1938: Music

Recent Developments.

The confusion which some critics deplore in contemporary musical life is more apparent than real. Granted that the past decade has witnessed a multitude of cross currents in the musical world, evident in the works of composers and in the critical pronunciamentos, it is none the less true that there has gradually taken place in this decade a change of attitude on the part of the composer, the critic and the audience which is deeply significant for the future of music.

The composer is no longer so self-conscious of his 'modernism' but writes as he does from an inner compulsion, his search for emotional truth. The critic is coming gradually to hear and to judge each new composition for whatever good may reside in it, and to assume with more seriousness his responsibility or function which is to point out significant works, to define contemporary trends, and in general to clarify or to interpret for the public the current events in his field.

Audiences greatly increased in number and changing in character, are getting rid of the inertia which so retarded their interest in or enthusiasm for contemporary music. They are less given to 'hero worship' of the virtuoso and to 'glamour' stories. The radio may or may not be responsible for this change, but proof of the change can be found in the radio audience which constantly grows larger and at the same time more discriminating and more interested in the new things that are happening in music. One has only to read the letters addressed to music editors of the daily papers to find certain demands growing more generally articulate, and already one can detect the effect on the radio commentators in whose intermission talks at concert and opera broadcasts, one hears more facts and less 'blurb.'

In short, the past decade has seen the inception of a period in which the interest is turning to music per se. The associative or programmatic possibilities of music, exploited by nineteenth century composers and their twentieth century followers, have given way to a more objective conception in which purely musical values predominate. This change in artistic aims has had its effect upon the technical procedure of the composer. History shows us analogous periods of change in music, as for instance the seventeenth century, in which the changes were accompanied by a tendency to rationalize them. It is therefore not surprising that in the past few years we should find prominent composers turning theorists and explaining their 'systems.' Two of the most recent and significant of these expositions have appeared in German, one the work of the German composer Paul Hindemith whose book is entitled 'Unterweisung im Tonsat' (B. Schott's Söhne, Mainz) and the other by Ernest Krenek, an Austrian composer, whose book is called 'Ueber die neue Musik,' (Verlag der Ringbuch handling, Vienna). These books represent in a sense the chief aspects of the different technical outlooks of two schools of contemporary music. Hindemith, though he gives his formulae for hitherto unexploited relationships as well as new chords or sonorities which have found their way into modern music, still maintains a constant link with the traditional principle of a tonal center. Krenck, on the other hand, as a disciple of Arnold Schönberg, makes a case for the 'twelve-tone system,' and also for 'atonality' in which respect he differs from Schönberg who has rejected the latter word as meaningless. Generally speaking, the two books are symptomatic of the tendency to bring order and stability into the flux and chaos of the musical world. It is, however, an incontrovertible fact that this stability and order will eventually be brought about by music itself and not by theories.

To this goal America has been making its contribution and as a result of recent events in Europe, further contribution made by this country must in time become most significant. The narrowing of cultural opportunity abroad, as a result of political convulsion, has brought and continues to bring many European musicians to this country. They find here a musical culture and tradition still in the process of formation, but far enough along in that process and with a current strong enough to profit by whatever contribution and collaboration may be proffered. Here again, historical fact would prove that the fusion which may result has every potentiality of making a richer and more vital art. The most fundamental and necessary factor is interest in music itself. The advance made in every aspect of musical activity in the past few years in the United States would in itself lead one to venture a prophecy that in this country lies the future of music.

The musical season 1938-39 promises to be the most extensive in years, with bookings in New York City the heaviest in a decade and a similar increase of business in other parts of the country. This fact is certainly in itself of some significance, but more important is the change in the standard of taste to be noted in the increasing preference for the cyclic form of concerts. Granted the advantage to the public of lower-priced tickets if bought in a series, and the favorable fee given the artist, the fact still remains that many people have come to prefer the survey, or extensive representation of music, because they find that they acquire through this means a better understanding of certain composers or of certain periods in the history of music and that this understanding adds to their enjoyment. When the 'New Friends of Music,' a chamber orchestra of New York, announced a series of sixteen concerts to consist of the music of Bach and Haydn, the hall was sold out weeks in advance.

Orchestral Organizations.

The 'New Friends of Music' Orchestra, consisting of thirty-five or forty players, averaging twenty-five years of age, under the direction of Fritz Stiedry, was founded a few years ago and is unique in the respect that each player must have the ability to function as a soloist. It is on the other hand representative of the tendency to organize small groups for the presentation of orchestral music. It is in the field of orchestral organization that one of the most striking advances in American musical life has been made.

In a recent survey by Hans Heinsheimer, 'Challenge of the New Audience,' in Modern Music (Nov.-Dec. 1938), the total number of orchestras in the United States was estimated at about one hundred and seventy. The number in itself is by no means large but a table showing the proportionate increase over a period of about eighty years is most significant. From 1859 to 1900, eleven orchestras came into existence. From 1901 to 1918, fifteen new ones were added. In the period 1919 to 1928, forty-six organizations were formed, and from 1929 to 1937, ninety-six new orchestras attested to the growing interest and support of this activity, for it must be understood that audiences grew at a proportionate rate. At least twenty-five of these organizations are to be counted in the higher scale of performance ability. A greater proportion of the total is made up of civic and WPA groups.

An interesting revelation of continued enthusiasm is to be deduced from an experiment made by a concert manager in the 1938 season. In his efforts to place some of the experienced conductors recently arrived in this country as refugees, he wrote to a number of communities inquiring in each case whether they could rally an adequate personnel for a local orchestra and could guarantee support for a series of concerts. He received many replies evincing great interest in the proposed venture, and found that in several places there were a sufficient number of fine instrumentalists to take the first desks and to provide an adequate lead or carrying power for the amateurs. These community organizations are to be encouraged not only for the fact that they make first-hand experience with orchestral music available to more and more people, but also because they will in time become agents for introducing the music of American composers to their own and to other communities.

WPA Federal Music Project.

Until very recently such activities were restricted to a few large cities. In the past three years the Federal Music Project has made performances of works by American composers possible in an increasing number of centers and this has proven of mutual benefit and interest to composers and audiences. Discussions have aided in quickening the understanding of the audience and in making clear to the composer what is good or bad in his music. At the present time these Forum-Laboratories as they are called, are operating in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Oklahoma City.

Upon the completion of its third season, the Composers' Forum Laboratory of the WPA Federal Music Project in New York City in June 1938 published a brochure which set forth the record of its achievement. The aim of this particular project is expressed in the dedicatory vow of the Laboratory: 'We will observe every type of music written by competent musicians in America — music expressive of every shade and feeling peculiar to this moment in history. A panoramic view will be had of what is happening about us in a musical way.' The report shows that in the three years of its activity, 968 works by 158 composers have been performed. These included student compositions from the following music schools and colleges, Eastman (Rochester), Juilliard (New York), Westminster (Princeton), Bennington (Vermont), Sarah Lawrence (Bronxville), and Columbia and New York Universities. The list of compositions showed 291 songs, 290 piano solos, 82 string quartets, 46 violin pieces, and 45 orchestral works, as well as numerous ensemble pieces for various instruments and for choral groups. To this last may be added the performance of the first act of 'Denmark Vesey,' an opera by the composer Paul Bowles, with Charles-Henri Ford as librettist.

The educational centers of the Federal Music Project have continued with increased enrollment in all branches, — theory, performance, and appreciation. Special projects in music have been carried out or are still in the process of completion; and a description of two of these will clearly indicate the value and the importance of these undertakings.

Pupils in the seventy-five music centers conducted by the educational division in New York City have made a collection of more than one thousand rare musical compositions of the period from the fourteenth to the end of the eighteenth century. The music was found in the files of the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Owing to the technical peculiarities and ancient notation of many of these compositions, they are being revised so as to become practicable for use on modern instruments. Included in the collection are about fifty dances by Henry VIII, pieces by William Byrd and John Blow, six dances for flute or violin by Frederick the Great of Prussia, some dances by Wolfgang Mozart, two volumes of pieces by Leopold Mozart, and also a selection by Joseph Haydn, a duet for two violins called 'The Joke.'

A second project is in the bibliographical field, and this is being carried out by the Historical Records Survey, a WPA professional unit. The plan comprises a series to be known as the 'Guide to the Study of Music in America' and will furnish a key to the literature of three centuries of music in this country, beginning with the Puritan hymn writers. The entire field to be covered will be divided into various categories such as national and patriotic music, folk music, performances, musical education, instrument manufacture, musicology, music in society, compositions, music trades and musical organizations. Under the supervision of Luther H. Evans, the director, the Historical Records Survey has been working for two and a half years at the Library of Congress. These professional workers have completely indexed sixty standard books on American musical history, and have compiled all page references concerning composers, conductors, performers, editors, critics, patrons, publishers, teachers, and inventors. It is planned to group accessibly the names and topics in music history now scattered through the files of various library departments, under such headings as religion, science, history, and sociology, in addition to those available in regular music libraries. The guide when completed will be the most comprehensive bibliography prepared to date on American musical life.

Another division of the WPA Federal Music Project comprises several orchestral, choral and chamber music units well established in various parts of the country. It was estimated that during the three summer months of 1938 the services of more than 10,000 musicians were utilized in 123 symphony and concert orchestras, 50 dance orchestras and bands, 71 concert bands, 35 opera and choral groups, as well as several recital units. In Los Angeles the local unit presented the premiere of a new American opera 'Gettysburg,' with music by Morris Hutchins Ruger and libretto by Arthur Robinson. In New York City, plans for the season 1938-39 include three series of orchestral concerts, a Russian, a Beethoven and a concerto series, also seven madrigal concerts including a performance of Vecchi's 'L'Amfiparnasso' and four operatic performances including 'Martha,' 'Cavalleria Rusticana,' 'The Bartered Bride,' and 'The Princess on the Pea.' The operas are given in English and in order to keep the expense down, there are no costumes and scenery is of the simplest design, but great attention is given to the lighting effects.

The predominating purpose of the WPA Federal Music Project has been to keep its employees busy and fit in the work for which they are equipped so that whenever the opportunity for a regular position presents itself, they will be ready to take it. The New York City project reports that 136 of its employees were absorbed in private employment during the year ending Nov. 30, 1938. This represents about 10 per cent of the total number of employees on the project. Of the total number, 104 were musicians who went back to the kind of positions they had held before the depression days. Seventeen of these were teachers who found positions in schools and colleges or returned to private teaching. Fourteen went into symphony orchestras in New York City, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Barre, Vt. The Goldman Bank in New York took three players, and the Metropolitan, the San Carlo, and the Italian opera companies took six. Others found places in musical comedy, ballet and radio.

Proposed Federal Bureau of Fine Arts.

Many persons have long felt that there was a great need of government subsidy of the arts. The various WPA Federal Projects represent the first attempt to supply this and in the hope of permanently continuing government support, two different bills were introduced into Congress during 1938. These are known as the Pepper-Coffee Bill (No. 8230) and the Sirovich Bill. Both were defeated, the reason given being that they confused the purposes of a national bureau to promote the fine arts for the good of the American public, with the purposes of a bill for relief. A third bill has now been drawn up and is to be presented to Congress by Dr. Walter Damrosch as a proposed plan for the establishment of a Federal Bureau of Fine Arts. This bureau would have no connection with relief projects and would serve only to promote and advance the arts. Music would be one of five departments, all under the jurisdiction of a Board of Trustees, eleven in number, who would work in conjunction with government agencies which would reinforce and enlarge the scope of their efforts. This Board would have the power to approve or to veto any of the projects, which must be submitted to them. The fate of this bill remains to be decided but it is fair to say that government subsidy of the arts is coming to be taken for granted by an increasing number of citizens.

Music Festivals.

The music festivals in the United States present another evidence of the growing musical activity throughout the country. Certain ones such as the Cincinnati Biennial May Festival, the Ann Arbor Music Festival, the Worcester Music Festival, the Evanston (Illinois) May Music Festival, and the Bethlehem Bach Festival are of many years standing. Other Bach festivals have been instituted at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and at Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, Rochester, N. Y. is the scene of two festivals, both dedicated to the cause of American music; one active for the past eight years, is known as the Eastman School Festival of American Music; the other, which has passed its twelfth birthday, is the Rochester Festival. Contemporary American music is also the chief concern of the yearly event at Yaddo, Saratoga. New York, this being primarily a composers' center. Here, in the past two years, much of the music played was recorded, a practice which is of great interest and value, particularly to the composers themselves. Another all-American festival is that of the Westminster Choir School at Princeton, N.I. The 1938 programs presented choral and instrumental works by twenty-five contemporary composers, including Roy Harris, Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Werner Josten, Quincy Porter, William Schuman, David Diamond, Alvin Etler, Mabel Daniels, Ellen Jane Lorenz, Mary Louise Wright, Arthur Farwell, Edgar Stillman Kelley and Harl McDonald. The Three Choirs Festival in March 1938, in New York City featured works by the following Americans, Douglas Moore, Horace Johnson, Miriam Gideon, Hugo Weisgall, Roger Sessions and Isadore Freed.

Of the chamber music festivals, a great number owe their existence to the generosity of Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. Twenty years ago, Mrs. Coolidge founded the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival at Pittsfield, Mass. Year after year the leading chamber music organizations of the day have assembled here. The festival which takes place annually during the fall in the Music Room of the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C., is, in a sense, a branch of the Pittsfield Festival. The generosity of this remarkable patroness of chamber music has been extended to many colleges and other communities throughout the country, bringing to them concert series by the foremost string quartets. Furthermore, Mrs. Coolidge has always been keenly interested in the newest developments in music and has commissioned works from modern composers of Europe and America. The list of this year's (1938) commissions is typical: a quintet by Ernst Toch, quartets by Louis Gruenberg, Anton von Webern and Frank Bridge, and a quintet for piano and strings 'Hagiographia' by Frederick Jacobi.

The greatest increase in concerts is most apparent in the summer series. These embrace many kinds and many places. They include the chamber music series by the Gordon String Quartet at Music Mountain, Conn., and another series at Cummington, Mass. Various orchestral series take place, such as that given by the Essex County Symphony Society of Newark, the 'Sunset Symphonies' at Potomac Watergate near the Lincoln Memorial, by the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D. C., the series by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on the Charles River embankment. Milwaukee dedicated the new Emil Blatz Music Shell at Washington Park and inaugurated a summer series. New York for years has had its Lewisohn Stadium Concerts (New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra), and Hollywood, Calif., the 'Bowl' series. Of very recent standing is the Silvermine Festival in Connecticut in which the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra plays. At the latest festival a chorus of five hundred men and women drawn from various sections of southwestern Connecticut took part in the performance of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. Each group had rehearsed separately in their respective communities and the day of the performance brought them together for their one rehearsal with the orchestra. A new series was inaugurated this summer by the Westchester Philharmonic Orchestra at Putnam Valley Central High School Stadium, arranged by the Putnam Valley Board of Education cooperating with the Federal Music Project. In Hartford, Conn., a summer season of open-air opera was begun in a new amphitheater. Little Boar's Head was the scene of the New Hampshire Sea Coast Festival; the Connecticut Society of Friends of Music made Longshore Lagoon the center of their summer activities. At Whitney Point, New York, the Central New York Symphony Orchestra inaugurated a summer concert series, and the Little Symphony of St. Louis offered a summer concert course on the Quadrangle of Washington University.

William Matheus Sullivan's Dunrovin Music Festival at Ridgefield, Conn., continues in the hope of attaining a place analogous to England's Glyndebourne Festival which is dedicated to the music of Mozart. A beginning has been made towards the creation of a festival center for early opera and drama at Williams-burg, Virginia. Concerts of seventeenth and eighteenth century music and a performance of Henry Purcell's opera 'Dido and Aeneas' were presented in the fall of 1938.

Mention should be made of the Chicagoland Festival, a huge annual event of nine years' standing, held at Soldiers Field, Chicago, this year before an audience of 85,000. The program followed the usual procedure, — performances by winners of solo contests, choruses, orchestras, bands, and community singing. During the summer months programs are also offered in various places in connection with the summer sessions of universities, music schools and other educational institutions, such as the summer season at Chautauqua.

Probably the most ambitious of summer festivals is the Berkshire Symphonic Festival which takes place in August at the Tanglewood Estate near Stock-bridge, Mass. This year saw the completion of the new 'Shed' as the auditorium is called, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, directed by Serge Koussevitzky gave six programs in a period of ten days. The festival began quite modestly five years ago under the direction of Henry Hadley. It has since grown in prominence and the plans for its future should make it the parallel of the great European Festivals such those of Salzburg and Munich, for it is to include not only symphonic music but also the classic drama and in general is to be a summer center of the arts.

Folk Song Festivals.

American folk song continues to be the annual concern of various centers such as White Top Mountain, Va.; Asheville, N. C.; Greenville, S. C.; The Traipsin' Woman Cabin, near Ashland, Boyd County, Ky.; and Beaver College, Jenkintown, Pa. A festival, said to have been the most complete one of its kind ever staged in this country took place in May in Washington, D. C. For three days, programs of folk music were presented which included Indian and Spanish-Mexican as well as American folk songs, accompanied by appropriate instruments. Five hundred participants from twenty-nine states gathered in Constitution Hall for the performances. Likewise in May, a pre-view of the New York World's Fair at the Fair site included a folk festival in which representatives of fifty nations in native costumes danced and sang to the folk music of their respective countries. From Aug. 23 to 27, an 'International Music Festival' took place in New York, in which music and dances of various nations were featured in fifteen programs. There was special emphasis on the music of less familiar parts of the world and an added attraction was an exhibition of old and rare instruments as well as the latest scientific musical inventions.

New Functions for American Music.

Radio.

There is no doubt that the position of the American composer has greatly improved in the past decade. Although frequently he still cannot depend upon his compositions to make a living, he is aware of increasing opportunity to attain this end. His audiences have multiplied by thousands. They are no longer restricted to the opera house and the concert hall. A goodly proportion sit at home with their hands on the radio dials.

In these broadcasts were included seven important works by American composers, eighteen world premières, sixteen American premières and sixty-five first American broadcasts of important contemporary and new works. This is the report of only one network. The National Broadcasting system and the Mutual Broadcasting system record like gains.

A cursory review of music by native composers broadcast in 1938 shows these encouraging facts. In November Arturo Toscanini included two works by Samuel Barber on one of the National Broadcasting Company Symphony Orchestra programs. In the summer, the Columbia Broadcasting Company played its second year's commissioned works in 'Everybody's Music Series.' The composers were Quincy Porter, Robert Russell Bennett, Leo Sowerby, R. Nathaniel Dett, Jerome Moross and Vittorio Giannini. Composers other than those commissioned were invited to submit works and of these several were given performance, among them pieces by Paul Creston. William Schuman, Edwin Gerschefski and Charles Jones. The CBS also broadcast Henry Brant's 'Comedy Overture.' In February and March, the League of Composers put three programs on the air over CBS and the music was by the following composers. Frederick Jacobi, Elie Siegmeister, Philip James. Louis Gruenberg, Robert McBride, Quincy Porter, Theodore Chanler, David Diamond, Paul Creston and Oscar Levant. Marion Bauer, Frederick Jacobi and Aaron Copland were the commentators. For the season 1938-1939 the League announces three regional broadcasts over CBS, one from Chicago, directed by Rudolph Ganz, a second from Cleveland directed by Arthur Shepherd, and a third from San Francisco directed by Albert Elkus; also a program of new music for brass written especially for radio by Nicolai Berezowsky, Alvin Etler and Edwin Gerschefski, and still another program of new works by Europeans recently arrived in America. Over the Mutual Broadcasting System (WOR) will be given two orchestral programs of music by contemporary composers directed by Alfred Wallenstein.

This account gives some idea of the enterprise of the broadcasting companies in the field of contemporary American music and the opportunities offered to the American composer. Not only does he get a fee, an orchestra and an audience, but also, should he wish to avail himself of them, certain new musical material in the form of instrumental effects made possible through the microphone. The principal advantage in orchestrating for radio is that instrumental balance of tone within the ensemble can be controlled arbitrarily by placing the instruments which are to dominate near the microphone and keeping those instruments which are subordinate farther away. An instrumental tone which may be too feeble for the concert hall may thus become available and hence certain relationships long established in the concert hall need a completely new adjustment and a whole range of new possibilities in instrumental color are made available.

The most important fact for the composer, however, is the evident demand for new music by a considerable portion of the radio audience. Letters to broadcasting studios attest to this fact, and even though the particular composition may not please some listeners the composer does have what is most essential for his music, an audience. This demand for so-called 'serious music' by a large and eager, even though untrained, public has provided for the art a function such as it has not known since the eighteenth century. Just as the radio itself has become a 'necessary luxury' to thousands of people, so music, too, is finding a place in the lives of those people who have learned to appreciate and enjoy it.

School Orchestras and Bands.

A second function for contemporary music becomes obvious when one considers the college and school orchestras and bands. In the United States today there are about 25,000 student orchestras averaging about fifty players each and at least 40,000 bands. These groups are the most open-minded on the subject of 'modern music' and there is an excellent field for the composer and mutual benefit to be derived from the performance of music designed for the needs of these groups. A few composers have already begun to realize and to answer this demand for new and suitable music. In 1937. Aaron Copland wrote an operetta or high school cantata 'The Second Hurricane' (libretto by Edwin Denby) and in 1938 he composed an overture for high school orchestra, dedicated to the New York High School of Music and Art and entitled 'An Outdoor Overture.' The very fact that the composer who attempts works of this kind must make a study of the potentialities of the performing group also points to the realization of a highly desirable state of affairs, that is, a more direct and more intimate contact of the composer with an audience untrammeled by aural prejudices.

Motion Pictures.

A third function for new music is still in an elementary state; that function is music for the movies. The necessity of devising new forms of music which the sound film must eventually require opens a whole vista of possibility to the composer. Producers are slow to experiment in this field but a few have tried some new ideas and the future is not without hope. Curiously enough, artistic progress has been made as a result of an economic cause and the composer has begun to benefit.

In the early days of the sound film it was the custom to adapt the music to the film after the latter had been completed. It was merely a question of finding suitable musical quotations from 'ready-made' scores. At that time these scores were not protected by copyright and the movie companies could patch up a movie music score at comparatively little expense. Now that the copyright protects composers against sound films, the expense of quoting even a few bars from a score is appreciable and the patchwork score runs to a very high figure. Original scores are cheaper. The present method in the sound film studios still adheres for the most part to the group method, that is, assigning to a number of composers different parts of a completed film for which each composer writes suitable music.

The patchwork quality of these original scores is evident and producers must come to realize that in order to achieve unified artistic music for a film, the work must be given to one composer who writes his music for the script in accordance with a plan resulting from a conference with the producer. The final adjustments can be made when the composer receives the final cut of the picture. Russia and France have led the way in adopting that procedure. One Hollywood studio has followed it consistently; in the Walt Disney films the scores are planned before the pictures are made. Other American films which have musical scores composed throughout by one man, are (including the composer) 'The General Died at Dawn,' Werner Janssen; 'The Buccaneer' and 'The Plainsman,' George Antheil; 'If I Were King,' Richard Hagemann; 'Spanish Earth,' Virgil Thomson and Marc Blitzstein; the American documentary film 'The Plow that Broke the Plain' and 'The River,' Virgil Thomson; 'You and Me,' Kurt Weill, and 'The Outcast,' Ernst Toch. These films date from 1935 through 1938.

Until this pre-planned score is generally adopted, the fortunate composer must rejoice that he is at least called upon by the sound picture producers to write music of his own day, and he must remember that his music is played before an audience of many millions a week in America and throughout the world.

Electric Musical Instruments.

There is another development in music that has as yet won the attention of comparatively few musicians. The possibilities of electric musical instruments still remain chiefly within the province of the scientist, and it is the latter who is pointing out the potentialities of these instruments in the hope of obtaining the cooperation of both composers and performers.

Electrical music is produced by instruments in which electricity is directly controlled by the musician to produce sounds. These are not reproducing instruments but are directly playable, the tone being produced by electrical means. Some are played from a keyboard like that of a piano, some from string controls like a violin, some from manuals like an organ with a number of tone modifying stops and others are played by the motion of the hands in space near the instruments.

The outstanding potentialities of the electrical musical instruments may be outlined as follows:

(1) They can have any tone quality which now exists or which is capable of production by vibrations of the air, since the overtones which give to each tone its distinctive quality are under the control of the designer and manipulator of the instrument.

(2) They can produce any volume of sound desirable, so that the same instrument may be adjusted to suit any auditorium.

(3) They have an indefinite extension of pitch range; the 'ultra high' and 'ultra low' tones can be produced with consistent tonal quality.

At a demonstration given under the auspices of the League of Composers on April 12, 1938, three inventors of these electric musical instruments exhibited the various potentialities. Benjamin Miessner, Leon Theremin and Joseph Schillinger, took part in the demonstration of the electronic piano, violin, mouth organ, tuning fork, minipiano, tympani, 'cello and the 'theremin.'

American Composers Alliance.

Increasing evidence that the status of the native composer has improved is to be found in the recent formation of the American Composers' Alliance. Today the demand for American music is sufficiently established to warrant the formation of a protective body which will regularize and collect all fees pertaining to copyrighted music, and will make reciprocal arrangements with similar foreign societies. There already exists the American Guild of Musical Artists (A G M A) for the protection of the performing musician. For composers there was only the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers (A S C A P) which is limited in its scope, for it does not extend to the fields of the symphony orchestra, opera companies, choral societies, chamber music organizations, instrumental soloist recitals, music clubs, schools and colleges, dance recitals, and the movies. In all these fields, the American Composers' Alliance proposes to protect the composer and will furthermore attempt an adjustment between the composer and the publisher.

Miscellaneous Events.

During 1938 an outstanding book by Claire Reis, 'Composers in America,' giving information about the contemporary movement in musical composition in America since 1912 was published by the Macmillan Company. It presents an outline of the work of living American composers great and small, from coast to coast. Mrs. Reis has included for each composer, his biography, a list of his works, the date of completion of each, the time necessary for performance and, if published, the name of the publisher. The book is a valuable compendium, giving a graphic and accurate picture of the American composer today, and is helpful to organizers of programs of American music.

The two most important musical events in Europe were the production of Paul Hindemith's musicdrama 'Mathis der Maler' at the Municipal Opera House in Zurich, and of Ernst Krenek's opera 'Karl V' at the Neue Deutsche Theatre of Prague.

Compositions by Americans which were performed abroad include Aaron Copland's 'El Salon Mexico' and Werner Josten's 'Sonata in A Major' for violin and piano which were heard at the sixteenth annual festival of the International Society of Contemporary Music held in June in London: Leo Sowerby's 'Concerto No. 2' in E for piano and orchestra, performed at the Sixth International Festival of Contemporary Music, in September in Venice; and Vittorio Giannini's opera 'The Scarlet Letter,' première at the Hamburg Stratsoper, Germany. An opera on the subject of Tut-ankh-Amen, by Ruth Lynda Deyo and Charles Dalton was given a special audition before His Majesty King Farouk of Egypt and will be produced in Cairo; Ernest Bloch's opera 'Macheth' was presented at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, in March. This work was first performed in 1910 at the Opéra Comique in Paris.

The only new work by an American presented during the Metropolitan Opera season in New York was Gian Carlo Menotti's diverting one-act opera 'Amelia Goes to the Ball.'

The prize-winner of the second annual competition of the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra was David Van Vactor of Chicago, Ill. The composition was a 'Symphony in D major.'

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge medals for eminent services to chamber music were awarded to Jacques Gordon, Frank Bridge, and Hugo Kortschak.

Lamar Stringfield composed the musical score for Paul Green's symphonic drama 'The Lost Colony,' a pageant celebrating the 350th anniversary of the birth of English civilization in America.

Outstanding broadcasts of the year were the opera series from the Metropolitan Opera House, the NBC Symphony orchestra series under the direction of Arturo Toscanini, the New York Philharmonic Symphony Society series under John Barbirolli and others, and the complete series of Bach Cantatas (Mutual Broadcasting System) directed by Alfred Wallenstein.

A survey shows that 5,865,296 families in the United States now own pianos.

Music in Mexico.

Musical activity in Mexico is proving of increasing interest and a brief survey will point out the direction which contemporary music is taking in that country.

Carlos Chavez is one of the foremost figures in the musical world of Mexico. As a leader of individual and government projects for the cultivation of musical talent he is directing the course of the younger composers. In 1931, under his direction, the Conservatory of Mexico initiated a course in free composition. This was designed primarily on the principle of encouraging the individual creative capacities of the student. It did away with the slavish adherence to classical or nineteenth century European models which had formerly controlled the course of study. In connection with the creative work. Chavez instituted the study of the historical development of music and a research into Indian music, its instruments, harmoaies and melodies. A collection of pre-Cortesian and more recent percussion instruments was made. Already the Department of Fine Arts, in cooperation with the National Museum, has published the first volume of a projected comprehensive work on pre-Cortesian instruments, called 'Instruments of Percussion' by Daniel Castaneda and Vincente Mendoza. The reconstruction of early Indian music constituted another problem. In simple versions, this music was circulated through the public schools and the children of Mexico became familiar with it.

This research work had its effect on young composers who began to arrange the melodies for the instrumental group called 'The Mexican Orchestra,' consisting of a special ensemble of conventional instruments with the addition of certain older percussion instruments. Two works written for this orchestra were broadcast in 1936 over CBS. Luis Sandi's 'El Venado' and Daniel Ayala's 'U Kayil Chaac.' On the same broadcast, Chavez conducted his own 'Indian Symphony.'

Today the students of this experimental group form the nucleus of the modern composers group in Mexico. They include Luis Sandi, Daniel Ayala, Candelario Huizer, Silvestre Revueltas, Salvador Contreras. Pablo Moncayo, Blas Galindo.

Chavez is director of the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico which this year is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Forty-four thousand persons attended the recent ten weeks' season of concerts given in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Free concerts for workers were given on Sunday mornings, children's concerts were given on Saturday mornings and the regular Friday evening series was broadcast.

Chavez is the author of a book 'Toward a New Music: Music and Electricity' (W. W. Norton).

In Merida in Yucatan, land of the ancient Mayans, Samuel Marti, violinist has made a second musical center, having organized the Orquesta Sinfonica de Yucatan.