Music: Radio Instruction

If in a decade or two some honest historian should set himself to telling the story of the development of music in the U. S., no name will figure more prominently than that of Walter Damrosch. Today’s sophisticates will differ perhaps. They will remember the Strauss of Mengelberg, the Debussy of Koussevitsky, the Bach of Stokowski, the Wagner of Toscanini; and in the fervor of appreciation of individual performances they will have forgotten the millions whose musical sense has been awakened by Damrosch. They will have forgotten that it was Damrosch who first introduced to the U. S. such composers as Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov; such artists as Kreisler, Lilli Lehmann, Paderewski; that Damrosch, first of the important conductors, took stock of jazz and siphoned it off for the seriously musical to take or leave as they would; that Damrosch first took his orchestra on the road, to cities and towns which knew no music; that it was Damrosch who 20 years ago inaugurated symphony concerts for children.

Walter Damrosch, now 66, continues to make music history. Again pioneer, he begins this week a series of radio concerts for school children. In preparation some 100,000 classrooms have had radios installed and on Friday morning children all over the U. S. will listen for the first time to a new National Symphony Orchestra of 60 players (many of them members of the old New York Symphony) and hear Damrosch lecture on the great composers, their music and the instruments that make it.

With the help of an Advisory Council,* four series of concerts have been planned —for third and fourth grades, fifth and sixth, seventh and junior high schools, high schools and colleges. Teachers will cooperate in the classrooms, supervise tests sent out in advance by the Radio Corporation of America, illustrate the talks with pictures of the composers and the instruments in the orchestra. Soon, if this first radio instruction proves successful, Big Teacher Damrosch will have 12,000,000 pupils. In a decade or two the honest historian should be able to point to a nationwide appreciation of music commensurate with the country’s resources. The Damrosch programs are:

Grades 3 and 4, Fridays, 11 a.m. Oct. 26, My Musical Family (the orchestra); Nov. 9, The Magic Door (the overture); Nov. 23, Fairies in Music; Dec. 14, Nature in Music; Jan. 4, Animals in Music; Jan. 18, Violin and Violoncello; Feb. 1, Flute and Clarinet; March 1, Oboe, English Horn and Bassoon; March 15, Horn and Trumpet; April 5, Trombone and Tuba; April 19, Percussion Instruments; May 3, Dances.

Grades 5 and 6, alternate Fridays, 11 a.m. Nov. 2, My Musical Family; Nov. 16, Violin, Viola, Violoncello; Dec. 7, Flute and Clarinet; Dec. 21, Oboe, English Horn and Bassoon; Jan. 11, Horn and Trumpet; Jan. 25, Trombone and Tuba; Feb. 8; Kettledrums and Cymbals; March 8, Percussion; March 22, Nature in Music; April 12, Animals in Music; April 26, Fun in Music; May 10, Sorrow and Happiness.

Grades 7, 8 and 9 (Junior High) Fridays 11:30 a.m. Oct. 26, My Musical Family; Nov. 9, Stringed Instruments; Nov. 23, Flute and Clarinet; Dec. 14, Oboe, English Horn and Bassoon; Jan. 4, Horn and Trumpet; Jan. 18, Trombone and Tuba; Feb. 1, March 1, Percussion; March 15, April 19, The Symphony; May 3, The Symphonic Poem.

High Schools and Colleges, alternate Fridays, 11:30 a.m. Nov. 2, Emotions in Music; Nov. 16, The Overture; Dec. 7, Stringed Instruments; Dec. 21, Flute and Clarinet; Jan. 11, Oboe, English Horn and Bassoon; Jan. 25, Horn and Trumpet; Feb. 8, Trombone and Tuba; March 8, 22, Percussion; April 12, The Symphonic Poem; April 26, May 10, The Symphony.

The stations: all National Broadcasting system.

Familiar indeed are Damrosch faces. There was Dr. Leopold first, a German Jew who fathered them all along with the Oratorio and Symphony Societies of New York. There are his four children—Teacher Frank (head of the Institute of Musical Art, now associated with the Juilliard Foundation); Pianist Clara, married to Violinist David Mannes and running with him the Mannes School of Music; Pianist Elizabeth (Mrs. Henry T. Seymour); Conductor Walter; Conductor Walter’s wife who was Margaret Blaine, daughter of the late Senator James G. Blaine; Conductor Walter’s four daughters—Alice (Mrs. Pleasants Pennington), Gretchen (Mrs. Thomas Knight Finletter). Anita (Mrs. Robert Littell) and Leopoldine (Polly) who is a pianist. Damrosch faces are everywhere during the season, in Manhattan’s musical circles.

* A11 prominent musical educators. Will Earhart (Pittsburgh), John A. H. Keith (Harrisburg, Pa.), R. G. Jones (Cleveland), Mrs. Edgar S. Kelley (Oxford, Ohio, President of the National Federation of Music Clubs), Mabelle Glenn (Kansas City), Ada Bicking (Lansing. Mich.), Frederick A. Alden, George H. Gartlan. P. W. Dykema, Hollis Dann (Manhattan).