Scan 31
Musical Courier 1905-10-18: Vol 51 Iss 1334, 1905
52 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 30. See the scan on archive.org.
1more charming surprise even than this to disclose later on.
3In Brentano's new store on F street THE MUSICAL COURIER may be had or ordered. A fine portrait of Calvé as frontispiece to THE MUSICAL COURIER adorns their window this week.
5Charlotte Babcock, of New York, announces the coming to Washington of Bertha Visanska, the pianist. Miss Visanska has been engaged as professor of piano at the Cathedral School. Her name and qualities are not unknown. She may be heard in concert here also.
7Mignon Lamasure, one of Washington's favorite pianists, has returned to her studio, 1832 K street, N. W. She will this season be accompanist for the Friday Morning Music Club and for concerts to be given here. Work as vocal coach has already begun, and several interesting recitals will be given with a well known New York singer.
9Ella Stark, the pianist, has been engaged to play at the Congressional Library before the Society for the Blind on October 19, 2:30 p. m. FANNIE EDGAR THOMAS.
11VIRGIL PIANO SCHOOL IN WASHINGTON.
13GEORGIA E. MILLER, director of the Virgil Piano School, in Washington, D. C., has certainly made a step in advance, and in the right direction, by securing for this year, an additional headquarters for the work, in the northwest section of the capital. These two schools will now be continued in place of one, Miss Miller being director of both.
15Friends of this system, and of Miss Miller as its exponent here, have been urging this move for some time. Especially have parents of children residing in the northwest been urgent in wishing it. Results of her work, shown by pupils in all stages of development, in recital and exhibition concerts, have made such a place for Miss Miller in Washington, that work in one section alone was no longer sufficient. Her advanced pupils and pupil teachers especially, had attracted for themselves and for their teacher much attention. This teacher is wholly engrossed with her life work, has a great enthusiasm for it, and has originality in procuring and showing results.
17As has previously been urged here, the Virgil system for piano study is by no means confined to table finger practice, and technic on clavier instruments. It embraces logical, wise, educative, necessary courses of consecutive work, based upon the best educational thought, upon years of experience, and upon discovery of the artistic and financial crime of trying to instruct in piano' playing, by any other way, the majority of music students. It includes plans for study, division of time, division of work, division of study literature, systematic training of the mentality, insistence upon will, hope, energy, character, vigor; and upon the persistence without which even genius itself is failure. It does not destroy individuality nor does it teach in block. But it does hold that interpretative work cannot be done until executive possibility has been achieved.
19Pupils are not held back by each other and for each other and with each other by the Virgil "ways." But it has conclusively been proven that if five children may simultaneously see and say and learn and know that "five times five make twenty-five," it is the height of absurdity to take each one of these children into a separate room, and a separate corner, and teach each one separately the same thing. True, art interpretation is not like five times five, but there is more, much more of work akin to this in music study than is acknowledged by people whose interest it is to teach each pupil separately in a corner. And, moreover, the interpretative work cannot be done in any way worthy of it until just such technical work has been thoroughly accomplished. Class work is one of the virtues of the Virgil system, but only one of them.
21Insistence is another. It is true that under the lamentable system of money-earning by pupil teachers, insistence upon the one only right course is almost impossible, and is scarcely ever achieved. Little by little people are now coming to see that promises are not performances, that one cannot run before one can walk, that spelling and grammar must precede "literature," and that time and money spent in trying to make pupils seem to play and to sing, before they can manipulate fingers or throats or brains, are time and money thrown into the depths of the sea. For nothing, and only nothing can be gathered therefrom.
23Then, there is the matter of memory—
25Of this for the next time. Miss Miller has spent her entire summer in various points, largely in the West, gaining material, experience and inspiration for this season's school work. She has passed many summers and winters in the same pursuit, in these very lines, with the Virgils and their disciples. She is full of the whole subject, full of conviction through results, and full of enthusiasm through a nature born to study, to discern, to appreciate the good, to reject the unworthy, and to impart to others what is to her a matter of profound importance.
27The Leipsic Philharmonic Orchestra will give twelve concerts this season. Three of them are to be "modern" in program, and will be directed by Richard Strauss. On December 16 there is to be a Beethoven evening (with Ysaye, as soloist), and on January 22 a Mozart celebration in memory of the master's one hundred and fiftieth birthday.
29A REAL CONTRALTO IN WASHINGTON.
31WASHINGTON, October 14, 1905.
33CLARA DREW has one of the few rare voices known as pure contralto. By timbre and quality this is established, although a valuable range and remarkable dramatic treatment lift Miss Drew's work quite out of the ordinarily conceived plane of contralto singing. Washington is to be congratulated that this singer has become established in the city and may here be reached at headquarters.
35Last season in recital and salon work and in teaching commenced on arrival, Miss Drew made a wholly successful debut in the capital. The two opening recitals before the Friday Morning Music Club marked her at once as an artist of fine style and method, with intelligence, ideals and training. Some of the best salons in the diplomatic legations were later opened to her; church choir work and pupils followed. Of the latter Mary Carden and Susanne Roccamore have been heard in public here. Mabel Owen is a church choir singer, another is singing in St. John's, N. B., and one of the most beautiful voices has returned to her home in Christiania, Norway.
37In Boston Clara Drew was a strong favorite, and widely known for her singing and teaching. She was for five years president of the Fidelio Music Club there, an association of real worth in musical study and having many notables in its membership, among them Marie Nichols, the violinist, and Janet Spencer, singer.
39From press notices in that city come sentences such as these, culled from various papers:
41Miss Drew possesses a strong, pure contralto voice, its registers well placed and even. She sings with intelligence and expression with dignity and true fervor. Her culture is not confined to music, hence her singing is characterized by thoughtfulness, literary appreciation and dramatic suggestion. She sang with so much feeling as readily to find her way to all hearts. To hear an unusual program sung so intelligently, simply and sympathetically is indeed a musical pleasure.
43From Washington comes equally high appreciation:
45Miss Drew gave a program unlike any heard in Washington for many seasons, and one which commanded the attention of musicians to an unusual degree. Her voice is a deep contralto which has been cultivated to a remarkable degree. Whether in slow, legato treatment or in more technical requirements she is wholly at home.
47The contralto sang in noble style and with excellent finish. Her program showed her truly musically qualified and temperament, also a well trained voice of beautiful quality. More is always demanded. Her programs are of the strictly legitimate art make up. She gives songs which only artists sure of their caliber, attempt and is successful in them. Her enunciation is excellent, clear and distinct, and is added to refinement and style. She has rounds of applause always.
49Again from Denver: "Miss Drew has a splendid voice, one which lends itself equally well to the tender and appealing as to the broad and dramatic, a combination rarely found."
51From St. Louis: "Her singing carries conviction. She
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.