udapest University Chorus One Of World's Oldest Choral G roups K nown eventually camne singers of great tal- voices it gave rise to the inaugura- Organizationw To.Date ent""" tion of theWomen's Chorus of Buda-i renb.t pest and in 1927 this work was given At Least As Far Back As 1702 thets vs yierdsb tteGanratpis. InBudapest by the mixed chorus the hors vsitd may cpitls.under the personal direction of the Hungary was one of the countries composer. The Budapest University Chorus is ; the interest in composition for choral which suffered greatly from the rav- In the past 30 years the Budapest one of the oldest and most famous music, and for many centuries much ages of war, but the chorus continued Chorus has given countless concerts choral organizations in the world.has been written for the Budapest its work and progress after the con- abro d. but hasonly once visited Just as Notre Dame is noted for itsIUniversity's performance. Each time flict. It- began its tours again in; Amei. Its sndour football team, Cornell for its Cayugathe chorus plans a foreign tour, new 1920 and was invited in 1925t waters and Michigan for its graduate compositions are written for it, so1b school, Budapest University is known ' that Hungarian music may be carried Pope himself to sing the papal mass Second Violin for its chorus. The first written to other countries. to an audience of 5,000 people from When the Roth Quartet was playing document concerning this famous or- The chorus has had a far-reaching all parts of the world. In 1927 the in Spain some years ago, a little old ganization dates back to 1702. In influence. Before the war Louis Chorus returned to Italy again, visit- lady timidly approached them after 1867 another male chorus from the Halasz, the superintendent of music ing Rome, a visit which led to the their concert and asked to see the in- Technical University of Science was in the schools of Hungary, and con- formation of the Rome University strument played by Jeno Antal, sec- founded and in 1906 combined with ductor of the chorus at that time, Chorus. ond violin. Feri Roth, first violin, the original Budapest University visited by special arrangement many An Italian composer of renown, to whom she applied, offered her his Chorus. cities demonstrating the high stan- Licinio Refice, head of the Papal own instrument to examine, but she The Chorus represents an. impor- dard of song. The result was the University of Music composed an insisted on seeing that of Antal, "be- tant chapter in the development of enthusiastic formation of choruses in oratorio and presented it to the cause," she said, "I have never seen Hungarian music. It has stimulated numerous other cities, from which Chorus. Since it was for mixeda second violin." 40 Male Voices Raised In Song: Budapest University Chorus Chorus To Sing IH Songs Dating Fi The Hungarian music which will be brought here by the Budapest Univer- sity Chorus was famous as early as the 12th century, when the Hunga- rians fought as allies of the Russian Prince Isislav against the Poles and' Boheminas. When the Hungarians marched into Kiev the townspeople used to say, "The house is fortunate in which Hungarian music sounds." Hungarian music is not Gypsy mu- sic, nor are the Gypsies responsible for the earliest music of that land. Long before the Gypsyever ventured into Hungary, music and the dance played a large part in the every-day life of the Magyar. He used it in his sacrifices and other religious cere- monies, in national festivals, for ban- quets and funerals, before and after battle. To this naturally musical country- side where even the language, with its perfect harmony between vowels and consonants, its distinct articula- tion, its uniformity and purity, was indicative of its essential nature and conducive to poetry and song, the Gypsies found a music to which they could readily adapt themselves. To the folk tunes of this land, already rich in rhythms, embellishments, they subjected themselves, their phi- losophy of abandon to life, their )laintive melancholy and sudden flight to merriment. They brought flavor to songs already Hungarian; Iungarian Folk .Great Music Stars SDot.,Co ncert History rom 12th Century (Continued from Page 1) they enriched but did not originate. bi, Gordon String Quartet, and Artur From this nucleus of the Hunga- Schnabel. ran folk song with its Gypsy flavor er1935 has grown the music to which musi- Metropolitan Opera Quartet, Rach _ cians of the past eight centuries have been attracted. To reckon up all the compositions which famous foreign composers have written in the Hun- garian style, or in which they have used Hungarian songs, would neces- sitate a regular anthology. To men- tion a few-Haydn, Beethoven, Schu- bert, Brahms, and Weber have been decidedly influenced by the music of the Magyars. It would be an equally difficult task to begin to list those musicians and composers whose names have been an honor to Hungary. She can claim Liszt and Hummel, the masters of the pianoforte; Josef Joachim and Leopold Auer among'violinists; Dohn- anyi, Haydn and many others. The works of Zoltan Kodaly and Bela maninoff, Don Cossacks, Fritz Kreis- ler, Boston Symphony, St. Louis Sym- phony, Kalesch String Quartet, De- troit Symphony, John Charles Thom- as and Myra Hess. 1936 Kirsten Flagstad, Chicago Sym- phony, Moscow Cathedral Choir, Ja- scha Heifetz, Boston Symphony Or-- chestra, Josef Hoffmann, Detroit Symphony, Gregor Piatigorsky, Artur Schnabel, Nelson Eddy. 1937 Rachmaninoff, Cleveland Sym- phony Orchestra, Richard Crooks, Fritz Kreisler, Boston Symphony, Ruth Slenczynski, Helsinski Univer- sity Chorus, Gina Cigna, Roth String Quartet, and Georges Enesco. Tributes from the great music centers of at least t.wo continents include: BERLIN: "In the playing of the Roth Quartet, a new world was revealed to us." NEW YORK: The Roth Quartet again gave' proof of the extraordinary qualities, technical and interpretative, which have characterized their previous performances." LOS ANGELES: "It is a virtuoso quartet." March 9, 1939 the Roth String Quartet returns to Ann Arbor for another brilliant '3 Bartok, pioneers of modern music in Has One Woman Hungary, are acclaimed throughout The Cleveland Orchestra, like the musical world today. . many such orchestras, numbers one woman, the;solo harpist, among its members. She is Alice Chalifoux, Tired Of Fiddle born in'Birmingham, Ala., of French Harry Fuchs, whose brother Josef parentage. She was hired seven is concertmaster for the Cleveland years ago, shortly after her gradua- Orchestra, but who himself plays the tion from the Curtis Institute of Mu- cello in the organization, says he did sic in Philadelphia, by Nikolai Sokol- not follow in his violin-playing broth- off, at that time conductor of the er's footsteps because his arm got Cleveland Orchestra, who offered her tired holding a fiddle, while he found a three year contract after hearing he could rest by leaning on a cello.her play just once. I ___ ,.] - is HORAL NION ONCERTS Sixtieth Annual Series, 1938-1939 1. Lawrence Tibbett, Baritone . . October 27 2. Cleveland Orchestra . ARTUR RODZINSKI, Conductor 3. Jose Iturbi, Pianist . 4. Kirsten Flagstad, Soprano November 7 . . . November 22 " i 6i 0 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Boston Symphony Orchestra SERGE KOUSSEVITSKY, Conductor Josef Hofmann, Pianist . Budapest University Chorus VIKTOR VASZY, Conductor Yehudi Menuhin, Violinist . . . November 30 : . . . December 7 . . . . January 10 January 25 February 15 . Gregor Piatigorsky, Violoncellist. . February 27 10. Roth String Quartet of Budapest March 9 I,' Jose Iturbi Victor Vaszy Season Tickets, $12, $10, $8, $6