American automatic piano-players are winning their way in England.
The city council of Saint-Denis has voted the sum of $240,000 for the building of a municipal theater.
The magistracy of Munich have given a subvention of $1500 to the well-known people’s concerts by the Kain Orchestra.
Judging from the number of performances, “Lohengrin” is the most popular of Wagner’s operas, “Tannhäuser” coming next.
Albin Heintz, a widely known Wagner adherent and organist of St. Peter’s Church in Berlin, has completed his eightieth year.
The Paris Opéra Comique recently gave its 900th performance of “Carmen.” “Faust,” “Hugenots,” and “Mignon” have had over 1000 representations.
Josef Hofmann has been granted a patent for an improvement on a steam-engine. This is the second patent secured by the pianist since his return to this country.
Kubelik has returned to Europe and will concertize in England. It seems to be settled that he will give a series of concerts in the United States next season.
A “Parsifal” manuscript by Wolfram von Eschenbach, a celebrated Minnesinger of the thirteenth century, has been discovered in Germany. It was doing service as a book cover.
Dr. Henry Edmund Ford recently celebrated the sixtieth year of his service as organist to Carlisle, England, cathedral, a record almost, if not wholly, unparalleled in musical history.
Mr. Henry Pontet Piccolomini, who wrote under his middle name as well as his surname, a number of songs which won considerable popularity, died a short time since in an asylum in England.
Miss Maud Powell has become successor to Lady Hallé as leader of a string quartet in London, in which relation she has won as warm praises from the critics and the public as for her solo playing.
A German paper says that three hitherto unknown compositions of Chopin are to be published, consisting of two waltzes and a mazurka, which bear unmistakably the stamp of the composers unequaled art.
The Communal Council of Antwerp has voted a subvention of $100,000 toward the cost of a theater for Flemish opera. In the United States private enterprise is depended upon for progress in this direction.
Kansas City will have a May Festival, beginning the evening of May 6th, to continue two days and three nights. Carl Busch will be the director. Liberal prizes have been offered for competing choral organizations.
The latest reports are that Mascagni is working on a new opera of which Marie Antoinette is to be the heroine. She will first be seen at the court of Austria, and later in France. The opera will consist of several short scenes.
A young woman, student of the Paris Conservatoire, having carried off all the prizes for which she was eligible, has declared that she will enter the contest for the famous “Prix de Rome,” for which, hitherto, none but men have competed.
Mr. Arthur Hartmann, the young Hungarian violinist, who received his musical training in Boston, has won great success in Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, and Budapest. He will be heard in the leading English
179 cities during the remainder of the season and next fall.
Mr. Horatio W. Parker, Professor of Music in Yale University, will receive the degree of Doctor of Music at the commencement exercises of Cambridge University, England, in June. Professor Parker is at present in Europe on a year’s leave of absence. He will take up his duties at Yale next fall.
Mr. J. H. Hahn, of Detroit, Mich., a well-known American pianist, composer, and teacher, was drowned, March 23d. He was born in Philadelphia in 1847. Mr. Constantin von Sternberg, of Philadelphia, will exercise direction over the conservatory at Detroit, until further arrangements are made.
A successor to Sarasate is promised in a boy-violinist of Spain, who is now in his thirteenth year. His repertoire includes several of Mozart’s sonatas, Wieniawski’s “Legende,” Handel’s Sonata in D, Grieg’s Sonata in F, Bach’s Sonata in E, Sinding’s “Romance,” and the Beethoven Concerto; quite a catholic selection, surely.
A “Schubert Room” is shortly to be opened in the Historical Museum at Vienna. It will contain Schubert’s piano, several paintings in which he is the central figure, busts, portraits of members of his family and friends of his youth, pictures of houses in which he was born and lived, personal relics, such as his spectacles, lock of hair, and many original manuscripts.
Some German papers say that their country’s fame as a center for music-teaching is in danger of being lost through inferior systems of training used in certain so-called conservatories. The American may not have the artistic temperament, as European critics maintain, but he is the best teacher for Americans, and there is less of the charlatan in him than in many foreigners who come to this country.
Handel left his manuscripts to a friend, who willed them to the private library of the King of England, thus keeping them out of the trade in autographs. Mendelssohn was very exact with his papers, so also was Cherubini, and their manuscripts went in very perfect form to the library of Berlin, those of the former being given by his family, those of the latter being purchased after the French government refused to buy them for several hundred dollars.
English music publishers and composers are having a hard time with irresponsible printers who get out a “pirated” edition of a song as soon as made popular. The copyright laws of England offer no adequate remedy for this condition, since the printers can rarely be found. One firm seized 80,000 copies of a pirated edition of a well-known popular song; 180,000 copies of another popular song have been sold to the great loss of both publisher and composer.
Mr. Homer Moore, of St. Louis, Mo., is working up a movement for the building of a new auditorium to contain a seating capacity of upward of 3000, a recital hall of 800, and studios and class-rooms for a conservatory of music with which shall be incorporated a school for opera. A resident opera company is one of the points in the scheme. Those who are promoting the work have in view the making of St. Louis the musical and educational center of the southwest.
Some very old and rare musical instruments have recently been added to the National Museum. According to the Washington Post, some notable instruments are an old English hornpipe made of a section of a cow’s horn, the bell being of the same substance, with a single reed and seven finger-holes; a recorder, a kind of instrument frequently mentioned by Shakespeare, of the nature of a flute; a flute-a-bec, a sort of precursor to the modern flageolet; a tabor-pipe, which is also mentioned in Shakespeare. This latter instrument is made of wood, and was played with the fingers of the left hand, the right being left free to beat a small drum.
