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                   *       *       *       *       *


                           THE ART OF MUSIC


                           The Art of Music

                A Comprehensive Library of Information
                    for Music Lovers and Musicians

                            Editor-in-Chief

                         DANIEL GREGORY MASON
                          Columbia University


                           Associate Editors

         EDWARD B. HILL                        LELAND HALL
       Harvard University            Past Professor, Univ. of Wisconsin




                            Managing Editor
                           CÉSAR SAERCHINGER
                   Modern Music Society of New York

                          In Fourteen Volumes
                         Profusely Illustrated

                            [Illustration]

                               NEW YORK
                     THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC


               [Illustration: Edward Alexander MacDowell]
                       _After a photo from life_




                     THE ART OF MUSIC: VOLUME FOUR

                           Music in America

                          Department Editors:
                            ARTHUR FARWELL

                                  AND

                            W. DERMOT DARBY

                            Introduction by
                            ARTHUR FARWELL

                  Associate Editor 'Musical America'
          Formerly Lecturer on Music, Cornell University, and
          Supervisor of Municipal Concerts, City of New York

                            [Illustration]

                               NEW YORK
                    THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC


                          Copyright, 1915, by
                  THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC, Inc.
                         [All Rights Reserved]


                           MUSIC IN AMERICA



                             INTRODUCTION


Prophecy, not history, is the most truly important concern of music in
America. What a new world, with new processes and new ideals, will do
with the tractable and still unformed art of music; what will arise
from the contact of this art with our unprecedented democracy--these
are the questions of deepest import in our musical life in the United
States. The past has consisted chiefly of a tasting of the musical
art and traditions of the old world. The present is divided between
imitation of the old and searching for the new, both in quality and
application. The fruitage of our national musical life is still for
the future. Intense as are the activities of the present, they are
still merely the preparation of the soil for a future growth the
nature and extent of which we can only guess at to-day. The stream
of musical evolution in America, in the present transitional period,
is rapidly overflowing its wonted banks, and passing the boundaries
of the traditional musical world. The many are striving to obtain
that which has been the exclusive possession of the few, and in this
endeavor are not only extending, but also actually transforming the
art. The paramount issues change with the passing of the seasons.
One imported European sensation gives way to another. The problem of
the true basis of American music dissolves overnight, and gives way
to the problem of the specific evaluation of individual composers,
whatsoever their tendency. The questions of the narrow concert world
dwindle before the greater question of a broad musical administration
for the people. We stand, in fact, in a state of chaos with respect
of musical activities and ideals, and only the clearest thinkers are
able to catch the truer and larger drift of the national evolution,
or effectively direct it. Too many persons are ready to suppose that
the issues of music in America lie wholly within the scope of purely
musical considerations, and that they do not depend, as is actually the
case in certain important respects, upon the nature of the national
ideals and tendencies. The national need will condition the supply, and
the more truly and deeply a national need is fulfilled, the more vital
will be the result. For this reason it is important that the general
national condition with respect of music be carefully studied, and that
misconceptions and theories be relinquished in favor of a knowledge of
facts.

If now we set out to glance over the circumstances which have
eventually brought about the present condition of music in America, we
find that this history, taken in its largest outlines, has a threefold
aspect, the features of which may be roughly termed appreciation,
creation, and administration. The degree in which the new world has
grasped and understood the facts of musical development in the old
must constitute a chief factor in any consideration of its musical
evolution, and this subject will naturally include a reference to
musical culture in America. The second general division of the subject
relates to American composers and the creative musical output of the
nation. The matter of the appreciation of this output will best be
touched upon in connection with this aspect of the subject. With the
question of administration we approach a phase of the subject which has
of late assumed momentous proportions, touching directly, as it does,
the great question of the relation of music to the people--the reaction
of democracy to the art of music. The divisions of Appreciation and
Administration are, of course, very closely related, and some chapters,
such as that on Education, embody both aspects in almost equal degree.
Hence the line cannot be very sharply drawn. Our sequence of chapters,
while emphasizing the three aspects here set forth, has therefore been
arranged with a view to presenting as continuous a story as possible.
The chapters reviewing the creative activities of American composers
have accordingly been placed together at the end of the volume.

We can not deeply consider the matter of the appreciation of the
musical art of the old world by the new, without coming to the
realization that it is complete. This, it must be recognized, is a
matter which does not ultimately depend upon the numerical extent of
the appreciators, but upon the quality of appreciation existing within
the nation. Were this not so, we could not affirm the existence of a
complete appreciation of its musical art by any nation of the world.
In the broad sense in which we must necessarily speak in dealing
only with the major facts of civilization and evolution, we may say
that German musical art is appreciated by the German nation, even if
only here or there someone is found who understands precisely the
principles of Beethoven's form, or Wagner's harmony. In the practical
progress of the world it is general acceptance and use, together with
a sufficient artistic appreciation, technical and otherwise, on the
part of certain individuals, which constitutes national appreciation
of art. The knowledge and action of such preëminent individuals
qualify the appreciative life of the nation. The evolution of the
world to-day resides in the evolution of the progressive thought of
individuals. Such thought outdistances the slower mental operations
of the mass, which is nevertheless drawn along into ever new sets of
changing conditions, through the modern development of the means of
communication and the corresponding rapidity of both material and
spiritual advance.

Such conditions of appreciation exist in a signal manner in the America
of to-day. It is the simplest and most obvious of facts that there
is a general acceptance and use of European musical art, old and
new, throughout the 'musical world' of America. The relation of that
'musical world' to the whole population will be considered later. It
is equally obvious to the qualified observer that no point of European
musical art is without its thorough-going students and appreciators,
and ardent conservators, in America. From Bach and Haydn, nay, from
the Gregorian chant, the Greek enharmonic, the Oriental scale, down
through every intermediate period and personality to the present day
of Stravinsky and Schönberg, every phase of musical history and life
has its students and its champions in the new world. America has, in
truth, summed up the musical life of the ages and reflects it daily
in the multitudinous activities of her musical world. The quality of
American appreciation has one advantage of the greatest significance
over that of any other land, in that it is without national or racial
prejudice. Being without history or unity, with respect of race, the
American people are without a racial folk-song, and hence are bound
by no ancient racial sympathy or habit to a particular fundamental
conception of the character of music. German music, French, Russian,
Bohemian, Scandinavian, Italian--all are accepted with equal eagerness
and sympathy. In America the world's music falls on fresh ears, with
the result that a catholicity of taste prevails such as is to be found
in no other land, and with the further result that a unique and broadly
inclusive national impression of musical character in general has
been gained. This in turn is leading to a national creative musical
output which, if it has not converged upon any one distinctive national
character, is, on the other hand, wholly free from dependence upon the
traditional character of the music of any other nation, and could have
been produced by no other nation.

The upshot of the status of American appreciation of musical art
is that, although the work of more extensively familiarizing the
population with the world's music must continue, the evolution,
broadly, of America as an appreciative nation has been fulfilled, and
it can from now on find no true musical progress except as a creative
nation. Not only has it studied, at home and abroad, all that the
outside world has produced, but it has now thoroughly studied the
various phases of aboriginal music which exist upon its own soil.
The national life has passed beyond its school days and entered the
period where it has no alternative but to face judgment as a musically
productive nation with legitimate pretensions to maturity.

In view of the intense musical interest and eagerness of the American
people, of the vigorous and very rapidly expanding development of
musical life in the United States since the Civil War, and the enormous
sums which the nation spends annually for musical education, both at
home and abroad, it would be irrational to expect anything less than
the results above indicated. Musical education, which has played so
vast a part in this development, shares, nevertheless, the general
chaotic condition of American musical life. The absence of a National
Academy of Music leaves the country still without any official standard
of musical education, although high ideals and thorough courses are
maintained in the music departments of the larger universities. There
are several independent musical academies and conservatories of high
standing, with a sufficiently broad and well ordered curriculum, and
an unnumbered mass of nondescript music schools innocent of all normal
standards. The same scale, from the highest excellence to downright
charlatanism, is to be found in the field of private instruction,
and one of the greatest educational problems which the nation faces
is to bring some element of standardization into this field. This is
a matter for state action, and in several states a movement is well
under way for the licensing of music teachers. The development of music
in the public schools, well grounded in the early part of the last
century, has of late years been pushed with vigor and intelligence,
and has led to unprecedented studies in the adaptation of music to the
child, as well as to the composition of a great quantity of new and
appropriate children's songs of excellent quality. The chief difficulty
with national musical progress through the public schools lies in
the fact that such a minute proportion of public school scholars go
to high school and college, most of them losing all contact with
musical education before reaching an age when their interest in it
can be firmly established. This circumstance is now happily being
continually more widely met from extra-educational quarters, in the
present movement for music for the people through various channels to
be referred to later. Professional educators are inclined to lay too
much stress on school education as a means of developing appreciation
in the mass, forgetting that the time must come when the chief musical
training of the people, with respect of their ultimate enjoyment of
music, must consist in a general public hearing of music of the highest
order.

In centres of highly refined musical culture, America, from East
to West, is not lacking. An aristocracy of musical appreciation
has followed upon the establishment of symphonic and chamber music
organizations in a number of cities. This culture is, however, almost
exclusively devoted to the maintenance of traditional European
standards, and is inclined to take slight cognizance of the native
and democratic developments in which the true national progress
of the present lies. The presence of such a culture in America is
therefore not altogether an unmixed blessing; in fact it may lead
to certain results of positive evil. The presence of retrospective
hyper-refinement in a nation at a time when rugged creative strength,
even if crude in its artistic results, should be manifested, may be
harmful in its effect upon normal creative progress, especially when,
with the backing of wealth, the press, and the academy, it arrogates to
itself the possession of the true vision of artistic standards.

If, then, the tide of musical appreciation in America has reached
a normal level, in accordance with the general civilization of
the world of to-day, if the appreciative era, purely as such, is
past, the creative epoch has only fairly begun. America, in musical
composition, already reckons a historical sequence approaching to
a classical, a romantic and an ultra-modern period, exhibiting the
strange spectacle of most of the founders of the first period living to
see the flowering of the last, during their active lifetime. In fact,
some of the pioneers have actively engaged in fostering the issues of
all three epochs. The truth of this curious condition is that this
triple-aspected development of the past fifty years can not in reality
be said to represent even the beginning of the actual creative epoch of
the nation. As the child is said to pass through phases corresponding
to the entire ancient history of the race, so this chapter in American
music represents the rapid passage of the youthful America through
the previous history of the art; it has represented the desire to
catch up with the world at large. Even if some works of lasting value
have been produced, as is undoubtedly the case, this period has in
actuality represented a mere reflex of European musical civilization, a
surface agitation, to be followed by an authentic and original national
productivity along the lines of its own needs and ideals.

So irregular and tumultuous have been the conditions of musical
development in America, that early influences have been of relatively
small qualitative importance in determining the ultimate issues of
American music. There are but two such early influences of importance
to record, and one of these has become wholly negligible with relation
to our independent art of music, finding its only resultant effect in
the church music of America. This, attributable in the first instance
to the Netherland school of the Renaissance, appeared as the early
English contrapuntal school of Purcell, becoming associated with
the music of the Protestant Church in England, and finally becoming
diluted to the productions of the school of Billings and Hopkinson in
America. American hymnology undoubtedly owes its character to this
evolutionary sequence, although in the end American church music has
become inundated with the German influence in its more sentimental
aspects, and presents in general a profound degeneration too momentous
for discussion in the present brief review. The one great original
influence acknowledged by the nation, in its musically creative life,
is the mighty German tradition of the epoch of Beethoven. It is
significant and fortuitous that America was colonized, musically, at
the time when the influence of that tradition was paramount in the
world. It was the emigrating German music teacher, in every city and
town of the United States, who implanted the fundamental conception
of musical art in American civilization. Accepted and consulted
everywhere, he determined the character of music in America in the
period of reconstruction and educational expansion after the Civil War.
His influence was solidified by the character of symphonic and choral
enterprise, and by that of the performances of German musical artists
touring in America. The Italian was the accredited opera singer and
nothing more; the German was the teacher.

In the subsequent course of developments, two matters have militated
against the ultimate domination of the German influence in American
composition. One is the extensive change which has since occurred in
the racial nature of the population. Continued immigration from all
lands has eventually produced a population too diverse to accept and
perpetuate, as its dominant musical character, the tradition of any
one nation, however musically great. The other is the amazing musical
awakening of all Europe since the epoch of Beethoven, and especially
since Wagner, and the consequent deluge of modern music from various
nations which has poured in upon American musical life. In view of the
infinity of newly revealed possibilities, the American composer has
been unwilling to continue to reflect merely the one tradition with
which his nation was formerly acquainted, in howsoever high honor that
tradition was held. It is to be said, however, that the substantial
character of German formal musical construction has exerted, as it
should, a permanent influence upon the American attitude toward
composition, and one which is certain to operate beneficially upon the
creative musical life of the nation. The American point of departure
has been one not so much of technical system and ideals generally, as
of temperament.

A third matter qualifying this emancipation of American music is the
unearthing of the mass of aboriginal folk music peculiar to America,
particularly that of the Indian and the negro. This has had a far
more significant and widespread influence upon composers in America
than critics in general have been willing to admit, and many of the
strongest works now appearing in this country acknowledge an influence
from these sources.

The 'American folk-song' discussion arose after what has been termed
the classical period of American music, of which J. K. Paine may be
considered the founder, and during the period in which the romantic
influence, culminating in the work of MacDowell, was beginning to yield
to the influence of the ultra-moderns. The factors which broke the
exclusive German domination in America were, on one hand, the following
up on this side of the water of the musical individuality gained by
other European nations, and, on the other hand, the movement for the
development of aboriginal folk-song in America. To these causes, some
may add a spontaneous climatic influence, but of this there has as yet
been no material demonstration.

The gist of the folk-song discussion was the question as to whether
the basis of a characteristic national American musical art was to be
found in the music of the negroes or Indians. This discussion arose
after Antonin Dvořák's proclamation of such a possibility during his
sojourn in America in the years 1892-95, and rose to its height several
years after the foundation in 1901, by the writer, of The Wa-Wan Press,
a movement for the attainment of a greater freedom in American music
along both modern European and American aboriginal lines. As in all
such matters, the question was answered by the degree and quality
of creativeness in the works brought forward in exemplification of
the principle. Good works on Indian or negro themes have lived, and
bad ones have died. It soon became plainly evident that there was no
popular prejudice against music drawing upon the characteristics of
these native aboriginal sources; on the contrary, much interest was
evinced, as has frequently been shown by the attitude of audiences
listening to such works and by the popularity which certain of them
have attained. The subject has also been made one for special study
by numerous musical clubs throughout the country. What was asked was
merely that the result should be good music. The influence of Indian
and negro music upon American composition has thus spontaneously come
to be recognized as a national and acceptable one, and the reflection
of it by American composers to-day arouses scarcely a murmur of
comment. That only a certain proportion of composers in America
would respond to these influences was soon perceived, and with the
readiness of the people to accept this kind of work, it became merely
a question of the proportion of American musical art which should
exhibit these tendencies. There appears to be no diminution of the
tendency of many composers to draw upon these apparently inexhaustible
aboriginal sources, and with the constant advance of creative musical
art in America, and with its eagerness to press to a conclusion every
available phase of music susceptible of development, there is every
reason to believe that this influence, now generally recognized, will
lead to a very considerable mass of achievement of a high character.
America is too diverse in its sympathies and ideals to acknowledge any
one national or racial influence as paramount in its musical art, but
absolute creative freedom is essential to its national character.

Upon the original German influence, which has been rapidly modified
in America by the work of Wagner and Strauss, there has followed
chiefly the influence of modern France. Many American composers have
lent themselves with avidity to the assimilation of the new technical
resources revealed by Debussy and his colleagues, with excellent
results so long as they considered these merely as accretions to their
previous resource, but in general with equal failure where they have
thought to create in the spirit of the French idiom. The directness
of Russian musical expression has made its appeal to American
composers, though its influence upon the color of American music has
been inconsiderable in comparison with the French. The one cumulative
effect of the many influences, from within and without, which have
qualified the nature of American music, especially during the last two
decades, has been to wrench it free from the uninspiring and nationally
inappropriate character which it had acquired as the result of its
original exclusive early German influence, without, it is to be noted,
leading it into imitative subservience to the particular character of
the musical art of any other nation. In other words, America has gained
its creative musical freedom, even if still too new to that condition
to manifest its ultimate results. With this widened horizon, the true
creative epoch of American music has only now begun. The handful
of American composers of serious ideals and noteworthy ability who
could be named a few years ago has increased to scores, and new names
appear in such rapid succession that the fairly definite knowledge
which America had of its chief composers of the 'classical' and
'romantic' epochs can give only the feeblest conception of the present
condition of composition in America. The best of the newer work shows a
loftiness of ideals, a breadth of outlook, a definiteness of purpose,
a freshness of color, a sense of the beautiful and an _esprit_ which
argue strongly for the future honor of American music. The chief danger
which threatens the American composer is the tendency to accept and
conform to the standards of the centres of conventional and fashionable
musical culture, especially in unsubstantial modern aspects, and to
fail to study out the real nature and musical needs of the American
people. Such a tendency naturally lingers with the lingering domination
of Europe over the standards and the machinery of American musical
life. Conformity means representation and a certain sort of acclaim
for the composer; nonconformity means severance from the usual and
conventional centres and institutions of musical culture. Critical
approbation does not mean the response of the people; the composers
most highly acclaimed by the critics can by no means be said to have
come closest to touching the national heart. The attitude of the
world of musical 'culture' in America is still cold toward the native
producer; this narrow American 'culture' world pays for the maintenance
of fashionable foreign standards, and resents any interference with
this course. Concert singers are seldom heard in American songs worthy
of their artistry, and orchestral conductors seldom give, on their own
initiative, successful native orchestral works, an isolated performance
of which has been arduously procured elsewhere.

With the people generally, however, the matter is quite otherwise.
The people of the nation have never shown a disposition to receive
otherwise than cordially the work of their own composers. From Stephen
Foster, through the ranks of popular music composers, to MacDowell, to
many song composers of the present, and latterly to the composers of
music for popular festivals and pageants--wherever the composer has
gone directly to the people and served their needs, whether in the
sphere of lesser or greater ideals, he has found a ready welcome and
a hearty response. The pathway of true creativity, of healthy growth
and achievement for the composer in America to-day, lies in abandoning
the competition with European sensationalists and ultra-modernists in
the narrow arena of the concert halls of 'culture', and turning to the
fulfilment of national needs in the broadest and deepest sense.

The accomplishment of this matter is linked with the third and last
general division of our main subject, the question of administration.
As a natural consequence of events in American musical history, dating
from the earliest days, there has arisen the so-called 'musical world'
of America to-day, the well-defined national system of concert, recital
and operatic life. This system arose normally to supply the new world
with the products of the highly developed musical art of the old, and
in such a capacity it has admirably served its purpose. In the course
of time, however, and with the increasing wealth and musical culture
of America, the harvest to be reaped by the commercial exploitation
of foreign artists has not remained unperceived by a country not
naturally backward in the perception of commercial advantage. It is
quite natural that those who took into their hands the management of
these affairs should seek the greatest profit which they could be made
to yield. This, it will readily be seen, was not to come from the broad
development of a given locality, which would involve education and a
departure from the centres of wealth, but from the exploitation of the
narrow circle of wealth and culture which existed in every community
of importance. Thus a great circuit was established throughout the
country, by which a process of skimming the cream from as many
communities as possible was set in operation, in the presentation of
famous foreign artists to what has been allowed to pass as the American
public. Thus a system established originally as a service to the people
has finally degenerated to the condition of a commercial enterprise
which is utterly without regard to the broader interests of the people.
The true condition of affairs is made evident to-day by the fact that
when a resident of any moderate-sized prosperous American city starts
to inaugurate some local musical enterprise for the benefit of the
whole community, and calling for the entire community's support, he
learns that the concert and recital life of his city, its 'musical
world,' reaches and is supported by but from three to five per cent. of
the entire population. The other ninety-five to ninety-seven per cent.
find the regular musical events beyond their means, as well as beyond
the facts of their culture, though in the latter respect America is
now rapidly learning that the enjoyment of the best music is far less
dependent upon special education than has commonly been supposed.

Meanwhile, by phonograph and player-piano, by newspaper and magazine,
by high-class municipal concerts and occasional chance glimpses into
the world of greater musical possibilities, the mass of the people have
begun to become awakened to the existence of the larger musical world
which they do not see and the larger musical life which they do not
share, and to crave participation in it. Finally, therefore, we have
the spectacle of an American 'musical world' which is no longer true
to American conditions and which does not serve the people. In short,
we have finally come face to face with the problem of the reaction of
musical art and democracy.

With this question the nation has of late begun to deal in no
half-hearted or uncertain manner. In fact, the national response to
this situation involves the greatest American musical movement of the
day. In its earlier phase the question asked was: Will the people,
under democracy, rise to the accepted standards of musical culture? A
negative answer to this question has been generally entertained, and
among cultured people it has been commonly supposed that democracy
would drag down the standards of musical culture. That a wholly new and
multifold phase of musical life would arise to meet the requirements
of a civilization such as that of America seems to have been earlier
suspected or foreseen only by a few thinking students of conditions,
who recognized the fact that the exact meeting of the mass, as it
became more enlightened, with the conditions of traditional musical
culture was not the solution which was to be expected or even desired.
The plain fact was that the people at large were not enjoying the
benefits, the pleasure, recreation, or inspiration, as the case might
be, of all that the world prizes as music in any of its forms above
that of popular songs and dances. Neither the educational system, on
the one hand, nor the cultural system, on the other, provided them
with it. One merely gave a little elementary training of the most
primitive sort, and for a short time, to children, and the other
did not reach beyond the extremely restricted sphere of culture and
wealth. A movement was needed which should bring music in all of its
forms directly to the masses of the people, and in the nation-wide
campaign for what may be termed 'music for the people' such a movement
has arisen. Experiments on every hand have shown that the people have
needed only to be brought in contact with the higher forms of music,
under advantageous conditions, to rise spontaneously to the enjoyment
of it. The movement, in its activities, has assumed no particular form,
but has taken a variety of forms according to the possibilities of
local conditions. The 'Forest Festival,' or 'Midsummer High Jinks,'
of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, while not open to the general
public, has nevertheless shown the potent appeal of outdoor musical
dramatic festivals to a large number of persons not commonly in
touch with musical life. Municipal concerts on a scale not hitherto
attempted, such as those in Central Park, New York, presenting not
band, but orchestral concerts of the world's greatest music, have
met with an astonishing and enthusiastic response on the part of the
masses who have hitherto had no opportunity of hearing anything above
the popular music of the streets, the dance halls, and the 'movies.'
The musical phase of the social centre movement has assumed vast and
national proportions, making use of the public school halls for
concerts and recitals for thousands of persons who were previously
without musical opportunities. Certain towns, such as Bethlehem, Pa.,
Lindsburg, Kans., and the towns of the 'Litchfield County Choral
Union,' Conn., have established choral enterprises which include in the
choruses practically the entire population. In two years the custom
of Christmas trees with music, free to the people, has become almost
a national movement. The 'community chorus,' such as that established
in Rochester, N. Y., with a membership of nearly one thousand drawn
from the people at large, and singing in the public parks and school
halls, should prove a desirable form of people's musical enterprise
in many places. Standard symphony orchestras in various cities are
branching out extensively in the direction of giving concerts involving
the highest order of music to the people at popular prices, and in
some cities the organization of symphony orchestras for popular price
concerts is threatening the existence of the regular orchestra. And
well-nigh surpassing in significance most other phases of the general
movement, and certainly in their popular inclusiveness, are the
pageants or 'community dramas' with music, which are now constituting a
feature of community life throughout the country.

If, then, the appreciative epoch along the older lines, is concluded in
America, it may be said that the nation is coming to a new appreciation
of music, as a whole, in its relation to humanity. The new movement
will call forth new and larger efforts on the part of American
composers, who, with their present thorough assimilation of the various
musical influences of the world, will lead the nation into a new and
mature creative epoch.

                                                  ARTHUR FARWELL.

August, 1914.




                        CONTENTS OF VOLUME FOUR


                                                                    PAGE
 INTRODUCTION BY ARTHUR FARWELL                                      vii


                         PART I. APPRECIATION

  CHAPTER

     I.  OUR ENGLISH INHERITANCE                                       1

         The foundation of American musical culture--State of
         English musical culture in the seventeenth century--The
         Virginia colonists--The Puritans in England and in America;
         New England psalmody.

   II.  BEGINNINGS OF MUSICAL CULTURE IN AMERICA                      22

        The foundations of American music--New England's
        musical awakening; early publications of psalm-tunes;
        reform of church singing--Early concerts in Boston, New
        York, Philadelphia, the South--The American attitude
        toward music--The beginnings of American music: Hopkinson;
        Lyon; Billings and their contemporaries.

  III.  EARLY CONCERT LIFE                                            55

        Sources of information--Boston Concerts of the eighteenth
        century; New England outside of Boston--Concerts in New
        York--Concerts in Philadelphia; open-air concerts--Concert
        life of the South; Charleston, Baltimore, etc.; Conclusion.


                         PART II. ORGANIZATION

   IV.  EARLY MUSICAL ORGANIZATIONS                                   84

        Origin of musical societies--The South; The St. Cecilia
        of Charleston; Philadelphia and New York in the eighteenth
        century--The Euterpean Society; the New York Choral Society;
        Sacred Music Society; other New York Societies--New
        England in the eighteenth century; the Stoughton Musical
        Society of Boston; other societies in Boston and elsewhere.

    V.  THE BEGINNINGS OF OPERA                                      104

        Scantiness of theatrical performances in America; Charleston
        and Tony Aston; New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere--The
        Revolution and after; rivalry between New York and
        Philadelphia--The New Orleans opera.


   VI.  OPERA IN THE UNITED STATES. PART I: NEW YORK                 117

        The New York opera as a factor of musical culture--Manuel
        García and his troupe; da Ponte's dream--The
        vicissitudes of the Italian Opera House; Palmo's attempt
        at 'democratic' opera--The beginnings of 'social' opera: the
        Academy of Music, German opera, Maretzek to Strakosch--The
        early years of the Metropolitan--The Grau régime--Conried;
        Hammerstein; Gatti-Casazza; Opera in English--The
        Century Opera Company.

  VII.  OPERA IN THE UNITED STATES. PART II                          158

        San Francisco's operatic experiences--New Orleans and its
        opera house--Philadelphia; influence of New Orleans, New
        York, etc.; The Academy of Music--Chicago's early operatic
        history; the Chicago-Philadelphia company; Boston--Comic
        opera in New York and elsewhere.

 VIII.  INSTRUMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES              181

        The New York Philharmonic Society and other New York
        orchestras--Orchestral organizations in Boston--The Theodore
        Thomas orchestra of Chicago--Orchestral music in
        Cincinnati--The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra--Orchestral
        music in the West; the Philadelphia Symphony
        Orchestra--Chamber music ensembles--Visiting orchestras.

   IX.  CHORAL ORGANIZATIONS AND MUSIC FESTIVALS                     206

        The Handel and Haydn and other Boston societies--Choral
        organizations in New York, Pennsylvania, and
        elsewhere--Cincinnati,        Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago
        and the Far West--Music festivals.

    X.  MUSICAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA                                 230

        Early singing teachers and schools--Music societies
        in colleges--Introduction of music into the public
        schools--Juvenile music--Conservatories--Musical courses
        in colleges and universities--Community music--Present state
        of public school music--Municipal music.


                          PART III. CREATION

   XI.  THE FOLK-ELEMENT IN AMERICAN MUSIC                           277

        Nationalism in music--Sources of American folk-song;
        classification of folk-songs--General characteristics of the
        negro folk-song--The negro folk-song and its makers--Other
        American folk-songs--The negro minstrel tunes;
        Stephen Foster, etc.--Patriotic and national songs.


  XII.  THE CLASSIC PERIOD OF AMERICAN COMPOSITION                   331

        Pioneers in American Composition: Fry, Emery, Gottschalk--The
        Boston group of 'classicists': Chadwick, Foote, Parker,
        and others--Other exponents of the 'Classical': William
        Mason, Dudley Buck, Arthur Whiting, and others--The
        lyricists: Ethelbert Nevin; American song-writers--Composers
        of church music.

 XIII.  ROMANTICISTS AND NEO-CLASSICISTS                             360

        Influences and conditions of the period--Edward
        MacDowell--Edgar Stillman-Kelley--Arne Oldberg;
        Henry Hadley; F. S. Converse--E. R. Kroeger; Rubin Goldmark;
        Howard Brockway; Homer N. Bartlett--Daniel Gregory
        Mason; David Stanley Smith; Edward Burlingame Hill--The
        younger men: Philip Greeley Clapp; Arthur Bergh;
        Joseph Henius; Carl Busch--The San Francisco Group;
        Miscellany--Women Composers.

  XIV.  NATIONALISTS, ECLECTICS AND ULTRA-MODERNS                    407

        The new spirit and its various manifestations--Henry
        F. Gilbert, Arthur Farwell, Harvey W. Loomis--Frederic
        Ayres, Arthur Shepherd, Noble Kreider, Benjamin
        Lambord--Campbell-Tipton; Arthur Nevin; C. W. Cadman;
        J. A. Carpenter; T. C. Whitmer--W. H. Humiston, John Powell,
        Blair Fairchild, Maurice Arnold--Sidney Homer;
        Clough-Leighter and others--Charles M. Loeffler and other
        Americans of foreign birth or residence.

   XV.  THE LIGHTER VEIN                                             451

        Sources of American popular music--Its past and present
        phases--American comic opera: Reginald de Koven;
        Victor Herbert; John Philip Sousa; other writers of light
        opera--The decline of light opera and the present state of
        theatrical music.

 LITERATURE                                                          465

 INDEX                                                               469


                           MUSIC IN AMERICA




                               CHAPTER I
                        OUR ENGLISH INHERITANCE

      The foundation of American musical culture--State of English
      musical culture in the seventeenth century--The Virginia
      colonists--The Puritans in England and in America; New
      England psalmody.


Whatever else the American music-lover may be, he is decidedly not
chauvinistic. Deprecatingly he is wont to speak of native artistic
accomplishment, and, however much he may be disposed to vaunt the
stellar achievements of our few great opera houses and orchestras,
he is content to draw a veil of modest silence over that part of
our musical history which precedes the advent of those _de luxe_
organizations. Hence it is, perhaps, that the searchlight of the
historian has played but fitfully upon the early musical life of
America--for, although popular interest may not inspire the writing of
history, it is not without its influence on the publication thereof.
Possibly the musical life of pre-Revolutionary America has had little
to do with shaping the ultimate artistic destinies of the nation, yet
it formed the matrix into which our subsequent musical culture has been
embedded and as such it is of both interest and importance to those who
would follow a phase of our national development, as yet regrettably
neglected.

It is a peculiar tendency of the American historian to lay the
foundation of our national history squarely on the Rock of Plymouth.
A solid foundation, truly, but not a very broad one. The predominant
influence of New England in the industrial and commercial development
of the United States can hardly be gainsaid. That its influences on
the country's æsthetic development have been equally predominant is
questionable. More especially in musical matters are we inclined to
call it into dispute. If we might judge from American popular music,
we should be disposed to infer that such influences as may have been
active in the shaping of it came chiefly from the South. Nor is popular
music a negligible criterion in this respect, for in it have always
lain the germs of truly national art. Of course, our knowledge of the
state of musical culture in the early colonies does not enable us to
say definitely and dogmatically just where and how American musical
development first began. It will probably appear eventually that the
early musical life of the colonies has had very little to do with
our musical culture of to-day. But, purely as a matter of historic
justice, it might be pointed out that unqualified statements, such
as the assertion of Ritter that 'the first steps of American musical
development may be traced back to the first establishment of English
Puritan colonies in New England,' are, to say the least, somewhat
premature.[1]


                                   I

A consideration of music among the Indians is not germane to our
present purpose. As far as we are concerned Indian music is an exotic,
and it is only of recent years that American composers have turned to
it in a conscious search for national color which is, perhaps, the
first real symptom of aspiration toward characteristically national
expression. From the point of view of musical history the development
of American music must be considered as beginning among the first
white settlers on these shores, and it may be said at once that those
beginnings, like Guy of Warwick's death, are still 'wrop in mystery.'
Regarding musical life in the colonies before the year 1700 our
information is so slight as to be negligible. For almost a century
preceding that year white men--many of them men of culture--had been
settled in America.[2] That these men completely forgot the art in
which so many of them found pleasure, and in which at least a few of
them must have possessed some skill, is a supposition too absurd to
be seriously entertained. As to the nature and proportions of their
musical activities we have no exact evidence and, in default of such,
it is necessary for us to dip a little into comparative history.

In England the curtain of the seventeenth century rose on a
country that as yet knew not cropped heads nor Geneva cloaks nor
steeple-crowned hats nor the snuffling drone of Hop-on-High-Bomby
mournfully mouthing the sinfulness of the flesh and the menace of the
wrath to come. England still deserved its old-time appellation of
'merrie.' It still ate and drank, sang and swore, bussed and wantoned
blithely, lustily, as befitted a country with a full purse, a sound
constitution, and a healthy indifference to the disturbing subtleties
of theology and metaphysics. It was a robust, Falstaffian England,
still unregenerate, still addicted to sack and loose company, but
with a mind as clearly keen as a Sheffield blade and a heart as soft
and impressionable as its own Devonshire butter--'pitiful-hearted
butter that melted at the sweet tale of the sun.' In short, a normal,
vigorous, able-bodied, human country, not yet soured by the virus
of an acidulated Puritanism, nor devitalized by the distemper of a
cultivated licentiousness; a country in whose fertile soil the seeds of
art might well germinate and flourish apace. And, as a matter of fact,
English music, like English drama and poetry, was then approaching the
culmination of its golden age. In Italy, Palestrina had just died; Peri
and Monteverdi were shaping the beginnings of opera; the madrigal,
the mystery, the morality and the masque were the prevailing media of
secular musico-literary expression, while popular instrumental music
was represented by Pavans, Galliards, Allmains, Courantes, and other
courtly-sounding forms. The stern, strict god of polyphony was already
stooping to flirt with the light and wayward muse of the people, making
the first tentative advances toward a union from which was destined to
spring a seductively human art. Never since has England stood so high
musically among the nations of Europe. Never since has she produced
composers who so closely rivalled the greatest of their contemporaries.
There was William Byrd 'a Father of Musicke,' as the Cheque-book of
the Chapel Royal has it--one of the most learned contrapuntists of
his time and unequalled by any of his contemporaries in compositions
for the virginals. There was John Dowland, 'whose heavenly touch upon
the lute doth ravish human sense.' There was Orlando Gibbons, one of
the greatest composers of his period, who was then in the beginning
of his distinguished career. These, and many other English composers
of scarcely lesser note, were as highly honored abroad as they were
at home. Their influence on the development of German music has been
admitted even by German critics.[3] In England the madrigal flourished
then as it did nowhere else in Europe and reached a degree of
perfection hitherto unattained even by the best madrigalists of Italy
and the Netherlands. What Peri and Monteverdi were doing successfully
in Italy in the pseudo-Grecian music-drama, the English were attempting
to do, more characteristically though less successfully, in the masque.
Some of the most famous of English popular songs--like 'The Bailiff's
Daughter of Islington,' 'The Three Ravens,' and 'Drink to Me Only
with Thine Eyes'--have come down to us from that period. Indeed, the
musical vitality of the England of that time was truly remarkable, and
thousands of madrigals, motets, anthems, ayres, and ballets remain as
eloquent witnesses to its teeming fecundity. English instrumentalists
were then rated the best in Europe and were as commonly employed in the
courts of Germany as German instrumentalists are now employed in the
restaurants of London.

Nor was this noteworthy musical activity confined to the small class of
professional musicians. If we may believe Morley,[4] and read aright
the references of Shakespeare and other contemporary writers, music
was sedulously practised by all classes in England, from the sovereign
to the beggar. Queen Elizabeth, we find, played excellently on the
virginals and the poliphant, though it does not appear that her dour
successor took very kindly to such exercises. It seems to have been
a matter of course that every well-reared girl should sing at sight
and play acceptably on the virginals, the flute, and the cittern.
Sight-reading--alas for our degenerate days--was apparently a universal
accomplishment, at least among people of the better classes. After
viols were introduced, every gentleman's house contained a chest of
them and the chance visitor was expected to take his part at sight in
the impromptu concerts which were a favorite form of social diversion.
'Tinkers sang catches,' says Chappell, 'milkmaids sang ballads; carters
whistled; each trade, and even the beggars had their special songs;
the bass-viol hung in the drawing-room for the amusement of waiting
visitors; and the lute, cittern, and virginals, for the amusement of
waiting customers, were the necessary furniture of the barber-shop.
They had music at dinner; music at supper; music at weddings; music at
funerals; music at night, music at dawn; music at work; music at play.'


                                   II

From this intensely musical England came the band of colonists
who landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. About half of them
were 'gentlemen' and the remainder were soldiers and servants. The
proportion of gentlemen--'unruly gallants,' as Capt. John Smith calls
them--was less in later emigrations, though it was always comparatively
high. Many soldiers came, and some convicts and young vagrants picked
up in the streets of London were sent out as servants. Starvation,
disease, and the attacks of Indians left very few survivors among
those who came to Virginia during the first ten years. Afterward
the population grew very rapidly and contained, on the whole,
representative elements of all classes in England, with a comparatively
large proportion of the upper classes. In 1619, as we learn from a
statement of John Rolfe, quoted in John Smith's 'Generali Historie,'
the first negro slaves were introduced into Virginia. A description
in the 'Briefe Declaration' shows Virginia about two years later as
a country already in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity. 'The
plenty of these times,' says the writer, 'unlike the old days of death
and confusion, was such that every man gave free entertainment to
friends and strangers.' About that time land was laid out for a free
school at Charles City and for a university and college at Henrico,
but the project was not then carried through. As yet, however, there
was not any pressing demand for public educational advantages, as the
proportion of children was still very small. Later years saw a great
increase in the population, both native and English born. During the
Civil War there was a large exodus from England of cavaliers, as well
as merchants, yeomen, and other substantial people, who found the
troubles at home little to their taste or profit. There must have
been little to distinguish the Virginia society about the middle of
the seventeenth century from English society of the same period. The
colonists lived well; they were prosperous; they had good, substantial
houses equipped with good, substantial English furniture; they
entertained with open-handed freedom and generosity. 'The Virginia
planter,' says George Park Fisher, 'was essentially a transplanted
Englishman in tastes and convictions and imitated the social amenities
and culture of the mother country. Thus in time was formed a society
distinguished for its refinement, executive ability and generous
hospitality for which the Ancient Dominion is proverbial.'[5]

The population of Virginia always remained largely rural, but
nevertheless there was social life aplenty. Education was mainly in the
hands of the clergy, who, as a rule, were Englishmen of culture. But
steps toward public education were taken at a very early period. The
attempt of 1621 failed, as we have noticed, but in 1635--three years
before John Harvard made his bequest--Benjamin Syms left an endowment
for a free school in Virginia. This, to quote a recent writer, 'was
the first legacy by a resident of the American plantations for the
promotion of education.' Another free school was established in 1655 by
Captain Henry King, and two in 1659 by Thomas Eaton and Captain William
Whittingdon. In 1670, according to a report from Sir William Berkeley
to the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, the population of Virginia
consisted of 40,000 persons, of whom 2,000 were negro slaves and 5,000
white servants. The 2,000 negro slaves probably included a number of
mulattoes, for even then there must have been traffic between white men
and negro women, as we may infer from the law which gave to a child
the status of its mother. The remainder of the population was almost
exclusively English. What we have said of Virginia in the seventeenth
century applies also in a general way to Maryland and Carolina, both
as to population and conditions, though the Huguenot emigration to
Carolina in 1685 made a decided difference in the character of the
population there subsequent to that date.

This brief incursion into general history has been made, not to
prove anything, but to bring forward a few facts which may be found
suggestive. The Southern colonists during the seventeenth century were
predominantly English people of the first and second generations. They
were fairly representative of contemporary English society, though
the proportion of 'gentlemen' was higher among them than at home.
They came, as we have seen, from a country where music was practised
enthusiastically by all classes. It is preposterous to think that in
the new country they discarded their musical tastes like a worn-out
garment. There is no reason why they should have done so. After the
first years of famine and turmoil and death they were comparatively
peaceful and prosperous. There were among them, it is true, a certain
number of stern-faced Puritans, melancholy preachers of the sinfulness
of pleasure; but on the whole the attitude of the Southern colonists
toward life was that of the gay, gallant, laughter-loving cavaliers.
There is little doubt that these same gallant gentlemen kept up in the
colonies that devotion to the _joyeuse science_ for which they had
been famed since the days of Cœur de Lion. In the announcements of
the early concerts at Charleston in the first half of the eighteenth
century we find that the orchestra was often composed in part of
neighboring gentlemen, who were good enough to lend their services for
the occasion, or sometimes that certain gentlemen, of their courtesy,
obliged with instrumental or vocal selections. Whence we may infer that
the custom of keeping a chest of viols in his house for the use of his
family and his guests, so generally observed by the English gentleman
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was still honored by the
colonial gentleman at the beginning of the eighteenth.

The cultured colonists followed English fashions very closely in all
things, and the music they played was doubtless the music in vogue
in London drawing-rooms and concert halls. The humble colonists,
presumably, were less concerned with the mode, and sang and played the
old English tunes which they and their fathers and their grandfathers
had brought across the sea. American historians have taken for
granted, with a good deal of smug complacency, that there was no real
musical life among these people. The assumption seems to be based--if
it has any basis--on the fact that the population of the South was
preëminently rural. But that there was little urban life does not
mean that there was little community life. On the contrary, life in
the South was much more intimately gregarious than is usual in towns
and cities, and it is in hospitable social gatherings rather than in
stiff-backed attendance at concerts and operas that the musical soul
of a people finds real expression. Furthermore, the Southern colonists
had a communal consciousness, as we may see from their early essays in
public education, and it is probable that this consciousness expressed
itself in other ways of which we have no evidence. The churches
brought them together, also, perhaps for social as well as religious
gatherings. It is, indeed, a plausible surmise that musical reunions of
some sort, apart from purely private entertainments, were not unknown
to them.

The music of the colonial proletariat was English, that of the
gentlefolk largely so. Among the common people this music may have
undergone some alteration in the course of time, and certain gifted
ones among them may have made original music of their own. We can
conceive that the gentlefolk occasionally occupied themselves with
musical composition, and some of their efforts, perchance, percolated
through the classes and became the property of all the people. We
cannot say, but it is possible; it is even probable. If English music
did not undergo a change in Virginia and Maryland and Carolina, we
can be sure that it altered somewhat in the hands of the pioneers
who carried it to Kentucky, to Missouri, to Texas. One hears in
the Southwest many quaint, characteristic old songs and tunes of
unmistakably English origin. We can safely assume that by the time
they reached Missouri and Texas from England they had absorbed quite a
little local color.

Nor must we forget that the music of the American negroes is the music
of the English colonists strained through the African temperament; or
perhaps we should say the African temperament strained through the
music of the English colonists. In any case, Afro-American music is
a blend, and the mixing, we may suppose, began with the beginning of
slavery in the Southern colonies. The negro slaves were an ignorant,
impressionable people set down in the middle of a white civilization
from which they naturally and immediately began to absorb the things
that were appreciable to their senses. The most easily appreciable,
perhaps, of these things was music, and such music as the negroes
heard among the white people they absorbed and, to some extent,
assimilated.[6]

Just how much all this has to do with American music we cannot say, any
more than we can say just what is American music. National music, we
take it, is the composite musical inheritance of a people, molded and
colored by their composite characteristics, inherited and acquired. And
the music of the South is undoubtedly part of the musical inheritance
of the American people. How much of that inheritance we have rejected
and how much retained will not appear until some historian arises with
enough scholarship to analyze our musical heritage in detail; with
enough genius in research to trace its elements to their sources; and
with enough patriotic enthusiasm to lend him patience for the task.
In the meantime, surface conditions fail to justify the arbitrary
ruling out of the South as an utterly negligible factor in our musical
development.


                                   III

In approaching the history of the New England Puritans one is in danger
of making serious mistakes, due to temperamental prejudices and to a
misconception of the Puritan attitude toward life. The term Puritan
itself is more or less indeterminate, covering all sorts and conditions
of men with a wide diversity of views on things spiritual and
temporal.[7] There is a very general impression, totally unsupported
by historic evidence, that the Puritans frowned intolerantly on every
worldly diversion, including music. Many of the zealots did, it is
true--in every movement there are extremists--and the general trend of
thought was influenced somewhat by their thunderous denunciations of
all appearance of frivolity. In such circumstances the average human
being, uncertain how far he may safely go, is inclined to avoid the
vicinity of danger and seek the haven of a strictly negative attitude
toward everything about which may hang the very slightest suspicion of
impropriety. We have many instances in history of this same tendency.
The early Christians, taking Christ's warning against the world and the
flesh in its most extreme literalness, adopted a course for avoiding
hell and gaining heaven which, if consistently followed, would soon
have left the world barren of any beings from whom the population
either of heaven or of hell might be recruited. We are apt, however, to
exaggerate the self-denying habits of the Puritans. On many points of
conduct and dogma they were fiercely and uncompromisingly intolerant.
Their Sabbath observance was strict to the point of absurdity. But
in general they were not disposed to deprive the world of innocent
pleasure.

The New England Puritans were more or less of a piece with their
English brethren, and we have every evidence that the latter tolerated
music, even cultivated it with assiduity. Milton's love of music is
well known.[8] John Bunyan, a typical lower-class Puritan, speaks of
it frequently and appreciatively in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' 'That
musicke in itself is lawfull, usefull and commendable,' says Prynne
in his 'Histrio-mastix,' 'no man, no Christian dares deny, since the
Scriptures, Fathers and generally all Christian, all Pagan Authors
extant do with one consent averre it.' Even the anonymous author of
the 'Short Treatise against Stage-Playes' (1625) admits that 'musicke
is a cheerful recreation to the minde that hath been blunted with
serious meditations.' Not only Cromwell, but many other Parliamentary
officers, including Hutchinson, Humphrey, and Taylor, were sincere
devotees of the art. Colonel Hutchinson, one of the regicides, 'had a
great love to music,' according to the 'Memoirs' of his wife, and often
diverted himself with a viol, 'on which he played masterly; he had an
exact ear and judgment in other music.' In the retinue of Balustrode
Whitelocke, who was sent by Cromwell as ambassador to Queen Christina
of Sweden in 1653, were two persons included 'chiefly for music,'
besides two trumpeters. Whitelocke himself was 'in his younger days a
master and composer of music.' On one occasion, during his stay at the
Swedish court, the queen's musicians 'played many lessons of English
composition,' and on another occasion, after the ambassador's party
had played for her, Christina declared that 'she never heard so good a
concert of music and of English songs; and desired Whitelocke, at his
return to England, to procure her some.'

Ecclesiastical music was indeed vigorously suppressed, but solely for
reasons touching the propriety of its employment in the worship of God.
Outside the churches the Puritans showed no particular objection to
the art. In fact, the practice of music was common enough among them,
if we are to believe the statement of Solomon Eccles, a professional
musician, who was successively a Presbyterian, an Independent, a
Baptist, and an Antinomian, and always found it easy to make a living
by his profession. Notwithstanding the ban on theatres, public operatic
performances were inaugurated in London in 1656 and were continued
without interference. The publishing of music flourished under the
Commonwealth as it never did before in England, and large collections
of Ayres, Dialogues, and other pieces remain to us from that period.
Such activity in music publishing could have been stimulated only by
a corresponding demand, and a demand for printed music could not have
co-existed with a neglect of musical practice.[9]

However, we must not jump to the conclusion that the American Puritans
were as freely inclined to the practice of music as their brethren
across the sea. As a matter of fact, they had no musical life
whatsoever. There are some points in the psychology and condition
of the New England colonists which may help to explain this seeming
anomaly. A large proportion of the people of England were Puritans
merely because it was not safe or convenient for them to be anything
else, and they changed their moral and theological complexions just as
soon as a change in fashion rendered the transformation desirable. Many
of the most prominent members of the Parliamentary party were drawn
into the movement more through political ambition or democratic ideals
than for religious reasons. Cromwell's famous 'Trust in God and keep
your powder dry' might well express the mental attitude of more than
a few of them. Even among the religious leaders were a goodly number
whose only desire was to reform what they considered the ritualistic
abuses in the English church of their time and who had not the
slightest ambition to suppress the harmless pleasures of life or the
ordinary manifestations of human instincts. The New England Puritans,
on the other hand, were a select group of people who were driven
across an inhospitable ocean to the barren shores of a strange land by
the indomitable zeal of their convictions, the stern intractability of
their consciences and the adamantine obstinacy of their independence.
They were not Puritans merely in externals; they were Puritans to the
core. Their view of life was uncompromisingly serious. The world was
not to them a place for dalliance; it was a place for work, for the
earnest sowing of seeds that might bring forth a harvest of grace and
godliness, a harvest worthy to be garnered by the Master into His
eternal storehouse. So, however kindly they may have looked upon music,
they could not conscientiously have allowed it to engage much of their
attention. They could with consistence postpone the gratification of
their musical tastes to the next world, where, for all eternity, the
practice of music would be their chief occupation. Besides, the life
of the first settlers in New England was not such as to encourage any
indulgence in unnecessary relaxation. What with the stubborn barrenness
of the soil, the ferocity of the Indians, and the extreme inclemency of
the climate, they had little opportunity for the cultivation of those
gentler arts toward which by taste and temperament they were not, in
any case, very strongly inclined.


And, indeed, from such information as we are able to gather on the
subject, it would appear that the practice of music, even in its
simplest forms, was practically unknown to the New England Puritans
before the end of the seventeenth century, though some of the Leyden
colonists, according to Winslow, were 'very expert in music.' Out of
the forty-odd psalm tunes in use among the Pilgrims only five were
generally known to New England congregations a generation later,
and, even of these five, no congregation could ever perform one with
any approach to unanimity. 'In the latter part of the seventeenth
and the commencement of the eighteenth centuries,' says Hood, 'the
congregations throughout New England were rarely able to sing more
than three or four tunes. The knowledge and use of notes, too, had so
long been neglected that the few melodies sung became corrupted until
no two individuals sang them alike.' The Rev. Thomas Symmes, in an
essay published in 1723, tells us that 'in our congregations we us'd
frequently to have some people singing a note or two after the next had
done. And you commonly strike the notes not together, but one after
another, one being half-way thro' the second note, before his neighbor
had done with the first. This is just as melodious to a well-tuned
musical ear as Æsop was beautiful to a curious eye.' 'It's strange,'
he comments further on, 'that people that are so set against stated
forms of prayer should be so fond of singing half a dozen tunes, nay
one tune from Sabbath to Sabbath; till everybody nauseates it, that
has any relish of singing.' In fact, the reverend gentleman confesses
that if anything could drive him to Quakerism or Popery it would be
the style of singing in vogue among his co-religionists. John Eliot,
son of the Indian apostle, in an essay published in 1725, says that
'often at lectures, and especially at ordinations, where people of many
congregations met together, their ways of singing are so different that
'tis not easy to know what tune is sung, and in reality there is none.
'Tis rather jumble and confusion. Altho' they all doubtless intend
some tune or other, and, it may be, the same, yet they differ almost
as much as if, everyone sung a different tune.' The effect must have
been delightful. Samuel Sewall, who was precentor of his church for
twenty-four years, makes the following plaintive entry in his diary for
February 6, 1715: 'This day I set Windsor tune, and the people at the
second going over into Oxford, do what I could.' Under date of February
23, 1718, he writes: 'I set York tune, and the congregation went out
of it into St. David's in the very 2nd going over. They did the same
three weeks be.' Certainly the vocal efforts of the New England saints
must have been excruciating when they moved the Reverend Thomas Walter
to declare that the singing of his congregation 'sounded like five
hundred different tunes roared out at the same time.' It is almost
unbelievable that people of intelligence, as most of the early New
Englanders were, should be so utterly callous to ear-splitting discords
of that kind, but the testimony of their own pastors puts the matter
beyond doubt.

Now much of this extraordinary chaos in the congregational singing
of the seventeenth century New England colonists was probably due
to the prevailing doubt as to whether singing was, after all, quite
proper to the worship of God. Until well into the eighteenth century
the propriety of singing psalms in church was a subject of heated
controversy. John Cotton published a tract in defense of the custom in
1647 ('Singing of Psalms a Gospel Ordinance'), and, as late as 1723, a
number of clergymen published a tract called 'Cases of Conscience about
Singing Psalms, briefly considered and resolved,' in which we find the
proposition: 'Whether you do believe that singing Psalms, Hymns and
Spiritual Songs is an external part of Divine Worship, to be observed
in and by the assembly of God's people on the Lord's Days, as well as
on other occasional meetings of the Saints, for the worshipping of
God....' Those who had taken singing in church as a matter of course,
and had made of it such a cacophantic horror as is described by Eliot,
Walter, and others, characteristically championed their own style of
singing, which they called 'the old way,' and zealously opposed any
attempt to sing by rule as a step toward Popery.

But, apart from all differences of opinion upon church singing as such,
no people who were in the habit of practising music, even in the most
elementary way, could make such a hopeless mess of ensemble singing in
unison, when the tunes were so old and familiar and the number of them
so limited. Ensemble singing by a mixed gathering of untrained people
is likely to be pretty bad in any case, but even among a heterogeneous
and untutored crowd there are always a number whose accuracy of ear
and intonation suffices to keep the others more or less close to
the melody--especially when it is a familiar one. Among New England
colonists, however, the ability to sing must have been about as common
as the ability to dance on the tight rope. The Rev. Thomas Symmes
assures us that he was present 'in a congregation, when singing was for
a whole Sabbath omitted, for want of a man able to lead the assembly in
singing.' Certainly the good people of that congregation on the whole
must not have counted singing among their diversions--if they had any.
We have no ground for stating flatly that the New Englanders of the
seventeenth century absolutely abstained from singing on all occasions;
but if they did sing it was in a most primitive and haphazard fashion.

Instrumental music certainly was taboo to them. As far as we know there
was not a musical instrument in New England before the year 1700. If
there was, it has shown remarkable ingenuity in escaping detection.
Before leaving this world for a better one, the New England colonist
was meticulously careful in making out a full and exact inventory of
his material possessions. He told in painful detail just how many pots
and pans, bolsters, pillows, tables and chairs he had been blessed
with and in just what condition he bequeathed them to posterity.
Nothing detachable in the house was too small nor of too little value
to escape his conscientious enumeration. But of musical instruments
the testamentary literature of New England contains no mention. The
first suggestion we find of the existence of such a thing is a laconic
reference in the diary of the Rev. Joseph Green under date of May 29,
1711: 'I was at Mr. Thomas Brattle's, heard ye organs and saw strange
things in a microscope.' We have no means of knowing, unfortunately,
what were the musical qualities of Mr. Thomas Brattle's 'organs';
perhaps they were as strange as the things the reverend diarist saw in
the microscope. Anyhow, as far as we can discover, they were unique in
New England. Perhaps they were the same that Mr. Brattle bequeathed to
the Brattle Square Church of Boston in 1713. The congregation of the
church did not 'think it proper to use the same in the public worship
of God,' and the instrument was consequently given to King's Chapel,
where it was introduced in the services, to the consternation, anger
and disgust of Dr. Cotton Mather and the greater part of the population
of New England. This organ is still preserved for the benefit of the
curious, and, though its musical possibilities apparently were limited,
it at least marked a precedent which, as we shall see in a later
chapter, was followed by good results.

It has been mentioned that most of the New England congregations,
at the end of the seventeenth century, knew not more than five
psalm-tunes. Those, it is assumed, were the psalms called 'Old
Hundred,' 'York,' 'Hackney,' 'Windsor,' and 'Martyrs.' The early
Pilgrims, presumably, were more eclectic. They used the volume of
tunes compiled by the Rev. Henry Ainsworth, of Amsterdam. The version
of Sternhold and Hopkins was used in Ipswich and perhaps elsewhere.
In 1640 both the Ainsworth and the Sternhold and Hopkins versions
were generally superseded by the 'Bay Psalm Book,' though Ainsworth's
psalter was retained by the churches of Salem and Plymouth for some
time longer. The 'Bay Psalm Book' was compiled by a number of Colonial
clergymen, including Rev. Thomas Weld, Rev. John Eliot, of Roxbury,
and Rev. Richard Mather, of Dorchester. It is interesting chiefly as
containing some of the quaintest verses ever written. Thus:

    'And sayd he would them waste; had not
    Moses stood (whom he chose)
    'fore him i' the breach: to turn his wrath
    lest that he should waste those.'

and again:

    'Like as the heart panting doth bray
    after the water-brooks,
    even in such wise, O God, my soule
    after Thee panting looks.'

The settings of the tunes in the New England psalm-books were those
of Playford and Ravenscroft, but, as we have seen, the congregations
habitually introduced original harmonizations of their own. The general
method of singing those psalms was known as 'lining out.' That is to
say, the minister or deacon first sang each line, to give the key, and
the congregation followed his lead--more or less. The results of this
system were often ludicrous. For instance, there is the well-known
example, cited by Hood, where the deacon declares cryptically:

      'The Lord will come and he will not,'

and follows this up with the perplexing injunction:

      'Be silent, but speak out.'

Owing to the efforts of John Cotton and other cultured clergymen the
people as a whole soon came to accept singing as proper to divine
service, but many decades passed before they could be persuaded that
the cultivation of the voice or the use of any outward means to acquire
skillfulness in singing was decent or godly. Not to the outward
voice, they argued, but to the voice of the heart did God lend ear;
and, though their singing was verily as the bellowing of the bulls of
Bashan, it mattered not except to the ears of their neighbors, who, in
truth, must have been sufficiently calloused to the discord of harsh
sounds. This peculiar attitude lasted until well into the eighteenth
century. Even as late as 1723 the 'Cases of Conscience,' to which we
have referred, contained such questions as:

'Whether you do believe that singing in the worship of God ought to
be done skillfully?' and 'whether you do believe that skillfulness
in singing may ordinarily be gained in the use of outward means by
the blessing of God?' By the efforts of enlightened clergymen like
Mather, Symmes, Dwight, Eliot, Walter, and Stoddard the people of New
England were finally brought to a realization of the fact that their
praise would be just as acceptable to God if offered on the key; but
their conversion was a slow and painful process. Two decades of the
eighteenth century had passed before they began to pay any attention
to the cultivation of church music, and, as we shall see in the next
chapter, this awakening interest coincided with the first faint
stirrings of a general musical life in the Puritan colonies.

                                                        W. D. D.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[1] The sentence quoted opens Frederic Louis Ritter's 'Music in
America.' In the next sentence the author admits the prior arrival of
the Cavaliers on these shores, but hastens to add that they exercised
very little influence on American musical development. 'It is a curious
historical fact,' he says, 'that earnest interest in musical matters
was first taken by the psalm-singing Puritans.' It _is_ curious. We
quote further: 'From the crude form of a barbarously sung, simple
psalmody there rose a musical culture in the United States which now
excites the admiration of the art-lover, and at the same time justifies
the expectation and hope of a realization, at some future epoch, of an
American school of music.' _Quantum sufficit._ Louis C. Elson, in his
'History of American Music,' also tells us that 'the true beginnings of
American music ... must be sought in ... the rigid, narrow, and often
commonplace psalm-singing of New England.' If these things be so, well
may the American composer exclaim in the words of the immortal Sly
'Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!'

[2] We are leaving out of consideration the Spanish settlement of
Florida as well as the French settlement of Quebec, and have in mind
only those early colonies which formed the nucleus of the United States.

[3] See Max Seiffert in _Vierteljahrschrift für Musikwissenschaft_,
1891.

[4] Thomas Morley, 'A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall
Musicke,' 1597.

[5] 'The Colonial Era,' in the American History Series, New York,
1892-1902.

[6] See Chapter XI for a further treatment of negro music.

[7] Strictly speaking the Pilgrims who came from Leyden to Plymouth
were not Puritans. They were Separatists, and their movement antedated
the Puritan movement _per se_. It would be highly inconvenient,
however, in a work of this character to draw constant distinctions
between Pilgrims and Puritans and we shall consequently speak of them
in general as one.

[8] _Cf._ Sigmund Spaeth: 'Milton's Knowledge of Music,' New York, 1913.

[9] For a full statement of the Puritan case in respect to music, see
Henry Davey: 'History of English Music,' Chap. VII. London, 1895.




                              CHAPTER II
             THE BEGINNINGS OF MUSICAL CULTURE IN AMERICA

      Composite elements of American music--New England's musical
      awakening; early publications of psalm-tunes; reform
      of church singing--Early concerts in Boston--New York,
      Philadelphia, the South--The American attitude toward
      music--The beginnings of American music: Hopkinson, Lyon,
      Billings and their contemporaries.


The whole history of early musical culture in America--obscure
enough at best--is additionally obfuscated by the persistent illusion
of American historians that the New England psalm-tunes formed the
absolute basis of our musical development. This illusion may be part of
the widespread impression that the church has been the exclusive _fons
et origo_ of musical art. Thus Ritter: 'Musical culture in America, as
in the great musical countries of Europe--Italy, France, Germany--took
its starting point from the church.'[10] As a consequence of this
view of things we find the early chapters of all existing histories
of American music strewn with 'psalm-tunes,' 'church choirs,' and
'clergymen,' as thick as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. All of which
would be perfectly desirable if the importance of these factors in
our musical development were apparent. Neither in our popular music
nor in works of our serious composers can we trace the influence of
New England psalmody, though we can trace the influence of German
folk-songs and Scotch reels and Irish jigs and negro tunes and the
writings of every European composer, from Bach to Brahms.

We have no desire to belittle the achievements of New England or
the magnitude of its part in the history of the country. But--owing
perhaps to the fact that literary production in America was for many
generations confined almost exclusively to the New England states--we
have had imposed on us a habit of thought which is a sort of historical
synecdoche--New England being the figurative whole. Of course, it
does not make a particle of difference to American music what we may
think or say about its parentage. But, as long as history is to be
written, it is well that it shall be written with some attempt at
a disinterested attitude, and assumptions that the genesis of our
music lay in New England or in any other circumscribed locality are
entirely _ex parte_. Most of our composers have been disciples of some
recognized European school or eclectic students of several schools.
We can point in them to the influence of Bach or Mozart, of Beethoven
or Brahms, of Schubert, Mendelssohn or Grieg, of Wagner, Strauss or
Debussy, just as we can point to such influences in the writings of
every European composer, great or small. The musical inheritance of the
American composer is not American; it is universal. For a variety of
reasons we have not yet developed a distinctively national school, but,
among our younger composers who are unmistakeably American, where are
the traces of Puritan psalmody? The _ethical_ influence of Puritanism
is still strong in the land; it still colors our literature, art and
public life; it even colors our music. But purely æsthetic influence is
quite a different thing. Frankly, we believe that the music of colonial
New England has had no more influence on our music of to-day than the
writings of Cotton Mather have had on the work of O. Henry.

These prefatory remarks are made simply to emphasize the fact that the
following sketch of the beginnings of musical culture in New England
and elsewhere is intended only as a statement of historical facts and
not as an argument for the influence of the New England colonies, or
of any other colonies, in the development of American music. Little
information is obtainable concerning the musical life of America before
the end of the eighteenth century, and in these early chapters we are
merely trying to arrive at an approximate estimate of what that musical
life may have been, leaving philosophical deductions therefrom to those
skilled in the drawing of such. If a predominating amount of space is
given to the New England colonies it is chiefly because our available
information concerning them is very much fuller than that which we
possess concerning the rest of the country.


                                   I

We have already seen that up to the end of the seventeenth century
there were not, as far as we can discover, even the most elementary
attempts at a musical life in New England. The writer of 'Observations
Made by the Curious in New England,' published in London in 1673,
remarks that there were then in Boston 'no musicians by trade.' It
is to be assumed that there were none elsewhere in New England. The
installation of Mr. Thomas Brattle's organ in King's Chapel forty
years later necessitated the importation of a 'sober person to play
skillfully thereon with a loud noise.' This person was a Mr. Price, who
appears to have been the first professional musician in New England.
He was followed by Mr. Edward Enstone, of England, who came over as
organist in 1714. To augment his salary of £30 a year, Mr. Enstone, on
Feb. 21, 1714, filed a petition 'for liberty of keeping a school as a
Master of Music and a Dancing Master,' but the petition was 'disallowed
by ye Sel. men.' In the Boston 'News Letter' of April 16-23, 1716, the
same Mr. Enstone inserted the following explicit advertisement:

"This is to give notice that there is lately sent over from London, a
choice Collection of Musickal Instruments, consisting of Flageolets,
Flutes, Haut-Boys, Bass-Viols, Violins, Bows, Strings, Reads for
Haut-Boys, Books of Instructions for all these Instruments, Books of
ruled Paper. To be Sold at the Dancing School of Mr. Enstone in Ludbury
Street near to Orange Tree, Boston.

      "'NOTE. Any person may have all Instruments of Musick
      mended, or Virginalls and Spinnets Strung and tuned at a
      reasonable Rate, and likewise may be taught to Play on any
      of those Instruments above mentioned; dancing taught by a
      true and easier method than has been heretofore.'"

Mr. Enstone was a person of versatility. Apparently he triumphed over
'ye Sel. men,' and, in addition to this gratifying fact, we may infer
from his advertisement that musical instruments were used to an extent
in Boston prior to 1716. If Mr. Enstone's consignment were the first he
would hardly have failed to mention it. He is exhaustively informative.
The allusion to the mending of musical instruments also suggests that
already they were not uncommon. 'Virginalls and Spinnets' were strung
and tuned by Mr. Enstone, though they were not included in his imported
collection. We have been unable to discover any information which would
throw light on the extent to which musical instruments were used in New
England during the first half of the eighteenth century. Even toward
the end of the century their use was not very common. But probably they
were used to some extent among people of culture as early as the year
1700, and to an increasing extent as time advanced and old prejudices
weakened.

Among the people at large the most potent factor in developing a
musical life was the formation of singing societies for the cultivation
of a proper method of singing psalms. This reformation had long been
advocated by the most enlightened clergymen of the colony. Prominent
among them was the Rev. Thomas Symmes, who thus interrogatively argues
his cause:

'Would it not greatly tend to promote singing of psalms if singing
schools were promoted? Would not this be a conforming to _scripture
pattern_? Have we not as much need of them as God's people of old?
Have we any reason to expect to be inspired with the gift of singing,
any more than that of reading? Or to attain it without suitable means,
any more than they of old, when _miracles_, _inspirations_, etc., were
common? Where would be the _difficulty_, or what the disadvantages, if
people who want skill in singing would procure a skillful person to
instruct them, and went two or three evenings in the week, from _five_
or _six_ o'clock to _eight_, and spend the time in learning to sing?
Would not this be an innocent and profitable recreation, and would
it not have a tendency, if prudently managed, to prevent the expense
of time on other occasions? Has it not a tendency to divert young
people, who are most proper to learn, from learning _idle, foolish_,
yea _pernicious songs_ and ballads, and banish all such _trash_ from
their minds? Experience proves this. Would it not be proper for _school
masters_ in _country parishes_ to teach their scholars? Are not they
very unwise who plead against learning to sing by rule, when they can't
learn to sing at all unless they learn by rule? Has not the grand enemy
of souls a hand in this who prejudices them against the best means of
singing? Will it not be very servisible in ministers to encourage their
people to learn to sing? Are they not under some obligation by virtue
of their office to do so? Would there not, at least in some places,
appear more of that fear of man, which brings a snare, than of true
Christian prudence in omitting this? And, as circumstances may allow,
would it not be very useful and profitable if such ministers as are
capable would instruct their people in this art?'

The introduction of Satan as the protagonist of unskillful singing is
an ingenious and appropriate touch. One might infer from the allusion
to idle, foolish and pernicious songs and ballads that the young people
of New England were not unlike young people of less godly places and
expressed their feelings in ways that might have shocked their proper
elders. If they did, it is a pity that some of their songs and ballads
have not come down to us, be they never so pernicious. The advice of
the Rev. Mr. Symmes, however, appears to have been followed, for we
find that about the year 1720 singing societies began to sprout in
various parts of New England. At first these were concerned exclusively
with church music, but the elementary musical training they afforded
was helpful in developing a capacity for the practice and appreciation
of other music.

The growth of singing societies naturally created a demand for some
sort of musical literature and inspired the publication of many books
of psalm-tunes and instructions. This demand was anticipated as early
as 1712 by the Rev. John Tufts, pastor of the Second Church in Newbury,
who published in that year 'A very Plain and Easy Instruction to the
Art of Singing Psalm tunes; with the Cantos or Trebles of twenty-eight
Psalm tunes, contrived in such a manner as that the Learner may attain
the Skill of Singing them with the greatest ease and speed imaginable.'
About two years later he published 'An Introduction to the singing of
Psalm Tunes, in a plain and easy method. With a collection of Tunes in
Three Parts.' The essence of the 'plain and easy method' seems to have
been the substitution of letters for the customary musical notation,
together with lessons 'to assist in Raising and Falling of notes either
gradual or by leaps, the groundwork of all good singing, and is not
to be obtained ordinarily without help of some Skilful Person, or of
an Instrument.' 'But being attained and observing the few foregoing
Rules,' the reverend author continues encouragingly, 'you will be able
to leap with your voice from one note to another, as they occur in
various distances, and with a little practice to sing all tunes in this
book, or other prick'd after this method in all their parts, with ease
and pleasure.' The tunes and their arrangements were taken by the Rev.
Mr. Tufts from Playford's 'Book of Psalms.'

In 1721 the Rev. Thomas Walter, of Roxbury, Mass., published a book
comprehensively entitled 'The Grounds and Rules of Musick explained. Or
an introduction to the Art of singing by Note: Fitted to the meanest
capacity. By Thomas Walter, A.M. Recommended by Several Ministers.'
As illustrating the Rev. Mr. Walter's qualifications to explain 'the
Grounds and Rules of Musick' we would quote the following delightful
and illuminating disquisition: 'There are in Nature but _seven distinct
sounds_, every eighth Note being the same. Thus when a tune is sung
by another upon a Key too low for the Compass of my Voice, if I will
sing with the Person, it must be all the Way, _eighth Notes_ above
him. I naturally sound an Eighth higher. So a Woman naturally strikes
eighth notes above the grum and low sounding Voice of a Man, and it
makes no more Difference than the singing of two Persons upon an Union
or a Pitch. So, on the contrary, when we sing with a Voice too High
and shrill for us, we strike very naturally into an Octave or Eighth
below. And here let it be observed that the _Height_ of a note and the
_Strength_ of singing it are too different Things. Two notes of equal
Height may be sounded with different degrees of Strength so as that one
shall be heard much further than the other.' This book has the honor of
containing the 'first music printed with bars in America,' Mr. Tufts
having omitted in his works the bars marking the measures.[11] The
arrangements were taken from Playford.

In 1741 Dr. Watts' 'Psalms' were printed in Boston, and an edition
of Watts' 'Hymns' were printed in the same year by Dr. Franklin in
Philadelphia. The next important publication was a part of Tansur's
collection,[12] which was printed by William Bailey at Newburyport,
Mass., in 1755, under the title of 'A Complete Melody in Three Parts.'
In 1761 there was published in Philadelphia a large work called
'Urania, or a Choice Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns. From
the most approv'd Authors with some entirely new: In Two, Three and
Four Parts. The Whole peculiarly adapted to the use of Churches, and
Private Families. To which are prefix'd the Plainest and most Necessary
Rules of Psalmody. By James Lyon, A.B....' Three years later appeared
in Boston 'A Collection of the best Psalm Tunes, in two, three and
four parts; from the most approved authors, fitted to all measures,
and approved by the best masters in Boston, New England; the greater
part of them never before printed in America. Engraved by Paul Revere,
printed and sold by him and Jos. Flagg.' In his preface Flagg, with
admirable patriotism, pointed out that, though most of the tunes in
his book came from across the Atlantic, the paper on which they were
written was of American manufacture; and he hoped that the fact would
recommend his book 'even to those who have no peculiar relish for
the music.' We shall have more to say of Flagg in a later chapter.
Daniel Bailey, of Newburyport, published in 1764 'A new and complete
Introduction to the Grounds and Rules of Music in two books,' of which
the first is taken from Williams and the second from Tansur. In 1769-71
Bailey issued a two-volume work called 'The American Harmony.' The
first volume is a reprint of Tansur's 'Royal Melody,' together with
'A new and correct Introduction to the Grounds of Musick, Rudimental,
Practical and Technical,' also taken from Tansur. The second volume is
a reprint of Aaron Williams' 'New Universal Psalmodist.'[13]

Most of the music in the collections of Lyons, Flagg, and Bailey was
the work of contemporary English church-composers. Some of it may
have been written by Americans, but there has been identified only
the anthem called 'Liverpool,' in Lyon's collection, which is the
work of William Tuckey, of New York. This is only pseudo-American,
however, as Tuckey was an Englishman. It is merely an imitation of the
weak style of verse anthem then popular in England, and the same is
true of the other compositions which may be American. Notwithstanding
the poor quality of the music, the success of Bailey's collections
serves to show the advance which church singing must have made in New
England. The florid 'fuguing choruses' and canons, popular among the
hymn-writers who followed Purcell in England, were not very noble or
inspiring music, but their performance entailed a degree of musical
expertness far removed from the cacophantic crudity of which the
Rev. Thomas Symmes and his contemporaries so plaintively spoke. At
the same time it may be pointed out that these early collections of
psalm-tunes are full of errors, due to the lack of persons competent
to read proofs of musical works, and, if the leaders of church choirs
were not musicians enough to correct such errors in the rendering,
either their ears were yet imperfectly trained or they had a sense of
free harmony far in advance of their age. Furthermore, it was very
late in the eighteenth century before the reform in church singing
became general throughout New England. In the 'History of Worcester' we
read of an energetic duel on August 5th, 1779, between the old deacon
and the singers, in which the deacon read the psalm according to the
'lining-out' method, while the choir simultaneously sang the verse
without pause, according to the new system. Force of numbers and noise
finally overpowered the doughty old champion of tradition, who, we are
informed, 'retired from the meeting-house in tears.' It was as late as
1785 before the parish of Rowley joined the march of progress, as we
find the following entry under that date in the 'History of Rowley':
'The parish desire the singers, both male and female, to sit in the
gallery and will allow them to sing once on each Lord's day without
reading by the deacon.'


                                   II

We may assume that musical culture made noticeable progress in New
England in the second half of the eighteenth century. Among the mass
of the people it remained somewhat primitive, but among the cultivated
classes in Boston and the larger cities the best contemporary music
was heard frequently and with appreciation. As we shall see in a later
chapter, public concerts were held in Boston at least as early as
1731, and they seem to have compared favorably with similar functions
in European cities. But of musical life in the intimate sense there
was still comparatively little. Brissot de Warville writes from
Boston in 1788: 'You no longer meet here that Presbyterian austerity
which interdicted all pleasure, even that of walking, which forbade
travelling on Sunday, which persecuted men whose opinions were
different from their own. The Bostonians unite simplicity of morals
with that French politeness and delicacy of manners which render
virtue more amiable. They are hospitable to strangers and obliging to
friends; they are tender husbands, fond and almost idolatrous parents,
and kind masters. Music, which their teachers formerly proscribed as
a diabolical art, begins to make part of their education. In some
houses you hear the forte-piano. This art, it is true, is still in
its infancy; but the young novices who exercise it are so gentle, so
complaisant and so modest, that the proud perfection of art gives no
pleasure equal to what they afford.'

There were at that time very few pianos in New England and we find
from the newspaper advertisements that the teacher usually lent his
own piano to his pupils for practice. We have it on the authority of
Mr. Elson that the efforts of the pupils were customarily confined to
Gyrowetz, or to 'Washington's March,' 'The Battle of Prague,' or the
_Sonata pour le Clavecin ou Forte-piano, qui représente la bataille de
Rossbach. Composée par M. Bach_--not the majestic Johann Sebastian,
of course. Ritter has copied the following titles from a manuscript
book of the late eighteenth century: _Ça Ira_, 'White Cockade,' 'Irish
Howl,' 'French March,' 'Hessian Camp,' 'Duchess of Brunswick,' 'Duetto'
by Mancinelli, 'Water Rice,' 'Nancy of the Mill,' 'O Bessy Bell,'
'German Spaw,' 'Ossian's Ghost,' 'Duke of York's March,' 'Duetto,' by
Dr. Arne, 'Every Inch a Soldier,' 'Quick March of the Twenty-sixth
Regiment,' 'March,' 'Poor Soldier,' 'Sound Alarm,' 'When Nichola first
to court began,' 'Sweet Village of the Valley,' 'Minuetto,' 'Dead March
in Saul,' 'Bright Phœbus,' 'Ode to Harmony,' 'Swedish Air,' 'Quick
March,' 'King of Sweden's March,' _Marche des Marseillais_, 'Hessian
Air,' 'Baron Steuben's March,' 'Prince Frederick's March,' 'Sonata from
Minuetto in Samson,' 'March in Joseph,' 'Trio' by Humphrey.

It may be of interest to note some of the secular music published
in New England at that time. We find the following advertisement in
the 'Columbian Centinel' of Boston in 1798. 'Just published, price
one dollar, neatly bound and lettered, sold by E. Larkin, No. 47,
Cornhill, "The Columbian Songster and Free Mason's Pocket Companion."
A Collection of the newest and most celebrated Sentimental, Convivial,
Humorous, Satirical, Pastoral, Hunting, Sea and Masonic Songs, being
the largest and best collection ever published in America. Selected
by S. Larkin.' In the same year there appeared in Northampton, Mass.,
'The American Miscellany.' From the foreword of the ingenuous editor
we learn that in this work 'a general preference has been given to
American productions, and perhaps nothing will more effectually exhibit
the progress of the human mind in the refinements which characterize
the age, than the songs which, from general consent, are now in vogue.'
The exhibit is not very complimentary to the 'progress of the human
mind.' Most of the songs contained in these collections are flatly
commonplace, many of them are cheap and tawdry in the extreme. It would
hardly be fair to look upon such publications as reflecting the musical
taste of the cultured class in New England. Just what proportion that
class bore to the total population we cannot say. We can safely assume,
however, that the concerts given in Boston and elsewhere during the
second half of the eighteenth century fairly indicate the taste of the
musical elect in New England. The citation of a few programs in this
place will, consequently, not prove amiss.

A concert in honor of President Washington's visit to Boston, given on
the 27th October, 1789, is advertised as follows:


    FOR PUBLIC ORNAMENT

    AN ORATORIO

    OR CONCERT OF SACRED MUSICK

      will be performed at Stone Chapel, Boston, in presence of
      the President of the United States.


      First Part

    1. A Congratulatory Ode to the President
    2. A favourite Air in the 'Messiah' (composed by the
       celebrated Handel) 'Comfort ye my People.'      By Mr. Rea
    3. Organ Concerto                               By Mr. Shelby
    4. The favourite Air in the Oratorio of Samson (composed
       by the celebrated Mr. Handel)                   By Mr. Rea
    5. Anthem from 100th Psalm, composed by             Mr. Selby


      Part the Second

      The Oratorio of Jonah

      Complete. The Solos by Messrs. Rea, Fay, Brewer, and Dr.
      Rogerson.

      The Choruses by the Independent Musical Society; The
      Instrumental parts of a Society of Gentlemen, with the band
      of his Most Christian Majesty's Fleet.[14]

      As the above Oratorio has been highly applauded by the best
      judges, and has never been performed in America; and as
      the first Performers of this country will be joined by the
      excellent band of his Most Christian Majesty's squadron, the
      Publick will have every reason to expect a more finished and
      delightful performance than ever was exhibited in the United
      States.'

In Salem on the 15th May, 1798, was given the following concert:

                               Part 1st

    Grand Symphony                                             Pleyel

    Song: 'On by the Spur of Valour goaded.' Mr. Collins, Shield

    Clarinet Quartette                                          Vogel
     Messrs. Granger, Laumont, von Hagen and Graupner

    Song: 'He pipes so sweet.' Mrs. Graupner                     Hook

    Concerto on the French Horn. Mr. Rosier                    Ponton

    A favourite new Song: 'Little Sally's wooden ware'         Arnold


                             Miss Solomon

    Full Piece                                              Hayden[?]


                               Part 2nd

    Quartetto:

    'Who shall deserve the glowing Praise?'                     Linly
    Mrs. Graupner, Mr. Granger, Mr. Collins and Mr. Mallett

    Concerto on the Clarinet, composed and performed by Mr. Schaffer

    A new favourite echo Song: 'How do you do?'                  Hook
    Mrs. Graupner, and accompanied on the hautboy by Mr. Graupner

    Concerto on the Violin. Laumont                          Foder[?]

    A Comic Irish song: 'Boston News'                     Mr. Collins

    Concerto on the Hautboy, the composition of the celebrated Fisher
      Mr. Graupner

    Duet: 'They Dance to the Fiddle and Tabor,' from the much admired
      Opera of the 'Lock and Key' Mrs. Graupner and Mr. Collins

    Finale                                                     Pleyel

Audiences in those days must have had Gargantuan musical appetites.
Mr. Mallet, a French musician resident in Boston, gave a concert there
on the 19th May, 1801, which included two overtures, four concertos
(for clarinet, violin, bass and oboe, respectively), six solo vocal
pieces and one duet!


                                   III

No doubt these concerts show that the musical taste even of cultured
New England was somewhat indiscriminate. But the tendency to serve
strangely mixed programs was not confined to America. We find, too,
that concerts were very frequently a medium for the exploitation of
compositions by the concert givers or their friends. This custom was
not confined to America either, nor was it confined to the eighteenth
century. On the whole, and considering all the circumstances, the
concert life of New England speaks well for the musical culture of its
people. The same may be said of concert-life elsewhere in America.
Unfortunately our information concerning general musical culture in
other parts of the country is extremely scanty, but we may assume that
the inhabitants of the Middle and Southern colonies enjoyed a fuller
musical life than was possible in New England, where it was retarded
by conditions that were not operative elsewhere. In Pennsylvania, it
is true, Quakerism must have exercised a repressive influence, though,
from the evidence at our disposal, we find that Philadelphia at the end
of the eighteenth century was more advanced musically than any other
city in America. Practically our only sources of information concerning
early musical life in New York, Philadelphia and the South are the
records of operatic and concert performances, and, while we shall speak
of those activities more fully in later chapters, we may be pardoned
for referring briefly to them here.[15]

In New York English opera was heard perhaps as early as the year 1702,
but performances did not become common until about 1750. After the
production of the 'Beggar's Opera' in the latter year 'all the most
popular ballad-operas,' to quote Ritter,[16] 'successively appeared
on the New York stage. Besides these most of the musical farces,
melodramas, pantomimes, which proved successful in London, were also
produced in New York.' Concerts became increasingly common in the
second half of the century and some of the programs were remarkably
interesting. By way of illustration we quote the following program
of a concert given on the 9th February, 1770, for the benefit of Mr.
Stotherd:


Act 1st

    1st. Overture of Bach, opera prima
    3d. Concerto of Avison, opera quarta
    A Hunting Song--Black Sloven
    A French Horn Concerto, by Mr. Stotherd
    4th Concerto of Stanley
    Duet on the French Horn
    8th Periodical Overture.


Act 2d

    Overture of Saul[17]
    Select pieces for four French Horns
    2d Concerto of Humphries
    A Hunting Song
    A French Horn Concerto by Mr. Stotherd
    3d Concerto of Corelli
    Overture of Atalanta

In January, 1770, a large part of Handel's 'Messiah' was given in New
York for the benefit of William Tuckey, with the assistance of 'a
considerable number of ladies and gentlemen.' The program of a concert
given by gentlemen of the army and navy in April, 1782, reads:


Act I

    Sinfonie of                                               Toeschi
    Quartetto of Davaux for Violins
    Song by Mrs. Hyde 'Soldiers tir'd of War's alarms'
    Violino Concerto of                                       Borchay
    Quintetto of C. Bach for Flauto
    Sinfonie of                                               Stamitz


Act II

    Sinfonie of Haydn
    Quartetto of Kammell, for violino
    Song by Mrs. Hyde, 'If 'tis joy to wound a lover'
    Hoboy Solo Concerto of C. Fisher
    Quartetto of Vanhall for Flauto
    Sinfonie of                                                 Haydn


Act III

    Sinfonie of                                                  Bach
    Quartetto of Davaux for violino
    Clarinetto Solo Concerto of                                 Mahoy
    Quartetto of Toeschi for Flauto
    Sinfonie of                                               Mardino

Of course, all the concerts given in New York were not on an equally
high plane. Many of them were frankly popular and many mixed
judiciously the popular with the serious. A large proportion of these
were given at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Columbia and other public gardens
where it was necessary to cater to the taste of an assorted assemblage.
On the whole, however, the musical taste of the New York public was
remarkably good. Haydn seems to have been the favorite composer of
the time and after him we notice most frequently the names of Pleyel,
Handel, Corelli, Gossec, Stamitz, Gyrowetz, and Bach.[18]

The musical life of Philadelphia during the second half of the
eighteenth century was apparently richer than in any other American
city. There are no records of public concerts there before the year
1757, but after that date they became so suddenly common and maintained
such a relatively high standard that the musical soil in which they
grew must have been extremely fertile--notwithstanding the Quakers.
Indeed, the musical taste of the Philadelphians seems to have been
at once more eclectic and more discriminating than that of the
citizens of Boston and New York. Besides Haydn, Pleyel, Handel, and
the rest we find in their programs the names of Grétry, Boccherini,
Viotti, Kreutzer, Paesiello, Sacchini, Cimarosa, Piccini, Gluck, and
Mozart.[19] The programs were much less mixed than was customary in
Boston and New York. We find fewer comic numbers and fewer songs to
Mars and Bacchus, to larks and pining hearts and sighing breezes. And
quite as much consideration was shown to the native American composer
as is shown by the concert-givers of to-day. Consider the following
program of the first Uranian Concert, given at the Reformed Church, in
Race Street, on the 12th April, 1787:

                     Syllabus                                 Authors
       I. Martini's celebrated Overture
      II. Jehovah reigns: an anthem from 97th Psalm            Tuckey
     III. Te Deum laudamus                                     Arnold
      IV. Violin Concerto                    By Mr. Phile of New York
       V. I heard a great voice: an Anthem from Rev. XIV     Billings
      VI. Vital Spark: An Anthem on Mr. Pope's ode
                       'The dying Christian to his Soul'     Billings
     VII. Overture Artaxerxes                                    Arne
    VIII. Friendship thou charmer of the mind:
                       From Watts' Lyric Poems                   Lyon
      IX. The Rose of Sharon: an Anthem from
                       2d of Canticles                       Billings
       X. Flute Concerto                  By the Chevalier du Ponceau
      XI. Sundry Scriptures: an Anthem on
                       the nativity of Christ                Williams
     XII. The Hallelujah chorus: on the extent and duration
            of Christ's Government (from the 'Messiah')        Handel

We may mention here the extraordinary Grand Concert given at the
Reformed Church in Race Street on May 4, 1786, with a chorus of
two hundred and twenty and an orchestra of fifty. Of course, such
concerts were unusual in Philadelphia. Choruses of two hundred and
twenty and orchestras of fifty were not then common, even in European
capitals. But, as Mr. Sonneck has observed, such undertakings were not
possible 'without a logical evolution of conditions,' and this concert
throws a very favorable light on musical conditions in Philadelphia.
Incidentally, we learn that nearly one thousand tickets were sold for
the event, a remarkable showing for a city of about 40,000 people.

There was a very active musical life in the South during the eighteenth
century, and it was much more diffused than in the Middle or New
England colonies. A peculiar feature of the public concerts in the
South was the frequency with which amateurs appeared as performers.
We find the vocal part in one concert was taken by 'a gentleman who
does it merely to oblige on this occasion.' In the advertisement of
another we read that 'the gentlemen who are the best Performers,
both in Town and Country, are so obliging as to assist ... on this
Occasion.' Again we notice the announcement of a 'Concert of Vocal
and Instrumental Musick to be performed by Gentlemen of the place,
for the entertainment of all lovers of Harmony.' Such announcements
were common. Of course, amateurs sometimes took part in concerts in
the North, especially before the Revolution. As a rule, they were
gentlemen of the king's army and navy, among whom the practice of music
seems to have been sedulously cultivated. But it would appear that the
proportion of practical amateur musicians was much greater in the South
than elsewhere in America, and that fact alone speaks volumes for the
culture of the Old Dominion.

Charleston was beyond doubt the leading Southern city in musical
matters. We know definitely that public concerts were given there as
early as 1732, and it is quite probable that they were given earlier.
In 1762 was formed the St. Cæcilia Society,[20] an organization devoted
to the cultivation of the best in music. It was the first musical
society formed in America. The following program, given on the 6th
March, 1794, under its patronage, will illustrate the taste of the
people of Charleston:


Act 1st

    Sinfonie                                                    Pleyel
    Song, Mr. Chambers
    Quartett Violin                                             Pleyel
    Song, Mr. Clifford
    Overture                                                Gretrie[?]


Act 2nd

    Grand Overture (la Chasse)                                 Gossec
    Song, Mr. West
    Sonata Pianoforte, Rondo, by Mrs. Sully
    Duett, Mr. Chambers and Mrs. Chambers


Act 3d

    Grand Overture                                                  Haydn
    Song, Mr. Chambers
    Concerto Violin, by Mr. Petit                                  Viotti
    Glee, Mr. Chambers, Mrs. Chambers and Mr. West.

It is noteworthy to find a symphony of Mozart on a program of March 9,
1797.

It would appear that the citizens of Baltimore were not quite so
refined in their musical taste as their neighbors in Carolina.
Nevertheless they enjoyed an active musical life. Concerts of fair
quality were common enough, and we read also of such interesting things
as the production in English of Pergolesi's _Serva Padrona_ in 1790.[21]

In Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Petersburg, Norfolk,
Alexandria and elsewhere in Virginia there were public concerts given
at an early period. Unfortunately there has not yet been unearthed much
documentary evidence which would throw light on the early musical life
of these cities. But from what we know of Charleston and Baltimore and
from our general knowledge of conditions among the Southern colonists
we should be inclined to say that the Virginia cities possessed a
musical life quite creditable in proportion to their size. The same
is true of Savannah and New Orleans. It must not be forgotten that,
with the exceptions of Charleston and Baltimore, no Southern city had
a population of more than ten thousand people. Most of them had very
considerably less. Obviously it would be unfair to expect that they
enjoyed metropolitan conditions.


                                   IV

Enough, perhaps, has been said to show that the American colonists
were not the musical barbarians they are so frequently and complacently
pictured. Of course, European writers visiting the colonies almost
invariably took occasion to incorporate in their literary works
slighting references to the state of culture in America. The custom
still obtains among literary visitors to these shores. Since the time
of Columbus, apparently, it has been an unwritten law that European
travellers must speak slightingly of American culture, just as American
travellers must make uncomplimentary remarks about European hotel
accommodations and transportation systems. Such comments are usually
the result of a congenital incapacity to see more than one thing at one
time. As a rule they are accurate, but they do not mean what they seem
to mean. They are sentences detached from their context. A statement
that there is no first-class symphony orchestra in New York would
have a very different significance from a statement that there is no
first-class symphony orchestra in Oskaloosa--though both sound alike
to one who knows nothing about either New York or Oskaloosa. Equally
ridiculous are the well-meant attempts to demonstrate the growth of
our artistic stature by drawing parallels between the musical activity
of the colonies and the musical activities of America to-day. In 1750
the population of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond,
and Charleston combined was less than one hundred thousand, and even
as late as 1800 it was little over two hundred thousand. If we are to
be fair to the American colonists, we must take into consideration
the conditions under which they lived, the youth of the country, its
comparative isolation from the old-established centres of culture, the
many and complex circumstances that operated to retard its æsthetic
development. And if we take these things into consideration, we cannot
fairly persevere in our supercilious attitude toward the musical life
of eighteenth-century America.

There is another side to the picture, however. In spite of the
undeniable growth of musical culture among the American people of the
eighteenth century, it cannot be said that music had a really intimate
meaning for them, that they had woven it into the web of their lives,
that they had found in it a necessary form of expression. Art is
created that way. It may be the folk-song of an ignorant peasant or the
symphony of a Mozart or Beethoven. But always it is born of a need for
personal expression. Music was not personal to the American colonists;
it was still an exotic, a pleasure supplied from outside sources, a
diversion which serious men might occasionally enjoy but to which they
could not afford to devote serious attention. Even among a certain
class of Americans of the present day this attitude persists to some
degree. Music is not yet generally regarded as a profession for men.
Men go into business; they become brokers, lawyers, or politicians;
they even become newspaper reporters--but not musicians. Music is still
_par excellence_ the avocation of long-haired, libidinous foreigners.
We may, perhaps, without injustice trace this attitude to Puritan New
England. The aristocracy of the South had the aristocratic point of
view. Most Southern gentlemen were practical musicians. They were not,
of course, professional musicians--gentlemen did not adopt professions,
except that of arms. But music had a certain personal meaning for
them. It was a graceful and elegant medium for the expression of their
gallant, romantic and courtly sentiments. They could sing of arms and
the red glow of wine and the red lips of women--all frankly important
things in their lives, all supposedly unimportant things in the lives
of the upright New Englanders. But, as a vehicle for the expression of
profound and fundamental emotions, music had no meaning to them.

The aristocratic Southern point of view, however, did not impress
itself on the mass of the American people; the New England point of
view did. The psychological effect of New England on the rest of the
country has been extraordinary. Certainly the New Englanders were fond
of music; they encouraged it; they had considerable taste; they were
glad to have their daughters take music lessons--music was a thoroughly
ladylike accomplishment. When Priscilla spilled the 'Battle of Prague'
_con brio_ over the 'forte piano' her performance brought undiluted
joy to the parental heart. When Fil Trajetto played a concerto of
Corelli the more cultivated Bostonian could justly appreciate the
virtues of the composition and its performance. The people of New
England had relatively as much taste and culture as the same class of
people elsewhere. Nevertheless they did not feel music as a serious and
necessary thing.


                                  V

Such an attitude was most unfavorable to the growth of a native art.
During the eighteenth century there were few native American musicians
by profession. In the South the professional musicians were chiefly
French, in the North chiefly English. As a consequence there were few
American composers. Of course, many Americans manufactured music.
Every civilized man at some period of his life has composed a tune or
a poem or a play. It is as inevitable as the measles. The American
colonists did not escape the infection. Many American compositions lie
unidentified in the early collections of hymns and anthems; many more
undoubtedly were denied even such an anonymous burial. We have already
alluded to William Tuckey, whose anthem was included in the collection
of James Lyon. Tuckey was organist of Trinity Church, New York. He has
sometimes been called the first American composer, and he would be did
he not happen to be born in Somersetshire, England. Many of Tuckey's
contemporaries, such as Flagg, and undoubtedly others whose names have
been forgotten, composed church music in the style of the period--the
weak, insipid, undistinguished style of Tansur and Williams. We can
easily afford to forget their efforts.

There are, however, a few American composers of this period whom we
cannot afford to forget It is really impossible to say who was the
first American composer, but the right to the title seems to be divided
between Francis Hopkinson and James Lyon, natives of Philadelphia and
Newark, N. J., respectively. Certainly they were the first of any
importance. Hopkinson, a lawyer, poet, musician, inventor, painter,
and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was one of the most
remarkable men of his time. He was born in 1737, was graduated at the
College of Philadelphia, received the degrees of Master of Arts and
Doctor of Laws from that institution and the degree of Master of Arts,
_gratiæ causa_, from the College of New Jersey. After his admission to
the bar he held a number of public offices, became a delegate to the
first Continental Congress and was appointed by that body to 'execute
the business of the Navy under their direction.' He presided over the
Admiralty Court of Pennsylvania from 1779 until its jurisdiction became
vested in the United States and took an important part in the debates
of the convention which framed the Constitution. We know little of his
musical education, but the most important part of it seems to have been
guided by James Bremner, while his taste was undoubtedly polished by
subsequent visits to Europe. He was an able harpsichordist, we learn,
and often deputized for Brenner as organist of Christ Church. In spite
of his official duties he found time to promote musical education, to
give concerts and to participate in frequent musicales at the home of
Governor John Penn. His inventive turn found expression in an improved
method of quilling a harpsichord, the application of a keyboard to the
harmonica and a 'contrivance for the perfect measurement of time,'
known as the Bell-harmonic.

The most important thing about Francis Hopkinson from our point of
view, however, is that his song 'My Days Have Been so Wondrous Free,'
dated 1759, is, as far as we know, the earliest secular American
composition extant. It is included in a collection of songs made by
Hopkinson which contains also several other specimens of his muse. They
are pretty, simple, graceful, and somewhat amateurish. Among them is an
anthem with figured bass--a rarity in early American music. Possibly
Hopkinson was editor and part author of the 'Collection of Psalm Tunes
with a few Anthems and Hymns' published in 1763 for the use of Christ
and St. Peter's churches. He has been credited with the authorship of
one of the numerous 'Washington's Marches,' though which of them he
wrote--if he wrote any--his sole and painstaking biographer[22] has
been unable to discover. Mr. Sonneck, however, has succeeded in proving
that he composed 'The Temple of Minerva, a Musical Entertainment
performed in Nov., 1781, by a Band of Gentlemen and Ladies at the hotel
of the Minister of France in Philadelphia.' The music of this piece,
unfortunately, is not extant. A collection of eight songs by Hopkinson,
with accompaniments for harpsichord or pianoforte, was published
in Philadelphia in 1788. Speaking of these Mr. Sonneck says: 'As a
composer Francis Hopkinson did not improve greatly during the twenty
years which separate this song collection from his earliest efforts.
His harmony is still faulty at times, and he possesses not an original
musical profile. To claim the adjective of beautiful or important
for these songs or his other compositions would mean to confuse the
standpoint of the musical critic with that of the antiquarian. But
even the critic who cares not to explain and pardon shortcomings
from a historical point of view will admit that Hopkinson's songs
are not without grace and that our first poet-composer obeyed the
laws of musical declamation more carefully than a host of fashionable
masters of that period. Artistically, of course, he resembles his
contemporaries. His musical world, like theirs, was an untrue Arcadia,
populated with over-sentimental shepherds and shepherdesses, or with
jolly tars, veritable models of sobriety and good behavior, even
when filling huge bumpers for drinking-bouts. Then again we notice
in Francis Hopkinson's music the studied simplicity of that age for
which treble and bass had become the pillars of the universe. This and
much more is antiquated to-day. But why should we criticize at all our
first "musical compositions?" It becomes us better to look upon these
primitive efforts as upon venerable documents of the innate love of the
American people for the beauties of music and as documents of the fact
that among the signers of the Declaration of Independence there was at
least one who proved to be a "successful Patron of Arts and Sciences."'

It is a peculiar coincidence that in 1759, the same year in which
Hopkinson's first songs were written, an ode, set to music by
James Lyon, a student at Nassau Hall, was performed at the college
commencement. This, perhaps the earliest of American commencement-odes,
is unfortunately not extant. Lyon was graduated from Princeton in 1759
and took up his residence in Philadelphia. There he seems to have
founded or taught in a singing school where one of his anthems was
performed in 1761--'an elegant anthem,' according to the 'Pennsylvania
Gazette.' In 1762 he received the degree of M.A. from Princeton and
perhaps wrote the music for an entertainment entitled 'The Military
Glory of Great Britain' which was performed at the commencement.
Subsequently he was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian church and
preached the gospel in Nova Scotia, Maine, and elsewhere until his
death in 1794.

We have already adverted to Lyon's 'Urania, or a choice Collection of
Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns from the most approved Authors, with
some entirely new.' This collection exercised an important influence
on subsequent early American psalmodists.[23] The six tunes marked as
new were composed by Lyon. These, together with settings of the 17th
and 19th psalms, a setting of one of Watts' lyric poems, 'Friendship,'
and a 'Marriage Hymn,' are all the known works of Lyon still extant.
'Their study,' says Mr. Sonneck, 'will induce no critic to call Lyon a
composer of real merit or even a musician fully conversant with musical
grammar. His music, viewed from an æsthetic standpoint, is in no way
remarkable. He certainly gave his best in the Hymn to Friendship, the
minor movement of which contains a few unexpected rays of beauty. This
movement, and the fact that Lyon energetically occupied himself with
music, when music was in its infancy in colonial America, prove that
he possessed some inborn musical talent. For nobody will compose in a
musical wilderness, no matter how valueless the compositions may be, if
not forced to do so by latent creative powers. Had Lyon been educated
in England, Germany, or Italy his talents would have developed to
greater advantage, and his name might figure in musical dictionaries,
these mausoleums of celebrity, none of which to-day mentions him. But
his importance lies not in the sphere of æsthetics; it lies rather in
the sphere of retrospective history. Not the absolute, but the relative
merits of his music attract our attention. He was a pioneer and
thereupon rests his lasting glory.'

In 1746 was born in Boston a man who bore the undistinguished name of
William Billings. Billings was a tanner by profession and a musician by
instinct. It is unfortunate that this pioneer American composer should
have become the butt of so much ridicule; yet one must admit that he
invited ridicule. There was something ludicrous even in his personal
appearance.

'He was somewhat deformed,' says Ritter, 'blind of one eye, one leg
shorter than the other, one arm somewhat withered, and he was given to
the habit of continually taking snuff. He carried this precious article
in his coat pocket made of leather, and every few minutes would take
a pinch, holding the snuff between the thumb and clinched hand. To
this feature we must add his stentorian voice, made, no doubt, rough
as a saw by the effects of the quantity of snuff that was continually
rasping his throat.'[24] His zeal continually outran his discretion.
Even in church his voice drowned those of his neighbors. He was of the
temperament that cannot approve without giving three cheers. The very
titles of his works provoke a smile. For instance:

    'The New England Psalm Singer: or American Chorister
    Containing a number of Psalm-tunes, Anthems and Canons.

    In four or five parts. (Never Before Published.)

    Composed by William Billings, a native of Boston, in
    New England.

    Matt. 12. 16. "Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings hast
    thou Perfected Praise."

    James 5. 13. "Is any Merry? Let him sing Psalms."

    "O, praise the Lord with one consent
    And in this grand design
    Let Britain and the Colonies
    Unanimously join."

    Boston: New England, Printed by Edes and Gill.'

Nevertheless Hillings was an original genius with an unaffected,
fervent and sincere love of his art. His very naïveté is refreshing in
an age which artistic artificiality had rendered almost sterile. Of
musical knowledge he possessed very little. What knowledge he had he
picked up himself from such limited sources as were at his disposal. In
the preface to his 'New England Psalm-Singer' he confesses ingenuously:
'For my own part, as I don't think myself confined to any Rules for
Composition laid down by any that went before me, neither should I
think (were I to pretend to lay down rules) that any who comes after
me were anyways obligated to adhere to them any further than they
should think proper: so in fact I think it is proper for every composer
to be his own learner. Therefore, upon this consideration, for me to
dictate or to prescribe Rules of the Nature for others, would not only
be very unnecessary but also a very great Vanity.' Later he frankly
confessed the immaturity that dictated those statements. He set himself
more humbly to the study of rules for composition and developed an
enthusiasm for counterpoint, of which he speaks in the following terms:
'It has more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes; each
foot straining for mastery and victory, the audience entertained and
delighted, their minds surpassingly fluctuated, sometimes declaring
for one part and sometimes for another. Now the solemn bass demands
their attention--next the manly tenor--now, the lofty counter--now, the
volatile treble. Now here--now there, now here again. O, ecstatic! Rush
on, you sons of Harmony!' Even the tremendous earnestness of the man
does not save this from being funny. It is poor Billings' fate to be
funny under nearly all circumstances.

The 'New England Psalm-Singer' appeared in 1770. It may be recalled
that Beethoven was born in the same year. Eight years later Billings
published 'The Singing Master's Assistant,' a revision of his first
work, which attained wide popularity in New England and was known as
'Billings' Best.' Following came 'Music in Miniature,' 1779; 'The
Psalm-Singer's Amusement,' 1781; 'The Suffolk Harmony,' 1786; and 'The
Continental Harmony,' 1794. Besides these Billings published singly
a number of anthems and other compositions. All of his works show a
most primitive conception of the art of composition and a very hazy
knowledge of the rules of harmony and counterpoint. But they contain
melodic and rhythmic force and originality. Billings could not write a
good fugue, but he could write a good tune. Many of his compositions
became very popular in New England. Although he had invited Britain
and the Colonies to join 'unanimously' when he published his first
collection, he was one of the most fiery of patriots when the
Revolution broke out. Nothing could surpass the fierce ardor of his
zeal. He expressed in dynamic terms his love of country and contempt
for his enemies, and he called down all the wrath of an omnipotent
deity on his unworthy head if he should ever prove untrue to
Boston--meaning America. What were written originally as psalm-tunes he
had no difficulty in turning into ringing patriotic songs. Many of them
were sung by the New England soldiers throughout the war, and the tune
known as 'Chester' was a favorite with the Continental fifers.

Billings is said to have introduced the use of the 'pitch-pipe' into
New England choirs--where it was badly needed--and he is supposed
to have been the first in New England to use the violoncello in
church. According to Ritter, 'he is credited with the merit of
having originated concerts or musical exhibitions in New England';
but concerts or musical exhibitions were originated there before
he was born. Billings' merit is that he was the first musician of
really independent and original talent that America produced. He was
handicapped by lack of technical knowledge and lack of a suitable
_milieu_. He wrote some good tunes which passed into the musical life
of the people. He is a noteworthy figure, but his importance is not
overwhelming.

Among Billings' contemporaries may be mentioned Oliver Holden, Andrew
Law, Jacob Kimball, Jr., Samuel Holyoke, Samuel Read, and Lowell Mason.
None of these possessed much more musical knowledge than Billings and
all of them, with one exception, possessed much less talent. Holden
is known chiefly for his 'Coronation' hymn, which is still popular.
He published 'The American Harmony' in 1792. Law was the author of a
collection of anthems and hymns, besides some compilations on musical
theory. His taste was better than the average of his time, but his
information and creative capacity were limited. One of his hymns,
'Archdale,' acquired wide popularity. There is nothing particular to
say about Kimball, Holyoke or Read. They were of about the same stamp
as Holden and Law--mediocre writers of uninspired and conventional
psalm-tunes.

Lowell Mason stands out above the rest as a musician in the truer
sense of the word. The earnest valor with which he combated the
condition prevalent in the New England churches, flooded with 'fugue
tunes' in imitation of the imported variety but devoid of any musical
value, must be recognized. He was a pioneer in the work of substituting
for this worthless stuff tunes at once simple and noble, in accordance
with the principles of harmony, and symmetrical in form. Mason was born
in 1792, at Medfield, Mass., and died in 1872 at Orange, N. J. He went
to Savannah, Ga., and divided his time between banking and musical
study under F. L. Abell. In 1822 he returned to Boston and published
the 'Boston Handel-Haydn Society's Collection of Church Music,'
containing a number of his own compositions. The most familiar of his
tunes are probably 'Corinth' ('I love to steal a while away'), 'Cowper'
('There is a fountain filled with blood'), 'Bethany' ('Nearer, my God,
to Thee'), 'The Missionary Hymn' ('From Greenland's Icy Mountains'),
and 'Mount Vernon' ('Sister thou wert mild and lovely'). After 1827
Dr. Mason (the degree of Mus.D. was conferred on him by New York
University) took charge of the music in no less than three churches,
but subsequently confined his labors to Dr. Lyman Beecher's Bowdoin
Street Church, whither pilgrimages were soon made from all over the
country 'to hear the wonderful singing.' His training of boys' voices
particularly was a marvel to his generation. Mason's educational work
is indeed of uncommon importance and will be touched upon in a later
chapter. With Professors Park and Phelps he edited the 'Sabbath Hymn
Book' (1858) and in 1830 he issued the 'Juvenile Lyrics,' said to be
the earliest collection of songs for secular schools published in
America.

Except for the rugged originality of the ludicrous Billings, the
opening of the nineteenth century had still disclosed nothing of
American composition that might be considered other than commonplace.
But at least the pioneer work had been done with commendable
earnestness and under very real handicaps. The actual achievements
of pioneers are never very great, but the value of their work is
incalculable. To the pioneers of American composition we can at least
tender our respect for the undoubted sincerity of their efforts.

                                                          W. D. D.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[10] _Op. cit._, p. 54.

[11] Hood: 'History of Music in New England.' See also Ritter: 'Music
in America' and Elson: 'History of American Music.'

[12] William Tansur was a contemporary English Church composer. His
collection, 'The Royal Melody Complete,' here alluded to, appeared in
1754.

[13] Aaron Williams was an English music engraver, publisher and
composer. 'The New Universal Psalmodist' appeared in 1763.

[14] The French fleet, of course.

[15] For the following information concerning concerts in New York,
Philadelphia and the South we are indebted wholly to O. G. Sonneck's
scholarly and trustworthy work, 'Early Concert Life in America,'
Leipzig, 1907.

[16] _Op. cit._, Chap. VIII.

[17] Handel.

[18] This was Christian Bach, known as 'the London Bach.' As far as we
can discover Americans left the great J. S. Bach severely alone.

[19] Mr. Sonneck has pointed out that the name of Mozart appeared
infrequently on concert programs before the year 1800, even in Vienna.

[20] The name was spelled thus for several years. Later it became
Cecilia, as it is at present. Recruited from among the social leaders
of Charleston, the Society naturally became an exclusive organization
in which social considerations eventually predominated.

[21] In those days proof-reading was a fine art. The announcement
to which we refer speaks of 'music by the celebrated Italian, Père
Golaise.'

[22] Mr. O. G. Sonneck, whose excellent monograph on Francis Hopkinson
is our authority.

[23] For a detailed discussion of 'Urania,' together with some very
interesting reflections on early American sacred music, see Mr.
Sonneck's monograph on James Lyon: 'Francis Hopkinson and James Lyon:
Two Studies in Early American Music,' Washington, 1905.

[24] _Op. cit._, Chap. III.




                              CHAPTER III
                          EARLY CONCERT LIFE

      Sources of information--Boston Concerts of the eighteenth
      century; New England outside of Boston--Concerts in New
      York--Concerts in Philadelphia; open-air concerts--Concert
      life of the South; Charleston, Baltimore, etc.; conclusion.


In our last chapter we spoke to some extent of concert life in America
during the eighteenth century, and it may be well to complete the
record here as far as the information at our disposal will allow. The
importance of concerts as reflecting the musical culture of a people
can very easily be overestimated. At best, they represent the taste of
merely a small portion of the community; at worst they serve simply
as occasions for social display and for the indulgence of various
forms of snobbery. It is very difficult at a distance to judge a true
from a false artistic life. For aught we know to the contrary, the
concerts of the American colonists represented chiefly their ideas of
what was socially correct. On the other hand, we are equally justified
in assuming that these concerts reflected accurately the musical
taste of the people. The truth is that we must accept the record of
early concert life in America purely for its historic interest. Such
deductions as we may draw from it must always be presumptive. On
the surface, as we have already said, it speaks well for the state
of musical culture in America of the eighteenth century. It would
be futile--perhaps disappointing--to pry further into its possible
significance.

A certain characteristic indifference to the importance of historical
remains has lost to us irretrievably much documentary evidence that
would be of great value in compiling a complete history of music in
America. Of our earliest newspapers, such as the 'Boston News Letter,'
the 'New York Gazette,' the 'American Weekly Mercury,' and the 'South
Carolina Gazette,' no complete files seem to have been preserved, and
there is an irritating poverty of other documents that would supplement
the information contained therein or fill out such lacunæ as the
lost numbers may have left. For our information on early concerts in
America we are almost totally dependent on old newspaper files. Even
if these files were complete it would not follow by any means that
the information obtainable from them would be exhaustive, for it is
not probable that the newspapers mentioned all the concerts given. A
few diaries and similar documents have been discovered which throw a
little added light on the subject, but there still remain many dark
corners.[25]


                                   I

We cannot say when or where the first public concert was given in
America. The first of which we have any record was advertised in the
Boston 'Weekly News Letter' of December 16-23, 1731. It was 'a Concert
of Music on sundry Instruments at Mr. Pelham's great Room, being the
house of the late Doctor Noyes near the Sun Tavern.' Further than
that we know nothing about it. We find notices of other concerts at
intervals for several years, but nothing is said about the music played
or the people who took part in them. In 1744 a concert was given at the
historic Faneuil Hall, which had been built two years earlier and which
was apparently the favorite place for such functions until about the
year 1755, when it was supplanted by the newly erected Concert Hall in
Queen Street.[26]

Most of the concerts at Faneuil Hall were given for the benefit of
the poor and were held, it would appear, only by express permission of
the selectmen. In 1755 we first notice concerts given for the benefit
of private individuals and presumably without the permission of the
selectmen. One was given for John Rice, organist of Trinity Church, and
several for Thomas Dipper, organist of King's Chapel. We know nothing
about these concerts except that they consisted of 'select pieces by
the best masters.' It is possible that there existed from about the
year 1744 a musical organization of which a Mr. Stephen Deblois was
treasurer and which gave frequent concerts. The minutes of the Boston
selectmen meetings, as reprinted in the 'Boston Town Records,' contain
an entry under date of Nov. 21, 1744, to the effect that 'Mr. William
Sheafe and a number of gentlemen desire the Use of Faneuil Hall for a
Concert of Musick ... the Benefit arising by the Tickets to be for the
Use of the Poor of the Town....' On Dec. 12, it was reported that 'the
Selectmen received of Mr. Stephen Deblois two hundred and five pounds
five shillings old Tenor being collected by a Concert of Musick in
Faneuil Hall for the Use of the Poor of the Town'--obviously the same
concert for which permission was granted to 'Mr. William Sheafe and a
number of gentlemen.' In September, 1754, Stephen Deblois purchased
Concert Hall for two thousand pounds, with the result that concerts
immediately shifted there from Faneuil Hall. Thomas Dipper, for whom so
many benefits were given, apparently had a hand in the organization,
if there was one. We find an announcement in January, 1761, that 'Mr.
Dipper's Public Concert will begin on Tuesday the 20th instant.' This
suggests that there may have been also a series of private concerts
for subscribers, as the term 'public' concert was very unusual in
Colonial times. We read in the Boston 'News Letter' of April 29, 1762:
'The members of the Concert, usually performed at Concert Hall, are
hereby notified that the same is deferred to the end of the Summer
months. And it is desired that in the meantime each member would settle
his respective arrearage with Stephen Deblois, with whom the several
accounts are lodged for that purpose.' We are, in fact, confronted with
suggestions of a musical organization which held a series of concerts
for members and another for non-members. Whether such an organization
existed or not, it is at least certain that Boston enjoyed the luxury
of subscription concerts as early as 1761.

The 'Massachusetts Gazette' of October 2, 1766, advertised a series
of concerts to begin on October 7, and 'to be continued every Tuesday
evening for eight months.' The concerts were to be held at Concert Hall
and intending subscribers were referred to Stephen Deblois. Beginning
with the year 1770, several series were given by William Turner, Thomas
Hartley, and David Propert, the latter promising in his announcement
selections 'out of Mr. Handel's oratorios' besides 'select pieces upon
the harpsichord with accompaniment compos'd by the most celebrated
masters of Italy and London.' W. S. Morgan also gave some concerts
immediately before the war. It had not yet become customary to announce
the programs in detail and we are consequently in the dark as to the
nature of most of them. Some of the concerts apparently were merely
operas in concert form. An announcement of June 20, 1770, speaks of a
vocal entertainment of three acts. 'The songs (which are numerous) are
taken from a new celebrated opera, call'd "Lionel and Clarissa."' In
the diary of John Rowe there is the following entry under date of March
23, 1770: 'In the evening I went to the Concert Hall to hear Mr. Joan
read the Beggar's Opera and sing the songs....'

We find, however, a very fine program announced for May 17, 1771, by
Josiah Flagg--the same of whom we have already spoken as a prominent
compiler of psalm-tunes. Flagg was for many years a most conspicuous
figure in the musical life of Boston. Besides publishing two good
collections of psalm-tunes, he founded and trained a militia band and
was active in promoting concerts of remarkably high quality. As he was
the first to publish programs we cannot well compare his musical taste
with that of his contemporaries, but it is doubtful if the average
concert of the time rose to the level of the following:

       Act I. Overture Ptolemy                                 Handel
    Song 'From the East breaks the morn'
    Concerto 1st                                              Stanley
    Symphony 3d                                                  Bach
       Act II. Overture 1st                                  Schwindl
    Duetto 'Turn fair Clora'
    Organ Concerto
    Periodical Symphony          Stamitz
       Act III. Overture 1st                                     Abel
    Duetto 'When Phœbus the tops of the hills'
    Solo Violin
    A new Hunting Song, set to music by                    Mr. Morgan
    Periodical Symphony                                Pasquale Ricci

The other concerts given by Flagg were of about the same standard.
He seems to have disappeared from Boston about the year 1773. His most
important successor in the promotion of music in Boston was William
Selby, an Englishman, who came over as organist of King's Chapel,
Boston, in 1772, or perhaps earlier. Selby threw himself into the
musical life of his adopted country with an enthusiasm for the cause
which seems always to have been exclusively confined to foreigners. He
played and taught the harpsichord and organ, composed prolifically,
promoted concerts of fine quality, and was the leading spirit in the
Musical Society which did much for music in Boston between 1785 and
1790. His devotion to choral music was especially noteworthy and
he promoted some choral concerts of an artistic quality far beyond
anything yet heard in America. We find announced for April 23, 1782,
a concert under his direction, to consist of '_Musica Spiritualis_,
or Sacred Music, being a collection of Airs, Duetts, and Choruses,
selected from the oritories [?] of Mr. Stanly, Mr. Smith and the late
celebrated Mr. Handel; together with a favorite Dirge, set to music by
Thomas Augustus Arne, Doctor in Music. Also, a Concert on the Organ, by
Mr. Selby.' In the 'Massachusetts Gazette' of January 2, 1786, there
is announced a remarkable concert to be given by the Musical Society
on January 10. Besides prayers, psalms, and the Doxology, 'as set to
musick by Mr. Selby,' the program consisted of the overture to Handel's
'Occasional Oratorio'; the recitative 'Comfort ye my people,' from the
'Messiah,' and the aria, 'Every valley shall be exalted,' from the same
work; the fourth Concerto of Amizon, _musica da capella_, op. 7; 'Let
the bright Cherubims,' from 'Samson,' and 'The trumpet shall sound,'
from the 'Messiah'; the second organ concerto of Handel; 'a Solo,
Piano, on the organ,' by Mr. Selby; and 'a favourite overture by Mr.
Bach,' performed by 'the musical band.' A similar program was repeated
on January 16, 1787, at a 'Spiritual Concert for the benefit of those
who have known better Days.' The 'Hallelujah Chorus' from the 'Messiah'
was included in the latter program, as was also Piccini's overture to
_La buona figliuola_, a solo from the oratorio 'Jonah,' composed by
Felsted, and a 'favourite overture' of Carlo Ditters,[27] played by
'the musical band.'

The Musical Society gave many concerts up to the year 1790--mostly in
subscription series and always, it would seem, under the leadership of
Selby. Apparently there were other musical societies in Boston as early
as the year 1787, for the 'Massachusetts Centinel' on September 22 of
that year announced a 'concert of Sacred Musick to assist in rebuilding
the Meeting House in Hollis Street, agreeably to the generous
intentions of the Musical Societies in this town.' The name of William
Billings appears twice on the program of this concert. We have already
mentioned the concert in honor of Washington's visit to Boston at which
Felsted's oratorio, 'Jonah,' was given in its entirety--the first time
that a complete oratorio had been given in Boston.[28]

The last mention of Selby's name in connection with a concert was in
1793 when the following program was given for his benefit and that of
Jacobus Pick:

    The Overture of Henry IVth[29]
    A French Song by Mr. Mallet
    A Clarinet Concerto by M. Foucard
    A French Song by Madame Douvillier
    A Violin Concerto, by Mr. Boullay
    An Italian Duetto, by Messrs. Pick and Mallet
    A Flute Concerto by Mr. Stone
    La Chasse, composed by Hoffmeister
    A Piano Forte Sonata, by Mr. Selby
    A French Trio, by Madame Douvillier, Messrs. Pick and Mallet
    A Duetto on the Harmonica, by Messrs. Pick & Petit
    A Symphony, composed by Pichell

This program is important as marking a sharp transition in the style
of Boston concerts. Due partly to the influx of theatrical companies,
following the lifting of the ban on dramatic productions, and partly
to the sudden increase in the number of French musicians, concerts
in Boston after the year 1790 entirely lost their old dignified and
solid demeanor and acquired a strange new lightness, a transatlantic
frivolity, a cosmopolitan air, a flavor of complete worldliness. The
'late celebrated Mr. Handel' disappears entirely from the concert
programs of a city to which he had for long been the musical mainstay,
and in his stead enter Pleyel, Grétry, Gluck, and 'the celebrated
Haydn.'

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century the leading figures in
the concert life of Boston were Messrs. Pick and Mallet, Mrs. Pownall,
and Dr. Berkenhead. The most important of these was Mallet, a French
gentleman, who is supposed to have come to America with Lafayette
and to have served in the army of the Revolution. In addition to his
concert activities he taught music, played the organ for the 'Rev. Mr.
Kirkland's congregation,' and was one of the first music publishers in
Boston. After the year 1793 we find his name infrequently on concert
programs, and after that year, too, we notice a decided decline in both
the number and the quality of Boston concerts.

That the concert-life of New England was not altogether confined to
Boston we gather from the old records and newspaper files of Cambridge,
Salem, Newport, Providence, Newburyport, Hartford, New Haven, and
other towns. On the whole, the concerts given in those towns followed
closely the taste of Boston. As far as we can discover, they were
not very frequent; but, when it is considered that as late as the
beginning of the nineteenth century none of the towns named possessed
as many as two thousand inhabitants and some of them contained less
than half that number, it would be unreasonable to expect that they
could have supported serious concerts to any great extent. Indeed, it
is surprising that they should have lent their patronage to symphonies
of Haydn, Pleyel, and Stamitz; overtures, concertos, quartets, and
other numbers constituting what in the eighteenth century were 'heavy'
programs; and we are not prepared to say how much patronage would be
forthcoming for concerts of the same relative 'heaviness' in American
towns of the same size to-day.


                                   II

Turning to New York, we find that concert life began there about the
same time as it did in Boston. In fact, wherever the first concert in
America may have been held--a disputed point which is not of vital
importance--the impulse to give such musical entertainments seems to
have affected the whole country almost, if not quite, simultaneously.
That there were concerts held in New York as early as 1733 appears
from the publication in the New York 'Gazette' for December 24-31 of
that year of a fearfully bad poem 'written at a Concert of Music where
there was a great Number of Ladies.' In spite of the indiscriminate
taste of the 'Gazette' it is unfortunate that we have preserved a
very few numbers between 1725, when it first appeared, and 1733, when
Zenger's New York 'Weekly Journal' was started. Possibly it said
something in intelligible prose about such concerts as may have been
given before the latter date. We first get on solid ground in 1736
with the announcement for January 21 of 'a _Consort_ of Musick, Vocal
and Instrumental for the Benefit of Mr. Pachelbell, the Harpsichord
Part performed by himself. The Songs, Violins and German Flutes by
private Hands.' For nearly twenty years following there is trace of
only two concerts, concerning which no particulars have been vouchsafed
us. Then we read in the New York 'Mercury' of January, 1754, that Mr.
Charles Love gave 'a Concert of vocal and instrumental Musick. To
which will be added several select pieces on the hautboy by Mr. Love.
After the concert will be a _Ball_.' In the following year William
Tuckey advertised in the 'Weekly Post Boy' a 'Concert of Vocal and
Instrumental Musick' of which he was good enough to indicate partially
the program. Among other things he promised 'the celebrated dialogue
between _Damon and Chloe_, compos'd by Mr. Arne. A two part Song, in
Praise of a Soldier, by the late famous Mr. Henry Purcell. An "Ode on
Masonry"[30] never perform'd in this country, nor ever in England but
once in publick. And a Solo on the German flute by Mr. Cobham.' Mr.
Tuckey's sympathies were pronouncedly English, but his taste was good.
A concert given in 1756 featured a new organ built by a New Yorker
named Gilfert Ash and two songs composed by Mr. Handel, one of them
being 'in praise of musick, particularly of an organ.' There is no
further mention of concerts in the newspapers until 1760 and, except
there was a conspiracy of silence on the part of the press, the concert
life of New York up to that year must have been extremely meagre.

It would appear, however, that subscription series started in 1760,
for we find a notice in the New York 'Gazette' of January 14 that
'the Subscription Concert will be opened on Thursday next, the 15th
instant,' and that 'those gentlemen that intend to subscribe to the
said concert, are desired to send their names to Messrs. Dienval and
Hulett who will wait on them with tickets, for the season.' In 1762
Messrs. Leonard and Dienval announced 'a publick and weekly Concert of
Musick,' probably a continuation of the subscription series inaugurated
in 1762, though there is no announcement for 1763. Apparently there
were subscription concerts every year until 1767, presumably under the
same auspices. Then there is a hiatus until 1773, when subscription
concerts were revived.

John Jones, in the meantime, had given summer concerts at his Ranelagh
Gardens from 1765 until the enterprise failed in 1768. Also, Edward
Bardin started a tri-weekly concert of music at his 'King's Arms Garden
in the Broadway' in 1766. We do not know how long he continued his
musical entertainments; we only know that he went out of business in
1769. Undeterred by the failure of Jones and Bardin, Samuel Francis
opened Vaux Hall Gardens in 1769. He announced a concert of music,
vocal and instrumental, to be given twice a week, but it would appear
that he met with no greater success than his predecessors.

Besides summer concerts at the various gardens and the subscription
concerts already alluded to, there were between 1760 and 1775 a number
of benefit concerts, as well as a few performances by military bands
and theatrical companies. The fine program given at Mr. Stotherd's
benefit on February 9, 1770, has been quoted in the preceding chapter.
About the same year French and Italian virtuosi began to settle in New
York and their presence soon made itself felt.

The only musician in New York at this period who stands out
prominently is William Tuckey and, though he gave some benefit
concerts, he was concerned mainly with the development of church music.
However, it is worthy of note that he was the first to introduce the
'Messiah' to America, the occasion being a concert of sacred music in
1770, devoted largely to excerpts from that oratorio, including 'the
overture and sixteen other pieces, viz. air, recitatives and choruses.'
During the war there were a number of concerts in New York given by
officers of the British army and navy. William Brown, who also appears
in the concert life of Philadelphia and the South, gave a subscription
series in New York in 1783 and again in 1785. Subsequently there seems
to have been a lull in the musical affairs of the city until 1788, when
subscription concerts were revived under the direction of Alexander
Reinagle, 'member of the Society of Musicians in London,' and Henri
Capron, a pupil of Gaviniés. They were continued by Mr. and Mrs. Van
Hagen, 'lately from Amsterdam.' Pleyel, Stamitz, Dittersdorf, Martini,
and Haydn shared the chief honors on the programs of that period, and
we find a duet of Mozart on a program offered by Reinagle and Capron in
1789.

Beginning about the year 1797 the concert season in New York shifted
from the winter to the summer, and regular subscription concerts
consequently declined. Their place was taken by concerts which
the enterprising proprietors of public gardens offered as special
attractions to their patrons. It would seem at first blush that the
musical taste of the people at large was exceptionally good when
concerts of high grade really proved attractive, but the public gardens
of that period usually did not cater to the masses. After the failure
of Samuel Francis's Vaux Hall Gardens, enterprises of the kind seem to
have lost favor. In 1793 we find Mrs. Armory running a Vaux Hall in
Great George Street and announcing a concert of 'the most favourite
overtures and pieces from the compositions of Fisher and Handel ... the
orchestra being placed in the middle of a large tree.' Joseph Delacroix
in the following year gave a very fine concert under the leadership of
James Hewitt at his 'Salloon,' the Ice House Garden, No. 112 Broadway.
Three years later he announced concerts of vocal and instrumental music
to be given with an orchestra of fifteen of the best musicians three
times a week at his newly decorated Vaux Hall Gardens. In 1798 he
raised the number of his concerts to four a week, but in the following
year, unfortunately, he had to abandon the enterprise. The concerts
given by Delacroix were invariably of the highest grade, according to
later eighteenth-century standards.

During the summers of 1798 and 1799 there were given nightly concerts
of 'vocal and instrumental' music at B. Ishewood's Ranelagh Garden
near the Battery. The programs were made up almost entirely of popular
songs. Joseph Corre, who opened Columbia Garden, opposite the Battery,
in 1798, and Mount Vernon Garden on Leonard Street in 1800, hit upon
the idea of attracting both æsthete and philistine by a judicious
mixture of serious and popular programs. His serious concerts were
similar to those given by Joseph Delacroix; his popular programs
contained the same sort of stuff as was offered at Ranelagh Gardens.

Besides these summer garden concerts and the winter subscription
series already mentioned there were many single benefit concerts after
the war. The first of these, apparently, was given by William Brown in
1786, and in the same year Alexander Reinagle gave a Gargantuan affair
that included three Haydn overtures, five excerpts from the 'Messiah'
and 'Samson,' a concerto for violin, a sonata for pianoforte, a duet
for violin and 'cello, and ten miscellaneous vocal numbers. Between
that year and the end of the century benefit concerts were given by
Henri Capron, the Van Hagens, John Christopher Moller, Jane Hewitt,
George Edward Saliment, Mrs. Pownall, Mrs. Hodgkinson, Mme. De Sèze,
and others. As a rule these concerts followed the prevailing fashion
in the make-up of their programs. Haydn, Pleyel, Stamitz, Sacchini,
Martini, Wranitzky, Kozeluch, and Clementi furnished the _pièces de
résistance_ for programs otherwise consisting of songs, concerts,
sonatas and lesser instrumental forms by unidentified composers. The
presence of a French operatic troupe in 1790 gave a theatrical tinge to
a few concerts in which they participated.

Outside of New York City there was practically no concert life, either
in New York or New Jersey. Occasionally some musician on his way
between New York and Philadelphia or the South would give a concert
in Princeton, Newark, Trenton, or New Brunswick. One concert in the
last-named town featured 'speaking and elegant dancing between the
parts.' Albany, presumably, had the benefit of a few concerts, perhaps
by visiting musicians from New York. Mr. Sonneck has discovered the
announcement of a creditable concert given there in 1797 by J. H.
Schmidt, 'formerly organist of the cathedral of Schiedam in Holland,'
also formerly of Charleston and Baltimore. On the whole, however, New
York and New Jersey, except for New York City, were musically very
backward compared with New England.


                                   III

Nothing, perhaps, could better illustrate the contradictory complexity
of environmental influences than the state of musical culture in
eighteenth-century Philadelphia. Compared with the Quaker attitude
toward music, that of the Puritans was almost indecently liberal. Yet
Philadelphia was beyond doubt musically the most cultured city in
eighteenth-century America. The cause is not apparent, but we have
ample evidence of the fact. As in the case of other American cities,
it is impossible to say when public concerts started in Philadelphia.
The first mention of concerts there, so far discovered, is in Gottlieb
Mittelberger's _Reise nach Pennsylvanien im Jahre 1750_. But these,
the author states, were private concerts '_auf dem Spinnet oder
Klavicymbel_.' No announcements of public concerts appear in the
Philadelphia newspapers until 1757, when the 'Pennsylvania Gazette'
announces one under the direction of Mr. John Palma. The same gentleman
gave another concert a few months later, as we find from the ledger of
George Washington, who bought tickets for it. No more public concerts
appear before 1764 and, indeed, they seem to have been far from common
until after the war. During the last years of the century the musical
life of Philadelphia was extremely rich, both as to public concerts and
otherwise.

We know nothing about the concert of 1764 except that it was under
the direction of James Bremner.[31] Another concert under the same
direction was given in the following year. It was announced as a
'Performance of Solemn Music,' the 'vocal parts chiefly by young
Gentlemen educated in this Seminary' (College of Philadelphia), and
accompanied by the organ. It was a very fine concert, and the fact that
it was highly successful is eloquent of the state of musical culture in
Philadelphia at that time. Besides a chorus and airs set to scriptural
texts the program included a Stamitz overture, the Sixth Concerto of
Geminiani, an overture by the Earl of Kelly, Martini's Second Overture,
the overture to Arne's 'Artaxerxes,' a sonata on the harpsichord, and a
solo on the violin. Two orations were added for good measure. A series
of subscription concerts was inaugurated on Thursday, January 19, 1764,
and continued every Thursday until May 24 following. Apparently these
also were under the direction of James Bremner and there is _prima
facie_ evidence that Francis Hopkinson was connected with them in some
capacity. A second series was advertised to begin on Thursday, November
8, 1764, and to be continued until March 14 following. The programs of
these concerts were not printed in the newspapers, as admission was
confined to subscribers, and it seems to have been customary to print
programs for distribution with the tickets--an eminently sane and
praiseworthy custom which fortunately still survives in America.

A concert given in 1764 by Stephen Forrage for his own benefit and
that of other 'assistant performers at the Subscription Concert,' may
be mentioned, were it only for the fact that Mr. Forrage appeared as
soloist on Benjamin Franklin's 'famous Armonica, or Musical Glasses, so
much admired for their great Sweetness and Delicacy of its tone.' We
trust he had more respect for the musical proprieties than he evidently
entertained for the grammatical ones. After 1765 no concerts appear
until November, 1769, when Giovanni Gualdo gave a 'Grand Concert of
Vocal and Instrumental Musick ... directed by Mr. Gualdo, after the
Italian method'--whatever that may have been. Most of the program
consisted of compositions by Mr. Gualdo, and there were two overtures
by the Earl of Kelly.[32] In the same month a subscription series was
started--'The Vocal Music by Messieurs Handel, Arne, Giardini, Jackson,
Stanley, and others. The instrumental Music by Messieurs Geminiani,
Barbella, Campioni, Zanetti, Pellegrino, Abel, Bach, Gualdo, the Earl
of Kelly and others.' Gualdo gave two benefit concerts in 1770 and one
in 1771. He died soon after. In the latter year also Mr. John McLean,
instructor on the German flute, gave a concert 'performed by a full
Band of Music, with Trumpets, Kettle Drum, and every instrument that
can be introduced with Propriety,' and 'interspersed with the most
pleasing and select Pieces, composed by approved authors.' A concert
of popular songs by a Mr. Smith in 1772 was apparently the only public
attempt to break the musical monotony of Philadelphia until Signior
Sodi, 'first dancing master of the opera in Paris and London,' gave a
grand affair at which a Mr. Vidal, 'musician of the Chambers of the
King of Portugal,' played 'on divers instruments of music,' while
Signior Sodi, Miss Sodi, and Mr. Hullett (of New York) danced minuets,
a louvre, a 'new Philadelphia cotillion,' a rigadoon, an allemande,
a jigg, and a hompipe. In the same year 'Mr. Victor, musician to her
late Royal Highness the Princess of Wales and Organist of St. George's,
London,' advertised a performance on 'his new musical instruments ...
the one he calls _tromba doppio con tympana_, on which he plays the
first and second trumpet and a pair of annexed kettle drums with the
feet, all at once; the other is called _cymbaline d'amour_, which
resembles the musical glasses played by harpsichord keys, never subject
to come out of tune, both of his own invention.'

From all of which appears that for a short time before the war musical
life in Philadelphia degenerated sadly. Presumably the people were
too much interested in the big and burning issues of the day to lend
substantial support to concert givers. Likewise during the war they
were too much occupied with more vital and disturbing affairs. While
Lord Howe's army occupied Philadelphia there were, according to Capt.
Johann Heinrich of the Hessian Jäger Corps, 'assemblies, concerts,
comedies, clubs, and the like,' but it would hardly be patriotic to
consider these activities of the enemy. Apart from them there were
no public performances during the war until, on December 11, 1781,
Lucerne, the French minister, gave an 'elegant concert' in honor of
Generals Washington and Greene 'and a very polite circle of gentlemen
and ladies,' at which was performed Francis Hopkinson's patriotic
'oratorial entertainment "Temple of Minerva".'

After the war, however, the musical life of Philadelphia awoke with
a bound. The revival was inaugurated by a fortnightly series of city
concerts in 1783 under the leadership of John Bentley. A second series
under the same leadership followed in 1784. Bentley promised for his
second season 'a more elegant and perfect entertainment than it was
possible (from the peculiar circumstances of the time) to procure
during the last winter,' and he felt encouraged in his enterprise by
'the rising taste for music, and its improved state in Philadelphia.'
Bentley discontinued his concerts in 1785-86 and apparently that season
was barren of such entertainments. In 1786, however, there came the
advent of Alexander Reinagle. Together with Henri Capron, William
Brown, and Alexander Juhan he started in that year a series of twelve
fortnightly concerts, the programs of which were all announced in the
newspapers. Certainly there could have been no lack of musical culture
among the Philadelphians when they supported an extended series of
such concerts as were given by Reinagle _et al._ The concerts were
continued in the winter of 1787-88 and then apparently discontinued
until 1792, when they were revived by Messrs. Reinagle and Capron in
conjunction with John Christopher Moller. In these the high standard of
the preceding concerts was well maintained.

Meanwhile a Mr. Duplessis, who kept an English school for young
gentlemen, started a series of fourteen concerts on his own account in
1786, but we do not know how many he succeeded in giving. In the same
year an amateur subscription series was started, apparently under the
auspices of a society called the 'Musical Club,' and was continued
every season until 1790-91. Then, it seems, there was a consolidation
of amateurs and professionals in 1794, with Reinagle as the guiding
spirit. They gave a season of six subscription concerts with programs
devoted largely to Haydn, Pleyel, and Handel. No further subscription
series are discoverable before the end of the century, with the
exception of those given by Mrs. Grattan, who, in 1797, announced eight
subscription concerts. As she referred to these as 'the second Ladies
Concert' the inference is that she had already given a series in 1796.
Mrs. Grattan confined her activities chiefly to chamber and vocal
music, but as we find Handel, Haydn, Pleyel, Paesiello, Viotti, and
Sacchini figuring on her programs, it is evident that the public taste
had not degenerated. She gave another season in 1797-98, after which
she left Philadelphia for Charleston, appearing later in New York.
In addition to regular subscription concerts there were, after the
Revolution, an increasing number of affairs given for private profit,
for charity, and for other purposes. Especially noteworthy are the
activities of Andrew Adgate, who was a real pioneer of artistic choral
music in Philadelphia. In 1784 Adgate founded by subscription 'The
Institution for the Encouragement of Church Music,' which became known
in 1785 as the Uranian Society and in 1787 as the Uranian Academy of
Philadelphia.

In the preceding chapter we mentioned the Grand Concert given on May
4, 1786, with a chorus of 230 and an orchestra of 50, as well as the
concert of April 12, 1787. Both were given under the auspices of the
Uranian Society, with Adgate as conductor. It is worthy of note that
the syllabus of the second concert was accompanied by remarks on
the pieces to be performed--probably the first example of annotated
programs in America. The Uranian Academy was actually opened in 1787
and its second annual concert was held in 1788. How long afterward
it survived we cannot say, as no further references to it are found
in the newspapers. According to Scharf and Westcott's 'History of
Philadelphia,' however, it was active until after 1800.

After 1788 the sacred choral concerts--or 'oratorios,' as they were
called--gradually approximated the style of the purely secular vocal
and instrumental concerts, and after 1790 they seem to have disappeared
altogether.

The arrival in 1790 of the French company of which we have already
spoken introduced a strikingly novel note into the concert life of
Philadelphia. In contrast to the style of thing done by Bremner,
Hopkinson, Reinagle, and other men of severe taste their programs
do not strike us too favorably. Indeed, their concerts marked the
beginning of a curious corruption in the public taste and of a tendency
toward indiscriminate program-making which has not yet completely
disappeared from our midst. From this time until the end of the century
hardly a program appears that does not contain a theatrical composition
of Monsigny, Paesiello, Sacchini, Cimarosa, Cherubini, or some
other operatic writer of this period, and, as we draw nearer to the
nineteenth century, the more miscellaneous become the programs. During
those years the concert-life of Philadelphia was dominated largely
by French musicians, most of whom, it would appear, were men who had
received the best European training. We notice, for instance, that
Joseph César was 'a pupil of the celebrated Signor Viotti and first
violin of the theatre in Cape François,' and that Victor Pelissier
was 'first French horn in the theatre in Cape François.' Perhaps the
fact that so many of the French musicians were virtuosi inspired
the making of programs devoted to medleys, ariettes, 'favourite
sonatas,' and concertos for every instrument that could possibly be
employed solo. Yet even such a thorough artist as Alexander Reinagle
descended--perforce, we presume--to the inclusion in his programs of
such vocal gems as 'Kiss me now or never,' 'Poor Tom Bowling,' 'My
Poll and my partner Joe,' 'A Smile from the girl of my heart,' and
so forth. Mr. and Mrs. Hodgkinson, Mrs. Pownall, Miss Broadhurst and
others gave concerts with programs equally miscellaneous, and it must
be admitted that all this points to a distinct musical retrogression in
Philadelphia during the last decade of the eighteenth century.

There remain to be mentioned the summer concerts given in public
gardens which became very popular toward the beginning of the
nineteenth century. They were inaugurated, it would seem, by a Mr.
Vincent M. Pelosi, proprietor of the Pennsylvania Coffee House, who
proposed for the summer season of 1786 'to open a Concert of Harmonial
Music,' to be continued weekly from the first Thursday of June to the
last Thursday of September. His example was followed in 1789 by Messrs.
George and Robert Gray, proprietors of 'Gray's Gardens,' who gave
weekly concerts from May to October, and continued that feature until
about 1793. As their programs included compositions of Haydn, Stamitz,
Martini, and Abel, it may be seen that they adhered to the prevailing
standard. George Esterley started concerts at his 'Vauxhall Harrowgate'
in 1789, engaging as soloist 'a lady from Europe who has performed
in all the operas in the theatres Royal of Dublin and Edinburgh.'
The announcement has a very modern ring. As far as we know Esterley
continued his enterprise at least until 1796, presenting somewhat the
same programs as Messrs. Gray. In 1797 Messrs. Bates and Darley opened
Bush Hill or Pennsylvania Tea Gardens with vocal and instrumental music
as a feature, but were obliged to dissolve partnership in the same
year. John Mearns, proprietor of the Centre House Tavern and Gardens,
announced in 1799 that he would add 'to the entertainment his house
afforded ... at a very great expense ... a grand organ of the first
power and tone, which [would] be played every Monday, Wednesday and
Friday evening during the summer.' He added regular concerts in the
following summer.


                                   IV

It is not a far-fetched surmise that concerts, in the broadest
acceptation of the term, were known in the South earlier than in any
other part of the country. The colonial cavalier, who, after the
fashion of English gentlemen at the time, kept a chest of viols in his
house, must occasionally have found among his visitors a sufficient
number of competent players to form an ensemble of some sort. As the
population increased and the opportunities for social intercourse
improved these occasions undoubtedly became frequent, and, without any
sacrifice of historical probability, one can easily imagine social
gatherings at which the most skillful musicians performed concerted
pieces for the entertainment of the other guests. The picture is quite
in accord with what we know of English and Southern colonial society
in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Certainly, in
Charleston and other centres of Southern society and culture, it is
hard to imagine that private musical affairs were not quite common at
the beginning of the eighteenth century. Indeed, a large proportion
of the earlier public concerts in Charleston were given by amateurs
with the assistance of professional musicians, and it is reasonable to
assume that a habit of giving private concerts preceded the custom of
giving public ones.

The first public concert we find trace of in Charleston was a benefit
given for Mr. John Salter in 1732. Several other benefit concerts were
given in the same year. We know nothing about them except that they
consisted of vocal and instrumental music and were usually followed
by a ball. Mr. Sonneck thinks it probable that they were devoted
to 'more or less skillful renditions of Corelli, Vivaldi, Purcell,
Abaco, Handel, Geminiani, and such other masters whose fame was firmly
established in Europe.' Probably subscription concerts started in
1732 or 1733, for in the latter year we find 'N. B.'s' to concert
advertisements to the effect that 'This will be the last Concert'
and 'This is the first time on the subscription.' These subscription
seasons apparently continued until 1735. From that year until 1751
there are no concerts advertised except a benefit for John Salter and
one for Charles Theodore Pachelbel. A benefit concert in 1751, one in
1755, and one in 1760 brings us through years of famine to 1765 and
Mr. Thomas Pike. Mr. Pike was a talented person who played the French
horn and the bassoon, and also taught ladies and gentlemen 'very
expeditiously on moderate terms in _Orchesography_ (or the art of
dancing by characters and demonstrative figures)'. He gave a concert in
1765 with the assistance of 'gentlemen of the place,' and was obliging
enough to publish the program, which was devoted to horn, violoncello,
harpsichord, and bassoon concertos, a song, a trio, and the overture of
Handel's 'Scipio.'

In 1767 Messrs. Bohrer, Morgan and Comp started weekly concerts at
their Charleston Vauxhall. They did not include tea and coffee in the
price of the tickets, but on one extraordinary occasion when 'four
or five pieces' were exhibited between the parts of the concert 'by
a person who is confident very few in town ever saw, or can equal,
his performance,'--on that extraordinary occasion tea and coffee were
included in the expense 'till the person above mentioned begins.'
Unfortunately we do not know the nature of the person's performance.
He was, it seems, a very exclusive person and refused to appear more
than once in Charleston, 'unless by the particular desire of a genteel
company.' Nevertheless the enterprise of Messrs. Bohrer, Morgan and
Comp does not seem to have succeeded. Peter Valton gave a benefit
concert in 1768 and a subscription concert in 1769. In the meantime
the St. Cæcilia Society, which was founded in 1762, had been giving
regular subscription seasons since 1766 or perhaps earlier. That
these St. Cæcilia Concerts were important affairs is evident from an
advertisement inserted by the society in the New York, Philadelphia,
and Boston papers in 1771, calling for a first and second violin, two
hautboys, and a bassoon, and offering to such, if 'properly qualified,'
a one-, two-, or three-year contract. The society continued to give
regular concerts all during the century, but we have no information as
to their nature.

Outside the St. Cæcilia concerts we find in 1772 only one, 'the vocal
part by a gentleman, who does it merely to oblige on this occasion,'
and, in 1773, two at which a Mr. Saunders exhibited 'his highest
_dexterity_ and _grand deception_.' In 1774 a Mr. Francheschini, who
seems to have been a violinist of the St. Cæcilia Society, announced a
concert for his benefit by express permission of that organization. Mr.
Van Hagen, of Rotterdam, who afterward appeared in New York and Boston,
gave a concert in the same year, at which Signora Castella performed
on the musical glasses. Then the war intervened, putting practically a
complete quietus on music for the time being.

So far, the concert-life of Charleston, from what we know of it, does
not at all compare with that of contemporary New York, Philadelphia,
or Boston. After the war it improved somewhat, but the intrusion
of theatrical people into the concert field immediately following
the war was very unfortunate from a musical point of view. With the
exception of a subscription series started in 1786 by Joseph Lafar, and
concerning which we have no particulars, there do not appear to have
been any concerts worthy of the name until after 1790. They were simply
scrappy theatrical entertainments, disguised sufficiently to evade the
law which seems to have existed in restraint of such. The following
advertisement shows the _modus operandi_, which is very suggestive
of the 'Sacred Concerts' given on Sundays in many of our present-day
vaudeville houses. 'On Saturday evening at the Lecture Room, late
Harmony Hall, will be a Concert, between the parts will be rehearsed
(gratis) the musical piece of _Thomas and Sally_. To which will be
added, a pantomime, called _Columbia_, or _Harlequin Shipwreck'd_.'

Even acrobatic performances were introduced into the concerts of this
period. Several concerts for charity were given in 1791, and may have
been real concerts, though we have no particulars concerning them.
George Washington attended one in that year, at which, he says, 'there
were at least 400 ladies the number and appearance of which exceeded
anything of the kind I had ever seen.' Excusably enough, perhaps, he
was not sufficiently interested in the music to say anything about it.

From 1793 on, however, the concert-life of Charleston was very rich.
Resides the subscription concerts of the St. Cecilia[33] Society, there
were regular series by the Harmonic Society, which appeared in 1794,
as well as frequent concerts given by individual musicians. Much of
this activity was due to the influx of French musicians following the
revolutions in France and St. Domingo. We find most of the benefit
concerts from 1793 to the end of the century given by people with
French names, and there is a decided leaning toward French composers,
such as Grétry, Gossec, Davaux, Michel, La Motte, Guenin, and Gluck.
However, the concerts on the whole were sufficiently eclectic,
featuring also the compositions of Haydn, Pleyel, Stamitz, Gyrowetz,
Corelli, Giornovichi, Hoffmeister, Viotti, Martini, dementi, Sacchini,
Jarnovick, Krumpholtz. Handel, Cimarosa, and even Mozart.[34] Certainly
the music lovers of Charleston did not suffer from lack of variety.

Mrs. Pownall, whom we have already met, gave a concert in 1796 which
was somewhat out of the ordinary. It was advertised as a _Grand Concert
Spiritualé_[!], and was devoted almost exclusively to 'overtures, songs
and duets, selected from the most celebrated of Handel's oratorios: the
"Messiah," "Judas Maccabæus," "Esther," etc., etc.' In the same year
there was advertised a 'Grand Musical Festival,' which is interesting
for many reasons. Probably it was the first musical affair in America
to which the term 'Festival' was applied; it employed an orchestra of
over thirty performers, which was an unusually large ensemble for that
time, and it included among the numbers on its program the overture
to Gluck's _Iphigénie en Aulide_ and Haydn's _Stabat Mater_--'the
celebrated _Stabat Mater_ of Doctor Haydn,' as the announcement puts
it. Apart from these, there were no further concerts in the last decade
of the century which call for special mention. Two attempts were made
to revive the Vaux Hall, one by 'Citizen' Cornet in 1795 and one by
Mons. Placide in 1799, but they do not seem to have added much of
value to the musical life of the city. On the whole, in Charleston, as
elsewhere in America, the beginning of the nineteenth century saw a
perceptible decline in the public demand for music of the best kind.

Our information on early concert-life in other Southern cities does
not enable us to say much about it. In Maryland, Annapolis probably
took the lead musically until after the middle of the century, but no
sources have been disclosed which would supply us with any details of
its musical life. We are a little better informed on musical affairs in
Baltimore subsequent to the year 1780 and it would seem that toward the
end of the century that city resembled Charleston very closely in the
number and quality of its concerts. Also to Baltimore as to Charleston
there was a large influx of French musicians after 1790, and with
similar results. We know nothing about concerts in Baltimore prior to
the year 1784, when William Brown demonstrated his 'superior talents
on the German flute.' A couple of concerts, one of instrumental music
only, are advertised for 1786, and in the same year we find the first
notice of a subscription season. As far as we can discover subscription
concerts were a regular feature of the musical life of the city until
the end of the century. In 1790 Ishmail Spicer, who conducted a singing
school for the improvement of church music, exhibited his pupils
in a concert of sacred music. Then came the French musicians with
their overtures of Grétry and their ariettes of Dalayrac. Like their
compatriots in Charleston, they proved commendably catholic in their
tastes, and, in addition to French compositions, gave frequent examples
of Haydn, Pleyel, Stamitz, Bach, and Gyrowetz (whose name they never
succeeded in spelling correctly). Though they practically monopolized
musical affairs in Baltimore for many years, they collaborated freely
with English, German, and Italian musicians, all of which made for the
musical good of the city. It may be mentioned that Alexander Reinagle
gave some concerts in Baltimore in 1791 and 1792, with programs of
a quality which might be expected from an artist of his superior
attainments, and he seems to have been the only non-French musician who
counted much in the concert life of Baltimore in the last decade of
the century. As elsewhere in America, there were open-air concerts in
summer at such resorts of the Baltimore fashionables as Gray's Gardens
and Chatsworth Gardens, and, as elsewhere in America, the musical life
of the people degenerated sadly with the opening of the nineteenth
century.

Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Norfolk, Richmond,
Alexandria, Savannah and other Southern cities apparently had a musical
life as rich as could reasonably be expected in communities of their
size. We possess little information concerning them, but there have
been unearthed by Mr. Sonneck a number of references to concerts in
these cities, sometimes with programs quoted in full, which show that
they heard the best contemporary music occasionally, and perhaps even
frequently. Many of the concerts were given by visiting musicians,
such as Mrs. Pick, Mrs. Sully, Mrs. D. Hemard, Mr. Graupner, Mr. Shaw,
and others whose names appear on the concert programs of Charleston,
Philadelphia, and Roston. Rut it is certain that there was also in most
of these cities a musical life which functioned quite independently of
such visitors. Fredericksburg, we know, had a Harmonic Society in 1784,
which gave concerts 'the third Wednesday evening in each month,' and it
is not improbable that similar societies existed in other towns where
there was much social intercourse between people of culture, refinement
and exceeding leisure. Among the music-loving, pleasure-loving,
gregarious gentlefolk of the old South, unhampered by the fetters of
occupation and confronted merely with the task of making life pass as
pleasantly as possible, the formation of such societies must have been
inevitable. Perhaps among the families of their descendants scattered
all over the country there may be preserved many old documents that
would throw a welcome light on their musical life, but until such
documents do appear we must rest content with the surmise, based upon
the little information we possess, that musical culture in the South,
if it did not quite reach the standard attained in Boston, New York,
and Philadelphia, was at least more widely diffused than elsewhere in
America.

                   *       *       *       *       *

A comparison between the eighteenth-century concert life of America
and of Europe will easily show that this country, even considering its
many disadvantages, was not very far behind the older continent. Paris,
London, Vienna, Berlin, and perhaps a few other German cities like
Mannheim and Hamburg, were ahead of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and
Charleston in the quality of their concerts, but not so very far ahead
as to make the American cities look provincial in comparison. When we
consider the wealth of tradition behind the musical life of Europe and
the many difficulties which confronted early concert givers in America
the difference appears still less. But, as we pointed out in the last
chapter, there was one very profound and important difference--the
European cities were productive, the American cities were not. And,
after all, the artistic stature of a country must finally be measured
not by what it appreciates, but by what it creates. Thus measured,
America of the eighteenth century was still a musical infant.

                                                     W. D. D.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[25] The only published work devoted specifically to this subject is
O. G. Sonneck's 'Early Concert Life in America,' which seems to have
exhausted all available sources of information. We have used it freely
as our authority for the facts on early American concerts set forth in
this and the preceding chapters.

[26] The Concert Hall was probably built in 1754, though the exact
date of its erection is unknown. It was torn down in 1869 to allow the
widening of Hanover Street.

[27] Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.

[28] Samuel Felsted. Practically nothing is known about his life. His
oratorio, 'Jonah,' was published in London in 1775.

[29] By _Martini il Tedesco_ (1741-1816), whose real name was Paul
Ægidius Schwartzenburg. His opera, 'Henri IV,' was produced in 1774.

[30] In Mr. Sonneck's opinion the 'Ode on Masonry' was unquestionably
composed by Tuckey.

[31] Bremner was a relative of the Scottish music publisher, composer,
and editor, Robert Bremner. He came to Philadelphia in 1763, conducted
a music school, was for a time organist of Christ Church, and was the
teacher of Francis Hopkinson.

[32] Thomas Alexander Erskine, sixth earl of Kelly (1732-81), pupil of
Stamitz and an amateur composer and violinist of some celebrity in his
day. He wrote a number of minuets, overtures and symphonies, the most
popular of which was an overture called 'The Maid of the Mill' (1765).

[33] So spelled after 1790.

[34] The appearance of a Mozart symphony on a program of 1797 is
distinctly noteworthy. Hippeau in _Berlioz et son temps_ quotes from
the _Journal des Débats_ of 1801 to the effect that the best orchestra
in France, after ten rehearsals, found a symphony of Mozart beyond its
power, setting a precedent for the orchestra of the Vienna Opera House,
which succumbed to the difficulties of _Tristan und Isolde_ after
forty-seven rehearsals--if we remember rightly.




                              CHAPTER IV
                      EARLY MUSICAL ORGANIZATIONS

      Origin of musical societies--The South; The St. Cecilia of
      Charleston; Philadelphia and New York in the eighteenth
      century--The Euterpean Society, the New York Choral Society;
      Sacred Music Society; other New York Societies--New England
      in the eighteenth century; the Stoughton Musical Society of
      Boston; other societies in Boston and elsewhere.


All over the country in the last decade of the eighteenth century
there is noticeable a decline in the musical taste of the American
people as represented in their public musical life. This was due
probably to a variety of causes, chief among which seems to have been
the influx, after the Revolution, of a flood of immigrants lacking the
culture which the colonists had inherited or through long-settled and
prosperous residence acquired. The second decade of the nineteenth
century, however, saw a renaissance of musical activity, which was
developed into vigorous life chiefly through the agency of definitely
constituted musical organizations. The concerts of the eighteenth
century, on the whole, were rendered possible by a coöperation
between people of culture, which in itself constituted a loose sort
of organization. This coöperation, indeed, crystallized about the
middle of the century into a number of avowedly musical societies. The
history of the earliest of these is wrapped in considerable obscurity
and there is an impressive number of them claiming to be called the
first. The claim can never satisfactorily be determined, for it is
quite impossible to define categorically the limits of a musical
organization. Broadly, the term covers any number of people coöperating
for a musical purpose, and would include a singing class of half a
dozen members as fittingly as a modern orchestra or a musical society
of hundreds.

We may, however, define a musical society in the modern sense as a body
of people regularly and permanently organized for the carrying out of
a definite program of musical education, study or performance. Such
societies in America have been an evolution. They have evolved, on the
one hand, from coöperation between cultured amateurs for the purpose of
giving musical performances and, on the other, from the formation of
singing classes for cultivating a proper skill in rendering the psalms.
There is, consequently, considerable justification for the course taken
by some historians in looking upon these singing classes as the first
of our musical organizations, though, as will appear later, they had
nothing to do with the formation of our earliest musical societies
properly so called, such as the St. Cecilia Society of Charleston, the
Musical Society of Boston or the Harmonic Society of New York.


                                   I

As far as we know, the first avowedly musical organization in America
was the Orpheus Club, which is said to have existed in Philadelphia
in 1759. We possess no information concerning it. Philadelphia at
that time contained a goodly number of music lovers. Such men as
John Penn, James Brenner, Dr. Kuhn, and Francis Hopkinson, were then
engaged in breathing the spirit of life into the dead body of musical
Philadelphia. How well they succeeded we have seen in our chapter on
early concerts. Musical gatherings were frequent at their homes and it
is not impossible that they were prominently concerned in the formation
of the Orpheus Club. If they were, the activities of that organization
must have been very interesting and we can only regret that no record
of them has seen the light.

In default of unimpeachable evidence even of the existence of the
Orpheus Club at the time mentioned we must award the title of pioneer
among American musical organizations to the St. Cecilia Society of
Charleston.[35] This society was founded in 1762. According to the
rules, which were 'agreed upon and finally confirmed' in 1773, it
consisted of one hundred and twenty members and its main purpose
apparently was to give concerts. Until well into the nineteenth century
it was the centre of the concert life of Charleston and for many years
it seemed indeed to have almost a monopoly of the musical talent,
amateur and professional, in the city. It even went as far as Boston
to gather properly qualified performers into its fold. In addition
to a yearly concert on St. Cecilia's Day, the society gave regular
fortnightly concerts during the season. The orchestra was composed of
gentlemen performers and professional musicians--the latter engaged by
the year. It was the nearest approach to a permanent orchestra that
existed in America outside the theatres before the nineteenth century
and there is every likelihood that its performances reached a high
standard of technical and artistic excellence.

An Orpheus Society apparently existed in Charleston in 1772 and there
has been found an allusion to an Amateur Society in 1791. A Harmonic
Society also appeared there in 1794. All these societies gave concerts,
but there are so few references to them in the contemporary press that
we know nothing else definite about them. Probably their activities
were to a large extent private and their concerts were confined to
members. This would easily account for the absence of their names from
the newspaper advertisement. There was a musical society in Baltimore
in 1799 and a Harmonic Society in Fredericksburg, Va., in 1784. We know
nothing about the former, but the latter, we gather, was 'peculiarly
intended for benevolent purposes' and gave concerts on the third
Wednesday evening of each month. Whether musical societies also existed
in other Southern towns, such as Williamsburg, Richmond, Alexandria,
Norfolk, and Petersburg, it is impossible to say. Probably they did.
All the chief Virginia towns were of about equal size and importance,
and social conditions in all of them were strikingly alike. The
existence of a musical society in one of them is _prima facie_ evidence
of its existence in the others.

Considering the great activity apparent in the musical life of
Philadelphia during the second half of the eighteenth century, the
dearth of musical organizations is surprising. There appears to have
been a musical club under the auspices of which subscription concerts,
known collectively as the 'Amateur Concert,' were given between 1787
and 1789. This and the Orpheus Club already mentioned were the only
musical societies existing in Philadelphia during the eighteenth
century as far as we can discover. The Uranian Society is hard to
classify, but it was really more an educational institution than a
musical society in the accepted meaning of the term. It was founded
in 1784 by Andrew Adgate, as an 'Institution for the Encouragement of
Church Music,' an 'Institution for promoting the knowledge of psalmody'
and an 'Institution for diffusing more generally the knowledge of Vocal
Music.' Evidently there was some confusion in Mr. Adgate's mind as to
the exact purpose of his institution. It was a somewhat Utopian scheme,
contemplating the establishment of a free school for the study of vocal
music, open to all denominations and subsisting on public bounty. The
institution became known as the Uranian Society in 1785 and as the
Uranian Academy in 1787. The plan of the academy, as finally formulated
in the latter year, shows that its purpose had definitely narrowed down
to the teaching of church music. The country was not yet ripe for such
an undertaking and the enterprise failed, but between 1785 and 1787 it
was responsible for a number of choral concerts on a scale hitherto
unequalled in America.

Considering that there was an active concert life in New York at least
as early as 1754, it might be presumed that musical societies of
some sort existed there at that date, but we have no evidence on the
subject. The first mention we find of a musical society in New York
is contained in the advertisement of a concert in 1773 at which some
of the instrumental parts were played by gentlemen of the Harmonic
Society. Possibly the Harmonic Society had already been in existence
for some years, but up to 1773 it escaped mention in the newspapers.
How long it lasted we cannot say. In 1786 we find in the New York
'Daily Advertiser' an announcement that 'the Society for promoting
vocal music meet at six o'clock this evening at Mr. Halett's School
Room in Little Queen Street, agreeable to adjournment.' No further
mention of the society appears and there is no clew to its name or to
the length of its existence. Obviously it was not identical with the
Harmonic, for the gentlemen of that society seem to have been devoted
chiefly to instrumental music.

There was in New York a St. Cecilia Society, founded apparently in
1791, 'with a view to cultivate the science of music and good taste in
its education' (?). Instrumental music was its main consideration and
it held weekly concerts, the nature of which we have been unable to
discover. We know only that 'the principal professors of music' were
'members and performers at these concerts.' The society lasted until
1799, when it was amalgamated with the Harmonical Society, which had
been founded in 1796 'for the purpose of cultivating the knowledge of
vocal and instrumental music.' The result of the amalgamation was the
Philharmonic Society which held its first annual concert at the Tontine
Hotel on Broadway in December, 1800, 'with a variety of vocal and
instrumental music by the most celebrated performers in the city.' It
is impossible to say how long the Philharmonic lasted, but probably it
survived until well into the nineteenth century.

In 1793 there appears a mention of a Uranian Musical Society, which
'was instituted for improvement in sacred vocal music.' Meetings were
held every Wednesday, and, judging from the number of prominent New
Yorkers included in its membership, the society must have exercised
considerable influence. The last mention of it appears in 1798, but
there is no evidence that it ceased to exist in that year. Of the
Polyhymnia Society, founded in 1799, and the Euterpean Society, which
probably first appeared in 1800, we know nothing. According to Ritter,
the latter was considered as 'perhaps the oldest musical society in
the United States,' and 'as the lineal descendant of the old Apollo.'
There is absolutely no evidence to support either of these statements.
Mr. Sonneck quotes from the 'Sketches and Impressions' of Thomas
Goodwin, published in 1887, the following note on the subject: 'The
Euterpean, an amateur orchestra, was already an old organization
half a century ago. It had been well managed, and owned a small
library and several valuable instruments.... I have a program of its
forty-eighth anniversary concert, given January 21, 1847, which would
carry its organization back to the last century.' From the fact that
the Euterpean Society does not appear among the musical societies in
the directory of 1799, Mr. Sonneck is inclined to the opinion that the
society was founded on January 21, 1800.

Probably in New York and elsewhere in America there were a number
of convivial clubs in which music, especially the singing of glees
and catches, occupied an important place. The frequency of such
organizations in England is an argument in favor of the assumption,
for English life was reproduced very much in detail by the American
colonists. It is not surprising that they escaped mention in the
contemporary press, as their activities were not of any public
interest. An exception must be made in favor of the Columbian
Anacreontic Society, which was modelled upon the famous Anacreontic
Society of London. The latter is of special interest to Americans,
since it furnished indirectly the music of 'The Star Spangled Banner.'
The New York version of the society probably was more innocuous than
its English model, though its affairs must have been marked by a
robust jolity. It was founded by John Hodgkinson, a former member of
the London Anacreontic Society, whose excellent musical endowments
and achievements did not prevent him from being a faithful worshipper
of Bacchus, and possibly it numbered also in its membership other
graduates of its English prototype. The exact date of its foundation
is not known, but it certainly existed in 1795, as we glean from the
following item in a concert program of that year:

'_Collini's Odes on the Passions_ (!), to be spoken by Mr. Hodgkinson.
With music representative of each passion; as performed at the
_Anacreontic Society_, composed by J. Hewitt.' This, Mr. Sonneck
notes, 'is in all probability the earliest example of melodramatic
music composed in America.' Unfortunately we have no other data on the
nature of the music performed at the concerts of the society. These
were held usually at the Tontine Coffee House, and it may be assumed
that they were devoted chiefly to catches, glees, and other songs
similar to those performed by the English society, but perhaps not so
intimately frank. Unlike the English society, but curiously like every
American stag society, before or since, the Columbian Anacreontic held
an annual ladies' night. The custom carries an unpleasantly philistine
flavor, which is further emphasized when we read an announcement that
such members of the society as chose to attend a benefit performance
for John Hodgkinson would be accommodated in the 'Shakespeare Box' and
would 'wear their badges.' But in spite of all this it seems to have
been of some value in the musical life of New York.


                                   II

During the first half of the nineteenth century the chief musical
societies in New York seem to have been the New York Choral Society,
the Philharmonic Society, the Euterpean Society, the Handel and
Haydn Society, The Musical Fund, and the Sacred Music Society. Of
the Euterpean Society we have already spoken as having been founded
probably in 1800. Apparently it was composed chiefly of wealthy
amateurs and was somewhat dilettante in its activities. A contemporary
critic thus arraigns it: 'This society, from its long standing, the
respectability of its officers, and the individual talent of its
members, might possess the most extensive influence in the musical
community. It has in its possession funds, and the largest library of
instrumental music in the country; and yet, with all these advantages
on its side, what has the Euterpean done, or what does it do? It can
be summed up in a few words. A few of its members meet every Friday
evening and play overtures and symphonies; and every year they give
an indifferent concert and a ball, the last of which is the chief
attraction. Now, we ask the Euterpean if, like a horse in a mill, they
are forever to pursue this eternal round?'

The Euterpean did not continue that or any other course for very
long, but, whatever justice there may have been in the foregoing
criticisms, it was certainly the only instrumental music society in
New York during the years immediately preceding the advent of the
Philharmonic. Possibly its annual concert was 'indifferent,' but the
program of 1839, quoted by Dr. Ritter, which includes compositions
of Herold, Auber, Bellini, Boehm, Purcell, Rossini, and Thalberg,
would argue the contrary.[36] The orchestra was of sufficiently good
symphonic proportions. It consisted of six first violins, five second
violins, four tenors, three 'celli, two contrabasses, four flutes, two
oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three
trombones, kettle drums, drum and cymbals. Apparently the principals
in the orchestra of the Euterpean lacked zeal and enterprise, but,
whatever their faults, we are justified in looking upon the society
as the parent of the Philharmonic and as an important factor in the
development of orchestral music in New York.

Of this Philharmonic Society, which succeeded the Euterpean and
which is still flourishing, we shall speak in a later chapter. As far
as we can discover it had nothing to do with the earlier society of
the same name which was founded in 1799 of the junction between the
Harmonical and the St. Cecilia societies. The earlier Philharmonic
is somewhat elusive. If the occasional allusions to a Philharmonic
Society during the first decades of the nineteenth century referred
to the same organization, it probably existed until about 1829. There
is a possibility, however, that the original Philharmonic failed and
that various attempts were made to form other societies under the same
name. Dr. Ritter says that the Musical Fund, organized about 1828, was
the successor to a Philharmonic, the object of which was 'to promote
the cultivation of the science of music; to afford facilities for the
exhibition of talent, and its advancement to fair competition among the
profession and amateurs.' As the Musical Fund gave monthly rehearsals
for 'the display of glee and solo talent,' it may be inferred that the
Philharmonic was concerned mainly if not altogether with vocal music;
but we have been unable to discover any evidence which would show that
the two societies had anything in common.

The New York Choral Society, which devoted its energies to sacred
music, seems to have done very notable work during the short time it
lasted. It was founded in 1823, chiefly by Episcopal clergymen, and its
first grand concert, given at St. George's Church on Beekman Street in
1824, is interesting enough to deserve citation:


First Part

    Overture                                                  Jomelli
    Air: 'Comfort ye my people,' from the 'Messiah'            Handel
    Chorus: Motetto, 'O God, when thou appearest'              Mozart
    Air: 'Thou didst not leave,' 'Messiah'                     Handel
    Chorus: 'Lift up your hands'                               Handel
    Duetto: 'Hear my prayer'                                     Kent
    Air: 'Oh! had I Jubal's Lyre'                              Handel
    'Hallelujah Chorus,' from 'Mount of Olives,'            Beethoven


Part Second

    Overture from the Occasional Oratorio                      Handel
    Recitative and Air                                         Handel
    Chorus: 'To thee Cherubim'                                 Handel
    Solo and Chorus: 'Thou art the King of Glory,'             Handel
    Air: 'Let the bright Seraphim'--'Judas Maccabæus'          Handel
    Chorus: 'Sing unto the Lord'                               Handel

Unfortunately contemporary critics were more enthusiastic than
discriminating and it is impossible to tell what sort of performance
was given of this excellent program. The effect of the forte parts of
Mozart's _motetto_, one critic asserts, 'was almost overwhelming to a
great number of the auditors, and will not be soon forgotten.' The same
gentleman quite loses his balance over the 'sublime and majestic chorus
from the oratorio of "Mount of Olives," which was another of the full
pieces that had never before been presented to the musical public of
this city. The connoisseurs and critics were watching with considerable
solicitude to hear the splendid effort of genius, and which may be
justly ranked among the first compositions of the present day. We
believe we may assert with confidence that the expectations of all were
fully realized, and, with regard to many of the audience, far exceeded.
The effect was indeed grand, and was heightened by the trumpet of Mr.
Petrie, and the kettle drums.'

In connection with Mr. Petrie's trumpet it may be of interest to
note the extraordinary predilection of New Yorkers at that time for
brass instruments. Dr. Ritter quotes the following from a contemporary
critic: 'The uncommon partiality our citizens manifest for the noisy
part of the orchestra has been lately much commented upon by strangers.
The trumpet and trombone occupy, in our concerts, the _posts of honor_.
True it is, Mr. Norton and Mr. Gambeti are excellent performers--but
we hear them in concerts too often. In England they have Harper,
a first-rate trumpet; and Germany has Schmidt, the best trombone
that ever existed. This gentleman visited England and was heard
occasionally, but at Niblo's Garden we will undertake to say that more
trumpet and trombone concertos were played last season than have been
heard in England and Germany for two years. If Mr. Young adds himself
to this triumvirate next season, we may fairly expect New York _will be
blown away_.'

The Choral Society seems to have been eclipsed and perhaps absorbed by
the New York Sacred Music Society, which was founded in the same year.
The latter owed its existence to the somewhat peculiar circumstance of
a strike among church choristers. Considerable reputation attached to
the choir of Zion Church, which was known as the Zion Church Musical
Association. The association applied to the vestry for an increase of
salary or permission to give a concert. Their request was refused,
and, after some bickering, the choir resigned and formed The New York
Sacred Music Society. The history of this society is one of brilliant
accomplishment. At first its means and its membership were limited,
and its artistic ambitions were hampered by the lackadaisical attitude
of most of its members, to whom the meeting room of the society was
merely 'a pleasant place in which to pass an evening, to see their
friends, and hear a little music.' Nevertheless, a few years after its
foundation it was already doing work of a standard that must give it
a notable place in the history of New York musical organizations. In
1827 it gave a concert for the benefit of the Greek patriots, with a
program on which figured the names of Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Arne,
and Jomelli. There was an orchestra of twenty-seven, a chorus of about
sixty, and a number of distinguished soloists, which included the
famous Madame Malibran. 'From this period,' says the New York 'Musical
Journal,' 'the history of the progress of the highest species of sacred
music in this city is identified with the history of the society.'

Four years later the Sacred Music Society produced the 'Messiah' in
its entirety, under the leadership of Uriah C. Hill, whom we shall
have occasion to meet later. There was an orchestra of thirty-eight
instruments and a chorus of seventy-four voices. Encouraged by its
success it gave Haydn's 'Te Deum' and 'Creation,' and in 1838 it
produced Mendelssohn's 'St. Paul'--only two years after that work had
made its first appearance at Düsseldorf. For reasons which we are
unable to discover the Sacred Music Society ceased to exist in 1849.
Possibly the musical public of New York were not overly inclined toward
oratorio, and possibly also the society suffered from the competition
of a number of rival organizations. Most of these, such as 'The Academy
of Church Music,' were formed out of church choirs and very evidently
aspired to rival the fame of the Sacred Music Society. None of them,
however, attained any success. Their effect, indeed, was if anything,
pernicious, for what New York then needed in its musical affairs was
concentration rather than expansion.

For a short time New York possessed a Handel and Haydn Society which
originated in a number of oratorio performances gotten up to finance
the rebuilding of the Zion Church. This was before the day of the
Sacred Music Society. The Musical Fund, already mentioned, seems to
have been chiefly an orchestral organization, notwithstanding the
fact that, as Dr. Ritter points out, it gave monthly rehearsals for
'the display of the glee and solo talent' of the city. A concert
given by it in 1830 included the overture to Mozart's 'Magic Flute,'
an overture of Winter, a pianoforte solo, a clarinet concerto, and a
trumpet concerto(!). We find that at its concert in 1836 the Musical
Fund had a very well balanced orchestra of thirty-eight instruments and
performed, among other things, the overtures to Rossini's 'Sémiramide'
and 'William Tell.' Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Gluck, Beethoven, Rossini,
and Weber all figured on the society's programs, and on one occasion it
presented Beethoven's 'Eroica,' arranged for septet.

About this time there seems to have been a number of musical societies
among the German population of New York, which was beginning to assume
large proportions. Chief of these was the Concordia, which was devoted
to the improvement of instrumental and vocal music. For a short time
the Concordia was conducted by Daniel Schlesinger, a native of Hamburg
and a pupil of Ferdinand Ries, who exercised considerable influence
on musical life in New York during his few years in the city. Many
semi-private clubs for the cultivation of various branches of music
also began to make their appearance, but they are of no particular
importance, except in so far as they testify to the growth of a serious
interest in musical matters.


                                   III

It is quite impossible to say when and where the first musical society
made its appearance in New England. Though both Mr. Elson and Dr.
Ritter assert that the Stoughton Musical Society was founded in 1786
its right of priority is not apparent. Even if it had its beginning
in the singing school which Billings taught at Stoughton in 1774, it
still must yield precedence to the St. Cecilia and Orpheus societies of
Charleston, the Orpheus Club of Philadelphia, and the Harmonic Society
of New York--all of which were in existence before the latter date.

Mr. Sonneck thinks that some sort of musical society existed in Boston
as early as 1761. Certainly an Aretinian Society existed there in
1782, as we know from the announcement of a concert in which it took
part. Apparently it was devoted to the cultivation of sacred choral
music. An organization known as the Musical Society was founded in
Boston some time before 1786. In that year it gave a concert of 'Sacred
Musick, vocal and instrumental--for the benefit and relief of the poor
prisoners confined in the jail of this town.' Apparently William Selby
was conductor of the society, at least during the years 1786-88, and a
regular series of subscription concerts were given every season until
1790, when the society seems to have gone out of existence. There must
have been other societies in Boston at the same time, for we find
that the proceeds of a concert held in 1787 were to be devoted to the
rebuilding of the Meeting House in Hollis Street, 'agreeably to the
generous intentions of the Musical _Societies_ in this town who have
projected this concert.' Some of these may have been founded before the
Musical Society.

The Stoughton Society, of which so much has been made in the
histories, is of importance chiefly because it was the first society
that we know of which was formed among the people and not among
cultured amateurs and professional musicians. Otherwise it is of slight
interest. It did nothing particularly noteworthy and we cannot even say
that it was an organization of high artistic efficiency. The fact that
its nucleus was a singing class of Billings is hardly an endorsement
of its quality, for there is no evidence that Billings possessed any
qualifications as a trainer of choruses. He was still primitive enough
to include female voices in the tenor part. Nevertheless, as Deacon
Samuel Tolman informs us, the Stoughton Musical Society was 'large
and respectable' and was 'attended with spirit.' Its fame was great
throughout Massachusetts and only once was its supremacy questioned.
The incident is related by Mr. Elson as follows: 'Many clergymen in
following the good old fashion of "exchanging pulpits," had become
familiar with the excellent church music of Stoughton, and sounded
its praise abroad. The singers of the first parish of Dorchester,
Massachusetts, took umbrage at this and challenged the Stoughton
vocalists to a trial of skill. The gauntlet was at once taken up, and
the contest took place in a large hall in Dorchester, many of the
leading Bostonians coming out to witness it. The Dorchester choristers
were male and female, and had the assistance of a bass viol. The
Stoughton party consisted of twenty selected male voices, without
instruments, led by the president of the Stoughton Musical Society,
Elijah Dunbar, a man of dignified presence and of excellent voice.
The Dorchester singers began with a new anthem. The Stoughtonians
commenced with Jacob French's "Heavenly Vision," the author of which
was their fellow townsman. When they finally sang, without books,
Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" the Dorchestrians gave up the contest
and gracefully acknowledged defeat.' At least the choristers of
Massachusetts were enthusiastic and sincere, and for their enthusiasm
and sincerity one can forgive them many faults.

How many musical societies existed in Boston during the last years
of the eighteenth century we cannot say. There seems to have been a
number of them. In 1789, during the visit of Washington to Boston, 'an
Oratorio or Concert of Sacred Musick' was given in which the choruses
of the oratorio of Jonah were sung by the Independent Musical Society.
There is no evidence of the dates at which this society began or ended
its existence, but it must have been a fairly efficient organization.
There was no lack of competent musicians in Boston at that time, and
choral singing especially seems to have been in high favor with a
goodly share of the population. The society of the Sons of Apollo,
which existed in 1795, was probably a vocal organization also, though
we know nothing about it. Boston possessed a Philharmonic Society which
was founded probably before 1799. Possibly Gottlieb Graupner, one of
the most prominent figures in the early musical life of Boston, was
among its founders, and it seems likely that it was identical with the
Philharmonic Society which is supposed to have been founded by Graupner
and his friends in 1810 or 1811. According to Mr. J. S. Dwight, author
of a 'History of Music in Boston,' the Philharmonic was 'simply a
social meeting, held on Saturday evenings, when, in their small way,
they practised Haydn's symphonies.' This statement, however, does not
square with the fact that the society gave regular concerts and was
described by the musical journal, 'Euterpeiad,' as a 'useful nursery of
music.' Its last concert took place in 1824 and apparently it went out
of existence in that year.

During the last few years of the eighteenth and the first decades
of the nineteenth centuries musical societies began to spring up in
the smaller cities throughout the country. Very little information
concerning them has come to light, but it is probable that research
will finally disclose a surprising amount of serious musical activity
in places which so far have escaped mention in our musical histories.
The impression that musical culture in early America was confined to
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston has taken firm root and
is confirmed by most of the evidence on the subject which has appeared.
But research in American musical history has for the most part been
extremely superficial and determined in its direction by preconceived
impressions which are wholly one-sided. Such special studies in
early American musical history as have been made--those of Mr. O. G.
Sonneck, for example--have exploded many longstanding fallacies and
misconceptions and undoubtedly further research will clear the field of
other myths now generally accepted as incontestable.

There was a St. Cæcilia Society at Newport, R. I., in 1793, and we
find mention in 1797 of the anniversary meeting of the Concord Musical
Society. What the nature of these societies was we can only guess.
They were undoubtedly conscious attempts to organize all the music
lovers of these towns into compact bodies for the better promotion and
enjoyment of their favorite art. It is our conviction that dozens of
such societies existed in the smaller towns throughout the country. In
fact, it would seem that sometimes several societies co-existed within
a very small area--at least in New England--and formed themselves into
associations. We have an instance in the case of the Essex Musical
Association of Massachusetts, which was founded in 1797. A copy of
its constitution is preserved in the Roston Athenæum. In 1821 the
'Euterpeiad' woke up to the fact that there was a very large amount
of musical activity throughout the country. 'During the last week,'
it says, 'we noticed the following musical performances that were to
take place in the present month of May: A concert of sacred music by
the Beethoven Society at Portland (Me.), a grand concert at Augusta
(Ga.), a select oratorio at Providence by the Psallion Society, a grand
concert of music by the Philadelphia Musical Fund, the grand Oratorio
the "Creation" by the Harmonic Society of Baltimore, a performance of
sacred music by the New Hampshire Musical Society at Hanover, in Boston
an instrumental and vocal concert for the benefit of Mr. Ostinelli, and
a public oratorio by the Handel and Haydn Society.'

About this time there existed in Dartmouth College a Handel Society,
which is notable as having been the first serious attempt by an
American college to promote musical culture. It was also the last for
a considerable period. Concerning this society Dr. Ritter quotes the
following from a letter written to him by Dr. A. G. Brown, president
of Hamilton College: 'The aims of the society were of the best. A good
working library of the best musical works then attainable was procured,
including such works as the "Messiah," the "Creation," The Handel and
Haydn Society Collection of Anthems, the old Colony Collection, and
other music of like kind. This was carefully studied by the Society,
and at the regular weekly meetings carefully sung.... Members of the
society were chosen after due examination, and counted it an honor
to be members of the association. Ladies were admitted as honorary
members. And I have never heard better church-music than from that
society at some period of its existence. Its influence did not stop
within the walls of the college, but was widely diffused, and continued
beyond college life.' Unfortunately its influence did not continue for
very long.

        [Illustration: Building of the Handel and Haydn Society
                           of Boston (1850).]

Without doubt there were many musical societies in Boston during
the early years of the nineteenth century, but, with the exception
of the Philharmonic Society, we have been able to discover only the
Massachusetts Musical Society, formed in 1807 'for improving the mode
of performing sacred music.' It would appear that this society confined
its activities exclusively to hymns, with the natural result that few
members were attracted to it. It ceased to exist in 1810. Whatever
other societies may have existed in Boston were completely overshadowed
by the founding of the Handel and Haydn Society in 1815. This famous
organization antedates several of the societies we have already
mentioned, but the greater part of its career is covered by a later
period. We consequently defer treatment of it to the chapter dealing
with these important modern societies, of which it may be said to have
been the first.

                                                          W. D. D.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[35] Until 1790, as we have previously noted, the name was spelled
'Cæcilia.'

[36] It must not, of course, be forgotten that a comparison between
this and a modern orchestral program would be unfair. The program was
light, and conspicuously ignored the great Germans, but it was good of
its time and kind. It included an oboe solo, which must have been a
novelty to New Yorkers.




                               CHAPTER V
                        THE BEGINNINGS OF OPERA

      Scarcity of theatrical performances in America; Charleston
      and Tony Aston; New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere--The
      Revolution and after; rivalry between New York and
      Philadelphia--The New Orleans opera.


Accepting the year 1750 as the earliest in which indisputable records
appear of opera in New York, writers on American musical history pass
over the remainder of the century with a few brief references and
escape with evident relief to the arrival of García's Italian troupe in
1825.[37] This willingness to let the dust lie undisturbed on certain
phases of our musical development is hardly justifiable in the present
instance, for undoubtedly these writers were well aware that opera in
America during the eighteenth century was not such an infrequent and
sporadic thing as to deserve no extended mention. Mr. H. E. Krehbiel,
in his anecdotic and entertaining 'Chapters of Opera,' writes: 'There
are traces of ballad opera in America in the early decades of the
eighteenth century, and there can exist no doubt at all that French
and Italian operas were given in some form, perhaps, as a rule, in the
adapted form which prevailed in the London theatres until far into the
nineteenth century, before the year 1800, in the towns and cities of
the Eastern seaboard which were in most active communication with Great
Britain.'

If ballad operas were known in America in the early decades of the
eighteenth century and French and Italian operas were given before
the beginning of the nineteenth, it is surely worth while to consider
what part they played in the musical life of the country. The subject,
of course, is bristling with difficulties. Information is scarce and
not easily accessible. Much of the difficulty is due to the fact that
before the nineteenth century there were no opera companies, in our
sense. Operatic performances were given by regular theatrical companies
whose repertory was made up partly of straight drama and partly of
opera. Artistic versatility was a characteristic of the period, and
performers like Mrs. Oldmixon and Miss Broadhurst were prominent not
only on the dramatic and operatic stage, but also on the concert
platform. Our search for the beginnings of opera, therefore, lead us
naturally to early records of the American theatre, and an examination
of these elucidates some interesting facts.


                                   I

The first mention of theatrical performances in America is found in
the whimsical autobiography of the mercurial Tony Aston--'Gentleman,
Lawyer, Poet, Actor, Soldier, Sailor, Exciseman, Publican; in England,
Scotland, Ireland, New York, East and West Jersey, Maryland, Virginia
(on both sides Cheesapeek), North and South Carolina, South Florida,
Bahamas, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and often a Coaster by all the same.'
In the 'beginning of Queen Anne's reign,' he tells us, he arrived
at Port Royal Harbor where Governor Moore was about to start on an
expedition against St. Augustine. This was in September, 1702. Tony
accompanied Moore and returned with him to Charleston in January, 1703.
'Well,' he says, 'we arrived in Charles-Town, full of Lice, Shame,
Poverty, Nakedness and Hunger:--I turned Player and Poet and wrote one
Play on the Subject of the Country.' We may assume, therefore, that
Charleston witnessed theatrical performances in 1703. In the same year
the redoubtable Tony went to New York. 'There,' he says, 'I lighted of
my old Acquaintance Jack Charlton, Fencing Master, ... after acting,
writing, courting, fighting that Winter ... my kind Captain Davis ...
gave me free passage for Virginia....' Apparently, then, there were
theatrical performances in New York in the winter of 1703-04.

Whether these and the performances in Charleston were the beginning of
the theatre in America, we cannot say, nor do we know if they included
operas. Quite probably they did. The autobiography from which we have
quoted prefaced the published edition of Tony Aston's 'Fool's Opera'
and it has been inferred that his work was played during Aston's visit
to America. As it was published several years after his return to
England there is not much reason to believe that New York or Charleston
heard it, but Aston's evident interest in works of the kind would
indicate that he exhibited his talent in such entertainments while he
was in this country. It may, however, be pointed out that opera was not
in high favor in England at that time. Beginning with 'The Siege of
Rhodes' in 1656 opera was the chief form of theatrical entertainment
until the end of the Commonwealth. For some peculiar reason--perhaps
Cromwell's love of music--it was tolerated in spite of the ban on the
theatres. But after the Restoration the drama came into its own again,
and with Congreve, Wycherley, Vanburgh, and others catering brilliantly
to the taste of the times, opera was temporarily neglected. Interest in
it revived under Queen Anne, with the coming of Handel and the Italian
opera, but, except for the temporary vogue of ballad-opera, following
the production of 'The Beggar's Opera' in 1728, English opera failed to
attract the popular favor. Indeed, it never reached a point where it
deserved to attract favor. Except for a few weak efforts in the Italian
recitative style English opera before the ballad opera was chiefly
drama with incidental music. The idea was popular in Elizabethan
times, as we may see from Shakespeare's plays. In the operas of
the Commonwealth and Restoration periods the musical side was more
emphasized, but the play was the thing, and there was no Shakespeare or
Jonson or Marlowe or Beaumont and Fletcher to endow the thing with life.

So that whatever operatic performances may have resulted from Tony
Aston's visit to America could not be of any importance, though they
might be of some historical interest. One wonders if Tony's regrettable
departure from these shores left America theatrically barren. Many
years pass before we discover any sign of life. Then from Jones's
'Present State of Virginia,' published in London in 1724, we learn
that a playhouse existed in Williamsburg, Va., at least as early as
1722. Ten years later New York saw the opening of a New Theatre in
the building of a gentleman with the explosive appellation of Rip Van
Dam. Its name would suggest that another theatre existed previously
in New York. We cannot say what operas, if any, were given there,
but probably the Gray-Pepusch 'Beggar's Opera,' Hill's 'The Devil to
Pay,' and Fielding's 'Flora, or Hob in the Well,' were produced. At
this period the ballad opera was enjoying its vogue in England, and
fashions both on and off the English stage were faithfully copied in
America. Almost until the end of the century ballad operas remained
very popular in this country. They had very little in common with opera
as we understand it and have no real place in the evolution of the
art-form. The music rarely was written especially for them, but was
arranged from existing compositions, especially from English, Irish,
and Scotch folk-tunes. Occasionally the 'composer' showed real skill
in making his adaptations, as Dr. Pepusch did in the 'Beggar's Opera,'
but more frequently still the music was singularly inept and the whole
entertainment bordered closely on extravaganza.

We find that 'Flora, or Hob in the Well,' was performed at the
Courtroom, Charleston, in 1735, and that the New Theatre in the same
city also produced 'Flora,' as well as 'The Devil to Pay,' in 1736.
New York probably was giving similar performances at the same time,
but we can discover nothing definite on the subject until 1739, when
we note that at Henry Holt's Long Room there was performed 'A New
Pantomime Entertainment in Grotesque Characters, call'd the Adventures
of Harlequin and Scaramouch, or the Spaniard Trick'd. To which will be
added an Optick'--whatever that was. A company of actors appeared in
Philadelphia in 1749, but their advent inspired the city magistrates
to 'take the most effectual measures for suppressing the disorder.'
The unfortunate artists whose presence constituted a disorder then
went to New York, where they fitted up a building of the Hon. Rip Van
Dam as the 'Theatre in Nassau Street.' There, in 1750 and 1751, they
gave a number of operatic performances, including Fielding's 'Mock
Doctor,' 'The Beggar's Opera,' 'The Devil to Pay,' Cibber's 'Damon and
Philida,' Fielding's 'Virgin Unmask'd,' 'Flora,' and 'Colin and Phœbe.'
In 1751 they went South and, as the New York Company of Comedians,
obtained from Acting Governor Lee of Virginia permission to build a
theatre in Williamsburg. They played at Fredericksburg in 1752 and in
the same year, as the Company of Comedians from Virginia, opened the
New Theatre in Annapolis, Md., with 'The Beggar's Opera.' They also
gave the 'Virgin Unmask'd,' the 'Mock Doctor,' 'Damon and Philida,' and
'The Devil to Pay.' Then, metamorphosed into the Company of Comedians
from Annapolis, they appeared in upper Marlborough, where they gave
'The Beggar's Opera,' 'With Instrumental Music to each Air, given by a
Set of private Gentlemen.' We have been unable to follow them further.
Part of the original New York company to which they belonged remained
in that city and formed the nucleus of a new company which in 1751-52
gave a number of operas at the Nassau Street Theatre, including Carey's
'Honest Yorkshireman.'

Hallam's London Company of Comedians, subsequently the American Company
and later the old American Company, continued the work of supplying
Americans with regular theatrical performances, including operas. We
have been unable to follow their activities in detail. In 1765 New
York heard the pantomime ballad 'Harlequin's Vagaries,' perhaps the
'Harlequin Faustus' of Rich, with music by Gaillard. Three years later
was given Bickerstaff's 'Love in a Village,' the music adapted by Arne
from his own compositions and from the works of Handel, Boyce, Howard,
Baildon, Festing, Geminiani, Galuppi, Giardini, Paradies, Abos and
Agus. Everything was grist to the ballad-opera mill. Bickerstaff's 'The
Maid of the Mill,' with music by Dr. S. Arnold, was played in New York
in 1775.


                                   II

Theatrical activities were naturally curtailed severely during the
war, but with the establishment of peace there was a great revival.
After the Revolution, indeed, the popularity of the theatre became
much greater and more widespread than it ever had been before. And
coincident with the popularity of the theatre came the popularity of
opera. Even in Boston the old prejudice against the theatres began
to disappear, though the blue laws of 1750 were still in force.
Several attempts were made at various times to circumvent these laws
by presenting operas under the guise of concerts, and the resulting
performances must occasionally have been wonderfully concocted. We
find an announcement in 1770 of 'A vocal entertainment of three acts.
The songs (which are numerous) are taken from a new celebrated opera,
call'd "Lionel and Clarissa."' An entry in the diary of John Rowe
during the same year reads: 'In the evening I went to the Concert Hall
to hear Mr. Joan read the Beggar's Opera and sing the songs.' In 1792
Alexander gave in Boston 'a musical entertainment called the Poor
Soldier delivered,' and from that time forward the friends of opera in
Boston met with no opposition, though it was long before Boston became
an operatic city.

In the meantime Maria Storer was winning fame throughout the country as
a ballad opera singer. Such pleasant and innocuous pieces as 'Thomas
and Sally,' 'Dorcas and Squire,' and 'Lionel and Clarissa' were very
popular at the time, and old favorites like the 'Beggar's Opera' and
'The Devil to Pay' held their own with a vitality that was surprising.
The fact is that the American people, exhausted by the labor and
suffering of the war, were in the state of mind now generally ascribed
to 'the tired business man,' and the English ballad opera was just the
sort of light entertainment they needed. English opera retained its
popularity, especially in New York, until well into the nineteenth
century; but from about the year 1790 it was forced to compete with
French and Italian opera introduced by refugees from France and St.
Domingo, and gradually it lost ground until eventually it disappeared
completely.

Between 1789 and 1793 there were given at concerts in Philadelphia
compositions by Rousseau, Dalayrac, Gluck, Paesiello, Monsigny,
Sacchini, and Cimarosa, and it is not improbable that operas by these
composers were also given, though we find no mention of the fact.
The first unquestionable record of a French or Italian opera in this
country is the performance of Pergolesi's _Serva Padrona_, under
the title of 'The Mistress and Maid,' given by a French company at
Baltimore in 1790. In 1791-92 Dibdin's 'The Deserter,' adapted from
_Le Déserteur_ of Monsigny, was given in New York, and it may be of
interest to note that Sheridan and Linley's 'Duenna' was given in
the same season. Charleston, always an enterprising city musically,
harbored a company of French comedians who arrived from St. Domingo in
1794, and enjoyed performances of operas by Rousseau, Grétry, Cimarosa,
Paesiello, and other composers then popular in Europe.

In the meantime there existed a healthy rivalry between New York and
Philadelphia touching the excellence of their respective operatic
organizations. Wignell and Reinagle opened the New Theatre in
Philadelphia in 1793 and gave especial prominence to opera. As might be
expected when Reinagle was at the helm, the performances reached a high
standard of artistic merit. Reinagle himself was one of the conductors
and among them also was Filippo Trajetto, whom we have already met in
the concert life of Boston. Mrs. Oldmixon, Miss Broadhurst and Miss
Brett seem to have been the vocal stars. In New York James Hewitt,
George Geilfert or Gilfert, and Francis Hodgkinson directed the
musical activities of the theatre and exerted themselves strenuously
to surpass Reinagle's organization. Dunlap writes in his 'History
of the American Theatre': 'We have noticed the improvement made by
Mr. Hodgkinson in the orchestra at New York, improvements rendered
necessary by the excellence of this branch of theatrical arrangement
in the rival company of Philadelphia. (The orchestra at Philadelphia,
under the direction of Reinagle, who sat at the harpsichord, was much
superior to that of New York.) Instead of the "one Mr. Pelham" and
his harpsichord, or the single fiddle of Mr. Hewlett, performers of
great skill filled the bands of the two rival cities. In New York the
musicians were principally French; most of these gentlemen who had seen
better days,--some driven from Paris by the revolution, some of them
nobles, some officers in the army of the king, others who had sought
refuge from the devastation of St. Domingo.' Certainly, the debt of the
United States to France is heavy in many directions.

Dr. Ritter has been at pains to compile a list of the English operas
given in New York between 1793 and 1823. The former year saw Shield's
'The Farmer,' Storace's comic opera, 'No Song, No Supper,' and Dibdin's
'The Waterman.' During the season 1793-94 there were played Dibdin's
'Lionel and Clarissa,' and 'The Wedding Ring,' Arnold's 'Inkle and
Yarico,' Shield's 'Poor Soldier,' 'Love in a Camp,' and 'Rosina,'
'The Beggar's Opera,' 'No Song, No Supper,' and 'The Devil to Pay.'
Dibdin's 'Quaker,' Arnold's 'The Children of the Wood,' Storace's 'The
Haunted Tower.' Carter's 'The Rival Candidate' and 'Macbeth' with music
were given in 1794-95. In 1796 were produced 'Rosina,' 'The Children
in the Wood,' 'The Maid of the Mill,' Reeve's 'The Purse,' Shield's
'Robin Hood,' 'No Song, No Supper,' 'The Haunted Tower,' 'The Surrender
of Calais,' Arnold's 'The Mountaineer,' Altwood's 'The Prisoner,'
'Poor Soldier,' 'The Padlock,' and an English version of Rousseau's
'Pygmalion.' What is probably the first American opera was produced in
New York on April 18 of the same year. It is called 'The Archers, or
the Mountaineers of Switzerland,' and was written by Benjamin Carr to a
libretto by William Dunlap. In 1796 also appeared 'Edwin and Angelina,'
composed by Victor Pelissier to a libretto by one Smith. This has often
been spoken of as the first American opera, but apparently it saw the
light some months later than Carr's work, and, in any case, Pelissier
was not an American. Another opera from his pen, to a libretto by
William Dunlap, called 'The Vintage,' was produced in New York in
1799--but we are anticipating.

The seasons of 1797 and 1798 seem to have been rather poor in New
York. Dr. Ritter notes only Storace's 'Siege of Belgrade' and Shield's
'Fontainebleau' in the former year, and Mrs. Oldmixon in 'Inkle and
Yarico' in the latter year. Nothing is mentioned for 1799 and 1800
except Pelissier's 'The Vintage' and an opera composed by Hewitt to
a libretto by Dunlap. In 1801 appeared Kelly's 'Bluebeard,' Reeve
and Mazzinghi's 'Paul and Virginia,' 'The Duenna,' Shield's 'Sprig
of Laurel,' and Kelly's 'The Hunter of the Alps.' Then there is a
hiatus until 1807 and 1808, when we find 'The Siege of Belgrade,' Dr.
Arnold's 'The Review,' Kelly's 'We Fly by Night' and 'Cinderella,'
'Forty Thieves,' Storace's 'Lodoiska,' and Mazzinghi's 'The Exile.'
Another famine followed until 1812 when 'Bluebeard' was produced. The
years 1813-14 saw Henry Bishop's 'Athis,' 'The Farmer and His Wife,'
and 'The Miller and His Men.' Between 1814 and 1819 are noted 'The
Poor Soldier,' 'Love in a Village,' 'Review,' 'Siege of Belgrade,'
'Bluebeard,' 'Lodoiska,' 'The Maid of the Mill,' 'Castle of Andalusia,'
'The Beggar's Opera,' 'Lionel and Clarissa,' 'Fontainebleau,' Kelly's
'Bride of Abydos,' and 'Rob Roy.' From this time on the vogue of
English opera rapidly declined and there are signs of a growing
interest in Italian, French, and German opera, though New York had
little opportunity of hearing such before 1825. An opera called 'The
Barber of Seville,' adapted by Bishop probably from Rossini's work, was
produced in 1819-20. Such adaptations seem to have been not infrequent,
and it can hardly be said that there was any artistic excuse for them.
A similar adaptation of Mozart's _Nozze di Figaro_, made by Bishop, was
played in New York in 1823 and two years later there was presented a
mutilated version of Weber's _Freischütz_. It is worthy of note that
John Howard Paine's 'Clari, the Maid of Milan,' containing the song
'Home, Sweet Home,' was produced in New York on November 12, 1823. The
opera itself soon melted into oblivion, but the song has survived as
one of the most widely popular lyrics ever composed. Other operas given
in New York between 1819 and 1825 include Braham's 'English Fleet,'
'The Deserter,' Bishop's 'Henry IV,' Kelly's 'Russian,' Bishop's
'Montrose,' 'The Duenna,' and Bishop's 'Maid Marian.'


                                   III

One turns with relief to contemporary opera in New Orleans. The
preëminence of New Orleans as an operatic centre among American cities
of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was as marked as
that of New York has been in recent times, though its population was
only a fraction of that possessed by New York, Philadelphia, or Boston.
Of course, New Orleans really was not an American city and did not
contain any considerable number of American residents until many years
after the Louisiana Purchase. It was, in effect, a French provincial
city with a metropolitan flavor due to its position as the head of a
rich and important colony. When one remembers the notably gregarious
instincts of Frenchmen and their intense and tenacious devotion to the
homeland, it is easy to understand how in New Orleans they reproduced
as far as possible the social and artistic conditions of Paris. The
thoroughly French character of New Orleans and its life remained
unchanged during the Spanish régime, and even the purchase effected no
appreciable change until many years had passed. This was especially so
at the opera, which even now remains a thoroughly French institution,
and it has been said that until after the Civil War American visitors
to the opera were very rare. Indeed, opera is a form of art which has
always appealed less to native Americans than to foreign-born citizens.

Information on the actual beginnings of opera in New Orleans are
rather scanty, but we know that a regular troupe of French comedians
and singers appeared there in 1791, and it is to be assumed that they
presented operas of Grétry, Gluck, Dalayrac, Monsigny, and others,
more or less efficiently. Opera, drama, and ballet in the best French
manner were given at M. Croquet's Théâtre St. Philippe in 1808. Another
theatre was built in St. Peter Street in 1810, and among the operas
given there in that and the following year were Paesiello's 'Barber of
Seville' and Zingarelli's 'Romeo and Juliet.' The arrival of John Davis
in 1811 with a troupe from San Domingo marks one of the real epochs in
American operatic activities. Davis built the Théâtre d'Orléans in 1813
and, when it was burned down four years later, he rebuilt it at a cost
of $180,000. This new theatre was by far the finest and best appointed
in America. Opera was given there three times a week by a regular opera
company, and not by artists who combined opera with the spoken drama,
as was customary elsewhere in America. After the death of John Davis
his son Pierre conducted the theatre for twenty-five years. The glories
of French opera in New Orleans during those years must await mention in
a later chapter, but, remarkable as they were, they hardly surpassed
the achievements of the elder Davis during a period when opera
elsewhere in America offered little of interest or artistic importance.
The works of Rossini, Mozart, Spontini, Méhul, Grétry, Gluck, and other
of the most eminent operatic composers were given in the best manner
by competent orchestras and ensembles, by distinguished conductors and
soloists. Beginning with García's visit in 1825, New York received
frequent attentions from foreign opera companies, and soon was enjoying
an operatic life which has now grown to proportions surpassed by few
cities in the world, but at least half of the nineteenth century had
passed away before New Orleans lost its proud position as the real home
of opera in America.

                                                            W. D. D.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[37] One must except Mr. Sonneck, who has unearthed some interesting
material on opera in America prior to 1750. The reader is referred to
his article in 'The New Music Review,' New York, Vol. 6, 1907.




                              CHAPTER VI
             OPERA IN THE UNITED STATES. PART I: NEW YORK

      The New York opera as a factor of musical culture--Manuel
      García and his troupe; da Ponte's dream--The vicissitudes
      of the Italian Opera House; Palmo's attempt at democratic
      opera--The beginnings of 'social' opera: the Academy of
      Music--German opera; Maretzek to Strakosch--The early years
      of the Metropolitan--The Grau régime--Conried; Hammerstein;
      Gatti-Casazza; Opera in English; the Century Opera Company.


The vogue of English ballad opera, as we have seen, began to lose
some of its hold on New York audiences during the first years of the
nineteenth century. Symptomatic of an awakening desire for other
forms of operatic entertainment were the adaptations of _Il Barbiere
di Siviglia_, _Le Nozze di Figaro_, _Der Freischütz_, and similar
favorites of the contemporary European stage. There existed in New
York at that time a society of some brilliance, wealth, and culture--a
modest replica of the upper circles of London, Paris, and Vienna. In
these latter cities the opera flourished as a social function; it was
one of the most important foci of fashion. Obviously New York could not
remain long without such an addition to its fashionable life. Nor could
English opera serve the purpose, for English opera had ceased to be the
thing in London. Society had taken up Italian opera, and only Italian
opera was then _de rigueur_. Why New York did not have Italian opera at
an earlier date it is difficult to say. Possibly the field did not seem
sufficiently tempting to the European _entrepreneurs_; possibly New
York society had not yet affected that cosmopolitan air which had come
to be the distinguishing mark of the socially elect elsewhere.

Whatever factors operated to keep Italian opera out of New York, the
situation had altered sufficiently in 1825 to tempt Manuel García[38]
over with an opera company in that year. To be sure, García was past
his prime as a singer and, except for his daughter, Maria, and the
basso Angrisani, his company was worse than indifferent. But his coming
marked the beginning of an epoch in the operatic history of this
country. He gave New Yorkers a first taste of the best in contemporary
opera and inaugurated a fashion which on the whole has been productive
of very brilliant results. In spite of the fact that opera is not and
never has been in New York a diversion for the proletariat; in spite of
the fact that it has been to a large extent a vehicle for ostentation;
in spite of the fact that its conduct has not always been guided by
broad artistic ideals--in spite of all these and other drawbacks New
York has set for itself a standard of operatic achievement which is
scarcely surpassed by any city in the world. The value of this standard
in the promotion of musical culture is questionable; that it subserves
the best interests of art is not certain. But at least New York must be
awarded the credit of doing such operatic work as it has chosen to do
in a finished and magnificent manner.

                                   I

The foundation of this work was laid by Manuel García at the Park
Theatre in 1825. This house was opened in 1798 and was rebuilt in 1820
after its destruction by fire. It was the house of English opera as
well as of the spoken drama prior to the García invasion. Apparently
the _pièce de résistance_ on García's contemplated program was an
authentic version of Rossini's _Barbiere di Siviglia_, and it does not
seem that he had in project anything more exacting than this and other
light examples of the reigning Italian school. But in New York he ran
foul of the old idealist, Lorenzo da Ponte, librettist of Mozart's _Don
Giovanni_, _Le nozze di Figaro_, and _Così fan tutte_, now condemned
to the obscure fate of a small merchant and teacher of Italian.[39]
Da Ponte persuaded García to put on _Don Giovanni_ and succeeded in
obtaining the necessary reinforcements to make such a production
possible. The production of _Don Giovanni_ was really an event, but
whether the people of New York accepted it as such we cannot say.
García also presented Rossini's _Barbiere di Siviglia_, _Tancredi_,
_Il Turco in Italia_, _Sémiramide_, and _La Cenerentola_, besides two
operas of his own composition entitled _L'Amante astuto_ and _La Figlia
dell'Aria_. The beauty, art, and magnetism of the youthful Maria García
made the season a success and started the fashion of operatic idols
which still influences to a large extent the success or failure of that
form of art. Otherwise the season was undistinguished.

García went to Mexico in 1826, but his daughter remained in New York
and sang in English opera at the recently erected New York Theatre.
She also sang in the choir of Grace Church--a strikingly unusual
proceeding for an artist who had already won international renown.
For over five years there was no more Italian opera in New York, nor
was there, indeed, a regular operatic season of any kind. English
ballad opera, however, again came into favor for a time and there were
also performances in English of such works as Auber's _Masaniello_,
Boieldieu's _La dame blanche_, and Mozart's _Il flauto magico_--all
wretched adaptations of the originals. Seemingly the operatic managers
of that time had all the peculiar vices of the musical comedy producer
of to-day. The scores of Mozart, Auber, Rossini and other masters were
subjected to incredible mutilations, and inapt interpolations of every
kind were used to catch the popular taste. If the following picture
of musical life in New York is not overdrawn it certainly paints an
extraordinary state of affairs. It is taken from a letter written by
a visiting German musician to the _Cæcilia_, a musical journal of
Mayence.[40]

'Here the musical situation is the following: New York has four
theatres--Park Theatre, Bowery Theatre, Lafayette Theatre, and Chatham
Theatre. Dramas, comedies, and spectacle pieces, also the Wolf's Glen
scene from _Der Freyschütz_, but without singing, as melodrama, and
small operettas are given. The performance of a whole opera is not to
be thought of. However, they have no sufficient orchestra to do it. The
orchestras are very bad indeed, as bad as it is possible to imagine,
and incomplete. Sometimes they have two clarinets, which is a great
deal; sometimes there is only one first instrument. Of bassoons, oboes,
trumpets, and kettle drums, one never sees a sight. However, once in a
while a first bassoon is employed. Oboes are totally unknown in this
country. Only one oboist exists in North America and he is said to live
in Baltimore.

'In spite of this incompleteness they play symphonies, and grand
overtures, and if a gap occurs they think this is only of passing
importance, provided it rattles away again afterward....

'Performances take place six times a week in these theatres. Sunday
is a day of rest. The performances commence at half past seven, and
last until twelve, sometimes till one. Rope-dancers, or one who is a
good clown--even if he be able to execute only tolerably well a few
jumps that resemble a dance, and can make many grotesque grimaces,--or
one who plays (all by himself) on the barrel-organ, cymbals, big drum,
Turkish pavilion,--these are the men that help the manager to fill the
treasury, and these people earn enormous sums.'

At this ebb-tide of music in New York there stood out in bold relief
the venerable figure of Lorenzo da Ponte, the old idealist, the type of
the world's dreamers, whose achievements are rarely recorded.

    'World-losers and world-forsakers
      On whom the pale moon gleams
    Yet we are the movers and shakers
      Of the world for ever, it seems.'

Da Ponte had a dream. It was of a permanent Italian opera in New
York, with himself as poet. The dream was not realized, but it had an
important influence. After five years of endeavor da Ponte succeeded in
inducing a French tenor named Montressor to undertake a season of opera
at the Richmond Hill Theatre. The season opened in October 6, 1832, but
failed after thirty-five performances. On the whole, it would seem that
the company was a very good one, and it is hard to explain its failure
except on the ground that New York audiences were still lacking in the
faculty of appreciation. The orchestra was supposed to be the best
that had yet been heard in the city, and, fortunately for New York,
most of its members settled there after the failure of the enterprise.
The operas performed during Montressor's season were Rossini's
_Cenerentola_ and _L'Italiani in Algieri_, Bellini's _Il Pirata_, and
Mercadante's _Elisa e Claudio_.

Notwithstanding Montressor's failure, da Ponte still remained
undaunted. He now determined that the thing really needed was an
Italian opera house decked out with the same social halo as adorned
the brilliant institutions of London and Vienna. He was right. The
Metropolitan Opera House of to-day is just the sort of institution that
da Ponte forecasted, and its success proves that the old dreamer was no
bad prophet. Through his influence the Italian Opera House was built
on the corner of Church and Leonard Streets at a cost of $150,000, and
with the coöperation of many of the most eminent citizens. Evidently it
was designed to appeal to the cream of the _beau monde_. We quote from
the diary of Philip Hone, Esq., sometime mayor of New York:

'----The house is superb, and the decorations of the proprietors'
boxes (which occupy the whole of the second tier) are in a style
of magnificence which even the extravagance of Europe has not yet
equalled. I have one-third of box No. 8; Peter Schermerhorn one-third;
James J. Jones one-sixth; William Moore one-sixth. Our box is fitted up
with great taste with light blue hangings, gilded panels and cornice,
armchairs and a sofa. Some of the others have rich silk ornaments,
some are painted in fresco, and each proprietor seems to have tried to
outdo the rest in comfort and magnificence. The scenery is beautiful.
The dome and the fronts of the boxes are painted in the most superb
classical designs, and the sofa seats are exceedingly commodious.'

This resplendent institution was opened on November 18, 1833, under
the joint management of da Ponte and the Chevalier Rivafinoli--the
latter being, according to da Ponte, 'a daring, but imprudently daring,
adventurer, whose failures in London and in Mexico and Carolina, were
the sure forerunners of his failure in New York.' The season was
advertised for forty nights, but there was a supplementary season of
twenty-eight nights. In addition there were fifteen performances given
in Philadelphia. Socially and artistically the season was a distinct
success, but financially it was a failure. The operas performed were
Rossini's _La gazza ladra_, _Il barbiere di Siviglia_, _La donna del
lago_, _Il Turco in Italia_, _Cenerentola_ and _Matilda di Shabran_,
Cimarosa's _Il matrimonio segreto_, Paccini's _Gli Arabi nelli Gallie_,
and an opera called _La casa di Pendere_, by the conductor, Salvioni.

During the same season there was also a period of English opera at
the Park Theatre, where 'Cinderella,' 'The Barber of Seville,' 'The
Marriage of Figaro,' 'Artaxerxes,' 'Masaniello,' 'John of Paris,'
'Robert the Devil' (adapted and arranged), and other works were
produced with Mr. and Mrs. Wood as principal singers. 'The house,'
according to the 'American Musical Journal,' 'was crowded nightly.' The
management of the Park Theatre certainly presented a much more varied
and catholic program than was furnished by the Italian Opera House; but
we suspect shrewdly that variety was its chief distinction.

When Rivafinoli's enterprise collapsed, the Italian Opera House was
taken over by Porto and Sacchi--the latter treasurer and the former
one of the singers of the Rivafinoli company. The season opened on
November 10, 1834, with Bellini's _La Straniera_, and during its short
life Rossini's _Eduardo e Christina_, _L'Inganno felice_, _L'Assedio
di Corinto_, and _Mosé in Egitto_ were also produced. It collapsed
with the sudden disappearance of the _prima donna_, Signora Fanti. The
Signora's defection, however, was rather the occasion than the cause of
its untimely end. One is tempted to say that the Italian Opera House
suffered from too much Rossini. But the real secret of its failure lay
in the fact that it was not in the fashionable section of the city.
The lure of art, reinforced by rich silk ornaments and paintings in
fresco, by 'superb classical designs' and 'exceedingly commodious'
sofa seats did not prove sufficiently strong to draw society from the
strictly defined path of its appointed orbit. The valorous old da Ponte
pleaded eloquently, but in vain. _Abyssus abyssum invocat_, as he truly
complained.


                                   II

After a year of vacancy the Italian Opera House went to James W.
Wallack, father of the famous John Lester Wallack, and after a year of
the spoken drama it went up in smoke. For ten years Italian opera in
New York was as dead as the English queen whose demise is her chief
title to fame. But New York was not wholly barren of opera during
those years. In 1837 came Madame Caradori-Allan from England to sing
in oratorio, concert, and opera in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and
elsewhere. She gave some operas at the Park Theatre in 1838, including
Balfe's 'Siege of Rochelle,' Bellini's _La Sonnambula_, Rossini's
_Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, and Donizetti's _Elisir d'amore_, all in
English. Also in 1838 a company which Dr. Ritter calls 'the Seguin
combination' gave some operatic performances at the National Theatre.
He tells us that Rooke's opera, 'Amalie, or the Love Test,' was
performed for twelve consecutive nights before crowded houses.[41]

Noteworthy were the efforts of an English company who in 1839 gave
performances of Beethoven's _Fidelio_, Rossini's _La Cenerentola_ and
_La Gazza ladra_, Bellini's _La Sonnambula_, Auber's _Fra Diavolo_,
Donizetti's _Elisir d'amore_, and Adam's _Postilion de Lonjumeau_.

This was by far the choicest operatic menu that had ever been placed
before New Yorkers. The performances were in English and we are not
enlightened as to their quality; we know only that the venture was
not a success. In 1840 the Woods returned with a season of operas in
English, including _La Sonnambula_, _Fidelio_, and--sublime bathos--the
'Beggar's Opera'! Later the singer and composer, Braham, beloved of
Englishmen, appeared at the Park Theatre in 'The Siege of Belgrade,'
'The Devil's Bridge,' 'The Waterman,' and 'The Cabinet.' Except for the
visits of the New Orleans opera companies, of which we shall speak in
another chapter, these were the only operatic treats vouchsafed to New
Yorkers between the years 1834 and 1844.

In the meantime a gentleman named Ferdinand Palmo was making quite a
reputation as a cook and proprietor of the _Café des Mille Colonnes_
on Broadway, near Duane Street. Mr. Palmo suffered from that ancient
delusion known as 'opera for the people,' and under its influence he
spent the accumulated profits of the _Mille Colonnes_ in remodelling
Stoppani's Arcade Baths, on Chambers Street, into a popular opera
house. There, in 1844, he opened a season of Italian opera with
Bellini's _I Puritani_. Mr. Palmo was certainly determined to give New
Yorkers the best that could be obtained. He had Madame Cinti-Damoreau,
whom Fétis described as one of the greatest singers the world had
known; he had a great tenor in Antognini, whom Richard Grant White
compares as a singer to Ronconi and as an actor to Salvini; he had
a very good soprano in Borghese. In addition he had an orchestra of
'thirty-two professors.' He survived the first season, but in the
middle of the second the 'thirty-two professors' went on strike for
their wages and the sheriff's minions descended on the box office
receipts, the _Mille Colonnes_ and everything else attachable that
Mr. Palmo possessed. The attempt at a democratic opera was a fine and
courageous one, but the time was not ripe for such an effort.[42]

After Palmo's failure his theatre was taken over by a new company which
included among its principal members Salvatore Patti and Catarina
Barili, the parents of Carlotta and Adelina Patti. It had a very brief
existence and in 1848 Palmo's Opera House became Burton's Theatre.
In the meantime, however, New York had been enjoying an assortment
of other operas, presented by various visiting companies. The most
important of these was a French company from New Orleans which, in
1843, presented _La fille du régiment_, _Lucia di Lammermoor_, _Norma_,
and _Gemma di Vergy_--in French, of course. There were also several
English companies, notably the Seguins, who gave opera in English at
the Park Theatre and elsewhere. In 1844 the Seguin company produced
Balfe's 'Bohemian Girl' for the first time in America.

It has frequently been the lot of New York to be visited by Italian
opera companies from Cuba, Mexico, and South America. These companies
were sometimes very bad, sometimes indifferent, sometimes very good.
Of the last-named category was the company brought from Havana by
Señor Francesco Marty y Tollens in 1847. Señor Marty was backed in
his enterprise by James H. Hackett, the actor, and William Niblo,
proprietor of the famous gardens. He had a very good company, notable
chiefly for the fact that its conductor was Luigi Arditi, composer of
_Il Bacio_--the 'Maiden's Prayer' of aspiring coloraturas. A season was
given at the Park Theatre, after which there were a number of extra
performances at Castle Garden. The repertory included Verdi's _Ernani_
and _I due Foscari_, Bellini's _Norma_ and _Sonnambula_, Paccini's
_Saffo_, and Rossini's _Mosé in Egitto_. Señor Marty returned in
1848,1849, and 1850, with a company which Max Maretzek described as the
greatest ever heard in America. The famous contrabassist, Bottesini,
was musical director and Arditi remained as conductor. Among the operas
performed were Verdi's _Attila_ and _Macbeth_, Meyerbeer's _Huguenots_
and Donizetti's _La Favorita_.

Opera in English was still given frequently but without any regularity
at various theatres. Madame Anna Bishop appeared in a number of operas
in 1847, and during the same year W. H. Reeves, brother of the famous
Sims Reeves, made his operatic _début_. Among the novelties produced
was Wallace's _Maritana_. In 1850 Madame Anna Thillon appeared in
Auber's 'Crown Diamonds' at Niblo's and two years later Flotow's
'Martha' was produced.


                                   III

In the meantime, however, New York had launched one of the greatest
of operatic enterprises, a direct successor to the Italian Opera
House conceived and carried out by the old dreamer da Ponte. Palmo's
splendid experiment had only served to show that da Ponte was right.
Democratic opera was a delusion. Opera in Italian or in any other
language foreign to the mass of the people was foredoomed to failure.
Only the glamour of social prestige could save it. And, just as opera
needed society, so did society need opera. It was out of the question,
of course, that persons of social pretensions should patronize Palmo's
or Niblo's or Castle Garden or any other place geographically outside
the social sphere and appealing largely to the common herd. Society is
a jewel which shines only in an appropriate setting. Hence one hundred
and fifty gentlemen of New York's social (and financial) _élite_ got
together and guaranteed to support Italian opera in a suitable house
for five years. On the strength of this guarantee Messrs. Foster,
Morgan and Colles built the Astor Place Opera House, a theatre seating
about 1,800 persons. 'Its principal feature,' said the slightly
malicious Maretzek, 'was that everybody could see, and, what is of
infinitely greater consequence, could be seen. Never, perhaps, was
any theatre built that afforded a better opportunity for a display of
dress.' The Astor Place Opera House was opened in 1847, with Messrs.
Sanquirico and Patti, late of Palmo's, as lessees, and Rapetti as
leader of the orchestra. They produced during the season Verdi's
_Nabucco_ and _Ernani_, Bellini's _Beatrice di Tenda_, Donizetti's
_Lucrezia Borgia_, and Mercadante's _Il Giuramento_. In 1848 the house
was taken over by E. R. Fry, an American, who brought over Max Maretzek
as conductor and gathered together a fairly good company, including M.
and Mme. Laborde. The operas given were Verdi's _Ernani_, Bellini's
_Norma_, and Donizetti's _Linda di Chamouni_, _Lucrezia Borgia_,
_L'Elisir d'amore_, _Lucia di Lammermoor_, and _Roberto Devereux_. Fry
made a complete failure, and, judging by his list, one is impelled to
say he deserved it.

In 1849 Maretzek became lessee of the house and began that chequered
career as an _impresario_ which ended only when the Metropolitan so
to speak shut its newly made doors in his face. Most of his singers
were taken from Fry's company, but he also had some new ones, among
them the Signora Bertucca, who was included in the famous list which,
according to Mr. H. E. Krehbiel, the redoubtable Max invariably checked
off on his fingers when recounting his services to opera in New York.
Maretzek remained at the Astor Place Opera House until 1850, and during
three seasons gave _Lucia_, _L'Elisir d'amore_, _Don Pasquale_, _Il
Barbiere_, Rossini's _Otello_, _I Puritani_, _Belisario_, _Ernani_--the
list is tiresomely familiar.[43]

In the meantime the Astor Place Opera House was leased to William
Niblo, the backer of Señor Francesco Marty y Tollens. Niblo's idea
in leasing the opera house was to eliminate it as a competitor. In
pursuance of this idea he engaged one Signor Donetti, and his troupe
of performing dogs and monkeys, whom he presented to the aristocratic
patrons of the institution. The patrons obtained an injunction against
Niblo on the ground that the exhibition was not respectable within
the meaning of the terms upon which the house was leased. 'On the
hearing to show cause for this injunction,' says Maretzek, 'Mr. Niblo
called upon Donetti or some of his friends who testified that his
aforesaid dogs and monkeys had in their younger days appeared before
princes and princesses and kings and queens. Moreover, witnesses were
called who declared under oath that the previously mentioned dogs and
monkeys behaved behind the scenes more quietly and respectably than
many Italian singers. This fact I feel that I am not called upon to
dispute.' Thus the ambitions and exclusive Astor Place Opera House
ended as a joke. The building was used later as a library.

There is a peculiar resemblance between opera houses and human beings.
High hopes and ambitions mark the beginnings of both; but the corrosive
influences of life's practical everyday soon tarnish the shining metal
of their ideals until finally they are reduced to the dull commonplace
that marks the end of all created things. And, it may be added, in the
majority of cases the most powerfully corrosive influence is money. An
instance in point occurred in New York in 1852. It was another dream
of democratic opera--or rather, democratic music--a dream of a great
new institution adapted to American conditions wherein would germinate
and grow to a brilliant flowering the seeds of a national musical art.
Truly a beautiful dream, and one which, it might seem, should easily
materialize in a country so rich, so young, so eager, so progressive.
A charter was obtained from the state of New York authorizing the
establishment of an 'Academy of Music for the purpose of cultivating
a taste for music by concerts, operas, and other entertainments,
which shall be accessible to the public at a moderate charge; by
furnishing facilities for instruction in music, and by rewards of
prizes for the best musical compositions.' American music-lovers were
naturally gratified and Mr. D. H. Fry, a prominent musical critic,
ventured to hope that it might 'yet come to pass that art, in all its
verifications,' would 'be as much esteemed as politics, commerce, or
the military profession. The dignity of American artists lies in their
hands'--meaning, we presume, the hands of the Academy promoters.

The dignity of American artists lay in very incompetent
hands--incompetent as far as the dignity of American art was concerned.
The commodious new Academy was leased to Max Maretzek, who sub-leased
it to J. H. Hackett, and it was opened in October, 1854, with a company
headed by Grisi and Mario. The showman exploitation of great artists
existed long before P. T. Barnum exhibited Jenny Lind. The appearances
of Henrietta Sontag at Niblo's in _La fille du régiment_ in 1850 and of
Grisi and Mario at Castle Garden in 1854 were purely and simply showman
enterprises.

In January, 1855, Ole Bull, the Norwegian violinist, took over the
management of the Academy, with the earnest intention of carrying out
the high purposes for which it was founded. As a first step to that
end he offered a prize of one thousand dollars for the 'best original
grand opera, by an American composer, and upon a strictly American
subject.' The phrase has become almost a formula. It is unfortunate
that idealistic enterprises in America always seek to fly before
they can walk. There was no American composer capable of writing an
original grand opera on any subject, neither was there a public opinion
cultivated enough to support such an enterprise as the Academy. Within
two months of Ole Bull's announcement, 'in consequence of insuperable
difficulties,' the Academy was forced to close and the original grand
opera by an American composer never saw the light. The season was
completed by the Lagrange company from Niblo's, managed by a committee
of stockholders, with Maretzek as conductor.


                                   III

A bright rift in the cloud that hung over operatic New York at that
time was the coming to Niblo's in 1855 of a German company, with Mlle.
Lehman (not, of course, the more famous Lilli Lehmann) as star. Among
the operas presented were Flotow's 'Martha,' Weber's _Der Freischütz_,
and Lortzing's _Czar und Zimmermann_.

In the following year the German company added Mme. Johannsen to its
forces, with Carl Bergmann as conductor, and presented, among other
operas, Beethoven's _Fidelio_. Bergmann remained as conductor for
several years and did an amount of pioneer work for German opera in
New York the importance of which has been curiously ignored. It may be
mentioned here, though a little in advance of our narrative, that he
introduced Wagner's _Tannhäuser_ for the first time in America at the
Stadt Theatre, New York, in 1859. The chorus was supplied by the Arion
Männergesangverein.[44]

In 1855 Maretzek produced Rossini's 'William Tell' and Verdi's _Il
Trovatore_ at the Academy. He had a good company which included the
soprano Steffanone--one of Señor Marty's singers--and the tenor
Brignoli, who became a great favorite with New Yorkers. A Mr. Payne
opened a season of forty nights there in the fall of 1855 and in the
following year Maretzek again became lessee. He soon quarrelled with
the proprietors of the Academy and went to Boston. In January, 1857,
Maurice Strakosch opened a season of Italian opera with an indifferent
company, but in March Maretzek reappeared and set up an opposition at
Niblo's. The next few seasons were marked by an amount of activity
in which control of the operatic field was a consideration paramount
to artistic achievement. Maretzek, Strakosch, and the latter's aide,
Bernard Ullman, were the principals in an amusing campaign which, on
more than one occasion, saw the rival impresarios acting as partners.
Strakosch and Ullman opened the Academy season in the fall of 1857 with
the fascinating Emmilia Frezzolini in _La Sonnambula_. Carl Anschütz,
later of the Arion, was conductor. It was really a good season and,
though it saw no novelties, it was redeemed from the usual hurdy-gurdy
category by the production of _Les Huguenots_ and _Robert le Diable_.
In March, 1858, 'Leonora,' by the American composer W. H. Fry, was
produced at the Academy under the bâton of Carl Anschütz.

Maretzek, in the meantime, was in Philadelphia with a company headed
by the famous buffo, Roncone. In 1858 he returned to New York and
opened a season at the Academy, while Strakosch took up a stand at
Burton's Theatre. Ullman came from Europe in October, bringing with him
the saucy and winsome Maria Piccolomini, whom he advertised as a lineal
descendant of Charlemagne and the great-granddaughter of Schiller's
hero, Max Piccolomini. As a showman Ullman was second only to the great
Barnum. Maretzek and Ullman joined hands at the Academy in the fall of
1859 and presented Adelina Patti in _Lucia di Lammermoor_.

For several years following there is nothing much to note. The operatic
situation was summed up in the alternate quarrels and reconciliations
of Maretzek, Ullman, and the brothers Maurice, Max, and Ferdinand
Strakosch, all of whom at various times have taken occasion to speak of
the sacrifices they made for Italian opera in New York. As a matter of
fact, opera was to all of them what the green table is to the confirmed
gambler. Yet they accomplished much, and, though they relied mainly on
the hackneyed list of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, they introduced
New York opera-goers, during the sixties and seventies, to a number of
novelties. Among these may be mentioned Meyerbeer's _L'Africaine_, _Le
Pardon de Ploërmel_, and _L'Étoile du Nord_, Verdi's _Aïda_, Gounod's
_Faust_, Thomas's _Mignon_, Wagner's _Lohengrin_, and the _Crispino e
la Comare_ of the Ricci brothers--all in Italian. Maurice Strakosch was
responsible for the presence in America of Christine Nilsson and of
Italo Campanini, both distinguished artists who held a high place for
many years in the affections of New Yorkers.[45]

By far the most noteworthy operatic event of the sixties was a season
of German opera given by Carl Anschütz at the old Wallack Theatre on
Broadway and Broome Street in 1862. The principals of the Anschütz
company were mediocre, though they included Mme. Johannsen, but there
was a good orchestra and a well-trained chorus. The list of operas
included Mozart's _Die Zauberflöte_, _Don Juan_, and _Die Entführung
aus dem Serail_, Beethoven's _Fidelio_, Weber's _Freischütz_, Auber's
_Le Maçon_, and Flotow's _Martha_ and _Stradella_. Unfortunately, no
social glamour was attached to the enterprise, nor were the times
especially propitious to it, and it soon failed.

In the seventies there was a great vogue of the Offenbach _opéra
bouffe_, and such airy trifles as _La belle Hélène_ and _La grande
duchesse_ occupied the public interest to the exclusion of more serious
musical fare. As is usually the case in America, the interest reached
the intensity of a mania and it was necessary that public curiosity be
satisfied by a sight of the composer himself. Accordingly Offenbach
came over in 1875. But as soon as the people had satisfied their
curiosity they lost all interest in him and his tour was a complete
failure.[46]

In 1876 Mlle. Teresa Tietjens came to America under the management of
Max Strakosch and appeared at the Academy of Music with great success,
especially in _Norma_ and _Lucrezia Borgia_. Two years later a short
season of opera was given at the Academy by a German company headed
by Mme. Pappenheim and Charles Adams. It was far from successful, but
during its brief existence New Yorkers had an opportunity of hearing
Wagner's _Lohengrin_, _Tannhäuser_, _Der fliegende Holländer_, and
_Rienzi_, Halévy's _La Juive_, and Gounod's _Faust_.

In 1878 Max Strakosch, with a company that included Clara Louise
Kellogg and Annie Louise Cary, ignored the Academy of Music and settled
down at the Booth Theatre. There he gave a season of three weeks,
presenting _Aïda_, _La Traviata_, and _Il Trovatore_. The directors
of the Academy, in the meantime, turned to Colonel James H. Mapleson,
one of the most famous of operatic _impresarios_, who, as manager of
Her Majesty's Theatre and of Drury Lane, London, had for some time
been engaged in a lively operatic war with Frederick and Ernest Gye
at Covent Garden. Mapleson was a most astute manager and a devoted
protagonist of the 'star' system. During his first season in 1878-79 he
brought over a brilliant company which included Minnie Hauck, Etelka
Gerster, and Italo Campanini, with Luigi Arditi as conductor. His list
of operas was less impressive. The only novelty was Bizet's _Carmen_.
On the whole, the season was moderately successful and Mapleson made
a contract with the stockholders of the Academy for the seasons of
1879-80, 1880-81, and 1881-82. Nothing occurred in any of those seasons
which calls for special mention. They presented the same old list of
operas in the same old way. Italian opera in New York was getting into
a rut and was losing its hold on the people. The Academy was becoming
more and more unsuited to the growing demands of New York Society.
Everything was, in fact, ripe for the inauguration of a new epoch.


                                   IV

It must be confessed that the evolution of opera in New York has been
determined more by social than by artistic factors, and a history
of New York society would be almost a necessary background for a
complete narrative of its operatic development. Here it is necessary
to mention that the Vanderbilt ball of 1882 marked the culmination
of a social revolution in New York. During the early years of the
nineteenth century there was an absolute ascendancy of that social
element which is known by the name of Knickerbocker. It was composed,
in the main, of old families with certain undeniable claims to birth,
breeding, and culture. They constituted a caste which was not without
distinction. But about 1840, with the rapid material development of
the country, began the influx of a new element armed for assault on
the social citadel with the powerful artillery of wealth. Gradually
this new element widened a breach in the rampart of exclusiveness
which the Knickerbocker caste had built around itself, and at the
above-mentioned Vanderbilt ball the citadel finally surrendered.
The effect on the operatic situation was immediate. There was not
sufficient accommodation in the Academy for the newly amalgamated
forces, and a box at the opera was, of course, a necessary badge of
social distinction. Consequently, in 1883, the Metropolitan Opera House
Company (Limited) was formed by a number of very prominent gentlemen
for a purpose sufficiently indicated by its title. The very prominent
gentlemen were James A. Roosevelt, George Henry Warren, Luther Kountze,
George Griswold Haven, William K. Vanderbilt, William H. Tillinghast,
Adrian Iselin, Robert Goelet, Joseph W. Drexel, Edward Cooper, Henry
G. Marquard, George N. Curtis, and Levi P. Morton. This, financially
speaking, impressive list is important because it helps us to
understand the true nature of the enterprise upon which these gentlemen
embarked.[47]

The Metropolitan Opera House was leased for the season of 1883 to Mr.
Henry E. Abbey and was opened on October 22 with Gounod's _Faust_. In
the cast on the opening night were Mesdames Nilsson and Scalchi and
Signor Campanini, while Signor Vianesi acted as musical director. The
season lasted until December 22, with regular subscription performances
on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Two
performances missed from the regular subscription series were given
after the return of the company from a trip to Boston on January 9
and 11. A spring season, begun on March 10, lasted until April 12.
The operas given between October 22 and April 12, with order of their
production, were: Gounod's _Faust_ (in Italian), Donizetti's _Lucia
di Lammermoor_, Verdi's _Il Trovatore_, Bellini's _I Puritani_,
Thomas's _Mignon_, Verdi's _La Traviata_, Wagner's _Lohengrin_ (in
Italian), Bellini's _La Sonnambula_, Verdi's _Rigoletto_, Meyerbeer's
_Robert le Diable_ (in Italian), Rossini's _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_,
Mozart's _Don Giovanni_, Boïto's _Mefistofele_, Ponchielli's _La
Gioconda_, Bizet's _Carmen_, Thomas's 'Hamlet,' Flotow's 'Martha,' and
Meyerbeer's _Les Huguenots_ and _Le Prophète_. Apart from Mme. Nilsson
and Signor Campanini, the principal artists engaged were Marcella
Sembrich--probably the greatest coloratura soprano since Patti--who
afterward became very familiar to New Yorkers; Mme. Fursch-Madi, a
French contralto, who had already sung in New Orleans; and M. Capoul,
French tenor, who had appeared at the Academy under Maurice Strakosch
in 1871. The company gave fifty-eight performances in Brooklyn,
Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Washington, and
Baltimore. Mr. Abbey's losses on the season have been estimated at more
than $500,000. He had no ambition to undertake another one.

Colonel Mapleson, in the meantime, was holding on at the Academy,
where he still retained Patti as the chief attraction, assisted by
the fresh-voiced Etelka Gerster, then on the threshold of her career,
Mme. Pappenheim, whom we have already met in German opera, Signor
Nicolini,[48] a mediocre tenor, and Signor Galassi, a good baritone.

During this season, also, there occurred under his management the
American operatic début of Mrs. Norton-Gower, afterward known as Mme.
Nordica. The operas performed were Bellini's _La Sonnambula_ and
_Norma_, Rossini's _La Gazza ladra_, Donizetti's _L'Elisir d'amore_
and _Linda di Chamouni_, the Ricci brothers' _Crispino e la Comare_,
Gounod's _Faust_, Flotow's _Martha_, Meyerbeer's _Les Huguenots_, and
Verdi's _La Traviata_, _Rigoletto_ and _Aïda_.

In 1884 Leopold Damrosch submitted to the directors of the
Metropolitan a proposition for a season of German opera under his
management, and, _faute de mieux_, the directors acceded. Dr. Damrosch
secured a very strong company, including Amalia Materna, who, in
Bayreuth, had created the part of Kundry in _Parsifal_; Marianne
Brandt, also known in Bayreuth; Marie Schroeder-Hanfstängel of the
Frankfort Opera, a pupil of Mme Viardot-García and the chief coloratura
singer of the company; Auguste Seidl-Krauss, wife of Anton Seidl, then
conductor of the Stadt Theater in Bremen, and Anton Schott, a tenor of
considerable reputation in Wagnerian rôles, whose explosive methods
led von Bülow to describe him as a _Militärtenor_--_ein Artillerist_.
The list of operas given included Wagner's _Tannhäuser_, Beethoven's
_Fidelio_, Meyerbeer's _Les Huguenots_, Weber's _Der Freischütz_,
Rossini's 'William Tell,' Wagner's _Lohengrin_, Mozart's _Don
Giovanni_, Meyerbeer's _Le Prophète_, Auber's _La Muette de Portici_,
Verdi's _Rigoletto_, Halévy's _La Juive_, and Wagner's _Die Walküre_.
It is not surprising that the season was a pronounced success.
The receipts up to the middle of January were double those of the
corresponding period in the previous year, though the prices had been
reduced considerably. But the season was brought to a tragic close and
the cause of German opera in New York was set back many years by the
unexpected death of Dr. Damrosch on February 15, 1885.

During the previous year a season of Italian opera had been given at
the Star Theatre by James Barton Key and Horace McVicker with the
Milan Grand Opera Company, recruited from Italian singers who had
been stranded by the failure of operatic ventures in Mexico and South
America. The only interesting feature of the season was the production
of _Il Guarany_, a Spanish-American opera by Señor Gomez. Colonel
Mapleson started his seventh season at the Academy on November 10,
1884. He still retained Patti and had annexed Scalchi and Fursch-Madi
from Abbey's disbanded forces, but his season presented nothing of
interest while it gave every evidence that his operatic reign in New
York was drawing to a close. The season of 1885-86 was his last with
the exception of a short attempt in 1896. He had lost Patti but he
still presented a strong company, which included Alma Fohström, Minnie
Hauck, and Mlle. Felia Litvinoff, better known as Madame Litvinne.
The season ended in a dismal failure after twelve evening and four
afternoon performances. With the exception of _Carmen_, _Fra Diavolo_,
and _L'Africaine_ there was no variation from the stereotyped program
of which New York must have been intensely sick. During a short return
engagement, however, Mapleson's company gave Massenet's _Manon_ for the
first time in America (Dec. 23, 1885).

A very much better showing was made by the German company, which
gave a season during the same time at the Thalia Theatre under the
management of Gustav Amberg and the conductorship of John Lund, a
chorus master and assistant conductor under Dr. Damrosch at the
Metropolitan. The repertory included _Der Freischütz_, Adam's _Le
Postilion de Lonjumeau_, Nicolai's _Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor_,
Victor Nessler's _Trompeter von Säkkingen_, and Maillart's _Les Dragons
de Villars_ Germanized as _Das Glöckchen des Eremiten_. A light
program, of course, but very refreshing. During the same season an
American opera company made a loud attempt to do something, but it blew
up with a bad odor of scandal before it went very far. Its artistic
director was Theodore Thomas, and during its short existence it gave
Goetz's 'Taming of the Shrew,' Gluck's _Orpheus_, Wagner's _Lohengrin_,
Mozart's 'Magic Flute,' Nicolai's 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Delibes'
'Lakmé',' Wagner's 'Flying Dutchman,' and Massé's 'Marriage of
Jeanette'; Delibes' ballet 'Sylvia' was also performed. Considering
this fine start, it is a very great pity the American Opera Company
could not keep its head straight.

After the death of Dr. Damrosch the directors of the Metropolitan
sent Edmund C. Stanton and Walter Damrosch to Europe to organize a
company for a second season of German opera. The result was perhaps
the finest operatic organization New York had yet seen. It included
Lilli Lehmann, the greatest of all Wagnerian sopranos; Marianne Brandt,
Emil Fischer, the inimitable 'Hans Sachs,' Auguste Seidl-Krauss, and
Max Alvary, who set the matinee-idol fashion in operatic tenors. Anton
Seidl was conductor and Walter Damrosch assistant conductor. The operas
produced were Wagner's _Lohengrin_, _Die Walküre_, _Tannhäuser_, _Die
Meistersinger_, and _Rienzi_, Meyerbeer's _Der Prophet_, Bizet's
_Carmen_, Gounod's _Faust_, and Goldmark's _Die Königin von Saba_.

In the fall of 1885 there was a short season at the Academy of Music
by the Angelo Grand Italian Opera Company. Angelo was a graduate of
the luggage department of Mapleson's organization. His season lasted
two weeks, during which he presented Verdi's _Luisa Miller_, _I
Lombardi_, _Un Ballo in Maschera_, and _I due Foscari_, as well as
Petrella's _Ione_. The American Opera Company, in the meantime, had
been reorganized as the National Opera Company, which, still under
the directorship of Theodore Thomas, gave performances in English at
the Academy, the Metropolitan, and in Brooklyn. Among the interesting
features of their program were Rubinstein's _Nero_, Goetz's _Der
Widerspenstigen Zähmung_, Delibes' _Lakmé_, and a number of ballets,
including Delibes' _Coppelia_. In the spring of 1887 Madame Patti
appeared at the Metropolitan in a 'farewell' series of six operas under
the management of Henry E. Abbey. She continued to make 'farewell'
appearances for over twenty years.

The most notable features of the Metropolitan season of 1886-87
were the productions of Wagner's _Tristan und Isolde_, Beethoven's
_Fidelio_, Goldmark's _Merlin_, and Brüll's _Das goldene Kreuz_.
Notable, also, was the appearance of Albert Niemann, histrionically the
greatest of all Tristans.[49] The season of 1887-88 saw the production
of Wagner's _Siegfried_ and _Götterdämmerung_, besides Nessler's _Der
Trompeter von Säkkingen_, Weber's Euryanthe, and Spontini's _Ferdinand
Cortez_. There were two consecutive representations of the entire _Ring
des Nibelungen_ during the season of 1888-89, the only novelty being
_Das Rheingold_. _Der fliegende Holländer_, _Un Ballo in Maschera_,
_Norma_, and Cornelius's _Der Barbier von Bagdad_ were added to the
list in his season of 1889-90.

Outside the Metropolitan there was a season of German opera at the
Thalia Theatre in 1887, the prima donna being Frau Herbert-Förster, the
wife of Victor Herbert. The list of operas offered was commonplace. In
1888 the National Opera Company, without Theodore Thomas but with a
distinguished tenor in Barton McGuckin, gave a short and unsuccessful
season at the Academy of Music. A notable event of the same year was
the first performance in America of Verdi's _Otello_ by a company
brought from Italy by Italo Campanini. The enterprise failed, partly
owing to the incompetence of the tenor, Marconi, who was cast for the
title rôle, and partly owing to the fact that New Yorkers, for some
peculiar reason, seem constitutionally incapable of appreciating Verdi
in his greatest and least conventional works. Eva Tetrazzini, sister of
the more famous Luisa, was the Desdemona of the occasion.

The only performance of Italian opera in New York during the season of
1888-89 was a benefit for Italo Campanini at which he appeared with
Clémentine de Vère in _Lucia di Lammermoor_. During the season of
1889-90 some performances of opera in English were given by the Emma
Juch Opera Company at Oscar Hammerstein's Harlem Opera House, which
was also the scene of a short postlude to the Metropolitan season by
a company conducted by Walter Damrosch and including Lilli Lehmann.
The Metropolitan in the meantime was occupied by a very strong Italian
company under the management of Henry E. Abbey and Maurice Grau. The
company included Patti, Albani, Nordica, and Tamagno,[50] with Arditi
and Romualdo Sapio as conductors. Tamagno's presence meant, of course,
the production of _Otello_, and this was the only interesting feature
of the repertory. Patti was still singing a 'farewell' in the old
hurdy-gurdy list.

The season of 1890-91 proved to be the end of German opera at the
Metropolitan for some years. _Der fliegende Holländer_, _Tannhäuser_,
_Lohengrin_, the _Ring_ operas (except _Das Rheingold_), _Tristan und
Isolde_, and _Die Meistersinger_, Beethoven's _Fidelio_, Cornelius's
_Der Barbier von Bagdad_, Bizet's _Carmen_, and Meyerbeer's _Le
Prophète_, _Les Huguenots_, and _L'Africaine_ were chosen from the
regular repertory, while the novelties were Alberto Franchetti's
_Asraël_, Anton Smareglia's _Der Vasall von Szigeth_, and _Diana von
Solange_ by His Royal Highness Ernest II, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
The two first-named novelties were of slight account, while the
last-named was so trivial as to lend color to the innuendos that
the justly famed liberality of His Royal Highness in the matter of
decorations was being exercised for the benefit of some persons not
unknown at the Metropolitan.


                                  V

For the season of 1891-92 the Metropolitan was leased to Messrs. Abbey,
Schoeffel and Grau. The lessees brought together a brilliant company,
including Lilli Lehmann, Emma Eames, Marie Van Zandt, Giula and Sophia
Ravogli, Lillian Nordica, Emma Albani, Jean and Édouard de Reszke, and
Jean Lassalle. Vianesi was conductor. Meyerbeer, Gounod, Bizet, Verdi,
and the older Italians supplied the list of operas for the season,
while _Lohengrin_, _Die Meistersinger_, _Der fliegende Holländer_, and
_Fidelio_ were given (in Italian) as a sop to the 'German element.'
The only novelties were Gluck's _Orfeo_ and Mascagni's _Cavalleria
rusticana_, the latter having been given previously by two companies
in English. A supplementary season in 1892 featured Patti in _Lucia_
and _Il Barbiere_. In the same year the Metropolitan was partially
destroyed by fire.

The Metropolitan Opera House Company was reorganized in 1893 as
the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company and made a new lease
with Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau, which, through various vicissitudes,
lasted until Heinrich Conried took over the reins in 1902. Abbey died
in 1896 and Grau remained at the head of affairs until Conried's
advent. The season of 1893-4 presented nothing new except Mascagni's
_L'Amico Fritz_, which did not make a sensation. There was, however,
a sensation in the fascinating shape of Emma Calvé, whose _Carmen_ is
an imperishably piquant memory with New York opera-goers. With Nellie
Melba and Pol Plançon she was the chief newcomer of the season. A
supplemental season presented Massenet's _Werther_. Otherwise there is
only to note the _Carmen_ craze provoked by Calvé and a _Faust_ craze
induced by the coincidence of Emma Eames, Jean de Reszke, and Plançon.
The latter was so pronounced as to lend point to Mr. W. J. Henderson's
witty characterization of the Metropolitan as the _Faustspielhaus_.

Calvé did not return for the season of 1894-5 and in her place came
Zélie de Lussan, whom New Yorkers refused to accept as a suitable
embodiment of Mérimée's heroine. Francesco Tamagno and Victor Maurel
were the other noteworthy newcomers, while Luigi Mancinelli was the
principal conductor. The important event of the season was the first
performance of Verdi's _Falstaff_, and there was a new opera, _Elaine_,
by the Argentine composer Herman Bemberg, a distinct anti-climax.

In the meantime, there were signs that a new order of things at the
Metropolitan was much desired of a large section of the New York
music-loving public. The Metropolitan had practically a monopoly
of opera in the city and a few serious attempts had recently been
made to break that monopoly. Oscar Hammerstein and Rudolph Aronson
had rushed to the front with immature performances of _Cavalleria
rusticana_ in 1891. The former, apparently, had already been inoculated
with the managerial virus and in 1893 he opened his Manhattan Opera
House on Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street. Moszkowski's _Boabdil_
and Beethoven's _Fidelio_ were the features of a season of two weeks
which saw the beginning and end of that particular enterprise. Some
performances in English were given at the Grand Opera House, beginning
in May, 1893, and in the same year the Duff Opera Company presented an
English version of Gounod's _Philémon et Baucis_.

There was, however, a demand of which these flimsy ventures took
no account, and the credit for realizing it sufficiently to take
chances on it goes to Walter Damrosch and Anton Seidl. The former
took advantage of the presence in New York of Amalia Materna, Anton
Schott, Emil Fischer, and Conrad Behrens to give representations of
_Die Walküre_ and _Götterdämmerung_ at the Carnegie Music Hall and
the Metropolitan Opera House, respectively. Further evidence of the
strong Wagnerian tendency in New York was the success of an improvised
performance of _Tannhäuser_ by the German Press Club. The next symptom
of the movement was the organization of a Wagner Society to support a
season of Wagner operas at the Metropolitan. Unfortunately Seidl and
Damrosch were rivals and could not agree on a plan by which they might
give German opera together. Damrosch was able to secure subscriptions
enough to insure him against loss, and, after the close of the
Metropolitan season of 1894-95, he gave seventeen performances of opera
with a middling company which included Johanna Gadski, then a novice,
Marie Brema, Max Alvary, and Emil Fischer. The enterprise was devoted
altogether to Wagner and was an immense success. Denied the use of the
Metropolitan for another season, in 1896 Damrosch established himself
at the Academy of Music with a strong company which numbered among its
members Milka Ternina, Katherina Klafsky, Johanna Gadski, Max Alvary,
and Emil Fischer. Besides the Wagner repertory he presented _Fidelio_,
_Der Freischütz_, and his own opera, 'The Scarlet Letter,' based on
Hawthorne's romance of that name. The second Damrosch season was a
failure.

Before returning to the Metropolitan season of 1895-6 it may be
mentioned that, on October 8, 1895, Sir Augustus Harris, of Covent
Garden, presented at Daly's Theatre some 'beautiful music composed
for the occasion' by 'Mr. Humperdinckel.' Sir Augustus was referring
to Humperdinck's _Hänsel und Gretel_.[51] The Metropolitan season of
1895-96 was distinguished by an announcement that 'the management [had]
decided to add a number of celebrated German artists and to present
Wagner operas in the German language, all of which operas will be
given with superior singers, equal to any who have ever been heard
in the German language.' The 'number of celebrated German artists,'
however, materialized into three, of whom only Marie Brema could even
by poetic license be characterized as 'superior.' Calvé returned to
glad the hearts of _Carmen_ lovers, and, except for the addition of
Mario Ancona, a sterling bass, the other principals remained the same
as in the preceding season. Anton Seidl was conductor. Unquestionably
the event of the season was Jean de Reszke's presentation of Tristan
in the soft-toned vesture of _bel canto_. De Reszke, of course, was
too great an artist to turn the character into an Italian stage lover,
but he did present a vocally mellifluous Tristan and his methods have
influenced all subsequent interpreters of the rôle. Two acts of Bizet's
_Pêcheur de Perles_, Massenet's _Navarraise_ (with Calvé), and Boïto's
_Mefistofele_ were other interesting features of the season.

In the fall of 1896 Colonel Mapleson made a short reappearance at
the Academy of Music. He still retained his bad taste in choosing a
répertoire, but he provided one novelty in the shape of Giordano's
_Andrea Chénier_. After the opening of the Metropolitan season he moved
to Boston, where his orchestra went on strike and his American career
ended forever. The loss of Mme. Nordica by disagreement and of Mme.
Klafsky and Mr. Alvary by death was a handicap to the Metropolitan in
the beginning of its season of 1896-97. Before the season had closed
Melba injured her voice singing Brünnhilde and had to retire; Eames was
compelled to undergo an operation, and Castelmary fell stricken with
heart disease during a performance of _Tristan und Isolde_. In spite of
which the season managed to run its allotted span. The only novelty was
Massenet's _Le Cid_.

There was no Metropolitan season in 1897-98, but Walter Damrosch and
Charles A. Ellis gave a series of German and Italian operas at that
house in January and February, 1898, with an excellent company, which
included Melba, Nordica, Gadski, Marie Mattfeld, Emil Fischer, David
Bispham, and Giuseppe Campanari. In May of the same year the Milan
Royal Opera Company, of La Scala, recruited chiefly from Mexico and
South America, introduced New York to Puccini's _La Bohème_. The opera
was again produced later in the year at the Casino by another Italian
company and in English at the American Theatre by Henry W. Savage's
Castle Square Opera Company.

Melba and Sembrich came back to the Metropolitan for the season of
1898-99 and among the newcomers were Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Suzanne
Adams, Ernest Van Dyck, Albert Saleza, and Anton Van Rooy. Nordica,
Eames, Lehmann, Mantelli, the brothers de Reszke, Pol Plançon, David
Bispham, and Andreas Dippel were also in the company--altogether a
very brilliant assemblage. The only novelty was Mancinelli's _Ero e
Leandro_. Antonio Scotti was a newcomer in the season of 1899-1900,
which was also distinguished by a visit from Ernst von Schuch, director
of the opera at Dresden, who conducted two performances of _Lohengrin_.
Before the opening of the following season the Metropolitan English
Grand Opera Company, promoted by Henry W. Savage and Maurice Grau,
gave a series of operas in English with a tolerably good repertory
and a very good list of singers. Savage's Castle Square Company had
already brought forward earlier in the year a novelty in the shape of
Spinelli's _A basso Porto_, and at the Metropolitan he produced for the
first time Goring-Thomas's 'Esmeralda.'

For the season of 1900-01 Milka Ternina came to the Metropolitan
and New York was introduced to Louise Homer, Lucienne Bréval, Fritzi
Scheff, the inimitable and much-lamented Charles Gilibert, Imbart
de la Tour, Robert Blass, and Marcel Journet. Mancinelli was still
conductor. The novelties were Puccini's _La Tosca_ and Ernest Reyer's
_Salammbo_. Of the newcomers for 1901-02 the only one that calls for
mention is Albert Reiss, whose Mime and David still delight New York
Wagner lovers. Isidore de Lara's _Messaline_ and Paderewski's _Manru_
were the novelties, and there was also a gala performance in honor of
Prince Henry of Prussia, which was one of the most elaborate displays
of snobbery ever staged in America. Walter Damrosch, Signor Sepilli,
and M. Flon were the conductors. Alfred Hertz came over as conductor of
German opera for the season of 1902-03, and has remained a distinctly
reliable asset to the Metropolitan ever since. The only novelty of
that season was Ethel Smyth's _Der Wald_, though Verdi's _Ernani_ and
_Un Ballo in Maschera_ had been strangers for so long that they were
novelties in effect. Before the opening of the season Mascagni favored
New York with a visit and produced at the Metropolitan his own operas
_Zanetto_, _Cavalleria rusticana_, and _Iris_. His enterprise was not
successful.


                                  VI

Maurice Grau was compelled through ill health to retire from the
management of the Metropolitan during the season of 1902-03 and before
the opening of the next season the reins passed to Heinrich Conried,
a native of Austria, who had already made an enviable reputation as
manager of the German theatre in Irving Place and of various German and
English comic opera companies. Conried was an excellent impresario. For
his first season he annexed Enrico Caruso, Olive Fremstad, and Otto
Goritz, and brought over Felix Mottl as conductor, besides retaining
Sembrich, Eames, Calvé, Homer, Scotti, Plançon, Journet, Campanari,
and other Grau stars. Everything else he did before or since, however,
was overshadowed by his production of _Parsifal_ on December 24,
1913. Whether his action was artistically and ethically justified or
whether, as many believed, it was a violation of the sacred shrine
of Bayreuth, is not a question pertinent to this narrative. But
there is no doubt that his motives in staging the opera were purely
commercial and the manner in which he advertised it was productive of
unfortunate results which cheapened Wagner's solemn art-work beyond
expression. For purposes of record it may be noted that in this first
American production of _Parsifal_ Milka Ternina was the Kundry, Alois
Burgstaller the Parsifal, Anton Van Rooy the Amfortas, Robert Blass the
Gurnemanz, Otto Goritz the Klingsor and Marcel Journet the Titurel.
Alfred Hertz conducted. Prompted by the tremendous publicity given to
_Parsifal_, Henry W. Savage hawked it in an English version all over
the country. A much-touted novelty; a variant from the small-time
vaudeville, from the eternal stock company, from eternal boredom; a
cross between a church meeting and a circus! Such was _Parsifal_ to the
shirt-sleeved communities of America from coast to coast. It was a sad
spectacle--the saddest perhaps in the artistic annals of this country.

In his second season Conried staged a rather too elaborate production
of Strauss's _Die Fledermaus_, which he followed up in his third season
with _Der Zigeunerbaron_. The production of _Hänsel und Gretel_ in
the presence of the composer and the revival of Goldmark's _Königin
von Saba_ were creditable features of the third season. In 1906-07
Mr. Conried outshone himself and, whatever his motives, he stirred
operatic New York then as it had perhaps never been stirred. To begin
with, he produced Richard Strauss's setting of Oscar Wilde's _Salome_.
Such a fluttering in the moral dovecotes has rarely been seen. Ever
meticulously careful of its spotless purity, New York protested
violently against the 'shocking exhibition' and, after the first
performance, the directors of the Metropolitan issued the following
notice: 'The directors of the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate
Company consider that the performance of _Salome_ is objectionable and
detrimental to the best interests of the Metropolitan Opera House. They
therefore protest against any repetition of this opera.'

However, the bad taste left by _Salome_ in the mouths of the
Metropolitan Opera House patrons was presumably removed by the gala
productions of Puccini's _Manon Lescaut_ and _Madama Butterfly_ in
the presence of the composer. The former had already been given by an
Italian company at Wallack's Theatre in 1898 and the latter in English
by Savage's company at the Garden Theatre in 1906. Other novelties
of the season were Berlioz's _La Damnation de Faust_ and Giordano's
_Fedora_. In the season of 1907-8 the only novelty was Francesco
Cilea's _Adriana Lecouvreur_. The season was otherwise notable for the
presence of Gustav Mahler, then conductor of the Court Opera, Vienna,
who gave extraordinary readings of _Don Giovanni_, _Fidelio_, _Tristan
und Isolde_, and _Die Walküre_.

Conried resigned from the Metropolitan management in February, 1908.
His managerial career was certainly extraordinary; he thoroughly
stirred New York's turgid operatic waters. The list of artists
introduced by him is a brilliant one. Besides the names already
mentioned it includes Bella Alten, Lina Cavalieri, Geraldine Farrar,
Marie Mattfeld, Bessie Abbott, Marie Rappold, Berta Morena, Carl
Burrian, Allessandro Bonci, Riccardo Martin, and the great Russian
basso, Theodore Chaliapine.

In the meantime Oscar Hammerstein, who had made various immature
attempts to break into the operatic field, built a new Manhattan Opera
House, which he opened in December 3, 1906, for a season of opera which
closed on April 20, 1907. His high sounding promises were not taken
seriously by musical New York, but the achievements of his first season
changed that attitude materially. True, the list of operas brought
forward is not inspiring. It included _I Puritani_, _Rigoletto_,
_Faust_, _Don Giovanni_, _Carmen_, _Aïda_, _Lucia di Lammermoor_, _Il
Trovatore_, _La Traviata_, _L'Elisir d'amore_, _Gli Ugonotti_ (_Les
Huguenots_), _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, _La Sonnambula_, _Cavalleria
rusticana_, _Mignon_, _I Pagliacci_, _Dinorah_, _Un Ballo in Maschera_,
_La Bohème_, _Fra Diavolo_, _Marta_, and _La Navarraise_. But the
significant fact is that Mr. Hammerstein had the courage to start a
season of opera on an elaborate scale in opposition to the Metropolitan
and without the support of 'society.' His success demonstrated the
feasibility of such an enterprise and gave an impetus to the growth
of public interest in opera, of which others are now reaping the
benefit. He was rather unfortunate in his repertory, but he was more
fortunate in his selection of artists. Among them were Melba, Calvé,
Regina Pinkert, Bressler-Gianoli, Giannina Russ, Eleanora de Cisneros,
Allessandro Bonci, Maurice Renaud, the greatest of French baritones,
Charles Dalmorès, Charles Gilibert, Mario Ancona and Vittorio Arimondi.
He was additionally fortunate in securing Cleofonte Campanini as
conductor.

For his second season Mr. Hammerstein added to his forces Lillian
Nordica, Mary Garden, Emma Trentini, Alice Zeppilli, Ernestine
Schumann-Heink, Jeanne Gerville-Réache, Giovanni Zenatello, Amadeo
Bassi, Mario Sammarco, Hector Dufranne, Adamo Didur, and several others
of lesser note, besides retaining his principals of the preceding
season, with the exception of Calvé and Bonci. Before the season closed
he also presented Luisa Tetrazzini. The first production in America
of Charpentier's _Louise_ and Debussy's _Pelléas et Mélisande_ were
notable results of a new policy which was to make the Manhattan Opera
House _par excellence_ the home of French opera in New York. Other
French operas on the list for the same season were _Carmen_, Berlioz's
_La Damnation de Faust_, Offenbach's _Les Contes d'Hoffmann_, a
revival, Gounod's _Faust_, and Massenet's _Thaïs_ and _La Navarraise_.
The Italian list departed from the hackneyed a little by the inclusion
of Giordano's _Siberia_ and _Andrea Chénier_ and of the Ricci brothers'
_Crispino e la Comare_.

After the resignation of Mr. Conried from the Metropolitan, Giulio
Gatti-Casazza and Andreas Dippel were appointed managers. The former
had been director of La Scala in Milan, and the latter for several
years had been a prominent and versatile member of the Metropolitan
company. Apparently the design in conjoining them was to give equal
representation to the Italian and German sides of the house. The
results for the season 1908-9 were very pleasing and there was a
good admixture of Italian and German operas, without any startling
revolution in the general character of the repertory. The novelties
were d'Albert's _Tiefland_, Smetana's _Die Verkaufte Braut_, Catalini's
_La Wally_, and Puccini's _Le Villi_, while there were revivals of
Massenet's _Manon_, Mozart's _Nozze di Figaro_, and Verdi's _Falstaff_.
The most notable addition to the Metropolitan forces was Arturo
Toscanini, who came from La Scala as conductor of Italian opera. Hertz
and Mahler remained as conductors of German opera, though Toscanini
led performances of _Götterdämmerung_ and _Tristan und Isolde_ with
apparent gusto and brilliant success. Among the new singers were Emmy
Destinn, Frances Alda, Bernice di Pasquali, Marion Flahaut, Pasquale
Amato, Adamo Didur, and Carl Jörn.

In the same season Mr. Hammerstein brought forward a number of
interesting novelties, including Saint-Saëns's _Samson et Dalila_,
Massenet's _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_, and the _Princesse d'Auberge_
of Jan Blockx. He also had the hardihood to produce _Salome_, and its
success seems to indicate that the squeamishness of New York's moral
stomach had, by some strange process, entirely disappeared. Except
for _Otello_ there was nothing else of particular interest in his
list. During the season of 1909-10 he produced Strauss's _Electra_ and
Massenet's _Hérodiade_, _Grisélidis_, and _Sappho_. In addition he made
experiments with _opéra comique_, presenting Maillart's _Les Dragons
de Villars_, Planquette's _Les Cloches de Corneville_, Audran's _La
Mascotte_, Donizetti's _La Fille du Régiment_, and Lecocq's _La Fille
de Madame Angot_. The most notable acquisitions to his forces in this
season were Madame Mazarin, a French dramatic soprano of fine talent,
Lina Cavalieri, and John McCormack, the Irish lyric tenor. He no longer
had the services of Campanini, his principal conductor being the
Belgian de la Fuente. After the close of the season he sold out to the
Metropolitan interests and entered into an agreement with them not to
give grand opera in New York city for ten years.

The season of 1909-10 at the Metropolitan had a number of unusual
features. The most prominent of them was the appearance of a Russian
troupe of dancers headed by Anna Pavlova and Mikail Mordkin.
Another departure was a series of performances at the New Theatre,
a beautiful house originally designed to give drama under somewhat
the same auspices as prevailed at the Metropolitan. The operas given
at the New Theatre were, on the whole, works of a light and intimate
character, such as _Fra Diavolo_, _La Fille de Madame Angot_, Flotow's
_Stradella_, Lortzing's _Czar und Zimmermann_ and Pergolesi's[?] _Il
Maestro di Capella_. Nineteen operas, three ballets, and a pantomime
were presented at this house. At the Metropolitan thirty-seven
were produced, the chief novelties being Franchetti's _Germania_,
Tschaikowsky's _Pique Dame_, Frederick S. Converse's 'Pipe of Desire'
(the first production of an American opera at the Metropolitan), and
Bruneau's _L'Attaque du Moulin_. There was a splendid revival of
Gluck's _Orfeo ed Eurydice_ under Toscanini.

After the close of the season Mr. Dippel left the Metropolitan to
assume the direction of the Chicago-Philadelphia Opera Company,
which was formed chiefly of artists from Mr. Hammerstein's disbanded
forces. During the season of 1910-11 he gave a subscription series of
French operas at the Metropolitan on Tuesday evenings from January to
April. The novelties of the series were Victor Herbert's _Natoma_,
Wolff-Ferrari's _Il Segreto di Susanna_, and Jean Nougues' _Quo Vadis?_
The regular Metropolitan season saw the first production on any stage
of Puccini's _La Fanciulla del West_ and Humperdinck's _Königskinder_,
in the presence of their respective composers. Dukas' _Ariane et
Barbe-Bleue_ had its American première and there was also a brilliant
revival of Gluck's _Armide_.

The seasons of 1911-12, 1912-13, and 1913-14 at the Metropolitan
have been notable chiefly for the first performance in America of
Horatio W. Parker's 'Mona,' which was awarded the prize offered by the
Metropolitan directors for the best opera by an American composer.
Thuille's _Lobetanz_, Wolff-Ferrari's _Le Donne Curiose_, Leo
Blech's _Versiegelt_, Walter Damrosch's _Cyrano de Bergerac_, Victor
Herbert's _Madeleine_, Moussorgsky's _Boris Godounoff_, Strauss's
_Rosenkavalier_, Charpentier's _Julien_, Montemezzi's _L'Amore dei tre
re_, and Wolf-Ferrari's _L'Amore medico_ were the other novelties.
Among the new singers engaged for those seasons were Lydia Lipkowska,
Frieda Hempel, Margarete Ober, Lucrezia Bori, Margarete Matzenauer,
Hermann Jadlowker, Leo Slezak, Carl Burrian, Jacques Urlus, Hermann
Weil, Heinrich Hensel, and Giovanni Martinelli. During 1914-15 Melanie
Kurt, Wagnerian soprano, and Elisabeth Schumann were added to the list
of singers, and the novelties were Giordano's _Madame Sans-Gêne_ and
Leoni's _L'Oracolo_. The season's sensation was a revival of _Carmen_
with Farrar.

                   *       *       *       *       *

In 1913 a project was launched through the initiative of the City
Club of New York to establish a regular stock opera company which
would provide good opera at popular prices. The project was supported
by the Metropolitan directors--especially by Otto H. Kahn, chairman
of the board--and a guarantee was secured sufficient to cover any
deficit which the company might suffer in the beginning. As there was
considerable doubt whether New York would support opera in English it
was decided to make the experiment of giving operas in their original
language and in English on different nights. Messrs. Milton and Sargent
Aborn were entrusted with the management of the new enterprise and they
were assisted materially by the coöperation of the Metropolitan in the
matter of scenery and other accessories. The company was selected on
the principle of securing a good, well-balanced ensemble and avoiding
any approach to the 'star' system.

Rarely has an operatic enterprise been launched under more favorable
auspices. It had the enthusiastic and unanimous endorsement of
the press, the lively interest of the public, the backing of many
of the wealthiest and most influential men in New York, as well
as the quasi-official support of the city itself through the City
Club. Finally, it was installed in the beautiful Century (formerly
New) Theatre. Naturally, its first season was to a large extent an
experiment and there was every reason to suppose that the faults
disclosed would quickly be remedied. But the Century enterprise quickly
succeeded in proving two very important facts, viz., that there is in
New York a large public eager for good opera at popular prices and that
this public wants opera in the English language.

The season was not far advanced before it became apparent that what we
may call the Opera-in-English nights were more extensively patronized
than the performances of operas in their original language, and the
management accordingly reduced the performances in a foreign language
to one a week. The success of the enterprise was sufficiently indicated
by the public demand which was so unexpectedly great--especially for
the cheaper seats--that after the close of the season the capacity of
the house had to be increased to 1,800 seats.

The répertoire of the Century Opera Company during its first
season included _Aïda_, _La Gioconda_, 'Tales of Hoffmann,' _Il
Trovatore_, _Thaïs_, _Louise_, _Faust_, _La Tosca_, _Lucia_, 'Samson
and Delilah,' 'Madam Butterfly,' 'The Bohemian Girl,' 'Romeo and
Juliet,' _Rigoletto_, 'Haensel and Gretel,' _Cavalleria rusticana_,
_Pagliacci_, _Manon_, _Lohengrin_, 'The Secret of Suzanne,' 'The Jewels
of the Madonna,' _Tiefland_, 'Martha,' and 'Natoma.' The conductors
were Alfred Szendrei and Carlo Nicosia. For its season of 1914-15 the
Century considerably strengthened its forces, and particularly the
orchestra, and it added a number of experienced singers to its roll.
Most of its artists, it may be remarked, were Americans. The new
conductors were Agide Jacchia, late of the Montreal Opera Company, and
Ernst Knoch, who was formerly assistant to Richter, Bolling and others
at Bayreuth. Jacques Coini, probably the most artistic stage director
New York has had in connection with opera, was engaged in that capacity
by the Century Company. The répertoire was largely that of the first
season with the addition of _La Bohème_, 'Carmen,' and 'William Tell.'
Of the entire list, ten were chosen by popular vote. Altogether the
quality of the performances was considerably improved, most of the
crudities of the first season being eliminated. But financially the
enterprise, like all preceding efforts in the same direction, was not
successful and the general support did not warrant the continuance of
Mr. Kahn's subsidy, and consequently performances were suspended in the
spring of 1915. Some sort of revival of the enterprise is devoutly to
be hoped for.

                                                          W. D. D.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[38] This was Manuel del Popolo Vicente García, father of Manuel
García, the famous teacher, and of Maria Felicita García, who became
Madame Malibran.

[39] Da Ponte was the first professor of Italian at Columbia
University, though he bore the title only by courtesy. He really
did valuable work in promoting the study of Italian literature,
particularly of Dante, in this country. His part in the promotion of
Italian opera in New York was also far from a small one, as we shall
see.

[40] Translated and quoted by Dr. Ritter, _op. cit._, Chap. X.

[41] William Michael Rooke was the son of a Dublin tradesman named
Rourke or O'Rourke and was to a large extent a self-taught musician.
For a time he taught the violin and pianoforte in Dublin--among
his pupils on the former instrument being Balfe--and later he was
chorus-master at Drury Lane under Tom Cooke, leader at Vauxhall under
Sir Henry Bishop, and a conductor of oratorios at Birmingham. 'Amalie'
was produced with success at Covent Garden in 1837.

[42] The operas given during Palmo's first season were Bellini's _I
Puritani_, _Beatrice di Tenda_, and _La Sonnambula_; Donizetti's
_Belisario_ and _L'Elisir d'Amore_; and Rossini's _Il Barbiere di
Siviglia_ and _L'Italiana in Algieri_. During the second season were
given Donizetti's _Lucia di Lammermoor_, _Lucrezia Borgia_, and
_Belisario_; Rossini's _Sémiramide_ and _La Cenerentola_; Bellini's _Il
Pirata_; and Luigi Ricci's _Chiara de Rosenberg_.

[43] The novelties were Strakosch's _Giovanna di Napoli_ and
Donizetti's _Parisina_ and _Maria di Rohan_, while there was an oasis
in the desert in the shape of _Freischütz_. When his lease at the Astor
Place house expired Maretzek continued his operatic career in a more or
less irregular way at Castle Garden and Niblo's. He produced Verdi's
_Luisa Miller_ for the first time in America at the former place and at
the latter he introduced Meyerbeer's _Prophète_.

[44] Bergmann became conductor of the Arion in 1859. The society was
formed in 1854 by seceding members from the Deutscher Liederkranz.

[45] Campanini, in the opinion of Philip Hale, was a greater tenor
than either de Reszke, de Lucia, or Tamagno. He was a brother of
Cleofonte Campanini, recently musical director of the Chicago Opera
Company. Nilsson came here in 1870, after having made a big reputation
in Europe. A winsome personality and a voice of sweet quality, great
compass, and even register, but of moderate power, were her chief
assets. 'Elsa,' 'Margaret,' 'Mignon,' and 'Donna Elvira' were her most
successful rôles.

[46] Offenbach has described his American experiences in his _Notes
d'un musicien en voyage_, 1877.

[47] There is, of course, no intention of belittling the splendid
operatic achievements which followed the action of these gentlemen in
founding the Metropolitan company. But we have serious grounds for
questioning the ultimate value of an artistic enterprise undertaken by
a group of financiers as a sort of luxurious toy.

[48] Nicolini was Patti's husband and she refused to sing when he was
not also engaged. There is a story that she had two prices: one for
herself alone and another about 25 per cent. less for herself and
Nicolini.

[49] Niemann sang Siegmund at the first Bayreuth festival.

[50] Francesco Tamagno was to a large extent a one-part tenor. He
created the title rôle in _Otello_, and in that rôle he has never been
surpassed.

[51] We have the authority of Mr. H. E. Krehbiel, who is our guide for
much of this chapter.




                              CHAPTER VII
                  OPERA IN THE UNITED STATES. PART II

      San Francisco's operatic experiences--New Orleans and its
      opera house--Philadelphia; influence of New Orleans, New
      York, etc.; The Academy of Music--Chicago's early operatic
      history; the Chicago-Philadelphia company; Boston--Comic
      opera in New York and elsewhere.


                                   I

During the greater part of the nineteenth century New York was
unquestionably the metropolis of opera in America, and to trace
operatic performances outside that city is a complicated and difficult
undertaking. Generally speaking, other cities obtained their opera by
grace of visiting companies from New York and, on the whole, that grace
was not abundant. Exception must be made in the case of New Orleans
and San Francisco. The latter city never enjoyed what might be called
a permanent operatic institution such as was familiar to New York from
the days of da Ponte, but it had the advantage of frequent visits from
opera troupes on their way to and from Mexico.

The first opera given in San Francisco, as far as we can discover, was
_Ernani_, which was produced by George Lover in 1853. Later, attempts
to establish Italian opera there were made by Lanzoni and Lamperti.
In 1857 Signor and Signora Bianchi gave a season with a very good
company and in opposition to another company brought together by Thomas
Maguire. Those were the days of flowing gold in California, when the
raw yellow metal was thrown on the stage in moments of enthusiastic
appreciation. It cannot be said that artistic conditions were ideal.
Madame Anna Bishop was in San Francisco in 1858-59, but she seems to
have taken part only in operatic concerts. A Spanish opera company and
a company known as the Bianchi Troupe appeared at the old Metropolitan
Theatre in the early sixties, producing _Norma_, _La Sonnambula_, _La
Favorita_, _Belisario_, _Linda di Chamouni_, _Ernani_, _Nabucco_,
_Il Trovatore_, and other works of the same type. _La Traviata_ was
produced at a benefit for Signora Brambilla in 1866 and three years
later Parepa Rosa appeared in _Don Pasquale_. In 1870 there were three
opera companies playing San Francisco at about the same time. Alice
Oates' Popular Opera Bouffe Company gave _La Périchole_, _Petit Duke_,
_La Fille de Madame Angot_, and _Giroflé-Girofla_ with great success,
while similar works were presented by a French company with Marie
Aimée. At the Bijou Theatre Campobello's troupe gave _Il Barbiere
di Siviglia_, _La Favorita_, and other compositions of the same
school. In the same year Theodor Wachtel, the famous coachman tenor,
appeared--presumably in _Le Postillon de Lonjumeau_--and Mme. Mez
Fabbri also gave a series of operas.

For several years following we can find no definite information about
opera in San Francisco beyond the fact that Mme. Zeiss-Dennis, the
famous contralto, made operatic appearances during the early seventies.
In 1876-77 Marie Rose, Annie Louise Cary, and Clara Louise Kellogg
gave English representations of _Carmen_ and _Die Zauberflöte_, and in
1878 the two last-named appeared in a season of opera at the Baldwin
Theatre. At the same theatre earlier in the latter year Catherine Lewis
sang in _opéra bouffe_ of the _Giroflé-Girofla_ type. The redoubtable
Colonel Mapleson brought Her Majesty's Opera Company to San Francisco
in 1881, and in the following year the Emma Juch Opera Company gave
a season at Baldwin's Theatre. Mme. Eugénie Pappenheim, whom we have
already met in New York, appeared with the German and Italian Opera
Company in 1884, and in 1884-85 there was a season of light opera at
the Tivoli Theatre, among the operas produced being 'Little Red Riding
Hood,' _Boccaccio_, and 'H. M. S. Pinafore.' The appearances of Etelka
Gerster, Adelina Patti, and Emma Abbott were other features of operatic
life in San Francisco in 1884.

From this time on San Francisco enjoyed opera in large quantity and of
occasionally high quality. Light opera was especially in evidence, with
the Tivoli Theatre as its favorite home. Offenbach's 'The Georgians,'
as well as _Lucia di Lammermoor_, 'Martha,' 'Cinderella,' 'The Mikado,'
'Nanon,' 'Nell Gwynne,' 'Olivette,' 'The Three Guardsmen,' and
'Princess Ida' were produced in 1885. In the same year Amalia Materna,
Emma Nevada, and Sofia Scalchi made their San Francisco débuts. The
ill-fated National Opera Company and Emma Abbott's troupe were the
chief purveyors of opera in 1887. The latter remained for a few years.
In 1889 came Paston and Canteli's Madrid Spanish Opera Company, which
produced _Il grand Mogul_, _La Mascota_, _Galatea_, _Il Ballo in
Maschera_, _Il Trovatore_, and _La Zaroule_. Tamagno in _Otello_ was
the most noteworthy event of 1890, and 1891 is remarkable for the
appearance of a Jewish opera troupe which gave operas in the Jewish
language. There is nothing particular to record for the years 1892,
1893, 1894, and 1895. The presence of the Tavery Opera Company was the
chief event of 1896, while in 1897 the predominant feature was the
appearance of Puccini's Opera Company in _La Bohème_, _La Traviata_,
_Cavalleria rusticana_, _Faust_, and other works.

The subsequent history of opera in San Francisco is chiefly the
recital of visits by opera troupes from various quarters. Apart from
the Emma Abbott Opera Company, which was more or less a fixture, there
has been no permanent operatic organization there; but San Francisco
is an eager supporter of opera and has never lacked a generous supply
of it. Comic opera has been especially well supported and the Tivoli
Theatre has perhaps seen more of that form of entertainment than any
other house in the United States.


                                   II

In New Orleans during the first half of the nineteenth century opera
flourished with a brilliance unknown elsewhere in America. The
Louisiana city was, as we have pointed out, an American Paris, and
the best operatic artists of the French capital appeared there in
works selected from the current Parisian répertoire. The opera house
was the centre of social, artistic, and musical New Orleans. It was
an institution with a tradition and an atmosphere. The brilliant and
cultured Creole society lent to it the glamour which only society can
give, but it was not dependent upon social support in the same sense as
the successive New York opera houses were dependent on such support.
It was a popular institution; it was an integral part of the life of
the city; it was a source at once of pride and pleasure to the humblest
citizen. And to a certain extent it remains so still.

The father of opera in New Orleans, as we have already pointed
out, was John Davis, who built the Théâtre d'Orléans in 1816. This
theatre was remodeled in 1845 and was destroyed by fire in 1866. Its
glory, however, had departed several years previous to the latter
date and had passed over to the New French Opera House, erected by
the New Orleans Opera-House Association in 1859. The moving spirit
in the new enterprise was M. Boudousquie, who became its manager. M.
Parlange tried a season of opera at the Théâtre d'Orléans in 1859-60,
but without success, and the old house then fell into disuse. Its
history, however, had been a brilliant one. For over forty years it had
maintained a standard of artistic excellence unsurpassed in America and
not far below that of the best European opera houses. Its ensembles,
both vocal and instrumental, were exceptionally good--notably so,
indeed, in a period when operatic stars were too conspicuously in
the ascendant. True, its repertory was never remarkable either for
its novelty or for its eclecticism. But that was a fault only too
common to opera houses both here and abroad during the first half of
the nineteenth century. The list of operas presented at the Théâtre
d'Orléans between 1825 and 1860 would be too long to quote here,
but it may be mentioned that during that time New Orleans heard the
following operas for the first time: _Le Barbier de Séville_, _La
Maette de Portici_, _Fra Diavolo_, _Robert le Diable_, _L'Éclair_
(Halévy), _Sémiramide_, _Les Huguenots_, _La Sonnambula_, _Zanetta_
(Auber), _Lucia di Lammermoor_, _La Esmeralda_ (Prévost), _Beatrice
di Tenda_, _Il Furioso_, _L'Elisir d'Amore_, _Norma_, _Guillaume
Tell_, _La Favorita_, _La Fille du Régiment_, _La Juive_, _Lucrecia
Borgia_, _I Puritani_ (in Italian), _Belisario_ (in Italian), _La Reine
de Chypre_, _Der Freischütz_, _Les Martyrs_, _Charles VI_ (Halévy),
_Jérusalem_ (Verdi), _Le Prophète_, _Le Caïd_ (Thomas), _Les Deux
Foscari_, _Les Montenégrins_ (Limmander), _La Gazza Ladra_, _Tancredi_,
_Othello_ (Rossini), _Moses_ (Rossini), _Don Giovanni_, _Marguérite
d'Anjou_ (Meyerbeer), _La Vestale_ (Spontini), _L'Étoile du Nord_, _Il
Trovatore_, _Ernani, Jaguarita_ (Halévy), _Martha_ and _Rigoletto_. Of
these _Il Furioso_, _L'Elisir d'Amore_, _Les Martyrs_ and _Le Prophète_
were given for the first time in America.

M. Boudousquie opened the New Orleans Opera House with a brilliant
company which included Mathieu (tenor), Melchisedes (baritone),
Genebrel (basso), and Feitlinger (soprano). He presented _Le Pardon
de Ploërmel_ for the first time in New Orleans and put on a number
of operas already familiar to the city, including _Rigoletto_, with
the novice Patti in the rôle of Gilda. The war naturally killed all
operatic activities for the time being. Subsequently the New Orleans
Opera House was reopened with a strolling company managed by the
Alhaiza brothers. In 1866 a splendid company gathered together by the
Alhaizas in France was drowned on the voyage to America in the wreck of
the _Evening Star_. A surviving brother opened with an Italian troupe,
and since then the New Orleans Opera House has continued its functions,
with occasional interruptions, _per varios casus per tot discrimina
rerum_. Italian, German and English companies have been heard there
from time to time, but on the whole it has remained a thoroughly French
house directed by French managers and presenting opera in the French
tongue. Its principal artists have been selected from among the best
on the contemporary French stage and have included many singers of
world-wide reputation. For years it has been the custom of the house
to change its singers every season, and on that account it would be
impossible to enumerate here the list of distinguished artists who
have appeared on its boards. Mention may be made, however, of such
well-known names as Devoyed, Durnestre, Ambre, Tournie, Levelli,
Pical, Michat, Orlius, Etelka Gerster, Fursch-Madi, Paulin, Baux,
Mounier, Deo, Feodor, Albers and Maurice Renaud. The following operas
have been given in New Orleans for the first time from 1866 to 1914,
inclusive: _Crispino e la Comare_, _Faust_, _Un Ballo in Maschera_,
_Petrella's Ione_, _Linda di Chamouni_, _L'Africaine_, Gounod's _Romeo
et Juliette_, Donizetti's _Don Sebastian_, _Der fliegende Holländer_,
_Lohengrin_ (in Italian), _Fidelio_ (in Italian), _Tannhäuser_ (in
Italian), _Aïda_, _Carmen_, _Mefistofele_ (in Italian), _Paul et
Virginie_, _Mireille_ (in Italian), _Les Petits Mousquetaires_ (first
time in America), Planquette's _Rip Van Winkle_, Gounod's _Le Tribut de
Zamora_ (first time in America), Thomas's _Le Songe d'une nuit d'eté_,
Lalo's _Le roi d'Ys_ (first time in America), _Le Cid_, _Sigurd_ (first
time in America), _Cavalleria rusticana_ (in English), _Hérodiade_
(first time in America), _Samson et Dalila_ (first time in America),
_Lakmé_, _Esclarmonde_ (first time in America), _Manon_, _Les Pécheurs
de Perles_, _Werther_ (first time in America), Salvayre's _Richard III_
(first time in America), _Die Walküre_ (in German), _Siegfried_ (in
German), _Tristan und Isolde_ (in German), _Die Götterdämmerung_ (in
German), _La Navarraise_, _Benvenuto Cellini_, _I Pagliacci_, _La Reine
de Saba_ (first time in America), _Reyer's Salammbo_ (first time in
America), _Godard's La Vivandière_, _La Vie de Bohême_, _La Giaconda_,
_Cendrillon_ (first time in America), _Messaline_, Verdi's _Otello_
(in English), _Tosca_ (in English), _Parsifal_ (in German), _Siberia_
(first time in America), _L'Amico Fritz_, Cilea's _Adrienne Lecouvreur_
(first time in America), _Madam Butterfly_ (in English), _Fedora_ (in
Italian), _Louise_, _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_, _Hänsel und Gretel_,
_Thaïs_, _L'Attaque du Moulin_, Leroux's _Le Chemineau_ (first time
in America), _Don Quichotte_ (first time in America), _Quo Vadis_,
_Sappho_, Saint-Saëns' _Phryne_, and Bizet's _L'Arlésienne_ (first time
in America).


                                   III

Historically the French opera in New Orleans is of great importance
for its influence on the operatic development of other cities. This
is especially true of Philadelphia, which was introduced to opera by
the New Orleans organization in 1827. Philadelphia, of course, was
already familiar with the English ballad opera and it had heard a
diluted English version of _Der Freischütz_ in 1825, but of opera in
its real sense it was still quite innocent. The New Orleans company
which appeared at the Chestnut Street Theatre in 1827 returned each
succeeding season until 1834. The following list of operas produced by
them may be of interest: _Le petit Chaperon rouge_, _Joconde_, _Robin
des Bois_ (_Der Freischütz_), _Azema_, _La Dame blanche_, _Le Maçon_,
_Werther_, _Thérèse_, _Rendezvous bourgeois_, _Le Solitaire_, _La fète
du village voisin_, _Adolphe et Clare_, _Les voitures versées_, _Les
Visitandines_, _Le nouveau seigneur de village_, _Cendrillon_, _Les
Folles amoureuses_, _Aline_, _Moses in Egypt_, _La Vestale_, _Jean de
Paris_, _Trente ans de la vie d'un joueur_, _Fiorella_, _La Fiancée_,
_Gulistan_, _La Caravane de Cairo_, _La Dame du lac_, _Le Calife de
Bagdad_, _Comte Ory_, _La Muette de Portici_, _Fra Diavolo_, _Guillaume
Tell_, _Le Barbier de Séville_, _La Clochette_, _La Gazza Ladra_, _Le
Petit Matelot_, _La pie Voleuse_, _La Jeune Prude_, _Zampa_, _Jean_,
_Rossignol_, _Le Philtre_, _La Tour de Nesle_. The Montressor Troupe,
an Italian company, appeared at the Chestnut Street Theatre in 1833
and gave Philadelphia its first taste of Italian opera, presenting _Il
Pirata_, _Italiani in Algieri_, _La Cenerentola_, Rossini's _Otello_,
and Mercadante's _Elisa e Claudio_.

The proximity of New York insured frequent visits of opera companies
from that city, and it may be said without exaggeration that from
this time forward New York was almost exclusively the source of
supply for opera in Philadelphia. So much is this so that to follow
the history of opera in the former city is practically to follow it
in the latter, except that New York was a base and Philadelphia a
visiting point. Opera in English by the Woods was a feature of the
Philadelphia season in 1843 and, in the following year, the Rivafinoli
Opera Troupe, which we have already met in New York, gave a season of
ten nights. Cimarosa's _Matrimonio segreto_ was the most interesting
of their offerings. More opera in English by the Woods, the Seguins,
Caradori-Allan, Fanny Elssler, and others occupied musical Philadelphia
until 1845, the only break being a short season in 1843 by an Italian
company which presented _Norma_, _Lucia di Lammermoor_, _Belisario_, _I
Puritani_, and _Gemma di Vergy_. The New Orleans company reappeared in
1845 with _La Favorite_, _La Fille du régiment_, _Robert le diable_,
_Le Domino noir_, _La Muette de Portici_, _L'Ambassadrice_, _La Juive_,
and _Les Huguenots_.

The Havana troupe, which we met in New York, regaled Philadelphia in
1847 with Pacini's _Saffo_, Verdi's _Ernani_, _I Lombardi_ and _Due
Foscari_, with Bettini's _Romeo e Giuletta_, with _La Sonnambula_,
_Mosé in Egitto_, _Norma_, and _Linda di Chamouni_. The Seguins still
continued to give opera in English. Sanquirico and Patti brought their
company from New York in 1848, without setting the Delaware on fire,
though they included _Don Giovanni_ in their extended répertoire. They
remained in Philadelphia until 1851, when the Havana troupe appeared
with a splendid company, including Bosio, Bertucca, Salvi, and Marini.
The only novelty produced by the Havana company was _Don Pasquale_, but
their performances were artistically the finest that had been heard
in Philadelphia. In 1852 the Seguins produced Verdi's _Luisa Miller_
for the first time in America. Both Albani and Sontag appeared in
Philadelphia in 1853 with the old Rossini-Bellini-Donizetti program,
and a similar repertory secured the appearances of Grisi and Mario
in 1855. _Il Trovatore_ was heard in 1856 with Brignoli and Anna La
Grange. Opera in English still continued under various auspices.

An event in the operatic history of Philadelphia was the opening in
1857 of the Academy of Music, which continued to be the home of opera
in that city until Oscar Hammerstein built his Philadelphia Opera House
in 1908. It was erected by a company promoted and organized by most
of the wealthy and socially prominent residents of Philadelphia. The
first year of its existence was rendered interesting by the visit of a
German company headed by Mme. Johannsen, which gave _Der Freischütz_,
_Fidelio_, Auber's _Le Maçon_, and Lortzing's _Czar und Zimmermann_.
There was Italian opera of the usual sort aplenty in that and the
succeeding year. The winsome Piccolomini made her Philadelphia début in
1859 and additional variety was introduced into the same year by the
production of _Le Nozze di Figaro_, _Don Giovanni_, Pergolesi's _La
Serva Padrona_, Meyerbeer's _Les Huguenots_ and _Robert le diable_,
Verdi's _I Vespri Siciliani_, and Mozart's _Die Zauberflöte_. Ronconi,
Carl Formes (somewhat passé), and Adelina Patti-Strakosch were the
most notable artists--apart from Piccolomini. A French company gave
Offenbach's _La Chatte Métamorphosée_ and other comic operas in 1860
and the following year saw the first production in Philadelphia of
Verdi's _Un Ballo in Maschera_ and Massé's _Les Noces de Jeanette_.
Meyerbeer's Dinorah was a novelty of 1862.

The German company with Madame Johannsen reappeared in 1863 and 1864,
and to musical Philadelphia it must have come like the first breeze of
autumn after a parching summer. Its répertoire included _Martha_, _Der
Freischütz_, _Le Maçon_, Kreutzer's _Nachtlager in Granada_, _Fidelio_,
_Die Zauberflöte_, Lortzing's _Der Wildschütz_, Boieldieu's _Jean de
Paris_, Flotow's _Stradella_, Mozart's _Die Entführung aus dem Serail_,
and _Le Nozze di Figaro_, Méhul's _Joseph_, Adam's _Le Postillon de
Lonjumeau_, Nicolai's _Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor_, Spohr's
_Jessonda_, Gounod's _Mireille_, as well as _Don Giovanni_, _Faust_,
and _Tannhäuser_. At least seven of these were complete novelties
to Philadelphia. The Italians continued in force with Clara Louise
Kellogg, Bellini, Zucchi, and others. Petrella's _Ione_ was a novelty
of 1863 and in 1864 'Notre Dame of Paris,' by the American composer W.
H. Fry, was produced under the leadership of Theodore Thomas. In 1865
_La Forza del Destino_ appeared and in 1866 _L'Africaine_, _Crispino e
la Comare_, and _L'Étoile du Nord_.

Balfe's 'The Rose of Castile,' Auber's _La Fiancée_, Eichberg's
'Doctor of Alcantara,' Wallace's 'Maritana,' and other works were
given in English by Ritching's troupe in 1866 and 1867. Indeed, opera
in English persisted in Philadelphia as it has done nowhere else in
America. Italian opera continued on its usual course from year to
year without any achievements of special note. In 1868 and again in
1873, 1875, and 1879 there was an epidemic of _opéra comique_ during
which Philadelphia heard _La Grande Duchesse_, _La Belle Hélène_,
_Barbe-Bleue_, _La Périchole_, _Orphée aux Enfers_, _Les Bavards_,
_Monsieur Chaufleuri_, _Géneviève de Brabant_, _L'Œil Crève_, _Fleur
de Thé_, _La Vie Parisienne_, _Le Petit Faust_, _Les Cent Vierges_,
_La Fille de Madame Angot_, and other works of that type. The first
performance of Gounod's _Romeo et Juliette_ in 1868, _Le Prophète_
in 1869, Bristow's 'Rip Van Winkle' in 1870, Thomas's _Mignon_ and
_Hamlet_ in 1872, Verdi's _Aïda_ in 1873, _Lohengrin_ in 1874, _Der
fliegende Holländer_ in 1877, _Rienzi_ and _Carmen_ in 1878, and
Boïto's _Mefistofele_ in 1881 may also be worthy of notice. During
those years Strakosch and Mapleson were the chief purveyors of opera
to Philadelphia, excepting, of course, the French troupes who were so
generous of _opéra comique_ novelties. In 1882 the Boston Ideal Opera
Company, of which we shall have something to say later, appeared at
the Walnut Street Theatre presenting _Fatinitza_, 'The Pirates of
Penzance,' 'The Mascot,' _Olivette_, 'Czar and Carpenter,' 'H. M. S.
Pinafore,' and 'The Chimes of Normandy.' The Emma Abbott Grand English
Opera Company appeared in the same year, as did Maurice Grau's French
Opera Company.

From this time on Philadelphia was supplied with opera chiefly from the
Metropolitan in New York until Mr. Hammerstein built his Philadelphia
Opera House there in 1908 and presented the same attractions as were
heard at the Manhattan. After he sold out to the Metropolitan interests
the Chicago-Philadelphia Opera Company, of which we shall speak later,
catered to the operatic demands of the Quaker city.


                                   IV

Chicago, in spite of--or perhaps because of--its phenomenally rapid
growth, has only recently become an operatic city of any importance.
But one must not conclude that opera was unknown there before the
unlucky Mr. Hammerstein was compelled to forego the organization which
his genius had created and which formed the nucleus of the Chicago
Opera Company. Chicago, indeed, became acquainted with opera while
yet it was a city only _in futuro_, and it continued to enjoy opera
with more or less regularity during all the succeeding years, though
it lacked a permanent organization of its own until fate and Mr.
Hammerstein conspired to supply one.

The beginning of grand opera in Chicago has been traced by Mr.
Karleton Hackett, and his record of it furnishes interesting and
rather amusing reading.[52] Chicago in 1850 had a population of about
28,000 people and a theatre built and managed by J. B. Rice. Mr. Rice
was enterprising and an important result of his enterprise is noticed
in the Chicago 'Journal' of July 27, 1850, as follows: 'Mr. Rice,
ever ready to minister to the tastes of the public, has effected an
engagement with an opera troupe of acknowledged reputation who will
make their first appearance on Monday evening.

Among them are Mr. Manners and Miss Brienti, names already familiar to
many of our readers. This is a new feat in theatrical entertainments
and one which should meet with distinguished favor.'

Two nights later _La Sonnambula_ formally introduced Chicago to the
'new feat in theatrical entertainments.' As an example of musical
criticism in its simplest terms we quote the following from the
'Journal': 'An excellent house welcomed the Opera Troupe to the Chicago
boards last evening and _La Somnambula_ (!) was performed as announced.
Whatever may be the taste of the theatre-going public in this city with
regard to Operas, all must conceed (!) that the music was of a high
order, and executed with admirable grace and skill. Miss Brienti's face
is eloquent in her favor, to begin with, and her voice, now as soft as
a vesper bell, now wild and shrill as a clarion, doubles and completes
the charm. Messrs. Manvers and Quibel both possess voices of tone,
power and cultivation, and with Miss Brienti and Miss Mathews make
melody and harmony that Apollo would not hesitate to accompany upon his
ocean-tuned harp.'

The second performance of _La Sonnambula_ was interrupted by a fire
which burned down Mr. Rice's theatre. The enterprising manager,
however, erected a 'new and splendid establishment' which was opened
early in 1851. Two years later Signor Poliani, 'acting in the name
and on behalf of Mme. de Vries and Signor L. Arditi,' announced
performances at the Chicago Theatre of 'the opera in three acts,
_Lucia di Lammermoor_, the _chef d'œuvre_ of Donizetti, and the grand
masterpiece of Bellini, _Norma_.' In addition to Mme. de Vries and
Signori Pezzolini, Toffanelli and Colletti, there was 'a very effective
chorus of ladies and gentlemen--the best in the United States of
America and desirable even in Europe.' The orchestra, furthermore,
was 'composed of solo performers, and all professors of the highest
standing--over 40 in number, the whole under the magic direction of the
most distinguished master and composer, Sig. L. Arditi, of European
fame and well known as one of the greatest living composers.' One is
not surprised to learn that this marvellous company made a great hit
and remained in Chicago long enough to give _La Sonnambula_. It was
succeeded by a troupe of 'acting monkeys, dogs, and goats.'

In 1858 Chicago had its next operatic treat when the New Orleans
English Opera Company--which assuredly did not come from New
Orleans--gave a season of two weeks, presenting _La Sonnambula_,
'Daughter of the Regiment,' Auber's 'Crown Diamonds,' and _Fra
Diavolo_, 'The Barber of Seville,' 'The Bohemian Girl,' 'Cinderella,'
_Der Freischütz_, and _Il Trovatore_. The tenor rôles were sung by a
lady. In the same year Carl Formes, whose reputation had outlived his
voice, appeared with a strong company which carried no less than three
conductors--the same being Carl Anschütz, Carl Bergmann, and Theodore
Thomas. Maurice Strakosch with Amalia Patti, Brignoli, and the others
of his troupe visited Chicago in 1859, giving _Il Trovatore_, _Martha_,
_Norma_, _La Sonnambula_, _La Favorita_, and _Don Giovanni_--the
last-named with a 'cast which has never been excelled in any opera
house in Europe, New York, Boston, or Philadelphia.'

From this time forward Chicago was supplied with opera almost
exclusively from New York and was included in the itinerary of the tour
with which nearly every New York company began or finished its season.
The visits of the New York companies to Chicago varied in length from a
week to four weeks. After Mr. Hammerstein sold out to the Metropolitan
interests his forces formed the nucleus of a newly organized
Chicago-Philadelphia Opera Company, which, under the management of Mr.
Andreas Dippel and subsequently of Mr. Cleofonte Campanini, has since
given Chicago regular seasons of opera rivalling in the standard of
their achievement those given at the Metropolitan in New York.

The Chicago-Philadelphia company has divided its season between the two
cities after which it is named, besides making post-season trips to a
number of Western cities. During the few years of its existence it has
placed to its credit a number of notable achievements, including the
first performances in America of Jean Nougues' _Quo Vadis_?; Ermano
Wolf-Ferrari's _Il Segreto di Susanna_ and _Le Giojie della Madonna_;
Victor Herbert's _Natoma_; Goldmark's 'Cricket on the Hearth' (in
English), Massenet's _Cendrillon_ and _Don Quichotte_, and Franchetti's
_Cristoforo Colombo_. Its regular repertory has been mainly that which
prevailed at the Manhattan Opera House under Hammerstein. The same is
true of most of its singers. Among the more notable additions to its
list of artists have been Jeanne Korolewicz, Maggie Teyte, Caroline
White, Lillian Grenville, Mario Guardabassi and Tito Ruffo, and it
has also enjoyed frequent 'visits' from stars of the Metropolitan and
Boston Opera Houses, with both of which it is closely affiliated.

Boston, like most other American cities, has been until recently in
the position of depending chiefly on New York for its operatic fare.
It was the latest of the large Eastern cities to become acquainted
with grand opera, having been introduced to that form of entertainment
by the Havana company of Señor Marty y Torrens in 1847. Satisfied
apparently with what was supplied to it from New York, it initiated no
noteworthy operatic enterprises of its own until 1909, when the Boston
Opera House was built through the munificence of Mr. Eben D. Jordan.
The artistic direction of the new enterprise was placed in the hands of
Mr. Henry Russell, who for some years previously had toured the country
successfully with his San Carlo Opera Company. Since then Boston
has been an operatic city of importance. In addition to excellent
performances of the regular French, Italian, and German repertory made
familiar by the Metropolitan and Manhattan companies, it has heard
the first performances in America of Debussy's _L'Enfant Prodigue_,
Raoul Laparra's _La Habañera_, Frederick Converse's 'The Sacrifice,'
Zan-donai's _Conchita_, Erlanger's _Noël_, Kienzl's _Kuhreigen_,
Bizet's _Djamileh_, Louis Aubert's _Forêt Bleue_, and Henri Fevrier's
_Monna Vanna_.

The Boston Opera Company is very closely affiliated with the
Metropolitan and the principals of each are carried on the roster
of the other. To a lesser extent there is a like exchange between
the Boston and the Chicago-Philadelphia companies. Almong the more
notable artists who have sung with the Boston company (excluding those
belonging principally to the Metropolitan company) may be mentioned
Carmen Mélis, Georgette Le Blanc-Maeterlinck, Leon Sibiriakoff, José
Mardones, Florencio Constantino, Giovanni Zenatello, George Baklanoff,
Lucien Muratore, Vanni Marcoux, and Eduardo Ferrari-Fontana.

It would be impossible, within the limits of a chapter, to follow
operatic activities in other cities of the United States. Nearly every
city of importance has received more or less regular visits from the
big New York companies, from the Chicago-Philadelphia company, and
from lesser enterprises organized for touring purposes. There would be
little point in citing a list of these enterprises, but mention may be
made of the opera companies promoted by Henry W. Savage and the Aborns,
which have done for the smaller cities of the United States what the
Carl Rosa and Moody-Manners companies have done for the principal
cities of Great Britain.

In many of the more progressive musical cities--such as San Francisco,
Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Cincinnati--the question of permanent
operatic establishments has been strongly mooted, and undoubtedly
the time is fast approaching when these and other cities will enjoy
the advantages which now belong only to New York, Boston, Chicago,
Philadelphia, and New Orleans.


                                  V

The line of demarcation between grand opera and comic opera is not
easy to trace. Both have run together with a promiscuity which makes
it very difficult to follow the history of one as distinguished from
that of the other. _Le Nozze di Figaro_ and _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_
go hand in hand with _Fidelio_ and _Norma_; _Die Meistersinger_ is a
companion of _Tristan_. The convenient tendency to spread the generic
name of opera over all forms of musico-dramatic expression is found in
all countries and periods. It is particularly noticeable in America,
where even the dignified Metropolitan Opera House found it consistent
to conjoin _Die Fledermaus_ and _Der Zigeunerbaron_ with _Parsifal_ and
_Salome_.

In our general survey of opera in America we have touched on the comic
opera activities which went on more or less in association with grand
opera, and it only remains for us to refer briefly to the activities of
such companies as devoted themselves exclusively to the lighter form of
entertainment. The first of these, of course, were the French companies
from New Orleans who familiarized the country with Pergolesi, Rousseau,
Piccini, Cimarosa, Méhul, Grétry, Dalayrac, Boieldieu, Auber, and other
masters of the light opera. Apart from the companies playing English
ballad opera--a distinct _genre_--these were the only troupes of note
which presented exclusively the lighter side of operatic art until late
in the nineteenth century.

The real era of comic opera in America began about 1870 and lasted
for somewhat less than twenty years. The first notable event of this
period was the importation of Miss Emily Soldene and company--then the
rage of London--by Messrs. Grau and Chizzola. They opened a season of
_opéra bouffe_ in English at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, in November,
1874, and played to crowded houses for several months, presenting
_Généviève de Brabant_, _Chilperic_, _La Fille de Madame Angot_, and
_Madame l'Archiduc_. Afterward they visited Philadelphia, Brooklyn,
Boston--'beautiful, bald-headed Boston,' as Miss Soldene called
it--Washington, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, Louisville, St. Louis,
Houston, Galveston, and New Orleans. In 1875 Madame Aimée arrived with
her French _opéra bouffe_ company, also under the management of Messrs.
Grau and Chizzola, and soon afterward came the Offenbach craze and the
ill-starred visit of the composer.

Next came the vogue of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, with very
fortunate results for America. The manager of the Boston Theatre was
then engaged in a desperate and unsuccessful hunt for novelties and, in
the extremity of his need, he appealed to his musical director. 'See
here,' said the latter, 'this "Pinafore" that everybody is crazy about
has been already done to death in many ways--but has it been really
sung? Never! Well, then, why not get Phillips and Whitney and Barnabee
and Tom Karl together and see what the piece is like, musically.'[53]
The suggestion appealed to the manager and it was agreed that the
proposed cast would be ideal. Hence the formation of the company known
as the Boston Ideals, which produced 'Pinafore' on April 14, 1879. For
all-round artistic excellence nothing like that performance had ever
been given by an English-speaking company in America, nor did any opera
company ever make such a success in this country as was achieved by the
Boston Ideals.

Miss Soldene's troupe, it is true, was a tremendous rage, but she is
frank enough to confess that its success was not exactly a triumph of
pure art. Setting a precedent for all managers of musical comedy, she
selected a chorus with a minimum of voice and a maximum of personal
pulchritude. She was rewarded by liberal patronage from the sort of
men who know the difference between a chorus girl and a show girl.
The Boston Ideals, on the other hand, were a splendidly talented and
efficient organization, containing some of the finest artists America
had produced and inspired with a sincere enthusiasm for their work.
During the six years following the production of 'Pinafore' they played
'The Sorcerer,' _Boccaccio_, _Olivette_, 'The Mascot,' 'Czar and
Carpenter,' 'Bohemian Girl,' 'Chimes of Normandy,' 'The Musketeers,'
'Pirates of Penzance,' 'Patience,' 'Marriage of Figaro,' _Fra
Diavolo_, 'The Weathercock' (their only failure), _Giroflé-Girofla_,
_Barbe-Bleue_, 'Martha,' _Fanchonette_, _Giralda_, _L'Elisir d'Amore_,
and 'Visit of the Blue Stocking.'

Subsequently the company was reorganized and, at the suggestion
of Colonel Henry Watterson, was christened 'The Bostonians.' Under
its new name the company lived for twenty-five years, surviving by
considerable length the popularity of comic opera in America. Among
the works it produced were 'The Poachers,' 'Dorothy,' _Don Pasquale_,
_Don Quixote_, _Mignon_, 'Pygmalion and Galatea,' 'Robin Hood,' 'The
Knickerbockers,' 'The Ogalallas,' 'Prince Ananias,' 'In Mexico, or a
War-time Wedding,' 'The Serenade,' 'Rip Van Winkle,' 'Maid Marian,'
'Rob Roy,' 'Vice Roy,' 'The Smugglers,' 'Maid of Plymouth,' and 'Queen
of Laughter.' Of these the most successful by far was De Koven's 'Robin
Hood,' which the Bostonians played for twelve years without dimming the
freshness of that most delightful of American light operas. Not the
least valuable of the services rendered to music by the Bostonians was
the opportunity they gave to young American singers. 'The Bostonians,'
said Henry Clay Barnabee, 'gave the United States the most successful
school for operatic study that this country has ever had, and from
its ranks graduated an astonishing number of well-known singers.
No other organization has done more, if as much, toward assisting
American writers of opera.' A list of the well-known graduates of the
Bostonians would be too long to quote, but among the familiar names may
be mentioned Marie Stone, Alice Nielsen, Grace Van Studdiford, Jessie
Bartlett Davis, Marcia Van Dresser, Kate Condon, Tom Karl, Joseph
Sheehan, George B. Frothingham, Eugene Cowles, Allan Hinckley, and W.
H. MacDonald, besides the inimitable comedian--Barnabee. The company,
of course, devoted its efforts largely to Boston, New York, and other
Eastern cities, but it made frequent tours west of the Mississippi,
playing every city of importance between that river and the Pacific
Coast.

In New York the chief purveyor of comic opera during the seventies was
Maurice Grau, who had brought over Emily Soldene and Mme. Aimée and
who continued to import European favorites, including the Offenbach
operetta queen, Madame Théo. Rudolph Aronson, who had done some
successful experimenting in concert direction, next came forward with
an original scheme for a combined theatre, concert hall, restaurant,
and roof garden--an American adaptation of such European institutions
as the Ambassadeurs, Kroll's Garten, and the Volksgarten. With the
backing of nearly all the socially and financially prominent gentlemen
in New York he formed the New York Casino Company and built the
Casino, a Mauresque structure which is as much in place on Broadway
as Independence Hall would be in Algiers. With the operetta company
of John A. McCaull, taken over from the Bijou Opera House, the Casino
opened in October, 1882, presenting Johann Strauss's 'The Queen's Lace
Handkerchief.' After a very successful run this operetta was taken
off to make room for the Maurice Grau French Opera Company headed by
Madame Théo, which gave _La Jolie Parfumeuse_, _Romeo et Juliette_,
_Paul et Virginie_, _La Fille de Madame Angot_, and _La Mascotte_.
The McCaull Opera Company, with Lillian Russell, then returned to
the Casino, presenting 'The Sorcerer,' 'The Princess of Trebizond,'
'The Queen's Lace Handkerchief,' 'Prinz Methusalem,' 'The Beggar
Student,' 'Merry War,' 'Polly,' 'Billie Taylor,' 'Nanon,' 'Amorita,'
'Gypsy Baron,' 'Erminie,' 'The Marquis,' 'Madelon,' 'Nadjy,' 'The
Yeomen of the Guard,' 'The Brigands,' 'The Drum Major,' 'The Grand
Duchess,' 'The Brazilian,' 'Madame Angot,' 'Poor Jonathan,' 'Apollo,'
'Indigo,' 'The Tyrolean,' _Cavalleria rusticana_, 'Uncle Celestin,'
'Child of Fortune,' 'The Vice-Admiral,' and 'The Rainmaker of Syria.'
This company had become known in the meantime as the Casino Comic
Opera Company. In 1886 it went on tour, playing Boston, Philadelphia,
and Brooklyn, while the Casino was occupied by the Violet Cameron
Opera Company from London. The latter presented 'The Commodore' and
'Kenilworth' with little success. In 1892 Mr. Aronson decided to change
the policy of the Casino and to produce there lighter works of the
best French and German operatic schools. While he was in Europe the
directors of the Casino decided to turn the house into a music hall on
the style of the Empire and the Alhambra in London.

By this time, however, comic opera had lost its hold on the fickle
affections of the American people and frequent efforts to revive
interest in it since then have met with no more than the success of a
temporary curiosity. Much of the decline in the popularity of comic
opera was due to the rise of the English musical comedy, beginning
with 'Florodora' and 'The Belle of New York.' Except for occasional
excursions into Orientalism, like 'The Geisha' and 'San Toy,'
musical comedy rapidly ran into a set type of 'girl' show invariably
characterized by inanity of plot, mediocrity of text and music, and a
lavish display of feminine charms. For a time the success of Lehàr's
'Merry Widow' induced a vogue of Viennese light opera, of which traces
still exist, and occasional revivals _de luxe_ of 'Erminie,' 'Robin
Hood,' and the Gilbert and Sullivan operas aroused temporary interest.
But since the old Casino days there has been no public in New York
for comic opera and in that respect the fashion of New York has been
followed by the rest of the country. No comic opera which has come
before the public on its own merits and without the support of some
such stimulus as the 'Soul Kiss' waltzes of the new Viennese school,
has been able to win any measure of success. An instance may be cited
in the complete failure of 'Veronique.' Attempts to reach a public
educated above the musical attractions of the ordinary theatres have
been no more fruitful. Oscar Hammerstein made a gallant and costly
effort with French comic opera at the Manhattan and the Metropolitan
followed his good example more eclectically at the New Theatre (now
the Century). In neither case was New York interested. Even when the
indomitable and persevering Mr. Hammerstein shifted to Broadway and to
the vernacular, his productions of 'Hans the Flute Player' and 'The
Firefly,' flavored with the _sauce piquante_ of Emma Trentini, failed
to stimulate a lasting appetite in the New York theatre-goers. Andreas
Dippel opened a series of comic opera productions in the season of
1914-15. How far and how successfully his plans will mature remains to
be seen. But so far the lethargy of the public toward comic opera has
triumphantly resisted every attempt to rouse it and the prospects of
the enterprising impresario in that field are far from encouraging.
The trouble seems to lie deeper than mere indifference to a particular
genre of musical entertainment. It is presumably symptomatic of a
general apathy toward good music, or rather of a general lack of
intelligent æsthetic appreciation. That the faculty of intelligent
æsthetic appreciation is somewhat rudimentary in the average American
of to-day is a fact that the unbiased observer can hardly escape.

                                                           W. D. D.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[52] 'The Beginning of Grand Opera in Chicago,' 1913.

[53] See 'Reminiscences of Henry Clay Barnabee,' Boston, 1913.




                             CHAPTER VIII
            INSTRUMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

      The New York Philharmonic Society and other New York
      orchestras--Orchestral organizations in Boston--The
      Theodore Thomas orchestra of Chicago; Orchestral music in
      Cincinnati--The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra--Orchestral
      music in the West; the Philadelphia Symphony
      Orchestra--Chamber music ensembles--Visiting orchestras.


                                   I

In spite of the work done by the Euterpean Society, the Musical Fund
and the Sacred Music Society, New York in the first decades of the
nineteenth century did not possess an orchestral organization capable
of interpreting adequately the compositions of the great masters. As we
have already pointed out, the city was suffering from musical expansion
when it really needed concentration. It was suffering also from too
much amateurism. Many clear-headed New York musicians realized the
needs of the situation and eventually there arose a healthy agitation
in favor of a strong permanent orchestra of professional musicians. The
agitation found an energetic leader in Uriah C. Hill, conductor of the
Sacred Music Society, and chiefly through his efforts the Philharmonic
Society was formed in 1842. In many respects the Philharmonic differed
from all the societies which preceded and most of those which have
followed it in America. It was simply a coöperative association of
professional musicians organized for the purpose of giving concerts
of the highest class. Amateurs were excluded and the society enjoyed
neither patronage nor guarantee. Its first concert took place at the
old Apollo Rooms on December 7, 1842, with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
as the _pièce de résistance_. The list of symphonies performed by it
during the first ten years of its existence illustrates the consistence
with which it carried out its dignified purpose. Among them were
Beethoven's Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth;
Mozart's 'Jupiter,' G minor and E flat; Haydn's Third and B flat;
Mendelssohn's Third and Fourth; Schubert's C major; Schumann's First;
Spohr's D minor, _Die Weihe der Töne_ and Double Symphony; Kalliwoda's
First; Gade's in C; and Lachner's Prize Symphony. Among the other
interesting features of its early seasons were Mendelssohn's 'Fingal's
Cave,' Sterndale Bennett's 'The Naiads,' and Berlioz's _Francs Juges_
overtures.

But the Philharmonic, in spite of its splendid efforts, failed to
win unanimous endorsement from musical New York and in 1854 there
was a revolt of several of its own members, headed by G. Bristow and
by Fry, musical critic of the 'Tribune.' The grievance was that the
Philharmonic had made 'a systematic effort for the extinction of
American music.' Mr. Bristow was especially wroth. During the eleven
years of its existence, he complained, the society had played only one
piece of American composition, preferring to devote itself to the works
of German masters, 'especially if they be dead'--meaning Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and others. By these and similar
remarks we may gauge the mental calibre of Mr. Bristow. Whatever grain
of justice may have been in the movement which he headed, it could not
possibly succeed under his leadership and, after threatening for a time
the very existence of the Philharmonic, the American revolution petered
out. It was not the last time, however, that the society suffered from
the pernicious activity of stupid and bigoted incompetents.

The orchestra of the Philharmonic during its first season numbered
fifty-three performers, divided as follows: seventeen violins,
five violas, four violoncellos, five contrabasses, three flutes,
one piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, three bassoons, four horns,
two trumpets, four trombones, and one pair of kettle drums. In the
beginning there was no permanent conductor, but at different times
between 1842 and 1849 the orchestra was led by Uriah C. Hill, H. C.
Timms, W. Alpers, G. Loder, L. Wiegers, D. G. Etienne, and A. Boucher.
Theodore Eisfeld was conductor from 1849 to 1855 and from the latter
year until 1866 he alternated with Carl Bergmann. From 1866 until
1876 Bergmann was sole conductor and his services to music in New
York during those years were of the highest value. He was especially
instrumental in bringing before New Yorkers the compositions of Liszt,
Wagner, Raff, Rubinstein, and the romanticists generally. Dr. Leopold
Damrosch conducted the orchestra in 1876-77, and then came Theodore
Thomas, who signalized his entrance by performing the First Symphony
of Brahms. Thomas probably did more to cultivate the taste of New York
concert goers than any other orchestral conductor who ever worked in
that city. Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, over and over again, formed
the burden of his musical message, and for variety Tschaikowsky,
Wagner, Liszt, and Rubinstein. He was an idealist--an uncompromising
idealist--and, as he would not descend to the concert-going public,
the concert-going public perforce ascended to him. His work was of
incalculable value. In 1891 he was succeeded by Anton Seidl, another
big figure and the best possible successor of Thomas. Seidl was more
tolerant than Thomas and more modern in spirit. He laid less emphasis
on the classics and more on Liszt, Wagner, and Tschaikowsky. And
he was much more generous of novelties, which included the first
performance anywhere of Dvořák's 'New World' symphony. Admirably did
he build on the solid foundation his predecessor had laid. After his
death in 1898 Emil Paur succeeded to the bâton and reigned until 1902,
when Walter Damrosch conducted for a season. Then for three years the
society presented a series of guest conductors, including Édouard
Colonne, Wassili Safonoff, Gustav Kogel, Henry Wood, Victor Herbert,
William Mengelberg, Max Fiedler, Ernest Kunwald, Fritz Steinbach,
Richard Strauss, Felix Weingartner, and Karl Panger. Safonoff was
then engaged for three years and after him came Gustav Mahler, one of
the greatest and most individual conductors of recent times. Mahler's
interpretations and technical innovations stirred musical New York to
its depths and aroused a storm of critical commentary both favorable
and otherwise. His sudden resignation in 1911 was wrapped in a cloud
of mystery, not free from a black tinge of scandal, the onus of which,
however, did not rest upon him. He was succeeded by Josef Stransky, who
still remains (1915).

In 1912 the Philharmonic was the fortunate recipient of a bequest
of $500,000 from Joseph Pulitzer, late owner and editor of the New
York 'World.' Under the conditions of this bequest the society
was reorganized from a coöperative association into a membership
corporation. The results in many ways have been advantageous. While the
coöperative idea had some good features, it had the great drawback that
in unprofitable seasons the members sought more lucrative engagements,
with a consequent reduction of rehearsals and loss of homogeneity in
the work of the orchestra. Under the new system a stricter discipline
is possible and in consequence the orchestra shows a great improvement
in technique.

   [Illustration: The Philharmonic Society of New York, with Joseph
                         Stransky conducting.]

      _From a photograph (1914) taken in Carnegie Hall, New York_

The Philharmonic, of course, was never long without a rival in New
York. Brooklyn made the first serious effort at competition when its
own Philharmonic was established in 1857 with Theodore Eisfeld as
conductor. During its initiatory season it produced Beethoven's Third
and Seventh Symphonies, Mendelssohn's Fourth, and Gade's C Major.
Carl Bergmann succeeded Eisfeld and after him came Theodore Thomas.
The early history of the Brooklyn Philharmonic was brilliant with
achievement and promise, but unfortunately that achievement was not
sustained nor that promise fulfilled. The indefatigable Theodore Thomas
maintained a lively rivalry with the New York Philharmonic off and on
between 1864 and 1879. He gave annual series of what he called symphony
_soirées_, and for a few years he also gave garden concerts in summer.
In 1879 he went west as director of the newly established Cincinnati
College of Music, but two years later he returned as conductor of the
Philharmonic.

Meanwhile Dr. Leopold Damrosch in 1878 founded the Symphony Society of
New York with the avowed purpose of breaking away from the established
conservatism of the Philharmonic and exploring newer fields of
musical composition. Dr. Damrosch conducted the orchestra until his
death in 1885, when he was succeeded by his son Walter. At first the
society gave only twelve concerts yearly but its activities gradually
increased until it was giving about one hundred--its average for the
last ten years. These include extended tours throughout the United
States and Canada. The career of the Symphony Society has not been
without vicissitudes. For many years after the death of Dr. Damrosch
it had to fight a discouraging struggle against lack of interest and
of financial backing. In 1899 Walter Damrosch retired from the fight
and devoted himself to composition; but in the following year he went
to the Metropolitan as conductor of German opera, and apparently the
experience revived his ambitions as a conductor. After he retired from
the Metropolitan he succeeded in obtaining a subsidy for the Symphony
Society from a number of prominent New York citizens. Since then the
fortunes of the organization have been in the ascendant and they were
definitely assured in the spring of 1914 when its president, Mr. H. H.
Flagler, announced 'that in order to further its artistic aims, he was
prepared for the future to defray any deficit of the society up to the
amount of one hundred thousand dollars annually.'

Though the prime purpose of the New York Symphony is to produce
important novelties, it has always rested its program on the foundation
of the classics. Dr. Damrosch was a devoted lover of Beethoven, and it
was entirely in accordance with his ideals that the society, in 1907,
gave the first Beethoven festival in America. Many of the symphonic
works of Brahms, Tschaikowsky, Sibelius, and Elgar were given their
first performances in America by the Symphony Society and the first
Brahms festival in this country was given by it in 1912. As if to
complete the society's identification with the trio of immortal 'B's,'
Mr. Damrosch has shown lately a large devotion to the works of Bach.
Since 1907 the society has given much attention to the modern French
school and has introduced New York to many compositions of Debussy,
Dukas, Enesco, Chausson, and Ravel.

The popularity of 'guest' conductors, due to the experiment of the
Philharmonic Society, led Mr. Damrosch in 1905-06 to hand over the
bâton for several concerts to Felix Weingartner; but, as Mr. Henderson
says, Weingartner's 'refined scholarship and intellectual subtlety
escaped the notice of all save the connoisseurs' and his engagement
failed to arouse much public interest. Except for this brief interim
Mr. Damrosch has been the society's only conductor since 1885. In
addition to its regular activities the orchestra is employed to play
the programs of the Young People's Symphony Concerts given originally
under the conductorship of Frank Damrosch but latterly under that
of Walter. These concerts were planned as an educational series for
juveniles, but they have come to make a much wider appeal and attract
audiences which consist more of adults than of children. Their
educational value is considerable.

Of even broader educational value, perhaps, is the work of the
People's Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Franz X. Arens--though it
is handicapped by lack of sufficient endowment. The object of the
orchestra is to provide good music for working people of small means,
and it would seem that such an object is sufficiently laudable to
attract generous support from those wealthy music-lovers who profess
a sincere interest in the promotion of the art. In spite of handicaps
the People's Symphony has existed since 1900, but insufficient funds
have spelled little rehearsal and few concerts, with a consequent
circumscribing of its efforts.

When musical cultivation in any community reaches a certain stage
it tends to specialize. That stage has long been passed in New York
and during recent years there has been a notable outcrop of societies
devoted to the study and performance of the compositions of different
nations, periods or schools. In the symphonic field the most notable of
these is the Russian Symphony Society, founded in 1903. The orchestra,
under the direction of Modest Altschuler, is composed largely of
Russian musicians and is devoted almost exclusively to the performance
of works by Russian composers. Since its foundation it has introduced
New York to new compositions by Tschaikowsky, Glinka, Napravnik,
Rimsky-Korsakoff, Glazounoff, Rubinstein, Ippolitoff-Ivanoff, Davydoff,
Gretchaninoff, Taneieff, Moussorgsky, Arensky, Borodine, Kallinnikoff,
Rachmaninoff, Dargomijsky, Afanasyeff, César Cui, Glière, Scriabine,
Balakireff, and others.

There remains to be mentioned the Volpe Symphony Orchestra founded by
Arnold Volpe in 1904, the Italian Symphony Orchestra, formed in 1913
by Pietro Floridia, and a number of temporary orchestras got together
for special purposes, such as park concerts. For several years New York
has maintained a high standard in its open air free concerts in Central
Park. These have been so extensively patronized that it has been found
desirable to give as many as seven a week, from June to September.


                                   II

Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century Boston lagged
considerably behind New York in the matter of orchestral music. After
the demise of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra in 1824 the city was
without any permanent symphonic organization until 1840, when the
Academy of Music established an orchestra. During its existence of
seven years the Academy orchestra varied in size from twenty-five to
forty performers, many of whom were amateurs. It introduced to Boston
most of the standard symphonies and some other works of importance,
but its ambition seems to have been greater than its ability. It was
succeeded in 1847 by the Musical Fund Society, founded in imitation of
the Philadelphia society of that name, by Thomas Comer. Comer leaned
emphatically to the popular in music and there was little value to the
performances of the Musical Fund until George J. Webb took over the
leadership during the last few years of the society's life, which ended
in 1855. In the meantime Boston had been enjoying good music through
the agency of the Germania Orchestra, a body of young German musicians
who had come to America during the revolutionary troubles of 1848. The
Germania was a travelling orchestra, but it gave a large proportion of
its concerts in Boston. Its conductors were successively Carl Lenschow
and Carl Bergmann and there seems to be little doubt that it was by far
the best orchestra America had yet heard.

In 1855 Carl Zerrahn, flute player of the Germania, founded an
orchestra which became known as the Philharmonic and which gave
regular concerts in Boston until 1863. He was invited, in 1866, to the
conductorship of the orchestra newly formed by the Harvard Musical
Association. This was really the first permanent orchestra of value
that greater Boston possessed, and during the twenty years of its
existence it clung with remarkable consistency to the highest musical
ideals. Included in the works performed by it were the nine Beethoven
symphonies; twelve Haydn and six Mozart symphonies, Spohr's _Die Weihe
der Töne_; Schubert's B minor (unfinished) and C major; Mendelssohn's
'Italian,' 'Scotch,' and 'Reformation'; the four symphonies of
Schumann; Gade's First, Second, Third, and Fourth; two of Raff and
two of Brahms; Rubinstein's 'Ocean'; Berlioz's _Fantastique_; the
Second of Saint-Saëns; two of Paine; one of Ritter; Liszt's symphonic
poems, _Tasso_ and _Les Préludes_; Lachner's first suite and Raff's
suite in C; Spohr's _Irdisches und Göttliches_ for double orchestra;
and overtures by Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Cherubini,
Schubert, Weber, Schumann, Gade, Bennett, Bargiel, Buck, Goldmark,
Paine, Chadwick, Parker, Henschel, Rietz, and others. Nevertheless the
Harvard Orchestra did not receive very warm support from the people
of Boston. Among musicians, too, there grew up gradually a certain
impatience at its undoubted conservatism and finally a rival was
started which was organized as the Philharmonic Society in 1880.

There was not room enough in Boston for two orchestras, but there was
room and need for one good orchestra which would cater fully to the
city's musical tastes. Such an orchestra needs a sponsor in the shape
of heavy financial backing and the _deus ex machina_ in this case
was Henry L. Higginson, the banker, who founded the Boston Symphony
Orchestra at his own risk and guaranteed its permanency. Under the
leadership of George Henschel the orchestra opened its first season
in 1881 with Beethoven's 'Dedication of the House.' It gave twenty
concerts that season and twenty-six in the third season. Since then the
regular number has been twenty-four, in addition to public rehearsals.
Regular visits are made to New York, Philadelphia, Washington,
Providence, and other large cities, bringing the total number of
concerts each season to the neighborhood of one hundred.

George Henschel returned to Europe in 1884 and Wilhelm Gericke came
over from Vienna as conductor. To Gericke must be awarded the chief
credit for making the Boston Symphony Orchestra what it is to-day--the
finest in America and one of the most perfectly balanced and finished
symphonic ensembles in the world. Gericke was a disciplinarian of the
most rigid type and under his iron rule practically all the technical
weaknesses of the orchestra were eliminated. Musically, like Theodore
Thomas, he was an ardent devotee of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, and
he was more concerned with strictly traditional interpretations of
the classics than with incursions into new and untried fields. Just
as Thomas in New York had an ideally suitable successor in Anton
Seidl, so Gericke had an ideally suitable successor in that remarkable
orchestral virtuoso, Arthur Nikisch. Perhaps musical America has never
known anything like the four seasons during which the temperamental and
fiery Nikisch performed on the perfect instrument which Gericke had
left to his hand. He was succeeded by Emil Paur, a decided modernist
in his tendencies, who made Boston familiar with Tschaikowsky, Richard
Strauss, and lesser post-Wagnerians. Gericke returned in 1898 and in
the following year Symphony Hall was built. Max Fiedler was the next
conductor, and after him came the present incumbent of the post--the
scholarly and immaculate Dr. Karl Muck.


                                   III

When Theodore Thomas left the New York Philharmonic he accepted the
musical directorship of the American Opera Company, to which we have
already referred in a previous chapter. When he got back to New
York after an absence of two seasons he attempted to revive his old
orchestral organization, in spite of the fact that there were three
competing orchestras in the field. His attempt was a dismal failure
and he found himself stranded without money, engagements or prospects.
At this ebb-tide of his affairs he met Mr. C. N. Fay, of Chicago, who
inquired whether he would be willing to go to that city if he were
given a permanent orchestra. 'Oh,' said Thomas, 'I'd go to hell if you
would give me a permanent orchestra.' So he went to Chicago.

Before the fire of 1871 Chicago had an orchestra of its own, conducted
by Hans Balatka. Then it was without one until Mr. Fay issued his
invitation to Theodore Thomas in 1890. Fay succeeded in getting fifty
men to guarantee $1,000 each for a season and formed the Orchestra
Association. After taking a year in which to organize his players,
Thomas started the career of the orchestra that bears his name in
1891. A most instructive essay might be written upon the succession
of difficulties, financial and other, which the Theodore Thomas
Orchestra was compelled to surmount before it reached the position of
solid permanency which it now occupies. That it did surmount those
difficulties is due chiefly to the iron obstinacy of Thomas himself
and to the persistent optimism of Mr. Bryan Lathrop, who steered the
enterprise through many critical situations. Shortly before his death
on January 4, 1905, Thomas succeeded in realizing his desire to secure
for the orchestra a home of its own. Had he failed in that object it
is quite probable that the orchestra would have been disbanded after
his death, but in succeeding he raised the orchestra to the position of
an institution in which Chicago has since taken an increasingly great
pride.

Thomas was succeeded in the conductorship by Frederick A. Stock, who
still holds the post. We have had occasion to point out before that
Thomas was very fortunate in his successors. In Chicago, as elsewhere,
his conservatism held him more or less closely to the classics and his
interpretations of these established a high and dignified standard
which was of incalculable value in educating the public taste.
Accepting this standard as his own, Mr. Stock ventured gradually into
new paths and, while still maintaining the classic tradition, he led
his public into greater intimacy with the moderns. César Franck,
d'Indy, Debussy, Chausson, Glazounoff, Gretchaninoff, Balakireff,
Borodine, Sinigaglia, Max Reger, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler have
all figured on his programs, together with Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms,
with Haydn and Mozart, with Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn,
with Wagner, Liszt, and Tschaikowsky. Like the other big American
orchestras, the Theodore Thomas organization makes an annual tour,
bringing to the smaller cities their meed of musical entertainment and
to the larger ones an opportunity of comparing notes.

In spite of the great strides made by Chicago in musical culture during
recent years, its importance in the musical history of the Middle
West is second to that of Cincinnati. From the beginning the elements
composing the citizenship of the latter city were such as to introduce
musical activity at a very early stage. The first _Sängerfest_ in the
West was held at the old Armory Hall there about 1842, and in 1878
the Cincinnati College of Music, equipped to teach all branches, was
founded by Miss Dora Nelson.

The Cincinnati College of Music, which has since become the College
of Music of Cincinnati, became the vibrant centre of musical growth
in the Middle West. It was never without its own orchestra, string
quartet, chorus and school of opera and expression. Through its faculty
concerts, lectures, and other forms of educational entertainments the
people of Cincinnati became interested and discriminating auditors.

Theodore Thomas was the first musical director of this school, and it
was from Cincinnati that he first exercised the influence which has
since resulted in such remarkable advance in all musical centres of the
Middle West. The first May Music Festival to be given in America was
organized and performed under his direction in 1873. Five years later,
during which time the Cincinnati Festival had become an established
institution, the Springer Music Hall was erected for the future use of
the May Festival Association.

The May Festivals were given loyal public support and were successful
from the beginning. Choral societies were numerous and the cause of
advanced musical education found sincere support in every section of
the city. The first orchestra to give public concerts was organized and
operated by Michael Brand, a 'cellist of considerable local fame. He
had gathered about him the more advanced of the local musicians and in
1894 an orchestra of forty men was giving concerts under his direction.

In 1895 public spirited women, interested in the advancement of music,
conceived the idea of establishing a regular symphony orchestra on a
substantial basis through public subscription. This movement was led by
the Ladies' Musical Club, of which Miss Emma L. Roedter was president
and Mrs. William Howard Taft, wife of the later President of the United
States, secretary. The conception of the plan that was followed is
accredited to Miss Helen Sparrman, at that time honorary president
of the Ladies' Musical Club. As a result, the Cincinnati Orchestra
Association Company was organized and nine concerts were given under
its direction during the season 1895-96.

The season was divided into three series of three concerts each, and
three prospective conductors, all of them men of wide experience, were
engaged to conduct a series each.

Following the performance of these trial concerts ten thousand dollars
was secured by public subscription and the succeeding fall an orchestra
of forty-eight men, with Frank Van der Stucken as permanent conductor,
was established. The first regular season in 1895-96 consisted of ten
pairs of concerts given in Pike's Opera House, on Friday afternoons
and Saturday evenings, from November 20 to April 11, inclusive. The
orchestra was increased to seventy men during the season 1896-97 and
the concerts transferred to Music Hall, where they were given until
the winter of 1911. About this time Mrs. Thomas J. Emery had begun the
construction of a building for the use of the Ohio Mechanics Institute
and the auditorium was so constructed that it could be made the home
of the orchestra, which at this time was being operated under the
corporation title of The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Association
Company.

Mr. Van der Stucken's incumbency as conductor of the orchestra ended in
1906. The concerts given by the association during the season 1907-08
were given with orchestras from other cities and in 1908 no concerts
were given. During the summer of 1909, however, the association, under
the leadership of Mrs. Holmes, placed the orchestra on a permanent
basis by raising a subscription fund of fifty thousand dollars a year
for five years. Mr. Leopold Stokowski was installed as conductor and
ten pairs of concerts were given the following year. The orchestra
numbered sixty-five men.

The season 1911-12 was marked by an increase to seventy-seven men. On
the retirement of Mrs. Holmes as president, the orchestra had been
brought up to a membership of eighty-two men and Mr. Stokowski had been
succeeded by the present conductor, Dr. Ernst Kunwald, for five years
an associate of Arthur Nikisch in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

The orchestra's sphere of influence began to extend beyond the environs
of Cincinnati in 1900. Since that time it has made annual tours,
visiting Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Detroit,
Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Louisville, Terre Haute, Oberlin, Akron,
Dayton, Springfield, Kansas City, Omaha, Wichita, St. Louis, Milwaukee,
Chicago, and other cities of the Middle West and South.

Pittsburgh, like all other cities preëminently industrial, has
developed but slowly that side of its civic life in which the arts
find important place, and not until 1873 did it possess a musical
body that might properly be called an orchestra. This was known as
the 'Germania' and was founded and conducted by George Toerge. It
consisted of from thirty-five to forty-two instruments and its programs
were made up chiefly of symphony movements, overtures, and lighter
music. There was nothing very ambitious in its aims or achievements,
but undoubtedly it was not without its influence in preparing the way
for others. Later Carl Retter organized what was known as Retter's
Orchestra, which, under his leadership and that of Fidelis Zitterbart,
continued valiantly the pioneer work done by the Germania. Its first
concert was devoted to Gluck, Beethoven, Boccherini, Johann Strauss,
and Keler-Bela. Retter was succeeded in 1879 by Adolph M. Foerster, who
conducted the orchestra for the next two years.

As yet there was not sufficient interest in musical affairs in
Pittsburgh to support a permanent orchestra worthy of the city, but
there were a number of valuable musical organizations, such as the
Gounod Club, the Symphonic Society, the Art Society, and the Mozart
Club, which, singly or together, did excellent work in providing
orchestral concerts. Then came the twenty-eighth National Saengerfest,
which was held in Pittsburgh in 1896 and which inaugurated an epoch in
the musical affairs of the city. This festival, to quote Mr. Adolph
Foerster, 'aroused the first impulse of bringing order out of the chaos
existing at that time. It was to create an orchestra for this great
event and thus lay the foundation for a permanent organization to give
concerts at Carnegie Hall, then nearing completion. Though concerts
were begun a few months after the dedication of the hall, the orchestra
was not, however, engaged, since the elaborate programs designed
excluded the possibilities of adequate interpretations by the orchestra
as then equipped. Perhaps to no other one man than to Charles W. Scovel
is due the credit of solving the intricate problem of establishing the
guarantee fund, bringing the different elements into harmony, and thus
making the orchestra a possibility.'

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra gave its first concert on February
27, 1896, with Frederic Archer as conductor and with a program that
included compositions of Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Rameau, Saint-Saëns,
Massenet, Liszt, and Wagner. In 1898 Archer was succeeded in the
conductorship by Victor Herbert, whose brilliance, verve, and
tendency toward the picturesque in music appealed strongly to the
Pittsburgh public and established for his orchestra of sixty-five men
a popularity which a more severe and conservative leader might have
failed to attract. Theodore Thomas always took his position firmly on
the heights and compelled his audience to climb up to him; Herbert
adopted the reverse method, starting in the pleasant, flower-decked
plain and cheerfully leading his public by his hand to more stimulating
altitudes. Possibly his plan was not the best sort of educational
discipline, but it seems to have been productive of good results.
Emil Paur, who succeeded him in 1910, paid more respect to the great
gods on high Olympus, bowing down with especial reverence before the
shrine of Brahms. 'It must be recorded,' says Mr. Foerster, 'that ever
since Mr. Paur has conducted the orchestra the non-local financial as
well as artistic successes have been much increased. The orchestra is
a regular visitor each season to many large cities.... Each season
the demand for the orchestra has increased, and thus it has become a
national educator, a notable benefactor in the musical development
of this country, probably traversing a larger area than any of the
great symphony orchestras.' In addition to its regular conductors the
orchestra has at various times played under the leadership of guest
conductors, including Richard Strauss, Eugen d'Albert, Walter Damrosch,
and Edward Elgar.


                                   IV

Perhaps the most striking feature of recent musical history in the
United States is the remarkable growth of musical culture in the West.
So rapid has been this growth, so widely has it spread, so numerous and
varied are the activities it has brought in its train that it would
be impossible to follow it in any detail. The number of musical clubs
and organizations which have sprung up in recent years in the vast
territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific is too great even to
be catalogued in a general sketch of this nature. In many of the large
cities, however, some of these organizations have reached a position of
national importance and rival the best products of the older cities of
the East. Notable among those is the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra,
which is generally conceded to rank with the Boston Symphony, the
Theodore Thomas Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. It owes its
inception entirely to Emil Oberhoffer, who started it as a support
for the chorus of the Philharmonic Society of Minneapolis, of which
he was conductor. He succeeded in obtaining a guarantee of $30,000
for three years, then one of $90,000 for three years, and finally one
of $65,000 annually for three years. With that backing he was able to
organize and perfect an orchestral body which has few equals in America
and of which he still remains conductor. During its first season the
orchestra gave six concerts. Since then the number has increased to
forty annually. After its regular season the orchestra makes a spring
tour extending from Winnipeg in the North to Birmingham, Ala., in the
South, and from Akron in the East to Wichita in the West. St. Paul also
has an excellent orchestra, organized in 1905, which gives a season of
ten concerts, seventeen popular Sunday afternoon concerts, and three
children's concerts--so that, on the whole, the twin cities are very
generously supplied with orchestral music.

San Francisco, curiously enough, has been somewhat tardy in orchestral
matters and it was not until 1911 that it organized an orchestra of
any importance. So far the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, under
the leadership of Henry Hadley, has done excellent work. During its
three seasons it has given five symphonies of Beethoven, three of
Brahms, one of Dvořák, one of César Franck, two of Hadley, one of
Haydn, three of Mozart, one of Rachmaninoff, two of Schubert, one of
Schumann, and three of Tschaikowsky, besides compositions by Bach,
Berlioz, Bizet, Borodine, Chadwick, Debussy, Elgar, Goldmark, Gounod,
Grieg, Victor Herbert, Humperdinck, Lalo, Liszt, MacDowell, Massenet,
Mendelssohn, Moszkowski, Nicolai, Ravel, Reger, Rimsky-Korsakoff,
Rossini, Rubinstein, Saint-Saëns, Sibelius, Smetana, Johann Strauss,
Richard Strauss, Svendsen, Coleridge Taylor, Verdi, Wagner, Weber, and
many others--it would be impossible to conceive of a more catholic
assemblage.

Seattle has a fine symphony orchestra of its own, and in the Southwest
Denver shines as the possessor of an ambitious symphonic organization.
Since 1907 St. Louis has had a good orchestra under the leadership
of Carl Zach. In 1911 The Kansas City Musical Club, a women's
organization, succeeded in promoting an Orchestra Association to
guarantee the losses of an orchestra which is doing good work under the
leadership of Carl Busch. Los Angeles, Wichita, Cleveland, Detroit, and
other Western and Middle Western cities also have creditable orchestras
of their own.

Returning East we note the orchestra of the Peabody Institute in
Baltimore and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Washington, New
Haven, and Buffalo. These are all relatively modest organizations, but
they supplement excellently the work of the large visiting orchestras.
Philadelphia, however, possesses an orchestra which has now definitely
taken its place among the greatest in the country. It is the outgrowth
of about fifty amateur and semi-professional musicians who, between
1893 and 1900, gave a few concerts each season at the Academy of Music
under the leadership of Dr. W. W. Gilchrist. These men formed the
nucleus of a permanent orchestra of seventy-two players, which was
organized in 1900. Fritz Scheel, then conducting an orchestra at one
of Philadelphia's summer parks, was appointed conductor. Under him
the important formative work was solidly accomplished and when Carl
Pohlig, first court conductor at Stuttgart, came over as conductor in
1907 he found at his disposal a finished ensemble. Pohlig was succeeded
by Leopold Stokowski in 1912. The latter's knowledge of American
traditions and artistic needs, gained at first while conductor of the
Cincinnati orchestra, served to put him in sympathy with the musical
desires and ideals of his public and the success of the orchestra under
his leadership has been very marked. Besides its regular season of
fifty-one concerts (season of 1913-14) the Philadelphia orchestra gives
a number of popular concerts, fills many engagements in nearby towns
and cities, and makes two tours of a week each in the Middle West and
New England.

'Believing that a great orchestral organization should have
an educational influence'--we quote from the prospectus of the
Philadelphia orchestra--'he (Mr. Stokowski) chooses the compositions
to be played from all periods and all schools and arranges his
programs in the manner which he considers most likely to prove both
pleasure-giving and enlightening. The list of programs for the past
season (1913-14) included two devoted wholly to Wagner, one of which
was made up of excerpts from the four operas of the "Ring," presented
in their natural sequence. From Bach to Richard Strauss, from Gluck
to Erich Korngold--the repertory, though kept always up to his high
standard, is inclusive and comprehensive. It touches upon all fields
of music, faltering before no technical requirements--there is nothing
in the most modern range of the most complicated orchestral works
that the orchestra has not at one time or another essayed, one of its
achievements being the entirely successful performance of Richard
Strauss's tremendous _Sinfonia Domestica_.'

Altogether, in orchestral matters America has sufficient reason to
be proud of her attainments. Of course, one cannot argue from the
existence of good orchestras the coincidence of a high or widely
diffused state of musical culture. They are to some extent the joint
product of money and civic pride. But their educational influence is
beyond question and thus we may at least argue from the increasing
number of good orchestras in America a bright promise for the future.


                                  V

Aside from purely orchestral organizations there has been in recent
years, especially in the larger cities, an increasing number of
societies devoted to the study of special phases of musical art and
which give occasional illustrative concerts with orchestra. As these
are quasi-social in their activities and somewhat restricted in
their appeal, their influence on the musical culture of the country
generally is not of much account. Quite the opposite, however, is
true of the large number of important ensembles devoted to the
performance of chamber music. The growth of public interest in the
smaller instrumental forms promoted by these ensembles is not the
least interesting and significant feature of musical conditions in
present-day America. It might not, perhaps, be extreme to say that a
real appreciation of chamber music is the identifying mark of true
musical cultivation, and the ever-increasing public which patronizes
the concerts of chamber music organizations in this country is one of
the most encouraging signs patriotic American music-lovers could wish
to see.

Probably we must go back to our charming old friends, the cavaliers
of Virginia, with their 'chests of viols' and their compositions of
Boccherini and Vivaldi, to find the beginnings of chamber-music in
America. Undoubtedly small private ensembles antedated orchestras in
this country as they did everywhere else. We know that at Governor
Penn's house in Philadelphia Francis Hopkinson and his friends met
together frequently for musical entertainment, and such gatherings must
have been numerous in New York, Boston, Charleston, and other colonial
centres of culture. However, we must grope along until well into the
nineteenth century before we find a public appearance in America of a
chamber music ensemble. The pioneer, as far as we can discover, was
a string quartet brought together in 1843 by Uriah C. Hill, founder
of the New York Philharmonic. Samuel Johnson, an original member of
the Philharmonic, writes about this quartet as follows: 'A miserable
failure, artistically and financially. It would be gross flattery to
call Mr. Hill a third-rate violinist; Apelles was a good clarinet, but
a poor violinist.... Lehmann was a good second flute; Hegelund was a
bassoon player and naturally best adapted to that instrument; he was
a very small-sized man, with hands too small to grasp the neck of the
'cello. The whole enterprise was dead at its conception.' But perhaps
Mr. Johnson did not like Mr. Hill. Richard Grant White said that the
_soirées_ of the Hill Quartet 'were well attended and successful.'

In 1846, however, New York was treated to a quartet headed by the
great Sivori. 'This was something like a real quartet' according to
Samuel Johnson. Three years later Saroni's 'Musical Times' arranged a
series of four chamber music concerts in which the best artists in New
York appeared. The program of the first concert included Mozart's D
minor string quartet, Beethoven's B flat piano trio, and Mendelssohn's
D minor piano trio--rather a choice dish. Then came Theodore Eisfeld,
who, in 1851, established a string quartet that set a very high mark
for its successors to shoot at. At its first concert it presented
Haydn's Quartet, No. 78, in B flat, Mendelssohn's trio in D minor, and
Beethoven's quartet No. 1, in F major. Eisfeld maintained that standard
for several years, clinging religiously to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,
Mendelssohn, and Spohr. And, furthermore, his _soirées_ were well
patronized. Beyond question he created a real demand for that sort
of thing, so that in 1855, at the suggestion of Dr. William Mason,
Carl Bergmann instituted a series of _soirées_ for the performance of
chamber music and organized a quartet consisting of himself, Theodore
Thomas, Joseph Mosenthal, and George Matzka. Mason was pianist. These
concerts, known first as the Mason and Bergmann and then as the Mason
and Thomas series, were continued every season (except that of 1856-57)
until 1866. They improved considerably on the work done by Eisfeld,
adding to the names of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven on their programs
those of Schumann, Rubinstein, Brahms, Raff, and other contemporaries.

Boston in the meantime had been initiated into the beauties of chamber
music by the Harvard Musical Association, which gave a regular series
of _soirées_ there every year between 1844 and 1850. Stimulated by
the success of these affairs, five professional musicians--August
Fries, Francis Riha, Edward Lehman, Thomas Ryan, and Wulf Fries,
to wit--organized the Mendelssohn Quintet Club. This was the first
important chamber music ensemble in America and for nearly fifty years
it continued to cultivate its chosen field, not only in Boston, but
all over the United States. Its first concert included Mendelssohn's
Quintet, op. 8, a concertante of Kalliwoda for flute, violin and
'cello, and Beethoven's Quintet, op. 4. The Mendelssohn Quintet Club
was an active and progressive organization, keeping well up with
contemporary composition and frequently augmenting its members so as to
give sextets, septets, octets, nonets, and other larger chamber-music
forms.

The next noteworthy chamber music organization in the East was the
Beethoven Quintet Club formed in Boston in 1873. Then came the era of
what we might call the Boston Symphony graduates, viz., the Kneisel
Quartet, the Hoffman Quartet, the Adamowski Quartet, and the Longy
Club (wind instruments)--all offshoots of the same great orchestra.
Of these perhaps the most notable is the Kneisel Quartet (founded in
1884), which has won a deservedly high reputation as well for its
splendid interpretations of standard compositions as for its frequent
presentation of interesting novelties. Since 1905 the Kneisel Quartet
has made New York its headquarters and like the Flonzaleys and other
organizations tours the entire country every season. In 1904 Mr.
Kneisel's successor as concertmeister of the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
Prof. Willy Hess, founded the Boston Symphony Quartet, which has since
then given concerts of very high standard in Boston and elsewhere. The
Longy Club of wind instruments (founded in 1899) is also a noteworthy
organization and does work of the highest artistic excellence in a
field but slightly exploited. Among other chamber music ensembles
which have seen the light in Boston may be mentioned the Theodorowicz
Quartet, the Olive Mead Quartet, the Eaton-Hadley Trio, and the
Bostonia Quintet Club, composed of string quartet and clarinet.

New York is not quite so well favored in this respect, but it
possesses several chamber music organizations of some distinction.
Chief of them is the Flonzaley Quartet, which in point of individuality
has probably no peer in America. The Barrère Ensemble of woodwinds,
headed by George Barrère, first flutist of the New York Symphony
Society, is also an organization of exceptional excellence, though it
does not possess the perfect balance and all-round finish of the Longy
Club. Among others, the Marum Quartet, the Margulies Trio, and the New
York Trio are worthy of note.

In Chicago the principal chamber music organizations are the Heerman
Quartet and the Chicago String Quartet. Practically every other city of
importance in the country has one or more such ensembles, some of them
professional, some of them semi-professional and some of them amateur.
While the private performance of chamber music in any community usually
precedes the institution of public concerts, regular professional
bodies follow as a rule the establishment of large orchestras; hence it
would be futile to look for good chamber music ensembles outside the
principal cities.

The activities of the musical clubs all over the country include in a
majority of cases the occasional performance of chamber music works.
In the small towns these are usually private, social affairs; in the
large cities they often succeed in reaching a wide public. There are
literally thousands of such clubs in the United States and their
influence in the promotion of musical appreciation is very great. Of
course, many of them are namby-pamby pink tea gatherings, leaning
languidly toward the Godard's Berceuse style of composition and
conversational clap-trap touching art and artists. But the majority of
them, we are inclined to believe, are serious in aim and accomplish an
amount of good in their immediate environment. It is worthy of remark
that a very large proportion of them are composed exclusively of women.

                                                         W. D. D.




                              CHAPTER IX
               CHORAL ORGANIZATIONS AND MUSIC FESTIVALS

      The Handel and Haydn and other Boston societies--Choral
      organizations in New York, Pennsylvania, and
      elsewhere--Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago, and
      the Far West--Music festivals.


                                   I

Unquestionably an epoch in the cultivation of choral music in America
was inaugurated by the foundation of the Boston Handel and Haydn
Society in 1815. Whether or not there is anything in the theory that
American musical organizations had their genesis in the singing classes
of Massachusetts, it may scarcely be denied that the cultivation of
ensemble singing received earlier and more serious attention in New
England than elsewhere in this country. The reason is sufficiently
obvious. The people of New England were a church-going race, and
singing, even when Puritan asceticism was most intense, was an
essential factor of religious services. As soon as the New England
conscience was convinced that good singing was no more frivolous and
immoral than bad singing the people turned with characteristic zeal
to choral practice and singing societies throughout the land became
as common as Sunday-schools. These societies were very distinct
in character from other American musical organizations, and the
distinction was entirely in their favor. They were the outgrowth of
a real and widely felt popular need; they had a practical purpose in
which all their members were seriously interested. On the contrary,
the other early musical societies for the most part were promoted
by wealthy amateurs from motives which at best were not free from
suspicion of dilettantism and at worst were purely snobbish.

The nucleus of the Handel and Haydn Society was the choir of the Park
Street Church and the moving spirit in its formation was Gottlieb
Graupner, whose services to music in Boston we have already noticed.
Associated with him were Asa Peabody and Thomas Webb Smith. The
society, according to its pre-organization announcement, was formed
with the object 'of cultivating and improving a correct taste in the
performance of sacred music'--a phrase which recalls the exhortations
of the Rev. Thomas Symmes and his colleagues a century earlier. On
Christmas evening, 1815, according to the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop,
the first concert of the society was given 'to a delighted audience
of nine hundred and forty-five persons, with the Russian Consul, the
well-remembered Mr. Eustaphieve, assisting as one of the performers in
the orchestra.' The first program was appropriately devoted altogether
to Handel and Haydn.

The growth of the society to a position of commanding artistic
stature was rapid. In 1818 it gave a performance of the 'Messiah'
complete--possibly for the first time in America.[54] In the following
year the 'Creation' was given, and the 'Dettingen Te Deum' followed
soon after. It would seem that the society in 1823 unofficially
commissioned Beethoven to write an oratorio for its use,[55] and
that fact alone would indicate that it had come to take itself very
seriously indeed. Masses by Haydn and Mozart, the larger part of
Beethoven's 'Mount of Olives,' Handel's 'Samson,' and Donizetti's
'Martyrs' were features of the society's work between 1825 and 1850.


Until 1847 the Handel and Haydn was conducted by its successive
presidents, the most notable of whom were Thomas Smith Webb, Lowell
Mason, and Jonas Chickering. Then the offices of president and
conductor were dissociated. Carl Bergmann became conductor in 1852 and
in 1854 he was succeeded by Carl Zerrahn, who occupies a prominent
place in the history of musical progress in Boston. He remained with
the Handel and Haydn until 1895, after which came Benjamin J. Lang and
Emil Mollenhauer, successively.

The Handel and Haydn Society bulks so large in the musical life of
Boston that the other choral organizations of the city are somewhat
excessively overshadowed. But there are a number of excellent and
distinctive societies which deserve more than passing mention. Chief
of these is the Choral Art Society organized in 1901 by Mr. Wallace
Goodrich, in imitation of the Musical Art Society of New York, for the
study and performance of works of the Palestrina school, Bach, and the
more modern masters of _a cappella_ music. The Apollo Club, founded in
1871, is one of the best male choruses in the country and the Cecilia
Society, dating from 1877, is noted for its presentation of interesting
novelties. Of particular importance, too, is the People's Choral Union,
a chorus of four hundred voices, recruited from the working classes.


                                   II

The splendid work done by the Sacred Music Society of New York has
been noticed in a previous chapter. Unfortunately the society did not
live long. During the last five years of its existence it had a robust
rival in the Musical Institute, a chorus of one hundred and twenty
voices under the leadership of H. C. Timm, which has to its credit
performances of Haydn's 'Seasons' (1846) and Schumann's 'Paradise and
the Peri' (1848) among others.

In choral as in orchestral matters New York was suffering from too much
competition. Out of the débris of the two chief competitors arose, in
1849, the New York Harmonic Society, which lived until 1863 under the
successive conductorships of Timm, Eisfeld, Bristow, Bergmann, Morgan,
Ritter, and James Peck. In its own way the Harmonic Society was just as
important and efficient as the Philharmonic, but longevity decidedly
was not a feature of New York choral organizations. Out of the remains
of the Harmonic came the Mendelssohn Union, of which Bristow, Morgan,
Bergmann, and Theodore Thomas were successively conductors, and then
followed the Choral Music Association, a most exclusively fashionable
organization.

The complaint from which New York choral societies were suffering
at that time might accurately be diagnosed as anemia and it was
fortunate that for several years previously there had been a large
influx to the city of red Germanic blood. In 1847 a number of these
lusty Germans got together and formed a male chorus which they called
_Deutscher Liederkranz_. There was life in the _Liederkranz_, and
art and sincerity and enthusiasm and everything that ought to be in
a musical society. It gave a tremendous impulse to the art of choral
singing in New York and the extent of its influence in the musical
life of the community cannot easily be overestimated. The list of
important works performed by it would be too long to quote here, but
we may mention, as illustrating the quality of its taste, Mozart's
_Requiem_, Mendelssohn's _Walpurgisnacht_, Haydn's _Schöpfung_,
Schumann's _Des Sänger's Fluch_, Schubert's _Chor der Geister über dem
Wasser_ and _Die Verschworenen_, Liszt's _Prometheus_, Meyerbeer's
'Ninth Psalm,' Bruch's _Odysseus_, Brahms' _Ein deutsches Requiem_ and
_Schicksalslied_, and Hoffman's _Melusine_ and _Aschenbrödel_. There
has been nothing anemic about the _Liederkranz_. In 1856 it admitted
women to its choruses. This step had been contemplated for some years
and in connection therewith there had been vigorous warfare within the
ranks of the society. As a result the anti-feminist irreconcilables
seceded in 1854 and formed the _Männergesangverein Arion_, which has
since travelled at a musical pace as lively as that of its parent.

Unfortunately we have not space to speak of the splendid work
accomplished by the Arion during the sixty years of its existence. Not
the least of its services to music in America was the introduction of
Dr. Leopold Damrosch, who conducted it for several years. In 1873 it
occurred to Dr. Damrosch that New York needed a society which would
give the larger forms of choral music in a competent fashion. The
Mendelssohn Union and the Church Music Association still existed. Both
had done excellent work, the latter having been responsible for the
first performance in America of Beethoven's Mass in D. But, possibly
because of their own peculiar lack of vigorous life, they failed to
attract the public. That the need for such an organization as the
Oratorio Society, which Dr. Damrosch founded in 1873, was very real
is sufficiently proved by its rapid success. The new society avoided
the mistake made by all its predecessors in starting too pretentiously
and began with a few modest concerts of a miscellaneous nature. But by
the time death deprived it of its founder in 1885 it had placed to its
credit achievements in choral music such as had never been approached
by any other organization in New York, or, in fact, elsewhere in
America. These included the great choral classics: Beethoven's 'Ninth
Symphony,' Bach's 'St. Matthew's Passion,' Handel's 'Messiah' and
'Judas Maccabæus,' Mendelssohn's 'Elijah' and 'St. Paul,' Haydn's
'Creation,' Brahms' 'A German Requiem,' and others, together with
first performances in America of Berlioz's _Damnation de Faust_ and
_Requiem_, Frederick H. Cowen's 'St. Ursula,' Leopold Damrosch's 'Ruth
and Naomi' and 'Sulamith,' Kiel's _Christus_, and Liszt's _Christus_.
We may also mention performances in concert form of Gluck's _Orpheus_,
Berlioz's _Les Troyens_, and Wagner's _Parsifal_ (excerpts).

   [Illustration: American Pioneer Conductors: Anton Seidl, Theodore
                    Thomas, Dr. Leopold Damrosch.]

Dr. Damrosch was succeeded by his son Walter, who conducted the
society until 1889, introducing to America Berlioz's _Te Deum_, his own
'Scarlet Letter' and 'Manila Te Deum,' Gounod's 'Redemption,' Edward
Grell's _Missa Solemnis_, George Henschel's _Stabat Mater_, Gustav
Mahler's 'Choral Symphony' (No. 2), Horatio Parker's 'St. Christopher,'
Saint-Saëns' 'Samson and Delilah,' Heinrich Schütz's 'Seven Last
Words,' Edgar Tinel's 'St. Francis of Assisi,' and Tschaikowsky's
'Legend,' _Pater noster_, and _Eugen Onegin_. He also gave a complete
version in concert form of _Parsifal_. Frank Damrosch, another son of
Dr. Damrosch, became conductor of the society in 1889. In the meantime
Mr. Andrew Carnegie had become interested in the work and it was
mainly this interest which led him to build the Carnegie Music Hall.
The Oratorio Society, which had given its concerts successively in
Steinway Hall, the Academy of Music, and the Metropolitan Opera House,
moved to the new hall in 1891, celebrating the event with a festival
made memorable by the presence of Tschaikowsky as a guest conductor.
During his twelve years as conductor of the society Mr. Frank Damrosch
raised its repertory to eighty-six compositions, adding fourteen
works to the list. Several of these were given for the first time in
America, including Sir Edward Elgar's 'The Apostles' and 'The Kingdom,'
Gabriel Pierné's 'The Children's Crusade,' Strauss's 'Taillefer,' and
Wolf-Ferrari's _La vita nuova_. Other important performances were
Bach's 'B Minor Mass' and Beethoven's 'Mass in D.' Chicago anticipated
the Oratorio Society by three days in the first American performance
of Elgar's 'The Dream of Gerontius.' In 1912 it collaborated with the
Symphony Society in a Brahms festival, singing 'Nenia,' the 'Triumphal
Hymn,' and 'A German Requiem.' Frank Damrosch resigned in the same
year and was succeeded by Louis Koemmenich. The novelties of Mr.
Koemmenich's first two seasons were Otto Taubmann's _Eine Deutsche
Messe_ and Georg Schumann's 'Ruth,' and there were two performances
of the 'Ninth Symphony' in conjunction with the Symphony Society at a
Beethoven festival in 1914.

In 1893 Frank Damrosch organized a professional chorus under the
title of the Musical Art Society, for the performance of _a cappella_
works of Bach, the Palestrina school, and more modern masters. The
society was quite different from any choral organization that had ever
been formed in America, aiming at the interpretation of a style of
music that is in the highest degree difficult and unusual. To cover
acceptably the field of _a cappella_ music from Josquin des Près,
Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Eccard, Gabrieli and Orlando Gibbons to
Debussy, d'Indy and Richard Strauss is an artistic enterprise which
only a chorus of artists, one would think, would venture to undertake.
The Musical Art Society has succeeded very well in its difficult task
and its concerts are invariably among the most interesting events of
the New York season. Its repertory to date includes the names of over
one hundred composers, with special emphasis on Palestrina, Bach,
and Brahms, and it includes also a large number of delightful old
_Minnelieder_, mediæval hymns and German, Scandinavian, Scotch, French,
Bohemian, and English folk-songs.

Similar work is done by the Schola Cantorum, under Kurt Schindler,
which has given especially interesting programs of old troubadour songs
and madrigals of the French renaissance. It was originally organized,
under the auspices of the MacDowell Club, as the MacDowell Chorus. The
Lambord Choral Society, organized under the conductorship of Benjamin
Lambord in 1912, is devoted to the study and performance of small,
rarely heard choral works by modern composers. During its first season
its activities included a series of chamber music concerts, as well as
a concert with chorus and orchestra in celebration of the centenary of
Wagner's birth. The Modern Music Society was organized in 1913, with
the Lambord Choral Society as one of its constituent parts. The new
society made its first public appearance with a noteworthy concert
devoted altogether to works of modern American composers, its avowed
purpose being the encouragement of native composition.

Among other New York choral organizations may be mentioned the
United Singers and the People's Choral Union, which may be cited as
a prominent example of community music in a large city. The People's
Choral Union and Singing Classes were established in 1892 by Frank
Damrosch in close affiliation with the work of the Cooper Institute,
established to disseminate knowledge and culture among the people,
particularly working men and women.

In Brooklyn the Oratorio Society and the Choral Society are probably
the best of a number of good choruses, though in Brooklyn, as in most
big cities, there are several German singing societies which excel in
their own particular field.

Considering its great musical activity, Philadelphia is not especially
conspicuous for its choral organizations, but the Orpheus Club, a male
chorus founded in 1872, the Cecilia Society, founded in 1875, and the
Philadelphia Chorus Society are worthy of mention. By far the most
interesting centre of choral music in Pennsylvania is the Moravian
settlement of Bethlehem, which since its foundation in 1741 has been
cultivating that branch of musical art with splendid sincerity and
idealism. As early as 1811 Haydn's 'Creation' was performed there;
Bach's great B minor Mass was given by the Bach Choir of Bethlehem for
the first time in America in 1900, and in 1903 the choir held a Bach
festival during which it performed the entire 'Christmas Oratorio,' the
_Magnificat_, 'St. Matthew's Passion,' and the B minor Mass.

Of course, every city and town of any size in the East has one or
more singing societies which do their own fair share in entertaining
and improving it musically. It would be impossible to enumerate them.
New England is, as it always has been, an especially lively centre
of choral work, and such cities as Portland, Me., Springfield and
Concord, Mass., Burlington, Vt., and New Haven, Conn., possess highly
trained and efficient choruses. Of particular interest is the Worcester
County Musical Association, of Worcester, Mass., an outgrowth of the
old musical conventions held for the purpose of promoting church
music. It was organized in 1863 and for a few years confined itself to
psalm-tunes and simple, sentimental cantatas; but it soon graduated
to Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Verdi, Gounod, and other
serious composers of oratorios and masses. The annual festivals of the
association now rank among the most important events of the American
musical year.


                                   III

In the West Cincinnati takes the lead as a pioneer in choral music.
As early as 1819 there was a Haydn Society in Cincinnati which seems
to have been the successor of an older organization. Its first
concert was devoted to Handel and Haydn, and its second included also
Mozart. Soon afterward were born the Episcopal Singing Society and
the Euterpean Society. Then came the Sacred Music Society and the
Amateur Musical Association. The latter gave the 'Creation' in 1853.
Coincidentally there grew up a number of Männerchor societies, which in
1849, collaborating with several similar bodies in neighboring towns,
organized the first of the great _Sängerfeste_ already mentioned. In
1856 the Cecilia Society came into being and inaugurated a new era
for choral music in Cincinnati. At its first concert it performed
Mendelssohn's 'Forty-second Psalm,' a cantata of Mozart, a chorus for
female voices from Spontini's _Vestale_, Haydn's 'Come, Gentle Spring,'
and some choruses from Schneider's 'Last Judgment.' Subsequently it
presented other works of Haydn, Mozart, and Mendelssohn, as well as
compositions of Beethoven, Schumann, Handel, Gluck, Gade, Neukomm,
Weber, and Wagner.

The next important society in Cincinnati was the Cincinnati Harmonic,
out of which grew the Festival Chorus Society. The latter was organized
in connection with the Cincinnati May Festivals which started in
1873 and in which thirty-six societies from the West and Northwest,
including over one thousand singers, participated. The stimulation
furnished by this and subsequent coöperative festivals resulted, as
Theodore Thomas hopefully predicted, in sending 'new life and vigor
into the whole musical body of the West.' Cincinnati still retains its
activity in choral music and possesses a large number of excellent
singing societies, most of which are German. Among these we may mention
the Männerchor and the Orpheus as perhaps the most conspicuous.

It would indeed be impossible to estimate fully the value the
influence exercised by Germans and German singing societies had on
the cultivation of music in America. In Milwaukee, for example, the
_Musikverein_, organized in 1849, stood for years as a beacon light
of musical culture, shedding its rays far and near over the artistic
darkness of the newly settled West. 'The elements of which the
_Musik-Verein_ was composed,' says Ritter, 'were many-sided. There
were to be found that German indigenous growth, the _Männerchor_ (male
chorus), the orchestra, the chorus composed of male and female voices,
amateurs performing the different solo parts. The whole field of modern
musical forms was cultivated by those enthusiastic German colonists,
the male-chorus glee, the cantata, the oratorio, the opera, chamber
music in its divers forms, the overture, the symphony were placed on
the programs of this active society. Its musical life was a rich one
and its influence through the West was of great bearing on a healthy
musical development.'

There are over twenty German choruses in Milwaukee; in St. Louis
there are probably as many, while in Chicago the number is beyond
count--there are certainly more than one hundred. St. Louis started its
musical life rather early and established a Philharmonic Society in
1838. Seven years later a Polyhymnia Society was formed and about the
same time a Cecilian Society and an Oratorio Society came into being.
A new Philharmonic Society was organized in 1859 and later came the
St. Louis Choral Society. These, of course, leave out of account the
German societies, of which the most prominent are the _Liederkranz_,
the _Socialer Sängerchor_, the _Germania Sängerbund_, the Orpheus, and
the _Schweizer Männerchor_. As early as 1858 Chicago had a Musical
Union devoted to the study of oratorio. During the eight years of
its existence it gave the principal oratorio classics, including the
'Creation,' 'Messiah,' and 'Elijah.' It was succeeded by the Oratorio
Society, which persevered, under the conductorship of Hans Balatka,
until the great fire. After the fire it was revived, but in 1873 its
library and effects were again burned and further attempts to continue
it were unavailing. The summer of 1872 saw the organization of the
Apollo Club, which is to-day the only society of importance in Chicago
devoted to the cultivation of oratorio music. There is also a Chicago
Musical Art Society patterned after the Musical Art Society of New
York and doing similar work. These are the chief agencies for the
cultivation of choral music in Chicago, apart from the multitude of
German societies to which we have already alluded.

San Francisco had an oratorio society, organized by Rudolph Herold, as
early as 1860, and soon afterward a Handel and Haydn Society entered
the field. The fact that these societies received support during
several years of competitive existence speaks well for the state of
musical cultivation in San Francisco at that date. And certainly the
city has not deteriorated musically since then, if we may judge from
the number of choral societies now active there.

The most notable of these is the Loring Club, a male chorus, founded
in 1876, which gives concerts of unusual artistic excellence. Los
Angeles, Seattle, Portland--in fact all the coast cities--are
wide-awake and progressive musical centres and possess efficient
organizations devoted to church work. It would be impossible to note
all of them. Indeed, the compass of a bulky volume would scarcely
inclose reference to all the choral societies at present active in
the United States. There is scarcely a community in the land which
does not possess one or more such societies, ranging in character
from church choirs to the most pretentious of choral organizations.
Many of them, especially in such cities as Baltimore, Washington, New
Orleans, Richmond, Louisville, Dallas, Denver, and Kansas City, compare
favorably with the more widely known societies of New York, Boston, and
Chicago. We must also advert again to the work of the German singing
societies, which flourish in practically every city in the country,
and to the less widespread activities of the Scandinavian singing
societies in such centres as Lindsborg, Kansas. These supplement
splendidly the work of the native American societies, which, to tell
the truth, are more exclusively devoted to the classics of sacred music
than is good for their æsthetic health. Altogether the cultivation
of choral music is carried on most vigorously throughout the length
and breadth of America. It must be admitted that, except in certain
circumscribed localities--Massachusetts, for example--it has not yet
struck root among the people. It is still carried on chiefly by social
coteries, by churches, by artistic circles, by people with aspirations.
Americans do not get together and sing from an inward urge to sing,
as do the Germans and other people implanted in our midst. Possibly
that will come with the racial homogeneity which this great crucible
of a country is striving to bring forth. In the meantime, everything
that an eager, ambitious, and optimistic people can do to overcome its
musical handicaps is now being done by the people of America and the
multiplicity and activity of its choral organizations are symptomatic
of the energy of its endeavor.

In the meantime the only choral organization in the American continent
that can compare with the premier European ensembles has been developed
in Canada. The fact is not without its significance. The Toronto
Mendelssohn Choir, to which we refer, stands out among American choirs
even more prominently than does the Boston Symphony Orchestra among
American orchestras, and its marked preëminence has been acknowledged
without a dissentient voice by the whole body of critical opinion in
this country. It was founded in 1894 by Sir Edmund Walker, Dr. A. S.
Vogt, Dr. Harold Clark and Messrs. W. E. Rundle, W. H. Elliott, A.
E. Huestis, and T. Harold Mason, and since the beginning it has been
under the conductorship of Dr. Vogt. The general policy of the Toronto
Choir is the study and performance of works concerning practically the
whole range of choral composition, including all forms of _a cappella_
work, operatic excerpts, standard oratorios, cantatas and lesser
forms. Among the more important works performed by the choir may be
mentioned Brahms' 'German Requiem,' Verdi's 'Manzoni Requiem,' Bach's
'B Minor Mass,' Wolf-Ferrari's 'The New Life,' Elgar's 'King Olaf,'
'Caractacus' and 'The Music Makers,' Pierné's 'The Children's Crusade'
and Coleridge-Taylor's 'Hiawatha' and 'A Tale of Old Japan.' Included
also in the repertory of the choir are smaller works by Palestrina,
Lotti, Elgar, Hugo Wolf, Granville Bantock, Percy Pitt, Max Reger,
Tschaikowsky, Moussorgsky, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Gretchaninoff,
Brahms, Richard Strauss, Nowowiejski, and others. Besides its annual
cycle of five festival performances at home the Toronto Choir has made
frequent visits to the more important musical centres of the United
States. It has given three concerts in Chicago, two in Cleveland, seven
in Buffalo, four in New York, and one in Boston.

As indicating the impression made by this organization on the centres
of musical culture in the United States we may quote the following from
Philip Hale's criticism of its first performance in Boston: 'It is not
too much to say that its performance was a revelation to even those who
heard the celebrated choruses of this country and in European cities.
Other choruses may show a high degree of technical perfection; they
may be conspicuous for decisive attack, perfect intonation, unvarying
precision, fleetness in rapid passages, the management of breath or
distribution of singers that insures musical and rhetorical phrasing.
The Mendelssohn Choir is thus conspicuous, but it has other qualities
that are rare in choirs even for a small and carefully selected number.
This choir of Toronto is remarkable for exquisite tonal quality. In
piano passages the tone is as though disembodied. There is no thought
of massed singers or of any individual singer. The vigor of these
singers never approached coarseness, and in fortissimos that were "as
the voice of many waters" there was always the suggestion of reserve
force, so that there was beauty in strength. There were delicate
nuances in the performance, sudden and surprising contrasts without
disturbance in rhythm and without loss in purity of intonation. These
nuances and contrasts were apparently spontaneous.' H. T. Parker wrote
on the same occasion: 'In our musical generation Boston has heard no
such choral singing as that of the Mendelssohn Choir in Symphony Hall,
last evening, and applauded no choral conductor of such ability as its
leader, Dr. Vogt. Now, whether the singers be one or two hundred, a
beautiful tone, an expressive tone, a varied tone, is the sum and the
substance, the beginning and the end of musical impartment. No choir,
no choral conductor, has so mastered these secrets or gone so far in
high and various attainment in them as Dr. Vogt and these Torontans.
It seems almost pedagogical, before these higher achievements of the
Mendelssohn Choir, to rehearse the technical skill of the choristers
and their conductor--their fidelity to the true pitch, their
decisiveness of attack, their precision of utterance, their separate
and collective command of vocal technique, their sense of pace and
rhythm. Like unanimity and a unique sensitiveness equally distinguished
the singing of the choir on its expressive, its poetizing, its
dramatizing side.'


                                   IV

One is frequently impelled to wonder at the peculiar trait of human
psychology which leads people to gather together for the celebration of
festivals. We do not allude here to national festivals, or even local
festivals, in honor of some historic event or personage. We have in
mind such apparently motiveless gatherings as the majority of music
festivals. Some of them, of course, have a very definite purpose,
and some, such as the Bayreuth Festival and the Mozart Festival at
Salzburg, have a very obvious motive. But most of them seem to have no
other _raison d'être_ than the instinctive desire of a number of people
to gather into a crowd and make a big noise. Festivals of this sort
are extraordinarily common in America. It is difficult to say whether
the amount of labor involved in the organization of them could not be
more profitably expended. Undoubtedly in territories where musical
culture is as yet a delicate, doubtful growth they furnish a decided
stimulation. To borrow a phrase from the expressive American slang,
they are excellent contrivances for 'whooping things up.' But in a
deeper sense they seem in the main rather futile. We may instance the
case of the Worcester Festival to which we have already alluded. It has
been held annually for fifty-six years and each year it has been very
finely planned and carried out. Each year also it has cost much money.
Yet during that time it has not brought into the light a single new
composer, new singer or new instrumentalist; nor has it made Worcester
and its environs any more musical than they have always been. Like most
of its kind it is merely an inflated concert and the value of inflated
concerts at stated intervals is at least open to discussion.

These festivals are peculiarly American and seem to have grown out of
the old musical conventions so dear to the hearts of the psalm-singing
New Englanders. As far as we can discover, the first musical convention
was instituted at Montpelier, Vermont, by Elijah K. Prouty and Moses
Elia Cheney, both singing-school instructors. It seems to have been
a combination of concert and musical debate. This was in 1839. Later
conventions were held at Newberry, Windsor, Woodstock, Middlebury, and
elsewhere in the Green Mountain state. In 1848 Chicago had a musical
convention, held at the First Baptist Church, and another four years
later under the direction of William Bradbury. Rochester (N. Y.), New
York, Richmond, Washington, Quincy (Ill.), Jacksonville (Ill.), and
North Reading (Mass.) took up the movement in turn under the direction
of George F. Root. All these conventions were purely educational in
character and were concerned chiefly with the art of teaching music.

The Worcester Festival, when it started in 1858, was a convention of
the same sort, with 'lectures upon the voice; the different styles of
church music, ancient and modern; the philosophy of scales, harmony,
etc., with singing by the whole class and by select voices; solos
by members of the convention and ladies and gentlemen from abroad.'
But the promoters of the project--Edward Hamilton and Benjamin F.
Baker--hoped that at no distant day it might be possible 'to achieve
the performance of the oratorios and other grand works of Handel,
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven.' This purpose has been gradually achieved
as the educational features of the festival have been dropped. Carl
Zerrahn was chief conductor of the festival from 1866 to 1897 and was
assisted at various times by W. O. Perkins, George F. Root, Dudley
Buck, Victor Herbert, Franz Kneisel, and others. His successors have
been George W. Chadwick, Wallace Goodrich, and Arthur Mees, in the
order named.

The next festival of importance was the May festival of Cincinnati,
started by Theodore Thomas in 1873. Thomas had a peculiar penchant
for festivals. Quite probably they were of some value in stirring up
interest in choral singing throughout the West. The prospect of going
to the city every two years and participating in a big musical jamboree
undoubtedly had the effect of stimulating choral societies in the
smaller towns. Since 1873 the Cincinnati May Festival has been held
regularly under the conductorship of Dr. Otto Singer, Arthur Mees,
Frank Van der Stucken, and others. For several years, starting in 1881,
the city also held annual opera festivals.

To follow the spread of the festival epidemic from coast to coast
would be impossible. Nearly every city and town in the country has
at one time or other been infected. With some of them it has become
chronic. Boston had it for a time. New York and Chicago later caught it
from Theodore Thomas, but recovered quickly. We may also mention the
peace jubilees of Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, which were a particularly
virulent form of the trouble. In Maine there have been regular
festivals for eighteen years, with centres in Bangor and Portland. They
are very big and well-conducted affairs, with a mammoth chorus, a large
orchestra and soloists of international reputation. Similar in type
are the South Atlantic States musical festivals held at Birmingham and
Spartansburg for the last twenty years. Chicago has had a North Shore
Festival Association for six seasons. Then there are the festivals of
the North American Sängerbund, the North Eastern Sängerbund, and the
innumerable Männergesangvereine all over the country; the Youngstown
Music Festival, the Albany Music Festival, the festival of the Buffalo
Musical Association and the Wednesday Club of Richmond, the Hampden
County Festival, and the Kansas Farmers' Easter Festival; festivals
in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Bellingham on the coast--a perfectly
bewildering array of festivals.

There are, however, two festivals which stand out from all the others
by virtue of their origin and the nature of their activities. The
older of these is the Norfolk Festival of the Litchfield County Choral
Union, which has now (1914) completed its twenty-eighth season. This
is not a drummed-up affair. It is a perfectly natural outgrowth of the
numerous old singing societies with which Litchfield county was dotted
in the psalm-singing days; it is in the best sense a product of the
soil. The Litchfield County Choral Union grew out of the association
of neighboring small ensembles for the occasional production of
large choral works in a manner which none of them individually could
accomplish in an effective manner. The purpose was a very useful
one and it has had the effect of raising materially the standard of
the choral work among the small societies composing the union. The
Norfolk Festival itself, which is a comparatively recent institution,
owes most of its present value to the efforts of Robbins Battell, the
founder of the professorship of music at Yale, and more specially
to the generosity and artistic idealism of Carl Stoeckel, who was,
during Mr. Battell's lifetime, his secretary and aid. Mr. Stoeckel,
as Mr. Battell's successor, has backed the festival with unstinted
liberality. He has enabled it to bring before the public new works of
famous as well as little known contemporary composers--particularly
American--giving substantial cash prizes for the best new American
compositions. He has placed at the disposal of the Litchfield County
Choral Union a meeting place in ideal surroundings, modestly termed
the 'Music Shed,' and he has brought to the support of the chorus for
each festival an orchestra recruited from the best New York and Boston
organizations, as well as an array of distinguished soloists. To secure
the best possible performance of new works produced at the festival
he has spared neither trouble nor expense, as may be instanced by
the fact that he brought Jean Sibelius to America to conduct his own
compositions. The value of these festivals to all the choral societies
and church choirs composing the Litchfield County Union is obvious, but
they have a still wider and greater value in introducing to the world
the creations of native American composers and in holding up an example
of fine artistic idealism which cannot be without its influence on the
soul of the nation.

Of peculiar interest is the MacDowell Festival, held annually since
1910 at Peterborough, N. H., under the auspices of the MacDowell
Memorial Association. It is a fact that Edward MacDowell did some
of his best and most characteristic work--the Norse and Keltic
sonatas, the New England Idyls and Fireside Tales, and many songs and
choruses--in a log cabin on his farm at Peterborough, 'surrounded by
enormous pines facing through a lovely vista Monadnock and the setting
sun.' Realizing the value to a creative artist of such inspiring
surroundings, he conceived the idea of bequeathing the place as a
centre for artists seeking congenial conditions for work and rest.
After his death the property was transferred by Mrs. MacDowell to the
MacDowell Memorial Association. To quote the language of the deed of
gift, 'it is expressly and especially desired that this home of Edward
MacDowell shall be a centre of interest to artists working in varied
fields, who, being there brought into contact, may learn to appreciate
fully the fundamental unity of the separate arts. That in it the
individual artist may gain a sympathetic attitude toward the works of
artists in fields other than that in which such artist tries to embody
the beautiful by recognizing that each part has a special function just
so far as it has gained a special medium of expression.'

It is obvious that the beneficent influence of the MacDowell bequest
is not confined to music, but it is natural under the circumstances
that music should be the main beneficiary. Consequently the
MacDowell Festival, which is a sort of annual get-together party, is
predominantly a musical event, though the drama and the dance have
their share in it. It is valuable primarily as the free expression
of æsthetic aspiration unshackled by the deadening fetters of
commercialism; and secondarily as a reasonably good opportunity for
the American composer to obtain a public hearing. If its intent is
finer than its accomplishment that is a fault unfortunately only too
common to idealistic enterprises. Locally it accomplishes something of
practical artistic value by supporting the MacDowell Choral Club (75
voices) and the MacDowell Choir of Nashua (100 voices), both under the
leadership of Eusebius Godfrey Hood, and undoubtedly it exercises a
stimulating effect upon those who participate in it.

One cannot omit here a notice of the pageant movement which has grown
to quite striking proportions in America within the past few years
and which its leading promoters designate as the most significant
feature of our present artistic development. The term pageant is not
particularly definitive. As applied to certain mediæval entertainments
it was sufficiently explicit, but being a convenient and picturesque
word it has been borrowed somewhat freely and indiscriminately of
recent years. The beginning of the modern pageant occurred in England
in 1905 and its father was Sir Gilbert Parker. It is a sort of _tableau
vivant_, recreating for a few hours some especially picturesque
period of the country's history. The Elizabethan period seems to be
preferred. Music enters into it only incidentally. Boston was the first
American city to adopt the idea. This was in 1908. Quebec followed soon
afterward and Philadelphia staged an elaborate pageant in 1912. All
these were modelled after the English type.

In the meantime some Americans, notably William Chauncy Langdon
and Arthur Farwell, had been evolving an idea to which they applied
the convenient name of pageant but which is fundamentally different
from the English type and its imitators. Briefly, the new pageant
is a community drama; it is a drama with the place for its hero and
the development of the community for its plot. In this novel type
of drama the individual is entirely submerged and the historical
incidents are chosen rather for their symbolical value than for their
intrinsic interest. The spirit informing the history of the community
is the dominant theme. Out of this idea, it is claimed, there is being
developed a new art-form representatively American and interpretative
of the American spirit. The first pageant embodying the community idea
was written by William Chauncy Langdon for Thetford, Vt., in 1911.
Some of the music was composed by James T. Sleeper, but most of it
was adapted. The pageant of St. Johnsbury, Vt., also written by Mr.
Langdon, followed in 1912. Brookes C. Peters, a local man, composed
most of the music for it. Then came the pageant of Meriden, N. H.,
in 1913, in which Mr. Langdon and Arthur Farwell collaborated and
which was the first pageant composed as a musical art form complete.
Mr. Farwell brought to this work a large enthusiasm for the idea and
an ardent faith in its possibilities, and he has since taken a very
conspicuous part in its development. The pageant of Darien, Conn., in
1913, composed by him to the book of Mr. Langdon, shows considerable
progress in the evolution of the pageant as a distinct art-form.
Another step in advance was taken by the pageant of Cape Cod in
1914, written by Mr. Langdon with music by Daniel Gregory Mason. The
elaborate pageant and masque of St. Louis in 1914 was of a somewhat
different order and resembled more closely the English type. The
music of the masque was composed by Frederick S. Converse, and, being
conceived as an independent art unit rather than as incidental music,
may be regarded as a new departure in the 'masque' rather than a
development of the pageant-form.

Regarding the musical side of this and other pageants Mr. Langdon says
in a letter to the writer: 'So far as I know in no English pageant
has there been any attempt to recognize the pageant as a new musical
art-form in itself and to develop the music as an art-unit, comparable
to the sonata, symphony, or opera. The music has all been incidental
music, though often filling quite thoroughly all openings for anything
of the kind. Herewith much original composing has been done, and some
of it at least very fine composing. The formative idea, or precedent
I almost call it, is to be found in the chorus of the Greek drama set
to music. So, too, the music written for the Philadelphia pageant of
1912 is of the same type, as that pageant itself was modelled after
the English type quite closely rather than following the American
departures. But thus far, so far as I know, my pageants are the only
ones that regard the pageant as a musical as well as dramatic art-form
and seek to work out its development as such.' Certainly the new
pageant is one of the most interesting developments in American art,
and it is especially interesting in view of the fact that it is a
distinctly American idea particularly well calculated, one would think,
to be a vehicle for the expression of the American spirit. So far, of
course, it is largely an experiment and its history lies rather in the
future than in the past. Its susceptibility to national application
favors its possibilities considerably.

The lack of such susceptibility lessens the importance of many other
local and very characteristic art developments. The most interesting of
these are the Grove Plays, or Midsummer High Jinks of the Bohemian Club
of San Francisco, which are briefly an expression in drama and music
of the spirit of joy. Climate, locale and a body of artists with the
sort of traditions indicated by their club name, combine to give these
affairs their characteristic flavor, and it is doubtful if they could
be imitated successfully under different conditions. But it would seem
that similar attempts at local expression, whatever form they may take,
are likely to become common in America in the future, and serve as
valuable and much-needed stimulants to the creation of a worthy native
art.

                                                            W. D. D.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[54] As we have already noticed, the 'Messiah' was performed at Trinity
Church, New York, in 1771 and 1772, but there is a reasonable doubt
whether on either of these occasions the work was given in its entirety.

[55] See Thayer's 'Life of Beethoven.'




                               CHAPTER X
                     MUSICAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA

      Early singing teachers and schools--Music societies in
      colleges--Introduction of music in the public schools--The
      Germanic influence--Conservatories--Musical courses in
      colleges and universities; community music--Present state of
      public school music--Municipal music.


There seems to be general agreement among students of American music
that we are entering upon a national era. That we did not attain
this stage long before has generally been laid to the inadequacy of
our educational system in music. A less apparent yet more rational
statement would be that our educational equipment, growing with the
increasing culture of the people and adapting itself to their timely
needs and developing comprehension, was the kind most desirable. A
'mugwump' was defined by General Horace Porter as 'a man educated
beyond his ability.' Had a European system of musical education,
however theoretically ideal, been imposed on young America when
necessarily occupied with material problems, we might now be a nation
of musical mugwumps, smugly satisfied with ourselves, and incapable of
original achievement.

If it be granted, then, that musical culture is conditioned, in kind
and degree, upon the character of the people concerned, then the
colonization of our country becomes a subject of prime importance,
affording, indeed, the best logical method, in conjunction with a
general chronological order, for discussing the present subject.

The various colonies which were planted on our eastern shores
developed by permeating in successive waves of immigration New York,
northern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and Michigan and Wisconsin; thence
the lines became divergent, broadening through the trans-Mississippi
plains until, emerging on the Pacific, they embrace the entire coast,
from Seattle to Los Angeles. While the original spirit has been greatly
tempered in the course of this progress, its distinctive character
still remains--a pale tinge of Puritanism, as it were, which colors
every expression of life, and which can be traced on the sociological
map of the United States by a narrowing belt of ever-deepening hue,
back to its undiluted source: the all-pervasive theocracy of colonial
New England.

From the time when this religious influence began to reach beyond its
original boundaries, it met and amalgamated, in a social though not
sectarian sense, with Presbyterianism, a kindred spirit which, somewhat
later than Puritanism, came to America, largely from Scotland, and
took root in almost all the colonies from New York to the Carolinas.
The 'blue laws' of Connecticut, so repressive of the graces of life,
of love and laughter and music, found their counterpart in the
Westminster Catechism, wherein the 'moral law,' that is, the regulation
of social relations, is said to be 'summarily comprehended in the Ten
Commandments,' the first four of which are specifically religious.

Religion being the dominant factor in this stream of social influence
which flowed through America, and the Bible standing as the chief
and final authority on all matters of life, music, the ever-willing
handmaid of every human institution asking her assistance, was
naturally drafted into the exclusive service of the church. The
first singing books were psalm books; the first singing schools were
organized for the purpose of the instruction and training of church
congregations and church choirs.


                                   I

Private instruction in music was unknown for more than a century after
the settlement of the country. In 1673 the British Commissioner for
the Plantations reported that there were no 'musicians by trade' in
the United States. Indeed, it was not until 1730 that an advertisement
appears of a music teacher. In that year a newspaper in Charleston, S.
C., printed a notice that John Salter was teaching music in a young
ladies' boarding school conducted by his wife.

It is true that some of the psalm-books contained hints for singing,
but these were either too obvious or too vague to be of practical
value. Thus in the 1698 edition of the 'Bay Psalm-Book' (the work,
first published in 1640, ran through seventy editions) there is this
general direction: 'First, observe how many note-compass the tune is
next the place of your first note, and how many notes above and below
that, so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest
may be sung in the compass of your and the people's voices, without
Squeaking above or Grumbling below.'

As we have seen (in Chapter II), the first books of psalmody pretending
to be works of instruction were those of the Rev. John Tufts, of
Newbury, Mass., published in 1712 and 1714, and that of the Rev. Thomas
Walter, of Roxbury, Mass., published in 1721. Largely as a result
of Tufts' and Walter's publications, singing schools to teach the
reading of psalm-tunes by sight began to be established in New England,
although not without strenuous opposition.

In 1723 the Rev. Thomas Symmes, of Bradford, Mass., published a
'joco-serious dialogue concerning regular singing,' which bore the
title '_Utile Dulci_.' In this he presents and answers prevalent
objections to singing by note, among which the following are
significant of the ignorance, intolerance and pruriency of the 'unco
guid' of that day:

'5. That it is _Quakerish_ and _Popish_, and introductive of
_instrumental_ musick.

'6. That the names given to the notes are _bawdy_, yea _blasphemous_.'

The second stimulus to musical education in America was imparted
by various American reprints of two English books on psalmody: W.
Tansur's collection, 'The Royal Melody Complete,' published in 1754,
and Aaron Williams' 'The New Universal Psalmodist,' published in 1763.
The prevalent taste in England for musical rococo, such as florid and
meaningless 'fuguing choruses,' was thus transplanted to the colonies,
where it made a deep impression which was harder to remove and
persisted longer than in the mother country.

The most conservative strain of English musical culture, that
associated with the Anglican church, existed also in America, awaiting
its turn to reign, when growth in general culture and artistic capacity
should cause the people to tire of the ingratiating but inconsequential
music which held sway. Its exponent was William Tuckey, an English
musician of high training and culture, who came to New York in 1753
and made an earnest attempt to educate the colonial people in an
appreciation of the best church music. His career as teacher as well as
organist and composer has already been touched upon in these pages (see
Chap. II). Tuckey called himself 'Professor of the Theory and Practice
of Vocal Music,' and the part he played in the musical education of
New York and Philadelphia fully justifies the assertion that he was
the first teacher in America worthy of the title. His pupils became
prominent in all movements of their respective cities for the elevation
of not only sacred but secular music to the best standards of Europe.

Already there was the leaven of German influence working for the
betterment of music in America. In 1741 Moravian Brethren in their
community at Bethlehem, Pa., a little town which has retained to the
present day the distinction of being a home of music of the highest
order, had established singing schools. Ten years later they formed,
in connection with these, an orchestra for the rendition of secular
as well as sacred music. In the correspondence of the time, lovers of
their country, men who, like Samuel Adams, of Boston, had begun to
think nationally and who shortly afterward were to become patriots of
the Revolution, put on record their gratification at this important
contribution to American culture.

A taste for good music and a desire to inculcate it were also
developing in Philadelphia and Baltimore, as shown by records of the
time. In 1764 the vestry of St. Peter's and Christ Church in the
prosperous city founded by William Penn extended a vote of thanks to
two of its most cultured and public-spirited citizens, William Young
and Francis Hopkinson (who was soon to achieve distinction as a poet
and patriot of the Revolution), for instructing the children of the
church in psalmody. In 1765, at St. Anne's Church, Baltimore, Hugh
Maguire, probably the organist, established a singing school, for use
in which he published 'a new version of the psalms, with all the tunes,
both of particular and common measure.' He announced that he would
teach singing at their homes to young ladies who played the spinet, his
remuneration to be fifteen shillings a quarter and an entrance fee of
one dollar.

Returning to New England, we find in William Billings, the 'great
Yankee singing-master,' the most important musical influence of the
time. The date of publication of his original compositions, 1770, marks
an era in American music. By this time the old psalm-tunes in use,
only four in number, were worn to death, and the new tunes, having
been composed in the novel fuguing style of the English compositions,
became instantly popular with the singing schools, which Billings was
energetic in organizing and conducting. The most notable of these, that
at Stoughton, Mass., is elsewhere described, as well as the general
activities of Billings and other teachers of the same general school.

In the circle of musical development of which Philadelphia was the
centre, Andrew Adgate of that city was the leading spirit. In 1784 he
established an 'Institution for the Encouragement of Church Music'
supported by subscription and governed by trustees. So fervent was
Adgate in the cause of 'music for the people' that, as conductor of the
institution, he organized 'public singings,' which became so popular
that within a year the trustees, objecting to 'the indiscriminate
assemblage' of the general public, restricted admission to subscribers.
Adgate thereupon resigned his position and established a free school,
'Adgate's Institution for diffusing more generally the knowledge of
vocal music.' It is significant of the public spirit of the 'cradle
of independence' that he found a number of influential men willing
to act as trustees of the new organization. The splendid institution
which is now the University of Pennsylvania opened its doors to the
new enterprise. Inviting requests to join these free classes, Adgate
announced: 'The more there are who make this application and the sooner
they make it, the more acceptable will it be to the trustees and the
teacher.'

Adgate's Institution had a marked influence in Philadelphia in the
development of musical appreciation, which is an essential precedent in
any community of the practical cultivation of the art. Foreign music
teachers after trying vainly in other places, such as New York, for
something like remunerative recognition, finally found it in the city
whose civic spirit had been broadened by Adgate to include artistic
as well as material progress. Among these may be mentioned William
Tuckey, already noted; the English musician, Rayner Taylor, who came to
America in 1792; and Filippo Trajetta, a Venetian, the son of the noted
composer Tomaso Trajetta. Filippo was trained by the best masters,
notably Piccini; entering the revolutionary army of Italy, he was
captured by the royalists, but, escaping, fled to America, arriving in
Boston in 1799, where he taught singing. He toured through the South
as a theatrical manager, and finally settled in Philadelphia, teaching
and composing music ('Washington's Dead March' being his most popular
composition) until his death at the age of seventy-eight in 1854. He
published 'Rudiments of the Art of Singing' as a text-book for the
'American Conservatorio,' an institution established in Philadelphia
by his pupil, Uri K. Hill; in this he advocated the Italian system of
_solfeggio_ to supersede the 'defective sol-fa-ing' in universal use in
America.

In New England, more particularly Boston, we find that the foreign
influence was making itself felt in music through 'The Massachusetts
Compiler,' a work which embodied something of the theory of music as
given in the works of German, French, and English authorities. The
introduction of this element was probably due to Hans Gram, the German
organist at Brattle Church, Boston, who, with Oliver Holden and Samuel
Holyoke, published the work in 1795. To Gottlieb Graupner, another
German, was mainly due the foreign influence which caused Boston to
become for half a century the leading city of the country in musical
influence. The 'Philharmonic Society,' which was formed by Graupner
and his associates in 1810, prepared the way for the Handel and Haydn
Society, founded in 1815, which not only educated Boston and New
England in musical appreciation, but had a formative influence on the
taste of the entire country.

English talent conjoined at Boston with German in this educational
work. Dr. G. J. Jackson, an English musician of the order of William
Tuckey and Rayner Taylor--indeed, he was Taylor's schoolmate--had come
to America in 1796, and taught music at Norfolk and Alexandria, Va.,
and Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. In his northward progress
he arrived in Boston in 1812, and became organist successively of the
Brattle Street Church, King's Chapel, Trinity Church, and St. Paul's
Church. He was the leading choirmaster of his day, teaching the English
method of chanting, and was employed as music teacher by the first
families. He published a book of chants, anthems, etc., and contributed
original compositions to 'The Churchman's Choral Companion,' published
in New York in 1808 by the Rev. William Smith. His friend Rayner Taylor
was also represented in the collection.


                                   II

A singing club, more social than serious in its purpose, had been
formed at Harvard in 1786. In 1808 a novel institution, the 'Pierean
Sodality,' was established at the college. This was a singing
fraternity, the members of which were linked together by a common
interest in music. The Sodality was the germ of the present Department
of Music in Harvard University. Out of it there arose in 1837 the
'Harvard Musical Association,' composed of alumni of the college
who had been members of the Sodality. The report of the committee
on organization admirably described the fraternal function of music
and stated the fashion in which this was to be realized by the new
association:

'Nothing unites men more than music. It makes brothers of strangers;
it makes the most diffident feel at home; the most shy and suspicious
it renders frank and full of trust; it overflows the rocks of
separation between us; it comes up like a full tide beneath us, and
opens a free intercourse of hearts.

'We propose, then, to form an association which shall meet here
annually on commencement day: if for nothing more, at least to exchange
salutations and review recollections, and feel the common bond of music
and old scenes....

'But the ultimate object proposed is the advancement of the cause of
music, particularly in this university. We would have it regarded
as an important object of attention within its walls, as something
which sooner or later must hold its place in every liberal system
of education; and that place not accidental or a stolen one, but
formally recognized. We that love music feel that it is worthy of its
professorship, as well as any other science.'

As we shall see later this high purpose was fulfilled in the
establishment of a Department of Music in Harvard on an equal basis
with the other departments. The association stated that one of its
objects was to collect a musical library, and another to promote the
production of great symphonies. This program was greatly extended in
the course of the existence of the association; chamber concerts,
hitherto unknown in Boston, were given in the winter under the
leadership of such artists as Herwig and Hohnstock. These concerts
led in 1849 to the organization of the Mendelssohn Quintet Club for
the exclusive cultivation of chamber music. In 1852, with the moral
backing of the association, J. S. Dwight, one of its leading spirits,
established 'Dwight's Journal of Music,' a periodical of the highest
aim and most authoritative character. Its publication ceased in 1881.

The 'Handel Society of Dartmouth College,' discussed in another
connection, had a fate unworthy of its high character and sadly
significant of the low state of musical appreciation in the smaller
colleges of the times, and in the 'common people' from which class
their students were chiefly drawn. It dwindled and died for lack of
recruits. Pity it is that some loyal patron of the college had not
provided for the perpetuation of the society, if only as a memorial
of Dartmouth's chief glory, even surpassing that of having trained in
some measure the classic rhetoric and Olympian accents of the greatest
of American orators. Our democracy alone, unaided by college culture,
produced Lincoln, in most minds the rival of Webster in perfect phrase
and his superior in heart-moving utterance, if not in ear-entrancing
tone. It has not yet brought forth the compeers of these in music,
since education is required to supply the nurturing musical environment
found abroad but hitherto lacking in American life. Had music been
permanently established as a part of the curriculum of Dartmouth alone,
not to speak of the other colleges, a few young men with a native taste
for it would undoubtedly have been found in every class and these would
have cherished and transmitted the sacred fire with increasing ardor
until the inevitable time arrived when native genius would be kindled
into immortal flame.


                                   III

A new order of native-born music teachers, those who pursued European
methods in their instruction, was now arising. The chief of this class
was Lowell Mason. Mason was born at Medfield, Mass., and spent his
youth and early manhood in Savannah, Ga., where he was engaged in
business. A music-lover from early childhood, he carried to the South
the psalmody of New England, but, becoming master of a church choir, he
felt the inadequacy of existing collections of church music and, with
the valuable assistance of a local music teacher, Mr. Abel, prepared a
new one suited to his needs.

He came to Boston seeking a publisher and found it in the Handel and
Haydn Society, which, in 1822, not only published the collection but
gave the society's name to it. It met with great success, running
through many editions. In 1826 its compiler delivered a series of
lectures in Boston churches on church music which attracted such
favorable attention that he was induced to make his home in the city.
In time he became president of the Handel and Haydn Society, and,
when the Boston Academy of Music was established, largely through his
efforts, he was put in charge of it.

At this period began a movement to reform radically our entire
system of school instruction, and the moment was propitious for the
introduction of music in the public schools, a purpose upon which Mr.
Mason had set his heart. In 1830 William C. Woodbridge delivered before
the American Institute of Instruction in Boston an address on 'Vocal
Music as a Branch of Common Education,' illustrated by Mason's pupils,
in which the lecturer, recently returned from Europe, warmly advocated
the cultivation of music as an essential element of American, as it
was of foreign life. One sentence of his lecture is startling to us of
the present generation in its inferential revelation of the primitive
nature of juvenile instruction in the United States as late as 1830.
Mr. Woodbridge, speaking of music being 'the property of the people' in
Germany and Switzerland, heard in field and factory, and in gatherings
for pleasure no less than in assemblies for worship, added: 'But we
were touched to the heart when we heard its cheering animating strains
issuing from the walls of a schoolroom.'

Mr. Woodbridge was an enthusiast over the Pestalozzian method as
applied to instruction in music. He not only collected all the
literature he could on the subject, but even translated the more
important works and turned over the entire material to Mr. Mason.
This wise teacher experimented first with the method before adopting
it. The success of the trial made him an ardent supporter of the new
system of instruction, which completely overthrew the old custom of
starting the pupil off with a complete tune and correcting defects
as these manifested themselves. The Pestalozzian method is truly the
natural one, building up, instead of patching up. This will be seen by
examining its principles:

      1. To teach sounds before signs (have the pupil learn notes
      orally first).

      2. To lead the pupil to observe and execute differences in
      sound, instead of explaining these to him, i. e., to make
      him active instead of passive in learning.

      3. To teach one thing at a time--rhythm, melody,
      expression--instead of a selection embodying all these
      elements.

      4. To have the pupil master each step by practice before
      passing to the next.

      5. To explain principles after practice (the inductive
      method).

      6. Analysis and practice of articulation of speech in order
      to use it in song.

To apply this revolutionary method to teaching music was the central
purpose of the establishment of the Boston Academy of Music. It had a
useful career during the fourteen years of its existence. Mr. Mason,
like Mr. Adgate, of Philadelphia, believed in 'music for the people,'
and his generosity in extending this without considering material
profit kept the institution in constant need of funds until it gave up
the struggle and closed its doors in 1847.

The Academy was more than a New England institution: it was a national
one, in that music teachers in every part of the country wrote to
it for guidance in their work. And it left behind it the finest of
mmorials, the establishment in Boston, and, through Boston's example,
all over the nation, of music in the public schools, not merely as
a relief from other studies, but as a study itself. This innovation
was made by the city fathers of Boston in 1837, after a trial of the
propositions had proved successful. T. Kemper Davis, chairman of the
school committee, made a long and learned report upon the subject
which is a classic of its kind, and as such may be read with profit by
teachers of music, particularly those in the public schools.[56]

Music in the public schools of New York had an independent origin. In
1835 Darius E. Jones experimented with the idea of forming singing
classes in the schools and teaching them without compensation. The
trial was successful, and the school board gave him permission to
continue the work provided no expense was incurred and regular studies
were not interfered with. Music in the New York schools was not
effectively recognized by provision for compensation until 1853. T. B.
Mason, the brother of Lowell Mason, introduced singing in the public
schools of Cincinnati. Pittsburgh began such instruction in 1840.
Nathaniel D. Gould, a music teacher and composer, claimed to have been
the first to teach singing to children in a systematic method. From
1820 onward he organized such classes in New England, New York, and New
Jersey.

The recognition by municipal authority of music as an essential
element of education has been ratified in the fullest manner by
national authority. Philander P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of
Education, addressing the National Education Association convened at
St. Paul, in July, 1914, asserted that music is of more practical value
than any subject of the usual curriculum, except reading and writing,
and with these studies, and physical culture and arithmetic, forms the
fundamentals in elementary education.

While in the later thirties colleges and universities were not prepared
to grant music a place in the academic curriculum, they began to
recognize it as an important element of culture, and to extend to
it their patronage. In 1838 William Robyn, a professor in St. Louis
University, formed, under the auspices of the institution, a musical
society called the 'Philharmonic' for the performance of public
concerts. These were well patronized.[57]


                                   IV

The German immigration was in full force in the forties, cities such
as St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee becoming the homes of great
numbers of this music-loving people. In the broad sense of the term,
they formed the greatest educational influence in music that the
country had yet received. It is said that wherever two Germans settled
in America they organized themselves into a _Sängerbund_. Tyrolese
and Swiss singers and bell-ringers began to tour the country in 1840
and delighted Americans of every class--even now they are popular in
the Chautauqua circles. However, when, lured by the success of the
_jodlers_, really fine German bands, such as the Steiermarkers, Gungl's
band, the Saxonia and Germania, came over in quest of American dollars,
they met with consistent failure, and were forced to dissolve--to the
great benefit of American musical education, for the individual members
generally became teachers of instrumental music in the localities where
they were stranded. It was only by playing dance music and popular
airs that the bands met with any success whatsoever. Gungl (whose
'Railroad Galop,' an imitative composition, was the most popular in his
répertoire) wrote home to a musical journal in Berlin that music 'lies
still in the cradle here and nourishes herself on sugar-teats.'

The sentimental strain in German vocal music of the period made it
more popular than German instrumental music, in that the American
palate had been prepared for sentimentality by a saccharine sort of
psalmody and secular music which was being sprinkled over the country
by a second generation of Yankee music teachers of the Billings order.
Elijah K. Prouty and Moses E. Cheney were leading representatives of
this class. Prouty was a peddler, singing teacher, and piano tuner.
Cheney was a leader of a church choir. In 1839 they organized and
conducted a musical 'convention' at Montpelier, Vt., at which, with
shrewd perception of popular interest in novelty and variety, they
practised 'unusual tunes, anthems, male quartets, and duets and solos
for both sexes.' For the secular music they used the 'Boston Glee Book
and Social Choir,' compiled by George Kingsley. In order to attract the
attendance of non-musical people, in the intervals between performances
short debates were held between the local ministers, lawyers, and other
prominent citizens.

In May, 1848, another musical convention was held in Chicago, which
discussed the general question of musical education and the specific
one of music in the public schools. Four years later William B.
Bradbury led a similar but larger convention. At this convention
the 'Alpine Glee Singer,' a compilation by Bradbury, was used for
secular music, indicating the strong influence which the elementary
sentimentality of German popular music exerted upon Americans. Sugared
American psalmody, flavored with German sentimentality, and colored
with a crudity of technique almost aboriginal produced that sort of
musical candy which we know as the Sunday-school song. Bradbury was a
pioneer in the composition and publication of such music, although,
to do him justice, the especially deleterious coloring of the mixture
was added by his successors, among whom Ira D. Sankey and P. P. Bliss
may be mentioned as chief offenders. The collections of this school
of musical composers must be reckoned by thousands in editions and
millions in numbers of copies. Bradbury alone compiled more than fifty
singing books, containing many of his own compositions. Of these
collections 'The Jubilee,' published in 1857, sold 200,000 copies;
'Fresh Laurels' (1867), 1,200,000 copies; and a series known as the
'Golden Series,' 2,000,000 copies.

This flood of sentimentality, completely inundating the Sunday-school,
poured into the public school, and almost swamped the ark of juvenile
education in music which careful hands had just committed to that great
stream of popular culture. When music became recognized as an essential
element of education, it was inevitable that the only available
juvenile songs, those of the Sunday-school, should be introduced in
the public schools. Indeed, the singing of anything in the schools was
preferable to the entire absence of song, and so this order of music,
representing, as it did, the popular taste of the time, marks, although
we are loath to say it, an important step forward.

Dr. Lowell Mason was the chief assistant at an event which marks an
epoch in American musical education, namely, the birth of the normal
musical institute from the so-called musical convention. This occurred
in 1856 at North Reading, Mass., where an annual musical convention of
the usual sort was converted into a school of a fortnight's duration
for instructing its members, particularly teachers, in both musical
theory and practice. The example was followed all over the country to
the great benefit of musical pedagogy. Associated with Dr. Mason in
this work of popularizing music was George F. Root, who journeyed over
the country conducting conventions, lecturing, etc.[58]


                                  V

During the second half of the nineteenth century the teaching of
music passed in large measure from the hands of single, independent
teachers into the direction of music masters associated in institutions
for class instruction, which are generally known as conservatories,
although this term in its European signification of a large, completely
equipped and nationally endowed school of music is misleading. Indeed,
the pretense seems to have been deliberate. Dr. Frank Damrosch, in an
address on 'The American Conservatory,' before the Music Teachers'
National Association at Oberlin, Ohio, in 1906, said:

      'The so-called conservatory, college, or university of
      music ... may be found in every American community.... It
      is usually organized by an individual whose commercial
      instincts are stronger than his musical conscience, and
      who, banking on the dense ignorance of the average citizen
      in matters of art, offers what seems to be a great bargain
      in the acquisition of musical ability in one form or
      another.... There are many such schools which seemingly
      flourish by the glittering, if empty, promises which they
      advertise. Some of them confer degrees; ... one of the first
      musical doctor degrees conferred by the director of one of
      these schools was on himself!'

While there are hundreds of conservatories of the class described
by Dr. Damrosch scattered over the Union, a number of institutions
are to be found which rank in thoroughness and comprehensiveness of
instruction with the best European conservatories. These have been
in every instance of slow growth, the most pretentious in chartered
plans having made early and signal failures in the province of musical
education, though some of them won success in other musical activities.
A typical example of this order is the Academy of Music of New York,
whose career is recorded in Chapter VI.

The earliest American conservatory worthy of its name is the
Conservatory of Music of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, which was
founded in 1857. Its chief contribution to American musical education
has been the Peabody concerts, a series of eight performances having
been given annually since 1865. From 1872 to 1898 Asger Hamerick, the
Danish composer, was director. He organized an orchestra of fifty
performers, which became, under his intelligent training, a highly
efficient instrument for the rendition of the most advanced music.
The programs of his concerts were formed of overtures, symphonies,
concertos, suites, and vocal solos. He gave especial attention to works
by American, English, and Scandinavian composers, performing for the
first time in America many notable compositions, among them a number of
his own. The good work of the Peabody concerts, attracting, as it has
done, the respectful attention of foreign masters, should be a matter
both of encouragement and pride to those who have the cause of American
music at heart. It points the way to high attainment in our musical
appreciation and notable achievement in native composition.

The year of 1867 is notable in American musical history for the
establishment of five leading conservatories or musical colleges:
the New England Conservatory in Boston; the Boston Conservatory; the
Cincinnati Conservatory; the Oberlin Conservatory; and the Chicago
Academy of Music, later known as the Chicago Musical College.

The New England Conservatory was founded by Eben Tourjée, whom Sir
George Grove, in his 'Dictionary of Music and Musicians,' denominates
the 'father of the conservatory or class system of instruction in
America.' The nature of this system and its advantages have been well
expressed by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who said: 'The class system
has the advantage over the private instruction of the individual in
that, by the participation of several in the same lessons and studies,
a true feeling is awakened; and in that it promotes industry, spurs to
emulation, and is a preservative from one-sidedness of education and
taste.'

Dr. Tourjée, in 1851, at the age of seventeen, formed classes at his
home, Fall River, Mass., for instruction in vocal and instrumental
music. In 1859 he founded a musical institute at East Greenwich, where
he greatly developed his method. In 1863 he visited Europe to gain
information concerning the conduct of European conservatories, and upon
the ideas thus secured he established the Providence Conservatory of
Music, and in 1867 the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
For a time he conducted both schools, then devoted himself exclusively
to the latter. From its beginning the Boston institution secured the
best masters available and gave a maximum of musical instruction at
a minimum of cost. It has sent forth over the country thousands of
accomplished pianists, organists, and vocalists, and, what is even more
pertinent to the present subject, music teachers, trained in Tourjée's
methods. After the founder died (in 1890), Carl Faelten acted as
director, until in 1897 he founded a school of his own for instruction
in the piano. No school of its kind stands higher in America.

In 1897 George W. Chadwick, the professor of harmony, composition, and
orchestration, was made director of the New England Conservatory. For
several years Mr. Chadwick had conducted the annual musical festivals
at Springfield and Worcester, Mass., and his special attention was
thereby directed toward great orchestral and choral performances
by the students, whose number was mounting into the thousands. By
the generosity of patrons of the Conservatory, especially Eben D.
Jordan, president of the trustees, a large building was erected in
1902, containing facilities for instruction superior even to those of
European conservatories, and an auditorium, Jordan Hall, whose large
size and fine acoustic properties render it one of the important
concert halls of the country, use as such being frequently made of it
by visiting artists, to the great advantage of the students as well as
the general public. The instrumental equipment of the conservatory is
large, the collection of organs, including the pipe organ in Jordan
Hall, which is one of the largest in the world, being especially
notable.

The conservatory possesses one of the best working musical libraries in
the country, a unique feature being the choral library of the Boylston
Club (founded 1872) and its successor, the Boston Singers, which
contains many copies of manuscript treasures in European collections.
This library was a gift to the conservatory by George L. Osgood. The
Boston Public Library nearby contains the Allen A. Brown collection of
musical books and manuscripts, which is excelled in America only by
the Congressional Library at Washington. Accordingly, the pupils of
the conservatory have at hand every facility for acquiring a musical
education which the most ardent student could desire. It is not
surprising that among its three thousand and more students every one of
the forty-eight states of the Union is represented, as well as a dozen
foreign countries, even distant Russia and Turkey.

The curriculum of the conservatory has been generally described by
Frederick W. Colburn in 'The Musical Observer' for July, 1913. Mr.
Colburn, after mentioning special features, such as the conservatory
orchestra of seventy-five members, affording the training and routine
indispensable to professional performers whose ranks it is annually
supplying, says: 'While the new is studied, the fundamentals are not
lost sight of. All the courses have been planned to avoid turning out
narrow and one-sided specialists. The management realizes that the
professional musician has need of very broad and very correct culture.
The students listen to lectures on the history and theory of music
from such authorities as Louis C. Elson and Wallace Goodrich. The
modern languages and English diction are taught by experts, several of
whom are authors of their own text-books. The pianoforte instruction
follows approved methods; it shows much of the influence of the late
Carl Baermann, one of the most eminent of the German musicians who
have settled in this country. The vocal instruction is along the lines
of the old Italian method which has formed the voices of most of the
world's great singers. The teaching of the organ accords with the
practice of the best German and French organists. In all departments
there is present the idea of thoroughly grounding the student in
the essentials of musical art and of avoiding easy, ready-made and
get-culture-quick methods.'

The Boston Conservatory, second in the list of five founded in 1867,
was organized by Julius Eichberg, a distinguished German violinist and
composer, who had been, since 1859, director of the orchestra at the
Boston Museum. This speedily won and long maintained a high reputation,
particularly for instruction in the violin, on which subject Eichberg
prepared a number of valuable text-books.

The Cincinnati Conservatory of Music was founded by Clara Bauer,
who still is active in its management, having charge of the home for
the female pupils. This was the first conservatory in the country
to establish a residence department--indeed, its group of buildings
and park-like grounds give the conservatory a truly academic aspect
possessed by few institutions of its kind that are situated in
cities. Miss Bauer, however, recognized from the beginning that the
all-important element of a conservatory was its teaching force. She
secured representative talent in the various branches of music from the
various European musical centres, thereby securing warm approbation of
the institution from foreign musical artists and critics. The faculty
now numbers sixty members; it contains artists notable for excellence
in every branch of musical arts and pedagogy. General cultural studies,
such as dramatic art, literature, and modern languages, are conducted
with special application to their relation to music.

The Cincinnati Conservatory was the first to conduct a summer music
school. The sessions have been uninterrupted since 1867. Attended
largely by music teachers, they have greatly advanced the cause of
musical education in the territory tributary to the city.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, at Oberlin, presents so many object
lessons of musical pedagogy that it demands rather extended treatment
here.

In the first place, the institution had a natural origin: it was
formed to teach psalmody to a religious community and, in growing
beyond this limited field by adding one musical feature after another
as the developing taste of the people demanded, it typifies the history
of music in the nation. Secondly, the conservatory has a proper
environment. It was planted in a soil already enriched by culture,
Oberlin being the seat of a college distinguished for progressive ideas
and high ideals, the reaction of which upon musical work is always
inspiring--indeed, is essential to the highest achievement. Thirdly,
the Oberlin Conservatory has a proper organization. It is a social
democracy and thereby calculated to produce that free and fraternal
spirit which is the soul of art. Young men and women meet on equal
terms and there are no distinctions among them based on wealth or
nationality or even race, Oberlin having been the first college to
include negroes among its students. Lastly, the conservatory has a
sound program and is living up to this as well as could be expected in
view of the pressure exerted on all 'schools of the people,' to supply
immediate demands. It believes in constructive work, in learning by
doing. Thus it regards a practical knowledge of the science of musical
composition as necessary to an intelligent appreciation of musical
masterpieces, and to this end has established a course in theory and
composition which requires four years of hard study and assiduous
practice. The class system of instruction is the one adopted as the
chief method, it being supplemented by private instruction.

Dr. Florens Ziegfeld, a distinguished German pianist, still conducts
(1915) the conservatory which he founded in Chicago--the last of the
five started in 1867--under the name of the Chicago Academy of Music,
and which is now called the Chicago Musical College. The institution
was burned out in the great fire of 1871, but with indomitable courage
Dr. Ziegfeld at once secured new quarters and continued his classes.
The course of study was steadily enlarged until now it includes every
department of music and the principal modern languages, the faculty
being one of the strongest in the country, comparing favorably with
those of European conservatories. By authority of the State of
Illinois the college grants music teachers' certificates and confers
musical degrees. The college is finely situated on Michigan Boulevard,
overlooking Lake Michigan and Grant Park. It contains a concert hall
seating 1,000. A student orchestra of seventy members is maintained,
affording practical training in conducting and ensemble playing.

In 1871 a conservatory of music was established in Jacksonville, Ill.,
the seat of Illinois College. Its founder was Professor W. D. Sanders,
a leading Western educator, and its first director was I. B. Poznanski,
a violinist and composer who later became instructor at the Royal
Conservatory, London. In 1903 the conservatory was merged with the
college. The Cleveland Conservatory of Music was also founded in 1871.
It adopted the European conservatory method of instruction.

In 1873 Northwestern University at Evanston, Ill., became a
co-educational institution and at once established a 'Conservatory of
Music' that began, and for many years thereafter remained, on a low
plane of instruction. The university authorities, in the manner of
old-time monarchs, 'farmed out' to the director of the conservatory the
privilege of running the business for a percentage of the receipts,
and gave him a free hand and full responsibility. Naturally the
conservatory was conducted in a way to produce the greatest immediate
returns.

In 1891 Prof. P. C. Lutkin was put in charge of the conservatory.
He insisted that the title be dropped and that the school be made a
department of the university, directly under control of the university
authorities; and that its director should receive a full professorship
with a fixed salary, in order that educational ideals should not be
compromised by financial considerations. These changes were authorized,
and Professor Lutkin radically revised and extended the curriculum to
make it conform to academic standards. By 1895 a four-years course was
developed, to correspond with that of the Liberal Arts department. The
'Department of Music' then assumed the title of 'School of Music' and
became a coördinate division of the university, like the School of Law,
the School of Mines, etc., with its own dean and faculty. Its pupils,
of course, retained all the opportunities for general culture afforded
by the college of Liberal Arts.

In an address delivered before the Music Teachers' National Association
at Oberlin in 1906, Professor Lutkin said: 'The exact point where
general education should give way to the study of music is a much
discussed one, and we will not stop to consider it here, except to say
that we have placed it at the point of entrance-requirements in the
College of Liberal Arts. The fact that the students are able to pursue
advanced work in history of music, harmony, counterpoint, analysis,
etc., is of itself a clear index as to their mental capacity, and
places them, without doubt, upon a plane of mentality quite up to that
required of college students.' The music department of the Northwestern
University now ranks with the best conservatories in the country.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Concerts have always formed the leading element in developing American
appreciation of music. The enthusiasm created by the festivals
conducted in Cincinnati by Theodore Thomas in the early seventies
led directly to the establishment in 1878 of the Cincinnati College
of Music by Miss Dora Nelson. The institution was planned along the
lines of European conservatories, with a close relation to superior
public performances in the city, the patrons of which were patrons of
the college. With a fine faculty the institution has retained to the
present the high reputation it won at the outset. Theodore Thomas was
the first musical director of the school, and among his successors is
Frank Van der Stucken.

Of the important Chicago schools of music the earliest was the
Chicago Conservatory, established in 1884. Quite a typical institution
is the American Conservatory of Chicago. It was founded in 1886 by
its present head, President John J. Hattstaedt, with the assistance
of several of Chicago's music-loving citizens. Its quarters were in
Weber Hall Building, corner of Wabash Avenue and Jackson Street, which
were retained for ten years, when the conservatory was removed to the
adjoining building--Kimball Hall, where it still remains.

From a small institution it has grown to be one of America's largest
schools of music, registering about 2,000 students annually. The
faculty numbers seventy-five, and contains many teachers of national
reputation. A modern and thorough curriculum includes all branches of
instrumental and vocal music, theory and composition, dramatic art,
expression, physical culture, and modern languages. Special features
are: a complete and well-established Normal School, a student's
orchestra, a musical bureau and a carefully arranged series of faculty
and pupils' recitals.

In 1885 two conservatories, the American Institute of Applied Music and
the National Conservatory of Music, were established in New York. Miss
Kate S. Chittenden was the founder of the Institute, Mrs. Jeannette
M. Thurber of the Conservatory. Both are flourishing to-day under
control of the founders and with excellent faculties and ample musical
facilities.

The National Conservatory, because of certain philanthropic features,
is deserving of special mention as a type of institution which is not
wholly commercial in its ends, and which has prepared the way for
a type that is purely artistic in its purposes. It offers musical
instruction to every applicant without regard to race, sex, or creed,
the sole condition being that he shall give proof of a natural talent
for music; this instruction it imparts without cost to those unable to
pay.

The title of National Conservatory is formally justified by the
fact that it was chartered in 1891 by a special act of Congress, the
official home being designated as Washington. A far better claim to the
title could be based on the facts that names of even more than national
fame appear on the roll of its faculty from the beginning, when such
musicians as Rafael Joseffy, Camilla Urso, and Victor Herbert were
connected with the institution, down through Dvořák's brilliant régime
to the present day.

The Conservatory at its outset secured experts in special lines of
music as instructors. For three years (1892-95) Dr. Antonin Dvořák was
its director. Under his management liberal prizes were awarded for
original compositions, and the works, a symphony by Henry Schoenefeld,
a piano concerto by Joshua Phillen, a suite for string orchestra by
Frederick Bullard, and a cantata by Horatio W. Parker, were performed
in public concert. Under the direction of the distinguished composer
the National Conservatory orchestra became notable not only for
artistic excellence, but, what pertains more to the present subject,
for the superior training it afforded poor young men of talent, and the
places this enabled them to obtain in leading American orchestras. This
work, of course, did not cease with Dr. Dvořák's retirement.

An institution incorporating in a systematic and substantial way the
public and philanthropic spirit which has called into existence so many
of our conservatories and schools of music is the Institute of Musical
Art of the City of New York. This is the model institution of its kind
in America; and, as there is promise that its example will be followed
in other cities of the Union, leading to the establishment of musical
education on a high and uniform plane, it deserves special notice.

Recognizing that schools of music, inaugurated with fine ideals and
a sound program to attain these, have almost without exception been
forced by the need of funds to lower their standard and modify their
curricula to suit the popular demand for easy and flashy courses, Dr.
Frank Damrosch determined to found an institution wherein commercial
considerations would not enter. In James Loeb, a New York banker, he
found a patron of art in thorough sympathy with the project. By a
fund of a half million dollars, given in memory of his mother, Betty
Loeb, Mr. Loeb put the splendid idea into concrete form, and in 1905
established and endowed the Institute of Musical Art with Dr. Damrosch
as its director.

The purpose of the Institute is to provide thorough and comprehensive
courses in music, each of which is planned to include every study
necessary for mastering a particular branch of music, and all of which
taken together cover the whole art. The Institute is enabled to execute
this plan inflexibly because it is independent of tuition fees, since
the revenue from these is supplemented by the interest of the funds.
Accordingly the fees have been fixed at moderate and uniform rates,
while no expense is spared in securing the best talent available as a
teaching and training force.

The roll of the faculty contains seventy-seven names. The faculty
council which directs the policy of the Institute consists of the
director and five other experts. Since operatic and concert managers
agree that individual instruction and criticism cannot be too carefully
given in the case of students intending to make the performance
of music a profession, and, as this thorough system of education
is equally beneficial to the amateur, it has been adopted by the
Institute. Theoretical subjects are the only ones taught in class.

In addition to the direct personal teaching which the student
receives, he is surrounded by artistic and educational influences
calculated to broaden his general knowledge and culture and to
improve his taste and discrimination. The discipline which is an
essential principle of the Institute, and which is lacking in private
instruction, where the pupil often demands and obtains relaxing
modifications of the instructor's system to suit his inclinations,
since he is paying for his education, is of the highest value in
developing character. Students of an art which in its nature tends to
overstimulate the emotional nature need a corrective cultivation of the
powers of the intellect and the will which students of other subjects
do not so much require, since, from their studies, intellectual
development is acquired directly and, reason being the governor of the
will, control of this great moral force is indirectly imparted.

Like the National Conservatory the Institute is open to students of
both sexes, irrespective of creed or race. The only demand is that
they give proof of general intelligence, musical ability and serious
purpose. Every regular student is required to follow a prescribed
course not only in the specific branch which he has selected, but, in
order to provide a proper foundation for this, in the subject of music
in general. The student begins the course at the stage for which his
attainments and abilities have prepared him, as these are indicated by
three tests: as to his general knowledge of music; as to his sense of
musical hearing; as to his vocal or instrumental talent.

The departments of study are singing, piano, organ, stringed
instruments, orchestra, public school music and theoretic course.
The courses are divided into seven grades, the last four being
post-graduate. The post-graduate diplomas are of two types, called
teachers' and artists'. For the teachers' diploma two grades of
pedagogy and advanced work in theory and technique are required; for
the artists', either two or three grades in theory, technique, and ear
training, according to the proficiency of the student, which is tested
not only by work done in the Institute, but by a public recital before
musicians not connected with the Institute. The work of the seventh
grade in the artists' course is confined to the study of composition
in the various forms of complete sonata, chamber music, vocal forms,
overture and orchestration. A prize sufficient to provide for a year
of European life and experience is given annually to that graduate in
any of the artists' courses, or in composition, whom the faculty and
trustees think most deserving of the award and distinction.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The leading schools of music in Canada are the Toronto Conservatory of
Music and the Conservatorium of Music in McGill University at Montreal.

The Toronto Conservatory was founded by the late Dr. Fisher in 1886 and
opened in 1887. In the thoroughness of its courses and the completeness
of its equipment it ranks with the best conservatories in Europe.
In 1897 it purchased its present centrally located site, in close
proximity to the cluster of educational and public buildings, and began
the erection of the structures which now form its commodious home.
Its music hall is architecturally one of the finest edifices of the
kind and its auditorium is acoustically one of the most satisfactory
halls in Canada for chamber music and other recitals. It contains
a three-manual concert organ which is a masterpiece of Canadian
workmanship. The main hall is supplemented by smaller ones for lectures
and recitals and by practice rooms equipped with two-manual organs. The
musical equipment in general is ample and comprehensive, meeting the
needs of the 2,500 pupils in attendance.

On the death of Dr. Fisher in 1913, Dr. A. S. Vogt, whose work as
conductor of the Mendelssohn Choir of Toronto is well known, and
who had been for many years teacher of piano in the Conservatory,
was advanced to the position of director. The faculty consists of
139 professors and instructors. It is almost exclusively British
in composition, in striking contrast to the faculties of leading
conservatories in the United States, on whose roll Continental European
names abound, often to the point of a majority. However, many of the
instructors have received their education at foreign conservatories.

The Conservatory is divided into eleven departments, schools for
the piano, the voice, the organ, the violin, and other stringed
instruments, theoretical instruction, embracing harmony, counterpoint,
composition, orchestration, musical history and acoustics, orchestral
and band music, expression (including education, physical culture,
etc.), modern languages, piano tuning, and kindergarten music method.
The extremely practical elements of this curriculum indicate the
attention paid to the fundamental needs of the public.

The Conservatory maintains an orchestra for practice in routine and
training for students sufficiently advanced to justify their assignment
to places in the organization. Frank E. Blatchford, of the violin
faculty, who is also concert master of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra,
is the conductor.

The Conservatory is affiliated with its near neighbor, the University
of Toronto. Students who pass the conservatory examinations in musical
theory are exempted from corresponding examinations by the University
for the degree of Bachelor of Music. In its desire to spread at least
a measure of musical knowledge and appreciation among the people, the
conservatory conducts correspondence courses in musical theory, and,
for the convenience of practice, especially in the piano, maintains
eleven branches in the outlying residential districts of Toronto.

The McGill University Conservatorium was opened in 1904. The
Conservatorium, however, was then only in its experimental stage and
it was not until October, 1908, that the connecting link between the
University and the Conservatorium was completed by the appointment
as director of Dr. Harry Crane Perrin, professor of music in the
University. In 1909 the orchestra was formed, which was composed of
students of the Conservatorium, and in February of that year they gave
their first orchestral concert.


                                  VI

Henry Dike Sleeper, professor of music in Smith College, a women's
college of the first rank, has made an interesting analysis of the
character of musical instruction given in the leading universities
and colleges where the subject is taught. He says that there are four
ideals of study:

1. Musical composition: Great emphasis is laid on this at the
University of Pennsylvania, and it is a predominant, though lesser
element in the schemes of Harvard and Yale.

2. Public performance: This is the chief feature of education in the
conservatories affiliated with, but not a part of the regular academic
course. These conservatories are founded largely in the West and South,
and are connected with colleges that either are for women or are
co-educational.

3. Culture: Amherst, Beloit, Cornell, and Tufts are examples of
institutions where the music courses tend chiefly to imparting musical
appreciation.

4. A balance of the three: composition, concerts, culture. Examples of
where this ideal of rounded development is sought for are the women's
colleges, Smith and Mount Holyoke, and co-educational institutions,
such as Oberlin and Ohio Wesleyan, and the State Universities of
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.

In the light they throw on the status of musical education in American
universities the following authoritative statistics, the latest of the
kind compiled, are illuminating:

In a monograph on 'Music Instruction in the United States,' prepared
by Arthur L. Manchester after exhaustive inquiry and published by the
United States Bureau of Education in 1908, the enrollment of students
of music in 151 colleges and universities was 18,971, of whom 5,257
were men and 13,714 were women. There was an average attendance in each
institution of about 125.

Dr. Rudolf Tombo, registrar of Columbia University, in an article in
'Science' for December 25, 1908, and January 1, 1909, stated that
from statistics supplied him by twenty-five leading universities,
not counting summer schools conducted under their auspices, ten
had departments of music and five had courses of music. In a total
attendance in all departments of all the twenty-five universities
amounting to 35,885, the students of music numbered 1,940, which is
only 5.4 per cent. of the total.

When the great popular interest in music, as exhibited by the
attendance at operas, concerts, and musical festivals, is taken into
consideration, this low percentage would indicate that the universities
are not adopting attractive methods of musical instruction. Evidently
the cause of higher musical education will be more readily served by
improving the character of instruction in the conservatories, where
enthusiasm among the students prevails, than by attempting to wake up
university men from their indifference to music--for enthusiasm is a
prerequisite in all studies and pursuits.

The pioneer in creating a department of music in American universities
was John K. Paine, teacher of music in Harvard in one capacity or
another from 1862 until 1905, when he retired on a pension. Although
practical music courses, piano-playing and singing, were taught in
women's colleges, notably Vassar, before Mr. Paine began his work
in Harvard, he was the first teacher to direct his energies toward
establishing music as an academic study, on an equality with all the
other branches, counting like them for the arts degrees of A. B. and A.
M.

The history of music is obviously an academic study, and Mr. Paine
judiciously began his campaign by securing permission in 1870 to
deliver a university course of lectures on the subject. In 1870 he had
persuaded the faculty to introduce harmony and counterpoint in the
curriculum, counting for the bachelor of arts degree. After this vital
concession, the faculty could not well deny to music full standing in
the university. In 1875 Mr. Paine was appointed professor of music.

The indifference of the students to the art, and their prejudice
against music as an academic study, were harder to contend with. For
twenty years Prof. Paine carried on his work without assistance in
instruction and with small classes. Then the students seemed suddenly
to wake up to the fact that a department of music conducted on the
high plane of Oxford and the great German universities was a matter
to be proud of, and they began in increasing numbers to embrace the
rare advantage extended to them. When Prof. Paine retired he had three
assistants in his work and over two hundred students in his classes.

Prof. Walter R. Spalding, Mr. Paine's successor, aided by able
teachers, such as Edward Burlingame Hill, instructor in musical
history, have continued the good work of the founder. The course is
essentially theoretical; it includes harmony, counterpoint, musical
form, musical history, and the higher branches of composition,
including orchestration. In 1912 the students of the department
established the 'Harvard Musical Review,' a publication of high ideals.

Professor Paine, and Professors Parker and MacDowell, his
contemporaries at Yale and Columbia, respectively, achieved fame as
practical exponents of the art in its highest realm. Professors of
music in European universities as a rule are learned theorists and
historians, but not composers. It is a moot question which class of
instructors is the better. In behalf of instruction by a creative
genius it is claimed that it inspires students with pride in their
teacher and, if training is afforded in composition, with desire to
emulate his achievements. In behalf of the academic drill-master it
is urged that the thorough grounding which he imparts develops that
all-round ability in music which, when the purpose is in time realized
by students, will itself generate enthusiasm. The respective merits
of the two systems may thus be summed up: the American early develops
musical appreciation, the European musical knowledge. Since these
qualities have reciprocal influence, it would seem that the two systems
should be combined, at least in America, where musical appreciation on
the part of the student can not always be assumed, as in Europe.

Of the departments of music in women's colleges, that in Wellesley
may be considered the most academic. A school of music was established
in 1875, its pupils being drawn chiefly from the special students,
who lacked preparation for the regular college studies and so were
limited to the so-called 'accomplishments' of music and drawing, with
a smattering of literature. As it became increasingly evident that the
emphasis in the school of music was on performance--the development of
highly specialized skill--and that the predominating interests in the
college were intellectual rather than vocational, the school was seen
to be out of place. The students diminished in members to less than 100
in 1895. In 1896-7 the school was converted into a regular department
of the college, the curriculum in music being made mainly theoretical,
the courses being harmony, counterpoint, musical form, history of
music, and free composition. The director since 1897 has been Hamilton
C. Macdougall. There are eight other professors in the department
faculty, and students number over two hundred. In 1907 Billings Hall
was erected for the use of the department. While practice in music has
been subordinated to theory, it has been retained and even improved
since the school became the department. Indeed, in 1897 a college
orchestra was organized.

The four leading women's colleges in the East, Vassar, Wellesley,
Smith, and Mt. Holyoke, have much the same curriculum in music,
instruction being given in both theory and practice with mutual benefit
resulting from the reacting influence one on the other. In this respect
it would seem that these institutions have a decided advantage over
such universities as Harvard, where there is no training in musical
performance.

In the same year that music was made a part of the curriculum of
Harvard (1875), classes in music were inaugurated at the University
of Pennsylvania under Professor Hugh A. Clarke. As has already been
stated, the attention paid to composition is the distinguishing feature
of the course.

In 1894 the department of music was established in Yale University,
and Horatio W. Parker, Mus. D., was placed at its head. At present
there are nine other professors and instructors in the faculty of the
department. The aims of Dr. Parker and his assistants are to provide
adequate instruction for those who desire to become musicians by
profession, either as teachers or as composers, and to afford a course
of study for those who intend to devote themselves to musical criticism
and the literature of music. Accordingly the work of the department is
divided into practical and theoretical courses. The practical courses
consist of instruction in pianoforte, organ, violin, and violoncello
playing, in singing, and in chamber music (ensemble-playing). No
student is admitted to a practical course other than singing and
violoncello playing unless he is also taking at least one of the
theoretical courses.

The theoretical courses are subdivided into elementary and advanced.
The former class includes harmony, counterpoint, and the history
of music; the latter class instrumentation, advanced orchestration
and conducting, and strict and free composition. Both courses in
composition are under the immediate direction of Dr. Parker, whose
special fitness has been commented upon in another chapter. Dr. Parker
requires every student in the composition courses to produce an
extended original work. This usually takes the form of a sonata. The
students are incited to excel in original composition as well as in
artistic performance by the Sandford Fellowship, which gives two years'
study abroad to the most gifted performer who shall also show marked
ability as a composer.

Allied with the department is the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, a
complete and well-equipped organization of seventy players, which gives
a series of concerts during the winter. It affords opportunity to the
students of orchestration to hear their work actually and adequately
played, and, when its quality warrants, to have the composition
publicly performed. Several original works are thus produced every
year. They are commonly overtures, but piano concertos and other works
have occasionally been presented.

The orchestra also opens to the student a gateway into professional
life by admitting to it those whose performance on the violin or
violoncello has been approved. Students of the piano, as well as of the
violin, are allowed to rehearse with the orchestra and even to perform
publicly if their fitness to do so has been demonstrated. The students
give informal recitals from time to time and, toward the end of the
college year, a concert, accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra.

This insistence on the study of the theory of music and the
demonstration of the theoretical principles by original composition
as the only proper foundation of education in the art are the
distinguishing characteristics of the Yale department of music, and the
practical achievements of Dr. Parker and his students would seem to
justify the soundness of the idea.

In 1896 Edward MacDowell, the composer, was called to the chair of
music in Columbia University. Mr. MacDowell, either because of his
temperament or the limitations imposed by the university on his work,
did not find the position so congenial as Dr. Parker has done at Yale.
Instead of being inspired by teaching to greater feats of composition,
Mr. MacDowell seemed hampered, and, to the great loss of American
music, produced fewer and fewer of those fine works which cause him to
be acclaimed as the greatest of American composers. He resigned the
position in 1904, two years before his death.

In 1906 the department of music which had developed independently
in the Teachers' College was combined with the department in the
university to form the Columbia School of Music. Cornelius Rübner, Mus.
D., is the present head. The declared aims of Prof. Rübner and his four
associates in the faculty of the school are to treat music historically
and æsthetically, as an element of liberal culture; to teach it
scientifically and technically, with a view to training musicians who
shall be competent to teach and compose; and to provide practical
training in orchestral music. There are a university chorus and an
orchestra (the Columbia Philharmonic) in connection with the school,
which present much the same opportunities to the students as those
afforded by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra to the Yale students.
The school holds two annual concerts of original compositions by its
students and conducts many other concerts as well as public lectures
and recitals.

The various courses may be counted toward the degrees of bachelor of
music, of arts, of science, and master of arts. The curriculum includes
the history of music, conducted by Prof. Daniel Gregory Mason; harmony,
counterpoint, sight-singing and playing; composition, orchestration,
and symphonic form, conducted by Prof. Rübner. The school also offers
courses in teaching and supervising music at the Teachers College. The
equipment of the school is large and comprehensive. The department
of music in the University Library contains a well-selected working
collection not only of treatises but also of compositions. The private
library of Anton Seidl, consisting of 1,220 scores, which was presented
to the university, has been placed in the rooms of the School of Music.

The University School of Music at Ann Arbor, which is conducted by
the Musical Society of the University of Michigan, was founded by
Prof. Henry S. Frieze, and its membership is restricted to officers,
graduates, and students of the university. In 1888 the present head of
the school, Albert A. Stanley, took charge. He greatly strengthened
the technical and theoretical work. Under his direction the policy of
the school has been to train a few students thoroughly rather than
many superficially. The courses are those generally given in schools
of music connected with American universities: harmony, single and
double counterpoint; canon and fugue; history of music; analysis and
criticism; musical appreciation.

Since our Western State universities form each the summit of public
education in its state, such institutions as Michigan pay much
attention to training teachers of music in the public schools. The
University of Wisconsin goes much further than this. In connection with
its admirable University School of Music, which is one of the best in
the country in that not only the theory of music is taught in the most
approved academic fashion, but practice is also afforded in choral and
instrumental music, and it has established a 'university extension'
division for educating the whole people of the state in music.

As stated in a bulletin of the university, the School of Music stands
ready to assist any community in strengthening its musical life by the
following means:

      1. It gives advice to communities desiring such aid, by
      sending to it an expert who studies the situation, and, with
      local representatives, prepares a plan of action.

      2. It supplies lists of materials, names of persons and
      books that would be helpful to the plan.

      3. It rents out at low cost such materials, including chorus
      music and material for bands and orchestras.

      4. It supplies at reasonable prices musical attractions of
      high quality and wide variety, such as concerts and lecture
      recitals--singly or in series.

      5. It assists in providing competent music teachers to
      communities which are too small to support them unaided.
      These teachers direct the music in the public schools
      and assist in general community music, both vocal and
      instrumental, and in the music of churches and social
      organizations.

      6. Through the coöperation of the Wisconsin University
      School of Music, the American Federation of Music, and
      other organizations, it assists in building up bands and
      orchestras throughout the State by supplying organizers and
      teachers.

      7. It conducts correspondence courses in which experts
      give advice in solving the various problems which arise in
      connection with school and church music, bands, orchestras,
      choruses, and concerts.

Truly an extensive program and one worthy of emulation.


                                  VII

The introduction of music into the public schools has already been
discussed. It is a great tribute to the soundness of the pedagogic
principles laid down by Mason and Woodbridge, the pioneers in juvenile
musical education, that, despite the many new methods which have
been tried, music in the public school is largely conducted along
the original lines. Singing in chorus with use of specially prepared
and successively graded exercises printed on charts or written on
the blackboard and song books, and, most important of all, under the
leadership of a teacher with winning personality and knowledge of the
childish mind, has been found to produce the best results. So great
proficiency has been achieved in the training of juvenile choruses for
musical festivals that the only really satisfactory choruses given by a
great multitude of persons are the choruses of children, some of which
have exceeded three thousand voices.

The basis of juvenile instruction in music is marked rhythm and simple
melody, with a short range of pitch, which are best taught in unison.
The voices of the children with a good natural ear being fortunately in
a large majority they tend to correct the defective auditory perception
of the minority.

When the voices of the children are sufficiently trained by singing
together simple rote songs, musical analysis is begun. The notes are
taught to be recognized first by the ear, and then by the eye, and
a practical application of this knowledge is made by exercises and
songs. The same general process is pursued until, by the time the pupil
reaches the higher grades, he has acquired an ability to sing at sight
any new song which a non-professional musician is likely to be called
on to render.

In small American towns the regular teachers in the public schools
carry on musical exercises. But they are not without easy access to
knowledge of approved methods, for this is published in a special
magazine, 'The School Music Monthly,' which was established in 1900.
Many other magazines, educational as well as musical, contain articles
and even departments on the subject.

Furthermore, there exists a great and influential organization, the
Music Teachers' National Association, which was founded in 1876 with
Dr. Eben Tourjée as its president. This uses every means in the power
of an extra-governmental association to keep up the standard of musical
education in the country. It holds annual sessions wherein methods in
musical pedagogy are presented and discussed. In many states similar
associations are found whose membership is confined to music teachers
in the state. These are not affiliated with the National Association,
and their activities are less general in scope, although of more
immediate interest to the members because applied to matters of special
concern.

Cities of from 8,000 to 200,000 inhabitants usually employ a special
teacher to direct instruction in music in the public schools. Larger
cities have a number of these teachers and one or more supervisors
or directors of public school music. New York, for example, has one
director, one assistant director and fifty-six special teachers. From
the vastness and complexity of the situation in the largest cities,
musical education has of necessity become highly systematized and
correspondingly efficient.

New York perfected its system about 1900. The capstone may be said to
be the public musical lectures and performances given in connection
with the evening lecture courses presented in the public schools and
other public buildings under the general auspices of the Board of
Education and the special supervision of Dr. Henry M. Leipziger.

Indeed, it is only since the beginning of the century that the
country in general has come to recognize at all adequately the supreme
importance of musical culture to community or civic life. As a result
of this recognition there has been a general movement in the central
and western states, and in encouragement of the study of music to add
the forces of private instruction to public by giving credit in the
schools for musical work done outside of them, which credit many state
universities have in turn accepted by admitting high school graduates
upon their certificates.

A more spectacular expression of appreciation of the value of music to
community life is the growing use of children's singing for musical
festivals, concerts, and pageants. In many cities the performance by
public school children of concerts ranging from simple unison songs
to part songs, cantatas, and even light operas has become a regular
feature of community life. In many cases school orchestras and bands
have accompanied the choruses. In this way the public schools have
become foreshadowings of the conservatories and the university schools
of music. In time the weak spot in our higher musical curricula, the
course in 'musical appreciation' which so many idlers follow as a
'royal road' to a musical education (although it is found in none of
the Royal Conservatories of Europe), will have no excuse for being
retained, for our high school pupils will already possess it in
sufficient measure to pursue with zest the hard technical courses the
mastery of which is necessary to the making of a real musician.


                                  VIII

While the American people have shown themselves opposed to the
conduct or subsidization of music by the national government, as
this has been often proposed in plans for a national conservatory,
we have seen, in the case of Wisconsin, that this does not apply to
the state governments, at least in respect to the feature of popular
education in music. Still less does it apply to the conduct of music
by the municipal government. For many years the 'city fathers' of most
American municipalities have provided band concerts in the public parks
during the summer season. The programs of these concerts, however,
until quite recently, were planned with little regard to education of
the people in appreciation of the best music--the selections being of
the so-called 'popular' order, the prevalent opinion of the directors
being that the mass of the American people did not enjoy music of a
high order.

A few far-seeing men, whose prescience was based on long and intimate
acquaintance with the musical taste of every class in the community,
had a confident faith that if selections of the best music were placed
on the programs of the park concerts the public would become rapidly
educated to prefer them to the other selections. This was done, and
the result showed that the proposers of the innovation had been, if
anything, too reserved in their prophecy. From the very beginning the
new selections met with favor. Music lovers, many attending for the
first time, crowded into the parks to hear the concerts and, by their
intense interest during the performance and enthusiastic hand-clapping
at its close, they not only silenced opposition, but even converted it
into approval.

Said Arthur Farwell, supervisor of municipal music in New York from
1910 to 1913, in 'The Craftsmen' (Nov., 1910): 'The little comedy of
resistance to classical music on the part of the average American
man ends when he finds himself one of fifteen thousand similar
persons--as happened repeatedly in New York this summer--listening in
perfect silence to the great musical imaginings of the age by that
most wonderful of instruments, the modern orchestra in the hands of a
capable leader.'

New York is the acknowledged leader of American cities, and in many
respects is their model in this development of municipal music from the
most defective of instrumentalities for educating the people in musical
appreciation into possibly its most effective one. Accordingly the
story of the regeneration wrought in this municipality will indicate
better than any other account the movement in the same direction all
over the country. And for purposes of record it is well to quote Mr.
Farwell, who in his official position was mainly responsible for the
revolution:

'Municipal music in New York falls within the province of two
departments, the Department of Parks and the Department of Docks and
Ferries. It has been customary in the past to have frequent band and
orchestral concerts at the Mall in Central Park with organizations of
some size, and to have weekly concerts by smaller bands of twenty-one
men and a leader in a number of the other parks. It has also been
customary to have concerts nightly on all of the nine recreation piers
on the North and East Rivers.

'Without describing the status of most of the music in the past, it may
at least be said that the administrations supporting it let the work
out to many independent band leaders, without requiring the upholding
of musical standards, or having the means to uphold them, and without
even suggesting such standards.

'The task of the new department heads, Charles B. Stover, Commissioner
of the Department of Parks, and Calvin Tomkins, Commissioner of the
Department of Docks and Ferries,[59] was therefore to place the work of
providing municipal music upon a basis admitting of musical standards,
and thus to make possible the systematic carrying out of new and
progressive ideas.

'In the Park Department, Commissioner Stover's first act in extending
the scope and influence of the municipal music was to increase the
number of music centres. Most important of all, he increased the
number of symphony orchestras to two, and opened a new music centre
for orchestral music at McGowan's Pass in the upper end of the park,
where there is a natural amphitheatre. The crowds from the upper East
Side that frequent this portion of the park are made up of persons
who for the most part have never heard a symphony orchestra. It is
an interesting fact that at the first concert given them there was
much curiosity, but little real response, up to the performance of a
movement from a Beethoven symphony, which brought forth prolonged and
enthusiastic applause until an encore number was played. The concerts
at McGowan's Pass have grown steadily and rapidly in popularity, eager
audiences of from four to six thousand, or more, assembling at every
performance....

'One other feature of fundamental importance in any truly national
development, a feature wholly new, has marked the season's concerts
in Central Park. This is the establishment by Commissioner Stover
of a rule that each of the two orchestras shall perform one new or
little-heard composition by an American composer each week. This is a
step of the utmost moment, not so much in the mere gaining of a hearing
for the works now performed, as in the recognition of the composers of
our own land as a factor in the creation of America's dawning musical
democracy.

'On the recreation piers the band concerts provided by the Dock
Department have been enjoyed by many thousands. An innovation there
has been to classify the program, and give the concerts distinctive
character on different evenings--an Italian Opera Night, American
Night, Wagner Night, Folk Songs and Dances, German-Slavonic Night,
etc....

'In these activities of only a single summer, it will be seen what a
vista of possibilities has been revealed. If these developments have
any meaning whatsoever, they have a meaning of the deepest sort for
every American city and village. The magnitude of New York's operations
is not the most important point. We are most deeply concerned with
the spirit of these progressive activities, a spirit which may find
its appropriate expression wherever there exists a community, large
or small, which senses the upward trend of American humanity and
democracy.'

                                                      M. M. M.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[56] It is reproduced in 'The Musician,' Vol. X, p. 484.

[57] This society must not be confounded with one of the same name
founded in 1858 at St. Louis by Edward Sobolewsky, the opera composer,
for the purpose of producing the best choruses.

[58] During the Civil War Root was a missionary of patriotism as well
as of music, his 'Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching' and 'The
Battle-cry of Freedom' contributing greatly to the martial spirit of
the North. _Cf._ Chap. XI.

[59] Members of the so-called 'reform' administration of Mayor William
J. Gaynor, which came into power January 1, 1910.




                              CHAPTER XI
                  THE FOLK ELEMENT IN AMERICAN MUSIC

      Nationalism in music--Sources of American folk-song;
      classification of folk-songs--General characteristics of the
      negro folk-song--The negro folk-song and its makers--Other
      American folk-songs--The negro minstrel tunes; Stephen
      Collins Foster, etc.--Patriotic and national songs.


We have been frequently obliged to indicate, in the course of our
'Narrative History of Music,' that certain known facts about musical
beginnings were not first facts--that there were premises upon which
these facts were based--beyond the ken of the historian. Thus we
discovered that some time in the early centuries of our era a type of
chant known as plain-song was systematized by musicians, but we were
unable to reveal the actual source of that music; later we came upon a
more or less artistic expression in the form of troubadour songs, and
again found their actual source shrouded in mystery--or tradition--and
so forth. We were consequently forced to the conclusion that, as
practice precedes theory, something else precedes artistic music, which
is its source and real beginning. That something is the elementary
expression of the race--or folk-song. Art music is rooted in folk-song
as surely as the tree is rooted in the soil.

Folk-song is the musical expression of the racial genius. Art music
is the _individual_ expression of the same genius, plus the personal
character of the artist. However distinctive or individual his
expression, no composer has been able to divorce himself from the
racial genius of which he is a part, any more than a poet of a nation
has been able to rise above the national idiom. 'A creative artist,'
says Mr. Henry F. Gilbert,[60] 'is like a noble tree. However tall the
tree may grow, pointing ever heavenward, it still has its roots in
the soil below and draws its sustenance therefrom. So with the great
creative artist: however elevated and universal his utterances become,
the roots of his being are so deeply embedded in the consciousness of
the race of which he is a part, that the influence and color of this
race spirit will be apparent in his greatest works.'

It follows, then, that a composition, if it is to be great, will be
recognizable not only as the work of a man, but also as the product of
a race. This may sound radical in the abstract, but the fact is easily
demonstrated by concrete examples. To quote from the same source: 'When
we survey with our mind's eye the bulk of German music and contrast
it with the bulk of French music or Italian music we immediately
perceive that there is a fundamental difference between them. Never
mind whether we can define it or not, there the difference is, and I
believe that most of us recognize it without any trouble. At bottom
this difference is because of the difference in race. Inasmuch as the
Italian composer in his music unconsciously expresses the peculiar
temper and character of the people among whom he has been born and of
whom he is a spiritual as well as a physical fragment, so the German
composer expresses, likewise unconsciously, the quite different temper
and character of the people from whom he sprang.... How can any one
fail to recognize these national, or, say, racial characteristics? But
there is a school of critics which maintains that the greatest music
strikes the universal note, and is free from the taint of nationalism.
If this were so we might expect to find the greatest music of Germany,
France, Italy, Russia, Finland, or any other country to be very similar
in its appeal and effect. We should find all this great music to be
lacking in special racial character and to be expressive only of those
characteristics which are common to all the different peoples. If this
were true it would, of course, be possible to conceive of any _great_
piece of music having been written by any person regardless of his
nationality. But can you do it? Can you, for instance, conceive of
Beethoven's symphonies being the normal expression of an Italian? Or
of 'Tristan' having been written by an Englishman? Can you imagine
the 'Pathétique' Symphony of Tschaikowsky having been written by
a Frenchman, or Verdi's 'Otello' composed by a Norwegian? No; the
trail of nationality is over them all.... I believe that the greatest
creative artists have ever been national in the deepest sense of the
word. They have been the mouthpieces of a people, and, while in their
works they unrolled new and hitherto unknown visions of beauty, their
masterpieces have always been an expression and extension of the race
consciousness rather than a contradiction and denial of it.'

If we accept this dictum, it will be quite rational, in treating the
music of any nation, to begin at the bottom--by defining the sources
and general character of its folk-song. We should have no difficulty
in doing this in the case of France, Germany, or, say, Spain, which
are more or less racially simple, but not so when we take a country
like Austria, for instance, which is the home of at least three
different racial stocks. Each of these has a well-developed music of
its own, which has a well-defined racial complexion quite distinct
from that of the others. Now America is precisely in this position,
but in a very much higher degree. We have not three, but thirty or
more different racial stocks, and of these perhaps six or seven are of
sufficient strength and sufficient permanence to have become definitely
associated with the American soil. Only in a limited sense, however,
are these race settlements 'localized,' as they are in Austria, and
therefore capable of retaining in any degree their characteristics and
traditions. America's position is, in fact, unique in that it fuses all
these apparently antagonistic elements, thus obliterating in a large
measure their own racial peculiarities and, by the addition of a new,
a neutralizing element, substituting a new product. That product is
still in the making, and the neutralizing element is so intangible as
to defy definite description. Indefinitely it is the spirit born of the
sense of liberty of action, opportunity and optimistic endeavor which
colors the character of every settler or immigrant, irrespective of his
extraction.

In contemplating the chaotic state of our 'national' music and in
realizing that its ultimate character is in its formative stage, we are
too apt to forget that it too has its folk-song antecedents, however
heterogeneous they may be. We are not here concerned with the ultimate
product, but with its ingredients. If these are partly English, Irish,
Scotch, German, French, and Spanish, they are nevertheless legitimate,
though these foreign ingredients may be dismissed with a mere mention
in so far as they have suffered no peculiar transformation upon
American soil; those that _have_ suffered transformation, like those
that are indigenous, must receive attention because they have become
legitimate material for our composers to draw upon in order to identify
their art with their country. In spite of the peculiar position
of America with regard to artistic individuality, then, we may be
justified in treating the story of American creative musical art in the
usual manner--beginning with folk-song.


                                   I

Since we have drawn the distinction between adapted and indigenous
folk-song, the question naturally arises whether there exists in
America a truly indigenous folk-song at all. It has been agreed that
America, having been colonized by Europeans, possesses no native
culture whatever, except such as the Indians may have had. The Indian,
indeed, has the best claim to the name American, being indigenous,
or at least so early a colonizer as to have constituted virtually a
native race. But being the one element which has not been fused with
the many elements of which the American nation is now composed, he is
to-day in the anomalous position of an indigenous foreigner. For the
American of to-day is predominantly European--of overseas origin--and
the European conquerors have, in this case, not adopted the 'culture'
of the vanquished, because that culture was inferior to their own.

The North American Indian has shown unquestioned evidences of art
instincts--in his folk-lore, his handicrafts, and perhaps also in his
music. But, with respect to the last, his impulses are so circumscribed
by religious formulas and so little affected by a sense of proportion
that they hardly achieve even the mildest form of artistic expression
or design. Moreover, the idiom he employs is so foreign to us, so
exotic in its nature, that either an unconscious or an impulsive use
of it by American composers would be out of the question. What use
has been made of Indian material has been with the conscious purpose
of lending a savage character or local color to the music, as in
the preëminent case of MacDowell's 'Indian Suite.' This is exactly
analogous to the use of Oriental color by such composers as Saint-Saëns
or Delibes. 'Arrangements,' or harmonizations, attempted upon the
basis of our European scale have led to some pleasing results at the
hands of Frederick R. Burton, Arthur Farwell and others, but at a
total sacrifice of the original character of the tunes. What appeal
such arrangements have to our ears depends entirely upon the harmonic
texture or a readjustment of the melody according to European ideas,
not upon its intrinsic value.

'Folk-songs are echoes of the heart-beats of the vast folk and in them
are preserved feelings, beliefs and habits of vast antiquity. Not only
in the words, which have almost monopolized folk-song study so far,
but also in music and perhaps more truthfully in the music than in the
words. Music cannot lie, for the reason that the things which are at
its base, the things without which it could not be, are unconscious,
involitional human products.'[61] It is evident that unless we
understand or feel 'the things which are at its base' we cannot respond
to the utterances that express them. If for no other reason, the songs
of the Indian, because they express the emotions of man at a lower and
totally foreign stage of culture, cannot enter into assimilation, with
our own. They are therefore not significant to Americans as folk-songs
and we have accordingly treated them under the heading of Primitive
Music in Volume I (pp. 1 ff.).

With the Indian rejected as a source of folk-song where are we to
find such sources? Folk-songs, according to a dictionary definition,
are 'marked by certain peculiarities of rhythm, form, and melody,
which are traceable, more or less clearly, to racial (or national)
temperament, modes of life, climatic and political conditions,
geographical environment and language.' The distinction of one
kind of folk-song from another therefore depends upon a difference
in these peculiarities, and we shall have to look for distinctive
characteristics that belong to no other race if we are to find a
truly indigenous folk-song. On the other hand, the _conditions_ under
which folk-song grows (for it does 'grow' while its sophisticated
counterpart is 'built') are essentially the same. The proverbial dictum
that 'sorrow is the mother of song' is true as a general rule. It
is borne out by the fact that a great majority of the folk-songs of
all nations carry a note of melancholy, and a great preponderance of
all such songs is in the minor mode. But this is particularly so in
Northern countries. No doubt the harsher climatic conditions impose a
heavier burden of care. Mr. Krehbiel, who has examined many folk-songs
with regard to the relative proportion of modes, remarks that nearly
all of Russian song shows the minor predominance peculiar to Northern
countries, and he concludes that political conditions have much the
same effect as climatic ones.

Of course, the songs of happiness are many, too, but even these are
in a measure the product of suffering, for man recognizes well-being
very often only by contrast; continuous bliss he is apt to manifest by
indifference. Hence we are not surprised that the strongest outbursts
of joy, often wild and boisterous, are common to the nations whose
dominant note is grief. But whatever the country, folk-song springs
invariably from the poorest classes, and most often from the peasant,
for, exposed to the phenomena of nature as well as to economic stress,
his imagination is constantly stirred by the beauties of the earth, the
mysteries and the tragedy of life.

In looking for analogous conditions in America we may think first
of the pioneer, the early settler, who no doubt had hardships to
endure and privations to suffer. But by peculiar circumstances he was
unfitted for the creation of song. Springing largely from a notoriously
unimaginative tradesman's class, inspired by the stern principles of a
piety that deliberately suppressed impulsive expression as sinful, and
almost constantly engaged in savage warfare, he may hardly be looked
upon as an originator of poetic beauty. Moreover, his English culture
clung to him for generations, while politically he considered himself
an Englishman. The songs he sang, therefore, were the songs of his
fathers, and precious little social opportunity he had for indulging in
their charm. Isolation and lack of communication effectually precluded
a current interchange of ideas.

In a great measure these conditions apply to the subsequent generations
of all European races in America--the pioneers as well as the later
immigrants. Their own traditions, whatever their nationality, are
preserved for a generation or so to the exclusion of new influences;
then the old songs die away and the memory of them becomes obliterated
in the great stream of cosmopolitanism. Only in isolated spots, where
a race, especially strong in tradition or racial peculiarities, or
where a mere aggregation of people, united in a common mode of life,
is sequestered, have these traditions survived or engendered new ones.
Instances of this are the French Canadians, the Creoles of Louisiana,
the Spanish-Americans of Mexico and California, and the mountaineers
of Kentucky and Virginia. These people have a folk-song peculiar to
themselves, which is founded, however, upon a traditional racial idiom,
and may therefore be classed as 'adapted' or 'transformed' folk-song.
For the indigenous American folk-song we shall have to look elsewhere.

The only caste in American history whose condition in any way
resembled that of the peasant class in Europe was the negro slave
of the South. Not only was he subjected to sufferings, hardships,
and oppression, but, injected into a civilization in which he found
himself an outcast, he was forced to create a racial existence for
himself, which, while it adapted elements of the society that ruled
him, nevertheless was bound to be distinctive because of a peculiar
admixture of savage customs and superstitions, the imperfection of his
understanding, and the extraordinary emotional makeup of his character.
The negro in his uncivilized way was endowed with the ingenuousness
of a child, and the susceptibility to impressions that goes with
the untutored mind. He had a childlike, poetic nature, a natural
gift of song, an emotionalism and a sentimentality that responded
unfailingly to all the pangs of an unjust and cruel existence. The
ruthless severing of family ties, the physical pains, the hardships of
labor found a direct expression in his music, the idiom of which was
partly innate and partly acquired. Add to this the intense religious
excitement to which the negro is subject--an emotion which seems
to have translated itself with all its elemental power from savage
idolatry to Christian worship--and you have a combination which could
not but produce a striking result. 'Nowhere save on the plantation
of the South could the emotional life which is essential to the
development of true folk-song be developed, nowhere else was there
the necessary meeting of the spiritual cause and the simple agent and
vehicle.'[62]

The peculiar fact that the one true indigenous class of American
folk-song is the product of an African race is, as we have seen, due
to circumstances alone. It is no reflection upon the capabilities of
the other races for artistic expression. It simply demonstrates the
fact that folk-song grows under certain conditions and no other. A
nation that is prosperous, that is plunged headlong into the feverish
activities of industrial progress, cannot be expected to bring forth
melancholy 'complaints' or gems of contemplative lyricism. But there
come even to such nations moments of national stress that give rise
to unusual outbursts. While these are usually voiced by single
individuals, they reproduce so vividly the spirit of the people that
they often rank with folk-songs in spontaneity and directness. Such are
the patriotic songs, whose creation accompanied every war and every
revolution. Often they are mere adaptations of freshly composed words
to old but stirring tunes, which thus take on a new significance--often
these very tunes are 'captured' from the enemy and annexed to the
country's flag. Such was the case in the War of the Revolution, in the
War of 1812, and again in the Civil War. These songs--not strictly
folk-songs--might better be described as 'songs in the folk manner,'
a distinction indicated in German by the adjective _volkstümlich_ or
_volksmässig_.

Such songs in the folk manner follow in the wake of every considerable
folk-song tradition. They have not failed to do so in America, and it
is significant that the spirit which they reproduce or aim to reproduce
is the spirit of the negro folk-song. The movement, or after-movement,
started with the imitation of negro ditties by white composers in
connection with the so-called negro minstrel troupes which, beginning
about 1845, became a favorite form of amusement in the United States.
Its culmination must be recognized in the work of such men as Stephen
Foster and Henry Clay Work, whose works are part of the permanent stock
of American lyrics. Beyond this the negro song has had an influence
upon the so-called American popular song, a degenerate type which
has appropriated, often in distorted form, some of the character of
plantation song, notably the peculiar form of syncopation known as
'ragtime.'

We have now enumerated all the subdivisions of folk-song in its
broader sense: the native folk-song proper, exemplified by the negro
plantation song; the song in the folk manner, exemplified by the negro
minstrel tunes, the work of Stephen Foster and the patriotic songs,
adapted or original; the adapted folk-song of the French-Canadian,
Spanish-American, the Kentucky mountaineer, etc.; and, finally, the
simon-pure folk-song of foreign birth, perpetuated in America by
immigrants. All of these are vital forces in American composition and
as such must receive more detailed attention.


                                   II

The discussion of the negroes' claim to the title 'American' would
be perhaps out of place at this late date, and particularly in this
place, were it not that a considerable class of American citizens has
denied to them not only social equality but equal consideration and
opportunity as a native citizen of the country. The preponderance of
European blood in the nation hardly justifies this any more than it
would justify the exclusion of the large number of Americans that are
of anciently oriental origin. In contrast with this the name 'American'
is never denied to the Indian, but priority of settlement can hardly
be argued in his favor, for by such reasoning the negro has superior
claims over some of the 'elect' of the white elements among Americans.
Negroes were sold into slavery in Virginia before the landing of
the Pilgrims in 1790. The first census of the United States showed
759,208 negroes, and to-day they constitute nearly 13 per cent. of the
entire population. Their intellectual powers have been amply proved
by the achievements of individual members of the race, in science, in
education, and in the arts. It is hardly necessary to name such men as
Booker T. Washington, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Dr. Burghardt DuBois
in support of this. Mr. Krehbiel, however, does well in quoting the
last-named of these in proving the present contention:

'Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were
here. Here we have brought three gifts and mingled them with yours--a
gift of story and song, soft stirring melody in an ill-harmonized
and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the
wilderness, conquer the soil and lay the foundations of this vast
economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could
have done it; the third a gift of the Spirit. Around us the history of
the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation's
heart we have called all that was best, to throttle and subdue what was
worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice have billowed over this
people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of
Right....'

The negroes' songs are sung in the language of the country--or a
dialect of it; and, while they do not voice the sentiments of the
entire population--no song in a country so heterogeneous could do
that--they are American songs by the same right that the peasant songs
of Russia are Russian or the song of any other class of Americans would
be American.

In order to prove the originality of the negro folk-song it has
been necessary to combat the opinion of so learned a writer as Dr.
Wallaschek,[63] who has contended that these songs are 'unmistakably
"arranged"--not to say ignorantly borrowed--from the national songs
of all nations, from military signals, well-known marches, German
students' songs, etc., unless it is pure accident which has caused me
to light upon traces of so many of them.' This radical statement, while
it has the force of scientific deduction, is erroneous in the premises
upon which these deductions are based. Dr. Wallaschek has relied
too freely upon the testimony of travellers whose musical knowledge
is doubtful and he has evidently confused genuine slave songs with
imitations of them, such as the so-called minstrel tunes written by
whites. Besides, as Mr. Krehbiel very plausibly remarks, 'similarities
exist between the folk-songs of all peoples. Their overlapping is a
necessary consequence of the proximity and intermingling of peoples,
like modifications of language; and there are some characteristics
which all songs except those of the rudest and most primitive kind
must have in common. The prevalence of the diatonic scales and
march-rhythms, for instance, make parallels invariable. If the use of
such scales and rhythms in the folk-songs of the American negroes is
an evidence of plagiarism or imitation, it is to be feared that the
peoples whose music they put under tribute have been equally culpable
with them. Mr. William Francis Allen--with Charles Pickard Ware and
Lucy McKim Garrison the compiler of the most famous collection of negro
songs[64]--while admitting that negro music is partly imitative of the
music of the whites, says that 'in the main it appears to be original
in the best sense of the word, and the more we examine the subject,
the more genuine it appears to be.' Only in a very few songs does Mr.
Allen trace strains of less familiar music which the slaves heard
their masters sing or play. In spite of this, the songs themselves
prove that they are the spontaneous utterances of an entire people.
As in the case of all folk-songs, their first germs were uttered by
individual spokesmen, but these germs were such genuine reflections of
sentiments common to all and were subjected to such modifications in
their travels from lip to lip as to assume the character of a composite
expression of the race. They are indeed 'original and native products.
They contain idioms transplanted hither from Africa, but as songs they
are the product of American institutions, of the social, political, and
geographical environment within which their creators were placed in
America; of the joys, sorrows, and experiences which fell to their lot
in America.'

Having established the 'Americanism' and the originality of the negro
folk-song, and having stated the presence of an African as well as
European element, we may now attempt to point definitely to instances
of both. Generally speaking, the African characteristics consist of
rhythmic and melodic aberration, while the European ingredients find
expression in the harmonic structure and the style of the melodies
as far as they are influenced by that structure. But this statement
is subject to qualifications. While the African, like every other
exotic race, is generally innocent of harmonic science, travellers
have brought evidences of a genuine natural feeling for harmony among
the African tribes. Thus a German officer recounted to John W. D.
Moodie[65] how his playing of an aria from Gluck's _Orfeo_ on the
violin was immediately imitated _with accompaniments_ by the native
Hottentots. Peter Kolbe, writing in 1719, testified to the Hottentots'
playing of their _gom-goms_ in harmony, and Mr. Krehbiel records the
singing of a Dahoman minstrel at the World's Columbian Exposition
(1893) to the accompaniment of a Chinese harp as follows: 'With his
right hand he played over and over again a descending passage of dotted
crotchets and quavers in thirds; with his left hand he syncopated
ingeniously on the highest tuned string.' According to the same writer,
another investigator, Dr. Wangemann, transcribed a hymn by a Kaffir in
which the solos were sung in unison but the refrain in full harmony.
These instances should give some clue to the extraordinary ability of
negroes to 'harmonize,' that is, improvise harmonies to a given melody.

Of course, the strongest musical accomplishment of the African is his
extraordinary command of rhythm. As is the case with most primitive
music, the rhythm of the African music is determined by the native
dances. The drum, which marks the rhythm, is the most important
instrument of the African, and his ability upon it is nothing short
of marvellous. He has developed a 'drum language' which he uses in
signalling in war time and for communication at long distance. 'The
most refined effects of the modern tympanist seem to be put in the
shade by the devices used by African drummers in varying the sound
of their instruments so as to make them convey meanings, not by
conventional formulas but by actual imitation of words.'[66] Their
ability to use cross rhythms and intricate effects of syncopation is
evidently inherited by the American negroes, whose prowess in that
direction may be verified in a thousand dance halls. Syncopation and
the peculiar form of it which Mr. Krehbiel refers to as the 'Scotch
snap' is indeed the outstanding characteristic of all negro music.
The short note on a strong beat immediately followed by a longer one
on a weak beat, and the consequent shifted rhythm popularly known as
'ragtime' is scarcely ever absent in negro folk-music. That it is a
heritage from Africa seems to be conclusively proved by the recording
of such melodies as these:

                      [Illustration: Music score]
                      Drum Call from West Africa.


                      [Illustration: Music score]
                           Hottentot Melody.

Next to their rhythmic snap, the most radically outlandish
characteristic of the negro songs is their frequent variation from the
diatonic scale. This most often takes the form of a raised (major)
sixth in a minor key (while the seventh is not varied or is omitted
altogether); the raised seventh in the minor scale, or the flattened
seventh in the major. Besides these 'wild notes,' as Mr. Krehbiel calls
them, there are omissions of certain notes of the scale that produce a
decided exotic effect. Thus we have the major scale without the seventh
or without the fourth, and the minor scale without the sixth. The major
scale with both the fourth and the seventh omitted, in other words the
pentatonic scale, familiar in all primitive and exotic music as well
as in certain folk-tunes, notably the Celtic, is also present in negro
song. There are, moreover, examples in the so-called whole-tone scale.

The effect produced by these aberrations constitutes the most beautiful
quality of negro music. We cannot refrain from quoting here an example
or two. The raised sixth in the minor scale is most exquisitely shown
in the famous 'spiritual' 'You May Bury Me in de Eas',' which we quote
in full, without harmonization:[67]

                      [Illustration: Music score]

    You may bur-y me in the East, You may bur-y me in the West; But I'll
    hear the trump-et sound In that morn-ing. In that morn-ing, my Lord,
    How I long to go, For to hear the trump-et sound, In that morn-ing.

Another instance is seen in the second section of 'Come Tremble-ing
Down,' the first part of which is in C major, turning into A minor with
a striking disregard of harmonic convention, and proceeding as follows:


                      [Illustration: Music score]

      Come trem-ble-ing down, go shout-ing home, Safe in the
          sweet arms of
      Je-sus, Come Je-sus, 'Twas just a-bout the break of day,
          King Je-sus stole my
      heart a-way, 'Twas just a-bout the break of day, King
          Je-sus stole my heart a-way.

Such examples contain nothing that is imitative. Their disregard for
the natural progressions of diatonic melody leave no doubt that the
negro possessed, to begin with, a wholly independent sense of tonality,
which sense he has in some measure retained or compromised. As an
instance of the minor seventh in the major scale take 'A Great Camp
Meetin'.' We quote only the last three measures of the first section in
order to establish the key:

                      [Illustration: Music score]

      Don't you get a-weary, Dere's a great camp-meet-in' in de
      prom-ised land, Gwine to mourn an' neb-ber tire,——— mourn
      an' neb-ber tire, mourn an' neb-ber tire;— Dere's a great
      camp-meet-in' in de prom-ised land.

And, as a last example of tunes that have little in common with any
other kind of folk-song, a melody worthy of the sophistication of an
ultra-modern composer, let us add 'O'er the Crossing':

                      [Illustration: Music score]

    Bendin' knees a achin', Body rack'd wid pain, I wish I was a child
                                                          of God, I'd
    git home bime by. Keep prain', I do believe We're a long time
                                                        waggin' o' de
    crossin'. Keep prayin', I do believe We'll git home
                                                    to heaven bime by.

There are many, many more.[68] Melodic imagination of a high order
would be required to produce consciously such melodies as these. There
is in them little that is trivial, nothing that is frivolous. Even the
'rhythmic snap' never sounds cheap in true negro music, as distinct
from worthless imitations and so-called popular music--'coon songs' and
the like. Note the following as a noble example of its use:

                      [Illustration: Music score]

    Nobody know's the trouble I see, Lord, Nobody know's the
                                            trouble I see;
    Nobody know's the trouble I see, Lord, Nobody
                                           knows but Jesus.
    Brothers, will you pray for me, Brothers, will
                                           you pray for me,
    Brothers, will you pray for me, And help me to
                                             drive old Sa-tan a-way?

In summing up the melodic and rhythmic characteristics of negro
tunes we may state the apparently contradictory fact that the great
majority of them are in the major mode, notwithstanding their almost
ever-present note of sadness. Out of 527 songs analyzed by Mr. Krehbiel
416 are in ordinary major, only 62 in ordinary minor, 23 'mixed and
vague,' and 111 pentatonic. Herein the negro folk-song differs from
most other folk-songs. Its Southern habitat would, of course, seem to
predispose it to major, and thus it bears out the argument in favor of
climatic influence. Nevertheless the effect of sadness in the melodies
does not escape us. Often it is produced by the aberrations of which we
have spoken; but more often it is less tangible. In the words of Dr.
DuBois 'these songs are the music of an unhappy people, of the children
of disappointment; and they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced
longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.'

Practically all of the songs are in duple and quadruple rhythm, triple
time is extremely rare. The rhythmic propulsion is always strong. The
persistent excitement of rhythm is evidently an African relic and the
sense of it is so strong as to overcome the natural tendencies of the
text. 'The negroes keep exquisite time,' says Mr. Allen, 'and do not
suffer themselves to be daunted by any obstacle in the words. The most
obstinate hymns they will force to do duty with any tune they please
and will dash heroically through a trochaic tune at the head of a
column of iambs with wonderful skill.'

The form of the songs is, of course, determined by the structure of the
verse. They are composed of simple two-and four-bar phrases. Four such
usually make up a stanza, while four more are comprised in the 'chorus'
often placed at the beginning of the song and repeated after every
verse. The stanzas of the older songs commonly contain an alternating
solo and refrain; the second and fourth lines are usually given to the
refrain and the first and third to the verse, the third being often
a repetition of the first. In some cases the refrain occupies three
lines and the verse the remaining one. 'The refrain is repeated with
each stanza,' says Mr. Allen concerning the manner of performance,
'the words of the verse are changed at the pleasure of the leader, or
fugleman, who sings either well-known words, or, if he is gifted that
way invents verses as the song goes on.'[69]

Some difficulty was experienced by those who have transcribed the
music of the negroes in reproducing 'the entire character' of the songs
by the conventional symbols of the art. This is due in part to the
primitive elements in the music, and in part to the peculiar manner of
the performance. The characteristic improvisational style of the negro,
the peculiar quality of the voices, and the slurring of certain values
are all necessary in order to produce the proper effect. Moreover, the
improvised harmony, simple as it was, had become an inherent part of
the music not easily to be reproduced. The following description, taken
from 'Slave Songs in the United States,' may be illuminating in this
connection:

'There is no singing in _parts_, as we understand it, and yet no two
appear to be singing the same thing; the leading singer starts the
words of each verse, often improvising, and the others who "base"
him, as it is called, strike in with the refrain, or even join in the
solo when the words are familiar. When the "base" begins the leader
often stops, leaving the rest of the words to be guessed at, or it may
be they are taken up by one of the other singers. And the "basers"
themselves seem to follow their own whims, beginning when they please
and leaving off when they please, striking an octave above or below (in
case they have pitched the tune too high), or hitting some other note
that "chords," so as to produce the effect of a marvellous complication
and variety and yet with the most perfect time and variety, and yet
rarely with any discord. And what makes it all the harder to unravel
a thread of melody out of this strange network is that, like birds,
they seem not infrequently to strike sounds that cannot be precisely
represented by the gamut and abound in "slides" from one note to
another and turns and cadences not in articulated notes.'

A word should be added here regarding the instruments used by the
negro. The one most closely identified with him is, of course, the
banjo, which, in a primitive form, he is said to have brought from
Africa. The 'banjar' to which Thomas Jefferson refers in his 'Notes on
Virginia' was an instrument of four strings, or perhaps less at first,
whose head was covered with a rattlesnake's skin, and which resembled
closely an instrument used by the Chinese. (_Cf._ Vol. I, p. 54.) It is
thought that the original banjo was a melodic rather than a harmonic
instrument, which is the peculiar office of its modern off-spring, and,
since the negro's music was at first purely melodic, it must have been
accordingly played. The tuning, too, was probably very different from
that of the banjo of to-day.

Besides this, the negro's chief instrument was the drum, as already
indicated. There were two principal sizes, made of a hollowed log (the
smaller one often of bamboo sections) over the end of which sheep
or goat skin was stretched. These drums were played in a horizontal
position, the player sitting on the instrument astride. Then there
were rattles, some like the Indians', some consisting of a jaw-bone
of an animal, across which a piece of metal was 'rasped'; also the
_morimbabrett_, consisting of a small shallow box of thin wood, with
several sections of reed, of graduated lengths, placed across it, the
ends of which were plucked by the player. The familiar Pan's pipes,
made from two joints of brake cane ('quills') and various noise
instruments--'bones,' triangle, tambourine, and whistles--were all made
to do duty. But when the negro had become thoroughly civilized the
violin became his favorite instrument, and the 'technique' he achieved
upon it without any real training has often astonished the white
listener.


                                   III

Attention was not directed to the value of negro songs till the middle
of the nineteenth century. Considerable research resulted finally in
the publication of several collections, of which the 'Slave Songs
of the United States,' already mentioned above, was the first. This
collection of songs represents every phase in the gamut of expression.
The so-called 'sorrow' songs, the oldest surviving negro songs, are
perhaps the most expressive. Some of them have sprung from the memories
of a single act of cruelty, or an event of such tragedy as to create a
really deep impression. Others echo simply the hardships encountered
day by day. There are songs, too, that reflect the sunshine and gaiety
that was not altogether foreign to plantation life, but those inspired
by grief are the most beautiful. Then there are the 'occupational'
songs suggested by the rhythm of labor which form a part of every
kind of folk-song the world over. The value of such songs was fully
recognized by the slaves' masters, for they were unfailing accelerators
of labor, and it is known that the slaves who led the singing in the
field were given special rewards. In consequence of this the negroes
generally came to abhor that class of songs, and it is significant
that very few of the 'corn songs,' 'reel tunes,' 'fiddle songs,' and
'devil songs' have been preserved, while hundreds of the religious
songs--'spirituals,' etc.--are now common property.[70]

A special class of labor songs were the so-called 'railroad songs,'
which originated during the Civil War, when negroes were employed in
building earth works and fortifications. They consisted of a series of
rhythmic, protracted chants, upon words usually originated by a leader.
Railroad tracks were laid to these same strains--hence their name.
Their originality of thought and the fact that they represent the last
spontaneous outburst of the negro under rapidly changing conditions,
lends them a special interest. The railroad itself naturally stimulated
the negro's imagination. He introduced it metaphorically even in his
religious songs: the Christian was a traveller, the Lord was the
conductor and the ministers were the brakemen. At gospel stations the
train stopped for those that were saved, or to supply the engine with
the water of life. All of the negro's power of imagery was here brought
into play.

The love songs of the negro are few and those few lack depth, and
sometimes border on frivolity. An exception is usually made for 'Poor
Rosy,' concerning which one old negress has said that 'it cannot be
sung without a full heart and troubled spirit.'

We have already pointed out the preponderance of religious songs
in the folk-music of the negro. The reason is not hard to find. In
his aboriginal home religious rite, music and dance were closely
associated, as they are in the life of all primitive peoples. The
African's religion was a form of idolatry known as voodooism. Connected
with it were certain chants and rites, relics of which have long
survived.[71] These primitive rites were calculated to excite the
emotions rather than to uplift the spirit and under this excitement
the negro gave voice to the music that was in him. He accepted the
Christian religion as a substitute just as he accepted the English
language as a substitute for his African tongue. He garbled both.
He considered the new religion not in a dogmatic, philosophical, or
ethical sense, but rather as an emotional experience. When under
religious excitement he would wander through the woods in swamps much
like the ancient Bacchantes. 'A race imbued with strong religious
sentiment,' says Mr. M. A. Haskell,[72] 'one rarely finds among them
an adult who has not gone through that emotional experience known as
conversion, after which it is considered vanity and sinfulness to
indulge in song other than of a sacred character.'

His religion became the negro's one relief, comfort, and enjoyment.
His daily life became tinged with his belief; in his very sufferings
he saw the fulfillments of its promises. Nothing but patience for this
life, nothing but triumph in the next--that was the tenor of his lay.
Emancipation he thought of in terms of ultimate salvation rather than
earthly freedom. Thus he sang:

    'Children, we shall all be free,
    Children, we shall all be free,
    Children, we shall all be free,
        When the Lord shall appear.'

A religious allegory colored nearly all his songs, a pathetic,
childlike trust in the supernatural spoke through them, and biblical
references, echoes of the 'meetin',' shreds of the minister's teaching,
were strewn indiscriminately through all of them. 'The rolling of
Jordan's waters, the sound of the last trumpet, the vision of Jacob's
ladder, the building of the ark, Daniel in the lion's den, Ezekiel's
wheel in the middle of a wheel, Elijah's chariot of fire, the breaking
up of the Universe, the lurid pictures of the Apocalypse--all asked for
swelling proclamation.' Analogies between the chosen people and their
own in bondage were inevitable--and 'Hallelujahs' seemed as appropriate
in secular songs as in spiritual ones.

Often biblical words were garbled into mere nonsense. Thus 'Jews
crucified him' became 'Jews, screws, defidum,' etc. The personality of
the Prince of Darkness assumed a degree of reality which reminds us of
the characters of mediæval miracle plays. One of the songs personifies
him thus:

    'O Satan comes, like a busy ole man,
        Hal-ly, O hal-ly, O hal-lelu!
    He gets you down at de foot o' de hill,
        Hal-ly, O hal-ly, O hal-lelu!'

The so-called spirituals ('sper'chels) hold perhaps the largest place
in the negro's sacred repertory. These plantation songs--'spontaneous
outbursts of intense religious fervor'--had their origin chiefly in
the camp-meetings, the revivals, and other religious exercises. 'They
breathe a childlike faith in a personal Father and glow with the hope
that the children of bondage will ultimately pass out of the wilderness
into the land of freedom.' To them belong such gems as 'You May Bury Me
in the Eas',' the plaintive 'Nobody Knows de Trouble I see,' the tender
'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,' and many others as rare.

At meetings the spirituals were often accompanied by a most
extraordinary form of religious ceremony, namely the so-called
'shouts,' which flourished particularly in South Carolina and south of
it during antebellum days.[73] The spirituals sung in this connection
were consequently called 'shout songs' or 'running spirituals.' The
shouts were veritable religious orgies, or bacchanalia, and no doubt
represent a relic of an African custom. Julien Tiersot refers to them
as 'dishevelled dances.'[74] A vivid description of a shout is given by
a writer in 'The Nation' of May 30, 1867:

'... The "shout" takes place on Sundays, or on "praise" nights
throughout the week, and either in the praise-house or in some cabin
in which a regular religious meeting has been held. Very likely more
than half the population of a plantation is gathered together. Let
it be the evening, and a light fire burns red before the door of the
house and on the hearth. For sometime one hears, though at a good
distance, a vociferous exhortation or prayer of the presiding elder or
of the brother who has a gift that way and is not "on the back seat"--a
phrase the interpretation of which is "under the censure of the church
authorities for bad behavior"--and at regular intervals one hears the
elder "deaconing" a hymn-book hymn, which is sung two lines at a time
and whose wailing cadences, borne on the night air, are indescribably
melancholy.

'But the benches are pushed back to the wall when the formal meeting
is over, and old and young, men and women, sprucely dressed young
men, grotesquely half-clad field hands--the women generally with gay
handkerchiefs twisted about their heads and with short skirts--boys
with tattered shirts and men's trousers, young girls barefooted, all
stand up in the middle of the floor, and when the "sperichil" is struck
up begin first walking and by and by shuffling around, one after the
other, in a ring. The foot is hardly taken from the floor, and the
progression is mainly due to a jerking, twitching motion which agitates
the entire shouter and soon brings out streams of perspiration.
Sometimes they dance silently, sometimes as they shuffle they sing
the chorus of the spiritual, and sometimes the song itself is sung by
the dancers. But more frequently a band, composed of some of the best
singers and of tired shouters, stand at the side of the room to "base"
the others, singing the body of the song and clapping their hands
together on the knees. Song and dance are alike extremely energetic,
and often, when the shout lasts into the middle of the night, the
monotonous thud, thud of the feet prevents sleep within half a mile of
the praise house.'

Closely related to the shout songs are the funeral songs which
accompanied the 'wakes' and burials of the negroes. They were sung
in a low monotonous croon by those who 'sat up' and are particularly
noted for their irregularity in everything except rhythm. The negroes
are especially inclined to voice their sorrow in nocturnal song, as
their savage ancestors did before them, and likewise they indulged
in funeral dances at night. Mrs. Jeanette Robinson Murphy, writing
in 'The Independent,' speaks of a custom in which hymns are sung at
the deathbed to become messengers to loved ones gone before and which
the departing soul is charged to bear to heaven. 'When a woman dies
some friend or relative will kneel down and sing to the soul as it
takes flight. One of these songs contains endless verses, conveying
remembrances to relatives in glory.' Often these funeral songs convey
deep emotion in a nobly poetic vein. An example recorded by Colonel
Thomas Wentworth Higginson has the following words:

    'I know moonlight, I know starlight,
        I lay dis body down.
    I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
        I lay dis body down.
    I know de graveyard, I know de graveyard,
        When I lay dis body down.
    I walk in de graveyard, I walk troo de graveyard,
        Fo lay dis body down.
    I lay in de grave, and stretch out my arm;
        I lay dis body down.
    I go to de judgment in de evenin' of de day,
        When I lay dis body down,
    An' my soul an' your soul will meet in de day
        When I lay dis body down.'

'Never, it seems to me,' comments Col. Higginson, 'since man first
lived and suffered, was his infinite longing for peace uttered more
plaintively than in that line.' There are many other examples of such
funeral songs preserved; some of them Mr. Krehbiel has reprinted in his
'Afro-American Folksongs' (pp. 100 ff.).

Few of the secular songs have survived. Even these, it seems, were
often made to do service in the religious meeting, on the Wesleyan
principle that it would not do to let the devil have all the good
tunes. Some songs, on the other hand, were used to accompany rowing as
well as 'shouting'--probably because of the similarity of the rhythm
in the two motions. In 'Michael, Row the Boat Ashore,' which was a
real boat-song, not a human Michael but the archangel himself was
meant. Other tunes used for rowing were 'Heav'n Bell a-ring',' 'Jine
'em,' 'Rainfall,' 'No Man,' and 'Can't stay behin'.' Similarly, other
spirituals were used as working songs, for their rhythms were hardly
ever sluggish. As a good specimen of purely secular songs--'the strange
barbaric songs that one hears upon the Western steamboats'--Mr. W. F.
Allen points to the following:

                      [Illustration: Music score]

                I'm gwine to Alabamy, Oh!----
                For to see my mammy, Oh!----

                She went from ole Virginny,
                  And I'm her pickaninny,

                She lives on the Tombigbee,
                  I wish I had her wid me.

                Now I'm a good big nigger,
                  I reckon I won't git bigger,

                But I'd like to see my mammy,
                  Who lives in Alabamy.

The negro's natural impulse for dancing seems to have found its outlet
in the 'shout,' as far as the Atlantic seaboard states are concerned at
least, for the Christian sects promptly stamped out the dances which
were connected with primitive superstition. In Louisiana, however, the
negro came in contact with a very different sort of people, the Spanish
and French settlers--southern races of a more sensuous turn than the
Anglo-Saxon. The musical result was the superposition of Spanish and
French melody over negro rhythms--the two ingredients of the Creole
folk-songs, which are to a large extent dance songs.

The warlike and lascivious dances of the African took on a more
civilized form under the influence of Spanish and French culture,
though they are said in some cases to have remained licentious enough.
But the product has been highly influential musically. Thus the
fascinating Habañera, the familiar rhythm of many a Spanish melody,
is, according to Albert Friedenthal,[75] of negro origin. As its
name indicates, Havana was its home and from there it spread to all
Spanish and Portuguese America, the West Indies, Central and South
America. 'Extended and complicated rhythms are known only where the
negroes are to be found,' says our investigator. Mr. Krehbiel quotes a
creole song from Martinique, built upon the Habañera rhythm, entitled
_Tant sirop est doux_, and speaks of Afro-American songs in which
the characteristic rhythm is so persistently used as to suggest that
they were influenced by a subconscious memory of the old dance. Other
dances of negro origin, mentioned by writers on the Antilles, are the
Bamboula, Bouèné, Counjai, Kalinda, Bélé, Bengume, Babouille, Cata,
and Guiouba. The term 'juba' applied to the plucking accompaniments of
negro dance-songs in minstrel shows may be a derivative of the last.

In speaking of the Creole we must emphasize that the word is not
properly applied to any persons of mixed stock, as has been frequently
done. Creole is a word of Spanish etymology and was used to denote the
pure-blooded Spanish or French native of the American colonies. But it
is the negro slaves of these creoles--whom we may call black creoles
(including mulattoes, quadroons, etc.)--that created the charming
songs breathing the spirit of the tepid zone along the great gulf and
the Father of Waters. They, too, are the creators of the _patois_ to
which the songs are set. Concerning the origin of this _patois_ Mr.
Krehbiel gives some interesting details: 'The creole patois, though
never reduced to writing by its users, is still a living language. It
is the medium of communication between black nurses and their charges
in the French families of Louisiana to-day, and half a century ago
it was exclusively spoken by French creoles up to the age of ten or
twelve years. In fact, children had to be weaned from it with bribes or
punishment. It was, besides, the language which the slave spoke to his
master and the master to him. The need which created it was the same as
that which created the corrupt English of the slaves in other parts of
the country.... Thus, then, grew the pretty language, soft in the mouth
of the creole as _bella lingua in bocca toscana_, in which the creole
sang of his love, gave rhythmical impulse to the dance, or scourged
with satire those who fell under his displeasure.'

The Creole songs, according to Lafcadio Hearn, are 'Frenchy in
construction but possess a few African characteristics of method.'
'There could neither have been creole patois nor creole melodies
but for the French and Spanish blooded slaves of Louisiana and the
Antilles. The melancholy, quavering beauty and weirdness of the negro
chant are lightened by the French influence, subdued and deepened by
the Spanish.' Unlike the negro slave of the Virginias and Carolinas,
etc., who poured out all his emotion in gospel hymn and spirituals, the
black creole was especially fond of love-songs--crooning love songs in
the soft, pretty words of his patois--some sad, some light-hearted. One
is 'the tender lament of one who was the evil of his heart's choice the
victim of chagrin in beholding a female rival wearing those vestments
of extra quality that could only be the favors which both women had
courted from the hand of some proud master whence alone such favors
could come.'[76] Another, 'Caroline,' reveals the romance and the
tragedy of the dramatic life of the young creole slaves. We quote it
here, as our one example of creole tunes:

                      [Illustration: Music score]

    Aine, dé, trois, Caroline, ça, ça, yé comme ça, ma chère!
    Aine, dé, trois, Caroline, ça, ça, yé comme ça, ma chère!
    Papa di non, man-man di oui, C'est li mo oulé, c'est li ma pren. Ya
    pas lar-zan pon a-cheté cabanne, C'est li mo oulé, c'est li ma pren.

In general, the love song of the black Creole is more distinctive
than that of other Afro-Americans. A famous example is 'Layotte,'
utilized by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (b. New Orleans, 1829, of French
and English parentage), who achieved international fame both as pianist
and composer. Gottschalk did much to make the charm of Creole melodies
known to the world. The themes of his piano pieces perpetuate many of
these melodies, among them _Avant, grenadier_, which forms the theme
of one of his earliest compositions, _Bananier_. The popularity of
Gottschalk and the general interest which his music aroused in Paris
and elsewhere was one of the sensations of the musical world of that
day.

Another class of lyrics peculiar to the Creoles were the satirical
songs which may be a survival of a primitive practice brought by
their ancestors from America. At carnival times scores of these songs
make their appearance--or reappearance,--new and topical words being
applied to the old tunes, and public as well as personal grudges are
taken out in this manner. Such songs are _Musieu Bainjo_, a mild bit
of pleasantry leveled at a darkey who 'put on airs,' and _Michié
Préval_, of which Mr. Cable says that for generations the man of
municipal politics was fortunate who escaped entirely a lampooning
set to its air. 'Its swinging and incisive rhythm made it the most
effective vehicle for satire which the Creole folk-song has ever
known.' (Krehbiel.) In Martinique these satirical songs, or _pillards_,
are more malicious in intent and often cruel in the relentless public
castigation they inflict upon the objects of their makers' hate.

Other creole songs are of a historical nature, recording events or
episodes of importance to the community. The invasion of Louisiana by
the British in 1814, and the capture of New Orleans by the Union forces
in 1862, for instance, were thus chronicled.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The musical value and the charm of negro songs were little appreciated
until the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, Tenn., made their
famous tour, which began in October, 1871. George L. White, the
treasurer of the school--one of the institutions for the education of
the blacks that came under the patronage of the American Missionary
Association--desirous of raising funds for its maintenance, was struck
with the artistic possibilities of the little choir of students which
he had organized and trained. After several successful concerts held
in nearby towns he embarked upon a grand tour of the country, with the
object of raising a fund of $20,000. The little company of emancipated
slaves--at no time more than fourteen strong--gave the world so
remarkable a demonstration of the musical qualities of their race that
the matter has hardly been called into question since. In less than
three years, moreover, they brought back to Fisk University nearly
$100,000. Their adventures are told in detail by J. B. T. Marsh, who,
in his 'Story of the Jubilee Singers,' says in part: 'They were turned
away from hotels and driven out of railroad waiting rooms because of
their color. But they had been received with honor by the President of
the United States, they had sung their slave songs before the Queen
of Great Britain, and they had gathered as invited guests about the
breakfast-table of her Prime Minister. Their success was as remarkable
as their mission was unique!

The climax of their tour was the participation in the World's Peace
Jubilee held in Boston in June-July, 1872. There, before an audience
of 40,000 people gathered from all parts of the country, they sang
themselves into the hearts of the nation, in spite of a recurrence of
race prejudice. Their singing of Julia Ward Howe's 'Battle Hymn of the
Republic' to the tune of 'John Brown' was, according to Mr. Marsh, 'as
if inspired.' 'When the grand old chorus "Glory, Hallelujah" followed
with a swelling volume of music from the great orchestra, the thunder
of the bands and the roar of artillery, the scene was indescribable.
Twenty thousand people were on their feet. Ladies waved their
handkerchiefs, men threw their hats in the air and the Coliseum rang
with the cheers and shouts of "the Jubilees, the Jubilees, forever!"'

The fame of the 'Jubilees' soon spread abroad, and, responding to
a demand, they appeared in England, Scotland, and Ireland, with
extraordinary success. Their appeal was direct to the hearts of the
people, and an echo of it is preserved to this day in the adoption of
at least one melody as an English Sunday-school hymn. A second tour
took the colored singers into Holland, Switzerland, and Germany as
well, and everywhere they met with the deepest appreciation. Received
by the sovereigns of both Holland and Germany, they were given the use
of the Dutch cathedrals and the Berlin Domkirche for their concerts.
The Berlin _Musikzeitung_ indulged in a long laudatory article
concerning their music and the artistic finish of their singing, and
Franz Abt, the composer, acknowledged their work in the following
remark: 'We could not even take our German peasant and reach in
generations of culture such results in art, conduct, and character as
appear in these freed slaves.'

Other musicians have from time to time called the world's attention to
the value of negro music. Most prominent among them being Dr. Antonin
Dvořák, who, during his stay in America, voiced his admiration of it
and made use of the material in several of his best known compositions,
notably the 'New World Symphony' and the 'American Quartet.' It will
be appropriate to add in conclusion the well-known passage from Dr.
Dvořák's article in the 'Century Magazine' of February, 1895, which has
caused so much comment:

'A while ago I suggested that inspiration for truly national music
might be derived from the negro melodies or Indian chants. I was led to
take the view partly by the fact that the so-called plantation songs
are indeed the most striking and appealing melodies that have been
found on this side of the water, but largely by observation that this
seems to be recognized, though often unconsciously, by most Americans.
All races have their distinctive national songs which they at once
recognize as their own, even if they have never heard them before. It
is a proper question to ask, what songs, then, belong to the American
and appeal more strikingly to him than any others? What melody will
stop him on the street, if he were in a strange land, and make the home
feeling well up within him, no matter how hardened he might be, or how
wretchedly the tunes were played? Their number, to be sure, seems to
be limited. The most potent, as well as the most beautiful among them,
according to my estimation, are certain of the so-called plantation
melodies and slave songs, all of which are distinguished by unusual and
subtle harmonies, the thing which I have found in no other songs but
those of Scotland and Ireland.'

Many American composers have, since these lines were written, acted
upon the suggestion contained in them. We need but mention George
W. Chadwick, Henry Schoenefeld, E. R. Kroeger, Henry F. Gilbert,
Arthur Farwell, and W. H. Humiston among those who have drawn upon
this fertile treasure of thematic material. It is but the beginning,
however. American music is becoming more and more distinctive. Whether
intentionally or spontaneously, our musical literature is bound to
absorb some of the color of so potent an element of national lore.


                                   IV

A great deal cannot be said at this time about the American folk-song
from other than negro sources. Doubtless there is a wealth of song to
be found in the Spanish-American sections along our borders, in the
recesses of the Blue Ridge mountains, whose communities still live by
the guide of primitive instincts and in defiance of law and order; on
the great prairies of the west, where the cowboy has developed a rude
type of chivalry peculiar to himself and with it an idiom reflecting
the dare-devil and man-defying existence which he leads. But little has
been done to collect this scattered store, to commit it to paper, and
to sift the worthy from the dross.

As regards the cowboy songs, the Southwest Society of the
Archæological Institute of America, under the direction of Charles F.
Lummis, has recently done some pioneer work. One of the songs thus
gathered, 'The Lone Prairie,' was harmonized by Mr. Arthur Farwell and
published in the Wa-wan Press series in 1905. In the arranger's opinion
it is probably the first cowboy song to be printed. As such it acquires
a special interest. It is in the minor mode, has the rhythmic snap
peculiar to negro music, though it is in triple rhythm, and acquires a
certain exotic flavor by the constant use of the minor seventh instead
of the leading tone. Its outstanding ethnic character, if it has any,
is, however, Irish. It is not improbable that the cowboy song should
have acquired a certain tone from the music of the Indian, though a
generous admixture of the Celtic idiom is most certainly to be expected
from the racial character of the caste.

In the same number of the Wa-wan Press there are two examples of
Spanish-Californian folk-songs that are extremely interesting. Their
Spanish character is unmistakable, though perhaps the tone is a little
more plaintive than we are wont to expect from their original Southern
habitat. 'The Hours of Grief' and 'The Black Face' are both set in
the minor, and the 2/4 (quasi 6/8) measure, with the characteristic
dotted rhythm, only accentuates the sombreness of the sentiment.
Syncopation is used sparingly, at the end of a phrase only. The subject
of the latter song--the lament of a dusky youth over his unhappy love
for a white beauty, would bespeak negro origin, too, and the general
character of the piece is certainly reminiscent of the Creole dance
songs with their Habañera rhythm.

The Spanish-American songs of further south, of Central America and
Mexico, hardly come within our scope, though American composers would
be quite justified in drawing upon them for material. A collection
recently made by Miss Eleanor Hague, of the American Folklore Society,
and published with accompaniments by Edward Kilenyi, does not reveal
much beyond the standard of salon music, though in their own home the
characteristic environment of Spanish America and the peculiar manner
of their performance may add greatly to their effect. To quote Miss
Hague:

'To sit in the plaza of some quaint Mexican town on a starry
perfumed evening is to realize the significance of highly colored and
impassioned utterance. One's blood is fired by the rhythmic quality of
the music which floats out from the gaily lighted central pavilion,
and the groups of people are a delight to one's eyes: Indians in white
cotton clothes, gaudy _serapes_ and big hats; groups of young girls
with scarfs over their heads walking about; other groups of young men
in the picturesque _charro_ costume, as well as occasional older people
of dignified mien. On a bench an exquisitely pretty girl sits beside
her mother, with her eyes fixed on space, but quite conscious of the
youth in his best embroidered jacket and sombrero, at the further end
of the bench, who gazes shyly at her and then looks away with rapture
in his eyes. If he has not already begun to "play the bear" under her
window he undoubtedly will soon reach that point in his courtship....
In Mexico the guitar is used everywhere for accompanying and also
for solos. As a rule in playing accompaniments the natives content
themselves with simple harmonies in chord form or as arpeggios; but
they have a deep affection for successions of thirds and never seem to
tire of their honied sweetness.'

The French-Canadian, across the other border of the United States,
also has developed a folk-song peculiar to himself in the course of
his romantic existence. It is so closely allied to French folk-song
that we have preferred to treat it in that connection. There remains
only to be mentioned the folk-song of the Kentucky mountaineer which
has had some attention at the hands of Mrs. Jeannette Robinson Murphy,
already quoted above. The mountaineer, like the cowboy, is made up
of various national strains, and his song in consequence is one of
mixed or indefinite character. The rhythmic element again predominates
and, indeed, practically all his songs have their principal use in
connection with the dance. Fast rhythmic tunes in duple time and in
very simple form are sung as accompaniment to all the so-called 'set
dances,' which form the chief entertainment at evening gatherings in
log cabins. Upon these occasions the fiddler assumes the office of
leader for both song and dance--he calls out the tunes, directs the
'figures' and sings the first verse of the song, while his assistant,
by a peculiar tapping of the strings of the instrument, marks the
rhythm. The songs, or ballads, are often of humorous or bantering
flirtatious character, and in them is perpetuated many a peculiarity of
mountaineer life.

At this point we end our necessarily incomplete review of American
folk-song, a subject which future research will do much to place more
nearly within our reach. We shall now discuss briefly the American song
in the folk manner, which may be considered to have grown out of the
folk-song proper.


                                  V

About the year 1830 an American comedian, W. D. Rice (1808-1860),
popularly known as 'Daddy' Rice, stood in a stable in Louisville, Ky.,
and watched an old, deformed and decrepit negro singing a lively tune
to words something like these:

    'Come, listen all you gals an' boys,
        I'se jes' from Tuckyhoe;
    I'm goin' to sing a little song,
        My name's Jim Crow
    Weel about and turn about and do jes' so;
    Eb'ry time I weel about I jump, Jim Crow'--

and a number of other verses recounting the wondrous adventures of
'Jim Crow.' They are not very exciting, to be sure, and their humor
hardly appeals to our jaded minds to-day. The tune, too, is mediocre
enough. But 'Daddy' Rice saw a great opportunity. He learned the song
and sang it, accompanied by all the funny turns and motions of the
old negro and many more. Soon after he was appearing in a theatre in
Pittsburgh, and, meeting a negro porter on the way, took him to the
theatre, borrowed his clothes, donned them, blackened his face with
cork and added a black wig of matted moss. When he appeared on the
stage and sang 'Jim Crow' the audience roared with laughter; but when
he added topical verses of his own and made his antics still funnier,
the house went wild. To add to the mirth, Cuff, the negro, whose
professional services were in demand, came on to the stage in négligé
and frantically expostulated to reclaim his clothes. Of course, the
audience mistook the interruption for part of the 'show' and the signal
for a climax of hilarity.

That was the birth of 'Negro Minstrelsy'--a type of entertainment which
for the greater part of the century was one of the chief delights of
the American public. How much, or little, of it was 'negro' matters
little--the original impulse, at any rate, came from that source, and
the rich opportunities for humor--of an innocent sort--to be gotten out
of lampooning the race, were eagerly exploited. The 'dandy darky,' the
character created by Rice, soon became a stock article of the common
show and he made his way to every stage. The 'cork fraternity,' as
one of its members called the profession, enlarged rapidly and soon
numbered many distinguished representatives. Joe Jefferson himself made
his début in that capacity at the tender age of four, when he emerged
from a bag on 'Daddy' Rice's shoulders. As for 'Daddy' himself, he
added song after song to his répertoire, until there were enough for
several evenings' entertainment. He toured not only America but England
as well and acquired a considerable fortune.

He was, by the way, not the first to 'blacken his face
professionally.' From Charley White's diary[77] we learn that already
in 1799 'Mr. Graupner' did so, 'Pot Pie Herbert' in 1814, Andrew
Jackson Allen in 1815, etc., etc. In that year, indeed, according
to Mr. Krehbiel, a song description of the battle of Plattsburg was
sung in a drama to words supposedly in negro dialect. But organized
negro minstrelsy did not exist until 1843, when Frank Brown, Billy
Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Dan D. Emmett appeared in the Chatham Square
Theatre, New York, as the Virginia Minstrels and were 'received with
deafening applause.' They were soon followed by band after band and
hence transferred their labors to England to escape competition. When
they returned there were the 'Kentucky Minstrels,' 'Congo Minstrels,'
'Original Virginia Serenaders,' 'African Serenaders,' and many more,
among them the famous Christy's Minstrels, organized in 1844 or 1845.

The droll humor of the negro, his native wit and ludicrous ways were
a rich field for travesty to draw upon. Exaggerated, burlesqued in
showman fashion, it was the joy of audiences still fond of slap-stick
comedy. But the pathetic side of negro existence, told in sentimental
ballad and stories of plantation life, appealed as well. No less a
person than Thackeray was affected by it. According to the famous
author's own testimony, it 'moistened his spectacles in a most
unexpected manner.'


From a mere accessory to the performance the negro minstrel show,
thanks to the ingenuity of Edwin T. Christy, spread itself to usurp
the entire evening. Christy created the form, the stereotype, as it
were, of the minstrel show. He provided for a first part during which
the performers, from four to twenty in number, seated in a single row
with the 'interlocutor' in the centre and 'bones' and 'tambo' at either
end, engaged in repartee and song in negro dialect alternately. During
the second part or 'olio' there were banjo playing, clog dancing, and
other 'specialties.' It might be remarked here that the negro minstrel
developed a style of instrumentalism all his own, consisting largely of
violin and banjo playing, often in trick fashion, between the knees,
over the head, behind the back, etc. The third part of the minstrel
show degenerated into a musical variety entertainment as far removed
from plantation life as possible.

Increased virtuosity notwithstanding, this breaking away from the negro
traditions of the old minstrelsy brought about decay. Gorgeous show and
glitter superseded negro characterization, just as the coon song took
the place of the negro ditty, while only the blackened faces recalled
the original intent of the entertainment. At present the minstrel show
is dead except in amateur circles of the country town.

But it has served its purpose. It has created a stock of songs
which, though not strictly folk-tunes, are so nearly so as to find a
legitimate place in this chapter. Only indirectly were they influenced
by the negro; their composers were the minstrels themselves--the
minstrels of fifty years ago, who constitute as unique a type as has
existed in America. Indeed, they wrote the greater part of the 'popular
music' of their day. Their entertainment called for a distinct and
peculiar type of songs and the supplying of this demand called into
play much genuine talent, though the showman was sadly deficient in
musical grammar. His first models were probably the negro folk-songs
with their stanza and chorus, the former a simple melody, the latter in
improvised harmony. 'The melodies which were more direct progenitors
of the songs which Christy's minstrels and other minstrel companies
carried all over the land were attributed to the Southern negroes;
songs like "Coal Black Rose," "Zip Coon,"[78] and "Ole Virginny Nebber
Tire" have always been accepted as the creation of the blacks,' says
Mr. Krehbiel, 'though I do not know whether or not they really are.'

Most of the names of minstrel composers are now forgotten; B. R. Hanby,
the author of 'Ole Shady'; Eastburn, who wrote 'The Little Brown Jug';
the writers of 'Gentle Annie' and 'Rosa Lee, or Don't be Foolish, Joe,'
live on by their songs alone. But there are two names, perhaps three,
that stand out above the rest and should be remembered as the names of
composers. One of them only was a minstrel, Dan Emmett, and one of his
inspirations has sufficed to make him immortal.[79] Many other popular
and original tunes flowed from his facile pen--'Old Dan Tucker,' 'Early
in the Morning,' etc.--but none has achieved the fame of 'Dixie.' The
second famous writer of minstrel tunes, Stephen Foster, was a composer
who wrote in the minstrel style simply because it was the prevailing
style and because he found a ready market for that sort of product.
But, regardless of the artistic value of that kind of music in general,
Foster must always be counted among the really great American composers.

Stephen Collins Foster was born in Lawrenceburg, now a part of
Pittsburgh, Pa., on July 4, 1826. By instinct and by inheritance he
was a Southerner, for his father had come from Virginia and his mother
from Maryland. Foster was not a professional musician; he acted as
bookkeeper for his brother, a prosperous merchant of Pittsburgh, and
got his inspiration at camp meetings. He taught himself the flageolet,
studied Mozart and Weber assiduously, and acquired a knowledge of
French and German by his own efforts. He dabbled in composition, turned
out a 'Tioga Waltz' for four flutes (!), and in 1842 wrote a song,
'Open thy Lattice, Love,' to words by someone else. He and five friends
constituted themselves a little singing club and for this he wrote many
songs, including 'Oh, Susanna,' 'Old Uncle Ned,' etc., in the style of
the negro folk-song. Though a German musician of Pittsburgh criticized
his work for him, he certainly had no real musical training. By the
advice of friends he devoted several years to the voice and pianoforte,
'but he was afraid that too much study would impair his originality!
Hence, if his harmonies are bald, his accompaniments empirical, and his
part writing unskilled, we need not wonder, but only regret that so
graceful a flower was not planted in richer soil.'[80]

After submitting 'Oh, Susannah' to a minstrel troupe Foster adopted
that style for most of his songs. There are about one hundred and sixty
in all, a small number of them true gems, perhaps unsurpassed in their
way; many, especially the later ones, mere pot-boilers. 'The Old Folks
at Home,' 'My Old Kentucky Home,' 'Massa's in de Cold, Cold Ground,'
'Old Black Joe,' are practically immortal. They are to America what
Silcher's and Weber's songs are to Germany--they are as simple and
beautiful in their expression as they are sincere in their sentiment.
They were born of the impulse of creation and it is to be remarked that
this applies to the text as well, for Foster wrote nearly all of his
own lyrics.

There are besides a number of sentimental ballads--'Nellie Bly,'
'Nancy Tile,' 'Come where My Love Lies Dreaming,' etc.--perhaps
somewhat more artificial, rather trivial in sentiment and certainly
more German than negro in their substance--and some comic pieces, such
as 'The Camptown Races.' His last work was 'The Beautiful Dream,'
written in 1864.

Foster had a gentle, sweet nature, but lacking in self-discipline and
easily led. He was childlike in his sentiments, possessed of a pathetic
affection for his parents and an almost maniacal love for his mother
throughout his life. He married at the age of twenty-eight, but soon
separated from his wife, became shiftless and addicted to drink. Want
drove him to rapid production--he could write a song in the morning,
sell it at noon and spend the proceeds at night. Finally, he found
himself in New York, penniless, without employment and in 1864 came to
a tragic end in a cheap East Side hotel at the age of thirty-three.

His life, with its grim romance, reminds one of the career of that
other American genius, Edgar Allan Poe. Both were aristocrats of
Southern antecedents and made of the very essence of the American
stock. Both spoke in an idiom remarkably attuned to the best of the
American genius. Foster's melodies partake essentially of the folk
manner--they are _volkstümlich_--they might have been folk-songs,
except that they are individually conceived, that their birth is
legitimate, so to speak. In the hearts of the people they rank as
folk-songs, and, their appeal being permanent, interesting conclusions
might be drawn from them as to the qualities of the American national
character.

The other non-minstrel composer whom we desire to mention as a
writer of popular tunes of the minstrel type is Henry Clay Work (b.
Middletown, Conn., 1832, d. Hartford, Conn., 1882). Work also was not
a trained musician in the modern sense, but a musician of earnest
endeavor and sincere expression. Louis C. Elson says 'he sounded the
most characteristic note of all the American composers of the time,
and his songs give almost every note in the gamut of expression, from
sarcasm to triumph, from gaiety to military glory.'

The emancipation movement inspired Work in the direction of
pseudo-negro songs--'Kingdom Comin'' and 'Babylon is Fallen' being
the first of a series of contributions to the music of the Civil War.
Work's most lasting success is, of course, 'Marching Through Georgia,'
which properly comes under the head of patriotic songs.


                                  VI

A type of folk-song that is as often appropriated as it is indigenous
is the patriotic song. It can be called a folk-song only in the sense
that the people sing it, though in a measure it must reflect the
character of the people--in a measure only, for one nation is very
much like the other when fired by patriotism. Almost invariably,
however, such songs are created at times of national stress, when
feelings run high and poetic outbursts come from unexpected quarters.
Such are the circumstances under which nearly all patriotic songs were
created, 'Yankee Doodle,' 'Hail Columbia,' 'The Star Spangled Banner,'
'John Brown,' and 'Marching Through Georgia' included. Some, like
'Dixie,' became patriotic unintentionally, so to speak, and some, like
'America,' were simply applications of foreign tunes to native words.

The earliest American patriotic song, dating from colonial days,
was a 'Liberty Song,' the words of which were written by Mrs. Mercy
Warren, the wife of Mr. James Warren, of Plymouth. The verses were as
amateurish as the music is angular and bombastic. It was advertised in
the 'Boston Chronicle' in 1768. Both the advertisement and the song are
reproduced in Elson's 'History of American Music' (pp. 140 ff.). The
patriotism reflected in the song is that of the Colonial:

    'This bumper I crown for our sovereign's health:
    And this for Britannia's glory and wealth.
    That wealth and that glory immortal may be
    If she is but just and we are but free.'

But after 1770 a new version appeared:

    'Come swallow your bumpers, ye Tories and roar,
    That the sons of fair freedom are hampered once more,
    But know that no cut-throats our spirits can tame,
    Nor a host of oppressors shall smother the flame.'

After the storm thus foreboded broke loose, the 'Liberty Song' hardly
sufficed to express people's feelings, but there was nothing to
take its place. To be sure, in William Billings' 'Singing Master's
Assistant' there were printed two war songs that became very popular,
especially the one for which Billings himself composed the words and
set them to his favorite tune, 'Chester':

    'Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
      And slavery clank her galling chains,
    We'll fear them not, we'll trust in God;
      New England's God forever reigns,' etc., etc.

'The enthusiasm with which Billings sang and taught these songs
communicated itself to the people, even to those who in the prejudice
of their time had strenuously opposed singing in the churches, but no
one could doubt the composer's sincere patriotism.'[81] Then there were
some stanzas, set to an old Scotch tune and sung by the Pennsylvania
regiments during the Revolution, and a convivial soldiers' song, 'The
Volunteer Boys,' that was composed by Henry Archer, an Englishman,
in 1778, and widely sung. But the one revolutionary tune that has
survived was, strange enough, originally a song of derision aimed at
the American troops by the British. That tune is 'Yankee Doodle.'
'Yankee,' the term still applied to Americans in general by Europeans,
but by Americans to New Englanders in particular, has a doubtful
etymology. There is an Indian word 'yankoos,' which means invincible,
and a Cherokee word, 'eankke,' signifying coward or slave; 'kanokie,'
or silent man, was the name applied to Connecticut settlers by the
natives--according to 'Diedrich Knickerbocker'--and, finally, there is
'yengeese,' an Indian corruption of 'English'--all possible roots of
the word. There are other plausible derivations, including one from
the Norwegian and others from the Scotch. The word 'doodle,' too,
has a Scotch meaning--'dudeln,' to play music. For the origin of the
combination 'Yankee Doodle,' there are, as Mr. Sonneck puts it, 'whole
genealogies of theories.' Probably the words were not used before 1700.
The first known mention of the song so entitled is in a letter of April
26, 1776, in which it is called 'a song composed in derision of New
Englanders, scornfully called Yankees.'


Many theories there are also regarding the origin of the tune. Most
of them, including the well-known story of a British officer having
composed it during the Revolution, are impossible, while the claim of
Dr. Richard Schuchburgh[82] as its composer (at Albany in 1755) is
very doubtful. It is said to have been played by a fife-major of the
Grenadier Guards in 1750 as a march, and a tune at least similar to it
is supposed to have been familiar to the English peasantry previous
to the time of Charles I. Whatever its origin, it was played by the
Americans at Burgoyne's surrender (Saratoga, 1777) and again at the
surrender of Yorktown, at the instance of Lafayette, who probably
intended it as a taunt. It was recognized officially as an American
national song at the signing of the treaty of Ghent (1814), when the
Flemish burghers serenaded the American ambassadors with the tune,
having learned it from Henry Clay's servant!

'America,' sung to the same tune as 'God Save the King'--a tune that
has been variously appropriated by other nations--had its American
origin in the Park Street Church, Boston, the words being written for
a children's celebration held on July 4, 1832, by the Rev. Samuel F.
Smith, a young theological student. Before this, however, the tune
had done service at different times for 'God Save America,' 'God Save
George Washington,' and what not. The origin of the melody, like that
of many other good tunes, is shrouded in mystery. It is generally
attributed to Dr. John Bull (b. 1563), who is supposed to have written
it for a banquet given to James I in 1607. But Mr. Sonneck remarks that
'with such arguments [as Mr. Elson's comparisons] the main theme of the
last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony would become very close to
being inspired by 'Yankee Doodle.'[83] After citing many theories Mr.
Elson remarks that 'there seems, however, scarcely a doubt that Henry
Carey, the composer of "Sally in Our Alley," the unfortunate genius
who commited suicide after a blameless life of eighty years, with a
single half-penny in his pocket [in the year 1740], was the author and
composer of the great anthem.'

Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), in a letter of August 24, 1840, throws
light on the origin of 'Hail Columbia,' another popular American
patriotic song. It was, according to him, originally a political song
rather than a national one. The tune is that of the old 'President's
March,' a leading work in the early American répertoire, composed, some
say, by Johannes Roth, a German musician of Philadelphia, popularly
known as 'Old Roth,' in 1689, but more probably by a certain Pheil, to
whom it is attributed in a copy of the year 1793, in the possession of
the Library of Congress.[84] In 1798 Hopkinson wrote new words for it,
which were a glorification of President Adams and Federalism. Sung by
Hopkinson's friend, Gilbert Fox, an actor, at a benefit performance,
it roused great enthusiasm and the audience joined in the chorus. But
the 'Aurora' of April 27,1798, called it 'a most ridiculous bombast and
the vilest adulation of the Anglo-monarchical party.' Since its use as
a Federal song 'Hail Columbia' has undergone a considerable process of
polishing, but its erstwhile popularity has not by any means worn off.

'The Star Spangled Banner,' because of its exclusive use and its
inherent musical strength universally recognized as _the_ 'National
Anthem' of America, is, like its brothers, an imported article. The
tune is that of an old English drinking song, 'To Anacreon in Heaven,'
written by the president of the Anacreontic Society in London about
1770-75. The music is, in all likelihood, by John Stafford Smith
(1750-1836), also a member of the society and author of the _Musica
Antiqua_ (1832). Its American use dates from 1798, when Robert Treat
Paine, whose real name was Thomas Paine, but who objected to being
confused with the 'atheist' Paine, adopted it to words of his own,
under the title of 'Adams and Liberty, the Boston Patriotic Song.'
Other versions, such as 'Jefferson and Liberty,' appeared for various
occasions, one even to celebrate the Russian victory over Napoleon! But
the real version, the one we know to-day, was born during the War of
1812 under conditions which fire the patriot's imagination.

The story is well known. Francis Scott Key, the author of the words,
was sent to the British Fleet in Chesapeake Bay as the envoy of
President Madison to request the release of a non-combatant citizen
held as prisoner. As the bombardment of Fort Henry was to take place
that day, the British commander retained Key till there was no fear of
divulging the British plans. On the morning of Sept 14th, after a night
of bombardment, the anxious envoy looked toward the fort and there saw
the flag of his country still flying proudly over the battlements.
Inspired by the sight, he wrote the first stanza on the back of an old
letter:

    'O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
      What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
    Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
      O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
        The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
        Gave proof, through the night, that our flag was still there.
    O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
    O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?'

On the return to Baltimore he wrote the remaining stanzas and the
poem appeared in the Baltimore 'American' of September 21, 1814, as a
'broadside.' The stirring measures of the song have never lost their
hold on the American people, and the piece has taken its place among
the great national anthems of the world.

The next national song, in chronological order, is the popular
'Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean' ('The Red, White and Blue'). Its
history is not so romantic. Thomas à Becket, an English actor in 1843,
playing at that time in Philadelphia, wrote both the verses and the
music, after rejecting a set of verses written by David T. Shaw, a
singer then appearing at the 'Museum,' also in Philadelphia. It first
appeared, however, as the work of Shaw--until à Becket convinced the
publisher of his authorship--after which it was so published, with the
inscription 'Sung by D. T. Shaw.' When the author of the song visited
England in 1847 he found the song already 'naturalized' as 'Britannia,
the Pride of the Ocean,' and it has since become a favorite of the
British army and navy.

The national song répertoire received no further notable accessions
till the Civil War, a period terrible and wonderful, that called forth
expressions of exalted feeling on both sides of the struggle, North and
South. 'The Star Spangled Banner' was at first claimed by both sides.
But all attempts to adapt the song by the addition of new verses seem
to have failed. The South found an early substitute in such songs as
'Maryland, My Maryland,' which James Ryder Randall wrote to suit the
melody of the old German folk-tune _O Tannenbaum_. The occasion for
this effusion was the attack on the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment while
marching through Baltimore.

Of all the other Southern war songs only one has survived, and that
was of Northern origin. 'Dixie's Land' was, we have already seen,
originally a 'walk-around' dance, written for Bryant's Minstrels by one
of their number, Dan Emmett. There has been so much discussion of the
circumstances of its birth that it may be well to quote an eye-witness,
so to speak, namely, Charley White, the minstrel, whose diary has
already furnished us with some facts:

'One Saturday night in 1859, when Dan Emmett was a member of Bryant's
Minstrels at Mechanics' Hall, New York, Dan [Bryant] said to Emmett:
"Can't you get us up a walk-around dance? I want something new and
lively for next Monday night." At that date, and for a long time
after, minstrel shows used to finish up the evening performance with a
walk-around dance, in which the whole company would participate. The
demand for this especial material was constant, and Dan Emmett was the
principal composer of all, especially for the Bryant Minstrels. Emmett,
of course, went to work, and, as he had done so much in that line of
composition, he was not long in finding something suitable. At last he
hit upon the first two bars, and any composer can tell you how good a
start that is in the manufacture of a melody. The next day, Sunday,
he had the words commencing "I wish I was in Dixie." This colloquial
expression is not, as most people suppose, a Southern phrase, but first
appeared among the circus men in the North. In early fall, when nipping
frost would overtake the tented wanderers, the boys would think of
the genial warmth of the section they were heading for and the common
expression would be, "Well, I wish I was in Dixie." This gave the title
or catch line; the rest of the song was original. On Monday morning the
song was rehearsed and highly recommended, and at night, as usual, the
house was crowded and many of the auditors went home singing "Dixie."
The song soon became the rage and several other minstrel organizations
... applied to Emmett for copy and privilege of using it.... Not only
was Emmett robbed of the copyright, but the authorship of it was
disputed as well.'

In secession days the song was branded in the North as a Rebel song,
and a Maine editor attacked Emmett as a Secessionist. It next bobbed
up in New Orleans in 1861 as a 'Zouave march' in 'Pocahontas,'
appropriated for the occasion by Carlo Patti, the brother of the prima
donna, who acted as conductor. When the war broke out, the Washington
Artillery had it arranged as a quick-step and soon 'saloons, parlors,
and the streets rang with the Dixie air.' The contagious nature of
the tune easily accounts for its rapid spread and ultimate universal
popularity. It is undoubtedly the most original of all American
national songs.

Turning to the North, the first tune we meet is the famous 'John
Brown's Body,' one of the most stirring marching songs ever written,
a favorite among soldiers the world over. Its origin is humble--a
camp-meeting song among many, sung by the negroes in the South years
before the War, to religious words. It may be, indeed, a negro
folk-song, though its authorship is claimed for William Steffe, a
composer of Sunday-school music. It was started on its patriotic career
by the 'Tigers,' a battalion in the 12th Massachusetts Regiment. The
words 'Say, brothers, will you meet us?' were taken from the lips of
recruits by Captain Hallgreen, the author of the poem. John Brown,
the hero of the song, was not the John Brown of Harper's Ferry, but a
good-natured Scotchman, who was the subject of a current joke among the
men. The words were prophetic, for John Brown of the 'Tigers' lost his
life during a retreat of the Union forces. All attempts of the superior
officers to substitute a name with more dignity and fame miscarried,
and John Brown was made immortal by his fellows. The 'Twelfth' sang the
song from city to city and the swing of it set people wild. Later, when
heard in camp, the tune appealed so strongly to James Freeman Clarke,
that he induced Julia Ward Howe to dignify it with more serious words.
'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' was the result.

A composer whose Civil War songs achieved almost the rank of national
songs is George F. Root (1820-1895). His 'Battle Cry of Freedom,'
'Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching,' and 'Just Before the
Battle, Mother' became favorites during the war and have enjoyed an
afterglow of popularity since. Dr. Root was an exponent of the Lowell
Mason system,[85] and was a convention leader who had followed Mason
in his method of diffusing music among the masses. He was a pupil of
George J. Webb and also pursued the study of his art in Paris.

As a final word we must recall Henry Clay Work's 'Marching through
Georgia,' which is perhaps the best of the tunes written expressly as
war songs. It is a stirring melody with all the qualities of a national
anthem, though unfortunately its partisan inspiration and associations
will not allow it to be such. There is nothing to record in the way of
patriotic songs since the stormy days of the Civil War. Peaceful times
have turned composers' attention elsewhere, and progress in the higher
forms of art music has gone on apace. Accordingly, it now becomes our
duty to record the achievements of American musicians in the field of
conscious creative endeavor.

                                                             C. S.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[60] 'Nationalism in Music,' in 'The International,' Dec., 1913.

[61] H. E. Krehbiel, 'Afro-American Folksongs,' 1914.

[62] H. E. Krehbiel, _op. cit._

[63] Richard Wallaschek: 'Primitive Music,' London, 1893.

[64] 'Slave Songs of the United States,' New York, 1867.

[65] 'Ten Years in South Africa.'

[66] H. E. Krehbiel, _op. cit._

[67] In the collection entitled 'Jubilee and Plantation Songs' (Oliver
Ditson, 1887) the melody only is given. Mr. Krehbiel gives two
harmonizations, but it is a question whether they are satisfactory
reproductions of the 'native' spirit of the song. Mr. Henry F. Gilbert
has used it in his 'Negro Rhapsody' with most telling effect.

[68] For an example of a pentatonic melody we refer the reader to
'Nobody Knows de Trouble I've Seen'; for the major seventh in a minor
key (the use of the augmented second) to the 'Baptizing Hymn' ('Freely
Go') and 'Father Abraham' ('Tell It'). This peculiar oriental effect
may be, as Mr. Krehbiel thinks, due to a feeling that was natural to
the Moors, the Mohammedan negroes who made up a small part of the
American colored stock. A specimen of a song in the whole-tone scale
is 'O Rock Me, Julie,' in which the refrain is each time a fifth lower
than the verse.

[69] 'Slave Songs in the United States.'

[70] James Augustus Grant in 'A Walk Across Africa' says that his
people when cleaning rice were always followed by singers who
accompanied the workers with clapping of hands and stamping of feet.
'Whenever companies of negroes were working together in the cotton
fields and tobacco factories, on the levees and steamboats or sugar
plantations and chiefly in the fervor of religious gatherings, these
melodies sprang into life.' (Booker T. Washington, in preface to
Coleridge-Taylor's 'Twenty-four Negro Melodies.')

[71] Remnants of voodooism have survived in Louisiana to our day.
The language of the creole negro is a French _patois_. In his songs
this _patois_ is sometimes intermingled with strange words of African
origin. Some still have an African refrain, though the negroes no
longer understand its meaning. Lafcadio Hearn, upon asking the meaning
of the words of one of these songs of a negro woman in Louisiana,
received the answer: _Mais c'est Voudoo, ça; je n'en sais rien!_ With
the help of philological references Hearn actually traced the words to
Africa and made sense out of them in connection with their context.

[72] 'Century Magazine,' Aug., 1899.

[73] Mr. Allen says that the shout is not found in North Carolina and
Virginia, though Mr. Krehbiel knows of an example from Kentucky. Mr.
Allen says, however, that the term 'shouting' is used in Virginia in
reference to a peculiar motion of the body wholly unlike the Carolina
shouting.

[74] _La Musique ches les peuples indigènes de l'Amérique du Nord._

[75] _Musik, Tanz und Dichtung bei den Kreolen Amerikas._

[76] George W. Cable in 'Century Magazine.'

[77] White had a long and successful career as a minstrel and manager.
Extracts from his diary were printed in the New York _Sun_, April 20,
1902, shortly after his death.

[78] 'Zip Coon,' or 'Turkey in the Straw,' one of the liveliest of
American popular tunes, has also been attributed to George Washington
Dixon, who appeared on the stage as early as 1830 and sang to the
accompaniment of a banjo.

[79] 'Dixie' was a minstrel 'walk-around,' but it has become a
patriotic song and we shall speak of it as such later on.

[80] César Saerchinger: 'Stephen Foster and the American Folksong'
(_The International_, Feb., 1914).

[81] 'American History and Encyclopedia of Music.'

[82] Dr. Schuchburgh was a surgeon in the British army. He probably
wrote the satirical words of the song and adapted them to a familiar
tune.

[83] Oscar G. Sonneck: 'Reports on "Hail Columbia," "Yankee Doodle,"
etc.,' Library of Congress.

[84] _Cf._ Sonneck, _op. cit._, pp. 68-69.

[85] _Cf._ Chapter X, pp. 240 ff.




                              CHAPTER XII
              THE CLASSIC PERIOD OF AMERICAN COMPOSITION

      Pioneers in American composition: Fry, Emery,
      Gottschalk--The Boston group of 'classicists': Paine,
      Chadwick, Foote, Parker, etc.--Other exponents of the
      'classical': William Mason, Dudley Buck, Arthur Whiting,
      and others--The lyricists; Ethelbert Nevin; American song
      writers--Composers of church music.


                                   I

American musical composition lends itself to several kinds of
classification, according to the point from which it is viewed.
Historically, or, more properly speaking, chronologically, considered,
the entire output of American composers divides itself rather naturally
into two parts. The first comprises the works of those writers with
whom this chapter deals, and who have adopted the older models of the
classic and romantic schools. In the second group we find those writers
of a later generation who employ post-Wagner idioms. Some of these have
stopped at the Wagner boundaries, while others, naturally the younger
men, have pressed on and are following in the steps of the ultra-modern
German or French composers. In this classification, as in all artistic
comparisons, there can be drawn no sharp line of demarcation. We find
an occasional flash of modernity in a supposedly confirmed classicist,
while, on the other hand, among the more advanced and iconoclastic
of our modern writers we often find a remaining trace of a severer
classicism.

Outside of these two principal groups we see to-day a constantly
increasing number of composers who are making serious attempts to
weld from the several folk-song elements of this continent a truly
national music. It was Antonin Dvořák who first counselled the American
composer to thus employ the methods from which alone could be formed a
distinctive school. Dvořák himself, in setting the example, only proved
how deep-rooted are the traditions and feelings of the racial vein, and
placed our negro themes into a setting unmistakably Slavic. It must be
confessed that a similar result has been obtained by most of our native
composers and the surroundings in which they have set these various
folk-song elements only serve to emphasize the decided and almost
inevitable leanings of these composers toward one or another of the
prevailing European schools.

From an æsthetic standpoint our native art exhibits the varied
manifestations common to the art of all times, traits as varied as
those of human character itself. Broadly speaking, there are always the
large and the small, which in poetic forms we can conveniently label as
epic and lyric. Of the former there is no prodigality of output by any
age or people. There is always much of the spurious epic, and it must
be confessed that America, with its lack of national consciousness and
art discipline or tradition, together with its over-weening ambition,
has already produced its share of this form of insincere art. On the
contrary, the number of genuine lyrical writers which America can boast
is surprisingly large, and those names which stand out conspicuously
in the annals of American art may, almost without exception, be called
lyricists.

[Illustration: Early American Composers: Lowell Mason, William H. Fry,
                 Louis M. Gottschalk, Stephen Emery.]

The first creative activities in American music were those of the
psalm-tune writers in New England, William Billings, Oliver Holden,
Lowell Mason, and others which have been spoken of in our chapter
on the Beginnings of Musical Culture (pp. 45 ff.). Historically
these early hymns are interesting, and, had not European culture so
completely influenced the later course of American composition, it
is not unlikely that they might have served in some measure as a
contributory vein to our native art. They remain, however, but the
reflection of the colorless puritanism which was their source, a naïve
expression which can hardly be placed in the category of art and hence
as American compositions do not here claim our further notice.

While in the early years of New England there was developing a music
which, in a way, sprang from the people--a music which really expressed
a vital phase of the common life--there were elsewhere springing up
the first growths of a more sophisticated art. This art, borrowed
from European culture, has served as the real foundation of all
that is esoteric in American music to-day, but at the same time its
presence has fostered those influences which constitute the barrier
to a vital national expression. It is significant that these first
appearances of a more ambitious art were in a department where there
could be no nourishment from native roots of tradition, taste, or even
understanding--that of opera.

In spite of these circumstances, so discouraging to the healthy growth
of a natural art-expression, it must be related that the operas of
William H. Fry (born in Philadelphia, 1813; died 1864) were serious in
their aim and in their workmanship showed the hand of a surprisingly
skilled artist and one well versed in the older dramatic formulas. The
claim that Fry has to the title given him by certain writers as 'the
first American composer' is therefore considerable. Fry's training was
entirely European. He was for some time resident in Paris, where, we
are told, he was a friend of Berlioz. Of Fry's several operas 'Leonora'
(produced in 1845) seems to have been the most successful. The book
is after Victor Hugo's _Notre Dame de Paris_, and, while the score
represents merely (as do many more modern American operatic scores) a
strange mingling echo of the several European models of the day, there
are a vitality and a grasp of form which make the achievement in a
measure phenomenal.

Associated with Fry in his musical life was another pioneer of the
opera field, George F. Bristow (born in 1825; died in 1898), whose
scores, however, have less of dramatic freedom than have those of Fry,
being more strongly marked with the influences of German classicism.
Bristow's works include an opera, 'Rip Van Winkle,' an unfinished
opera, 'Columbus,' the oratorios 'Praise to God' and 'Daniel,' five
symphonies, two overtures, string quartets, and many shorter works.

Another name that finds place in the early annals of American music is
that of Stephen Emery (born 1841; died 1891), counted a composer in his
day but now known to us chiefly as one of America's first theoreticians
and the teacher of many whose names are now well known.

Larger is the place filled by the name of Gottschalk. Louis Moreau
Gottschalk may be claimed as an American, having been born at New
Orleans in 1829, but his decidedly Creole origin and French education
seem to remove him from the line of relationship with those Anglo-Saxon
traditions which we are apt to consider as constituting the purely
American.

Gottschalk enjoyed during his life equal fame as pianist and composer.
His claim to the former was probably just; Berlioz himself spoke with
enthusiasm of his playing and of our own artists we have the testimony
of many, such as William Mason, Carl Bergmann, and Richard Hoffman, as
to the genuine enjoyment which they obtained in hearing the concerts of
Gottschalk. But how evanescent has been the fame of his compositions,
existing only in the memory of comparatively few; as entities they
are already silent pages of notes. All that is heard of his music
to-day is an occasional faint tinkle of that surviving strain of
sentimentality which was destined to such continued popularity in the
polite répertoire, 'The Last Hope.' Gottschalk wrote two operas and
several orchestral scores and many songs, but his piano compositions
comprise the bulk of his works. While there are among these
compositions many pages of beauty not unlike that of Chopin, and in the
dance compositions on negro-creole and Spanish themes a certain vigor
and distinction, the majority of them represent the merest vehicles
of virtuosity written to tickle the ears of a public which had been
brought up on the banalities played by the sensational pianists that
visited America in those days. Over-sentimental, and at times vulgar,
as the art of Gottschalk now appears to us, his place in American music
is an important one and we cannot but feel that amid environments
more sustaining to a higher ideal of art such a genuinely musical
temperament as was his would have produced an art less ephemeral.


                                   II

These early apparitions of American musical art are now to us
only matters of history. Whatever influence they may have had on
the conditions of their day, our present day musical life has been
unaffected by them. For the establishment of that which, for lack of
better name, we call the American school of composers we again look
to New England. Through the few composers known as the Boston group
America first assimilated into its musical life the best traditions of
European musical culture and in the labors of these men the American
community was taught in some degree to look seriously upon the native
composer and his achievement.

First in this list is the name of the man who stands as the patriarch
of American music, John Knowles Paine, the first professor of music
at Harvard University and the pioneer in the field of symphonic
composition. Born in Portland, Maine, in 1839, Paine received a
thorough academic training in Germany (1858-1862). While still abroad
he produced several ambitious works and he returned to America with a
fame that eventually secured for him the chair of music at Harvard.
Here he filled an important mission in guiding the steps of many of
the younger composers who studied with him. In the meantime Paine's
academic life by no means stifled his creative impulse and his list of
works shows a steady output up to within a short time before his death
in 1906.

Important among Paine's larger works are the two symphonies, the
first in C minor and the second ('Spring Symphony') in A major, the
oratorio 'St. Peter,' two symphonic poems, 'The Tempest' and 'An
Island Fantasy,' the music to Sophocles' 'Œdipus' for male voices and
orchestra, and an opera, 'Azara.' Besides these there is a considerable
list of chamber music and much in the smaller forms.

Paine's music, while never approaching modernity in the present-day
application of the word, in passing through several periods of
development arrived at a point where the idiom employed could in a
broad sense be termed modern. An anti-Wagnerite in the early days of
his academic austerity, he lived to be drawn into the Wagner vortex
and in some of his later works the Wagner influence asserts itself.
Perhaps the most representative of Paine's works is one which belongs
to an earlier period, the music to _Œdipus Tyrannus_ (1881). In this
work Paine uses a classic-romantic medium far from rich in its color
possibilities, with which, however, he obtains a notable variety of
effect and a glowing warmth of style. In size of conception the summit
of Paine's achievement is to be found in his opera _Azara_ (1901)
composed to a libretto of his own after the old Breton legend 'Aucassin
and Nicolette.' Containing much that is beautiful, and estimable in its
workmanship, the opera fails in dramatic force and has never come to a
stage production. A concert performance of it was given, however, in
1906 by the Cecilia Society of Boston under the direction of B. J. Lang.

The most representative member of the present Boston colony, as well
as one of the most eminent of American composers, is George W. Chadwick
(born 1854). Mr. Chadwick's education also was a German one and on
his return to America after three years' study in Leipzig and Munich
he began to produce works of a scholarly formality. Had the course
of Mr. Chadwick's development been arrested at this point he might
fittingly bear the title of 'academic' which Mr. Rupert Hughes puts on
him.[86] But between the date of these earlier works and Chadwick's
latest works there has been in his art a steady development both in
form and spirit, so that his recent scores, 'Adonis' (1901), 'Euterpe'
(1904), 'Cleopatra' (1906), and 'Aphrodite' (1912), are distinctly
representative of the modern school. These works, while purporting
to be program music, are only qualifiedly so, for Chadwick always
preserves a certain severe formalism which precludes the possibilities
of his capitulation either to the impressionist vagaries of modern
French music or to the polyphonic complexities of the Germans of
to-day. In spite of this tendency to formality, Mr. Chadwick in his
writing has achieved a notable freedom of style, a dramatic force and
a mastery of orchestral color which contribute to give him a certain
place among living orchestral composers. Mr. Chadwick enjoys the
largest hearing of living American composers.

His name has been permanent in the lists of the Boston Symphony, while
he has had frequent hearings in the other orchestras of America and
Europe. Mr. Chadwick is also without question the best equipped and
experienced of our native conductors, having been for many years the
director of the Springfield and Worcester festivals.

Besides his orchestral works, Chadwick has shown himself a versatile
and prolific composer in a great amount of chamber music, a large
number of choral works, a comic opera, many songs, choruses, and piano
compositions. Unlike the lyric genius of MacDowell, his talent does not
find itself so fitted to the smaller forms and he seems often to slight
them with an expression more or less banal in its conventionality. It
must be added, however, that there are exceptions to this and one might
cite the 'Ballad of Trees and the Master' as being one of Chadwick's
best inspirations.

Mr. Arthur Foote has long been acknowledged in Europe as one of the
foremost American composers. In his own country his influence has
been as widely felt as that of any of his countrymen. Not only by
his compositions but by his teaching as well, his name has become
pre-eminent. Graduated from Harvard in 1874, he was granted the degree
of A. M. in music the following year. His teachers in composition
were Stephen A. Emery and Professor John Knowles Paine of Harvard.
Furthermore, he studied the piano and the organ with B. J. Lang of
Boston. All his training was received in this country, and the results
of it may well be a source of pride to his countrymen.

Entering upon his career at a time when the standard of musical
performance in this country was low, he was quick to respond to the
influence of Theodore Thomas, and later Franz Kneisel, and to exert his
efforts in raising the state of performance here toward its present
equality with that of Europe. He was no less quick to study and to
appreciate the great works pouring out upon Europe at that time. He
has always kept in closest touch with the development of all branches
of music down to the present, and has ever been active in bringing new
works before the public.

As a composer he has written in nearly all forms except the opera.
Many of his songs have achieved a world-wide fame, such as the 'Irish
Folk-song,' 'I'm Wearing Awa' to the Land o' the Leal' and the
brilliant Bedouin song for chorus of men's voices. These songs should
not be taken as the complete expression of his genius, but should lead
to the study of his other songs, more than a hundred in all, which
are not less inspired because more difficult. A keen insight into the
possibilities of the voice, a touch of lyric genius, and an unfailing
ingenuity in accompaniments are their distinguishing characteristics.

In the treatment of string instruments Foote has been remarkably
successful. Two trios, two quartets and a very fine piano quintet in
A minor are conspicuous in the list of American music. The quintet
has been and still is distinguished by many performances. Through
the strings he approached the orchestra. A serenade in E for string
orchestra has been frequently heard. Two suites for full orchestra, one
in D minor and one in E, and a symphonic prologue, Francesca da Rimini,
have proved his skill in combining instruments. Very recently he has
written a series of pieces suggested by the Rubaîyat of Omar Khayyâm,
which are far more brilliantly scored and are quite in keeping with the
modern spirit of splendid tone color.

As organist for many years at the First Unitarian Church in Boston he
acquired that intimate familiarity with the possibilities of the organ
which shows in the many pieces he has written for it. But particularly
as a pianist he won a wide fame, and the more than ten series of
pianoforte pieces are written with an appreciation of pianistic effect
which distinguishes them in the main from nearly all other pianoforte
music produced in this country. Nor should the skill he has shown
in editing the pianoforte works of many of the great masters pass
unnoticed.

Of his compositions as a whole it may be said that they are
astonishingly original in an age which has found it all but impossible
to escape imitation. He is, like most of the great composers, largely
self-taught, and yet there is scarcely a trace of mannerisms; nor what
is even more remarkable, of the mannerisms of others. His music is the
pure and perfectly formed expression of a nature at once refined and
imaginative. In these days of startling innovations, the sincerity
of which may not be unhesitatingly trusted, it sounds none the less
spirited because it is unquestionably genuine and relatively simple. It
stands forth as a substantial proof that delicate poetry and clear-cut
workmanship have not yet failed to charm.

Although he has lived at New Haven for the past twenty years,
during which time he has been professor of music at Yale, Horatio
Parker's career is in a large measure identified with Boston and its
circles. Parker was born (1863) at Auburndale, a suburb of Boston,
and his earliest teachers were Stephen Emery and Chadwick. After his
preliminary studies with these men Parker studied with Rheinberger
in Munich. Returning home in 1885, he soon began to attract notice
by the excellence of his compositions and to-day he stands as one of
the commanding figures in American music. His compositions have won a
dignified place for themselves and his conscientious labors at Yale
have created a music department that far excels those of the other
American universities in the practical advantages which it offers to
the serious music student.

The list of Parker's works is long and varied. It contains, besides
his two most famous works (the oratorio _Hora Novissima_ and the opera
'Mona'), several orchestral scores, among others an overture (in E
flat), a symphony, and 'A Northern Ballad.' There are also several
shorter choral works, a few chamber music works, including a string
quartet, a string quintet, and a suite for piano, violin and 'cello,
besides many songs and piano pieces.

The same qualities of Parker's art which contribute to the success of
_Hora Novissima_, the first work to bring him fame, are those which
operate against the success of his latest and largest effort, the
opera 'Mona.' The former offered to the composer the most suitable
field for his scholarly but somewhat ascetic conceptions and by this
same self-contained and poised loftiness of style, together with a
rare skill in handling vocal masses in contrapuntal design, does he
achieve in _Hora Novissima_ a work of genuine strength and a valuable
addition to the list of modern oratorios. The work, written in 1893 for
the Church Choral Society of New York, received its first performance
by that body. Performances by several other choral societies and at
several musical festivals in America rapidly followed, and in 1899
it had the honor of being the first American work to appear upon the
program of the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, England, at which
performance the composer conducted. Since that time it has assumed its
place among the standard choral works of our day.

Parker's opera, 'Mona,' was awarded the prize offered by the
Metropolitan Opera Company in 1911 in a contest of American composers.
Its score reveals an enormous advance in the composer's mastery of
resource, both as regards dramatic expression and orchestral color.
There are an admirable freedom of line and sustained polyphonic
interest, while the skill with which the orchestral color is
distributed exhibits Parker's strongest feature. In spite of these
merits the almost unanimous opinion of the music critics must be
admitted, in a degree, as just. The opera, upon its production at
the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in 1911-12, was found to be
lacking in a really convincing musical grip, due to the absence of an
underlying emotional warmth and to the essentially unmelodic treatment
of the solo voices. The choruses and mass effects proved the best
features of the opera, again showing that Mr. Parker's first successes
were in a field more suited to his talents than the domain of dramatic
music. Another opera, 'Fairyland,' won another prize of ten thousand
dollars in 1915.

Mrs. H. H. A. Beach stands quite in a class by herself as the only
American woman who has essayed compositions in the larger form. Her
success entitles her to a prominent place among the most serious of
American composers. Her 'Gaelic Symphony' and her sonata for violin and
piano are two long successful works, while recently she has had a most
cordial and flattering reception in Europe for her piano concerto in
which she herself played the solo part. Besides these works Mrs. Beach
has written a _Jubilate_ for chorus with orchestra, and a quantity of
piano music and songs, of which some of the latter have achieved a wide
popularity.

Mrs. Beach at her best writes in a broad and bold vein with a pulsing
rhythmical sense, a natural melodic line, and she exhibits an
extraordinary strength in the sustained and impassioned quality of
her climaxes. On the other side, Mrs. Beach may be accused of having
a harmonic sense rather too persistently conventional and in her less
inspired moments her fault is that which Mr. Hughes[87] has pointed
out, namely, a tendency to over-elaboration.

There are several other composers whose labors are identified with
the musical life of Boston, although in some instances they have not
been continuously resident there. Louis Adolphe Coerne received his
early training at Harvard under Prof. Paine and was later awarded a
doctor's degree in philosophy by the same university for his excellent
book 'The Development of the Modern Orchestra.' Coerne's achievement
in composition has been considerable; he is the author of two operas,
one of which has been successfully performed in Germany. Other works
include a symphonic poem on 'Hiawatha' and a ballet, 'Evadne.'

James C. D. Parker is one of the names associated with the older days
of Boston's musical growth, for Mr. Parker graduated from Harvard in
1848 and his 'Redemption Hymn' was performed by the Handel and Haydn
Society in 1877. He is best known by several melodious songs and by his
church music.

George Whiting and George W. Marston are names which perhaps belong
more properly in the list of church composers, as they were both
closely identified with that field. The former, however, has written
several works of large dimension, notably a cantata, 'The Golden
Legend,' which has been much praised, while Mr. Marston's name is known
outside of church circles by a surprisingly long list of songs, which,
though slight in construction, are not without imaginative qualities.

Although not attaining to such a mastery of the more amplified forms
as does Mrs. Beach, Margaret Ruthven Lang has made several successful
essays in the form of orchestral overtures, which have been played.
Miss Lang's best-known works, however, are her songs, the widespread
popularity of certain ones of which has given her a real and lasting
fame as a song writer.


                                   III

In grouping the foregoing names and labelling them as the 'Boston
group' it must not be understood to imply that the art of these writers
forms a school in the sense of its having a common distinctive idiom or
style. The group marks in some of its members, as has been said before,
an early era of American composition. The fact that Boston became the
birthplace of America's first serious musical art was probably due to
the presence there of the largest and best permanent orchestra, to the
establishment of the first university department of music (at Harvard),
and doubtless also in no small degree to the general intellectual life
of the New England metropolis.

Generally speaking, however, locality plays but a small part in
marking the traits of our native composers. As in all places and at
all times, opportunity to hear and to be heard has drawn the best
talent to the larger centres. The musical life of New York, as well as
that of Chicago, while differing in many essential features from that
of Boston, discloses many similar phases of artistic endeavor as we
compare the contemporaneous musical life of these cities.

Among the names of those who were the pioneers in the musical
culture of New York none is better known than that of William Mason,
the first of America's great pianists, who in his earlier life did
valiant service in America for the cause of Schumann and Brahms and
whose entire life represents one of the highest and most effective of
America's cultural influences. Dr. Mason was a son of Lowell Mason
(q. v.) and was born in 1829. He spent the years from 1849 to 1854
in Europe, where he was one of the intimate circle of pupils which
surrounded Liszt at Weimar.

Dr. Mason's place as a composer is not a large one. His list of works
is represented almost exclusively by piano compositions, of which he
wrote about forty. They are all in the smaller mold, and, while they
are rather stereotyped and conventional in their lines, they have found
a place in the pianistic répertoire as grateful and pleasing pieces of
piano music.

The composer of church music has had a large place in the field of
American composition. The impetus given to this branch of art by the
New England 'psalm-tune teachers' was a strong one and it is but a
natural consequence of their labors that to-day the church commands
the services of so many of our writers. We shall consider the church
composers and their works in subsequent paragraphs of this chapter, but
the name of the Nestor of anthem writers--Dudley Buck--deserves mention
in this place as being one of the first workers in the general musical
service of earlier days in New York. Moreover, while the present
fame of Buck rests largely upon his church music and upon one or two
deservedly popular songs, he must not be overlooked as one of the first
composers in America to essay the larger forms of cantata and oratorio.

Buck was born in Hartford in 1839. He studied at Paris and at Dresden
for two years. Returning to America, he pursued his career first in
his native city, later at Chicago and Boston, finally settling in 1875
at New York, where he passed the remainder of his life. Apart from
the large mass of church music, more largely representative of his
real mission than any other of his compositions, the list of Buck's
works includes a symphonic overture 'Marion,' a comic opera 'Deseret,'
besides a list of something like eighteen cantatas, the most ambitious
of which is 'The Light of Asia.'

Buck's style never achieved a distinctive vein, nor is it ever marked
with a loftiness of conception, but instead there are, in the best of
his pages, a Mendelssohnian fluency of writing and a natural melodic
line which have gained for his works the favor of a large public.

One of the first native composers to receive serious recognition
in Chicago was Silas G. Pratt, a musician who seems to have had a
Wagner-like genius for self-exploitation, but whose brilliant career
must be said to have been incommensurate with the real value of his
works. Pratt was born in 1846 and as early as 1872 gave a concert of
his own works in Chicago. Several years later he produced some of
his larger works at concerts in Germany and England, and in 1885 his
oratorio, 'The Prodigal Son,' and an anniversary overture were given in
London. His opera 'Zenobia' had meanwhile (1882) been given in Chicago.
Besides these works Pratt wrote two symphonies, a symphonic suite, and
several works which are evidently an effort toward a national music,
at least such is the implication of their titles and programs. One
of these represents a battle of the Civil War, another depicts the
incidents of Paul Revere's ride, while a third bears the impressive
title 'The Battle of Manila.'

Another potent activity in the earlier days of Chicago's musical
life was that of Frederic Grant Gleason (born in 1848), who has to
his credit an imposing list of large works, including two operas,
'Montezuma' and _Otho Visconte_, a symphonic poem, 'Edris,' several
cantatas, and many smaller works. Gleason was highly esteemed by
Theodore Thomas, who produced many of his works in the Chicago concerts
of the Thomas Orchestra.

Henry Schoenefeld was one of the first Americans to follow Dvořák's
suggestion in adopting native folk-song as thematic material.
Schoenefeld was born in Milwaukee in 1857 and on his return from Europe
in 1879 took up his residence in Chicago. Not unlike his are the
talents and aims of Maurice Arnold, another of the first to exploit the
negro themes, which he successfully incorporated into a violin sonata
and a series of 'Plantation Dances.' Both will receive more extended
notice in a later chapter.

As against these early efforts at instilling negro flavor into our
national music may be noted one of the first attempts at utilizing
Indian music as a thematic basis. This was done by Frederick R. Burton
in his cantata 'Hiawatha' (1898). Besides this, the most successful
of his works, Burton wrote a cantata, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,'
and the last years of his life were devoted to writing one of the most
important contributions to the literature of American folk-music, a
book on Indian music entitled 'American Primitive Music,' which was
published in 1909, after Mr. Burton's death.

New York is often accused of being peculiarly non-representative
of typical American life. The accusation is, in a measure, just
and holds good in its application to musical conditions. As the
metropolis, where, without doubt, more music than anywhere else in the
country is heard, New York lacks a local life of its own; there is
no feeling of neighborly companionship among its art workers, and in
consequence there hardly exists that which we could term a New York
'group' of composers in the sense to which the term is applied to
Boston's community of music-makers. New York claims as citizens many
of America's best known composers, but they figure too little in the
musical life of the city and are the objects of too little local pride.

An exception to this, however, is found in the case of Arthur
Whiting, whose concerts bring him often into public view and whose
local reputation as a pianist is undoubtedly far greater than his
recognition as a composer. Deserving of the latter, however--and
that by reason of a very serious and notable achievement in creative
fields--Arthur Whiting must be counted as one of the real ornaments of
America's list of composers. Mr. Whiting's well-known Brahms enthusiasm
and his activities as a producer of Brahms' works bring upon him
the suspicion of being a thorough-going Brahmsite, even in his own
compositions; a suspicion, however, not well founded, for Mr. Whiting
is quite free from the Brahms influence. That he is ofttimes prone to
intellectuality, and too rarely gives himself up to the spontaneous
and expressively beautiful, is perhaps a more just accusation, but the
statement that Mr. Whiting is an artist of deep sincerity, of high
ideals, and of thorough equipment must remain unchallenged.

Mr. Whiting's recent work has been almost exclusively in the smaller
forms. He has, however, in the past written several larger works, the
best known of which is his Fantasie for piano and orchestra. This
work, recently revived at a concert given by the American Academy,
has a rhythmic energy that makes it 'American' in the best sense--a
genuine and spontaneous expression of the national nervously intense
temperament. For the most part, however, the orchestra has seemed to
have but small inspiration to offer to him and his sober formal sense
and his own distinctions of style lead him more naturally to the piano,
the vocal quartet, and to other chamber music combinations as his
medium of expression.

Henry Holden Huss is principally known through his successful handling
of the larger forms and he can point with just pride to the real
success which has been that of his piano concerto in D minor, his
violin concerto, and his sonata for violin and piano. These, as well as
a sonata for violoncello and piano, have all found acceptance with a
number of the best living interpretive musicians, who have given Huss a
very wide hearing.

Mr. Huss acknowledges himself a thorough-going Wagnerite and confesses
to coming largely under the influence of his works, but the bulk of
his writings shows other influences, notably in the strong sense of
the classic cyclical form, which Mr. Huss handles with an excellent
mastery and in which he proves himself an artist of great resource
and equipment. Another favorite form with Huss is the extended aria
with orchestra, and in this form he has written several of his best
works. Among these may be mentioned 'Cleopatra's Death' for soprano,
'Nocturne' for the same voice, 'The Seven Ages of Man' for baritone,
'Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead' for alto, and 'After Sorrow's
Night' for soprano. In the last-named work Mr. Huss has employed
a harmonic scheme which in its modern freedom represents his most
advanced development.


                                   IV

At the head of the list of America's lyricists there stands a name
perhaps more illustrious than any other which she boasts--that of
Ethelbert Nevin. To speak critically of the art of Nevin is a delicate
and a difficult task. Its nature does not invite critical examination
or demand extended analysis. Nevin's music, in its absence of decided
intellectual qualities, presents no striking originalities of style,
but remains throughout the simply spontaneous and unaffected utterance
of a real and deeply musical nature. It possesses, nevertheless,
a strongly individual style (often becoming, we must confess, a
mannerism) and an irresistible charm. Moreover, the wide appeal
which it has made must be sufficient proof of the real vitality that
underlies the seemingly slight psysiognomy of this delicate lyricism.
To the aspiring mind, in the presence of an expression so genuine,
there must come a strong regret that with such poetical tenderness and
grace there should not have been a vein of greater virility to have
sounded a deeper note; one that would have played a more important
part in the upbuilding of our national art. Despite the fact that
the natural flow of Nevin's lyricism beguiled him continually along
the lines of least resistance, his life's record was that of a very
hard-working and conscientious artist.

Nevin was born near Pittsburgh in 1862. He had the advantage of early
musical studies at home and abroad during a European sojourn of his
family and he commenced his professional studies in 1881 under B. J.
Lang and Stephen Emery in Boston. In 1884 he went to Berlin, where he
worked diligently at his piano studies under Karl Klindworth. Returning
home, two years later, he settled at Boston and taught, concertized,
and followed more zealously his increasing inclination for composition.
In 1891, after the publication of some of the songs and piano pieces
which have since become so generally popular, Nevin's fame rapidly
increased and he was able to indulge his taste for the roving life
which he followed during the last ten years of his life, living at
Paris, Berlin, Florence, Algiers, and elsewhere, with intervening
visits to America, where he was heard in concerts of his own works. In
the fall of 1900 Nevin settled at New Haven, where he died suddenly in
February, 1901.

The list of Nevin's works comprises almost exclusively short songs
and piano compositions. Exceptions to this are several choruses, two
pieces for violin and piano, and a posthumously published cantata. That
Nevin had larger ambitions in his later life is shown from certain of
his letters and the sketches of larger works which he left unfinished.
But as the result of his early habits of composition, of the too easy
flow of his melody, and perhaps also of his too early successes he
was kept within the confines of those miniature and delicate forms
which he made his own domain. The characteristics of Nevin's music,
as displayed in these works, are, first, a melodic sense which,
though lacking in variety because of decided mannerisms that control
it, is full of graceful charm and genuine lyrical quality; second, a
harmonic sense ever more limited in its scope but of natural and moving
expressiveness. Into the naïve fabric of this the composer contrived
to instil a flavor which, if not decidedly original, had a strongly
individual feeling.

The first of Nevin's works to reach any popularity was 'A Sketch Book,'
published in 1888. Several of its numbers are still reckoned among the
most popular of Nevin's works. This was followed by several similar
albums of songs and piano pieces until 1891, when, in a book of piano
pieces entitled 'Water Scenes,' he published what was to be a piece of
world-wide popularity, 'Narcissus.' 'A Book of Songs' (1893) contains
the best of Nevin's vocal works. Regarded as a whole, they lack a
uniformity of style and despite Mr. Thompson's assertion[88] that
Nevin felt but slightly the influences of other composers, these songs
show decided traces of the stamp which the study of other writers put
upon his work. Chopin is perhaps the prevailing influence that shows
itself. Some of the songs of this group mark Nevin's nearest approach
to a dramatic style. In parts of number seven of this group, entitled
Nocturne, there is a considerable sweep of fiery strength, and the two
entitled 'Orsola's Song' and 'In the Night' exhibit a virile content
rarely present in Nevin's work. We need not speak of the more popular
songs of Nevin, such as 'The Rosary,' 'Little Boy Blue,' ''Twas April,'
and 'Mighty Lak' a Rose.' Their appeal lies largely in the sentimental
though genuinely tender and deep touch of pathos which they contain.

Nevin's piano works are distinctly Chopinesque.

Suave and elegant figures, grateful to the player, abound in these
works and show the hand of the skillful pianist that Nevin was. Some of
these piano pieces have become quite as popular as have the songs, and
the collections entitled 'In Arcady' and 'A Day in Venice' have been
placed in the household répertoire.

Ethelbert Nevin made no claims for his art. Almost unconscious of the
larger world of a more universal expression, which the past and present
might have offered to him, he created his own limited world and lived
therein. We shall mistake, however, if we judge too slightingly of this
world as the dilettante expression of a mere _précieux_. Something
there is of genius in a man who can speak to so many. Ethelbert Nevin
was an ornament to American music and the fame of his works will
outlive the bulk of our more esoteric art.

                   *       *       *       *       *

It is difficult to find a fitting name to follow that of Nevin.
While we have had writers in the smaller forms who equalled and even
surpassed Nevin in dramatic force, or in subtleties of construction,
the remainder of our purely lyrical writers, it must be said, are
on a considerably lower plane and there is lacking in the work of
most of them the elegance and fastidiousness which bring these small
works within the pale of art. The status of many American songs
is--unfortunately with truth--described in Grove's Dictionary (Vol. IV,
'Song'), where it is said: 'Many other American composers whose songs,
whilst enjoying a great popularity, descend almost to the lowest level
of vocal music.'

                    [Illustration: Ethelbert Nevin]
                    _After a photograph from life_

There are, however, a good many men whose works are saved from
this condemnation. Notable among these is Wilson G. Smith (born in
1855), whose songs and piano contributions, while they must perhaps be
designated as salon pieces, possess, nevertheless, a genuine charm.
Many of Smith's piano pieces are an intentional imitation of other
composers, in which field he is particularly happy. Of his songs there
are a number which have been much sung. Rupert Hughes, with a just
critical sense, not always his, points out the excellence of Smith's
song 'If I but Knew,' as especially notable.

Certain of Reginald de Koven's songs rival in popularity the light
operas of that composer (see Chap. XV). After many years of use 'O
Promise Me' still retains its place in the popular affections, as
was demonstrated in the repeated encores demanded for it when it was
interpolated in a recent revival of 'Robin Hood.' De Koven's lyricism,
however, is of the lightest order and his failure to strike a deeper
vein is well attested in the empty pomposity of his setting of
Kipling's 'Recessional.'

A composer to whose songs Henry T. Finck in his 'Songs and Song
Writers' gives a special place is Clayton Johns, of Boston (born 1857),
who was a pupil of Paine and later studied two years at Berlin. Johns'
songs number about one hundred. Mr. Finck finds in them a Franz-like
quality and attributes their popularity to a simplicity without
emptiness. Besides songs, Mr. Johns has written a few choruses and two
pieces for string orchestra.

Frederick Field Bullard is another composer who wisely realized the
natural limitations of his muse and devoted himself almost exclusively
to song writing. His most successful song was his stirring and widely
popular 'Stein Song,' which by its frequent use on all sorts of
occasions has attached to itself somewhat the importance of a national
song. Bullard's larger ambitions found expression in the ballad form,
which he chose for a setting of Tennyson's melodrama 'The Sisters.'

W. H. Neidlinger (born in 1863) was a pupil of Dudley Buck. His
long list of compositions comprises almost exclusively songs. The
instinctive naïveté of Mr. Neidlinger's style has contributed to his
success in a number of children's songs.

Of a larger mold and a more intensive beauty is the lyricism of Marcus
Carroll, a composer Irish born but whose entire musical life has been
spent in, and belongs to, America. Mr. Carroll's works include several
short pieces for orchestra. There is an 'Intermezzo' of melodic and
colorful beauty which was played by Anton Seidl, while a 'Dance of the
Gnomes' and a 'Valse' have been often heard at the 'pop' concerts in
Boston. Besides these there is a 'Romance' for 'cello and orchestra and
some part-songs of which the charming cycle of songs for women's voices
from Stevenson's 'Child's Garden of Verses,' entitled 'A Child's Day,'
have been much sung. Mr. Carroll shows himself in these works to be a
most gifted melodist. His style is sincere, straightforward, at times
conventional, but there are a warmth of feeling and an abundance of
color, grace, and vitality which render his work notably successful.

Another foreign-born composer who must be counted in the list of
Americans is Edward Manning. Mr. Manning was born in Canada, but came
early in life to New York where he studied with MacDowell. The greater
part of Mr. Manning's compositions are songs, although there has lately
come from his pen a trio for strings and piano which must take rank
with the very best of American chamber music. Another larger work of
Manning's is an aria, 'The Tryst,' for soprano and orchestra, which has
been sung by Louise Homer. Manning has the essential and rare equipment
of the real composer, the melodic gift. There is a strong Grieg flavor
in his melodies and often in his harmonic treatment of them, but later
songs show a tendency to a more advanced modernity.

Frank LaForge follows narrowly the path of the German _lied_
composers. With no decided originalities, Mr. LaForge has written many
highly artistic songs which often find place in song recital programs,
especially in those of Mme. Gadski.

The name of Charles B. Hawley is one that for many years has figured
largely on American singers' programs. Mr. Hawley has a true melodic
vein which runs freely through a large number of songs. His harmonic
treatment is, on the other hand, of the most conventional and there
is nothing in his works to court criticism of an intimate order. Mr.
Hawley in these characteristics stands as typical of quite a large
group of American song writers. These composers write fluently,
melodically, gracefully, and occasionally attain to a commanding
lyrical eloquence, but for the greater part their work lacks
distinction and flavor. Always too conventional, sometimes to a point
of banality, it cannot contribute much to the upbuilding of a serious
art in this country. The group thus described contains such writers as
Victor Harris, C. W. Coombs, R. Huntington Woodman, Charles Gilbert
Spross, James H. Rogers, Bruno Huhn, James W. Metcalfe, Ward Stephens,
William G. Hammond, Franklin Riker, Oley Speaks, Jessie Gaynor, and
Edna R. Parks.


                                  V

America's contribution to church music has been large and varied.
As chamber music seems to serve as the practice field for German
composers, so does church music apparently occupy the less aspiring
or intense moments of most of our writers. Composers of all classes
and leanings have offered their share to the constantly increasing
list of anthems and services to be found in the catalogues of our
publishers and there seems to be, moreover, a legion whose entire
efforts are in this field. As a whole this music may be classified like
the music of other departments: a comparatively small percentage of it
is good, much is mediocre, while the vast balance is worthless. The
meritorious section of this work subdivides itself into several kinds
of excellence. We have among our church musicians a certain few who
write the sober and so-called ecclesiastical style which the canons
of the English schools have laid down as being the fitting adjunct of
the church's service, while, again, particularly in America, a large
amount of church music is couched in an idiom somewhat more secular in
tone, in which a more popular melodic treatment lends so-called 'human
interest' to the work. To the more ascetic this form of writing is the
bane of church music. Gounod is perhaps the instigator of this practice
of importing into the church the profane sensuousness of a more worldly
art. Despite a strong note of reactionary protest, he has had many
imitators both in England and America, and the 'operatic' anthem has
become a standard form. Of these two classes of church music, namely,
the essentially sacred and that more secularly tinged, it is the latter
that is abused in American church music. Whereas in England the great
respect for tradition keeps most of her church composers within the
narrow paths of ecclesiastical austerity--where, it must be said, they
often become contrapuntally arid or musty--the American anthem writer
too often sins on the other side and has a strong tendency to become
sentimentally maudlin in accepting as a working rule Voltaire's keen
definition of church music as 'the pursuit of sensuous pleasure in the
duties of a cult established to combat such a pursuit.'

Many of the composers whose works have been the subject of the
foregoing pages have written for the church, and in some cases their
church music represents an important phase of their work. We have
already spoken of Mr. Buck's importance as a church composer; other
earlier composers whose church music was important are G. W. Marston,
who wrote many anthems and sacred songs; W. W. Gilchrist, whose list of
anthems and church cantatas is a long one; C. C. Converse, who, besides
essaying a vast deal of serious music in a larger way, found his best
success in several well-known hymns. Richard Henry Warren, Remington R.
Fairlamb, and Smith N. Penfield are also names that have figured in the
recent decades of ecclesiastical composition.

Horatio Parker, whose works we have already reviewed, is at present
the most representative church composer in America. Parker has devoted
some of his best inspirations to the church and has written many fine
anthems and services, while his stirring hymn-tunes, with their modern
harmonies, mark a real stage of evolution in that restricted field.
Foote and Chadwick have both done much in church music; there is,
however, a neutral quality about their anthems and they possess neither
the distinctive qualities of the purely ecclesiastical style nor that
of the popular anthem. Arthur Whiting has written comparatively little
church music but the few things that he has done are among the best of
all American church music. There is a feeling of great strength and
solidity in Mr. Whiting's vocal writing and his style is always pure.
The other church composers who generally follow the more severe style
are mostly members of America's English colony of organists, true to
the tradition of their training: Will C. Macfarlane, Clement R. Gale,
T. Tertius Noble, are to be named as some of the best known of these
writers.

It is most fortunate that the more popular style of anthem has
one exponent who brings to it not only its essential elements of
popularity, but who is able to add as well those sterling qualities
of intrinsic musical worth which place his anthems in a unique class.
This writer is Harry Rowe Shelley. Shelley was born in 1858. His first
studies were under Dudley Buck and he later studied with Dvořák in
Europe. His list of about fifty anthems are deservedly the most popular
of native works used in American churches to-day, and his sacred songs
are also a most serviceable addition to the church répertoire. It must
be added that, although Mr. Shelley has found his truest mission in
church music, he has had larger ambitions which he has not entirely
failed in fulfilling, and the list of his works includes an opera,
'Leila,' a symphonic poem, 'The Crusaders,' a dramatic overture,
_Francesca da Rimini_, an oratorio, 'The Inheritance Divine,' a suite
for orchestra, a fantasia for piano and orchestra, piano pieces and
songs.

Among those whose work follows lines similar to that of Shelley is P.
J. Schnecker, whose numerous anthems possess somewhat the physiognomy
of Shelley's works, but are without their genuine musical qualities.
John Hyatt Brewer has written church music of considerable distinction
as well as several cantatas both sacred and secular. Brewer was a pupil
of Buck and was born in 1856. Sumner Salter, Gerrit Smith, Louis R.
Dressler, Frank N. Shepherd, Fred Schelling, are other names familiar
to the choir loft. Important among church compositions are the works of
Eduardo Marzo. Mr. Marzo's work is mostly for the Catholic service and,
thus restricted in its use, it has not come to the general notice which
it would otherwise have reached.

In concluding, we add a few names of those who, among the younger men,
are producing church music of a freshness and vigor which promises
well for a renaissance of sacred music that shall happily combine
the dignity of the older schools with the more vital utterance of a
contemporaneous expression. Frank E. Ward, whose secular compositions
find mention in another chapter of this volume, has written many good
anthems and two sacred cantatas. Philip James is the author of some
strikingly good church music, while Mark Andrews, Clifford Demarest,
Caryl Florio, and W. Berwald are well-known and esteemed names to those
who follow the lists of standard church music.

                                                               B. L.


                              FOOTNOTES:

[86] 'Contemporary American Composers,' 1900.

[87] _Op. cit._

[88] Vance Thompson: 'The Life of Ethelbert Nevin,' Boston, 1914.




                             CHAPTER XIII
                   ROMANTICISTS AND NEO-CLASSICISTS

      Influences and conditions of the period--Edward
      MacDowell--Edgar Stillman Kelley--Arne Oldberg; Henry
      Hadley; F. S. Converse--E. R. Kroeger; Rubin Goldmark;
      Brockway; H. N. Bartlett; R. G. Cole--Daniel Gregory
      Mason; David Stanley Smith; Edward Burlingame Hill--Philip
      G. Clapp; John Beach; Arthur Bergh; Joseph Henius; F. E.
      Ward; Carl Busch; Walter Damrosch--The San Francisco Group;
      Miscellany--Women Composers.


Between the founders of musical composition in America, who felt
chiefly the influence of that musical world of which Beethoven was
the great central figure, and those who have looked to aboriginal and
other native sources for inspiration on the one hand, or European
ultra-modern tendencies on the other, there exists a large and
important group of American composers whose artistic origin is to be
associated with the so-called 'romantic' school, of which Schumann
is the generally accepted protagonist. Proudly as the dramatic phase
of the romantic movement shone forth at the same time in the genius
of Richard Wagner, it was left with the non-dramatic wing of the
romantic school to establish the ideals which should dominate and
direct the romantic movement which was subsequently to arise in
America. There are a number of reasons why this should have been the
case, as there are also reasons to believe that the full influence of
Wagner's ideas has not yet been felt in America. In the first place,
it was during the epoch of the romantic movement that the German
musician and music teacher first began to look to the new world as a
field for the broad extension of his labors. Every city and town of
America came to have its German music teachers; they were accepted
everywhere as representatives of the highest musical civilization of
the world, and it is, in fact, to this early German musical emigration
that the substantial foundations of our American musical education
are due. As qualifying factors, however, in the influence which he
was to exert upon the future, there were two facts in general which
characterized him: his profession, which was usually that of pianist
and piano teacher, and his anathematization of Wagner. While Beethoven
was his musical god, in his capacity of pianist he also spread the
influence of that side of the romantic movement which perpetuated, and
developed, the tradition of piano music. Thus Schumann and Chopin, and
their contemporaries, came to a measurable fullness of appreciation
in America at a time when Wagner was held to be a mad and dangerous
musical anarchist.

Quite aside from this group of circumstances, it was also true that
nothing could be more remote from the American civilization of the time
than the possibility of any semblance of the realization of Wagner's
ideals. Opera was the most fitful and exotic of institutions, and the
theatre in general, except for such occasional meteoric apparitions
as Edwin Booth, was in a condition of the greatest crudity, as well
as being under the ban of a puritanism which, fortunately, in these
latter days, is beginning somewhat to relax its tenacity. Because
of the unripeness of American life for a creative art of music, the
influence of the early German invasion did not produce many composers.
It had, however, implanted ideals which were to assume the greatest
importance in the future. When the overwhelming Wagnerian flood at
last arrived, in the splendid productions of the music-dramas under
the direction of Seidl and the Damrosches, it found the ideals of
the classical and romantic schools already well implanted; more than
that, it found a rapidly increasing group of young composers who had
arisen under the influence of those ideals. The result was that these
composers, who did not share the prejudices of their Teutonic musical
forbears, drank in with avidity the wonderful new harmonies of Wagner,
and set about incorporating them, not in music-dramas, but in the
sonatas and symphonies arising from the classical tradition, and all
manner of free forms to which the romantic school had given birth.
The Wagnerian harmonies were accepted, but the forms of the earlier
movements were retained, except where the followers of Liszt ventured
forth on scantily charted seas of formal emancipation. Similarly other
new influences began to be felt, and Tschaikowsky, in a new symphonic
emotionalism, and Brahms, in a new flowering of thematic development,
gave encouragement in the retaining of earlier forms. The dual product
of these various influences was, on the one hand, a romanticism which
claimed both harmonic and formal freedom, and a neo-classicism which
welcomed the new harmonic world opened up by Wagner, but inclined to
cling to the forms of the classical epoch.


                                   I

As the first modern American composer to step forth with a highly
characterized poetic individuality, Edward Alexander MacDowell (b.
1861, d. 1908) quickly took, and his work has held, since his untimely
death in 1908, a unique and preëminent place in American music. As
the first great pioneer of the romantic school in America his place
is certainly assured, and, while the perspective thus far gained upon
his work has by no means led to a unanimity of opinion concerning
it, the dignity, charm, and poetic fancy of a great part of it must
assuredly give it an enduring position in the musical world. All
barriers of adverse criticism and opinion fall before creativeness,
to the extent to which it is truly creative, and it is the creative
character of MacDowell's music that insures its persistence. Noteworthy
is it also that it is through his greatest works, such as the second
piano concerto and the Celtic Sonata, that his fame chiefly endures, a
convincing evidence that his highest aspirations did not strike wide of
their mark.

An inquiry into the nature of MacDowell's genius must perforce lead
us to a recognition of his Celtic antecedents and sympathies; for with
all his early German experience and training, with all his substantial
Teutonic technical foundation gained thereby, he was first and last a
Celt in spirit. Over the heavy bog of German harmony and counterpoint
his sensitive fancy danced like restless thistledown, following the
lightest whimsey of the breeze and the most tremulous maneuverings of
shadow-play. In his more powerful tone painting it is the elements,
rather than the passions, that command him. The old nature-worship
which is so ineradicable an element of the psychic constitution of the
Celt, and which leads him to commune with the innumerable and elusive
hosts of the land of faery, never forsook the soul of MacDowell, or
ceased to direct the course of his genius. Impatient of the restraints
of the outer world, and of its weight of poetry-quenching affairs
and transactions, his spirit hurried ever to a communion with the
moods and mysteries of nature, and to that corresponding dream-world
of intensified nature-perceptions within the soul to which these are
the appointed and the alluring gateway. MacDowell's dream-world was
directly conjoined with that of 'Fiona Macleod,' whose subjective
nature-pictures offer a close literary parallel to the tone-pictures of
the composer. These two traversed the same region, which is that of the
psychic perceptions, but the account of it brought back by MacDowell
presents one striking fundamental difference from all accounts rendered
by poetry-making Celts who have remained upon their native soil. In the
American the soul no longer cries out from under an age-long burden
of poverty and oppression; the heartache and the world-weariness have
been sloughed off in the new-world birth. No outcry of the heart
is the music of MacDowell, but an eager self-surrendering to the
interpretation of the facts and moods of nature, the rocking of a
lily-pad on cool waters, the lonely drift of an iridescent iceberg, the
mad sudden impact of a hurrying gust. Often are these interpretations
of an almost uncanny intimacy, so subtle and sensitive is their touch.

In one very important respect the personal analogy between MacDowell
and William Sharp breaks down. The creator of 'Fiona Macleod' gained
the freedom of the psychic world only at the expense of his virility.
The _man_, Sharp, was left behind, when 'Fiona's' turn came, a fact
attested by the writings of the latter at every point. MacDowell found
no need for the splitting up of his personality into its masculine and
feminine elements; he carried his manhood with him into the sphere
of the psychic and brought forth not artistic shadowings merely, but
also, especially in his heroic moments, solid structures. For all his
instinctive abhorrence of the ponderousness often associated with the
expression of the Teutonic spirit, his severe Frankfort training often
served him in good stead; it may, indeed, have been the balance-wheel
of his entire artistic life.

Too much the child of nature's dream-world to sound the depths of
passion, too restless with the joy of nature's kaleidoscopic shift
and play to touch the spiritual heights of peace, well severed from
the material world, but not yet united with the spiritual, MacDowell
hovered in the mid-region of the psychic, happily lost in its shadowy
wonderworld of dissolving forms and elusive beauty. This was at once
the limitation and tragedy, as well as the genius, of MacDowell's life
and art. He remained a wanderer on the borderlands of spirit, never
coming to his spiritual home, and at the end his mind itself wandered
never to return in this life. But he had struck a telling blow for
American musical art, and placed the nation upon a new musical footing.

MacDowell was a nationalist only by virtue of his instinctive
sensitiveness to his environment. As the English critic,
Ashton-Johnson, has pointed out, his autumn scenes spontaneously
portray not the mere brown decay of the European "fall," but the golden
splendor of the American autumn. The Indian and the negro find their
way into his works here and there in delicate touches, because the
tradition of them is in the American air and scarcely to be avoided.

MacDowell's teachers in theory were Savard, at the Paris
Conservatoire, and Joachim Raff, in Frankfurt, and in piano, at these
places respectively, Marmontel and Heyman. An interim was spent with
Ehlert in Wiesbaden. Franz Liszt was MacDowell's friend and helped him
to recognition in Germany. No American composer has been so prominent
as MacDowell as a concert pianist. His sensitive performances of his
own works served to make them broadly known and to establish the
traditions of their interpretation. The composer took up his residence
in America again in 1888, after twelve years of absence, first in
Boston, and later in New York, where, until his unfortunate friction
with the academic authorities, he exerted a wide influence as professor
of music at Columbia University. The malady which alienated him from
his powers in his last years, and which finally brought about his end,
called universal attention to America's musical awakening and prowess
by the same stroke in which it removed the nation's musical leader.

MacDowell attained his chief critical recognition through his two
concertos and four sonatas for piano. The second concerto, in D minor,
with its alternate phases of nobility and charm, stands as a monument
to the composer's highest powers, with regard both to pianistic and
orchestral mediums of expression. The composer's harmonic warmth
and individuality, his freshness of melodic inspiration, his marked
capacity for skillful and colorful orchestration, his eager and highly
pitched temperament, are all manifest throughout the work. Of the four
sonatas, the 'Tragica,' 'Eroica,' 'Norse,' and 'Keltic,' the last has
been universally judged the greatest, and one of his greatest works.
Lawrence Gilman calls it his 'masterpiece.' As their titles indicate,
these works are all programmatic, though not slavishly so, and romantic
in the highest degree. Their material, derived from the rich storehouse
of Gaelic legend, finds the composer on his native spiritual heath,
and in them he speaks with an authority not surpassed, perhaps not
equalled, in the whole range of his work beside.

The 'Indian Suite' (opus 48) has been the most frequently heard of
MacDowell's orchestral works, which have, as a class, been somewhat
overshadowed by the piano compositions. In it the composer has touched
but lightly upon his Indian thematic sources, building from his own
fertile imagination a work of substantial character in five movements,
depicting his conception of various phases of Indian life. The fourth
movement, a dirge, has won great favor through its sheer imaginative
beauty, but the work as a whole has not proved wholly convincing, and
is far less true to the Indian than the sonatas are to the Gaelic
genius. It represents, however, a matured mastery of orchestration and
the formal presentation of ideas. An earlier orchestral suite (opus 42)
is a less notable work, reflecting the influence of Raff, and is seldom
heard. 'The Saracens' and 'The Lovely Alda,' two colorful orchestral
fragments from a once-projected 'Roland' symphony, are not infrequently
heard, and with pleasure, but, while characteristic of the composer's
genius, are scarcely representative of it. An earlier 'Hamlet and
Ophelia' overture has fared rather less well.

In a great number of little piano compositions, grouped under various
titles, MacDowell has left an exquisite and extensive legacy of
works which mirror forth the world of multitudinous fancy which he
delighted to haunt. Not conceived with the view of displaying modern
concert technique, but in a vein of sincere and intimate poetic
expression, these works have been cherished and enjoyed wherever the
piano is played. Reflecting more particularly the earlier phases of
the composer's artistic sympathies are two suites (opera 10 and 14),
'Forest Idyls' (opus 19), 'Six Idyls' (opus 28), 'Four Little Poems'
(opus 32), 'Marionettes' (opus 38), and 'Twelve Studies' (opus 39).
The works in this form by which MacDowell has chiefly endeared himself
to the rank and file of American music-lovers, are 'Woodland Sketches'
(opus 51), containing 'To a Wild Rose' and 'To a Water Lily;' 'Sea
Pieces' (opus 55); 'Fireside Tales' (opus 61), and 'New England Idyls'
(opus 62), the last work of the composer.

By no means the least of MacDowell's contributions to musical
literature, either in quantity or quality, are his songs, of which
there are some ten groups for solo voice, and various part songs,
chiefly for male voices. In the spheres of charm, fancy, and
'atmospheric' intuition these undoubtedly hold a very high place,
though in respect to passion and imaginative vigor the same can
scarcely be said, despite the claims of Henry T. Finck, who places
MacDowell with the highest rank of the world's song-writers. The
highest type of song-writing would seem to demand not so much a
passion for beauty as a passion for passion itself, either physical
or spiritual, and such a quality, while not absent from it, was not
central to the ethereal character of MacDowell's genius.

Lawrence Gilman's 'Edward MacDowell' presents a sympathetic and
illuminating study of the composer and his work.


                                   II

One of the rocks upon which the high character of modern American
music is founded is the art-activity of Edgar Stillman-Kelley (b.
April 14, 1857). While he has not given forth his compositions in
rapid succession or in great quantity, he has, nevertheless, struck
a series of telling blows for the honor and dignity of creative
musical art in America. Especially is this true in view of the fact
that he has formulated, maintained and promulgated definite ideals
of music throughout a period which has been characterized mainly, in
this respect, by confusion and groping, and, too frequently, even by
grovelling. In a post-Wagnerian period in which vacillation, obscurity,
and disorder have reigned throughout a large part of the musical world,
he has steadily advanced the standard of lucidity, order, and faith.
Lofty in imagination, of a high sense of beauty, and at the same time
exceptional in scholarship and breadth of intellectual vision, he
combines qualities which must necessarily single him out as a leader of
importance in the musical movement to which America has given birth.
The same qualities have also fitted him to exercise a beneficent
influence, in certain directions, upon more recent and newly appearing
phases of native musical evolution. It has been Stillman-Kelley's fate
that both his name and his influence have outdistanced the general
knowledge of his works. Two circumstances may be held accountable for
this: the fact that he has given out no quantity of works in small
forms through which his music might become accessible to music-lovers
everywhere through the universal medium of the piano, and the further
fact that it is particularly in just such forms as Stillman-Kelley has
produced that, as a nation, we are slow in giving our own composers a
wide hearing. The American symphony, on American programs, must wait,
first, and perhaps rightfully, upon the classics, and, second, and
often with bitter wrong, upon the sensational European novelties of the
hour.

So independent and individual a thinker is Stillman-Kelley, so _sui
generis_ his work, that it can be explained by no theory of particular
or individual influences, but only by a knowledge of the composer's
broad survey of the modern field, with emphasis, to be sure, upon the
greatest in Germanic tradition. The fundamentals of that tradition
one feels the composer to have grasped, but of the principles thus
deeply assimilated he makes his own use. In short, he follows
principles, and not men, and for this reason the Wagnerian 'passage,'
the Tschaikowskian phrase, which drip so easily from the pen of many
latter-day composers, are never to be encountered in Stillman-Kelley's
music. Into this technique, acquired through close observation and
analysis of the works of the masters, the composer imports his own
spirit; he has his own story to tell and is very certain of the manner
in which he wishes to tell it. The superficial criticism of the day,
which looks for raw and sensational departures from the pre-Debussyian
musical scheme, will find Stillman-Kelley conservative, at moments
even downright Teutonic; but the gulf which separates him, in spirit
and message, from both his precursors and contemporaries, European
and American, must be plain to every observant person. In this rapid
age people are, however, not apt to be closely observant, and it
appears that there will still be a considerable interval before
Stillman-Kelley's true artistic and intellectual stature will be
recognized.

To grasp the nature of the high distinction which must be accorded him,
it must be understood that Stillman-Kelley's formative period was that
very epoch of the Wagnerian cataclysm which blasted the individuality
of composers as the cyclone devastates the forest. So surcharged with
the dominating personality of Wagner was this epoch that it seemed
no composer sympathetic to that personality could breathe the air of
its period and retain his musical individuality. Futile blotches of
misunderstood Wagnerian harmony took the place of compositions. This
was the tide that Stillman-Kelley stemmed, and his position takes on
the aspect of solitary grandeur when it is perceived that he is the
only composer in the contemporary American ranks, receptive to the
changing order, who can be said to have come through wholly unscathed.
While guided primarily by a sense of the beautiful, it was through
sheer force of mentality, and standing alone, that the composer
achieved this feat and preserved for his nation a straight path for the
classical tradition and ideal without relinquishing that freedom of
mind which alone can secure the growth of the individual through the
apprehension and application of contemporary thought.

The thought can almost be ventured that Stillman-Kelley was the
first composer to use the post-Wagnerian harmonic vocabulary without
the result sounding like Wagner. If a heroic instinct for thematic
development in the face of the harmonic orgies of the time contributed
to this achievement, it was secondary to a contribution of even
greater distinction. This more original contribution may be termed the
application of a geometrical poetic sense to the new harmony. Of the
tyrant that enslaved the composers of the time Stillman-Kelley promptly
made himself the master. Out of the new material he generated for
his use _harmonic motives_, symmetrical blocks of harmony, bearing a
particular relation to his thematic material, and, by the application
of these well-defined and well-rounded harmonic motives to his formal
structure, he attained, at a stroke, the employment of the new medium,
the preservation of clarity and order, and thereto a new musical
personality. He did not recede to an archaic classical purism and
offer the familiar excuse of those who found in Wagner the ruination
of pure music. He advanced bravely on to the dangerous ground of the
new territory and made it his own without sacrificing the fundamental
classical character of his ideals and without losing his wits.

Both in spirit and technique Stillman-Kelley's artistic personality
may be seen in microcosmic scope, as it were, in his highly individual
song, 'Israfel' to the poem of Edgar Allan Poe. Here are the serene
beauty, the highly imaginative harmonic tinting, the touch of the
fantastic, the formal amplitude and symmetry, the predominance of
phantasy over passion, which characterize all of the composer's work.
The companion song, 'Eldorado,' on Poe's poem of that name, is equally
typical of the composer's genius, though strongly contrasted with
'Israfel' in subject.

Stillman-Kelley first became known through his intensely
characteristic and 'atmospheric' music for 'Macbeth,' dating from early
days in San Francisco. This he has in later years revised and cast in
the form of an orchestral suite, composing for the play a wholly new
overture of momentous proportions. This is a massive and sombre work,
dealing with the conflict of conscience and evil ambition, its murky
content being relieved only by the introduction of a theme of the joys
of Gaelic royalty, which later on assumes a grim aspect, being stated
in conjunction with the theme of ambition.

The 'Aladdin' suite has perhaps been less infrequently heard than
Stillman-Kelley's other orchestral works. In this work the composer
availed himself of certain Chinese themes, of which he made a
characteristically thorough study while in San Francisco (and which
resulted also in his widely known song 'The Lady Picking Mulberries').
This suite is in the composer's most genial vein and is a _tour de
force_ of piquant orchestration. Its movements depict 'The Wedding
of Aladdin and the Princess,' 'A Serenade in the Royal Pear Garden,'
'Flight of the Genie with the Palace,' and 'The Return and Feast of the
Lanterns.'

Stillman-Kelley's greatest recent offering is his 'New England'
symphony, in B minor, produced by the Litchfield County Choral Union,
at Norfolk, Conn., June 3, 1913. In it the composer has sought to
embody 'something of the experiences, ambitions, and aspirations of
our Puritan ancestors.' It was greeted as a work of large importance,
needing further hearing for its full appreciation. The composer
has completed sketches of a 'Gulliver' symphony and an 'Alice in
Wonderland' suite, the subjects of both of which attest his love of the
fantastic and call attention to his equal devotion to the element of
humor. There is an orchestral score of 'Israfel.'

In chamber music form he has produced a quintet for strings and piano
which has had much success on both sides of the Atlantic, and a less
well-known string quartet in variation form. There are also a few early
songs and piano compositions. Mention should be made of the composer's
very successful and famous music for the dramatic presentation of 'Ben
Hur,' and the exquisite 'Song of Iras' taken from it.

Born in Wisconsin, Mr. Stillman-Kelley has lived successively in
Stuttgart, San Francisco, New York, New Haven (where he occupied the
chair of music at Yale University during a year's absence of Horatio
Parker), and Berlin. He now (1914) holds a 'composer's fellowship'
at Western College, Oxford, Ohio, giving lectures there and at the
Cincinnati conservatory. His chief teacher in theory was Seifriz, in
Stuttgart.


                                   III

Among the most earnest and advanced leaders of American music stands
Arne Oldberg (b. 1874), a musical personality of the highest nobility
and idealism, and a consummate master of his art. Unquestionably as
fully equipped master of thematic development in the cyclic forms
as America has produced, his loftily conceived chamber music and
orchestral works present themselves in a spiritual and technical
serenity, artistic authenticity and completeness, which baffle the
critical beholder. Indeed, it is with the music-makers who wrote
before relentless Beethoven forced the skyey goddess down into the
world-struggle that Oldberg has the closest spiritual kinship. Never
since Mozart has music been more bafflingly 'absolute' than in the bulk
of his works in orchestral and chamber music, and piano forms. The
appearance of these works, so modern from the standpoint of thematic
and formal development in this epoch, seems to call for a revision of
modern musical psychology and philosophy. Much of modern 'pure' music
is too dramatic to endure a comparison in this respect, or else too
philosophical and too deeply involved in the world-problem. To Brahms'
technical system that of Oldberg more nearly corresponds than to any
other.

In this music, at the same time, there is no reversion to the style of
an earlier day; it carries no slogan of 'back to Mozart.' Trained as he
was in the severe school of Joseph Rheinberger, to Oldberg, to be sure,
the modern French school does not exist, but neither, for that matter,
does the traditional shadow of turgidity and heaviness which hangs
about the Teutonic genius even at its most idealistic. Those who think
to perceive a measure of old-fashionedness in his music are looking at
the letter rather than the spirit, which is ever onward and creative,
though in its own way, and without admitting that modern progress lies
only in the adoption of the Gallic idiom. It is the music of spiritual
upliftment and refreshment, waiting its day until sensationalism and
mere color-riot shall have lost their power to appeal.

The two quintets for piano and strings (opera 16 and 24) present a
joyous and upspringing lyricism all but unknown to the music of the
day, together, especially in the latter and more mature work, with
a thematic involution that would be appalling were it not for the
exuberant spontaneity of their inspiration. A string quartet in C minor
(opus 15) is a less complete revelation of the composer's powers. A
woodwind quintet in E flat major (opus 18), on the other hand, is a
miracle of gladness and of grave and haunting loveliness.

A symphony in F (opus 23), twice rewritten but not yet performed,
contains a slow movement that represents the composer at his highest
level of contemplative beauty. The overture 'Paolo and Francesca' (opus
21) marks a departure from his usual absolutism; it is a work of large
dimensions and great warmth of feeling, and made a deep impression
upon the listeners when performed by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra
on January 17-18, 1908. The same orchestra has given performances of
Oldberg's 'Academic Overture,' written for the Northwest University
at Evanston, Ill., a 'Theme and Variations' (opus 19), and a set
of 'Symphonic Variations,' for organ and orchestra (opus 35), the
variation form being one in the possibilities of which Oldberg has
great faith. An almost uniform success has followed these various
performances. A second symphony, in C minor (opus 34) has followed the
first in F, and there is a recent 'Orchestral Rhapsody' (opus 36). An
'Arabesque' for piano (opus 31) shows the composer in a new vein. The
admirable 'Symphonic' concerto for piano and orchestra (opus 17), and
the horn concerto (opus 20), are almost entirely unknown. There are
besides these works a considerable number of piano works, a sonata
(opus 28) of great lyrical charm, a very extraordinary set of 'Thematic
Variations,' a poetic and stirring 'Legend,' a set of three beautiful
and highly interesting 'Miniatures,' and various other works.

Mr. Oldberg was born at Youngstown, Ohio, in 1874. He is of Norse
extraction, being of the third generation on American soil, and holds
the chair of music at the Northwestern University.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Much space would be required in which to give an adequate account of
the creative activities of Henry Hadley (b. 1871), one of the most
spontaneous and prolific of American composers, and one of the best
known, at home and abroad.

By temperament and choice of subject matter Hadley places himself
in the ranks of the romanticists, but his tenacious loyalty to the
symphonic form, among a wide variety of other forms, bespeaks a
neo-classical leaning and is scarcely to be explained by a mere desire
to essay expression in all forms. Moreover, while in orchestral
technique Hadley is a student and, in some sort, a disciple of Richard
Strauss, unlike that composer he inclines, in his orchestral works
other than symphonic, to the overture form rather than the less closely
knit 'tone-poem.' In orchestral realism he follows Strauss but a short
way, eschewing violence and holding a rather unique middle course
between realism and impressionism; something more than impressionist
merely, a _suggestive realist_ he might be termed.

Everywhere in Hadley's music is energy, fancy, the spirit of youth.
It bubbles and glints, running an inexhaustible gamut of varying
tints and ingenious and poetic tonal designs. It is the music of
immense enjoyment of objective life, of actions, sights, emotions.
Too eager and full of action to be deeply reflective, too happy to be
philosophic, it is the part of Hadley's music to quicken the sense of
life and of delight in the teeming visible world about us. Sombre,
pensive, or bleak it may be at times, according to the composer's
expressive need, but it is the tone-poet's fancy that decrees it, never
a confession of _Weltschmerz_ on the composer's part.

The first symphony, 'Youth and Life' (opus 25), is highly
characteristic of the buoyancy, the nervous energy, and the imaginative
fertility of the composer. The second, 'The Four Seasons' (opus 30),
is a delicate balance, within the classical form, of romanticism,
impressionism, and symbolism. It is romanticism that predominates,
however, although such distinct impressions as those of wintry blasts
and falling autumn leaves are happy and noteworthy features of the
work. The languor and sun-warmed luxuriance of mid-summer finds
poignant and beautiful expression. The third symphony, in B minor
(opus 60), seems to be less well known than the others. The fourth
symphony, 'North, East, South, West' (opus 64), was received with
enthusiasm when produced under the direction of the composer at a
meeting of the Litchfield County Choral Union, on June 6, 1911. Hadley
indulges in a little aboriginal Americanism in the 'South' and 'West'
movements, though his only definitely discernible 'nationalism' lies
in his inherent temperamental character. The four symphonies reveal
a constantly progressive growth in modern harmonic vision and in
orchestral mastery. The only American composer to enter the field
of symphonic conducting as a profession, Hadley, in his technical
development, has made the most of his contact with the orchestra.

There are three overtures, 'Hector and Andromache,' the jubilant 'In
Bohemia,' and one of sombre character to Stephen Phillips' 'Herod.' A
tone-poem, 'Salome,' finds him at his nearest to Strauss in ideals,
even if not in style. His most recent orchestral work, produced in
1914, is entitled 'Lucifer.' From earlier days are several 'Ballet
Suites,' an 'Oriental Suite' and a 'Symphonic Fantasie.' The still more
recent 'Culprit Fay,' after Rodman Drake's poem, has won various and
deserved honors. Hadley's one grand opera, 'Safie,' dating from his
incumbency as opera conductor in Mainz, Germany, was produced there
on April 4, 1909, but has not been heard in America. There are songs
in great number and variety, several cantatas, a number of works in
different small forms, and considerable church music.

Hadley is a native of Massachusetts, and comes of a musical family.
Among his teachers are, first, his father, and later Chadwick in Boston
and Mandyczewski in Vienna. He has several times been a prize-winner
with his compositions, the second symphony winning the Paderewski Prize
and one offered by the New England Conservatory, both in 1901, and the
'Culprit Fay' winning the National Federation of Musical Clubs' Prize
in 1909. Mr. Hadley became conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra
in 1909 and the San Francisco Orchestra in 1911, which latter post he
still holds.

                   *       *       *       *       *

One of the sturdiest musical figures in the ranks of American
_arrivés_ is Frederick Shepherd Converse (b. 1871), artistically
of strong romantic leanings, although brought up under the classic
influences of the widely influential course in theory conducted by the
late James K. Paine at Harvard University. A taker of honors here,
as well as at Munich under Rheinberger, where he went after a period
of study with Chadwick in Boston, Converse has realized a degree of
scholarship seldom attained or even aspired to in America. He is
typically representative of what might be called the second generation
of modern American composers, the one following immediately upon that
of Foote, Chadwick, and their colleagues. Like all the active minds
of his generation, he exhibits the tendency to break the shackles of
classical tradition while still preserving reverence for its ideals.
With the exception of one retrospective inspiration, the string quartet
(opus 18), he appears to be done with the sonata form at about the
eighth opus number. Previous to that he had produced a symphony in D
minor (opus 7), a sonata for violin (opus 1), a string quartet, and an
overture. The later string quartet has qualities of admirable lyrical
beauty.

It is in his large romantic outreachings that Converse is best and
most favorably known. Indeed, the composer himself styles his first
orchestral tone-poem, the 'Festival of Pan,' a 'romance.' Subsequent
orchestral works in so-called 'free' form (an absurd term, since every
authentic form gains its strength through conformity to some law, even
if not a familiar one) are 'Endymion's Vision,' a bit too 'free' in
form but of rich and imaginative orchestral color, and, better known
and more highly appraised, 'The Mystic Trumpeter,' after Walt Whitman.
'Night' and 'Day,' two poems for piano and orchestra, and _La Belle
Dame Sans Merci_, ballade for baritone and orchestra, as well as the
orchestral works mentioned, have all been produced by orchestras and
artists of the first prominence and with marked success.

Mr. Converse has made two heroic ventures onto the still unwon but
yielding field of American grand opera. 'The Pipe of Desire,' with text
by George E. Barton, a one-act opera, is in mood a reflection from
the poets of the Celtic twilight. It was given a special production
of three performances in Boston, in 1906, and experienced a brief
revival, in March, 1910, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York,
and in the following January in Boston. A second opera, in three acts,
'The Sacrifice,' dealing with a romantic Spanish-Californian subject,
is regarded as showing a marked advance in operatic style. It was
produced by the Boston Opera Company in March, 1911, with a measure of
success, but the scope of its bearings has not yet been extended. Mr.
Converse's most recent large work was the composition of the music for
the 'Pageant and Masque of St. Louis,' May 28-31, 1914, a broad and
vigorous piece of writing. In general, his music is of strong fibre,
harmoniously and melodically and warm in color, though his style has
not yet broken wholly away from its academic moorings. For several
years after 1902 he served as instructor and professor in the musical
department of Harvard University.


                                   IV

A very substantial and influential personality in American musical
life is that of Ernest R. Kroeger, who was born in St. Louis, Mo.,
August 10, 1862, and whose activities have ever since been identified
with that city. The list of his published compositions is enormous
and comprises works in many forms. As is the case with most American
composers, his orchestral and chamber music works remain in manuscript,
and consist of three 'symphonic overtures,' 'Sardanapalus,' 'Hiawatha,'
and 'Atala,' the first Oriental in character, the two latter Indian,
overtures on the subjects of 'Thanatopsis' and 'Endymion,' a 'Lalla
Rookh' suite, two string quartets, and, for piano with strings, a trio,
quartet, and quintet.

Despite Kroeger's scholarly handling of the sonata and fugue forms
his tendency is strongly romantic, as is indicated by the subjects
not only of his overtures but of the great number of his piano works,
which touch a whole world of romance from Greek mythology to Indian
and negro folk-lore. Among his more representative piano works are '12
Concert Études' (opus 30), a suite (opus 33), four 'sonnets' (opus
36), Sonata in D flat (opus 40), Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor
(opus 41), 'Mythological Scenes' (opus 46), ten 'American Character
Sketches' (opus 53), and twenty 'Moods' (opus 60). Widely known as a
writer of songs of much poetic charm and appeal, his best works in this
form are the 'Persian Love Song' (from opus 43), the famous 'Bend Low,
O Dusky Night' (from opus 48), Ten Songs (opus 65), and a song cycle,
'Memory' (opus 66). He has written much for the organ, and there is a
sonata for violin and piano (opus 32), also a recent large work for
recitation or action, 'The Masque of Dead Florentines' (opus 75), on
Maurice Hewlett's poem. In style Kroeger leans strongly upon the German
tradition, but is fond of writing in an Oriental vein. He has held many
positions of responsibility, among them being the presidency of the
Music Teachers' National Association, and the important post of Master
of Programs at the St. Louis World's Fair, which service won him an
office in the French Academy. His influence has been far-reaching in
the musical upbuilding of the Middle West.

Leaning somewhat more heavily upon the classic than the romantic
aspects of German tradition, the work of Rubin Goldmark (b. 1872)
makes serious claim to a place of high regard in the field of American
music. While having had the advantages of European study, Goldmark also
reflects a measure of the considerable influence exerted by Dvořák upon
composition in America, having been one of those under the guidance of
the Bohemian composer during his period of teaching in New York. In so
far as this influence is discernible in one of Goldmark's well-defined
musical personality, it is to be sought in the general nature of his
musical ideals, and only very slightly in the specific Americanism
encouraged by Dvořák (1841-1904). A firm emotional texture, gained by
warmth of both harmony and melody, and a virility arising from a marked
rhythmic sense characterize Goldmark's music. His creative impulse is
guided more by emotional sincerity and verity than by the element of
charm, though it is not without moments of tender and limpid beauty.

His trio for piano, violin and 'cello is an exceptionally substantial
opus 1, and his 'Hiawatha' overture won enthusiastic praise from no
less discerning a critic than James Huneker. Among his earlier works
are a sonata for piano and violin, a 'Romanza' for 'cello, and a number
of piano compositions and songs, the latter especially revealing an
imagination of distinctive character. An 'Ode to Colorado' for mixed
voices issues from the composer's occasional residence in Colorado
Springs, as also four 'Prairie Idylls' for piano. From Goldmark's
maturer powers springs the quartet in A major, for piano and strings,
which, in its class, won the Paderewski Prize in 1909, the poetic
merits of the work being revealed in a subsequent performance by the
Kneisel Quartet. The impressive and highly-appraised tone-poem 'Samson'
was produced by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in March, 1914.

                   *       *       *       *       *

One of the first of the post-Chadwickian generation of American
composers to step into prominence was Howard Brockway (b. 1870), who
received a very thorough training under the American O. B. Boise in
Berlin. He brought back, among other large works, a symphony which
he had composed at the age of twenty-four and which had called much
attention to his gifts and potential career when performed at a concert
of his works in Berlin. Walter Damrosch once said, 'The trouble with
American composers is they write one symphony when they come back from
Europe and then do nothing more.' A significant half-truth is contained
in the remark. The classical musical education requires, tacitly or
otherwise, the symphonic effort. Then come the American environment and
the dampening absence of a market for symphonies by Young (and Old)
America; then the writing of songs in order to find a way to a hearing;
and _then_, if the composer is to belie the Damroschian dictum, a
gradual artistic resurrection harmonious with American institutions,
purposes, and ideals.

Brockway did, in fact, give out a quantity of small works, songs and
piano compositions, on his return to America, all of which, it may
be said, reveal a sensitive and truly poetic musical nature, capable
of lifting itself well up through the dense and earthy atmosphere of
technique into the realm of poetic perception and expression. The
outcome of his return to large forms it is a bit early to predict. The
knowledge of a manuscript quintet for strings and piano, and a piano
concerto, under his highest opus numbers, 36 and 37, adumbrates an
auspicious future for his expression in large forms. Meanwhile a suite
for 'cello and piano (opus 35) has been given out, and an admirable
cantata, 'Sir Olaf,' has been heard. From his earlier portfolio credit
is to be given him for the beautiful violin sonata (opus 9) and the
significant 'Ballade' and 'Sylvan Suite' (op. 11 and 19), both for
orchestra.

                   *       *       *       *       *

An extraordinarily prolific composer is Homer N. Bartlett (1845-1911),
the separation of whose more distinguished works from the mass that he
has written will be effected only by the sifting process of time. From
the _Salonstück_ period of his 'outrageously' popular 'Grand Polka de
Concert' (opus 1), through the ambitious violin concerto (opus 109),
which was entirely rewritten in 1908, and the symphonic poem 'Apollo'
from the same period, to the works bearing the Himalayan opus numbers
215 and 220, a 'Meditation' and an _Air à la Bourrée_ for violin, is a
far cry. In providing a list of his works the composer writes at the
end, 'opus numbers here increase to 231, although I am striving to keep
them down.' This great output shows a steady increase in distinction,
and covers a wide range of tendencies, almost wholly in the direction
of romanticism.

'Khamsin,' which Hughes refers to as a fragment of a cantata, was
rewritten in 1908 as an extended dramatic aria for tenor solo, in
three connected parts. In its earlier form it was heard at a New
York Manuscript Society concert, and is regarded as representative
of the best and most dramatically inspired of Bartlett's work. Two
movements of an ingeniously exotic 'Japanese Suite' for orchestra were
heard at the Central Park orchestral concerts in 1910 and revealed
a good control of orchestral resource. There are also clever piano
compositions on Japanese themes, a Japanese 'Revery' and 'Romance'
(opus 221), and 'Kuma Saka' (opus 218) for four hands. There are also
an opera, 'La Vallière,' written in 1887, an operetta, 'Magic Hours'
(opus 225), and many choruses, songs, piano compositions, including a
prize-winning nocturne ('Kranbach' prize), violin compositions, organ
works, and songs. Bartlett was born in 1846 at Olive, N. Y., and has
been active as a teacher and organist in New York City.

Mr. Rossetter G. Cole is best known as the composer of the melodrama
'King Robert of Sicily' (op. 22), to which David Bispham's stirring
interpretation has brought great popularity. This work contains some
of Mr. Cole's best inspirations; while adhering to idioms that are
conventional, there is an admirable following of the dramatic line and
a real atmospheric descriptiveness. It is harmonically conventional,
at times markedly Wagnerian, and there are some excellent effects
in ecclesiastical harmonies. In an earlier melodrama, 'Hiawatha's
Wooing,' op. 20, Indian themes are utilized, though but slightly. Still
earlier published works are 'The Passing of Summer,' a 'lyrical idyll'
for soli, chorus and orchestra, while still in manuscript there is a
sonata for violin and piano (op. 8), works which placed by the side
of Mr. Cole's later compositions become comparatively unimportant. Of
recent publication a 'Ballade' for cello and orchestra (op. 25) and two
organ pieces, 'Fantasie Symphonique' (op. 28) and 'Rhapsody' (op. 30),
are written for their respective instruments with a well-calculated
effectiveness. One of Mr. Cole's recent compositions is a bit of
descriptive piano writing entitled 'Sunset in the Hills.' This shows
a considerably more advanced harmonic scheme and one much richer in
color, which now fade into the more delicate tints of an idyllic
MacDowell-like mood.


                                  V

Generations of composers succeed each other quickly in America with,
however, but the flimsiest of boundaries, chronological and artistic.
We now come to a group of composers, in general slightly younger than
those already considered, who in the romantic and neo-classical fields
may be regarded as 'runners up,' whose 'arrival' is well under way
and who press hard for the highest rank and honors in their field in
the national and even in the international musical life. No order of
precedence will be attempted in making note of their achievements, as
none has been made hitherto with a few exceptions in favor of seniority
and fame.

One of the staunchest and most uncompromising upholders of a severe
classical ideal is Daniel Gregory Mason (b. 1873). With sureness, if
not over-rapidly, he has developed a mode of expression singularly
lucid, symmetrical and thorough in its formal unfoldment. Thoughtful
in the extreme, modest in the nature and statement of his themes, he
seeks the source of power in completeness and symmetry of outline, in
the bringing of his themes to the fullest and most rounded development,
and in clarity of harmonic structure. Not even the strictest of
classicists, in these days, can wholly escape the influence of the
romantic epoch, and if a sympathy with the ideals of Schumann has in a
measure qualified Mason's musical outlook in the first instance, it has
yielded to a stronger leaning to the artistic creed of Brahms. Some of
the composer's pages bear a marked Brahms-like aspect. These earlier
influences have been broadened and enriched in Mason's later work by a
studious devotion to the music of César Franck and of Vincent d'Indy,
the composer having studied with the latter in 1902 and later. These
latter influences have produced a very evident effect upon his harmonic
scheme, which presents a conservative use and treatment of thoroughly
modern resources, though with a characteristic avoidance of anything
approaching to the harmonic sensationalism of much latter day music. In
all ways, in fact, Mason's music is a protest against the sensational
tendency of the time.

The composer's most ambitious work is a symphony for grand orchestra
(opus 11), in C minor, written in 1913-14. It is in four movements, the
last two connected, without program, and is 'cyclic' in construction.
Another important work is a quartet in A major (opus 7). The sonata for
violin and piano (opus 5), in G minor, which has been widely performed,
is thoroughly representative of the composer's ideals. The first
movement, suave and musical, though not particularly striking in its
themes, is in an extended sonata form, rather highly modernized with
respect to secondary themes and transitional passages, and reveals much
ingenuity in thematic variation and transformation. The warm melody
of the second movement, andante tranquillo, is of memorable beauty.
The last movement is in the nature of a spirited tarantella, with an
admirably contrasted theme of choral-like character, an effect one may
fancy to bear a slight analogy to the _finale_ of Beethoven's Kreutzer
Sonata.

An 'Elegy' (opus 2), in variation form, is wrought with technical
nicety, but leans dubiously upon an ultra-conservative treatment.
'Country Pictures' (opus 9), six pieces for pianoforte, show much
fancy and charm. No. 1, 'Cloud Pageant,' is colorful and pictorially
suggestive, interesting in its thematic inversions, and develops
massively. No. 2, 'Chimney Swallows,' is clever in motion, and
particularly in its insistence on the interval of the 'second.' No. 4,
'The Whippoorwill,' is a charming piece of classical realism, and No.
5, 'The Quiet Hour,' comes as near to ultra-modernism as the composer
ventures. Other works are: 'Five Children's Songs' (opus 1), with texts
from Stevenson; 'Romance' and 'Impromptu' (opus 3), for pianoforte; a
whimsical set of 'Variations on Yankee Doodle in the Styles of Various
Composers'; 'Pastorale' for violin, clarinet and piano (opus 8); and
'Passacaglia' (opus 10), for organ.

Mr. Mason is a native of Boston and a member of a famous family of
musicians, being a grandson of Lowell Mason, and a nephew of Dr.
William Mason. He is a graduate of Harvard, where some of his early
musical studies were pursued under Paine. Since 19 he has held
the associate professorship of music in Columbia University, and
he has done much by lectures and literary work to promote musical
appreciation. His 'From Grieg to Brahms' (1902) and its sequels have
exerted a wide influence.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Emanating from strongly academic influences, David Stanley Smith (b.
1877), who has for a number of years been associated as assistant
professor with the musical department of Yale University, exhibits a
marked romantic tendency of imagination, albeit one exceptionally well
guarded by a devotion to the structural ideals of the classic writers.
The distinguished character of his talent has brought him rapidly to
the front, and none of his more important works have had to wait long
for a hearing. Smith places a strong insistence upon coherence in
thematic development and tonality as the only basis upon which to found
a musical work, and, while partial to high harmonic color and ready to
depart from the text-books in harmonic usage, he is unwilling to allow
color effect to usurp the place of structural continuity. Desirous and
capable as he is of advancing upon the debatable borders of modern
harmonic resource, he does not burn the bridges of conservatism behind
him. His music bespeaks a sensitively poetic nature, sentiment, color
and emotion rising easily through the foundational stratum of a
thorough but not overweighted technique.

His symphony in F minor was performed by the Chicago Orchestra under
Stock in December, 1912, and was well received. It is thoroughly
representative of the composer's blending of modern and classic ideals
and methods. The quartet in E minor (opus 19), departing from earlier
styles chiefly in rhythmic intricacy, has been played by the Kneisels
in many cities. An 'Overture Joyeuse' (opus 11) was conducted by the
composer at one of the Chickering production concerts in 1904; it finds
the composer scarcely emancipated from academic trammels. This and a
much later 'symphonic sketch,' 'Prince Hal,' have both been conducted
by the composer with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. A 'Symphonic
Ballad' (opus 24) has been given with this orchestra, and also at the
concerts of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. 'Pan,' a chorus for
women's voices, on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem, with orchestra
and Pan-pipe obbligato inevitably assigned to the oboe, has been widely
heard, and is a work brimming with color and rhythm. 'The Wind-Swept
Wheat' and 'The Dark' are also for women's chorus with orchestra. A
mixed chorus with orchestra, 'The Fallen Star,' won the Paderewski
Prize in 1909. A trio in G major (opus 16) and an orchestral 'Allegro
Giocoso' have, like all the foregoing works, been publicly performed,
as well as numerous anthems and songs. Smith was born in Ann Arbor,
Mich., and educated at Yale.

                   *       *       *       *       *

A composer of the younger Boston group is Edward Burlingame Hill
(b. in 1872), a music-maker of reflective temperament whose work,
always refined and thoughtfully molded, inclines to tints and moods
of delicate and subtle texture. His musical studies were conducted at
Harvard University, under Professor Paine, but the music of MacDowell,
then a resident of Boston, was the chief influencing factor in his
earlier work. At this time he wrote several piano sonatas, one in F
sharp, one in E after Kipling's 'The Light that Failed,' and a 'Sonata
Patriotica,' the title of the latter being far from an indication of
any nationalistic tendency in his later work. These works have not
been published. Under the same influence he wrote a number of short
piano compositions and songs, among the former a set of 'Four Sketches
after Stephen Crane', (opus 7), containing an engaging satirical
pleasantry on the 'little devils grinning in sin,' and 'Country Idyls'
(opus 10), exquisitely tinted and showing a quality of charm which is
not the most prominent attribute of American music in general. The
titles of some of the above-mentioned works reveal the composer's
discriminating literary tastes, which are further borne out in the
choice of the poems for his songs, among their authors being the names
of Tennyson, Rossetti, Henley, Arthur Symons, Ambrosius, and Dowson.
He has written many part-songs to Elizabethan words. A work of much
more importance than any of the foregoing is 'The Nuns of the Perpetual
Adoration' for chorus and orchestra (opus 15), on the poem by Dowson,
which was performed at a concert of the Modern Music Society of New
York in 1914, under the direction of Benjamin Lambord. It reveals
refined musicianship of a high order and, rather dangerously for the
maintenance of interest, though advantageously for an exhibition of the
psychological penetration of the composer, sustains a peculiar mood of
spiritual aloofness. A pantomime 'Jack Frost in Midsummer' (opus 16),
which has been publicly performed, is one of the best of the later
works of Hill, who is more distinguished in artistic personality than
in the quality of being prolific. Another pantomime is 'Pan and the
Star.' He has in manuscript an overture to 'She Stoops to Conquer,'
and a set of variations for string quartet. Hill was comparatively
early attracted to the modern French school and his later work has
been strongly influenced by it, though not to the point of radical
ultra-modernity. This tendency is exhibited at its most advanced in
the symphonic poem, 'The Parting of Launcelot and Guenevere,' after
the poem by Stephen Phillips. As in 'Pan and the Star,' the composer's
dramatic instinct comes strongly into play, and the work might be as
aptly called a dramatic symphony, since the dramatic aspects of the
poem have appealed most strongly to the composer.

Another representative of the Harvard University influence is Philip
Greeley Clapp, whose tone-poem 'Norge' and a symphony have been
performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the latter in the spring of
1914 under the composer's direction. The former received considerable
commendation, but the latter was not greeted with unmixed cordiality.
Olin Downes, the critic of the _Post_, pronouncing denunciation upon it
in unequivocal fashion, though Philip Hale regarded it with a measure
of favor. Clapp is gifted with ideas and temperament, but is considered
not yet to have issued from the formative stage or to have acquired a
definite and personal style. The forms in which he writes indicate a
strong classical tendency, but his sympathies with respect to thematic
treatment and harmony are modern. Among his works are a quartet for
strings, in C minor, a prelude 'In Summer,' for orchestra, a number of
songs for solo voice, as well as part-songs, and several songs with
orchestral accompaniment.

John Beach has shown evidence of distinguished sensitiveness and
refinement of feeling in a number of songs and piano compositions
which, as in the case of Hill, find the composer going to high literary
sources for inspiration. While not original in a startling sense, there
is a very personal element in Beach's music; without a very abundant
technique he succeeds in his best work in getting himself expressed
and is singularly free from imitation, both in the emotional content
of his music and in his technical presentation of it. He is a true and
original melodist, with a sense of beauty of no mean order which is
quite his own, and at times shows a considerable and subtle harmonic
imagination. 'A Song of the Lilac,' poem by Louise Imogen Guiney, is
an inspired little picture of the perfumed and mystic night wind. 'A
Woman's Last Word,' on Browning's poem beginning 'Let's contend no
more, love,' is very sincere in its emotion, as is also his warmly
autumnal ‘'Twas in a World of Living Leaves,’ on Henley's poem. 'In a
Gondola,' an extended 'dramatic monologue for baritone,' on Browning's
poem, is a complete drama in brief, with some effective and luscious
tone painting. Of the piano compositions one remembers with pleasure 'A
Garden Fancy,' on lines by Rossetti, an 'Intermezzo' with a very poetic
middle section, a 'Monologue' of Schumann-Brahms influence, and the
'New Orleans Miniatures,' reflecting charmingly a series of impressions
gained in that city during the composer's residence there as a teacher.
Beach comes from Gloversville, N. Y., and was for a time instructor in
music at the University of Minnesota.

                   *       *       *       *       *

One of the most brilliant of the younger American group is Arthur
Bergh (b. 1882), the spread of whose fame as the composer of
melodramatic music to Poe's 'Raven' has been almost as rapid as was
that of the erratic poet-genius himself through his achievement of that
immemorially haunting poem. It was first produced by David Bispham,
to whom it is dedicated, in 1909, and has become a universal favorite
with his audiences everywhere. This music offers no startling problems
for the modern theorist, scarcely for the lay musician, in fact, so
simple and clear is it in construction; but it has an inner quality
not easy to describe, a quality of verity, of directness, of immediacy
of expression, seldom attained by composers of the time. Here are no
blotches or wastes of mere color, such as Poe might easily invite; the
work is everywhere thematic. Three themes, of electrical directness
and poignant eloquence (two for the raven and one for the 'lost
Lenore'), suffice the composer for the entire work, with a subsidiary
theme or two, but there is not a spot of tedious or laborious thematic
development in the composition; it is everywhere fresh, crystalline
and crisp. It is music that lives and speaks at every point. A little
tempered programmatic suggestion is employed, at the rapping on the
door, but always with the musical aim above the realistic. The 'Lenore'
theme is of haunting loveliness, and the theme of the 'stately raven'
is a stroke of genius in the simple expression of mystery and dignity.
Everywhere is poetic and idealistic atmosphere, gained always with the
simplest of means. It is to the composer's credit that, with a true
intuition for the relative values in the content of the poem, he has
made, not the gloom of the shadow-haunted chamber, but the dream of the
'lost Lenore,' the dominant note of the work. The composer has made
an admirable orchestral score of the composition, which was produced,
with Bispham as reader, the composer conducting, at a concert of the
'American Music Society' in New York, on April 18, 1909.

The composer has completed another 'melodrama' of a similar order, on
Browning's 'Pied Piper of Hamelin,' also with orchestral score, which,
if anything, surpasses the 'Raven.' He has published about thirty songs
and about an equal number of piano compositions and some for violin.
Of the songs the 'Night Rider,' on a poem by Fullerton Waldo, is the
most important, a high-spirited and poetic work. It is scored for
orchestra. In most of these smaller works Beach has not embodied a very
significant content, but they have ingenuity, charm, and sentiment.
'Plaintive Love' from opus 14 may be mentioned as colorful. He has many
unpublished works, among them a light romantic opera, 'Niorada,' some
excellent piano suites, two overtures, a 'Festival March,' a recent
symphonic choral for orchestra and chorus entitled 'The Unnamed City,'
and many songs. Bergh was the conductor of the orchestra in Central
Park, New York, in the summer of 1914.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Joseph Henius, whose untimely death in 1912 cut short the career of a
musician of high ideals, has left a published violin sonata of high
merit. It was first produced by David and Clara Mannes in New York in
1909 and was enthusiastically received. It is fairly strict sonata
form except for the slow movement. This is a romance of deep poetic
fervor, alternately sombre and exalted, and reveals a lofty melodic
beauty and much warmth of feeling. Henius has aimed at keeping melody
plainly in view, and at the same time to gain perfection of the cyclic
form. He was a pupil of Dvořák and a determined classicist. Among his
manuscripts are a quintet in D major, a quartet in G minor, a comic
opera and various songs.

A composer of classical leanings is Frank Edwin Ward (b. 1872), who
has been connected with Columbia University as organist since 1904, and
as Associate in Music since 1909. His works in the cyclical forms are
a published sonata for violin and piano (opus 9), and, in manuscript,
a quartet for piano and strings (opus 13), a string quartet (opus 22),
and a suite for orchestra (opus 25). Modern in a general way, though
not in the latter-day sense of the term, Ward's music exhibits an
unusual melodic fluency and a harmonic variety and flexibility which
often lend it interest and charm. It is music that is sincere and
well-felt, and wholly devoid of strain. The workmanship is clean-cut
and musicianly, and the form well-rounded and balanced. A rhapsody for
piano and violin or violoncello (opus 10) is effective and spirited
with an _andante appassionato_ movement of much warmth. Of a group
of short piano pieces (opus 5), 'Prelude' shows a distinguished and
refined quality of musical thought, with much modulatory interest, and
a MacDowellish 'By the Sea Shore' is very agreeable music. There are
also a number of songs and organ pieces, two sacred cantatas, 'The
Divine Birth' and 'The Savior of the World,' secular part songs, and
over thirty anthems and services.

Carl Busch (b. 1862), although of foreign birth, has long been classed
among American composers. He has for many years been identified with
the musical life of Kansas City, Mo., where he is conductor of the
symphony orchestra and the Philharmonic Choral Society. He has also
conducted concerts in his native land, Denmark, where he was knighted
by the government in 1912. His early studies were conducted in
Copenhagen, but his work as a composer began only with his residence in
America, now of twenty-five years' duration. Busch's tendency is almost
wholly along romantic lines, and his achievements are of a substantial
character. He is best known for his works for chorus and orchestra,
impressive compositions conceived on broad lines. Among the most
important of these are 'King Olaf,' and 'The Four Winds,' the latter
of Indian character. Others are: 'The American Flag,' 'Paul Revere's
Ride,' 'The League of the Alps,' and 'The Brown Heather.' Busch has an
excellent technical command of orchestral resource, and has produced a
number of large orchestral works, among them a prologue, 'The Passing
of Arthur,' a rhapsody, 'Negro Carnival,' and a testimony to the
persistence of Stephen Foster's fame and influence in string variations
on 'The Old Folks at Home' and 'My Old Kentucky Home.' During the last
ten years Busch has felt strongly the Indian influence and, aside from
'The Four Winds,' has produced an 'Indian Legend' for violin and piano,
two groups of Indian songs, two symphonic poems and several smaller
orchestral works, all of Indian character. From an earlier period are
many songs and choruses and a number of violin pieces.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Also foreign born, and famous chiefly through his long and
distinguished career as a conductor, Walter Damrosch (b. 1862) has made
noteworthy incursions into the field of composition. Wherever David
Bispham has sung, his stirring setting of Kipling's 'Danny Deever'
is a popular favorite. In 1894 he essayed an American grand opera in
'The Scarlet Letter,' produced in Boston and New York under his own
direction, but the work did not hold the stage. Much more favorable
comment was evoked by his second opera, 'Cyrano,' text by W. J.
Henderson, which was produced at the Metropolitan Opera House in New
York on February 27, 1913. The critic of the 'New Music Review' wrote
of Mr. Damrosch and this work, 'He has written in a well recognizable
post-Wagnerian style.... His score is commendable for its coloring, its
richness, and for the touch with which he has emphasized and elucidated
passages now emotional, now gay, now picturesque, now tragic. The
music of "Cyrano" is undoubtedly composed with skill, with verve, and
in parts with spontaneity.' In the midst of a busy conductor's life
Mr. Damrosch has unquestionably borne his share of the effort to make
America an opera-producing nation.

Two other Americans coming within the present classification who have
striven in the field of grand opera are Albert Mildenberg and William
Legrand Howland. Mildenberg has written three grand operas, 'Michael
Angelo,' in one act, and two three-act operas, 'Raffaelo' and 'Angelo,'
none of which, however, have yet come to performance. His light operas
have been produced at different times, 'The Wood Witch,' by the
Bostonians; 'The Weather Vane,' by an independent company; and 'The
Princess Delft,' by various American colleges. Howland has also written
three grand operas, 'Nita,' 'Sarrona,' and 'Bébé.' These have been
produced in Italy, 'Sarrona' being the only one to be heard in America,
when given under somewhat trying conditions by an independent company
in New York, February 10, 1910. It is a melodious score, rather lightly
orchestrated, but not without moments of notable effectiveness.


                                  VII

San Francisco, especially as the home of the Bohemian Club, with its
world-famous 'Midsummer High Jinks' or 'Forest Festival,' holds a
record as a city of composers that is little appreciated in the Eastern
part of the United States. Of this group William J. McCoy has probably
made the most significant contribution to musical art. A composer of
high ideals and broad artistic vision, of large emotional capacity
and wide experience, his work reveals him as an artist of no ordinary
stature. Educated in America under William Mason, and in the German
schools under Carl Reinecke and Moritz Hauptmann, he nevertheless
at an early period made himself familiar with the principles of the
French school. His music is characterized by directness of invention,
breadth of resource, and an appealing emotional warmth, and shows
him, as well, as an adept in orchestration. His virile and dramatic
music for 'The Hamadryads,' the 'Midsummer High Jinks' of 1904, text
by Will Irwin, was one of the strongest factors in the elevation of
the Bohemian Club's festival to the high fame which it enjoys. The
themes are all lyrically appealing and of jubilant spontaneity, those
of 'hope' and 'supplication' being particularly felicitous, while the
final processional march shows an almost Wagnerian breadth and rhythmic
swing. The overture was performed in New York, on April 18, 1909, at a
concert of the American Music Society at Carnegie Hall. McCoy's music
for the 'Jinks' of 1910, 'The Cave Man,' text by Charles K. Field,
shows a pronounced advance in the employment of modern resource. One
of its chief features is the 'Song of the Flint,' a work of strong
dramatic power. A grand opera, 'Egypt,' libretto by Charles K. Field,
is the composer's most recently completed work, having been finished
in 1914, and is thought to be his most representative and substantial
achievement. An early symphony was performed in Leipzig in 1872. There
are also an 'Ave Verum' for solo, male chorus and organ, a quintet in
G, and various songs and short instrumental pieces. The composer is
also the author of a theoretical work, 'Cumulative Harmony.' McCoy was
born in Crestline, Ohio, in 1848.

Another veteran 'Jinks' composer of San Francisco is Humphrey J.
Stewart, who has been the 'Musical Sire,' as it is termed, of the
eleventh (1888), thirteenth (1890), fifteenth (1892), seventeenth
(1894), eighteenth (1895), twentieth (1897), twenty-first (1898),
twenty-sixth (1903), and twenty-ninth (1906) 'Midsummer High Jinks.'
Stewart is of English birth, a composer of high musicianship, and is
widely known in the field of church music.

Edward F. Schneider, of San Francisco, has also made a notable
contribution to the music of the Bohemian Club, having been the
composer of the 'Jinks' drama for 1907, the 'Triumph of Bohemia,' text
by George Sterling, which was very cordially received. He is also
the composer of the 'Jinks,' or 'Grove Play,' as this festival is
sometimes called, to be presented in 1915. It is entitled 'Apollo,'
the text being by Frank Pixley. Schneider's tendencies are inclined
toward the classic tradition, though not without rather strong romantic
influence, and find their chief expression in his symphony, 'In Autumn
Time,' which has been produced by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra,
under Henry Hadley's direction. His music is strongly melodic, an
infrequent modern characteristic, warm in emotional quality and of
well-balanced and rounded formal construction, though little touched
by ultra-modernism. Of a number of songs 'The Deep Sea Pearl' may
be singled out for its quality of haunting beauty, and a setting of
Tennyson's 'Eagle' for descriptive power. A 'Romantic Fantasy' and
'Midwinter Idyl,' both for violin and piano, are extremely melodious,
and show a sympathetic management of violin writing.

Another San Francisco composer of notable ability is Wallace Sabin,
who composed the music for the Bohemian Club Grove Play of 1909, 'St.
Patrick at Tara,' the text by H. Morse Stephens. This, one of the
most famous 'Jinks,' won high favor, and the music, if not striking
in originality, was dignified and of firm texture, and carried out
admirably the Celtic musical idiom. A wild Irish revel, in the form
of a jig, was one of its most striking features, and of much solidity
and breadth was the processional chorus at the entrance of the King
of Leinster with his retainers. Sabin has written much music for the
church.

Herman Perlet, another of the San Francisco group, wrote the music
for the Grove Play of 1913, 'The Fall of Ug,' text by Rufus Steele.
The themes show a considerable power of characterization and a lively
and elastic rhythmic sense. Perlet's tone-poem 'Mount Tamalpais,' was
heard, under the composer's direction, in San Francisco in June, 1912,
and called forth warm praise from the critic of the 'Call.' While not
an avowed nationalist or 'aboriginalist,' he has based this work upon a
theme of the Lake County Indians. A 'Symphonic Suite' and a 'Symphonie
Spirituelle' are of more recent date.

Edward G. Stricklen is one of the younger San Franciscans, and is
regarded as a composer of ability and promise. The music for 'The
Green Knight,' text by Porter Garnett, the 'Jinks' of 1911, is his
contribution to the art achievement of the Bohemain Club. It is
music of distinguished imaginative character and much freshness
of inspiration, showing the rich modern harmonic texture which
characterizes the younger school of American composers. Stricklen
is also the composer of the first 'Parthenia,' the annual festival
expressing the passage from girlhood to womanhood, inaugurated by the
women students at the University of California.

Theodore Vogt and Arthur Weiss should be mentioned in connection with
the San Francisco group, the composers of the 'Jinks' of 1905 and 1908,
respectively, 'The Quest of the Gorgon' and 'The Sons of Baldur'; and
also Joseph D. Redding, the composer of the first 'Jinks' known as
a 'Grove Play,' which was entitled 'The Man in the Forest,' and was
produced in 1902. John Harradan Pratt, of San Francisco, has composed,
among other works, a trio for pianoforte and strings, which, if
conservative, shows genuine classical ideals and considerable charm.

Nathaniel Clifford Page (b. 1866), at one time associated with the
San Francisco group, but who later removed to the East, is a composer
of a high order of musicianship. He has an early opera, 'The First
Lieutenant,' produced in San Francisco in 1889, as well as two later
operas, and has written much incidental and entr'acte music for plays.
An orchestral 'Caprice' is an astonishing display of orchestral and
contrapuntal ingenuity, and his part song on lines from the opening of
Keats' 'Endymion' shows a highly refined sense of beauty.

There are many American composers of the younger generation, or,
if somewhat older, too infrequently heard, who have shown a greater
or less degree of creative capacity along the line of the ideals
considered in the present chapter, but of whom it is too early to
predict the nature or possible height of their promised achievements.
Henry Lang, of Philadelphia, took the first prize in the chamber music
class of the prize competition of the National Federation of Musical
Clubs in 1911, with a trio for piano and strings, in E major. Henry
V. Stearnes, with a very melodious trio in D minor, took the second
prize in this class at the same competition. Stanley R. Avery, of
Minneapolis, has written a considerable number of songs showing fancy
and charm, among them 'When Hazel Comes,' 'There's a Sunny Path,'
'The Shepherdess,' an Easter song called 'The Dawn of Life,' 'On a
Balcony,' a graceful song with a warmly emotional climax, and an
'Esquimo Love Song' of curiously chilly atmosphere. He has written also
part songs and church music. Arthur Olaf Anderson, of Chicago, who
has also written many charming songs, is a purist in his art, gaining
exquisite effects with great simplicity and lucidity. Among his songs
are 'May-time,' 'Roses,' _In verschwiegener Nacht_, and 'Mother Mine.'
He is the composer of two pianoforte sonatas, several short suites
and pieces for large and small orchestra, and a number of mixed male
and female choruses. Chester Ide, of Springfield, Ill., is a composer
of delicate poetic fancy who often shows an unusually poignant sense
of beauty. He has written suites for orchestra, vocal works with
orchestra, songs, and piano pieces. The songs 'Lovers of the Wild' and
'Names,' on poems by Stevenson and Coleridge, reveal grace and buoyancy
of inspiration, and a waltz, 'To Margaret,' gains a singular intensity
of dreaminess with the simplest of means. Albert Elkus, of Sacramento,
Cal., has written piano pieces showing individuality. Cecil Burleigh
is a composer of exceptional promise, who devotes himself chiefly
to the violin. His 'Eight Characteristic Pieces' (opus 6) for that
instrument are musicianly, well felt, and fanciful, though not showing
the character revealed in his later work. The 'Rocky Mountain Sketches'
and 'Twelve Short Poems,' also for violin and piano, show a very great
advance in imaginative quality, as does also a set of five 'Indian
Sketches.' A recent violin and piano sonata, entitled 'Ascension,' is
his most ambitious work. Christian Kriens, of Hollandish birth, has
written felicitously in various forms. A number of solos for violin
and 'cello, with piano accompaniment, show him as a fertile melodist.
One of the former, 'Summer Evening,' is a simple mood of considerable
loveliness. A composer of piquant and charming individuality is Charles
Fonteyn Manney (b. 1872), of Boston, who has written many excellent
songs, 'Orpheus with His Lute' being perhaps the best known. Frederick
Fleming Beale, of Seattle, has shown originality and noteworthy poetic
quality as a song writer. J. Homer Grunn, located at Phœnix, Ariz.,
has embodied impressions of the 'land of little rain' in a pianoforte
suite, 'Impressions of the Desert,' and has written a _Marche Héroïque_
for two pianos, 'Concert Studies,' and 'Garden Pieces.'

Edmund Severn (b. 1862, in England) has given himself extensively to
composition for the violin. His concerto for that instrument in D minor
is on broadly melodic lines, is, on the whole, conservative, but makes
occasional excursions into whole-tone scale effects. A suite for violin
and piano, 'From Old New England,' draws upon old tunes and ballads of
that region for its thematic material, though scarcely constituting
the composer a nationalist. Its movements, 'Pastoral Romance,' 'Rustic
Scherzo,' 'Lament,' and 'Kitchen Dance,' are excellent violin writing,
and show humor and a sprightly fancy. There is also a sonata for violin
and piano and a symphonic poem, 'Launcelot and Elaine,' which has been
heard at the Worcester, Mass., festivals.

Certain American composers of distinguished attainments in the sphere
of romantic and neo-classic ideals have preferred to spend their
lives in Europe, with the result that their work is little known at
home. Among these Arthur Bird (b. 1856) is known as the possessor of
a fertile and truly musical imagination and a thorough technique. He
has composed a symphony, suites, and a 'Carnival,' for orchestra; a
ballet, _Rübezahl_; an opera, 'Daphne'; and various works for piano and
organ. His decimet for wind instruments won the Paderewski prize for
chamber music in 1902. Bird is a musician of German training and French
sympathies and calls himself a 'conditional modernist.' He makes his
home in Berlin, where he studied under Haupt, Loeschhorn and Urban.
Earlier in his career he spent two years with Liszt at Weimar. In 1886
Bird was the conductor of the Milwaukee Musical Festival. Another of
the expatriated is Bertram Shapleigh, who has adopted England as his
home. His output is enormous and comprises works in many forms, among
them orchestral works, cantatas, and choruses, and violin and 'cello
solos, though songs constitute by far the greater part of his music.
For orchestra he has a 'Ramayana' suite and four symphonic sketches,
_Gur Amir_.


                                  VIII

The classical tendency, by which is commonly meant the impulse to
compose in the 'cyclic' forms, is seldom manifested by women composers,
for reasons which have been variously explained, or for which
explanation has been attempted. Whatever the true reason may be, it is,
in fact, wholly on the side of romanticism, with the possible exception
of literary tendencies in the choice of poems for songs, that all the
women composers coming within the scope of this chapter are found. One
of the most gifted of these is Mabel Daniels (b. 1878), who has the
distinction of having won both prizes offered for women composers in
the competition of the National Federation of Musical Clubs for 1911,
the first with a song for soprano, 'Villa of Dreams,' poem by Arthur
Symons, and the second with two three-part songs for women's voices
with accompaniment of pianoforte and two violins, 'Eastern Song,'
the author of the text not stated, and 'The Voice of My Beloved,'
the text selected from the 'Song of Solomon.' 'Villa of Dreams' is a
broadly conceived aria, essentially melodious, and harmonically modern
in the general sense of being free in modulatory treatment, without
crossing the border line of ultra-modern chord effects. It is fluent in
inspiration and authentically poetic. Miss Daniels' most significant
work is a poem for baritone and orchestra. 'The Desolate City' (W. S.
Blunt), produced at the Peterborough festival in 1913, and later by the
Chicago orchestra in Syracuse, the composer conducting. 'Love, When I
Sleep,' on original verses which show the composer to have a marked
poetic gift, from three 'Songs of Damascus,' is notable for its melodic
warmth. A 'Fairy Scherzo' for orchestra was conducted by the composer
at the MacDowell Festival at Peterborough, N. H., in August, 1914.

Widely known through her irresistibly lilting 'Boat Song,' Harriet
Ware, through many songs of exquisite character, has taken her place
as one of the most prominent women composers of America. Her work has
assumed a thoroughly modern character, is highly refined in feeling
and often subtle in its expressiveness. Among her songs one of the
best is 'The Call of Râdha,' which contrasts with poignancy the worlds
of sense and spirit. 'The Forgotten Land,' another song which takes
high rank, shows a considerable chromatic harmonic fluency, and paints
an exquisite tone-picture of a far-away world. 'Rose Moral' has much
simple beauty, 'To Lucasta' fine contrasts of mood, and 'My Love is a
Rider' is very bold and poetic. A true ecstasy lives in 'Joy of the
Morning,' and 'The Last Dance' is rich and warm in sentiment throughout.

Few composers of America, of either sex, have surpassed in quality of
spiritual beauty and refinement some of the songs of Gertrude Norman
Smith, who commands regions of inspiration to which only a few rare
souls have access. One studies and regards with keenest admiration such
exquisite and deeply felt inspirations as 'From Afar in the Night,'
with its restful motion; 'The Golden Birch,' so melodically beautiful
and sensitive in harmony; the somewhat Schubertesque but quaintly
charming 'In the Cloister Garden'; the joyously lilting 'In the Vale of
Llangollen,' on Arthur Symons' poem; and the mood-heavy and passionate
song on the same poet's 'Rain on the Down.'

An extraordinary record is that of Eleanor Everest Freer, of Chicago,
who has, in a large number of songs, well-nigh summed up the whole
range of the best in English and American lyrical literature, having
drawn upon upward of sixty of the greatest poets in the language for
her texts. Her opus 22, alone, consists of settings of the entire
fourty-four 'Sonnets from the Portuguese,' of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning. Her music presents the wide variety of expressiveness which
such a task would of necessity demand, but, despite the interesting
character of much of this music, it may be conceived that a richer
musical texture would have been gained by a higher concentration upon a
lesser output. The music shows French influence and is laudable for its
freedom from the outworn conventions of Germanic tradition.

A melodist of much spontaneity and charm is Celeste Heckscher,
who has written a considerable number of songs and piano pieces of
appealing lyrical quality, as well as an orchestral suite, 'Dances
of the Pyrenees,' which has been very successfully performed at the
concerts of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra and elsewhere. Among
the songs 'Music of Hungary' is characteristic and bold; 'Serenade'
is melodically ingratiating; and 'Pastoral Lullaby,' on a melody from
the orchestral suite, has a haunting melodic outline and charm of
mood. A 'Romance' for 'cello is simple and effective, affording a good
opportunity for developing tonal breadth.

Clara A. Korn, ranked by Rupert Hughes as a composer of 'works of
serious intention and worthy art,' has written a considerable number
of piano pieces in the smaller forms, including a suite, 'Rural
Snapshots,' an album of 'Nine Songs,' and for violin and piano a suite,
'Modern Dances,' and an _Air de Ballet_.

With characteristic Western enterprise Mary Carr Moore, of Seattle,
composed, produced, and conducted a grand opera, 'Narcissa,' text by
Sarah Pratt Carr, in that city in 1912 with pronounced success. The
text is based on a romantic episode of local history. Mrs. Moore is the
composer of many charming songs.

A complete list of American women composers would be of astonishing
length, and beyond the scope of the present work. Helen Hopekirk, of
Boston, should be mentioned, who has contributed to song and pianoforte
literature much of worth, of beauty and charm, not untouched in its
imaginative quality by the composer's Celtic derivation. Fannie Dillon,
of Los Angeles, in a number of piano compositions, shows emotional
and imaginative force, and a geometrical handling of ideas and grasp
of harmonic construction having an almost masculine character. She
has given a musical setting to Browning's 'Saul.' Mary Turner Salter
(b. in 1856) is widely known for songs of much fineness of spirit and
humanity of appeal. Amy Woodford Finden's setting of Lawrence Hope's
'Indian Love Lyrics' have enjoyed a very wide popularity. Lola Carrier
Worrell is the composer of many pleasant songs. A peculiar depth and
authenticity of mood lurks in several songs of not very formidable
technical construction by Katherine Ruth Heyman. Charming songs have
been written by Alicia Van Buren, Virginia Roper, Louise Drake Wright,
Alice Getty, and Caroline Holme Walker.

                                                           A. F.




                              CHAPTER XIV
              NATIONALISTS, ECLECTICS, AND ULTRA-MODERNS

      The new spirit and its various manifestations--Henry
      F. Gilbert, Arthur Farwell, Harvey W. Loomis--Frederic
      Ayres, Arthur Shepherd, Noble Kreider, Benjamin
      Lambord--Campbell-Tipton; Arthur Nevin; C. W. Cadman; J. A.
      Carpenter; T. C. Whitmer--W. H. Humiston, John Powell, Blair
      Fairchild, Maurice Arnold--Sidney Homer; Clough-Leighter,
      and others--Charles M. Loeffler and other Americans of
      foreign birth or residence.


With the struggle toward national musical individuality on the part
of the different nations of Europe, especially with the achievements
of modern France, and with the development of the internal aboriginal
musical resources of America, the creative musical life of the United
States took on an entirely new aspect. While the influences which
shaped the romantic and neo-classic epoch did not cease, they became
greatly modified. The ideals of that epoch yielded to new issues,
and the general forward movement was divided into two camps, one
seeking a national individuality for American music and the other a
continuation of the most recent European developments, especially
those of France and post-Wagnerian Germany. Neither of these two
movements was destined eventually to dominate the field. The promoters
of neither movement were wholly convinced or wholly single-minded.
The so-called 'Nationalists' experimented to some extent with the
ultra-modern technical developments, and the ultra-moderns could
not refrain from some essays with primitive American themes. It was
inevitable that a broad eclecticism should arise, and in this a more
truly national movement stepped forth than was presented by either
of the existing wings. The will for the greatest freedom, essential
to the American spirit, asserted itself, and in its newest phase the
nation is declaring for a complete musical independence, based upon
the unrestricted assimilation and reflection of every phase of musical
influence, within and without.


                                   I

No American composer stands forth with a more sharply defined
individuality than Henry F. Gilbert, and none has given himself with
greater ardor to the accomplishment of something truly American in
musical art. The ultimate stature of an artist finds a certain measure
of adumbration in the absorptive and impressionable capacity of his
early years. With Gilbert this capacity was exceptionally large and
sensitive. As a mere boy in his teens he had an insatiable curiosity
concerning every discoverable phase of the world's music, and at that
age, while America was still in the throes of the Wagner controversy,
he was thoroughly familiar with the music of the entire group of
now famous French, Russian, Bohemian, and other composers, whose
names at that time were wholly unknown on this side of the water,
and comparatively little known at home. At the same time he gained
an authoritative knowledge of the folk-songs of the world, and made
extensive studies into remote aspects of the world's literature.
Gilbert was born in Somerville, Mass., in 1868, and studied for a time
with MacDowell, in Boston, but he never had much academic training.
Concerning his formative influences, the composer may be allowed to
speak for himself, as he has done in the following words:

      'It has been my ideal not to allow any composer or school of
      music to influence me to the point of imitating them. I have
      striven to express my own individuality regardless whether
      it was good, bad, or indifferent. I prefer _my own hat_ to
      a _borrowed crown_. Of course, I have had many admirations
      and have absorbed musical nutriment from many sources. I
      believe that catholicity of education is a thing greatly
      to be desired.... More than the music of any individual
      composer; more than the music of any particular school,--the
      folk-tunes of the world, of all nationalities, races, and
      peoples, have been to me a never-failing source of delight,
      wonder, and inspiration. In them I can hear the spirit of
      all great music. Through them I can feel the very heart-beat
      of humanity. Simple as these folk-melodies are in structure,
      they yet speak to me so poignantly, and with such a deep
      sincerity of expression, as to be (for myself, at least)
      more pregnant with inspirational suggestion than the music
      of any _one_ composer.'

[Illustration] American Composers: John Alden Carpenter, Charles Martin
              Loeffler, Henry F. Gilbert Campbell-Tipton.

Finishing in his earliest period with the strictly German influence,
Gilbert had also done with the exhibition of a predominating modern
French influence before his colleagues had awakened to the existence
of such a thing. It is, however, significant to note that the 'Negro
Episode' for orchestra, and arranged also for piano, dates from
earliest days. An orchestral 'Legend' was a companion piece. The modern
French influence appears in the richly colored and highly poetic
soprano aria, 'Salammbô's Invocation to Tänith,' on Flaubert's text; in
the very imaginative songs, 'Orlamonde' (Maeterlinck), and 'Zephyrus'
(Longfellow), and in the fanciful tone-poem for piano, 'The Island of
the Fay,' after Poe. From this general period came, in strong contrast,
the barbaric and famous 'Pirate Song,' as well as the delicate 'Croon
of the Dew,' and the 'South American Gypsy Songs.' A strong Celtic
influence now asserted itself, based upon the Irish literary revival
and a study of ancient bardic and other Celtic folk-songs. The chief
results were the 'Lament of Deirdre,' a remarkable song of intensest
pathos and mood-heaviness; four very individual songs called 'Celtic
Studies'; and the 'Fairy Song,' all on verses of the Irish poets. A
fine piece of American savagery from this period, presumably deriving
from Whitmanic influences, is the song on Frederick Manley's poem,
'Fish Wharf Rhapsody.' These various phases finally yielded to a strong
impulse toward a bold expression of Americanism, and Gilbert composed
the 'Comedy Overture on Negro Themes,' a vigorous and jubilant work
which has been widely heard and has awakened much interest in the
composer. A less important 'Humoresque on Negro Minstrel Tunes,' for
orchestra, followed, and a massive orchestral 'Negro Rhapsody,' first
produced at the 'Norfolk Festival' under the composer's direction in
1913. 'The Dance in the Place Congo,' for orchestra, after a vivid
word-painting by George W. Cable, is the composer's most extensive
work. There are also for orchestra 'American Dances in Ragtime Rhythm,'
and, in another vein, an impressive 'Symphonic Prologue' to J. M.
Synge's 'Riders to the Sea,' conducted by the composer at the MacDowell
festival at Peterboro, N. H., in 1914. There is a song on Whitman's
'Give me the splendid silent sun,' a chorus with orchestra, 'To Thee,
America,' five 'Indian Scenes' for piano, and other works. Often rough
in technique, though greatly resourceful, and rich in orchestral
imagination, it is to the spirit of the time and nation that Gilbert
makes his contribution and his appeal. He is the avowed enemy of
tradition and fashion, whether in art, dress, or speech, and a fighter
for freedom and individuality in music.

                                                           A. F.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Arthur Farwell is a composer who may well be called representatively
American, inasmuch as his work contains elements which exemplify the
spirit and aims of our native art. Mr. Farwell is perhaps most widely
known for his studies in Indian music and for such of his compositions
as are built from this material. He has realized, however, that
presenting as it does only one phase, and that a more or less exotic
one, Indian music in no way can stand as an accepted basis of our
national musical art. Mr. Farwell has kept well abreast of the tide
of modern music and has cultivated a style in which its idioms are
employed with considerable originality and imbued with the rare poetic
feeling that is his. It is with this broadness of view also that Mr.
Farwell conducted the Wa-Wan Press, established by him in 1901. This
institution had as one of its principal missions the promulgation of
the Indian and other folk elements in American composition and the
exploitation of such works as employed this element. Its pages were,
nevertheless, open to all native composers, irrespective of 'school,'
who had something to say, and its founder has to his great credit the
record of having lent early recognition to a number of the younger and
progressive American composers.

Farwell's earlier compositions reveal the usual sway of varied
influences with a tendency to the original harmonic treatment that has
remained the distinctive feature of his late work. He may be said to
have first 'found himself' in an overture, 'Cornell' (op. 9), written
while he was a musical lecturer at Cornell University. Combining Indian
themes and college songs in a sort of American academic overture, the
vigor of style and effectiveness of scoring has gained for this work
a permanent place in the orchestral répertoire. Following this Mr.
Farwell devoted himself for some time to the study of and experiments
in Indian music, and thus follow in his list of works several of his
best-known compositions; the book of 'American Indian Melodies,'
for piano; 'Dawn'; 'Ichibuzzh'; and 'The Domain of the Hurakan.'
The orchestral version of the last-named work is a score of great
impressiveness and of brilliant color. It has had several conspicuous
performances which have done much to win recognition for his larger
gifts.

The 'Symbolistic Studies,' comprising opera 16, 17, 18, and 24, are
tone-poems with a generic title. The composer describes them as being
'program music, the program of which is merely suggested,' an attempt,
in other words, to create a form that shall offer the composer the
means of unrestricted expression, while its musical coherence shall
preserve an intrinsic worth and general appeal as absolute music. In
the 'Impressions of the Wa-Wan Ceremony' (opus 21) and the 'Navajo War
Dance' (opus 29) Mr. Farwell has made further interesting and effective
treatment of the Indian color. The set of pieces comprised under
the former title contains some very atmospheric pages in which the
strange monotony that marks the Indian song is obtained by novel uses
of diatonic material at once bold and beautiful. The barbaric crudity
is still further implied in the 'Navajo War Dance,' where Farwell has
renounced almost all defined harmony, preserving only the vigorous
rhythm of the dance in the bold intervals of the Indian melody.

Mr. Farwell was one of the first composers to write music for the
so-called community pageants. In the 'Pageant of Meriden' and the
'Pageant of Darien' he has obtained a remarkable success by the
masterly skill with which he has welded the diffusive elements of
pictorial description, folk-song suggestion, dances and choruses,
into a coherent and artistic whole. Equally successful along similar
lines was Farwell's music for Louis N. Parker's play, 'Joseph and His
Brethren,' and Sheldon's 'Garden of Paradise.'

In his vocal compositions Farwell shows some of his best inspirations.
Among the larger of these works is a tone-poem for voice and orchestra,
opus 34 (the words from Sterling's 'Duandon'), a score of rich color
and poetic description in which the voice has little of what has
heretofore been known as melody, but performs a more modern function
of sounding the salient notes of harmonies that are woven in an
ultra-modern profusion of color. The same is true of several other
large songs, such as 'A Ruined Garden' (opus 14), 'Drake's Drum' (opus
22), and 'The Farewell' (opus 33). In the second section of 'A Ruined
Garden,' however, there is a clearer line of melody over a harmonic
scheme of haunting loveliness. This song is one of the more popular
ones of Mr. Farwell's list, having been sung frequently by Florence
Hinkle and others of note. There is an orchestral version of the
accompaniment which enhances its rich color effects. In his two most
recent songs, 'Bridal Song' and 'Daughter of Ocean' (opus 43), the
composer has applied in a more modern and highly colored scheme some of
the experiments with secondary seventh chords that lend such interest
to his later Indian studies.

In some of his shorter songs Farwell has again made some valuable
contributions to the nationalistic development. Besides the interesting
cowboy song, 'The Lone Prairie,' already mentioned (see Chap. VII),
there is a remarkable utilization of the negro element in 'Moanin'
Dove,' one of the 'negro spiritual' harmonizations beautiful in its
atmosphere of crooning sadness. In concerted vocal music Farwell has
made a setting of Whitman's 'Captain, My Captain' for chorus and
orchestra (opus 34), a 'Hymn to Liberty,' sung at a celebration in the
New York city hall (1910); some male and mixed choruses, and part-songs
for children.

                                                             B. L.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Harvey Worthington Loomis occupies not merely a unique place in
American music, but one which is elusively so, and difficult of both
determination and exposition. To place the delicate and fragile spirit
of a Watteau or a Grétry in the midst of the hurly-burly of American
life would seem a sorry anachronism, as well as anatopism, on the part
of the Providence which rules over the destinies of art. Yet it is some
such position that Loomis occupies, a fact which tends to explain why
he has not received the attention at the hands of his countrymen that
the rare originality, charm, and finish of his work merit. The court
of Louis XVI would have opened its palaces and gardens to him, but
the America of the twentieth century with difficulty finds standing
room for him in the vestibule. Bringing with him such a nautilus-like
spirit as animated the artists of an earlier France, he matured it in
an America which as yet knew scarcely anything of any musical system or
spirit beyond the German. It is, therefore, a wholly amazing phenomenon
of art that, out of materials thus solid, Loomis contrived to fashion
his aerial and delicately tinted fairy edifices of tone, of a character
totally different from those of Teutons of the subtler sort, and
foreshadowing the achievements of the later Frenchmen with a newly
devised medium at their command. It is evidence of the purest kind of
the yielding of matter to spirit.

Consider that exquisite masterpiece, 'In the Moon Shower'--a very
epitome in miniature of Loomis' genius--a setting of Verlaine's
_L'heure exquise_ for singing voice, speaking voice, piano, and
violin. It seems not to contain a harmony or a progression with which
we have not long been made familiar by our Germanic system, and yet
how complete the departure which it makes from the spirit of German
tradition, and how utterly it dissolves the medium which it draws upon
to re-materialize it as the shadowy reflection of a Verlaine dream.
It is not that Loomis has not become familiar with, and in a measure
assimilated, the later French idiom, but that, without the knowledge
and employment of it, he earlier spontaneously breathed forth the
quality of spirit which we now recognize in a Debussy or a Ravel.
Loomis has also been exceedingly hospitable to native aboriginal
themes and has treated them in the spirit of a delicate and refined
impressionism. His technique is invariably of the nicest, with minute
attention to every detail.

Loomis has produced much. There is a grand opera, 'The Traitor
Mandolin'; two comic operas; incidental music of most aristocratic
artistry to the plays 'The Tragedy of Death,' by René Peter, and
'The Coming of the Prince,' by William Sharp, and music of similarly
refined mood to a number of pantomimes--a favorite form of Loomis--'The
Enchanted Fountain,' 'Put to the Test,' 'In Old New Amsterdam,'
'Love and Witchcraft,' and 'Black and White.' There are many piano
compositions of charm, sprightliness, humor, and impressionistic
interest, including two books of 'Lyrics of the Red Man'; and many
songs brimming with poetry and character, among them 'In the Foggy
Dew,' 'Love Comes, Love Goes,' 'Hark, Hark, the Lark' (a delightful
conception inviting no comparison with Schubert), and songs of negro
character, such as the exquisite 'Hour of the Whippoorwill.' Loomis has
written choruses and part-songs, and a stupendous quantity of excellent
children's songs for schools. The composer was born in Brooklyn, N. Y.,
in 1865 and makes his home in New York. He started upon his musical
career in the National Conservatory, where he was awarded a free
scholarship by Dr. Dvořák.


                                   II

If, thus early, it may be said that the many musical ideals and
influences which have struck root in America have centred and blended
in any single composer, that composer is Frederic Ayres. The true
eclecticism which constitutes the latest phase of American development,
to have value for musical art, must necessarily involve the complete
submergence and assimilation of hitherto unreconciled influences in a
single new creative personality. Of such a new and authentic American
electicism Ayres stands forth so clearly as the protagonist that a
claim for him in this rôle will hardly be successfully disputed.
This occupation of such a position is, however, a purely spontaneous
circumstance, arrived at by obedience to no theory, but only through
creative impulse.

Without being unduly extravagant, informal, though logical, as a
formalist, Ayres commands his many qualities for the expressive
purposes of a spirit eager for the discovery and revelation of perfect
beauty. Such a perfection of beauty he by no means always finds;
indeed, his earlier experimental excursions not infrequently left
the ground rough over which he trod. And even at the present time he
is only entering upon a full conscious command of his material. Only
a keen sensitiveness to every significant influence, European and
American, could have led to the development of so rounded and typical
a musical character. Taught, in the first instance, by Stillman-Kelley
and Arthur Foote, his broad sympathies led him early to blend the
German, French, and American spirit through a devotion to no less
striking a group of composers than Bach, Beethoven, Stephen Foster, and
César Franck. A constant contact with natural scenes of the greatest
grandeur, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, has undoubtedly exercised
a broadening effect upon his conceptions. While he has not employed
native aboriginal themes, or even made a special study of them, many of
his melodies have a strong Indian cast, which is difficult to explain
except on the basis of some psychological aspect of climatic and other
environmental influences.

The trio for piano, violin, and 'cello (opus 13) abounds in supreme
qualities of freshness and spontaneity. Taken as a whole, it is typical
of the manner in which the composer rises, easily and blithely, out
of the ancient sea of tradition into the blue of a new and happier
musical day. The work was first heard on April 18, 1914, at a concert
of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and has since had various
public performances. The violin sonata (opus 15) is of great beauty and
rich in characteristic qualities, and presents an interesting study
in formal originality. A piano sonata (opus 16) and a 'cello sonata
(opus 17) have been completed. Ayres has written songs of surpassing
loveliness and originality. His 'Sea Dirge,' a setting of Shakespeare's
'Full Fathom Five,' from 'The Tempest,' reveals a poignancy of
imagination and a perception and apprehension of beauty seldom attained
by any composer. Other highly poetic Shakespeare songs are 'Where the
Bee Sucks,' 'Come Unto These Yellow Sands,' 'It was a Lover and His
Lass.' A richly colored vocal work is 'Sunset Wings' (opus 8), after
Rossetti. 'Two Fugues' (opus 9) and 'Fugue Fantasy' (opus 12), for
piano, of American suggestiveness, Indian and otherwise, are striking
_tours de force_ of originality. The 'Songs of the Seeonee Wolves'
(opus 10), from Kipling's 'Jungle Book,' are vivid presentations of
the composer's conception of the call of the wild. Ayres was born at
Binghamton, N. Y., March 17, 1876, and lives in Colorado Springs, Col.

                   *       *       *       *       *

One of the most keenly individualized of American composers, and one
of the most daring and original in the employment of ultra-modern
resource, is Arthur Shepherd, formerly of Salt Lake City and at present
connected with the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston,
Mass. His work, as a whole, is almost unique in American music in
the completeness of its departure from the styles of any individual
composers who may earlier have stimulated or influenced him. The
dominating factor in his work, almost from the beginning, has been
the will to express himself in a certain manner, wholly his own, and
on this positive ground extraneous influences have been able to gain
but a scant foothold. Of the Brahms and Wagner influences which he
acknowledges, the former can be traced only in his earliest pages,
and the latter seems nowhere to appear. His harmony would make any
other German than a radical Strauss enthusiast shrink with horror,
so sweeping and so subversive of the usual order are its departures
from the accepted scheme, while, on the other hand, it can be said
to be very little suggestive of the characteristic harmonic quality
of the modern French school. Especially it eschews the luscious and
velvety harmonic surface of Debussy. In both melody and harmony, the
saccharine--even the merely sweet--the sensuous and the languorous,
Shepherd dethrones with the sedulous intolerance of a Pfitzner and,
like that composer, exalts in its place a clear and luminous spiritual
beauty. Otherwise he works in lines that cut, in chords that bite and
grip, and rises often to great nobility of conception and expression.
In his latest works, 'The Nuptials of Attila,' a dramatic overture
after George Meredith, and a 'Humoreske' for pianoforte and orchestra,
he has fought against the tendency toward over-complexity manifested in
his earlier work, and has gained a greater clarity of harmonic texture.

The pianoforte sonata in F minor (opus 4), with which the composer
took the National Federation of Musical Clubs' prize in the 1909
competition, is a massive work of great breadth of conception. The
second movement shows Shepherd's peculiar power of evoking deeply
subjective moods; it presents an almost ghostly quality of the elegiac
and has much of nobility. The third movement makes bold use of a cowboy
song and has a magnificent original melody of a broad Foster-like
quality, but the composer holds 'nationalism' to be merely incidental
to a broader artistic function. He rises to an unusual naturalness in
this movement, which, like the others, is highly virile. 'The City in
the Sea,' a 'poem for orchestra, mixed chorus, and baritone solo,' on
Bliss Carman's poem, is a large work of extraordinary modernity and
individuality. 'Five Songs' (opus 7) are worthily representative and
contain much of beauty. There are also 'Theme and Variations' (opus
1), and 'Mazurka' (opus 2), for pianoforte, and a mixed chorus with
baritone solo, 'The Lord Hath Brought again Zion.'

                   *       *       *       *       *

Noble Kreider, through the possession of that more exalted sense of
beauty and flashing quality of inspiration which illuminates only the
rarer musical souls of any period, takes his place with those in the
forefront of American musical advance. In this capacity, however, his
place is less that of a militant than that of a standard-bearer of
ideals of beauty. He has the further distinction of being the only
American composer, of first rank at least, who has found the complete
expression of his personality and ideals through the medium of the
piano, and who, as an inevitable corollary of this circumstance, has
more intimately and sympathetically than any other made the piano
speak its own proper language. American composers write seriously,
and sometimes admirably, for the piano now and then; Kreider lives
and breathes through it. It responds to him sensitively and with its
whole soul, as it did to Chopin. It has become identified with his
imaginative quality.

Chopin has, indeed, been the strongest influence in the formation of
Kreider's musical character, and while, in his earlier work, nothing
was more evident than this fact, in his later nothing is more evident
than the emergence of his own individuality. So distinct, however, is
Kreider's personality that it is unmistakably present even in much of
his earliest music. A mystery and sombreness, as of an influence of
the North, foreign to Chopin, dominates certain of his moods; and then
Kreider is more of a pagan than Chopin was.

The 'Two Legends' (opus 1) have beauty and inspiration, if not a
particular distinction of modernity. The 'Ballad' (opus 3) is of
heroic and Ossianic cast, restless, like much of Kreider's music, with
contained passion--a passion which at times flashes forth in unexpected
lightning strokes. A 'Nocturne' (opus 4) is haunting in melody and
of an almost Oriental languor. The 'Impromptu' (opus 5) is a darting
and upspringing inspiration, with a middle section of great lyrical
warmth and beauty. Opus 6 comprises two 'Studies,' both containing
a very high quality of beauty with special technical interest. 'Six
Preludes' (opus 7) are characteristic, at times Chopinesque, and
always fresh and inspirational. The 'Prelude' (opus 8) is a broad and
powerful processional of great cumulative dynamic force. 'Three Moods'
(opus 9) show the full emergence of the composer's individuality;
the second, 'The Valley of White Poppies,' is a rarely perfect
and ecstatic inspiration. Opus 10 contains a 'Poem' and a 'Valse
Sentimentale.' There is also an unpublished work for 'cello and piano
and a very original 'Nocturne.' Kreider's development has been chiefly
self-directed. His birthplace and home is Goshen, Indiana.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Benjamin Lambord is a composer whose work reflects in a striking
manner the evolutionary upheaval which, in the present generation, has
carried the nation from the end of the old epoch to the beginning of
the new. There could not well be a closer fidelity to the old German
musical spirit and style, especially as pertains to the _Lied_, than
in Lambord's early songs. Even that restricted medium, however, lent
itself to all levels of creative impotence or dignity, and if there
is a particular distinguishing characteristic in Lambord's work in
that style, it is to be found in a peculiar depth of sincerity, an
adumbration of personality yet to emerge in individualized expression.
This quality will be observed in the first number, Christina Rossetti's
'Remember or Forget,' of the composer's opus 1, which consists of
three songs. 'Four Songs,' opus 4, fall under the same dispensation;
all indicate a leaning to poetry of high character. A trio for violin,
'cello, and piano (opus 5) from the same period shows good impulse
and bold and well-defined themes, but is conventional in harmony and
structure generally. An elaborate 'Valse Fantastique' (opus 6) shows
a similar energy and boldness of contour. The modern musical ear must
search diligently, however, to discover its fantastic element. 'Two
Songs' (opus 7), on poems of Heine and Rückert, are deeply felt, and
'_Lehn deine Wang_' in particular manifests a tendency to enrich the
older medium.

With opus 10, 'Two Songs with Orchestra,' however, the composer stands
forth in a wholly new light, as an ultra-modern of exceptional powers,
and with a subtlety, an imagination and a rich and varied color-sense
of which the earlier works can be said to give no appreciable
indication. The second of these songs, 'Clytie,' on a poem by André
Chénier, is a highly mature expression in the ultra-modern Germanic
idiom, technically speaking, though in its musical quality there
is much of subtle individuality. The voice part is managed with an
appreciation of both delicacy and power, as well as the requirements
of artistic diction, and the accompaniment is a web of sensitive
modulation and dissonance pregnant with sensuous beauty at every point.
The upbuilding of the climax is masterly. The song was presented with
much success at a concert of the Modern Music Society in New York in
the season of 1913-14, when it was sung by Miss Maggie Teyte. At the
same concert, under the composer's direction, was heard a number from
his opus 11, 'Verses from Omar,' for chorus and orchestra. Here Lambord
adds to his expressional scheme an effective pseudo-Oriental quality,
gaining an insistent atmosphere with very simple means. Particularly
interesting is the way in which he has varied the manner of employment
of his main theme, showing a keen sense of thematic organization.
Peculiarly gratifying is the _a cappella_ rendering of the lines
beginning 'But ah! that Spring should vanish with the rose' after
the powerful climax for chorus and orchestra combined. The composer
also has an 'Introduction and Ballet' (opus 8) for orchestra, a work
of considerable elaborateness and much rhythmic and melodic variety,
one which shows his thorough grasp of orchestral technique. With the
nationalistic school Lambord has nothing in common. He is, however, a
native New Englander, being born in Portland, Me., in 1879, and his
earlier studies in composition were pursued under MacDowell at Columbia
University. Later he travelled in France and Germany and studied
orchestration with Vidal in Paris.


                                   III

In the modification of the romantic through the influence of the
ultra-modern school, the musical development of Campbell-Tipton
presents a circumstance which is typical of the experience of many
American composers whose formative period coincides with the present
transitional epoch. The style of the composer's earlier work rested
upon a broad Germanic basis, modern, yet scarcely having passed
from the modernity of Liszt to that of Strauss. His work in the
earlier vein is vigorous, structurally firm, definite in its melodic
contours, and warm in its harmonic color. Force of personality asserts
itself, even if the means employed are not highly individualized
and lean overheavily upon tradition. To this period belong 'Ten
Piano Compositions' (opus 1); 'Romanza Appassionata' (opus 2),
for violin and piano; 'Tone Poems' (opus 3), for voice and piano;
two 'Legends,' and other works, especially songs. The culminating
expression of this period is the 'Sonata Heroic,' for piano, a work
of solidity and brilliance, in one broadly conceived movement. It is
quasi-programmatical and is founded upon two themes, representing the
'Hero' and the 'Ideal,' the latter in particular being a melody of much
warmth and beauty. These are variously interwoven in the development
section, and lead to a return upon the second theme and a climax
upon the heroic theme. The work has had various public performances
in America and Europe. 'Four Sea Lyrics,' for tenor with piano
accompaniment, on poems by Arthur Symons, belong, broadly speaking, to
the period of the sonata. They are works of distinguished character,
'The Crying of Water' being especially poignant in its expressiveness.
The somewhat elaborately worked out 'Suite Pastorale' (opus 27), for
violin and piano, and 'Two Preludes' (opus 26), mark no particular
departure in style, except that the second of the latter is so modern
as to have no bar divisions.

With the 'Nocturnale' and 'Matinale' (opus 28), especially the former,
comes a marked departure toward impressionism and ultra-modern harmonic
effect, with a gain in color and a corresponding loss in structural
quality. The 'Four Seasons' (opus 29), symbolizing four seasons of
human life, bear out the tendency toward impressionism and harmonic
emancipation, and at the same time seek a greater substantiality of
design and treatment. There is an 'Octave Étude' (opus 30), for piano,
and a 'Lament' (opus 33), for violin and piano. Among other songs are
'A Spirit Flower,' 'Three Shadows,' 'A Fool's Soliloquy,' 'The Opium
Smoker,' and 'Invocation.' An opera is in process of completion.
Campbell-Tipton was born in Chicago, in 1877, and lives at present in
Paris.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Arthur Nevin would be deemed an out-and-out romanticist were it not
that the authorship of so significant a work as an Indian opera,
drawing freely upon Indian songs for thematic material, places him
in the ranks of those who have proved the existence of available
sources of aboriginal folk-music in America. Nevin is not, however, a
nationalist, avowed or otherwise, but with the freedom and experimental
eclecticism which has come to be so general a characteristic with
American composers, he is ready to draw upon any promising new source
of musical suggestion or inspiration. The opera in question, 'Poia,'
text by Randolph Hartley, is based upon a sun legend of the Blackfeet
Indians of Montana, with whom the composer spent the summers of 1903
and 1904 collecting material. 'Poia' was produced at the Royal Opera,
Berlin, Dr. Karl Muck conducting, on April 23, 1910, under stormy
circumstances, due to the violent opposition of an anti-American
element in the audience. The composer was, nevertheless, many times
recalled at the close. The orchestral score is elaborate and modern
in instrumental treatment. While Nevin acknowledges Wagner as the
chief formative influence upon his musical character, the music of
'Poia' presents little or nothing in the way of obvious Wagnerisms.
It is freely lyrical, often very melodious, and, where not boldly
characterized by Indian themes, is built on modern German lines. A
second opera, 'Twilight,' in one act, has not been performed.

'The Djinns,' a cantata on the metrical fancy of the same name by
Victor Hugo, won, with the _a cappella_ chorus, 'The Fringed Gentian'
(Bryant), the divided first prize of the Mendelssohn Club of Cleveland,
Ohio, in 1912. The cantata is composed for mixed chorus accompanied
by two pianos. The composer has chosen not to follow in his musical
rhythms the metrical caprice of the poet, but to employ the words
freely in a piece of modern musical tone-painting, following the single
emotional crescendo and decrescendo of which the poem consists. The
work is thoroughly representative of the restless energy of Nevin's
muse and contains examples of the sustained lyricism and melodic and
rhythmic charm which characterize much of his music. The miniature
orchestral suite, 'Love Dreams,' had its first performance, under
the composer's direction, at the Peterboro Festival in 1914. Other
works of the composer are a pianoforte suite, 'Edgeworth Hills,' 'Two
Impromptus' for piano, two mixed choruses on poems by Longfellow, 'At
Daybreak' and 'Chrysoar,' and many songs of much charm, including a
very direct and sincere piece of expression, 'Love of a Day,' the
well-known 'Egyptian Boat Song,' and the exquisite 'Indian Lullaby' on
a Blackfeet Indian melody. A piano trio in C major and a string quartet
in D minor are in manuscript.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Charles Wakefield Cadman, despite his sympathetic and successful
entrance--successful, very likely, because sympathetic--into the
field of Indian music, can scarcely be justly classed as a downright
nationalist. None of the reputed 'nationalist' composers of America,
for that matter, will bear strict analysis as such, for in all cases
their compositions upon aboriginal or other primitive melodies peculiar
to America constitute but one department of their endeavor, and
represent but one element of their ideal. Cadman, nevertheless, had he
composed nothing beyond the famous Indian song, 'From the Land of the
Sky-Blue Water,' would have done enough to prove the most important
and valuable contention included in the nationalist creed, which is
that aboriginal American folk-songs may be a stimulus to the making of
good music of a new sort, and that there is nothing inherent in Indian
melodies to repulse popular sympathy. Like other American nationalists,
Cadman is at heart an eclectic. The nationalism of Grieg, Tschaikowsky,
and Puccini interests him, but not so much as the American freedom of
choice.

The song mentioned is one of a set of four which first brought the
composer into public notice, in 1907. The others are 'Far Off I Hear a
Lover's Flute,' 'The Moon Drops Low,' and 'The White Dawn is Stealing.'
In his treatment of these Indian themes he does not accentuate their
aboriginal character, but enfolds them naturally in a normally modern
harmonic matrix, with very pleasing effect. These songs were followed
by 'Sayonara,' a Japanese romance, for one or two voices; 'Three Songs
to Odysseus,' with orchestral accompaniment (opus 52); 'Idyls of the
South Sea'; and 'Idealized Indian Themes,' for the piano--revealing
various phases of the composer's versatility and fertile fancy. A
representative recent work is the 'Trio in D Major' (opus 56), for
violin, violoncello, and piano, of which the leading characteristics
are melodic spontaneity and freshness of musical impulse. Everywhere
are buoyancy, directness of expression, motion, but little of thematic
involution or harmonic or formal sophistication. It is the trio of a
lyrist; from the standpoint of modern chamber music it might be called
naïve, but the strength, sincerity and beauty of its melodies claim,
and sometimes compel, one's attention. There are strong occasional
suggestions of Indian influence, probably unintentional on the
composer's part, as there is no evidence revealing this work as one of
nationalistic intention. The trio has been widely performed.

Cadman has a completed three-act Indian opera, 'The Land of Misty
Water,' libretto by Francis La Flesche and Nelle Richmond Eberhart.
Forty-seven actual Indian melodies form its thematic basis. Other
works are 'The Vision of Sir Launfal,' a cantata for male voices; 'The
Morning of the Year,' a cycle for vocal quartet; and many works in
various small forms. Cadman won the second prize in its class in the
National Federation of Musical Clubs Prize Competition of 1911 with
a song, 'An Indian Nocturne,' and one of the 'Four Indian Songs' was
awarded a prize in a Pittsburgh Art Society competition.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The recent sudden appearance of John Alden Carpenter among American
composers, with work of singularly well-defined individuality and
notable maturity of style, is a phenomenon which calls to mind Minerva
springing full-grown from the head of Jove. Except for a sonata for
violin and piano, Carpenter's published work consists wholly of songs.
The first set, 'Eight Songs for a Medium Voice,' show forth at once the
unique personality of the composer. It is Carpenter's distinction, in
a sense, to have begun where others have left off. He is a personality
of the new musical time with its new and transformed outlook upon the
art. The margin of advance gained by the most recent developments of
modernity, more especially from the French standpoint, becomes his main
territory, while it would be well-nigh impossible, from his work, to
suspect that the old ground of tradition and formula had ever existed.
Far from his modernity meaning complexity, it is attained generally
by means of a veritably startling simplicity. It is the _principles_
of modernity which interest him, and he seeks the simplest means of
their exemplification. Above all, he takes high rank in the sensitive
perception of beauty. These characteristics are all manifest in the
'Eight Songs' which comprise the richly beautiful 'The Green River'
(Lord Douglas), a limpid setting of Stevenson's 'Looking-Glass River,'
a setting of the Blake 'Cradle Song' which combines science and poetry
in a remarkable degree in view of the simplicity of treatment, the
somewhat overweighted 'Little Fly' (Blake), the lusty Dorsetshire
dialect song, 'Dont Ceäre' (Barnes), a crisp interpretation of
Stevenson's 'The Cock Shall Crow,' and characteristic settings of
Waller's 'Go, Lovely Rose' and Herrick's 'Bid Me to Live.' Of four
highly modernized and colorful Verlaine songs, _Le Ciel_ and '_Il
Pleure dans mon Cœur_,' attain the most modern scheme of musical
thought with astonishingly simple means; the _Chanson d'Automne_ is
sympathetically set, and '_Dansons la Gigue_' is sufficiently sardonic.
'Four Songs for a Medium Voice' contain the mysterious tone-painting
'Fog Wraiths' (Mildred Howells), 'To One Unknown' (Helen Dudley), and
two poems by Wilde, _Les Silhouettes_ and 'Her Voice.'

In the somewhat elaborate settings of poems from Tagore's 'Gitanjali'
Carpenter wrestles with the problem of setting prose poetry to music,
often with felicitous effect and yet not always convincingly, despite
the intrinsic beauty of his musical ideas. The violin sonata in
its themes, its strikingly individual harmonic intuitions, and its
structure generally, is of great beauty and interest. The composer was
born in Illinois in 1876, graduated at Harvard and studied music with
Bernard Ziehn and Sir Edward Edgar. In 1897 he entered the business
established by his father in Chicago and has since directed it.

                   *       *       *       *       *

An American ultra-modernist of extensive attainments, but whose work
has as yet come very little into public attention, is T. Carl Whitmer.
In an age when sensationalism and sensuousness have predominated in
the taste of the musical world it is not surprising to find but slight
public progress being made by a composer whose whole tendency is in
the direction of a highly clarified spirituality, as is the case with
this composer. Whitmer has a spiritual kinship with that small group of
composers (Arthur Shepherd in America, Hans Pfitzner in Germany, and
d'Indy in France may be included in it) who, however different they
may be in musical individuality, unite in banishing utterly from music
not only the vulgar but also even the more distinguished aspects of
the sensuously sweet, which chiefly and most quickly (except for the
rhythmic element) recommends music to the multitude the world over.
Whitmer's music is psychologically subtle and spiritually rarefied;
in color it corresponds to the violet end of the spectrum. It shuns
realistic and elemental qualities and seeks an ethereal expression
which gives it not infrequently a sense of over-earthliness. Its
salient characteristics are well represented in a soprano song,
'The Fog Maiden,' an achievement of extraordinary originality and
distinction of mood. Among the composer's many other songs are the
scintillating and crisp 'My Lord Comes Riding,' the poignantly
expressive 'Song from the Gardener's Lodge,' the sanely ultra-modern
'Just To-night,' 'Song from Pippa Passes,' 'My Star,' 'Ah! Love, but
a Day,' 'Cloud and Wind,' 'Nausicaa,' 'Willowwood,' 'Ballad of Trees
and the Master,' 'I Will Twine the Violet,' 'Christmas Carol,' and
'Our Birth Is but a Sleep.' Whitmer's manuscripts include no less
surprising an offering than six 'Mysteries,' or spiritual music-dramas,
'The Creation,' 'The Covenant,' 'The Nativity,' 'The Temptation,'
'Mary Magdalene,' and 'The Passion,' upon which works the composer has
published a little essay entitled 'Concerning a National Spiritual
Drama.' For chorus with orchestra is an 'Elegiac Rhapsody,' and for
orchestra alone a set of 'Miniatures,' originally for piano, of which
'Sunrise' is the most important. There are an 'Athenian' sonata for
violin and piano, various organ works, anthems, and women's choruses,
and a number of 'Symbolisms'--readings of original texts with piano
accompaniment.


                                   IV

William Henry Humiston has not given out a large quantity of work,
but all that he has done bears the stamp of a genuine personality and
indicates a composer of rich and sincere musical feeling. One may go
further and say that Humiston is animated by the spirit of nobility
of the old classicists from Bach down, and shares their passion for
cleanness and clarity of expression. In his eschewing of the more
fashionable ultra-modern idiom of the day there is neither a pose of
'back to Mozart' nor a sense of incapacity or unwillingness to join
the chase. Merely he goes his own way and takes his own time about it,
and the result is music that is worth hearing and that takes strong
hold of the affections. In 'Iphigenia before the Sacrifice at Aulis'
(poem by Sara King Wiley), a dramatic scene for soprano, chorus, and
orchestra, Humiston has produced a work of great dignity, fervor,
and beauty. His themes are few and trenchant, each an authentic
creative idea, and he has admirably, in his music, contrasted the
dramatic motives of the poem. His well-known 'Southern Fantasy,' for
orchestra--the quiet Americanism of which makes it possible to include
him in the present chapter--is based on three principal themes of
negro character, and in general strikes the more sombre note of negro
psychology, though a lively dance appears in the middle, later to be
combined, with contrapuntal wit, with one of the other themes. It is a
work of true beauty and reveals Humiston's mastery of orchestration. A
suite for violin and orchestra is virtually, in its three movements,
built out of a single theme, which the composer finally fugues for
a climax. The work is no less beautiful than clever and, like the
compositions already mentioned, is bound to take a high place in the
final accounting of American music. There is also an overture to
'Twelfth Night,' written for Maude Adams. Among Humiston's songs are:
'Song of Evening' and 'Song of a Young Girl' (both Sara King Wiley),
'_Yo te amo_' (Rosalie Jonas), 'Beauty's Daughters' (Byron), and 'Thou
Beauteous Spring' (Kern).

A personality of unusual vigor and distinction of character is that
of John Powell, who has rather suddenly come into notice through a
number of large-dimensioned works of interesting content. Disregarding
from the outset the classical thematic styles, the composer yet
retains the cyclical forms, almost recklessly surcharging them with
an Americanism of the boldest sort. This Americanism derives from the
folk-songs and folk-music generally of the south-eastern part of the
United States and from Virginia in particular. He easily brushes aside
at a stroke the critical objections of the past decade to the modern
harmonization of these folk-tunes. Through all his work is an unusual,
an almost singular, opulence of impulse, of inspiration--the composer
has an amazing amount to say and the notes tumble over themselves
in his eagerness for expression. 'Sonata Virginianesque' (opus 7),
for violin and piano, is in three movements, 'In the Quarters,' 'In
the Woods,' and 'At the Big House,' and is based on negro motives
and old reel tunes. There are three piano sonatas, _Psychologique_
(opus 15), _Noble_ (opus 21), and _Teutonica_ (opus 24). The first
treats of the human soul-struggle under the text 'The wages of sin is
death.' The _Sonata Noble_ is strongly Virginian and _volkstümlich_.
The 'Teutonica' is an expression of the Teutonic psychology and is
a kind of symphony for piano, in the form of an _allegro sostenuto_
(sonata form), and a set of variations which comprise the elements of
several movements. Opus 13 is a piano concerto in B minor and opus 23
is a violin concerto largely based on Virginian folk-tunes. The string
quartet (opus 19) is strongly American, even in its finale, which
is a tarentella. The piano suite 'In the South' (opus 16) includes
'Humming Birds,' a remarkable combination of realistic tone-painting
and musical structure, a splendidly sombre 'Negro Elegy' and a big and
virile 'Pioneer Dance,' on a melody of 'Crocker' fiddle-tune type.
Another piano suite, 'At the Fair' (opus 22), gives us a classic on the
notorious 'Hoochee-Coochee' dance; 'Clowns,' with peculiar harmonic
and melodic kinks; 'Banjo-picker,' a remarkable art-expression of the
typical banjo tune, and other movements. Beyond these are 'Variations
and Double Fugue' (opus 20), for piano, on a theme of F. C. Hahr, a
work of American characteristics, and 'Three Songs' (opus 18).

                   *       *       *       *       *

Blair Fairchild is one of the American composers who have preferred to
live chiefly abroad, a sin for which the penalty is to be little known
at home. Fairchild was heard in New York in the season of 1913-1914
with his choral and orchestral work 'From the Song of Songs,' which
was performed at a concert of the Modern Music Society. It is a work
of excellent musicianship, though singularly apart from the chief
elements of modern French advance for a composer who is so much at home
in Paris. The tonally 'non-committal' chord of the augmented fifth is
occasionally employed, but otherwise the scheme is distinctly Germanic,
though without violent modernity. The most memorable phrase of the
work is a little _a cappella_ section at the words 'I adjure you, O
daughters of Jerusalem,' which in its simple lyricism contrasts well
with the more elaborate context. The choral writing is excellently
managed. A companion work in the same form is 'David's Lament.'
Fairchild has produced several chamber music works, a string quintet
(opus 20), a _Concerto de Chambre_ (opus 26), for violin, piano, and
string quartet, and a trio for piano, violin, and 'cello (opus 24), all
maintaining his high standard of musicianship. For orchestra there is a
pair of sketches, 'Tamineh,' after a Persian legend, containing _Songe
d'amour_ and _Paysage_, the score being dedicated to Florent Schmitt.
There are also 'Six Psalms' for chorus (_a cappella_) and soli.

Maurice Arnold is a member of the group of Americans who came under
the influence of Dvořák during the latter's stay in America, and he
has lent his striking gifts to the cause of the romantic-nationalistic
movement. His Symphony in F Minor, produced under his own leadership
in Berlin in 1907, called forth warm praise from the German press,
which found it a vigorous and poetic work, and in certain of its
aspects boldly American. The directness and warmth of Arnold's melodic
inspiration is equally manifest in the Sonata in B Minor for violin
and piano. The main theme of the first movement is a rhythmically
sparkling melody showing negro characteristics, although the composer
achieves his effects of negro musical color without the employment of
actual folk-tunes. The second movement attains a high level of beauty
and intimate poetic appeal, and the last movement, in the character
of a jig, is virile. Arnold's cyclical works are not highly involved
thematically, though formally well-balanced; their strength lies in
their admirable lyrical qualities. The very pleasing 'Plantation
Dances' for orchestra have been heard in many places, but a 'Dramatic
Overture' remains almost unknown. Other works are a cantata, 'The
Wild Chase,' various piano exotics, including a _Danse de la Midway
Plaisance_, a Turkish march, and a _Caprice Espagnole_, a number of
songs, and two comic operas.

The work of Henry Schoenefeld bears a certain relation to that of
Arnold in that both composers felt the influence of what Rupert Hughes
has termed the 'Dvořákian invasion,' although Schoenefeld, like other
Americans, had essayed the field of negro music before that historic
event. The most significant and representative published work of
the composer is the 'Sonata (quasi fantasia) for Violin and Piano'
(opus 53), which won the prize offered by Henri Marteau in 1899.
Schoenefeld's better known works comprise a suite for strings (opus
15), an overture, 'In the Sunny South,' and a festival overture, 'The
American Flag,' all of which have been described by Hughes, as well as
a 'Rural Symphony,' which won a National Conservatory prize. An ode
for male chorus, solo and orchestra, _Die drei Indianer_, a 'Reverie'
for string orchestra, harp, and organ, and two impromptus for string
orchestra, _Valse Noble_ and 'Meditation,' are among the composer's
later works, and there are many small piano compositions.

The last ten years of the composer's life have been devoted to a study
of Indian music and themes, which have served as the inspiration of his
recent compositions. He has composed a pantomime-ballet, 'Wachicanta,'
founded on an Indian legend, the music of which idealizes Indian life,
retaining the barbaric color. This ballet, in the opinion of Ruth St.
Denis, the dancer, is the first adaptation of an Indian theme to the
modern ballet form by an American composer.

Still later, and of greater magnitude, is Mr. Schoenefeld's opera
in three acts and four scenes, based on a libretto in English, which
portrays a tragedy of Indian life in Florida. The structure is modern,
and the composer's purpose again to idealize his Indian material.
Mr. Schoenefeld is of the belief that Indian folk-lore and tradition
constitute the most poetic and essentially American musical material
available. Mr. Schoenefeld was born in Hughestown in 1857.


                                  V

It is seldom that a serious American composer trains all his batteries
upon the target of a single musical form, but this is what Sidney Homer
has done with respect to the song. In consequence he has attained a
high development of his individuality in the song form, as well as
having produced many examples of it, his published songs numbering
nearly eighty. His work shows immense range of character, from a
veritable drama in song form, such as the stormily emotional 'How's
My Boy?' (Dobell), to childhood songs of the utmost simplicity, such
as the 'Seventeen Lyrics from Sing-Song,' by Christina Rossetti,
containing the charming 'Boats Sail on the Rivers.' While Homer
frequently makes elaborate tone-poems of his accompaniments, he
does not follow the modern French vocal declamatory style, but aims
rather at what might be termed dramatic melody. He seeks an intimate
union of music not only with the general emotional character and
fluctuations, but also with the particular verbal shadings of the
text. German in technical foundation, his individuality is well
defined, and he is thoroughly emancipated from dependence upon the
German idiom. 'Infant Sorrow,' an impassioned plaint of babyhood, is
interestingly representative of the type of dramatic song which Homer
has developed. It is one of two settings from the 'Songs of Experience'
of the undying, yet strangely living, William Blake, the other, 'The
Sick Rose,' being peculiarly poignant in its melody, which is almost
entirely constituted of the intervals of the minor second and major
seventh. The harsh 'Pauper's Drive' (Noël), and the bold challenge,
'To Russia' (Joaquin Miller), are in the dramatic tone-poem style,
while the whimsical 'Fiddler of Dooney' (Yeats) more nearly approaches
being a downright tune. To the writing of sheer tunes Homer has devoted
also a considerable share of his effort, with signal success, as
the popularity of 'A Banjo Song' and 'Uncle Rome' testifies. Widely
known, also, are his deeply felt setting of Stevenson's 'Requiem,'
the charming and humorous 'Ferry me across the water,' on Christina
Rossetti's poem, and the warmly melodious 'Dearest' (Henley), and
Hood's 'Song of the Shirt.'

Almost exclusively devoted to vocal writing is Henry Clough-Leighter,
who has over one hundred published songs and nearly an equal number
of choral works, including settings of the Anglican Service.
Exceptions are in the form of duets and studies for piano. In the
classification somewhat loosely undertaken in the present chapter
Clough-Leighter would be regarded as an eclectic. His work shows the
influence of the various modern schools without leaning overheavily
upon the individuality of any one of them, albeit there is evidence
of a considerable influence from the Germany of Richard Strauss.
He lays tumultuous siege to the strongholds of modern harmony and
especially modulation, in which latter respect he is bold sometimes
to a fault, inclining to a tonal restlessness that will not bear too
much insistence. His harmonic fluency is unusual, and his workmanship
immaculate. Among Clough-Leighter's most important choral works are:
'The Righteous Branch' (opus 32), 'Christ Triumphant' (opus 35), and
'Psalm of Trust,' all contrapuntal in treatment and requiring a large
chorus of skilled voices. There are a number of song cycles, including
'Youth and Spring' (opus 5), 'Rossetti-Lyrics' (opus 58), 'Two Lyrics'
of Victor Hugo (opus 53), all with piano accompaniment; 'Love-Sorrow'
(opus 44) with accompaniment of violin, 'cello, and piano, and 'The
Day of Beauty' (opus 48), for high voice, string quartet, and piano.
'Lasca,' a symphonic ballad for tenor and orchestra, is one of the best
and most dramatic of the composer's works. 'Seven Songs' (opus 57) show
a wealth of emotion and fancy, _Requiescat_ (Oscar Wilde) attaining
a considerable distinction of mood. Clough-Leighter is a native of
Washington, D. C. (b. 1874), and held organists' posts there and in
Providence. Latterly he has been head of the editorial department of
the Boston Music Company, and has made Boston his home.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Marshall Kernochan, though his output has not been large, has written
a number of songs possessing qualities of distinction. He is among
those brave souls who have essayed Walt Whitman and in his two Whitman
settings, indeed, he has come off with an unusual measure of success.
These are: 'Out of the rolling ocean the crowd' and 'We two together.'
While neither of these songs reveals striking originality or more
than a mild modernism so far as harmony goes, they are conceived with
a breadth and carried through with a power that lift them out of the
usual run of contemporary native songs. The composer has made the most
of the lyrical possibilities of the lines, and has done well with the
less singable phrases by a careful attention to syllabic accent and
duration. 'We Two Together' has an exquisite middle section and a very
powerful climax, and will require a singer of heroic mold. 'Lilacs'
(Armitage Livingston) is a little work of true delicacy and possesses
style, and its companion, 'A Child's Song' (Richard Hovey), treats
sympathetically a little masterpiece of childhood poetry. Among the
composer's other songs are four on poems by Browning, 'A Serenade at
the Villa,' 'Round Us the Wild Creatures,' from 'Ferishta's Fancies,'
'At the Window,' and 'Give a Rouse.'

Homer Norris has not been without an influence upon the development
of ultra-modernism in America by virtue of being one of the first
teachers of theory in this country to receive his training in Paris.
Moreover, he was writing songs revealing modern French influence at a
time when probably Loeffler and Gilbert were the only others in America
who knew what was happening to musical evolution in France. His richly
harmonized 'Twilight' is a song of much beauty, and more daring than
successful, probably, is 'Peace' (Sill), the accompaniment of which
consists of nothing but slow descending scales of C. Interesting, also,
as a bit of early French influence is the Maeterlinck _Et s'il revenait
un jour?_ of delicate mood. Norris has also a sacred cantata, 'Nain,'
and a cycle for vocal quartet on words chosen from Whitman and entitled
'The Flight of the Eagle.'

Gena Branscombe is one of the very few women composers of America
who have established for themselves a genuine creative musical
individuality. Even among this few Miss Branscombe holds a position
of distinction, partly through the intensity of her personality and
partly through her approach to harmonic ultra-modernism, a field to
which most women composers, being only melodists, are strangers.
There would be no occasion to refer to the question of sex in the
present instance except that when it is stated to be feminine it
commonly implies an inevitable discount upon attainment and is urged
as an excuse for feeble work, which circumstance entitles a woman
composer for whom such excuse need not be made, as in the case of Miss
Branscombe, to a measure of corrective credit. Inexhaustible buoyancy,
a superlative emotional wealth, and a wholly singular gift of musical
intuition are the qualities which have shaped the composer's musical
personality. Being a woman, it may be said at once that structural
ideals do not interest her. Her work is an outpouring of moods,
moods of an intensity and richness which demand a high musical color
scheme. This, not science--though Miss Branscombe is well grounded in
theory--but a startling character of intuition, provides her withal.
Her impatient melodies leap and dash with youthful life, while her
accompaniments abound in harmonic hair-breadth escapes. No considered
harmonic or modularity scheme gives her music its richness of color;
she continually leaps into apparently remote progressions without
looking before, and the same intuition which suggested the hazard
suggests also the way out, which comes with surprising facility. She
is best known for her many songs, among them the dreamful and haunting
'Krischna' and 'Dear Little Hut by the Rice Fields,' both Laurence
Hope's poems, also Hope's 'Just in the Hush,' 'The Deserted Gypsy,'
and the stirring 'Dear Is My Inlaid Sword'; the rich and impassioned
Browning settings, 'There's a Woman Like a Dewdrop,' 'Serenade,' from
'In a Gondola,' 'Boot and Saddle,' etc.; the sombre 'Sleep, Then, Ah,
Sleep!' (Le Gallienne); the fanciful and exotic little cycle 'A Lute of
Jade' (Crammer-Byng), and many others. Miss Branscombe has written a
very spirited 'Festival March' for orchestra, which was produced at the
Peterboro Festival in 1914; an extended _Concertstück_ for piano and
orchestra; part-songs for women's voices; and a number of compositions
for violin and piano. Miss Branscombe is Canadian by birth.

Alexander Russell is the composer of a number of songs of strong
emotional appeal. He first became known for his setting of Lanier's
'Sunset,' a warmly colored work, but somewhat over-Wagnerized. 'My
Heaven' (Harry S. Lee) also has lyrical intensity and bears out the
chromatic scheme of the other. 'The Sacred Fire' (Alice Duer Miller)
has more distinction of mood as well as greater unity of design,
and 'Expectation' (John Hay) also shows an advance in style and
individuality. 'In Fountain Court' (Arthur Symons) is perhaps his most
mature and characteristic expression. Among other songs are 'Elegy on
the Death of a Mad Dog' (Goldsmith), 'The Prayer Perfect' (Riley), 'My
True Love Lies Asleep' (Lizette Reese), and 'A Gypsy Song' (Braley).
Russell's work shows chiefly the influence of the modern German school.

James Philip Dunn is a militant ultra-modern realist. He was first
known by an extremely vigorous quintet for pianoforte and strings,
in G minor, which was heard at one of the concerts of the New York
Manuscript Society. It is of considerable thematic, and particularly
of dramatic, interest, though scarcely revealing a settled style.
Strauss, Wagner, Tschaikowsky, and Puccini have all influenced him
strongly, with Strauss leading, but what ultimate personality will
issue from this strenuously boiling melting-pot it is too early to
say. The far from bashful realism of Dunn's setting of Poe's 'Annabel
Lee,' for voice and orchestra, which was sung by Frank Ormsby at a
People's Symphony Concert in the season of 1913-14, somewhat shocked
the sensibilities of the critics, for futurism was still merely a name
(Schoenberg's quartet not yet having arrived on the scene) and realism
could still hold terrors for the sensitive. The goal of realism is
the stage, and so in fact Dunn's latest works are designed for the
theatre. They are called 'Lyric Scenes' and consist of two short and
superlatively intense musical stage episodes, 'The Fountain,' after
Charles McMillan, and the grewsome 'A Kiss in the Dark,' after Maurice
Lavelle. They are truly amazing in musical structure and emotional
content and may well be considered to represent the _dernier cri_
in realism, after which can come only the deluge--or futurism. The
composer has also a sonata for violin and piano in G major and a piano
tarantella and minuet.

Alexander Hull, whose great quantity of work is accessible as yet
only through one book of ten songs, is a composer who is likely to be
heard more of in the future. These songs reveal influences ranging
from Schubert to Hugo Wolf, but, of much greater importance, they
reveal also a richly endowed creative musical personality, even if
one that has only begun to find itself in terms of a matured art.
One will look far for a clearer spiritual beauty than that of the
'Wanderer's Night Song' (Goethe), or for a fleeting spontaneity and
dissolving charm surpassing that of the little 'Blue, Blue, Floweret
Mine.' 'My Love Is Lovelier than the Sprays' (Ezra Pound) has moments
of magical and haunting beauty, though it runs the risk that Hull not
infrequently takes of sacrificing simplicity and clarity of the voice
part to harmonic interest in the accompaniment. 'Within the Convent
Close' (Wilbur Underwood) reveals the composer's power to establish
and maintain a mood and it also hints at the unexploited possibilities
of the secondary seventh chords. Hull experiments; he is quite willing
to be unsuccessful, but he insists upon the essay and is thus strongly
creative. He admits many influences, and therefore will find his
own mature style tardily. He has written over one hundred songs, a
symphony, a suite for string orchestra, a fantasia for orchestra with
piano, violin compositions, a suite for piano, a piano sonata, choral,
and other works.

A. Walter Kramer has put out a considerable number of works in small
forms, ranging in tendency from the earlier to the later German and
deriving influence occasionally from French sources. He is an eclectic,
but from the German standpoint. His works are chiefly songs and
string pieces. Among the former are: 'I Dreamed and Wept a-Dreaming'
(Heine), very German in scheme, albeit sufficiently modern; 'In Dreams'
(Prudhomme), a work of ultra-modern tendencies which follows its title
well and successfully establishes its mood; 'Come to Me' (Christina
Rossetti), a mood of spiritual exaltation, which presents an avoidance
of traditional harmonic formulæ not always to be found in Kramer's
music; the languorous and somewhat Debussyish 'A Nocturne,' and 'Bes'
ob All,' a song in negro character based upon a melody originally
composed for violin, which suggests MacDowell in mood-quality. For
violin and piano is the characteristic _Intermède Arabe_, a fervent
'Elegy' of melodic warmth and breadth, and other works. Beyond these
are works for piano, 'cello and piano, string orchestra, organ, and a
number of part-songs.

So rapidly and in such numbers do new American composers appear in
these days that both omission and disproportion must occur in dealing
with the coming generation in any such chapter as the present. A
few names may be mentioned, however, of composers who have given
indications of having serious aims. Francis Hendricks has written piano
compositions that are not without charm and modernity of style, as well
as songs. Charles T. Griffes, in songs and piano pieces, has shown a
refined appreciation of modern ideals. Deems Taylor was heard at the
MacDowell Festival in 1914, with an admirable ballad, 'The Highwayman,'
for solo baritone, women's chorus, and orchestra. At the same festival
was heard a prelude by Edward Ballantine to Herman Hagedorn's play
'The Delectable Forest,' a work regarded as subtle and imaginative,
and two movements of Lewis M. Isaacs' ballet suite, 'Atalanta.'
Chalmers Clifton's suite for trumpet and orchestra has been heard at a
MacDowell Festival. Leo Ornstein, in his 'Preludes' and 'Impressions
of Notre Dame,' for piano, has out-moded Schoenberg and Stravinsky and
inaugurated the school of post-futurism.

American nationalists are not to be sought exclusively among the
native-born, as the example of Dvořák shows. Carlos Troyer, an Alsatian
of long residence in America, has made a significant contribution
to the nationalistic phase of native music in his songs of the Zuñi
Indians, collected during his sojourns with that extraordinary tribe.
Among them are the 'Zuñian Lullaby,' 'Sunrise Call of the Zuñis,' 'The
Coming of Montezuma,' 'Great Rain Dance of the Zuñis,' 'Festive Sun
Dance,' and 'Hymn to the Sun.' If Troyer has not escaped Germanizing
the accompaniments of these songs, neither has he obscured their
essential character.

On the side of negro music contributions of great value have been made
by two gifted representatives of the race, Harry Burleigh and Will
Marion Cook. Burleigh is known by a number of original songs, sincere
in their feeling and of much melodic and harmonic appeal, among them
the favorite 'Jean' and the very passionate 'Elysium.' In 'Plantation
Melodies Old and New' he has given excellent settings to seven highly
characteristic negro songs, two of them, 'My Merlindy Brown' and 'Negro
Lullaby,' being original, poems for the group being provided by R. E.
Phillips, J. E. Campbell, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Of much original
poetic fancy, as well as valuable in its presentation of various
negro motives in effective development, is his piano suite, 'In the
Southland,' which has MacDowellish touches about it. There are also
'Saracen Songs,' 'Five Songs of Lawrence Hope,' and arrangements of
songs in H. E. Krehbiel's book, 'Afro-American Folk Songs.'

The work of Will Marion Cook presents some quite extraordinary
qualities and in part deals with characteristics of the negro which
have hitherto found little or no expression in terms of modern musical
art. Such a thing as his song, 'A Negro Sermon,' was certainly never
set forth in print before. It reflects the quintessence of the
drollery and humor of the primitive negro in religion, and follows
with prodigious alertness his swift and erratic, though deeply
sincere, zig-zaggings of thought and mood. It is an altogether amazing
production, a psychological musical achievement. The same is to be
said of 'An Explanation,' a negro court scene in the form of a song.
From such unusual works as these to straightforward ragtime Cook's
songs cover a wide range of style. The 'Rain Song' is whimsical and
forceful, with elemental emotion and impulse, and 'Swim Along' is full
of instinctive joy of life.


                                  VI

No composer in America has so completely arrived at an authentic and
mature musical individuality along the line of ultra-modern European
developments as Charles Martin Loeffler. Though of Alsatian birth,
his long residence in this country has identified him with American
musical life. Too much the artist to theorize about his art, he has
enunciated no creed, although he has been known to suggest the idea
that the composer's musical personality is largely constituted by
the assimilation of all that is sympathetic to him in the range of
his musical observation. Applying this principle to his own work, it
is plain that his closest affiliation is with the school of modern
France, although the work of no American composer is less closely
identified than his with that of any one individual of the modern
French group. There speaks through Loeffler's music a distinct
personality, one that lives upon a high plane of poetic imagination,
and whose intuitions are subtle and refined in a wholly extraordinary
degree. Here is no convenient falling back upon modish scale effects
or generic modern harmonies, but a pressing forward to the keenest and
most poignant individualism. If it is an individuality that insists
upon a veritable aristocracy of emotional and psychological subtlety,
a total repudiation of the primitive passions which bind certain
great composers to mother earth and lead them to brave the charge
of occasional banality, on the other hand, it is one which gives an
intense and unvitiated delight to those minds which are able to follow
its excursions into the remote and unwonted regions of the soul.
'Tuneful' Loeffler's music cannot be called, but it sings constantly
in its own preordained and peculiar way, and its motives are often
haunting and always distinguished. Loeffler's literary researches
are incredible in extent and singularity, and have undoubtedly had
a far-reaching effect upon the character of his genius, as has also
his intimate knowledge of and devotion to the Gregorian chant, of the
austere arcanum of which he is a supreme master. He is a consummate
master of orchestration and his orchestral works have been heard with
most of the great orchestras of the world.

His serious claims as a composer were first made known through his
_Veillées de l'Ukraine_, for violin and orchestra, a suite based
upon tales by Gogol, which was heard in Boston, with the composer
as soloist, in 1891, although an earlier string quartet in A minor
had been previously heard in Philadelphia. A sextet for two violins,
two violas, and two 'cellos next came into notice, and after that a
'Fantastic' concerto for 'cello and orchestra. The 'Divertimento in
A Minor,' for violin and orchestra, the composer played at a Boston
symphony concert in 1895. Loeffler's fame has rested chiefly upon
his remarkably imaginative tone-poems, _La Mort de Tintagiles_,
after Maeterlinck, _La Bonne Chanson_ and _La Villanelle du Diable_,
after Verlaine and Rollinat, respectively, and the 'Pagan Poem,'
after Virgil, which includes a piano and three trumpets behind the
scenes. The songs are exquisite reflections of the composer's subtle
imagination; among them are: _Harmonies du Soir_, _Dansons la Gigue_,
_La Cloche fêlée_, _Timbres Oubliés_, 'The Hosting of the Sidhe,' 'The
Host of the Air,' and 'To Helen.' There are also an octet for strings,
clarinets, and harp; a quintet for three violins, viola, and 'cello;
two rhapsodies for oboe, viola, and piano; 'By the Waters of Babylon,'
for women's chorus, two flutes, 'cello, harp, and organ; and other
works. The composer was for many years second concert master of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra, and makes his home in Boston and Medfield,
Mass.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Extreme ultra-modernism, stopping, however, on the hither side of
futurism, has not been pushed farther in America than in the very
remarkable work of Carl Engel. Except that he is himself, he might be
regarded as a disciple of Loeffler. His published work consists of
several groups of songs, in which the voice is treated in the modern
French mode of lyrical declamation over an accompanying tone-poem
of high refinement of mood, a positively diabolical ingenuity and
subtlety of invention, and impeccable technical finish. In this
scheme--determined by the most recent Gallic influences--Engel goes his
individual way, producing work that is always interesting and often
unusual in both originality and beauty. Of the six _Chansons intimes_,
on poems by Jean Moréas, one is struck particularly by _A l'Océan_,
which is extraordinarily bold in its assertion of tragic oceanic
emotion. _Rions_ is a fine piece of bitter ultra-modern irony--a
companion piece to Loeffler's _Dansons la Gigue_. _Trois Epigrammes_,
on poems by Paul Mariéton, have much of poignancy and eloquence and
weave a dizzying web of ingenious ultra-modernism. One thinks--how
far from Americanism is this remarkable work! Of 'Two Lyrics,'
poems by Amy Lowell, 'The Sea Shell' is of most ingratiating charm,
particularly with respect to its lilting motion; and here the composer
has allowed himself to write a _tune_! 'Three Sonnets' present _Lecture
du Soir_ (Chantavoine), an excellent example of Engel's capacity
for originality, _Dors, ma Belle_ (Marsolleau), and _En Voiture_
(Ajalbert), all of recent date. 'Four Lyrics' (poems by Cora Fabbri)
are earlier songs and show the composer's point of departure.

Another extreme ultra-modern of Gallic musical sympathies is Henry
Eichheim, who is known by a group of 'Seven Songs,' a showing not great
in quantity but of a quality revealing at once a convincing distinction
of achievement. It is not, however, the emotional refinements of the
French poets to which Eichheim responds, but to the alluring and
shadowy tints of the 'Celtic Twilight.' From Yeats he has chosen 'The
Heart of the Woman' and 'Aedh Wishes His Beloved were Dead'; from Fiona
Macleod, 'When the Dew is Falling,' 'The Undersong,' 'Across the Silent
Stream,' and 'The Lament of Ian the Proud'; while he has made a single
departure in the 'Autumn Song' of Rossetti. Individual and subtly felt
as these songs are, Eichheim is concerned not so much with sheer or
extreme ingenuity of means as with the attainment of the expression
of deep and dreamful moods, modern in poetic expression, and hence
demanding an equally modern musical treatment. This the composer gives
them, finding a deeply sincere expression through the highly modern
means employed. Perhaps the most eloquent of the 'Seven Songs' is
'Aedh Wishes His Beloved were Dead,' its solemn march of rich harmonic
progressions conveying an emotion of singular depth and beauty.
Eichheim has also written three symphonic poems.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Victor Herbert has made departures into the realms of serious music,
notably of late years, in two grand operas, 'Natoma,' in three
acts, and 'Madeleine.' 'Natoma,' the text of which is by Joseph D.
Redding, was first produced on February 23, 1911, in Philadelphia
and subsequently in New York and Chicago. It deals with a story of
Spanish and Indian life in California in the early part of the last
century. The opera has had a very considerable measure of success and
reveals Herbert's skillful handling of the orchestra, his power in
broad concerted forms, and his unsuspected knowledge of Indian music.
'Madeleine,' produced at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in the
season of 1913-14, was not regarded with an equal favor.

Besides some already included in this chapter there are other composers
of foreign birth who either live or have sojourned here, as well as
American composers who have preferred to live chiefly abroad.

Walter Morse Rummel, who makes his home in Berlin and Paris, has made
for himself an individual and significant place in modern music. The
tonal emancipation which Debussy gained through a basic devotion to
the Gregorian chant, Rummel with increasing success seeks and finds
in certain mediæval songs of the folk, in particular those of the
troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. His earlier works,
for example the 'Five Songs,' dating from 1906, seem conventional in
scheme, although one notes their essential refinement and _esprit_.
The 'Ten Songs for Children, Young and Old,' are of another stamp.
Innocently simple in appearance, they reveal on closer observation all
the sophistication of a profound devotee of the ecclesiastical modes,
or, it may be, the spontaneous utterance of one with whom these have
become 'second nature.' Like 'Alice in Wonderland,' they will speak
with equal pertinence to children and grown-ups. 'A Fairy Suite,' for
piano, being 'Five Short Stories Preceded by a Prologue and Followed
by a Moral,' are an achievement of similar intent, scintillating with
fancy, charm, humor, and modern interest. As the 'Prologue' and 'Moral'
are practically identical, the purpose of the latter would seem to be
to exhort us always, in art, to return to our main subject.

'Hesternæ Rosæ' consists of a collection of troubadour and other
mediæval songs, rhythmically reconstructed from the original neumes,
and hence hypothetical. They are profoundly interesting and merit close
study. Rummel has composed also a quartet for strings, a violin sonata,
for piano a 'Prelude,' 'Sea Voices,' and 'Seven Little Impressions for
a Simple Mind,' and many songs.

Hugo Kaun, an American resident of Berlin, has been a prodigious
producer, his work being in keeping with the modern German musical
scheme. He has much structural power, a fertile imagination, and a
considerable sense of beauty. His chief works are three symphonies, a
piano concerto, a violin concerto, a _Fantasiestück_ for violin, eight
chamber music works, five symphonic poems, and an enormous quantity of
songs, the best known, perhaps, being 'My Native Land,' and many short
piano pieces. He has also written two oratorios, the most important
being 'Mother Earth.'

Paul Allen, of Boston, has lived chiefly in Italy, where, as one would
expect, he has produced operas. Two of these are 'The Philtre' and
'Milda,' each in one act. They follow the modern Italian operatic
scheme and show the composer's close sympathy with the spirit of
modern Italian stage music. He has written extensively for the piano
also, among his writings in this form being an _Alla Tarantella_, an
excellent and refined little work, sensitive to the genius of Italian
folk-music, and a 'Meditation' having remarkable depth of feeling, a
work emerging from a real emotion and expressed in unusually beautiful
terms.

Kurt Schindler, of German birth, and latterly a resident of New York,
has put out about twenty-five songs possessing charm and simplicity,
though not of a very strong modernity. One of the best, and a work
of true beauty, is the 'Faery Song' on Keats' poem. 'Adoration' is
another of the Keats group, and in another group the composer has set
poems of Wilde, Swinburne, and--a strange third to companion such a
pair--Meredith. He has also 'Five Folk-Song Paraphrases,' the originals
drawn from Italy, Russia, and France.

Platon Brounoff, a Russian living in New York, has composed, among
other works, an overture, 'Russia,' which has been performed at
the Central Park concerts under Arnold Volpe's direction, and a
characteristic piano suite, 'In the Village.'

The _Suite Fantastique_ for piano and orchestra by the pianist Ernest
Schelling has been heard in New York. It is a clever and brilliant
work, and makes ingenious use of 'Yankee Doodle,' 'Dixie,' and the
'Swanee River.'

Arthur Fickenscher, at present living in Berlin, has developed a highly
refined and highly modernized art of which more is likely to be heard
later. One of his most important works is a setting of Rossetti's
'Willowwood' for chorus and orchestra.

                                                             A. F.




                              CHAPTER XV
                           THE LIGHTER VEIN

      Sources of American popular music--Its past and present
      phases--American comic opera: Reginald de Koven; Victor
      Herbert; John Philip Sousa; other writers of light
      opera--The decline of light opera and the present state of
      theatrical music.


It cannot be too often reiterated that, however highly developed an
art a nation's music may become, it inevitably springs from the germ
of popular expression that voices itself in the simple songs of its
masses, the folk-music. In this lies the essence of its being and
to this it owes its vitality. America's history has been such as to
deprive her in a great measure of a folk-music in the true sense of the
word. Many causes have contributed to this; the decidedly non-idyllic
character of its early phases and the suppressing hand of Puritanism
were undoubtedly potent factors, but the fundamental reason lies in
the absence of a national consciousness, which is necessarily lacking
in a country of mixed peoples developing a borrowed civilization. Now
that America is able to boast the beginnings of a sophisticated art,
it is beginning to be more deplored that there is not present the rich
vein of folk-music to lend to our native art that vital and distinctive
touch that should give it its place among the nation's music.

The course of our national life has brought, however, from time
to time, certain moments when there has emanated from the people a
voice more distinctly local in its suggestions, not entirely lacking
the influence of a borrowed expression, but blending with it a
certain flavor of its own and thereby creating a sort of music in the
folk-manner. Such were the songs of Stephen Foster, and such were the
patriotic songs of the Civil War times, and in these two contributions
to our native music we have the most genuinely and deeply emotional
expressions that have yet sprung from Americans of European origin.
Previous to the appearance of these, the complexion of our music had
been almost entirely English, consisting as it did of patriotic or
sentimental songs either actually imported from England or locally
written songs which copied the English models so slavishly as to lose
all distinction.

The negro element began at an early epoch to bear an influence on our
expressions. As the one keenly suffering people in our midst, leading a
life of elemental toil and possessing richly endowed musical natures,
the negro, with his intensely emotional expression, was bound to make
himself heard and felt throughout the land, and his songs entered
largely into the fibre of our own expression. But even the most ardent
supporter of the practice of employing the negro element as a basis for
American music must admit that there is much of the exotic about it,
and that by its employment alone our native art will never attain to
that desideratum of the American composer, a nationalistic feeling.

It has already been remarked in commenting on this subject how Dvořák
in handling this negro element remained unequivocally Slavic in idiom,
and it has been noted, also, with what scant success our own composers
have pursued the same efforts toward concocting what would seem an
indigenous art. That such a nationalistic art, when it does finally
evolve, will contain a strong strain of these various influences is
undoubtedly the case, but the tinge of real local atmosphere which
will constitute its nationalism will be an intangible quality not
existing in any defined formula. It will not possess salient external
features which our own composers may seize upon, but it will be
charged with a consciousness that shall be inherent in the composers
themselves and shall find unconscious voicing in their melodies. It
is not unreasonable to suppose that it is from what we generally
designate as our 'popular music' that such an art will emanate; from
the street, the theatre, the dance hall, and more particularly from
the sentimentalities of the popular songs which periodically hold
the affections of such a vast public. Ephemeral as is the mass of
this music that annually sweeps over our country, each phase of it
leaves its mark, some deeper than others, but all contributing to the
upbuilding of the national character of our music.


                                   I

Let us turn our attention to a brief survey of some of these phases of
the popular music, both past and present.

Generally speaking, the bulk of this music may be classified into the
two form-divisions which distinguish the main orders of all musical
art--the dance and the song form, the rhythmic and the lyric. While
the latter predominated in the popular music of past decades, the
present-day tendencies give greater importance to the dance and even
the larger part of our popular songs are set to the more enlivening
rhythms of the prevailing dance measures. We have seen that the
'minstrel show' provided the medium whereby the first purveyors of
popular music reached the public. It was through the means of this
popular entertainment that many of the early favorites reached fame.
With the rise of the vaudeville or 'variety show' the character of
popular music underwent a considerable change. The introduction of the
comic song brought a new element into its nature and then came that
slough of sentimentalism which was to remove from our popular music the
naïve but sincere appeal of the old ballads and replace them with the
more sophisticated but vulgar frivolities.

The sentimental song has, however, never entirely disappeared from
the popular répertoire; it has, indeed, persistently maintained a
considerable place in the affections of every period. Even the younger
of our own generation can recall the phase of popular taste that
existed just before the inauguration of a new order in the appearance
of 'ragtime.' Almost all of the then popular melodies consisted of
songs replete with the so-called 'heart quality.' The mild eroticism
of 'Sweet Marie' and 'The Sweetest Story ever Told' shared the popular
favor with the patriotically sentimental 'Comrades' and 'Just Break
the News to Mother,' songs in which the memory of the war lingered
and which were prompted by the success of the military drama. While
the popularity of these songs has been great, the public has been
indifferent to the composers, and they have had to be content with an
almost anonymous fame. Some of the men who represent this past decade
of the sentimental song are: Charles K. Harris, whose greatest success
was 'After the Ball'; Charles Graham, Felix McGlennon, H. W. Petrie,
and Paul Dresser.

The reappearance of the negro-element in the form of the 'coon song'
marks an important epoch in the evolution of our popular music. The
'coon song' presents to us the light-hearted side of the negro; the
pathos of the slave is never presented in these later negro songs--only
the 'darky's' picturesqueness, his quasi-humorous vagabondage, and, in
the more vulgarized types, his frenzied ribaldry.

The coon song has passed through a number of development stages. The
first examples, such as 'Kentucky Babe' and 'Little Alabama Coon,' were
of a naïve variety which contained but the merest suggestion of the
real negro element. There has been a subsequently wider utilization of
the syncopated rhythms which constitute the popularities of 'ragtime'
and present-day examples, such as 'Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee,'
represent a rather complicated and decidedly more characteristic type
than do the coon songs of preceding seasons.

Following the success of the coon song there was an exploitation of the
'Indian' song. These songs were even less genuine in origin than their
antecedents. The Indian element was often obtained by the employment of
a sort of garbled Oriental ragtime or of a disguised Celtic idiom, and
only the titles revealed these compositions as Indian. 'Hiawatha' and
'Tammany' were among the first of these songs, and they were followed
by a large number of imitations.

Besides these two principal classes of popular music employing a local
color in its idiom, countless experiments have been made with other
varieties. The Oriental has been much used and the refrain of the
once popular 'Streets of Cairo' has served as the 'leitmotif' of a
thousand and one pieces partaking of a pseudo-Orientalism. The Irish
song has had a persistent vogue; it has several representative types;
the sentimental 'Annie Rooney' and 'Maggie Murphy' of earlier days have
been succeeded by the more boisterous 'Bedelia' and the perennial 'Mr.
Dooley.' There is usually a saving grace of humor in these Hibernian
offerings which palliates even their most patent vulgarity.

The vogue of the more recent popular music has been dictated by the
various dance fads which have lately seized the public fancy. First
the 'turkey trot' and 'barn dance' brought forth such originalities
as 'Alexander's Rag Time Band' and 'Everybody's Doin' It,' these to
be followed by an avalanche of various 'glides' and 'rags.' The music
of the dances and dance songs is unique in its blending of certain
negro qualities of rhythm and melody with a strange indeterminate
sense of something Slavic or Oriental in their abandon. The last
aspect of popular dance music is that furnished by the importation of
the 'tango,' maxixe and other Latin American dances. Most of the more
popular tunes to which these steps are danced are pronouncedly Spanish
and have in most cases been imported with the dances themselves.

An ingenious procedure on the part of the popular composer has been
to weave into the verse or refrain of a song a few measures of some
well-known popular classic. One of the first and perhaps the best known
example is the use of Mendelssohn's 'Spring Song' in the refrain of the
song so disrespectfully called 'That Mendelssohn Rag.' Following this
there have appeared many such appropriations and nearly the entire list
of the popular melodies of the standard classics has been thus utilized.

Viewed as a whole, the popular music of to-day presents an expression
far in advance of that of even a few years ago. Some of it contains
subtleties of harmonic and rhythmic design that would have been caviar
to the public of yesterday. It is to be regretted that this advance in
form has been made at the sacrifice of the more ingenious spirit of the
early popular music, and that the tone of most of our popular music
to-day is so uniformly vulgar.


                                   II

There is a middle world of music that touches, on its one side, the
more elevated regions of art, while, on the other, it does not lose its
hold on the larger world of popular taste. This is the world of comic
opera--using the term in its general sense of a stage piece with music
of a lighter variety.

The American public was early taught to appreciate this form of
artistic amusement; the history of opera in this country shows a
continuous record of the production of such works in all the larger
cities. Important agencies in the popularizing of comic opera were the
early performances of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, the brilliant
seasons of French and Viennese opera at the Casino Theatre in New York,
and the excellent services of the Bostonians in presenting ideally some
of the most charming of the standard répertoire, besides revealing the
merit of our native composers, in giving with success some of the first
American comic operas to reach public hearing.

Up to the time of the Bostonians' championship of the American light
opera composer there has been but an occasional performance of some
work of local interest. Julius Eichberg is generally accredited with
being America's first comic opera composer, his fame resting largely
on a popular work entitled 'The Doctor of Alcantara' that was produced
in Boston in 1862. Eichberg could be called an American composer only
in that an American city happened to be the scene of his activities.
There is nothing about his work to give it any special significance as
American.

In fact, as we look over the entire product of our light opera
composers, we are forced again to deplore the lack of a distinctive
vein or local sense that would put the national seal on America's many
and notable achievements in this field. Even England, whose cultivated
art is almost as devoid of a national feeling as is America's, has,
in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, works of a truly national
significance. Mr. Krehbiel has observed that George Ade has the
requisite equipment of an American Gilbert, but that as yet there has
not been found the composer who could be his Sullivan.

To assert convincingly America's claims to having contributed largely
and valuably to the world's comic operas we have only to put forward
these names: Reginald de Koven, Victor Herbert, and John Philip
Sousa. The first name in this group is of one who is perhaps more
closely identified with the comic opera stage than any other living
composer. Reginald de Koven was born in 1861 at Middletown, Conn.
After graduating at Oxford University in 1880 he began his career as
a musician by studying in several European cities. The studies which
were to bear the greatest fruit were those pursued under that master
of comic opera, Suppé. On returning to America Mr. de Koven resided
for some years in Chicago, where he did musical journalism and wrote
the experimental scores that preceded his first and greatest success,
'Robin Hood.' Mr. de Koven's career since coming into the fame to which
this work has brought him has been too familiar to need recounting. He
is as well known for his songs as for his operas and his place in the
lists of American lyricists is noted in Chapter XII.

If any of our younger composers of comic opera are possessed of an
artistic ideal, doubtless in nine out of ten cases it is to write an
opera that shall combine the sterling worth of good music with telling
popular qualities in the measure that 'Robin Hood' does it. It is too
late a day to write either a description or analysis of a work every
page of which is familiar to the great majority of our music-loving
public. It alone, of all the successes of past years, survives in the
popular affection; and it is reassuring to those who fear an ultimate
total depravity of taste that his work of charming grace and color can
still hold the boards. 'Robin Hood' was the third opera which de Koven
wrote. It was produced in 1890 by the Bostonians. Its success was not
at first marked, but it did not take long for it to find its place, and
it is estimated that the work now has over three thousand performances
to its credit.

De Koven in this appealing work has successfully simulated the hale
and hearty style of the English ballad and the idyllic simplicity of
the country dance and pastoral scene. With these qualities he has
combined the richer warmth of a glowing romantic melodiousness and a
graceful and lilting gaiety after methods of the Viennese and French
schools. Vocally stirring and effective in both its solo parts and
ensembles, colorful if not brilliant in its orchestration, 'Robin Hood'
is a masterpiece of its _genre_. Withal de Koven is always natural and
spontaneously straightforward--traits that have laid him open to the
accusation of persistent plagiarism. Mr. de Koven does at times employ
themes that suggest other works, but this is true of many another
composer whose integrity is unquestioned, and there is much truth in
Mr. Hughes' designation of de Koven as 'the best abused composer in
America.'

Since the success of 'Robin Hood' Mr. de Koven has been in the
unfortunate position of a man attempting to repeat a success along
similar lines. Once only has he made any near approach to it and that
in his seventh opera, 'Rob Roy' (produced in 1894). There is in this
score much of the same freshness that characterizes 'Robin Hood,' and
its melodies are not too reminiscent of the earlier works. The same
cannot be said of many of de Koven's other operas, for in his less
inspired moments the composer's heartiness becomes a rather too square
pomposity and his lighter moments often descend to a banality unworthy
of his best style. The following are among the other operas of de
Koven, with the dates of their productions: 'The Begum' (1887), 'Don
Quixote' (1889), 'The Fencing Master' (1892), 'The Knickerbockers'
(1893), 'The Algerian' (1893), 'The Tsigane' (1895), 'The Mandarin'
(1896), 'The Paris Doll' (1897), 'The Highwayman' (1897).

                   *       *       *       *       *

Victor Herbert in his comic operas has contrived to write in a vein
somewhat more varied than de Koven. While he has never achieved a
success to equal that of 'Robin Hood,' his operas taken as a whole
exhibit a more sustained power of invention and inspiration than those
of de Koven. Herbert's style is more marked by piquancy and lightness,
but he is not lacking in a melodic sense both charming and natural.

Herbert's style has undergone an evolution since his entrance into
the comic opera field. His earlier works, such as 'The Wizard of
the Nile,' 'The Serenade,' and 'The Idol's Eye,' are very simple in
structure, while in some of his later works he employs an ambitious
scheme that the laity are wont to identify with 'grand' opera. Some of
Herbert's later scores are: 'The Red Mill,' 'Mlle. Modiste,' 'Algeria,'
and 'Sweethearts.' Mr. Herbert was born in Ireland in 1859, was
musically educated in Germany, and came to America at about the age
of twenty-seven as solo 'cellist to the Metropolitan Opera House. His
'Americanism' is, therefore, acquired.

John Philip Sousa's fame, as is well known, is not primarily that of
an opera composer. As the 'march king' Mr. Sousa's fame is as unique
as it is deserved. Sousa is of German-Spanish descent. He was born
in Washington in 1859. His career has been one of rich practical
experience and opportunity, leading to an engagement as the leader
of the United States Marine Band. In 1892 he organized the band
which bears his own name and that organization has, perhaps, a more
world-wide fame than any other feature of our musical life.

Mr. Sousa has been often held up as the most representative of
American composers, an estimate that is not without considerable
truth. An analogy has been made between the Strauss waltzes and the
Sousa marches: the latter have not perhaps so much art as the former,
but they are all admirable pieces of composition, solid in harmonic
structure, and stirring in their melodic directness. 'The Washington
Post,' 'The Liberty Bell,' 'The High School Cadets,' and 'King Cotton'
have each, in turn, inspired the land with their martial vigor,
while 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' has become permanent in the
people's affections, being, indeed, a national anthem more eloquent in
Americanism than many of the tunes that bear the official seal as such.

Sousa has written several comic operas. One only of these, 'El
Capitan,' has met with success. It contains much music of an agreeable
brilliancy and gracefulness, notably one of the best examples of
the composer's marches. There is lacking, however, in Sousa's music
a quality very essential to the rounding out of a successful opera
score. We refer to the more sensuous melodic line which lends color
to the sustained portions of a work. Later operas of Sousa include:
'The Bride Elect,' 'The Charlatan,' 'Chris and the Wonderful Lamp,'
and 'The Glass Blowers,' and it may be added that Mr. Sousa has made
several incursions into the field of more serious music, having written
a symphonic poem and several other works for orchestra.

One of the most prolific composers of American light opera was Julian
Edwards (1855-1910). Mr. Edwards' list of about twenty operas includes
the names of several that have had remarkable success. 'Brian Boru' and
'Dolly Varden' are more than names to many. In 1904 Mr. Edwards wrote
the opera 'Love's Lottery,' which served as the vehicle whereby Mme.
Schumann-Heink entered the comic opera field.

Ludwig Englander and Gustav Luders are other names endeared to
American comic opera lovers. Both are of foreign birth, however.
The operas of the latter include 'King Dodo,' 'Grand Mogul,' and
'The Prince of Pilsen,' all works which, though neither marked by
originality nor over-refined, contained enough of musical vitality to
have won a place in the public esteem.

Less known writers who have from time to time added their quota to the
country's enlivening and tuneful music include: G. Thorne, whose opera,
'A Maid of Plymouth,' was one of the first in the répertoire of the
Bostonians; Henry Waller, the composer of 'Olgallalas,' which was also
produced by the Bostonians; Carl Pflueger, who wrote '1492,' given by
the Boston Cadets, an amateur organization, in one of their excellent
productions; and Barnet, whose 'Jack and the Beanstalk' was also sung
at one of the Cadets' 'shows.'

Several of the more serious composers have essayed the comic opera,
not always successfully. George W. Chadwick's 'Tabasco,' first
produced by the Boston Cadets, had a fair success when subsequently
given professionally, but Edgar Stillman-Kelley's 'Puritania' and
Henry Hadley's 'Nancy Brown' were decided failures. One of the recent
successes was Deems Taylor's 'The Echo,' originally written as a
college 'show' but achieving a long run on New York's Broadway.

Viewed in the light of present-day conditions and compared with
the class of works that constitute the large part of modern musical
stage-works, most of the foregoing operas may be classed as hopelessly
old-fashioned and _passé_. The decline of comic opera commenced with
the ascendency of the English 'musical comedy.' There are, it is
true, many works of the latter order that contain pages of music far
better than what is to be found in many of the more strictly operatic
works. Such works as 'Florodora' and 'The Geisha,' as well as many
later ones, have had much charm and refinement. It is the tendency
of these works to abolish the romantic strain of the old-fashioned
opera that constitutes its baneful influence. The play and the music
have become gradually more and more divorced and to-day the musical
portions of such a work have little or no bearing on the action or the
scene, but consist almost entirely of topical songs introduced in much
the same irrelevant manner in which they are so ingeniously brought
into a vaudeville 'act.' Paraphrasing Voltaire, the majority of this
degenerate class is neither musical nor comic.

This is the direction followed by our lighter musical plays of most
recent times. It is to be regretted that the grace and refinement that
marks many of the English musical comedies is so entirely lacking
in the American imitations of the same class. A note of vulgarity
insinuates itself unfailingly into the bulk of our contemporaneous
popular music. Flagrant examples of the ultimate type of musical play
above described are those of George M. Cohan, in whose inspiration some
have seen the first manifestation of the American 'genius.' The titles
of some of Mr. Cohan's plays, such as 'Yankee Doodle Boy,' 'Little
Johnny Jones,' and 'George Washington, Jr.,' reveal the jingoistic
qualities of his inspirations. The musical numbers of these works
are expressed in terms more or less Mr. Cohan's own. He has utilized
'ragtime' largely and in the rhythmical excitement of his songs lies
their strongest appeal. Other authors whose works follow generally
either the Americanized form of the English musical comedy or the
more distinctly native form of Mr. Cohan's 'musical shows' are: Jean
Schwartz, Silvio Hein, Gus Edwards, Manuel Klein, Raymond Hubbel, and
Robert H. Bowers.

It is to be hoped that there will be a return to the more legitimate
forms of lighter operas and that a revival of taste for the more
refined forms of stage work may soon offer again to the American
composer opportunities to demonstrate the very suitable field which
this branch of the art offers to his talent. An optimistic observer of
present conditions may see in the unqualified vulgarity of our popular
music to-day only the token of a vitality which, when softened by the
refining touch of the next decade, shall result in an expression of
individual charm.

                                                           B. L.




                       LITERATURE FOR VOLUME IV

                             _In English_

      WILLIAM F. ALLEN: Slave Songs of the United States (1867).

      W. G. ARMSTRONG: A Record of Opera in Philadelphia (Phila.,
      1884).

      RUDOLPH ARONSON: Theatrical and Musical Memories (New York,
      1913; Boston, 1913).

      W. J. BALTZELL: Music in American Cities (The Musician, vol.
      18, No. 6, pp. 369-373; No. 9, pp. 587-590).

      HENRY CLAY BARNABEE: Reminiscences of Henry Clay Barnabee;
      ed. by Geo. L. Varney (Boston, 1913).

      FREDERICK R. BURTON: American Primitive Music (New York,
      1909).

      Cabin and Plantation Songs as Sung by the Hampton Students
      (New York, 1874).

      LOUIS C. ELSON: The National Music of America and Its
      Sources (Boston, 1900).

      LOUIS C. ELSON: The History of American Music (New York,
      1904).

      ARTHUR FARWELL: New York's Municipal Music (Review of
      Reviews, Vol. 44, pp. 451-458).

      ARTHUR FARWELL: Folksongs of the West and South, Negro,
      Cowboy, and Spanish-Californian, Harmonized (Newton Center,
      Mass., 1905).

      D. B. FISHER: The Story of New Orleans' Rise as a Music
      Center (In Musical America, Vol. 19, No. 19, pp. 3-5).

      HENRY F. GILBERT: The American Composer (Musical Quarterly,
      Vol 1, pp. 169-180).

      HENRY F. GILBERT: Nationalism in Music (The International,
      New York, Dec., 1913).

      LAWRENCE GILMAN: Edward MacDowell (New York, 1909).

      PHILIP H. GOEPP, ed.: Annals of Music in Philadelphia
      (Phila., 1896).

      OCTAVIA HENSEL: Life and Letters of Louis M. Gottschalk
      (Boston, 1870).

      History of the American Stage, 1773-1870 (New York, 1870).

      RICHARD HOFFMAN: Some Musical Recollections (New York, 1910).

      RUPERT HUGHES: American Composers (Boston, 1914).

      J. N. IRELAND: Record of the New York Stage (New York,
      1866-67).

      F. O. JONES: Handbook of American Music and Musicians
      (Buffalo, 1887).

      H. E. KREHBIEL: Indian Melodies; Interesting Experiments
      with Their Settings, etc.; Ojibway Songs (1902).

      H. E. KREHBIEL: Afro-American Folksongs (New York, 1914).

      H. E. KREHBIEL: Chapters of Opera (New York, 1909).

      MAX MARETZEK: Crotchets and Quavers (New York, 1855).

      J. B. T. MARSH: The Story of the Jubilee Singers with their
      Songs (Boston, 1880).

      LOWELL MASON: Musical Letters from Abroad (New York, 1854).

      WILLIAM MASON: Memories of a Musical Life (New York, 1901).

      W. S. B. MATTHEWS: A Hundred Years of Music in America
      (Chicago, 1889).

      MUSICAL COURIER (Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 27-29): Musical
      Statistics of San Francisco from 1849-1898.

      MUSICAL COURIER (Vol. 47, No. 10, p. 8): The French Opera in
      New Orleans.

      L. O'CONNELL: Music in Mayflower Days (The Musician, Vol.
      11, No. 9, p. 435).

      J. L. ONDERDONCK: Colonial Patriotism in Song (Amer. Hist.
      Register, Vol. 3, pp. 472-80, 1896).

      C. C. PERKINS and J. S. DWIGHT: History of the Handel and
      Haydn Society of Boston (Boston, 1883-93).

      FREDERIC LOUIS RITTER: Music in America (New York, 1883).

      THOMAS RYAN: Recollections of an Old Musician (New York,
      1883).

      T. F. SEWARD: The Story of the Jubilee Singers with Their
      Songs (London, 1897).

      O. G. SONNECK: Early Concert Life in America (Leipzig, 1907).

      O. G. SONNECK: Early Opera in America (New York, 1915).

      O. G. SONNECK: Francis Hopkinson and James Lyon (Washington,
      D. C.).

      O. G. SONNECK: Report on 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' 'Hail
      Columbia,' 'Yankee Doodle' (Washington, D. C., 1909).

      VANCE THOMPSON: The Life of Ethelbert Nevin (Boston, 1913).

      JULIEN TIERSOT: Folk Music of Canada and the United States
      (New York).

      CHARLEY WHITE: Negro Minstrelsy's Origin (Diary of the late
      Charley White, N. Y. Sun, April 20, 1902).


                              _In German_

      ALBERT FRIEDENTHAL: Musik, Tanz und Dichtung bei den Kreolen
      Amerika's (Berlin, 1913).

      J. C. GRIGGS: Studien über die Musik in Amerika (Leipzig,
      1894).

      A. LASER: Musikleben in Amerika (Die Musik, Vol. 4, pp.
      244-246).

      E. HANSLICK: Aus dem Tagebuch eines Musikers (Berlin, 1892).

      MAURICE HALPERSON: Symphonie-Musik in New York (Allgemeine
      Musikzeitung, Vol. 39, Nos. 32-33).

      H. MOSENTHAL: Geschichte des Vereins 'Deutscher Liederkranz'
      in New York (New York, 1897).


                              _In French_

      HENRI HERZ: Mes Voyages en Amérique, (1866).

      JACQUES OFFENBACH: Notes d'un musicien en voyage (Paris,
      1877).

      JULIEN TIERSOT: La musique chez les peuples indigènes de
      l'Amérique (Notes d'ethnographie musicale) (Paris, 1910).



                         INDEX FOR VOLUME IV
        N. B.--_Figures in italics indicate major references._


                 A

 Abbey, Henry E., 136f, 142f.

 Abbott, Emma, 160f, 168.

 à Becket, Thomas, 326.

 Aborigines. See Primitive music; also Indians.

 Aborn, Milton and Sargent, 155ff, 173.

 Abt, Franz, quot., 309f.

 Ade, George, 457.

 Adgate, Andrew, 73, 87, 235.

 Ainsworth, Henry, 19.

 Albany (N. Y.), early concerts in, 68.

 Alda, Frances, 153.

 Allen, Paul, 449.

 Allen, William Francis (quoted on negro music), 289, 295, 301, 304.

 Alvary, Max, 140, 145, 147.

 Amato, Pasquale, 153.

 'America' (national anthem), 324.

 American Institute of Applied Music, 255.

 American Opera Company (of 1885), 140f.

 Americanism. See Nationalism.

 Anderson, Arthur Olaf, 400.

 Andrews, Mark, 358f.

 Annapolis (Md.), 80f, 108.

 Anschütz, Carl, 132ff.

 Anthems. See Church music.

 Antognini, 125.

 Appreciation (musical) in America, etc., iv-ff.

 'Archers (The),' first American opera, 112.

 Arditi, Luigi, 126f, 135, 171.

 Aretinian Society (of Boston), 98.

 Aronson, Rudolph, 144, 177f.

 Arne, (Dr.) Thomas, 39, 69f.

 Arnold, Maurice, 346f, 433.

 Ash, Gilfert, organ-builder, 64.

 Aston, Tony, 105ff.

 Astor Place Opera House, 128f.

 Avery, Stanley R., 400.

 Ayres, Frederick, 415ff.


                 B

 Baermann, Carl, 250.

 Bailey, Daniel, 29ff.

 Bailey, William, 29.

 Baker, Benjamin F., 222.

 Balfe's 'Bohemian Girl,' in New York, 126.

 Ballad opera in America, 104ff. See also English opera.

 Ballantine, Edward, 442.

 Baltimore, early musical activities in, 41f, 81f, 87, 101, 234.

 Bangor (Me.), music festivals, 223.

 Banjo, primitive and modern, 296.

 Bardin, Edward, 65.

 Barnabee, Henry Clay, 175, 177.

 Barrère, Georges, 205.

 Barrère Ensemble, 205.

 Bartlett, Homer N., 383f.

 Battell, Robbins, 224.

 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,' 329.

 Bauer, Clara, 250f.

 Beach, John, 390f.

 Beach, [Mrs.] H. H. A., 342.

 Beale, Frederick Fleming, 401.

 Beethoven, in early American concerts, 95, 97;
   influence of in America, 360f.

 Beethoven festival (in New York), 186.

 Bentley, John, 72.

 Bergmann, Carl, 131f, 183, 185, 189, 203, 208, 209.

 Bergh, Arthur, 391ff.

 Bertucca (Signora), 128.

 Berwald, W., 358f.

 Bethlehem (Pa.), choral music in, 214, 233f.

 Billings, William, 39, _49ff_, 61;
   as singing teacher, 98;
   original compositions of, 234f;
   patriotic songs of, 322.

 Bird, Arthur, 402.

 Bispham, David, 147.

 Bliss, P. P., 245.

 Bohemian Club of San Francisco, 228f, 396ff.

 'Bohemian Girl' (Balfe), 126.

 Bori, Lucrezia, 155.

 Boston, early musical activities, 31ff, 236ff, 240ff;
   early public concerts, 56ff, 83;
   early musical societies, 98ff;
   early opera, 109f;
   opera, 172f;
   orchestral organizations, 188ff;
   chamber music in, 203f;
   choral societies, 206ff;
   music festivals, 223;
   'Boston group' of composers, 335ff.

 Boston Conservatory, 250.

 Boston Symphony Orchestra, 190.

 Bostonians (light opera troupe), 176f;
   their influence on comic opera, 457.

 Bottesini, 127.

 Boudousquie, and New Orleans opera, 161ff.

 Bradbury, William B., 222, 244f.

 Brahms, influence of, in America, 348, 362.

 Brahms festival, 186.

 Brand, Michael, 193f.

 Brandt, Marianne, 138, 140.

 Branscombe, Gena, 438f.

 Brattle, Thomas, 19.

 Bremner, James, 69, 85.

 Brewer, John Hyatt, 358.

 Brignoli, 132.

 Bristow, George F., 334;
   (quoted) 182.

 Broadhurst (Miss), 74f, 111.

 Brockway, Howard, 382f.

 Brooklyn (N. Y.), choral societies of, 213.

 Brooklyn Philharmonic Society, 185.

 Brounoff, Platon, 450.

 Brown, A. L., quoted, 102.

 Brown, William, 66f, 72.

 Buck, Dudley, 345f.

 Bull, Ole, in America, 130f.

 Bullard, Frederick Field, 353.

 Bunyan, John, quoted, 12.

 Burleigh, Cecil, 401.

 Burleigh, Harry, 443.

 Burrian, Carl, 155.

 Burton, Frederick R., 347.

 Busch, Carl, 394f.

 Byrd, William, 4.


                 C

 Cable, George W., 307f.

 Cadman, Charles Wakefield, 425ff.

 Calvé, Emma, 144, 146, 151.

 Campanari, Giuseppe, 147.

 Campanini, Cleofonte (opera conductor), 152f, 171f.

 Campanini, Italo, 133, 135f, 141.

 Campbell-Tipton, 422ff.

 Canada, conservatories of, 259ff.

 Canadian folk-song, 313.

 Capron, Henri, 66, 72.

 Caradori-Allan (Mme.), 124.

 Carey, Henry, 324.

 'Carmen,' in New York, 135, 155.

 Carnegie, Andrew, 211.

 Carnegie Hall (New York), 211.

 Carpenter, John Alden, 427f.

 Carr, Benjamin, 112.

 Carroll, Marcus H., 354.

 Caruso, Enrico, 149, 155.

 Casino Theatre (New York), 177f.

 Catholic Church. See Church music; also Palestrina.

 Cavalieri, Lina, 151, 153.

 'Cavalleria Rusticana' (Mascagni), in New York, 143.

 Century Opera Company (New York), 155ff.

 Chadwick, George W., 248f, 311, _337f_, 357, 462.

 Chamber music ensembles, in the United States, 201ff.

 Chappell, on music in the 17th century, 6.

 Charleston (S. C.), early concerts in, 9, 40ff, _76ff_, 83;
   early musical societies of, 86f;
   early opera, 106, 108, 111.

 Cheney, Moses E., 244.

 Chicago, opera in, 169ff;
   orchestral organizations of, 191ff;
   chamber music organizations in, 205;
   choral societies of, 216f;
   musical conventions in, 222, 244;
   music festivals in, 223.

 Chicago Conservatory, 254f.

 Chicago Musical College, 253f.

 Chicago-Philadelphia Opera Company, 169, 171f.

 Chittenden, Kate S., 255.

 Chopin, influence of, in America, 361, 419f.

 Choral music, in early Boston, 60, 73, 88;
   in Bethlehem (Pa.), 214, 233f.

 Choral societies, community choruses, xix;
   early American, 84ff;
   American, 206ff.
   See also German choral societies.

 Christy, Edwin T. (negro minstrel), 316ff.

 Church music, in America, x;
   in early New England, 13ff;
   early American, 45, 231ff, 332f;
   (influence of) 345;
   early Philadelphia institution for, 87f;
   American composers of, 355ff.
   See also Sacred Music.

 Church music, Institution for the Encouragement of, 73.

 Cincinnati, choral societies, 214ff;
   music festival, 222f;
   opera in, 173f;
   orchestral organizations of, 193f.

 Cincinnati College of Music, 254.

 Cincinnati Conservatory, 247, 250f.

 Clapp, Philip Greeley, 390.

 Classic composers, American, 331ff, 360ff, 407ff.

 Claxton, Philander D., 242f.

 Cleveland Conservatory, 253.

 Clifton, Chalmers, 442.

 Clough-Leighter, Henry, 436f.

 Coerne, Louis Adolphe, 343.

 Cohan, George M., 463.

 Coini, Jacques, 157.

 Cole, Rossetter G., 384.

 College of Music of Cincinnati, 193.

 Colleges (American), musical courses in, 261ff.

 Colleges, musical. See Conservatories.

 'Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,' 326.

 Columbia Anacreontic Society, 90f.

 Columbia University, music department of, 267f.

 Comer, Thomas, 188.

 Comic opera, in America, 174ff;
   American, 456ff.

 Commercialism in music in America, xvi.

 Community drama. See Pageants.

 Composition, courses in.
    See Colleges (American), musical courses in; also Conservatories.

 Concerts, (early American) 31, 33ff;
   compared to European, in 18th cent., 83, _55ff_, _84ff_;
   (municipal) xviii-f;
   (symphony, at popular prices), xix;
   (free public) 273ff.
   See also Musical organizations.

 Concordia Society (of New York), 97.

 Congregational singing in early New England, 15ff.

 Conried, Heinrich, 149ff.

 Conservatories, American, vii-f, _246ff_.
   See also Canada; also specific names.

 Convention, musical, 244.
   See also Music festivals.

 Converse, C. C., 357.

 Converse, Frederick S., 154, 227, _377ff_.

 Cook, Will Marion, 443f.

 Coombs, C. W., 355.

 'Coon song,' 454f.

 Corre, Joseph, 67.

 Cotton, John, cited, 17, 20f.

 Counterpoint (Billings quoted on), 51.

 Cowboy songs, 311f.

 Creoles, music and dances of, 304ff.

 Cromwell, Oliver, cited, 13.


                 D

 Damrosch, Frank, 187, 211, 212, 213, 256ff;
   quoted on American conservatories, 246.

 Damrosch, Leopold, 138f, 183, 185, 210.

 Damrosch, Walter, 140, 142ff, 184ff, 211;
   quoted, 382;
   as composer, 395.

 Dance songs, in 'popular' music, 455f.

 Dances, of negroes, 304f.

 Daniels, Mabel, 403.

 Dartmouth College, early musical society in, 101f, 238f.

 Davis, John, 115, 161.

 Davis, T. Kemper, cited, 242.

 Deblois, Stephen, 57f.

 de Koven, Reginald, 353, _458ff_.

 Debussy, influence of, in America, xiii;
   works of, introduced in America, 186.

 Delacroix, Joseph, 66f.

 Demarest, Clifford, 358f.

 Democracy and American music, xvii.

 Denver (Colo.), orchestra in, 199.

 Destinn, Emmy, 153.

 Dillon, Fannie, 405.

 Dippel, Andreas, 147, 152ff, 154, 171f, 179.

 Dipper, Thomas, 57f.

 'Dixie,' 318, 327f.

 Dixon, George Washington (negro minstrel), 318.

 Dowland, John, 4.

 Drama. See Comic Opera; Musical Comedy; Opera; Theatre.

 Drum, as used by negroes, 297.

 Dunlap, William, 112;
   on early American opera, 111f;
   librettist of first American opera, 112.

 Dunn, James Philip, 440.

 Dvořák, Antonin, 184, 256;
   on American music, xii, 332;
   on negro folk-song, 310.

 Dwight, J. S., quoted, 100, 238.

 Dwight's Journal of Music, 238.


                 E

 Eames, Emma, 143, 147.

 Eccles, Solomon, cit., 13f.

 Education, musical. See Musical Education.

 Edwards, Julian, 461.

 Eichberg, Julius, 250, 457.

 Eichheim, Henry, 447.

 Eisfeld, Theodore, 203.

 Eliot, John, cit., 16, 19ff.

 Elizabeth (Queen), cit., 5.

 Elkus, Arthur, 400.

 Elson, Louis C., on early American music, 2, 32;
   cited, 97;
   quoted, 99;
   on American patriotic songs, 320, 324.

 Emery, Stephen, 334.

 Emmett, Daniel D. (negro minstrel), 316, 318;
   composer of 'Dixie,' 327f.

 Engel, Carl, 446f.

 England (music and customs), in 17th cent., 3ff;
   opera in, during 17th-18th cent., 106f;
   pageants in, 226, 228;
   church music in, 356;
   comic opera in, 457.

 Englander, Ludwig, 461f.

 English influence, (on early German music) 4f;
   (on early American musical societies) 90f;
   (on music in early Boston) 236f;
   (on early American music) 284.

 English language, opera in. See Opera in English.
   See also Comic opera.

 English musical comedy. See Musical comedy, English.

 English opera, in early America, 36f, 107ff, 112;
   in 17th-18th cent., 106ff;
   decline of, in New York, in early 19th cent., 117;
   revival of, 119ff, 123ff.

 Enstone, Edward, 24f.

 Erskine, Thomas Alexander, 70.

 Essex Musical Association, 101.

 Esterley, George, 75.

 Europe, concert life of, during 18th century, 83.

 European influence, on American composition, 284, 331ff.

 European universities, musical courses in, 264.

 Euterpean Society, of early New York, 89ff.


                 F

 Faelten, Carl, 248.

 Fairchild, Blair, 432f.

 Farrar, Geraldine, 151, 155.

 Farwell, Arthur, 226f, 310, _410ff_;
   on municipal music, 273ff.

 Fay, C. N., 191.

 Felsted, Samuel, 61.

 Festivals, musical. See Music festivals.

 Fickenscher, Arthur, 450.

 Finck, Henry T., cited, 353, 368.

 Finden, Amy Woodforde, 406.

 Fischer, Emil, 140, 145, 147.

 Fisk University, Jubilee Singers of, 308ff.

 Flagg, Joseph, 29, 45.

 Flagg, Josiah, 59.

 Flagler, H. H., 186.

 Flonzaley Quartet, 204f.

 Floridia, Pietro, 188.

 Florio, Caryl, 358f.

 Foerster, Adolph M., 196;
   quoted 197.

 Folk-song (in America), vi-f, xi-ff, _277ff_, 451f.
   See also Cowboy songs; Negro folk-song; Indians;
   Canadian folk-songs; Spanish-American folk-songs;
   'Popular' music.

 Foote, Arthur, 338ff, 357.

 Forrage, Stephen, 70.

 Foster, Stephen Collins, 286, _318ff_, 452;
   (influence of) 416.

 Francis, Samuel, 65.

 Franklin, Benjamin, 29, 70.

 Fredericksburg, early musical life of, 82, 87.

 Free concerts. See Concerts.

 Freer, Eleanor Everest, 404.

 Fremstad, Olive, 149.

 French influence, on music in America, xiii-f, 74, 79, 81;
   on negro music, 304ff;
   on modern American music, 407, 409, 414, 416, 427,
      437f, 441, 444, 446ff.

 French opera, in early America, 104, 110f, 114ff, 126;
   in (modern) New York, 152, 154, 178f;
   in New Orleans, 161ff;
   in Philadelphia, 168.

 French-Canadian folk-song, 313.

 Friedenthal, Albert, cited, 305.

 Frieze, Henry S., 268.

 Fry, D. H., quoted, 130.

 Fry, E. R., 128.

 Fry, William H. (opera composer), 132, 167f, _333f_.

 Funeral songs, of negroes, 302f.

 Futurism, 440, 442.


                 G

 Gadski, Johanna, 145, 147.

 Gale, Clement R., 357.

 García, Manuel (in New York), 118f.

 Garden, Mary, 152.

 Gatti-Casazza, Giulio, 152ff.

 Gaynor, Jessie, 355.

 Georgia, early concerts in, 82.

 Gericke, William, 190f.

 German choral societies, (in New York) 209f;
   in the west, 215f;
   (general) 218.
   See also German musical societies.

 German influence on American music, x-ff, 22, 215f,
      233f, 243ff, 360ff, 369;
   (modern) 420, 422, 435f, 440f, 449;
   in early Boston, 236.

 German musical societies, in early New York, 97.

 German opera, in New York, 131ff;
   in the United States, 159ff.

 Germania orchestra (Boston), 188f.

 Gerster, Etelka, 137, 160.

 Gerville-Réache, Jeanne, 152.

 Getty, Alice, 406.

 Gibbons, Orlando, 4.

 Gilbert, Henry F., 311, _408ff_;
   quot. on racial influence, 278.

 Gilchrist, W. W., 357.

 Gilibert, Charles, 148, 152.

 Gilman, Lawrence, cited, 366, 368.

 Gleason, Frederic Grant, 346.

 Gluck, works of, in early American concerts, 62, 79, 80.

 Goldmark, Rubin, 381.

 Goodrich, Wallace, 208.

 Goritz, Otto, 149.

 Gottschalk, Louis Moreau, 307, _334f_.

 Gould, Nathaniel D., 242.

 Gounod, influence of, on American church music, 356.

 Grant, James Augustus, 298.

 Grattan (Mrs.), 73.

 Grau, Maurice, 142ff, 149, 175, 177.

 Graupner, Gottlieb, 100, 207, 236.

 Green, Joseph, quoted, 19.

 Grétry, works of, in early American concerts, 62, 79, 81.

 Griffes, Charles T., 442.

 Grunn, J. Homer, 401.

 Gualdo, Giovanni, 70.


                 H

 Hackett, Karleton, cited, 169.

 Hadley, Henry, 375ff, 462.

 Hague, Eleanor, quoted, 312f.

 'Hail Columbia' (national song), 324f.

 Hale, Philip, on Toronto Choir, 219f;
   cited, 390.

 Hamerick, Asger, in America, 247.

 Hamilton, Edward, 222.

 Hammerstein, Oscar, 144, 151ff, 169, 179.

 Hammond, William G., 355.

 Hanby, B. R., 318.

 Handel, works of, in early American concerts, 32ff,
     37ff, 58ff, 62, 64ff, 70, 72f, 77, 80, 93ff.

 Handel and Haydn Society (of Boston), 102f, 206ff.

 Handel and Haydn Society (of early New York), 96.

 Harris, Augustus, quoted, 146.

 Harris, Charles K., 454.

 Harris, Victor, 355.

 Hartford, early concerts in, 62f.

 Harvard University (music department of), 237f, 263.

 Harvard Musical Association, 189, 203, 237f.

 Haskell, M. A., quoted, 299.

 Hattstaedt, John J., 254f.

 Hawley, Charles B., 355.

 Haydn, works of, in early American concerts, 38f, 41,
   62f, 66f, 72f, 75, 80f, 96f.

 Hearn, Lafcadio, cited, 299, 306.

 Hebrew, operas in, 160.

 Heckscher, Celeste, 404.

 Hempel, Frieda, 155.

 Henderson, W. J., cited, 144;
   quoted, 186.

 Hendricks, Francis, 442.

 Henius, Joseph, 393.

 Hensel, Heinrich, 155.

 Henschel, George, in America, 190.

 Herbert, Victor, 154ff, 197, _447f_, _460_.

 Herbert-Förster, 141.

 Hertz, Alfred, 149, 153.

 Hess, Willy, 204.

 Heyman, Katherine Ruth, 406.

 Higginson, Henry L., 190.

 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, quoted, IV. 303.

 Hill, Edward Burlingame, 388ff.

 Hill, Uriah C., 181, 183, 202.

 Hodgkinson, Francis, 111.

 Hodgkinson, John, 90.

 Holden, Oliver, works of, IV. 52-53.

 Holyoke, Samuel, 52f.

 Homer, Louise, 148.

 Homer, Sidney, 435f.

 Hone, Philip, 122.

 Hopekirk, Helen, 405.

 Hopkinson, Francis, _46ff_, 69, 71, 85.

 Hopkinson, Joseph, on origin of 'Hail Columbia,' 324f.

 Howland, William Legrand, 396.

 Hughes, Rupert, cited, 337, 342, 353, 405, 433f, 459.

 Huhn, Bruno, 355.

 Hull, Alexander, 440f.

 Humiston, W. H., 311, _430f_.

 Huss, Henry Holden, 348f.

 Hutchinson (Colonel), cited, 13.

 Hymnology, American, x, 332f.
   See also Church music; Psalmody.


                 I

 Ide, Chester, works of, 400.

 Incas. See Peruvians.

 Indians (American), primitive music of, 281;
   (in American music) xi-ff, 2f;
   (used by American composers) 365, 394f, 410ff, 417,
     424ff, 434, 443, 448.
   See also Primitive Music in General Index (Vol. XII).

 'Indian' song, in 'popular' music, 455.

 Indian Suite (MacDowell), 366f.

 [d']Indy, cited, 429.

 Institute of Musical Art (New York), 256ff.

 Instrumental music, forbidden by Puritans, 18f;
   beginnings of, in New England, 24ff, 32ff.
   See also Concerts, Orchestral organizations, Chamber music ensembles.

 Instruments (primitive), of negroes, 296.

 Irish influence on music in America, 22.

 'Irish' song, in 'popular' music, 455.

 Isaacs, Lewis M., 442.

 Italian influence on music in America, xi.

 Italian opera in early America, 104, 110;
   in New York City, 117ff;
   in the U. S., 158ff.

 Italian Symphony Orchestra (New York), 188.


                 J

 Jacchia, Agide, 157.

 Jackson, L. J., 263f.

 Jadlowker, Hermann, 155.

 James, Philip, 358f.

 Johns, Clayton, 353.

 Johnson, [Dr.] Samuel (quoted), 202.

 Jones, Darius E., 242.

 Jones, John, 65.

 Jordan, Eben D., 172, 249.

 Jörn, Carl, 153.

 Journet, Marcel, 148f.


                 K

 Kahn, Otto H., 155f.

 Kansas City (orchestra in), 199.

 Kaun, Hugo, 449.

 Kelley, Edgar Stillman. See Stillman-Kelley.

 Kellogg, Clara Louise, 159.

 Kelly, Earl of. See Erskine, Thomas Alexander.

 Kentucky mountaineers, folk-songs of, 313f.

 Kernochan, Marshall, 437.

 Key, Francis Scott, 325f.

 Kimball, Jacob (Jr.), 52f.

 Kneisel Quartet, 204.

 Knoch, Ernst, 157.

 Koemmenich, Louis, 212.

 Korn, Clara A., 405.

 Kramer, A. Walter, 441f.

 Krehbiel, H. E., on opera in early America, 104;
   cited, 128, 146, 457;
   on folk-songs, 283, 285, 288ff, 305f, 316ff.

 Kreider, Noble, 419f.

 Kriens, Christian, 401.

 Kroeger, E. R., 311, _379f_.

 Kunwald, Ernst, 195.

 Kurt, Melanie, 155.


                 L

 La Forge, Frank, 354f.

 Labor songs of negroes, 298.

 Lambord, Benjamin, 420ff.

 Lambord Choral Society, 213.

 Lang, Henry, 400.

 Lang, Margaret Ruthven, 343.

 Langdon, William Chauncey, 226ff.

 Law, Andrew, 52f.

 Lehmann, Lilli, 140, 142f, 147.

 Light opera. See Comic opera.

 Lipkowska, Lydia, 155.

 Liszt, influence of, in America, 362.

 Litchfield County Choral Union, 223ff.

 Loeb, James, 257.

 Loeffler, Charles Martin, 444ff.

 Longy Club of Boston, 204f.

 Loomis, Harvey Worthington, 413ff.

 Los Angeles (Cal.), opera in, 173f.

 Love, Charles, 64.

 Love songs of negroes, 299, 306f.

 Luders, Gustav, 461f.

 Lund, John, 139.

 Lutkin, P. C., 253f.

 Lyon, James, 46, 48f.

 Lyricists, American. See Song-writers.


                 M

 McCormack, John, 153.

 McCoy, William J., 396f.

 MacDowell, Edward, 225, 267, 281, _362ff_.

 MacDowell Chorus (New York), 213.

 MacDowell Festival (Peterboro, N. H.), 225f.

 MacDowell Memorial Association, 225.

 Macfarlane, Will C., 357.

 McGill University (Toronto), 260f.

 McGuckin, Barton, 141.

 McLean, John, 70.

 Madrigal (in England), 5.

 Maguire, Hugh, 234.

 Mahler, Gustav, in America, 150f, 153, 184.

 Mallet (Mr.), 62.

 Manchester, Arthur L., 262.

 Manhattan Opera House (New York), 144, 151ff.

 Manney, Charles Fonteyn, 401.

 Manning, Edward, 354.

 Mapleson, James H., 135, 137f, 139, 146f, 159, 168.

 'Marching through Georgia,' 329.

 Maretzek, Max, 127, 128ff.

 Marsh, J. B. T., quoted, 308f.

 Marston, George W., 343, 357.

 Martinelli, Giovanni, 155.

 Martini, works of, in early American concerts, 66f, 69, 75, 79.

 Maryland, early music in, 80ff.

 'Maryland, My Maryland,' origin of, 327.

 Marzo, Eduardo, 358.

 Mascagni, Pietro, in America, 148.

 Mason, Daniel Gregory, 385ff.

 Mason, Lowell, 52ff, 239ff, 245f.

 Mason, William, 203, _344f_.

 Massachusetts Musical Society, 102.

 Materna, Amalia, 138.

 Mather, Cotton, cited, 19, 21.

 Matzenauer, Margarete, 155.

 Mearns, John, 75.

 Melba, Nellie, 144, 147, 151.

 Melodramatic music (first American), 90.

 Mendelssohn, Felix, on music conservatories, 248.

 Mendelssohn Quintet Club, 203f.

 'Messiah' (Handel), early performance in New York, 65, 96.

 Metcalfe, James W., 355.

 Metropolitan Opera House (organization and history of), 136ff.

 Mexico, folk music of, 312f.

 Mildenberg, Albert, 395f.

 Milton, cited, 12.

 Milwaukee, choral societies of, 216.

 Minneapolis, opera in, 173f.

 Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, 198.

 Minstrelsy. See Negro minstrelsy.

 Mittelberger, Gottlieb, cited, 68.

 Modern Music Society of New York, 213, 421f, 432.

 Montressor, 121.

 Moodie, John W. D., cited, 290.

 Moore, Mary Carr, 405.

 Moravian settlement (Bethlehem, Pa.), 214, 233f.

 Mordkin, Mikail (dancer), 154.

 Morley, Thomas, cited, 5.

 Mozart, works of, in early American concerts, 39, 66, 80, 95ff.

 Muck, Karl, 191.

 Municipal music, xviii-f, 272ff.

 Music festivals in America, 220ff;
   (musical convention) 244.
   See also Pageants.

 Music publishing, early English, 14;
   early American, 27ff.

 Music teachers, licensing of, viii.

 Music Teachers' National Association, 271.

 Musical Art Society of New York, 212.

 Musical Colleges. See Conservatories.

 Musical comedy (English) in America, 178, 462f;
   (American) 463.

 Musical convention. See Music festivals.

 Musical Education, American, vii-viii, xv-ff, 87, _230ff_.

 Musical societies. See Musical organizations.

 Musical Fund Society, 93, 96f.

 Musical organizations, early American, 82, _84ff_;
   American (instrumental), 181ff.
   See also Choral societies.


                 N

 National Conservatory of Music (New York), 255f.

 National Opera Company, 141.

 National songs, American, 321ff.

 Nationalism (in American music), vi, 277ff, 365, _407ff_.

 Nationalists (school of American composers), 407ff.

 Negro folk-song, 10f, _284ff_, 451;
   in American composition, xi-ff, 365, 409f, 413, 416,
     430ff, 442ff, 450.
   See also 'Coon song.'

 Negro minstrelsy, rise of, 314ff.

 Neidlinger, W. H., 353f.

 Nelson, Dora, 193, 254.

 Nevin, Arthur, 424f.

 Nevin, Ethelbert, 349ff.

 New England, influence of, on music in America, 1-2;
   early music of, 11ff, 22ff;
   attitude of, toward music, 44f;
   early musical societies of, 97ff;
   choral societies in, 214;
   early music in, 232f, 236ff, 332f.

 New England Conservatory (Boston), 247ff.

 New Haven (Conn.), early concerts in, 62f.

 New Jersey, early concerts in, 68.

 New Orleans, early music in, 42;
   early opera in, 114ff;
   opera in, 161ff.

 Newport (R. I.), early concerts in, 62f;
   St. Cæcilia Society of, 101.

 New York City, public concerts, xviii;
   early music in, 36ff;
   early public concerts, _63ff_, 83;
   early musical societies, 88ff;
   opera in (early) 104, 106ff, 116, (recent) 117ff;
   orchestral organizations of, 181ff;
   chamber music in, 202ff;
   choral societies, 208ff;
   music festivals, 223;
   music in public schools, 242, 271;
   conservatories, 255ff;
   municipal music in, 273ff;
   N. Y. group of composers, 347f.

 New York Choral Society, 93ff.

 New York Sacred Music Society, 95f.

 Niblo, William, 126f, 129ff.

 Nicolini, 138.

 Niemann, Albert, 141.

 Nikisch, Arthur, 190f.

 Nilsson, Christine, 133, 136.

 Noble, T. Tertius, 357.

 Nordica, Lillian, 138, 142f, 147, 152.

 Norris, Homer, 437f.

 Northwestern School of Music, 253f.

 Notation, 27ff.


                 O

 Ober, Margarete, 155.

 Oberhoffer, Emil, 198.

 Oberlin Conservatory, 247, 251f.

 'Occupational' songs (of negroes), 297.

 Offenbach, Jacques, in America, 134.

 Oldberg, Arne, 373ff.

 Opera, in England, 14;
   beginnings of, in America, 104ff;
   in New York City, 117ff;
   popular-price, in N. Y., 155;
   in the United States, 158ff.
   See also Opera, American; Opera in English.

 Opera, American, (first) 112;
   (early) 333ff;
   (first to be prod. in Met. Opera House, N. Y.) 154;
   (A. Nevin) 424f;
   (Herbert) 447f.

 Opera, Comic. See Comic opera.

 Opera, English. See English opera.

 Opera in English (in New York), 141ff, 145, 148, 155ff;
   (in Philadelphia) 168.
   See also Musical comedy.

 Oratorio, first heard in Boston, 61;
   in early Philadelphia concerts, 73f;
   in early New York, 96;
   in early Boston, 99;
   in Chicago, 216f.

 Oratorio Society of New York, 210ff.

 Orchestral organizations in the United States, 181ff.

 Orchestras, early New York, 92, 120.

 Organ (Brattle), first in New England, 19.

 Organizations. See Musical organizations.

 Ornstein, Leo, 442.

 Orpheus Club (Philadelphia), 85f.

 Osgood, George L., 249.


                 P

 Page, Nathaniel Clifford, 399.

 Pageants, xix, 226ff, 412.

 Paine, John Howard, 114.

 Paine, John Knowles, xii, 262, _336f_.

 Palma, John, 68f.

 Palmo, Ferdinand, 125f.

 Park Theatre (early New York), 118, 123ff.

 Parker, Gilbert, 226.

 Parker, Horatio W., 155, 265ff, _340ff_, 357.

 Parker, H. T., on Toronto Choir, 220.

 Parker, James C. D., 343.

 Parks, Edna R., 355.

 'Parsifal' (Wagner), first American performance of, 149f.

 Patriotic songs (American), _321ff_, 452.

 Patti, Adelina, 133, 137, 139, 141ff, 160, 163, 166, 171.

 Paur, Emil, 184, 191, 197.

 Pavlova, Anna (dancer), 154.

 Peabody Institute, 247.

 Pelissier, Victor, 112f.

 Pelosi, Vincent M., 75.

 People's Symphony Orchestra (New York), 187.

 Perlet, Herman, 398f.

 Pfitzner, Hans, cited, 429.

 Pflueger, Carl, 462.

 Philadelphia, early music in, 36, 38ff, 234f;
   early public concerts, _68ff_, 83;
   early musical societies, 85, 87f;
   early opera, 108, 110ff;
   opera, _164ff_;
   orchestra, 199ff;
   choral societies, 213;
   pageant (of 1912), 228.

 Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, 199f.

 Philharmonic Society of New York, 181ff.

 Pianoforte, first in New England, 32.

 Pianoforte music, American (treatment), 419.

 Piccolomini, Maria, 133.

 Pike, Thomas, 77.

 Pilgrims, 19.
   See also Puritans.

 Pittsburg, orchestral organizations of, 195ff.

 Plançon, Pol, 144, 147.

 Pleyel, works of, in early American concerts, 35, 41,
   62f, 66f, 72f, 79, 81.

 Polyphony in early English music, 4.

 Ponte, Lorenzo da, in America, 121ff, 127.

 'Popular' music in America, 2, _451ff_, 464.
   See also Negro folk-song.

 'Popular-price' opera. See Opera, popular.

 Portland, Me., early concert in, 101;
   music festivals in, 223.

 Powell, John, works of, 431f.

 Pownall (Mrs.), 74f, 80.

 Pratt, John Harradan, 399.

 Pratt, Silas G., 346.

 Price (first professional musician in New England), 24.

 Prouty, Elijah K., 244.

 Providence (R. I.), early concerts in, 62f, 101.

 Prynne, quoted, 13.

 Psalmody, early New England, _13ff_, 25ff, 332f.

 Public Schools, American music in, viii, 240ff, 270ff.

 Pulitzer, Joseph, 184.

 Purcell, Henry, composition by, in early New York concert, 64.

 Puritans, _11ff_;
   influence of, on American music, 1f, 22f, 333.


                 R

 Racial influence (in music), 277ff.

 'Ragtime,' in 'popular' music, 454ff;
   in musical plays, 463.

 'Railroad songs' (of negroes), 298.

 Read, Samuel, 52f.

 Redding, Joseph D., 399.

 Reinagle, Alexander, 66f, 72, 74, 81;
   and early Philadelphia opera, 111.

 Religious songs, of negroes, 299ff.

 Renaud, Maurice, 152.

 Reszke, Jean de, 143f, 146f.

 Revere, Paul (as music engraver), 29.

 Rhythm, in negro folk-song, 289ff.

 Rice, J. B., 169ff.

 Rice, W. D. ('negro' comedian), 314f.

 Riker, Franklin, 355.

 Ritter, Frederic Louis, on early American music, 2, 22;
   cited, 32f, 37;
   quoted, 50, 52, 89, 92ff, 102, 112f, 120f;
   on German choral societies, 216.

 Rivafinoli, Chevalier, 122.

 'Robin Hood' (de Koven), 176, 179, 458f.

 Rochester (N. Y.), 'community chorus' in, xix.

 Rogers, James H., 355.

 Romantic school, in American music, xii, xiv, 360ff.

 Rooke, William Michael, 124.

 Root, George F., 222, 246;
   patriotic songs of, 329.

 Roper, Virginia, 406.

 Rowe, John, quoted, 59, 110.

 Rübner, Cornelius, 267.

 Rummel, Walter Morse, 448f.

 Russell, Alexander, 439f.

 Russell, Henry, 172f.

 Russell, Lillian, 178.

 Russian influence, on American music, xiv.

 Russian Symphony Society of New York, 187f.


                 S

 Sabin, Wallace, 398.

 Sacchini, works of, in early American concerts, 74, 79.

 Sacred music, early American societies for cultivation of,
     (New York) 95f, (Boston) 102.
   See also Church music; also Oratorio.

 Safonoff, Wassili, 184.

 St. Paul (Minn.), orchestra, 198.

 St. Louis (Mo.), orchestra in, 199;
   choral societies, 216;
   pageant (1914), 227.

 St. Denis, Ruth, cited, 434.

 St. Cæcilia Society, of Newport, 101.

 St. Cecilia Society, of (early) New York, 88f.

 St. Cecilia Society, of Charleston, 41, 77ff, 86.

 Salem (Mass.), early concerts in, 62f.

 'Salome' (Strauss) perf. in New York, 150, 153.

 Salter, Mary Turner, 405f.

 Sanders, W. D., 253.

 San Francisco, opera, 158ff, 173f;
   orchestras, 199;
   choral societies, 217;
   composers, 396ff.
   See also Bohemian Club of San Francisco.

 Sankey, Ira D., 245.

 Savage, Henry W., 137, 147ff.

 Savannah (Ga.), early music in, 42, 82.

 Scales, in negro music, 289, 291ff.

 Scandinavian singing societies (of America), 218.

 Scheff, Fritzi, 148.

 Schelling, Ernest, 450.

 Schindler, Kurt, 213, 449f.

 Schlesinger, Daniel, 97.

 Schmidt, J. H., 68.

 Schnecker, P. J., 358.

 Schneider, Edward F., 397f.

 Schoenefeld, Henry, 311, 346, _433f_.

 Schola Cantorum (New York) 212f.

 Schools. See Public schools and Conservatories.

 Schott, Anton, 138.

 Schroeder-Hanfstängel, Marie, 138.

 Schuch, Ernst von, in America, 147f.

 Schumann, Elisabeth, 155.

 Schumann, Robert, influence of, in America, 361.

 Schumann-Heink, Ernestine, 147, 152.

 Scotch influence, on American music, 22.

 Scotti, Antonio, 148.

 Seattle (Wash.) Symphony Orchestra, 199.

 Secular music, beginnings of, in America, 33, 46ff, 54.

 Seidl, Anton, 140, 145f, 183.

 Seidl-Krauss, Auguste, 138, 140.

 Seiffert, Max, cited, 5.

 Selby, William, 59ff.

 Sembrich, Marcella, 137.

 Severn, Edmund, 401f.

 Sewall, Samuel, quoted, 16f.

 Shapleigh, Bertram, 402.

 Sharp, William, Edward MacDowell compared to, 364.

 Shaw, David T., and 'Columbia,' 326.

 Sheafe, William, 57.

 Shelley, Harry Rowe, 357f.

 Shepherd, Arthur, 417ff;
   cited, 429.

 'Shouting' (of negroes), 304.

 Sight-reading (in 17th cent.), 5f;
   in early New England, 16.

 Singing, congregational, in early New England, 15ff.

 Singing schools, formation of, in early New England, 25ff;
   early American, 232ff.
   See also Choral societies.

 Singing societies. See Choral societies.

 Slaves, music of. See Negro folk-song.

 Sleeper, Henry Dike, on music in colleges, 261.

 Slezak, Leo, 155.

 Smith, David Stanley, 387f.

 Smith, Gertrude Norman, 404.

 Smith, John Stafford, 325.

 Smith, Samuel F. (author of 'America'), 324.

 Smith, Wilson L., 352f.

 Social centres, xviii-f.
   See also Municipal music.

 Societies. See Choral societies; Musical organizations;
   Orchestral organizations.

 Soldene, Emily, in America, 175f.

 Song-writers (American), 349ff, 362ff, 408ff.

 Sonneck, Oscar G., cited, 36, 39f, 47ff, 56, 64, 68,
     76f, 82, 89f, 98, 101, 104;
   quoted, 323f.

 'Sorrow songs' (of negroes), 297f, 302f.

 Sousa, John Philip, 460f.

 South (the), early music in, 9ff;
   early concerts in, 40ff, _76ff_;
   attitude of, toward music, 44;
   early professional musicians in, 45;
   early opera in, 106, 108;
   music festivals in, 223.

 Southwest, music in the, 10.

 Spaeth, Sigmund, cited, 12.

 Spanish opera, in New York, 139.

 Spanish-American folk-songs, 312f.

 Speaks, Oley, 355.

 Spirituals (of negroes), 301f, 304.

 Spross, Charles Gilbert, 355.

 Stamitz, Johann, works of, in early American concerts,
   38, 63, 66f, 69, 75, 79, 81.

 Stanley, Albert A., 268.

 Stanton, Edmund C., 140.

 'Star Spangled Banner,' 325ff.

 Stearnes, Henry V., 400.

 Stephens, Ward, 355.

 Stewart, Humphrey J., 397.

 Stillman-Kelley, Edgar, _368ff_, 462.

 Stock, Frederick A., 192.

 Stoeckel, Carl, 224.

 Stokowski, Leopold, 200.

 Stoughton Musical Society, 97ff.

 Stover, Charles B. (N. Y. Park commissioner), 274f.

 Strakosch, Maurice, 132f, 171.

 Strakosch, Max, 133ff.

 Stransky, Josef, 184.

 Strauss, Richard, 150;
   influence of, on American music, 375f.

 Stricklen, Edward G., 399.

 Sullivan, [Sir] Arthur, comic operas of, in America,
   175f, 179, 457.

 Sunday School music, 245.

 Symmes, [Rev.] Thomas, 16, 18, 21;
   on singing, 26f;
   on 'singing by note,' 232f.

 Symphony orchestras. See Orchestras; also Concerts.

 Symphony Society of New York, 185ff.

 Syncopation. See Ragtime.


                 T

 Tamagno, Francesco, 142, 144.

 'Tannhäuser,' first performance of, in New York, 145.

 Tansur, works of, printed in America, 29f, 45.

 Taylor, Deems, 442, 462.

 Teaching. See Music Teachers; Public schools;
   Conservatories; Colleges.

 Ternina, Milka, 148f.

 Tetrazzini, Luisa, 152.

 Thackeray, cited, 316.

 Theatre (American), beginnings of, 104ff.

 Thomas, Theodore, 140f, 168, 171, 183, 185, 191f, 193, 203, 222.

 Thompson, Vance, cited, 351.

 Thorne, G., 462.

 Thurber, Jeannette M., 255.

 Tietjens, Teresa, 134.

 Toerge, George, 195.

 Tombo, Rudolf, quoted, 262.

 Tonality (in music of negroes), 289, 291ff.

 Toronto Conservatory, 259f.

 Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, 218ff.

 Toscanini, Arturo, 153.

 Tourjée, Eben, 248.

 Trajetta, Filippo, 111, 236.

 Trentini, Emma, 152, 179.

 Troyer, Carlos, 442f.

 Tschaikowsky, influence of, on American music, 362.

 Tuckey, William, 30, 37, 39f, 64f, 233.

 Tufts, John, 27ff.


                 U

 Ullman, Bernard, 132f.

 Universities, musical courses in, 261ff.

 University of Michigan, music department of, 268.

 University of Pennsylvania, music course in, 261.

 University of Wisconsin, music department of, 268f.

 Uranian Academy, 73, 87f.

 Urlus, Jacques, 155.


                 V

 Van Buren, Alicia, 406.

 Vaudeville, influence of, on popular music, 453f.

 Verdi, operas of, in America, 142.

 Viennese operetta in America, 179.

 Violin playing (among negroes), 297.

 Viols, in England, 5f;
   in America, 9.

 Virginia, in 17th cent. 6ff;
   early public concerts, 42, 82;
   early musical societies, 87;
   early opera, 108.

 Vogt, A. S., 218ff, 259.

 Vogt, Theodore, 399.

 Volpe, Arnold, 188.

 Voltaire, quoted, 356.

 Von Hagen, 78.


                 W

 Wachtel, Theodore, 159.

 Wagner, 145f, ('Parsifal' in N. Y.) 149f;
   influence of, in America, 360ff, 370f, 424.

 Walker, Caroline Holme, songs of, 406.

 Wallaschek, Richard, cited, 288.

 Waller, Henry, 462.

 Walter, Thomas, cited, 17, 21, 28.

 Ward, Frank Edwin, 358f, 393f.

 Ward-Stephens, 355.

 Ware, Harriet, 403f.

 Warren, Mercy (author of early patriotic song), 321f.

 Washington, Booker T., quot. 298.

 Washington, George, concert in honor of, 33f;
   quoted, 79.

 Watt, Isaac, 29.

 Wa-Wan Press, xii.

 Webb, George J., musical activities, 188.

 Weil, Hermann, 155.

 Weingartner, Felix, in America, 184, 186.

 Weiss, Arthur, 399.

 Wellesley College, 264f.

 West, orchestral organizations in, 197ff.

 White, Charles (negro minstrel), 316.

 White, Richard Grant, quot. 202.

 Whitelocke, Balustrode, cited, 13.

 Whiting, Arthur, 347f, 357.

 Whiting, George, 343.

 Whitmer, T. Carl, 428f.

 Williams, Aaron, 30, 45.

 Winslow, on early New England music, 15.

 Women composers (American), 402ff, 438f.

 Woodbridge, William C., on music in the public schools, 240f.

 Woodman, R. Huntington, 355.

 Worcester (Mass.), 31;
   choral society, 214;
   music festival, 221f.

 Work, Henry Clay, 286, 320f, 329.

 Worrell, Lola Carrier, 406.

 Wright, Louise Drake, 406.


                 Y

 Yale University, music department in, 265ff.

 'Yankee Doodle,' 322f.


                 Z

 Zerrahn, Carl, 189;
   conductor of music festivals, 222.

 Ziegfeld, Florens, 252.