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Musical Courier 1903-07-08: Vol 47 Iss 1215, 1903
33 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1HOTEL CECIL, LONDON.
2June 27, 1903.
4DURING the present week all roads have led to the Crystal Palace, and the gigantic musical orgie known as the Handel Festival has been attracting enormous crowds to Sydenham. To the average country cousin and local parson, the Handel Festival is an event which has no equal in the whole world of music. On the days on which it takes place the Crystal Palace, which is otherwise one of the most tedious and desolate places on the face of the earth, presents a strange spectacle. The latest thing from Paris rubs shoulders with the newest creation of the village dressmaker, long haired musicians hobnob with close cropped country curates, young ladies are there with their scores and their sandwiches, old ladies are there with their knitting and their bath buns. The village organist comes with the leader of his choir, the venerable rector brings his eldest granddaughter, and the maiden aunt gives her favorite niece a treat. In this strangely assorted crowd you never know whom you will meet next. You may meet friends you have not seen for ten years, of friends that you only made last night; acquaintances whom you had lost sight of, much to your regret, or acquaintances whom you had prayed that you would never meet again. In fact, as a meeting place, there is no end to the possibilities for the Handel Festival, for everyone with a taste for music who can afford either the time or the money goes to it, and those who can afford neither read about it and talk about it, and make up their minds to go to the Crystal Palace when the next festival comes round in three years' time.
6Seeing what an attraction the festival possesses, it is a pity that, so far as I can see, it fulfills no useful purpose whatever. For all that these thousands of people go to the Crystal Palace to hear is "The Messiah" and "Israel in Egypt," and one or two extracts from the less known oratorios sung by a chorus of 3,000 with an orchestra of over 1,000. Now it is, on the face of it, perfectly obvious that it is useless to hope for perfection from so enormous a choir. Dr. Cowen, who has assumed Dr. Manns' duties this year, and is conducting the festival for the first time, has certainly trained his forces admirably and, considering its size, the chorus introduced a wonderful amount of light and shade. But while it cannot be denied that the effect of some of the bigger choruses, such as "Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs" and the "Hallelujah" chorus in "The Messiah"; "Wretched Lovers" in "Acis and Galatea," and the big double choruses in "Israel in Egypt," was superb, this was from far being the case in choruses which demanded any lightness of treatment, such as "Oh, the Pleasure of the Plains," or choruses which need an almost machine like precision, such as "He Trusted in God" and "Let All the Angels." It was not Dr. Cowen's fault that these choruses did not go perfectly, for the difficulties against which he had to contend were absolutely insuperable. The effect of a choir of 3,000 odd voices must always be ponderous, however well it may be trained, while it is useless to expect that in the more intricate of the choruses all these singers will do exactly what Handel intended.
8But it is scarcely so much to this that one is inclined to take exception as to the hackneyed nature of the programs. The Handel Festival would really serve a useful purpose if it were to give us a chance of hearing works which are never performed elsewhere. But at every festival we are given "The Messiah" on the first day, "Israel in Egypt" on the third, and on the intervening day a few selections which include some of the best known of the songs, and a portion of "Acis and Galatea." This year the only real interest of the festival centred in the performance of a few of the "Solomon" choruses at the end of the program on the selection day, and the Organ Concerto in F, to which the choral ending has recently been restored. The choruses were well sung, but the concerto, in which Sir Walter Parratt was the soloist, did not go well, and the organ and orchestra were never really together.
10It will be seen from this that to musicians the interest of the festival is of the slightest order, for in the course of the three days we hear next to nothing that we do not already know almost by heart. Dr. Cowen has trained his forces well and they did him credit, but the whole idea of the festival is merely to attract the country cousin, and, such being the case, it is really scarcely deserving of serious consideration. The performances of some of the choruses are undoubtedly imposing enough, but they are not so much more imposing than the ordinary performances as to justify the enormous trouble and expense which they naturally involve. In the enormous central nave of the Crystal Palace the solos are to a very large extent lost, and, excellent though the singers were their efforts were almost wasted. Madame Albani, Mme. Clara Butt, Miss Margaret Macintyre, Ben Davies, John Coates, Andrew Black, Watkin Mills and Kennerley Rumford, all of them fine vocalists of great experience, were engaged, and they did as well as could possibly be expected in somewhat trying circumstances. But the only real interest of the festival as it is at present arranged lies in the performance of the bigger choruses, and this interest, as I have already said, is hardly sufficiently great to justify the festival's existence. If it were run on different lines it might possibly be a power for good, for it certainly is able to attract enormous audiences. It might spread a knowledge of Handel's less known works, and thus be of some educational value. But its value at present is so small as to be practically non-existent.
12Concertgivers have very wisely refrained from any undue activity this week, knowing, no doubt, that most of their friends and relations would be disporting themselves at the Crystal Palace. Fritz Kreisler, however, gave his last recital of the season at St. James' Hall on Tuesday evening, and attracted, as usual, a very good audience. The public, contrary to its usual wont, has really recognized merit when it has seen it in this case, and Her Kreisler is one of the few good violinists who can be sure of adequate support for his concerts. A new concerto by one Conus, a composer whose name is unfamiliar, was announced, but it had to be abandoned, owing to the non-arrival of the manuscript. Herr Kreisler substituted for it Max Bruch's Concerto in G minor, which he played with all that rare sympathy and charm which are, perhaps, the most striking features of his performances. A sonata of Bach for violin alone was no less delightfully played, while the program also included one of those groups of seventeenth and eighteenth century pieces without which no Kreisler recital is really complete. These groups always find him at his best, and his readings on Tuesday were as admirable as ever.
14The Moscow Trio, which gave its first London concert at the Bechstein Hall on the same evening, is evidently a combination of players which will win fame for itself in this country. It is composed of three fine artists, who, after ten years of association, have learned all that there is to learn about ensemble playing. A more finished reading of Tchaikowsky's fine Trio in A minor has never been given here, and it will be very surprising indeed if we do not hear more of this combination.
16Miss Gertrude Peppercorn, who gave a Chopin recital at the same hall Wednesday afternoon, has often showed herself to be one of the most talented of the younger English pianists, but she never displayed her gifts in a more favorable light than at this concert. She has a fine technic, as, indeed, has every young player who makes a bid for popularity nowadays. But she has as well a gift that cannot be learned—the gift of temperament. There is always something distinctive about her performances; something that shows she possesses an individuality with which the average pianist is not equipped. Sometimes, it is true, one may not agree with all her readings, and there were places in the Fantasia, op. 49, when her very temperament seemed to lead her into slight excesses. But this must inevitably be the case with any pianist who possesses any originality, without which, after all, all the technic in the world is of no use. The readings that Miss Peppercorn gave on Wednesday of the B flat minor Sonata, the Berceuse, the Barcarolle and two of the Preludes were not the kind of readings that are learned from a professor. They were the outcome of intelligent study on the part of the player, and, such being the case, they could not fail to be interesting. Miss Peppercorn evidently has brains and the power to use them. Such small exaggerations as she occasionally makes seem to be entirely due to exuberant spirits, and no one will deny that this is at any rate a fault on the right side. When Miss Peppercorn is at her best, as she was in the Berceuse, the Barcarolle, the two Preludes and the slow movement and the finale of the sonata, she plays really admirably, and she fully deserved the great success that she undoubtedly scored on Wednesday. Many of her performances were exceedingly fine, and they were marked by an intelligence and a power which is not often to be found in pianists of either sex.
18The harp as a solo instrument has fallen from its high estate, and seeing how greatly our modern ideas concerning tone color and the like have developed of late it is scarcely likely that it will ever recover its lost prestige. Signorina Ada Sassoli, however, who gave a very successful concert at St. James' Hall, is so clever a young harpist and obtains so far greater a variety of effect from her instrument than is customary with most players that she deserves to win a name for herself. Her performance of a clever set of variations on a Chorale by Widor was altogether excellent. She has had the advantage of arousing the interest of Madame Melba, who contributed four songs to the program in her best style.
20The last Philharmonic concert of the season took place at Queen's Hall on Thursday evening with Kubelik as the soloist, but the program was entirely familiar and calls for no comment.
22On the same evening Madame Calvé made her reappearance at Covent Garden in her favorite role of Carmen. Madame Calvé's reading of the part is, of course, so well known that it needs no description. She may occasionally be guilty of exaggeration and she may take unwarranted liberties with the music, but it is and is likely to remain the most popular Carmen of the day, and she certainly succeeds in realizing the character of the gypsy as no one else realizes it. A feature of the performance was the excellent singing of Madame Blauvelt as Micaela. Madame Blauvelt is evidently growing more accustomed to the house, and on Thursday she showed herself in her true colors of a charming actress and an accomplished singer.
24With M. Lhévinne's recital, which took place on Friday evening, I will deal next week, and also with the performance of "Der Wald" at Covent Garden on the same evening. Among the other concerts that have been given were Ysaye's recital on Friday afternoon, which, considering the fame of the artist and the excellence of his program, attracted a singularly small audience to St. James' Hall. Richard Platt gave his second recital at St. James' Hall on Wednesday; a successful concert was given by Miss Polyxena Fletcher at the same hall on Monday, and on Thursday evening an enormous concert was given at Albert Hall in aid of the Union Jack Club, which was remarkable as a social function rather than a musical event. Tuesday afternoon Miss Marie Hall gave her last recital of the season at St. James' Hall.
26ZARATHUSTRA.
28M. T. N. A. CONVENTION.
30THE meeting of the Music Teachers' National Association, held at Asheville, N. C., last week, was successful in all respects, with a large attendance from the East and South. The officers elected for the ensuing year were: Thomas à Becket, of Philadelphia, president; Clarence G. Hamilton, of Providence, R. I., vice president; Francis L. York, of Detroit, Mich., secretary; Fred A. Fowler, of New Haven, Conn., treasurer; Ernest R. Kroeger, of St. Louis, chairman program committee; Edwin Glover, of Cincinnati, and Walter Spry, of Chicago, members program committee; W. D. Armstrong, of Alton, Ill., chairman of executive committee; Wm. H. Pommer and Mrs. James Lawrence Blair, of St. Louis, members executive committee.
32St. Louis, Mo., was selected as the place of the next meeting, at which time the great Exposition will be in progress. Full report, with pictures of the leading artists, will appear in our next issue.
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