Taking the German Muse out of Music: The Chronicle and US Musical Opinion in World War i

The case of conductor Karl Muck and the Boston Symphony Orchestra during World War I is notorious for its combination of nationalist patriotism and opposition to international influence on US concert organizations. Although it seemed on the surface to be a spontaneous uprising against a foreign musician who refused to play The Star-Spangled Banner, the public outcry against Muck was part of a larger campaign orchestrated by a shadowy propaganda magazine named The Chronicle, published in New York from March 1917 to November 1918. This journal was marketed to the United States\u27 wealthy elite and was available to subscribers by invitation only. By strategic publication of fake news stories and xenophobic opinion pieces, editor Richard Fletcher spread fear and suspicion through the most rarefied strata of US society. The journal was instrumental in blacklisting suspicious arts organizations and fomenting prejudice against enemy aliens. This article examines for the first time the role of this magazine in the banning of German-language operas at the Met, the internment of Muck, and the near-elimination of German repertoire from US orchestral programs

MacDowell

Edward MacDowell was born on the eve of the Civil War into a Quaker family in lower Manhattan, where music was a forbidden pleasure. With the help of Latin-American émigré teachers, he became a formidable pianist and composer, spending twelve years in France and Germany establishing his career. Upon his return to the United States in 1888 he conquered American audiences with his dramatic Second Piano Concerto and won his way into their hearts with his poetic Woodland Sketches. Columbia University tapped him as their first professor of music in 1896, but a scandalous row with powerful university president Nicholas Murray Butler spelled the end of his career. MacDowell died a broken man four years later, but his widow Marian kept his spirit alive through the MacDowell Colony, which she founded in 1907 in their New Hampshire home, and which is today the oldest and one of the most influential, thriving artist colonies in the United States. Drawing on private letters that were sealed for fifty years after his death, this biography traces MacDowell\u27s compelling life story, with new revelations about his Quaker childhood, his efforts to succeed in the insular German music world, his mysterious death, and his lifelong struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder. MacDowell\u27s story is a timeless tale of human strength and weakness set in one of the most vibrant periods of American musical history, when optimism about the country\u27s artistic future made anything seem possible

MacDowell

Edward MacDowell was born on the eve of the Civil War into a Quaker family in lower Manhattan, where music was a forbidden pleasure. With the help of Latin-American émigré teachers, he became a formidable pianist and composer, spending twelve years in France and Germany establishing his career. Upon his return to the United States in 1888 he conquered American audiences with his dramatic Second Piano Concerto and won his way into their hearts with his poetic Woodland Sketches. Columbia University tapped him as their first professor of music in 1896, but a scandalous row with powerful university president Nicholas Murray Butler spelled the end of his career. MacDowell died a broken man four years later, but his widow Marian kept his spirit alive through the MacDowell Colony, which she founded in 1907 in their New Hampshire home, and which is today the oldest and one of the most influential, thriving artist colonies in the United States. Drawing on private letters that were sealed for fifty years after his death, this biography traces MacDowell\u27s compelling life story, with new revelations about his Quaker childhood, his efforts to succeed in the insular German music world, his mysterious death, and his lifelong struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder. MacDowell\u27s story is a timeless tale of human strength and weakness set in one of the most vibrant periods of American musical history, when optimism about the country\u27s artistic future made anything seem possible

Book Reviews

Book Reviews: Dismembering Lahui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation To 1887 by Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio; Hawaii's Russian Adventure: A New Look At Old History by Peter R. Mills; Finding Paradise: Island Art In Private Collections by Don R. Severson; Kapi'olani Park: A History by Robert R. Weyeneth; the Honolulu Symphony: A Century of Music by Dale E. Hall; Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwit