Contemporary American Composers Part 19

_The St. Louis Colony._

The most original and important contribution to American music that St. Louis has made, is, to my mind, the book of songs written by William Schuyler. The words were chosen from Stephen Crane's book of poems, "The Black Riders." The genius of Crane, concomitant with eccentricity as it was, is one of the most distinctive among American writers. The book called "The Black Riders" contains a number of moods that are unique in their suggestiveness and originality. Being without rime or meter, the lines oppose almost as many difficulties to a musician as the works of Walt Whitman; and yet, as Alfred Bruneau has set Zola's prose to music, so some brave American composer will find inspiration abundant in the works of Walt Whitman and Emily d.i.c.kinson.

[Music: III.

_WILLIAM SCHUYLER._

There was, before me, Mile upon mile of snow, ice, burning sand.

And yet I could look beyond all this, To a place of infinite beauty; And I could see the loveliness of her Who walked in the shade of the trees.

When I gazed, All was lost But this place of beauty and her When I gazed, And in my gazing, desired Then came again Mile upon mile, Of snow, ice, burning sand, burning sand.

Words used by permission of Copeland and Day.

Copyright, 1897, by Wm. Schuyler.

FROM WM. SCHUYLER'S "BLACK RIDERS."]

Schuyler was born in St. Louis, May 4, 1855, and music has been his livelihood. He is largely self-taught, and has composed some fifty pieces for the piano, a hundred and fifty songs, a few works for violin, viola, and 'cello, and two short trios.

In his setting of these lines of Crane's, Schuyler has attacked a difficult problem in an ideal manner. To three of the short poems he has given a sense of epic vast.i.tude, and to two of them he has given a tantalizing mysticism. The songs, which have been published privately, should be reproduced for the wide circulation they deserve.

Another writer of small songs displaying unusual individuality is George Clifford Vieh, who was born in St. Louis and studied there under Victor Ehling. In 1889, he went to Vienna for three years, studying under Bruckner, Robert Fuchs, and Dachs. He graduated with the silver medal there, and returned to St. Louis, where he has since lived as a teacher and pianist.

Alfred George Robyn is the most popular composer St. Louis has developed. He was born in 1860, his father being William Robyn, who organized the first symphonic orchestra west of Pittsburg. Robyn was a youthful prodigy as a pianist; and, at the age of ten, he succeeded his father as organist at St. John's Church, then equipped with the best choir in the city. It was necessary for the pedals of the organ to be raised to his feet. At the age of sixteen he became solo pianist with Emma Abbott's company. As a composer Robyn has written some three hundred compositions, some of them reaching a tremendous sale. A few of them have been serious and worth while, notably a piano concerto, a quintette, four string quartettes, a ma.s.s, and several orchestral suites.

There are not many American composers that have had a fugue published, or have written fugues that deserve publication. It is the distinction of Ernest Richard Kroeger that he has written one that deserved, and secured, publication. This was his 41st opus. It is preceded by a prelude which, curiously enough, is thoroughly Cuban in spirit and is a downright Habanera, though not so announced. This fiery composition is followed by a four-voiced "real" fugue. The subject is genuinely interesting, though the counter-subject is as perfunctory as most counter-subjects. The middle-section, the stretto-work, and the powerful ending, give the fugue the right to exist.

Among other publications are a suite for piano (op. 33), in which a scherzo has life, and a sonata for violin and piano, in which, curiously enough, the violin has not one instance of double-stopping, and the elaborating begins, not with the first subject taken vigorously, but with the second subject sung out softly. The last movement is the best, a quaint and lively rondo. A set of twelve concert etudes show the influence of Chopin upon a composer who writes with a strong German accent. The etude called "Castor and Pollux" is a vigorous number with the chords of the left hand exactly doubled in the right; another etude, "A Romanze," is noteworthy for the practice it gives in a point which is too much ignored even by the best pianists; that is, the distinction between the importance of the tones of the same chord struck by the same hand. A work of broad scholarship, which shows the combined influence of Beethoven and Chopin, who have chiefly affected Kroeger, is his sonata (op. 40). A dominant pedal-point of fifty-eight measures, in the last movement, is worth mentioning. In a "Danse Negre" and a "Caprice Negre," he has evidently gone, for his Ethiopian color, not to the actual negro music, but to the similar compositions of Gottschalk. Kroeger was born in St. Louis, August 10, 1862. At the age of five he took up the study of the piano and violin. His theoretical tuition was all had in this country. He has written many songs, a piano concerto, sonatas for piano and viola, and piano and 'cello, two trios, a quintette, and three string quartettes, as well as a symphony, a suite, and overtures based on "Endymion," "Thanatopsis," "Sardanapalus" (produced by Anton Seidl, in New York), "Hiawatha," and "Atala."

CHAPTER V.

THE WOMEN COMPOSERS.

This is not the place to take up cudgels for a contest on the problem of woman's right to respect in the creative arts. There are some, it is true, who deny fervently that the feminine half of mankind ever has or can or ever will do original and important work there. If you press them too hard they will take refuge up this tree, that all women who ever have had success have been actually mannish of mind,--a dodge in question-begging that is one of the most ingenious ever devised; a piece of masculine logic that puts to shame all historic examples of womanly fallacy and sophistry. It seems to me that the question is easily settled on this wise: it is impossible for a rational mind to deny that the best work done in the arts by women is of better quality than the average work done by men. This lets the cat's head out of the bag, and her whole body follows pell-mell.

In a few instances it seems to me that the best things done by women equal the best things done by men in those lines. The best verses of Sappho, the best sonnets of Mrs. Browning, the best chapters of George Eliot, the best animal paintings of Rosa Bonheur, do not seem to me surpa.s.sed by their rivals in masculine work. If anything in verse of its sort is n.o.bler than Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," it is still in ma.n.u.script. If there is any poet of more complete individuality than Emily d.i.c.kinson, I have not run across his books.

In music I place two or three of Miss Lang's small songs among the chief of their manner.

All over the world the woman-mind is taking up music. The ban that led f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn to publish her music under her brother's name, has gone where the puritanic theory of the disgracefulness of the musical profession now twineth its choking coils. A publisher informs me that where compositions by women were only one-tenth of his ma.n.u.scripts a few years ago, they now form more than two-thirds. From such activity, much that is worth while is bound to spring. Art knows no s.e.x, and even what the women write in man-tone is often surprisingly strong, though it is wrongly aimed. But this effort is like the bombast of a young people or a juvenile literature; the directness and repose of fidelity to nature come later. The American woman is in the habit of getting what she sets her heart on. She has determined to write music.

With an ardor that was ominous of success, Miss Amy Marcy Cheney, after a short preliminary course in harmony, resolved to finish her tuition independently. As an example of the thoroughness that has given her such unimpeachable knowledge of her subject, may be mentioned the fact that she made her own translation of Berlioz and Gavaert. She was born in New Hampshire, of descent American back to colonial times. At the age of four she wrote her opus 1. She is a concert pianist as well as a frequent composer in the largest forms.

She is now Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. H.H.A. BEACH.]

Not many living men can point to a composition of more maturity and more dignity than Mrs. Beach' "Jubilate," for the dedication of the Woman's Building at the Columbian Exposition. The work is as big as its name; it is the best possible answer to skeptics of woman's musical ability. It may be too sustainedly loud, and the infrequent and short pa.s.sages piano are rather breathing-spells than contrasting awe, but frequently this work shows a very magnificence of power and exaltation. And the ending is simply superb, though I could wish that some of the terrific dissonances in the accompaniment had been put into the unisonal voices to widen the effect and strengthen the final grandeur. But as it is, it rings like a clarion of triumph,--the cry of a Balboa discovering a new sea of opportunity and emotion.

Another work of force and daring is the ma.s.s in E flat (op. 5), for organ and small orchestra. It is conventionally ecclesiastic as a rule, and suffers from Mrs. Beach' besetting sin of over-elaboration, but it proclaims a great ripeness of technic. The "Qui Tollis" is especially perfect in its sombre depth and richness. The "Credo" works up the cry of "crucifixus" with a thrilling rage of grief and a dramatic feeling rare in Mrs. Beach' work. This work was begun at the age of nineteen and finished three years later. It was given with notable effect in 1892 by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston.

Mrs. Beach' "Valse Caprice" has just one motive,--to reach the maximum of technical trickiness and difficulty. There is such a thing as hiding one's light under a bushel, and there is such a thing as emptying a bushel of chaff upon it.

"Fireflies" is a shimmering and flitting caprice of much ingenuity, but it keeps in the field of dissonance almost interminably, and clear harmony is not so much the homing-place of its dissonance, as an infrequent glint through an inadvertent c.h.i.n.k. This neat composition is one of four "Sketches for the Piano," of which "Phantoms" is delightful with ghostliness. "In Autumn" is a most excellent tone-poem, and "Dreaming" is a well-varied lyric. As a colorist Mrs.

Beach is most original and studious. Her tireless hunt for new tints often diverts her indeed from the direct forthright of her meaning, but the "Danse des Fleurs" is rich in its gorgeousness. The flowing grace of the "Menuet Italien" makes it an uncharacteristic but charming work.

[Music: PHANTOMS.

"Toute fragiles fleurs, sitot mortes que nees."

Victor Hugo.

Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.

Copyright, 1892, by Arthur P. Schmidt.

A FRAGMENT.]

Horace, you know, promises to write so that any one will think him easy to equal, though much sweat will be shed in the effort. It is the transparency of her studiousness, and the conspicuous labor in polishing off effects and mining opportunity to the core, that chiefly mars the work of Mrs. Beach, in my opinion. One or two of the little pieces that make up the half-dozen of the "Children's Carnival" are among her best work, for the very cheery ease of their look.

"Pantalon," "Harlequin," "Columbine," and "Secrets" are infinitely better art than a dozen valse-caprices.

Both the defects and effects of her qualities haunt Mrs. Beach' songs.

When she is sparing in her erudition she is delightful. Fourteen of her songs are gathered into a "Cyclus." The first is an "Ariette,"

with an accompaniment imitating the guitar. It is both tender and graceful. Probably her best song is the setting of W.E. Henley's fine poem, "Dark is the Night." It is of the "Erl-King" style, but highly original and tremendously fierce and eerie. The same poet's "Western Wind" is given a setting contrastingly dainty and serene. "The Blackbird" is delicious and quite unhackneyed. "A Secret" is bizarre, and "Empress of the Night" is brilliant. With the exception of a certain excess of dissonance for a love-song, "Wilt Thou Be My Dearie?" is perfect with amorous tenderness. "Just for This!" is a delightful vocal scherzo of complete originality and entire success.

"A Song of Love" is pa.s.sionate and yet lyric, ornamented but not fettered. "Across the World" has been one of Mrs. Beach' most popular songs; it is intense and singable. "My Star" is tender, and the accompaniment is richly worked out on simple lines. Three Vocal Duets are well-handled, but the long "Eilende Wolken" has a jerky recitative of Handelian _navete_, to which the aria is a welcome relief. Her sonata for piano and violin has been played here by Mr. Kneisel, and in Berlin by Mme. Carreno and Carl Halir.

Besides these, Mrs. Beach has done not a little for the orchestra. Her "Gaelic Symphony" is her largest work, and it has been often played by the Boston Symphony, the Thomas, and other orchestras. It is characterized by all her exuberant scholarship and unwearying energy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARGARET RUTHVEN LANG.]

Margaret Ruthven Lang, the daughter of B.J. Lang, is American by birth and training. She was born in Boston, November 27, 1867. She has written large works, such as three concert overtures, two of which have been performed by the Thomas and the Boston Symphony Orchestras, though none of them are published. Other unpublished works are a cantata, two arias with orchestral accompaniment, and a rhapsody for the piano. One rhapsody has been published, that in E minor; in spite of its good details, it is curiously unsatisfying,--it seems all prelude, interlude, and postlude, with the actual rhapsody accidentally overlooked. A "Meditation" is bleak, with a strong, free use of dissonance.

"The Jumblies" is a setting of Edward Lear's elusive nonsense, as full of the flavor of subtile humor as its original. It is for male chorus, with an accompaniment for two pianos, well individualized and erudite.

It is in her solo songs, however, that her best success is reaped.

When I say that Mrs. Beach' work is markedly virile, I do not mean it as compliment unalloyed; when I find Miss Lang's work supremely womanly, I would not deny it great strength, any more than I would deny that quality to the s.e.x of which Joan of Arc and Jael were not uncharacteristic members.

Such a work as the "Maiden and the b.u.t.terfly" is as fragile and rich as a b.u.t.terfly's wing. "My Lady Jacqueminot" is exquisitely, delicately pa.s.sionate. "Eros" is frail, rare, ecstatic. "Ghosts" is elfin and dainty as snowflakes. The "Spinning Song" is inexpressibly sad, and such music as women best understand, and therefore ought to make best. But womanliness equally marks "The Grief of Love," which is in every sense big in quality; marks the bitterness of "Oh, What Comes over the Sea," the wailing Gaelic sweetness of the "Irish Love Song,"

and the fiery pa.s.sion of "Betrayed," highly dramatic until its rather trite ending. "Nameless Pain" is superb. Her "Lament" I consider one of the greatest of songs, and proof positive of woman's high capabilities for composition. Miss Lang has a harmonic individuality, too, and finds out new effects that are strange without strain.

[Music: GHOSTS.

Words by Munkittrick.

MARGARET RUTHVEN LANG.

Out in the misty moonlight, the first snow flakes I see, As they frolic among the leafless boughs of the apple tree.