MUSICAL COURIER
24
June 14, 1923
conductor of the symphony orchestra in Christiania, a violinist and pupil of Auer, also played some selections. Mme. Wetke with Max Jacobs played the accompaniments. Mme. Lilibel’s husband, Tancred Ibsen, is a grandson of the famous Ibsen of Norway, and Johan Bull, a grand-nephew of Ole Bull, the greatest violinist of his age, was one of the guests. Mr. Bull, with the other guests from Norway, has only been in the United States a few weeks. Messmore Kendall, owner of the Capitol Theater; Margaret Wilson, Mrs. John R. MacArthur, and Leonora Raines, Paris correspondent for American papers, were also present.
PROVIDENCE’S THIRD ATTEMPT TO ORGANIZE ORCHESTRA SUCCEEDS
Nagel Achieves Fine Results at Debut Concert—John Charles Thomas Popular Soloist—Bakule Chorus Wins Welcome
Providence, R. I., June 1.—The Rhode Island Symphony Orchestra, I. Nagel, conductor, made a successful debut on May 20 at the Albee Theater, with John Charles Thomas, baritone, as assisting soloist. As this is the third time Providence has organized a “permanent” symphony, it is hoped that it will continue to flourish and function in the musical life of the city and state. The orchestra is composed of seventy professional musicians and, under the direction of Mr. Nagel, showed itself to be an organization of splendid possibilities. There was much enthusiasm displayed both among the players and audience. The strings were brilliant at times, especially in the Peer Gynt suite and Grainger’s Shepherd’s Hey. The brass and woodwind choirs were agreeably smooth. Mr. Nagel has worked only a short time with the players and if he continues as he has started, next season should produce startling accomplishments. Mr. Thomas made a sensation with his fine voice, stage presence and artistic gifts. This was his first concert appearance in Providence. William Janaushek played the accompaniment for his group of songs.
Chopin Lecture Lucidified by Set of Drawings.
The arts of music and drawing were combined to make the third Chopin lecture by Hans Schneider (before the normal department of the Hans Schneider piano school) of unique interest. The mood of each prelude was analyzed and impressed upon the students before the compositions themselves were played. The piano part was taken care of by Rebecca McDowell, a former graduate of the normal course whose sympathetic touch and facile technic enabled her to do full justice to kaleidoscopic changes of mood and sentiment. A rare set of drawings by Robert Spies was used in which each prelude is represented by a picture in which the artist caught the spirit of the composition. The lecture was opened with the G minor ballad played by Sarah Laster, ’23.
Bakule Children Sing for Red Cross.
The Providence Red Cross Chapter was host on May 26 to the Bakule Chorus of Czecho-Slovakia. Mayor Gainor extended a welcome in the name of the people of Providence and said that he had never heard the American National Anthem more beautifully rendered. It gave a concert at the Elks Auditorium which was an echo of the success it has had all over the country.
Little Miss Mikova played a group of Smetana solos and accompaniments for solos for two tiny concert artists, who stepped out from the chorus to sing simple songs of their native land. Among those present at the reception were W. H. P. Faunce, of Brown University; Walter E. Ranger, State Commissioner of Education; Isaac O. Winslow, Superintendent of Schools; Mrs. George C. Derby, head of the New England district of the Junior American Red Cross; Everett S. Hartwell, chairman of the Providence Chapter of the Red Cross; Henry F. Baldwin and Joseph M. Talley of the local Red Cross.
Notes.
An unusual and delightful musicale was given at the home of Helen Church in Bristol on May 21. Sarah D. Bosworth, soprano, accompanied by Dorothy Hill, sang charmingly, assisted by an ensemble consisting of Julia McKenna, soprano ; Helen Church, contralto, and Rebekah Church, accompanist. The singers are all pupils of Gretchen Schofield of Boston.
At the annual meeting of the Monday Morning Musical Club, Mrs. Harold J. Gross was re-elected president. H. B.
Roderick White Guest of Honor
Roderick White, the American violinist, was the guest of honor at a dinner given in London on May 28, by the American Charge d’Affaires and Mrs. Post Wheeler at Raleigh House, Chelsea Embankment. Mr. White, assisted by his accompanist, Percy Kahn, played the Mozart sonata in G major and a group of smaller numbers by American composers, including his own Spanish Serenade, Cecil Burleigh’s Fairy Sailing, and Samuel Gardner’s From the Cane-brake.
Among the guests were the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Davidson, the Japanese Ambassador, the Duchess of Buckingham and Chandos, the Danish Minister and Countess Ahlefeldt-Laurvig. Sir John and Lady Hanbury-Williams, John Sargent, the French Ambassador and Countess de Saint-Aulaire, the Brazilian Ambassador and Mme. de Gama, the German Minister and Mme. Sthamer, the Dutch Minister and Mme. Van Swinderen, the Swedish Minister and Baroness Palmstierna, Lawrence Gilman, the Hungarian Minister and Countess Szapary, and Austrian and Polish Ministers, the Marquess and Marchioness Curzon of Kedles-ton, the Duchess of Hamilton, Canon and Mrs. Carnegie, Marcia Van Dresser, the American Consul-General Robert Peet Skinner, Sir Arthur and Lady Colefax, Ex-Governor and Mrs. Charles Whitman, Lady Victoria Manners, Sir Godfrey Thomas, Sir George and Lady Rhodes and several other notables.
After the musicale, the Clifford-Essex Band played for the dancing. The party by Mrs. Post Wheeler is but one of many in which Mr. White has been honored during his engagement in London.
Alabama F. of M. C. Prize Winner
Janice Fuquay, who won the prize for piano playing offered by the Alabama State Federation of Music Clubs, is a student at the Alabama Technical Institute and College for Women at Montevallo, Ala.
MUSIC AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
By GEORGE H. GARTLAN Director of Music in the Public Schools of New York City
THE USE OF MATERIAL IN SCHOOL WORK
The Aims, Procedure, Material, and Content as Related to School Work
type of music which fits into the chi Id’s life. Technic should be left for the minority of school children who intend to follow music either as a vocation or an avocation. We are not sympathetic with the type of mind which says that the actual content of musical material need not get a great deal of consideration in the psychologic aspect of music. We would not tolerate this attitude in a discussion of the art of painting or sculpture. Why should we tolerate it in music? Only the very best in music should be given to children, whether it means hearing or doing. To have children sing a lot of songs or exercises merely for the purpose of teaching two equal tones to a beat or a chromatic tone, is an educational tragedy. There is too much in the literature of music that is worth while to tolerate such an attitude of mind. It is all very well to do educational research and investigation, but it is of no value unless the conclusions which we reach as a result of this investigation can be carried out in terms of the most beautiful that music has to offer.
The Aim of School Music.
It is evident that school music has one aim which will always be its greatest aim, and that is to train the children in a love for the beautiful. This is neither extravagant nor poetic. In order to accomplish this aim there must be a certain amount of routine skill developed through classroom meditation and drill. _ If this definite aim should ever be displaced by any subdivision of this aim, then teaching becomes confused and results negligible.^
The various steps by which such an aim can be consummated are the problems of the school supervisor who deals directly with the teachers and the pupils. Briefly, they are these. In the early stages of school work a repertory of songs which will not only teach the literature of good music but which will also show the child the proper use of his speaking and singing voice. Second, a simple technic in the reading of music which will prepare the way for advanced work in secondary education. Third, a knowledge of musical literature which will open for him a pathway to the great field of music.
It is difficult to standardize these_ formal steps in music education, but anyone connected with school work knows that nothing definite can be accomplished unless there is a certain type of standardized instruction on which accomplishments can be measured. The standardized course in music proposed by the Educational Council of the Music Supervisors’ National Conference was a step in the proper direction. Investigators are not satisfied with documents of this nature, but they persist in the thought that the ely-sium will come only when music is standardized and placed upon the same scientific basis as reading, writing, and arithmetic. We doubt if it was ever the intention of music to occupy this particular place. However, there are those who still believe that this should be done. We object strenuously to its ever being suggested.
Mrs. Latta Entertains
Mrs. S. J. Latta entertained with a tea on Wednesday afternoon, June 6, at a friend’s home at 170 West 59th Street, in honor of the dancer, Lilibel Ibsen, of Norway. Mme. Lilibel has danced for ten seasons in Europe under Max Reinhardt’s management, and will dance next season, under his direction, in the United States. Francis Woolwine sang several beautiful numbers, and Christian Thurlow, late
A great many of the critics of school music, particularly those who are doing psychologic investigation and experimental research, claim that when the subject of school music is analyzed, particularly from the standpoint of those who have written on the subject, the general conclusion is what music should accomplish, rather than what it can accomplish. This is pot altogether a fair conclusion, because the majority of people who lend a critical mind to the subject are rarely those who are doing the field work. There will always be a great distance between the thought on the subject of music teaching and the actual detailed accomplishment of the classroom.
People intimately connected with school work are in a position to know definitely what should be accomplished and what can be accomplished. In dealing with the latter problem the most important element involved is that of time. The average school day is only five hours, in many cases less, and there is so much to be done in the way of academic education which the child must have, that the question of the so-called cultural subjects must be treated not from the standpoint of technical accomplishment, but from the standpoint of articulation with the general education of the child. The introduction of music appreciation, meager as it may be in the elementary school course, has been one of the most constructive phases of music work accomplished in the last twenty-five years, principally because it gave new life to the class teacher who in many cases had to carry the burden of the work.
True and False Pedagogy.
There are two ways in which the problem of school music can be approached. One is that the child is merely something to be moulded in the hands of the teacher; that he must do only that which the teacher tells him to do, and he is to translate as far as . he is able the result of the teacher’s experience into terms of his own life. We regret to say that this method has been adopted in the past and has only succeeded in crushing out intellectual vitality. It is as false as it has been prevalent.
The true method is that which develops the child as a child; where the teacher “sits at the feet of childhood” and learns. By this method the child mind is understood, encouraged, and trained, and so far as music is concerned, such forms as music appreciation, music memory contests, etc., have succeeded in accomplishing this task. It is this
a Emily Beglin
For Melody	Soprano
Songs of
Kind“Ur	IS SINGING
Can It Be Love?...F. W. Vanderpool
Heart to Heart....F. W. Vanderpool
(Dedicated to Miss Beglin.)
Sunrise and You....Arthur A. Penn
M. WITMARK & SONS, NEW YORK
Press Comment Appearing in the“MESSAGERO” Rome, Italy, March 3rd, 1923
VECSEY'S
Triumphal Success at the Costanzi
It is not enough to be possessed of the gift of artistic intuition, the very intricate technique of either a string or key instrument in order to conquer an audience and lift it to the highest degree of enthusiasm and feeling; it is necessary that from the artist’s whole being there radiate that irresistible and often inexplicable something which fascinates the audience. Hubermann, Flesch, Kreisler, Serato are, no doubt, wonderful violin virtuosi— but they do not exert on the masses that intoxicating and uplifting suggestion of which today only VECSEY can boast. That is why it would be useless to devote to him a more or less studied criticism which would, perhaps, attain the opposite effect of turning down and cooling thè divine enthusiasm of the crowd which fills with joy one’s own body and soul. Last night at the Costanzi Theatre a new soul was vibrating, the soul of music, which is the eternal essence of beauty, and the form of music, whether by Tartini or Yieuxtemps, by Respighi or Chopin, by Sarasate or Paganini, whether ugly or not, inspired or not, learned or not, became of secondary importance before the imagery and feeling due solely to VECSEY’S wonderful bowing. And last night, Vecsey, who has for some time been an ardent lover of Italy, poured into the thirsty soul of the audience the purest flow of his geniality.
Immeasurable were the applause, ovations and shouts for encores. Only the fact that VECSEY is to reappear at the Costanzi next Monday served to assuage the general i-nrequitedness.
Management of R. E. JOHNSTON	1451 Broadway, New York City
KNABE PIANO
FERENC VECSEY
Renowned Violinist