With Cowell back in California, plans were laid in the spring of 1934 for another New Music Society concert. Scheduled for May 28 at the Community Playhouse in San Francisco, the concert was an unusual one. In addition to performances of works by composers associated with new Music affairs in the past, there was the added attraction of a dance group (Plate XLIV). The most radical item on the program and one which stimulated the greatest attention was Varese's Ionisation, only recently published in the Orchestra Series (OS11). Varese had completed the score in 1931; Slonimsky had conducted its premiere at a Pan American Association concert on March 6, 1933. Already the property of Max Eschg and Company in Paris, the score was published by Cowell with permission of the French publisher.

Langinger received the score in mid-November 1933 and told Cowell that he expected to finish the engraving by the end of the month. With thirty-six instruments (thirty-eight on some pages), Langinger found that he could not get more than one score-system per plate. "Some of the instruments have rests on most pages," he said, but because they are "odd instruments I could not take the liberty to leave them out." the Orchestra Series score was later reduced in size and published by Colfranc, although retaining the 1934 copyright date. p.284

Plate XLIV. Program for the New Music Society concert, May 28, 1934.

THE NEW MUSIC SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTS A CONCERT OF MODERN MUSIC AND DANCE, WITH BETTY HORST'S CONCERT DANCE GROUP PERCUSSION ORCHESTRA OF FORTY-ONE PIECES, AND STRING QUARTET. COMMUNITY PLAYHOUSE, CORNER SUTTER AND MASON STREETS, MONDAY, MAY 28TH, AT 8:15. . . . . . ADMISSION $1 AND TAX NEW MUSIC SOCIETY MEMBERS FREE

PROGRAM I_-a. Sonatina for Viola . . Jos‚ Ardeval Alfred Seidel and Katheryn Foster b. Dos Canciones Populares Cubanas..... for 'Cello. . .Amadea Roldan Doretha Ulsh and Katheryn Foster II__Three Dance Movements . William Russell a. Waltz in 7/4 b.March in 3/4 c. Fox Trot in 5/4 Percussion Orchestra and Dance Group III__Dynamics [from Sept Pieces Breves] Arthur Honegger Ruth Austin IV__Allegro Barbara . . . Bela Bartok Merle Nance and the Dance Group INTERMISSION V__ Andante for String Quartet .Ruth Crawford Quartet and Dance Group VI__Hallowe'en . . . .Charles Ives Piano and Quartet VII__ Ionization. . . . Edgar Varese Percussion Orchestra and Dance Group

All instrumentalists are members of the New Music Society... Henry Cowell, director

Members of Betty Horst's Concert Dance Group: . . . . . . . Ruth Austin, Merle Nance, Peg Kirsten, Wesleyia Tucker, Jole Merlo, Harriet Schneider, Ovilla Williams, Lois Foster, Consuelo Bowman.

Choreography of Dynamics by Miss Ruth Austin. . . . . Choreography of other dance numbers by Miss Horst. . .

Costumes for Ionization designed by Glenn Wessels

Costumes for Three Dance Movements and Allegro Barbara designed by Kenneth Hook.

Costumes executed by Mrs. H. F. Johnston; Lights by Lawrence Lewis.

Accompanist for Miss Horst: Katheryn Foster p.285

For Herman Langinger, engraving and printing Ionisation was one of the highlights of his career. As he recalls it, his desire to gain better understanding of the score led directly to the performance of the music at the Society concert:

When I started to engrave it I thought, "Well, the man must have had some idea how to put it down on paper. Where does he start? What's the format [form]? What does it sound like?" So I got together with Henry and a group of people in New Music. (We used to meet once a week at different homes.) I asked Henry what the composer thinks when he writes something like Ionisation, so Henry said, "O.K., I'll tell you what we'll do. Bring it down to the class during the week (he was teaching at night), and we will analyze it." So my secretary Ena McLane and I went to the class, and he started to analyze every measure. Then we went back again, and we worked on it until we worked out the whole format.

So now I knew how it was written. But how does it sound with all these rhythm instruments? Henry suggested: "Let's organize an orchestra." So that's how it got started. The biggest problem was getting the two sirens. I found them (the kind you crank by hand) next door to my office at a fire equipment supply store. Mr. Cowell gave me these little finger cymbals, so I asked Henry to give me another instrument. He gave me a wooden thing [probably Chinese blocks] which I had fun with because I learned to hit chords.

We practiced for quite a while and the newspapers came in to take pictures. Then Miss Horst [dancer Betty Horst] came in to listen. She was very excited; she loved it. She began to rehearse with her group of dancers, and later we rehearsed together. It came off beautifully and I was very happy that I had a part to play in Ionisation.

Besides Langinger, two other associates of Cowell remember playing in the orchestra: Gerald Strang, who played one of the sirens, and Ray Green, who played the five-drum part (line 3__two bongos, side drum, and two bass drums). Green remembers two performances, although only one was announced and reviewed in the newspapers.

Even though Cowell had already published Ionisation, he had not acquired the performance rights nor the parts. Correspondence between the owner, Associated Music Publishers, and Cowell during the month of May indicates that the performance almost did not take place. Calvin Tompkins of Associated told Cowell in April that costs would be $20 for rental of materials and $5 for performance. When Cowell pleaded poverty, Tompkins reduced the fee to $115 for materials and performance, saying that he appreciated Cowell's "difficulties." But by May 16, another problem had arisen and Tompkins telegraphed Cowell: "Proposed recording Ionization makes it impossible for us to supply materials for you[r] concert twenty eighth regret you must make substitution." After one more plea from Cowell, who, after all, needed only the rights, not the parts, Tompkins finally relented, sending the following telegram on 18 May: "Okay Ionization from scores fee fifteen dollars."

There was an unusual amount of pre-concert publicity for the New Music Society, generated by the character of the program. The Chronicle reported that the personnel of the orchestra would consist "chiefly of composers and professional musicians" who had "little experience with the percussion instruments." The News spotlighted the Varese work, pointing to it as "one of the most exciting dance and orchestra numbers ever seen n the west." The article was accompanied by a picture of three dancers with their machine-age costumes (Plate XLV).

All three of the major San Francisco papers, as well as The Argonaut, covered the concert. As with the pre-concert publicity, the reviewers paid most attention to the Varese work. It was, in fact, a stunning success and had to be repeated. Marjory Fisher called Ionisation the "latest word in experimentation with primitive sounds and the tones of the most modern noise making machines. It was noise, pure and simple. Yet it had rhythm, pitch and was emotionally exciting." Alexander Fried admitted that "Varese's queer score had effective physical force" but prophesied that although "a musician may find it valuable as experience...it will not stand for the ages." He described the bizarre setting:

Strange sounds smote the ear last night at the Community Playhouse and strange sights smote the eye.

In the pit, under the direction of Henry Cowell, intellectual young men and young ladies beat drums, shook rattles, banged gongs, tinkled bottles, and ever and anon drew forth in long, loud complaint the wail of fire sirens.

On the stage eight or 10 women dancers in scanty fantastic costume visualized the orchestra's rhythmic racket in movement. Busy and imperturbable, they writhed on the floor, punched and pestered the empty air, fluttered and dashed about singly and in phalanx.

While Fried complained that the choreography was superfluous, the critic of The Argonaut found the dancing a pleasant adjunct to the music: "Particularly in Varese's Ionization , the dance movement was a precise visualization of the complex rhythmic structure of the music." Marjory Fisher defined the music as "ultra-advance-guard"; Redfern Mason described the various compositions on the program in various degrees__as "modern," "modernistic," and "ultra modern":

And the ultramodernistic was the most significant of all. . . Varese's "Ionization," which seems to be a picture of the sounds of a great city. . . . Varese weaves them all into a sort of tonal phantasmagoria, so striking, so novel, and, at times, so beautiful, that you catch your breath.

mason also gave a boost to the New Music Society, claiming that it was "the most vitally energetic and assertive musical body in San Francisco today." At this concert, he said, "the hall was crowded to the doors." pp286-288