Scan 17
Musical Courier 1902-08-27: Vol 45 Iss 1170, 1902
78 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 18. See the scan on archive.org.
1vance from the way the players tuned their instruments and preluded.
3Liszt is supposed to have said of von Bülow that he was a schoolmaster, but an eminent one. He might have employed some other adjective much nearer the mark—but then, who wanted to provoke the belligerent Hans!
5Once while writing for the Berliner Feuerspritzer—what a heavenly title for a magazine!—he complained that the noise and fire at the end of Mozart's "Don Juan" had been exaggerated so that one could not hear the music; and he asks wittingly if Don Juan could not kindly be sent to hell with just a little less racket. In the same article he had the critical astuteness to declare that "Don Juan" was an opera of the future. Time has almost proved this.
7Of the Italian ballet master Paul Taglioni, who was active at the Berlin Opera House, von Bülow wrote that he composed polyphonic symphonies for the legs; in these he employed syncopations so eagerly that no admirer of Schumann had need to blush at them—that is, the syncopations, of course. Also that his groups moved with a precision which rivaled a military parade or a Verdi chorus!
9In 1882 von Bülow opens an article with this: "In Rome one sees the Pope when one wishes; in Bayreuth when one may." Richard had the "gentle art of making enemies" at his fingers' ends, had he not?
11In this volume of essays there is also printed the famous speech that von Bülow made at Berlin on the occasion of his fiftieth Philharmonic concert, when he took the liberty of dedicating Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony to Bismarck; he called the latter the "Beethoven of German politics." And how he derided the "words of insanity—liberté, égalité, fraternité"—by offering the contrasting "Cavalry, Infantry, Artillery" as a substitute.
13The work closes with some aphorisms. There are no easy compositions, wrote von Bülow; they are all difficult.
15He accuses Schumann of having confounded the boundaries of piano and orchestral music in his, eternal striving after the romantic. And he credits Chopin—at once a classic and a romantic—with having defined these dividing lines once more.
17Bach is the triple extract of music, he said. If all masterpieces were to be destroyed and only the "Wohltemperirte Clavier" remained we could construct a new literature of music on it. The "Wohltemperirte Clavier" is the Old Testament, the Beethoven Sonata is the new one. And we must believe in both.
19Finally, Bach is the real musician of the future because he will still be admired when most others are forgotten.
21Good stories about Vladimir de Pachmann are still to be had on application to the proper persons. One excellent specimen illustrative of his supreme modesty is told by a pianist who was on the spot. Several seasons ago Pachmann, Dohnanyi, Busoni and Rosenthal foregathered in London, and after the accustomed cloudy coquetries of all piano players when they meet, Dohnanyi began the evening with Beethoven, Busoni followed with Bach, then Rosenthal thundered and lightened, and the little Vladimir ended with a Liszt study marvelous in its finesse. When asked his opinion of the various performances his reply was brief to the point of epigram:
23"Dohnanyi plays like a youth, healthy, broad; Busoni plays Bach like a man, intellectually; Rosenthal plays swiftly——"
25"And Pachmann?" interpolates a foolish one.
27"And Pachmann, he is more youthful than Dohnanyi, more intellectual than Busoni, plays swifter than Rosenthal, and—he also plays like Pachmann."
29The last line is the gem of these definitions.
31The other story is not so nice. It suggests a side of the little man best forgotten. After Godowsky had so successfully stirred up Berlin with his Chopin playing a banquet was tendered him, during the course of which Pachmann made a speech. It was a masterpiece. French, English, German, Polish and Russian were the tongues levied upon by this supple linguist, who finally proposed the toast of "Leop" Godowsky. Thereupon cheers. Godowsky was called by Pachmann, the God, the Christ, the Jupiter, the ne plus ultra, the second Chopin of pianists, and, fatigued and triumphant, the toastmaster fell back in his chair, not forgetting, however, to whisper to his nearest neighbor: "But I play better anyhow!"
33The anecdote may not be profoundly truthful, yet it bears some characteristic hall marks.
35John Philip Sousa is a wit. No man could be so rhythmic without wit. The other day at Atlantic City he met Louis Blumenberg—who was playing solo 'cello that week at the Sousa concerts—and, Sousa being about to twirl ball for the band baseball club, the 'cellist asked him if he did not think that Louis Blumenberg would make a fine shortstop.
37"A better double stop," replied the author of "The Fifth String." And that night Louis played for revenge Davidoff's "At the Spring" throughout in octaves.
39THE PARIS CONSERVATOIRE.*
41A Much Abused Musical Institution Which Has Made Many Mistakes.
43NO art institution in Paris comes in for so much abuse by its enemies as the Conservatoire, especially that part of it which is devoted to the training of musicians. Real talent, its opponents say, is overlooked and mediocrity rewarded.
45Under every director there have always been instances in which mediocre pupils were rewarded over the heads of persons who afterward proved themselves before the whole world to be gifted as was none of their rivals in the conservatory. An historic instance of this misdirected justice is Giuseppe Verdi, who was sent away from the Milan Conservatory of Music as a hopelessly unpromising pupil. So the mistakes that the Paris Conservatoire makes in this respect are rather the fault of all conservatories.
47All of the directors of the Conservatoire, since it was founded, have made some mistake of this kind. Since the French institution was founded there have only six directors, and, with the exception of the two first in charge, they have all been men of some eminence. MM. Carrette and Perne, the first directors, were ordinary orchestral conductors and amounted to little, but Cherubini, the naturalized Florentine, was a composer of note. Fine as he was as a composer, however, he is said to have
49*This article is reprinted from a New York paper without credit as a complimentary response to the constant reproduction of musical items from this journal without ever giving to it the credit due. The article herewith reprinted did not originate with the daily paper from which it is herewith cribbed. We do not know the source.—Ed. M. C.
51been intolerable as a man. His pupil, Auber, said of him: "I know no character that is so much the same as his. He is always in a bad temper."
53Cherubini died in 1842 and Auber succeeded him. He remained in this post until 1871, when he died. If Cherubini had sent Berlioz away as a "useless scholar," the administration of Auber was not wholly free from objection. He was much beloved, but he saw to it that the juries favored his pet pupils, who were not always the most deserving; and he prevented Saint-Saëns from winning the Prix de Rome, which was expected to go to him.
55Saint-Saëns afterward revenged himself nobly on his enemy. From the first day he went to the Conservatoire he had gained the enmity of Auber. But his time came when a prize was offered for the best work founded on the legend of Prometheus Bound. Saint-Saëns sent in his composition under another name. Nobody praised so much the music of the unknown competitor as Auber and on his pressing recommendation the prize was awarded to Saint-Saëns. When Auber learned the trick that had been played on him he never forgave the trickster.
57Auber was succeeded by Ambroise Thomas, who remained at the head of the Conservatoire for more than twenty-five years. He was a paternal, kindly director, under whose rule the sittings of the jury were never dull, as the brightest men in France were usually the judges. Sometimes they were stormy, but a word from Alexandre Dumas, who was for years on the jury, usually was witty enough to turn the thoughts of everybody to something more agreeable.
59There were two men under Thomas whose presence on the jury was almost a guarantee of trouble. They were Eduard Thierry, director of the Théâtre Français, and Emile Perrin, his successor in the same post. The enmity of the two came from the fact that Thierry was an excellent speaker, while the other, so soon as he became in the least excited, began to stutter until it was quite impossible for him to be understood. Alexandre Dumas was the life of the jury, and was considered one of the best judges of talent, but was heartless in his decisions.
61"Look at young Hypolite," he would say. "He plays his scene very well indeed. It is a pity, however, that he is good for nothing."
63"How is that?" one of his associates would ask.
65"He's a magpie who whistles only the tune he has been taught, and at the end of a week he will begin to whistle that falsely. He won't be able to remember it long enough to whistle half of it in tune at the end of two weeks."
67Having thus disposed of the man who recited tragedy by rote, he would turn his attention to one of the girl competitors. One of his fellow jurymen, after she had recited a scene from "Phèdre," asked Dumas what his opinion was and what he thought it would be best for her to do.
69"The best thing for her," answered Dumas, "would be to give her a sewing machine."
71That phrase passed into the vocabulary of the Conservatoire. Whenever a girl student without talent comes before the judges now she is referred to always as "a sewing machine."
73Unluckily the Conservatoire today has no such wits on its juries as were found in the group that gathered there under Ambroise Thomas. The present director is Théodore Dubois, a composer of repute in his own country and a musician of talent. But he has no such personality as the noted men who preceded him.
75A three-act comic opera, "Der Seydlitz," is to have its first performance in Elberfeld. The book is by Persich and the music by Karl Gercke. The name sounds as though the opera is first cousin to a certain famous powder. In that case the work will go off with great boom.
77M. Vergnet, the celebrated Parisian vocal maestro, who has been engaged by Dr. Florence Ziegfeld to head the vocal faculty at the Chicago Musical College, passed through New York last week, en route from Paris to Chicago. The doctor is one of the most persevering and successful of the Western metropolis' musical workers.
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