THEY say that Mdme. the Baroness Patti-Cederstroem will give two concerts in the course of the winter, at $6000 each.
Mr. Edouard Colonne will have charge of the delivery of Berlioz’s “Le Prise de Troie,” which will be reproduced at the Lirico, Milan, this winter.
Siegfried Wagner’s “Baerenhaeuter” will be reproduced at the Opera Royal, at Munich.
The approaching celebration of the centenary of the death of Cimarosa, by Aversa, his native city, will be worthy of the master whose glory it will recall. The Conservatory of Naples, of which Cimarosa was a pupil, will take an active part. Verdi and Signor Guido Baccelli, Minister of Public Instruction, are honorary presidents. The acting president is Signor Rosano, of the College of Aversa, and Signor Pietro Platania, director of the Conservatory of Naples, vice-president. Aversa, which has placed $5000 at the disposal of the committee, has decided to raise a monument to the author of “Matrimonio Segreto,” in a public square. The sketch has been prepared by Signor Francesco Jerace, the sculptor, to whom we owe the monument erected at Bergamo last year in memory of Donizetti.
It seems that during the Paris Exposition there will be an exploitation of the chefs-d’œuvre of religious music, whether signed by Mozart or Handel, by Haydn or Wagner, by Gounod or Massenet. It is proposed to give renditions of the master-works of sacred music in the Church of Saint Eustache, after the example of those which took place in the Cathedral at Dresden, and in the Church of the Holy Apostles at Rome. The archbishop has given his approval, and 300 singers, besides an orchestra, will be engaged.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Chopin a commemorative medal has been struck at Warsaw. It is the work of Sigismond Slepski. The face shows a profile of Chopin; the reverse, a lyre, surrounded with a laurel branch and two tablets engraved with the first measures of the Mazurka in B-minor.
The Goethe exposition, which celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of the poet, exhibits the original score of Beethoven’s music for the drama of “Egmont.” The manuscript belongs to M. E. Prieger, of Bonn.
The special novelty of the coming opera season in New York will be “l’Hérodiade,” by Massenet; Calvé in the leading rô1e.
The director of the National Theater at Prague has arranged to give a cycle, in chronological order, of all the operas of Smetana, the Bohemian composer.
The Emperor William, choosing for his series of “concerts directed by the most famous conductors,” has designated Mascagni, Zumpe, Lamoureux, Hans Richter and Mahler, for the coming season. Each of these musicians will organize and direct two concerts, one of which will be given publicly, the other before the Emperor and his guests.
The Queen of Roumania (Carmen Sylva) will soon bring out her first dramatic work, a vaudeville in two acts, “For a Pair of Little Boots.”
The Royal Academy of Music of Munich has celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of its existence, which it owes to Richard Wagner. There is a memorial addressed by that master to King Louis II, which led to the foundation, in 1865, of a royal school of music. In 1867 it was inaugurated under the direction of Hans von Bülow, and was transformed into an academy in 1874.
The concert given at Berlin in honor of Joseph Joachim netted 5348 marks. Mr. Joachim, at the request of the committee, distributed the receipts, giving 3000 marks to the monument to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to be erected at Berlin, and the remainder to the statue of “the young Goethe,” as a student at Strasburg, which it is proposed to erect in that town.
The opera of Paderewski, so long announced, is written on a Japanese subject, and will certainly be played in Dresden during November. There is talk of its being given in America.
Moritz Rosenthal has invented an anti-climatic piano. This piano is American in materials and German in mechanism. Seven thousand pieces compose it. It is five feet long and three wide.
Cesar Cui, the famous composer of the “Filibustier,” given at l’Opera Comique, has drawn from Alexander Dumas’ “Charles VII” a new opera, “Sarasin.” He has done the libretto himself. It will be given this season at the Imperial Theater at St. Petersburg.
Camille Saint-Saëns has returned to France from Rio Janeiro, where he has recently given four concerts, each of which was a triumph.
The second Thuringian festival will take place at Meiningen on the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th of October, under the direction of Mr. Fr. Steinbach, chapel-master to the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. The program will comprise on October 7th, and on the occasion of the inauguration of the monument to Brahms, a series of this master’s compositions: “The Triumphlied,” “The Requiem Allemand,” “The Tragic Overture,” “The Rhapsodie,” for alto solo and male chorus, and the Second Symphony.
De Pachmann’s first recital in this country will be given in the Mendelssohn Hall, New York, on the evening of October 17th, and the second in the same place on the afternoon of October 21st. After these two appearances the pianist will play in this city and fill a number of engagements East and West.
The directors of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig have received 30,000 marks for a Kissel Schunck foundation from Herr Kissel, of Manchester, the interest of the sum to be devoted to the support of the Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Dr. Carl Reinecke celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday on the 23d of July. The Leipzig Stadtheater gave “The Governor of Tours ” on the evening of the fête day.
Mr. Jean Manns, author of a piano method that has been used very extensively in the United States, has just died in Pittsburg, where he has lived through the greater part of his life.
Mr. Fidelis Zitterbart, composer, died recently in Pittsburg, Pa. He was a musician of unusual gifts, a violin virtuoso, a most prolific composer. Scarcely any of his higher works have been published. He worked solely for the love of art, and leaves a great mass of manuscript, such as operas, symphonies, and a string quartet, which may some day be heard and ranked among the highest art creations.
Miss Katharine Heyman, daughter of the late A. Heyman, a well-known musician of Sacramento, and pupil of Heinrich Barth, of Berlin, after her successful Canadian tournée in Canada last season, is booked for a series of recitals in the United States. Miss Heyman’s forte is her fine emotional power backed by her beautiful tone. She will open the season with the Arensky concerto, early in October, at the Boston Symphony concerts.
Adele Aus der Ohe will return to America early in the season to fulfil her engagements in an extended tournée through the musical centers.
Mr. Vladimir de Pachmann has announced himself entirely charmed with the action and tone of his new concert piano, and will open his season in Mendelssohn Glee Club Hall on the evening of Tuesday, October 17th, giving one concert and a matinee before appearing at the Worcester Festival.
The Worcester Festival, held in England, September 10th, gave as one number of its usual superb program the “Hora Novissima” of Horatio Parker, of Yale University.
Maurice Grau has been named Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur upon the motion of Mr. Delacasse.
Miss Suza Doane, of Boston, will make a short tour in the New England States, giving piano recitals.
Victor Herbert goes to Pittsburg about the middle of October to begin his rehearsals of his permanent orchestra. He has increased the number to seventy-five members, and he will give two concerts in Carnegie Hall in January and February. He has written four operas this summer. The first, “Cyrano de Bergerac,” played by Francis Wilson, has been successfully launched at the Knickerbocker Theater. “The Emir” will be played by Frank Daniels; ” The Singing Girl,” by Alice Neilson; the fourth, by the Bostonians, is yet unnamed. “Prince Ananias,” produced by the Bostonians; “The Wizard of the Nile,” “The Serenade,” by the Bostonians, “The Idol’s Eye,” by Frank Daniels, “The Fortune Teller,” by Alice Neilson, are familiar to the public. Mr. Herbert has also finished a violoncello concerto, which will be produced this winter at one of his New York concerts. His first concerto was produced here some years ago at the Philharmonic and also at the Berlin Philharmonic.
Mr. Paul Henneberg, who has been successfully conducting concerts at Terrace Garden all summer, the first flutist in Herbert’s Pittsburg Orchestra, aspires to the conductorship of the Seventh Regiment Band.
Julius Edward Meyer, professor of vocal music and composer, is dead. He was a pupil of Mendelssohn, and at his advice became a teacher of vocal music. Mr. Meyer played first violin in the Gewandhaus concerts in Leipzig, also giving vocal and instrumental solos.
Mr. Alberto Jonas, of Ann Arbor Conservatory of Music, will appear in New York, playing with orchestra, under the bâton of Mr. Pauer.
Miss Lotta Mills, of Washington, D. C., most widely known, perhaps, in connection with the charming historical soirèes given by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Krehbiel, will this winter appear in several chamber music concerts in conjunction with the Kneisel Quartet.
Mr. Josef Weiss, who made his debut in New York as a Brahms player last season, will again be heard in that city in a series of four recitals.
Mr. Albert Lockwood, who made so decided a success under the bâton of the late Anton Seidl, in his concert in the Madison Square Garden Hall, will again be heard in New York. He is also booked for his annual tour in Canada, where he is much and deservedly admired.
Emma Nevada has returned to the concert stage.
The letter of Miss Beebee in the present number will recall the many oratorio concerts in which she was heard with Theodore Toedt. Since the loss of his eyesight, Mr. Toedt has devoted himself to the profession of teaching, and has successfully launched many church soloists from among his pupils.
An English musical journal prints quite an extensive article on the subject: “Wanted—A School of Pianoforte Tuning for Women.” We quote part of the article:
“If women are to tune pianos they must be qualified for the work; that is, they must be endowed with a perfect ear, powerful and pliant fingers, strength of arm and wrist, and a robust physique. These are the essential qualifications for a piano tuner of either sex. The excellent physical training which most girls now receive would doubtless enable them to bear the strain that piano tuning entails, and if women are prepared to undergo the necessary experience, the delightsome and fairly well paid profession of piano tuning is open to them. But how are they to obtain the necessary knowledge of the work? The usual course with men was a five or seven years’ apprenticeship to a pianoforte maker, and the daily handling of instruments in their various stages. A distinct want is a school of pianoforte tuning for women on similar lines to those that exist for instruction in cookery, shorthand, and typewriting. If a school of pianoforte tuning for women were established under proper auspices, there can be no doubt that it would be beneficial, and be the means of providing women with a means of livelihood not now easily open to them.
