Scan 8
Musical Courier 1905-09-06: Vol 51 Iss 1328, 1905
88 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 9. 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.
1kind with the money he has given to the Royal College of Music professors, to enable the latter to get the stodgy music their pupils are taught to write performed.
3I observe that the music publishers have apparently foregone their decision not to publish any more music. Chapell & Co. have just published some new songs, and have also commenced public advertising again. It is certainly the wisest course at present, and I do not see that any good would be done, as things now stand, by keeping to the decision not to publish any more. But it is a most lamentable state of affairs, and no one can hope for very much now.
5LONDON MUSIC NOTES.
6HOTEL CECIL, LONDON,
7LONDON, August 16, 1905.
9The autumn provincial festivals will soon be in full swing. Worcester festival is the first (it takes place early in September), the Norwich and Sheffield festivals following in October. The program of the Norwich meeting has just been issued; it contains several novelties, but these latter are not such as are likely to cause any great stir in the musical world. The most interesting will probably be Joseph Holbrook's "Five Bohemian Poems," for baritone and orchestra, although by some bad management there is also to be another set of five songs for baritone and orchestra by Coleridge-Taylor. Two cantatas have been manufactured for the occasion, one by Parry, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," the other by Signor Mancinelli, "St. Agnes." The other works are Stanford's Te Deum in B flat, Sir F. Bridge's overture, "Mort d'Arthur," Mackenzie's orchestral ballad, Masque, from "The Merchant of Venice," by Sullivan, "The Apostles" and Elgar's string introduction and allegro in G, Arthur Hervey's orchestral poem, "In the East," two part songs by F. Corder, the overture to "Everyman," by Walford Davies, Ed German's "Welsh Rhapsody," Cowan's "John Gilpin," Bach's violin concerto in E, Bruch's concerto in G minor, Mendelssohn's "Lobegesang," a Bach aria, Schubert's "Hymn to the Almighty," Tschaikowsky, No. 5, "The Messiah," and the Grail scene from "Parsifal."
11There is still a good deal of reform needed in our provincial festivals. It is they who are mainly responsible for the dreary, stodgy, oratorio-cantata works which our composers still manufacture. Somebody said, a short time ago, that Englishmen had set the whole of the Bible, several times over, to music of a tepid, colorless kind. So they have. And not only the Bible, but the Apocrypha, the lives of the saints and saintesses, and heaps of other goody goody stories. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them are not worth the paper they are written on, and after a season or two drop out and are heard no more. Messrs. Novello could show you stacks and stacks of them. As I have said, it is the provincial festivals which encourage the manufacture of these absurdities. Ever since the "Great Robber" caught the fancy of the British public with "The Messiah" it has become a fixed idea that English people prefer oratorio, or sacred cantata, or whatever you call it, to anything else. So it is given to them. As a matter of fact, I believe they prefer orchestral music to any other nowadays, judging by the favor with which orchestral concerts are received everywhere.
13The writers of these aforesaid cantatas and oratorios are not so much to blame. They are paid to write this class of work, and so they naturally do it. But fancy Mancinelli, steeped to the core in Italian opera, writing discreet and quiet music about "St. Agnes"! Of Sir Hubert Parry one expects nothing else. He turns out one of these things with great regularity every year. They are mostly watered Bach, with a dash of Mendelssohn or Brahms to make them a little modern.
15The only possible artistic work in oratorio is to create a new form in this branch of music, as Elgar has done. What Wagner did for opera Elgar is doing for oratorio.
17The festival authorities give practically no encouragement to English composers to produce a fine symphony or other orchestral work, and they never commission any chamber music. I am fully aware that it is necessary to give the choir and soloists a good "show," but there are plenty of good works in existence for them to sing, so that the novelties should not be all choral.
19A far better type of festival, the competitive one, has been gaining a great hold over here the last year or so. Provided the pot hunting element is eliminated, these festivals do much more to cultivate a love of music in the country than the other kind. Blackpool has just announced such a meeting, beginning on October 5. There are competitions for female voice choir, male voice quartet, mixed voice quartet, vocal duets, vocal solos, sight singing for children, piano and violin solo, string orchestras, local choirs and choral societies, and many others of a similar nature. But the most interesting thing about the festival is the high standard of the test pieces. Here are some of them:—Brahms' "Now All the Roses," the duet from Berlioz's "Enfance du Christ," Micaela's song from "Carmen," Schubert's "My Resting Place," Strauss' "Traum durch die Dämmerung," Cornelius' "Shepherd's Night Song," Beethoven's "Adelaide," Schubert's "Erl King," Arne's "Where the Bee Sucks," Giordano's "Caro mio ben," Bach's aria on the fourth string, Purcell's "With Drooping Wings," Elgar's "Britons, Alert," Brahms' serenade and MacDowell's "From the Sea." This is just a selection from the list, which is a wonderful one, when it is remembered that all the competitors are practically local.
21Festivals similar to this are now becoming frequent in the north of England, which in many ways (as Elgar rightly said) is more musical than the south.
23Everybody in London, of course, knows that all is not as well as it might be with the Queen's Hall orchestra. More's the pity, for in spite of many efforts to decry him lately, Mr. Wood is the best conductor we have, and the only native one who is in any sense a virtuoso. And London owes a debt of gratitude to him and to Mr. Newman. Many a student has derived a good deal of his knowledge of orchestration and modern scores from the "proms," and a symphony concert for 4 1/2 d.—8 1/2 cents—(that is what it comes to if one buys a season ticket at a guinea for ten weeks) is within everyone's reach. I am told that it is quite customary—in many big city offices—for groups of the employees to club together and get season tickets.
25I am told that Paderewski will give one or two recitals in London in the late autumn. It seems quite a long time since he played here. It was three seasons ago, I think, when he appeared last, at the Crystal Palace, and some selections from "Manru" were sung at the same time. That is all we have heard over here of the pianist's opera.
27Frederic Warren, the American tenor, is spending the summer at Dieppe, France. He has just been made a fine offer to sing in light opera.
29Mark Hambourg is engaged to play at the Berlin Philharmonic on October 30.
31Mrs. Low Back in Paris.
33ROLLIE BORDEN-LOW is expected to arrive in Paris this week fresh from her studies in Munich with Julius Hey. This makes the second summer the soprano passed at the country home of the noted vocal teacher. Last year Hey "coached" Mrs. Low in German lieder, and for the vacation period she was his only pupil. By Hey's intelligent advice and instruction a second year the accomplished singer will have some new things to add to her repertory. Accompanied by her mother, Mrs. Borden-Carter, Mrs. Low will sail for New York September 16 on the steamer La Touraine.
35CARL ODELL
36Late General Musical Expert with Henry W. Savage's Attractions.
37SPECIALTIES:
38Perfect Breath Control
39Correct Tone Placing
40English Diction and Repertoire
41Practical Course of Training for Professional Stage.
42Term begins September 15th.
43Residence Studio: 438 W. 57th St.
44Apply by mail for interview regarding terms, etc.
46Tour Now Booking.
47ADDRESS:
48J. ARMOUR GALLOWAY,
4953 East 56th Street,
50NEW YORK
51Phone: 2404 Plaza.
53ANITA RIO
54SOPRANO.
55HASLAM
56Professeur de Chant.
57POSE, TECHNIQUE, STYLE, RÉPERTOIRE, OPERA, CONCERT
58Direct Communication with European Managers.
592 Rue Maleville (Parc Monceau), PARIS.
61GLENN HALL,
62TENOR.
63OLIVE MEAD, 1st Violin. ELIZABETH HOUGHTON, 2d Violin. GLADYS NORTN, Viola. LILLIAN LITTLEHALES, Violoncello
64The Olive Mead Quartet
652465 BROADWAY, NEW YORK
67GRACE LONGLEY,
68SOPRANO.
69CONCERTS, Etc.
70Phone 4079 Riverside.
72DR. N. J. ELSENHEIMER
73PIANIST. COMPOSER. CONDUCTOR.
74Address all correspondence care College of Music of CINCINNATI, OHIO.
75308 West 93d Street,
76NEW YORK.
78SOUSA
79AND HIS
80BAND
81JOHN PHILIP SOUSA, Conductor
82NEW YORK HIPPODROME, Sunday Evenings, Sept. 10th and 17th.
83PITTSBURG EXPOSITION, Sept. 11th to 16th inclusive.
84MISS ADA CHAMBERS, Soprano.
85MISS JESSIE STRAUS, Violinist.
86Offices: Astor Court Building, New York City
87FRANK CHRISTIANER, Director of Tours
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