Books › Musical Courier 1927-05-05: Vol 94 Iss 18, 1927 › scan 31
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Musical Courier 1927-05-05: Vol 94 Iss 18, 1927
68 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 32. See the scan on archive.org.
1ARTISTS EVERYWHERE
3James A. Barr appeared recently at the City Club in Washington, D. C., the program for the concert being broadcast through WMAL. Mr. Barr sang a group of songs by John Prindle Scott, accompanied at the piano by the composer. According to the Washington Star critic, "The young Washington tenor sang four of Mr. Scott's songs especially well. Mr. Barr has an unusually vibrant, colorful quality of voice with much resonance of tone; his diction is excellent, and he sings as though he thoroughly enjoyed doing so."
5Ernesto Berumen, pianist and pedagogue, will teach at the La Forge-Berumen Studios in New York during the months of June, July and August. Mr. Berumen will sail for France and Germany on September 1 for a five weeks' rest and vacation.
7Richard Crooks, tenor, was scheduled to appear with the Minneapolis Symphony under Henri Verbruggen during the month of April, in Minneapolis. An unusual feature of the program was the inclusion of an American ballad, Frederick Vanderpool's Can It Be Love, of which Mr. Crooks is also to make a Victor record.
9Madge Daniell, one of New York City's prominent vocal teachers recently wrote M. Witmark & Sons: "I have been very successful with your splendid class of songs. Now I use them in my teaching. My pupil, Harold Hennessey, programmed Dear Heart, What Might Have Been, at a Commodore Hotel recital, and said it was the best-liked number he sang. You are publishing a wonderful class of ballads, and I am always happy to use all the songs you send me in my teaching."
11Angel Agnes Donchian's thirty-three oratorios include not only Creation, Messiah, Elijah, Stabat Mater and Redemption, but also lesser known but standard ones by Mendelssohn, Gounod, Costa, Parker, Gaul, Maunder, Hammond, Hiller and others.
13Amy Ellerman "Has been compared to Schumann-Heink in the rich quality of her voice, and her appearance in this city was a real musical treat; the auditorium was filled with an appreciative audience" said the Norristown Times-Herald of March 7; she was the guest for the weekend at the home of Mrs. Benjamin F. Evans, and was heard in a short recital of songs, Station WJZ, on March 29, through the courtesy of the National Broadcasting Company.
15Georges Enesco, Rumanian violinist and composer, has already an extensive itinerary mapped out for him upon his return to America next season. It will include his second visit to the Pacific Coast where he met with such success on his first visit during 1924-25. Mr. Enesco was introduced to America in a concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1922, and has returned each season with the exception of the one just past, which he spent concertizing in Europe.
17Carl Fique's comic opera in two acts, Castles in the Air, was performed by the Cosmopolitan Opera Players at Knickerbocker Field Club, Brooklyn, April 7; in the cast were: Katherine Noack (Mrs. Fique), Eugenie Lahm, Eugene Bishop, Gertrude Neal, Harry Bluemer, Mathilde Radauner, Bernard S. Rertway, a group of eight stage-beauties, also Gunnar D. Freden, Robert W. Bruce and Claude W. Angel; Audrey Wrede gave recitations, the composer conducted, and dancing followed.
19Rudolf Laubenthal, tenor of the Metropolitan Opera Company, sailed for Europe recently to appear at Covent Garden, London, in all the Wagnerian performances under the direction of Bruno Walter. Mr. Laubenthal has just completed his most successful season in the four years since he came to this country. He will return early next fall and go to California to sing in the San Francisco and Los Angeles Opera companies' performances of Tristan.
21Frances Macmillen's recent performance in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, was an example of the success which the distinguished American violinist has achieved during the past season, which has been a winter of continuous recital and concert appearances. "Macmillen offered a program of music which clearly demonstrated that he is master of the art's most formidable difficulties and was able to play with perfect beauty the most extended cantos of sustained melody. The proof of his skill, his marvelous ability to bring to the ear the most mystic tones, was one of the wonders of the evening." This was written by the critic of the Mt. Vernon Banner.
23Lambert Murphy, it is interesting to note, might have begun his career as a violinist. Perhaps it is his command of the violin that helps him to sing with such a pure legato and to phrase a passage with a fluency seldom obtained except through a stringed instrument. It is Mr. Murphy's belief that the musician who has command of but one branch of his art will always be limited in his work. He also believes that every artist should be interested in other pursuits. This is why he is so good a companion for those occupied along different lines from his own. He can talk books with the litterateur, politics with the politicians, and even archeology with the specialist along that line.
25George Perkins Raymond, tenor, and Marie Miller, harpist, have been booked by their manager, Annie Friedberg, for a joint recital at Bowling Green, Ky., in October, when they will open the all Star Concert Course in that city. This date will be the beginning of a joint recital tour of two weeks in Kentucky and West Virginia.
27Mabel Ritch, contralto, includes the following among the engagements she has fulfilled this season: Newark, N. J., soloist with the Orpheus Club; Brooklyn, N. Y.; New London, Conn., Hartford, Conn., soloist with the Hartford Oratorio Society; Bridgeport, Conn., Country Club; Atlantic City, N. J., recital with Gigli; Bridgeport, Conn., soloist with the Bridgeport Oratorio Society. On May 20 Miss Ritch will sing in Staten Island, and on May 24 she will be heard in Carmen in concert form at Norwalk, Conn.
29Henry F. Siebert and his choir gave The Crucifixion at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, New York, on Palm Sunday, the soloists being Olive Marshall, Neira Riegger, Herman Horn and Donald Pirnie; it was broadcast over station WGL.
31Louise Stallings, soprano, sang several solos at the wedding of Narcissa Vanderlip and Julian Street, Jr., at the New Church in New York on Monday afternoon, April 26. On May 10 Miss Stallings will be soloist with the Men's Glee Club in Nutley, N. J., under the baton of Frank Kasschau, and on June 7 she will appear in recital at Swarthmore, N. J., accompanied at the piano by Marion Carley.
33A PLAN for Artist Concerts in YOUR City!
34Known as the
35"Civic Music Association Plan"
36Now operating with Financial Success in over One Hundred Cities
37CIVIC CONCERT SERVICE (Inc.)
38DEMA E. HARSHBARGER, Pres. and Gen'l Mgr.
39Ward A. French, Vice-Pres. and Field Mgr.
40Auditorium Tower Chicago, Ill.
42Pauline Turso, dramatic soprano (pupil of Avitabile), made her operatic debut, April 23, in Knights of Columbus auditorium, New York, singing Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana). She achieved fine success, her splendid voice and personal attractiveness winning the audience.
44Baronesse von Klenner left New York April 17, bound for the Women's Federation meeting in Chicago. Returning via Buffalo she is stopping over as guest of a prominent club woman. Already her summer session for vocal students, at Point Chautauqua, has brought many applications.
46Claude Warford's studio has supplied the following singers for prominent churches of New York and vicinity: Theodore Jones, tenor, and Florence Otis, soprano, for University Heights Presbyterian Church; William Hain, tenor, New York Avenue Methodist Church, Brooklyn; Joseph Kayser, baritone, Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, L. I.; Francis German, baritone, and Marion Callan, soprano, Fordham Manor Reformed Church; Marjory Lauer, soprano, First Presbyterian Church, Orange, N. J., and Bill Campbell, tenor, Methodist Episcopal Church, Mamaroneck, N. Y. Twenty Warford pupils presented an Operatic Revue at the Bronx Women's Club on April 20; two more revue performances are scheduled before Mr. Warford sails for France on May 14. His summer session opens in Paris on June 15.
48Emanuel Zetlin, violinist, who gave two successful recitals this season besides appearing with Carl Flesch, Louis Bailly and Felix Salmon as a member of the Curtis Quartet, will give a sonata recital with Frank Sheridan, pianist, on Sunday afternoon, May 8, at Town Hall, New York. The program will consist of works by Brahms, Mozart and Respighi.
50Katherine Palmer Sings in Westfield
51Katherine Palmer, soprano, is successful as soloist with choral societies. In addition to the numerous engagements already filled, she added a late season date in Westfield, N. J., May 3, with the Westfield Glee Club.
53THE PICK OF THE PUBLICATIONS
55Vocal
56(J. Fischer & Bro., New York)
57Four songs by J. Bertram Fox.—They are as follows: Wonder, to words by Charles Hanson Towne; O Inexpressible As Sweet, to words by G. E. Woodberry; Falling Snow, by Amy Lowell; Starlight, by H. van Dyke; and Strings in the Earth, by James Joyce. All of them are beautiful songs, and some of them seem to this reviewer to be of quite unusual charm. Especially expressive is Falling Snow, which is full of atmosphere such as anyone who loves snow and cold and the out-of-doors will particularly enjoy; and indeed it is so atmospheric that it will make the hot-house plant shiver. In Strings in the Earth there is a harp effect that is exquisite and some inharmonic modulations that show more than usual skill in construction.
59Traditional Airs newly harmonized by Deems Taylor.—There is a long list of these airs, some fifteen of them, on the cover of the music, which is a Mayday Carol, a folk-song of Essex. After the success that Taylor had with the use of a folk-song of Devon in the first act of his opera, no commendation on the part of the reviewer is necessary. Everybody who is familiar with music in America today knows that Deems Taylor can do it, and he has accomplished it again in this charming Mayday carol.
61Four part songs by J. W. Clokey.—They are: How Summer Came (S. S. A.), Pretense (mixed voices), Arab Song (men's voices), The Storke (S. A. T. B.). The last named song is a Christmas carol set to verses found in Yorkshire on the fly-leaf of a sixteenth century prayer book. The composer has put a very ancient-sounding tune to these verses with some fine contrapuntal writing in the voice parts. How Summer Came is an extended work to verses by Clara Louise Kessler. The time of performance is eleven minutes, and orchestral parts may be rented from the publishers. The music is decidedly effective and very cleverly thought out line for line to express the meaning of the text. The song called Pretense, to words by George Ellison, is the same as has already been set by Frank V. Van Der Stucken as a chorus for women's voices. *Mr. Clokey has used a somewhat different device for the tick-tock, and the effect is sure to be amusing. The Arab Song for men's voices is a splendidly vigorous setting of a poem by Thomas Moore. The composer has taken a vigorous, short musical figure as the basis of his work and has used it with many variations as an exceedingly successful device for the attainment of continuity and cohesion.
63Comments on McKenna's New York Recital
64Genevieve McKenna, soprano, who made her formal debut in New York at Aeolian Hall on April 20, received excellent criticisms in the dailies the next day. According to the World, her assured manner and the competent way in which she handled her voice indicated she had more experience than most of the newcomers heard recently. The same paper also stated that her voice is of light, silvery quality, well rounded. Miss McKenna, said the Times, has a voice of considerable power, she sang with assurance, and her interpretations showed musical intelligence, sense of line and phrase. The Herald-Tribune declared that Miss McKenna is evidently a singer of experience, possessing a voice of exceptionally fine tone, tractable, naturally placed, modulated with intelligence and skill, and the American noted that she made a successful plea for excellent singing of soprano songs and that her musicianship was a tribute to her diligence and to her tutors. The critic of the Sun observed that Miss McKenna proved to be an exceptionally good singer, that she has a well placed voice, and her interpretations showed the experience and knowledge of a routine singer. The World referred to her voice as being fresh and agreeable. Although this was the soprano's formal debut in the metropolis she already had won recognition as a church soloist and as soloist with various organizations.
66Heavy Bookings for the Chamlees
67The concerts of Mario Chamlee, tenor of the Metropolitan Opera Company, which closed with the St. Sulpice scene from Manon with the assistance of Ruth Miller Chamlee as Manon, have been so successful that engagements have already resulted in the following cities for next season: St. Louis, Louisville, Columbus, Dayton, Saginaw, Lansing, Williamsport, Hartford, Savannah, Summit, Pontiac and Lima.
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