Music: Air Season

Music nowadays has two distinct seasons, two distinct publics. There are the formal events given for the few who are fortunate enough to have subscription seats in opera houses and concert halls. There is also, thanks to Industry, music which extends impartially the length and breadth of the country. Last week broadcasts by someof the leading symphony orchestras brilliantly introduced a new radio season.

Mechanically as well as musically important was the program played by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and sponsored by Philadelphia (Philco) Storage Battery Co. Last year at his first Philco radio concert Conductor Stokowski was incensed because mere engineers were entrusted with the transmission of his music, had the power to spoil his surging crescendoes, his fragile pianissimos. The season over, he entered upon a series of experiments with National Broadcasting Co.’s head mechanics, commuted all summer between his Connecticut farm and Manhattan. The result is a device whereby he can do his own monitoring. He stands in a soundproof glass box, hears the music through a loud speaker. One hand guides the orchestra, the other the controls. In a first demonstration last week much of the color of a first hand performance was transmitted to Albeniz’s Fête-Dieu à Séville, de Falla’s Amor Brujo, Debussy’s La Cathédrale Engloutie, Ravel’s Bolero. Stokowski will broadcast again on Nov. 16 and on Christmas and Easter afternoons.

The sponsoring of great music is an increasingly popular form of advertising. The Minneapolis Symphony will broadcast this year in the service of the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co. The Omaha Symphony works every Sunday morning for Barnsdall Refineries Inc. of Chicago; the Rochester Civic Orchestra every Wednesday evening for Stromberg-Carlson radios; Conductor Walter Damrosch and a symphony orchestra Saturday evenings in a General Electric hour; Conductor Howard Barlow and a symphony orchestra Tuesday evenings for Philco; the Los Angeles Philharmonic every Thursday evening over a Pacific Coast network for Standard Oil Co. of California. Of famed individuals scheduled to broadcast this season, many are sponsored by Atwater Kent (Contralto Louise Homer who sang last week, Tenor Giovanni Martinelli, Pianist Josef Hofmann, Violinist Albert Spalding, Sopranos Rosa Ponselle and Rethberg).

Baritone Reinald Werrenrath will advertise Camel cigarets. Contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink, having completed a series of farewell tours, will sing 15 minutes every week for Enna Jettick shoes. Stations not included on either of the nation-wide chains (Columbia and National Broadcasting) present local talent paid for by local merchants.

Under the head of “sustaining” programs (where the chain or the local station pays for the talent) are the 27 concerts to be broadcast (Columbia) by the New York Philharmonic-Symphony. Last week listeners heard Erich Kleiber, new Berlin conductor (TIME, Oct. 13). They will hear Arturo Toscanini in November, later Bernardino Molinari. Fortnight ago the Boston Symphony under Sergei Koussevitzky gave its first program exclusively for radio (N. B. C.) but the Boston Symphony will not broadcast regularly until Symphony Hall conditions are more favorable than they are now. The Metropolitan Opera continues to ignore radio. The Chicago Civic Company will follow its plan of the past three years: broadcast one act of opera a week, probably Wednesday evenings (N. B. C.). Again Walter Damrosch will give his educational concerts. Two years ago a million schoolchildren listened to his regular Friday morning programs. Last week’s audience was estimated at approximately eight millions.