Music History – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

The Saucy Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girl Orchestra
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

One of the most popular women’s group of the 1940s was Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girl Orchestra; few were surprised to hear that they were first girl band to be signed by the USO when America entered W.W. II. Sired by two vaudevillians, Ada Leonard (1915 – 1997) briefly toiled as a stripper in Chicago nightclubs before embarking on her career in music.

This interview displays for the readers her salty, fully-armored personality and her disgust concerning the total lack of glamor that accompanies USO shows, topped-off by a photo of her pretty face.

Reading and listening from Amazon
Take-Off: American All-Girl Bands
During World War II

John Cage
(The American Magazine, 1942)

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…

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.

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.

Sergie Rachmaninoff
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1919)

An uncredited interview with the celebrated Russian composer, Sergie Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943); his education, family and his work at the Moscow Conservatory as well as the Moscow Grand Theater. Attention is paid to his activities in the United States following his flight from the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Pianists and Piano Playing
(Vanity Fair, 1915)

William James Henderson (1855 – 1937) was believed by many to be the greatest music critic of his day, and in this VANITY FAIR article he turns his nib in the direction of the pianists Ignace Paderewski (1860 – 1941), Harold Bauer (1873 – 1951), Ferruccio Busoni (1866 – 1924) and Josef Hofmann (1876 – 1957).

A 1938 article about Paderewski can be read HERE…

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.

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).

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.

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.’

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.

A Bad Review for Enrico Caruso
(The Literary Digest, 1908)

André Tardieu (1876 – 1945),while writing for the French magazine TEMPS, committed to paper these unkind words regarding the Italian opera star Enrico Caruso (1873 – 1921) in an attempt, perhaps, to only slander Caruso’s many adoring American fans and the culture that created them.

…the American public admire only those artist’s for whom they pay dear.

Remembering Alma Gluck
(Stage Magazine, 1938)

Marking the occasion of the untimely death of American soprano Alma Gluck (born Reba Feinsohn; 1884 – 1938), music critic Samuel Chotzinoff wrote this essay in which he recalled witnessing the first meeting between Gluck and her (second) husband Efrem Zimbalist, Sr. (1890 – 1985) at the absolute height of her fame in 1911. The remembrance continues as Chotzinoff labels that era as being the ‘golden age of vocalists’ and recalls many of the finest qualities of her talent.

Otto Klemperer Conducts Stravinsky
(Rob Wagner’s Script, 1947)

A printable music review by Lawrence Morton (1904 – 1987), long time advocate of modern music and habitual contributor to MUSICAL QUARTERLY and MODERN MUSIC. One of Morton’s greatest interests was the music of Stravinsky, and it is Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements that was discussed in this 1947 review:

The symphony opens in full orchestra with a mighty affirmation of confidence and resolution. Then the horns state the main problem with which the composer would confront us: other instruments reiterate it, as if to show it to us from new angles and with new perspectives…

This particular performance was conducted in Los Angeles by Otto Klemperer (1885 – 1973), who was singled out for high praise in this article.

‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk” by Dmitri Shostakovich
(Literary Digest, 1935)

The Cleveland Orchestra, on February 5 [1935], with Arthur Rodzinski conducting, will introduce to New York ‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk’, an opera by twenty-eight year-old Soviet composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.

Shostakovich completed the work in December, 1932. It is the first of a projected cycle of four operas in which the composer plans to trace the condition of women in Russia…

Big Band Happenings in 1944
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

One of the most popular portions of YANK MAGAZINE was a that small corner devoted to the happenings within the Big Band world titled Band Beat. Attached herein is the Big Band news from that department for the Spring of 1944 which kept the far-flung Americans up to date as to what was going on with Vaughan Monroe, Lina Romay, Duke Ellington, Charlie Powell, Jon Arthur, Jimmy Cook, Red Norvo and Bob Strong’s orchestra.

Maestro Toscanini on the Home Front
(Pathfinder and Coronet, 1943)

Unlike most other musicians in Italy, Arturo Toscanini (1867 – 1957) refused to scramble onto the Fascist bandwagon. He refused to preface his concerts with the Fascist anthem and eventually was made a virtual prisoner at his home. When he was permitted to leave his country, he vowed never to revisit it so long as Fascism held it in bondage.

Nowhere has the magic baton of Toscanini been more acclaimed than in the United States. Under its spell, the Metropolitan Opera made its highest artistic mark, and the New York Philharmonic became the world’s greatest symphonic ensemble.