There is probably no composer in the world with a popularity equal to that of Sousa. Though he sold his "Washington Post" march outright for $35, his "Liberty Bell" march is said to have brought him $35,000. It is found that his music has been sold to eighteen thousand bands in the United States alone. The amazing thing is to learn that there are so many bands in the country. Sousa's marches have appeared on programs in all parts of the civilized world. At the Queen's Jubilee, when the Queen stepped forward to begin the grand review of the troops, the combined bands of the household brigade struck up the "Washington Post." On other important occasions it appeared constantly as the chief march of the week. General Miles heard the marches played in Turkey by the military bands in the reviews.

The reason for this overwhelming appeal to the hearts of a planet is not far to seek. The music is conceived in a spirit of high martial zest. It is proud and gay and fierce, thrilled and thrilling with triumph. Like all great music it is made up of simple elements, woven together by a strong personality. It is not difficult now to write something that sounds more or less like a Sousa march, any more than it is difficult to write parodies, serious or otherwise, on Beethoven, Mozart, or Chopin. The glory of Sousa is that he was the first to write in this style; that he has made himself a style; that he has so stirred the musical world that countless imitations have sprung up after him.

The individuality of the Sousa march is this, that, unlike most of the other influential marches, it is not so much a musical exhortation from without, as a distillation of the essences of soldiering from within. Sousa's marches are not based upon music-room enthusiasms, but on his own wide experiences of the feelings of men who march together in the open field.

And so his band music expresses all the nuances of the military psychology: the exhilaration of the long unisonal stride, the grip on the musket, the pride in the regimentals and the regiment,—esprit de corps. He expresses the inevitable foppery of the severest soldier, the tease and the taunt of the evolutions, the fierce wish that all this ploying and deploying were in the face of an actual enemy, the mania to reek upon a tangible foe all the joyous energy, the blood-thirst of the warrior.

These things Sousa embodies in his music as no other music writer ever has. To approach Sousa's work in the right mood, the music critic must leave his stuffy concert hall and his sober black; he must flee from the press, don a uniform, and march. After his legs and spirits have grown aweary under the metronomic tunes of others, let him note the surge of blood in his heart and the rejuvenation of all his muscles when the brasses flare into a barbaric Sousa march. No man that marches can ever feel anything but gratitude and homage for Sousa.

Of course he is a trickster at times; admitted that he stoops to conquer at times, yet in his field he is supreme. He is worthy of serious consideration, because his thematic material is almost always novel and forceful, and his instrumentation full of contrast and climax. He is not to be judged by the piano versions of his works, because they are abominably thin and inadequate, and they are not klaviermaessig. There should be a Liszt or a Taussig to transcribe him.

When all's said and done, Sousa is the pulse of the nation, and in war of more inspiration and power to our armies than ten colonels with ten braw regiments behind them.

Like Strauss', Mr. Sousa's father was a musician who forbade his son to devote himself to dance music. As Strauss' mother enabled him secretly to work out his own salvation, so did Sousa's mother help him. Sousa's father was a political exile from Spain, and earned a precarious livelihood by playing a trombone in the very band at Washington which later became his son's stepping-stone to fame. Sousa was born at Washington in 1859. His mother is German, and Sousa's music shows the effect of Spanish yeast in sturdy German rye bread. Sousa's teachers were John Esputa and George Felix Benkert. The latter Mr. Sousa considers one of the most complete musicians this country has ever known. He put him through such a thorough theoretical training, that at fifteen Sousa was teaching harmony. At eight he had begun to earn his own living as a violin player at a dancing-school, and at ten he was a public soloist. At sixteen he was the conductor of an orchestra in a variety theatre. Two years later he was musical director of a travelling company in Mr. Milton Nobles' well-known play, "The Phoenix," for which he composed the incidental music. Among other incidents in a career of growing importance was a position in the orchestra with which Offenbach toured this country. At the age of twenty-six, after having played, with face blacked, as a negro minstrel, after travelling with the late Matt Morgan's Living Picture Company, and working his way through and above other such experiences in the struggle for life, Sousa became the leader of the United States Marine Band. In the twelve years of his leadership he developed this unimportant organization into one of the best military bands in the world.

In 1892 his leadership had given him such fame that he withdrew from the government service to take the leadership of the band carrying his own name.

A work of enormous industry was his collection and arrangement, by governmental order, of the national and typical tunes of all nations into one volume, an invaluable book of reference.

Out of the more than two hundred published compositions by Sousa, it is not possible to mention many here. Though some of the names are not happily chosen, they call up many episodes of parade gaiety and jauntiness, or warlike fire. The "Liberty Bell," "Directorate," "High School Cadets," "King Cotton," "Manhattan Beach," "'Sound Off!'" "Washington Post," "Picador," and others, are all stirring works; his best, I think, is a deeply patriotic march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." The second part of this has some brass work of particular originality and vim.

In manuscript are a few works of larger form: a symphonic poem, "The Chariot Race," an historical scene, "Sheridan's Ride," and two suites, "Three Quotations" and "The Last Days of Pompeii."

The "Three Quotations" are:

(a) "The King of France, with twenty thousand men, Marched up a hill and then marched down again,"

which is the motive for a delightful scherzo-march of much humor in instrumentation;

(b) "And I, too, was born in Arcadia,"

which is a pastorale with delicious touches of extreme delicacy;

(c) "In Darkest Africa,"

which has a stunning beginning and is a stirring grotesque in the negro manner Dvorak advised Americans to cultivate. All three are well arranged for the piano.

The second suite is based on "The Last Days of Pompeii." It opens with a drunken revel, "In the House of Burbo and Stratonice;" the bulky brutishness of the gladiators clamoring for wine, a jolly drinking-song, and a dance by a jingling clown make up a superbly written number. The second movement is named "Nydia," and represents the pathetic reveries of the blind girl; it is tender and quiet throughout.

The third movement is at once daring and masterly. It boldly attacks "The Destruction," and attains real heights of graphic suggestion. A long, almost inaudible roll on the drums, with occasional thuds, heralds the coming of the earthquake; subterranean rumblings, sharp rushes of tremor, toppling stones, and wild panic are insinuated vividly, with no cheap attempts at actual imitation. The roaring of the terrified lion is heard, and, best touch of all, under the fury of the scene persists the calm chant of the Nazarenes, written in one of the ancient modes. The rout gives way to the sea-voyage of Glaucus and Ione, and Nydia's swan-song dies away in the gentle splash of ripples. The work is altogether one of superb imagination and scholarly achievement.

Sousa, appealing as he does to an audience chiefly of the popular sort, makes frequent use of devices shocking to the conventional. But even in this he is impelled by the enthusiasm of an experimenter and a developer. Almost every unconventional novelty is hooted at in the arts. But the sensationalism of to-day is the conservatism of to-morrow, and the chief difference between a touch of high art and a trick is that the former succeeds and the latter does not. Both are likely to have a common origin.

The good thing is that Sousa is actuated by the spirit of progress and experiment, and has carried on the development of the military band begun by the late Patrick S. Gilmore. Sousa's concert programs devote what is in fact the greater part of their space to music by the very best composers. These, of course, lose something in being translated over to the military band, but their effect in raising the popular standard of musical culture cannot but be immense. Through such instrumentality much of Wagner is as truly popular as any music played. The active agents of such a result should receive the heartiest support from every one sincerely interested in turning the people toward the best things in music. Incidentally, it is well to admit that while a cheap march-tune is almost as trashy as an uninspired symphony, a good march-tune is one of the best things in the best music.

Though chiefly known as a writer of marches, in which he has won glory enough for the average human ambition, Sousa has also taken a large place in American comic opera. His first piece, "The Smugglers," was produced in 1879, and scored the usual failure of a first work. His "Katherine" was never produced, his "Desiree" was brought out in 1884 by the McCaull Opera Company, and his "Queen of Hearts," a one-act piece, was given two years later. He forsook opera then for ten years; but in 1896 De Wolf Hopper produced his "El Capitan" with great success.

The chief tune of the piece was a march used with Meyerbeerian effectiveness to bring down the curtain. The stout verve of this "El Capitan" march gave it a large vogue outside the opera. Hopper next produced "The Charlatan," a work bordering upon opera comique in its first version. Both of these works scored even larger success in London than at home.

[Music: Used by permission of the John Church Company, owners of the copyright.

A PAGE FROM "EL CAPITAN," BY JOHN PHILIP SOUSA.]

In "The Bride Elect," Sousa wrote his own libretto, and while there was the usual stirring march as the piece de resistance, the work as a whole was less clangorous of the cymbal than the operas of many a tamer composer. In "Chris and the Wonderful Lamp," an extravaganza, the chief ensemble was worked up from a previous march, "Hands Across the Sea."

But Sousa can write other things than marches, and his scoring is full of variety, freedom, and contrapuntal brilliance.

Henry Schoenefeld.



Long before Dvorak discovered America, we aboriginals had been trying to invent a national musical dialect which should identify us as completely to the foreigner as our nasal intonation and our fondness for the correct and venerable use of the word "guess." But Dvorak is to credit for taking the problem off the shelf, and persuading our composers to think. I cannot coax myself into the enthusiasm some have felt for Dvorak's own explorations in darkest Africa. His quartette (op. 96) and his "New World" symphony are about as full of accent and infidelity as Mlle. Yvette Guilbert's picturesque efforts to sing in English. But almost anything is better than the phlegm that says, "The old ways are good enough for all time;" and the Bohemian missionary must always hold a place in the chronicle of American music.

A disciple of Dvorak's, both in advance and in retrospect, is Henry Schoenefeld, who wrote a characteristic suite (op. 15) before the Dvorakian invasion, and an overture, "In the Sunny South," afterward. The suite, which has been played frequently abroad, winning the praises of Hanslick, Nicode, and Rubinstein, is scored for string orchestra. It opens with an overly reminiscent waltz-tune, and ends conventionally, but it contains a movement in negro-tone that gives it importance. In this the strings are abetted by a tambourine, a triangle, and a gong. It is in march-time, and, after a staccato prelude, begins with a catchy air taken by the second violins, while the firsts, divided, fill up the chords. A slower theme follows in the tonic major; it is a jollificational air, dancing from the first violins with a bright use of harmonics. Two periods of loud chorale appear with the gong clanging (to hint a church-bell, perhaps). The first two themes return and end the picture.

The overture (op. 22) has won the high esteem of A.J. Goodrich, and it seems to me to be one of the most important of native works, not because of its nigrescence, but because of its spontaneity therein. It adds to the usual instruments only the piccolo, the English horn, the tambourine, and triangle and cymbals. The slow introduction gives forth an original theme in the most approved and most fetching darky pattern. The strings announce it, and the wood replies. The flutes and clarinets toss it in a blanket furnished by an interesting passage in the 'cellos and contrabasses. There is a choral moment from the English horn, the bassoons, and a clarinet. This solemn thought keeps recurring parenthetically through the general gaiety. The first subject clatters in, the second is even more jubilant. In the development a dance misterioso is used with faithful screaming repetitions, and the work ends regularly and brilliantly. There is much syncopation, though nothing that is strictly in "rag-time;" banjo-figurations are freely and ingeniously employed, and the whole is a splendid fiction in local color. Schoenefeld's negroes do not speak Bohemian.

His determined nationalism is responsible for his festival overture, "The American Flag," based on his own setting of Rodman Drake's familiar poem. The work opens with the hymn blaring loudly from the antiphonal brass and wood. The subjects are taken from it with much thematic skill, and handled artfully, but the hymn, which appears in full force for coda, is as trite as the most of its kith.

Schoenefeld was born in Milwaukee, in 1857. His father was a musician, and his teacher for some years. At the age of seventeen Schoenefeld went to Leipzig, where he spent three years, studying under Reinecke, Coccius, Papperitz, and Grill. A large choral and orchestral work was awarded a prize over many competitors, and performed at the Gewandhaus concerts, the composer conducting. Thereafter he went to Weimar, where he studied under Edward Lassen.

In 1879 he came back to America, and took up his residence in Chicago, where he has since lived as a teacher, orchestra leader, and composer. He has for many years directed the Germania Maennerchor.

Schoenefeld's "Rural Symphony" was awarded the $500 prize offered by the National Conservatory. Dvorak was the chairman of the Committee on Award, and gave Schoenefeld hearty compliments. Later works are: "Die drei Indianer," an ode for male chorus, solo, and orchestra; a most beautiful "Air" for orchestra (the air being taken by most of the strings,—the first violins haunting the G string,—while a harp and three flutes carry the burden of the accompaniment gracefully); a pleasant "Reverie" for string orchestra, harp, and organ; and two impromptus for string orchestra, a "Meditation" representing Cordelia brooding tenderly over the slumbering King Lear,—art ministering very tenderly to the mood,—and a cleverly woven "Valse Noble."

Only a few of Schoenefeld's works are published, all of them piano pieces. It is no slur upon his orchestral glory to say that these are for the most part unimportant, except the excellent "Impromptu" and "Prelude." Of the eight numbers in "The Festival," for children, only the "Mazurka" is likely to make even the smallest child think. The "Kleine Tanz Suite" is better. The six children's pieces of opus 41, "Mysteries of the Wood," make considerable appeal to the fancy and imagination, and are highly interesting. They show Grieg's influence very plainly, and are quite worth recommending. This cannot be said of his most inelegant "Valse Elegante," or of his numerous dances, except, perhaps, his "Valse Caprice."

He won in July, 1899, the prize offered to American composers by Henri Marteau, for a sonata for violin and piano. The jury was composed of such men as Dubois, Pierne, Diemer, and Pugno. The sonata is quasi fantasia, and begins strongly with an evident intention to make use of negro-tone. The first subject is so vigorously declared that one is surprised to find that it is elastic enough to express a sweet pathos and a deep gloom. It is rather fully developed before the second subject enters; this, on the other hand, is hardly insinuated in its relative major before the rather inelaborate elaboration begins. In the romanza, syncopation and imitation are much relied on, though the general atmosphere is that of a nocturne, a trio of dance-like manner breaking in. The final rondo combines a clog with a choral intermezzo. The work is noteworthy for its deep sincerity and great lyric beauty.

Maurice Arnold.

The plantation dances of Maurice Arnold have an intrinsic interest quite aside from their intrinsic value. Arnold, whose full name is Maurice Arnold-Strothotte, was born in St. Louis in 1865. His mother was a prominent pianist and gave him his first lessons in music. At the age of fifteen he went to Cincinnati, studying at the College of Music for three years. In 1883 he went to Germany to study counterpoint and composition with Vierling and Urban in Berlin. The latter discouraged him when he attempted to imbue a suite with a negro plantation spirit.

Arnold now went upon a tramping tour in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Some of his compositions show the influence of his journey. He then entered the Cologne Conservatory, studying under Wuellner, Neitzel, and G. Jensen. His first piano sonata was performed there at a public concert. He next went to Breslau, where, under the instruction of Max Bruch, he wrote his cantata, "The Wild Chase," and gave public performance to other orchestral work. Returning now to St. Louis, he busied himself as solo violinist and teacher, travelling also as a conductor of opera companies. When Dvorak came here Arnold wrote his "Plantation Dances," which were produced in a concert under the auspices of the Bohemian composer. Arnold was instructor of harmony at the National Conservatory under Dvorak.

The "Plantation Dances" are Arnold's thirty-third opus, and they have been much played by orchestras; they are also published as a piano duet; the second dance also as a solo. Arnold has not made direct use of Ethiopian themes, but has sought the African spirit. The first of the dances is very nigresque; the second hardly at all, though it is a delicious piece of music; the third dance uses banjo figures and realizes darky hilarity in fine style; the fourth is a cake walk and hits off the droll humor of that pompous ceremony fascinatingly.

Arnold's "Dramatic Overture" shows a fire and rush very characteristic of him and likely to be kept up without sufficient contrast. So also does his cantata, "The Wild Chase." Arnold has written two comic operas. I have heard parts of the first and noted moments of much beauty and humor. The Aragonaise, which opens the third act, is particularly delightful. The orchestration throughout displays Arnold's characteristic studiousness in picturesque effect.

For piano there is a czardas, and a "Valse Elegante" for eight hands; it is more Viennese than Chopinesque. It might indeed be called a practicable waltz lavishly adorned. The fruits of Arnold's Oriental journey are seen in his impressionistic "Danse de la Midway Plaisance;" a very clever reminiscence of a Turkish minstrel; and a Turkish march, which has been played by many German orchestras. There is a "Caprice Espagnol," which is delightful, and a "Banjoenne," which treats banjo music so captivatingly that Arnold may be said to have invented a new and fertile and musical form. Besides these there are a fugue for eight hands, a "Minstrel Serenade" for violin and piano, and six duets for violin and viola.

There are also a few part songs and some solos, among which mention should be made of "Ein Maerlein," in the old German style, an exquisitely tender "Barcarolle," and a setting of the poem, "I Think of Thee in Silent Night," which makes use of a particularly beautiful phrase for pre-, inter-, and postlude. Arnold has also written some ballet music, a tarantelle for string orchestra, and is at work upon a symphony, and a book, "Some Points in Modern Orchestration." His violin sonata (now in MS.) shows his original talent at its best. In the first movement, the first subject is a snappy and taking example of negro-tone, the second has the perfume of moonlit magnolia in its lyricism. (In the reprise this subject, which had originally appeared in the dominant major, recurs in the tonic major, the key of the sonata being E minor.) The second movement is also in the darky spirit, but full of melancholy. For finale the composer has flown to Ireland and written a bully jig full of dash and spirit.

N. Clifford Page.

The influence of Japanese and Chinese art upon our world of decoration has long been realized. After considering the amount of interest shown in the Celestial music by American composers, one is tempted to prophesy a decided influence in this line, and a considerable spread of Japanese influence in the world of music also. Japanese music has a decorative effect that is sometimes almost as captivating as in painting.

The city of San Francisco is the natural gateway for any such impulse, and not a little of it has already passed the custom house. In this field Edgar S. Kelley's influence is predominating, and it is not surprising that he should pass the contagion on to his pupil, Nathaniel Clifford Page, who was born in San Francisco, October 26, 1866. His ancestors were American for many years prior to the Revolution. He composed operas at the age of twelve, and has used many of these immature ideas with advantage in the later years. He began the serious study of music at the age of sixteen, Kelley being his principal teacher. His first opera, composed and orchestrated before he became of age, was entitled "The First Lieutenant." It was produced in 1889 at the Tivoli Opera House in San Francisco, where most of the critics spoke highly of its instrumental and Oriental color, some of the scenes being laid in Morocco.

In instrumentation, which is considered Page's forte, he has never had any instruction further than his own reading and investigation. He began to conduct in opera and concert early in life, and has had much experience. He has also been active as a teacher in harmony and orchestration.

An important phase of Page's writing has been incidental music for plays, his greatest success having been achieved by the music for the "Moonlight Blossom," a play based upon Japanese life and produced in London in 1898. The overture was written entirely on actual Japanese themes, including the national anthem of Japan. Page was three weeks writing these twelve measures. He had a Japanese fiddle arranged with a violin finger-board, but thanks to the highly characteristic stubbornness of orchestral players, he was compelled to have this part played by a mandolin. Two Japanese drums, a whistle used by a Japanese shampooer, and a Japanese guitar were somehow permitted to add their accent. The national air is used in augmentation later as the bass for a Japanese song called "K Honen." The fidelity of the music is proved by the fact that Sir Edwin Arnold's Japanese wife recognized the various airs and was carried away by the national anthem.

Although the play was not a success, the music was given a cordial reception, and brought Page contracts for other work in England, including a play of Indian life by Mrs. Flora Annie Steel.

Previously to the writing of the "Moonlight Blossom" music, Page had arranged the incidental music for the same author's play, "The Cat and the Cherub." Edgar S. Kelley's "Aladdin" music was the source from which most of the incidental music was drawn; but Page added some things of his own, among them being one of the most effective and unexpected devices for producing a sense of horror and dread I have ever listened to: simply the sounding at long intervals of two gruff single tones in the extreme low register of the double basses and bassoons. The grimness of this effect is indescribable.

An unnamed Oriental opera, and an opera called "Villiers," in which old English color is employed (including a grotesque dance of the clumsy Ironsides), show the cosmopolitan restlessness of Page's muse. An appalling scheme of self-amusement is seen in his "Caprice," in which a theme of eight measures' length is instrumented with almost every contrapuntal device known, and with psychological variety that runs through five movements, scherzando, vigoroso, con sentimento, religioso, and a marcia fantastico. The suite called "Village Fete" is an experiment in French local color. It contains five scenes: The Peasants Going to Chapel; The Flower Girls; The Vagabonds; The Tryst; The Sabot Dance; and the Entrance of the Mayor, which is a pompous march.

On the occasion of a performance of this, Louis Arthur Russell wrote: "His orchestra is surely French, and as modern as you please. The idiom is Berlioz's rather than Wagner's."



CHAPTER III.

THE ACADEMICS.

John Knowles Paine.



There is one thing better than modernity,—it is immortality. So while I am a most ardent devotee of modern movements, because they are at worst experiments, and motion is necessary to life, I fail to see why it is necessary in picking up something new always to drop something old, as if one were an awkward, butter-fingered parcel-carrier.

If a composer writes empty stuff in the latest styles, he is one degree better than the purveyor of trite stuff in the old styles; but he is nobody before the high thinker who finds himself suited by the general methods of the classic writers.

The most classic of our composers is their venerable dean, John Knowles Paine. It is an interesting proof of the youth of our native school of music, that the principal symphony, "Spring," of our first composer of importance, was written only twenty-one years ago. Before Mr. Paine there had never been an American music writer worthy of serious consideration in the larger forms.

By a mere coincidence Joachim Raff had written a symphony called "Spring" in 1878, just a year before Paine finished his in America. The first movement in both is called "Nature's Awakening;" such an idea is inevitable in any spring composition, from poetry up—or down. For a second movement Raff has a wild "Walpurgis Night Revel," while Paine has a scherzo called "May Night Fantasy." Where Raff is uncanny and fiendish, Paine is cheerful and elfin. The third movement of Raff's symphony is called "First Blossoms of Spring," and the last is called "The Joys of Wandering." The latter two movements of Mr. Paine's symphony are "A Promise of Spring" and "The Glory of Nature." The beginning of both symphonies is, of course, a slow introduction representing the torpid gloom of winter, out of which spring aspires and ascends.

Paine's symphony, though aiming to shape the molten gold of April fervor in the rigid mold of the symphonic form, has escaped every appearance of mechanism and restraint. It is program music of the most legitimate sort, in full accord with Beethoven's canon, "Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei." It has no aim of imitating springtime noises, but seeks to stimulate by suggestion the hearer's creative imagination, and provoke by a musical telepathy the emotions that swayed the nympholept composer.

The first movement of the symphony has an introduction containing two motives distinct from the two subjects of the movement. These motives represent Winter and the Awakening. The Winter motive may be again divided into a chill and icy motif and a rushing wind-motif. Through these the timid Awakening spirit lifts its head like the first trillium of the year. There is a silence and a stealthy flutter of the violins as if a cloud of birds were playing courier to the Spring.

Suddenly, after a little prelude, as if a bluebird were tuning his throat, we are enveloped in the key of the symphony (A major) and the Spring runs lilting up the 'cellos to the violins (which are divided in the naif archaic interval of the tenth, too much ignored in our over-colored harmonies). The second subject is propounded by the oboes (in the rather unusual related key of the submediant). This is a lyrical and dancing idea, and it does battle with the underground resistance of the Winter motives. There is an elaborate conclusion of fiercest joy. Its ecstasy droops, and after a little flutter as of little wings, the elaboration opens with the Spring motive in the minor. In this part, scholarship revels in its own luxury, the birds quiver about our heads again, and the reprise begins (in A major of course) with new exultance, the dancing second subject appears (in the tonic), overwhelming the failing strength of the Winter with a cascade of delight. Then the conclusion rushes in; this I consider one of the most joyous themes ever inspired.

There is a coda of vanishing bird-wings and throats, a pizzicato chord on the strings—and Spring has had her coronation.

"The May Night Fantasy" is a moonlit revel of elves caught by a musical reporter, a surreptitious "chiel amang 'em takin' notes." A single hobgoblin bassoon croaks ludicrously away, the pixies darkle and flirt and dance their hearts out of them.

The Romance is in rondo form with love-lorn iteration of themes and intermezzo, and deftest broidery, the whole ending, after a graceful Recollection, in a bliss of harmony.

The Finale is a halleluiah. It is on the sonata formula, without introduction (the second subject being not in the dominant of A major, but in C major, that chaste, frank key which one of the popes strangely dubbed "lascivious"). The elaboration is frenetic with strife, but the reprise is a many-hued rainbow after storm, and the coda in A major (ending a symphony begun in A minor) is swift with delight.

This symphony has been played much, but not half enough. It should resist the weariness of time as immortally as Fletcher's play, "The Two Noble Kinsmen" (in which Shakespeare's hand is glorious), for it is, to quote that drama, "fresher than May, sweeter than her gold buttons on the bough, or all th'enamell'd knacks o' the mead or garden."

John Knowles Paine is a name that has been held in long and high honor among American composers. He was about the earliest of native writers to convince foreign musicians that some good could come out of Nazareth.

He was born in Portland, Me., January 9, 1839. He studied music first under a local teacher, Kotzschmar, making his debut as organist at the age of eighteen. A year later he was in Berlin, where for three years he studied the organ, composition, instrumentation, and singing under Haupt, Wieprecht, and others. He gave several organ concerts in Germany, and made a tour in 1865-1866. In February, 1867, his "Mass" was given at the Berlin Singakademie, Paine conducting. Then he came back to the States, and in 1872 was appointed to an instructorship of music at Harvard, whence he was promoted in 1876 to a full professorship, a chair created for him and occupied by him ever since with distinguished success.

His first symphony was brought out by Theodore Thomas in 1876. This and his other orchestral works have been frequently performed at various places in this country and abroad.

His only oratorio, "St. Peter," was first produced at Portland in 1873, and in Boston a year later. It is a work of great power and much dramatic strength. Upton, in his valuable work, "Standard Oratorios," calls it "from the highest standpoint the only oratorio yet produced in this country."

This oratorio, while containing much of the floridity and repetition of Haendel at his worst, is also marked with the erudition and largeness of Haendel at his best. The aria for St. Peter, "O God, My God, Forsake Me Not," is especially fine.

A much-played symphonic poem is Paine's "The Tempest," which develops musically the chief episodes of Shakespeare's play. He has also written a valuable overture to "As You Like It;" he has set Keats' "Realm of Fancy" exquisitely, and Milton's "Nativity." And he has written a grand opera on a mediaeval theme to his own libretto. This is a three-act work called "Azara;" the libretto has been published by the Riverside Press, and is to be translated into German. This has not yet been performed. Being, unfortunately, an American grand opera, it takes very little acuteness of foresight to predict a long wait before it is ever heard. In it Paine has shown himself more a romanticist than a classicist, and the work is said to be full of modernity.

Paine wrote the music for Whittier's "Hymn," used to open the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and was fitly chosen to write the Columbus March and Hymn for the opening ceremonies of the World's Fair, at Chicago, October 21, 1892. This was given by several thousand performers under the direction of Theodore Thomas.

A most original and interesting work is the chorus, "Phoebus, Arise." It seems good to hark back for words to old William Drummond "of Hawthornden." The exquisite flavor of long-since that marks the poetry is conserved in the tune. While markedly original, it smacks agreeably of the music of Harry Lawes, that nightingale of the seventeenth century, whose fancies are too much neglected nowadays.

Paine's strong point is his climaxes, which are never timid, and are often positively titanic, thrilling. The climax of this chorus is notably superb, and the voices hold for two measures after the orchestra finishes. The power of this effect can be easily imagined. This work is marked, to an unusual extent, with a sensuousness of color.

The year eighteen hundred eighty-one saw the first production of what is generally considered Paine's most important composition, and by some called the best work by an American,—his setting of the choruses of the "Oedipus Tyrannos" of Sophokles. It was written for the presentation by Harvard University, and has been sung, in whole or in part, very frequently since. This masterpiece of Grecian genius is so mighty in conception and so mighty in execution that it has not lost power at all in the long centuries since it first thrilled the Greeks. To realize its possibilities musically is to give proof enough of the very highest order of genius,—a genius akin to that of Sophokles. It may be said that in general Paine has completely fulfilled his opportunities.

Mendelssohn also set two Greek tragedies to music, Sophokles' "Oedipus in Kolonos" and his "Antigone." Mendelssohn is reported to have made a first attempt at writing Grecian music, or what we suppose it to be, mainly a matter of unison and meagre instrumentation. He was soon dissuaded from such a step, however, and wisely. The Greek tragedians, really writers of grand opera, made undoubted use of the best musical implements and knowledge they had. Creative emotion has its prosperity in the minds of its audience, not in the accuracy of its mechanism. To secure the effect on us that the Greek tragedians produced on contemporary audiences, it is necessary that our music be a sublimation along the lines we are accustomed to, as theirs was along lines familiar to them and effective with them. Otherwise, instead of being moved by the miseries of Oedipus, we should be chiefly occupied with amusement at the oddity of the music, and soon bored unendurably by its monotony and thinness.

Mendelssohn decided then to use unison frequently for suggestion's sake, but not to carry it to a fault. His experiments along these lines have been of evident advantage to Paine, who has, however, kept strictly to his own individuality, and produced a work that, at its highest, reaches a higher plane, in my opinion, than anything in Mendelssohn's noble tragedies,—and I am not, at that, one of those that affect to look down upon the achievements of the genius that built "Elijah."

Paine's prelude is an immense piece of work, in every way larger and more elaborate than that to Mendelssohn's "Antigone" (the "Oedipus in Kolonos" begins strongly with only one period of thirteen measures). The opening chorus of Paine's "Oedipus" is the weakest thing in the work. The second strophe has a few good moments, but soon falls back into what is impudent enough to be actually catchy!—and that, too, of a Lowell Mason, Moody and Sankey catchiness. Curiously enough, Mendelssohn's "Antigone" begins with a chorus more like a drinking-song than anything else, and the first solo is pure Volkslied; both of them imbued with a Teutonic flavor that could be cut with a knife. In Mendelssohn's "Oedipus in Kolonos," however, the music expresses emotion rather than German emotion, and abounds in splendors of harmony that are strikingly Wagnerian—in advance.

[Music: Copyright, 1895, by Arthur P. Schmidt.

POSTLUDE TO "OEDIPUS TYRANNUS," BY J.K. PAINE.]

Paine's second chorus describes the imaginary pursuit by Fate of the murderer of King Laius. It is full of grim fire, and the second strophe is at first simply terrible with awe. Then it degenerates somewhat into an arioso, almost Italian. The fourth chorus defends the oracles from Jocasta's incredulity. It is written almost in march measure, and is full of robor.

At this point in the tragedy, where it begins to transpire to Oedipus that he himself was the unwitting murderer and the incestuous wretch whose exile the oracle demands before dispelling the plague,—here the divine genius of Sophokles introduces a chorus of general merriment, somewhat as Shakespeare uses the maundering fool as a foil to heighten King Lear's fate. No praise can be too high for Paine's music here. Its choric structure is masterly, its spirit is running fire. Note, as an instance, the effect at the words "To save our land thou didst rise as a tower!" where the music itself is suddenly uplift with most effective suggestion.

The sixth chorus shows the effect of Oedipus' divulged guilt and the misery of this fool of Fate. The music is an outburst of sheer genius. It is overpowering, frightening. The postlude is orchestral, with the chorus speaking above the music. Jocasta has hanged herself, Oedipus has torn out his own eyes with her brooch. The music is a fitting reverie on the great play, and after a wild tumult it subsides in a resigned quietude.

From Greek tragedy to Yankee patriotism is a long cry, yet I think Paine has not wasted his abilities on his "Song of Promise," written for the Cincinnati May Festival of 1888. Though the poem by Mr. George E. Woodberry is the very apotheosis of American brag, it has a redeeming technic. The music, for soprano solo, mixed chorus, and orchestra, reaches the very peaks of inspiration. I doubt if any living composer or many dead masters could grow so epic, as most of this. In a way it is academic. It shows a little of the influence of Wagner,—as any decent music should nowadays. But it is not Wagner's music, and it is not trite academia. There is no finicky tinsel and no cheap oddity.

Considering the heights at which both words and music aimed, it is amazing that they did not fall into utter wreck and nauseating bathos. That they have proved so effective shows the sure-footedness of genius. It is all good, especially the soprano solo.

This music is exquisite, wondrously exquisite, and it is followed by a maestoso e solenne movement of unsurpassable majesty. I have never read anything more purely what music should be for grandeur. And it praises our ain countree! It might well be taken up by some of our countless vocal societies to give a much needed respite to Haendel's threadbare "Messiah."

When one considers the largeness of the works to which Paine has devoted himself chiefly, he can be excused for the meagreness and comparative unimportance of his smaller works for piano and vocal solo. The only song of his I care for particularly is "A Bird upon a Rosy Bough" (op. 40), which is old-fashioned, especially in accompaniment, yet at times delicious. The song "Early Spring-time" is most curiously original.

Of piano pieces there are a sprightly "Birthday Impromptu" and a fuga giocosa, which deals wittily with that theme known generally by the words "Over the Fence Is Out!" The "Nocturne" begins like Schumann, falls into the style of his second Novellette, thence to the largo of Beethoven's Sonata (op. 10, No. 3), thence to Chopinism, wherein it ends, an interesting assemblage withal!

A long "Romance" for the piano is marked by some excellent incidents and much passion, but it lacks unity. It is the last work in "An Album of Pianoforte Pieces," which is otherwise full of rare delights. It is made up of opera 25, 26, and 39. Opus 25 contains four characteristic pieces,—a "Dance" full of dance-rapture, a most original "Impromptu," and a "Rondo Giocoso," which is just the kind of brilliantly witty scherzo whose infrequency in American music is so lamentable and so surprising. Opus 26 includes ten sketches, all good, especially "Woodnotes," a charming tone-poem, the deliciously simple "Wayside Flowers," "Under the Lindens," which is a masterpiece of beautiful syncopation, a refreshingly interesting bit in the hackneyed "Millstream" form, and a "Village Dance," which has much of that quaint flavor that makes Heller's etudes a perennial delight.

Besides these, there are a number of motets, organ preludes, string quartettes, concert pieces for violin, 'cello, piano, and the like, all contributing to the furtherance of an august fame.

Dudley Buck.

Music follows the laws of supply and demand just as the other necessities of life do. But before a demand could exist for it in its more austere and unadulterated forms, the general taste for it must be improved. For this purpose the offices of skilful compromisers were required, composers who could at the same time please the popular taste and teach it discrimination. Among these invaluable workers, a high place belongs, in point both of priority and achievement, to Dudley Buck. He has been a powerful agent, or reagent, in converting the stagnant ferment into a live and wholesome ebullition, or as the old Greek evolutionists would say, starting the first progress in the primeval ooze of American Philistinism.

A more thoroughly New England ancestry it would be hard to find. The founder of the family came over from England soon after the Mayflower landed. Buck was named after Governor Dudley of the Plymouth Colony. He was born at Hartford, March 10, 1839. His father was a prosperous shipping merchant, one of whose boats, during the Civil War, towed the Monitor from New York to Fortress Monroe on the momentous voyage that destroyed the Merrimac's usefulness.

Buck, though intended for commercial life, borrowed a work on thorough-bass and a flute and proceeded to try the wings of his muse. A melodeon supplanted the flute, and when he was sixteen he attained the glory of a piano, a rare possession in those times. (Would that it were rarer now!) He took a few lessons and played a church-organ for a salary,—a small thing, but his own.

After reaching the junior year in Trinity College, he prevailed upon his parents to surrender him to music, an almost scandalous career in the New England mind of that day, still unbleached of its Blue Laws.

At the age of nineteen he went to Leipzig and entered the Conservatory there, studying composition under Hauptmann and E.F. Richter, orchestration under Rietz, and the piano under Moscheles and Plaidy. Later he went to Dresden and studied the organ with Schneider.

After three years in Germany, he studied for a year in Paris, and came home, settling down in Hartford as church-organist and teacher. He began a series of organ-concert tours lasting fifteen years. He played in almost every important city and in many small towns, popularizing the best music by that happy fervor of interpretation which alone is needed to bring classical compositions home to the public heart. In 1869 he was called to the "mother-church" of Chicago. In the Chicago fire he lost many valuable manuscripts, including a concert overture on Drake's exquisite poem, "The Culprit Fay," which must be especially regretted. He moved his family to Boston, assuming in ten days the position of organist at St. Paul's; and later he accepted charge of "the great organ" at Music Hall,—that organ of which Artemus Ward wrote so deliciously.

In 1875 Theodore Thomas, whose orchestra had performed many of Buck's compositions, invited him to become his assistant conductor at the Cincinnati Music Festival and at the last series of concerts at the Central Park Garden in New York. Buck accepted and made his home in Brooklyn, where he has since remained as organist of the Holy Trinity Church, and conductor of the Apollo Club, which he founded and brought to a high state of efficiency, writing for it many of his numerous compositions for male voices.

Buck's close association with church work has naturally led him chiefly into sacred music, and in this class of composition he is by many authorities accorded the very highest place among American composers. He has also written many organ solos, sonatas, marches, a pastorale, a rondo caprice, and many concert transcriptions, as well as a group of etudes for pedal phrasing, and several important treatises on various musical topics. His two "Motett Collections" were a refreshing relief and inspiration to church choirs thirsty for religious Protestant music of some depth and warmth.

In the cantata form Buck also holds a foremost place. In 1876 he was honored with a commission to set to music "The Centennial Meditation of Columbia," a poem written for the occasion by the Southern poet, Sidney Lanier. This was performed at the opening of the Philadelphia Exhibition by a chorus of one thousand voices, an organ, and an orchestra of two hundred pieces under the direction of Theodore Thomas. In 1874 he made a metrical version of "The Legend of Don Munio" from Irving's "Alhambra," and set it to music for a small orchestra and chorus. Its adaptability to the resources of the vocal societies of smaller cities has made it one of his most popular works.

Another bit of Washington Irving is found in Buck's cantata, "The Voyage of Columbus," the libretto for which he has taken from Irving's "Life of Columbus." It consists of six night-scenes,—"The Chapel of St. George at Palos," "On the Deck of the Santa Maria," "The Vesper Hymn," "Mutiny," "In Distant Andalusia," and "Land and Thanksgiving." The opportunities here for Buck's skilful handling of choruses and his dramatic feeling in solos are obvious, and the work has been frequently used both in this country and in Germany with much success. Buck, in fact, made the German libretto as well as the English, and has written the words for many of his compositions. His largest work was "The Light of Asia," composed in 1885 and based on Sir Edwin Arnold's epic. It requires two and one-half hours for performance and has met the usual success of Buck's music; it was produced in London with such soloists as Nordica, Lloyd, and Santley. It has been occasionally given here.

He has found the greater part of his texts in American poetry, particularly in Lanier, Stedman, and Longfellow, whose "King Olaf's Christmas" and "Nun of Nidaros" he has set to music, as well as his "Golden Legend," which won a prize of one thousand dollars at the Cincinnati Festival in a large competition. His work is analyzed very fully in A.J. Goodrich' "Musical Analysis."

[Music:

High in the purer air, High as the heart's desire, In a passion of longing and fire, A bird sings sweet and fair; While a sunbeam, cheery and strong, Answers the joy of the song, And Spring, fair Spring is coming!

Copyright, 1893, by G. Schirmer.

FRAGMENT FROM "SPRING'S AWAKENING," BY MR. BUCK.]

Here, as in his symphonic overture to Scott's "Marmion," Buck has adopted the Wagnerian idea of the leit-motif as a vivid means of distinguishing musically the various characters and their varying emotions. His music is not markedly Wagnerian, however, in other ways, but seems to show, back of his individuality, an assimilation of the good old school of canon and fugue, with an Italian tendency to the declamatory and well-rounded melodic period.

It might be wished that in his occasional secular songs Buck had followed less in the steps of the Italian aria and the English ballad and adopted more of the newer, nobler spirit of the Lied as Schumann and Franz represent it, and as many of our younger Americans have done with thorough success and not a little of exaltation. Note for instance the inadequacy of the old-style balladry to both its own opportunity and the otherwise-smothered fire of such a poem as Sidney Lanier's "Sunset," which is positively Shakespearean in its passionate perfection.

In religious music, however, Mr. Buck has made a niche of its own for his music, which it occupies with grace and dignity.

Horatio W. Parker.



When one considers the enormous space occupied by the hymn-tune in New England musical activity, it is small wonder that most of its composers should display hymnal proclivities. Both Buck and Parker are natives of New England.

Parker was born, September 15, 1863, at Auburndale, Mass. His mother was his first teacher of music. She was an organist, and gave him a thorough technical schooling which won the highest commendation later from Rheinberger, who entrusted to him the first performance of a new organ concerto. After some study in Boston under Stephen A. Emery, John Orth, and G.W. Chadwick, Parker went to Munich at the age of eighteen, where he came under the special favor of Rheinberger, and where various compositions were performed by the Royal Music School orchestra. After three years of Europe, he returned to America and assumed the direction of the music at St. Paul's school. He has held various posts since, and has been, since 1894, the Battell Professor of Music at Yale.

His rather imposing list of works includes a symphony (1885), an operetta, a concert overture (1884), an overture, "Regulus" (1885), performed in Munich and in London, and an overture, "Count Robert of Paris" (1890), performed in New York, a ballad for chorus and orchestra, "King Trojan," presented in Munich in 1885, the Twenty-third Psalm for female chorus and orchestra (1884), an "Idylle" (1891); "The Normans," "The Kobolds," and "Harold Harfager," all for chorus and orchestra, and all dated 1891; an oratorio, three or more cantatas, and various bits of chamber-music. His opus number has already reached forty-three, and it is eked out to a very small degree by such imponderous works as organ and piano solos, hymns, and songs. In 1893, Parker won the National Conservatory prize for a cantata, and in 1898 the McCagg prize for an a cappella chorus.

Parker's piano compositions and secular songs are not numerous. They seem rather the incidental byplays and recreations of a fanry chiefly turned to sacred music of the larger forms.

Opus 19 consists of "Four Sketches," of which the "Etude Melodieuse" is as good as is necessary in that overworked style, wherein a thin melody is set about with a thinner ripple of arpeggios. The "Romanza" is lyric and delightful, while the "Scherzino" is delicious and crisp as celery; it is worthy of Schumann, whom it suggests, and many of whose cool tones and mannerisms it borrows.

The "5 Morceaux Characteristiques" are on the whole better. The "Scherzo" is shimmering with playfulness, and, in the Beethoven fashion, has a tender intermezzo amoroso. This seriousness is enforced with an ending of a most plaintive nature. The "Caprice" is brilliant and whimsical, with some odd effects in accent. The "Gavotte" makes unusual employment of triplets, but lacks the precious yeast of enthusiasm necessary to a prime gavotte.

This enthusiasm is not lacking however from his "Impromptu," and it makes his "Elegie" a masterly work, possibly his best in the smaller lines. This piece is altogether elegiac in spirit, intense in its sombrest depths, impatient with wild outcries,—like Chopin's "Funeral March,"—and working up to an immense passion at the end. This subsides in ravishingly liquid arpeggios,—"melodious tears"?—which obtain the kindred effect of Chopin's tinkling "Berceuse" in a slightly different way. This notable work is marred by an interlude in which the left hand mumbles harshness in the bass, while the right hand is busy with airy fioriture. It is too close a copy of the finish of the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata. The lengthening skips of the left hand are also Beethovenesque trademarks.

Parker is rather old-fashioned in his forms of musical speech. That is, he has what you might call the narrative style. He follows his theme as an absorbing plot, engaging enough in itself, without gorgeous digressions and pendent pictures. His work has something of the Italian method. A melody or a theme, he seems to think, is only marred by abstruse harmony, and is endangered by diversions. One might almost say that a uniform lack of attention to color-possibilities and a monotonous fidelity to a cool, gray tone characterize him. His fondness for the plain, cold octave is notable. It is emphasized by the ill-success of his "Six Lyrics for Piano, without octaves." They are all of thin value, and the "Novelette" is dangerously Schumannesque.

The "Three Love Songs" are happy, "Love's Chase" keeping up the arch raillery and whim of Beddoe's verse. "Orsame's Song" is smooth and graceful, ending with a well-blurted, abrupt "The devil take her!" The "Night-piece to Julia" is notable. We have no poet whose lyrics are harder to set to music than good Robin Herrick's. They have a lilt of their own that is incompatible with ordinary music. Parker has, however, been completely successful in this instance. A mysterious, night-like carillon accompaniment, delicate as harebells, gives sudden way to a superb support of a powerful outburst at the end of the song.

[Music:

The stars of the night Will lend thee their light, Like tapers without number. Then, Julia let me woo thee, Thus to come unto me; And when I shall meet Thy silvery feet My soul I'll pour into thee, My soul I'll pour into thee, into thee.

Copyright, 1886, by Arthur P. Schmidt & Co.

FRAGMENT OF MR. PARKER'S SONG, "NIGHT-PIECE TO JULIA."]

The "Six Songs" show not a little of that modernity and opulent color I have denied to the most of Mr. Parker's work. "Oh, Ask Me Not" is nothing less than inspiration, rapturously beautiful, with a rich use of unexpected intervals. The "Egyptian Serenade" is both novel and beautiful. The other songs are good; even the comic-operatic flavor of the "Cavalry Song" is redeemed by its catchy sweep.

Among a large number of works for the pipe-organ, few are so marked by that purposeless rambling organists are so prone to, as the "Fantaisie." The "Melody and Intermezzo" of opus 20 makes a sprightly humoresque. The "Andante Religioso" of opus 17 has really an allegretto effect, and is much better as a gay pastorale than as a devotional exercise. It is much more shepherdly than the avowed "Pastorale" (opus 20), and almost as much so as the "Eclogue," delicious with the organ's possibilities for reed and pipe effects. The "Romanza" is a gem of the first water. A charming quaint effect is got by the accompaniment of the air, played legato on the swell, with an echo, staccato, of its own chords on the great. The interlude is a tender melody, beautifully managed. The two "Concert Pieces" are marked by a large simplicity in treatment, and have this rare merit, that they are less gymnastic exercises than expressions of feeling. A fiery "Triumphal March," a delightful "Canzonetta," and a noble "Larghetto," of sombre, yet rich and well-modulated, colors, complete the list of his works for the organ. None of these are registered with over-elaboration.

To sacred music Parker has made important contributions. Besides a dignified, yet impassioned, complete "Morning and Evening Service for the Holy Communion," he has written several single songs and anthems.

It is the masterwork, "Hora Novissima," however, which lifts him above golden mediocrity. From the three thousand lines of Bernard of Cluny's poem, "De Contemptu Mundi," famous since the twelfth century, and made music with the mellowness of its own Latin rhyme, Mrs. Isabella G. Parker, the composer's mother, has translated 210 lines. The English is hardly more than a loose paraphrase, as this random parallel proves:

Pars mea, Rex meus, Most Mighty, most Holy, In proprio Deus, How great is the glory, Ipse decore. Thy throne enfolding.

Or this skilful evasion:

Tunc Jacob, Israel, All the long history, Et Lia, tunc Rachel All the deep mystery Efficietur. Through ages hidden.

But it is perhaps better for avoiding the Charybdis of literalness.

Those who accuse Rossini's "Stabat Mater" of a fervor more theatric than religious, will find the same faults in Parker's work, along with much that is purely ecclesiastical. Though his sorrow is apt to become petulance, there is much that is as big in spirit as in handling. The work is frequently Mendelssohnian in treatment. An archaism that might have been spared, since so little of the poem was retained, is the sad old Haendelian style of repeating the same words indefinitely, to all neglect of emptiness of meaning and triteness. Thus the words "Pars mea, Rex meus" are repeated by the alto exactly thirteen times! which, any one will admit, is an unlucky number, especially since the other voices keep tossing the same unlucky words in a musical battledore.

The especially good numbers of the work (which was composed in 1892, and first produced, with almost sensational success, in 1893) are: the magnificent opening chorus; the solo for the soprano; the large and fiery finale to Part I.; the superb tenor solo, "Golden Jerusalem," which is possibly the most original and thrilling of all the numbers, is, in every way, well varied, elaborated, and intensified, and prepares well for the massive and effective double chorus, "Stant Syon Atria," an imposing structure whose ambition found skill sufficing; an alto solo of original qualities; and a finale, tremendous, though somewhat long drawn out. Of this work, so careful a critic as W.J. Henderson was moved to write:

"His melodic ideas are not only plentiful, but they are beautiful, ... graceful and sometimes splendidly vigorous.... There is an a cappella chorus which is one of the finest specimens of pure church polyphony that has been produced in recent years.... It might have been written by Hobrecht, Brumel, or even Josquin des Pres. It is impossible to write higher praise than this.... The orchestration is extraordinarily ... rich. As a whole ... the composition ... may be set down as one of the finest achievements of the present day."

And Philip Hale, a most discriminant musical enthusiast, described the chorus "Pars Mea" as:

"A masterpiece, true music of the church," to which "any acknowledged master of composition in Europe would gladly sign his name.... For the a cappella chorus there is nothing but unbounded praise.... Weighing words as counters, I do not hesitate to say that I know of no one in the country or in England who could by nature and by student's sweat have written those eleven pages.... I have spoken of Mr. Parker's quasi-operatic tendency. Now he is a modern. He has shown in this very work his appreciation and his mastery of antique religious musical art. But as a modern he is compelled to feel the force of the dramatic in religious music.... But his most far-reaching, his most exalted and rapt conception of the bliss beyond compare is expressed in the language of Palestrina and Bach."

In September, 1899, the work was produced with decisive success in London, Parker conducting.

Besides this, there are several secular cantatas, particularly "King Trojan," which contains a singable tune for Trojan with many delicate nuances in the accompaniment, and a harp-accompanied page's song that is simply ambrosial. Then there is Arlo Bates' poem, "The Kobolds," which Parker has blessed with music as delicate as the laces of gossamer-spiders.

His latest work is devoted to the legend of St. Christopher, and displays the same abilities for massive and complex scoring whenever the opportunity offers. On the other hand, the work discloses Parker's weaknesses as well, for the libretto drags in certain love episodes evidently thought desirable for the sake of contrast and yet manifestly unnecessary to the story. The character of the queen, for instance, is quite useless, and, in fact, disconcerting. The love scene between the king and queen reminds one uncomfortably of Tristan and Isolde, while a descending scale constantly used throughout the work in the accompaniment incessantly suggests the "Samson and Delilah" of Saint-Saens.

In spite of flaws, however,—flaws are to be had everywhere for the looking,—Parker's work has its fine points. The struggle between the demons and the singers of the sacred Latin Hymn has made excellent use of the Tannhaeuser effect. The Cathedral scene shows Parker's resources in the massive use of choruses to be very large. The barcarolling billows of the river are ravishingly written, and the voice of the child crying out is effectively introduced. The song the giant Christopher sings through the storm is particularly superb.

Frank van der Stucken.



On the bead-roll of those who have had both the ability and the courage to take a stand for our music, the name of Frank van der Stucken must stand high. His Americanism is very frail, so far as birth and breeding count, but he has won his naturalization by his ardor for native music.

Van der Stucken's life has been full of labors and honors. He was born at Fredericksburg, Texas, in 1858, of a Belgian father and a German mother. After the Civil War, in which the father served in the Confederate army as a captain of the Texan cavalry, the family returned to Belgium, where, at Antwerp, Van der Stucken studied under Benoit. Here some of his music was played in the churches, and a ballet at the Royal Theatre.

In 1878 he began studies in Leipzig, making important acquaintances, such as Reinecke, Grieg, and Sinding. His first male chorus was sung there, with great success. Of his fifth opus, consisting of nine songs, Edvard Grieg wrote an enthusiastic criticism. After travelling for some time, Van der Stucken was appointed kapellmeister at the Breslau Stadt-Theatre. This was his debut as conductor. Here he composed his well-known suite on Shakespeare's "Tempest," which has been performed abroad and here. Here, also, he wrote a "Festzug," an important work in Wagnerian style, and his passionate "Pagina d'Amore," which, with the published portions of his lyric drama, "Vlasda," has been performed by many great orchestras.

In 1883, Van der Stucken met Liszt, at Weimar, and under his auspices gave a concert of his own compositions, winning the congratulations of Grieg, Lassen, Liszt, and many other celebrated musicians. A prominent German critic headed his review of the performance: "A new star on the musical firmament."

Van der Stucken was now called to the directorship of the famous Arion Male Chorus in New York, a position which he held for eleven years with remarkable results. In 1892 he took his chorus on a tour in Europe and won superlative praises everywhere.

In 1885 and successive years Van der Stucken conducted orchestral "Novelty Concerts," which have an historical importance as giving the first hearing to symphonic works by American composers. In Berlin and in Paris he also gave our musicians the privilege of public performance. From 1891 to 1894 he devoted himself to reforming the Northeastern Saeengerbund, achieving the enormous task of making five thousand male voices sing difficult music artistically. Since 1895 Van der Stucken has been conductor of the newly formed Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, as well as dean of the faculty of the College of Music in that city. The influence of this man, who is certainly one of the most important musicians of his time, is bringing Cincinnati back to its old musical prestige.

As a composer, Van der Stucken shows the same originality and power that characterize him as an organizer. His prelude to the opera "Vlasda" (op. 9) is one long rapture of passionate sweetness, superbly instrumented. An arrangement of it has been made for the piano for four hands by Horatio W. Parker.

Van der Stucken's music to "The Tempest" (op. 8) is published in three forms. Besides the orchestral score, there is an arrangement for piano solo, by A. Siloti, of the "Dance of the Gnomes," "Dance of the Nymphs," and "Dance of the Reapers," the first and third being especially well transcribed. For four hands, Hans Sitt has arranged these three dances, as well as a short but rich "Exorcism," some splendid melodramatic music, and the rattling grotesque, "The Hound-chase after Caliban." All these pieces are finely imagined and artistically handled.

For piano solo, there is a group of three Miniatures (op. 7). The first is an Albumblatt of curious dun colors; the second is a Capriccietto, a strange whim; the third is a beautiful bit called "May Blossom."

[Music:

Der Stunde sei geflucht, wo ich dein Herz gesucht, wenn in dir diese Liebe statt milder Freudentriebe soll tragen herbe Frucht! Gesegnet ist die Stunde, sprach sie mit suessem Munde, mir ist kein Leid geschehn den Himmel fuehl' ich stehn in meines Herzens Grunde.

That hour with curse be fraught, In which thy heart I sought, If I, in love bestowing, Instead of gladness knowing, A bitter grief have bought: "My soul that hour e'er blesses," A rosy mouth confesses, "Thy love is all I crave, Then heav'n itself I have Within my heart's recesses."

Copyright, 1892, by Friedrich Luckhardt, Berlin.

By permission of Luckhardt & Belder, New York.

FRAGMENT OF MR. VAN DER STUCKEN'S "DIE STUNDE SEI GESEGNET."]

Of Van der Stucken's songs I have seen two groups, the first a setting of five love lyrics by Rueckert. None of these are over two pages long, except the last. They are written in the best modern Lied style, and are quite unhackneyed. It is always the unexpected that happens, though this unexpected thing almost always proves to be a right thing. Without any sense of strain or bombast he reaches superb climaxes; without eccentricity he is individual; and his songs are truly interpreters of the words they express. Of these five, "Wann die Rosen aufgeblueht" is a wonderfully fine and fiery work; "Die Stunde sei gesegnet" has one of the most beautiful endings imaginable; "Mir ist, nun ich die habe" has a deep significance in much simplicity, and its ending, by breaking the rule against consecutive octaves, attains, as rule-breakings have an unpleasant habit of doing, an excellent effect. "Liebste, nur dich seh'n" is a passionate lyric; and "Wenn die Voeglein sich gepaart" is florid and trilly, but legitimately so; it should find much concert use. These songs, indeed, are all more than melodies; they are expressions.

Of the second group of eight songs for low voice, "O Jugendlust" is athrill with young ecstasy; "Einsame Thraene" has superb coloring, all sombre, and a tremendous climax; "Seeligkeit" is big with emotion and ravishing in harmony, "Ein Schaeferlied" is exquisite, "Von schoen Sicilien war mein Traum" begins in the style of Lassen, but ends with a strength and vigor far beyond that tender melodist. Besides these groups, there is a rich lyric "Moonlight;" and there are many part songs.

A work of considerable importance written many years before and presented by Franz Liszt at Weimar had its first American production in 1899, at Cincinnati and New York. It is a symphonic prologue to Heine's tragedy, "William Ratcliff." The different psychological phases of the tragedy are presented by characteristic motives which war among themselves. The Scottish locale is indicated vividly, and the despair of the lovers presented in one place by the distortion and rending of all the principal motives. A dirge with bells and a final musing upon, and resignation before, implacable Fate give a dignified close to a work in which passion is exploited with erudition and modernity.

W.W. Gilchrist.

The prize competition has its evils, unquestionably; and, in a place of settled status, perhaps, they outnumber its benefits. But in American music it has been of material encouragement to the production of large works. In the first place, those who do not win have been stimulated to action, and have at least their effort for their pains. In the second place, those who manage to win are several hundred dollars the richer, and may offer the wolf at the door a more effective bribe than empty-stomached song.

In the city of Philadelphia lives a composer of unusual luck in prize-winning. That large and ancient town is not noteworthy for its activity in the manufacture of original music. In fact, some one has spoken of it as "a town where the greatest reproach to a musician is residence there." The city's one prominent music-writer is William Wallace Gilchrist; but he stands among the first of our composers. He is especially interesting as a purely native product, having never studied abroad, and yet having won among our composers a foremost place in the larger forms of composition. He was born in Jersey City, January 8, 1846; his father was a Canadian, his mother a native of this country; both were skilled in music, and his home life was full of it, especially of the old church music. After a youth of the usual school life he tried various pursuits,—photography, law, business; but music kept calling him. A good barytone voice led him to join vocal societies, and at length he made music his profession, after studying voice, organ, and composition with Dr. H.A. Clarke, of Philadelphia. He was a successful soloist in oratorio for some years, but gradually devoted himself to church work and conducting, and to composition, though none of his music was published till he was thirty-two, when he took two prizes offered by the Abt Male Singing Society of Philadelphia.

Shortly after taking the Abt Society prize, he won three offered by the Mendelssohn Glee Club of New York, and in 1884 he took the $1,000 prize offered by the Cincinnati Festival Association.

This last was gained by his setting of the Forty-sixth Psalm for soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra. The overture opens with a noble andante contemplatif, which deserves its epithet, but falls after a time into rather uninteresting moods, whence it breaks only at the last period. The opening chorus, "God Is Our Refuge and Strength," seems to me to be built on a rather trite and empty subject, which it plays battledore and shuttlecock with in the brave old pompous and canonic style, which stands for little beyond science and labor. It is only fair to say, however, that A.J. Goodrich, in his "Musical Analysis," praises "the strength and dignity" of this chorus; and gives a minute analysis of the whole work with liberal thematic quotation. The psalm, as a whole, though built on old lines, is built well on those lines, and the solo "God Is in the Midst of Her" is taken up with especially fine effect by the chorus. "The Heathen Raged" is a most ingeniously complicated chorus also.

The cantata, "Prayer and Praise," is similarly conventional, and suffers from the sin of repetition, but contains much that is strong.

Of the three prize male choruses written for the Mendelssohn Glee Club, the "Ode to the Sun" is the least successful. It is written to the bombast of Mrs. Hemans, and is fittingly hysterical; occasionally it fairly shrieks itself out. "In Autumn" is quieter; a sombre work with a fine outburst at the end. "The Journey of Life" is an andante misterioso that catches the gloom of Bryant's verse, and offers a good play for that art of interweaving voices in which Gilchrist is an adept.

"The Uplifted Gates" is a chorus for mixed voices with solos for sopranos and altos; it is elaborate, warm, and brilliant. In lighter tone are the "Spring Song," a trio with cheap words, but bright music and a rich ending, and "The Sea Fairies," a chorus of delightful delicacy for women's voices. It has a piano accompaniment for four hands. In this same difficult medium of women's voices is "The Fountain," a surpassingly beautiful work, graceful and silvery as a cascade. It reminds one, not by its manner at all, but by its success, of that supreme achievement, Wagner's song of the "Rhinemaidens." The piano accompaniment to Gilchrist's chorus aids the general picture.

A thoroughly charming work is the setting of Lowell's poem, "The Rose," for solos and chorus. The dreariness of the lonely poet and the lonely maid contrasts strongly with the rapture of their meeting. As the first half of the poem is morose yet melodious, the latter is bright with ecstasy; the ending is of the deepest tenderness.

By all odds the best of these choruses, however, is "The Legend of the Bended Bow," a fine war-chant by Mrs. Hemans. Tradition tells that in ancient Britain the people were summoned to war by messengers who carried a bended bow; the poem tells of the various patriots approached. The reaper is bidden to leave his standing corn, the huntsman to turn from the chase; the chieftain, the prince, mothers, sisters, sweethearts, and the bards are all approached and counselled to bravery. After each episode follow the words "And the bow passed on," but the music has been so well managed that the danger of such a repetition is turned into grim force. The only prelude is five great blasts of the horns. A brawny vigor is got by a frequent use of imitation and unison in the voices. The choric work is marked throughout with the most intense and epic power, almost savagery; a magnificent martial zest. The climax is big. It is certainly one of the best things of its kind ever done over here.

Another work of fine quality throughout is "A Christmas Idyl," for solos, chorus, and orchestra. A terrible sombreness is achieved in its former half by a notable simplicity. The latter part is in brighter tone; the solo, "And Thou, Bethlehem," is especially exultant. In manuscript is "An Easter Idyl," of large proportions, for solos, chorus, and orchestra, or organ.

In the single songs the influence of Gilchrist's early training in hymns is patent. In only a few instances do they follow the latter-day methods of Schumann and Franz. "A Song of Doubt and a Song of Faith" is possibly his best vocal solo. It begins with a plaint, that is full of cynic despair; thence it breaks suddenly into a cheerful andante. "The Two Villages" is a strong piece of work on the conventional lines of what might be called the Sunday ballad. "A Dirge for Summer" has a marked originality, and is of that deep brooding which is particularly congenial to Gilchrist's muse. The Scotch songs are charming: "My Heart is Sair" is full of fine feeling, and must be classed among the very best of the many settings of this lyric of Burns'.

Most modern in feeling of all Gilchrist's vocal solos is the group of "Eight Songs." They interpret the text faithfully and the accompaniment is in accord with the song, but yet possessed of its own individuality. "A Love Song" is tender and has a well-woven accompaniment; "The Voice of the Sea" is effective, but hardly attains the large simplicity of Aldrich' poem; "Autumn" is exquisitely cheery; "Goldenrod" is ornately graceful, while "The Dear Long Ago" is quaint; "Lullaby" is of an exquisitely novel rhythm in this overworked form.

[Music: A LOVE SONG.

By Barry Cornwall.

Music by W.W. Gilchrist.

Love me if I live, Love me if I die. What to me is life or death, So that thou, that thou be near. What to me is life or death, So that thou be near, So that thou be near.

Copyright, 1885, by Arthur P. Schmidt & Co.

A FRAGMENT.]

There is much contrast between the lightness of his book, "Songs for the Children," and his ponderous setting of Kipling's "Recessional." The treatment of Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Southern Lullaby" is unusual, and the songs, "My Ladye" and "The Ideal," both in MS., are noteworthy.

Gilchrist has written a vast amount of religious music, including several "Te Deums," of which the one in C and that in A flat are the best, to my thinking. He has written little for the piano except a series of duets, of which the charming "Melodie" and the fetching "Styrienne" are the best.

It is by his orchestral works, however, that he gains the highest consideration. These include a symphony for full orchestra, which has been frequently performed with success; a suite for orchestra; a suite for piano and orchestra; as well as a nonet, a quintet, and a trio, for strings and wind. None of these have been published, but I have had the privilege of examining some of the manuscripts.

The spirit and the treatment of these works is strongly classical. While the orchestration is scholarly and mellow, it is not in the least Wagnerian, either in manipulation or in lusciousness. The symphony is not at all programmatic. The Scherzo is of most exuberant gaiety. Its accentuation is much like that in Beethoven's piano sonata (op. 14, No. 2). Imitation is liberally used in the scoring, with a delightfully comic effect as of an altercation. The symphony ends with a dashing finale that is stormy with cheer. Gilchrist is at work upon a second symphony of more modernity.

The "Nonet" is in G minor, and begins with an Allegro in which a most original and severe subject is developed with infinite grace and an unusually rich color. The Andante is religioso, and is fervent rather than sombre. The ending is especially beautiful. A sprightly Scherzo follows. It is most ingeniously contrived, and the effects are divided with unusual impartiality among the instruments. A curious and elaborate allegro molto furnishes the finale, and ends the "Nonet" surprisingly with an abrupt major chord.

The opening Allegro of the "Quintet" begins with a 'cello solo of scherzesque quality, but as the other voices join in, it takes on a more passionate tone, whence it works into rapturously beautiful moods and ends magnificently. The piano part has a strong value, and even where it merely ornaments the theme carried by the strings, it is fascinating. The Scherzo is again of the Beethoven order in its contagious comicality. The piano has the lion's share of it at first, but toward the last the other instruments leave off embroidery and take to cracking jokes for themselves. The Andante is a genuinely fine piece of work. It ranges from melting tenderness to impassioned rage and a purified nobility. The piano part is highly elaborated, but the other instruments have a scholarly, a vocal, individuality. I was shocked to see a cadenza for the piano just before the close, but its tender brilliance was in thorough accord with the sincerity of the movement. The "Quintet" ends with a splendid Allegro.

In MS. are three interesting works for the violin, a Rhapsody, a Perpetual Motion, and a Fantasie.

This last has a piano accompaniment of much ingenuity. The fantasial nature of the work lies principally in its development, which is remarkably lyrical, various melodies being built up beautifully on fractions of the main subjects. There is nothing perfunctory, and the work is full of art and appeal. Gilchrist is one of our most polished composers contrapuntally, but has been here in a very lyric mood.

He is the founder and conductor of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, an unusually effective organization; one of the founders of the local Manuscript Club; the conductor of a choral society of two hundred voices, at Harrisburg, and the director of two church choirs.

G.W. Chadwick.



One of the most sophisticated, and, at the same time, most eclectic of native music-makers, is George W. Chadwick, to whom the general consent of authorities would grant a place among the very foremost of the foremost American composers.

His reputation rests chiefly on his two symphonies, a number of concert overtures, and many pieces of chamber-music, which are much praised. Chadwick was born at Lowell, Mass., November 13, 1854. His parents were American, and it was not till 1877, after studying with Eugene Thayer in Boston, and teaching music in the college at Olivet, Mich., that Chadwick studied for two years at Leipzig, under Jadassohn and Reinecke, and later at Munich for a year under Rheinberger. In 1880 he returned to America and settled in Boston, where he has since lived, as organist, teacher, and conductor, an important figure in the town's musical life.

Among his few works for the piano, are "Six Characteristic Pieces" (op. 7). The "Reminiscence of Chopin" is an interesting and skilful chain of partial themes and suggestions from Chopin. The "Etude" is a monotonous study in a somewhat Schumannesque manner, with a graceful finish. The "Congratulation" is a cheerful bagatelle; the "Irish Melody" is sturdy, simple, and fetching; but the "Scherzino" is a hard bit of humor with Beethoven mannerisms lacking all the master's unction.

The opus ends with an unfortunate composition inexcusably titled "Please Do!"

There are two bright "Caprices" and three excellent waltzes, of which the third is the best. It is a dreamy, tender work on a theme by "B.J.L.," which refers, I presume, to Mr. B.J. Lang.

Chadwick has done a vast amount of part-song writing. His "Lovely Rosabelle" is for chorus and orchestra, and is marked with many original effects. His "Reiterlied" is superbly joyful. A setting of Lewis Carroll's immortal "Jabberwocky" shows much rich humor of the college glee-club sort. There is an irresistibly humorous episode where the instrument of destruction goes "snicker snack," and a fine hilarity at

"'O frabjous day Callooh, callay,' He chortled in his joy."

What would part-song writers do if the Vikings had never been invented? Where would they get their wild choruses for men, with a prize to the singer that makes the most noise? Chadwick falls into line with "The Viking's Last Voyage" (1881), for barytone solo, male chorus, and orchestra, which gives him a very high place among writers in this form. He has also a robustious "Song of the Viking," and an excellent Dedication Ode (1884), for solo, chorus, and orchestra, to the pregnant words of Rev. H.B. Carpenter, besides two cantatas for mixed voices, "Phoenix Expirans" and "The Pilgrims." In 1889 was published his "Lovely Rosabelle," a ballad for chorus and orchestra; it contains some interesting dissonantial work in the storm-passages. And his comic opera, "Tabasco," must be mentioned, as well as an enormous mass of sacred music, which, I confess, I had not the patience to study. The flesh was willing, but the spirit was weak.

Among Chadwick's songs is a volume of Breton melodies harmonized with extreme simplicity. Others are "Gay Little Dandelion," which is good enough of its everlasting flower-song sort; "In Bygone Days" and "Request," which, aside from one or two flecks of art, are trashy; and two childish namby-pambies, "Adelaide" and "The Mill." "A Bonny Curl" catches the Scotch-ton faithfully.

Chadwick usually succeeds, however, in catching foreign flavors. His "Song from the Persian" is one of his best works, and possibly the very best is his "Sorais' Song," to Rider Haggard's splendid words. It has an epic power and a wild despair. Up to the flippancy of its last measures, it is quite inspired, and one of the strongest of American songs. The "Danza" is captivating and full of novelty. "Green Grows the Willow" is a burden of charming pathos and quaintness, though principally a study in theme-management. "Allah," however, is rather Ethiopian than Mahommedan. His "Bedouin Love Song" has little Oriental color, but is full of rush and fire, with a superb ending. It is the best of the countless settings of this song. I wish I could say the same of his "Thou Art so Like a Flower," but he has missed the intense repression of Heine.

[Music: To Mrs. G.H. Stoddard.

TWO FOLK SONGS.

I

G.W. Chadwick

O love and joy are for a day, Then tears and sorrow after, O love is for a summer's day, And then farewell to laughter. If love and joy are for a day And then farewell to laughter, To live with love give me one day Though tears forever after.

Copyright, 1892, by Arthur P. Schmidt.]

The "Serenade" displays an interesting rhythm; "The Miller's Daughter" is tender, and "A Warning" is delightfully witty. One regrets, however, that its best points were previously used in Schumann's perfect folk-song, "Wenn ich frueh in den Garten geh'." Chadwick has two folk-songs of his own, however, which are superb. "He Loves Me" is a tender, cradle-song-like bit of delicious color. The "Lullaby" is a genuinely interesting study in this overworked form. "The Lily" has the passionate lyricism of Chaminade, and "Sweet Wind that Blows" is a fine frenzy. The "Nocturne" is dainty and has its one good climax. "Before the Dawn" has some of Chadwick's best work; it is especially marked by a daring harmonic—you might say—impasto.

His principal works, besides those mentioned, may be catalogued (I am unable to do more than catalogue most of them, having seen only one of them, "The Lily Nymph," performed, and having read the score of only the "Melpomene" overture): Concert overtures, "Rip Van Winkle" (written in Leipzig, 1879, and played there the same year), "Thalia" (1883), "Melpomene" (1887), "The Miller's Daughter" (1887), and "Adonais" (in memory of a friend, 1899); Symphonies, in C (1882), in B (1885); an Andante for string orchestra (1884), and numerous pieces of chamber-music. In the case of the cantata, "The Lily Nymph," Chadwick's art was quite futilized by the superb inanities of the book he used. The "Melpomene" is a work of infinitely more specific gravity. It is one of the most important of American orchestral works.

As his "Thalia" was an "overture to an imaginary comedy," so this, to an imaginary tragedy. It has been played by the Boston Symphony and many other orchestras. It has that definiteness of mood with that indefiniteness of circumstance in which music wins its most dignified prosperity.

It opens with the solitary voice of the English horn, which gives a notable pathos (read Berlioz on this despairful elegist, and remember its haunting wail in the last act of "Tristan und Isolde"). The woeful plaint of this voice breathing above a low sinister roll of the tympanum establishes at once the atmosphere of melancholy. Other instruments join the wail, which breaks out wildly from the whole orchestra. Over a waving accompaniment of clarinets, the other wood-winds strike up a more lyric and hopeful strain, and a soliloquy from the 'cello ends the slow introduction, the materials of which are taken from the two principal subjects of the overture, which is built on the classic sonata formula. The first subject is announced by the first violins against the full orchestra; the subsidiary theme is given to the flutes and oboes; after a powerful climax, and a beautiful subsidence of the storm in the lower strings, the second subject appears in the relative major with honeyed lyricism. The conclusion, which is made rather elaborate by the latter-day symphonists, is reduced to a brief modulation by Mr. Chadwick, and almost before one knows it, he is in the midst of the elaboration. It is hard to say whether the composer's emotion or his counterpoint is given freer rein here, for the work is remarkable both for the display of every technical resource and for the irresistible tempest of its passion. In the reprise there is a climax that thrills one even as he tamely reads the score, and must be overpowering in actual performance: the cheerful consolation of the second subject provokes a cyclonic outburst of grief; there is a furious climax of thrilling flutes and violins over a mad blare of brass, the while the cymbals shiver beneath the blows of the kettledrum-sticks. An abrupt silence prepares for a fierce thunderous clamor from the tympani and the great drum (beaten with the sticks of the side-drum). This subsides to a single thud of a kettledrum; there is another eloquent silence; the English horn returns to its first plaint; but grief has died of very exercise, and the work ends in a coda that establishes a major harmony and leaves the hearer with a heart purged white and clean.