The record-union., 1899-04-23

6tSk3NO
Some Beethoven and Schubert auto
graph manuscripts that had belonged
to the late A w. Thayer, the biogra-
pher of Beethoven, have been sod at
auction in Londcn. The trombone parts
to the choral portion of the ninth sym
phony brought $225; four pages con-
tanning the songs "Ah Perfdo'' and
"Heidenroslein," $120; ''Kennst du das
Land" two pages, $62; autograph let
ters Of Beethoven brought from $50 to
$105 each. Four Schubert songs were
sold at from $105 to $165 each.
From the Musical Courier: The max
er of a great style, a lyric poet, who Sc
| lected as an instrument the "other har-
mony of prose-" master of character
ization and the creator of several i'm
perishable volumes, Gustave Flauhert,
at the close of his century is a more
formidable figure than ever. Never was
the life of a genius SO barren of con-
tent-never had there seemingly been
such a waste of force In forty years
only four completed books, three tales
and an unfinished volume; a sort Of sat
yrieon and a lexicon of stupidity-what
else is ''Bouvard ct Pechuchet?" The
outlay of power was just short of the
phenomenal and this Colossus of Crois-
set-one falls into superative when
dealing with him-this man tormented
| by an ideal of style, a man who formed
a whole generation of writers, is only
now coming into his kingdom. In his
correspondence the most facle, the
most impersonal the least impossible
of artists; in his work he is most con-
centrated, objective and reticent. There
never has been in French prose such a
denselyspun style, the web fairly glis-
tening with the idea. But of opacity,
there is none. Like one of those mar
velous tapestries woven in the hidden
East, the clear Woof of Flaubert's motif
is never obscured or tangled. George
Moore declares Il Educat ton Sentiment
tale'' as great a work as Tristan und
Isolde" 1t is the polyphcny, the mag
ical crossings, rec1ossings, the inter
weaving of the subject and the long,
elEptical, thematic loops, made with
such consummate ease that command
admiration. Flaubeat was above all a
musician, a musical poet. The ear was
his final court CT appeal, and to make
sonorOus cadenceJ in a, language that
lacks essential richness-it is without
the great diapasonic undertow of the
Anglo -Saxon-was short of the mirac-
ulous. Until Chateaubriand and Victor
/ HugO's time, the French"tongue was
rather a formal pattern than a plastic
/ liquid collocation Of sounds. They blaz d
the path of Flaubert, and he, with al
m9st Spartan restraint AMI logical mind,
made the language richer, still more
flexible, more musical, more polished
and precise. The wcrd and the idea
We're indissolubly associated, a perfect
welding of matter and manner.
London Saturday Review: Wha. is
the controlling factor of the Whole mat
ter Of the failure of English opera?
Surely it is that being a commercial
people We always expect. opera to- be a
commercial success, which it never can
be. No enc has ever made it pay;
but trying to Go so is surely the secret
Of its bad taste in England Other ma
tions can't make it Fay. But we ale
accustomed to think nothing is good
! that is not a financial success. Hence
managers play the same cid favorites
over and over again, striving to make
receipts equal expenses, and seldomI
dare to bring out anything fresh, unless
| it has already received a reput ation
abroad. For we take every thing from
abroad; the foreign managers take
nothing from US. They pay no at.en-
tion whatever to what is going on in
the London opera. For this reason
Villiers Stanford and other English
composers have taken their operas
abroad and have had there success de-
MED to them at hCme. Comm.ssi ions
are of very little use, because it is not a
commission that the true and cultivated
musician wants, but recognition by his
own countrymen. Until an opera-house
is open to them they will not write
English opera at all, but will continue
to write operas in German style and
have them played in Germany. We
can never be an artistic nation, I'LL at
least the ell-educated part of US cease
to apply to art (and litreature) the s.trle
principles of value as it applies to Goals
or cheese.
Beethoven's pedigree has been traced
further back than his biographers have
so far succeeded in doing. In l713 a
tailor named Heinrich Abelard van
Beethoven bought a house in Antwerp.
He had twelve children; one of these,
named Ludwig, became conductor and
was the grandfather of the composer.
Grant Allen, in his latest novel, Lin
net introduces an innkeeper named
Andreas Hans berger, who is also a great
musician and the leader of a troupe cf
native singers. Andreas has a theory