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Musical Courier 1903-06-24: Vol 46 Iss 1213, 1903
44 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1HOTEL CECIL, LONDON, June 9, 1903.
3LONDON is in the throes of a Richard Strauss storm. So far it has lasted a week, and for me this is a little too much of a good thing. It is not that the works of the greatest of living composers have ceased to interest me. This would be an admission of mental and musical poverty. But I think that five nights of music by one and the same composer is an unwise program.
5Perhaps you will point out Wagner and say that for a complete "Nibelungenring" cycle people will gladly spare at Bayreuth and elsewhere four successive nights without an objection, and without mental fatigue. But then in this case the production of a single musico-dramatic work is concerned; it is not a matter of music alone, and above all we listen to Wagner and not to Richard Strauss; the former, a genius, the latter, in the writer's estimation, only a talent of the highest grade, but not an absolute genius. At Bonn recently a Beethoven chamber music festival was held, at which all of that master's string quartets were performed on five successive days. Now I maintain that although Beethoven was unquestionably the greatest quartet writer the world has so far seen, such a program is inartistic.
7It is needless to reiterate also that Strauss is no Beethoven. In fact the writer fears that the hyper-admiration of which Richard Strauss is just now an object will prove a more or less ephemeral glory.
9But now to the Strauss Festival itself in London. The English capital usually follows in the wake of other musical centres. However, this time London is trying to take the lead. It is true the most important music festivals in Germany, the Netherhenish and the Tonkünstler meetings have likewise of late years been influenced by Richard Strauss, and their programs showed an unduly great preponderance of his works, which came near making them Strauss festivals. But the propaganda did not go the whole London length, nor did it assume the aspect of Strauss festivals. A reaction has already set in, as can be seen in both the programs of this year's Netherhenish and Bâle festivals. What explains and to a certain extent excuses their former hyper-cult of Richard Strauss is (in the case of the Musikverein) the fact that Richard Strauss, as the leading musician of Germany, was naturally and rightfully chosen president, and he made the utmost use of the opportunities thus given him. With the Netherhenish festivals, however, it has for three-quarters of a century, viz., ever since their inception, been the habit to secure the co-operation of the most important musicians of the time, in order to make their festival more attractive. Thus, composers like Mendelssohn, Liszt, Hiller, Reinecke and many others have conducted these festivals, and so did Richard Strauss at Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle and Düsseldorf. This year, however, at Aix-la-Chapelle Weingartner conducted, and at Bâle Dr. Hegar, the eminent Swiss composer, will be the leading spirit.
11So much for the history of music festivals in which Richard Strauss was concerned, but in which he always shared the honors of the conductorship with the respective local musikdirector and those of the program numbers with many other composers. It was left to London to get up a festival scheme exclusively devoted to the works of Richard Strauss. It could not have been done for mercenary purposes, for Richard Strauss, despite his hothouse renown as a composer, does not draw a crowd. In this respect he is as yet also unlike either Wagner or Beethoven. He has, however, some rich and influential friends, one of whom here in London is a multi-millionaire, whose hospitality Richard Strauss is just now enjoying. This Macenas, together with another one in Amsterdam (who is interested in the Amsterdam Orchestra and its conductor, Mengelberg), agreed to foot the bill by holding themselves liable for the payment of the deficit of the festival, which is growing to be a considerable one. The expense of bringing over and maintaining here an orchestra of 100 men is a very heavy one. While the receipts were comparatively insignificant, and all this despite the warfare that rages in the English press since last year regarding the merits of Richard Strauss' compositions, besides the tremendous preliminary puffing, the presence of the composer as the conductor of his own works, that of an excellent other conductor and a first class foreign orchestra such as London could never yet boast of. St. James' Hall was far from crowded even on the third day, when "Ein Heldenleben" was the much discussed chief attraction of the program, while it held only the usual number of deadheads on the two previous nights.
13Those who did attend, however, evinced a great amount of enthusiasm. It is impossible to believe that an audience of English people, who are known to be the most unmusical, as well as the most conservative (and at the same time the most naive in their musical tendencies), should suddenly, as by a divine revelation, become lovers of the music of Richard Strauss! Its intricacies must be beyond their powers of musical comprehension. It is only through the philosophy of the ugly that one can foster a taste for Strauss' extravagances. A few of the London critics have been courageous enough to acknowledge this fact, and notably the first of all the English dailies, the Times, stands up boldly for its convictions. The majority of the others, however, are afraid to be caught napping. Undoubtedly Richard Strauss is a great composer, the facile princeps among the living, which, however, is not saying a great deal. But Strauss has passed the zenith of his creative ability. He has mastered to such an extent the technic of composition that now the technic has mastered him. He is its slave and it runs away with him. His orchestral coloring is of a marvelous richness and variety, and his powers of construction are gigantic, but he revels in ugly as well as blatant lubrications, and his tendencies of musical expression frequently surpass the bounds of "the eternal fitness of things."
15I have only praise for the performances offered by the Amsterdam Orchestra, which superb body of artists seems to have made a specialty of Strauss' compositions. Mengelberg conducts them entirely from memory and placed the scores upon the rack only pro forma and out of sheer modesty, because the composer (whom, of course, he did not care to put into the shade) cannot dispense with the use of it. For the rest Mengelberg is a more spirited and also more graceful conductor than Richard Strauss, and he has an irresistible power over his orchestra.
17The Amsterdam Orchestra is, under Mengelberg, a superb body of artists. Richard Strauss, if not the greatest, is, after all, a good conductor, and the presence of the composer, when he is a good conductor, will, of course, always influence an orchestra to do its best. Yet what a difference in the performance of "Don Juan" as conducted by Mengelberg and the same work under Strauss' baton! Talk about your authoritative reading! Why the composer was "not in it" with the other interpreter. Besides this greater warmth and vivacity the orchestra also sounded better, for Mengelberg's fortes are round and sonorous, while Strauss likes and wants them obstreperous, crude and scratchy in the strings. Of individual performers in the orchestra I want to mention Mossel, the 'cellist, whose playing of the excessively difficult and bizarre solo part in "Don Quixote" was by far the best I ever heard. Also Zimmermann, who performed the homely, almost unmusical violin solo part which represents the hero's mate—a ground for divorce—in "Ein Heldenleben." was eminently finished and satisfying.
19Richard Strauss' wife has a soprano voice, small in volume and compass, but she interprets her husband's "Lieder" in the most intelligent and sympathetic style. Hence her success was deserved.
21Among the soloists of the week were Pugno, then Von zur Muehlen and our old friend Pachmann. The latter had a good audience, which, as usual, he amused more by his antics and speeches than through his piano playing.
23Foremost among the week's soloists stood Willy Burmester, with his second concert at St. James' Hall, and his participation in a mixed affair at the colossal Albert Hall, in which the receipts were no less than $75,000. Burmester's success here has been so pronounced in an artistic way that several offers were made to him to come to the United States next season. His numerous engagements all over Germany prevent the acceptance of any managerial propositions for the first half of the coming season, but it is not unlikely that this eminent artist will be heard on the other side of the Atlantic during the early part of the year 1904.
25He shone like a meteor at the Albert Hall, and it was wonderful how the tone of his noble Strad could be heard all over the vast building, even in the most suave and delicate pianissimo episodes.
27Benno Schoenberger, who was the pianist of the occasion, played like an ancient conservatory graduate. More ancient still sounded the voice and the coloratura of that once famous artist Madame Albani. She was suitably seconded by an equally senile flutist with whom she essayed the perennial "Sweet Bird" aria from Handel's "L'Allegro Il Pensieroso," &c. It was a dead heat between them in the matter of want of breath. In Germany they would have been hissed; in England they were applauded and encored.
29Kennerley Rumford sang tastefully, but with a very small tenor voice, a couple of songs, one of which was MacDowell's charming "Thy Beaming Eyes." The tenor's wife, Mme. Clara Butt, is the favorite vocalist of the British public at the present time. I cannot say that I agree with the vox populi, for with vocal methods of the most primitive order this tall and stately woman combines an organ most stentorian, but also most ordinary. She sang a song entitled "Land of Hope and Glory," by the leading English composer, Ed. Elgar, which pleased the audience probably on account of its patriotic import and a certain marchlike rhythmical swing, and which was, of course, redemanded.
31Prominent among the vocal soloists was Miss Ada Crossley, the Australian singer, who is much in demand here as an oratorio contralto, and who sings with exquisite musical taste, and has a well trained, sympathetic voice.
33At Willy Burmester's own concert at St. James' Hall he performed, in conjunction with the excellent Berlin pianist, Moritz Mayer-Mahr, the melodious and beautiful Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor, by Schubert. The ensemble was so perfect and the whole performance so exquisite that the audience seemed to enjoy it to the utmost, and was by no means chary with its applause. The violinist's tone and technic shone to utmost advantage in Wieniawski's brilliant "Faust" Fantasia, while the pianist gave a thoughtful, impressive and in every way finished performance of Beethoven's C minor Variations.
35The climax of the concert was reached with Burmester's grandiloquent and superb interpretation of the "Chaconne" of Bach, which cannot be surpassed for nobility as well as grandeur. He also enraptured the audience again with the Bach Air on the G string (played by request), and with his in its way unique and dazzling virtuoso performance of the Paganini "Nel cor piu non mi sento" Variations, the like of which has not been heard since the days of Sivori. No wonder the public raved and insisted upon a number of encores after interminable applause and recalls.
37Mr. Burmester's next concert here will be with orchestra, conducted by Mengelberg, when he will play the Bach E major, the Beethoven and the Tchaikowsky Violin Concertos.
39In corroboration of my own opinions regarding this great artist I give elsewhere some of the criticisms of the London press of recent date, and also from the year 1895, when Willy Burmester appeared here for the first time. These latter will prove that the eminent violin virtuoso was appreciated and his merits recognized by the London critics eight years ago, and that their judgment was correct. It has since been confirmed by the critical opinion of Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, St. Petersburg and all the other musical centres of Europe, and it will not fail to be upheld also by the highest court of appeal, the United States.
41In London.
43DURING the week of June 6 the following American musical people were in London: Mr. and Mrs. Wetzler, C. M. Loefler, of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and also Mr. Gericke; A. M. Wright, of the Everett Piano Company; Daniel Frohman and also Charles Frohman, Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Godowsky, now of Berlin, were also in London; Alma Stencel, with her mother, Mrs. Stencel; Mr. Floersheim, of THE MUSICAL COURIER office, Berlin; Rud. Aronson, Madame Melba and A. Somlyo, of the Baldwin house.
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