Music: Peaceful Music

The peaceful Chicago Symphony has never been notable for its interest in contemporary music. For 36 years it has played sober classics under the benign baton of white-haired Frederick Stock. But this season, to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Chicago Symphony arranged something special. It commissioned a composition from each of ten famous living composers, announced a bill of world premieres that might have turned Boston’s Serge Koussevitzky green with envy.

Last week the Chicago Symphony played the first U. S. work on its list of firstlings. It was a brand-new symphony by Chicago’s suave, handsome John Alden Carpenter, who withdrew in 1936 from his family’s big twine and awning business, dislikes being called the most eminent U. S. “businessman-composer.”

Composer Carpenter’s new symphony was smooth and well-dressed as Composer Carpenter himself. Orchestra Hall rang with polite applause; politely Composer Carpenter took three curtain calls. Critics, praising its tuneful themes, its crystal-clear orchestration, were polite too, found it one of the most gentlemanly of symphonies.

Said the Tribune’s Edward Barry: “The end of the piece contains something as near to an apotheosis as a man of Mr. Carpenter’s discretion would ever go. The music becomes broad and majestic and affirmative, only to drop off at the end in a charmingly deprecatory manner.” Said the Journal of Commerce’s Claudia Cassidy: “Attractive with no apparent intent to be profound, call it a graceful compliment to the jubilee season.”

Said John Alden Carpenter himself: “At any rate it is peaceful music, and in these days, perhaps that is something.”