How To Listen To Music Part 17

[E] "But no real student can have studied the score deeply, or listened discriminatingly to a good performance, without discovering that there is a tremendous chasm between the conventional aims of the Italian poet in the book of the opera and the work which emerged from the composer's profound imagination. Da Ponte contemplated a _dramma giocoso_; Mozart humored him until his imagination came within the shadow cast before by the catastrophe, and then he transformed the poet's comedy into a tragedy of crushing power. The climax of Da Ponte's ideal is reached in a picture of the dissolute _Don_ wrestling in idle desperation with a host of spectacular devils, and finally disappearing through a trap, while fire bursts out on all sides, the thunders roll, and _Leporello_ gazes on the scene, crouched in a comic att.i.tude of terror, under the table. Such a picture satisfied the tastes of the public of his time, and that public found nothing incongruous in a return to the scene immediately afterward of all the characters save the reprobate, who had gone to his reward, to hear a description of the catastrophe from the buffoon under the table, and plat.i.tudinously to moralize that the perfidious wretch, having been stored away safely in the realm of Pluto and Proserpine, nothing remained for them to do except to raise their voices in the words of the "old song,"

_"Questo e il fin di chi fa mal: E dei perfidi la morte Alla vita e sempre ugual."_

"New York Musical Season, 1889-90."

[F] "Review of the New York Musical Season, 1889-90," p. 75.

[G] See "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," chapter I.

VIII

_Choirs and Choral Music_

[Sidenote: _Choirs a touchstone of culture._]

[Sidenote: _The value of choir singing._]

No one would go far astray who should estimate the extent and sincerity of a community's musical culture by the number of its chorus singers. Some years ago it was said that over three hundred cities and towns in Germany contained singing societies and orchestras devoted to the cultivation of choral music. In the United States, where there are comparatively a small number of instrumental musicians, there has been a wonderful development of singing societies within the last generation, and it is to this fact largely that the notable growth in the country's knowledge and appreciation of high-cla.s.s music is due.

No amount of mere hearing and study can compare in influence with partic.i.p.ation in musical performance. Music is an art which rests on love. It is beautiful sound vitalized by feeling, and it can only be grasped fully through man's emotional nature. There is no quicker or surer way to get to the heart of a composition than by performing it, and since partic.i.p.ation in chorus singing is of necessity unselfish and creative of sympathy, there is no better medium of musical culture than membership in a choir. It was because he realized this that Schumann gave the advice to all students of music: "Sing diligently in choirs; especially the middle voices, for this will make you musical."

[Sidenote: _Singing societies and orchestras._]

[Sidenote: _Neither numbers nor wealth necessary._]

There is no community so small or so ill-conditioned that it cannot maintain a singing society. Before a city can give sustenance to even a small body of instrumentalists it must be large enough and rich enough to maintain a theatre from which those instrumentalists can derive their support. There can be no dependence upon amateurs, for people do not study the oboe, ba.s.soon, trombone, or double-ba.s.s for amus.e.m.e.nt. Amateur violinists and amateur flautists there are in plenty, but not amateur clarinetists and French-horn players; but if the love for music exists in a community, a dozen families shall suffice to maintain a choral club. Large numbers are therefore not essential; neither is wealth. Some of the largest and finest choirs in the world flourish among the Welsh miners in the United States and Wales, fostered by a native love for the art and the national inst.i.tution called Eisteddfod.

[Sidenote: _Lines of choral culture in the United States._]

The lines on which choral culture has proceeded in the United States are two, of which the more valuable, from an artistic point of view, is that of the oratorio, which went out from New England. The other originated in the German cultivation of the _Mannergesang_, the importance of which is felt more in the extent of the culture, prompted as it is largely by social considerations, than in the music sung, which is of necessity of a lower grade than that composed for mixed voices. It is chiefly in the impulse which German _Mannergesang_ carried into all the corners of the land, and especially the impetus which the festivals of the German singers gave to the sections in which they have been held for half a century, that this form of culture is interesting.

[Sidenote: _Church and oratorio._]

[Sidenote: _Secular choirs._]

The cultivation of oratorio music sprang naturally from the Church, and though it is now chiefly in the hands of secular societies, the biblical origin of the vast majority of the texts used in the works which are performed, and more especially the regular performances of Handel's "Messiah" in the Christmastide, have left the notion, more or less distinct, in the public mind, that oratorios are religious functions. Nevertheless (or perhaps because of this fact) the most successful choral concerts in the United States are those given by oratorio societies. The cultivation of choral music which is secular in character is chiefly in the hands of small organizations, whose concerts are of a semi-private nature and are enjoyed by the a.s.sociate members and invited guests. This circ.u.mstance is deserving of notice as a characteristic feature of choral music in America, though it has no particular bearing upon this study, which must concern itself with choral organizations, choral music, and choral performances in general.

[Sidenote: _Amateur choirs originated in the United States._]

[Sidenote: _The size of old choirs._]

Organizations of the kind in view differ from instrumental in being composed of amateurs; and amateur choir-singing is no older anywhere than in the United States. Two centuries ago and more the singing of catches and glees was a common amus.e.m.e.nt among the gentler cla.s.ses in England, but the performances of the larger forms of choral music were in the hands of professional choristers who were connected with churches, theatres, schools, and other public inst.i.tutions. Naturally, then, the choral bodies were small. Choirs of hundreds and thousands, such as take part in the festivals of to-day, are a product of a later time.

[Sidenote: _Handel's choirs._]

"When Bach and Handel wrote their Pa.s.sions, Church Cantatas, and Oratorios, they could only dream of such majestic performances as those works receive now; and it is one of the miracles of art that they should have written in so masterly a manner for forces that they could never hope to control. Who would think, when listening to the 'Hallelujah'

of 'The Messiah,' or the great double choruses of 'Israel in Egypt,' in which the voice of the composer is 'as the voice of a great mult.i.tude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thunderings, saying, "Alleluia, for the Lord G.o.d Omnipotent reigneth!"' that these colossal compositions were never heard by Handel from any chorus larger than the most modest of our church choirs? At the last performance of 'The Messiah' at which Handel was advertised to appear (it was for the benefit of his favorite charity, the Foundling Hospital, on May 3, 1759--he died before the time, however), the singers, including princ.i.p.als, numbered twenty-three, while the instrumentalists numbered thirty-three. At the first great Handel Commemoration, in Westminster Abbey, in 1784, the choir numbered two hundred and seventy-five, the band two hundred and fifty; and this was the most numerous force ever gathered together for a single performance in England up to that time.

[Sidenote: _Choirs a century ago._]

[Sidenote: _Bach's choir._]

"In 1791 the Commemoration was celebrated by a choir of five hundred and a band of three hundred and seventy-five. In May, 1786, Johann Adam Hiller, one of Bach's successors as cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipsic, directed what was termed a _Ma.s.senauffuhrung_ of 'The Messiah,' in the Domkirche, in Berlin. His 'ma.s.ses' consisted of one hundred and eighteen singers and one hundred and eighty-six instrumentalists. In Handel's operas, and sometimes even in his oratorios, the _tutti_ meant, in his time, little more than a union of all the solo singers; and even Bach's Pa.s.sion music and church cantatas, which seem as much designed for numbers as the double choruses of 'Israel,'

were rendered in the St. Thomas Church by a ludicrously small choir. Of this fact a record is preserved in the archives of Leipsic. In August, 1730, Bach submitted to the authorities a plan for a church choir of the pupils in his care. In this plan his singers numbered twelve, there being one princ.i.p.al and two ripienists in each voice; with characteristic modesty he barely suggests a preference for sixteen. The circ.u.mstance that in the same doc.u.ment he asked for at least eighteen instrumentalists (two more if flutes were used), taken in connection with the figures given relative to the 'Messiah' performances, gives an insight into the relations between the vocal and the instrumental parts of a choral performance in those days."[H]

[Sidenote: _Proportion of voices and instruments._]

This relation has been more than reversed since then, the orchestras at modern oratorio performances seldom being one-fifth as large as the choir. This difference, however, is due largely to the changed character of modern music, that of to-day treating the instruments as independent agents of expression instead of using them chiefly to support the voices and add sonority to the tonal ma.s.s, as was done by Handel and most of the composers of his day.

[Sidenote: _Glee unions and male choirs._]

I omit from consideration the Glee Unions of England, and the quartets, which correspond to them, in this country. They are not cultivators of choral music, and the music which they sing is an insignificant factor in culture. The male choirs, too, need not detain us long, since it may be said without injustice that their mission is more social than artistic. In these choirs the subdivision into parts is, as a rule, into two tenor voices, first and second, and two ba.s.s, first and second. In the glee unions, the effect of whose singing is fairly well imitated by the college clubs of the United States (pitiful things, indeed, from an artistic point of view), there is a survival of an old element in the male alto singing above the melody voice, generally in a painful falsetto. This abomination is unknown to the German part-songs for men's voices, which are written normally, but are in the long run monotonous in color for want of the variety in timbre and register which the female voices contribute in a mixed choir.

[Sidenote: _Women's choirs._]

There are choirs also composed exclusively of women, but they are even more unsatisfactory than the male choirs, for the reason that the absence of the ba.s.s voice leaves their harmony without sufficient foundation. Generally, music for these choirs is written for three parts, two sopranos and contralto, with the result that it hovers, suspended like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth. When a fourth part is added it is a second contralto, which is generally carried down to the tones that are hollow and unnatural.

[Sidenote: _Boys' choirs._]

The subst.i.tution of boys for women in Episcopal Church choirs has grown extensively within the last ten years in the United States, very much to the promotion of aesthetic sentimentality in the congregations, but without improving the character of worship-music. Boys' voices are practically limitless in an upward direction, and are naturally clear and penetrating. Ravishing effects can be produced with them, but it is false art to use pa.s.sionless voices in music conceived for the mature and emotional voices of adults; and very little of the old English Cathedral music, written for choirs of boys and men, is preserved in the service lists to-day.

[Sidenote: _Mixed choirs._]

The only satisfactory choirs are the mixed choirs of men and women.

Upon them has devolved the cultivation of artistic choral music in our public concert-rooms. As we know such choirs now, they are of comparatively recent origin, and it is a singular commentary upon the way in which musical history is written, that the fact should have so long been overlooked that the credit of organizing the first belongs to the United States. A little reflection will show this fact, which seems somewhat startling at first blush, to be entirely natural. Large singing societies are of necessity made up of amateurs, and the want of professional musicians in America compelled the people to enlist amateurs at a time when in Europe choral activity rested on the church, theatre, and inst.i.tute choristers, who were practically professionals.

[Sidenote: _Origin of amateur singing societies._]

[Sidenote: _The German record._]

[Sidenote: _American priority._]

[Sidenote: _The American record._]

As the hitherto accepted record stands, the first amateur singing society was the Singakademie of Berlin, which Carl Friedrich Fasch, accompanist to the royal flautist, Frederick the Great, called into existence in 1791. A few dates will show how slow the other cities of musical Germany were in following Berlin's example. In 1818 there were only ten amateur choirs in all Germany. Leipsic organized one in 1800, Stettin in 1800, Munster in 1804, Dresden in 1807, Potsdam in 1814, Bremen in 1815, Chemnitz in 1817, Schwabisch-Hall in 1817, and Innsbruck in 1818. The Berlin Singakademie is still in existence, but so also is the Stoughton Musical Society in Stoughton, Ma.s.s., which was founded on November 7, 1786. Mr. Charles C. Perkins, historian of the Handel and Haydn Society, whose foundation was coincident with the sixth society in Germany (Bremen, 1815), enumerates the following predecessors of that venerable organization: the Stoughton Musical Society, 1786; Independent Musical Society, "established at Boston in the same year, which gave a concert at King's Chapel in 1788, and took part there in commemorating the death of Washington (December 14, 1799) on his first succeeding birthday;" the Franklin, 1804; the Salem, 1806; Ma.s.sachusetts Musical, 1807; Lock Hospital, 1812, and the Norfolk Musical, the date of whose foundation is not given by Mr.

Perkins.

[Sidenote: _Choirs in the West._]

When the Bremen Singakademie was organized there were already choirs in the United States as far west as Cincinnati. In that city they were merely church choirs at first, but within a few years they had combined into a large body and were giving concerts at which some of the choruses of Handel and Haydn were sung. That their performances, as well as those of the New England societies, were cruder than those of their European rivals may well be believed, but with this I have nothing to do. I am simply seeking to establish the priority of the United States in amateur choral culture. The number of American cities in which oratorios are performed annually is now about fifty.

[Sidenote: _The size of choirs._]

[Sidenote: _Large numbers not essential._]

[Sidenote: _How "divisions" used to be sung._]