Part 17 (2/2)

As is shown by the two or three vocal works of his that I have seen, Gleason is less successful as a melodist than as a harmonist. But in this latter capacity he is gifted indeed, and is peculiarly fitted to furnish forth with music Ebling's ”Lobgesang auf die Harmonie.” In his setting of this poem he has used a soprano and a barytone solo with male chorus and orchestra. The harmonic structure throughout is superb in all the various virtues ascribed to harmony. The ending is magnificent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM H. SHERWOOD.]

A work completed December, 1899, for production by the Thomas Orchestra, is a symphonic poem called ”The Song of Life,” with this motto from Swinburne:

”They have the night, who had, like us, the day; We whom the day binds shall have night as they; We, from the fetters of the light unbound, Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound.”

The first prominent musician to give a certain portion of his program regularly to the American composer, was William H. Sherwood. This recognition from so distinguished a performer could not but interest many who had previously turned a deaf ear to all the musical efforts of the Eagle. In addition to playing their piano works, he has transcribed numerous of their orchestral works to the piano, and played them. In short, he has been so indefatigable a laborer for the cause of other American composers, that he has found little time to write his own ideas.

Sherwood will be chiefly remembered as a pianist, but he has written a certain amount of music of an excellent quality. Opera 1-4 were published abroad. Opus 5 is a suite, the second number of which is an ”Idylle” that deserves its name. It is as blissfully clear and ringing as anything could well be, and drips with a Theokritan honey. The third number of the suite is called ”Greetings.” It has only one or two unusual touches. Number 4 bears the suggestive t.i.tle, ”Regrets for the Pianoforte.” It was possibly written after some of his less promising pupils had finished a lesson. The last number of the suite is a quaint Novelette.

[Music: IDYLLE.

WM. H. SHERWOOD, OP. 5, NO. 2.

Copyright, 1883, by G. Schirmer.

A FRAGMENT.]

Sherwood's sixth opus is made up of a brace of mazurkas. The former, in C minor, contains some of his best work. It is original and moody, and ends strongly. The second, in A major, is still better. It not only keeps up a high standard throughout, but shows occasional touches of the most fascinating art.

A scherzo (op. 7) cracks a few good jokes, but is mostly elaboration.

Opus 8 is a fiery romanza appa.s.sionata. Opus 9 is a Scherzo-Caprice.

This is probably his best work. It is dedicated to Liszt, and though extremely brilliant, is full of meaning. It has an interlude of tender romance. ”Coy Maiden” is a graceful thing, but hardly deserves the punishment of so horrible a name. ”A Gypsy Dance” is too long, but it is of good material. It has an interesting metre, three-quarter time with the first note dotted. There is a good effect gained by sustaining certain notes over several measures, though few pianists get a real sostenuto. An ”Allegro Patetico” (op. 12), ”Medea” (op.

13), and a set of small pieces (one of them a burlesque called ”A Caudle Lecture,” with a garrulous ”said she” and a somnolent ”said he”) make up his rather short list of compositions.

Sherwood was born at Lyons, New York, of good American stock. His father was his teacher until the age of seventeen, when he studied with Heimberger, Pychowski, and Dr. William Mason. He studied in Europe with Kullak and Deppe, Scotson Clark, Weitzmann, Doppler, Wuerst, and Richter. He was for a time organist in Stuttgart and later in Berlin. He was one of those favorite pupils of Liszt, and played in concerts abroad with remarkable success, winning at the age of eighteen high critical enthusiasm. He has been more cordially recognized abroad than here, but is a.s.suredly one of the greatest living pianists. It is fortunate that his patriotism keeps him at home, where he is needed in the constant battle against the indecencies of apathy and Philistinism.

The Yankee spirit of constructive irreverence extends to music, and in recent years a number of unusually modern-minded theorists have worked at the very foundations: Dr. Percy Goetschius (born here, and for long a teacher at Stuttgart); O.B. Boise (born here, and teaching now in Berlin); Edwin Bruce, the author of a very radical work; Homer A.

Norris; and last, and first, A.J. Goodrich, who has made himself one of the most advanced of living writers on the theory of music, and has made so large a contribution to the solidity of our attainments, that he is recognized among scholars abroad as one of the leading spirits of his time. His success is the more pleasing since he was not only born but educated in this country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A.J. GOODRICH.]

The town of Chilo, Ohio, was Goodrich' birthplace. He was born there in 1847, of American parentage. His father taught him the rudiments of music and the piano for one year, after which he became his own teacher. He has had both a thorough and an independent instructor. The fact that he has been enabled to follow his own conscience without danger of being convinced into error by the prestige of some influential master, is doubtless to be credited with much of the novelty and courage of his work.

His most important book is undoubtedly his ”a.n.a.lytical Harmony,”

though his ”Musical a.n.a.lysis” and other works are serious and important. This is not the place to discuss his technicalities, but one must mention the real bravery it took to discard the old practice of a figured ba.s.s, and to attack many of the theoretical fetiches without hesitation. Almost all of the old theorists have confessed, usually in a foot-note to the preface or in modest disclaimer lost somewhere in the book, that the great masters would occasionally be found violating certain of their rules. But this did not lead them to deducing their rules from the great masters. Goodrich, however, has, in this matter, begun where Marx ended, and has gone further even than Prout. He has gone to melody as the groundwork of his harmonic system, and to the practice of great masters, old and new, for the tests of all his theories. The result is a book which can be unreservedly commended for self-instruction to the ignorant and to the too learned.

It is to be followed by a book on ”Synthetic Counterpoint,” of which Goodrich says, ”It is almost totally at variance with the standard books in counterpoint.”

In his ”Musical a.n.a.lysis” he quoted freely from American composers, and a.n.a.lyzed many important native works. He has carried out this plan also in his book on ”Interpretation,” a work aiming to bring more definiteness into the fields of performance and terminology.

Goodrich' composition is ”a thing of the past,” he says. In his youth he wrote a score or more of fugues, two string quartettes, a trio that was played in New York and Chicago, a sonata, two concert overtures, a hymn for soprano (in English), invisible chorus (in Latin), and orchestra, a volume of songs, and numerous piano pieces. He writes: ”In truth, I believed at one time that I was a real composer, but after listening to Tschakowski's Fifth Symphony that illusion was dispelled. Had not Mrs. Goodrich rescued from the flames a few MSS. I would have destroyed every note.”

Only a piano suite is left, and this leads one to regret that Tschakowski should have served as a deterrent instead of an inspiration. The suite has an inelaborate prelude, which begins strongly and ends gracefully, showing unusual handling throughout. A minuet, taken scherzando, is also most original and happy. There is a quaint sarabande, and a gavotte written on simple lines, but superbly.

Its musette is simply captivating. All these little pieces indeed show sterling originality and unusual resources in a small compa.s.s.

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