Books › Musical Courier 1911-03-22: Vol 62 Iss 12, 1911 › scan 38
Scan 38
Musical Courier 1911-03-22: Vol 62 Iss 12, 1911
36 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. Printed page 39. See the scan on archive.org.
1MUSIC IN LOUISVILLE.
2Louisville, Ky., March 9, 1911.
3The Monday Musical Club gave the second of its pleasing afternoon concerts on Monday, with a program of German music. Ophelia Rogers, piano; Mrs. Charles Wilson and Eleanor Bridges, violin; Mrs. Guy Ellis and Laura Beilstein, vocalists, provided the audience with a charming hour's entertainment in Baldwin Hall. The various compositions were performed in a style which proved that these young women are doing serious and commendable work. Ethel Bailey was the accompanist of the occasion.
5Tuesday afternoon the Detroit String Quartet was heard in Macauley's Theater, with Elsa Ruegger and David Baxter as soloists. Madame Ruegger's masterful work as a cellist is too well known to need more than mention. Mr. Baxter was favorably received by the audience. The other members of the quartet are F. Lichtenstein, first violin; Alexander Levey, second violin, and Hugo Weissmann, viola.
7Tuesday night a successful musicale was given in the Seelbach Auditorium by local talent. Those participating were Bertha Stephany, Mrs. J. Grau, Nannie Lee Frayser, Margerite Proctor Beasley, Edith Bohmer, Mrs. W. J. Scholtz, John Manly and Carl Zahn. The program consisted altogether of modern music.
9March 7 the Louisville Quintet Club gave its fifth concert in the Woman's Club. Tschaikowsky's piano trio, op. 50, was played for the first time in this city. Grieg's unfinished string quartet in F major was the second number on the program, which concluded with the vorspiel and liestod from "Tristan and Isolde," arranged by Karl Schmidt as a piano quintet. The arrangement was most effective and this number was listened to with much interest by the large audience. The Quintet Club is one of the most successful musical organizations of the city.
11The production of the Beethoven Mass in C, which was announced for Sunday, was indefinitely postponed on account of the absence of the director, Clement Stapleford. The Choral Club has been devoting almost the entire winter to work on this great composition, and the performance, when it is given, promises to be an exceptionally fine one.
13The artists engaged for the May Festival are Alma Gluck, Pasquale Amato, George Hamlin, Albert Quesnel, Florence Hinkle, Christine Miller, Arthur Middleton and Alexander Saslavsky. The New York Symphony Orchestra and a local chorus of 300, besides a children's chorus of 450, completes the list of performers. May 4, 5 and 6 are the dates announced.
15The New Orleans French Opera Company is to give a series of performances in the Masonic Theater during the week of April 3, and the Russian Symphony Orchestra comes to the same house for one concert early in April. On this occasion Corneille Overstreet, the well known pianist, is to be the soloist. Miss Overstreet has had great success, and has won a position among the leading pianists of the day.
17K. W. D.
19SMITH TAUGHT BONCI ENGLISH.
20The surprise of the Bonci tour, aside from the ever beautiful tone quality and the superb phrasing of that artist, which have always been his individual and unique qualifications, is his English diction, his suddenly acquired control of vocal English. This new feature of his art has been animadverted upon in the most glowing terms and the manner in which he has mastered it, the purity of its utterance, the distinctness and the distinction of English song idiom, have so impressed the musical people that it has become a fixed theory with us that the foreign singer who has never sung in English may, through the system followed by Bonci, become not only a singer in our vernacular for opera in English, but an enthusiastic advocate of it besides.
22It has frequently been asked: "Who is the person through whom Bonci has been led to reveal this English accent, this English diction in song, for such a personality is a strong factor in a new tendency, a tendency which may open up a new singing epoch?"
24The Musical Courier is prepared now to say that Harold Osborn Smith, the accompanist, is the instructor, prompter and promoter of the Bonci English diction. It was Harold Osborn Smith who directed the course, who syllabated the words, who pointed the accent, who placed the inflection and who compelled the meaning of the phrase. This young musician is thus suddenly revealed as a man of extraordinary capacity in a region of instruction peculiarly adapted for the present and future development of American and English song and opera in English. The fact is so extraordinary that The Musical Courier deems it essential to call attention to it in its columns.
26Harold Osborn Smith has had an extended experience in coaching and in the intricacies of modern accompaniment, and thus he has been making special studies in diction anyway.
28But the Bonci triumph has brought out the fact that it was through Harold Osborn Smith that the deed was done, and Signor Bonci's own delight in accomplishing what he did has shown what the intelligent co-operation of these two artists has led to.
30The evolution of this system will now follow naturally and bring greater results in the future.
32George Sweet's Studio Musicale.
33Sunday afternoon of last week, another musicale was given by George Sweet, Mrs. Sweet, and a number of Mr. Sweet's pupils. Mr. Sweet, himself, sang the difficult baritone aria from Meyerbeer's "Dinorah" and, as usual, displayed the beauty of a fine voice and flawless vocal technic. He followed with an old English ballad, Josephine Lachmar, from "The Slim Princess" company, and Margaret Sankey, united in a duet by Guercia in the form of a barcarolle. They sang the number effectively and with voices artistically blended. Laura Maverick gave a dramatic rendition of "Oh, My Heart is Weary" from Arthur Goring Thomas' opera "Nadeschda." Miss Sankey, contralto, sang the "Seguedilla" from "Carmen" with mellow tone and bewitching style. Madeline Frost and Annette Westbury added agreeable recitations. Mrs. Sweet, in addition to playing the accompaniments for the singers, closed the program with a piano solo, the charming etude "Mignon" by Schütt.
35The next musicale follows on Sunday afternoon, April 9. The Sweet studios are located on the seventh floor of the Metropolitan Opera House Building. Mr. Sweet has a number of unusually beautiful voices and in other respects it has been one of his best winters in New York.
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