Author Archives: David Guion

Frank Holton: trombonist and band instrument manufacturer

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Frank Holton, trombonist and band instrument manufacturer

Frank Holton, ca. 1920

For some reason, they say musicians can’t succeed in business. Frank Holton had a notable career as trombonist, but no one would give him a second thought today if he hadn’t founded a very successful business. With great difficulty and perseverance, he built Frank Holton & Company into one of America’s premier band instrument companies.

Frank Holton was born in 1857 or 1858 (sources vary) in Allegan County, Michigan to a music-loving family. His father, a farmer, sang in the village choir and his mother played organ. It’s not unusual for well-known musicians to come from small towns, but Allegan is special. Not only was Holton born there, but other brass greats Gardell Simons, H. A. Vandercook, and C. Z. Bronson.

Like many small-town musicians, Holton was largely self-taught on trombone. But only a few (Arthur Pryor being another) became nationally known soloists. Continue reading →

Francis Johnson: a life of musical firsts

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Francis Johnson historical marker

Marker at 536 Pine St. Philadelphia / Wikimedia Commons

Francis Johnson, also known as Frank Johnson, was among the first noteworthy American composers of instrumental music. He was the first black composer to have his music published. His band was among the first to achieve a nationwide reputation and tour extensively. And it was the first to go on a foreign tour. Johnson was also among the first musicians to participate in interracial performances.

Although there was some speculation that Johnson was born in Martinique, historians have determined that he was born in Philadelphia as a free black on June 16, 1792. And it’s certainly in Philadelphia where he made his first mark.

Johnson’s childhood, early musical training, and personal life are little known, but he was playing music professionally in Philadelphia by 1812. He probably first gained attention as a fiddler for dances. He later became known for performances on multiple instruments, especially violin and keyed bugle. Continue reading →

Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks by Richard Strauss

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statue of Till Eulenspiegel. Till Eulenspiegel's merry pranks by Richard Strauss

Till Eulenspiegel / Karlheinz Goedtke (Mölin, Schleswig-Holstein, 1951). Wikimedia Commons 

Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, or in English, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, is one of the most popular orchestral compositions of Richard Strauss. It is a symphonic tone poem, a piece intended to tell a story. The story concerns the antics of a rebel against society and propriety.

Like others of his works, it is something of a self-portrait. Behind his steely self-control lay an outlaw spirit. At least up through Elektra, he delighted in making heroes and heroines of disreputable characters, thumbing his nose at moral norms, and pushing the envelope of acceptable dissonance.

In its own odd way, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks subverts the very musical traditions Strauss himself espoused. Continue reading →

The theremin: Look ma! No hands!

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Theremin on exhibit

A theremin on exhibit at the Bakken Museum / Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theremin-Exhibit-02,_Bakken_Museum.jpg

Nearly every musical instrument invented in the 20th century uses electricity in its performance. The theremin is the earliest successful electronic instrument. It was invented in 1920 by Soviet inventor Léon Theremin.

Most other electric instruments have something in common with traditional instruments. Learning to play them requires learning where and how to touch them. The theremin remains the only instrument that the performer never touches. Its unique and unmistakable sound seems other-worldly to this day. Continue reading →

Beloved Christmas carols: Mary’s boy child

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black madonna. Mary's boy child

A fresco of a black Madonna and Jesus at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, Ethiopia / Wikimedia Commons

Most of our sacred Christmas music comes from some European tradition. Most 20th-century Christmas music is secular. “Mary’s Boy Child” is an exception to both generalities. It might sound like a folk song, a Caribbean equivalent of a Negro spiritual, but it was composed by Jester Hairston.

Besides being a fine piece of music and a lot of fun to sing and listen to, it serves as a correction to the pernicious thought that somehow Jesus was a white man and that Christianity is somehow a white person’s religion.

Jesus came into the world for all of us. His skin color as a human hardly matters, but he probably most nearly resembled today’s Arabs. Continue reading →

Beloved Christmas carols: Thou didst leave thy throne

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Adoration of shepherds / Murillo. Thou didst leave they throne

Adoration of the Shepherds / Bartolomé-Esteban Murillo, ca. 1650

If you ever think of the Industrial Revolution, you might not associate it with the Sunday school movement, but the intersection of the two accounts for the familiar Christmas carol “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne.” Emily Elizabeth Steel Elliott wrote the text and Timothy Richard Matthews set it to music.

The Industrial Revolution replaced cottage industries where people made items by hand with factories that mass produced things with machinery. Population and people’s average income both grew at an unprecedented rate, but not everyone benefitted. The poverty rate also grew.

Factory owners put children to work for long hours. Development of fair labor practices and safety standards lagged behind the invention of industrial processes by decades.

Two men established a Sunday school for orphans and poor children in Gloucester in 1780. The movement spread throughout England and to the US. It provided the only education many poor children ever got. But the idea of educating the lower classes at all proved controversial. Sunday schools depended on charities for survival. Continue reading →