Contemporary American Composers Part 11

_S.G. Pratt._

Almost every musician has heard of Christopher Columbus, and holds him in a certain esteem as a man without whose push the invention of America would have been long deferred; but few American musicians have felt under a sufficient debt of grat.i.tude to make his troubles and triumphs the foundation of an appropriate musical work. Silas G. Pratt was bold enough to undertake the monumental task; and he expended upon it large resources of scholars.h.i.+p, research, and enthusiasm. The work was performed at New York during the Quadricentennial of the discovery of America.

If Pratt had been born in old Egypt, he would have found his chief diversion in the building of pyramids, so undismayed is he by the size of a task. His patriotism is a sharp spur to him, and has enabled him to write an orchestral composition devoted to Paul Revere's Ride; a fantasy descriptive of a battle between the Northern and Southern armies; "The Battle of Manila;" "The Anniversary Overture," in commemoration of the centennial of American Independence, performed in Berlin twice, and in London at the Crystal Palace, during Grant's visit there; and a march called by the curious name of "Homage to Chicago." Besides these works Pratt has written the "Magdalen's Lament," his first orchestral composition, suggested by Murillo's picture; the lyric opera, "Antonio;" a first symphony, of which the adagio was performed in Berlin, the other movements being produced in Boston and Chicago; a second symphony, "The Prodigal Son;" a romantic opera, "Zen.o.bia," produced in Chicago; a lyric opera, "Lucille," which ran for three weeks in Chicago; a symphonic suite based on the "Tempest;" a canon for a string quartette; a serenade for string orchestra; a grotesque suite, "The Brownies," produced in New York and at Brighton Beach by Anton Seidl. Besides these works of musical composition, Pratt has delivered various musical lectures, ingeniously contrived to entertain the great public and at the same time inform it. He has been active also in the organization of various musical enterprises, among them the Apollo Club of Chicago.

Pratt was born in Addison, Vermont, August 4, 1846. At the age of twelve, he was thrown on his own resources, and connected himself with music publis.h.i.+ng houses in Chicago. After various public performances, he went to Germany in 1868, to study the piano under Bendel and Kullak, and counterpoint under Kiel. In 1872 he returned to Chicago and gave a concert of his own works. But the phoenix city had not entirely preened its wings after the great fire of 1871, and Pratt found no support for his ambitions. After teaching and giving concerts, he returned to Germany in 1875, where he attended the rehearsals of Wagner's Trilogy at Bayreuth, met Liszt here, and gave a recital of his own compositions at Weimar. His "Anniversary Overture"

was cordially received by the press of both Berlin and London. A third visit to Europe was made in 1885 for the production of the "Prodigal Son" at the Crystal Palace, on the occasion of which, Berthold Tours wrote that both the symphony and the "Anniversary Overture" were "grandly conceived works, full of striking originality, modern harmony, flowing melody, and beautiful, as well as imposing effects."

Activity along such lines has left Pratt little time for the smaller forms of composition; a few have been published, among them the song, "Dream Vision," in which Schumann's "Traumerei" is used for violin obbligato; and a few piano pieces, such as "Six Soliloquies," with poetic text. In these each chord shows careful effort at color, and the work is chromatic enough to convince one that he has studied his Bach thoroughly.

Among his ma.s.sive compositions there are two that seem likely to win, as they surely deserve, a long life. These are the symphonic suite, "The Tempest," and the "Prodigal Son." To the latter splendid achievement, A.J. Goodrich devotes several pages of his "Musical a.n.a.lysis," to which I can do no better than to refer the reader. The "Tempest" is based, of course, on Shakespeare's play, and is described as follows by the composer:

"It is intended, in the first movement, Adagio, to typify the sorrow of Prospero, and his soul's protest against the ingrat.i.tude and persecution of his enemies. His willing attendant Ariel is briefly indicated in the closing measures.

The Pastoral furnishes an atmosphere or stage setting for the lovers, Miranda and Ferdinand, whose responsive love-song follows the droning of a shepherd's pipe in the distance.

Prospero's interruption to their pa.s.sionate a.s.surances of devotion, and the imposition of the unpleasant task, are briefly touched upon, and the movement closes with a repeat of the pastoral, and alternate reiteration of the lover's song. The Finale, after a short introduction, in most sombre vein, indicates the flitting about of Ariel and his companion sprites as they gather for revelry. The presence of the master is soon made apparent by the recurrence, in a subdued manner, of Prospero's first theme from the Adagio, the fantastic tripping of the elves continuing, as though the controlling spirit were conjuring up the fete for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the lovers and himself.

"'Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves; And ye that on the sand, with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back.'

"The dance then begins, and continues in a fantastic, at times grotesque and furious manner, the theme of the lovers being interwoven at times, in an un.o.btrusive way. At length, Caliban is heard approaching, singing his drunken song.

""Ban, 'Ban, Ca-caliban Has a new master: get a new man.'

"Ariel and his companions flit about, ridiculing, mocking, and laughing at him; eventually prodding and pinching him until, s.h.i.+vering, with aching joints, he staggers away. The revelry then continues, the song of the lovers becoming more and more prominent until, somewhat broadened out, it a.s.serts itself triumphantly above all, Ariel and his companions flitting about, Prospero happy, and Caliban subjugated, all the chief themes being united to form the climax and close of the work."

Although Pratt intentionally omitted the English horn and the ba.s.s clarinet, the scoring is remarkable for its color and faery. The work is highly lyrical in effect, and the woodsiness is beautifully established. The solemnity of Prospero, the adroitness of the lovers and the contrasting natures of the volatile Ariel and the sprawling Caliban, make up a cast of characters in the development of which music is peculiarly competent. The stertorous monologue of Caliban and his hobbling dance, and the taunting and pinching torment he is submitted to, make excellent humor.

_Henry K. Hadley._

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY K. HADLEY.]

The word symphony has a terrifying sound, particularly when it is applied to a modern work; for latter-day music is essentially romantic in nature, and it is only a very rare composer that has the inclination or the ability to force the cla.s.sic form to meet his new ideas. The result is that such a work usually lacks spontaneity, conviction. The modern writer does much better with the symphonic poem.

The number of American symphonies worth listening to, could be counted on the fingers with several digits to spare. A new finger has been preempted by Henry K. Hadley's symphony called "Youth and Life." The t.i.tle is doubly happy. Psychologically it is a study of the intense emotional life of youth, written by an American youth,--a young man who, by the way, strangely reminds one, in his appearance, of Macmonnies' American type, as represented by his ideal statue of Nathan Hale.

And musically the work is imbued with both youth and life. It has blood and heart in it. The first movement is a conflict between good and evil motives struggling like the mediaeval angels for the soul of the hero. The better power wins triumphantly. The second movement, however, shows doubt and despair, remorse and deep spiritual depression. The climax of this feeling is a death-knell, which, smitten softly, gives an indescribably dismal effect, and thrills without starting. Angelus bells in pedal-point continue through a period of hope and prayer; but remorse again takes sway. The ability to obtain this fine solemnity, and follow it with a scherzo of extraordinary gaiety, proves that a genius is at large among us. The Scherzo displays a thigh-slapping, song-singing _abandon_ that typifies youthful frivolity fascinatingly. A fugue is used incidentally with a burlesque effect that reminds one of Berlioz'

"Amen" parody in the "d.a.m.nation of Faust." The Finale exploits motives of ambition and heroism, with a moment of love. The climax is vigorous. Without being at all ariose, the symphony is full of melody.

Its melodies are not counterpoint, but expression; and each instrument or choir of instruments is an individuality.

Hadley is galvanic with energy and optimism, dextrous to a remarkable degree in the mechanism of composition. His scoring is mature, fervent, and certain. His symphony is legitimately programmatic and alive with brains, biceps, and blood,--all three,--the three great B's of composition.

Hadley was born at Somerville, Ma.s.s., in 1871. His father was a teacher of music and gave him immediate advantages. He studied harmony with Stephen A. Emery, counterpoint with G.W. Chadwick, and the violin with Henry Heindl and Charles N. Allen of Boston. Before attaining his majority, he had completed a dramatic overture, a string quartette, a trio, and many songs and choruses. In 1894 he went to Vienna and studied composition with Mandyczewski. Here he composed his third suite for the orchestra. In 1896 he returned to America and took charge of the music department of St. Paul's school at Garden City, L.I. He has had some experience as a conductor and has been very prolific in composition. His first symphony was produced under the direction of Anton Seidl, in December, 1897; and at a concert of his own compositions, again, in January, 1900, Hadley conducted this symphony, and also two movements from his second symphony, "The Seasons." These two movements show a mellower technic, perhaps, but are less vital. He has written three ballet suites with p.r.o.nounced success, the work being musical and yet full of the ecstasy of the dance. His third ballet suite, which is the best, was produced at a concert of the American Symphony Orchestra, under Sam Franko.

The existence of a festival march, a concert overture, "Hector and Andromache," two comic operas, and six songs for chorus and orchestra, besides a number of part songs and piano pieces, and over one hundred songs, forty of which are published, gives proof of the restless energy of the man. The high average of scholars.h.i.+p is a proof of his right to serious acceptance.

A cantata for orchestra, "Lelewala," a legend of Niagara, is published for piano accompaniment. Now, Niagara is a dangerous subject for the frail skiffs of rhyme, prose, or music to launch out upon. Barrel staves may carry one through the whirlpool, but music staves cannot stand the stress. Of all the comments upon the Falls of Niagara that I have ever read, or heard of, there has been only one that seemed anything but ridiculously inappropriate; that one was the tribute of a young boy who, on standing face to face with the falls, simply exclaimed, in an awe-smothered whisper, "Well, by gos.h.!.+" But it must be admitted that these words would baffle the music-making propensities even of the composer of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus."

That learned composer, George F. Bristow, now dead, made the mistake of attempting to compa.s.s Niagara in a work for chorus and orchestra.

Hadley is not exactly guilty of the same fatal attempt in his "Lelewala," for the poem is chiefly a story of love and sacrifice; but Niagara comes in as a programmatic incident, and the author of the text has fallen lamentably short of his subject in certain instances.

In other moments, he has written with genuine charm, and the music has much that is worth while.

Among his published songs are to be noted the unusually good setting of Heine's "Wenn ich in deine Augen seh'" and of his less often heard "Sapphire sind die Augen dein," and "Der Schmetterling ist in die Rose verliebt." A deservedly popular work is "I Plucked a Quill from Cupid's Wing." Among so many morose or school-bound composers, Hadley is especially important for the fact that he is thrilled with a sane and jubilant music.

_Adolph M. Foerster._

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADOLPH M. FOERSTER.]

It has been fortunate for American song that it forsook the narrow, roystering school of English ballad and took for its national model the _Lied_ of the later German school. It is true that the earlier English had its poetry-respecting music in the work of such a man as Henry Lawes, or Purcell, just as it had its composers who far preceded Bach in the key-roving idea of the "Well-tempered Clavier;" but that spirit died out of England, and found its latest avatar in such men as Robert Franz, who confessed that he had his first and fullest recognition from this country.

A correspondence with Franz was carried on for eighteen years by one of the solidest of American composers, Adolph M. Foerster, who gives distinction to the musical life of Pittsburg. He knew Franz personally, and has written an important appreciation of him for the magazine _Music_. Foerster was born at Pittsburg in 1854. After three years of commercial life, he took up music seriously, and spent the years from 1872 to 1875 at Leipzig,--studying the piano under Coccius and Wenzel, singing under Grill and Schimon, and theory under E.F.

Richter and Papperitz. Returning to America, he connected himself with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Conservatory of Music, then under the direction of the beneficent inventor of the Virgil Clavier. A year later he returned to Pittsburg, where he has since remained. For awhile he was conductor of a symphonic society and a choral union, which are no longer extant. Since, he has devoted himself to teaching and composition.

Of Foerster's piano compositions opus 11 is a "Valse Brillante," warm and melodious. Opus 13 is a "Sonnet," based, after the plan of Liszt, upon a lyric of Petrarch's, a beautiful translation from his "Gli occhi di ch'io parlai si caldamente." It is full of pa.s.sion, and shows a fine variety in the handling of persistent repet.i.tion. Opus 18 couples two sonatinas. The second has the more merit, but both, like most sonatinas, are too trivial of psychology and too formal even to be recommended for children's exercises. "Eros" is a fluent melody, with a scherzesque second part.

Opus 37 contains two concert etudes, both superb works. The first, "Exaltation," is very original, though neither the beginning nor the ending is particularly striking. The music between, however, has a fervor that justifies the t.i.tle. This etude is, like those of Chopin, at the same time a technical study and a mood. The second, a "Lamentation," begins with a most sonorous downward harmony, with rushes up from the ba.s.s like the lessening onsets of a retreating tide. Throughout, the harmonies and emotions are remarkably profound and the climaxes wild. I should call it one of the best modern piano compositions.

Twelve "Fantasy Pieces" are included in opus 38. They are short tone-poems. The second, "Sylvan Spirits," is fascinating, and "Pretty Marie" has an irresistibly gay melody. He has dedicated the six songs of opus 6 to Robert Franz. These are written in a close unarpeggiated style chiefly, but they are very interesting in their pregnant simplicity. In two cases they are even impressive: the well-known lyric, "Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome," and "Meeresstille." Opus 12 is a notable group of three songs: "Mists" is superbly harmonious. Opus 25 includes "Ask Thou Not the Heather Gray," a rhapsody of the utmost ingenuity in melody and accompaniment. It has a catching blissfulness and a verve that make it one of the best American songs. Opus 28 is a book called "Among Flowers." The music is in every case good, and especially satisfactory in its emanc.i.p.ation from the Teutonism of Foerster's earlier songs. The song "Among the Roses" has a beautiful poem, which deserves the superb music. It ends hauntingly with an unresolved major ninth chord on the dominant of the dominant. So the frenzy of "In Blossom Time" is emotion of a human, rather than a botanical sort. "The Cradle Song" adapts the Siegfried Idyl, and the "Old Proverb" is rollicking. The two songs of opus 34 are fitted with words by Byron. The three songs of opus 44 also make use of this poet, now so little in vogue with composers. There are three songs in opus 42: a pathetic "Little Wild Rose," and "By the Seaside," which is full of solemnity. "The Shepherd's Lament" is one of his best lyrics, with a strange accompaniment containing an inverted pedal-point in octaves.

There are also several part songs.

In larger forms, Mr. Foerster is even more successful. Opus 10 is a Character-piece for full orchestra, based on Karl Schafer's poem, "Thusnelda." It is short but vigorous, and well unified. Opus 15 is a Fantasie for violin and piano, the piano having really the better of it. The treatment is very original, and the strong idea well preserved. Opus 21 is a Quartette for violin, viola, 'cello, and piano. The first movement begins solemnly, but breaks into an appa.s.sionato. All four instruments have an equal voice in the parley, and all the outbursts are emotional rather than contrapuntal. A climax of tremendous power is attained. The second movement omits the piano for a beautiful adagio. The third is an hilarious allegro, and the finale is an even gayer presto, with movements of sudden sobriety, suddenly swept away. Foerster calls this Quartette "far inferior" to a second one, opus 40. This, however, I have not seen; but I do not hesitate to call opus 21 a masterly work.

Opus 24 is an "Alb.u.mblatt" for 'cello and piano. It is a wonderwork of feeling and deep richness of harmony, of absolute sincerity and inspiration. Opus 29 is a Trio for violin, 'cello, and piano. The three begin in unison, andante, whence the 'cello breaks away, followed soon by the others, into the joviality of a drinking bout.

There is a military moment, a lyric of more seriousness, and a finish agitato. The second movement is a larghetto highly embroidered. The third movement is a vivace with the spirit of a Beethoven presto.

Opus 36 is a suite for violin and piano, beginning with a most engaging and most skilful Novelette.

In MS. are: an elaborate ballad, "Hero and Leander," which, in spite of an unworthy postlude and certain "Tristan und Isolde" memories, is ardent and vivid with pa.s.sion; "Verzweifelung," which is bitter and wild with despair; a suite for piano (op. 46) containing a waltz as ingenious as it is captivating; and a finale called "Homage to Brahms." This is a remarkably clever piece of writing, which, while it lacks the Brahmsian trade-mark of thirds in the ba.s.s, has much of that composer's best manner, less in his tricks of speech than in his tireless development and his subst.i.tution of monumental thematicism for lyric emotion. In MS. is also a prelude to Goethe's "Faust" for full orchestra. It has very definite leading motives, which include "Faust's Meditations," "Visions of Margarethe," "Evil" and "Love"

(almost inversions of each other), "Mephistopheles," and the like. The strife of these elements is managed with great cleverness, ending beatifically with the motive of Gretchen dying away in the wood-wind.

An orchestral score that has been published is the Dedication March for Carnegie Hall in Pittsburg. It begins with a long fanfare of horns heard behind the scenes. Suddenly enters a jubilant theme beginning with Andrew Carnegie's initials, a worthy tribute to one to whom American music owes much.

_Charles Crozat Converse._

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES CROZAT CONVERSE.]

Musicians are not, as a cla.s.s, p.r.o.ne to a various erudition (a compliment fully returned by the learned in other directions, who are almost always profoundly ignorant of the actual art of music). One of the rule-proving exceptions is Charles Crozat Converse, who has delved into many philosophies. An example of his versatility of interest is his coining of the word "thon" (a useful subst.i.tute for the ubiquitous awkwardness of "he or she" and "his or her"), which has been adopted by the Standard Dictionary.

Converse' ancestry is American as far back as 1630. Converse was born at Warren, Ma.s.s., October 7, 1832. After being well grounded in English and the cla.s.sics, he went, in 1855, to Germany. Here he studied law and philosophy, and music at the Conservatorium in Leipzig. He enjoyed the instruction of Richter, Hauptmann, Plaidy, and Haupt, and made the acquaintance of Liszt and Spohr. Spohr was especially interested in, and influential in, his work, and confident of its success.

Returning to America, he graduated from the Law Department of Albany University in 1860, with the degree of LL.B. The B has since been dignified into a D, as a tribute to his unusual accomplishments.

Converse declined the honor of a Doctors.h.i.+p of Music from the University of Cambridge, offered him by its professor, the well-known English composer, Sterndale Bennett, in recognition of his mastery of lore as evinced in a five-voiced double fugue that ends his Psalm-Cantata on the 126th Psalm.

This scholarly work was performed under the direction of Theodore Thomas in 1888, at Chicago.

A widely known contribution to religious music is Converse' hymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," which has been printed, so they say, in all the tongues of Christendom, and sold to the extent of fifty millions of copies. This tune occupied a warm place in my Sunday-schoolboy heart, along with other singable airs of the Moody and Sankey type, but as I hum it over in memory now, it tastes sweetish and thin. Its popularity is appalling, musically at least.

Converse has written many other hymn-tunes, which have taken their place among ecclesiastical soporifics. Besides, he has recently compiled a collection of the world's best hymns into the "Standard Hymnal." In this field Converse, though conventional,--and conventionality may be considered inevitable here,--is mellow of harmony and sincere in sentiment.

Numberless attempts are made to supply our uncomfortable lack of a distinctly national air, but few of them have that first requisite, a fiery catchiness, and most of them have been so bombastic as to pall even upon palates that can endure Fourth of July glorification.