Musical Items.

European correspondence reports that Paderewski has recovered from the nervous breakdown of a year ago. He is not to reappear in public until next March. He is, at present, busy on an opera, and has recently finished some important works, including a sonata and a symphony.

 

A volume recently published in Germany gives a list of 3143 letters by Wagner, which indicates a great activity in that line.

 

Elgar is said to have finished a violin concerto which is to be played by Fritz Kreisler.

 

Mark Hambourg has offered another prize to English composers, for a work in the form of a fantasia, a sonata, a ballade, scherzo or set of variations, to take from ten to fifteen minutes in playing. The first prize is $100, the second $50, the third $25, the ownership of the pieces to remain with the composer. Mr. Hambourg will play the piece next June, in London.

 

At a sale of old Italian violins in London, in November, the prices ranged from about $100 to $2000, the latter sum being paid for a Strad, date of 1703. A Nicolo Amati (1640) sold for $1725.

 

The English composer, Edward Elgar, has been made an honorary citizen of Worcester, where he was born.

 

A German contemporary in commenting on the activity of the Italian composers in opera, mentions Mascagni, Puccini, Franchetti and Giordano, are each busy on new works, while Leoncavallo has four under way. Other men less widely known, such as Cilea, Samara, Montemerzi and Pacchierotti, are in the harness, with a number of others who enjoy a reputation only in their own country. Shall we ever have an American opera?

 

During October, at the Paris Opera, the favorite operas, judging from box office receipts, were “Faust,” “Samson et Dalila,” “Tannhäuser” and “Armide.”

 

Max Reger has completed six sonatas for the violin alone. There’s a chance for up-to-date violinists.

 

The work of the composer Jacques Dalcroze with children and his concerts for the young have attracted much attention in German cities. It seems to be a combination of dance, music and folk-song.

 

Mr. Louis Adolph Coerne, American composer and professor of music at Smith College, has written an opera, “Zenobia,” romantic in subject, Wagnerian in treatment, using the leit-motif principle, which was announced for production at Bremen, Germany, in December.

 

Engelbert Humperdinck was at the performance of his fairy opera, “Hänsel und Gretel,” in New York City, Metropolitan Opera House, toward the end of November.

 

A device has been installed in a New York theatre, by which opera may be heard at a distance. Reinforced transmitters (an adaptation of the telephone) are placed near the footlights and are connected by wires with a reinforced receiver in any place desired, hotels, private houses, etc.

 

A New York paper says that an offer has been made to Willem Mengelberg, the conductor of the Amsterdam Orchestra, one of the noted European organizations, to become conductor of the New York Philharmonic Society’s Orchestra.

 

Announcement is made by Rudolph Aronson that he has concluded arrangements with Leoncavallo for an American tour to begin October, 1906. The composer will conduct performances of his operas “I Pagliacci.” “La Bohême,” “Zaza” and “Chatterton,” and excerpts from “Roland von Berlin,” which he wrote at the request of the Emperor William, of Germany.

 

Kubelik, the violinist, is said to carry an accident insurance policy of $50,000, covering both his hands.

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Vincent d’Indy, the eminent French composer, gave concerts of works by French composers, principally of the newer school, such as Debussy, Dukas, César Franck, with some of his own compositions.

 

The Chaminade Musical Club, of Jacksonville. Ill., will have some studies of American music and musicians on their programs this year. Composers to be taken up are: Macdowell, Nevin and Ad. M. Förster.

 

The French seems to be developing a fondness for open-air theatres in the Greek and Roman styles.

 

Mr. Fred Schilling, an American composer of prominence in church music, died in Bayonne. N. J., in November, in his seventieth year. He was at one time organist of the Brick Church, New York City.

 

Two young American singers who have won great success in Europe are to be in this country this season: Bessie Abbott and Geraldine Farrar.

 

Josef Hofmann, the pianist, was married, last fall, to Mrs. Marie Eustis, an American woman, at Aix-les-Bains, France.

 

Mme. Nordica has given lessons to the class in opera at the School of Opera, in connection with the Metropolitan Opera House. Mr. Conried hopes to develop good understudies from the pupils of the school. Other great artists will also assist in the work of the school.

 

A new musical paper has been put on the market, a weekly, edited by John C. Freund and published in New York City, under the title Musical America.

 

A rumor is going the rounds that this is to be the last season of Gericke with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and that Mahler or Weingartner will succeed him as conductor.

 

A New York paper is the authority for the statement that John D. Rockefeller, who is a fine amateur ‘cello player, has been interested in a movement to establish in that city a new symphony orchestra under a celebrated European conductor, and to rival the reputation of the Boston Orchestra. New Yorkers seem to think that their city should have undoubted supremacy in music as well as in finance.

 

Toronto has a fine record for choral singing. There are eight societies there, with a membership of two thousand. A movement is under way to establish an all-Canadian Orchestra, with Toronto as the centre. The numerous choral societies and festivals in Canada should be able to support an orchestra of this kind, instead of sending to New York, Pittsburg or Chicago for orchestral support for festivals.

 

Rachmaninoff will introduce his famous “Prelude” in the concerts and recitals that he plays here this season.

 

Mr. Frank van der Stucken will have a chorus of three hundred voices for the next May Music Festival in Cincinnati.

 

Robert Radecke, the celebrated German composer, celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday, October 31st, last; another example of longevity among musicians.

 

Paul Gerhardt, organist at the Marienkirche, at Ziwickan, Germany, gave a series of recitals at which he introduced works by Spanish, English, Netherlands, French and German composers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

 

Mme. Schumann-Heink has given up her work in light opera, as she felt it cramped her from an artistic standpoint.

 

An arrangement has been made between the officers of Harvard University and the New England Conservatory of Music which provides, on the part of the Conservatory, for the admission of properly-qualified students of the Harvard Music Department to the Conservatory orchestra and chorus, to the courses in ensemble playing, choir training and liturgical music, with other privileges of value to students. Harvard offers to Conservatory students the privilege of attending certain courses, among them, in English, French and German literature, English composition, fine arts, physics (especially acoustics) and public speaking.

 

From September, 1904, to August, 1905, the following operas divided public favor in German cities: Lohengrin and Carmen had 341 performances; Tannhäuser, 326; Freischütz, 261; Mignon, 241; Cavalleria Rusticana, 229; Gounod’s Faust, 220; Bajazzo, 218; Zar und Zimmermann, 201; II Trovatore, 197; Die Meistersinger, 192; Martha, 187; Fidelio, 182; Magic Flute, 175; Die Walküre, 168; Hänsel und Gretel, 158; Aïda, 148; Barber of Seville, 142; Daughter of the Regiment, 100. Meyerbeer does not seem so popular as formerly. The Huguenots had only 88, L’Africaine, 62; Le Prophete, 42 and Robert le Diable, 22 performances. Mozart also lost ground. Don Juan had only 80 and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 35 performances.

 

A Macdowell Club has been formed in New York City with the object of studying and promulgating the tendencies and ideals embodied in Mr. Macdowell’s compositions, to hear performances of his work, to discuss the generic principles and vital motives of the correlated arts and to arrange for one annual public concert. Among the names of the advisory board are Henry T. Finck, Philip Hale, Mrs. John L. Gardner, Hamlin Garland, Richard Watson Gilder, Henry L. Higginson, W. D. Howells, Seth Low. William Mason, Frederick Macmonnies, Augustus St. Gaudens and Owen Wister, representing music, criticism, literature and art.

 

Dr. Benjamin C. Blodgett, formerly of Smith College, has been elected director of the new musical department at Leland Stanford University.

 

Oscar Hammerstein, a New York theatrical manager, has a plan to produce grand opera at prices to suit the masses. His new theatre will seat four thousand. Italian and German opera are to be given.

 

A movement has been started in Baltimore to raise a fund for the establishment of a permanent orchestra. The city has a nucleus of about forty players competent for the work of a symphony orchestra of a high class.

 

The library of the late Anton Seidl has been purchased by friends of Columbia University and presented to that institution. It is valued at $10,000.

 

Mischa Elman, the Russian boy violinist, has become tired of being exploited by his managers as if a very young child. He has had his curls cut off and has donned long trousers. He says it is degrading to his art to appear as an “infant prodigy.”

 

In the contest for the Paderewski prize, only one was awarded, that for an orchestral work, $500, to Arthur Shepard, of Salt Lake City, for his “Overture Joyeuse.”

 

A new work, an “Irish Symphony,” by Hamilton Harty, has aroused considerable interest in London. It seems to be planned along lines similar to those used by Dvorák in his “New World Symphony,” except that in the present case the composer has used Irish folk-tunes. In the scherzo he has introduced “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” He claims this as an Irish tune.