Cutaway for Rosenstein

Long has the gateway to musical recognition been guarded by Influence and Wire-Pulling. The ambitious young U. S. artist used to be as dependent on the stroke of luck which would get him a beneficial hearing as he was on his ability. Comparatively recent is the contest system, whereby students of proven talent may hold their heads high, make dignified and independent debuts.

Conductor Frederick Stock of the Chicago Symphony last year inaugurated a contest which last month brought attention to Joseph Rosenstein, 19-year-old violinist. Because of the skill with which he played three concertos (one of them by Conductor Stock), young Rosenstein, short, sallow son of an Austrian-Jewish tailor, was unanimously judged most worthy of a solo engagement with the Chicago orchestra. Newshawks went after his "story," found that he had been running errands for the Chicago Daily News, forthwith played him up as a messenger boy. That troubled Joseph Rosenstein, because he felt it made him look like a sudden-wonder prodigy whereas he has studied music for years, been generally well educated. He did not rent a dress suit for his Chicago Symphony concert. He bought one, only he forgot to try it on beforehand, found at concert time that the trousers were four inches too long, beyond benefit of suspenders. He borrowed other trousers, played brilliantly.

Now that Joseph Rosenstein is well started on the road to recognition he has a well-fitting cutaway as well as a dress suit. The cutaway he wore last week at an Orchestra Hall recital, for which boxes were taken by such important patrons as Charles Henry Swift, Rufus Cutler Dawes, Harold Fowler McCormick, Conductor Stock. Pianist Josef Hofmann was playing two blocks away but a good-sized audience came to hear Rosenstein, heartily applauded his poise throughout a difficult program, his accurate speed in Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata, his purity of tone enhanced by a $20,000 Stradivarius lent him for the occasion.

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