Music and Pines

When Fred Kuphal was a little boy in Germany, he told his mother that his teacher took a goose down from the wall, stroked it with a stick, and made it sing. That began Kuphal’s love affair wih the violin. The Kuphals immigrated to Helena in 1883 where Fred became a promising violinist. He went back to study in Germany, returned to Helena to give music lessons and conduct his own orchestra and went on to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919, newly organized under William A. Clark Jr. The...