57
MUSICAL COURIER
January 18, 1923
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“The Artist Stieff” is one of the few musical instruments still made according to the fine old art of piano building. The “Stieff Tone” is famous with the artists of three generations. It is the voice of the Stieff alone. It is inimitable.
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Baltimore
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CHAS. M. STIEFF, Inc.
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1842
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recital in our Saturday Night series. Her program consisted of French, Italian and English songs. The audience liked her so well that she had to respond to eight encores.”
Miss Bradley sang the part of Grimgerde in Walküre, last Saturday night. This was her first appearance in that role this season in Manhattan, although she sang it Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Last season she sang both the part of Fricka and Grimgerde at the same performance.
Knoch’s Conducting Praised
Although Dippel’s United States Grand Opera Company came to an early arid untimely end, the performances which it had given reflected credit on the entire personnel and on no one more thandsrnst Knoeh, the indefatigable conductor, to whose energy and perseverance a lion’s share of the success of the performances is to be attributed. The Cincinnati Enquirer said of the Walküre performance there on December 2: “Last night’s performance, nevertheless, was noteworthy for several surprisingly good attributes. Chief honors are due Ernst Knoch for his superb holding together of all the forces. He is an excellent musician and a fine operatic conductor. One cannot say more than that he extracted as much out of his men and the performers under his baton as was humanly possible.”
Bertram Taylor Joins Bureau
Alphonse Eyssautier and Grenville Vernon, of the International. Publicity Bureau, have made a valuable addition to their forces in Bertram Taylor who recently came from Indianapolis to write musical publicity for the Bureau. Miss Taylor has been for a number of years a prominent figure in the musical life of the Middle West, where her signature has been familiar to newspaper readers. She was most recently music critic of the Indianapolis News, and before that, music critic and assistant dramatic editor of the Indianapolis Star. Her newspaper work, which has brought her into touch with many of the leading artists in the United States, has given her unusual training and experience for the new position.
Helene Romanoff and Plotnikoff via Radio
Mme. Romanoff, dramatic soprano, and Eugene Plotnikoff, joined at the Newark Station, January 12, in broadcasting Russian popular and classical songs. They are pioneers in this, and large numbers of people interested in Russian vocal art enjoyed their fine vocal contributions.
school, delievered a lecture before the Women’s Club of Puyallup on December 11.
The present month is also a busy one and will include recitals by pupils of three members of the faculty—Mrs. Sara Y. Peabody, Mr. Jou-Jerville and Mr. Potjes. Mr. Potjes will give a recital on January 29.
Laros Wins Favor in Greensburg
Earle Laros, the pianist, who is making a tour of the Middle West, gave his first program in Greensburg, Ind., on Friday, January 5, before the music department of the Women’s Club. The auditorium was crowded and his success was so decided that he was asked to stay over for another engagement on Sunday afternoon, which he did, presenting an entirely new program. This was Mr. Laros’ third appearance in that city in less than a year. The Greensburg News, in reviewing the concert, said in part:
The favorable impression lie made last year resulted in his engagement to !appear before the department club. There is something about his playing that arouses a desire .to hear more of it. Last year we listened to him in an informal attitude that was delightful. This year it was a kid-gloved crowd sitting stiffly in pews that greeted him. Such formality usually kills all responsiveness and congeals the spirit of the performers. Yet, Mr. Laros won and held his audience as only “an artist with a message” could.
Technical skill, which he has in abundance, could not suffice without the real qualities of musicianship being manifested. Mr. Laros possesses tfiat indefinable something^ that marks the true artist. He displayed fine intelligence, poetic feeling and dramatic fire in his interpretations of the varied numbers. His gavotte, A major, had to be repeated. It is a rhythmical and melodious number, admirably constructed.
German Company to Give Benefit
The artists of the Wagnerian Opera Festival, which opens its New York season at the Manhattan Opera House on February 12, will give a performance of Die Meistersinger in Bremen on the eve of its departure for this country in aid of the Seamen’s Home of the United States Lines. The entire proceeds of this performance to be given at the Bremen Opera will be devoted to this charity.
Grace Bradley’s Engagements
Grace Bradley, contralto, has been engaged to sing at the first concert of the season given by the Fique Choral Club in Brooklyn, January 30. Of a recent recital at Schenectady, the Gazette of that city said: “Grace Bradley, contralto from the Metropolitan Opera Company, gave a most interesting
Letters from
MUSICAL COURIER READERS
Those Tenor Top Tones
To The Musical Courier:
In a recent issue of your paper, I read something about Top Tones for Tenors, signed by F. P., in which he told about an interview with Frederic Freemantel. I have also read some of those articles by Frederic Freemantel about the Secret of Singing High Tones. What I want to know is, is this stuff on the level? Is there such a man that knows anything about top tones ? I am a tenor and a good amateur. Being a successful business man I only sing for the pleasure of it, but I am certainly bothered when it comes to high notes. That is why I am writing you; I want to know what you know about this man Freemantel? Who is he, does he have the goods, or is he another one of those smooth hot air artists? Just tell me, for if he can show me some points whereby I can get more out of my voice to give pleasure to my family, I’ll gladly take a trip to New York and pay this man any price for real help on my voice. I will appreciate your reply.
(signed) “Tenor.”
When we received the above letter it set us thinking— and we thought that the best thing to do was to put this letter up to Frederic Freemantel himself and see what he would say about it. We must say that he was very convincing with the Musical Courier representative, F. P., as told in our issue of December 7, in the article entitled Top Tones for Tenors, and in bringing up the subject of your letter to Mr. Freemantel, his reply was this:	“I
stand ready at any and all times to prove and demonstrate my claims about my system of voice production and, especially with regard to tenors, I can and will make such proof whenever or wherever you wish. I have just what I have yearned and prayed for and worked for all my life, the secret of singing high tones, especially as regards the tenor voice. So bring on your committees, theorists, dreamers or anybody else. I’ll convince them all in a very short time, but I will not show them the ‘How of it.’ That must be reserved for my regular pupils. And don’t forget this, my dear Musical Courier man, I prove everything I say, prove everything with my own voice if necessary, and when a tenor brings me something he cannot do I’ll do it for him, and show him just what I did to do it, and show him just what he must do to do it himself. I have not yet seen an earnest singer who was really vocally incapable of doing most all he wanted to do when once he was shown how by somebody that knew how.” [This seems fair enough.—The Editor.]
An Illusion Shattered
To The Musical Courier:
The interesting article in a recent issue of the Musical Courier on the music of Hawaii, by Loring Andrews, gave me an entirely different idea of music in the Hawaiian Islands from what I had believed was the case for the past —well, a good many years. Going there when nine years old, and living for a time in a missionary family, I had always believed what must have been told me by some member of that family, and that was, that the Hawaiians had no songs or music until the missionaries reached Honolulu and sang hymns and psalms in the church services. The rhythm of the calabash drums played for the naughty hula-hula was the only approach to anything suggesting music. Of course the hula-hula was forbidden, as was the playing of the drums, but in spite of all prohibition it was never stamped out. One of the tunes the natives had adopted when I was a child, was Home, Sweet Home; but the native or Hawaiian words triay have been quite unprintable.
Yours sincerely,
(signed) K. F. A.
Activities of the Cornish School
The Cornish School of Music, Seattle, had a very busy time around Christmas. Four one-act plays, including a puppet play, were given at the school theater on December 21, 22, 23. On the evening of December 18, a unique Christmas feature was a series of Bible readings from The Life of Christ, given by four of the seniors of the School of the Spoken Word, the readings being supplemented by a musical program. On December 20, Ella Helm Boardman, of the faculty, arranged a Bach program for the Musical Art Society. Miss Cornish, founder and director of the
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