Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 1, No. 11 (1927-08)

The Phonograph Monthly Review 451 ■■ —qv" - "■ ■■ ■■ — is perhaps the most significant figure; his Alladin Suite and New England Symphony for orchestra and song Israfel are undeniably among the finest works of this school. It is unfortunate that they, in company with the flood of less valuable works, are falling so rapidly into oblivion. The panto- mimes and dramatic music of Harvey W. Loomis and the orchestral suites and chamber music of Arthur Foote still possess the breath of life, but they too are heard less and less of late. Sousa's opera, El Capitan, and suites are also seldom played today. Edward B. Hill struggles to throw off the professorial shackles with the composi- tions in pseudo-jazz idiom mentioned before; his Stevensonian suites are much more effective and are admirably suited for recording. His work in making French music and musicians better known and appreciated in this country should not escape mention. Rubin Goldmark, nephew of the com- poser of Sakuntula, has aroused considerable at- tention with a Negro Rhapsody and other works. Templeton Strong (best known by his Sintram for orchestra), Arthur Shepherd (assistant con- ductor of the Cleveland orchestra), Noble Kreider, Henry Clough-Leighter, Louis Camble- Tipton,Arthur Whiting,Howard Brockway, (who has worked with Kentucky folk tunes), Arthur Bird, Arthur Bergh, John Beach (New Orleans Street Cries at Dawn, etc.), Daniel Gregory Mason, are all to be named. Among those making considerable use of Indian music are Arthur Harwell (who played a prominent part in the work of the late Wa-Wan press in encouraging native composers and arous- ing a national musical consciousness), Charles Sanford Skilton (whose Suite Primeval deserves a second mention), E. R. Kroeger, Arthur Nevin, Cadman (several operas), Lieurance, and Carl Busch (the last named to be referred to again among composers of foreign birth). Those promi- nent in making use of Negro music are Henry F. Gilbert (Negro Rhapsody, Dance in the Place Congo, etc.), H. T. Burleigh (represented by sev- eral recorded works), R. Nathaniel Dett (whose popular Juba Dance has been recorded by Grain- ger for Columbia, John Powell (Rhapsodie Negre, etc.), William Arms Fisher (arrangements of Spirituals—his Goin' Home, adapted from the Largo of Dvorak's New World Symphony has been recorded by several companies), Mortimer Wilson (known also for musical accompaniments to movies—Douglas Fairbanks' Thief of Bagdad, etc.)* A serious omission in the earlier lists of "blues" should be remedied here with mention of W. C. Handy, rightfully called "Daddy of the blues." Most of his works are built up on scraps of au- thentic negro tunes and verse; many are available in excellent versions on records. Several women composers should be named, all of whom belong to the more conservative school. Mrs. H. II. A. Beach, Margaret Ruthven Lang (her Irish Love Song has been recorded by Van *With the invention and development of the Vitaphone, Phonofilms, and other similar devices, a new field of recorded music is opening up to American—and all—composers. Significant recordings may well be expected in the very near future. Gorden for Columbia), Mabel Daniels, and Helen Hopekirk. The first of the American modernists was per- haps Charles T. Griffes, a young man of real promise who, if he had lived, would undoubtedly have outgrown his Debussyism and attained a striking musical stature. (It should be mentioned here that the influences bearing most strongly on the young American composer are now no longer German, but French. Just as MacDowell and the men of his day inevitably went to Leipsic or Munich to study their art, so the young man of today goes to Paris. Miss Naida Boulanger of the Fontainebleau school has exerted an unusually powerful personal influence.) John Alden Car- penter is one of the outstanding figures among the semi-modernists; perhaps a song or two of his has been recorded, but he should better be represented by his fine orchestral suites Adven- tures in a Perambulator, and The Birthday of the Infanta, or the ballets Krazy Kat and Sky- scrapers, the former one of the first important attempts of a “serious” composer to employ jazz idioms with any degree of success. Aaron Cop- land (a Boulanger pupil and one of the leaders of the Left Wing) will be mentioned later. Deems Taylor is by nature more conservative and less distinctive. (His setting of Masefield’s Captain Stratton’s Fancy has been recorded by Werren- rath for Victor). Best known are his suites Through the Looking Glass and Circus Day, and his recent opera, The King’s Henchmen. George Antheuil is the most radical of all—as yet his works are little known outside of Paris. Other extremists are Henry Cowell, E. Varese (com- poser of the astounding Hyperprism, Arcanes, and Americaniques), Roger Sessions (with a power- ful Symphony and music to Andreyev’s Black Maskers to his credit). Nor should the following be forgotten: Henry Eicheim (noted for his work with Asiatic, particularly Chinese, music), Carl Engel (also a distinguished writer), Edward Bal- lantine (whose delightful variations on Mary Had a Little Lamb are an unique contribution to humor in music), Leo Sowerby (first winner of the Prix de Rome; his orchestral arrangement of Money Musk might well be recorded), Alexander Steinert (piano pieces, and Southern Night for orchestra), Marion Bauer, T. M. Spelman, Roy Harris, Virgil Thompson (another writer as well as composer), G. Herbert Elwell, Harold Morris (whose works have won high praise in radical circles), Howard Hanson (director of the Roch- ester Conservatory and composer of Norge, Pan and the Priest, etc.), William Grant Still (a young negro composer), Eastwood Lane (writer of the popular Crap Shooters’ and other American Dances), Eric Delamarter (Symphony after Walt Whitman), etc., etc. Emerson Whithorne de- serves special mention, particularly for his New York Days and Nights, a suite for piano which Includes several pieces (notably Pell Street— orchestrated for Vincent Lopez 'and his Jazz Band) which could be recorded to excellent ad- vantage. Among the composers of foreign birth who can fairly be classed as Americans due to their long