1922 | Music
Music
Hollywood Bowl opens July 11 in Bolton Canyon to provide a summer venue for the 4-year-old Los Angeles Philharmonic. The California amphitheater has simple wooden benches that seat just under 18,000, Rose Bowl architect Myron Hunt will design a balloon-shaped seating area in 1926, and Frank Lloyd Wright's son Lloyd will design two music shells in 1927 and 1928 (see 1936).
Austria's Salzburg Mozart Festival has its first season to begin a lasting August tradition in the city's Festspielhaus (Festival Hall), Mozarteum, Landestheater, Mirabell Castle, and Marionette Theater.
Opera: Russian mezzo soprano Mariya Maxikova (née Petrovna), 20, makes her debut singing the role of Amneris in the 1871 Verdi opera Aida at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater; Australian soprano Florence Austral (Florence Wilson), 28, makes her London debut 5/16 at Covent Garden singing the role of Brünnhilde in the 1870 Wagner opera Die Walküre (she has heretofore sung under her stepfather's name, Fawaz). By the end of the season she has appeared as Brünnhilde in the entire Wagnerian Ring.
First performances: Pastoral Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams 1/26 at London.
Broadway musicals: The Ziegfeld Follies 6/5 at the New Amsterdam Theater, with Will Rogers, Ed Gallagher, Al Shean, Mary Eaton, Olsen and Johnson, music by Dave Stamper, Louis A. Hirsch, Victor Herbert, and others, book and lyrics by Ring Lardner, Gene Buck, and others, songs that include "Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean," 541 perfs.; George White's Scandals 8/22 at the Globe Theater, with W. C. Fields, music by George Gershwin, lyrics by E. Ray Goetz, B. G. DeSylva, and W. C. Fields, Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, songs that include "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" with lyrics by B. G. DeSylva and Arthur Francis (Ira Gershwin), 88 perfs.; The Gingham Girl 8/28 at the Earl Carroll Theater, with music by Albert von Tilzer, lyrics by Neville Fleeson, songs that include "As Long as I Have You," 322 perfs.; Better Times 9/2 at the Hippodrome, with music by Raymond Hubbell, book and lyrics by R. H. Burnside, 409 perfs.; The Passing Show (revue) 9/20 at the Winter Garden Theater, with Eugene and Willie Howard, Janet Adair, Fred Allen, music largely by Alfred Goodman, lyrics mainly by Harold Atteridge, songs that include "Carolina in the Morning" by Walter Donaldson, lyrics by Gus Kahn, 95 perfs.; The Music Box Revue 10/23 at New York's Music Box Theater, with Bobby Clark, Charlotte Greenwood, San Francisco-born singer William Gaxton, 28, book, music, and lyrics by Irving Berlin, 330 perfs.; Up She Goes 11/6 at New York's Playhouse Theater, with Gloria Foy, book by Frank Craven, music by Harry Tierney, lyrics by Joseph McCarthy, 256 perfs.; Little Nellie Kelly by George M. Cohan 11/13 at the Liberty Theater, with Elizabeth Hines, Georgia Caine, 276 perfs.
Singer Lillian Russell (Moore) dies at Pittsburgh June 5 at age 60, having suffered a fall on shipboard while returning from a fact-finding trip to Europe for President Harding (her report favored temporary suspension of immigration and restrictions on future immigration).
Popular songs: "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" by Henry Creamer and Turner Layton; "Chicago" by Fred Fisher; "My Buddy" by Walter Donaldson, lyrics by Gus Kahn; "Blue" by Lou Handman, lyrics by Grant Clarke and Edgar Leslie; "I'll See You in My Dreams" and "On the Alamo" by Isham Jones, lyrics by Gus Kahn; "Trees" by Oscar Rasbach, lyrics by Joyce Kilmer (see poem, 1913); "Goin' Home" by Anton Dvorak, lyrics by William Arms Fisher (see symphony ,1893); Frida's Book (Fridas Bok) by Swedish songwriter-poet Birger Sjöberg, 36, gains wide popularity in his country.
A Western Electric Company research team led by J. P. (Joseph Pease) Maxfield, 34, invents a phonograph record graver that permits recording in acoustically correct studios rather than by singing or playing directly into horns. It chisels vibrations into wax at the rate of 30 to 5,500 wiggles per second (see Victrola, 1906). Electric impulses derived from sound waves as in the telephone vibrate the graver with augmented power to improve the fidelity of phonograph records (see vinylite records, 1946; 1948).