Part 6 (2/2)
The beginning of both symphonies is, of course, a slow introduction representing the torpid gloom of winter, out of which spring aspires and ascends.
Paine's symphony, though aiming to shape the molten gold of April fervor in the rigid mold of the symphonic form, has escaped every appearance of mechanism and restraint. It is program music of the most legitimate sort, in full accord with Beethoven's canon, ”Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei.” It has no aim of imitating springtime noises, but seeks to stimulate by suggestion the hearer's creative imagination, and provoke by a musical telepathy the emotions that swayed the nympholept composer.
The first movement of the symphony has an introduction containing two motives distinct from the two subjects of the movement. These motives represent Winter and the Awakening.
The Winter motive may be again divided into a chill and icy motif and a rus.h.i.+ng wind-motif. Through these the timid Awakening spirit lifts its head like the first trillium of the year. There is a silence and a stealthy flutter of the violins as if a cloud of birds were playing courier to the Spring.
Suddenly, after a little prelude, as if a bluebird were tuning his throat, we are enveloped in the key of the symphony (A major) and the Spring runs lilting up the 'cellos to the violins (which are divided in the naf archaic interval of the tenth, too much ignored in our over-colored harmonies). The second subject is propounded by the oboes (in the rather unusual related key of the submediant). This is a lyrical and dancing idea, and it does battle with the underground resistance of the Winter motives. There is an elaborate conclusion of fiercest joy. Its ecstasy droops, and after a little flutter as of little wings, the elaboration opens with the Spring motive in the minor. In this part, scholars.h.i.+p revels in its own luxury, the birds quiver about our heads again, and the reprise begins (in A major of course) with new exultance, the dancing second subject appears (in the tonic), overwhelming the failing strength of the Winter with a cascade of delight. Then the conclusion rushes in; this I consider one of the most joyous themes ever inspired.
There is a coda of vanis.h.i.+ng bird-wings and throats, a pizzicato chord on the strings--and Spring has had her coronation.
”The May Night Fantasy” is a moonlit revel of elves caught by a musical reporter, a surrept.i.tious ”chiel amang 'em takin'
notes.” A single hobgoblin ba.s.soon croaks ludicrously away, the pixies darkle and flirt and dance their hearts out of them.
The Romance is in rondo form with love-lorn iteration of themes and intermezzo, and deftest broidery, the whole ending, after a graceful Recollection, in a bliss of harmony.
The Finale is a halleluiah. It is on the sonata formula, without introduction (the second subject being not in the dominant of A major, but in C major, that chaste, frank key which one of the popes strangely dubbed ”lascivious”). The elaboration is frenetic with strife, but the reprise is a many-hued rainbow after storm, and the coda in A major (ending a symphony begun in A minor) is swift with delight.
This symphony has been played much, but not half enough. It should resist the weariness of time as immortally as Fletcher's play, ”The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen” (in which Shakespeare's hand is glorious), for it is, to quote that drama, ”fresher than May, sweeter than her gold b.u.t.tons on the bough, or all th'enamell'd knacks o' the mead or garden.”
John Knowles Paine is a name that has been held in long and high honor among American composers. He was about the earliest of native writers to convince foreign musicians that some good could come out of Nazareth.
He was born in Portland, Me., January 9, 1839. He studied music first under a local teacher, Kotzschmar, making his debut as organist at the age of eighteen. A year later he was in Berlin, where for three years he studied the organ, composition, instrumentation, and singing under Haupt, Wieprecht, and others. He gave several organ concerts in Germany, and made a tour in 1865-1866. In February, 1867, his ”Ma.s.s”
was given at the Berlin Singakademie, Paine conducting. Then he came back to the States, and in 1872 was appointed to an instructors.h.i.+p of music at Harvard, whence he was promoted in 1876 to a full professors.h.i.+p, a chair created for him and occupied by him ever since with distinguished success.
His first symphony was brought out by Theodore Thomas in 1876. This and his other orchestral works have been frequently performed at various places in this country and abroad.
His only oratorio, ”St. Peter,” was first produced at Portland in 1873, and in Boston a year later. It is a work of great power and much dramatic strength. Upton, in his valuable work, ”Standard Oratorios,”
calls it ”from the highest standpoint the only oratorio yet produced in this country.”
This oratorio, while containing much of the floridity and repet.i.tion of Handel at his worst, is also marked with the erudition and largeness of Handel at his best. The aria for St. Peter, ”O G.o.d, My G.o.d, Forsake Me Not,” is especially fine.
A much-played symphonic poem is Paine's ”The Tempest,” which develops musically the chief episodes of Shakespeare's play. He has also written a valuable overture to ”As You Like It;” he has set Keats'
”Realm of Fancy” exquisitely, and Milton's ”Nativity.” And he has written a grand opera on a mediaeval theme to his own libretto. This is a three-act work called ”Azara;” the libretto has been published by the Riverside Press, and is to be translated into German. This has not yet been performed. Being, unfortunately, an American grand opera, it takes very little acuteness of foresight to predict a long wait before it is ever heard. In it Paine has shown himself more a romanticist than a cla.s.sicist, and the work is said to be full of modernity.
Paine wrote the music for Whittier's ”Hymn,” used to open the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and was fitly chosen to write the Columbus March and Hymn for the opening ceremonies of the World's Fair, at Chicago, October 21, 1892. This was given by several thousand performers under the direction of Theodore Thomas.
A most original and interesting work is the chorus, ”Phoebus, Arise.”
It seems good to hark back for words to old William Drummond ”of Hawthornden.” The exquisite flavor of long-since that marks the poetry is conserved in the tune. While markedly original, it smacks agreeably of the music of Harry Lawes, that nightingale of the seventeenth century, whose fancies are too much neglected nowadays.
Paine's strong point is his climaxes, which are never timid, and are often positively t.i.tanic, thrilling. The climax of this chorus is notably superb, and the voices hold for two measures after the orchestra finishes. The power of this effect can be easily imagined.
This work is marked, to an unusual extent, with a sensuousness of color.
The year eighteen hundred eighty-one saw the first production of what is generally considered Paine's most important composition, and by some called the best work by an American,--his setting of the choruses of the ”Oedipus Tyrannos” of Sophokles. It was written for the presentation by Harvard University, and has been sung, in whole or in part, very frequently since. This masterpiece of Grecian genius is so mighty in conception and so mighty in execution that it has not lost power at all in the long centuries since it first thrilled the Greeks.
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