Scan 29
Musical Courier 1903-01-28: Vol 46 Iss 1192, 1903
30 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 30. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHICAGO, January 26, 1903.
3THE following was the program of the latest Thomas concerts:
4Overture, Fingal's Cave………………………………………Mendelssohn
5Symphonic poem, Es waren zwei Königskinder (new)……..Volbach
6Concerto for Piano, A minor, op. 54………………………..Schumann
7Symphony No. 10, C major………………………………….Schubert
9It is interesting to compare audiences at the Thomas concerts, and to speculate on the causes that crowd certain days more than others. On Friday and Saturday of last week the Auditorium was filled to overflowing. No difficult matter this time to find the reason. The magnet was gifted Fanny Bloomfield Zeisler, Chicago's pet pianist. No foreign artist that has come here this season could boast such a large audience and such unbridled enthusiasm. When Madame Zeisler appeared on the stage for her number, Schumann's Concerto, a veritable storm of applause greeted her, and it seemed several minutes before the popular artist could stop bowing her acknowledgments. Thomas, who seldom directs the accompaniments to solo numbers, himself did honor to Madame Zeisler by presiding with the baton. Unless outward signs are very misleading the pianist was deeply moved at these evidences of the esteem in which she is held here, and her Chicago welcome probably meant more to her than any of the numerous triumphs which she has recently been winning abroad.
11To go into details about Madame Zeisler's playing is merely to repeat what the readers of THE MUSICAL COURIER—and they constitute the musical public of the world—have read an endless number of times. The significance of Madame Zeisler's playing has long ago been recognized and proclaimed, and her status as one of the great contemporary artists on the piano is firmly fixed and unanimously acknowledged. In a woman of Madame Zeisler's mental attainments progress would naturally be along intellectual lines, and so her playing has broadened and mellowed, and become more pronounced in balance and plasticity. There was apparent no lessening of the temperament which we used to admire in the impetuous Fanny Bloomfield. And she has left in Europe neither her technic nor her poetry. The cadenza of the first movement and the intricate passages in the finale were model specimens of flawless wrist and finger work. The audience recalled Madame Zeisler again and again after the concerto and finally she played an encore, Schumann's "Bird as Prophet."
13The other numbers on the program paled perceptibly as far as public interest was concerned. Madame Zeisler was the event of the concert and the climax.
15Mendelssohn's familiar overture was smoothly played, and the Schubert Symphony received a reverent and sympathetic reading. The Volbach poem was criticised in this paper last season on the occasion of its Berlin performance by Nikisch. Then the work was called "a well orchestrated combination of several saccharine themes, illustrating the oft told tale of 'Hero and Leander.'" I see no reason to say anything more about the work after its production here. It is a symphonic poem which Richard Strauss might have written at the age of fourteen.
17Thursday evening, January 29, Mrs. Zeisler will be heard at Music Hall in a recital. She plays a varied program, and the concert will no doubt attract an unusually large audience.
19Emma M. Schenk, a pupil of Dr. Ernest Jedliczka, of Berlin, has been engaged for the faculty of the Chicago Musical College. Miss Schenk studied several years in Berlin, and was well known in that city as a young artist of unusual ability. She played with success in several concerts before returning to America, and should repeat this favorable showing here. Next Tuesday evening Miss Schenk will preside at the piano when Kirk Towns, the baritone, makes his appearance with the Spiering Quartet.
21Emma Rossignol, soprano, is to fill the following important engagements: Chicago, recital, Music Hall, February 23; Boston, Steinert Hall, March 2, and New York city, Mendelssohn Hall, March 3. Manager Collins has also placed Miss Rossignol as soloist on the annual tour of the Thomas Orchestra, which begins March 30.
23Leon Marx, violinist, has been secured to give a recital at the home of Mrs. F. S. Johnson, Michigan avenue, on February 19.
25The road company of the Chicago Auditorium Conservatory School of Acting is now rehearsing for its annual tour. John Arthur Fraser's "Country Store" and "The Little Minister" will constitute the company's repertory. The company will open in Whiting, Ind., February 2, and will play two night engagements during a major portion of the route.
27Monday evening, February 9, the Apollo Musical Club will sing Haydn's oratorio, "The Creation," and Mendelssohn's "Hymn of Praise" in the Auditorium. This will be the fourth concert of the season. The soloists will be Miss Shanna Cumming, of New York, who has achieved a wide reputation as a concert and oratorio singer. Mrs. Grace Whistler Misick, the contralto, often heard in Chicago, is another local favorite. Holmes Cowper, a popular lyric tenor, and Dr. Carl Dufft, of New York, will complete the quartet. Dr. Dufft has few equals in the oratorio field. His voice is of exceptional richness.
29An interesting program, devoted to Verdi, was given Saturday evening, January 24, at Steinway Hall, by pupils of Signor Marescalchi. One of the features of the evening
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