MUSICAL COURIER 20 March 9, 1922 poses of the theater. What a gorgeous conflagration the slowly undulating color-flames of the Clavilux would furnish for the final act of “Gotterdam-merung” or the Fire Scene of “Die Walkiire!” And as a suggestive aid to dance or pantomime, it has great possibilities. So uneducated is the eye in comparison with the ear that, by itself, the Clavilux will scarcely appeal for a period longer than ten or fifteen minutes, but in sympathetic partnership with the arts which cater to the other senses, its use can be extensively developed. ------------ NEW YORK’S MUSIC WEEK Music Week in New York (April 30 to May 6) will be an important event this spring and the tonal circles of the metropolis, lay and professional, should make it a point to co-operate warmly and practically with the committee in charge of the concerts and other celebratory events. The honorary chairman is Otto H. Kahn; C. M. Tremaine, head of the National Bureau for the Advancement of Music, is chairman; the director is Isabel Lowden, and among the members of the general committee are: Philip Berolzheimer, City Chamberlain; Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler; Edward F. Albee, president of the Keith Circuit of Theaters; Melzar Chaffee, president of the Association of Music School Settlements; Kenneth S. Clark, of the Community Service; Mrs. Walter S. Comly, president of the New York State Federation of Women’s Clubs; George H. Gartlan, director of music in the public schools; John C. Freund, editor of Musical America; Charles D. Isaacson; Mrs. J. F. D. Lanier, president of the Friends of Music; Richard W. Lawrence; Leonard Liebling, editor of the Musical Courier; Bishop Manning; Berthold Neuer, of the American Piano Company; Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst; Charles H. Ditson; Rev. Father Francis P. Duffy; Thomas A. Edison; Mrs. Julian Edwards; Dr. William L. Ettinger, City Superintendent of Schools; Lynnwood Farman, American Guild of Organists; Harry Hark-ness Flagler; Anning S. Prall; Mrs. Arthur M. Reis, chairman of the People’s. Music League; Hugo Riesenfeld; Franklin W. Robinson, American Orchestral Society; S. L. Rothafel; Rev. Dr. Joseph Silverman; J. Fletcher Shera; Theodore E. Steinway; Rodman Wanamaker, and Edward Ziegler, of the Metropolitan Opera Company. --------- LEO SOWERBY WRITES Here is a letter from Leo Sowerby, the first American to be awarded the American Prix de Rome and sent to the American Academy at Rome. He went over several months ago. The reference in his letter to his age is to a mistake made in the Musical Courier which made him out much older than he actually is. The program of the concert of which details are given in the letter has a curious biography of Sowerby on the page opposite the list of works to be performed, in which it is stated that he is “especially noted in Chicago”—as if he were not known as a composer all over the United States—and says, further, that the American Prix de Rome was instituted by the Government of the United States. Not bad! Sowerby’s quintet for wind instruments, written in 1916, was played at this concert, the other numbers being a Beethoven quintet and a suite by another Prix de Rome winner, Charles Lefebvre, who won the French prize in 1870. The Editor, Musical Courier: Thank you for clipping in regard to my age; it was very amusing and I am glad you did ma! e the correction. I am sending you today a program of a concert given last Monday, at which the first performance of one of my works in Italy took place. I am glad to say that the quintet was very cordially received by the musicians and the general public. The audience was rather a distinguished one, including as it did the queen-mother, who, they tell me, has not come out for a concert for a long time. I want to translate for you a criticism from the Corriere d’ltalia: “The quintet of Leo Sowerby proved to be a pleasing and interesting novelty. This composition is written with good taste, worked out in a happy fashion, and has agility and variety of rhythm. Of the three movements, the best is the last, written in the manner of a ‘fox trot.’ ” Another critic took it quite badly. He said that the picture of Bach, which hangs on the wall of the concert room, seemed to have lost its serenity during the playing of my work, and that it took on by turns an expression sad or ironical, but that when the quintet of Beethoven was played it looked down on us with a serene and approving smile. Rather good, what? This critic really liked the “fox trot” part, where he said that it probably was the part where I and my talent got together. I see your articles in the Musical Courier, which I buy at the book stalls here, and they are bully. I dare say you will have them preserved in book form, where they will unquestionably be of even greater value. Later I shall send you a program of our own concert, which we shall have tomorrow. With most cordial greetings, Yours sincerely, (Signed) Leo Sowerby. opera which for average excellence, year in and year out, far surpass those offered anywhere else in the world. Confirming the Musical Courier’s exclusive announcement in last week’s issue, the New York Symphony Society sent out word on Monday of this week that Albert Coates, the English conductor, will return here next season to lead the society’s orchestra during January and February, 1923. ----------- They take their music seriously in Vienna! Our correspondent reports that the first performance of a new symphony by Josef Marx led to catcalls,, whistling and actual fist fights between friends and foes of the composer. One suspects a political background somewhere, for the works of Marx, while well made and often interesting, are not in themselves sufficiently revolutionary to arouse a thirst for blood in the most belligerent bosom. -------- Monday, the first spring day, brought along the first crop of what are generally reckoned as. hot weather rumors. It is to the effect that a famous prima donna who is not going to sing at the Metropolitan next season will combine forces with the only Metropolitan baritone who has ever been the impresario of an opera company, and, backed by a certain financier, will set up a little opposition of their own next season right in the largest theater of which the metropolis boasts. Of course we are very careful not to mention any names in publishing this, but as Lincoln or Shakespeare once said, “verbum sapientis.” -------- Even the dailies are carrying stories about the mammoth “new” Reinhardt production of Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld” at the Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin. As a matter of fact, Reinhardt first produced “Orpheus” in this manner well over ten years ago. We saw it in the great hall of the Munich Exhibition in the summer of 1911 or 1912, and it was not new then. Max Pal-lenberg was the Jupiter, as he is in the present production very comic indeed. That same summer Reinhardt’s production of Offenbach’s “La Belle Helene” played at the Munich Exhibition Theater, with none other that Maria Jeritza, now the Metropolitan Opera sensation, in the title role—and a “belle” Helene she was indeed. In those days, though, it was just plain “Mizzi” Jeritza, not Maria. -----$----- It must be a great satisfaction to George Eastman, who planned for and caused the creation of Kil-bourn Hall, a part of the Eastman School, in memory of his mother, Maria Kilbourn Eastman, to see how successful the result is. In a wide acquaintance with the concert halls of the world, we know of none more beautiful, nor better adapted to and sympathetic for the playing and hearing of music. It is the acme of good taste, and happily its acoustic has turned out to be of the best. There was the formal dedication with a simple, dignified program on last Friday evening, an account of which appears on page 5 of this issue. Very happy indeed and characteristic of Mr. Eastman was the thought of turning the new hall over on Monday evening of this week to the workmen who built it and their invited guests, for whom a special music program was provided. Music not only in Rochester but• also in the whole of America is greatly indebted to him for the creation of what is without question the most extensive and most thoroughly equipped music educational institution in the world. -----$----- CLAVILUX Thomas Wilfred had a new and original thought —something extremely rare nowadays. It occurred to him to make colors sing for the eye just as tones do for the ear, and he invented the Clavilux or color-organ. Anyone who introduces a new element of beauty into this world deserves extremely well of his fellow men, and this Wilfred has done with his invention. The esthetic enjoyment which its screen pictures give to one who delights in color is not to be described. It is so new and so strange an art that it must be seen to be understood. As to what its practical development in connection with other arts will be, remains to be seen. It seems as if it might be of notable effect as an emotional obligato to fine music, a development of the idea which Scriabin originated in suggesting the use of colors thrown on a screen in connection with the performance of his “Poem of Ecstasy,” although the experiment did not achieve any particular success owing in part, at least, to the crude apparatus employed. We suggest to some New York conductor to place it on a program in conjunction with the Clavilux. Another adaptation that seems possible is, of course, to pur- jV\USICAL(§URlER U/eekly Review or THC Worlds Music Published every Thursday by the MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY, INC. ERNEST F. EILERT...............................................President WILLIAM GEPPERT...........................................Vice-President ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER......................................Sec. and Treas. 437 Fifth Avenue, S. E. Corner 39th Street, New York Telephone to all Departments: 4292, 4293, 4294, Murray Hill Cable address: Pegujar, New York Member of Merchants’ Association of New York, The Fifth Avenue Association of New York, Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, The New York Rotary Club. ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER H. O. OSGOOD ^ WILLIAM GEPPERT l FRANK PATTERSON f CLARENCE LUCAS J RENE DEVRIES 1 J. ALBERT RIKER J CHICAGO HEADQUARTERS—Jeannette Cox, 820 to 830 Orchestra Building, Chicago. Telephone, Harrison 6110. BOSTON AND NEW ENGLAND—31 Symphony Chambers, 2 46 Huntington Ave., Boston. Telephone, Back Bay 5554. LONDON, ENG.—Cesar Saerchinger (in charge), Selson House, 85 Queen Victoria Street, London, E. C. Telephone 440 City. Cable address Musicrieu London. BERLIN, GERMANY—Cesar Saerchinger, Passauer Strasse 11a, Berlin W. 50. Telephone Steinplatz 3 473. Cable address Musicurier, Berlin. PARIS, FRANCE—Theodore Bader, 10, Rue de l’Elysee. MILAN, ITALY—Arturo Scaramella, via Leopardi 7. For the names and addresses of other offices, correspondents and representatives apply at the main office. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Domestic, Five Dollars; Canadian, Six Dollars.' Foreign, Six Dollars and Twenty-five Cents. Single Copies, Fifteen Cents, at Newsstands. Back Numbers, Twenty-five Cents. American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents. Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents. New England News Co., Eastern Distributing Agents. Australasian News Co., Ltd., Agents for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Tasmania.—Agents for New Zealand,-״New Zealand News Co., Ltd., Wellington. The MUSICAL COURIER is for sale at the principal newsstands and music stores in the United States and in the leading music houses, hotels and kiosques in Europe. Copy for advertising in the MUSICAL COURIER should be in the hands of the Advertising Department before four o’clock on the Friday previous to the date of publication. Entered as Second Class Matter, January 8, 1883, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. THE MUSICAL COURIER EXTRA Published every Saturday by Musical Courier Company Devoted to the interests of the Piano Trade. New York Thursday, March 9, 1922 No. 2187 The New York Times has just discovered, as shown by a Chicago dispatch in its issue of March 4, that there exists a movement known as the Opera in Our Language Foundation, sponsored by Mrs. Archibald Freer. This was announced by the Musical Courier on June 30 of last year (and supplementary information regarding the activities of the Foundation has since been given in these columns in notices too numerous to mention in detail) which represents the relative speed of the Musical Courier and the dailies in giving the public musical news. ——----- Congratulations to General Manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza, of the Metropolitan Opera House, who has been reappointed by the directors for a period of three years after the termination of his present contract, which does not expire until May, 1924! Mr. Gatti-Casazza has been most successful from every standpoint in his fourteen years of administration, and most certainly deserved this fresh recognition on the part of the directors. Congratulations, also, to the Metropolitan Opera on retaining him for leader! The Musical Courier has differed with Mr. Gatti-Casazza’s idea in regard to artists, repertory, etc., many times and probably will differ with him many times again, but it never fails to recognize that he provides New York with performances of