Books › Musical Courier 1927-06-16: Vol 94 Iss 24, 1927 › scan 33
Scan 33
Musical Courier 1927-06-16: Vol 94 Iss 24, 1927
53 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 34. See the scan on archive.org.
1BUFFALO, N. Y.
2BUFFALO, N. Y.—The Choral Club of Women's Voices (William Benbow, director, and Natalie Ernst, president) gave a program of much variety and interest in the Hotel Buffalo ballroom. Assisting the chorus were Weyland Echols of New York, tenor soloist; Robert Munn, local baritone; a small orchestra under the direction of Arnold Cornelissen, and Mrs. Albert Messersmith, accompanist. The main choral feature of the evening was the dramatic cantata, The Highwayman, by Deems Taylor, in which the chorus assisted by the orchestra outdid themselves, giving an excellent rendition of this difficult work, and with Robert Munn's excellent rendition of the baritone solo parts merited the prolonged applause of the large audience. Francis Engle Messersmith's musically support at the piano also deserved special commendation. Mrs. McIntosh and Mrs. Hamburger in solo portions of choruses, Mass Ernst, Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Larkins and Mrs. Simpson in two Brahms quartets arranged and played by Mrs. Cornelissen, pleased their hearers. Weyland Echols' solos were enthusiastically applauded and he graciously granted a number of encores. His outstanding numbers were Schubert's Wohin, Stickles' Open Road, and Lemaire's Vous Dansez Marquise. These were sung with a lovely tonal quality, excellent diction and beauty of interpretation. The Marquise number was redemanded.
4A benefit concert was given by a talented young Buffalo violinist, Josef Fortuna, in Elmwood Music Hall before a good sized audience of friends. He was assisted by Alexander Joseffer, piano soloist and accompanist, also a youthful musician of undoubted talent. In their taxing program both performers acquitted themselves with great credit to themselves and their teachers and gave promise of further development.
6The fourth seasonal concert of the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra, Arnold Cornelissen, conductor, and David Cheskin, violin soloist, was given in Elmwood Music Hall. The program was enjoyable and well played, giving much pleasure to the audience. A number of special interest was Mr. Cornelissen's Rhapsody based on Pierre's Serenade, which the orchestra played with good effect. David Cheskin, one of the first violinists of the orchestra, played the Second violin concerto in D minor of Wieniawski with excellent tone and interpretation and showed undeniable talent, the orchestra giving valuable support. At the last concert for the season, Arthur King Barnes as soloist and the Guido Chorus assisting brings the series to a brilliant close.
8Dr. Carl Noehren, able conductor of the Harugari Frohssinn, arranged an excellent program for the performance of this body of singers in Elmwood Music Hall with string orchestra assisting. This was the second concert of the season. Two choruses of special interest were those composed by Ludwig Bonvin and Carl Noehren, both winning hearty tributes of appreciation. The final number, a German Hymn with music by Carl Noehren, was sung with orchestral accompaniment and made a fitting climax to the evening's performance.
10A highly successful concert was that given in the Kensington Methodist Church by Ragnhild S. Ihde, soprano, and Harry Simonson, organist and accompanist, assisted by Marjorie Heintz, violinist, Irving Ralph, baritone, and Gerald Reichert, reader. Mrs. Ihde's beautiful voice of unusually rich quality made favorable impression in her groups of solos. She was enthusiastically applauded and granted a number of encores. Mr. Simonson capable filled the position of accompanist and was well received in his organ solos. Those assisting also pleased and shared in the honors of the evening. Mrs. Ihde is a pupil of Bertha Drescher.
12The Philharmonic concert series for 1926-27 in the Buffalo Consistory Auditorium has attracted vast audiences and has been so highly successful that the organization has made its plans and announces the following attractions for next season: John McCormack, Rosa Ponselle, Jascha Heifetz, Feodor Chaliapin and Josef Lhevinne. Mrs. Zorah B. Berry is local manager, J. L. Woods is president and James E. DeVoe is secretary and treasurer. The last two named are of Detroit, Mich.
14Beethoven's Missa Solemnis was sung by the combined choirs of St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral and Lafayette Presbyterian Church in St. Paul's Church with William Gomph as conductor; De Witt C. Garretson, as organist; and Esther Freisted Jones, soprano, Eleanor Regester, contralto, Malcolm Brock, tenor, and Herbert Jones, bass, making up the solo quartet. The following Sunday evening the combined choirs appeared at the Lafayette Presbyterian Church with William Gomph at the organ and De Witt C. Garretson as conductor. The soloists of this church participating were: Edna Luse, soprano; Geraldine Ulrich, contralto; Richard Miller, tenor, and Walter Hensler, bass. Both churches were filled to capacity and many were the words of commendation heard for both organists and choir directors for their enterprise in presenting this magnificent work in commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of Ludwig van Beethoven.
16St. John's Episcopal Church presented Dubois' cantata, The Seven Last Words, under the direction of Robert Hufstader, organist and choir master, assisted by the quartet composed of Jessamine Long, Mrs. Charles Evans, Henry Becker and Robert Munn, and the mixed chorus choir. It was a notable production, reflecting great credit upon the capable young organist.
18Selections from Rossini's Stabat Mater were excellently given by the solo quartet and chorus choir of the First Presbyterian Church, of which Clara Foss Wallace is the able organist and choir director. Florence Ralston, Margaret Adsit Barrell, Vernon Curtis and Norman Lucas are the soloists.
20The united choirs of the Delaware Avenue Baptist and Kenmore Presbyterian churches, under the successful direction of Robert Fountain, gave an admirable performance of Gaul's Holy City in the Buffalo Consistory, with Bessie Pratt Fountain at the organ. The soloists participating were: Mrs. A. H. Cummings, Mrs. Ray Hengerer, Maurine Snyder, Dorothy Miller, Harold Pattenden, William Wall and Thomas Woodruff. Mr. Fountain's pupils, Mrs. Cummings of Niagara Falls, and Mrs. Hengerer, recently appeared as soloists for the Tuesday Culture Club at the Hotel Statler and for the Zonta club, with Katherine Bush accompanying. Another pupil, Carl Naish, has been engaged as solo bass for the First Congregational Church. L. H. M.
22Syracuse University College of Fine Arts Notes
23SYRACUSE, N. Y.—The College of Fine Arts of Syracuse University offered five interesting public recitals recently. Carolyn Sutphin and Vernon De Tar, piano stu-
25JULIETTE WIHL
26"A pianist possessed of exceptional qualities of technique and perception."—Daily Telegraph (London).
27"Among the most interesting of contemporary artists."—New York Herald (Paris).
29dents of Tina Lerner, gave the first of these recitals in the Fine Arts Auditorium. With exceptional technical equipment and fine feeling for their art these two students, who graduate in June, played a difficult and interesting program. The final number was a suite for two pianos, Silhouettes by Arensky.
31In the same hall, the advanced music students of the College of Fine Arts gave the final recital of the year. Four pianists, two organists, a violinist, and a soprano were included in the program.
33In the University gym the Women's Glee Club of over one hundred voices, under the direction of Prof. Belle L. Brewster, gave its thirteenth annual concert. The general subject of the concert was Night. The glee club members, with the assistance of dancers from the university and the city, gave a charming program. Eleven numbers were sung, the last three, by George Henschel, being dedicated to the glee club. Of the solo numbers, the most delightful was the Fortune Telling Scene from Carmen, sung and acted by three seniors of the voice department.
35Margaret Johnson, soprano, and Leo Lawless, pianist, both of whom have been engaged for college teaching positions for next year were heard in their graduating recital. Miss Johnson, who has a lovely voice and fine talent for singing, sang songs and airs in Italian, German, and English, with fine effect. Mr. Lawless, whose home is in Oklahoma, proved himself a pianist of fine technic and musicianship. His principal numbers were the sonata, op. 57, by Beethoven, and the Concert Arabesques by Schulz-Evler.
37Hughes to Hold Summer Master Class
38During Edwin Hughes' eleventh annual summer master class in New York from June 27 to August 6, a series of six recitals will be given by his professional pupils at which music of the largest and most important works in the piano-forte literature will be played. During the past season, four of Mr. Hughes' pupils gave Aeolian Hall recitals under the direction of well known New York managers, and they have been heard throughout the country as well.
40Commencement Exercises at Granberry Piano School
41The annual commencement exercises of the Granberry Piano School were held in the Carnegie Chamber Music Hall, New York, on the evening of June 2. The stage was attractively decorated with many flowers and plants, making a pretty setting for the appearances of the artists. The program opened with the Bach concerto in G major (arranged for four players at two pianos by Paul, Count Waldeser), played by Ruth Burritt, Mary Hammil, Gladys Hoskins and Virginia O'Malley. Good unison was maintained throughout this intricate composition by these four players, and an unusually fine uniformity of interpretative feeling was evident among them. This number was followed by a group of pieces played by Mary Webb Alyea, one of the graduates. They were: Prelude and fugue in E flat major (Bach); nocturne in D flat major, op. 27, No. 2 (Chopin); prelude, from suite in E minor, Op. 10 (MacDowell); and scherzo in G major, from sonata, Op. 14, No. 2 (Beethoven). Mrs. Alyea's splendid training was shown in her excellent technic, and particularly in her clear cut tones, her use of the pedal and in her careful regard to detail. The next group on the program was played by Elaine Elizabeth Mersereau, also a graduate, and consisted of the Andante con Variazioni from sonata in F major (Mozart); prelude and allemande, from French suite, in E flat major (Bach); Scotch Poem (MacDowell); nocturne in G minor, Op. 15, No. 3 (Chopin); and Minstrels, G major (Debussy). Miss Mersereau's interpretation of the Bach and the MacDowell were particularly good. Her fine musicianship was evident in all of her numbers, and her excellent technical ability was shown in the firmness of her tones and the clearness and brilliance of many of her effects. A splendid closing number was the final one on the program, the Tschaikowsky concerto in B flat minor, played by Beatrice Anthony, with orchestral parts played on the second piano by Dr. Elsenheimer. This is a brilliant number and it was exceedingly well played by this talented young artist and her teacher. Miss Anthony deserves much credit for her exceptionally fine rendition of this difficult work. For an encore she played Waltz by Manna-Zucca. The address of the evening was delivered by the Reverend William Seymour Winans, assistant pastor of the Central Congregational Church of Brooklyn, and the presentation of diplomas and certificates was by the director of the school, George Folsom Granberry. Those making up the class of nineteen hundred and twenty-seven were: Mrs. Mary Webb Alyea, of Rutherford, N. J., and Elaine Elizabeth Mersereau, of West New Brighton, Staten Island, receiving a full diploma; Elva S. Aikenhead, Rutherford, N. J.; Charlotte Bachmann, Ridgewood, N. J., and Gladys E. Hoskins, New York, receiving a teacher's certificate
43White-Smith Publishes O'Hara Song
44The following is an excerpt from a letter received by the publishers of Geoffrey O'Hara's new sacred song, Step By Step. It was written by a well known New York baritone, and as he does not care to pose as a humorist his name is not given.
45"This number ought to go well and hit the popular fancy. Anyone can sing it, from the sensitive artist who can and will deliver it with the purity and simplicity of the master, to the veriest demon amateur just bursting forth in a violent epidemic of choir rash. I don't believe even he could kill it. I like it. It is beautiful and reaches one's soul, if done right."
46White-Smith is the publisher of this appealing song.
48Curci Pupils Make Favorable Impression
49When Gennaro Mario Curci presented a number of his pupils in a recital recently at the Town Hall, Vincent Pescie, a young baritone, came in for particular attention from the critics. His voice in quality was likened to that of Stracciari and Amato. Another Curci-artist-pupil, Madalena Erbland, coloratura soprano, recently sang Rigoletto with excellent success in Italy. Miss Erbland has sung other roles there before but this is the first time she did the part of Gilda. Prior to sailing for Europe several years ago, she sang the role at the Manhattan Opera House in New York.
51Whitmer Pupil Directs Program
52The music students of Miss Simonson's School presented folk music from many lands on May 26 under the direction of Mildred Weston, assisted in the folk dancing by Zelda Sargent. Miss Weston is a pupil of T. Carl Whitmer. Her children's music is well received wherever it is presented.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.