Geneva Fest

Like most impromptus, an international exposition of music which opened and held forth in Geneva, Switzerland, last fortnight without the elaborate preliminaries that usually precede international events, was hailed across Europe as something which must be often repeated, whatever it may next time lack of spontaneity.

Germans and Frenchmen were prime movers in filling a hall with the music manufactures of their countries--16 makes of German pianos, organs, sounding brass and a wide variety of intricate woodwork for translating still air into meaningful reverberations; 19 German and 18 French music publishing exhibits; "His Master's Voice" (Gramophone) from England; instruments and music from the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden; a Steinway piano exhibit from the U. S. There was a colossal German piano that played quarter tones; a weird French orpheal like a harmonium superimposed on a piano.

President Motta of Switzerland addressed 150 celebrities at a dinner and the celebrities--including Mary Garden, the company of the Opera Comique (Paris) and the orchestra of the Paris Conservatory responded with evening after evening of inimitable entertainment-- Pelleas and Melisande, played, acted and sung as never before; Cesar Franck's "Variations Symphoniques" executed by masterly Alfred Cortot; the Dresden Opera Company tilting friendliwise to excel their French friends. . . . It was a love feast as well as a music fest. And between rare performances the delegates might wander, as tourists may for weeks to come, among exhibits ranging from furniture polish to autographed manuscripts of Mozart's Magic Flute and Beethoven's "Seventh Symphony."

Native Recruits

U. S. audiences glow in deep moral satisfaction over the ruddy Carmen or ponderous Scarpia who they hear is really a fishmonger's child from Oklahoma.

So, last week, there was fit rejoicing over an announcement by General Manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza of the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan, that for next season he had engaged twelve new singers, six of them of undisputed U. S. birth.

First of these is Soprano Ethel Dreda Aves, niece and daughter of Episcopalian clergymen, her uncle being Bishop of Mexico. When she left her home in Galveston, to cultivate her voice her father stormed: "I would sooner see you dead here at my feet than appearing behind the footlights of a stage."*

In like storybook fashion rose Tenor Frederick Jagel, 25-year-old son of a Long Island church organist, another of Mr. Gatti-Casazza's finds. As he sang in the choir he charmed a wealthy silk merchant, who financed Singer Jagel's higher instruction. He is singing in Italy as Signer Iagelli.

Soprano Leonora Corona of Dallas, Soprano Mildred Parisette of Philadelphia, Mezzosoprano Margaret Bergin of Pater son, and Bass-baritone Fred Patton of South Manchester, Conn., are the other U. S. natives.

At Northampton

In satin and brocade, powdered wigs, billowing hoopskirts and lacy pantaloons, Smith College teachers and their consorts last week played at opera. In the gay frillery of Georg Friedrich Handel's time (1685-1759), instead of in Roman and Egyptian robes, they gave his nearly forgotten Julius Caesar its first U. S. showing. Professor Oliver Larkin staged the production; Professor Werner Josten directed all.

Composer Handel, martial, romantic, won fame for impressive oratorios, the best known among them being The Messiah, Samson, Judas Maccabaeus. Lately, led by the University of Gottingen, Germans have resurrected some of the operas their countryman used to compose, sometimes in a fortnight's time, for production at the Haymarket Theatre, in the London of Addison and Steele, Alexander Pope and George I, the music-loving Hanoverian.

For Farmers

Last week the National Broadcasting Co. (Manhattan) announced that Dr. Walter Damrosch, retired patriarch of Carnegie Hall and the New York Symphony Orchestra (TIME, Dec. 27), would, beginning in October, conduct 24 orchestral concerts before the National microphones, prefacing each performance with a talk on the composition of the evening and explanations about the "instruments in the band."

And upon the heels of that announcement, the British Broadcasting Co. sent news over the cables that Sir Henry Wood, ubiquitous concert generalissimo, was to perform a like function for the radio millions of England.

For once, these announcements of the filling of notable positions were unaccompanied by mention of the salaries involved.

Dr. Damrosch rose to the occasion to declare Sir Henry "foremost conductor of Great Britain." Reflecting perhaps what Sir Henry's work would be like if it were like his own, he added: "Think what it will mean to the farmers. . . . I am not a scientist with sufficient knowledge to look into the future and see what it may encompass, so I merely say that 'sufficient unto the day is the achievement thereof.' "

* So, at any rate, said the publicity matter.