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JULY 28, 1928
The Music Trade Review
Music Pays Tribute to
the Late Ernest Urchs
Olin Downes, Music Critic of the New York Times, in Two-Column
Article in That Paper, Tells of Mr. Urchs' Work
as Head of Steinway Concert Bureau
HE memory of Ernest Urchs, the presence among us of his endless good deeds and of all
that he meant to his friends and his community warms the heart and whispers courage. His
place will never be rilled. The outward semblance of him is gone. The reality of the man,
his energy, his integrity, his fine and generous enthusiasm, his love of music, his genius for friend-
ship, have not perished. In the world of affairs he showed singular capacity, but this was not
the secret of his unique position or his importance to the men and the matters that concerned
him. Certainly the practical aspects of his
career were significant, but what placed him so
high among all his colleagues and associates
was the generosity arid the bigness of his na-
ture, and the fact that he had essentially the
spirit of an artist. These were the characteris-
tics that colored his life, influenced all his ac-
tivities and companionships, and enabled him to
accomplish so much in the service of the art he
loved, music.
It may be doubted whether this period in our
society could produce such a character. Ernest
Urchs grew up in a day when the ideals and the
conduct of American affairs were of a larger
and perhaps less mechanistic mold than they
are now. A man's business or profession was a
creed, with very strict and fine tenets. The
pursuit of a practical purpose was not incon-
gruous with the cultivation of the humanities
and the relations that make life worth the living.
The man developed in surroundings and among
traditions of this kind. Everything they meant
to a nature forming itself by contacts and ex-
Ernest Urchs
periences found response in him. Fidelity to
the interests and the ideals of his employers pages, which would have offered a cross-section
was his religion, but not a religion of narrow- of the whole history of music in this country
ness or Puritanical protestation, and not a point during the last thirty-five years or more. He
of view that excluded the widest experience, the knew all great artists and the acquaintance was
warmest and truest sympathies. He lived rich- seldom superficial. A Paderewski or a Rach-
ly. Work for the purpose merely of gain was maninoff, a Hofmann or a Lhevinne, a Mengel-
never in his thoughts. He found time for a berg, or Koussevitzky or Toscanini, a Kreisler,
hundred ideas and was every moment at the a Heifetz, a Furtwangler or Stokowski or Sem-
service of his friends.
brich or McCormack—even a modern composer,
His relations with many of the greatest ar- whose music Ernest Urchs regarded with dis-
tists of the day grew from practical contacts, trust if not aversion, such as Stravinsky—all
but practical contacts and interests were quickly these had reasons to deplore the passing of the
submerged in his friendly and far-sighted fur- man whom they so greatly valued and whose
therance of their advantage and happiness. As good opinion they coveted. The list could be
a consequence musicians, indeed men in every indefinitely extended.
Ernest Urchs came honestly by his musical
walk of life, trusted him implicitly, gave him
their confidence, relied upon him for counsel talents. His father, Francis C. Urchs, was a
and help. This was not only true of musicians merchant, born in Germany, who became in the
of international reputation who it might have course of time an accomplished singer. No
been politic to have served, but also of young doubt it was this background which made it
artists with reputations to make, confronted by natural for the son to consider as parts of one
all the difficulties of the beginning of a career. whole a business and an art. Ernest, born Aug.
10, 1864, in this city, and compelled from an
Ernest Urchs numbered among relationships of
this kind his extremely intimate association with early age to earn his living, never gave up his
Paderewski, who held him in the highest regard pleasure in making music as he could, and cher-
as friend and counselor; the confidence of a ished to his last days the intention, as soon as
hundred other musicians of world-wide repute, the stress of his affairs permitted him, of taking
and also the respect and the gratitude of young up again, at the place where he had been obliged
virtuosos, teachers, musical workers in different to relinquish it in his youth, the study of the
fields, who owed to him the first foothold in piano.
For him the piano was neither an instrument
their profession. Nor were these relationships
confined to artists whose professional interests nor a possession. It was a confidant and friend.
lay with the Steinway company. Their connec- He improvised unpretentiously and was unaf-
tions were a. secondary matter. If they showed fectedly delighted when a record roll was taken
talent, sincerity, ambition, they were given ad- years ago of his improvisation in an unguarded
vice and encouragement as carefully bestowed moment. After a day that had burned the can-
as upon those with whose careers he was more dle of hard work and the hospitality which he
directly concerned. It was the inevitable con- loved to extend at both ends, after the last
sequence of this attitude that he was sought and paper had been signed and the last guest had
needed by almost every one who had to do with gone, it was very often his habit to sit at his
music in America. If he had lived and written instrument for hours longer before retiring. He
his memoirs, every prominent musician of the was a true and sincere amateur of music. He
immediate past would have figured in thpir had the amateur's precious enthusiasm. The
T
writer, from guilty association, can personally
testify that probably no moment in the career
of Ernest Urchs meant more to him than the
day when he took part with two other amateur
colleagues in the three-piano concert at Stein-
way Hall, last January, when distinguished mu-
sicians, in a fine spirit bred by the nature of the
occasion, were present as critical collaborators.
Never did musician or virtuoso born prepare
himself for a test of his powers with greater de-
votion, fidelity and intense earnestness in the
task than our friend when he made ready for
that high experience and ordeal! One of the
great wishes of the last year of his life was to
improve the performance and repeat the ex-
perience.
This was the spirit that characterized him, and
lay back of his career. It was what gave him
his quick sympathies, appreciations, responses
to every worthy appeal. He was notoriously
the magnet of every musical enterprise, large
and small, that needed energy and statesman-
ship for its furtherance. International musical
affairs from time to time claimed him. The
success of the recent seasons of Wagnerian
opera at Baireuth is due in a considerable
measure to his cooperation in America. The
reopening of the Festsphielhaus might not have
been so readily accomplished had it not been
for his efforts and those whom he infected with
his enthusiasm for Wagner opera and for the
welfare of the institution traditionally associated
with it. To the time of his death he was con-
cerned with this—a cause which he aided with a
religious fervor. In America he had accepted,
about a year ago, the Presidency of the Mac-
Dowell Memorial Association, and to within a
few days of the end—since he continued working
to the very last—he was corresponding about it.
In the course of an incredibly active life he was
involved in innumerable similar activities. It was
his habit, and a wise one, once an institution
was on its feet, to give up active participation
in its affairs and turn to something else. Of
no one was it truer that the busy man can al-*
ways find time to do one more thing, and it was
abuse of this much-lauded capacity which had
to do with his final illness.
Ernest Urchs was first associated with the
firm of Steinway & Sons thirty-seven years ago.
In later years he directed with one hand the
management of its wholesale department and
with the other the concert and artists' bureau,
which was virtually his own creation, which had
such an immense influence upon the whole con-
duct of the piano business in America, and in
directing which he emphasized every principle
of honor, friendship and artistic integrity. His
life became always fuller. Identified by his
years with an older generation, his spirit kept
him in more than paternal relations with the
younger one. In his musical tastes he was es-
sentially of an earlier day, but the writer once
heard Serge Koussevitzky extol the man, who,
in spite of his native musical inclinations, made
every effort to tolerate and understand, if pos-
sible, music that was strange and apparently ex-
treme in its idiom and texture.
His attitude toward the new music was of a
piece with his whole character and his relation
to his friends—one of undisguised frankness
which never offended, but which left no one in
doubt as to what the man felt, and where he
stood in his convictions. Rather amusingly,
with one of such a warm and abundant nature,
he was a little serious in all his musical and
literary tastes. No one could be more gay,
more the light and life of a gathering, but in
music—was it something in the nature of a
penance for his abounding optimism and vital-
ity?—our friend was (a little serious. He read
widely, but not very many novels, rather books
that had a substantial or informative nature.
He had a deep and abiding aversion to jazz and
all its concomitants of musical comedy and such
things. He considered the tempi obstinately
pursued by his colleagues of the three-piano
concert in the finale of Bach's triple concerto a
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