Scan 9
Musical Courier 1903-07-08: Vol 47 Iss 1215, 1903
22 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1Berlin
3GERMAN HEADQUARTERS OF THE MUSICAL COURIER,
4BERLIN, SCHOENEBERG, HAUPSTRASSE, 20A.
5June 23, 1903.
7DIRECTOR MORWITZ has drawn fair sized audiences to his summer theatre only when the perennial high C tenor, Heinrich Boettel, appeared in his time honored repertory of "Martha," "Il Trovatore" and "The Postillion of Lonjumeau." Last Friday night, however, the enterprising impresario presented for the first time Franz von Holstein's three act opera, "Der Haideschacht" ("The Pit in the Heath"). It was not really a novelty, but only the revival of a once very popular opera, which I feel sure is unknown in the United States. For Berlin the work is no novelty. It was composed thirty-five years ago and presented at Kroll's during the summer season of 1891, when it is said to have met with a very appreciable success, a success which was duplicated last Friday night.
9The libretto, based upon a Swedish miners' legend, was written by the composer, and is skillfully and interestingly constructed. The too great prolixity of its contents does not permit here of a detailed description of the action. The verses display considerable poetic talent on the part of the author. Superior to the text, however, is the music. In it Holstein reveals himself as a lyrical rather than dramatic composer. Almost every scene contains an aria, among which there are some melodious and effective songs. Thus this music is often in the melodious folks-tune vein, but lacks dramatic verve. To this circumstance must be ascribed the fact that Holstein's opera, despite its valuable libretto and beautiful music, has nowhere gained a strong foothold.
11The performance, under Kapellmeister J. Wolf's direction, showed not only the conductor's intimate knowledge of the opera but also told of a careful and devoted study of roles on the part of the entire personnel. Herr Langefeld as Stirson interested the audience as much through the dramatic conception of his role as by means of his euphonious singing. Herr Horwitz as Ellis, however, had to place his sympathetic vocal organ and his intelligent delivery into the breach to make one overlook the clumsiness of his histrionic presentation of the part. Miss Schereschewsky's impersonation of the part of Helge was unexceptionable from a purely musical viewpoint, but lacking in the required impressiveness of the heroine. The somewhat softly outlined part of Valborg found in Miss Koenig an interpreter who exhausted the possibilities the lyrics lent to her role. Miss Koch as Bjoern sang with musical taste and acted with naturalness. The only one who left much to be desired in the matter of vocal discipline was Herr Jugel, who sang the part of Olaf, a character musically strongly influenced by Kaspar, from Weber's "Freischütz," whose drinking song is easily recognizable in Olaf's song in the second act of "Der Haideschacht."
13The chorus, which bears the brunt in this opera, had been carefully rehearsed and sounded very well. Equal praise is due the orchestra, which had an exceptionally good day.
15Those who witnessed the revival of Lecocq's charming and amusing operetta, "Giroflé-Girofla," at the New Royal Opera, were simply delighted. It is wonderful how well this little work wears and how fresh after a quarter of a century's popularity it still appears. The action seems as clever as of yore, and the music is so replete with amiability and grace and at the same time so wittily and effectively written and orchestrated that it does not for one moment allow the audience's interest to flag. The play was exceedingly well done by Ferenczy and his Central Theatre troupe.
17The program for the thirty-ninth meeting of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein, which was held at Bâle during the past week, offered very few numbers of importance. There were only four works worthy of praise, and these are compositions of men whose standard and position in the musical world are already well fixed. Of these four works the C minor Symphony of Gustav Mahler is not even a novelty, for it has been performed in Berlin and elsewhere and its merits have been discussed in these columns. Of the other three, it is doubtlessly true that Richard Strauss' "Hymn," the setting for sixteen part chorus of an inspiring poem by Rueckert, is a work of such overwhelming power and enthusiastic conception that its reproduction roused the audience to outbursts of spontaneous applause even in the cathedral. Also Draeseke's new piano quintet is a masterpiece of technical skill, form and construction, as well as richness of polyphony. Klatte finds in one of its movements "the spirit of Beethoven," and asserts that this exalted praise bestowed upon Draeseke's Adagio is not exaggerated.
19Max Schillings' melodramatic music to Ernst von Wildenbruch's poem "Hexenlied" (the words of which Von Possart recited) was led by the composer. These four music creators, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Felix Draeseke and Max Schillings, are composers who have "arrived," as the French say, and it needed not a meeting of the Tonkünstlerverein to fix their status or make their works known to the world at large.
21I am ready to agree with Dr. Schmidt in his estimate of the latest creations of the neo-German school of composition, whose productiveness the able critic of the Berliner Tageblatt characterizes in the following language: "The impression one received at the Bâle festival of the status of modern productiveness is in many ways enlivening, though, as far as personal taste is concerned, only more or less enjoyable. We are living at any rate in a time of ferment, one that essays to create new values, and is not satisfied with the preservation of what came down to it. The influences of Wagner, Liszt and Berlioz, which were formerly comprehended under the term of the neo-German school, have long since become changed and impure. We feel them now as second hand, partially remodeled, carried on in their consequences by individualities, among which, for the present, Richard Strauss has proved himself the strongest one. These influences have permeated the whole field of tonal art; it is as if everyone wanted to proceed only toward one point, as if one wished to nip in the bud all other branches of development, as if one had lost the cognizance of the existence of any other possibilities. With this mental disposition we have to deal exclusively, in our judgment. This is not the place to ask whether and in how far this new turn can be considered as a wholesome one. As contemporarians we are also not in a position to find an answer. We can only define our own position toward it and try to make it clear to us. I do not venture to formulate in words what is common to all of these attempts at innovation, for such synthetic manner of considering things easily leads to false conclusions. Loosely joined, the following are perhaps the most important symptoms: Chromatic and enharmonic repulse more than ever the diatonic tone combinations; dissonance in its progression is treated with utmost freedom, to which ears trained in older music must especially accustom themselves. The architectonic in music gives way to the picturesque. Form is not only free, but it is also not any longer a means of effect in music. The young composers are unconcerned about the clearness of arrangement of their works, about the economy in construction, about the effect of contrast and symmetry. Richard Strauss is almost the sole exception. With him the architectonic still plays an important role, which perhaps is connected with his stronger gift of invention. Furthermore, the instigations to compositions are found less in the art of tones than they are extraneously taken from poetry, from the fine arts, from history and from life. Music itself is nothing any longer; it is meant to convey something. The joy over the mastery of the means has blunted the feeling for the abuse of its application. (First they mastered technic, now technic has mastered them; the writer expressed it some time ago.) Often the levy en masse of these means stands in no proportion at all to the contents represented. Withal, the predilection for tone coloring (Klangfarbe) is always the deciding element; the orchestral charms are applied for their own sake only. The composers throughout think less of what than of how they are saying things; they don't concentrate their powers of formation upon the thought, but upon its garb. It is incredible to what minimum the contents of often quite pretentious works seem reduced, if one considers them thematically. One cannot help having the impression that in such cases the complicatedness of the apparatus is made to serve in hiding the lacking originality of thoughts. It is this poverty of invention which seems for the most part to make modern compositions unenjoyable. One has not to wish to hear them over and over again, and in the most favorable case they only excite a cold sort of admiration. Everything, even the most audacious, would not annoy one, if it is of importance, if it convinces us that only in this way and in no other one it had to assume shape. Besides this lack of pregnant musical ideas there is another quality which repulses one in these products of the youngest school of composers, and that is the
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