Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-21
Christmas Programmes Suggest What
the Art Divine Owes to the
Church rs Its Patron.
LATEST STAR COURSE CONCERT.
Ethelbert Nevin's Successful Recital at
Boston and Reasons Why Ruben
stein Resigns.
MRS. THURBER INVOKEs CONGRESS-.
An Interesting Budget Of News and Comment From All
Quarters Of the Globe.

The excellent custom OF preparing special
ly elaborate programmes for the great
church festivals brings to the front at this
time the large body of choir singers and or
gauist>, whose constant and jealous work
does not usually receive the public acknOwl-
edgment really due to so valuable factor
in the musical life of the community.
We often think of what the church owes
to musical art, Tor supplying in public wor-
ship the invaluable element that can best
soften the heart uplift the soul and prepare
the soil for the good seed there sought to be
implanted. Perhaps we do not think as
much as we should of what music owes to
the church.
To saw nothing of the priceless treaures of
sacred music which the church has called
into being bv furnishing to the composer in
spration and market; to pass over the
founding and maintaining OF schools and
other means of encouraging musical educa-
ton, that we owe to ecclesiastical influence;
not TO mention that church buildings
supplied the place of concert halls for
choral and other high-clasS concerts
through the early days of our Ameri-
can cities and still continue to do
50 10 a considerable extent: not to tarry over
these more general and past considerations,
we cannot fail to see that the cause of music
IN our own city owes much to the churches,
i for nothing else, for. the fact that they
hold out to a great host of possible singers
aud organists the incentive and the oppor-
tuuity to acquire some knowledge of, and
practical facility in, what may here with
more than usual appropriateness be termed
the art Divine"
Our churches in their stated services and
occasional social or charitable entertain
meats afford much greater volume of op-
portuaIty for musical activity and actually
enlist MANY more performers, than all the
other public or private concerts, recitals
and musicales put gether. More money,
too, is earned by our singers and solo
players from these church activities than
from all their other appearances combined.
1t is quite true that much OF the so-called
music current in church affairs is upon a
yerv low artistic plane; some OF it-"Gos-
pei Hymns" for instance-may be posi-
lively evil in its influence. But the bottom
rung OF the ladder is the first step toward
the top, and the general upward tenden.y
OF church music in Pittsburg has never been
so noticeable as now.
In the local columns this morning will be
found q notice of the special features
Of the Christmas programmes, which lend a
certain timelineSs to these remarks upon a
department OF modest musical work that
really forms she indispensable underpinning
TO the more ambitious activities of our musi-
cal community.
-
The Philharmonic Club Concert.
The concert given by the New York Phil
harmonic Club, in the Star course at Car
negie Hall, Allegheny, last Tuesday even
ing, was attended by an audience of con-
siderable size. There was still room, how
ever, for hundred or more of the pupils for
whom half rates are offered in this course
and for whom so good concert as that of
Tuesday would have had no little educa-
tional value.
The programme began with two move
ments of a sextet (Op. 79) composed by
specially for this club; the noe
Iura was melOdious and fluent in style,
without showing any great originality in
With Schumann's "Traeumerei''
WAS bracketed character piece by Frederic
Cowen (misnamed Corven) entitled
L Espagnole," very quaint and
dainty bit of composition. rather
Mauresque in color. Schubert's beau
tifully tuneful quintet, Op. ia,
for piano, violin, cello and bass, with its
pellucid form and Spontaneous flow OF mel
ody opened well the second part of the pro-
gramme, which closed with Godard's
"Danse des BOhemiens," another fine bit of
character work, full of wild Magyar rhvthms
and melodlc intervals and most effectively
worked up to startling climax. Such a
selection does credit to this club and singles
II out from the general run of pretended
chamber-music organizations on the road.
Nor was the ensemble playing of the club
at all unworthy of the music. There were
admirable purity and balance OF tone. ex-
reptlonal finish and much intelligence in
all the interpretations. Mr.. Rich
ard Arnold played wieniawski's
cond Polonaise in a musicianly stvle,
which quite outweighed the few
technical slips, and earned him
a hearty encore. The encore iend started
In with the first soloist-Mr. Charles Hem
man, who played on the violoucello with
pure taste and stvle the Reverie bv Bot
teSini, who used to play it himself on the
contra-bass. Each succeeding solo number
had to be repeated. Mr.. Eugene Weiner,
the fautist, gave a broad rendering of the
adaCio from the Sonata in B fat, written by
Bach for Frederick the Great. Miss Marion
5. Weed, the coEtralto, accompanying the
Philharmonlcs on this tour, sang the thrill
ing aria from Saint. Saens' opera,
'Samsou ct Dalila," now being performed
in Paris with such success. Miss Weeds
voice is one of exceptional richness, volume
an eyenness; she sang with much taste and
intelligence, too, but she lacked the re-
quisite emotional intensity for this aria.
Her encore ballads were simple and effect
lively sung.
~
A Young Pittsburger's Success.
The recital given at Chickering Hall,
Boston, last Tuesday evening, by Mr..
Ethelbert Nevin, assisted by Mrs. Walter C.
Wyman. had financial success quite e1-
traordinary for that surfeited music center,
and-better still-scored an exceptional ar
tistic success. This is part of what Boston's
best critic Mr.. Phillip Hale, says in
signed review about the Pittsburg pianist
and composer:
The two pieces by Grieg were charmingly
played, as was the Chopin mazurka, and In
music of this class MIR. Nevin is without rival
among the younger pianists of the city. His
playing is so sympathetic, so full OF sensuous
charm: and ii these qualities are missed the
pianist has mistaken his calling, for they
cannot be replaced by brilliancy Of technique
nr that vague and mysterious quality called
'inteleCtualify.'
The songs of Mr.. Nevin show again the emo
tiOnal nature of the man. They are simple,
they tell their story in few notes. they are
written with knowledge of the voice, they
are never oVerweiEhted in the accompaniment.