Transcript

In an analogous political attitude. Nine yearsago. when the Parisians hooted at "Lohengrin"

and talked about lampposts for the management

of the Grand OpAra, there could be no lively

quadrille by the alleged students and grtsettes

at the Moulin Rouge until the Russian nations!hymn had been played, nor could the frivolities

of the variety shows in the Champs Enyse^a be-gin until the band had performed Its solemaduty to the great dual alliance. Now It wouldalmost seem as IfRussia's nose had been put atrifle out of Joint by Germany. A desperate

flirtation is going on between France sAd Ger-many on th* exposition grounds," and the popu-

lar expression of musical Judgment is reflectingit. They have even dug up "ISastian and l-u*-

ttenne/* written by the boy Mozart, as a curtainraiser at the ComlquL, yet M'start's precociousoperetta la only a parody of an epoch making

French pastoral—

"he Devin dv Village," by ISMgreat Jean Jacques Rousseau himself.

EL F.. K.

TUB READY RAWER.

HE ROPED THE SENTINEL WHO HAD 111 UROP

ON HIM.

From The San Antonio express.One day last week Iwas standing on Iks cor-

ner of Centre an*! Mechanic its., talking withtwo old veterans, one of them a Terry Ranpr.My Terry Ranger was a gallant member of thatfamous regiment, saw some of the hardest ser-vice possible and had experience enough to rilla good sized book, but with all of it was somodest that one has to use a corkscrew and a

am drill to gel anything out of him. Ikne*of him and his brilliant war record from othe.-a,but, though Ihave known him for thirty-fiveyears, Ihave never heard him tell a war storyor refer to the war except in monosyllables.Last week he forgot himself and told two. bothgems in their way, and Iam going to repealthem, for Iknow he never wllL

While we were talkin? Arthur Hlrshfk-ldpassed by and my frierd was surprised into thefollowing:

"There goes old Hirshfield." he said. "He 1»

NEW-YORK TRIBUNE ILLUSTRATED SUPPLEMENT.

MUSIC.

DEL> \Pi Ima \u25a0!\u25a0 \u25a0 ol th« \u25a0>;

MISS MAUD DTTR]

As M:. :a ill "Prince Otto."

DELMOS AND VAQUETla Waguur'a "Mastitrf*ngws/' liruud Opera, i'arla*

"BPIDBR TIMS'* IX MASILA.Correspondence of The San Jose Mercury.

"Spider time* has arrived, and the Filipinoboy is happy. He does not know much aboutmarbles, but when spider time arrives, and thatis Just after the rainy season begins* he knowsthat he is to have great sport. There are twoharmless varieties of spiders that are green andyellow in color that mature In June. They areas lar^e as the common black spider, so p'.enti-ful In California. The Filipino boy catchesthese and keeps them secure in a box. a smallrod the sise and length of a knitting needle *procured. A spider is then placed on the rod.Another boy comes along and ho bets a centthat his spider win whip. Then the sport l«-gins. The boy who is challenger produces hisspider, places iton the rod with the challenger's.Both spiders make a rush for each other and•.fierce battle ensues. Sometimes the strongerof the two will wind a web around th* other,fastening him to the rod and completely **pi;:-ting him out of business," The spider* aonu

-times light for ten minutes. Nearly every bojhas from eight to twenty spiders, and they betall the Filipino pennies >*»*» can cat on Ui*result of too flghj^ *•* «\u25a0 u»«

getting old and is pretty near.y stone deaf now.anjl to look at him you would never suppose r.ehad been one of the most dashing and gamembers of the Confederate cavalry. vldHirsh' was a good soldier, always light heartedand happy and was a general favonte. He hidlots of wit about him, too. One day after afight we were in. our chaplain, the Rev

,Bunting, was going over the field And he cupon HirahSeUi just as he was turning aYankee over.

"'What are you doing. Hirshfleid?"doctor, who knew Old Hirsh' was aJbadly needed clothes or shoes."

'I'm trying to get a good look at his r .said Hirshfleld, *soIwillknow him in that ghereafter you ten us so much about'

"Hirshrieli was an ideal cavalryman." Itintied my friend. "Once he rode right v;

yankeevankee sentry, not knowing there was a Tato miles of him. Of course the Ya.aie« gal thedrop on him and ordered him to throw down bisgun. HirshfieW let the butt of his gun supdown until it rested on his foot and then kickedit off a little to the si.le of the Yankee. Thefellow walked over and picked it up. but as heStraightened up Hirshfleld roped him. WBhis horse and came back to camp with hisdangling at th« end of the rop* Tb« 1iwas not dead,, but he was the worst lookingspecimen Iever saw."

The most direct and simple explanation of thesingularities, not to say mysteries, connectedwith the present Piend] admiration for anythingand everything German in music might be found

MM. Delmos and Vaquet, they had not beenpermitted also to give a hint as to the propertempi in "Die Melsterpinser" to M. Taffanel.who conducted it. "A flute player's tempi," saidmy hostess, but Ithought the explanation malapropos, as reflecting upon a worthy and neces-sary body of musicians <from an orchestral pointof view, of course), and also insufficient; theproverbial joke on flute players as a class goesback to the aneit-nt Greeks, ifCicero is to bebelieved, but Isuspect it to be of a piece withthe notions of a. Scotchman's incapacity to per-ceive a Joke, the age at which a Suabian ac-quires reason, and a score of other such mali-cious pleasantries.

precision of Colonne's performances In the GrandTheAtre in Vieux Paris. "Not without honorsave In his own country," mused the PH^rim,yet without ceasing to wonder why a Parisianaudience had gone Into conniptions of delight

when Herr WinkHmann. of Vienna, without ashred of voice or style left, had gasped, h iwledand shrieked out the narrative from "Lohen-grin" at the san>e concert at which HenMahler had outraged th>' memory of Weber,why a most admirable company of singers atthe Opera Comique (containing Mrne. Debts, adramatic confralto, who would ;id<>rn the Metro-politan company) had been compelled to sen-amall the way through "Hansel and (Iretel" be-cause the orchestra would make such a pother,

and why, when Hayreuth examples had beenpermitted to mould such excellent representa-

tions at the Grand as the Sachs and David of

GERMAN WORKS, GERMAN CONDUCTORSAND GERMAN TASTE IN PARIS. THE

TRIUMPH OF WAONERISM.

When The Tribune's Musical Pilgrim visitedParis in 18S6 he found some charming and brill-iant newspaper correspondents there who enter-

tained him dclishtfully at their private homes

and apologized for not Introducing him at the

International Press Club on the score that anintroduction from them would not Insure kindtreatment from their French colleagues, but thereverse. They were Germans, and one of them

was not only ordered to leave France someyears afterward, but his wife and children wereliterally pelled with stones by a French rabbleas they tearfully left their pretty home in As-uleivs. The correspondent's offence? He had pub-lished some unwelcome truths about the SueaCanal scandal. Five years later the Pilgrimmade a second journey to Paris, in the hope ofhearing the first performance of "Lohengrin**

at the Grand Opera. The performance did nottake place at the time planned, the Pilgrim de-parted without the coveted experience and wasunable to put on record the happening* of afew weeks later, when Paris allowed itself moreintolerant tov\ard "Lohengrin" than it had beentoward "Tannhauser" thirty years before. In18(11 it was a social cabal that frustrated therepresentations of Wagner's work; in IS*>lit wasa politically fomented opposition, or at least en-couraged by the Jealousy of a coterie of com-posers who were not slow in seeing that, withthe doors of the Grand Opera onoe opened wideto the Wagnerian list, they should all soon beundone. But yet "Lohengrin" held its place, andIn one >ear, from August, 1892, to July, IV*.1.,the royalties paid to Wagner's heirs amountedto nearly 70,<><JO francs, quite four times theBum paid for all the works of Meyerbeer, R «-Bin] and Verdi combined. Then followed "]>i«->Walkure," which was sung: sixty-eight times intwo years. "Tannhauser" had its revival inIS9-r>, "Die Metetendnger" was brought forwardIn1S1)7, since when it has held the stage as themost popular work in the repertory of the his-toric Academic, and "Tristan und Csolde" wasgiven last November at the Noveau Theatre.Ltt M. Jean de Reszke sing the titular role ofthat lyric tragedy In Nov« mber, as he hopes nowto do, and It willbe all day with the composersand composerlings who disgraced themselves andtheir art by howling with the mob against "Lo-hengrin" In lKlil.

But this is only one short chapter in a storydealing with the present dominance of Germanmusic In Paris. The Tribune's Musical Pilgrimspent some eight weeks in the French capitalthis summer. His duties as member of the In-ternational Jury of the Exposition left mmlittle time for hearing music, and less for record-ing his Impressions, but the largest lesson whichh« learned was that of the complete surrenderOf musical France to musical Germany. Themost notable operatic representations which heattended were those of "Die Metstersing.-r" atthe Grand and "Hansel and Gretel" at theComique; the most notable concerts were those©i the Vienna Philharmonic Society and theWienergesangverein in the Chatelet Theatre andthe Trocadero. The operas were both markedby some absurdities which grew out of the in-herent differences between the sentiments andthe language, of the two peoples, and there werefeatures in the concerts which left one wishingthat the French might adhere a little more con-servatively to some of their artistic principlesfend be a trifle less precipitate in their own©ermanlzatioc, but there could be no possibleOr probable manner of doubt— no shadow offloubt whatever— that the Parisians have flungtheir chauvinism and also their conservatism toDie winds In the presence of the German art.

"Why do your great conceit Institution* inNew-York and Boston always Import Germanconductors?" asked M. Eugege d'Harcourt ofme at luncheon while we were discussing theState of music in the universe generally andsymphonic music in particular. There werepeveral reasons which Imight have exploited.lor M. d'Harcourt Is not only a young gentleman|nd nobleman, but a musician as well; not onlyImusician, but one of the serious kind, who hasJevoted talents, energy and money to makingpropaganda in Paris for such German musiciansI*Beethoven and Handel (imagine the need of|uch a thing!); be has not only conducted sym-phony concerts, but prepared the understand-ing of his listeners by admirable printed an-Wyses of the works brought forward. Bo sev-iral answers might have been made, but Ire-ttlltd to his question in the Irish style by askingAnother: "Why do you go wild over Germanconductors— Nikisch, Mottl, Weingartner, evenpegfrled Wagner, and now this man Mahler,from Vienna?"

There was a little acid in the mention of thelast name, for Herr Mahler had a day or twobefore committed an act of vandalism againstWeber that would have justified the mutiny ofhis men and his ejection from the city whichknew Berlioz's admiration and reverence for"Der Freischuta." ItIs quite impossible to dis-cuss calmly his atrocious treatment of the oldoverture even now, and no description of his"reading" would help to an understanding of itunless accompanied by photographs, diagramsand pickled specimens of the poor mangled re-mains. M. d'llarcourt attempted no defence forhis countrymen, but only deplored the lack ofan authoritative French conductor, since thedeath of Lamoureux. He looked at me almostquizzically when Ipraised the conservative goodtaste, the absence of claptrap and the general

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