Cossacks Back

Prime novelty of last year's concert season was the Don Cossack Russian Male Chorus (TIME, Nov. 17). The Don Cossacks, singers in a regiment stranded eleven years ago in a Bolshevik prison camp, won every U. S. audience which heard them with their perfect unity, their stunning crescendos, their fragile pianissimos. The U. S. likes its music obviously defined. The Don Cossacks sing very loudly or very softly, very high and very low. Boxofficially their short tour was last season's outstanding success. Last week from Manhattan they began a second tour. From New England to the Pacific Coast they will give 110 concerts, traveling by motor bus except when the weather is slippery or the jumps too long.

The Cossack chorus emphasizes its historic background by appearing in military tunics, breeches with a single scarlet stripe, and high, shiny riding boots. It has many another unique characteristic: Its members are all exiled from Soviet Russia (as men-without-a-country they travel on "Nansen" passports devised by the late Norwegian Explorer-Statesman Fridtjof Nansen, issued by the League of Nations) yet their organization would be sanctioned by the most ardent Communist. It is run on a strictly co-operative basis. Conductor Serge Jaroff takes no more of the profits than the least important of the choristers. But like any military commander he has complete command. No singer may be delinquent about rehearsals. Because of tardiness last year one man was forbidden to sing in any of the Manhattan concerts.

Conductor Jaroff, small and spry as a cricket, is the chorus' most compelling individual on & off stage. Last year's audiences marked also with special interest Cossack Tierekov, a bass said to have the lowest voice on record, and Cossack Ovtchinikov, whose falsetto is so high that the Don Cossacks are often suspected of concealing a woman in their ranks. Hostesses who entertained the Russians last year or who hired them as performing bears for parties, will remember: handsome Cossack Magnuschensky, the lady-killer, Cossack Kolesnikoff, a bright, understanding little fellow who has a score of anecdotes ready in English and is not averse to solo dancing.

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