Gardner-Webb University Digital Commons @ Gardner-Webb University The tudeE Magazine: 1883-1957 John R. Dover Memorial Library 12-1-1929 Volume 47, Number 12 (December 1929) James Francis Cooke Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/etude Part of the Composition Commons, Ethnomusicology Commons, Music Education Commons, Musicology Commons, Music Pedagogy Commons, Music Performance Commons, Music Practice Commons, and the Music Theory Commons Recommended Citation Cooke, James Francis. "Volume 47, Number 12 (December 1929)." , (1929). https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/etude/48 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the John R. Dover Memorial Library at Digital Commons @ Gardner-Webb University. It has been accepted for inclusion in The tudeE Magazine: 1883-1957 by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Gardner-Webb University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DECEMBER 1929 Page 87 THE WORLD OF "MUSIC Interesting and Important Items Gleaned in a Constant W atch on Happenings and Activities Pertaining to Things Musical Everywhere THE ETUDE DECEMBER 1929 Page 875 — - —.^.~**1| Ideal Christmas Gifts Plan to give your musical friends or pupils on e or more of the delightful volumes in the “Whole World” and “Master Composer” Series. Each one contains 160 or more pages of the best music, beau¬ tifully printed, sturdily bound and attractively covered. You can select just the volumes they will enjoy and appreciate most by looking over the complete set of titles shown below. Light Piano Home Songs The New Appleton “M Every Modern Music Store in the United States Can Supply These Books - Illustrated Catalogue Free D. APPLETON & COMPANY, Publishers : : 35-39 W. 32nd St, New York City .TUBE A 0hristmasVV elcome to the Home ofdjhe Etude HOW we wish that we might have had the privilege of him with extraordinary gladness and exuberance. He would having you and all of our other loyal Etude friends with prepare for it weeks in advance, and Christmas celebrations us last Christmastide at our Festival at the home of The within the home of The Etude were regular events of keen an- Etude! Nothing exactly like it occurred elsewhere in the ticipation. He joined vociferously in all the carols and laughed United States. Our whole business avenue for one block was until tears came to his eyes over the distribution of comic pres¬ handsomely decorated on both sides of the street, with huge ents which many of the employees interchanged. His personal illuminated candles (eight feet high) surrounded by smaller generosity was prodigious; and his kindly spirit will never be candles, twelve fine illuminated Christmas trees, garlands of forgotten. Christmas, therefore, will always be a function with laurel lighted with red electric bulbs, while from four huge us, if only in memory of the reverent delight with which the standards in the square were hung twelve giant amplifiers which founder of The Etude identified it. sent forth Christmas music, chimes and choruses, by means of Wholly apart from the deep ecclesiastical significance of enlarged transmission, to the street, from a specially prepared Christmas, this universal festival reaches out and embraces thou¬ room in the home of The Etude. Only music of the highest sands whose religious beliefs make no orthodox room for its class and appropriate to the Christmas season was thus trans- observance. This is in testimony to the broad humanity of the mitted. Many leading Philadelphia artists gave their services: Man of Galilee, miracle of tolerance, sympathy and love. The and thousands of citizens, as they passed along the highway on inspired good cheer of Christmas, the mirth, the generous out¬ Chestnut Street, lit with countless electric lights and redolent of pouring of gifts, are symbols of its spirit of brotherly affection. the pine woods, were thrilled by the Christmas spirit. Charles Dickens found in Christmas a festival of great¬ On Christmas Eve a great community sing,, represented in heartedness. There are those who would rob Christmas of the the picture shown herewith, took place in front of the home of Dickensian atmosphere, reserving it solely for reverent devotion. The Etude. A vast number of people of many different creeds The two things are distinct and apart and may be observed took part in this thrilling musical event. without conflict. Dickens and Washington Irving, and many During the past forty-five years there has developed a kind of humanists, caught the natural inclination of man to make family feeling between The Etude and its thousands and thou¬ Christmas a celebration of innocent joys intensified by deep sands of friends in all parts of the world. This is emphasized by human sympathies. Under the burning sun of Calcutta, in the nearly every letter that comes to us. It is perhaps our greatest bleak wastes of Siberia, in the hearts of our busiest cities, in the heritage and inspiration. Certainly it is an incessant incentive darkness of the frozen Yukon, everywhere in the world, Christ¬ to go on and to do more and more in the magnificent field in mas brings this same wonderful spirit of humanity, again and which we are privileged to work. again, and leaves us far richer and finer for its coming. The late Theodore Presser, whose passing put an atmosphere We heartily wish that, when Christmas Eve comes around, of gloom over our Christmas four years ago, was never more our good friends all over the globe will feel inspired to pause enthusiastic nor more excited than at Christmas time. Though for a few seconds and think of The Etude family in Phila¬ devout Presbyterian, he was inspired by all creeds. There was delphia while we wish you the heartiest kind of a something about the festival of the Nativity which seemed to fill MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! DECEMBER, 1929 13he ETUDE MUSIC MAGAZINE VOL. XLVII, No. 12 Pace 877 THE STORY OF THE RHINE MAIDENS AROUND THE PIANO HEN the wonderful Rhine Maiden scene of Wagner s upi OME on, Cal, give us the Spanish Serenade.” W “Das Rheingold” was first produced at Mu™ch\^ W “Get out, I can't play anything as hard as that. 'My tember 22, 1869, it was considered one of the most daring Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’ and ‘Aunt Dinah’s Quilting Tohe ^Romance of the examples of stage representation ever attempted. Dear to the Party’ in the key of C, are my limit. Let Eadie take a try at hearts of all Teutons is the glorious Rhine with its centuries of it. Squat-y-voo, Sis, and show ’em how you can play.” traditions. Here three daughters of the R^^ Woghnde Sis adjusted her psyche knot, took a half'hitch on the bustle, (fhristmas Qarol Wellgunde and Flosshilda, guard the precious golden treasure wiped off the keys with her handkerchief and played the prel¬ ude to be found on page fifty-seven of the well-known book of the Rhine from the hateful dwarf Albench. It took the ingenuity of Wagner to present this difficult <By Mrs. R. A. Adkins with a paper cover of the color of Brown’s Bronchial Troches. problem on the stage so that the audience might get the beauty The collection was known as “College Songs,” and was one of of the illusion. By means of a wonderfully contrived senes ot the blessings conferred upon humanity by the Oliver Ditson . "The First Nowell the angels did say would assemble at long tables stretched drops, combined with greenish blue lights and electrically mo¬ Was to certain poor shepherds in the length of the hall. The boar’s head Company. Was there ever such a book? Everyone, from tivated shadows darting in and around the aquatic plants and fields as they lay.” held the principal place of honor at the thirteen to seventy years of age, was expected to know it the rocks, the effect of great depth is achieved. The Rhine HERE IS the whole truth of the feast, and next in importance was the from cover to cover; and almost everyone did. T Maidens themselves are suspended by invisible wires from perfect carol. If there is any peacock pie. “Sis” played in marked time: poetry that can be called “in¬ trolleys and move up and down and across the stage like real Royal Celebration “A Spanish Cavalier stood in his retreat. mermaids. When it is realized that the modern stage is four spired” (as we speak of “inspiration” HE FEUDAL SYSTEM gave great And on his guitar played a tune, dear.” stories high, one may form some idea of the “nerve” demanded in contrast to deliberate learning of an T art), it is the beautiful poetry of old scope for magnificence at Yuletide; from the suspended prima donnas who in addition to their Heads went back for action, eyes focused upon the gas English Christmas carols. and to English kings, especially from fanciful swimming must also sing. One famous artist (Mar- chandelier, and hearts beat with rhapsody. Brother Luke’s A carol was originally a song sung Henry III to Henry VIII, made sump¬ garete Ober) was made violently seasick at one performance. basso seemed to proceed from a pouch resembling that of a during a ring-dance (much like Ring- tuous feastings at this season, for tens The Rhine Maiden Music is among the most beautiful of of thousands of retainers. At this time, frog, and sounded very much the same. Mabel’s sweet so¬ a-ring-o’roses). It was made by the all Wagner’s pictorial scores. Few people can see this work people, like all true folksongs, and it had festive carols held sway but later the prano, now long since silenced, lives yet in the memory of many without being gloriously thrilled.