Howard H. Hansen, dean of the College of the Pacific Conservatory has been awarded the three year fellowship established in the name of Frederic A. Julliard and known as the American Prix de Rome. This entitles him to three years residence at the American Academy in Rome. Hansen is twenty-five and is a product of Luther College, Nebraska, Nebraska University School of Music, the Institute of Musical Art of New York, and Northwestern University where he was a member of the faculty for a time. He won the Julliard fellowship on the strength of his symphonic compositions which are regarded as showing talent and genius of a very high order.
A Radio Telephone apparatus has been installed over the stage at the Chicago Opera and the report is that anyone having a receiving apparatus within a radius of 800 miles may hear the opera by merely tuning the instrument to the proper pitch.
A Mozart Opera, La Finta Semplice, written when the composer was twelve years old, has just had its debut in Karlsruhe after 153 years. The opera is of the opera buffa type.
Richard Strauss' new ballet takes place in a Viennese Pastry shop and is said to be called Schlagobers which ungainly word merely means whipped cream. Whipped cream figures very magnificently in the culinary art of Austria and it is not inappropriate after the war famine to pay a tribute to the Kuchekunst.
The Dead City, an opera by the prodigy composer of Europe, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, written for the beautiful prima donna Marie Jeritza, was received with favor at its premiere in New York (Metropolitan Opera Co. Afternoon Nov. 19th). Judging from reports, the singer met with greater success than the work of the twenty-four year old composer. The story has to do with a man who having lost a beautiful wife by death becomes enamoured with a singer bearing a strange resemblance to his wife. The singer seeks to win him away from the ideals of his first wife and is all but successful when the dead women's portrait comes to life and prevents his downfall. The libretto is taken from Bruges la Mort by Georges Rodenbach.
Vincent D'Indy is touring the country as a conductor, appearing with the New York Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony, as a guest. He will also give pianoforte recitals of his own works in Three Rivers, Quebec and Montreal.
Blair Fairchild, according to report, is to have his Opera, Lady Luebllule (sic?) done at the Opera Comique this season. Mr. Fairchild is an American, a graduate of Harvard and long a resident of Paris.
Marcel Dupré, in his opening recital on the Wanamaker Organ at New York was received with immense favor by the group including many of the best known organists of America.
The Paris Grand Opera seats only 2300 people despite its huge size. Many American auditoriums seat from 3000 to 4000. The new French municipal opera at Marseilles will seat 2500, the largest in France.
One thousand dollars is the prize offered by William A. Clarke. Jr. founder and supporter of the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra for the best Symphonic poem written by a Los Angeles County musician. The Symphonic poem industry may become quite profitable if our munificent philanthropists keep at it long enough.
Christine Nilsson, one of the greatest singers of the last century died on November 22nd, at Copenhagen. She was born at Sjoabel, Sweden, August 20th, 1843. She was the first soprano to sing in the Metropolitan Opera House (1883). Her last appearance was in May, 1891, in London.
Saint Saëns' new opera, Ascanio, is being rehearsed at the Paris Opera House. One of the principal characters represents Benvenuto Cellini, the Renaissance sculptor.
Chorusless Opera. The chorus having gone "on strike" the manager of the Stadt-theatre, in Halle, retaliated by dismissing them en masse. He has chosen for the coming season operas that can be performed without chorus. It is surprising the number of operas that can be performed in this manner.
Ludwig Mendelssohn, composer and pianist, father of Felix Robert Mendelssohn the noted cellist, died recently in Berlin. He is the composer of a number of songs and other works.
Opera on Chess. Serge Prokofieff, composer of My Love of the Three Oranges, shortly to be produced by the Chicago Grand Opera Company, is a chess enthusiast, and is considering writing an opera and using for characters the chessmen set against a furniture background of exotic costumes and scenery.
A miniature orchestra to present works of the classic repertoire not adopted to large modern orchestras, has been organized in Chicago. Its personnel to be composed of members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Starless Opera in London. Great expectations are entertained in conection (sic) with the new co-operative organization for the forthcoming season. The principal artists when they acquire the stock of the Beecham company, are obliged to restrict themselves to share purchases of £150 each, and the chorus and the musicians to approximately one-third of that amount. The plan is to democratize the venture, and prevent domination by any artistic personality.
The newly-invented orchestral bruiteur, or noise-making instrument invented by Lugi (sic) Russolo helped bring about the downfall of Marinetti's opera Surprise (sic?)—his first venture into Futurism, which was vigorously hissed when produced in Naples.
Parsifal has just been given in Rio de Janeiro with great success. German interests are working enthusiastically to further all German art matters in Latin American countries. The German group in Mexico City has just erected a statue to Beethoven. Parsifal will also be given in Havanna this winter.
Mme. Elly Ney, German virtuoso pianist now touring America, has created a very favorable impression everywhere. She was born in Dusseldorf, in 1882, of Alsatian lineage. Her training was received under Seltz, Leschetizky and Sauer. Her husband is the Dutch conductor and violinist Willy van Hoogstraten.
Karl Michael Ziehrer, famous Vienese (sic) waltz composer who conducted an orchestra at the World's Fair in Chicago, is said to be ill, penniless and literally starving at the age of 78 in Vienna. His address is K. M. Ziehrer, III Erdbergstrasse I Vienna Austrasse. Perhaps some American lovers of the waltz, who remember his Danube Waltzes and his Old Vienna, may want to send him a little gift. A dollar in American money is a small fortune in Vienna now. Why not give the old gentleman a little surprise as one of your Christmas charities.
Pavlowa has discovered a new trick in stage lighting which set all New York a talking. The trick was accomplished by a young artist in lights and tints, Nicholas de Lipsky. It consists in producing a dissolving scene in full view of the audience by means of lights rather than by changing the scenery itself. In the dance Dionysus, with music by Tcherepnin, the first scene bathed in ruby light shows a rockey gorge. Merely changing the color of the lights to dark night blue the gorge disappears and in its place appears a lovely lake framed by weeping willows. It is based upon the principle that certain colors absorb certain light tints.
John D. Rockefeller's daughter, Mrs. Harold F. McCormick, is reported to have made a statement that she will interest herself in the production, through the Chicago Opera Company, of any worthy Grand Opera by an American which is comparable with the best product of European composers. This ought to oil the way to greater progress in the art.
Johann Strauss has just been honored with a beautiful monument erected in the city park of Vienna.
Hunter Welsh, American piano virtuoso, graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and for eight years a pupil of Emil Sauer, died in Philadelphia recently in his forty-fifth year. Mr. Welsh was overtaken with a fatal illness just at the time when his ability was beginning to be recognized on the concert stage.
A Congress of the music teachers connected with the government conservatories of Italy was recently held with very great success at Turin. This was the first meeting of its kind held in Italy and was largely attended.
For the first time in years the star attraction at the Metropolitan is a soprano and not a tenor. It is generally recognized that Mme Galli-Curci is presented to take the place of the lamented Caruso. If rumor is correct she receives a figure considerably greater than did Caruso, and even then was not anxious to give up even temporarily her far more lucrative concert work to take on additional opera engagements.
Chicago opened its eleventh Opera season with Samson and Delila. The stars were Muratore and d'Alvarez. Mary Garden has already established her success as a manager.
Caliapine, the Russian blond giant, whose bass voice and powerful acting have made him known the world around, suffered so severely from a Cold that his opening appearances in New York were anything but satisfactory, save for the enthusiasm of his compatriots who were willing to crowd in every available crevice to listen to his wonderful art.
The Paris Concerts of the Harvard University Glee Club were received with immense favor by the critics of the French capitol. Le Menestrel comments upon their vigor, their perfect precision and their fine musical sense. There were sixty students in the group and both France and Italy were visited.
Pittsburgh, Pa., has a new musical paper, "The Forecast." A very live and interesting first issue has just arrived. Congratulations.
Boston is said to be seeking a $2,000,000 endowment fund for her orchestra which has greatly missed the munificence of the founder Colonel Henry Lee Higginson.
Ivor Novello, the youthful composer of "Keep the Home Fires Burning," is responsible for the music of three of the musical shows which will be seen in London this year.
Saint-Saëns recently declared in Dieppe that he was playing in public for the last time, completing seventy-five years of public appearances. Few other artists have ever had such a lengthy career.
Josef Mann, leading tenor of the Berlin Opera and one of the notables engaged for the Metropolitan season of New York this year, died on the stage from heart failure while singing Aida in the German Capital.
"Two Piano Playing" is becoming more and more popular. Guy Maier and Lee Pattison, both excellently trained American concerts pianists, have made a success of this form of duet performance, and report that they have seventy-five engagements for the coming season.
Columbia University, of New York, will have one or two fellowships in Church Music due to the bequest of $20,000.00, made in the will of Charles Baier to celebrate his fifty years of service as a chorister and as a choirmaster in Trinity Church, New York City.
Ibanez novel, In the Shadow of the Cathedral, will be made into an opera. George Hue has composed the music. It will have its first production this year at the Opera Comique.
