| HATE to bring this up Mr John
% Q Public but you ve been keep
ing radio executives awake nights A short while
ago they claimed they knew what you wanted in
music Now let me see youi average musical men
tality was charted somewhere between the age of 10
and 12 and you were attracted only by Ouv Lom
bardo Bing Crosby and Kate Smith
But you. John Q. mined all this fine charting Os
a sudden you changed your mind and turned from
swing to string Which sent radio executives scram
bling madlv for honest-to-eoodnes« serious music
makers
Maybe it didn't quite happen overnight out serious
music is certainly here in large quantities, and appears
to be entrenched for a long siege And I can remem
ber a few years back when you almost twisted that
good right arm silly trying to find a good symphony
program The facts with figures say it much better
than this and I’ll get to them, but soon
Before I do 1 have a little comnlaint to dash off.
and I hope it gets as far as Hollywood Everyone
criticises the cinema, so why shouldn't I? Movies
talk too much Every few days a sun-drunk Dro
ducer is quoted on that mythical opera to be written
exclusively for celluloid. Then someone like George
Anfheil is hired to do the music for “The Plainsman ”
and the press releases start
Radio on the other hand, has been championing
good music for years and supporting American com
posers Unfortunately, until recently, you didn't hear
much about it That’s because good music is a slow
process with radio—but steady—and radio warns
something near to perfection before it hits the air
and your ears with it.
In 1932 NBC devoted but 5 per cent of its total
time to serious music. Last year 1936 the percentage
was estimated at 44 per cent of total broadcasting
time for serious and educational music Much of th s
is due to the grandfather of serious musical propa
ganda Dr Walter Damrosch His Atusic Apprecia
tion Hour has been running for nine seasons Some
69 000 school children owe him a wonderful debt As
do almost the same number of older listeners And
nine continuous seasons are something to make even
Rudy Vallee's hair curl with envy
f~* RANK BLACK is another who has
been batting out a large number of serious musical
programs. Because of Mr Black—and he didn't mind
telling me this —the NBC Music Guild has held two
contests foi American composers Has paid .them
plenty and broadcast their works
Mr Black has some fine ideas about music, and ne
considers the American music public with much the
same eye as a doctor does a patient. However Black
is an unusual sort of doctor He believes in trying
anything on the publio as long as that has originality
and will arouse comment. Black gets plenty of the
latter, and also plenty of money for his ideas
I went to the trouble of finding out just how many
serious musical programs NBC had on the air as
regular features Before Frank Black caught me sit
ting in his files. 1 had the complete list Ten city
symphony orchestras, two opera companies (the
Metropolitan and the Radio City Music Hall opera),
foui chamber music programs three choral music pro
grams, four studio symphony programs and five solo
instrumentalists.
Now NBC says that it is just warming up They
have been rather irked by all this talk about Opera
and the Film, and have gone to the trouble to hire
a young man named Menotti to write a complete
opera for radio. When last seen Menotti was roam
ing about the hills of Italy digging for a second act
curtain chorus. I know, because I interviewed a lot
of foreign names to find him.
Then, too, as you have been told. Maestro 'Toscanini
is going to storm into the studios one winter day to
do a series of 10 I was amused to find out
that Signoi Toscanini will do his program from good
old studio BH. This studio seats 1.500 people, who
have been gathering together to hear Maestro Fred
Allen and genial Lanny Ross Now and then the aii
is lightened by the crash-bang of a jazz band.
Nothing daunted. NBC plans to clean up the pea
nuts and popcorn and issue tickets to music-lovers in
the local high schools and colleges (mental age as
yet undecided). After Toscanini breaks them in Rod
zinski will carry on.
VER at CBS the serious music
fever runs even higher than at NBC They have more
programs of this nature on the air: however in actua
air time, NBC has them beat
The minute I ambled into CBS, looking tor all the
world like a walking baton, I was deluged with plans
names and the statement that it was about time some
writer got interested in serious music.
Howard Barlow
Frank Black
Situll
< Be < lßu4tc
Radio Leaves Films Behind
in Original-Opera Feud
By Jack Sher
NBC, I discovered, is 3 bunch of foreigners when it
comes to music. This is said in jest, of course, and
means that NBC goes in for hiring names that end
m “ini.” “ski,” “oro," —gentlemen of international
reputation.
Columbia is probably the most American-composer
minded network you could ever run into. The very
first music that went out over the CBS network (then
16 stations strong) was new American music, written
by an American composer.
It was Sept 18. 1927 and CBS was about to make
its debut So was Deems Taylor, the composer of
the brand new “King s Henchman,” which he had just
completed with the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay
Howard Barlow and the CBS Symphony Orchestra
played excerpts from “The Kings Henchman' on the
date of debut. Later, the Metropolitan put on the
entire arrangement and from that time on CBS was
sold on American music from Americans.
Deems Taylor came to talk on that first program.
He said that radio ought to be the best chance evei
for a struggling American composer (they have been
pretty struggling to date), and he has gone on say
ing it.
Then CBS got a commercial program, their very
(l/at one! The first commercial, the Kolster Hour of
Oct. 18. 1927 presented the works of Charles Wake
field Cad man Followed by music by Edward Mac-
Dowell, Ethelbert Nevin and the like
That was pretty radical for those days, when the
Beethoven Ninth was considered too heavy for the
Walter Damrosch
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ears of the radio audience —and Crosby was crooning
from a bicycle
In 1937 CBS has come out even
more strongly than at any point in its career in c^
pioning new and American music It has created the
Columbia Composers Commission. Now that sounds
like a mighty imposing title It is For it is the first
time that any radio network in America has commis
sioned musical compositions for radio by serious
American composers (How proud CBS was when they
told me this!)
CBS has invited six American composers to write
music for radio. Aaron Copland. Louis Gruenberg.
Walter Piston. Howard Hanson Roy Harris and Wil
liam Grant Still. The music can be anything that the
young composers w'ant to make it. except that it
can't be less than eight ot more than 40 minutes long
Deems Taylor, who is a member of the Com
mission and who I think is a pretty fine man says
that a composer ought to get a full opportunity to
say all he wants to say in that time. Forty minutes
isn't so short A Mr Mozart wrote symphonies that
were very complete and he spoke his piece generally
in about 30 minutes
The deadline is this summer—during the Sunday
afternoon concerts of Everybody’s Music, conducted
by Howard Barlow The composers were notified
’way back in August Outside of that, the sky s the
limit Instruments, types of composition, voices any
thing they want has been at the command of the
composers
They have all been given an opportunity to observe
the resources of radio They have been shown around ,
the studio, and CBS even put on a special broadcast
for their benefit showing all the tricks the microphone
is capable of.
£ ACH composer has his own spe
cial brand of music. Roy Harris foi instance is
thoroughly Midwestern and as American as a Ne
braska tarm His people were Scctch-Irish by descent.
They went West in a covered wagon during the Cimar
ron rush His stuff has a pioneer flavor and has
tr.sieu goou enough to he played by the New York
Philharmonic. Like a farmer he rises at dawn and
works until 11 a m. and chen drives recklessly through
the countryside seeking inspiration Tall raw-boned,
sandy-haired with gray-blue .eyes
Aaron Copland represents the left wing ot modern
music Highly Influenced by composers like Stravin
sky. he has written a great deal ot exciting and highly
controversial stuff. summer when his work
was played in Mexico City by the National Orchestra,
it almost created a fist fight right in the audience
Copland is a Brooklyn boy; originally the family name
was Kaplan, but the immigration authorities got it
mixed up.
Walter Piston hails from Maine, a typical New Eng
lander and is stocky and quiet, a teacher at Harvard.
His work is restrained, almost academic
Howard Hanson is a college professoi too —head
of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester Tall,
slenuet with pink cheeks And bright blue eyes, he
wears a goatee Everything he does is full ot a kind
cf Celtic quality but Hanson is of Swedish descent;
born in Wahoo Neb.
Louia Gruenberg was bom in Russia and brought to
this country at the age of 2 A pianist, he toureu
with many leading symphony orchestras. Gruenberg
is writing a complete opera for radio. “Green Man
sions, " based on that novel He is responsible for
talking Eugene O Neill into setting "Emperor Jones"
to music; it took him two years to do it.
William Grant Still writes not only tor radio but mo
tion pictures as well His first radio music was per
formed by Howard Barlow on May 23 Stillman is a
Negro born in the deep south —Woodville. Miss Never
writes a note without “getting in touch with the
cosmic forces of life.” His “Lenox Avenue” was
the most widely acclaimed musical composition of the
year.
W HENEVER you think of MBS and
serious music, you think of one man, Alfred Wallen
stein He is their musical director and a man of no
little genius I had a talk with him the other day.
W r hat he has given up to work with the microphone
seems to be the best indication of the future of serious
rrlusic on our air-waves.
Wallenstein resigned his post as first cellist of the
New York Philharmonic and as a member of the
board of directors to devote himself to conducting
for radio.
“I was convinced,” said the quiet little man, “that
radio was becoming a more vital force in the world
than the most powerful orchestral groups.”
w HICH is, perhaps, the answer to
Hollywood's monotonous opera talk.
Alfred Wallenstein