The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-11-15
Gives Two Concerts at the Big
Auditorium.
POPULARITY
Is Diversified and
Generally Satisfactory.
Miss Jeanette Powers Makes
Decided Hit.

| Sousa's band returned to Topeka
| for two concerts at the Auditorium,
Thursday after an absence of seven
years and made the accustomed hit.
| There was an average matinee audi
| once and over thousand persons at
| tended the evening concert. The pro-
| grammes were arranged with due re-
| gard to the wide diversity of taste to
| be found in the average brass band
audience. The numbers ranged from
| Les Preludes of List. at the matinee
concert, and the Peer Gynt suite at
| night, to the frothiest of the Sousa
| marches. The encores were all "popu-
| lar" but the good things were I'M
| hackneyed, so far as western concert
| audiences are concerned. And really
| it Is about time we were getting a
| change.
Sousa is undeniably a great leader
and his band is one of the best in the
business-the people who like brass
band to be a brass band, simply that
and nothing more, say The best. But
opinions will always differ about such
things, and any way comparisons are
odious. Suffice it to say that the
Sousa band includes a small army of
thoroughly trained artists, completely
under the influence of their leader
who is himself Gin spite of the
marches) a musician of the highest
gifts temperamentally and intellec-
tually. His reading of Les Preludes
yesterday afternoon was a triumph.
All the best effects of this Characters
tic effort of the magical and versatile
List were brought out by the band,
and the Interpretation and rendition
left nothing to be desired whether as
to the intellectual, the emotional, the
poeticaI or the technical requirements
of this superb composition. The Peer
Gynt suite of Grieg at the evening
concert was another magnificent num- |
Ti6 iY1C or a
breadth and power, vivid conception |
of the mystical and poetical beauties |
of this alluring epic which could not |
have been excelled.
There is no lack in Sousa as a band |
master Sousa as a composer leaves
something to be desired still. How
ever he got the title of the March |
King this writer insists that he never
earned it. His best march is liberty
Bell and it can't be compared to Sor-
rentino's Willow Grove or 1nnes' Love
is King Time was when there was
new Sousa march every other week
and everybody whistled it. OF late
wears they have declined. In popular
favor and it is isafesto say, that Pow,
hatan's Daughter, heard at beth scon-
certs yesterday will not make any ire
mendous success. Still 1t has stir
ring passage for trombones and is bet
ter than some of the others. In his
more pretentious compositions, Sousa
also falls short of the mark of a great
COMPOSER He gets some good effects.
but that's because he's a band master
and he seems always to have written
to produce the effects. rather than to
express any clear, we'll defined musical
concept The band plays his suites,
Looking Upward and The Last DAYS
of Pompeii superbly but they do not
stimulate the Imagination or linger in
the memory.
The bands so1oists are all artists of
a high order. Miss Jeanette Powers.
yiolinist who has been with Sousa for
a number of seasons and played in
Topeka when the band was here last,
was enthusiastically received and de-
served all the applause her perform
ance elected. She is promising
Young artist and has already achieved
much. For a young girl her tech
nfuue of both the right and the left
hand. but especially her bowling which
is snlendidly bold and free, is unusual.
Then. too, she gives evidence of being
there with the gray matter-the cere-
brum. the cerebellum and the medulla
obIoneata, and plays. not like a clever
merely, but like woman
with a heart and mind. Into the bar
gain she is pretty petite and attrac-
tice She'll get along
Miss Lucy Allen the soprano, has a
good big resonant voice. best in its
upper register. Mr. Herbert l..
clarke the cornetist is a finished ar
list. complete master of his instru
ment All of the soloists were well
received and responded to encores.