23
MUSICAL COURIER
I SEE THAT
Beniamino Gigli has been decorated by King Victor Emmanuel with the Order of Knight Commander of the Crown of Italy.
Schumann Heink is enjoying a motor trip through Southern California.
L. E. Behymer and Selby Oppenheimer will be in New York about July 1.
The American Museum of Musical Art has received a provisional charter from the regents of the University of the State of New York.
It has been suggested that all prize composition manuscripts of the N. F. M. C. be placed in the Government collection.
Helena Marsh, contralto, received long editorial mention in the Ottawa Journal.
Dan Beddoe’s vocal classes at the Cincinnati Conservatory’s summer session are larger than ever.
Sylvia Cushman, of Brookline, Mass., has been declared bankrupt.
Moscow newspapers report that Chaliapin will settle in the United States with his family.
Nina Morgana is under her own personal management.
Olive Nevin has made her debut as a conductor.
The Denishawn Dancers are to . appear in Nashville next December.
Rosing has given three recitals in Paris since May 1.
Fred Patton filled about eighty engagements during the 1921-22 season.
Three hundred thousand dollars has been appropriated by the State Legislature to cover expenses in the department of Music at the University of Minnesota.
Fifty-eight diplomas were awarded at the twenty-fifth annual commencement of Ithaca Conservatory.
Tampa’s first music memory contest in the public schools was a great success.
The 1922-23 catalog of the Chicago Musical College is ready for distribution.
Max Liebling has just finished the fifty-fifth year of his musical labors in this country.
Marguerite Nikoloric has been added to the list of artists managed by The Betty Tillotson Bureau.
Pietro Yon, organist, and John Finnegan, tenor, are to make a joint tour next season.
Casella has been engaged both as soloist and conductor with the Barcelona Symphonic Society.
Ernest Hutcheson will again be active at Chautauqua this summer.
The Goldman Band gave its annual concert on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday noon, June 13.
Mattie D. Willis, of Waco, Tex., has arrived in New York and will conduct a Dunning class here.
There are two vacancies on the faculty of Belton College, one in the piano and the other in the vocal department.
Paul Stoeving has resigned his position at the Ithaca Conservatory of Music.
The Berlin Philharmonic recently celebrated its fortieth anniversary.
The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra has been incorporated.
Erna Rubinstein was heard in concert on board the steamship Ryndam on her way to Europe.
Elena Gerhardt has proved herself “persona grata” to London musical audiences this spring.
Arturo Papalardo will open new studios in New York in October.
Geraldine Farrar is programming Mana-Zucca’s latest song. “Dan Cupid.”
Baroness Von Klenner has pupils singing in Vienna and Scandinavia.
Irma Seydel, violinist, has had about fifty engagements with twenty-five different orchestras.
Frank La Forge will keep his studios open all summer.
An anonymous gift of ¿30,000 has been sent to the reconstruction fund of the “Old Vic” in London.
Robert Ringling, son of the circus man, has chosen music as his career.
A Civic Symphony Society has been organized in Denver.
The ninth annual convention of the National Association of Sheet Music Dealers opened on June 12 at the Mc-Alpin Hotel.
Daniel Wolf has dedicated several of his latest songs to Cecil Arden.
Leopold Auer will sail for Europe about August 1, returning to America around November 1.
The North Shore Festival Association offers $1,000 for an orchestral composition by an American composer.
Arthur J. Gaines has resigned as secretary and manager of the St. Louis Symphony Society, to become manager of the New York Music Society.
Mrs. E. B. McConnell and her two daughters, Harriet and Marie, are sailing for Europe June 24.
The Music Publishers’ Association of the United States met on June 13 at the Astor Hotel.
Dr. Arthur Mees has been re-engaged to teach at the Witherspoon studios for the season 1922-23.
The opera season at the Colon Theater, Buenos Aires, was opened with Wagner’s “Parsifal.”
Jan Cherniavsky was married to Elspeth Rogers on June 1.
Namara will be available for concerts and recitals in this country from September to January.
Plans for New York’s new music and art center were discussed in detail at a dinner given by Chamberlain Berolzheimer.
For the first time in four years of municipal opera in St. Louis the season opened without rain.
Dudley Buck has successfully started his six weeks of teaching at the University of Kansas.
Florence McManus was obliged to terminate her tour of Europe owing to illness.
G. T. Shrader is winning fame as a violin maker.
Mme. Soder-Hueck began her summer master classes at her Metropolitan Opera House studios on June 15.
Otokar Sevcik will teach exclusively at Bush Conservatory, Chicago, next season.
Adelaide Gescheidt will spend two months in Europe.
G. N.
THE END OF THE BERLIN SEASON
Louis Graveure, Claire Dux and Joseph Schwarz Attract Capacity Houses—Philharmonic Orchestra Celebrates Fortieth
Anniversary—A Variety of Opera
tilt, and will continue to go till August. They both lure their public with tenorial “sensations” of Latin origin, thus admitting the German bankruptcy in this particular line. The Deutsches Opernhaus, for instance, is able to fill its seats with Tino Pattiera as Faust and Cavaradossi, supported by Sigismondo Saleschi as Mephistopheles and Scar-pia. The former delights by his pleasant, unforced voice and his handsome looks, the latter by his plastic acting.
The Staatsoper, going still farther afield, made a bitter experience with one of Italy’s remaining “stars,” Bernardo De Muro—evidently a fallen star. And what a fall was there! De Muro, who sang Manrico in “Trovatoye,” with a somewhat brassy tenor and in Italian (against the German of the rest of the cast), stumbled once or twice in the first two acts and came entirely to grief in the famous stretto, lost in a sea of German language which he could not understand. The public, which had paid special prices— 400 marks—for seats, hissed and whistled in its rage; it was a scene almost unprecedented in the sacred precincts of the once Imperial Opera. Heinrich Schlussnus, on the other hand, who sang Count Luna with his beautiful baritone and looked like a giant beside the pigmy guest, earned the greatest ovation of his life. Oh, what a fall was there!
No doubt the Opera will recover from this little fiasco; it will stage very soon a new “Carmen” with Barbara Kemp. But an impatient America will have to wait for its report, for we have shaken the dust of Berlin from our feet. In September, when we return, Arturo Toscanini is to conduct—“Tristan” and the “Meistersinger”— in this leading German opera house, and, one hopes, some Italian operas, too. But, one also hopes, not with Italian tenors of the De Muro class!	César Saerchinger.
Dr. Mees Reengaged for Witherspoon Studios
Herbert Witherspoon announces the re-engagement of Dr. Arthur Mees to teach at the Witherspoon studios during the season of 1922-23, when he will conduct a special class in oratorio and will also give a series of lectures on
DR. ARTHUR MEES
various topics pertaining to the singer’s art. Dr. Mees, who has long been identified with the musical life of America, is known as one of the most learned men in the profession. He has had vast experience as conductor of many societies, notably the Worcester, Mass., and Norfolk, Conn., festivals. He is without doubt an eminent authority on style and oratorio singing.
Brennan Pupil Heard
Helen Kremelburg, a piano pupil of Agnes Brennan, gave pleasure to many at the Carroll Club reception and tea, Sunday, June 11, offering a delightful program. The Debussy “Arabesque” (No. 2) was rendered with exquisite tone, and the Rachmaninoff G minor prelude was given with admirable style. Other numbers, interpreted well and showing excellent technic, were a Chopin etude (“Revolutionary”) and prelude, two MacDowell selections, and the Lesche-tizky left hand arrangement of the andante finale from “Lucia.”
Miss Kremelburg is heard frequently at the Carroll Club, where she is a favorite entertainer.
Lawson “Easily Held Her Audience”
High praise was given to Franceska Kaspar Lawson following her third appearance in Elkins, W. Va., under the auspices of Davis and Elkins College. Her program was well chosen, so said the reporter for the Inter-Mountain, and rendered with the technic of the finished artist that she is. He further stated that the charm of her voice was only secondary to her personal charm—a woman possessing poise and magnetism—she easily held her audience.
Jessie Masters Opens Broadcasting Station
Jessie Masters, American contralto, was secured to inaugurate the new studio and extension of the radio broadcasting station of White & Boyer Company, “WJH,” Washington, D. C., June 13. Miss Masters was heard in three groups of numbers.
Berlin, June 1.—It’s a long lane that has no turning, and even the endless Berlin season has had to end. For the past two weeks or so people have become so restive and unwilling to swelter for the sake of the noble muse that the fag-enders and debutantes have had to give up the ghost. Only a few of the real top-liners have been able, during the last few days, to fill—or nearly fill—the halls. Among these was Louis Graveure, who managed, on the last day of May, to give a “farewell” to a nearly sold-out Philharmonie, and to rouse his audience to ecstasies of enthusiasm with a varied program ranging from Brahms to the Irish “Leprechaun,” which had to be repeated. Gra-veure’s case is a curiosity. Most of the criticisms, while admitting his extraordinary vocal “culture,” contain various “buts,” and most of them dwell on his beard or his manicure; but the public is not to be roused from its unconditional surrender to this charmeur.
Claire Dux, too, has twice filled the Philharmonie with her adoring flappers, and captured enough flowers to decorate the ship that is to carry her back to the States in a few days. (And, incidentally, enough paper marks to cover the sides of it.) Joseph Schwarz is the last of the triumphant home-comers to defy the heat, though his manager seems to consider it necessary to project the tubercular children as “beneficiaries” into the situation in order to lure a weary public out.
Philharmonic Orchestra Celebrates Fortieth Anniversary.
The final “event” of importance in this long season was the fortieth' anniversary celebration of the Philharmonic Orchestra, comprising three concerts of which two were devoted to Brahms, in commemoration of his twenty-fifth death day, and the third to Beethoven. Furtwängler conducted the first and aroused particular admiration by his reading of the E minor symphony, followed by an exceptionally impressive rendition of the contralto rhapsody, op. 53, sung by Emmi Leisner and the male chorus of the Berlin Liedertafel. The Haydn variation rounded out the program. On the second evening the Singakademie rendered, under Prof. Georg Schumann, the German Requiem and the “Song of Destiny,” with Emmie von Stetten and Wilhelm Guttmann as soloists.
The third, conducted by Richard Hagel, the conductor of the Philharmonic’s popular concerts, found its artistic climax in Ferruccio Busoni’s magnificent playing of the “Emperor” concerto of Beethoven, preceded by the third “Leonore” overture and followed by the fifth symphony— all works which have played a not unimportant part in the history of the orchestra. True, there were critical protests against Busoni’s sometimes arbitrary interpretation, but the public showed, by its frenetic applause, that it cares less about tradition than the professors—even at anniversaries.
For the Benefit of the New Volksoper.
' Another unusual event at the end of the season was a concert in the great hall of the German Reichstag. It was for the benefit of the new Volksoper, which enters a new and more concrete phase of its career in the autumn. President Ebert made a most excellent speech in which he characterized the endeavor to let the great mass of the people participate in the nation’s culture (and especially musical culture) as one of the “noblest tasks of a democratic state.” The leading conductors of the Volksoper, Franz von Hoesslin and Dr. Ernst Patorius, as well as Melanie Kurt, Friedrich Plaschke, and other well known singers, performed works of Beethoven and Wagner which resounded somewhat too copiously in the national parliament. But—acoustics aside—would that our own national parliament at Washington had recognized the “tasks of democracy” to an extent where it will give Beethoven and Wagner the floor, for the benefit of the people’s art.
The Two Other Opera Houses.
The two other opera houses (for now we shall have to consider three in Berlin) are, of course, still going full
JUILLIARD FUNDS ASSURED FOR MUSIC
One point of importance connected with the bequest of Augustus D. Juilliard has been overlooked by most of those who have commented on his gift for American music. The Juilliard Musical Foundation had to be organized by a specified date, completely and effectively organized, as provided for in the will, or the whole bequest would revert to other purposes besides music.
The fact of organization has saved the fund for music.
It is of less importance that the foundation has been estopped from distributing money than that it is to be entitled to receive money at the end of litigation.
Many people are desirous and insistent and even nervous about having the foundation do something for them or for their particular cause. They want money right away. The Juilliard Musical Foundation has been doing something for music by being organized. The trustees were wise in promptly meeting the fundamental condition by which the fund could be saved for music. They can do nothing more until the fund is out of the courts. In the interim they listen, think and plan, learning as much as possible, becoming amazed at the inviting extent of their unique field as well as astonished at the applications which have poured in upon them. They are grateful for the numerous wise suggestions which have been made to them, and hope for many more. The office of the foundation has been busy in many directions, and one of its problems has been to find stable conditions for hobby horses. Until litigation is over no detailed plans can be announced, not because the foundation is unwilling to make announcements, but because it is prohibited from commitments by the nature of the case. It is expected that litigation will be concluded soon.	E.