Scan 4
Musical Courier 1903-08-26: Vol 47 Iss 1222, 1903
29 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 5. 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, Hauptstrasse, 20A.
5August 11, 1903.
7HE recent male chorus singing competition at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and more especially the Emperor's personal participations in the proceedings, is not yet quite digested in Germany, and last week produced two new manifestations, one of a positive, the other of a negative nature.
9The latter consists in a rather late and now quite unexpected explanation on the part of Prof. Heinrich Zoellner about his sudden withdrawal from the jury of the prize competition, which caused considerable of a stir at the time, and about which all sorts of rumors were set afloat, of which the professor did not see fit to take notice. I call his publication one of a negative nature, because it states only two reasons which did not cause him to give up his post of honor, while he remains utterly silent upon the facts, circumstances and reasons which made him decide to quit so suddenly, and at so inopportune a time. As Professor Zoellner was for a number of years conductor of the New York Liederkranz, and has many personal friends and acquaintances in the United States, his pronunciamento will probably interest some of our readers, and hence I herewith give it in translation: "Although I had firmly made up my mind to enter into no sort of explanations or elucidations as to my withdrawal from the office as one of the judges in the vocal prize competition at Frankfort, in June, 1903, I find it necessary, if even it be somewhat late, to contradict certain lies of the broad spreading of which I was made aware only belatedly and accidentally.
11"First—The news that I had withdrawn from the office of judge of the prize competition because a chorus which I had handed in was not selected as the one to be sung for the prize competition, I declare herewith to be absolute nonsense.
13"Second—The assertion that I had wanted to withdraw my application for resigning, but that this change of mind had come too late, because the Emperor had already granted permission for my withdrawal, I herewith declare a villainous calumny.
15HEINRICH ZOELLNER."
17This, of course, is all right as far as it goes, but it gives no clue, and one stands "in the piercing feeling of one's nothingness," as Schiller has it, with regard to the much ventilated question as to the reasons which did actuate Professor Zoellner in his withdrawal from the jury.
19The other question which is still occupying the public minds, at least those interested in male chorus work, is ventilated in a local paper under the heading of "Silcher or Hegar?" The speech which the Emperor made to the conductors of the competing societies gathered at Frankfort for the purpose of recommending to them a return to greater simplicity still forms the subject of polemics in musical circles. Some of them praise in blind enthusiasm, others in equally passionate anger find fault with everything His Majesty said and—did not say. The adherents as well as the opponents to his ideas impute to him a one-sidedness of views such as indeed he did not at all evince, and in so doing they commit the mistake he so happily avoided, viz., the one of "throwing out the child together with the bath." A laudable exception is Adolphus Pruemers, musikdirector at Muenster, in Westphalia, who has just published with Hermann Seemann's Successor in Leipzig a pamphlet bearing the title "Silcher or Hegar?" which treats the subject of German male chorus singing and its literature with an apparent striving after objectivity. Curiously enough, he starts out with the assumption that at the present moment the folksong is being favored more than is justifiable, while on the other hand he admits that many societies would deem it beneath their dignity to sing "Wir hat dich, du schoener Wald," by Mendelssohn, one of the examples given and preferred by the Emperor. But the demands Pruemers makes upon the vocal quartets for the future show the right way. While indicating Silcher as the noblest representative of the order of composers called for by the Emperor, and considering Hegar as the head of the modern tendencies in vocal male quartet writing, he formulates the question "Silcher or Hegar?" and answers it with "Silcher and Hegar!" It will indeed ever remain the task of the male choruses to cultivate both the folksong and the art song. Without looking down upon the old songs simply because they are old, these societies should at the same time pay attention to the progressive style in music. Only they must not consider everything a progress that is, or appears to be, new. To the necessity to cultivate the technical side of quartet singing there is opposed the danger of making this technical display the main object, the contrast between the old self satisfied style of Liedertael singing against a modern tendency of trying for effect only. As surely as Hegar represents the most powerful musically creative element among modern male chorus composers, just as certainly does he occasionally transgress the limits of what ought to be or can reasonably be demanded of the human voice. Just as little as one can object to an effort at tone painting in male quartets, just as decidedly should one oppose the tendency of doing violence to the human vocal organ for the purpose of gaining such effects. This is the reproach that must be laid at the door of Hegar and his imitators, that they pay too little heed to the nature of the human voice, the most tender and most sensitive among the entire musical instruments. Over the carrying out of their musical ideas they neglect to think of the purely vocal side, and frequently even of the words of the text. In many instances it would make no difference at all whether the singers would produce solfeggios or deliver the prescribed words of the text. A return from this false path is decidedly desirable, otherwise there is danger that in the fight against the excrescences of the modern style the latter itself may be strangled. Therefore Pruemers is right when he prescribes "Silcher and Hegar," not only for the chorus societies but also for the composers of vocal quartet music. For the folksong, he winds up, a Hegar must be born, and for the art song a Silcher. Both united will lift German song to the plane of an art work such as is being hoped and looked for by the German nation.
21The bas relief appended to this article is a suggestion from the pen of a German cartoonist (Buhne und Brettl) for the next Wagner monument, to be erected anywhere. Fafner and Fasolt are seen leading the rival forces to battle. Leichner is the president of the present Wagner committee, and Eberlein is the sculptor of the new Berlin Wagner monument, to be unveiled next month.
23HER von Possart has begun the real and the only opposition that has so far ever been made with any degree of success to the Bayreuth monopoly. This without "Parsifal"! Munich is crowded with people of all nations and the auditorium of the Prince Regent Theatre is said to offer the same aspect as the interior of the Festspielhaus, with this exception, that the Bayreuth clique themselves, of course, are absent. Among the foreigners at the first cycle of the "Nibelungenring" the English speaking element is predominating and the number of Americans who attend it is said to be greater than any that have gathered at Bayreuth during the last decade. one of two readings
24HERVON POSSART has begun the real and the only opposition that has so far ever been made with any degree of success to the Bayreuth monopoly. This without "Parsifal"! Munich is crowded with people of all nations and the auditorium of the Prince Regent Theatre is said to offer the same aspect as the interior of the Festspielhaus, with this exception, that the Bayreuth clique themselves, of course, are absent. Among the foreigners at the first cycle of the "Nibelungenring" the English speaking element is predominating and the number of Americans who attend it is said to be greater than any that have gathered at Bayreuth during the last decade. one of two readings
26As far as the performances themselves, which began on last Saturday night, they are reported to be artistically beyond cavil, although in some respects, after all, not quite up to Bayreuth standard and traditions. Despite General Musikdirektor Zumpe's splendid command of the orchestra the euphoniousness of that body of artists is said not to equal that of Bayreuth, where indeed the acoustic properties of the house are simply ideal ones and where, in consequence, a piano of the orchestra is of almost ethereal effectiveness.
28In the "Rheingold" performances, as usual, Mrs. Schumann-Heink's singing of the Erda music was simply superb. Alberich was impersonated by the young artist Desider Zador, who pronounces the German text with a foreign accent, but is histrionically and vocally highly dramatic and of characteristic expressiveness of delivery, despite the fact that his voice is not really a powerful one. Of the Rhinedaughters the Misses Ottilie Metzger (alto)
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