Memories of a Musical Life Part 17

Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton all have their chairs of music, and doubtless this is true of others of our universities and colleges.

The city of New York has become one of the great musical centers of the world. The Philharmonic Society, the opera season, the Kneisel Quartet, and many others of high artistic merit, afford opportunities for the gratification of musical taste which are hardly to be excelled elsewhere; and the popularity of these and of the countless pianoforte recitals and chamber-music concerts bears eloquent testimony to the growth of an intelligent musical taste among us. Boston and Chicago have their world-renowned orchestras, led by Gericke and Thomas, who are pa.s.sed masters of their art. The cities of Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and St. Louis have their orchestras, each under competent leadership. The most celebrated artists at home and from abroad are heard in our princ.i.p.al cities. The season just closed (1900-01) is in striking contrast to those of my early manhood. Among the many prominent pianists who have played to us there are some of extraordinary talent, who give abundant promise of brilliant future achievement.

Ernst von Dohnanyi, born at Pressburg, July 27, 1877, is a wonderfully talented musical composer and at the same time a pianist whose technic is complete, combining as it does the emotional, intelligent, and mechanical elements in happy union and adjustment. Von Dohnanyi has by nature as intense, thorough, and complete a musical organization as ever came within my experience. He composes with marvelous spontaneity and rapidity. His ideas are fresh and original, and their expression and elaboration are effected with the freedom of an improvisation, thus in no way emphasizing their mechanical setting forth.

He is just completing, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, an elaborate symphony in D minor for grand orchestra, the scheme of which is as follows: I. Allegro; II. Adagio; III. Scherzo; IV. Intermezzo; V.

Finale: Introduction, Tema con Variazioni; Fuga.

This is a ma.s.sive production, apparently the result of inherent qualities carried into act by impulse, in other words, of spontaneous achievement. It is so instinctive and impulsive that the art of its construction hardly occurs to the hearer at first, but as an afterthought excites wonder and admiration.

Early in March of the present year (1901), Von Dohnanyi, his wife, and a few other friends, among them Emil Pauer, dined at my house, and during the evening Von Dohnanyi played his symphony on the pianoforte. This instrument is naturally quite inadequate to the interpretation of such a work, but Von Dohnanyi's technic is so complete, his tone so ma.s.sive while intensely musical, and his enthusiasm so contagious that we became conscious of an ever-increasing interest, steadily growing in intensity.

The occasion and its experience will not be forgotten by any of those present.

A week later the Von Dohnanyis spent the evening with us just before their departure on the following day for Europe, and he played again a portion of the work, deepening and confirming the impression made at the first hearing. The future of this young man is full of promise. His teacher in composition was Hans Koessler in Pesth; his pianoforte teacher was Stephen Thoman of the same city. Later on he had eight lessons of Eugen d'Albert in Berlin, after which the latter said to him: "You can go on by yourself now; I have taught you all I can."

Leopold G.o.dowsky is a pianist of the first cla.s.s, but above all he is a specialist, and altogether unapproachable in his specialty. His left hand is in every respect the equal of his right, and pa.s.sages of extreme intricacy and rapidity come out with an astonishing clearness of detail.

Nothing in his work, however minute, is slighted, but musical expression and finish of execution are above criticism. His specialty is his rearrangement and working up of many of Chopin's etudes in such manner that several of the various themes of these are, so to speak, intertwined. In some instances three different melodies can be heard progressing simultaneously in loving union, with a smoothness, delicacy, and accuracy in counterpoint which is simply marvelous. There is never a suspicion of haste in his playing, no matter how rapid the rate of speed. His manner is full of repose--respectful, earnest, and sympathetic; thus there is no suggestion of violence to the composer's original production.

I know that among my best friends, whose judgment I esteem, there are some who do not hold the same opinion, and who think that the composer's work should be left intact. It seems to me, however, that much depends upon the manner of treatment. The French proverb runs: "Il y a f.a.gots et f.a.gots"; or, in the more homely phrase of dear old Boston, "There are beans, and then there are beans." Moreover, the fact that these compositions are etudes (studies), and therefore avowedly for the purpose of developing physical technic as well as poetic style, should be duly considered in judging of their _raison d'etre_. Similar treatment of the sonatas, ballades, and nocturnes would surely be a different thing. Furthermore, the solid and dignified Brahms--one of the three B's of Bulow's trinity--set an example, by rearranging a rondo by Von Weber, which he turns upside down, so to speak, making a ba.s.s of what in the original is the right-hand part. Brahms has also utterly destroyed the charm of Chopin's "etude in F Minor, Op. 25, No. 2," which lies in the very rapid and delicately pianissimo playing of pa.s.sages of triplets in the right hand as against duals in the left. In the original these pa.s.sages are throughout of single tones in both hands, and hence can be performed in the most dainty and fascinating manner; but Brahms has changed the right hand part to double thirds and; sixths, thus completely altering the character of the music, and doing violence to the exquisitely light, delicate, and graceful effect of the original version. In pa.s.sing judgment upon the work of Brahms, however, it must not be forgotten that he publishes this in company with several other arrangements, under the general t.i.tle, "Studien fur das Pianoforte,"

thus indicating that his object is the development of physical technic.

In this connection, I remember Rubinstein's telling me as long ago as 1873, in the artists' retiring-room during one of his recitals at Steinway Hall, that he used in his boyhood's days "to do all sorts of things with Chopin's etudes," as he expressed it, "in order to exercise and strengthen the fingers." By way of ill.u.s.tration, he went to an upright piano which happened to be in the room, and began playing with his left hand alone the right-hand part of the chromatic-scale etude; "Op. 10, No. 2," and this he did with fluency.

G.o.dowsky has played his arrangements to me on several occasions at my studio and at home _en famille_, and has invariably produced a state of happy good humor which was of long duration and which in large measure returns to me as I write.

April 20, 1901. Yesterday evening I attended the farewell concert of Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the talented young Russian pianist. He was at his best, and proved his right to stand in the front rank of modern pianists. His playing throughout of a program of compositions of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Liszt was masterly, combining as it did genuine musical quality, intelligence in phrasing, and great brilliancy, as well as poetry in interpretation. He is yet a young man and has not reached the full climax of his power, and will doubtless show still further development in the next few years. Other pianists who have played in New York during the season of 1900-01, and who deserve to be cla.s.sed with the highest, are Harold Bauer, who has deservedly won a very high reputation through his splendid ability in all styles of piano music, and Arthur Friedheim, whose recent concert was brilliant in high degree, and who on that occasion gave an interpretation of Liszt's great "Sonata in B Minor" which it seems to me was not surpa.s.sed by the master himself--and I have heard Liszt play this work many times. Richard Burmeister also gave a masterly interpretation of this same sonata earlier in the season. This is the sonata, by the way, of which mention has been made, in the earlier part of these "Memories," as having been played by Liszt on the occasion of the first visit of Brahms to Liszt, in the year 1853.

We have also had Teresa Carreno, Adele aus der Ohe, and Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler, all of them of the first rank and established reputation. Of these the first-named is a friend of long standing, for my first acquaintance with her dates back to the early sixties, when she first came to New York as a child prodigy. I well remember the impression she made upon me at that time, both from her artistic playing and her charming appearance in short dresses and "pantalets," the fashion for children of that day. A friendship was immediately begun and established, which still continues.

Josef Hofmann, with his tremendous technic and executive skill, has given pleasure to many; and Arthur Whiting, Howard Brockway, and Henry Holden Huss have ably upheld the reputation of American virtuosos and composers.

In bringing these papers to a close, I desire to make my grateful acknowledgment to the friends and pupils of many years who united in celebrating the seventieth anniversary of my birth by presenting me with a beautiful silver loving-cup, which I fondly cherish as an evidence of affectionate regard, and which will be ever filled and overflowing with loving memories, not alone of those who united in the gift, but of the many others whom I have known in the course of an unusually long professional career. To one and all I offer my heartfelt thanks.

APPENDIX

PART I

EARLY LIFE OF LOWELL MASON

ADDRESS OF WILLIAM S. TILDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE MEDFIELD HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AT CHENERY HALL, MEDFIELD, FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 1892, THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF DR. LOWELL MASON

FELLOW-CITIZENS: Most that has been hitherto said and written has been rather concerning the public and professional career of Dr. Mason; and we shall doubtless have presented many interesting mementos to-day, in letter and address, relating to those things in which he is most generally known. What I have to present in this paper will refer particularly to his birth, parentage, and early surroundings, of which comparatively little has been said.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOWELL MASON

FROM A DAGUERREOTYPE]

Lowell Mason was of English descent, being in the sixth generation from Thomas Mason and Margery Partridge. Thomas, born in England, was the son of Robert, who settled in Dedham, from whence he, with his brother Robert, came to Medfield in the second year of its settlement. The marriage of Thomas Mason and Margery Partridge, April 23, 1653, is the first recorded marriage in this old town. He received his house-lot by original grant from the town. It was upon North street, where Amos E.

Mason now lives, the homestead having never been out of the possession of the Mason family. Thomas Mason and two of his sons were killed by the Indians on that fateful morning in February, 1676, when the town was burned. His eldest son was killed the following year, while fighting the Indians at the "Eastward" (now Maine), leaving one boy, Ebenezer, who was seven years of age only when his father was killed, and who, therefore, became the progenitor of the line from which Lowell Mason sprang. The son of this Ebenezer, Thomas Mason, left the homestead on North street, and settled in the extreme northeast corner of the town, at what is now known as the Charles Newell place. He married the daughter-in-law of Samuel Sady, who kept a tavern on North street, where the Pfaff mansion now stands; and his son Barachias, grandfather of Lowell, inherited, through his mother, that place, and settled upon it, where he lived with his son Johnson, father of Lowell. There the man whose nativity we celebrate to-day was born. The building has been preserved, and is, no doubt, the "farm-house," so called, on Adams Avenue.

The first twenty years of his life were spent in his native town of Medfield; and very little has ever been written about this portion of his life, and much of that somewhat incorrectly. His biographers seem to have endeavored to add to his fame by magnifying his want of opportunities for education and culture in his youth. In a discourse upon Mr. Mason's life and labors, the Rev. George B. Bacon, his pastor, says: "Mr. Mason had no advantages of education. He was the son of a mechanic in a small New England town. He began almost in his cradle that fight for a living which left small opportunity for study or culture."

Another writer says: "He spent twenty years of his life doing nothing but playing upon all sorts of musical instruments, and there was no one to teach him their use." We feel inclined to believe that these statements were half-truths only, and are not a complete statement, by any means, of the conditions and pursuits of his youth.

We think it can be shown that while Medfield is proud of having such a son, he was fortunate in having such a birthplace. We believe in the influence of heredity in genius, but also in the influence of environments. He was especially favored in both these respects, descending for generations from an honored ancestry and surrounded in his youth by educated people of high moral and religious character. His parents were in fairly comfortable circ.u.mstances, and he was, as is usual in such cases, permitted considerable freedom in following the promptings of his natural genius, which, springing as he did from a musical family, early showed tendency toward that branch of art.

Dr. Holmes says: "If we wish to educate a boy properly, we must begin with his grandfather." Barachias Mason was a graduate of Harvard University in 1742, but one hundred and fifty years ago. He was a schoolmaster, a teacher of singing-schools, and a selectman of the town for several years. This certainly is a fair start, on Dr. Holmes's principle. His son, Colonel Johnson Mason, Lowell's father, lived with him, and inherited the homestead, where he kept a public school for many years. He was a merchant. In this pursuit, it seems, young Lowell a.s.sisted him in his boyhood, as we learn that, on the occasion of his narrow escape from drowning in 1806, he was out with a team on business for his father, near what is now poor-farm bridge, where he was rescued from a watery grave by two boys about his own age after having sunk for the third time. Colonel Mason manufactured straw goods to some extent.

He was also an ingenious mechanic, inventing some useful machines used in the straw business of those days. He was town clerk for nineteen years, town treasurer, and a member of the legislature; he was a musician, a player on musical instruments, particularly the violoncello, and, together with his wife, sang in the parish choir for more than twenty years. When the musical talent of the town united, on a Fourth-of-July occasion in 1840, to supply the music, Colonel Mason stood at the head of the ba.s.ses, although then over seventy years of age. He was also a prominent military man, commissioned captain in 1800, and lieutenant-colonel in 1803. It will thus be seen that he was one of the most intelligent and influential men in the town.

So much for the parentage; now for the neighborhood influences about the Mason family. The nearest neighbor was the Rev. Thomas Prentiss, minister of the old parish church from 1770 to 1814, and who sent four boys to Harvard College, one of whom was of Lowell Mason's own age, a schoolmate and playmate. His seatmate in the North School, which he attended, and a lifelong friend, was the late Joseph Allen, D.D., of Northboro, Ma.s.sachusetts, who ever said that Lowell Mason was one of the best scholars in the school; and the schools of the town being then under the supervision of Dr. Prentiss, they were doubtless fairly good schools. Ellis Allen, another friend and schoolmate, said that Lowell Mason was the most popular and talented, as well as the handsomest, young man in town. The next neighbor on the other side was George Whitefield Adams (brother of the celebrated historian, Hannah Adams), who built organs at his homestead, where Dr. Bent now lives; and, without doubt, Lowell was familiar with that instrument, as he was with many others--the violin, violoncello, flute, and clarinet particularly.

He led the Medfield Band in his day, playing the clarinet. Mr. Adams went to Savannah in 1812, accompanied by Nathaniel Bosworth of this town, and young Mason went with them, journeying the entire distance with horse and wagon. Another near neighbor was Amos Albee, a schoolmaster and musician of some note in those days, author of "Norfolk Collection of Church Music." He a.s.sisted Mason in his musical studies, as reliable accounts inform us. Libbeus Smith, a relative of the Mason family, was also a singing-master here during the early years of this century. James Clark, a fine player on the violin, lived in Medfield in those days. From these facts it is easy to determine that, though the musical advantages of the times would not perhaps satisfy the demands of modern culture, yet the place was by no means devoid of influences calculated to encourage the special development of a young man musically inclined.

Lowell Mason commenced teaching singing-schools when only a boy. He led the parish choir when about sixteen years of age, and conducted the music at the ordination of Dr. Ranger of Dover in 1812, writing an anthem for the occasion, aided, it is said, by his neighbor Amos Albee.

The Medfield Choir a.s.sisted at these ceremonies, Mr. Ellis Allen and his wife, from whom this account is obtained, being among them on that day.

Lowell's two brothers, Johnson and Timothy, were also good musicians, and remained prominent in the church choir, both socially and instrumentally, for many years after he left Savannah. They became musical leaders in Cincinnati and Louisville. The old choir in those days was large, and it was made up from the most influential people in the town, which is an excellent thing for a church choir. The following are some of those who were members of it while young Mason took charge of the music: his father and mother, with his two brothers above named; Major Fiske, father of the late Captain Isaac Fiske; Captain William Peters, grandfather of Mr. William P. Hewins; Captain Wales Plimpton, father of Deacon G. L. Plimpton; Oliver Wheelock, a merchant of the town; Amos Mason, father of A. E. Mason; Ellis Allen, father of the Allen brothers, from whose reminiscences we gather many of these facts.

The old choir, it will be seen, was highly favored, in a military point of view, having a colonel, a major, and two captains. Mr. Mason often said, in after years, that there was more musical talent in Medfield than in any other town of its size in the State. This we can with confidence believe.

It is not, therefore, strange, with his inherited tastes and capacities, and surrounded as he was by musical people, that he should devote much of his time to music. It was his common practice, tradition tells us, to play from the meeting-house steps, summer evenings, upon the flute or clarinet, to the young people who would congregate around the locality--in this way, doubtless, doing much to contribute to the growth of a musical taste among the companions of his youth. The atmosphere of liberal culture which characterized his neighborhood aided him in taking a more intelligent view of musical matters, without which natural abilities, and even special training, produce comparatively meager results; and the young person who knows nothing but music cannot expect a very high place in public estimation.

That he had much ability as a practical musician is shown by the fact that when he went to the South he was able to give entertainments with his voice and violoncello alone, which brought him at once to the front with the musical public in Savannah; and his tact, executive ability, and intelligence gave him a position as teller in a bank. About this time the conscious purposes of his life were changed, and the mode of life characteristic of his early years gave place to one of deep-seated religious convictions. He became a member of the Presbyterian Church in Savannah, where he held the position as director of music for many years. He was also superintendent of the first Sunday-school ever formed in that city.

As an instance of his natural tact and shrewdness, it is related of him that while a resident of Savannah he undertook the instruction of a new band that was being formed somewhere in that region. On the first evening a considerable number of instruments were brought in with which he was unacquainted, and some of them, even, he had never heard of. He got over this difficulty by telling the owners of them that it would be necessary for him to take them all home, that they might be "fixed and toned up." When he brought them back, at the next meeting, he had mastered them all, and proceeded to give his instructions accordingly.

He had a remarkable degree of personal magnetism, which gave him that wonderful control which he possessed over cla.s.ses and conventions. When he taught or lectured, all eyes were upon him, all ears were attentive, all wills were moved by his. This, with his natural apt.i.tude for teaching, gave him the prominence which he so readily won in the chief cities where his mature life was spent. Soon after his return to Boston, about 1827, after fifteen years' sojourn in Savannah, he attained great popularity as a singing-teacher. He organized a cla.s.s for the well-to-do ladies and gentlemen of Boston who wished to perfect themselves in music, the instruction to be by the new method, and gratuitous. Five hundred singers attended, and at the close voted him a bonus of five dollars each, or twenty-five hundred dollars for the term.

He was in constant demand as a teacher and director, and it would be strange if those who had occupied the field before him, and who were now compelled to take a back seat or migrate to "fresh fields and pastures new," should not manifest some feeling of opposition. This he had to meet, in one form or another, during his twenty-five years' residence in Boston. The writers on musical matters during that period show very plainly that such was the case, often giving expression to personal feeling.

But as a teacher he had no superior, and but few equals, in this country; and this not only musically speaking, but pedagogically as well. Horace Mann said he would walk fifty miles to see him teach if he could not otherwise have that privilege. Secretary d.i.c.kinson, of our State Board of Education, says: "My first notions of what good teaching is were derived from seeing Lowell Mason give a singing-lesson"; and this although our honored secretary has no knowledge of musical tones.

George J. Webb, one of the best musicians in Boston, and himself a.s.sociated with Mr. Mason for many years as a teacher in the Boston Academy of Music, said that he had seen him teach hundreds of times, but never without astonishment at his wonderful power before a cla.s.s. Dr.

George F. Root says that he always became intensely interested in listening to Mr. Mason teaching even so simple a thing as the property of long and short musical sounds. The writer of this sketch was himself a member of the Boston Academy of Music at its latest session in 1851; and it is not too much to say that he has never seen any one, from that day to this, manifest such ability to hold a large cla.s.s of teachers and musicians to the consideration of the topic under discussion.

He was employed by the State Board of Education to teach music in the normal schools and in the teachers' inst.i.tutes for many years. Through his influence singing was introduced into the Boston public schools as a regular branch of study, which occurred in 1838. He introduced into this country the inductive method of teaching singing, formulating a system from the study of Pestalozzi and other eminent European teachers. His system to this day molds the instruction, to a great extent, throughout the United States. Modifications have been made, but the principles which underlie all good elementary instruction in music were undeniably first inculcated and placed before the people by him. He had, and still has, a wide reputation; but it is not greater than his genius.

While we acknowledge with pride the honor bestowed upon the town of his nativity, on the other hand, we think that this "obscure New England village" is ent.i.tled to some credit for the formative influences which sent forth such a son. Some one has said: "The first great requisite to a man's amounting to anything is to be well born." He was born of the st.u.r.dy yeomanry of Medfield. We cannot but think that the influence emanating from the men, his neighbors and early counselors, who made the old town what it was a hundred years ago, and what it is even down to the present, contributes no little to the successful career of him whose centennial we celebrate to-day.

PART II

LISZT'S LETTERS

MY DEAR SIR: It will certainly give me great pleasure to see and hear you again at Weimar, but I trust that you will excuse me if I do not accept the proposition you make, that of giving you regular lessons, from which, moreover, I fancy you would have little to gain.

As for your idea of settling for some time at Weimar, it would be well for me to discuss it a little with you before you carry it out. The distance from Leipsic being so short, it would cause you but little inconvenience to pay me a short visit here, in the course of which it will be easy for me to say exactly what I believe will be best for you.