Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › Musical Courier 1927-04-07: Vol 94 Iss 14, 1927 › scan 13

Scan 13

Musical Courier 1927-04-07: Vol 94 Iss 14, 1927

50 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 14. See the scan on archive.org.

1TO YOUNG COMPOSERS
2By T. Carl Whitmer
3(Continued from last week)
5Harshness of chords is only relative. They depend upon depiction planned and presence or lack of foils.
6Richness of chords—sonority—is not necessarily a virtue. It depends upon scheme of color. It may be detrimental. To describe a desert and a harem requires two degrees of sonority.
7If the piano or other accompanying instrument follows the voice let it do it consistently or not at all. It always weakens the melodic scheme to strike the melody here and there. Partly because it takes away the sense of a real voice and partly because the tone quality is neutralized at point of contact.
8It is very easy to get too much counterpoint not only for the speed of a piece but for the character of the piece. When counterpoint becomes too obvious the beauty is blemished thereby.
9Do not take away interest of final notes by too much use.
10Chromatic scales, chromatic counterpoint, chromatic anything are weak in scheme intention. It may puzzle you to know what really is diatonic when in modern music we use so many sharps and flats. The diatonic is simply progressing according to a scale pattern.
11There are climaxes in the dynamic realm of softness as well as loudness. The thing to keep in mind is that climaxes must be the logical outcome of the theme and not the logical outcome of a desire to be showy.
12If you examine Beethoven's phrases in any number of pieces you come to the conclusion that he used phrases to express most subtle relations of expression. Infinite variety in phrase-build will give you the real basis for the inner life. Regularity of phrase structure is only one way. Irregularity is another. One is as good as another. But either used as the law and gospel is wrong and limited.
13In setting old fashioned rhymed verse we must guard against monotony of phrase.
14Whether you use modulations or not depends upon your plan. A modulation is distinctly out of place and in bad taste when the design shows quick jumping over the fence of keys. Most moderns consider modulations as quite an unessential recognition of key distances that are non-existent.
15Most of us do not experiment enough. Only constant experimentation with some set restrictions of our technical problems will get us anywhere.
16Don't be afraid to be considered provincial. Franck was provincial. So was Bach. There was little national art feeling in his time.
17Romain Rolland says that the Italian influence was so great that Bach's own son, Johannes, was known as Gio-vanni Bachi.
18Too elaborate orchestration of ideas that are thin or unworthy is just destructive.
19Often the only difference between the ultramodern musician and the conservative musician is that the one knows music from the beginning until the very latest work, and the latter knows music from the beginning until…forty years ago.
20In A Primer of Modern Art by Sheldon Cheney, published a few years ago, we find well stated that "Perhaps the most indisputably and completely modern quality is intensity. The current of life has deepened; the rhythm has quickened; improved means of communication multiply the sensations that crowd upon us; travel enriches our impressions and fertilizes the mind; machines assail and toughen the nerves; lights are brighter and noises louder than ever before. Art cannot remain as quiet as in the past: it must not slip back into being merely a refuge from life. IT MUST LIVE UP TO ITS AGE."
21A weak-willed, an impatient, non-self-centered man cannot be a composer. He would perish. He could not stand it to work twenty, twenty-five years at a cycle without encouragement.
22A German writer of a few years ago said: "It is the Pentecostal miracle of the spirit of art that there are always a few men on whom it has seized; men whom the spirit drives on in mockery, discouragement and disparagement to pour out their souls among the haggling throng.
23Are you built out of the stuff that can say with Horace Trumbel:
24"I can wait.
25The world has waited long for me. I can wait for the world.
26Wait while things go wrong until they go right."
27Or, still better worded by him: "I don't know where it leads me: I go on and on and on. Whether along the road or into the wilderness, I follow; I go on and on. The days are mysterious as the nights; and the years, they baffle me. I go on and on; something persuades me; something I like the feel of; it is veiled but sure. I go on and on; I don't know what it is. I don't know where it leads me. I GO ON AND ON."
29CLEVELAND, OHIO
30CLEVELAND, OHIO.—At the meeting of the Fortnightly Club on March 1 there was a pleasant blending of voices and piano, beginning with Eunice Kadel, who played two etudes by Poldini, Rachmaninoff's Elegie and the Capriccio by Dohnanyi. Next came a group of duets sung by Mr. and Mrs. William Wheeler, including Kaiser's Say Over Again, written for and dedicated to the Wheelers. Marie Simmelink Kraft sang a group of songs. Edwin Arthur Kraft furnished Mrs. Kraft's accompaniments. The program ended with a piano group by Mrs. Charles F. Miller.
31At the Museum of Art, Louis Vierne, organist of Notre Dame, Paris, played a delightful program in the garden court, offering such interesting bits as the Bach D minor toccata and fugue; three of his own compositions—Legende, Berceuse and Carillon; Levy's Adagio; Carillon de St. Paul d'Orleans by Marty; the adagio and finale of the first Vierne Symphony, and the toccata from Widor's fifth symphony.
32Due to the number of requests that came to him, Nikolai Sokoloff "just back from a concert tour through the south as far as Havana, and looking even more robust than usual" decided to repeat the Chausson D major concerto for piano, violin and string quartet, and accordingly put it on his homecoming program. Again the solo parts were in the capable hands of Arthur Loesser, pianist, and Andre de Ribaupierre, violinist, both members of the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music, and again the audiences found the work decidedly to their liking. The perennial favorite, Tchaikowsky's Pathetic Symphony, was given at this pair of concerts, and also the prelude to the Mastersingers of Nuremburg.
33Sophie Braslau was soloist at the second Singer's Club concert of the season, and offered one of the artistic highlights of the year with her competent artistry and suave vocal style. She was ably accompanied by Louise Lindner.
34The Singers' Club, under the direction of J. Van Dyke Miller, gave one of its customary light and agreeable programs.
35At the Hotel Statler the youthful Ross Ettari, one of the promising pupils of Clarice Balas, made his debut in a piano recital before an enthusiastic audience. His program was made up of a Bach prelude and fugue; a Beethoven sonata, and short numbers by Poldini, Chopin, MacDowell, Leschetizky, Paderewski and Moussorgsky, ending with the brilliant Rigoletto Paraphrase by Verdi-Liszt.
36In soft flowing draperies Lotta Van Buren came with clavichord, virginal and octavina and played three programs, one at the Institute of Music on February 17, one on February 18 at the Museum of Art, and another at the same place on the following afternoon. The last named was a special program for children. There was something decidedly piquant about the old melodies by Rameau, Lully, Bach, Byrd and so on, and the good sized audiences that attended Miss Van Buren's recitals gave evidence that a little of the old time flavor is not amiss even in these strenuous days.
37February 16, the John Carroll University Symphony Orchestra gave a concert in the new Knights of Columbus Auditorium with Carlos Salzedo, harpist, as soloist. The latter played a group of his own transcriptions of classic numbers and another group including Debussy's En Bateau, Le Bon Petit Roi d'Yvetot by Grandjany and three of his own compositions.
38In the stately old armor hall of the Museum of Art, the choristers of St. Ann's Church gave a program of liturgical music, February 22, under the direction of Edgar Bowman, organist and choirmaster. The group of sixty men and boys sang the age-old music of the church in this artistic and appropriate setting and gave Cleveland a glimpse into new beauty. Young Mr. Bowman is an indefatigable worker in the cause of restoring the beautiful liturgical music of the ancient church, and one has only to listen to his singers doing the Gregorian chants and old canticles to realize that his labor of love has not been in vain.
39Once more Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra came to Cleveland, on February 25, under the management of Frederic Gonda, and played to a crowded house in Masonic Hall during one of the worst blizzards of the season. The program began with the Handel overture in D minor and continued through the same composer's delightful Water Music to the Bach choral prelude, Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesus Christ and Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. The fiery conductor seemed to endow these classics with surprising vigor and made many of his hearers feel that this was the first time they had ever really listened to the beauty of the old music. For the second part of the program Stokowski played two nocturnes by Debussy, Nuages and Fetes, and played them with inimitable brilliance and verve, ending his inspiring program with Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole, also gorgeously performed. E. C.
41Cleveland Institute Notes
42CLEVELAND, OHIO.—Advantages offered to a music student for work and for play in Cleveland are made evident in the catalogue just received from the Cleveland Institute of Music. A six weeks' summer session, from June 20 to July 30, is outlined, which includes courses ranging from special elementary lessons for children to master classes for professional and advanced students. A long list of artists' names which makes up the faculty page, includes only one musician new to the regular staff—William Simmons, who leaves his concert and teaching work in the East to conduct the master class in Song Repertory at the Institute, and give a series of voice concerts in an annual recital series, and also, class and private lessons in voice.
43Mr. Simmons is an American artist who early won fame by achieving a scholarship at the Metropolitan School of Opera. He has appeared with the New York Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra. While he has not been able to accept, many pupils during the last seven years because of his concert engagements, among those whom he has trained are Adele Astaire, George Rasely, Loreeta Sheridan, Frances Gershwin, Haru Onuki, and Nola Arndt. Mr. Simmons will join such artists as Beryl Rubinstein, who heads the Institute piano department, and finds time for teaching between concert engagements in this country and abroad, and will give the master classes in piano repertory: Victor de Gomez, director of the cello department, who will give the course in cello repertory and has been a leader among Cleveland musicians since he joined their circle after leaving the Philadelphia orchestra; Josef Fuchs of the Institute orchestra department and concert master of the Cleveland Orchestra, who was a graduate of the Institute of Musical Art, and formerly a student of Franz Kneisel, Dr. Percy Goetschius, and George Wade, and will offer the master course in violin pedagogy. The same group of artists—Simmons, Rubinstein, de Gomez and Fuchs—will be presented in the series of historical recitals which are among the outstanding musical events in the city each summer. Music for the voice from the old Italian opera and oratorios to the French, Italian, Russian, English and American moderns will be the subject for the series of recitals to be given by Mr. Simmons. Rubinstein will trace music for the pianoforte from the Clavecinists to Debussy, Ravel and Albeniz. The violin series under Fuchs will include literature from the time of Corelli, Nardini and Handel to Lalo and Saint-Saëns. De Gomez, uncovering the history of music for the violoncello will travel from Boccherini to Pizzetti and Miskowski.
44Among the special courses that the catalogue lists is one in theory, with sight-singing and keyboard harmony to be given by Ward Lewis. Ruth Edwards will repeat the special course in piano pedagogy which offers teachers laboratory experience in model methods of teaching; the course is devised for the teacher who may have an abundant musical knowledge, but who lacks the power to transmit that knowledge to the young child, easily overwhelmed by too much technic or too many unintelligible facts. Marie Martin will instruct theory to children according to her unique ideas of musicianship for young musicians which have been attracting national attention. Dorothy Price will give a course of elementary piano instruction for children, allowing three lessons a week, and affording opportunity for the small student to practice in company with his teacher.
45Regular courses in all branches of music are to be taught by the regular faculty. A complete summer course is credited as one quarter of a year's work. In addition to the regular classwork there are the advantages of practice in the school orchestra; ensemble group, and frequently concerts, supplemented by the cultural opportunities afforded in a city as large as Cleveland by museums, theaters, libraries, concerts and lectures. A summer session at Western Reserve University and at the Cleveland School of Education coincide with the Institute's, giving students a chance to take academic subjects in addition to musical ones. The Institute's students from out-of-town are accommodated in the attractive Allerton Club residence which combines home atmosphere with hotel service and club privileges, and at dormitory fees. Practice rooms, lounges, libraries, swimming pool, tennis and squash courts, a roof garden and an excellent dining room are its attractions.
46Mrs. Franklyn B. Sanders, director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, who has been with the school since its inception, will direct the summer session.
48Bogue-Laberge Managing Organists
49Three organists—Charles Courboin, Marcel Lanquetuit and Palmer Christian—appear again under the joint management of Bogue-Laberge and Wanamaker Auditorium.

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