Scan 20
Musical Courier 1903-08-26: Vol 47 Iss 1222, 1903
39 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 21. 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.
1A MASTER OF THE "LIED."
3On June 28 the city of Halle, in Germany, unveiled a new monument to the memory of one of its most illustrious sons, gentle Robert Franz, neglected while he lived, and familiar to only a few today, eleven years after his death.
5In Germany the songs of Robert Franz are spoken of with respect, but they rarely appear on the programs of the popular singers. Franz wrote not for the public, and sad to relate the popular singers of Germany, as of elsewhere, sing only for and to the public. In America the Franz cult has been to some extent propagated with love and devotion by Henry T. Finck, the well known music critic of the New York Evening Post, but even his influence hardly sufficed to arouse enthusiasm for the sober Franz in a community where a song is made subservient to the singer, and where a jingle is mistaken for music.
7The art of Franz is too intimate, too rarified ever to win the favor of the multitude. This song maker of Halle avoided diligently all the catchpenny commonplace for which most of his contemporaries strove. Franz cared not whether his song ended on a high tone or a low; whether it showed off a voice or not, whether it would be sold in thousands of copies or remain in manuscript; so long as he succeeded in putting on paper the exact musical mood with which certain lines had inspired him, little else mattered, and little else bothered him in the process of writing.
9From almost his earliest youth Franz had been an indefatigable student of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Later, too, he learned to love the music of Schumann and Mendelssohn. With all of their songs Franz was thoroughly familiar, and yet in his own productions there is hardly a moment that sounds suggestive of any other man's music, and there is not a phrase or passage that seems consciously to be built on anything else than the pure inspiration of the moment. Franz followed neither in the footsteps of the classicists (although he might today be considered one), nor did he fall complete victim to the spirit of romanticism that swept over the world at a time of his life when he should have been most susceptible to such an influence. Although assisted by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Liszt (all his great admirers and sincere friends), Robert Franz held aloof from cliques, cabals, schools, factions, tendencies and so called reforms. Happy in his humble capacity of organist, Franz never attained to anything higher in his native town than a post at the university. In 1868 he became deaf, and thenceforward he lived in seclusion and in a retirement that reflects no great credit on his complacent townspeople.
11Had Franz been more of a sensationalist, had his songs been based on poems warlike, or epical, or heroic, his music might today occupy the first place in the hearts of the Germans. But Franz was an introspective composer, a man touched by "Weltschmerz," and therefore his lyrics missed the popular vein. His appeal is to the real connoisseur, to the man who cares in music more for the essence of the art than for its mere outward forms and modes of expression.
13Robert Franz left us 350 of his incomparable songs, and a number of masterful revisions and arrangements of Bach and Handel scores.
15NEW ROBERT FRANZ MONUMENT.
16(From Musikalische Wochenblatt, Leipsic.)
18Music in Heidelberg.
20From October 24 to October 26 there will be a musical festival at Heidelberg, Germany, to celebrate the opening of the new town music hall. Among other interesting works, the program will include Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, Beethoven's Violin Concerto, Haydn's "Creation," Liszt's "Dante" Symphony, Max Schillings's "Das Hexenlied," Richard Strauss' new ballad, "Taillefer," and the same composer's "Death and Apotheosis." The festival will be directed by Richard Strauss, Max Schillings and Prof. Dr. Wolfrum. The soloists of distinction are Mme. Strauss de Ahna, Professor Petri, Ernst von Postert and the Petri Quartet.
22Kelley Cole Will Sing Novelties.
24KELLEY COLE, the eminent tenor who makes his first concert tour in America, is said to make a specialty of rarely heard and beautiful songs, modern and classical. His voice, which has been trained under George Fergusson in Berlin, is, according to the European critics, of that exceptional quality which combines the warmth and richness of the baritone and the sweetness and the purity of the tenor. He has made notable successes in England with Edward Elgar's "King Olaf" and "Caractacus," as well as the tenor part of the "Dream of Gerontius."
26Berlioz and Glinka.
28THE New York Evening Post says: "In an article on Berlioz in Russia, Rosa Newmarch remarks: 'Berlioz, embittered by French levity and narrow mindedness, and Glinka, disheartened by the blindness of his countrymen, understood each other as only fellow sufferers can. The first meeting of these composers took place at the house of the painter Horace Vernet, at Rome, in 1831. Glinka accompanied the Russian tenor Ivanoff in some of his own songs, and Berlioz was delighted with their melodic charm and the novelty of the national style. It was his first introduction to musical Russia.'"
30JACQUES THIBAUD
31The Great French Violinist.
33American Debut: Carnegie Hall, Oct. 30th.
34(FIRST WETZLER SYMPHONY CONCERT.)
36MANAGEMENT:
37HENRY WOLFSOHN, 131 East 17th St.,
38NEW YORK.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.