Part 7 (2/2)

In 1875 Theodore Thomas, whose orchestra had performed many of Buck's compositions, invited him to become his a.s.sistant conductor at the Cincinnati Music Festival and at the last series of concerts at the Central Park Garden in New York. Buck accepted and made his home in Brooklyn, where he has since remained as organist of the Holy Trinity Church, and conductor of the Apollo Club, which he founded and brought to a high state of efficiency, writing for it many of his numerous compositions for male voices.

Buck's close a.s.sociation with church work has naturally led him chiefly into sacred music, and in this cla.s.s of composition he is by many authorities accorded the very highest place among American composers. He has also written many organ solos, sonatas, marches, a pastorale, a rondo caprice, and many concert transcriptions, as well as a group of etudes for pedal phrasing, and several important treatises on various musical topics. His two ”Motett Collections” were a refres.h.i.+ng relief and inspiration to church choirs thirsty for religious Protestant music of some depth and warmth.

In the cantata form Buck also holds a foremost place. In 1876 he was honored with a commission to set to music ”The Centennial Meditation of Columbia,” a poem written for the occasion by the Southern poet, Sidney Lanier. This was performed at the opening of the Philadelphia Exhibition by a chorus of one thousand voices, an organ, and an orchestra of two hundred pieces under the direction of Theodore Thomas. In 1874 he made a metrical version of ”The Legend of Don Munio” from Irving's ”Alhambra,” and set it to music for a small orchestra and chorus. Its adaptability to the resources of the vocal societies of smaller cities has made it one of his most popular works.

Another bit of Was.h.i.+ngton Irving is found in Buck's cantata, ”The Voyage of Columbus,” the libretto for which he has taken from Irving's ”Life of Columbus.” It consists of six night-scenes,--”The Chapel of St. George at Palos,” ”On the Deck of the _Santa Maria_,” ”The Vesper Hymn,” ”Mutiny,” ”In Distant Andalusia,” and ”Land and Thanksgiving.”

The opportunities here for Buck's skilful handling of choruses and his dramatic feeling in solos are obvious, and the work has been frequently used both in this country and in Germany with much success.

Buck, in fact, made the German libretto as well as the English, and has written the words for many of his compositions. His largest work was ”The Light of Asia,” composed in 1885 and based on Sir Edwin Arnold's epic. It requires two and one-half hours for performance and has met the usual success of Buck's music; it was produced in London with such soloists as Nordica, Lloyd, and Santley. It has been occasionally given here.

He has found the greater part of his texts in American poetry, particularly in Lanier, Stedman, and Longfellow, whose ”King Olaf's Christmas” and ”Nun of Nidaros” he has set to music, as well as his ”Golden Legend,” which won a prize of one thousand dollars at the Cincinnati Festival in a large compet.i.tion. His work is a.n.a.lyzed very fully in A.J. Goodrich' ”Musical a.n.a.lysis.”

[Music:

High in the purer air, High as the heart's desire, In a pa.s.sion of longing and fire, A bird sings sweet and fair; While a sunbeam, cheery and strong, Answers the joy of the song, And Spring, fair Spring is coming!

Copyright, 1893, by G. Schirmer.

FRAGMENT FROM ”SPRING'S AWAKENING,” BY MR. BUCK.]

Here, as in his symphonic overture to Scott's ”Marmion,” Buck has adopted the Wagnerian idea of the _leit-motif_ as a vivid means of distinguis.h.i.+ng musically the various characters and their varying emotions. His music is not markedly Wagnerian, however, in other ways, but seems to show, back of his individuality, an a.s.similation of the good old school of canon and fugue, with an Italian tendency to the declamatory and well-rounded melodic period.

It might be wished that in his occasional secular songs Buck had followed less in the steps of the Italian aria and the English ballad and adopted more of the newer, n.o.bler spirit of the _Lied_ as Schumann and Franz represent it, and as many of our younger Americans have done with thorough success and not a little of exaltation. Note for instance the inadequacy of the old-style balladry to both its own opportunity and the otherwise-smothered fire of such a poem as Sidney Lanier's ”Sunset,” which is positively Shakespearean in its pa.s.sionate perfection.

In religious music, however, Mr. Buck has made a niche of its own for his music, which it occupies with grace and dignity.

_Horatio W. Parker._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph of Horatio W. Parker]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HORATIO W. PARKER.]

When one considers the enormous s.p.a.ce occupied by the hymn-tune in New England musical activity, it is small wonder that most of its composers should display hymnal proclivities. Both Buck and Parker are natives of New England.

Parker was born, September 15, 1863, at Auburndale, Ma.s.s. His mother was his first teacher of music. She was an organist, and gave him a thorough technical schooling which won the highest commendation later from Rheinberger, who entrusted to him the first performance of a new organ concerto. After some study in Boston under Stephen A. Emery, John Orth, and G.W. Chadwick, Parker went to Munich at the age of eighteen, where he came under the special favor of Rheinberger, and where various compositions were performed by the Royal Music School orchestra. After three years of Europe, he returned to America and a.s.sumed the direction of the music at St. Paul's school. He has held various posts since, and has been, since 1894, the Battell Professor of Music at Yale.

His rather imposing list of works includes a symphony (1885), an operetta, a concert overture (1884), an overture, ”Regulus” (1885), performed in Munich and in London, and an overture, ”Count Robert of Paris” (1890), performed in New York, a ballad for chorus and orchestra, ”King Trojan,” presented in Munich in 1885, the Twenty-third Psalm for female chorus and orchestra (1884), an ”Idylle”

(1891); ”The Normans,” ”The Kobolds,” and ”Harold Harf.a.ger,” all for chorus and orchestra, and all dated 1891; an oratorio, three or more cantatas, and various bits of chamber-music. His opus number has already reached forty-three, and it is eked out to a very small degree by such imponderous works as organ and piano solos, hymns, and songs.

In 1893, Parker won the National Conservatory prize for a cantata, and in 1898 the McCagg prize for an a cappella chorus.

Parker's piano compositions and secular songs are not numerous. They seem rather the incidental byplays and recreations of a fanry chiefly turned to sacred music of the larger forms.

Opus 19 consists of ”Four Sketches,” of which the ”etude Melodieuse”

is as good as is necessary in that overworked style, wherein a thin melody is set about with a thinner ripple of arpeggios. The ”Romanza”

is lyric and delightful, while the ”Scherzino” is delicious and crisp as celery; it is worthy of Schumann, whom it suggests, and many of whose cool tones and mannerisms it borrows.

The ”5 Morceaux Characteristiques” are on the whole better. The ”Scherzo” is s.h.i.+mmering with playfulness, and, in the Beethoven fas.h.i.+on, has a tender intermezzo amoroso. This seriousness is enforced with an ending of a most plaintive nature. The ”Caprice” is brilliant and whimsical, with some odd effects in accent. The ”Gavotte” makes unusual employment of triplets, but lacks the precious yeast of enthusiasm necessary to a prime gavotte.

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