Books › Musical Courier 1926-02-04: Vol 92 Iss 5, 1926 › scan 31
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Musical Courier 1926-02-04: Vol 92 Iss 5, 1926
68 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 32. See the scan on archive.org.
1ARTISTS EVERYWHERE
3Recital Club Members—Margaret Taylor, soprano; Vincent St. John, tenor, and Alfredo Meunier, pianist—delighted a North Adams, Mass., audience in a recent concert. The Transcript of that city stating that the program deserved to be classed with the best given there in the past few seasons. Other concert units made up of professional members of The Recital Club are being formed in the studios of the club for public work.
5Herman Neuman, the New York conductor, coach and accompanist, recently arranged a Christmas concert for the patients at Welfare Island. The Kessler Ensemble, conducted by Mr. Neuman, rendered a finely balanced program of classics, including Tchaikowsky's fifth symphony. The soloists were Dorianne Bawn Neuman, who gave artistic interpretations of an aria from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and a group of songs, and eleven year-old Walter Scott, violinist. More than one thousand patients enthusiastically applauded the concert.
7Ednah Cook Smith sang recently at the Belmont Baptist Church, where she is a great favorite, having sung there on a number of occasions and been well received. She sang Adolph Foerster's Messian, a difficult but very effective number which is well suited to Mrs. Smith's voice. She also sang Adam's Christmas Song, with flute obbligato. The contralto leaves on February 8 for a trip to Florida.
9Charles Stratton is booked for his second engagement this season with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on February 19 and 20, having sung the Beethoven Ninth with that organization in November. At the forthcoming concerts the tenor will sing the solo parts in the Faust Symphony and the Thirteenth Psalm, both works by Liszt.
11Jacques Thibaud, French violinist, fulfilled twelve engagements in the first three weeks of his American tour, including appearances with the Boston and Detroit orchestras.
13Thibaud is booked up to the hilt and will spend a large part of his time on trains in order to fill forty engagements in three months, as he sails for Europe on April 1. His New York recital will take place at Town Hall on February 14.
15The Great Northern Hotel in New York includes among its recent arrivals Otto Klemperer, guest conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra; Lea Lubachaut, violinist; Ignaz Friedman, pianist, and Georges Enesco, violinist.
17Mieczyslaw Münz, polish pianist, whose recent New York recital at Carnegie Hall was one of the noteworthy musical events of the season, will be soloist with the People's Symphony Concerts Series, at Washington Irving High School auditorium, New York City on February 12.
19Dusolina Giannini made a flying trip to New York recently to appear at the Victor radio hour, and left immediately to continue her tour of the west, which includes her first appearance in Denver. She will appear again in New York, at the Roosevelt Musicales, on March 16.
21Mischa Levitzki has crossed the Great Divide en route from a tour of the Orient and the Pacific Coast, and is now making his way east through the southwest, his first appearance in the extreme east being scheduled in Atlantic City on February 27.
23Merle Alcock, contralto of the Metropolitan Opera Company, will be under the management of Richard Copley for the season 1926-27.
25Harry Mayer, pianist, of Philadelphia, Pa., recently gave a recital in Berlin, playing compositions by Beethoven, Bach-Busoni, Chopin, Scriabine and Liszt. According to the Berlin Deutsche Zeitung the young pianist made a very good impression, displaying technical skill and interpretative ability. The Berlin Börsen-Courier is of the opinion that "A careful working out of details, an understanding for tone coloring and an enthusiastic interpretation seem to define this talent." The Signale für die Musikalische Welt stated: "This pianist has his technical ability remarkably developed; one had the impression of virtuosity and smoothness to a degree of almost mechanical surety."
27Harold Samuel, English pianist, who has just arrived will make his first appearance here for the season on February 16, when he will play the Beethoven concerto and a work by Bach with the Philadelphia Orchestra. His first recital is scheduled for February 21, in Town Hall.
29N. Lindsay Norden, conductor of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia and the Reading Choral Society, is serving as head of the choral committee of the larger music committee for the Sesqui-Centennial musical program, and associated with him are a number of the leading choral conductors of Philadelphia. Plans are being laid for a series of musical events, at which the larger choral works will be presented by various choruses, with adequate orchestral accompaniment and eminent soloists. Mr. Norden also is organist and choirmaster at the Second Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, where he presents interesting musical programs. January 24 the choir sang choral compositions by Dr. Herbert Tily, and January 31 excerpts from The Holy City were given. February 7 composition by Mr. Norden will be presented, and February 14 Reinecke's Evening Hymn will be sung.
31Tosca Berger, New Zealand violinist, has returned from Europe where she has been concertizing and studying with Eugène Ysaye. In December she played before the King and Queen of Belgium at their chateau, "Laeken," on which occasion she played on Eugène Ysaye's Guarnerius. Miss Berger is arranging for a concert tour in the United States.
33Richard Crooks, following his recent unusually successful appearance as soloist at the Biltmore (N. Y.) Morning Musicale, started on a western tour that will take him from coast to coast, including appearances in leading musical centers, closing with a recital in Los Angeles on February 28.
35Lynnwood Farnam's four organ recitals of music exclusively by Bach began February 1, and will continue at 8:15 on the remaining Monday evenings of this month, at the Church of the Holy Communion. Features of the February 8 recital are the great C minor and G minor preludes and fugues. No organ recitals heard in Greater New York present more interesting programs than those of Farnam.
37Alfred Hollins, after travelling across the continent and back, will be heard this month in Wooster, Dayton, Rochester, Princeton, Philadelphia (Wanamaker Store), Richmond, Jacksonville, Miami, Atlanta, Toronto, Halifax, Sydney, and at a farewell recital at Wanamaker Auditorium, New York. Functions in his honor arranged in New York are a reception at the Guilman Organ School and a dinner by the National Association of Organists.
39Clarence Dickinson's annual series of lecture recitals at Union Theological Seminary, New York, began February 2, when a program of Dutch music was given, in recognition of the tercentenary of the Dutch settlement of New York. Various solo singers, flutist, and The St. Cecilia Choir (St. Michael's Church) took part, the flutist playing Christian Kriens' Woodland Nymph and Evening as solos. The chapel was crowded to capacity. The February 9 program will be in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the music covering the period preceding and following the Revolution.
41The National Opera Club will devote its February 11 afternoon meeting, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, to a summing up of the work done in the United States for the cause of good music, and more particularly of opera performances. Mrs. Edgar Stillman Kelley will be the principal speaker, and Susan Hawley Davis is in charge of the program. The work of American composers and artists is to be featured. In the absence of Katharine Evans von Klemmer, president, now on a tour around the world, Mrs. Clarence G. Meeks will preside.
43Institute of Musical Art Concert
45The eighth students' recital this season was given in the Concert Hall of the Institute of Musical Art, January 30, on which occasion the following students participated: Romola Singer, Grace Rabinowitz, John Hanson, Benjamin King, Edith Jensen, Margaret Hamilton, Flora Enbanks Collins, and Ruth Van Buren. The program contained works by Beethoven, Handel, Delibes, Field, Mendelssohn, Blanchet, Wieniawski, Scriabine, Friedman, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Gluck, Debussy and César Franck.
47Francis Stuart Pupil in Student Prince
49Francis Stuart, the distinguished teacher of the Lamperti Method of Singing, has many successful pupils appearing both here and in Europe. Olga Cook, well known light opera and vaudeville prima donna, who has never studied with any other teacher but Mr. Stuart, is certainly one of the best examples of his contention that, if the voice is properly placed and trained, the more one sings the fresher the voice should be. Miss Cook has toured the country from coast to coast five or six times as a headliner in vaudeville and she has sung more than four hundred performances of the lead in The Student Prince Company of Chicago, missing only two performances. Quite a record! And still more astonishing is the fact that in the first act of The Student Prince Miss Cook is required to sing no less than seventeen high C's.
51Miss Cook recently married C. Keith Line and decided to retire from the stage, but the Messrs. Shubert persuaded her to come to New York where she is now "stopping the show," singing her same role of Kathie in The Student Prince at the Century Theater. It is said that since she has joined the company she has put new pep into the entire production.
53Miss Cook went to Mr. Stuart as a little girl to study and when he had her ready for professional work he secured her a position in a small vaudeville theater, where in less than two weeks her name was featured in electric lights. Next she came into prominence through her lovely work in Blossom Time.
55Unlike many present day singers who are struggling to get into opera and make a name for themselves in the concert field, Miss Cook has never had a desire to do anything other than what she is doing, although her teacher, Mr. Stuart, has always been convinced that she would be equally successful in opera for which she has a certain flare and a naturally beautiful voice. As material as it sounds, Miss Cook—and she is to be congratulated upon her good common sense—has had two ambitions: to make money and to win great applause. It is given to few people to attain their heart's desire, but Miss Cook is one. She has made quite a fortune in light opera and vaudeville and she "stops the show" every night in The Student Prince.
57George Liebling with Detroit Symphony
59On January 17 George Liebling was one of the soloists with the Detroit Symphony. His selection for this appearance was Liszt's Hungarian Fantasy. Mr. Liebling is a pianist of Liszt capacity, having studied with the grand old Abele in Weimar, and somehow this performance brought the composer very close to the audience. The Detroit News finds Mr. Liebling to be a "he-man pianist; he positively assaults the keyboard and this quite without harshness of tone. His final chord was accomplished with a most vigorous stroke at the keys and Mr. Liebling standing up. But he is no mere pounder; there were many passages which he played with a perfect and delicate dexterity. Sometimes the instrument sang in a lovely lyric voice, and always Liszt's solemnly joyous accents were literally rolled out of the strings." This was Mr. Liebling's first acquaintance with a Detroit public, but he became a celebrity there on this occasion. This artist has also the gift of improvising a lecture with some of his recitals and actually creates a sensation by his well balanced and educational talks, which he particularly uses at his university recitals.
61Gretchaninoff Coming, 1926-27
63Alexander Gretchaninoff, Russian composer, will come to America in the fall of 1926 for a short tour. The renowned musician, whose compositions have been featured for many years on numerous recital programs in this country, will appear as special soloist with the Russian Symphonic Choir and will also be available in programs of his own compositions, as well as conductor of his own choral works and symphonic compositions. He will be under the Daniel Mayer management.
65San Francisco Opera Enjoyed
67Much enjoyment has been manifested by attendants of the San Francisco winter opera at the Columbia Theater of that city. On January 12 Lucia was given; 14, Rigoletto, and 16, a matinee and evening performance included Fay-Yen-Pah and Lucia respectively, both repetitions.
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