DEATH OF MADAME MARCHESI.

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 61

DEATH OF MADAME MARCHESI.

LONDON, November 19. Madame Marches!, the eminent teacher of singing, is dead. Great singer os she was, Madame Marches! mere, as we may call her to distinguish her from her gifted daughter, will bo remembered rather as the trainer and teacher—almost the creator—of the greatest prime donne of her time. Mathilda do Castrono Marches! was born on March 26, 1826, the daughter of Herr Graumann, a rich merchant of Frankfort. She studied singing with Nicolai at Vienna, but when she was only seventeen her father suffered a reverse of fortune. She sang to Mendelssohn at Frankfort, and he persuaded her Jo make music her profession. She studied Tu Paris with Garcia, who on one occasion, when he had had a slight accident, entrusted her with the charge of all his pupils. Her parents prevented her from going on the stage, eo she went to London and made an immediate success as a concert singer in 1849. In London, too. she married the Marquis Salvatore della Rijata di Oastrone, the son of the Governor of Sicily under the Bourbons Ho had been comjielled by the Revolution of 1848 to flee from his country, and, having taken the professional name of Marches!, had achieved some reputation as a baritone singer. Madame Marches!, on her return to Germany, begun a friendship with Liszt which only ended at his death. In 1854 she was appointed a professor at the Vienna Conservatoire, but she resigned after seven years, and travelled over Euronc giving concerts with her husband. Her health suffered, and in 1865 she beeomc first xirofessor at the Cologne Conservatoire, but resigned three yeans later to resume her old post at Vienna. She remained there for thirteen years, and then removed to Paris, setting up in the Rue Jouffrcy what soon became the most famous singing school in Europe. Madame Marchesi’s methods were as

original as herself. She would only have good musicians,, rejecting most of those who came to her, and she never gave private lessons. To accustom her pupil to face crowds she had “ auditions,” which were thronged by the best Parisian society Elaborate rules or diet she stigmatised as “humbug.” “If a girl has not learn what food suits her by the time she comes to me, she never will. Also, she never allowed more than one hour’s singing each day, and that was divided into four quarters of an hour,' separated by considerable intervals. (She was really without a rival as a teacher. She was a link between the days of Meyerbeer and Rossini, Massenet and Mascagni, and she transmitted to such artists as Melba, Oalve, Emma Eames, Nevada, lima do Murska, Sybil Sanderson, and many others hardly lees famous, the best traditions of Lablache' Grisi, Tamburini, and Persia ni. Madame Marches! received many high decorations from music-loving sovereigns, including the Austrian Cross of Merit of the first class, which is hardly ever given to a woman. Her home life was clouded by the loss of all her ten children except the youngest, Blanche, now famous, like her mother, as a teacher of singing. Madame Marches! published “ Eoole de Chant,” which Rossini extolled as a true exposition of the Italian style of singing. She was, in fact, most successful in training high, light voices, the coloratura singing which hardly appeals to the generation of Wagner worshippers. She also wrote her rom-'niscenocs, translated into English as “ Marches! and Music,” with an introduction by Massenet. Tin's is an amusing book, not too egotistical : it shows her as a staunch friend and a woman of stout heart, by no means afraid to do battle for herself