MUSICAL COURIER
54
April 26, 1923
LONDON HEARS FOUR NATIVE OPERAS AT ONCE
Beggar’s Opera, Polly, Lily of Killarney and The Immortal Hour Are Offered at Same Time at Different Theaters— Orchestral Concerts Continue—Szigeti a Welcome Visitor—Daisy Kennedy Plays Erlkönig for Violin Alone— Katharine Goodson Reappears—Nikisch, Jr.—Craxton Plays Old English Music—The Cherniavskys Successful—Charles Hackett Sings Brilliantly-^-Gerhardt a Favorite—Klein on Mozart
who came almost unheralded and played one Sunday afternoon in the huge Albert Hall, far to the west of London’s musical center. The exquisite quality of his tone and his rhythmic sensibility were plainly in evidence, despite the cavernous dimensions of the hall. I am informed that his concert agent means to bring him back to England during the forthcoming season and let him be heard in a concert hall less obviously built for a brass band and an enormous organ. Szigeti, who is a professor at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, is highly esteemed on the Continent of Europe, but has done very little playing in England.
Erlkönig for Violin Alone.
At one of her three recitals in Aeolian Hall with Carmen Hill, the soprano vocalist, Daisy Kennedy played what must have been a novelty to her audience. It was the eighty-year-old transcription for violin alone of Schubert’s Erlkoenig which the extraordinary violinist Ernst has made as a kind of technical feat. As the violin has no sustaining pedal, the melody could only be suggested by exceedingly short notes and had to suffer continually while the bow of the violinist was engaged on the surging accompaniment. Daisy Kennedy must have gone to enormous trouble to learn such a thankless puzzle. Unfortunately the only interest the transcription had was to remind the present generation of concert-goers' that a great violinist by the name of Ernst astonished our grandparents now and then with a display of virtuosity. Musically, the piece has no value. Ernst has torn all the Schubert flesh off it in forcing the skeleton to dance. I am indebted to the musical editor of the Westminster Gazette for the story of Dan Leno, once a hero of low comedy here, who, when asked how he liked a debate in the House of Commons, replied that he thought “it would go better with a piano.” That is what I think about Erlkönig transcriptions.
Katharine Goodson Reappears.
Of the pianists I may say in Biblical language that though many are called but few are chosen. The first to be chosen here is Katharine Goodson, who gave a recital in Queen’s Hall to a very large audience, and appeared in the same hall a few days later as the soloist in the Delius concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Albert Coates’ direction. As there are no greater musical heights to be scaled in London than giving recitals in Queen’s Hall and playing concertos with orchestras, I see nothing left for Katharine Goodson to. do but to give more recitals and play other concertos. She surely will not act like that silly Alexander the Great and weep because there is nothing left to conquer. The program of her last recital contained
GERTRUDE LANG
PRIMA DONNA SOPRANO at present starring in Blossom Time
Management: Betty Payne,	56 West 68 St., New York
James HINCHLIFF Baritone
Artist-pupil of HAROLD HURLBUT (de Reszke Disciple)
317 West 95th St., N. Y.	Riverside 4650
B»™rc MARTIN
Dramatic Soprano
"A Voice of Freshness and Beauty”—Morning Telegraph. Personal Address: 18 Claremont Ave., Mt. Vernon, N. Y. Telephone Hillcrest 5149 W
YVONNE DARLE
}Lyric Soprano, Metropolitan Opera Co.
Transcontinental Concert Tour with TITTA RUFFO
By special permission of Slg. Gatti-Cfasazza
© Underwood <5׳ Underwood
London, April 3.—After the slump comes the super slump, and the comparatively dull winter season is followed by the concertless silence of Easter. Messiah and Parsifal reign supreme in the period which is so dear to bakers and milliners for business and to music critics for intellectual repose.
When the concerts stopped I took the opportunity of going to the Alhambra Theater to see Maud Allan interpret several well known musical works by means of poses, gestures, steps and movement. Her performance consists of nothing which can be called dancing in the strictly modern sense of the word. It is more like a series of pose poems, and it illustrates admirably the fundamental emotions of the music. Maud Allan is about to sail for Egypt and other Oriental lands. An American tour may be announced later.
Four Native Operas at Once.
Four native operas have been running here in different theaters, all at once. I refer to the Beggar’s Opera, Polly, Lily of Killarney, and The Immortal Hour. At present there are two versions of Polly. In the words of Hamlet, “the play’s the thing,” so I suppose it matters not whether the music is by Austin or Bath. Perhaps the Irish opera
(Photographed for the Musical Courier by Clarence Lucas.)
BALFE’S HOUSE,
12 Seymour street, London, with the American vocalists, Greta Rost and Foster Why, in the foreground.
by Julius Benedict should not be called a native work, though composed in England and permanently popular here. Of course, it does not rival the popularity of the Bohemian Girl, by the Irish composer Balfe, who spent the greater part of his life in London. His most famous opera is always being played by one of the dozen touring companies in the British Isles, and his beautiful melody, Killarney, is never overlooked by the fallen stars who fiddle and puff cornets at saloon doors for pennies and the dregs of beer glasses. A month or so ago I made a photograph of Balfe’s house, 12 Seymour street, near Steinway Hall, and dragged my friends, Greta Rost and Foster Why, from their comfortable studio to stand beneath the tablet on Balfe’s house and put some life into the flat memorial. There is a plaque to the memory of Balfe near the grave of Purcell in Westminster Abbey, and a fine bust in the lobby of Drury Lane Theater.
Doves and Lions.
The orchestral concertos have remained about the same. Year in and year out the programs of the symphony concerts consist of Beethoven and Brahms as the conventional standards, with the latest new works of native and foreign composers by way of variety. The more popular Sunday concerts at Queen’s Hall and Albert Hall rely on Wagner and Tschaikowsky as their principal attractions and less on the new works of the latest schools.
Koussevitzki conducted the London _ Symphony Orchestra not long ago, selecting Mozart’s G minor symphony as his classical example, and devoting the rest of the program to Liszt’s Dance of Death, Wagner’s Bacchanalian Orgy, Holbrooke’s Bronwen Overture, Vivaldi’s concerto grosso, and Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy. It can hardly be said that such a mixture of extreme contrasts was satisfactory. The cooing of the old doves was very feeble after the roaring of the modern lions. X think that it is usually a safe rule to perform the compositions in chronological order and let the nerves of the audience receive stronger and stronger shocks as they become more jaded.
Perhaps Albert Coates put Beethoven’s Eroica symphony at the very end of the last concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society in order to keep the audience in the hall. I doubt if many hearers would have remained to the end for Louis Aubert’s Habanera or Frank Bridge’s Sea Suite, with which the program opened•.
The attendance at the Philharmonic concert, and at the London Symphony Orchestra concert which Albert Coates conducted on his *return from America, was by no means large. Queen’s Hall, however, was crowded to the doors at Sir Henry Wood’s Wagner concert two days ago.
Szigeti a Welcome Visitor.
The most interesting of all the foreign violinists who have visited London so far this year was Joseph Szigeti,
Teacher of Singing
STUDIO:
309 West 78th Street Phone 9139 Schuyler
ZERFFI
Voice Production without Interference
VOCAL INSTRUCTION 135 W. 80th St., New York
Tel. 3786 Schuyler Consultation only by appointment
Jh regneas
L I N A. COEN
Accompanist and Coach — Specialty French Repertoire
Studio: 308 West 97th St., New York City. Phone Riverside 7830
Frederic Taggart
Eminent Scotch Baritone and Teacher
(Repertory of 50 Oratorios)
500 West 122d St., New York Telephone. Morningside 4630
Teacher of Vocal Art and Operatic Acting
545 W. 111th St. New York *Phone Cathedral 6149
GEORGEJE.
SHEA.
EZIO LABROMO
Available for Concert and Opera 118 West 73rd Street, New York City	Telephone 9500 Columbus
LEON RAINS
VOCAL INSTRUCTION Studio; 292 West 92nd St., New York Telephone Rhrsrsid• 9486
Arpad Sandor
PIANIST
METROPOLITAN MUSICAL BUREAU AEOLIAN HALL	NEW YORK
Estelle LIEBLING
Soprano
Management: Daniel Mayer	Aeolian Hall, New York
Studio: 145 Went 55 St., New York -------IN JOINT RECITAL WITH----
George Stewart McManus
Pianist
Management: Daniel Mayer	Aeolian Hall, New York
Studio: 145 Went 55 St., New York
NYIREGYHAZI
(Pronounced NEAR-EDGE-HARZI)
“If one permitted oneself the free use of superlatives, adjectives would run riot over the available space.”—New York Morning World. Management: R. E. JOHNSTON Associates: L. G. BREID and PAUL LONGONE 1451 Broadway, New York City KNABE PIANO USED	AMPICO RECORDS
CLEO, JAN AND MISCHEL x r
HERNIAVSK Y
VIOLINIST, PIANIST and ’CELLIST Returning to America—Season 1923-24
FOR TERMS AND AVAILABLE DATES APPLY TO S. HUROK AEOLIAN HALL. NEW YORKO
«	, . j . Coenraad V. Bos, Pianist
Assisted by. Lou!s p, prltze, Flutist
Management of Frieda Hempel 185 Madison Avenue	New York
Steinway Piano
ROMUALDO
SAPIO
Vocal
Teacher
CLEMENTINE
DE VERE
Prima Donna Soprano
Formerly conductor Metropolitan Opera, New York, and European theaters. Coach to Mme. Adelina Patti, Calvé, Nórdica and other celebrities.
From Covent Garden, London, Metropolitan Opera, New York, etc. Available for Opera, Concert and Oratorio. Also: VOCAL TUITION.
Address: 109 Riverside Drive, N. Y. City Phone Schuyler 8399
Catalog on Request
NEW YORK 220 W. 42nd Street CINCINNATI 121 E. Fourth Street
CHICAGO	ysr
329 S. Wabash Avenue
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