31
MUSICAL COURIER
admirers, who applauded every effort with sincere appreciation. The third group of four numbers—Prairie Waters At Night, and Butterfly (Constance Herreshoff), The Little Shepherd (Wintter Watts) and The Heart of a Rose (Elinor Remidk Warren) met with particular success. Several repetitions were demanded during the program, and a number of encores sung. John Doane was at the piano and proved, as usual, an excellent accompanist.
The Evening Sun said of her: “The soprano has established herself in years past as a singer of keen intelligence and clear tone. Last night’s program brought to notice her increasing sureness of placement and accumulating dramatic knack. Miss Dale sang with a shrewd wit and an ever varied humor.” The World credited her with being,, “a fine, intelligent singer, at her best in songs of a dramatic nature.”
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: GEORGES ENESGO SOLOIST
agreeable; the less active passages especially presenting full, smooth tone and graceful playing. She concluded with shorter selections by Wieniawski, Schubert-Wilhelmj, Kreisler, and Sarasate, the Gypsy Dances by the latter composer displaying her skill to greatest advantage and her capable handling of the instrument in this number proving her an artist of merit.
The New York Tribune was exceptionally flattering in its praise: “The Sarasate Dance showed the violinist at her best. Here there was dash and assurance, freedom of manner, ability to manage high speed, and, as a rule, to sustain the tone—whereby the general impression was one of promise.” The American offered the following tribute: “From the ■scholarly way in which she played the exacting concerto by Paganini-Wilhelmj and the difficult Devil’s Trill Sonata, by Tartini, the slender young violinist should develop into a valuable member of the local musicians’ colony.” The Times said: “Miss Polnariow showed musical taste in her treatment of the classics, and good tone contrasts. . . . She played with much power for a slender
FRIENDS OF MUSIC
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s concert at Carnegie Hall on Thursday evening began with the Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini overture, an old bag of bones, interesting as a study in orchestration, but saying rather less than nothing. Then came Georges Enesco, playing the Brahms violin concerto. After the intermission there was a performance of Cesar Franck’s symphonic poem, Le Chasseur Maudit. It is no act of piety towards the memory of a dead man to play his worst work, just because he happened to be ■born, a century ago last month. Le Chasseur Maudit sounds today like a “hurry” in moving picture music; but the horns of the Boston Symphony have a noble tone. Next came a fine performance of Ravel’s Rhapsodie Espagnole, a charming 1bit of illusive musical coloring, beautifully scored and played to perfection by M. Monteux and his men. To end with there was also an excellent performance of Smetana’s Vlatava, the joints of which are beginning to show and to creak ominously.
Georges Enesco, seen here a short time ago as conductor of an orchestra, now appeared as soloist with one. His performance of the Brahms concerto was that of a musician and a good violinist, but not of a violinist who meets the technical requirements that are a sine qua non nowadays. There was a lot of slipshod fiddling and small tone in the energetic passages, especially of the first movement, and the third was quite ineffective. But in the lyric sections of the first and throughout the lovely second movement, where there is call for ׳beauty of tone ׳and few fireworks, he was thoroughly satisfying. His conception of the mighty work was, indeed, satisfactory- throughout, but his execution of it frequently lagged behind. There was occasional lack of accord between soloist and conductor also, doubtless due to insufficient rehearsal. The loveliest thing of the whole was M. Longy’s oboe solo in the introduction to the middle movement. M. Enesco was very heartily applauded.
RICHARD HALE
On Thursday afternoon, Richard Hale, baritone, gave his annual recital before a good sized audience in Aeolian Hall. His program began with two songs of the early Mln-
A combination of two such artists as Onegin and Huber-man could be depended upon to draw out a big crowd, and it accomplished exactly that for the Society of the Friends of Music who sponsored their joint appearance at Carnegie Hall on January 31. Mme. Onegin sang three Berlioz songs and two Mahler songs with great !beauty of tone and artistic understanding. One might well wonder at her selections,• but she made much of them by the intensity of the passion she put into them, which is exactly the right phrase, for there is little enough of that in the songs themselves.
Under the direction of BodaHzky the orchestra played the overture to Giovanna d’Areo by Verdi, for why and wherefore will ever be one of the mysteries. Evidently some antiquarian is exercising his talents in the selection of music for the society to play, the chief argument being that it is never played. That being the chief argument, why does not the Society unbend to the extent of playing the unplayed Americans ?
Huberman played, beautifully, the two beautiful Beethoven romances, displaying a lovely, limpid tone, perfect intonation and great'depth of musical feeling. He was no less successful in the novelty of the afternoon, a suite for violin and orchestra ׳by Sergius Taneiev, played for the first time in America, a strong and vigorous ׳piece of music, full of real invention, often poetic—and, alas, often dull. The composer is evidently highly gifted but does not use much judgment in his self-criticism. However, it is good music and one must be grateful to Huberman and Bodanzky for giving America a chance to hear it. It was composed in 1911 and dedicated to Auer.
ESTHER DALE
Ether Dale’s third annual song recital took place on Wednesday evening, at Rumford Hall. The program consisted of four groups of old songs from England, Scotland, France and Belgium. Her clear soprano, full tone, and warm quality of voice, combined with exceptional charm of manner, could not but appeal to the audience. Short, explanatory remarks on the various selections established a mutual feeling of goodfellowship between the artist and her
“MONTEMEZZI
and POLACCO”
91
“Composer and Conductor Single-Voiced
Boston Transcript
“Polacco Conducting Excels Himself״
Boston Transcript
Boston Evening Transcript, January, 1923 So much for trifling defects, for praiseworthy intentions and for sound abilities. All else calls for superlatives. The simple statement that Mr. Polacco conducted is of itself enough to proclaim the orchestral performance one of surpassing eloquence —and such indeed it was. To note in detail his achievement would be to name and number each measure of the music. It is doubtful whether a Boston audience has ever heard a performance of the score deserving comparison with that of last evening. That passage after passage was of overpowering effect or of a beauty almost unendurable was not all due to the genius that conceived them; the executive musician by whom they were revealed and interpreted had a not inconsiderable share in such result.
Boston Transcript, January, 1923 From Mr. Polacco and his orchestra, happily cast into a pit that measured but not dulled their sonorities, ascended all the eloquences. Under his ear and hand there is no doubting the virtues of this Chicagoan band. It is at once full throated and justly balanced; in its voice meet the ardors and the reticences, the amplitudes and the subtleties, of tone. From it composer and conductor may strike what fire they will of darting modulation, flashing transition, pounding, rhythm, whipping climax, color up and down the gamut. And beauty is the over-lay. Like symphonic poem Mr. Polacco “read” Monte-mezzi’s score and the instruments were the actors while through their pit marched the tragedy. From them the stage received voice; to them the stage joined voice—Montemezzi’s in the endless accents of Mr. Polacco. It is the custom to bewail the content of American opera houses and American audiences with mediocre conductors. Yet Mr. Polacco still works among us and—Montemezzi aiding—may hold a whole house spelled and rapt.	H. T. P.
February 8, 1923
haps the best choral offering then followed—Beethoven’s Creation’s Hymn—superbly done, and, to end with, a group of classic and popular works: Blest Are They Who Feel Compassion (Bach), Volga Boatmen’s Song (Russian Folk Song), If Any Little Word of Ours (New; Camilieri), and Ole Uncle Moon (Charles P. Scott).
Mrs. John Henry Hammond gave a stirring talk on The Value of Ensemble Singing In the Life of a Community. Edward Harris was at the piano for. Cecil ־׳den.
ETHEL GROW
A recital for the benefit of the MacDowell Colony Fund was given by Ethel Grow at. the Plaza on January 30 under the auspices of the Washington Heights Musical Club,, at which a program of rare merit was given in a manner that delighted those present and won a very real success for the singer, who was forced to respond to demands for many encores. Miss Grow has a voice and brains, and in song one is just as important as the other, especially when the singer undertakes music of a highly esthetic character, like the things froth the modern French. There was a group from the modern French on Miss Grow’s program, some of the songs heard, possibly, for the first time in New York.
But before this Miss Grow sang with traditional interpretation a group of songs by Handel, Mozart and Fal-coniere, and, by request, Cleopatra’s Death by Henry Holden Huss, which was one of the most successful numbers on her recent all-American program and was again most enthusiastically received.	,
The French ■group included one song by Gabriel Faure, three by Florent Schmitt, and one by Felix Fourdrain. The Schmitt songs are entitled Lied, II pleure dans mon coeur, Fils de la Vierge. They are really lovely and why they are not more often sung in this city is one of the mysteries. Miss Grow made much of them, the wide range of her voice and its pathetic intensity being most grateful to this strange, elusive music.
Miss Grow’s final group was a set of American works, all most interesting, and there were five or six encores. Albert Baker played the accompaniments with taste and skill.
ANTON BILOTTI
Anton Bilotti, the young pianist, gave his second recital of the winter on Tuesday evening, confirming and strengthening the good impression of his ability he had made a few weeks before. He began with an overture in A minor by Philip Emanuel Bach, well played, and then gave a really brilliant performance of the Sonata quasi Fantasia by. his former teacher, Ferruccio Busoni. The work is thoroughly unimportant and uninteresting and, unfortunately, not at all worth the hard work that Mr. Bilotti had put into its preparation. The next group contained two familiar titbits of Mendelssohn, the Hunting Song and the Spinning Wheel from the Songs without Words, and a short Chopin group, including the A flat Ballade in which his ׳beauty of tone was especially apparent. For the final group he played four of his own compositions, clean-cut, well written morceaux which showed a decided talent in the young -man, and -he ended with a brilliant bit of fireworks, the Martucci Tarantella, played at a tremendous pace.
All the good qualities he displayed in his first recital were evident again. He has extremely facile fingers and is able to produce a singing tone of most agreeable quality and varied color for the lyric passages. The impetuosity which characterizes some of his interpretative work and leads to an occasional exaggeration is merely an ׳attribute of youth— and an excellent attribute in a player as young as he.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31
CITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Of the five numbers played by the City Symphony Orchestra at its concert in Carnegie Hall, on Wednesday evening, four were ׳by Russian composers, and the other, the ever-popular Unfinished Symphony by Schubert.
The opening number, Une nuit sur la monte chauvre, by Moussorgsky, was conducted, by Alexis Coroshans'ky, who, despite his good musicianship, presented the work unevenly, many of the important phrases being blurred. Schuberts symphony, which followed, was again given without a conductor, and won hearty applause. Although the entire program was to have been conducted by Mr. Coroshansky, Dirk Foch led the orchestra throughout the three Russian numbers—On the Steppes of Central Asia, op. 7, Borodin; overture to a drama by Gumileff; Gondla,_by Dukelski, and Glazounoff’s symphonic poem Stenka Razine, op. 13, which constituted part 11.
Mr. Foch was greeted with tremendous applause both by the audience and members of the orchestra; this, we believe, was his first appearance as conductor since his _ illness. He conducted with sincerity, authority and musician-ship, receiving much applause for his fine work. Of the three Russian compositions, the first and last were heartily enjoyed, while the overture by Vladimir Dukelski proved a tiresome, unmelodious, uninteresting number, which could well have been omitted, and this with no regrets.
H. E. Krehbiel, in the New York Tribune, writes: “The overture inflicted upon the audience last night is the work of a young man who came to America ten months ago. We are unwilling to call him a composer or compounder of music, i׳f music is to be accepted as an art which can m any way entertain or delight the senses. He says that it was designed to give expression to the love of a prehistoric hunchbacked prince of Iceland whose passion was too passive to suit a prehistoric princess of the Amazonian type. _. . . The so-called overture is a farrago of atrocious noises— no more, no less.” The New York Times says: “The City Symphony Orchestra was midway in its program at Carnegie Hall last evening, repeating Schubert’s Unfinished symphony without a conductor, when suddenly and unannounced, Conductor Dirk Foch made a dramatic re-entrance, •and was received with a rising ovation by his men. He seemed none the worse for two weeks’ enforced idleness due to an operation on his ear at Atlantic City. The audience joined in greeting him as he led the concluding numbers of the evening, from Russian composers.”
ROSA POLNARIOW
On Wednesday evening Rosa Polnariow, violinist, gave a recital at the Town Hall, accompanied by Mrs. Alexander Bloch. The first number on her program consisted of Wil-helmj’s version of Paganini’s concerto in D major, which she played with skill and understanding. The Tartini sonata in G minor, called the Devil’s Trill, was particularly