THE third year of Sunday afternoon recitals at the Pan American Union has come to a close. The 1945-46 season was marked by more numerous and more varied performances than had been anticipated when one Sunday afternoon, early in January 1943, the Pan American Union opened its doors for the first time to a public which had long sought entry to the building on other than a weekday. At that time, the third year of war had brought to Washington an enormously increased civil service personnel, and the city thronged with military service men and women stationed here for the duration or en route to other parts. To offer its share of cultural diversion to the newcomers and to acquaint them with the activities of a unique institution, the Pan American Union offered a series of Sunday afternoon programs. The presentation of a motion picture was to alternate with a music recital, and Latin American art exhibits were to be shown concurrently. Music programs were not new at the Pan American Union. Formal evening concerts, with admittance by invitation to an audience of statesmen, diplomats, and other prominent persons, had been instituted in 1924, and had been presented since then on an average of at least four times a year, either in the Aztec gardens or in the Hall of the Americas. Sunday afternoon recitals were a new venture, however. They are not so lengthy as the evening concerts, usually lasting less than threequarters of an hour; and the musicians are

pianists or soloists who appear with piano accompaniment but without the orchestral or band accompaniment which characterizes the evening programs. Sunday afternoon artists perform at the invitation of the Pan American Union, without professional fee or traveling expense allowance. They may be professionals or amateurs, and are often young Latin American musicians studying in the vicinity of Washington, or musicians or music students of the United States who have acquired a Latin American repertory.

The essential difference in the structure of a program by a Latin American artist and one from the United States is that the former program may be composed of European, North American, or South American music, while the latter must consist exclusively of music of the countries members of the Pan American Union. It is felt that the musical stature of a country can be shown as well by the artistic and technical achievement of its native musicians as by the interpretation and performance of its music by artists of the United States. Wide scope is allowed the performing artists in their choice of program material; the music may be folk, popular, or "serious" in character.

Many of the soloists at Sunday afternoon recitals in former years were known through the conservatory, radio, or concert hall in their own countries. Many were preparing for recitals in the larger music centers of this country. Argentina was represented by Eva Iaci, pianist;

Courtesy of the Music Division

FLORENCIA RAITZIN
Argentine pianist

Brazil by Egydio de Castro e Silva, pianist, and Isaac Feldman, violinist. René Amengual, a Chilean composer of increasing eminence, and his compatriot Blanca Renard gave separate piano recitals. A program of Peruvian folk-songs was presented by Isabel Granda de Fuller, who played her own guitar accompaniments; and Angélica Morales, also of Peru, appeared in a piano recital. The Venezuelan tenor Juan Alvarado was heard in a program of folk and popular songs of his country. The West Indies were represented in past concerts by Graciela Rivera and María Esther Robles, Puerto Rican sopranos, and by two musicians of the Dominican Republic, José G. Ramírez Peralta, artist in folk rhythms on the tambor, and Otto Vega, pianist.

The first program of the 1945-46

Courtesy of the Music Division

MARÍA DE PINI DE CHRESTIA
Argentine soprano

de Chrestia's program consisted of a group of songs by European composers, two Spanish songs, and four Argentine works. Among the pianists, Florencia Raitzin of Argentina, Enrique Arias of Colombia, and José Vieira Brandão of Brazil are young professionals enlarging their education in the United States. In Rio de Janeiro José Vieira Brandão assists

Heitor Villa-Lobos in music instruction in the nation's schools; his program at the Pan American Union was composed exclusively of piano works of Villa-Lobos, of whom he is a faithful interpreter. Samuel Martí, Mexican violinist, accompanied at the piano by his talented. wife Gunhild Nilsson, introduced his audience to recently composed Latin American violin works and others of his own transcription.

One of the most entertaining and colorful of the recitals was the program of dances presented by Cecilia Ingenieros, who has left her native Argentina for a period of study of the dance in the United States. Srta. Ingenieros was responsible for her own choreography and costumes. Her program consisted of four Argentine folk dances, Cuando, Huaino, Bailecito, Chacarera, an interpretation of a piece for

piano by the contemporary Argentine composer Guillermo Graetzer, and other interpretations of some of the music of European

masters.

The series of concerts terminated with a violin recital by Antony Zungolo, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Pops Orchestra, whose program included works by Brazilian, Peruvian and Venezuelan composers. Mr. Zungolo was accompanied at the piano by the United States. composer and music critic Vincent Persichetti.

The following table of events for the period under discussion includes data on the other United States musicians who participated in these programs:

November 25, 1945 Julie André, mezzo soprano (United States), Ed McIntyre at the piano. January 6, 1946.... Frederick H. Bloch, pianist (United States).

Three piano recitals were given in the evening during this period-the first on December 12, 1945 by Nibya Mariño of Uruguay; another on February 20, 1946 by Alba Martínez-Prado, also of Uruguay; and the third on March 25, 1946 by Carlos Vázquez of Mexico. These three pianists. hold scholarships for music study in the United States. A final concert marked the observance of Pan American Day on the evening of April 15, 1946, when Alice Ribeiro, Brazilian soprano and wife of the composer José Siqueira, participated as guest soloist with the string orchestra of the United States Marine Band Symphony Orchestra conducted by Capt. William F. Santelmann.

The 1945-46 season was distinguished by the presentation of 113 separate pieces and suites of Latin American music. Five dances, 50 songs, 17 violin works, 28 piano.

pieces, and three suites for string orchestra were performed. A glance at the table below will show that there were four performances of one piano piece, two performances of several other works, and three performances of a violin sonata. The music ranged from light popular songs to serious concert works. Folk material was introduced, in arrangements by such collectors as Isabel Aretz-Thiele and Sylvia Eisenstein of Argentina, Hekel Tavares of Brazil, and Arturo Miles de Musgo of Peru. Folk themes and traditional rhythms were also apparent in Felipe Boero's Argentine dances for the piano, and in the music of Manuel Gómez Carillo of Argentina, Ernani Braga of Brazil, and others.

Prominent popular song writers were represented, among them Gonzalo Roig, Jorge Anckermann and Gilberto Valdés of Cuba, and María Grever, Guty Cárdenas, Gonzalo Curiel, Ignacio Fernández Esperón (Tata Nacho), and Augustín Lara of Mexico. A number of the semipopular works of Ernesto Lecuona and Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes of Cuba, and an aria from Il Guarany of Brazil's great operatic composer Carlos Gomes were heard.

Audiences already familiar, through evening concerts, with the larger forms of composition of Alberto Williams, Guillermo Uribe-Holguín, Carlos López Buchardo and Luis Cluzeau-Mortet heard some of the shorter pieces of these composers at Sunday afternoon recitals. Selections of the music of other contemporary composers of the older generation were also heard, in particular the works of Eduardo Fabini, Joaquín Nin, Enrique Soro and Floro M. Ugarte. The close of the century saw the birth of many composers whose works appear prominently in concerts of today. Into this group fall Óscar Lorenzo Fernândez and Francisco Mignone of Brazil, Carlos Chávez of

Mexico, the dean of Chilean composers Domingo Santa Cruz, Juan Bautista Plaza of Venezuela, and Andrés Sas of Peru. Two other composers belonging to this period are Silvestre Revueltas and Theodoro Valcárcel, whose careers in composing serious music of distinguishably Mexican and Peruvian character were cut short by early death.

Many works of composers of increasing significance among the younger generation were performed during the season described. Roberto García Morillo enjoys professional prestige as a critic and composer in Argentina. His compatriot Alberto Ginastera and also Juan Orrego Salas of Chile and Roque Cordero of Panama are at present studying and composing in the United States. Camargo Guarnieri has twice distinguished himself as a first-prize winner in inter-American music competitions. Of Heitor VillaLobos, the leading figure in Latin American music, little remains to be said. The number of his works performed in this concert season is but an indication of his preeminence among the composers of South America and an acknowledgment of recognition by performing artists everywhere in the Americas of his high musical achievement. Appreciation of VillaLobos' composition was heightened by the

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