Chapter XIII The Ninth Season, 1935-1936

Orchestra Series: Percussion Music

....the volume was to contain percussion pieces by Johanna M. Beyer, Harold G. Davidson, Ray Green, Doris Humphrey, William Russell and Gerald Strang; the dummy page was the first page of Harold G. Davidson's Auto Accident. p.336

Ray Green, studying in Paris when the edition came out that winter of 1935-36, had written Three Inventories of Casey Jones for Cowell before he left. He used the term "inventory," he says, to mean "taking stock of__see what's in the tune." Green's orchestra for Casey Jones consisted of five pop bottles (graduated), one large bottle (with four or five marbles inside), two drums (high and low), two cymbals (high and low), four gongs (graduated), and piano. There is an introduction and a finale (a repeat of the introduction) for percussion only and the three inventories, two with piano and percussion, one for piano alone. The first inventory illustrates Green's dissonant style and pervasive use of intervals of the fourth and fifth (Example163). p338

Like Davidson and Green, Strang composed his piece, Percussion Music for Three Players, especially for the Orchestra Series edition. Strang remembers the circumstances:

Henry asked me if I had anything for percussion that he could use. I said, "No, but I've wanted to write something for percussion for some time, and I'd be glad to write a piece for you." So I sat down and wrote this thing in about three weeks. It was for three players of varying degrees of skill and written for the dance.

Strang indicated in the notes preceding the score that "if any of the instruments are lacking, players may feel free to improvise substitutes which give a somewhat similar effect." he also requested that players "try to use their instruments as expressively as possible . . . striking their instruments in various places [for] a variety of color." The parts are arranged so that the first group of instruments requires a player of more skill and dexterity than does the second group, with the third group maintaining the basic pulse. pp338-339

There was other bad news for Cowell from California that fall__this time of a more personal nature: he was in danger of losing his position as lecturer at Stanford. Frankenstein wrote on Cowell's behalf, citing his New Music activity:

I have received a letter from Henry Cowell telling me that his standing as a musician has been impugned, that his position at Stanford is in danger, . . . I am greatly surprised that any such situation has arisen . . .

His activities as a publisher of other men's music have. . . attracted world attention and some of the most prominent of present-day musicians, men like Miaskovsky and Schoenberg, whose music is eagerly sought after by commercial publishers, have been only too glad to have their works appear in Cowell's New Music Edition.

Enclosed is an article I wrote last spring about Cowell's new Music Society, which will give you some idea of the importance of one phase of his work. p341

Plate LIV. Program for the new Music Society Concert, March 29, 1936.

The New Music Society of California Box 356, San Francisco presents MARY PASMORE, Violinist in a Recital of Contemporary Music

Sorosis Club Hall, 536 Sutter Street Sunday Evening, March 29, at 8:30

PROGRAM

Five Associated Pieces for Violin and Piano - - - Henry Cowell Interpolation, Restriction, Drone, Monodic Fancy, March Composer at the Piano

Sonata for Violin and Piano - - Adolph Weiss Moderator Andante Allegro Composer at the Piano p345

The next concert, on May 20, 1936 featured music by three of the same composers whose works were included on the March program, Hindemith, Szymanowski, and Weiss (Plate LV). This event, however, had apparently been underwritten by some of the more prestigious contributors to the Society, because the program listed patrons and patronesses, many of whom were long-standing members of New Music: Mrs. Leonora Wood Armsby, Dr. Hans Barkan, Mrs. George Cameron, Mrs. John B. Casserly, Dr. Leo Eloesser, Mrs. Alice Rosenberg, and others. Mrs. Armsby was, at this time, president and managing director of the San Francisco Musical Association, a group which had just selected Pierre Monteux as the new conductor of the orchestra. The names of Monteux and his wife were prominently displayed on the new Music Society program as "Honorary Members," as was that of Leopole Stokowski, in San Francisco that month, conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in a series of concerts. p346

...As for the Weiss quartet, it was "scholarly, ...challenging the audience to listen, frequently, to four major themes at once, all most intricately interwoven and developed. Each movement ended with an unresolved discord, quite logically." Even more impressive to the reviewer, it seemed, was Weiss himself, "a brilliant young composer [and] one of our resident orchestral members." He noted that "Mr. Weiss was generously applauded and made to respond to a 'personal appearance' bow."

Cowell's choice of performers for the may concert may have caused a rift in the New Music family; at least, that is what is implied in a letter Cowell received a month earlier. Raymond Tenney, the clarinetist who had performed at Society concerts since their inception in 1927, had not been consulted on the choice of instrumentalists. When Cowell sent him an announcement, he reacted angrily: "I certainly was surprised to find that the symphony performers had been chosen. I have at all times tried to engage people who not only were interested in New Music but who needed the work badly, after all the good performers are not in the symphony by a long ways." The incident had hurt him a great deal, he continued, and, as a result, he had "come to the conclusion that it will be far better for New Music that I sever all connection with it in the future as I do not feel able to stand many upsets like this one." In the course of his letter, he expressed his feelings about his own involvement with the Society and contemporary music undoubtedly shared by other performers for New Music over the years:

I must also point out through the lean years when there was very little money in the New Music Concerts that the fellows that I associated with gave unsparingly of their time in preparing for the concerts because they were primarily interested in the New Music Society. It was largely through these people's efforts that the interest in new music in S.F. is what it is today. I certainly think it is rather a shabby trick to pass them by now.

As far as my own case I have of course been glad to earn what money I have been able to due to the New Music concerts but I have really been extremely interested in playing new music because I have been sincere in trying to further the hearing of it because I seem to be able to discover a great deal in it that much other music seems to lack.

I assure you that it has not been with a mercenary thought that I have devoted so much time and energy to playing new music activities. pp347-348

Unfortunately, Cowell's work in helping young composers like Siegmeister and in promoting new music received a shattering setback soon after the recording of Siegmeister's song. That recording, the publication of the Harris Trio, and the management of the May concert were, in fact, the last New Music activities Cowell was to oversee for several years. On Friday, May 22, he was arrested at his home in Menlo Park on a morals charge. A news item sent out by the Associated Press named composer and pianist Cowell as having been arrested in charges involving a seventeen-year-old boy.

Bond was fixed at $2,500. Cowell was identified as lecturer for several years at the new School for Social Research in New York, president of the new Music Society of San Francisco, part-time teacher at Mills College for women in Oakland, and as having been a lecturer at Stanford university, a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and author of a book on music. Among other places the news was reported in Carmel, where the article said that he was well known and "had been extensively entertained in several Carmel homes."

Cowell's New Music colleagues in California were appalled and saddened that such a thing could happen. Frankenstein was in Berkeley and read the eight-column headline in the Call-Bulletin ("Composer Cowell Arrested. . ."); Langinger was heartbroken. Both rushed to visit Cowell in Redwood City, where he was being held, as did Harry and Olive Cowell, who had received the news from friend in Palo Alto. Strang recalls his reaction:

Somebody called me or somebody sent me a clipping from the San Francisco papers. My first thought was, "Well, heavens, this is terrible, but what about New Music? So my wife and I got in our jalopy and headed for San Francisco to see what we could do. We visited him in the jail where he was then being held, and we had long talks with the Cowells in San Francisco. I told Henry I'd simply carry on with whatever had to be done here and keep things going. I immediately checked with Langinger, and we found out what was in the mill and what was scheduled to bepublished. Then, after the sentence was made, and we knew he was going to San Quentin, we went into it a little further. We decided then that, since there was no telling how long he would be there, something had to be done to keep things going. So Henry simply gave me a bill of sale and turned over the entire thing to me.

The bill of sale from Cowell to Strang is dated October 1, 1937 and is signed by Olive Cowell as his "attorney-in-fact" (Plate LVI).

News of the arrest reached Ives in July. Becker had heard it in Chicago the end of June and wrote to Mrs. Ives. Harmony Ives, in turn, wrote to Carl Ruggles's wife, Charlotte, saying that she had not yet told Ives: "If true I think it is the saddest thing in our experience," she said. "I am dreading this disclosure to Charlie . . it is the only secret I've ever had from him." When she did tell him, Ives's reaction, as she reported it, was a violent one: "He will never willingly see Henry again__he can't __he doesn't want to hear of the thing__The shock used him up & he hasn't had a long breath since I told him. . . "Cowell, concerned for the future of New Music, had written to Ives that July explaining his plans for the edition. the letter, said Harmony Ives

was largely about the carrying on of New Music__he has planned it all out as you of course know__He said Mr. Ruggles & Mr. Luenning (?) wanted to do it from Bennington but Strang is to do it & Henry's name left on. We want to see new Music go on.

At first, Ives decision to continue support for New Music seems inexplicable in view of his harsh judgment of Cowell. But his response was actually no different from Strang's. Both understood the ultimate value of Cowell's accomplishment for contemporary music and American composers and were able to separate the man from the work. Although Cowell was for years the "Editor and Owner" of New Music , as described on the masthead of the Quarterly, his cause had by now transcended any solely personal involvement. And to his great credit, even without him New Music was to continue. pp354-355