23
MUSICAL COURIER
April 26, 1923
I SEE THAT
Johanna Gadski has gone to Berlin and will settle there permanently.
Jules Daiber sails on the Reliance May 1 for Paris and will tour through Poland with Ganna Walska in June.
Earl Carroll is seeking young men for his big musical revue.
Carl Adolf Lorenz, the oldest of the German composers, died in Stettin in his eighty-sixth year.
John McCormack scored a sensational success as soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Dorsey Whittington is the first musician to be elected as an honorary member of the Hunter College Music Club.
Harriet Van Emden has been engaged for concerts in Holland in the late summer.
Olga Samaroff will appear at the Spartanburg Festival on May 3.
Sergei Klibansky will have master classes in singing in Memphis, Seattle and Munich, Germany.
Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn and the Denishawn Dancers have closed their season of 180 performances.
William S. Brady will sail for Europe on July 28 with a large party of pupils.
Ninon Romaine will return to America late in October for a lengthy concert tour.
Paderewski will give an all-Chopin program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 2.
Pavel Ludikar will be a guest artist with the San Carlo Opera Company during its Havana season.
Suzanne Keener was well received at a recent Mozart Society concert.
Joseph Hollman has advised his manager, Daniel Mayer, of his safe arrival in Japan.
Reed Miller and Nevada Van der Veer announce the third session of their summer school of vocalists.
Helen Lubarska, a Samoiloff pupil, has been engaged for the De Feo Grand Opera Company.
The American Guild of Organists celebrated a Founders’ Dinner on April 12.
Mitja Nikisch has added the Cincinnati Symphony to his list of orchestral engagements next fall.
Ruth St. Denis, Lenora Sparkes and Louise Baer were among those who entertained at the annual Ladies’ Night of the New York Rotary Club on April 24.
The National Association of Organists has arranged, a series of concerts at Wanamakers’ next week.
Mischa Levitzki will play on the Pacific Coast during the entire month of February, 1924.
The Ithaca Conservatory promotes community work.
Thomas Salignac will head the class in opera at the Fontainebleau School of Music this summer.
Frederick Delius highly praised the playing of Percy Grainger.
The Ukrainian Chorus will soon begin a Pan-American tour.
The business formerly conducted by Walter Anderson has been incorporated in the State of New York.
The United Neighborhood Houses of New York offer a prize of $100 for a community pageant.
Giacomo Lauri-Volpi has made rapid strides in the operatic world here in America in the last year.
Anne Roselle was heard by 4,000 Brooklynites at a recent concert.
Lazare Saminsky, the Russian composer, will feature American works while, abroad.
The Perfield Studios in New York are now located at 121 Madison avenue.
Ernest Davis and Mabel Austin sang to a capacity audience in Erie, Pa., on April 16.
Olive Nevin and Harold Milligan’s repertory for next season will include three all-American costume recitals.
Sascha Jacobsen played for the patients at the Scottish Rite Home for Crippled Children when in Atlanta recently.
Edmond Clement will return to America next season for another tour under Louis H. Bourdon’s management.
Hugo Riesenfeld will sail for Europe on Saturday for a vacation of two months.
Arthur J. Hubbard has completed thirty years as a teacher of singing.
Burlington, Vt., now has an excellent symphony orchestra.
Steinway & Sons are selling Steinway Hall on Fourteenth street to Jerome C. and Mortimer G. Mayer.
The Metropolitan Opera Company is giving 226 performances this season.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra concluded its thirty-second season on April 21.
Felix Weingartner threatens to retire as conductor of the Vienna Volksoper.
Ralph Leopold has just returned from a successful tour of the Western States.
Evelyn Starr, Canadian violinist, died suddenly on April 15.
Vladimir Shavitch arrived in New York last week.
Asbury Park will hold its first Music Week from April 29 to May 5.
The New York Symphony will hold its concerts for children at CarnegieHall next winter instead of at Aeolian Hall.
The eighty-second Philharmonic season will open at Carnegie Hall on October 25.
It is estimated that the. receipts from Paderewski’s concerts this season amount to $500,000.
Queen Marie of Roumania has written a libretto for a romantic opera.
The seventh annual Panhandle Music Festival took place at Amarillo, Texas, April 9-14.
On March 14 and 15 the first National Congress of Lyric Art was held in Rome.
A cable from Fiume tells of the success of Amato in opera there.
Abigail Marshall Gluck, daughter of Alma Gluck, was married last Sunday.
Julia Glass, pianist, will take part in the students’ recital Friday evening at the vocal studio of A. Russ Patterson.
Frieda Hempel had a capacity audience for her Jenny Lind program at the Hippodrome last Sunday. G. N.
PAY THE CRITICS MORE
dailies are nothing less than ridiculous, the sums ranging approximately from $20 to $75 per week. As music critics are specialists who often spend a lifetime in acquiring the knowledge necessary for their profession, it follows that either the newspaper proprietors are unaware of it, or else they do not consider such knowledge worth more than the paltry salaries it receives. It is hardly necessary, as a comparison, to mention the princely sums paid by those same proprietors to sporting writers and comic picture makers. These proportions are materially, intrinsically and ethically wrong and should be remedied immediately in regard to music critics. They are by training and inclination refined and proud men who dedicate themselves by choice to a profession which never could make them rich or even well to do. At least they should be paid a liberal living wage and be made to feel that after death has ended their labors their families shall not be humiliated by making it necessary to take up subscriptions for their maintenance. The New York Tribune printed editorials and pages of quoted tributes after Krehbiel’s death to show how great a critic he had been. It is a pity that the Tribune owners did not realize Krehbiel’s importance while he lived and translate their appreciation into measurable financial figures.
will doubtless keep on as they are. So what is the use of pointing out, for instance, that one cannot buy modern scenery of Rovescalli or Kautsky any more; that one takes pains to get hold of a stage manager whose ideas are reasonably modern; that one searches the world for at least one musical
director of the very first rank, etc., etc.
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POOR PHYLLIS!
Phyllis Lett, the well known English contralto singer, started something new in music by bringing suit for slander against the Pathe phonograph people over there, on the grounds that they had damaged her professional reputation and caused her to lose engagements by publishing some horrible records of her voice. The case ended in a compromise, the defendants agreeing to destroy the records of which Miss Lett complained.
The trial itself must have been rather jolly. Sir Edward Elgar, appearing as one of the witnesses for Miss Lett, testified that what was supposed to be. a long sustained note on the record sounded merely like “dismal ululation” and that the record was only a “wretched noise, not recognizable as any human voice.”
.Percy Gordon, a music critic who had criticised the records unfavorably, testified that he and some other friends burst out laughing when they listened to passages in them, because “the voice seemed so raucous.” A man with a sense of humor like that is wasting his time as a music critic.
When the counsel asked the court to listen to the records, Mr. Justice Lush said, with a sigh, “Very well.” ׳ “It will probably be pleasanter to have it played the first thing in the morning, when your lordship is full of vigor,” counsel suggested. “Do you mean I shall be better able to stand it?” Mr. Justice Lush asked.
Evidently the brand of English judicial humor has changed very little since the days of the famous trial of Bardell vs. Pickwick.
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Reflection: “Bluff.” Bluff is regarded abroad as a particularly American institution. The trouble is that some foreigners forget that, while Americans may be good bluffers, they are also very clever at detecting bluffs—and at calling them. One or two foreigners in the musical world who have got away with a lot in the last few years have recently found that out, much to their discomforture.
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Musical aphorisms from the New York American: “The one redeeming feature of jazz music is that no performer can come in at the wrong place. . . . Some men are carried away by music and others are driven away.”
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There are three kinds of harmony—for the ear, eye, and brain.
The attached letter has been received and is herewith recommended to the consideration of Musical Courier readers:
Metropolitan Opera Company, New York, April 19. To the Editor of the Musical Courier:
It is planned to invite a number of the friends of the late Henry E. Krehbiel to subscribe to a fund with which to buy Krehbiel’s available working library of books and music, and present these to the New York Public Library, where they will be known as “The Krehbiel Collection.”
I ask if you wish to contribute to this fund, and if so, will you kindly send to the above address your check made out to the order of Edward Ziegler, Treasurer. The proceeds will be given to the widow to supplement the extremely meager estate left by this great critic.
The New York Public Library has signified its pleasure in anticipation of receiving this gift, and promises that the books will be suitably honored by a special book mark.
(Signed) Edward Ziegler.
The Musical Courier will be glad to send a check to Mr. Ziegler, and in doing so feels that this is the proper moment to speak a word in favor of higher pay for the music critics on the New York daily newspapers. Three of them (among whom were Krehbiel and Huneker, the best known of the entire group) died within recent months, and all of them were practically penniless. This is due to the fact that the salaries paid to music critics by the
THE MET. RECORD
For• the sake of completeness of the record the usual Metropolitan season statistics are herewith printed. The opera opened on Monday • night, November 13, 1922, with La Tosca and ended Saturday evening, April 21, with Aida. The total of performances was 226, (including those to be given at Atlanta this week) of which 169 were at the Metropolitan Opera House; 10 at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn; 10 in Philadelphia; 7 in Atlanta; 23 Sunday night concerts; and 7 benefits and double bills. With permission (which we take
for granted) we borrow a set of statistics on the				
season	from Deems	Taylor’s	column in	the Sunday
World				
Number of Language in		Per Cent of	Number of	Per Cent of
Operas	Which Sung	Repertoire	Performances Performances	
25	Italian	62.5	102	58.9
* 8	German	20.0	33	19.1
7	French	17.5	38	22.0
0	Russian	0.0	0	0.0
0	English	0.0	0	0.0
All of these merely prove what has long been no secret, namely: that the Metropolitan is essentially an Italian Opera House, both as to predominance of repertory and principal singers, though it was a French opera, Romeo and Juliet, that led the list of number of performances with 10. That grand old war horse, Aida, came next with 8. Boheme, Tosca and Thais took third place with 7 performances each, while Butterfly, Pagliacci and Carmen rang up the curtain 6 times apiece. Richard Wagner was a poor fifth, his favorite work, Die Walkuere, getting 5 performances ; Parsifal 4, and Lohengrin only 3—which proves that German opera does not pay at the box office ; otherwise there would be more of it.
What would interest us still more than these dry figures of numbers of performances would be to see the balance sheet of the institution just named— the box office ; and why the Metropolitan issues performance statistics instead of figures is hard to understand, for it is solely about the ticket sales that the affairs of the great institution revolve. This is not said in a way of casting reproach on Mr. Gatti-Casazza, or any of his associates in the direction of the house. Mr. Gatti-Casazza is merely the managing director of a large commercial organization, thè directors of which—noble “guarantors” and “patrons” of the Muse—insist as strongly upon seeing the balance on the credit side of the ledger as do the directors of any other commercial organization. Mr. Gatti’s first care is to show the right kind of a balance at the end of the season and, keeping this in mind, he surely deserves praise for the general high quality of his product.
Of course there are hundreds of points in which the Metropolitan standard could be improved by the expenditure of a little more money. But as long as the directors prefer profits to anything else, things