TromboneChat

What issues merited the front page of the New York Times in the 1930s?

Labor unrest in the auto industry, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial and... Fritz Kreisler admits he has been faking Baroque violin music!
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I like how he's just "Kreisler" in the headline. It is presumed everyone know what a Kreisler is. Today it would be "Famous Violinist" and it wouldn't make the front page unless there was a groping involved.

I also like that almost every article has a TLDR version right below the headline. We still have sub headlines today but they are more like teasers.

NY Times Machine Feb 8 , 1935

Kreisler, playing his Vivaldi concerto...

In his day, Kreisler was on the order of most rock stars today. Or maybe the Franz Liszt of his day.

Back in those days we weren't so critical of "ur-text". Leopold Stokowski rearranged famous symphonies to use more modern instrumentation. In my orchestra's library we have an arrangement of a "Haydn Symphony #2" with full trombone section. It's actually 104 but rearranged. And Stokowski's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.

Most of those pieces are pretty trashy (in absolute terms, not just as pastiche), but there are some gems.

Classical music was a lot more "mainstream" back then. Today, live broadcasts of orchestra concerts are pretty much the purview of public broadcasting, but back then, they'd go out on major networks.

Classical works were also used a lot as theme music or incidental music in radio programs. Think William Tell Overture for The Lone Ranger. Cartoons, too; the Golden Age Warner Brothers cartoons are full of classical music cues - not to mention cartoons like What's Opera, Doc?, and Rabbit of Seville that were built around classical works. Then there's Long Haired Hare, with Bugs impersonating Leopold Stokowski in order to torture an opera singer who has annoyed him.

I'm pretty sure Kreisler got mentioned by Jack Benny a few times; Jascha Heifetz and Isaac Stern both actually appeared as guests on his show.

To a certain extent, the prominence of classical music was an imposed prominence.

Radio and TV execs programmed classical music to counter the complaints that they were just serving up immoral dreck to the impressionable public. Their competitors, the newspapers, were eagerly carrying these complaints almost as soon as network radio got going in the late 1920s.
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I peg the beginning of the decline of classical music in society to the 60s and 70s, when Holocaust awareness when mainstream and people began to think, "Hmmm, that classical music that was supposed to be so civilizing sure didn't work on the Germans, did it?"

The halo was gone.

I peg the beginning of the decline of classical music in society to the 60s and 70s, when Holocaust awareness when mainstream and people began to think, "Hmmm, that classical music that was supposed to be so civilizing sure didn't work on the Germans, did it?"

Timing is right, but the reason is wrong.

Many classical pieces were adopted by the Swing bands and thus were kept popular.

Rock music basically shunned Classical (Roll Over, Beethoven). The only old tune I can think of from the Rock era was Elvis' recast of Aura Lee.

Basically, the Rock adherents ignored Classical music and thus as the older generations died off its popularity declined.

Kreisler's name still has much prominence in the daily teaching of many classical string musicians. The term "Kreisler Highway" is used frequently and refers to finding the perfect bow placement or "lane" on the string to create a vibrant, resonant sound.

Back to robcat's original post and message.....yes, it is a interesting to see what type of artists have instant recognition in different times of history. Today, an article can mention "Adele" with no explanation of who she is. Yet, an article about Joshua Bell would warrant a biographical paragraph to explain who he is! I'm sure that many of the fantastic classical musicians of today would have been recognized simply by their name back in the 1930's.

Crazy4Tbone86 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 6:47 am ...
Back to Robcat's original post and message.....yes, it is a interesting to see what type of artists have instant recognition in different times of history. Today, an article can mention "Adele" with no explanation of who she is. Yet, an article about Joshua Bell would warrant a biographical paragraph to explain who he is! I'm sure that many of the fantastic classical musicians of today would have been recognized simply by their name back in the 1930's.

Mostly violinists, pianists, and conductors (with a cellist or two thrown in). I can't name you a single violist of the period with great name recognition, let alone an oboist, flautist, horn player, or tubist.

Hard to think of any instrumentalists at all who are on the general public's minds today... people known primarily for their instrumental performance.

Lots of pop vocalists but even guitarists have fallen from the radar screen. Eddie van Halen is dead.

I suppose the public might recognize a name like Jon Batiste, who gets introduced every night on Colbert's show.

Crazy4Tbone86 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 6:47 am I'm sure that many of the fantastic classical musicians of today would have been recognized simply by their name back in the 1930's.

Like Jack Benny?

I really like bluegrasser Chris Thile's version of Bach's Violin Sonatas and Partitas played on the mandolin.

I bet Thile's name is also better known than most classical musicians!

Posaunus wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 3:19 pm

Crazy4Tbone86 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 6:47 am I'm sure that many of the fantastic classical musicians of today would have been recognized simply by their name back in the 1930's.

Like Jack Benny?

Jack Benny was known as a comedian who sometimes played violin. Similar to Harpo Marx -- a comedian and mime who sometimes played the harp. Incidentally, both were talented musicians. Benny Goodman was a popular band leader who played clarinet -- and sometimes played classical clarinet. Tommy Dorsey was a popular band leader who played trombone -- and was recruited to play some classical concerts (the Shilkret concerto, and a trio with two other popular trombonists of the period).

Many classical pieces were adopted by the Swing bands and thus were kept popular.

Rock music basically shunned Classical (Roll Over, Beethoven). The only old tune I can think of from the Rock era was Elvis' recast of Aura Lee.

Basically, the Rock adherents ignored Classical music and thus as the older generations died off its popularity declined.

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer re-did quite a few classical tunes - Nutcracker, Great Gates of Kiev, and Fanfare For The Common Man for example. Chicago did a version of Satie's Gymnopedies. Joe Walsh did Ravel's Pavanne. Good stuff!

Swing bands playing arrangements of classical music was mostly a WWII-era thing. i recall one of my teachers saying it was largely driven by some royalty dispute between the songwriter rights orgs/the record companies/the broadcasting companies.

I think I'll stick with my original thesis as to the decline of classical music in the US.


FWIW... Here is Isaac Stern on Jack Benny's show
https://www.trombonechat.com/viewtopic. ... rn#p126194

BGuttman wrote: ↑Thu Jan 28, 2021 9:01 am Back in those days we weren't so critical of "ur-text".

Yes, it is a measure of how little old music had been excavated and performed in 1900 or so. Some Bach, some Handel, mostly stuff that appealed to Romantic sensibilities.

Complete catalogs of Bach and Vivaldi were still decades away, even when this revelation about Kreisler comes out.

And the opportunity to study recordings of it wold be next to zero. If you didn't hear it at a live performance, you didn't hear it.

Leopold Stokowski rearranged famous symphonies to use more modern instrumentation. In my orchestra's library we have an arrangement of a "Haydn Symphony #2" with full trombone section. It's actually 104 but rearranged. And Stokowski's name doesn't appear anywhere on it.

I wonder it he decided, "well, I have to pay them for the concert anyway..."

robcat2075 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 10:08 am Hard to think of any instrumentalists at all who are on the general public's minds today... people known primarily for their instrumental performance.

Kenny G, Yo-Yo Ma, and Lang Lang are probably the most well known contemporary instrumental musicians in the world today, known by millions if not billions of people. For example, Kenny G plays as the signal that the mall is closing in thousands of shopping malls across Asia every night, and people know "oh, there's Kenny G. Time to go home".

Andre Rieu might count, too.

Special mention to Jake Shimabukuro, who is extremely famous as a ukelele player.

Chopin was an instrumentalist who is also still a household name, but definitely is not contemporary.

The 80s was sort of the last golden age of pop instrumentalists. It was still possible to have a hit with an instrumental and have your name attached to it.

Jan Hammer
Giorgio Moroder
Kenny G
Vangelis
John Tesh
Harold Faltenmeyer

All of those were boosted by work for movies or TV

When was the last time an instrumental was a hit on the charts without coming from movies or TV? I'm going to guess it was "Music Box Dancer" in the 70s?