Benefactor

The name Peabody Mason comes from Miss Fanny Peabody Mason, who until her death in 1948 was an active patron of music both in the United States and abroad. Her musical interests were piano, singing and chamber music.

Concert series premiere

The Peabody Mason Concerts were inaugurated in 1891 with a performance by Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

. The inaugural concert took place in the Mason music room, which had not been used by the family since the death of Miss Mason's mother.
In the years that followed, at her homes in Boston and in Paris, in Beverly on the North Shore and on her two-thousand-acre (8 km²) estate in Walpole, New Hampshire

Walpole, New Hampshire

Walpole is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,734 at the 2010 census.The town's central settlement, where 605 people resided at the 2010 census, is defined as the Walpole census-designated place , and is east of New Hampshire Route 12...

, Miss Mason continued to offer recitals by Ignaz Paderewski, Arthur Rubinstein

Arthur Rubinstein

Arthur Rubinstein KBE was a Polish-American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers...

, the Alfred Cortot

Alfred Cortot

Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...

-Jacques Thibaud

Jacques Thibaud

Jacques Thibaud was a French violinist.Thibaud was born in Bordeaux and studied the violin with his father before entering the Paris Conservatoire at the age of thirteen. In 1896 he jointly won the conservatory's violin prize with Pierre Monteux...

-Pablo Casals

Pablo Casals

Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...

 trio, Emma Calvé

Emma Calvé

Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet , was a French operatic soprano.Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera...

, Maggie Teyte

Maggie Teyte

Dame Maggie Teyte DBE was an English operatic soprano and interpreter of French art song.-Early years:Margaret Tate was born in Wolverhampton, England, one of ten children of Jacob James Tate, a successful wine and spirit merchant and proprietor of public houses and later lodgings. Her parents...

, the Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...

 Chamber Ensemble, Alexander Brailowsky

Alexander Brailowsky

Alexander Brailowsky was a Ukrainian French pianist who specialized in the works of Frédéric Chopin. He was a leading concert pianist in the years between the two World Wars.-Early life:...

, Egon Petri

Egon Petri

Egon Petri was a classical pianist.-Biography:Petri's family was Dutch and he was born a Dutch citizen, but he was born in Hanover in Germany and was brought up in Dresden. His father was a professional violinist who taught his son that instrument. Petri played in the Dresden Court Orchestra and...

 and Earl Wild

Earl Wild

Royland Earl Wild was an American pianist widely recognized as a leading virtuoso of his generation. Harold C. Schonberg called him a "super-virtuoso in the Horowitz class". He was known as well for his transcriptions of classical music and jazz...

, among many others. In 1945, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she gave a festival of Fauré’s music, including his opera Pénélope

Pénélope

Pénélope is an opera in three acts by the French composer Gabriel Fauré. The libretto, by René Fauchois, is based on Homer's Odyssey. It was first performed at the Salle Garnier, Monte Carlo on 4 March 1913.-Background and performance history:...

 in concert form as a centennial commemoration of the birth of Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...

. Miss Mason also commissioned Bohuslav Martinu

Bohuslav Martinu

Bohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...

’s Quintet for Piano and Strings, which was performed at her Boston residence at 211 Commonwealth Avenue

Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

Commonwealth Avenue is a major street in the cities of Boston and Newton, Massachusetts. It begins at the western edge of the Public Garden, and continues west through the neighborhoods of the Back Bay, Kenmore Square, Allston, Brighton and Chestnut Hill...

 in the presence of the composer.

The artist for many of the concerts presented by Miss Mason was pianist Paul Doguereau. Doguereau organized the commemorative Fauré Festival and was also the pianist for the performance of the Martinu Piano Quintet. First-prize recipient in piano at the Paris Conservatory, Doguereau studied under several eminent musicians including Emil von Sauer

Emil von Sauer

Emil Georg Conrad von Sauer was a notable German composer, pianist, score editor, and music teacher. He was a pupil of Franz Liszt and one of the most distinguished pianists of his generation...

, Egon Petri

Egon Petri

Egon Petri was a classical pianist.-Biography:Petri's family was Dutch and he was born a Dutch citizen, but he was born in Hanover in Germany and was brought up in Dresden. His father was a professional violinist who taught his son that instrument. Petri played in the Dresden Court Orchestra and...

, Ignaz Paderewski and Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

. He concertized in Europe and North America and devoted much of his time to organizing the Peabody Mason concerts.

Passing The Torch

In her later years, Miss Mason transferred more of the responsibilities to her friend, pianist Paul Doguereau

Paul Doguereau

Paul René Doguereau was a French pianist and piano teacher. He spent most of his career in Boston, United States, where he was a well-respected cultural figure.- Education :...

. They had often discussed presenting classical music at its best as a gift to general audiences. Upon her death in 1948, Miss Mason left a trust for musical enterprises under Mr. Doguereau’s direction. The Peabody Mason concerts continued to faithfully reflect the aspirations and purposes of Miss Mason.

In 1950, the Peabody Mason concerts were re-dedicated to the ideal of presenting established artists as well as young artists in concert. In keeping with this aim, the concerts that followed from 1950 to 1985 featured some of the world’s most celebrated musicians.

In April 1950, the re-dedicated Peabody Mason concerts began its first series with the Boston debut of the Juilliard String Quartet

Juilliard String Quartet

The Juilliard String Quartet is a classical music string quartet founded in 1946 at the Juilliard School in New York. The original members were violinists Robert Mann and Robert Koff, violist Raphael Hillyer, and cellist Arthur Winograd; Current members are Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes violinists,...

. During the first year, excerpts were given from Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

’s opera The Fairy Queen, conducted by Daniel Pinkham

Daniel Pinkham

Daniel Rogers Pinkham, Jr. was an American composer, organist, and harpsichordist. Pinkham was one of America's most active composers during his lifetime...

, who was in the early stages of his career, with Phyllis Curtin

Phyllis Curtin

Phyllis Curtin is an American classical soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She was known for her creation of new roles such as the title role in the Carlisle Floyd opera Susannah, Catherine Earnshaw in Floyd's Wuthering Heights, and in...

, a rising opera star at the time who sang the title role. As part of the same program, Pinkham conducted his own composition, a concertino for small orchestra and piano, composed for and dedicated to Paul Doguereau, the soloist.

The concerts took place in Sanders Theater

Sanders Theater

Sanders Theatre or Sanders Theater is the premiere lecture and concert hall at Harvard University. It is internationally known for its superior acoustics, which in New England are only surpassed by Jordan Hall, Mechanics Hall, Worcester, and Boston Symphony Hall.-History:Plans for the theater...

 and in Paine Hall in Cambridge

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, and in Jordan Hall

Jordan Hall

Jordan Hall is a 1,019-seat concert hall in Boston, Massachusetts, the principal performance space of the New England Conservatory. It is one block from Boston's Symphony Hall, and together they are considered two of America's most acoustically perfect performance spaces...

 and at the Gardner Museum in Boston. Under the auspices of Peabody Mason, concerts were also given at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 and Alice Tully Hall

Alice Tully Hall

Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. It is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and philanthropist whose donations assisted in the construction of the hall...

 in New York City, Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 in Providence

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

 and at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 in Brookline

Brookline, Massachusetts

Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, which borders on the cities of Boston and Newton. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 58,732.-Etymology:...

.

Appearing during the years since the re-dedication of the Peabody Mason concerts were the Boston/Cambridge debut recitals of pianists Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould

Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...

, Maurizio Pollini

Maurizio Pollini

Maurizio Pollini is an Italian classical pianist.- Biography and career :Pollini was born in Milan to the Italian rationalist architect Gino Pollini. Maurizio studied piano first with Carlo Lonati, until the age of 13, then with Carlo Vidusso, until he was 18...

, Horacio Gutierrez

Horacio Gutiérrez

Horacio Gutiérrez is a Cuban-American virtuoso classical pianist.-Early life and education:Gutiérrez was born in Havana, Cuba, the eldest of four children, to Tomás V. Gutiérrez and Josefina Fernandez Gutiérrez. His mother was his first piano teacher, and was herself, an accomplished pianist. His...

, Nelson Freire

Nelson Freire

Nelson Freire is a Brazilian classical pianist.Freire began playing the piano when he was three years old. He replayed from memory pieces his older sister had just performed. His teachers in Brazil were Nise Obino and Lucia Branco, former students of a pupil of Liszt. For his first public recital,...

, Gerhard Oppitz

Gerhard Oppitz

Gerhard Oppitz is a German classical pianist.He studied with Paul Buck, Hugo Steurer and Wilhelm Kempff. In 1981 he was appointed professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München - the youngest in the history of the institute - where he still teaches. As a soloist he has appeared with...

, Antonio Barbosa, Ronald Turini

Ronald Turini

Ronald Turini is a Canadian pianist. He made his professional debut at age ten, with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. At sixteen, and holding a scholarship from the Conservatoire de Musique du Quebec, Turini met Vladimir Horowitz...

 and Pascal Devoyon; baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a retired German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous lieder performers of the post-war period and "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century"...

, Gérard Souzay

Gérard Souzay

Gérard Souzay was a French baritone singer, regarded as one of the very finest interpreters of mélodie in the generation after Charles Panzéra and Pierre Bernac.-Background and education:...

 and Håkan Hagegård

Håkan Hagegård

Håkan Hagegård is a Swedish operatic baritone.He studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and has performed on stages across the world, including Carnegie Hall, the London Royal Opera House, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Sydney Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna...

; harpsichordist Rafael Puyana

Rafael Puyana

Rafael Puyana Michelsen is a Colombian harpsichordist.Puyana began piano lessons at age 6 with his aunt and at age 13 made his debut at the Teatro Colón in Bogotá. When he was 16, he went to Boston to continue his piano studies at the New England Conservatory...

; sopranos Régine Crespin

Régine Crespin

Régine Crespin was a French singer who had a major international career in opera and on the concert stage between 1950 and 1989. She started her career singing roles in the dramatic soprano and spinto soprano repertoire, drawing particular acclaim singing Wagner and Strauss heroines...

 and Elly Ameling

Elly Ameling

Elisabeth Sara "Elly" Ameling is a Dutch soprano.-Career:Ameling was born in Rotterdam. She studied with Bodi Rapp, Jo Bollekamp, Sem Dresden and Jacoba Dresden-Dhont and later French art song with Pierre Bernac...

; guitarist Julian Bream

Julian Bream

Julian Bream, CBE is an English classical guitarist and lutenist and is one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century. He has also been successful in renewing popular interest in the Renaissance lute....

; the New York Pro Musica

New York Pro Musica

New York Pro Musica was a vocal and instrumental ensemble that specialized in Medieval and Renaissance early music. It was co-founded in 1952, under the name Pro Musica Antiqua, by Noah Greenberg, a choral director, and Bernard Krainis, a recorder player who studied with Erich Katz.The ensemble is...

 with Noah Greenberg, conductor; the Quartetto di Roma, the Quintetto Chigiano

Quintetto Chigiano

The Quintetto Chigiano was an Italian musical ensemble comprising a string quartet with pianoforte, and was especially active during the 1940s-1960s.- Personnel :The personnel of the Quintet were made up as follows:1st violin: Riccardo Brengola...

 and the Trio Pasquier. These are only several of many distinguished debut performances.

Returning to the Boston area to give Peabody Mason concerts were guitarist Julian Bream

Julian Bream

Julian Bream, CBE is an English classical guitarist and lutenist and is one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century. He has also been successful in renewing popular interest in the Renaissance lute....

; flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal was a French flautist. He has been personally "credited with returning to the flute the popularity as a solo classical instrument it had not held since the 18th century."-Early years:...

; violinist Joseph Fuchs

Joseph Fuchs

Joseph Fuchs was one of the most important American violinists and teachers of the 20th century, and the brother of Lillian Fuchs....

; pianists Guiomar Novaes

Guiomar Novaes

Guiomar Novaes was a Brazilian pianist noted for individuality of tone and phrasing, singing line, and a subtle and nuanced approach to her interpretations...

, Earl Wild, Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle was a Spanish pianist from Catalonia. One of the great piano legends of the 20th century, Reuters called her "the greatest Spanish pianist in history", Time "one of the world's most outstanding pianists" and The Guardian "the leading Spanish pianist of her...

, Andre Watts

André Watts

André Watts is a classical pianist and professor at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University.-Life and early performances:...

, Maurizio Pollini, Georg Demus, Paul Badura-Skoda

Paul Badura-Skoda

Paul Badura-Skoda is an Austrian pianist.He won first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he performed with distinguished conductors like Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan...

, Noël Lee

Noël Lee

Noël Lee is an American classical pianist and composer living in Paris, France.He studied music in Lafayette, Indiana, then attended Harvard University, studying with Walter Piston, Irving Fine, and Tillman Merritt and was also a student at the Longy School of Music in the early 1940s...

, Andrew Rangell, Eugene Indjic and Misha Dichter

Misha Dichter

Misha Dichter is a classical pianist who was born in Shanghai to Polish-Jewish parents who fled Europe at the outbreak of World War II.-Biography:...

; mezzo-sopranos Dame Janet Baker and Teresa Berganza

Teresa Berganza

Teresa Berganza, born on March 16, 1935), is a Spanish mezzo-soprano. She is most closely associated with the roles of Rossini, Mozart, and Bizet. She is admired for her technical virtuosity, musical intelligence and beguiling stage presence.- Biography :...

; and renowned ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic Octet, the Hungarian String Quartet

Hungarian Quartet

The Hungarian String Quartet was a musical ensemble of world renown, particularly famous for its performances of quartets by Beethoven and Bartók...

, the Virtuosi di Roma, the Stuttgart Orchestra, the Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss

Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...

 Improvisation Chamber Ensemble, the Emerson String Quartet

Emerson String Quartet

The Emerson String Quartet is a New York–based string quartet in residence at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Previously the Quartet was in residence at The Hartt School. Formed in 1976, they have released more than twenty albums and won nine Grammy Awards. Both violinists...

 and the New York Vocal Arts Ensemble. Among well-known Boston artists, Donna Roll performed a lied

Lied

is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...

er recital and pianist Luise Vosgerchian gave a concert of chamber music with the violinist Emanuel Borok. These performances were but a few from a long list of illustrious artists who appeared in the Peabody Mason concerts.

The Legacy Continues

In 1995, the trust was gifted to the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

, although Doguereau’s adopted son, Dr. Harrison Slater has continued to present outstanding artists in his Boston home at 192 Commonwealth Avenue in the years after Paul Doguereau’s death. Artists at Slater’s concerts included: David Korevaar; Sergey Schepkin; Richard Bosworth; Janice Weber

Janice Weber

Janice Weber is an American pianist and author.- Music :Born in New Jersey, Weber was a precocious musical talent, making her debut at age 12 with the orchestra at New York's Town Hall. She studied with a number of teachers and musicians, such as Cecile Genhart, Walter Hendel, Jose Echaniz, and...

; Ian Lindsey, Marcus Thompson

Marcus Thompson

Marcus Thompson is a violist and viola d'amore player known for his work as a recitalist, orchestral soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and educator....

, Igor Lovchinsky

Igor Lovchinsky

Igor Lovchinsky is a Russian-American classical pianist.-Early years:Born in Kazan, then part of the Soviet Union, Lovchinsky began his musical career at the Kazan Special Music School for Gifted Children...

; Laura Villafranca; Stephen Porter; cellist Francesco Vila; Joel Cohen and Anne Azéma

Anne Azéma

Anne Azéma, is French-born soprano and artistic director of the Boston Camerata. She has been an important or leading singer of early music since 1993. She has co-directed programs for the Boston Camerata and is also noted as a music scholar...

 of the Boston Camerata; tenor Zachary Stains; Joanna Kurkowitz; and Oleksandr Poliykov.

Peabody Mason International Piano Competition

In recent years, Peabody Mason has also held a piano competition. In the past, the winner received a yearly stipend plus a New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 and a Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 recital. The first Peabody Mason International Piano Competition

Peabody Mason International Piano Competition

- Benefactress :The name Peabody Mason comes from Miss Fanny Peabody Mason, who until her death in 1948 was an active patron of music both in the United States and abroad. Her musical interests were piano, singing and chamber music...

 was held in 1981, with others following in 1984 and 1985. In 2010, Dr. Harrison Slater

Harrison Slater

Harrison Gradwell Slater is an American writer, pianist, and educator.A pianist, he studied with Anthony di Bonaventura and for many years with Paul Doguereau, the noted French pianist who was a pupil of Ravel, Emma Bardac and Paderewski...

, the adopted son of Paul Doguereau, once again launched the piano competition as an international event for the 2010 Chopin year (200th anniversary of his birth). Previous winners have included Peter Orth, David Korevaar and Robert Taub

Robert Taub

Robert Taub is an American concert pianist known for his performance of contemporary classical music. He has performed and recorded many of the works of Milton Babbitt, Mel Powell, and Vincent Persichetti....

.