Arizona republican., 1898-01-02
MUSICAL NOTES

The Treble Clef club is preparing for another recital. I am glad of this for they cannot give us too much of good thing.
 1 am sorry to announce that the indisposition of Madame Bishop pre- vents her appearance in Phoenix as advertised. Those responsible for the arrangements for Madame Bishops visit are doing good work mus cally
 It seems as if the question of the inventor of the hidden orchestra were about to fall into the category of un- resolved Obscurit:es, like the author ship of the letters Junius on the source of the Nile. In the popular mind, of course, the credit of the 3D. called innovation is given unreserved- ly to Wagner. But the popular mind is in this case the receptacle of a pop ular fallacy. 1t appears, for example to be an established fact that, at the performance of Peri's "Eurydice" in 1900 the orchestra which consisted of a harpischord, a chittarons, 1ira grande and large lute, with the oc- casonal addition of three flutes, was placed behind the scenes. Moreover, we find in a French work d581), Ballet de la Reine,' holiday play, with many musical intermerri, the orchestra hidden out of sight. The players and some of the singers were placed in a wooden enclosure meas ur1ng some nine by nineteen feet. It is explicitly stated that this invisible orchestra sounded soft and beautiful, thus showing that the object sought to be attained was not SO much Gas it evidently was with PerD of an aes- thetic as of an acoustic nature. Again there is no doubt that Gretry at the beginning of the present century ad- vocated the method which Wagner carried out later on. At the same | time, notwithstanding all this the particular form which Wagner's idea took in practice entities him to the credit of an original invention. Amer ica was visited by ships before Col umbus landed; but it was Columbus who discovered it in a way that made it impossible for the rest of the world to forget it.
 The Philharmonics are long time in presenting themselves to the pub lie. I am willing to wait if when they
 step on the stage they give us some 1 thing good They rehearse faithfully and with the talent the club contains something above the average ought to emanate from them.
 A writer in Macmillani discusses in some detail the interesting question or literature and mtfsie+in other words, the attitude of certain leading authors towards music, their knowl- edge of the art, and their tastes. Whlms and antiquities. He gives De Quincey the first place for his intellf- gent interest in music and probably no one who knows of the op,11m eater will be inclined to deny his claim in that regard. DeQuincey was a great admirer of Beethoven and Cher1bini. :. and we know how, when plumb full of laudanum, he used to go to the onpra to hear Grassini. Mendelssohn he did not care for, which perhaps accounts for his slip in attributing 'sSt. Paul'' to Spohr. The music to "Antigone" he considered to be "horribly had l" and suggested that the Old Hundredth be substituted for it in any revival of the tragedy. Johnson, we are re- minded, once asked Burney to teach him Tat least the alphabet of your language" but the musical historian could never have made much, of the man who declared that music excited in his mind no ideas, and hindered him from contemplating his own. Scott had no more of musical ear than Charles Lamb and boldly avowed with COnQreues Jeremy that, although he had reasonable taste for figs, your cantatas gave him the spleen. OA the whole, our authors make rath- >e1 poor show in the matter of music