes at the breast? Infants are to broil in hell no longer, so let us have richer stuff in Presbyterian fiction—also more art!
13The cry of the Reverend Golf—there's a sporting name for a baby boiling Christian—at the council was rather sad. His was a dissenting voice, the only one except a spiritual cannibal from the West. "It is the beginning of the end," he shouted, employing a phrase probably originated by Eve in Eden when she pulled the hairy tip of Adam's tail. And Brother Golf is right. The Presbyterian Church, with its revised Westminster Confession, has been literally Episcopalized.
15In his most brilliant of studies, "The Anatomy of Negation," Edgar Saltus wrote: "Muhammad was a well intentioned visionary, afflicted with what is known to pathology as hysteria muscularis—the only disease that ever founded a religion." This quotation is not apropos des bottes. I recommend its consideration to several of my pious friends.
17"Sforzando," of the London Morning Leader, has gone on the warpath; about Richard Strauss, of course, his latest idol. Some criticisms on the "Don Juan" fantasia have annoyed "Sforzando." He writes: "I need hardly tell my readers that Richard Strauss is the one living composer of importance. He is the natural outcome of Berlioz and Liszt, on one side, and of Wagner, on the other, and yet he is an imitator of none of his predecessors. That he is a genius his early symphonic poem, 'Don Juan,' performed at the Queen's Hall, sufficiently proves. No composer has been his equal in mastery of the modern orchestra. His technical cleverness, however, dazzles some critics so that they cannot see Strauss the tone poet. In the old days Wagner, of 'Tristan,' had the same effect. But I was surprised to read in my program book on Saturday that 'as a composer Strauss is still sub judice.' It is to be hoped that the judge who compiles the Queen's Hall 'books' will soon deliver his verdict. Europe anxiously awaits it."
19"Still more curious is a criticism in the London Daily Telegraph. I hope I am not doing Joseph Bennett an injustice when I say I detect his voice. He does not propose to treat 'Don Juan' very seriously because, 'When a man writes a fantasia of any kind he is protected from criticism on the score of form, and sheltered by absolute freedom of idea and treatment. He may do what he pleases, and what he pleases is seldom of much importance.' The fantasia, the critic thinks, has no connection with Lenau's poem, on which it is based, but 'as music simply, is not without flashes of beauty, but mainly offers us what is eccentric, extravagant and unmeaning.' With that comprehensive damnation the gentle critic complacently dismisses a work of clear genius."
21"The mistake the old-fashioned critic makes in judging Strauss' music is the supposition that because it illustrates an emotional subject it is therefore formless as music. The old forms of music are not sufficiently elastic for Strauss' needs, but none the less his music has form. Lenau's Don Juan is an egoist in search of the perfect woman. He conducts his search in a practical and experimental manner; but being a sensualist, he never finds what he sets out to seek, and, disgusted with life, commits suicide in effect. Strauss is no realist. He has merely taken these broad emotional or psychological phases of his subject for musical illustration—the ardor of Don Juan in his search; the charm of woman; spiritual death, the price of sensual idealism. In illustration of the first phase we have four subjects, the last of which is (I take it) Don Juan's need for love; then we come to the 'charm of woman,' which is developed at length, and when a climax is reached the composer returns to his first group of themes and elaborates them. So far, the musical form has much in common with the old symphony or sonata form: a first subject (consisting of several themes), leading to a second subject, and then to a free fantasia or development section. Practically that is the end of a movement, but as the fantasia is continuous we are carried to the third phase of the poem. A new subject is introduced, which is subsequently woven up with the theme representing the need of love, and is used as an accompaniment to another love melody. The
23NOTICE.
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26we have a warning of spiritual death given out by the horns. To this succeeds Don Juan's disappointment in life, and from that point to the end of the composition Strauss has written a kind of recapitulation of all his themes, and develops and treats them in a free fantasia. The form is elastic, but by no means anarchic. Practically the work is in free symphony form, only in two movements, which the composer has made continuous."
28"Staccato," the critic of the London Star, thus hits off the great conductor: "He gesticulates but little, comparatively. He stands erect and seemingly aloof from his men and his music, and his movements have a languorous feline grace which is strangely at variance with the tense nervous energy he instills into the players under him. He produces climaxes of overwhelming power which are strangely exciting; but it is not sledge hammer strength, nor is it the strength of intense intellectual absorption. It is the strength of swift and subtle emotion, and he may be compared to nothing so aptly as a finely tempered blade of steel, so flexible are the expression and the rhythm of his readings. And yet the flexibility never suggests flabbiness."
30RECITAL BY HOEGSBRO'S PUPIL.
31ILLIAN SCHUBITZ, a fourteen year old pupil of Miss Inga Hoegsbro, gave a recital at the Hoegsbro studio in Carnegie Hall last Saturday afternoon. Miss Hoegsbro, herself an accomplished pianist, has presented other youthful pupils at recitals this year. One of them, Mabel Besthoff, is only six years old—a genuine prodigy. The other, Deborah Prokesch, is a girl ten years old and a performer of marked talent. Miss Schubitz, who gave the recital last Saturday afternoon, has aroused much interest in her career. Her program contained a number of very beautiful works:
32Musette …………………………………………………….Bach
33Menuet and Trio …………………………………………Bach
34Hunting Song ……………………………………………..Heller
35Schmetterling …………………………………………….Grieg
36Sonatina (allegro and rondo) ……………………………F. Kuhlau
37Tanzlied ……………………………………………………Mendelssohn
38Slumber Song ……………………………………………Schumann
39Aragonaise (Le Cid) ………………………………………Massenet
40Lillian Schubitz
42There was not one hackneyed piece in the list. The girl is a player of uncommon gifts, and one who evidently has a good understanding of the music. Blessed with temperament, a beautiful touch and the capacity for study, why should she not make a name for herself? One can but marvel after hearing such works as those by Bach, Schumann and Kuhlau so interestingly performed by a mere child, and, while expressing wonder at such talent, the teacher's part in it all must not be overlooked.
44At one of the former recitals Miss Hoegsbro and Mrs. Therese Bömer de Schlittkrull, also a Danish pianist, performed Kuhlau's overture to "The Hill of the Fairies." Kuhlau, although born in Germany, did not make a reputation until he went to Copenhagen, and hence the Danish people claim him. In the overture to "The Hill of the Fairies" Kuhlau has incorporated the Danish national hymn. It is for orchestras, of course, and the piano arrangement is for four hands. The audience at the last recital at Miss Hoegsbro's went into ecstasies over the piece, and many requests were sent in for its performance at the recital last Saturday afternoon. The little pupil, Mabel Besthoff, added solos to the program for the afternoon, to the great delight of the listeners.
46Miss Hoegsbro will leave New York the middle of June and go to Bar Harbor, Me., for the summer. There she will teach in a number of wealthy families and give occasional recitals. She will reopen her studio in Carnegie Hall early in October.
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