Part 28 (1/2)
All arrangements were completed; and the Jubilee Singers, as they were called, left Nashville in the fall of 1871 for a concert-tour of the Northern States, to accomplish the worthy object just mentioned.
Professor White, who was an educated and skilful musician, accompanied them as musical director. Mr. Theodore F. Seward, also of fine musical ability, was, after a while, a.s.sociated in like capacity with the singers. The following are the names of those who at one time and another, since the date of organization, have been members of the Jubilee choir:--
MISS ELLA SHEPARD, PIANIST.
MR. THOMAS RUTLING, MR. H. ALEXANDER, MR. F.J. LOUDIN, MR. G.H. OUSLEY, MR. BENJAMIN M. HOLMES, MR. ISAAC P. d.i.c.kERSON, MR. GREENE EVANS, MR. EDMUND WATKINS, MISS MAGGIE PORTER, MISS JENNIE JACKSON, MISS GEORGIE GORDON, MISS MAGGIE CARNES, MISS JULIA JACKSON, MISS ELIZA WALKER, MISS MINNIE TATE, MISS JOSEPHINE MOORE, MISS MABEL LEWIS, AND MISS A.W. ROBINSON.
This list might well be called the _Roll of Honor_.
I have not s.p.a.ce to follow in detail this ambitious band of singers in their remarkable career throughout this country and in Great Britain.
The wonderful story of their journey of song is fully and graphically told in a book (which I advise all to read) written by Mr. G.D. Pike, and published in 1873. A brief survey of this journey must here suffice.
The songs they sang were generally of a religious character,--”slave _spirituals_,”--and such as have been sung by the American bondmen in the cruel days of the past. These had originated with the slave; had sprung spontaneously, so to speak, from souls naturally musical; and formed, as one eminent writer puts it, ”_the only native American music_.”
The strange, weird melody of these songs, which burst upon the Northern States, and parts of Europe, as a revelation in vocal music, as a music most thrillingly sweet and soul-touching, sprang then, strange to say, from a state of slavery; and the habitually minor character of its tones may well be ascribed to the depression of feeling, the anguish, that must ever fill the hearts of those who are forced to lead a life so fraught with woe. This is clearly exemplified, and the sad story of this musical race is comprehensively told, in Ps. cx.x.xvii.:--
”By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
”We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
”For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
”How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?”
And yet, ever patient, ever hopeful of final deliverance, they did sing on and on, until at last the joyful day of freedom dawned upon them.
To render these songs essentially as they had been rendered in slave-land came the Jubilee Singers. They visited most of the cities and large towns of the North, everywhere drawing large and often overwhelming audiences, creating an enthusiasm among the people rarely ever before equalled. The cultured and the uncultured were alike charmed and melted to tears as they listened with a new enthusiasm to what was a wonderfully new exhibition of the greatness of song-power.
Many persons, it is true, were at first attracted to the concert-hall by motives of mere curiosity, hardly believing, as they went, that there could be much to enjoy. These, however, once under the influence of the singers, soon found themselves yielding fully to the enchanting beauty of the music; and they would come away saying the half had not been told. The musical critics, like all others in the audiences, were so lost in admiration, that they forgot to criticise; and, after recovering from what seemed a trance of delight, they could only say that this ”music of the heart” was beyond the touch of criticism.
I have spoken of the origin and the character of these songs. Those who so charmingly interpreted them deserve most particular notice. The rendering of the Jubilee Singers, it is true, was not always strictly in accordance with artistic forms. The songs did not require this; for they possessed in themselves a peculiar power, a plaintive, emotional beauty, and other characteristics which seemed entirely independent of artistic embellishment. These characteristics were, with a most refres.h.i.+ng originality, naturalness, and soulfulness of voice and method, fully developed by the singers, who sang with all their might, yet with most pleasing sweetness of tone.
But, as regards the judgment pa.s.sed upon this ”Jubilee melody” from a high musical stand-point, I quote from a very good authority; viz., Theo. F. Seward of Orange, N.J.:--
”It is certain that the critic stands completely disarmed in their presence. He must not only recognize their immense power over audiences which include many people of the highest culture, but, if he be not entirely incased in prejudice, he must yield a tribute of admiration on his own part, and acknowledge that these songs touch a chord which the most consummate art fails to reach. Something of this result is doubtless due to the singers as well as to their melodies. The excellent rendering of the Jubilee Band is made more effective, and the interest is intensified, by the comparison of their former state of slavery and degradation with the present prospects and hopes of their race, which crowd upon every listener's mind during the singing of their songs; yet the power is chiefly in the songs themselves.”
It would not do, of course, to a.s.sume that to the almost matchless beauty of the songs and their rendering was due alone the intense interest that centred in these singers. They were on a _n.o.ble mission_. They sang to build up education in the blighted land in which they themselves and millions more had so long drearily plodded in ignorance; and it was a most striking and yet pleasing exhibition of poetic justice, when many of those who really, in a certain sense, had been parties to their enslavement, were forced to pay tribute to the signs of genius found in this native music, and to contribute money for the cause represented by these delightful musicians.
But I must not give only my own opinion of these singers, as I am supposed to be a partial witness. Many, many others, among whom are the most talented and cultured of this country and England, have spoken of them in terms the most laudatory. Some of these shall now more than confirm my words of praise.
The Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler of Brooklyn, writing in January, 1872, to ”The New-York Tribune,” thus spoke of them:--
”When the Rev. Mr. Chalmers (the younger) visited this country as the delegate of the Scotch Presbyterian General a.s.sembly, he went home and reported to his countrymen that he had 'found the ideal church in America: it was made up of Methodist praying, Presbyterian preaching, and Southern negro-singing.' The Scotchman would have been confirmed in his opinion if he had been in Lafayette-avenue Church last night, and heard the Jubilee Singers,--a company of colored students, male and female, from Fisk University of Freedmen, Nashville, Tenn. In Mr. Beecher's church they delighted a vast throng of auditors, and another equally packed audience greeted them last evening.
”I never saw a cultivated Brooklyn a.s.semblage so moved and melted under the magnetism of music before. The wild melodies of these emanc.i.p.ated slaves touched the fount of tears, and gray-haired men wept like children....
”The harmony of these children of nature, and their musical execution, were beyond the reach of art. Their wonderful skill was put to the severest test when they attempted 'Home, Sweet Home,' before auditors who had heard these same household words from the lips of Jenny Lind and Parepa; yet these emanc.i.p.ated bondwomen, now that they knew what the word 'home' signifies, rendered that dear old song with a power and pathos never surpa.s.sed.
”Allow me to bespeak through your journal ... a universal welcome through the North for these living representatives of the only true native school of American music. We have long enough had its coa.r.s.e caricature in corked faces: our people can now listen to the genuine soul-music of the slave-cabins before the Lord led his 'children out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.'”
The welcome thus eloquently bespoken for the singers was enthusiastically extended to them all over the North. The journals of the day fairly teemed with praises of them; and often, in the larger cities, hundreds of persons were turned away from the concert-hall, unable to obtain admittance, so great was the rush.
After a while they visited England, where they sang before the Queen and others of the n.o.bility, everywhere repeating the triumphs that had been theirs in this country. In fact, it was proved that their power as singers held sway wherever they sang; wherever was found a soul in unison with melodious sound, a heart capable of human emotion. It was not so much the words of their songs--these, it is true, were not without merit in a religious sense--as the strangely pathetic and delightful melody of their music, and the freshness and heartiness of the rendering, that gave them their greatest charm. This has since been most pointedly demonstrated in Holland and Switzerland, where these singers have drawn crowded and delighted audiences that neither speak nor understand a word of English: such is the beautiful, far-reaching power of this, in the truest sense, ”music of the heart.”