Music: In a Store

Usually the vast court of the John Wanamaker Store in Philadelphia is thronged with scuffling folk intent on rummaging through counters of merchandise in search of bargains. One night last week a greater crowd than ever before crammedits way into this pillared space, now swept of every vestige of merchandise. They had come to hear a concert, attend a reception given by Rodman Wanamaker in honor of Thaddeus Rich, concert master of the Philadelphia Orchestra. From the first grand chord of the organ prelude to the last lingering vibration of Soloist Rich’s violin the audience were silent, as 15,000 disembodied spirits straining for the trumpet call of the angels. They heard the famed Wanamaker instruments, Stradivari, Guarnarius, Quadagnini, Montaguana, Gofriller . . . played in massed unison by the great string quartets of the U. S. — Flonzaley, Pro Arte, Lenox, Vertchamp, with four bass viols in accompaniment. Under Mr. Rich’s direction the musicians poured harmonies and melodies from Purcell’s Suite in C Major. Into the rare acoustic treasuries of the huge auditorium later sounded the Mozart D Major, Saint-Saens’s Le Deluge, Debussy’s G Minor, Veracini’s Concerto Grosso Bel. No medieval potentate had ever summoned forth such jeweled volumes of song in palace or cathedral. Next day the temple of music was again a trading mart.