Music and Maestros: The Story of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (Minnesota Archive Editions)

404 Pages·1952·31.26 MB·English

by  John K. Sherman

Music and Maestros
THE STORY OF THE MINNEAPOLIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Story of the
MINNEAPOLIS SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
THE MINNEAPOLIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA IN 1952
AWARDED A UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FELLOWSHIP IN REGIONAL WRITING
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, MINNEAPOLIS
MUSIC AND
MAESTROS
BY JOHN K. SHERMAN
Copyright 1952 by the
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form
without the written permission of the
publisher. Permission is hereby granted
to reviewers to quote brief passages in
a review to be printed in a magazine
or newspaper.
PRINTED AT THE LUND PRESS, MINNEAPOLIS
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 52-11107
London • Geoffrey Cumberlege • Oxford University Press
A cknowledgments
T
HE making of this book has been
as much a search as a writing assignment, and the search in great
measure has involved a rifling of many memories, whose owners
have willingly turned over the contents thereof. Without the
generous help of the more than eighty persons I have talked to
or corresponded with during the past five years, this history
would have lacked much of its factual content and its store of
incident.
Most bountiful and reliable repository of knowledge about the
Minneapolis Symphony has been Carlo Fischer, who more than
any other today merits the title of "Mister Orchestra" in the
Twin Cities. Mr. Fischer played with the Symphony at its first
concert in 1903 and has been a musician, manager, writer, and
statistician for the organization for most of the years since. His
long experience and willing spirit have made him more than
merely an aid in gathering the facts; he has been virtually a col-
laborator, and ever on call.
Other veterans of the orchestra, including Karl Scheurer, Her-
man Boessenroth, Al Rudd, William Muelbe, and Henry J.
Williams, have supplied much valuable information. Of particu-
lar importance have been the recollections of the orchestra's
V
Music and Maestros
early years passed on to me by William MacPhail, Sr., Eva Blan-
chard (who worked in the Symphony office in the first decade),
Hamlin Hunt, Stanley R. Avery, and the late Richard Czer-
wonky, who led me to one of my most exciting "finds"—an
unpublished autobiographical sketch by Wendell Heighten, or-
chestra manager in the second decade.
Mrs. Elbert L. Carpenter has been most gracious and helpful
in furnishing data on Mr. Carpenter's youthful years and his
work with the orchestra, and other members of the Carpenter
family have been equally cooperative.
Among the Symphony board members who have told me much
of interest and value are John Pillsbury, Sumner T. McKnight,
Carl W. Jones, and C. O. Kalman, the latter supplying "eye-
witness" documentation on St. Paul's musical life and its early
relationships with the orchestra. Past and present orchestra
managers, Mrs. Carlyle Scott and Arthur J. Gaines, have filled
in much office and backstage history, as has Frank A. R. Mayer,
publicity director. Donald Ferguson, program annotator, and
Samuel C. Gale, son of Harlow Gale, have furnished me with
important data.
I am also indebted to the three Minneapolis conductors I have
known for their kind help on biographical questions and for
their exposition, during the course of many conversations, of their
interpretive ideas. For the Verbrugghen chapter I had recourse
especially to the good memory of Jenny Cullen and the gracious
and painstaking aid of Madame Henri Verbrugghen.
Research into the Minneapolis Symphony's "pre-history" had
firm support and rich sources in Louise Chapman's detailed
chronicle of Minneapolis music in the nineteenth century. I bow
in gratitude also to Eloise Shryock, Byron Morgan, and Karl
Heckrich, to Eleanora Eckstrom and Anna C. Harmsen, daugh-
ters of Ludwig Harmsen, and to Frank J. and Eugene Danz,
sons of Frank Danz, Jr. Ferdinand P. Schultz's thesis on "Music
in the Pioneer Days in the Twin Cities Area" contains authori-
tative material I have freely purloined. Willoughby Babcock at
the Minnesota Historical Society and Gladys Wilson of the Min-
vi
Acknowledgments
neapolis Public Library never once turned down a request for
hard-to-find information,
I have drawn liberally on the writings and memories of past
and present critics, including those of Frances Boardman and
Grace Davies. The reader will note that I have made the critics
and their opinions an integral part of the Symphony story. This
has put me to the necessity of quoting the earlier Sherman instead
of relying on the later Sherman's fading and sometimes non-
existent memory of specific concerts — a seemingly vain ma-
neuver for which I hereby make apology.
Finally my gratitude, a large share of it, goes to the University
of Minnesota's Committee on Regional Writing, which provided
the original idea and a financial incentive for the book, and to
the staff of the University of Minnesota Press for their ministra-
tions on the manuscript. To all the other many friends and
helpers whom space forbids listing, I express most sincere thanks.
JOHN K. SHERMAN
Minneapolis
August 15,1952
VII
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Table of Contents
HOME-GROWN BEGINNINGS 3
Emil Oberhoffer
"WE WANT AN ORCHESTRA" 37
MUSICIAN AND LUMBERMAN 66
ORCHESTRA-ON-WHEELS 90
REIGN OF THE PATHETIQUE 117
Henri Verbrugghen
ORCHESTRAL CRAFTSMAN 151
Eugene Ormandy
WHISTLING IN THE DARK 195
Dimitri Mitropoulos
ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP 227
WARTIME AND LEAVE-TAKING 264
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