1941: Music

Despite the imminence and finally the declaration of war, the year 1941 was marked by increased activity in every field of musical endeavor throughout the United States. Even those localities which have already experienced black outs and air-raid alarms have given no sign of diminishing their support of musical enterprises. The shortage of materials which the defense program brought about, spurred manufacturers of instruments in their research for substitute materials. Demand for all kinds of musical commodities increased in spite of rising prices and the shipments of pianos to dealers in June 1941 were almost 60 per cent ahead of the previous year.

Music and the Community.

But, it is the widening of the scene of activity which is most significant. This is reflected on the one hand in the success of extended tours made by major orchestras and opera companies, and on the other in the appearance of new organizations and the continued development of those more recently established in many different parts of the country. The latter evidence is doubtlessly the more important since it is the decentralizing of musical activity that guarantees the surer and more vital growth of the nation's musical resources. Accounts of organizations like the Arkansas State Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra or the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra illustrate vividly this phenomenon.

The Arkansas State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson, head of the music department of Hendrix College, Conway, Ark., began early in 1940 with a small group of players from various parts of the state, and when a deficit at the end of the first year threatened the extinction of the orchestra, these players, including the conductor, volunteered their services, organized the Arkansas State Symphony Association, concentrated upon the sale of season tickets, focussed the attention of the state on their endeavors, and, by the end of the 1941 season, were playing to a proud enthusiastic audience of 1,800 Arkansans. The organization could look forward to the coming season with a surplus of funds to pay the musicians. The seventy players, amateurs and professionals, ranging in age from 17 to 60, represent eleven cities over the state. The following statement of Dr. J. D. Jordan, president of the Arkansas State Symphony Association expresses the real significance of the undertaking: 'We believe we have proved that any state in the nation may establish such an organization. They need do only as we have done: make the symphony a means of music for and by the people themselves.'

The North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, also a State organization, is nine years old and consists of fifty players, of whom fifteen are women. They come from twelve different cities and towns. Sectional rehearsals are held during the year at convenient points and then final all-unit rehearsals are held several days preceding each concert. The musicians receive a fee and traveling expenses. This season the orchestra played eight concerts under the direction of Benjamin Swalin.

In Memphis, Tenn., the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Burnet Tuthill, closed its third season with a surplus. The only sources of income were from the sale of tickets and program advertising. The orchestra which began as a small faculty-student group drawn from Southwestern College and Memphis College, who wanted an opportunity to make music together, today numbers seventy-four players from Memphis and the surrounding country. Through careful management it has become a permanent organization and a source of real musical satisfaction to the community.

Likewise, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra has won for itself the support and interest of social and civic groups and also of the newspaper and radio proprietors of Knoxville, Tenn., who regard it as a valuable cultural asset to the city. It was founded thirteen years ago by Bertha Walburn Clark, violinist and teacher, as an outgrowth of a string ensemble formed for her advanced violin students. Attracting other members who enjoyed playing good music, it now numbers sixty-five players, and attracts large audiences to its concerts. The Knoxville Symphony Society was formed this year to manage the business affairs of the orchestra and to further its activities. Similar accounts could be given of orchestras in Birmingham, Ala., Albuquerque, N. M., New Orleans, La., Salt Lake City, Utah, and are representative of hundreds of small semi-professional and amateur orchestras throughout the country.

Another striking example of community interest in music comes from Iowa where there is a statewide movement, emanating from the Agricultural Department of the Federal Government by which every farmer community and township has its local chorus. These small groups join on seasonal or annual occasions for general festivals which include music. The movement is under the direction of Fannie R. Buchanan, extension rural sociologist. This year the special project for Iowa women was a study of Latin-American music and 89,000 Iowa rural women, enrolled in home economics extension clubs, and 12,401 4H Club girls, studied 'Musical Moments from Latin America.' Songs and recorded 'listening numbers' were included in the course of study. In June, at the festival held at Iowa State College, more than 2,000 of the women from these units sang the songs they had learned through the project. In a state where music has become so much a part of the life of the community, it follows that the University would accord it an important place in the curriculum. Iowa State University has a student orchestra of 110 members directed by Dr. Philip G. Clapp; Iowa State College, at Ames, has a student orchestra of 80, directed by Alwin Edgar; Iowa State Teacher's College has an orchestra of 90, directed by Edward F. Kurtz.

The development of all these regional musical centers is slowly but surely providing an opportunity for the American composer. The local organizations perform the works of the local composers. They provide a laboratory for the test. Although the major orchestras of the country played fewer works by Americans in 1941 than in the previous season (92 works in 1941 as against 111 in 1940) it is a safe guess from a cursory review of programs by minor organizations that the latter played more American works in 1941 than in 1940. To be sure, the 'local' performance does not bring wide fame but it may more easily result in a second performance. During the past season, the epidemic of 'first times' reached an unprecedented height so far as the programs of the major orchestras are concerned, and this year American composers have become correspondingly more concerned with the problem of obtaining second or third hearings. They are being urged to turn their attention particularly to high school, college and National Youth Administration groups and to compose for these orchestras and bands, legion in number and many of very high standard. In this functional music and in the cultivation of the 'regional' group the young American composer can effect a mutual development between creative output, performer and audience.

Orchestras.

The general championing of the American composer and his works can be traced in the accounts of the year's activities of the larger musical organizations. The rating of the major orchestras according to the number of American works performed during the 1941 season was as follows: Chicago Symphony, first place; Indianapolis Symphony and National Symphony, tied for second place; Cincinnati Symphony, third; New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony, tied for fourth place; Philadelphia Symphony, fifth; Detroit Symphony, sixth. Of the major orchestras, the two on which greatest attention was focussed this year were the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. For the jubilee season, Dr. Frederick Stock, a member of the orchestra for 45 years and its conductor for 36 years, commissioned new works from several contemporary composers. The Americans represented were John Alden Carpenter, Roy Harris, Albert Noelte, Carl Eppert, Rudolph Ganz, Leo Sowerby and Dr. Stock himself. Foreign composers were Stravinsky, Milhaud, Kodaly, Glière, Casella, Miaskovsky and William Walton. On the last program of the season, Dr. Stock performed a composite work consisting of twelve variations on a tune sung by early residents of Southern Illinois called 'El-A-Noy.' The twelve Chicago musicians who composed the variations were Felix Borowski, John Alden Carpenter, Rosetter G. Cole, Edward Collins, Rudolph Ganz, Samuel Lieberson, Florian Mueller, Albert Noelte, Arne Oldberg, Thornwald Otterstrom, Leo Sowerby and David Van Vactor. In the competition opened to American composers as part of the anniversary observance, 105 scores were submitted. Carl Eppert won first prize, Albert Sendrey, second, and honorable mention went to Gail T. Kubik. The judges were Deems Taylor, Eugene Ormandy and John Barbirolli.

The New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra began on Oct. 5, 1941, its centennial celebration. The orchestra has been in continuous operation since Dec. 7, 1842, the date of its initial concert in the fashionable Apollo Rooms at 410 Broadway. It then numbered 63 players, directed by Ureli Corelli Hill. Today, directed by John Barbirolli, it numbers 104 players and in point of seniority yields only to the Royal Philharmonic of London (founded in 1813) and the Vienna Philharmonic which began its career just eleven days before the Philharmonic of New York. In the centennial season the following guest conductors were invited to lead the orchestra: Serge Koussevitzky, Leopold Stokowski, Bruno Walter, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Artur Rodzinski, Eugene Goosens and Fritz Busch. In making plans, the directors of the New York Philharmonic Society encouraged the inclusion of works by American composers, and up to Dec. 28 the following works by native composers were performed: Henry Cowell's 'Tales of Our Countryside'; Roy Harris's Folk Dance from 'Folk Symphony'; Paul Creston's Scherzo from Symphony Op. 20; Morton Gould's Guaracho from 'Latin-American Symphonette'; David Stanley Smith's 'Credo'; William Grant Still's 'Plain Chant for America' for baritone solo and orchestra, a setting of the poem by Katherine Garrison Chapin (Mrs. Francis Biddle); Jerome Kern's Scenario for Orchestra on Themes from 'Show Boat'; Virgil Thomson's Suite 'Filling Station'; Herman Wetzler's Adagio and Fugue from Quartet in C minor; and David Diamond's Symphony No. 1. Several works by contemporary foreign composers were also played including a Concerto for piano and orchestra by the Mexican, Carlos Chavez.

The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra has inaugurated a novel plan for the selection for performance of works by Americans. Artur Rodzinski, the conductor, formed a committee consisting of seventeen musicians and four laymen. He then directed the orchestra in five new American works without revealing to the committee the names of the composers. The committee after hearing symphonies by William Schuman, Leo Sowerby, David Diamond, Roy Harris's 'Work' and David Van Vactor's 'Variazione Solenni,' selected for performance William Schuman's Fourth Symphony. By means of a series of such tests, ten American works are to be chosen for the season's programs.

The National Symphony Orchestra, Washington. D. C., under the direction of Hans Kindler, held a contest for new American works. The audience acted as judges selecting Arnold Cornelissen's Symphony as first choice and Robert O. Barkley's 'A Sunday Evening in Bloomfield' as second.

The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra celebrated its thirtieth anniversary season with the regular conductor, Pierre Monteux, sharing the podium with two guest conductors, Igor Stravinsky and Charles O'Connell.

The second All American Youth Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokowski made a transcontinental tour beginning May 11 in New York and visiting 46 cities in 56 days.

Opera.

Activity in the field of opera was greater than ever. The Metropolitan Opera Company made the longest tour in its recent history, visiting Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, New Orleans, Dallas, Atlanta, Richmond, Hartford, Rochester, and Albany. It was heard on tour by 183,000 persons, 67,000 in Cleveland alone. In its regular season in New York, thirty-five different operas were performed, including the following revivals: Il Trovatore and Un Ballo in Maschera (Verdi); Don Pasquale and La Fille du Régiment (Donizetti); Don Giovanni (Mozart); Samson et Dalilah (Saint-Saëns); Fidelio (Beethoven); The Bartered Bride in English (Smetana). The novelty of the season was Gluck's Alceste, the first performance in America by a major opera company. Among the guest conductors were Bruno Walter, whose Fidelio with Kirsten Flagstad was one of the highlights of the season; Montemezzi, who conducted his own L'Amore dei Tre Re: Edwin MacArthur, who conducted a performance of Tristan und Isolde and Calusio who made his debut as conductor of Il Trovatore. Of the new singers, Salvatore Baccaloni, buffo basso, was the most distinguished. Five young American singers made their Metropolitan debuts: Norina Greco, Josephine Tuminia, Robert Weede, Eleanor Steber and Arthur Kent.

The 'New Opera Company,' Mrs. Lytle Hull, president, had its initial season in New York, presenting four operas in a six-week series, opening Oct. 14 at the Forty-fourth Street Theatre. The singers of the new company, both principals and a chorus of fifty, were nearly all Americans and the orchestra, made up of graduates of the National Orchestral Association were also native born. Two of the productions, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and Verdi's Macbeth, both sung in Italian, were given in the style and tradition of John Christie's Glyndebourne performances under the orchestral direction of Fritz Busch and the stage direction of his son, Hans Busch. Tchaikowsky's Pique Dame was sung in English under the direction of Herman Adler with Lothar Wallerstein as stage director. Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne also sung in English was directed by Felix Brentano.

Also in New York, the Juilliard Institute Opera Players presented a double bill consisting of two one-act operas: Blennerhassett by Vittorio Giannini and The Devil Take Her by the British composer, Arthur Benjamin.

The San Francisco Opera Company completed a successful tour of the Northwest, visiting Portland, Seattle, Sacramento, Pasadena and Los Angeles.

The Chicago Opera Company, Henry Weber, director, after the most successful season in its career, appointed as its new general manager, Fortuno Gallo, founder and director of the San Carlo Opera Company. A new organization, The Opera Theatre of Chicago announced two subscription series under the direction of Giacomo Rimini. The operas planned were Barber of Seville; Cimarosa's Il Matrimonio Segreto; I Misteri Gandiosi by Cattozzo; Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona; Stravinsky's Mavra; Mozart's Cosi fan tutte; Berlioz's Damnation of Faust and Verdi's Macbeth. Cleveland organized a new opera company drawing on Cleveland artists and musicians and presenting operas in English under the direction of Boris Goldovsky and Richard Rychtarik.

The Philadelphia Opera Company, in its second season presented among other works Pelleas and Melisande of Debussy, the first American production of Emil von Reznicek's Fact or Fiction (both performances in English) and Gian-Carlo Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief. This is another company 'dedicated to giving an opportunity to American artists' and to presenting opera in English. The music director is Sylvan Levin and the stage director is Hans Wohlmuth.

In North Carolina, the newly formed State Opera Group directed by Paul Oncely presented The Bartered Bride in High Point, Winston Salem, Asheville and Greensboro. The Negro National Opera Society organized by Mary Cardwell Dawson of Pittsburgh made its initial appearance in that city in Aida. The American Opera League, founded in 1940 by Thomas L. Thomas, toured New England, presenting operas in English; The Nine O'Clock Opera Troupe, consisting of seven singers and a pianist was booked for a sixteen-week tour presenting their production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in English. The Junior Programs Opera Company consisting of six singers, a dancer and a pianist completed a coast to coast tour of 135 performances attended by about 250,000 children. One American opera Jack and the Beanstalk, Louis Gruenberg's setting of John Erskine's libretto had its seventieth performance in the United States this year.

League of Composers and Opera.

Among the new projects of the League of Composers, is 'The Composer's Theatre,' the commissioning of chamber operas. The League aims to marshal the resources of non-commercial artistic agencies, such as the universities, conservatories, academies and special museums which have semi-professional groups of performers and also small stages at their disposal for purposes of lyric drama. The first performance under this plan took place on May 4 in the Brander Matthews Theatre, New York City, when a new chamber opera Paul Bunyan, music by the British composer, Benjamin Britten, libretto by the British poet, W. H. Auden, was presented. Similar works commissioned for the coming season include A Lamp on the Plains, music by Ernst Bacon, libretto by Paul Horgan; The New York Opera, music and libretto by Mare Blitzstein; Solomon and Balkis, music by Randall Thompson, libretto adapted from Rudyard Kipling. The last named, a joint undertaking of the league and the Columbia Broadcasting System, will be a work adaptable for radio use as well as for production by university and music school groups.

Other Activities of the League.

In the course of 1941, the League presented in New York City three 'Young Composers' Concerts' in which were heard works by John Lessard, Alvin Etler, Miriam Gideon, Jacobo Fisher, Hugo Balzo, Ben Gossick, Emil Kochler, Charles Naginski, Donald Fuller, Robert Laidlaw, Harold Shapero, Edward T. Cone, Lukas Foss and Norman Dello Joio. The second Town Hall Award Concert introduced a song cycle 'Five Rhymes from Peacock Pic' by Theodore Chanler, commissioned by the League. In January, at the Museum of Modern Art, five documentary films for which special musical scores had been composed were shown and the composers of the scores gave short talks. The films were 'Valley Town,' music by Mare Blitzstein; 'Roots in the Soil,' Paul Bowles: 'One Third of a Nation,' Roy Harris; 'Power and the Land,' Douglas Moore; 'The River,' Virgil Thomson (See also MOTION PICTURES). The League also made its first venture in promoting the distribution of new music on discs by issuing a recording of Arnold Schönberg's 'Pierrot Lunaire,' made by the Columbia Recording Corporation with Schönberg himself conducting. The second work chosen for recording in the coming season is the Fourth Sonata for violin and piano by Charles Ives. In May, the League conducted a radio festival consisting of four regional programs sent over the Columbia Broadcasting System. The first from New York was conducted by Howard Barlow and introduced two works by Robert Palmer and Bernard Rogers specially commissioned for radio performance. Pieces by Aaron Copland and Paul Creston completed the program. The second broadcast from Rochester, conducted by Howard Hanson presented pieces by Wayne Barlow, Phillips, Rogers and Haines. The third broadcast was directed by Eugene Goosens from Cincinnati and the fourth by Paul Pisk from Los Angeles. In December, the League gave a concert and reception for Juan José Castro, distinguished Argentine composer. With the aim of enlarging its national activities the League plans to establish five branch leagues in Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Festivals.

The increase in the number of festivals, general and special, reflects the decentralizing tendency. Bach festivals were held at Bethlehem, Pa. (34th annual); Winter Park, Fla. (Rollins College, 6th annual); Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (4th annual); Berea, Ohio (Baldwin Wallace College, 9th annual); Ypsilanti, Mich. (Normal College); Greenville, S. C. (Furman University, 2nd annual); Philadelphia (3rd annual); Minneapolis (University of Minnesota); and Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif. (7th annual). Mozart festivals were held at Asheville, N. C. (5th annual); East Brewster, Mass. (Cape Cod Institute of Music, 2nd annual); Princeton, N. J. (Westminster Choir College); and the Pacific Northwest (The Seattle Symphony Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham in the principal cities of Washington, Idaho and British Columbia). Most important among the festivals devoted to or stressing works of American composers was the sixteenth annual held in April at Rochester, N. Y., where Dr. Howard Hanson presided over the five day series of orchestral, choral and chamber concerts and ballet, presenting works by Herbert Inch, Edmund Haines, William Naylor, Bernard Rogers, W. G. Still, William Bergsma, Gustave Soderlund, Homer Keller, Charles Naginski, Burrill Phillips, William Denny, Howard Hanson, Bernhard Kaun, Loeffler, Deems Taylor, Mabel Daniels, Spencer Norton and Griffes. In October, the 6th annual Composers' Symposium was held at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Again Dr. Hanson conducted to present new orchestral works by David Diamond, Robert Ward, Owen Reed, Carl McKinley, Lawrence Powell, Mary Howe, Walter Mourant, William Bergsma, Kent Kennan, Wallis Braman, Robert Stevenson, John K. Jones, Ross Lee Finney and Harold Brown. The Three Choirs Festival (6th annual) in March in New York included on its three programs many contemporary works by North and South Americans. The Mid-Year Festival of Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory at Berea, Ohio, was devoted to American compositions including works by Walter Piston, David S. Smith, Jack Conklin, Blair Cosman, Roy Harris, Burnet Tuthill, Leo Sowerby and Howard Hanson. At Bennington College in Vermont, a summer festival featured the following American composers: Richard Franko Goldman, Lou Harrison, John Becker, Herbert Elwell, Edwin Gerschefski, Louis Horst, John Alden Carpenter, John Barrows, David Van Vactor and Henry Cowell.

Festivals of Folk Music were held at Washington, D. C., in May, under the auspices of the Washington Post Folk Festival Association (8th annual) and at Traipsin' Woman Cabin (11th annual) in Kentucky, under the direction of Jean Thomas. The National Federation of Music Clubs instituted folk-tune festivals in many states as part of its Junior Competitive Festivals this year.

Music of the 17th and 18th centuries was featured in festivals held in Williamsburg, Va., under the direction of Ralph Kirkpatrick (6th series); at Chicago, Ill., under the direction of Philip Manuel and Gavin Williamson (2nd annual) and Skytop Lodge in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania under the auspices of the American Society of Ancient Instruments.

In Philadelphia, a Schubert Festival in March was conducted by James Allen Dash. A Sibelius Festival was held at Suomi College, Hancock, Mich., and an All Soviet Music Festival took place under the auspices of the New Masses in New York City. Berkeley, Calif., celebrated its diamond jubilee with a festival of drama and music symbolizing the city's 'powerful stimulus to the spread of education and culture in the West,' Mendelssohn's Elijah, a production in English of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, a program by the San Francisco Opera Ballet and a concert by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra directed by Bruno Walter, comprised the musical events. In New York City, Hunter, City, Brooklyn and Queens Colleges initiated an annual Intercollegiate Music Festival. The South Carolina Music Festival featured the Southern Symphony Orchestra and a chorus of three hundred students from fifteen South Carolina Colleges. Hans Schweiger conducted. At Denver, the annual Central City Play Festival under the auspices of the Central City Opera House Association presented fourteen performances of The Barber of Seville and eleven of Gluck's Orpheus under the musical direction of Frank St. Leger with Robert Edmund Jones as stage designer and Herbert Graf as stage director. The Green Mountain Festival of the Arts included a performance of Mozart's opera The Impresario under the direction of the Department of Music of Bennington College. Smith College in its third annual festival in April presented choral, orchestral and chamber music of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

At White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, the fourth annual Greenbrier Music Festival took place in August. Westminster Choir School celebrated its fifteenth birthday in its annual festival which included a performance of Verdi's Requiem. Ann Arbor, and Worcester held their annual festivals in May and October respectively, and Cincinnati in spite of some hesitation on the part of the Festival Association owing to world and national conditions celebrated its biennial musical event in May with performances of the Bach B Minor Mass, Handel's Israel in Egypt, Pierné's Children's Crusade and Elgar's Dream of Gerontius.

I.S.C.M. Festival.

The festival most publicized was that of the International Society for Contemporary Music held in New York City, May 19-27, under the auspices of the United States section of the organization. This was the eighteenth festival held since the founding of the society in 1921 and was originally planned for Budapest, but the outbreak of the war made this impossible. The program committee or jury consisted of Ernest Krenek, Karl Rathaus, Joaquin Nin-Culmell, Stanley Chapple, and Roger Sessions. Twenty-five delegates from 22 countries attended the festival. Three programs of chamber music were open to the public and two additional programs of chamber music were broadcast by the Columbia System. Five programs of orchestral music were broadcast by the National Broadcasting System, the Columbia Broadcasting System and the Mutual Broadcasting System. In addition, further compositions chosen by the jury were played by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony and the Indianapolis Symphony in their respective cities. The following composers were represented on these various programs; Paul Kadosa, Matyas Seiber (Hungary); Salvador Contreras, Silvestre Revueltas, Blas Galindo, Rodolfo Halffter (Mexico); Jerzy Fitelberg, Antoni Szalowski, Roman Palester (Poland); Juan Carlos Paz (Argentina); Bohuslav Martinu (Czechoslovakia); Ren‚ Leibowitz (France); William Alwyn, Benjamin Britten (Great Britain); Piet Ketting, Henk Badings (Netherlands); Edmond Partos (Palestine); Will Burkhard (Switzerland); Paul Dessau, Artur Schnabel, Anton Webern, Stefan Wolpe, Viktor Ullman (Independents); Edward Cone, Aaron Copland, Russel G. Harris, Emil Koehler, Charles Naginski, Paul Nordoff, Bernard Wagenaar (United States). For the 1942 meeting place, Mexico City has been chosen and the committee in charge consists of Darius Milhaud, Bela Bartok, Carlos Chavez, Aaron Copland with Bohuslav Martinu and Désiré Defauw as substitute members.

Summer Music.

Like the festivals, the summer concert series have increased in number and show a wider geographical distribution. The established open air organizations such as the New York Stadium Concerts; the Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles; Ravinia Park, Chicago; Cincinnati Summer Opera Association; Sunset Symphonies at Potomac Water Gate, Washington, D. C.; the Berkshire Festival at Tanglewood near Stockbridge, Mass.; Robin Hood Dell, Philadelphia; Forrest Park, St. Louis; the Milwaukee Shell and the Triborough Stadium Opera at Randall's Island reported consistently higher attendance than ever before. To these may be added chamber music and orchestral groups too numerous to mention throughout the country all well supported by summer communities.

Radio.

Radio has become one of the foremost agents in fostering native composers and conductors and 1941 saw several American music series continued or newly introduced. 'Milestones in American Music' (Columbia) presented in twenty-two half hour broadcasts, works composed by Americans in the last hundred years, tracing the development of various styles. These were presented by the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, N. Y., under the supervision and direction of Dr. Howard Hanson. 'Meet American Composers' (WQXR) was planned in cooperation with the National Association for American Composers and Conductors and consisted of a series of recorded and 'live' performances of works by Americans from the time of William Billings of the 18th century to the present day, including on each program a group of traditional songs or folk songs. 'New American Music' (NBC) under the direction of Dr. Frank Black concentrated on contemporary American music, and invited letters from the listening audience which were discussed by the commentator, Samuel Chotzinoff. 'Russell Bennett's Notebook' (Mutual) consisted of a series of programs devoted entirely to American works, many written especially by Mr. Bennett and others for the broadcasts. A special series of broadcasts from Feb. 12-22 constituted the second annual WNYC American Music Festival. In the eleven day cycle, forty hours of broadcasting introduced two hundred works. Among the composers represented were Copland, James, Gershwin, Gould, Bloch, Taylor, Siegmeister, Gardner, Sessions, Moore, Mansfield, Fuleihan, Thompson, Porter, Damrosch, Hadley, Kroll, Goldman, Diamond, Shapero, Bowles, Blitzstein, Luening, Tweedy, Klotzman, Gideon, Haufreucht, Schuman, Creston, Harris, Brant. Chamber music, symphony, opera, Tin Pan Alley and swing, folk songs and ballads were all presented in specialized programs. American folk song was the special concern of the music department of the 'School of the Air' (Columbia) when each week Alan Lomax, curator of the archives of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress, discussed in 'Well-Springs of Music,' a particular type of song.

Among the outstanding sustaining concert programs and series of 1941 were the following: The Metropolitan Opera Company Broadcasts, which were extended this year to South America. (NBC); The New York Philharmonic Symphony (Columbia); Indianapolis Symphony (Columbia); Chicago Woman's Symphony (Columbia); New Friends of Music Chamber Music (NBC); Ford Symphony Hour (Columbia); Alfred Wallenstein's Sinfonietta (Mutual); Dr. Walter Damrosch's Music Appreciation Hour (NBC); Concerto series featuring Joseph Szigeti, violinist (Mutual); Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street for hot jazz (NBC); National Broadcasting Company Symphony Orchestra's Saturday evening series; Library of Congress Chamber Music Series; Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, (Mutual); Frick Collection Chamber Music Concerts (WNYC); and the various series of recorded concerts broadcast by station WQXR. which might well be called 'The Music Station.'

Records.

During 1941 more discs were sold than in any other year of the industry's existence. Here, too, the American composer is steadily gaining ground for by this means his works can become more familiar through repeated playings; the year shows an increasing number of recordings of American compositions. Furthermore, since European ensembles were no longer available for making records owing to the war, the companies were forced to use domestic ensembles with the result that recordings by several American orchestras appeared for the first time in record catalogues. These included the National Symphony Orchestra, Hans Kindler, director; Indianapolis Symphony, Fabien Sevitzky; Cincinnati Symphony, Eugene Goosens; San Francisco Symphony, Pierre Monteux; and Toronto Symphony, Ernest MacMillan. Contemporary American Works made available in records include Copland's 'Music for the Theatre' (Victor); Roy Harris's Quintet for piano and strings (Victor) and Quarter, No. 3 (Columbia); Harl McDonald's 'Santa Fe Trail' and 'Songs of Conquest' (Victor); Morton Gould's Seven Piano Pieces (Decca); Marc Blitzstein, Excerpts from No For An Answer (Keynote); Album of Piano Pieces by Farwell, Gershwin, Thompson, Guion, Chassins, MacDowell, D. G. Mason, John A. Carpenter, Freed, Dett, Sowerby, Marion Bauer, Mrs. H. H. A. Beach (Victor); Rieger's 'New Dance' (Victor); Piston's Carnival Song (Victor) and Sonata for Violin and Piano (Columbia); Toch's Quintet for piano and strings (Columbia); Barber's 'Essay for Orchestra' (Victor); Bernard Roger's 'Soliloquy' for flute and strings; Wayne Barlow's 'The Winter's Past' for oboe and strings; Homer Keller's Serenade for clarinet and strings; Burrill Phillips 'American Dance' for bassoon and strings (Victor Album); Deems Taylor's Peter Ibbetson Suite; Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite, (Columbia); Arthur Lange's 'The Fisherman and his Soul' and Joseph Achron's 'Statuettes' (Co-Art Recordings); McBride's Quintet for oboe and strings (Victor); 'Scherzo' for Wind quartet (New Music Recordings) and Hagiographa (Victor) by Frederic Jacobi; Prelude and Fugue by David Diamond (New Music Recordings); Howard Hanson's Suite from Merry Mount (Victor). Music of an early American composer, William Billings (1746-1800), was made available in an album of his 'American Psalms and Fuguing Tunes' (Columbia). Several albums of American folk music were also recorded during the year such as 'Two Centuries of American Folk Songs' by the American Ballad Singers (Victor); 'Swing Your Partner' (Victor), a collection of square dances or quadrilles; 'Indian Music of the Southwest' collected by Laura C. Boulton (Victor); 'The Old Chisholm Trail,' songs of the Southwest by Tony Kraber (Keynote); 'Smoky Mountain Melodies,' played and sung by mountain folk and edited by John A. Lomax (Victor); 'The Wayfaring Stranger,' sung by Burl Ives (Okeh); 'Southern Exposure,' Jim Crow Blues or social problems of the Negroes (Keynote); 'Deep Sea Chanteys and Whaling Ballads,' and 'Sod Buster Ballads' sung by the Almanac Singers (General Records); 'Bayou Ballads' by Marguerite Castellanos Taggert; 'Talking Union' (Keynote) dealing with unions and organizing problems. Folk music of other peoples were recorded in 'Echoes of India' (Musicraft) by Wana Singh and an orchestra of Indian musicians; 'Seven Short Balinese Works' transcribed by Colin McPhee; 'Red Army Songs' by the Red Army Choir; 'Brazilian Songs' sung by Elsie Houston (Victor); 'Chee Lai' (Keynote) songs of China at war.

Other releases of recordings outstanding for content, made in the course of the year, were the Mahler Ninth Symphony, Bruno Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; Verdi's Requiem, Tullio Serafin and Rome Royal Opera chorus and orchestra; Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Koussevitzky and Boston Symphony, chorus and soloists; Fauré's Requiem, Montreal Festivals under Wilfred Pelletier; Bach's 'Art of Fugue,' E. Power Biggs, organ; Mozart, Cosi fan tutte, Glyndebourne production under Fritz Busch; Alban Berg's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Louis Krasner and Cleveland Orchestra under Artur Rodzinski. Music of a South American composer is made available in records of the Brazilian, Villa-Lobos's 'Bachianas Brasileras,' 'Nonetto,' 'Cancao do Carreiro' and Quattuor for harp, celesta, flute, saxophone and women's chorus.

Music for the Films.

In the realm of film-music outstanding scores were Bernard Hermann's for 'Citizen Kane' and for 'All That Money Can Buy'; and Louis Gruenberg's for 'So Ends Our Night.'

Miscellaneous.

The annual Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge award for distinguished services to chamber music was received by three composers, Benjamin Britten (British), Alexander Tansman (Polish) and Randall Thompson (American).

Burl Marx of Brazil was guest conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Juan Jose Castro of Argentina with the National Broadcasting Company Orchestra.

The score of Lady in the Dark by Kurt Weill, was published by Chappell and Company.

The Hispanic Society of the United States published Kurt Schindler's 'Folk Music and Poetry of Spain and Portugal.'

The Society for the Publication of American Music chose for the year's publication, David Van Vactor's Quintet for flute and strings, and Ulric Cole's Piano Quintet.

The Paderewski Jubilee (fifty years in America) was marked by a concert in March in New York in which Nadia Boulanger directed the performance of Karol Szymanowski's Stabat Mater, Heinrich Schuetz's History of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Fauré Requiem.

The centenary of the birth of Antonin Dvorak was marked by several concerts throughout the country. A commemorative tablet was placed on the house at 326 East 17th Street in which Dvorak lived while in New York City.

The Music Teachers National Association, meeting with the National Association of Schools of Music and the American Musicological Society in December in Minneapolis, made the theme of the year's convention 'American Unity Through Music.' See also RADIO; MOTION PICTURES.