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CHAPTER XXIX.

SOME FORMER RESIDENTS OF SHELBY COUNTY AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS.

MISS ISABELLA BEATON.


Miss Isabella Beaton, for a number of years, was a resident of Harlan, where she taught music, sang in the choir of the Congregational church and was an active worker in the Christian Endeavor Society. She has become famous not only for her instrumental music on the piano, but for her musical compositions, which are now played in concert by many of the best artists and orchestras of the world. The Musical Leader says of her musical compositions: "Her Landler is a favorite program piece, as is her Scherzo for orchestra. A quartette for strings, arranged by her, has been played by the Betthelier Quartette of Paris, the Wolfried DeCarle Quartette of Montreal, the Jacobsohn Quartette of Chicago, and many others. Mr. Frederick Stock, the conductor of the Thomas Orchestra, wrote of this composition: 'The Allegro Scherzando for strings is a clean as well as clever bit of musical writing.' She has met with much success with her Intermezzo. Romanze (for piano, pipe organ and violins). Improvisations, etc. Her opera, 'Anaconda,' is to be produced this year, and those who have had the opportunity to see the work in manuscript and to read the story are enthusiastic as to its future."

Miss Beaton is a graduate of Grinnell College, where she made a fine record as a student. After five years of study with Moszkowski and other masters in Berlin and Paris, she returned to America, where she completed the undergraduate course in Western Reserve University, with the degree of Master of Arts from the graduate school of that college. Besides this, may be mentioned a four-years' post-graduate course in literature and history of modern romantic and Germanic languages, doing original research work in history and physics in the department of sound. And all this intellectual power and development has been brought to bear upon her compositions and interpretations upon the piano.

Miss Beaton is now in concert and recital in all the large cities of the United States and Canada, and the musical public has already shown its appreciation of her merit by assuring her a welcome seldom accorded a native artist. Miss Beaton's tour is in the hands of Mare Lagen, of New York.


Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, October, 2023 from the Past and Present of Shelby County, Iowa, by Edward S. White, P.A., LL. B.,Volume 1, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Co., 1915, pp. 540-541.


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