150
H
AROLD
R
ANDOLPH
,
1861-1927
(Son of Innes Randolph and Anna C. King)
An astounding number of books and articles have
been written about Harold Randolph, famed director of the
Peabody Conservatory of Music. For our purposes, let this
quotation from the JSTOR, Oxford University, suffice.
Harold Randolph’s artistic accomplishments were
conditioned and his educational influence was
circumscribed,
by
the
particular
American
environment in which he was destined to work; and
it is idle to speculate concerning what he might have
accomplished given another set of circumstances.
To the world at large he did not have about him ‘the
stress of a great name of authority.’ But within his
sphere of activity, surrounded by devoted pupils and
admiring colleagues, he stood as a veritable symbol
of musical and personal distinction. All who came in
contact with him were inspired to emulate him, to
achieve in some degree that balance between the
intellectual and the emotional, that almost ‘classic’
attitude towards life and art which characterized his
whole career. For this ‘peculiar quality of pleasure’
which he conveyed—had its ethical value. It taught
one to cultivate self-discipline, to appraise all
experience in terms of the highest standards and to
be both courageous and fastidious in shaping one’s
way of life.