How music grew, from prehistoric times to the present day

An important group followed in the footsteps of Glinka, called “The Five.” The members wanted national music and sincere opera in any form they desired. The Russian Ballet, which tells a story and is not a mere exhibition of fancy steps, was an outcome of this freedom.

There were two schools about this time in Russia, constantly at odds with each other. The “Russian Five” was one school and the leaders of the other were Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein and Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) whose fame is probably greater than any other Russian. Tchaikovsky became very interested in the European composers, and studied composition with the founder of the Petrograd Conservatory, Anton Rubinstein. He was made professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory in 1866. While there he wrote many operas and articles for Moscow papers. He married unhappily and had a nervous breakdown in 1877 and lived very quietly, a sensitive nervous man all his life. He visited the United States in 1891, and conducted his Sixth Symphony, The Pathetique, at the opening of Carnegie Hall in New York City. Visiting England and then returning to Russia, he died in 1893 of cholera. Besides the symphonic poems about which we told you, he wrote several overtures, six symphonies, four suites, three ballets, eleven operas, two of which, La Pique Dame and Eugen Onegin have been given outside of Russia.

His work is very emotional and often tragic with captivating melodies often based on folk songs with rich orchestral color. But withal, his work was based more on the German tendencies and forms of music than the works of the younger Russians, therefore, Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein were pitched in musical battle for some years against this other school.

Alexander Borodin (1834–1887), a scientist and physician and a friend of Liszt, wrote crashing and flashy music with what they called “Modern harmonies.” It seemed full of discords for the people of his time but to us is fascinating and piquant! His Prince Igor, a story of adventure and war not unlike Le Chanson de Roland, is a beautiful opera with striking melody and dances.

Modeste Moussorgsky (1839–1881) probably had more natural genius than any of the rest of “The Five,” even though his work had to be edited by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908). Moussorgsky’s music had the real spirit of Russia, sad, colorful, full of wild dances based as is most of this Russian music, on the folk songs of his native land. Besides this, it is very human and touches the soul of people as they listen. His songs are real treasures. His music is truly a portrait of the Russian people.

He wrote a very beautiful opera called Boris Godounov richly laden with the Oriental color, and pathos and tragedy of Russia’s past. A very interesting thing to know is that Rimsky, because of his wider knowledge of harmony and orchestration, corrected Moussorgsky’s works and very often changed things that seemed to him quite wrong. Recently we have examined a score of Moussorgsky and compared it to the corrected version of Rimsky and we now find that Moussorgsky’s score was even more vivid and modern to our ears than Rimsky’s. Several composers have arranged for orchestra Moussorgsky’s piano pieces, Pictures from an Exposition, and have brought out beauties in color, humor and scenic painting in the music.

The next man, Mily Balakirev (1837–1910), a country boy steeped in folk songs, became the founder and leader of this Group of Five. He founded a free music school in Petrograd and later became the conductor of the Royal Musical Society, of the Imperial Musical Society, and Imperial Chapel. His works are chiefly in symphony form, brilliantly and effectively orchestrated. Some of his piano pieces and songs are very beautiful, but his greatest gift to music was his careful study of Russian national story and song, and he furthered the revival of the Oriental in Russian musical art.

César Cui (1835–1918), born at Vilna, Poland, was the son of a French officer, and became a great authority on military science. He wrote eight operas which were more lyric than dramatic and, as Balakirev’s friend and first disciple among “The Five,” he helped this younger Russian School with his musical compositions and writings for the press.

Last but not the least of this “Five” is Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov (1844–1908), who was born in Novgorod, and while a student at the Petrograd Naval College, became an advocate of the theories of Balakirev to keep Russian music, Russian. While on a three-year cruise, he wrote his first symphony, and on another, as a young naval officer, he came to America.

Very soon he left the navy and became a teacher and conductor in Petrograd. He is best known in this country for his orchestral suite, Shéhérazade, which gives a glamorous picture of some of the stories from “The Arabian Nights” as told by the Persian Queen, Shéhérazade. Another famous thing of his, is his second symphony Antar. Probably no other person among the Russians could give you the effect and colorfulness of the Orient as Rimsky. He takes most of his stories from Russian legends and his operas are entrancing. The best of these are The Snow Maiden, Sadko, and the humorous, fantastic and tuneful Coq d’Or (“The Golden Cockerel”). He has written works for the piano, and some of the songs out of his operas, such as The Song of India and Shepherd Lehl are probably familiar to you.

These five men and the group including Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein, Sergei Tanieiev (1856–1915) and Tchaikovsky, were very antagonistic, as we said before, until finally some of the Five went on the staff of the various conservatories in Russia and the breach seemed to be healed; and now new men have appeared, out-distancing even the Five in modern harmony, Alexander Scriabin (1872–1919) and Igor Stravinsky (1882).

Coming after these celebrated Russians were Anton Arensky (1861–1906), Alexander Glazounov (1865), both writers of symphonies, piano pieces and chamber music, Anatole Liadov (1855–1914), Serge Liapounov (1859), Nikolai Medtner (1879), Catoire, Reinhold Glière (1875), Ippolitov Ivanov (1859), Alexander Gretchaninov (1864), Serge Vassilenko (1872), Theodor Akimenko and Sergei Rachmaninov (1873), who has spent many years in America where he is known as a brilliant composer and gifted pianist. (Page 409.)

Bohemia—Czecho-Slovakia

Another country rich in national characteristics, donning national costume in art music as well as in folk music, is Bohemia—or Czecho-Slovakia. It is the land of harp players, street musicians and the gypsy, where nearly everybody seems to be musical. The Esterhazy family, nobles who were patrons of Haydn and other composers, were Bohemians.

In Prague, their principal city, Gluck, Mozart, Weber and many other foreigners were appreciated when their own countries turned deaf ears to them, but it is not until the middle of the 19th century, that Bohemia gave the world its own composers. Among these were Frederick Smetana (1824–1884), a pupil of Liszt and a fine pianist. He became the opera conductor at Prague and like Beethoven, became afflicted with deafness, but it unbalanced his mind and he died in an insane asylum at sixty. He wrote a number of pieces for chamber combinations, symphonic poems, symphonies and operas of which the best known is the Bartered Bride, a picture of Bohemian life.

The greatest Bohemian and one of the ablest musicians of the 19th century, is Antonin Dvorak (pronounced Dvorjak) (1843–1904), a peasant and son of an innkeeper and butcher at Mühlhausen. Coming from the people, he was familiar with the folk songs, and although his father wanted him to be an innkeeper and butcher, Antonin used to follow the strolling players and showed a decided talent for music. He learned to sing, to play the violin and the organ, and studied harmony. Later he went to Prague to continue his work. He was very poor but Smetana befriended him, and five years after he entered school, he wrote his first string quartet. Thirteen years afterwards, he became organist at $60.00 a year at St. Adalbert’s Church. He is another man whom Liszt helped by performing his works and finding publishers for them. He became famous through his fascinating Slavonic Dances and was soon invited to London after his Stabat Mater had been performed there. He wrote The Spectre’s Bride for the Birmingham Festival of 1885, and his oratorio for the Leeds Festival, St. Ludmilla, in the following year. The University of Cambridge made him Doctor of Music and before that, he had been Professor of Music at the Prague Conservatory. Soon he came to New York and received a salary of $15,000 a year as director of the New York Conservatory of Music. Homesickness overcame him and he went back to Bohemia where his opera, Armide, was given before he died.

Dvorak was a sound musician. He had studied Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert but was devoted to his own folk-lore and the harmonies which appealed to his nation. He was particularly interested in national types of music and when in America the negro music appealed to him tremendously. While here, he taught H. C. Burleigh, the negro composer and singer, with whom he had an interesting and fruitful friendship. When he went back to Bohemia, he wrote the New World Symphony, built on negro folk ideas, and a string quartet in which he has used negro themes. Isn’t it curious that it often takes an outsider to show us the beauties at our own door step?

He wrote many songs, symphonic poems and five symphonies and many other forms of music. Although he was very strict in the use of form, his work was free, full of melody and imagination. It is distinguished by warm color, beautiful rhythms and flowing melody, daring modulations and withal a sense of naturalness. Some people consider him one of the greatest masters of orchestration of the 19th century. Probably you have heard Fritz Kreisler and many others play the famous Humoresque, and you may also know his incomparable Songs My Mother Taught Me.

Roumania

Georges Enesco (1881) a most gifted violinist, conductor and composer, born in Cordaremi, is the principal representative of Roumania. His first work is Poème Roumain, in which, as well as in many others, he shows his Roumanian birth. He wrote symphonies and other orchestral works, chamber music and songs.

The Land of the Polonaise

Poland first springs into prominence as an art center in music with Frédéric Chopin, but it has produced many other pianists and pianist-composers,—among them, Carl Tausig.

If you like brilliant salon and over-decorated pieces, you will enjoy the works of Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1924), who was born of Polish descent in Breslau. He was a fine pianist and had a long list of pupils including the brilliant American, Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler.

Poland has given us Ignace Jan Paderewski (1860), whose Minuet you probably know, and whose amazing piano skill is familiar to you. While he has written many piano pieces, a fairly successful gypsy opera, Manru, an interesting piano concerto and a symphony, it is as pianist that he will be remembered. He has been the idol of every nation in which he has played.

His pupil, Sigismund Stojowski (1870), has lived in America since 1906 and has written orchestral works, a piano concerto and many piano pieces.

The Land of the Fiords and Skalds—Norway and Sweden

Here is another country with a rich folk-lore, half pagan and half Christian.

Ole Bull, the violinist, also did much for Norwegian music in the 19th century. One of the first composers was Halfdan Kjerulf (1815–1868) who was born in Christiania (Oslo) and studied in Leipsic. He gave up his life to composition. Henrietta Sontag as well as Jenny Lind introduced his songs to the public; like his delightful piano pieces they are national in flavor. If you have the chance, hear his Lullaby and Last Night.

Norway! The land of the Vikings, of Odin and Thor, of the eddas and sagas, of skalds and harpists, of sprites and trolls, fiords, mountain kings and the mischievous Peer Gynt—all brought to life by the magic wand of Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843–1907).

Surely one of the greatest poet-composers of recent times, he brought out the beauties of the Norwegian folk song and dance, and dressed up serious music in national costume. Ole Bull assisted Grieg by recognizing his ability when he was a very young man. Grieg was sent to the Leipsic Conservatory but he overworked and became ill, and went to Copenhagen, where he met Niels Gade, under whose guidance some of his earlier works were written. He returned to Norway and was again stimulated by Ole Bull; he met a young composer, Rikard Nordraak, and together they did a good deal of work toward establishing a national school. Again Liszt acts as an international aid society to young musicians, for he now befriends Grieg in Rome. The government of Norway granted a life pension to Grieg so that he might give all his time to composition, after which he wrote incidental music to the celebrated Peer Gynt of Ibsen. He lived in the country and in 1885 built his villa “Troldhaugen” near Bergen. His wife, who is still living in “Troldhaugen,” sang many of his songs.

His short pieces are like portraits of Norway and he is able to catch with marvelous ease and simplicity, the peculiar harmonies, mingling minor and major keys together in a most charming way. Although a lyric writer, he has written a piano sonata, three sonatas for violin and piano, and a most effective piano concerto, all of which show brilliancy and keen dramatic sense. His Holberg Suite for piano and the Elegiac melodies and the Norwegian theme for strings are full of rich, romantic feeling. As a song writer, too, Grieg ranks very high.

Some of the other Norwegians are: Johan Severan Svendsen (1840–1911), Wagnerian in feeling yet writing his compositions with strong Norwegian color. Christian Sinding (1856), whose Rustling of Spring you will remember, puts on the national costume of his native Norway in his writings, although educated in Germany. Among others are Johan Selmer, Gerhard Schjelderup and Madam Agathe Backer-Gröndahl, pianist-composer of decided charm.

Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale” (1820–1887) and Christine Nilsson (1843–1921), did much to bring Norse folk songs to the attention of the world. These melodies were very much admired because they reflected the coolness and the sadness of the land of the fiords.

Denmark

We now go to the land of Buxtehude, the celebrated organist of Lübeck. Although J. Hartmann, director of the Conservatory of Copenhagen, has been called “The Father of Danish Music,” the first great composer was Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817–1890). He started as a maker of instruments, became a member of the Royal Orchestra at Copenhagen and won a prize with his first work, an orchestral overture, Echoes from Ossian. Mendelssohn played this in Leipsic and from this time on they were great friends. Gade succeeded him as conductor of the Gewandhaus Concerts in Leipsic; in 1848, he returned to Copenhagen and held many positions, among which was court chapel master. Gade’s works were a mixture of the Romantic and the Classic Schools to which he added Danish qualities. He wrote well in symphonic style and in choruses, songs and piano pieces.

Among others were Asger Hamerik (1843), a pupil of Von Bülow and Berlioz, Otto Malling (1848–1915); Ludwig Theodor Schytte (1850–1909), a student of Gade and Liszt, who lived for a long time in Germany, where he died. His short piano pieces are classics for all young piano students. Edward Lassen, Victor Emanuel Bendix and August Enna are other well known Danes.

The first of the romantic writers in Sweden is Anders Hallen (1846). His music was massive and Wagnerian in effect, showing the somberness of the influence of his native province Bohuslän. He had a great sense of melody and his marches and dances in his native style are happy and delightful. Emil Sjögren (1853–1918) was called “The Schumann of the North,” for he wrote mostly piano pieces, a beautiful violin sonata and vocal solos and showed a great deal of charm and warmth of feeling. We might add to this list Wilhelm Stenhammar, who wrote operas and choral works, and Hugo Alfven.

Music in the Country of Lakes—Finland

Finland, “the land of a thousand lakes,” and of virgin forests and meadows, has always been a country of great beauty and sadness.

Of all her composers, Jan Sibelius is the greatest (1865). He was educated as a lawyer but being a violinist, he decided to pursue a musical career. He is remarkable as a writer of symphonic poems, and sings with compelling beauty the legends of his country taken from The Kalevala, the epic poem which ranks with the greatest legendary poems of all times. Besides The Kalevala are the short lyrics or Kanteletar, sung to the lute of steel strings, which is called The Kantele. These legends and songs are always a source of great joy to the Finns and were first arranged by Elias Lönnrot in the early part of the 19th century. The symphonic poems of Sibelius are Karelia, The Swan of Tuonela and Lemminkäinen from The Kalevala. He wrote other compositions, of course, including cantatas and ballads and string quartets and choruses. His Finlandia is a true picture of the Finnish people and country, and his Fourth Symphony is one of the 20th century’s monumental works.

It is interesting to note in his Finnish songs a peculiar five-four rhythm which is haunting and fascinating. He was recognized as a great musician, for he is the only one of this time who drew a government pension. In 1914, Sibelius was in America for the Norfolk Festival for which he had written a special work, a symphonic poem, Aalottaret (Daughter of the Ocean). At the same time Yale University conferred a degree upon him. He lives far north in Finland away from cities, surrounded for many months of the year by great snow fields.

Selim Palmgren is a writer of charming piano pieces who, in 1924, was teacher at the Eastman Conservatory in Rochester, New York.

Other composers in Finland were Bernard Crusell (1775–1838), and Frederick Pacius (who was born in Hamburg in 1809 and died in Helsingfors in 1891), the Father of Finnish Music and the author of the National Hymn Wartland and Suomis Song (Suomi means Finland). He was a violinist, a follower of Spohr and composed a great many musical works.

Among others is Armas Järnefelt (1864), an orchestral conductor and composer living in Stockholm.

Spain—The Land of the Fandango

One of the most adventurous and likeable people that we have met in the history of music is Isaac Albeniz (1860–1909). He was born in Spain and started his travels when he was a few days old. He ran away from home when he was nine years old and toured about, making money by playing the piano. He loved travel and his life as a young man is a series of runnings-away-and-being-brought-back. He became a very great pianist and Alphonso XII was so pleased with his playing and so delighted with his personality, that at fifteen he was granted a pension and being free from money worry, he realized the dream of his life and went to see Franz Liszt.

He became a player approaching Von Bülow and Rubinstein in skill.

He kept composing attractive and popular Spanish tunes using the rich, rhythmic Spanish folk songs in rather new and modern harmony. He finally decided to give up his life as a popular composer and brilliant pianist, and settled down to serious composition. The next thirty pieces took him longer to write than his four hundred popular songs!

In 1893 he went to Paris in a most wonderful period, and met Debussy, Fauré, Duparc and d’Indy.

His most important composition is Iberia, a collection of twelve Spanish piano pieces. Among his other things are Serenade, Orientale and Aragonaise, all in Spanish dress.

He was a very rare personality with a rich nature, exuberant, happy and merry, even until his death.

He was the real center of Spanish music and influenced all who came after him. He was to Spain what Grieg was to Norway, Chopin to Poland, Moussorgsky to Russia, and Dvorak to Bohemia or Czecho-Slovakia.

Enrique Granados

Following Albeniz, was another great Spaniard, Enrique Granados (1867–1916), who was born in Lérida, Spain, and met a tragic death on a transport in the English Channel during the World War. Unlike Albeniz, he did not write in a modern vein, but rather in the accustomed harmonies. He was more Spanish for this reason than Albeniz, less original and without the great charm of the other master.

The only opera in Spanish that has ever been sung at the Metropolitan Opera House was his Goyescas in 1916. The principal rôle was sung by Anna Fitziu. First he wrote this as an opera in 1899. Later he made a piano version of it, very much like a suite, which was played with great success by Ernest Schelling. He also wrote symphonic poems among which was Dante with a vocal part, sung by Sophie Braslau, in 1915, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

He is one of Spain’s great sons and the rich and sincere national spirit which he put into his music makes him beloved of his compatriots.

Not long ago we visited the medieval castle of Amboise in Touraine, France, for the 400th celebration of the birth of the French poet, Ronsard. (Chapter XI.) A program of madrigals by Jannequin, Costeley, Lassus and others who had used Ronsard’s poems as texts, was given in the room where the poet himself had entertained his friends. We were impressed by the beauty of the old castle and the aged towers and ramparts. It was here that we realized the meaning of TRADITION!

The peasant children passing under the watch tower in the village below the castle are reminded daily of a past replete with history and romance! They know without having been taught that here their poet Pierre de Ronsard and the Italian painter, Leonardo da Vinci, lived, worked and died. This watch tower was old when Columbus discovered America!

The lack of tradition, this unconscious knowing of the past, that Europe has in abundance is often held up to us in America as a serious loss in our art life. The question came to us: Is there nothing in our country to make up for the absence of this historical and romantic background?

As in a motion picture, there passed before our minds the Grand Canyon of Arizona, the Rocky Mountains, the snow-capped peaks of the Pacific slope, the Columbia River, the Mississippi and the Hudson, Golden Gate of California, Niagara Falls, and the Plains, lonesome stretches of sand and sage-brush vast as the sea! Surely such wondrous beauty should inspire artists to create great works.

But this is a day of cities, aeroplanes, automobiles, speed and unrest, when the mind rules instead of the heart! And we must “watch our step” or we will become the slaves of this Age of Invention instead of being the masters. All this is reflected in our art life and we must guard our creative talent if we would rank with European nations in the making of music.

We already rank with them in performing it, and in organizations, such as our orchestras, opera houses, chamber music organizations, music schools, music settlements, music club activities, community singing, glee clubs, oratorio societies, and amateur orchestras. America needs music and loves it as never before. Perhaps out of all this music study and concert-giving in addition to what might be done with the radio and mechanical instruments, which are now making records of the world’s finest compositions, there will come a race of real music lovers and creators. They will study our national traits and will unite them with the earnest work of American composers of today and yesterday; they will open their minds to the natural beauties of nature; they will try to raise the standard of the general public, and they will make music in America grow. May every American reader take this to heart!

In our chapter on “National Portraits in Folk Music” we told you that we have no definite traits in our music that could be called national because this country was settled by people of many different nationalities and races. All these peoples brought to the “Promised Land” their customs and traditions, their song and story world. We can still see traces in the present generation of the early settlers: New England and the South are Anglo-Saxon; Louisiana and the northern border, French; California, Spanish; New York and Pennsylvania, Dutch; Minnesota, Scandinavian; Missouri and Wisconsin, German. Besides, the Italians, Irish, Russians and Germans have settled in all parts of this huge “melting pot”!

There is however an Americanism that is hard to define, but is the result of the intermingling of all nationalities. It is the spirit of the pioneer that sent our forefathers, foreigners many, across the plains in the “covered wagon”; the spirit of youth and enthusiasm of a country still new; the spirit that works out gigantic commercial problems and miraculous inventions with the same fervor with which an artist creates; it is the spirit of an inspired sculptor before the unfinished block of marble. All of which must combine in our music before we can create a national idiom.

But we must go back and travel with you the rocky road,—“Music in America.”

Pilgrims and Puritans

The Pilgrims and Puritans who reached our “stern and rock-bound coast” early in the 17th century did not approve of music, except for the singing of five hymn tunes! The first book printed in America was the Bay Psalm Book (1640) at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its heading was:

“The Psalmes in Metre: Faithfully translated for the Use, Edification, and comfort of the Saints in publick and private, especially in New England.”

“Spiritual Songs” were not at first included, but later about fifty English hymn tunes, sung in unison were used. It went into many editions, found its way to England and Scotland, and was preferred by many to all others.

Music was forbidden as a trade in New England and a dancing master was fined for trying to start a class. The early settlers thought “to sing man’s melody is only a vain show of art” and objected to tunes because “they are inspired”! So the Puritans were forbidden to invent new tunes. You can understand that an art could not easily flourish in such stony ground.

Mr. Oscar G. Sonneck, an authority on the history of American music, says in his book, Early Concert-life in America: “The Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Irish, the Dutch, the Germans, the Swedes, the Cavaliers of Maryland and Virginia and the Huguenots of the South may have been zealots, adventurers, beggars, spendthrifts, fugitives from justice, convicts, but barbarians they certainly were not.... Possibly, or even probably, music was at an extremely low ebb, but this would neither prove that the early settlers were hopelessly unmusical nor that they lacked interest in the art of ‘sweet conchord.’... What inducements had a handful of people, spread over so vast an area, struggling for an existence, surrounded by virgin forests, fighting the Redman, and quarreling amongst themselves, to offer to musicians? We may rest assured that even Geoffrey Stafford, ‘lute and fiddle maker’ by trade and ruffian by instinct, would have preferred more lucrative climes and gracefully declined the patronage of musical Governor Fletcher had he not been deported in 1691 to Massachusetts by order of his Majesty King William, along with a batch of two hundred other Anglo-Saxon convicts.

“There were no musicians by trade, ... and as the early settlers were not unlike other human beings in having voices, we may take it for granted that they used them not only in church, but at home, in the fields, in the taverns, exactly as they would have done in Europe and for the same kind of music as far as their memory or their supply of books carried them. That the latter, generally speaking, cannot have been very large, goes without saying.... Instruments were to be found in the homes of the wealthy merchants of the North and in the homes of the still more pleasure seeking planters of the South. Indeed, there can be little doubt that the nearest approach to a musical atmosphere ... was to be found in the South rather than in the North. Still, we might call the period until about 1720 the primitive period in our musical history.

“After 1720 we notice a steadily growing number of musicians who sought their fortunes in the Colonies, an increasing desire for organs, flutes, guitars, violins, harpsichords, the establishment of ‘singing-schools,’ an improvement in church music, the signs of a budding music trade from ruled music paper to sonatas and concertos, the advent of music engravers, publishers and manufacturers of instruments, the tentative efforts to give English opera a home in America, the introduction of public concerts, in short the beginnings of what may properly be termed the formative period in our musical history, running from 1720 until about 1800.”

The first organ in America came from London in 1713 for the Episcopal Church of Boston, but it remained unpacked for seven months, as many objected to an organ at divine services. The fate of music hung in the balance with the Puritans but fortunately it won out.

Rev. James Lyon, a graduate of Princeton University, “Patriot, preacher and psalmodist,” published in 1792 a collection of psalms, anthems and hymns, called Urania, to which he added a few of his own compositions and a dozen or so pages of instructions for his singing-school in Philadelphia. Other collections followed.

William Billings

William Billings, born in Boston, in 1746, was one of our first composers. He took his music seriously, was self-taught, and wrote his first music on leather with chalk, in the tannery where he worked. He was queer and was laughed at, but he was so sincere in his love of music that he won friends who encouraged him to publish (in 1770) a new psalm-book, The New England Psalm Singer, or American Chorister. As singing-schools had been formed to learn how to read and to sing the church music, the time was ripe for more difficult music than had been allowed by the Pilgrim Fathers. Billings, although he knew nothing about it, tried some experiments in counterpoint, and introduced some “fugue-tunes,” which really were not fugues at all, into his hymns. That he enjoyed the result may be seen from this quotation: “It has more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes, each part straining for mastery and victory, the audience entertained and delighted, ... sometimes declaring for one part, and sometimes for another. Now the solemn bass demands their attention, next the manly tenor; now the lofty counter, now the volatile treble. Now there; now here again, O ecstatic! Rush on, you sons of harmony!”

In the preface to his book we find the first American musical declaration of independence, for he states that Nature and not Knowledge must inspire thought, and that “it is best for every composer to be his own carver.” But later he showed a bigness of spirit, for he writes humbly: “Kind Reader, no doubt you remember that about ten years ago I published a book ... and truly a most masterly performance I then thought it to be. How lavish was I of encomiums (praise) on this my infant production!... I have discovered that many of the pieces were not worth my printing or your inspection.”

This second book was called Billings’ Best because it became very popular. Many of his tunes were sung around the camp-fires of the Revolutionary Army, and even the Continental fifers played one of his airs. He was a fiery patriot, and when Boston was occupied by the British, he paraphrased the 137th Psalm, and wrote:

This was the time when the young Mozart was astonishing the courts of Europe, and the Colossus Beethoven was born!

For a long time there was prejudice against instrumental music in New England, so the first concerts gave selections from Handel’s Messiah and Haydn’s Creation, which after all were oratorios.

Later William Billings’ singing class in Stoughton, Massachusetts, founded in 1774 to study and perform psalm tunes and oratorios became the Stoughton Musical Society in 1786 and was looked upon as the earliest musical organization in America. It is still in existence. But Mr. Sonneck discovered that in Charleston, South Carolina, the St. Cecilia Society was founded twenty-four years earlier.

The next important society founded was the Boston Handel and Haydn. It is still alive and has had great influence on musical life not only in its native city but throughout America. After the war of 1812, a musical jubilee was held in Boston. It was so successful, that a society was formed from the fifty members of the Park Street Church choir and others interested in “cultivating and improving a correct taste in the performance of sacred music.” This was the Handel and Haydn, which has lived up to its intention. The young society showed American spirit and asked Beethoven to write a work for it! The Colossus was pleased with this recognition from over the seas, and in one of his note books had written “The oratorio for Boston.”

Although New England was the cradle of music, Philadelphia was the art center in the second half of the 18th century, and went ahead of Boston in culture, because it was not held down by Puritan laws. In 1741 Benjamin Franklin published Dr. Watt’s hymns, and later invented an instrument called the harmonica,—not the little mouthorgan. Franklin’s instrument was a set of thirty-five circular glasses arranged on a central rod, tuned to play three octaves and enclosed in a case that looked like a spinet. There is one in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Try rubbing the edge of your tumbler with a moist finger and you will hear the sound this instrument made.

In Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, we read that fashionable ladies “would talk of nothing but ... pictures, taste, Shakespeare and the musical glasses.” These had been invented by no less a person than Gluck! He played a concerto on twenty-six drinking glasses, accompanied with “the whole band,” and claimed he could play anything that could be performed on a violin or harpsichord! It was after hearing them in London, that Franklin improved upon them and made his harmonica.

Francis Hopkinson, “First American Poet-Composer”

On whom should fall the title of first American composer? William Billings was born before Francis Hopkinson (1757–1791), but in 1759, Hopkinson wrote a secular song, My Days Have Been so Wondrous Free, eleven years before Billings’ New England Psalm Singer saw the light of day. Billings was the product of New England Psalmody, was an uncouth self-taught son of the people. Hopkinson was born in Philadelphia, was a college bred man, lawyer, poet, essayist, patriot, composer, harpsichord player, organist, and inventor.

He was an intimate friend of Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and Joseph Bonaparte; a member of the Continental Congress, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

He wrote in the style of Carey and Dr. Arne in England, and we have eight songs dedicated to “His Excellency George Washington, Esquire,” and in the dedication Hopkinson says: “With respect to this work ... I can only say that it is such as a lover, not a master, of the arts can furnish.”

The Beggar’s Opera was presented in New York in 1750 and in Philadelphia in 1759. In 1787, Washington went to a puppet opera in Philadelphia. In 1801 selections from Handel’s Messiah were given in the hall of the University of Pennsylvania. We hear of Francis Hopkinson’s playing on the first organ in Christ Church, Philadelphia, and as early as 1749, John Beals, a “musick-master from London” comes to the Quaker city to teach “violin, hautboy, (oboe) flute and dulcimer,” and advertises as ready to play for balls and entertainments. So we see Philadelphia growing up rapidly, with opera, oratorio, instrumental music and music teachers!

Franklin and Washington often commented on the unusually fine music that they heard in the town of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania). Today the early appreciation of music is continued in the yearly Bach Festival held in the Moravian Church under the direction of Frederick Wolle. Musicians from everywhere attend these remarkable performances at Bethlehem.

Trinity Church in New York had an organ in 1741, although there were concerts at least ten years earlier. An English schoolmaster, William Tuckey, was the first to train choir boys for the services about 1756.

We should hardly expect to find French and Italian operas in America before the 1800s, but way down south in New Orleans in 1791, a troupe was giving performances of parts of operas and vaudeville, and perhaps an occasional opera of Grétry or Boieldieu. From 1810, the company performed opera regularly, and until recently, there was French opera in New Orleans.

Every time an opera company came to New York, The Beggar’s Opera was played, along with other Ballad-Operas. In 1796, there were two operas by Americans, Benjamin Carr and Pellisier, but all details have been lost.

Mr. Elson says, “At the beginning of the 19th century Charleston and Baltimore entered the operatic field, and travelling troupes came into existence, making short circuits from New York through the three large cities, but avoiding Boston, which was wholly given over to Handel, Haydn, and psalms.”

The first time that New York heard Home, Sweet Home was on November 12, 1823, in a melodrama by John Howard Payne, Clari, the Maid of Milan. Payne, an American, wrote the words, and Henry Carey, the English composer, the music.

The first grand opera that New York heard was Weber’s Der Freischütz. It was probably a very crude performance as they made many changes to suit public taste, but it was a great success, especially the melodramatic scenes.

In 1825, Manuel Garcia, a Spanish tenor, came to New York with his family of singers, including his daughter, who afterwards became the famous Mme. Malibran. He gave The Barber of Seville and ten other Italian operas which were a revelation to the new world. They called Garcia the “Musical Columbus.”

After this, New York was never without some opera venture. One company followed another, and although the people seemed to enjoy the novelty for a while, they never gave it whole-souled patronage.

The first opera written (1845) by an American was Leonora by William H. Fry (1813–1864). It was performed in Philadelphia, and thirteen years later in New York. It was in the Balfe and Donizetti style. He composed symphonies and wrote for the New York Tribune on musical subjects, and did much to make people realize the benefit of music.

In 1855 George Bristow composed the second American opera, Rip Van Winkle. He and Fry started a crusade against the German musicians who had come over to America after the revolution of 1848, fearing that they would extinguish the feeble American flame of composing.

Orchestras

The father of American orchestras was a German oboe player, Gottlieb Graupner. When Haydn went to London to direct the largest orchestra formed, up to that time, Graupner played with him. Graupner went to Boston (1799), and at once formed the first American orchestra. About the same time in New York, a society called the “Euterpian” was founded; it gave one concert a year for thirty years! From 1820 to 1857 there was in Philadelphia, a “Musical Fund Society”; its object was to improve musical taste and to help needy musicians. It gave the first performance in America of Beethoven’s First Symphony, as well as choral works.

In Boston the last concert of the Philharmonic Orchestra as Graupner’s band was called, took place in 1824, and another more important orchestra was formed sixteen years later. Before the Boston Symphony came, an orchestra was given to the city by the Harvard Musical Association. It was controlled by a group of people brought up on Handel, Haydn and Beethoven, who would not permit their idols to be replaced by such anarchists as Berlioz and Wagner! Many of the young foreign orchestral players wanted the new works by the “anarchists,” so they seceded from the Harvard Musical Association and called themselves the Philharmonic Society. As there were not enough people interested in classical music to support two orchestras they were soon replaced by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which was put on a permanent basis by Colonel Henry L. Higginson, who founded it and supported it during his lifetime. Georg Henschel conducted the first concert in 1881, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra has always been one of the greatest musical institutions in America. The conductors have been Wilhelm Gericke, Arthur Nikisch, Max Fiedler, Karl Muck, Henri Rabaud, Pierre Monteux, and Serge Koussevitzky.

The New York Philharmonic Society, born in 1842, was founded through the efforts of a violinist, Uriah Hill, its first conductor, and it always gave works of value. Among its conductors have been: Theodore Thomas, Dr. Leopold Damrosch, Anton Seidl, Walter Damrosch, Emil Paur, Wassili Safonoff, Henry Hadley, Gustav Mahler, Theodore Spiering, Josef Stransky, Willem Mengelberg, Willem van Hoogstraten, Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Arturo Toscanini, a genius among conductors.

Theodore Thomas (1835–1905), who was born in Germany but came to this country at the age of ten, was the first great musician to live in America and to advance the condition and standards. He gave this country its first taste for the aristocrat of music, chamber music, and with William Mason, the pianist, presented Schumann and Brahms to America. They were young radicals, and wanted to make everybody love the music they loved. Thomas introduced Wagner, too, and can’t you imagine the discussions the Wizard’s music raised when even Europe was torn in its opinions of the master innovator? Franz Liszt sent Thomas parts of the scores which the young conductor tried out even before they had been played in Europe. He had an orchestra of his own in 1864 that ran a close race with the Philharmonic Society in New York, and he took it out on tour, giving other cities the chance to hear orchestral music. Theodore Thomas was a musical missionary! In 1877 and 1879 he was conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and in 1890 the Chicago Orchestra was formed where he remained until his death in 1905. Frederick Stock followed Thomas, and the Chicago Orchestra has helped to cultivate music in the Middle West.

The Damrosch Family

In 1871, a German conductor, destined to develop music came to New York and after a few months, sent for his family. This was Dr. Leopold Damrosch, who founded the Oratorio Society (1873), and the New York Symphony Society (1877), which was merged with the Philharmonic in 1928. The Oratorio Society, for many years directed by Walter Damrosch, is today conducted by a gifted American, Albert Stoessel.

In the early years feeling ran high between the followers of Theodore Thomas and Dr. Damrosch, and many stories are told of the rivalry in playing new European scores. One of Damrosch’s greatest early triumphs was the performance of Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. He also gave the first performance of Brahms’ First Symphony.

During this time, Dr. Damrosch’s young son, Walter, was playing second violin, learning through experience, his father’s profession, and he is today the conductor of the New York Symphony Society, and a commanding figure in America.

Dr. Damrosch was also a pioneer in introducing Wagner to us. Two years after the Metropolitan Opera House was built (1882), Dr. Damrosch was made director and conductor of German opera. He imported some of the great Wagnerian singers, Madame Materna, Marianne Brandt, Mme. Seidl-Kraus, Anton Schott, and others. Wagner opera had come to stay. After a short illness, Dr. Damrosch died (1885) and his son Walter, then nineteen years of age, fell heir to the position of conductor of German opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, and of the Oratorio Society. Through Walter Damrosch’s efforts, Lilli Lehmann, the foremost Wagnerian singer, was engaged for the Metropolitan; he also engaged Emil Fischer, basso, Max Alvary, tenor, Anton Seidl, conductor, and Mme. Lillian Nordica (Lillian Norton), one of the first Americans at the Metropolitan.

Walter Damrosch composed the popular American song, Danny Deever on the poem by Rudyard Kipling. One never can think of this stirring song, without remembering David Bispham, who sang it into fame. Bispham was another native, who was for years a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and an oratorio singer. Damrosch is the composer of two grand operas, The Scarlet Letter on a text from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, and Cyrano de Bergerac, of Edmond Rostand’s, made into a libretto by W. J. Henderson. He also wrote incidental music to three Greek Tragedies Iphigenia in Aulis, Medea and Electra, first performed in the open air theatre of the University of California, in Berkeley, by Margaret Anglin and her company.

Damrosch married the daughter of James G. Blaine in 1890, and soon after, he started an opera venture which for several years visited the large cities and brought Wagner into many places where his music had been merely a hearsay. He has been a pioneer in championing the cause of modern composers, and many well known European works have had their first American performances at his New York Symphony concerts.

Dr. Frank Damrosch, older brother of Walter, is an important educator, the head of the Institute of Musical Art, and was once conductor of the Oratorio Society, and of the “Musical Art Society” in which were sung unaccompanied all the lovely motets and madrigals of Palestrina, Lassus, and many others. Dr. Frank Damrosch also founded the People’s Choral Union in which working men and women were taught singing and became members of a chorus of twelve hundred voices which performed the classic oratorios. He also founded the Young People’s Concerts, which have brought to young people of New York the finest music the world has produced. For several years, Mr. Walter Damrosch has had these in charge, and his talks explaining the works performed are quite as enjoyable as the music.

The Mason Family

Another famous family in American music is the Mason family, dating back to Lowell Mason (1792–1872) who was born at Medfield, Massachusetts. His principal work was a collection of hymn tunes which he harmonized, and won him the title of “Father of American Church Music.” He was president and conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society, and was a born teacher. He travelled from one society to another in distant cities, training choruses, giving encouragement and advice. He moved to New York in 1851.

Lowell Mason’s third son, Dr. William Mason (1829–1908), was also a pioneer. In his long life he saw music grow in America from crude beginnings and reach a height that seems almost unbelievable, in one short century. He not only heard but played, piano concertos with orchestras as fine as those he found in Europe when he went to study with Moscheles, Hauptmann, Richter, and Franz Liszt. Mason was one of the young artists permitted to be a friend as well as a pupil of the kindly Music Master. Dr. Mason and Theodore Thomas were the first to give chamber music concerts, and thus introduced many masterpieces of Brahms and Schumann, for as “modernists” they loved to bring new compositions to the public. Dr. Mason in his whole-hearted love of his art, and sincerity and geniality is worthy of our deepest respect and admiration. He composed about fifty piano pieces, and with W. S. B. Mathews he arranged a piano method that was very popular and successful. We feel sure that if you search in that old box of music that mother used to study, you will find a copy. No doubt she played his Silver Spring, Reverie Poetique and Danse Rustique.

Daniel Gregory Mason, one of the foremost composers, lecturers and writers on music, is a nephew of Dr. William Mason. He was born in 1873, was graduated from Harvard University in 1895. His compositions include many works in large form, sonatas, a string quartet on Negro themes, a piano quartet, a symphony, a fugue for piano and orchestra, a Russian Song Cycle, piano pieces; Mr. Mason has written many valuable books on musical subjects and on Music Appreciation, and is at present professor of music at Columbia University.

Gottschalk—the Picturesque

We have been telling you about the composers in the northern part of the United States, and those who had come from Germany like the Damrosch family, but here is one composer and gifted pianist who brought a new color into American music. Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869), born in New Orleans, was the child of an English father and Creole mother, thus mixing Spanish, French and English blood. He was an infant prodigy; he played the piano at four, the organ at six, and at thirteen he went to Paris to study. He was praised by Chopin, and appeared in concerts with Hector Berlioz. He charmed everyone who heard him, and was the first American pianist to receive European honors. The Infanta of Spain made a cake for him and a celebrated bull-fighter gave him a sword! He toured Cuba and North and South America, giving more than a thousand concerts. But the life was too hard on him and he died at the age of forty in Rio Janeiro, Brazil.

The Last Hope, Ojos Creollos (Creole Eyes), Banjo, Souvenirs of Andalusia are among the most popular of his ninety compositions for piano, which showed the strong influence of life in Louisiana, his love of sunshiny Spain, and his study in France. Here we find rhythms closely related to ragtime and jazz, as well as the slow fascinating Spanish dance. Today his works are forgotten, but for many years they were played throughout the land.

Stephen Collins Foster

Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864), for whom we have claimed the right to be called a composer of folk songs, was born in Lawrenceville (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania, on the fiftieth anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. The understanding he showed of the Negro came to him because his parents were Southerners. He showed talent for music when he was very young, and taught himself to play the flageolet when he was seven years old. He was very self-willed and did not like discipline, so he taught himself practically all he knew of music. His first composition, Tioga Waltz for four flutes, was written when he was a school boy. It was first played in school, with Stephen in the lead. His first song, Open thy Lattice, Love, was published in 1842. For several years, five boys met at the Foster home, and Stephen taught them to sing part songs. He composed many pieces for them, among them Oh, Susannah, Old Uncle Ned and Old Black Joe.

About 1830, an actor, Thomas Rice, had the idea of dressing up like an old negro porter in Pittsburgh, from whom he borrowed the clothes, and singing a song he had heard from a negro stage driver: