39
MUSICAL COURIER
citals at Rumford Hall, the first on April 12 and the second on April 14. There were many to attest appreciation of his good qualities on both occasions. New and unhackneyed numbers made up the programs and fine sense of style and understanding of spirit authenticated everything he played, making it alive. A Viennese Valse song (Gaert-ner-Kreisler) and Waves at Play (Grasse) were repeated to please the delighted audience at the first concert. An early Italian sonata by Veracini was a grateful novelty on this same program. Some of Mr. Polah’s own arrangements were presented, La Chanson des Abeilles (from Fillipuoci) and the Ballet of the Flowers (from Hadley). Miriam Allen played the accompaniments and, besides being remarkably efficient, gave evidence of real pleasure in her work. This additional refraction of mood went a long way towards making the concerts so successful.
The Tribune said: “Mr. Polah played with good tone and neat execution, and in a straightforward, dignified style.” The Herald said: “As when heard here before he played with a good tone and much knowledge of style.”
EDWARD RECHLIN
A large audience at Aeolian Hall, Thursday evening, heard Edward Rechlin in a recital of organ music. Mr. Rechlin is the organist of the Emanuel Lutheran Church and a concert artist of considerable reputation although his last big concert was held here five years ago.
Mr. Rechlip’s program was decidedly classic and many considered it a most opportune recital because in this day and time there are numerous motion picture theaters, the organists of which are not overly careful in how they play and what they play and worse still in regard to the (Continued on page 44)
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN FOR
Special Rate Summer Term
June and July
Write for particulars
Frederic
FREEMANTEL
VOCAL STUDIO
SO West 67th St.	New York
thing to be remembered a long time. The scherzo, for some reason or other, while not seeming slow in tempo, was a bit lacking in the verve it requires to make its best effect.
Before the Ninth, with Mr. Mengelberg at a piano disguised as a harpsichord, the string band, and eight flutes played the Bach D minor suite. It is a long affair. One admired the breath capacity of the eight flutists. Mr. Mengelberg did quite right in calling upon them to rise and acknowledge the applause.
Mr. Mengelberg conducted for the last time, the present season, on Sunday afternoon at' the Metropolitan Opera House, a repeat of the above program. It was one of the largest audiences that have attended there this season; in fact, it was reported hundreds were unable to get seats. The enthusiasm and ovations Mr. Mengelberg received left no question of doubt as to the esteem and friendship which he has created here in New York. He was recalled time-and again and bade his audience a very cordial good-by until next season.
ALICE GODILLOT AND MARTIN RICHARDSON
A joint recital at Rumford Hall, April^ 12, brought together a good-sized audience to hear Alice Godillot, soprano, and Martin Richardson, tenor, in a program of ancient and modern music. Each artist appeared thrice, and together once. Shakespeare songs by Haydn, Busch, Manney and Tompkins, sung by Mme. Godillot, were charming in their grace, ease of singing and feeling. Her brightly_ colored voice gave further pleasure in Der Asra and Spring’s Blue Eyes (Rubinstein), with high tones of power and joyousness, more especially in My Heart Is in Bloom (Brahms). Throughout all her singing distinct enunciation was a feature. She also sang a group of French songs. Flowers galore were presented the comely singer.
Mr. Richardson has a voice of true tenor quality, and sang the aria from Manon (Massenet) with real pathos, a fine high A, and in Donizetti’s serenade (Don Pasquale) a high B flat and final C of quality was noted. His songs, by Tip-ton, Dunhill, Curci, Harris, Ronald and others, showed variety of style, and ardor in such songs as contained such sentiment. One of his encores was the lullaby from Jocelyn, sung with impeccable taste. The resonance of this hall conduced much to make both singers’ voices appear at their best, although disturbing sounds of machinery or elevator came from the right-hand front. Both young artists are of the Joseph Regneas studios. Rachel O. Smiley and Harry O. Hirt played excellent accompaniments.
ANDRE POLAH
André Polah, a violinist with much playing-sense, a sweet fiddle tone and an enigmatical smile, gave two special re-
!,Baritone
MR. MELI disclosed a fresh and pleasant voice, the high notes of which are so much the best produced that one recalls that many a youthful baritone when his voice has settled and submitted to training finds he is no baritone but a tenor. MR. MELI sang with earnestness and feeling through a long and exacting programme.— P. S. in The Globe.
MR. MELI is blessed with gift of a natural mellow and flexible voice; there is promise of a future in which he may sing richly and even inspiredly, he can sing energetically and tunefully—there were moments of smooth vibrant melody;—■New York Tribune.
His voice was of naturally good body and range and intelligently expressive of emotion.—■New York Times.
Available for Recital, Concert and Oratorio
Address 435 West End Avenue, New York, N. Y.
Care ALFREDO MARTINO
April 19, 1923
equal success; it, too, had to be gone over again. The final number by the club was Van de Water’s Sunset.
Mrs. Mosher contributed Mozart's Alleluia, Fourdrain’s Sur la terrasse de Saint Germain, Easthope’s Martin’s Come to the Fair, and encores. The other soloist was Marie Roe-maet-Rosanoff, cellist, who not only delighted with her offerings but also was given an ovation after her last group. She played the Liszt-Popper Hungarian rhapsody, in which she displayed masterful technic; Air, by Hure, and David-off’s The Fountain. She, also, was forced to encore. _
Bruno Huhn is indeed to be congratulated for this fine achievement of his chorus, and it is with great anticipation that all, including the writer, look forward to the next concert of the Banks Glee Club.
WEDNESDA Y, APRIL 11
AMERICAN MUSIC GUILD
The American Music Guild terminated its season with a private concert at the Fifty-eighth street branch of the New York Public Library on the evening of April 11. The concert was to have consisted of a Concerto di Camera by Howard Hanson, songs for soprano by Dicie Howell accompanied by Frederick Jacobi, a set of piano solos to be played by Harold Morris, and a string quartet by Arthur Foote, but owing to the illness of . Miss Howell, the songs had to be omitted and in their stead Leo Sowerby’s string quartet, Serenade, was played.
Two of the composers whose works were included on this program are Fellows at the American Academy at Rome, and the audience was curious to hear what wonders they will have performed in their new environment. But both of the works played were written before the Fellows arrived in Rome, so that no estimate of the atmospheric effect of that ancient and holy city could be gathered, except that Hanson’s symphonic poem had been reduced to its present shape and in the process changed its name and become Italianized. As for the value of the work, it is small enough. Mr. Hanson speaks well, has a pleasant idiom and turns out scholarly phrases• with ease. But he speaks too much, and he speaks of too many things in a breath. Like so much modern music, this concerto lacks definiteness and succinctness. It gives the impression of a sort of vague wandering through pleasant fields, but after the promenade is over one has the impression of no especial beauty spot, and hardly knows whether he has been wandering through hills or valleys, on the seashore or on mountain heights (in spite of Mr. Howard’s elevational ninths.) And, in a breath, the whole is forgotten. If there is any moment of haunting melody in it all, it failed to haunt this writer. So much for Hanson!
As for.the other Rome Fellow, Sowerby—his work has precisely the same faults, with the additional fault of being influenced by Grainger and being clever instead of deep, based on little purling themes and wandering coiitrapuntally and endlessly on tonics and dominants and interminable secondary sevenths with scarcely a real modulation from end to end. Sowerby’s Irish Washerwoman, played by Harold Morris, who made, surely, all of it that is to be made of it, is similarly clever, and similarly stupid. Grainger does these jig tunes with a certain aristocratic simplicity that makes them worth while, and he has made this style so intimately his own that for others to copy it is only to expose the weaknesses of Grainger’s methods without adding anything to the sum total of the lasting literature of music. So much for Sowerby!
Now the other composers whose works were heard were: Stoessel, Powell, Griffes and Morris. Their works were most brilliantly played by Morris, who has a colorful and vivid style that places him in a high rank among pianists of the day. The Stoessel Seguedilla, first of the group of piano solos, is a highly interesting work, well made, pianistic, forceful; John Powell’s Minuetto is not so impressive and is hardly one of this gifted American’s best works; the White Peacock of the greatly lamented Griffes is too well known to require special comment, except that one wonders why it is not more often found on programs of recital givers; and finally the Scherzo, by Harold Morris himself, a most brilliant and attractive composition, based upon real melodic ideas and developed conservatively.
Arthur Foote’s quartet for strings and piano terminated the program in a quaintly Victorian manner. And it does credit to the young men of the Guild that they are not blind to the merits of their elders.
Those who assisted in the Hanson, Sowerby and Foote numbers were Messrs. Wolfinsohn, Moldovan, Stoeber, Stoessel, Haubiel and Gruenberg.
The American Music Guild announces three subscription concerts at Town Hall next season. Subscriptions may be sent to the Guild at 1 West 34th street, Room 604.
THURSDAY, APRIL 12
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC: THE NINTH SYMPHONY
Willem Mengelberg conductor, the orchestra of the Philharmonic Society, the chorus of the Schola Cantorum, and a quartet of distinguished soloists united at Carnegie Hall on Thursday evening, April 12, to give a performance of the Ninth Symphony, repeating it at the Metropolitan Opera House on Sunday afternoon. This, review is written of the Carnegie Hall performance.
The best feature of the evening was the chorus, which accomplished the remarkable feat of singing the utterly impossible choral parts of the final movement in time and tune and without sounding very screechy. The quartet— Mmes. Alda and Cahier, Messrs. Althouse and Schwarz— did their level best and succeeded as well as any possible quartet can succeed with the thoroughly uninteresting and ineffective music.
The orchestra, distributed across the front of the stage on account of the size of the chorus, was entirely out of balance. From where this writer sat, the kettledrums and the horns stood out unpleasantly all the time, through no fault of the players. Allowing for this lack of balance, the playing of the orchestra appeared to be very fine indeed. The execution of the unison announcement of the main theme of the final movement on the basses and cellos was some-