The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 1, 1901, Page 13

. Kokhansky, or Sembric to be known later, began to when she # six; late spent much e of “crystallized now has all the good fairies promised to the lit- r Wisnews mbrich would say t ul voice, or at le: Mme gopd luck in &0 to Milan, where she & mder the younger pe Certainly she ha t adm for and faith In the benefits of 1 art of singing, and she may r a clever critic calls her living exponent of th The flexibility of the voices of tists. the wide range me. Sembrich cred- the It on in faver of Serm h sald the An { them like it."” she the spring we had opera; we had full ways and the people were de- gner and the de- the young zers must take up Wagner immediate- Vhat is the result? In a year or two +ve no voices. It requires the Ttal- ra. the bel canto, to develop the perly, t8 give it a wide range of musician T believe In Wagner as higher type of music, but then there ful melody and air in the Ital- ke Lehmann: remember how inging and see what she ¥ She sings sner, but she also sings ‘Norma.’ She ctice in the Italfan school szke. He sings Wagner, sings as well Romeo. There are who may sing Wagner, but 't sing anything else. If they ive here the Italian opera with many artists, not with one, as Melba or Eames or Lehmann, but a full cast, I am re the people would be pleased.” These thoughts come in the nine busy months of the year when Mme. Sembrich i simply Mme. Sembrich the artist, who inks and It nd sings only musie. e has beautiful upartments in a hotel, rooms fragrant with the flowers sent by many admirers, and with only pic- tures of her real home to remind her of it, and gome of the treasures from it, sou- venirs of her life as an artist, autographs of the famous men and women she has known. She keeps the greater number of her home in Dresden, though are always with her on her travels, those in the big autograph album which is not yet filled. The world does not know so much of Mme. Sembrich at her home, for there #he s only the woman and the mother. That fs what she saye of herself. It is an immense house in a beautiful part of MME SEMBS! - THE SUNDAY CALL MARCELLA SEMBRICH the city—a mansion wmch a farry god- mother might well describe as a palace. It b lafge sarden around it, where the prima a sits sometimes during the three months when she rests entively. She studies the “‘great nature,” then vis- its the art museum of Dresden and hardly thinks of music. For six or eight weeks she does not ng a note. Her volce has an entire rest. Then she begins to practice a little—for an hour a day perhaps, but then only for five minutes at a time and no more. For three months she is a4 happy woman, living as quietly as any woman in pri- vate life, and with only one wish ungrati- fied. The illustrations show the exterior of the house in Dresden and two rooms in the Interior, two special favorites of Mme. Sembrich, plctures which she takes with LA D her when she is traveling. The larger room is the drawing-room. At the right, in the rear, is the big cabinet of Meissen porcelain, where is kept Mme. Sembrich’s wonderful collection of autographs. The smaller room is Mme. Sembrich’s own private sitting-room, and on the wall hangs a portrait of the singer by Len- bach, the great painter, whose portraits of Bismarck and the Emperor Wilhelm der Grosse are so well known. This autograph collection is wonderful; it is really a collection of tributes to Mme. Sembrich’s genius and from artists of all kinds. There are some 300 auto- graphs altogether. One of these is that of Wagner, with a screed from his pen upon the bel canto, and another is that of Beethoven. But those among the later ones in the collection which Mme. Sem- brich has with her are from people of such note that he is a happy mortal who has an opportunity to' see them. The in- terest in them is increased by the poems, sketches, bars of music or paintings that accompany them, each according to the bent of its author’s genius. The book opens with one:of the most effective of the contributions, a pen and ink sketch of a mammoth lion by Paul Meyerheim, a celebrated animal painter, who has written beneath in German words to the effect that this savage son of the wilderness now hears “the sweet tones of thy volce,” which the artist who created him has heard long since. The autograph follows. Brahms, the composer, wrote on a por- trait which he sent ‘o the great ari- ist,” with his heartfelt admiration, and in the book a few barg cf music. “To the incomparable artist from your affection- ate Hans von Bulow,” wrote that great musiclan, and Adelina Patti has in- scribed in the album, "‘To my dear friend Marcella Sembrich, with pleasant re- membrances,” while near is a bar of music from Schumann, with the autograph of Clara Schumann, who writes “to Fruu Marcella Sembrich with wondering and heartfelt remembrance of her finished art.” There are all nationalities and all lan- guages in the book, which {s a handsome volume, large and square, and next comes another pen and ink skctch from a Polish artist, dedicated as t reads translated, “To . my lovely Marcella,” by Josef Brandt. . It is the head of a horse, ex- cellently done, and beside the animal a rough looking peasant mn native costume. ainter Lenbach has given a most interesting. if not altogether artistic, pro- duction. There are first the beer mu to which all Munich is devoted. Then above appears the nuae Marcella Sem- roeAen brich. Above the nafe appears tne sun's rays, the voice of the prima donna, which lifts the city from its grosser enjoyment to higher things. That is something of the parable the artist has roughly sketched. It is this same Lenbach wko painted the picture of Mme. Sembrich’s sitting room. There is a pen and ink sketch of a sculptured head by Welanski, the Polish sculptor, who writes also several verses besides his name. One of the treasures of the collection is a bar of music, with a few admiring words from Johann Strauss to “Der Unvergheichlichen gea- falen Kunstlerin Frau Marcella Sembrich in Hochverebrung yon ihrem Bewunderer Johann Strauss,” in the delicate hand- writing of the composer. Rubirstein writes in addition to his name a bar from one of his romances which Mme. Sembrich sings so frequent- ly. Von Moltke, the celebrated general, appears in the album, his name written on a card as it was left at one time when he called upon the prima donna, and Al- bert Benoes has put in the book a charm- ing water color painting. An interesting page is that of the Russian painter, T. Alwasawsky. He has had a large photo- graph of himself taken sitting in his studio with his palette in his hand by the side of a picture in a heavy frame. In- side the frame the photograph has been cut away and the artist has painted in colors a little marine view. Jan V. Chel- minski has painted a full-page picture in water colors of a Polish soldier on horse- back., and Bobroft has painted perhaps the most beautiful contribution in the book and the most charming sentiment. Just above the center of the page is the face of a cherub, a child’s head in water colors beautiful in drawing and exquisite in delicate coloring. ‘The aftist's name is below and in the cormer the words, “The angel is an echo of the voice of Marcella Sembrich.” That is an ideal compliment. Moritz Moszkowsk! writes a bar of musie from one of his compositions in the album of the “unequaled artist,” and Herman Sudermann a few lines entirely characler- istic of: the man. “There can be no fear of the wrath of God or of the judgment,” he writes, “while one can hear a human voice like yours in song.” Eduard Haslich, the greéat eritie of Vienna and professor of music, writes to “Marcella Philomela,” In the words of Schiller that than the beautiful songs from her sweet throat nothing more beautiful can be found in form or spirit. Joachim asks that among all his admiring com- panions in the book he may be held by the violinist, planist and “last but not least' —those words in English—in pleasant re- membrance. There is a bar of music from Verdl's “Traviata: Paderewski follows with a bar from an opera of his composition. Carl Goldmark adds his name for the “alle herrlichste Mme. Sembrich”; there is the Viennese scuiptor, P. v. Zumbusch, Ho« rawski of St. Petersburg and any numbes of others.