Evening star., 1897-03-31
IN MUSICAL CIRCLES
What Miss Ella Russell Says of American
Singers in Europe.
Mr.. jerome Hopkins Tells Of Mistakes
Made I'm Attempting 10 Cultivate
American Musical Taste.

''for at the great Haendel festival, which
takes place in London next June. the three
principal female soloists will be Nine.
Nordica, Nine. Albani and myself-all Of
us Americans. / have found" continued
Miss Russell. that talent is recognized
everywhere, and that art knows nation
atty"
Miss Russell was highly pleased with her
reception by Mrs. Mckinley, and said
she had been presented to all the dis
tinguished people who had been invited to
hear her. She said she was looking for
ward with interest to the work she is to
do in New York next week. when she
sings the soprano role in Elijah" with
the Oratorio Society of that city. She
says that is probably the last work she
will do In this country before returning TO
Europe, although she has had offers to
appear in opera. Next season. possibly.
she may return and be heard In opera
Her repertoire is quite extensive and in
cludes all the leading roles in Italian and
German works. While she used to prefer
florid scores, such as Gilda, in "Rigoetto."
but now that her voice and style has
broadened she prefers the more dramatic
roles, such as Santuzza, in the 'Cavalleria
Rusticana." and Elizabeth. in Tam
hauser," the latter being now her favorite
part.
Miss Russell is Illustration of what
an American woman can accomplish by
conscientious and persistent effort and in
domitable pluck
Mr.. Jerome Hopkins. in talking recently
upon the subject Of our national aptitude
for music, the best methods for our i'm
provement and the causes of our prodigious
national failures. offered few observa-
lions based upon his experience of
twenty years travel and concert giving in
between three and four hundred American
towns and thirty forty In England,
Scotland. Ireland and Wales. Mr.. Hopkins
is thoroughly American in his sentiments.
md halia in tlan
musicians as opposed to those imported
from foreign lands and who come here SIM
ply for the money that is in it, He is
good deal of an iconoclast, and does not
hesitate to overthrow musical gods OF
every description whom he deems to be un-
worthy of worship. At the commencement
of his talk he said: II set out with the
broad assertion that the majority of tech
nical musicians, pianists. vioinists, singers
and conductors, as well professional
teachers of technics. are about as fit to di-
fect the intellectual and commercial phases
of the art as The Italian sewer builders In
our streets are to engineer such works or
cur bricklayers and hodcarrers are to play
architect 1t is also plain to me that our
board of education, our church music COM
mitteees and that large class of entertain
ment directors who provide music for pub
lie functions constantly sin against the
simplest rules Of common sense by ap-
pointing officers unfit for their duties
as the average church sexton would be to
d
quadrile.''
He then referred as examples to the CEN
tennial of 1876 in Philadelphia. and to the
worlds fair in Chicago where although
great sums OF money were spent for nu-
Sic, 1t was all given to foreig@ musicians
many of when had openly a owed their
contempt for this country and native art
lists, and who admitted that their only
object in living here was for the money
mat there was in it. He referred to the
So,uto paid to the great Wagner for a
march &c be dedicated TO our centennial
which, he alleged, was SO poor a work that
its composer not only never rsked its
performance in Europe, but even laughed
at It in conversation with the late King
Ludwig of Bavaria as being "a boyish
etude in triplets good enough for the dogs
of Americans"
Mr.. Hopkins then referred to the Amer
| lean Opera Company. which sunk S49O.uoo
In Its brief but glitterfng career. and which
produced not single American opera dur
Ing its existence. and of the so people
composing 1t only eight We're Americans
he next spoke of the method of teach
Ing music in our public schools, believing
That the system was entirely wrong and
ought TO be remedied at the earliest Dos
sible moment. Mr.. Hopkins concluded as
follows:
now. the lessons to be drawn from these
items of musical history are many, but
plain, and surely prove that in the ex-
penoiture or money for artistic glory our
ofncials have not been a very dazzling sue
cess.
IF We now look for a government recop
milton of national art, genius in other ways.
examples are not wanting. Messrs Story
Ball, Crawford. Mills and the rest, Ameri-
can sculptors, architects and painters
have had about s2,0O0.0O0 of Uncle Sans
money between them for work done at the
nations capital alone. When. where and
how, l should like to know has our GOV
ernment given the slightest substantial or
any other kind of recognition to the genius
OF Fry, Bristow, Deems. Gleason, Foote,
Paine. Bird. Strong or E. C. Phelps musi-
cal composers, who, with Others have
helped to shed glory our country in the
gentlest but by no means the least puis-
SAINT of the arts? The stale and tiresome
excuse OF lazy Old fogies that we are
young country and that musical emancipa-
tion will come by ITSELF no longer holds,
for young baby III years old, as 1t seems
to me, ought no longer to plead the baby
act, and L See no valid excuse for feaSting
the architects, painters and sculptors while
starving the composers. The great Whar-
ton. author of the famous treatise on in
ternational law. hath said that in jurispru-
dence 1t is the duty of America to create
laws fitted to the genius of the country and
opposed to the traditions of older civiliza-
tions that we have been taught to revere
Can any one state why the same principle
shall not be applied to art?''
The Sunday Night Music Club met at
Mrs. Ulkes. on S street, and studied the
music of the Boston Orchestra program.
which included the following Wagner COM
positions: Elm Faust Overture; Vorspiel to
the first act of ..Lohengrin," and that TO
the third act; "A Sigfried Idyl," THE
Ride of the Walkyries;'' the "Rienzi' over
ture, in addition to which Miss Berthe
Reichenbach sang the prayer from "Rien-
ri" with piano and string quartet accom-
paniment.
AT musicale given by Nine. M1rio-Celli
| In New York, last Friday, Miss Mary Helen
Howe OF this city sang aria from I'll
Trovatore" in such a manner as to win
great applause. She also sang in trio
Gloria ALA Belta," by Arditi, and took
the soprano role in the quartet from "R;go-
letto," the other singers being Miss Brood
foot, Victor Clodio and Sig De Amia. Be
sides Nine. Murio-Cellis pupils. those who
participated in the program were Victor
Clodio, tenor; ]. ]. Racer, baritone; Pro-
fessor Edward O'Mahony, basso; Sig. Inno-
cente De Anna, baritone: Nine. r. Sacconi
De Anna, harpist; Miss Emma Schlitz and
Sig. Clementino di Macchi. pianists. The
musicale was in celebration of Mme Mu-io-
Cellis birthday, and three of her own COM
positions were sung. The guests included
some of the best musical people of the
metropolis, who congratulated Nine. Murio-
Cell upon the successful work as a teach
er which she had carried on for many
years, and expressed sincere wishes for a
long continuance of her career