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The Rosenthal Archives recently received a collection of materials documenting the life of violinist, influential teacher, and member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Leon Sametini.
Sametini was born on March 16, 1886, in Rotterdam, Holland, where his father Samual was principal flute in the Royal Opera Orchestra. He showed early promise on the violin and soon became a protégé of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who funded his study with the famed violin pedagogue Otakar Ševčík for one year.
When Sametini was fifteen, the Queen gifted to him an early eighteenth-century Serafin violin and funded his enrollment at the Prague Conservatory from 1902 until 1903. There he continued his studies with Ševčík and with then-director of the conservatory, Antonín Dvořák.
Sametini cited violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe as a particularly important influence on his playing, despite not formally studying with him: “It was after I had finished with all my teachers that I really began learning how to play violin: above all from Ysaÿe, whom I went to hear play wherever and whenever I could.”
A year after graduating, Sametini embarked on a decade of international travel, beginning with a six-month concert tour through Holland before moving to London and touring both England and Ireland. In 1905, he first appeared with the renowned soprano Nellie Melba, one of the first Australian classical musicians to win international recognition. Sametini also gave recitals throughout 1907 and 1908 with Australian contralto Ada Crossley and her eponymous Concert Company. Also supporting Crossley in her tour of England was composer and pianist Percy Grainger. With Crossley’s company, Sametini went on to tour Australia and New Zealand, as well as India and Indonesia, in 1908.
In 1912, Sametini departed London for Chicago, where he had accepted a position as the head of the violin department at the Chicago Musical College (now a division of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University), a position he would hold for the remainder of his life. Soon after his arrival, Sametini rehearsed Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Frederick Stock, and it became clear that there were plans in the works for him to soon perform with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra (as the ensemble was then known).
However, this opportunity came about sooner than anticipated. Mischa Elman was scheduled to perform Saint-Saëns’s Third Violin Concerto with the Orchestra on January 24 and 25, 1913. However, Frederick Wessels, the Orchestral Association’s manager, received a telegram from Elman at 10:11 a.m. on January 24, stating that Elman was “ill with grip [the flu] in hospital, Madison [Wisconsin]. Doctors Head and Jackson refuse to allow me leave, therefore impossible to play today or tomorrow.”
Stock immediately contacted Sametini, who, with mere hours’ notice, replaced Elman and performed Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the Orchestra. In spite of these unfavorable circumstances, the violinist’s dramatic debut was received enthusiastically by Chicago audiences and critics. Sametini earned “much applause and great success,” wrote Maurice Rosenfeld in the Chicago Daily News, and “belongs to the list of brilliant young violin virtuosos. . . . Sametini’s playing of the difficult Brahms concerto disclosed him to be an artist of eminent qualities [with the ] technical equipment of the leading virtuosos of the day.” In the Chicago Tribune, Glenn Dillard Gunn added, “Such a feat inspires respect. It attests to the courage and decision of character as well as to abundant talent and sterling qualities of musicianship. These were the salient elements revealed in [Sametini’s] interpretation.”
Sametini performed a similar act of musical heroism just a week later, on February 2, 1913, with the Chicago Grand Opera Company. He stepped in as a last-minute replacement for Efrem Zimbalist, performing the final two movements of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto along with Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo capriccioso. “Mr. Sametini proved again his right to be reckoned among the foremost artists of he city with a musicianly performance . . singing qualities of tone, with accentuation of rhythm, and with musical phrasing,” wrote the critic in the Chicago Examiner.
The violinist became a frequent soloist across the city and surrounding areas, and Sametini would feature as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on two more occasions. On December 20 and 21, 1918, he appeared with the CSO playing Saint-Saëns’s Third Violin Concerto, conducted by Eric DeLamarter. Just over a decade later, on December 28 and 29, 1928, he returned, this time performing Lalo’s Violin Concerto in F minor and Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo capriccioso under Stock’s baton. At Stock’s invitation, Sametini joined the Orchestra’s first violin section for the 1942-43 season. He died of a heart ailment in Chicago on August 20, 1944, at the age of fifty-eight.
Leon Sametini is best remembered for his contributions as a pedagogue, working with many notable violinists, and his teaching philosophy is reflected in the diverse achievements of his protégés. He encouraged his students to not only consider a career as a soloist, but also to explore the broad range of opportunities available in an orchestra. Sametini recognized the distinct skills required of both the soloist and the orchestral violinist, treating both roles with impartiality and encouraging his students to pursue whichever best played to their strengths.
Writing in The Musical Leader, Sametini expressed his philosophy. “There is every opportunity in this country to become an able musician and a great violinist, and those who do not attain the rank of soloists need not feel that they are any less musicians on that account. Their unique talents simply make them better orchestral musicians than soloists, and who is to say there is any degree of superiority between these two branches of the same art?”
Sametini’s students included many orchestral string players, including several members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: William Faldner (violin, 1956–1994), Victor Charbulak (violin, 1922–1967), Samuel Thaviu (violin, 1934–1937), and Sheppard Lehnhoff (viola, 1930–45 and 1953–1978). Milton Preves also studied with Sametini before being appointed to the CSO’s viola section by Frederick Stock, achieving the ranks of assistant principal and principal in 1936 and 1939 respectively, serving until his retirement in 1986. Mildred Brown studied with Sametini in 1915 before becoming a charter member of the Civic Orchestra during the 1919–20 season. Brown was invited to return to the Civic by Stock in 1922, becoming the ensemble’s first female concertmaster. Fred Spector, another of Sametini’s students, also was concertmaster of the Civic before joining the CSO’s first violin section in 1956, serving until his retirement in 2003. Sametini also taught composer and violinist Silvestre Revueltas, whose works have been performed by the Orchestra on several occasions.
The Leon Sametini Collection in the Rosenthal Archives contains the violinist and teacher’s collection of musical memorabilia from his decades of performance, including clippings of concert reviews from his years as an international soloist, as well as autographed portraits of his many friends, teachers, and collaborators within the musical world.
This article also appears here.
With her masters in musicology from Northwestern University, Sara Mercurio is an acquisitions assistant for Northwestern’s libraries and an intern in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association’s Rosenthal Archives. In the fall of 2023, she will begin a master’s degree in library and information science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
We recently received an extraordinary donation to our collections: a mounted photograph—in remarkable condition—of the Civic Music Student Orchestra onstage in Orchestra Hall from March 1920. This image appeared in the Civic’s first program book (see here), and previously, the only copies in our collections were quite grainy and not the best quality.
In this newly acquired image, clearly visible—downstage, front and center—is the Civic’s founding leadership: (standing) Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Frederick Stock and (seated, left to right) assistant conductors Eric DeLamarter (the CSO’s assistant and associate conductor from 1918 until 1936) and George Dasch (a member of the CSO’s violin and viola sections from 1898 until 1923).
Also clearly visible in the assistant concertmaster chair is Mildred Brown, the previous owner of this artifact. The photograph came to us from the archives of the Sisters of Saint Francis in Rochester, Minnesota, where Brown—later Sister M. Ancille—lived from 1924 until her death in 1963. The handwriting at the bottom of the image reads, “Mildred Brown (Sr. Ancille), Assistant concert mistress, Front & center,” and an arrow points to her.
Born in Chicago on March 23, 1894, Brown earned a master’s degree in violin at the Chicago Musical College in 1915, where she studied with Alexander Sebald, and Leon Sametini, along with Chicago Symphony Orchestra assistant concertmaster Hugo Kortschak. She also attended the Juilliard School where she was a student of Franz Kneisel.
Brown was a member of the Civic Orchestra for its first season in 1919-20, one of fourteen women on the ensemble’s roster. At Stock’s invitation, she returned to the Civic in 1922-23, this time as concertmaster—the first woman to hold that position in the ensemble. During that season, Stock also invited her to be a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on a Popular concert on February 8, 1923. Brown performed Wieniawski’s Fantaisie brillante (based on themes from Gounod’s Faust).
After her first year in the Civic Orchestra, Brown embarked on a solo career and enjoyed considerable success. A press brochure itemized generous critical praise:
- “Miss Brown has traveled far upon the road to success [performing] with so much brilliance, so much technical clarity with tone so pure and round. Hers is an admirable gift” (Felix Borowski, Chicago Record Herald).
- “A young violinist of high attainments, both in the technical and interpretative sense (Eric DeLamarter, Chicago Tribune).
- “She dashed into the finale with brilliance and carried it off with joyous abandon. Miss Brown has the right stuff in her and made such a ‘hit’ with the audience that she had to give an encore (Karleton Hackett, Chicago Evening Post)
- “Mildred Brown possesses all the attributes of the finished artist [with] rich tone and brilliant technique. . . . The difficult harmonic passages were played with security and in a flawless fashion” (Milwaukee Free Press).
While on tour in 1923, she performed a concert at the College of Saint Teresa in Winona, Minnesota and served as an instructor for its summer session. In January 1924, she joined the Sisters of Saint Francis. As a postulant, she directed the Teresan Orchestra and gave frequent concerts, and later—as Sister M. Ancille—she served on the faculties of the School of Musical Art and Lourdes High School (both in Rochester) and the College of Saint Teresa. She completed a second master’s degree in music from the University of Michigan in 1941 (likely attending for several summers, as it was common for Sisters teaching at the high school and college levels to continue work on advanced degrees by taking summer classes).
Sister Ancille died unexpectedly on November 19, 1963, at the age of sixty-nine. An obituary published in The Campanile (the college’s newspaper), she was remembered for “her performances as presentations of impeccable technique, finesse of style, and the artistry of a great musician, [always] striving for perfection. Sister Ancille had a reserve and repose that persons of all ages admired and respected. Her complete composure and graciousness exemplified the fullness of her life as a Franciscan. It seems, to us, very fitting that God called her home on the feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, the patron of all Third Order Franciscans.”
Special thanks to the Archives of the Sisters of Saint Francis in Rochester, Minnesota, and congregational archivist Sister Marisa McDonald, OSF
Looking south from the Art Institute, a parade of American soldiers marches up Michigan Avenue in this image from the Pritzker Military Museum & Library collections. Orchestra Hall—complete with movie marquee—can be seen at the far right.
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The Nineteenth Amendment—giving women the right to vote—passes the House of Representatives on May 21 and the Senate on June 4, 1919, and is ratified on August 18, 1920. Chicago’s League of Women Voters soon parade through the city, encouraging women to register to vote in upcoming presidential election.
The influenza epidemic in Chicago first appeared at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station on September 8, 1918, and two weeks later, cases began appearing within the city. At the height of the epidemic in October, all of the city’s theaters—including Orchestra Hall—movie houses, and night schools were ordered closed, disrupting the CSO season for two weeks. By the epidemic’s end in November, over 50,000 cases of influenza and pneumonia had been reported. The article is here.
During Sergei Prokofiev’s first visit to America, he appears with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on December 6 and 7, 1918, in two U.S. premieres: as soloist in his First Piano Concerto (under the baton of assistant conductor Eric DeLamarter) and conducting his Scythian Suite.
Prokofiev returns to Chicago and performs as soloist with the Orchestra on December 16 and 17, 1921, giving the world premiere of his Third Piano Concerto with Frederick Stock conducting. Two weeks later, he leads the Chicago Opera in the world premiere of his The Love for Three Oranges at the Auditorium Theatre on December 30.
On July 27, 1919, seventeen-year-old Eugene Williams, an African American, was swimming in Lake Michigan when he crossed the unofficial barrier at 29th Street between the city’s “black” and “white” beaches. A group of white men pelted stones at Williams and he soon drowned. Black eyewitnesses identified the aggressors when the police arrived, but they refused to arrest them. News of the event spread and violence soon erupted, primarily in the city’s South Side neighborhoods. Riots, shootings, and arson attacks continued through August 3, leaving nearly forty dead, over 500 injured, and more than 1,000 black families homeless. The article is here.
On October 9, 1919, the Cincinnati Reds clinch their first World Series victory, winning game eight against the Chicago White Sox, amid suspicions that the games had been fixed. A grand jury convenes in September 1920 and indicts eight White Sox players who, though acquitted in 1921, are permanently banned from the game. The article is here.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified on January 16, 1919 authorizing prohibition of the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol, beginning the following year. The amendment’s passing on December 17, 1917, was possible in part due to the wave of anti-German sentiment. Since many of the nation’s beer brewers were German, Prohibition became closely tied to American patriotism. The amendment is repealed on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment.
On November 20, 1919, Frederick Stock leads the first of a regular series of Children’s Concerts specifically designed to introduce young Chicagoans to music. After hearing several auditions from promising young instrumentalists, Stock chooses eight-year-old Anita Malkin to become the first youth soloist on a Children’s Concert, and she performs the first movement of Rode’s Violin Concerto with the Orchestra on February 12, 1920.
January 23 and 24, 1920, Sergei Rachmaninov is soloist in his Third Piano Concerto. Frederick Stock conducts.
During the summer months, Orchestra Hall frequently was used as a movie house, and in 1920, Paramount Pictures’ Humoresque—a silent film based on Fannie Hurst’s short story—enjoyed a multi-week run.
On December 31, 1920, Frederick Stock leads the Orchestra in the U.S. premiere of Gustav Holst’s The Planets, less than two months after the world premiere in London. Stock also leads the Orchestra in the U.S. premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony on April 15, 1921.
On December 18, 1921, Richard Strauss returns to Chicago to lead the Orchestra in a special concert at the Auditorium Theatre. The program includes his Also sprach Zarathustra, Death and Transfiguration, and the love scene from his opera Feuersnot, along with several songs—“Morgen!,” “Wiegenlied,” “Freundliche Vision,” and “Ständchen”—with soprano Claire Dux.
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A Time for Reflection—A Message of Peace—a companion exhibit curated by the Rosenthal Archives of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with the Pritzker Military Museum & Library—will be on display in Symphony Center’s first-floor rotunda from October 2 through November 18, and the content also will be presented on CSO Sounds & Stories and the From the Archives blog.
This article also appears here. For event listings, please visit cso.org/armistice.
This exhibit is presented with the generous support of COL (IL) Jennifer N. Pritzker, IL ARNG (Retired), Founder and Chair, Pritzker Military Museum & Library, through the Pritzker Military Foundation.
Additional thanks to Shawn Sheehy and Jenna Harmon, along with the Arts Club of Chicago, Newberry Library, Poetry Foundation, and Ravinia Festival Association.
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Inaugurating its new thousand-watt transmitter, WMAQ used seven microphones in picking up the first Chicago Symphony Orchestra radio broadcast on December 10, 1925. Frederick Stock conducted at Orchestra Hall, and, seated in the organ loft with a clear view of the Orchestra, assistant conductor Eric DeLamarter operated the radio-control unit used to regulate the microphones (switching in and out, but not controlling volume) in order to produce the best possible balance.
The concert, a potpourri of popular favorites, included Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theodore Thomas’s arrangement of “Träume” from Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs with concertmaster Jacques Gordon, Saint-Saëns’s The Swan from The Carnival of the Animals with principal cello Alfred Wallenstein, and Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio italien. Interspersed throughout the program, contralto Sophie Braslau, accompanied by pianist Louise Linder, performed several songs (including Schubert’s “Der Erlkönig”) from WMAQ’s studio on the eighteenth floor of the LaSalle Hotel.*
Elmer Douglass in the Chicago Tribune called the broadcast “a marvelous success. When the Orchestra broke in with the soft opening tones of Halvorsen’s March of the Boyards, it was realized that all was well. It was phenomenally clear and pure, and, best of all, the true, pure, characteristic tones as though they were heard from a choice seat in Orchestra Hall itself. We could all but see the separate instruments.”
“An artistic and mechanical triumph,” reported the Chicago Daily News (which then also owned WMAQ). “The applause of the radio audience in the form of telephone calls, telegrams, letters, and postal cards is sweeping like an avalanche.”
Subsequent radio broadcasts were carried over a variety of stations, the longest syndication on WFMT from 1976 through 2001. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra returned to the airwaves in April 2007, syndicated throughout the U.S. by WFMT, featuring performances recorded live as well as recordings from its extensive discography. The first program included Miguel Harth-Bedoya leading Rossini’s Overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers, Yanov-Yanovsky’s Night Music: Voice in the Leaves, Chen and He’s The Butterfly Lovers with erhu soloist Betty Xiang, and Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma.
* The LaSalle Hotel, located on the northwest corner of LaSalle Street and Madison Street, was completed in 1909 and demolished in 1976. The lot currently is the home of Two North LaSalle Street, completed in 1979.
This article also appears here.
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During Sergei Prokofiev’s first visit to America, he appeared with the Orchestra as conductor and piano soloist in two U.S. premieres. He was soloist in his First Piano Concerto (under the baton of assistant conductor Eric DeLamarter), and after intermission he conducted his Scythian Suite.
“Prokofiev made his first Chicago appearances as pianist, conductor, and composer at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert yesterday afternoon, and in all three musical capacities proved himself a sensational figure, one who must be reckoned with in the future,” wrote Maurice Rosenfeld in the Chicago Daily News. “He is a remarkably gifted pianist; virile, full of exuberant activity, equipped with a wonderfully complete technique, extraordinary supple wrists which dash off octaves with lightning like rapidity and brilliance, steely fingers which reel forth scale passages of great clarity, and a touch which is directed to reproduce tones which range from mere whisperings to thunderous masses of sound. As a composer, he disclosed himself in his concerto for piano with orchestral accompaniment as a musician of great originality, as a writer who finds beauty in music in rhythmic combination more than in melodic lines, and emotional expression in masses of varying degrees of tones and contrasting dynamic changes.”
Over the next twenty years, Prokofiev returned regularly to Chicago to perform with the Orchestra, both as conductor and soloist. His December 1921 appearances included the world premiere of his Third Piano Concerto (and he conducted the world premiere of his Love for Three Oranges with the Chicago Opera Association at the Auditorium Theatre), and he led the U.S. premieres of his Divertimento in 1930 and the first suite from his ballet Romeo and Juliet in 1937.
This article also appears here.