At Home.
OWING to lack of space, it is frequently necessary to omit many desirable notices kindly sent to us by our readers. Whenever our space permits we are glad to print notices without charge, providing we deem them of interest to the greater body of our readers. THE ETUDE is a national magazine and we cannot afford to give space to the publication of events of merely local interest.
A SUCCESSFUL musical festival was given at the Crane Normal College, at Pottsdam, New York.
BACH’S “Sleepers, Awake” and Mozart’s “Requiem” were recently given in Dayton Ohio, under the direction of W. L. Blumenschein.
MENDELSSOHN’S “St. Paul” was recently given in Newark, Ohio, under the direction of W. W. Flora.
MR. War. SHERWOOD recently gave a highly successful recital at Wooster University.
THE New York Organ Trio has recently been formed. It is composed of J. Warren Andrews, organist; Arthur Bergh, violinist, and Elias Bronstein, ’cellist. All the members are musicians of high standing in New York.
THE New York State Music Teachers’ Convention will be held this year in the College of the City of New York.
THE State Music Teachers’ Convention of Missouri will be held in St. Louis in June.
THE MacDowell fund has amounted to $39,712.18. Ten thousand, seven hundred and eighty dollars was paid to MacDowell during his lifetime. The balance will be turned over to the MacDowell fund.
THE Milwaukee “Liedertaffel” recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary.
EMILIE MANLY, assistant organist at St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York, has sailed to England to take a similar position in the famous old cathedral in York. It is said that she will be the only person of her sex to hold such a position in England.
Mr. CLARENCE EDDY recently dedicated the new organ at the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church in Brooklyn.
Two German singers, of great repute in their home country, recently made their first New York appearances. Mme. Loeffler Burckard, who made her debut as “Sieglinde,” and whose voice possesses great power and brilliancy, was received with great acclaim. Mme. Berta Morena, who appeared in “Die Walkure,” possesses a voice that will surely win her great popularity in America. It is mellow, rich and pure and her personal charms are unusual.
GIORDANO’S opera “Siberia,” which was produced for the first time in America at the Manhattan Opera House, is a work in some respects more interesting than the same composer’s “Andrea Chenier” and “Fedora.” The scenes are picturesque and the performance was excellent.
THE production of Debussy’s ethereal opera or music drama, founded upon Maeterlinck’s symbolistic drama “Pelleas and Melisande,” at the Manhattan Opera House, New York, was attended with great success. Four of the principal singers were those who have become identified with the piece during its many sensational performances at the Opera Comique in Paris. The work is as nearly formless as it is possible for music to be. The music follows the theme of the story as a somewhat thin but resplendent web, and is radically different from many previous efforts of other composers in writing musical works for the stage. The singing of Mary Garden and Hector Dufranne was highly praised. Campanini, the versatile Italian conductor, received great applause for his work with a score that was entirely new to him.
A NEW Choral Club has been organized in Savannah under the direction of Frank E. Rebarer.
IT is reported that Alwin Schroeder, formerly ’cellist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and of the Kneisel Quartet, who removed to Frankfurt-on-Main some years ago with the idea of retiring, has now determined to return to America. He has declared that in America there is a more congenial atmosphere for artists than in Germany at the present time. This, Mr. Schroeder declares, is entirely apart from the financial attractions held out by the New World. The truth of the matter probably is that Herr Schroeder was in America just long enough to become an American.
OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN has commenced the demolition of the buildings which are now upon the site of the new opera house he has planned for Philadelphia.
THE magnificent new opera house, to be known as the Academy of Music, is now nearing completion in Brooklyn. This will unquestionably be one of the finest buildings of its kind in the world.
BOSTON is also to have a new opera house. E. J. Jordan has offered to donate $700,000 and provide for the maintenance for the first three years.
IT is stated that Herr Gustav Mahler, the renowned Viennese conductor, who has been directing the German performances at the Metropolitan Opera House this year, may be offered a chair in the music department of Columbia University, New York.
MANY conflicting announcements have been made regarding the engagements for the Metropolitan Opera House next year. As near as we can get to authoritative information is that the joint directors will be Gatti-Casazza and Andreas Dippel. Dippel is in every respect a most remarkable man. He seems to be ready to take the place of every tenor who may happen to be indisposed within a few hours previous to the ascent of the curtain. Toscanini and Mahler will be the directors, and it is reported that Gilibert, Dalmores and Renaud will move from the Manhattan Opera House to the Metropolitan.
THE dramatic poem, “Job,” by F. S. Converse, will be performed in Hamburg next October. Mme. Schumann-Heink will take the soprano part.
THE manner in which Gustav Mahler has conducted the Wagnerian performances at the Metropolitan Opera House this season has brought him a unanimous round of praise from the newspapers and music lovers alike.
IT is reported that August Max Fiedler will become the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra as Dr. Muck’s successor. He is Saxon by birth and is a graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory. His present position is that of director of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
AT the eighteenth Cincinnati May Music Festival, to be held May 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th, the conductors will be Frank Van der Stucken and Frederic Stock. The soloists will be Mme. Gadski, Daniel Beddoe, Mrs. Rider-Kelsey, Mme. Schumann-Heink, Janet Spencer, Herbert Witherspoon and others. The program of the six concerts will include: “The Seasons,” an oratorio, Haydn; “St. Matthew Passion,” Bach; overture, “Leonore, No. 3,” Beethoven; aria, “In Quali Eccessi,” Don Giovanni, Mozart; Symphony No. 3, in F, Op. 90, Brahms; Tone Poem, “Don Juan,” “Dance of the Seven Veils,” Salome, Strauss; “Tristan and Isolde,” Wagner; Prelude, “Isolde’s Love-Death ;“ “The Children’s Crusade,” (with chorus of 500 children from the public schools), Pierné; concert overture, “Cockaigne,” Elgar; aria, “My Heart at Thy Dear Voice,” Samson and Delilah, Saint-Saëns; “Waldweben,” Siegfried; “Brangane’s Warning,” Tristan and Isolde; “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey,” Die Götterdämmerung, Wagner; songs, “The Young Nun,” “Death and the Maiden,” “The Earl-King,” Schubert; Symphony No. 7, Op. 92, Beethoven; Vorspiel, “Die Meistersinger,” Wagner; “The Blessed Damozel,” Debussy; aria, “Abscheulicher,” Fidelio, Beethoven; “Psalm XIII,” Liszt; overture, “Liebesfruhling,” G. (sic) Schumann; “Dich, Theure Halle,” Tannhäuser, Wagner; “Olaf Trygvasson,” Grieg.
Abroad.
THE Royal Opera Company of St. Petersburg have been giving a series of representations of Russian operas by Tschaikowsky, Rubinstein and others in Berlin. The Berlin public is said to have become very enthusiastic over the performances.
THE Royal Opera Company of St. Petersburg have been giving a series of representations of Russian operas by Tschaikowsky, Rubinstein and others in Berlin. The Berlin public is said to have become very enthusiastic over the performances.
IN Venice the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Richard Wagner was commemorated with appropriate public concerts.
GABRIEL D’ANNUNEIO, the lurid Italian dramatist, whom many consider one of the greatest living poets, is now engaged upon an opera libretto, for which the composer Pizzetti will write the music.
THE municipal authorities of Vienna have recently decided to erect a monument to Carl Czerny. Czerny is said to have composed in all nearly two thousand five hundred studies for the piano, over one thousand five hundred short pieces, and over five hundred ensemble pieces. Aside from this, he had a very extensive teaching practice and was a diligent and successful writer of musical articles.
SALVATORE CASTRONE, better known as Marchesi, the husband of Mme. Marchesi, died in Paris recently. He was born of a noble family in Palermo, in 1822. He was obliged to leave his native land for political reasons, but returned to Milan later to study with Lamperti and de Fontana. He took part in the revolution against the Austrians in 1848 and was obliged to flee. He sailed for America and made his debut in New York in “Ernani.” His musical education, however, was incomplete. Realizing this, he placed himself under the care of Manuel Garcia and profited greatly by the instruction of his new master. Thereafter he sang with great success in London, Berlin and Paris.
PRINCE ESTERHAZY has decided to permit the remains of Haydn to be removed from Eisenstadt and placed in Vienna, in view of the commemoration next year of the hundredth anniversary of the composer’s death.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY says of the London Queen’s Hall Orchestra, of which Mr. Henry J. Wood s the conductor, “I venture to think that there are few orchestras so marvelously trained.”
AT the second tenor competition in Paris lately a young singer was unearthed who is expected to develop into a first-rate operatic artist. His name is given on the program as Mario, which, if there is anything in a name, is a happy augury.
Mr. EDWARD GERMAN will furnish the music for the forthcoming production of “Romeo and Juliet” at the Lyceum Theater in London.
FROM Paris there comes a rumor that Mme. Sarah Bernhardt is engaged in writing a play dealing with the life of Richard Wagner. It is also announced that she will appear as Mephistopheles in a production of “Faust.”
IN the autumn of 1905 a young man named Fritz Hahn went to Vienna and announced himself as a composer who had spent his previous years within the confines of a monastery. The monastic life, he said, was too severe and he had decided to adopt that of the composer. Two concerts of his works were given in the famous old “musical capital” of Europe, and these concerts were so successful that an endowment fund for the young man’s maintenance was provided, and the Princess Metternich announced herself willing to back the publication of his works. This very tough bubble was exploded when Ondricek, the violin virtuoso, heard some of the new composer’s works and revealed to the “music lovers” of Vienna that these works were note for note copies of works of Rheinberger.
EUGENE D’ALBERT has just commenced work upon a new opera to be entitled “Iziel.” The unexpected success of “Tiefland” throughout all Germany during the past winter has induced the pianist-composer to devote his time exclusively to the composition of this new work.
SIEGFRIED WAGNER IS engaged upon a new opera to be called “Dietrich von Bern.” Notwithstanding his earnest efforts to prevent his name from going down in musical history as being merely that of the son of an illustrious composer, his works thus far reveal him only as a very shadowy reflection of the phenomenal genius of his father. Many men would be perfectly contented to be a shadowy reflection of so great a man.
“ISTRIANISCHE H0CHZEIT,” an opera by Anton Smareglia, has recently met with great success in Vienna. Part of the piano score which has been forwarded to us reveals it as a work of great melodic and harmonic charm.
FLORENCE EASTON, an American singer, has recently signed a five year contract as prima donna soprano at the Berlin Grand Opera. She is an American, and like her husband, who is a solo tenor at the Berlin Opera House, was formerly a member of one of Mr. H. W. Savage’s excellent companies. The German papers seem to show genuine resentment at the appointment of so many American artists of importance in the Kaiser’s empire. We at home have no cause for complaint over the appointment of American artists in our own opera houses.
RICHARD STRAUSS, according to “Le Ménestrel,” has sent out an official communication with regard to his new opera, “Electra.” The distinguished composer hopes to complete the work by the end of this year. It will be produced at Munich, Strauss’ birthplace, and the composer hopes to conduct the performance.
FORTY-EIGHT new musical works for the stage were heard in Italy during 1897.
AT a recent concert in Paris the much- discussed Debussy conducted his own work “La Mer.” The audience, composed of his supporters and his artistic enemies, commenced a battle in which the ammunition of the opposing forces was either applause or hisses, depending upon which side of the question the combatants were. The result was similar to that which greeted the works of Richard Wagner at their first Parisian performances. Evidently Debussy is taking first steps to French immortality.
GUSTAV KOGEL, whose work in conducting the New York Philharmonic Society made a lasting impression, has recently achieved a notable success in conducting the Imperial Court Orchestra in St. Petersburg, Russia.
FELIX MOTTL recently directed the Lamoureaux Orchestra in Paris. His program was exclusively Wagner, and Parisian papers announce that his success was extraordinary.
CONFLICTING reports come from Vienna regarding the success of Busoni at the Conservatory. The Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, a conservative paper, states that he has been severely censured for going upon concert tours during the teaching season, and that his successor at the conservatory will be Godowsky. In another German journal Busoni is reported as having said that his contract with the conservatory permitted him to make extensive concert tours, but that he was planning to settle down and devote himself exclusively to teaching at great pecuniary loss to himself.
