The San Francisco call., 1898-01-09

.s.'sThe fire in the Columbia has been ;:the one excitement of the theatrical week, I told you last Sunday that "At .: Gay COney Island was a warm show. When it all happened I was on my way ;to Miss Whites folk-Song recital at the California. A cab, with a hose cart in front of it. a fire engine behind it and a man paler than his shirt bosom inside it came shooting down the Kearny street car track. The hose cart baked near the corner of Post street, the en- zine tried to jump the track and came crash against the rear wheel of the cab. There was moment of suspense as the cab stood up on one wheel and I heard the voice of Mir. Friedlander-four-f -fifths of him out in the night-offering the driver an extra dollar to get him to the Columbia ahead of the fire department l saw by the papers next morning that MT. Friedlander had wasted his dollar. By the time he arrived on the scene Mir. Gottlob had delivered his little " speech about a member of the company being ill and the money waiting in the box office to be refunded, and the eight .:: hundred or less persons who were in :.the theater when the fire broke out had been piloted safely to the sidewalk. ',.' :. It was the most valuable speech that = ever was made in the Columbia, and I z congratulate MT. Gottlob on his tact and nerve. It goes to show, too, that managers should always have few of these fre-escape remarks up their sleeves in case of emergency.
 > :: For several seasons the California :: has been an elephant on the hands of tits lessees. fear it is to be used only in case of fire. With the exception of the Henschel recitals, nothing there has paid in the last season or two. And even in this instance, Messrs. Fried lander, GOttlob and Marx made no pro- 1t worth speaking of. They asked a nominal sum for the rental of the theater sooner than run chances on a percentage of the business. Theatrical folk say the house is hoodooed. And at any rate it is not a popular theater. Location has something to do with this; so has the chill fact that the house-is never properly heated. I have captured most of the colds of my life in the California Theater. Now, while the Columbia is being mended, the new managers will have an opportunity to warm up the place. Nellie McHenry is sure to draw audiences that will justify S- expected of MT. Broadhurst's farce What Happened to Jones,' which Harry Corson Clarke has secured for the West, and will soon introduce at the California with a brand new farce company of his own.
 I regret that Miss Villa Whitney Whites wonderful little talks and in terpretations of German folk-song should have gone scandalously un- patronfzed. Miss White is an artist and a student, and she offered a blend of entertainment and education of which few living women or men are capable. Persons go abroad to learn such things as were made lucid and beautiful at these recitals. I wonder where all the good symphony folk were concealed while Miss White was at the California? Several thousand of them were glaringly missing.
 
 Music is not of much matter with the most of the crowd that patronizes thesymphony matinees. I think they go because they have a vague idea that going is the nice thing. Observe the spasms of applause whenever Scheel falls to playing something sweet and gaudy, and you will find their ears. However, so long as fashion furnishes the means for art, what care we about :: her artistic conscience. The present season would never have been possi- 'ble without the patronage of many eIe- gant persons who do not know Schu- mann from Sousa.
 The programme for Thursdays con- :. cert includes Tschaikowskis pathetic symphony-or, as it was dubbed by a grim .humorist, who found in its music something analogous to the death of the composer, the suicide symphony. It is easily the most sensational of re- cent paintings. It stirred London ito the soul. Here Is a London annota- tors account of it, for which I am much indebted to William Greenbaum:
 Tschaikowsld's symphonic Pathetique" was first performed under the direction of its composer at concert of the Russian Musical Society on October IS, 1893. The :.. Leipsic Signale tells us that although the composer was recalled many times at the finish, he was not satisfied with = the effect which his new work had pro- %:duced and he expressed a hope that 1t .: might soon be performed again, to enable : if being understood. To this end he also gave It. after the performance, the title .: "Symphonie Pathetique," little thinking <: how soon his wish would be gratified and the new title become, indeed, strangely appropriate. few days afterward the master was dead. and on October 2S his funeral took place"
 e s+The movements of the Pathetic Sym ": ;phony are, emotionally, so significant that :: ::.oils can scarcely resist the conviction that ' .Tschaikowski had a programme" in his :: :::rnind when writing them. In the absence :. >1ly any avowal of the kind on his part, :: however, each nearer must supply :.:!:Yoetic basis" of his own-it is better : he should do than receive one built % from. the impressions of another
 :"::- The work opens with a short Adagio, .> the theme of which Is based on the first :. figure of the chief theme of the succeed ~ ing Allegro. When the latter has been