Jury
Stanley Chapple
Ernst Krenek
Joaquín Nin-Culmell
Karol Rathaus
Roger Sessions
Concerts
Saturday, 17 May 1941 evening, Live Radio Broadcast (CBS)
Antoni Szałowski (Poland, b. 1907; d. 1973 in France): String Quartet No. 3 (1936) performed by the Dorian String Quartet (Alexander Cores and Harry Friedman, violins; David Mankovitz, viola; Bernard Greenhouse, violoncello);
Piet Ketting (Netherlands, b. 1904; d. 1984): Three Sonnets [Shakespeare] for voice and piano (1938) [10′] performed by baritone Hubert Hendrie and pianist Vera Brodsky.
Sunday, 18 May 1941 afternoon, CBS Symphony Orchestra conducted by Harold Barlow, Live Broadcast from Town Hall (CBS)
Benjamin Britten (England, b. 1913; d. 1976): Les Illuminations, nine pieces for tenor and string orchestra [text: Arthur Rimbaud] (1939) [21′] sung by Peter Pears and conducted by Britten [U.S. premiere];
Henk Badings (Netherlands, b. 1907; d. 1987): Ouverture – Vorspiel zu einer Tragödie (1937) [12′].
Monday, 19 May 1941 at Columbia University’s MacMillin Theatre (now Miller Theatre)
Pál Kadosa (Hungary, b. 1903 in Austria-Hungary [now Slovakia]; d. 1983): String Quartet No. 2 (1936) [12′] performed by the Jacques Gordon String Quartet;
Stefan Wolpe (U.S.A., b. 1902 in Germany; d. 1972): Psalm 64 and Isaiah Chapter 35 for soprano and piano (1939) [5′] performed by Annaliese von Molnar, soprano, and Irma Wolpe, piano;
? René Leibowitz (France, b. 1913; d. 1972): Piano Sonata No. 2 performed by Beveridge Webster *;
William Alwyn (England, b. 1905; d. 1985): Divertimento for flute solo (1940) [14′] – performed by René Le Roy;
Jerzy Fitelberg (U.S.A., b. 1903 in Poland; d. 1951): String Quartet No. 4 (1936) – Gordon Qt.
Tuesday, 20 May 1941 NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frank Black, broadcast from Columbia University’s MacMillin Theatre (now Miller Theatre)
Bernard Wagenaar (U.S.A., b. 1894 in the Netherlands; d. 1971): Triple Concerto for flute, violoncello, harp and orchestra (1935) featuring Georges Barrère (flute), Horace Britt (violoncello), and Carlos Salzedo (harp).
Wednesday, 21 May 1941 at the New York Public Library **
Mátyás Seiber (England, b. 1905 in Hungary; d. 1960): String Quartet No. 2 (1934-35) [22′] – performed by the Roth Quartet [world premiere];
Viktor Ullmann (Czechoslovakia, b. 1898 in Austrian Silesia [now the Czech Republic]; d. 1944 in Auschwitz): Piano Sonata No. 2 (1938/39) – performed by Gertrud Nettl;
Anton Webern (Austria, b. 1883; d. 1945): String Quartet, op. 28 (1936-38) [8′] – Roth Quartet;
Paul Dessau (U.S.A., b. 1894 in Germany; d. 1979 in East Germany): Les Voix (de Paul Verlaine à Anatole France) for voice, two pianos (originally piano and harmonium) and percussion (1939-41) [12′] – Olga Forrai, soprano; Brunno Eisner and Josef Wagner, pianos;
Artur Schnabel (U.S.A., b. 1882 in Austria [now Poland]; d. 1951): Piano Piece in Seven Movements (1936-37) [29′] – performed by Lydia Hoffman-Behrendt.
Thursday, 22 May 1941 – conducted by Alfred Wallenstein Live Broadcast (Mutual Broadcasting Network)
Bohuslav Martinů (France/U.S.A., b. 1890 in Czechoslovakia; d. 1959 in Switzerland): Tre Ricercari for orchestra (1938) [12′];
Aaron Copland (U.S.A., b. 1900; d. 1990): Music for Radio – Saga of the Prairie (1937) [12′].
Friday, 23 May 1941 – a concert of chamber music from the Americas at the Museum of Modern Art
(presented by the United States Section)
Edward T. Cone (U.S.A., b. 1917; d. 2004): Theme, Variations and Finale for violin and piano – featuring Nicolai Beresovsky and the composer at the piano;
Russell G. Harris (U.S.A., b. 1914; d. 1995): Three Songs (Rilke), op. 5: “Night”, “Shore,” and “Blade” sung by soprano Maria Maximovitch;
Salvador Contreras (Mexico, b. 1910; d. 1982): Piece for string quartet (String Quartet No. 2) (1936) [14′] performed by the Galimir Quartet;
Paul Nordoff (U.S.A., b. 1909; d. 1977 in West Germany): Theme and Variations for violoncello and piano, performed by cellist Benar Heifetz and the composer at the piano;
Emil Koehler (U.S.A., b. 1895 in Germany; d. 1977): String Quartet, op. 8, performed by the Galimir Qt;
Juan Carlos Paz (Argentina, b. 1897; d. 1972): Segunda composición en trío for clarinet, alto saxophone and trumpet, op. 36 (1938) performed by Eric Simon (clarinet), Sigurd Raschèr (saxophone), and Robert Weatherby (trumpet);
Silvestre Revueltas (Mexico, 1899-1940): Música de feria (String Quartet No. 4) (1932) [9′] performed by the Galimir Qt.
Saturday, 24 May 1941 Live Radio Broadcast (CBS)
Ödön Pártos (Palestine; b. 1907 in Hungary; d. 1977 in Israel): Concertino for string quartet (1932) [9′] – Dorian Qt.;
Zoltán Kodály (Hungary, b. 1882; d. 1967): String Quartet No. 2, op. 10 (1916-18) [18′].
Sunday, 25 May 1941 CBS Symphony Orchestra conducted by Harold Barlow, Live Broadcast (CBS)
Roman Palester (Poland, b. 1907; d. 1989): Small Overture (1935) [5′];
Rodolfo Halffter (Mexico, b. 1900 in Spain; d. 1987): Obertura Concertante, op. 5, for piano and orchestra (1932) [10′] conducted by José Yves Limantour and featuring Joaquín Nin-Culmell at the piano;
Willy Burkhard (Switzerland, b. 1900; d. 1955): Hymnus for orchestra (1939) [14′].
Tuesday, 27 May 1941 at 10:00pm – NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frank Black, Live Broadcast (NBC)
Blas Galindo (Mexico, b. 1910; d. 1993): Two Preludes for Orchestra;
Charles Naginski (U.S.A., 1909-1940), Sinfonietta, op. 4, for Chamber Orchestra (1937).
The following works were programmed for the festival but were not performed
David Diamond (U.S.A., b. 1915; d. 2005): Music for Double String Orchestra, Brass, and Timpani (1939);***
Jaroslav Ježek (United States, b. 1906 in Czechoslovakia; d. 1942): Piano Sonata (1941) [20′].****
Notes
* A Piano Sonata No. 2 is cited in all references, but Leibowitz’s worklists only include a single Piano Sonata, op. 1, composed in 1939.
** According to Miles Kastendieck’s May 26, 1941 review in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the entire 21 May program presented at NYPL was performed again by the same musicians on the evening of Monday, May 26 at the Academy of Music (presumably the Brooklyn Academy of Music) although no other records of this performance have surfaced thus far.
*** This David Diamond work was probably withdrawn as it is not included in his work list, though a postcard survives in the New York Public Library’s collection of papers from the New Music Society, in which Diamond says he is making an ink score of the work. (Further details here.)
**** Musicologist Michael Beckerman, citing a 16 March 1941 New York Times listing of works selected by the jury for the 1941 ISCM Festival in which Ježek’s sonata was included, posits that the 21 May 1941 concert was originally supposed to have included this piano sonata which had just been completed in New York in early March instead of the sonata that was performed (by another Czech composer, Viktor Ullmann, who was to be murdered in Auschwitz a mere three years later). Ježek, who had only arrived in the United States in 1939, was in extremely poor health and destitute, and died less than seven months after this concert took place. Haefeli, who describes in detail how the one performance of Ježek’s music at an ISCM Festival (1934 in Florence) occurred, does not mention this cancelled work along with the Diamond piece in his repertoire list for 1941 (which is not surprising since, as he has acknowledged, his information about the 1941 and 1942 Festival was incomplete).
According to an unattributed New York Times article published on May 4, 1941, “further compositions chosen by the jury will be played by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, under Eugene Goossens; the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under Serge Koussevitsky; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under Frederick Stock; and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, under Fabien Sevitzky, in their respective cities.” But no evidence has yet surfaced of any of these performances taking place.
Additional significant interpreters
Singers: Hubert Hendrie ?
Pianists: Artur Schnabel ?, Vera Brodsky.
Conductors: Bernard Wagenaar ?, Alfred Wallenstein.
Sources
Michael Beckerman, “The Dark Blue Exile of Jaroslav Ježek,” Music & Politics, Volume II, Issue 2 (published by the University of Michigan), Summer 2008.
Aaron Copland, Handwritten Letter to Leonard Bernstein, May 1941 (archived at the U.S. Library of Congress and available online).
Olin Downes, “Concert is Given by World Society,” The New York Times, May 20, 1941.
Olin Downes, “Chamber Music Program Heard at Library,” The New York Times, May 22, 1941.
Olin Downes, “American Music Heard at Museum,” The New York Times, May 24, 1941.
Anton Haefeli, Die Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM), Ihre Geschichte von 1922 bis zur Gegenwart (Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag, 1982), pp. 498-99 [in German].
Miles Kastendieck, “Festival of Modern Music Inaugurated,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 19, 1941, p. 4.
Miles Kastendieck, “Radio Has Best ISCM Program; Concert at the Academy Tonight,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 26, 1941, p. 5.
Bruno Nettl, Becoming an Ethnomusicologist: A Miscellany of Influences (Scarecrow Press, 2013), pp. 9-12.
? Francis Perkins, New York Herald Tribune, May 22, 1941.
Nicolas Slonimsky, Music Since 1900, Sixth Edition edited by Laura Kuhn (Schirmer Reference, 2001), pp. 360-61.
? Oscar Thompson, New York Sun, May 22?, 1941.
Unattributed, “Contemporary Festival,” The New York Times, May 4, 1941.
Unattributed, “Mozart’s Magic Flute Considered for Revival Next Season,” The New York Times, March 16, 1941.
(annotated by Frank J. Oteri)
