Remembering Bryan Lathrop

This month marks the 100^th anniversary of the death of Bryan Lathrop.  Amassing a fortune in real estate and the insurance business, he became an extraordinary philanthropist in Chicago, supporting numerous organizations.  It was through his long-time service to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra that he and his wife Helen became close friends with the Glessners.

Bryan Lathrop was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1844.  His family moved to Chicago at the outbreak of the Civil War, Chicago being the home of his uncle Thomas Barbour Bryan.  Lathrop was sent to Europe to study and did not return to Chicago until 1865.  It was during his years in Europe that he developed a deep appreciation for art, culture and landscape design, which would guide his future endeavors.  He later noted:

“In Europe (the intelligent traveler) sees almost everywhere evidences of a sense of beauty . . . In America, almost everywhere he is struck by the want of it. . . In this new country of ours the struggle for existence has been intense, and the practical side of life has been developed while the aesthetic side has lain dormant.”

Upon his return to Chicago, Lathrop joined his uncle’s real estate investment practice.  The two men shared a great deal in common, including their appreciation for landscape gardening.  As such, it is not surprising that Bryan involved his nephew in the development of Graceland Cemetery, with Lathrop joining the board of managers in 1867.  When his uncle moved to Washington in 1877, Lathrop became the president of the board, guiding the development of the cemetery until his death nearly forty years later.  

Almost immediately, Lathrop engaged the services of a civil engineer by the name of Ossian C. Simonds, who would go on to become one of Chicago’s most important landscape architects.  Together they shared an understanding and appreciation for naturalistic landscapes, and their work at Graceland had a profound effect on not only the cemetery, but the development of landscape architecture in the United States. 

Lathrop became an early advocate for the development of parks in Chicago, and as vice president of the Lincoln Park board, led an effort to extend that park along the shore of Lake Michigan supporting the concept of naturalism in its design. 

In 1891, Lathrop and his wife Helen Aldis, whom he had married in 1875, commissioned Charles Follen McKim, of the firm McKim, Mead and White, to design their home at 120 East Bellevue Place.  Completed in time for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, the house was described by architect Alfred Hoyt Granger as “the most perfect piece of Georgian architecture in Chicago.”  McKim came to Chicago in early 1891 regarding his design for the Agricultural Building at the Fair, and it was at that time that he and Lathrop were brought together.  One of the few buildings in Chicago designed by the firm, the design brought Georgian Revival to the Gold Coast, and in less than a decade, it was the predominant style.  (The house has been owned and occupied by The Fortnightly since 1922, and was designated a Chicago landmark in 1973).

Vauxhall Bridge, 1861; James Abbott McNeill Whistler
(Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago)

Lathrop was a sophisticated and well-respected art collector, and the home was filled with his treasures.  Of particular significance was his collection of the works of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, the largest in the country. 

Bryan Lathrop became a trustee of the Orchestral Association in 1894 and four years later was named vice president.  In 1903, he was elected president and served in that capacity until his death.  It was under his leadership that the orchestra moved into its new home, Orchestra Hall, and that the current name, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was adopted in early 1913. 

First program using the Chicago Symphony Orchestra name, February 1913

Lathrop was a co-founder of the Chicago Real Estate Board, and developed an excellent reputation for handling large estates both in Chicago and in the East.  His other philanthropic activities included the Chicago Relief and Aid Society and the Newberry Library.

Lathrop died from heart disease at his Bellevue Place home in 1916.  As noted in Illinois, the Heart of the Nation by Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne:

“Bryan Lathrop, who died May 13, 1916, was a wealthy, generous, and public spirited citizen to whom the people of the city were indebted during his life time and since for his constructive work in behalf of several of Chicago’s cultural and philanthropic institutions.”

The funeral service was held in the chapel of Graceland Cemetery.  Frederick Stock, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, cancelled their concert in Buffalo, New York and returned to Chicago in time for the funeral.  Edgar Lee Masters wrote a commemorative poem about Lathrop specifically noting his support of music in Chicago, which was published in Poetry magazine.

Lathrop’s bequests were numerous including $700,000 to the Orchestra for the establishment of the Civic Music Student Orchestra, the predecessor of the current Civic Orchestra.  It was the largest gift ever made to the Orchestra up to that time.  (The orchestra also established the Bryan Lathrop Memorial Scholarship Fund in his memory, using a large gift from his sister Florence, the wife of Thomas Nelson Page, author and U.S. ambassador to Italy.)  His large collection of Whistler artworks was given to the Art Institute of Chicago and his library went to the Newberry.  Additional bequests were made to United Charities and Children’s Memorial Hospital.

Bryan Lathrop was buried in a large landscaped plot at Graceland Cemetery, with only a small unobtrusive headstone marking his grave.   Helen Lathrop died in 1935 at her summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine, and was interred beside her husband. 

A TRIBUTE TO FRANCES GLESSNER

In 1905, Bryan Lathrop was asked to submit a page to the calendar being prepared by the Monday Morning Reading Class as a surprise for Frances Glessner.  It was presented to her on her birthday, January 1, 1906.  For his page, Lathrop selected an excerpt from “Arcades,” a masque written by John Milton in 1634 to honor Alice Spencer, the Countess Dowager of Darby, on her 75^th birthday.  The selection of this excerpt says a great deal about Lathrop’s respect for Frances Glessner, as the piece extols the subject as being far superior to other noble women.  The excerpt reads:

“Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie,

To lull the daughters of Necessity,

And keep unsteady Nature to her law,

and the low world in measured motion draw

After the heavenly tune, which none can hear

Of human mold with gross unpurged ear.”

The Spirit of Music

On April 24, 1924, a memorial was unveiled in Grant Park honoring Theodore Thomas, founding music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Although designed as a lasting tribute to the man who established Chicago as a center for outstanding classical music, the monument itself has had a shaky history, and very nearly disappeared altogether.  In this article, we will explore the creation of the Theodore Thomas memorial and how it ended up at its current location just north of Balbo Drive.

The B. F. Ferguson Monument Fund

Benjamin Franklin Ferguson was a prominent Chicago lumber merchant.  His home, a massive brick Queen Anne style home completed in 1883, still stands in the West Jackson Boulevard landmark district.  When he died in 1905, Ferguson left a bequest of $1,000,000 for the establishment of a fund, the income of which was to be expended by the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago (of which John Glessner was a member) to fund public monuments.  Specifically, the income was to be used “in the erection and maintenance of enduring statuary and monuments in the whole or in part of stone, granite or bronze, in the parks, along the boulevards or in other public places, within the city of Chicago, Illinois, commemorating worthy men or women of America or important events of American history.” 

The first monument to be erected by the fund was the Fountain of the Great Lakes by Lorado Taft, dedicated in 1913 on the south terrace of the Art Institute of Chicago.  By the early 1920s, additional monuments included:

-Statue of the Republic, Daniel Chester French, sculptor, 1918 (Jackson Park)

-Alexander Hamilton, Bela Lyon Pratt, sculptor, 1918 (Grant Park)

-Illinois Centennial Monument, Evelyn B. Longman, sculptor, 1918 (Logan Square)

-Eugene Field Monument, Edward McCartan, sculptor, 1922 (Lincoln Park)

-Fountain of Time, Lorado Taft, sculptor, 1922 (Washington Park, Midway)

Sculptor Albin Polasek

By the time the massive Fountain of Time was dedicated in late 1922, discussion was already underway for a permanent memorial to Theodore Thomas, who had died in 1905.  The site selected was a location just south of the Art Institute, facing Orchestra Hall (now Symphony Center).

Czech-American sculptor Albin Polasek (1879-1965) was commissioned to create the work, which was titled “The Spirit of Music.”  Polasek began his career as a wood carver in Vienna, immigrating to the United States in his early twenties and settling in Philadelphia.  In 1916, he was invited to head the department of sculpture at the Art Institute, where he remained for over 30 years.  He retired to Winter Park, Florida in 1950 and his home and studio are open to the public as the Albin Polasek Museum andSculpture Gardens.

Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1924

An article in the Chicago Tribune, dated April 13, 1924, noted the following:

“Albin Polasek, head of the sculpture department of the Art Institute, will soon have the satisfaction of seeing his beautiful monument to the memory of Theodore Thomas erected in bronze . . . ‘The Spirit of Music,’ Polasek has called his memorial.  The figure is of heroic size and stands thirteen feet high.  She holds a lyre in her arm, the strings of which she has just struck, the act being indicated by her uplifted right hand.  With its granite pedestal the bronze figure will of course stand several feet higher than its thirteen feet.  The great seat just to the east is a semi-circular affair about forty feet in length.  Upon it figures of the orchestra are carved.  Polasek has done in this a truly powerful and significant piece of sculpture.  It is effective, simple, striking, decorative, impressive, and artistic.”

As noted in A Guide to Chicago’s Public Sculpture by Ira J. Bach and Mary Lackritz Gray (The University of Chicago Press, 1983), the bronze figure, actually 15 feet in height, was “to have the grandeur of a Beethoven symphony and to be ‘feminine . . . but not too feminine.’”  The guide also describes the hemispherical base upon which the figure stands, featuring “low relief figures of Orpheus playing his lyre, Chibiabos, from Longfellow’s ‘Song of Hiawatha’ singing, and a group of animals listening.”  Polasek insisted that the face peering out from a small classical mask at the lower end of the lyre was his own.

Howard Van Doren Shaw

Architect Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926) collaborated with Polasek on the memorial, designing the massive granite exedra and bench to display Polasek’s incised carving of the orchestra members being led by Thomas.  The back side of the exedra features a memorial panel with Thomas’ bust surrounded by the following inscription:

“Scarcely any many in any land has done so much for the musical education of the people as did Theodore Thomas in this country.  The nobility of his ideals with the magnitude of his achievement will assure him everlasting glory.  1835-1905.”

Dedication

The bronze figure was completed in 1923, the date noted on its base, but was not set into place and unveiled until April 24, 1924.  The dedication ceremony began at 4:00pm with a program and concert in Orchestra Hall.  Thomas championed German music, so it is not surprising that the works performed that afternoon included the Chorale and Fugue by Bach-Albert, the first movement from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, and the Prelude to the Mastersingers of Nuremberg by Wagner.  Charles H. Hamill gave an address on the life and work of Theodore Thomas.  Charles L. Hutchinson, president of the Art Institute and the B. F. Ferguson Monument Fund, presented the memorial, which was accepted by Edward J. Kelly, president of the South Park Commissioners.  (The South Park District merged with others to form the Chicago Park District in 1934).

The assembled audience then adjourned to the location of the monument immediately south of the Art Institute.  Thomas’s daughter, Mrs. D. N. B. Sturgis, unveiled the memorial “while trumpets played a theme from the ninth symphony of Beethoven and crowds stood with bared heads.”

Later History

In 1941, the monument was moved to the north end of Grant Park, very near to the original peristyle designed by Edward H. Bennett.  That structure was demolished in 1953 when the Grant Park underground parking garage was constructed, and The Spirit of Music was placed in storage.  When it was re-erected five years later near Buckingham Foundation, only the bronze figure was installed.

In the late 1980s, the original granite sections of the exedra were found along the edge of Lake Michigan where they had been dumped.  They were retrieved by the Chicago Park District and restored, and the present setting for the memorial was created at the northeast corner of Michigan Avenue and Balbo Drive.  The rededication of the monument took place on October 18, 1991, concluding the year long celebration of the CSO's centennial season.  Sir Georg Solti was joined by Rafael Kubelik and Daniel Barenboim for the ceremony, which was followed that evening by a concert recreating the very first performance of the orchestra in October 1891.  

The adjacent Spirit of Music Garden has for many years now been home to the popular Summer Dance, continuing, in a somewhat different vein, the legacy of music in the cultural fabric of the City of Chicago.

Statue Stories

In August 2015, The Spirit of Music was one of thirty statues in the city to be featured in “Statue Stories,” funded by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, and produced by Sing London.  At each of the thirty sites, visitors can swipe their smart phone and get a call back from a celebrity, telling the story of the monument.  The Spirit of Music story is read by soprano Renee Fleming, creative consultant with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.  For more information, visit Statue Stories Chicago.

Rose Fay Thomas

On March 29, 2016, music historian Joan Bentley Hoffman will present a lecture on the life and accomplishments of Rose Fay Thomas, the first is a series of three spring lectures exploring women prominent in the advancement of classical music at the turn of the 20^th century.  (Additional lectures will examine Frances Glessner on April 28 and Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler on May 24.  For more information, or to reserve tickets, visit www.glessnerhouse.org/events/).   In this article, we will look briefly at the life of Rose Fay Thomas.

Rose Fay arrived in Chicago in 1878, taking up residence with her brother Charles.  She became acquainted with Frances Glessner through her sister Amy, an accomplished pianist, and one of the first women to study in Europe.  In May of 1890, Rose married Theodore Thomas, the nationally-recognized music director who had brought his celebrated orchestra to Chicago annually since 1869.  Soon after, Thomas accepted the position to establish a permanent orchestra in Chicago, the present day Chicago Symphony Orchestra, now celebrating its 125^th anniversary season.

Rose Thomas became her husband’s able help mate and most ardent supporter.  In a letter to Frances Glessner dated May 3, 1892, she noted in part:

“I want to tell Mr. Glessner how much pleasure his letter gave to Mr. Thomas.  He has worked himself almost to death this winter to bring the orchestra up to the highest standard, and make the concerts as perfect as possible. . . “

Regarding the criticisms he was receiving, she went on to acknowledge the Glessners:

‘for the generous sympathy, and support of those far seeing, and noble minded men and women, like yourself and Mr. Glessner, who can grasp the situation, and understand that Mr. Thomas is here to establish a great Art Work, and to make Chicago one of the first musical centers of the world.”

During the World’s Columbian Exposition, for which Theodore Thomas was placed in charge of the extensive musical program, Rose Thomas organized the music clubs of the country into the National Federation of Music Clubs.  She served as the first president and was later appointed honorary president, a position she held until her death.

In August 1894, the Thomases visited the Glessners at their summer estate, The Rocks, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  While driving through the surrounding countryside:

“Mrs. Thomas was in raptures over one of the views and locations and came back thoroughly in love with it . . . The Thomases went to Bethlehem and bought about fourteen acres out of Whitcomb’s farm – for which they paid $800.  They have been wild with enthusiasm and interest ever since.”

Two years later, the Thomases completed their home, Felsengarten, on the property, with Rose Thomas personally supervising much of the work.  From this point forward, they spent their summers at their beloved summer estate, as neighbors of the Glessners.  Rose Thomas became an accomplished gardener, frequently sharing plants with Frances Glessner, and in 1904 Rose Thomas published an account of her estate, entitled Our Mountain Garden, a copy of which she presented to Frances Glessner for Christmas.

Rose Thomas was passionate about the abolition of cruelty toward animals.  In January 1899, she convened a small group of ladies to organize what evolved into the Anti-Cruelty Society.  Two months later, by-laws were adopted, and Rose Thomas was appointed president, one of the first women to head a Humane Society in the country.

(Today, the Rose Fay Thomas Society recognizes those individuals who have made planned gifts for the ongoing support of the Anti-Cruelty Society). 

Theodore Thomas died of pneumonia on January 4, 1905, just two weeks after the official opening of Orchestra Hall.  His widow soon gave up their home at 43 Bellevue Place, moving to an apartment at 2000 S. Indiana Avenue, just a few blocks from the Glessners.  Before the move, she came to stay with the Glessners for much needed rest, Frances Glessner noting:

“Mrs. Thomas came in the afternoon to stay with us.  She brought her little dog.  She was perfectly worn out with all the hard work and anxiety she has gone through.  I gave her the big corner room with a bright fire in it – and have left her alone as much as possible.  She says it is the first rest she has had since October and has visibly improved since coming.”

She remained a champion of her husband’s work and in 1911 published Memoirs of Theodore Thomas, dedicating the volume to her brother Charles Norman Fay, “the best and truest friend of Theodore Thomas and the chief promoter of his art.” 

When she died in 1929, she was given a military funeral in recognition of her significant service assisting enlisted men as a director of the Soldiers and Sailors Club.  She was the first woman in New England and only the fourth in the United States to be accorded a military funeral up to that time.  She was interred beside her husband at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Today, the Anti-Cruelty Society and the National Federation of Music Clubs serve as the enduring legacy of this fascinating and inspiring individual.

John J. Glessner and the CSO

On January 21, 1936, the Chicago Tribune reported the death of two men well known in their circles – King George V of England and John Jacob Glessner.  Glessner had died the previous day in his beloved Prairie Avenue home just six days before his 93^rd birthday.   In the weeks that followed, tributes were written and published by a number of organizations in which he was prominently involved, including International Harvester which he had helped to found in 1902, and Rush Medical College, where he served as president emeritus. 

One of the most heartfelt tributes came from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra which had been at the center of John Glessner’s life for 45 years.   The full-page tribute was written by Charles H. Hamill, president of The Orchestral Association, and placed opposite the program page for the concerts of January 23 and 24, 1936.  In remembrance of the 80^th anniversary of John Glessner’s passing, we reprint Hamill’s beautiful tribute in its entirety.

John J. Glessner

On the 20^th of January, 1936, came the end of the long and useful life of John J. Glessner.  To no one man has The Orchestral Association been more beholden.  He was one of the small group of men who in the Association’s first years of struggle were loyal in their support and generous in their gifts.  The depression following 1893 made the early years a time of great difficulty for both the Association and its friends, but Mr. Glessner never flinched.  During those years before Orchestra Hall was built he contributed over $12,000 and then was one of the largest contributors to the building and the later reduction of the mortgage.  Only last year he made his latest gift, bringing his total to nearly forty-five thousand dollars.  But it was not only by his contributions he showed his interest.  Since 1898 he has served as a Trustee and by his constant attendance on meetings and his sound judgment has brought much needed help to his associates.  Modest to the point of self-effacement, he was clean of thought, and, when occasion required, vigorous in expression, and always with the Association’s welfare vividly in mind.

He and his devoted wife while she lived were always in their box to delight in the music their generosity made possible, and in their hospitable home men of the Orchestra and their musical friends found frequent and charming entertainment.  The loss to the Association of his wise counsel and the loss to his fellow Trustees of his fine companionship find their only comfort in the reflection that he has been discharged from the pains and penalties of extreme old age.

Charles H. Hamill,

President.

The tone poem “Death and Transfiguration” by Richard Strauss was played in Glessner’s memory at the concert on Tuesday February 11, 1936, conducted by the Glessners’ dear friend, Frederick Stock.  In the program for January 7 and 8, 1937, The Orchestral Association gratefully acknowledged the receipt of a $50,000 bequest under the will of John J. Glessner. 

BELOW:  Two photos showing one of the Glessners’ great-great-great granddaughters exploring their box at Symphony Center during Glessner House Museum’s 125^th Anniversary Gala on September 13, 2012.  (Photos by Tim Walters)

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra 125th Anniversary Season

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 1926

Over the weekend of September 18-19, 2015, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra launched its 125^th anniversary season.  John and Frances Glessner were deeply involved with the orchestra from the time of its inception in 1891, raised considerable funds for the erection of Orchestra Hall in 1904, and were generous supporters throughout their lifetimes.  Theodore Thomas and Frederick Stock, the first two music directors who led the symphony for more than 50 years, were intimate friends.

John J. Glessner

Mayor Rahm Emanuel issued a proclamation in August 2015 honoring the symphony for its 125^th anniversary.  Appropriately, the proclamation acknowledged the significant support provided by John Glessner in the first decades of the symphony’s history.  In honor of the CSO 125^th anniversary season, we reprint the proclamation in its entirety below.

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

CITY OF CHICAGO

RAHM EMANUEL

MAYOR

PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performs its annual free Concert for Chicago in Millennium Park this year on Friday, September 18, 2015, and the Symphony Ball gala at Symphony Center on Saturday, September 19, 2015, as it launches its 125^th Anniversary season; and

WHEREAS the first meeting for the incorporation of The Orchestral Association was held at the Chicago Club on December 17, 1890, during which a board of five trustees was elected to serve and a group of fifty-one businessmen, including Chicago pioneers Armour, Field, Glessner, McCormick, Potter, Pullman, Ryerson, Sprague and Wacker volunteered to serve as guarantors, each pledging their continued financial support; and

Theodore Thomas, Music Director, 1891-1905

WHEREAS Theodore Thomas, then the most popular conductor in America, was engaged as the Orchestra’s first music director and led the Chicago Orchestra’s first concerts at the Auditorium Theatre on October 16 and 17, 1891, conducting music of Wagner, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Dvořák; and

Fundraising brochure for the new Orchestra Hall, 1903

WHEREAS Orchestra Hall, designed by CSO trustee and Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham and completed in 1904 at a cost of $750,000, saw its dedicatory concert, led by Thomas, on December 14 of that year; and

Frederick Stock, Music Director, 1905-1942

Photo inscribed "To my best friends,
Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Glessner"

WHEREAS the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is a long-standing international cultural ambassador for Chicago and the United States of America having completed 58 international tours, performing in 29 countries on five continents, and

WHEREAS in 2011 the CSO and the Chicago Symphony Chorus’s recording of Verdi’s Requiem led by Maestro Muti won two Grammy awards, and, to date, recordings by the CSO have earned a total of 62 Grammy awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; and

WHEREAS the Chicago Symphony Orchestral Association has been an active collaborator with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events in the development and execution of a Cultural Plan for Chicago, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant, Yo-Yo Ma, and the CSO’s Negaunee Music Institute continually work to share live classical music with all;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, RAHM EMANUEL, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO, do hereby proclaim September 18-19, 2015 to be CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 125^TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON OPENING WEEKEND CELEBRATION and encourage all Chicagoans to participate.

Dated this 3^rd day of August, 2015.

Rahm Emanuel

Mayor

Ladies, please remove your hats!

A century ago, Frances Glessner created quite a stir when she made a simple request to the members of her Monday Morning Reading Class – please remove your hats.  The request made the news, with the Chicago Tribune reporting that it was “one of the greatest sensations Prairie avenue has ever known.”  To further complicate matters for the well-dressed lady of the day, a similar order had been issued by the management of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 

On February 20, 1915, the Tribune published an article entitled “Hats Off Edict Rules at Mrs. Glessner’s.”  The article reads as follows:

“The members of Mrs. John J. Glessner’s Monday morning reading class, which for twenty years has been a feature of south side society have met with a great adventure this winter.  It is needless perhaps to describe here the beatitudes of this Monday class, the smartly arranged women who file in from half past 10 onwards, the glossy furs, the becoming hats, the latest importation in work bags over the arm.

“Tout Prairie avenue” is present and not only is the latest reading provided by Mrs. Horace Kennedy, but a delightful informal luncheon is offered by the hospitable hostess, whose Prairie avenue mansion at Eighteenth street has the fine hardy lines of a Roman stronghold.

“The class, numbering about forty or fifty, sits around the long library.  This fall, simultaneously with the stirring order to unbonnet all patrons of the Symphony concert, came the request that members of the Monday class should remove their hats during the morning.

“This created one of the greatest sensations Prairie avenue has ever known, for the hat of the woman who has ordered her household, looked over her mail, telephoned several times, and been to market, all before 10 o’clock, usually covers a multitude of sins of omission.

“But, trying as it was, the ground rules have obtained, and careful observers say that the women of Prairie avenue are now much better coiffed than formerly.

“Although the unhatting rule does not extend to the boxes at the Friday concert – and how one does enjoy those women in the loges whose hats and hatpins are not dropping to the floor every few minutes – it is noticeable that Mrs. Glessner always sits hatless in her box, the center of the grand tier, and in no way profits by the immunity to which her location entitles her.”

The issue did not end there.  Two months later, the Tribune ran another article entitled “Unbonneting Rule at Symphony Irksome” written by a columnist identified only as “Cinderella.”  In this article, we learn a bit more about the impact of the order, the journalist vividly describing what a woman must go through to comply - the picture of which “would be enlivening in vaudeville.”

“The rule to unbonnet during the concerts grows more and more unpopular.  It is considered a very arbitrary ruling and rather inconsistent, as the box holders, who are amply supplied with hooks and chairs and mirrors and extra space, are outside the law and sit triumphantly in their most becoming hats looking down upon the sea of disordered hair and oddly variegated coiffures beneath them.

“Always excepting Mrs. Glessner, of course, who has the central box in the horseshoe and takes off her hat, presumably because she likes to.”

“The unhatting is especially irksome to certain elderly ladies who have been subscribers to the concerts ever since their beginning years ago.

“Their experience now at the erstwhile beloved symphony concert would be enlivening in vaudeville.”

“First comes the handbag, then the wraps folded across the knees, then a scarf, then a small knit jacket.  Piled on top of that a muff and fur stole and high on top of the pyramid the hat perched jauntily with its hatpins, effectually cutting off from its owner’s view the graceful and poetic evolutions of Mr. Stock leading the orchestra.

“The lady desires her handkerchief, pokes for it in her handbag, and, O, help! the whole thing slides off her lap into the aisle.

“Younger women do not wear so many wraps, but they positively hate going forth in the late afternoon gayeties with their hats on crooked.

“After all, this unhatting phase seems rather provincial, and more worthy of a small German town under military rule, than of a large city.  One hears that the back seats and the last row of side seats have suddenly become very popular because the women in them are permitted up to date to wear their hats.”

All the while, Frances Glessner was sitting in Box M at Orchestra Hall, no doubt amused at all the fuss caused by a simple rule that she herself had been observing for years.

Maier and Pattison, the "Piano Twins"

As two of the most ardent supporters of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from the times of its inception in 1891, John and Frances Glessner were afforded the privilege of meeting many of the greatest composers and performers of their day.  A tradition that evolved under the conductorship of Frederick Stock was for these musicians to dine with the Glessners on Friday evening, when in town performing with the Orchestra.  During the 1920s, the famous two-piano team of Maier and Pattison were invited guests at 1800 S. Prairie Avenue on at least three occasions. 

Lee Pattison was born on July 22, 1890 in Grand Rapids, Wisconsin and studied piano under Carl Baermann (a pupil of Franz Liszt) at the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.  Upon his graduation in 1910, he was offered a position on the faculty.  Guy Maier was born on August 15, 1891 in Buffalo, New York.  Showing talent at an early age, he also enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music where he, too, studied under Baermann, and became acquainted with Lee Pattison.  After his graduation in 1913, the two set out for Europe where they studied under the eminent pianist Arthur Schnabel in Berlin.  They returned to Boston in 1914, and Maier made his solo debut as a concert pianist soon after.

After hearing a two-piano performance by Harold Bauer and Ossip Gabrilowitsch (both of whom would also later be guests of the Glessners), Maier and Pattison began to perform together with two-piano compositions and arrangements.  During World War I, Maier volunteered with the YMCA as an entertainer and Pattison joined the infantry, and they continued to perform together, giving two-piano recitals for the American troops in Paris.  After the armistice in 1918, they performed at a recital in Paris that was attended by both President Woodrow Wilson and the French Premier Georges Clemenceau.  They returned to the United States and began concertizing extensively across the country playing classical works written for two pianos as well as writing two-piano arrangements of other works.  Pioneers in acoustic recording, they produced numerous popular recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company.  Their reputation grew through the 1920s and they were dubbed the “Piano Twins.”

Chicago Tribune, February 10, 1924

Frances Glessner recorded that Guy Maier and Lee Pattison were guests for dinner in their Prairie Avenue home on February 15, 1924.  The Piano Twins were in Chicago to perform Bach’s Concerto for three pianos with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the third pianist being Arthur Shattuck (also a frequent guest at the Glessner home).  It was the first performance of the Bach concerto by the symphony.  In addition, Maier and Pattison performed another work, Carl Philip Emanuel Bach’s Concerto for two pianos, the score of which they were said to have discovered in the basement of a Chicago music store the previous fall.  They also performed a new work, “King Estmere,” by Leo Sowerby, based on an old English ballad of the same name. 

On February 16, 1924, the Chicago Tribune music critic Edward Moore wrote the following about Maier and Pattison’s performance:

“Out of a considerable cargo of two and three piano music of the oldest and newest composers, each item a first performance on the Chicago Symphony orchestra programs, two facts swung into plain view at Orchestra hall yesterday afternoon.  One is that Leo Sowerby belongs in the front row of modern composers.  The other is that Guy Maier and Lee Pattison in conjunction with Frederick Stock and the orchestra make an ideal combination to show where he is.”

Maier and Pattison were guests of the Glessners again on May 13, 1925.  Although they were not performing with the orchestra at the time, they were in Chicago as Pattison was teaching masters classes at the Gunn School of Music, located in the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Avenue.

The “Piano Twins” returned to Chicago in March 1928 as part of a national tour, performing a recital at the Studebaker Theater on March 11 and then with the Chicago Symphony later in the month.  Of the Studebaker recital, Tribune music critic Hazel Moore wrote:

“Maier and Pattison, those famous duo artists of the piano, timed their recital at the Studebaker theater yesterday afternoon to ride in on the pianistic wave of the last few days.  That the wave had not subsided was amply shown by the large audience that greeted their coming.

“Excepting for the presence of Belle Tannenbaum Friedman, who ably assisted from a third piano the Bach concerto in D minor for three pianos, their program was of the general variety and quality that these artists always choose.

“The familiar Mozart sonata in D major sparkled lightly on its way, the Bach already mentioned was clearly welcome, and the Stravinsky ‘Three Little Pieces,’ written for teacher and pupil, in which Mr. Pattison would impersonate the teacher and Mr. Maier the pupil, were entirely amusing.  Mr. Pattison was an exacting teacher and Mr. Maier a pat pupil.  Certainly they were Stravinsky in facetious mood.

“Quite another mood was that of Henry Eichheim’s ‘Siamese Sketch,’ written for this pair of seekers for the light of new music.  Perhaps it was a little long, but the mood and the bells, no clear, now blurred and mingled with other sounds of the orient, were there.  Mr. Maier’s clever arrangement of the two Chopin etudes, the familiar ‘Butterfly’ and ‘Black Key’ etudes, was received with the delighted applause that it deserves.  The wave of the Maier and Pattison popularity is a long one, with no rocks ahead.”

Chicago Tribune, March 24, 1928

They dined with the Glessners on March 23, 1928, the same date they began their weekend performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Those concerts included a performance of Mozart’s E flat concerto and a reprise of the Sowerby “King Estmere” that they had first performed with the orchestra four years earlier.

In 1931, the pair embarked on a farewell tour of the United States and pursued separate careers, although they did appear together again March 1937 during a reunion concert on the stage of the Works Progress Administration Theatre of Music in New York.

Maier gave recitals for children at schools, coupled with his “musical travelogues,” sometimes as a soloist, and at times with his wife, Lois, also a talented pianist.  Of these concerts, the Los Angeles Times reported, “He is not only clever as a pianist, but the way he keeps the attention of a grammar-school audience of squirming, tired-at-the-end-of-the-day youngsters is nothing short of miraculous.  It is all fun to him and he makes the children ‘see into’ the music he plays with brief and witty words.”  He taught at the University of Michigan for ten years beginning in 1921, and later taught at the Juilliard School in New York, and the University of California at Los Angeles, also writing regular monthly columns for the musical publication The Etude.  In 1937, he was appointed the regional director of the WPA music project in New York, a position held by Pattison two years earlier.  The Sherwood Music School in Chicago awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1940.  He died in Santa Monica, California on September 24, 1956.

Pattison performed as a soloist and also with the violinist Jacques Gordon and the Gordon String Quartet.  In addition to composing and arranging classical works for piano, two pianos, voice, and choral groups, he taught at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University.  In New York, he also served as the General Director of the American Lyric Theatre and as manager of the spring 1937 season of the Metropolitan Opera.  In 1941, he was appointed Professor of Music at Scripps College in Claremont, California, a position he held until he retirement in 1962.  The trustees later named the Lee Pattison Recital Hall in his honor.  He died on December 22, 1966 in Claremont.

Frances Glessner Lee and her "Baron Vitta" violin

On November 3^rd and 4^th, the Borromeo String Quartet visited the Chicago area to perform two concerts.  Of particular interest is the violin used by Nicholas Kitchen, first violinist of the Quartet - an extraordinary Guarneri del Gesu made in 1730 and known as the “Baron Vitta.”  From 1929 until 1958, that instrument was owned by Frances Glessner Lee.  This article will focus on that chapter in the long history of this celebrated instrument.

Frances Glessner, c. 1896

As a teen, Frances “Fanny” Glessner played the violin, as did her brother George.  A violin on display atop the piano in the parlor of the Glessner House Museum recalls this fact.  Although there is no evidence she played in later years, music was always a central part of her life, and she continued the extraordinary support of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra that her parents began at the time of its founding in 1891. 

The Baron Vitta in 1926

In early 1929, Frances Glessner Lee purchased the Baron Vitta violin from the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of New York, dealers in rare old violins founded in 1856.  She paid $30,000 for the instrument and although the motivation that led to the purchase is not documented, she immediately entered into an agreement to loan it to Remo Bolognini, assistant concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Remo Bolognini

Bolognini, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1898, is generally regarded as South America’s greatest violinist.  He began the study of the violin at the age of seven, and his first recital six years later made him well known throughout the continent.  After performing for three years with his brother Astor and Alberto Castellano at the Palace Theatre in Buenos Aires, he accepted the position of concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra in that city.  In 1927 he came to the United States to assume the position of assistant concertmaster with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Frederick Stock.  After the conclusion of the 1928-1929 season, he left the orchestra and traveled to Europe where he studied under the Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye and concertized extensively.  At one of those concerts he was heard by Arturo Toscanini, who engaged him to be the second concertmaster with his orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, formed in 1937.  He remained with that orchestra until 1954 when he became the assistant concertmaster with the Baltimore Symphony.  He died in 1977.

In 1939, Frances Glessner Lee requested that the violin be returned to her, and after an unsuccessful attempt to sell the instrument, she loaned it later that year to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which gave it to their concertmaster, John Weicher, for his exclusive use.  The violin attracted a great deal of attention in the media, one article referring to it as “one of the most valuable in the world.”

John Weicher with the Baron Vitta; Hans Lange (at left), assistant conductor, and

Frederick stock, conductor, look on, 1939.

John Weicher, Jr. was born in Chicago in 1904 and was the son of a violinist from Bohemia, who immigrated to Chicago in 1893.  In 1912, the father took his eight-year-old son to Prague where he spent four years studying at the conservatory.  They were forced to return to Chicago in 1916 due to the World War and in 1919, Weicher joined the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the CSO training orchestra, during its inaugural season.  During the 1920s he played with the Cleveland and Seattle orchestras and returned to Europe for further studies.  In 1929, he took over for Bolognini as assistant concertmaster with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and was elevated to concertmaster in 1937.  He remained in that position for 23 seasons, 1937-1959 and again in 1962-1963, serving as principal second violin from 1959-1962 and again from 1963-1969.  He died in July 1969 at the age of 65.

John Weicher attempting to "pawn" the Baron Vitta

An amusing anecdote in the history of the instrument took place in March 1940, when John Weicher attempted to pawn the instrument to several pawnbrokers in Chicago.  Weicher bet that pawnbrokers would recognize the violin was of great value; his friend Pence James, a reporter with the Chicago Daily News, said no.  Weicher took the violin to four pawn shops asking for a $100 loan, but three of the four didn’t recognize its value, one pawnbroker stating “A hundred dollars? I can’t give you that kind of money for a fiddle like this.”  The fourth pawnbroker did recognize that the violin had great value, but was suspicious of the whole transaction, thinking it was a gag.  An article about the incident was published in the Chicago Daily News on March 6, 1940.

Szymon Goldberg

The violin was returned to Frances Glessner Lee in 1949 at which time she consigned it for sale with Rembert Wurlitzer in New York.  The instrument was finally sold in 1958 to Szymon Goldberg for $15,000.  Goldberg (1909-1993) was a distinguished Polish-born American violinist and conductor, and founder and long-time conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra in Amsterdam.  He taught at Yale, Juilliard, the Curtis Institute and elsewhere and one of his young students was Nicholas Kitchen, first violinist with the Borromeo String Quartet, who now plays his teacher’s violin.  

Nicholas Kitchen

For more information on Goldberg and Kitchen and their history with the instrument, see the online article published November 5, 2013 by WFMT entitled “Music Outsourced Brings Wonders.”  To hear Kitchen’s 2009 performance of Bach on the instrument, click here.