“An Anatomy of Modernism”: Marion Rous and “What Next in Music?”

"An Anatomy of Modernism": Marion Rous and "What Next in Music?"

Item Type text; Electronic Thesis

Authors Skoronski, Benjamin Patrick

Citation Skoronski, Benjamin Patrick. (2021). "An Anatomy of Modernism": Marion Rous and "What Next in Music?" (Master's thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA).

Publisher The University of Arizona.

Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Download date 01/10/2021 07:40:08

Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/660260

“AN ANATOMY OF MODERNISM”: MARION ROUS AND “WHAT NEXT IN MUSIC?”

Benjamin Patrick Skoronski

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

FRED FOX SCHOOL OF MUSIC

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF MUSIC

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2021

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Master’s Committee, we certify that we have read the thesis prepared by: Benjamin Patrick Skoronski titled:

and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the thesis requirement for the Master’s Degree.

Matthew S Mugmon ______Date: ______May 12, 2021 Matthew S Mugmon

______Date: ______May 12, 2021 Jay Rosenblatt

John T. Brobeck ______Date: ______May 12, 2021 John T. Brobeck

Final approval and acceptance of this thesis is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the thesis to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this thesis prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the Master’s requirement.

Matthew S Mugmon ______Date: ______May 12, 2021 Matthew S Mugmon T hesis Committee Chair

Fred Fox School of Music

Acknowledgements

I can no other answer make but thanks, And thanks, and ever thanks. — Twelfth Night

A master’s thesis is the work of not one, but rather many. I am deeply grateful to all that have helped, guided, and assisted me in the writing of this thesis. My first and perhaps heartiest thanks must be extended to Dr. Matthew Mugmon for his careful advisement. Whether he gave an insightful suggestion of further research, or a deft rewording of a phrase, or an unequivocal disagreement with my analysis — all was as appreciated as it was necessary. To Dr. John

Brobeck I owe a debt of gratitude for his endless patience, as well as his open and honest approach to constructive criticism. I do not know that there is anyone with a more attentive eye for detail than Dr. Jay Rosenblatt, at least as far as Chicago Turabian citations go. But I am indebted to him not only for this, but also his overall wisdom, accessibility, and genuine kindness. The considerable challenges of virtual learning and the COVID-19 pandemic were rendered bearable in large part due to his quiet and consistent support.

My friends and colleagues have also earned my gratitude, in some cases even equal to that which I extend to my professors. Sydney Streightiff was my first friend at Arizona, and every one of the numerous hours that we spent over tea was a blessing. Tad Biggs consistently challenged me to broaden my research, helping me intellectually through his unique scholarly profile and emotionally via his pug Roxanne. I am grateful to Melisa Karić for continuing our long talks over coffee even in a virtual format, and for being open to discussing topics from the mundane to the profound. Jessica Licker and David Eltz, academics from other disciplines, never cease to inspire me with their brilliance. Of course, I cannot neglect to thank my favorite 4

percussionists in the entire world, John Spero and Sam Wetzel; I miss you both regularly.

Finally, Laura Keim has demonstrated impressive patience throughout all of my impassioned monologues regarding my research; I am grateful not only for this patience, but also for her unconditional support throughout a challenging year.

I am likewise thankful to my family members for their support, including and especially my parents James and Wendy; I love you, and I hope to make you proud. My brother Nathan is one of the most extraordinary people that I have ever had the honor to meet, a man entirely without malice whose thoughtful, caring positivity is extended to all. A most sincere and special thanks must be extended to my uncle Patrick, my aunt Suzanne, and my cousin Lydia, who have done so much for me personally throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the writing of this thesis. By any standard, your generosity is limitless and your capacity for good boundless. While the debt that I owe to you is one that I cannot repay, I offer to you this labor or love.

No list of acknowledgements is complete, and I am unable to include everyone that has helped me personally and academically in the writing of this thesis. Regardless, you all have my love and gratitude. In no particular order, I also wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Maria

Asteriadou, Pam Brayton, Dr. Peter Isaacson, Al and Donna Keim, Grant Knox, Katie McGrath,

Sara Miranda, Joshua Nichols, Dr. Karin Nolan, Eric Papa, Nathan Payne, Dr. R. Todd Rober,

Thomas Skoronski, William and Dolores Skoronski, Manujinda Wathugala, and Peyton Wilson.

Thank you, to all named and unnamed here, who have challenged me to be a better scholar and human being.

To Patrick, Suzanne, and Lydia Manley

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 8

ABSTRACT ...... 9

INTRODUCTION...... 10

CHAPTER 1: ORIGINS OF “WHAT NEXT IN MUSIC?” TO THE 1919 BIENNIAL

CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF MUSIC CLUBS ...... 21

“What Next in Music?”: An Overview ...... 23

“What Next in Music?” at the Peabody Institute ...... 26

“What Next in Music?” at Rollins College ...... 30

Marion Rous and the Music Appreciation Movement ...... 32

The Florida State Federation of Music Clubs and Susan Dyer ...... 40

The 1919 Biennial Convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs ...... 42

CHAPTER 2: NATIONWIDE TOURING, 1919–1922 ...... 46

1919–1920 Season...... 48

The Philadelphia Music Club ...... 49

The Beginning of 1920 ...... 52

April Tour of Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Louisville ...... 56

1920–1921 Season...... 61

Midwest Tour, March – April ...... 64 7

1921–1922 Season...... 67

Northeast Tour, March – April ...... 69

The Death and Legacy of Susan Dyer ...... 71

CHAPTER 3: THE 1924 NEW YORK DEBUT AND BEYOND ...... 74

George Pullen Jackson and “Southern Musicians” ...... 77

The New York Debut: January 11, 1924, at Aeolian Hall ...... 81

“What Next in Music?” After Aeolian Hall ...... 87

Final Presentations ...... 96

CONCLUSION ...... 101

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 105

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Flyer for “Concerning Programme Music” at the Milwaukee Art Institute, 1921. Collection of the author ...... 66

Figure 3.1: Flyer for “What Next in Music?” at Aeolian Hall, c. 1924. Collection of the author...... 81

Figure 3.2: Advertisement for “What Next in Music?” and “Concerning Programme Music,” c. 1924. Collection of the author...... 89

ABSTRACT

A pianist and pedagogue whose career spanned much of the twentieth century, the name of Marion Rous has until now only gained the occasional cursory mention in an index or appendix. In particular, previous scholarship has all but completely overlooked the contributions of Rous as a figure linked to the music appreciation movement, evidenced mainly through her career-defining lecture recital “What Next in Music?” This program focused on modernist

European piano repertoire and was the centerpiece of Rous’ New York debut at Aeolian Hall in

January of 1924. Inaugurated in 1916 when Rous was a faculty member at the Peabody Institute,

“What Next in Music?” first garnered national attention at Rous’ presentation at the 1919

Biennial Convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs in Peterborough, NH, a success that earned her national renown and years of nationwide touring. From that point onwards, Rous’ lecture recital elicited responses and reviews from many of the most prominent musical minds in

America during the first two decades of the twentieth century, including Harvey Gaul, George

Pullen Jackson, and W. J. Henderson.

This study traces for the first time the history, reception, and development of “What Next in Music?” from these early manifestations through to Rous’ 1924 New York debut at Aeolian

Hall and to the lecture’s retirement in 1927. These years demonstrate the manifestations of a lecture recital that brought the analytical yet approachable presentation of modernism to a wide populist audience. Rous emerges as a case study in the unlikely intersection of modernism and the music appreciation movement, thus adding to our understanding of an intersection later witnessed more prominently in the work of Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. Furthermore, this study unearths for the first time the career of a hitherto neglected figure of twentieth-century modernism and American musical life. 10

INTRODUCTION

By the time Marion Rous (1881–1967) made her 1924 New York debut at Aeolian Hall, her lecture recital “What Next in Music?: An Anatomy of Modernism” had made her nationally known. That her recognition has dwindled dramatically ever since goes without saying, as now she is given at most a cursory mention in an index or appendix. But this performance was the culmination of a nationwide tour in which she had presented the lecture recital in dozens of major cities, and had gained the accolades of prominent music critics such as Harvey Gaul,

George Pullen Jackson, and W. J. Henderson. But perhaps most important, in a period when the philosophies of modernism as well as its very definition were hotly contested in America,

Marion Rous was a significant advocate of modernism in the United States, using the normatively traditionalist music appreciation movement to achieve her goals. I will demonstrate that through her lecture recital “What Next in Music?,” Marion Rous sought to advance musical modernism through the music appreciation movement.

The term “modernism” is imprecise, and many have argued over a definitive definition.

This is due in large part to the fact that the various soldiers united under its banner — be they musicians, artists, writers, philosophers, or otherwise — were widely divergent in terms of stylistic points, ideologies, and other identifiers. I find the approach of Carol J. Oja to be most appropriate, namely, to embrace the term in all its chaos, not in spite of it but rather because of it.

Oja cites as the basic principle of modernism “iconoclastic, irreverent innovation,”1 a beautiful alliteration that somehow manages to capture all of the gravity, humor, order, and mayhem of the modernist cause.

1 Carol J. Oja, Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000), 4.

Modernism as a philosophy is often understood to have begun with the writings of

Immanuel Kant.2 In his Kritik der reinen Vernunft of 1781 (revised in 1787), Kant posits that we cannot know things in themselves, and that our objects of knowledge must conform to our spatial and temporal intuition. Thus, our cognition of objects of knowledge is a priori rather than a posteriori. Similar rebellions against rationalism can be found in the existentialism and nihilism of philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Modernism as a cohesive philosophical movement did not start until the late nineteenth century with thinkers such as Boltzmann and

Freud.

Again, the exact definition of modernism is contested, but upon several characteristic traits there is wide agreement. Modernism focuses upon the self, and on the creative potential of the self. It emphasizes empiricism, experimentation, and the scientific method. Perhaps most important for the musicians, artists, and aestheticians that followed this movement, modernism rejected that which frustrated progress and embraced that which manifested the new. For most modernist musicians, the focus seems to have been upon creating music that was self- consciously “new,” whatever “new” meant to the individual.

Seemingly opposed to modernism is the music appreciation movement. In the late nineteenth century, music critics and university professors published textbooks and listening guides on European symphonic and operatic repertoire geared towards an American audience.

The purpose of these publications was to give listeners in the United States a greater understanding of and appreciation for European music at a time when Americans were still

2 Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison, eds., Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology. (London: Harper and Row, 1982), 5.

struggling to define a national musical identity.3 With the professionalization of music teaching in the 1910s there came teacher-training programs and organizations for music teachers, which in turn led to the creation of state directors of public school music and district music supervisors.

Thus the music appreciation movement was born. This movement was a broad coalition of music educators, civic groups, community leaders, orchestral conductors, periodical editors, and record companies united under the common purpose of audience education in music. Much of this audience education was grounded in the concept of so-called “active listening,” influenced by close concentration and structural analysis. Richard Lee Dunham in fact defines music appreciation as being simply “instruction in listening,”4 but the reality is more complex, intersecting with concepts of tradition, class, nationalism, and even morality.

Julia J. Chybowski argues that “music appreciation” was not merely a curriculum or practice, but rather a broad cultural movement.5 This movement prioritized the “highbrow” culture of the western canon above the “lowbrow” culture of popular or contemporary music, a division that has been studied closely by sociologist Lawrence Levine.6 This idea of a classical canon was a relatively new concept in the 1910s that Eric Hobsbawm refers to as an “invented tradition,”7 a tradition that Levine views as being invented at least in part as a reaction against

3 Julia J. Chybowski, “Developing American Taste: A Cultural History of the Early Twentieth-Century Music Appreciation Movement” (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2008), 1.

4 Richard Lee Dunham, “Music Appreciation in the Public Schools of the United States, 1897–1930” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1961), iv.

5 See as examples Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” and Julia J. Chybowski, “Selling Musical Taste in Early Twentieth-Century America: Frances E. Clark and the Business of Music Appreciation,” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 38, no. 2 (2017): 104.

6 See as examples Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988) and Lawrence Levine, “Jazz and American Culture,” in The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 172–188.

7 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (New York: Canto Press, 1992), 1. 13

the appearance of jazz.8 Far from merely creating the binary of highbrow and lowbrow, advocates of the music appreciation movement educated on the supposed cultural superiority of the former, and Chybowski relates their almost doctrinal principal that “music uplifted the moral status of its hearers, improved intellectual capabilities of listeners, and reflected the democratic and patriotic ideals of America.”9

Turning to Rous specifically and her place in this context, the existing scholarly literature of books, journal articles, and dissertations regarding Marion Rous leaves ample room for further research for three reasons: the lack of a single scholarly study devoted to Marion Rous, the dearth of any substantial information, and the numerous inaccuracies and misinformation presented. These deficiencies are only more apparent when it comes to “What Next in Music?,” which seems to have gone completely unresearched. A review of this literature will reveal these deficiencies as well as the need for primary source research.

The scholarly literature has all but completely overlooked the career of Marion Rous, much less the existence of “What Next in Music?” Carol J. Oja’s Making Music Modern: New

York in the 1920s, a source which explores the time and place in which Rous first gained artistic prominence, mentions Rous solely in one of the several sections of back matter, an appendix of

“Programs of Modern-Music Societies in New York, 1920–1931.”10 Sondra Wieland Howe’s

2014 book Women Music Educators in the United States: A History, again a source that explores the very criteria that Rous embodied, mentions her only in a single sentence, relating her

8 Levine, “Jazz and American Culture,” 174.

9 Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” 1.

10 Carol J. Oja, “Appendix: Programs of Modern–Music Societies in New York, 1920–1931,” in Making Music Modern, 367–406.

involvement with the Greenwich House Music School.11 Rous’ name appears once in an appendix to a 1997 article by noted American Modernism scholar David Metzer entitled “The

League of Composers: The Initial Years”; she is listed in an entry of “Programs of the League of

Composers, 1923/24–1929/30” as having performed at a November 19, 1926, recital at the

Brooklyn Museum.12 This is essentially a reprint of the appendix found in Metzer’s 1993 dissertation “The Ascendancy of Musical Modernism in New York City, 1915–1929.”13

Of the scant information that scholarly secondary sources present on Rous, much of it is inaccurate. The 2011 article “The Third Street Music School Settlement: The Grand Tradition as

Social Practice on New York’s Lower East Side” by Victoria von Arx includes the appendix

“Distinguished Faculty of The Music School Settlement/Third Street Music School Settlement,” which lists Rous as having been the first director of the Greenwich House Music School, founded in 1905.14 Similarly, the year that Rous died, Robert Francis Egan wrote “The History of the Music School of the Henry Street Settlement,” which mentions her among a list of names in a footnote, noting that “The Greenwich House Music School started in 1914 by Marion Rous continues in its own building at 46 Barrow Street in Greenwich Village of New York City.”15

Both of these assertations are incorrect; the Music School moved into its own building in 1913

11 Sondra Wieland Howe, Women Music Educators in the United States: A History (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2014), 193.

12 David Metzer, “The League of Composers: The Initial Years,” American Music 15, no. 1 (1997): 69.

13 David Joel Metzer, “The Ascendancy of Musical Modernism in New York City, 1915–1929” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1993), 381.

14 Victoria von Arx, “The Third Street Music School Settlement: The Grand Tradition as Social Practice on New York’s Lower East Side,” Journal of the Society for American Music 5, no. 1 (2011): 61–93.

15 Robert Francis Egan, “The History of the Music School of the Henry Street Settlement” (PhD diss., New York University, 1967), 142.

under Mary Kingsbury Simkovitch, well before Rous joined its staff. 16 Similarly, Rous did not become director of the Greenwich House Music School until she succeeded Susan Dyer in 1922.

Previous understandings of modernism and music appreciation in the United States have been more or less mutually exclusive. The career of Marion Rous brings about an unlikely intersection of these two movements, and forces us to reevaluate our study of each. Studies of each discipline individually are called for in order to view them in tandem through Rous’ lectures.

Carol J. Oja has devoted much attention to American modernism, in particular from the time and place of Rous’ 1924 New York debut at Aeolian Hall. Oja has also studied the careers, output, and reception of many composers featured on Rous’ program, although she focuses primarily upon composers and critics rather than performers. In this, as well as in its attention given to amateur music clubs, this study moves beyond Oja’s research and attempt to place the career of Rous into this larger context.

Sociologist Lawrence Levine has written extensively on the music appreciation movement, especially as it pertains to society and class.17 Levine has been criticized as overemphasizing the division between highbrow and lowbrow culture,18 as well as depicting advocates of the music appreciation movement as elitist and snobbish.19 However, his model of

16 Information regarding the founding of the Greenwich House Music School is easily accessible on the Greenwich House website, including Social Link, “The History of Greenwich House,” Greenwich House, accessed May 19, 2021. https://www.greenwichhouse.org/history/#event-music-lessons-begin. This information was corroborated for me by Rachel Black, the current Director of Greenwich House, in Rachel Black, email to author, September 28, 2020.

17 See as examples Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow, and Levine, “Jazz and American Culture,” in The Unpredictable Past, 172–188

18 See as an example David D. Hall, “A World Turned Upside Down?,” Reviews in American History 18 (March 1990): 10–14.

19 See as an example Ralph P. Locke, “Music Lovers, Patrons, and the ‘Sacralization’ of Culture in America,” 19th-Century Music 17, vol. 2 (Fall 1993): 149–173. 16

viewing the music appreciation movement as a conflict between the self-proclaimed highbrow and the accused lowbrow has held fast in much of scholarship today. This research moves beyond Levine’s somewhat binary view of music appreciation as the struggle between highbrow and lowbrow, and analyzes Rous’ work as being an attempt to bring “highbrow” modernist repertoire to a wide, populist audience.

The excellent research of Julia J. Chybowski argues that “music appreciation” was not merely a curriculum or practice, but rather a broad cultural movement. She borrows the term

“sacralization” from Levine to label the moral, intellectual, and democratic language used by advocates of music appreciation to present notions of moral and intellectual uplift.20 Both her dissertation “Developing American Taste: A Cultural History of the Early Twentieth-Century

Music Appreciation Movement” and her 2017 article “Selling Musical Taste in Early Twentieth-

Century America: Frances E. Clark and the Business of Music Appreciation” serve as significant resources in this study, especially as it pertains to a historical analysis of the music appreciation movement as a whole.

Chybowski’s work, encyclopedic in so many regards, does not give significant attention to the role of music clubs in the music appreciation movement. Indeed one can hardly blame her, for the unique contributions of these organizations are only just beginning to be recognized.

When Chybowski does touch upon the matter, she tends to present music clubs in a somewhat negative light, choosing to cite sources critical of them without balancing those viewpoints with more positive assessments.21 This research adopts a more nuanced view, one that observes rather than judges. In this thesis, amateur music clubs will be represented as yet another facet of the

20 Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” 1.

21 See as an example Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” 143–144.

often kaleidoscopic music appreciation movement, a facet to which Rous devoted some considerable attention.

Cultural historian Joseph Horowitz has done much to define “music appreciation” and has challenged Levine’s concept of sacralization, arguing against his understanding of classical music in America as being elitist.22 Rather, he views it as being distinctly “lowbrow,” and views the “Toscanini cult” as being the beginning of a great decline in American music.23 Interestingly, had Horowitz known of Rous, he almost certainly would have included her in this negative assessment; Rous worked under Toscanini as a lecturer for the New York Philharmonic

Orchestra and cited him as the inspiration for her populist “Philharmonic Forecasts” lectures.24

Horowitz’s very narrow definition of music appreciation has drawn some criticism. By his understanding, the music appreciation movement had no interest in creating a uniquely

American music,25 a claim that Chybowski has refuted.26 Furthermore, Horowitz views modernism as being incompatible with music appreciation, and suggests that apparent

22 See Joseph Horowitz, Wagner Nights: An American History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

23 See Joseph Horowitz, Understanding Toscanini: How He Became an American Culture-god and Helped Create a New Audience for Old Music (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1987).

24 In a 1957 letter Rous states “1957-58 will be the 25th season of my ‘forecasts’ of Philharmonic concerts. It was Toscanini who inspired them, way back in 1933.” See Marion Rous, letter to Bruno Zirato, May 27, 1957, document ID 008-03-08, p. 71, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org. This claim is repeated in a 1958 program from Carnegie Hall, which states that Rous’ preview lectures were “stimulated by Toscanini’s Beethoven and Brahms Cycles with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.” See “About the Hall,” reprinted in 1958 Carnegie Hall program, document ID 008-03-05, p. 130, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org. However, it is worth mentioning that at different points in her career Rous cited different inspirations for the Forecasts, including the Layman’s Music Courses of Olga Samaroff. See Marion Rous, letter to Carlos Moseley, April 28, 1959, document ID 026-12-25, p. 12, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.

25 Joseph Horowitz, Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005), 238.

26 Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” 186.

intersections found in the work of Copland and Bernstein must be viewed as distinct from the music appreciation movement.27 While I am in agreement with Chybowski, Horowitz’s work is important to this thesis as it demonstrates several negative tendencies of music appreciation scholarship that I challenge — namely, an understanding of music appreciation as illegitimate or lowbrow and a blind spot when it comes to modernism.

While Horowitz has dismissed the possibility of an intersection of modernism and music appreciation, Christopher Chowrimootoo has given it serious study. Published during the writing this thesis, his fascinating article “Copland’s Styles: Musical Modernism, Middlebrow Culture, and the Appreciation of New Music”28 views the intersection of modernism and music appreciation in the work of Copland as being indicative of a “middlebrow” aesthetic, one that makes compromises to both highbrow and lowbrow culture. Chowrimootoo studies the tensions between these two ideologies, as well as the criticisms leveled back and forth from advocates of each. This thesis complements his research well as the intersections of modernism and music appreciation that it studies date from one to two decades before Copland’s work. Not only that, but Chowrimootoo’s analysis of ideological differences between modernism and music appreciation provides rich discussion of how Rous dealt with such philosophical clashes.

The scholarly literature, however, comprises only a comparatively small component of this study, which relies primarily upon historical sources contemporaneous to Rous. Much of my research is drawn from period newspapers, which document well Rous’ presentations of “What

Next in Music?” These accounts not only establish a timeline of her touring, but also record reception, programs, and even the content of her lecture. Music periodicals such as Musical

27 Horowitz, Classical Music in America, 436.

28 Christopher Chowrimootoo, “Copland’s Styles: Musical Modernism, Middlebrow Culture, and the Appreciation of New Music,” Journal of Musicology 37, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 518–559. 19

America and The Musical Monitor often include advertisements for the lecture recital, as well as reviews from respected music critics of the era.

This research was largely conducted from 2020 to 2021, meaning that significant challenges were posed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief among these was the nationwide closure of archives and restrictions upon travel. Were it not for such constraints, my research would have utilized more archival materials, including the folder on Rous housed in the Rollins

College Archives,29 the folders30 and box31 on Rous included in the special collections of New

York University, as well as other collections that include various materials on her.32 I was able to access the digitized archival materials relating to Rous from the New York Philharmonic

Archives as well as the Chautauqua Institution Archives, and both are utilized in this study.

However, their applicability to “What Next in Music?” is limited, as Rous’ affiliations with both institutions postdate the conclusion of her touring with the lecture recital.

The organization of this thesis is based upon the historical chronology of “What Next in

Music?” Various accounts highlight the significance of two specific presentations of the lecture recital that bookend its run, one in 1919 and one in 1924. One such account is an excerpt of a

29 Folder 3, “Rous, Marion Charles” [1885–present], Box: 288, Folder: 3. Faculty Files of Rollins College, Faculty. Rollins College Archives & Special Collections, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL.

30 Folder 66, “Rous, Marion” [1921–1938], Box: 48, Folder: 66; Folder 67, “Rous, Marion — Radio Address, ‘What We are Trying to Do’” [1931], Box: 48, Folder: 67; Folder 68, “Rous, Marion — Symphonic Seminars” [1935–1941], Box: 48, Folder: 68, Greenwich House Records TAM.139, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive, New York University, New York, NY.

31 Box 124, “Greenwich House Music School — Scrapbook, Marion Rous” [1924–1967], Box: 124, Folder: none, Greenwich House Records TAM.139, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive, New York University, New York, NY.

32 See “Press Book 1931-1932” [1931–1932], Box: 5, Folder: 7, Jacksonville Historical Society Archives, St. Luke’s Hospital, Jacksonville, FL; See also the three boxes from the Papers of John Powell: “Correspondence, September–October 1931” [1931], Box: 6, Folder: 4; “Correspondence, March 1937” [1937], Box: 13, Folder: 3; “Correspondence, January–February 1940” [1940], Box: 15, Folder: 8, Papers of John Powell, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, VA. 20

1958 Carnegie Hall program housed in the New York Philharmonic Archives, which states that

“as a concert pianist, Marion Rous made a successful national debut in 1919 before a Biennial

Convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs, playing a pioneer program of 20th century compositions, entitled ‘What Next in Music?’ This occasion and her New York debut in

1924 in old Aeolian Hall, led to numerous recital tours throughout the United States.”33 Other accounts note that the 1919 NFMC Convention inaugurated a period of nationwide touring with the lecture recital, and that (in opposition to the program cited above) the 1924 New York debut served as “the culmination rather than the initiation of a reputation as concert artist throughout the country.”34

This thesis is built around these two presentations of “What Next in Music?,” Rous’ national debut in 1919 and her New York debut in 1924. Chapter 1 concerns itself with the early manifestations of “What Next in Music?,” tracing its growth through to the defining 1919 NFMC

Convention. Chapter 2 focuses upon the years of nationwide touring that were a direct result of

Rous’ national debut, up until the tour’s abrupt halt in 1922 due to personal tragedy. Chapter 3 begins with the resumption of Rous’ touring, leading to her 1924 New York debut at Aeolian

Hall and concluding with the final appearances of the lecture recital. All chapters will study elements which link Rous and “What Next in Music?” to the broader cultural movements of modernism and music appreciation.

33 “About the Hall,” reprinted in 1958 Carnegie Hall program, document ID 008-03-05, p. 130, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.

34 E[thel] R[oughton] W[ortham], “Miss Rous to Visit in Corsicana,” Corsicana Daily Sun, March 10, 1926, 4. This assessment is repeated in “Marion Rous in Recital Tonight: Will Present Lecture-Concert on ‘What Next in Music?’ at Chapin Hall at 8.15 O’clock,” North Adams Transcript, March 8, 1927, 9. 21

CHAPTER 1: ORIGINS OF “WHAT NEXT IN MUSIC?” TO THE 1919 BIENNIAL CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF MUSIC CLUBS

By the time Marion Rous first presented “What Next in Music?” in January of 1916, her audience was, so to speak, already awaiting her arrival. The modernist music of Schoenberg had been in the United States for just over two years.35 Leo Ornstein had performed “well-nigh the concert success of the season”36 literally days before at Aeolian Hall in New York, and was fast approaching his peak as a touring concert pianist in the United States. American audiences, eager to keep up with European trends, were providing an open reception to modernist repertoire in order to establish a sense of cultural intellectualism.37 Also, the music appreciation movement was gaining momentum in America, and music appreciation courses were already being added to university curriculums.

This musical climate was ideal for the entrance of Marion Rous and “What Next in

Music?” Born June 13, 1881 in Baltimore to a family “musical through and through,”38 Rous was educated in the Bryn Mawr School of Baltimore, a private, all-girls college-preparatory school founded in 1885. That she was musically talented from an early age is evident, as by the

35 This timeline is based upon the widespread notion that Schoenberg’s compositional output did not cross the Atlantic until 1913; see as an example David Metzer, “The New York Reception of ‘Pierrot Lunaire’: The 1923 Premiere and Its Aftermath,” The Musical Quarterly 78, no. 4 (1994): 671. I am careful to say “modernist music” specifically as I am currently conducting a study that demonstrates that Schoenberg’s early music was heard in the United States far earlier than was previously thought.

36 Frederick Herman Martens, Leo Ornstein, the Man—His Ideas—His Work (New York: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1918), 29.

37 Sarah Elaine Neill, “The Modernist Kaleidoscope: Schoenberg’s Reception History in England, America, Germany and Austria 1908–1924” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2014), 146.

38 George Pullen Jackson, “Southern Musicians,” Sunday Times, Chattanooga, Tennessee, October 28, 1923, 7. It should be mentioned that I do not know Jackson’s source for this information, but his biographical information on Rous is otherwise accurate. A collection of familial legends, possibly apocryphal, regarding the musicality of Rous’ family are included in “Musical Talent Ascribed to Ancestors by Pianist Booked for Lecture- Recital,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 9, 1930, sec. 3, p. 5.

age of fourteen she was already performing publicly as a piano student of Harold Randolph of the Peabody Institute.39 After graduating from high school she enrolled at Peabody, where she studied under Randolph, Ernest Hutcheson, and Otis B. Boise. Rous earned her Teacher’s

Certificate in Piano in 1902 and her Diploma in Piano in 1904.40

It was likely around this time that Rous first gained exposure to modernism. From 1905 to 1906 Rous studied in Munich with Liszt students Sophie Menter and Bernhard Stavenhagen,41 the latter of whom was a prominent advocate of modern music. It is not unreasonable to assume that Rous secured this opportunity through her teacher Ernest Hutcheson, who himself studied with Stavenhagen in Leipzig. While in Germany she must have had access to repertoire not yet heard in her home country, including perhaps the music of Arnold Schoenberg, who was to become central to Rous’ programs.42 Though her concert programs back in the U.S. would not immediately reflect this influence, Rous would come to advocate for modern European piano music, in particular through her lecture recital “What Next in Music?”

The first appearances of “What Next in Music?” date from when Rous was serving as a faculty member of the Peabody Institute, where she taught upon her return from studying in

Europe. She left the Institute in 1917 and began teaching at Rollins College, a co-educational

39 See as examples of press notices “Das Zweite Recital...,” Deutsche Correspondent, Baltimore, MA, February 14, 1896, 1, and “Peabody Concerts: Enjoyable Performances by Alumni and Pupils of Harold Randolph,” Baltimore Sun, March 18, 1897.

40 “Peabody Alumni; Holders of the Diploma and of the Teachers Certificate,” Conservatory Bulletin of the Peabody Institute 2, issue 3 (January 1906): 3.

41 Duo-Art Piano Music: A Classified Catalog of Interpretations of the World's Best Music Recorded by More Than Two Hundred and Fifty Pianists for the Duo-Art Reproducing Piano (United Kingdom: Aeolian Company, 1927), 365.

42 Stavenhagen conducted premieres of Schoenberg’s compositions while working at the Geneva Conservatory. It is not outside of the realm of possibility that he introduced Rous to the music of the Austrian composer, whose mature music would not find an American audience until October of 1913.

private university in Winter Park, Florida. Upon resigning her position in 1922, Rous relocated to New York, teaching and lecturing at New York University, Columbia University, and the

Juilliard School. Rous also held extended tenures at the Greenwich House Music School as director, and as a lecturer at the Chautauqua Institute and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Illness forced her retirement in 1961, and she moved westward first to Arizona and ultimately to

California, where she died in 1967.

“What Next in Music?”: An Overview

While Rous’ lecture recital “What Next in Music?” evolved greatly over the years in terms of repertoire, reviews indicate that it remained relatively consistent in terms of presentation and content. In terms of programming, a 1924 article in The Indianapolis Star noted that the program of “What Next in Music?” was “replenished each season with important novelties,”43 apparently to keep abreast of the latest musical trends. Otherwise, Rous seems to have made no significant changes to the formal organization of the lecture recital throughout the many years of presenting it.

“What Next in Music?” was a lecture recital of modern piano repertoire. Originally all of the composers featured were European; over time, Rous added the music of the Australian Percy

Grainger and eventually a selection of American composers as well. Rous is noted to have

“arranged the program skillfully to handle the exotic dissonances of the radical moderns first and gradually lead to more melodious works.”44 She would begin with a spoken introduction, and in

43 “Marion Rous, Nov. 14,” Indianapolis Star, October 5, 1924, 15.

44 Unnamed writer for The Jacksonville Times-Union, quoted in “‘Lovely Young Southerner’—Brilliant Mastery of the Piano Are Enthusiastic Comments of Press Concerning Miss Rous,” Rollins Sandspur, March 13, 1920, 1 and 6.

what at least one account would term a “warning,”45 would endeavor to prepare her audiences for the foreign sounds that they were about to hear:

“In order to appreciate the new music,” Miss Rous said, “we must forswear all we have hitherto held dear before we can put ourselves into a sympathetic attitude towards it. As an ardent admirer says of Schoenberg, the composer — ‘the entire man in you must be made over, before you can divine Schoenberg’s art’; and yet there is a great deal of truth to be found in modern music.”46

This technique of quoting the musical viewpoints of others rather than presenting her own was a recurring strategy of Rous. It was critical to maintaining an aura of impartiality and objectivity, one that was noted by many reviewers and likely responsible in large part for her overwhelmingly positive reception despite the divisiveness of her chosen repertoire.

Rous would then provide a brief sketch of post-tonal theory and its origins, an element of

“active listening” highly indicative of the music appreciation movement:

She explained to her audience what would happen to a piano if the scientific scale were submitted for Bach’s well tempered arrangement and subsequently made a pleasant excursion into the realm of harmony, exalting Arnold Schoenberg as the master who had taught us that any two tones might be sounded simultaneously. In the modernistic music, she said, “all tones are free and equal.”47

Rous’ introduction did not limit itself to music alone; rather, it highlighted modernist trends in the other arts as well. In addition to quoting Cyril Scott’s Philosophy of Modernism,

“Rous cleverly prefaced her program by quoting Gertrude Stein, that high-priestess of free verse, thus making her audience realise that literature, as well as music and the plastic arts, is doing

45 “Lecture Recital Given by Pianist: Marion Rous Talks on ‘What Next in Music?’ Playing Varied Program,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), February 3, 1925, 4.

46 “Futuristic Music Theme of Miss Rous’ Recital; Large Audience Greets Charming Musician at Country Club; Held at Winter Park Country Club Under Auspices of Rollins Conservatory,” Rollins Sandspur, January 24, 1920, 1 and 6.

47 W. J. Henderson, “Miss Marion Rous, A Pianist from Baltimore,” New York Herald, January 12, 1924, included in Dramatic and Musical Criticisms (Scrapbook), 1923–1924. Special Collections and Archives, Boston Public Library, Boston, MA.

strange and wonderful things.”48 We know from a later account49 that the Stein poem quoted by

Rous was from Tender Buttons; it is impossible to say whether Rous would have been aware of the lesbian eroticism behind its imagery and title.50

The remainder of the format of Rous’ lecture is excellently recorded by J. R. McCoy, writing for The Montgomery Advertiser:

The artist, following [this] brief introductory talk, prefaced the first and succeeding numbers of her program with a short explanation of the inspiration and purpose of the composer of each, also criticism pro and con that each composer has drawn. The audience was left singly and collectively, to the formation of its own judgment. The quoted remarks of the critic were sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, but always interesting, entertaining and instructive.51

As for her viewpoints, Rous’ persona and message possessed the curious quality of almost infinite malleability by her reviewers. Critics tended to create Rous in their own image.

She was both a Southerner and a New Yorker,52 a pianist both daintily delicate and powerfully violent. Different reviews of the same lecture recital — even the same performance — cite her as being an uncompromising advocate for modernism, a completely impartial observer of musical trends, and a traditionalist who mocks musical progressivism.

Perhaps herein lies the secret to Rous’ popularity. She was continuously adapting her material and presented it from a standpoint that was detached enough that audiences could draw

48 “‘What Next in Music’; Brilliant Lecture Recital—Fourth in Music Appreciation Course—Reaches High-Water Mark—Miss Marion Rous Talks on Modern Music,” Rollins Sandspur, February 16, 1918, 1.

49 Harvey Gaul in Musical America, quoted in “Marion Rous Wins Praise of Critic,” Winter Park Post, December 2, 1920, 1.

50 For an interesting study of the sensuality of this collection, see Rebecca Scherr, “Tactile Erotics: Gertrude Stein and the Aesthetics of Touch,” Literature, Interpretation, Theory 18, no. 3 (2007): 193–212.

51 J. R. McCoy, “Modernist Music Delights Audience; Miss Rous Pleases Montgomerians in Novel Recital Wednesday Night,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 8, 1926, 2.

52 Rous was born in Baltimore, Maryland, taught for several years in Winter Park, Florida, and eventually relocated to New York. She died in 1967 in Valley Village, California.

their own conclusions as to where her own loyalties lay. When Mark Harris reviewed her in 1927 in what was one of the very last performances of “What Next in Music?,” he noted that “Miss

Rous came as a missionary and her audience, the critic included, was certainly the heathen”; however, with subtlety and suggestion rather than conversion by the sword, “Miss Rous was a pleasing missionary.”53

“What Next in Music?” at the Peabody Institute

Early documentation of “What Next in Music?” primarily exists starting in 1918, but the very first appearances of the lecture recital seem to have been in 1916, when Rous was a faculty member of the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, her alma mater. The Baltimore Sun includes a notice for the presentation by the then 35-year-old Rous in January:

“What Next in Music?” will be the topic of the lecture recitals of the Peabody Preparatory Department appreciation meeting next Tuesday at 4.15 P.M., and Friday at 8.15 P.M. An answer to the significant question will be sought in a consideration of the tendencies of some of the eminent apostles of futurism54 in music, including Arnold Schoenberg, Leo Ornstein, Debussy and Ravel. The lecturer and pianist will be Miss Marion Rous.55

The Sun goes on to list the program as follows: “Ornstein, ‘The Cathedral;’ Sinding,56

‘Serenade;’ Schoenberg, piano piece from Opus II [sic]; Ravel, ‘The Gibbet;’ Debussy, ‘Evening

53 Mark Harris, “Miss Rous Praised; Has Favorable Comment of Critic on Her Exposition,” Williams Record, March 12, 1927, 1.

54 It is worth mentioning that the labeling of the above composers as “apostles of futurism” should not be taken too literally, for the term “futurism” was applied liberally to any forward-looking art throughout the 1910s. See Carol J. Oja, Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000), 13. Later reviews allow for a somewhat greater degree of specificity, viewing futurism as being at least distinct from impressionism. See as perhaps the first example of this distinction being made with regard to “What Next in Music?,” “Program Meeting at Music Study Club,” Atlanta Constitution, October 12, 1919, 1.

55 “In and About Town; ‘What Next in Music?,’” Baltimore Sun, January 23, 1916, 14.

56 Accounts are in disagreement as to the second piece on the program. The Sun lists it as [Christian] Sinding’s Serenade, presumably op. 33 no. 4 This is corroborated in “Chord and String Club Lecture,” Washington 27

in Granada;’ Palmgren, ‘The Isle of Shadows’ and ‘The Swan;’ Dohnanyi, Rhapsodie in G

Minor.”57 The errors found in this notice (such as mistaking the Arabic numeral 11 for the

Roman numeral II) perhaps indicate the novelty and unfamiliarity of this program to the

Baltimore journalists.

Rous’ involvement in this meeting is explained by the fact that she was at this time a member of the Peabody Preparatory Department, teaching sight-reading and piano. Rous seems to have specialized in the education of young or beginning musicians, as the position that she would later hold at the Juilliard School would be as a piano instructor in the Pre-college division.58 The attendees of this meeting would have been largely musically educated, including faculty and students of the Peabody Institute. As will be demonstrated later, Rous would tend to present this lecture to musical organizations of diverse proficiency levels and backgrounds, and would increasingly focus upon the musical layperson rather than the musically educated.

In programming her lecture recital, Rous seems to have made a conscious effort to represent modernist composers of various European countries, including Schoenberg (Austria),

Ravel and Debussy (France), Palmgren (Finland), and Dohnányi (Hungary). Because of a longstanding bias toward European music, a heavy focus on music from most non-European countries (including the United States) would have been unexpected at the turn of the century.

Post, April 9, 1916, 4. However, at least two later accounts refer to the first three pieces as all being composed by Ornstein: The Cathedral, Singing, and Serenade (presumably S050, op. 5, no. 1). See “Miss Marion Rous Talks on Modern Music,” Orlando Sentinel, February 10, 1918, 5, and “‘What Next in Music’; Brilliant Lecture Recital,” 1. Clearly one of these positions results from a misspelling, and to me it seems likely that the later accounts are in error. Not only have I not been able to locate a piece by the name of Singing in Ornstein’s output, but the only Serenade that I have located is S050, which would not be published until 1918, two years after these programs were played by Rous.

57 “In and About Town,” 14.

58 Andrew Thomas and Robert Ross, “A Brief History of a Long-Standing Program; Celebrating Pre- College,” Juilliard Journal (October 2018): retrieved from https://www.juilliard.edu/news/136326/brief-history- long-standing-program-celebrating-pre-college.

Though Ornstein did emigrate to the United States at the age of fifteen to avoid antisemitic persecution, he was born in the Ukrainian town of Kremenchuk, then under Imperial Russian rule. At the time that Rous programmed his works in 1916 (and indeed for most of his active career), he was viewed in America as being international rather than domestic, and as Jewish rather than American.59

The Washington Post reports that Rous repeated the lecture recital in April of the same year for a local music club: “A very interesting and instructive lecture was given under the direction of the Chord and String Club in the assembly hall of the Young Men’s Christian

Assembly Association, on Saturday evening, by Miss Marion Rous. The subject was ‘What Next in Music,’ and to illustrate it, Miss Rous played compositions by Ornstein, Sinding, Schoenberg,

Ravel, Dubussey [sic], Palmgren and Dolmanyi [sic].”60 The list of composers (and likely by extension the repertoire) programmed is the same as that of the January lecture earlier that year.

This lecture introduces the institution upon which Rous would exert her efforts for the next several years: the music club. Music clubs of this period were voluntary associations of professional and amateur musicians, as well as musical enthusiasts.61 The leadership of music clubs in the early twentieth century was primarily female, and they were closely associated with women’s clubs, an organization that Rous would later refer to as “that most progressive of institutions.”62 By sponsoring performances and promoting American music, music clubs played

59 Oja, Making Music Modern, 14.

60 “Chord and String Club Lecture,” Washington Post, April 09, 1916, 4.

61 Linda Whitesitt, “Clubs, music,” Grove Music Online, May 28, 2015, accessed May 19, 2021. https://www-oxfordmusiconline- com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630- e-1002282398.

62 Marion Rous, “Camels and Cranes,” Musical Monitor 8, no. 4 (November 1918): 190.

a significant role in shaping the musical tastes of their communities, professionalizing the business acuity of their members, and defining the public role of women in music.63

Women’s clubs, music clubs, and music appreciation were all entangled in a dense interconnected web of gender roles, censorship, and moralization. In the early decades of twentieth-century America, the public societal role of women was expected to be matronly in nature; Chybowski traces this trend back to the temperance movement, where women were instrumental in organizing their efforts to improve perceived cultural morality.64 Contemporary to Rous, Fern Blanco wrote of a similar moralizing effort on behalf of women’s clubs in music.65

Women and women’s clubs were seen as the almost inevitable vehicles of music appreciation due to their expected roles as motherly moral tutors, as the music appreciation movement was heavily steeped in concepts of morality and cultural elevation.66

Much of the scholarly literature referencing music clubs has presented them in a somewhat negative light, a notable example to the contrary being the sympathetic portrayal given by Rebecca Sayles.67 Indeed such negative viewpoints have existed for as long as music clubs have, and music critics of the period would often criticize them along elitist and gendered lines.68

However, Linda Whitesitt has noted how music clubs provided a space for women to engage

63 Whitesitt, “Clubs, music.”

64 Julia J. Chybowski, “Developing American Taste: A Cultural History of the Early Twentieth-Century Music Appreciation Movement” (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2008), 46.

65 Fern Blanco, “Americanization, Women's Clubs and Music,” The Etude 8, no. 38 (August 1920): 524.

66 For more on the musical roles of women’s clubs see Gavin James Campbell, “Classical Music and the Politics of Gender in America, 1900–1925,” American Music 21, no. 4 (2003): 446–473.

67 Rebecca A. Sayles, “From Women's Clubs to Meetups: Social Influences on Amateur Music Making in America,” The American Music Teacher 69, no. 2 (2019): 34–39.

68 See as an example William Armstrong, “The Intellectual Side of Music in Amateur Clubs,” The Etude 18, no. 7 (January 1900): 27.

with music, and as such they became the accepted venue of female musical activity.69 If women from the late 1800s to the early 1900s had musical inclinations, music clubs were the most socially acceptable environments for them to pursue their interests. Rous would devote much of her efforts to music clubs in the coming years, and they would ultimately put her on the national stage with her presentation of “What Next in Music?” at the National Confederation of Music

Clubs Biennial Convention in July of 1919.

“What Next in Music?” at Rollins College

“What Next in Music?” seems to not have been repeated again until 1918, when Rous was a faculty member of the Music Conservatory of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.70

The conservatory was offering a course in music appreciation that was open to the public, and

Rous presented two lecture recitals as part of it; the first was entitled simply “Bach,” and the second “What Next in Music?”71 A February issue of The Rollins Sandspur, a student-run newspaper that documented Rous’ activity well during her tenure at the Conservatory, includes the following review of her lecture:

That it is a far cry from Bach to De Bussy will be understood by all musicians, and it is an evidence of Miss Rous’ great versatility that she handled both subjects with equal skill. Those who heard her lecture on Bach, recognized her ability to infuse life into an unusually pedantic topic, making the purely classic a theme pregnant with interest, but these same people were quite swept off their feet by her vivid and electrical presentation of the extreme modernists.72

69 Linda Whitesitt, “The Role of Women Impresarios in American Concert Life, 1871–1933,” American Music 7, no. 2 (1989): 161.

70 Rous left the Peabody Conservatory in 1917 when the position of director of the piano department of Rollins College became available.

71 “Talk on Modern Music,” Orlando Sentinel, February 6, 1918, 7.

72 “‘What Next in Music’; Brilliant Lecture Recital…,” 1.

Included in the article is a reprint of a review from The Orlando Sentinel:

A most ambitious subject was splendidly handled by Miss Marion Rous in the fourth of the Music Appreciation Course, at Rollins College, Thursday afternoon, before an audience which listened with breathless attention to the listener. Bon mots, flashes of veriest wit, together with an insight uncommonly strong, made the literary side a rare delight, while the musical program not only illustrated to perfection all the points dwelt upon, but served to display the splendid artistry of Miss Rous as a pianist. Many present who were familiar with similar courses in the famous colleges of the North, declared Miss Rous’ work equal to anything they had ever heard along those lines.73

These reviews present for the first time information that will become commonplace in future reviews of “What Next in Music?”: Rous’ command of language, her wit, her pianistic abilities, and the quoting of modernist literature (in this case Gertrude Stein). A review of the

Conservatory’s events published later that year in the Sandspur makes reference of both the Bach recital and “What Next in Music?,” and remarked that the music appreciation course as a whole

“proved exceedingly popular, and the various lectures drew large audiences not only from

Winter Park but from the surrounding towns.”74

A February 11 article in The Tampa Morning Tribune confirms that the recital was well- attended by Conservatory students, and adds that “Miss Rous, as usual, ably illustrated her lecture with selections which greatly assisted, as they were exquisitely rendered, in the elucidation of the subject.”75 A few days later, the Tampa Times published a slightly longer review, and went further: “Miss Rous’ thorough musicianship, pianistic ability, and intellectual grasp of her art were never more clearly demonstrated than on this occasion and these things

73 “Miss Marion Rous Talks on Modern Music,” Orlando Sentinel, February 10, 1918, 5. Quoted in “‘What Next in Music’; Brilliant Lecture Recital…,” 1.

74 “The Year in the Conservatory,” Rollins Sandspur, June 8, 1918, 4.

75 “Rollins College,” Tampa Morning Tribune, February 11, 1918, 8.

together with her wit and charm of manner ought to place her before long in the front rank of lecturers on musical subjects.”76

Marion Rous and the Music Appreciation Movement

Though Rous would not repeat “What Next in Music?” until almost a year later, the issues of modernism and audience education were never far from her mind. As can be seen from the course that she taught at Rollins, she increasingly associated herself with the music appreciation movement as a means of achieving her goals.

As I explained in the Introduction, the music appreciation movement began in the realm of education. Rebecca Rinsema has suggested that the movement took shape when nineteenth- century music critics “legitimised the role of the listener,”77 or, in other words, when audiences were understood to play an active rather than passive role in the reception of music. This phenomenon has been termed “active listening,” and it is perhaps the backbone of music appreciation. Levine views the movement as emphasizing the binary between “highbrow”

Western art music and “lowbrow” popular or contemporary music.78 Chybowski has focused

76 “Rollins College,” Tampa Times, February 16, 1918, 16. See also “Rollins College,” Tampa Morning Tribune, February 18, 1918, 8.

77 Rebecca M. Rinsema, “De-sacralizing the European: Music Appreciation (Then) and Music Listening (Now),” Music Education Research 20, no. 4 (2018): 480–489.

78 See as examples Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988) and Lawrence Levine, “Jazz and American Culture,” in The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 172–188.

largely upon the abstract concept of “taste,” the imposition of aesthetic absolutes related to

Levine’s concept of sacralization.79

More concretely and less theoretically, the music appreciation movement evidenced a number of identifying fingerprints. It was grounded in the tradition of so-called “great music,” a tradition that was essentially based upon race, class, gender, and seniority. Like music clubs, the goal of music appreciation was largely moralizing, an intended “elevation” of taste and culture throughout communities. This moralizing influence was linked to a strong sense of American nationalism, and in large part the music appreciation movement can be seen as an attempt to establish a national musical identity that could contend with that of Europe. The various means to these ends included listening guides, school curricula, lecture recitals, and radio broadcasts.

Rous adopted many of these beliefs, especially in her later career. In May of 1952, she served as the principal speaker at a dinner meeting for the 27th annual convention of the

Maryland Federation of Music Clubs at the Francis Scott Key Hotel. Rous, herself the NFMC national chairperson of audience education, presented the organization’s plan for better educating concertgoing audiences, which would include the radio broadcasting of musical current events, scholarships for young artists, and stimulation of musical interest amongst communities as a whole. The May 6 issue of The Semi-Weekly News quotes her at great length, and Rous references many of the basic doctrines of the music appreciation movement, such as active analytical listening and the abstract concept of “great music”:

Ears-to-hear and understand do not come ready made…. Are our ears keeping pace with these opportunities for listening? Ears must practice their technique, just like fingers and voices. And we need too many different kinds of ears, unless we are content to remain as listeners, largely passive, more-dead-than-alive.

79 See as examples Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” and Julia J. Chybowski, “Selling Musical Taste in Early Twentieth-Century America: Frances E. Clark and the Business of Music Appreciation,” Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 38, no. 2 (2017): 104.

Great music presents so many aspects[;] every aspect requires a specific type of ear — an ear for tone color or an ear for melodic line, an ear for the code of rhythms, for tonality changes, for the eloquence of dissonance: another ear for motto-themes, and their elusive behavior — yet another for the composer’s own personal idiom. I could enumerate many more.

Audience education is a new project for developing all of these ears, a project for every music club.80

While such lectures of Rous’ later career embody the ideals of the music appreciation movement clearly (such as her “Philharmonic Forecasts” for the New York Philharmonic

Orchestra, a close parallel to the Thursday Evening Previews of Leonard Bernstein), “What Next in Music?” does not rest so easily within this framework. A fundamental assumption of the music appreciation movement was the supremacy of tradition, norms, and precedent. It attempted to define a classical canon that was canonical by virtue of it being classical. What

Rous did with “What Next in Music?” was to utilize the techniques and ideologies of the music appreciation movement to advance the cause of modernism in the United States. In doing so she subverted one of the primary assumptions of the movement — that classical music was superior to other types of music simply by nature of its seniority. Within this dichotomy rests much of her significance, and perhaps much of her popularity as well.

This intersection of modernism and music appreciation was still atypical in 1939 when

Aaron Copland published his What to Listen for in Music, which used music appreciation methodologies such as active listening utilized towards the reception of modern repertoire.

Joseph Horowitz saw this reconciliation to be incompatible and maintained that Copland’s focus on modernism was an “intended antidote to music appreciation” rather than a synthesis of two

80 Marion Rous, quoted in “Presents NFMC Audience Plan; Mucis [sic] Clubs Speaker Says Great Music Offers Many Aspects,” Semi-Weekly News, May 6, 1952.

seemingly disparate musical ideologies.81 Leonard Bernstein, however, would come to do much the same in some of his Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, perhaps most notably introducing his quizzical audience to the new Moog Synthesizer in 1969. It is worth considering to what extent these musicians were familiar with Rous, as Copland and she both lived in the West Side of Manhattan from 1925 to 195582 and were each active in the

League of Composers,83 and Rous would come to work as a lecturer for the New York

Philharmonic from 1951 until 1961; Bernstein began as Music Director in 1957.84

Horowitz is not incorrect, however, in arguing that there was a divide between modernism and music appreciation. Part of the reason for such a divide lies in the fact that advocates of music appreciation were not particularly interested in modernism. As stated above, music appreciation sought to establish a canon of “classics” or “masterworks,” terms which, however subjective to the modern ear, were considered quite objective throughout the first half of the century. This canon of “classics” consisted almost solely of nineteenth-century symphonic works.85 Virgil Thomson viewed the narrow programming of the “appreciation-racket” as being

81 Joseph Horowitz, Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005), 436.

82 These dates are specifically those of Copland’s residence, as Rous relocated to Greenwich Village in 1922 and remained until c. 1961.

83 For Rous’ involvement with the League, see “Modern Art Seizes Stage At Societe Anonyme Show: Brooklyn Museum Exhibition Includes Newest Trends in Painting and Sculpture,” Brooklyn Times Union, November 20, 1926, 51. See also David Metzer, “The League of Composers: The Initial Years,” American Music 15, no. 1 (1997): 69, and David Joel Metzer, “The Ascendancy of Musical Modernism in New York City, 1915– 1929” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1993), 381.

84 For details as to Rous’ “Philharmonic Forecasts,” see the substantial holdings of the New York Philharmonic Archives, including but not limited to Marion Rous, lectures, 1951–1961, folder ID 004-13-15, pp. 1– 21, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.

85 Christopher Chowrimootoo, “Copland’s Styles: Musical Modernism, Middlebrow Culture, and the Appreciation of New Music,” Journal of Musicology 37, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 524. It is worth mentioning that Chowrimootoo posits a dual nature of music appreciation programming, with one side focusing on nineteenth- century symphonic works and another embracing sprawling catholicity. See Chowrimootoo, 527. However, Chowrimootoo is referring to Damrosch’s Music Appreciation Hour, which was not first aired until 1928. My 36

commercially-driven, and believed (not without a healthy dose of paranoia) that music appreciation was an attempt to standardize the concert repertory to the exclusion of modernism altogether.86

This leads to the second primary reason for the divide between modernism and music appreciation, the negative attitude of modernists themselves towards the movement. In his characteristically colorful manner, Christopher Chowrimootoo refers to music appreciation as being “a focus for modernist ire.”87 As quoted above, Virgil Thomson criticized the movement heavily in his 1939 The State of Music. Theodor Adorno seems to have shared Thomson’s concerns, and wrote of music appreciation’s “promotional bias” against modern repertoire.88

Arnold Schoenberg himself, central to the program of “What Next in Music?,” denounced the

“ready-made judgements, wrong and superficial ideas about music, musicians, and aesthetics” of music appreciation.89

The reason for modernists’ criticisms of music appreciation extended beyond the surface- level questions of programming, and deeper ideological clashes were at play. Chowrimootoo has astutely noted how:

for modernists, [music appreciation’s] abstract preoccupation with biography, genre, and style missed great music’s essence: the innovations, transgressions, and idiosyncrasies through which composers upended conventional forms…. Acolytes saw modernism’s

research has not witnessed a widespread inclusion of modernism in music appreciation prior to Marion Rous and “What Next in Music?”

86 Virgil Thomson, The State of Music (New York: William Morrow, 1939), 123.

87 Chowrimootoo, “Copland’s Styles,” 523.

88 Theodor W. Adorno, “Analytical Study of the NBC Music Appreciation Hour,” in Current of Music: Elements of a Radio Theory, ed. Robert Hullot-Kentor (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), 166.

89 Arnold Schoenberg, “New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea” (1946), in Style and Idea, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 114.

significance in its ostensible capacity to model individuality, freedom, and subjectivity to audiences.90

However, Rous’ approach to music appreciation was in direct opposition to this assessment. The entire purpose of “What Next in Music?” was to examine the unconventional, experimental fingerprints of modernist repertoire, giving focus to precisely the “innovations, transgressions, and idiosyncrasies” that other music appreciators reportedly neglected. Such analysis often had a strongly formal component, and Rous’ lectures seemed to have altogether lacked the middlebrow concentration on style, genre, and biography that exasperated modernist elites.

Another modernist criticism of music appreciation was its supposed imposition of preordained aesthetic absolutes, which frustrated modernism’s goal of individuality and innovation. Modernists such as Thomson91 and Adorno92 claimed that in attempting to establish a canon of masterworks, music appreciation was denying audiences the right to independence of thought and freedom of artistic expression. In this too Rous sided with modernist ideology over that of music appreciation, prioritizing an objective and impartial approach that left audiences with the freedom to formulate their own aesthetic judgments. Contemporary accounts cite Rous as being “neither for nor against the type of music she plays. She merely presents it to the audience.” 93 Similar accounts maintain that Rous “quoted impartially from destructive as well as

90 Chowrimootoo, “Copland’s Styles,” 525.

91 Thomson, State of Music, 85.

92 Adorno, “Analytical Study,” 212.

93 “Marion Rous—Tomorrow,” Sunday Star (Washington, D. C.), February 1, 1925, pt. 3, p. 5.

constructive criticism… leaving her hearers to arrive absolutely at their own conclusions”94 and that “the audience was left singly and collectively, to the formation of its own judgment.”95

This attempt at objectivity and distance would be adopted by later modernists experimenting with music appreciation, perhaps most notably Aaron Copland. Chowrimootoo has compiled an impressive list of “disclaimers” by Copland regarding his supposed impartiality towards modernism found throughout his music appreciation lectures and books.96 He argues that in the case of Copland, such claims were a response to the criticisms of the imposition of aesthetic values leveled by Thomson and others against music appreciation. Such criticisms were unlikely to have influenced Rous however, as they date from the 1930s and thus after the conclusion of “What Next in Music?”

In November of 1918, with “What Next in Music?” temporarily on hold, Rous sought to advance this paradoxical cause on the printed page. The November 1918 issue of The Musical

Monitor published an article by Rous entitled “Camels and Cranes,” the title a reference to two proverbs that serve as an analogy of frustrated concertgoers and oblivious performers. In this article, Marion Rous directly addresses the music appreciation movement and its goal of audience education. The ideology of modernism is also not far distant:

“Many a camel travels to Mecca — but does that make a pilgrim of him?” says an Arabian proverb.

Likewise many a person buys a costly seat for a concert, sits through the performance with dazed ears and a groping mind, and goes home with the forlorn sense of having been an “outsider.”

94 Marguerite Bartholomew, “Hearing Music in New York: Miss Rous Lectures at Aeolian Hall,” Atlanta Constitution, Jan 20, 1924, 40.

95 J. R. McCoy, “Modernist Music Delights Audience; Miss Rous Pleases Montgomerians in Novel Recital Wednesday Night,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 8, 1926, 2.

96 See Chowrimootoo, “Copland’s Styles,” 529–531. 39

How he wishes they would rent microphones at the door (as they do opera-glasses), or some form of highly sensitized ear-tab that would mercifully remedy his dull hearing!97

It is difficult to read this passage without seeing a reference to the avant-garde, the “dazed ears and a groping mind” of the listener suggesting a bewildered reaction to the musically irregular or unfamiliar. Rous goes on to place blame upon the performers, who do not present listeners with the information needed to understand the cerebral or aurally foreign:

On the other hand, the musician himself has been largely responsible for the benighted state of his listeners. In his conventional manner of concert giving, he is often too much like the crane who pretended to set a repast before his guest, the fox — but served it in vessels so tall and narrow of neck that the food was accessible only to his own long bill. The fox went home hungry — and so do many concert-goers.98

The solution, Rous suggests, lies through the means of audience education, specifically through music appreciation lecture recitals. She remains optimistic on the part of both confused listeners and incognizant performers:

Nowadays, however, the “Music Appreciation” lecture-recital is changing all this. The musician is becoming more hospitable — and the listener more receptive. Thanks to the ever-increasing number of colleges, conservatories and schools that have added Music Appreciation courses to their curricula, and thanks also to the support given to the movement by that most progressive of institutions, the Woman’s Club, the number of “camels” and “cranes” in the musical world is fast diminishing.

In the fullness of time may they even become extinct!99

With this article, Rous set out what would become the objective of the remainder of her career: the advancement of audience education through music appreciation lectures. “What Next in

Music?” would remain her primary means of working towards that objective for the next five years.

97 Marion Rous, “Camels and Cranes,” Musical Monitor 8, no. 4 (November 1918): 190.

98 Ibid.

99 Ibid.

The Florida State Federation of Music Clubs and Susan Dyer

Following the 1918 Rollins College music appreciation course, my research suggests that

Rous did not repeat “What Next in Music?” and its resulting success until January of 1919.

Doubtless influenced by her success of the previous year, Rous began a statewide tour of Florida with this lecture recital. The first lecture of the tour seems to have been at the first annual meeting of the Florida State Federation of Music Clubs, of which “the second day’s activities included a lecture recital by Marion Rons [sic] of the Rollins Conservatory on the subject of

‘What Next in Music?’”100

Present at this convention was modernist composer Susan Hart Dyer, who was already and would remain the single greatest influence upon Rous’ early life. Dyer began her tenure with

Rollins College in 1909 as instructor in violin. During the thirteen years that she was affiliated with Rollins, Dyer served as director of the newly organized Conservatory of Music, head of the theoretical branches, and director of the orchestra and chorus.

Dyer and Rous most likely first met as students at the Peabody Institute, as they both earned their Teacher’s Certificate in their respective instruments in 1902.101 She was to become

Rous’ manager and closest friend, securing for her both numerous lecture engagements as well as teaching positions. The two women sustained this dual relationship throughout almost the entirety of Rous’ tour of “What Next in Music?”

Dyer maintained a dizzily active career, and there are several connections between her various professional engagements and the career of her friend and client Marion Rous. Dyer

100 “Florida Clubs Holds First Convention; Meeting of State Federation of Gainesville Attracts Many Musicians,” Musical America 9, no. 13 (January 1919): 29.

101 “Peabody Alumni; Holders of the Diploma and of the Teachers Certificate,” Conservatory Bulletin of the Peabody Institute 2, issue 3 (January 1906): 3.

became director of the Rollins Conservatory in 1916, and a mere year later Rous was hired as a member of the piano faculty. For a number of years Dyer was the Winter Park correspondent to

Musical America, and Rous regularly received both consistent publicity and very favorable reviews from the periodical. Dyer also served as chairperson and later vice-president of the

Florida State Federation of Music Clubs, and in January of 1919 Rous was engaged to present

“What Next in Music?” at the Federation’s annual meeting. When Dyer left Rollins to take the position of director of the Greenwich House Music School in Manhattan, Rous was made a faculty member a few short months later. This is all to say that the well-connected Dyer, serving as Rous’ manager, did much to advance her client’s career.102

In the January 1919 issue of Musical America, the two appear in a review of the events of the Florida State Federation of Music Clubs convention.103 Dyer gave an address on “The

Liberty Chorus,” as she then held the position of State Director of Liberty Choruses under the

Florida Counsel of Defense, having been appointed such by the Governor of Florida to support the war effort. Rous presented “What Next in Music?,” and her program was apparently identical with that of the previous year.

The following month Rous presented “What Next in Music?” at the Orlando Music

Festival. The Orlando Sentinel remarked that “her work at the Steinway last evening was a revelation.”104 In May she presented the lecture recital again at the Jacksonville Music Festival,

102 The various biographical notes regarding Susan Dyer included in this paragraph are taken from her October 1922 obituary from Musical America, reprinted in Clarence A. Grimes, They Who Speak in Music: the History of the Neighborhood Music School, New Haven, Conn. (New Haven, CT: Neighborhood Music School, 1957), 16.

103 “From Ocean to Ocean; Gainesville, Fla.,” Musical America 29, no. 13 (January 1919): 46.

104 Unnamed reviewer for The Orlando Sentinel, quoted in “Marion Rous,” Advertisement, Musical America 31, no. 1 (November 1919): 150.

The Florida Times Union reporting that she “made an instantaneous impression,” that she played with “wonderful tone, tender temperament and technique,” and was as a result given an ovation by those assembled.105 However, these engagements were all subsidiary to that at which she was lecturing in July, the most significant event of her career to date.

The 1919 Biennial Convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs

The Eleventh Biennial Convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs was hosted by the MacDowell Association in Peterborough, New Hampshire, from June 26 to July 5. The

Convention brought delegates from music clubs from across the country, as well as music performers, educators, critics, and enthusiasts. Rous was attending by virtue of her position as president of the Rollins Conservatory Faculty Club, and had been engaged to present “What

Next in Music?”

The National Federation of Music Clubs began its gestation in 1893, when thirty-five women’s amateur music clubs across the nation sent delegates to the World’s Fair Congress of

Musicians in Chicago. A temporary organization committee was founded in 1897, and the

Federation was established in 1898 by 100 representatives from eleven states at the Steinway

Hall of Chicago. From that point onward, the NFMC would devote itself to several causes

105 Unnamed reviewer for the Florida Times Union, quoted in “Marion Rous,” Advertisement, Musical America 31, no. 1 (November 1919): 150.

central to the music appreciation movement, such as audience education, American music, radio broadcasts, and a strong appeal to amateurs and enthusiasts.106

Rous was engaged to present her lecture recital on July 1 following a general business meeting and an opening address. Speaking of “the value of the Music Appreciation Lecture-

Recital in ‘musicalizing’ America,” the September 1918 issue of The Musical Monitor emphasized the aspects of Rous’ lecture that connected it with the music appreciation movement.

It referred to “What Next in Music?” as being “an analytical talk classifying the various schools and illustrating the new idioms,”107 clearly connecting it with the practice of active listening.

Rous gave the lecture recital in front of a large audience on Tuesday, July 1, at noon. The

Musical Courier published an unusually cold review, all the more biting due to its brevity: “The first event after the usual business meeting was a lecture-recital by Marion Rous, of Winter Park,

Fla., ‘What Next in Music?’ Miss Rous gave rather an elementary talk on the very latest in piano music, with Ornstein and Schoenberg for her principle illustrations, and even found an excuse to lug in Ernst Vos Dohnanyi, who, heaven knows, can plead ‘not guilty’ to any rabid musical tendencies.”108

This response did not represent the majority, however, and as A. W. Kramer noted in

Musical America, Rous “scored a well-merited success.”109 Her alma mater of the Peabody

106 See the program for the 1919 NFMC Biennial Convention printed in The Musical Monitor 8, no. 10 (July 1919): 529–534, which includes educational lecture recitals, a forum on the national needs of music (including definitive purpose, standardization, and a national university), and several talks on Americanization through music.

107 “Marion Rous in Lecture-Recital,” The Musical Monitor 8 (September 1918): 530–531.

108 “N. F. of M. C. Biennial Convention at Peterboro,” The Musical Courier 79, no. 2 (July 1919): 8.

109 A. W. Kramer in Musical America, quoted in “Marion Rous,” Advertisement, Musical America 31, no. 1 (November 1919): 150. Kramer apparently thought quite highly of Rous, and after hearing her lecture on Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations in 1938 he wrote her an effusive letter: “In many years of listening to those who give lectures on music, those who talk about it and those who undertake to explain it, I have heard some remarkably fine performances. But not one of them could be considered in the same class as your talk on Elgar’s Enigma Variations….Your projection of the material is fetching, your comment interesting, witty, full of charm, and your 44

Institute noted her positive reception: “The many friends of Marion Rous (Piano Diploma, ‘04) have rejoiced in her success at the great meeting of the Federation of Musical Clubs held in

Peterborough, N. H., in July. Her lecture on ‘What next in Music?’ and her playing of the piano solos illustrating the talk were most favorably commented upon by the many critics present.”110

“The many critics present” were generally effusive in their praise, and cited Rous as being a “captivating and informing speaker”111 with an “intelligent and sympathetic appreciation of her subject;”112 she “played with astonishing technical bravura”113 and “revealed pianistic attributes of a high order,”114 and the lecture as a whole was “the kind of talk many a club needs.”115 Alice Bradley spoke for the majority of critics in Cleveland Topics saying that Rous proved herself “a pianist by the grace of the gods. When she plays you listen with complete satisfaction and pleasure. When she talks, you wonder how such diversified talent came to be concentrated in one young woman.”116

playing of portions of the music on the piano is what I would expect from a real musician. And that is what you are. That is what makes your musical readings unique and authoritative.” This extraordinary letter goes on at some length. See A. Walter Kramer, letter to Marion Rous, April 11, 1939, document ID 004-04-02, p. 1, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.

110 Grace H. Spofford, “Overtones,” Peabody Bulletin 16, no. 1 (December 1919): 10.

111 James H. Rogers in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, quoted in “Cleveland’s Opinion of Marion Rous in ‘What Next in Music?,’” Advertisement, The Musical Monitor 9, no. 1 (October 1919): 368.

112 A. W. Kramer in Musical America, quoted in “Marion Rous,” Advertisement, Musical America 31, no. 1 (November 1919): 150.

113 Alice Bradley in Cleveland Topics, quoted in “Marion Rous,” Advertisement, Musical America 31, no. 1 (November 1919): 150.

114 James H. Rogers in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, quoted in “Cleveland’s Opinion of Marion Rous in ‘What Next in Music?,’” Advertisement, The Musical Monitor 9, no. 1 (October 1919): 368.

115 W. B. Murray in The Musical Monitor, quoted in “Marion Rous,” Advertisement, Musical America 31, no. 1 (November 1919): 150.

116 Alice Bradley in Cleveland Topics, quoted in “Cleveland’s Opinion of Marion Rous in What Next in Music?,’” Advertisement, The Musical Monitor 9, no. 1 (October 1919): 368.

The Tampa Tribune provides a firsthand account, mentioning the multitude of engagements Rous secured from this performance:

Marion Rous, pianist, has gathered fresh laurels for herself and for music in Florida by the success of her lecture recital on modern music which she gave at the recent biennial convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs held at Peterborough, N. H., June 30 to July 5….

Miss Rous spoke and played to a house crowded with discriminating musicians from all over the country, and her success was instantaneous and complete. Her topic, “What Next in Music?” aroused much interest, as it dealt with the more radical of present day composers and their works, and the representatives of over twenty musical clubs in all parts of the country, have asked her to repeat it for them during the coming season.117

The success of Rous’ lecture did not benefit her alone. Dyer made the most of Rous’ overwhelmingly positive reception by inviting the NFMC to hold an informal conference at

Rollins College the following year, which was met with approval.118 As The Rollins Sandspur noted, Rous’ lecture “won her and the college many friends.”119

As Rous returned to Rollins for the fall semester, she did so with engagements secured in several major cities for the presentation of “What Next in Music?” What followed was a period of nationwide touring with the lecture recital, which ultimately brought Rous to her 1924 New

York debut at Aeolian Hall.

117 “Miss Rous Has Success at Peterborough,” Tampa Tribune, July 26, 1919, 8. See also “Miss Rous Has Success at Peterborough,” Orlando Sentinel, July 26, 1919, 5.

118 “The Conservatory in 1918–1919,” Rollins Sandspur, June 6, 1919, 4.

119 Ibid. 46

CHAPTER 2: NATIONWIDE TOURING, 1919–1922

The engagements to present “What Next in Music?” that Rous earned following the 1919

National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Convention served as the beginning of a period of nationwide touring with the lecture recital. Previous to this, Rous had focused her efforts on the institutions at which she taught, such as giving the lecture at the Peabody Institute in 1916 and again at the Rollins Conservatory in 1918. In early 1919 she started to branch outwards, presenting “What Next in Music?” at various music festivals and clubs throughout the state of

Florida. The NFMC Biennial Convention in July of 1919 brought Rous and “What Next in

Music?” before a national audience, and the multiple music clubs that contracted her as a result served as the beginning of a national career.

As roughly twenty of these engagements were a direct result of Rous’ success at the 1919

NFMC Biennial, it comes as no surprise that this period of touring was largely devoted to music clubs. The role of music clubs within the music appreciation movement was significant, and

Chybowski has touched upon it primarily regarding the work of Anne Shaw Faulkner.120 The brilliant Mildred Adams wrote of the position of music clubs in music appreciation in 1924,121 and the following year Emilie Frances Bauer wrote of their critical role towards the end of

“making America musical.”122 Rous would attempt to accomplish just this throughout these three concert seasons, bringing “What Next in Music?” to countless music clubs scattered across the nation.

120 Julia J. Chybowski, “Developing American Taste: A Cultural History of the Early Twentieth-Century Music Appreciation Movement” (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2008), 9.

121 Mildred Adams, “Foster-Mothers of Music,” Woman Citizen 8 (January 26, 1924): 7–8 and 23–24.

122 Emilie Frances Bauer, “Making America Musical,” Woman Citizen 10 (October 1925): 10.

The 1920s were an exciting period of growth for musical education in America. Before the standardization of music education offered by music appreciation circles, education in music was viewed as being less legitimate than other disciplines, largely due to the lack of systematization, the unprofessionalism, or the outright unqualified status of many music teachers. Not all school districts offered musical instruction, and that which was offered was not necessarily taught by trained musicians.123 The Etude became a regular critic of the state of music education, and blamed this degraded state largely on music clubs, saying that they had become a “detriment to, rather than promoters of, the cause which they espouse.”124 Even in the years following the First World War, when Americans were actively working towards an improved and modernized educational system, music remained optional in most curricula. The

1920s brought with it the realization that if American musical education was to be respected and effective, it would need to adopt a rigid standardization and professional organization. Thus began the period of the professionalization of the music educator, a cause adopted and supported by the music appreciation movement.

“What Next in Music?” was part of this movement towards educational maturity in music. Unlike the “piano girl”125 of the previous century, Rous was well-educated and proficiently talented, not to mention affiliated with a prominent musical institutions such as the

Rollins Conservatory and the Peabody Institute. Rather than imbuing her programs with the

123 W. S. B. Mathews, “Public School Music and the Public Taste,” The Musician 14 (July 1909): 299.

124 William Armstrong, “The Intellectual Side of Music in Amateur Clubs,” The Etude 18, no. 7 (January 1900): 27.

125 For this stereotype of the semi-amateur parlor pianist-turned-music teacher, see Judith Tick, “Passed Away is the Piano Girl: Changes in American Musical Life, 1870-1900” in Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950, ed. Jane Bowers and Judith Tick (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 325–348.

“romantic tinge of exaggerated sentiment”126 that had come to be expected from music educators of the previous decade, Rous pushed back against this gendered notion even more so than did most of her contemporaries, educating audiences on the occasionally abrasive modernism of contemporary composers. In doing so she represents the national effort to raise the status of music teaching, an effort that would increasingly come to define her career.

The presentations of “What Next in Music?” throughout this period of nationwide touring evidence significant growth in the lecture recital. The original modest program was expanded substantially almost immediately following the 1919 NFMC Convention, and would continue to be added to throughout these three years. Accounts of the lecture component provide far more detail regarding content than do those previous, and several quote Rous directly, giving direct access to her musical thought. Her travels brought her within proximity to several significant figures of her age, including musicians, activists, and historical figures. Most important, however, the lectures of these years present a unique insight into Rous’ understanding of and approach to modernism.

1919–1920 Season

By October of 1919 Rous was experimenting with different programming. An advertisement aired in The Musical Monitor lists the program of “What Next in Music?” as including works by “Prokofieff, Malipiero, Goossens, Berners, Scriabin, Schoenberg, Ornstein, etc.”127 As Rous was about to lecture at The Atlanta Music Study Club on October 15, it is not unreasonable to assume that this altered program was the one that she gave. As the club’s study

126 Arthur Elson, Woman's Work in Music (Boston: L. C. Page, 1908), 241.

127 “What Next in Music?,” Advertisement, The Musical Monitor 9, no. 1 (October 1919): 419.

of the year was “contemporary art, Scandinavian, Russian, French, Italian, English and

American,” 128 it is tempting to assume that the additions of new repertoire were to accommodate the multicultural study of the club, Prokofiev and Scriabin representing Russia, Goossens and

Berners representing England, Malipiero representing Italy, etc. Whether or not that is the case, these additions would become standard inclusions in Rous subsequent presentations of “What

Next in Music?”

The Philadelphia Music Club

The next stop on Rous’ national tour seems to have been Philadelphia, presenting “What

Next in Music?” to the city’s music club. The meeting was held in the Aldine Hotel and marked the opening of the Philadelphia Music Club’s season. Rous departed from Winter Park on

November 8, three days in advance of the lecture. Both The Orlando Evening Star129 and The

Palm Beach Post130 indicate that this was one of the engagements that Rous had secured directly from her lecture for the NFMC earlier that year.

The Musical Monitor provided a brief review of the lecture recital, referring to Rous’ talk as being “most interesting.”131 The November 12 issue of Philadelphia newspaper The Evening

128 “Program Meeting at Music Study Club,” Atlanta Constitution, October 12, 1919, 1.

129 George S. Deming, “Winter Park News Items,” Orlando Evening Star, November 8, 1919, 6.

130 “Dr. G. Morgan Ward Returns to Rollins,” Palm Beach Post, November 15, 1919, 8. See also “Rollins College,” Tampa Tribune, November 23, 1919, sec. 5, p. 1.

131 “The Philadelphia Music Club, Philadelphia, Pa., Also Sponsors Lecture-Recital,” The Musical Monitor 9, no. 1 (November 1919): 170.

Public Ledger provides a more complete review, remarking that Rous referred to the modernists on her program as “The Bolshevists of Modern Music.”132

This equivalency found between radical leftist politics and modernist music was not an invention of Rous, though she would come to use this terminology often in “What Next in

Music?” Federico Reuben has noted how in the twentieth century, musical “radicalism” was often associated with political radicalism, particularly leftist politics.133 Arnold Schoenberg himself noted the pervasiveness of the charge, specifically the charge of Bolshevism:

It has become a habit of late to qualify aesthetic and artistic subjects in terms borrowed from the jargon of politics. Thus mildly progressive works of art, literature or even music might be classified as “revolutionary” or “left-wing,” when they only evolve artistic possibilities. On the other hand, old-fashioned products are called ‘reactionary,’ without any clarification of what its antonym might mean in contrast. No wonder, then, there are people who call my method of composing with twelve tones “Bolshevik.”134

This is not the only time that Schoenberg addressed this. In an outline for an essay to be titled

“Meine Gegner,” he noted that “National Socialists regard me as a cultural-Bolshevik.”135 In

Schoenberg’s case, the charge of Bolshevism was a clear attack upon his Jewish race, and indeed at the fin de siècle both politics and music were often spilt along racialized lines, with Jews on the side of leftist politics and modernism and anti-Semites on the side of conservatism.

Careful to mention that Rous was “sponsoring none of the composers,” The Ledger goes on to relate that Rous “played eight selections, commenting and explaining the origin and

132 “Music Club Starts Season with Recital; Unique Program Presented by Miss Marion Rous, Pianist, Who Also Lectured,” Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia, PA), November 12, 1919, 5.

133 Federico Reuben, “Imaginary Musical Radicalism and the Entanglement of Music and Emancipatory Politics,” Contemporary Music Review 34, no. 2–3 (2015): 232–246.

134 Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea, translation by Leo Black (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1984 [Original German version published 1975]), 249. Minor corrections in punctuation and capitalization mine.

135 Arnold Schoenberg, “Meine Gegner,” Arnold Schoenberg Institute, BIO III 30 355. Transcribed by Anita M. Lüginbühl.

technique of Palmgren, Ornstein, Schoenberg, Ravel, Bela-Bartok, Scriabin, Stravinsky and

Dohnanyi, the Bolsheviki responsible. Probably the most ‘radical’ or those most devoid of harmony were to compositions of the three ‘S’s,’ namely: Schoenberg, Scriabin and Stravinsky.”

Various future accounts demonstrate that this parallel to the Three B’s was made by Rous herself and not the reviewer, and she is quoted as conjecturing that “possibly the music students of the future will revere the three S’s as they now revere the three B’s. They include Schoenberg,

Scriabin and Stravinsky.”136

This variation on the Three B’s (an already established alliteration coined by Peter

Cornelius in 1854 and updated by Hans von Bülow later in the century)137 was a practice common within the music appreciation movement. This seemingly arbitrary grouping upheld the supposed supremacy of the Austro-German tradition as well as cemented the concept of “great music” throughout three adjacent musical periods. Several music appreciation courses and lectures were given on the Three B’s; Rous herself gave one in the summer of 1948 for the

Chautauqua Institution.138 More specific to the “Three S’s,” however, Michael T. Coolen noted in 1982 how commonplace it had become for music appreciation curricula to implement a “new twist” on the Three B’s.139 This grouping of Schoenberg, Scriabin, and Stravinsky was not the last variation that Rous would make upon the Three B’s, as she would come to write of “three

136 Marion Rous, quoted in “Marion Rous will be the next artist…,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), February 13, 1927, 38.

137 Nicolas Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes (New York: Schirmer, 1998), 99.

138 “Dr. Marion Rous will Conclude Series,” Chautauqua Daily, August 21, 1948, 9.

139 Michael T. Coolen, “Music Appreciation as If It Mattered,” Music Educators Journal 69, no. 3 (1982): 29.

S’s — two ultra-romantics and a modern who no longer seems ‘ultra’” to refer to Robert

Schumann, Richard Strauss, and Dmitri Shostakovich.140

The Beginning of 1920

In 1920, the Winter Park Country Club hosted a series of recitals under the auspices of the Rollins Conservatory. The very first of this series was “What Next in Music?” presented by

Marion Rous on the evening of January 15.141 Two days later Warren M. Ingram of The Orlando

Sentinel referred to her lecture as being “another laurel for this magnificent musician of marked talent.” He went on to note that “the audience taxed the small reception room of the Country

Club to capacity. This in itself is enough to show the genuine appreciation of Miss Rous’s ability as musician.”142

The January 24 review published in The Rollins Sandspur is one of the first truly informative accounts of “What Next in Music?” It outlines Rous’ musical history, quotes her lecture at some length, and provides an almost poetic description of the repertoire played.

Corroborating The Orlando Sentinel’s account of an auditorium filled to capacity, the Sandspur notes that Rous’ “magnetic personality and clear, pleasant voice, together with her very interesting subject, never fail to captivate her audience wherever she appears.” The article continues by suggesting that “What Next in Music?” prioritizes the lecture above the recital:

140 Written when Rous was serving as a lecturer for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. See Marion Rous, letter to Philharmonic Forecasts subscribers, December 26, 1957, document ID 026-12-25, p. 7, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.

141 “Lecture Recitals at Country Club Begin Jan. 15th; Miss Rous Will Appear First in the Series; Arthur Ranous and Lotta Greenup to Appear Jan. 22nd and 29th Respectively,” Rollins Sandspur, January 10, 1920, 1, and “The program for the lecture-recital…,” Orlando Sentinel, January 16, 1920, 7.

142 Warren M. Ingram, “Miss Rous’s Music Lecture Superb,” Orlando Sentinel, January 17, 1920, 3.

“[Rous] is an artist of the highest caliber, and is especially delightful in these recitals, which are not lecture-recitals in the strictest sense of the word, but very interesting talks. She illustrates them by playing, from time to time, selections by the modern composers.”143 This account also records the quote from Rous included in Chapter 1, her call for an open mind and a “sympathetic attitude” towards unfamiliar modernist music.

By early March Rous had traveled north to present “What Next in Music?” to the Atlanta

Music Study Club. This engagement was a direct result of the Peterborough Biennial the summer previous, as the club president, a Mrs. Arnold Carroll, had been present at the convention. Her assessment of Rous’ lecture was exceptionally warm:

Miss Rous is one of the most charming and thoroughly entertaining women I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. She is wonderfully well grounded in her subject, and presents it in a fascinating way that holds the attention of her audience from beginning to end. I really enjoyed her lecture more than any other feature of the biennial.

The composers of whom she treats in her talk are famous names that we all read about, but whose music is wholly unknown. They are the insurgents of the present day, whose influence will have a decided effect upon what is still to come in music. For this reason I feel that every music lover in Atlanta should hear her lecture, and this is also why the club has arranged for Miss Rous to appear in Atlanta. I recommend her lecture to all those who are interested in music.144

This second paragraph deserves special attention; indeed, in December of the same year,

The Atlanta Constitution referenced this March lecture writing that “more than one of the younger composers got his first public hearing in Atlanta at that time.”145 This was not the first concert that Rous gave that supposedly introduced certain modern composers to a city’s

143 “Futuristic Music Theme of Miss Rous’ Recital; Large Audience Greets Charming Musician at Country Club; Held at Winter Park Country Club Under Auspices of Rollins' Conservatory,” Rollins Sandspur, January 24, 1920, 1 and 6.

144 Mrs. Arnold Carroll, quoted in “Miss Rous Will Give Recital on Tuesday: ‘What Next in Music’ Will Be Subject of Lecture at Egleston Memorial Hall,” Atlanta Constitution, February 29, 1920, 1.

145 “Miss Rous to Appear in Concert,” Atlanta Constitution, December 31, 1920, 5.

audiences. In May of 1917, having only just been hired as a faculty member at Rollins College,

Rous had presented a recital that The Rollins Sandspur referred to as “perhaps the first time in

Florida a program of modern sonatas was heard.”146 Similar claims continued to be made throughout the course of “What Next in Music?,”147 highlighting the revolutionary and trailblazing nature of Rous’ work. Regardless as to whether or not these claims are completely accurate, they point to the fact that Rous brought the music of modernists to regions and audiences that had by and large never heard them before. This alone proves her significance in the narrative of musical modernism in the United States.

The March 2 issue of The Atlanta Constitution, advertising the lecture taking place later that day, raises the question of populist accessibility. The Constitution states that “What Next in

Music?” “promises to provide some illuminating information as valuable to the student as to the casual music lover,” 148 an anti-elitist approach that may seem at odds with Levine’s concept of the musical highbrow. However, as much as the concept of highbrow culture was a facet of music appreciation, Locke has observed how the movement sought to make highbrow European music accessible to the American middle and lower classes via a wide, populist approach.149

146 “Conservatory Concerts; Rollins Hears Modern Music,” Rollins Sandspur, June 2, 1917.

147 A particularly good example can be found in J. R. McCoy, “Modernist Music Delights Audience; Miss Rous Pleases Montgomerians in Novel Recital Wednesday Night,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 8, 1926, 2.

148 “Modern Music Clarified by Miss Rous,” Atlanta Constitution, March 2, 1920, 2.

149 Ralph P. Locke, “Music Lovers, Patrons, and the ‘Sacralization’ of Culture in America,” 19th-Century Music 17, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 149–173.

Chybowski confirms this observation by citing several music appreciation texts that aim to educate the “everyman,”150 the “layman,”151 and the “casual listener, the man in the street.”152

The Constitution continues with this populist message, and uses the nomenclature of

Rous’ 1918 Musical Monitor article regarding an uneducated audience’s reaction to modernism

— the “groping mind” of a dazed listener — which again speaks to the need for audience education to facilitate music appreciation:

Where [the modernists’] creations mean a real contribution to the evolution of musical composition, and where it becomes mere vagary, the unintelligible gropings of minds throw off the direct line of progress by the world’s unrest: and where it is deliberately mystifying Miss Rous will point out, and she will illustrate by some of the most noteworthy works of the iconoclasts.153

The review of the March 2 lecture published in The Atlanta Constitution also noted the accessibility of the lecture, writing that Rous’ “explanations of their scales, their rhythm, their various points of differentiation from accepted forms was technical enough to be of genuine musical value, and yet so simply and divertingly expressed as to be easily intelligible, even to those of her audience who might not be musicians.” 154

An anecdote circulated regarding the reception of this Atlanta lecture, apparently favored by Rous herself, comes from a businessman who was in attendance. Taken with her persuasive

150 Willys P. Kent, “Music for Everyman,” reported in The Music Supervisors' Journal 1, no. 4 (March 1915): 4.

151 J. Lawrence Erb, “Music in the Education of the Common Man,” The Musical Quarterly 5, no. 3 (1919): 308–15.

152 Sigmund Spaeth, The Common Sense of Music (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926), 5. For more on this see Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” 188–190.

153 “Modern Music Clarified by Miss Rous,” Atlanta Constitution, March 2, 1920, 2.

154 Unnamed writer for The Atlanta Constitution, quoted in “‘Lovely Young Southerner’—Brilliant Mastery of the Piano Are Enthusiastic Comments of Press Concerning Miss Rous,” Rollins Sandspur, March 13, 1920, 1 and 6.

manner and skill with words, the gentleman supposedly clasped Rous’ hand warmly and exclaimed “Just you remember — if anything ever happens to your hands — you could sell insurance.”155

After her appearance in Atlanta Rous traveled south back to Florida, where she presented

“What Next in Music?” to the Jacksonville Ladies’ Friday Musicale at a local Catholic Club.

According to the review published in The Jacksonville Times-Union, this was the first time that

Rous had lectured in Jacksonville since the music festival immediately preceding the NFMC

Biennial in Peterborough. The audience of Jacksonville was apparently excited to hear her again, and “repeated recalls showed the enthusiasm which Miss Rous had aroused in her audience by her unique and distinguished manner of presenting her subject, as well as her brilliant mastery of the piano.”156

April Tour of Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Louisville

In April, Rous toured the South and Midwest, presenting “What Next in Music?” in

Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Louisville. During the trip, she visited several of her former students from Rollins and surveyed many places of historic interest. In Cleveland she also met the author Georgia May Madden, a native of Winter Park and Orlando. Madden, who published under the pen name of Mrs. George Madden Martin, was a Harlem Renaissance activist, and

155 “Modern Music Theme of Coming Recital,” Chattanooga News, April 10, 1920, 6.

156 Unnamed writer for The Jacksonville Times-Union, quoted in “‘Lovely Young Southerner’—Brilliant Mastery of the Piano Are Enthusiastic Comments of Press Concerning Miss Rous,” Rollins Sandspur, March 13, 1920, 1 and 6.

though Rous would later exhibit interest in charitable endeavors for racial equality,157 the details of their meeting are not known.

Rous was then engaged to lecture at a local MacDowell Club in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a member of the MacDowell Colony.158 Founded in 1907 in Peterborough, New Hampshire by

Edward and Marian MacDowell, the MacDowell Colony was and is a nonprofit organization designed to support the creative endeavors of artists of diverse disciplines. Later the birthplace of

Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Bernstein’s Mass, the MacDowell Colony hosted the 1919

Biennial Convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs at which Rous initiated her national reputation as a lecture recitalist. Delegates from various MacDowell clubs across the nation were enthusiastic in their praise of Rous’ lecture recital, and a Mrs. John Lamar Meek of the Chattanooga chapter wrote positively in response, being quoted in a March 1920 issue of The

Chattanooga Daily Times as saying that “every musician and music student should hear her.”159

157 Other examples of Rous’ attitudes towards racial equality will be touched upon later in this thesis, such as her involvement in both the 1923 Music Week in New York and the Greenwich House Music School. One of the most striking examples is illustrated in a photograph included in The New York Daily News, March 23, 1941, 271. The photograph includes the following caption: “Children of various nationalities get together and enjoy lollipops at a luncheon given in the Cloud Club in the Chrysler Building to open drive for ‘A Mile of Dimes’ to support work of the N. Y. Kindergarten Association. Grouped around Dr. Marion Rous are tots of American, English, Italian, Irish, Spanish, and Ethiopian descent.” This would have been over two decades before segregation ended in the United States, and Rous quietly but powerfully invites children of all nationalities and ethnicities to sit around her on a couch, and raises money to fund both black and white schools. The photograph is knowingly titled “Harmony.”

158 Now known simply as “MacDowell,” the word “colony” being removed from the name in an effort to eliminate “terminology with oppressive overtones.” See MacDowell.org, “MacDowell Removes ‘Colony’ from Name,” July 7, 2020, retrieved from https://www.macdowell.org/news/macdowell-removes-colony-from-name. In this thesis I employ the name with which Rous would have been familiar, that which the MacDowell employed in 1919 at the NFMC Biennial Convention. My decision is made in an attempt for historical accuracy and in avoidance of anachronisms.

159 “M’Dowell Club Presents Miss Marion Rous in Lecture,” Chattanooga Daily Times, March 28, 1920, 25.

This positive impression earned Rous an engagement to present “What Next in Music?” to the Chattanooga MacDowell Club on April 15 of the following year.160 A review printed in

The Chattanooga Daily Times parallels the claim made of the Atlanta lecture from just earlier that year, that Rous was the first to bring a program of modern piano music to the city:

The recital given last night at the court house auditorium by Miss Marion Rous, was Chattanooga’s first experience of modernism in piano music….

This excellent recital has done very much, musicians say, to advance musical ideas in Chattanooga, and all present testify to their pleasure in the performance and to the conspicuous ability of the charming artiste.161

The review also spoke warmly of Rous’ playing, remarking that the Dohnányi Rhapsodie

“required consummate technical ability to play it, but Miss Rous seemed merely to revel in its colossal difficulties. The program ended with the brilliant ‘Shepherd's Hey’ by Percy Grainger, a composition in much more conventional style, whose sparkling measures were played in the dashing style required by it.”162

These same two pieces drew the attention and admiration of James H. Rogers of The

Cleveland Plain-Dealer following Rous’ April 19 presentation in Cleveland.163 Rogers’ somewhat cynical review displayed his distaste for the more avant-garde numbers on the program but maintains that the lecture was a success in spite of those compositions:

Music — futuristic, cubistic, impressionistic, but not always altruistic, formed the main subject matter of Marion Rous's piano recital and spoken discourse at the Duchess Theatre last night.

160 “Marion Rous, Pianist,” Advertisement, Chattanooga Daily Times, April 14, 1920, 6. See also “Miss Marion Rous to Give Lecture Recital,” Chattanooga Daily Times, April 11, 1920, 23.

161 Unnamed writer for The Chattanooga Daily Times, quoted in “Miss Rous Returns from Concert Tour; Enthusiastically Welcomed to Many Large Cities When Away,” Rollins Sandspur, May 1, 1920, 5.

162 Ibid.

163 Warren M. Ingram, “Winter Park News,” Orlando Sentinel, January 28, 1920, 3.

After the first two or three numbers, one had much the sensation that comes while waiting a renewed attack upon a sensitive molar. One felt like asking whether it was likely to hurt as much as it did the time before. However, not all the music was wierd [sic], bizarre, capophonic [sic]. Much of it, after the opening selections had been disposed of, was most attractive, and Miss Rous, who is an accomplished performer and a captivating and informing speaker, made a hit, even though some of the musical curios in her collection did not. 164

The last performance of this tour was in Louisville Kentucky at the local Y. M. C. A., given under the auspices of the music committee of the Louisville Woman’s Club.165 The lecture received a brief but positive note in The Musical Courier.166 The less appreciative review published in The Louisville Herald is an interesting study in musical conservatism and sexism.

With imagery at turns religious and patronizing, The Herald presents Rous as an object of the male gaze as well as a corrupting influence:

Let's be honest about it. Miss Marion Rous soared way over my head. The dainty, charming young person's exploits in the why and wherefore of cubic cadenzas and futuristic framework left me defenseless and weak. With a last feeble breath, I am just able to whisper that I hold by the ancients and refuse to be led astray by reminders that, in his day, Wagner was denounced for his Music for the Future; and that his leit-motley tricks, inspired, in that heathen time, led mostly to laughter.

The lecture recital at the Y. W. C. A. on that cryptic subject “What Next in Music?” was nevertheless an engagement excellently worth while. If some among us refuse to surrender the old faiths and repudiate the old creeds, it cannot hurt us, if we are firm, to be made acquainted with the new gospel and to be instructed how to orientate ourselves in these subtle scales where all notes are free and equal, and to steer among dissonances that have been tamed and domesticated. Some of us are too old for a new set of ears, and others too obstinately set in our ways, and we do not like to get the impression that the howling of hungry wolves and the chromatic cacophonies of wild women are alike

164 James H. Rogers of The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, quoted in “Miss Rous Returns from Concert Tour; Enthusiastically Welcomed to Many Large Cities When Away,” Rollins Sandspur, May 1, 1920, 5.

165 See “Marion Rous Here April 21; Recital Will Be Given Under Auspices of Woman's Club Music Committee; Appears at Y. W. C. A.,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), April 11, 1920, sec. 3, p. 4, and “Woman’s Club,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), April 18, 1920, 28.

166 “Across the Country,” The Musical Courier 80, no. 22 (May 27, 1920): 58.

expressions of a supreme art. We cannot revolt for no better reason than that insurgency is the fashion of the day, and red to us, will always mean danger.

But, as I have hinted, Miss Rous is delightful, an artist to her fingertips — such wonderful finger-tips they are — and one who, when she deigns to descend from Ornstein — a most offensive cuss — and Palmgren — mildly lunatic — could come right down to good old English earth with such a glorified folk song as Grainger’s “Shepherd's Hey.”167

After making reference to Rous’ “dainty, charming” appearance, the unnamed reviewer paints himself as a proverbial keeper of the flame, and Rous as one who would just as well snuff it out.

While he holds true to the “old faiths and creeds,” Rous is one of the “wild women” attempting to “lead astray” those whom she can.

The accusation of modernists as being degenerate corruptors of morality and decency had existed ever since the fin de siècle, but there were several underlying reasons for this suspicion beyond a mere fear of progress. Schoenberg faced this charge regularly, often along highly racialized and antisemitic lines,168 and Maderthaner and Silverman have noted that “a motif central to modern anti-Semitism [was], namely, that of Jews as destroyers of organic, ‘authentic’ culture.”169 It is interesting to note therefore that the two most frequently criticized composers featured on the program of “What Next in Music?,” Schoenberg and Ornstein, were both Jewish.

However, when modernism was not being critiqued along racialized lines, it was often viewed as

167 Unnamed writer for The Louisville Herald, quoted in “Miss Rous Returns from Concert Tour; Enthusiastically Welcomed to Many Large Cities When Away,” Rollins Sandspur, May 1, 1920, 5.

168 Several examples are given in Sarah Elaine Neill, “The Modernist Kaleidoscope: Schoenberg’s Reception History in England, America, Germany and Austria 1908–1924” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2014), including 4–5, 42–43, and 84–87. This is also widely discussed throughout Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, “Pierrot L.,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 64, no. 3 (2011): 601–645.

169 Wolfgang Maderthaner and Lisa Silverman, “‘Wiener Kreise’: Jewishness, Politics, and Culture in Interwar Vienna,” in Interwar Vienna: Culture between Tradition and Modernity, ed. Deborah Holmes et al. (Rochester, NY: Camden, 2009), 61.

being degenerate by virtue of its supposed femininity.170 Whether this phenomenon manifested as male modernists being labeled as homosexuals or female modernists being labeled as sexualized corrupters, it was in response to insecurities regarding the maintenance of an identifiably “masculine” artistic aesthetic.171

1920–1921 Season

Rous began her 1920–1921 concert season on September 2 in Greenwich, Connecticut, where she presented “What Next in Music?” to raise funds for Serbian refugees.172 Upon leaving

Connecticut, Rous traveled to Pittsburgh, where she lectured at the Presidents’ Day reception of the local Tuesday Musical Club.173 She had just given a lecture recital entitled “Program Music,

Old and New” at the Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia on November 4, it being a new addition to her musical arsenal alongside “The Young English School.”174 However, neither of these new lectures had either the popularity or the longevity of “What Next in Music?”

Upon presenting “What Next in Music?” in Pittsburgh, Rous was reviewed by music critic Harvey Gaul, and his reception of her, though positive, was far from consistent. He had

170 This phenomenon is explored in Paul Sheehan, Modernism and the Aesthetics of Violence (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 66–73.

171 It is worth noting that this association is far from strict, as some (perhaps particularly those sympathetic to the modernist cause) would equate modernism with masculinity and “traditional” music with femininity. See Carol J. Oja, “Creating a God: The Reception of Edgard Varèse,” in Making Music Modern, 25–44. However, it would also be a mistake to assume that masculinity was always seen as being the positive and desirable end of the gender spectrum, and that femininity was always seen as being “weak” or somehow undesirable; an analysis of the question requires considerable nuance.

172 “Miss Rous to Go North,” Rollins Sandspur, October 23, 1920, 4.

173 “Musical Club Gives Reception,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 7, 1920, 44.

174 “Perhaps you have found Lecture Recitals…” Advertisement, The Official Register and Directory of Women's Clubs in America 22 (1920): 34.

apparently heard her give the lecture recital in Cleveland the previous year, but current research has yet to uncover a review. Gaul anticipated Rous’ lecture in an October 17 issue of the

Pittsburgh Daily Post. He opened by linking womanhood with progress, perhaps suggesting that the modernist music to be played reflects a sort of progressive feminine instinct. Gaul called upon the full power of his poetic imagery to convey his excitement to see Rous again in concert:

If there is one thing a woman’s organization stands for it is progress. This is exemplified in the sterling body of women, the Tuesday Musical Club. On President’s Day, November 2, the club will present Miss Marion Rous in “What Next in Music.” If it is the same Miss Rous I heard in Cleveland last year, and she offers the same “What Next,” it will be one of the treats of the year. If you are interested in modernism in all its aspects, you cannot afford to miss this recital. Miss Rous plays the modernists in a most engaging manner: nothing is too bizarre, outre, or rococo for her to interpret. Eric Korngold crashes on Erik Satie, Claude Debussy trickles through to Cyril Scott, all the little brothers of the school dissonant and cacaponous [sic] will be represented in her tourney. Considering the vast amount of ancients we are about to hear this year, it will be refreshing to have this charming lady open the door to a few guests [sic] and squalls of futurism.175

On October 31, as the lecture approached, Gaul reiterated his enthusiasm, calling for an intense performance and drawing a parallel between impassioned playing and doing violence to the composer:

Tuesday afternoon the Tuesday Musical Club will present one of the interesting events of this early season, when it offers Marion Rous in “What Next.” Miss Rous will smite the keyboard in Palmgran, [sic] Ornstein, Schoenberg, Ravel, Scriabin, and all the host of the brothers dissonant. If she interprets them correctly, they will have to jack up the piano and put a new engine in it, as all that will be left will be a few shredded mahogany strips. We’re all coming to hear you, Miss Rous, please dynamite Prokofieff.176

Gaul’s review of the November 2 lecture recital repeats the metaphor of violence against the composer. It is interesting to observe how Rous’ playing compared to his expectations:

On Tuesday afternoon that witty girl, Marion Rous, came and gave us her version of an anatomy of modernism entitled “What Next in Music?” After bearing [sic] her, we’ll bite.

175 Harvey P. Gaul, “Tuesday Musical Club,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, October 17, 1920, sec. 5, p. 6.

176 Harvey P. Gaul, “Tuesday Musical Club Recital,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, October 31, 1920, sec. 6, p. 5.

What is next, Mr. Interlocutor? Miss Rous took her piano and toured all around among the foreign Futurists, Imagists, Vorticists and Impressionists, and just to make it more dissonant she quoted Gertrude Stein’s “Tender Buttons,” that denatured piece of lunar madness. Miss Rous played Palmengrad [sic] and Ornstein the Leonine, she smashed Schoenberg right in his Teutonic solar plexus, she dallied with the crazy Dagyar [sic], Bela-Bartok, the belladonna socophony, and then she touched off a few fireworks via Percy Aldridge Grainger and Cyril Scott. The Tuesday Musical Club brought Marion Rous here, and the city is eternally grateful to her. What matters it if some of the modernists sounded old-fashioned, it was refreshing to hear them. It is sincerely to be hoped that she will return on one of our many concert courses. She is as charming as as [sic] she is competent.177

Even though Rous’ playing of the modernists “sounded old-fashioned” rather than violent, Gaul seems to have been favorably impressed, his previous notions of what “interpreting them correctly” entailed being more or less set aside.

Gaul’s expectation is indicative of the equivalency often found between modernism and acts of violence. Paul Sheehan has noted how aestheticized violence became increasingly prevalent following the ﬁn de siècle, and was a significant tenant of modernism across disciplines.178 Four years prior to Gaul’s review, coinciding with the beginning of “What Next in

Music?” and the midpoint of World War I, George Grosz painted Suicide, which shows the skeletal corpse of a man lying in the middle of an angular, blood-red street as a half-naked prostitute looks on. Modernist literature was adopting violent imagery, often in reaction to the carnage of war.179 Many of the principal composers of “What Next in Music?” had by 1920 already adopted the aesthetics of violence into their works, including Ornstein’s Suicide in an

177 Harvey Gaul in Musical America, quoted in “Marion Rous Wins Praise of Critic,” Winter Park Post, December 2, 1920, 1.

178 Paul Sheehan, Modernism and the Aesthetics of Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 1.

179 For more in this context see Marina MacKay, Modernism, War, and Violence (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017).

Airplane and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. This is all to say that, even as violence has always been a part of human expression, Gaul’s view that the “correct” interpretation of modernist repertoire is through violence is indicative of a larger part of the modernist ethos.

Midwest Tour, March – April

After a January tour of Georgia,180 Rous departed Winter Park to commence a tour of the

Midwest on March 26, 1921. She was engaged to present “What Next in Music?” to various clubs in the cities of Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Duluth.181 Grace H. Spofford of The

Peabody Bulletin remarked that Rous was “having an extremely successful season,” and that this tour in particular earned “remarkably interesting press notices wherever she went.”182

One such interesting press notice comes from the April 3 issue of The Detroit Free Press which, while conceding that Rous’ lecture was “entertaining” and “diverting,” displayed a strong aversion to her choice of repertoire. Labeling Rous as an “operating surgeon on a baby grand piano,” The Press wrote of “What Next in Music?” that “after listening to an hour and a half of

‘disease’ the only answer provoked from those present was ‘What, indeed.’”183

180 “Miss Rous Presented with Rare Beethoven Relic,” Musical America 33, no. 10 (February 1921): 32. While lecturing in Savannah, a private collector presented Rous with artifacts purported to trace back to Beethoven himself, including a coffee cup, saucer, invitation to his funeral, and accompanying documentation. While I have yet to authenticate the account given of the artifacts, I have been able to trace some of their subsequent history. Rous loaned the artifacts to the 1923 Beethoven Exhibit at the New York Public Library. She would tend to invite guests to drink from the cup; in 1921 she did so with the Leiz Quartet, and again with music students at a 1949 Beethoven competition. The artifacts surface again a 1949 lecture that Rous gave at Newport, RI entitled “Music from a Beethoven Cup” where she presented them to her audience.

181 See “Miss Rous Leaves Today to Make Recital Tour in Middle West; Has Important Engagements in Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee and Duluth—Artist Rous Becoming National Figure in Music Circles,” Rollins Sandspur March 26, 1921, 3, “Rollins Conservatory of Music,” Tampa Tribune, March 31, 1921, 8, and “Marion Rous Gives Modernist Lecture-Recital Through Middle West,” Musical America 34, no. 2 (May 7, 1921): 23.

182 Grace H. Spofford, “Overtones,” The Peabody Bulletin 17, no. 2 (Spring 1921): 3.

183 “What Next in Music? Well, What Indeed?” Detroit Free Press, April 3, 1921, sec. 1, p. 17.

This analogy of Rous as the agent working against the “disease” of modernism, rather than for it, is borne out in the rest of the review. The Press seems to view Rous’ lecture as being satirical in nature, a mockery of composers’ attempts at modernity, remarking that “the musician with a sense of humor can have a real good time with a program such as Miss Rous entertained the Tuesday Musicale members and their guests Tuesday morning.”184 The Press concludes somewhat cynically by remarking that “‘What Next In Music?’ seems a long way from being answered.” The popular reception of the recital proved to be more positive, as according to

Musical America “Grainger’s ‘Shepherd’s Hey’ was so warmly applauded that Miss Rous had to concede an encore.”185

The next step of Rous’ tour was Chicago, where she lectured at the city’s Union League

Club186 and the Lakeview Musical Society. Regarding the latter presentation on April 4, Lena

McCauley of The Chicago Evening Post emphasizes that “What Next in Music?” was informative and engaging to both musician and layperson:

Her commentary of the composers of the modernist group was illuminating and with information for the professional musicians, [yet] gave enough or the witty and humorous to hold the breathless attention of her larger audience…. While the laymen present enjoyed the event in the spirit of happy entertainment, the Lake View Musical Society welcomed Miss Rous for her scholarly interpretation of a program of unusual difficulty.187

184 Ibid.

185 “Philharmonic Visit Ends Detroit Series; Ganz Heard as Soloist with Stransky Forces—Local Symphony Active,” Musical America 33, no. 24 (April 9, 1921): 18.

186 M. A. M., “Marion Rous in Chicago Recital,” Musical America 33, no. 25 (April 1921): 44.

187 Lena McCauley of The Chicago Evening Post, quoted in “Rollins Conservatory Notes,” Orlando Sentinel, May 5, 1921, 5. While McCauley is not cited by name in The Sentinel, she is identified in “Marion Rous in “What Next in Music?” An Anatomy of Modernism,” Advertisement, Musical America 34, no. 4 (May 1921): 21.

This sentiment was repeated by C. P. Mead of The Milwaukee Sentinel regarding Rous’ presentation at the College Woman's Club of Milwaukee, to which Mead responded that the lecture was “enjoyable to layman and musician alike.”188 Rous’ appearance at the Duluth Music

Teacher’s Association on April 21, referred to as “quite the most stimulating recital of the local season”189 by Musical America, seems to have closed out her 1920–1921 concert season.

Figure 2.1: Flyer for “Concerning Programme Music” at the Milwaukee Art Institute, 1921. Collection of the author.

188 C. P. Mead in Milwaukee Sentinel, quoted in “Marion Rous in ‘What Next in Music?’ An Anatomy of Modernism,” Advertisement, Musical America 34, no. 4 (May 1921): 21.

189 G. S. R., “Marion Rous Gives Lecture Recital for Duluth Music Teachers,” Musical America 34, no. 2 (May 1921): 34.

1921–1922 Season

By this time Rous had attracted the attention of journalists enough that newspapers recorded her upcoming engagements between concert seasons. The Orlando Morning Sentinel noted that “Miss Rous is working hard this summer preparing a number of new and very interesting programs for next season.”190 (See Figure 2.1) The Orlando Evening Star reported that:

A number of concert dates are already being booked for next winter by Marion Rous, of the Rollins College Conservatory, for her ultra modern recital, “What Next in Music.” Miss Rous will open her concert season by performance in Greenwich, Conn., in September and later in the Fall will again make a tour of the Middle West where she made such a success last Spring. She will make a tour of the East in April, 1922, Rochester, N. Y., and Harrisburg, Pa., being among her itinerary.191

This tour brought Rous into contact with several notable people, both in the field of music and otherwise. After a November 15 lecture in Marshalltown, Iowa192 Rous lectured before the Des Moines Women’s Club, 193 which had engaged both Justice Frederick F. Faville of the Iowa supreme court194 and John C. Freund of Musical America.195 After this lecture Rous was entertained with a buffet supper in her honor by Harry Rollins, nephew of Alonzo Rollins,

190 “Marion Rous to Make Lecture Tour,” Orlando Morning Sentinel, August 7, 1921, 5.

191 “Dates Being Booked for Miss Rous’ Recital,” Orlando Evening Star, July 29, 1921, 4.

192 “Miss Rous Returns from Tour of the Middle West,” Orlando Sentinel, December 4, 1921, 20. See also “Conservatory Notes,” Rollins Sandspur, December 9, 1921, 4.

193 See “‘What Next in Music,’” Des Moines Register, October 30, 1921, 1, and “Music Department of Women's Club Presents Miss Rous in Lecture Recital Wednesday,” Des Moines Register, November 13, 1921, 1–5.

194 “Music Department of Women's Club,” 1–5.

195 “Miss Marion Rous and Mr. John C. Freund to Speak at Women's Club,” Des Moines Register, September 11, 1921, 33.

the founder of Rollins college.196 Most notably, while in Chicago Rous heard Sergei Prokofiev in concert;197 it will be remembered that his Sarcasme was included in Rous’ program at this time.

While in Chicago Rous also attended a recital given by the Canadian-American mezzo- soprano Éva Gauthier, another prominent modernist. Gauthier had performed before the Des

Moines Women’s Club the week previous,198 and as Chicago was not on Rous’ lecture itinerary,

Rous may have visited the city specifically to hear her. The Orlando Sentinel observantly remarked that “[Gauthier’s] work as a singer in the field of modern music is similar to that of

Miss Rous in ultra modern piano compositions.”199 The two women were indeed parallels of each other: each were European-trained musicians who toured the United States with modernist

European repertoire. Each cemented their artistic reputations at Aeolian Hall, and each eventually retired from the concert stage to settle in New York and focus on teaching. While

Gauthier’s interest in jazz earned her far more negative press reviews than Rous ever received, these reviews often express the same sentiment as those of Rous’ recitals; namely, that the performer’s technical abilities were too good for the chosen modernist repertoire.200

Upon returning to Florida on Sunday, November 27, Rous was back to work at Rollins.

In December she presented “What Next in Music?” as the first of a series of music appreciation recitals given by the Rollins Conservatory faculty.201 This was at very least an echo of the similar series given in 1918, and it may have very well been the same music appreciation course.

196 “Miss Marion Rous on ‘What Next in Music,’” Orlando Sentinel, December 14, 1921, 5.

197 Ruth Ogren, “Miss Rous Returns from Tour of the Middle West,” Orlando Sentinel, December 4, 1921, 20. See also “Conservatory Notes,” Rollins Sandspur, December 9, 1921, 4.

199 Ibid.

200 See as an example of this in the criticism of Gauthier “Concert Jazz,” Time, November 12, 1923.

201 “Music Appreciation Recitals Will Be Given in Orlando,” Rollins Sandspur, November 4, 1921, 4.

On January 23 of the following year Rous was engaged to present “What Next in

Music?” to the Rosalind Club of Orlando.202 Relating that the audience was “appreciative and admiring,” The Rollins Sandspur goes on to say that “it proved a program of unusual charm and interest and was received with the same enthusiasm throughout the East and Middle West where she has made extensive tours.”203 The Orlando Sentinel went further, remarking that the program was “perhaps one that has not been repeated by any other American musician in this country.”

The article continues:

It might be said a concert of ultra modern music, as “staged” last evening but the audience would have felt a bit dubious, perhaps a trifle confused, and in some instances undoubtedly doubting the thoroughness of their own musical education, if Miss Rous had not accompanied each number with a thorough explanation, the idea to be interpreted, its origin and whether or not it was a bit of futurism, impressionism or a natural cloud burst.

Altogether the “What Next in Music?” lecture and recital was an extremely interesting one and genuinely instructive[,] for it is not generally known and understood what our modern composers are striving for in music. Besides being a pianist of ability Miss Rous is a speaker of charming personality and wittiness. Though seemingly crude, years to come will undoubtedly see great development and utilization of the ideas made by the futurists and other modernists of today.204

Northeast Tour, March – April

Marion Rous departed from Florida on March 25 en route to Rochester, New York, where she was slated to present “What Next in Music?” to a local music club and the newly- initiated Eastman Conservatory of Music. As per The Rollins Sandspur, “after a stay of a few days in New York she will appear in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Scranton, Penn., before some

202 “Rollins College Announces Concerts 1922 Season,” Orlando Sentinel, January 21, 1922, 5.

203 “Marion Rous Gives Successful Program in Orlando,” Rollins Sandspur, January 27, 1922, 6.

204 “Marion Rous Presents ‘What Next in Music,’” Orlando Sentinel, January 24, 1922, 9.

of the best known clubs of these cities.”205 The trip was brief, as she would return to Orlando the evening of April 9, but she gave several performances in that short span of time.206

Rous’ stay in Rochester was of particular interest as it brought her into contact with the well-known businessman and patron of the arts George Eastman. After having lectured for the

Tuesday Musicale Club in a local Baptist Temple, 207 Rous presented “What Next in Music?” at the Eastman Conservatory, named for the magnanimous donor who had donated much to the music school. As the May 1 issue of The Tampa Times relates, Rous was able to meet that donor in person, and that she was “personally conducted by Mr. Eastman over the conservatory on a tour in inspection.”208

The final leg of Rous’ journey north was presenting “What Next in Music?” in

Harrisburg209 and again in Scranton, the latter being a well-publicized lecture before the Century club of that city.210 The lecture was sponsored under the auspices of the Scranton University music department, and was open to the public as well as registered club members. Rous’ return to Orlando on April 9 seems to have marked the end of her 1921–1922 concert season, allowing her to conclude her duties at Rollins for the spring semester before summer recess.

205 “Miss Rous to Take Eastern Tour,” Rollins Sandspur, March 28, 1922, 6.

206 “Marion Rous Returns from Tour,” Orlando Sentinel, April 9, 1922, 7.

207 “Marion Rous, Modernist,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, March 24, 1922, 35.

208 “Miss Marion Rous, head of the piano department…,” Tampa Times, May 1, 1922, 9.

209 “Wednesday Club Will Give Tea,” Harrisburg Telegraph, August 30, 1921, 6.

210 “Marion Rous will give a lecture recital…,” Scranton Republican, April 1, 1922, 7, “Marion Rous to Give Piano Recital at Century Club,” Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania), April 1, 1922, 8, “Of Interest to Women,” Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania), April 3, 1922, 12, and “Activities of Local Women,” Scranton Republican, April 4, 1922, 7.

By early September Rous was “being rapidly booked for the coming concert season and recent bookings include many re-engagements.”211 She was scheduled to give a recital of eighteenth-century music in Watteau dress in Summit, NJ, as well as reappear before the Country

Club of Scranton on December 4. Neither recital was ever given.

The Death and Legacy of Susan Dyer

In October, Rous’ tour was abruptly cut short by tragedy. Her manager and close friend

Susan Dyer took ill in the autumn of 1922. Rous cancelled her engagements and traveled to be by her side. Susan Dyer died in a New York hospital on October 21, 1922, at the age of forty- two. Dyer had only just begun her position as director of the Greenwich House Music School a few short weeks before her death.

There is no doubt that this must have been a great blow to Rous, as she and Dyer were very close. Indicative of their closeness is the fact that Rous is mentioned in Dyer’s own obituary notices, as if she was a surviving family member.212 Furthermore, Rous seems to have cancelled the rest of her tour for the year, and she would not return to her professional engagements until

February of 1923.

An especially unfortunate aspect of Dyer’s death is that it occurred as both were on the cusp of new directions their careers. When Dyer received word of securing a position at the

Greenwich House Music School, she and Rous simultaneously resigned their positions at

Rollins. They relocated to New York together, even though Rous at this point did not yet have a

211 “Marion Rous Will Play Many Return Engagements,” The Billboard 34, no. 35 (September 1922): 31.

212 See “Miss Susan Dyer,” Summit Herald, October 27, 1922, 11, and “Susan Dyer Dies in New York City,” Orlando Sentinel, October 22, 1922, 13.

position in the city and was not yet hired by Greenwich House. That position was secured for her only later, likely through the intercession of Dyer.

An article from The Orlando Reporter Star reprinted in The Tampa Tribune outlines the end of their respective tenures at Rollins:

Miss Susan Dyer, director of the Rollins Conservatory of Music has tendered her resignation as head of the conservatory after six years of excellent service at Rollins. With Miss Dyer's resignation has also come that of Miss Marion Rous, head of the piano department of the conservatory, who for the past five years has proved to be one of the most successful musical instructors to have come to this city....

Miss Dyer has been honored with the appointment of director of the Greenwich House Music School in New York. This is one of five large settlement music schools in the city of New York where the children and youth of the poor element of the great metropolis are educated in music for extremely low fees….

Miss Rous is rapidly becoming recognized as one of the country's leading concert pianists, and authorities on modern music, and she leaves Orlando so that she may give more time to her concert work and to private teaching, which she will continue in New York.213

Despite the claim that Rous was leaving Rollins to “give more time to her concert work,” she was hired by Greenwich House before the summer was out. Upon Dyer’s death, Rous was appointed director of the school in her stead. She would retain the position until 1938.214

Rous did much to preserve the legacy of the departed Susan Dyer. She would come to add her own piano transcription of a movement from Dyer’s Outlandish Suite to the program of

“What Next in Music?” In August of 1924 the Dyer Memorial Association was formed to raise funds to erect a Dyer Memorial building on the Rollins campus.215 Rous had already begun

213 “Susan Dyer, Director, and Marion Rous, Head Piano Department, Resign from Rollins: Miss Dyer to Head Greenwich House Music School in New York—Christian Heyward to become Director Here,” Orlando Morning Sentinel, June 4, 1922, 9. See also “Miss Dyer to Leave Florida,” Tampa Tribune, June 6, 1922, 10.

214 “Appearing at Club,” Scarsdale Inquirer, March 29, 1940, 6.

215 “Dyer Memorial Association,” The Alumni Record of Rollins College 3, no. 8 (August 1924): 3.

fundraising for the memorial in February of that year, and voluntarily offered to present “What

Next in Music?” at the Miami Women’s Club as a method of earning money to put toward the project.216 She would continue to hold such fundraising concerts to finance the memorial up until its erection in 1940, and she presented a lecture recital entitled “Music Manifold” the evening before the dedication to fund the furnishing and lighting of the building.217

For all the concertizing that Rous would do to fund the Dyer Memorial in later years, she seems to have suspended her musical career for the remainder of 1922. Deprived of her manager and closest friend, Rous would not present “What Next in Music?” again until February of the following year.

216 “Woman’s Club Backs Benefit Concert for Susan Dyer Memorial: Letter Appeals to Music Lover of Miami to Help in Honoring Noted Florida Leader; Marion Rous to Play,” Miami News, February 9, 1924, 7.

217 “Dyer Memorial Will Be Dedicated Sunday: Building Built in Honor of Conservatory Director,” Rollins Sandspur, April 10, 1940, 1.

CHAPTER 3: THE 1924 NEW YORK DEBUT AND BEYOND

“As the culmination of a widely recognized reputation as a concert artist, following an extensive concert tour on which she performed before most of the leading musical organizations east of the Mississippi, Miss Rous made her [New York] debut last season in Aeolian Hall, New

York city.”218 This was printed in The North Adams Transcript in March of 1927, advertising what was to be one of the very last presentations of “What Next in Music?” In actuality three seasons had passed, making the sudden reappearance of this lecture recital all the more striking.

But the overall phenomenon noted is correct, that this Aeolian Hall lecture of 1924 effectively served as the end of Rous’ run with “What Next in Music?”

The presentations surrounding this “culmination,” however, were far from insignificant.

These final seasons generated some of the most detailed reviews, including examples from some of the leading figures in musical criticism in the United States. These reviews evidenced substantial additions to the program, including a newfound interest in American composers that would remain with Rous for the remainder of her career. Rous’ 1924 Aeolian Hall presentation in particular elicited many diverse responses from her New York audience as to her approach to modernism.

Marion Rous emerged from her self-imposed hiatus from the concert stage in the second half of the 1922–1923 concert season in January. Following the death of Susan Dyer, Rous would never return to the same rate of concertizing as she had maintained from 1919 to 1922.

This is likely due at least in part to her duties at the Greenwich House Music School, especially her promotion to the position of director following Dyer’s death.

218 “Marion Rous in Recital Tonight: Will Present Lecture-Concert on ‘What Next in Music?’ at Chapin Hall at 8.15 O’clock,” North Adams Transcript, March 8, 1927, 9.

Rous’ first engagement seems to have been at the Woman’s Club of Wilkes-Barre,

Pennsylvania, where she performed “What Next in Music?” under the auspices of the Wilkes-

Barre Mozart Club.219 An advertisement from The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader the morning of the presentation emphasized the humorous nature of the lecture.220 The same issue provides a more in-depth advertisement, including the program of the recital, which had expanded considerably from the previous year:

Palmgren ….. The Isle of Shadows Ornstein …… The Cathedral Schoenberg …… Piano Piece from Op. 11 Debussy …… Gardens in the Rain Ravel …… The Gibbet Bela-Bartok …… Bear Dance Malipiero …… I Partenti Poulenc …… Vasle from “Album des 6” Griffes …… Scherzo Scriabin …… Poem, Op. 71, No. 2 Stravinsky …… Ragtime Prokofieff …… Sarcasme, Op. 17, No. 3 Goossens …… Dance Memories, Marionette Show Lord Berners …… Funeral March for a Rich Aunt Cyril Scott …… In the Forest Percy Grainger …… Shepherd’s Hey221

Rous traveled from Pennsylvania to New York, presenting “What Next in Music?” at the

Greenwich Village Auditorium in what Izetta May McHenry of The Billboard referred to as one of the “biggest events” of New York City’s Music Week, April 29 to May 5.222 Organized by the

Music Week Association of New York City, this weeklong event was a charitable endeavor to

219 “The Mozart Club is planning to bring Miss Marion Rous…,” Wilkes-Barre Record, January 13, 1923, 20.

220 “‘What Next in Music…,’” Advertisement, Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, February 1, 1923, 3.

221 “‘What Next in Music’ Subject of Lecture,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, February 1, 1923, 4.

222 Izetta May McHenry, “Thousands Enjoy: Innumerable Concerts Given During New York’s Music Week,” Billboard, May 5, 1923, 30.

present music free of charge to the city’s schools, hospitals, prisons, and other challenged institutions. The event featured interracial concerts as well, breaking down segregationist barriers and reaching out to the large immigrant population of New York. Janet D. Schenck mentions

Rous’ lecture in an entry of her 1926 book Music, Youth & Opportunity: A Survey of Settlement and Community Music Schools, but gives no further insight.223

The next appearance of “What Next in Music?” seems to have been in Washington, D.C., where Rous lectured before the Music Division of the National Federation of Settlements on

May 15. Held in the ballroom of the Hotel Powhatan, the lecture took place in the mid- afternoon224 and was introduced by Harold Randolph, Rous’ former teacher at the Peabody

Institute. Rous presented what was essentially the same program that she gave in Wilkes-Barre in

January, but with the order slightly altered and the Griffes Scherzo omitted.225

The May 16 issue of The Sunday Star provides a review, but it is not entirely reliable.

Most significantly, it quotes Rous out of context, using her words directed against musical traditionalists as a criticism of modernity. The reviewer, signed as H. H. F., writes the following:

Miss Rous expressed the odd sensations aroused by much of this music as indicating the fact that the musicians seemed to be “walking into the future backward,” and suggested that, as the general public cannot grow new ears as easily as a lobster grows new claws, the price to be paid for keeping up with the times musically is a heavy one. 226

223 Janet D. Schenck, Music, Youth & Opportunity: A Survey of Settlement and Community Music Schools (Boston, MA: National Federation of Settlements, 1926), 82.

224 Different advertisements in the same issue of The Sunday Star list the lecture as starting at either 3:00 p.m. or 3:15 p.m.. See “Music in Washington,” Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), May 13, 1923, 63, “Marion Rous, Pianist,” Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), May 13, 1923, 63, and “Music Division of National Federation of Settlements Program,” Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), May 13, 1923, 63.

225 “Marion Rous, Pianist,” 63, does not list Palmgren’s Ilse of Shadows as being programmed, but it is listed in H. H. F., “Pianist Renders Unusual Program: Miss Marion Rous Gives Explanatory Recital at Powhatan Hall,” Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), May 16, 1923, 5.

226 H. H. F., “Pianist Renders Unusual Program,” 5.

However, as is known from multiple other accounts, the full quotation was directed against musicians, critics, and listeners obsessed with the music of the past, saying that they “are so busily engaged in gazing towards the past that they walk into the future backward. The future will became the present before they know it, and there will be a painful mental bump when they collide with it, unless they look ahead and take account beforehand some of the rather startling new landmarks recently appearing on the musical scene.”227 This criticism was therefore levied not at modernist composers but rather at musical traditionalists, and it is impossible to definitively say what was the reason behind the reviewer’s misrepresentation of Rous’ words.

George Pullen Jackson and “Southern Musicians”

It was during this period that Marion Rous and “What Next in Music?” drew the attention of musicologist George Pullen Jackson, a scholar of Southern hymnody. He was impressed with

Rous’ accomplishments, referring to her touring with “What Next in Music?” as being

“immensely successful.”228 Jackson wrote an article on Rous as part of a series on Southern musicians for The Chattanooga Daily Times,229 highlighting the Virginian heritage of Rous’ mother Frances. His article was regularly reprinted with minor alterations in newspapers across the country, which never cared to cite the original source of publication. The original print was that of October 28, 1923, in The Sunday Times of Chattanooga, TN.

227 Marion Rous, quoted in “Marion Rous will be the next artist…,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), February 13, 1927, 38.

228 George Pullen Jackson, “In the Musical World,” Chattanooga Daily Times, September 23, 1923, 35.

229 For more on this series, see George Pullen Jackson, “In the Musical World,” Chattanooga Daily Times, July 20, 1924, 9.

Jackson starts off with a rather clumsy comparison between Rous and the winner of the

Miss Columbus Ohio modeling contest, an unfortunate metaphor that is omitted from some reprints:

“Miss Columbus Ohio,” is, I believe, the name of a recent prize-winning young woman of physical-parts.

“Miss Columbus Piano” might even more fittingly be the appellation of Marion Rous, a noted young woman of musical parts. For she fares forth into new realms of pianistic art, observes, studies, and then brings to the old stand-patting world word and exhibits of what she has discovered.

It is well her “What Next in Music” is both a lecture and a recital, for we curious ones hear all too much about the moderns, the futurists and the radicals in music, and still remain unsatisfied and more or less ignorant. Here’s where Miss Rous comes in. She recreates the work of these Goossens, Ornsteins, Scotts, etc., and tells us, at the same time, what their ideas are.230

Jackson maintains that Rous recognizes traditional composers as markedly superior to the modernists she presents in her lecture recital:

Don’t think, however, that she is going off on a tangent. She has a perfectly clear musical “[W]eltanschauung.” She doesn’t put these moderns on a pedestal as Beethovens or Brahmses.

“They are,” says she much as Nietzsche would, “simply the big group of progressive experimenters who are preparing the way for the next super-tone-master — maybe an American.”

But American or European this coming tone-Titan will have, if Miss Rous has her way, an understanding American audience.231

This fascinating quote by Rous connects her with the music appreciation movement and its search for an American answer to the Austro-German musical tradition. Chybowski has noted

230 George Pullen Jackson, “Southern Musicians,” Sunday Times (Chattanooga, Tennessee), October 28, 1923, 7. See also George Pullen Jackson, “Baltimore Girl Modernist of United States Pianists,” Times Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia), October 28, 1923, 35, and George P. Jackson, “‘What Next in Music’ Is Occupying Thoughts of Southern Musician,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 4, 1924, 10.

231 Ibid.

how “educational leaders pointed to the teaching of music appreciation across the nation as evidence of progress toward creating the ‘Great American Composer’ who could eventually compete even with German ‘masters.’”232 In acting as prophet for the American “super-tone- master,” Rous was working toward a resolution of the anxieties that the United States had regarding the lack of a national musical identity as well as its resulting inferiority complex when compared to Europe.

Jackson continues by outlining Rous’ background with a degree of specificity that suggests he may have interviewed either Rous or someone close to her for biographical information, especially as it includes personal information that are absent from other accounts, such as details pertaining to Rous’ maternal family and her primary schooling. Jackson goes on to write of ‘What Next in Music?” and the reception thereof. He closes by outlining the significance Rous has had on the musical landscape of America, saying that “nobody knows what is to be next in music. It is a fair judgment, however, to say that that which is now in music, at this time when so many are asking ‘What it is all about?’ would be poorer but for the personality and work of Marion Rous, the southern musician.”233

Jackson’s labeling of Rous as a southern musician defined his writing on her, and would occasionally cross the line from fact into fiction. While in the above article he writes that she was born in Baltimore, he would eventually come to contradict this detail. His 1925 article “Players and Singers from Dixie; What They are Doing, and Where” he referred to her as “Miss Marion

Rous, of Virginia,” presumably as a justification for listing her as a “player from Dixie.”234 Not

232 Julia J. Chybowski, “Developing American Taste: A Cultural History of the Early Twentieth-Century Music Appreciation Movement” (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2008), 184.

233 Jackson, “Southern Musicians,” 7. Minor corrections in punctuation mine.

234 George Pullen Jackson, “Players and Singers from Dixie; What They are Doing, and Where,” Chattanooga Daily Times, December 13, 1925, 47.

only was Rous not born in Virginia, she never seems to have even lived there, and was a resident of New York at the time of publication. Similarly, a photograph of Rous is included in the

George Pullen Jackson Collection,235 and is catalogued under “Rous-Wood” rather than simply

“Rous.” This again emphasizes her mother’s side of the family as a justification of her southern heritage.

Jackson wrote of Rous again after her 1924 New York debut at Aeolian Hall. His carefully-worded notice in The Chattanooga Daily Times draws attention to both her positive reception as well as her supposed southern heritage, referencing a “southern musicians’ colony” that may be more figurative than literal:

It is a pleasure to note the unanimity of favorable comment called forth in the New York press the Aeolian Hall recital, Jan. 11, of Marion Rous. Interest of people in this section of the country is justified not only on account of the intrinsic uniqueness of her art ventures into the understanding and interpretation of the music of the “moderns” (she calls her recital “An Anatomy of Modernism”), but also because she is a native of the south.

Miss Rous, who is now in New York, is one of the most charming members of the southern musicians’ colony in that city.236

Judging by this notice of her New York debut, not to mention the photograph kept in the

George Pullen Jackson Collection, Jackson seems to have retained some interest in Rous even after the publication of his “Southern Musicians” series. One cannot help but wonder if Jackson, as a scholar of hymnody, ever read Rous’ article “Symphonic Aspects of Hymn Tunes,”237 published in The Hymn three years before his death.

235 Photograph of Marion Rous, undated, item ID MSS.0225, Box 1, Folder 32, George Pullen Jackson Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.

236 George Pullen Jackson, “In the Musical World,” Chattanooga Daily Times, February 3, 1924, 35.

237 Marion Rous, “Symphonic Aspects of Hymn Tunes,” The Hymn 1, no. 2 (January 31, 1950): 11–14.

The New York Debut: January 11, 1924, at Aeolian Hall

On January 11, 1924, a mere month before Paul Whiteman's famous “Experiment in

Modern Music,” Aeolian Hall hosted Marion Rous’ New York debut as she presented “What

Next in Music?” 238 The program was extensive, as is evidenced from a 1924 flyer (See Figure

3.1). Reviewers seem to be rather concerned about Rous’ own position on the divisive issue of modernism, and are in disagreement as to precisely where she stood.

Figure 3.1: Flyer for “What Next in Music?” at Aeolian Hall, 1924. Collection of the author.

238 “Marion Rous, pianist…,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 6, 1924, 25.

Present in the large audience was W. J. Henderson, whose review published the following day in The New York Herald provides significant insight into the content of Rous’ lecture. He starts off by observing that Rous “talked entertainingly as well as instructively and played with good technique and a very delicate sense of tone.” He goes on to relate some rather dubious hypophysial theories presented by Rous concerning the progressive instinct in humankind, presumably as an impetus for modernity:

She invited consideration of the fact that powerful agencies in the progress of man and art were the pineal pituitary glands, thus achieving the glory of connecting music with endocrinology and that, too, without perceptible aid from Steinach, Kamerer [sic], or Veronoff. Her prophet seemed to be Cyril Scot [sic], and her book of the law his “Philosophy of Modernism.” 239

This represents a rare account of extra-musical theories presented by Rous in “What Next in

Music?” and deserves some attention. Marguerite Bartholomew of The Atlanta Constitution corroborates Henderson’s account, writing that “[Rous] further states that the seat of psychic perception governing the cultivation of this new discernment is a gland lying at the base of the brain, which, with the majority, is a latent and undeveloped faculty!”240

Steinach, Kammerer, and Voronoff represent rather disparate fields, and while all had some relationship with endocrinology any deeper meaning intended by Henderson is unclear.

Eugen Steinach (1861–1944) was an Austrian physiologist and pioneer in endocrinology that discovered the causal relationship between sex hormones and sexuality. Paul Kammerer (1880–

1926) was an Austrian biologist who advocated for Lamarckism, and Serge Abrahamovitch

239 W. J. Henderson, “Miss Marion Rous, A Pianist from Baltimore,” New York Herald, January 12, 1924, included in Dramatic and Musical Criticisms (Scrapbook), 1923–1924. Special Collections and Archives, Boston Public Library, Boston, MA, urn:oclc:record:1042979420.

240 Marguerite Bartholomew, “Hearing Music in New York: Miss Rous Lectures at Aeolian Hall,” Atlanta Constitution, Jan 20, 1924, 40.

Voronoff (1866–1951) was a French-Russian surgeon interested in Gerontology who famously grafted monkey testicular tissue onto men’s testicles in order to curtail the aging process. Seeing that Rous presented her hypophysial theories “without perceptible aid from” these men, a study of their work likely does not bring one any closer to Rous’ beliefs.

These theories presented by Rous are less indicative of legitimate science than they are of modernism. Several scientific objections can be raised in opposition to her claim, such as the fact that by Henderson’s account the pituitary gland (located on the ventral side of the brain) is conflated with the pineal gland (located on the dorsal side), which secretes only melatonin, the regulator of the sleep-wake cycle. But to raise such objections misses the point that Rous was attempting to make. The modernist movement was consistently associated with science ever since early modernist thinkers such as Boltzmann and Freud.241 Several modernist composers of the 1920s adopted pseudo-scientific airs,242 reflective in many ways of a coldly dispassionate post-war mentality, a second Age of Enlightenment that prioritized rational empiricism above the religious fervor of the nineteenth century. Oja connects several 1920s modernist composers, such as Varèse, Antheil, and Cowell, with scientific ideals.243 The relationship between modernism and science in the music of Varèse has also been studied by Benjamin Steege in his article

“Varèse in Vitro: On Attention, Aurality, and the Laboratory.”244 As such, by legitimatizing

241 For studies on the relationship between science and modernism in general, see the sources listed in Mark Morrison, “Why Modernist Studies and Science Studies Need Each Other,” Modernism/Modernity 9, no. 4 (2002): 675–682.

242 See Allison Kerbe Portnow. “Einstein, Modernism, and Musical Life in America, 1921–1945” (PhD diss., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2011), in particular Chapter 1: Introduction, 1–52, which studies the relationship between science and modernist composers in more general terms not limited to the theories of Albert Einstein.

243 Carol J. Oja, Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000), 34, 79, and 137 respectively.

244 Benjamin Steege, “Varèse in Vitro: On Attention, Aurality, and the Laboratory,” Current Musicology 76 (Fall 2003): 25–51. This article grew out of Steege’s dissertation, which addresses the relationship between musical

progressive instincts through scientific theories, Rous was adhering to a long tradition of linking modernist thought with the scientific method.

Such a concept of the “powerful agencies in the progress of man and art” speaks to music appreciation as well as modernism, particularly the concept of evolution in musical taste.

Chybowski has noted how “music appreciation advocates developed pedagogical models consistent with scientific beliefs popular in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, above all, the so-called ‘reform Darwinism’ that flourished from the 1880s into the twentieth century, stressing the importance of intellect and culture in human evolution.”245 She furthermore suggests that this belief may draw less from Darwin and more from Lamarck’s ideas of inherently progressive tendencies in nature, an observation that may justify Henderson’s comparison to Kammerer. Regardless, Rous’ words point towards the belief that cultural progress was biological and evolutionary in nature; in this belief she has found common ground between modernism and music appreciation.

Henderson therefore recognized the modernist impulses of Rous, and saw her lecture recital as being a crusade for the modernist cause. By his account, Rous was not as impartial as other accounts made her out to be; rather, she mocked “traditional” composers of the Western canon for their lack of innovation, and christened Schoenberg as the leader of the emancipation of the dissonance:

She declared that the fundamentalists (as she quite properly called the old fogies) made a fatal mistake when they admitted the use of the whole tone scale. The establishment of this scale she apparently attributed to Schoenberg, not to Moussorgsky or Debussy… exalting Arnold Schoenberg as the master who had taught us that any two tones might be

modernism and science in the work of Helmholz; Benjamin Steege, “Material Ears: Hermann von Helmholtz, Attention, and Modern Aurality” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2007).

245 Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” 168.

sounded simultaneously. In the modernistic music, she said, “all tones are free and equal.”246

Despite the conviction of Rous’ beliefs, Henderson remains unconvinced. He maintains that even as the lecture was interesting and worthwhile, it was not far removed from the philosophies of other modernists, and that “Rous marched over the ground usually covered in the explanations of modernism” and that “her plea in the main was the typical one of the modernist, namely, that progress can be made only by abandoning the old rules of form and especially by striking off the fetters of what is called ‘tonality.’”247

Marguerite Bartholomew, an Atlanta-based music critic and herself a pianist, provides a very different account. In her Atlanta Constitution article Bartholomew praises Rous’

“ingenious” and “admirable” lecture, but does not have the same generous assessment for her repertoire. Apparently ignoring Rous’ labeling of traditionalists as “old fogies,” Bartholomew presents Rous as completely impartial with regards to musical trends, and that very impartiality is judged inappropriate and ineffective when confronted with the futility and sterility of modernism:

As is her custom, Miss Rous held herself astutely aloof from the whole subject. She quoted impartially from destructive as well as constructive criticism, and met the rigorous demands of an exacting program in her usual efficient and admirable manner, leaving her hearers to arrive absolutely at their own conclusions. To those cognizant of the sheer brutality and barbarism of the present day tendency known as Ultra Modernism, Miss Rous’ presentation of the subject seemed lucid and comprehensive, if not convincing.248

246 Henderson, “Miss Marion Rous, A Pianist from Baltimore.”

247 Ibid.

248 Marguerite Bartholomew, “Hearing Music in New York: Miss Rous Lectures at Aeolian Hall,” Atlanta Constitution, Jan 20, 1924, 40.

Bartholomew views the modernist repertoire played as being unintentionally humorous, and maintains that Rous heightened this humor through sarcasm:

There is a certain exhileration [sic] and hilarity always attendant upon an exposition of modernism. To the uninitiated it appears so utterly futile and ridiculous and mirth- provoking, that one is amused in spite of a righteous exasperation.

And this reaction was brought out facetiously by Miss Rouis [sic] in her remarks.249

Bartholomew repeats the account of several other sources that cite Rous as requesting that her audience “forswear all they had hitherto held dear” in music to best appreciate modernism free of preconceptions. As was Rous’ custom, this plea was presented via a third party, in this case Cyril Scott paraphrased in almost religious terms:

She quoted Cyril Scott as suggesting in his “Philosophy of New Music” that in order to cultivate an appreciative estimate of this new cult it is necessary to be born again, musically speaking; to meet the issue by a complete surrender of the will and one’s critical faculties, and not to be influenced by any preconceived notions whatever.250

Bartholomew also seems to misrepresent Rous’ position on modernism, as did H. H. R. of The

Sunday Star. The anecdote of the “Three S’s” is well-documented by other sources, and The

Sunday Star quotes Rous directly. However, by Bartholomew’s account, Rous was quoting another source and not presenting her own words, saying that “[Rous] quoted certain sagacious scribes as acclaiming the triple ‘S’—Schoenberg, Scriabin, and Stravinsky—above the three ‘Bs’ of the classical period.”251

249 Bartholomew, “Hearing Music in New York,” 40.

250 Ibid.

251 Ibid.

Bartholomew continues to list the program, and she relates how Rous referred to the bitonality of Stravinsky’s Ragtime as “astigmatic or bifocal harmony,” what Bartholomew terms

“modern tonal matrimony.” She closes with this metaphor for the futility of musical modernism:

A handsome four-paneled screen served Miss Rous as a colorful background. Upon it strange, fantastic creatures half dog, half tiger were pictured careering [sic] madly across an arid waste. Whether intentionally or not, it was significantly apropos of these protagonists of modernism and their pompous sterility.252

A January 14 issue of Women’s Wear continues the scientific metaphor of other accounts, writing that “The modern and ultra-modern music of the American, French, Russian, and English impressionistic and futuristic schools was disected [sic], anatomized, and ‘explained’ by Marion

Rous in her lecture-recital at Aeolian Hall, Friday evening.” While the reviewer speaks highly of

Rous’ lecturing and musicianship, they thought substantially less of the repertoire that she played:

If we except Palgren’s [sic] beautiful “Isle of Shadows” and three or four of the compositions near the tail end of the program, the enjoyment derived that evening by the large, appreciative audience, must be credited entirely to Miss Rous’ delightful witticisms, intelligent musicianship and charming stage presence….

If our modernists’ only intent had been to make the grand old masters writhe in their graves in agony at the inanities committed in the name of their worshipped Muse, they have succeeded, otherwise the works offered in this evening’s program have no “raison d'être.”253

“What Next in Music?” After Aeolian Hall

“While Miss Rous only last season made her Aeolian Hall debut in New York, she has reversed usual procedure and made this the culmination rather than the initiation of a reputation

252 Bartholomew, “Hearing Music in New York,” 40.

253 “Music Notes: Marion Rous’ Lecture-Recital,” Women’s Wear 28, no. 11 (1924): 36. Accent mark over “d'être” mine.

as concert artist throughout the country.”254 So wrote Ethel Roughton Wortham of The

Corsicana Daily Sun in March of 1926. It was an astute observation; after 1924 Rous remained increasingly grounded in New York, teaching at the Greenwich House Music School and eventually taking positions at the Juilliard School and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Her career as a touring pianist and lecturer slowed considerably.

One might expect a successful debut in America’s cradle of modern music, reviewed by respected music critics in major newspapers, to inaugurate a period of increased touring on the part of Rous. But after eight years of presenting “What Next in Music?,” Marion Rous was ready to move on. In terms of a repeated lecture recital, she began some limited touring with a lecture entitled “Concerning Programme Music”255 almost immediately after her Aeolian Hall performance (See Figure 3.2). “Concerning Programme Music” also featured modern piano music; indeed, there were some overlaps with “What Next in Music?” in terms of repertoire.

However, the programs were largely distinct, and “Concerning Programme Music” had far more in the way of American music.256

254 E[thel] R[oughton] W[ortham], “Miss Rous to Visit in Corsicana,” Corsicana Daily Sun, March 10, 1926, 4.

255 Also referred to as “Concerning Program Music.” The first appearances of a lecture recital of that name that I have found date from late 1921. Rous was giving a lecture recital entitled “Program Music with Piano Illustrations” as early as February of 1914, before “What Next in Music?” was created. This was almost assuredly not the same program as “Concerning Programme Music” however; a lecture advertised as simply “Program Music” was given in February of 1919 with a program of entirely Romantic music and was in no way similar to the lecture that she would later give in 1924. A transitional program can be found in “Program Music, Old and New,” which took place from at least 1920–1921.

256 A 1924 program of “Concerning Programme Music” was as follows: The Combat of David and Goliath (Kuhnau); The Battle of Prague (Kotzwara); The Battle from Poem of 1917 (Ornstein); Satanic Poem (Scriabin); Winter Waters (Arnold Bax); Fire of Spring (John Ireland); Gardens in the Rain (Debussy); Tempo di Minuetto (Amilcare Zanella); Celle Qui Parle Trop (Satie); The Swan (Palmgren); Silhouettes from the Screen: Charlie Chaplin, Theda Bara, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks (Mortimer Wilson); Poems After Omar Khayyam (Arthur Foote); Afternoon of a Faun (Debussy); Churchyard Corner in Spring (d’Seyerac); Bydlo (Moussorgsky); In an Irish Jaunting Car (Katherine Whitfield). “Miss Rous Will Stress Modernity in Piano Program; Recital Here Wednesday for Dyer Memorial Fund is Put on by Music Club,” Miami News, February 16, 1924, 37.

Figure 3.2: Advertisement for “What Next in Music?” and “Concerning Programme Music,” c. 1924. Collection of the author.

In February of 1924, shortly after her Aeolian Hall debut, Rous took “What Next in

Music?” and “Concerning Programme Music” southward to Florida to raise funds for the Dyer

Memorial on the Rollins campus. Rous volunteered herself to lecture at the Miami Woman’s

Club to raise funds for the lighting and furnishing of the memorial. Bertha Foster, chairman of the club’s music committee, director of the Miami Conservatory, and Dyer’s successor as president of the Florida State Federation of Music Clubs, wrote a letter to the music lovers of

Miami that details Rous’ involvement in the proceedings:

Our club’s contribution to this memorial fund will be raised through the help of Susan Dyer’s best friend, Marion Rous, the well known concert pianist. Miss Rous’ lecture recitals on modern music have placed her in an enviable position among concert pianists.

Miss Rous has made us an offer that will make it possible for us to raise a sum for this memorial, and at the same time have the pleasure of hearing the delightful music she gave not long ago in Aeolian hall in New York City.257

This final sentence indicates that Rous presented “What Next in Music?” at the fundraising lecture, and indeed several notices refer to a program of modern piano music. However, reviews demonstrate that the February 20 lecture was in fact “Concerning Programme Music.”258 As

Rous continued her Florida tour, other accounts were more careful to note which program she played, such as the February 22 issue of the Miami News:

Instead of presenting her lecture recital now popularly alluded to by critics aid her audiences as a clever “Anatomy of Modernism,” Miss Rous will give a piano program Sunday afternoon.259

Rous did, however, present “What Next in Music?” while on this trip. Before lecturing in

Miami or St. Petersburg, Rous first went to her beloved Winter Park, where she presented “What

Next in Music?” on February 13 (rescheduled from the original date of February 12).260 It is difficult to conjecture as to why Rous would have chosen to perform “What Next in Music?”

257 Bertha Foster, quoted in “Woman’s Club Backs Benefit Concert for Susan Dyer Memorial,” Miami News, February 9, 1924, 7.

258 See as examples “The Modern in Music to be Presented by Marion Rous,” Miami News, February 20, 1924, 2, “Modern Piano Music Will be Offered by Miss Rous: Interesting Program Will Explain Problematic Tendencies at Woman’s Club Auditorium Tonight,” Miami Herald, February 20, 1924, 7, and “Recital Interests Large Audience,” Miami News, February 21, 1924, 10.

259 “Marion Rous, pianist…,” Miami News, February 22, 1924, 10.

260 “Miss Rous to Lecture in New York,” Orlando Sentinel, January 27, 1924. While the title of this article indicates that this performance was given in New York rather than Florida, this is an error. The text of the notice indicates that the lecture was given in Winter Park (my emphasis added): “Marion Rous of New York, so well known and liked here and in Winter Park, will deliver her lecture recital on ‘What Next In Music’ in the latter place on the evening of February 13 instead of 12 as previously intended. The recital has been received with enthusiasm in New York, and i tis [sic] unnecessary to say that it will provoke a like enthusiasm here.” See also “Concert at Winter Park,” Orlando Sentinel, February 12, 1924, 10, which clearly lists the lecture as being given at Winter Park.

only once on this trip while she reserved the rest of the performances for “Concerning

Programme Music.”

Rous’ success did not go unnoticed by ambitious and unscrupulous musicians attempting to make a name for themselves, even in other countries. A mere two months after Rous’ New

York debut at Aeolian Hall, a Muriel Cottingham (née Brown)261 of Manitoba, Canada, presented a piano lecture recital outlining new trends in contemporary music entitled “What Next in Music?” Even the repertoire was drawn from that of Rous, including works by Debussy,

Palmgren, Goossens, and Scriabin. The Winnipeg Tribune provides an advertisement that reads exactly as those advertising Rous’ recital of the same name:

Mrs. W. Randolph Cottingham will lecture at the free public art course of the Winnipeg Gallery and School of Art in Theatre A. the University, Broadway, April 3 at 8.15 o'clock. The title of the lecture Is “What Next In Music?” It will indicate some of the aims and tendencies of modern music. Mrs. Cottingham will Illustrate her subject by selections at the piano from works by Schumann, Chopin, Debussy. d'Albert, Palmgren, Goossens, Cowell, Scriabine, Satie and others.262

Obviously the recital had been scheduled before Rous’ New York debut, and the earliest advertisement seems to be one from late October of the previous year, printed in The Winnipeg

Tribune: “Thursday, April 3 — Music: What next in music? Illustrated at the Piano. Mrs. W.

Randolph Cottingham.”263 In a subsequent advertisement printed in early April, the performance is specifically labeled as a lecture recital, with a full title of “What Next in Music?: Aims and

261 Muriel Brown, better known by her married name of Mrs. W. Randolph Cottingham, was a pianist, music educator, and socialite from Manitoba, Canada. She had some musical success and was elected president of the Winnipeg branch of the Manitoba Registered Music Teachers’ Association in 1949.

262 “Mrs. W. Randolph Cottingham will lecture…,” Winnipeg Tribune, March 28, 1924, 6.

263 “Art Lectures are Innovation,” Advertisement, Winnipeg Tribune, October 27, 1923, 3.

Tendencies of Modern Music.”264 Cottingham’s goal was to illustrate “the deliberate cult of the subconscious in art.”265

Rous herself seems to have not repeated “What Next in Music?” until November, presenting it at the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale’s second artist recital, held at a local Masonic

Temple.266 The fact that this series also featured the Letz Quartet and Wilhelm Bachaus indicates the standing that Rous had in musical circles at this point of her career. Repeating the claim of

Ethel Roughton Wortham and George Pullen Jackson that Rous had lectured “in practically every large city east of the Mississippi,” an October article in The Indianapolis Star noted that the program of “What Next in Music?” was “replenished each season with important novelties,” an observation that sheds some light on Rous’ decisions to update her programming as her career progressed.267 A reviewer from The Observer reprinted in The Indianapolis Times, while taken aback by the “savagery” of the “sinister” and “sarcastic” repertoire, still maintained that Rous’ lecture was “very interesting and entertaining.”268

264 “Musical Lecture-Recital,” Advertisement, Winnipeg Tribune, April 2, 1924.

265 “Personal Paragraphs,” Edmonton Journal, April 26, 1924, 65.

266 “Recital Announced by Matinee Musicale,” Indianapolis Times, November 1, 1924, 7.

267 “Marion Rous, Nov. 14,” Indianapolis Star, October 5, 1924, 15.

268 “A very interesting and entertaining recital…,” Indianapolis Times, November 15, 1924, 5.

Rous then traveled west to Omaha269 and north to St. Paul, where, in contrast to

Indianapolis, her program was deemed “most attractive.”270 However, her February 2 lecture in

Washington, D. C., the following year evidenced a new direction.271

Accounts of the Washington, D. C., performance include some rather shrewd observations on the part of “What Next in Music?” Careful to note that Rous “is neither for nor against the type of music she plays. She merely presents it to the audience,” 272 it is noted that

“[s]he arranged the program skillfully to handle the exotic dissonances of the radical moderns first and gradually lead to more melodious works.”273 While her playing was overall well- received, Rous’ performance of the Poulenc waltz was deemed “[not] so poetic and pleasing a reading as has been heard here [before].”274

Between this performance and one in Baltimore almost immediately following,275 the program of “What Next in Music?” evidence a number of important additions that demonstrate a new direction for Rous. Schoenberg’s Opus 11 was replaced with Opus 19, and Bartók’s Bear

Dance with Zongorara, Op. 9, no. 4. Other works added include Satie’s Chapitres tournés en tous sens, no. 1: Celle qui parle trop and Nocturne no. 4, Honegger’s Pieces Breves, H.25, nos. 1

269 “Miss Marion Rous in Series of Contests [sic],” Tampa Bay Times, November 16, 1924, 16.

270 “Marion Rous, a lecture-recitalist…,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), November 16, 1924, 70.

271 “What Next in Music? A Lecture Recital…,” Advertisement, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), February 1, 1925, sec. 3, p. 2, and “Monday—Washington Society of the Fine Arts…,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), February 1, 1925, 30.

272“Marion Rous—Tomorrow,” Sunday Star (Washington D. C.), February 1, 1925, pt. 3, p. 5.

273 “Lecture Recital Given by Pianist: Marion Rous Talks on “What Next in Music?” Playing Varied Program,” Evening Star (Washington D.C.), February 3, 1925, 4.

274 Ibid.

275 “Marion Rous to Play for Baltimore Music Club,” Baltimore Sun, February 1, 1925, pt. 2, sec. 1, p. 3.

and 4, Hindemith’s Suite “1922,” Op. 26, no. 2: Shimmy, John Ireland’s Preludes, no. 4: Fire of

Spring, Jean Wiener’s Sonatine Syncopee, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Alt wien: III. Memento mori: Fox-trot tragico, Alla marcia funebre. Katheryn Whitfield’s In an Irish Jaunting Car was given as an encore in Washington.276

However, perhaps the most significant additions to the program were those by American composers. Rous had discussed the coming of an American “tone-master” at least as early as

1923, an incongruous comment given the fact that no American composer was then included in her program. Patriotic interest in American music was on the rise in the 1910s and 20s, and at the

1919 NFMC Convention Rous had been surrounded by lectures on American music even as she remained steadfast beside the European repertoire that she had learned in Munich under

Stavenhagen. But the inclusion of Henry Cowell’s277 What’s This and Eastwood Lane’s

Persimmon Pucker represent a new interest in American music on the part of Rous, who would go on to make this a critical part of her musical identity. Beyond these two compositions, Rous

276 This composition was the subject of what appears to have been Rous’ sole recording, a 1924 Duo-Art piano roll: Marion Rous, pianist, In an Irish Jaunting Car, by Katheryn Thomas Whitfield, recorded 1924, Duo-Art 67385, piano roll. While Rous was regularly listed as recording only under the Duo-Art label (see Figure 3.1 as well as “Miss Marion Rous Gives Illustrated Lecture,” Corsicana Daily Sun, January 23, 1924), all of the sources that I have found list only roll no. 67385 under her name: see Duo-Art Piano Music: A Classified Catalog of Interpretations of the World's Best Music Recorded by More Than Two Hundred and Fifty Pianists for the Duo-Art Reproducing Piano (United Kingdom: Aeolian Company, 1927), 109 and 365, The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation, Duo-Art Piano Roll Catalogue, ed. Albert M. Petrak (MacMike, 1998), 28, Duo-Art Classical MIDI and E-roll Files (P. Phillips, 2018), 46, and the extensive database of The International Association of Mechanical Music Preservationists. Also, it is worth mentioning that Gerald Stonehill, a collector of and known expert on Duo- Art piano rolls, apparently cited roll no. 67385 as being the only piano roll that Marion Rous ever made; see Albert Petrak, “Seek ‘In An Irish Jaunting Car’ Duo-Art 67385: Marion Rous and her lone roll,” Mechanical Music Digest Archives (blog), Mechanical Music Digest, November 25, 2002, https://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/Digests/200211/2002.11.25.09.html.

277 Henry Cowell seems to have had personal contact with Rous, acting as guest faculty to the Greenwich House Music School and even performing in a broadcasted International Exchange Concert alongside her and violinist Natalie Brown in 1933. For a record of this broadcast see “Main Features On 1300 K.—WEVD—230M.,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 25, 1933, 6.

also played her own piano transcription of “Hula-Hula” from the Outlandish Suite of her departed friend, Susan Dyer.278

This demonstrates a new direction for Rous, one toward American music. To date, Rous appeared to have not included works by American composers in “What Next in Music?” But apart from her youthful championing of Susan Dyer, this might have been a relatively new interest for Rous in 1925, and it would remain a critical part of her musical identity for the rest of her career. As late as 1948 Rous was advocating for American composers, expressing her admiration of Franco Autori’s programming for the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, saying that she was “much impressed by . . . [Autori’s] achievement along this line. In five seasons at

Chautauqua he has performed fifty-five works by thirty-four American composers.”279 Rous also used her leadership positions in the National Federation of Music Clubs to advocate for modern music by American composers, such as designing an annual list of contemporary American compositions as suggested repertoire to orchestral conductors.280

This interest in American music connects Rous with the music appreciation movement, which did much to advance the music of American composers. I have already mentioned the almost messianic prophesy of the “Great American Composer” espoused by figures in music appreciation including Rous. Broadly speaking, the music appreciation movement sought to establish a national musical identity, one that would hold up in comparison to the musical

278 For an interesting commentary on the origins of this composition and the meaning of its title, see Rous’ own program notes reproduced in “Marion Rous Will Play Susan Dyer Composition,” Orlando Sentinel, January 10, 1927, 2, and expanded in “Marion Rous and Bernard Ocko Get Attention of Thousands with Skit; Composer and Pianist Were for Many Years Head of Rollins Conservatory of Music,” Orlando Sentinel, July 1, 1926, 15.

279 Marion Rous, quoted in “Miss Marion Rous, Symphonic Lecturer, Starts New Course,” Chautauqua Daily, July 13, 1948.

280 Oscar Smith, “Federation Helps Modern Composes with New List,” Akron Beacon Journal, August 29, 1948, 24.

tradition of Central Europe.281 This national musical identity was to go beyond popular knowledge, and it would encompass music criticism and composition as well.

Music appreciation sought to create classical music “democratically” through raising the taste of the public and encouraging patronage of American composers.282 Rous would come to adopt this terminology herself, saying that “music is a source of relationships of man to man, education and the democratic idea,”283 and striving for music education “far seeing in purpose and democratic in scope.”284 Many music appreciation courses prioritized works by American composers, and Rous herself would come to teach such a class with her 1955 music appreciation course at the Chautauqua Center of Susquehanna University entitled “Music in America.”285

Final Presentations

The very last appearances of “What Next in Music?” seem to have been in 1927. As far as concertizing goes, Rous’ most significant performance of 1926 was that of the Biennial

Convention of the National Federation of Women’s Clubs held in Atlantic City, May 24 to June

5. Rous performed Dyer’s Outlandish Suite with violinist Bernard Ocko, a native of New York.

281 It is worth noting that Joseph Horowitz disagrees, arguing that the music appreciation movement had no interest in creating a uniquely American music. Chybowski has correctly noted that Horowitz’s view arises from his very narrow definition of music appreciation, a narrowness that I would add also influenced his decision to see modernism as being incompatible with music appreciation. For Horowitz’s viewpoint see Joseph Horowitz, Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005), 238; for Chybowski’s refutation, see the footnote in Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” 186.

282 See Chybowski, “Developing American Taste,” 184–229.

283 Marion Rous, quoted in “Drive Opened for Symphony,” Orlando Sentinel, November 6, 1951, 1.

284 Marion Rous, quoted in “Musical Benefit for Music Students,” Standard Union (Brooklyn, New York), January 4, 1932, 7.

285 “Music Credit Courses Offered at Chautauqua,” Daily Republican (Monongahela, Pennsylvania), April 25, 1955, 3.

The performance was very well publicized, with the same notice being printed in various newspapers across the country.286

The only presentation of “What Next in Music?” that I have been able to locate from

1926 is that of April 7 in Montgomery, Alabama. The review published the following day by J.

R. McCoy in The Montgomery Advertiser emphasizes the fact that audiences of Montgomery, while having read of modern music, had by and large not been exposed to it previous to Marion

Rous. His skillfully-written article demonstrates enthusiasm as well as outright gratitude:

Music lovers of Montgomery had the benefit of a new musical experience, or perhaps “adventure” is the better word, in the presentation by… Miss Marion Rous, pianist and her program, unique in this city, of the moods and fantasies and modernist composers….

Much has been written about the music of the modernist composers, and much of this has been read in Montgomery, but the first real concrete explanation and demonstration of the product of these modernists that has been heard here, was furnished by Miss Rous, Wednesday night. It was instructive and at the same time fascinating in many respects, because of its newness, and has served to bring thoroughly up to date the musical information of the musically inclined who are not music students in the city. It even afforded a glimpse into the future of musical development along lines that are a radical departure from those that have been established in the past….

The “anatomy of modernism” in music as presented by Miss Rous was a splendid exposition of what this “modernism” is…. Surely, if not the only one, she is one of a very few artists who possesses such a complete understanding of modernism in music and the ability to interpret it so well.287

It is difficult to conjecture as to why, after having apparently presenting it only once in

1926, Rous gave voice to “What Next in Music?” comparatively often the following year. After

286 See as one of the first examples “Music to be Featured; Six Women Composers Will Attend Biennial Club Convention at Atlantic City,” Miami Herald, March 30, 1926, 16.

287 J. R. McCoy, “Modernist Music Delights Audience; Miss Rous Pleases Montgomerians in Novel Recital Wednesday Night,” Montgomery Advertiser, April 8, 1926, 2.

lectures in New Wilmington,288 Minneapolis,289 and Akron,290 Rous gave “What Next in

Music?” at Williams College, a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The latter presentation was very well publicized in both the local North Adams Transcript291 as well as the university student newspaper The Williams Record.292 Presented March 8 at 8:15 p.m. in

Chapin Hall, the auditorium was filled to capacity with curious listeners.

The reception, both popular and critical, was positive. The North Adams Transcript noted that “the recital was often interrupted by the audience's applause for some particularly delightful selection played by Miss Rous in illustration of a point which he had previously explained.”293

The reviewer came to the conclusion that “Miss Rous demonstrated keen interpretation in playing the various pieces and a profound knowledge of the works of their composers.”294

The March 12 review by Mark Harris, possibly the last ever given of this extraordinary lecture recital, gives perhaps the most impartial and informative account of the nature of Rous’

288 “Brilliant Pianist Plays Tonight at Westminster College,” New Castle News, February 15, 1927, 13.

289 “Grace Notes in the City Score,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), February 13, 1927, 48.

290 “What Next in Music to be Discussed by Artist and Authority,” Akron Beacon Journal, February 21, 1927, 6.

291 See “Marion Rous to Appear In Recital at Chapin,” North Adams Transcript, March 3, 1927, 14, “Two Pianists to Give Recitals in Chapin,” North Adams Transcript, March 5, 1927, 10, “Marion Rous in Recital Tonight,” North Adams Transcript, March 8, 1927, 9, and “Modern Music is Theme of Program: Marion Rous Entertains Appreciative Audience With Lecture Recital on Piano Compositions,” North Adams Transcript, March 9, 1927, 9.

292 See “Burton Holmes Will Give Lecture Monday; 1926–1927 Thompson Course Series Opens with Travelogue on Mediterranean,” Williams Record, October 30, 1926, 1, “Two Pianists Will Play Here,” Williams Record, March 5, 1927, 1, and “Modernist Music Theme of Thompson Recital,” Williams Record, March 8, 1927, 1–3. This last article is of particular interest as it is a plagiaristic pastiche of “Marion Rous Here April 21; Recital Will Be Given Under Auspices of Woman's Club Music Committee; Appears at Y. W. C. A.,” Courier-Journal, April 11, 1920, sec. 3, p. 4 and E[thel] R[oughton] W[ortham], “Miss Rous to Visit in Corsicana,” Corsicana Daily Sun, March 10, 1926, 4.

293 “Modern Music is Theme of Program,” 9.

294 Ibid.

partiality or impartiality towards the modernist movement. There are some unfortunate sexist undertones to Harris’ writing, such as a fixation on Rous’ “charm” and her “pleasing” qualities.

But this account describes Rous’ material thoroughly while evincing a dubious skepticism of modernism on the part of the reviewer:

Miss Rous came as a missionary and her audience, the critic included, was certainly the heathen. Although she commented upon the premise that we were to listen to the music and decide upon the validity of her message with the freedom of a jury, she appealed by no means to our ears alone. Without eyes, we should have missed much of her charm, without minds, nearly the whole drift of her musical interpretations, indeed, ears were something of an embarrassment a good deal of the time.

A panoramic consideration of the performance reveals a few generalities. Miss Rous was a pleasing missionary. Her personal charm did much to enhance the power of her message. The fact that she explained and directed most of the music reduced the necessity of any such musical fundamentals as key, time, melody, conventional harmony, and the like. Without either explanation, direction or fundamentals the probable result would have been, during the early numbers, chaos, during the later ones, a blooming, buzzing confusion! In the few instances in which the compositions were only moderately difficult to follow, they were possessed of at least the elements of form. This demonstrates one of two intended and conclusive observations. Music of any description, built on a sort of scale, in any kind of way cannot ignore form and yet achieve high excellence. The second observation is more of a suspicion than anything else. The modernist movement in music enjoys a wealth of talent, a super abundance of enthusiasm, and not a single genius.295

Could Rous herself be included in this final, summative assessment? If so, this would be rather a pointed criticism. In previous reviews Rous had demonstrated the ability to distance herself from the composers that she performed, but for all of her pretenses of a judicial impartiality her loyalties were clear enough — at least to the eyes, ears, and mind of Harris.

I have yet to find a performance of “What Next in Music?” after that of March 21, 1927, in Rous’ hometown of Baltimore. Advertised the day previous in The Baltimore Sun,296 it did not

295 Mark Harris, “Miss Rous Praised; Has Favorable Comment of Critic on Her Exposition,” Williams Record, March 12, 1927, 1.

296 “Marion Rouse [sic], Pianist, at Phoenix Club Tomorrow,” Baltimore Sun, March 20, 1927, 48.

100

receive anything near the press coverage of the Williamstown lecture immediately before. The brief review published in The Sun the day following fittingly ends the history of “What Next in

Music?” with a reference to Rous’ departed manager and friend, Susan Dyer:

A lecture recital entitled “An Anatomy of Modernism,” was given yesterday by Miss Marion Rous, former Baltimorean, now of New York, at the Phoenix Club, under the auspices of the Baltimore Section Council of Jewish Women.

To illustrate parts of her lecture Miss Rous played several piano selections, including Ornstein’s “The Cathedral,” Strawinsky's “Ragtime” and her piano transcription of “Hula–Hula,” from Susan Dyer's “Outlandish Suite.”297

297 “Lecture Recital at Club,” Baltimore Sun, March 22, 1927, 11.

101

CONCLUSION

Future references to “What Next in Music?” are rare but occasional. Most come from The

Chautauqua Daily as a means of recording Rous’ background during her extended tenure as a summer lecturer for the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.298 But due to the nature of this engagement as well as the parallel one that Rous held at the New York Philharmonic from 1932–

1961, Rous’ lectures were dependent upon the programming of the orchestra. As such, she did not have the artistic independence to prioritize modernism, and lectured instead upon whatever repertoire the orchestra chose to program. A 1959 issue of The Chautauqua Daily highlights this dichotomy: “While many of Dr. Rous' popular lectures at Chautauqua have been built around the work of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, she is also a serious student of modern music. In fact, as a concert pianist, she made her national debut before a convention of the National Federation of

Music Clubs playing a pioneer program of 20th century compositions, entitled ‘What Next in

Music?’”299

This raises the compelling question of what Rous’ attitudes towards modernism were after the retirement of “What Next in Music?” Broadly speaking, I have been unable to locate another lecture recital by Rous devoted to modern music, though the existing materials relating to Rous are so vast in scope that an example may very well exist. There is record of her traveling to Vienna in the summer of 1929 in order to study modern music, but nothing is known about the trip.300 Surely her programs begin to turn away from modernism almost immediately, an example

298 See as an example “Noted Musical Guests Attend Club Assembly,” Chautauqua Daily, July 19, 1948, 6.

299 “Double-Header Review Features CLSC Roundtable,” Chautauqua Daily, August 13, 1959, 6.

300 “Personals,” Montgomery Advertiser, May 30, 1929, 7.

102

being an early 1931 program of Bach, Schubert, and Brahms in Gettysburg.301 When Rous was not giving preview lectures based upon an orchestral programming, she tended to focus upon opera,302 Beethoven,303 or American music.

However, future examples of Rous’ engagement in the music appreciation movement abound. Both her lectures for the New York Philharmonic and the Chautauqua Symphony were music appreciation lectures in the truest sense, embodying all of the fingerprints of active listening, American patriotism, and the intended goal of cultural uplift.304 She also became heavily involved in broadcasting her lectures over the radio, which Chybowski has noted was a significant tool of music appreciation.305 She even met Sigmund Spaeth, one of the foremost figures of the movement, when they both spoke at the 1955 NFMC Convention in Parley,

Florida.306

Whether the music appreciation of Rous continued to prioritize modernism or not, the culmination of “What Next in Music?” seems to have coincided with an increased interest in modernism in music appreciation circles. Chowrimootoo has argued for a view of music appreciation that embraced a wide, eclectic breadth of western art music, including modernist

301 “Recital in Brua Chapel,” Gettysburg Times, May 7, 1931, 4.

302 Rous taught courses in opera at the Chautauqua Institute, gave preview lectures of upcoming operas for the same, and wrote “Opera and the Chautauqua Idea,” Opera News 18 (November 2, 1953): 14–15.

303 Rous assisted in the writing of Robert Haven Schauffler’s Beethoven, the Man Who Freed Music (New York: Doubleday, 1939), and is listed as an associate member of the Beethoven Association of New York in Pierre Key and Irene E. Haynes, Pierre Key’s Musical Who's Who: a Biographical Survey of Contemporary Musicians (New York: P. Key, 1931), 371.

304 See the substantial holdings of the New York Philharmonic Archives, perhaps especially Rous’ own reference sheets included in Philharmonic Symphony League, 1938–1945, folder ID 004-04-02, pp. 132–143, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.

305 Julia J. Chybowski, “Developing American Taste: A Cultural History of the Early Twentieth-Century Music Appreciation Movement” (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2008), 162–165.

306 “Top Music Experts Due at Parley,” Miami Herald, March 20, 1955, 93.

103

compositions.307 However, the examples that he provides come from no earlier than the end of the decade of the 1920s, and thus at the same time that Rous was permanently retiring her lecture recital. In 1927, the year of the final presentations of “What Next in Music?,” Aaron Copland began a music appreciation course at the New School titled “Evolution of Modern Music.”308

Copland would come to teach several such courses,309 and also wrote two music appreciation texts inclusive to modernism: What to Listen for in Music (1939) and Our New Music (1941). In

1928 Walter Damrosch began the Music Appreciation Hour for the National Broadcasting

Company, though it was not until 1937 that it would include a segment on “The Modern

European.”310 In 1933, Marion Bauer published a music appreciation text on twentieth-century music,311 and Leonard Bernstein would also come to examine modernism through the lens of music appreciation with his Young People’s Concerts.

In the meantime, Rous’ contributions to music in America had become widely recognized. She was hired as a lecturer at various prestigious institutions, including the Juilliard

School, New York University, and Columbia University. She was made chairman of audience education of the National Federation of Music Clubs, the organization that essentially inaugurated her national career. Perhaps the greatest recognition that she received was an

307 Christopher Chowrimootoo, “Copland’s Styles: Musical Modernism, Middlebrow Culture, and the Appreciation of New Music,” Journal of Musicology 37, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 527.

308 “Copland on Modern Music,” New York Times, August 28, 1927, 6.

309 Such lectures include “Contemporary Music: Living Composers” (1938), “Survey of Contemporary Music” (1940), and “What to Listen for in Music” (1936–37; 1937–38). Copland also attempted a music appreciation course on “modern piano music” (which cannot help but make one think of “What Next in Music?”), but it had such low enrollment that it was cancelled.

310 “The Damrosch Music Appreciation Hour,” The Virginia Teacher 17, no. 7 (1936): 156.

311 See Marion Bauer, Twentieth Century Music: How It Developed, How to Listen to It (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1933).

104

honorary doctorate in music from the University of the South, awarded “for conspicuous service and scholarship in music and her invaluable contribution to the musical education of the

American people.”312 In the entire decade of the 1930s, only four women were awarded an honorary doctorate from the University; before the ‘30s only three women were honored such.313

Rous would be referred to as “Dr. Rous” from that point onward.

As Rous held a position as lecturer for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, she reflected upon her youthful career, as well as “What Next in Music?” In April of 1959, shortly before the illness that would force her retirement, Rous related to Associate Managing Director

Carlos Moseley that even at the age of 77, the question had yet to be answered:

In numerous lecture-recital tours, I had played much contemporary piano music, under the program title, “What Next in Music?” — a slogan which still holds good for me.314

312 University of the South, Proceedings of the Board of Trustees of the University of the South, 1934–1936 (Sewanee, TN: University of the South Publishing, 1934), 20.

313 “Nine Lady Doctors,” Sewanee News 36, no. 2 (May 1970): 4.

314 Marion Rous, letter to Carlos Moseley, April 28, 1959, document ID 026-12-25, p. 12, Leon Levy Digital Archives, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, New York, NY, https://archives.nyphil.org.

105

BIBLIOGRAPHY