HOME.
The Henschels will tour this country next season.
Arthur Foote, the American composer, will spend the summer in Europe, accompanied by his wife and daughter.
Mr. Frank Damrosch has been appointed Supervisor of Music in the Public Schools of New York City at an annual salary of $4000.
The famous Music Hall organ of Boston was bought at auction recently by a Mr. Searles for $1500. The original cost of the instrument was $60,000.
A bronze bust of Beethoven was unveiled in Lincoln Park, Chicago, last month. The bust is three feet in height and stands upon a five-foot pedestal of stone.
Mr. George W. Chadwick, in addition to his duties as musical director of the New England Conservatory of Music, will take charge of the department of composition and conducting.
It is reported that Rudolf Zwintscher has been engaged as piano teacher for the New York College of Music. Mr. Zwintscher is a brilliant young pianist and a son of Bruno Zwintscher, teacher in the conservatory at Leipsic.
Mr. Robert Kemp, better known perhaps as “Father Kemp,” the originator of the “Olde Folkes Concert,” whose fame once extended throughout this country and foreign lands, died recently. For the last five years he had been helpless from creeping paralysis.
Henri Marteau is coming to this country next season. It will be remembered that he toured America two years ago as a boy violinist, creating great enthusiasm. Since then he has been studying diligently, and no doubt has improved a great deal.
The statue of Ole Bull which was unveiled in Minneapolis last month is said to be an excellent likeness of the great Scandinavian. It is nine feet high, and represents him standing in his favorite attitude, holding his violin as he used to hold it when playing on the stage.
Blind Tom, once so prominent a figure on the concert stage, is now described as a “tall, broad shouldered, neatly dressed colored man, whose gray hair and sightless eyes increase the impressiveness of his appearance.” He lives with his guardian, Mrs. Eliza Lerche, at the Highlands of Navesink, on the New Jersey side of the lower New York Bay.
The National Conservatory of New York proposes to organize a permanent orchestra, composed of about 40 pupils of the school. A number of artists will be engaged to teach these pupils and play with them in public. Twelve concerts, preceded by a public rehearsal, will be given during the season. As a stimulus, pupils will receive one-fourth of the net receipts.
Sousa and his famous band completed last month the most remarkable tour ever undertaken by any musical organization. It began on the 27th of last December and ended June 19th. Two hundred and eighty concerts were given and 196 towns were visited. These towns represent 36 States, one Territory, the District of Columbia, and five Provinces of the Dominion of Canada.
The music festival held in Ottawa, Kansas, recently, proved a great success. An audience of 6000 greeted the chorus on the closing night, when Haydn’s oratorio, “The Creation,” was rendered. The chorus comprised 1000 voices, conducted by Prof. Cravens. The solo parts were taken by Madam Clementine de Vere-Sapio, William Lavin, and Francis Walker, accompanied by the Philharmonic Orchestra of Kansas City.
At a recent meeting, the Committee of Arrangements of the North American Sangerfest, to be held in Covington, Ky., in 1899, decided to incorporate under the laws of Ohio, with 100 shares at $5000 each. There were 25 members. Each will hold a share, nontransferable and nondividend paying. The board has the sole right to increase its membership. It is estimated that 100,000 strangers will be in Cincinnati on that occasion.
FOREIGN
The Berliner Tageblatt states that already 200 concerts have been definitely fixed for the coming winter season in the German capital.
Carl Mikuli, pianist and pupil of Chopin, died on the twenty-first of May in Lemberg. He was well known in this country through his revised edition of Chopin’s works.
Jennie Lind’s daughter, Mrs. Raymond Maude, of London, has much of her mother’s brilliancy of voice, but has always refused to sing in public. Of her three children none are musical.
Sig. Pizzi has discovered a mass composed by Donizetti for the funeral of Bellini, in 1839. It will be performed in August in the cathedral at Bergamo, with grand orchestra, chorus, and soloists.
The opera season has opened at Covent Garden Theater in London, and has been noticeable so far for performances of all-round excellence. Mr. Anton Seidl has achieved immediate success as a Wagner conductor.
The French and Germans seem to be returning musical compliments. Not long ago a French orchestra met with a cordial reception in Germany, and now Nikisch, with his orchestra, is reported to have aroused great enthusiasm in Paris.
A collected edition of the works of Franz Schubert has been completed after the labor of twelve years. It fills 40 volumes and consists of 1014 numbers, among which are many hitherto unpublished works. Noticeable among these are 135 one-part songs.
The city of Leipsic, for many years the residence of Robert Schumann, is soon to have a monument to the great musician. The model has been made by Werner Stein, who received the order for it from a wealthy woman of that city, an amateur of music, whose name is not revealed.
The fad of the élite engaging musical artists to sing or play for them at private musicales has pervaded London. As usual, fabulous prices are paid. Melba has sung 13 times at private houses, receiving $1500 each time. Calvé and Eames ask $1000 each, while Ancona and Plancon, who are great social favorites, receive $500 each. Paderewski has been exceedingly gracious, and consented to play four times at private houses, receiving each time something like $5000.
Miss Margherite Peterson has for several seasons been concertizing in Europe with pronounced success. The English critics are especially enthusiastic in their praise of her; she is said to be a second “Swedish Nightingale.” Americans will soon have an opportunity to pass criticism on this new star in the realm of song, as she contemplates visiting America at an early day, and is even now in correspondence with a New York manager with a view to arranging for a series of concerts in this country.
Some one writing in the Musical Standard says that in the south walk of the old cloisters of Westminster Abbey in London there is an old, simple gravestone, lying flat on the ground, bearing this inscription: “Muzio Clementi, called the Father of the Pianoforte; his fame as a musician and composer, acknowledged throughout Europe, procured him the honor of a public interment in this cloister. Born at Rome, 1752. Died at Evesham, 1832.” The writer goes on to say that this tomb, which should be held dear and sacred by every true musician, is so worn and dilapidated that the inscription is difficult to decipher. Thus runs the world away. The best man living, let him die to-day, to-morrow may be forgotten, and his tombstone be cracked and covered with moss.
