528 



The Review of Reviews. 



MUSIC AND ART IN THE MAGAZINES. 



An Unknown Composer of Genius. 

 Writing in the April number of the Musical Times, 

 M. D. Calvocoressi draws attention to the accidental 

 discovery by M. Gabriel Pierne of an unknown com- 

 poser of genius. M. Ernest Fanelli, now over fifty, 

 began about thirty years ago to write symphonic 

 works of the highest originality and interest, but never 

 succeeded in getting his music produced. He was living 

 in the utmost poverty, and recently, having applied 

 to M. Pit-rne for work as a copyist of music, he sub- 

 mitted to him as a specimen one of his own scores. 

 This greatly interested M. Pierne. He found M. 

 Fanelli's craftsmanship admirable, and the scoring 

 novel, effective, and unusually excellent to its minutest 

 details ; and he decided to give a performance of the 

 work at the Concerts, Colonne, of which he is conductor. 

 The work, first heard on March 17th, consisted of a 

 set of tone-pictures, entitled " Thebes," and was 

 received with enthusiasm. M. Fanelli began to study 

 music at the age of ten, and afterwards entered the 

 Paris Conservatoire. But he did not pursue to the end 

 the regular course of tuition. After leaving the school 

 he continued to work, and acquired the greater part 

 of his technical proficiency through reading scores, 

 or whilst playing some minor instrument in the 

 orchestra. After " Thebes," he composed an important 

 orchestral suite, " Impressions Pastorales " (1890), but 

 failed to obtain a performance. His other works are 

 four " Humoreskes " and a " Suite Rabelaisienne " 

 for orchestra, a pianoforte quintet, and several vocal 

 pieces with orchestral accompaniment. 

 Music-Therapy. 

 In a little article on the Healing Power of Music, 

 in the April number of the Musical Student, Mrs. 

 James E. Crawshaw points out that music is no new- 

 cure for mental disease, since we read of the effect of 

 David's playing upon Saul. The Egyptians seem to 

 have been the first to indicate the medicinal qualities 

 of music. They called it physic for the soul, and 

 ascribed to it specific remedial value. The Persians 

 believed that the soul was purified by music. The 

 greatest philosophers of Greece attributed to it high 

 medicinal efficacy for body and mind alike. Two 

 hundred years ago music was in this country recog- 

 nised as at least a palliative, if not a curer, of disease, 

 as the many references to it in Shakespeare show. In 

 1891 the Guild of St. Cecilia was formed in London, 

 its purpose iseing to furnish trained musicians who 

 would supply hospitals and infirmaries with music for 

 the treatment of patients. When Sir Edward Elgar 

 was a young man he became conductor of the band 

 of the Worcester County Lunatic Asylum. Once a 

 week he visited the institution, and having taught the 

 band, which was composed of attendants, to play 

 various instruments, conducted performances designed 

 to benefit the patients. 



Recollections of Millet. 

 Karl Bodmer, a draftsman and painter of animals 

 and forest-scenes, was already working at Barbizon 



when Millet and his family arrived there in 1849. The 

 Century Magazine for April publishes his recollections 

 of Millet. P'rom the first Bodmer was an enthusiastic 

 admirer of Millet. One day he went into the studio, 

 and found Millet rubbing American potash over some 

 of his pictures to obtain clean canvases. Bodmer 

 expostulated, and at last one of the pictures was given 

 to him. It had an inch of paint on it. It was, indeed, 

 absolutely modelled in paint, but it illustrated one of 

 the methods by which Millet tried to find out the best 

 way to express himself. He built up paint as a sculptor 

 builds up clay. It is the best way to study light. The 

 sculpturesque quality is evident in all of Millet's figures, 

 and this constitutes one of his claims to supremacy 

 over many painters of modern times. How did he get 

 so much truth into his pictures of peasants ? He was 

 a farmer himself until he was twenty. He worked with 

 faith and patience towards his goal, but his life was a 

 cruel dream — a tragedy. A good work cannot be forced 

 into public notice ; it must wait. Besides the sense of 

 sculpture shown in " The Angelus " and other pictures, 

 a quality not often noticed, Bodmer points out another 

 quality quite as rarely recognised — the actual and sug- 

 gested openness or freedom of Millet's scheme of 

 composition. His pictures are not bound by any line 

 or limit whatever ; they are a part of the whole earth, 

 and have an endless distance in all directions, like the 

 limitless plain in " The Man with the Hoe." 



Painters of Breton Scenes. 



In the English Illustrated Magazine for April, Edythe 

 R. Paen has an interesting article on the Art Colony 

 at Concarneau in Brittany. The painters of Breton 

 scenes include artists of all nationalities, and Con- 

 carneau, a place fortunate in beauty and alluring 

 charm, forms an attractive setting for the countless 

 episodes of Breton life depicted by the subject painter. 

 Among the more important French artists are Henri 

 Guinier, the painter of " Un Pardon en Finistere " ; 

 and F. Le Gout-Gerard, a marine painter. Charles 

 Henr}' Fromuth, an American, recently acknowledged 

 to be the leading pastel painter in the world, has 

 worked at Concarneau for eighteen years. J. Milner 

 Kite, an Englishman, has for many years exhibited 

 in the Paris Salons. Austria is represented in the 

 Colony by Mmc. Emmy Leuze-Hirschfeld, and Russia 

 by Emilc B. Hirschfeld. The oldest resident artist is 

 Alfred Guillou, a native, who finds his inspiration in 

 his own land, home, and rare. 



The Royal for May is a very bright number, and 

 makes a special feature of the Cinema, giving portraits 

 of actors and actresses who devote their talent to this 

 the most popular form of public education and amuse- 

 ment. Miss Margaret Chute contributes the explaiia- 

 tory article, " The One-Eyed Machine," and gi\es 

 many interesting facts as to the methods of producing 

 the pictures. Quxte a novel feature is the reproduction 

 of a Bioflex booklet, by which the reader is presented 

 with a living picture of Miss Phyllis Dare. 



