Scan 4
Musical Courier 1909-05-05: Vol 58 Iss 18, 1909
44 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 5. 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.
1THE MUSICAL COURIER
3BERLIN
5Luitpold Str., 24.
6Berlin, W., April 18, 1909.
8Georg Friedrich Handel died one hundred and fifty years ago, Wednesday, April 14, 1909. Distinguished as the founder of the classic period in the history of German music, the master had also the honor of being England's greatest composer, these two mighty nations both claiming him for their own; for, though German by birth, nearly two-thirds of his life was spent in England. Handel was born in Halle on February 23, 1685. His father, who was a barber, married a second time in his sixtieth year, and the composer was the child of this union. The boy's musical talent was manifested at a very early age, much to his father's displeasure, as his ambition for his son was to make of him a good forester. The elder Handel, from his practical standpoint, looked upon music as a mere pastime; but, in spite of parental disapproval, the boy continued to practice behind his father's back, and finally through the intercession of the Duke of Weissenfels, whose admiration had been excited by the child's organ playing at the age of eight, the father's reluctant consent for a musical education was obtained. His first studies were under Zachau, organist of Halle, with whom he remained five years, showing great talent for musical analysis and for composition. At thirteen he was for a short time a student of the operatic school in Berlin. At the death of his father, in 1703, the boy went to Hamburg, where he entered an orchestra as second violin, and by means of giving lessons to eke out his meager salary, he commenced life on his own account; it was a very modest and unheralded beginning, and his playing of the violin was not such as to attract attention, it being rather poor than otherwise. But he was laying the foundation for his future fame, and when his chance came at the age of nineteen to take the place of the absent orchestra leader one day, his ability was so marked that he was at once advanced to the position. In 1709 he went to Italy, where he lived for two years in Florence, Rome and Naples, where his ability as a composer of operas and as an organist was recognized, although he received little financial encouragement. After a similar experience in England, he returned to Germany, where he became kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover—afterward King George I of England. It was here, through his association with the Italian composer Steffani, that he gained the elegant and gracefully flowing melodic style which his earlier compositions lacked. He received a salary of £200. The Elector twice gave him permission to go to England, and during his second visit Queen Anne gave him a pension of £200, whereupon he decided to take up his permanent residence in that country. There he became the mainstay of the newly founded Italian Opera in London, a position which brought him a large share of honor and attention; but this was also a period of vexatious trials and bitter attacks from his enemies among the singers and some of his patrons, who formed a rival opera troupe, in which Buononcini and other composers led some of the most famous artists of the day. Although Handel composed many Italian operas at this time, none of them had more than a short run, as they lacked the charm to win favor with the public, and the master finally severed his connection with the opera, and for a time ill fortune alone seemed to favor him. One after another, patrons, social position, health and fortune failed him and he sank into comparative oblivion. But the smouldering fire of his genius was not thus easily to be extinguished, and thereafter followed the period of his greatest fame and brilliance as an oratorio composer, for it was not until his fifty-fifth year that he gave himself up entirely to this, his true work, although his first oratorio, "Esther," was written twenty years earlier. It was through "The Messiah," written in three weeks' time for the people of Dublin, in 1741, that Handel's great genius was first really appreciated. From that time on, with his rapidly increasing number of oratorios, he attained the heights of fame and became the favorite of the British public. His most remarkable and popular works are the oratorios "The Messiah," "Israel in Egypt" (1730), "Samson" (1742), and "Judas Maccabaeus" (1746). He wrote more than fifty German, English and Italian operas; numbers of big symphonies; piano, oboe and organ concertos; twenty-two works of church music, including psalms, Te Deums, etc., and hundreds of motets, cantatas, songs, piano suites and little instrumental pieces. The last years of his life were clouded by approaching blindness, but this did not discourage the unusually active old man from continued industry. Untiringly he gave concerts and himself played the organ parts in his oratorios, and even up to a week before his death, although almost totally blind, he led a production of his "Messiah." He died on April 14, 1759, and three days later his remains were reverently laid at rest in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey with solemn ceremony; the liturgy was read by the Bishop of Rochester and Handel's own funeral psalm was sung by the united choirs of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. Later a marble monument from a design by Roubiliac was erected on the spot. Handel was never married and it is not known that he ever had any friends among women. He associated with only three men friends—Smith, his copyist; Goupy, a painter, and Hurter, a dyer; among musicians he had no intimate acquaintances and he showed no great interest in the works of his contemporaries. He had, in fact, very few interests outside of his art, except a fondness for pictures. When in 1785 England honored with great ceremony the one hundredth anniversary of Handel's birthday, the accounts of the celebration awakened in Germany a desire to become acquainted with his works by means of public productions, and Adam Hiller, the founder of the Leipsic Gewandhaus concerts, was the first to meet this desire with a performance of "The Messiah" at the Dom in Berlin under his own direction; the following year it was given again at Leipsic. From that time Handel's genius has been appreciated in Germany as well as in England, and on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the day of his death, in 1859, a statue of the master was erected in Halle, his birthplace. At the same time an equally honorable monument to his memory appeared in the shape of the publication of his complete works by the German Handel Society, edited by Chrysander, a collection which for accuracy and comprehensiveness is not to be equaled in England.
10It is not without reason considered a dangerous undertaking to try to make a successful soprano out of a pronounced contralto voice, but that is just what Edyth Walker has succeeded in doing. The distinguished American singer recently made two very successful appearances here at the Royal Opera in the parts of Brünnhilde and Isolde and on Friday evening she was heard in concert with orchestra at the Philharmonie, when she sang the aria of the Countess from "Figaro's Wedding" and the closing scene from the "Götterdämmerung." With Miss Walker one does not have a feeling that her voice has been forced up and that she manages to bring out the high notes with great effort; she impresses one as a legitimate soprano and her high notes were as firm as a rock and in perfect tune. She has accomplished a remarkable feat, and it is to be hoped that there will be no bad results. Her singing was magnificent, especially in the "Götterdämmerung" scene, which was given with great breadth and authority, with fire, and always with beautiful tone production. The concert giver proper was Selmar Meyrowitz, first conductor of the Dantzig Opera, who made, on this occasion, his initial bow in Berlin as an orchestra leader. The purely orchestra numbers were the third "Leonore" overture and Berlioz's "Fantastic" symphony. In the overture Meyrowitz tended to drag the tempi, except at the close, which was too hurried; but in the symphony he was in his element, and he gave a splendid reading of the big work—a reading full of color and vitality. He was extended a very cordial reception.
12Emma Gates, a young American girl from Salt Lake City, who has been studying in Berlin for some time, formerly at the Stern Conservatory and of late privately with Blanche Corelli, has had the distinction conferred upon her of being engaged for a "Gast" appearance at the Berlin Royal Opera. She made her debut as Aennechen in "Der Freischutz" last night. The young lady scored an instantaneous, pronounced, and well deserved success. She has a beautiful, fresh, pleasing voice, and the way she employs it bespeaks excellent training. She also has histrionic ability of a superior order and she presented a very charming appearance on the stage. The role of Aennechen is by no means easy to sing. The late Hans von Bülow declared that he had never heard the part given to his satisfaction, so Miss Gates has every reason to be proud of her success. In fact, she was the feature of the performance, which in many respects left much to be desired. I never heard Dr. Muck conduct so sleepily and so uninterestingly; Kraus is too much of a Siegfried to be a good Max, and Eckblad, as Agathe, was quite unsatisfactory, but there was something spontaneous and refreshing both in Miss Gates' singing and in her acting.
14The last symphony concert of the Royal Opera was conducted by Dr. Robert Laugs, of Hagen, in place of Richard Strauss, who was away on leave of absence. Bach's "Brandenburg" concerto, Schubert's unfinished, and Beethoven's ninth symphonies formed the program. Laugs proved that he is a thorough musician, whose conceptions are straightforward and convincing, who has a very complete knowledge of his scores and who also has the entire musical apparatus thoroughly in hand. He made a very good impression. There was a report circulated here through some of the papers last year, when Laugs made his first appearance at the head of the Royal Orchestra, that the young conductor was an especial protégé of the Krupp family, of Essen, and that he had been sent by them direct to the Emperor with a strong personal letter of introduction. On investigating the matter, I find that all this is not true. Laugs is not even acquainted with the Krupps and has never been near the Emperor. He came here solely on his merits as a musician, and the false report was started by a jealous clique who wish to injure him. Professional jealousy is one of the most discouraging features of contemporaneous musical life.
16The operatic class of the Stern Conservatory, of Berlin, gave its second public performance at the Theater des Westens on April 10, with Nikolaus Rothmühl, the head of the class, as stage manager, and Prof. Gustav Hollander, director of the conservatory, as conductor. Acts from the "Walkyrie," "Don Juan" and "Carmen" were given. Last week the performances of works by Verdi were written up in the Berlin letter, and this time again the singing of the pupils was of a superior order, proving that the famous Berlin institution always maintains in its work high artistic ideals. The following are the casts in the three different operas:
18"WALKURE"—ACT I.
19Hunding …………………………………………..Leo Caplan
20Sieglinde …………………………………………..Claire Gafina
21Siegfried …………………………………………..Emil Nitsch
23"DON JUAN"—SCENE FROM ACT I.
24Don Juan …………………………………………..Cäsar von Zawilowski
25Donna Anna ………………………………………Bertha Formes
26Don Ottavio ………………………………………Christian Wahle
27Donna Elvira …………………………………….Aena Hüttner one of two readings
28Donna Elvira ……………………………………..Aena Hüttner one of two readings
29Leporello …………………………………………..Joseph Apriaski
30Masetto …………………………………………..Fritz Zomak
31Zerlina …………………………………………..Gertrud Marquard
33"CARMEN"—ACT II.
34Lieutenant Zuniga ………………………………..Fritz Zomak
35Sergeant Don Jose ……………………………….Ernst Boehme
36Escamillo …………………………………………..Jacob Makowski
37Dancalro …………………………………………..Georg Koher
38Remendado ……………………………………….Erich Wolf
39Carmen …………………………………………..Marga Dannenberg
40Frasquita …………………………………………..Tilly Schmidt
41Mercedes …………………………………………..Margarethe Grän
43Julius Casper, a very gifted American violinist, made his initial bow before a Berlin audience at Beethoven Hall on Thursday evening, scoring a complete success. His program showed that the young artist has a strong classical bent and that he takes his art very seriously. He played the Bach A minor and the Beethoven and Brahms concertos—three works that call for violinistic powers of a high degree, to be sure, but above all for superior musicianship. Young Casper has an excellent command of the
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