grown extensively within the last ten years in the United States, very
much to the promotion of æsthetic 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 passionless 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 institute 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, Münster in 1804, Dresden in 1807, Potsdam in 1814,
Bremen in 1815, Chemnitz in 1817, Schwäbisch-Hall in 1817, and
Innsbruck in 1818. The Berlin Singakademie is still in existence, but
so also is the Stoughton Musical Society in Stoughton, Mass., 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; Massachusetts 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._]
In size mixed choirs ordinarily range from forty voices to five
hundred. It were well if it were understood by choristers as well as
the public that numbers merely are not a sign of merit in a singing
society. So the concert-room be not too large, a choir of sixty
well-trained voices is large enough to perform almost everything in
choral literature with good effect, and the majority of the best
compositions will sound better under such circumstances than in large
rooms with large choirs. Especially is this true of the music of the
Middle Ages, written for voices without instrumental accompaniment, of
which I shall have something to say when the discussion reaches choral
programmes. There is music, it is true, like much of Handel's, the
impressiveness of which is greatly enhanced by masses, but it is not
extensive enough to justify the sacrifice of correctness and finish in
the performance to mere volume. The use of large choirs has had the
effect of developing the skilfulness of amateur singers in an
astonishing degree, but there is, nevertheless, a point where
weightiness of tone becomes an obstacle to finished execution. When
Mozart remodelled Handel's "Messiah" he was careful to indicate that
the florid passages ("divisions" they used to be called in England)
should be sung by the solo voices alone, but nowadays choirs of five
hundred voices attack such choruses as "For unto us a Child is Born,"
without the slightest hesitation, even if they sometimes make a
mournful mess of the "divisions."
[Sidenote: _The division of choirs._]
[Sidenote: _Five-part music._]
[Sidenote: _Eight part._]
[Sidenote: _Antiphonal music._]
[Sidenote: _Bach's "St. Matthew Passion."_]
The normal division of a mixed choir is into four parts or
voices--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass; but composers sometimes
write for more parts, and the choir is subdivided to correspond. The
custom of writing for five, six, eight, ten, and even more voices was
more common in the Middle Ages, the palmy days of the _a capella_
(_i.e._, for the chapel, unaccompanied) style than it is now, and, as
a rule, a division into more than four voices is not needed outside of
the societies which cultivate this old music, such as the Musical Art
Society in New York, the Bach Choir in London, and the Domchor in
Berlin. In music for five parts, one of the upper voices, soprano or
tenor, is generally doubled; for six, the ordinary distribution is
into two sopranos, two contraltos, tenor, and bass. When eight voices
are reached a distinction is made according as there are to be eight
real parts (_a otto voci reali_), or two choruses of the four normal
parts each (_a otto voci in due cori reali_). In the first instance
the arrangement commonly is three sopranos, two contraltos, two
tenors, and one bass. One of the most beautiful uses of the double
choir is to produce antiphonal effects, choir answering to choir, both
occasionally uniting in the climaxes. How stirring this effect can be
made may be observed in some of Bach's compositions, especially those
in which he makes the division of the choir subserve a dramatic
purpose, as in the first chorus of "The Passion according to St.
Matthew," where the two choirs, one representing _Daughters of Zion_,
the other _Believers_, interrogate and answer each other thus:
I. "Come, ye daughters, weep for anguish;
See Him!
II. "Whom?
I. "The Son of Man.
See Him!
II. "How?
I. "So like a lamb.
See it!
II. "What?
I. "His love untold.
Look!
II. "Look where?
I. "Our guilt behold."
[Sidenote: _Antiphony in a motet._]
Another most striking instance is in the same master's motet, "Sing ye
to the Lord," which is written for two choirs of four parts each. (In
the example from the "St. Matthew Passion" there is a third choir of
soprano voices which sings a chorale while the dramatic choirs are
conversing.) In the motet the first choir begins a fugue, in the midst
of which the second choir is heard shouting jubilantly, "Sing ye! Sing
ye! Sing ye!" Then the choirs change rôles, the first delivering the
injunction, the second singing the fugue. In modern music, composers
frequently consort a quartet of solo voices, soprano, contralto,
tenor, and bass, with a four-part chorus, and thus achieve fine
effects of contrast in dynamics and color, as well as antiphonal.
[Sidenote: _Excellence in choral singing._]
[Sidenote: _Community of action._]
[Sidenote: _Individualism._]
[Sidenote: _Dynamics._]
[Sidenote: _Beauty of tone._]
[Sidenote: _Contralto voices._]
The question is near: What constitutes excellence in a choral
performance? To answer: The same qualities that constitute excellence
in an orchestral performance, will scarcely suffice, except as a
generalization. A higher degree of harmonious action is exacted of a
body of singers than of a body of instrumentalists. Many of the parts
in a symphony are played by a single instrument. Community of voice
belongs only to each of the five bodies of string-players. In a chorus
there are from twelve to one hundred and fifty voices, or even more,
united in each part. This demands the effacement of individuality in a
chorus, upon the assertion of which, in a band, under the judicious
guidance of the conductor, many of the effects of color and expression
depend. Each group in a choir must strive for homogeneity of voice
quality; each singer must sink the _ego_ in the aggregation, yet
employ it in its highest potency so far as the mastery of the technics
of singing is concerned. In cultivating precision of attack (_i.e._,
promptness in beginning a tone and leaving it off), purity of
intonation (_i.e._, accuracy or justness of pitch--"singing in tune"
according to the popular phrase), clearness of enunciation, and
careful attention to all the dynamic gradations of tone, from very
soft up to very loud, and all shades of expression between, in the
development of that gradual augmentation of tone called _crescendo_,
and the gradual diminution called _diminuendo_, the highest order of
individual skill is exacted from every chorister; for upon individual
perfection in these things depends the collective effect which it is
the purpose of the conductor to achieve. Sensuous beauty of tone, even
in large aggregations, is also dependent to a great degree upon
careful and proper emission of voice by each individual, and it is
because the contralto part in most choral music, being a middle part,
lies so easily in the voices of the singers that the contralto
contingent in American choirs, especially, so often attracts attention
by the charm of its tone. Contralto voices are seldom forced into the
regions which compel so great a physical strain that beauty and
character must be sacrificed to mere accomplishment of utterance, as
is frequently the case with the soprano part.
[Sidenote: _Selfishness fatal to success._]
[Sidenote: _Tonal balance._]
Yet back of all this exercise of individual skill there must be a
spirit of self-sacrifice which can only exist in effective potency if
prompted by universal sympathy and love for the art. A selfish
chorister is not a chorister, though possessed of the voice of a Melba
or Mario. Balance between the parts, not only in the fundamental
constitution of the choir but also in all stages of a performance, is
also a matter of the highest consideration. In urban communities,
especially, it is difficult to secure perfect tonal symmetry--the rule
is a poverty in tenor voices--but those who go to hear choral concerts
are entitled to hear a well-balanced choir, and the presence of an
army of sopranos will not condone a squad of tenors. Again, I say,
better a well-balanced small choir than an ill-balanced large one.
[Sidenote: _Declamation._]
[Sidenote: _Expression._]
[Sidenote: _The choruses in "The Messiah."_]
[Sidenote: _Variety of declamation in Handel's oratorio._]
I have not enumerated all the elements which enter into a meritorious
performance, nor shall I discuss them all; only in passing do I wish
to direct attention to one which shines by its absence in the choral
performances not only of America but also of Great Britain and
Germany. Proper pronunciation of the texts is an obvious requirement;
so ought also to be declamation. There is no reason why characteristic
expression, by which I mean expression which goes to the genius of the
melodic phrase when it springs from the verbal, should be ignored,
simply because it may be difficult of attainment from large bodies of
singers. There is so much monotony in oratorio concerts because all
oratorios and all parts of any single oratorio are sung alike. Only
when the "Hallelujah" is sung in "The Messiah" at the gracious
Christmastide is an exaltation above the dull level of the routine
performances noticeable, and then it is communicated to the singers by
the act of the listeners in rising to their feet. Now, despite the
structural sameness in the choruses of "The Messiah," they have a
great variety of content, and if the characteristic physiognomy of
each could but be disclosed, the grand old work, which seems hackneyed
to so many, would acquire amazing freshness, eloquence, and power.
Then should we be privileged to note that there is ample variety in
the voice of the old master, of whom a greater than he said that when
he wished, he could strike like a thunderbolt. Then should we hear the
tones of amazed adoration in
[Music illustration: Be-hold the Lamb of God!]
of cruel scorn in
[Music illustration: He trust-ed in God that would de-li-ver Him, let
him de-li-ver him if he de-light in him.]
of boastfulness and conscious strength in
[Music illustration: Let us break their bonds a-sun-der.]
and learn to admire as we ought to admire the declamatory strength
and truthfulness so common in Handel's choruses.
[Sidenote: _Mediæval music._]
[Sidenote: _Madrigals._]
There is very little cultivation of choral music of the early
ecclesiastical type, and that little is limited to the Church and a
few choirs specially organized for its performance, like those that I
have mentioned. This music is so foreign to the conceptions of the
ordinary amateur, and exacts so much skill in the singing of the
intervals, lacking the prop of modern tonality as it does, that it is
seldom that an amateur body can be found equal to its performance.
Moreover, it is nearly all of a solemn type. Its composers were
churchmen, and when it was written nearly all that there was of
artistic music was in the service of the Church. The secular music of
the time consisted chiefly in Madrigals, which differed from
ecclesiastical music only in their texts, they being generally erotic
in sentiment. The choristers of to-day, no less than the public, find
it difficult to appreciate them, because they are not melodic in the
sense that most music is nowadays. In them the melody is not the
privileged possession of the soprano voice. All the voices stand on
an equal footing, and the composition consists of a weaving together,
according to scientific rules, of a number of voices--counterpoint as
it is called.
[Sidenote: _Homophonic hymns._]
[Sidenote: _Calvin's restrictive influence._]
Our hymn-tunes are homophonic, based upon a melody sung by one voice,
for which the other voices provide the harmony. This style of music
came into the Church through the German Reformation. Though Calvin was
a lover of music he restricted its practice among his followers to
unisonal psalmody, that is, to certain tunes adapted to the versified
psalms sung without accompaniment of harmony voices. On the adoption
of the Genevan psalter he gave the strictest injunction that neither
its text nor its melodies were to be altered.
"Those songs and melodies," said he, "which are composed for
the mere pleasure of the ear, and all they call ornamental
music, and songs for four parts, do not behoove the majesty
of the Church, and cannot fail greatly to displease God."
[Sidenote: _Luther and the German Church._]
Under the influence of the German reformers music was in a very
different case. Luther was not only an amateur musician, he was also
an ardent lover of scientific music. Josquin des Pres, a contemporary
of Columbus, was his greatest admiration; nevertheless, he was anxious
from the beginning of his work of Church establishment to have the
music of the German Church German in spirit and style. In 1525 he
wrote:
[Sidenote: _A German mass._]
"I should like to have a German mass, and I am indeed at
work on one; but I am anxious that it shall be truly German
in manner. I have no objection to a translated Latin text
and Latin notes; but they are neither proper nor just (_aber
es lautet nicht artig noch rechtschaffen_); text and notes,
accent, melodies, and demeanor must come from our mother
tongue and voice, else will it all be but a mimicry, like
that of the apes."
[Sidenote: _Secular tunes used._]
[Sidenote: _Congregational singing._]
In the Church music of the time, composed, as I have described, by a
scientific interweaving of voices, the composers had got into the
habit of utilizing secular melodies as the foundation on which to
build their contrapuntal structures. I have no doubt that it was the
spirit which speaks out of Luther's words which brought it to pass
that in Germany contrapuntal music with popular melodies as
foundations developed into the chorale, in which the melody and not
the counterpoint was the essential thing. With the Lutheran Church
came congregational singing; with congregational singing the need of a
new style of composition, which should not only make the participation
of the people in the singing possible, but should also stimulate them
to sing by freeing the familiar melodies (the melodies of folk-songs)
from the elaborate and ingenious, but soulless, counterpoint which
fettered them.
[Sidenote: _Counterpoint._]
[Sidenote: _The first congregational hymns._]
The Flemish masters, who were the musical law-givers, had been using
secular tunes for over a century, but only as stalking-horses for
counterpoint; and when the Germans began to use their tunes, they,
too, buried them beyond recognition in the contrapuntal mass. The
people were invited to sing paraphrases of the psalms to familiar
tunes, it is true, but the choir's polyphony went far to stifle the
spirit of the melody. Soon the free spirit which I have repeatedly
referred to as Romanticism, and which was powerfully encouraged by
the Reformation, prompted a style of composition in which the admired
melody was lifted into relief. This could not be done until the new
style of writing invented by the creators of the opera (see Chapter
VII.) came in, but as early as 1568 Dr. Lucas Ostrander published
fifty hymns and psalms with music so arranged "that the congregation
may join in singing them." This, then, is in outline the story of the
beginning of modern hymnology, and it is recalled to the patrons of
choral concerts whenever in Bach's "Passion Music" or in Mendelssohn's
"St. Paul" the choir sings one of the marvellous old hymns of the
German Church.
[Sidenote: _The Church and conservatism._]
[Sidenote: _Harmony and emotion._]
Choral music being bound up with the Church, it has naturally
participated in the conservatism characteristic of the Church. The
severe old style has survived in the choral compositions of to-day,
while instrumental music has grown to be almost a new thing within the
century which is just closing. It is the severe style established by
Bach, however, not that of Palestrina. In the Church compositions
prior to Palestrina the emotional power of harmony was but little
understood. The harmonies, indeed, were the accidents of the
interweaving of melodies. Palestrina was among the first to feel the
uplifting effect which might result from a simple sequence of pure
consonant harmonies, and the three chords which open his famous
"Stabat Mater"
[Sidenote: _Palestrina's "Stabat Mater."_]
[Sidenote: _Characteristics of his music._]
[Music illustration: Sta-bat ma-ter]
are a sign of his style as distinct in its way as the devices by means
of which Wagner stamps his individuality on his phrases. His melodies,
too, compared with the artificial _motivi_ of his predecessors, are
distinguished by grace, beauty, and expressiveness, while his command
of ætherial effects, due to the manner in which the voices are
combined, is absolutely without parallel from his day to this. Of the
mystery of pure beauty he enjoyed a wonderful revelation, and has
handed it down to us in such works as the "Stabat Mater," "Missa Papæ
Marcelli," and the "Improperia."
[Sidenote: _Palestrina's music not dramatic._]
[Sidenote: _A churchman._]
[Sidenote: _Effect of the Reformation._]
This music must not be listened to with the notion in mind of dramatic
expression such as we almost instinctively feel to-day. Palestrina
does not seek to proclaim the varying sentiment which underlies his
texts. That leads to individual interpretation and is foreign to the
habits of churchmen in the old conception, when the individual was
completely resolved in the organization. He aimed to exalt the mystery
of the service, not to bring it down to popular comprehension and make
it a personal utterance. For such a design in music we must wait until
after the Reformation, when the ancient mysticism began to fall back
before the demands of reason, when the idea of the sole and sufficient
mediation of the Church lost some of its power in the face of the
growing conviction of intimate personal relationship between man and
his creator. Now idealism had to yield some of its dominion to
realism, and a more rugged art grew up in place of that which had
been so wonderfully sublimated by mysticism.
[Sidenote: _The source of beauty in Palestrina's music._]
It is in Bach, who came a century after Palestrina, that we find the
most eloquent musical proclamation of the new régime, and it is in no
sense disrespectful to the great German master if we feel that the
change in ideals was accompanied with a loss in sensuous charm, or
pure æsthetic beauty. Effect has had to yield to idea. It is in the
flow of the voices, the color effects which result from combination
and registers, the clarity of the harmonies, the reposefulness coming
from conscious ease of utterance, the loveliness of each individual
part, and the spiritual exaltation of the whole that the æsthetic
mystery of Palestrina's music lies.
[Sidenote: _Bach._]
Like Palestrina, Bach is the culmination of the musical practice of
his time, but, unlike Palestrina, he is also the starting-point of a
new development. With Bach the old contrapuntal art, now not vocal
merely but instrumental also and mixed, reaches its climax, and the
tendency sets in which leads to the highly complex and dramatic art of
to-day. Palestrina's art is Roman; the spirit of restfulness, of
celestial calm, of supernatural revelation and supernal beauty broods
over it. Bach's is Gothic--rugged, massive, upward striving, human. In
Palestrina's music the voice that speaks is the voice of angels; in
Bach's it is the voice of men.
[Sidenote: _Bach a German Protestant._]
[Sidenote: _Church and individual._]
[Sidenote: _Ingenuousness of feeling._]