Books › Musical Courier 1907-05-08: Vol 54 Iss 19, 1907 › scan 19
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Musical Courier 1907-05-08: Vol 54 Iss 19, 1907
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1ARTHUR HARTMANN IN BOSTON.
3Arthur Hartmann, who will sail for Europe tomorrow (May 9), after a highly successful American tour of over seventy concerts, under the management of Haensel & Jones, gave a recital in Boston on Saturday, April 27, and scored an unequivocal triumph, as the following press notices from the Hub's leading newspapers will testify eloquently and brilliantly:
5Arthur Hartmann gave a concert yesterday afternoon in Jordan Hall. The program was as follows: Bach, concerto in E major for violin; Schytte, first movement of a sonata for piano; Bach, chaconne for violin; Goldmark, air; Fini Henriques, romanz; Hubay, "Zephyr"; MacDowell-Hartmann, "To a Wild Rose"; Wieniawski, "Airs Russes."
7It is a pity that Hartmann did not come earlier in the season, and that he was not heard with the Symphony Orchestra. He is a violinist of much more than ordinary parts and a virtuoso of indisputable talent. His tone is pure, full, imposing in passages that demand breadth of treatment, warm and sensuous in song. The brilliance of his technic is neither superficial nor accidental, it rests on a firm foundation. His nature is musical. He thinks for himself and the individuality of his expression is interesting. His performance of Bach's concerto was excellent, especially his performance of the first two movements. Hartmann was particularly fortunate in his interpretation of the charming romance by Fini Henriques, the Danc, and in the two Hungarian pieces which he added to the program. The latter were played with irresistible spontaneity, dash and rhythmic elasticity, so that they were as the wild and haunting improvisations of a gypsy. Mr. Hartmann's technical acquirements were admirably displayed in the familiar piece by Wieniawski. The audience, in which were discriminative musicians, was heartily appreciative of Mr. Hartmann's many excellent qualities. He added other pieces than those named, in the program, and he was obliged to repeat his transcription of MacDowell's piano piece.—Philip Hale in Boston Herald.
9The audience in Jordan Hall Saturday afternoon was decidedly enthusiastic on the occasion of the "rentree" of Arthur Hartmann. He left Boston years ago, a promising youth; he returns a full fledged artist, yet promising still greater things. We were struck by the earnestness of his program and the artistic sincerity with which he carried it out. There was the minimum of violin fireworks, and the maximum of broad, virile playing, such as we are prone to associate with the German school, although the Franco-Belgian school presents its share of this manly quality as well. The young artist impressed us somewhat as an Ysaye in embryo, a man to whom technic was but a means to an end.
11We were favorably impressed at once by his phrasing of the Bach concerto in E major. There was a sweep and fire in his bowing that was majestic and effective. The rondo of this was taken in just the right spirit, with the geniality with which Kreisler used to invest it. It is commendable that these young violinists are giving good red blood to their Bach playing and not presenting the old master as a sawdust doll surmounted with a perigl. There was an imperative encore after this number. In fact there was an encore after every group that Mr. Hartmann played. We have seldom seen a recital audience so continuously and spontaneously appreciative. Had Mr. Hartmann come earlier in the season he would have captured Boston with his breadth and surety, but at this end of the musical feast the most capacious auditors are filled to repletion.
13The "piece de resistance" of the program was Bach's chaconne. Every great violinist gives us this old warhorse of a composition, and each one plays it with different details. It is a peculiar case of "Chaconne a son Gout." We admired the Hartmann interpretation; it was clear in every point. The double and triple stopping was clearly intoned and could be easily followed, and the power of the passages on the G string was commendable. Later in the concert there was some more admirable G string work in the air by Goldmark.—Louis C. Elson, in Daily Advertiser.
15Hartmann's tone had in more or less degree—and usually more than less—nearly every quality that the tone of a violinist should have. It was just in intonation; it was undulating in its flow; it was supple to whatever the technic or the feeling of Mr. Hartmann asked of it; it had warmth, vibrancy, transparency, a sufficient largeness, and at moments a very delicate fineness. It had beauty and purity; it was unfurled in either its depth or its brilliance. It was the tone of a virtuoso who understands and respects his instrument and who summons its peculiar voice. It was equally the tone of a musician with understanding and feeling for the voice of instrumental song, for the curve of a melodic line, for the grace of figure and ornament, and for the rounded and significant phrase. Mr. Hartmann's tone and playing were, besides, those of a musician of warm, sensitive, discriminating and imparting temperament. His playing of Bach's concerto in E major had a quiet continence and justness of comprehension that nowhere forced the music and nowhere stiffened it. On the other hand his warmth of feeling and his response to the romantic quality of modern music was clear in his playing of shorter pieces by Goldmark and Henriques. In all these things his technical resources were as unobtrusive, obedient and adroit servants. For once by every sign a prodigy had ripened into a musician as well as virtuoso.—H. T. P., in Boston Transcript.
17The manly sincerity and the unaffected air with which he accomplished the task in hand at once predisposed the auditors in his favor. His artistic work completed in an almost superlative degree the anticipations of the audience. In Bach, Hartmann disclosed fine powers of expression and a richness of tone, broad, resonant and full of musical color. Especially impressive was his performance of difficult chord passages in the chaconne. * * * The great enthusiasm of the audience was fully justified and the half a dozen encores were fairly won.—Globe.
19Arthur Hartmann, now one of the world's famous violinists, for he has gone far since he used to appear in this city of his early residence as a youthful prodigy a dozen years ago—gave a recital in Jordan Hall on Saturday afternoon. He came late in the season, but that is no valid reason why his audience should have been small. Such a man and such playing as he gives, or rather pours out with the spontaneity of an artistic temperament, deserves better recognition.
21Here is a violinist who has something to say. He is no mere fiddler with a highly developed technic, no stolid and too classical man with the fixed idea of teaching the world something. Hartmann played with the fire and abandon of a warm individuality, yet he is authoritative, musicianly, impressive. His tone is broad and minutely beautiful by turns, his technic dazzling, yet seemingly simple in the accomplishment, and he produced effects that were overwhelming.—Journal.
23Operatic Concert by De Bor Pupils.
25A program, principally devoted to operatic music, was presented by pupils of M. B. de Bor, at the Carnegie Lyceum, Thursday night, May 2. The master himself sang an aria from Verdi's "Macbeth." The other singers in opera repertory and their numbers were: "O Mio Fernando," from "La Favorita," Clare Krall; "Ciele e Mar," from "La Gioconda," Russell H. Getty; "Dich Theure Halle," from "Tannhäuser," Miss Kessler; "Ah fors e lui," from "La Traviata," Sadie Green; aria from "La Bohème," Lila McNames; "Dio Possente," from "Faust," Andrew Onetto; aria from "The Queen of Sheba," Mrs. Gibb; duet from "Cavalleria Rusticana," Miss Green and Mr. Getty; duet from "Il Trovatore," Miss Kessler and Mr. De Bor. The songs and their interpreters during the evening included: "Circe's Garden" and "Love is a Rose," (Sans Souci), Albert Ott, Jr.; "If Thy Blue Eyes" (Bohm), Miriam D. Boyd; "Nymphs and Fauns" (Bemberg), Evelyn Simon; "L'Été" (Chaminade), Hazel Oppenheimer. The Abt String Quartet played two numbers—"Fifth Air Varie," by Doucho, and "Angels' Serenade," by Braga. Florence S. Kennedy and A. Kaufmann were the piano accompanists. Besides the interesting music, Clare Krall, one of Mr. De Bor's most gifted pupils, recited, in addition to her aria from "La Favorita," Owen Meredith's "Aux Italiens," to piano accompaniment. Both in the speaking and the singing this young lady proved very delightful. Nearly all of the other De Bor pupils merit a word of special praise, and their master is entitled to much commendation for the thorough and correct training of each.
27For the MacDowell Fund.
29In Mendelssohn Hall, tomorrow (Thursday) night, a concert will be given by the advanced pupils of Henry Holden Huss, assisted by Eva May Campbell, soprano, and an orchestra, for the benefit of the MacDowell Fund. An interesting program will be presented.
31WANTED
33WANTED—A first-class pianist, also violinist and vocal instructor; gentlemen preferred. COLUMBIA COLLEGE OF MUSIC. Seattle, Wash.
35WANTED—First-class artists of vocal and musical talent: quartets, trios, etc. CHAS. J. BOYD, Concert Manager, 48 North Fifteenth street, East Orange, N. J.
37WANTED—Concert pianist and teacher of vast experience, educated in Europe, desires position with school of music. Address W. R. D., care MUSICAL COURIER.
39VOCAL TEACHER—Pupil of best American and European teachers desires a position in an established conservatory; he has had several years' experience in teaching. Address O. F. G., care MUSICAL COURIER.
41VIOLINIST, recently from Europe, pupil of Prof. Hollaender, Berlin, and Prof. Sevcik, Prague, thoroughly experienced in teaching and recital work, desires a position in a school of music. Apply, Violin Pedagogue, MUSICAL COURIER office.
43CLARE KRALI, AN ADVANCED STUDENT OF MR. DE BOR.
45Meredith's "Aux Italiens," to piano accompaniment. Both in the speaking and the singing this young lady proved very delightful. Nearly all of the other De Bor pupils merit a word of special praise, and their master is entitled to much commendation for the thorough and correct training of each.
47TALES FROM GRAND OPERA.
49"Carmen," "Sapho," as Women.
51Those who gain their idea of "Carmen" and "Sapho" from the operas so named, are wholly deprived of a true knowledge of them. The original stories enveloping them are finished masterpieces of creative art, from which no comma may be removed nor semicolon changed without altering intention and dimming perfection. In the operas, made simply to hold them up to commercial view, these types are deformed, dwarfed, twisted, wrinkled in truth, as might be a beautiful robe too long for a small trunk, or the limbs of a body for the length of its coffin. The difference between the originals and the operas is as that between a hero of imperishable history and his prototype in a wax museum at so much a peep to the curious. In the originals the two characters are representatives, vivid, truthful, impressive, of woman. In the operas they represent but little, and that little but of a class of woman.
53These two women have little that is parallel as to nature, some as to condition. Both were thrown upon the world by the selfish, self-loving, unreasoning paternity that is responsible for so much of this world's pain. Both were made the playthings of natural protectors, men, who sought to destroy, not to aid them. Both staked their happiness upon two well brought up men, supposed to stand for gift and goodness, principle and truth, but who were full of selfishness, perfidy and cowardice. Both lost, of course. Good men gone wrong are the weakest of their sex, incapable of sustaining even their own happiness. In all else these two characters were totally opposing.
55Carmen types the strong, forceful, dominating, uncultured, unrestrained semi-savage of a nomad race, almost mannish in her passion for self government, a tiger of the India jungle. Sapho was an Angora cat, all woman, strongly feminine, daintily luxurious, doubtful of self or power, capable of great sacrifice to promote the love life, superficially cultivated by association with men of gift minus manhood, by them held in unmoral conditions, while yearning earnestly and unconsciously for the good and true, for home and for true affection. She was weak in the lore of principle, strong in its instinct, with passion tempered by affection, sense clouded by mixed blood, and bad teaching, the making of a lovable woman and excellent life—wasted. Carmen was domineering, Sapho feline. Carmen was mercenary, desiring possession, clothes, riches, with her love. Sapho would have preferred a trust with the man she adored, and wished nothing else when he turned kindly toward her. Carmen sought the downfall of her lover through sense of domination. The whole effort of Sapho's undeveloped consciousness was to lift her lover up, to put him forward while remaining herself in the background, to save his money, to induce him to study so as to become what she believed him capable of being, even to the freeing him of the expense of herself, that he might be more free to throw her the bone of a gentle caress. Carmen was an outdoor woman, with mountain habits, and no sense of wifehood or home. The exceptional efficiency, the steady continuity, the charm and grace of Sapho in maintaining a delightful home on almost nothing, her delight in the entailed sacrifices, and her grief at disturbances of the nest by untoward event, might well serve as example to many a careless and self seeking wife. Carmen was capricious while loving, insisting upon free foot as test of power. Sapho gave the years of life with her lover to separating herself from the world for his sake, devoted, subservient, faithful, adoring.
57FANNIE EDGAR THOMAS.
59Florence Mulford's Recent Successes.
61Below are several of the notices which Florence Mulford recently received:
63Particularly fortunate was the management in its choice of soloists for the occasion. Florence Mulford, the mezzo-soprano, who sang Delilah, has a rich, full voice of splendid training, and her intelligent singing of the serpentine, revengeful, subtle and triumphant passages left little to be desired. Madame Mulford gave evidence of strong dramatic feeling and her singing was in admirable taste. It was not the bold, masculine Delilah that many expected to hear. It was the distinctly feminine, using the arts of the sorceress rather than the bravado of the Amazon.—Daily Paper, Taunton, Mass.
65The part that requires the most in the solo line is that of Delilah, a mezzo-soprano series, which was personated by Florence Mulford. Exacting as was the part assigned to Madame Mulford, she was adequate to its requirements and was the particularly bright star of the evening.—The Press, Taunton, Mass.
67The most important role in the opera, that of Delilah, was taken by Florence Mulford. She has a voice of most pleasing quality, yet not lacking in strength and expressiveness. She showed exceptional quality of voice in the moderate tones, the real test of a singer's voice.—The Evening Times, Rochester, N. Y.
69Eugene E. Simpson Here.
71Eugene E. Simpson, Leipsic representative of THE MUSICAL COURIER, arrived in New York last week and will remain in this country several weeks. Mr. Simpson has done valuable work in the Saxon capital and he will resume charge of THE MUSICAL COURIER office there later in the summer.
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