Books › Musical Courier 1926-02-04: Vol 92 Iss 5, 1926 › scan 19
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Musical Courier 1926-02-04: Vol 92 Iss 5, 1926
88 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 20. See the scan on archive.org.
1NEW YORK CONCERTS
3JANUARY 25
4Helena Lanvin
5Helena Lanvin, mezzo-soprano, gave a well balanced program before a large audience at Aeolian Hall on January 25, displaying a voice of considerable fullness and range. The major part of the program was given over to groups of Gluck, Brahms and Gounod. The last number of the Brahms group, O Liebliche Wangen, was especially well received.
7While Miss Lanvin appeared to be an artist of considerable dramatic ability, she appeared happier in the lighter mood of the fourth group. She revealed herself as fully adequate to the prevailing lyricism. Especially effective were Willeby's We Shall Walk In Pleasant Vales, The Lawd Is Smilin' Through the Door, a folk lullaby, and Carey's Pastoral, a coloratura spring song. Albert Elkus' Entr'acte, heard for the first time in recital, proved a charming and felicitous air. It was repeated in response to the prolonged applause. As an encore to this group Miss Lanvin sang Love Was With Me Yesterday, composed by her accompanist, Walter Golde. The performance concluded with a group made up of works by Josten, Schubert, Reger, and Gabriowitch, sung with considerable feeling and charm.
9Myra Mortimer
10Myra Mortimer, American contralto, who won much praise from the press of European music centers where she sang last fall, made her New York debut in a song recital at Town Hall on January 25, when she substantiated the excellent impressions made upon critics and public abroad.
12Miss Mortimer, who has a beautiful voice of rich quality and the ability to interpret her numbers with intelligence, taste, and musicianship, was heard in four groups of German songs, comprising Schubert's Gruppe aus dem Tartarus, In der Ferne, Frühlingssehnsucht, and Aufenthalt; Schumann's Talismane, Erstes Grün, Zwei Zigeunerlieder, and Lied eines Schmiedes; Brahms' Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen, Spanisches Lied, Die Schale der Vergessenheit, Mädchenlied, and Salome; Hugo Wolf's Dank des Parias, Die Nacht, Der Gärtner, and Tretet ein hoher Krieger. Her singing throughout revealed thorough training, a finished art, warmth, earnestness, expressiveness and devotion. Miss Mortimer's artistic work won the hearty approval of a good sized audience. She was recalled many times.
14Cocnaad V. Bos accompanied with his accustomed mastery.
16JANUARY 26
17St. Cecilia Club
18The St. Cecilia Club opened its twentieth season with a concert at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on January 26 before an audience which taxed the capacity of the great ballroom with its spacious floor and two balconies. This amazing body of singers has been brought by its conductor, Victor Harris, to a perfection which seems absolute. The casual listener, even though he be a trained and skilled musician and critic, cannot suggest where the work of the chorus might be improved upon. The secret of this success lies primarily, of course, in the skill and persistence of the conductor, himself a musician, composer and arranger of far more than ordinary attainments, and a man who has made choral singing by women his life study and has become one of the world's leading authorities in this field. He has realized the prime necessity of individual attainment and his choristers are all of them women with voices not only of natural beauty and sonority but also thoroughly well trained. In other words, this is a chorus of singers. With it Mr. Harris can do what he will. The tone is perfect—luscious in its depth and smoothness. Intonation, precision of attack, dynamic nuance, all of them are attained by long and careful rehearsal, and are vivid without exaggeration. Also, for the most part, Mr. Harris selects music that is worth hearing. His own compositions are often included and have won well-deserved popularity. Among them is the Invocation to St. Cecilia, composed by him for the club twelve years ago, which opened the program at present under discussion. Other works of particular note on this program were: The Ladies of St. James, by H. Waldo Warner; Through the Silent Night, by Rachmaninoff; Full Fathoms Five, by Ernest Walker; Street Cries by Ferdinand Dukley, an eight-part Ave Maria, by Gustav Holst, and the Old English Morris Dance. The work of the chorus was highly approved by the audience, which insisted upon several repetitions.
20American Music Optimists
21The forty-third concert of the American Music Optimists, given at the Waldorf-Astoria on January 26, was a notably colorful and brilliant affair. There was a large audience which applauded generously all of the young artists who supplied the evening's music. The program was diversified, presenting the Preselle Sisters in two-piano ensemble work; Anne Yago, contralto; Frank Kitaeff, violinist; and Ethel Foster, soprano. Each of the artists appeared in two groups.
23The piano duets played by the capable Preselle sisters offered some interesting material, especially in the last group when they played two modern works, Gershwin's Rhapsodie in Blue and a Jazz Study by Hill, in contrast to the classic Arlecchino of Nevins in the first group. Anne Yago displayed a voice of considerable proportions and charm, especially appealing in its vibrant lower register. She sang among other selections La Forge's Supplication, Cadman's popular At Dawning, and the aria from Van Grove's Music Robber. Ethel Foster, soprano, gave a fine lyrical performance of Carpenter's May the Maiden, Rybner's Pierrot and White's Negro Lullaby; the audience was charmed and recalled her for encores after each of her groups. Frank Kitaeff, violinist, played a Pilzer cycle, including Berceuse, Orientale, Danse Legere, Valse Caprice, and Reverie, with considerable versatility and technic; the Kreisler Caprice Viennese, played as an encore to his first group, was also heartily applauded.
25Vernon Williams
26The large frame and expressive eyes of his father, Evan Williams, one of the greatest of American tenors, characterize Vernon Williams, his son, also a tenor, who, following study in America, has spent some years in Italy. His song recital at Aeolian Hall January 26, was heard by many naturally interested in the young tenor, whose inheritance of a famous name hardly helps him, leading to inevitable comparison. Musically interpretation, good enunciation, and conscientious endeavor are qualities possessed by the junior Williams, and this made his singing of oratorio excerpts enjoyable. A group of Russian songs, one in Italian, and Group IV, by the Americans MacDowell, Kramer, Busch and Kernochan, all showed ingratiating qualities. Kernochan's And This Shall Make Us Free was the concluding number, sung with such effectiveness that Mr. Williams added an encore. Charles A. Baker was at the piano.
28The Stringwood Ensemble
29The Stringwood Ensemble, heard once before at the Guild Theater, gave its first concert at Aeolian Hall on January 26. The novelty of the evening was a sextet for piano, clarinet and string quartet, by Isadore Freed, a member of the faculty of the Curtis Institute. It is an interesting, ingenious work, written idiomatically for the combination which the composer has chosen. Modern in feeling and treatment, without being bizarre, it is music that is pleasant to hear, for Mr. Freed does not abjure the writing of a real melodic line. It was played to perfection by the ensemble and met with great favor with the audience. In fact, it shared with a Mozart quartet the honors of the evening, for it showed up strongly in contrast to the stodgy quintet for clarinet and strings by Max Reger. The other item was a C major quartet by Boccherini.
31Leff Pouishnoff
32Leff Pouishnoff, pianist, gave his second recital of the season on January 26, in Town Hall, when again he delighted a large audience with his masterful playing. It was an all-Chopin program he presented, many of the numbers being familiar recital offerings. However, in Pouishnoff's interpretation there was something out of the ordinary, not that he tried to give these works a new meaning, but he colored them with beautiful tints that made each one stand out as a flower of exquisite beauty. He displayed rare taste in his choosing and found his audience most receptive to his poetic mood. It is not often that one hears such beautiful interpretations as he gave the F sharp major Impromptu, the Polonaise-Fantasie, the C minor Nocturne and the F minor Ballade, and to these choice selections he added the Eight Studies, the A flat Valse, two Mazurkas, Berceuse, and the A flat Polonaise.
34There is no doubt but that Pouishnoff left a most profound impression upon his hearers. He is indeed a great artist and certainly one of the finest interpreters of Chopin that this writer, at least, has ever heard.
36JANUARY 27
37Evsei Beloussoff and Wanda Landowska
38Evsei Beloussoff, cellist, and Wanda Landowska, harpsichordist, joined forces on January 27 in the production of one of the finest bits of musical entertainment that have fallen to the lot of this season's concert goers. The program was an all-Bach one, consisting of the Sonata in G major for harpsichord and cello, the Suite in G major for cello alone, the Concerto in Gusto Italiano for harpsichord, and the Sonata in D major as a concluding ensemble number.
40This joint recital was interesting not alone for the high quality of musicianship displayed by both principals, but also because the production of the Bach music approximated in some respects its first introduction to the world, a fact made possible by the newly revived popularity of the harpsichord. Mme. Landowska played with that felicitous charm which has been a motivating influence in re-creating public favor for this instrument of an older day. Beneath her agile fingers the instrument attained a delicacy and tone that at once revealed the master technician and the consummate artist.
42Evsei Beloussoff earned his share of the plaudits of the audience, playing the complicated Bachian fugues with exemplary exactitude and treating the rare melodic periods with vibrant sympathy. Mr. Beloussoff is a distinct addition to the list of the really capable cellists of the day.
44JANUARY 28
45Mila Wellerson
46Mila Wellerson, violincellist, who has been in Europe during the past four years scoring one success after another, made her re-appearance in recital before a New York audience on January 28 at Town Hall. Although she has been heard in New York (her native city) since the age of six, always surprising audiences by her outstanding art, she returned at this time as a mature artist.
48It is surprising that such difficult passage work as exists in her arrangement of Paganini's concerto in D major, with her own cadenzas added, can be rendered on the cello, but Miss Wellerson, whose technic is remarkable, plays the most intricate passages with ease, whether in thirds, sixths, octaves, tenths, or harmonics. In short, there are no insurmountable technical difficulties for this young artist, and as for her tone, it is one of great purity, richness, and volume.
50In addition to the Paganini concerto she played Boccherini's concerto in D major; Sonata in C major (for cello alone), Bach; Ballade (first time in America), Suk; La Guitarre, Moszkowski; Nina, Pergolesi; and Gypsy Dance (first time in America), Jeral. She was able accompanied by Kurt Ruhrseitz.
52Toscanini and the Philharmonic
53The genius of Toscanini took as its means of expression on January 28, the Beethoven Symphony Eroica, the Roger-Ducasse Sarabande, Tommasini's Paesaggi Toscani and Wagner's Prelude and Finale from Tristan and Isolde. The Eroica—Beethoven's favorite—was given an interpretation such as only this master mind can give and who finds in oft told pages new springs of inspiration. Coupled with the
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57PAUL STASSEVITCH
58Violinist
59"One of the foremost among the preeminent violinists from Russia."
60Morgenposten, Christiania, Norway
61"A great virtuoso talent."
62Nationaltidende, Copenhagen, Denmark
63"The greatest intellect among Auer pupils."
64Verdens Gang, Christiania, Norway
65"A distinct musical temperament."
66Tidningen, Stockholm, Sweden
67"His technic is perfect."
68Golos Moscow, Moscow, Russia
69"His playing of the Glazounow concerto gave his listeners great delight."
70Vetchernia Isvetia, Moscow, Russia
72PAUL STASSEVITCH
73Pianist
74"At the piano, his virility, tone color and power blended with a very evident understanding and feeling for Tschaikowsky."
75The Sun, New York
76"He gave the surging chords of Russian melancholy their full value, to the delight of the audience, which recalled him several times."
77The World, New York
78"In this his mastery of the instrument was even more apparent. The power demanded of the performer by this concerto was in evidence at all times, and evoked a spontaneous outburst of applause at the close."
79The Times, Brooklyn, N. Y.
81PAUL STASSEVITCH
82"First stood up and played the Brahms violin concerto with fine spirit. Then he sat down and played the Tschaikowsky concerto in B flat minor, making a much better impression."
83The Post, New York
84"Mr. Stassevitch is an accomplished performer upon both instruments."
85The World, New York
86"Considering what it takes to be a genius, and how widely scattered the species is, Mr. Stassevitch should be handed as large a bunch of laurels as possible."
87Leader, Milwaukee
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