Scan 24
Musical Courier 1906-12-19: Vol 53 Iss 1395, 1906
45 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. Printed page 23. See the scan on archive.org.
1What is the Copyright Bill, anyway, now pending in Washington? The Musical Courier has heard much talk about it, but up to date has been unable to procure a copy. Several musicians have been in this office and alluded to the composers' section of the Copyright Bill as a heinous usurpation of their rights as American citizens. Other musicians have dropped in especially to praise the bill and ask that The Musical Courier advocate it—nay, fight for it—as one of the most beneficial measures ever conceived for the good of the American composer. Manufacturers of mechanical musical devices have written to the august heads of this paper, praying for opposition to the bill on the ground that, if it passes, their business will be ruined. Publishers have implored for editorials against the measure as one designed to give the musical machine manufacturers a monopoly and enrich them beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. Mark Twain, John Philip Sousa, Reginald De Koven and others have been leaving no stone unturned, for years to procure a proper copyright bill protecting the labor of their brains. Now that the long sought for relief is at hand, two of the three men just named went to Washington last week and fought the proposed law tooth and nail, while members of the Congressional committee before whom the hearing was held listened in amazement. The newspapers of the whole country are commenting sagely on the Copyright Bill, and no two of the editorials seem to be on the same subject. The question suggests itself again: "What is the Copyright Bill, anyway?" There seems to be as much ignorance in regard to it as there is about the Constitution of the United States. How many citizens of this country have ever read its Constitution? How many American composers know the provisions of the new Copyright Bill and what all the rumpus is about at Washington?
3One newspaper speaks of the "dark outlook" for American composers if that class be excluded from the benefits of the Copyright Bill. Can the outlook be any darker than it is at present? What is the use to protect by copyright symphonies, string quartets, sonatas, symphonic poems and concertos which are never played? There should be a bill to provide For the Performance of Works by American Composers before Audiences which Pay Real Money to Hear Them. Our misrepresentatives in Congress should see to this matter and also add a codicil or something relating to an Increase of Pay for Peevish and Threadbare Music Editors. Amen.
5Richard Strauss despises obvious effects in art and disdains to set the commonplace to music. He is "seeking an unusual text for his next composition." Eureka! Let him cast his eye over the following, from a Henry James essay in Harper's Bazar:
7"I am still piously aware of the continued existence of two eminent ladies (to confine the number to those it's convenient to mention) who recently were to strike me afresh as supremely perpetuating, for an all but thankless age, the interesting tradition; one of them, in the New England capital itself, rarely beautiful of voice, full of years and honors, and devoted, with every enhancement of wit and ardor, to great causes; the other, of illustrious name, guarding the good idiom, and the good use and the pleasant sound of it, in the particular elm shaded air in which it was perhaps most at home, and with a fidelity that fairly makes of her admirable continued presence a lesson and a reward for the pilgrim curious of history, of poetry, of linguistics."
9If Strauss can get the meaning out of the foregoing he will convert to his musical speech even the extreme left, in the person of Henry T. Finck.
11It is the unexpected that's bound to happen. When Calvé disported herself here some years ago and gave us a tightly corseted Carmen from the Paris boulevards, the heralds cried out that the book must be closed on Bizet's masterpiece, as the last word had been sung on the subject of the salacious Sevillian. Now along comes Maria Gay—a fortnight ago—and does a Carmen at Covent Garden that startled the blase opera public of London into such rhapsodical admiration that the cables have been humming with adjectives ever since. A few days later New York woke up to find itself famous as the possessor of a Carmen who effaces all memories of the caroling Calvé. Bressler-Gianoli is the name of the new wicked one, and the Manhattan Opera will be her home for the next few months, if the box office really can talk, as people say it does. To get the great operatic thrill of this season you must see Bressler-Gianoli in "Carmen." "She leaves nothing undone—reference is meant not to her garb, but to her singing and acting, of course—to portray literally the heroine of Merimée's novel as she lives in his pages. It is one of the most picturesque delineations ever seen on any local stage. This is the psychological moment for the Metropolitan to engage and bring on Maria Gay. She is a Spaniard and is said to roll her own cigarettes when she is at home. With Gay and Bressler-Gianoli as the two Carmens, Farrar as Manon, and Cavalieri as Fedora, there would be a turpitudinous quartet of sirens fit to make even Saint-Anthony Comstock an incandescent operagoer. Have you ever noticed, by the way, how perfectly respectable nearly all the Wagner heroines are—Irene, Senta, Elizabeth, Elsa, Eva, Brünhilde, Fricka, Freia, Erda, Waltraute? Even Gutrune, Sieglinde and Isolde are more sinned against than sinning. Brangaene was a noble soul who did her duty according to her lights, Venus was born to the business of love, and even Ortrud—usually a seductive contralto of 200 odd pounds avoirdupois—does nothing worse than to scold her legally wedded husband and try to fill him with the ambition he ought to have.
13Miecio Horszowski, a gifted boy pianist, who has been winning golden opinions in Europe and golden pesetas in South America, arrived in New York last week and gave a private recital at Steinway Hall before an invited audience. All accounts agree that Miecio made a hit.
15Germaine Schnitzer is rather unflatteringly and untruthfully alluded to as a "dark horse" in the pianistic race—unflatteringly, because she is a remarkably pretty girl, and untruthfully, because she has already won her spurs in Boston. Mlle. Schnitzer played there last week, and drove the usually meek Philip Hale into peans of the most pulchritudinous praise. The young lady's New York recital took place yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon, too late for discussion in this keen and critical column.
17Hale also has something picturesque to say about Rosenthal's recent recital in Boston:
19"Mr. Rosenthal has been for some years much more than a wonder worker, magician, necromancer, warlock, theurgist, obeah-man of the piano. Having made his sacrifices to the god of technic and received from him all gifts that he can bestow on a mortal, he has put offerings on the altar of Beauty, and the goddess has smiled on him. To exclaim, after his performance: 'Prodigious!' and again 'Prodigious!' or 'Yet again wonderful, and after that out of all hoping!' would now be an ill considered compliment, and not the one that he himself, as an artist, would crave. For Mr. Rosenthal as pianist and man is above such gaping of the curious. * * * The pianist some years ago could not have played this beautiful music (Schubert's 'Moment Musical') as he did yesterday. Then he had too much technic and he thought too much about it. Now his technic is as second nature and he is not conscious of it. Schubert's music was played with flawless beauty of tone and phrase, and its gentle romantic sentiment had the serenity and grace of the figures on a Grecian urn. His performance of Beethoven (op. 109) was characterized by dignity, nobility, a weight of thought that was not overweight. There was no reminder of the pianist's personal presence. He called forth, as by an incantation, the shade of the composer, and the composer was at once and till the end—the dominating figure. How pure was the song in the melody on which the variations are based! What a sense of proportion, what clarity, what eloquence in the variations! * * * The largo in Chopin's sonata has been a stumbling block to many who have found it commonplace in its sweetness, long drawn out, tiresome. Mr. Rosenthal, happy in the two preceding movements, was fortunate in this very largo, for he gave it distinction and importance. The figure in the bass that accompanies the first theme seemed less incongruous. The sweetness was not vulgar. For once the largo did not reek of patchouli."
21Rosenthal was Joseffy's pupil in Vienna thirty-odd years ago. Last Sunday Joseffy went to Carnegie Hall to hear Rosenthal play the Scharwenka concerto, and earlier in the week he journeyed to Brooklyn for the recital given there by his pupil of the long ago. At both concerts Joseffy led the applause. Of the Scharwenka concerto—that shamefully neglected work—he said: "That's the sort of concerto all the composers of today would like to write for the piano, but Scharwenka is the only one who did it." Liszt called the composition the best piano concerto written since his own in E flat—an egotistical, but thoroughly correct criticism.
23By the way, what ever became of that F minor concerto by Henselt, which Joseffy used to play so beautifully? It had saccharine spots in it, of course, and an emasculated waltz movement as a finale, but the introduction was really big, and the slow part ranked not unworthily with the larghetto of the Chopin F minor concerto.
25Tolstoy says that Shakespeare "cannot be recognized either as a great genius or even as an average author." By Tolstoy, of course.
27President Roosevelt's favorite operatic aria just now is "Nobel Seigneurs Salut."
29LEONARD LIEBLING.
31The receipts during the second week of opera at the Hammerstein house exceeded by 50 per cent those of the first week. The war is a real one.
33The two best bits of operatic news this week are that Gadski has been engaged for some Wagner performances at the Metropolitan, and that Leoncavallo will probably lead his "Pagliacci" at the Manhattan next week.
35Aronson Denies Suit.
37To The Musical Courier:
38New York, December 15, 1906.
40In reply to a letter signed by a Ludwig Zeisler and published in The Musical Courier of December 12, I desire to state that no such suit as that mentioned in said letter has been commenced by Mr. Shattuck, and that I am advised by my counsel, after a full statement of all the facts in relation to the controversy between us, that I have a complete legal defense to his alleged claim.
42Very truly yours,
44RUDOLPH ARONSON.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.