The World of Music News

At Home June 1913

BACHAUS is coming for another American tour next season. Welcome!

WEBER'S opera Oberon is to be given at La Scala, Milan, for the first time in Italy.

THE Montreal Opera Company has come to an end owing to heavy financial losses.

THE piano house of Chickering has just celebrated its nineteenth anniversary. All felicitations.

PADEREWSKI is announced for another American season beginning next fall and extending on to April next year.

SILAS G. Pratt, a well known American composer, has just completed a symphony based on the Titanic disaster.

THERE is a rumor abroad that the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York will present Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier next season.

MISS Amy Grant recently gave a reading of Parsifal in Buffalo, assisted by Mr. J. Irving Wood at the piano.

THE Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company had an amazingly successful season in San Francisco and the West.

HAVING a day to spare in Omaha, Nebraska, Mme. Schumann-Heink spent it in the county jail - singing to prisoners.

OWING to his success in America during the past season, Max Pauer will return to this country for a second American season in the Autumn.

A NEW Viennese light opera is to be produced next season entitled The Jolly Peasant in which David Bispham will take the principal part.

THE revival of The Geisha, the popular English musical comedy of years ago, at Weber & Fields Theatre, New York, has proved exceedingly attractive.

THE United German singing Societies of New York gave a festival in honor of the Wagner Centennial, in which from 1300 to 1500 were engaged.

MR. LUDWIG Hess, the well known singer, recently gave a concert at the von Ende School of Music in New York consisting of his own compositions.

MME. MELBA is about to make a world tour, starting in Canada next October. Her Canadian tour alone embraces 100 concerts and has guaranteed her a half million dollars.

AN effort is being made, and is receiving hearty response, for the purchase of the manuscript of Max Bruch's violin concerto in G Minor for the Congressional Library at Washington.

THE City Club of New York plans to give 35 weeks of popular opera next season. This is taken to be an answer on the part of the Metropolitan Company to Hammerstein's promises fro a New York season next year.

DURING the recent floods in Ohio, some fears were entertained for the safety of Ysaye, the celebrated Belgian violinist, who was in the neighborhood, and was not heard from for some time. Happily the feats proved groundless.

A SERVICE was recently given at the church of St. Luke and the Epiphany, Philadelphia, at which the music consisted of compositions of the late Dr. David D. Wood, the blind organist who added so much distinction to the musical life of Philadelphia.

A PERFORMANCE for the first time in this country of Elgar's new choral work, The Music Makers, was recently given in New York under Mr. Walter Henry Hall, one of the best choral leaders of the country. The work made a great impression, and was excellently performed.

THE Miami Valley floods had a widespread effect on the music. Among other things the Cincinnati Orchestra was compelled to give up a tour that had been arranged for, and it is doubtful if the concerts could have been given even if the orchestra could have made the trip.

IT is rumored that Puccini has accepted a proposal that he should write an opera to be produced at the Panama Exposition at San Francisco. It will be remembered that Verdi composed Aida for the opening of the Suez Canal, and it is hoped that the Panama Canal will inspire the foremost modern Italian composer to a similarly noble effort.

A PRIZE of $10,000 has been offered by the Italian Philharmonic Society of New York for the best symphonic work to be composed by an Italian resident of the United States. The successful work will be performed at San Francisco during the Panama Exposition.

SINCE the death of Frank H. Shepard the Shepard School of Music, Orange, N. J., will be continued by Mrs. Shepard, who has been his associate principal and co-worker for twenty-five years. Mrs. Shepard was born in New York of German parentage. She was thoroughly prepared by O. Blaschke and S. B. Mills, she spent five years with Zwintscher, Reinecke, Jadassohn, Paul, Quasdorf and Piutti at Leipzig, and has investigated, with Mr. Shepard, all American kindergarten and piano methods. She is especially fitted for work in all grades of piano and harmony.

THE Philadelphia Orchestra combined recently with the Philadelphia Manuscript Society to gie a concert of works by Philadelphia composers. An enthusiastic audience listened to the productions of Phillip H. Goepp, Henry A. Lang, Otto Muller, Wassili Leps, Camille W. Zeckwer, Hedda van den Beemt, and Clarence K Bawden.

AT a Sunday night concert by the Metropolitan Opera Company the experiment was tried of giving symphonic works instead of the usual "opera" concert. To everybody's surprise the experiment turned out amazingly successful and thousands were turned away. Toscanini proved to be as able a conductor of symphonic music as he is of opera music.

A MEETING was recently held in Boston of the National Federation of Music School Societies, at which the principal speaker was Major Henry L Higginson. Major Higginson was the founder and has been for many years the chief supporter of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He announced his intention of leaving a bequest of $1,000,000 for its maintenance.

HENRY T. Finck, the distinguished music critic of the New York Evening Post, has just published a six hundred page volume of interesting matter on the subject of gastronomy. The work is entitled Food and Flavor. It now remains for the chef of the Waldorf-Astoria to turn music critic. But seriously, Mr. Finck never writes without authority, and his work will doubtless be widely read.

A CHAIR of choral and church music has been created at Columbia University, New York, through an anonymous endowment. The professorship has been offered to Walter Henry Hall, organist of St. James' Episcopal Church. Mr. Hall will also be official organist for the university and will, therefore, be obliged to resign his position at St. James' Church, which he has held for seventeen years.

TWENTY thousand musicians recently celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Musical Mutual Protective Union of New York. A concert was given at which orchestral numbers were presented under the baton of Josef Stransky, the Philharmonic Orchestra leader, and Victor Herbert. The crowd was so great that Mayor Gaynor and Police Commissioner Waldo were unable to effect an entrance to the building, the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory, at Twenty-fifth Street and Lexington Avenue.

VICTOR Herbert is certainly reaping the rewards of his industry. He is said to be receiving weekly royalties of $400 to $500 form a single one of his productions this season, The Lady of the Slipper, which has not been heard out of New York except for a few weeks early in the season. Incidentally his new opera, Sweethearts, is making good in Philadelphia, and others of his works doubtless are doing well on the road, and the Victor Herbert Orchestra is not without engagements. No wonder he can afford to compose grand opera on the side!

THE musical world has been surprised to learn that Andreas Dippei has resigned from the management of the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company. His only explanation up to the present is the mysterious announcement that he has "larger and better opportunities elsewhere". Coming as this does at the end of a most successful season, when apparently everything was going smoothly on the high road to success, opera goers are much puzzled to know what it all means. Possibly Mr. Dippei wants to look after his Viennese light operas, as he holds the American rights of many such works, most of which are very successful.

DURING a recent performance of Koenigskinder by the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company in Milwaukie, the audience was somewhat disturbed by hearing the trumpeting of an elephant and the roaring of a tiger. One critic went so far as to say that the management overdid their efforts to obtain realism. It subsequently transpired that the management were not entirely responsible. A wandering circus troupe had temporarily taken refuge under the stage of the opera house, and the animals were seriously disturbed by the music of the orchestra.

THE New York Sun declares that the past season has been a bad one for visiting artists. The New York paper attributes this to the fact that the market has been overdone - "Communities which might with pleasure listen to one virtuoso a week are expected to attend the concerts of three or four". Local pride in supporting symphony orchestras and operatic performances is also another cause, and we cannot help feeling that this is an encouraging sign. Music brought from the outside into a community is not so valuable as music made from within. Far be it from us to suggest that there is nothing to be gained by hearing the greatest artists of all nationalities, but "East, West, Homes the Best", in music as in other things, and if some one has to suffer from lack of interest we should prefer it to be the imported rather than the domestic artist.

THE plans for music at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco are certainly very comprehensive. One of the gorgeous courts that connect to exhibit buildings in the main section of the exposition will be devoted to musical productions. It will be known as the Court of Festival, and will be especially equipped with a new to choral singing and dramatic productions on an elaborate scale. In the huge tower of the court there will be a great organ with echo organs in the smaller towers. Not far from the inner Festival Court will be Festival Hall, with a seating capacity of three thousand. One of the principal features of the musical department of the exposition will be international singing contests in which choirs from all countries will compete for valuable prizes. It is proposed to have a massed chorus of 20,000 voices, selected from the world's best singers. conventions, congresses relating to music teaching, exhibitions of musical art treasure - in fact everything musical will be found in this wonderful exposition. The musical director will be Mr. George W. Stewart.

The Etude Magazine June 1913