Books › Musical Courier 1911-03-22: Vol 62 Iss 12, 1911 › scan 31
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Musical Courier 1911-03-22: Vol 62 Iss 12, 1911
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1Gunn's Minneapolis Triumph.
3Glenn Dillard Gunn played the Liszt E flat major concerto with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in the Minneapolis Auditorium, on Sunday afternoon, March 12, and met with his accustomed marked success. The Minneapolis critics, whose accounts of his performance are reproduced below, speak of him as one of the "significant figures of American music," a virtuoso whose playing is by turns "broad, tender and brilliant."
5Mr. Gunn's position as the critic of the Chicago Tribune gives him an influence more far reaching than that of any pianist who can address the public through his fingers alone. He does not permit his literary and pedagogic duties (his piano class includes some of the most talented professionals of Chicago) to interfere with his career as a pianist.
7The Minneapolis critics reviewed his playing as follows:
9The soloist of the concert was Glenn Dillard Gunn, the Chicago pianist, who played the Liszt E flat concerto with the orchestra and gave the finest performance of the work ever heard in Minneapolis. Superficially, sentimental pianists are much given to Liszt, who was a sentimentalist also; but they often overlook the fact that the foundation of Liszt's music is sound scholarship, and his compositions, played without the scholarly note, easily degenerate into mere exhibitions of virtuosity and tawdry melodrama. Mr. Gunn is himself a scholar as well as a musician, and without lessening the colorful fervor of the concerto he elicited those qualities which show that it is great as well as melodiously beautiful. It is this same appreciation of Liszt that makes Busoni the greatest living exponent of the works of the Weimar master.
11In addition to being a scholar and virtuoso, Mr. Gunn is a music critic, a lecturer, a piano teacher, a member of the faculty of the University of Chicago and a charming gentleman. He is one of the most important figures in Western music today, and one such man can do more for music as a serious art than fifty wild-eyed impossibilities whom you wouldn't take home to dinner and who often have more artistic temperament in their hair than in their souls. His performance of the concerto brought forth enthusiastic and persistent applause, to which he responded by playing the prelude from an early piano suite by Debussy, which was Bach in construction, but Debussy in tonality.—Caryl B. Storrs, in the Tribune.
13Mr. Gunn's visit seemed significant. He is a representative of that new bond that has sprung into being between Chicago and Minneapolis, for the more perspective the orchestra's Chicago visit takes on the more gracious the reception appears that was accorded it by Mr. Gunn and his fellows. With one accord they resisted the opportunity of their lives to be patronizing. That has nothing to do with Mr. Gunn's piano playing, but after it we should have been inclined to be pleasant to him if he had played only tolerably well. Happily, he has no need that we should remember his cordiality, for he is a sound and wholesome and manly pianist, by turns broad, tender and brilliant. He is an unusually careful performer, and never for a moment forgot the rights of the orchestra and the responsibilities of the conductor. He gave a fine reading of the concerto and was applauded to the echo, being brought back to play a prelude from an early suite of Minneapolis' favorite composer, Claude Achille Debussy.—Stuart MacLean, in the Journal, March 13, 1911.
15In the program's concerted work for piano and orchestra the Liszt first concerto was given a most welcome rendition in the true manly spirit of its chivalrous master by Glenn Dillard Gunn, of Chicago. The acclaim which greeted Mr. Gunn from the orchestra and the audience is one of the wholesome results of the better musical acquaintance and sympathy between Chicago and Minneapolis since the visit last Thursday.
17While the Liszt concertos do not pretend to be on the heights of Beethoven, there is no reason for getting mere weak sentimentality or piano pyrotechnics from these heart compositions of the noblest piano giant and generous art friend. The earnestness and virile poetry of Mr. Gunn's Liszt portrayal is a great honor to himself, to Chicago and to the master composer.
19As a peremptorily demanded encore the solo guest gave one of those fugitive Debussy will o' the wisps in a prelude echoing some straight orthodox music with irrelevant patches of the tunings-up on an orchestra.—Harlow Gale, in Minneapolis Daily News.
21MUSIC IN DETROIT.
23DETROIT, Mich., March 2, 1911.
25The Theodore Thomas Orchestra, of Chicago, gave an all Wagnerian program at the Armory, on the evening of Washington's Birthday. The program was extended to such a degree that it was decidedly tiresome, and the devotees of Wagnerian music evidently were surfeited. The last concert of the association series will be given by the Cincinnati Orchestra, with Jeanne Jomelli as soloist.
27Elsa Ruegger, cellist, has just returned from a short concert tour during which time she appeared with the Minneapolis Orchestra, in joint recital with Dalton-Baker, at Denver and Boulder, Col., in recital at Greeley, Col., and as soloist with the Detroit String Quartet at Louisville, Ky.
29William Howland, baritone, assisted by Ada Johnson, soprano, and Mrs. Edwin Sherrill, pianist, gave a recital in Y. W. C. A. Hall, Friday, February 25. The popularity of Mr. Howland attracted a large audience, which was in no wise disappointed.
31Alexander Heinemann is announced for a second recital in the Garrick Theater next Sunday afternoon.
33Mrs. Marshall Pease, the Detroit contralto, has just returned from Chicago, where she filled a month's engagement in St. James' M. E. Church. Mrs. Pease also recently gave a recital at Battle Creek, Mich.
35A series of historical sonata recitals will be given at the Ganapol School of Musical Art during March and April. The first will be given March 13 by Mrs. Boris L. Ganapol, pianist, and Edmund Lichtenstein, violinist.
37Richard Keys Biggs, of the McDonald School of Music, will give the first of a series of organ recitals in Christ Church next Sunday afternoon.
39Newton J. Corey gave an organ recital in the Fort Street Presbyterian Church last Tuesday evening. Mr. Corey was assisted by Earl van Amburgh, clarinetist. J. E. D.
41Rider-Kelsey and Cunningham in Joint Recital.
43Prof. Edward Dickinson, whose works on musical subjects, especially his "History of Music," have attained such world wide popularity, has the following to say in the Oberlin Review concerning the joint recital which was given in Oberlin, Ohio, by Corinne Rider-Kelsey and Claude Cunningham.
45The second event in the artist course for the present term was a concert by Corinne Rider-Kelsey (soprano) and Claude Cunningham (baritone) in the Finney Chapel.
47Madame Rider-Kelsey has sung so many times in Oberlin, in oratorio and recital, that detailed praise of her accomplishments would be a reiteration of what has been said before. We have seen her development from a merely promising young singer to a ripe artist who stands in the front rank of vocalists of America. Her voice is still growing in fullness and resonance while preserving the freshness, purity and sympathetic vibrancy which have been its charm from the beginning. In vocal technic she is an excellent model for all young singers, for observation shows that the delightful effect upon the ear is due not merely to the quality of the individual tones—which is what most people are thinking of when they speak of a beautiful voice—but also to those elements of good vocalism which are gained by study and in themselves constitute beauty when heard in their perfection.
49In sustained legato singing—the basis of all good vocalism, by the way—Madame Rider-Kelsey's work is in the highest degree delightful. In the lovely duets from "Don Giovanni" and "Mignon" and in Brahms' rapturous "Mainacht" (perhaps the most beautiful thing on the program) the bewitching sweetness of her tones, the mastery of shading, the emotional breadth and fervor gave an experience that is as rare as it is delightful.
51Mr. Cunningham . . . is a worthy companion. One would not discover among the baritones of any particular decade more than half a dozen voices as beautiful as his. Some of his tones seem to reach almost the limits of mellowness attainable by the male voice. His singing is also intelligent and refined. . . . One finds pleasure in praising the consummate beauty of utterance in the profoundly moving song by Hildach and 'n the duets by Mozart, Thomas and Ries.
53The voices of Madame Rider-Kelsey and Mr. Cunningham are remarkably adapted to one another. The blending of timbres is as nearly perfect as one ever hears in ensemble work, and hardly less apparent is the natural sympathy of temperament and style. . . . This unusual partnership must be commended.
55The audience was enthusiastic and there were many recalls. The solos and duets added to the program included Bruno Huhn's setting of W. E. Henley's poem, "Out of the Night that Covers Me"; "Dearest," by Sidney Homer; "Fern Song," by Bullard; "Eia, wie flattert der Kranz," by Sinding, and "Sei nur ruhig," by Hildach.
57Heinemann at the White House, March 24.
59While Alexander Heinemann, the German lieder singer, was in Cincinnati on his recent tour West, he sang at the home of Charles Taft, brother of President Taft, and this appearance brought an immediate invitation to sing at the White House in Washington. Mr. Heinemann will give an interesting program at the Executive Mansion, Friday, March 24. The tour in the West included the principal cities in Ohio, Indiana, and Kansas. Wednesday (today), Mr. Heinemann and his accompanist, John Mandelbrod, left New York for an extended tour to cover the Pacific Coast and back. After singing in Baltimore and Washington, the itinerary will include Pittsburgh, Richmond, Dayton, Quincy, Kansas City, Topeka, Salina, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles (three appearances), San Francisco (four appearances), then Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle.
61Mr. Heinemann is expected back East early in June, when he will sail for Europe.
63Morrill Studio Musicale.
65A number of pupils of Laura E. Morrill, again distinguished themselves at the musicale which Mrs. Morrill gave in her studio in the Chelsea, Tuesday evening of last week. Mona Malli, Herbert Mason and Anna F. Smith are entitled to special mention for their singing. The program of arias and songs by classical and modern composers was well arranged and in each case, showed the individual gifts of the pupils. It is this power of influencing young singers to think for themselves that has brought Mrs. Morrill a unique clientele. Her pupils come from far and wide, and when they are sent out into the world, audiences soon detect that their training has not been in the beaten paths from which usually emerge singers of the conventional order.
67Hazel Bennet, a seventeen year old pupil of Mrs. Morrill, recently created a sensation by her singing of the soprano solos in Gaul's "Holy City" at a performance in Port Jervis, N. Y. To the astonishment of every one, the youthful Miss Bennet's beautiful and brilliant voice carried above the chorus of one hundred and fifty voices. Mrs. Morrill has promised to present Miss Bennet at her next New York musicale.
69College of Music Events.
71At the New York College of Music, Hein and Fraencke, directors; William F. Barber, pianist, and Carl Fique, pianist and lecturer, gave evenings of music March 9 and March 16. Mr. Barber played classic and modern works, beginning with a Handel gavotte and ending with Liszt's thirteenth rhapsodie. There was a good attendance. Mr. Fique's recital consisted exclusively of Scandinavian music, the composers being Gade, Sjöögren, Olsen, Backer-Gröndahl, Sinding and Grieg. He preceded his playing with interesting and elucidatory remarks concerning the characteristics of the music in general, and of each composer in particular. This affair was also well attended, as are all the lectures and recitals given in College Hall.
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