The San Francisco call., 1895-10-17
MUSIC AND MUSICIANS.
THESE ITEMS ARE DIRECT FROM LATEST ENG
LIsH, FRENCH, GERMAN AND ITALIAN
PAPERS.

|
| While mechanical contrivances have been
| multiplying on all hands, composers have
| hitherto sighed in vain for machine capable
! of transcribing improvisations mechanically.
| One knows how fugitive a composers 1nsplra-
| tion is; sometimes it happens that in following
| the continuation of phrase which presents
| itself to his mind, if he does not Immediately
| transcribe it, he forgets the exact form OF his
original idea. 1t is these struggles to attain to
| the definite ideal which satisfies his artistic
instincts that give the composer the real pain
of composition. If seated at his piano, he had
an automatic transcriber at his orders, how
much time he would save, how many little
tai agonies he would be spared. Up to the
present, in spite of all efforts. no successful
transcriber has been invented, but the French
musical papers now announce that certain
NJ. Rivoire has solved the problem, for he has
invented machine which marks, on paper,
the position and the duration of the notes
struck on the piano. His recorder also divides
the music into bars 1t goes without saying
that the Rivoire machine cannot copy music
exactly as it is printed, with whole notes, half
notes, ETC., and flats and sharps. Such tram
scribing would be too complicated, and SIM
plicity is one of the charms of the invention.
Arthur Pougin, who has seen the machine
work, gives the following description of it.
s'The new 'enregistreur Rivoire' transcribes
whatever is played on the piano by aid of q
roll of paper, over fifty yards long, On which
the signs are marked mechanically by punch
On this paper the notes are indicated by aid OF
a special and very simple stenography which
shows the pitcn and the duration of the notes.
as well as the rests. The stenography is COM
posed of horizontal lines, the width OF which
indicates the duration of the notes, while the
line they occupy shows their pitch. II is so
simple that any one can learn in five minutes
to transcribe IT into ordinary musical nota-
tion. The band of paper is ruled like ordinary
music-paper, only the eighty-four notes of the
key board are represented on it. The machine
can be used on any piano"
If the Rivoire musical recorder ever comes
into general use it VIII cause the number OF
composers to become legion. No doubt 1t will
be boon and a blessing to genuine musicians,
though many of the greatest have never COM
posed at a piano. On the other hand, the re-
corder will let loose on a long-suffering world
all the ambitious efforts of crude dabblers,
whose lack of the knowledge necessary to write
downthe notes they string together has hith-
erto mercifully confined their compositions to
the family circle.
The municipality of Bologna is being held
up TO ridicule by the European musical papers
for making a collection of new Italian operas,
which it seems to have no intention of pro-
ducing. Some years ago certain Baruzzi be-
queathed fund to the municipality which en-
abled it to offer prize of $1,000 every two
years for the best new opera, to be produced at
the city theater, which in Italian towns is SUBJ
sidized by the municipality. This year Gia-
como Orefices "Consuelo'' received the award
and the public was eagerly looking forward to
hearing the new work, VIXEN the municipality
announced that it would be impossible to give
season of opera, as the treasury was not in a
IN ka
"Consuelo" was shelved among the dusty city
archives, and poor Orefiee saw that though
his opera was accepted, his chance of fame was
gone, as the municipality owned his work and
would not let it be produced elsewhere. Not
deferred by the "Consuelo'' episode the Super
visors of Bologna have declared the BaruZzi
competition now open for 1897. 1t remains to
be seen whether any more OF ''young Italy's"
composers will compete for $1,000 in return
for having an opera placed among the city
archives of Bologna.
Francesca Thalberg, daughter OF the great
bassobuffo Lablache and widow of the cele-
brated pianist, has just died at Naples at the
age OF S4. Thalberg was her second husband,
and during his lifetime they were in the habit
OF spending the greater part of the year at the
magnificent and hospitable villa which she
possessed at Pausilippe. Although she was
the daughter of world-renowned singer and
no love for music. All she cared for in society
was to talk or play at cards. So strongly was
her antipathy to music developed that during
the lifetime of her husband, when friends
begged him to play something she always es-
capped from the room on the plea of being
wanted in another part OF the house. There
was another subject on which she not
always at one with her husband Thalberg
was lavishly generous in giving to charity,
and his wife denounced his expenditures as
useless and annoying.
Spain and Mexico have signed a literary
convention which comes into force on the 22d
inst. The Spanish proprietors OF lyric, as we'll
as dramatic works, performed in Mexico, are
to receive 2. and per cent on the proceeds,
according to whether the work contains one,
two or three acts. The law enacts that in the
case of operas, ETC., this percentage shall be
divided equally between composer and libret-
tist. Les Debats points out that this treaty
protects foreign composers whose Governments
have literary treaties with Spain. Mexico is a
country that patronizes opera well, and French
composers are rejoicing in the fact that they
will henceforth receive royalties.
Since the beginning of the summer, the
theater goers of Copenhagen have been pat
ronizing new plan OF entertainment, which
is unique of its kind. A society of ladies hired
theater and put operettas of which the
music had been written by women. The
orchestra. conducted by lady, is also COM
posed exclusively of members of the sex to
which we owe Nine. Cosima Wagner, and on
the stage the male roles are enacted by women
travesticd. Not man is employed about the
house, and it is said that this feminine tneater
is coming money.
The death is announced from Naples of Os-
vino Mercadante, eldest son of the composer
who was the friend of Rossini, author of 1.-THE
Oath," Il Giuramento) 'The Vestal," "Zaira"
and sixty other operas, some of which were
the rage half century ago. Osyino Merca-
dante did not follow in his fathers musical
footsteps, but devoted himself to commerce.
Strange to say he died at the moment that they
were celebrating the hundredth annivarsarv of