pianoplayer

See www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/35919426325/

Interesting photo. The two pennants above the piano are indicative of someone's service in the National Guard. The upper one says "Tobyhanna, Pa. 1914". Tobyhanna reservation was an installation where National Guard units conducted artillery live fire practice. The second pennant says "In remembrance of my life on the Mexican border, 1916" - where National Guard units deployed to guard against incursions by Pancho Villa, et. al. Since Wolff was a Frenchman who did not come to the U.S. until after World War I, the pennants are probably not his. Anyone know where the photo might have been taken?

Thanks B-59, We'll include his full name in the catalog record. jdshephe46, I saw those pennants also. You are correct. Wolff came over after the war and actually served in the French Army. I searched through some of the New York newspaper society pages in hopes they would mention where he was staying but I had no luck.

Rosa Ponselle, was an American operatic soprano with a large, opulent voice. She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered by music critics to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the past 100 years.

see

Romano Romani was Ponselle's coach and mentor.. " I coached all my early roles with Romano Romani, who took Carmela and me under his wing when we were still in vaudeville." www.nytimes.com/books/first/d/drake-ponselle.html

Baritone vocalist and voice teacher who had a studio in New York between 1919 and 1922. (sometimes appears as Ferry Lulek. Musical Courier article, accompanied by and Underwood & Underwod photo, from July 3, 1919: "DR FERY LULEK TO SETTLE IN NEW YORK Prominent Vocal Teacher and Singer Assured of an Immense Class The good news is at hand that the list of New York's famous vocal pedagogues is to be augmented by the permanent presence here of Dr Fery Lulek, late of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music where he taught with such brilliant results for seven years that every effort was made to induce him to remain there. However as Dr Lulek also is a concert singer of high attainments, he felt that further connection with the constant duties of so large an institution as that in Cincinnati and longer residence away from metropolitan atmosphere and music life were not conducive to the advancement of his own larger career. Therefore Dr Lulek made up his mind to dwell henceforth in New York and to act more or less as a free lance with his eye chiefly on his activity as a soloist. However when it became known that he contemplated such a move, so many were the lesson applications from his old students and from numerous new ones that he found himself compelled to plan for extensive pedagogical work and to change his original purpose of taking only a few pupils and spending most of his time in concert traveling, When Dr Lulek opens his new studios here next fall he will have a class so large that the musical circles of this city are sure to marvel. Dr Lulek's standing in the profession is well known to MUSICAL Courier readers but perhaps a few words about him biographically may not be amiss at this time. Dr Fery Lulek's father, a distinguished lawyer, chose notwithstanding his son's very pronounced musical gifts which early presaged a brilliant musical career, what he considered to be a more practical profession for his son namely the law. Therefore after having finished his academic studies Fery Lulek became a student of law. He was graduated and took his degree in 1899. For the next four years he devoted himself to the practice of his chosen profession in the character of judge as well as lawyer. In the meantime however he had been pursuing his musical studies under the guidance of Professor Kraemer and later under Professor Gaensbacher and Professor Ress. In 1904 Dr Lulek went to Paris to take up his studies with Sbriglia, the well known Italian teacher of De Reszke, Plançon, etc and since that time he has devoted himself entirely to music having appeared with flattering success both as a concert and oratorio singer in all the leading cities of France, England, Belgium, Denmark, Austria and Germany. Dr Lulek sang before the President of France and in recognition of his services to the Universite Populaire was in the same year decorated by the government and made an Officer de l'Academie Francaise. Dr Lulek came to America to fill a series of concert engagements in the summer of 1912 and was repeatedly heard in Newport, as also in Bar Harbor and Toronto, meeting with immediate emphatic success. In connection with his pedagogical activities he continued his concert work which in his first American tour 1913 included prominent solo and orchestral engagements and appearances at the Toronto Festival and in the New York Metropolitan Opera concert series. In January 1912 Bertha Baur directress of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music met Dr Lulek in New York and succeeded in engaging him as head of her vocal department. In the meantime his concert engagements have continued with such organizations as the St Louis and Cincinnati Symphony orchestras with unvarying acclaim. His remarkable success in developing voices is endorsed by many leading musicians, composers, directors and singers including such authorities as Victor Herbert, Dr Stillman Kelly,Henry Hadley, P.A. Tirindelli, Nahan Franko, John Cort, etc. Over fifty Lulek pupils have been placed as teachers in leading musical institutions throughout the country, others have operatic contracts, while still others are soloists in churches and upon the concert stage. The Lulek voice is a sympathetic smooth and exquisitely cultivated baritone of big power and he uses his organ with the most tactful and finished art New York audiences will have a chance to welcome this proved teacher and accomplished concert artist and to judge him anew when he reappears here at Aeolian Hall in his two recitals next October and March." He had a recital at New York's Aeolian hall in November, 1919. query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A00E2D71031E0... In July, 1922, he joined the Chicago Musical College books.google.com/books?id=bmhFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA73&lp...

Fery Lulek (1876-1953) www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q33126129

Thank you Art Siegel and Richard Norton for the fuller identification. We will add this to our description.