The World of Music News

At Home November 1912

THE Philadelphia opera season is to commence with Aida.

CHARLES Wakefield Cadman has completed an Indian opera entitled Daoma.

THE order for the magnificent new organ for the Scottish Rites Catherdral in Dallas, Texas, has been placed with the Hook-Hastings Co.

THERE is a report that an Italian organ grinder who emigrated to America fifty years ago has now returned to his native land with a fortune of $60,000, acquired in the exercise of his "profession".

JOSEF Stransky will introduce the Overture to a Dream, by Erich Korngold, the famous German boy composer, at one of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra concerts during the coming season.

AMONG the pianists due to arrive for the coming season none will be more welcome than Moriz Rosenthal, the celebrated Austrian pianist. He is the one who has already won his spurs in the American lists.

CHARLES Heinroth, city organist and director of music at the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburg, has selected 930 volumes of musical scores for the Carnegie Library.

MR. Clarence Eddy, the eminent American concert organist, and Mrs. Eddy, contralto, have left New York, and are making an extensive tour of the West and Middle West. Their headquarters will be in Chicago.

MR. Clarence Dickinson, the well known organist and conductor of the Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York, has been appointed to succeed the late Dr. Gerrit Smith as Professor of sacred music at Union Theological Seminary, New York.

ACCORDING to Musical America, the number of public concerts given in New York last season was 379, or little more than one-fifth of the 1,800 such concerts given in Berlin during the same time. Of the New York concerts, 173 were orchestral and only 11 choral.

TITTA Ruffo is said to be one of the world's greatest baritones, and in securing him for the Philadelphia-Chicago opera, Andreas Dippel has been very fortunate. Ruffo will make his debut with the Metropolitan before going to Philadelphia.

A UNIQUE choral festival was held at Canobie Lake Park, N.H. at which four of New England's most prominent choral societies from lawrence, Lowell, Nashua and Manchester were heard. Sullivan's Golden Legend and Handel's Messiah were the chief choral works given.

MR. Perlee Dunn Aldrich, the well known Philadelphia baritone and vocal teacher, has secured a twenty-acre estate on which to establish a permanent summer school, on the shores of Lake George.

NEGOTIATIONS connected with the municipal opera project in San Francisco have now been completed. The city is to provide the land and the Musical Association $650,000 for an opera house ultimately to cost a million dollars. The opera house is to be completed in time for the Pacific-Panama Exposition in 1915.

WE are informed that Messrs. Armour & Co. of Chicago will make a line of gut strings. Through their immense slaughtering business, the firm has unusual sources of supply. The London Musical News in commenting on this says, "Of course, the fourth string of the violin has long been metal covered, and it would now seem that the other three will henceforth be armoured also!"

THE Metropolitan basso, de Segurola, has been made by the King of Spain, a commander of the Order of Alfonso XII, and is now entitled to the prefix "Don" before his name. Though there are many knights of this order, few musicians have received the dignity of being made "Commander", among them being Titta Ruffo, the well known baritone, who has been secured for the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company by Andreas Dippel.

ARMANDO C. Barili, a promising young baritone of Philadelphia, died recently of tuberculosis of the throat in a charity hospital in Philadelphia. He was a nephew of Adelina Patti and a great future was prophesied for him. When the disease assailed him, however, he disappeared from view and his friends were unable to trace him. They found him once and endeavored to assist him. He was too proud, however, to accept their aid, and went to the hospital prophesying that he would died in two weeks. He died within twenty-four hours of the time he had given himself.

GREAT regret is felt in musical circles at the death of Bernhard Ziehn, the famous musical theorist. Ziehn came to this country in 1808, and was at first a teacher of the higher mathematics. While in Chicago, however, he turned his attention to music, and for a time acted as organist. His contributions to the German press, and the publication of his work on Harmony and Modulation attracted wide attention and drew many pupils to his side. Among the most distinguished of these may be mentioned Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler, Arthur Dunham and Wilhelm Middelschulte. Ziehn had been suffering from cancer of the larynx for a long time.

THE fourth largest organ in the world is in the new million dollar municipal building in Portland, Me. This organ is the gift of Cyrus H.K. Curtis, publisher of the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal, and has been erected in memory of Hermann Kotzschmar, the gifted musician, whose fifty years of activity in musical pedagogy endeared him to Portland music lovers. A feature of the dedicatory exercises which were recently held was the unveiling of a bust of Professor Kotzschmar by his widow. Mrs. Kotzschmar has been a frequent contributor to The Etude.

PHILADELPHIANS are looking forward to an especially rich orchestral season. The Philadelphia Orchestra, founded in 1900 is composed of eighty-five splendidly selected musicians, and during the coming year will be under the direction of Leopold Stokowski, whose cosmopolitan experience and American sympathies promise much for the success of the organization. Under thirty years of age, of Polish-Irish extraction, born in London, educated at Oxford University and trained musically in Germany and France, organist of the elite St. Bartholomew's in New York for half a dozen years, married to the successful American virtuoso pianist Olga Samaroff, lately conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and more lately exceptionally successful as guest conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra, Stokowski has a fund of personal attributes to dilate the heart of the press agent and the curiosity of the public. Best of all he has substantial qualities of musicanship and those rare traits of mind that make a vigorous, forceful conductor. The Etude wishes him great success in his new field. The soloists during the coming season will include Godowsky, Schumann-Heink, Ysaye, Ganz and others.

THE Chicago Journal makes Dr. Hugo Felix, the Viennese composer of Tantalizing Tommy, state that he wants to hear opera in Gaelic. Apparently he want to hear even more than that - but our readers must see for themselves what the learned doctor says: "But what I am anxious to hear is an opera produced in Gaelic. I think it is one of the most interesting of languages, and if some of the operas, Lucia de Lammermoor, for instance could be translated into Gaelic, I am sure it would not only be a great success, but would arouse great interest in Irish music, and might result in an opera which would embody the folk songs of the Emerald Isle." Lucia de Lammermoor is of course founded on Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor, and the composer, Donizetti was an Italian of Scotch descent. There is very little "Scotch color" in the score. If the mere translation of the librettor into Gaelic will make this opera "Irish", a new field is open to impressarios. If Parsifal were translated in to Hottentot, for example, what a splendid thing it would be for African music! Evidently Dr. Felix is weary of "Tantalizing Tommy", and has commenced "Tantalizing Paddy" for a change!

PRESIDENT Taft has given leave to the United States Marine Board to make a concert tour of the Pacific Coast. This organization had quite a romantic origin. It is said that about the beginning of the nineteenth century, Captain McNeil, of the American frigate Boston was cruising the Mediterranean. While off the coast of Sicily he heard the sounds of a band playing. It occurred to him that the folks at home would also like to hear such music. He accordingly invited them aboard next evening, and while they were enjoying the lavish liquid refreshments provided, the skipper hoisted the anchor and set sail. History is silent, however, as to what became of the kidnapped musicians, as the archives were lost when Washington was burnt by the British in 1814. Lieutenant Colonel Henderson brought from Naples in 1801 thirteen Italian musicians, and from this importation dates the origin of the band as part of the government. As early at 1798, however, the act creating the Marine Corps provided for a drum and fife band. The national reputation of the band commenced under Francis Scala's leadership, and congress granted extra compensation for open air concerts he inaugurated at the White House and the Capitol. In 1861 President Lincoln set his signature to the law establishing the Marine Band as the first official musical organization in the military service of the United States. Sousa was the next great conductor. President McKinley signed the law in 1890 increasing the band to its present size and giving the conductor the rank of a first lieutenant. The present conductor is Lieutenant William H. Santelmann.

The Etude Magazine November 1912