Success in music and how it is won

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Part II Successful Singers

III. Two Swedish Nightingales 27

IV. Italian Prima Donnas 60

V. Two Spanish Sisters 84

Pauline Viardot Garcia 84

Maria Malibran 88

VI. The Nationality of Singers 91 xii CONTENTS

CHAFTEK PAGE

VII. German and Austrian Singers 96

Mara and Sontag 96

Schroder-Devrient, Wagner's Idol . . 99

Marianne Brandt 115

Pauline Lucca 127

VIII. Melba, Garden, and Calve 138

Nellie Melba 138

Mary Garden 143

IX. Three American Sopranos ; 156

X. Is the Art of Song Decaying? .... 197

XI. Modern Improvements m Tenors . . . 202

RuBiNi, "King of Tenors" 202

Mario's Modern Traits 204

Tamagno and Campanini 206

Enrico Caruso 208

XII. Four Up-to-date Baritones 224

Charles Santley 224

Victor Maurel 229

Ludwig Wullner 242

CONTENTS xiii

Part III Great Pianists Chapter Page

XIII. Evolution of the Piano Virtuoso ... 253

XIV. How Beethoven Played and Taught . . 255 XV. Chopin as Pianist and Teacher .... 262

XVI. Liszt and His Pupils 275

XVII. Hints by Hans von Bulow 295

XVIII. Rubinstein the Leonine 302

XIX. Paderewski and His Secrets 309

Part IV Four Types Of Violinists

XX. Paganini and Kubelik 327

Jan Kubelik 334

XXI. Remenyi and Ole Bull 338

Edouard Remenyi 338

XXII. Spohr and Joachim , 349

Louis Spohr 349

I^XXIII. WiLHELMj and Kreisler 357

August Wilhelmj 357 xiv CONTENTS

Part V Teachers, Parents, And Pupils

CHAPTER PAGE

XXIV. Some Famous Teachers 369

William Mason: An American Pioneer . 369

Leschetizky, Paderewski's Teacher . . 372

OxTOKAR Sevcik, Kubelik's Teacher . . 378

XXV. Hints to Teachers 395

How to Get Pupils 395

Where to Locate 397

XXVI. Advice to Parents 405

XXVII. Hints to Pupils, Singers and Players . .411

Genius, Work, and Overwork .... 411

Temperament, Personality, Magnetism,

Expression 421

Tempo Rubato, Pedal and Accentuation 428

Singing Distinctly and in English . . 432

Starting a Career 440

Programs, Encores, Stage Fright . . . 445

XXVIII. Paderewski on Tempo Rubato .... 454

Index 463

Part I Music, Money, And Happiness Does Music Pay?

Every year tens of thousands of young women and youths ask themselves the questions: " Shall I choose music as a profession? Will it enable me to make a living — to become rich, perhaps, and famous? Will it insure me as much happiness as I would find in some other career?"

At the ripe age of seventy-four, one of the most successful and esteemed of modern artists. Sir Charles Santley, wrote a book in which he made this confession: "It is a generally received idea that a singer's life is a merry one — little to do, storms of applause, topped up with bags of gold, and amusement without end. My experience does not confirm that idea in the least; my anticipation which pointed to merriment broke down in the realization. No gold nor amusement could repay the toil, worry, and disappointment of a singer's life as I know it."

Is this the truth in a nutshell, or is it simply the utterance of an artist soured by old age ? Let us look at both sides of the question, the dark side first.

I once bought seventeen luscious Bartlett pears in San Francisco for five cents. On another occasion I read that himdreds of bushels of choice ripe peaches had been dumped into the ocean, to empty the boxes. There was an overproduction of fruit, and where there is overproduction the best is a drug in the market.

In the musical market there is a deplorable overproduction of both singers and players. The demand is for the best only, and even of the best the public easily gets a surfeit. The others are likely to agree with the famous French prima domia, Desir€e-Art6t, that "the artistic career is a paradise for those who are on top but an inferno for the mediocrities."

There is little if any exaggeration in this dismal picture drawn by the editor of the Musical Leader and Concert- Goer: "Recent instances in and around New York are appalling, where well-known artists have been paid $io for a concert or recital appearance, and the singer who receives $ioo or $150 for a performance is a rara avis. The orchestral organizations, the oratorio societies in New York and the outlying cities, make the claim that they can obtain all the artists needful because of the good advertising such appearances bring. And the larger the society or club or orchestral organization the smaller the amount paid, unless the artist happens to be of particular importance. The claim is made that the advertisement of singing with such and such a club more than repays for the artist's time and labor. Conditions in New York are absolutely outrageous. The ' free list' is in full blast — ^in fact, is a necessity for the obtaining of an audience — and in giving his recital an artist is boimd to face considerable expenditure and no possibility of return."

Most of the recitals in New York — including many by prominent American and European players and singers — are, indeed, given with the full understanding that there is to be a deficit, but with the hope that the critical notices in the metropolitan journals will help the artists in the other cities. But imless a musician's success is sensational other cities will not hear of it, and the overworked metropolitan critics, moreover, do not usually overflow with helpful enthusiasm.

Many years ago Mr. W. S. B. Mathews wrote that Thalberg and Gottschalk could not have given their concerts in America without the assistance of a piano manufacturer desirous of bringing his instruments before the public. This is true to the present day of all but a very few of the pianists.

Does it follow from all this that musicians should migrate to Europe and remain there? Not if they want money. Deplorable though the situation may be in America, it is better than in Europe. The one great ambition of every European musician, in fact, is to become sufficiently famous to receive a call to the " DoUarland." Even such great and sensationally successful artists as Jenny Lind and Rubinstein had to come to America, as will be seen in later chapters, to win the wealth which enabled them thenceforth to spend their days as they chose.

Germany is generally considered the world's musical head-quarters, but it is by no means the paradise of musicians. Charles Booth asserts in his book. The Life and Labor of the People of London, that the organ-grinders who perambulate the streets of- that city earn from 80 cents to $5 a day. Germany gives less encouragement to that kind of musicians; her musical proletariat is the orchestral player. His average income is about that of the English 80-cent-a-day organ-grinder, while $5 a day is a goal to which he cannot aspire. The two leading men in the Royal Orchestra of Berlin get about $1,250 a year, but this is far above the usual salaries. The highest pay for any member of the opera orchestra in Vienna is 3,600 crowns ($720) a year, or less than $2 a day. The players in the orchestra of the Hamburg Stadttheater get only $350 a year, and in smaller cities, like Nuremberg, Wurzburg, Rostock, although the musicians have to be sufficiently expert to play Wagner and Richard Strauss, the pay is from $20 to $25 a month. "The majority of German orchestral players," says Pavil Busching, "belong to-day to the proletariat.. Many an instrumental player is, so far as the amount and the certainty of his income are concerned, no better off than a dock laborer on the Hamburg quays or a day laborer in the building trades." There are 50,000 of these players in Germany. As regards the independent musicians, a canvas made in Berlin showed that twenty-six per cent, of them do not earn $12.50 a month, and forty-five per cent, do not earn $15.

Equally dismal is the situation of the women and men who sing in the chorus of the German opera-houses. In sixty-four of these theatres the male members receive a monthly salary of from $18.75 to $45, while the women get from $18.75 to $37.50. Docking of salary is, moreover, a usual punishment.

These, to be sure, are the private soldiers in the musical army. The officers, surely, are better paid? Some of them, yes. There are a few eminent conductors, like Nikisch, Mottl, Weingartner, who earn up to $25,000 a year, by working like beavers, travelling from city to city; but the average German conductor in a provincial opera-house gets only $30 to $50 a month; yet the supply of men willing to work for such an income far exceeds the demand. When the city of Ratibor advertised for a conductor, there were 140 applicants for the place, and 50 of these were university graduates. Hermann Ritter, who mentions this case,* comes to this conclusion after a thorough study of the subject: "If parents ask me whether I would consider it advisable to let their son become a musician I answer: 'Do not let him, if you can prevent it; for the career of a musician has more of the dark than of the bright side of life.' " A shoemaker who knows his business will be better off, he adds.

Soloists, with very few exceptions, fare no better; indeed, they fare worse, for while the orchestral players and choris-

* Ueher die materielle und sociale Lage des Orchester-Musikers. Brochures on the same subject have also been written by Paul Marsop and Heinrich Waltz.

ters at least get a pittance, the givers of recitals usually get nothing — in fact, as a rule, a recital takes money out of their pockets. Among the clippings before me is one which reads: "Berlin is frequently afflicted with as many as 40, 50, or more concerts in one week. There are three concert bureaus in the city. One of these has on its books 490 musicians, including 103 pianists, 86 violinists, 85 sopranos, 53 tenors, etc. Eighteen employees are needed to take care of all these 'artists.'"

This was written some years ago. To-day the situation is worse. During the season 1907-8 Berlin had some 1,200 concerts. Dr. Leopold Schmidt, the critic of the TageUatt, on discovering that he had 54 concerts to cover in one week in October, indulged in these pessimistic reflections: "We have reached a crisis. The concerts are eating one another up, like the two lions of the well-known tale. They take away one another's public, profits, and every chance to secure attention and success, and finally not even the tail remains, in the form of critical notices."

The same journal tells how the audiences at recitals are apt to be made up. Miss X, who plays or sings, sends out about 200 tickets, some of them to prominent persons. One of t'hese is the wife of Professor N. She kindly accepts the tickets, but has no intention of attending the concert, so she gives them to her dressmaker, who in turn bestows them on her assistants, who perhaps go to the concert. In one case it was found that of the 200 free tickets only 47 were used.

In other German cities there are fewer recitals, but also fewer still who are interested in them. The well-known German composer, Hans Pfitzner, gave a recital of his own songs in Cologne for which not a single ticket was sold. Commenting on this occurrence, a correspondent wrote to the Frankfurter Zeitung: "That Cologne has no public for concerts has long been known. No less a man than Anton

Rubinstein once gave a concert here to empty seats. Last Wednesday we had a concert by the well-known Flonzaley Quartet, which was well attended; but the number of those who paid for their tickets was three."

Next to Germany, Italy is considered the most musical country in Europe. Are the prospects for musicians better there? Quite the contrary. Piano, violin, and song recitals are practically eliminated, the Italian interest in music being monopolized by the opera. Nor does the opera flourish there as it used to. The emoluments paid to singers are so low that all the best ones are enticed away by the higher prices paid in New York and South American cities. The situation is summed up in the words of Leoncavallo when he was asked if his Roland was to be given in his native coimtry: "Three good singers are required for this opera, and with the voices we have at present here in Italy I would not dare to present myself to the fastidious opera-goers of Milan or Turin." Yet the American or English singers who fancy that this dearth might prove their opportunity will be sadly disappointed, for reasons that will be touched upon in the chapter on studying abroad.

Paris used to be a good place for recitals, but for reasons unexplained even the greatest soloists now fail to entice the French to the concert halls. Prejudice against soloists is sometimes manifested by hisses even at the well-patronized orchestral Simday concerts. Apart from these, the Parisian appetite is appeased chiefly by opera; and the operatic artists are far from being overpaid, according to American or English ideas. The highest salary at the Op^ra goes to the tenor Alvarez, who gets $i,6oo a month; the leading soprano, Mme. Breval, has $1,500 a month, while the salaries of the other singers range from $17,000 a year down to $300. At the Opera Comique the salaries are much lower than at the Grand Opera. Chorus singers in the Parisian opera-houses get $300 a year.

"Are organists lunatics?" is the suggestive heading of an article in the London Truth, in which the case is recorded of a church position worth £^,0 a year for which there were 140 applicants. One of the favorite topics of Sir John Stainer was the poverty of the British organist, due inevitably to overproduction. The highest cathedral salary is ;;£3oo a year, and there are some at ;£20o; "but these are the plums of the profession." In the smaller churches from ;£2o to £40 a year is paid the organist. " An organ-grinder probably earns as much. It really seems strange that parents should waste their money and the time of their sons on a profession so hopelessly overstocked." Orchestral players are somewhat better off, getting £7, to £6 per week. As regards recitals by singers and players, the situation is summed up in one sentence: "The whole business is frightfully overdone." The Telegraph gave figures indicating that during 1907 there were ijsoo concerts in London — an average of about 29 every week; which indicates that the situation is even worse than in Berlin. The receipts equal the expenditures in very few cases. Deadheads, too, are becoming harder to get, and it may soon be necessary to provide also car fares and icecream or lemonade to make them accept free tickets.

Speaking of British composers, Alfred Kalisch wrote in the London World: "It would not be wide of the mark to say that every one of the musicians whose works have been heard or are going to be heard (with the exception of Sir Edward Elgar) is out of pocket by the performance. There is an eminent composer who isreported to have declared that as soon as he has made a clear profit of ;^5o by his works he will cease composing. As lie is still on the active list (luckily) we may assume that his modest ambition has not yet been achieved — and he is one of the most eminent."

Let us now look at the other side of the shield.

lo SUCCESS IN MUSIC

Undoubtedly the vast majority of musicians have a hard time of it in this world. They are overworked and imderpaid. But is not the same true of every other profession, every other employment ? The average earnings of music teachers in America are fully equal to the earnings of other teachers, in the public schools. It has been ascertained that in a list including 467 American cities there were 53,554 positions with annual salaries of $600 and over, besides 14,193 of $500 to $600; and Commissioner W. T. Harris has remarked that "no teacher has a right to complain, on a socialistic basis, if he is receiving a salary for his annual services of $600."

There are in the United States perhaps a hundred physicians who earn $5o,ocx3 or more a year. Concerning the rest, a writer in Harper's Weekly estimates that "the average earnings of qualified and certified doctors of medicine in the United States do not exceed $600 a year. Nor are the United States exceptional," he adds, "as regards the inadequate pay of the medical profession. Undoubtedly in a great capital like Berlin, doctors earn more on an average than they do in the minor cities of Germany, to say nothing of the small towns and rural districts. Yet statistics show that of the 2,060 medical practitioners in Berlin, 54 earn from $225 to $260 a year, 261 from $260 to $525, and 206 from $525 to $750. Of practitioners earning from $750 to $1,250 there are 286; and, in the case of 924 practitioners, the income exceeds that last-mentioned sum. In Italy the average income of the poor-law medical officer, who is not allowed to engage in medical practice, is $500 a year. In Belgium the earnings of coimtry doctors range from $400 to $2,000 a year."

From the foregoing it will be seen that the average physician in prosperous America earns only $300 more in a year than an operatic chorus singer does in five months. "Why," says the writer just quoted, "should a young man

DOES MUSIC PAY? ii

or a young woman want to be a doctor in these days, unless, indeed, he or she is impelled by an irresistible attraction to the calling ?" Why, indeed ? Why should a young man or a yoimg woman want to engage in any profession whatsoever in these days? All are equally overstocked; in all, those who earn over $600 a year are the lucky exceptions.*

Fortunately there is such a thing as Hope implanted in most mortals. Hope keeps the world on the move. There is always room on top; of that there is no doubt; and we all hope to arrive at the top. Those who have reached it are prosperous. There are some music teachers in New York and elsewhere who earn from $20,000 to $30,000 a year; there are many who earn from $3,000 to $S,ooo. In London, Paris, Berlin, and smaller cities there are wealthy music teachers.

Paderewski's receipts on his first American tour were $95,000; on his second, $160,000; on his third, $248,000; and similar sums came to him during his subsequent tours. This, to be sure, represents the climax of pianistic achievement; but Liszt, Rubinstein, Thalberg, and other players of the past earned fortimes, while among those of the present may be further named Josef Hofmann, who has in Russia and Mexico the same $5,000 houses that Paderewski has in the cities of the United States and England. Kubelik made half a million dollars with his violin in a few years.

Famous singers have at all times earned fabulous sums. Pages of names and figures might be cited in support of this assertion, but a few instances may suffice here; further details will be supplied in the section devoted to the careers

* The fact that trained nurses get $25 a week for their service and $35 for contagious cases tempts many young women. But in the words of the New York Sun: "The usual rule is that the nurse lasts only about a dozen years, that she has saved no money to speak of [not being employed all the time], that she has had a career of great hardship, and that she must either marry or seek some other calling."

of successful singers. Catalani, a century ago, found it easy to make $80,000 a year. Malibran got 80,000 francs for a short season in Naples; in London she had ;i£i2S per night; in 1833 she wrote to her manager that she would accept his offer to sing Sonnambula in English once, but demanded £250, "payable on the morning of the representation." Pasta got 80,000 rubles (equal in our money to-day to $60,000) for eight performances in St. Petersburg. In the same city Rubini took in 54,000 francs at a single concert. Tamagno once got 640,000 francs (gold) for forty appearances in South America; he left his daughter a fortune; yet this tenor's earnings were a trifle compared with those of Caruso, who has a sure $150,000 a year. Italian tenors of less repute — Zenatello, Bonci, Bassi Masini — have costly villas in picturesque locahties in their country. The highest-paid tenor of our time was Jean de Reszke, who often got $3,000 for an evening's work. Of all prima donnas Patti got the highest emoluments; these amounted, in America, to $5,000 a performance — always in advance — and sometimes a percentage in addition. For single concerts, however, Jenny Lind surpassed her. Many of the German and French prima donnas, tenors, baritones, and basses might be mentioned among the wealthy individuals of their country. English and American readers need not be reminded of the vast sums earned by such favorites of the day as Sembrich, Melba, Nordica, Eames, Schumann-Heink, Gadski, Lilli Lehmann, Geraldine Farrar, Calve, Tetrazzini, Ternina, who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 or more a year, getting $1,000 to $2,000 for each operatic performance and similar sums for singing at the musicales of millionaires. Sembrich probably averages $5,000 at her song recitals in New York. Caruso has made as much as $200,000 in one year, $55,000 of which was for singing into one of the talking machines.

So great, indeed, are the emoluments of many musical artists to-day that we often hear an outcry that they are overpaid. Maybe they are overpaid, but what of it if it pays to overpay them? Many authors, one might say, have been overpaid — among them Gladstone, Tennyson, Kipling, the author of Ben-Hur, and most writers of "best sellers" — ^yet the publishers found that it was profitable to overpay them.*

While some artists received high prices a century or more ago, the average pay of singers and players has gone up steadily. For instance, at the Imperial Opera in Vienna, in our day, the tenor Winkelmann has received $10,000 a year, the baritone Reichmann $8,800, and Frl. Renaud $7,200; while Frau Schlager advanced in fifteen years from the $10 a month she got as a chorus girl to $8,000 a year. Half a century earlier (as Julius Stern attests in his Funfzig Jahre Hof theater) the leading singers at the same institution received only about $2,400 a year; the famous conductor Esser had $80 a month! The eminent violinist Henri Vieuxtemps offered his services as concert-master

td soloist for $1,200 a year, but his offer was declined for ancial reasons. The members of the orchestra at that time got only $12.40 a month.

In the financial position of composers there has also been a great improvement. Every lover of music is familiar with the sad tale of the poverty, the neglect, the underpaying of Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Weber, and other great masters. Once Mozart's publisher put a few ducats in his hands and said : " Compose in a simpler and more popular style or I will print no more of your compositions, nor will I give you

* A newspaper writer asked a few years ago whether, in view of the fact that the President of the United States is paid $137 a day, Patti was worth $5,000 a night, Jean de Reszke up to $3,000, and Paderewski from $2,000 to $7,000. To which one might reply: Why not, if they can get it? If the President of the United States engages in a pursuit which yields such shabby results, he has no one to blame but himself.

another kreutzer." To which Mozart replied sadly: "Then, my good sir, I must needs resign myself to die of starvation."

Schubert's life might have been saved had he had a few florins to leave Vienna — as he was eager to do — on the fatal summer when he got typhoid fever. Weber received only eighty Friedrichsdor for his Freischutz, one of the most successful operas ever written. Chopin was paid so little for his piano pieces — which have since enriched scores of publishers — that he had to teach to make his living. He died in 1849.

Contrast with the foregoing some men of our time. Brahms, who died in 1897, left his heirs about $100,000. Many other modern writers of serious music have made fortunes. Among them we may name Verdi (who made millions by his operas and $100,000 by his Requiem), Ambroise Thomas (whose Mignon brought him and his librettist 800,000 francs at a thousand performances), Massenet, Gounod, Leoncavallo, Puccini. Mascagni has earned at least $100,000 with his Cavalleria Rusiicana, and Leoncavallo probably nearly as much with his / Pagliacci. Humperdinck's royalties on Hansel and Gretel amounted to $50,000 in a single year. Richard Strauss's income from his operas, songs, and orchestral works was estimated at a quarter of a million marks in 1908, and he expected to double that sum in a few years.

In the realm of light opera or operetta, Offenbach, Lecocq, Audran, Johann Strauss, Supp6, Milloecker, Victor Herbert, Lehar, and many others have made fortunes. Sir Arthur Sullivan is said to have made ;£3o,ooo a year from his operettas alone. Regarding Victor Herbert, " common report has it that his income is as much as $10,000 a week for extended periods," says Mr. Lewis M. Isaacs.*

* See his "The Musician as a Money-Maker," in The Bookman for January, igog.

Henry W. Savage claims that The Merry Widow is the most stupendous financial and popular success the theatrical world has ever known. First produced in Vienna, on December 30, 1905, it had up to the first of April, 1909, 1,503 performances in America, 1,365 in England; total number of performances everywhere, about 18,000. It had been sung in 422 German, 135 English, and 154 American cities. It had been translated into thirteen languages and produced in thirty different countries, including Turkey, Persia, Japan, China^ Hindoostan, and Siberia. New York had paid a million dollars to hear it in one year; Chicago paid $364,000 in twenty-six weeks; Boston, $250,000 in eighteen weeks. More than 3,000,000 copies of The Merry Widow waltz had been sold in Europe; and in America the music publishers sold $400,000 worth of Merry Widow scores and selections in twenty-three months. Up to April i, 1909, three American companies played to gross receipts of $2,694,000. Does music pay?

Probably the most profitable single song ever published was Listen to the M aching-Bird, on which the publishers are said to have realized $3,000,000. The composer of it, Septimus Winner, sold it for $35. A royalty of ten per cent, would have yielded him $300,000. Arditi got only $250 for his famous Kiss Waltz, which brought the publisher who bought it a fortune of $80,000. To-day composers are usually wise enough to ask a royalty instead of a lump sum. Thus, at five cents a copy, Eugene Cowles got $15,750 for the 315,000 sold copies of his Forgotten. Of Chaminade's song. The Silver Ring, over 200,000 copies have been sold. Jaques Blumenthal, the song writer, left a fortime of $300,000.

This list of composers, players, and singers who have earned fortunes might be increased indefinitely. Sar- ^sate's viojin playing brought him two million francs.

John Philip Sousa cannot touch anything without turning it to gold. Kubelik lives in a castle and has the income of a prince. Everybody has a chance to get rich — except the musical critic. And every musician is glad he hasn't!

II Are Great Artists Happy?

When I was a freshman at Harvard, fresh from the Oregon wilderness and therefore easily amused, I used to play the violoncello occasionally at one of the Boston theatres as substitute for my esteemed teacher, Wulf Fries, when he happened to be playing sonatas with Rubinstein (1872) or was otherwise engaged. Lydia Thompson was, in those verdant days, one of my favorites, and it was her company that one evening produced at that theatre a play, the hero of which is always unhappy no matter what happens. Even when he has at last won his sweetheart and has his arm around her waist, he turns toward the audience and exclaims, in lugubrious tones: "And yet I am not happy."

Often have I thought of that "and yet I am not happy" in reading about or talking with famous artists of the musical persuasion. In 1876 I attended the first Bayreuth Festival. Wagner was anything but happy on that occasion. It is true, the grand project which had busied his mind more than twenty years had at last been realized. He had his own opera-house, just where he wanted it; he had his devoted band of players and singers, selected by himself; and among the spectators were an emperor, a king, and many notabilities in the realms of art and literature, while the whole musical world had its eyes on him. But in reality few of the singers were quite equal to their tasks, and he had not had enough money to make the stage settings satisfactory, the consequence being that he suffered tortures. A mishap to the scenery during the performance of RJteingold distressed him so that he left the theatre and went home.

To Liszt he once wrote: "None of the past years has gone by without having at least once driven me to the verge of suicide." In another letter he 'said: "Oh that I might not arise from my bed to-morrow, awake no more to this loathsome life." And Liszt replied : " Your letters are sad — and your life sadder still. Your greatness constitutes also your misery — the two are united inseparably and must forever harass and torture you."