Dr. Sanna Pederson, University of Oklahoma
The further we go back in time, the more obvious how arbitrary our knowledge of the past is. Most information about concerts comes from the press: newspapers and music journals provide the names, dates, and programs. For the most part, the news about performers and performances centered around opera, but that started to change once … Read more
The centennial of Joachim’s birth in 1931 was observed in Berlin and elsewhere with tributes recalling the important part he had played in so many aspects of musical life. Only a few years later the Nazi re-writing of Germany history began, in which Jewish artists and intellectuals were purged from the German culture they helped … Read more
F. S. Kelly (1881-1916), pianist and composer Frederick Septimus Kelly is remembered today as one of the “lost” generation killed in World War I – specifically as part of the Hood Battalion of the Royal Navy, where so many of Britain’s young elite of talent and birth served as officers before being killed. But he … Read more
A monument for Richard Wagner, and the first for any composer in Berlin, was unveiled as part of a five-day festival in 1903. (A Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven Denkmal followed in 1904.) The statue of Wagner was by the sculptor Gustav Eberlein, who had also made some of the figures of German heroes and leaders lining the Siegesallee. Wagner … Read more
Arthur M. Abell (1868-1958) lived in Europe from 1890 to 1918. Starting in 1893 he was a Berlin correspondent for the Musical Courier. After the War he returned to New York and wrote for the New York Times and other outlets. Abell’s musical credentials included his training as a violinist. In 1895 he advertised for students … Read more
Premiere in Berlin of the Symphony No. 3 in D Minor, 14 January, Gustav Mahler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. Decadence (E.E. Taubert in Die Musik) That Mahler is a brilliant virtuoso in the treatment of the orchestra is known–to me he is even bolder than Richard Strauss in that respect. He strikes an entirely new … Read more
In 1908The Musical Courier declared: “When Joachim died there was virtually an end to the string quartet, confessedly the highest form of abstract music.” The issue of the “death” of the string quartet had been raised before by the English press. In 1902 the Musical News had fretted: Is the interest in chamber music really … Read more