Mme. Viardot-Garcia. The jugendlich Dramatische was Frau Auguste
Seidl-Krauss, who was announced throughout the season by her maiden
name, but had been married for about a year to Anton Seidl, then
conductor at the Stadttheater in Bremen, who was soon to become a
most puissant factor in the sum of New York's musical activities. The
principal tenor was Anton Schott, who had made a considerable reputation
as a Wagnerian singer in the opera houses of Munich, Berlin, Schwerin,
Hanover, and London, and had made the Italian tour with Angelo Neumann's
Wagner company which Seidl conducted in 1882. Earlier in life he had
been an artillery officer in the German army, which fact coupled
with his explosive manner of singing prompted one of Dr. von Bülow's
witticisms. The doctor had been conductor of the opera in Hanover when
Schott was there and had conceived a violent dislike for him. Some years
after the latter's New York season, conversing socially with von Bülow,
I chanced to mention Schott's name.

"Ah! do you know Schott?" asked the irascible little doctor;
"ein eigenthümlicher Sänger, nicht war? Eigentlich ist er ein
Militärtenor--ein Artillerist. Sie wissen er singt manchmal zu hoch--da
distonirt er; gewöhnlich singt er zu tief--da destonirt er; und wenn er
gelegentlich rein singt--da detonirt er!" The ingenious play on words
is quite untranslatable, but my readers who understand German but are
unfamiliar with musical terms will be helped to an appreciation of the
fun by being told that "dis," "des," and "de" are the German names
applied respectively to D sharp, D flat, and D natural. No doubt Dr.
von Bülow had perpetrated his little joke before he shot it off for my
benefit. It was a habit of his to have such brilliant impromptus ready
and ingeniously to invite an occasion for their introduction. But they
always had the effect of brilliant spontaneity. It was on another
occasion, when he was praising the performance of another German tenor,