CHORAL ORGANIZATIONS AND MUSIC FESTIVALS
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.
I
Unquestionably an epoch in the cultivation of choral music in America
was inaugurated by the foundation of the Boston Handel and Haydn
Society in 1815. Whether or not there is anything in the theory that
American musical organizations had their genesis in the singing classes
of Massachusetts, it may scarcely be denied that the cultivation of
ensemble singing received earlier and more serious attention in New
England than elsewhere in this country. The reason is sufficiently
obvious. The people of New England were a church-going race, and
singing, even when Puritan asceticism was most intense, was an
essential factor of religious services. As soon as the New England
conscience was convinced that good singing was no more frivolous and
immoral than bad singing the people turned with characteristic zeal
to choral practice and singing societies throughout the land became
as common as Sunday-schools. These societies were very distinct
in character from other American musical organizations, and the
distinction was entirely in their favor. They were the outgrowth of
a real and widely felt popular need; they had a practical purpose in
which all their members were seriously interested. On the contrary,
the other early musical societies for the most part were promoted
by wealthy amateurs from motives which at best were not free from
suspicion of dilettantism and at worst were purely snobbish.
The nucleus of the Handel and Haydn Society was the choir of the Park
Street Church and the moving spirit in its formation was Gottlieb
Graupner, whose services to music in Boston we have already noticed.
Associated with him were Asa Peabody and Thomas Webb Smith. The
society, according to its pre-organization announcement, was formed
with the object 'of cultivating and improving a correct taste in the
performance of sacred music'--a phrase which recalls the exhortations
of the Rev. Thomas Symmes and his colleagues a century earlier. On
Christmas evening, 1815, according to the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop,
the first concert of the society was given 'to a delighted audience
of nine hundred and forty-five persons, with the Russian Consul, the
well-remembered Mr. Eustaphieve, assisting as one of the performers in
the orchestra.' The first program was appropriately devoted altogether
to Handel and Haydn.
The growth of the society to a position of commanding artistic
stature was rapid. In 1818 it gave a performance of the 'Messiah'
complete--possibly for the first time in America.[54] In the following
year the 'Creation' was given, and the 'Dettingen Te Deum' followed
soon after. It would seem that the society in 1823 unofficially
commissioned Beethoven to write an oratorio for its use,[55] and
that fact alone would indicate that it had come to take itself very
seriously indeed. Masses by Haydn and Mozart, the larger part of
Beethoven's 'Mount of Olives,' Handel's 'Samson,' and Donizetti's
'Martyrs' were features of the society's work between 1825 and 1850.
Until 1847 the Handel and Haydn was conducted by its successive
presidents, the most notable of whom were Thomas Smith Webb, Lowell
Mason, and Jonas Chickering. Then the offices of president and
conductor were dissociated. Carl Bergmann became conductor in 1852 and
in 1854 he was succeeded by Carl Zerrahn, who occupies a prominent
place in the history of musical progress in Boston. He remained with
the Handel and Haydn until 1895, after which came Benjamin J. Lang and
Emil Mollenhauer, successively.
The Handel and Haydn Society bulks so large in the musical life of
Boston that the other choral organizations of the city are somewhat
excessively overshadowed. But there are a number of excellent and
distinctive societies which deserve more than passing mention. Chief
of these is the Choral Art Society organized in 1901 by Mr. Wallace
Goodrich, in imitation of the Musical Art Society of New York, for the
study and performance of works of the Palestrina school, Bach, and the
more modern masters of _a cappella_ music. The Apollo Club, founded in
1871, is one of the best male choruses in the country and the Cecilia
Society, dating from 1877, is noted for its presentation of interesting
novelties. Of particular importance, too, is the People's Choral Union,
a chorus of four hundred voices, recruited from the working classes.
II
The splendid work done by the Sacred Music Society of New York has
been noticed in a previous chapter. Unfortunately the society did not
live long. During the last five years of its existence it had a robust
rival in the Musical Institute, a chorus of one hundred and twenty
voices under the leadership of H. C. Timm, which has to its credit
performances of Haydn's 'Seasons' (1846) and Schumann's 'Paradise and
the Peri' (1848) among others.
In choral as in orchestral matters New York was suffering from too much
competition. Out of the débris of the two chief competitors arose, in
1849, the New York Harmonic Society, which lived until 1863 under the
successive conductorships of Timm, Eisfeld, Bristow, Bergmann, Morgan,
Ritter, and James Peck. In its own way the Harmonic Society was just as
important and efficient as the Philharmonic, but longevity decidedly
was not a feature of New York choral organizations. Out of the remains
of the Harmonic came the Mendelssohn Union, of which Bristow, Morgan,
Bergmann, and Theodore Thomas were successively conductors, and then
followed the Choral Music Association, a most exclusively fashionable
organization.
The complaint from which New York choral societies were suffering
at that time might accurately be diagnosed as anemia and it was
fortunate that for several years previously there had been a large
influx to the city of red Germanic blood. In 1847 a number of these
lusty Germans got together and formed a male chorus which they called
_Deutscher Liederkranz_. There was life in the _Liederkranz_, and
art and sincerity and enthusiasm and everything that ought to be in
a musical society. It gave a tremendous impulse to the art of choral
singing in New York and the extent of its influence in the musical
life of the community cannot easily be overestimated. The list of
important works performed by it would be too long to quote here, but
we may mention, as illustrating the quality of its taste, Mozart's
_Requiem_, Mendelssohn's _Walpurgisnacht_, Haydn's _Schöpfung_,
Schumann's _Des Sänger's Fluch_, Schubert's _Chor der Geister über dem
Wasser_ and _Die Verschworenen_, Liszt's _Prometheus_, Meyerbeer's
'Ninth Psalm,' Bruch's _Odysseus_, Brahms' _Ein deutsches Requiem_ and
_Schicksalslied_, and Hoffman's _Melusine_ and _Aschenbrödel_. There
has been nothing anemic about the _Liederkranz_. In 1856 it admitted
women to its choruses. This step had been contemplated for some years
and in connection therewith there had been vigorous warfare within the
ranks of the society. As a result the anti-feminist irreconcilables
seceded in 1854 and formed the _Männergesangverein Arion_, which has
since travelled at a musical pace as lively as that of its parent.
Unfortunately we have not space to speak of the splendid work
accomplished by the Arion during the sixty years of its existence. Not
the least of its services to music in America was the introduction of
Dr. Leopold Damrosch, who conducted it for several years. In 1873 it
occurred to Dr. Damrosch that New York needed a society which would
give the larger forms of choral music in a competent fashion. The
Mendelssohn Union and the Church Music Association still existed. Both
had done excellent work, the latter having been responsible for the
first performance in America of Beethoven's Mass in D. But, possibly
because of their own peculiar lack of vigorous life, they failed to
attract the public. That the need for such an organization as the
Oratorio Society, which Dr. Damrosch founded in 1873, was very real
is sufficiently proved by its rapid success. The new society avoided
the mistake made by all its predecessors in starting too pretentiously
and began with a few modest concerts of a miscellaneous nature. But by
the time death deprived it of its founder in 1885 it had placed to its
credit achievements in choral music such as had never been approached
by any other organization in New York, or, in fact, elsewhere in
America. These included the great choral classics: Beethoven's 'Ninth
Symphony,' Bach's 'St. Matthew's Passion,' Handel's 'Messiah' and
'Judas Maccabæus,' Mendelssohn's 'Elijah' and 'St. Paul,' Haydn's
'Creation,' Brahms' 'A German Requiem,' and others, together with
first performances in America of Berlioz's _Damnation de Faust_ and
_Requiem_, Frederick H. Cowen's 'St. Ursula,' Leopold Damrosch's 'Ruth
and Naomi' and 'Sulamith,' Kiel's _Christus_, and Liszt's _Christus_.
We may also mention performances in concert form of Gluck's _Orpheus_,
Berlioz's _Les Troyens_, and Wagner's _Parsifal_ (excerpts).
[Illustration: American Pioneer Conductors: Anton Seidl, Theodore
Thomas, Dr. Leopold Damrosch.]
Dr. Damrosch was succeeded by his son Walter, who conducted the
society until 1889, introducing to America Berlioz's _Te Deum_, his own
'Scarlet Letter' and 'Manila Te Deum,' Gounod's 'Redemption,' Edward
Grell's _Missa Solemnis_, George Henschel's _Stabat Mater_, Gustav
Mahler's 'Choral Symphony' (No. 2), Horatio Parker's 'St. Christopher,'
Saint-Saëns' 'Samson and Delilah,' Heinrich Schütz's 'Seven Last
Words,' Edgar Tinel's 'St. Francis of Assisi,' and Tschaikowsky's
'Legend,' _Pater noster_, and _Eugen Onegin_. He also gave a complete
version in concert form of _Parsifal_. Frank Damrosch, another son of
Dr. Damrosch, became conductor of the society in 1889. In the meantime
Mr. Andrew Carnegie had become interested in the work and it was
mainly this interest which led him to build the Carnegie Music Hall.
The Oratorio Society, which had given its concerts successively in
Steinway Hall, the Academy of Music, and the Metropolitan Opera House,
moved to the new hall in 1891, celebrating the event with a festival
made memorable by the presence of Tschaikowsky as a guest conductor.
During his twelve years as conductor of the society Mr. Frank Damrosch
raised its repertory to eighty-six compositions, adding fourteen
works to the list. Several of these were given for the first time in
America, including Sir Edward Elgar's 'The Apostles' and 'The Kingdom,'
Gabriel Pierné's 'The Children's Crusade,' Strauss's 'Taillefer,' and
Wolf-Ferrari's _La vita nuova_. Other important performances were
Bach's 'B Minor Mass' and Beethoven's 'Mass in D.' Chicago anticipated
the Oratorio Society by three days in the first American performance
of Elgar's 'The Dream of Gerontius.' In 1912 it collaborated with the
Symphony Society in a Brahms festival, singing 'Nenia,' the 'Triumphal
Hymn,' and 'A German Requiem.' Frank Damrosch resigned in the same
year and was succeeded by Louis Koemmenich. The novelties of Mr.
Koemmenich's first two seasons were Otto Taubmann's _Eine Deutsche
Messe_ and Georg Schumann's 'Ruth,' and there were two performances
of the 'Ninth Symphony' in conjunction with the Symphony Society at a
Beethoven festival in 1914.
In 1893 Frank Damrosch organized a professional chorus under the
title of the Musical Art Society, for the performance of _a cappella_
works of Bach, the Palestrina school, and more modern masters. The
society was quite different from any choral organization that had ever
been formed in America, aiming at the interpretation of a style of
music that is in the highest degree difficult and unusual. To cover
acceptably the field of _a cappella_ music from Josquin des Près,
Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Eccard, Gabrieli and Orlando Gibbons to
Debussy, d'Indy and Richard Strauss is an artistic enterprise which
only a chorus of artists, one would think, would venture to undertake.
The Musical Art Society has succeeded very well in its difficult task
and its concerts are invariably among the most interesting events of
the New York season. Its repertory to date includes the names of over
one hundred composers, with special emphasis on Palestrina, Bach,
and Brahms, and it includes also a large number of delightful old
_Minnelieder_, mediæval hymns and German, Scandinavian, Scotch, French,
Bohemian, and English folk-songs.
Similar work is done by the Schola Cantorum, under Kurt Schindler,
which has given especially interesting programs of old troubadour songs
and madrigals of the French renaissance. It was originally organized,
under the auspices of the MacDowell Club, as the MacDowell Chorus. The
Lambord Choral Society, organized under the conductorship of Benjamin
Lambord in 1912, is devoted to the study and performance of small,
rarely heard choral works by modern composers. During its first season
its activities included a series of chamber music concerts, as well as
a concert with chorus and orchestra in celebration of the centenary of
Wagner's birth. The Modern Music Society was organized in 1913, with
the Lambord Choral Society as one of its constituent parts. The new
society made its first public appearance with a noteworthy concert
devoted altogether to works of modern American composers, its avowed
purpose being the encouragement of native composition.
Among other New York choral organizations may be mentioned the
United Singers and the People's Choral Union, which may be cited as
a prominent example of community music in a large city. The People's
Choral Union and Singing Classes were established in 1892 by Frank
Damrosch in close affiliation with the work of the Cooper Institute,
established to disseminate knowledge and culture among the people,
particularly working men and women.
In Brooklyn the Oratorio Society and the Choral Society are probably
the best of a number of good choruses, though in Brooklyn, as in most
big cities, there are several German singing societies which excel in
their own particular field.
Considering its great musical activity, Philadelphia is not especially
conspicuous for its choral organizations, but the Orpheus Club, a male
chorus founded in 1872, the Cecilia Society, founded in 1875, and the
Philadelphia Chorus Society are worthy of mention. By far the most
interesting centre of choral music in Pennsylvania is the Moravian
settlement of Bethlehem, which since its foundation in 1741 has been
cultivating that branch of musical art with splendid sincerity and
idealism. As early as 1811 Haydn's 'Creation' was performed there;
Bach's great B minor Mass was given by the Bach Choir of Bethlehem for
the first time in America in 1900, and in 1903 the choir held a Bach
festival during which it performed the entire 'Christmas Oratorio,' the
_Magnificat_, 'St. Matthew's Passion,' and the B minor Mass.
Of course, every city and town of any size in the East has one or
more singing societies which do their own fair share in entertaining
and improving it musically. It would be impossible to enumerate them.
New England is, as it always has been, an especially lively centre
of choral work, and such cities as Portland, Me., Springfield and
Concord, Mass., Burlington, Vt., and New Haven, Conn., possess highly
trained and efficient choruses. Of particular interest is the Worcester
County Musical Association, of Worcester, Mass., an outgrowth of the
old musical conventions held for the purpose of promoting church
music. It was organized in 1863 and for a few years confined itself to
psalm-tunes and simple, sentimental cantatas; but it soon graduated
to Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Verdi, Gounod, and other
serious composers of oratorios and masses. The annual festivals of the
association now rank among the most important events of the American
musical year.
III
In the West Cincinnati takes the lead as a pioneer in choral music.
As early as 1819 there was a Haydn Society in Cincinnati which seems
to have been the successor of an older organization. Its first
concert was devoted to Handel and Haydn, and its second included also
Mozart. Soon afterward were born the Episcopal Singing Society and
the Euterpean Society. Then came the Sacred Music Society and the
Amateur Musical Association. The latter gave the 'Creation' in 1853.
Coincidentally there grew up a number of Männerchor societies, which in
1849, collaborating with several similar bodies in neighboring towns,
organized the first of the great _Sängerfeste_ already mentioned. In
1856 the Cecilia Society came into being and inaugurated a new era
for choral music in Cincinnati. At its first concert it performed
Mendelssohn's 'Forty-second Psalm,' a cantata of Mozart, a chorus for
female voices from Spontini's _Vestale_, Haydn's 'Come, Gentle Spring,'
and some choruses from Schneider's 'Last Judgment.' Subsequently it
presented other works of Haydn, Mozart, and Mendelssohn, as well as
compositions of Beethoven, Schumann, Handel, Gluck, Gade, Neukomm,
Weber, and Wagner.
The next important society in Cincinnati was the Cincinnati Harmonic,
out of which grew the Festival Chorus Society. The latter was organized
in connection with the Cincinnati May Festivals which started in
1873 and in which thirty-six societies from the West and Northwest,
including over one thousand singers, participated. The stimulation
furnished by this and subsequent coöperative festivals resulted, as
Theodore Thomas hopefully predicted, in sending 'new life and vigor
into the whole musical body of the West.' Cincinnati still retains its
activity in choral music and possesses a large number of excellent
singing societies, most of which are German. Among these we may mention
the Männerchor and the Orpheus as perhaps the most conspicuous.
It would indeed be impossible to estimate fully the value the
influence exercised by Germans and German singing societies had on
the cultivation of music in America. In Milwaukee, for example, the
_Musikverein_, organized in 1849, stood for years as a beacon light
of musical culture, shedding its rays far and near over the artistic
darkness of the newly settled West. 'The elements of which the
_Musik-Verein_ was composed,' says Ritter, 'were many-sided. There
were to be found that German indigenous growth, the _Männerchor_ (male
chorus), the orchestra, the chorus composed of male and female voices,
amateurs performing the different solo parts. The whole field of modern
musical forms was cultivated by those enthusiastic German colonists,
the male-chorus glee, the cantata, the oratorio, the opera, chamber
music in its divers forms, the overture, the symphony were placed on
the programs of this active society. Its musical life was a rich one
and its influence through the West was of great bearing on a healthy
musical development.'
There are over twenty German choruses in Milwaukee; in St. Louis
there are probably as many, while in Chicago the number is beyond
count--there are certainly more than one hundred. St. Louis started its
musical life rather early and established a Philharmonic Society in
1838. Seven years later a Polyhymnia Society was formed and about the
same time a Cecilian Society and an Oratorio Society came into being.
A new Philharmonic Society was organized in 1859 and later came the
St. Louis Choral Society. These, of course, leave out of account the
German societies, of which the most prominent are the _Liederkranz_,
the _Socialer Sängerchor_, the _Germania Sängerbund_, the Orpheus, and
the _Schweizer Männerchor_. As early as 1858 Chicago had a Musical
Union devoted to the study of oratorio. During the eight years of
its existence it gave the principal oratorio classics, including the
'Creation,' 'Messiah,' and 'Elijah.' It was succeeded by the Oratorio
Society, which persevered, under the conductorship of Hans Balatka,
until the great fire. After the fire it was revived, but in 1873 its
library and effects were again burned and further attempts to continue
it were unavailing. The summer of 1872 saw the organization of the
Apollo Club, which is to-day the only society of importance in Chicago
devoted to the cultivation of oratorio music. There is also a Chicago
Musical Art Society patterned after the Musical Art Society of New
York and doing similar work. These are the chief agencies for the
cultivation of choral music in Chicago, apart from the multitude of
German societies to which we have already alluded.
San Francisco had an oratorio society, organized by Rudolph Herold, as
early as 1860, and soon afterward a Handel and Haydn Society entered
the field. The fact that these societies received support during
several years of competitive existence speaks well for the state of
musical cultivation in San Francisco at that date. And certainly the
city has not deteriorated musically since then, if we may judge from
the number of choral societies now active there.
The most notable of these is the Loring Club, a male chorus, founded
in 1876, which gives concerts of unusual artistic excellence. Los
Angeles, Seattle, Portland--in fact all the coast cities--are
wide-awake and progressive musical centres and possess efficient
organizations devoted to church work. It would be impossible to note
all of them. Indeed, the compass of a bulky volume would scarcely
inclose reference to all the choral societies at present active in
the United States. There is scarcely a community in the land which
does not possess one or more such societies, ranging in character
from church choirs to the most pretentious of choral organizations.
Many of them, especially in such cities as Baltimore, Washington, New
Orleans, Richmond, Louisville, Dallas, Denver, and Kansas City, compare
favorably with the more widely known societies of New York, Boston, and
Chicago. We must also advert again to the work of the German singing
societies, which flourish in practically every city in the country,
and to the less widespread activities of the Scandinavian singing
societies in such centres as Lindsborg, Kansas. These supplement
splendidly the work of the native American societies, which, to tell
the truth, are more exclusively devoted to the classics of sacred music
than is good for their æsthetic health. Altogether the cultivation
of choral music is carried on most vigorously throughout the length
and breadth of America. It must be admitted that, except in certain
circumscribed localities--Massachusetts, for example--it has not yet
struck root among the people. It is still carried on chiefly by social
coteries, by churches, by artistic circles, by people with aspirations.
Americans do not get together and sing from an inward urge to sing,
as do the Germans and other people implanted in our midst. Possibly
that will come with the racial homogeneity which this great crucible
of a country is striving to bring forth. In the meantime, everything
that an eager, ambitious, and optimistic people can do to overcome its
musical handicaps is now being done by the people of America and the
multiplicity and activity of its choral organizations are symptomatic
of the energy of its endeavor.
In the meantime the only choral organization in the American continent
that can compare with the premier European ensembles has been developed
in Canada. The fact is not without its significance. The Toronto
Mendelssohn Choir, to which we refer, stands out among American choirs
even more prominently than does the Boston Symphony Orchestra among
American orchestras, and its marked preëminence has been acknowledged
without a dissentient voice by the whole body of critical opinion in
this country. It was founded in 1894 by Sir Edmund Walker, Dr. A. S.
Vogt, Dr. Harold Clark and Messrs. W. E. Rundle, W. H. Elliott, A.
E. Huestis, and T. Harold Mason, and since the beginning it has been
under the conductorship of Dr. Vogt. The general policy of the Toronto
Choir is the study and performance of works concerning practically the
whole range of choral composition, including all forms of _a cappella_
work, operatic excerpts, standard oratorios, cantatas and lesser
forms. Among the more important works performed by the choir may be
mentioned Brahms' 'German Requiem,' Verdi's 'Manzoni Requiem,' Bach's
'B Minor Mass,' Wolf-Ferrari's 'The New Life,' Elgar's 'King Olaf,'
'Caractacus' and 'The Music Makers,' Pierné's 'The Children's Crusade'
and Coleridge-Taylor's 'Hiawatha' and 'A Tale of Old Japan.' Included
also in the repertory of the choir are smaller works by Palestrina,
Lotti, Elgar, Hugo Wolf, Granville Bantock, Percy Pitt, Max Reger,
Tschaikowsky, Moussorgsky, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Gretchaninoff,
Brahms, Richard Strauss, Nowowiejski, and others. Besides its annual
cycle of five festival performances at home the Toronto Choir has made
frequent visits to the more important musical centres of the United
States. It has given three concerts in Chicago, two in Cleveland, seven
in Buffalo, four in New York, and one in Boston.
As indicating the impression made by this organization on the centres
of musical culture in the United States we may quote the following from
Philip Hale's criticism of its first performance in Boston: 'It is not
too much to say that its performance was a revelation to even those who
heard the celebrated choruses of this country and in European cities.
Other choruses may show a high degree of technical perfection; they
may be conspicuous for decisive attack, perfect intonation, unvarying
precision, fleetness in rapid passages, the management of breath or
distribution of singers that insures musical and rhetorical phrasing.
The Mendelssohn Choir is thus conspicuous, but it has other qualities
that are rare in choirs even for a small and carefully selected number.
This choir of Toronto is remarkable for exquisite tonal quality. In
piano passages the tone is as though disembodied. There is no thought
of massed singers or of any individual singer. The vigor of these
singers never approached coarseness, and in fortissimos that were "as
the voice of many waters" there was always the suggestion of reserve
force, so that there was beauty in strength. There were delicate
nuances in the performance, sudden and surprising contrasts without
disturbance in rhythm and without loss in purity of intonation. These
nuances and contrasts were apparently spontaneous.' H. T. Parker wrote
on the same occasion: 'In our musical generation Boston has heard no
such choral singing as that of the Mendelssohn Choir in Symphony Hall,
last evening, and applauded no choral conductor of such ability as its
leader, Dr. Vogt. Now, whether the singers be one or two hundred, a
beautiful tone, an expressive tone, a varied tone, is the sum and the
substance, the beginning and the end of musical impartment. No choir,
no choral conductor, has so mastered these secrets or gone so far in
high and various attainment in them as Dr. Vogt and these Torontans.
It seems almost pedagogical, before these higher achievements of the
Mendelssohn Choir, to rehearse the technical skill of the choristers
and their conductor--their fidelity to the true pitch, their
decisiveness of attack, their precision of utterance, their separate
and collective command of vocal technique, their sense of pace and
rhythm. Like unanimity and a unique sensitiveness equally distinguished
the singing of the choir on its expressive, its poetizing, its
dramatizing side.'
IV
One is frequently impelled to wonder at the peculiar trait of human
psychology which leads people to gather together for the celebration of
festivals. We do not allude here to national festivals, or even local
festivals, in honor of some historic event or personage. We have in
mind such apparently motiveless gatherings as the majority of music
festivals. Some of them, of course, have a very definite purpose,
and some, such as the Bayreuth Festival and the Mozart Festival at
Salzburg, have a very obvious motive. But most of them seem to have no
other _raison d'être_ than the instinctive desire of a number of people
to gather into a crowd and make a big noise. Festivals of this sort
are extraordinarily common in America. It is difficult to say whether
the amount of labor involved in the organization of them could not be
more profitably expended. Undoubtedly in territories where musical
culture is as yet a delicate, doubtful growth they furnish a decided
stimulation. To borrow a phrase from the expressive American slang,
they are excellent contrivances for 'whooping things up.' But in a
deeper sense they seem in the main rather futile. We may instance the
case of the Worcester Festival to which we have already alluded. It has
been held annually for fifty-six years and each year it has been very
finely planned and carried out. Each year also it has cost much money.
Yet during that time it has not brought into the light a single new
composer, new singer or new instrumentalist; nor has it made Worcester
and its environs any more musical than they have always been. Like most
of its kind it is merely an inflated concert and the value of inflated
concerts at stated intervals is at least open to discussion.
These festivals are peculiarly American and seem to have grown out of
the old musical conventions so dear to the hearts of the psalm-singing
New Englanders. As far as we can discover, the first musical convention
was instituted at Montpelier, Vermont, by Elijah K. Prouty and Moses
Elia Cheney, both singing-school instructors. It seems to have been
a combination of concert and musical debate. This was in 1839. Later
conventions were held at Newberry, Windsor, Woodstock, Middlebury, and
elsewhere in the Green Mountain state. In 1848 Chicago had a musical
convention, held at the First Baptist Church, and another four years
later under the direction of William Bradbury. Rochester (N. Y.), New
York, Richmond, Washington, Quincy (Ill.), Jacksonville (Ill.), and
North Reading (Mass.) took up the movement in turn under the direction
of George F. Root. All these conventions were purely educational in
character and were concerned chiefly with the art of teaching music.
The Worcester Festival, when it started in 1858, was a convention of
the same sort, with 'lectures upon the voice; the different styles of
church music, ancient and modern; the philosophy of scales, harmony,
etc., with singing by the whole class and by select voices; solos
by members of the convention and ladies and gentlemen from abroad.'
But the promoters of the project--Edward Hamilton and Benjamin F.
Baker--hoped that at no distant day it might be possible 'to achieve
the performance of the oratorios and other grand works of Handel,
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven.' This purpose has been gradually achieved
as the educational features of the festival have been dropped. Carl
Zerrahn was chief conductor of the festival from 1866 to 1897 and was
assisted at various times by W. O. Perkins, George F. Root, Dudley
Buck, Victor Herbert, Franz Kneisel, and others. His successors have
been George W. Chadwick, Wallace Goodrich, and Arthur Mees, in the
order named.
The next festival of importance was the May festival of Cincinnati,
started by Theodore Thomas in 1873. Thomas had a peculiar penchant
for festivals. Quite probably they were of some value in stirring up
interest in choral singing throughout the West. The prospect of going
to the city every two years and participating in a big musical jamboree
undoubtedly had the effect of stimulating choral societies in the
smaller towns. Since 1873 the Cincinnati May Festival has been held
regularly under the conductorship of Dr. Otto Singer, Arthur Mees,
Frank Van der Stucken, and others. For several years, starting in 1881,
the city also held annual opera festivals.
To follow the spread of the festival epidemic from coast to coast
would be impossible. Nearly every city and town in the country has
at one time or other been infected. With some of them it has become
chronic. Boston had it for a time. New York and Chicago later caught it
from Theodore Thomas, but recovered quickly. We may also mention the
peace jubilees of Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, which were a particularly
virulent form of the trouble. In Maine there have been regular
festivals for eighteen years, with centres in Bangor and Portland. They
are very big and well-conducted affairs, with a mammoth chorus, a large
orchestra and soloists of international reputation. Similar in type
are the South Atlantic States musical festivals held at Birmingham and
Spartansburg for the last twenty years. Chicago has had a North Shore
Festival Association for six seasons. Then there are the festivals of
the North American Sängerbund, the North Eastern Sängerbund, and the
innumerable Männergesangvereine all over the country; the Youngstown
Music Festival, the Albany Music Festival, the festival of the Buffalo
Musical Association and the Wednesday Club of Richmond, the Hampden
County Festival, and the Kansas Farmers' Easter Festival; festivals
in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Bellingham on the coast--a perfectly
bewildering array of festivals.
There are, however, two festivals which stand out from all the others
by virtue of their origin and the nature of their activities. The
older of these is the Norfolk Festival of the Litchfield County Choral
Union, which has now (1914) completed its twenty-eighth season. This
is not a drummed-up affair. It is a perfectly natural outgrowth of the
numerous old singing societies with which Litchfield county was dotted
in the psalm-singing days; it is in the best sense a product of the
soil. The Litchfield County Choral Union grew out of the association
of neighboring small ensembles for the occasional production of
large choral works in a manner which none of them individually could
accomplish in an effective manner. The purpose was a very useful
one and it has had the effect of raising materially the standard of
the choral work among the small societies composing the union. The
Norfolk Festival itself, which is a comparatively recent institution,
owes most of its present value to the efforts of Robbins Battell, the
founder of the professorship of music at Yale, and more specially
to the generosity and artistic idealism of Carl Stoeckel, who was,
during Mr. Battell's lifetime, his secretary and aid. Mr. Stoeckel,
as Mr. Battell's successor, has backed the festival with unstinted
liberality. He has enabled it to bring before the public new works of
famous as well as little known contemporary composers--particularly
American--giving substantial cash prizes for the best new American
compositions. He has placed at the disposal of the Litchfield County
Choral Union a meeting place in ideal surroundings, modestly termed
the 'Music Shed,' and he has brought to the support of the chorus for
each festival an orchestra recruited from the best New York and Boston
organizations, as well as an array of distinguished soloists. To secure
the best possible performance of new works produced at the festival
he has spared neither trouble nor expense, as may be instanced by
the fact that he brought Jean Sibelius to America to conduct his own
compositions. The value of these festivals to all the choral societies
and church choirs composing the Litchfield County Union is obvious, but
they have a still wider and greater value in introducing to the world
the creations of native American composers and in holding up an example
of fine artistic idealism which cannot be without its influence on the
soul of the nation.
Of peculiar interest is the MacDowell Festival, held annually since
1910 at Peterborough, N. H., under the auspices of the MacDowell
Memorial Association. It is a fact that Edward MacDowell did some
of his best and most characteristic work--the Norse and Keltic
sonatas, the New England Idyls and Fireside Tales, and many songs and
choruses--in a log cabin on his farm at Peterborough, 'surrounded by
enormous pines facing through a lovely vista Monadnock and the setting
sun.' Realizing the value to a creative artist of such inspiring
surroundings, he conceived the idea of bequeathing the place as a
centre for artists seeking congenial conditions for work and rest.
After his death the property was transferred by Mrs. MacDowell to the
MacDowell Memorial Association. To quote the language of the deed of
gift, 'it is expressly and especially desired that this home of Edward
MacDowell shall be a centre of interest to artists working in varied
fields, who, being there brought into contact, may learn to appreciate
fully the fundamental unity of the separate arts. That in it the
individual artist may gain a sympathetic attitude toward the works of
artists in fields other than that in which such artist tries to embody
the beautiful by recognizing that each part has a special function just
so far as it has gained a special medium of expression.'
It is obvious that the beneficent influence of the MacDowell bequest
is not confined to music, but it is natural under the circumstances
that music should be the main beneficiary. Consequently the
MacDowell Festival, which is a sort of annual get-together party, is
predominantly a musical event, though the drama and the dance have
their share in it. It is valuable primarily as the free expression
of æsthetic aspiration unshackled by the deadening fetters of
commercialism; and secondarily as a reasonably good opportunity for
the American composer to obtain a public hearing. If its intent is
finer than its accomplishment that is a fault unfortunately only too
common to idealistic enterprises. Locally it accomplishes something of
practical artistic value by supporting the MacDowell Choral Club (75
voices) and the MacDowell Choir of Nashua (100 voices), both under the
leadership of Eusebius Godfrey Hood, and undoubtedly it exercises a
stimulating effect upon those who participate in it.
One cannot omit here a notice of the pageant movement which has grown
to quite striking proportions in America within the past few years
and which its leading promoters designate as the most significant
feature of our present artistic development. The term pageant is not
particularly definitive. As applied to certain mediæval entertainments
it was sufficiently explicit, but being a convenient and picturesque
word it has been borrowed somewhat freely and indiscriminately of
recent years. The beginning of the modern pageant occurred in England
in 1905 and its father was Sir Gilbert Parker. It is a sort of _tableau
vivant_, recreating for a few hours some especially picturesque
period of the country's history. The Elizabethan period seems to be
preferred. Music enters into it only incidentally. Boston was the first
American city to adopt the idea. This was in 1908. Quebec followed soon
afterward and Philadelphia staged an elaborate pageant in 1912. All
these were modelled after the English type.
In the meantime some Americans, notably William Chauncy Langdon
and Arthur Farwell, had been evolving an idea to which they applied
the convenient name of pageant but which is fundamentally different
from the English type and its imitators. Briefly, the new pageant
is a community drama; it is a drama with the place for its hero and
the development of the community for its plot. In this novel type
of drama the individual is entirely submerged and the historical
incidents are chosen rather for their symbolical value than for their
intrinsic interest. The spirit informing the history of the community
is the dominant theme. Out of this idea, it is claimed, there is being
developed a new art-form representatively American and interpretative
of the American spirit. The first pageant embodying the community idea
was written by William Chauncy Langdon for Thetford, Vt., in 1911.
Some of the music was composed by James T. Sleeper, but most of it
was adapted. The pageant of St. Johnsbury, Vt., also written by Mr.
Langdon, followed in 1912. Brookes C. Peters, a local man, composed
most of the music for it. Then came the pageant of Meriden, N. H.,
in 1913, in which Mr. Langdon and Arthur Farwell collaborated and
which was the first pageant composed as a musical art form complete.
Mr. Farwell brought to this work a large enthusiasm for the idea and
an ardent faith in its possibilities, and he has since taken a very
conspicuous part in its development. The pageant of Darien, Conn., in
1913, composed by him to the book of Mr. Langdon, shows considerable
progress in the evolution of the pageant as a distinct art-form.
Another step in advance was taken by the pageant of Cape Cod in
1914, written by Mr. Langdon with music by Daniel Gregory Mason. The
elaborate pageant and masque of St. Louis in 1914 was of a somewhat
different order and resembled more closely the English type. The
music of the masque was composed by Frederick S. Converse, and, being
conceived as an independent art unit rather than as incidental music,
may be regarded as a new departure in the 'masque' rather than a
development of the pageant-form.
Regarding the musical side of this and other pageants Mr. Langdon says
in a letter to the writer: 'So far as I know in no English pageant
has there been any attempt to recognize the pageant as a new musical
art-form in itself and to develop the music as an art-unit, comparable
to the sonata, symphony, or opera. The music has all been incidental
music, though often filling quite thoroughly all openings for anything
of the kind. Herewith much original composing has been done, and some
of it at least very fine composing. The formative idea, or precedent
I almost call it, is to be found in the chorus of the Greek drama set
to music. So, too, the music written for the Philadelphia pageant of
1912 is of the same type, as that pageant itself was modelled after
the English type quite closely rather than following the American
departures. But thus far, so far as I know, my pageants are the only
ones that regard the pageant as a musical as well as dramatic art-form
and seek to work out its development as such.' Certainly the new
pageant is one of the most interesting developments in American art,
and it is especially interesting in view of the fact that it is a
distinctly American idea particularly well calculated, one would think,
to be a vehicle for the expression of the American spirit. So far, of
course, it is largely an experiment and its history lies rather in the
future than in the past. Its susceptibility to national application
favors its possibilities considerably.
The lack of such susceptibility lessens the importance of many other
local and very characteristic art developments. The most interesting of
these are the Grove Plays, or Midsummer High Jinks of the Bohemian Club
of San Francisco, which are briefly an expression in drama and music
of the spirit of joy. Climate, locale and a body of artists with the
sort of traditions indicated by their club name, combine to give these
affairs their characteristic flavor, and it is doubtful if they could
be imitated successfully under different conditions. But it would seem
that similar attempts at local expression, whatever form they may take,
are likely to become common in America in the future, and serve as
valuable and much-needed stimulants to the creation of a worthy native
art.
W. D. D.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] As we have already noticed, the 'Messiah' was performed at Trinity
Church, New York, in 1771 and 1772, but there is a reasonable doubt
whether on either of these occasions the work was given in its entirety.
[55] See Thayer's 'Life of Beethoven.'