HOME.
De Pachmann, rumor to the contrary notwithstanding, will not visit us this season.
The repertoire of Ysaye, the Belgian violinist who is to play in this country the coming season, includes 243 compositions.
Antonin Dvorak, who has undertaken to supply a new choral work for the Cardiff Festival next year, will, in all likelihood, direct it in person.
Xaver Scharwenka, whose compositions are international in their reputation, is again located in New York. His studio is at Steinway Hall.
A new volume of Wagner stories for children, entitled “Firelight Tales of the Great Music Dramas,” and profusely illustrated, are in preparation by Wm. Henry Frost, of the Tribune.
The music teachers of San Francisco have formed an organization for the object of self protection and to uplift the standard required of those who teach. A permanent organization was formed.
Boston is soon to possess a musical library containing about 12,000 titles, including operas, oratorios, masses, symphonies, and other orchestral works of the masters. It is the collection of Mr. Allen A. Brown.
Mrs. Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, the pianist, who made so great a success with her foreign tour last season, has sailed for Europe for a second concert tour through Germany, France, Austria, England, Hungary, and Italy.
The first American performance of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut,” was given in Philadelphia by the Hinrichs Opera Co. A very excellent performance was given and the new opera is highly spoken of. It is of the same school as “Cavalleria Rusticana.”
Paderewski’s American tour for the coming season has been outlined as follows: New York, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Louisville, St. Louis, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, and San Francisco. The remainder of the tour is yet undecided.
Two violin virtuosi of the highest rank are to make tours of the country this season. They are Ysaye, the Belgian, and Cæsar Thompson, who is also a Belgian, and whose playing in England has created a sensation. This is a valuable opportunity for music lovers.
FOREIGN.
The London yearly output of pianos is said to be 35,000.
The MS. score of Tannhauser has lately been sold to a Leipzig amateur for $2500.
The police authorities of Munich have forbidden the playing of pianos with the windows open.
The London Guildhall School of Music has about 2000 female pupils, 300 of whom are taking lessons on the violin.
Two antique brass horns have been found on an island in the Baltic which are believed to be 2500 years old. They are two yards long.
Mascagni has up to date, it is said, received $90,000 in royalties from Cavalleria Rusticana. The sales of the score amounted to $220,000.
M. F. Gevaert has nearly completed a work on the origin of plain song. It will practically be a supplement to his “History of Ancient Music.”
Of interest to musicians is the recent death of the eminent scientist, Hermann von Helmholtz, because of his great work, “On the Sensation of Tone.”
A conservatory of music capable of accommodating 1000 students, is being erected in Moscow by command of the Czar. The building will cost $150,000.
Thieves broke into the house of Verdi, at Genoa, recently, and after maliciously breaking furniture and mutilating manuscripts, carried away some jewels and silverware.
Brahms has devoted the summer to editing forty-nine old German folk songs, many of which are suitable for singing in public. They have already appeared, in seven small volumes.
The anticipated memoirs of Gounod will not see the light of print for some time. He left to his heirs so voluminous a mass of manuscript data that the proper editing of it will require much time and care.
Dr. Hopkins and Mr. Barclay Squire are editing a volume of Purcell’s organ and harpsichord music for the complete edition of the composer’s works now in course of publication by the Purcell Society.
Puccini, the composer of “Manon,” was arrested as a spy at Malta a few weeks ago, because he was taking photographs near the fortifications. When his identity was discovered, the officers gave him a dinner.
The sum spent for music in the schools of England, Wales, and Scotland last year was $1,050,000. The Tonic-sol-fa method was used in 17,503 schools, the staff notation in 2413, and the former is steadily gaining.
The thousandth representation of Gounod’s “Faust” will be given at the Grand Opera in Paris in November. The first representation took place March 19, 1859; and it was first included in the Grand Opera repertory in 1869.
The difference between Germany and Italy is startlingly illustrated by the fact that whereas Germans immediately hear every Italian opera of the least degree of merit, Milan, the musical center of Italy, has never yet heard a performance of Beethoven’s “Fidelio.”
Schumann’s criticisms and essays on musical subjects have appeared in a French translation by H. de Curzon. Mrs. Ritter has translated them into English, and the German original has passed through half a dozen editions. Yet Schumann had considerable difficulty in finding a publisher when he first collected them.
The library of the Dresden Conservatory contains 7411 volumes, of which 5140 are scores of instrumental works, 1604 of vocal works, 595 books on musical subjects, etc. Last year the Conservatory completed its thirty-eighth year, the number of teachers being 100, of pupils 798, of whom 462 were females. Fifty pupils’ concerts were given last year.
The sum demanded for the sale of the Oesterlein Wagner Museum, now at Vienna, is £4500. of which, according to a letter from Bayreuth, £1750 has been subscribed up to the present time. The money would probably flow in more freely but for the vexed question as to where the collection should be located in future, some favoring Bayreuth and others Weimar, or one of the larger German cities.
