Books › Musical Courier 1909-03-17: Vol 58 Iss 11, 1909 › scan 50
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Musical Courier 1909-03-17: Vol 58 Iss 11, 1909
97 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 51. See the scan on archive.org.
1lys"; and it will continue to live and shed happiness into thousands of hearts long after these pretentious pieces of bizarrerie are lying on the dust heap.
3The New York Times.
4There was a setting by Sir Edward Elgar of verses by Byron, "Deep in My Soul," in which he has obtained striking effects in adventurous harmonies.
6The World.
7Elgar's "Deep in My Soul" is a lovely part song.
9Gervase Elwes Recital, March 11.
10The New York Press
11He revealed a lyric tenor voice beautiful in quality.
13The Sun.
14His German songs were intelligently sung.
16The World.
17His program included a Bach aria sung in a way that showed him familiar with the best traditions of the oratorio's style of singing.
19New York Tribune
20His voice is veiled; it lacks vibrancy, resiliency and penetrativeness.
22The Evening Post.
23Our New York climate has evidently played havoc with his vocal cords, for his voice was quite hoarse in some parts, noticeably in the lower notes of the upper register.
25The Sun.
26In a group of English songs, the tenor was heard to much better advantage.
28New York Tribune
29He was more satisfactory yesterday in the older com-
31positions of the early part of the program than in the songs by Brahms, some of which would have admitted of more intensity of declamation without loss to their intrinsic musical value.
33"Tristan and Isolde," March 12.
34The Evening Post.
35He gave a varied but not very interesting program.
37The Sun.
38Mr. Elwes' program was not constructed on altogether conventional lines and this was to the benefit of the entertainment.
40The New York Press
41As always Mahler's reading last night was that of a great conductor. But, somehow, it seemed more desiccated of sensuous appeal than usual. It is all very well to reduce the volume of sound emitted by the orchestra so as not to overweight the singers' voices. But Wagner's score is sensuous from beginning to end and it is a distinct misinterpretation to reduce its passionate throbbing to the quiet pulsing of Beethoven music. Poignancy, incisiveness, the quick, sharp stroke that cuts with a slight output of strength, may count for much, but it cannot take the place of the full blooded, hot and enormous emotionalism that seethes in "Tristan und Isolde."
43The World.
44Mr. Elwes has a smooth, sweet tenor voice, of pleasant quality, which he uses with much taste and fluency, though his high notes sounded at times somewhat forced. He has also a mezzo voice quite unusually flute-like and artistic.
46The Evening Post.
47In reality Mr. Elwes is not a tenor, but rather a high baritone.
49The New York Times.
50Especially was the treatment of the series of Brahms songs artistic, finished, expressing much and suggesting much.
52OPERAS AND CONCERTS IN COLUMBUS.
53COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 12, 1909.
54"Madame Butterfly," Puccini's beautiful opera, was presented here last evening in the Southern Theater by a company which was organized last summer in Cleveland. Among the cast were two of the members of the former Savage English Opera Company, Miss Norwood and Arthur Deane. It was a very creditable performance, though scarcely comparable to the Savage Company in its attention to detail or stage settings.
56The concertgoers of Columbus are having an embarrassment of riches this season. The outlook is still a captivating one. The first one of importance is the Metropolitan Opera Quartet, which comes Wednesday evening (St. Patrick's evening) of next week. The advance sale has been tremendous. Mesdames Rappold and Flahaut and Messrs. Bonci and Witherspoon constitute a quartet which has proven to have great box office power. Signor Floridia has many friends here who are interested in his appearance.
58The usual number of Lenten organ recitals are taking place. Chief among these will be that one by Mrs. Wilbur Thoburn Mills in Broad Street Methodist Church Sunday afternoon, the 28th, at 4 o'clock.
60The Cambrian Male Chorus gives its second concert for this season Monday evening. An interesting program has been arranged.
62There is a well founded rumor that a string quartet will soon be formed which will give a series of chamber concerts every season. That is, the quartet will give the concerts regularly if well supported. There are enough people who love chamber music here to make a fair number of subscribers. A select few are rejoicing over this prospect.
64Columbus has come to the place in its existence when musicians of ability and sincerity find it both pleasant and profitable to live here. A good English organist is the latest prospective arrival. He has been interested in the accounts of the growth of the city (musically) and desires to locate here. If he is as fine an organist as reports say he is, he will be cordially welcomed. There are new organs being built in Columbus churches with unusual frequency of late, which makes good positions open for fine service and concert organists.
65ELLA MAY SMITH.
67CINCINNATI MUSICIANS.
68CINCINNATI, March 12, 1909.
69An audience of proportions which overflowed the available space attended the concert given by the Conservatory Orchestra on the evening of March 10. These affairs have come to have an established reputation, so all the friends and patrons of the school expect a rare treat when the orchestra, under Mr. Tirindelli, with the assisting solo performers, presents its program. The main feature of this occasion was the playing of the string orchestra, which was remarkable for the roundness and purity of the tone, for the unanimity of the phrasing, and for a certain verve and swing which carried the musical message of idealized emotion straight to the hearts of the listeners.
71Mary Dennison Gailey, a violinist of admirable power, appeared twice during the evening. Her chief effort was in the "Spanish Symphony" of Lalo, which she gave with poise and authority. In three beautifully made pieces of Mr. Tirindelli's, viz., "Pierrot Triste," "Pierrot Gay" and "In a Garden," she displayed the graces of a bewitching solo violinist. Mr. Tirindelli has a real gift for composition, and the pieces not merely astonish with pyrotechnics, but charm with musical effects. Florence Teal sang Mendelssohn's grand concert aria, "Inefice," with a clear, even voice and finished technic. Her high notes are especially beautiful, and her enunciation of the text, fortunately an English text, was a model. Winifred Burston, a young Australian who, after studying under Theodor Bohlmann three years in Berlin, came to Cincinnati to have still further privileges of the same sort, played the glorious, passionate allegro of Schumann's one piano concerto with power, flexibility, clearness and dash. Her playing is of the most musical kind, and her firmness and crispness of phrasing are of the first order of merit. The orchestra is now preparing an entire Bach program, which will be given the end of this month.
73Lillian Grenville has been singing in "Thais" at the San Carlo in Naples. She was a member of Conried's ill-fated opera school in New York two years ago.
75The New York Press
76(See above.)
78The Sun.
79There was an Isolde last night who may some time remember with a great glow of joy her performance of March 12, 1909. A superb, a queenly, a heroically tragic Isolde this. . . . Her Isolde seems to grow with every repetition. Can a higher tribute be paid to an artist? Her management of her voice shows increasing resourcefulness and her reading of the music added understanding. She sings all the cantilena. She declaims all the declamatory passages in a style which could not evoke hostile comment even in Bayreuth. There is in her reading of some lines of the part a directness and precision of diction which gives to Wagner's utterances the perfect value of the "speech song" conceived by him. But behind all this lies the potent spell of a beautiful artistic temperament. Her Isolde is now a majestic figure, combining superb heroic proportions with fathomless depths of tenderness. The lyric stage of today is richer for the possession of such an artist. The gallery of operatic portraits is made more splendid by the presence of this Isolde.
81The New York Press
82dynamics. But the barbaric, beating flood of the tragedy he has not felt as he did last night. Then he sent the stupendous phrases of the forte passages pealing through the auditorium in overwhelming waves of sound. The advent of Tristan became genuinely heroic; the crash of the death motive when Isolde raised the cup to her lips was cataclysmal. The upheaval of emotion at the entrance of Tristan in the second act was glorious. In short Mr. Mahler's reading last night had just those elements of power and passion which have been wanting in his previous interpretations. one of two readings
84The New York Press one of two readings
85(no line here) one of two readings
86Miss Fremstad's Isolde did not give unalloyed delight last night. Apparently, she was trying to make experiments with her voice, and she failed. Judging from the peculiar placing of her tones, altered since her last appearance in opera, Miss Fremstad is striving to make her upper register lighter and more flexible, to give it the consistency of a lyric soprano. If she succeeds in so doing it may be to her advantage. But in the period of transition in which she seemed to be last night, the texture of her tones certainly is suffering. Miss Fremstad's impersonation was cold and artificial. She created no illusion of spontaneity. The burden of her attention was given to her tone production. Her singing sounded self-conscious and heartless.
88OBITUARY.
90A. Marie Merrick.
91A. Marie Merrick, pianist and teacher, died week before last, in her home in New Jersey, and the Newark Sunday Call of March 7 has an appropriate eulogy, written by Clara A. Korn. The deceased was a woman of ambition, energy and resource, and at the time of the Music Teachers' National Association meeting in 1897 (New York), she was chairman of the department of literature, organizing a large committee, and getting together an exhibit of woman's accomplishment in music which was interesting in the extreme. As a lecturer on musical subjects, as clubwoman, pianist and teacher (she studied under Clara E. Thoms, now of Buffalo, one of the best known concert pianists of a dozen years ago, now leading vocal authority) she established wide reputation.
93Franz Jost.
94Franz Jost, Jr., sends friends and patrons of the musical establishment founded by his father the news of the latter's death on February 19, at Leipsic, Germany, announcing his continuation of the business by himself. Herr Jost was widely known in the sheet music establishment of Kistner, of Leipsic, previous to founding his own business, in 1890, at 1 Petersteinweg, where it is now located, and it was during this connection that he made friends on all sides by his cheerful, happy disposition and unfailing good humor. On establishing himself he at once drew a large custom, both domestic and foreign, and many students at Leipsic afterward continued buying music from him. He was always a good friend of Americans, and the news of his death awakens sorrow.
96O. Fiebach's burlesque opera, "Robert and Bertram" (based on the famous German farce) had a rousing success at Königsberg, where the composer is the conductor of the Opera House.
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