1?
MUSICAL COURIER
June 2 9, 1922
tour, the press proclaiming Mr. Kraft one of the best tenors before the public today. As an oratorio singer or recitalist he has never failed to please those who engage him, which is evidenced by his return engagements. Mr. Kraft leaves Chicago for New York shortly after the first of September to take up his duties as tenor soloist at St. Bartholomew’s Church. He will also be associated with Frank LaForge in the LaForge-Berumen studios. In leaving Chicago Mr. Kraft has the good will of his fellow artists, and, as was remarked by one, “a man that has the friends that Kraft has and their good will could never help being a success.” This coming season has a bright outlook as many engagements have already been booked from the new territory that he is invading. Mr. Kraft wilj spend most of his summer vacation in the Northern Michigan woods, at his brother’s summer home at Frankfort, Mich.
Denishawn Dancers Booked for Chicago
Two performances will be given by Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn and the Denishawn Dancers in Chicago, on October 23 and 24. Another engagement which has recently been booked for this company by its manager, Daniel Mayer, is at Winthrop College, Rock Hill, S. C.
Erna Rubinstein for Rochester and Syracuse
Erna Rubinstein has just been engaged by the Tuesday Musicale of Rochester, N. Y., for next season, and has also been booked for a recital in Syracuse, N. Y.
editor of the Chicago Herald Examiner, and Ernest Bloomfield Zeisler, instructor in mathematics at the University of Chicago, who has just received his Ph. D., sailed from New York for Europe on the French Line steamer “Lafayette,” on June 24, to be gone a year or more.
What Arthur Kraft Is Doing
A list of the engagements filled by that excellent tenor, Arthur Kraft, during the month of April is appended herewith:	April 2, Dubois’ “Seven Last Words,” Evanston
(111.) ; 3, recital, Marion (Ind.) ; 4, “Stabat Mater,” Janesville (Wis.) ; 5, “Messiah,” Swedish Choral Society, Orchestra Hall, Chicago; 6, soloist, Commonwealth Edison Orchestra, Orchestra Hall, Chicago; 10, Englewood Women’s Club, Chicago; 12, soloist, Armour Glee Club, Kimball Hall, Chicago; 14, soloist, Buena Memorial Church, Chicago; 16, soloist, Illinois Athletic Club, Chicago; 17, program, Sandusky (Ohio); 18, Mount Olivet Benefit, Chicago; 20, recital, Lansing (Mich.); 21, “Rose Maiden,” Benton Harbor (Mich.) ; 23, concert, Rockford (111.) ; 24, joint recital, Davenport (Iowa) ; 25, joint recital, Muscatine (Iowa) ; 27, “The New Earth,” and “Tales of Old Japan,” Decatur (111.), St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; 28, joint program, Decatur (111.); 29, “Hiawatha’s Departure” and “Wedding Feast,” Champaign (111.), University Chorus, St. Louis Orchestra; 30, Wave-land Avenue Church soloist.
Mr. Kraft was engaged by the St. Louis Orchestra management to fill their oratorio engagements on its festival
“Josef Lhevinne is,
I believe, the greatest living master of the pianoforte, and his performance on this occasion confirmed that impression. His command of the keyboard is so transcendent, and he has found a way of reducing the sense of all physical effort to such a minimum, that his digital dexterity, quite apart from its emotional message, stands out a thing of beauty.” {Max Smith in N. Y. American)
Mr. Lhevinne has been engaged as soloist with the New York Philharmonic for next season.
For Terms and Dates Address
Loudon Charlton Carnegie Hall, New York
Steinway Piano
UKRAINIAN NATIONAL CHORUS
IS COMING TO THIS COUNTRY
Organization Is Composed of Forty Singers Under Direction of Alexander Koschetz
A “company of bards” is coming to America this autumn to reveal the musical culture of its country. It is the Ukrainian National Chorus which Max Rabinoff will introduce to the western world. So extravagant have been the laudations all over Europe of this unique “singing orchestra,” as it has been called, that it reads like a fairy tale. The reviews from Paris, London, Vienna and Berlin awaken a fresh imagination and carry one far afield from the usual appreciation of choral singing.
Mr. Rabinoff, in bringing this remarkable chorus to America for the season of 1922-1923, expresses the same conviction in artistic values that he demonstrated when introducing to this country first the famous Balalaika Orchestra and later The Pavlowa Ballet Russe.
“The Ukrainian National Chorus will, I believe,” Mr. Rabinoff says, “be as important to the art of America as was the Pavlowa Ballet. The Balalaika Orchestra, Pavlowa and the Ballet Russe are all surpassed by the chorus.”
Accounts from all Europe of the triumphal tour of this “phenomenal” chorus suggest something radical and new in choral singing. So one needs to know what it repre-sents_in art as well as in historical significance. What is it then?
A “Human Orchestra.”
The Ukrainian National Chorus is a group of forty singers, men and women, under the direction of a master-conductor, Alexander Koschetz. The members sing entirely “a capella.”	.	.
“Imagine a chorus,” writes Lucien Mainssieux in Le Crapouillot, Paris, “imagine a chorus of which the last soprano and the last bass sing like an instrument and who have the style of a Joachim inborn in them, where every singer blindly obeys the almost imperceptible indication of the conductor—all this in the most impressionable mobility. There is a tenor which tears itself away from the others and hovers like an archangel over this chorus singing with closed mouth like some exalted adoration in ecstasy. Then the bass voice, terrific and triumphant, which dominates the frightened and prostrate crowds before the seat of Judgment. A powerful breath. Women’s voices of unheard-of purity, more like children’s voices .	.	. One thing only
can one say, that is, that heaven has been opened to us and we partook of the delectabilities of the angels. And these are mostly folk songs executed by singers who come from the people .	.	.”
Music and a People.
This music is from the very roots of a people. The Ukrainians are peculiarly a singing people. In Russia they always have some singing regiments, and these singing soldiers are chosen from the Ukraine. These people have an hereditary musical taste, with voices that are beautiful, precise, and capable of the most delicate nuances, the most capricious rhythms. They sing hymns and canticles, which in part remind one of Western hymns, but with a special coloring that evokes the ikons of Western Europe. There are Christmas carols (Koliaky) used for serenading beneath windows on Christmas eve and also on New Year s
me spimg ounga	“ ---- ־
suites and they have a combination of pagan and Christian in them. Then there are the hosts of folk songs, revealing customs, heroism and humor. Their hymns are much in the form of our oratorio or_ sacred cantata, with the accompaniment, when needed, given by the voices themselves.
Koschetz, Conductor.
“Alexander Koschetz stands up before his organ,” says the Berlin Vossische Zeitung of this leader of a human orchestra—“a soft flute gives the tone and then he lays his hands on the keys, it is just like that. It is quite a joy to see how the conductor plays upon this instrument. He is a great actor. He does not go in for grand art, like so many conductors, he spares his means and conveys the most poignant impressions. He does not beat the measures, but he beats the shadings—with his arms, fingers and his whole
In Brussels the chorus was recalled again and again and three extra choruses were given. “ The audience became frenzied,” the papers said.	. .
From Paris comes word that The Ukrainian Chorus has completely subjugated the Parisians, while another French paper writes, “No French or foreign musicians have ever presented to us anything like this before.
Mr. Rabinoff is also bringing, for a separate part of the program, eminent soloists from the opera in Russia, who will give an art program of opera arias and Russian classics from many composers new to America. I he season opens at Carnegie Hall, New York, on October 5.
Matzenauer Poses for Film
One of the unusually successful recent appearances of Margaret Matzenauer was on June 6, when she set a precedent by giving a program before a business convention— The National Association of Credit Men—at the Claypool Hotel Indianapolis, Ind. The audience was made up of men and women gathered together for business purposes with intermissions of music and entertainment.
Mme. Matzenauer gave the closing concert of the Nodaway County Music Week at the State Teachers College, Maryville, Mo., and the following day she posed for several pictures for the Nodaway County agricultural film.
Sykora with Culbertsons
B Sykora well-known cellist, who has been making his headquarters’ at Cicero, 111., has signed a contract to appear under the management of Harry and Arthur Culbertson next season. Mr. Sykora will be remembered as having made a most successful debut in New York several years ago, after which he toured the Orient with the same success that he had earned there on previous tours.
Bloomfield-Zeisler Sails for Europe
Mr and Mrs. Sigmund Zeisler (Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler), and their two sons, Paul Bloomfield Zeisler, musical