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* * * * *
THE ART OF MUSIC
The Art of Music
A Comprehensive Library of Information
for Music Lovers and Musicians
Editor-in-Chief
DANIEL GREGORY MASON
Columbia University
Associate Editors
EDWARD B. HILL LELAND HALL
Harvard University Past Professor, Univ. of Wisconsin
Managing Editor
CÉSAR SAERCHINGER
Modern Music Society of New York
In Fourteen Volumes
Profusely Illustrated
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC
[Illustration: Edward Alexander MacDowell]
_After a photo from life_
THE ART OF MUSIC: VOLUME FOUR
Music in America
Department Editors:
ARTHUR FARWELL
AND
W. DERMOT DARBY
Introduction by
ARTHUR FARWELL
Associate Editor 'Musical America'
Formerly Lecturer on Music, Cornell University, and
Supervisor of Municipal Concerts, City of New York
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC
Copyright, 1915, by
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC, Inc.
[All Rights Reserved]
MUSIC IN AMERICA
INTRODUCTION
Prophecy, not history, is the most truly important concern of music in
America. What a new world, with new processes and new ideals, will do
with the tractable and still unformed art of music; what will arise
from the contact of this art with our unprecedented democracy--these
are the questions of deepest import in our musical life in the United
States. The past has consisted chiefly of a tasting of the musical
art and traditions of the old world. The present is divided between
imitation of the old and searching for the new, both in quality and
application. The fruitage of our national musical life is still for
the future. Intense as are the activities of the present, they are
still merely the preparation of the soil for a future growth the
nature and extent of which we can only guess at to-day. The stream
of musical evolution in America, in the present transitional period,
is rapidly overflowing its wonted banks, and passing the boundaries
of the traditional musical world. The many are striving to obtain
that which has been the exclusive possession of the few, and in this
endeavor are not only extending, but also actually transforming the
art. The paramount issues change with the passing of the seasons.
One imported European sensation gives way to another. The problem of
the true basis of American music dissolves overnight, and gives way
to the problem of the specific evaluation of individual composers,
whatsoever their tendency. The questions of the narrow concert world
dwindle before the greater question of a broad musical administration
for the people. We stand, in fact, in a state of chaos with respect
of musical activities and ideals, and only the clearest thinkers are
able to catch the truer and larger drift of the national evolution,
or effectively direct it. Too many persons are ready to suppose that
the issues of music in America lie wholly within the scope of purely
musical considerations, and that they do not depend, as is actually the
case in certain important respects, upon the nature of the national
ideals and tendencies. The national need will condition the supply, and
the more truly and deeply a national need is fulfilled, the more vital
will be the result. For this reason it is important that the general
national condition with respect of music be carefully studied, and that
misconceptions and theories be relinquished in favor of a knowledge of
facts.
If now we set out to glance over the circumstances which have
eventually brought about the present condition of music in America, we
find that this history, taken in its largest outlines, has a threefold
aspect, the features of which may be roughly termed appreciation,
creation, and administration. The degree in which the new world has
grasped and understood the facts of musical development in the old
must constitute a chief factor in any consideration of its musical
evolution, and this subject will naturally include a reference to
musical culture in America. The second general division of the subject
relates to American composers and the creative musical output of the
nation. The matter of the appreciation of this output will best be
touched upon in connection with this aspect of the subject. With the
question of administration we approach a phase of the subject which has
of late assumed momentous proportions, touching directly, as it does,
the great question of the relation of music to the people--the reaction
of democracy to the art of music. The divisions of Appreciation and
Administration are, of course, very closely related, and some chapters,
such as that on Education, embody both aspects in almost equal degree.
Hence the line cannot be very sharply drawn. Our sequence of chapters,
while emphasizing the three aspects here set forth, has therefore been
arranged with a view to presenting as continuous a story as possible.
The chapters reviewing the creative activities of American composers
have accordingly been placed together at the end of the volume.
We can not deeply consider the matter of the appreciation of the
musical art of the old world by the new, without coming to the
realization that it is complete. This, it must be recognized, is a
matter which does not ultimately depend upon the numerical extent of
the appreciators, but upon the quality of appreciation existing within
the nation. Were this not so, we could not affirm the existence of a
complete appreciation of its musical art by any nation of the world.
In the broad sense in which we must necessarily speak in dealing
only with the major facts of civilization and evolution, we may say
that German musical art is appreciated by the German nation, even if
only here or there someone is found who understands precisely the
principles of Beethoven's form, or Wagner's harmony. In the practical
progress of the world it is general acceptance and use, together with
a sufficient artistic appreciation, technical and otherwise, on the
part of certain individuals, which constitutes national appreciation
of art. The knowledge and action of such preëminent individuals
qualify the appreciative life of the nation. The evolution of the
world to-day resides in the evolution of the progressive thought of
individuals. Such thought outdistances the slower mental operations
of the mass, which is nevertheless drawn along into ever new sets of
changing conditions, through the modern development of the means of
communication and the corresponding rapidity of both material and
spiritual advance.
Such conditions of appreciation exist in a signal manner in the America
of to-day. It is the simplest and most obvious of facts that there
is a general acceptance and use of European musical art, old and
new, throughout the 'musical world' of America. The relation of that
'musical world' to the whole population will be considered later. It
is equally obvious to the qualified observer that no point of European
musical art is without its thorough-going students and appreciators,
and ardent conservators, in America. From Bach and Haydn, nay, from
the Gregorian chant, the Greek enharmonic, the Oriental scale, down
through every intermediate period and personality to the present day
of Stravinsky and Schönberg, every phase of musical history and life
has its students and its champions in the new world. America has, in
truth, summed up the musical life of the ages and reflects it daily
in the multitudinous activities of her musical world. The quality of
American appreciation has one advantage of the greatest significance
over that of any other land, in that it is without national or racial
prejudice. Being without history or unity, with respect of race, the
American people are without a racial folk-song, and hence are bound
by no ancient racial sympathy or habit to a particular fundamental
conception of the character of music. German music, French, Russian,
Bohemian, Scandinavian, Italian--all are accepted with equal eagerness
and sympathy. In America the world's music falls on fresh ears, with
the result that a catholicity of taste prevails such as is to be found
in no other land, and with the further result that a unique and broadly
inclusive national impression of musical character in general has
been gained. This in turn is leading to a national creative musical
output which, if it has not converged upon any one distinctive national
character, is, on the other hand, wholly free from dependence upon the
traditional character of the music of any other nation, and could have
been produced by no other nation.
The upshot of the status of American appreciation of musical art
is that, although the work of more extensively familiarizing the
population with the world's music must continue, the evolution,
broadly, of America as an appreciative nation has been fulfilled, and
it can from now on find no true musical progress except as a creative
nation. Not only has it studied, at home and abroad, all that the
outside world has produced, but it has now thoroughly studied the
various phases of aboriginal music which exist upon its own soil.
The national life has passed beyond its school days and entered the
period where it has no alternative but to face judgment as a musically
productive nation with legitimate pretensions to maturity.
In view of the intense musical interest and eagerness of the American
people, of the vigorous and very rapidly expanding development of
musical life in the United States since the Civil War, and the enormous
sums which the nation spends annually for musical education, both at
home and abroad, it would be irrational to expect anything less than
the results above indicated. Musical education, which has played so
vast a part in this development, shares, nevertheless, the general
chaotic condition of American musical life. The absence of a National
Academy of Music leaves the country still without any official standard
of musical education, although high ideals and thorough courses are
maintained in the music departments of the larger universities. There
are several independent musical academies and conservatories of high
standing, with a sufficiently broad and well ordered curriculum, and
an unnumbered mass of nondescript music schools innocent of all normal
standards. The same scale, from the highest excellence to downright
charlatanism, is to be found in the field of private instruction,
and one of the greatest educational problems which the nation faces
is to bring some element of standardization into this field. This is
a matter for state action, and in several states a movement is well
under way for the licensing of music teachers. The development of music
in the public schools, well grounded in the early part of the last
century, has of late years been pushed with vigor and intelligence,
and has led to unprecedented studies in the adaptation of music to the
child, as well as to the composition of a great quantity of new and
appropriate children's songs of excellent quality. The chief difficulty
with national musical progress through the public schools lies in
the fact that such a minute proportion of public school scholars go
to high school and college, most of them losing all contact with
musical education before reaching an age when their interest in it
can be firmly established. This circumstance is now happily being
continually more widely met from extra-educational quarters, in the
present movement for music for the people through various channels to
be referred to later. Professional educators are inclined to lay too
much stress on school education as a means of developing appreciation
in the mass, forgetting that the time must come when the chief musical
training of the people, with respect of their ultimate enjoyment of
music, must consist in a general public hearing of music of the highest
order.
In centres of highly refined musical culture, America, from East
to West, is not lacking. An aristocracy of musical appreciation
has followed upon the establishment of symphonic and chamber music
organizations in a number of cities. This culture is, however, almost
exclusively devoted to the maintenance of traditional European
standards, and is inclined to take slight cognizance of the native
and democratic developments in which the true national progress
of the present lies. The presence of such a culture in America is
therefore not altogether an unmixed blessing; in fact it may lead
to certain results of positive evil. The presence of retrospective
hyper-refinement in a nation at a time when rugged creative strength,
even if crude in its artistic results, should be manifested, may be
harmful in its effect upon normal creative progress, especially when,
with the backing of wealth, the press, and the academy, it arrogates to
itself the possession of the true vision of artistic standards.
If, then, the tide of musical appreciation in America has reached
a normal level, in accordance with the general civilization of
the world of to-day, if the appreciative era, purely as such, is
past, the creative epoch has only fairly begun. America, in musical
composition, already reckons a historical sequence approaching to
a classical, a romantic and an ultra-modern period, exhibiting the
strange spectacle of most of the founders of the first period living to
see the flowering of the last, during their active lifetime. In fact,
some of the pioneers have actively engaged in fostering the issues of
all three epochs. The truth of this curious condition is that this
triple-aspected development of the past fifty years can not in reality
be said to represent even the beginning of the actual creative epoch of
the nation. As the child is said to pass through phases corresponding
to the entire ancient history of the race, so this chapter in American
music represents the rapid passage of the youthful America through
the previous history of the art; it has represented the desire to
catch up with the world at large. Even if some works of lasting value
have been produced, as is undoubtedly the case, this period has in
actuality represented a mere reflex of European musical civilization, a
surface agitation, to be followed by an authentic and original national
productivity along the lines of its own needs and ideals.
So irregular and tumultuous have been the conditions of musical
development in America, that early influences have been of relatively
small qualitative importance in determining the ultimate issues of
American music. There are but two such early influences of importance
to record, and one of these has become wholly negligible with relation
to our independent art of music, finding its only resultant effect in
the church music of America. This, attributable in the first instance
to the Netherland school of the Renaissance, appeared as the early
English contrapuntal school of Purcell, becoming associated with
the music of the Protestant Church in England, and finally becoming
diluted to the productions of the school of Billings and Hopkinson in
America. American hymnology undoubtedly owes its character to this
evolutionary sequence, although in the end American church music has
become inundated with the German influence in its more sentimental
aspects, and presents in general a profound degeneration too momentous
for discussion in the present brief review. The one great original
influence acknowledged by the nation, in its musically creative life,
is the mighty German tradition of the epoch of Beethoven. It is
significant and fortuitous that America was colonized, musically, at
the time when the influence of that tradition was paramount in the
world. It was the emigrating German music teacher, in every city and
town of the United States, who implanted the fundamental conception
of musical art in American civilization. Accepted and consulted
everywhere, he determined the character of music in America in the
period of reconstruction and educational expansion after the Civil War.
His influence was solidified by the character of symphonic and choral
enterprise, and by that of the performances of German musical artists
touring in America. The Italian was the accredited opera singer and
nothing more; the German was the teacher.
In the subsequent course of developments, two matters have militated
against the ultimate domination of the German influence in American
composition. One is the extensive change which has since occurred in
the racial nature of the population. Continued immigration from all
lands has eventually produced a population too diverse to accept and
perpetuate, as its dominant musical character, the tradition of any
one nation, however musically great. The other is the amazing musical
awakening of all Europe since the epoch of Beethoven, and especially
since Wagner, and the consequent deluge of modern music from various
nations which has poured in upon American musical life. In view of the
infinity of newly revealed possibilities, the American composer has
been unwilling to continue to reflect merely the one tradition with
which his nation was formerly acquainted, in howsoever high honor that
tradition was held. It is to be said, however, that the substantial
character of German formal musical construction has exerted, as it
should, a permanent influence upon the American attitude toward
composition, and one which is certain to operate beneficially upon the
creative musical life of the nation. The American point of departure
has been one not so much of technical system and ideals generally, as
of temperament.
A third matter qualifying this emancipation of American music is the
unearthing of the mass of aboriginal folk music peculiar to America,
particularly that of the Indian and the negro. This has had a far
more significant and widespread influence upon composers in America
than critics in general have been willing to admit, and many of the
strongest works now appearing in this country acknowledge an influence
from these sources.
The 'American folk-song' discussion arose after what has been termed
the classical period of American music, of which J. K. Paine may be
considered the founder, and during the period in which the romantic
influence, culminating in the work of MacDowell, was beginning to yield
to the influence of the ultra-moderns. The factors which broke the
exclusive German domination in America were, on one hand, the following
up on this side of the water of the musical individuality gained by
other European nations, and, on the other hand, the movement for the
development of aboriginal folk-song in America. To these causes, some
may add a spontaneous climatic influence, but of this there has as yet
been no material demonstration.
The gist of the folk-song discussion was the question as to whether
the basis of a characteristic national American musical art was to be
found in the music of the negroes or Indians. This discussion arose
after Antonin Dvořák's proclamation of such a possibility during his
sojourn in America in the years 1892-95, and rose to its height several
years after the foundation in 1901, by the writer, of The Wa-Wan Press,
a movement for the attainment of a greater freedom in American music
along both modern European and American aboriginal lines. As in all
such matters, the question was answered by the degree and quality
of creativeness in the works brought forward in exemplification of
the principle. Good works on Indian or negro themes have lived, and
bad ones have died. It soon became plainly evident that there was no
popular prejudice against music drawing upon the characteristics of
these native aboriginal sources; on the contrary, much interest was
evinced, as has frequently been shown by the attitude of audiences
listening to such works and by the popularity which certain of them
have attained. The subject has also been made one for special study
by numerous musical clubs throughout the country. What was asked was
merely that the result should be good music. The influence of Indian
and negro music upon American composition has thus spontaneously come
to be recognized as a national and acceptable one, and the reflection
of it by American composers to-day arouses scarcely a murmur of
comment. That only a certain proportion of composers in America
would respond to these influences was soon perceived, and with the
readiness of the people to accept this kind of work, it became merely
a question of the proportion of American musical art which should
exhibit these tendencies. There appears to be no diminution of the
tendency of many composers to draw upon these apparently inexhaustible
aboriginal sources, and with the constant advance of creative musical
art in America, and with its eagerness to press to a conclusion every
available phase of music susceptible of development, there is every
reason to believe that this influence, now generally recognized, will
lead to a very considerable mass of achievement of a high character.
America is too diverse in its sympathies and ideals to acknowledge any
one national or racial influence as paramount in its musical art, but
absolute creative freedom is essential to its national character.
Upon the original German influence, which has been rapidly modified
in America by the work of Wagner and Strauss, there has followed
chiefly the influence of modern France. Many American composers have
lent themselves with avidity to the assimilation of the new technical
resources revealed by Debussy and his colleagues, with excellent
results so long as they considered these merely as accretions to their
previous resource, but in general with equal failure where they have
thought to create in the spirit of the French idiom. The directness
of Russian musical expression has made its appeal to American
composers, though its influence upon the color of American music has
been inconsiderable in comparison with the French. The one cumulative
effect of the many influences, from within and without, which have
qualified the nature of American music, especially during the last two
decades, has been to wrench it free from the uninspiring and nationally
inappropriate character which it had acquired as the result of its
original exclusive early German influence, without, it is to be noted,
leading it into imitative subservience to the particular character of
the musical art of any other nation. In other words, America has gained
its creative musical freedom, even if still too new to that condition
to manifest its ultimate results. With this widened horizon, the true
creative epoch of American music has only now begun. The handful
of American composers of serious ideals and noteworthy ability who
could be named a few years ago has increased to scores, and new names
appear in such rapid succession that the fairly definite knowledge
which America had of its chief composers of the 'classical' and
'romantic' epochs can give only the feeblest conception of the present
condition of composition in America. The best of the newer work shows a
loftiness of ideals, a breadth of outlook, a definiteness of purpose,
a freshness of color, a sense of the beautiful and an _esprit_ which
argue strongly for the future honor of American music. The chief danger
which threatens the American composer is the tendency to accept and
conform to the standards of the centres of conventional and fashionable
musical culture, especially in unsubstantial modern aspects, and to
fail to study out the real nature and musical needs of the American
people. Such a tendency naturally lingers with the lingering domination
of Europe over the standards and the machinery of American musical
life. Conformity means representation and a certain sort of acclaim
for the composer; nonconformity means severance from the usual and
conventional centres and institutions of musical culture. Critical
approbation does not mean the response of the people; the composers
most highly acclaimed by the critics can by no means be said to have
come closest to touching the national heart. The attitude of the
world of musical 'culture' in America is still cold toward the native
producer; this narrow American 'culture' world pays for the maintenance
of fashionable foreign standards, and resents any interference with
this course. Concert singers are seldom heard in American songs worthy
of their artistry, and orchestral conductors seldom give, on their own
initiative, successful native orchestral works, an isolated performance
of which has been arduously procured elsewhere.
With the people generally, however, the matter is quite otherwise.
The people of the nation have never shown a disposition to receive
otherwise than cordially the work of their own composers. From Stephen
Foster, through the ranks of popular music composers, to MacDowell, to
many song composers of the present, and latterly to the composers of
music for popular festivals and pageants--wherever the composer has
gone directly to the people and served their needs, whether in the
sphere of lesser or greater ideals, he has found a ready welcome and
a hearty response. The pathway of true creativity, of healthy growth
and achievement for the composer in America to-day, lies in abandoning
the competition with European sensationalists and ultra-modernists in
the narrow arena of the concert halls of 'culture', and turning to the
fulfilment of national needs in the broadest and deepest sense.
The accomplishment of this matter is linked with the third and last
general division of our main subject, the question of administration.
As a natural consequence of events in American musical history, dating
from the earliest days, there has arisen the so-called 'musical world'
of America to-day, the well-defined national system of concert, recital
and operatic life. This system arose normally to supply the new world
with the products of the highly developed musical art of the old, and
in such a capacity it has admirably served its purpose. In the course
of time, however, and with the increasing wealth and musical culture
of America, the harvest to be reaped by the commercial exploitation
of foreign artists has not remained unperceived by a country not
naturally backward in the perception of commercial advantage. It is
quite natural that those who took into their hands the management of
these affairs should seek the greatest profit which they could be made
to yield. This, it will readily be seen, was not to come from the broad
development of a given locality, which would involve education and a
departure from the centres of wealth, but from the exploitation of the
narrow circle of wealth and culture which existed in every community
of importance. Thus a great circuit was established throughout the
country, by which a process of skimming the cream from as many
communities as possible was set in operation, in the presentation of
famous foreign artists to what has been allowed to pass as the American
public. Thus a system established originally as a service to the people
has finally degenerated to the condition of a commercial enterprise
which is utterly without regard to the broader interests of the people.
The true condition of affairs is made evident to-day by the fact that
when a resident of any moderate-sized prosperous American city starts
to inaugurate some local musical enterprise for the benefit of the
whole community, and calling for the entire community's support, he
learns that the concert and recital life of his city, its 'musical
world,' reaches and is supported by but from three to five per cent. of
the entire population. The other ninety-five to ninety-seven per cent.
find the regular musical events beyond their means, as well as beyond
the facts of their culture, though in the latter respect America is
now rapidly learning that the enjoyment of the best music is far less
dependent upon special education than has commonly been supposed.
Meanwhile, by phonograph and player-piano, by newspaper and magazine,
by high-class municipal concerts and occasional chance glimpses into
the world of greater musical possibilities, the mass of the people have
begun to become awakened to the existence of the larger musical world
which they do not see and the larger musical life which they do not
share, and to crave participation in it. Finally, therefore, we have
the spectacle of an American 'musical world' which is no longer true
to American conditions and which does not serve the people. In short,
we have finally come face to face with the problem of the reaction of
musical art and democracy.
With this question the nation has of late begun to deal in no
half-hearted or uncertain manner. In fact, the national response to
this situation involves the greatest American musical movement of the
day. In its earlier phase the question asked was: Will the people,
under democracy, rise to the accepted standards of musical culture? A
negative answer to this question has been generally entertained, and
among cultured people it has been commonly supposed that democracy
would drag down the standards of musical culture. That a wholly new and
multifold phase of musical life would arise to meet the requirements
of a civilization such as that of America seems to have been earlier
suspected or foreseen only by a few thinking students of conditions,
who recognized the fact that the exact meeting of the mass, as it
became more enlightened, with the conditions of traditional musical
culture was not the solution which was to be expected or even desired.
The plain fact was that the people at large were not enjoying the
benefits, the pleasure, recreation, or inspiration, as the case might
be, of all that the world prizes as music in any of its forms above
that of popular songs and dances. Neither the educational system, on
the one hand, nor the cultural system, on the other, provided them
with it. One merely gave a little elementary training of the most
primitive sort, and for a short time, to children, and the other
did not reach beyond the extremely restricted sphere of culture and
wealth. A movement was needed which should bring music in all of its
forms directly to the masses of the people, and in the nation-wide
campaign for what may be termed 'music for the people' such a movement
has arisen. Experiments on every hand have shown that the people have
needed only to be brought in contact with the higher forms of music,
under advantageous conditions, to rise spontaneously to the enjoyment
of it. The movement, in its activities, has assumed no particular form,
but has taken a variety of forms according to the possibilities of
local conditions. The 'Forest Festival,' or 'Midsummer High Jinks,'
of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, while not open to the general
public, has nevertheless shown the potent appeal of outdoor musical
dramatic festivals to a large number of persons not commonly in
touch with musical life. Municipal concerts on a scale not hitherto
attempted, such as those in Central Park, New York, presenting not
band, but orchestral concerts of the world's greatest music, have
met with an astonishing and enthusiastic response on the part of the
masses who have hitherto had no opportunity of hearing anything above
the popular music of the streets, the dance halls, and the 'movies.'
The musical phase of the social centre movement has assumed vast and
national proportions, making use of the public school halls for
concerts and recitals for thousands of persons who were previously
without musical opportunities. Certain towns, such as Bethlehem, Pa.,
Lindsburg, Kans., and the towns of the 'Litchfield County Choral
Union,' Conn., have established choral enterprises which include in the
choruses practically the entire population. In two years the custom
of Christmas trees with music, free to the people, has become almost
a national movement. The 'community chorus,' such as that established
in Rochester, N. Y., with a membership of nearly one thousand drawn
from the people at large, and singing in the public parks and school
halls, should prove a desirable form of people's musical enterprise
in many places. Standard symphony orchestras in various cities are
branching out extensively in the direction of giving concerts involving
the highest order of music to the people at popular prices, and in
some cities the organization of symphony orchestras for popular price
concerts is threatening the existence of the regular orchestra. And
well-nigh surpassing in significance most other phases of the general
movement, and certainly in their popular inclusiveness, are the
pageants or 'community dramas' with music, which are now constituting a
feature of community life throughout the country.
If, then, the appreciative epoch along the older lines, is concluded in
America, it may be said that the nation is coming to a new appreciation
of music, as a whole, in its relation to humanity. The new movement
will call forth new and larger efforts on the part of American
composers, who, with their present thorough assimilation of the various
musical influences of the world, will lead the nation into a new and
mature creative epoch.
ARTHUR FARWELL.
August, 1914.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME FOUR
PAGE
INTRODUCTION BY ARTHUR FARWELL vii
PART I. APPRECIATION
CHAPTER
I. OUR ENGLISH INHERITANCE 1
The foundation of American musical culture--State of
English musical culture in the seventeenth century--The
Virginia colonists--The Puritans in England and in America;
New England psalmody.
II. BEGINNINGS OF MUSICAL CULTURE IN AMERICA 22
The foundations of American music--New England's
musical awakening; early publications of psalm-tunes;
reform of church singing--Early concerts in Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, the South--The American attitude
toward music--The beginnings of American music: Hopkinson;
Lyon; Billings and their contemporaries.
III. EARLY CONCERT LIFE 55
Sources of information--Boston Concerts of the eighteenth
century; New England outside of Boston--Concerts in New
York--Concerts in Philadelphia; open-air concerts--Concert
life of the South; Charleston, Baltimore, etc.; Conclusion.
PART II. ORGANIZATION
IV. EARLY MUSICAL ORGANIZATIONS 84
Origin of musical societies--The South; The St. Cecilia
of Charleston; Philadelphia and New York in the eighteenth
century--The Euterpean Society; the New York Choral Society;
Sacred Music Society; other New York Societies--New
England in the eighteenth century; the Stoughton Musical
Society of Boston; other societies in Boston and elsewhere.
V. THE BEGINNINGS OF OPERA 104
Scantiness of theatrical performances in America; Charleston
and Tony Aston; New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere--The
Revolution and after; rivalry between New York and
Philadelphia--The New Orleans opera.
VI. OPERA IN THE UNITED STATES. PART I: NEW YORK 117
The New York opera as a factor of musical culture--Manuel
García and his troupe; da Ponte's dream--The
vicissitudes of the Italian Opera House; Palmo's attempt
at 'democratic' opera--The beginnings of 'social' opera: the
Academy of Music, German opera, Maretzek to Strakosch--The
early years of the Metropolitan--The Grau régime--Conried;
Hammerstein; Gatti-Casazza; Opera in English--The
Century Opera Company.
VII. OPERA IN THE UNITED STATES. PART II 158
San Francisco's operatic experiences--New Orleans and its
opera house--Philadelphia; influence of New Orleans, New
York, etc.; The Academy of Music--Chicago's early operatic
history; the Chicago-Philadelphia company; Boston--Comic
opera in New York and elsewhere.
VIII. INSTRUMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES 181
The New York Philharmonic Society and other New York
orchestras--Orchestral organizations in Boston--The Theodore
Thomas orchestra of Chicago--Orchestral music in
Cincinnati--The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra--Orchestral
music in the West; the Philadelphia Symphony
Orchestra--Chamber music ensembles--Visiting orchestras.
IX. CHORAL ORGANIZATIONS AND MUSIC FESTIVALS 206
The Handel and Haydn and other Boston societies--Choral
organizations in New York, Pennsylvania, and
elsewhere--Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago
and the Far West--Music festivals.
X. MUSICAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA 230
Early singing teachers and schools--Music societies
in colleges--Introduction of music into the public
schools--Juvenile music--Conservatories--Musical courses
in colleges and universities--Community music--Present state
of public school music--Municipal music.
PART III. CREATION
XI. THE FOLK-ELEMENT IN AMERICAN MUSIC 277
Nationalism in music--Sources of American folk-song;
classification of folk-songs--General characteristics of the
negro folk-song--The negro folk-song and its makers--Other
American folk-songs--The negro minstrel tunes;
Stephen Foster, etc.--Patriotic and national songs.
XII. THE CLASSIC PERIOD OF AMERICAN COMPOSITION 331
Pioneers in American Composition: Fry, Emery, Gottschalk--The
Boston group of 'classicists': Chadwick, Foote, Parker,
and others--Other exponents of the 'Classical': William
Mason, Dudley Buck, Arthur Whiting, and others--The
lyricists: Ethelbert Nevin; American song-writers--Composers
of church music.
XIII. ROMANTICISTS AND NEO-CLASSICISTS 360
Influences and conditions of the period--Edward
MacDowell--Edgar Stillman-Kelley--Arne Oldberg;
Henry Hadley; F. S. Converse--E. R. Kroeger; Rubin Goldmark;
Howard Brockway; Homer N. Bartlett--Daniel Gregory
Mason; David Stanley Smith; Edward Burlingame Hill--The
younger men: Philip Greeley Clapp; Arthur Bergh;
Joseph Henius; Carl Busch--The San Francisco Group;
Miscellany--Women Composers.
XIV. NATIONALISTS, ECLECTICS AND ULTRA-MODERNS 407
The new spirit and its various manifestations--Henry
F. Gilbert, Arthur Farwell, Harvey W. Loomis--Frederic
Ayres, Arthur Shepherd, Noble Kreider, Benjamin
Lambord--Campbell-Tipton; Arthur Nevin; C. W. Cadman;
J. A. Carpenter; T. C. Whitmer--W. H. Humiston, John Powell,
Blair Fairchild, Maurice Arnold--Sidney Homer;
Clough-Leighter and others--Charles M. Loeffler and other
Americans of foreign birth or residence.
XV. THE LIGHTER VEIN 451
Sources of American popular music--Its past and present
phases--American comic opera: Reginald de Koven;
Victor Herbert; John Philip Sousa; other writers of light
opera--The decline of light opera and the present state of
theatrical music.
LITERATURE 465
INDEX 469
MUSIC IN AMERICA
CHAPTER I
OUR ENGLISH INHERITANCE
The foundation of American musical culture--State of English
musical culture in the seventeenth century--The Virginia
colonists--The Puritans in England and in America; New
England psalmody.
Whatever else the American music-lover may be, he is decidedly not
chauvinistic. Deprecatingly he is wont to speak of native artistic
accomplishment, and, however much he may be disposed to vaunt the
stellar achievements of our few great opera houses and orchestras,
he is content to draw a veil of modest silence over that part of
our musical history which precedes the advent of those _de luxe_
organizations. Hence it is, perhaps, that the searchlight of the
historian has played but fitfully upon the early musical life of
America--for, although popular interest may not inspire the writing of
history, it is not without its influence on the publication thereof.
Possibly the musical life of pre-Revolutionary America has had little
to do with shaping the ultimate artistic destinies of the nation, yet
it formed the matrix into which our subsequent musical culture has been
embedded and as such it is of both interest and importance to those who
would follow a phase of our national development, as yet regrettably
neglected.
It is a peculiar tendency of the American historian to lay the
foundation of our national history squarely on the Rock of Plymouth.
A solid foundation, truly, but not a very broad one. The predominant
influence of New England in the industrial and commercial development
of the United States can hardly be gainsaid. That its influences on
the country's æsthetic development have been equally predominant is
questionable. More especially in musical matters are we inclined to
call it into dispute. If we might judge from American popular music,
we should be disposed to infer that such influences as may have been
active in the shaping of it came chiefly from the South. Nor is popular
music a negligible criterion in this respect, for in it have always
lain the germs of truly national art. Of course, our knowledge of the
state of musical culture in the early colonies does not enable us to
say definitely and dogmatically just where and how American musical
development first began. It will probably appear eventually that the
early musical life of the colonies has had very little to do with
our musical culture of to-day. But, purely as a matter of historic
justice, it might be pointed out that unqualified statements, such
as the assertion of Ritter that 'the first steps of American musical
development may be traced back to the first establishment of English
Puritan colonies in New England,' are, to say the least, somewhat
premature.[1]
I
A consideration of music among the Indians is not germane to our
present purpose. As far as we are concerned Indian music is an exotic,
and it is only of recent years that American composers have turned to
it in a conscious search for national color which is, perhaps, the
first real symptom of aspiration toward characteristically national
expression. From the point of view of musical history the development
of American music must be considered as beginning among the first
white settlers on these shores, and it may be said at once that those
beginnings, like Guy of Warwick's death, are still 'wrop in mystery.'
Regarding musical life in the colonies before the year 1700 our
information is so slight as to be negligible. For almost a century
preceding that year white men--many of them men of culture--had been
settled in America.[2] That these men completely forgot the art in
which so many of them found pleasure, and in which at least a few of
them must have possessed some skill, is a supposition too absurd to
be seriously entertained. As to the nature and proportions of their
musical activities we have no exact evidence and, in default of such,
it is necessary for us to dip a little into comparative history.
In England the curtain of the seventeenth century rose on a
country that as yet knew not cropped heads nor Geneva cloaks nor
steeple-crowned hats nor the snuffling drone of Hop-on-High-Bomby
mournfully mouthing the sinfulness of the flesh and the menace of the
wrath to come. England still deserved its old-time appellation of
'merrie.' It still ate and drank, sang and swore, bussed and wantoned
blithely, lustily, as befitted a country with a full purse, a sound
constitution, and a healthy indifference to the disturbing subtleties
of theology and metaphysics. It was a robust, Falstaffian England,
still unregenerate, still addicted to sack and loose company, but
with a mind as clearly keen as a Sheffield blade and a heart as soft
and impressionable as its own Devonshire butter--'pitiful-hearted
butter that melted at the sweet tale of the sun.' In short, a normal,
vigorous, able-bodied, human country, not yet soured by the virus
of an acidulated Puritanism, nor devitalized by the distemper of a
cultivated licentiousness; a country in whose fertile soil the seeds of
art might well germinate and flourish apace. And, as a matter of fact,
English music, like English drama and poetry, was then approaching the
culmination of its golden age. In Italy, Palestrina had just died; Peri
and Monteverdi were shaping the beginnings of opera; the madrigal,
the mystery, the morality and the masque were the prevailing media of
secular musico-literary expression, while popular instrumental music
was represented by Pavans, Galliards, Allmains, Courantes, and other
courtly-sounding forms. The stern, strict god of polyphony was already
stooping to flirt with the light and wayward muse of the people, making
the first tentative advances toward a union from which was destined to
spring a seductively human art. Never since has England stood so high
musically among the nations of Europe. Never since has she produced
composers who so closely rivalled the greatest of their contemporaries.
There was William Byrd 'a Father of Musicke,' as the Cheque-book of
the Chapel Royal has it--one of the most learned contrapuntists of
his time and unequalled by any of his contemporaries in compositions
for the virginals. There was John Dowland, 'whose heavenly touch upon
the lute doth ravish human sense.' There was Orlando Gibbons, one of
the greatest composers of his period, who was then in the beginning
of his distinguished career. These, and many other English composers
of scarcely lesser note, were as highly honored abroad as they were
at home. Their influence on the development of German music has been
admitted even by German critics.[3] In England the madrigal flourished
then as it did nowhere else in Europe and reached a degree of
perfection hitherto unattained even by the best madrigalists of Italy
and the Netherlands. What Peri and Monteverdi were doing successfully
in Italy in the pseudo-Grecian music-drama, the English were attempting
to do, more characteristically though less successfully, in the masque.
Some of the most famous of English popular songs--like 'The Bailiff's
Daughter of Islington,' 'The Three Ravens,' and 'Drink to Me Only
with Thine Eyes'--have come down to us from that period. Indeed, the
musical vitality of the England of that time was truly remarkable, and
thousands of madrigals, motets, anthems, ayres, and ballets remain as
eloquent witnesses to its teeming fecundity. English instrumentalists
were then rated the best in Europe and were as commonly employed in the
courts of Germany as German instrumentalists are now employed in the
restaurants of London.
Nor was this noteworthy musical activity confined to the small class of
professional musicians. If we may believe Morley,[4] and read aright
the references of Shakespeare and other contemporary writers, music
was sedulously practised by all classes in England, from the sovereign
to the beggar. Queen Elizabeth, we find, played excellently on the
virginals and the poliphant, though it does not appear that her dour
successor took very kindly to such exercises. It seems to have been
a matter of course that every well-reared girl should sing at sight
and play acceptably on the virginals, the flute, and the cittern.
Sight-reading--alas for our degenerate days--was apparently a universal
accomplishment, at least among people of the better classes. After
viols were introduced, every gentleman's house contained a chest of
them and the chance visitor was expected to take his part at sight in
the impromptu concerts which were a favorite form of social diversion.
'Tinkers sang catches,' says Chappell, 'milkmaids sang ballads; carters
whistled; each trade, and even the beggars had their special songs;
the bass-viol hung in the drawing-room for the amusement of waiting
visitors; and the lute, cittern, and virginals, for the amusement of
waiting customers, were the necessary furniture of the barber-shop.
They had music at dinner; music at supper; music at weddings; music at
funerals; music at night, music at dawn; music at work; music at play.'
II
From this intensely musical England came the band of colonists
who landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. About half of them
were 'gentlemen' and the remainder were soldiers and servants. The
proportion of gentlemen--'unruly gallants,' as Capt. John Smith calls
them--was less in later emigrations, though it was always comparatively
high. Many soldiers came, and some convicts and young vagrants picked
up in the streets of London were sent out as servants. Starvation,
disease, and the attacks of Indians left very few survivors among
those who came to Virginia during the first ten years. Afterward
the population grew very rapidly and contained, on the whole,
representative elements of all classes in England, with a comparatively
large proportion of the upper classes. In 1619, as we learn from a
statement of John Rolfe, quoted in John Smith's 'Generali Historie,'
the first negro slaves were introduced into Virginia. A description
in the 'Briefe Declaration' shows Virginia about two years later as
a country already in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity. 'The
plenty of these times,' says the writer, 'unlike the old days of death
and confusion, was such that every man gave free entertainment to
friends and strangers.' About that time land was laid out for a free
school at Charles City and for a university and college at Henrico,
but the project was not then carried through. As yet, however, there
was not any pressing demand for public educational advantages, as the
proportion of children was still very small. Later years saw a great
increase in the population, both native and English born. During the
Civil War there was a large exodus from England of cavaliers, as well
as merchants, yeomen, and other substantial people, who found the
troubles at home little to their taste or profit. There must have
been little to distinguish the Virginia society about the middle of
the seventeenth century from English society of the same period. The
colonists lived well; they were prosperous; they had good, substantial
houses equipped with good, substantial English furniture; they
entertained with open-handed freedom and generosity. 'The Virginia
planter,' says George Park Fisher, 'was essentially a transplanted
Englishman in tastes and convictions and imitated the social amenities
and culture of the mother country. Thus in time was formed a society
distinguished for its refinement, executive ability and generous
hospitality for which the Ancient Dominion is proverbial.'[5]
The population of Virginia always remained largely rural, but
nevertheless there was social life aplenty. Education was mainly in the
hands of the clergy, who, as a rule, were Englishmen of culture. But
steps toward public education were taken at a very early period. The
attempt of 1621 failed, as we have noticed, but in 1635--three years
before John Harvard made his bequest--Benjamin Syms left an endowment
for a free school in Virginia. This, to quote a recent writer, 'was
the first legacy by a resident of the American plantations for the
promotion of education.' Another free school was established in 1655 by
Captain Henry King, and two in 1659 by Thomas Eaton and Captain William
Whittingdon. In 1670, according to a report from Sir William Berkeley
to the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, the population of Virginia
consisted of 40,000 persons, of whom 2,000 were negro slaves and 5,000
white servants. The 2,000 negro slaves probably included a number of
mulattoes, for even then there must have been traffic between white men
and negro women, as we may infer from the law which gave to a child
the status of its mother. The remainder of the population was almost
exclusively English. What we have said of Virginia in the seventeenth
century applies also in a general way to Maryland and Carolina, both
as to population and conditions, though the Huguenot emigration to
Carolina in 1685 made a decided difference in the character of the
population there subsequent to that date.
This brief incursion into general history has been made, not to
prove anything, but to bring forward a few facts which may be found
suggestive. The Southern colonists during the seventeenth century were
predominantly English people of the first and second generations. They
were fairly representative of contemporary English society, though
the proportion of 'gentlemen' was higher among them than at home.
They came, as we have seen, from a country where music was practised
enthusiastically by all classes. It is preposterous to think that in
the new country they discarded their musical tastes like a worn-out
garment. There is no reason why they should have done so. After the
first years of famine and turmoil and death they were comparatively
peaceful and prosperous. There were among them, it is true, a certain
number of stern-faced Puritans, melancholy preachers of the sinfulness
of pleasure; but on the whole the attitude of the Southern colonists
toward life was that of the gay, gallant, laughter-loving cavaliers.
There is little doubt that these same gallant gentlemen kept up in the
colonies that devotion to the _joyeuse science_ for which they had
been famed since the days of Cœur de Lion. In the announcements of
the early concerts at Charleston in the first half of the eighteenth
century we find that the orchestra was often composed in part of
neighboring gentlemen, who were good enough to lend their services for
the occasion, or sometimes that certain gentlemen, of their courtesy,
obliged with instrumental or vocal selections. Whence we may infer that
the custom of keeping a chest of viols in his house for the use of his
family and his guests, so generally observed by the English gentleman
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was still honored by the
colonial gentleman at the beginning of the eighteenth.
The cultured colonists followed English fashions very closely in all
things, and the music they played was doubtless the music in vogue
in London drawing-rooms and concert halls. The humble colonists,
presumably, were less concerned with the mode, and sang and played the
old English tunes which they and their fathers and their grandfathers
had brought across the sea. American historians have taken for
granted, with a good deal of smug complacency, that there was no real
musical life among these people. The assumption seems to be based--if
it has any basis--on the fact that the population of the South was
preëminently rural. But that there was little urban life does not
mean that there was little community life. On the contrary, life in
the South was much more intimately gregarious than is usual in towns
and cities, and it is in hospitable social gatherings rather than in
stiff-backed attendance at concerts and operas that the musical soul
of a people finds real expression. Furthermore, the Southern colonists
had a communal consciousness, as we may see from their early essays in
public education, and it is probable that this consciousness expressed
itself in other ways of which we have no evidence. The churches
brought them together, also, perhaps for social as well as religious
gatherings. It is, indeed, a plausible surmise that musical reunions of
some sort, apart from purely private entertainments, were not unknown
to them.
The music of the colonial proletariat was English, that of the
gentlefolk largely so. Among the common people this music may have
undergone some alteration in the course of time, and certain gifted
ones among them may have made original music of their own. We can
conceive that the gentlefolk occasionally occupied themselves with
musical composition, and some of their efforts, perchance, percolated
through the classes and became the property of all the people. We
cannot say, but it is possible; it is even probable. If English music
did not undergo a change in Virginia and Maryland and Carolina, we
can be sure that it altered somewhat in the hands of the pioneers
who carried it to Kentucky, to Missouri, to Texas. One hears in
the Southwest many quaint, characteristic old songs and tunes of
unmistakably English origin. We can safely assume that by the time
they reached Missouri and Texas from England they had absorbed quite a
little local color.
Nor must we forget that the music of the American negroes is the music
of the English colonists strained through the African temperament; or
perhaps we should say the African temperament strained through the
music of the English colonists. In any case, Afro-American music is
a blend, and the mixing, we may suppose, began with the beginning of
slavery in the Southern colonies. The negro slaves were an ignorant,
impressionable people set down in the middle of a white civilization
from which they naturally and immediately began to absorb the things
that were appreciable to their senses. The most easily appreciable,
perhaps, of these things was music, and such music as the negroes
heard among the white people they absorbed and, to some extent,
assimilated.[6]
Just how much all this has to do with American music we cannot say, any
more than we can say just what is American music. National music, we
take it, is the composite musical inheritance of a people, molded and
colored by their composite characteristics, inherited and acquired. And
the music of the South is undoubtedly part of the musical inheritance
of the American people. How much of that inheritance we have rejected
and how much retained will not appear until some historian arises with
enough scholarship to analyze our musical heritage in detail; with
enough genius in research to trace its elements to their sources; and
with enough patriotic enthusiasm to lend him patience for the task.
In the meantime, surface conditions fail to justify the arbitrary
ruling out of the South as an utterly negligible factor in our musical
development.
III
In approaching the history of the New England Puritans one is in danger
of making serious mistakes, due to temperamental prejudices and to a
misconception of the Puritan attitude toward life. The term Puritan
itself is more or less indeterminate, covering all sorts and conditions
of men with a wide diversity of views on things spiritual and
temporal.[7] There is a very general impression, totally unsupported
by historic evidence, that the Puritans frowned intolerantly on every
worldly diversion, including music. Many of the zealots did, it is
true--in every movement there are extremists--and the general trend of
thought was influenced somewhat by their thunderous denunciations of
all appearance of frivolity. In such circumstances the average human
being, uncertain how far he may safely go, is inclined to avoid the
vicinity of danger and seek the haven of a strictly negative attitude
toward everything about which may hang the very slightest suspicion of
impropriety. We have many instances in history of this same tendency.
The early Christians, taking Christ's warning against the world and the
flesh in its most extreme literalness, adopted a course for avoiding
hell and gaining heaven which, if consistently followed, would soon
have left the world barren of any beings from whom the population
either of heaven or of hell might be recruited. We are apt, however, to
exaggerate the self-denying habits of the Puritans. On many points of
conduct and dogma they were fiercely and uncompromisingly intolerant.
Their Sabbath observance was strict to the point of absurdity. But
in general they were not disposed to deprive the world of innocent
pleasure.
The New England Puritans were more or less of a piece with their
English brethren, and we have every evidence that the latter tolerated
music, even cultivated it with assiduity. Milton's love of music is
well known.[8] John Bunyan, a typical lower-class Puritan, speaks of
it frequently and appreciatively in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' 'That
musicke in itself is lawfull, usefull and commendable,' says Prynne
in his 'Histrio-mastix,' 'no man, no Christian dares deny, since the
Scriptures, Fathers and generally all Christian, all Pagan Authors
extant do with one consent averre it.' Even the anonymous author of
the 'Short Treatise against Stage-Playes' (1625) admits that 'musicke
is a cheerful recreation to the minde that hath been blunted with
serious meditations.' Not only Cromwell, but many other Parliamentary
officers, including Hutchinson, Humphrey, and Taylor, were sincere
devotees of the art. Colonel Hutchinson, one of the regicides, 'had a
great love to music,' according to the 'Memoirs' of his wife, and often
diverted himself with a viol, 'on which he played masterly; he had an
exact ear and judgment in other music.' In the retinue of Balustrode
Whitelocke, who was sent by Cromwell as ambassador to Queen Christina
of Sweden in 1653, were two persons included 'chiefly for music,'
besides two trumpeters. Whitelocke himself was 'in his younger days a
master and composer of music.' On one occasion, during his stay at the
Swedish court, the queen's musicians 'played many lessons of English
composition,' and on another occasion, after the ambassador's party
had played for her, Christina declared that 'she never heard so good a
concert of music and of English songs; and desired Whitelocke, at his
return to England, to procure her some.'
Ecclesiastical music was indeed vigorously suppressed, but solely for
reasons touching the propriety of its employment in the worship of God.
Outside the churches the Puritans showed no particular objection to
the art. In fact, the practice of music was common enough among them,
if we are to believe the statement of Solomon Eccles, a professional
musician, who was successively a Presbyterian, an Independent, a
Baptist, and an Antinomian, and always found it easy to make a living
by his profession. Notwithstanding the ban on theatres, public operatic
performances were inaugurated in London in 1656 and were continued
without interference. The publishing of music flourished under the
Commonwealth as it never did before in England, and large collections
of Ayres, Dialogues, and other pieces remain to us from that period.
Such activity in music publishing could have been stimulated only by
a corresponding demand, and a demand for printed music could not have
co-existed with a neglect of musical practice.[9]
However, we must not jump to the conclusion that the American Puritans
were as freely inclined to the practice of music as their brethren
across the sea. As a matter of fact, they had no musical life
whatsoever. There are some points in the psychology and condition
of the New England colonists which may help to explain this seeming
anomaly. A large proportion of the people of England were Puritans
merely because it was not safe or convenient for them to be anything
else, and they changed their moral and theological complexions just as
soon as a change in fashion rendered the transformation desirable. Many
of the most prominent members of the Parliamentary party were drawn
into the movement more through political ambition or democratic ideals
than for religious reasons. Cromwell's famous 'Trust in God and keep
your powder dry' might well express the mental attitude of more than
a few of them. Even among the religious leaders were a goodly number
whose only desire was to reform what they considered the ritualistic
abuses in the English church of their time and who had not the
slightest ambition to suppress the harmless pleasures of life or the
ordinary manifestations of human instincts. The New England Puritans,
on the other hand, were a select group of people who were driven
across an inhospitable ocean to the barren shores of a strange land by
the indomitable zeal of their convictions, the stern intractability of
their consciences and the adamantine obstinacy of their independence.
They were not Puritans merely in externals; they were Puritans to the
core. Their view of life was uncompromisingly serious. The world was
not to them a place for dalliance; it was a place for work, for the
earnest sowing of seeds that might bring forth a harvest of grace and
godliness, a harvest worthy to be garnered by the Master into His
eternal storehouse. So, however kindly they may have looked upon music,
they could not conscientiously have allowed it to engage much of their
attention. They could with consistence postpone the gratification of
their musical tastes to the next world, where, for all eternity, the
practice of music would be their chief occupation. Besides, the life
of the first settlers in New England was not such as to encourage any
indulgence in unnecessary relaxation. What with the stubborn barrenness
of the soil, the ferocity of the Indians, and the extreme inclemency of
the climate, they had little opportunity for the cultivation of those
gentler arts toward which by taste and temperament they were not, in
any case, very strongly inclined.
And, indeed, from such information as we are able to gather on the
subject, it would appear that the practice of music, even in its
simplest forms, was practically unknown to the New England Puritans
before the end of the seventeenth century, though some of the Leyden
colonists, according to Winslow, were 'very expert in music.' Out of
the forty-odd psalm tunes in use among the Pilgrims only five were
generally known to New England congregations a generation later,
and, even of these five, no congregation could ever perform one with
any approach to unanimity. 'In the latter part of the seventeenth
and the commencement of the eighteenth centuries,' says Hood, 'the
congregations throughout New England were rarely able to sing more
than three or four tunes. The knowledge and use of notes, too, had so
long been neglected that the few melodies sung became corrupted until
no two individuals sang them alike.' The Rev. Thomas Symmes, in an
essay published in 1723, tells us that 'in our congregations we us'd
frequently to have some people singing a note or two after the next had
done. And you commonly strike the notes not together, but one after
another, one being half-way thro' the second note, before his neighbor
had done with the first. This is just as melodious to a well-tuned
musical ear as Æsop was beautiful to a curious eye.' 'It's strange,'
he comments further on, 'that people that are so set against stated
forms of prayer should be so fond of singing half a dozen tunes, nay
one tune from Sabbath to Sabbath; till everybody nauseates it, that
has any relish of singing.' In fact, the reverend gentleman confesses
that if anything could drive him to Quakerism or Popery it would be
the style of singing in vogue among his co-religionists. John Eliot,
son of the Indian apostle, in an essay published in 1725, says that
'often at lectures, and especially at ordinations, where people of many
congregations met together, their ways of singing are so different that
'tis not easy to know what tune is sung, and in reality there is none.
'Tis rather jumble and confusion. Altho' they all doubtless intend
some tune or other, and, it may be, the same, yet they differ almost
as much as if, everyone sung a different tune.' The effect must have
been delightful. Samuel Sewall, who was precentor of his church for
twenty-four years, makes the following plaintive entry in his diary for
February 6, 1715: 'This day I set Windsor tune, and the people at the
second going over into Oxford, do what I could.' Under date of February
23, 1718, he writes: 'I set York tune, and the congregation went out
of it into St. David's in the very 2nd going over. They did the same
three weeks be.' Certainly the vocal efforts of the New England saints
must have been excruciating when they moved the Reverend Thomas Walter
to declare that the singing of his congregation 'sounded like five
hundred different tunes roared out at the same time.' It is almost
unbelievable that people of intelligence, as most of the early New
Englanders were, should be so utterly callous to ear-splitting discords
of that kind, but the testimony of their own pastors puts the matter
beyond doubt.
Now much of this extraordinary chaos in the congregational singing
of the seventeenth century New England colonists was probably due
to the prevailing doubt as to whether singing was, after all, quite
proper to the worship of God. Until well into the eighteenth century
the propriety of singing psalms in church was a subject of heated
controversy. John Cotton published a tract in defense of the custom in
1647 ('Singing of Psalms a Gospel Ordinance'), and, as late as 1723, a
number of clergymen published a tract called 'Cases of Conscience about
Singing Psalms, briefly considered and resolved,' in which we find the
proposition: 'Whether you do believe that singing Psalms, Hymns and
Spiritual Songs is an external part of Divine Worship, to be observed
in and by the assembly of God's people on the Lord's Days, as well as
on other occasional meetings of the Saints, for the worshipping of
God....' Those who had taken singing in church as a matter of course,
and had made of it such a cacophantic horror as is described by Eliot,
Walter, and others, characteristically championed their own style of
singing, which they called 'the old way,' and zealously opposed any
attempt to sing by rule as a step toward Popery.
But, apart from all differences of opinion upon church singing as such,
no people who were in the habit of practising music, even in the most
elementary way, could make such a hopeless mess of ensemble singing in
unison, when the tunes were so old and familiar and the number of them
so limited. Ensemble singing by a mixed gathering of untrained people
is likely to be pretty bad in any case, but even among a heterogeneous
and untutored crowd there are always a number whose accuracy of ear
and intonation suffices to keep the others more or less close to
the melody--especially when it is a familiar one. Among New England
colonists, however, the ability to sing must have been about as common
as the ability to dance on the tight rope. The Rev. Thomas Symmes
assures us that he was present 'in a congregation, when singing was for
a whole Sabbath omitted, for want of a man able to lead the assembly in
singing.' Certainly the good people of that congregation on the whole
must not have counted singing among their diversions--if they had any.
We have no ground for stating flatly that the New Englanders of the
seventeenth century absolutely abstained from singing on all occasions;
but if they did sing it was in a most primitive and haphazard fashion.
Instrumental music certainly was taboo to them. As far as we know there
was not a musical instrument in New England before the year 1700. If
there was, it has shown remarkable ingenuity in escaping detection.
Before leaving this world for a better one, the New England colonist
was meticulously careful in making out a full and exact inventory of
his material possessions. He told in painful detail just how many pots
and pans, bolsters, pillows, tables and chairs he had been blessed
with and in just what condition he bequeathed them to posterity.
Nothing detachable in the house was too small nor of too little value
to escape his conscientious enumeration. But of musical instruments
the testamentary literature of New England contains no mention. The
first suggestion we find of the existence of such a thing is a laconic
reference in the diary of the Rev. Joseph Green under date of May 29,
1711: 'I was at Mr. Thomas Brattle's, heard ye organs and saw strange
things in a microscope.' We have no means of knowing, unfortunately,
what were the musical qualities of Mr. Thomas Brattle's 'organs';
perhaps they were as strange as the things the reverend diarist saw in
the microscope. Anyhow, as far as we can discover, they were unique in
New England. Perhaps they were the same that Mr. Brattle bequeathed to
the Brattle Square Church of Boston in 1713. The congregation of the
church did not 'think it proper to use the same in the public worship
of God,' and the instrument was consequently given to King's Chapel,
where it was introduced in the services, to the consternation, anger
and disgust of Dr. Cotton Mather and the greater part of the population
of New England. This organ is still preserved for the benefit of the
curious, and, though its musical possibilities apparently were limited,
it at least marked a precedent which, as we shall see in a later
chapter, was followed by good results.
It has been mentioned that most of the New England congregations,
at the end of the seventeenth century, knew not more than five
psalm-tunes. Those, it is assumed, were the psalms called 'Old
Hundred,' 'York,' 'Hackney,' 'Windsor,' and 'Martyrs.' The early
Pilgrims, presumably, were more eclectic. They used the volume of
tunes compiled by the Rev. Henry Ainsworth, of Amsterdam. The version
of Sternhold and Hopkins was used in Ipswich and perhaps elsewhere.
In 1640 both the Ainsworth and the Sternhold and Hopkins versions
were generally superseded by the 'Bay Psalm Book,' though Ainsworth's
psalter was retained by the churches of Salem and Plymouth for some
time longer. The 'Bay Psalm Book' was compiled by a number of Colonial
clergymen, including Rev. Thomas Weld, Rev. John Eliot, of Roxbury,
and Rev. Richard Mather, of Dorchester. It is interesting chiefly as
containing some of the quaintest verses ever written. Thus:
'And sayd he would them waste; had not
Moses stood (whom he chose)
'fore him i' the breach: to turn his wrath
lest that he should waste those.'
and again:
'Like as the heart panting doth bray
after the water-brooks,
even in such wise, O God, my soule
after Thee panting looks.'
The settings of the tunes in the New England psalm-books were those
of Playford and Ravenscroft, but, as we have seen, the congregations
habitually introduced original harmonizations of their own. The general
method of singing those psalms was known as 'lining out.' That is to
say, the minister or deacon first sang each line, to give the key, and
the congregation followed his lead--more or less. The results of this
system were often ludicrous. For instance, there is the well-known
example, cited by Hood, where the deacon declares cryptically:
'The Lord will come and he will not,'
and follows this up with the perplexing injunction:
'Be silent, but speak out.'
Owing to the efforts of John Cotton and other cultured clergymen the
people as a whole soon came to accept singing as proper to divine
service, but many decades passed before they could be persuaded that
the cultivation of the voice or the use of any outward means to acquire
skillfulness in singing was decent or godly. Not to the outward
voice, they argued, but to the voice of the heart did God lend ear;
and, though their singing was verily as the bellowing of the bulls of
Bashan, it mattered not except to the ears of their neighbors, who, in
truth, must have been sufficiently calloused to the discord of harsh
sounds. This peculiar attitude lasted until well into the eighteenth
century. Even as late as 1723 the 'Cases of Conscience,' to which we
have referred, contained such questions as:
'Whether you do believe that singing in the worship of God ought to
be done skillfully?' and 'whether you do believe that skillfulness
in singing may ordinarily be gained in the use of outward means by
the blessing of God?' By the efforts of enlightened clergymen like
Mather, Symmes, Dwight, Eliot, Walter, and Stoddard the people of New
England were finally brought to a realization of the fact that their
praise would be just as acceptable to God if offered on the key; but
their conversion was a slow and painful process. Two decades of the
eighteenth century had passed before they began to pay any attention
to the cultivation of church music, and, as we shall see in the next
chapter, this awakening interest coincided with the first faint
stirrings of a general musical life in the Puritan colonies.
W. D. D.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The sentence quoted opens Frederic Louis Ritter's 'Music in
America.' In the next sentence the author admits the prior arrival of
the Cavaliers on these shores, but hastens to add that they exercised
very little influence on American musical development. 'It is a curious
historical fact,' he says, 'that earnest interest in musical matters
was first taken by the psalm-singing Puritans.' It _is_ curious. We
quote further: 'From the crude form of a barbarously sung, simple
psalmody there rose a musical culture in the United States which now
excites the admiration of the art-lover, and at the same time justifies
the expectation and hope of a realization, at some future epoch, of an
American school of music.' _Quantum sufficit._ Louis C. Elson, in his
'History of American Music,' also tells us that 'the true beginnings of
American music ... must be sought in ... the rigid, narrow, and often
commonplace psalm-singing of New England.' If these things be so, well
may the American composer exclaim in the words of the immortal Sly
'Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!'
[2] We are leaving out of consideration the Spanish settlement of
Florida as well as the French settlement of Quebec, and have in mind
only those early colonies which formed the nucleus of the United States.
[3] See Max Seiffert in _Vierteljahrschrift für Musikwissenschaft_,
1891.
[4] Thomas Morley, 'A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall
Musicke,' 1597.
[5] 'The Colonial Era,' in the American History Series, New York,
1892-1902.
[6] See Chapter XI for a further treatment of negro music.
[7] Strictly speaking the Pilgrims who came from Leyden to Plymouth
were not Puritans. They were Separatists, and their movement antedated
the Puritan movement _per se_. It would be highly inconvenient,
however, in a work of this character to draw constant distinctions
between Pilgrims and Puritans and we shall consequently speak of them
in general as one.
[8] _Cf._ Sigmund Spaeth: 'Milton's Knowledge of Music,' New York, 1913.
[9] For a full statement of the Puritan case in respect to music, see
Henry Davey: 'History of English Music,' Chap. VII. London, 1895.
CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNINGS OF MUSICAL CULTURE IN AMERICA
Composite elements of American music--New England's musical
awakening; early publications of psalm-tunes; reform
of church singing--Early concerts in Boston--New York,
Philadelphia, the South--The American attitude toward
music--The beginnings of American music: Hopkinson, Lyon,
Billings and their contemporaries.
The whole history of early musical culture in America--obscure
enough at best--is additionally obfuscated by the persistent illusion
of American historians that the New England psalm-tunes formed the
absolute basis of our musical development. This illusion may be part of
the widespread impression that the church has been the exclusive _fons
et origo_ of musical art. Thus Ritter: 'Musical culture in America, as
in the great musical countries of Europe--Italy, France, Germany--took
its starting point from the church.'[10] As a consequence of this
view of things we find the early chapters of all existing histories
of American music strewn with 'psalm-tunes,' 'church choirs,' and
'clergymen,' as thick as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. All of which
would be perfectly desirable if the importance of these factors in
our musical development were apparent. Neither in our popular music
nor in works of our serious composers can we trace the influence of
New England psalmody, though we can trace the influence of German
folk-songs and Scotch reels and Irish jigs and negro tunes and the
writings of every European composer, from Bach to Brahms.
We have no desire to belittle the achievements of New England or
the magnitude of its part in the history of the country. But--owing
perhaps to the fact that literary production in America was for many
generations confined almost exclusively to the New England states--we
have had imposed on us a habit of thought which is a sort of historical
synecdoche--New England being the figurative whole. Of course, it
does not make a particle of difference to American music what we may
think or say about its parentage. But, as long as history is to be
written, it is well that it shall be written with some attempt at
a disinterested attitude, and assumptions that the genesis of our
music lay in New England or in any other circumscribed locality are
entirely _ex parte_. Most of our composers have been disciples of some
recognized European school or eclectic students of several schools.
We can point in them to the influence of Bach or Mozart, of Beethoven
or Brahms, of Schubert, Mendelssohn or Grieg, of Wagner, Strauss or
Debussy, just as we can point to such influences in the writings of
every European composer, great or small. The musical inheritance of the
American composer is not American; it is universal. For a variety of
reasons we have not yet developed a distinctively national school, but,
among our younger composers who are unmistakeably American, where are
the traces of Puritan psalmody? The _ethical_ influence of Puritanism
is still strong in the land; it still colors our literature, art and
public life; it even colors our music. But purely æsthetic influence is
quite a different thing. Frankly, we believe that the music of colonial
New England has had no more influence on our music of to-day than the
writings of Cotton Mather have had on the work of O. Henry.
These prefatory remarks are made simply to emphasize the fact that the
following sketch of the beginnings of musical culture in New England
and elsewhere is intended only as a statement of historical facts and
not as an argument for the influence of the New England colonies, or
of any other colonies, in the development of American music. Little
information is obtainable concerning the musical life of America before
the end of the eighteenth century, and in these early chapters we are
merely trying to arrive at an approximate estimate of what that musical
life may have been, leaving philosophical deductions therefrom to those
skilled in the drawing of such. If a predominating amount of space is
given to the New England colonies it is chiefly because our available
information concerning them is very much fuller than that which we
possess concerning the rest of the country.
I
We have already seen that up to the end of the seventeenth century
there were not, as far as we can discover, even the most elementary
attempts at a musical life in New England. The writer of 'Observations
Made by the Curious in New England,' published in London in 1673,
remarks that there were then in Boston 'no musicians by trade.' It
is to be assumed that there were none elsewhere in New England. The
installation of Mr. Thomas Brattle's organ in King's Chapel forty
years later necessitated the importation of a 'sober person to play
skillfully thereon with a loud noise.' This person was a Mr. Price, who
appears to have been the first professional musician in New England.
He was followed by Mr. Edward Enstone, of England, who came over as
organist in 1714. To augment his salary of £30 a year, Mr. Enstone, on
Feb. 21, 1714, filed a petition 'for liberty of keeping a school as a
Master of Music and a Dancing Master,' but the petition was 'disallowed
by ye Sel. men.' In the Boston 'News Letter' of April 16-23, 1716, the
same Mr. Enstone inserted the following explicit advertisement:
"This is to give notice that there is lately sent over from London, a
choice Collection of Musickal Instruments, consisting of Flageolets,
Flutes, Haut-Boys, Bass-Viols, Violins, Bows, Strings, Reads for
Haut-Boys, Books of Instructions for all these Instruments, Books of
ruled Paper. To be Sold at the Dancing School of Mr. Enstone in Ludbury
Street near to Orange Tree, Boston.
"'NOTE. Any person may have all Instruments of Musick
mended, or Virginalls and Spinnets Strung and tuned at a
reasonable Rate, and likewise may be taught to Play on any
of those Instruments above mentioned; dancing taught by a
true and easier method than has been heretofore.'"
Mr. Enstone was a person of versatility. Apparently he triumphed over
'ye Sel. men,' and, in addition to this gratifying fact, we may infer
from his advertisement that musical instruments were used to an extent
in Boston prior to 1716. If Mr. Enstone's consignment were the first he
would hardly have failed to mention it. He is exhaustively informative.
The allusion to the mending of musical instruments also suggests that
already they were not uncommon. 'Virginalls and Spinnets' were strung
and tuned by Mr. Enstone, though they were not included in his imported
collection. We have been unable to discover any information which would
throw light on the extent to which musical instruments were used in New
England during the first half of the eighteenth century. Even toward
the end of the century their use was not very common. But probably they
were used to some extent among people of culture as early as the year
1700, and to an increasing extent as time advanced and old prejudices
weakened.
Among the people at large the most potent factor in developing a
musical life was the formation of singing societies for the cultivation
of a proper method of singing psalms. This reformation had long been
advocated by the most enlightened clergymen of the colony. Prominent
among them was the Rev. Thomas Symmes, who thus interrogatively argues
his cause:
'Would it not greatly tend to promote singing of psalms if singing
schools were promoted? Would not this be a conforming to _scripture
pattern_? Have we not as much need of them as God's people of old?
Have we any reason to expect to be inspired with the gift of singing,
any more than that of reading? Or to attain it without suitable means,
any more than they of old, when _miracles_, _inspirations_, etc., were
common? Where would be the _difficulty_, or what the disadvantages, if
people who want skill in singing would procure a skillful person to
instruct them, and went two or three evenings in the week, from _five_
or _six_ o'clock to _eight_, and spend the time in learning to sing?
Would not this be an innocent and profitable recreation, and would
it not have a tendency, if prudently managed, to prevent the expense
of time on other occasions? Has it not a tendency to divert young
people, who are most proper to learn, from learning _idle, foolish_,
yea _pernicious songs_ and ballads, and banish all such _trash_ from
their minds? Experience proves this. Would it not be proper for _school
masters_ in _country parishes_ to teach their scholars? Are not they
very unwise who plead against learning to sing by rule, when they can't
learn to sing at all unless they learn by rule? Has not the grand enemy
of souls a hand in this who prejudices them against the best means of
singing? Will it not be very servisible in ministers to encourage their
people to learn to sing? Are they not under some obligation by virtue
of their office to do so? Would there not, at least in some places,
appear more of that fear of man, which brings a snare, than of true
Christian prudence in omitting this? And, as circumstances may allow,
would it not be very useful and profitable if such ministers as are
capable would instruct their people in this art?'
The introduction of Satan as the protagonist of unskillful singing is
an ingenious and appropriate touch. One might infer from the allusion
to idle, foolish and pernicious songs and ballads that the young people
of New England were not unlike young people of less godly places and
expressed their feelings in ways that might have shocked their proper
elders. If they did, it is a pity that some of their songs and ballads
have not come down to us, be they never so pernicious. The advice of
the Rev. Mr. Symmes, however, appears to have been followed, for we
find that about the year 1720 singing societies began to sprout in
various parts of New England. At first these were concerned exclusively
with church music, but the elementary musical training they afforded
was helpful in developing a capacity for the practice and appreciation
of other music.
The growth of singing societies naturally created a demand for some
sort of musical literature and inspired the publication of many books
of psalm-tunes and instructions. This demand was anticipated as early
as 1712 by the Rev. John Tufts, pastor of the Second Church in Newbury,
who published in that year 'A very Plain and Easy Instruction to the
Art of Singing Psalm tunes; with the Cantos or Trebles of twenty-eight
Psalm tunes, contrived in such a manner as that the Learner may attain
the Skill of Singing them with the greatest ease and speed imaginable.'
About two years later he published 'An Introduction to the singing of
Psalm Tunes, in a plain and easy method. With a collection of Tunes in
Three Parts.' The essence of the 'plain and easy method' seems to have
been the substitution of letters for the customary musical notation,
together with lessons 'to assist in Raising and Falling of notes either
gradual or by leaps, the groundwork of all good singing, and is not
to be obtained ordinarily without help of some Skilful Person, or of
an Instrument.' 'But being attained and observing the few foregoing
Rules,' the reverend author continues encouragingly, 'you will be able
to leap with your voice from one note to another, as they occur in
various distances, and with a little practice to sing all tunes in this
book, or other prick'd after this method in all their parts, with ease
and pleasure.' The tunes and their arrangements were taken by the Rev.
Mr. Tufts from Playford's 'Book of Psalms.'
In 1721 the Rev. Thomas Walter, of Roxbury, Mass., published a book
comprehensively entitled 'The Grounds and Rules of Musick explained. Or
an introduction to the Art of singing by Note: Fitted to the meanest
capacity. By Thomas Walter, A.M. Recommended by Several Ministers.'
As illustrating the Rev. Mr. Walter's qualifications to explain 'the
Grounds and Rules of Musick' we would quote the following delightful
and illuminating disquisition: 'There are in Nature but _seven distinct
sounds_, every eighth Note being the same. Thus when a tune is sung
by another upon a Key too low for the Compass of my Voice, if I will
sing with the Person, it must be all the Way, _eighth Notes_ above
him. I naturally sound an Eighth higher. So a Woman naturally strikes
eighth notes above the grum and low sounding Voice of a Man, and it
makes no more Difference than the singing of two Persons upon an Union
or a Pitch. So, on the contrary, when we sing with a Voice too High
and shrill for us, we strike very naturally into an Octave or Eighth
below. And here let it be observed that the _Height_ of a note and the
_Strength_ of singing it are too different Things. Two notes of equal
Height may be sounded with different degrees of Strength so as that one
shall be heard much further than the other.' This book has the honor of
containing the 'first music printed with bars in America,' Mr. Tufts
having omitted in his works the bars marking the measures.[11] The
arrangements were taken from Playford.
In 1741 Dr. Watts' 'Psalms' were printed in Boston, and an edition
of Watts' 'Hymns' were printed in the same year by Dr. Franklin in
Philadelphia. The next important publication was a part of Tansur's
collection,[12] which was printed by William Bailey at Newburyport,
Mass., in 1755, under the title of 'A Complete Melody in Three Parts.'
In 1761 there was published in Philadelphia a large work called
'Urania, or a Choice Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns. From
the most approv'd Authors with some entirely new: In Two, Three and
Four Parts. The Whole peculiarly adapted to the use of Churches, and
Private Families. To which are prefix'd the Plainest and most Necessary
Rules of Psalmody. By James Lyon, A.B....' Three years later appeared
in Boston 'A Collection of the best Psalm Tunes, in two, three and
four parts; from the most approved authors, fitted to all measures,
and approved by the best masters in Boston, New England; the greater
part of them never before printed in America. Engraved by Paul Revere,
printed and sold by him and Jos. Flagg.' In his preface Flagg, with
admirable patriotism, pointed out that, though most of the tunes in
his book came from across the Atlantic, the paper on which they were
written was of American manufacture; and he hoped that the fact would
recommend his book 'even to those who have no peculiar relish for
the music.' We shall have more to say of Flagg in a later chapter.
Daniel Bailey, of Newburyport, published in 1764 'A new and complete
Introduction to the Grounds and Rules of Music in two books,' of which
the first is taken from Williams and the second from Tansur. In 1769-71
Bailey issued a two-volume work called 'The American Harmony.' The
first volume is a reprint of Tansur's 'Royal Melody,' together with
'A new and correct Introduction to the Grounds of Musick, Rudimental,
Practical and Technical,' also taken from Tansur. The second volume is
a reprint of Aaron Williams' 'New Universal Psalmodist.'[13]
Most of the music in the collections of Lyons, Flagg, and Bailey was
the work of contemporary English church-composers. Some of it may
have been written by Americans, but there has been identified only
the anthem called 'Liverpool,' in Lyon's collection, which is the
work of William Tuckey, of New York. This is only pseudo-American,
however, as Tuckey was an Englishman. It is merely an imitation of the
weak style of verse anthem then popular in England, and the same is
true of the other compositions which may be American. Notwithstanding
the poor quality of the music, the success of Bailey's collections
serves to show the advance which church singing must have made in New
England. The florid 'fuguing choruses' and canons, popular among the
hymn-writers who followed Purcell in England, were not very noble or
inspiring music, but their performance entailed a degree of musical
expertness far removed from the cacophantic crudity of which the
Rev. Thomas Symmes and his contemporaries so plaintively spoke. At
the same time it may be pointed out that these early collections of
psalm-tunes are full of errors, due to the lack of persons competent
to read proofs of musical works, and, if the leaders of church choirs
were not musicians enough to correct such errors in the rendering,
either their ears were yet imperfectly trained or they had a sense of
free harmony far in advance of their age. Furthermore, it was very
late in the eighteenth century before the reform in church singing
became general throughout New England. In the 'History of Worcester' we
read of an energetic duel on August 5th, 1779, between the old deacon
and the singers, in which the deacon read the psalm according to the
'lining-out' method, while the choir simultaneously sang the verse
without pause, according to the new system. Force of numbers and noise
finally overpowered the doughty old champion of tradition, who, we are
informed, 'retired from the meeting-house in tears.' It was as late as
1785 before the parish of Rowley joined the march of progress, as we
find the following entry under that date in the 'History of Rowley':
'The parish desire the singers, both male and female, to sit in the
gallery and will allow them to sing once on each Lord's day without
reading by the deacon.'
II
We may assume that musical culture made noticeable progress in New
England in the second half of the eighteenth century. Among the mass
of the people it remained somewhat primitive, but among the cultivated
classes in Boston and the larger cities the best contemporary music
was heard frequently and with appreciation. As we shall see in a later
chapter, public concerts were held in Boston at least as early as
1731, and they seem to have compared favorably with similar functions
in European cities. But of musical life in the intimate sense there
was still comparatively little. Brissot de Warville writes from
Boston in 1788: 'You no longer meet here that Presbyterian austerity
which interdicted all pleasure, even that of walking, which forbade
travelling on Sunday, which persecuted men whose opinions were
different from their own. The Bostonians unite simplicity of morals
with that French politeness and delicacy of manners which render
virtue more amiable. They are hospitable to strangers and obliging to
friends; they are tender husbands, fond and almost idolatrous parents,
and kind masters. Music, which their teachers formerly proscribed as
a diabolical art, begins to make part of their education. In some
houses you hear the forte-piano. This art, it is true, is still in
its infancy; but the young novices who exercise it are so gentle, so
complaisant and so modest, that the proud perfection of art gives no
pleasure equal to what they afford.'
There were at that time very few pianos in New England and we find
from the newspaper advertisements that the teacher usually lent his
own piano to his pupils for practice. We have it on the authority of
Mr. Elson that the efforts of the pupils were customarily confined to
Gyrowetz, or to 'Washington's March,' 'The Battle of Prague,' or the
_Sonata pour le Clavecin ou Forte-piano, qui représente la bataille de
Rossbach. Composée par M. Bach_--not the majestic Johann Sebastian,
of course. Ritter has copied the following titles from a manuscript
book of the late eighteenth century: _Ça Ira_, 'White Cockade,' 'Irish
Howl,' 'French March,' 'Hessian Camp,' 'Duchess of Brunswick,' 'Duetto'
by Mancinelli, 'Water Rice,' 'Nancy of the Mill,' 'O Bessy Bell,'
'German Spaw,' 'Ossian's Ghost,' 'Duke of York's March,' 'Duetto,' by
Dr. Arne, 'Every Inch a Soldier,' 'Quick March of the Twenty-sixth
Regiment,' 'March,' 'Poor Soldier,' 'Sound Alarm,' 'When Nichola first
to court began,' 'Sweet Village of the Valley,' 'Minuetto,' 'Dead March
in Saul,' 'Bright Phœbus,' 'Ode to Harmony,' 'Swedish Air,' 'Quick
March,' 'King of Sweden's March,' _Marche des Marseillais_, 'Hessian
Air,' 'Baron Steuben's March,' 'Prince Frederick's March,' 'Sonata from
Minuetto in Samson,' 'March in Joseph,' 'Trio' by Humphrey.
It may be of interest to note some of the secular music published
in New England at that time. We find the following advertisement in
the 'Columbian Centinel' of Boston in 1798. 'Just published, price
one dollar, neatly bound and lettered, sold by E. Larkin, No. 47,
Cornhill, "The Columbian Songster and Free Mason's Pocket Companion."
A Collection of the newest and most celebrated Sentimental, Convivial,
Humorous, Satirical, Pastoral, Hunting, Sea and Masonic Songs, being
the largest and best collection ever published in America. Selected
by S. Larkin.' In the same year there appeared in Northampton, Mass.,
'The American Miscellany.' From the foreword of the ingenuous editor
we learn that in this work 'a general preference has been given to
American productions, and perhaps nothing will more effectually exhibit
the progress of the human mind in the refinements which characterize
the age, than the songs which, from general consent, are now in vogue.'
The exhibit is not very complimentary to the 'progress of the human
mind.' Most of the songs contained in these collections are flatly
commonplace, many of them are cheap and tawdry in the extreme. It would
hardly be fair to look upon such publications as reflecting the musical
taste of the cultured class in New England. Just what proportion that
class bore to the total population we cannot say. We can safely assume,
however, that the concerts given in Boston and elsewhere during the
second half of the eighteenth century fairly indicate the taste of the
musical elect in New England. The citation of a few programs in this
place will, consequently, not prove amiss.
A concert in honor of President Washington's visit to Boston, given on
the 27th October, 1789, is advertised as follows:
FOR PUBLIC ORNAMENT
AN ORATORIO
OR CONCERT OF SACRED MUSICK
will be performed at Stone Chapel, Boston, in presence of
the President of the United States.
First Part
1. A Congratulatory Ode to the President
2. A favourite Air in the 'Messiah' (composed by the
celebrated Handel) 'Comfort ye my People.' By Mr. Rea
3. Organ Concerto By Mr. Shelby
4. The favourite Air in the Oratorio of Samson (composed
by the celebrated Mr. Handel) By Mr. Rea
5. Anthem from 100th Psalm, composed by Mr. Selby
Part the Second
The Oratorio of Jonah
Complete. The Solos by Messrs. Rea, Fay, Brewer, and Dr.
Rogerson.
The Choruses by the Independent Musical Society; The
Instrumental parts of a Society of Gentlemen, with the band
of his Most Christian Majesty's Fleet.[14]
As the above Oratorio has been highly applauded by the best
judges, and has never been performed in America; and as
the first Performers of this country will be joined by the
excellent band of his Most Christian Majesty's squadron, the
Publick will have every reason to expect a more finished and
delightful performance than ever was exhibited in the United
States.'
In Salem on the 15th May, 1798, was given the following concert:
Part 1st
Grand Symphony Pleyel
Song: 'On by the Spur of Valour goaded.' Mr. Collins, Shield
Clarinet Quartette Vogel
Messrs. Granger, Laumont, von Hagen and Graupner
Song: 'He pipes so sweet.' Mrs. Graupner Hook
Concerto on the French Horn. Mr. Rosier Ponton
A favourite new Song: 'Little Sally's wooden ware' Arnold
Miss Solomon
Full Piece Hayden[?]
Part 2nd
Quartetto:
'Who shall deserve the glowing Praise?' Linly
Mrs. Graupner, Mr. Granger, Mr. Collins and Mr. Mallett
Concerto on the Clarinet, composed and performed by Mr. Schaffer
A new favourite echo Song: 'How do you do?' Hook
Mrs. Graupner, and accompanied on the hautboy by Mr. Graupner
Concerto on the Violin. Laumont Foder[?]
A Comic Irish song: 'Boston News' Mr. Collins
Concerto on the Hautboy, the composition of the celebrated Fisher
Mr. Graupner
Duet: 'They Dance to the Fiddle and Tabor,' from the much admired
Opera of the 'Lock and Key' Mrs. Graupner and Mr. Collins
Finale Pleyel
Audiences in those days must have had Gargantuan musical appetites.
Mr. Mallet, a French musician resident in Boston, gave a concert there
on the 19th May, 1801, which included two overtures, four concertos
(for clarinet, violin, bass and oboe, respectively), six solo vocal
pieces and one duet!
III
No doubt these concerts show that the musical taste even of cultured
New England was somewhat indiscriminate. But the tendency to serve
strangely mixed programs was not confined to America. We find, too,
that concerts were very frequently a medium for the exploitation of
compositions by the concert givers or their friends. This custom was
not confined to America either, nor was it confined to the eighteenth
century. On the whole, and considering all the circumstances, the
concert life of New England speaks well for the musical culture of its
people. The same may be said of concert-life elsewhere in America.
Unfortunately our information concerning general musical culture in
other parts of the country is extremely scanty, but we may assume that
the inhabitants of the Middle and Southern colonies enjoyed a fuller
musical life than was possible in New England, where it was retarded
by conditions that were not operative elsewhere. In Pennsylvania, it
is true, Quakerism must have exercised a repressive influence, though,
from the evidence at our disposal, we find that Philadelphia at the end
of the eighteenth century was more advanced musically than any other
city in America. Practically our only sources of information concerning
early musical life in New York, Philadelphia and the South are the
records of operatic and concert performances, and, while we shall speak
of those activities more fully in later chapters, we may be pardoned
for referring briefly to them here.[15]
In New York English opera was heard perhaps as early as the year 1702,
but performances did not become common until about 1750. After the
production of the 'Beggar's Opera' in the latter year 'all the most
popular ballad-operas,' to quote Ritter,[16] 'successively appeared
on the New York stage. Besides these most of the musical farces,
melodramas, pantomimes, which proved successful in London, were also
produced in New York.' Concerts became increasingly common in the
second half of the century and some of the programs were remarkably
interesting. By way of illustration we quote the following program
of a concert given on the 9th February, 1770, for the benefit of Mr.
Stotherd:
Act 1st
1st. Overture of Bach, opera prima
3d. Concerto of Avison, opera quarta
A Hunting Song--Black Sloven
A French Horn Concerto, by Mr. Stotherd
4th Concerto of Stanley
Duet on the French Horn
8th Periodical Overture.
Act 2d
Overture of Saul[17]
Select pieces for four French Horns
2d Concerto of Humphries
A Hunting Song
A French Horn Concerto by Mr. Stotherd
3d Concerto of Corelli
Overture of Atalanta
In January, 1770, a large part of Handel's 'Messiah' was given in New
York for the benefit of William Tuckey, with the assistance of 'a
considerable number of ladies and gentlemen.' The program of a concert
given by gentlemen of the army and navy in April, 1782, reads:
Act I
Sinfonie of Toeschi
Quartetto of Davaux for Violins
Song by Mrs. Hyde 'Soldiers tir'd of War's alarms'
Violino Concerto of Borchay
Quintetto of C. Bach for Flauto
Sinfonie of Stamitz
Act II
Sinfonie of Haydn
Quartetto of Kammell, for violino
Song by Mrs. Hyde, 'If 'tis joy to wound a lover'
Hoboy Solo Concerto of C. Fisher
Quartetto of Vanhall for Flauto
Sinfonie of Haydn
Act III
Sinfonie of Bach
Quartetto of Davaux for violino
Clarinetto Solo Concerto of Mahoy
Quartetto of Toeschi for Flauto
Sinfonie of Mardino
Of course, all the concerts given in New York were not on an equally
high plane. Many of them were frankly popular and many mixed
judiciously the popular with the serious. A large proportion of these
were given at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Columbia and other public gardens
where it was necessary to cater to the taste of an assorted assemblage.
On the whole, however, the musical taste of the New York public was
remarkably good. Haydn seems to have been the favorite composer of
the time and after him we notice most frequently the names of Pleyel,
Handel, Corelli, Gossec, Stamitz, Gyrowetz, and Bach.[18]
The musical life of Philadelphia during the second half of the
eighteenth century was apparently richer than in any other American
city. There are no records of public concerts there before the year
1757, but after that date they became so suddenly common and maintained
such a relatively high standard that the musical soil in which they
grew must have been extremely fertile--notwithstanding the Quakers.
Indeed, the musical taste of the Philadelphians seems to have been
at once more eclectic and more discriminating than that of the
citizens of Boston and New York. Besides Haydn, Pleyel, Handel, and
the rest we find in their programs the names of Grétry, Boccherini,
Viotti, Kreutzer, Paesiello, Sacchini, Cimarosa, Piccini, Gluck, and
Mozart.[19] The programs were much less mixed than was customary in
Boston and New York. We find fewer comic numbers and fewer songs to
Mars and Bacchus, to larks and pining hearts and sighing breezes. And
quite as much consideration was shown to the native American composer
as is shown by the concert-givers of to-day. Consider the following
program of the first Uranian Concert, given at the Reformed Church, in
Race Street, on the 12th April, 1787:
Syllabus Authors
I. Martini's celebrated Overture
II. Jehovah reigns: an anthem from 97th Psalm Tuckey
III. Te Deum laudamus Arnold
IV. Violin Concerto By Mr. Phile of New York
V. I heard a great voice: an Anthem from Rev. XIV Billings
VI. Vital Spark: An Anthem on Mr. Pope's ode
'The dying Christian to his Soul' Billings
VII. Overture Artaxerxes Arne
VIII. Friendship thou charmer of the mind:
From Watts' Lyric Poems Lyon
IX. The Rose of Sharon: an Anthem from
2d of Canticles Billings
X. Flute Concerto By the Chevalier du Ponceau
XI. Sundry Scriptures: an Anthem on
the nativity of Christ Williams
XII. The Hallelujah chorus: on the extent and duration
of Christ's Government (from the 'Messiah') Handel
We may mention here the extraordinary Grand Concert given at the
Reformed Church in Race Street on May 4, 1786, with a chorus of
two hundred and twenty and an orchestra of fifty. Of course, such
concerts were unusual in Philadelphia. Choruses of two hundred and
twenty and orchestras of fifty were not then common, even in European
capitals. But, as Mr. Sonneck has observed, such undertakings were not
possible 'without a logical evolution of conditions,' and this concert
throws a very favorable light on musical conditions in Philadelphia.
Incidentally, we learn that nearly one thousand tickets were sold for
the event, a remarkable showing for a city of about 40,000 people.
There was a very active musical life in the South during the eighteenth
century, and it was much more diffused than in the Middle or New
England colonies. A peculiar feature of the public concerts in the
South was the frequency with which amateurs appeared as performers.
We find the vocal part in one concert was taken by 'a gentleman who
does it merely to oblige on this occasion.' In the advertisement of
another we read that 'the gentlemen who are the best Performers,
both in Town and Country, are so obliging as to assist ... on this
Occasion.' Again we notice the announcement of a 'Concert of Vocal
and Instrumental Musick to be performed by Gentlemen of the place,
for the entertainment of all lovers of Harmony.' Such announcements
were common. Of course, amateurs sometimes took part in concerts in
the North, especially before the Revolution. As a rule, they were
gentlemen of the king's army and navy, among whom the practice of music
seems to have been sedulously cultivated. But it would appear that the
proportion of practical amateur musicians was much greater in the South
than elsewhere in America, and that fact alone speaks volumes for the
culture of the Old Dominion.
Charleston was beyond doubt the leading Southern city in musical
matters. We know definitely that public concerts were given there as
early as 1732, and it is quite probable that they were given earlier.
In 1762 was formed the St. Cæcilia Society,[20] an organization devoted
to the cultivation of the best in music. It was the first musical
society formed in America. The following program, given on the 6th
March, 1794, under its patronage, will illustrate the taste of the
people of Charleston:
Act 1st
Sinfonie Pleyel
Song, Mr. Chambers
Quartett Violin Pleyel
Song, Mr. Clifford
Overture Gretrie[?]
Act 2nd
Grand Overture (la Chasse) Gossec
Song, Mr. West
Sonata Pianoforte, Rondo, by Mrs. Sully
Duett, Mr. Chambers and Mrs. Chambers
Act 3d
Grand Overture Haydn
Song, Mr. Chambers
Concerto Violin, by Mr. Petit Viotti
Glee, Mr. Chambers, Mrs. Chambers and Mr. West.
It is noteworthy to find a symphony of Mozart on a program of March 9,
1797.
It would appear that the citizens of Baltimore were not quite so
refined in their musical taste as their neighbors in Carolina.
Nevertheless they enjoyed an active musical life. Concerts of fair
quality were common enough, and we read also of such interesting things
as the production in English of Pergolesi's _Serva Padrona_ in 1790.[21]
In Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Petersburg, Norfolk,
Alexandria and elsewhere in Virginia there were public concerts given
at an early period. Unfortunately there has not yet been unearthed much
documentary evidence which would throw light on the early musical life
of these cities. But from what we know of Charleston and Baltimore and
from our general knowledge of conditions among the Southern colonists
we should be inclined to say that the Virginia cities possessed a
musical life quite creditable in proportion to their size. The same
is true of Savannah and New Orleans. It must not be forgotten that,
with the exceptions of Charleston and Baltimore, no Southern city had
a population of more than ten thousand people. Most of them had very
considerably less. Obviously it would be unfair to expect that they
enjoyed metropolitan conditions.
IV
Enough, perhaps, has been said to show that the American colonists
were not the musical barbarians they are so frequently and complacently
pictured. Of course, European writers visiting the colonies almost
invariably took occasion to incorporate in their literary works
slighting references to the state of culture in America. The custom
still obtains among literary visitors to these shores. Since the time
of Columbus, apparently, it has been an unwritten law that European
travellers must speak slightingly of American culture, just as American
travellers must make uncomplimentary remarks about European hotel
accommodations and transportation systems. Such comments are usually
the result of a congenital incapacity to see more than one thing at one
time. As a rule they are accurate, but they do not mean what they seem
to mean. They are sentences detached from their context. A statement
that there is no first-class symphony orchestra in New York would
have a very different significance from a statement that there is no
first-class symphony orchestra in Oskaloosa--though both sound alike
to one who knows nothing about either New York or Oskaloosa. Equally
ridiculous are the well-meant attempts to demonstrate the growth of
our artistic stature by drawing parallels between the musical activity
of the colonies and the musical activities of America to-day. In 1750
the population of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond,
and Charleston combined was less than one hundred thousand, and even
as late as 1800 it was little over two hundred thousand. If we are to
be fair to the American colonists, we must take into consideration
the conditions under which they lived, the youth of the country, its
comparative isolation from the old-established centres of culture, the
many and complex circumstances that operated to retard its æsthetic
development. And if we take these things into consideration, we cannot
fairly persevere in our supercilious attitude toward the musical life
of eighteenth-century America.
There is another side to the picture, however. In spite of the
undeniable growth of musical culture among the American people of the
eighteenth century, it cannot be said that music had a really intimate
meaning for them, that they had woven it into the web of their lives,
that they had found in it a necessary form of expression. Art is
created that way. It may be the folk-song of an ignorant peasant or the
symphony of a Mozart or Beethoven. But always it is born of a need for
personal expression. Music was not personal to the American colonists;
it was still an exotic, a pleasure supplied from outside sources, a
diversion which serious men might occasionally enjoy but to which they
could not afford to devote serious attention. Even among a certain
class of Americans of the present day this attitude persists to some
degree. Music is not yet generally regarded as a profession for men.
Men go into business; they become brokers, lawyers, or politicians;
they even become newspaper reporters--but not musicians. Music is still
_par excellence_ the avocation of long-haired, libidinous foreigners.
We may, perhaps, without injustice trace this attitude to Puritan New
England. The aristocracy of the South had the aristocratic point of
view. Most Southern gentlemen were practical musicians. They were not,
of course, professional musicians--gentlemen did not adopt professions,
except that of arms. But music had a certain personal meaning for
them. It was a graceful and elegant medium for the expression of their
gallant, romantic and courtly sentiments. They could sing of arms and
the red glow of wine and the red lips of women--all frankly important
things in their lives, all supposedly unimportant things in the lives
of the upright New Englanders. But, as a vehicle for the expression of
profound and fundamental emotions, music had no meaning to them.
The aristocratic Southern point of view, however, did not impress
itself on the mass of the American people; the New England point of
view did. The psychological effect of New England on the rest of the
country has been extraordinary. Certainly the New Englanders were fond
of music; they encouraged it; they had considerable taste; they were
glad to have their daughters take music lessons--music was a thoroughly
ladylike accomplishment. When Priscilla spilled the 'Battle of Prague'
_con brio_ over the 'forte piano' her performance brought undiluted
joy to the parental heart. When Fil Trajetto played a concerto of
Corelli the more cultivated Bostonian could justly appreciate the
virtues of the composition and its performance. The people of New
England had relatively as much taste and culture as the same class of
people elsewhere. Nevertheless they did not feel music as a serious and
necessary thing.
V
Such an attitude was most unfavorable to the growth of a native art.
During the eighteenth century there were few native American musicians
by profession. In the South the professional musicians were chiefly
French, in the North chiefly English. As a consequence there were few
American composers. Of course, many Americans manufactured music.
Every civilized man at some period of his life has composed a tune or
a poem or a play. It is as inevitable as the measles. The American
colonists did not escape the infection. Many American compositions lie
unidentified in the early collections of hymns and anthems; many more
undoubtedly were denied even such an anonymous burial. We have already
alluded to William Tuckey, whose anthem was included in the collection
of James Lyon. Tuckey was organist of Trinity Church, New York. He has
sometimes been called the first American composer, and he would be did
he not happen to be born in Somersetshire, England. Many of Tuckey's
contemporaries, such as Flagg, and undoubtedly others whose names have
been forgotten, composed church music in the style of the period--the
weak, insipid, undistinguished style of Tansur and Williams. We can
easily afford to forget their efforts.
There are, however, a few American composers of this period whom we
cannot afford to forget It is really impossible to say who was the
first American composer, but the right to the title seems to be divided
between Francis Hopkinson and James Lyon, natives of Philadelphia and
Newark, N. J., respectively. Certainly they were the first of any
importance. Hopkinson, a lawyer, poet, musician, inventor, painter,
and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was one of the most
remarkable men of his time. He was born in 1737, was graduated at the
College of Philadelphia, received the degrees of Master of Arts and
Doctor of Laws from that institution and the degree of Master of Arts,
_gratiæ causa_, from the College of New Jersey. After his admission to
the bar he held a number of public offices, became a delegate to the
first Continental Congress and was appointed by that body to 'execute
the business of the Navy under their direction.' He presided over the
Admiralty Court of Pennsylvania from 1779 until its jurisdiction became
vested in the United States and took an important part in the debates
of the convention which framed the Constitution. We know little of his
musical education, but the most important part of it seems to have been
guided by James Bremner, while his taste was undoubtedly polished by
subsequent visits to Europe. He was an able harpsichordist, we learn,
and often deputized for Brenner as organist of Christ Church. In spite
of his official duties he found time to promote musical education, to
give concerts and to participate in frequent musicales at the home of
Governor John Penn. His inventive turn found expression in an improved
method of quilling a harpsichord, the application of a keyboard to the
harmonica and a 'contrivance for the perfect measurement of time,'
known as the Bell-harmonic.
The most important thing about Francis Hopkinson from our point of
view, however, is that his song 'My Days Have Been so Wondrous Free,'
dated 1759, is, as far as we know, the earliest secular American
composition extant. It is included in a collection of songs made by
Hopkinson which contains also several other specimens of his muse. They
are pretty, simple, graceful, and somewhat amateurish. Among them is an
anthem with figured bass--a rarity in early American music. Possibly
Hopkinson was editor and part author of the 'Collection of Psalm Tunes
with a few Anthems and Hymns' published in 1763 for the use of Christ
and St. Peter's churches. He has been credited with the authorship of
one of the numerous 'Washington's Marches,' though which of them he
wrote--if he wrote any--his sole and painstaking biographer[22] has
been unable to discover. Mr. Sonneck, however, has succeeded in proving
that he composed 'The Temple of Minerva, a Musical Entertainment
performed in Nov., 1781, by a Band of Gentlemen and Ladies at the hotel
of the Minister of France in Philadelphia.' The music of this piece,
unfortunately, is not extant. A collection of eight songs by Hopkinson,
with accompaniments for harpsichord or pianoforte, was published
in Philadelphia in 1788. Speaking of these Mr. Sonneck says: 'As a
composer Francis Hopkinson did not improve greatly during the twenty
years which separate this song collection from his earliest efforts.
His harmony is still faulty at times, and he possesses not an original
musical profile. To claim the adjective of beautiful or important
for these songs or his other compositions would mean to confuse the
standpoint of the musical critic with that of the antiquarian. But
even the critic who cares not to explain and pardon shortcomings
from a historical point of view will admit that Hopkinson's songs
are not without grace and that our first poet-composer obeyed the
laws of musical declamation more carefully than a host of fashionable
masters of that period. Artistically, of course, he resembles his
contemporaries. His musical world, like theirs, was an untrue Arcadia,
populated with over-sentimental shepherds and shepherdesses, or with
jolly tars, veritable models of sobriety and good behavior, even
when filling huge bumpers for drinking-bouts. Then again we notice
in Francis Hopkinson's music the studied simplicity of that age for
which treble and bass had become the pillars of the universe. This and
much more is antiquated to-day. But why should we criticize at all our
first "musical compositions?" It becomes us better to look upon these
primitive efforts as upon venerable documents of the innate love of the
American people for the beauties of music and as documents of the fact
that among the signers of the Declaration of Independence there was at
least one who proved to be a "successful Patron of Arts and Sciences."'
It is a peculiar coincidence that in 1759, the same year in which
Hopkinson's first songs were written, an ode, set to music by
James Lyon, a student at Nassau Hall, was performed at the college
commencement. This, perhaps the earliest of American commencement-odes,
is unfortunately not extant. Lyon was graduated from Princeton in 1759
and took up his residence in Philadelphia. There he seems to have
founded or taught in a singing school where one of his anthems was
performed in 1761--'an elegant anthem,' according to the 'Pennsylvania
Gazette.' In 1762 he received the degree of M.A. from Princeton and
perhaps wrote the music for an entertainment entitled 'The Military
Glory of Great Britain' which was performed at the commencement.
Subsequently he was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian church and
preached the gospel in Nova Scotia, Maine, and elsewhere until his
death in 1794.
We have already adverted to Lyon's 'Urania, or a choice Collection of
Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns from the most approved Authors, with
some entirely new.' This collection exercised an important influence
on subsequent early American psalmodists.[23] The six tunes marked as
new were composed by Lyon. These, together with settings of the 17th
and 19th psalms, a setting of one of Watts' lyric poems, 'Friendship,'
and a 'Marriage Hymn,' are all the known works of Lyon still extant.
'Their study,' says Mr. Sonneck, 'will induce no critic to call Lyon a
composer of real merit or even a musician fully conversant with musical
grammar. His music, viewed from an æsthetic standpoint, is in no way
remarkable. He certainly gave his best in the Hymn to Friendship, the
minor movement of which contains a few unexpected rays of beauty. This
movement, and the fact that Lyon energetically occupied himself with
music, when music was in its infancy in colonial America, prove that
he possessed some inborn musical talent. For nobody will compose in a
musical wilderness, no matter how valueless the compositions may be, if
not forced to do so by latent creative powers. Had Lyon been educated
in England, Germany, or Italy his talents would have developed to
greater advantage, and his name might figure in musical dictionaries,
these mausoleums of celebrity, none of which to-day mentions him. But
his importance lies not in the sphere of æsthetics; it lies rather in
the sphere of retrospective history. Not the absolute, but the relative
merits of his music attract our attention. He was a pioneer and
thereupon rests his lasting glory.'
In 1746 was born in Boston a man who bore the undistinguished name of
William Billings. Billings was a tanner by profession and a musician by
instinct. It is unfortunate that this pioneer American composer should
have become the butt of so much ridicule; yet one must admit that he
invited ridicule. There was something ludicrous even in his personal
appearance.
'He was somewhat deformed,' says Ritter, 'blind of one eye, one leg
shorter than the other, one arm somewhat withered, and he was given to
the habit of continually taking snuff. He carried this precious article
in his coat pocket made of leather, and every few minutes would take
a pinch, holding the snuff between the thumb and clinched hand. To
this feature we must add his stentorian voice, made, no doubt, rough
as a saw by the effects of the quantity of snuff that was continually
rasping his throat.'[24] His zeal continually outran his discretion.
Even in church his voice drowned those of his neighbors. He was of the
temperament that cannot approve without giving three cheers. The very
titles of his works provoke a smile. For instance:
'The New England Psalm Singer: or American Chorister
Containing a number of Psalm-tunes, Anthems and Canons.
In four or five parts. (Never Before Published.)
Composed by William Billings, a native of Boston, in
New England.
Matt. 12. 16. "Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings hast
thou Perfected Praise."
James 5. 13. "Is any Merry? Let him sing Psalms."
"O, praise the Lord with one consent
And in this grand design
Let Britain and the Colonies
Unanimously join."
Boston: New England, Printed by Edes and Gill.'
Nevertheless Hillings was an original genius with an unaffected,
fervent and sincere love of his art. His very naïveté is refreshing in
an age which artistic artificiality had rendered almost sterile. Of
musical knowledge he possessed very little. What knowledge he had he
picked up himself from such limited sources as were at his disposal. In
the preface to his 'New England Psalm-Singer' he confesses ingenuously:
'For my own part, as I don't think myself confined to any Rules for
Composition laid down by any that went before me, neither should I
think (were I to pretend to lay down rules) that any who comes after
me were anyways obligated to adhere to them any further than they
should think proper: so in fact I think it is proper for every composer
to be his own learner. Therefore, upon this consideration, for me to
dictate or to prescribe Rules of the Nature for others, would not only
be very unnecessary but also a very great Vanity.' Later he frankly
confessed the immaturity that dictated those statements. He set himself
more humbly to the study of rules for composition and developed an
enthusiasm for counterpoint, of which he speaks in the following terms:
'It has more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes; each
foot straining for mastery and victory, the audience entertained and
delighted, their minds surpassingly fluctuated, sometimes declaring
for one part and sometimes for another. Now the solemn bass demands
their attention--next the manly tenor--now, the lofty counter--now, the
volatile treble. Now here--now there, now here again. O, ecstatic! Rush
on, you sons of Harmony!' Even the tremendous earnestness of the man
does not save this from being funny. It is poor Billings' fate to be
funny under nearly all circumstances.
The 'New England Psalm-Singer' appeared in 1770. It may be recalled
that Beethoven was born in the same year. Eight years later Billings
published 'The Singing Master's Assistant,' a revision of his first
work, which attained wide popularity in New England and was known as
'Billings' Best.' Following came 'Music in Miniature,' 1779; 'The
Psalm-Singer's Amusement,' 1781; 'The Suffolk Harmony,' 1786; and 'The
Continental Harmony,' 1794. Besides these Billings published singly
a number of anthems and other compositions. All of his works show a
most primitive conception of the art of composition and a very hazy
knowledge of the rules of harmony and counterpoint. But they contain
melodic and rhythmic force and originality. Billings could not write a
good fugue, but he could write a good tune. Many of his compositions
became very popular in New England. Although he had invited Britain
and the Colonies to join 'unanimously' when he published his first
collection, he was one of the most fiery of patriots when the
Revolution broke out. Nothing could surpass the fierce ardor of his
zeal. He expressed in dynamic terms his love of country and contempt
for his enemies, and he called down all the wrath of an omnipotent
deity on his unworthy head if he should ever prove untrue to
Boston--meaning America. What were written originally as psalm-tunes he
had no difficulty in turning into ringing patriotic songs. Many of them
were sung by the New England soldiers throughout the war, and the tune
known as 'Chester' was a favorite with the Continental fifers.
Billings is said to have introduced the use of the 'pitch-pipe' into
New England choirs--where it was badly needed--and he is supposed
to have been the first in New England to use the violoncello in
church. According to Ritter, 'he is credited with the merit of
having originated concerts or musical exhibitions in New England';
but concerts or musical exhibitions were originated there before
he was born. Billings' merit is that he was the first musician of
really independent and original talent that America produced. He was
handicapped by lack of technical knowledge and lack of a suitable
_milieu_. He wrote some good tunes which passed into the musical life
of the people. He is a noteworthy figure, but his importance is not
overwhelming.
Among Billings' contemporaries may be mentioned Oliver Holden, Andrew
Law, Jacob Kimball, Jr., Samuel Holyoke, Samuel Read, and Lowell Mason.
None of these possessed much more musical knowledge than Billings and
all of them, with one exception, possessed much less talent. Holden
is known chiefly for his 'Coronation' hymn, which is still popular.
He published 'The American Harmony' in 1792. Law was the author of a
collection of anthems and hymns, besides some compilations on musical
theory. His taste was better than the average of his time, but his
information and creative capacity were limited. One of his hymns,
'Archdale,' acquired wide popularity. There is nothing particular to
say about Kimball, Holyoke or Read. They were of about the same stamp
as Holden and Law--mediocre writers of uninspired and conventional
psalm-tunes.
Lowell Mason stands out above the rest as a musician in the truer
sense of the word. The earnest valor with which he combated the
condition prevalent in the New England churches, flooded with 'fugue
tunes' in imitation of the imported variety but devoid of any musical
value, must be recognized. He was a pioneer in the work of substituting
for this worthless stuff tunes at once simple and noble, in accordance
with the principles of harmony, and symmetrical in form. Mason was born
in 1792, at Medfield, Mass., and died in 1872 at Orange, N. J. He went
to Savannah, Ga., and divided his time between banking and musical
study under F. L. Abell. In 1822 he returned to Boston and published
the 'Boston Handel-Haydn Society's Collection of Church Music,'
containing a number of his own compositions. The most familiar of his
tunes are probably 'Corinth' ('I love to steal a while away'), 'Cowper'
('There is a fountain filled with blood'), 'Bethany' ('Nearer, my God,
to Thee'), 'The Missionary Hymn' ('From Greenland's Icy Mountains'),
and 'Mount Vernon' ('Sister thou wert mild and lovely'). After 1827
Dr. Mason (the degree of Mus.D. was conferred on him by New York
University) took charge of the music in no less than three churches,
but subsequently confined his labors to Dr. Lyman Beecher's Bowdoin
Street Church, whither pilgrimages were soon made from all over the
country 'to hear the wonderful singing.' His training of boys' voices
particularly was a marvel to his generation. Mason's educational work
is indeed of uncommon importance and will be touched upon in a later
chapter. With Professors Park and Phelps he edited the 'Sabbath Hymn
Book' (1858) and in 1830 he issued the 'Juvenile Lyrics,' said to be
the earliest collection of songs for secular schools published in
America.
Except for the rugged originality of the ludicrous Billings, the
opening of the nineteenth century had still disclosed nothing of
American composition that might be considered other than commonplace.
But at least the pioneer work had been done with commendable
earnestness and under very real handicaps. The actual achievements
of pioneers are never very great, but the value of their work is
incalculable. To the pioneers of American composition we can at least
tender our respect for the undoubted sincerity of their efforts.
W. D. D.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] _Op. cit._, p. 54.
[11] Hood: 'History of Music in New England.' See also Ritter: 'Music
in America' and Elson: 'History of American Music.'
[12] William Tansur was a contemporary English Church composer. His
collection, 'The Royal Melody Complete,' here alluded to, appeared in
1754.
[13] Aaron Williams was an English music engraver, publisher and
composer. 'The New Universal Psalmodist' appeared in 1763.
[14] The French fleet, of course.
[15] For the following information concerning concerts in New York,
Philadelphia and the South we are indebted wholly to O. G. Sonneck's
scholarly and trustworthy work, 'Early Concert Life in America,'
Leipzig, 1907.
[16] _Op. cit._, Chap. VIII.
[17] Handel.
[18] This was Christian Bach, known as 'the London Bach.' As far as we
can discover Americans left the great J. S. Bach severely alone.
[19] Mr. Sonneck has pointed out that the name of Mozart appeared
infrequently on concert programs before the year 1800, even in Vienna.
[20] The name was spelled thus for several years. Later it became
Cecilia, as it is at present. Recruited from among the social leaders
of Charleston, the Society naturally became an exclusive organization
in which social considerations eventually predominated.
[21] In those days proof-reading was a fine art. The announcement
to which we refer speaks of 'music by the celebrated Italian, Père
Golaise.'
[22] Mr. O. G. Sonneck, whose excellent monograph on Francis Hopkinson
is our authority.
[23] For a detailed discussion of 'Urania,' together with some very
interesting reflections on early American sacred music, see Mr.
Sonneck's monograph on James Lyon: 'Francis Hopkinson and James Lyon:
Two Studies in Early American Music,' Washington, 1905.
[24] _Op. cit._, Chap. III.
CHAPTER III
EARLY CONCERT LIFE
Sources of information--Boston Concerts of the eighteenth
century; New England outside of Boston--Concerts in New
York--Concerts in Philadelphia; open-air concerts--Concert
life of the South; Charleston, Baltimore, etc.; conclusion.
In our last chapter we spoke to some extent of concert life in America
during the eighteenth century, and it may be well to complete the
record here as far as the information at our disposal will allow. The
importance of concerts as reflecting the musical culture of a people
can very easily be overestimated. At best, they represent the taste of
merely a small portion of the community; at worst they serve simply
as occasions for social display and for the indulgence of various
forms of snobbery. It is very difficult at a distance to judge a true
from a false artistic life. For aught we know to the contrary, the
concerts of the American colonists represented chiefly their ideas of
what was socially correct. On the other hand, we are equally justified
in assuming that these concerts reflected accurately the musical
taste of the people. The truth is that we must accept the record of
early concert life in America purely for its historic interest. Such
deductions as we may draw from it must always be presumptive. On
the surface, as we have already said, it speaks well for the state
of musical culture in America of the eighteenth century. It would
be futile--perhaps disappointing--to pry further into its possible
significance.
A certain characteristic indifference to the importance of historical
remains has lost to us irretrievably much documentary evidence that
would be of great value in compiling a complete history of music in
America. Of our earliest newspapers, such as the 'Boston News Letter,'
the 'New York Gazette,' the 'American Weekly Mercury,' and the 'South
Carolina Gazette,' no complete files seem to have been preserved, and
there is an irritating poverty of other documents that would supplement
the information contained therein or fill out such lacunæ as the
lost numbers may have left. For our information on early concerts in
America we are almost totally dependent on old newspaper files. Even
if these files were complete it would not follow by any means that
the information obtainable from them would be exhaustive, for it is
not probable that the newspapers mentioned all the concerts given. A
few diaries and similar documents have been discovered which throw a
little added light on the subject, but there still remain many dark
corners.[25]
I
We cannot say when or where the first public concert was given in
America. The first of which we have any record was advertised in the
Boston 'Weekly News Letter' of December 16-23, 1731. It was 'a Concert
of Music on sundry Instruments at Mr. Pelham's great Room, being the
house of the late Doctor Noyes near the Sun Tavern.' Further than
that we know nothing about it. We find notices of other concerts at
intervals for several years, but nothing is said about the music played
or the people who took part in them. In 1744 a concert was given at the
historic Faneuil Hall, which had been built two years earlier and which
was apparently the favorite place for such functions until about the
year 1755, when it was supplanted by the newly erected Concert Hall in
Queen Street.[26]
Most of the concerts at Faneuil Hall were given for the benefit of
the poor and were held, it would appear, only by express permission of
the selectmen. In 1755 we first notice concerts given for the benefit
of private individuals and presumably without the permission of the
selectmen. One was given for John Rice, organist of Trinity Church, and
several for Thomas Dipper, organist of King's Chapel. We know nothing
about these concerts except that they consisted of 'select pieces by
the best masters.' It is possible that there existed from about the
year 1744 a musical organization of which a Mr. Stephen Deblois was
treasurer and which gave frequent concerts. The minutes of the Boston
selectmen meetings, as reprinted in the 'Boston Town Records,' contain
an entry under date of Nov. 21, 1744, to the effect that 'Mr. William
Sheafe and a number of gentlemen desire the Use of Faneuil Hall for a
Concert of Musick ... the Benefit arising by the Tickets to be for the
Use of the Poor of the Town....' On Dec. 12, it was reported that 'the
Selectmen received of Mr. Stephen Deblois two hundred and five pounds
five shillings old Tenor being collected by a Concert of Musick in
Faneuil Hall for the Use of the Poor of the Town'--obviously the same
concert for which permission was granted to 'Mr. William Sheafe and a
number of gentlemen.' In September, 1754, Stephen Deblois purchased
Concert Hall for two thousand pounds, with the result that concerts
immediately shifted there from Faneuil Hall. Thomas Dipper, for whom so
many benefits were given, apparently had a hand in the organization,
if there was one. We find an announcement in January, 1761, that 'Mr.
Dipper's Public Concert will begin on Tuesday the 20th instant.' This
suggests that there may have been also a series of private concerts
for subscribers, as the term 'public' concert was very unusual in
Colonial times. We read in the Boston 'News Letter' of April 29, 1762:
'The members of the Concert, usually performed at Concert Hall, are
hereby notified that the same is deferred to the end of the Summer
months. And it is desired that in the meantime each member would settle
his respective arrearage with Stephen Deblois, with whom the several
accounts are lodged for that purpose.' We are, in fact, confronted with
suggestions of a musical organization which held a series of concerts
for members and another for non-members. Whether such an organization
existed or not, it is at least certain that Boston enjoyed the luxury
of subscription concerts as early as 1761.
The 'Massachusetts Gazette' of October 2, 1766, advertised a series
of concerts to begin on October 7, and 'to be continued every Tuesday
evening for eight months.' The concerts were to be held at Concert Hall
and intending subscribers were referred to Stephen Deblois. Beginning
with the year 1770, several series were given by William Turner, Thomas
Hartley, and David Propert, the latter promising in his announcement
selections 'out of Mr. Handel's oratorios' besides 'select pieces upon
the harpsichord with accompaniment compos'd by the most celebrated
masters of Italy and London.' W. S. Morgan also gave some concerts
immediately before the war. It had not yet become customary to announce
the programs in detail and we are consequently in the dark as to the
nature of most of them. Some of the concerts apparently were merely
operas in concert form. An announcement of June 20, 1770, speaks of a
vocal entertainment of three acts. 'The songs (which are numerous) are
taken from a new celebrated opera, call'd "Lionel and Clarissa."' In
the diary of John Rowe there is the following entry under date of March
23, 1770: 'In the evening I went to the Concert Hall to hear Mr. Joan
read the Beggar's Opera and sing the songs....'
We find, however, a very fine program announced for May 17, 1771, by
Josiah Flagg--the same of whom we have already spoken as a prominent
compiler of psalm-tunes. Flagg was for many years a most conspicuous
figure in the musical life of Boston. Besides publishing two good
collections of psalm-tunes, he founded and trained a militia band and
was active in promoting concerts of remarkably high quality. As he was
the first to publish programs we cannot well compare his musical taste
with that of his contemporaries, but it is doubtful if the average
concert of the time rose to the level of the following:
Act I. Overture Ptolemy Handel
Song 'From the East breaks the morn'
Concerto 1st Stanley
Symphony 3d Bach