The record-union., 1897-10-17

New York Post: If Anton Seidl were
not such a modest man, he would be
made vain bx his brilliant successes
abroad since he left New York for a
few months At Bayreuth he had the
honor of opening the Wagner festival
with a performance of ''ParSifal, which
the critics declared the finest ever
heard There was a great ovation for
him, and Siegfried Wagner introduced
him to the orchestra in a little Speecn,
as follows: "a Knight of the Grail, who
has remained distant from its precincts
only too long, has been won over again
to US I introduce to you Kapellmeister
Anton SeidI, one of the chosen, to con-
duct the work with the history Of whose
creation he has been so Intimately con-
nected'' After conducting F'Parsifar
few times Mr. SeidI had TO hasten
back to London, where his Wagner in
terpretations have been the talk OF all
musical circles. The criticS-with one eX
ception-pronounced them the best ever
heard in London The one exception
was the Saturday Review" which, af-
ter declaring that SeidPs 'Lohengrin'
conducting was the best Londoners had
ever heard. made the amusing asser-
tion that his Tristan and ''Walkure'
were less satisfactory because he had
been spoiled by the vulgar American
audiences-a combination of chauvin-
ism and Stiffness of which only the Sat
urday Review is capable.
Charles Mathews had reached the al
Iotted age Of man before he played his
farewell engagement" in London One
night there was an unconscionably long
wait in the performance of my
Awful Dad" After the statutory ten
minutes had expired, and the curtain
showed no signs of rising, one of the
gods vociferated, do hurry along,
or else Charley will be too old to act !"
The wit of the gallery is proverbial,
and it was never more keenly exer-
cised than on the first night Oh Lon
don production some years since. The
leading actor-a well-known man-took
an unconscionable time a-dying, and
ladled out the lengths with tedious
elaboration. Whereupon voice from
the upper regions exclaimed, I'VE hope
were not keeping you up, sir"
London has had chance to hear
Richard Strauss new symphonic poem,
York, but did not go wild over the per-
formance of it One of the critics says
that ''as the work, which is divided into
numerous sections, each bearing its
own title, has no fewer than fourteen
different themes, and the score is one
of the most complicated in the whole
repertory of music, 1t would obviously
be absurd to venture upon an opinion
of Oft J7c IN 1af of
the music in this long forty minute
piece is unlovely may be granted.
Strauss probably intended it to be 30.
That the finale is quite unique is also
true enough. Like the book of Met
zsche' on which it is based, the music
has no real ending, the sudden breaking
off indicating the eternally unanswered
question But although there is a good
deal of nonsense in the labelling of the
themes-a curse upon patience -motir
for once was aptly named-the extraor-
binary ability which the composer has
shown as a master of orchestral scor-
ing is beyond doubt"
DR.. Hanslick's concluding article on
Brahms in the Vienna "Neue Freie
Presse'' contains some interesting an
ecdotes and personal details. 1t ap-
pears that Brahms was quite as con-
servative in his literary taste as in his
musical proclivities. Swift, Fielding
and Jean Paul were among his favor
ite authors, whom he read and reread
to his last hour, the former in German
versions, as he had no gift for Ian
guages and had never learned even
English or French For Bismarck he
felt unbounded admiration. and only
three weeks before his death he secured
the two volumes of Bismarcks Boswell
DR.. Busch. OF modern painters he
especially esteemed Menzel and Max
Klinger, though he always reserved the
right to criticise everybody. and often
did so in a rather offensive way. His
most intimate friend, next to DR.. Hans
lick, was the eminent surgeon Billroth
who, In one of his letters to Hanslick.
compared Brahms with Beethoven, re-
marking that he Shared some of that
composer weaknesses as well as his
virtues, especially in being often in
considerate and insultingly rude
toward his friends, never having quite
succeeded in overcoming the disad-
vantages Of neglected education. At
ter Billroth's death Brahms asked
geon's letters, and Hanslick gave him
half a dozen. AS ilI-luck would have it
the batch included the one containing
the above criticism, with which Brahms
was naturally not particularly pleased
Bfllroth detested Wagner, and it is
rather odd that in one of Brahms let
ters to Hanslick the following sentence
should occur: And our friend Billroth
still refuses to become a Magnetic?
Why does he wait so long, since he is
bound to get there some day?" How
ever, this may have been intended as
hadinage, to which Brahms was ad-
dicted.
writer Of some recently published
English theatrical "reminiscences de-
elares that theater audience does not
like to be deprived of its anticipated
pleasures. In a Lancaster town a few
years back the great drama of 'sSwee-
ney Todd" was played on a Saturday
night. After the wicked barber of
Fleet street had been brought to justice
and was duly placed on the scaffold to
expiate his atrocious crimes. the stage
manager rang down the curtain. I'm
luckily for him, the audience had no in
tention Of being trifled with and they
insisted that the representative of Mr..
Todd should be hanged, in the inter
tests of dramatic art If not, they
would know the reason why-and also
have their threepences back The di-
lenma was not relieved by the fact
that the actor positively declined to be
executed merely to satisfy the ultra