ABROAD.
Parsifal is to be performed in Buenos Ayres next season.
Mme. Samaroff, the American pianist, made a successful début at Munich.
Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride has recently been produced in Berlin with entirely new scenery.
The Earl of Shaftesbury refused an offer of $5,000 per performance to sing in America.
Mme. Schumann-Heink’s second son is studying in Dresden. He is said to have a bass voice of great promise.
Theodore Spiering has been performing in Berlin. This Chicago violinist has met with considerable success.
Sir Edward Elgar’s new symphony will be produced at St. Petersburg next spring, under the direction of M. Siloti.
The King of Wurtemburg has approved the plans which were submitted for the construction of the new Theatre Royal at Stuttgart.
Giordano’s latest opera, The Nile Festival, is to be produced at the Paris Opéra Comique. The libretto was by Sardou.
Ellison van Hoose, the American tenor, sang in Verdi’s Requiem at Leipsic on December 10, under the conductorship of Arthur Nikisch.
Max Bruch has composed a choral work, “Easter Cantata,” which he has dedicated to the Gurzenich Society in Cologne, by whom it will be performed.
The Duke of Saxe-Meiningen has undertaken to defray the cost of reconstructing the court theatre at Meiningen, at an estimated expenditure of about $300,000.
The Prussian Minister of Education has devoted a subsidy of about $15,000 to a complete edition of the works of Haydn, to be undertaken by Breitkopf & Härtel.
The works of Wagner, given in cycle form, have been very successfully produced in Madrid under the direction of Walter Rabl, who has won distinction as a conductor at Dresden, Dusseldorf and at Dortmund.
Shanghai, a British Chinese possession, owns a band which is maintained out of the rates at a cost of $25,000 a year. The concerts given are extremely popular.
The Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs has composed an opera which has recently obtained great success in Lisbon. It is to be heard in Berlin, and is said to contain some beautiful melodies.
Following the example of Fritz Kreisler, Eugene Ysaye is now paying particular attention to the masterpieces of the old Italian composers for the violin.
Puccini’s handwriting is so bad that his publisher employs a special reader for his manuscript. It is said that this same bad writing caused the failure of “Le Villi” to gain the notice of the judges to whom it was submitted.
In Europe managers make their opera contracts a long time ahead. The Berlin Royal Opera has just announced the engagement of a Graz contralto named Else Bengall, to begin two years from now.
Paderewski, who has nominally accepted the post of Director of the Warsaw Conservatory, will make no further definite arrangements unless the civic authorities carry out the improvements he deems necessary.
Adele Aus der Ohe has had conferred upon her the title of “Royal Prussian Court Pianist,” she being probably the first woman pianist to be so honored by the Emperor William II of Germany.
Dr. Hans Richter has retired from the conductorship of the Halle Orchestra, Manchester, England, a position he has held since the death of Sir Charles Halle. His services in the cause of English music have been of inestimable value.
The second opera of Peter Cornelius, Le Cid, has been played with success at Magdeburg recently in the original form in which it was given, Max Halher. The work has been little heard of for a long time, and credit is due to Herr Goehlrich for bringing it to light again.
Isadore de Lara’s opera Sanga has proved a success at its Paris presentation, but is said to lack originality, and not to be in spirit with the modern French school. It is doubtful whether it will ever gain a New York production.
Sir Charles Stanford, the English composer, is advocating subsidized opera for London. He wants a free site, a $500,000 opera house, and a subvention of $50,000 a year. His chief difficulty will be to find an English audience for English opera.
Lorenzo Perosi, the Italian composer, who has hitherto confined himself to music of a religious character, is composing an opera entitled Romeo and Juliet, the text having been adapted from Shakespeare by Perosi himself.
Arthur Nikisch, formerly conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has been invited to direct a performance of the Wagner “Ring” at Bayreuth, during the coming year. This is the first time this distinction has been conferred upon him.
Louis Persinger, an American violinist, has the honor of having been appointed a concert-master in the new Blüthner Hall Orchestra, Berlin. He is an extremely talented artist and plays with fervor and authority. He was formerly concert-master at the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie. Brussels.
There is something quite seasonable in the discovery of “a comic song of twelve verses, words and music by Richard Wagner,” which, according to a French paper, is to be put up to auction shortly. It would be a great day for vaudeville if Mr. George Cohan, for instance, were announced to sing a song by the composer of Tristan und Isolde.
At the Vienna Conservatory, now under State control, special sections for pianoforte, violin, singing and composition have been formed. The first will be under the direction of Godowski, and the second, it is expected, under that of Sevcik of Prague. For the composition section application was made to Richard Strauss and Reger, but both declined.
It is said that the real reason behind Maeterlinck’s suit against the Paris Opéra to prevent the production of Chevrier’s opera on his play “Monna Vanna,” on the ground that the opera house is too large for the work, is because of the refusal of the authorities to cast his wife for the leading part.
André Messages’s resignation of the position of co-director of the Paris Opéra was not accepted. There is a difference of opinion between him and his fellow director, M. Broussan, and the question threatens to develop into a serious affair, as both parties have a distinguished following. The Minister of Public Instruction has conferred with the two directors, with a view to establishing mutual accord.
The Berlin production of Laparra’s opera La Habanera has not proved to be a success. The public, surprised by the vehemence of the subject and the strange accent of the music, was not prepared to appreciate the vigorous portrayal of the sombre Spanish customs. “Those who applauded Tiefland a hundred times,” says Le Guide Musicale, “evidently could not interest themselves in La Habanera.”
The death of Francois Auguste Gevaert, the head of the Brussels Conservatory of Music, removes one of the most distinguished educators of music of his day from an ever-narrowing circle of veterans. He was the son of a baker, and was born July 31, 1828, in Huysse, Belgium, and was sent to the Ghent Conservatory, where he studied under Mengal, and Sommere, the well-known theorist, and friend of Fetis. Here he won the Prix de Rome. His first opera was composed when he was twenty years old, and was successfully performed in Brussels (first performance March 23, 1848). Gevaert afterwards studied in Paris, and later went to Spain, composing an orchestral phantasy on Spanish motives. He also visited Italy and Germany. After his return to Belgium, he became very popular, and produced many compositions both in large and small forms. In 1867 he was appointed head of the Singing Class in the Academy of Music, Paris. The most important work attached to his name is the “History of the Theory of Music in Antiquity,” which is a very deep research into the origins of music. In 1871 Gevaert was appointed head of the Brussels Conservatory, a position he maintained to the day of his death. He raised the institution to a position of considerable importance, many distinguished teachers having been engaged there during his regime. It is but recently that Gevaert celebrated his eightieth birthday. He was a distinguished musician, an erudite scholar, and possessed a charming personality.
AT HOME.
The College of Music of Cincinnati is giving a series of string quartet concerts and chamber music during the coming year.
Me. William H. Sherwood has had some very successful concert engagements recently, and is engaged to appear with the St. Paul Symphony Orchestra early in the new year-
A concert was given recently by The Choral Club of Hartford, Conn., under the directorship of Mr. Ralph L. Baldwin. It is gratifying to observe that the program was largely devoted to the works of American composers.
Henry Holden Huss’ string quartet, composed at the express invitation of Ysaye, and dedicated to the Hahn Quartet, Philadelphia, has recently had two successful performances.
Over 42,000 people are said to have paid for admission to hear Mme. Chaminade. At the ordinary rate of admission this represents a gross income of about $100,000.
Plans are being made to build a new home for the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Louisville and Seattle are among the foremost of the smaller cities in the matter of providing an orchestra for their citizens.
Dr. Wullner and Baron Caccamisi, the husband of Blanche Marchesi, both lost large estates in Sicily during the recent catastrophe at Messina.
Baltimore is to be the next place to come into line with the opera movement. Both the Manhattan and the Metropolitan opera companies are giving representations there, and if adequate support is forthcoming the season will be lengthened next year.
Mr. William Shakespeare, the eminent English voice teacher, is on a holiday tour through Spain, Cuba, Mexico, to Los Angeles, where he is going to reside and teach for two months or so.
Max Meyer Olbersleben, of the Wurzburg Royal Conservatory, has been selected as one of the judges at the forthcoming German National Sangerfeste, to be held in New York from the 13th to the 24th of June. This will be his first visit to America.
The death is recorded of George F. Daniels. He was for some time head of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, and took an active interest in the musical life of that city, and was a prominent man in the wholesale shoe trade. Many friends in Boston will mourn the loss of a sincere and forceful worker in the cause of music.
Henry Hadley, the American composer, whose symphonic poem “Salome” was introduced to New York audiences by Safanoff at the last of the Philharmonic concerts, studied under his father, Geo. Chadwick and others. He will again leave his duties as conductor of the Mayence Opera in order to conduct a series of concerts in Berlin.
Hammerstein is going to build a new opera house in New York, as he says that with the opening of the new Pennsylvania Railroad Station the building will be too valuable to devote to opera for a short season, and the present Manhattan Opera House is to be used as a theatre, and a new opera house built at a cost of $1,500,000.
Tetrazzini is said to have discovered a “second Patti” in the person of Miss Gertrude Fleming, a young San Francisco singer. She has persuaded Jean de Reszke to train her.
At the National North American Sangerbund Sangerfest to be held in New York, the prize song to be sung in the customary contest is “Warnung vor dem Rhein,” by Matthieu Neuman, of Düsseldorf.
Maria Gay, for some years the pupil of an American teacher in Paris, has achieved a great success as Carmen in the Metropolitan production, New York. Six years ago Raoul Pugno, the French pianist, engaged her for a concert tour in the Netherlands, and three years later Eugene Ysaye arranged a Brussels début for her.
The Metropolitan authorities have announced the conditions by which competitors must abide in order to compete for the $10,000 prize. The composer must be an American citizen, irrespective of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. His residence is immaterial. The entire performance, including the intermissions, must not exceed three and one-quarter hours. The libretto must be in English. The contest opened on December 20, 1908, and closes on September 13, 1910. The opera receiving the reward will be staged by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York.
Musical America says it has become the fashion in New York to have an organ in your home, and if you are wealthy enough, to have an organist to play it for you. A few years ago there were not more than two or three pipe organs in private houses; now there are at least fifty, and the number is rapidly increasing. Organs for private use are fast gaining in size and cost and beauty of tone. Some of these now in private houses in or near New York are equipped with four banks of keys, and are larger in several instances than the best organs in the city.
The Chicago Madrigal Club has instituted a prize competition open to American composers in order to stimulate writers to try their hands at this variety of composition. The difficulty of finding suitable words has prompted them to offer a prize of $50.00 for an original poem that is to be used in the musical competition of 1909. The poem must be lyric in character, consisting of not less than twenty-four nor more than thirty- two lines. Loose stamps should be enclosed for return of manuscript. Each poem must bear a fictitious name, and the author must send with it a sealed envelope bearing upon the outside the fictitious name and upon the inside his real name and address. All manuscripts must be typewritten, and must be sent to Mr. D. A. Clippinger, 410 Kimball Hall, Chicago, Ill., not later than April 1, 1909.
GLASSES UNNECESSARY.
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