Article on arrangement of Offenbach’s La Grande duchesse de Gérolstein

“Musical review: There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth among music publishers and composers on account of an adverse criticism on a certain arrangement of ‘La Grand Duchess,’ and Bohemians refuse to be comforted because this ‘olla podrida’ of Offenbach is considered trash. There can be no doubt, in spite of the assertions of publishers to the contrary, that those worthies deal unfairly with the unfortunate composers in every sense of the word. One publisher says that it is utterly impossible for him to calculate the just percentage for a composer on any one piece of music. He mentioned a great many obstacles in the way of arriving at a true statement of the balance sheet between him and the composer. This is all very well for the publisher, but it is absolutely swindling in a business point of view. No person should undertake to transact business in such a manner without earning the contempt and indignation of the entire community as well as his own victims. It is easy, and any one can adopt a just course, to render the relations between publisher and composer entirely satisfactory. Unfortunately those music publishers have enjoyed total immunity too long, and the Bohemian press have lauded their trashy publications and their injustice toward really meritorious compositions to the skies. The time will come, and shortly too, when composers of merit (not humbugs) will take the music publishing business in their own hands and crush their oppressors.”

[Continues review of various publications]