Books › Musical Courier 1928-04-12: Vol 96 Iss 15, 1928 › scan 19
Scan 19
Musical Courier 1928-04-12: Vol 96 Iss 15, 1928
63 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 20. See the scan on archive.org.
1Jessie Fenner Hill Artists Filling Prominent Roles
3Jessie Fenner Hill, well known vocal teacher, who has maintained studios in the Metropolitan Opera House building for many years, gave a reception on March 18 for two of her artist-pupils, Josephine Martino, recently returned from Paris, and Sheila Fryer. A number of distinguished musicians attended and voted the affair a splendid success, among these being: Marion Willard Archibald, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin B. Allen, Mr. and Mrs. Hallet Gilberte, Louise Eltinge, Florence Turner-Maley, Harriet McConnell, Marie Narelle, Kathleen Narelle, Yvonne Treville, Frances Schel, Anca Seidlova, Minabel Hunt, Eleanor Owens, Mabel Ritch, Gladys Mahew, Josephine Brown, Eleanor Hoffman, Elizabeth Smythe, Mrs. James A. Lynch, Miss Fisher, Margaret Northrup, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner Lamson, Mr. and Mrs. Vere Richards, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Jahn, Mr. and Mrs. Courtney Newcomb, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Freemantle, Mr. and Mrs. Alceo Hazera, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hahn, Mrs. Robert Weigester and Miss Weigester, Peggy Cornell, Zilpha De Witt, Dorothea Brandt, Laura May Lehman, Mary Leard, Adele Puster, Louise Rimmele, Mabelle Sherman, Lucy Dycker, Mary Evelyne Calbreath, Zenaide Ziegfeld, Harold Morris, Claude Warford, Rollin Lockwood, Willard Sektberg, Juan Pulido, Bernard Hamblen, Sigurd Neilson, Joseph Keyser, Charles Armstrong, William E. Ladd, Charles Claney, Charles Jenny, Albert Barber, Mark Ellner, Harold Mogot and James Norris. Mrs. E. B. Allen poured tea.
5Miss Martino, who had been coaching at Fontainbleau and gave a successful Paris recital opened the musical program with three songs by Moreau, Debussy and Liszt, which revealed her beautiful soprano voice to advantage and also showed she had gained in finish and style. She was cordially received and also sang songs by Schumann, Cornelius, Wolf and Densmore. Ernest Knoch accompanied her at the piano.
7In pleasing contrast was the rich contralto of Miss Fryer, who was heard in an aria from Werther and also three songs. She disclosed interpretative ability and good diction. Genevieve Bowman was her accompanist. As an added surprise, Mrs. Hill presented the Fenner Hill Trio, composed of Annie Standt, soprano; Dorothea Brandt, mezzo soprano, and Mary Leard, alto. They sang excellently presenting songs by Warford, Hamblen, Hahn and MacDowell.
9Mrs. Hill has a number of pupils singing on Broadway with success. Among these are Marjorie Peterson in the first company of The Countess Maritza; Eleanor Shaler, back from London and engaged for Tin Gods, Sally Bates, who gave a concert at the Brooklyn Institute of Music on March 17; Ula Sharon in the Chicago company of She's My Baby; Berta Donn in My Maryland Company; Blanche Fleming late of White Eagle Company, and Gladys Haverty, a popular broadcasting artist. Peggy Cornell, in Sunny Day, and Viltha De Witt, in the Good News Company, are also pupils of Mrs. Hill. These are only a few of the many young people who are studying with her.
11Mount and Gest in Two-Piano Recital
13"Light melodious music of a kind that wins the approval of most concert-goers featured the two-piano recital of Mary Miller Mount and Elizabeth Gest, at the Academy of Music Foyer last night, assisted by Jeno de Donath, violinist." The foregoing comment appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of March 31 and the critic of that paper then followed his remarks in part as follows: "The pianists were at their best in the final group comprising Rachmaninoff's Romance, Nevin's Country Dance and Elizabeth Gest's Morris Dance on Old English Airs, all of which were played with deft rhythm, precision and gayety of spirit that evoked prolonged applause and resulted in encores of the Nevin and Gest pieces. The program began with Debussy's Petite Suite, written at a time when the immortal Claude still was on speaking terms with the diatonic scale. Both pianists played in charming lyric style. Mr. de Donath's violin playing was skillful. … He was at his best in a group of short selections by Wieniawski, Franc von Vecsey and an arrangement by De Donath of Alnaes' Farewell. He also played Sinding's three movement suite for violin and piano with Mrs. Mount."
15James Levey Coaching String Quartets
17James Levey, whose first introduction to America was with the London String Quartet, of which he was the first violin and leader, has been for some months located in New York, where he has opened a studio for the teaching of the violin and for the coaching of chamber music organizations. Mr. Levey is, of course, a violin teacher of unusual ability; as a coach for chamber music organizations and, perhaps, especially for string quartets, he holds a unique position, having been at the head of so excellent an ensemble as the London String Quartet. He has found in New York a considerable demand for his services in this line and reports an evident awakening of interest in chamber music playing in this country.
19Schumann-Heink Incognito
21Among the guests of Ernestine Schumann-Heink at her farewell concert a few days ago in Kansas City were some very old friends. The group included those who had heard her early in her career, as a member of Maurice Grau's Metropolitan company, in her one light opera venture, and in concert.
23Mrs. Chester Bigelow, a former newspaper woman, once of Newark, N. J., first heard the great contralto in a "home talent" show in Union Hill, N. J., in those days a suburban community, but long since eclipsed by Jersey City and Hoboken. Mrs. Bigelow recalls that when the neighbors suggested getting up the entertainment, for some charitable purpose, one of the contralto's sons suggested that he thought his mother might be counted on, saying that she sang "right well." Schumann-Heink was approached by the usual committee, the members of which knew her only as a Jersey housewife, and not as one of Grau's best standbys. She said yes, and the entertainment was a complete success.
25The singer also entertained the Schumann-Heink chapter, Disabled American Veterans of the World War, as her guests. In their turn they presented flowers and a touching speech, recalling that their namesake had only two years ago put them on their feet, financially, with a benefit recital for which she received no fee.
27From Estelle Liebling's Studio
29Helen L. Bussinger, contralto, was the soloist at the Women's City Club in Philadelphia on March 16. Phyllis Newkirk, contralto, sang at the Paramount Theater, New York the week of March 26. Fannette Rezia lyric-coloratura soprano will give a recital at Chanin's 46th St. Theater on April 15. Jessica Dragonette, "Philo" girl of the radio sang the leading role in Madame Sherry, March 31.
31John Griffin, tenor, sang at the Paramount Theater, New York, the week of March 26. Rosemary, coloratura soprano, who has just finished at the Capitol Theater in New York, has been sent on by the Public to sing in New Haven for a week.
33Marie Morrisey Under Mayer Management
35Marie Morrisey, contralto, has made arrangements to be under the management of Concert Management Daniel Mayer, Inc. Miss Morrisey, who, according to the Chicago Journal, "has a voice of genuine contralto depth," has been meeting with her usual success this season in recital and orchestral appearances. Today, April 12, she will begin a tour of the Pacific Coast. Her plans for next season include two New York recitals.
37Cleveland Institute to Present Operatic Excerpts
39CLEVELAND, OHIO.—An event that musical Cleveland has been awaiting since last fall, when the Cleveland Institute of Music made its first announcement of a school of opera and promised an operatic production as the culmination of the year's work, will become a reality, April 18, with the performance of scenes from Faust, Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana. Under Marcel Salzinger, formerly director of his own company in Czechoslovakia, lessons have been practical rehearsals to give the students actual experience in opera, as they might receive it in any one of the small European companies in which distinguished foreign artists receive their first training. The schoolroom has been the workshop in which Salzinger's students have served a severe apprenticeship. He brings to his teaching the experience of his own years with leading opera houses of Vienna, Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg.
41In the forthcoming production Mr. Salzinger will act as production manager. Another European opera artist, Rudolf
43"In a delightful program of songs and arias, May Peterson again won a Portland audience by the charm of her personality and of her singing. Miss Peterson has that spontaneity in singing that marks the true artist."
45The Portland Telegram said the above about May Peterson, soprano, formerly Opera Comique and Metropolitan Opera Company.
47Management: HAENSEL & JONES
48Steinway Hall, 113 West 57th St., New York
49Mason & Hamlin Piano Used Aeolian-Vocalion Records
51HAZEL WACKER,
52contralto, who will take the role of Mama Lucia in the Cleveland Institute's production of Cavalleria Rusticana
54Scheuler, associated with Salzinger in Europe, will be musical director. The youngest voice student in the performance, Hazel Wacker, age eighteen, will play the role of the aged Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana; she is a contralto of rich power.
56Anna Graham Harris Pupil Successful
58Edna Davison, soprano, a pupil of Anna Graham Harris, will sing at Guild Hall in the Steinway Building, New York, on April 25. Miss Davison has had a number of professional engagements this winter. She was soloist at the banquet of the Standard Oil officials at the Hotel Biltmore; soloist at the annual luncheon at the Wilson College Alumnae Association, Hotel Astor; soloist at a Lincoln banquet in Peekskill, N. Y., and soloist for the Junior Woman's Club, Hackensack Heights, N. J.
60Leonard Liebling Sails
62Leonard Liebling, editor-in-chief of the Musical Courier, sailed for Europe today, March 12, on the Columbus. He will make a three weeks' stay abroad combining business and pleasure.
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