Books › Musical Courier 1926-04-22: Vol 92 Iss 16, 1926 › scan 48
Scan 48
Musical Courier 1926-04-22: Vol 92 Iss 16, 1926
119 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 49. See the scan on archive.org.
1April 22, 1926
3Germany, Holland and Belgium, and will be in this country by May 1 to resume his class. His European success has brought him a larger following than ever, and his summer class is already booked extensively.
5The enrollment in the School Music Department for the approaching summer school, opening a six weeks' session on June 30, is already very large and of an exceptionally high grade. Many music supervisors, special teachers of music and directors of music in both grades and high schools are enrolled for the course and are completing courses for the degree of Bachelor of School Music.
7Many others have registered for the diploma courses or are completing their course this summer, at this noted professional school for American music supervisors.
9Conductor Edgar Nelson will take the Swedish Choral Club to Joliet for a performance of the Messiah, under the auspices of Knights Templars, on April 26. William Phillips, baritone, and Alice Phillips, soprano, gave a successful program at the Glenn Ellyn Woman's Club on April 6. The duets for which these two artists are noted were received most cordially by the audience, who demanded encores very often. Mr. Phillips found cordial response to a group of modern songs including Red Bombay of Reddick and Flowers of Forgetfulness of Cadman, and Mrs. Phillips won much applause for her singing of My Love Is a Fisherman, by Strickland, and Joy, by Scott.
11Richard Czerwonk has booked a large class for the approaching summer school beginning June 30 and has now a very large schedule of private pupils at the conservatory. Three of Czerwonk's students will compete in the Bush Conservatory prize competition for the award of the fine old Italian violin given by Lyon & Healy at Orchestra Hall, on April 29.
13MRS. HERMAN DEVRIES PRESENTS PUPIL
15Roberta Dodd Crawford, a young and gifted soprano, was presented in recital by her teacher, Mrs. Herman Devries, on April 15, at Kimball Hall. Her's is a brilliant soprano and her gifts are many. She sang an ambitious program with telling effect, particularly Herman Devries' Thou Wilt Know How I Love Thee, which won individual success. Miss Crawford is a credit to her prominent mentor.
17MENDELSSOHN CLUB'S THIRD CONCERT
19Setting forth some of the finest singing it has ever done, the Chicago Mendelssohn Club brought to a close its thirty-second season with a concert at Orchestra Hall, April 15. Under the excellent guidance of Calvin Lampert, this fine male chorus has shown marked progress throughout this season, singing with more vitality, more enthusiasm and greater beauty of tone and balance than ever. The program was exceptionally well balanced, and this, coupled with the club's fine rendition of it, made for a highly enjoyable evening.
21In Frederick Millar, basso, a newcomer to Chicago, the Mendelssohns had an able assisting artist. Through his fine art and artistic interpretations of the Sechi Lungi dal Caro Bene and Vee'dri's Il Iacerato spirito, and a group of shorter numbers later in the program, Mr. Millar proved a great favorite with the listeners, who were most enthusiastic in their approval.
23GLENN DILLARD GUNN SCHOOL RECITALS
25Adelaide M. Zimmerman, pianist, and Alice Arneson, soprano, were presented in a recital by their teachers, Glenn Dillard Gunn and Burton Thatcher, of the Gunn School of Music, at Lyon & Healy Hall, on April 11. Each student gave a fine account of herself and reflected the excellent training received at the Gunn School.
27Glenn Dillard Gunn presented Grace Nelson in a piano recital at Lyon & Healy Hall, on April 16. A program of Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Paganini-Liszt and Chopin was well rendered by this talented young pianist, who should go far in her art.
29CHICAGO SCANDINAVIAN STRING QUARTET
31A program given by the Chicago Scandinavian String Quartet, under the auspices of the Capital State Savings Bank, at Community Hall, on April 9, was much enjoyed by a large audience. The quartet, headed by Frederik Frederiksen, won its customary artistic success, in a program by Kurt Atterberg, Sandby, Hofland and Carl Nielsen.
33ELLEN KINSMAN MANN STUDIO
35Constance Eberhart is now filling concert engagements with Charles Wakefield Cadman, eminent American composer, in Beaver Falls (Pa.), Buffalo (N. Y.), and at the Strand Theater, Brooklyn (N. Y.). Miss Eberhart, who has a lovely mezzo voice, is the daughter of Nelle Richmond Eberhart, who has written most of the lyrics of Mr. Cadman's compositions. While spending the winter in Chicago, Miss Eberhart has been continuing her voice study with Mrs. Mann.
37EMERSON ABERNETHY AND ELSIE ALEXANDER BUSY
39Emerson Abernethy, baritone, and Elsie Alexander, pianist, both of whom are members of the faculty of Bush Conservatory, gave another of their unusually interesting programs at the Hotel Windemere on April 11.
41HERMAN DEVRIES' PUPIL IN RECITAL
43A very gifted young artist was introduced in Cathryn Bly Utesch, who gave a song recital at Kimball Hall on April 16. Revealing a lovely soprano voice, dramatic in quality, and warm and charming of texture, which she uses with musical intelligence, Miss Utesch set forth most effective renditions of O Don Fatale from Verdi's Don Carlos, the Jewel Song from Faust, the Vilanelia of Dell' Acqua and lighter numbers. Miss Utesch emanates from the well known Herman Devries studio, where she has been excellently taught.
45AMERICAN CONSERVATORY NOTES
47The annual public contests for appearances at the commencement concert will take place at Kimball Hall as follows: Pianists, May 1, at two o'clock; singers, May 8, at two o'clock. These contests will be decided by prominent musicians who are in no way connected with the American Conservatory.
49Advanced pupils of Karleton Hackett and Allen Spencer appeared in recital, April 14, at Lyon & Healy Hall.
51Delia Valeri, distinguished voice teacher of New York and Rome, Italy, will conduct a master class at the Conservatory for eight weeks this season, from June 1 to July 31. Mme. Valeri will offer a free scholarship to the most talented pupil.
53ELSE HARTHAN ARENDT PUPILS SING
55Loretta Liedell, Kathryn Longwell and Ruth Turner, pupils of Else Harthan Arendt, assistant Alverna Stetzler, pianist, in recital at Sherwood Recital Hall, April 20. The young ladies rendered trios by Shelley, Elgar, Lang and Andrews.
57CARA VERNON IN PIANO RECITAL
59Cara Vernon, pianist, will appear in recital at Kimball Hall, on April 29, for which occasion she has arranged an interesting program.
61SYMPHONY CONCERT
63No soloist figured on the last but one symphony program of the season, April 16 and 17. Brahms' Serenade in D major, Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps and excerpts from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde made up the interesting program.
65EMERSON ABERNETHY STUDENT
67Clarence Swanson, baritone, pupil of Emerson Abernethy, noted English vocalist and voice specialist of Bush Conservatory, upheld the good name of his teacher when he appeared in concert at Barbee Hall, on April 17.
69JEANNETTE COX.
71THE FLONZALEY QUARTET HAS LONG AND INTERESTING CAREER
73Concerts Given in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, England and America—Programs Cover Wide Range of Composition.
75"Heureux les peuples qui n'ont pas d'histoire," one might say in connection with the Flonzaley Quartet. But if there is almost no history to recall of the Flonzaley members, there is a long and interesting one of their artistic career as an organization. To follow them in their wanderings through Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, England, America, from their very beginning in the Austrian capital to their present standing in the United States, is not only to watch the rise and growth of a notable association but also to study the evolution of musical taste as the quartet developed more and more into an important factor in the musical life of America.
77A complete collection of the Flonzaley programs is at hand, and as one notes the names of the various composers, impressions that seemed to have faded away forever come to life again. Old memories revive, and like familiar faces smiling from the pages of some forgotten album of photographs, works of bygone days seem to make their appeal again.
79The old masters of the eighteenth century at first apparently dominated the programs of the Flonzaley Quartet. In those days the members of the quartet used to visit the libraries of London, Paris, Washington, in search of old manuscripts and rare books. As a result of these pilgrimages, unknown or half-forgotten works by composers such as Boccherini, Leclair, L'Aine, Giuseppe Sammartini, William Boyce (the old musicologist), Friedmann, Bach, etc., were presented to the public. These were works of rare elegance, of aristocratic style, imbued with the spirit of classicism, pure in their outlines, simple in their melodic brightness. The Flonzaleys liked them and played them often.
81And yet the lure of modernism had already appealed to them. As far back as December, 1905, the name of Reger appeared on one of their programs, probably for the very first time on any New York program. Reger was then almost a legendary figure. "The Bavarian Bach," as he was called in the meager reports which came here from Germany and England, was said to possess a mastery of counterpoint and a fecundity of invention almost equally amazing. His idiom—the report continued—was desperately obscure and involved. He was the one musical problem of the day. Yet, when the Flonzaleys, in March, 1906, played his trio opus 77 for violin, viola, and cello, the success was immediate, and strange to note, the scherzo, with its disconcerting humor, made such a success with the public that it had to be repeated.
83During the season of 1908-9, Dohnanyi's quartet and Hugo Wolf's works were introduced. Then came Debussy and Ravel. Debussy had already won his way into the affection of the amateurs. Not so Ravel, who was still considered intricate, baffling, cerebral. The Kneisels had played his quartet a little earlier, with the result as told by one of the members that the next morning a deluge of minatory letters from subscribers flooded them, threatening to desert their concerts.
85The Flonzaleys, about two years later, introduced the work in Berlin, but were much more lucky. The success was instantaneous, in fact, one of the most popular ever recorded. To prove how the appreciation of the public grows, it may be recorded here that the Flonzaleys played the Ravel quartet in 1919, and it was decided that "the music was cause for twenty admirations" as a very modest amateur said, and the work won a decidedly popular recognition.
87In the spring of 1913, Mr. Betti went to Germany to visit Arnold Schoenberg, that "true anarch of art" and the following fall his apocalyptic quartet in D minor, which had provoked such stormy demonstrations in Vienna (the police had to intervene) and in Dresden, was produced in Europe and here. Again a new name and a new art were introduced by the Flonzaleys in America. As a matter of record, it may be said that in comparison with Vienna, Berlin, and with London (the work was not produced in Paris) the Flonzaley Quartet was extremely well received in New York City.
89Of other more recent presentations—Darius Milhaud, Emanuel Moor (whose prelude and fugue were especially written for the Flonzaleys) the Stravinsky piece (played from manuscript), the masterly quartet of Ernest Bloch, Paul Roussel's unfinished work, Alberic Noguard's quartet, Rosario Scalerio's Frammenti—it is hardly necessary to speak at length, as the impressions are still fresh in the memory of musicians.
91As for the American music—in the spring of 1917, the Flonzaleys, under the auspices of the Friends of Music, gave the first "official" concert entirely dedicated to American chamber music compositions, and their record during the last few years shows a list of works which speaks for itself—Templeton Strong's The Village Music Master, a string trio dedicated to the Flonzaleys; Daniel Gregory Mason's Intermezzo (MS.); David Stanley Smith's second quartet; Samuel Gardner's andante (from his string quartet); Victor Nolan's second quartet; Charles T. Griffes' Two Pieces; Charles Martin Loeffler's Music for Four Stringed Instruments, which was written in memory of Victor Chapman, the American aviator who was in the service of France.
93During the past season the Flonzaleys presented Albert Spalding's quartet in E minor, op. 10 (MS.), and Ernest Schelling's quintet divertimento (MS.), which had its first performance in New York with the distinguished composer at the piano.
95OMAHA, NEB.
97OMAHA, NEB.—Maria Jeritza's recital at the auditorium was the final number of the attractive series which the Tuesday Musical Club has provided for its patrons this season and was timed to synchronize with the meeting of the Nebraska Music Teachers. Omaha music lovers were delighted with Mme. Jeritza's admirable art and voice, as well as her rare personality and physical attractiveness. Assisting were Maximilian Rose, violinist, and Emil Polak, pianist.
99The last of the season's concerts by the Omaha Symphony Orchestra, Sandor Harmati, conductor, was given with Frances Nash as soloist. Mr. Harmati has indeed made unusual history in the short period of his stay here, and the fact that he has signed a contract to return next season is a source of the greatest satisfaction to all whose chief interest is in the advancement of art. In the course of one short season he has moulded the local orchestral body into a sensitive, responsive, coherent instrument, and he has enthused the lay numbers of the community until they are behind the undertaking with great zeal. The orchestral works on the closing program were the overture to The Marriage of Figaro; Schelling's A Victory Ball; the Ride of the Valkyries, and the Cesar Franck symphony. The many requirements of this program were met by conductor and players with skill and adaptability. The Mozart number was treated according to the best classical traditions, and in the Victory Ball classical tenets were swept aside in a proper effort to voice the emotion of the moment. The symphony was a lovely, lyric outpouring, finely conceived and executed with care which extended even to the last details. Frances Nash was heard in the Saint-Saens G minor concerto which she played with brilliancy and splendid rhythm. There was a satisfying breadth in the first movement, a buoyant and rhythmic fleetness in the scherzo and whirling speed, combined with power, in the finale. There were many recalls.
101The Creighton University presented Margery Maxwell, soprano of the Chicago Opera, and the Creighton University Glee Club in a concert recently; the Glee Club sang in pleasing style and showed plainly the results of the careful training it has enjoyed under the leadership of the able conductor, Henry G. Cox. Shading and phrasing were skillfully managed and the dynamics also received careful attention. The University quartet gave variety to the evening by its contributions of American love songs. J. P. D.
103The Recital Club
104Music Studios will be open throughout the Summer for study under Master Teachers
105ROSE HAZARD, DIRECTOR
10662 W. 71st St. New York City
108"LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN"
109By A. BUZZI-PECCIA
110Poem by Louis Weekman
111sung by
112CECIL ARDEN
113Mezzo-Soprano
114Metropolitan Opera Company
115high and low voice, .50
116Order from your local dealer
117CARL FISCHER, Inc., COOPER SQUARE NEW YORK
118Boston and Chicago Branches
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