No. 68 February 2021
Genius is Blind
 On April 9, 1939, Easter Sunday, as Hitler’s troops advanced on Europe and the US mired in the Great Depression, two musicians – a pianist and a singer – made musical history. In the chilly April dusk, Marian Anderson stood at the top of the National Mall in DC, Lincoln looming in stone behind her and a bank of microphones between herself and a crowd of 75,000 before her and began to sing. Howard University had invited her for its concert series but did not have a space large enough to hold the anticipated crowds who would come to hear her. Constitution Hall would suffice, but the Daughters of the American Revolution owned that hall. The DAR refused to allow her to perform there because she was black and there was a whites-only clause in every contract issued by the DAR.
   First Lady and DAR member, Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned in protest and, through the Department of the Interior, arranged the National Mall for Anderson’s concert. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes led Ms. Anderson onto the makeshift stage on the Lincoln Memorial and gave her performance to history. When Ickes introduced Anderson, he told the desegregated crowd — which stretched all the way from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument — "In this great auditorium under the sky, all of us are free. Genius, like justice, is blind. Genius draws no color lines." In that unmatched contralto voice, genius had touched Marion Anderson, and in that 25-minute concert her genius would touch generations. It’s February. Celebrate history!
Another member of our February birthday line-up is historically significant. Victor Herbert was an Irish-born, German-educated American cellist and composer who is probably best known for his operettas. He remains important to musicians as an activist for the legal rights of composers. His congressional testimony contributed to the passage of the Copyright Act of 1909 which secured a composer’s right to charge royalties on the sale of sound recordings. He was a founder of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP, in 1914, and was its president until his death in 1924. In 1917 Herbert won a landmark supreme-court decision which gave composers the right, through ASCAP, to charge fees for public performances of their works. This law stands to this day. And, yes, this is just one of the expenditures we at the RCS budget for every season.  Donor support insures that we are able to comply with ASCAP requirements and we thank you!
February
Birthdays in Music
A Magdalenian Had a Horn…
   A 21st century musician recently played a horn made from a conch shell over 17,000 years ago. He was able to produce three notes which were close in tone to today’s C, C-sharp, and D. Archaeologists originally found the seashell in a cave in the French Pyrenees in 1931. It was thought to have been used as a ceremonial cup and that a hole in its tip was accidental damage. Scientists now believe that the shell, which has been sitting in a museum for decades, was actually modified to produce music by removing the pointed end of the shell to accommodate a mouthpiece. They believe that the residue of a substance believed to have been a resin was used to affix the mouthpiece to the opening. Scans revealed holes drilled inside the shell that would have allowed a tube to pass through the shell from the mouthpiece to produce musical notes.
   This shell is not the oldest known musical instrument but it is a unique find. Instruments like drums or rattles made of perishable materials like leather or wood would not persist in the archaeological record. Until now, the oldest known surviving instruments were flutes made of materials like bone which could withstand the ravages of time. Now we know these prehistoric humans at the end of the last ice age knew how to make and play the conch horn.
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