1931-32 Concert Series
Lily Pons, the famous "Lady of Thirty Curtain Calls" and the newest sensation of the Metropolitan Opera, is the headliner of the 1931-32 season of the Dartmouth College Concert Series as announced at the Zimbalist concert April 14. Jose Iturbi, the sensational Spanish pianist; the Don Cossack Russian Male Chorus, the "Singing Horsemen of the Steppes"; and the Barrere Little Symphony of 14 virtuoso artists are the other attractions of an interesting series.
In signing up the four concerts which were engaged and announced by Professor M. F. Longhurst, director of the concert series, the management of the series went to the limit of its annual budget in order to obtain the best that the concert stage has to offer. Lily Pons, the new coloratura soprano of the Metropolitan Opera, has been the most illustrious figure in opera since her remarkable debut in "Lucia di Laminermoor" this year, at which she excited her hearers to unrestrained enthusiasm and was brought back for 30 curtain calls. At every subsequent appearance she has created a sensation, and the singing of this youthful and beautiful soprano has become one of the great operatic discoveries of the day.
Jose Iturbi was one of the great musical discoveries of the 1929-30 season. He came to America in October, 1929, and immediately made big ripples in musical America in his appearances as piano soloist with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra under Stokowski, with the Cincinnati Symphony under Fritz Reiner, with the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock, and with the Boston Symphony under Koussevitzky. But he swept the metropolitan musical world with a tidal wave of enthusiasm after his appearance as soloist with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony under Willem Mengelburg. He gave three sold-out piano recitals in Carnegie Hall before returning to Spain. And since then his schedule has been crowded with sensational appearances.
The Don Cossack Russian Male Chorus will give the Hanover audience another taste of the delightful concert enjoyment provided by the Kedroff Quartet last month in one of the most popular programs of recent years. The Don Cossack Chorus, called
"The Singing Horsemen of the Steppes," is composed of 36 former officers of the Russian Imperial Army. Their programs are in three parts: Russian church music, Russian folk songs, and Russian soldier songs. They are led by the dynamic Serge Jaroff.
A symphonic program completing a wellrounded series is provided by the Barrere Little Symphony of 14 virtuoso musicians. With its eleven different instruments, this orchestra possesses all the qualities of the full symphony orchestra and is master of a field of music intermediary between chamber music and the more stupendous music of large symphonies, peculiarly fitted to perform some of the cameo works of Hayden, Mozart and others which a full sized orchestra could not attempt. The orchestra is led by George Barrere.
