REVIEW POTPOURRI: Conductor: Charles Adams Prince; Violinist: Oscar Shumsky

Charles Prince

by Peter Cates

Charles Adams Prince

From August 1915, a ten-inch acoustically recorded shellac (Columbia A1882) presents Prince’s Band under the direction of Charles Adams Prince (1868-1937), Columbia’s highly-accomplished musical jack of all trades and a relative of former Presidents John and John Quincy Adams.

The two marches are Under a Peaceful Sky and R.B. Hall’s New Colonial March.

R. B. Hall

R.B. Hall (1858-1907) was a Maine native, having been born in Bowdoin­ham, and resided in the Pine Tree State most of his life. But his marches achieved renown in this country and, even more, in England, bandleaders and listeners there frequently believing that Hall was an English composer despite efforts to inform otherwise.

The marches are not that musically captivating but they do pass the six to seven minute duration nicely; the performances are perky, precise and imbued with conviction; and the 1915 acoustic sound is quite vivid. Interestingly, Hall’s March was used in later years by Palo Alto, California’s Stamford University as the melody for its school fighting song, whatever that means.

Both sides can be heard via Internet Archive.

Oscar Shumsky

Oscar Shumsky

Violinist Oscar Shumsky (1917-2000) was born in Philadelphia to Russian Jewish parents and started playing at 3 years old, giving his first public performance at seven with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

He was invited personally by ArturoToscanini, when he was 21, to join the NBC Symphony in 1939.

Shumsky also had a phenomenal memory. Once, after hearing violinist Fritz Kreisler (1875-1963) play a cadenza that the latter composed for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, the younger man played it by heart shortly after that concert .

During the 1960s, Shumsky collaborated with pianist Artur Balsam (1906-1994) in the complete Mozart Violin Sonatas for the mail order record label Musical Heritage Society, of which I have one LP of Sonatas K 454 and 481. The music is among this composer’s finest.

Some of these recordings can be heard via YouTube.

Shumsky also had an avid interest in photography and became a close friend of Ansel Adams.

Artur Balsam taught several summers at Blue Hill Maine’s Kneisel Hall during the 1970s.