HOME.
Dr. Dvorak has sailed for Europe, to be gone until October.
Ysaye’s success throughout the country has been so great he will remain until the middle of May.
The part of “Tannhäuser ” was acted by a Mr. Engel recently in pantomine (sic). He was too sick to sing.
It is reported that the Kneisel Quartet will go to Europe, giving concerts in London and elsewere (sic).
Mr. Frank Van der Stucken has refused the conductorship of a permanent orchestra in Cincinnati.
A pupil, Miss Antoinette Sgumowska—the only pupil,—of Paderewski has been giving piano recitals in this country and has been quite successful.
The Sutro sisters are adding to their laurels as ensemble players. Their programmes for two pianos are attracting the attention of musicians. They are soon to sail for Europe.
The Springfield, Mass., Music Festival included among its soloists, Melba, Nordica, Alves, Davies, Reiger, Dufft, vocalists; R, Burmeister, pianist, and the Kneisel Quartet.
Mrs. T. B. Church, of Grand Rapids, Mich., has just completed her 50th year as organist of St. Mark’s Church. The occasion was celebrated appropriately. This is a remarkable record.
A recent article in the Musical Courier upon “Models of Orchestration” holds up, first, Beethoven, then Wagner, and, for variety, Delibes, Saint-Saens, Johann Strauss, and Sir A. Sullivan.
Mr. Watkin Mills, the English singer, has made a remarkable success with his concerts in this country. The vigor and staying power of his bass voice, as well as its beauty has won admiration.
Mme. Clementine DeVere Sapio, an American soprano, has been so successful abroad that she has been engaged as soloist for the annual Wagner concert, conducted by Mr. Henschell, in London.
Mr. Leopold Godowski has won widespread praise for his most musicianly series of piano recitals, recently given at the New Century Drawing Room in Philadelphia. His work proclaimed him a great artist.
A very artistic performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion Music was recently given in New York; but it is said the audience evinced a feeling of repression, as though it were more of a duty than a pleasure to hear it.
Mr. Joseffy has consented to appear in thirty concerts next season, and Mr. Paderewski will begin his third American tour next November. These two great pianists are good friends personally, and there is room for both of them.
IN America the compositions of Tchaikovsky are as well-known and as fully appreciated as the works of any modern writer. In Vienna his “Pathetic Symphony” had its first performance a few weeks ago. Previously to that, only two of his orchestral works—the violin concerto and the “Romeo and Juliet” overture—had been heard in the Austrian capital.
The First Annual International Music Grades Exhibition, to be held in London from June 13th to June 24th, of which mention was made in last month’s issue, offers an excellent opportunity for American dealers. The exhibits will include every description of musical instruments of all nations, music, furniture, music publisher’s interests, etc. They are divided into 12 classes. The exhibition is being planned upon a large scale and is worthy of success.
The following shows an increased interest in music in its highest forms, and is decidedly encouraging to the promoters of such-concerts everywhere: “Chicagoans are now thoroughly aroused as to the rare privilege they enjoy in being able to hear weekly concerts by so great a conductor as Mr. Theodore Thomas, and such a superb orchestra as he has. The receipts this year were about $17,000 in excess of last year’s. More than 100 works by 46 composers were played during the past season. Wagner leads with 20 selections, Beethoven coming next with eight. Tchaikovsky had six, Dvorak five, and it is worthy of note that two Strauss waltzes were played. Mr. Thomas is a conductor who judges works by their intrinsic merit, not by the names they bear. He welcomes a waltz that calls itself a waltz as cordially as a waltz that wears the mask of a symphonic scherzo.”
FOREIGN.
After a pause of eight years, Franz von Suppe will appear next season with a new operetta.
Berlin critics say that Josef Hofmann now stands in the very front rank of pianists, with hardly a superior.
For the first time in eleven years, Brahms conducted an orchestra on March 18th, at a concert of the Vienna Conservatory.
Herr Genee, the famous composer and librettist of light opera, who is seventy-two years of age, is seriously ill at Vienna.
Signor Demetrio Alata, a telegraph operator in Milan, claims to have invented a method of transferring musical notation by wire.
The concert which was given in Hamburg on March 8th, for the fund toward a Bülow monument, gave the financial net result of 5000 marks.
Gaeverts, director of the Brussels Conservatory of Music, is said to be the greatest living demonstrator of the proper touch to be used in playing old instruments of the keyed class.
Franz Betz, who had the honor of being the first Hans Sachs and the first Wotan in Wagner’s operas, celebrated his sixtieth birthday on March 19th. He is still one of the best singers at the Berlin Opera.
In one of the forthcoming orchestral and choral concerts to be given by Herr Schultz Curtius at the Queen’s Hall, London, an item will be a new cantata, by Herr Siegfried Wagner, based on a poem by Schiller.
A Russian choir of fifty boys’ and men’s voices, under Slaviansky d’Agreneff, gave two concerts at the Nazionale Theatre in Rome. The choir was dressed in rich boyar costumes of the sixteenth century.
Saint Saens has been making an extensive tour of the Far East, and it is likely that he will give the world some Orientalized music in the near future. He was especially interested in the strange dead cities of Kmer, in Indo China.
M. Maurel is credited with the statement that Verdi has set about writing an opera on the subject of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” which will bear the same relation to the play that the operas “Otello” and “Falstaff” do to the plays bearing those names. It is only within a few days that M. Maurel has known to a certainty that the work was in progress.
Rubinstein founded two prizes of $1000 each for composition and piano-playing, to be granted once in five years at St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, and Paris in succession. Both the prizes may be granted to the same candidate. The next contest will take place in Berlin, beginning in September. Young men between twenty and twenty-six years, of any nationality, rank, or profession, may compete.
The Danish composer, Gade, once began to write his autobiography, but did not get much beyond the days of his youth. What he wrote has now been edited, and, with a number of letters written by and to him, published in book form.
The original autograph score of Purcell’s Te Deum and Jubilate in D has been discovered, and it is said to be now in the possession of Professor Bridge, who is preparing a correct edition of the vocal and orchestral parts, which differ widely from the version published by Boyce.
Rubinstein left to his heirs, among other things, two houses in St. Petersburg, valued at 340,000 roubles, but with a mortgage of 166,800 roubles on them. The artistic legacy of Rubinstein includes 12 operas, 16 symphonies and overtures, 18 pieces of chamber music, 56 pieces for piano alone, 196 songs, etc.
A vocal composition, entirely unknown up to the present time, by Rossini, was discovered among the Rossini manuscripts at Pesaro. It is written for soprano, with accompaniment of the piano. The subject is Francesca da Rimini, of Dante’s Divina Comedia. The composition was sung recently at Pesaro with great success.
Conflicting rumors concerning the long-delayed English début of the pianoforte virtuoso, Herr Moritz Rosenthal, may now be set at rest. This distinguished executant, whose success in the United States was so great, and who, in Germany, has attracted attention not only by his pianoforte playing, but also by his trenchant criticisms of the older school of pianists and writers, has accepted Dr. Richter’s invitation to go to London, and will make his first appearance at the Richter concert at St. James’ Hall on June 10th.
Herr Sauer, the German pianist, who has won so much success in London lately, agrees with Padereswki (sic) that Brahms “is not a great composer.” Rubinstein, he says, far surpasses him as a writer for the piano. “I am a great admirer of Anton Rubinstein as a composer. It is true he was unequal, and suffered from an over-luxuriance of thoughts. The man who could write the “Dramatic Symphony,” the “Fourth” and the “Fifth Concertos,” and such beautiful things as “The Demon” and “The Maccabees” contain, and so many masterpieces for the piano and voice, was, in spite of all weakness, a great composer.
It is proposed to hold a national musical festival in Dublin under its proper name, “Feis.” A committee of Irish musicians, with Dr. Villiers Stanford at its head, has been formed to carry out this purpose. The objects of the Feis are to give the public an opportunity of hearing Irish music, and particularly old tunes, interpreted in accordance with the traditional manner of performance; to encourage the publication of old Irish airs, now in manuscript or not yet set down in writing; to perform songs in the Gaelic tongue, and to encourage the formation of a new Irish school of composers, as national in their art as Dvorak or Grieg.
