The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-05-17

whole year. But he had the greatest
difficulty in being allowed 10 play Il.
as there was a curious old custom IN
Vienna which permitted the players in
the orchestra. to be judges of what new
compositions were to be performed.
Hans Richter, the conductor of the
Vienna orchestra, told him that he
could not arrange to have the concerto
performed unless the orchestra agreed
FhereupOn Brodsky played the Tchai-
kovsky concerto to the band. who said;
Yes, it's all very fine and you play it
very we'll Dut-play something else
He agreed 10 play something else but
a few days before the concert he went
to Richter and said that unless he be
allowed to play the Tchaikovskys con-
certo he would not play at all! This
determination made him master of the
situation, and he had his own way"
Richard Strauss opera, Die Feuers-
nsth." has already been given sixteen
times in Berlin. 1T got a good deal OF
free adv ertising. having been the CHEZ
cause Of Count HOchberg's resignation
as intendant of the Royal Opera It
is a pity that Strauss could not have
written his opera a few decades sooner,
so as to cause the retirement of HUlsen.
the predecessor of Hochberg. This re
markable manager was the man who
refused TO admit Richard Wagner 10
his sublime presence. He is also re-
feTred TO in some recently published
letters of RubinStein. In one of these
Rubinstein advises a friend, Mrs. Wolf.
II she has a son, to let him become
anything rather than a composer. and
ne refers to the fact that his opera,
Nero, had been accepted in Berlin on
condition that he, the composer, should
remain absent!
Paris dispatch tells Us that Sousa's
] II - Il
ettanti as eccentric. The concerts,
upon the whole, have been very favor
ably received. Parisians enjoy the
swing and dash OF the American band,
as well they may. and give them a very
generous and enthusiastic patronage.
but Paris balks at some of Seusa's nlu-
SIC he seems to have abandoned him
self to the descriptive"-the tramp of
regiments. ganOping horses rains
winds, CONGREGATIONS, trips to Atlantic
CITY, etc. and this is where Paris fails
to catch on, as we say at COney Island
/ No matter how violently Sousa gesticu-
I lateS ard jumps abOut% the Frenchuen
do not know whether il is a battle or a
I pumpkin pie he has in mind. Noises
With which he intends To illustrate the
cnarge of an army on some redOubt are
accepted by his audiences as suggest
ing an express train going through a
I tunnel or an old gentleman falling
{ q u.
they cannot understand SOusa's de
scriptiVe music
OF course, our first impulse is to con-
denim the Parisians, and to label them
| as Ph1llstlnes. 1t is proper to bear in
mind, however, the fact that nobody
has ever yet had anything described
Tor him by descriptive music. The
/ leaders of brass bands are much given
( to this sort of thing. We see upon their
programmes all sorts of weird numbers,
such as Visit to Bird Store, which
might better have been called AN Hour
IN the Forest" and The Invasion of
Russia by Napoleon" which would an
swer just as well to the title. Eighty
Feet Down in a Crippled Elevator"
There is really no room for criticism Of
SOUsa on this score unless one criticises
him for undertaking to give descriptive
music at all. The whole thing is bosh.
/ No composer has ever yet written mu-
sic that conveys to the individual the
idea. of a mere incident. 1t is possible
to depict sorrow, joy, triumph, any
I emotion whatsoever; but one might as
/ we'll try to describe" a plate of apples
( or a cup OF coffee as a fist fight up an
( alley or a Wagnerian hero belaboring
! his sister. If one knows all about ii
! beforehand. one may amuse himself BIS
comparing the intent with the perform
/ ance, but, hearing these compositions
/ for the first time, even the most sym
/ pathetic, student OF music is bound to
( wonder what it is all about.
! On June 10 Edward Hagerup Grieg
4 viii celebrate his sixtieth birthday.
] You Will never be a composer said
( Gade TO Grieg, when the latter brought
/ his E minor Sonata for the then IA
nous Gade's approval. And yet, where
/ is Gade's MendelssOhnian music today?
4 The English Folk Lore society is dis
I playing great activity in collecting
and preserving from Oblivion the early
popular songs. It has already pub
/ lished 400 songs gathered from the
! peasants in Sussex and Surrey, and
] English concert programmes have late
1 Iy placed in their programmes a great
( number of such popular airs. AS the
work extends it will be interesting to
/ compare these airs from the Saxon dis
I tricts with those that are found in the
/ Anglican counties.
! An edition of the vocal and instru-
mental works of the great Hollander
Jan Pieters Sweelinck d562- 1621). is in
twelve volumes and published by Brett
4 kopf & Hartel. The same firm an
nOunces also an edition of the organ
and clavier works of Johann Jakob
/ FrOberger, who was organist at Vienna
/ from 1641-1645 and from 1653-1657. Later
he was attached to Westminster abbey
and died at Hericourt in 1861 The
works OF Sweelinck are issued by the
Musical History society Of the North
Netherlands.
:
Arthur POugin delivered a lecture on
Rubinstein at the Sorbonne, Paris,
which must have delighted the ghost of
/ the Russian composer He pointed out
Rubins TENS value as composer and
enumerated his works, 500 in number
and of astonishing variety-operas, ora
tOriOs symphonies, concertos, chamber
music. vocal melodies. lieder, etc. Ru-
binstein always lamented that his
achievements as a virtuoso had over
Swallowed his merits as a composer, on
which latter phrase of his labors he
based his hopes of fame.
The Budapest Philharmonic society
will celebrate next month the hftieth
anniversary of its foundation. The fes-
tivities will last from May to May 3,
and will embrace concerts, meetings. a
banquet, excursions, etc. 1t sounds
like one of those COney Island celebra-