New-York tribune., 1912-01-22

attention might as we'll as not be given TO
another case OF sophisticatlon IN Beetho-
ven's history. This would be waste of
time il the journalistic desire to pay much
attention to people in the public eye had
not caused a wide distribution of a palpa-
BILE Misrepresentation made by a sensa-
tonalist for the sake of self-advertisement.
OF course the correction will never over
take the misstatement, but no serious
minded person will care, as no we'll in
formed person will have cared in the first
instance. Some weeks ago our excellent
contemporary THE Sun" newspaper print
ed an interview with the Oct us say uncon-
ventionaD de Pachmann $50 called, in
which these statements were made:
NV father was a great friend of Weber
and of Beethoven. He lived for two years
in the same house where Weber had apart
ments, and Beethoven came and stayed
there for time. He was very fond OF
telling of one supper party where Beetho-
ven made the soup. 1T was a very bad
soup, but they had to eat 1t; Beethoven
was obdurate. Weber. most fastidious
man, was quite Jisgusted with the cigar
smoke and the smell of the kitchen and
the bad dinner. but finally Beethoven sat
down and played the Moonlight sonata
Weber sprinkled him with some perfume
and then was, in company with my father,
light 1t was from my father that l
learned the exact tempo that Beethoven
played that sonata.
OF course, this sounds interesting. and,
equally of course. editors all over the coun-
try. as ignorant as tho interviewer of musf-
cal history. have reprinted tho stuff. Now,
Weber was never two years In Vienna. He
was in the Austrian capital one year, when
he was seventeen years old Qrom the fall
of 1893 to the fall of 1SOD. and was pupil
OF Abbe Vogler There is not word on
record $50 far as we know that he ever
met Beethoven in the course Of this year,
either in his letters or Beethoven's. He
was in Vienna again in 1912 for a short
time, and again when, in 1893. he went
there to produce "Euryanthe.' Then,
through julius Benedict his pupil, he met
Beethoven, but 1t was on a visit which
the two paid the great man at Baden, and
then they dined with him at his tavern.
The rest is Pachmannian romance.
Beethoven has carried us far afleld. 1t
would have been we'll had It been so far
afield that there had been no recurrence Of
a memory of the Philharmonic concert. for
after the dubious symphony, which was
pretty enough, and certainly caused no
blush to arise on the cheek of modesty,
there came an overture by Siegfried Wagner
(that is, after a large difference had been
marked off by the "Freischutz' overture).
II was the overture TO "Bruder Lustig," one
Of several operas perpetrated to the grief
of the ghost OF his father by the son OF
Cosima. Why the Philharmonic Society
should be asked TO give such hostages to
the house of Wahnfried must forever re-
main a mystery. II was pardonable for
once in the time OF Anton Seidl. 1t ought
never to be asked again.
And then the excellent Mr.. Harold Bauer
was called upon to play the Schumann piano
forte concerto-and did 1t like an artist
and a much mystiled Sunday audience was
sent away with the booming cannon and
Changing bells of Tschaikowsky's "1S12" in
It's ears. Altogether the afternoon was
what the late Senator Conkling might have
called a "halcyon and vociferous time"
H. L. X.