The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 16, 1903, Page 46

TH AN FRANCISCO ALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 16, 1 90 PARTING BLANCHE HERR FRITZ SCHEEL, ONE OF THE THREE GREAT ORCHESTRA CON- DUCTORS OF AMERICA, WHO, BY THE GRACE OF THE SAN FRAN- + CISCO SYMPHONY SOCIETY, IS HERE FOR TEN WEEKS. e el SKETCr wrom LIFs. Y believe we are all In- s here,” sald Herr Fritz and the conductor comfortablv as he rased the foreign be- America I had other afternoon, rmezzos than Ma of in the shape of calls and visitors, the subject musician's opinfon of and our symphony son led the way there, two as to the curious d the gifted ltallan by pened upon ay, th to seems to have e latter story— Pletro Maestro himself 2 not uninclined to the s to our musical de- has lat and en- ed it (in Paris) Lis visit nfirm him in the opinion, d particularly as to—but after I penned!— particu- pful Cali- ! d thee so, the caliber of the or- agni imported appears orous testimony to his Mr. Scheel, modestly g the many s, it was “the worst ( orchestra in the world.” The too, though greatly better—but s. rner seems to to biame in the Mascagn! flasco. AS to t it comfort us that the ed entire willingness to ionary here for $4000 a e was approached on the t during his recent visit. Just what one is unprepared to say. ver, that it is a token t the handsome maes- flatteringly to express is nmeither here nor nos moutons, to Fritz recognized as one of the orchestral conductors of ours for a splendid ten by the grace of the San Francisco Symphony Soclety Uncommonly well Mr. Scheel looked the day when I saw him. The cares of the Philadelphia Symphony seem to #it lightly on shoulders that have per- ceptibly broadened since his last visit here. Fame and Philadelphia, too, have filled out the thin, fine, nervous face, and healthfully flushed the fine olive pallor. But there is not a flash lost from the eyes that used to look lightnings into men's veins, nor a grain of the famillar magnetism. Ten weeks from now these will be fused with the texture ,of an orchestra that will hardly be recognizable &s that which made its bow last Fri- <Cay, the product probably semething other nearer symphony than anything we have vet had. Miss Margarete Scheel, who looks at vou with her father's eves and who is a pianist and “great friends” with her dis- th 1 papa, comes with him this time. She told me how she had looked forward to seeing her father's *‘second home,” how he had locked forward to this, fifth visit. Then, putting on a coat with a bloomy sprig of Monterey cypress pinned to it, she left him to our tender mercie: “But the little saviors of America are not all found in Italy,” the distinguished German was saying. “I am afraid every little fiddler in Germany thinks just about the same. He picks up his bow and says: “Wait till T go to that America! I'll show them how to do things!" ™ It is as well to preface that I must give up the attempt to reproduce Mr. Scheel's piquant Teutonisms. But as the conductor seems 1o be as delightfully anxious about is accent as was Mozart about his dancing, I can handsomely assure him it is not the artless and ardent affair of the Midwinter Fair days, nor even of the pre-Philadelphian era. True, the land of symphony and lager still claims it, but only to its flavorous advantage. “Perhaps the forelgn musicians’ atti- tude is a little the fault of the Americans themselves,” Mr. Scheel pursued. ‘“They are too tolerant, too polite—I think the most really polite people anywhere. They take from the foreigner work they would not for a moment stand from their countrymen.” “And treat the native genius with scant courtesy to balance things,” I add. “Mac- Dowell, now. Who gives his orchestral work? Our good Mr. Steindorff here."” “Ah, but I have given MacDowell's works,” the conductor ‘interrupted, his eyes kindling above that eagle beak of his that so well bears out their command. “MacDowell is the American Beethoven.” ““Beethoven?’ I question. Then venture: “He is much like Grieg to me.” No; more earnest,” Scheel insisted. “And it is the Beethoven scale. * * * Yes: I have given his Indian Suite—very much. I like it, and he has played for me his piano concerto. Ach! a fine fellow. * * * Theodore Thomas is very sympa- thetic with the American composer. He brings out many of their works. But it is true the conductors are not kind to American genfus.” “Who else is doing good orchestral things here? asked, ‘besides Mac- Dowell?” ““We have played a very fine overture of Chadwick’s,” the conductor replied. “Arthur Foote is alsd an excellent com- poser—though mostly of songs.” “What kind of a composer is Fritz Scheel?” I ask then. “Ach! T don’t like to bother the people with my stuff while there's Beethoven to conduct,” Fritz Scheel said, his eyes twinkling busily. He blushed as busily, being still the same modest, greatly-sim- ple person in spite of all his laursls. “But you have composed?” I chal- lenged. “Of course, cating palms. “What?’ I hardily pursue. “All kinds of things"—continuously clam-like. b “Particularly Then he owned, as one would confess to a penchant for appropriating one's neigh- bor’s dog: “I like much church music. I have some motets that may not be so bad. Orchestral things, too.” Then his eyes, with a new, roguish glisten, an- nounced the following: “I should like to haf been a monk sometime!” ““Ah, you want to be a Palaestrina,” I some,” turning up depre- said. “Ach, yes!” he flashed and sighed. “Purest, greatest music that {s. And mod- ern, so modern. * * *—But the ‘modern- est’ of all s Johann Sebastian Bach—" “The ‘Chaconne’!” I cried. “Everything is there,” Scheél agreed, and we shook mental hands over a com- mon idol. “But think,” I reverted, “what a chance you have to have your compositions fitly interpreted—with an orchestra to your hand.” “Composers not often conduct their own work so well,” the conductor dis- sented. ““Very seidom, in fact. Many times I have seen it. I played violin when Brahms conduct one of his sym- phonies, for exampls. Never nave I heard it played so badiy. The composer is very satisfled if it is nearly so—some- ' thing like his idea. He bears in his head all the rest of it.” Apropos. “You are to conduct at the same desk with Strauss next season, I see?” “Five concerts,” Mr. Scheel happily af- firmed. “Two in Boston and one each in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. ‘We take each half the concert. ‘I see that that Brussels man—"' “Conducted Strauss much better thi Strauss himself, according to London's eritical folk,” I sald. “That would go to support your_gxperience.” “It is not unlikely,” Scheel concurred. “Are you, too, a Strauss worshiper?” sked superfluously. “Everything he has written I like,” was the wholesale acknowledgment. “I grant his music takes time to understand. It is philosophical, ethical, religious—every- thing. Strauss touches depths that have never before been touched. He moves among the old silences of the soul— plucks at the strings of very life, pain, death. * * * He is a wonder,” Scheel unexpectedly concluded. N “What should you say his heredity was?"’ I asked. sseethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Strauss, surely!” Scheel answered. “Germany really has done rather well—" I laugh. “Of course there is little Master Bach, Mozart—Papa Haydn was a very nice man also,” Scheel continued. '“Take Meister Gluck, too, for opera. Then there's Weber—Wagner did not forget him. Don’t forget Schubert either, for his songs, in Master Strauss’ making. Nor Brahms.” I — “And now-—what really matters—are we to have any Strauss—with all this highly respectable parentage—here?” I anxiously demand. “I cannot vet say,” the conductor an- swered. ‘““His scoring is so exacting— eight - horns in ‘Ein Heldenleben,’ for example. There are only four obtainable in San Francisco. We may be able to do ‘Till Eulenspiegel.’ “You mus I sald. “We haven't had a serap of Strauss here. Only some of the songs. But you have some other things we want to hear, I know—oh, Strauss! May 1 hear of some of the other music that is among the likelihcods?” “I have a great deal,” the conductor laughed. “Look hete,” and he pulled out a list from his pocket that showed a store of symphony that would last through a ten years’ war. Here are some of the things: Tschalkowsky Symphony No. 3, Suite, op, 43, No. 1, and the tone poem, “The Lake of Swanms”; the tone poem, “Legende,” by Sibelius; some new sym- phonic dances, by Grieg: symphony, Gernstein, “Mirjam”; .d'Albert overture, “Aus der Improvisator”; a “Lustspiel” overture by Rezincek; the Vorspiel from the second act of Max Schilling's “Ingwelde”; two Konigskinder, by Fritz Vollbach; the ‘‘King Lear” overture by Berlioz; a ballet suite by Glazounow; “Liebesfruhling” overture by Georg Schumann, and most of the standard lit- erature, “Truly there will be no famine,” I ac- knowledge. * * * “I wonder how you will find the orchestra?’ “That remains to be seen,” said Scheel. ““The men did splendidly for Mascagni,’ 1 witness, “especially considering the few rehearsals, “‘Got all the notes, and very much more."” “Ah, but you are past that period here,” Scheel insisted. “You are past the stage of looking for the notes. That was gone by five years ago, when I was here last. Now one looks for the music.” “But we have so little chance here. That terrible money."” . “It will come: Tt will come!” Scheel consoled. “Last season there was a deficit of $70,000 in the affairs of the Philadelphia orchestra. This season they have pulled together, and no musician in the orches- tra receives less than $37 50 a week for his services. Symphony orchestras are not made in a day.” “I know you think ‘the atmosphere here musical,” 1 recalled. o “Exceptionally,” the conductor granted. “Boston is perhaps the most musical of American cities. But the atmosphere grows everywhere very quickly. Curious- ly enough, Americans who travel aré the last to see this. They go to Europe, hear things, and then come back to say tke Brahms symphony as given by Mr. Thomas is not the Brahms symphony as gixen by Felix Weingartner. Neither it is. But that is not it. It is impossible to compare a performance that happened months ago with one of to-day. When music is gone, it is gone. You can’t re- peat the memory, only dimly. A sym- ‘phony once played is flown aw ished. Even what I did mysclf yesterday Iam not sure of. * * * Then there’s the matter of moods. I am sure I never played the ‘Tannhauser’ overture twice alike, or the ‘Eroica’ symphony. Only a machine could do t 1 know that I play Beethoven once the best in my life. * * * And so much depends on the ¢ chestra. The finer it is, the higher the in- spiration. When it gives to you lightest touch, it seems that nothing there is that you cannot do. Fritz Scheel with the Mid- inter ¥air Orchestra is not Fritz Scheel th the Bulow Orchestra—is it not? But Fritz Scheel with the Philadelphia Or- chestra is not Fritz Scheel with the Bu- low Orchestra, either. Nor can the listener determine just the ¢ vaguely. Sometimes, then, traveling American should giv orchestra the benefit of the doubt. But— not often”—and Scheel shook his thought- ful head. “You were long with Von Bulow?" “We was three years together—biggest friends. Never have a fight,” the con~ ductor laughed. “He was, of course, the best man before Wagner."” “How long have you been conducting, Scheel?” % “Seventeen long years,” the conductor replied. “And I well remember my first conducting. It was at the Schwerein Court Theater. 1 was first violin there, and I took the conductor's place. The opera was ‘Robert le Diable,’ and after we had started I fournd there was a whole act missing and nowhere to be found! I conducted it from the first violin score.” “You came to America first to the Mid- winter Fair?"” “No; to the Chicago World's Fair. Since then, well,"—and the conductor looked out affectionately at the city that lay sleep- ing in the sunlight—*"you know I have not neglected San Francisco. It seems a sec- ond home to me.” “Ting-a-ling!” the seventh telephone by actual count throughout the hour, with two bellboys, and two sumptuous Italians that came on matters symphonic brought the interview to a close. “They are very good said, “they all want to sdy S Plays and the Players. The Alcazar is to the fore this week with a new rural play that has met with much success in the East, “The Dairy Farm.” M ‘“‘Papa” Scheel how-dye-do.” o me Charles Richman, under the manage- ment of Weber & Flelds, will star in Victor Mapes’ new play, “Captain Bar- rington.” Lo S Onoto Watanna's novel, “A Japanese Nightingale,” which was dramatized by Willlam Young, will be presented at Daly’s Theater in November. The scenery has been designed by artists in Japan and the costumes will be imported from there. & 08 b Paul Arthur, the American actor, who is now prominent in London theatricals, will be Mrs. Langtry's leading man when she tours thls country next sc.son in “Mrs. Deering’'s Divorce. Mr. Arthur has not acted In America for a number of years. A George Soule Spencer, who until last week was leading man with the Neil- Morosco company, has left them to join William H. Crane, with whom he will be leading man next seas creating the part of Percival Bines in “The Spenders,” dramatized from the Watson ncvel now appearing in The Call. . . e The first performance of “Everyman,” the famous morality play to be given here by the origihal company of English play- ers under the direction of Ben Greet, will take place under the auspices of the Channing Auxiliary on the evening of August 28. The production is arousing a profound interest. . . . Manager Will L. Greenbaum has ar- ranged for the orchestra of seventy of the Metropolitan Opera-house, New York, to give three concerts in this city the last week in October. Its musical director will be J. H. Duss, the millionaire banker, who forsook commerce to devote himself to music and who has alreadv spent a fortune in furthering its interests. The soloists will be Mme. Lilian Nordica, Mrs, Katharine Fisk and Nathan Franko. LR Mme. Jennie Norelli, the colorature so- prano engaged for Henry W. Savage's English grand opera company, will short- ly sail for this country to begin rehear- sals. Mme. Norelli was born, in Stock- holm, where she received her early musical education at the State Conserv- atory. Last year she was engaged at Covent Garden and prior to that sang in grand opera with marked success in Ber- lin and Mllan. #ooe The remarkable success which has at- tended the return of Camile d"Arville to the operatic stage and the numerous re- of intending visitors during the encampment have determined gement to continue “The High- at the Tivoli for the forth- coming week. The bright and tuneful De Koven opera was never better put on. Miss d'Arville herself is a dashing Lady Constance, and with such support as Ed- win Stevens in the part of Foxy Quiller, Arthur Cunningham as Dick Fitzgerald, Edward Webb, Ferris Hartman, Bertha Davis and all the other Tivoli favorites the star is Indeed favored. . e o To-morrow evening at the Columbia Theater begins an engagement that all good play-goers have long been looking forward to, that of Henry Miller, Mar- garet Anglin and their company. The company surrounding the stars is said to be exceptionally able and _includes the following names: Martha Wallfron, Kate Pattison Selten, Victoria Addison, Mary Bertrand, G. S. Titheradge, Morton Sel- ten, Walter len, Walter Hitchecock, Robert Mackay, Ralph Lewis, Bertram Harrison, Douglas R. Paterson, Harmon MacGregor, E. J. Mettler and John Tobie. The play selected to open the engage- ment is “The Devil's Disciple,” by Ge Bernard Shaw, poet, playwright, phleteer, wit and socialist. : The brilllant writer is probably best represented in his dramatic efforts by this play and his studies of the miserable and parrow minded men and women of W are known as the Puritanical New En, land days also the muddling misman- agement and selfishness of the E h in dealing with the American colon stitutes a most dramatic story. ¢ 169 The menta! illness of Lan Leno, King's Jjester” and idol of the music hall, and his necessary departure from the muslc/ hall stage has robbed London of one of its quaintest figures. High and low, rich and poor, are lament- ing Mr. Leno. His career has been short, but between 30 and 40 years of age he amassed a fortune of more than half a million dollars. His wife and bevy of children will always be rich, whether or not Mr. Leno returns to the stage. The homely little man whose jokes have kept all London laughing was once a factory hand. Neither he nor his family have made any effort to change their station in life. They are content to remain cock- ney. But Mr. Leno delighted to load his wife and young daughter with diamonds. They possess some rare precious stones. For himself Mr. Leno's keenest pleasure away from the stage has always been with flowérs and chickens. He made a specialty of rose growing. It is a sad fact that Mr. Leno’s loss of mind, due to overwork, was immediately brought about by too much charity matineeing. He has never been known to refuse his services for any kind of charitable per- formance. His reputation for befriend- ing poor actors is almost as great as Sir Henry Irving's. e ——— Russell Sage Wears Well. Russell Sage is In his eighty-ninth year and is generally referred to as a “veteran financier,” but Edward B. Wesley, a trader in the New York stock market, is his senior by four years in the matter of age and has been nearly a quarter of a century on 'change. Mr. Wesley be- gan speculating when only ning years of age, his first venture being in pins, when he made a profit of about a dollar. From that day to this he has made his living as a speculator. Five days In the week he is regular in attendance in Wall street, and until recently, when rheuma- tism began to bother him, he never was ill a day in his life.—Exchange. —_—————— Bad Eyes in. Boston Schools. Examinations of over 200,000 pairs of eyes and careful tabulation of the results in the Boston public schools show that nearly all children enter the primary schools with normal eyes. In the higher grades one-fourth of the puplils are my- opic, and in universities this increases until from 6 to 70 per cent of the stu- dents are myopic. In other words, near- sightedness increases steadily from the lewer to the her grades, and in exact proportion to the length of time devoted to the eyestrain of school life.—Exchange. - AN Miss Fay possibly be the genfus I thought her last night?” I asked myself with = small, cold chill, as I read over on Monday morning m: Sunday night's impressions of that markable young woman. The “difference sin the moraing” s nowhere more pal- pable than in e‘llhuslasm.l. The cool light of day is nowhere crueller than when It slants on a midnight fetich. Therefore when I have burned incense to a new tdolatry o’ernight the cold type of it is the last thing I seek the next day. But undoubtedly I had committed my- self hopelessly about Miss Elfle Fay. And to an unknown idol. In spite of a proud diligence in following the merry Thespian through these United States I had never even seem her name. Yet there she was Instantly to me the arch- exemplar of the song and dance god. And I had said so, fully, unreservedly. What if my mood, or the inspiring effect of the best bill at the Orpheum since “befo’ de wa' " had decelved me? Then I remem- bered the shrieking house and was re- assured. But, consciencefully, anxiously, I went to see the young woman again, incidentally achleving a record of two visits to the Orpheum in one week. My chills were lost. I found Miss Fay not only what I had thought her, but more, on second hearing, and seeing—in- deed, seeing. She is quite the most orig- inal personality of the week, unique, and glitteringly gifted in her Iine. Her chubby, baby face, copper-yellow hair, and sonsie figure, she uses exactly as the artist uses his paint, as the sculptor his clay. She sketches now the tough girl, again the leering hoodlum, the bad boy, even a monkey, with a startling truth of characterization that appeals as the late Phil May's truths appealed; as the work of the Parisian, Caran d'Ache, appeals Her monkey imitation has the value of a Japanese grotesque, her enfant terrible the naive diablerie of a Gavroche. Pos- sibly it would take a Paris most fully to sense the finnese, grace and Mghtning wit of Miss Fay's art, but meantime she is here for another week. That Miss Elfie Fay—her real name, by the way—had the foresight to be born of a French mother and an Irish papa, I was not surprised to find when I went behind the scemes to chat with “ti® Queen of venue A Neither was I surprised to find that Miss Fay had been invited to a Paris theater, nor that she was already previously engaged here by Weber & Rush for the next three years. Ome thing I was surprised to find. that the “gray re- eyes” of my first impression were a pair of brown diamonds off stage, an fllusion of the make-up, as the elfish vaudevilllan explained. Hugh Fay, her father, was an Irish comedian, with the utmost objection to bis daughter's eholce of a profession. But what's in will out, and at 17 Miss Elie, after being variously expelled from school, also running away freely, found herself where she certainly belongs. Sad parts were her childish ambition. “Ggive me bback me cheild'—snow, please!” as she unctuously gurgled it the other night She used to borrow the cook’s apron and put it on backward as a train, then prae- tice falling on the back of her head be- fore a mirror. Then she had no knowl- edge of how to “break” a fall, thinking that it was “just a matter of getting used to having your brains flattened.” Her father’s timely arm, she says, probabiy saved the small Fay skull from hopeless fracture. But at last she found herself om the stage. For some time this spelled Hoyt's com- edies on the road. Then came the inev- itable desire to “break into” New York. This seemed impossible, but there is ap- parently no such word in the Fay vocab- ulary. No one knew her nor cared about the ambitious young woman, but she at last found her way into the chorus of “Mlle. "Awkins.” But this was not- her goal and she went in a very curious and characteristic fashion about getting what she did want. From the first rehearsal she studied what she would do at every moment of the comedy where the chorus came in—briefly, everything that was not in the rehearsal. She did it and the next day the new chorus girl was town talk. The price of her rebellion was a salary raised from $15 to $75 a week, with a po- sition on the road afterward as the star of the company. Since that time there has been a two years' experience in London with “The Belle of New York” and at the Empire Music Hall. London she likes and gave me some private convulsions over her ex> perience. “They're dear there,” she said. “They ‘used to say—drawling it beautifully—Tsn't she a rippah? on the street. I'd say “What, O!' apd they'd say, ‘Tsm't quaint?” Quaint!!!" Then Miss Fay drew her face down into an imitation of the late Queen Victoria, that the Empire laughéd at and objected to with considerable vehemence. I don't see why, for you couldn’t tell the dif- ference. ———— Biggest Park in the World. Los Angeles has the biggest park In the world. It was presented by a newspaper man named Griffith and is called Grif- fth Park. The giver asked that no rall- road leading to the park should be per- mitted to charge more than 5 cents fare. Central Park, New York, cost over $15, 000,000 and consists of 40 acres. Gri fith Park, Los Angeles, is a tract of 3000 aeres. It includes two and one-half miles of frostless foothills, bordering on Ca- huenga Valley, five miles of Los Angeles River bottom and a beautiful little valley which originally was. known as the Press Colony site. The park has over 2000 acres of tillable land and some of the most ro- mantic scenery on earth.—Exchange. she