Music: Summer Bands

Of the dozen or more U. S. cities where bands and orchestras play good music to indulgent summer audiences, many began their seasons last week.

¶ To open its 20th season of concerts in the Lewisohn Stadium, the New York Philharmonic engaged enterprising Conductor Vladimir Golschmann of St. Louis and Violinist Albert Spalding as soloist, sold 15,000 tickets. Mrs. Charles S. Guggenheimer announced that $65,000 had been collected toward the $75,000 budget. Adolph Lewisohn, 88, who donated the $225,000 stadium, promised other conductors like Fritz Reiner, Willem Van Hoogstraten, Alexander Smallens, George King Raudenbush. The first week of the eight-week season was to feature Lily Pons singing three arias and Soprano Erica Darbo in an elaborate production of Strauss’s Salome. Ambitiously the later repertoire included a telescoped Ring, a possible Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, ballets by Mikhail Mordkin’s troupe and by the Littlefield troupe, now performing in Europe (TIME, Feb. 22).

¶ Aïda ushered in a six-week run of opera at the Cincinnati Zoo. Busy Fausto Cleva was again conducting. Manager Oscar Hild had got hold of such Metropolitan singers as Bruna Castagna, Carlo Morelli, Leon Rothier, Norman Cordon, John Gurney. Friday operas were to be broadcast over the NBC Blue network.

¶ In Philadelphia’s Convention Hall, Ferde Grof e led the Philadelphia Orchestra through some of his own symphonic jazz, featured such radio soloists as Jane Pickens, Lucy Monroe, Lucille Manners, the Four Southernaires. Young Donald Dickson of the Metropolitan sang a song from The Vagabond King. Of the $7,000 raised by this concert, part went to Mayor Wilson’s Milk Fund, part to the Orchestra’s summer concerts at bosky Robin Hood Dell. Two days later, with dark Spanish Jose Iturbi on the podium, the Dell concerts officially began.

¶ In Zach’s Bay, the lagoon back of Jones Beach, New York’s most efficient public playground 30-odd miles out of Manhattan on Long Island, a 136-ft. by 82-ft. stage was moored opposite a stand seating 10,000 people. There last week opened a season of opera and musicomedy, managed by Fortune Gallo of the San Carlo Opera Company. First performance was Roberta, which the audience beheld from a considerable distance, heard mainly through loudspeakers.