Part 15 (1/2)

Of his cantatas, ”Hesperus” is a work of the greatest promise and large performance.

For male voices Brewer has written a cantata called ”The Birth of Love.” Its fiery ending is uncharacteristic, but the beautiful tenor solo and an excellent ba.s.s song prove his forte to lie in the realm of tenderness. Brewer's music has little fondness for climaxes, but in a tender pathos that is not tragedy, but a sort of lotos-eater's dreaminess and regret, he is congenially placed. Smoothness is one of his best qualities.

Out of a number of part songs for men, one should mark a vigorous ”Fisher's Song,” a ”May Song,” which has an effective ”barber's chord,” and ”The Katydid,” a witty realization of Oliver Wendell Holmes' captivating poem. His ”Sensible Serenade” has also an excellent flow of wit. Both these songs should please glee clubs and their audiences.

For women's voices Brewer has written not a little. The best of these are ”Sea s.h.i.+ne,” which is particularly mellow, and ”Treachery,” a love-scherzo.

For the violin there are two pieces: one, in the key of D, is a duet between the violin and the soprano voice of the piano. It is full of characteristic tenderness, full even of tears. It should find a good place among those violin ballads of which Raff's Cavatina is the best-known example. Another violin solo in A is more florid, but is well managed. The two show a natural apt.i.tude for composition for this favorite of all instruments.

For full orchestra there is a suite, ”The Lady of the Lake,” also arranged, for piano and organ. It is smooth and well-tinted. A s.e.xtet for strings and flute has been played with favor.

Brewer's chief success lies along lines of least resistance, one might say. His Alb.u.m of Songs (op. 27) is a case in point. Of the subtle and inevitable ”Du bist wie eine Blume,” he makes nothing, and ”The Violet” forces an unfortunate contrast with Mozart's idyl to the same words. But ”Meadow Sweet” is simply iridescent with cheer, a most unusually sweet song, and ”The Heart's Rest” is of equal perfection.

The best-abused composer in America is doubtless Reginald de Koven.

His great popularity has attracted the search-light of minute criticism to him, and his accomplishments are such as do not well endure the fierce white light that beats upon the throne. The sin of over-vivid reminiscence is the one most persistently imputed to him, and not without cause. While I see no reason to accuse him of deliberate imitation, I think he is a little too loth to excise from his music those things of his that prove on consideration to have been said or sung before him. Instead of crying, ”_Pereant qui ante nos nostra cantaverunt_,” he believes in a live-and-let-live policy. But ah, if De Koven were the only composer whose eraser does not evict all that his memory installs!

De Koven was born at Middletown, Conn., in 1859, and enjoyed unusual advantages for musical study abroad. At the age of eleven, he was taken to Europe, where he lived for twelve years. At Oxford he earned a degree with honors. His musical instructors include Speidel, Lebert, and Pruckner, at Stuttgart, Huff the contrapuntist at Frankfort, and Vannucini, who taught him singing, at Florence. He made also a special study of light opera under Genee and Von Suppe. He made Chicago his home in 1882, afterward moving to New York, where he served as a musical critic on one of the daily papers for many years.

De Koven has been chief purveyor of comic opera to his generation, and for so ideal a work as ”Robin Hood,” and such pleasing constructions as parts of his other operas (”Don Quixote,” ”The Fencing Master,”

”The Highwayman,” for instance), one ought to be grateful, especially as his music has always a certain elegance and freedom from vulgarity.

Of his ballads, ”Oh, Promise Me” has a few opening notes that remind one of ”Musica Proibita,” but it was a taking lyric that stuck in the public heart. His setting of Eugene Field's ”Little Boy Blue” is a work of purest pathos and directness. His version of ”My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” is among the best of its countless settings, and ”The Fool of Pamperlune,” the ”Indian Love Song,” ”In June,” and a few others, are excellent ballad-writing.

Victor Harris is one of the few that selected New York for a birthplace. He was born here April 27, 1869, and attended the College of the City of New York, cla.s.s of 1888. For several of his early years he was well known as a boy-soprano, whence he graduated into what he calls the ”usual career” of organist, pianist, and teacher of the voice. In 1895 and 1896 he acted as the a.s.sistant conductor to Anton Seidl in the Brighton Beach summer concerts. He learned harmony of Frederick Schilling.

Harris is most widely known as an accompanist, and is one of the best in the country. But while the accompaniments he writes to his own songs are carefully polished and well colored, they lack the show of independence that one might expect from so unusual a master of their execution.

Except for an unpublished one-act operetta, ”Mlle. Maie et M. de Sembre,” and a few piano pieces, Harris has confined himself to the writing of short songs. In his twenty-first year two of unequal merits were published, ”The Fountains Mingle with the River” being a taking melody, but without distinction or originality, while ”Sweetheart” has much more freedom from conventionality and inevitableness.

[Music: To N.N.H.

Song from Omar Khayyam.

VICTOR HARRIS, Op. 16, No. 3.

Oh! threats of h.e.l.l and hopes of Paradise!

One thing at least is certain-- _This_ Life flies, One thing is certain, and the rest is Lies!

The Flower that once has blown for ever, for ever dies.

Copyright, 1898, by Edward Schuberth & Co.]

A later song, ”My Guest,” shows an increase in elaboration, but follows the florid school of Harrison Millard's once so popular rhapsody, ”Waiting.” Five songs are grouped into opus 12, and they reach a much higher finish and a better tendency to make excursions into other keys. They also show two of Harris' mannerisms, a constant repet.i.tion of verbal phrases and a fondness for writing close, unbroken chords, in triplets or quartoles. ”A Melody” is beautiful; ”b.u.t.terflies and b.u.t.tercups” is the perfection of grace; ”I Know not if Moonlight or Starlight” is a fine rapture, and ”A Disappointment”

is a dire tragedy, all about some young toadstools that thought they were going to be mushrooms. For postlude two measures from the cantabile of Chopin's ”Funeral March” are used with droll effect.

”Love, Hallo!” is a headlong springtime pa.s.sion. Two of his latest songs are ”Forever and a Day,” with many original touches, and a ”Song from Omar Khayyam,” which is made of some of the most cynical of the tent-maker's quatrains. Harris has given them all their power and bitterness till the last line, ”The flower that once has blown forever dies,” which is written with rare beauty. ”A Night-song” is possibly his best work; it is full of colors, originalities, and lyric qualities. Opus 13 contains six songs: ”Music when Soft Voices Die”

has many uncommon and effective intervals; ”The Flower of Oblivion” is more dramatic than usual, employs discords boldly, and gives the accompaniment more individuality than before; ”A Song of Four Seasons” is a delicious morsel of gaiety, and ”Love within the Lover's Breast” is a superb song. Harris has written some choric works for men and women also. They show commendable attention to all the voice parts.

One of the most prominent figures in American musical history has been Dr. William Mason. He was born in Boston, January 24, 1829, and was the son of Lowell Mason, that pioneer in American composition. Dr.