Scan 8
Musical Courier 1910-03-02: Vol 60 Iss 9, 1910
17 lines. Read by computer on 25 September 2026. Printed page 9. See the scan on archive.org.
1as my assistant informs me. He gave a concert with piano assistance. The program consisted of Veracini's concerto in E minor, the Brahms A major sonata, the Schubert fantasy, op. 159, for violin and piano and Vitali's ciaccona for violin and organ. In the sonata and the fantasy Serato played with great finesse and with splendid balance in point of ensemble, tone production and emotional display. He was at his best in the old Vivaldi number, of which he gave a very impassioned rendition. Serato's tone is warm and vibrant and he always enters into his work with his whole soul. This style of composition suits him to perfection. His conception of it was big and broad and he played it with great plasticity as well as with glowing temperament. Technically there was nothing to criticise. He received an ovation.
3The young Parisian pianist, Adolph Borchard, is meeting with a great deal of recognition in Berlin. He recently played before the Emperor at a big reception given by the French Ambassador. At his second recital at Beethoven Hall he enhanced the splendid impression formerly made here. Liszt seems to suit him well, and his renditions of the six "Soirées de Vienne" were remarkable for lucidity of technic, for charm of touch and for refinement of delivery. The young Frenchman has admirable poise. His style of playing Mozart, while by no means German (it being too elegant for that), is, however, very interesting; elegance, finish and refinement are characteristic features of his playing. He had a very distinguished audience, which bestowed upon him unmistakable tokens of approval.
5A very successful debut was made this week by Leo Sirota, a new pianist. Nowadays one could pave the city with pianists possessing big technic, yet the digital proficiency of this young man is beyond the average. He made the mistake that most young pianists of the day are making, of playing too heavy a program, including, as it did, two such big numbers as the Beethoven "Hammer Klavier" sonata and the Brahms "Paganini" variations; the "Hammer Klavier," like the Liszt B minor sonata, should be excluded from concert programs. However, young Sirota gave a most remarkable rendition of the work. Young pianists beginning their careers are of late very fond of playing the biggest and most indigestible works in piano literature, forgetting that the public is bored by them. Egon Petri, for instance, is an admirable young pianist, but the programs of his two recitals were enough to scare the public away, instead of attracting it. And when young, immature pianists attempt pieces of this nature, it becomes unbearable. There is such a wealth of good music, and at the same time pleasing music, in piano literature, that there is absolutely no necessity for choosing programs of such heavy caliber. Anyhow, the critics are not convinced by such choices.
7A new conductor, Bruno Weyersberg, a native of Berlin, introduced himself at the Bluthner Hall with the assistance of the Bluthner Orchestra and Johanna Heinze, dramatic soprano. Two of Weyersberg's selections were rarely heard compositions—Peter Cornelius' overture to "Cid" and Tschaikowsky's third symphony in D major. This was the first time during my fifteen years' residence in Berlin that I have heard Tschaikowsky's third symphony. Compared with the fifth and sixth, it is weak, both in contents and workmanship; yet it contains numerous interesting features and it bears the unmistakable stamp of Tschaikowsky. The first movement is uninteresting and the finale, too, is rather commonplace; but the other three movements, an alla tedesca, an andante elegiaco and a scherzo, contain charming ideas, and in these the composer, especially in his treatment of the woodwind, often suggests the powers displayed in his later symphonic works. One theme is very much like the opening of the first movement of the fifth symphony. Bruno Weyersberg made a very good impression; he has excellent musical judgment, he is familiar with the technics of conducting and he has an abundance of temperament. The orchestra played remarkably well under his leadership and the young man gives promise of developing into a conductor of note. Johanna Heinze sang the big "Leonore" aria from "Fidelio" and three lieder with orchestral accompaniment by Grieg, Richard Strauss and Weyersberg, himself. I heard her in the aria, which she sang with a great deal of dramatic fervor. She is essentially an operatic singer and her voice, as well as style of singing, is shown off to better advantage on the operatic than on the concert stage. Her organ is a powerful dramatic soprano, well adapted to Wagnerian roles, and she handles it with a great deal of skill. She has a warm, rich cantilena, and an impassioned delivery.
9Ida Hiedler and Fritz Masbach gave their second concert at the Singakademie last evening before an audience that crowded the hall to the last seat. Both artists were in exceptionally good form and both were acclaimed with tumultuous applause. Masbach played the Chopin B flat minor sonata, the Mozart C minor fantasy and smaller numbers by Bach, E. E. Taubert, Schubert and Rubinstein. His playing throughout the evening was admirable, from a pianistic as well as from a musical standpoint. Technically clean cut and sure, it was distinguished by a nobility of tone production and interpretations that were straightforward, thoroughly artistic and satisfying. It was one of the best performances of the Chopin sonata that has been heard here this winter. Liszt's charming arrangement of the Schubert "Forelle," which he played is very rarely heard. Ida Hiedler quite surpassed herself, singing with a dramatic intensity that completely carried the audience away. Her program was made up entirely of lieder; I suppose she thought she had been heard often enough in arias during her twenty years' engagement at the Royal Opera. At any rate, the artist is an interpreter of the German lied par excellence. As at her first concert, the freshness and purity of her voice were very noticeable. She knows how to work up a crescendo to a remarkable climax. In conception and delivery, exquisite taste was revealed in each of the songs; that could hardly be otherwise with her refined musical intellect. Yet she is by no means an objective artist; she sings with real spontaneity and temperament. Her selections included five songs by Brahms, a group by Robert Franz and further a group of moderns, as Taubert, Strauss, Reger, Humperdinck and D'Albert. At the conclusion of the program she was called upon to give numerous encores; one was a selection from the "Valkyrie," another Strauss' "Cécile."
11Donizetti's "Daughter of the Regiment" reached yesterday the biblical age; it was seventy years ago, on February 11, 1840, at the Opera Comique in Paris, that it had its first public performance. Before settling in Paris, in 1840, Donizetti had written no less than fifty-three operas, and during that year five new ones were created by him. The "Daughter of the Regiment" did not meet with immediate recognition and among the critics who condemned the novelty was Hector Berlioz, who wrote an article against it for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which was then published by Robert Schumann in Leipsic. Berlioz claimed that the music lacked physiognomy and was a rehash of Adam and Meyerbeer. It was not until after its enormous success in Germany and Italy that Paris claimed the "Daughter of the Regiment." Such singers as Jenny Lind, Henriette Sontag, Adelina Patti and Paulina Lucca numbered among their favorite roles that of Marie. The famous Sontag, after her marriage to Count Rossi, said farewell to the stage; she found, however, that she could not do without the glare of the footlights and the plaudits of the multitude and she chose for her re-entree the part of Marie in the "Daughter of the Regiment." Donizetti composed sixty-six operas within a period of twenty-six years. The "Daughter of the Regiment" was first produced in Berlin at the Royal Opera in 1842, and up to January 23, 1910, when it was last given on that stage, it had had 253 performances. Of the hundreds of songstress who have appeared in the part of Marie, Paulina Lucca is said by old operatic veterans to have been the most remarkable interpreter of this charming role. Donizetti himself inclined toward the tragic and, and among his more than three score of operatic works, only three were of the comic genre—"The Love Potion," "Don Pasquale" and the "Daughter of the Regiment." The two last named and "Lucia di Lammermoor" are the only ones still given in Germany, so far as I have been able to ascertain.
13HELENA LEWYN.
14Youthful American pianist who has been winning recognition abroad.
16Hans Bronsart von Schellendorf, the well known opera intendant, pianist and composer, celebrated yesterday February 11, his eightieth birthday. Bronsart came of a military family, his father having been lieutenant-general in the German army, but the inclination for music was so strong in him that an artistic career was decided upon. He first studied piano with Kullak and composition with Dehn, in Berlin, his birthplace. In 1854 he became a pupil of Franz Liszt, with whom he remained for three years. Then, for a time, he travelled as a concert pianist through Germany, France and Russia. In 1865 he succeeded Hans von Bülow as conductor of the Society of Music Friends in Berlin. In 1867 he became intendant of the Royal Opera at Hanover, and twenty years later he accepted a similar position at Weimar, where he remained until 1895. Of late years he has devoted himself only to compositions; a symphony, the music dramas "Manfred" and the "Corsair," a piano concerto, a cantata and several chamber music works found recognition. He is best known through his F sharp
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