Part 17 (1/2)
[E] ”But no real student can have studied the score deeply, or listened discriminatingly to a good performance, without discovering that there is a tremendous chasm between the conventional aims of the Italian poet in the book of the opera and the work which emerged from the composer's profound imagination. Da Ponte contemplated a _dramma giocoso_; Mozart humored him until his imagination came within the shadow cast before by the catastrophe, and then he transformed the poet's comedy into a tragedy of crus.h.i.+ng power. The climax of Da Ponte's ideal is reached in a picture of the dissolute _Don_ wrestling in idle desperation with a host of spectacular devils, and finally disappearing through a trap, while fire bursts out on all sides, the thunders roll, and _Leporello_ gazes on the scene, crouched in a comic att.i.tude of terror, under the table. Such a picture satisfied the tastes of the public of his time, and that public found nothing incongruous in a return to the scene immediately afterward of all the characters save the reprobate, who had gone to his reward, to hear a description of the catastrophe from the buffoon under the table, and plat.i.tudinously to moralize that the perfidious wretch, having been stored away safely in the realm of Pluto and Proserpine, nothing remained for them to do except to raise their voices in the words of the ”old song,”
_”Questo e il fin di chi fa mal: E dei perfidi la morte Alla vita e sempre ugual.”_
”New York Musical Season, 1889-90.”
[F] ”Review of the New York Musical Season, 1889-90,” p. 75.
[G] See ”Studies in the Wagnerian Drama,” chapter I.
VIII
_Choirs and Choral Music_
[Sidenote: _Choirs a touchstone of culture._]
[Sidenote: _The value of choir singing._]
No one would go far astray who should estimate the extent and sincerity of a community's musical culture by the number of its chorus singers. Some years ago it was said that over three hundred cities and towns in Germany contained singing societies and orchestras devoted to the cultivation of choral music. In the United States, where there are comparatively a small number of instrumental musicians, there has been a wonderful development of singing societies within the last generation, and it is to this fact largely that the notable growth in the country's knowledge and appreciation of high-cla.s.s music is due.
No amount of mere hearing and study can compare in influence with partic.i.p.ation in musical performance. Music is an art which rests on love. It is beautiful sound vitalized by feeling, and it can only be grasped fully through man's emotional nature. There is no quicker or surer way to get to the heart of a composition than by performing it, and since partic.i.p.ation in chorus singing is of necessity unselfish and creative of sympathy, there is no better medium of musical culture than members.h.i.+p in a choir. It was because he realized this that Schumann gave the advice to all students of music: ”Sing diligently in choirs; especially the middle voices, for this will make you musical.”
[Sidenote: _Singing societies and orchestras._]
[Sidenote: _Neither numbers nor wealth necessary._]
There is no community so small or so ill-conditioned that it cannot maintain a singing society. Before a city can give sustenance to even a small body of instrumentalists it must be large enough and rich enough to maintain a theatre from which those instrumentalists can derive their support. There can be no dependence upon amateurs, for people do not study the oboe, ba.s.soon, trombone, or double-ba.s.s for amus.e.m.e.nt. Amateur violinists and amateur flautists there are in plenty, but not amateur clarinetists and French-horn players; but if the love for music exists in a community, a dozen families shall suffice to maintain a choral club. Large numbers are therefore not essential; neither is wealth. Some of the largest and finest choirs in the world flourish among the Welsh miners in the United States and Wales, fostered by a native love for the art and the national inst.i.tution called Eisteddfod.
[Sidenote: _Lines of choral culture in the United States._]
The lines on which choral culture has proceeded in the United States are two, of which the more valuable, from an artistic point of view, is that of the oratorio, which went out from New England. The other originated in the German cultivation of the _Mannergesang_, the importance of which is felt more in the extent of the culture, prompted as it is largely by social considerations, than in the music sung, which is of necessity of a lower grade than that composed for mixed voices. It is chiefly in the impulse which German _Mannergesang_ carried into all the corners of the land, and especially the impetus which the festivals of the German singers gave to the sections in which they have been held for half a century, that this form of culture is interesting.
[Sidenote: _Church and oratorio._]
[Sidenote: _Secular choirs._]
The cultivation of oratorio music sprang naturally from the Church, and though it is now chiefly in the hands of secular societies, the biblical origin of the vast majority of the texts used in the works which are performed, and more especially the regular performances of Handel's ”Messiah” in the Christmastide, have left the notion, more or less distinct, in the public mind, that oratorios are religious functions. Nevertheless (or perhaps because of this fact) the most successful choral concerts in the United States are those given by oratorio societies. The cultivation of choral music which is secular in character is chiefly in the hands of small organizations, whose concerts are of a semi-private nature and are enjoyed by the a.s.sociate members and invited guests. This circ.u.mstance is deserving of notice as a characteristic feature of choral music in America, though it has no particular bearing upon this study, which must concern itself with choral organizations, choral music, and choral performances in general.
[Sidenote: _Amateur choirs originated in the United States._]
[Sidenote: _The size of old choirs._]
Organizations of the kind in view differ from instrumental in being composed of amateurs; and amateur choir-singing is no older anywhere than in the United States. Two centuries ago and more the singing of catches and glees was a common amus.e.m.e.nt among the gentler cla.s.ses in England, but the performances of the larger forms of choral music were in the hands of professional choristers who were connected with churches, theatres, schools, and other public inst.i.tutions. Naturally, then, the choral bodies were small. Choirs of hundreds and thousands, such as take part in the festivals of to-day, are a product of a later time.
[Sidenote: _Handel's choirs._]
”When Bach and Handel wrote their Pa.s.sions, Church Cantatas, and Oratorios, they could only dream of such majestic performances as those works receive now; and it is one of the miracles of art that they should have written in so masterly a manner for forces that they could never hope to control. Who would think, when listening to the 'Hallelujah'
of 'The Messiah,' or the great double choruses of 'Israel in Egypt,' in which the voice of the composer is 'as the voice of a great mult.i.tude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thunderings, saying, ”Alleluia, for the Lord G.o.d Omnipotent reigneth!”' that these colossal compositions were never heard by Handel from any chorus larger than the most modest of our church choirs? At the last performance of 'The Messiah' at which Handel was advertised to appear (it was for the benefit of his favorite charity, the Foundling Hospital, on May 3, 1759--he died before the time, however), the singers, including princ.i.p.als, numbered twenty-three, while the instrumentalists numbered thirty-three. At the first great Handel Commemoration, in Westminster Abbey, in 1784, the choir numbered two hundred and seventy-five, the band two hundred and fifty; and this was the most numerous force ever gathered together for a single performance in England up to that time.
[Sidenote: _Choirs a century ago._]