At Home.
Sousa's Band was the first to make a tour of the world.
It is said that Caruso has extended his engagement with the Metropolitan company for four years.
The famous "Henry Wolfsohn" bureau has now been absorbed by the Quinlan International bureau, which emanates from London.
The play, Beethoven, founded on the life of that composer, has been produced in New York, but failed to win the success it obtained in Paris and London.
A successful music festival was given at Raleigh, N. C., at which The Messiah was the principal work.
A successful performance of Elgar's Light of Life was recently given by the Choir of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, at Indianapolis.
News comes to us that a music teacher in Ohio has given 80,000 lessons in music. Gee !
Mr. Howard Cadmus, a well-known and much admired Brooklyn organist and choir director, died suddenly a short time ago.
Mr. von Kunits is being named as a possible successor to Paur as director of the Pittsburg Orchestra.
Charles Heinroth has been re-engaged, on a three-years' contract, as organist at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg.
Mme. Schumann-Heink, has taken a ranch in Southern California. She is very much in love with the beautiful spot she has chosen.
A highly successful festival has been given at Alton. Ill. The Thomas Orchestra helped matters, and the Dominant Ninth Choral Society performed Haydn's Creation in a highly creditable manner.
Rossini's Stabat Mater was recently performed at the Park Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, in New York, under the direction of Mr. Robert W. Butler. The affair was a brilliant success.
There is a conservatory in Chicago which is able to furnish a complete symphony orchestra from among its members. This is most unusual and highly creditable to its director, Mr. Earl R. Drake.
Dr Horatio Parker has given up his position as organist at the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, New York, on account of the increasing demands upon his time for conducting.
Mr. H. T. Finck asks in a recent N. Y. Evening Post, "When are we going to have more Grieg programs in the Eastern States?" Apparently in the West it is possible to hear Grieg's music. He declares that this is the music of the future rather than that of Strauss and Debussy.
An eminently successful music festival has been held at Denver, Colo., with the aid of the Minneapolis Orchestra and a festival chorus. Among the soloists were Ferrucio Busoni and Dr Ludwig Wüllner, both of whom won the favor of the audience. It is pleasing to be able to add that the festival was as successful financially as it was artistically.
Information reaches us of a mysterious opera company which is being formed, which wil (sic) be financed by an unnameable millionaire. The performances will be given at a Broadway theater not far from 42d Street, and will be directed by an impresario "whose name is familiar to opera-goers throughout the country."
The Boston Symphony Orchestra recently gave a performance of Strauss' Don Quixote which called for high praise. A new work by August Halm—a symphony for strings— failed to make a sensation. August Halm's work is not well known in this country, and does not seem to deserve to be. Cannot we hear the work of some native American composers instead, next time?
Two interesting events have taken place in Philadelphia recently, which go to show that the City of Brotherly Love is not deaf to good choral music. One was a performance of Elgar's King Olaf, by Strawbridge and Clothier's Chorus, and the other was a performance of Parker's Hora Novissima, by the Philadelphia Choral Union, under the direction of Selden Miller.
The Eastern Educational Music Conference, in its meeting at Vassar, appointed a committee to issue bulletins dealing with progress
in musical education, and to arrange lectures to stimulate the development of musical education. The committee consists of Profs. McWhood, of Columbia University ; Lewis, of Tufts College, and Gow, of Vassar College. At the same meeting Professor Clarence G. Hamilton read a paper on collegiate credit for courses in piano playing.
Mr. Gatti-Casazza, the director of the Metropolitan Opera, has been induced to emerge from his sphinx-like attitude of silence, and has at last been kind enough to give his views on America. American opera- goers, it seems, are more polite than the European variety. They are less liable to throw things, and to hiss at singers of whom they disapprove. On the other hand, they all seem to come from Missouri with an ardent desire to be shown. Opera, at best, however, is an unprofitable affair—for all except the singers.
The Kneisel Quartette, the oldest American Chamber music organization, celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary of the forming of the quartet last March. Two members of the original quartet were present in the persons of Franz Kneisel and Louis Svecenski. A dinner was given at the Cafe Beaux Arts, in New York, with many celebrated guests, including Walter Damrosch, Frank Damrosch. Milka Ternina, Rafael Joseffy, Rubin Gold- mark, Arthur Whiting, Louise Homer and Henry T. Finck.
Mrs. Paul M. Warburg, of New York, has recently had the honor of laying the foundation stone of the new building of the New York Institute of Music. This institute was opened in September, 1905, and has been under the direction of Dr. Frank Damrosch. Nearly six hundred students are now enrolled, and the institution is one of the foremost in the country. We trust that in its new building it will do work as excellent as it has done in the past.
The Chicago Madrigal Club is now offering its eighth annual competition for the W. W. Kimball Co. Prize of one hundred dollars. The poem "The Day Is Done," by Longfellow, will be sent upon application to the director of the club, Mr. D. A. Clippinger, 410 Kimball Hall, Chicago, Ill. This competition has been conducted under the able direction of Mr. Clippinger for some years. It speaks highly for the public spirit of this celebrated musical organization.
The People's Choral Union of Boston recently gave Rossini's Stabat Mater and one part of Haydn's Seasons at its thirteenth annual concert. This is one of the most important choral associations of Boston. For some time it has been under the able direction of Mr. Frederick W. Wodell, whose name is well-known to Etude readers through his interesting and helpful contributions to the Voice Department of the journal and through his well-known book "Choirs and Chorus Conducting," which is thought by many to be the most valuable book the young organist or conductor can possess.
The first issue of Lloyd's Church Musicians' Directory, 1910, is now in preparation. The church musicians of this country are invited to send in full information regarding their work to Ritzmann, Brookes and Company, 442 Wells Street, Chicago, Ill. The preparation of this book is in the hands of the Rev. Frederic E. J. Lloyd, D.D. By writing to the publishers a blank for data may be secured. No charge is made for entering a name.
The department store, like the newspaper, is a feature in American life, which has no exact counterpart in any other country. John Wanamaker has recently held an excellent music festival in his Philadelphia store, at which various Philadelphia choral societies and quartets competed for prizes. The compositions performed were all by American composers, and included the works of many of the judges. Messrs. Geo. W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, John Philip Sousa and Horatio Parker acted as judges, and the whole affair was managed by Dr. Lewis Browne, the musical director at Wanamaker's store.
There have been so many excellent music festivals held throughout the country the past few weeks that mention of them is liable to dwindle into a monotonous song of praise. We must, however, keep a special word of congratulation for the Spartanburg Music Festival, under the direction of Arthur L. Manchester. This was the sixteenth annual South Atlantic States Festival, and the honors of the day must be accorded to the Spartanburg Chorus, assisted by Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony Orchestra. Among the works performed were Tschaikowski's opera, Eugen Onegin, and Elgar's Dream of Gerontius.
The Opera War has come to an end ! A wealthy Philadelphia banker has bought the Philadelphia Opera House from Mr. Hammerstein, and the Metropolitan Opera Company have taken it over. In this way the Metropolitan forces will have a virtual monopoly of the operatic field next year. Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and New York will all be supplied from the one source Mr. Hammerstein is "out of it," but he makes his bow so gracefully that we cannot believe that he is the loser by it. He has certainly done a wonderful lot to arouse interest in opera in this country, and though people may criticise many of his actions, there can be little doubt that many musicians have had good reason to be devoutly thankful for opportunities which might otherwise have been unattainable. America has always a warm corner in her heart for people who can make things happen, and Oscar is one of these. If, therefore, there have been some who have thrown superannuated eggs at him, there are others who have flung bouquets. Requiescat in pace.
Abroad.
Ernest Schilling, the American pianist, is winning laurels in London.
Olga Samaroff, the American pianist with a Russian name, will make a tour of Europe next winter.
It is said that the general public will have to pay $6.00 for an orchestra seat at the Metropolitan opera next season.
It is said that Jules Massenet composes two operas yearly. He has been doing this for many years now, and does not seem to be at all tired.
Paul Petri, an American baritone, has been engaged to sing at the court opera at Altenburg.
Six brothers out of a family of seven brethren sang in a church choir in England on Good Friday. The seventh, we are told, blew the organ, thereby helping to keep the other six in tune.
The organist of Bangor Cathedral, Wales, is in trouble. The wind supply of his organ is dependant on the water supply of the town, and the thrifty city fathers of this small Welsh township have cut down the supply, consequently on wash-day the organ is silent.
Lilli Lehmann, one of the greatest of living Wagnerian sopranos, has been engaged to sing in the roles of Donna Anna, Isolda and Leonore, at the Vienna Court Opera. Mme. Lehmann is now sixty-two years of age. Her voice is said to be in an excellent state of preservation.
George Henschal, a German musician resident in England, well known in America as a composer, singer and conductor, has had the degree of Doctor of Music conferred upon him by Edinburgh University, as a mark of appreciation from the work he has done for musical England.
Carl Goldmark is engaged upon a new opera which is said to deal with a seventeenth century subject. Goldmark was eighty on the 18th day of May,
A new opera entitled "The Harvest Festival" has been produced in Turin with such success that the composer was called before the curtain after the performance. The composer in question was a Catholic priest, and he appeared on the stage in full canonicals. Mascagni was originally asked to set the libretto to music, but he declined. Don Giocondo Fino then undertook it—with great success.
Wagner's Ring has been recently performed in Barcelona in Spanish, its title being translated Tres Ciclos de L'Anello del Nibelungo. London Truth remarks : "To the Northern ear these voluptuous Southern transliterations of the rugged Teutonic nomenclature of the original always have a comic effect." Nothing in the way of comment, we feel, can be added to that.
Our cousins across the water are beginning to wake up to the possibilities of opera in English. Thanks to the energy of Mr. Thomas Beecham, who has been doing wonders in the cause, one English opera season has already been successfully held at Covent Garden, and another one is promised for the fall. There can be little doubt that if opera- goers in London and in America demand that operas shall be performed at reasonable prices in a language people can understand, singers—even the most autocratic ones—will be forced to consent to sing in a language that was good enough for Shakespeare and Milton.
A new opera by Wolf-Ferrari has been produced in Leipsic entitled Susan's Secret. The secret in question is that Susanne smokes cigarettes. Her husband, who dislikes this form of tobacco, smells the fumes, and at once comes to the awful conclusion that "there's a man in the house." Two violent scenes follow in due course The work takes forty-five minutes for performance, and met with success on its production. It is to be hoped that its success will not end in smoke.
The European papers report that Eugen D'Albert is to be married for the fourth time. The same papers state that his coming bride is the divorced wife of the well-known German poet and dramatist Ludwig Fulda. D'Albert was at one time married to Teresa Carreño.
Berlin is in alarm at the American invasion. Just as a year ago England was seeing nothing but huge balloons filled with German warriors descending upon her peaceful gardens and century-sanctified cabbage-plots, so Germany is now seeing hoards of American singers taking possession of her Royal Opera in Berlin, where they perform those awful American operas. The chief cause of this outbreak was the production of Nevin's Poia recently. It was violently hissed by the German section of the audience and the critics have been vigorously "pounding" at is (sic) ever since. The work seems to have been rather pleasant than otherwise, and highly creditable to its composer—Arthur Nevin.
Have you ever heard of a balalaika? It is neither a breakfast food, nor an animal, nor a riddle. It is a species of musical instrument which has become popular in London. The balalaika originally hailed from Russia, and it is neither a banjo, nor a guitar, nor a mandolin, but has qualities peculiar to all three. There are only three strings. Anyone who wishes to hear one—or several—will doubtless have an opportunity if he goes to London in time for Henley regatta. One can readily see the magnificently blazered young Londoners balancing themselves on a "punt" as they balalaik their way into the hearts of their lady-loves. This should be easy, as we are told the balalaika has a specially yearning effect when the thumb and fingers slide up and down the strings. Long may the balalaika flourish— in England.
An American singer who has recently returned from Italy, where he has been studying, tells us some interesting facts about the way operatic affairs are conducted in that land of sunshine. "Almost any American singer," he says, "can secure an engagement in Italy if he pays the price. There is a concern in Naples known as the International Agency which made me this offer: For 250 francs ($50) I was to choose the place for my debut, one performance only. For 400 francs ($80) I could make two appearances. After that I was to sing a month, three operas a week, for no pay. I might get thirty or forty francs a month after that ($6 to $8), providing I was lucky. For a contract of five years I would have to pay fifteen per cent, of my salary while I remained in Italy, twenty per cent, on the continent, and twenty-five per cent, if I sang in America. In addition to this the critics, the claque, the prompters and the stage hands would expect 'to be remembered.' "
