Chapter VII The Third Season, 1929-1930

No review has been located for the Weisshaus concert__a surprising omission because Weisshaus had established himself as a familiar musician to San Franciscans (Plate XX). He was, for instance, that year engaged in presenting a series of lectures in "the appreciation of contemporary music" at the university of California Extension Division in San Francisco. Moreover, one of his colleagues on the program, the cellist Dorothy Pasmore, was a member of the well-known Pasmore family. Her father Henry had founded a conservatory in San Francisco in 1914, and she and her sisters__Mary, a violinist, and Suzanna, a pianist__formed a trio which toured the country during the 1910s and 1920s. Another sister, Radiana Pazmor, later participated in New Music activities (see below, pp242ff and 319ff). p.127

SECOND CONCERT, THURSDAY EVE., DECEMBER 5TH, AT 8:15. IMRE WEISSHAUS , HUNGARIAN PIANIST, WILL PLAY NEW HUNGARIAN AND OTHER EUROPEAN PIANO WORKS; HELEN ENGEL ATKINSON, VIOLINIST, WILL PLAY A SUITE BY KADOSA; DOROTHY PASMORE, 'CELLIST, WILL PLAY WORKS BY CHAVEZ, WEBERN, AND WEISSHAUS. MR. WEISSHAUS, IS KNOWN FOR HIS MECHANISTICALLY CLEAR-CUT TONAL GRADUATIONS IN PLAYING, AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK TOWARD GREATER UNDERSTANDING OF THE ABSTRACT IN MUSIC, AS WELL AS FOR HIS HIGHLY ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS. THE SAN FRANCISCO ARTISTS, MISS PASMORE AND MRS. ATKINSON, ARE TOO WELL KNOWN HERE TO NEED SPECIAL INTRODUCTION. p.129

Denny frequently appeared with Cowell, illustrating on the piano modern compositional techniques described by him in his lectures. Earlier, on June 3, 1927, in Carmel, Denny gave what the Carmel Cymbal called the "first program of all-modern works for the piano to be given in the West, . . .an event of considerable musical importance." The review of the concert credited her with a personal success even though not all the music, and least of all Schoenberg's piano piece, Op. 23, was appreciated. One week later__on June 10__Denny repeated the program at an Ida Gregory Scott Fortnightly in San Francisco.

The critic in the Musical Leader called her an ultra-modernist, mentioned that the "place was filled," and remarked that Ornstein's Fourth Sonata reminded San Franciscans of how he had electrified them when he came there in 1916. As to Denny, her playing was called "more intellectual than poetic." Apparently she was, like Cowell, a popular performer and was liked in spite of the music she played. Redfern Mason, for example, in reviewing a Denny recital in 1928, used phrases reminiscent of those frequently used for Cowell: "She plays well; her heart is in her work and she has such a vital earnestness that, whether you like her music or not, you are held to attention and sometimes won to admiration by the spirit of the performer."

Denny's program for the Society concert in 1929 (see Plate XXI) included (twice!) Schoenberg's Op. 23, a piece which had become almost a trademark of her recitals. Music by Kodaly and Bartok was also frequently on her programs. Both Feinberg, a follower of Scriabin, and Weprik [Alexander Veprik], a pupil of Miaskovsky, were at the Moscow Conservatory when Cowell visited there and gave him the scores to bring back with him. There is no record of the attendance at the Denny recital that night in 1929, but for one young composer the experience was unforgettable. Gerald Strang, a student in Berkeley at the time, recalls that he went to the concert and had his entire musical career turned around:

Through Henry, I heard my first Bartok and was, of course, amazed. At that time the extent of my involvement with contemporary music was around Ravel. This was, in a way, what opened up my mind and my interests to the new direction that I subsequently went. p.130

Slonimsky, for example, wrote on Ruggles, Ives, and Sessions in the February-March 1930 issue of Modern Music and , in the June-July 1930 issue of the same journal, Charles Seeger wrote "On Dissonant Counterpoint," defining a compositional technique which, perhaps more than any other single device, was endemic to the ultra-modern style published in New Music . p.139