History of the American Matthay Association

Each year, at the close of the summer term in late July, it was customary for Matthay to invite all his American students, as well as selected guests, to High Marley for a day-long picnic, followed by an evening dinner. And of course, the day always ended with a lengthy evening of music provided by both students and guests.

Years later, Simonds recalled:

I am sure that [Mrs. Matthay] had no idea of how appalled I was at this perfectly reasonable request. I had never made an after-dinner speech; I never attended dinners at which this was done. So I agonized over this for several weeks until the fatal evening arrived and I found myself seated at a little round table with the Matthays, Myra Hess, and Irene Scharrer, I don't remember the others. I can't recall what I said, beyond mentioning the successes of Myra and Irene, but at the close, in some desperation to find something constructive to say, I remarked that it would be appropriate if we Americans could get together and form an Association. To my surprise the suggestion was taken up and shortly after that a few of us went out one afternoon to a place near Chenies [now in Hertfordshire] for tea.

Also present that evening was a young Boston pianist and teacher, Albion Metcalf, who, like Simonds, had struggled with several teachers in Paris before coming to Matthay. The following Monday, August 3, was Banking Holiday in Britain, and he wrote home to his parents that same week:

Monday was a holiday here, and about twenty of us Americans went on a hike in the afternoon. We rode about twenty miles out of London by train, then walked into the most beautiful country, through fields of sheep, along lanes bordered with new-mown hay, over a hill and into the tiny hamlet of Flaunden [about two miles from Chenies], where we had tea at “The Green Dragon.”

There the American Matthay Association was formed, and a Provisional Board chosen to act till the first annual session in New York next December, where the full organization will take place in a three-day program filled with social activity, business, recitals, conferences, and lectures. The Board plans to have a two-day meeting in Boston at Thanksgiving time to perfect plans. The Chairman is Richard McClanahan of New York, other members are Bruce Simonds of Yale, Miss [Gertrude] Leonard of New York and Tillotson. For the present at least, I have the job of Secretary-Treas., so the next few months will be “full up.”

Then another four-mile hike through forests and [the village of Chenies], a gorgeous sunset, and two rainbows overhead.

Richard McClanahan, a native of Rushville, Indiana, graduated from the Northwestern University School of Music in 1917 and was immediately called to service in a band attached to the 22nd Infantry in France, where he served alongside Percy Grainger. When he returned to Evanston for a brief visit in 1919, he encountered Northwestern’s Dean, Peter Lutkin, who showed him a copy of Matthay's Musical Interpretation. His interest in Matthay increased strongly after he attended a summer course at the Cincinnati Conservatory stressing “firm finger-tips, high, arched knuckles, and a heavy arm,” which he said brought him such pain that “whenever I played I had to go to an osteopath for relief.”

By the time he arrived in London in 1924 he was teaching at New York University, and three years earlier he had founded the Riverdale School of Music, a division of the Riverdale Country School in The Bronx.

McClanahan was only too happy to devote its facilities to the first AMA conference meeting, scheduled for December 28-30, 1925. By then, the Board had set the organization’s annual dues at $5, and on December 2, Metcalf drafted a form letter at his home in Reading, Massachusetts, promising a number of specially selected Americans (Matthay had provided their names earlier that summer) the status of “Charter Member” if they paid before the conference began. They were also advised that food and lodgings could be obtained for three nights at the Riverdale School dormitories for $12.

The program consisted of a reception, dinner, and a dance on Monday, December 28, with day-long deliberations concerning elections, a proposed constitution, and future plans on Tuesday, followed by a recital that evening by Bruce Simonds, who was billed as “the first American assistant of Matthay, summer of 1925.” The final day was devoted to “studio discussions,” a display of new teaching materials by G. Schirmer, and a talk by McClanahan called “Some comments on Matthay, the teacher.” McClanahan’s talk was preceded by a discussion of “various developments in the art of pianoforte playing,” given by LeRoy Campbell, the Director of the Warren Conservatory in Warren, Pennsylvania, who at 52, was then one of the more senior statesmen of the group.

A total of 35 “charter” members had paid dues by the stipulated deadline, but only ten of these attended the Tuesday meeting to draft the organization’s constitution. Those assembled also voted Simonds in as President, while retaining Metcalf as Secretary-Treasurer, at least for the first year. Several weeks before the meeting, Matthay had prepared a touching greeting to be read in his absence at the opening dinner, but it was delayed in the mail and appeared only in the conference Minutes:

My dear friends all!

It gratifies me immensely to see what you proposed last summer has become actuality. It makes me feel as though my home now embraced America! The new Association will indeed bind us all together more than we could feel as individuals only.

Indeed I shall be with you in spirit at all your meetings,—perhaps some day even in person—who knows the possibilities of the future?

In the meantime, All Luck to the A. M. A.! They are initials of good omen—they suggest “amare”!—may the Association indeed foster the growth of love between us all—affection, the only thing worth striving for in the end.

My blessing on you all at the Association.

Plans were frequently discussed for bringing Matthay to America in the coming years, but they were derailed by a number of difficulties, including the worldwide economic Depression that nearly all nations were feeling by 1930, and escalating health problems requiring surgeries for both Matthay and his wife over the next decade. But the American Association continued to thrive. McClanahan was appointed Editor of the Association's Summer Journal, which began publication in 1926, and the growing membership rolls—which included Honorary Memberships for some of Matthay's most eminent British pupils—were published in each issue.

The AMA saw one of its principal missions as fund-raising to send deserving American pupils to Matthay on scholarship. Beginning in 1927, Simonds and others played benefit recitals throughout the U. S. to advance this cause, and even through the lean years of the Depression they were able to offer awards of $1,000 to numerous students, which was a great deal of money at the time. Some of these pupils had major careers, such as Ray Lev, who won the award in 1930, and remained with Matthay for three years, thanks to additional funding she received from the New York Philharmonic.

Largely through the efforts of the AMA, the roster of American artist-teachers trained by Matthay soon became even more impressive. In 1930, the Association reported less than ten AMA members teaching in colleges and conservatories, but by 1939, there were over 70. Although concentrated in the Northeast, they were spread over 23 states and extended as far north as the Halifax Conservatory of Music. Many were attached to liberal arts colleges and even prep schools, but some were also installed in prestigious conservatories and universities. Clarence Burg was Dean of the School of Fine Arts at Oklahoma City University, Cécile Genhart taught at Eastman, Roxy Grove at Baylor, Lura Bailey at Northwestern, Annabelle Wood at Vassar, and Alice Kortschak at the Manhattan School of Music. In 1929, Julian DeGray had joined the faculty of the University of Miami, and three years later he taught the first entering class at Bennington, where he remained for nearly 40 years. Beginning in 1930, Bruce Simonds became one of four permanent jurors for the prestigious Naumburg Competition—which jumpstarted the careers of pianists Dalies Frantz, Jorge Bolet, and Abbey Simon—and by 1940 he had become Chair of Yale’s newly created Department of Music, a separate division from its School of Music, designed to “correlate more fully the work in music with that of other departments of the faculty, particularly history and literature.” A year later he was appointed Dean of the School of Music, as well as Director of Yale’s Norfolk Summer School.

In December of 1941, the Association's annual meeting was held in New York, and its growing prominence was emphatically demonstrated a week later by an article covering the three-day event in Time. Accompanied by a photo of Matthay taken by his American pupil Paul Snyder, the article was part factual and part caricature, but it conveyed the message that Matthay ideas were making an impact in America. While conceding that his advocates were still in the minority, it noted that “about one-third of the nation’s 1,500,000 piano students are no longer subjected to those scramble-noted exercises composed by [the] implacable Karl Czerny, who is widely believed to have hated children.” A half dozen of the “newest piano methods,” created by little-known American teachers with no demonstrable Matthay connections, were also cited, and the gist of the story pointed to a new wave, even though “most U.S. piano-moppets must still struggle with Czerny.” Perhaps it remains an open question as to whether Matthay’s American popularity, which began mushrooming in the late 1920s, was due more to aesthetic considerations or to a mere fascination with modernity, but in 1984, Julian DeGray recalled that “having a Matthay teacher on your faculty then was the latest thing—a bit like owning a computer today.”

World War II inflicted insuperable difficulties on the AMA, because it was impossible to send pupils overseas, but the Association continued to flourish as best it could. And of course Matthay and his British pupils suffered even more. As early as 1939, they were forced to evacuate the Matthay School at 96 Wimpole Street in London, and the building was soon razed, a heartbreaking development for his admirers on both sides of the Atlantic. For the remainder of the War, the School continued on at Matthay's country home, High Marley, but enrollment numbers greatly thinned, and of course the American Summer Schools were no longer possible. When the War finally ended, many were hopeful that things could return to normal, but Matthay died in December of 1945 at the age of 87, and a few weeks later, Dame Myra Hess, now the School's President, elected to close it permanently in view of the fact that suitable properties in war-torn London were now virtually non-existent, a condition that continued for nearly a decade. In America, some even argued that the Matthay Association should disband, since it was no longer possible to send any pupils to the late master. But fortunately, the consensus voted to keep the organization afloat as a means of promoting Matthay's teaching principles, and the annual conventions eventually became full-blown Festivals, a story which can be read here.