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Hazel Jean Kirk, of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music faculty, gave a recital in the Conservatory Hall.
A concert was given on the evening of January 10, under the auspices of the Fort Thomas Woman’s Club, Fort Thomas, Ky., when Eleanor Shaw, pianist, was heard with the Duo-Art piano. She was assisted by Mary Conrey Thuman, soprano; Marion Francis Cohn, violin, and Doro-thy Louise Cohn, cello.
Marie Niehaus, a piano pupil of Frederick J. Hoffmann, of the College of Music, gave a pleasing recital in the Odeon. She was assisted by Edith Tolken, violinist, and Edna Schoenfeld, reader.
The Westwood Woman’s Club gave a musicale at the Westwood School Auditorium, which was much enjoyed.
Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, American composer-pianist, was the assisting artist at the Culp Quartet concert given at the Woman’s Club. Three important works by Mrs. Beach were heard for the first time. The concert was inspirational and greatly enjoyed.
At the annual home concert given by the Miami University Madrigal Club, at Oxford, Ohio, six Cincinnati girls took part in the program. They were Naomi Earhart, Helen Pickleheimer, Armina Sturm, Elizabeth Gerner, Marie Pickleheimer and Livinia O’Neal.
Irene Groome and Faye Ferguson, two pianists of the class of Marcian Thalberg, of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, gave a recital at the Conservatory Hall.
The Students’ String Quartet, of the College of Music, made its initial bow to the public at the Odeon, in a pleasing program.
The Clifton Music Club gave a delightful recital, Mrs. Linton B. Swift, of St. Paul, Minn., appearing as soloist. She shows power as a singer and her numbers were pleasing.
The MacDowell Club gave an entertainment at the Hotel Sinton. On the program were Elsie Weissleder, pianist, and Louise Phals, vocalist.
A twelve weeks’ concert tour through Ohio has been undertaken by Claudia Peck, violinist, and Martha Inipper, vocalist, pupils of the Conservatory of Music, as members of the Theresa Sheehan Concert Company. W. W.
MUSICAL COURIER
February 9, 1922
BERLIN’S NEW “MAGIC FLUTE” PROVES
EXTRAVAGANT IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE
Caruso Memorial Concert February 19
Leading artists will pay homage to the memory of the beloved tenor at a special concert at the Metropolitan Opera House, Sunday afternoon, February 19. The concert will be for the benefit of the Caruso American Memorial Foundation, which is raising an endowment of $1,000,000 for a national memorial, dedicated to the work of assisting talented and deserving students of music in America and of promoting wider public appreciation of music. The artists who have already promised to appear include Lucrezia Bori, Geraldine Farrar, Amelita Galli-Curci, Jeanne Gordon, Margaret Matzenauer, Rosa Ponselle, Mario Chamlee, Giuseppe Danise, Giuseppe De Luca, Adamo Didur, Beniamino Gigli, Orville Harrold, Jose Mardones, Giovanni Martinelli and Leon Rothier. The full Metropolitan Orchestra will accompany the artists, under the baton of six conductors: Giuseppe Bamboschek, Artur Bodanzky, Louis Hasselmans, Roberto Moranzoni, Gennaro Papi and־ Gulio Setti.
Fire Destroys Phyllida Ashley’s Music
Misfortune overtook Phyllida Ashley, pianist and composer, recently in the shape of a fire that burned her out of her home at Wildwood Gardens, Piedmont, near San Francisco, and robbed her of a very valuable collection of books, music and manuscript, much of which it will be impossible to replace. Miss Ashley had just returned from New York, where she had given several successful concerts, when the accident occurred.
Ture Rangstròm’s “Strindberg” Symphony and Pizzetti’s String Quartet Heard—Sauer, D’Albert and Petre Play
at his true value. His pianistic power is indeed very remarkable; his taste developed in a high degree.
After a truly imposing rendition of Liszt’s variations on a basso ostinato by Bach, Petri played a group of small pieces by Busoni for the first time. These three “Album-blatter” are written in a serious Bachish mood, of meditative character, full of ingenious part-writing of that peculiar luminous character which is so characteristic a trait of Busoni’s contrapuntal art. The powerful and intricate toccata by Busoni (first played by Busoni himself a year ago) closed this group. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” in Busoni’s arrangement, and the twelve Chopin etudes, op. 25, made up the second part of Petri’s remarkable and impressive recital.	C. S.
Flonzaley Quartet Itinerary
During the week of February 12 the Flonzaley Quartet will play in Philadelphia, Washington, New Britain (Conn.), Boston and Lewiston (Me). From Lewiston the organization will go to Canada where, between February 19 and 23, it will be heard at Quebec, Three Rivers, Montreal, Ottawa and Kingston.
CINCINNATI MUSICIANS ACTIVE
Conservatory, College and Studio Notes
Cincinnati, Ohio, January 18, 1922.—The same enthusiasm was again in evidence at the third of the series of children’s concerts given at Emery Auditorium, January 10, by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Modeste Aloo, whose part in the performance is always important, as was the interpretation given by Thomas James Kelly. The attendance was large.
The first of a series of concerts at the East Side High School was given here by Charles Heinroth, organist of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, who is a member of the faculty of the College of Music. His playing is impressive and, with an instrument of the kind used, he had every opportunity to show his powers. His numbers included the modern and classic schools, and he was particularly notable in such numbers as Guilmant’s sonata No. 1 in D minor. The opening number was the prelude to “Parsifal,” and the concert closed with a fine rendition of Bach’s ’,Fugue a la Gigne,” Mr. Heinroth also gave a lecture at the College of Music on “What to Look for in Music.”
Ralph Lyford of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music faculty, has had an honor conferred on him that is a decided compliment to his musical ability. He recently completed a two-act opera, called “Castle Agrazant.” One excerpt, which was recently played here, made a fine impression. It has been selected as one of two operas to be given by the organization known as “The Opera in Our Own Language Foundation,” the purpose of which is to encorage the composition of grand opera by American composers. Mr. Lyford is in Chicago, where it is believed that the Foundation Society will undertake to have the opera score published, and possibly obtain the consent of one of the leading companies to produce it next season. While away Mr. Lyford will consult Mary Garden regarding the operas to be produced here at the Zoo Garden next summer, as he has directed there for the past two seasons. He will also go to New York to obtain singers for the summer season.
The fifth concert of the popular series given during the present season by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at Music Hall was held on January 15. It drew more than the usual crowd of music lovers. This was a request concert made up of numbers selected from a list that had been sent to Director Eugene Ysaye. It was an appreciative audience and the program proved to be of the quality that appeals. The soloist was a promising young basso of Cincinnati, George Clifford Cook, who sang with grace and power.
The Clifton Music Club recently gave an operatic program. The members were addressed by Ralph Lyford, of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music faculty.
The pupils of Hans Schroeder, of the College of Music, voice department, gave a recital recently at the Odeon.
A faculty recital was given by Mr. and Mrs. Philip Werthner at the Walnut Hills Music School.
An interesting program was given by the Hyde Park Music Club, at the Hyde Park Library Auditorium.
FRITZ BUSCH ELECTED SCHUCH’S
SUCCESSOR AT DRESDEN OPERA
To Conduct Symphony Concerts, Too—Korngold’s “Tote Stadt” Draws—A Musical Romance
ostentatious applause with which he was received a few days ago at the first “B” concert he conducted was indicative of the expectations that are placed in his activity. Two Beethoven concerts were his contribution to the music of the holidays.
The pleasure of greeting the distinct artistic profile of the long awaited Generalmusikdirektor, however, in no wise lessens the regret of having lost Fritz Reiner, who at the beginning of the war came here unheralded, and who, through his eminent inborn qualifications as a conductor valiantly—and with decided success—kept up the traditions of Dresden’s famous opera and its orchestra despite adversities of all sorts caused by the war.
Korngold Opera Draws.
At the opera, Korngold’s “Dead City” is continuing to draw full houses. “Parsifal” was given twice during the holidays ; otherwise the repertory at the opera house displayed no new feature. Busch’s regular activity at the opera will not begin until the beginning of the next new season, in August. Until that time he is partly engaged at Stuttgart, his present post.
A Musical Romance.
Innumerable concerts are in sight. Of those that have recently taken place the recital of Elsa Bartsch, a singer of brilliant vocal and interpretative attainments, are worthy of note. Miss Bartsch concertized in conjunction with Dresden’s youngest pianist, Johannes Strauss, who also gave two piano recitals of his own. He is all storm and stress; she indulges in the romance of the German Lied. And now report has it that they were married here—“in aller Stille”—on New Year’s Day.	A. I.
Dresden, January 10, 1922.—Fritz Busch, hitherto general musical director of the State of Wiirtemberg, has been unanimously elected Generalmusikdirektor of the Dresden Opera, and conductor of the State Orchestra. Thus he becomes not merely the successor of Fritz Reiner, who resigned his position for the sake of an international career, but of the late lamented Ernst von Schuch, whose death left a vacuum which was not even “officially” filled.
This is_ the end of a long struggle of parties for supremacy in the Dresden operatic organization, and may be said to have ended with a victory for the ultra-German element. _ Fritz Busch, like his brother Adolf Busch, the violinist, is one of the few eminent musicians left in Germany who are neither foreign nor of Jewish blood. The end of the long squabble which, in spite of talent and effort, blocked all really constructive work, is of course to be welcomed. Whether, however, the new masters—Intendant Reucker and Musical Director Busch—are capable of redeeming the lost glory of the Schuch era, will be answered by the future alone.
Meantime, at any rate, one firmly believes in the new man and his capacity as a leader, all the more so as he has agreed to devote all of his time to rebuilding the fame of the Dresden Opera, renouncing all work outside of the city (in the manner of other conductors as a "guest” of other European centers) in other words to fill all the demands of the institution as Ernst von Schuch did before him.
To Conduct Symphony Concerts, Too.
He will, indeed, have plenty of opportunity to shine, not only as operatic director, but also as symphony conductor as well, in both series of the State Orchestra (including the “B” series originally reserved for Reiner), and the
Berlin, January 17, 1922.—As the latest addition to its renovated post-revolutionary repertory, the Berlin Opera has just brought out a newly mounted “Magic Flute,” postrevolutionary and post-impressionistic. The underlying idea is, apparently, that Mozart’s fairy-opera, b’eing fantastic, should have a fantastic garb. The choice to produce this fell upon Ludwig Kiner, an artist whose style is a sort of compound of Baxt, Maxfield, Parrish and Pablo Picasso, with a touch of Jessie Wilcox Smith—an illustrator’s style, modish, extravagant, and charming. The only question is : will it be modish twenty-five years from now—or even ten? If not, this latest “Magic Flute” is extravagant, not merely in an artistic, but also in an economic sense.
Mozart’s music, on the other hand, is neither modish nor extravagant, but all the more beautiful. It has, besides, those eternal qualities which no style of decoration seems yet to have possessed. This was brought out once again by the master hand of Leo Bloch and his unique orchestra; on the stage, however—a near-catastrophe. With the single exception of Elisabeth Rethberg, of the Dresden Opera, who was borrowed for the occasion of this revival première, not one of the singers in the cast were really equal to their tasks.
Ethel Hansa, the American member of the Berlin Opera, is an excellent coloratura soprano within her limitations— but she overstepped them when she tried to scale the starry height of the Queen of the Night. Robert Hutt, as Te-mino, was sad indeed ; Otto Helgers, as Sarastro, more sacerdotal than musical, and Desider Zador, as Papegeno, negligible. Only the Three Ladies, of whom Margeret Ober was one, brought an element of real beauty into the production. We are afraid that this “revival” will need a great deal of reviving, if it is not to die an early death.
The audience, by the way, was sorely tried by the long waits between the many scenes, and the boresome Schika-nederesques, which these opera singers recited, as usual, in the style of Sunday school orators. And this is the book that Ferruccio Busoni, in a recent essay on the opera, calls the opera text par excellence ! Despite his dictum we urge young poets with esprit and a flaire for the stage to condense this literary “classic,” and inoculate it with some genuine wit" and reconstruct the scenic succession in a practical sense—without, however, touching a note of Mozart ! Mozart is sacred, indeed, but Schikaneder is not.
A Notable Concert.
Two or three times each season a few sterling musicians sweep down from the north and bring with them music that is always new and sometimes of value.
Last season Tor Mann, of Stockholm, introduced the C sharp minor symphony of his countrymen, Ture Rang-strôm, followed a few weeks later by Kurt Atterberg with his own fourth symphony. Last night it was Ebbe Hame-rik, the youthful conductor of the Royal Opera at Copenhagen. He brought along with him, as soloists, Poul Wie-dermann, a convincing baritone, also of the Copenhagen Opera, and Victor Schiôler, a very capable pianist.
Hamerik, in spite of his youth, is already a master conductor. One feels immediately that he has the whole orchestra under his thumb, so to speak, to do with exactly as he pleases. He conducts with graceful poise and a minimum of gesture, and never resorts to contortionistic stunts of his limbs, upper or lower. As under the baton of Nikisch or Reiner, the Philharmonic under him is like an alert thoroughbred, sensitive to the slightest touch of its rider.
Rangstrôm’s “Strindberg” Symphony.
Hamerik opened the program with the extraordinarily interesting first symphony of Ture Rangstrôm (he has written two). It was composed in memory of August Strindberg and is based upon impressions from the works and achievements of the poet. Each of the four^ movements bears a title—“March-Spring,” “Legende,” “Witchcraft” and “Battle.” With Hamerik’s forceful reading there wasn’t a dull moment in the entire work and it is well worthy of having an American hearing if it hasn’t àlready had one.
Wiedemann contributed two baritone solos with orchestra —“The Tranquil City,” of Harald Agersnap, and “Summer,” by young Hamerik. The text of the latter is too long to be satisfactory. Schiôler’s brilliant^ performance of Palmgren’s piano concerto, “The River,” as well
Hamerik’s skill in accompanying the same, brought forth storms of applause and both were recalled time and again. The concert closed with a spirited reading of Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloe” which, like the symphony, was conducted from memory.
BuDAPESTERS PLAY PlZZETTI.
The Budapest String Quartet at its third and fourth concerts gave hearings to string quartets by Pizzetti and Sgambati respectively. Sgambati’s works are well known in America and require no comment here. The Pizzetti quartet is an early work, being composed in 1906, and shows, besides a flowing, polyphonic style, which is still unsophisticated, a pristine simplicity and a genuine Italian lyricism. It is an affirmation of youth, blithe and happy in spirit. The third movement, a theme and variations, seems to be based on a folk melody. It all goes easily into one’s ears and the listeners were correspondingly grateful. Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms made up the rest of the fare, and the audience, which, after growing steadily throughout the series, completely filled the hall at the last concert, tendered the Quartet an ovation which is rarely equalled in concerts of this kind.
“Busoni, Jr.”
Egon Petri, Busoni’s favorite pupil, has enjoyed an advantage shared by no one else in the intimate personal connection with his great master. This advantage, on the other hand, had the disagreeable consequence that he was constantly compared with Busoni, and considered a sort of diminutive copy of him, and was never judged on his own merits. After about fifteen years before the public Petri has now acquired so much authority in his playing and in his artistic character that he is at last recognized