Rupert Hughes

[Listen]

VICTOR HARRIS, Op. 16, No. 3.

music

Copyright, 1898, by Edward Schuberth & Co.

Oh! threats of Hell and hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain—
This Life flies,
One thing is certain, and the rest is Lies!
The Flower that once has blown for ever, for ever dies.

One of the most prominent figures in American musical history has been Dr. William Mason. He was born in Boston, January 24, 1829, and was the son of Lowell Mason, that pioneer in American composition. Dr. William Mason studied in Boston, and in Germany under Moscheles, Hauptmann, Richter, and Liszt. His success in concerts abroad and here gave prestige to his philosophy of technic, and his books on method have taken the very highest rank.

His pedagogical attainments have overshadowed his composition, but he has written some excellent music. As he has been an educational force in classical music, so his compositions show the severe pursuit of classic forms and ideas. His work is, therefore, rather ingenious than inspired, and intellectual rather than emotional. Yale made him Doctor of Music in 1872.

Another composer whose studies in technic have left him only a little inclination for creation is Albert Ross Parsons, who was born at Sandusky, O., September 16, 1847. He studied in Buffalo, and in New York under Ritter. Then he went to Germany, where he had a remarkably thorough schooling under Moscheles, Reinecke, Richter, Paul, Taussig, Kullak, and others. Returning to this country, he has busied himself as organist, teacher, and an editor of musical works. What little music he has composed shows the fruit of his erudition in its correctness.

Such men as Doctor Mason and Mr. Parsons, though they add little to the volume of composition,—a thing for which any one should be thanked on some considerations,—yet add great dignity to their profession in this country.

Arthur, a younger brother of Ethelbert Nevin, shows many of the Nevinian traits of lyric energy and harmonic color in his songs. He was born at Sewickley, Pa., in 1871. Until he was eighteen he had neither interest nor knowledge in music. In 1891 he began a four years' course in Boston, going thence to Berlin, where his masters were Klindworth and Boise. A book of four graceful "May Sketches" has been published, "Pierrot's Guitar" being especially ingenious. There are two published songs, "Were I a Tone" and "In Dreams," both emotionally rich. In manuscript are a fine song, "Free as the Tossing Sea," and a well-devised trio.

A successful writer of songs is C. Whitney Coombs. He was born in Maine, in 1864, and went abroad at the age of fourteen. He studied the piano with Speidel, and composition with Seiffritz, in Stuttgart, for five years, and pursued his studies later in Dresden under Draessecke, Janssen, and John. In 1887 he became organist at the American Church in that city, returning to America in 1891, since which time he has been an organist in New York.

In 1891 his publication begins with "My Love," an excellent lilt on lines from the Arabian. Among his many songs a few should be noted: the "Song of a Summer Night" is brilliant and poetic, and "Alone" is marked by some beautiful contramelodic effects; his "Indian Serenade" is a gracious work.

J. Remington Fairlamb has been a prolific composer. He was born at Philadelphia, and at fourteen was a church organist. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire and in Italy; was appointed consul at Zurich by President Lincoln, and while in Stuttgart was decorated by the King of Wurtemburg with the "Great Gold Medal of Art and Science" for a Te Deum for double chorus and orchestra. Of Fairlamb's compositions, some two hundred have been published, including much sacred music and parts of two operas. A grand opera, "Leonello," in five acts, and a mass are in manuscript.

Frank Seymour Hastings has found in music a pleasant avocation from finance, and written various graceful songs. He has been active, too, in the effort to secure a proper production of grand opera in English.

Dr. John M. Loretz, of Brooklyn, is a veteran composer, and has passed his opus 200. He has written much sacred music and several comic operas.

A prominent figure in New York music, though only an occasional composer, is Louis Raphael Dressler, one of the six charter members of the Manuscript Society, and long its treasurer. His father was William Dressler, one of the leading musicians of the earlier New York, where Mr. Dressler was born, in 1861. Dressier studied with his father, and inherited his ability as a professional accompanist and conductor. He was the first to produce amateur performances of opera in New York. His songs are marked with sincerity and spontaneity.

Richard Henry Warren has been the organist at St. Bartholomew's since 1886, and the composer of much religious music in which both skill and feeling are present. Among his more important works are two complete services, a scene for barytone solo, male chorus, and orchestra, called "Ticonderoga," and a powerful Christmas anthem. Warren has written also various operettas, in which he shows a particular grasp of instrumentation, and an ability to give new turns of expression to his songs, while keeping them smooth and singable. An unpublished short song of his, "When the Birds Go North," is a remarkably beautiful work, showing an aptitude that should be more cultivated.

Warren was born at Albany, September 17, 1859. He is a son and pupil of George W. Warren, the distinguished organist. He went to Europe in 1880, and again in 1886, for study and observation. He was the organizer and conductor of the Church Choral Society, which gave various important religious works their first production in New York, and, in some cases, their first hearing in America, notably, DvÔrÁk's Requiem Mass, Gounod's "Mors et Vita," Liszt's Thirteenth Psalm, Saint-SaËns' "The Heavens Declare," Villiers Stanford's "God is Our Hope and Strength," and Mackenzie's "Veni, Creator Spiritus." Horatio Parker's "Hora Novissima" was composed for this society, and Chadwick's "Phoenix Expirans" given its first New York performance.

A prominent organist and teacher is Smith N. Penfield, who has also found time for the composition of numerous scholarly works, notably, an overture for full orchestra, an orchestral setting of the eighteenth psalm, a string quartette, and many pieces for the organ, voice, and piano. His tuition has been remarkably thorough. Born in Oberlin, Ohio, April 4, 1837, he studied the piano in Germany with Moscheles, Papperitz, and Reinecke, the organ with Richter, composition, counterpoint, and fugue with Reinecke and Hauptmann. He had also a period of study in Paris.

Another organist of distinction is Frank Taft, who is also a conductor and a composer. His most important work is a "Marche Symphonique," which was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was born in East Bloomfield, New York, and had his education entirely in this country, studying the organ with Clarence Eddy, and theory with Frederic Grant Gleason.

A young composer of many graceful songs is Charles Fonteyn Manney, who was born in Brooklyn in 1872, and studied theory with William Arms Fisher in New York, and later with J. Wallace Goodrich at Boston. His most original song is "Orpheus with His Lute," which reproduces the quaint and fascinating gaucheries of the text with singular charm. He has also set various songs of Heine's to music, and a short cantata for Easter, "The Resurrection."

An ability that is strongly individual is that of Arthur Farwell, whose first teacher in theory was Homer A. Norris, and who later studied under Humperdinck in Germany. Among his works are an elaborate ballade for piano and violin, a setting of Shelley's "Indian Serenade," and four folk-songs to words by Johanna Ambrosius, the peasant genius of Germany. Among others of his published songs is "Strow Poppy Buds," a strikingly original composition.

A writer of numerous elegant trifles and of a serious symphony is Harry Patterson Hopkins, who was born in Baltimore, and graduated at the Peabody Institute in 1896, receiving the diploma for distinguished musicianship. The same year he went to Bohemia, and studied with DvÔrÁk. He returned to America to assist in the production of one of his compositions by Anton Seidl.

Very thorough was the foreign training of Carl V. Lachmund, whose "Japanese Overture" has been produced under the direction of Thomas and Seidl, in the former case at a concert of that society at which many important native works have had their only hearing, the Music Teachers' National Association. Lachmund was born at Booneville, Mo., in 1854. At the age of thirteen he began his tuition at Cologne, under Heller, Jensen, and Seiss; later he went to Berlin to study with the Scharwenkas, Kiel, and Moskowski. He had also four years of Liszt's training at Weimar. A trio for harp, violin, and 'cello was played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and a concert prelude for the piano was much played in concerts in Germany. Before returning to America, Lachmund was for a time connected with the opera at Cologne.

The Boston Colony.

To the composer potentially a writer of grand operas, but barred out by the absolute lack of opening here, the dramatic ballad should offer an attractive form. Such works as Schubert's "Erl-King" show what can be done. Henry Holden Huss has made some interesting experiments, and Fred. Field Bullard has tried the field.

FREDERICK FIELD BULLARD.

Bullard's setting of Tennyson's almost lurid melodrama in six stanzas, "The Sisters," has caught the bitter mixture of love and hate, and avoided claptrap climaxes most impressively.

"In the Greenwood" (op. 14) is graceful, and "A June Lullaby" has a charming accompaniment of humming rain. Bullard has set some of Shelley's lyrics for voice and harp or piano, in opus 17. "From Dreams of Thee" gets a delicious quaintness of accompaniment, while the "Hymn of Pan" shows a tremendous savagery and uncouthness, with strange and stubborn harmonies. Full of the same roborific virility are his settings to the songs of Richard Hovey's writing, "Here's a Health to Thee, Roberts," "Barney McGee," and the "Stein Song." These songs have an exuberance of the roistering spirit, along with a competence of musicianship that lifts them above any comparison with the average balladry. Similarly "The Sword of Ferrara," with its hidalgic pride, and "The Indifferent Mariner," and the drinking-song, "The Best of All Good Company," are all what Horace Greeley would have called "mighty interesting." Not long ago I would have wagered my head against a hand-saw, that no writer of this time could write a canon with spontaneity. But then I had not seen Bullard's three duets in canon form. He has chosen his words so happily and expressed them so easily, and with such arch raillery, that the duets are delicious. Of equal gaiety is "The Lass of Norwich Town," which, with its violin obbligato, won a prize in the Musical Record competition of 1899.