The World of Music News

September 1919

FIFTY thousand Singers are to take part in the Peace tribute of the Thames to the British Mercantile Marine. Hundreds of boats, flag decked and manned by merchant seamen, will "parade" down the river, greeted along the shores as they pass, by thousands of singers, who will form a wall of jubilant and solemn thanksgiving song.

THE new famous $20,000,000 bequest of A. D. Juilliard provides for free concerts for the musical education of the public; opera within reach of the small purse of the music lover; encouragement for new composers, and in every conceivable way seeks to further the cause of music.

A FEATURE of the last concert of the Berkshire Chamber Music, to be held September 25th, 26th, 27th, will be the performance of the winning composition of the $1,000 prize offered by Mrs. F. S. Coolidge for the best sonata for viola and piano. Harold Bauer will play the piano part at the concert. Louis Bailly, the new member of the Berkshire Quartet, will be the soloist for the viola. Leo Sowerby, the composer of the trio for flute, viola and piano, will take the piano score at the performance at the same concert.

THE thirteen year old conductor, Willy Ferrero, of Naples, is again figuring in concerts, after an absence for study of two years.

"PARSIFAL" is to be produced in English next season, by Gatti-Cazsazza, at the Metropolitan. Giovanni Martinelli will take the premier tenor. The London Daily Telegraph is sponsor for this statement.

EDITH Mason, the American soprano, and Georgio Polacco, the eminent conductor, have been married at Allenhurst, N.J. Mr. Polacco is a native of Venice, and began his musical career in this country as leader at the old Tivoli Theatre at San Francisco in 1905. In 1915 he succeeded Toscannini at the Manhattan Opera House in New York. He has toured in Russia, Italy, South America and in some of the island provinces. Miss Mason made her debut in Carmen in 1915. She has sung in Paris at the Opera Comique, in South America, Mexico, and Havana. The best wishes of The Etude to this new musical "combine".

THE International Grand Opera Choral Union has incorporated itself with the American Federation. The Chicago Opera Association has voluntarily raised the salaries of its choral singers.

THE Eleventh Biennial Convention of the National Federation of Musical Clubs took place at Peterborough, N.H. Mrs. A.J. Ochsner, acting for the Federation, presented a permanent stone step to the Peterborough colony as a memorial of the Biennial Convention. Mrs. Frank A. Seiberling presented a bronze tablet in commemoration of the same event. Christine Miller sang the third stanza of the Battle Hymn of the Republic as a solo, in the rendition of this patriotic song by the community chorus. Miss Anne MacDonough, of Philadelphia, led the community singing. Mrs. Ochsner made a fine speech in retiring from the presidency of the Federation. All the important clubs were at the convention in ofrce, and the State and district presidents were there are represented. Arthur Klein, of New York, won the prize for piano in the Young Artists Contest; Ruth M. Hutchinson, of Los Angeles, the prize in voice, and Terry Freedill, Wichita, that for violin.

A FUND of $100,000 has been pledged by William Clark, son of Senator Clark, for the establishment of a new orchestra in Los Angeles. It is proposed to give twelve symphony concerts during the next season. The conductor is Henry Schoenfeld, the Los Angeles composer.

ENGLAND has a new tenor, a Lancashireman, by the name of Tom Burke. He mad a highly successful debut as Rodolfo to Melba's Mimi at the beginning of the London Opera season, and has since scored one triumph after another. He was a boy from the mines, whose natural gift for singing took him out of this environment for the career of a singer.

EDGAR H. Sherwood, musician and composer, died recently at his home in Rochester, N.Y., aged 63. He was an eminent teacher and a performer, and his compositions are highly successful amongst musicians. He was trained as a physician, but after serving through the Civil War he came home and took up the career of musician. He was well known as a teacher and for twelve years was the editor of a musical journal in Chicago, Ill. He was a brother of the distinguished pianist and teacher, W. H. Sherwood.

AT the Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., the soldier patients are reveling in wireless canned rag time through the wireless music equipment installed by the American Red Cross. By simply hooking a metal clasp to the springs of his bed and putting a small receiver to his ear, a boy confined in bed may revel in jazz to his hearts' content, without disturbing the buddy in the cot next to him whose nerves won't stand it. One the cord attached to the receiver is a small device for regulating the volume of sound. One boy wheeled himself out on the porch and hooked the metal clasp on a wire spoke in the wheel of his chair. It worked just the same.

THE National American Music Festival will be held at Lockport, N.Y., from September 1st to 7th. One hundred well known American musicians will take part. This festival was organized in 1904, and has been part of the musical life of the United States ever since. This movement is purely an altruistic one, run without profit or gain to anyone concerned and for the sole purpose of advancing the cause of American music and musicians. The program shows a representative list of American musicians and composers. Lockport is chosen for the scene of the festival in compliment to the originator of the project, who lives there. Nearly every State in the Union will be represented.

ITALO Montemezza is following up his first success, The Love of the Three Kings, produced a few seasons ago, with another, to be named The Faraway Princess.

PIETRO Mascagni is at work on a new opera, whose libretto is based on a provincial episode of the French Revolution. The composer is very enthusiastic over the musical and dramatic possibilities of the book.

PROFESSOR Hugo Riemann, musicologist and professor at the Leipsic University, died in that city a few weeks ago. Prof. Riemann was one of the foremost music critics in Germany. He wrote profusely upon musical subjects. The Academia Santa Cecelia in Rome made him an honorary member some years ago, and he was also a doctor of the University of Edinborough. He was born near Sondershausen in 1849.

THE National Federation of Musical Clubs will hold their biennial convention in 1921 at Moline, Rock Island, and Davenport, Iowa.

MUSIC and democracy in Japan are being expressed in the establishment of musical opportunities for the masses by the nobility of Japan. The Tokugawa family, one of the descendants of the Shogun, have added a fine music hall to the library lately built on their estate for the poor. This music hall will be used for concerts, free to the public. One of the concerts held there recently was in aid of the blind women of Japan. The proceeds will go to the purchase of Braille books.

THE Boston Symphony Orchestra is feeling the after war urge of the people for music. Season tickets were placed on sale on the first of June and all the low priced seats for the Saturday concerts are already sold out - an unprecedented occurrence in orchestral management.

THE French American Association for Musical Art is projecting the appearance through the United States and Canada of a number of the best French artists for the coming season. Notable among these are: Madaleine Brard, the remarkable and youthful pianist; Raoul Laparra, composer and pianist; Madame Raymonde Delanois, mezzo soprano of the Metropolitan Opera; Camille Crevillard, Gabriel Pierne, and Alphonse Cahterine, composers and conductors of French orchestras. Two new musical artists will make their first appearance in this country - Micheline Kahn, harpist, and Yvonne Astrue, violiniste, who will play in joint recital.

ALBERT Spaulding, the American violinist, will return to the concert stage in the United States, after an absence of twenty-one months at the front, both in Italy and in France.

THE University of Cologne, established in 1488, and closed since the end of the eighteenth century, was recently reopened with a program which included Brahms, Wagner and Handel.

THE Arkansas State Music Teachers Association will hold their convention in October at Little Rock. The will, in addition to other activities, hold examinations for teachers.

THE Theatre Parisien will be opened in New York City the coming season. For twenty weeks there will be presented short plays, operetta and light French music. This theater was formerly known as the Belmont. This venture is under the auspices of the French American Association of Musical Art, and is represented by Mr. Richard G. Herndon.

THE Municipal Opera Company of St. Louis, which has been giving opera in the open air, completed its fourth week by a notable performance of the Mikado.

OSCAR Hammerstein, the noted operatic impresario, died in New York City on Friday, August 2d, after a short illness, of diabetes. His plans were made for "coming back" into the field of active opera in 1920, and he had even arranged the details, to the extent of vast quantities of costumes, scenery, etc.

JAPAN is to have a Musical Alliance, which will found a national conservatory with teacher from all over the world.

A NEGRO chorus has been organized at Atlanta, Georgia, with the object of preserving the old plantation songs and to draw audiences from all over the country to listen to what is essentially American music, on its own soil.

The Etude Magazine September 1919