Harold S. Farnese (1890 or 1891-1945)-Part Three

Career in Music-Part Two

The Institute of Musical Education was incorporated in Los Angeles in 1926 by S. D. Weaver, Herbert E. "Bert" Rawlinson, John M. Schergen, and Samuel S. Glenberg. I don't know when Harold S. Farnese began teaching there, but he was an instructor as early as December 1930 (in the same year in which he turned forty). I'm on the track of a group photograph for the school from 1926. I hope to find Farnese in that photo, either as a student or as an instructor.

Farnese worked with some prominent and not-so-prominent people at the institute. I'll go through a list beginning with one of the directors of the Institute of Musical Education:

• John M. Schergen (1885-1961)-A composer, he wrote the music for the song "I'm a Soldier" from 1918.
• Guy Bevier Williams (1873-1955)-Musical director, pianist, composer.
• Josef Borissoff, aka Josef Borissoff Piastro (1889-1964)-Violinist.
• Isadore Braggiotti (1864-1934)-Voice.
• Henry Brenner (dates unknown)-Violinist.
• La Verne (Carlin) Fleetwood (1898-1955) (aka La Verne Addis?)-Violinist, voice.
• Jascha Gegna (1879, O.S.-1944)-Violinist.
• Roland Paul (1875-1942)-Voice.
• William B. Ramsdell (ca. 1880?-1936?)-Dance.
• Barbara Elizabeth Rawlinson (1888-1941)-Drama and speech.
• Herbert E. Rawlinson (1883-1964).

Note that a few of these instructors died in the period 1930-1943 while Farnese was also at the institute. I wonder if a loss of personnel (as well as shortages experienced during World War II) helped bring about the end of the institute in 1943.

* * *

I always like to find connections in our wider or mainstream culture to genre fiction, pulp fiction, and popular culture. I have found just such connections with Guy Bevier Williams, who composed music used in several movies and serials from the 1920s and '30s. Williams was uncredited in all of these:

• Tarzan the Tiger (1929)
• The Cohens and the Kellys in Africa (1930)
• Flaming Guns (1932)
• The Phantom of the Air (1933)
• Perils of Pauline (1933)
• The Red Rider (1934)
• The Roaring West (1935)
• The Adventures of Frank Merriwell (1936) 
• The Phantom Rider (1936)

Williams also composed the chant used in the opening credits of White Zombie, released in 1932. Again, he was uncredited for his composition.

Guy Bevier Williams wasn't the only instructor at the institute with connections to genre fiction, pulp fiction, and popular culture. Farnese had those connections, too, and they were more direct and significant, for Harold S. Farnese was a correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft.

To be continued . . .

Copyright 2018, 2023 Terence E. Hanley