The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-11-11
IN THE music WORLD
Frederic Deans Lecture a
Complete Successful
Second Appearance.
TIE SONG WRITER'S OF EUROPE
Notes in Many Keys-A Musical
Story Told for the First
Time.
TIE SONG WRITER'S OF EUROPE

educational and from the artistic point
OF view. The subject was 1.-THE Song
Writers of Europe" a rru itful theme.
upon which. II the student but enter, he
is sure to dnd at every turn new induce
ments TO lead him further into a maze of
melo dies. AS the lecturer said Ia his
introduction; Music. the universal
language, has Its prose and its poetry;
the one. harmony; the other. melody.
The one can be taught aud learned, the
separate phrases can ba parsed aud an
alyzed by known and established rules /,
but where is the teacher who ever in
structed his pupils In the art OF III Melody
Melody that divine mind that I, we'll
where 1t listeth?"
In the study OF the son writer's of
Europe, the lecturer considered a ma
tfonal division more useful than a chro n
illogical, since the nationAl- characterize
tics instinctively shaped themselves III
melody and colored the nations songs
for all time. These characteristics are so
sharply defined that the songs ara known
by distinctive names. so that we have
Italian arias, French chansons, German
liecer and English ballads.
1t was in Italy that solo singing prac-
tically began. first with a sort of mono-
tonous r~ecitative, developing gradually
into the defined air or aria. By the time
of francesca Cavalli. born in 1900. the
year that saw the first oratorio and the
first opera, the aria had taken on some
thing of its present form. The aria
'DelizIe, Coutsufe." from CarallI's opera
of ..Giasone" (l67l) the first to be pro-
duced Mt Rome. is fairly representative of
the form of that day. Il 10 for %contralto.
aud was sung last night by Mrs. Frederic
Dean.
MRS. DEANS FIRST APPEARANCE.
1t was Mrs. Deans first appearance
before a Jersey City audience. but IL the
wishes OF that audience count for n "
thing, 1t will not be her last. The most
prominent characteristics of her voice
are It's sympathetic quality and its mellow
richness aud fullHess OF lone. The
ordeal through which she passed was the
most severe to which she could have been
subjscted-to sing In one evening twenty
songs, mainly unfamiliar to the audience.
many interesting more from the musl-
clans rather that from the aethetlc
standpoint, and to sing them so as to
keep the audience interested throu ghout
the entire e~vening-for not Que left be-
fore the conclusion-is a feat of which
she may well be proud. That in the
twentieth song her voice showed no wear
mess Is the highest tribute TO her method.
That she faithfully interpreted everyone
attests her versatility. II Ishould choose
LQ0 TOUT SOuRS III WulCu auC 6UpcArSu u
best advantage they would be Beurberg's
"Brahma. Thou Mighty God" for earu-
estness and passion; La Violetta," for
vicacity; the Mozart Wiegsulled for
purity of tone, and Waguer's "Traeums"
for soto TOce passages.
To resume Mr.. Dean skstched the
progress of the Italian song through
Scarlatti. Pejolesi aud Gordi2iana. from
whose works he selected LA Vlolebta."
Nina" aud a peasant song, LA Bian-
china" respectively. He told the some-
what a p%ocrypbal story OF ~"Stradeila's
Prayer" whose singing saved the COM
poser's life, and Mrs. Dean sang the
aria.
THE GERMAN SCHOOL.
The German lied, according to Mira.
Dean. began With the Min nesingers.
Mrs. Dean sang in iliustratio Il of these
primitive melodies W son Is of Helm
rich Albert Q604-1655) from MSS. TO
show how great com posers eau do little
things well she sang five little
Meyerbeer and Schum ann. In accord
ance with his plan of following the early
songs with their modern Developments,
he presented Bohm's Still as the Nj ght"
and Wsgner's Dreams" All thr ough
this part of the programme music aud
lecture suffered from incorrect pronun-
citation of the German language. AS
blS VA AVA hAAh oooAt "a
'sErl~King'' (Schubert) vas sung by Mr..
Henry Lincoln Case. Mr.. Dean rejoiced
the hearts of the accompanies who have
had the thing to play, by stating Schu.
bert's own words that sit takes a virtuoso
o play those triplets."
THE FRENCH SCHOOL.
The French chauson presenJs a rhyth-
mic measure such as is observed in
dancing. Three little chansons of the
eleventh century showed the power of
the wandering minstrel as a singer of
love notes. OF religious music. and OF the
measures of the dance. The modern
French song was illustrated by Mr.. Case,
who sang Bizst's .Ssreuade." Godard's
Tell Me" and Massenet's ''Elegy."
The Scandinavian aud Russian songs
were passed over quickly, closing with
Tscnaikowsky's "Yearning." which re-
ceived an added interest from the un-
timely death Of the composer this week.
We had the pleasure of hearing Mr..
Dean as a vocalist as well as lecture in
Meyer Helmund's duet in canon, mo
Furnace, No Fire"
It is necessary only to compare this
eminently successful lecture with that of
Last week to point the moral that good
story without jarriug Interruptions.
With lectures such as this the purse
will be a real educational factor 10
musical circles.
MINOR MATTERS.
While l am on the topic of the lean
lectures, let me let q musical cat out of
the bag. l was at the first unfortunate
lecture. when Mr.. Dean told the audience
ID at ,neY would now hear the "Rlde OF
the Valkyries'' from the Nibelungen
Tri;ogies. The two piaaists looked at
each other. Neither had a scrap Of music,
Finally one went to the piano and played
we'll. i dou't know what IL
was. Something improvised on
the sDur of the moment. made
up of chromarics in the left hand
and wild arpegsos in the right. 1t was a
heroic attempt to avoid a 1asco, AMI as
such successful. but ii the valkyrs rode
to that music it must have been a trolley
ride.
Now the joke is that barring che front
row, where the people in IMPLICATED in the
affair were sitting, no one in the audi
ence found 1t out; and have not found it
ont even unto tnlsSday.
There are lots of such cats that one
could let out OF musical bags Ii IL were
Lot telling tales.
Three trios OF MI. Gustav L. Becker.
for ~violius, which were glven last year at
the FortnighIly. will be- produced next
Monday night at the opening meeting OF
the New York Manuscript Society, ar
Carnegie Music Hall.
The following programme will be pre-
sented tomorrow evening at the Bergen
Baptist Church,
Organ, .Magnifcat" ....., Ed. Lemairre
i. n. Bartlett.
William Reed.