Ysaye will tour America in 1917.
Titto Ruffo will sing with the Chicago Opera Company next winter.
Henry L. Mason has been elected president of the Boston Choral Union.
Robert Grau, brother of Maurice Grau and one time the manager of Adelina Patti, died August 8th.
An open air performance of Wagner's Tannhaüser was given on a pretentious scale by the students of the Kirksville State Normal School, Missouri.
Mrs. Otto Torey Simon who was associated in the work of her husband, the well-known Washington teacher, died on August 6th.
William Rogers Chapman has just conducted the 20th annual festivals at Portland and Bangor, Maine. Geraldine Farrar was the leading soloist.
Mr. Clarence Eddy will make another transcontinental tour in March 1917 during which he will give numerous organ recitals.
The death of Albert J. Holden on July 16th last marks the passing of one of the most popular composers of church music in America. Holden was for many years organist of the Church of the Divine Paternity in New York City.
Mr. Charles French, manager of the "Musical Leader" of Chicago, died in New York on Aug. 17th, as the result of a street car accident. Mr. French had hosts of musical friends in the West.
Walter Keller has just received the degree of Doctor of Music from De Pauw University of Chicago. Although Dr. Keller is not a Catholic, but the son of a German Methodist minister, he has been organist of the largest Catholic church in Chicago for thirteen years.
A "1000 people" cast performance of Aida was given in San Francisco in September with Emmy Destinn in the leading role. Fifty years from now, when "50,000" people are marshalled into performances in the Grand Canyon, will the art of music be any greater?
Mr. Alberto Jonas has been given a veritable ovation in Salt Lake City where he has been engaged for the second time. One hundred and twenty-five of his pupils and friends, including the governor of the State, gave him a splendid banquet at a leading hotel.
The instruction in musical theory at the University of Nebraska is in the hands of a Jewish rabbi, Jacob Singer, M.A. Born In Russia, he is descended from a long line of rabbis and cantors. He is also a very fine pianist and has won a prize for a history of Jewish music.
The splendid band of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation gave a concert in Central Park in August. Mr. Charles M. Schwab, the head of the industry, is intensely interested in music and has been the large financial factor in the Bethlehem Bach Festivals. lie chartered A special car to take the band of 100 members to New York and back.
Max Heinrich died in New York on August 9th. He was sixty-four years of age. Born in Chemnitz, Saxony, he spent forty-two years in America. He was splendidly trained in pianoforte playing, singing and composition. He was at one time a student at Leipsic Conservatory. Those who have heard his inimitable song recitals cherish a rare memory. His daughter Julia is a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company.
The Home Music Co. of Chicago was last week denied the use of the mails by the Post Office Department. It is alleged that the company also traded under the names of J. Cook and Co., United States Card Co. and Star Company. It is charged that the company advertised a book of songs which led the public to believe that it would receive the words and music of three hundred songs. The book contained 80 songs with music and the balance were merely the verses of the songs. Etude readers will do well to investigate thoroughly before dealing with unknown music companies.
The National Federation of Musical Clubs will hold another contest for young professional musicians. Contestants must be entirely American trained. They must be under thirty years of age. The winners as a reward will be given a public appearance at the Tenth Biennial Festival to be held in Birmingham, Alabama, April 1917. Further particulars may be obtained through the president, Mrs. A. J. Ochsner, 2100 Sedgwick St., Chicago. The judges will include Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, Mr. George W. Chadwick, Mr. Franz Kneisel, Mr. Giuseppe Ferrata, Mme. Louise Homer, Mr. Charles W. Clark.
Milton and Sargent Aborn, who have done much to popularize opera in America by giving really good performances at a low rate of admission, are again in the field with dollar opera. They state that opera at theatre prices ($.50 to $2.50) has been abandoned, as neither "one thing or the other." It is too expensive for the masses and not exclusive enough for the elite. The new organization will include many members of the more pretentious Century Opera Company which the Aborns managed in New York.
Mme. Melba has inherited $200,000 from the estate of her father.
Erich Korngold has recently produced two short operas in Vienna. Krongold (sic) is now nineteen years of age.
Sir George Henschel has written a new mass for eight voices. It has been highly praised by the English press.
There are so few men in British church choirs at present that a publishing house has issued a catalogue especially for boys and women.
The Berlin Singakademie has recently held a festival celebrating the 125th anniversary of its foundation. Zelter, Mendelssohn's teacher, was for many years the conductor. George Schumann is the present conductor.
The Fall of the Bastile (July 14th) was celebrated in Paris this year with elaborate musical events.
Raff's daughter recently presented the Royal Library of Berlin with a large collection of unpublished manuscripts by her father. The list includes five unpublished operas, among them King Alfred (produced at Weimar under Liszt.)
Hamish MacCunn, the well-known British composer, died in July. He conducted many English Opera companies in his time.
Schubert's Erlking is just one hundred years old. There had been several settings of Goethe's poem made previously,—one indeed was made by a woman composer, Corona Schröter.
German and Austrian conservatories presented excellent programs at the end of the past season despite the war conditions. Opera productions have been given regularly in all the Teutonic cities.
Maurice Renaud, the famous French baritone has had the cross of the Legion of Honor bestowed upon him for bravery at the front. He is a lieutenant in the 166th regiment of infantry.
The London Musical Opinion reports that the war has had the effect of reducing the number of music students in England, as might naturally be expected. This however in the eyes of the English editor is not so disadvantageous as it might otherwise appear. It has had the effect of cutting out the poorly prepared teachers and throwing more work to the teachers whose preparation has entitled them to continued patronage.
Carreño recently played the Tchaikowsky concerto in Berlin. This, it is said, is the first time since the beginning of the war that a Russian composer's name has appeared upon such an occasion.
The conductor of the Philippine Constabulary Band is a colored man born in 1872 at St. Paul, Minnesota. He is Major Walter Howard Loving. He was educated in Washington, Boston and Leipsic and was given a commission of lieutenant in the United States Army for honorable service. President Taft had him appointed to the band which later participated in the inaugural ceremonies of Taft at Washington, D. C. Loving now bears the title of Major, U. S. A. retired. He is a highly cultured man, speaking five European languages fluently and also many of the Philippine dialects.
At last the English censorship has touched The Etude. Very few German periodicals reach our offices these days and we have been dependent upon hearsay for the confirmation of some of our news. While it is very unlikely that any German musical publication would be used for the transmission of military news the chance is evidently considered sufficiently great to oblige the censors to choke off every possible road for information. The whole scheme of war in all countries at all times is rooted in suspicion, hate and unfairness. Taking it all in all however, we have found many instances where British censorship has been very liberal and reasonable. Let us hope that the dreadful conflict will soon be over and that our brother musicians in all of the European countries will be again permitted to go on with their beautiful work of enriching the world.
The Etude notes with deep regret the death of Karl Klindworth. Klindworth was born on Sept. 25th, 1830, in Hanover. At Weimar he became the pupil of Franz Liszt.
Among his fellow pupils were Dr. William Mason, Hans von Bülow and Pruckner. In 1854 he removed to London where he remained for fourteen years as a teacher, pianist and conductor. In 1808 he became professor of pianoforte at the conservatorium of Moscow, returning to Germany in 1882 as a conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Concerts, he established a school of music in Berlin which lasted until 1893, when it was merged with the Scharwenka Conservatory. His last years were spent at Potsdam as a private teacher, one of his best-known pupils being our own Ethelbert Nevin. Klindworth was a man of very high artistic ideals, great kindliness and great, industry. His editions of Wagner, Chopin, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and others show great erudition and extreme care.
At Home
Owing to last moment pressure an error was made in the September issue of The Etude which we are very glad to rectify. Just as the last page was going to press a notice was received of the death of Mr. George Noyes Rockwell, whose compositions are well known to Etude readers. In a moment of aberration the writer inserted the name of one of our well-known composers, Mr. Albert Locke Norris. The names have a somewhat similar sound. Mr. Norris is very much alive and has the rare distinction of having had an untimely obituary notice.
Ernest Schilling's friends recently gave him a surprise party at Bar Harbor. Among those who planned the event and who were present were Fritz Kreisler, Josef Hofmann, Harold Bauer, Leopold Godowsky, Leopold Stokowski, Olga Samaroff, Carl Friedberg, Harold Randolph, Arthur Whiting, Francis Rogers, Walter Damrosch and Waslav Nijinsky.
At the Indiana School for the Deaf they introduced talking machines to make the dancing exhibitions of the students more attractive to visitors. Greatly to the amazement of the teachers they found that while the students could not hear the tunes they were conscious of the music through a kind of sixth sense. One pupil who could not hear anything learned to whistle by feeling the frequency of the vibrations.
The Baton Club of Chicago offers a prize of $50.00 for the best anthem submitted by any resident of the United States. The anthem is to be suitable for non-liturgical churches, the text taken from the Bible or from a standard church hymnal, be in four parts with accompaniment for organ, but may contain a soprano solo which may be sung in unison by all the sopranos. Each composition must bear a fictitious name and the composer must enclose a card revealing his real name sealed in an envelope.
In the heart of the Rockies is Missoula, Montana. Missoula is the home of the University of Montana, founded in 1885 just two years after the founding of The Etude. Three years ago the University Musical Department had 8 students. Now it has 300. Hats off to Missoula and to the director, De Loos Smith, Josephine Swenson, Professor of Pianoforte Playing and to the brilliant Cecil Burleigh, Professor of Violin and Theory. In the classic tongue of the Bowery, "That is some speedwork."
The convention of the National Association of Organists was held in Springfield, Mass., on August 1, 2, 3, 4. The attendance was most excellent. Mr. Arthur Scott Brook, the president of the organization, has done a most useful work in promoting the interest of this new but vigorous movement to better organ playing and thereby better the position of the organist. The character of the National Association of Organists may be estimated by the men represented in the program of "the convention in addresses and in recitals. Among those who delivered addresses were Homer N. Bartlett, William D. Armstrong, Henry S. Fry, Dr. G. A. Audsley and John Hermann Loud. Recitals were played by Richard Keys Biggs, Kate Elizabeth Fox, Percy Chase Miller, Charles M. Courboin, Clifford Demarest, E. R. Kroeger and Dr. Francis Hemington.
Eben D. Jordan passed away in Manchester, Mass., on August 1st. Mr. Jordan was the head of the firm of Jordan, Marsh & Co. in Boston, one of the largest drygoods businesses in the United States. He was born in Boston in 1857 and was a graduate of Harvard University. Music and travel were his avocations. In 1809 he built the Boston Opera House at a cost of $1,000,000. He also gave lavishly to the New England Conservatory of Music, of which he was the President. Mr. Jordan is one of a large group of American business men who for years have made amazingly large donations to the cause of music in America. Europeans who have had their judgment so warped that they can only look upon America as "dollar land" would have difficulty in finding a similar number of business men who have done as much for the artistic welfare of the old world. He added to his benefactions to the New England Conservatory in his last will to the extent of $100,000. He had previously given upwards of $75,000 to the institution.
Abroad
When Oscar Hammerstein erected his London Opera House, a portrait of the founder was chiseled in stone to adorn the building. The opera house was a failure and passed from Mr. Hammerstein's hands. Now his petrified effigy has been chiseled away. What a pity that so many of Mr. Hammerstein's ventures have not brought him the reward which one should reasonably expect from such undertakings. Whatever may be said of him, no man in the operatic field in the present generation has displayed more initiative and more courage. He has built four enormous opera houses, started four huge grand opera companies, developed many singers who had previously been almost unknown and now finds himself with nothing but a somewhat pathetic memory of his great industry. Perhaps his failures has been that he sought to accomplish too much with Napoleonic strides. Art development is slow. Volcanic outbursts like those of Mr. Hammerstein rarely endure.
What is a "firing line party?" It is one of the latest products of the world war. Men in all positions in life must have entertainment. Even the thrilling scenes of battle, the excitement of charges and the thunder of bombardments cannot do away with entertainment. Hence the "firing line party." A group of musicians and music hall entertainers get together and find that they are past the military age. How can they render their best service to the government in time of need? Simply enough. Organize a traveling concert company and carry entertainment to the trenches. One party traveled in a large automobile van which also carried little "Peter" the "piano that never grew up". They performed to upwards of 30,000 men in or near the trenches. Frequently the party was under fire and a London paper reports that three times during one concert shells dropped near the concert party. On one occasion the party made a trip along fifteen miles of battle front to cheer the men with their music. They report however that the soldiers were wonderfully cheerful despite the dreadful conditions surrounding them. And what do you suppose were popular numbers on the programs? Chopin's Funeral March and the Dead March from Saul.
