Part 17 (1/2)

Johns was born at New Castle, Del., November 24, 1857, of American parents. Though at first a student of architecture, he gave this up for music, and studied at Boston under Wm. F. Apthorp, J.K. Paine, and W.H. Sherwood, after which he went to Berlin, where he studied under Kiel, Grabau, Raif, and Franz Rummel. In 1884 he made Boston his home.

If San Francisco had found some way of retaining the composers she has produced, she would have a very respectable colony. Among the others who have come east to grow up with music is William Arms Fisher, who was born in San Francisco, April 27, 1861. The two composers from whom he derives his name, Joshua Fisher and William Arms, settled in Ma.s.sachusetts colony in the seventeenth century. He studied harmony, organ, and piano with John P. Morgan. After devoting some years to business, he committed his life to music, and in 1890 came to New York, where he studied singing. Later he went to London to continue his vocal studies. Returning to New York, he took up counterpoint and fugue with Horatio W. Parker, and composition and instrumentation with Dvorak. After teaching harmony for several years, he went to Boston, where he now lives. His work has been almost altogether the composition of songs. A notable feature of his numerous publications is their agreeable diversion from the usual practice of composers, which is to write lyrics of wide range and high pitch. Nearly all his songs are written for the average voice.

His first opus contains a setting of ”Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,”

which I like better than the ba.n.a.l version Tschakowski made of the same words. The third opus contains three songs to Sh.e.l.ley's words.

They show something of the intellectual emotion of the poet. The first work, ”A Widow Bird Sate Mourning,” is hardly lyrical; ”My Coursers Are Fed with the Lightning” is a stout piece of writing, but the inspired highfalutin of the words would be trying upon one who arose to sing the song before an audience. This, by the way, is a point rarely considered by the unsuccessful composers, and the words which the singer is expected to declare to an ordinary audience are sometimes astounding. The third Sh.e.l.ley setting, ”The World's Wanderer,” is more congenial to song.

Opus 5 is ent.i.tled ”Songs without Tears.” These are for a ba.s.s voice, and by all odds the best of his songs. An appropriate setting is Edmund Clarence Stedman's ”Falstaff's Song,” a noteworthy lyric of toss-pot moralization on death. His song of ”Joy” is exuberant with spring gaiety, and some of his best manner is seen in his ”Elegie,”

for violin and piano. He has also written a deal of church song.

A venerable and distinguished teacher and composer is James C.D.

Parker, who was born at Boston, in 1828, and graduated from Harvard in 1848. He at first studied law, but was soon turned to music, and studied for three years in Europe under Richter, Plaidy, Hauptmann, Moscheles, Rietz, and Becker. He graduated from the conservatory at Leipzig, and returned to Boston in 1845.

His ”Redemption Hymn” is one of his most important works, and was produced in Boston by the Handel and Haydn Society in 1877. He also composed other works for orchestra and chorus, and many brilliant piano compositions.

An interesting method of writing duets is that employed in the ”Children's Festival,” by Charles Dennee. The pupil plays in some places the primo, and in others the secondo, his part being written very simply, while the part to be played by the teacher is written with considerable elaboration, so that the general effect is not so narcotic as usual with duets for children. Dennee has written, among many works of little specific gravity, a ”Suite Moderne” of much skill, a suite for string orchestra, an overture and sonatas for the piano and for the violin and piano, as well as various comic operas.

He was born in Oswego, N.Y., September 1, 1863, and studied composition with Stephen A. Emery.

A composer of a genial gaiety, one who has written a good minuet and an ”Evening Song” that is not morose, is Benjamin Lincoln Whelpley, who was born at Eastport, Me., October 23, 1863, and studied the piano at Boston with B.J. Lang, and composition with Sidney Homer and others. He also studied in Paris for a time in 1890. He has written a ”Dance of the Gnomes,” that is characteristic and brilliantly droll, and a piano piece, called ”Under Bright Skies,” which has the panoply and progress of a sunlit cavalcade.

Ernest Osgood Hiler has written some good music for the violin, a book of songs for children, ”Cloud, Field, and Flower,” and some sacred music. He studied in Germany for two years.

_The Chicago Colony._

Most prominent among Chicago's composers is doubtless Frederic Grant Gleason, who has written in the large forms with distinguished success. The Thomas Orchestra has performed a number of his works, which is an excellent praise, because Thomas, who has done so much for American audiences, has worried himself little about the American composer. At the World's Fair, which was, in some ways, the artistic birthday of Chicago, and possibly the most important artistic event in our national history, some of Gleason's works were performed by Thomas' organization, among them the _Vorspiel_ to an opera, ”Otho Visconti” (op. 7), for which Gleason wrote both words and music.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FREDERIC GRANT GLEASON.]

This _Vorspiel_, like that to ”Lohengrin,” is short and delicate. It begins ravis.h.i.+ngly with flutes and clarinets and four violins, pianissimo, followed by a blare of bra.s.s. After this introductory period the work runs through tenderly contemplative musing to the end, in which, again, the only strings are the four violins, though here they are accompanied by the bra.s.s and wood-winds and tympani, the cymbals being gently tapped with drumsticks. The introduction to the third act of the opera is more lyrical, but not so fine. Another opera is ”Montezuma” (op. 16). Gleason is again his own librettist. Of this opera I have been privileged to see the complete piano score, and much of the orchestral.

[Music: Montezuma, Act III, Introduction

Frederic Grant Gleason

EXCERPT FROM AN ORCHESTRAL SCORE BY MR. GLEASON.]

In the first act Guatemozin, who has been exiled by Montezuma, appears disguised as an ancient minstrel and sings prophetically of the coming of a G.o.d of peace and love to supplant the terrible idol that demands human sacrifice. This superbly written aria provokes from the terrified idolaters a chorus of fear and reproach that is strongly effective. The next act begins with an elaborate aria followed by a love duet of much beauty. A heavily scored priests' march is one of the chief numbers, and like most marches written by the unco'

learned, it is a grain of martial melody in a bushel of trumpet figures and preparation. The Wagnerian _leit-motif_ idea is adopted in this and other works of his, and the chief objection to his writing is its too great fidelity to the Wagnerian manner,--notably in the use of suspensions and pa.s.sing-notes,--otherwise he is a very powerful harmonist and an instrumenter of rare sophistication. A soprano aria with orchestral accompaniment has been taken from the opera and sung in concert with strong effect.

Another work played at the World's Fair by Thomas, is a ”Processional of the Holy Grail.” It is scored elaborately, but is rather brilliant than large. It complimentarily introduces a hint or two of Wagner's Grail motif.

The symphonic poem, ”Edris,” was also performed by the Thomas Orchestra. It is based upon Marie Corelli's novel, ”Ardath,” which gives opportunity for much programmism, but of a mystical highly colored sort for which music is especially competent. It makes use of a number of remarkably beautiful motives. One effect much commented upon was a succession of fifths in the ba.s.s, used legitimately enough to express a dreariness of earth.

This provoked from that conservative of conservatives, the music copyist, a patronizing annotation, ”Quinten!” to which Gleason added ”Gewiss!” A series of augmented triads, smoothly manipulated, was another curiosity of the score.

Possibly Gleason's happiest work is his exquisite music for that most exquisite of American poems, ”The Culprit Fay.” It is described in detail in Upton's ”Standard Cantatas,” and liberally quoted from in Goodrich' ”Musical a.n.a.lysis.” While I have seen both the piano and orchestral scores of this work (op. 15), and have seen much beauty in them, my s.p.a.ce compels me to refer the curious reader to either of these most recommendable books.

Gleason has had an unusual schooling. He was born in Middletown, Conn., in 1848. His parents were musical, and when at sixteen he wrote a small matter of two oratorios without previous instruction, they put him to study under Dudley Buck. From his tuition he graduated to Germany, and to such teachers as Moscheles, Richter, Plaidy, Lobe, Raif, Taussig, and Weitzmann. He studied in England after that, and returned again to Germany. When he re-appeared in America he remained a while at Hartford, Conn., whence he went to Chicago in 1876. He has lived there since, working at teaching and composition, and acting as musical critic of the Chicago _Tribune_. An unusually gifted body of critics, dramatic, musical, and literary, has worked upon the Chicago newspapers, and Gleason has been prominent among them.

Among other important compositions of his are a symphonic cantata, ”The Auditorium Festival Ode,” sung at the dedication of the Chicago Auditorium by a chorus of five hundred; sketches for orchestra, a piano concerto, organ music, and songs.