Books › Musical Courier 1907-05-08: Vol 54 Iss 19, 1907 › scan 26
Scan 26
Musical Courier 1907-05-08: Vol 54 Iss 19, 1907
78 lines. Read by computer on 24 September 2026. Printed page 23. See the scan on archive.org.
1The musical artists coming to Paris to give these invitation concerts—and they are all invitation concerts—pay the manager the mailing costs for the expense of sending by post office these printed invitation slips, each manager having a highly flavored list of invitators, backed by another lot which the piano house floats about by mail, for there is always some piano used at a concert—for nothing, too! For these mailing expenses the concert artists must pay, but in order to allow of possible discrepancies the managerial manipulator mails in one envelope to each of his free list supporters the usual batch of invitation slips, and in an unsealed envelope, thereby gaining the lowest mail rate at wholesale, for which he charges the highest mail at retail to the concert artist when the account is made out. Added to these mailing costs come the cost of little posters gingerly distributed, so that as few people as possible may be able to learn anything about the concert, and one hundred francs to the manager, and the 100 to 300 francs for the hall, light, attendance, police and poor funds, and there is your Paris concert all arranged in good shape, and, unless you notify your friends here that you are to give a concert, no one except the invitation deadheads will ever know that such a concert is to take place. Any one anxious to cover for a newspaper a week's concerts here—not the few large orchestral concerts—would be compelled to spend a week or more among managers, halls and piano warerooms to secure the list of attractions. As the invitation deadhead list is divided among groups, each group representing one manager, the one group that knows of threatening events knows nothing of the others that are impending; and as this invitation system has been a fixed method for years past, musical people would be astounded if they were ever asked to pay to attend a concert or to hear a great artist, with the exception—the rare exception—of a half dozen artists on this globe, and they manage to manage their affairs here by sending a personal representative in advance, who puts a somewhat different complexion on the concert. Yet the financial results even then are absurd when compared to the receipts of an average recital at Worcester or Wichita, in the United States, the invitation system here having replaced fully any method that may have prevailed formerly—centuries ago, probably—when Parisians might have paid to hear these small concerts. Most of the artists play at the orchestral concerts without any charge whatever.
3In many concerts pianos are used that could not be sold in the United States except to feed a fire, although there are also excellent instruments heard. What I mean is that the thump and wire boxes that are heard would not be tolerated in an American concert for a moment. A well known singing teacher here—generally known—uses an upright piano during his lessons that has never been in tune—a little $100 box; and the fact that this thing can be tolerated by him, the fact that he is not repulsed by its cacophony, must prove to every intelligent pupil that he certainly cannot distinguish tone and cannot be a musician; but he uses the sad box constantly and his accompanist does not even protest. Of course, persons taking singing lessons under those auspices certainly must not expect to escape the infection such an audition is sure to produce.
5All this must read wonderfully to the world of music, but it is not at all strange to the world of Paris, which accepts it with that indifference, complaisance and graciousness that indicate the temper of cosmopolitan life, where there are no surprises if for no other reason than the bad form such a thing as a surprise betrays. To such an extent has custom now cultivated the concert system here that no one expects ever to realize a sou from a concert—except a very few artists who occasion a detour at very rare intervals, about once in three or four years.
7Beethoven Monument.
8A site has been found by the Municipal Council for the projected Beethoven monument here, whose sculptor is M. José de Charmoy. It has been referred to before by the regular Paris correspondent of this paper. Charmoy made the Baudelaire tomb, the bust of Saint-Beuve in the Luxembourg Garden and the statue of Zola. The description and details will be reported on later, at the dedication. My reference to it here is to show that, notwithstanding the absence of practical support of music, there is a profound, a deep seated idealism in Paris that protects and advances art and gives it a fragrance not attained elsewhere. Within two minutes from this desk there are streets named after Pergolese, Piccini, Weber, Lalo and Berlioz. "Well, what does that amount to?" will be asked. It all amounts to nothing, except that the selection of these names indicates the possession of the idealism without which there could be no art. That is the reason Strauss is coming here to produce "Salome" and is taking financial chances. Would he produce it anywhere else without a guarantee of cash in advance?
10Receipts of Operas.
11The gross receipts of the opera houses and theaters in Paris for 1906 have just been made public and I give them translated into dollars. Ninety-five places of amusement:
12Gross receipts, 1905…………………………… $8,386,790
13Gross receipts, 1906…………………………… 8,641,935
14Gain over 1905…………………………………. 255,145
15Gross receipts during 1900 (Exposition Year).. 11,584,725
16Gross receipts Grand Opera, 1906 (open all year)…………………………………………….. 638,120
17Gross receipts Opera Comique, 1906 (open all year)…………………………………………….. 507,920
18That is, the two great opera houses here, in a year's receipts, together do not do as much as one opera house in New York does in receipts in a season of only four and a half months. Our two opera houses in New York City did each about as much in four and a half months as the two in Paris did in twelve months. During May, June, July and August, when tout Paris is out of town, the receipts for opera in Paris come from Americans—at least one-half.
20The salaries here are very much less than one-half—in fact, not one-third—of those paid in New York. That reduces the receipts. The higher priced the article the greater the public attention on the part of that public which is willing and even anxious to pay. After all, suppose we point the policy in another direction and support the artists in their demand for higher salaries in America. Things run by contraries. It might help along to end the high salary crime and call for still higher prices.
22BLUMENBERG.
24NO REST FOR LIVE MUSICIANS.
25What easy going Americans call "the vacation months" is not altogether a period of rest for live musicians. Pianists, violinists, singers and teachers travel much, but their peregrinations are due to a restless desire to be seen and heard in new places. The live musician rarely thinks of "resting," although he may seek change and variety in his surroundings. Nearly all of the American singers of reputation are going to find this present summer one of great activity. Many are going abroad, and many more are to study with masters of renown across the Atlantic. Most of the teachers are to be as busy as bees, for they will have summer schools in and out of town. It promises to be a summer of work for the live ones in the musical profession.
27The end of May will call Bessie Abott, Charlotte Maconda, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Claude Cunningham, George Hamlin and other artists to Atlanta, Ga., for the music festival in that progressive city. Later some of these singers will go to Europe.
29Corinne Rider-Kelsey, Francis Rogers and Herbert Witherspoon will be on the ocean within the next four or five weeks for a summer in England and the Continent. Witherspoon and Rogers are booked for concerts in London and elsewhere.
31George Sweet, accompanied by a party of pupils, will sail for Italy tomorrow (Thursday). This master will establish a school of singing and opera in Florence. The plans have been previously published in THE MUSICAL COURIER.
33Madame von Klenner will reopen her summer school at Point Chautauqua, N. Y., on the first day of July. She will again have teachers from the South and West to enter her advanced class of vocalists.
35Laura P. Morrill will continue to teach during the summer, and very soon will be located somewhere near Boston, with several of the best singers in her class for another term.
37Tali Esen Morgan will again hold the musical fort at Ocean Grove, N. J., where for many summers he has made art a feature.
39Edward Morris Bowman, pianist, organist and director of Calvary Baptist choir, will travel some and later go with his family to his country home, on beautiful Squirrel Island, Me.
41S. C. Bennett, the vocal teacher, will divide his vacation time between his classes at Asbury Park, N. J., and the metropolis.
43Berrick von Norden, the tenor, is now singing at festivals in the West.
45Maud Powell, a star in the violin world, left New York last Thursday morning to fill an engagement in Richmond, Va. She will rest at some rural resort during the summer months and resume her next season's work with a trip through California and the Northwestern States. Beginning on October 1 Miss Powell will give thirty recitals in six weeks.
47Glenn Hall, the American tenor, who has been singing with pronounced success in Germany and England, is now in London. Mr. Hall expects to return to America this summer.
49Elsa Ruegger, who recently closed a tour of the United States, is now one of the attractions in London.
51Kitty Cheatham, who holds a unique place in the lyric world, is in London, and next month will sing at several recitals, under royal patronage.
53Rafael Joseffy, prince of resident pianists, remains in his fortress at Tarrytown, N. Y.
55Alexander Lambert, teacher of many pianists, is abroad.
57Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Severn, who have pupils in piano, voice and violin, in New York and Springfield, Mass., will continue making trips between these cities until late in June.
59Many of the music teachers in the Empire State will be in Elmira the last week in June for the annual convention of the N. Y. S. M. T. A.
61This week the National Federation of Musical Clubs (the only women's clubs that ought to be taken seriously) are holding the biennial meeting at Memphis, Tenn., under the auspices of the Beethoven Club, of that city.
63Miltonella Beardsley will keep her Carnegie Hall studio open until late in June, and then the pianist will announce her plans for the remainder of the summer.
65William R. Chapman and Mrs. Chapman will have to devote much of their summer preparing for the Maine festivals at Portland and Bangor. Calvé is to be one of the stars.
67Florence Mulford will sing at late May concerts in New England, and this artist has other bookings ahead for the summer.
69Madame Ogden-Crane will have a summer school at Carnegie Hall.
71Marie Hall, the young English violinist, is making a tour in Western Canada, en route to the Pacific Coast, where she is soon to sail for Australia.
73Madame Cappiani will have pupils studying with her this summer at her villa in Switzerland.
75Carl Venth, who has been in St. Paul for six months, will soon leave there, with Mrs. Venth, for a trip to the Pacific Coast.
77Richard Burmeister, now a fixture in Berlin, is
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