Plume

Two months ago the passing of Professor Leopold Auer left vacant the title of "greatest teacher of the violin." The late great Hungarian-- taught Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz. Who would most worthily wear his plume? Last week in Manhattan the Juilliard Graduate School of Music appointed as his successor Louis Persinger, teacher of the contemporary child prodigies Yehudi Menuhin and Ruggiero Ricci.

Louis Persinger's career holds no breathless tales of splendor or of revolution as did his aged predecessor's. He was born in Rochester, Ill., spent his early years in Oklahoma and Colorado. But his musical grounding was of the best. He studied in Europe with Nikisch and Ysaye, served as concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, gave many successful recitals throughout the Continent. When he settled in the U. S. it was as concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony. From San Francisco, home of Menuhin and Ricci, spread his first fame as a teacher.

Last year Persinger commuted between Manhattan and Cleveland's Institute of Music. His Juilliard appointment will preclude such a schedule, keep him in Manhattan where his family now lives-- his wife who was Angela Gianelli, an able pianist; Louis Jr., 12, also studying the piano; Rolf, 10, who shows marked talent for the violin. Since the spectacular success of his prodigies he has been besieged by parents, some with precocious, some with backward children. He is ignorantly supposed to be able to develop genius even where it does not exist. Like Auer, he employs simple methods, plays to his pupils a great deal, is at the same time careful not to stifle their individuality. Like Auer his dominant traits are sweetness and a gentle, kindly humor. Like Josef Hofmann, Albert Spalding, Mischa Elman, Alfred Hertz, Pablo Casals, Maria Jeritza and many another famed musician, he is a brilliant chess-player. In San Francisco he used to carry a little chessboard in his pocket. It was no unusual sight to see him take it out on a trolley car, set up a game.

Children's Opera

In San Francisco last week shivers of delight scooted up and down many a small spine. In open-mouthed wonder children watched snowy-white angels float down from the sky; an old witch ride madly astride her broomstick, pausing only to tickle the nose of a raggedy boy waiting to be fattened and baked into gingerbread. The climax came when his yellow-haired sister saved him with the wave of a magic juniper-branch and a hocus-pocus formula, when together they pushed the witch into the oven stoked for them. For children no moment of the performance approaches this supreme one in Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel.

Children seldom care whether a story is old or new. They do not concern selves with such portentous events as operatic premieres. It was the them-grown-ups last week who appeared most impressed by the first U. S. performance of Maurice Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges (A Naughty Boy's Dream), also written for children and given on a double bill with Hansel und Gretel. They were importantly aware that Ravel is considered the foremost contemporary French composer. Some had heard him two years ago with the San Francisco Symphony, knew his suave, mocking Valse, his lovely Mother-Goose Suite, his high-powered Bolero. Prepared to be charmed, they watched the unfolding of his latest fantasy about a boy who shirked his studies, teased his pets. Clock, chairs, teapot came to life. Cat, squirrel, frog and bat took on human ways. It was all delightfully fragile and the more music-wise waxed enthusiastic over the smart orchestration which suggested perfectly so detailed a bit as the Boy stupidly mulling over his mathematics. Soprano Queena Mario, all agreed, made an irresistibly piquant Boy. But the children liked her better when she came out as Gretel, with great holes in her stockings, with pigtails stiff as twigs.

*Auer was generally thought of as a Russian. He lived the greater part of his life in St. Petersburg, taught at the Imperial Conservatory until the Revolution.

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