MUSICAL COÜRIÈR
STEINWAY
The
Instrument of the Immortals
T ISZT, greatest *-Â of all pianists, preferred the Steinway. Wagner, Berlioz, Rubinstein, and a host of master-musicians esteemed it more highly than any other instrument. It is these traditions that have inspired Steinway achievement and raised this piano to its artistic pre-eminence which is today recognized through-out the world.
Old, pianos taken in exchange. Also pianos for rent. Inspection invited.
STEINWAY & SONS
Steinway Hall
107-109 East 14th Street, N. Y. C.

of the leading dailys said of him: “He has a tone that at times possesses much sensuous beauty and singing power and it lends to the vagaries of interpretation, a certain wilful authority.” Today one may say that Mr. Malkin’s tone, distinct interpretative sense, and. commanding authority of the keyboard, entitle him to rank with the great world artists.	F. R.
Frederick W. Gunster “Holds His Own” on Farrar Tour
Frederick W. Gunster, who is now on tour with Geraldine Farrar as a member of her concert company, is meeting with unusual success everywhere. The critics in the various cities where he has appeared so far—Rockford, 111.; Elgin, 111.; Racine, Wis.; Green Bay, Wis.; Oshkosh, Wis., and Wausau, Wis.—have commented at length upon the beauty of his tenor voice, his excellent diction and his art of interpretation. For instance, the reviewer of the Rockford Morning Star said in part:	“Mr. Gunster won
a warm place in the hearts of all who attended the concert. He has a tenor voice of power and quality seldom equaled. His opening group of French numbers was sung with superb diction and tonal quality.”
Seconding that critic’s opinion, the reviewer of the Register-Gazette wrote: “Mr. Gunster’s voice is all that a tenor’s should be. Resonancy is perhaps its chief attribute.
Absolutely at his command, the singer handled his voice expertly. His tones are rounded, full, powerful¿, and his range is remarkable. His manner is graceful and easy. Last night’s audience liked him immensely and showed it in their applause.”
“Gunster is a man of a sympathetically melodious voice,” was the opinion of the Elgin Daily Courier. “He sang on and on with rippling ease and with marvelous tonal coloring.” “A man with a voice and a personality,” commented the Racine Journal-News. “His work was the accomplishment of understanding and feeling to the tiniest modulation of tone or inflection; his well handled voice expressed little bits of feeling, artistic touches that increased the presentation of his songs a hundredfold.”
None the less favorable was the report of the .Oshkosh Daily Northwestern:	“Mr. Gunster has a beautiful tenor
voice. It borders on the high baritone in its richness of quality. There were no thin tones. The upper register was lyric and beautiful in quality. Throughout his entire register there is a velvety smoothness which is delightful.”
The critic of the Wausau Daily Record said: “His voice is of excellent quality and full of appeal. The ‘Volga Boatmen’s Song’ was his triumph of the evening, and next to that probably ‘The Faltering Dusk’ of A. Walter Kramer.”
FREDERICK W. GUNSTER
From the “Movies” to Opera
A feature of a recent program at the Rialto Theater of particular interest to lovers of opera was a film showing Jeanne Gordon and Mario Chamlee, two young singers who have done so much to make the Metropolitan Opera safe for American artists.
That both of these young American artists have “made good” in an unmistakable manner is a well known fact, but that they have done so in an almost unbelievably short time is not so generally known. The film at the Rialto, however, makes this clear to all who can see. It shows Miss Gordon, in gypsy costume, and Chamlee (then known as Mario Rudolfo) when they were engaged by Hugo Riesenfeld, only three years ago, to sing at the Rialto. Presto chango 1 The scene is shifted. Here we have the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. The opera is “Aida.” Jeanne Gordon, in the role of Amneris, is reclining on her couch, gazing into her mirror, the while the Rialto orchestra plays the aria which is supposedly issuing from her lips. Again the scene changes. Now it is “Tosca,” and Chamlee, with great fervor, is singing the famous “E lucevan le stelle” aria in the prison scene.
It is announced also that plans are about completed whereby Miss Gordon will seriously enter the field of the movies, but whether she will make the first film just prior to or immediately following the next operatic season cannot be determined until the extent of the fall concert tour which she will undertake is decided.
Pittsburgh Choral Society Gives Concert’
Under the capable direction of Charles N. Boyd; a concert of much interest was given by the Pittsburgh Choral Society in Pittsburgh on the evening of April "20. The chorus was heard in four groups of numbers, all of them unaccompanied. Ottilie Schillig was scheduled to be the soloist, but owing to a severe cold she was unable to appear and Mabel King, contralto, was substituted. Carl Bern-thaler was the accompanist.
On Good Friday evening, April 14, Mr. Boyd directed the choir of fifty-five voices at the North Avenue M. E. Church, Pittsburgh, in Maunders’ “From Olivet to Calvary.”
Pupils of Celestine Cornelison to Be Heard
Lillian Caleese, soprano, and Roy Wilkie, baritone, pupils of Celestine Cornelison, will be the soloists at the annual May Festival in Richmond, Ky., given by the Kentucky State Normal School, May 25 and 26, under the direction of Paul׳ A. Barnes.
On May 25 Miss Caleese and Mr. Wilkie will sing the leading roles in Masse’s “Marriage of Jeannette,” in which opera they have appeared with much success the past two seasons. They will also be heard in a miscellaneous program on the evening of May 26.
May 18, 1922
Manfred Malkin Talks as Brilliantly as He Plays
“Everything in its season!” declared Manfred Malkin, in an interview. “After a strenuous half year of music, New York concert goers will now have to turn to the indoor sport of bringing their scrap books up-to-date, while music critics laboriously compile statistics of the number of fractional concerts they attended in one day.” Then he added: “Yes, music has wound up it’s official season here, and until next November the inhabitants of the great Metropolis will have to look for some substitute for ‘say it with music.’ ”
“What do you recommend?” the writer queried.
“Well,” he mused, “I believe that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has supplied one; and so until next year, we shall have to ‘say it with Ectoplasm.’ This,” he quickly added, “however, only holds good for concert goers. The artist must accept no substitute, to borrow a commercial phrase. Ectoplasmically speaking, if the artist aspires to keep his astral body in the artistic firmament, he must be true to his own medium—art.”
“As a matter of fact,” he continued, “the artist is more than true to his medium. You have often heard the expression, ‘being married to one’s art.’ Well that’s only half the story, for an artist, even though married, is nevertheless really and truly devoted to his art.”
The writer was puzzled, and he seemed to sense his bewilderment.
“Don’t think that I am advocating music as a means of ‘how to be happy though married.’ There are many great musicians whose marriage was a source of grand inspiration, and there are others who, unhappily, were unmarried. What I meant to bring out was the pious devotion we must bring to the altar of art.”
Seeing the writer’s doubtful look dispelled, he went on: “Take the matter of repertory ! An artist cannot appear each season in the same programs, and, particularly in the case of the pianist (whose literature is so rich and plentiful), the artist owes it as a sacred duty to his fellow men continually to let them hear the new.
“This is particularly true of the ‘Moderns.’ Although the public is more or less familiar with the old masters, it has yet to learn to appreciate the new, and to assimilate its spiritual messages. There is Scriabin, for instance, whose ‘Prometheus’ and ‘L’Ecstase’ have been played by our symphony orchestras, but whose piano etudes are an unknown quantity. Yet there is no doubt in my mind that Scriabin out-Chopined Chopin in his etudes, and that he is destined to be the pianist’s pianist in the future. Then there is Debussy, who has already secured his niche in the hall of fame; and Ravel, so much like Debussy, and who at times even transcends his contemporary. Here is real music that throbs with a life beat.
“And then there are ■the Russians 1” This seemed to strike home, _ for he uttered the sentence full of sentiment. “Who for instance could write music so teeming with humor, as the ‘Twelve Tableaux’ of Moussorgsky? The ‘Big Five,’ Borodin, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Cesar Cui, Balakireff, are really the fathers of modern music.”
“What do you think of Schonberg?” was asked.
“Mathematically,” was the prompt reply. “His music chills where music should warm. He does not write music; he calculates it.”
Then he went on:	“So much for program making!
You see the music season is ended, but not in the studio. Here in the studio, or as I prefer to call it, laboratory— with the accent on -the ‘labor’—we are constantly overhauling the old and preparing the new. For although the music season is formally ended it still keeps going spasmodically. There is an open air concert now and then for some artists, a Chautauqua tour for others, and even an European‘tour in this case for yours truly. Speaking of my European tour, however, I would say that I expect to be interviewed about evolution. Also while abroad, those of my friends who have a little radio in their home hope to hear my programs broadcasted from Mannheim, Berlin and Paris. But I fear that the only broadcasting that can be done from that distance will be via the radio circuit of the M. C. and O. D.—Musical Courier and Our Dailies.”
I have mentioned Gustav Saenger’s tribute to Mr. Malkin as “an artist of whom New York may well be proud.” I might amend it, anticipating his European conquests, to read “an artist of whom the world may well be proud.” As instanced in his program making, Mr. Malkin is first and above all a serious musician. It is not flash nor fireworks that determine his selection of a composition, but rather the acid test of “is it good music?” That ׳is, has it anything definite to say which deserves to be communicated to others? And therefore such men as he, with devotion and love for their art, become, in a sense, the spiritual guides, musically speaking, of the masses.
However, there must be more than serious musicianship for an artist to acquire the vast following that Mr. Malkin can boast of, and which filled Carnegie Hall to overflowing at his last two recitals. And such is the case. “Poetical Tenderness,” “Powerful Imagination,” “Depth of Feeling,” “Independence and Originality of Interpretation” —these are only a few of the many phrases extolling his playing, culled from the New York press criticisms of his last public appearance. The New York Tribune, commenting on his playing of the “Davidsbiindler March” (from “the Carneval”), wrote that it recalled a recent performance by twenty-eight hands (the fourteen artists who played it for the Moszkowski benefit).
The late Huneker might have transferred the Rubinstein characterization of “Harmonious Blacksmith” to Manfred Malkin, but there is more than power and brilliance in his performances. The same paper which speaks of his power and brilliancy also speaks of his Debussy and Schumann as played with a delicacy almost approaching the vanishing point. This was particularly evident in his Chopin recital, where his evanescent pianissimos were strongly reminiscent of de Pachmann. His serious musicianship and tremendous artistic equipment place Mr. Malkin at once among the foremost pianistic artists of our day. Combined with the robustness of a Rubinstein and the delicacy of a de Pachmann, Mr. Malkin possesses a rich, independent and original interpretive sense, and a mastery of the keyboard that is phenomenal, even in these days of virtuosity. After his debut in this country one