Rupert Hughes

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WILLIAM SCHUYLER.

music

music continued

Words used by permission of Copeland and Day.

Copyright, 1897, by Wm. Schuyler.

There was, before me,
Mile upon mile of snow, ice, burning sand.
And yet I could look beyond all this,
To a place of infinite beauty;
And I could see the loveliness of her
Who walked in the shade of the trees.
When I gazed,
All was lost
But this place of beauty and her
When I gazed,
And in my gazing, desired
Then came again
Mile upon mile,
Of snow, ice, burning sand, burning sand.

FROM WM. SCHUYLER'S "BLACK RIDERS."

Schuyler was born in St. Louis, May 4, 1855, and music has been his livelihood. He is largely self-taught, and has composed some fifty pieces for the piano, a hundred and fifty songs, a few works for violin, viola, and 'cello, and two short trios.

In his setting of these lines of Crane's, Schuyler has attacked a difficult problem in an ideal manner. To three of the short poems he has given a sense of epic vastitude, and to two of them he has given a tantalizing mysticism. The songs, which have been published privately, should be reproduced for the wide circulation they deserve.

Another writer of small songs displaying unusual individuality is George Clifford Vieh, who was born in St. Louis and studied there under Victor Ehling. In 1889, he went to Vienna for three years, studying under Bruckner, Robert Fuchs, and Dachs. He graduated with the silver medal there, and returned to St. Louis, where he has since lived as a teacher and pianist.

Alfred George Robyn is the most popular composer St. Louis has developed. He was born in 1860, his father being William Robyn, who organized the first symphonic orchestra west of Pittsburg. Robyn was a youthful prodigy as a pianist; and, at the age of ten, he succeeded his father as organist at St. John's Church, then equipped with the best choir in the city. It was necessary for the pedals of the organ to be raised to his feet. At the age of sixteen he became solo pianist with Emma Abbott's company. As a composer Robyn has written some three hundred compositions, some of them reaching a tremendous sale. A few of them have been serious and worth while, notably a piano concerto, a quintette, four string quartettes, a mass, and several orchestral suites.

There are not many American composers that have had a fugue published, or have written fugues that deserve publication. It is the distinction of Ernest Richard Kroeger that he has written one that deserved, and secured, publication. This was his 41st opus. It is preceded by a prelude which, curiously enough, is thoroughly Cuban in spirit and is a downright Habanera, though not so announced. This fiery composition is followed by a four-voiced "real" fugue. The subject is genuinely interesting, though the counter-subject is as perfunctory as most counter-subjects. The middle-section, the stretto-work, and the powerful ending, give the fugue the right to exist.

Among other publications are a suite for piano (op. 33), in which a scherzo has life, and a sonata for violin and piano, in which, curiously enough, the violin has not one instance of double-stopping, and the elaborating begins, not with the first subject taken vigorously, but with the second subject sung out softly. The last movement is the best, a quaint and lively rondo. A set of twelve concert Études show the influence of Chopin upon a composer who writes with a strong German accent. The Étude called "Castor and Pollux" is a vigorous number with the chords of the left hand exactly doubled in the right; another Étude, "A Romanze," is noteworthy for the practice it gives in a point which is too much ignored even by the best pianists; that is, the distinction between the importance of the tones of the same chord struck by the same hand. A work of broad scholarship, which shows the combined influence of Beethoven and Chopin, who have chiefly affected Kroeger, is his sonata (op. 40). A dominant pedal-point of fifty-eight measures, in the last movement, is worth mentioning. In a "Danse NÉgre" and a "Caprice NÉgre," he has evidently gone, for his Ethiopian color, not to the actual negro music, but to the similar compositions of Gottschalk. Kroeger was born in St. Louis, August 10, 1862. At the age of five he took up the study of the piano and violin. His theoretical tuition was all had in this country. He has written many songs, a piano concerto, sonatas for piano and viola, and piano and 'cello, two trios, a quintette, and three string quartettes, as well as a symphony, a suite, and overtures based on "Endymion," "Thanatopsis," "Sardanapalus" (produced by Anton Seidl, in New York), "Hiawatha," and "Atala."