At Home.
Chicago has lost one of the most promising of her younger organists in Mr. Lester Bartlett Jones.
Mrs. J. Irving Wood and Miss Alice J. Bloxham, the elocutionist, are giving Strauss' melodrama Enoch Arden at various points in the Catskills.
Mendelssohn's Antigone was produced recently at the Greek Theatre of the University of California before an audience of 8,000, under the skillful direction of Dr. Wolle.
Mr. and Mrs. Eduard Schernbel have been appointed head of the musical department of Crescent College, Eureka Springs, Ark. The Etude wishes them all success.
Italian opera singers are beginning to get scared. Alessandro Bonci is now studying the English language. He will be wanting to sing in it next, and when an operatic tenor wants a thing he usually gets it. If this should be his ambition, we wish him success.
By the time this issue is in print the Academische Gesangverein will have arrived in New York from Vienna. Those who are interested in male chorus work will have an excellent opportunity of learning what the Austrians can do in this line.
A program of the church compositions of Ad. M. Foerster was given at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburg.
Mr. William H. Sherwood and Mr. Sol. Marcosson have been meeting with great success during the past summer at Chautauqua. Many exceptionally fine violin and piano recitals were given to enthusiastic audiences of Chautauquans and their friends.
Many American singers will be heard in London during the Beecham opera season, which will take place at the time of the coronation of King George V. Amongst those already engaged are Louise Homer, Allan Hinckley, Marguerite Lemon and Herbert Witherspoon.
It is with great regret that we announce to our readers the death of Mrs. Clara Gottschalk-Peterson, which recently took place at Asbury Park. She was born in New Orleans in the early thirties, and was educated in Paris. She was a sister of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the first American pianist to gain international fame.
The North Shore Festival Association of Chicago has offered a prize of one hundred dollars for a cantata for children's voices and orchestra. This is a somewhat unusual form of musical endeavor. It is to be hoped some composer will produce a work suitable for the occasion. Particulars may be had from Mr. P. C. Lutkin, Music Hall, Evanston, Ill.
The Victor Talking Machine Co. have been successful in reproducing an effective record of the playing of a violin solo with orchestra. To Francis MacMillen, the famous American violinist, has been vouchsafed the unique distinction of being the first eminent player to have his music so reproduced.
Every day seems to bring up a new crop of opera rumors. The latest has a ring of truth about it. We are now told that Thomas Beecham has come to an understanding with the Metropolitan management, and that an interchange of civilities between London and New York Will take the place of the operatic war prophesied heretofore. We cannot guarantee the truth of this story, but it sounds quite reasonable.
Mr. Homer A. Norris, the organist of St. George's, Stuyvesant Square, New York, is fortunate in the enjoyment of the friendship of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, who has made him a present of a house on the Orange Mountains which will cost over $20,000. The house will be built in the form of a castle. Mr. Norris is indeed to be congratulated. It is not often that musicians meet with such well-deserved recognition.
Among the artists visiting America next season, Mme. Lilli Lehmann will be one of the most notable. Few singers have maintained so high a position in the operatic world as Mme. Lehmann, and an opportunity to hear her will be welcomed by all music- lovers. Efram Zembalist. the Russian violinist, will make his American debut; Josef Hofmann will be heard again. Mischa Elman will make another American tour. This will be under the management of the Quinlan International Bureau.
We are pleased to report that the thirty- third annual convention of the Indiana Music Teachers'- Association, held at Princeton, Ind., was very successful. New officers were elected, and much business transacted. Among those who contributed to the enjoyment of the occasion at the many excellent concerts, were David Bispham, Harrison M. Wild. Earl P. Parks, and many others whose work is of the highest kind.
A rather unique idea has emanated from the MacDowell Association. A pageant is to be given at Peterboro, N. H. (MacDowell's birthplace), representing the history of Peterboro from 1700 to 1910. The pageant will be called "The House of Dreams," and much of MacDowell's music will be performed. A chorus of seventy-five voices will take part, and instrumental music will also be rendered. MacDowell's excellence as a composer is becoming more and more recognized every day, and it is a fine thing that his admirers should get together in this way.
The Women's Philharmonic Society of New York City, was founded by Mrs. Melusina Fay Peirce, sister of the present president, Miss Amy Fay. The society is made up of women who make music a profession. The object of the society is to help people of talent to be heard, and scholarships are given in piano, voice, violin and composition. These are determined by competitive hearings. The society supports the only women's orchestra in New York City, and its own chorus. Informal musicales are given each month to promote good-fellowship among the members and to hear from time to time the scholarship pupils. Four large concerts are given during the season, at which artists of note are heard.
The following is clipped from a London paper. Our good friend, Mr. E. M. Bowman, deserves all the praise which his ability, enthusiasm and special talent have earned for him.
"Calvary Baptist Church Choir, New York, under Mr. Bowman, has made an average attendance during the last four years of 96.08 per cent. Thirteen members have not missed a meeting. Last year the choir gave four festival concerts and sixteen lesser concerts. It has also helped in outside concerts, Including six performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Salaried positions in other choirs have been obtained by 37 members."
The Chicago Madrigal Club, under the direction of Mr. D. A. Clippinger, who is well known to readers of The Etude Voice Department, was given at the University Concerts in Chicago. These concerts are given under the auspices of the well-known institution founded by J. D. Rockefeller, and are conducted upon the highest possible artistic plane.
Seventy recitals and concerts in three months is the proud record made by the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Miss Clara Baur, Director. The recitals were given in part by the students and in part by the faculty of the institution. It is interesting to note that whereas ten or twenty years ago students looked almost invariably to Europe or the great Eastern art centres for the completion of their educational work, they now find in the West and Middle West conservatories and teachers with excellent equipments and staffs of competent teachers filled with the enthusiasm and energy which has been the characteristic of our trans-Ohio and trans-Mississippi cities.
A lady in Indiana has applied for a patent upon a piano with two keyboards. Two keyboards, arranged in the form of manuals, as in the case of the church organ, would not be a novelty, for the piano's predecessor, the harpsichord, frequently possessed two keyboards. This new contrivance, however, has the keyboards arranged on separate sides of the piano so that they are at right angles. This of course enables two performers to play at one and the same time. But why stop at two keyboards? Why not have four? Think of the economy! The father of four ambitious daughters would not have to purchase four instruments in order to permit them to practice. They could all practice at the same time—Board of Health permitting. We have heard of many combination pianos. One boasted of a folding-bed attachment. This, however, is the first news of the doubled- barreled piano.
Abroad.
There is a possible chance that Mme. Schumann-Heink will make a concert tour with Mme. Melba in Australia next spring.
John A. Hoffman, a young American tenor, Ms been winning favor in London by his singing.
Paderewski has canceled his English engagements for this year. This is said to be the result of an attack of neuritis in his right arm and neck.
A memorial tablet is to be erected in Vienna to mark the place where Wagner died The tablet will consist of a marble bas-relief at the Vendramin Palace.
Hammerstein now threatens to repeat his Manhattan experiment in London, by building a theater for the production of opera. We trust this enterprise will not be lost in the fog.
Arrangements have been made for Xavier Scharwenka to visit this country on a concert tour next season. There is little doubt that his playing will be of very great interest to American audiences.
Mr. Albert Spalding, the American violinist, has completed arrangements for another European tour through Germany, France, Belgium, Holland and Russia. He has acquired a fine reputation abroad.
Mrs. Kullak-Busse, granddaughter of the famous pianist Kullak, has been keeping up the family musical reputation by gaining distinction as a soprano in Germany.
Paris has a Handel Society which is now in its second year. It recently gave a performance of The Messiah which crowded the immense hall of the Trocadero.
Liza Lehmann, the English composer of In a Persian Garden, who was so successful in her American tour, has written the incidental music to the play Clementina, which is to be produced in London by H. B. Irving in the fall. Mme. Lehmann will return to America next season.
Max Bruch, the eminent German composer, has retired from his position at the Royal High School of Berlin in order to enjoy a well-deserved rest and the quiet of private life. He recently celebrated his seventy-second birthday.
The Guildhall School of Music, in London, has an average attendance of 2,500 pupils. The institution is conducted upon broad lines and as a result of too generous a policy the deficit for the past year was nearly $1,000.00.
G. H. Clutsam's one-act opera, A Summer's Night has been produced at His Majesty's Theatre, London, by the enterprising Mr. Beecham. It is light opera in English, and was very successful. The music was very effective, and the composer was also the librettist. There are only five people in the cast.
In a contest recently held in Paris we are told that a sincere effort was made to determine the comparative excellence of old and of new violoncellos. "Twelve instruments were played in the dark by a distinguished 'cellist before a jury of expert players. The same piece was played on each. Six were less than a quarter of a century old, six were fine specimens of the work of Stradivarius and other ancient makers. The modern 'cellos received 1484 marks, the ancient 883 marks. Thus the modern were declared the best."
The University of Manchester, England, has conferred the degree of Mus. Doc. on Alexandre Guilmant, the famous French organist. Guilmant has quite a number of honors to his name. He is Commander of the Pontifical Order of Gregory the Great, Knight of the Order of Sylvester, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, Officer of the Academy, Organist of the Trocadero, Paris, and Professor of the Organ at the Conservatoire National.
An effort is being made in England to revive the Morris Dance. Mr. John Graham, an English educator, has endeavored to write down the traditions relating to the performance of these dances by inducing some very old men to show him how the dances were given in their youth. When the old men were gotten together it was discovered that they all promptly disagreed with each other upon the various points of the dance. Although this may be the case, enough remains in the way of tradition to permit the continuance of this dance. Associated with the various pretty old English tunes written for the dance, the promoters believe that children will receive a kind of beneficial, indirect instruction in rhythm and time, as well as in learning the essentially English folk-tunes.
Mr. Ernest Newman, in the London Musical Herald, says : "To translate Wagner's words is easy, but to translate them for Wagner's music is frequently next to impossible. The constant ending of German words on a soft accent is a difficulty. Wagner's musical phrases are generally of the length of a line of words. The curve of musical declamation has also to be followed; this word has to fall on this note. Hence the line has often to be built up on either side of some salient and immovable word. Often also it is necessary that a line shall end with a particular word. The translator has a hard time."
The Royal Academy of Music in London has outgrown its home in Tenterden street and is building a new one in Marylebone road (pronounced Maryb'n). The foundation stone has been laid by Lord Strathcona and Mount-Royal, one of the vice-presidents, in the absence of the president, His Royal Highness the Duke ofConnaught. A new choral piece has been writen (sic) by the principal, Sir Alexander MacKenzie, especially for the occasion, and was performed by the students' choir. The band of the Royal Engineers was in attendance. The new building was blessed by the Bishop of Kensington.
Toscanini has been holding forth on modern composers to a New York critic in Paris. According to him, Debussy and Puccini are the leading dramatic composers of the day. Richard Strauss does not appeal to him :— "I do not like his later operas. They are not sincere. They are sensational. They are written for money." Wagner still lives, and so does Verdi. Charpentier, it appears, suffers from confusion of thought, and Massenet cannot give us a climax, such as Puccini can. Toscanini confesses that he has composed a little himself. "Symphonic works and other things. No; they have not been played. There is too much useless music in the world." It must be admitted that many are writing to-day who would be the better for some of Toscanini's modesty!
