Books › Musical Courier 1910-02-16: Vol 60 Iss 7, 1910 › scan 12
Scan 12
Musical Courier 1910-02-16: Vol 60 Iss 7, 1910
36 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1lamp posts and left dangling there for pillaging in the flooded districts.
3Few more extraordinary contrasts could be imagined than those presented by the Paris streets at night. Here and there glimpses of the Paris which the world knows as "La Ville Lumière" are still to be discovered, but in the main the capital is a city, if not of dreadful night, at all events one of lugubrious darkness, and strange, weird and fantastic scenes. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights many concerts had to be postponed to some later date. Salle Gaveau, in the Rue La Boetie, was in darkness owing to flooded cellars and the extinction of gas and electricity. People who had gone there on Thursday to attend the concert of the Trio Kellert were sent away, much disappointed, for the brothers Kellert have become great favorites with the concertgoing public of Paris. With many of the theaters it was the same story; the bills reading, "Relache pour cause de manque de lumière." Among the great restaurants and cafés closed, or dimly lighted, are Ledoyens, Ambassadeurs and Laurents in the Champs Elysées; Café de Paris, Maxim's, Durand, Larue, Café du Cardinal, Zimmer, Pousset, Riche and a dozen others. Tonight many of the lamp or gas posts have been fitted with oil lamps and the appearance presented is not quite so ghastly as during the last few nights. And the dry cold weather of today is inspiring satisfaction and much hope for continued improvement, although bursting sewers must raise the level in cellars despite frantic use of pumps.
5Music during these latter days has not received much attention owing to the preoccupation and anxiety caused by the inundation. Because of that and the consequent material difficulties many of the big concerts have been put off; only the Conservatoire and Colonne had some chance yesterday. At the Châtelet M. Pierné gave the ninth symphony of Beethoven again, and to begin, a concerto for stringed instruments by Handel; then a symphonic poem by Albeniz, "Catalona." The latter is a work of a musician prematurely cut off from music which he would have brilliantly served. His work is worthy of the success it received, being full of talent, color, original and independent and full of life. A fantaisie for piano and orchestra, signed by a pseudonym which must be faithfully respected, did not find the same favor; it appeared weak and poor, in spite of the efforts of the orchestra and of Madame Henri Deblaume.
7At the Conservatoire, M. Messager directed a very good performance of the "Deluge" of Saint-Saëns, and of the symphony in C minor, the "Jupiter," by Mozart. Berlioz's "Carnaval Romain" overture was also on the program. The "biblical poème" or text of "Le Deluge" is by Louis Gallet, written in a prelude and three parts—Prelude—Some large chords precede an exposition of fugue in four parts by the strings, of which the successive entrées are violas, second violins, cellos, first violins. (Pause.) Violin solo (Alfred Brun), accompanied by a pizzicato of strings. Three soloists stand out from the whole to form with the protagonist a quartet in sustained harmonies: I. Corruption of Man—Anger of Lord. Alliance with Noah. The motif that the solo violin had brought out in the prelude here emphasizes the beauty of the daughters of man, of whom the memory is evoked by the reciter (te:or solo). The same voice recalls the birth of the Giants, issue of a criminal union (grand unison of strings), the degeneracy of man (motif of the Giants more rapid, very soft and with three entrées), and God's anger! He repents having created the world. This motif is that of the curse. Treated here in fugato libre (several voices, of soloists and chorus), it is charged with threats of which the realization takes place later. For an instant all calms down. The figure of Noah the Just passes and the solo quartet of strings makes a procession for him. God said to Noah: "Make an ark of wood, high and wide and deep." But the curse (chorus) rises again, God's wrath will scourge mankind. II. The Ark. The Deluge. The brasses of the orchestra (four horns, two trumpets, three trombones) are increased by an additional two trumpets, two trombones, three double bass tubas. The "percussion battery" being composed of cymbals, two pairs of kettledrums (timpani), tam-tam and the bass drum. The effects of this orchestral mass are graduated with consummate art. This commences with extreme sweetness on a tremolo of strings divided and subdivided. Linked chromatic passages for flutes, clarinets, bassoons. First apparition (curse motif) with the trombones. Its last reiteration, at the height of the tempest, is with twelve brass instruments, with terrific outburst after a long crescendo, during which the wind instruments, including the piccolo flute, sometimes reinforced and also replaced by string instruments, make a strange, persistent, chromatic medley at divers heights. The hearer will embody such and such a symbol; this beautiful music painting is a transposition in the domain of musical art of the tempest, and the harmony is less imitative than expressive. Also a chorus of voices in unison or superposed in simple and big chords adds to the orchestral unfolding:
9And the waters of the flood invaded the earth,
10And in the depths of the abyss and from the heavens
11The funeral song and wind cease.
12The sun was hidden under funeral falls . . .
13And the waves rose up above the ruins . . .
14The tide rose . . . it covered the mountains . . .
15The ark, tight-closed, floated on this waste of waters . . .
17Corresponding with the mounting waters is a chromatic ascending scale, on a pedal or organ point of G (sustained uninterruptedly), whose sonorous intensity, with intended paradox of great effect, decreases as the scale rises higher. The strings gradually take the sourdines (mutes) in a progressive extinction; all is swallowed up in the calm of death. III. The Dove. Coming out of the Ark, God's blessing. Octet of strings, by doubling each part, very softly, with sourdines. The ark floats on the appeased waters. The flight of the raven, the sending forth of the dove, her return, her last flight signified by passages for flutes or violins, by rhythms gently panting of the wood wind ("upon the shuddering wave . . .") evoke also the motif of Noah. When finally the earth bursts forth from the bosom of the waters, the motif of the prelude (violin solo), which, in the first part, interprets the beauty of the earth and of man, returns to the wood wind, then to the strings, while the chorus admires the Ark shining in the heavens. "I will not curse the Earth," said the Eternal, and the Voice to seal its covenant with man lends to Noah its musical representation. "You and I are united . . . " and your covenant is dear to me . . . ". The vocal quartet of the soloists promises peace to mankind. The union of the themes seals it and the chorus strikes up the terminal fugue: "Be fruitful and multiply," to which the quartet of soloists adds its part.
19The solo singers, Mesdames Maud Herlenn and Lacombe-Olivier, MM. Emile Cazeneuve and Charles W. Clark, all acquitted themselves admirably; they could not have been better chosen for their respective parts, particularly the men, the voice of Charles Clark never sounding more sonorously beautiful than on this occasion. Every tone was round, full and rich, while his diction was most commendable.
21The committee of patronesses of the Conservatoire International d'Opéra et de Chant have held a consultation or meeting at the home of the Marquise de Saint-Paul, at which it was unanimously decided that the Conservatoire concert announced to take place on the first Friday in February be postponed to the first Friday in March on account of the inundations in Paris. This arrangement will carry the series of public concerts at the Conservatoire to the first Friday in June instead of May as originally planned.
23For a similar reason, and owing to the want of gaslight, electricity and elevator or "lift" service in the building, Delma-Heide did not resume his regular "musical afternoons" on Saturday last, to the regret of many music lovers and Musical Courier friends.
25From Montreux, Switzerland, the death is announced of Mathis Lussy, the musician, at the age of eighty-two. M. Lussy, who was born at Stanz, held some very new theories in regard to rhythm and notation, on which he published many important works. Among them are "Histoire de la Notation Musicale depuis ses Origines," "Le Rythme Musical, son Origine, sa Fonction et son Accentuation"; "L'Anacrouse dans la Musique Moderne," and "Concordance entre la Mesure et le Rythme."
27The music composer, Edmond Missa, is dead, says Le Figaro. One of the familiar figures of the French musical world has passed away. Edmond Missa, the composer, was found dead in bed on Saturday morning by his concierge when the man went into his bedroom to wake him. Edmond Missa was born at Rheims in 1865. He studied under Massenet at the Paris Conservatoire, where he won an honorable mention in the Prix de Rome competition. Among his best known works are "Lydia," a one act comic opera; "La Belle Sophie" in three acts; "Le Chevalier Timide," one act; "Ninon de Lenclos," four acts.
29The widow of Jules Verne is dead. The announcement comes from Amiens that Madame Verne passed away at the age of eighty in the same house which saw her husband's death.
31The death is also reported of Edouard Rod, the well known Swiss novelist, who passed away on Friday morning at Grasse. Among his best known works are "Sens de la Vie" and "La Vie de Michel Tessier."
33The wedding has taken place (says Le Figaro) of Albert Alvarez of the Paris Opéra (until a short time ago), with Mlle. Benjamin, the daughter of Dr. Benjamin, member of the French Academy of Medicine.
35DELMA-HEIDE.
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