Music History

Russian Composers Preferred by Rimsky-Korsakov (Review of Reviews, 1912)

For those of you looking for some dish in the music history department, this article recounts a conversation between Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 – 1908) and Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) as to which Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov preferred the best: Anton Rubinstein or Peter Tschaikovsky. Opinions flew in all directions and many more names were dropped before the conversation came to a close…

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Jascha Heifetz’ First New York Recital (Vanity Fair, 1918)

Here is an enthusiastic review of Jascha Heifetz’ (1900 – 1987) first Carnegie Hall performance. The journalist relays how fully loaded the concert hall seemed to be with the finest violinists in the Western world all sitting in rapt attention; and how joyously they all applauded following his first number:

Here, mark you, were the masters of the guild giving an ovation to a slim, eighteen year-old boy and acknowledging him as one of the master violinists of the world.

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Soprano Dorothy Kirsten (Click Magazine, 1943)

Illustrated with a black and white photograph of the 33 year-old soprano was this small notice announcing the discovery of Dorthy Kirsten (1910 – 1992) of Montclair, New Jersey. Kirsten went on to great heights, performing with the Metropolitan Opera for the next thirty years, she would also enjoy some popularity singing duets on the radio with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nelson Eddy, and Perry Como.

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Composer Leo Ornstein (Vanity Fair, 1920)

A profile of Futurist composer Leo Ornstein (1893 – 2002). Ornstein appeared on the New York music scene at a very young age; hailed as a genius by many, he performed to packed houses. In 1917, music critic James Huneker(1860-1921) remarked:

I never thought I should live to hear Arnold Schoenberg sound tame, yet tame he sounds—almost timid and halting—after Ornstein who is, most emphatically, the only true-blue, genuine, Futurist composer alive.


Leo Ornstein left the public eye by 1925 and was soon forgotten until the 1970s. This Vanity Fair article was written by James L. Buchanan, who had written a number of pieces on Ornstein and his music throughout his career.

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Kosaku Yamada: The First Japanese Composer of Operas (Vanity Fair, 1919)

Attached, you will find a small profile of Kosaku Yamada (1886 – 1965) published shortly after his New York debut in 1919. Classicly trained in Europe, Yamada organized the first symphonic orchestra of native players to perform the music of Occidental composers under a Japanese conductor, which later became the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. This article outlines some of his various accomplisments up to 1919, while deleting others. Prior to his two year sojurn in the United States, he had composed three Japanese operas: Reisho (1909), Ochitaru Tennyo (1913) and Shichinin No Oujo (1916).

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Unsuspected Qualities of Native American Music (Literary Digest, 1908)

Attached is a brief article on the topic Native American music and the studies of Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838 – 1923), who had overseen a number of Native American archival recording sessions around the time this article appeared in print. Fletcher once wrote:

We find more or less of it in Beethoven and Schubert, still more in Schumann and Chopin, most of all in Wagner and Liszt.

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Third Symphony’ by Aaron Copland (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1948)

A review of Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony written in 1948 by the respected Los Angeles music critic and historian Lawrence Morton (1908 – 1987):

…there can be no mistake about the Third. It is a solid structure, exceedingly rich and varied in expressiveness, large in concept, masterful in execution, completely unabashed and outspoken.

No wonder that Sergi Koussevitsky called it ‘the greatest American symphony.’

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Tamaki Miura (Vanity Fair, 1915)

Tamaki Miura (1884 – 1946) was a Japanese opera singer most often remembered for having performed in over 2,000 stagings of Madame Butterfly. At the time this short notice appeared she was only one year into her opera career, yet the Vanity Fair music critic recognized talent when he saw it and nominated her for the Vanity Fair Hall of Fame. It was her inclusion in that august body that serves as the the subject for this short paragraph, which is accompanied by a photograph.

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