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Musical Courier 1926-09-23: Vol 93 Iss 13, 1926
74 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1SECOND DOLMETSCH FESTIVAL BRINGS CROWD TO LITTLE ENGLISH VILLAGE
3Haslemere Resounds to Viols and Recorders of the Olden Time—A Valuable Contribution to Musical History
5HASLEMERE.—Haslemere, situated in the heart of the Surrey hills and one of England's most picturesque villages, has just had its second chamber music festival, or rather Arnold Dolmetsch has had it, for it was his own festival in every sense of the word. Nobody but this little man with the big personality could collect such large audiences, treat them like recreant school children as he did, and get away with it.
7For, candidly, nothing but his enthusiasm, his sublime faith in his life's work and his power of transmitting his convictions could have made this festival the success which it was. Chamber music works of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, played on the original instruments for which they were written, are interesting chiefly from a historical point of view, but the performances, with few exceptions, are usually too anaemic to hold the listeners' attention for long. Only Dolmetsch's efforts to make them hear and feel all that he so evidently hears and feels in this music could have so completely fascinated them.
9These very performances, however, are a vital part of the ultimate goal. For to this leader of a new faith the word "technic," and all that goes with it, is anathema. Virtuosity, technic, and even practice have, according to him, killed our love for music; and he quotes from letters of the seventeenth century which describe a musical exaltation unknown in our dreadful age.
11DOWN WITH VIRTUOSOS!
13He goes on, in his delightful French accent, to inveigh against these terrible people whose object in life it is to play one instrument as perfectly as possible. In the old days, he says, people did not identify themselves with one instrument—they made music; and they played as many instruments as were required to make that music.
15So he has raised his family in the old chamber music tradition, and not the least interesting part of the festival was the matter-of-course way in which he, his wife, and four children, changed instruments at need. Undoubtedly each one of them can play half a dozen or more. Nor do they consider this at all extraordinary. Anyone can do it, they say, if he has music in his brain and not only in his fingers. Give a child an instrument and let him try to play it—he will soon learn, says Arnold Dolmetsch. And children do, too, for this amazing teacher has equally amazing success with his children's orchestras.
17If some of the solo performances lacked the rhythmic precision and polish that one expects to get in the concert hall, we had on the other hand ensembles that were delightful representations of what home music must have been in the days of Bach and earlier—for nothing so profane as post-Bach music is admitted.
19CASUAL AND HOMELIKE
21A more genuine atmosphere of enjoyment and of chamber music in its true sense than pervades this little festival would be hard to achieve. The intimacy and casualness of the concerts, caused by Dolmetsch's family and disciples walking on and off the platform, while choosing their instruments, and Dolmetsch himself wandering into view during some piece in which he did not take part, his listening with evident enjoyment and breaking into little descriptive talks between movements, gave the impression of the whole performance being an impromptu affair at a private house to which one had come for a holiday.
23Often, as in the case of the Goldberg Variations (excellently played on the harpsichord by Rudolph, the oldest boy) Dolmetsch would move forward from the little organ on which he had been leaning, his eyes sparkling and his hands making impulsive gestures of enthusiasm, and reiterate to the audience how very jolly the music was and how much old Bach must have enjoyed himself when he wrote it.
25"Of course," he would go on, "it is all over your heads and you cannot be expected to appreciate how amusing it really is, but Rudolph will play that last variation again and now you listen very hard and try to enjoy it." Whereupon it would be immediately repeated.
27In another instance, Dolmetsch himself had to play a delightful little prelude for the lute, by Bach. After carefully spreading a flowered silk shawl over his lap for the lute to rest on, he explained that, owing to great difficulties (minutely detailed), in getting proper strings for the instrument he had feared up to the last minute that he might be unable to play it. But the strings came just in time and, to quote him once more, "Fortunately I do not need to practice." So the piece was duly played. Without waiting for the applause to die down he said, "Now I can play it better for you," and proceeded to do it all over again.
29REVIVING THE OLD INSTRUMENTS
31That Dolmetsch is an extraordinary craftsman is beyond all doubt. Many of the instruments played at this festival were made in his little workshop adjoining his house. The harpsichord spinet, clavichord and some of the viols used at the festival are all his own products. But perhaps the most remarkable contributions he has made to the present day collection of old instruments is a "chest" of five recorders. For one or two he secured old models, but for the rest he had to depend on pictures and descriptions, and on the music written for recorders, for he found no description of how they were made. And his successful reconstruction of these practically forgotten instruments is a sufficient achievement in itself to preserve his name.
33For those deeply-to-be-pitied people who have never heard
35Kruse and Wolff photos, Anton Sahm; Meisle, Daguerre
37THREE WILLIAM S. BRADY PUPILS.
39Laurence Wolff, Kathryn Meisle and Leona Kruse, three of the many pupils of William S. Brady who have made successful careers in opera and concerts and are now holding prominent positions in the world of musical art both here and abroad.
41one, I may say that the recorder (or flute-a-bec) is the forerunner of the flute, but with a much softer, purer and more ethereal tone. It existed side by side with the flute for some time, and composers like Bach were very particular to designate its use for certain purpose. But it did not adapt itself to the modulatory requirements of modern music (like the flute, thanks to the Boehm system) and consequently fell into disuse. It is a pity, for the distinctive tone color which we heard in a set of old English popular tunes for a "concert of recorders," and which is lost to modern music, is altogether delightful.
43Among the other instruments in use at the festival were a complete family of violins including the true tenor violin, a complete family of viols, and the viola d'amore. They were all played wherever the original setting called for them.
45THREE DAYS OF BACH
47The concerts were interestingly grouped. Three out of the ten were devoted to Bach, the programs including the fourth Brandenburg Concerto (G major), four sonatas and
49(Continued on page 15)
51Mainz to Have Zandonai Première
53MAINZ.—Juliet and Romeo by Riccardo Zandonai, composer of Francesca da Rimini, will have its German première in Mainz this season. Other novelties to be brought out at the same opera house are Manfred Gurlitt's Wozzeck, d'Albert's Der Golem, Janacek's Das listige Füchslein, Hindemith's Cardillac and Verdi's La forza del Destino in the new Werfel version.
55M. S.
57N. F. OF M. C. JUNIORS TO RAISE ENDOWMENT FOR MacDOWELL COLONY
59With Help of the Seniors, a Drive Will Be Made to Obtain Sufficient Funds to Support the Peterborough Colony and Relieve Widow of the Great Responsibility Now Hers—What the Colony Has Done This Summer.
61For many years the MUSICAL COURIER has been pleading the cause of the MacDowell Colony at Peterborough, New Hampshire. This unique institution, affording at minimum cost a summer resting and working place to creative workers in the fine arts and particularly in music and poetry, has struggled along for many years because of the indomitable will of Mrs. MacDowell, supported by funds received from various sources, by far the largest part of which came from the labor of Mrs. MacDowell herself in her annual concert trips all over the country presenting programs of her husband's piano music. The MUSICAL COURIER has repeatedly pointed out the value of the work done at the Colony and pleaded for an endowment which would guarantee it sufficient financial support and take the strain off the shoulders of Mrs. MacDowell, who has done superhuman work. At last the endowment is here—or rather, it will very shortly be here. The National Federation of Music Clubs, through its energetic president, Mrs. Edgar Stillman Kelley, has undertaken to raise the necessary amount of money, the raising of which will be especially entrusted to the Junior Department of the Federation, though the Seniors will also be interested and contribute. Details of the plans are not complete but the idea is that every child in the Junior Clubs shall contribute at least one cent, though larger voluntary contributions will, of course, be accepted. The penny contributions are by no means limited to Junior Club members; it is expected that, with the amount asked for so small, the public school companions of these members will contribute in large numbers. No total sum is set for the endowment but it will be brought to such an amount that the income from it, in addition to other such fixed income as the Colony has, will be more than ample to pay the entire expenses, thus relieving Mrs. MacDowell from her anxieties.
63The drive to raise the funds for this endowment will be known as the "Children's Crusade to Preserve the Log Cabin Studio and the Last Resting Place of Edward MacDowell" and it will be made a special feature of the biennial convention of the Federation, which occurs next summer at Chicago, where there will be an exhibition of the work of the Colony.
65The MacDowell Colony itself has been busier than ever this summer. There has not been a vacant room or studio since the first of June, and they will all be occupied until October 1 when the season will close. The array of creative artists working is larger and more distinguished than ever before. Among the composers have been such well-known figures as Mrs. H. H. A. Beach and Henry F. Gilbert; also Charles Sanford Skilton of Kansas, whose Indian Dances are well known; Francesco De Leone, whose American opera, Algalala, was produced last year; Marx Oberndorfer, at work on an opera; Roy Harris, one of whose compositions was played at the Stadium concerts this summer; Nathan Novick, Powell Weaver, Raymond Vickers, Charles B. Macklin, Marian Bauer, Marion Ralston, Mary Howe, Helen Sears, and Mrs. Elizabeth Merz Butterfield.
67As usual, literature is strongly represented. Among the poets the name of Edward Arlington Robinson is probably the best known, and among the novelists that of Willa Cather. Others who have been busy with the pen at the Colony are Esther Willard Bates, Power Dalton, Nancy Byrd Turner, Kenneth Brown, Demetra Vaka, L. Denis Peterkin, Frances Newman, Paul Green, Anne Faulkner Oberndorfer, Dr. Morris Raphael Cohen, Ada Pierce McCormick, Edwina Stanton Babcock, Thornton Niven Wilder, Arthur Corning White, Eleanor de Forest White, Christopher Ward, Nan Bagby Stephens, Nelson Antrim Crawford, Sylvia Chapfield Bates, Mary Colum, Louise Driscoll, Harriett Munroe, Frederick L. Day, John Black, and Dorothy and DuBose Heyward.
69Too, there have been a number of painters at the Colony, including Marie Blanke, Harry Lee Gatch, and Grant Reynard, and Helen Ely Richardson has been busy modelling. All in all it has certainly been a red-letter summer for Colony work.
71Mascagni Honored in Budapest
73BUDAPEST.—Pietro Mascagni has been made honorary doctor of the Budapest University.
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