HOME.
It is rumored that Ysaye will return in 1897.
A son of Ole Bull, himself a violinist, is to visit America.
Madame Cappiani has returned to New York to resume her teaching.
A bronze statue of Ole Bull, the violinist, is to be erected in Minneapolis.
Walter Damrosch is very busy preparing for his coming season of German opera.
Howard Brockway, an American pianist, is to accompany Marsick, the violinist, on his tour.
Camille Urso, the violinist, has returned to this country after a concert tour through Australia and South Africa.
Martines Sieveking, now in Amsterdam, will arrive in this country for his tour of the States about the middle of September.
Martin Roeder, the popular English song writer, died in Boston, June 7th, after a short illness caused by falling from a car.
Xavier Scharwenka, of New York, goes to Weimar to conduct rehearsals of his opera, “Mattaswintha,” which is to be given there.
Harrison Millard, the well-known song writer, died Tuesday, September 10th. One of his songs reached a sale of over 1,000,000 copies.
America is to hear another great foreign pianist next season, as Mr. Martinus Sieveking, Holland’s Pianist, is to give a series of concerts here.
How is the following? A professor being asked, what is an “extempore pianist ?” answered: “Ex., out of; tempo, time; an extempore pianist is one who plays out of time.”
Franz Ondricek, the Bohemian violinist, who has been engaged for a tour of the United States, will make his debut with the New York Philharmonic Society on November 16th.
The latest bit of advice from Mme. Patti to girls who are anxious for success as singers is well worth repeating to all aspiring musicians. She tells them: “You must be a good workman at your trade before you can be an artist in your art.” This excellent injunction has thirty-six years of professional experience behind it.
The following will be Paderewski’s route for the season of 1895-6: October 30th, New York, Polish Fantasie with Damrosch Orchestra; November 2d, New York, first recital; 6th, Philadelphia; 9th, New York, second recital; 11th, Brooklyn; 13th, Philadelphia; 16th, New York; 19th, Boston, with Boston Symphony Orchestra; 21st and 22d, Portland, Me.; 23d, Boston; 25th, Worcester; 27th Springfield; 28th, Troy; 30th, Boston; December 2d, Hartford; 3d, New Haven; 5th, Providence; 7th, Boston; 9th, Philadelphia; 10th and 13th, Washington; 11th, Baltimore; 16th and 18th, Pittsburg; 19th, Cleveland; 21st, Buffalo.
The instituting of a grand opera on a large and permanent scale in Philadelphia is so important that we publish the list of artists who have been engaged in full. The names promise well. The complete list of principal artists engaged by Mr. Gustave Hinrichs for the season of grand opera at the Academy of Music, beginning November 12th, is as follows: Sopranos, Mme. Emma Nevada, Mme. Selma Koert-Kronold, Mlle. Amelia Loventz, and Miss Minnie Tracey; mezzo-sopranos and contraltos, Signorina Leontina Dassi, Mlle. Emma Langlois, and Mlle. Emilia Grassi; tenors, Signori Raoul Viola, Jules Gogny, Fernando Michelena, Domenico Minello, and Brazio Piroia; baritones and basses, Signori Ouirino Merlay, Louis de Backer, Giuseppe Del Puente, Perry Averill, Malzac, and Lorrain. Mr. Hinrichs has engaged the greater number of his chorus singers in Milan, and they will follow him to this country a few days after his arrival. He has also engaged the premiere danseuse, Signorina Paris, and a ballet. M. Jules Algier has been engaged as assistant conductor and chorus master, and Charles F. Schroeder as stage manager. Mr. Hinrichs will sail for home about September 25th.
FOREIGN.
A bust of Berlioz is to be placed in the Paris Opera House.
There were nearly 600 concerts in London during the last season.
Mascagni says that no fewer than 1500 libretti are composed in Italy every year, and of these 200 are sent to him.
Johann Strauss is hard at work trying to complete for the coming season a new operetta entitled “Waldmeister.”
Brahms has just composed the music for a series of twenty songs by the Prussian peasant poetess, Johanna Ambrosius.
Mr. Julian Tiersot has been sent by the French Government to collect the folk songs of the Alpine regions of Savoy and Dauphine.
It is announced that more Greek music has been found at Delphi, in addition to the Hymn to Apollo, to which attention has been called.
A Chopin monument is to be erected in Paris. A Committee of eminent musicians and artists is being formed for the purpose of collecting subscriptions.
On August 11th the remains of Paganini were exhumed at the Communal Cemetery, Parma. The countenance of the celebrated violinist was in perfect preservation.
According to his contract with Sir Augustus Harris, the French tenor Alvarez is to receive more than $5000 a month for his services for the next three years.
The Turkish Court pianist, Dassap Pasha, receives $3000 a year for his services, but he is temporarily suspended every time he plays a tune the Sultan does not care to hear.
“Der Evangelienmann” (“The Gospel Man”) is the curious title of a new opera that has just been performed successfully at Berlin. Words and music are by Wilhelm Kienzl.
Signor Bevignani, who is again to be one of Messrs. Abbey and Grau’s conductors this winter, has been before the London operatic public twenty one years, and has lived in England thirty-two years.
The city of Dresden is preparing to celebrate the eighty fourth anniversary of the birthday of Franz Liszt on October 22d next. On that occasion it is intended to perform the celebrated pianist’s oratorio, Saint Elizabeth.
The organ in the Trinity Church, Libau, has 131 registers; that at Sydney, New South Wales, 126; and the organ at Riga, 124. The Libau organ is by no means so simple as many newer organs, as it has been built up, bit by bit, to its present magnitude.
In the case of Novello and Co. vs. the Oliver Ditson Company, of America, final judgment has been given in favor of the London firm, the effect of the decree being “that music need not be printed in the United States as a condition of securing copyright there.”
A musician’s life should be one of thorough unselfishness. Mendelssohn truly said that the first requisite in a musician is, that he should respect, acknowledge, and do homage to what is great and sublime in his art.
A lost air of Mozart, to words from Metastases “Didone Abbandonata,” arranged for flutes, bassoons, horns, and a quartette of strings, has been discovered by Professor Kauffman, of Tübingen. It was written in 1778, and the melody is said to be charming.
The contest for the Rubinstein prize of $200 for the best pianoforte concerto took place at Berlin last week. The International Jury awarded the prize to a very young Polish composer, M. Stanislas Melzer, of Warsaw. No further competition will be held till 1900.
Verdi’s first composition obtained for him a thrashing. He struck a chord. It pleased him. He attempted to strike it again and failed. Thereupon he lost his temper and began thumping upon the piano. Verdi’s father promptly punished him with a whipping.
Herr Peters, of Leipzig, has discovered another one of Beethoven’s sketch books. It is dated 1809 and contains sketches of the choral fantasia and the piano concerto in E flat. It is well known that Beethoven remodeled his ideas many times before he was satisfied—in some cases more than a dozen times.
On August 1st Julius Schulhoff celebrated his sixtieth birthday. He is known not only as a master of piano playing, but as a composer of salon pieces, such as his well-know Valses Brillantes, mazurkas, caprices, and other effective piano pieces, and his poetical and character pieces, chants d’amitié, six morceaux de musique intime, barcarolle, Op. 59, etc.
A savant musician, M. Expert, is making an analytical collection of some unpublished works of the most ancient composers, Goudimel, Roland de Lassus, etc., the translations by Clément Marot and Th. de Béze. Fischbacher, the editor, arranged a little concert of some of the most interesting of these recently before a critical and appreciative company.
Rubinstein by his will left money for a prize to be awarded every five years for the best pianoforte concerto, which must be performed for the first time in public by the composer himself. The first competition has just taken place at Berlin, before a jury selected by the directors of the principal conservatories of Europe. The second competition will be at Vienna in 1900, and the third at Paris in 1905.
At the examinations at an English music school, one reply was that the letters M. S., in a piano piece, mean mezzo soprano; another, that D. C. stands for de crescendo. Yet another decided that V. S. at the bottom of a page of Beethoven meant violin solo. The most remarkable answer was that which understood loco to mean “with fire.” The reason given was that loco is an abbreviation of “locomotive.”
Dr. F. Kauffman has found among his father’s papers a beautiful aria by Mozart, “Ah, non lasciar mi mo,” which he composed in 1778 for Frau Wendling in Mannheim, and the loss of which all the biographers of Mozart have lamented. It is in the original manuscript, and there can be no doubt as to its genuineness. It is scored for strings, two flutes, two bassoons, and two horns, and Dr. Kauffman says the aria is devoid of coloratur and deeply emotional.
The significant report comes from Bayreuth that Hans Richter has agreed to conduct the revival of Wagner’s Nibelung’s Ring at Bayreuth next summer only on condition that there is to be absolutely no interference with his plans and readings on the part of “any one”—which “any one” is, of course, aimed especially at Wagner’s widow. It is perfectly natural that Richter, who conducted the Trilogy in 1876 to Wagner’s own satisfaction, should not wish to be “bossed” now by Frau Cosima.
From Paris the death is announced of one of the oldest music publishers in France, Achille Lemoine, at the age eighty-three. In his younger days he was a pianist of note, his teachers having been Bertini and Kalkbrenner. The Lemoine publishing house was founded by his grandfather in 1780, but for the last forty-three years M. Achille has been chief of the house. His most important publication was a Pantheon des Pianistes, a collection in several volumes of something like 600 of the works of the pianoforte masters. It is said that this was the first important collection of pianoforte music ever issued at popular prices.
Every midsummer day a unique concert is given in Copenhagen, such as the whole world cannot show the like of. There are kept in the Copenhagen Museum a number of ancient Scandinavian horns more than 3000 years old, called “Luren.” Of this collection fourteen are in good condition. They have an elegant shape, and the flat metal plates at the mouthpiece show good technical perfection and a developed taste for art. They are in different pieces fitted together. They were found buried in moorland, and their good preservation is believed to be due to the turfy water. They are of very thin metal, and generally seven feet long. They were always found in pairs, the one in tune with the other.
The post of conductor of the famous Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig, vacant by the resignation of Dr. Karl Reinecke, has been filled by the appointment of M. Nikisch, who recently resigned his duties at Buda-Pesth. It is stated that M. Nikisch’s most formidable competitor was the German composer, Herr Hans Sitt. The Gewandhaus Concerts date from the time of Sebastian Bach, and they were first held in 1743 in a private house, Johann Doles, afterward Cantor of the Thomas Schule, being conductor. They have, however, only been known by the name of Gewandhaus since 1781. Their most famous conductor was Mendelssohn, who directed the concerts between 1835 and 1843. Among his successors have been Dr. Ferdinand Hiller, Niels Gade, and Julius Rietz.
At a recent performance in Berlin of Bach’s superb B minor Mass, an attempt was made to make the orchestra conform as far as possible to the conditions for which Bach wrote. There are in his score trumpet notes so high that they cannot be produced on the modern instruments: wherefore smaller trumpets were specially constructed for this occasion; their highest notes were found to suggest the sound of a clarionet, and were softer than had been expected. The oboes employed in Bach’s score are the obsolete oboi d’amour, half way between our oboe and the English horn or alto oboe. Specimens of these instruments were borrowed of the Royal Museum, and the players had to practice some time before they felt sufficiently familiar with them to undertake their task. Besides these instruments, flutes, bassoons, strings, and organ were used.
