Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-13

| Mershons singing at the concerts Of DR..
| Palmer's Normal School, in the summer of
| 1856, will be interested in the following item
| now going the rounds of the musical press:
A cablegram from Nice says: A young lady
| here from Iowa, Miss Emma Mershon, is cre-
ating quite Juror among the Americans win
| tering on the Riviera. She is studying singing
| with Lamperti, the well known italian maestro,
| who considers her voice so remarkable that ne
| Is going to bring her out at the opera next
| year. She Is going to make her debut at con-
cert here next month and the Amerlcans are
all buying tickets in advance.
Mr.. HARRY B. BRoCKETT, now studying
! with Lamperti in Dresden, has not yet been
engaged by Carl Rosa for the next London sea-
son as reported. The premature statement has
for foundation the fact that Miss Agnes Hunt
ington. late of the Boston Ideals, and who has
recently taken further instructions from ner
old master, Lamperti. is under engagement
with the English impressario. and has onered
her influence to get Mr.. Brockett on the same
payroll. Mr.. Brockett expects to return In
July, after a few months in London with Ran
degger or SHAKESPEARE. In conjunction with
Mr.. W. II. Coombs, his piano teacher. the
Pittsburg tenor is now arranging for concert
in Dresden.
Mr.. ErHELBERT NEvIN's recent activities
in Boston are of interest to his home-folks just
now. His Trio for piano, violin and cello
was produced at Schirmer's week or so ago
with signal success. The Cecilia club is re-
hearsing his part song 1.-THE Night II ath
Thousand Ewes" for its next concert. Still an
other edition of Mr.. Nevin's charming Sketch
book comes out this month-an extraordinary
sale, The young composer is about completing
an elaborate Barcarolle for orchestra on Mar
garet Deland's "Sunset on the Allegheny
an appropriate work, by the way for Mr.. Seidls
May Festival programme: He is also at work
on an Easter service for his boy choir at Christ
Church, Quincy, to follow up the success of his
Christmas music gwen by the same choir.
THE Frohsinn Male Singing Society will have
to vacate its cosy old quarters next April and
is now casting about for another location. An
option has been secured on o building on Penn
avenue, near Eleventh street, at one time occu-
pied by the Central Turn-Verein. The price
named is $4,000. of which a considerable por-
tion is said TO be already in sight. The finan-
cai question is to be discussed and settled, if
possible, at this afternoons meeting. If this or
other properly be purchased, ir is the intention
to remodel the building so as to include rooms
for social uses and a concert hall as well. 1t
will be fine thing for Pittsburg's crack male
house-such, tor example as the Cologne Maen-
nergesangverein, the best in Germany, of whose
hospita BILE quality the writer has vivid recol-
lections.
Mr.. JOHN EDWARDS, of Homestead, WHINE
of the recent Eisteddfod prize for sight-read-
ing is an adept in the mysteries of tonic-sol-fa.
He claims to be able to teach any 6-year-old
and has practiced his method upon several of
his own children, including daughter of T. to
such an extent that they can 1t is said, write
music as it is being played and afterward read
1t over without q mistake" There was once a
lad named Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Ana
deus Mozart, who almost equaled this record;
but his fingers were not nimble enough to
write out even Allegris slow Miserere while it
was being performed; he had to wait till after
ward to transcribe the closely-kept traditional
chant of the Sistine Chapel. Verify, the world
advances. with ronic-sol-fa well in the lead.
A BENEFIT concert for the sufferers by last
weeks catastrophe is suggested, and surely the
spectacle of some two-score homes whose
breadwinners are dead or disabled appeals
strongly for the active sympathy of the COM
munity. If any one takes the matter up in
earnest, there will be no backwardness on the
part of the music-makers and the press in re-
spending to the call. That was thoroughly
proven by the well-remembered Charleston
Relief Concert. The difficulty in all such en-
terprises is to get the public interested enough
to make the process worth all the time and
effort involved. The situation is correctly dag
nosed in the prompt offer Of Director ]. P. Nc
Collum: IF any one will furnish the house, the
Mozart Club will furnish the music" He did
not mean the 'hall." as reported, but the aud
ience-quite different matter. No doubt
many other musical clubs, and individuals
would fall in line with the Mozarts Just as soon
as some one undertakes, with reasonable basis
for success, to manage the concert and sell
enough tickets to make it worth while. Here
is the emergency; hero step forth!
THE general rehearsals of the Festival
Chorus, under Mr.. Carl Retter's direction, will
be held each Thursday evening in
the First M. P. Church, Fifth avenue, near
Smithfield street. The College Hall, on
Eighth street, which has been outgrown by the
full chorus, will still serve for part rehearsals;
for ladies on Monday evenings, for gentlemen
on Friday evenings. A mass meeting is to be
held next Tuesday evening in Old City Hall to
devise ways and means for carrying on the Ex-