Difference between revisions of "Carpenter, John Alden (piano)"

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Summary

John Alden Carpenter (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; his life and career are well documented, and do not require a detailed entry in this wiki.

It is part of the wiki Classical 'Society' Records by Nick Morgan.

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

Chicago Gramophone Society

As one of the leading Chicago composers of the 1910s and '20s, Carpenter was an obvious candidate to be recorded by the Society, especially as he was still barely represented on disc.^[1] Yet the Society issued just one record of his music, containing the set of four Water-Colors, performed by mezzo-soprano Mina Hager with the composer himself at the piano. It forms the first disc in the Society's second (and last) issue which, as it stands, celebrates Hager's art as much as Carpenter's: the second disc contains two lieder by Hugo Wolf and one by Richard Strauss, also sung by Hager, with a different pianist.

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.'[2]

This took place in late 1917, some months after the USA had entered the War. As early as May, Carpenter had approached John Philip Sousa about training bandsmen at the US Navy's Great Lakes Training Station in Chicago, with the result that Sousa enlisted and became the Station band's bandmaster;^[3] in September, Carpenter had been appointed a member of the US National Committee on Army and Navy Camp Music.^[4] In this capacity, he more than once visited the Great Lakes Training Station,^[5] 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,^[6] or at an entertainment for the 'jackies' such as the Thanksgiving Ball held at the Station in November 1917.^[7]

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 Illinois Theater, with Arthur Dunham (1875-1938) conducting his Philharmonic Orchestra, and Carpenter himself at the keyboard.^[8] 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;^[9] 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.^[10] What is certain is that in May 1918, at a music teachers' convention in Bloomington, 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.'[11]

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 Orchestra Hall: 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'.^[12] In June 1918, Carpenter again accompanied Hager in two groups of his songs, back at Chicago's Illinois Theater.^[13] Eighteen months later, they performed together at a meeting of the Englewood Woman's Club, 'a big compliment to the club.'^[14] Hager took the orchestral Water-Colors to Minneapolis in November 1920,^[15] and she chose several other songs for her New York debut the following October.^[16] Just days later, she sang Carpenter at the National American Music Festival in Buffalo, New York, ^[17] 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.^[18] 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;^[19] that same year, she apparently recorded one of Carpenter's best-known war songs, The Home Road, at the Victor studio in New York; designated a 'trial', this was not issued.^[20] 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.'[21]

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 Skyscrapers 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.'^[22] As it happened, 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^[23]), Pollak described the score as

'a moderately interesting study in jazz tune and rhythm giving a total effect not so interesting as either "Krazy Kat" or the "Perambulator" 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.'[24]

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 interview.^[25] 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 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 below.) The Society left no archive, and its de facto mouthpiece, The Phonograph Monthly Review, disclosed almost nothing about the recording's genesis.^[26] The Mina Hager Papers at the Newberry Library in Chicago preserve no correspondence with officers or members of the Chicago Gramophone Society, or other pertinent material.^[27] The John Alden Carpenter Papers, also at the Newberry, and the John Alden Carpenter Collection 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 wiki.^[28] The standard works on Carpenter have nothing to say about the Society or Carpenter's recording.^[29] 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 Virgil Thomson, 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.'[30]

Recordings

Private

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.^[31] This is highly unlikely. The Society was not officially 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.^[32] Moreover, this recording was clearly meant not for public audition but as an aid to the ballet's first production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where the world premiere was given two months later, on 19 February 1926.^[33] The ballet's genesis had already cost Carpenter considerable effort, as revealed in an interview between its designer, Robert Edmond Jones, and the founding editor of Modern Music, Minna Lederman:

'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."'[34]

(The farmhouse was probably Carpenter's 'summer place' in Charlotte, Vermont^[35]). 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.'[36]

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, Louis Hasselmans. 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 that published 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.^[37] 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^[38]). 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.

Issued

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 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 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 1559 and 1560, and two long-play sides, issued on Victor L-11608. Multiple transfers of the short-play edition are available for audition and download from archive.org (Parts 1 and 2; Parts 3 and 4).

Acknowledgements

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

References

1. ↑ It seems only three compositions by Carpenter had previously been issued on commercial records:
   • Eight Songs for a Medium Voice - (ii) Don't ceäre, Louise Homer (contralto), orchestra, Walter B. Rogers, matrix B 18035-1, rec. 29 June 1916, Camden, New Jersey, issued on Victor 87263 (10-inch / 25 cm)
   • Khaki Sammy, Mabel Garrison (soprano), orchestra, Josef Pasternack, matrix B-21920-5, rec. 16 May 1918, Camden, New Jersey, issued on Victor 64783 (10-inch / 25 cm)
   • The Home Road, Ernestine Schumann-Heink (contralto), orchestra, Josef Pasternack, matrix B-24499-5, rec. 28 September 1920, Camden, New Jersey, issued on Victor 87320 and 831 (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, on 26 May 1924 at the Victor studios in New York
   All above data from Discography of American Historical Recordings
   On 28 June 1928, as the Society's Carpenter record was being distributed, the French baritone Vanni Marcoux was recording Jazz boys and The Cryin' blues in Paris, with the conductor Piero Coppola as pianist, issued in mid-1929 on French Gramophone DA 988 (data from A Classical Discography)
2. ↑ Hager, Mina '"Speak for Yourself, John Alden Carpenter!"', Music Journal, Vol.28 No.3 (March 1970), pp.66-67
3. ↑ Buzzell, Francis The Great Lakes Naval Training Station. A History, Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, n.d. [c.1919], pp.147-48; Pollack, Howard John Alden Carpenter: A Chicago Composer, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001, p.158
4. ↑ 'Inspiration of Song Is Stressed in Plans For Training Camps', Arkansas Democrat [Little Rock, Arkansas], 17 November 1917, p.4
5. ↑ 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
6. ↑ '’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
7. ↑ '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
   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; no attempt has been made to locate or consult records of the Great Lakes Training Station for this wiki, but it is hoped that they survive and may throw light on this matter
8. ↑ 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
9. ↑ Pollack, Howard Skyscraper Lullaby, Washington & London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, p.148
10. ↑ '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
11. ↑ 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
12. ↑ '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)
13. ↑ 'Civic Music Forces Join for Concert', Chicago Daily Tribune, Monday 3 June 1918, p.15
14. ↑ '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
15. ↑ '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
16. ↑ 'Miss Hager Heard in Pleasing Song Recital Program', New York Tribune, Tuesday 11 October 1921, p.7
17. ↑ McHenry, Izetta May 'American Concert Field', The Billboard, Vol.33 No.42, 15 October 1921, p.28
18. ↑ 'Brief Local Mention', Queen City Mail [Spearfish, South Dakota], Wednesday 28 December 1921, p.4
19. ↑ 'Music This Week', The Times, Monday 9 June 1924, p.16; Westermeyer, Karl 'Minna [sic] Hager', in 'Aus Berlin', Signale für die musikalische Welt, No.28, 9 July 1924, pp.1109-11 (on p.1109)
20. ↑ The Home Road Mina Hager (mezzo-soprano), LeRoy Shield (piano), unnumbered trial (data from Discography of American Historical Recordings)
21. ↑ 'Bowl Soloist Has European Reputation', Los Angeles Times, Sunday 20 May 1928, Part III, p.13
22. ↑ 'Carpenter's Jazz Ballet to Have Its Premiere Tonight', Chicago Daily Tribune, Friday 19 February 1926, p.21
23. ↑ Moore, Edward 'Stock Gives Carpenter's "Skyscrapers"', Chicago Daily Tribune, Saturday 6 November 1926, p.17
24. ↑ Pollak, Robert 'Musical Notes', The Chicagoan, Vol.2 No.5, 15 November 1926, pp.16-17
25. ↑ Pollak, Robert 'Chicagoans John Alden Carpenter', The Chicagoan, Vol.7 No.4, 11 May 1929, pp.24-25
26. ↑ Johnson, Axel B. 'General Review', Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol.2 No.2, November 1927, pp.[41]-45 (on p.44); 'The Chicago Gramophone Society hereby announces...' (notice), in 'Phonograph Society Reports', Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol.2 No.4, January 1928, pp.146-47 (on p.146); 'Special', in 'Analytical Notes and Reviews', ibid., Vol.2 No.8, May 1928, pp.306-15 (on p.308)
27. ↑ I am extremely grateful to Bill Anderson of Chicago for kindly visiting the Newberry Library and consulting the Mina Hager Papers on my behalf; personal e-mail, 11 August 2018
    The Hager Papers do include correspondence with Carpenter, but it has no bearing on their recording for the Chicago Gramophone Society
28. ↑ The Newberry Library's online inventory 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
    An application for a Short-Term Fellowship at the Newberry Library, submitted by the author in December 2017, was rejected in April 2018
29. ↑ O'Connor, Joan John Alden Carpenter: A Bio-Bibliography, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994
    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
30. ↑ Carpenter, John Alden Letter to Virgil Thomson, 2 May 1941, Thomson Collection, Yale University
31. ↑ 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
32. ↑ The first issued commercial recording of Skyscrapers, made by Victor in May 1932 and conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret, 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. 'Victor matrix CSHQ-72607. Skyscrapers / Nathaniel Shilkret', 'Victor matrix LCSHQ-72612. Skyscrapers / Victor Symphony Orchestra', and 'Victor matrix LCSHQ-72615. Skyscrapers / Victor Symphony Orchestra'
33. ↑ 'The Musical Go-Getter', The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Saturday 20 February 1926, p.6; Cushing, Edward 'Music of the Day', ibid.
34. ↑ M[inna].L[ederman]. 'Skyscrapers, an Experiment in Design: An Interview with Robert Edmond Jones', Modern Music, Vol.3 No.2, January-February 1926, pp.21-26
35. ↑ 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
36. ↑ 'Carpenter Jazz Ballet Gives New York Kick', Chicago Daily Tribune, Saturday 20 February 1926, p.15
37. ↑ No piano reduction of Skyscrapers appears to have been published. One or more manuscript piano scores were given to Serge Diaghilev, who commissioned the work for his Ballets russes 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
38. ↑ Thanks to research carried out by Tim Brooks, Columbia's 'Personal Record' rates for 1917-18 are documented, and are summarized in Brooks, Tim Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919 (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