Books › Musical Courier 1907-03-20: Vol 54 Iss 12, 1907 › scan 39
Scan 39
Musical Courier 1907-03-20: Vol 54 Iss 12, 1907
19 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. Printed page 40. 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.
1VIENNA
2VIENNA, VIII KOCHGASSE 9, February 13, 1907.
4Godowsky is nothing short of colossal and a pianist whose fame will take to itself proud permanence. The majority of European critics hail him as one of the great masters. He has built up a technic which is simply marvelous and beyond description. Not only has he a technic and temperament, but he is also a musician who has specialized on the old French and Italian music, broadened it generally, and brought it around to suit the modern clavichord, thus overlapping Time. In this one field he has done much for music, much for the piano in enabling us to enjoy the charming, ravishing old French composers, whose music without Godowsky's arrangements would be too thin for the concert hall. He was simply exquisite in renditions of minuets, pastorales and gigues by Schobert (1730-68), Rameau, Corelli and Loeilly. After his concert Monday evening, Professor de Conne, of the Conservatory, came to him and expressed his admiration of Godowsky's new editions of those composers, which now will be used at the Conservatory. As has been declared before, Godowsky, with all his titanic power, plays with restraint. Another good quality is his simplicity. These two qualities explain that Godowsky can turn aside from Schumann and Brahms and play Rameau and Corelli, and do them exquisitely. And how Godowsky does interpret Chopin! It is difficult to decide in what he is at his best—in Liszt, Brahms, Schumann or Chopin. He is a Cyclops. His program began with the Weber sonata, op. 39. After the French numbers came Chopin's ballade, op. 52; A major tarantelle; nocturne, op. 62, E major, and the allegro de concert, op. 46; finally the Schumann "Carneval." Godowsky gave three encores, after which the lights were put out. But the applause continued fully five minutes, till he consented to the fourth, or rather the sixth, encore of the evening. There will be a third Godowsky concert in the large Music Verein Hall, under the direction of Fredrich Ehrbar.
6Under the direction of Fredrich Ehrbar, the Wind Chamber Music Verein of the Opera Orchestra, with the assistance of Arnold Rosé, Fischer, Ruzitska, Buxbaum and others, presented a program of d'Indy, Ermanno, Wolf-Ferrari and Arnold Schoenberg, of Vienna, in the Music Verein Hall, Friday evening. The Schoenberg symphony, fortunately, was placed last on the program. Had it been first, there might have been no audience for the other works. Vincent d'Indy's "Chanson et Danses," op. 50, for flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, horn and two fagotti, received its first Vienna performance. It was the most pleasing and most genuine music of the evening, as the Wolf-Ferrari symphony, op. 8 was raw and a patchwork. The Schoenberg chamber symphony for fifteen solo instruments was played from manuscript. A symphony for fifteen soloists is no ordinary work. Nor was the music ordinary. That use of fifteen solo instruments is a proclamation that the composer is a disciple of Mahler in the instrument idea. Whether Schoenberg deliberately sought the chaotic or whether the chaos is the result of his helplessness, cannot be determined. In either case, each instrument wandered its own silly, themeless way. Mahler was present, and although he tried to hide his thoughts, he looked his feelings. The music caused hysterics in the audience. Many left before the end, others hissed, but there was applause as well.
8Bruckner Monument, Vienna.
10Otto Nicolai is one of the regularly honored in Vienna. The tributes paid to him and to Schumann and Mozart are proofs that the Viennese, forgetful as they are, do remember, in somewhat fitful style, their masters of music. Walther presided at the performance of Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor," Saturday evening. The entire cast was good. Hesch as Falstaff was one of the features, as he usually is when given a genuine comic part. Frau Gutheil-Schoder reads her scores perfectly and is one of the most artistic of women. The others were Demuth and Stehmann, Preuss, Brever, Felix, and of the women, Hilgermann and Michalek.
12Instead of having one or two exceptional voices in a cast and the remainder indifferently good, Mahler (although he has "star" singers) believes in a strong ensemble. Ten years ago he took up the directorate of the Vienna Opera, which then was in a sorry state. The members mostly were aged, and generally the institution was in a bad way. Mahler gradually pensioned off those people. Winklemann, who retired last season, was the last of that set. The members of the Opera today were selected by Mahler and were appointed because he approved of their voices. He has absolute control, and his casts give smooth, well balanced, highly pleasing performances. Mahler has placed the Vienna Opera on the high plane it occupies, and he is considered too valuable to lose, which was emphatically brought out by the reply of the Emperor's representative to rumors of Mahler's resignation.
14Ysaye played concertos by Saint-Saëns, Mozart and Beethoven, Saturday evening in Music Verein Hall. He gives a second concert on the 21st.
16Arnold Schoenberg's string quartet in D minor was given its first or manuscript performance by the Rosé Quartet Tuesday evening in Boesendorfer Hall.
18The Orchestra Verein and the chorus of the Opera combined under the direction of Carl Luze in a concert in memory of Michael Haydn, not the great, but the lesser Haydn. The works were the C major symphony, the
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