Scan 21
Musical Courier 1903-02-25: Vol 46 Iss 1196, 1903
54 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 22. See the scan on archive.org.
1of time, but who is intelligent enough to sing only light roles and to eschew Wagner.
3The "revivals" and "novelties" were of no moment. The scenery received some new coats of paint and the supers some new spears. What has the opera brought? Nothing, so far as the musical eye can detect! What have we missed? Everything!
5ROGER-MICLOS AND THE PRESS. MME. ROGER-MICLOS, who was highly praised by the press after her first concert in New York, breaks a lance with the music reporters over their "criticisms" of her recent recital in Mendelssohn Hall. Says Mme. Roger-Miclos in an interview:
7"In coming to America I did not claim to reveal the art of piano playing to a public accustomed to hearing Paderewski, Rosenthal, Bloomfield Zeisler and others, but I came rather to win appreciation for my individuality of interpretation that has been recognized in several countries. The American public has been most gracious toward me, and I am very grateful; but the critics are very severe here. I appreciate that it is impossible to satisfy everyone. My entire pretension is based upon the fact that I place artistic sincerity above all else, and I am a sincere artist who disdains resorting to easy tricks to make insincere effects.
9"I was taken to task severely for my playing of Chopin and Schumann, and that grieved me very much. Chopin and Schumann are the two geniuses whose works I believe I understand better than the other composers. I say believe, for who can affirm that he has the true tradition of these men? Even composers themselves are not always of the same mind about their own works. Rubinstein, that Titan of pianists, was extremely variable in his interpretations; Saint-Saëns one day conducts his compositions in a manner of which he heartily will disapprove the next, and like examples are innumerable.
11"What then is the interpreting artist to do? He or she has but to respect the broad meanings indicated by the composer. To play loudly what is marked to be played softly, in a word, to invert the composer's explicit directions, seems to be blame-worthy. Yet certain pianists, and among them some very notable ones, do this and make their effects in this manner.
13"Of all this I disapprove decidedly. Yet the player may read between the lines, if I may use the expression, of a work, and by means of one's own individuality complete the author's directions and give his meaning musical life. I am soon to give my second recital here, and I can only hope to eradicate the unfavorable criticism precipitated by my playing the other day. If I can please the public and the critics as much as I did upon my début here at the Waldorf-Astoria, I shall be very happy indeed."
15Had Mme. Roger-Miclos been in this country a little while longer she would not have expressed surprise at the inconsistency of the New York daily newspaper music reporters. These gentlemen can turn a mental and musical somersault with the most astounding agility. Natives of New York have long ago ceased to wonder at these men, but of course foreigners are not expected to know. However, the law of cause and effect is everywhere the same.
17Apropos, has Mme. Roger-Miclos yet engaged a program annotator for her next recital?
19THERESE MALTEN, an eminent singer of Wagner roles, is to retire from the Dresden Opera. Mme. Malten is only forty-eight years old. This shatters all operatic traditions. Mme. Malten might have looked forward to further useful service for the next forty-five years or so. There is Lilli Lehmann, for instance.
21IT seems that after all Frank Van der Stucken is not an available candidate for the post of conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. When the rumor first became current that Mr. Van der Stucken would leave Cincinnati, THE MUSICAL COURIER instructed its representative there to sift the matter thoroughly and to make a full and detailed report of any and all steps that had been taken by Mr. Van der Stucken, and by the trustees of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. This report we append herewith:
23Mr. van der Stucken, director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, who also has been identified with the College of Music in that city for several years, rather astonished his friends and set them to guessing, when last week he requested the board of trustees of the college to be relieved of his teaching duties at the close of the present academic year. Mr. van der Stucken himself is authority for the statement that it means nothing more than a desire on his part to relieve himself of a burden which, with his other duties, was overtaxing his energies. The request came as a duty which he owed to himself and his family. A few years ago when Mr. van der Stucken renewed his contract with the Orchestra Association he resigned as dean of the College of Music faculty and its musical director, to devote all his time to the orchestra and composition. All that time it was his determination to sever all connection of active duties in the College of Music, and it was only owing to the extraordinary pressure that was brought to bear upon him (both from the board of trustees and the college faculty) that he finally consented to retain the teaching of the orchestra, chorus and opera classes, to which he had devoted his best time and strength, and which by his efforts had been raised to a high standard of excellence. What Mr. van der Stucken has done in these lines for the College of Music can hardly be overestimated. In fact it would be difficult to find another parallel of such results in so short a time at any other educational institution of music. He made the college forces a feeder for the Symphony Orchestra—the supply from which he drew the youthful and vigorous men—the "young blood" which invigorates and inspires the older material. As a matter of fact several of the first and second violins in the Symphony Orchestra were trained by him at the college, and they are not among the least to follow his energetic baton. His success with the chorus and opera classes was equally marked. The operas which were presented under his training and direction in public approached the standard of professional merit.
25In all this work Mr. van der Stucken undertook not only the general direction but every preparatory detail that he deemed necessary for reaching artistic results. It is this detail that became too heavy a burden on him, and it is no wonder to those who understood the situation that he asked to be relieved. The board of trustees gave their consent with great reluctance. Aside from the fact that the college work was becoming too onerous, Mr. van der Stucken has more and more been devoting himself to composition of last year. The success of his symphonic poems, "William Ratcliffe" and "Pax Triumphans," both in this country and Europe, naturally had a stimulating influence upon him to increase his labors in that direction. Last year the municipality of Antwerp honored him with a commission to write a composition for their jubilee celebration. He accepted it, but on account of his arduous duties, increased by the present preparation for the College of Music's Silver Jubilee, was obliged recently to cable his regrets at not being able to carry out his agreement. But while Mr. van der Stucken will no longer be actively connected with the College of Music, there is not the slightest foundation for the supposition that he might be induced to request a release from his present contract with the Orchestra Association, with a view of accepting the directorship of a permanent orchestra in New York or anywhere else. Musical Cincinnati is attached to Mr. van der Stucken, and Mr. van der Stucken has learned to love Cincinnati. He has trained an orchestra in this city which will vie with the best in the country. Whatever the situation in New York or elsewhere may suggest to secure a man of such vast energies and ability as Mr. van der Stucken to solve the problem of a permanent orchestra, Cincinnati will be tenacious of him and continue her appreciation of his labors.
27This puts an entirely different complexion on the matter than had been reported by the New York dailies. THE MUSICAL COURIER's account is authentic because it is based on a personal interview with Mr. Van der Stucken. With regret one must contemplate what might have been New York's gain. A man of Mr. Van der Stucken's stamp is needed here. It seems, too, that he is needed in Cincinnati. Mr. Van der Stucken has passed us by. Perhaps we deserve it.
29A CERTAIN tenor at the Metropolitan Opera House, says the New York Sun, uses his brother as his valet. Somebody should use that tenor as a door mat.
31Some Facts About Augusta Holmes.
33THE Paris correspondent of London Truth has unearthed some very interesting facts about the late gifted composer, Augusta Holmes. The writer says:
35"She at one time took concert rooms and fashionable drawing rooms, aye, and artists' studios, by storm as a beautiful prodigy. Her portrait, in a painting by Henri Regnault, had the same effect on those who went to see it at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. It was his Prix de Rome picture. He represented her as the Ocean Divinity Thetis presenting to Achilles the arms forged by Vulcan. One saw that the painter had fallen in love with her to the transfiguring pitch. He would have gladly married her had his father consented.
37"She certainly had beauty and musical talent. But she lost herself in trying to shine simultaneously as a beautiful person in society and the gilded Bohemia to which she belonged, and as a musical genius. No artist can be ever great who attempts to make a mark otherwise than by his art. The muse deserts the painter, sculptor, composer, author, actor, actress, who seeks to persevere, save on a strictly professional footing, in luxurious drawing rooms. Rosa Bonheur well understood this, and never lent herself to the attempts of wealthy lion hunters to exhibit her.
39"Augusta Holmes never forgot that her mother claimed descent from the MacGregors and O'Briens of Thomond. She set up at the outset to be a person who had ancestors. No doubt she had, but the mistake lay in thinking them, socially speaking, a feather in her cap. Still, they might have been an advantage had the Second Empire maintained its position.
41"Wagner in the sixties burned incense before Augusta Holmes. Her Wagnerite friends expected that he would bear her off as his bride to Germany, and believed they were betrothed. The few survivors believe so still. He probably saw in Madame Bülow's French brother-in-law the coming man of the Second Empire, destined to supersede Rouher as vice emperor, and in her a first rate business helpmate, who would drive hard bargains with publishers and attend better than any one else to his money affairs. However this may be, Wagner disappeared from the circle of Augusta Holmes, in whom he had seen a young Aurora with a splendid future in view. His influence on her compositions cannot be overlooked.
43"Some scandal was aroused when the city of Paris gave Augusta Holmes 300,000 francs out of the 1889 exposition fund for her cantata. The state of her health, it is here recorded, prevented her from accepting a rich offer to direct an orchestra at the Chicago Exposition of 1893."
45Jenny Osborn's Engagements.
47MISS JENNY OSBORN, the Chicago soprano, is engaged to sing at the following cities: March 3, Music Hall, Chicago; March 6 and 7, Thomas Orchestra, Chicago; March 23, Apollo Club, Chicago; March 30, Omaha, Neb.; March 31, Sioux City, Ia.; April 2, Madison, Wis.; in "Elijah," April 5, George Hamlin's Sunday concert, Chicago. After April 5 Miss Osborn is engaged for festival work with the Thomas Orchestra until end of May. Some of the engagements already filled by the soprano are: Chicago, Harmonic Association, "Messiah," December 22 and 28; Chicago, Apollo Club, "Messiah," December 25; Milwaukee, Arion Club, "Messiah," December 30; Waverly, Mo., January 20; Keokuk, Ia., January 21; Quincy, Ill., January 22; St. Louis, Mo., February 3; Evanston, Ill., February 3; Evanston, Ill., February 19; Morgantown, W. Va., February 24.
49Miss Osborn is under the management of Dunstan Collins, who finds no trouble in booking this popular soprano.
51Sacrilege in the Backwoods.
53MME. FRITZI SCHEFF is skimming cream from the concert game before she goes into comic opera. Last week she sang in Buffalo, but the inland critic was not completely charmed. This is what he writes in a Buffalo paper: "Mme. Fritzl Scheff trusted to her good looks, beautiful gown, her warm fur coat and her alluring smiles to do much for her in the admiration of the house. Her voice is of especially brilliant quality in the head register; in the lowest her tones lack distinction and are entirely subservient to the words, especially in the English text. The effect is not always pleasant." How dare that rude man dislike anything that comes from the Metropolitan Opera House of New York?
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