January 12, 1922
place it now holds among the great choral organizations in the world.
“To sing well, one must live a• noble, Christian life.” These words of President L. W. Boe of St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., taken from his tribute to Prof. F. Melius Christiansen, have been the basis of the training received by the choir under its revered conductor. To Prof. Christiansen and his singers all lovers of enduring music owe a debt of gratitude. The present tour of St. Olaf Choir will take the singers to cities throughout the East and Middle West.
Kindler Scores at Evanston Concert
One of the numerous engagements filled by Hans Kindler during December was at Evanston, 111., when the cellist appeared with Elly Ney, the famous pianist. As Mr. Kindler is a local favorite in Evanston he was exceedingly well received on that occasion. Walter Allen Stults reviewed the concert for the News, and׳ among other things stated that Mr. Kindler’s technic is of that transcendent type which overcomes the most formidable difficulties with an ease that smacks of insouciance, while his intonation is impec-cant in kind.
Buhlig Gives Series of Concerts
Richard Buhlig is giving a series of eight concerts of music for the piano at the Gamut Club Auditorium, Los Angeles, Cal. Three concerts have already taken place: November 11, a Chopin program; November 25, Schubert-Schumann program; December 9, Brahms program. The future ones will be as follows: January 13, Beethoven; January 27, Beethoven; February 10, Beethoven; February 24, Franck, Bach and Liszt; March 10, Busoni, Schoenberg, Scriabine, Rudhyar, Stravinsky, Grilles and Debussy.
Clara Butt to Arrive Soon
Clara Butt, with Kennerley Rumford and their assisting artists, will soon set sail for America from Australia, where they are meeting with unusual success, having been compelled to give many extra concerts. The party is expected to reach Vancouver, B. C., the beginning of February, and will give concerts almost every night during their American tour.
Stopak to Play Interesting Program.
Josef Stopak will play an interesting program at his second violin recital of the season at Carnegie Hall on Saturday evening, January 14. He will be heard in works by Mozart, Frederick Jacobi, Edward Kilyeni, A. Walter Kramer, Boris Levenson, Saint-Saëns, Gluck-Kreisler and Kreisler. Charles Hart will be at the piano.
Byrd in Williamsport on January 13
Winifred Byrd, lately returned from fresh recital triumphs on the Pacific coast, is to play at Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport, Pa., on January 13. This will mark Miss Byrd’s first appearance in that city, although she has played extensively in Pennsylvania before and won unusual notice for her performances.
MUSICAL COURIER
18
A GENERAL EDUCATION
FOR MUSIC STUDENTS
Should a Music Student Who Intends to Make Music a Career Either’as Artist or Teacher
Have a High School or College Education?
The Musical Courier in connection with its forum for the discussion of a general education for music students, sent out a list of questions to a large number of persons prominent in the world of music. Some of the answers are printed below. The questions were as follows:
QUESTION SHEET.
1.	Are the ages mentioned—between thirteen and seventeen, and between seventeen and twenty-one—very essential to the music student who wants to acquire a virtuoso technic, or can a virtuoso technic be acquired after twenty-one, with, of course, a certain amount of youthful training?
2.	Can a child give the time to school work as specified in our letter and still find time for the proper study of music?
3.	Will a general education aid a musician to be a better musician?
4.	Should a distinction be made between players and teachers? Should not all music students aspire primarily to be players, not teachers? In other words, should a teacher teach who cannot play? And should these distinctions and considerations make a difference in the course of education to be pursued by students?
OSCAR SEAGLE
1.	The ages between thirteen and twenty-one are extremely essential to one who would acquire virtuoso technic.
2.	I do not think so; school hours are too long for one who would be a musician also. They could be much condensed without loss.
3.	A general education—the right sort, one that teaches the pupil to think clearly, to concentrate—is an aid.
4.	No distinction should be made. A teacher should be able to do the thing he is supposed to teach. Therefore, no difference should be made in the course of study. Since natural gifts, temperament and inclination play such important roles in a musician’s career, one will choose one line,
another a different, but the initial training is the same.
CYRENA VAN GORDON
1.	I consider the ages mentioned, between thirteen and twenty-one, very essential to the music student. If the piano is the instrument, study should begin at a very early age. No one should study voice until the age of sixteen, but a foundation in piano and elementary music should be insured before the voice is developed.
2.	The child should not spend as much time as your letter specifies in school each day, but I think he must have at least, a high school education.
3.	Undoubtedly.
4.	I do not think distinction should be made between players and teachers, that is, in the musical training, but
IUus. News	I do think a teacher may impart
knowledge successfully and yet be unable to demonstrate his art.
will occupy a box at the special invitation of St. Olaf Choir at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Prof. Sinding, who is ranked among the greatest composers of the day, is occupying the post of guest teacher at the Eastman Conservatory of Music in Rochester. Being a friend of M. H. Hanson, manager of the St. Olaf tours, Prof. Sinding has shown a deep interest in the choir throughout its growth and development leading to the high
Noted Musicians to Hear St. Olaf Choir
Three musicians of fame will hear the St. Olaf Lutheran Choir during its third American concert tour which opened January 3 in Milwaukee. Prof. Fred J. Wolle, noted conductor of the Bach Festival Choir of Bethlehem, Pa., will be the guest of honor at the concert in Allentown, Pa., while Prof. Peter Lutkin will attend the Chicago concert, and Christian Sinding, the distinguished Norwegian composer,
The Press of all	ICCri/J^ I	V Repeating His Triumphs
Europe Acclaims A**	w 1 A ,Sac I Of Last Season
sionate manner, well-nigh apostrophically.”—Börsen-Gowner ( Berlin ).
“He wielded the baton with even more fire than formerly, entering wholly into the rhythm and joy of his musicianship.”—Lokal-Anzeiger (Berlin).
“A temperamental conductor, who was followed by the Philharmonic Orchestra with perceptible pleasure.” —■Vossische Zeitung.
“Kussewitzky rendered the work [SeriaUn’s Poème d’Exstase], enormously difficult because of its frequent changes of tempo, in brilliant style.”—Berliner Zeitung am Mittag.
“He penetrates to the very heart of the matter, develops swing and temperament throughout and gives his signs with emphatic expression and assurance, without, however, irritating his hearers by undue gesticulation.”—Börsen-Zeihmg.
FRANCE
“In M. Koussevitzky there unite all the qualities of a great conductor. He does not beat time, he conducts. From each of his fingers (he uses the baton but little) there emanates an unknown fluid which electrifies the quartet, wakes up the lazy horns, and infuses the contra-basses with unexpected ardor in the emission of perfect pizzicati.”—L’Eclair (Paris).
“There is in M. Koussevitzky an absolute precision of rhythm allied with a most wonderful pliability. There is, above all, something warm and poetic, something exuberant, sincere and ardent which yet never fades or vanishes as is so often the case with our own musicians. With a most accomplished technique, M. Koussevitzky combines the enthusiasm of an amateur.” —L’Intransigeant (Paris).
“He is a wonderful virtuoso of the orchestra. He handles it like a docile instrument. The vibrations of the violins and the reeds translate his smallest suggestions and reflect his most subtle impulses.”—Comcedia.
“To discuss and catalogue his readings is a pleasure that is made prohibitive by space. Suffice it to say that his conducting is an astonishingly close approximation of Parnassus.”—Chicago Tribune, Paris Edition.
“M. Koussevitzky is a remarkable chef d’orches-tre, full of elasticity of the rarest and most praiseworthy kind. It was this quality that made so perfect his triumphant execution of the overture of “Kovanstchina.”—New York Herald, Paris Edition.
“M. Serge Koussevitzky is a remarkable virtuoso.
. . . were translated by him with a variety of nuances, a mastery which could not be surpassed.” —Journal (Paris).
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437 Fifth Avenue	New York
GERMANY
“The suggestive power of this conductor is enormous. Ecstatic applause greeted him after the ‘Ecstatic Poem.’ Kussewitzky should by some means be retained as a standing member of Berlin’s musical life.”—Berliner Morgenpost.
“Like all who have gone forth from the orchestra, he knows how to handle the orchestra. So much for the purely technical. But the music he makes also lives in him.”■—Berliner Tagetlatt.
“Tschaikowsky’s Fifth Symphony was conducted by Kussewitzky in a dazzling, genuine, sensuous, pas-
ENGLAND
“Koussevitzky showed that he is one of the few living conductors who are able by the strength of their personality and the subtlety and intensity of their musical insight to extract from a musical score the very last ounce of 'significant expression and to rouse an orchestra to play as if it were inspired.”— London Times.
“Under Mr. Koussevitzky, the London Symphony Orchestra played as it did in the days when no one would have dreamed of questioning its right to be considered one of the finest orchestras in the world. Mr. Koussevitzky’s and their performance of Seriabine’s “Poem of Ecstasy” surpassed even the memorable one the Russian conductor gave of the same work a few months ago. There can be no question that for the real Scriabine we must go to Mr. Koussevitzky.”— Sunday Times (Ernest Newman).
“Is Mr. Koussevitzky destined to become the lion of the coming season? He did some startlingly good things with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra at Queen’s Hall last night. Probably his Beethoven caused the greybeards to do a lot of head-wagging, for he is no respecter of classic traditions as interpreted by Richter and other members of the Old Guard.
Mr. Koussevitzky has a way with Mm, and a wonderfully vital, masterful, and mercurial way for the most part it is. Among other things, he showed us that there is still a future for early Wagner, and the “Rienzi” Overture was wonderfully stimulating and picturesque.”—Daily Express.
“He created a sensation even with so old a classic as the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven. .	.	. The
energetic handling of the themes in the working out rose to the point of genius and was the greatest feature of the performance.”—Manchester Dispatch.
“It was when Koussevitzky came to his friend Scriabin’s “Poeme de l’Extase” that his genius found full scope. In a vivid presentment of this extraordinary music he made it pulse with human emotion, ecstasy and delirium, the meaning of which each individual hearer had to find for himself.”—Musical Times.
“With the fifth Symphony it can truly be said that Mr. Koussevitzky worked wonders. Tsehaikovsky. a composer always disposed towards sentimentality, has suffered unmercifully at the hands of those who have oversentimentalized him. The Russian conductor strove prodigiously to prove that his music was. on the other hand, essentially Spartan.’—Daily Telegraph.
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