Evening star., 1897-03-13

say that majority of these singers of both
sexes are selfsupporting residents of this
community. most of them being employed
in the departments. They have in general
come to Washington from small towns all
over the country. in order to cultivate their
voices and to earn here enough money to
enable them to do SO. Many of them exc
out their incomes by singing in the cho!rs.
and if there is any American city that has
better choirs than those of Washington. l
have never seen it, and yet l have been
around a bit, too
After they have saved up enough money
many of the young singers who come first
to Washington. go abroad for two or
three-year course. / believe it is coming to
be generally considered that this is rather
a upertiuOus trip, unless young woman
who makes such trip wishes 10 fit herself
for grand opera. The American vocal
teachers. men and women, are exceedingly
capable Many of them have spent long
periods of preparation for their work
abroad and some of the best of these in
structors live in Washington. Some young
women singers of my acquaintance asked
Lillian Nordca, who ] believe. is esteemed
to possess a moderately good voice. what
she thought. when she was here. the other
day. of the finishing course abroad.
i simply think that it is entirely un-
necessary. she said. never had such a
course. and you know, | have been fair
lE successful as a singer. | got all of my
instruction and so-called finishing" in BoS-
ton. and ii was only when | wished to
master the difficulties of Wagner and to
sing his operas that | went TO Germany.
Moreover. a girl going over to the other
side to have her voice improved stands
often an excellent chance to have it hope
lesSiy ruined. for many of the European
methods are barbarously destructive of the
human voice
High Standard of Musical Culture.
The general standard of musical culture
of community can be infallibly deter
mined he 0f he 10 fOr
which the demand is greatest. Well, long
ago discovered that it was a pure waste of
money for me to order great numbers of
copies of songs. the craze of other cities in
anticipation of immense sales. and after l
had gotten severely left several times / quit
doing it. l refer now to the My Mother
Was Lady and the Just Tell Them That
You Saw Me sort of songs-'beery songs
is our way of terming them. on account of
their general maudliness of sentiment.
Those songs are. of course unfailingly
heard whistled on the streets and hummed
in the offices of Washington. but the Wash
inston musical people don't become suffi-
ciently interested in them to buy copies,
whereas in nearly every large city in the
United States, as soon as one of these etch
things, like After the Ball. sounds its first
maddening echoes on the streets, everybody
who has any sort of musical instrument or
a voice buys a copy of it. and the residence
district of such cities become bowling pan
demoniums until the craze wears off
The demand for songs of an exceedingly
high character IS very great in Washing
ton and | think a perfectly impartial COM
parison of the music on the top of the piano
in an average Washington home with the
music reposing in the same place-well, say
in Chicago home. would show a diver
gence in the character of the people that
might be even humorous. The song pub
fishers often write to me that the demand
In Washington for songs published in the
foreign tongues is three times as large as
In any other city in this country, and when
1t is remembered that all such songs are
very difficult, and of the very highest class
1 take such letters as pretty fair compli-
ments to the musical taste of the people
here.