From the August, 1944 WQXR Program Guide:

The Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra tells in this article how music appreciation is spread through the use of records. Though Russian by birth, he has done much to advance the cause of American composers during his years of conducting orchestras in the United States and Europe. This month New York welcomes him as guest conductor at the Stadium Concerts.

The primary function of all musical recording is a wider distribution of music than can be achieved by actual concerts, and the dissemination of music–as flawlessly performed as lies within the ability of the players–in a more or less permanent form.

Recordings, not only through their increasing popularity in American homes, but also through their extensive use for broadcasting, can do more than any other medium to introduce and popularize good music to the average American who has, so far, known too little about its entertainment value.

In my opinion, recordings cannot take the place of music played in concert halls. The human desire to see what is exactly going on, and to share the experience with others, is too compelling an instinct to be obliterated by mechanical discs on a mechanical machine. Records can certainly, by familiarizing people with music, make them more desirous of hearing it. And this stimulated desire will redound eventually to benefit the music presented in concert halls.

The high quality of modern recordings makes them fit representatives, in the home, of the great art of music. And their quality is the direct result of the artists’ realization of their permanence.

Every artist–whether he be a conductor at the head of a symphony orchestra or vocal or instrumental soloist–knows that on the quality of music he produces at the time of the recording depends much of his reputation, as far as that composition is concerned, for as long as that particular record exists.

Modern recordings far surpass the earlier discs which were released to the public with little attempt at analysis of imperfections in the master record. Some great artists who could not be perfect all the time, have recorded some mediocre performances (and their reputations have suffered therefrom) because the recordings were released without previous evaluation of their musical or mechanical merit.

In these days not only the artist, but also a large corps of musically trained listeners employed by the recording company, pass judgement on the master record before any impressions are made for sale. Personally, I have vetoed the release of several Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra recordings, even after they have been approved by the record company because I did not want certain imperfections associated permanently, on records, with my orchestra’s name and mine.

Because of this meticulous attention to detail, on the part of artist and company, the record-buying public is assured of excellence of performance when it buys music to take home. Frequently achievements are even higher than those of the concert hall.

He is an unwise man who, to the average person, stresses the cultural and educational value of good music above its entertainment value. People, being as they are, will run from anything they are told they “ought” to hear. The difficulty of good music in America today has been made steeper by the proponents of good music who use such words as “culture,” “education,” and “appreciation.”  “Culture,” “education,” and “appreciation” are certainly worthy things and, undoubtedly, are transmitted to the person who listens to good music. But the average person will not listen unless he is first entertained. And to be entertained by good music, he has to be familiar with it. Recordings are making him familiar with good music; the benefits on the serious side accrue without any conscious effort on his part.

Recordings are not only representatives of music; they are also musical ambassadors. Much of the music of other lands is available only through recordings. Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra records show quantity sales in South America, Canada and the British Isles. Similarly Argentinian, Chilean, Canadian and British orchestra recordings show sales in our country. What is true for individual American orchestras must also be true for individual American artists, and for the artists of other countries.

Not only the classics, but also the native folk music of all lands, recorded “on the spot,” can be sent to all other lands. Music acceptable to a countries run-of-the-mill people expresses better than any other art the temper of the people. Familiarity with and understanding of a people’s music make familiarity with and understanding of the people: international good will through recorded music.

On the more practical, but really less important side, recordings are of monetary aid to the composer, artist and record company. Setting aside practical considerations without denying their importance, recordings have one principal function, which dwarfs all others: to put good music at the command of as many people as possible. And when a station like WQXR presents the best music on records, it brings entertainment to millions who might otherwise never know the joy of listening to it. All of which is to the greater glory of good music.

                                                                     Maestro Sevitzky and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
_____________________________________________

This past week was our first foray into working with Key Stage 1; our ‘Clever Campaigners’ workshop was delivered over two days to a Year 2 class in Camden.

The pupils have been busy learning about the civil rights movement as a part of Black History Month, so we linked the NUWT’s campaign for equal pay to extend their study of campaigning and equal rights.  We explored different campaigns (from civil rights to McDonald’s to Anti-Smoking to Recycling) as the students debated what the goal of each campaign was.

Armed with their white gloves, and with great care, the Year 2s read through the NUWT’s ‘The Woman Teacher’ publications.

After they had time to explore the visual, verbal and written campaign strategies of the NUWT, the students then got busy creating their own campaign.  Following a class vote, they decided to create an environmental campaign.  The students designed ephemera encouraging others to take care of their planet by recycling, walking instead of driving in a car, and to stop smoking.  With their carefully designed badges and posters, they then went on an enthused environmental march around the school.

I spy future campaign designers, no doubt.

The students’ care, attention to detail and genuine curiosity of the archives reinforced the valuable role primary sources can play in early years learning.  Upon investigating a newspaper clipping of Mrs. Bale (former NUWT president) speaking at an equal pay demonstration in Trafalgar Square, a pupil came up to me, document in hand; he pointed to the photo’s caption, and patiently explained:

‘this newspaper article says Mrs. Bale talked yesterday… but I know they mean yesterday a long time ago because on the back it says it came from 1940…

Plus, they are all wearing silly hats!’

Mrs. Bale and some impressive hats.  Another pupil immediately spotted the lion and wisely pointed out that she was in Trafalgar Square, and… ‘with all that space for people, what a good place for a big meeting!’ (document reference: UWT/D/38/1)

Thanks to Ms. Albrecht and her lovely class of Year 2s (otherwise known as the Polar Bears) for having us visit!

If you are interested in archive workshops for your group (from Key Stages 1-4, adult education, informal learning, etc), email alexandra.hall@ioe.ac.uk for more information / to make a booking. 

Tagged: archive, campaign, Campaign Strategies, Civil Rights, Equal pay, Key Stage 1, NUWT, outreach, Year 2

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Howard Groskloss (AC 1930) and young Rosemary Sprague, ca. 1931

It was the name that caught my eye. I’ve been working on the Sprague Family Collection: Atherton Sprague (AC 1920) taught mathematics at Amherst College and coached tennis. His wife, Marion Whittemore Sprague and daughter Rosemary Sprague were both Smith College graduates and fixtures on the Amherst theatrical and literary scene. I was processing a photo album from Rosemary Sprague’s childhood when I came across photos of her and a young man, captioned “Howdy Groskloss.”

Howard Groskloss’ glowing senior yearbook entry in the 1931 Olio [Until 1936, senior class entries were printed in the following year’s yearbook]

I Googled the name and discovered that Howard Hoffman “Howdy” Groskloss was a 1930 Amherst College graduate. A look into his Amherst College Archives and Special Collections Alumni Bio File reveals just how extraordinary Howdy Groskloss was.

Groskloss grew up in Pittsburgh and was recruited by the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team when he was just in high school. According to a 1930 article from the Boston Evening Transcript, Barney Dreyfuss, president of the Pirates, offered to put him through college if Groskloss would agree to join the team after graduation and not play college football. Grosskloss apparently didn’t take him up on the offer. Instead, he played varsity football, basketball, and baseball at Amherst, and in fact seems to be most lauded for his football skills. The Amherst Student newspapers from Groskloss’ college years are filled with gushing stories about his athletic achievements. He also had mental prowess to match his athletic skill: Groskloss received an academic scholarship from Amherst, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and was president of the Scarab senior honor society.

The Scarab was responsible, among other things, for maintaining Amherst College traditions. The society printed rulebooks for incoming Freshman and oversaw events including the annual Freshman-Sophomore cap-burning battle. At the time, first year students were required to wear pea-green caps until late February of their Freshman year, when they would attempt to burn the caps in a bonfire and Sophomores would attempt to prevent them. Although the Scarab had laid out rules for the event, things went horribly awry in 1930 when five students received terrible burns on their faces and bodies. Sophomores were supposed to be carrying buckets of water to put out the Freshman bonfire, but several had replaced the water in their buckets with kerosene. In letters to the administration and statements to the press, Groskloss took full responsibility for the events and attempted to absolve his classmates.

As awful as the incident was, Amherst appears to have appreciated Groskloss’ nobility and handling of the situation and he was not held responsible.  The rest of his senior year does not appear to have been tarnished. Howdy delivered the senior Class Day speech on June 13, 1930, and graduated cum laude.

Howard Groskloss in an undated Amherst College football team photo. Groskloss is 3rd from the right in the 2nd row from the top.

After graduating in 1930, Howdy went back to Pittsburgh and played three seasons for the Pirates, while simultaneously attending medical school at Yale. He eventually left baseball to attend medical school full-time, later transferring from Yale to Penn, and became an OB-GYN. He served as chief medical officer on an aircraft carrier during World War II, taught at several medical schools, published medical research on a variety of topics, and according to a 2006 article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, pioneered the use of ultrasound technology in medicine.

Howdy passed away in 2006, several months after his 100th birthday.

[Note: Howard Gloskloss is not Amherst’s only connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Their current manager, Neal Huntington, is a 1991 Amherst College alumnus, and two other Amherst alumni also manage major league baseball teams.]

Vancouver will have an International Home Movie Day event this Saturday afternoon. All are welcome, even if you don’t have home movies.

Vintage projector advertisement

Home Movie Day is a free public event and the world’s leading effort to honour and preserve small format films. Bring in your amateur films, have them assessed by film professionals, and, if you wish, films in good condition will be projected for all to enjoy. On a second screen, there will be a continuous screening of home movies from the CBC Media Archives, the Royal BC Museum and us.

You can find out what’s on those old films you inherited, chat with archivists, discuss a transfer to video with a vendor, grab some popcorn and watch movies for hours. Check out the Vancouver event on Facebook!

Children and animals in garden, ca. 1930. Reference code AM1470-: MI-43.

Home Movie Day was conceived in 2002 by a group of film archivists as a way to promote the preservation of amateur small format films. They were concerned about what would happen to all the home movies shot on film during the 20th century. They knew many people had boxes full of family memories that they’d never seen for lack of a projector or out of fear that the films were too fragile to be viewed. They also knew that many people were having their amateur films transferred to videotape or DVD, with the mistaken idea that their new digital copies would last forever and the “obsolete” films could be discarded.

October 19 has been proclaimed Home Movie Day in the City of Vancouver.

Home Movie Day 2013 proclamation, City of Vancouver

• Date: Saturday, October 19, 2013
• Time: 12 – 4 pm
• Place: The Hangar at the CDM, 577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver
• Accepted film formats: 16mm, 8mm, Super 8

See you there!

Working in a special collections library I’ve often thought to myself, “If I just took a random book off the shelf, I’m sure it would be fascinating somehow.” Here’s a quick post to demonstrate that.

On Tuesday, while preparing for one of our twice-monthly Library architectural tours, I decided to put one of our whaling logbooks on display, so I turned to a shelf and pulled down a logbook I’d never opened before, the journal of the ship Marcus, which set out in 1844. By the time I got to the first page the volume was already proving interesting:

Look closely and you’ll see the page is encoded in some kind of substitution cypher. (According to a cataloging note, it’s a “serenade.” Anyone looking for a challenge is welcome to submit their own decryption in the comments.)

Next, after a few pages of fairly standard logbook entries (wind, weather, etc.), the volume turns into a storehouse for pressed flowers and other plants:

Some, like this lady slipper, include the plant’s root structure:

By my count there are 42 specimens, not counting the flying fish wings:

And it’s all rounded out with a bit of poetry:

But my favorite part is that the author of this journal apparently included spices. Spices that still retain their scent after 170 years. (I think it might be oregano, but I haven’t gone through them all to find out what the spice is yet.)

Just another reminder that rare materials require the use of all five senses. (Well, maybe not taste. I wouldn’t recommend actually eating 170-year-old plants found in books.)

40 years ago, three musical acts–the Stories, Lynyrd Skynard, and Heather–played in Hanover Hall at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. The venue had a newly installed sound system for the event.

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The Scottish Records Association and ARA Scotland are holding a conference on Friday 8 November on the fascinating topic of artists in the archives. Et in Archiva Ego will be held in the Norrie-Miller Studio, Perth Concert Hall, and feature a range of speakers including artists, researchers, curators and archivists who will look at how artists have been inspired by archives and also provide advice on how to carry out research into the life and works of artists.

We’re always keen to see our collections used in new, interesting and innovative ways and in recent years we’ve been involved in a number of projects with artists. These collaborations have resulted in a range of exciting (and sometimes unexpected) outcomes including live musical performances, interactive websites, new artistic works and curated exhibitions of archive material. Further details of these artistic adventures can be found in an article written with the Glasgow School of Art Archives about our experiences working with artists and designers in the Journal of the Society of Archivists (Volume 32, Issue 2, 2011).

The Special Collections and Archives Division is celebrating American Archives Month by showcasing unique archival items that document Florida’s history in our Reading Room at Strozier Library. We’re also collaborating with other Florida archival repositories in creating an online exhibit comprising digitized materials from our collections and from others around the state.

American Archives Month is an opportunity to raise awareness among various audiences of the value of archives and archivists. These audiences may include students, scholars, policy makers, influential people within our communities, prospective donors, and the general public. It’s also a time to focus on the importance of records of enduring value and to enhance public recognition for the people and programs that are responsible for maintaining our communities’ vital historical records.

In 1941 John Barbirolli was the Conductor of The New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society Orchestra. In February of that year he wrote the following for the WQXR Program Guide.

I have two reasons, for being grateful to WQXR. The first I share with all readers of this booklet: I love good music and consequently am an enthusiast for this station which gives us good music more consistently than any other.  I wish that WQXR were not the unique institution which it undoubtedly is. I wish that there were many such stations so that not only the New York public, but people all over the country could have a spot on the dial on which they could rely to give them music that is worthwhile.

Musicians are traditionally supposed to be incapable of dealing with the brutal facts on which businessmen base their decision. As a musician, then, I speak with due humility, but I imagine that many of you have shared an idea which has often occurred to me: when radio advertising is presented in conjunction with programs of good music, as it is on WQXR, I feel much more kindly disposed to the advertiser.

The second and more special reason for my interest in WQXR comes from the fact that I am a conductor. WQXR allows me to not only hear performances by other men but to take quiet stock of my own. Occasionally, I have turned on a program in the middle of a piece and listened for some minutes before realizing that the orchestra was directed by myself. To paraphrase Burns, I had the invaluable opportunity “to hear myself as others hear me.”

A violinist friend of mine once said that he objected to the radio because he didn’t like being turned on and off like a tap. I can sympathize with his feeling, but I think it is probably good for musicians to be as defenseless  before the public as radio makes us. An attitude of conventional politeness and deference to the other fellow’s opinion obtains inside the concert hall –particularly here and in England –which is perhaps a little too kind to the vanity of the performer. No considerations of politeness or embarrassment sway a man who is sitting alone with his radio. Only the music and the quality of the performance can hold him, and that is as it should be.

I have always had a particular regard for radio audiences. By the time I began to conduct, radio was already an accepted fact, so that the question of whether or not to establish a bowing acquaintance with this newcomer, which troubled so many conductors of an older generation, never was a problem for me.

I have always thought that the compilers of ordinary radio programs underestimated the public’s intelligence. Since I have been associated with the Sunday afternoon broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic Symphony, the thousands of letters which have come to me from radio listeners everywhere have convinced me that that is true. Often these letters have given me valuable suggestions, the more valuable because they were offered in a spirit of frankness that would have been difficult had the writer known me personally or had we been talking face to face.

Radio has one advantage over the concert hall of which I wish it would make more use. That is in the matter of introducing new works. From long experience I know that the concert public does not often care to pay its money to hear compositions performed for the first time. In order to give contemporary composers a chance, those who arrange the programs for a major symphony orchestra must see to it that if a new work is included on the program, it is balanced  by one so popular that there will not be too precipitous a falling-off in sales at the box office. But, no matter how cleverly this is done, the number of new works which an orchestra can perform each year is severely limited. A radio station such as WQXR gives more programs in a day than we do in several weeks at Carnegie Hall. The listeners haven’t paid money for their seats. Perhaps most important of all, their attention is apt to be less strained than it is in the atmosphere of the concert hall. This means that a new work can ingratiate itself more easily. Audience fright is as real as stage fright and it is this which prevents many people from enjoying an unfamiliar work of music, particularly when it has been heralded as “modern” and “difficult.”

It is next to impossible to prove such things but I am convinced that WQXR has been influential in broadening the taste and sharpening the critical acumen of New York’s concert audiences. Although these constitute one of the most discerning musical publics in the world, it is still impossible, in a city which offers such an abundance of important concerts, to rely on the cognoscenti to fill your houses. The problem is to increase the number of these and at the same time to make inroads into that vast potential public which would like good music if it had a chance to hear it more often. WQXR helps to do just that.

_______________________________________________

Photo: Conductor John Barbirolli at WQXR in the early 1940s. (Columbia University Library and Special Collections, Elliot M. Sanger Papers)