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American operas by Cadman, Herbert and other noted composers. Miss Nevin will sing these numbers in appropriate costumes.
Who Taught America to Sing? will shed a new light on the subject of folk music in America. Mr. Milligan’s study along this line has extended over a period of years and he has not only availed himself of the discoveries of other students of folk-lore but has made his own contribution with newly collected melodies and original harmonizations of existing tunes. Altogether a most fascinating program has been arranged, culminating in a group of modern songs typifying the progress made and the present high plane of America’s musical development.
Miss Nevin and Mr. Milligan gave such pleasure in Doylestown, Pa., recently that they have been reengaged for next season for a presentation of Three Centuries of American Opera.
Perfield Teacher’s Pupil Wins Honors
Adolph Kohlhammer, who was presented in the pupils’ program at the Iowa State Music Teachers’ Convention, held recently in Des Moines, by his teacher, Etta Gabbert, of Davenport, made quite an impression with his splendid work, according to word brought in convention echoes.
Mr. Clapp, of the music department of the University of Iowa, who is president of the Music Teachers’ Association, was impressed with the Davenport boy’s playing of his group of piano numbers and he said it was seldom a young student showed exceptionally good technic, had such understanding, and played with such good musical interpretation as Mr. Kohlhammer displayed in his numbers, which were : the prelude in C minor, Chopin ; Country Dance, Beethoven; Caprice Viennois, Kreisler, and Country Gardens, Grainger.
Benno Kantrowitz to Teach All Summer
Benno Kantrowitz, the well known teacher of piano, harmony and counterpoint, will conduct a course for teachers in harmony and counterpoint, as well as coach singers during the entire summer commencing June 15, at his New York studios, in the Metropolitan Opera House Building, 1425 Broadway.
Pfiqr to returning to his native New York Mr. Kantrowitz was active as conductor, composer, coach and teacher of harmony and counterpoint in Leipzig, Germany, where he left a position which he held for twenty years, succeeding the eminent composer, S. Jadassohn.
Bachschmid Comes from Distinguished Family
Hazel Wegner Bachschmid, soprano, comes from a distinguished family. In a recent article about her in a Washington daily, it was stated that her father, H. M. Wegner, was a widely known portrait and landscape painter, her grandfather a portrait painter and baritone soloist, her mother was a fine musician, and her brother a pianist and composer.
TO CONCERT MANAGERS and ARTISTS
Have you booked for the season of 1 923-24?
certs, Lectures and Meetings, Sunday Afternoons and Evenings and days that do not conflict with regular performances.
JOLSON’S 59th STs
At 7th Avenue
Diagonally Opposite Carnegie Hall
Seating Capacity 1780
CENTURY
62nd St., Central Park West Near Columbus Circle
Seating Capacity 2970
BOSTON (Mass.) OPERA HOUSE
•״ > JULES MURRY, 223 West 44th St., N. Y.
Phones Bryant 5320
MUSICAL COURIER
back the management made me a desultory offer. I could not pin them down to one proposition and when finally they told me what they wanted, the salary was so much below the one I had received and the one I demanded that I contented myself with singing in concert and recital, besides looking for an opening in a good, conservative investment house. This I have now found, and though I will devote most of my time for the good of the firm, receiving already a salary far larger than any money offered me by the Chicago or any other opera company, I am permitted by my employers to accept dates in and outside of Chicago. The music field will be a side line with me, of course, but you know it is in the blood, and as often as managers will pay me my fee, as often will the investment salesman disappear for a day or so to bring back Goddard the singer, who, feeling at ease with the world, should sing better than heretofore. This, of course, is to be seen, but what is certain is that I have made good already in my new venture, selling in the first two weeks sufficient bonds to warrant my salary being paid at least for six months, were I working on a commission.”	_	....
It is a long way between a king or a high priest in Aida, from Gurnemanz in Parsifal and other important roles in which Goddard has been heard on these shores, to a broker in stocks and bonds, but that Goddard has qualifications to make good in both is predicted by his musical as well as commercial friends.
New American Programs for Nevin-Milligan
So popular has been the costume recital, Three Centuries of American Song, given by Olive Nevin, soprano, and Harold Vincent Milligan, lecture-pianist, that these artists
Photo by Apeda.
OLIVE NEVIN
as she appears in one of the costumes she wears in Three Centuries of American Song.
have arranged two additional programs of similar nature for next season. They will be called Three Centuries of American Opera and Who Taught America to Sing? The former will do for opera in America what their first recital did for song. To many people it will come as a distinct surprise to learn that there was native opera in this country in the eighteenth century. Beginning with arias from works recently unearthed by Mr. Milligan, the program will be brought up to date by including excerpts from the latest
RICHARD HAGEMAN
the Opening York Studios
Announces of His New
257 West 86th Street
Phone: Schuyler 5910
May 10, 1923
Gregory Mason, Arthur .Whiting and others presented portraits of Mr. Rice as a baby with a toy cello, at the age of ten with a half cello, as law student with full-sized cello and at the future age of eighty with a double bass. In a corner of the room is the diploma presented to Mr. Knei-sel by Princeton University awarding the degree of Doctor of Music.	.
Last and far from least of interest is a picture which m itself is so attractive that an exclamation of delight escaped me. With a smile of pleasure Mr. Kneisel warmed to the subject dear to his heart. “That is in Ischl where Brahms spent his summers. It is a farmer’s^ house on the Salz-burgerstrasse with a winding river beside it and the beautiful mountains of Austria rising behind. Brahms occupied the upper floor of the house and there are the windows of his bedroom, his music room, and the reception room where he kept the coffee machine and where many mornings about half past eleven he used to give me a good cigar and an appetizer. From the windows we would often see the. Emperor Franz Joseph strolling incognito and carrying a large umbrella because it rainecl much in Ischl. The Emperor had a summer palace near there.” To the suggestion that the picture must surely have been taken from an aeroplane, Mr. Kneisel replied : “Only an acrobat could take it.
A friend named Argiewicz, knowing of my desire for that view of Brahms’ house, climbed a great tree and took a snapshot from which this has been enlarged.” Next to it hangs a picture of a curious old house, the birthplace of Brahms in Hamburg.
The remaining room in the hall contains a cupboard of dishes presented by Mrs. Morris Loeb for use at receptions, and on the walls are pictures of Shakespeare’s country— his birthplace, his monument, the church where he was buried, and Anne Hathaway’s cottage. There are steel engravings of Berlioz, dementi, Spohr and George Onslow, English chamber music composer ; a photograph of the Guarnerius of Paganini in its actual size, and a rare engraving pf Ole Bull with the signature of Kriehuber, the best artist in Vienna, for whom all the distinguished musicians posed, and a large photograph of Eugen Ysaye upon which is written : “A mon cher grand ami et collègue, Franz Kneisel d’affection et d’admiration. Boston, 1898.” Most fitting of all the tributes is the one on the photograph of Theodore Thomas: “To Franz Kneisel, a man who does honor to his adopted country. With appreciation. 1897.” Returning to the music room, Mr. Kneisel directed my attention to the ample bookcases on each side of the fireplace wherein were complete sets of Shakespeare, Dickens, Burns, Tennyson, Plutarch, Emerson, O. Henry, the History of Europe—ancient, medieval, modern—and the Encyclopedia Brittanica. There is also a comprehensive library of music and literature pertaining to the subject. These are enjoyed by the pupils in hours of leisure.
During July and August, a period of eight weeks, Mr. Kneisel’s class of about seventy-five is in session. It is comprised not only of many Institute students but professionals from all parts of the country. Mr. Kneisel gives lessons at the hall from nine to one and from three to six. Every evening except Thursday there are ensemble rehearsals from seven to nine-thirty, conducted usually by Mr. Knei-sel and sometimes by Mr. Willeke. “A source of particular elation is the number of cellists (five of Mr. Willekes pupils) always available for• our ensembles,” said Mr. Kneisel. “Usually the only way to secure a cellist is to nab him before anyone else can get him! It is my hope next year to include a series of lectures by Mr. Krehbiel on music and other matters of a broad cultural nature. Then there will be readings, of Shakespeare’s plays with various students interpreting the parts.”
The official opening of Kneisel Hall was on Wednesday afternoon, August 16, when there was a musical program, and a dedicatory address by Mr. Krehbiel. All the prominent persons who summer in this region were in attendance. In the absence of the director in Europe, the name of Dam-rosch was represented by his brother Walter, who made the trip by yacht from Bar Harbor for the event.
Like Admiral Dewey, who on the morning of the battle of Manila suggested that activities begin by all partaking of an excellent breakfast, so the unofficial opening of operations at Kneisel Hall took place a week earlier when the entire class of seventy-five students with their mothers were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. van Wesel at■ a luncheon on the piazza. The proverbial starving artist must have been banished by the generosity of the host and hostess in providing a half chicken each, cold meats, coffee, gmger ale apple striidel, ice cream and cake. Under the auspices of such conviviality, Kneisel Hall cannot help maintaining its reputation as a happy home for youthful geniuses.
On Friday evening, August 25, the summer season reached its height in a concert for the benefit of the Blue Hill Memorial Hospital. It was under the direction of Mr. Kneisel; thanks to his liberality and to the untiring efforts and devoted labor of Marianne Kneisel the concert was not only artistically delightful but financially successful. Nearly a thousand dollars was realized.
In the minds oi many artists and students now centered in New York for the approaching year there must linger sweet memories of a far hill, on the slopes of which a well-loved structure with windowed eyes closed by shuttered lids will slumber through the silent winter months. The most beautiful recollection that any one could have of Kneisel Hall is in the stillness of a moonlit night, when the atmosphere is charged with the witchery and mystery of ghostly brilliance. It is then that it seems a thing of enchantment, the unreality of which is only dispelled by the knowledge that in secret Mr. Kneisel dreamed this dream, and through the munificence of a music-lover whose anonymity is preserved because of modesty, it came to pass.
James Goddard Enters Investment Field
Another American musician who has made a name for himself in the musical world is James Goddard, for several seasons leading basso of the Chicago Grand Opera Com-pany, yet information received by the Musical Courier conveys the surprising news that he has entered the firm of Brokaw & Co., investment securities, of 105 South LaSalle street, Chicago. After perusing the announcement a reporter of this paper decided to_ interview Mr. Goddard to ascertain the reason for his leaving the musical field for the commercial world.
“This is only a question of dollars and cents, said Mr. Goddard. “As you may know, I had a contract with the Chicago Opera when we went to war ,and as I went into the army, I forfeited my two-year contract. When I came