Memorial Organ

At Portland, Me., the 600 pipes of the potent Municipal Organ resounded last week joyous, sonorous, intricate, expensive. . . .

Municipal Organist Charles Raymond Cronham, at the console, was in fine fettle; seemed inspired with Saint-Saens "Danse Macabre," Massenet's "Phedre Overture."

A little man, white-bearded, energetic, wrinkled, bespectacled, found himself before the mighty instrument, viewed with approval this appropriate memorial to Hermann Kotzschmar, late famed Prussian orchestra leader, organist, composer.

The little man listened, nodded to himself, strolled out into the sunshine, entered an opulent motor, ordered himself whisked to his sumptuous yacht, Lydonia. He was content. The Hermann Kotzschmar Organ was not out of tune--and he was Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, unrivaled pulp-Moloch, publisher of the Saturday Evening Post. (See p. 26.) Mr. Curtis' taste in, and love of, music fits harmoniously with that of his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Edward W. Bok. Father and son-in-law, are, needless to say, chief patrons of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra.

In London, Eugene Goossens, British conductor of the Rochester (N. Y.) Symphony, declared recently: "I have no hesitation in saying that the Philadelphia Orchestra is the finest orchestra in the world today. . . . Stokowski stands supreme."

Next spring conductor Leopold Stokowski and his Philadelphia Symphony will be heard in 18 European concerts, beginning at Paris, ending at London. "Everyone in Europe is dying to hear our Symphony," declared Philadelphia concert manager Arthur Judson last week.