fdinousiliiiericaii Composers Rupert "Hughes Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/famousamericancoOOhughrich FAMOUS AMERICAN COMPOSERS \ EDWARD MACDOWELL Famous American Composers Copyright, igoo By L. C. Page & Company (incorporated) All rights reserved Sixth Impression, October, 1906 COLONIAL PRESS EUctrotyfed and Pritited by C. H. Simonds .• . 449 LIST OF MUSIC PAGE Autograph of Edward MacDowell . 34 " Clair de Lune," by Edward MacDowell 46 Autograph of Edgar Stillman Kelley . 58 " Israfel " (fragment), by Edgar Stillman Kelley 74 Autograph of Harvey Worthington LOOMIS 77 «' Sandalphon " (fragment), by H. W. Loomis 82 Autograph of Ethelbert Nevin . . 93 " Herbstgefuhl (fragment), by Ethelbert Nevin 102 Autograph of John Philip Sousa . ,112 A Page from "El Capitan," by John Philip Sousa 127 Autograph of John K. Paine . . -145 POSTLUDE TO " CEdIPUS TYRANNUS," BY JOHN K. Paine 158 " Spring's Awakening " (fragment), by Dudley Buck . . . .172 5 6 List of Music. tKGB. Autograph of Horatio W. Parker. . 174 "Night-piece to Julia" (fragment), by Horatio W. Parker . . . .180 "Die Stunde Sei Gesegnet" (fragment), BY Frank van der Stucken . .194 " A Love Song " (fragment), by W. W. Gil- christ 205 Autograph of G. W. Chadwick . .210 " Folk Song" (No, i), by G. W, Chadwick 216 Autograph of Arthur Foote . . .221 " It Was a Lover and His Lass," by Arthur Foote 230 "Idylle" (fragment), by Arthur Whiting 287 " Ballade " (fragment), by Howard Brock- way 303 Autograph of Harry Rowe Shelley . 304 "Spring" (fragment), by Gerrit Smith . 314 "When Love Is Gone," by C. B. Haw- ley 330 " Song from Omar Khayyam," by Victor Harris 339 " Hymn of Pan " (fragment), Fred Field Bullard 352 " Peace," by Homer A, Norris . . . 362 Autograph of G. W. Marston . . . 367 Excerpt from an Orchestral Score, by F. G. Gleason 378 " Idylle " (fragment), by William H. Sher- wood 385 Autograph of Wilson G. Smith . . 395 List of Music. 7 FAGB «« Arabesque," by Wilson G. Smith . . 404 Fragment of the Score of " Salammb6," BY Johann H. Beck .... 408 Autograph of James H. Rogers . .412 " Black Riders " (fragment), by William Schuyler 416 " Phantoms " (fragment), by Mrs. H. H. A. Beach 429 « Ghosts," by Margaret Ruthven Lang . 436 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FAGB Edward MacDowell . . . Frontispiece Edgar Stillman Kelley . . . • 57 Harvey Worthington Loomis ... 77 John Philip Sousa 112 John Knowles Paine 145 Horatio W. Parker i74 Frank, von der Stucken . . . .188 Henry K. Hadley 241 Charles Crozat Converse . . . 256 Henry Holden Huss 291 Frederick Field Bullard . . • 35^ Homer A. Norris 357 A. J. Goodrich 388 Wilson G. Smith 395 Mrs. H. H. A. Beach 426 FAMOUS AMERICAN COMPOSERS CHAPTER I. A GENERAL SURVEY. Coddling is no longer the chief need of the American composer. While he still wants encouragement in his good tendencies, — much more encouragement than he gets, too, — he is now strong enough to profit by the discouragement of his evil tendencies. In other words, the American composer is ready for criticism. The first and most vital flaw of which his work will be accused is the lack of national- 12 Contemporary American Composers. ism. This I should like to combat after the sophistric fashion of Zeno, — showing, first, why we lack that desideratum, a strictly national school ; secondly, that a strictly national school is not desirable ; and thirdly, that we most assuredly have a national school. In building a national individuality, as in building a personal individuality, there is always a period of discipleship under some older power. When the rudiments and the essentials are once thoroughly mastered, the shackles of discipleship are thrown off, and personal expression in an original way begins. This is the story of every master in every art : The younger Raphael was only Peru- gino junior. Beethoven's first sonatas were more completely Haydn's than the word "gewidmet" would declare. The youthful Canova was swept off his feet by the un- earthing of old Greek masterpieces. Steven- son confesses frankly his early efforts to copy the mannerisms of Scott and others. Na- A General Survey. 1 3 tions are only clusters of individuals, and subject to the same rules. Italy borrowed its beginnings from Byzantium ; Germany and France took theirs from Italy ; we, ours, from them. It was inconceivable that America should produce an autocthonous art. The race is one great mixture of more or less digested foreign elements ; and it is not possible to draw a declaration of artistic, as of political, independence, and thenceforward be truly free. Centuries of differentiated environment (in all the senses of the word environment) are needed to produce a new language or a new art ; and it was inevitable that American music should for long be only a more or less successful employment of European methods. And there was little possibility, according to all precedents in art history, that any striking individuality should rise suddenly to found a school based upon his own mannerism. 14 Contemporary American Composers. Especially was this improbable, since we are in a large sense of English lineage. As the co-heirs, with those who remain in the British Isles, of the magnificent prose and poetry of England, it was possible for us to produce early in our own history a Haw- thorne and a Poe and an Emerson and a Whitman. But we have had more hin- drance than help from our heritage of Eng- lish music, in which there has never been a master of the first rank, Purcell and the rest being, after all, brilliants of the lesser magnitude (with the permission of that electric Englishman, Mr. John F. Run- ciman). A further hindrance was the creed of the Puritan fathers of our civilization ; they had a granite heart, and a suspicious eye for music. Here is a cheerful example of con- gregational lyricism, and a lofty inspiration for musical treatment (the hymn refers to the fate of unbaptized infants) : A General Survey. 1 5 « A crime it is ! Therefore in Bliss You may not hope to dwell ; But unto you I shall allow The easiest room in Hell." It was only at the end of the seventeenth century that singing by note began to sup- plant the "lining-out" barbarism, and to provoke such fierce opposition as this : " First, it is a new way — an unknown tongue ; 2d, it is not so melodious as the old way ; 3d, there are so many tunes that nobody can learn them ; 4th, the new way makes a disturbance in churches, grieves good men, exasperates them, and causes them to behave disorderly; 5th, it is popish; 6th, it will introduce instruments ; 7th, the names of the notes are blasphemous ; 8th, it is needless, the old way being good enough; 9th, it requires too much time to learn it; loth, it makes the young disorderly." At the time when such puerility was dis- turbing this cradle of freedom and cacophony, Bach and Handel were at work in their con- trapuntal webs, the Scarlattis, Corelli and Tartini and Porpora were alive. Peri, Josquin and Willaert and Lassus were dead. 1 6 Contemporary American Composers. and the church had had its last mass from the most famous citizen of the town of Pales- trina. Monteverde was no longer inventing like an Edison ; LulH had gone to France and died ; and Rameau and Gouperin were alive. At this time in the world's art, the Ameri- cans were squabbling over the blasphemy of instruments and of notation ! This is not the place to treat the history of our music. The curious can find enlightenment at such sources as Mr. Louis C. Elson's "National Music of America." It must be enough for me to say that the throttling hands of Puri- tanism are only now fully loosened. Some of our living composers recall the parental opposition that met their first inclinations to a musical career, opposition based upon the disgracefulness, the heathenishness, of music as a profession. The youthfulness of our school of music can be emphasized further by a simple state- A General Survey. 1/ ment that, with the exception of a few names like Lowell Mason, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Stephen A. Emery (a graceful writer as well as a theorist), and George F. Bristow, prac- tically every American composer of even the faintest importance is now living. The influences that finally made American music are chiefly German. Almost all of our composers have studied in Germany, or from teachers trained there ; very few of them turn- ing aside to Paris, and almost none to Italy. The prominent teachers, too, that have come from abroad have been trained in the Ger- man school, whatever their nationality. The growth of a national school has been neces- sarily slow, therefore, for its necessary and complete submission to German influences. It has been further delayed by the meagre native encouragement to effort of the better sort. The populace has been largely indiffer- ent, — the inertia of all large bodies would explain that. A national, a constructive, and 1 8 Contemporary American Composers, collaborative criticism has been conspicuously absent. The leaders of orchestras have also offered an almost insurmountable obstacle to the pro- duction of any work from an American hand until very recently. The Boston Symphony Orchestra has been a noble exception to this rule, and has given about the only opening possible to the native writer. The Chicago Orchestra, in eight seasons under Theodore Thomas, devoted, out of a total of 925 num- bers, only eighteen, or something less than two per cent., to native music. Yet time shows a gradual improvement, and in 1899, out of twenty-seven orchestral numbers per- formed, three were by Americans, which makes a liberal tithe. The Boston Symphony has played the compositions of John Knowles Paine alone more than eighteen times, and those of George W. Chad wick the same number, while E, A. MacDowell and Arthur Foote each appeared on the programs four- A General Survey. 19 teen times. The Kaltenborn Orchestra has made an active effort at the promulgation of our music, and especial honor is due to Frank Van der Stucken, himself a composer of marked abilities ; he was among the first to give orchestral production to American works, and he was, perhaps, the very first to introduce American orchestral work abroad. Like his offices, in spirit and effect, have been the invaluable services of our most eminent pianist, Wm. H. Sherwood, who was for many years the only prominent performer of American piano compositions. Public singers also have been most unpatri- otic in preferring endless repetition of dry foreign anas to fresh compositions from home. The little encore song, which generally ap- peared anonymously, was the opening wedge for the American lyrist. Upon the horizon of this gloom, however, there is a tremor of a dawning interest in national music. Large vocal societies are 20 Contemporary American Composers. giving an increasing number of native part songs and cantatas ; prizes are being awarded in various places, and composers find some financial encouragement for appearing in con- certs of their own work. Manuscript societies are organized in many of the larger cities, and these clubs offer hearing to novelty. There have latterly appeared, from various publishers, special catalogues vaunting the large number of American composers repre- sented on their lists. Another, and a most important sign of the growing influence of music upon American life, is seen in the place it is gaining in the college curriculum ; new chairs have been established, and prominent composers called to fill them, or old professorships that held merely nominal places in the catalogue have been enlarged in scope. In this way music is reestablishing itself in something like its ancient glory ; for the Greeks not only grouped all culture under the general term A General Suri'ey. 2 1 of " Music," but gave voice and instrument a vital place in education. Three of our most prominent composers fill the chairs at three of the most important universities. In all these cases, however, music is an elective study, while the rudiments of the art should, I am convinced, be a required study in every college curriculum, and in the common schools as well. Assuming then, for the nonce, the birth — we are too new a country to speak of a Renascence — of a large interest in national music, there is large disappointment in many quarters, because our American music is not more American. I have argued above that a race transplanted from other soils must still retain most of the old modes of expres- sion, or, varying them, change slowly. But many who excuse us for the present lack of a natural nationalism, are so eager for such a differentiation that they would have us borrow what we cannot breed. 22 Contemporary American Composers. The folk-music of the negro slaves is most frequently mentioned as the right foundation for a strictly American school. A somewhat misunderstood statement advanced by Dr. Antonin Dvorak, brought this idea into general prominence, though it had been dis- cussed by American composers, and made use of in compositions of all grades long before he came here. The vital objection, however, to the gen- eral adoption of negro music as a base for an American school of composition is that it is in no sense a national expression. It is not even a sectional expression, for the white Southerners among whose slaves this music grew, as well as the people of the North, have always looked upon negro music as an exotic and curious thing. Familiar as it is to us, it is yet as foreign a music as any Tyro- lean jodel or Hungarian czardas. The music of the American Indian, often strangely beautiful and impressive, would be A General Survey. 23 as reasonably chosen as that of these im- ported Africs. E. A. MacDowell had, indeed, written a picturesque and impressive Indian suite, some time before the Dvorakian inva- sion. He asserts that the Indian music is preferable to the Ethopian, because its sturdi- ness and force are more congenial with the national mood. But the true hope for a national spirit in American music surely lies, not in the arbi- trary seizure of some musical dialect, but in the development of just such a quality as gives us an individuality among the nations of the world in respect to our character as a people ; and that is a Cosmopolitanism made up of elements from all the world, and yet, in its unified qualities, unlike any one element. Thus our music should, and undoubtedly will, be the gathering into the spirit of the voices of all the nations, and the use of all their expressions in an assimilated, a personal, a spontaneous manner. This need not, by any 24 Contemporary American Composers. means, be a dry, academic eclecticism. The Yankee, a composite of all peoples, yet differs from them all, and owns a sturdy individuality. His music must follow the same fate. As our governmental theories are the out- growth of the experiments and experiences of all previous history, why should not our music, voicing as it must the passions of a cosmopolitan people, use cosmopolitan ex- pressions ? The main thing is the individu- ahty of each artist. To be a citizen of the world, provided one is yet spontaneous and sincere and original, is the best thing. The whole is greater than any of its parts. Along just these lines of individualized cosmopolitanism the American school is working out its identity. Some of our com- posers have shown themselves the heirs of European lore by work of true excellence in the larger classic and romantic forms. The complaint might be made, indeed, that the empty, incorrect period of previous Ameri- A General Survey. 25 can music has given place to too much cor- rectness and too close formation on the old models. This is undoubtedly the result of the long and faithful discipleship under Ger- man methods, and need not be made much of in view of the tendency among a few masters toward original expression. For, after all, even in the heyday of the greatest art periods, only a handful of artists have ever stood out as strongly individual ; the rest have done good work as faithful imitators and past masters in technic. It is, then, fortunate that there is any tendency at all among any of our composers to forsake academic content with classical forms and text-book development of ideas. Two things, however, are matters for very serious disappointment : the surprising pau- city of musical composition displaying the national sense of humor, and the surprising abundance of purest namby-pamby. The presence of the latter class might be ex- 26 Contemporary American Composers. plained by the absence of the former, for namby-pamby cannot exist along with a healthy sense of the ludicrous. There has been a persistent craze among native song- writers for little flower-dramas and bird-trage- dies, which, aiming at exquisiteness, fall far short of that dangerous goal and land in flagrant silliness. This weakness, however, will surely disappear in time, or at least diminish, until it holds no more prominent place than it does in all the foreign schools, where it exists to a certain extent. The scherzo, however, must grow in favor. It is impossible that the most jocose of races, a nation that has given the world an original school of humor, should not carry this spirit over into its music. And yet almost none of the comparatively few scherzos that have been written here have had any sense of the hilarious jollity that makes Beethoven's wit side-shaking. They have been rather of the Chopinesque sort, mere fantasy. To the A General Survey. 27 composers deserving this generalization I recall only two important exceptions, Edgar S. Kelley and Harvey Worthington Loomis. The opportunities before the American composer are enormous, and only half appre- ciated. Whereas, in other arts, the text- book claims only to be a chronicle of what has been done before, in music the text-book is set up as the very gospel and decalogue of the art. The theorists have so thoroughly mapped out the legitimate resources of the composer, and have so prescribed his course in nearly every possible position, that music is made almost more of a mathematical prob- lem than the free expression of emotions and aesthetics. " Correct " music has now hardly more liberty than Egyptian sculpture or Byzantine painting once had. Certain disso- nances are permitted, and certain others, no more dissonant, forbidden, quite arbitrarily, or on hair-splitting theories. It is as if one should write down in a book a number of 28 Contemporary American Composers. charts, giving every scheme of color and every juxtaposition of values permissible to a painter. The music of certain Oriental na- tions, in which the religious orders are the art censors, has stuck fast in its rut because of the observance of rules purely arbitrary. Many of the conventions of modern Euro- pean music are no more scientific or original or consistent ; most of them are based upon the principle that the whim of a great dead composer is worthy to be the law of any liv- ing composer. These Blue Laws of music are constantly assailed surreptitiously and in de- tail ; and yet they are too little attacked as a whole. But music should be a democracy and not an aristocracy, or, still less, a hier- archy. There is a great opportunity for America to carry its political principles into this youngest of the arts. It is a gratifying sign that one of the most prominent theorists of the time, an American scholar, A. J. Good- A General Survey. 29 rich, is adopting some such attitude toward music. He carries dogma to the minimum, and accepts success in the individual instance as sufficient authority for overstepping any general principle. He refers to a contempo- rary American composer for authority and example of some successful unconventionality with the same respect with which he would quote a European's disregard of convention. His pioneering is watched with interest abroad as well as here. Worthy of mention along with Mr. Good- rich' original work is the effort of Homer A. Norris to instil French ideas of musical theory. As a counterweight to the German monopoly of our attention, his influence is to be cordially welcomed. Now that Americanism is rife in the land, some of the glowing interest in things na- tional might well be turned toward an art that has been too much and too long neg- lected among us. 30 Contemporary American Composers. The time has come to take American music seriously. The day for boasting is not yet here, — if indeed it ever comes ; but the day of penitent humility is surely past. A student of the times, Mr. E. S. Martin, shortly before the Spanish War, commented on the radical change that had come over the spirit of American self-regard. We were notorious in the earlier half of the century for boasting, not only of the virtues we in- dubitably had, but of qualities that existed solely in our own imagination. We sounded our barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. A century of almost unanimous Euro- pean disapproval, particularly of our artistic estate, finally converted us from this attitude to one of deprecation almost abject. Having learned the habit of modesty, it has clung to us even now, when some of the foremost artists in the world are Americans. Modesty, is, of course, one of the most beautiful of the virtues, but excess is possible A General Survey. 3 1 and dangerous. As Shakespeare's Florio's Montaigne has it : " We may so seize on vertue, that if we embrace it with an over- greedy and violent desire, it may become vitious." In the case of the American com- poser it is certainly true that we " excessively demeane ourselves in a good action." If, then, the glory of our late successes in the field of battle shall bring about a recrudes- cence of our old vanity, it will at least have its compensations. Meanwhile, the American artist, having long ago ceased to credit himself with all the virtues, has been for years earnestly working out his own salvation in that spirit of solemn determination which makes it proverbial for the American to get anything he sets his heart on. He has submitted himself to a devout study of the Old Masters and the New ; he has made pilgrimage after pilgrimage to the ancient temples of art, and has brought home mfluences that cannot but work for good. 32 Contemporary American Composers. The American painter has won more Euro- pean acceptance than any of our other artists, though this is partly due to his persistence in knocking at the doors of the Paris salons, and gaining the universal prestige of admis- sion there. There is, unfortunately, no such place to focus the attention of the world on a musician. Yet, through the success of American musical students among their rivals abroad ; through the concerts they are giving more and more frequently in foreign coun- tries ; through the fact that a number of European music houses are publishing in- creasing quantities of American compositions, he is making his way to foreign esteem almost more rapidly than at home. A prominent German critic, indeed, has recently put himself on record as accepting the founding of an American school of music as a fait accompli. And no student of the times, who will take the trouble to seek the sources of our art, and observe its actual A Getieral Stirvey. 33 vitality, need be ashamed of looking at the present state of music in America with a substantial pride and a greater hope for the future. CHAPTER II. THE INNOVATORS. Edward Alexander MacDowell. The matter of precedence in creative art is as hopeless of solution as it is unimportant. And yet it seems appropriate to say, in writing of E. A. MacDowell, that an almost unani- mous vote would grant him rank as the greatest of American composers, while not 34 The Innovators. 35 a few ballots would indicate him as the best of living music writers. But this, to repeat, is not vital, the main thing being that MacDowell has a distinct and impressive individuality, and uses his profound scholarship in the pursuit of novelty that is not cheaply sensational, and is yet novelty. He has, for instance, theories as to the textures of sounds, and his chord-forma- tions and progressions are quite his own. His compositions are superb processions, in which each participant is got up with the utmost personal splendor. His generalship is great enough to preserve the unity and the progress of the pageant. With him no note in the melody is allowed to go neglected, ill- mounted on common chords in the bass, or cheap-garbed in trite triads. Each tone is made to suggest something of its multitudi- nous possibilities. Through any geometrical point, an infinite number of lines can be drawn. This is almost the case with any 36 Contemporary American Composers. note of a melody. It is the recognition and the practice of this truth that gives the latter- day schools of music such a lusciousness and warmth of harmony. No one is a more earnest student of these effects than Mac- Dowell. He believes that it is necessary, at this late day, if you would have a chord "bite," to put a trace of acid in its sweetness. With this clue in mind, his unusual procedures become more explicable without losing their charm. New York is rather the Mecca than the birthplace of artists, but it can boast the nativity of MacDowell, who improvised his first songs here December 18, 1861. He began the study of the piano at an early age. One of his teachers was Mme. Teresa Car- reno, to whom he has dedicated his second concerto for the piano. In 1876 he went to Paris and entered the Conservatoire, where he studied theory under The Innovators. 37 Savard, and the piano under Marmontel. He went to Wiesbaden to study with Ehlert in 1879, ^" K^ 7 i) ^, ^^^ ^ 1 h ^, h y(,'^ !«■ *■ * '^'z If ^ r^ '^1 tnm9-*u»taim*»g p*4.ot •ne<> ^,t»...,l.,.Me» ... ^^^^^"-^ itana. rW [^iWf- J=m.r-n_r^ Tl m ^ -1 !3>^ 1^ ._ _ _ ,.4L__h . _ t_ .. H--_- ««f<^«l b^ ' ^f 84 Contemporary American Composers. Belknap. "The Traitor Mandolin," "In Old New Amsterdam," "Put to the Test," "Blanc et Noir," "The Enchanted Foun- tain," " Her Revenge," " Love and Witch- craft " are their names. The music is full of wit, a quality Loomis possesses in un- usual degree. The music mimics every- thing from the busy feather-duster of the maid to her eavesdropping. Pouring wine, clinking glasses, moving a chair, tearing up a letter, and a rollicking wine-song in pan- tomime are all hinted with the drollest and most graphic programmism imaginable. Loomis has also written two burlesque operas, "The Maid of Athens" and "The Burglar's Bride," the libretto of the latter by his brother, Charles Battell Loomis, the well- known humorist. This latter contains some skilful parody on old fogyism. In the Violin Sonata the piano, while granting precedence to the violin, approaches almost to the dignity of a duet. The finale The Innovators. 85 is captivating and brilliant, and develops some big climaxes. The work as a whole is really superb, and ought to be much played. There are, besides, a " Lyric Finale " to a sonata not yet written, and several songs for violin, voice, and piano. A suite for four hands, <' In Summer Fields," contains some happy manifestations of ability, such as "A June Roundelay," " The Dryad's Grove," and, especially, a hu- moresque "Junketing," which is surely des- tined to become a classic. From some of his pantomimes Loomis has made excerpts, and remade them with new elaboration for two pianos, under the name of "Exotics." These are full of variety and of actual nov- elty, now of startling discord, now of revela- tory beauty. A so-called "Norland Epic," freely constructed on the sonata formula, is one of Loomis' most brilliant and personal achievements. Loomis has an especial aptitude for writing 86 Conte^nporary American Composers. artistic ballet -music, and for composing in the tone of different nationalities, particularly the Spanish. His pantomimes contain many irresistible dances, one of them including a Chinese dance alternating 4-4 with 3-4 time. His strikingly fleet " Harlequin " has been published. The gift of adding art to catchiness is a great one. This Loomis seems to have to an unusual degree, as is evidenced by the dances in his pantomimes and his series of six pieces "In Ballet Costume," all of them rich with the finest art along with a Strauss-like spon- taneity. These include " L'Amazone," " Pirou- ette," "Un Pas Seul," " La Coryphee," "The Odalisque," and " The Magyar." One of his largest works is a concert waltz, " Mi-Careme," for two pianos, with elaborate and extended introduction and coda. A series of Genre Pictures contains such lusciousness of felicity as "At an Italian Festival," and there are a number of musical The Innovators. 8y moments of engaging charm, for instance, "N'Importe Quoi," "From a Conservatory Program," "A Tropical Night," a fascinat- ing "Valsette," a nameless valse, and "Another Scandal," which will prove a gilt- ' edged speculation for some tardy publisher. It is brimming with the delicious horror of excited gossipry. An example of how thoroughly Loomis is invested with music — how he thinks in it — is his audacious scherzo, " The Town Crier," printed herewith. In songs Loomis has been most prolific. He has set twenty-two of Shakespeare's lyrics to music of the old English school, such as his uproarious " Let me the cannikin clink," and his dainty " Tell me where is fancy bred." " The Lark " is written in the pentatonic scale, with accompaniment for two flutes and a harp. In the same vein are various songs of Herrick, a lyrist whose verse is not usu- 88 Contemporary American Composers. ally congenial to the modem music-maket Loomis' " Epitaph on a Virgin " must be classed as a success. Indeed, it reaches posi- tive grandeur at its climax, wherein is woven the grim persistence of a tolling bell. In the same style is a clever setting of Ben Jonson's much music'd " To Celia." In German-tone are his veritably magnifi- cent " Herbstnacht" and his "At Midnight," two studies after Franz. Heine's "Des Waldes Kapellmeister" has been made into a most hilarious humoresque, " Bergerie " is a dozen of Norman Gale's lyrics. •' Andalusia " is a flamboyant duet. In Scotch songs there is a positive em- barrassment of riches, Loomis' fancies finding especial food and freedom in this school. I find in these settings far more art and grace than I see even in Schumann's many Scotch songs, or those of any other of the Germans. "Oh, for Ane and Twenty" has bagpipe effects. Such flights of ecstasy as " My The Innovators. 89 Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing," and " Bonnie Wee Thing," are simply tyrannical in their appeal. Then there is an irresistible " Polly Stewart ; " and " My Peggy's Heart " is fairly ambrosial. These and several others, like " There Was a Bonnie Lass," could be made into an album of songs that would delight a whole suite of generations. A number of his songs are published : they include a " John Anderson, My Jo," that has no particular right to live ; a ballad, " Molly," with a touch of art tucked into it ; the beautiful " Sylvan Slumbers," and the quaint and fascinating ." Dutch Garden." Aside from an occasional song like " This- tledown," with its brilliantly fleecy accom- paniment, and the setting of Browning's famous " The Year' at the Spring," for which Loomis has struck out a superb frenzy, and a group of songs by John Vance Cheney, Loomis has found some of his most powerful inspirations in the work of our lyrist, Aldrich, 90 Contemporary American Composers. — such as the rich carillon of " Wedded," and his " Discipline," one of the best of all humorous songs, a gruesome scherzo all about dead monks, in which the music furnishes out the grim irreverence of the words with the utmost waggery. Chief among the lyrics by Cheney are three " Spring Songs," in which Loomis has caught the zest of spring with such rapture that, once they are heard, the world seems poor without them in print. Loomis' literary culture is shown in the sure taste of his selection of lyrics for his music. He has marked aptitudes, too, in creative literature, and has an excellent idea of the arts kindred to his own, particularly architecture. Like Chopin, Loomis is largely occupied in mixing rich new colors on the inexhaustible palette of the piano. Like Chopin, he is not especially called to the orchestra. What the future may hold for him in this field (by no means so indispensable to classic repute as The Innovators. 91 certain pedants assume) it is impossible to say. In the meantime he is giving most of his time to work in larger forms. If in his restless hunt for novelty, always novelty, he grows too original, too unconven- tional, this sin is unusual enough to approach the estate of a virtue. But his oddity is not mere sensation-mongering. It is his indi- viduality. He could make the same reply to such criticism that Schumann made ; he thinks in strange rhythms and hunts curious effects, because his tastes are irrevocably so ordained. But we ought to show a new genius the same generosity toward flaws that we extend toward the masters whose fame is won beyond the patronage of our petty forgiveness. And, all in all, I am impelled to prophesy to Loomis a place very high among the inspired makers of new music. His harmonies, so indefatiga- bly searched out and polished to splendor, so potent in enlarging the color-scale of the 92 Contemporary American Composers. piano ; his patient building up, through long neglect and through long silence, of a monu- mental group of works and of a distinct individuality, must prove at some late day a source of lasting pride to his country, neglectful now in spite of itself. But better than his patience, than his courage, than his sincerity, better than that insufficient defini- tion of genius, — the capacity for taking infinite pains, — is his inspired felicity. His genius is the very essence of felicity. Ethelbert Nevin. It is refreshing to be able to chronicle the achievements of a composer who has become financially successful without destroying his claim on the respect of the learned and severe, or sacrificing his own artistic con- science and individuality. Such a composer is Ethelbert Nevin. His published writings have been altogether The Innovators. 93 along the smaller lines of composition, and he has won an enviable place as a fervent worker in diamonds. None of his gems are paste, and a few have a perfection, a solidity, and a fire that fit them for a place in that coronet one might fancy made up of the richest of /yy^oA^ /^i^-^ ' the jewels of the world's music-makers, and fashioned for the very brows of the Muse herself. Nevin was born in 1862, at Vineacre. on the banks of the Ohio, a few miles from Pitts- burgh. There he spent the first sixteen years of his life, and received all his schooling. 94 Contemporary American Composers. most of it from his father, Robert P. Nevin, editor ajad proprietor of a Pittsburgh news- paper, and a contributor to many magazines. It is interesting to note that he also com- posed several campaign songs, among them the popular " Our Nominee," used in the day of James K. Polk's candidacy. The first grand piano ever taken across the Allegheny Mountains was carted over for Nevin's mother. From his earliest infancy Nevin was musi- cally inclined, and, at the age of four, was often taken from his cradle to play for admiring visitors. To make up for the defi- ciency of his little legs, he used to pile cushions on the pedals so that he might manipulate them from afar. Nevin's father provided for his son both vocal and instrumental instruction, even tak- ing him abroad for two years of travel and music study in Dresden under Von Bohme. Later he studied the piano for two years at The Innovators. 95 Boston, under B. J. Lang, and composition under Stephen A. Emery, whose Uttfe primer on harmony has been to American music al- most what Webster's spelHng-book was to our letters. At the end of two years he went to Pitts- burgh, where he gave lessons, and saved money enough to take him to Berlin. There he spent the years 1884, 1885, and 1886, placing himself in the hands of Karl Klind- worth. Of him Nevin says : " To Herr Klindworth I owe everything that has come to me in my musical life. He was a devoted teacher, and his patience was tireless. His endeavor was not only to develop the stu- dent from a musical standpoint, but to en- large his soul in every way. To do this, he tried to teach one to appreciate and to feel the influence of such great minds of Hterature as Goethe, Schiller, and Shakespeare. He used to insist that a man does not become a musician by practising so many hours a day at 96 Contemporary American Composers. the piano, but by absorbing an influence from all the arts and all the interests of life, from architecture, painting, and even politics." The effect of such broad training — en- joyed rarely enough by music students — is very evident in Nevin's compositions. They are never narrow or provincial. They are the outpourings of a soul that is not only intense in its activities, but is refined and cultivated in its expressions. This effect is seen, too, in the poems Nevin chooses to set to music, — they are almost without exception verses of literary finish and value. His cos- mopolitanism is also remarkable, his songs in French, German, and Italian having no trace of Yankee accent and a great fidelity to their several races. In 1885, Hans von Biilow incorporated the best four pupils of his friend, Klindworth, into an artist class, which he drilled person- ally. Nevin was one of the honored four, and appeared at the unique public Zuh'cren of The Innovators. 97 that year, devoted exclusively to the works of Brahms, Liszt, and Raff. Among the forty or fifty studious listeners at these recitals, Frau Cosima Wagner, the violinist Joachim, and many other celebrities were frequently present. Nevin returned to America in 1887, and took up his residence in Boston, where he taught and played at occasional concerts. Eighteen hundred and ninety-two found him in Paris, where he taught, winning more pupils than here. He was especially happy in imparting to singers the proper Aiiffassung (grasp, interpretation, finish) of songs, and coached many American and French artists for the operatic stage. In 1893 the restless troubadour moved on to Berlin, where he devoted himself so ardently to composition that his health collapsed, and he was exiled a year to Algiers. The early months of 1895 he spent in concert tours through this country. As Klindworth said of him, "he 98 Contemporary American Composers. has a touch that brings tears," and it is in interpretation rather than in bravura that he excels. He plays with that unusual combina- tion of elegance and fervor that so individ- ualizes his composition. Desirous of finding solitude and atmosphere for composition, he took up his residence in Florence, where he composed his suite, " May in Tuscany" (op. 21). The "Arlecchino" of this work has much sprightliness, and shows the influence of Schumann, who made the harlequin particularly his own ; but there is none of Chopin's nocturnity in the " Not- turno," which presents the sussurus and the moonlit, amorous company of "Boccacio's Villa." The suite includes a " Misericordia " depicting a midnight cortege along the Arno, and modelled on Chopin's funeral march in structure with its hoarse dirge and its rich cantilena. The best number of the suite is surely the " Rusignuolo," an exceedingly fluty bird-song. TJte Innovators. 99 From Florence, Nevin went to Venice, where he lived in an old casa on the Grand Canal, opposite the Browning palazzo, and near the house where Wagner wrote ** Tristan und Isolde." One day his man, Guido, took a day off, and brought to Venice an Italian sweetheart, who had lived a few miles from the old dream-city and had never visited it. The day these two spent gondoliering through the waterways, where romance hides in every nook, is imaginatively narrated in tone in Nevin's suite, " Un Giorno in Venezia," a book more handsomely published even than the others of his works, which have been among the earliest to throw off the disgrace- ful weeds of type and design formerly worn by native compositions. The Venetian suite gains a distinctly Italian color from its ingenuously sweet harmonies in thirds and sixths, and its frankly lyric nature, and " The Day in Venice " begins logically with the dawn, which is ushered loo Contemporary American Composers. in with pink and stealthy harmonies, then "The Gondoliers" have a morning mood of gaiety that makes a charming composition. There is a " Canzone Amorosa " of deep fer- vor, with interjections of " lo t'amo ! " and " Amore " (which has the excellent authority of Beethoven's Sonata, op. 8i, with its " Lebe wohl "). The suite ends deliciously with a night scene in Venice, beginning with a choral "Ave Maria," and ending with a campanella of the utmost deUcacy. After a year in Venice Nevin made Paris his home for a year, returning to America then, where he has since remained. Though he has dabbled somewhat in or- chestration, he has been wisely devoting his genius, with an almost Chopin-like singleness of mind, to songs and piano pieces. His piano works are what would be called mor- ceaux. He has never written a sonata, or anything approaching the classical forms, nearer than a gavotte or two. He is very The Innovators. loi modern in his harmonies, the favorite colors on his palette being the warmer keys, which are constantly blended enharmonically. He " swims in a sea of tone," being particu- larly fond of those suspensions and inversions in which the intervals of the second clash passionately, strongly compelling resolution. For all his gracefulness and lyricism, he makes a sturdy and constant use of disso- nance ; in his song " Herbstgefiihl " the dissonance is fearlessly defiant of con- ventions. Nevin's songs, whose only littleness is in their length, though treated with notable individuality, are founded in principle on the Lieder of Schumann and Franz. That is to say, they are written with a high poetical feeling inspired by the verses they sing, and, while melodious enough to justify them as lyrics, yet are near enough to impassioned recitative to do justice to the words on which they are built. Nevin is also an enthusi- [02 Contemporary American Composers. Copyright, 1889, by G. Schirmer, Jr. A FRAGMENT FROM " HERBSTGEFUHL." The Innovators. 103 astic devotee of the position these masters, after Schubert, took on the question of the accompaniment. This is no longer a slavish thumping of a few chords, now and then, to keep the voice on the key, with outbursts of real expression only at the interludes ; but it is a free instrumental composition with a meaning of its own and an integral value, truly accompanying, not merely supporting and serving, the voice. Indeed, one of Nevin's best songs, — *' Lehn deine Wang an meine Wang," — is actually little more than a vocal accompaniment to a piano solo. His accompaniments are always richly colored and generally individualized with a strong contramelody, a descending chromatic scale in octaves making an especially frequent appearance. Design, though not classical, is always present and distinct. Nevin's first published work was a modest "Serenade," with a neat touch of syncopa- tion, which he wrote at the age of eighteen. 104 Contemporary American Composers. His " Sketch-Book," a collection of thirteen songs and piano pieces found an immediate and remarkable sale that has removed the ban formerly existing over books of native compositions. The contents of the " Sketch-Book " dis- play unusual versatility. It opens with a bright gavotte, in which adherence to the classic spirit compels a certain reminiscence of tone. The second piece, a song, " F the Wondrous Month o' May," has such a spring- tide fire and frenzy in the turbulent accom- paniment, and such a fervent reiterance, that it becomes, in my opinion, the best of all the settings of this poem of Heine's, not exclud- ing even Schumann's or that of Franz. The " Love Song," though a piano solo, is in reality a duet between two lovers. It is to me finer than Henselt's perfect " Liebeslied," possibly because the ravishing sweetness of the woman's voice answering the sombre plea of the man gives it a double claim on the The Innovators. 105 heart. The setting 01 " Du bist wie eine Blume," however, hardly "loes justice either to Heine's poem, or to Nevin's art. The " Serenade " is an original bit of work, but the song, " Oh, that We Two were Maying ! " with a voice in the accompaniment making it the duet it should be, — that song can have no higher praise than this, that it is the com- plete, the final musical fulfilment of one of the rarest lyrics in our language. A striking contrast to the keen white regret of this song is the setting of a group of " Chil- dren's Songs," by Robert Louis Stevenson. Nevin's child-songs have a peculiar and charming place. He has not been stingy of either his abundant art or his abundant humanity in writing them. They include four of Stevenson's, the best being the capti- vating " In Winter I get up at Night," and a setting of Eugene Field's " Little Boy Blue," in which a trumpet figure is used with deli- cate patnos. io6 Contemporary American Composers. Nevin's third opus included three exquisite songs of a pastoral nature, Goethe's rollicking *• One Spring Morning " having an immense sale. Opus 5 contained five songs, of which the ecstatic '• 'Twas April " reached the largest popularity. Possibly the smallest sale was enjoyed by " Herbstgefuhl." Many years have not availed to shake my allegiance to this song, as one of the noblest songs in the world's music. It is to me, in all soberness, as great as the greatest of the Lieder of Schu- bert, Schumann or Franz. In " Herbstge- fuhl " (or "Autumn-mood") Gerok's superb poem bewails the death of the leaves and the failing of the year, and cries out in sympathy ; " Such release and dying Sweet would seem to me ! " Deeper passion and wilder despair could not be crowded into so short a song, and the whole brief tragedy is wrought with a gran- The Innovators. 107 deur and climax positively epic. It is a flash of sheer genius. Three piano duets make up opus 6; and other charming works, songs, piano pieces, and violin solos, kept pouring from a pen whose apparent ease concealed a vast deal of studious labor, until the lucky 13, the opus- number of a bundle of "Water Scenes," brought Nevin the greatest popularity of all, thanks largely to " Narcissus," which has been as much thrummed and whistled as any topical song. Of the other " Water Scenes," there is a shimmering " Dragon Fly," a monody, " Ophelia," with a pedal-point of two periods on the tonic, and a fluent " Barcarolle " with a deal of high-colored virtuosity. His book "In Arcady " (1892) contains pastoral scenes, notably an infectious romp that deserves its legend, " They danced as though they never would grow old." The next year his opus 20, "A Book of Songs," io8 Contemporary American Composers. was published. It contains, among other things of merit, a lullaby, called " Sleep, Little Tulip," with a remarkably artistic and effect- ive pedal-point on two notes (the sub-mediant and the dominant) sustained through the entire song with a fine fidelity to the words and the lullaby spirit ; a " Nocturne " in which Nevin has revealed an unsuspected voluptu- ousness in Mr. Aldrich' little lyric, and has written a song of irresistible climaxes. The two songs, " Dites-Moi " and " In der Nacht," each so completely true to the idiom of the language of its poem, are typical of Nevin's cosmopolitanism, referred to before. This same unusual ability is seen in his piano pieces as well as in his songs. He knows the difference between a chanson and a Lied, and in " Rechte Zeit " has written with truth to German soldierliness as he has been sympa- thetic with French nuance in " Le Vase Bris6," the effective song " Mon Desire," which in profile suggests Saint-Saens' familiar The Innovators. 109 Delilah-song, the striking " Chanson des Lavandieres " and " Rapelle-Toi," one of Nevin's most elaborate works, in which Alfred De Musset's verse is splendidly set with much enharmonious color. Very Italian, too, is the "Serenade" with accompaniment a la mandoUn, which is the most fetching number in the suite " Captive Memories," published in 1899. Nevin has also put many an English song to music, notably the deeply sincere " At Twilight," the strenuous lilt " In a Bower," Bourdillon's beautiful lyric, " Before the Day- break," the smooth and unhackneyed treat- ment of the difficult stanza of "'Twas April," that popular song, " One Spring Morning," which has not yet had all the charm sung out of it, and two songs with obbligati for violin and 'cello, " Deep in the Rose's Glowing Heart " and " Doris," a song with a finely studied accompaniment and an aroma of Theokritos. I lO Contemporary American Composers. A suite for the piano is " En Passant," published in 1 899 ; it ranges from a stately old dance, "At Fontainebleau," to " Napoli," a furious tarantelle with effective glissandi ; " In Dreamland " is a most delicious revery with an odd repetition that is not preludatory, but thematic. The suite ends with the most poetic scene of all, " At Home," which makes a tone poem of Richard Hovey's word-picture of a June night in Washington. The depict- ing of the Southern moonlight-balm, with its interlude of a distant and drowsy negro quartette, reminds one pleasantly of Chopin's Nocturne (op. 37, No. i), with its intermezzo of choric monks, though the composition is Nevin's very own in spirit and treatment. In addition to the works catalogued, Nevin has written a pantomime for piano and orchestra to the libretto of that virtuoso in English, Vance Thompson ; it was called " Lady Floriane's Dream," and was given in The Innovators. 1 1 1 New York in 1898. Nevin has also a cantata in making. It needs no very intimate acquaintance with Nevin's music to see that it is not based on an adoration for counterpoint as an end. He believes that true music must come from the emotions — the intelligent emotions — and that when it cannot appeal to the emo- tions it has lost its power. He says : " Above everything we need melody — melody and rhythm. Rhythm is the great thing. We have it in Nature. The trees sway, and our steps keep time, and our very souls respond." In Wagner's " Meistersinger," which he calls "a symphonic poem with action," Nevin finds his musical creed and his model. And now, if authority is needed for all this frankly enthusiastic admiration, let it be found in and echoed from Karl Klindworth, who said of Nevin : " His talent is ungeheures [one of the strongest adjectives in the German language]. If he works hard and is conscien- 112 Contemporary American Composers. tious, he can say for the musical world some- thing that no one else can say." John Philip Sousa. In common with most of those that pretend to love serious music, a certain person was for long guilty of the pitiful snobbery of rating march-tunes as the lowest form of the art. But one day he joined a National Guard regiment, and his first long march was that JOHN PHILIP SOUSA. The Innovators. 113 heart-breaking dress-parade of about fifteen miles through the wind and dust of the day Grant's monument was dedicated. Most of the music played by the band was merely rhythmical embroidery, chiefly in bugle fig- ures, as helpful as a Clementi sonatina ; but now and then there would break forth a magic elixir of tune that fairly plucked his feet up for him, put marrow in unwilling bones, and replaced the dreary doggedness of the heart with a great zest for progress, a stout martial fire, and a fierce esprit de corps ; with patriotism indeed. In almost every case, that march belonged to one John Philip Sousa. It came upon this wretch then, that, if it is a worthy ambition in a composer to give voice to passionate love-ditties, or vague con- templation, or the deep despair of a funeral cortege, it is also a very great thing to instil courage, and furnish an inspiration that will send men gladly, proudly, and gloriously 1 14 Contemporary American Composers. through hardships into battle and death. This last has been the office of the march- tune, and it is as susceptible of structural logic or embellishments as the fugue, rondo, or what not. These architectural qualities Sousa's marches have in high degree, as any one will find that examines their scores or listens analytically. They have the further merit of distinct individuality, and the su- preme merit of founding a school. It is only the plain truth to say that Sousa's marches have founded a school ; that he has indeed revolutionized march-music. His career resembles that of Johann Strauss in many ways. A certain body of old fogies has always presumed to deride the raptur- ous waltzes of Strauss, though they have won enthusiastic praise from even the esoteric Brahms, and gained from Wagner such words as these : " One Strauss waltz overshadows, in respect to animation, finesse, and real mu- sical worth, most of the mechanical, bor- The Innovators. 115 rowed, factory-made products of the present time." The same words might be applied to Sousa's marches with equal justice. They have served also for dance music, and the two-step, borne into vogue by Sousa's music, has driven the waltz almost into desuetude. There is probably no composer in the world with a popularity equal to that of Sousa. Though he sold his " Washington Post" march outright for $1^, his "Liberty Bell" march is said to have brought him ;^ 3 5,000. It is found that his music has been sold to eighteen thousand bands in the United States alone. The amazing thing is to learn that there are so many bands in the country. Sousa's marches have appeared on programs in all parts of the civilized world. At the Queen's Jubilee, when the Queen stepped forward to begin the grand review of the troops, the combined bands of the household brigade struck up the "Washing- ton Post." On other important occasions it 1 1 6 Contemporary American Composers. appeared constantly as the chief march of the week. General Miles heard the marches played in Turkey by the military bands in the reviews. The reason for this overwhelming appeal to the hearts of a planet is not far to seek. The music is conceived in a spirit of high martial zest. It is proud and gay and fierce, thrilled and thrilling with triumph. Like all great music it is made up of simple elements, woven together by a strong personality. It is not difficult now to write something that sounds more or less like a Sousa march, any more than it is difficult to write parodies, serious or otherwise, on Beethoven, Mozart, or Chopin. The glory of Sousa is that he was the first to write in this style ; that he has made himself a style ; that he has so stirred the musical world that countless imi- tations have sprung up after him. The individuality of the Sousa march is this, that, unlike most of the other influential The Injiovators. 1 1 7 marches, it is not so much a musical exhorta- tion from without, as a distillation of the es- sences of soldiering from within. Sousa's marches are not based upon music-room enthusiasms, but on his own wide experiences of the feelings of men who march together in the open field. And so his band music expresses all the nuances of the military psychology : the ex- hilaration of the long unisonal stride, the grip on the musket, the pride in the regimen- tals and the regiment, — esprit de corps. He expresses the inevitable foppery of the sever- est soldier, the tease and the taunt of the evolutions, the fierce wish that all this ploy- ing and deploying were in the face of an actual enemy, the mania to reek upon a tan- gible foe all the joyous energy, the blood- thirst of the warrior. These things Sousa embodies in his music as no other music writer ever has. To ap- proach Sousa's work in the right mood, the ii8 Contemporary American Composers. music critic must leave his stuffy concert hall and his sober black; he must flee from the press, don a uniform, and march. After his legs and spirits have grown aweary under the metronomic tunes of others, let him note the surge of blood in his heart and the rejuvena- tion of all his muscles when the brasses flare into a barbaric Sousa march. No man that marches can ever feel anything but gratitude and homage for Sousa. Of course he is a trickster at times ; ad- mitted that he stoops to conquer at times, yet in his field he is supreme. He is worthy of serious consideration, because his thematic material is almost always novel and forceful, and his instrumentation full of contrast and climax. He is not to be judged by the piano versions of his works, because they are abom- inably thin and inadequate, and they are not klaviermaessig. There should be a Liszt or a Taussig to transcribe him. When all's said and done, Sousa is the The Innovators. 1 19 pulse of the nation, and in war of more inspiration and power to our armies than ten colonels with ten braw regiments behind them. Like Strauss', Mr, Sousa's father was a musician who forbade his son to devote him- self to dance music. As Strauss' mother enabled him secretly to work out his own salvation, so did Sousa's mother help him. Sousa's father was a political exile from Spain, and earned a precarious livelihood by playing a trombone in the very band at Washington which later became his son's stepping-stone to fame. Sousa was born at Washington in 1859. His mother is Ger- man, and Sousa's music shows the effect of Spanish yeast in sturdy German rye bread. Sousa's teachers were John Esputa and George Felix Benkert. The latter Mr. Sousa considers one of the most complete musicians this country has ever known. He put him through such a thorough theoretical train- ing, that at fifteen Sousa was teaching har- 120 Contemporary American Composers. mony. At eight he had begun to earn his own hving as a violin player at a dancing- school, and at ten he was a public soloist. At sixteen he was the conductor of an orches- tra in a variety theatre. Two years later he was musical director of a travelling company in Mr. Milton Nobles' well-known play, " The Phoenix," for which he composed the inci- dental music. Among other incidents in a career of growing importance was a position in the orchestra with which Offenbach toured this country. At the age of twenty-six, after having played, with face blacked, as a negro minstrel, after travelling with the late Matt Morgan's Living Picture Company, and work- ing his way through and above other such experiences in the struggle for life, Sousa became the leader of the United States Marine Band. In the twelve years of his leadership he developed this unimportant organization into one of the best military bands in the world. The Innovators. 121 In 1892 his leadership had given him such fame that he withdrew from the government service to take the leadership of the band carrying his own name. A work of enormous industry was his col- lection and arrangement, by governmental order, of the national and typical tunes of all nations into one volume, an invaluable book of reference. Out of the more than two hundred pub- lished compositions by Sousa, it is not possi- ble to mention many here. Though some of the names are not happily chosen, they call up many episodes of parade gaiety and jaunti- ness, or warlike fire. The " Liberty Bell," "Directorate," "High School Cadets," "King Cotton," "Manhattan Beach," "'Sound Off!'" "Washington Post," "Picador," and others, are all stirring works ; his best, I think, is a deeply patriotic march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." The second part of this has some brass work of particular originality and vim. 122 Contemporary American Composers. In manuscript are a few works of larger form: a symphonic poem, "The Chariot Race," an historical scene, " Sheridan's Ride," and two suites, "Three Quotations " and "The Last Days of Pompeii." The " Three Quotations " are : (a) " The King of France, with twenty thousand men, Marched up a hill and then marched down again," which is the motive for a delightful scherzo- march of much humor in instrumentation ; ip) " And I, too, was born in Arcadia," which is a pastorale with delicious touches of extreme delicacy ; if) " In Darkest Africa," which has a stunning beginning and is a stir- rmg grotesque in the negro manner Dvorak advised Americans to cultivate. All three are well arranged for the piano. The second suite is based on "The Last The Innovators. 123 Days of Pompeii." It opens with a drunken revel, " In the House of Burbo and Strato- nice ; " the bulky brutishness of the gladiators clamoring for wine, a jolly drinking-song, and a dance by a jingling clown make up a superbly written number. The second move- ment is named " Nydia," and represents the pathetic reveries of the blind girl ; it is tender and quiet throughout. The third movement is at once daring and masterly. It boldly attacks "The Destruc- tion," and attains real heights of graphic sug- gestion. A long, almost inaudible roll on the drums, with occasional thuds, heralds the coming of the earthquake ; subterranean rumblings, sharp rushes of tremor, toppling stones, and wild panic are insinuated vividly, with no cheap attempts at actual imitation. The roaring of the terrified lion is heard, and, best touch of all, under the fury of the scene persists the calm chant of the Nazarenes, written in one of the ancient modes. The 124 Contemporaty American Composers. rout gives way to the sea-voyage of Glaucus and lone, and Nydia's swan-song dies away in the gentle splash of ripples. The work is altogether one of superb imagination and scholarly achievement. Sousa, appealing as he does to an audience chiefly of the popular sort, makes frequent use of devices shocking to the conventional. But even in this he is impelled by the enthu- siasm of an experimenter and a developer. Almost every unconventional novelty is hooted at in the arts. But the sensationalism of to-day is the conservatism of to-morrow, and the chief difference between a touch of high art and a trick is that the former succeeds and the latter does not. Both are likely to have a common origin. The good thing is that Sousa is actuated by the spirit of progress and experiment, and has carried on the development of the mili- tary band begun by the late Patrick S. Gil- more. Sousa' s concert programs devote what The Innovators. 125 is in fact the greater part of their space to music by the very best composers. These, of course, lose something in being translated over to the military band, but their effect in raising the popular standard of musical culture cannot but be immense. Through such in- strumentality much of Wagner is as truly popular as any music played. The active agents of such a result should receive the heartiest support from every one sincerely interested in turning the people toward the best things in music. Incidentally, it is well to admit that while a cheap march-tune is almost as trashy as an uninspired symphony, a good march-tune is one of the best things in the best music. Though chiefly known as a writer of marches, in which he has won glory enough for the average human ambition, Sousa has also taken a large place in American comic opera. His first piece, "The Smugglers," was produced in 1879, and scored the usual 126 Contemporary American Composers. failure of a first work. His " Katherine " was never produced, his " Desiree " was brought out in 1884 by the McCaull Opera Company, and his " Queen of Hearts," a one- act piece, was given two years later. He forsook opera then for ten years ; but in 1 896 De Wolf Hopper produced his " El Capitan " with great success. The chief tune of the piece was a march used with Meyerbeerian effectiveness to bring down the curtain. The stout verve of this "El Capitan" march gave it a large vogue outside the opera. Hopper next produced "The Charlatan," a work bordering upon op6ra comique in its first version. Both of these works scored even larger success in London than at home. In "The Bride Elect," Sousa wrote his own libretto, and while there was the usual stirring march as the pi^ce de resistance, the work as a whole was less clangorous of the cymbal than the operas of many a tamer com- The Innovators. Hflllo Hoderato gnzioso. 127 Used by permiesion of the John Church Company, owners of the copyright. A PAGE FROM " EL CAPITAN," BY JOHN PHILIP SOUSA. 128 Contemporary American Composers. poser. In " Chris and the Wonderful Lamp," an extravaganza, the chief ensemble was worked Up from a previous march, " Hands Across the Sea." But Sousa can write other things than marches, and his scoring is full of variety, freedom, and contrapuntal brilliance. Henry Schoenefeld. Long before Dvorak discovered America, we aboriginals had been trying to invent a national musical dialect which should identify us as completely to the foreigner as our nasal intonation and our fondness for the correct and venerable use of the word "guess." But Dvorak is to credit for taking the problem off the shelf, and persuading our composers to think. I cannot coax myself into the enthusiasm some have felt for Dv6rak's own explorations in darkest Africa. His quartette (op. 96) and his " New World " symphony are The Innovators. 129 about as full of accent and infidelity as Mile. Yvette Guilbert's picturesque efforts to sing in English. But almost anything is better than the phlegm that says, " The old ways are good enough for all time ; " and the Bohemian missionary must always hold a place in the chronicle of American music. A disciple of Dvordk's, both in advance and in retrospect, is Henry Schoenefeld, who wrote a characteristic suite (op, 15) before the Dvorakian invasion, and an overture, "In the Sunny South," afterward. The suite, which has been played frequently abroad, winning the praises of Hanslick, Nicode, and Rubin- stein, is scored for string orchestra. It opens with an overly reminiscent waltz-tune, and ends conventionally, but it contains a move- ment in negro-tone that gives it importance. . In this the strings are abetted by a tambou- rine, a triangle, and a gong. It is in march- time, and, after a staccato prelude, begins with a catchy air taken by the second violins, 130 Contemporary American Composers. while the firsts, divided, fill up the chords. A slower theme follows in the tonic major ; it is a jollificational air, dancing from the first violins with a bright use of harmonics. Two periods of loud chorale appear with the gong clanging (to hint a church-bell, perhaps). The first two themes return and end the picture. The overture (op. 22) has won the high esteem of A. J, Goodrich, and it seems to me to be one of the most important of native works, not because of its nigrescence, but because of its spontaneity, therein. It adds to the usual instruments only the piccolo, the English horn, the tambourine, and tri- angle and cymbals. The slow introduction gives forth an original theme in the most approved and most fetching darky pattern. The strings announce it, and the wood re- plies. The flutes and clarinets toss it in a blanket furnished by an interesting passage in the cellos and contrabasses. There is a choral moment from the English horn, the The Innovators. 131 bassoons, and a clarinet. This solemn thought keeps recurring parenthetically through the general gaiety. The first subject clatters in, the second is even more jubilant. In the development a dance misterioso is used with faithful screaming repetitions, and the work ends regularly and brilliantly. There is much syncopation, though nothing that is strictly in "rag-time;" banjo-figurations are freely and ingeniously employed, and the whole is a splendid fiction in local color. Schoene- feld's negroes do not speak Bohemian. His determined nationalism is responsible for his festival overture, "The American Flag," based on his own setting of Rodman Drake's familiar poem. The work opens with the hymn blaring loudly from the an- tiphonal brass and wood. The subjects are taken from it with much thematic skill, and handled artfully, but the hymn, which ap- pears in full force for coda, is as trite as the most of its kith. 132 Contemporary American Composers. Schoenefeld was born in Milwaukee, in 1857, His father was a musician, and his teacher for some years. At the age of seven- teen Schoenefeld went to Leipzig, where he spent three years, studying under Reinecke, Coccius, Papperitz, and Grill, A large choral and orchestral work was awarded a prize over many competitors, and performed at the Gewandhaus concerts, the composer conduct- ing. Thereafter he went to Weimar, where he studied under Edward Lassen. In 1879 hs came back to America, and took up his residence in Chicago, where he has since lived as a teacher, orchestra leader, and composer. He has for many years directed the Germania Mannerchor. Schoenefeld's " Rural Symphony " was awarded the ^500 prize offered by the National Conservatory. Dvordk was the chairman of the Committee on Award, and gave Schoenefeld hearty compliments. Later works are : " Die drei Indianer," an ode for The Innovators. 133 male chorus, solo, and orchestra ; a most beautiful " Air " for orchestra (the air being taken by most of the strings, — the first vio- lins haunting the G string, — while a harp and three flutes carry the burden of the ac- companiment gracefully) ; a pleasant " Rev- erie " for string orchestra, harp, and organ ; and two impromptus for string orchestra, a " Meditation " representing Cordelia brooding tenderly over the slumbering King Lear, — art ministering very tenderly to the mood, — and a cleverly woven " Valse Noble." Only a few of Schoenefeld's works are pub- lished, all of them piano pieces. It is no slur upon his orchestral glory to say that these are for the most part unimportant, except the excellent "Impromptu" and "Prelude." Of the eight numbers in "The Festival," for children, only the " Mazurka " is likely to make even the smallest child think. The " Kleine Tanz Suite " is better. The six children's pieces of opus 41, "Mysteries of 134 Contemporary American Composers. the Wood," make considerable appeal to the fancy and imagination, and are highly inter- esting. They show Grieg's influence very plainly, and are quite worth recommending. This cannot be said of his most inelegant " Valse Elegante," or of his numerous dances, except, perhaps, his "Valse Caprice." He won in July, 1899, the prize offered to American composers by Henri Marteau, for a sonata for violin and piano. The jury was com- posed of such men as Dubois, Pierne, Diemer, and Pugno. The sonata is quasi f ant asia^ and begins strongly with an evident intention to make use of negro-tone. The first subject is so vigorously declared that one is surprised to find that it is elastic enough to express a sweet pathos and a deep gloom. It is rather fully developed before the second subject enters; this, on the other hand, is hardly insinuated in its relative major before the rather inelaborate elaboration begins. In the romanza, syncopation and imitation are much The Innovators. 135 relied on, though the general atmosphere is that of a nocturne, a trio of dance-like manner breaking in. The final rondo com- bines a clog with a choral intermezzo. The work is noteworthy for its deep sincerity and great lyric beauty. Maurice Arnold. The plantation dances of Maurice Arnold have an intrinsic interest quite aside from their intrinsic value. Arnold, whose full name is Maurice Arnold-Strothotte, was born in St. Louis in 1865. His mother was a prominent pianist and gave him his first les- sons in music. At the age of fifteen he went to Cincinnati, studying at the College of Music for three years. In 1883 he went to Germany to study counterpoint and composi- tion with Vierling and Urban in Berlin. The latter discouraged him when he attempted to imbue a suite with a negro plantation spirit. 136 Contemporary American Composers. Arnold now went upon a tramping tour in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Some of his compositions show the influence of his journey. He then entered the Cologne Con- servatory, studying under Wuellner, Neitzel, and G. Jensen. His first piano sonata was performed there at a public concert. He next went to Breslau, where, under the in- struction of Max Bruch, he wrote his cantata, "The Wild Chase," and gave public perform- ance to other orchestral work. Returning now to St. Louis, he busied himself as solo violinist and teacher, travelling also as a con- ductor of opera companies. When Dvdrak came here Arnold wrote his " Plantation Dances," which were produced in a concert under the auspices of the Bohemian com- poser. Arnold was instructor of harmony at the National Convervatory under Dvordk. The " Plantation Dances " are Arnold's thirty-third opus, and they have been much played by orchestras ; they are also published The Innovators. 1 3 7 as a piano duet ; the second dance also as a solo. Arnold has not made direct use of Ethiopian themes, but has sought the African spirit. The first of the dances is very nigresque ; the second hardly at all, though it is a delicious piece of music ; the third dance uses banjo figures and realizes darky hilarity in fine style ; the fourth is a cake walk and hits off the droll humor of that pompous ceremony fascinatingly. Arnold's " Dramatic Overture " shows afire and rush very characteristic of him and likely to be kept up without sufficient con- trast. So also does his cantata, " The Wild Chase." Arnold has written two comic operas. I have heard parts of the first and noted moments of much beauty and humor. The Aragonaise, which opens the third act, is particularly delightful. The orchestra- tion throughout displays Arnold's character- istic studiousness in picturesque effect. For piano there is a czardas, and a " Valse 138 Contemporary American Composers. fil^gante " for eight hands ; it is more Vien- nese than Chopinesque. It might indeed be called a practicable waltz lavishly adorned. The fruits of Arnold's Oriental journey are seen in his impressionistic " Danse de la Mid- way Plaisance ; " a very clever reminiscence of a Turkish minstrel ; and a Turkish march, which has been played by many German orchestras. There is a " Caprice Espagnol," which is delightful, and a " Banjoenne," which treats banjo music so captivatingly that Arnold may be said to have invented a new and fertile and musical form. Besides these there are a fugue for eight hands, a " Min- strel Serenade " for violin and piano, and six duets for violin and viola. There are also a few part songs and some solos, among which mention should be made of "Ein Marlein," in the old German style, an exquisitely tender "Barcarolle," and a setting of the poem, " I Think of Thee in Silent Night," which makes use of a particu- The Innovators. 1 39 larly beautiful phrase for pre-, inter-, and post-lude. Arnold has also written some ballet music, a tarantelle for string orches- tra, and is at work upon a symphony, and a book, "Some Points in Modern Orchestra- tion." His violin sonata (now in MS.) shows his original talent at its best. In the first movement, the first subject is a snappy and taking example of negro-tone, the second has the perfume of moonlit magnolia in its lyri- cism. (In the reprise this subject, which had originally appeared in the dominant major, recurs in the tonic major, the key of the so- nata being E minor.) The second movement is also in the darky spirit, but full of mel- ancholy. For finale the composer has flown to Ireland and written a bully jig full of dash and spirit, N. Clifford Page. The influence of Japanese and Chinese art upon our world of decoration has long been 140 Contemporary American Composers. realized. After considering the amount of interest shown in the Celestial music by American composers, one is tempted to prophesy a decided influence in this line, and a considerable spread of Japanese influence in the world of music also. Japanese music has a decorative effect that is sometimes almost as captivating as in painting. The city of San Francisco is the natural gateway for any such impulse, and not a little of it has already passed the custom house. In this field Edgar S. Kelley's influ- ence is predominating, and it is not surpris- ing that he should pass the contagion on to his pupil, Nathaniel Clifford Page, who was born in San Francisco, October 26, 1866. His ancestors were American for many years prior to the Revolution. He composed operas at the age of twelve, and has used many of these immature ideas with advantage in the later years. He began the serious study of music at the age of sixteen, Kelley being his The Innovator's. 141 principal teacher. His first opera, composed and orchestrated before he became of age, was entitled " The First Lieutenant." It was produced in 1889 at the Tivoli Opera House in San Francisco, where most of the critics spoke highly of its instrumental and Oriental color, some of the scenes being laid in Morocco. In instrumentation, which is considered Page's forte, he has never had any instruc- tion further than his own reading and inves- tigation. He began to conduct in opera and concert early in life, and has had much experience. He has also been active as a teacher in harmony and orchestration. An important phase of Page's writing has been incidental music for plays, his greatest success having been achieved by the music for the "Moonlight Blossom," a play based upon Japanese life and produced in London in 1898. The overture was written entirely on actual Japanese themes, including the 142 Contemporary American Composers. national anthem of Japan. Page was three weeks writing these twelve measures. He had a Japanese fiddle arranged with a violin finger-board, but thanks to the highly charac- teristic stubbornness of orchestral players, he was compelled to have this part played by a mandolin. Two Japanese drums, a whistle used by a Japanese shampooer, and a Japanese guitar were somehow permitted to add their accent. The national air is used in augmen- tation later as the bass for a Japanese song called "K Honen." The fidelity of the music is proved by the fact that Sir Edwin Arnold's Japanese wife recognized the vari- ous airs and was carried away by the national anthem. Although the play was not a success, the music was given a cordial reception, and brought Page contracts for other work in England, including a play of Indian life by Mrs. Flora Annie Steel. Previously to the writing of the "Moon- The Innovators. 143 light Blossom " music, Page had arranged the incidental music for the same author's play, "The Cat and the Cherub." Edgar S. Kelley's " Aladdin " music was the source from which most of the incidental music was drawn ; but Page added some things of his own, among them being one of the most effective and unexpected devices for producing a sense of horror and dread I have ever listened to : simply the sounding at long intervals of two gruff single tones in the extreme low register of the double basses and bassoons. The grimncss of this effect is indescribable. An unnamed Oriental opera, and an opera called "Villiers," in which old English color is employed (including a grotesque dance of the clumsy Ironsides), show the cosmopolitan restlessness of Page's muse. An appalling scheme of self-amusement is seen in his " Caprice," in which a theme of eight meas- ures' length is instrumented with almost every 144 Contemporary American Composers. contrapuntal device known, and with psycho- logical variety that runs through five move- ments, scherzando, vigoroso, con sentimento, religioso, and a marcia fantastico. The suite called "Village Fete" is an experiment in French local color. It contains five scenes : The Peasants Going to Chapel ; The Flower Girls; The Vagabonds; The Tryst; The Sabot Dance, and the Entrance of the Mayor, which is a pompous march. On the occasion of a performance of this, Louis Arthur Russell wrote : "His orchestra is surely French, and as modern as you please. The idiom is Berlioz's rather than Wagner's." JOHN KNOWLES PAINE. CHAPTER III. THE ACADEMICS. John Knowles Paine. (rL.^%u^ There is one thing better than modernity, — it is immortality. So while I am a most ardent devotee of modern movements, be- cause they are at worst experiments, and motion is necessary to life, I fail to see why 145 146 Contemporary American Composers. it is necessary in picking up something new always to drop something old, as if one were an awkward, butter-fingered parcel-carrier. If a composer writes empty stuff in the latest styles, he is one degree better than the purveyor of trite stuff in the old styles ; but he is nobody before the high thinker who finds himself suited by the general methods of the classic writers. The most classic of our composers is their venerable dean, John Knowles Paine. It is an interesting proof of the youth of our native school of music, that the principal symphony, " Spring," of our first composer of import- ance, was written only twenty-one years ago. Before Mr. Paine there had never been an American music writer worthy of serious consideration in the larger forms. By a mere coincidence Joachim Raff had written a symphony called "Spring" in 1878, just a year before Paine finished his in America. The first movement in both is The Academics, 147 called " Nature's Awakening ; " such an idea is inevitable in any spring composition, from poetry up — or down. For a second move- ment Raff has a wild "Walpurgis Night Revel," while Paine has a scherzo called "May Night Fantasy." Where Raff is uncanny and fiendish, Paine is cheerful and elfin. The third movement of Raff's symphony is called " First Blossoms of Spring," and the last is called " The Joys of Wandering." The latter two movements of Mr. Paine's symphony are " A Promise of Spring" and "The Glory of Nature." The beginning of both symphonies is, of course, a slow introduction representing the torpid gloom of winter, out of which spring aspires and ascends, Paine's symphony, though aiming to shape the molten gold of April fervor in the rigid mold of the symphonic form, has escaped every appearance of mechanism and restraint. It is program music of the most legiti- 148 Contemporary Americati Composers. mate sort, in full accord with Beethoven's canon, " Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei." It has no aim of imitating spring- time noises, but seeks to stimulate by sug- gestion the hearer's creative imagination, and provoke by a musical telepathy the emotions that swayed the nympholept composer. The first movement of the symphony has an intro- duction containing two motives distinct from the two subjects of the movement. These motives represent Winter and the Awakening. The Winter motive may be again divided into a chill and icy motif and a rushing wind-motif. Through these the timid Awakening spirit lifts its head like the first trillium of the year. There is a silence and a stealthy flutter of the violins as if a cloud of birds were playing courier to the Spring. Suddenly, after a little prelude, as if a bluebird were tuning his throat, vi^e are enveloped in the key of the symphony (A major) and the Spring runs lilt- ing up the 'cellos to the violins (which are divided in the naif archaic interval of the tenth, too much ig- nored in our over-colored harmonies). The second subject is propounded by the oboes (in the rather unusual related key of the submediant). This is a The Academics. 149 lyrical and dancing idea, and it does battle with the underground resistance of the Winter motives. There is an elaborate conclusion of fiercest joy. Its ecstasy droops, and after a little flutter as of little wings, the elaboration opens with the Spring motive in the minor. In this part, scholarship revels in its own luxury, the birds quiver about our heads again, and the reprise begins (in A major of course) with new exultance, the dancing second subject appears (in the tonic), over- whelming the failing strength of the Winter with a cascade of delight. Then the conclusion rushes in ; this I consider one of the most joyous themes ever inspired. There is a coda of vanishing bird-wings and throats, a pizzicato chord on the strings — and Spring has had her coronation. "The May Night Fantasy" is a moonlit revel of elves caught by a musical reporter, a surreptitious " chiel amang 'em takin' notes." A single hobgob- lin bassoon croaks ludicrously away, the pixies darkle and flirt and dance their hearts out of them. The Romance is in rondo form with love-lorn iteration of themes and intermezzo, and deftest broidery, the whole ending, after a graceful Recollec- tion, in a bliss of harmony. The Finale is a halleluiah. It is on the sonata formula, without introduction (the second subject being not in the dominant of A major, but in C 150 Contemporary American Composers. major, that chaste, frank key which one of the popes strangely dubbed " lascivious "). The elaboration is frenetic with strife, but the reprise is a many-hued rainbow after storm, and the coda in A major (ending a symphony begun in A minor) is swift with delight. This symphony has been played much, but not half enough. It should resist the weari- ness of time as immortally as Fletcher's play, " The Two Noble Kinsmen " (in which Shake- speare's hand is glorious), for it is, to quote that drama, "fresher than May, sweeter than her gold buttons on the bough, or all th'enamell'd knacks o' the mead or garden." John Knowles Paine is a name that has been held in long and high honor among American composers. He was about the earliest of native writers to convince foreign musicians that some good could come out of Nazareth. He was bom in Portland, Me., January 9, 1839. He studied music first under a local teacher, Kotzschmar, making his debut as The Academics. 1 5 1 organist at the age of eighteen. A year later he was in BerHn, where for three years he studied the organ, composition, instrumenta- tion, and singing under Haupt, Wieprecht, and others. He gave several organ concerts in Germany, and made a tour in 1865- 1866. In February, 1867, his "Mass" was given at the Berlin Singakademie, Paine conducting. Then he came back to the States, and in 1872 was appointed to an instructorship of music at Harvard, whence he was promoted in 1876 to a full professorship, a chair created for him and occupied by him ever since with distinguished success. His first symphony was brought out by Theodore Thomas in 1876. This and his other orchestral works have been frequently performed at various places in this country and abroad. His only oratorio, "St. Peter," was first produced at Portland in 1873, and in Boston a year later. It is a work of great power and 152 Contemporary American Composers. much dramatic strength. Upton, in his valuable work, " Standard Oratorios," calls it "from the highest standpoint the only oratorio yet produced in this country." This oratorio, while containing much of the floridity and repetition of Handel at his worst, is also marked with the erudition and largeness of Handel at his best. The aria for St. Peter, " O God, My God, Forsake Me Not," is especially fine. A much-played symphonic poem is Paine's " The Tempest," which develops musically the chief episodes of Shakespeare's play. He has also written a valuable overture to "As You Like It ; " he has set Keats' " Realm of Fancy " exquisitely, and Milton's " Na- tivity." And he has written a grand opera on a mediaeval theme to his own libretto. This is a three-act work called " Azara ; " the libretto has been published by the River- side Press, and is to be translated into German. This has not yet been performed. Being, The Academics. i $ 3 unfortunately, an American grand opera, it takes very little acuteness of foresight to predict a long wait before it is ever heard. In it Paine has shown himself more a roman- ticist than a classicist, and the work is said to be full of modernity. Paine wrote the music for Whittier's "Hymn," used to open the Centennial Ex- position at Philadelphia, and was fitly chosen to write the Columbus March and Hymn for the opening ceremonies of the World's Fair, at Chicago, October 21, 1892. This was given by several thousand performers under the direction of Theodore Thomas. A most original and interesting work is the chorus, " Phoebus, Arise." It seems good to hark back for words to old William Drum- mond "of Hawthornden." The exquisite flavor of long-since that marks the poetry is conserved in the tune. While markedly original, it smacks agreeably of the music of Harry Lawes, that nightingale of the seven- 154 Contemporary American Composers. teenth century, whose fancies are too much neglected nowadays. Paine' s strong point is his climaxes, which are never timid, and are often positively titanic, thrilling. The climax of this chorus is notably superb, and the voices hold for two measures after the orchestra finishes. The power of this effect can be easily imagined. This work is marked, to an unusual extent, with a sensuousness of color. The year eighteen hundred eighty-one saw the first production of what is generally considered Paine's most important com- position, and by some called the best work by an American, — his setting of the choruses of the "GEdipos Tyrannos " of Sophokles. It was written for the presen- tation by Harvard University, and has been sung, in whole or in part, very frequently since. This masterpiece of Grecian genius is so mighty in conception and so mighty in execution that it has not lost power at all in The Academics. 155 the long centuries since it first thrilled the Greeks. To realize its possibilities musically is to give proof enough of the very highest order of genius, — a genius akin to that of Sophokles. It may be said that in general Paine has completely fulfilled his opportu- nities. Mendelssohn also set two Greek tragedies to music, Sophokles' " CEdipos in Kolonos " and his "Antigone." Mendelssohn is re- ported to have made a first attempt at writing Grecian music, or what we suppose it to be, mainly a matter of unison and meagre instrumentation. He was soon dissuaded from such a step, however, and wisely. The Greek tragedians, really writers of grand opera, made undoubted use of the best musical implements and knowledge they had. Creative emotion has its prosperity in the minds of its audience, not in the accuracy of its mechanism. To secure the effect on us that the Greek tragedians produced on con- 156 Contemporary American Composers. temporary audiences, it is necessary that our music be a sublimation along the lines we are accustomed to, as theirs was along lines familiar to them and effective with them. Otherwise, instead of being moved by the miseries of CEdipos, we should be chiefly occupied with amusement at the oddity of the music, and soon bored unendurably by its monotony and thinness. Mendelssohn decided then to use unison frequently for suggestion's sake, but not to carry it to a fault. His experiments along these lines have been of evident advantage to Paine, who has, however, kept strictly to his own individuality, and produced a work that, at its highest, reaches a higher plane, in my opinion, than anything in Mendelssohn's noble tragedies, — and I am not, at that, one of those that affect to look down upon the achievements of the genius that built "Eli- jah." Paine's prelude is an immense piece of The Academics. 1 5 7 work, in every way larger and more elabo- rate than that to Mendelssohn's " Antigone" (the "CEdipos in Kolonos" begins strongly with only one period of thirteen measures). The opening chorus of Paine's "CEdipos" is the weakest thing in the work. The second strophe has a few good moments, but soon falls back into what is impudent enough to be actually catchy! — and that, too, of a Lowell Mason, Moody and Sankey catchi- ness. Curiously enough, Mendelssohn's " Antigone " begins with a chorus more like a drinking-song than anything else, and the first solo is pure Volkslied; both of them imbued with a Teutonic flavor that could be cut with a knife. In Mendelssohn's " CEdipos in Kolonos," however, the music expresses emotion rather than German emotion, and abounds in splendors of harmony that are strikingly Wagnerian — in advance. Paine's second chorus describes the im- aginary pursuit by Fate of the murderer of 158 Contemporary American Composers. Copyright, 1895, by Arthur P. Schmidt. POSTLUDE TO " CEDIPUS TYRANNUS," BY J. K. PAINE. i6o Contemporary American Composers. King Laius. It is full of grim fire, and the second strophe is at first simply terrible with awe. Then it degenerates somewhat into an arioso, almost Italian. The fourth chorus defends the oracles from Jocasta's incredulity. It is written almost in march measure, and is full of robor. At this point in the tragedy, where it be- gins to transpire to CEdipos that he himself was the unwitting murderer and the incestu- ous wretch whose exile the oracle demands before dispelling the plague, — here the divine genius of Sophokles introduces a chorus of general merriment, somewhat as Shakespeare uses the maundering fool as a foil to heighten King Lear's fate. No praise can be too high for Paine's music here. Its choric structure is masterly, its spirit is running fire. Note, as an instance, the effect at the words "To save our land thou didst rise as a tower ! " where the music itself is suddenly uplift with most effective suggestion. The Academics. l6l The sixth chorus shows the effect of CEdipos' divulged guilt and the misery of this fool of Fate. The music is an outburst of sheer genius. It is overpowering, frighten- ing. The postlude is orchestral, with the chorus speaking above the music. Jocasta has hanged herself, GEdipos has torn out his own eyes with her brooch. The music is a fitting reverie on the great play, and after a wild tumult it subsides in a resigned quietude. From Greek tragedy to Yankee patriotism is a long cry, yet I think Paine has not wasted his abilities on his " Song of Promise," writ- ten for the Cincinnati May Festival of 1888. Though the poem by Mr. George E. Wood- berry is the very apotheosis of American brag, it has a redeeming technic. The music, for soprano solo, mixed chorus, and orchestra, reaches the very peaks of inspiration. I doubt if any living composer or many dead masters could grow so epic, as most of this. In a way it is academic. It shows a little of 1 62 Contemporary American Composers. the influence of Wagner, — as any decent music should nowadays. But it is not Wagner's music, and it is not trite academia. There is no finicky tinsel and no cheap oddity. Considering the heights at which both words and music aimed, it is amazing that they did not fall into utter wreck and nau- seating bathos. That they have proved so effective shows the sure-footedness of genius. It is all good, especially the soprano solo. This music is exquisite, wondrously exqui- site, and it is followed by a maestoso e solenne movement of unsurpassable majesty. I have never read anything more purely what music should be for grandeur. And it praises our ain countree ! It might well be taken up by some of our countless vocal societies to give a much needed respite to Handel's threadbare " Messiah." When one considers the largeness of the works to which Paine has devoted himself The Academics. 163 chiefly, he can be excused for the meagreness and comparative unimportance of his smaller works for piano and vocal solo. The only song of his I care for particularly is " A Bird upon a Rosy Bough " (op. 40), which is old- fashioned, especially in accompaniment, yet at times delicious. The song " Early Spring- time" is most curiously original. Of piano pieces there are a sprightly " Birthday Impromptu " and a fuga giocosa, which deals wittily with that theme known generally by the words " Over the Fence Is Out ! " The " Nocturne " begins like Schu- mann, falls into the style of his second Nov- ellette, thence to the largo of Beethoven's Sonata (op. 10, No. 3), thence to Chopinism, wherein it ends, an interesting assemblage withal ! A long "Romance" for the piano is marked by some excellent incidents and much passion, but it lacks unity. It is the last work in " An Album of Pianoforte 164 Contemporary American Composers. Pieces," which is otherwise full of rare de- lights. It is made up of opera 25, 26, and 39. Opus 25 contains four characteristic pieces, — a "Dance" full of dance-rapture, a most original " Impromptu," and a " Rondo Gio- coso," which is just the kind of brilliantly witty scherzo whose infrequency in American music is so lamentable and so surprising. Opus 26 includes ten sketches, all good, espe- cially " Woodnotes," a charming tone-poem, the deliciously simple "Wayside Flowers," " Under the Lindens," which is a masterpiece of beautiful syncopation, a refreshingly inter- esting bit in the hackneyed " Millstream " form, and a "Village Dance," which has much of that quaint flavor that makes Hel- ler's etudes a perennial delight. Besides these, there are a number of motets, organ preludes, string quartettes, con- cert pieces for violin, cello, piano, and the like, all contributing to the furtherance of an august fame. The Academics. 165 Dudley Buck. Music follows the laws of supply and de- mand just as the other necessities of life do. But before a demand could exist for it in its more austere and unadulterated forms, the general taste for it must be improved. For this purpose the offices of skilful compro- misers were required, composers who could at the same time please the popular taste and teach it discrimination. Among these invalu- able workers, a high place belongs, in point both of priority and achievement, to Dudley Buck. He has been a powerful agent, or reagent, in converting the stagnant ferment into a live and wholesome ebullition, or as the old Greek evolutionists would say, start- ing the first progress in the primeval ooze of American Philistinism. A more thoroughly New England ancestry it would be hard to find. The founder of the family came over from England soon 1 66 Contemporary American Composers. after the Mayjlozver landed. Buck was named after Governor Dudley of the Ply- mouth Colony. He was born at Hartford, March lo, 1839. His father was a prosper- ous shipping merchant, one of whose boats, during the Civil War, towed the Monitor from New York to Fortress Monroe on the momentous voyage that destroyed the Merri- macs usefulness. Buck, though intended for commercial life, borrowed a work on thorough-bass and a flute and proceeded to try the wings of his muse. A melodeon supplanted the flute, and when he was sixteen he attained the glory of a piano, a rare possession in those times. (Would that it were rarer now!) He took a few lessons and played a church- organ for a salary, — a small thing, but his own. After reaching the junior year in Trinity College, he prevailed upon his parents to sur- render him to music, an almost scandalous The Academics. 167 career in the New England mind of that day, still unbleached of its Blue Laws. At the age of nineteen he went to Leipzig and entered the Conservatory there, studying composition under Hauptmann and E. F. Richter, orchestration under Rietz, and the piano under Moscheles and Plaidy. Later he went to Dresden and studied the organ with Schneider. After three years in Germany, he studied for a year in Paris, and came home, settling down in Hartford as church-organist und teacher. He began a series of organ-concert tours lasting fifteen years. He played in almost every important city and in many small towns, popularizing the best music by that happy fervor of interpretation which alone is needed to bring classical composi- tions home to the public heart. In 1869 he was called to the " mother-church" of Chicago. In the Chicago fire he lost many valuable manuscripts, including a concert overture on 1 68 Contemporary American Composers. Drake's exquisite poem, "The Culprit Fay," which must be especially regretted. He moved his family to Boston, assuming in ten days the position of organist at St. Paul's ; and later he accepted charge of "the great organ " at Music Hall, — that organ of which Artemus Ward wrote so deliciously. In 1 875 Theodore Thomas, whose orchestra had performed many of Buck's compositions, invited him to become his assistant conductor at the Cincinnati Music Festival and at the last series of concerts at the Central Park Garden in New York. Buck accepted and made his home in Brooklyn, where he has since remained as organist of the Holy Trinity Church, and conductor of the Apollo Club, which he founded and brought to a high state of efficiency, writing for it many of his nu- merous compositions for male voices. Buck's close association with church work has naturally led him chiefly into sacred music, and in this class of composition he The Academics. 169 is by many authorities accorded the very highest place among American composers. He has also written many organ solos, so- natas, marches, a pastorale, a rondo caprice, and many concert transcriptions, as well as a group of 6tudes for pedal phrasing, and sev- eral important treatises on various musical topics. His two " Motett Collections " were a refreshing relief and inspiration to church choirs thirsty for religious Protestant music of some depth and warmth. In the cantata form Buck also holds a fore- most place. In 1876 he was honored with a commission to set to music " The Centen- nial Meditation of Columbia," a poem written for the occasion by the Southern poet, Sidney Lanier. This was performed at the opening of the Philadelphia Exhibition by a chorus of one thousand voices, an organ, and an orches- tra of two hundred pieces under the direction of Theodore Thomas. In 1874 he made a metrical version of "The Legend of Don I/O Contemporary Americati Composers. Munio " from Irving's " Alhambra," and set it to music for a small orchestra and chorus. Its adaptability to the resources of the vocal societies of smaller cities has made it one of his most popular works. Another bit of Washington Irving is found in Buck's cantata, "The Voyage of Colum- bus," the libretto for which he has taken from Irving's " Life of Columbus." It con- sists of six night-scenes, — " The Chapel of St. George at Palos," "On the Deck of the Sajita Maria,'' "The Vesper Hymn," "Mu- tiny," " In Distant Andalusia," and " Land and Thanksgiving." The opportunities here for Buck's skilful handling of choruses and his dramatic feeling in solos are obvious, and the work has been frequently used both in this country and in Germany with much suc- cess. Buck, in fact, made the German libretto as well as the English, and has written the words for many of his compositions. His largest work was " The Light of Asia," com- The Academics. 171 posed in 1885 and based on Sir Edwin Arnold's epic. It requires two and one-half hours for performance and has met the usual success of Buck's music ; it was produced in London with such soloists as Nordica, Lloyd, and Santley. It has been occasionally given here. He has found the greater part of his texts in American poetry, particularly in Lanier, Stedman, and Longfellow, whose "King Olaf's Christmas " and " Nun of Nidaros " he has set to music, as well as his " Golden Legend," which won a prize of one thousand dollars at the Cincinnati Festival in a large competition. His work is analyzed very fully in A. J. Goodrich' " Musical Analysis." Here, as in his symphonic overture to Scott's "Marmion," Buck has adopted the Wagnerian idea of the leit-motif as a vivid means of distinguishing musically the various characters and their varying emotions. His music is not markedly Wagnerian, however, 1/2 Contemporary American Composers. i±h r^t) ,- ^O J) 1— R-r-p— 'P^ 1 — -- — 1 p^ rTspZT "Tn r rt A " fef^ % r (L'^'d 1 ^f — - ^^fefe^ ^^ ^ J- i i J ^ « Copyright, 1893, by G. Schlrmer. FRAGMENT FROM " SPRING'S AWAKENING," BY MR. BUCK The Academics. 1 73 in other ways, but seems to show, back of his individuality, an assimilation of the good old school of canon and fugue, with an Italian tendency to the declamatory and well-rounded melodic period. It might be wished that in his occasional secular songs Buck had followed less in the steps of the Italian aria and the English bal- ^lad and adopted more of the newer, nobler spirit of the Lied as Schumann and Franz represent it, and as many of our younger Americans have done with thorough success and not a little of exaltation. Note for instance the inadequacy of the old-style balladry to both its own opportunity and the otherwise-smothered fire of such a poem as Sidney Lanier's " Sunset," which is posi- tively Shakespearean in its passionate per- fection. In religious music, however, Mr. Buck has made a niche of its own for his music, which it occupies with grace and dignity. [74 Contemporary Americati Composers. Uu Horatio W. Parker. 4 WArWw<- When one considers the enormous space occupied by the hymn-tune in New England musical activity, it is small wonder that most of its composers should display hymnal pro- clivities. Both Buck and Parker are natives of New England. Parker was born, September 15, 1863, at Auburndale, Mass. His mother was his first teacher of music. She was an organist, and gave him a thorough technical schooling which won the highest commendation later from Rheinberger, who entrusted to him the first performance of a new organ concerto. HORATIO \V. PARKER. The Academics. 175 After some study in Boston under Stephen A. Emery, John Orth, and G. W. Chadwick, Parker went to Munich at the age of eighteen, where he came under the special favor of Rheinberger, and where various compositions were performed by the Royal Music School orchestra. After three years of Europe, he returned to America and assumed the direc- tion of the music at St. Paul's school. He has held various posts since, and has been, since 1 894, the Battell Professor of Music at Yale. His rather imposing list of works includes a symphony (1885), an operetta, a concert overture (1884), an overture, " Regulus " (1885), performed in Munich and in London, and an overture, "Count Robert of Paris" (1890), performed in New York, a ballad for chorus and orchestra, "King Trojan," pre- sented in Munich in 1885, the Twenty-third Psalm for female chorus and orchestra (1884), an "Idylle" (1891) ; "The Normans," "The 176 Contemporary American Composers. Kobolds," and " Harold Harfager," all for chorus and orchestra, and all dated 1891 ; an oratorio, three or more cantatas, and various bits of chamber-music. His opus number has already reached forty-three, and it is eked out to a very small degree by such imponderous works as organ and piano solos, hymns, and songs. In 1893, Parker won the National Conservatory prize for a cantata, and in 1898 the McCagg prize for an a capella chorus. Parker's piano compositions and secular songs are not numerous. They seem rather the incidental byplays and recreations of a fancy chiefly turned to sacred music of the larger forms. Opus 19 consists of "Four Sketches," of which the " Etude Melodieuse " is as good as is necessary in that overworked style, wherein a thin melody is set about with a thinner ripple of arpeggios. The " Romanza " is lyric and delightful, while the " Scherzino " The Academics. 177 is delicious and crisp as celery ; it is worthy of Schumann, whom it suggests, and many of whose cool tones and mannerisms it borrows. The " 5 Morceaux Characteristiques " are on the whole better. The "Scherzo" is shimmering with playfulness, and, in the Beethoven fashion, has a tender intermezzo amoroso. This seriousness is enforced with an ending of a most plaintive nature. The "Caprice" is brilliant and whimsical, with some odd effects in accent. The " Gavotte " makes unusual employment of triplets, but lacks the precious yeast of enthusiasm necessary to a prime gavotte. This enthusiasm is not lacking however from his " Impromptu," and it makes his " Elegie " a masterly work, possibly his best in the smaller lines. This piece is altogether elegiac in spirit, intense in its sombrest depths, impatient with wild outcries, — like Chopin's " Funeral March," — and working r/S Contemporary American Composers. up to an immense passion at the end. This subsides in ravish ingly liquid arpeggios, — "melodious tears " ? — which obtain the kin- dred effect of Chopin's tinkling "Berceuse" in a slightly different way. This notable work is marred by an interlude in which the left hand mumbles harshness in the bass, while the right hand is busy with airy fiori- ture. It is too close a copy of the finish of the first movement of Beethoven's " Moon- light " sonata. The lengthening skips of the left hand are also Beethoven esque trade- marks. Parker is rather old-fashioned in his forms of musical speech. That is, he has what you might call the narrative style. He follows his theme as an absorbing plot, engaging enough in itself, without gorgeous digressions and pendent pictures. His work has some- thing of the Italian method. A melody or a theme, he seems to think, is only marred by abstruse harmony, and is endangered by The Academics. 179 diversions. One might almost say that a uniform lack of attention to color-poissibili- ties and a monotonous fidelity to a cool, gray tone characterize him. His fondness for the plain, cold octave is notable. It is emphasized by the ill-success of his "Six Lyrics for Piano, without octaves." They are all of thin value, and the "Novelette" is danger- ously Schumannesque. The "Three Love Songs" are happy, " Love's Chase " keeping up the arch raillery and whim of Beddoe's verse. "Orsame's Song " is smooth and graceful, ending with a well-blurted, abrupt " The devil take her ! " The " Night-piece to Julia " is notable. We have no poet whose lyrics are harder to set to music than good Robin Herrick's. They have a lilt of their own that is incompatible with ordinary music. Parker has, however, been completely successful in this instance. A mysterious, night-like carillon accompani- ment, dehcate as harebells, gives sudden way [8o Contemporary American Composers. Copyright, 1S86, by Arthur P. Sclimidt & Co. FRAGMENT OF MR. PARKER'S SONG, " NIGHT-PIECE TO JUI-TA-" The Academics. i8i to a superb support of a powerful outburst at the end of the song. The " Six Songs " show not a Httle of that modernity and opulent color I have denied to the most of Mr. Parker's work. " Oh. Ask Me Not " is nothing less than inspira- tion, rapturously beautiful, with a rich use of unexpected intervals. The " Egyptian Serenade " is both novel and beautiful. The other songs are good ; even the comic-operatic flavor of the " Cavalry Song " is redeemed by its catchy sweep. Among a large number of works for the pipe-organ, few are so marked by that pur- poseless rambling organists are so prone to, as the " Fantaisie," The " Melody and Inter- mezzo " of opus 20 makes a sprightly humor- esque. The " Andante Religioso " of opus 1 7 has really an allegretto effect, and is much better as a gay pastorale than as a devotional exercise. It is much more shepherdly than the avowed " Pastorale " (opus 20), and almost 1 82 Contemporary American Composers. as much so as the "Eclogue," dehcious with the organ's possibiHties for reed and pipe effects. The " Romanza " is a gem of the first water. A charming quaint effect is got by the accompaniment of the air, played legato on the swell, with an echo, staccato, of its own chords on the great. The interlude is a tender melody, beautifully managed. The two " Concert Pieces " are marked by a large simplicity in treatment, and have this rare merit, that they are less gymnastic exercises than expressions of feeling. A fiery " Trium- phal March," a delightful " Canzonetta," and a noble " Larghetto," of sombre, yet rich and well-modulated, colors, complete the list of his works for the organ. None of these are registered with over-elaboration. To sacred music Parker has made important contributions. Besides a dignified, yet im- passioned, complete " Morning and Evening Service for the Holy Communion," he has written several single songs and anthems. The Academics. 183 It is the masterwork, " Hora Novissima," however, which lifts him above golden medi- ocrity. From the three thousand lines of Bernard of Cluny's poem, " De Contemptu Mundi," famous since the twelfth century, and made music with the mellowness of its own Latin rhyme, Mrs. Isabella G. Parker, the composer's mother, has translated 210 lines. The English is hardly more than a loose paraphrase, as this random parallel proves : Pars mea, Rex meus, Most Mighty, most Holy, In proprio Deus, How great is the glory, Ipse decora. Thy throne enfolding. Or this skilful evasion : Tunc Jacob, Israel, All the long history, Et Lia, tunc Rachel All the deep mystery Efficietur. Through ages hidden. But it is perhaps better for avoiding the Charybdis of literalness. Those who accuse Rossini's " Stabat 184 Contemporary American Composers. Mater" of a fervor more theatric than re- ligious, will find the same faults in Parker's work, along with much that is purely ecclesi- astical. Though his sorrow is apt to" become petulance, there is much that is as big in spirit as in handling. The work is frequently Mendelssohnian in treatment. An archaism that might have been spared, since so little of the poem was retained, is the sad old Handelian style of repeating the same words indefinitely, to all neglect of emptiness of meaning and triteness. Thus the words " Pars mea, Rex metis " are repeated by the alto exactly thirteen times! which, any one will admit, is an unlucky number, especially since the other voices keep tossing the same unlucky words in a musical battledore. The especially good numbers of the work (which was composed in 1892, and first pro- duced, with almost sensational success, in 1893) are: the magnificent opening chorus; the solo for the soprano ; the large and fiery The Academics. 185 finale to Part I. ; the superb tenor solo, "Golden Jerusalem," which is possibly the most original and thrilling of all the numbers, is, in every way, well varied, elaborated, and intensified, and prepares well for the massive and effective double chorus, " Stant Syon Atria," an imposing structure whose ambition found skill sufficing ; an alto solo of original qualities ; and a finale, tremendous, though somewhat long drawn out. Of this work, so careful a critic as W. J. Henderson was moved to write : « His melodic ideas are not only plentiful, but they are beautiful, . . . graceful and sometimes splendidly vigorous. . . . There is an a capella chorus which is one of the finest specimens of pure church polyphony that has been produced in recent years. ... It might have been written by Hobrecht, Brume), or even Josquin des Pres. It is impossible to write higher praise than this. . . . The orchestration is extraordinarily . . . rich. As a whole . . . the composition . . . may be set down as one of the finest achievements of the present day." 1 86 Contemporary American Composers. And Philip Hale, a most discriminant musical enthusiast, described the chorus " Pars Mea " as : " A masterpiece, true music of the church," to which " any acknowledged master of composition in Europe would gladly sign his name. . . . For the a capella chorus there is nothing but unbounded praise. . . . Weighing words as counters, I do not hesitate to say that I know of no one in the country or in England who could by nature and by student's sweat have written those eleven pages. ... I have spoken of Mr. Parker's quasi-operatic tendency. Now he is a modern. He has shown in this very work his appreciation and his mastery of antique religious musical art. But as a modern he is com- pelled to feel the force of the dramatic in religious music. . . . But his most far-reaching, his most exalted and rapt conception of the bliss beyond compare is expressed in the language of Palestrina and Bach." In September, 1899, the work was pro- duced with decisive success in London, Parker conducting. Besides this, there are several secular The A cadcm ics. 1 8 7 cantatas, particularly "King Trojan," which contains a singable tune for Trojan with many delicate nuances in the accompaniment, and a harp-accompanied page's song that is simply ambrosial. Then there is Arlo Bates' poem, "The Kobolds," which Parker has blessed with music as delicate as the laces of gossamer-spiders. His latest work is devoted to the legend of St. Christopher, and displays the same abilities for massive and complex scoring whenever the opportunity offers. On the other hand, the work discloses Parker's weak- nesses as well, for the libretto drags in certain love episodes evidently thought desirable for the sake of contrast and yet manifestly un- necessary to the story. The character of the queen, for instance, is quite useless, and, in fact, disconcerting. The love scene be- tween the king and queen reminds one uncomfortably of Tristan and Isolde, while a descending scale constantly used throughout 1 88 Contemporary American Composers. the work in the accompaniment incessantly suggests the "Samson and Delilah" of Saint-Saens. In spite of flaws, however, — flaws are to be had everywhere for the looking, — Parker's work has its fine points. The struggle between the demons and the singers of the sacred Latin Hymn has made excellent use of the Tannhauser effect. The Cathedral scene shows Parker's resources in the massive use of choruses to be very large. The bar- carolling billows of the river are ravishingly written, and the voice of the child crying out is effectively introduced. The song the giant Christopher sings through the storm is par- ticularly superb. Frank van der Stucken. On the bead-roll of those who have had both the ability and the courage to take a stand for our music, the name of Frank van FRANK VAN DER STUCKEN. The Academics. 1 89 der Stucken must stand high. His Ameri- canism is very frail, so far as birth and breed- ing count, but he has won his naturahzation by his ardor for native music. Van der Stucken's life has been full of labors and honors. He was born at Fred- ericksburg, Texas, in 1858, of a Belgian father and a German mother. After the Civil War, in which the father served fn the Confederate army as a captain of the Texan cavalry, the family returned to Bel- gium, where, at Antwerp, Van der Stucken studied under Benoit. Here some of his music was played in the churches, and a ballet at the Royal Theatre. In 1878 he began studies in Leipzig, mak- ing important acquaintances, such as Rei- necke, Grieg, and Sinding. His first male chorus was sung there, with great success. Of his fifth opus, consisting of nine songs, Edvard Grieg wrote an enthusiastic criti- cism. After travelling for some time, Van 190 Contemporary American Composers. der Stucken was appointed kapellmeister at the Breslau Stadt-Theatre, This was his debut as conductor. Here he composed his well-known suite on Shakespeare's " Tem- pest," which has been performed abroad and here. Here, also, he wrote a " Festzug," an important work in Wagnerian style, and his passionate " Pagina d' Amore," which, with the published portions of his lyric drama, "Vlasda," has been performed by many great orchestras. In 1883, Van der Stucken met Liszt, at Weimar, and under his auspices gave a con- cert of his own compositions, winning the congratulations of Grieg, Lassen, Liszt, and many other celebrated musicians. A promi- nent German critic headed his review of the performance : " A new star on the musical firmament." Van der Stucken was now called to the directorship of the famous Arion Male Chorus in New York, a position which he held for The Academics. 191 eleven years with remarkable results. In 1892 he took his chorus on a tour in Europe and won superlative praises everywhere. In 1885 and successive years Van der Stucken conducted orchestral " Novelty Con- certs," which have an historical importance as giving the first hearing to symphonic works by American composers. In Berlin and in Paris he also gave our musicians the privilege of public performance. From 1891 to 1894 he devoted himself to reforming the Northeastern Saengerbund, achieving the enormous task of making five thousand male voices sing difficult music artistically. Since 1895 Van der Stucken has been conductor of the newly formed Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, as well as dean of the faculty of the College of Music in that city. The in- fluence of this man, who is certainly one of the most important musicians of his time, is bringing Cincinnati back to its old musical prestige. 192 Contemporary American Composers. As a composer, Van der Stucken shows the same orginality and power that charac- terize him as an organizer. His prelude to the opera "Vlasda" (op, 9) is one long rapture of passionate sweetness, superbly- instrumented. An arrangement of it has been made for the piano for four hands by Horatio W. Parker, Van der Stucken's music to " The Tem- pest" (op. 8) is published in three forms. Besides the orchestral score, there is an arrangement for piano solo, by A. Siloti, of the " Dance of the Gnomes," " Dance of the Nymphs," and " Dance of the Reapers," the first and third being especially well transcribed. For four hands, Hans Sitt has arranged these three dances, as well as a short but rich " Exorcism," some splendid melodramatic music, and the rattling gro- tesque, "The Hound-chase after Caliban." All these pieces are finely imagined and artistically handled. The Academics, 193 For piano solo, there is a group of three Miniatures (op. 7). The first is an Album- blatt of curious dun colors ; the second is a Capriccietto, a strange whim ; the third is a beautiful bit called " May Blossom." Of Van der Stucken's songs I have seen two groups, the first a setting of five love lyrics by Riickert. None of these are over two pages long, except the last. They are written in the best modern Lied style, and are quite unhackneyed. It is always the un- expected that happens, though this unex- pected thing almost always proves to be a right thing. Without any sense of strain or bombast he reaches superb climaxes ; with- out eccentricity he is individual ; and his songs are truly interpreters of the words they express. Of these five, " Wann die Rosen aufgebliiht " is a wonderfully fine and fiery work ; " Die Stunde sei gesegnet " has one of the most beautiful endings imagi- nable ; " Mir ist, nun ich die habe " has a deep 194 Contetnporary American Composers. Copyright, 1892, by Fricdrich Luckhardt, Berlin. By permission of Luckhardt & Bolder, New York. FRAGMENT OI'' MR. VAN DER STUCKEN'S " DIE STIINDE -SEI GESEGNET." The Academics. 195 significance in much simplicity, and its end- ing, by breaking the rule against consecutive octaves, attains, as rule-breakings have an unpleasant habit of doing, an excellent effect. " Liebste, nur dich seh'n " is a passionate lyric ; and "Wenn die Voglein sich gepaart " is florid and trilly, but legitimately so ; it should find much concert use. These songs, indeed, are all more than melodies ; they are expressions. Of the second group of eight songs for low voice, " O Jugendlust " is athrill with young ecstasy ; " Einsame Thrane " has superb coloring, all sombre, and a tre- mendous climax ; " Seeligkeit " is big with emotion and ravishing in harmony, " Ein Schaferlied " is exquisite, " Von schon Sici- lien war mein Traum " begins in the style of Lassen, but ends with a strength and vigor far beyond that tender melodist. Be- sides these groups, there is a rich lyric " Moonlight ; " and there are many part songs. 196 Contemporary American Composers. A work of considerable importance written many years before and presented by Franz Liszt at Weimar had its first American pro- duction in 1 899, at Cincinnati and New York. It is a symphonic prologue to Heine's tragedy, "William Ratcliff." The different psycho- logical phases of the tragedy are presented by characteristic motives which war among themselves. The Scottish locale is indicated vividly, and the despair of the lovers pre- sented in one place by the distortion and rending of all the principal motives. A dirge with bells and a final musing upon, and resig- nation before, implacable Fate give a digni- fied close to a work in which passion is exploited with erudition and modernity. W. W. Gilchrist. The prize competition has its evils, un- questionably ; and, in a place of settled status, perhaps, they outnumber its benefits. The Academics. 197 But in American music it has been of mate- rial encouragement to the production of large works. In the first place, those who do not win have been stimulated to action, and have at least their effort for their pains. In the second place, those who manage to win are several hundred dollars the richer, and may offer the wolf at the door a more effective bribe than empty-stomached song. In the city of Philadelphia lives a compo- ser of unusual luck in prize-winning. That large and ancient town is not noteworthy for its activity in the manufacture of original music. In fact, some one has spoken of it as "a town where the greatest reproach to a musician is residence there." The city's one prominent music-writer is William Wal- lace Gilchrist ; but he stands among the first of our composers. He is especially interest- ing as a purely native product, having never studied abroad, and yet having won among our composers a foremost place in the larger 198 Contemporary American Composers. forms of composition. He was born in Jersey City, January 8, 1846; his father was a Canadian, his mother a native of this coun- try ; both were skilled in music, and his home life was full of it, especially of the old church music. After a youth of the usual school life he tried various pursuits, — pho- tography, law, business ; but music kept calling him. A good barytone voice led him to join vocal societies, and at length he made music his profession, after studying voice, organ, and composition with Dr. H. A. Clarke, of Philadelphia. He was a success- ful soloist in oratorio for some years, but gradually devoted himself to church work and conducting, and to composition, though none of his music was published till he was thirty-two, when he took two prizes offered by the Abt Male Singing Society of Phila- delphia. Shortly after taking the Abt Society prize, he won three offered by the Mendelssohn The Academics. 199 Glee Club of New York, and in 1884 he took the ^1,000 prize offered by the Cincinnati Festival Association. This last was gained by his setting of the Forty-sixth Psalm for soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra. The overture opens with a noble adante contemplatif, which deserves its epithet, but falls after a time into rather un- interesting moods, whence it breaks only at the last period. The opening chorus, " God Is Our Refuge and Strength," seems to me to be built on a rather trite and empty sub- ject, which it plays battledore and shuttle- cock with in the brave old pompous and canonic style, which stands for little beyond science and labor. It is only fair to say, however, that A. J. Goodrich, in his "Musi- cal Analysis," praises "the strength and dignity " of this chorus ; and gives a minute analysis of the whole work with liberal the- matic quotation. The psalm, as a whole, though built on old lines, is built well on 200 Contemporary American Composers. those lines, and the solo " God Is in the Midst of Her " is taken up with especially fine effect by the chorus. "The Heathen Raged" is a most ingeniously complicated chorus also. The cantata, " Prayer and Praise," is simi- larly conventional, and suffers from the sin of repetition, but contains much that is strong. Of the three prize male choruses written for the Mendelssohn Glee Club, the " Ode to the Sun " is the least successful. It is written to the bombast of Mrs. Hemans, and is fittingly hysterical ; occasionally it fairly shrieks itself out. " In Autumn " is quieter ; a sombre work with a fine outburst at the end. " The Journey of Life " is an andante misterioso that catches the gloom of Bryant's verse, and offers a good play for that art of interweaving voices in which Gilchrist is an adept. "The Uplifted Gates" is a chorus for mixed voices with solos for sopranos and The Academics. 20 1 altos ; it is elaborate, warm, and brilliant. In lighter tone are the " Spring Song," a trio with cheap words, but bright music and a rich ending, and " The Sea Fairies," a chorus of delightful delicacy for women's voices. It has a piano accompaniment for four hands. In this same difficult medium of women's voices is "The Fountain," a surpassingly beautiful work, graceful and silvery as a cas- cade. It reminds one, not by its manner at all, but by its success, of that supreme achievement, Wagner's song of the "Rhine- maidens." The piano accompaniment to Gilchrist's chorus aids the general picture. A thoroughly charming work is the setting of Lowell's poem, "The Rose," for solos and chorus. The dreariness of the lonely poet and the lonely maid contrasts strongly with the rapture of their meeting. As the first half of the poem is morose yet melodious, the latter is bright with ecstasy ; the ending is of the deepest tenderness. 202 Contemporary American Composers. By all odds the best of these choruses, how- ever, is " The Legend of the Bended Bow," a fine war-chant by Mrs. Hemans. Tradi- tion tells that in ancient Britain the people were summoned to war by messengers who carried a bended bow ; the poem tells of the various patriots approached. The reaper is bidden to leave his standing corn, the hunts- man to turn from the chase ; the chieftain, the prince, mothers, sisters, sweethearts, and the bards are all approached and counselled to bravery. After each episode follow the words " And the bow passed on," but the music has been so well managed that the danger of such a repetition is turned into grim force. The only prelude is five great blasts of the horns. A brawny vigor is got by a frequent use of imitation and unison in the voices. The choric work is marked throughout with the most intense and epic power, almost savagery; a magnificent martial zest. The climax is big. It is certainly one of The Academics. 203 the best things of its kind ever done over here. Another work of fine quality throughout is "A Christmas Idyl," for solos, chorus, and orchestra. A terrible sombreness is achieved in its former half by a notable simplicity. The latter part is in brighter tone ; the solo, " And Thou, Bethlehem," is especially exult- ant. In manuscript is "An Easter Idyl," of large proportions, for solos, chorus, and or- chestra, or organ. In the single songs the influence of Gil- christ's early training in hymns is patent. In only a few instances do they follow the latter- day methods of Schumann and Franz. "A Song of Doubt and a Song of Faith " is pos- sibly his best vocal solo. It begins with a plaint, that is full of cynic despair ; thence it breaks suddenly into a cheerful andante. " The Two Villages " is a strong piece of work on the conventional lines of what might be called the Sunday ballad. " A Dirge for 204 Contemporary American Composers. Summer " has a marked originality, and is of that deep brooding which is particularly con- genial to Gilchrist's muse. The Scotch songs are charming : " My Heart is Sair " is full of fine feeling, and must be classed among the very best of the many settings of this lyric of Burns'. Most modern in feeling of all Gilchrist's vocal solos is the group of " Eight Songs." They interpret the text faithfully and the accompaniment is in accord \yith the song, but yet possessed of its own individuality. " A Love Song " is tender and has a well- woven accompaniment ; " The Voice of the Sea " is effective, but hardly attains the large simplicity of Aldrich' poem ; " Autumn " is exquisitely cheery ; " Goldenrod " is or- nately graceful, while "The Dear Long Ago " is quaint ; " Lullaby " is of an ex- quisitely novel rhythm in this overworked form. There is much contrast between the light- The Academics. 205 A .L07E SOHG^ U UttI C«rn*»ll. An.«r»»pp«Mlon»t9.(J..«) Mutleby W.WdlkMtt P l..r m, ir 1 lira, Lora. mx If 1 die. Wlu.i u P>jy-- ^ ■ -.p^Sr: \|_i=r^s ■VJ I*) /j ik^ 'K ^ r-- W*u^ ^ \-hz * ir ^^ =^ffi*^ =^=d .... 8* (kol -f — 'pi, p -.rur:^.*isrr ■i».,... ^..llun Ihoa >. -J"T-T-j ri — I — 1 ttfe ^ ^F=^ ^J ,* f P r P ^R J' r^'^ [j j- L — " ' >f. J * rrr -f -^ i — P— — -= — — '' ^ ^ r-~ ^d^ ' r K — ^ i'U:.! 1 1 ^ i->,..-?rrr^j '^' Ym ^ XT =Tn" .r^^*. ^ * ij #i^ g»fi» • i ^ -^■^ TH^ J. r ^ i^. l*^- Copyright, 1885, by Arthur P. Schmidt & Co. A FRAGMENT. 2o6 Contemporary American Composers. ness of his book, " Songs for the Children," and his ponderous setting of Kipling's " Re- cessional." The treatment of Paul Laurence Dunbar's " Southern Lullaby " is unusual, and the songs, " My Ladye " and " The Ideal," both in MS., are noteworthy. Gilchrist has written a vast amount of religious music, including several "Te Deums," of which the one in C and that in A flat are the best, to my thinking. He has written little for the piano except a series of duets, of which the charming " M61odie " and the fetching " Styrienne " are the best. It is by his orchestral works, however, that he gains the highest consideration. These include a symphony for full orchestra, which has been frequently performed with success ; a suite for orchestra ; a suite for piano and orchestra ; as well as a nonet, a quintet, and a trio, for strings and wind. None of these have been published, but I have had the privi- lege of examining some of the manuscripts. The Academics. 207 The spirit and the treatment of these works is strongly classical. While the orchestration is scholarly and mellow, it is not in the least Wagnerian, either in manipulation or in lusciousness. The sym- phony is not at all programmatic. The Scherzo is of most exuberant gaiety. Its accentuation is much like that in Beethoven's piano sonata (op. 14, No. 2). Imitation is liberally used in the scoring, with a delight- fully comic effect as of an altercation. The symphony ends with a dashing finale that is stormy with cheer. Gilchrist is at work upon a second symphony of more modernity. The " Nonet " is in G minor, and begins with an Allegro in which a most original and and severe subject is developed with infinite grace and an unusually rich color. The Andante is religioso, and is fervent rather than sombre. The ending is especially beautiful. A sprightly Scherzo follows. It is most ingeniously contrived, and the effects 20 8 Contemporary American Composers. are divided with unusual impartiality among the instruments. A curious and elaborate allegro molto furnishes the finale, and ends the " Nonet " surprisingly with an abrupt major chord. The opening Allegro of the "Quintet" begins with a 'cello solo of scherzesque quality, but as the other voices join in, it takes on a more passionate tone, whence it works into rapturously beautiful moods and ends magnificently. The piano part has a strong value, and even where it merely orna- ments the theme carried by the strings, it is fascinating. The Scherzo is again of the Beethoven order in its contagious comicality. The piano has the lion's share of it at first, but toward the last the other instruments leave off embroidery and take to cracking jokes for themselves. The Andante is a genuinely fine piece of work. It ranges from melting tenderness to impassioned rage and a purified nobility. The piano part is highly The Academics. 209 elaborated, but the other instruments have a scholarly, a vocal, individuality. I was shocked to see a cadenza for the piano just before the close, but its tender brilliance was in thorough accord with the sincerity of the movement. The "Quintet" ends with a splendid i^llegro. In MS. are three interesting works for the violin, a Rhapsody, a Perpetual Motion, and a Fantasie. This last has a piano accompaniment of much ingenuity. The fantasial nature of the work lies principally in its development, which is remarkably lyrical, various melo- dies being built up beautifully on fractions of the main subjects. There is nothing perfunctory, and the work is full of art and appeal. Gilchrist is one of our most polished composers contrapuntally, but has been here in a very lyric mood. He is the founder and conductor of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, an un- 210 Contemporary American Composers. usually effective organization; one of the founders of the local Manuscript Club ; the conductor of a choral society of two hundred voices, at Harrisburg, and the director of two church choirs. G. W. Chadwick. One of the most sophisticated, and, at the same time, most eclectic of native music- makers, is George W. Chadwick, to whom the general consent of authorities would grant a place among the very foremost of the foremost American composers. His reputation rests chiefly on his two symphonies, a number of concert overtures, and many pieces of chamber-music, which The Academics. 21 1 are much praised. Chadwick was born at Lowell, Mass., November 13, 1854. His parents were American, and it was not till 1877, after studying with Eugene Thayer in Boston, and teaching music in the college at Olivet, Mich., that Chadwick studied for two years at Leipzig, under Jadassohn and Rei- necke, and later at Munich for a year under Rheinberger. In 1 880 he returned to America and settled in Boston, where he has since lived, as organist, teacher, and conductor, an important figure in the town's musical life. Among his few works for the piano, are "Six Characteristic Pieces" (op. 7). The " Reminiscence of Chopin " is an interest- ing and skilful chain of partial themes and suggestions from Chopin. The " fitude " is a monotonous study in a somewhat Schumann- esque manner, with a graceful finish. The "Congratulation" is a cheerful bagatelle; the " Irish Melody " is sturdy, simple, and fetching ; but the " Scherzino " is a hard 2 12 Contemporary American Composers. bit of humor with Beethoven mannerisms lacking all the master's unction. The opus ends with an unfortunate com- position inexcusably titled " Please Do ! " There are two bright " Caprices " and three excellent waltzes, of which the third is the best. It is a dreamy, tender work on a theme by " B. J. L.," which refers, I pre- sume, to Mr. B. J. Lang. Chadwick has done a vast amount of part- song writing. His "Lovely Rosabelle" is for chorus and orchestra, and is marked with many original effects. His " Reiterlied " is superbly joyful. A setting of Lewis Carroll's immortal " Jabberwocky " shows much rich humor of the college glee-club sort. There is an irresistibly humorous episode where the instrument of destruction goes "snicker snack," and a fine hilarity at " ' O frabjous day Callooh, callay,' He chortled in his joy." The Academics. 213 What would part-song writers do if the Vikings had never been invented ? Where would they get their wild choruses for men, with a prize to the singer that makes the most noise ? Chadwick falls into line with "The Viking's Last Voyage" (1881), for barytone solo, male chorus, and orchestra, which gives him a very high place among writers in this form. He has also a robus- tious " Song of the Viking," and an excellent Dedication Ode (1884), for solo, chorus, and orchestra, to the pregnant words of Rev. H. B. Carpenter, besides two cantatas for mixed voices, " Phoenix Expirans " and " The Pilgrims." In 1889 was published his " Lovely Rosabelle," a ballad for chorus and orchestra ; it contains some interest- ing dissonantial work in the storm-pas- sages. And his comic opera, "Tabasco," must be mentioned, as well as an enor- mous mass of sacred music, which, I con- fess, I had not the patience to study. 214 Contemporary American Composers. The flesh was willing, but the spirit was weak. Among Chadwick's songs is a volume of Breton melodies harmonized with extreme simplicity. Others are " Gay Little Dande- lion," which is good enough of its everlasting flower-song sort; "In Bygone Days" and " Request," which, aside from one or two flecks of art, are trashy ; and two childish namby-pambies, "Adelaide" and "The Mill." "A Bonny Curl" catches the Scotch-ton faithfully. Chadwick usually succeeds, however, in catching foreign flavors. His " Song from the Persian " is one of his best works, and possibly the very best is his " Sorais* Song," to Rider Haggard's splendid words. It has an epic power and a wild despair. Up to the flippancy of its last measures, it is quite inspired, and one of the strongest of Amer- ican songs. The "Danza" is captiv?cing and full of novelty. " Green Grows the The Academics. 215 Willow" is a burden of charming pathos and quaintness, though principally a study in theme-management. '• Allah," however, is rather Ethiopian than Mahommedan, His " Bedouin Love Song " has little Oriental color, but is full of rush and fire, with a superb ending. It is the best of the count- less settings of this song. I wish I could say the same of his "Thou Art so Like a Flower," but he has missed the intense re- pression of Heine. The " Serenade " displays an interesting rhythm ; " The Miller's Daughter " is ten- der, and " A Warning " is delightfully witty. One regrets, however, that its best points were previously used in Schumann's perfect folk-song, "Wenn ich friih in den Garten geh'." Chadwick has two folk-songs of his own, however, which are superb. " He Loves Me " is a tender, cradle-song-like bit of delicious color. The " Lullaby " is a genuinely interesting study in this over- 2i6 Contemporary American Composers, To Hra. G. RStodiari. TWO FOLK SONGS. I Modtratousoi As.. -. - N =»;=» Un tai joy tr< for • cUy, Thn I',./! -^^ J J '3 MpJ Copyright, 1892, by Arthur P. Schmidt. The Academics. 217 2i8 Contemporary American Composers, worked form. "The Lily" has the passion- ate lyricism of Chaminade, and " Sweet Wind that Blows " is a fine frenzy. The " Noc- turne " is dainty and has its one good climax. " Before the Dawn " has some of Chadwick's best work ; it is especially marked by a dar- ing harmonic — you might say — impaste. His principal works, besides those men- tioned, may be catalogued (I am unable to do more than catalogue most of them, hav- ing seen only one of them, " The Lily Nymph," performed, and having read the score of only the " Melpomene " overture) : Concert overtures, " Rip Van Winkle " (writ- ten in Leipzig, 1879, and played there the same year), "Thalia" (1883), "Melpomene" (1887), "The Miller's Daughter" (1887), and "Adonais" (in memory of a friend, 1899); Symphonies, in C (1882), in B (1885); an Andante for string orchestra (1884), and numerous pieces of chamber-music. In the case of the cantata, " The Lily Nymph," The Academics. 219 Chadwick's art was quite futilized by the superb inanities of the book he used. The " Melpomene " is a work of infinitely more specific gravity. It is one of the most im- portant of American orchestral works. As his "Thalia" was an "overture to an imaginary comedy," so this, to an imaginary tragedy. It has been played by the Boston Symphony and many other orchestras. It has that definiteness of mood with that in- definiteness of circumstance in which music wins its most dignified prosperity. It opens with the solitary voice of the English horn, which gives a notable pathos (read Berlioz on this despairful elegist, and remember its haunting wail in the last act of " Tristan und Isolde "). The woeful plaint of this voice breathing above a low sinister roll of the tympanum establishes at once the atmosphere of melancholy. Other instruments join the wail, which breaks out wildly from the whole orchestra. Over a waving accompaniment of clarinets, the other wood-winds strike up a more lyric and hopeful strain, and a soliloquy from the 'cello ends the slow introduction, the materials of 220 Contemporary American Composers. which are taken from the two principal subjects of the overture, which is built on the classic sonata formula. The first subject is announced by the first violins against the full orchestra ; the subsid- iary theme is given to the flutes and oboes ; after a powerful climax, and a beautiful subsidence of the storm in the lower strings, the second subject ap- pears in the relative major with honeyed lyricism. The conclusion, which is made rather elaborate by the latter-day symphonists, is reduced to a brief modulation by Mr. Chadwick, and almost before one knows it, he is in the midst of the elaboration. It is hard to say whether the composer's emotion or his counterpoint is given freer rein here, for the work is remarkable both for the display of every technical resource and for the irresistible tempest of its passion. In the reprise there is a climax that thrills one even as he tamely reads the score, and must be overpowering in actual performance : the cheerful consolation of the second subject provokes a cyclonic outburst of grief ; there is a furious climax of thrilling flutes and violins over a mad blare of brass, the while the cymbals shiver beneath the blows of the kettledrum-sticks. An abrupt silence pre- pares for a fierce thunderous clamor from the tym- pani and the great drum (beaten with the sticks of the side-drum). This subsides to a single thud of a The Academics. 221 kettledrum ; there is another eloquent silence ; the English horn returns to its first plaint ; but grief has died of very exercise, and the work ends in a coda that establishes a major harmony and leaves the hearer with a heart purged white and clean. The " Melpomene " overture is a work of such inspiration and such scholarship that it must surely find a long youth in the chron- icle of our music. Arthur Foote. The nearest approach Americans make to the enthusiastic German Mdnnerchor is in the college glee clubs. The dignity of their selec- tions is not always up to that of the Teutonic chorus, but they develop a salutary fondness for color and shading, exaggerating both a 222 Contemporary American Composers. little perhaps, yet aiming at the right warmth and variety withal. Even those elaborate paraphrases and circumlocutions of Mother Goose rhymes, to which they are so prone, show a striving after dramatic effect and rich- ness of harmony, as well as a keen sense of wit and humor that are by no means in- compatible with real value in music. Among their other good deeds must be counted the fostering of the musical ambitions of Arthur Foote, who was for two years the leader of the Glee Club of Harvard Univer- sity. Though he has by no means been content to delve no deeper into music than glee-club depths, I think the training has been of value, and its peculiar character is patent in his works. He is especially fond of writing for men's voices, and is remarkably at home in their management, and he strives rather for color-masses than for separate individualities in the voices. Among his larger works for men's voices The Academics. 223 is an elaborate setting of Longfellow's poem, "The Skeleton in Armor," which is full of vigor and generally sturdy in treatment, especially in its descriptions of Viking war and seafaring. The storm-scenes, as in Mr. Foote's "Wreck of the Hesperus," seem faintly to suggest Wagnerian -Donner und Blitsen, but in general Mr. Foote has resisted the universal tendency to copy the mannerisms so many take to be the real essence of the Bayreuthian. A pretty bit of fancy is the use of a spinning-wheel accompaniment to the love-song, although the spindle is nowhere suggested by the poem. Indeed, the spinning is treated as a characteristic motif for the Norseman's bride, somewhat as it is Senta's motif in "The Flying Dutchman." The chief fault with the " Skeleton " chorus is that it is always choric. There are no solos, and the different registers are never used separately for more than a bar or two, before the whole mass chimes in. Even the 224 Contemporary American Composers. instrumental interludes are short, and the general effect must be rather undiversified, one of sympathy, too, for the unrested chorus, " The Wreck of the Hesperus " is an ambitious work, built on large lines, but hardly represents Mr. Foote at his best. It is for mixed voices, and is pitched in a most lugubri- ous key, being always either vociferous with panic or dismal with minor woe. A worse trouble yet is the attempt to make a short poem fit a long composition. The Procrustean operation strains even Longfellow sadly. This blemish is lacking in "The Farewell of Hiawatha," which is written for men's voices. Though it, too, is of a sad tone, its sombre hues are rich and varied as a tapestry. Its effects, though potent, seem more sincere and less labored. It is altogether noble. A larger body of sacred music for mixed voices than many other Americans can boast, also swells Foote's opus-score. Here he shows the same facility with the quartette as in his The Academics. 225 other works. In fact, I think the effect of glee-club training on his young mind has strongly influenced his whole life-work. And, by the way, the most talented of all the great Sebastian Bach's twenty-one children — every one a musical opus, too — was diverted from the philosopher's career for which he was intended, and into professional musicianship, by just such a glee-club training in the uni- versities at Leipzig and Frankfort. Almost all of Foote's compositions are written in the close harmony and limited range of vocal music, and he very rarely sweeps the keyboard in his piano composi- tions, or hunts out startling novelties in strictly pianistic effect. He is not fond of the cloudy regions of the upper notes, and though he may dart brilliantly skyward now and then just to show that his wings are good for lighter air, he is soon back again, drifting along the middle ether. He has won his high place by faithful ad- 226 Contemporary American Composers. herence to his own sober, serene ideals, and by his genuine culture and seriousness. He is thoroughly American by birth and training, though his direct English descent accounts for his decided leaning toward the better im- pulses of the English school of music. He was born at Salem, Mass., March 5, 1853, and though he played the piano a good deal as a boy, and made a beginning in the study of composition with Emery, he did not study seriously until he graduated from Harvard in 1874. He then took up the higher branches of composition under the tuition of John Knowles Paine, and obtained in 1875 the degree of A. M. in the special department of music. He also studied the organ and the piano with B. J. Lang at Boston, and has since made that city his home, teaching and playing the organ. His overture, " In the Mountains," has been much played from the manuscript by or- chestras, among them the Boston Symphony, The Academics, 227 Besides a considerable amount of highly valuable contributions to American chamber- music, and two fine piano suites, he has written a great many piano pieces and songs which deserve even greater popularity than they have won, because, while not bristling with technical difficulties, they are yet of per- manent worth. I know of no modern composer who has come nearer to relighting the fires that beam in the old gavottes and fugues and preludes. His two gavottes are to me among the best since Bach. They are an example of what it is to be academic without being only a-rattle with dry bones. He has written a Nocturne that gets farther from being a mere imitation of Chopin than almost any night-piece writ- ten since the Pole appropriated that form bodily from John Field and made it his own. One of his most original pieces is the Ca- priccio of his D minor Suite, which is also un- 228 Contemporary American Composers. usually brilliant in color at times ; and he has an Allegretto that is a scherzo of the good old whole-souled humor. Foote, in fact, is never sickly in sentiment. Of his rather numerous songs, the older English poets, like Marlowe, Sidney, Shakes- peare, Suckling, and Herrick, have given him much inspiration. The song " It Was a Lover and his Lass " is especially taking. His three songs, "When You Become a Nun, Dear," " The Road to Kew," and " Ho, Pretty Page ! " written by modern poets in a half-archaic way, display a most delicious fund of subtile and ironic musical humor. "The Hawthorn Wins the Damask Rose " shows how really fine a well conducted English ballad can be. Among his sadder songs, the " Irish Folk- song," " I'm Wearing Awa'," and the weird " In a Bower " are heavy with deepest pathos, while " Sweet Is True Love " is as wildly in- tense and as haunting in its woe as the fate of the poor Elaine, whose despair it sings. The Academics. 229 This I count one of the most appealing of modern songs. His greatest work is undoubtedly his sym- phonic prologue to Dante's story of " Fran- cesca da Rimini," for full orchestra. Without being informed upon the subject, I fancy a certain program m ism in the prologue that is not indicated in the quotation at the begin- ning of the work : " Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria." The prologue, however, seems to me to contain more than the psychological content of these lines from the fifth canto of the " Inferno." The slow introduction in C minor begins with a long, deep sigh, followed by a downward passage in the violas and 'cellos that seems to indicate the steps that bring Dante and Vergil down to the edge of the precipice past which the cyclone of the damned rolls eternally. There is some shrieking and shuddering, 230 Cotiteviporary American Composers. ^^^ ^UOVER AMD Hfs U«S iiTBca rooTBo^iMec ij 'U f^ r^ . , 1 ■ft K 'f r^ ^iT'iT . '"•♦---■-I ;«-- =^n .With * b>r u4 • <)•> »!<* Iff. •o4 • iMj.im.l, — H (k// J- J N JTl J .^ "T r* — irj)j^* 1 L: , ^,). 'y=^\ J ■ -^nTtJ VFV-; [^ =2^-F--jJ 3 — «L_ i^ ^=s 4bi. ♦ Copyright, 1886, by Arthur P. Schmidt & Co. TJie Academics. 231 «.♦> ♦ f.^ 232 Contemporary American Composers. and ominous thudding of the tympani (which are tuned to unusual notes), then follows a short reci- tative which might represent Dante's query to Francesca how she came to yield to love. Sud- denly out of the swirling strings the first subject is caught up ; it is a frenzy passionately sung by the first violins, reenforced by the flutes at the crises. The second subject appears after a sudden prelude by the brass ; it is a very lyric waltz-tune in the relative major, and doubtless depicts the joy recalled in sorrow. The conclusion is quite lengthy ', it is also in waltz form, and is first announced by a single flute over the violins and violas, the first violins keeping to the gloomy G string. This air is now given to a solo horn, and a fierce and irresistible dance fervor is worked up. The elaboration begins with the first subject in F sharp minor, caught up fiercely from a downward rush. The reprise is not long delayed, and the second subject appears, contrary to custom, in the tonic major instead of the tonic minor. The coda is deliciously tender and beautiful, possibly because, being a prologue, the work must pre- pare for a drama that begins cheerfully; possibly because after all there is comfort in bliss remembered in sorrow. Tschalkowski has written a symphonic poem on the same subject, which has been The Academics. 233 also the inspiration of numberless dramas, and is one of the most pathetic pages in all literature ; even the stern old Dante says that when he heard Francesca tell her story he almost died of pity, and fell to the ground as one dead. A Serenade for string orchestra (op. 25) contains a Prelude, a tender Air, a luscious Intermezzo in the rich key of B major with soli for violin and 'cello, a Romance with a good climax, and a gallant Gavotte with special attention to the too much slighted violas. Opus 36 is a suite for full orchestra. It has been played by the Boston Symphony, and consists of a brilliant Allegro ; an Adagio of deep sincerity and beautifully varied color, a period wherein the brass choir, heavily scored, chants alone, and the division of the theme among the wood-wind over the rushing strings is especially effective ; a very whimsical An- dante with frequent changes of tempo, and 2 34 Contemporary American Composers. soli for the English horn in antiphony with the first oboe; and a madcap Presto that whisks itself out in the first violins. Two other published works are a string quartette (op. 4) and a quintette for piano and strings (op. 36). This begins in A minor with a well woven and well derived set of themes, and ends in a scherzo in A major with spin- ning-song characteristics. Between these two movements comes an intermezzo of strongly- marked Scotch tone. This has been per- formed by the Kneisel Quartette. 5. G. Pratt. Almost every musician has heard of Chris- topher Columbus, and holds him in a certain esteem as a man without whose push the invention of America would have been long deferred ; but few American musicians have felt under a sufficient debt of gratitude to make his troubles and triumphs the founda- The Academics. 235 tion of an appropriate musical work, Silas G. Pratt was bold enough to undertake the monumental task ; and he expended upon it large resources of scholarship, research, and enthusiasm. The work was performed at New York during the Quadricentennial of the discovery of America. If Pratt had been born in old Egypt, he would have found his chief diversion in the building of pyramids, so undismayed is he by the size of a task. His patriotism is a sharp spur to him, and has enabled him to write an orchestral composition devoted to Paul Revere's Ride ; a fantasy descriptive of a battle between the Northern and Southern armies ; " The Battle of Manila ; " " The Anni- versary Overture," in commemoration of the centennial of American Independence, per- formed in Berlin twice, and in London at the Crystal Palace, during Grant's visit there ; and a march called by the curious name of " Homage to Chicago." Besides these works 236 Contemporary American Composers. Pratt has written the "■ Magdalen's Lament," his first orchestral composition, suggested by Murillo's picture; the lyric opera, "Antonio ; " a first symphony, of which the adagio was per- formed in Berlin, the other movements being produced in Boston and Chicago; a second symphony, "The Prodigal Son;" a romantic opera, " Zenobia," produced in Chicago ; a lyric opera, " Lucille," which ran for three weeks in Chicago ; a symphonic suite based on the " Tempest ; " a canon for a string quartette ; a serenade for string orchestra ; a grotesque suite, "The Brownies," produced in New York and at Brighton Beach by Anton Seidl. Besides these works of musi- cal composition, Pratt has delivered various musical lectures, ingeniously contrived to entertain the great public and at the same time inform it. He has been active also in the organization of various musical enter- prises, among them the Apollo Club of Chicago. The Academics. 237 Pratt was born in Addison, Vermont, August 4, 1846. At the age of twelve, he was thrown on his own resources, and con- nected himself with music publishing houses in Chicago. After various public perform- ances, he went to Germany in 1868, to study the piano under Bendel and Kullak, and counterpoint under Kiel. In 1872 he re- turned to Chicago and gave a concert of his own works. But the phoenix city had not entirely preened its wings after the great fire of 1 87 1, and Pratt found no support for his ambitions. After teaching and giv- ing concerts, he returned to Germany in 1875, where he attended the rehearsals of Wagner's Trilogy at Bayreuth, met Liszt here, and gave a recital of his own com- positions at Weimar. His " Anniversary Overture " was cordially received by the press of both Berlin and London. A third visit to Europe was made in 1885 for the production of the " Prodigal Son " at the Crystal Palace, 238 Contemporary American Composers. on the occasion of which, Berthold Tours wrote that both the symphony and the "Anniversary Overture" were "grandly con- ceived works, full of striking originality, modern harmony, flowing melody, and beau- tiful, as well as imposing effects." Activity along such lines has left Pratt little time for the smaller forms of composi- tion ; a few have been published, among them the song, " Dream Vision," in which Schu- mann's "Traumerei" is used for viohn obbli- gato ; and a few piano pieces, such as " Six Soliloquies," with poetic text. In these each chord shows careful effort at color, and the work is chromatic enough to convince one that he has studied his Bach thoroughly. Among his massive compositions there are two that seem likely to win, as they surely deserve, a long life. These are the symphonic suite, " The Tempest," and the "Prodigal Son." To the latter splendid achievement, A. J. Goodrich devotes several The Academics. 239 pages of his " Musical Analysis," to which I can do no better than to refer the reader. The " Tempest " is based, of course, on Shake- speare's play, and is described as follows by the composer : "It is intended, in the first movement, Adagio, to typify the sorrow of Prospero, and his soul's protest against the ingratitude and persecution of his ene- mies. His willing attendant Ariel is briefly indicated in the closing measures. The Pastoral furnishes an atmosphere or stage setting for the lovers, Miranda and Ferdinand, whose responsive love-song follows the droning of a shepherd's pipe in the distance. Prospero's interruption to their passionate assurances of devotion, and the imposition of the unpleasant task, are briefly touched upon, and the movement closes with a repeat of the pastoral, and alternate reiteration of the lover's song. The Finale, after a short introduction, in most sombre vein, indicates the flitting about of Ariel and his companion sprites as they gather for revelry. The presence of the master is soon made apparent by the recurrence, in a subdued manner, of Prospero's first theme from the Adagio, the fantastic tripping of the elves continuing, as though the controlling spirit were conjuring up the fete for the amusement of the lovers and himself. 240 Contemporary American Composers. «' ' Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves ; And ye that on the sand, with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back.' " The dance then begins, and continues in a fan- tastic, at times grotesque and furious manner, the theme of the lovers being interwoven at times, in an unobtrusive way. At length, Caliban is heard ap- proaching, singing his drunken song. " » 'Ban, 'Ban, Ca-caliban Has a new master : get a new man.' "Ariel and his companions flit about, ridiculing, mocking, and laughing at him ; eventually prodding and pinching him until, shivering, with aching joints, he staggers away. The revelry then continues, the song of the lovers becoming more and more prom- inent until, somewhat broadened out, it asserts it- self triumphantly above all, Ariel and his companions flitting about, Prospero happy, and Caliban subju- gated, all the chief themes being united to form the climax and close of the work." Although Pratt intentionally omitted the English horn and the bass clarinet, the scor- ing is remarkable for its color and faery. f N HENRY K. HADLEY. The Academics. 241 The work is highly lyrical in effect, and the woodsiness is beautifully established. The solemnity of Prospero, the adroitness of the lovers and the contrasting natures of the vola- tile Ariel and the sprawling Caliban, make up a cast of characters in the development of which music is peculiarly competent. The stertorous monologue of Caliban and his hobbling dance, and the taunting and pinch- ing torment he is submitted to, make excel- lent humor. Henry K. Hadley. The word symphony has a terrifying sound, particularly when it is applied to a modern work ; for latter-day music is essentially romantic in nature, and it is only a very rare composer that has the inclination or the ability to force the classic form to meet his new ideas. The result is that such a work usually lacks spontaneity, conviction. The 242 Contemporary American Composers. modern writer does much better with the symphonic poem. The number of American symphonies worth listening to, could be counted on the fingers with several ^igits to spare. A new finger has been preempted by Henry K. Hadley's symphony called " Youth and Life." The title is doubly happy. Psycho- logically it is a study of the intense emotional life of youth, written by an American youth, — a young man who, by the way, strangely reminds one, in his appearance, of Mac- monnies' American type, as represented by his ideal statue of Nathan Hale. And musically the work is imbued with both youth and life. It has blood and heart in it. The first movement is a conflict be- tween good and evil motives struggling like the mediaeval angels for the soul of the hero. The better power wins triumphantly. The second movement, however, shows doubt and despair, remorse and deep spiritual de- The Academics. 243 pression. The climax of this feeling is a death-knell, which, smitten softly, gives an indescribably dismal effect, and thrills with- out starting. Angelus bells in pedal-point continue through a period of hope and prayer ; but remorse again takes sway. The ability to obtain this fine solemnity, and follow it with a scherzo of extraordinary gaiety, proves that a genius is at large among us. The Scherzo displays a thigh-slapping, song-sing- ing abandon that typifies youthful frivolity fascinatingly. A fugue is used incidentally with a burlesque effect that reminds one of Berlioz' " Amen " parody in the " Damna- tion of Faust." The Finale exploits motives of ambition and heroism, with a moment of love. The climax is vigorous. Without being at all ariose, the symphony is full of melody. Its melodies are not counterpoint, but expression ; and each instrument or choir of instruments is an individuality. Hadley is galvanic with energy and opti- 244 Contemporary American Composers. mism, dextrous to a remarkable degree in the mechanism of composition. His scoring is mature, fervent, and certain. His symphony is legitimately programmatic and alive with brains, biceps, and blood, — all three, ^ — the three great B's of composition. Hadley was born at Somerville, Mass., in 187 1. His father was a teacher of music and gave him immediate advantages. He studied harmony with Stephen A. Emery, counterpoint with G. W. Chadwick, and the violin with Henry Heindl and Charles N. Allen of Boston. Before attaining his major- ity, he had completed a dramatic overture, a string quartette, a trio, and many songs and choruses. In 1894 he went to Vienna and studied composition with Mandyczewski. Here he composed his third suite for the orchestra. In 1 896 he returned to America and took charge of the music department of St. Paul's school at Garden City, L. I. He has had some experience as a conductor The Academics. 245 and has been very prolific in composition. His first symphony was produced under the direction of Anton Seidl, in December, 1897 ; and at a concert of his own compositions, again, in January, 1900, Hadley conducted this symphony, and also two movements from his second symphony, "The Seasons." These two movements show a mellower technic, perhaps, but are less vital. He has written three ballet suites with pronounced success, the work being musical and yet full of the ecstasy of the dance. His third ballet suite, which is the best, was produced at a concert of the American Symphony Orchestra, under Sam Franko. The existence of a festival march, a con- cert overture, " Hector and Andromache," two comic operas, and six songs for chorus and orchestra, besides a number of part songs and piano pieces, and over one hundred songs, forty of which are published, gives proof of the restless energy of the man. The high 246 Contemporary American Composers, average of scholarship is a proof of his right to serious acceptance. A cantata for orchestra, " Lelewala," a legend of Niagara, is published for piano accompaniment. Now, Niagara is a dangerous subject for the frail skiffs of rhyme, prose, or music to launch out upon. Barrel staves may carry one through the whirlpool, but music staves cannot stand the stress. Of all the comments upon the Falls of Niagara that I have ever read, or heard of, there has been only one that seemed anything but ridicu- lously inappropriate ; that one was the tribute of a young boy who, on standing face to face with the falls, simply exclaimed, in an awe- smothered whisper, " Well, by gosh ! " But it must be admitted that these words would baffle the music-making propensities even of the composer of Handel's " Hallelujah Chorus." That learned composer, George F. Bristow, now dead, made the mistake of attempting to compass Niagara in a work for chorus and The Academics. 247 orchestra Hadley is not exactly guilty of the same fatal attempt in his " Lelewala," for the poem is chiefly a story of love and sacrifice; but Niagara comes in as a programmatic incident, and the author of the text has fallen lament- ably short of his subject in certain instances. In other moments, he has written with genu- ine charm, and the music has much that is worth while. Among his published songs are to be noted the unusually good setting of Heine's " Wenn ich in deine Augen seh' " and of his less often heard "Sapphire sind die Augen dein," and " Der Schmetterling ist in die Rose verliebt." A deservedly popular work is " I Plucked a Quill from Cupid's Wing." Among so many morose or school-bound composers, Hadley is especially important for the fact that he is thrilled with a sane and jubilant music. 248 Contemporary American Composers. Adolph M. Foerster. It has been fortunate for American song that it forsook the narrow, roystering school of Enghsh ballad and took for its national model the Lied of the later German school. It is true that the earlier English had its poetry-respecting music in the work of such a man as Henry Lawes, or Purcell, just as it had its composers who far preceded Bach in the key-roving idea of the " Well- tempered Clavier;" but that spirit died out of England, and found its latest avatar in such men as Robert Franz, who confessed that he had his first and fullest recognition from this country. A correspondence with Franz was carried on for eighteen years by one of the solidest of American composers, Adolph M. Foerster, who gives distinction to the musical life of Pittsburg. He knew Franz personally, and has written an important appreciation of him for The Academics. 249 the magazine Music. Foerster was born at Pittsburg in 1854. After three years of commercial life, he took up music seriously, and spent the years from 1872 to 1875 at Leipzig, — studying the piano under Coccius and Wenzel, singing under Grill and Schimon, and theory under E. F. Richter and Papperitz. Returning to America, he connected himself with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Conservatory of Music, then under the direction of the benefi- cent inventor of the Virgil Clavier. A year later he returned to Pittsburg, where he has since remained. For awhile he was con- ductor of a symphonic society and a choral union, which are no longer extant. Since, he has devoted himself to teaching and com- position. Of Foerster's piano compositions opus 11 is a "Valse Brillante," warm and melodious. Opus 13 is a "Sonnet," based, after the plan of Liszt, upon a lyric of Petrarch's, a beauti- ful translation from his " Gli occhi di ch'io 250 Contemporary American Composers. parlai si caldamente." It is full of passion, and shows a fine variety in the handling of persistent repetition. Opus 18 couples two sonatinas. The second has the more merit, but both, like most sonatinas, are too triv- ial of psychology and too formal even to be recommended for children's exercises. " Eros " is a fluent melody, with a scherzesque second part. Opus 37 contains two concert Etudes, both superb works. The first, " Exaltation," is very original, though neither the beginning nor the ending is particularly striking. The music between, however, has a fervor that justifies the title. This 6tude is, like those of Chopin, at the same time a technical study and a mood. The second, a " Lamentation," begins with a most sonorous downward har- mony, with rushes up from the bass like the lessening onsets of a retreating tide. Throughout, the harmonies and emotions are remarkably profound and the climaxes wild. The Academics. 251 I should call it one of the best modern piano compositions. Twelve "Fantasy Pieces" are included in opus 38. They are short tone-poems. The second, "Sylvan Spirits," is fascinating, and " Pretty Marie" has an irresistibly gay melody. He has dedicated the six songs of opus 6 to Robert Franz. These are written in a close unarpeggiated style chiefly, but they are very mteresting in their pregnant simplicity. In two cases they are even impressive : the well- known lyric, " Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome," and " Meeresstille." Opus 12 is a notable group of three songs: "Mists" is superbly harmonious. Opus 25 includes "Ask Thou Not the Heather Gray," a rhapsody of the utmost ingenuity in melody and accompani- ment. It has a catching blissfulness and a verve that make it one of the best American songs. Opus 28 is a book called "Among Flowers." The music is in every case good, and especially satisfactory in its emancipation 252 Contemporary American Composers. from the Teutonism of Foerster's earlier songs. The song " Among the Roses" has a beautiful poem, which deserves the superb music. It ends hauntingly with an unre- solved major ninth chord on the dominant of the dominant. So the frenzy of " In Blossom Time" is emotion of a human, rather than a botanical sort. " The Cradle Song " adapts the Siegfried Idyl, and the " Old Proverb " is rolUcking. The two songs of opus 34 are fitted with words by Byron. The three songs of opus 44 also make use of this poet, now so little m vogue with composers. There are three songs in opus 42 : a pathetic " Little Wild Rose," and "By the Seaside," which is full of solemnity. " The Shepherd's Lament " is one of his best lyrics, with a strange accompaniment containing an inverted pedal-point in octaves. There are also several part songs. In larger forms, Mr. Foerster is even more successful. Opus 10 is a Character-piece for The Academics. 253 full orchestra, based on Karl Schafer's poem, "Thusnelda." It is short but vigorous, and well unified. Opus 15 is a Fantasie for violin and piano, the piano having really the better of it. The treatment is very original, and the strong idea well preserved. Opus 2 1 is a Quartette for violin, viola, 'cello, and piano. The first movement begins solemnly, but breaks into an appassionato. All four instru- ments have an equal voice in the parley, and all the outbursts are emotional rather than contrapuntal. A climax of tremendous power is attained. The second movement omits the piano for a beautiful adagio. The third is an hilarious allegro, and the finale is an even gayer presto, with movements of sudden sobriety, suddenly swept away. Foerster calls this Quartette " far inferior " to a second one, opus 40. This, however, I have not seen ; but I do not hesitate to call opus 2 1 a masterly work. Opus 24 is an " Albumblatt " for 'cello and 2 54 Contemporary American Composers. piano. It is a wonder-work of feeling and deep richness of harmony, of absolute sin- cerity and inspiration. Opus 29 is a Trio for violin, 'cello, and piano. The three begin in unison, andante, whence the 'cello breaks away, followed soon by the others, into the joviality of a drinking bout. There is a mili- tary moment, a lyric of more seriousness, and a finish agitato. The second movement is a larghetto highly embroidered. The third movement is a vivace with the spirit of a Beethoven presto. Opus 36 is a suite for violin and piano, beginning with a most engaging and most skilful Novelette. In MS. are: an elaborate ballad, "Hero and Leander," which, in spite of an unworthy postlude and certain "Tristan und Isolde" memories, is ardent and vivid with passion ; " Verzweifelung," which is bitter and wild with despair ; a suite for piano (op. 46) con- taining a waltz as ingenious as it is capti- The Academics. 255 vating ; and a finale called " Homage to Brahms." This is a remarkably clever piece of writing, which, while it lacks the Brahms- ian trade-mark of thirds in the bass, has much of that composer's best manner, less in his tricks of speech than in his tireless development and his substitution of monu- mental thematicism for lyric emotion. In MS. is also a prelude to Goethe's " Faust " for full orchestra. It has very definite lead- ing motives, which include " Faust's Medita- tions," "Visions of Margarethe," "Evil" and " Love " (almost inversions of each other), " Mephistopheles," and the like. The strife of these elements is managed with great cleverness, ending beatifically with the motive of Gretchen dying away in the wood-wind. An orchestral score that has been pub- lished is the Dedication March for Carnegie Hall in Pittsburg. It begins with a long fanfare of horns heard behind the scenes. Suddenly enters a jubilant theme beginning 256 Contemporary American Composers. with Andrew Carnegie's initials, a worthy tribute to one to whom American music owes much. Charles Crozat Converse. Musicians are not, as a class, prone to a various erudition (a compliment fully re- turned by the learned in other directions, who are almost always profoundly ignorant of the actual art of music). One of the rule- proving exceptions is Charles Crozat Con- verse, who has delved into many philosophies. An example of his versatility of interest is his coining of the word " thon " (a useful substitute for the ubiquitous awkwardness of "he or she" and "his or her"), which has been adopted by the Standard Dictionary. Converse' ancestry is American as far back as 1630. Converse was bom at War- ren, Mass., October 7, 1832. After being well grounded in English and the classics, he went, in 1855, to Germany. Here he CHARLES CROZAT CONVERSE. The Academics. 257 studied law and philosophy, and music at the Conservatorium in Leipzig. He enjoyed the instruction of Richter, Hauptmann, Plaidy, and Haupt, and made the acquaint- ance of Liszt and Spohr. Spohr was espe- cially interested in, and influential in, his work, and confident of its success. Returning to America, he graduated from the Law Department of Albany University in i860, with the degree of LL.B. The B has since been dignified into a D, as a tribute to his unusual accomplishments. Converse declined the honor of a Doctorship of Music from the University of Cambridge, offered him by its professor, the well-known English composer, Sterndale Bennett, in rec- ognition of his mastery of lore as evinced in a five-voiced double fugue that ends his Psalm-Cantata on the 126th Psalm. This scholarly work was performed under the direction of Theodore Thomas in 1888, at Chicago. 258 Contemporary American Composers. A widely known contribution to religious music is Converse' hymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," which has been printed, so they say, in all the tongues of Christen- dom, and sold to the extent of fifty millions of copies. This tune occupied a warm place in my Sunday-schoolboy heart, along with other singable airs of the Moody and Sankey type, but as I hum it over in memory now, it tastes sweetish and thin. Its popularity is appalling, musically at least. Converse has written many other hymn-tunes, which have taken their place among ecclesiastical sopor- ifics. Besides, he has recently compiled a collection of the world's best hymns into the "Standard Hymnal." In this field Con- verse, though conventional, — and conven- tionality may be considered inevitable here, — is mellow of harmony and sincere in senti- ment. Numberless attempts are made to supply our uncomfortable lack of a distinctly na- The Acade^nics. 259 tional air, but few of them have that first requisite, a fiery catchiness, and most of them have been so bombastic as to pall even upon palates that can endure Fourth of July glorification. Recognizing that the trouble with "America" was not at all due to the noble words written by the man whom "fate tried to conceal by naming him Smith," Con- verse has written a new air to this poem. Unfortunately, however, his method of vary- ing the much-borrowed original tune is too transparent. He has not discarded the idea at all, or changed the rhythm or the spirit. He has only taken his tune upward where " God Save the Queen " moves down, and bent his melody down where the British soars up. This, I fancy, is the chief reason why his national hymn has gone over to the great majority, and has been conspicuously absent from such public occasions as torch- light parades and ratifications. Except the work issued under the alias 26o Contemporary America?t Composers. " Karl Redan," or the anagrams, " C. O, Nevers " and " C. E. Revons," his only secu- lar musics that have been put into print are his American Overture, published in Paris, and a book of six songs, published in Ger- many, Music is called the universal language, but it has strongly marked dialects, and some- times a national flavor untranslatable to foreign peoples. So with these six songs, not the words alone are German. They are based on a Teutonic, and they modulate only from Berlin to Braunschweig and around to Leipzig. While the songs repay study, they are rather marked by a pianistic medita- tion than a strictly lyric emotion. " Aufmun- terung zur Freude " is a tame allegretto ; "Wehmuth" is better ; "Tauschung" is a short elegy of passion and depth ; " Ruhe in der Geliebten" is best in its middle strain where it is full of rich feeling and harmony. The ending is cheap. " Der gefangene San- The Academics. 261 ger" is only a slight variant at first on the "Adieu" credited to Schubert; it is there- after excellent. Converse has a large body of music in manuscript, none of which I had the pleasure of examining save a tender sacred lullaby. There are two symphonies, ten suites, and concert overture, three symphonic poems, an oratorio, "The Captivity," six string quar- tettes, and a mass of psalmodic and other vocal writing. Of these works three have been produced with marked success : the " Christmas Over- ture," at one of the public concerts of the Manuscript Society, under the direction of Walter Damrosch ; the overture " Im Friih- ling," at concerts in Brooklyn and New York, under the baton of Theodore Thomas ; and the American overture, "Hail Columbia!" at the Boston Peace Jubilee under Patrick Gilmore, at the Columbian Exposition under Thomas, and in New York under Anton Seidl. 262 Co7itemporary Americati Composers. This last overture received the distinction of pubUcation at Paris, by Schott et Cie. It is built on the rousing air of " Hail, Colum- bia!" This is suggested in the slow minor introduction ; the air itself is indicated thematically as one of the subjects later appearing in full swing in a coda. The in- strumentation is brilliant and the climax overwhelming. Altogether the work is more than adroit musical composition. It is a prairie-fire of patriotism. L. A. Coerne. A grand opera by an American on an American subject is an achievement to look forward to. Though I have not seen this opera, called '*A Woman of Marblehead," it is safe to predict, from a study of its com- poser's other works, that it is a thing of merit. Louis Adolphe Coerne, who wrote the The Academics. 263 music for this opera, was born in Newark, N. J., in 1870, and spent the years from six to ten in music study abroad, at Stuttgart and Paris, Returning to America, he entered Harvard College and studied harmony and composition under John Knowles Paine. He studied the violin under Kneisel. In 1890 he went to Munich, where he studied the organ and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, under Rheinberger, and the violin under Hieber. He now decided to give up the career of a violinist for that of composer, conductor, and organist. In 1893 he returned to Boston and acted as organist. A year later he went to Buffalo, where for three years he directed the Liedertafel. While in Harvard, Coerne had composed and produced a concerto for violin and 'cello with string orchestra accompaniment, a fan- tasy for full orchestra, and a number of anthems which were performed at the uni- versity chapel. While in Munich and Stutt- 264 Contemporary American Composers. gart he wrote and produced a string suite, an organ concerto with accompaniment of strings, horns, and harps, three choral works, and a ballet, " Evadne," on a subject of his own. His symphonic poem on Longfellow's " Hia- watha " was also produced there with much success under his personal direction, and later by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was invited then by Theodore Thomas to attend the World's Fair at Chicago, to give recitals on the great organ in Festival Hall. It has been my misfortune not to have heard or seen hardly any of his writings ex- cept the published " Character Pieces " from the ballet "Evadne" (op. 155). A "Clown's Dance " in bolero rhythm is delightful. The "Introduction to Act II." contains many varied ideas and one passage of peculiar harmonic beauty. A "Valse de Salon" has its good bits, but is rather overwrought. A "Devil's Dance" introduces some excellent harmonic effects, but the " Waltz with Chorus The Academics. 265 and Finale" is the best number of the opus. It begins in the orchestra with a most irre- sistible waltz movement that is just what a waltz should be. A chorus is then superim- posed on this rhapsody, and a cHmax of superb richness attained. For the organ Coerne has written much and well. There is an adaptation of three pieces from the string quartette (op. 19) ; a graceful Minuet, a quaint Aria, and a Fugue. Then there are three Marches, which, like most marches written by contemplative musi- cians, are rather thematic than spirited, and marked by a restless and elaborate prepara- tion for some great chant that is longed for, but never comes. Besides these, there are a very pleasant Pastoral, a good Elevation, and a Nocturne. Coerne's symphonic poem, "Hiawatha," has been arranged for the piano for four hands, and there is also an arrangement for violin or violoncello and piano, but I have not seen 266 Contemporary American Composers. these. The thing we are all waiting for is that American grand opera, " A Woman of Marblehead." It is to be predicted that she will not receive the marble heart. CHAPTER IV. THE COLONISTS. Art does not prosper as hermit. Of course, every great creator has a certain aloofness of soul, and an inner isolation ; but he must at times submit his work to the com- parison of his fellow artists ; he must profit by their discoveries as well as their errors ; he must grow overheated in those passionate musical arguments that never convince any one out of his former belief, and serve salu- tarily to raise the temper, cultivate caloric, and deepen convictions previously held ; he must exchange criticisms and discuss standards with others, else he will be eternally making discoveries that are stale and un- profitable to the rest of the world ; he will 268 Contemporary American Composers. seek to reach men's souls through channels long dammed up, and his achievements will be marred by nai've triteness and primitive crudeness. So, while the artistic tendency may be a universal nervous system, artists are inclined to ganglionate. The nerve-knots vary in size and importance, and one chief ganglion may serve as a feeding brain, but it cannot monop- olize the activity. In America, particularly, these ganglia, or colonies, are an interesting and vital phase of our development. For a country in which the different federated states are, many of them, as large as old-world king- doms, it is manifestly impossible for any one capital to dominate. Furthermore, the na- tional spirit is too insubordinate to accept any centre as an oracle. New York, which has certainly drawn to itself a preponderance of respectable com- posers, has yet been unable to gather in many of the most important, and like the The Colonists. 269 French Academy, must always suffer in prestige because of its conspicuous absentees. In the second place, New York is the least serious and most fickle city in the country, and is regarded with mingled envy and pat- ronage by other cities. Boston is even more unpopular with the rest of the country. And New York and other cities have enticed away so many of the leading spirits of her musical colony, that she cannot claim her once overwhelming superiority. And yet, Boston has been, and is, the highest American representative of that much abused term, culture. Of all the arts, music doubtless gets her highest favor. The aid Boston has been to American music is vital, and far outweighs that of any other city. That so magnificent an organiza- tion as its Symphony Orchestra could be so popular, shows the solidity of its general art appreciations. The orchestra has been re- markably willing, too, to give the American 2/0 Contemporary American Composers. composer a chance to be heard. Boston has been not only the promulgator, but in a great measure the tutor, of American music. In Boston-town, folk take things seriously and studiously. In New York they take them fiercely, whimsically. Like, most gen- eralizations, this one has possibly more excep- tions than inclusions. But it is convenient. It is convenient, too, to group together such of the residents of these two towns, as I have not discussed elsewhere. The Chicago coterie makes another busy community ; and St. Louis and Cleveland have their activities of more than intramural worth ; Cincinnati, which was once as musically thriving as its strongly German qualities necessitated, but which had a swift and strange decline, seems to be plucking up heart again. For this, the energy of Frank van der Stucken is largely to credit. Aside from the foreign-bom com- posers there, one should mention the work of Richard Kieserling, Jr., and Emil Wiegand. The Colonists. 271 The former went to Europe in 1891 and studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, under Reinecke, Homeyer, Rust, Schreck and Ja- dassohn. He also studied conducting under Sitt. At his graduation, he conducted a per- formance of his own composition, "Jeanne d'Arc." He returned to his native city, Cin- cinnati, in 1895, where he has since remained, teaching and coriducting. Among his works, besides piano pieces and songs, are : " A May Song," for women's chorus and piano ; six pieces for vioHn and piano ; " Harold," a bal- lad for male chorus, barytone solo, and orches- tra ; "Were It Not For Love," composed for male chorus ; several sets of male choruses ; a motet for mixed chorus a cappella ; a ber- ceuse for string orchestra, an introduction and rondo for violin and orchestra ; and a " Marche Nuptiale," for grand orchestra. Emil Wiegand was also born in Cincin- nati, and had his first tuition on the violin from his father. His theoretical studies have 2/2 Contemporary American Composers. been received entirely in Cincinnati. He is a member of the local Symphonic Orchestra, and has composed an overture for grand orchestra, a string quartette, and various pieces for the violin, piano, and voice. In San Francisco there is less important musical composition than there was in the days when Kelley and Page were active there. The work of H. B. Pasmore is highly com- mended by cognoscenti, as are also the works of Frederick Zeck, Jr., who was born in San Francisco, studied in Germany, and has composed symphonies, a symphonic poem, " Lamia," a romantic opera, and other works ; Samuel Fleischmann, born in California and educated abroad, a concert pianist, who has written, among other things, an overture, " Hero and Leander," which was performed in New York ; and P. C. Allen, who studied in Europe, and has written well. But the larger cities do not by any means contain all the worthy composition. In The Colonists. 273 many smaller cities, and in a few villages even, can be found men pf high culture and earnest endeavor. In Yonkers, New York, is Frederick R. Burton, who has written a dramatic cantata on Longfellow's " Hiawatha," which has been frequently performed. In this work use is made of an actual Indian theme, which was jotted down by H. E. Krehbiel, and is worked up delightfully in the cantata, an incessant thudding of a drum in an incommensurate rhythm giving it a decidedly barbaric tone. The cantata contains also a quaint and touch- ing contralto aria, and a pathetic setting of the death-song of Minnehaha. Burton is a graduate of Harvard, and a writer as well as a composer. He organized, in 1896, the Yonker's Choral Society, of which he is conductor. At Hartford, Conn., is Nathan H. Allen, who was born in Marion, Mass., in 1848. In 1867 he went to Berlin, where he was a pupil 2/4 Contemporary American Composers. of Haupt for three years. In this country he has been active as an organist and teacher. Many of his compositions of sacred music have been published, including a can- tata, "The Apotheosis of St. Dorothy." At Providence, R. I., a prominent figure is Jules Jordan, who was born at Williman- tic. Conn., November lo, 1850, of colonial ancestry. Though chiefly interested in ora- torio singing, in which he has been promi- nent, he has written a number of songs, some of which have been very popular. The best of these are a rapturous " Love's Philosophy," a delicious "Dutch Lullaby," "An Old Song," and "Stay By and Sing." He has written some religious songs, part songs, and three works for soli, chorus, and orchestra, "Windswept Wheat," "A Night Service," and " Barbara Frietchie ; " also "Joel," a dra- matic scene for soprano and orchestra, sung at the Worcester Musical Festival by Mme. Nordica. This I have not seen, nor his The Colonists. 275 romantic opera, " Rip Van Winkle." In June, 1895, Brown University conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Music. Two albums of his songs are published. A writer of many religious solos and part songs is E. W. Hanscom, who lives in Auburn, Me. He was born at Durham, in the same State, December 2"^, 1848. He has made two extended visits to London, Berlin and Vienna, for special work under eminent teachers, but has chiefly studied in Maine. Besides his sacred songs Hans- com has published a group of six songs, all written intelligently, and an especially good lyric, "Go, Rose, and in Her Golden Hair," a very richly harmonized " Lullaby," and two " Christmas Songs," with violin obbligato. In Delaware, Ohio, at the Ohio Wesleyan University, is a composer, Willard J. Baltzell, who has found inspiration for many worthy compositions, but publishers for only two, both of these part songs, " Dreamland " and 2/6 Contemporary American Composers. " Life is a Flower," of which the latter is very excellent writing. Baltzell was for some years a victim of the musical lassitude of Philadelphia. He had his musical training there. He has written in the large forms a suite founded on Ros- setti's '• Love's Nocturne," an overture, " Three Guardsmen," a " Novelette " for or- chestra, a cantata, "The Mystery of Life," and an unfinished setting of Psalm xvii. with barytone solo. These are all scored for orchestra, and the manuscript that I have seen shows notable psychological power. Other works are : a string quartette, a trio, " Lilith," based on Rossetti's poem, " Eden Bower," a nonet, and a violin sonata. He has also written for the piano and organ fugues and other works. These I have not seen ; but I have read many of his songs in manuscript, and they reveal a remarkable strenuousness, and a fine understanding of the poetry. His song, " Desire," is full of TJie Colonists. 277 high-colored flecks of harmony that dance like the golden motes in a sunbeam. His "Madrigal" has much style and humor. He has set to music a deal of the verse of Langdon E. Mitchell, besides a song cycle, " The Journey," which is an interesting fail- ure, — a failure because it cannot interest any public singer, and interesting because of its artistic musical landscape suggestion ; and there are the songs, " Fallen Leaf," which is deeply morose, and " Loss," which has some remarkable details and a strange, but effect- ive, ambiguous ending. Other songs are a superbly rapturous setting of E. C. Sted- man's "Thou Art Mine," and a series of songs to the words of Richard Watson Gilder, a poet who is singularly interesting to com- posers : " Thistledown " is irresistibly vola- tile; "Because the Rose Must Fade" has a nobility of mood; "The Winter Heart" is a powerful short song, and " Woman's Thought," aside from one or two dangerous 2/8 Contemporary American Composers. moments, is stirring and intense. Baltzell writes elaborate accompaniments, for which his skill is sufficient, and he is not afraid of his effects. In the far Xanadu of Colorado lives Rubin Goldmark, a nephew of the famous Carl Goldmark. He was born in New York in 1872. He attended the public schools and the College of the City of New York. At the age of seven he began the study of the piano with Alfred M. Livonius, with whom he went to Vienna at the age of seventeen. There he studied the piano with Anton Door, and composition with Fuchs, completing in two years a three years' course in harmony and counterpoint. Returning to New York, he studied with Rafael Joseffy and with Doctor Dvorak for one year. In 1892 he went to Colorado Springs for his health. Having established a successful College of Music there, he has remained as its director and as a lecturer on musical topics. The Colonists. 279 At the age of nineteen he wrote his "Theme and Variations" for orchestra. They were performed under Mr. Seidl's leadership in 1895 with much success. Their harmonies are singularly clear and sweet, of the good old school. At the age of twenty Goldmark wrote a trio for piano, violin, and 'cello. After the first performance of this work at one of the conservatory concerts, Doctor Dvorak exclaimed, "There are now two Goldmarks." The work has also had performance at the concerts of the Kalten- born Quartette, and has been published. It begins with a tentative questioning, from which a serious allegro is led forth. It is lyrical and sane, though not particularly modern, and certainly not revolutionary in spirit. The second movement, a romanza, shows more contrapuntal resource, and is full of a deep yearning and appeal, — an extremely beautiful movement. The scherzo evinces a taking jocosity with a serious interval. The 28o Contemporary American Composers. piano part is especially humorous. The finale begins with a touch of Ethiopianism that is perhaps unconscious. The whole movement is very original and quaint. Goldmark's music shows a steady develop- ment from a conservative simplicity to a modern elaborateness, a development thor- oughly to be commended if it does not lead into obscurity. This danger seems to threaten Goldmark's career, judging from his cantata for chorus and orchestra, the *' Pilgrimage to Kevlaar," which, while highly interesting in places, and distinctly resourceful, is too ab- struse and gloomy to stand much chance of public understanding. Many of the works that I have had the privilege of examining in MS. have since been published ; there is much originality, much attainment, and more promise in a number of his songs. His setting of Mar- lowe's " Come Live with Me," in spite of a few eccentricities, shows, on the whole, a The Colonists. 281 great fluency of melody over an elaborately beautiful accompaniment. His solemn and mysterious "Forest Song" could deserve the advertisement of being " drawn from the wood." "Die erste Liebe" shows a contem- plative originality in harmony, and ends with a curious dissonance and resolution. " O'er the Woods' Brow " is very strange and inter- esting, though somewhat abstruse. Less so is a song, "An den Abendsstern ;" it has a comparison-forcing name, but is a delightful song. "Es muss ein Wunderbares sein " is notable for novel effects in harmonies of crystal with light dissonances to edge the facets. A sonata for piano and violin and a romanza for 'cello have been published, and his " Hiawatha " overture has been played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. On this occasion the always quoteworthy mezzo- tintist, James Huneker, wrote : " The nephew of a very remarkable composer, — for Carl Goldmark outranks to-day all the Griegs, 282 Contemporary Ajnerican Composers. Massenets, Mascagnis, Saint-Saens, and DvQriks you can gather, — he needs must fear the presence in his scores of the avuncular apparition. His ' Hiawatha ' overture was played by Mr. Gericke and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Wednesday of last week. At the first cantilena on the strings I nearly jumped out of my seat. It was bewilderingly luscious and Gold- markian, — a young Goldmark come to judgment. The family gifts are color and rhythm. This youth has them, and he also has brains. Original invention is yet to come, but I have hopes. The overture, which is not Indian, is full of good things, withal too lengthy in the free fantasia. There is life, and while there's life there's rhythm, and a nice variety there is. The allegro has one stout tune, and the rush and dynamic glow lasts. He lasts, does Rubin Gold- mark, and I could have heard the piece through twice. The young American composer has not been idle lately." The New York Colony. In every period where art is alive there must be violent faction, and wherever there is violent faction there is sure to be a tertium quid that endeavors to bridge the quarrel. The Colonists. 283 The Daniel Websters call forth the Robert Haynes, and the two together evoke the compromisers, the Henry Clays. In the struggle between modernity and classicism that always rages when music is in vitality, one always finds certain ardent spirits who endeavor to reconcile the conflicting theories of the different schools, and to materialize the reconciliation in their own work. An interesting example of this is to be found in the anatomical construction of one of the best American piano compositions, the fantasy for piano and orchestra by Arthur Whiting. The composer has aimed to pay his respects to the classic sonata formula, and at the same time to warp it to more romantic and modern usages. The result of his experiment is a form that should interest every composer. As Whiting phrases it, he has " telescoped " the sonata form. The slow introduction prepares for the first and second subjects, 284 Contemporary American Composers. which appear, as usual, except that they are somewhat developed as they appear. Now, in place of the regular development, the pastoral movement is brought forward. This is followed by the reprise of the first and second subjects. Then the finale appears. All these movements are performed without pause, and the result is so successful that Whiting is using the same plan for a quin- tette. Handwriting experts are fond of referring to the " picture effect " of a page of writing. It is sometimes startling to see the resem- blance in "picture effect " between the music pages of different composers. The hand- somely abused Perosi, for instance, writes many a page, which, if held at arm's length, you would swear was one of Palestrina's. Some of Mr. Whiting's music has a decidedly Brahmsic picture effect. This feeling is emphasized when one remembers the enthusi- asm shown for Brahms in Whiting's concerts, The Colonists. 285 where the works of the Ursus Minor of Vienna hold the place of honor. The re- semblance is only skin deep, however, and Whiting's music has a mind of its own. The fantasy in question (op. 11) is full of individuality and brilliance. The first subject is announced appassionato by the strings, the piano joining with arabesquery that fol- lows the general outlines. After this is somewhat developed, the second subject comes in whimsically in the relative major. This is written with great chromatic luscious- ness, and is quite hberally developed. It suddenly disappears into what is ordinarily called the second movement, a pastoral, in which the piano is answered by the oboe, flute, clarinet, and finally the horn. This is gradually appassionated until it is merged into the reprise of the first movement proper. During this reprise little glints of reminis- cence of the pastoral are seen. A coda of great bravery leads to the last movement, 286 Contemporary American Composers. which is marked " scherzando," but is rather martial in tone. The decidedly noble compo- sition ends with great brilliancy and strength. It is published for orchestral score and for two pianos. Whiting was born in Cambridge, Mass., June 20, 1 861. He studied the piano with William H. Sherwood, and has made a suc- cessful career in concert playing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Kneisel Quartette, both of which organizations have performed works of his. In 1883 he went to Munich for two years, where he studied counterpoint and composition with Rhein- berger. He is now living in New York as a concert pianist and teacher. Four works of his for the piano are : " Six Bagatelles," of which the "Caprice" has a charming infectious coda, while the " Humor- eske " is less simple, and also less amusing. The "Album Leaf" is a pleasing whimsy, and the " Idylle " is as delicate as fleece. Of The Colonists. 287 rdylle. Slovl7