Rupert Hughes

[Listen]

Edward Rowland Sill.Homer A. Norris.

music

music continued

Copyright, 1900, by H.B. Stevens Co. International copyright secured.

Used by permission of H.B. Stevens Co., Boston, owners of the copyright.

'Tis not in seeking,
'Tis not in endless striving,
Thy quest is found:
Thy quest is found.
Be still and listen;
Be still and drink the quiet of all around
Not for thy crying,
Not for thy loud beseeching,
Will peace draw near:
Will peace draw near:
Rest with palms folded,
Rest with thine eyelids fallen
Lo! peace is here.

One of the best-esteemed musicians in Boston, G.E. Whiting has devoted more of his interest to his career as virtuoso on the organ than to composition. Not many of such works as he has found time to write have been printed. These include an organ sonata, a number of organ pieces, a book of studies for the organ, six songs, and three cantatas for solos, chorus, and orchestra, "A Tale of the Viking," "Dream Pictures," and "A Midnight Cantata."

Whiting was born at Holliston, Mass., September 14, 1842. At the age of five, he began the study of music with his brother. At the age of fifteen, he moved to Hartford, Conn., where he succeeded Dudley Buck as organist of one of the churches. Here he founded the Beethoven Society. At the age of twenty he went to Boston, and after studying with Morgan, went to Liverpool, and studied the organ under William Thomas Best. Later he made a second pilgrimage to Europe, and studied under Radeck.

For many years he has lived in Boston as a teacher of music and performer upon the organ. In manuscript are a number of works which I have not had the privilege of seeing: two masses for chorus, orchestra, and organ, a concert overture, a concerto, a sonata, a fantasy and fugue, a fantasy and three Études, a suite for 'cello and piano, and a setting of Longfellow's "Golden Legend," which won two votes out of five in the thousand dollar musical festival of 1897, the prize being awarded to Dudley Buck.

Of his compositions H.E. Krehbiel in 1892 recorded the opinion that they "entitled him to a position among the foremost musicians in this country." He is an uncle of Arthur Whiting.

G.W. Marston's setting of the omnipresent "Du bist wie eine Blume" is really one of the very best Heine's poem has ever had. Possibly it is the best of all the American settings. His "There Was an Aged Monarch" is seriously deserving of the frankest comparison with Grieg's treatment of the same Lied. It is interesting to note the radical difference of their attitudes toward it. Grieg writes in a folk-tone that is severe to the point of grimness. He is right because it is ein altes Liedchen, and Heine's handling of it is also kept outwardly cold. But Marston has rendered the song into music of the richest harmony and fullest pathos. He is right, also, because he has interpreted the undercurrent of the story.

Bodenstedt's ubiquitous lyric, "Wenn der FrÜhling auf die Berge steigt," which rivals "Du bist wie eine Blume" in the favor of composers, has gathered Marston also into its net. He gives it a climax that fairly sweeps one off his feet, though one might wish that the following and final phrase had not forsaken the rich harmonies of the climax so completely.

This song is the first of a "Song Album" for sopranos, published in 1890. In this group the accompaniments all receive an attention that gives them meaning without obtrusiveness. "The Duet" is a delicious marriage of the song of a girl and the accompanying rapture of a bird.

A captivating little florid figure in the accompaniment of a setting of "Im wunder-schÖnen Monat Mai" gives the song worth. "On the Water" is profound with sombreness and big simplicity. "The Boat of My Lover" is quaintly delightful.

Marston was born in Massachusetts, at the little town of Sandwich, in 1840. He studied there, and later at Portland, Me., with John W. Tufts, and has made two pilgrimages to Europe for instruction. He played the organ in his native town at the age of fifteen, and since finishing his studies has lived at Portland, teaching the piano, organ, and harmony. From the start his songs caught popularity, and were much sung in concert.

Marston has written a sacred dramatic cantata, "David," and a large amount of church music that is very widely used. He has written also a set of quartettes and trios for women's voices, and quartettes for men's voices.

Possibly his best-known song has been his "Could Ye Come Back to Me, Douglas," which Mrs. Craik called the best of all her poem's many settings.

Only Marston's later piano pieces are really klaviermÄssig. So fine a work as his "Gavotte in B Minor" has no need to consider the resources of the modern instrument. It has a color scheme of much originality, though it is marred by over-repetition. "A Night in Spain" is a dashing reminiscence, not without Spanish spirit, and an "Album Leaf" is a divertissement of contagious enthusiasm.

Autograph of G.W. Marston

Ariel's songs, from "The Tempest," are given a piano interpretation that reaches a high plane. There is a storm prologue which suggests, in excellent harmonies, the distant mutter of the storm rather than a piano-gutting tornado. "Full Fathoms Five Thy Father Lies" is a reverie of wonderful depth and originality, with a delicious variation on the good old-fashioned cadence. Thence it works up into an immensely powerful close. A dance, "Foot it Featly," follows. It is sprightly, and contains a fetching cadenza.

One of the most prolific writers of American song is Clayton Johns. He is almost always pleasing and polished. While he is not at all revolutionary, he has a certain individuality of ease, and lyric quality without storm or stress of passion. Thus his settings of seven "Wanderlieder" by Uhland have all the spirit of the road except ruggedness.

His setting of "Du bist wie eine Blume" is extremely tender and sweet.

Two of Johns' best successes have been settings of Egyptian subjects: "Were I a Prince Egyptian" and Arlo Bates' fine lyric, "No Lotus Flower on Ganges Borne." The latter is a superb song of unusual fire, with a strong effect at the end, the voice ceasing at a deceptive cadence, while the accompaniment sweeps on to its destiny in the original key. He has also found a congenial subject in Austin Dobson's "The Rose and the Gardener." He gets for a moment far from its florid grace in "I Looked within My Soul," which has an unwonted bigness, and is a genuine Lied.

In later years Johns' songs have been brought out in little albums, very artistically got up, especially for music (which has been heinously printed, as a rule, in this country). These albums include three skilfully written "English Songs," and three "French Songs," "Soupir" taking the form of melodic recitative. Opus 19 is a group of "Wonder Songs," which interpret Oliver Herford's quaint conceits capitally.

Opus 26 collects nine songs, of which "Princess Pretty Eyes" is fascinatingly archaic. It is good to see him setting two such remotely kindred spirits as Herrick and Emily Dickinson. The latter has hardly been discovered by composers, and the former is too much neglected.

Johns has also written a few part songs and some instrumental works, which maintain his characteristics. A delightful "Canzone," a happy "Promenade," and "Mazurka" are to be mentioned, and a number of pieces for violin and piano, among them a finely built intermezzo, a berceuse, a romanza that should be highly effective, and a witty scherzino. He has written for strings a berceuse and a scherzino, which have been played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and certain part songs, as well as a chorus for female voices and string orchestra, have been sung in London.

Johns was born at New Castle, Del., November 24, 1857, of American parents. Though at first a student of architecture, he gave this up for music, and studied at Boston under Wm. F. Apthorp, J.K. Paine, and W.H. Sherwood, after which he went to Berlin, where he studied under Kiel, Grabau, Raif, and Franz Rummel. In 1884 he made Boston his home.

If San Francisco had found some way of retaining the composers she has produced, she would have a very respectable colony. Among the others who have come east to grow up with music is William Arms Fisher, who was born in San Francisco, April 27, 1861. The two composers from whom he derives his name, Joshua Fisher and William Arms, settled in Massachusetts colony in the seventeenth century. He studied harmony, organ, and piano with John P. Morgan. After devoting some years to business, he committed his life to music, and in 1890 came to New York, where he studied singing. Later he went to London to continue his vocal studies. Returning to New York, he took up counterpoint and fugue with Horatio W. Parker, and composition and instrumentation with DvÔrÁk. After teaching harmony for several years, he went to Boston, where he now lives. His work has been almost altogether the composition of songs. A notable feature of his numerous publications is their agreeable diversion from the usual practice of composers, which is to write lyrics of wide range and high pitch. Nearly all his songs are written for the average voice.

His first opus contains a setting of "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt," which I like better than the banal version TschaÏkowski made of the same words. The third opus contains three songs to Shelley's words. They show something of the intellectual emotion of the poet. The first work, "A Widow Bird Sate Mourning," is hardly lyrical; "My Coursers Are Fed with the Lightning" is a stout piece of writing, but the inspired highfalutin of the words would be trying upon one who arose to sing the song before an audience. This, by the way, is a point rarely considered by the unsuccessful composers, and the words which the singer is expected to declare to an ordinary audience are sometimes astounding. The third Shelley setting, "The World's Wanderer," is more congenial to song.

Opus 5 is entitled "Songs without Tears." These are for a bass voice, and by all odds the best of his songs. An appropriate setting is Edmund Clarence Stedman's "Falstaff's Song," a noteworthy lyric of toss-pot moralization on death. His song of "Joy" is exuberant with spring gaiety, and some of his best manner is seen in his "ElÉgie," for violin and piano. He has also written a deal of church song.

A venerable and distinguished teacher and composer is James C.D. Parker, who was born at Boston, in 1828, and graduated from Harvard in 1848. He at first studied law, but was soon turned to music, and studied for three years in Europe under Richter, Plaidy, Hauptmann, Moscheles, Rietz, and Becker. He graduated from the conservatory at Leipzig, and returned to Boston in 1845.

His "Redemption Hymn" is one of his most important works, and was produced in Boston by the Handel and Haydn Society in 1877. He also composed other works for orchestra and chorus, and many brilliant piano compositions.

An interesting method of writing duets is that employed in the "Children's Festival," by Charles DennÉe. The pupil plays in some places the primo, and in others the secondo, his part being written very simply, while the part to be played by the teacher is written with considerable elaboration, so that the general effect is not so narcotic as usual with duets for children. DennÉe has written, among many works of little specific gravity, a "Suite Moderne" of much skill, a suite for string orchestra, an overture and sonatas for the piano and for the violin and piano, as well as various comic operas. He was born in Oswego, N.Y., September 1, 1863, and studied composition with Stephen A. Emery.

A composer of a genial gaiety, one who has written a good minuet and an "Evening Song" that is not morose, is Benjamin Lincoln Whelpley, who was born at Eastport, Me., October 23, 1863, and studied the piano at Boston with B.J. Lang, and composition with Sidney Homer and others. He also studied in Paris for a time in 1890. He has written a "Dance of the Gnomes," that is characteristic and brilliantly droll, and a piano piece, called "Under Bright Skies," which has the panoply and progress of a sunlit cavalcade.

Ernest Osgood Hiler has written some good music for the violin, a book of songs for children, "Cloud, Field, and Flower," and some sacred music. He studied in Germany for two years.

The Chicago Colony.

Most prominent among Chicago's composers is doubtless Frederic Grant Gleason, who has written in the large forms with distinguished success. The Thomas Orchestra has performed a number of his works, which is an excellent praise, because Thomas, who has done so much for American audiences, has worried himself little about the American composer. At the World's Fair, which was, in some ways, the artistic birthday of Chicago, and possibly the most important artistic event in our national history, some of Gleason's works were performed by Thomas' organization, among them the Vorspiel to an opera, "Otho Visconti" (op. 7), for which Gleason wrote both words and music.

FREDERIC GRANT GLEASON.

This Vorspiel, like that to "Lohengrin," is short and delicate. It begins ravishingly with flutes and clarinets and four violins, pianissimo, followed by a blare of brass. After this introductory period the work runs through tenderly contemplative musing to the end, in which, again, the only strings are the four violins, though here they are accompanied by the brass and wood-winds and tympani, the cymbals being gently tapped with drumsticks. The introduction to the third act of the opera is more lyrical, but not so fine. Another opera is "Montezuma" (op. 16). Gleason is again his own librettist. Of this opera I have been privileged to see the complete piano score, and much of the orchestral.