Music

THE “ season ” has begun in good earnest, and concerts of the migratory, nomadic sort have been, as usual, numerous, and more than usually interesting. The Strakosch troop first claims our attention. Among the various artists who compose it the name of Mario is naturally the prime attraction. Before this great tenor, about whose name cluster so many recollections of the palmy days of Italian opera and the best school of Italian singing, the position of the critic is a delicate one. Were he like so many veterans of the operatic stage, who, when age has broken the voice that was once the delight and war-cry of hosts of ardent admirers, still try to cover up the ravages of time by cunning tricks of vocalization too well known to singers, as an old beau pads and paints his withered person that he may pass with the credulous for a young man, we might perhaps pass him by with pity that he who had once stood so high should have fallen so low. But Signor Mario, with only the ghost of his former voice, comes before us now as much an artist as ever, modestly content to be taken for what he is worth, seeking to cover up his physical short-comings by no claptrap tricks of the trade, and honestly, if tacitly, acknowledging his weakness. Such a man commands our respect if nothing more. A singer’s temptations to sacrifice his artistic self-respect to his love of admiration, to quit the path of true art for the more seductive one of virtuosity, in plain English, to stop being an artist in order to become an acrobat or a juggler, are at all times great, but never so great as when his voice begins to fail him. As an artist, Signor Mario is still the king of tenors. He stands a glorious illustration of Lablache’s famous reply to the sceptic who doubted the capacity of the voice of one of his pupils. “Bah!” said the portly basso, “la voix, c’est un détail.” Indeed it were difficult to praise Signor Mario’s singing too highly when we consider the beauty of his conceptions, his perfect phrasing and artistically refined sentiment. His voice, alas, only allows him to hint at his artistic intentions, rather than to put them into execution ; but the fine intention is always palpably there, and it is a higher artistic enjoyment to hear him try to sing than to hear almost any other tenor sing. His style is not free from some little Italianisms ; which we have learned, after hearing them from other singers, to look upon as rather vulgar commonplaces of effect, but which gain a peculiar grace in his mouth. They are for the most part traditions of the old days of Italian opera, when Bellini and Rossini were in the ascendant, and before Verdi had swept the stage with the whirlwind of his overstrained, semi-barbarous passion. But as Signor Mario renders them, they are to their exaggerations in the mouths of singers of a more recent school what the easy refinement of a gentleman is to the blatant swagger of a swell of the period. But with all this we must unwillingly acknowledge that Signor Mario’s day is passed; for although to artists his singing is still highly enjoyable, to the public at large his repeated failures to realize his artistic conceptions cannot but be painful. A singer must be able to give his audience something more than good intentions; executive ability is a sine qua non in every public performer, and the artist who is forced to claim the public’s indulgence in this particular is always in a false position, and never more so than when he comes with such a glorious past record as does Signor Mario.

Of the other singers in the troop, Mademoiselle Carlotta Patti is distinguished by the wonderful beauty, purity, and flexibility of her voice. Her technical execution of difficult passages, especially of staccato roulades and arpeggi is at times astonishing, but she has many and grave faults of style, and, as it appears to us, an almost entire want of musical feeling. She sings naturally and without effort, like a bird, and the beauty of her tones often serves to cover up defects in style which would at once condemn a singer less liberally endowed by nature. She accordingly sings light music like Eckert’s “ Echo Song,” the “ Proch Variations,” and Auber’s “Laughing Song,” — her rendering of which last, in spite of its rather broad realism, is saved from anything approaching to coarseness by a certain infantine refinement of bearing, — better than serious melodies of a broader cantabile movement, in which her want of expressive power and poor phrasing are strongly felt. Miss Cary, on the other hand, sings cantilena with great purity of style and finely cut, wellrounded phrasing. Her voice, always beautiful, has gained a fine, incisive, penetrating quality rare in voices of such low compass, and she is one of the very few deep contralti we know of who have not the habit of forcing their lower tones, to the admiration of “ the gods,” but the discomfort of appreciative musicians. Her facility in executing rapid passages has greatly increased within the last two or three years, but she wants the electric élan so necessary to the success of a bravura singer, and will always find melodies of a slow, broad movement more satisfactory, where her nobility of style and purity of intonation raise her above the level of many singers whom she could not compete with in bravura songs.

The young violinist, Monsieur Sauret, was indeed a surprise to every one. With the exception of Vieuxtemps, his master, and of Sarasate, no such violinist has been heard here for many years. But for the absence of a certain piquant grace of style which can only be acquired after years of experience in concert-playing, we cannot see that M. Sauret is in any way inferior to his master. His tone is rich, firm, and sympathetic, his bowing masterly, his phrasing artistic and dignified, and, what is rare with young performers, his intonation, even in the most trying octave passages and altissimo harmonies, absolutely perfect. His technique is wonderfully developed, and his execution of the most intricate passages always perfectly distinct, although in some of the more startling flights of virtuosity, such as the solo transcription of the Lucia sextet, he does not as yet show that easy mastery over the instrument that can only be expected in a more experienced performer. But, what is better and higher than all this, he shows great depth of musical sentiment and a thorough appreciation of the real beauties as well as the chances for virtuosity in whatever he is playing.

Mademoiselle Teresa Carreño comes back to us in all the beauty of budding womanhood, a really fine pianist. Already as the “ child-pianist ” of several years ago she gave signs of being made of better stuff than goes to make a mere musical monstrosity, but every reflecting musician must have trembled for that tender germ of talent, perhaps of genius, that was to be developed at that early age in the overstimulating atmosphere of the concertroom. But she has passed through the dangerous phase of child-wonderhood unspoiled by the flatteries and the inevitable bad advice of injudicious admiring friends to which all young performers are exposed, and comes before us now as a genuine, conscientious artist. Not that her playing is perfect ; far from it. She has some grave faults of technique and graver faults of style. But she has excellences which, while they compel our admiration, call by their very greatness for all the severer criticism of her defects. Her execution, as far as the fingers go, is beautifully clear, neat, and brilliant, and she plays the most difficult passages with great ease and distinctness; her touch is sympathetic and firm, her strength remarkable for a woman ; but her octave-playing, and, in short, her wristaction in general, is faulty. She plays octaves and chord-passages with great rapidity and ease, but they lack that incisive vitality of tone and distinctness of enunciation that only comes from a perfect command over the wrist. She also shows some weakness, or perhaps carelessness, in the use of the little finger of her left hand, causing her basses to be often indistinct. Her phrasing, although evidently well considered and never slovenly, is sometimes inartistic and wanting in breadth and elegance. Her conceptions are often immature, at times even school-girlish. So much for her faults. But, on the other hand, she possesses in an intense degree that most precious quality of all in an artist, — PASSION. She has, to our thinking, a more thoroughly artistic musical organization than any woman pianist we have ever heard in America. She plays not only with great sentiment, but with great expression. She plays Italian music of the sentimental stamp, in which her youthful, Southern warmth of feeling seems as yet more instinctively to find expression, better than she does the works of the more thoughtful German masters, in which her immaturity of conception sometimes betrays itself. Her playing of the air D'amor sull' ali, in the first part of Gottschalk’s Trovatore transcription, was wonderfully beautiful. It was the only time we ever remember to have seen an American audience interrupt a piano-forte piece to applaud a simple bit of cantabile playing, and surely applause was never better merited. Her rendering of the Mendelssohn G-minor concerto was in many respects fine, but, on the whole, not so satisfying as some of her less ambitious performances. She was too free with the tempo in the first movement, and took the final Molto allegro e vivace injudiciously fast. Not that she took the tempo faster than her fingers could play, but faster than the mechanism of the piano-forte can clearly articulate the second theme. We must, however, say by way of parenthesis, that the movement itself is an awkwardly arranged one, and that at whatever tempo it is taken, one of the two themes is sure to suffer. But Mademoiselle Carreño has the true divine fire, and her faults are all of them faults of schooling ; could she but be prevailed upon to forego concert-playing for a while and spend one or two years under the tuition of a real master of the instrument, Dr. Hans v. Bülow for instance, we would venture to predict for her an honorable place among the very foremost pianists of the world.

Next in order come the Rubinstein-Wieniawski concerts. A criticism of Herr Rubinstein’s playing coming from us would be simply impertinent. He has that in him which gives him indisputably a position of authority among musicians ; and although many points in his rendering of the thoughts of great composers may, nay, must of necessity be new, at times even in direct opposition to our preconceived notions, we must acknowledge in him a better right to his conceptions than we have to dispute them; to blame or to praise would be alike presumptuous in any of us. All that we can do is to study and attempt to analyze his playing, guided by that light of intelligence which nobody surely will be impolite enough to suppose any critic to be without. Herr Rubinstein comes to us one of the leading musical geniuses, and in all probability the foremost pianist of to-day, assuredly the greatest that has ever been heard in America. The thing that strikes us as most to be remarked in the executive part of his playing is his wonderful power of endurance. We have heard another pianist, Carl Tausig, now, alas, lost to the world, carry through the most trying passages with the same triumphant firmness and with far greater ease than Rubinstein ; if report speaks true, Hans v. Bülow can claim the same power ; but these are both men of much greater muscular strength, and Tausig, at least, of vastly more developed technique. Passages that Tausig would play with the greatest ease evidently cost Rubinstein the most intense and protracted exertion, and it is his power of keeping up the hard work with such unflagging energy that most astonishes us. But although Rubinstein’s technique, his mere virtuosity, is by no means the most salient point in his playing, it is still immense, and of all his contempories the two pianists we have named can alone claim any superiority over him even in this respect. But great as his executive power is, it sinks into insignificance beside the grandeur of his artistic conceptions and the all-subduing intensity of his passion. Passion, after all, is the ruling element in the man,—passion generally restrained and kept within bounds by his high artistic sense of fitness, but at moments rushing forth with untamable impetuosity, whirling both him and all who hear him no one can tell whither. The next most striking trait in him is his entire forgetfulness of self. Grandly simple, with no trace of self-consciousness, he so merges his own personality in that of the composer while playing, that he not only forgets himself, but makes us also forget him. He is thus the most objective — shall we say the most feminine ? — player we have ever heard. He evidently feels what he is playing fully as much as any of his hearers. Other players have given us the fruits of thoughtful study and reflection, have even illumined and warmed us by such fire of genius as they could command ; but all the time we have felt that whatever of magnetic influence was exerted upon us emanated from the player himself, that we were directly affected by his individuality, but only indirectly by the composer or the music. But Rubinstein seems to put us into direct magnetic communication with the composer, and to bring both himself and us under the same exalting influence. To hear him play is almost to feel that we are playing ourselves. Other players have let us catch far-off glimpses of the divinity: Rubinstein lifts the Isis veil. With all this his individuality is nevertheless immense, and all his conceptions are more or less tinged with it; there is nothing of servility in his treatment of the music ; his relation with the composer may be described as one of perfect sympathy, yet one in which the composer’s is ever the vivifying, masculine mind, his the receptive, shape-giving, feminine one. Other players have worked upon us through the music, Rubinstein lets the music work upon us through him. Playing evidently fatigues him greatly ; a man does not so exert his whole body, mind, and soul together for nothing, and we have seen him when he seemed almost completely prostrated by playing. Sometimes he becomes almost frantic with excitement, and at such times is very liable to strike wrong notes, in fact we have never heard a really fine pianist strike wrong notes so often as he, — sometimes two and three at a time. But in comparison with his genuine greatness this little defect goes absolutely for nothing.

We have here come to the end of our allotted space. Of Monsieur Wieniawski, — of whom we have also much to say, — next time !