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FEDERAL MUSIC PROJECT
DR. NIKOLAI SOKOLOFF DIRECTOR
DIVISION OF WOMEN'S AND PROFESSIONAL PROJECTS
ELLEN S. WOODWARD • ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR
WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION
HARRY L. HOPKINS, ADMINISTRATOR
The Federal Music Project is nation-wide, function¬
ing in forty-two States and the District of Columbia.
From the standpoint of organization, educational and
performing units have been set up and now, under
supervision, they have passed out of the stage of ado¬
lescence and have reached maturity.
More than thirty-two million persons have heard
"in the flesh" concerts or performances by units of the
Federal Music Project since October, 1935. There have
been approximately thirty-six thousand performances
in the period between January 1 and July 31.
Music has no social value unless it is heard. These
figures show that it has not only been heard but that
it has reached a greater number of our people than in
any other period in the history of the United States.
NIKOLAI SOKOLOFF
FEDERAL MUSIC PROJECT
DR. NIKOLAI SOKOLOFF. Director
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
Mr. William C. Mayfarth
Mrs. Ruth Holler Ottaway
Miss Alma Sandra Munsell
Mrs. Dorothy Redecker Fredenhagen
NAME & TITLE
Dr. Bruno David Ussher
Assistant to the Director
Mr. Lee Pattison
Assistant to the Director
Dr. Thaddeus Rich
Assistant to the Director
Mr. Guy Metier
Assistant to the Director
1500 I Street
1500 I Street
1500 I Street
1500 I Street
REGIONAL STAFF
ADDRESS
305 Kearns Building
Salt Lake City, Utah
Federal Music Project H'dqt'r's.
110 West 48th Street
New York City, N. Y.
Manufacturers Exchange Building
232 North 11th Street
Philadelphia, Pa.
411 Lenawee Drive
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Washington, D. C.
Washington, D. C.
Washington, D. C.
Washington, D. C.
California, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Idaho
New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Mon¬
tana, Wyoming, Nevada.
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
York State and New York City.
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, District of
Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, West
Virginia.
Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, North Dakota,
Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Mis¬
souri Illinois Wisconsin. Michiaan.
STATE DIRECTORS
CALIFORNIA
CONNECTICUT
COLORADO
FLORIDA
■ILLINOIS
INDIANA
KANSAS
KENTUCKY
LOUISIANA
MAINE
MASSACHUSETTS
MICHIGAN
MINNESOTA
MISSISSIPPI
MISSOURI
NEBRASKA
NEW HAMPSHIRE
NEW JERSEY
NEW MEXICO
NEW YORK
NORTH CAROLINA
OHIO
OKLAHOMA
OREGON
PENNSYLVANIA
RHODE ISLAND
SOUTH CAROLINA
TEXAS
VIRGINIA
WEST VIRGINIA
WISCONSIN
Miss Harle Jervis, 635 South Manhattan Place, Los Angeles
Mrs. Ethel Edwards, Rose Lane, Glenbrook, New Haven
Mr. Ivan E. Miller, WPA, 1405 Glenarm Street, Denver
Dr. Clarence Carter Nice, Roberts Building, Jacksonville
Mr. Albert Goldberg, 433 East Erie Street, Chicago
Mr, William Pelz, WPA, 217 North Senate Street, Indianapolis
Mr. Ira Pratt, WPA, 912 Kansas Avenue, Topeka
Miss Fanny Brandeis, Ladless Hill Farm, Louisville
Mr. Rene Salomon, WPA, Canal Bank Building, New Orleans
Mr. Reginald Bonnin, 76 Pearl Street, Portland
Mr. Louis Cornell, 453 Park Square Building, Boston
Mr. Karl Wecker, WPA, 256 Houseman Building, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Dr. John J. Becker, WPA, Minnesota Building, St. Paul
Miss Jerome Sage, Tower Building, Jackson
Mr. Elmer Schwartzbeck, Capitol Building, Jefferson City
Mr. William Meyers, Salvation Army Building, 208 South 13th Street, Omaha
Mr. Harry C. Whittemore, General Project Supervisor, Lincoln and Silver
Streets, Manchester
Mr. Frederick Rocke, WPA, 1060 Broad Street, Newark
Mrs. Helen Chandler Ryan, 1403 West Central Avenue, Albuquerque
Mr. George Crandall, Old Post Office Building, Albany
Mr. Erie Stapleton, 130V2 S. Wilmington Street, Raleigh
Mr. V. D. Cahill, Pure Oil Building, Columbus
Mr. Dean Richardson, WPA, 431 West Main Street, Oklahoma City
Mr. Frederick W. Goodrich, WPA, Bedell Building, Portland
Mr. John H. Baker, WPA, 46 North Cameron Street, Harrisburg
Dr. Wassili Leps, General Project Supervisor, 509 Westminster Street, Providence
Mr. E. T. Gavin, WPA, Loan and Exchange Building, Columbia
Mrs. John F. Lyons, Fakes and Company, Fort Worth, Texas
Mr. Wilfrid Pyle, WPA, 11 South 12th Street, Richmond
Mrs. Verna C. Blackburn, 1620 Third Avenue, Huntington
Mr. William V. Arvold, WPA, 213 Tenney Building, Madison
Mr. Harry L. Hewes, Supervisor, Analysis Project, Washington, D. C.
4
National Advisory Board
The National Advisory Committee, composed of outstand¬
ing representatives of various fields of music activity, has been
formed to assist in formulating standards for examinations, and
to give advice on methods to be pursued in achieving the aims
of the Federal Music Project.
New York City-
Dr. Walter Damrosch—Conductor and Composer
New York City
Olin Downes—Music Critic, New York Times
Pittsburgh
William Earhart—Supervisor of Public School Music
New York City
Carl Engel—President, G. Schirmer, Inc.
Chicago
Rudolph Ganz—President of Chicago Musical College
New York City
George Gershwin—Composer
Boston
Wallace Goodrich—Director, New England Conservatory of Music
New York City
Dorothy Gordon—Concert Artist, Exponent of Children's Programs, Columbia "School of the Air"
Rochester
Dr. Howard Hanson—Director of Eastman School of Music, Composer
San Francisco
Alfred Hertz—Conductor, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Fargo, North Dakota
Mrs. John Alexander Jardine—President, National Federation of Music Clubs
New York City
Edward Johnson—Director General, Metropolitan Opera Company
New York City
A. Walter Kramer—Composer, Editor Galaxy Music Publishing Co.
Washington, D. C.
Dr. Hans Kindler—Conductor, National Symphony Orchestra
Richmond, Va.
John Powell—Concert pianist, composer, Folk Festival Authority
New York City
Madame Olga Samaroff Stokowski—Concert pianist, member of Faculty of Juilliard School
of Music
New York City
Carleton Sprague Smith—Director of the Music Division, New York Public Library
New York City
Mrs. Frederick Steinway—President, National Music League, Inc.
Chicago
Frederick Stock—Conductor, Chicago Symphony
Philadelphia
Leopold Stokowski—Conductor, Philadelphia Orchestra
New York City
Lawrence Tibbett—American Baritone; Member Metropolitan Opera Company
New York City
Joseph Weber—President, American Federation of Musicians
New York City
Paul Whiteman—Director of dance music
New York City
Augustus D. Zansig—Director, National Recreation Association
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LOCATION OF UNITS
OF
FEDERAL MUSIC PROJECT
• A
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4
The Federal Music Project
The Second Preliminary Report Covering
Its Scope and Activities During
Its First Nine Months
The Federal Music Project, formed as a unit of
the Works Progress Administration to employ,
to retrain and rehabilitate musicians who lost
employment in the depression, had on its rolls
approximately 15,000 individuals on June 30.
On this date the first nine months of the project
had been completed. As of July 1 each of the
project units was to be rewritten for a period
of three months.
Between March 31 and June 30, 700 musicians
had left the Music Project rolls, to return to
private employment, to institutional work or to
resume teaching.
In this nation-wide movement, inaugurated
when communities recognized an irreparable
injury threatened the whole structure of Amer¬
ican music, there are enrolled instrumentalists,
vocalists, composers, teachers, copyists, arrang¬
ers and librarians, tuners and instrument re¬
pairers. These are the musicians who faced
deterioration of skill, the relaxation of vital
energies and waning morale with the loss of
employment.
On June 30 these 15,000* musicians were en¬
rolled in the following units:
141 symphony and concert orchestras, ab¬
sorbing 5,669.
77 symphonic, military and concert bands
with 2,793.
15 chamber music ensembles.
81 dance, theater and novelty orchestras, (in-
•See P. 31
eluding Tipica, Gypsy, Hungarian, Hawai¬
ian, and Cuban Marimba groups) employ¬
ing 2,051.
38 choruses, quartets, and vocal ensembles.
141 teaching projects.
24 projects for copyists, arrangers, librarians
and binders.
1 composers' project.
2 vocal and instrumental soloists' projects.
2 tuners and instrument repairers' projects.
11 miscellaneous (coordinating, administra¬
tive and clerical) projects.
The great majority of these musicians were
on the relief rolls when the Federal Govern¬
ment moved to preserve their skills and to
maintain their professional abilities until they
were again self-sustaining. Only skilled musi¬
cians were eligible for this form of relief. Audi¬
tion boards of non-relief musicians, formed in
hundreds of districts about the.country, passed
on the qualifications of applicants for musical
assignment, and while standards differed in
various sections of the country—as between
urban and rural regions—there has been a firm
insistence upon proved musicial integrity in
concert performance and educational activities.
Thousands qf brilliantly trained, seasoned and
experienced musicians, were found among the
unemployed.
In developing the program the first considera¬
tion of the Works Progress Administration
was whether there were needy unemployed
7
musicians of skill in the community where
the music program was to be prosecuted.
IDhen these facts were established there were
conferences with local sponsors before the pro¬
ject units were created. Co-operating sponsors
include among the universities, Harvard, Penn¬
sylvania, Temple, Minnesota, California and
Southern California, North Carolina, Chicago,
Loyola, Illinois and New Mexico, through their
music schools or other college divisions; New
York University and the College of the City of
New York, the University of Denver, Ohio State
and Columbia.
City Commissions, City Councils, County and
Township Boards; School Districts and Boards
of Education; recreation groups, Chambers of
Commerce, locals of the Musicians Union, ser¬
vice clubs, fraternal orders and veteran organ¬
izations also are local cooperating sponsors.
The National Federation of Music Clubs, with
more than 5,000 member bodies in forty-eight
states, was among the first to assume respon¬
sibilities of cooperating sponsorship for the Fed¬
eral Music Project program.
Many among America's most distinguished
musicians promptly proffered their services in
the new Federal Music Project. They saw in
this emergency project not only a wise step
to conserve the skills of musicians but the poten¬
tial building as well of a new body of musical
appreciation in the nation.
Leopold Stokowski, of the Philadelphia
Orchestra; Frederick Stock, veteran conductor
of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Hans
Kindler, of Washington's National Symphony
Orchestra; Willem Van Hoogstraten, Henry
Hadley, Arthur Fiedler, Paul Stassevitch and
Rudolph Ganz, were among those who offered
their services for rehearsals and concerts with
the new WPA orchestras being organized.
Others among the established conductors and
concert artists have given their services to the
Federal Music Project. Unanticipated talent also
has been developed when many of the young¬
er artists and conductors have had the chance
"to try their wings" in public performance.
A possible indication as to the interest with
which other nations are watching America's
Federal experiment in the arts is seen in the
appearance with WPA orchestras of Jerzy
Bajanowski, sent by Poland to the United States
on a musical mission of inquiry, and Carlos
Chavez, Mexico's ranking conductor and com¬
poser. Mr. Bajanowski has been at the desks
of the Chicago and Omaha symphonic units,
and Mr. Chavez conducted a series of five con¬
certs with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra.
These distinguished leaders in music agree
with the Government that it would have been
a waste of the talents and abilities of all our
musicians, the young artists with new conser¬
vatory diplomas and the faithful veterans, if
an attempt was made to divert their efforts of
livelihood to another channel. It would have
been unfair to them and to the nation.
The interest and future activities of the musi¬
cians both on and off the Federal payrolls are
always considered, and organization work and
constructive activity to bring a return to the
taxpayer while rehabilitating the musician is
never lost to sight. The Federal policy is at no
time to enter the competitive field. Instead, it
is to place emphasis as a part of the general
education through groups in welfare agencies,
public institutions and on public property such
as parks and playgrounds.
8
MUSICIANS and the EMERGENCY
There was peculiar irony in the tragedies that
descended on the trained musicians with the
depression for their incomes had been becom¬
ing increasingly precarious even before 1929
with the advance of sound production technics.
Finally there came the widespread separation
from payrolls; music schools reduced their fac¬
ulties, the classes of private teachers dwindled.
When the Federal Music Project was set up
under WPA to retrain deteriorating skills, hun¬
dreds of musicians were taken from the labor
jobs to which they had been assigned—they
made notoriously poor ditch diggers and teach¬
ers were indifferent clerks—and placed in new
units for which their training equipped them.
Often the musicians came to the projects with
an attitude as skeptical as that of the public.
They felt, after all, that they were failures about
to start fiddling for food, that they were adrift
from the main current of society; that the pro¬
ject could be of no musical nor artistic import¬
ance. Their morale was lamentably low. There
was resentment against society and their chief
interest was in pay checks; many felt this was
just another contrived agency of work relief.
Left to itself the program of the Federal Music
Project might have been no more than that.
The musicians responded promptly, however,
when they were convinced that artistic stan¬
dards and honest musical integrity were to
govern and that persons found to be unfitted
or unequipped to earn a living within the skill
or profession of a musician were to be trans¬
ferred as quickly as possible.
The musicians also responded heartily when
they learned they were expected to return a
value to their communities. This consideration
from the first has been a guiding one with the
administration of the Federal Music Project.
The effort was intended to so engage the inter¬
est of communities that music would be retained
or introduced as a part of permanent civic
programs.
For years, up until the World War, America
had been almost completely under the tonal
Where Hartford Hears its Summer Concerts
domination of foreigners, and this was true
despite the love for the songs of Stephen Foster
and the music of MacDowell, Nevin and two
or three other native composers.
Until the turn of the century there remained
in America much of the pioneer spirit, of land
and horizon hunger, and there were still fron¬
tiers. Our people were too busy, often too emo¬
tionally occupied with material advancement,
to concern themselves with great music.
9
But after the Armistice there came a change
over the American scene. Hundreds of thou¬
sands of Americans had been in Europe with
the Expeditionary Forces and on that continent
they had found nothing that seemed to them
in anywise superior to things at home. There
had been a general quickening throughout the
spirit of the nation. In 1918 and in the years
immediately following new American orches¬
tras of the first rank came into existence, not¬
ably those in Detroit and Cleveland; great
festival choruses were formed; American artists
were heard on more concert programs and
even the American composer was given a
chance to shape his shadow in the new sun.
The motion picture theaters employed large
orchestras, some of them of very fine calibre,
and there was splendid audience reaction to
this music. Teaching classes grew. Conser¬
vatories were crowded and private teachers
had full lesson schedules. America was paying
hundreds of millions of dollars in its yearly
music bill—more, it was said, than all of the
rest of the world combined.
Then came the depression. The technologic¬
al changes in music, the sound production
devices which furnished the cinema theaters
with music without the expense of orchestra
or organist, preceded the depression by only a
short space of time. Hotel and restaurant or¬
chestras were reduced and with the onset of
the depression the teachers' classes dwindled
until the final means for sustenance was the
relief roll. With subscription receipts dimin¬
ished some of the traditionally famous orches¬
tras merged, as did the Symphony and the
Philharmonic Society in New York City, or dis¬
banded or reduced their rosters; the Chicago
and the Philadelphia Grand Opera Companies
suspended. Thousands of musicians suddenly
were forced on relief.
Without training for heavy manual labor to
which many musicians were assigned there
existed a peculiar hazard to the instrumentalist
in this emergency work. His whole career from
pupil to master musician had been marked by
the care he had taken of his performing hands;
injury to these hands might bar him forever
from his profession. And there was the other
A Federal Music Project Orchestra Rehearsal
consideration that the economic dislocation of
the depression brought with it, that undermin¬
ing of the morale, which with the musician
may make all the difference between a lacka¬
daisical performer and an authentic artist.
Under the CWA and the FERA, projects for
unemployed musicians had been inaugurated,
but there was neither formula nor technic avail¬
able for the vast job of bringing these instru¬
mentalists into efficient, performing organiza¬
tions. This remained in a large measure the
task of the Federal Music Project which has
been wisely informed by the earlier experi¬
ments.
Many of these musicians who experienced
retraining and advancement of their skills
under the Federal Projects have returned to
private employment. Among them are men
and women who are now in well paid preferred
jobs. From one of the project orchestras in
New York City a violinist moves to the Metro¬
politan Opera Company Orchestra; another
has signed a five-year contract with the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. A former private studio
teacher who had obtained all his training for
group music teaching from the Federal Project
has a position in charge of the musical activi¬
ties at a large state institution.
10
A senior supervisor, known as an authority
on folk music, left the New York WPA Teach¬
ing Project to engage in research for a film
company in Hollywood. Two others obtained
positions with music publishing houses, one in
editorial work and the other as educational
director. A head teacher left to take a position
in a normal school in St. Louis, and another
teacher found employment—for which the pro¬
ject work and group training had prepared her
—as musical and recreational director for a
hotel chain.
Another placement as a result of work on
the project is that of a concert harpist who has
signed up at a large salary with one of the
broadcasting companies.
In Cincinnati the conductor of the WPA Or¬
chestra has signed a contract in the first violin
section of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,
and another WPA musician has been taken
onto the staff of WLW, as a viola player. Two
Cleveland violinists, who played with project
units, have signed contracts with the Cleveland
Orchestra.
These are only a few of the musicians who
retained their skills through Federal assistance
until the opportunity for private employment
came to them.
Just preceding the depression America's bill
for music, orchestras, opera and artist concerts,
lessons and education, instruments, manu¬
scripts and radio, had been estimated at $3,-
000,000,000 in one year. Allocations to the
Federal Music Project, meeting all of its relief,
artistic, administrative and professional needs,
as well as its abundant services, will amount
to $10,134,116 up to July 6. An additional alloca¬
tion of $4,512,000 has been authorized for the
coming three months.
AUDIENCES
Approximately 20,000,000* persons have
heard "in the flesh" concerts or performances
by the units of the Federal Music Project since
last October. These performances numbered
29,991 as between January 1 and June 30, and
it is likely that were attendance figures com-
olete, record of audience totals would mount
by several millions.
It was remarked in an earlier report that
•See page 31
music can serve no useful social purpose unless
it is heard; these figures disclose that more
Americans have been listening to "living"
music since the beginning of the program to
rehabilitate unemployed musicians than in
any previous similar period in the history of
the nation.
In addition to the concerts, operas, choral
and band programs, and sinfonietta, chamber
11
4000 Hear Boston Units in THE CREATION
and quartet recitals, there have been hundreds
of radio broadcasts reaching an audience
which escapes computation but which must be
tremendously large. Over WNYC, New York
City's municipal radio station, there were 1517
broadcast periods, and with the 103 electrical
transcription records for distribution to smaller
stations the music of these Federally-sponsored
musicians has entered practically every corner
of the country.
Federal music units also have been broad¬
casting programs from Boston, Providence,
Philadelphia, Wilmington, Detroit and Omaha.
From the regional director's reports spanning
January 1 to June 3 audience figures for New
Jersey alone stood at 2,036,406, exclusive of
radio listeners. In New York City between
October 10 and June 7, 1,094,642 individuals
heard WPA music in concert, opera or other
public performances. Attendance figures for
California from January 16 to June 29, in 3,952
programs or performances, were 2,291,976, and
in Illinois, exclusive of the thousands who
heard the orchestras supplied for Federal
Theater vaudeville or recreational services,
1,415,619 persons heard 1,947 concerts.
While the weather had some contributing
effect it is noted that the audiences have in¬
creased in size month by month since the win¬
ter. In Louisiana where between January 11
and March 5 audience figures were less than
60,000 the period between May 28 and June 25
registered 125,995 at concerts and perfor¬
mances.
Massachusetts figures to June 23 were 2,099,-
182 and this takes into account the floods in
the late winter when all scheduled engage¬
ments in Western Massachusetts were can¬
celled. The bands and orchestras were sent
to relief and refugee stations for afternoon and
evening entertainment.
In Grand Rapids, Mich., attendance for the
first six months of the year is listed at 60,575
but this does not embrace the music apprecia¬
tion and educational programs throughout the
public and parochial school systems. By in¬
cluding these, listener figures aggregated
162.000 up to April.
Minnesota audiences between January 1 and
June 29 heard 813 programs with attendance
of 328,030. WPA concerts in Denver, Colorado
Springs and Pueblo registered audience figures
of 109,609. Connecticut with its symphony or¬
chestras in Hartford and Bridgeport reported
listeners numbering 159,347. While Missouri
had only two concert project units which
played to 3,201 persons in Kansas City, St. Louis
and two CCC camps during January, atten¬
dance figures had risen until they numbered
44,636 in the six weeks period between May 1
and June 15. The WPA concert orchestra in
Joplin began public performances in April sup¬
plying 11,000 listeners to a grand total of 118,-
461 in the State for the first six months of the
year.
Pennsylvania attendance figures between
February 1 and June 19, including 537,086 in
Philadelphia alone, totaled 1,536,197, and this
compilation was made before the Philadelphia
100-piece orchestra and its concert band of
ninety men had participated in events in late
June before estimated crowds of 50,000.
Concert units in six cities in Ohio were heard
by 702,371; in Oregon listeners' figures stand
at 80,180 which do not include outdoor con¬
certs in parks; programs in Nebraska between
March 1 and June 20, principally in Omaha
and Lincoln, were heard by 103,905 persons.
The statistics for North Carolina are incomplete,
the first report of WPA concert attendance da¬
ting from April 26, but between that date and
June 14 about 12,000 heard performances in
Asheville and Durham, with another 3,000 in
audiences when the orchestra was on tour late
in June.
Rhode Island, exclusive of forty-four radio
broadcasts, but including two performances at
the formal opening of the State Airport, re¬
ported 338,097 listeners. Texas figures are
incomplete but thev registered 145,619 at 411
programs between February and June 14. Wis¬
consin audiences numbered 225,541 between
February 15 and June 15, and in Florida the
Miami Symphony Orchestra played to 96,000
persons, including outdoor programs early in
the year.
12
During the winter and spring WPA bands
gave frequent concerts in the concourses of
railroad stations in Boston, New York and else¬
where. It is impossible to estimate how many-
persons their music reached. There are ap¬
proximate figures, however, which are included
in the audience totals, covering the occasions
when Federal Music units played for dancing
feet in institutions or under recreational com¬
mission auspices.
ORCHESTRA, BAND,
ENSEMBLE
More than a score of symphony orchestras,
comprising between seventy and 110 musi¬
cians, have been created under the Federal
Music Project. New York City has three and
Boston has two orchestras of symphonic calibre
and personnel. Philadelphia's Civic Orchestra
employs a hundred men. Chicago, Los An¬
geles, San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego;
Syracuse, Buffalo, Hartford, Bridgeport, Provi¬
dence, New Orleans, Detroit, Grand Rapids,
Tulsa, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Asheville,
Richmond, Newark, Jacksonville and Miami,
have been hearing the music of the great sym¬
phonic literature in frequent programs.
In many other cities throughout the country
there are concert orchestras of between twenty
and fifty musicians. Like the larger symphonic
bodies these orchestras have emphasized the
performance of music by American composers.
Fifteen chamber music ensembles, located
principally in the larger cities, and ranging
from the instrumental trio and quartet to the
sinfonietta, have been heard in inimate "salon"
programs. Because of the greater ease of move¬
ment these smaller instrumental groups have
been much in demand for hospital and other
institutional programs. They also have parti¬
cipated in the Composers' Forum Laboratory
activities in New York, Philadelphia and Mil¬
waukee.
Outstanding among the symphonic contribu¬
tions was the Beethoven Cycle of six programs
in Newark in which eight of the nine sym¬
phonies, the principal concerti and overtures,
were performed during the late Spring. Audi¬
ence figures for these concerts aggregated
7,100 persons. A Brahms Cycle is to be given
by the same orchestra in the Fall when the four
symphonies, the concerti, and, perhaps, the
Requiem, will be performed.
Down in Barrow Street in New York City a
Brahms Cycle consisting of six ensemble con¬
certs was inaugurated at the Greenwich House
Concert Band of Superior, Wisconsin
13
Music School on June 29. The "New Talent"
series of Sunday afternoon concerts in which
American compositions are to be interpreted
by American conductors and artists, was
started early in June by the Brooklyn Sym¬
phony Orchestra in the Brooklyn Museum.
More than two-thirds of California's 3,952 con¬
certs in the first six months of the year were
devoted to orchestral programs. These included
a number of concerts where only the works
of American composers were performed.
In all sections of the country audiences have
been listening to the stirring strains of seventy-
seven WPA symphonic and concert bands. In
Milwaukee a group of well-trained musicians
is organized into a "Little German Band" which
has proved so popular that it has not kept up
with demands for engagements.
Tipica Orchestras have been formed in San
Antonio, Texas, and in several other cities in
the Southwest and on the Pacific Coast, play¬
ing the romantic airs of Old Spain, Cuba and
Colonial Mexico. In Pittsburgh a Gypsy Or¬
chestra, a group of twenty-two musicians, has
been playing czardas and other music out of
Hungary. Chicago has a large concert band
of Hungarians. In all of these organizations
fretted string instruments are predominant.
There were enrolled in eighty-one dance and
theater orchestras on June 30, more than 2,000
musicians. Sixteen experts are working as
tuners and instrument repairers.
OPERA, OPERETTA, CHORAL
Grand opera which because of the high cost
of production has been out of the reach of all
except a comparative handful of Americans
has been presented under the WPA Federal
Music Project to large audiences. Plans for the
coming Fall contemplate extensions of this type
of lyric drama. Federal orchestras, artists on
the soloists projects, large choruses which have
been trained by Federal Project leaders, and
the services of experienced directors, coaches
and teachers have made it possible to produce
opera.
In the light opera and operetta field the
Savoy presentations of Gilbert and Sullivan
have led. New York's experiment in chamber
opera began when Ernst Toch's modernistic
"The Princess on the Pea" had its American
premiere with Weber's 125-year old "Abu Has¬
san" as a companion piece. It played in the
Biltmore Theater for three weeks and plans
were advanced for sending the chamber opera
group on the road. Performances in Bridge¬
port, Conn, were billed for early July.
In the cantata and oratorio field some of the
mighty and familiar works have been given
repeated performance. Of more immediate in¬
terest, however, has been the revival of lesser
known choral compositions.
Seth Bingham's "Wilderness Stone" was
heard in its world premiere on May 24 in the
Manhattan Theater in New York City. This is
a folk cantata, deeply American in quality,
and it affords a musical setting for excerpts
from Stephen Vincent Benet's epic poem "John
Brown's Body." It was presented with soprano,
tenor and bass soloists, a narrator, a chorus of
seventy and full symphony orchestra. Hugh
Ross of the Schola Cantorum was the conductor.
On June 19 the Federal Music Project in New
York City presented opera in concert form in
Forest Park, Queens, as an experiment. So
well was this received that similar opera con¬
certs are to be given in all of the boroughs this
summer. With the New York Civic Orchestra
and a group of sixty singers from the artists'
and choral projects, excerpts will be performed
from "Die Meistersinger," "Emani," "Cavalleria
Rusticana," "I Pagliacci," "Mefistofele," and
"Samson and Dalila."
In Los Angeles, Offenbach's "Tales of Hoff-
14
Negro Chorus
(100 voices) Singing Han¬
del's THE MESSIAH in the
First Baptist Church, Los
Angeles
KIT
itj* ytsY
iW}
,V»v. MM,
MM
mm
sa
Av,
man" drew audiences aggregating 18,000 per¬
sons at the first four performances. These WPA
opera forces made their bow in March in the
Municipal Stadium at Long Beach. Other opera
ventures in California include performances of
"Cavalleria Rusticana" (Mascagni), in San
Diego, and the "Merry Wives of Windsor"
(Nicolai) and "Secrets of Suzanne" (Wolf-Fer¬
rari). Alois Reiser, who directed the Los An¬
geles opera units, also was at the desk of the
Los Angeles WPA Symphony Orchestra in a
concert performance of excerpts from his own
opera "Isis".
The San Bernardino units united in a pro¬
duction of Gluck's "Orpheus" in the Redlands
Bowl on the evening of June 26, with a chorus
of forty, a ballet of forty-eight and an orchestra
of fifty.
In Boston Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" and
Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel," which
have already been given in concert form by
the Commonwealth Symphony Orchestra and
the Commonwealth Symphony Chorus, are to
be repeated with the full dramatic investiture.
Plans for the presentation of Wagner's "The
Flying Dutchman" and Paul Allen's "Mam'zelle
Figaro" have been under consideration. Mr.
Allen, a Boston composer, has heard three of
his operas presented throughout Italy but
American audiences have not yet heard them.
On April 8 the Boston units presented the third
cct from "Parsifal".
Excerpts from two other grand operas by
American composers, "Zophane," by Otto Meul-
ler, and "Mountain Blood," written by Frank
Patterson after a Joseph Hergesheimer novel,
have had performances in Philadelphia.
Open air performances in Miami, Jackson¬
ville and Tampa, of Verdi's "Aida" with the
Jacksonville WPA Symphony Orchestra and a
chorus of 250 voices, trained and coached by
project teachers, are to be given during the
summer. Rehearsals of Verdi's "Rigoletto" also
have been started.
With Buffalo's Federally-sponsored Philhar¬
monic Orchestra a full stage performance of
Flotow's "Martha" was presented in April
under the sponsorship of the New York State
Department of Education, the Buffalo Board of
Education and the Adult Education Division of
the WPA.
In New Jersey, Essex County units which
have been giving operatic excerpts during the
last several months have plans for a season
of opera comique for the summer. The first
presentation will be "Martha".
15
SOME WPA CONCERT UNITS
Grand Rapids. Kent County
Memphis, Tennessee
Detroit
L„ CaWornl.
Boston. Mass.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Portland. Oreqon
AND MUSIC EDUCATION GROUPS
ChiW-'s Festal. New York City
Teaching Staff New Hampsh;re
ill
i i i i i i
Six of the 69.000 Music Pupils
in Mississippi
Appreciation Class. Portland. Oregon
Adult's Singing Class and (below] Study Group. New York
Two Study Groups in Okla¬
homa and (below) A pianc
class. New York
imm
Federal Music Project Opera
(top) San Bernardino, California;
Units in Gluck's ORPHEUS—(Center)
New York Chamber Opera Groups present
Weber's ABU HASSAN and (below)
Ernst Toch's PRINCESS ON THE PEA
18
Operetta projects in Connecticut, Ohio and
Florida have proved popular with both musi¬
cians and audiences. The Cleveland unit has
given twenty performances of "The Mikado"
and is now prepared to present "The Chimes
of Normandy". "The Pirates of Penzance,"
heard in Key West, is to be followed by "Pin¬
afore."
Among the choral works Mendelssohn's
"Elijah" and "Hymn of Praise", Brahms' "Alto
Rhapsody", Haydn's "Creation," and Handel's
"Messiah" have been performed repeatedly.
The "Beatitudes" of Cesar Franck was sung by
the Commonwealth Choral Symphony in the
Boston Opera House and at Harvard Univer¬
sity. Weber's "Hymne," a great writing infre¬
quently heard in recent years, and Gounod's
"Saint Cecilia Mass" were sung by the same
choral group, as was Franz Schubert's Mass in
G. Mozart's "Requiem" has had three per¬
formances in Massachusetts.
Greig's "Sigurd Jorsalfar" was presented in
Tulsa with the WPA symphony orchestra and
a civic chorus, and Schubert's Mass in A was
sung by the Virginia State Chorus with the
WPA Symphony Orchestra in Richmond as a
program of the State Choral Festival in May.
Nicola Montani's "Missa Festiva" and Guilio
Silva's "Mass of the Blessed Virgin" have been
sung twice in Philadelphia and once in San
Francisco. An audience of twenty-five thou¬
sand persons heard the Montani work at a field
mass on June 20.
In prospect for the fall season are perform¬
ances of Beethoven's Ninth (choral) Symphony
in San Diego, and Newark. San Diego units
also contemplate performances of Bach's "Cof¬
fee Cantata" and Debussy's "The Blessed
Damosel." Ernst Bacon's "Cantata," based on
passages from the Book of Ecclesiastes, will be
heard in its world premiere in San Francisco
in the fall. A second performance will follow
at the University of California.
Two New York a cappeiia units have re¬
gistered outstanding artistic successes. The
Madrigal Singers, directed by Lehman Engel,
and the Juanita Hall Melody Singers, the latter
a Negro group, have given more than a hun¬
dred programs. A Negro choir of 100 voices
in Los Angeles has been singing the great
oratorios, and in North Carolina a group of
200 Negro choristers under the direction of Nell
Hunter has been enthusiastically acclaimed.
The seldom presented motet of Bach, "Jesu,
meine Freude," will be sung a cappella by the
Madrigal group on a vocal program early in
July which will inaugurate a series of eight
weekly summer concerts of works ranging from
the pre-Bach period to the modern school.
TEACHERS
The program created by the Federal Music
Project for the rehabilitation and retraining of
approximately the 1600 teachers of music now
on its rolls has disclosed a vast and unex¬
pected hunger for music among large groups
of our people. The classes over which these
WPA teachers preside enroll today literally
hundreds of thousands of persons, divided
about equally between adults and children.
These teachers are leading and directing
classes for group instruction, both vocal and
instrumental; they are presiding at community
gatherings for talks and demonstrations on
music appreciation, history and theory, and
they are serving as conductors, instructors and
coaches of choruses, bands and orchestras.
Before the Federal Music Project came into
existence it has been estimated that two-thirds
of the 4,000,000 children in the 143,000 rural
schools in America were without music instruc¬
tion in any form. Educators had recognized
for a long time that the old methods of teaching
rural school music had not kept pace with other
educational trends. Through the teaching of
music on the unprecedented scale made pos¬
sible by the Works Progress Administration
there are being evolved new texts and technics.
The activities of the WPA music teachers pene¬
trate into the remotest rural communities. The
teachers also are leading large classes in the
congested areas of the great cities. In Minne¬
sota, Massachusetts and Oklahoma the teach¬
ing programs have been set up on state-wide
bases.
Beyond the immediate benefits in community
organization social music activities enter into
many phases of individual life. Its influence
is found in the home, cementing family ties
and deepening social interests. A more spaci¬
ous form of self-expression is gained and the
cooperative spirit expands in ensemble work.
For the musician a new field of opportunity
appears. Scores of letters and statements in the
press attest these facts.
The community chorus of today is no longer
only a singing school. It is more of a social
group in which good will spreads rapidly
throughout the neighborhood. When neigh¬
bors gather to make song, worries and cares
are cast aside in a recreational exercise. These
statements are taken from reports of teachers
and supervisors.
Dr. James A. Mursell, Associate Professor
of Education at Teachers College, Columbia
University, writes; "I regard the work which is
being carried on in New York City by the Music
Education Division of the WPA Music Project
as a most significant enterprise in both its social
and musical implicatons. A great new con¬
stituency has been discovered, eager for seri¬
ous music study, but untouched by our present
agencies in the field. Group methods of teach¬
ing many phases of music are being success¬
fully worked out in practice.
"It is being established that opportunities for
music study and musical activities are an im¬
portant element in the well-being of large num¬
bers of persons . . . This work is making a
remarkable contribution about how music
should be taught, and its place in the scheme
of human values."
It is a principle of the Federal Project that
the instructor may not enter into competition
with a teacher who is self-sustaining, and there¬
fore the WPA teacher's work has been largely
with persons on relief, with WPA workers and
their families, and the underprivileged. The
response of these people has been amazing
and heartening, particularly in areas that have
been regarded as musically barren.
19
In Mississippi, where 165 teachers are opera¬
ting in forty counties, and where as early as
April 1 there was a pupil enrollment of 69,640,
the State Director reports: "In every commun¬
ity we have found people are intensely inter¬
ested and that the underprivileged children
and adults are eager to take advantage of the
opportunity offered by our classes of instruc¬
tion."
Stories told by the teachers in the field
amplify this statement. They relate how bare¬
footed children have walked miles for instruc¬
tion in music. In the towns the Negroes who
are members of choruses work long hours on
outside jobs and their classes must be sche¬
duled as late as nine o'clock at night.
Many of these WPA music teachers in the
South were found in sewing and lunch room
projects. They had been reluctant when ap¬
plying for relief to report their qualifications
as musicians because they felt the work pro¬
gram was intended for manual wage earners.
In Minnesota, where there is a statewide
teaching project, fifty-one teachers have sche¬
dules of 304 classes a week with pupil enroll¬
ment just under 4,000. A complete musical
faculty has been supplied in the National
Youth Administration residence school for un¬
employed girls where, the state administrator
reports, music has been made an integral part
of the curriculum.
Taking assignments from county seats, seven¬
ty-seven WPA teachers are serving rural com¬
munities in Illinois; thirty-eight are employed
in Williamson County and nineteen report to
the music center in Bloomington. Twelve pre¬
side over instruction and appreciation groups
in the Decatur area.
In Florida, teaching projects have been ad¬
vanced in every county, and in South Carolina
where the rural music teachers have been car¬
rying their services into communities "in which
children have never had the slightest musical
opportunity," the need is voiced for "fifty times
as many teachers as we have."
"Even the few will leave their imprint upon
the cultural life of the community for genera¬
tions to come", a district supervisor reports.
In New Mexico, where with a few exceptions,
there has been little musical instructions in the
counties, twenty-two WPA teachers are reach¬
ing regularly 2,000 persons. A woman in the
Albuquerque region is teaching sight singing,
chorus work and elements of music in the rural
schools and has more than 800 children in her
classes. One of the men teaching band and
orchestra has 207 pupils.
Of the musicians in Federal Music Project
activities in Oklahoma eighty-seven are teach¬
ers, or band, orchestra or choral conductors.
In Oregon, several Parent-Teachers' choruses
have been brought under instruction and re¬
quisitions have been filed for expansion of this
leadership.
Great metropolitan centers see the work of
the Education Division of the Federal Music
Project carried on even more intensively. In
New York City there are twenty-four centers
for the teaching of music and music apprecia¬
tion available to the underprivileged. In addi¬
tion to these there are 115 centers operating
in conjunction with the welfare centers, hos¬
pitals and schools. The majority of the 16,000
students enrolled in the centers are employed
adults but the classes working through welfare
agencies and crime prevention bureaus list
more than 100,000 children and young people
every month. The lessons are always given
in classes and every effort is made to avoid
competition with the self-sustaining private
teacher.
Requests have been so numerous from all
the Boroughs of the Metropolitan districts that
they cannot be filled. New groups are forming
constantly, ranging from children of pre-school
age to mature adults. Mother and father groups
are numerous. Many unemployed or part-time
employed musicians have been members of
these New York City classes.
A woman enrolled in a theory class has writ¬
ten a song which has been accepted by Lotte
20
Lehmcmn, Metropolitan Opera prima donna,
and others who advanced their training and
retained their skills during the depression have
found preferred employment as teachers or in¬
stitutional music directors.
Particularly interesting work has been done
in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where members of
the WPA Orchestra cooperate with school
authorities in music appreciation activity. The
aim here is to take the "formalism out of or¬
chestral music by showing children its essen¬
tial simplicity and beauty." There are no prin¬
ted programs but the director discusses the
music which covers a span from the "Waltz for
Teenies Doll" for kindergartners to the Beeth¬
oven symphonies for college students. Instru¬
ments are taken down and reassembled.
Among the concert organizations many mu¬
sicians of advanced training and experience
have been devoting part of their services in
instruction to those less well equipped. In Oak¬
land, a school of music within the symphony
orchestra has been set up with regularly sched¬
uled classes for instrumental sections and
choirs.
Scores of teachers are giving musical instruc¬
tion and are directing group units in CCC
camps, community recreational work and in
cooperation with the National Youth Adminis¬
tration.
For selected teachers on the Federal Music
Project a form of "Institute" or "normal school"
retraining has been inaugurated to equip them
as leaders or lecturers for community groups
of "listeners." The course, which calls for
eight weeks of intensive work and study with
required reading, has been instituted in New
York City, Florida and California.
A new series of lectures on the subject of
the approach to harmonic development has re¬
cently been incorporated into the weekly "Insti¬
tute Hour" in New York City. This course is
largely attended as the teachers are eager for
every new means of spreading the develop¬
ment of music. Harmony, diction, phrasing,
tone, dynamics and ear training are dwelt upon
with the object of developing judgment in the
most effective methods of presenting the mater¬
ial to students. This course is planned to con¬
tinue until the end of the year.
The world of words and music is being re¬
born for deaf and otherwise handicapped
school children in Michigan through the coope¬
ration of Federal Music Project bands and or¬
chestras. Already in practical operation in
Jackson, the use of WPA units in training these
pupils is to be extended to Detroit, and possibly
to Lansing, Flint, Holland and Saginaw.
The Jackson Board of Education has intro¬
duced into its classes for the deaf and hard-of-
hearing a phonographic device which enables
the pupils to hear with the aid of earphones
and a dial for adjusting volume. Many of these
children had never heard music until, as an
experiment, the WPA Orchestra played for
them. A microphone rendered the music
audible.
Under strict scientific control music therapy
classes are being conducted in eight New York
hospitals, a training school for girls and a house
of detention for women, covering approximate¬
ly 6,200 patients a month. This work was begun
in the psychiatric ward for children at Bellevue
Hospital.
In the Jacksonville Memorial Hospital in Flor¬
ida other experiments to determine the value
of music along therapeutic lines are being
made. These experiments also are under scien¬
tific control.
In collaboration with the College of the City
of New York the Federal Music Project will
unite with the other three WPA Projects in pre¬
senting a six-week lecture course beginning
July 7. Lecturers on music will include Daniel
Gregory Mason and Chalmers Clifton, of Colum¬
bia University; Dr. Ruth Hannas, of the East¬
man School of Music, Rochester, N. Y., and
Lillian Simpson, author of books on creative
music for children. The course is designed prin¬
cipally for the hundreds of students who visit
New York for summer courses.
21
COMPOSERS
Encouragement for the American compos¬
er has brought to light a wealth of creative
talent that had not been foreseen when the
Federal Music Project was set up. Musical
leaders have expressed amazement at the num¬
ber and quality of compositions performed by
these units, and there are those who profess
to see that long anticipated dawn when a na¬
tive American music, as distinguished and in¬
digenous as the music of France, Russia, Ger¬
many, or Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century
England, will come into being.
A compilation and study by the Analyses
Unit of the Federal Music Project already lists
622 American composers whose music had
been performed between last October and
June 30. These works include twenty-seven
symphonies by twenty-four composers which
have been heard in more than sixty programs.
The total number of American Compositions
played by Federal Music Project units within
this period stood at 1,843, but many of them had
been given repeated performances.
Compositions besides symphonies included
symphonic and tone poems, concerti for piano,
violin, violincello, flute and horn; suites and
overtures; four operas, two cantatas, smaller
choral works and art songs; marches, suites,
concert waltzes and descriptive pieces for
bands; chamber music string quartets and
trios, instrumental solos, and, in the field of lit¬
urgical music, two masses for choirs and or¬
chestra.
Under the Federal Music plan any person
who has written a music manuscript is permit¬
ted to submit it to an audition board of recog¬
nized non-relief musicians in his district. Within
the option of this board rests the chance of per¬
formance. Where the work has been regarded
as possessing sufficient merit, it is performed at
a rehearsal. This gives the composer the op¬
portunity for change or correction. In the in¬
stance that conductor and musicians approve
the composition after the rehearsal reading, it
is scheduled for early public performance.
In instances where a composition has proved
of outstanding worth the public performance
frequently gained hearing with units in other
parts of the country. For instance a work scor¬
ing success in Richmond might next be per¬
formed in New York, or a composition enthu-
siastically received in St. Paul would be heard
in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia
or Tulsa. Success in New York or Boston has
meant performance in Detroit or Chicago.
While certain of these composers were al¬
ready widely recognized the majority have
heard their compositions in first performances
within a year. More than seventy per cent of
the compositions were played from manuscript.
Symphonies of Daniel Gregory Mason, Hen¬
ry Hadley, Howard Hanson and Edgar Stillman
Kelley had been known, of course, to symphony
orchestra patrons. Ernst Bacon among the
younger men, also had achieved distinction
when a national prize in music was awarded
to him in 1933 for his Symphony in D. Compos¬
ers of other symphonies, however, were com¬
paratively unknown or recognized only in their
own immediate localities which often afforded
no instrument capable of performing the work.
Victor Herbert and John Philip Sousa led in
number of performances, naturally enough, but
compositions of George Gershwin, John Harlow
Mills and Ferde Grofe have appeared on many
programs. The "American Fantasy" of Mr. Mills
has been played eleven times by the WPA
Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles alone.
Other American composers whose music has
been repeatedly performed include John Alden
Carpenter, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Fred¬
erick Converse, Charles Martin I oeffler, Deems
Taylor, Chalmers Clifton, Radie Britain, John
Powell, Hilton Rufty, Lamar Stringfield, John
J. Becker, Quincy Porter, Randall Thompson,
Frederick Preston Search, James P. Dunn, Ben-
detson Netzorg, Percy Grainger, Aaron Cop¬
land, George Crandall, Mabel Daniels, Charles
T. Griffes, Jacob Weinberg, Louise Ayres Gar-
nett, Henry Holden Huss, Jerome Baum Gressett,
Bernard Rogers, Lehman Engel, Oley Speaks,
Douglas Moore, and from the musical field,
Sigmund Romberg, Jerome Kern, Rudolf Friml
and Irving Berlin.
♦
COMPOSERS' FORUM
LABORATORY
Of inestimable value to the American com¬
poser are the Composers' Forum Laboratories
which were created as an extra-curricular activi¬
ty of the Educational Division of the Federal
Music Project. Since its inception in New York
City in October, 1935, when the compositions
of Roy Harris were performed, the Forums have
given public performances to more than sixty
composers in New York City, Philadelphia,
Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee and
Minneapolis, and in Florida and California.
The principal aim of the Forum Laboratories
is to give the public a wide perspective of the
work of each composer. The director of the
New York Forum declared that "here music
expressive of every shade of thought and feel¬
ing peculiar to this moment in history will have
a hearing. We shall consider every type of
music written by competent musicians." The
purpose of the Forums also is to provide an op¬
portunity for serious composers residing in
America, both known and unknown, to hear
their own compositions, and to test audience
reactions.
The opportunity for the composer before
these Forums to amend his works is a unique
one. Following the program he is exposed to
Questions directed to him from his audience.
These are often searching and generally intel¬
ligent, concerning themselves with his methods
and mathematics, his emotional intentions and
esthetic persuasions.
The New York series closed on June 24 with
its thirty-second program, to be resumed in Oc¬
tober. It has experienced the performances
of twenty string quartets, three piano quintets,
twenty-three varied chamber music composi¬
tions, seven instrumental trios, sixty-seven
piano works, a series of songs with string quar¬
tet settings, seven works for two pianos and ten
for violin; eighty-one songs with piano, eight
works for orchestra, and four songs with orches¬
tral accompaniment.
23
The Philadelphia Forum and the Minneapo-
lis-St. Paul Forum at the University of Minne¬
sota, on several occasions have made use of
full symphony orchestras for the laboratory
auditions, although more intimate programs
have been held for chamber music. Approxi¬
mately fifty manuscripts have been approved
in Philadelphia for Forum performance in the
fall.
The Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit and the
Florida Forums confined themselves more dir¬
ectly with musicians resident in their States.
The Forum Laboratory in Boston has examined
more than a hundred scores but its public
work probably will not be started until October.
With the beginning of the fall season, creation
of Composer's Forum Laboratories are contem¬
plated in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oak¬
land; Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo; Port¬
land, Oregon; New Orleans, Denver, Tulsa and
Jackson, Mississippi.
COPYISTS, ARRANGERS, LIBRARIANS
Music lending libraries, operated generally
in connection with public libraries, schools and
colleges, now have large collections of music
folios for the use of students and musical groups
in their communities. Four hundred and twelve
copyists and arrangers working on twent-four
WPA projects have supplied this music.
The Federal Music Project has witnessed the
rise of a vast new interest in music. Under the
direction and instruction of WPA teachers new
choruses and instrumental groups have been
formed in all parts of the country. Among exist¬
ing groups, such as Mothers' Choruses and
Parent-Teachers' singing organizations, expert
directing and coaching has been made avail¬
able.
For these organizations the lending music
libraries are performing direct services. The
copyists and arrangers transcribe, transpose,
stencil and proof-read copies of compositions
on which copyrights have expired, or of man¬
uscript works. There also have been scores and
transcriptions of vernacular folk songs such as
those made by the Kentucky project in Ashland,
the River songs of the Bayou country in Missis¬
sippi, and the Mexican and Spanish music of
early California and Texas.
In Los Angeles seventy musicians have been
employed on the WPA arrangers' project. They
are divided into three departments—the music
preparation department, the photo-reproduction
department and the inter-exchange music lib¬
rary. In a single week in June more than
10,000 pages of music were reproduced for the
choral and instrumental division. In San Fran¬
cisco twenty-five copyists and arrangers are
engaged with similar scores.
In Michigan there are fifty-nine musicians on
copying projects and when their work is com¬
pleted the State will be in possession of the
scores of many of the standard symphonies,
# available for music units in colleges and
schools. Parts have been copied from the con¬
ductor's scores.
These Michigan workers are divided between
Detroit and Grand Rapids, with forty-two work¬
ing in the latter city.
24
Copyist Project, Denver
Copyist Projects
(above) Milwaukee
(and below)
Philadelphia
The WPA music copying project in Minne¬
sota has been organized on a state-wide basis
and employs sixteen persons.
Fifty-four copyists, arrangers and librarians
are at work in New Jersey, in the Camden and
Newark public libraries and in Paterson. Opera
scores have been copied and requests for libret¬
tists and translators have been so numerous it
has been impossible to obtain the qualified
persons from the relief rolls.
Of the forty-nine copyists, arrangers and lib¬
rarians in the New York City Project seven have
been assigned to the drama music units. In
April alone this little group copied 1,650 master
pages. The library of the Federal Music Project
in New York has assembled an extensive col¬
lection of manuscripts.
Forty-two persons, of whom thirty-two are
copyists, two are binders and one is a blue-
printer, have been working since October 28
in the Philadelphia Free Library. Up to June
29, 110 complete works had been copied. Work
is progressing on sixty-seven others and in
previous projects 118 had been transcribed,
making a total of 38,490 pages written for scores
and parts. These represent 137 composers.
25
Binders have put into permanent form 145
scores and 279 parts. String parts duplicated
number 27,844. All of these are works of con¬
temporary American composers. Total hours of
work on June 29 numbered 29,898, which means
a grand average per page of about fifty-three
minutes. Each page of this manuscript is double
checked.
In Akron, Ohio, where the difficult combina¬
tions of instruments in the early band ventures
necessitated a large number of special arrange¬
ments, eleven persons were assigned for this
particular purpose. In Columbus a unit of thirty-
one, besides copying and transcribing band
and orchestral scores, is working under the
sponsorship of the Columbus Civic Opera As¬
sociation copying operatic music available for
its patrons. The unit also has done copy work
for the Department of Music at Ohio State Uni¬
versity. Fourteen persons are employed on a
copying and binding project for the Cincinnati
WPA units.
In Milwaukee fifty-two copyists and arrangers
had written 2,874 master copies from which
16,458 pages were drawn, up to May 31. Other
copyists' and arrangers' projects in Wisconsin
are operating in Kiel and Madison.
One arranger-supervisor and eleven copy¬
ists are at work in Denver where manuscript
copies are made for all of the Colorado Federal
Music Project units. Twenty arrangers and
copyists are engaged in Chicago; two in New
Orleans; three in Baltimore, where they have
transcribed copies of musically historic manu¬
scripts; six librarians and copyists are em¬
ployed by the project in Buffalo, N. Y., and two
in Texas.
At the Congressional Library in Washington
copyists have been assigned to perform a valu¬
able work with rare manuscripts in its posses¬
sion. In some instances parts of scores are mis¬
sing. These are to be restored after careful
study. In others the parts of single scores are
to be developed for chamber and orchestral
groups. The work of these expert transcribers
is to be submitted for review, audition and final
approval to a committee of distinguished mu¬
sicians.
FESTIVALS - NATIONAL MUSIC WEEK
The services of more than 7,000 WPA musi¬
cians were enlisted in Spring music festivals
and in the national observance of Music Week,
May 3-10. The programs to a record degree
were devoted to the music of American com¬
posers.
In New York City the whole line of American
music from the early 18 th century to the present
was exemplified in nine concerts by more than
a thousand Federal Music Project instrumen¬
talists and singers. At one program a pageant
was given to the accompaniment of American
music dating from the pre-Revolutionary period
up to and including the Civil War. Guest con¬
ductors with the orchestras included Dr. Nikolai
Sokoloff, Director of the Federal Music Project;
Philip James, Howard Hanson, Jacques Gordon
and Chalmers Clifton.
The annual Virginia State Choral Festival
held in Richmond, April 30, May 1-2, filled two
entire programs with native compositions, the
first for string ensembles and the second for
the symphony orchestra. A third program pre¬
sented Virginia mountain songs and folk tunes.
Five hundred singers, trained throughout the
State by WPA leaders, presented Schubert's
Mass in A with Richmond's WPA Symphony
Orchestra.
Enlisting all of its WPA concert units, Cali¬
fornia observed National Music Week with
festivals in every section of the State. In Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and
San Diego elaborate programs devoted separ¬
ate evenings to American music. In daylight
hours there were "open" rehearsals for the pub¬
lic.
At the annual ten-day Garden Pilgrimage
and Pageant in Vicksburg, Miss., a principal
attraction was a chorus of 500 Negroes who
sang on the levee each night preceeding the
26
Little Mountain Minstrels at
Folk Music Festival, Ashland, Kentucky
"Showboat" program on the river. The chorus
was trained by a Negro teacher of the Federal
Music Project. Throughout Mississippi WPA
choruses had led in the community singing of
Easter carols. There also was state-wide obser¬
vance of National Music Week with programs
in theaters and schools.
In Florida where the WPA teachers have set
up groups in sixty-seven counties there was an
open-air performance of Verdi's "Aida" on Eas¬
ter Monday in Miami.
Special programs, some of them elaborate
and all of them emphasizing American music,
were given in Massachusetts, Maine, Illinois
and Michigan, during Music Week.
The State Music Festival in Minnesota using
the WPA organizations, was held May 13—19
with alternate performances in Minneapolis
and St. Paul. In the two symphony orchestra
programs only music by American composers
was played. National Music Week was ob¬
served generally throughout New Jersey with
special programs by bands, orchestras and
choral groups, and with the first concert of the
Beethoven Cycle of six programs heard in New¬
ark in mid-week.
In Texas, a folk festival and pageant, Texas
Under Six Flags", at the T.C.U. Stadium in Fort
Worth, introduced a chorus of 1,500 voices in
songs depicting Texas historically. The pion¬
eer" group included among other early songs,
"Will You Come to the Bower" which was sung
by General Sam Houston's soldiers at the Bat¬
tle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.
On June 14 several thousand persons gath¬
ered in the woods near Ashland, Kentucky, for
the Sixth Annual Folk Song Festival in which
thirty-one musicians, charged by the Federal
Music Project with preserving their vernacular
music, participated.
On June 4 in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
WPA singing groups, sponsored by the League
Of United Latin-American Citizens, presented
another type of folk song — the "Romances,"
Decimas", "Quandos" and "Corridos" which
had their origin in Spain and Mexico, and
which are being preserved as a part of the His¬
panic culture of the Southwest.
There is in preparation a festival of the music
of historic interest at Monterey and Carmel. Ef¬
forts are being made to collect and arrange
Spanish and Mexican airs of the Colonial days
of California and an authority on Gregorian
chants will teach the choruses to sing the an¬
cient songs as they were heard in the Missions.
A "Festival of Nations" in which WPA music
units participated in more than forty counties
of Pennsylvania brought the music of forty-
seven nationalities resident in that state before
the public. The various programs were given
during May and June.
The North Carolina State Festival centering
in Asheville on June 8-10, witnessed the per¬
formance of American compositions by the
WPA Symphony Orchestra, and in Manchester,
N. H., a state festival utilized the WPA orchestra
and band on June 23 - 24, with several establish¬
ed musical organizations cooperating. A mass¬
ed chorus was composed of 1,000 singers.
In widely separated regions the Easter dawn
was greeted with the music of choristers and
instrumentalists enrolled in the Federal Music
Project. Cooperating with church councils and
with civic organizations their music was heard
on seashore and mountain, in stadiums and
cathedrals.
Twenty thousand persons heard a symphony
orchestra and 250 singers from the Los Angeles
Project at a sunrise service in Hollywood Bowl;
a choir of brasses from the WPA Symphonic
Band of Portland addressed the dawn from
Oregon's towering Mount Tabor, and at Miami
a hundred Negro singers raised their voices in
Easter hymns as the rising sun threw its first
ladder of light across the sea.
27
SUMMER CONCERTS
The Federal Music Project moves into its sum¬
mer season with regularly scheduled outdoor
orchestral concerts in more than thirty cities,
and with an expanded program sponsored by
recreational or municipal authorities for its
dance and concert bands. The opportunity af¬
forded by these summer series for native con¬
ductors, composers and artists is invaluable in
its promise.
On the Pacific Coast the two WPA symphony
orchestras in Los Angeles County will appear
in alternate concerts in the Griffith Park Stad¬
ium. In Long Beach, the Los Angeles County
units will play at Bixby Park on the bluff over¬
looking the sea. In San Francisco there will
be weekly symphony concerts in the War
Memorial Building in the Civic Center with
other performances in the Greek Theater at
Berkeley, and in San Diego the WPA orchestra
will give concerts and accompany operetta
groups. In San Bernardino the first of thirteen
outdoor symphony concerts is scheduled for
July 1. Ten will be given in the Greek Bowl
at San Bernardino Junior College with the Col¬
lege and the Chamber of Commerce as coope¬
rating sponsors, with the other programs in the
Lark Ellen Echo Bowl at Covina.
Oakland units plan a three-day festival at
the Greek Theater at Berkeley with one concert
devoted to symphonic music, one to oratorios
and the third ta operatic selections, under the
sponsorship of the University of California Com¬
mittee of Music and Drama. In San Jose the
symphony orchestra and the Bohemian Band,
alternating with the Tipica Orchestra, will give
promenade concerts in the city parks each
week.
Other regularly scheduled programs in Cali¬
fornia include those at Sacramento, Stockton,
Burlingame, Monterey, Carmel, Santa Barbara
and at Santa Ana. In some of these cities Music
Project dance orchestras will play for dancing
in the streets and parks.
In the East and the Middle West the summer
seasons were started in June with the "New
Talent" series on Sunday afternoons in the
Brooklyn Museum by the Brooklyn Symphony
Orchestra. In these programs American com¬
positions chosen by an audition board from
about fifty submitted manuscripts will be per¬
formed; young conductors will be given a
chance to hold the baton, and native artists
will be selected, by the same audition group
of distinguished musicians, as the program
soloists.
Other orchestral and band units will give
programs in the parks of New York City's five
boroughs, including a series of opera in concert
form with soloists and a chorus of sixty voices.
A gala all-Tschaikowsky program enlisting the
210 musicians of the Brooklyn, the Civic and
the Knickerbocker Symphony Orchestras, and
a symphonic band of 75, will be given in Madi¬
son Square Garden on July 29. The Overture
"1812" is to be performed with the great orches¬
tra, a brass band and artillery. It was so writ¬
ten originally for field performance.
Boston will hear many symphony concerts, a
series of them in the Stadium at Harvard Univer¬
sity, by the three symphonic units of the Feder¬
al Music Project in that city, and Philadelphia's
100-man Federal orchestra, under the sponsor¬
ship of the University of Pennsylvania and
Temple University, has a long series of concerts,
with soloists and ballets, scheduled. Weekly
promenade concerts will be heard in old Mer¬
cantile Hall. The Penn and Sylvania concert
bands have been merged for the summer con¬
certs in the Philadelphia area.
28
Chicago's major WPA music unit, the Illinois
Symphony Orchestra, is to give a series of con¬
certs at the University of Chicago and Loyola
University, and at the University of Illinois dur¬
ing a statewide tour, and in public parks. The
St. Paul and Minneapolis Symphony Orchestras
have been combined for the summer season
for concerts in the Northrup Memorial Auditor¬
ium at the University of Minnesota.
The Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, coope¬
rating with the Music School of Syracuse Uni¬
versity, plans a series of campus concerts
devoted to American composers, and summer
symphony concerts by the Buffalo Philhar¬
monic, the Hartford Symphony and the Bridge¬
port Symphony Orchestras, also will give
prominence to the work of native musicians.
Starlight concerts are to be presented at Den¬
ver University by the Denver WPA orchestra,
and in Skelly Stadium in Tulsa by the Feder¬
ally-sponsored Tulsa Symphony Orchestra.
Phoenix, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah, and
Miami, Jacksonville, and Tampa, Florida, also
will have regularly scheduled outdoor pro¬
grams during the summer.
The recreational authorities in Detroit have
offered Belle Isle for the WPA Symphony Or¬
chestra concerts in August, and in Grand
Rapids City officials have built two orchestral
shells for summer programs by the Federal
units there. Summer schedules also are plan¬
ned in Jackson, Lansing and Iron Mountain,
Michigan. Omaha and New Orleans have
entered summer concert series.
Emphasis in all of these concerts will be
placed on the presentation of American com¬
positions.
RECORDINGS
The music of Federal Music Project symphony
and concert orchestras, concert bands, madri¬
gal singers and Negro choruses, instrumental
ensembles, quartets and dance bands, as it is
heard in the larger cities has been made avail¬
able for the entire country by means of 103
fifteen-minute electrical transcription record¬
ings. These are to be broadcast from approxi¬
mately 460 radio stations. The schedules which
started in April provide for 49,440 broadcasts.
A determining purpose in making these rec¬
ords was to afford a means by which persons
in the more remote areas of the country to whom
concerts by the large units were not accessible
might share in this music.
While the Federal Music Project had not an¬
ticipated such result when the recordings were
started in New York and California, it was grati¬
fied to learn that the excellence of the recorded
performances brought inquiries leading to regu¬
lar employment for musicians on radio pro¬
grams.
The director of the Federal Music Project con¬
ducted the performances for a number of the
symphonic records and maintained a complete
supervision over all of the recordings. The 103
discs carry 400 separate musical numbers —
movements from the symphonies, tone poems,
marches, overtures, ballets; marches, waltzes
and suites for bands; spirituals by the Juanita
Hall Melody Singers in New York and the Los
Angeles Negro Choir; ballads, roundelays and
madrigals by the Madrigal Singers in New
York and more than a score of dance re¬
cordings.
These records also will be available for use
in township and rural schools, for musical in¬
struction and appreciation classes in districts
which cannot meet the expense of concerts by
the privately established symphony orchestras
or bands, and for community groups assembled
for musical study.
After the discs have been withdrawn from
public use it has been proposed they be pre¬
served in the Federal government's archives
to constitute an historic tonal record of the mu-
29
sical organizations brought into being by the
Works Progress Administration.
A series of other records, for the folk music
collection of the Library of Congress, have been
made by the sixty musicians of the Tipica Or¬
chestra in San Antonio, preserving the early
Mexican songs and dance tunes of the Texas
border; and by a smaller unit, recording early
Plains songs. Although WPA music units were
used for these Texas records, the expense was
met by other parties interested in the preserva¬
tion of the early music of the North American
continent.
♦ ♦ ♦
ADMISSIONS
The policy of charging admissions for major
performances was adopted in March of this
year. It has taken some months to develop the
projects so that they have musical and artis¬
tic quality as well as educational value for the
community.
The musicians have functioned in a sense of
responsibility to their community and have
striven to make music an important part of com¬
munity life. With orchestras of symphonic cali¬
bre giving dozens of concerts a week and with
opera being made increasingly available, the
policy of admissions was put into effect. Prices
have ranged from 5 cents to a dollar.
It is evident that unless the people themselves
will want to, pay for the services of the musi¬
cians living among them the problems of the
musicians' future are not solved.
All of this music belongs to the nation.
Whether it presages the creation of a public
and an audience; whether it is establishing the
groundwork for a native musical tradition, rests
with the future. Certainly it has disclosed a
desire for music and a creative musical talent
that was not anticipated when the Federal
Music Project came into existence.
30
SUPPLEMENTAL
While this report covers the activities of the Federal Music Project during
its first nine months, or up to June 30 only, demands for additional copies
have been so insistent that this reprinting has been made. This permits in¬
clusion of a tabulation of units as of August 31, when, with the close of the
summer season many organizations which were merged for the outdoor
concerts were separated again into their original groups.
Tabulations as of August 31 follow.
Number of Projects
Personnel
Type
Relief
Non-relief
Toted
162
Symphony and concert orchestras
5005
832
5837
97
Bands
2758
226
2984
26
Chamber music ensembles
231
24
255
122
Dance, theatre and novelty orchestras
1679
141
1820
33
Vocal, chorus, quartets, etc.
1122
124
1246
4
Opera Groups
252
50
302
202
Teaching projects
1377
118
1495
27
Copyists, librarians
... 428
42
470
1
Composers Project
1
1
2
Soloists Projects
181
181
18
Miscellaneous (Coordinating, administrative,
supervisory, labor)
283
30
313
Total 694
13,317
1,587
14,904
Audience figures for Summer outdoor concerts, according to a com¬
pilation just completed, were:
AUGUST—6,178,039 at 5,995 performances
IULY— 4,989,134 at 4,802 performances