Take it from the Top
You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to
Language is the great barrier to human connectivity. What is idiomatic in one culture, seems idiotic in another. Phrases, misinterpreted, can start a war or, at the least, pull a trigger. During World War II, French resistance fighters would ferret out German spies by steering the conversation into sentences containing the word egg, œuf. A German tongue cannot duplicate French enunciation. Execution was swift, no questions asked, no explanations expected. There are different languages. Science is a universal form from E=mc2 to π, easily understood but somehow, lacking panache. There is another semantic, beautiful, emotional, rich in texture and tone. The language of the gods - music. Notes know no boundaries, free flowing around the globe, void of dogma and doctrince. Beethoven plays well from Boston to Beijing, the Beatles from Bangladesh to Bali Hai. This week we have crescendoed into a trove of multi-generational ephemera from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania tracing the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Steel, smelting, and scions fill the pages, and will occupy us for several weeks. For starters, this Saturday we will fire up the Bessemer's and glimpse musical history. Forget the quadratic formula, ignore Fibonacci's Sequence, in this hall we resurrect our humanity, weekly; solid footings in an ever-shifting world.
George Witner, Allegheny Cycling Club, ca. 1890. Our first clue to the ephemeral trail through Pittsburgh.
Take it from the top
Estelle Liebling (1880-1970) was a powerhouse in the field of singing instruction. Still today her vocal system is available. Home and studio were in Manhattan's Upper East Side, and from there, she reached across the entertainment world. As a young woman, she studied under Parisian voice specialist Mathilde Marchisi, a woman who debuted in a Paris opera house in 1844. Mathilde realized her singing ability was lacking on the world stage, so in 1849 she turned from performance to instruction, collecting an impressive array of clients. Estelle Liebling, one of her students, followed in her footsteps, bringing Mathilde's style home to American artists. When a young girl arrived for her singing lessons at Ms. Liebling's studio, she waited her turn while an older student finished. A precocious pubescent, Meryl Streep stood outside while Beverly Sills completed her lesson. Such was the world of Estelle Liebling.
Estelle Liebling - To my dear Ann Yardley, splendid singer and grand person, Always affectionately, Estelle Liebling, 1934. The support crew behind every great star is tremendous, in number and in quality. Estelle Liebling launched many entertainers, quietly, effectively, invisibly.
This is KDKA, of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company...
On November 2, 1920, the first commercial radio broadcast beamed across Pittsburgh. In this fledgling transmission were the results of the presidential election. But in time, programing would expand, touching personalities, musicians, and singers. The station's first program manager was Harvey Bartlett Gaul (1881-1945) who fit the job perfectly. He spent his earlier years training as a classical organist, composer, journalist, and teacher. His varied background helped him adapt to radio, a new format so fresh, each day on the air wrote the rules. In The Etude magazine of April, 1935, Harvey reflected on the difficulty of these early years. Fidelity was limited, engineering imperfect. Singers' voices crackled in the microphone and instruments blurred into oblivion. Pianos were especially difficult. Without modulation, keyboards sounded thin, honkytonk. After engineers solved the problems, artists, who avoided the studio, now flocked in. Many careers were launched and enhanced in this new electronic circus.
Harvey Bartlett Gaul, KDKA's first program manager, ca. 1930.
Autographed photo to Euphemia Ann Baggaley (Yardley)
Steeling the Show
Ralph Baggaley was a nineteenth century dynamo in the dynamic Pittsburgh steel industry. Numerous patents including the process of smelting copper built a fortune beyond belief. Wealth he lost and gained several times, such is the entrepreneurial spirit. We will touch him in coming weeks, his association with George Westinghouse, Andrew Carnegie, among others. But this week we meet Ralph's daughter, Euphemia Ann Baggaley Yardley, a gifted woman, sought by many for her singing talent. Her ephemeral trail includes photographs, NBC contracts, and her involvement in radio, especially WINS in New York. Her friendship with French soprano and actress Collete d'Arville, her training with Estelle Leibling, and her interaction with Harvey Gaul paints an interesting canvas of this twentieth century diva.
Colette d'Arville, a French actress active in the 1930's. To Miss Ann Yardley, Sincerely, Colette d'Arville, 1938
And then there were none
Our musical scores lead us in a most unusual direction. The journey between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Poland Spring, Maine is long, geographically and theologically. Here in New England we meet the Shaker community of Sabbathday Lake, one of several self-reliant religious colonies, holdovers from the nineteenth century utopian movement. The Shakers gave us many inventions, including the flat broom. But the requirement for joining their sect was strict - celibacy. The community only expanded through conversion, and slow at that. We meet them through cabinet cards. Sister Aurelia Gay Mace led the colony in the 1890's and 1900's. An author, Sister Aurelia kept her group thriving, and busy, especially down the road at the Poland Spring House Hotel. Through a real estate swap, the Shakers acquired adjoining land to their farm, and the hotel owners, the Rickers, gained a tract flowing with pure spring water. When the benefits of this elixir were realized, the health boom was on. Perpetual youth is a timeless magnet.
Sister Aurelia Gay Mace, leader of the Sabbathday Lake Shakers, ca. 1890-1910. The Shakers were an offspring of Quakers, believing in totality of soul to God. Marriage and sex were strictly forbidden.
Shake and Bake
The ladies of Sabbathday Lake were welcome participants at the Spring Hotel and sold their home-grown food and fancy goods to weekly guests. In addition, they entertained them, musically. One group, recorded in history by a simple caption in a Victorian photo album, is forever remembered as the Shaker Sisters Quartet. In the Shaker lifestyle, this would be extreme. No Bicycle Built for Two, mind you, just pure hymnal pleasure, underscored with scripture, a heady headliner. But, notes know no boundaries, and lyrics flowed as abundantly as Poland Spring Water. Today, few Shakers survive, and the water business? A subsidiary of Nestlé, an international food corporation. Sometimes, just sometimes, it seems we have come so far to reach nowhere.
Shaker Sisters Quartet, Sabbathday Lake, Maine, ca. 1890-1900. The original Rolling Stones, in the true spiritual sense.
Coda
Music is a great element in the human equation. Its octave range reaches far beyond the score, touching all emotions in the soul. Music can soothe us, inflate us, encourage us, deny us, amplify us, oblige us, rectify us, legitimize us. It is omnipresent, from the Sirens of Ulysses to the choir of the Mormon Tabernacle, lifting us above the mundane. All this, and an auction too.