The real name of Remenyi, the violinist, was Hoffman.
Mme. Marchesi was reported to be seriously ill during the past month.
Josef Hofmann is said to have cleared more than $30,000 by his recent tour.
The foreign trip of the Sousa Band has been canceled on account of the war with Spain.
A correspondent from Manila says that many of the women there are accomplished harpists.
Mozart’s first violin, a half or child’s violin, is in the Mozart Museum at Salzburg, Germany.
Rosenthal and Emma Eames are announced as soloists with the Chicago Orchestra next season.
The statement is made by a London correspondent that Klindworth will teach in that city next season.
And now it is claimed that “Yankee Doodle” is a folk-melody of the Basque provinces in Spain.
Xaver Scharwenka will give up his usual trip to Europe and will continue instruction during the summer.
Manuel Garcia, the great singing teacher, is one of the few living musicians who knew Beethoven personally.
The annual meeting of the Music Publishers’ Association of the United States was held in New York City on June 14, 1898.
Gilmore’s Band has been reorganized and incorporated with a capital of $50,000. A summer tour has been arranged.
The piano trade uses, every year, ivory equal to the tusks of 75,000 elephants, says an exchange. Are all piano keys real ivory?
The National Piano Manufacturers’ Association held a convention in Boston last month. Representatives of the leading firms were present.
Boston has a society for the purpose of aiding musicians and their families in distress. The late Oliver Ditson left $25,000 to the fund.
Nicolini left $100,000 to his wife, Adelina Patti. The latter, so it is said, renounced the legacy in favor of her husband’s children by his first marriage.
“Tristan and Isolde” was performed in English in Liverpool lately. The version was by Frederic Corder and his wife. The opera was given in four hours.
S. Baring Gould, the novelist, is working on the libretto of an opera to be called “The Red Spider.” One number should surely be a “spinning chorus.”
A number of Beethoven letters, written to business and professional friends have lately appeared in a Leipsic paper. They are published now for the first time.
Word comes from New York that piano students find the painting of the tips of the fingers with iodine very useful to avert pain from practicing and to harden the skin.
Dr. C. H. H. Parry, one of the foremost of English musicians, author of many valuable articles on theory in Grove’s Dictionary, has been knighted by Queen Victoria.
At a sale of autographs in Vienna two Beethoven letters brought $160, two by Haydn $120, two by Wagner $80. An ivory miniature of Schumann was bid up to $150.
The church at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, much visited by tourists, has a splendid new organ of 170 stops. This church has a superb choir of monks from the monastery attached.
Pugno was warmly received by the Parisian concert- going public upon his return from his American trip. Critics on this side say his home reputation is greater than he gained here.
The new Guildhall School of Music in London will be declared open by the Lord Mayor July 11th. The move for a national opera is recognized in the building of a theater and a concert hall in connection with the school.
Benoit has resigned his position as director of the Conservatoire at Antwerp, on account of new regulations introduced because of the placing of the institution under royal patronage.
The New Hampshire Music Teachers’ Association will meet at Weirs, August 1st to 5th. Several important choral works will be rendered. Miss Anna L. Melendy, Nashua, is the secretary.
A young Portuguese composer, in his search for realistic effects, introduced a pistol-shot in the orchestra. A panic started, and it is likely that the composer will revise his tendency toward realism.
A new life of Schumann is in preparation by Professor Niecks, of Edinburgh, Scotland, the biographer of Chopin. He is to have access to papers and correspondence of the late Clara Schumann.
Lachaume, who has been accompanist to Ysaye in the latter’s concert tour in the United States, received orders to return to France to serve his term in the army. He left home before he reached the age for military service.
Mr. Farley Newman, the noted English journalist, was tendered a complimentary morning concert at the Salle Erard, London. A purse of one hundred and fifty guineas (about $750), was presented to the beneficiary on the occasion.
It is current report in Boston papers that Emil Paur will take some of the players of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with him to New York. It is to be hoped that he will make no great inroads on the playing strength of the Boston organization.
The direction of the trans-Mississippi and International Exposition has decided to make the Thomas Orchestra concerts free to the public. Great credit is due the commissioners for the liberal support they have given to music and the other arts.
Reports from Bohemia and Austria-Hungary indicate that the supply of maple-wood for violin-making is very short, and that the forests have been very badly managed, trees being cut down and no young trees planted. The Manufacturers’ Association is to take action in the matter.
The Convention of the Missouri State Music Teachers’ Association was held at St. Louis, June 14th to 16th. This is the third year for the Association and the program committee has arranged to eclipse the two previous meetings. One concert is to be devoted to the rendering of works of resident Missouri composers.
Dr. E. J. Hopkins, until recently organist of the historic old Temple Church, in London, promised to issue a “Handbook on the Organ” when he reached the age of eighty. He has passed that period, and a London contemporary announces that Dr. Hopkins will devote considerable time to labors with the pen.
The twenty-first meeting of the Indiana Music Teachers’ Association was held at Lafayette, June 28th to July 1st. An interesting program of essays and discussions on timely topics, together with recitals by Godowsky and Emil Liebling, and Mr. Corey’s illustrated Wagner lecture, afforded valuable material for another year’s thought.
An important discovery was made among the archives of St. Peter’s Church in Vienna. In a drawer that had not been opened for fifty years were found a mass, pianoforte duet, fantasia and rondo, and songs by Schubert, and the full score of a choral work by Beethoven. The works will likely come into the hands of some public institution.
A wealthy Russian nobleman supported a series of popular concerts in St. Petersburg during the past winter. The admission was made so low that even the very poor were able to attend. The attendance was so large that a hall of greater size has been engaged for next season. Here is a hint to some of the philanthropic votaries of art in the United States.
Bernhard Vogel, well-known in German musical circles as a composer and littérateur, died in Leipzig a short time since. He was the music critic for the Leipzig “Neueste Nachrichten” and for the ” Zeitschrift fur Musik.” He was a pupil of Volkmann. His most important literary works were monographs on Schumann, Liszt, Rubinstein, von Bülow, and Brahms.
The collection of works in musical literature belonging to the estate of the late Mr. Joseph Drexel, New York City, is now in the Lenox Library, and will later be removed to the New York Public Library when the new building is completed. It consists of about 7500 volumes,—ancient and modern music, biographies, scores, manuscripts, engravings, and autographs,—one of the most valuable collections in this country.
Marcella Sembrich, the famous prima donna, has been added to the already strong list of artists for the next opera season at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, under the management of Maurice Grau. The American public will have an opportunity to hear one of the strongest companies ever gathered together—Calvé, Sembrich, Melba, Nordica, Eames, Jean de Reszke, Van Dyk, and a new tenor, Saleza.
A writer somewhere remarks that Heinrich Heine is the poet who has been most set to music. He may be found in music over 3000 times, and by the best composers, too—Mendelssohn, Schubert, Rubinstein, Brahms, and others. Thirty-seven musicians have written after his “Loreley.” Two other poems have been set eighty- five times. “Thou Art Like Unto a Flower” is in 160 forms in song. Why is that ?
