Talk:Alfred Schulz-Curtius

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[edit] Extended references

→ Please see explanatory note* below citations. A.

1870s
1880s
1890s
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
  • Fifield, ch. 22.[3]
  • History of Askonas Holt.[5]
  • Obituary for Lionel John Manning Powell.[19]
1950s
1960s
1990s
  • Harold Holt Ltd merged with the Lies Askonas agency to form Askonas Holt.[5]


References
  1. ^ Christopher Fifield, Ibbs and Tillett: The Rise and Fall of a Musical Empire. London: Ashgate Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-84014-290-1, ISBN 978-1840142907. ASIN 1840142901. Preview on Google Book Search. (General Index “Schultz-Curtius, Alfred: pp. 21, 25, 106, 308, 341. Schultz-Curtius and Powell: pp. 308, 309, 318.”)
  2. ^ a b Fifield, Chapter 3, pp. 25-26. “One of the leaders of the orchestra at the Wagner Festival in 1877 was Hermann Franke, who later enticed Richter back to London for a series of concerts at St James Hall in the summer of 1879. Their success was immediate and so began the annual series of Orchestral Festival Concerts in May and June, later to become known as the Richter Concerts. Franke initially collaborated with the impresario Alfred Schultz-Curtius, but the latter soon branched off into the field of opera such as the first British staging of the Ring in 1882 (directed by Angelo Neumann and conducted by Anton Seidl), and brought many famous conductors of Wagner to London including Mottl, Levi, Weingartner, Richard Strauss and the composer's son Siegfried.”
  3. ^ a b c d Fifield, Chapter 22, p. 308. “[The] agency had been founded in 1876 by Alfred Schulz-Curtius, primarily to promote Wagner's music in England, and it continued in business until the First World War when, as an ‘enemy’ alien, he was interned. He took Lionel Powell into partnership (Schulz-Curtius and Powell, 44 Regent Street, London W1), and after Schulz-Curtius's death, Powell joined up with Harold Holt, a South African Jew, whose father was a diamond merchant. Holt junior trained as a barrister but did not practice. He was, according to the late Sir Ian Hunter in an interview with the author in 1996, ‘the greatest raconteur in London, who wasted away his fortune’. When Powell died in 1931, the agency became known as Harold Holt Ltd. Holt died in 1953…”
  4. ^ a b Fifield, Chapter 24, p. 341. “In 1969, Ian Hunter bought Harold Holt Ltd from Emmie Tillett… Harold Holt Ltd celebrated its centenary in 1976, taking its starting date as Alfred Schultz-Curtius's activities in London a century earlier.”
  5. ^ a b c d The History of Askonas Holt. Askonas Holt website. “Harold Holt Ltd was founded in 1876 by Alfred Schultz Curtius, who was the first impresario to bring Richard Wagner’s music to the London public. The company became renowned for its presentations in the latter part of the 19th Century and into the 20th Century, with South African-born Harold Holt taking over in the 1930s. Some legendary presentations at the Royal Albert Hall included the Berliner Philharmoniker, Furtwängler and Menuhin, Dame Nellie Melba and a short-trousered Claudio Arrau. The arrival of Sir Ian Hunter in 1956 from the Edinburgh Festival brought a new dimension of artists and festival direction.”
  6. ^ James Christensen. Dr. Alfred Stelzner: Pioneer in Violin Acoustics. International Draeseke Society. “Arnold Dolmetsch’s article, "The New Era in Violin Making", published in Musical News on 13 November 1891, described a recent event held on the premises of Bechstein (a distinguished piano company) in Wigmore Street [now Wigmore Hall]in London. The celebrated London impresario, Alfred Schulz Curtius, had invited many eminent musicians to meet Dr. Stelzner and to hear his theories about the construction of bowed instruments. Emil Kreuz, a close friend of Mr. Dolmetsch, was to provide musical illustrations to the lecture, and a quartet of the new instruments also played.… Alfred Schulz-Curtius then wrote in the 29 January 1892 issue about the warm reception to a recent performance in Wiesbaden of the Vieuxtemps A minor violin concerto by Émile Sauret playing a Stelzner violin. Schulz-Curtius appended a letter from M. Sauret praising the instrument highly.”
  7. ^ Mr. Percy Pitt. The Musical Times, Vol. 52, No. 819, pp. 293-295 (doi:10.2307/905399) (1 May 1911). “… in the season 1892-3 Schultz-Curtius started the Mottl orchestral concerts at Queen's Hall, in connection with which Henry J. Wood was engaged…”
  8. ^ Alfred Schulz-Curtius' Grand Wagner Concerts (1894-98). Online database of holdings of concert programmes (About: online database of concert programmes “held in libraries, archives and museums in the UK and Ireland, providing access to a vital source of information about musical life from the 18th century to the present.” Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Led by Cardiff University in collaboration with the Royal College of Music). “A collection of programmes for 23 Grand Wagner Concerts, organized by Alfred Schulz-Curtius and given between 1894 and 1898 at the Queen's Hall, London, held as two bound volumes.”
  9. ^ Of Music and Musicians. The New York Times, p. 17 (abstract). Full article (pdf) (3 January 1904). “It was in August, 1894, at Baireuth [the Bayreuth Festival] that Mr. Wood became acquainted with Felix Mottl, and thereafter arrangements were made by the German conductor whereby Mr. Wood became musical advisor to Mr. Schultz-Curtius of London, for the Queen's Hall Wagner concerts in the ensuing season. In the summer of 1895 he first appeared at the Queen's Hall as conductor. It was destined to be the turning point in his career and to mark an epoch in the history of music in England. This was the direct result of his meeting with an eminent authority on voice production, whose views with a regard to the injurious results of singing to the high pitch were precisely those held by Mr. Wood. It was, in fact, this enthusiast who offered to bear the cost of a series of concerts, with Mr. Wood as conductor, on the condition that the low pitch should be adopted.… so marked was the success of these concerts and so determined was Mr. Wood to conduct none but an orchestra tuned to the international pitch, that the proprietors of Queen's Hall were obliged to lower that of their magnificent organ. To Mr. Wood is due the introduction of international pitch to Nottingham, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, and other cities.”
  10. ^ Musical Matters Abroad. The Pall Mall Gazette, as quoted in The New York Times, p. 6 (abstract). Full article (pdf) (29 January 1899). “This paragraph from the Pall Mall Gazette… “The most important musical enterprise of 1898 seems indubitably to have been the triple production of ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ at the Covent Garden Opera. The affair was, one may say, a joint stock concern, and the operatic syndicate combined with Mr. Alfred Schulz-Curtius in endeavors to bring the enterprise to a successful issue.” …”
  11. ^ British Library, Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library: Music (“Brochure for 1898 Ring by Alfred Schultz-Curtius, Playbills 350, folio 64.”)
  12. ^ In the World of Music: What the Composers, Players, Singers, and Managers Are Doing in Various Places. The New York Times, Page 6 (abstract). Full article (pdf) (19 March 1899). “The everlasting searching after the New Thing has the paradoxical habit of leading us back to the old. Therefore it is not difficult to prophecy with assurance that when people shall come to be oversated with Wagner, Mozart will share the fate of indiscriminate enthusiasm. Mr. Schulz-Curtius, who has done so much for the popularization of Wagner's music, has now turned his attention to Mozart. Also, he thinks that lighter forms of opera have been unduly neglected. In this matter he is undoubtedly right.”
  13. ^ Sir Henry Joseph Wood. My Life of Music. 1971 autobiography (alternate Google Book Search). “In 1903 Schultz-Curtius started his wonderful series of orchestral concerts at Queen's Hall, bringing over great Wagnerian conductors such as Levi, Mottl, ...”
  14. ^ Ferruccio Busoni (1895 - 1907). Letters to his wife. “LONDON, 19 November 1903: I undertook a big feat which has left its traces in limbs and nerves. Arriving here in the morning from Ireland, after two night-journeys there and back, I was met by Schulz-Curtius who asked me if I would play at the Richter concert the same evening for Hess, who had been taken ill. It was a Brahms evening, and there was no choice; the D minor concerto was the only possibility. So I sat down immediately for three hours, in order to get the thing into my memory and fingers.
    “LONDON, 23 November 1904: An hour ago I had Schultz-Curtius and Frau Matesdorf to lunch with me at Monico’s. It was quite nice but not particularly “youthful.” As a human being and an artist I prefer to look forward rather than backward, and my preference for the company of younger people is connected with this fact. And I hope it will be like this until the end; for when that ceases, it is depressing - as your father said whilst he stood on his hands and planted his legs against the wall…
    “LONDON, 2 December 1906: What a distance there is between the Adriatic coast and the English Channel! I have never observed such an enormous difference before. Here, fog, storm, cold - all the wintry devils together, and only the day before yesterday this summer sunset in Triest! I have such a horror of the crossing to Ireland - but Schultz-Curtius is immovable…”
  15. ^ Guilhermina Suggia (The Hague, January 1905). O Regresso de Leipzig (The Return to Leipzig). Excerpt from Guilhermina Suggia - A Sonata de Sempre by Fátima Pombo (in Portuguese). “O público louco de entusiasmo. Depois de um concerto na sala Bechstein, todos pensavam que o instrumento era italiano. Houve quem não acreditasse que era alemão. Fiquei contratada para toda a Inglaterra até 1906 pelo empresário Alfred Schultz Curtius.” (Google translation: “The wild public of enthusiasm. After a concert in Bechstein Hall [now Wigmore Hall], everyone thought that the instrument was Italian. Some people did not believe that it was German. I was contracted for all England until 1906 by impresario Alfred Schultz Curtius.”)
  16. ^ Fifield, Chapter 10, p. 106. “But briefly returning to the company's first two years (1906-08), Ibbs and Tillett had stiff competition from such firms as Daniel Mayer (established in January 1890 at Chatham House, George Street, Hanover Square, ), H. Bernhardt's Philharmonic and Concert Direction (Regent Street), Schultz-Curtius (Regent Street), Leslie Hibberd (17 Hanover Square and manager of Erard's piano showrooms in Great Marlborough Street), Ethel L. Robinson (7 Wigmore Street), Chappell's (50 Bond Street), E.A. Michell with Philip Ashbrooke (7a Piccadilly Mansions), Hugo Görlitz (119 New Bond Street), L.G. Sharpe (established in December 1900 at 61 Regent Street), T. Arthur Russell Concert Direction (established 1905 at 13 Sackville Street), Carl Junkermann (122 Regent Street), Clairfield's Operatic & Concert Direction (1 Langham Place), Lionel Powell and William Sewell.”
  17. ^ Autograph Letter Signed by RICHTER, Hans (1843-1916). Biblio Booksearch and Marketplace for Visible Ink Incorporated Inventory #41024 (dated 31 May 1907). “London, [31 May 1907]. 4to., 1p., in German. "Dear Professor. On June 15, we’ll get to Weibegg; when are you coming? About the young Lengyel [Ernst Lengyel von Bagota], I bet he will hire Schulz-Curtius as his agent. Sch.C. is a very respectable man - which recommends him. When I come to B.Pest in September, I could arrange to have a talk with L’s teacher about his first appearance - because everything will depend on that, how and where in England he is introduced. Should his teacher wish to go ahead and contact Sch.C. now, his address is A. Schulz-Curtius, 44 Regent Street, Picadilly Circus, W. I’ll be here until June 12. Let me know when you are coming. Greetings to both of you, Yours, Hans Richter."”
  18. ^ Special Correspondence (8 December 1907). A Boy Paderewski: Musical Prodigy Makes a Sensation in London. The New York Times Section: The Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Dispatches, Page C4 (abstract). Full article (pdf). “LONDON, Nov. 30. — You have already received the announcement by cable of the sensation created the other evening at the London Symphony Orchestra concert at Queen's Hall by Ernst Lengyel von Bagota […who will in the future be known merely as Bagota…], a pianist 14 years of age. The boy is a protege of Dr. Richter, who conducted, and his performance was even more remarkable than was intimated by cable.”
  19. ^ a b Obituary: Lionel John Manning Powell. The Musical Times, Vol. 73, No. 1068, p. 175 (on JSTOR) (1 February 1932). “LIONEL JOHN MANNING POWELL, the well-known concert-agent, on December 23, at the age of fifty-four. He was born at Ludlow, of a family long established in... At different periods he was in partnership with Mr. Schultz-Curtius, an impresario whose interests lay largely in Germany, and with Mr. Harold Holt; ...”
  20. ^ Melba-Kubelik Tour. Other Well-Known Artists to Join Concert Combination in America. By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times, Page 4 (abstract). Full article (pdf) (6 February 1913). “London, February 5.—Schulz-Curtius & Powell, London concert Directors, today gave details of the tour they have arranged in America of what is said to be the most remarkable aggregation ever presented in any country. The combination consists of Mme. Melba, Jan Kubelik, Edmund Burke, the baritone of the Covent Garden Opera; [Gabriel] LaPierre, the French pianist, and Marcel Noyes, the celebrated French flutist. The tour will commence next Oct. 1 and will continue until April 1, 1914. It will be under the management of Loudon Charleton of New York.” (Photo of Gabriel LaPierre with Jan Kubelík.)
  21. ^ Nicholas Kenyon (October 1980). Beecham and the BBC Symphony Orchestra: A Collaboration That Never Happened. The Musical Times, Vol. 121, No. 1652, p. 625, pp. 627-628 (doi:10.2307/961148). “[In 1928] Beecham's agent, the impresario Lionel Powell (himself a violent opponent of music broadcasting in its earliest days) outlined a nebulous scheme to Eckersley [BBC director of programmes Roger Eckersley, a cousin of Aldous Huxley] in April. The unspecified number of musicians would be on a three-year contract; the orchestra would play from the beginning of October to the end of March each season; it would tour the country under Powell's auspices.”


In re: years prior to the founding of the Alfred Schulz-Curtius agency in London 1876:

  • John F. Runciman's Richard Wagner (** "Without him we should have been without a Richter, or Richter's introducer to the English, an Alfred Schulz-Curtius; without these two men we should have no ...") may have something.
“… by creating Bayreuth set up a standard of musical execution that no one before him had thought possible. All the great conductors of the last fifty years are, musically, his offspring. Without him we should have been without a Richter, or Richter's introducer to the English, an Alfred Schulz-Curtius; without these two men we should have no Robert Newman or Henry J. Wood. Wagner's influence has been further-reaching than many of us think…” (added 02:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC) — A.)


*NOTE: I've placed the extended references here because quite a few of them have lengthy quotes which, while they might be useful in developing improvements to the article, are far too long in sum to include in the article in this form. — Athaenara ✉ 06:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)