View source for Carpenter, John Alden (piano)

{| align="right"
| __TOC__
|}
<span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alden_Carpenter '''John Alden Carpenter''']</span> (1876-1951) was one of only four artists to record for the [[Chicago Gramophone Society]], and one of two living composers whose music the Society issued on disc.

This page addresses solely Carpenter's relationship with the Society, and his private and commercial recordings; his life and career are well documented elsewhere.<ref>Pollack, Howard ''John Alden Carpenter: A Chicago Composer'', Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001 (revised edition of Pollack, Howard ''Skyscraper Lullaby'', Washington & London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995)</ref>

It is part of the site [[Classical 'Society' Records by Nick Morgan]].

For dates of creation and latest update, please see 'Page information' in left sidebar.

==[[Chicago Gramophone Society]]==
As perhaps Chicago's leading composer in the '20s, Carpenter was an obvious candidate to be recorded by the Chicago Gramophone Society, all the more so as he was still barely represented on disc.<ref>It seems only three compositions by Carpenter had previously been issued on commercial records:
*<span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/8_Songs_(Carpenter%2C_John_Alden) ''Eight Songs for a Medium Voice'']</span> - (ii) ''Don't ceäre'', <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Homer Louise Homer]</span> (contralto), orchestra, <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_B._Rogers Walter B. Rogers]</span>, matrix <span class="plainlinks">[http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700003073/B-18035-Dont_ceare B 18035-1]</span>, rec. 29 June 1916, <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden,_New_Jersey Camden]</span>, New Jersey, issued on Victor <span class="plainlinks">[http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/55595/Victor_87263 87263]</span> (10-inch / 25 cm)
*<span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/Khaki_Sammy_(Carpenter%2C_John_Alden) ''Khaki Sammy'']</span>, <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabel_Garrison Mabel Garrison]</span> (soprano), orchestra, <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Pasternack Josef Pasternack]</span>, matrix <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700007042/B-21920-Khaki_Sammy B-21920-5]</span>, rec. 16 May 1918, Camden, New Jersey, issued on Victor <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/41385/Victor_64783 64783]</span> (10-inch / 25 cm)
*<span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Home_Road_(Carpenter%2C_John_Alden) ''The Home Road'']</span>, <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernestine_Schumann-Heink Ernestine Schumann-Heink]</span> (contralto), orchestra, Josef Pasternack, matrix <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/700009713/B-24499-The_home_road B-24499-5]</span>, rec. 28 September 1920, Camden, New Jersey, issued on Victor <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/55661/Victor_87320 87320]</span> and <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/85386/Victor_831 831]</span> (10-inch / 25 cm)
Two songs had been recorded by other artists, both likewise for Victor, but not issued, including ''The Home Road'', by contralto [[#Mina Hager|Mina Hager]], on 26 May 1924 at the Victor studios in New York<br />On 28 June 1928, as the Society's Carpenter record was being distributed, the French baritone <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanni_Marcoux Vanni Marcoux]</span> was recording ''Jazz boys'' and ''The Cryin' blues'' in Paris, with the conductor <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Coppola Piero Coppola]</span> as pianist, issued in mid-1929 on French Gramophone (10-inch / 25 cm)</ref> Yet the Society issued just one record of his music, containing the set of four <span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/Water-colors_(Carpenter,_John_Alden) ''Water-Colors'']</span>, performed by mezzo-soprano [[Hager, Mina (mezzo-soprano)|Mina Hager]] with the composer himself at the piano. It forms the first disc in the Society's [[Chicago Gramophone Society 50019-P, 50020-P|second (and last) issue]] which, as it stands, celebrates Hager's art as much as Carpenter's: the second disc contains two lieder by <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Wolf Hugo Wolf]</span> and one by <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Strauss Richard Strauss]</span>, also sung by Hager, with a [[Kimsey, Lora Orth (piano)|different pianist]].

===[[Hager, Mina (mezzo-soprano)|Mina Hager]]===
Mina Hager's relationship with John Alden Carpenter began in an inauspicious year. In old age she recalled,
 'I met and auditioned for Mr. Carpenter in a rather unorthodox way. There was a Chamber orchestra being formed in Chicago which, for prestige and encouragement, very much needed a new work by a "Name Composer" for the opening performance. Mr. Carpenter was the ideal choice. He accepted, perhaps because he had just finished orchestrating his ''Water Colors'', a group of four Chinese tone poems [...] and was glad for this opportunity of having it heard. A friend knew that he, therefore, needed a singer so, without telling me, brought him up to The Great Lakes Training Base [sic] where I was singing. The songs I sang that night were hardly material for an orchestral appearance – I think one of them was Annie Laurie – but evidently they were right because he engaged me. I fell in love with ''Water Colors'' immediately, and that performance introduced me to the wealth of the wonderful collection of his songs, [...] and also to the man, Mr. Carpenter. Perhaps the first reason I love his songs is that they "do something to me." Also the learning of them and the singing of them did something for me, musically, artistically and professionally.'<ref>Hager, Mina '"Speak for Yourself, John Alden Carpenter!"', ''Music Journal'', Vol.28 No.3 (March 1970), pp.66-67</ref>
The audition took place in late 1917, some months after the USA had entered the War. As early as May, Carpenter had approached <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Philip_Sousa John Philip Sousa]</span> about training bandsmen at the US Navy's <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_Great_Lakes Great Lakes Training Station]</span> in Chicago, with the result that Sousa enlisted and became the Station band's bandmaster;<ref>Buzzell, Francis ''The Great Lakes Naval Training Station. A History'', Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, n.d. [c.1919], <span class="plainlinks">[https://archive.org/stream/greatlakesnavalt00buzziala#page/147/ pp.147-48]</span>; Pollack, Howard ''John Alden Carpenter: A Chicago Composer'', Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001, p.158</ref> in September, Carpenter had been appointed a member of the US National Committee on Army and Navy Camp Music.<ref>'Inspiration of Song Is Stressed in Plans For Training Camps', ''Arkansas Democrat'' [Little Rock, Arkansas], 17 November 1917, p.4</ref> In this capacity, he more than once visited the Great Lakes Training Station,<ref>e.g. 'Sousa Coming To Teach Music At Great Lakes', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Wednesday 23 May 1917, p.[1]; 'Song Leaders To Visit The Camps', ''Decatur Herald'' [Decatur, Illinois], Sunday 9 December 1917, 'Christmas Edition' section, p.6</ref> giving him ample opportunity to hear Hager. It is not known on what occasion(s) she sang at the Station; perhaps at one of the 'singing schools' organized for the 'bluejackets', at which old favourites like 'Annie Laurie' were sung,<ref>'’Tis Songs Of The Heart That Uncle Sam's Nephews Sing', ''The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram'' [Richmond, Indiana], Saturday 4 August 1917, p.10, also published as 'Singing School Held to Train Rookies' Voices', ''The Statesman'' [Austin, Texas], Thursday 9 August 1917, p.2</ref> or at an entertainment for the 'jackies' such as the Thanksgiving Ball held at the Station in November 1917.<ref>'Cordon Will Give an Old Fashioned Dance for Jackies', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Tuesday 23 October 1917, p.19; 'Great Lakes Ball Adds $5,000 to the Navy Relief Fund', ibid., Thursday 29 November 1917, p.22<br />NB This hypothesis, and Hager's recollection, appear to be contradicted by a contemporary report stating that only men were allowed to take part in entertainments held in training camps, see 'Dr. Grace Whitford Tells Of War Work By Chicago Women', ''The Tampa Daily Times'' [Tampa, Florida], Saturday 8 September 1917, p.5; in researching this account, no attempt has been made to locate or consult records of the Great Lakes Training Station, but it is hoped that they survive and may throw light on this matter</ref>

The premiere of Carpenter's new version of ''Water-Colors'' for orchestra with piano was given by Hager on 30 December at a benefit for the Navy Relief Society in Chicago's <span class="plainlinks">[http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/3692 Illinois Theater]</span>, with Arthur Dunham (1875-1938) conducting his Philharmonic Orchestra, and Carpenter himself at the keyboard.<ref>Donaghey, Frederick 'Saturday To Monday In Music', and 'Cinderella' 'Counting the Stars on the 100 Per Cent Flags Inspiring', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Monday 31 December 1917, p.9</ref> This was the beginning of a significant and enduring musical partnership, Hager becoming a life-long champion of the composer. It has been stated that on 30 March 1918 they gave possibly the first recital devoted entirely to his songs, but this appears to be an error, and no period source confirming this has been located;<ref>Pollack, Howard ''Skyscraper Lullaby'', Washington & London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, p.148</ref> it seems the recital in question took place exactly a year later, after a charity supper at Chicago's Arts Club, whose programme has not been ascertained.<ref>'Hager-Carpenter Musicale at the Arts Club Sunday', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Thursday 27 March 1919, p.15; 'Offices of "Children of the Frontier" Now in Powers Building', ibid., Saturday 29 March 1919, p.15</ref> What is certain is that in May 1918, at a music teachers' convention in <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomington,_Illinois Bloomington]</span>, Illinois, Carpenter gave a talk on music and the war effort, after which Hager joined him in fourteen of his songs, including ''Water Colors'', in what amounted to her first known all-Carpenter recital. A New York critic noted that the singer, who had
 'a contralto voice of excellent quality and used with artistry, [...] proved an excellent interpreter. She shared with Composer Carpenter in the success of the songs.'<ref>Cox, Jeannette (of the ''Musical Courier'', New York) 'Second Day with State Music Teachers' Meeting', ''The Pantagraph'' [Bloomington, Illinois], Thursday 9 May 1918, p.3</ref>
The previous month, Carpenter had been given charge of the music at a gala celebration of the centennial of Illinois' statehood, mounted by the Chicago Historical Society at <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_Center Orchestra Hall]</span>: as part of the festivities, Hager, wearing 'an old brocade gown' of the period from the Society's collection, sang '[a]ll of the songs that were favorites of the belles and beau [sic] of civil war days'.<ref>'Mme. X.' 'Great Loan Drive Takes First Place in All Activities', ''Chicago Sunday Tribune'', 14 April 1918, Section 7, pp.4-5, 9 (on p.5)</ref> In June 1918, Carpenter again accompanied Hager in two groups of his songs, back at Chicago's Illinois Theater.<ref>'Civic Music Forces Join for Concert', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Monday 3 June 1918, p.15</ref> Eighteen months later, they performed together at a meeting of the <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englewood,_Chicago Englewood]</span> Woman's Club, 'a big compliment to the club.'<ref>'Englewood Happenings', ''The Englewood Times'' [Chicago, Illinois], Friday 2 January 1920, pp.1, 8 (on p.8); 'Englewood Woman's Club', ibid., Friday 9 January 1920, Section Two, p.10</ref> Hager took the orchestral ''Water-Colors'' to Minneapolis in November 1920,<ref>'Two Popular Airs Are Included in Symphony Program Tomorrow', ''Minneapolis Morning Tribune'' [Minneapolis, Minnesota], Saturday 20 November 1920, p.31; 'Mina Hager, Chicago Singer, to Be Soloist With Symphony at Popular Concert Today', ''Minneapolis Sunday Tribune'' [Minneapolis, Minnesota], 21 November 1920, p.8</ref> and the following October she chose several of his songs for her New York debut.<ref>'Miss Hager Heard in Pleasing Song Recital Program', ''New York Tribune'', Tuesday 11 October 1921, p.7</ref> Just days later, she sang Carpenter at the National American Music Festival in <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York Buffalo]</span>, New York, <ref>McHenry, Izetta May 'American Concert Field', ''The Billboard'', Vol.33 No.42, 15 October 1921, p.28</ref> and in December 1921 the composer once again joined her for a private recital of his songs at the home of a Chicago society hostess.<ref>'Brief Local Mention', ''Queen City Mail'' [Spearfish, South Dakota], Wednesday 28 December 1921, p.4</ref> Over the following years, they appeared together slightly less frequently, but Hager remained faithful, programming his songs regularly and taking them abroad, in 1924 to London, Berlin, and perhaps elsewhere in Europe;<ref>'Music This Week', ''The Times'', Monday 9 June 1924, p.16; Westermeyer, Karl 'Minna [sic] Hager', in <span class="plainlinks">[http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=smw&datum=19240128&query=(text:%22minna+hager%22)&ref=anno-search 'Aus Berlin']</span>, ''Signale für die musikalische Welt'', No.28, 9 July 1924, pp.1109-11 (on p.1109)</ref> That same year, she apparently recorded one of Carpenter's best-known war songs, <span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Home_Road_(Carpenter%2C_John_Alden) ''The Home Road'']</span>, at the Victor studio in New York; designated a 'trial', this was not issued.<ref><span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Home_Road_(Carpenter%2C_John_Alden) ''The Home Road'']</span> [[Hager, Mina (mezzo-soprano)|Mina Hager]] (mezzo-soprano), LeRoy Shield (piano), unnumbered <span class="plainlinks">[http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/900002178/Trial_1924-05-26-02-Little_star_home_road trial]</span> (data from <span class="plainlinks">[http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php Discography of American Historical Recordings]</span>)</ref> By 1928, a newspaper could claim that
 'Miss Hager is said to have sung, at one time or another, every song ever composed by John Alden Carpenter, modern composer.'<ref>'Bowl Soloist Has European Reputation', ''Los Angeles Times'', Sunday 20 May 1928, Part III, p.13</ref>

Thus it would not have been surprising if Carpenter, approached by the Society about recording his music, nominated Hager as performer, and chose the original version of ''Water-Colors'' with piano (the orchestral one would have been far too expensive for the Society). This was an important, premiere recording, to be sure, even if its scope seems modest by today's standards - so much so, that it is tempting to ask if it represented the full extent of the Society's ambitions for this project, or whether the Society originally intended to include another, more recent work, and so make up a two-disc issue devoted entirely to the composer. After all, by 1926 the ''Water-Colors'' were distinctly old-fashioned. In February, the world premiere of Carpenter's ballet <span class="plainlinks">[http://americansymphony.org/skyscrapers/ ''Skyscrapers'']</span> caused quite a stir, both for its jazz-influenced score and as 'the first attempt in a ballet of serious dimensions to bring into being a purely American choreography as an art form.'<ref>'Carpenter's Jazz Ballet to Have Its Premiere Tonight', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Friday 19 February 1926, p.21</ref> As it happened, [[Pollak, Robert|Robert Pollak]], music critic and joint underwriter of the Society's recordings, was not enamoured of ''Skyscrapers''; reviewing the Chicago premiere (it was given on 5 November 1926 in a purely orchestral performance, without choreography<ref>Moore, Edward 'Stock Gives Carpenter's "Skyscrapers"', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Saturday 6 November 1926, p.17</ref>), Pollak <span class="plainlinks">[http://chicagoan.lib.uchicago.edu/xtf/view?docId=bookreader/mvol-0010-v002-i05/mvol-0010-v002-i05.xml#page/18/mode/2up/ described]</span> the score as
 'a moderately interesting study in jazz tune and rhythm giving a total effect not so interesting as either <span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/Krazy_Kat_(Carpenter%2C_John_Alden) "Krazy Kat"]</span> or the <span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/Adventures_in_a_Perambulator_(Carpenter%2C_John_Alden) "Perambulator"]</span> suite. Heretofore the humor of Carpenter has been a matter of light strokes and passing whimsies. "Skyscrapers" is so heavily scored that this effect is missing and the general impression is of something cumbersome and without contour. Then, too, the piece has that fault so characteristic of much modern music. What it considers rhythm is largely meter. There are only inconsiderate rhythmical patterns within the savage limitations of the jazz beat.'<ref>Pollak, Robert <span class="plainlinks">[http://chicagoan.lib.uchicago.edu/xtf/view?docId=bookreader/mvol-0010-v002-i05/mvol-0010-v002-i05.xml#page/18/mode/2up/ 'Musical Notes']</span>, ''The Chicagoan'', Vol.2 No.5, 15 November 1926, pp.16-17</ref>
One can imagine that Carpenter might have been put out by this unsympathetic response. Nevertheless, he did record ''Water-Colors'' with Hager, and two years later he would give Pollak a cordial enough <span class="plainlinks">[http://chicagoan.lib.uchicago.edu/xtf/view?docId=bookreader/mvol-0010-v007-i04/mvol-0010-v007-i04.xml#page/26/mode/1up/ interview]</span>.<ref>Pollak, Robert <span class="plainlinks">[http://chicagoan.lib.uchicago.edu/xtf/view?docId=bookreader/mvol-0010-v007-i04/mvol-0010-v007-i04.xml#page/26/mode/1up/ 'Chicagoans John Alden Carpenter']</span>, ''The Chicagoan'', Vol.7 No.4, 11 May 1929, pp.24-25</ref> Perhaps, in fact, Carpenter and the Society were content to leave it at that; Hager's companion disc, of lieder by Wolf and Strauss also spoke directly to the enthusiasms of the Society's leading figures, Pollak and [[Fisher, Vories|Vories Fisher]]. What might or might not have originally been conceived or planned must remain speculation until Carpenter's papers are investigated, or discographical research determines whether any further sides were recorded for the Society by Carpenter and/or Hager, but not issued. (A private recording made by Carpenter before the Society was founded cannot have formed part of this or any projected release by the Society, see [[#Recordings|below]].) The Society left no [[Chicago Gramophone Society#Archive|archive]], and its de facto mouthpiece, <span class="plainlinks">[http://arsc-audio.org/blog/2016/10/27/phonograph_monthly_review/ ''The Phonograph Monthly Review'']</span>, disclosed almost nothing about the recording's genesis.<ref>Johnson, Axel B. <span class="plainlinks">[https://archive.org/stream/PMR_2_2/2_2#page/n5/mode/1up 'General Review']</span>, ''Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review'', Vol.2 No.2, November 1927, pp.[41]-45 (on p.44); <span class="plainlinks">[https://archive.org/stream/PMR_2_4/2_4#page/n26/mode/1up 'The Chicago Gramophone Society hereby announces...']</span> (notice), in 'Phonograph Society Reports', ''Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review'', Vol.2 No.4, January 1928, pp.146-47 (on p.146); <span class="plainlinks">[https://archive.org/stream/PMR_2_8/2_8#page/n27/mode/1up 'Special']</span>, in 'Analytical Notes and Reviews', ibid., Vol.2 No.8, May 1928, pp.306-15 (on p.308)</ref> The <span class="plainlinks">[https://mms.newberry.org/xml/xml_files/hager.xml Mina Hager Papers]</span> at the Newberry Library in Chicago preserve no correspondence with officers or members of the Chicago Gramophone Society, or other pertinent material.<ref>I am extremely grateful to Bill Anderson of Chicago for kindly visiting the Newberry Library and consulting the <span class="plainlinks">[https://mms.newberry.org/xml/xml_files/hager.xml Mina Hager Papers]</span> on my behalf; personal e-mail, 11 August 2018<br />The Hager Papers do include correspondence with Carpenter, but it has no bearing on their recording for the Chicago Gramophone Society</ref> The <span class="plainlinks">[https://mms.newberry.org/xml/xml_files/carpenter.xml John Alden Carpenter Papers]</span>, also at the Newberry, and the <span class="plainlinks">[https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.scdb.200033646/default.html John Alden Carpenter Collection]</span> at the Library of Congress, may yield relevant documents - these libraries' online inventories, while detailed, are not exhaustive - but it has not been possible to consult them for this page.<ref>The Newberry Library's <span class="plainlinks">[https://mms.newberry.org/xml/xml_files/carpenter.xml online inventory]</span> of the John Alden Carpenter Papers lists none of the known officers or members of the Chicago Gramophone Society as named correspondents; four letters from Mina Hager date from two decades after their involvement with the Society<br />An application for a Short-Term Fellowship at the Newberry Library, submitted by the author in December 2017, was rejected in April 2018</ref> The standard works on Carpenter have nothing to say about the Society or Carpenter's recording.<ref>O'Connor, Joan ''John Alden Carpenter: A Bio-Bibliography'', Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994<br/ >Pollack, Howard ''Skyscraper Lullaby: The Life and Music of John Alden Carpenter'', Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, revised as ''John Alden Carpenter: A Chicago Composer'', Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001</ref> Nor does Carpenter himself seem to have left any known comment on it, despite his lasting admiration and support for Hager: in 1941, he wrote to the composer and critic <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_Thomson Virgil Thomson]</span>, hoping to persuade him to review a forthcoming performance by the singer, now in the twilight of her concert career:
 'It has long been my conviction that Miss Hager has very unusual gifts. [...] She has had some success in a limited way since she left Chicago and established herself in New York some years ago but nothing like the recognition to which, in my judgement, she is entitled.'<ref>Carpenter, John Alden Letter to Virgil Thomson, 2 May 1941, <span class="plainlinks">[http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.thomson Thomson Collection]</span>, Yale University</ref>

==Recordings==
===Private===
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 100%"
! style="width: 15%;" | Selection
! style="width: 17%;" | Artists
! style="width: 6%;" | Format
! style="width: 6%;" | Matrix
! style="width: 5%;" | Stamper
! style="width: 8%;" | Recorded
! style="width: 8%;" | Location
! style="width: 8%;" | Label cat. no.
! style="width: 3%;" | Country
|-
|Spoken instruction to tune playback machine<br/><span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alden_Carpenter '''Carpenter''']</span> <span class="plainlinks">[http://americansymphony.org/skyscrapers/ ''Skyscrapers'']</span>,<br />unpublished piano reduction<br />– start; Nos.1 to 6(?)||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81672-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|(NB side-break unclear)<br />Nos.7(?) to 11||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice, whistling),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81673-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|Nos.12 to 22||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81674-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|Nos.23 to 32||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81675-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|Nos.33 to 38||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81676-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|Nos.39 to 42||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81677-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|Nos.43 to 46||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81678-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|Nos.47 to 50<br />(NB No.51 not called)||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81679-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|Nos.52 to 57; end||John Alden Carpenter (piano, voice),<br />anon. (speaker)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W81680-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">27 November 1925</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||private, unnumbered?||USA
|-
|}
'''System'''
Western Electric, under licence.

'''Notes'''
Made in November 1925 by Columbia - presumably, in the studios of its 'Personal Record' Department in New York - the above recording is attributed in an unknown private source to the Chicago Gramophone Society.<ref>The recording has been auditioned from a digital copy of a good transfer, in which all sides have been edited together, once or twice obscuring the exact locations of side-breaks; other than the matrix and take numbers and recording date, no other discographical details or images of the original labels were available</ref> This is highly unlikely. The Society was not officially [[Chicago Gramophone Society#Formation|founded]] until just under a year later. Not only were there no subscribers yet to finance such a project, a set of nine sides (or ten, with a filler) would have been beyond the future Society's means, not to mention an impractical proposition to issue.<ref>The first issued commercial recording of ''Skyscrapers'', made by Victor in May 1932 and conducted by <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Shilkret Nathaniel Shilkret]</span>, was laid out on six twelve-inch 78 rpm sides, in line with contemporary commercial practice for such works, as well as on three twelve-inch 33⅓ rpm long-playing discs, see Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.vv. <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/800038365/CSHQ-72607-Skyscrapers 'Victor matrix CSHQ-72607. Skyscrapers / Nathaniel Shilkret']</span>, <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/800038370/LCSHQ-72612-Skyscrapers 'Victor matrix LCSHQ-72612. Skyscrapers / Victor Symphony Orchestra']</span>, and <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/800038373/LCSHQ-72615-Skyscrapers  'Victor matrix LCSHQ-72615. Skyscrapers / Victor Symphony Orchestra']</span></ref> Moreover, this recording was clearly meant not for public audition but as an aid to the ballet's first production at the <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Opera Metropolitan Opera]</span> in New York, where the world premiere was given two months later, on 19 February 1926.<ref>'The Musical Go-Getter', ''The Brooklyn Daily Eagle'', Saturday 20 February 1926, p.6; Cushing, Edward 'Music of the Day', ibid.</ref> The ballet's genesis had already cost Carpenter considerable effort, as revealed in an <span class="plainlinks">[http://lmhsbd.oicrm.org/media/ART-LM-1926-01.pdf interview]</span> between its designer, <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Edmond_Jones Robert Edmond Jones]</span>, and the founding editor of ''Modern Music'', <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minna_Lederman Minna Lederman]</span>:
 'To discover what stimulus music rather than drama gives the painter, we casually asked [Mr. Jones] whether he worked from the score or the libretto. His unexpected replies led us to the story of the making of this ballet, the details of which are given here to record a pioneer effort from which an art-form emerged [...] ''Skyscrapers'' originally, it appears, had no libretto, no plot, no dance designs, not even a locale. In the beginning there was only the music and it is directly from this that the production has been built — built by the composer and the designer of scenes without the traditional choreographer. [...] A reversal of the usual routine, which is to start with the story, then proceed to the music and the stage picture, was therefore in order. Mr. Carpenter played the score repeatedly and from the music itself Mr. Jones evolved the scenes [...] Retreating to a farmhouse in Vermont they took the music and the scene designs and set to without story, plan or dancer. Their procedure is described by Mr. Jones: "Carpenter would play the music giving me an impression of the changing orchestration. He played each passage over and over again for hours. This would give me certain ideas of movement for which I drew tentative designs, to be discussed with him. Countless series of patterns were made during six months of gruelling, unremitting labor."'<ref>M[inna].L[ederman]. <span class="plainlinks">[http://lmhsbd.oicrm.org/media/ART-LM-1926-01.pdf 'Skyscrapers, an Experiment in Design: An Interview with Robert Edmond Jones']</span>, ''Modern Music'', Vol.3 No.2, January-February 1926, pp.21-26</ref>
(The farmhouse was probably Carpenter's 'summer place' in <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte,_Vermont Charlotte]</span>, Vermont<ref>Among many press references to the Carpenters' 'summer place', see e.g. R.—, Nancy 'John Alden Carpenter House in Rush Street Is Taken by Paepckes', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Tuesday 17 August 1926, p.29; 'Miss Carpenter to Be Married In Charlotte', ''Burlington Free Press and Times'' [Burlington, Vermont], Tuesday 29 May 1928, p.7</ref>). Even then, Carpenter's work was not done, according to a review of the first night:
 'The opera stage management and Mr. Carpenter himself had worked three weeks drilling the large company in the scenes of "Work, Play, and Work Again," which formed what plot the ballet offered.'<ref>'Carpenter Jazz Ballet Gives New York Kick', ''Chicago Daily Tribune'', Saturday 20 February 1926, p.15</ref>
This brief account leaves unclear exactly what happened behind the scenes at the Met. Presumably, repetiteurs were available, but perhaps the score, full of devices borrowed from the epoch-making ballets of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, was considered difficult enough for dancers that the composer's help was required. If so, Carpenter can hardly have been expected to put himself through three more weeks of arduous keyboard work, and his records would have been an excellent substitute; significantly, he played mainly the score's rhythmic skeleton, as one would for dancers, while singing and even whistling the salient melodic lines. Perhaps, too, the discs served as an interpretative guide to the conductor of the first run, <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Hasselmans Louis Hasselmans]</span>. It is not known how the sides were pressed, whether 'single-faced' or in 'automatic' couplings, to facilitate continuous playback on one machine, or in the conventional sequence, in which case perhaps two sets were pressed and two machines used.

This recording is a remarkable document: it preserves not only some 27½ minutes of Carpenter's piano-playing, singing and whistling, but also a slightly different version of the score from <span class="plainlinks">[https://issuu.com/scoresondemand/docs/skyscrapers_26704 that published]</span> by Schirmer in 1927. At the very start, an unidentified man instructs the listener to 'Adjust or tune your phonograph to this A'; someone, presumably Carpenter, sounds the A above middle C three times on the piano. The music starts almost immediately, unannounced, but then the person who gave the preliminary instruction calls out rehearsal cues, 'Number One', 'Number Two' etc. These usually correspond in placing to the figures (starting at 1) printed in the published score, but soon diverge in number: an interpolated 'Number 7a' ushers in a slightly different version of Scene III, so that when 'Number 8' is called it corresponds to published figure 9, and so on until another discrepant section after 'Number 43' / fig.44, which widens the gap yet further. The reduction which Carpenter recorded was presumably sight-read from his composing score, or a reworking of it which emerged after the weeks closeted with Jones in Vermont.<ref>No piano reduction of ''Skyscrapers'' appears to have been published. One or more manuscript piano scores were given to <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Diaghilev Serge Diaghilev]</span>, who commissioned the work for his <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballets_Russes Ballets russes]</span> but did not mount it; see Watts, Carolyn ''America in the Transatlantic Imagination: The Ballets Russes and John Alden Carpenter's Skyscrapers'' (MA thesis), School of Music, University of Ottawa, 2015, pp.55, 58-59; the fate of these MSS has not been ascertained</ref> Not the least remarkable aspect of the recording is the verve of Carpenter's performance, which summons a mental image of him and Jones hammering out the ballet's scenario together. The fact that all sides are pressed from takes -1, and contain no fluffs or restarts, suggests the music was still very fresh in the composer's mind and under his fingers (although this may also have been an economy measure; to record 9 ten-inch sides and press three copes of each, Columbia charged something in the region of $450<ref>Thanks to research carried out by <span class="plainlinks">[http://www.timbrooks.net/ Tim Brooks]</span>, Columbia's 'Personal Record' rates for 1917-18 are documented, and are summarized in Brooks, Tim <span class="plainlinks">[http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/82bnq3sk9780252028502.html ''Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919'']</span> (first paperback edition), University of Illinois Press, 2005, pp.442-43; it is not known if, or how much, the rates had changed by 1927</ref>). Carpenter's infectious projection of the score's essence must have helped to motivate the dancers and players for the first run at the Met. Although an ostensibly 'functional' run-through, it is vivid and involving, and deserves to be more widely heard and investigated further.

===Commercial===
{| class="wikitable" style="width: 100%"
! style="width: 15%;" | Selection
! style="width: 12%;" | Artists
! style="width: 6%;" | Format
! style="width: 6%;" | Matrix
! style="width: 5%;" | Stamper
! style="width: 8%;" | Date
! style="width: 8%;" | Location
! style="width: 13%;" | Label cat. no.
! style="width: 3%;" | Country
|-
|<span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alden_Carpenter '''Carpenter''']</span> <span class="plainlinks">[https://imslp.org/wiki/Water-colors_(Carpenter,_John_Alden) ''Water-Colors'']</span><br/>(i) ''On a Screen''<br/>(ii) ''The Odalisque''||[[Hager, Mina (mezzo-soprano)|Mina Hager (mezzo-soprano)]],<br/>John Alden Carpenter (piano)||12" / 30 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W91733-2</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">2-A-2</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">5 December 1927</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||[[Chicago Gramophone Society 50019-P, 50020-P|Chicago Gramophone Society 50019-P]]||USA
|-
|(iii) ''Highwaymen''<br/>(iv) ''To a Young Gentleman''||[[Hager, Mina (mezzo-soprano)|Mina Hager (mezzo-soprano)]],<br/>John Alden Carpenter (piano)||12" / 30 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;">W91734-2</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">2-A-1</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">5 December 1927</div>||Columbia studio,<br/>New York City(?)||[[Chicago Gramophone Society 50019-P, 50020-P|Chicago Gramophone Society 50019-P]]||USA
|-
|<span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alden_Carpenter '''Carpenter''']</span> ''Song of Faith'' – Part 4 (of 4)<br/>(short-play edition)||John Alden Carpenter (narrator),<br/>Chicago a Cappella Choir,<br/>anonymous (organ),<br/><span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Orchestra Philadelphia Orchestra]</span>,<br/>Noble Cain (conductor)||10" / 25 cm<br/>lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/800037900/BVE-72050-Song_of_faith BVE-72050-2]</span></div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">10 April 1932</div>||Studio 2,<br/>Church Building,<br/><span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden,_New_Jersey Camden]</span>, New Jersey||<span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/169114/Victor_1560 Victor 1560-B]</span>||USA
|-
|Part 2 (of 2)<br/>(long-play edition)||John Alden Carpenter (narrator),<br/>Chicago a Cappella Choir,<br/>anonymous (organ),<br/><span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Orchestra Philadelphia Orchestra]</span>,<br/>Noble Cain (conductor)||12" / 30 cm<br/>'''33⅓ rpm''' lateral disc||<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/detail/800037901/LCVE-72051-Song_of_faith LCVE-72051-1]</span></div>||<div style="text-align: center;">unknown</div>||<div style="text-align: center;">10 April 1932</div>||Studio 2,<br/>Church Building,<br/><span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden,_New_Jersey Camden]</span>, New Jersey||<span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/278945/Victor_L-11608 Victor L-11608-B]</span>||USA
|-
|}

'''System'''
Western Electric, under licence to Columbia Phonograph Co., as denoted by the logo Ⓦ preceding matrix numbers (this symbol cannot be searched for in MediaWiki, and so is not used in the above table), and to Victor, as denoted by the letters VE in matrix prefixes.

'''Cuts'''
''Water-Colors'': none.

''Song of Faith'': presumed none (auditioned without score).

'''Notes'''
The single [[Chicago_Gramophone_Society_50019-P,_50020-P|disc]] which Carpenter made for the Chicago Gramophone Society is his only known commercial recording as a pianist. No transfer to another medium is currently available. For more detailed information see [[Chicago_Gramophone_Society_50019-P,_50020-P|relevant page]]. 

The 'Parts' of ''Song of Faith'' listed above do not necessarily correspond to divisions in the score, but to sides of the records. Carpenter appears only in the last 'Part' of both the short- and long-play editions. The complete work takes up four short-play sides, issued on Victor <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/169111/Victor_1559 1559]</span> and <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/169114/Victor_1560 1560]</span>, and two long-play sides, issued on Victor <span class="plainlinks">[https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/objects/detail/278945/Victor_L-11608 L-11608]</span>. Multiple transfers of the short-play edition are available for audition and download from <span class="plainlinks">[https://archive.org| archive.org]</span> (<span class="plainlinks">[https://archive.org/details/78_song-of-faith-part-2_chicago-a-capella-choir-john-alden-carpenter-noble-cain_gbia0057827 Parts 1 and 2]</span>; <span class="plainlinks">[https://archive.org/details/78_song-of-faith-part-4_chicago-a-capella-choir-john-alden-carpenter-noble-cain_gbia0057510 Parts 3 and 4]</span>).

==Acknowledgements==
I am extremely grateful to Don Tait of Chicago for his invaluable help in researching the content of this page. 

==References==
'''Note''' ''The Phonograph Monthly Review'' underwent various name changes, detailed [[Chicago Gramophone Society#References|here]], but on this page and throughout this site, the magazine is always referred to in the text and footnotes as ''The Phonograph Monthly Review'' or, in some contexts, the ''Review''

<references/>

[[Category:Composers]][[Category:Pianists]][[Category:Chicago Gramophone Society]]