Welcome Sadness

For glum listeners, what sort of music? Most people would say jolly music. Lately Boston's Conductor Arthur Fiedler, having concluded the 47th season of "Pop" (popular) concerts (oldest of their kind in the U. S.), began planning programs for the fourth season of outdoor Esplanade concerts. He received many letters, most of them begging for cheerful music to raise the morale of Boston's depressed public. So much did Conductor Fiedler hear of "psychological effect" that he turned for advice to an expert. Dr. Karl Murdock Bowman, chief medical officer of Boston Psychopathic Hospital. Pronounced Expert Bowman:

"A grieving person desires to be alone with his grief-stricken thoughts, or in sympathetic company. Play gay music to cheer him up, and instead of cheering him, you outrage his feelings as if you had introduced frivolous music at the funeral of one of his loved ones. In such music as Chopin's Etudes and Beethoven's Pathetique' Sonata, there is an expression of sadness which does not increase the sadness of a depressed listener. . . . He feels that he has communed with a spirit that has known a sadness so deep that his own amounts to relatively little."

Last week Conductor Fiedler announced that, because "depression has made the public so serious-minded," he would include in every program "an unfamiliar piece of serious music." Not unfamiliar, however, is the dole to which gloomy Bostonians will occasionally lend ear during the season: Sibelius' "Valse Triste"; a movement from Tchaikovsky's "Pathetic" Symphony; the sorrowful first movement of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony.

Elsewhere, summer orchestra music was much as usual last week. In the Lewisohn Stadium of the College of the City of New York, fortnight ago, Willem van Hoogstraten opened for the eleventh time the nightly concerts of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony. This summer Conductor van Hoogstraten will play all nine of Beethoven's symphonies. Other events: Irma Duncan and the Isadora Duncan Dancers this week; the Hall Johnson Negro Choir Aug. 2 & 3; the Albertina Rasch Dancers Aug. 9 & 10.

No gloom hung over George Washington High School Stadium in upper Manhattan last week, where was opened a series of 25-c--to-$1 concerts by the New York Orchestra under seasoned Conductor Modeste Altschuler. Less orthodox than most summer maestros, Conductor Altschuler will play this week a "Hollywood Symphony" by Charles Wakefield Cadman. First performed five years ago, Composer Cadman's "symphony" is a suite, with a sentimental movement labeled "Mary Pickford"; a slightly comic one, "Charlie Chaplin"; another sentimental one, "To My Mother"; a tribute to Modeste Altschuler called "Hollywood Bowl," where the work was played two years ago.

In the Hollywood Bowl last week was opened an eight-week season of concerts under Sir Hamilton Harty of the Halle Orchestra (Manchester, England), Frederick Stock of Chicago, Bernardino Molinari of Rome, Dr. Richard Lert of Berlin, Cellist Alfred Wallenstein of Manhattan. One of the biggest features of this "Olympic" season of the Hollywood Bowl is a choral pageant called "California Welcomes the World," with songs and dances of many nations. There will also be ballets including a Greco-Roman "Olympic Ballet." To publicize the Olympics, the combined efforts of 1,000 voices, a 2,000-piece band and a 500-piece drum corps were broadcast last week. During the Games the band, divided up among nine stadia, with 200 pieces beneath the great official scoreboard, will play songs of all nations. A "tribute to sport" is the official Olympic Paean, to be sung by 1,000 mixed voices on opening day.

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