The herald., 1897-04-19

to look at the score and run over the
ANVIL Chorus on the pianoforte.
What do you think of that?" asked
the master.
Trash" said the connoisseur.
Verdi rubbed his hands and chuckled.
"Now look at this, and this" he said.
Rubbish"
The composer rose and embraced him
with a burst of joy.
What do you mean?" asked the critic.
MY dear friend" cried Verdi. Il have
been making popular opera. In II
resolved to please everybody except the
great judges, the classicists, like you.
Had pleased you, should have pleased
no one else. What you say assures me
Of my success. In three months III
Trovatore" will be sung, and roared.
and whistled, and barrel-organed all
over Italy"
Vienna lost its head and heart to
Grieg this year, just as everybody has
done who has heard the Norwegian's
music properly interpreted. Some of the
critics say that he is not really great
as a pianist and yet playing his own
works, he does something that no other
pianist has done-he makes you live his
life with him. In Grieg's music the
whole spirit of the Northland seems 20
speak. He Is the founder of the north
ern school of music. He says himself
that his work is due to the influence of
the Norwegian poet, Richard Nordraak,
who taught him the folk songs of
Scandinavia and how to interpret and
to understand his own northern nature.
The Viking blood, the beliefs in elemen-
tai gods and in such creatures as were
wolves linger in the northern blood. 1t
can never flow in a commonplace cur
rent. It's fjords are too deep, it's noun
tains too high and its winters too long.
;s- 90 al1 hi r,~taa
shows it to you in his music. 1t Is unfor-
gettable.-Munsey.
Johann Strauss new opera, "The Cod
dess of Reason" was produced in Vienna
recently. Much of the music is the best
the composer has produced for the last
ten years. There is much in it which will
become popular, and more that is ex-
quisitely refined and melodious. The IL
bretto was written by Herren Buch-
binder ard Wilmer, two Viennese au
thors, and tells an interesting story of
the Reign of Terror in France. The
piece demands a great number of good
singers. There are no fewer than three
pairs of lovers. The Goddess" is sung
by Nine. Kopacsi Karcsag. Among the
several very good songs and duets,
which will no doubt soon be played
everywhere. is a fine Hussar song,
which is the leitmotiv of the work The
action passes in the year 1898, partly in
the camp at Chalons, and partly in
pensionnat. The music from one end
to the other of 1.-THE Goddess of Reason"
is as full of melody as If Strauss was in
the vigor of his days, instead of having
passed, his seventy-second birthday
There was only one shadow on the
brightness of the first nights success
Strauss was prevented by illness from
attending the performance.
hout ten wears ago some American
girls who We're studying music in Berlin
called upon Waldemar Bargiel. He re-
ceived them kindly, supposing that they
wanted to become his pupils. But when
they told him that they had come simply
in order to have the honor of meeting a
man whose compositions they greatly
admired, tears came into his eyes and he
confessed that this was a new expert
ence in his life. On February "a Profess
sor Bargiel died, and no one seems to
have deemed the fact important enough
to cable 1t across the ocean. Yet Bargfel
was a very much greater musician than
Mascagni or Leoncavallo, whose death
would have been commented on by cable
by the column He never wrote any
show pieces for the frivolous public, but
among his piano pieces and chamber
music there are numbers which Schu-
mann might have written, and which
Brahms has not equaled. Bargiel was
born in Berlin in 1928. He was a step
brother of Clara Schumann, and among
his teachers were such eminent men as
Richter, Gade and Moscheles. Fifteen
years ago he was appointed president of
what is known as the Meisterschule in
Berlin, for advanced pupils only, and
since 1875 he has conducted the Bach So
ciety. His music will be known when
the very names of many composers now
familiar are forgotten.