Fritz Heitmann. Das Leben eines deutschen Organisten by Richard VogeReview by: Charles KrigbaumNotes, Second Series, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Winter, 1965 - Winter, 1966), pp. 901-902Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/894951 .

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Mrs. Grimes did her collecting long after Miss Eddy had retired from the field. In a comparatively few years, Mrs. Grimes amassed a vast collection of folksongs, ballads, and instrumental pieces which has been duplicated by the Library of Congress and is on deposit in its Archive of Folk Song. Also deposited there are other Ohio collections, including 75 Ohio Canal songs contributed by Captain Pearl Nye, "Bard of the Ohio Canal."

This book has been a worthy represent- ative of the Buckeye State on public and private library shelves, and now will be- come available in book stores. Turning its pages, one can see that Ohio is rich in traditional folk song. The diversity of the State's population is reflected by songs of many types and from many sources.

Miss Eddy first became interested in folksongs as a student of "Ballad and Epic Poetry" taught at the University of Chicago by Dr. Albert H. Tolman. To the time of his death in 1928, she had regarded her collecting as "merely a pleasant diversion and incidentally a feeder for Dr. Tolman's collection." Her early efforts in this special field formed the basis for two major articles in the Journal of American Folklore, Vols. 29 and 35.

While regarded as representative of the Buckeye State, Ballads and Songs from Ohio falls short of being a state collec- tion. It is the result of a very intensive search in a comparatively small area. Miss Eddy's principal sources for her oral material were her hometown, Perrvville, Ashland County, Ohio, and the McKinley High School, Canton, Ohio. Perryville was founded by her grandfather in 1810 and had been her home since childhood. Its inhabitants were her friends and rela- tives. She found it much easier collecting traditional songs in such a community than in a strange place. Her high school experience was also an advantage in that it enabled her to come in contact with elderly singers through interested students and fellow teachers.

In his perceptive foreword, Dr. D. K. Wilgus of the University of California at Los Angeles, points out that with few exceptions, the songs were collected north

Mrs. Grimes did her collecting long after Miss Eddy had retired from the field. In a comparatively few years, Mrs. Grimes amassed a vast collection of folksongs, ballads, and instrumental pieces which has been duplicated by the Library of Congress and is on deposit in its Archive of Folk Song. Also deposited there are other Ohio collections, including 75 Ohio Canal songs contributed by Captain Pearl Nye, "Bard of the Ohio Canal."

This book has been a worthy represent- ative of the Buckeye State on public and private library shelves, and now will be- come available in book stores. Turning its pages, one can see that Ohio is rich in traditional folk song. The diversity of the State's population is reflected by songs of many types and from many sources.

Miss Eddy first became interested in folksongs as a student of "Ballad and Epic Poetry" taught at the University of Chicago by Dr. Albert H. Tolman. To the time of his death in 1928, she had regarded her collecting as "merely a pleasant diversion and incidentally a feeder for Dr. Tolman's collection." Her early efforts in this special field formed the basis for two major articles in the Journal of American Folklore, Vols. 29 and 35.

While regarded as representative of the Buckeye State, Ballads and Songs from Ohio falls short of being a state collec- tion. It is the result of a very intensive search in a comparatively small area. Miss Eddy's principal sources for her oral material were her hometown, Perrvville, Ashland County, Ohio, and the McKinley High School, Canton, Ohio. Perryville was founded by her grandfather in 1810 and had been her home since childhood. Its inhabitants were her friends and rela- tives. She found it much easier collecting traditional songs in such a community than in a strange place. Her high school experience was also an advantage in that it enabled her to come in contact with elderly singers through interested students and fellow teachers.

In his perceptive foreword, Dr. D. K. Wilgus of the University of California at Los Angeles, points out that with few exceptions, the songs were collected north

of Highway 40. According to Dr. Wilgus, the pattern indicated by Miss Eddy s col- lection is basically that of rural northern Ohio. "This area of Ohio," writes Dr. Wilgus, "is outside the tradition of nine- teenth-century occupational song, and largely outside the strong influence of nineteenth-century Irish migration, such as shown in the Northeast ...."

"It is now conceded that folksongs can be found in all sections of the United States, but it required pioneer work such as Miss Eddy's to make the point clear. And Ballads and Songs from Ohio is a report of that pioneer work which has continuing value."

RAE KORSON

Fritz Heitmann. Das Leben eines deutschen Organisten. In Verbindung mit Elisabeth Heitmann dargestellt von Richard Voge. Berlin: Verlag Merseburger [1963] [167 p., illus., 8vo; DM 18]

Many American music lovers, and cer- tainly all organ cognoscenti, recognize and respect the name of Fritz Heitmann, one of the great organists of his day and the first truly important exponent of deutsche Orgelkiunst in this country. In the course of his many travels, especially in his later years, he acted as an am- bassador-at-large with a three-fold mis- sion: to represent the German tradition in the playing of early masters and es- pecially J. S. Bach; to champion the cause of Reger, whose works were and still are rarely heard: and to present the best of contemporary German organ music (Hindemith, David, Distler, Pepping, Micheelsen, Reda) to a world-wide au- dience.

To hear Fritz Heitmann perform the Clarieruebung, Part III or the Art of Fugue was an experience of the highest order-to which I can personally testify since I was a participant at the Organ Institute in the summer that Heitmann taught there. His was more than tech- nically beautiful playing, for deep con- viction and Christian faith illumined the music which he performed. In no case was this more gloriously evident than in the two works mentioned above.

In this interesting and modest little

of Highway 40. According to Dr. Wilgus, the pattern indicated by Miss Eddy s col- lection is basically that of rural northern Ohio. "This area of Ohio," writes Dr. Wilgus, "is outside the tradition of nine- teenth-century occupational song, and largely outside the strong influence of nineteenth-century Irish migration, such as shown in the Northeast ...."

"It is now conceded that folksongs can be found in all sections of the United States, but it required pioneer work such as Miss Eddy's to make the point clear. And Ballads and Songs from Ohio is a report of that pioneer work which has continuing value."

RAE KORSON

Fritz Heitmann. Das Leben eines deutschen Organisten. In Verbindung mit Elisabeth Heitmann dargestellt von Richard Voge. Berlin: Verlag Merseburger [1963] [167 p., illus., 8vo; DM 18]

Many American music lovers, and cer- tainly all organ cognoscenti, recognize and respect the name of Fritz Heitmann, one of the great organists of his day and the first truly important exponent of deutsche Orgelkiunst in this country. In the course of his many travels, especially in his later years, he acted as an am- bassador-at-large with a three-fold mis- sion: to represent the German tradition in the playing of early masters and es- pecially J. S. Bach; to champion the cause of Reger, whose works were and still are rarely heard: and to present the best of contemporary German organ music (Hindemith, David, Distler, Pepping, Micheelsen, Reda) to a world-wide au- dience.

To hear Fritz Heitmann perform the Clarieruebung, Part III or the Art of Fugue was an experience of the highest order-to which I can personally testify since I was a participant at the Organ Institute in the summer that Heitmann taught there. His was more than tech- nically beautiful playing, for deep con- viction and Christian faith illumined the music which he performed. In no case was this more gloriously evident than in the two works mentioned above.

In this interesting and modest little

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book Richard Voge has, with the assist- ance of Frau Heitmann, presented a straight-forward, chronological account of Fritz Heitmann's life with occasional de- tours into the area of thoughts and re- flections on such subjects as, for example: organ pedogogy, organ design, the Art of Fugue, organ music in the USA, etc.

Source material is used generously. Frau Heitmann kept a rather detailed diary, from which extensive quotation is made, including some amusing insights into American (and German) culture and plain, every-day living. She is intrigued by our penchant for humorous anecdotes (particularly necessary for after-dinner speeches) and by our general avoidance of walking (if a car is at hand); she is impressed by our scenic wonders and both the quantity and quality of our organ students; she experiences with a naive wonderment a self-service cafeteria, airplane travel, the night lights of New York.

Heitmann's life is depicted from hiis birth in 1891 in the countryside near Hamburg, to his death in Berlin in 1953 and includes his first studies and nourish- ment on the Schnitger organs in the Ham- burg area, his later studies in Leipzig with Straube, Reger, and Pembaur, his work as an organist in the Schleswig Dom (1912), Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaecht- nis-Kirche (1918), Berliner Dom (1932). his teaching duties at the Hochschule in Berlin (1935), his many concert trips, World War II, and his American ex- periences, which by the way he valued highly as among the most wonderful and valuable of his life.

Approximately one-third of this book (50 pages) is an Anhang containing selected letters, organ dispositions, pro- grams, reviews, writings and speeches by Fritz Heitmann (and by others honoring him), funeral orations, and an index to his recordings. And in many respects this is the most useful part of the book for the organ scholar.

However, one should not infer that this book is primarily designed for the organ specialist or friends and admirers of Fritz Heitmann. Its scope is wider than that. For it reflects not only an outer, kaleido- scopic-like picture of artistic and cul-

book Richard Voge has, with the assist- ance of Frau Heitmann, presented a straight-forward, chronological account of Fritz Heitmann's life with occasional de- tours into the area of thoughts and re- flections on such subjects as, for example: organ pedogogy, organ design, the Art of Fugue, organ music in the USA, etc.

Source material is used generously. Frau Heitmann kept a rather detailed diary, from which extensive quotation is made, including some amusing insights into American (and German) culture and plain, every-day living. She is intrigued by our penchant for humorous anecdotes (particularly necessary for after-dinner speeches) and by our general avoidance of walking (if a car is at hand); she is impressed by our scenic wonders and both the quantity and quality of our organ students; she experiences with a naive wonderment a self-service cafeteria, airplane travel, the night lights of New York.

Heitmann's life is depicted from hiis birth in 1891 in the countryside near Hamburg, to his death in Berlin in 1953 and includes his first studies and nourish- ment on the Schnitger organs in the Ham- burg area, his later studies in Leipzig with Straube, Reger, and Pembaur, his work as an organist in the Schleswig Dom (1912), Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaecht- nis-Kirche (1918), Berliner Dom (1932). his teaching duties at the Hochschule in Berlin (1935), his many concert trips, World War II, and his American ex- periences, which by the way he valued highly as among the most wonderful and valuable of his life.

Approximately one-third of this book (50 pages) is an Anhang containing selected letters, organ dispositions, pro- grams, reviews, writings and speeches by Fritz Heitmann (and by others honoring him), funeral orations, and an index to his recordings. And in many respects this is the most useful part of the book for the organ scholar.

However, one should not infer that this book is primarily designed for the organ specialist or friends and admirers of Fritz Heitmann. Its scope is wider than that. For it reflects not only an outer, kaleido- scopic-like picture of artistic and cul-

tural life in Berlin and Europe in the first half of this century, but also an inner portrait of the artist at work, struggling with the eternal questions posed by all true artists.

CHARLES KRIGBAUM

Four Hundred Years of Music Print- ing. By A. Hyatt King. London: The British Museum, 1964. [31 p., illus., 8vo; 5s]

With so much basic research still in progress, it is perhaps understandable that we have not yet been blessed with a monumental and exhaustive historical ac- count of the graphic arts as they are applied to music; but the lack of a brief and convenient layman's survey of the topic has really been a bit surprising. William Gamble's Music Engraving and Printing (1923) is weak historically; moreover, it is long out of print and hard to obtain. The Dolphin article (in Vol. II, 1935) by Kathi Meyer-Baer and Eva Judd O'Meara is an excellent historical survey, still generally dependable today; but it was published in a limited edition in- tended only for private collectors and Rare Book Rooms. Karl Hader's Aus der Wirkstatt eines Notenstechers (1948), a neat little book which still makes a use- ful Christmas gift, is concerned mainly with engraving, and sketchy on historical matters. The fine catalogue prepared for the Toledo exhibition (1957) func- tions primarily as a commentary on a choice but necessarily limited selection of illustrative examples.

Generally speaking, these and other shorter discussions have been most re- liable as chronicles. This should be ex- pected, for the music printer's unique problems - of pictorial representation, graphic reproduction, and commercial distribution-have required him to be imaginative, flexible, daring, and usually secretive. In the interest of the general reader, Mr. King boldly concerns himself with such matters. As statements, his in- terpretation is on solid ground: a few ideas may need some day to be refined in the light of future research, but for now they are well reasoned, and cautious when not completely authoritative, so that they will seldom if ever need to be re-

tural life in Berlin and Europe in the first half of this century, but also an inner portrait of the artist at work, struggling with the eternal questions posed by all true artists.

CHARLES KRIGBAUM

Four Hundred Years of Music Print- ing. By A. Hyatt King. London: The British Museum, 1964. [31 p., illus., 8vo; 5s]

With so much basic research still in progress, it is perhaps understandable that we have not yet been blessed with a monumental and exhaustive historical ac- count of the graphic arts as they are applied to music; but the lack of a brief and convenient layman's survey of the topic has really been a bit surprising. William Gamble's Music Engraving and Printing (1923) is weak historically; moreover, it is long out of print and hard to obtain. The Dolphin article (in Vol. II, 1935) by Kathi Meyer-Baer and Eva Judd O'Meara is an excellent historical survey, still generally dependable today; but it was published in a limited edition in- tended only for private collectors and Rare Book Rooms. Karl Hader's Aus der Wirkstatt eines Notenstechers (1948), a neat little book which still makes a use- ful Christmas gift, is concerned mainly with engraving, and sketchy on historical matters. The fine catalogue prepared for the Toledo exhibition (1957) func- tions primarily as a commentary on a choice but necessarily limited selection of illustrative examples.

Generally speaking, these and other shorter discussions have been most re- liable as chronicles. This should be ex- pected, for the music printer's unique problems - of pictorial representation, graphic reproduction, and commercial distribution-have required him to be imaginative, flexible, daring, and usually secretive. In the interest of the general reader, Mr. King boldly concerns himself with such matters. As statements, his in- terpretation is on solid ground: a few ideas may need some day to be refined in the light of future research, but for now they are well reasoned, and cautious when not completely authoritative, so that they will seldom if ever need to be re-

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