Black for Bach

Somewhat in the manner of Leopold Stokowski, who is constantly telling his audiences how to deport themselves. Conductor Ossip Gabrilowitsch last week suggested that people wear dark clothing for the performance of Bach's Passion of Our Lord According to St. Matthew given in Philadelphia with stage and choristers draped in black. Philadelphians take conductors' orders with remarkable grace. Most of them did as little Mr. Gabrilo-witsch asked. But one Ellen Winsor of Haverford objected, said that Gabrilo- witsch was out-churching the churches, that rather than waste time considering their raiment people would do better to make a study of the score.

College Glee

At last year's Intercollegiate Glee Club finals, even doting parents found tiresome the repetition of one prize song by eleven competing clubs. This year in Manhattan each club sang Elgar's "Feasting, I Watch" at a preliminary afternoon hearing. The best ones repeated it in the evening for guests, besides singing their college song and one other. Results: New York University first, Yale second, George Washington third.

Flesh & Blood Chevalier

Usually only the earnest venture to perform in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall but last week it became known that on April 11 Comedian Maurice Chevalier will sing French songs there; then after a trip abroad he will return to the U. S. for a concert tour.

According to many a radio listener, Comedian Chevalier will do well to go back to flesh & blood performances, at least to the talkies, where his winks and grins can serve him. But wiseacres who call his Chase & Sanborn (tea & coffee) broadcast a "flop" forget that in radio no one flops who pleases his client. Chase & Sanborn recently doubled Chevalier's time to an hour (8 to 9 p. m. Sundays). He has a 26-week contract for which he will receive well over $100,000, probably the most ever paid for an extended series.

Dancing Schools

A rumor ran through Manhattan last week to the effect that Dancers Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn were to be divorced and that Dancer Shawn would desert the Denishawn School for a teaching partnership with Bill Robinson, Negro tap-dancer. To many it seemed an odd arrangement: Dancer Shawn does his leaps and bounds, usually half clad, in an earnest attempt to interpret fundamental moods. Natty little Dancer Robinson keeps his clothes on, is famed for his wide grin, his slick, metronomic way of hoofing up & down a flight of steps, and for being able to run backwards at a speed which completely belies his 52 years (75 yd. in 8 sec.). Prime product of his teaching was the late famed Florence Mills.

Investigation disclosed that the Deni-shawns are not planning to split. What the talk simmered down to was this: Dancers Shawn and Robinson will both teach at a new Three Star Summer School for dancing teachers, which begins June 15 and lasts four weeks. The third star will be Florence Rogge, ballet mistress at Roxy's cinemansion. Leon Leonidov, production director at Roxy's, will give a course in rapid preparation of elaborate stage spectacles, admit his teacher-pupils to Roxy's dress rehearsals.

P: Dancer Mary Wigman sailed home to Germany last week with the announcement that she would return next autumn. open a Manhattan school for prospective professionals and for lay folk who want "emotional exercise, combined with physical exercise."

At the Met

Manhattan's music-news gatherers make an annual pastime of prophesying what new productions the Metropolitan Opera Company will put on the following season. Last week the most complete likely list for next year appeared in the New York Times. It included the world premiere of Merry Mount by U. S. Composer Harold Hanson and Librettist Richard Leroy Stokes (already announced--TIME, Feb. 23); the U. S. premieres of Schwanda, der Dudelsackpjeifer (Schwanda, the Bagpipe Player) by Czech Jaromir Wein- berger and of La Notte di Zoraima by Italian Italo Montemezzi (Love of the Three Kings'), recently given with great success in Milan. Most probable revivals: Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, in the original version,* with Basso Ezio Pinza singing Feodor Chaliapin's famed role; Delibes' Lakme with Soprano Lily Pons; Offenbach's La Belle Helene with Maria Jeritza; Franz von Suppe's Donna Juanita with Lucrezia Bori; Verdi's Simone Boccanegra.

*Boris Godunov is usually heard in the version edited by Rimsky-Korsakov after Mussorgsky's death.

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