To say that the musical banquet spread for the hungry appetite of the Gothamites is more than sufficient is to put the case mildly. There will be seventy-two symphony and mixed orchestral concerts alone; German opera and also English later on; scores of miscellaneous concerts, recitals and affairs of all sorts. Boston is also expecting a big time musically, and Philadelphia and Chicago will not be much behind. Altogether a glorious attack of musical indigestion will be the result of all this surfeiting at the end of the season.
The season at the Metropolitan Opera House opened brilliantly with “Tristan and Isolde,” with the same cast as last year. All the old favorites—Lehmann, Neimann, Fischer, Brandt—were tumultuously received. It looks as if Wagnerism had a strong foothold in America.
We have, too, a Wagner Society, whose laudable object is to promulgate the works of the great master, and if the Society does not degenerate into a self-worshipping clique, it will indeed be a good thing.
The first Thomas popular was a glorious concert—the Seventh Symphony—and Joseffy played a new (that is, to New Yorkers) edition of the Chopin E minor Concerto, bedeviled by Tausig, who has taken the most remarkable liberties with the text, changing outright the ideas of the composer. Alas, poor Chopin! His subtle, evanescent spirit is being tampered with, and it would not be a surprising thing if we would have his nocturnes orchestrated a la Wagner. Fancy kettle drums and trombones in the D flat Nocturne!! Nevertheless, Joseffy played marvelously, as he always does.
Karl Klindworth is in New York, and a very pleasant, genial gentleman he is. He has the reputation of being a famous conductor, and his musical editions are celebrated. He declines to be interviewed now, as he has been several times in the clutches of gentlemen of the press. Probably they asked him if he expects to get $150.00 a quarter, the price he asks for tuition. A lesson on the wonderful Marquand piano (a thing of beauty worth $50,000) under Mr. Klindworth’s instruction would about break anybody’s but a millionaire’s pocket.
Miss Frida de Gebele Ashforth has been reappointed Professor of Singing at the American School of Opera, a position she has successfully filled for two years. During the Strakosch-Maretzek regime, when Italian opera was in its heyday, Miss Ashforth had a wide reputation as a prima-donna contralto.
Teresina Tua made her début in New York last month and had a most flattering success with the public, although the critics cavil greatly at her style, which is thoroughly French and very brilliant. She is a very pretty girl, and plays a certain class of music wonderfully well. She is a virtuoso rather than an interpretive artiste. Mr. Alexander Lambert, Mr. Goldbeck and Mr. Sherwood assisted Miss Tua, also Mme. Heinrich, who is in splendid voice, and a young pianist, Mr. Edwin Klahre, who made a most promising impression on his first appearance. He is a pupil of Liszt, and has a silvery touch and a clear, rippling technic.
Camille Gurickx, the Belgian pianist, will be heard at the Symphony Concert.
Madame Urso, the violin virtuoso, will play the Rubinstein violin concerto at the Philharmonic. She is a great artist.
Carreno scored a big success in Boston with the E minor Concerto of Chopin.
Fanny Bloomfield gave two very successful concerts in Philadelphia and Hartford. She is playing “famous” this season.
Still another prodigy—young twelve-year-old A. Edwin Farmer, a pupil of Mr. Bowditch Clapp, of Richmond—has been surprising musical people with his excellent renditions of good classical music. The boy possesses a firm touch, a good conception, and plays Bach as steady as an older person. If he is not forced, he will be a fine player eventually.
Mr. Sherwood will play everywhere this season; and completely carried his audience away at a recent Tua concert, by his brilliant rendition of the Liszt-Weber Polacca.
Madame Julia Rive-King has started on a tour with a phenomenal programme at her finger ends. I will speak some time later of this artist’s repertoire, which is enormous.
Edgar S. Kelley, the composer of the Macbeth music, had a reception tendered to him recently, in which a number of his manuscripts were heard for the first time. A string quartette, two duets and a number of songs and solos were given. Mr. Sherwood played his own arrangement of the Gaelic March, with an introduction taken from the second act of Macbeth. Mr. Kelley is winning golden opinions for his talented compositions, tinged as they are with Wagnerism.
Van der Stucken begins, November 15th, his American composers’ concerts, and very interesting they will be, being nearly all novelties.
Mr. Gildermeester, the enterprising manager of the Chickerings, has been West the past three weeks, making arrangements to open new agencies in a half-dozen cities, and also straightening out the affairs of N. A. Cross & Co. The firm is doing a more than thriving business, and their only worriment is their inability to fill orders at once, as their factories are working night and day to supply the demand. Universal praise was showered on the pianos used at the Tua concerts for their brilliancy and sonority.
Those two excellent artists, the Carri brothers, violinist and pianist, will be under the management of Phipps & Gotthchalk this season, and will give six recitals at Chickering Hall.
Anton Strelezki is concertizing in the West.
Miss Neallie Stevens is giving many recitals this season, and will probably be heard in New York at one of the Philharmonic Club concerts.
Miss Lulu Yeling is a young pianist, residing in Boston, who expects to be heard this winter. She has a very large and difficult repertoire.
Mr. Charles H. Jarvis, of Philadelphia, will give his usual number of classical soirées.
Miss Dora Becker, the young violinist, is with Joachim, in Berlin, and is making great progress in her studies.
We will be flooded this season with lady violinists— Miss Maud Powell, Miss Mattie Carpenter, Miss Ollie Torbett, Madame Urso—Tua—is a goodly list.
At Victor Flechter’s, in New York, may be met all the musical celebrities of the day, as his cosy violin studio seems to be a rendezvous for all sorts and conditions of artists.
Miss Dora Henninges took a Sunday night popular concert audience off their feet last month by her splendid and dramatic singing.
A remarkable whistler is in New York, and although he is an amateur, his beautiful tone and style attract attention everywhere, and he can do that somewhat remarkable feat—whistle Wagner. Mr. Louis Mayer is his name.
Campanini has brought a concert company over, and, of course, it contains a lady violinist, Torricelli by name.
Mme. Schumann was sixty-eight years old September 13th.
And Jenny Lind has passed away. Our fathers raved about her a quarter of a century ago, but she was well- nigh forgotten by this generation.
The St. Petersburg Conservatory, founded by Rubinstein, celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary.
Sembrich is in Dresden.
Verdi is said to be engaged in the composition of a new opera, “Romeo and Juliet.”
Erik Mayer-Helmund, the composer and baritone, will make a tour through the United States.
Heinrich Boetel, the coachman tenor, discovered by Pollini the impressario, (sic) is drawing crowded houses in New York with his fresh, strong voice, high C’s, and the cracking of his whip in the “Postillion.”
Pauline Ellice is the name of a young English pianist who has made a début in Berlin. She is another marvel.
Abbey brings out Josef Hoffman, the boy pianist, who plays the Weber piano. (Wouldn’t it be a change if a centenarian?—virtuoso of about 180 years, who would play ten concertos in a night. The market is at present glutted with infantile phenomena.) Nevertheless, Josef Hoffman is a marvel indeed, and they have christened him Mozart No. 2.
A Liszt society has been formed in Vienna.
Elise Polko, the well-known writer on musical subjects, recently died.
Eugene D’Albert has been playing in Moscow.
A tenor with a C sharp has turned up in Berlin. He was formerly an animal painter.
Gerster will soon be in America.
Mr. Carl Faelton gave a fine recital in Boston recently.
Mr. Waugh Lauder handles his pen as well as he does the keyboard.
The New York College of Music gave an excellent concert Oct. 1st. Mr. Lambert played some solos and Mme. Anna Lankow sang some songs, among the rest a lovely “Ave Maria” by Otto Florsheim, who, by the way, has just returned from abroad.
Mr. Clarence Eddy is busy giving organ recitals.
Miss Ella Earl, Miss Adele Ans der Ohe and Mr. Max Heinrich all scored big hits at the late Buffalo festival.
Miss Helen D. Campbell made a successful debut in the Boston Ideals.
A. Victor Benham will give recitals throughout the country this season.
Maximilian Vogrich has just completed a piano-forte concerto.
Edvard Grieg intends to spend the winter in Paris.
Annette Essipoff will play this winter in the larger cities of Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland.
Hans Yon Bülow will conduct the Philharmonic Concerts in Berlin.
Novello, Ewer & Co., with their usual enterprise, have perfected a series of Oratorio Concerts under the baton of Dr. Mackenzie. Many novelties are announced.
Wagner’s Symphony will be heard in America this season.
A ladies’ string quartette has been organized in Berlin. This is not altogether a novelty, the writer having heard the famous St. Cecilia Quartette in Paris—Marie Tayan, the first violin, and Miss Jeanne Franko,of the Franko family, played second, and very well they played indeed.
Emil Goetze, the great Cologne Tenor, has recovered his voice.
The committee on the revision of the constitution of the Music Teachers’ National Association, appointed by President Max Leckner, is now complete, and consists of Johannes Wolfram, Chairman, Thomas A. Becket, Arthur Foote, J. C. Fillmore, J. H. Hahn, W. F. Heath, and A. A. Stanley.
A most charming and talented vocalist, Mrs. Pemberton Hincks, of New Orleans, has been giving great pleasure in private circles in New York by her artistic singing, for although an amateur, she is already an artiste, and interprets French and Spanish music to- perfection.
This is about all the news that could be dug up by J.H.
