Part 2 (2/2)

”Mr. Dwight does not say, what the history of music in this country will show, that to no one more than to him are we indebted for the intelligent taste which enjoys the best music. His lectures upon the works of the great Germans at the time of their performance by the Boston Academy of Music in the old Odeon forty years ago were a kind of manual for the intelligent audience. They showed that an elaborate orchestral musical composition might be as serious a work of art, as full of thought and pa.s.sion, and, in a word, of genius, as a great poem, and that no form of art was more spiritually elevating. They lifted the performance of such music from the category of mere amus.e.m.e.nt, and a.s.serted for the authors a dignity like that of the master poets. If to some hearers the exposition seemed sometimes fanciful and remote, it was only as all criticism of works of the imagination often seems so. If the spectator sometimes sees in a picture more than the painter consciously intended, it is because the higher power may work with unconscious hands, and because beauty cannot be hidden from the eye made to see it. Beethoven, for instance, had never a truer lover or a subtler interpreter than Dwight, and Dwight taught the teachers, and largely shaped the intelligent appreciation of the unapproached master.

”Those were memorable evenings at the old Odeon. Francis Beaumont did not more pleasantly recall the things that he and Ben Jonson had seen done at the Mermaid than an old Brook Farmer remembers the long walks, eight good miles in and eight miles out, to see the tall, willowy Schmidt swaying with his violin at the head of the orchestra, to hear the airy ripple of Auber's 'Zanetta,' the swift pa.s.sionate storm of Beethoven's 'Egmont,' the symphonic murmur of woods and waters and summer fields in the limpid 'Pastorale,' or the solemn grandeur of sustained pathetic human feeling in the 'Fifth Symphony.' The musical revival was all part of the new birth of the Transcendental epoch, although none would have more promptly disclaimed any taint of Transcendentalism than the excellent officers of the Boston Academy of Music. The building itself, the Odeon, was the old Federal Street Theatre, and had its interesting a.s.sociations.... To all there was now added, in the memory of the happy hearers, the a.s.sociation of the symphony concerts.

”As the last sounds died away, the group of Brook Farmers, who had ventured from the Arcadia of co-operation into the Gehenna of compet.i.tion, gathered up their unsoiled garments and departed. Out of the city, along the bare Tremont road, through green Roxbury and bowery Jamaica Plain, into the deeper and lonelier country, they trudged on, chatting and laughing and singing, sharing the enthusiasm of Dwight, and unconsciously taught by him that the evening had been greater than they knew. Brook Farm has long since vanished. The bare Tremont road is bare no longer. Green Roxbury and Jamaica Plain are almost city rather than suburbs. From the symphony concerts dates much of the musical taste and cultivation of Boston. The old Odeon is replaced by the stately Music Hall. The _Journal of Music_, which sprang from the impulse of those days, now, after a generation, is suspended; nor need we speculate why musical Boston, which demands the Pa.s.sion music of Bach, permits a journal of such character to expire. Amid all these changes and disappearances two things have steadily increased--the higher musical taste of the country, and the good name of the critic whose work has most contributed to direct and elevate it. If, as he says, it is sad that the little bark which the sympathetic encouragement of a few has kept afloat so long goes down before reaching the end of its thirtieth annual voyage, it does not take down with it the name and fame of its editor, which have secured their place in the history of music in America.”

From the beginning Dwight was intimately connected with the Harvard Musical a.s.sociation, which has done so much to promote the interests of music in Boston. He was its first vice-president and chairman of its board of directors. He was active in providing its meetings with attractive musical programmes; about 1844 he secured for it a series of chamber concerts; he took part in procuring the building of Music Hall, and in bringing to it the great organ which was for many years an attraction.

From 1855 to 1873 he continuously filled the position of vice-president of the a.s.sociation; and in the latter year was elected president, which place he held until his death. Beginning about 1850 he worked steadily for securing a good musical library, that should be as nearly complete as possible; and his desire was to make this a special feature in the activities of the a.s.sociation. In 1867 a room was secured for it; and in 1869 a suite of rooms was rented for the gatherings, both social and musical, of the members of the a.s.sociation. On his election as president, Dwight went to live in those rooms, cared for the library, and received the members and guests of the a.s.sociation whenever they chose to frequent them. This was in Pemberton Square; but in 1886 there was a removal to Park Square, and another in 1892 to West Cedar Street. Dwight's connection of forty or fifty years with the Harvard Musical a.s.sociation was most intimate, so that he and the a.s.sociation came to be almost identical in the minds of Boston people. Whatever it accomplished was through his initiative or with his active cooperation.

In 1865 Dwight proposed the organization of a Philharmonic Society among the members of the a.s.sociation, and also that a series of concerts be undertaken. This suggestion was carried out, and the concerts were for many years very successful. In time their place was taken by the concerts of Theodore Thomas, and the Symphony Concerts generously sustained by Mr.

H.L. Higginson; but it must be recognized that Dwight and the Harvard Musical a.s.sociation taught the Boston public to appreciate only those concerts at which the best music was produced.

One special object in the organization of the Harvard Musical a.s.sociation was the securing of a place for music in the curriculum of Harvard College. That was an object very dear to the heart of Dwight, and one which he brought forward frequently in the pages of his _Journal of Music_. He maintained that music was not merely for amus.e.m.e.nt, but that it is the most human and spiritual of all the arts, and must find its place in any systematic effort to secure a full-rounded culture. In a few years Harvard appointed an instructor in music. Mr. John K. Paine was called to that position in 1862, and was made a professor in 1876.

Dwight gave a most generous welcome to all young musicians of promise as they came forward. Such men as John C.D. Parker, John K. Paine, Benjamin J. Lang, George W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, and William F. Apthorp were generously aided by him; and the _Journal of Music_ never failed to speak an appreciative word for them. However Dwight might differ from some of them, he could recognize their true merits, and did not fail to make them known to the public. When Mr. Paine, who had been watched by Dwight with appreciation and approval from the beginning of his musical career, was made a professor of music in Harvard University, when his important musical compositions were published, and when his works were given fit interpretation in Cambridge and elsewhere, these events were welcomed by him as true indications of the development of music in this country.

For many years John S. Dwight was the musical autocrat of Boston, and what he approved was accepted as the best which could be obtained. His knowledge of music was literary rather than technical, appreciative rather than scientific; but his qualifications were such as to make him an admirable interpreter of music to the cultivated public of Boston. What a musical composition ought to mean to an intelligent person he could make known in language of a fine literary texture, and with a rare spiritual insight he voiced its poetic and aesthetic values. If the better-trained musicians of more recent years look upon his musical judgments with somewhat of disapproval, as not being sufficiently technical, they ought not to forget that he prepared the way for them as no one else could have done it, and that he had a fine skill in bringing educated persons to a just appreciation of what music is as an art. As Mr. William F. Apthorp has well said, ”his musical instincts and perceptions were, in a certain high respect, of the finest. He was irresistibly drawn towards what is pure, n.o.ble, and beautiful, and felt these things with infinite keenness.”

Dwight's last years were spent in furthering the interests of the Harvard Musical a.s.sociation, in writing about his beloved art, and in the society of his many generous friends. He had a talent for friends.h.i.+p, and during his lifetime he was intimately a.s.sociated with almost every man and woman of note in Boston. He was of a quiet, gentlemanly habit of life, took the world in the way of one who appreciates it and desires to secure from it the most of good, was warmly attached to the children of his friends and found the keenest delight in their presence, loved all that is graceful and beautiful, and devoted himself with unceasing ardor to the art for which he did so much to secure a just appreciation.

On the occasion of his eightieth birthday his friends and admirers were brought together in the rooms of the Harvard Musical a.s.sociation. It was a red-letter day in his life, and he greatly appreciated it. A few months later, September 5, 1893, his life came to an end--a life that had been in no way great, but that had been spent in the loving and faithful service of his fellow-men. At his funeral, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, an intimate friend of many years, read this just and appreciative tribute:

”O Presence reverend and rare, Art thou from earth withdrawn?

Thou pa.s.sest as the suns.h.i.+ne flits To light another dawn.

Surely among the symphonies That praise the Ever-blest, Some strophe of surpa.s.sing peace Inviteth thee to rest.

Thine was the treasure of a life Heart ripened from within, Whose many l.u.s.tres perfected What youth did well begin.

The n.o.ble champions of thy day Were thy companions meet, In the great harvest of our race, Bound with its priceless wheat.

Thy voice its silver cadence leaves In truth's resistless court, Whereof thy faithful services Her heralds make report.

Here thou, a watchful sentinel, Didst guard the gates of song, That no unworthy note should pa.s.s To do her temple wrong.

Dear are the traces of thy days Mixed in these walks of ours; Thy footsteps in our household ways Are garlanded with flowers.

If we surrender, earth to earth, The frame that's born to die, Spirit with spirit doth ascend To live immortally.”

The letters contained in this volume give fullest indication of the cordial and intimate relations which existed between Dwight and Curtis.

This may be seen more distinctly, perhaps, with the help of a few letters not there given, including two or three written by Dwight to his friend.

In a letter to Christopher P. Cranch, the preacher, poet, and artist, written at the time when he was starting his _Journal of Music_ on its way, Dwight said: ”If you see the Howadji, can you not enlist his active sympathy a little in my cause? A letter now and then from him on music or on art would be a feather in the cap of my enterprise. It is my last, desperate (not very confident), grand _coup d'etat_ to try to get a living; and I call on all good powers to help me launch the s.h.i.+p, or, rather, little boat.”

Curtis seconded his friend's efforts cordially, subscribed for the new journal, persuaded a number of his friends to subscribe, and wrote frequently for it. He wrote Dwight this letter of appreciation and advice:

”Your most welcome letter has been received, and its contents have been submitted to the astute deliberations of the editorial conclave [_Tribune_]. We are delighted at the prospect--but we do not love the name. 1st. _Journal of Music_ is too indefinite and commonplace. It will not be sufficiently distinguished from the _Musical Times_ and the _Musical World_, being of the same general character. 2d. 'Side-glances'

is suspicious. It 'smells' Transcendentalism, as the French say, and, of all things, any aspect of a clique is to be avoided.

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