At Home.
A new music paper has been launched, entitled The International Music Review. We wish it all success.
Pasquale Amato, the Metropolitan baritone, has decided to become an American citizen, and will take out his first papers on his return from Italy next fall.
A coalition has been effected between the Columbia School of Music, of Toledo, O., and the Toledo Musical College. The name of the new institution will be decided later.
There is a possibility that Oscar Hammerstein may bring his London Opera Company to this country. A guarantee fund has already been offered by San Francisco and New Orleans.
Morris Steinert, a prominent member of the music trade, and the founder of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, died recently at his home in New Haven, Conn. He also was an inventor, and did much for the betterment of piano tone.
A bill has been introduced in Boston for the maintenance of municipal opera. If the bill is passed, and there appears to be good reason to believe that it will, Boston will be the first city in the United States to enjoy opera supported by the local city government. Good old Hub!
Through the beneficence of Mr. August Lewis the Institute of Musical Art of New York (Dr. Frank Damrosch, Director) has been able to add to its already large collection of musical autographs some interesting manuscript letters of Wagner, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Schumann and Weber.
Mr. Edwin Arthur Kraft, the American organ virtuoso, made a concert tour during February, covering several thousand miles. Most of the engagements were for the opening of new organs. The cities represented indicate the widespread interest in church music.
It will be good news to many to learn that Dr. Carl Muck is to return to America next season as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Nevertheless, that wonderful organization has lost nothing of its prestige during the régime of Max Fiedler, to whom all honor is due.
Among the visitors to these shores on the near future, Gottfried Galston, the Munich pianist, is one who will be welcomed. He is well known in the musical world of Europe, and his annual tour of Russia earned him an independent fortune. The Czar created him an honorary professor of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Some of the dates of the twenty-one-day tour of the London Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Arthur Nikisch (a musical event of national importance), will be New York, April 8; Boston, April 9; Philadelphia, April 11; Baltimore, April 12; Pittsburg, April 13; Cleveland, April 14; Chicago, April 15.
The Sherwood Music School of Chicago is the proud possessor of two vocal pupils with celebrated vocal ancestors. One is Hans Schumann-Heink, a basso, son of the famous contralto, and the other is Karl Formes, grandson of the great basso, Karl Formes. Both are pupils of Mr. William A. Willett.
Josef Stransky, the successor of Gustav Mahler as conductor of the New York Philharmonic, has brought out two novelties recently—Bruckner’s fifth symphony and a new symphony by Weingartner. Neither work seems to have gained much favor, but Stransky deserves credit for giving music lovers an opportunity to hear them.
The free orchestral concerts given in New York through the $10,000 fund of the New York World have proved an immense success. An audience of four thousand people crowded into the auditorium of the Normal College, and when a concert was given in the East Side, the police reserves had to be called out to prevent a riot, so eager were people to get seats.
Reports of the different clubs belonging to the National Federation of Musical Clubs have been furnished to The Etude by the active Press Secretary of the organization, Miss Elsie Rulon, and all show that the work of these organizations is even more enthusiastic than ever before. Were it not for the limitations of space The Etude would take great pleasure in giving detailed informations of this most praiseworthy work.
The inaugural banquet of the Studio Club of New York proved a great success. The object of this institution is to provide a boarding house for girl students. Its purpose, according to an official notice, is “to make girlhood grow into a stronger, larger womanhood with greater power for good in social influence. Its hope is to become a center for social and spiritual life for the many thousands of girls who yearly come to New York from all parts of the country to study some of the various arts.”
Mr. John Philip Sousa—or could it be his press agent?—has started a crusade against the hackneyed themes and names used by composers. There are, we are told. 1,263,842 songs about spring, 954,626 about love, 749,211 about flowers (roses, pansies. hyacinths, daisies, forget-me-nots and lilies), 672,843 romanzas, 547,738 cradle songs, 521,266 nocturnes, 479,143 reveries, 422,001 songs with violin obligato, 366,242 serenades, 133,009 æolian murmurs, 102,112 rippling cascades, and 96,424 variations on Yankee Doodle.
This season the operatic honors go to Wolf-Ferrari whose two operas, Le Bonne Curiose and the Jewels of Madonna, have both been welcomed warmly. The Jewels of Madonna has just been produced in Chicago with pronounced success. It deals with the passions of the lower class of Neapolitans, and does for Naples something of what Charpentier’s Louise has done for Paris. Many folk-songs have been drawn upon, but this is not because Wolf-Ferrari is lacking in originality. He has a delightful vein of tunefulness which is all his own. Undoubtedly he owes something to Debussy and Puccini, but he owes no more than he can repay with interest.
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is to be congratulated on having been provide with a suitable hall in Cincinnati in which to give concerts. The old Yale Music Hall was too big and too draughty, and though a halo of sentiment will always surround it, music-lovers will be glad to enjoy the greater comforts of the new hall. This hall has been erected at a cost of $500,000, and seats 2,200 peope (sic). It is known as the Emery Auditorium and has been built in connection with the Ohio Mechanics’ Institute. The opening concert was a brilliant event.
In one of our most esteemed French contemporaries we find among the musical notices an account of the hanging of a negro in a small American city, which, because of the fact that the negro’s relatives objected to his being hung in the open in a pouring rain, was transferred to the stage of the local opera house by the tender-hearted sheriff. This evidently found its way into the musical notices because of the “opera house” connection. Oh, if our good friends in France could only see some of the astonishing things that go under the name of opera houses in America!
Debussy’s Pèlleas et Mélisande has been given in Boston with Mme. Leblanc as Mélisande. As all the world knows, Mme. Leblanc is the wife of Maurice Maeterlinck, the author of the libretto. It will be remembered that Maeterlinck objected to the production of the work at the Opéra Comique in Paris because his wife was not allowed to have the title rôle, and because he did not approve of the scenery. In the Hammerstein production of the work the setting given was similar to the Opéra Comique production. In the present production, Maeterlinck’s ideas have been followed, and the work has gained in favor in consequence.
The phenomenal success of William Bachaus goes to prove that in spite of the multitude of concert pianists of surpassing wonderfulness who are crowding onto the concert platform, there is still plenty of room at the top for anybody who deserves to get there. Many things have contributed to his success. He has been well-advertised and well “managed.” But once an audience has gathered, the advertisers and the managers have nothing to do with the case. It is up to the pianist to show what he is worth. Bachaus has shown that he possesses the technique of a master and the soul and fire of a poet.
The ways of the translator are manifold and various. The London National Review has called attention to a well-known song of Schubert’s, the Lied des gefangenen Jägers—which is a setting of a German translation of Walter Scott’s poem, “My hawk is tired of perch and hood.” The second line of this poem, “My idle greyhound loathes his food,” has been translated by Herder into “Mein mussiger Windhorn sein Futter verschmant.” In the largest collection of Schubert’s songs, the words have been re-translated into English, and appear in the following form: “My musical wood-horn its flutter hath stilled.” Whoever perpetrated this line has certainly betrayed a brilliant ignorance of both German and English.
Speaking of his opera, Mona, which won the prize offered by the Metropolitan Opera Company, Dr. Horatio Parker tells us that he has adopted the leit-motiv of Wagner, because “you can’t expect the public to unlearn what Wagner taught it.” Another device he has employed is that of associating different personalities of the drama with definite tonalities. “For instance, Gwynn, the hero, is associated with the key of B major. With Mona herself I have carried the idea still further, assigning separate keys to two distinct aspects of her personality. In her character of Druid priestess she is associated with the key of E minor, while in her character as a woman she is assigned the key of E flat major.”
Leo Blech’s one-act opera, Versiegelt (Under Seal), has achieved a notable success on its first production by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York. The period of the action is 1830, and the place a small German town. The scene is laid in the living room of the young Widow Gertrude, with whom the Burgomaster Braun is ardently in love. Her friend, Frau Wilmers, is less fortunate, and endures the worthy mayor’s displeasure. This is increased by the fact that her son Bergel is in love with his daughter Else. Unluckily poor Frau Wilmers is unable to pay her debts, and the Burgomaster sends the voluble self-satisfied bailiff Lampe to attach her goods. Among her possessions is a large wardrobe, and she persuades the Widow Gertrude to find a place for it in the living room. No sooner is the furniture installed than Lampe discovers it, and goes off in a rage to inform the Burgomaster. The Burgomaster, however, comes to call on Gertrude, and a pleasant love scene is enacted. The pair are interrupted by the return of Lampe. The Burgomaster hides in the wardrobe as Lampe enters. Lampe puts the seal of the law on the wardrobe, but suddenly he hears a sound within. He pokes his umbrella through a hole, and presently proclaims that Gertrude has a lover within. Again he goes off to seek the Burgomaster. In the meantime Else and Bertel take advantage of the Burgomaster’s difficulties to enforce consent to their betrothal. Else also secures, in writing, a dowry of a large part of his possessions. When Lampe returns he is followed by a crowd who have learned of the Burgomaster’s predicament They find the Burgomaster talking to Gertrude, and when the door of the wardrobe is opened, it is Else and Bertel who are discovered. After a stern lecture from the Burgomaster they are pardoned, and all ends happily.
Abroad.
The will of the late Alberto Randegger, one of the foremost of the professors at the Royal Academy of Music in London, has been proved at about $165,000.
Oscar Hammerstein has accepted an opera composed by the Duke of Argyll, which will be produced at the London Opera House in the spring.
An opera called the Snow Man, by Erich Korngold, the boy prodigy, has been successfully produced at the Kurfürsten Opera House in Berlin.
A new work of Max Reger, Lustspiel Ouverture, was recently produced at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipzig under the direction of Arthur Nikisch.
A two days’ Mahler Festival has been organized in Mannheim. The Mahler eighth symphony will be given. This work employs a vast choral force as well as a large orchestra.
A movement is on foot in Berlin to erect a monument to Meyerbeer, who was born in that city in 1791. The Kaiser has signified his approval.
A new opera by Franz Lehar, the composer of the Merry Widow, has been produced in Vienna. It is entitled Eva, and is said to be full of catchy waltz tunes, and to be well orchestrated.
The Italian war in Tripoli has served Perosi as a theme for his new suite. This suite, we are told, is an addition to others entitled Rome, Florence and Venice, and is dedicated to “the new sister.”
Gabrilowitsch recently conducted an orchestral concert in Berlin at which Katharine Goodson and Willy Hess were the soloists. Katharine Goodson is now in this country, and is increasing the fine reputation she gained on her previous visits. She has few rivals among the women pianists of the day.
An international competition with a prize of $1,250 for an opera libretto is announced by the Berlin firm of Ahn and Simrock. Fairy-lore legends are most in request, and subjects in the modern “brutal” Italian manner are banned. What a pity the prize is not sufficient to tempt Mr. J. M. Barrie to write another Peter Pan for a musical setting.
It is not generally known that Fanny Dickens, the sister of Charles Dickens, was a singer of considerable ability. Her husband, Henry Burnett, was also a singer, and after marrying in London, where she and her husband were both well known, they moved to Manchester and achieved a successful and happy career.
The Berlin Royal Opera now has a rival in the newly opened Kurfürsten Oper, where it is intended to produce opera on elaborate lines. The piece given at the inaugural performance was Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor. The director is Maximilian Morris, late of the Berlin Komische Oper.
A new popular opera house has just been opened in Buda-Pesth. It is destined to be a rival to the old Royal Opera, and prices will be much lower, owing to the fact that there is room for a far larger audience. The auditorium will hold 3,200 spectators.
An impressive mediæval spectacle called The Miracle has been drawing crowds to the Olympia in London. The better to carry out the spirit of the play, the interior of the theatre has been decorated to appear like a great Cathedral. The incidental music to the performance was composed by Engelbert Humperdinck.
An instrument called a “melograph” has been invented by a Swedish scientist, which automatically writes music. When a piece of music is played the melograph records the sounds on a chemically prepared ribbon. The recorded piece may then be read like ordinary Morse signals. Not only are the notes recorded, but the phrasing and expression as well.
Mrs. Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler has evidently made a greater success in Germany than ever before. At her Leipzig Gewandhaus concert, given under the orchestral direction of Nikisch, we are informed by leading German papers that she was greeted with a stormy demonstration of enthusiasm rarely equalled in the German city which for some three centuries has had the reputation for concerts of the highest possible order.
Prince Joachim Albert, of Prussia, has finished a symphonic poem entitled The Isle of the Dead. A wicked report, started in Brooklyn, that this work was inspired by a visit to the Isle of Manhattan, proves to be groundless. It was inspired by the famous picture of the same name, by Arnold Böklin. The work is to be performed in Karlsbad in the summer.
A successful performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah was recently given in Bayreuth! Now that Wagner operas are heard in Leipzig and Mendelssohn oratorios are given in Bayreuth, musical old-timers can be forgiven if they suppose that the musical millennium has come. Nothing of the sort has happened, however, for if musicians no longer fight over Wagner and Mendelssohn, it is because they have found something else to fight about.
Musicians all the world over will rejoice that Humperdinck is convalescent from the illness which bade fair to close his career. His opera. Hansel and Gretel, has won a place in the esteem of all music lovers, and his more recent work, Die Koenigskinder, seems to be rapidly becoming equally popular. Humperdinck is a composer who has conservative tendencies—that is to say, he is not everlastingly straining to be “new”— but is also willing to advance so long as musical beauty in its most refined form leads the way.
It is rumored that Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannstahl are negotiating for the Bayreuth opera house. This opera house was built in 1748, and is not the one used for the Wagner productions. It is said that Strauss and Hofmannstahl contemplate giving performances during the summer festival season on the off nights when there is nothing being given at the Festival Theatre. They intend, we are told, to produce Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme with the intermede Ariadne ad Naxos, with music by Richard Strauss. The orchestra would consist of thirty-six men.
The chief test piece for choral societies at the International Musical Festival, which is to be held in Paris next May, will be a cantata by Saint-Saëns. This has been composed at the request of the Paris municipality, who have organized a great musical festival in which every European nation is taking part. The title of the work is Aux Aviateurs. This work will be welcomed by aviators the world over. Hitherto their efforts have been musically represented only by such works as Mendelssohn’s Oh for the Wings of a Dove, and they naturally feel that recent developments demand something more strenuous.
It has been stated that Covent Garden, London, closed the season with a loss of $70,000, said to be due to Hammerstein’s competition. It must be remembered that the real Covent Garden season does not take place in the winter time, but in the spring and early summer, when the court “Drawing Rooms” are being held. A winter season at Covent Garden has none of the social prestige of the “Royal Opera,” and it is scarcely to be wondered at if the London opera-goers prefer Hammerstein’s new and shiny opera house to the antiquated red-plush grandeur of Covent Garden.
