Gambol

Famed actors and vaudevillians frequently gather and perform for the financial sake of some sweet charity, but musicians are supposedly more serious, isolated folk who do not indulge in such mass gestures. Thus it was contrary to precedent last week when, before a Manhattan audience of some 3,000, Soprano Lucrezia Bori permitted herself to be hoisted up on a piano by Pianist Ernest Schelling and to sit, swinging her pretty legs, singing Spanish songs. Pianists Jose Iturbi, Harold Bauer, Josef Lhevinne, Ernest Hutcheson, Harold Samuel, John Erskine, Rudolph Ganz and Olga Samaroff formed a three-team relay for a Bach concerto. A whimsical Sinfonia Domestica, 1929, conducted by John Philip Sousa, had Pianists Bauer and Schelling pushing lawnmowers while others of equal renown played on typewriters.

The scene was dignified Carnegie Hall, the stage set like a hotel lobby with potted palms, upholstered lounges. Scattered and chatting about were some 20 of the world's greatest musicians. Conductor Walter Damrosch snoozed comfortably in an armchair until Pianist Bauer wakened him to supervise the Bach relay. Thus began an exciting evening of which the climax was the introduction of the so-called Gooschepeix Foolyphone,* an ominous engine-like instrument with coils, levers and pipes. Painstakingly oiled by celebrities in overalls, the contraption exploded after a few dismal howlings and was hung with an "Out of Order" sign. Serious peaks were reached by Baritone Emilio de Gogorza who sang a Gluck aria and by Mrs. Edward MacDowell, pianist-widow of the late great composer, who played the Andante from her husband's Keltic Sonata.

Mrs. MacDowell was really the heroine of the gambol. When Composer MacDowell died it was his wish that his home in Peterborough, N. H. be used as a retreat by U. S. creative artists. After his fatal mental collapse there was little money left and it was Mrs. MacDowell who undertook to execute his plan. Though frail and crippled, she gave concert and lecture tours, raised nearly $100,000 in the name of the Edward MacDowell Association. Simultaneously with her efforts grew the Peterborough Colony where there are now 600 acres instead of the original 200 and 23 studios available for four months of the year at the rate of $12 per week. To be true to its purpose, the colony must be kept small, never is to exceed 25. There creators in any branch of the arts may work in perfect seclusion, even have meals brought to their studio doors. There are dormitories for men, equipment for physical recreation, an excellent library. Worthiest advertisement is a list of Peterborough patrons and their products. It includes Poet Edwin Arlington Robinson whose Tristram was Peterborough-born, Novelist Thornton Niven Wilder (The Bridge of San Luis Rey), Playwright Du Bose Heyward (Porgy), Composer Aaron Copeland.

Last week's benefit, the audience at which stood and applauded when Mrs. MacDowell took the stage, netted $15,000 toward a proposed endowment increase of $250,000.

*Name taken from its inventors--Eugene Goossens, Ernest Schelling, Ernest Peixotto.

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