SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 1930

THE M ICHIG-AN DAILY

PAGE 'THI

.. . ........ - - .......... -


ay

Festival

'Will

Feature

Fifteen

Artists

A
4k, -

". +Wnt

f
6- 49 -

Galaxy of Prima Donnas, Soloists, and Instrumentalists Will Appear May :14,

15,

I6, and

17, in

Hill Auditorium For The Annual

Series

of Spring Concerts Sponsored by

The Choral Union Society And The School of Music.

fl
GA
° -a f

e.

By William C. Gentry
WITH fifteen artists of the first
magnitude as soloists, four
distinguished conductors who
will wield the baton at different times,
and three ensemble groups participat-
ing, this year's May Festival continues
its tradition as one of the most im-
portant single events during the
American musical year. The artists
have all been chosen for their known
comprehension of the works for which
they are engaged-an integrity largely
responsible for the repeated quality
and success of previous Festivals.
Claire Dux, world. famous soprano, and Percy
Grainger, popular pianist, will be soloists with
the Chicago Symphony orchestra at the first
concert Wednesday evening. Mr. Grainger is to
appear in two numbers, the Franck Symphonic
Variations and the Carpenter Concertino. Miss
Dux will offer several arias.
The Thursday evening
concert, the choral one, will
Choral Concert mark the performance of
Thursday Honegger's King David and
Bach's Magnificat with Miss
Ethel Hayden, Merle Al-
cock, Dan Gridley, and Paul Leyssac as soloists.
The Friday afternoon concert, in addit on to
the usual numbers by Miss Juva Hige',s child-
ren's chorus and by the Chicago orchestra, vill
be notable as the mid-western debit of Rug-
giero Ricci, phenomenal boy violinist who will
appear in the Beethoven violin Concerto.
The Friday evening concert is the artists'
concert with Dusolina Gianini, Richard Donolli
offering arias with the Chicago Symphony. The
Chicago Symphony Orchestra will offer several
numbers on this program also.
The Saturday afternoon concert will mark the
first Festival appearance of the popular two
piano ensemble, Guy Maier and Lee Pattison,
who will offer a Mozart Concerto with the orches-
tra.
The last concert Sunday evening is solely
taken up with the performance of Verdi's Requi-
em, which has been substituted for the formal
opera usually done in this concert. Earle V.
Moore, director of the School of Music, will con-
duct four soloists, the orchestra, and the Choral
Union in the Requiem. The soloists are Nanette
Guilford, Kathryn Meisle, Paul Althouse and
Chase Baromeo.
Five of the soloists' for
this year's Festival are
Five New making their first appear-
Artists ance of any sort in Ann Ar-
bor. Perhaps the most bril-
liant and interesting of
these debuts will be that of Ruggiero Ricci, the
San Francisco wonder-child violinist. The com-
ing of this prodigy, rich in technical endowment
faithfully attested to by critics after his New
York debut, tossing off the pyrotechnics of the
Paganini Concerto along with the lovely anima-
tion of Mozart's A major Concerto in one pro-
gram, will be an interestingly novel event in
Festival annals. The picture of Ricci, vivacious
in a happy musical adventure, will be particularly
harmonious in the Friday afternoon children's
concert, always a bit too grave and austere with

Left: (;Iu Maier and /,ee Pattison, distiiguishcd pianists -who' will perform at the Saturday afternoon concert, M[ac 1 7.
Top roa, left to right: Ruggiero Rickc phenomenal snderkmd olin ist; th l ayden, American soprano; Ai anct/ (' ,E iord.
Prima lonna of the Metropolitan Opera comipany; acrd Dan Gridley, Americon tenor. 7Aese four artists will mcwe their Ann A ror debut
Pottow ro'w, lef t to right : Percy Grainger, Australian pian ist; Merle Alcock. Metropolitan Opera star; Chas earomeo.Q leading
bass of the Chicago Civic Opera; and Dusolina Giannini, opera star.'
RIiht : Richard Bonelli, Chicago Opera coinpany baritone, who will sin! in lthe 1riday niht concert, Ilay 16.

not too numerous group of American mistresses
of song. Her engagement for the important
choral concert comes as recognition of her repu-
tation won with the Schola
Cantorum in New York as
Hayden to one of the most intelligent
Appear and conscientious of the
younger sopranos to whom
to entrust difficult solo
roles in choral works. Her performance here in
Honegger's King David will be her third appear-
ance in that soprano role.
Nanette Guilford, prima donna soprano of
the Metropolitan Opera company, is one of the
most striking successes of recent years. She has
been consistently described as equally at home in
lyric and dramatic music with the vivid addi-
tional appeal of her personal grace always an
attractive addition. Her best known accomplish-
ments recently have been the title role in Deems
Haylor's "The King's Henchman" and the role
of 'Manon' in the recent Metropolitan revival
of that popular opera.
Dan Gridley, still a comparatively new tenor
to the mid-'west despite his enthusiastic reception
in Detroit last winter, has made a name for
himself in the East by the range of his reper-
toire, including all the standard oratorios and
some twenty opera roles. He and Richard Crooks,
here at the Festival last year, are the foremost
lyric tenors of American education.
Paul Leyssac, of the Civic Repertory Theatre
New York, has been very luckily engaged for the
difficult role of the "Narrator" in King David.
Mr. Leyssac has read this role both times that
the work has been performed in America at
Boston and Philadelphia and has already been
engaged to do it under Goosens in London next
fall. The result of the arrangement is that this
.part about which the whole work revolves will
be assuredly well-handled.
Supplementing the Ann
Arbor debut of these five
Many Stars musicians will be the return
Return engagements of many stars
who have been heard in
Ann Arbor previously.
Dusolina Giannini was heard in Ann Arbor
about a decade ago just about the time she was
beginning her operatic career after a brilliant

tura. Her return to Ann Arbor will be an event.
Claire Dux, eminent prima donna at one
time of nearly all the important European com-
panies, will be another soloist returning to Ann
Arbor after a long absence. Miss Dux has won
international fame since her appearance here.
She is known and loved the world over for her
"Mime" to Enrico Caruso's "Rodolfo." Miss Dux
is a lyric soprano with the consummate grace
in her style, the exquisite softness of tone neces-
sary to Mozart singing. She is a true aristocrat
of her art, using a tone of cool fragile loveliness.
And to look at, as has been often remarked,
she's Claire de Lune.
Merle Alcock, the most
distinguished contralto of
Merle Alcock the Metropolitan, needs no
Scheduled introduction to Ann Arbor
patrons of music. Miss Al-
cock has appeared here in
recital and in the Festival two years ago. Reac-
tions to her appearances here have assured the
impressario that she is Ann Arbor's favorite
contralto.
Kathryn Meisle is grateful for the opportunity
to offer Ann Arbor her now very well known
art. For several years ago she was given her
first big engagement as a soloist in a Friday
afternoon concert in the Festival. It was really
her debut. And the appreciation of her here was
largely responsible for an immediate position

American-trained musicians. Baromeo was dis-
covered and exploited first by Arturo Toscnnini
at La Scala.
Carl Lindgren, bass of the faculty of the
Michigan State college, will sing the bass role in
the "Magnificat." He has been favorably heard
several times in Hill Auditorium, but this will
be his first appearance in a Festival.
For the first time in the
history of the Festivals, a
Three group of three piano vir-
Pianists tuosi, Percy Grainger, Guy
Maier, and Lee Pattison,
have been secured. Percy
Grainger is almost universally popular for his
wide and varied repertoire. Grainger possessed
that mysterious magnetism which, in addition to
his musical ability, wins for an artist a wide and
sympathetic public. He scored a Festival success
two years ago with his performance of the Grieg
Concerto and his conducting of two of his own
choral works. This year he will play two smaller,
more important works on the Wednesday evening
program.
Guy Maier and Lee Pattison, the supreme
conquerors of four-hand ensemble, are making
their first Festival appearance. The Mozart
Concerto for two pianos is certainly a happily
chosen vehicle for their debut as it has been one
of the most widely respected compositions in
their repertoire. Their appearance this month is
exceedingly fortunate as they recently announced
that their seemingly inevitable and inseparable
artistic partnership will soon be dissolved. They

This array of talent, as usual one of
the greatest group of artists assembled
for one musical occasion, will be co-
ordinated and directed into a unit by
Professor Earl V. Moore, and Fred-
erick Stock, conductor of the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra. Professor Moore
has been responsible for the success
of all the Festivals since 1923 when,
while still a young man, he succeeded
Doctor Stanley as director of the
School of Music. For the brilliance of
his work in handling the .problems
connected with such a huge event as
the May Festival, Dr. Moore has been recognized
as one of the outstanding authorities among the
younger generation of musical conductors. Last
year the degree of Doctor of Music was conferred
upon him by the University of Rochester in
recognition of his musical attainments. In con-
nection with the Festival
Doctor Moore is responsible
Director Earl for all the details of pro-
Moore gram-building, for the ard-
uous training of the Choral
Union body, for the rehear-
sals the beginning of the Festival week, and for
his conducting of both the Thursday and Sat-
urday night concerts.
Dr. Stock's importance as the one conductor to
whom to entrust the orchestra background for
a Festival has been vividly recognized by his
recent appointments as musical director of the
Cincinnati May Festival and of the Evanston
Festival and by the fact of his continual engage-
ment since 1905 for the local Festival.
His sturdy musical intelligence and superb
command'over his orchestra has made him the
ideal conductor to work with Doctor Moore in
solving the problem of unifying professional
soloists and amateur choruses in those few
stormy days of rehearsal at the beginning of
Festival week.
A feature of the Thursday evening concert
will be a performance of the Bach Passacaglia
and Fugue in C minor in Dr. Stock's splendid
transcription. Friday night his orchestra will
perform the Bach Concerto for Solo Violin, two
flutes and orchestra. Friday night the orchestra
will vary the performance of the soloists with
small numbers such as Delamarter's Suite from
The Betrothal and the Fingal's Cave Overture of
Mendelssohn. Saturday afternoon a Beethoven
Overture and D'Indy Symphony will be played.
An interesting feature of
the present Festival will be
Dr. Albert the attendance of Dr. Al-
Stanley bert Stanley, who in his
many brilliant years as di-
rector of the School of
Music, was responsible for the founding of the
May Festival and for its firm establishment as an
annual event. It was his vision that saw the
benefits of harmonizing all the available re-
sources around Ann Arbor into a permanent
choral body and supplementing it with profes-
sional solo and orchestral talent. It was his
executive talent that made the idea practicable
year after year until people interested in music
all over the country came to look forward to the
Ann Arbor May Festival. Dr. Moore, his protege,
who succeeded him in 1920, has brilliantly emu-
lated his direction of the great musical event.
The most pleasing aspect of the Festival this
year seems to be the genuine balance achieved
in the programs between classic and modern
works. As traditionally, the outline of the Festi-

with the Chicago
she has won fame.
Male Artists
Engaged
tation of his voice

Civic Opera company where
Paul Althouse, Metropoli-
tan tenor, is appearing in
v Festival for his third suc-
cessive time. He 'is wel-
comed here by Professor
Moore in charge of the re-
hearsals for the easy adap-
ahd intelligence to the rather

are to appear on the
Two
Ensembles

Saturday afternoon concert.
The Children's Chorus,
which has invariably prov-
ed one of the most delight-
ful and novel features of
the Festival, will give the
premier of a beautiful com-

severe demands of oratorio style. Festival audi-
ences the past two years have appreciated the
absolute authenticity of his interpretations and
will enjoy his tenor role in the Requiem which
is one of his best.
Richard Bonelli's attainment of that enviable
goal in the singing world-that of the leading
baritone in one of the premier opera houses of
the world-has been so rapid and convincing that
the renowned American baritone is everywhere
in demand. Bonelli possesses not only the essen-
tial gift of a great voice but a fine dramatic

position, "A Symphony of Song," for orchestra
and children's voices wiitten by May A. Strong
of the faculty of the School of Music. A group
of songs will also be offered with the orchestra.
Miss Juva Higbee. the director of this chorus,
has won national fame for her ability to train
and exploit the delightful freshness of the child
voice.
The Choral Union, one of the oldest perma-
nent student choral bodies in existence, this year
contains a wealth of rich vocal material. The