Music

“ The enjoyment of a work of art is anything but a passive attitude. The right understanding, and with it the highest enjoyment, consists much rather in a sort of intellectual reconstructing, and of ourselves creating anew that which is presented to us by the artist.”— A. W. AMBROS.

“Men (musicians excepted) prefer hearing what is familiar to what is new. The musician, to be sure, is 'also a man, so to speak,’ aud often likes to perform, or have performed, works that he is fond of, over and over again ; but that which is new has a peculiar charm for him, inasmuch as it excites his curiositv, and makes higher demands upon his apprehensive faculty. The public, on the contrary, in all its strata, prefers to enjoy at ease, and we can hardly turn to reproach an impulse so deeply rooted in human nature.” — FERD. HILLER.

ALL concerts belong more or less to one of two classes. They either appeal to the musician, who would draw his own enjoyment from them, or to the (shall we say merely sensual ?) listener, who would be passively amused. Any work of art, be it a painting, statue, symphony, opera, or even a concert programme (which surely is or should he a work of art of its kind), that follows a consistent and rational plan of development of its own, irrespective of external disturbing forces, must command our respect as an organic whole, fitted for accomplishing something in the world. A concert programme which appeals exclusively to one or the other of the above-mentioned classes of listeners has, if nothing else, a singleness of purpose that is no mean guarantee of its artistic respectability ; whereas a programme which appeals to both is an artistic tertium quid, considerable only for the imputed respectability it gains from the number of yards of fine broadcloth and its feminine correlative, that it can collect within four walls. Through the untiring efforts of the Harvard Musical Association, Boston has for the last nine years had a series of classical orchestral concerts that have unswervingly appealed to the highest order of listeners. They have existed for the higher artistic enjoyment of cultivated musicians, for the higher artistic education of all. Whatever defects there may have been in the perfection of various details in their management, there has at least been no want of sincerity or singleness of purpose in their general plan. In concerts of the purely amusing sort, Boston is not so well off. The entertainments of the various itinerant concert troupes that our city has been avored with, have been and still are such strange artistic nondescripts as to be hardly considerable at all from an æsthetic point of view; so we leave them out of the question. But there have been attempts made every now and then, at giving simply popular concerts, the object being to furnish a remunerative quotity of people with an innocent and nor overtaxing evening’s amusement. In Germany such concerts are looked for as a matter of course in almost every city. They are invariably well attended, and almost as invariably enjoyable. The programmes are made out in u selfrespecting spirit, not trying to appear better than they are, but content to stand on their own merits. They consist almost entirely of instrumental music, and the audience generally furnish a running accompaniment of beer, supper, and tobacco. Theodore Thomas’s Winter-Garden concerts in New York are the nearest approach that has been made to the German original, and have been a striking success as far as music is concerned, for they have been the means of keeping together an orchestra which stands entirely alone in America, in respect to executive excellence. Then New York is the only one of the Eastern cities in which such an experiment could have succeeded. But leaving the German beer and tobacco concert out of the question, the idea of having cheap concerts of popular, that is, purely amusing music, does not seem wholly chimerical. At least we should be loath to think such concerts impracticable until demonstrated to be so by repeated actual experiment. In the so-called popular concerts that have been occasionally given in Boston during the last few years, there has been to our thinking one great fundamental mistake. In trying to meet too many tastes, they have appealed to no taste. The programmes have been almost without exception bad. The injudiciousness of the selections has been more prominent in the vocal part of the programmes than in the instrumental, although in both departments an improvement might easily be made. One thing that has had an unfortunate influence in this respect is that these concerts are usually given on Sunday evenings, and the law allows no programme to be published on Sunday that does not begin with the word “ Sacred.”How much this “ Sacred” means is pretty well known by this time, but it has more effect upon the character of the programme than many people suspect. When a man announces a sacred concert,

ho generally contrives to screen the name from public ridicule behind one or two unsecular numbers. The delicious impudence of the man who announced a Sunday evening’s performance of “ Schiller’s Grand Oratorio of Cabale und Liebe ” in San Francisco is wanting in our more matter-of-fact Eastern impressarios. Now these sacred selections, often of rare beauty in themselves, and sometimes excellently sung, are wholly out of place in programmes which consist mainly of light and sentimental music. The same may be said of the occasional bits of secular classicism that stray into programmes of this sort as — shall we say sops to St. Peter ? It is with surprise that we have often found these things commended by our best musical critics as “giving a healthy tone to the programme.”That these numbers add to the entertainment of a professedly miscellaneous audience cannot be for a moment supposed; that they contribute to its musical education is very questionable. If anything educational is to be done at such concerts, it must be done by stealth, unsuspected by the audience. Musicians go to a classical concert for their own enjoyment; half-musicians, or merely musically inclined persons, go because they are assured of hearing something of sterling æsthetic value, which they can in part enjoy, and which they will honestly try wholly to appreciate. People go to “ popular " concerts of light music simply to be amused, luxuriously to drink in what of rhythm, melody, and easily flowing harmony they can assimilate without trouble. What sympathy can then be expected of them for any music that appeals to the thinking faculty? Respectful inattention is the most that can be asked. The probable effect will be an increased enjoyment of the next rythmic-melodic triviality. The element in music that the “musical infant" first appreciates is rhythm. The appreciation of melody comes later, that of harmonic progressions much later. A thorough appreciation and enjoyment of simple and well-marked rhythm, such as is found in a well-written march, polka, or galop, may be taken for granted in any audience. If they can enjoy any of the higher varieties of rhythm, such as a persistent and easily caught syncopation, all the better. But if the rhythm of a piece is strongly marked and enjoyable, a great part of the audience will be indifferent to the quality of the melody. Now if they are allowed to hear music of well-defined, vital melody, which is at the same time rhythmically attractive, its superiority over music that is merely rhythmic cannot long fail to be felt by them. Thus a taste for pure melody is formed; fine melodic progressions become more and more fascinating until the ear at last is led, for the sake of melody, to endure rhythmic complexities which would have before been unintelligible and disturbing. A discriminating taste for melody once formed, a taste for something more varied and satisfying than the mere vulgar tonic— dominant— subdominant harmonies cannot be very long in following.

There is plenty of music in the world which unites these three qualities : well marked and easily caught rhythm, well constructed melody, and easily flowing, but not vulgar or inane, harmony, without making the slightest demand upon the voluntary intellectual coöperation of the listener. How much better to have our “popular" concert programmes entirely composed of such music, than to have them base their respectability upon a couple of oratorio airs and a bit of classical piano-forte playing, while the body of the concert (the amusing part) is made up of senseless trash only good enough for a dance-hall! A man who goes to a concert with his highest ideas of musical enjoyment embodied in Put me in my little Bed, and with perhaps a vague hope of finding it on the programme, will not be likely to have his faith much shaken by a forced hearing of Mendelssohn’s O rest in the Lord, although Bishop’s The Pilgrim of Love, or Hatton’s I cannot sing the old Songs, might open his eyes to the fact that even Put me in my little Bed could be surpassed. How much of Auber, Hérold, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Rossini, Adam, Strauss, and others might not be used in this way to entice the popular taste onward and upward ? It has been hinted that the managers of these concerts have it at heart to keep the popular taste down, since it is always easier and less expensive to furnish a poor article than a good one. But a man who thoroughly enjoys good music, enjoys it much more than his neighbor enjoys poor music, and will pay more to get if. Educate and elevate the popular musical taste, and the public demand for music will increase of itself.

Some persons, among others the author of A Fagot from the Coliseum (a pamphlet which appeared in ’69, shortly after the first Gilmore Jubilee), have strongly advocated the introduction of music of the simply amusing sort into the programmes of classical concerts, and there is, no doubt, a very large party of concert-goers who would be very glad of this. But we must say that this seems to us quite as great a mistake as the introduction of the graver classical music into popular concerts. The feelings of all portions of the community ought to be considered as much as possible. The classical concert exists, ostensibly, for the benefit of the more musically cultivated classes, and however charming even the most educated classicist may find Strauss waltzes and Auber overtures in their proper place, they will seem to him a most unwelcome source of ennui when brought into immediate contact with music that takes stronger and deeper hold upon the feelings. One of the most cultivated musicians in the country (of whom, by the way, many people have formed rather an amusing idea, as a sort of classical Pope-and-Pagan, eager for the destruction of all modern music) said to us the other evening, after the performance of Liszt’s second Rhapsodie Hongroise by the Thomas orchestra, “Do you think I would not rather hear that, than a bad performance of the Mozart Jupiter, or the Schubert variations all washed out with sentimentality ? ” But if the Mozart symphony and the Schubert variations had been performed as they deserve, our friend would probably have found little else than a source of nervous illhumor in the Liszt Rhapsody. And here let us say a most serious word to all those skeptics who distrust the genuine love that many of us feel for the great classic music. The great mistake of the anti-classicists is in calling the classic music, music of the head alone. If it were so, small then would be its value as music. That it is uncomprehended, perhaps incomprehensible with many is not to be doubted. That a certain high amount of intellectual activity is necessary to live in a highly intellectual atmosphere is most true, and the more unaccustomed to the atmosphere a man is, the more laborious will such activity be to him ; but let his mind be once acclimated to these high intellectual latitudes, and the mental effort ceases, the mental operation becomes a spontaneous, unconscious one, at last even necessary to his comfortable existence. So in the higher classic music, the intellectual part may be so exacting that it monopolizes all the faculties of the novice, to the concealing of the higher spiritual part that is in reality the gist of the whole. But when the intellectual process has become a spontaneous, unconscious one, then the spiritual side of the music seizes upon the listener with its full, irresistible power, so that he forgets for the time being that he is thinking, mindful only of what he is feeling. And in the end, so necessary has this undercurrent of thought become to the music-lover, that when he listens to one of those superficial appeals to the heart, which has its source in mere passion and speaks merely to the animal instincts, his intellectual faculty, deprived of its expected nourishment, feels such hungry cravings, and sets up such a clamor for food, as entirely silences the merely sensuous or sentimental voice of the music. This is so in all the arts. What we cannot comprehend appeals at first only to the intellect. It is only when we have thoroughly understood it that we can feel its higher qualities.

The musician may be enlivened by a Strauss waltz, or even, in moments of abnormally high spirits, feel a responsive thrill at an Offenbach Can-cars; but how much more strongly and irresistibly is he swept up from earth on the wings of a Bach C minor Passacaglia or a Mozart Or sai chi l'onore! And the musician is, after all, the only real music-foyer. All others are but music-likers ; they like music, —

But the music-likers have nevertheless their rights, and it behooves those who really love the art to see that they get them, and more ; even that they be, if possible, changed to music-lovers and musicians. But such a change can by no means be brought about by violence nor by mere argument. Do not even debar them from hearing bad music, but, by giving them proper opportunities, lead them to find out for themselves that they like good music better than bad. Hard-working people, who look upon music merely as an amusement, cannot be expected to take any pains of themselves to hear anything better than that which is offered them, if that which is offered already satisfies them. But it is the interest of every musician, from the serious, thinking composer and finished virtuoso down to the merest drum player, did he but know it, to have the public musical taste as high as possible, and it is the musician’s duty as well as interest to take all the labor upon his own shoulders. If the public will but allow themselves to be led on, and pay their entrance fees, it is all that can be asked of them. If at last they have been led to feel the higher influences of music, then the least they can do in gratitude to the musician, is to help in the good work. But instruction cannot and must not be forced down the public throat; it must be conveyed in the most fascinating and gradual form possible. And if questioned as to the means, we can only refer to the list of composers that we have mentioned above. It is certainly not to be done by an abrupt introduction to the higher classic music, much less by the poorer and more trashy compositions of sterling composers, such as the march from Gounod’s Queen of Sheba, the good in which is only to be appreciated by musicians, and the bad in which is beneath the notice of anybody ; neither can we expect much from sentimental perversions of the composer’s original intention, like the muted string Trãumerei business.

— Among the many interesting musical novelties that have been recently brought out in Boston, Joachin Raff’s Lenore symphony naturally takes precedence by the interest it has so widely excited. Its stupendous size, the mere amount of music paper that it covers, is in itself a sort of claim to notice. Of its four movements the allegro in the first part, entitled Happiness in Love, strikes us as the best. Here Raff is entirely in his element, and although the musical form of the movement (we must own, without any apparent dramatic necessity) is much freer than in his Im Walde symphony or his C major, the two passionate themes are well worked out, and the continuous, impassioned flow of the music receives but few unwelcome checks. The andante quasi largetto in the same part, in spite of the masterly handling of the orchestra, strikes us as unreasonably prolix. Neither are the themes of themselves peculiarly interesting. The march tempo of the second part, Parting, has a certain Volkslied snap, especially in its second theme, and is most brilliantly instrumented, but is treated at much greater length than the themes themselves warrant. Like the preceding andante, its prolixity is its great blemish. The third part of the symphony, Reuniting in Death, taken from G. Bürger’s Lenore, is perhaps the most disappointing of the whole. It is ostensibly a bit of “ tonepainting,” but even as such falls far behind the sweeping passion of Bürger’s poem. All the incidents of the poem are duly hinted at in the music, the inevitable galloping of the horse being most markedly prominent. But it is most tame, regular cantering, compared with the furious Hurre, hurre! hop, hop, hop! of Bürger’s steed. The hymn of the ghostly funeral procession, the demoniac laughter of the spirits, and all such items, are treated with a loving appreciation of the hideous and ghastly, that we had not looked for in Raff. The closing adagio, Gott sei der Seele gnädig, is indeed a comfort after all this, but is nevertheless a weak ending to the work. In spite of the masterly handling of the orchestra and the many real beauties that are to be detected throughout the work, and in spite of some really strong musical effects, as, for instance, the sudden piano and as sudden crescendo in the final cadence of the first movement, the symphony, as a whole, gives the impression of weakness.

We have a much stronger, and, we may be permitted to say, a still more hideous piece of “ tone-painting ” in Rubinstein’s Ivan dar Grausame. Here there are some passages of unmistakable power, such as the opening slow movement; others of rare beauty, as the simple, hymn-like harmonies of the violoncellos in the middle of the piece. But the violent, spasmodic hideousness of by far the greater part of the composition is only to be excused on naturalistic grounds by the character of the subject. The composer has made a “symphonic character-picture ” of one of the most repulsive characters in history, and has certainly painted his hero in the blackest colors, not without some power ; but looked at from an æsthetic point of view, the work cannot but strike us as a monstrosity.

Händel’s G minor Concerto for two violins, violoncello and orchestra, is really the most important novelty of the season. In bringing out this work Mr. Thomas has set an example which cannot be too soon followed by our own classical concert givers. It is, we believe, the first orchestral piece of Händel’s that has been given in Boston. Its quiet, simple grandeur and beauty have the quality of making everything that is brought into comparison with it seem so small, that one does not for a moment feel the want in it of modern orchestral resources, or means of dramatic effect, any more than one would wish for the glories of Venetian coloring in Michael Angelo’s colossal figures. When such music becomes “ old-fashioned and obsolete ” we may with reason consider the crack of doom as not far off.

It is with the greatest pleasure that we notice the performance of Dudley Buck’s overture to an unpublished cantata, by the orchestra of the Harvard Musical Association. Our native composers are entering the lists bravely, and with spurs well won. The composition in question is so indubitably the work of a musician worthy of the name, that it is with some timidity we venture upon anything in the shape of criticism. The almost laconic conciseness of the form, and the easy mastery over all technical details that it displays, is so different from the prevailing tendency of the day towards diffuseness and trancendental unintelligibility, that the first impression of the work cannot fail to be favorable, while the excellence of the writing speaks well for the first impression being a lasting one. Marked originality we see little of, and the composer has made no attempts to leave well-traveled paths; but there is enough individuality shown in the composition to stamp it as something far above a mere imitation. Mr. Buck has evidently written what spontaneously came into his head, taking the inspiration of the moment for what it was worth, without troubling himself about what might come of it. As Hans Sachs says: —

A composition of more genuine and fascinating spontaneity of expression we have not seen for some time.