Carlo Mora, a well known and able musician of Italian birth, passed away on December 23, 1917, at the Home for Retired Music Teachers, in Germantown, Pa. Signor Mora was a native of Norara (Piedmont), Italy, and grew up amid musical surroundings. His parents were noted singers, and among the friends of his youth were Arditi, Mattei and both the Patti sisters. He came to America at an early age, but returned to Italy for his musical studies. After appearing in England as a concert pianist, he came once more to America, where his talents secured speedy recognition. He played the great organ at the opening of the Centennial Exposition in 1876. Later he retired from the concert stage and engaged in teaching and composition. Among his best-known compositions are In Confidence and Felicita. He had a genial temperament and was ever alert to do kindnesses.
A new opera company has been organized, under the leadership of W. G. Stewart, on a unique basis. Is it incorporated as a stock company under the laws of the State of New York, and it is intended to have the stock largely owned by its future patrons, thus enabling the people to participate in what they support. John Philip Sousa, Raymond Hitchcock and other noted persons are associated with the enterprise, which is to be known as the Commonwealth Opera Company, Incorporated.
Max Rosen, a remarkable young violinist, whose talents were first developed in the Music School Settlement, in New York’s East Side, and who has been enjoying the privilege of three years’ tuition under Leopold Auer, has returned to America. Before leaving Europe he made very successful concert appearances in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Christiania.
A certain piano dealer of Canton, Ohio, has hit upon a unique idea. Having fitted up a large auto truck gipsy-wagon style, he drives into the country and makes sales directly from the wagon, which is fitted up to hold three pianos and two phonographs, besides furnishing accommodation for eating and sleeping.
Mrs. Edward MacDowell was in Halifax, N. S., giving piano recitals and extending the public knowledge of the MacDowell Memorial Association and the enterprise at Peterboro, N. H., a few weeks before the well-known terrible calamity occurred in Halifax.
Victor Herbert, the composer, and William Le Baron, librettist, have brought out a new comic opera, entitled Her Regiment.
A new symphonic poem, by Frederick Zech, entitled Lamia, has been played by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Zech is a native of Philadelphia, but has lived in California for many years.
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has been presenting Frederick Converse’s Mystic Trumpeter, an orchestral fantasy of ultramodern type, although written over ten years ago.
Denver, Col., has engaged Clarence Reynolds, formerly of Philadelphia, as municipal organist, at a salary of $7,000 a year.
Otto Floersheim, a well-known composer and writer on musical topics, died recently at Geneva, Switzerland. He was at one time a resident of New York and engaged in musical journalism.
Florence Easton, a young English-American soprano, won unequivocal success in her recent début as Santuzza, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York.
Among the novelties offered this year at the Opéra Comique, Paris, are Béatrice and L’Attaque du Moulin, by Alfred Bruneau, and Ping Sin, by Henri Marechal.
Edgar Stillman Kelley has composed a musical miracle-play based on Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, disbanded about three years ago, has been reorganized, under the leadership of Frank S. Welsman, and will give four concerts this season.
Winnepeg, Manitoba, has been enjoying a revival of Handel’s Sampson, a great but in these days undeservedly neglected oratorio.
The second convention (not annual) of the American Guild of Organists was held in New York, December 26th to 28th.
The famous La Scala Theater, of Milan, is closed this winter, because of the impossibility of obtaining the necessary coal for heating.
Members of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra gave a social reception to the Guarantors and entertained them with light music. A pleasant and graceful courtesy.
The Board of Directors of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra voted to accept Dr. Kunwald’s resignation, and invited Walter Henry Rothwell to serve temporarily as conductor. Victor Herbert is believed to be slated as conductor.
The Chicago Madrigal Club’s fifteenth annual competition for the W. W. Kimball prize of one hundred dollars brought to light many excellent compositions in madrigal form, but A May Carol, by Will C. Macfarlane, city organist of Portland, Maine, proved the winner. The judges were Messrs. Eames, Bogen and Clippinger.
According to statistics gathered by a certain firm manufacturing player-pianos, there are at present more rolls sold of the music of Chopin, Liszt and Rubinstein than of the so-called “popular rags.”
Musical activities in Russia are by no means suspended, in spite of strenuous political changes: Moscow and Petrograd are enjoying symphony concerts; Golovanoff, a young composer and conductor, is awakening great interest; the Glinka Musical Society is flourishing in Smolensk (the birthplace of Glinka); Tiflis, in the Caucasus, is having an opera season; Kiev, Charkow, Yalta, Sondack are other towns all furnishing news of noteworthy musical undertakings.
The one hundredth anniversary of the death of the composer Méhul was celebrated by a special performance of his opera L’Irato at the Opéra Comique in Paris, October 18th. Half the house was reserved for the wounded from the Paris hospitals.
It is reported that the Lockport (N. Y.) American Music Festival, which took place last summer, is to be made an annual event in that city. Plans are already under way for its repetition in 1918.
Broadwood & Co., noted piano makers of England, are at present engaged in the manufacture of aeroplanes.
Henry Clay Barnabee, a noted bass, known to playgoers as the original “Sheriff of Nottingham” in Robin Hood, passed away recently after a long illness, at his home near Boston.
Dr. Muck, Fritz Kreisler and Mme. Melba united in giving a concert in Boston recently in aid of stricken Halifax.
Schenectady (N. Y.) public schools have both piano classes and violin classes, under the direction of the supervisor of music.
One million bugles are being made in one American factory for use in the American, French, English and Canadian armies.
John Van Cleve, a well-known music critic, teacher and lecturer, passed away on December 28, 1917. He was born in Maysville, Ky., in 1851, and though he lost his sight by illness at the age of eight years, he succeeded in acquiring an excellent education, and became musical critic for a leading paper in Cincinnati, at the same time engaging in teaching of piano and voice and in lecturing. In 1909 he removed to New York, where he delivered many lectures under the auspices of the Board of Education, up to the time when his career was cut short by a stroke of apoplexy. He is survived by his widow and one son.
Leopold Stokowski has created a medal to be awarded annually for the encouragement of musical talent in the city of Philadelphia. The receipt of the medal also carries with it the assurance of an engagement to play at one of the regular symphony concerts the following season. The contest this year will be open to pianists, violinists and violoncellists only, and is limited to candidates under thirty-five years old who have received the greater part of their musical education in or near Philadelphia.
The Flonzaley String Quartet is in the same good form as in past seasons. The new viola player, Mr. Bailly, who succeeded Mr. Ugo Ara, is a virtuoso on his instrument, and the ensemble perfectly sympathetic.
Dr. F. H. Torrington, for many years most prominent in the musical life of Toronto, Canada, was recently called away by death. He was eminent as an organist and choirmaster, as a conductor of musical festivals, and in earlier years as an orchestral violinist. Personally, he was of a sympathetic and generous character, and was much beloved by many.
The distinguished French pianist, I. Philipp, has been giving three recitals of American composers’ work exclusively in Paris. The first program included MacDowell’s Heroic Sonata and works by Carpenter, Foote and Templeton Strong.
Arthur Toscanini, the noted conductor (well known in New York through his connection with the Metropolitan Opera House in former years), has been decorated by the Italian government for great bravery under fire.
The thirty-ninth annual convention of the Music Teachers’ National Association was held in New Orleans, December 27th to 29th. This was the first meeting to be held in the far South. Papers of great interest, touching on a wide and varied range of musical topics, were presented by eminent musicians. The officers of the association are: J. Lawrence Erb, president; Leon R. Maxwell, vice- president; Chas. N. Boyd, secretary and editor; Waldo S. Pratt, treasurer.
A bill is being drafted for the licensing of music teachers, in New York State, to be presented at the next session of the State Legislature.
The “Miniature Philharmonic,” a new orchestra, composed of thirty-two musicians, under the leadership of Jacques Grunberg, is meeting with success in New York and on tours. An orchestra of this size is excellent for the interpretation of the older classics, such as the Haydn and Mozart Symphonies, and not too small for many of the best modern works of the more refined and intimate sort.
Mrs. F. S. Coolidge offers a prize of $1,000 for the best string quartet, which will be performed at a music festival to take place at Pittsfield, Mass., next autumn. All compositions must be submitted to Hugo Kortschak, Aeolian Hall, New York City.
Among the new operas being produced in Russia is one by A. D. Kastalsky, called Clara Militch, based on Turgenieff’s weird tale of that name. It is said to contain moments of great beauty though the orchestration is not always resourceful in effect.
