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The
celebrated Australian pianist and composer Percy
Grainger played for the Wilsons in 1916. Music Division,
New York Public Library at the Lincoln Center
The abundance of fine artists, who performed during
the Theodore Roosevelt era, continued to appear
during succeeding administrations, and President
and Mrs. William Howard Taft and the Woodrow Wilsons
molded the popular White House musicale into a well-established
tradition. Beginning with the Roosevelts and continuing
through the Eisenhowers, Steinway & Sons assisted
the First Lady with the selection of the artists
and helped with their travel and hotel arrangements.
Helen Taft was a fine amateur pianist, who practiced
almost every day on her Baldwin piano, which was
trimmed in gold to match motifs in the Blue Room
(called "Mrs. Taft’s Music Room"),
where it stood. While Mrs. Taft preferred concert
pianists, President Taft’s tastes in music
are illustrated in the Tin Pan Alley songs and arias
from Puccini’s La Boheme coming from
his graphanola at this time. President Wilson, too,
enjoyed a novel "performer" in the White
House–his Victrola, a new American "voice"
that entertained him in the evenings as he and Edith
Wilson relaxed by the fire.
Elise
Kirk, Musical Highlights from the White House,
95-99.
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