(Frederick Shepherd Converse: born in Newton, Mass., January 5, 1877; now living in Westwood, Mass.) "THE FESTIVAL OF PAN," ROMANCE FOR ORCHESTRA: Op. 9 This symphonic poem, composed in 1899, is the first of a series of "romances" suggested to the composer by scenes in Keats's "Endymion." What portions of the poem inspired this particular work Mr. Converse has not avowed; yet the statement is responsibly made that "emphasis is thrown upon the contrast between Endymion's melancholy and the joyous pomp of the festival of Pan"; it may not, therefore, be inapt to quote those portions of Keats' poem which set forth this situation: "Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who, gathering round the altar, seem'd to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday; nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which even then
Fill'd out its voice and died away again.
"Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd's song;
Each having a white wicker, overbrimm'd
With April's tender younglings; next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'erflowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly.
"... Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-follow'd by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair-wrought car
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple-brown;
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Showing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
"A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd
To common lookers-on like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian;
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets' cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.—Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!"
"ENDYMION'S NARRATIVE," ROMANCE FOR ORCHESTRA: Op. 10 This is the second of Mr. Converse's symphonic poems, or "romances," based upon scenes in the "Endymion" of Keats (the first, "The Festival of Pan," is described in the preceding pages). "Endymion's Narrative" was composed in 1901. The following explanation of the purpose of the music was given by the composer at the time of the first performance of the work by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1903: "... As I have remarked on the title-pages of these works, they were suggested by certain scenes from the poem. I meant by this that there was no desire or attempt to follow the text, slavishly and in detail, but merely to give a general reflection of its emotional phases. As a clew to 'Endymion's Narrative,' I would say that its idea was derived from the scene in the poem where Endymion, oppressed with melancholy feeling, and no longer cheered by the simple pleasures of his companions, is withdrawn from the Festival by Peona, his anxious sister, and led by her to a secluded part of the wood, where she strives to find the cause of his despondency and to soothe him with sisterly affection. Under her influence he reveals the cause of his sorrow. He then relates to her what seems to me the spiritual essence of the whole poem, the struggle of a mind possessed of an ideal beyond the common view, and yet bound by affection and devotion to conditions which confine and stifle its urging internal impulses. "The piece begins with despondency and indecision. The hero is harassed by alluring glimpses of the ideal, and soothed by simple affection and love. There is a sort of dramatic growth of the various elements, until finally the ideal comes victorious out of the struggle, and the ungovernable impulse rushes exultantly on with the mad joy of determination." [32]
"NIGHT" AND "DAY," TWO POEMS FOR PIANOFORTE[33] AND ORCHESTRA: Op. 11 These tone-poems, composed in 1904, derive their inspiration from lines by Walt Whitman, which serve as mottoes for the music. For the first of the two, "Night," he has chosen this line from "A Clear Midnight" (in the section, "From Noon to Starry Night"): "This is thy hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless." "This," wrote Mr. Converse to the compiler of the Boston Symphony programme-books at the time of the first performance of the two poems,[34] "expresses quite completely the mood which I have tried to create in my music. Of 'Day,' Whitman says: 'Day full-blown and splendid—day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter.' [35] "As far as it goes, this describes my [second] poem very well, but the real essence is lacking, although it was the best and most fitting quotation I could find for a motto. The moods of 'action,' 'ambition,' 'laughter,' and of love, too (for the erotic impulse is suggested in the poem), are all there, but strung upon and incident to the one predominant and insistent theme of the struggle of life. This restless, stirring, eternal energy ... is the main strain of the poem, and the other emotional phases are eddies momentarily emerging from it, but always being absorbed again in it, until at the end the tragedy of it becomes apparent and dominant. This is what I have tried to express." He also points out that the titles are only symbolical; that he has had no intention "of expressing the physical characteristics of night and day"; his purpose was "to suggest their psychological meaning, to put into music the moods suggested by them."
CONCERT OVERTURE, "EUPHROSYNE" [36]: Op. 15 This overture, composed in 1903, is prefaced in the score with these lines from Milton's "L'Allegro": "But come thou goddess fair and free,
In Heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth." It has no other programme. FANTASY, "THE MYSTIC TRUMPETER": Op. 19 This work was composed in 1903-04. The poem by Whitman which has served the composer as his poetic point of departure is contained in the section of Leaves of Grass called "From Noon to Starry Night." The music is intended as an expression of the emotional and poetic substance of the poem. "I wished," the composer has said, "to use the elemental phases of the poem: mystery and peace; love; war or struggle; humiliation; and finally joy. So I divided the poem into five parts, and my music follows this division. Each section is introduced, or, rather, tied to the preceding one, by characteristic phrases for trumpet." For each of these five connected divisions into which the music naturally falls, some dominant thought of the poet may be held to suggest the keynote. As in Whitman's strange phantasmagoria, there is set before us the spectacle of the human soul undergoing some of its universal and most vital experiences. After an introduction in which the Trumpeter's "liquid prelude" persuades one to turn from "the fretting world," and whose song "expands the numb'd, embonded spirit," we witness our typical human experiencing the transports of love, the perils and vicissitudes of war, the cankering perplexities and despairs that afflict the spirit in its moments of reaction; and, finally, the assured and confident joy that comes with the attainment of an ultimate poise and self-mastery. For the five connected sections into which the music, upon the authority of the composer, may be divided, analogies are to be found in Whitman's poem. Those portions of the poem which correspond with the successive mood-pictures in the music may be indicated as follows (only the opening lines of each section are quoted): [I. "MYSTERY AND PEACE"] "Hark! some wild trumpeter, some strange musician, Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night. I hear thee, trumpeter—listening, alert, I catch thy notes, Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me, Now low, subdued—now in the distance lost."
[II. "LOVE"] "Blow again, trumpeter! and for thy theme Take now the enclosing theme of all—the solvent and the setting; Love, that is pulse of all—the sustenance and the pang;"
[III. "WAR OR STRUGGLE"] "Blow again, trumpeter—conjure war's wild alarums. "Swift to thy spell, a shuddering hum like distant thunder rolls; Lo! where the arm'd men hasten—Lo! 'mid the clouds of dust, the glint of bayonets;"
[IV. "HUMILIATION"] "O trumpeter! methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest! Thou melt'st my heart, my brain—thou movest, drawest, changest them, at will: And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me; Thou takest away all cheering light—all hope: I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the whole earth;"
[V. "JOY"] "Now, trumpeter, for thy close, Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet; Sing to my soul—renew its languishing faith and hope; Rouse up my slow belief—give me some vision of the future; Give me, for once, its prophecy and joy. "O glad, exulting, culminating song! A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes!"
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