Paderewski is having great success in Australia. On the return journey performances will be given in India and Egypt.
A bach festival is to be given early this month in Leipzig. Some of the concerts will take place in the Thomas Kirche.
A movement is under way in Boston to erect a memorial to William Billings, America’s first composer, who was born in 1746, died in 1800.
It is announed (sic) that Volume I of Grove’s “Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” revised to date by Fuller-Maitland, is to be ready this month.
Madame Schumann-Heink appears in a new comic opera in New York in the early part of this month. Her rôle is that of a washerwoman.
Jan Van Oordt, violinist and teacher at the American Conservatory, Chicago, has resigned to accept a professorship at the Brussels Conservatory.
Prof. Martin Krause, the well-known teacher of Munich, goes to the Stern Conservatory at Berlin, to take the place of Jedliczka, who died recently.
Caruso, the tenor, was intended for the profession of engineering. He served for a time in the artillery. Nine years ago he took up music as a profession.
The violin making industries of Markneukirchen, Germany, sold to the United States, last year, $137,000 worth of violins, $66,000 of bows, and $60,000 of strings.
A new instrument of the violin family has been exhibited in Berlin, a baritone violin. It is tuned an octave lower than a violin and held between the knees when being played.
Mme. Lilian Blauvelt went to England in September for a tour of three months, with her own concert company. She expects to go to Australia and South Africa in 1905.
A memorial to César Franck will be unveiled in Paris, on the 20th of the present month. It represents the composer seated at his piano, his head slightly sunken, with crossed arms.
The Worcester, Mass. Music Festival was held September 28th to 30th. “Samson and Delilah,” by Saint-Saëns, and “Dream of Gerontius,” by Elgar, were the principal choral works given.
March 1, 1905, has been selected as the date for the first performance of Mascagni’s new one-act opera, “Arnica,” at Monte Carlo. The cast is to include Calvé, Alvarez, and Renaud.
A spinet that belonged to Jenny Lind has been found in Denver. The instrument was made in London in 1784. When the great singer was a child she took her first lessons by the aid of a spinet.
Ellen Wright, the composer of the song “Violets,” which has had so great popular appreciation, died in August. She lived in England and in private life was known as Mrs. Percy Cross Standing.
It is expected that Alexandre Guilmant will give a few concerts in some of the Eastern cities before he returns to Paris, after he has finished his series of thirty-six concerts at the St. Louis World’s Fair.
Willy Hess, lately concertmaster of the Cologne, Germany, Philharmonic Orchestra, has been engaged to succeed Fernandez Arbos, concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who returns to London.
An American violinist, Mr. Charlton Lewis Murphy, of Philadelphia, took part in the Concours at the Geneva Conservatory, coming out with honors. He was offered a place in the conservatory as Henri Marteau’s assistant.
The Band of the Garde Republicaine, the most famous military band of France, composed of fifty-eight brass pieces and an auxiliary of forty strings and wood wind, gave a series of concerts at the World’s Fair, St. Louis.
The forty-seventh annual register of the Royal Conservatory for Music at Stuttgart is before us. We find that there were sixteen American pupils enrolled in the conservatory, out of a total of four hundred and ninety-one.
The Springfield, Mass., Public Library has added a music circulating department, a move which has been favorably received. The credit is due to the Republican, of that city, which has kept the matter before the people.
At the close of the regular opera season at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, the company will go on tour and give sixty performances of “Parsifal.” There will be two sets of principals; new scenery is being painted in Germany.
Prof. Ernst Jedliczka, the distinguished pianist and teacher of Berlin, died in August, aged 50 years. He was born in Poltawa, Russia, and studied under Klindworth, Tschaikowsky, and Nicolaus Rubinstein. He located in Berlin in 1888.
A device has been introduced in the Prinz Regenten Theater in Munich by which the conductor can raise or depress the sounding board over the orchestra at will. In purely orchestral works it is possible to have the orchestra wholly uncovered.
The first performance of Wagner’s “Parsifal” in the English language, has been arranged for October 17th, in Boston, after which the company, under the direction of Henry W. Savage, will go to New York, and then to the principal cities of the United States.
Frank L. Moir, a popular English song composer, died July 14th. Some of his songs are well known in this country. He also wrote music for the church service, part-songs and a comic opera, “The Royal Watchman.” “Best of All” is one of his most popular songs.
Arnold Krug, a well-known German composer, died in Hamburg in August, aged 55 years. He was educated at Leipzig, and was professionally engaged there for some years, afterward removing to Hamburg, where he held a position as teacher in the conservatory.
Madame Melba has founded two annual prizes at the Royal Academy of Music, London, of $125 each for the encouragement of singing in the English language. The English ballad is the medium selected for the contest, which is open to soprano and contralto singers.
S. Coleridge-Taylor, the popular English composer, has been invited by the Coleridge-Taylor Society of Washington, D. C., to come to this country and conduct some of his works. He has accepted and has fixed a time early in November. He may also appear with other American societies.
Anton Hekking, the eminent Dutch ‘cellist, who was so favorably received in the United States a number of years ago, will concertize in this country from November until March, 1905. Hekking now lives in Berlin, where the Hekking Trio is one of the favorite chamber music organizations.
Josef Hofmann gave his first concert of the season at Portland, Ore., September 29th. After playing in other Pacific Coast cities he will come east, playing in New York, November 1st, with the Philharmonic Orchestra. He will remain in the United States until April, 1905. He is now 27 years old.
The differences between the members of the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, and Mr. Conried, the manager, in regard to salaries has been adjusted. It is likely that the number of players will be reduced to what it was some years ago,—sixty-six. This will obviate the necessity of securing nonunion players in Europe.
The program book of the Kaim Orchestra, Munich, Felix Weingartner, conductor, shows some interesting concerts: “A Modern Evening,” “Mozart Evening,” “The Older Masters,” “French Concert,” “Brahms Evening,” “Beethoven Evening,” “Shakespeare Evening,” “Wagner-Liszt Evening,” “Classic Masters,” “Novelty Evening,” and “Post- Classic Period.”
A. W. Gottschalg, a distinguished organist of Weimar, recently retired on account of age. He is in his seventy-eighth year. Two other musicians who have passed “three score and ten” are Alexander Winterbeger, of Leipzig, organist and composer, and Arthur Pougin, of Paris, critic and journalist. His principal work is “French Musicians of the Eighteenth Century.”
Those of the readers of The Etude who are interested in historical matters will be pleased to know that an illustrated catalogue of the collections of Paul de Wit in the Musikhistorichen Museum in Leipzig has recently been published. The instruments included in the collection form a veritable history of the development of the art from the beginning of the Middle Ages to the middle of the nineteenth century. The price of the book is 2 marks, paper cover, about 50 cents, American money.
The tenth season of the Pittsburgh Orchestra, Emil Paur, conductor, will cover a period of twenty weeks, from November 1. Concert series will be given in Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, and Toronto, and single concerts in many Canadian and United States cities; about seventy in all. The sixty-five players of the orchestra are under contract to the Art Society of Pittsburgh. The expenses of the organization are guaranteed by one hundred and twenty- four citizens of Pittsburgh. Among the soloists for the coming season are Gadski, Blauvelt, Bispham, Campanari, d’Albert, Kreisler, and Maud Powell. Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music will be given complete, the readings by Mr. George Riddle, the choral portions by local singers.
A discovery of historical and musical value has been made in the Greek National Library. Some time ago a manuscript was presented to the library, which was discovered to contain various church hymns of the Byzantine period, among them the hymn of the last Emperor of Byzantium, with musical notation. The tradition is that when Constantinople was sorely pressed by the Turks the emperor betook himself with a number of his most faithful followers to the church of St. Sophia, in order to ask succor from the Heavenly Father. At the sight of the emperor preparing for death the congregation began to sing a hymn which awakened in Constantine’s heart new determination to fight to the last. An expert in Byzantine music affirms that the hymn in the beginning has a resemblance to the English “God Save the King,” or our own “America,” and that it is lofty and imposing in character.
Eduard Hanslick, of Vienna, the Nestor of German musical criticism, died near Vienna, August 6th. He was born at Prague, September 11, 1825, studied jurisprudence first in his native city and later in Vienna, and in 1849 received the degree of Doctor of Laws. He served in various governmental positions, at the same time taking up musical literature and criticism. In 1856, after he had published his well-known work, “On the Beauties of Music,” he became a teacher in the University of Vienna and some years later a full professor. In 1864 he accepted a position as editor of the Neuen Freien Presse, of Vienna, which post he held up to the time of his death. Besides the work first mentioned, and a number of magazine articles, he published “Die Moderne Oper,” “Musikalische Stationen,” “Aus dem Kongertsaal,” “Geschichte des Konzertwesens in Wien,” “Aus dem Musikleben der Gegenwart,” “Suite, Aufsatze liber Musik und Musiker,” and an autobiography. The height of his critical activity was in the period when Richard Wagner was making his way in the musical world. Hanslick was at first favorable to Wagner, but afterward became an opponent.
