1925 | Music
Music
English pianist Ethel Liginska makes her conducting debut 1/9 with the New York Symphony Orchestra; now 38, she goes on later in the year to lead an orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl.
Polish-born French harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, 46, opens a school of early-music interpretation at Paris. She is well known for her rendition of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier."
Opera: Wozzeck 1/14 at Berlin's State Opera is the first full-length atonal opera. Austrian composer Alban Berg, 40, has based his music on the George Buchner tragedy of 1836; L'Enfant et les Sortilèges 3/21 at Monte Carlo, with music by Maurice Ravel.
Composer Enrico Bossi dies at sea aboard the S.S. De Grasse February 20 at age 63; tenor Jean de Reszke at Nice April 3 at age 75.
Ballet: Les Matelots (The Sailors) 6/17 at the Théâtre Gaiété-Lyrique, Paris, with music by Georges Auric, choreography by Leonide Massine, libretto by Boris Kochno.
First performances: Symphony for Organ and Orchestra by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born composer Aaron Copland, 24, 1/11 at New York, with Nadia Boulanger (Copland has been composing music since age 8 and studied under Boulanger at Paris); Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor (Concerto Accademico) by Ralph Vaughan Williams 11/6 at London's Aeolian Hall.
Composer Erik Satie dies at Paris July 1 at age 59.
Stage musicals: Big Boy 1/7 at New York's Winter Garden Theater, with Al Jolson, Mary Philips, music by Modesto, Calif.-born composer Joseph Meyer, 30, songs that include "It All Depends on You" by Ray Henderson, lyrics by B. G. DeSylva and Lew Brown (Russian-born writer Lewis Bronstein, 31), "If You Knew Susie Like I Know Susie" (lyrics by B. G. DeSylva), 188 perfs.; No, No Nanette 3/11 at London's Phoenix Theatre, with Liverpool-born comedienne-singer Binnie Hale (originally Beatrice Mary Hale-Munro), 25, music by Vincent Youmans, book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel based on Mandel and Emily Nyitray's 1919 comedy My Lady Friends, lyrics by Irving Caesar and Harbach, songs that include "Tea for Two," "I Want to Be Happy"; On with the Dance (revue) 4/30 at the London Pavilion, with Mexican-born British actor (William) Nigel (Emle) Bruce, 30, dancer-comedienne Hermione Baddeley (originally Clinton-Baddeley), 18, music by Noël Coward and Philip Braham, book and lyrics by Coward, 229 perfs.; The Garrick Gaieties 6/8 at New York's Garrick Theater, with Sterling Holloway, Mexican-born actor Romney Brent (originally Romulo Larraide), 23, Austin, Texas-born actor House (Baker) Jameson, 22, Sanford Meisner, music by local composer Richard Rodgers, 23, lyrics by Lorenz (Milton) Hart, 27, songs that include "Sentimental Me," 14 perfs. (plus 43 beginning 5/10/26); Artists and Models 6/24 at the Winter Garden Theater, with McKeesport, Pa.-born actress Aline MacMahon, 26, music by J. Fred Coots, Alfred Goodman, Maurice Rubens, lyrics by Clifford Grey, 411 perfs.; Gay Paree (revue) 8/18 at the Shubert Theater, with Texas Guinan, Boston-born comedian Jack Haley, 27, comedian Charles "Chic" Sale, book by Harold Atteridge for producer Rufus LeMaire, music by Alfred Goodman, Maurie Rubens, and J. Fred Coots, lyrics by Clifford Grey, 190 perfs.; Dearest Enemy 9/18 at the Knickerbocker Theater, with Helen Ford, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, book by Herbert Fields based on the Revolutionary War legend about Mrs. Robert Murray delaying General Howe, songs that include "Here in My Arms," "Where the Hudson River Flows," 286 perfs.; The Vagabond King 9/21 at New York's Casino Theater, with Dennis King, music by Rudolf Friml, lyrics by Bryan Hooker, songs that include "Only a Rose," 511 perfs.; Sunny 9/22 at the New Amsterdam Theater, with Marilyn Miller (who receives 10 percent of the gross), Jack Donahue, Clifton Webb, music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II, songs that include "Who," 517 perfs.; La Revue Nigre 10/7 at the Paris Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, with Josephine Baker, now 19, and a jazz band led by Alexandria, Va.-born conductor Claude (Driskett) Hopkins, 22, and featuring New Orleans-born soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, 28; The Charlot Revue 11/10 at New York's Selwyn Theater, with Beatrice Lillie, Gertrude Lawrence, Jack Buchanan, London-born ingénue Anna Neagle (originally Marjorie Robertson), 21, songs that include "Poor Little Rich Girl" by Noël Coward, "A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich, and You" by Joseph Meyer, lyrics by Billy Rose and Al Dubin, 34, 138 perfs.; The Cocoanuts 12/8 at New York's Lyric Theater, with the Four Marx Brothers, Margaret Dumont, book by George S. Kaufman, music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, 218 perfs. Vaudeville monologist Art Fisher has given the New York-born Marx Brothers their nicknames and has helped develop their characters: Groucho (Julius Henry), 30, is a moustached wit, Harpo (Arthur), 32, an idiotic kleptomaniacal mute harpist, Chico (Leonard), 34, a pianist and confidence man who serves as Harpo's interpreter, Zeppo (Herbert) is straight man; Tip-Toes 12/28 at New York's Liberty Theater, with Queenie Smith, Philadelphia-born soprano Jeanette MacDonald, 24, Robert Halliday, music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson, songs that include "Sweet and Low-Down," 194 perfs.
"The Charleston" is introduced to Paris by "Bricktop," a redheaded American who arrived penniless from her native Harlem last year and has become hostess at a Place Pigalle nightclub. Now 30, Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith du Conge begins a half century as a nightclub hostess.
Popular songs: "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby!" by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn; "I Love My Baby (My Baby Loves Me)" by Brooklyn-born composer Harry Warren (originally Salvadore Anthony Guaragna), 31, lyrics by Austrian-born songwriter Bud Green, 28; "Sleepy Time Gal" by Ange Lorenzo and Richard A. Whiting, lyrics by Joseph R. Alden and Raymond B. Egan; "Sweet Georgia Brown" by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard, and Kenneth Casey; "Alabamy Bound" by Ray Henderson, lyrics by B. G. DeSylva, Bud Green; Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers record Maceo Pinkard's "Sweet Man;" "Dinah" by Harry Akst, 31, lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young; "Sometimes I'm Happy" by Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar; "Always" and "Remember" by Irving Berlin; "Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue" and "I'm Sitting On Top of the World" by Ray Henderson, lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young; "Don't Bring Lulu" by Henderson, lyrics by Billy Rose and Lew Brown; "My Yiddishe Momme" by Jack Yellen and Lew Pollack, lyrics by Yellen (for Sophie Tucker); "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" by Earl Robinson, lyrics by Alfred Hayes (see commerce, 1915); "Valentine" by French composer Henri Christine, 58, lyrics by Albert Willemetz; "Jealousy" ("Jalousie, a 'Tango Tzigane' [Gypsy Tango]") by Danish violinist-composer Jacob Gade, 46; "Show Me the Way to Go Home" by London songwriters Reg Connelly, 27, and Irving King (Jimmy Campbell), 22. Bessie Smith records "Cake-Walking Babies (From Home)," "J. C. Holmes Blues," and W. C. Handy's 1914 hit "St. Louis Blues."
The Arthur Murray Correspondence School of Dancing moves to New York, where local baker's son Arthur Murray (Teichmann), 30, marries his partner Kathryn (née Kohnfelder) and will soon set up a midtown Manhattan studio to teach ballroom dancing. Born in East Harlem, Murray learned to dance from a girlfriend and from lessons at the Educational Alliance, took further lessons at a school started by Vernon and Irene Castle, joined the school's faculty, taught dancing at an Asheville, N.C., resort hotel, and started his correspondence school at Atlanta 4 years ago after studying at Georgia Tech. His enterprise will grow in the next 40 years to have more than 350 franchised dance studios, including nearly 50 in foreign countries.
Grand Ole Opry has its beginnings in the WSM Barn Dance that goes on the air November 28 over Nashville, Tenn., radio station WSM, owned by National Life and Accident Insurance Co. ("We Shield Millions"). The insurance company chairman's son has taken a cue from Chicago's Sears, Roebuck-owned radio station WLS ("World's Largest Store") in naming the new station, its transmission tower is the tallest free-standing tower in America. The country music show has been originated by 29-year-old program director and former newspaperman George D. (Dewey) Hay, it features contest fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson, and by the time the Saturday-night show adopts the name Grand Ole Opry late in 1927 with sponsors that include Martha White Flour, it will be featuring banjo-playing singer "Uncle" Dave Macon, now 55, as "the Dixie Dewdrop"; Macon will be supported or followed by such country-music stars as the Fruit Jar Drinkers, the Gully Jumpers, guitar virtuoso Sam McGee, Dr. Humphrey Bates and the Possum Hunters, fiddler Sid Harkreader, the Dixie Clodhoppers, Fiddling Arthur Smith, and Roy Acuff, now 22, who will run for governor of Tennessee in 1948.