A “Boy’s Symphony Orchestra” of sixty-two performers has been announced in New York.
The twenty-fifth aniversary (sic) of Edouard de Reszke’s career as an opera-singer occurred last month.
A choral work by Glazounov, the Russian composer, is on the program for the next Leeds, England, Music Festival.
The Kansas Musical Jubilee, at Hutchinson, Kan., will be held June 4th-7th, instead of in May, as previously announced.
There were more than one hundred candidates for the conductorship of a series of orchestral concerts at Magdeburg, Germany.
An effort is being made to extend copyright in musical and dramatic works in Germany to fifty instead of thirty years.
A new conservatory building is to be erected in Paris at a cost of $1,000,000, and is to be the finest of the kind in the world.
Over 40,000 persons filed past the tomb of Verdi, in Milan, during the first four days when the public were admitted to the crypt.
The Southern Music Teachers’ Association will meet at Chattanooga, Tenn., in June. Dr. R. H. Peters, of Spartanburg, S. C., is president.
New York City issues about three hundred licenses for hand-organs, mostly to Italians. Hand-organs are not cheap. A good new one is said to cost nearly $200.
It is announced that Joseffy has written a book on pianoforte technic. The work will be looked forward to with much eagerness by pianists and teachers.
The unveiling of the Robert Schumann monument at Zwickau, June 8th, will be the occasion for a grand music festival. Joachim and Carl Reinecke will assist.
The latest novelty in photographs is one which shows the muscular development of Josef Hofmann’s arm, which might well pass for that of some famous athlete.
Madame Sembrich has been compelled to abandon her concert-tour for the rest of this season on account of throat trouble. She has returned to her home in Dresden.
A partial list of Mr. Harold Bauer’s repertoire, which he plays from memory, includes about 60 important works, half the number being works in the larger forms.
D’Oyly Carte, a well-known operatic manager of London, died April 3d. He was best known for his successful combination with Gilbert and Sullivan to produce their operas.
Eighteen bands and seventy orchestras will be part of the musical forces at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, this summer. The organ-recitals will be daily and be free to the public.
Harold Bauer, who left the United States in March, is now in Paris. He played in the great festival at London in April. It is hoped that he will play in this country next season.
A professor of the Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, O., has a bass flute made by an English firm. It is made of silver, and the tone somewhat resembles that of a pipe-organ.
The new plan for the New England Conservatory of Music contemplates schools of opera, orchestral playing, organ and church music, composition, conducting, and an artists’ pianoforte and violin school.
Paderewski’s son, a cripple from birth, to whom the pianist was passionately devoted, died in March. Foreign papers announced that all of Paderewski’s engagements for this season and next were canceled.
A German paper says that a celebrated critic was invited to hear Paderewski’s new opera, “Mauru,” (sic) then unfinished. “What do you think of it?” asked the composer. “I should advise you to leave it like Schubert did his symphony” (unfinished).
Some ancient wells recently found in the Forum at Rome have proved quite a mine of interest by the articles found in them. Among other things, a curious Roman flute has been brought up; it is described as being well made of wood and is lined with iron.
The South-Atlantic States Music Festival was held at Spartanburg, S. C., May lst-3d. The Converse College Choral Society, Dr. R. H. Peters, conductor, and the Boston Festival Orchestra, under Emil Mollenhauer were the principal forces. Five concerts were given.
In the Roycroft workshop at East Aurora music is considered an effective agent. When Mr. Hubbard finds the workers becoming restless an impromptu concert is given for a few minutes by means of a self-playing instrument, and then all go back to work refreshed and willing.
The organization of men music students known as the “Sinfonia,” which had its inception at the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, Mass., is gaining in strength. It numbers some half-dozen chapters. There should be a branch in every school in the country. The work done is excellent and will help the profession.
The next meeting of the New York State Music Teachers’ Association will be held at Glens Falls, June 25th-27th. Mr. Louis Arthur Russell is president, Mr.
F. W. Riesberg, 954 Eighth Avenue, New York, secretary-treasurer, Mr. Jaroslaw Zielinski, Chairman of Program Committee. The closing concert of the Music Festival will be a performance of “The Messiah.”
The fine library of musical works, collected by Dr. Henry Watson, is to become the property of the city of Manchester, England. The total number of bound volumes and manuscripts is nearly ten thousand, among them works of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It is particularly rich in Bach, Mozart, Handel, and Beethoven works, as well as full scores of standard operas.
Announcement is made that the Exposition Society of Pittsburgh will erect a new music hall to take the place of the one destroyed by fire. One of the members of the building committee said: “Pittsburgh will have a music hall for the masses that will excel any other in the country. We purpose to build a hall where our citizens can hear to advantage the leading artists in the world for twenty-five cents.”
It is expected that the new building for the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, which is to be erected at Huntington Avenue and Gainsborough Street, will be ready in September, 1902. It will contain two auditoriums with a seating capacity, one of 400, the other of 1000. The former dormitory system will be abandoned, and the girls will live in families of about 25, in houses adjacent to the main building.
A Bach Festival will be held at Bethlehem, Pa., in the Moravian Church, May 23d-25th, two concerts each day. The “Christmas Oratorio,” “St. Matthew Passion,” and “Mass in B-minor” will be given by a choir of one hundred and ten voices, assisted in the chorales by a boy choir of one hundred voices; the accompaniments will be played by the organ and orchestra. Inquiries can be addressed to the Moravian Publication Concern, Bethlehem, Pa.
The next meeting of the Arkansas Music Teachers’ Association will be held in Little Rock, June 12th and 13th. A Music Festival with a chorus of three hundred voices, representing some twelve or fifteen different music clubs, will be a prominent feature of the meeting. Emil Liebling and Harrison Wild, also Mrs. Lucille S. Tewksbury, have been engaged for the Festival. Much interest is being manifested and the prospect is that it will be the greatest event of the kind in the State.
The first instrument that Verdi practiced on was an old spinet, which his father bought from a priest. It still exists in the Villa of Sant’ Agata. The weak hammers and the quills soon gave way under the boy’s finger-studies, and he might have been compelled to drop his exercises had not a good workingman from Basseto come to his aid. There is to be read in the interior of the old bit of furniture the inscription: “By me, Stefano Cavaletti. These, however, were renewed and covered with leather. I also added a new pedal. I did all this for nothing, but I saw the talent which the little Giuseppe Verdi possesses to learn to play the instrument; this is quite enough to satisfy me completely. In the year of our Lord 1821.” The good workman had better judgment than the director of the Milan Conservatory, who turned Verdi back from the examination, because he had no musical talent.
The next meeting of the Missouri State Music Teachers’ Association will be at Columbia, June 18th- 21st. Mr. W. H. Pommer, president; Mr. H. E. Rice, secretary-treasurer, both of St. Louis. In order to stimulate musical composition of a better class the association invites composers to submit manuscripts on the following conditions: 1. All submitting manuscripts must be members of the association. 2. Each manuscript must be signed with a motto and be accompanied with a sealed envelope containing composer’s name and address. 3. The judges reserve the right to reject any or all manuscripts not up to the required standard. 4. Compositions must be in the committee’s hands by June 1, and be accompanied by return-postage. 5. There will be a prize of $25.00 list value in music books or sheet music, selected from the catalogue of a leading publisher, each for the best song with piano accompaniment, the best piano composition, the best violin solo with piano accompaniment, the best vocal quartet. Mr E. R. Kroeger, The Odeon, St. Louis, is chairman of the Composition Committee, and manuscripts should be sent to him.
