THE WOMEN COMPOSERS.
This is not the place to take up cudgels for a contest on the problem
of woman's right to respect in the creative arts. There are some, it
is true, who deny fervently that the feminine half of mankind ever has
or can or ever will do original and important work there. If you press
them too hard they will take refuge up this tree, that all women who
ever have had success have been actually mannish of mind,--a dodge in
question-begging that is one of the most ingenious ever devised; a
piece of masculine logic that puts to shame all historic examples of
womanly fallacy and sophistry. It seems to me that the question is
easily settled on this wise: it is impossible for a rational mind to
deny that the best work done in the arts by women is of better
quality than the average work done by men. This lets the cat's head
out of the bag, and her whole body follows pell-mell.
In a few instances it seems to me that the best things done by women
equal the best things done by men in those lines. The best verses of
Sappho, the best sonnets of Mrs. Browning, the best chapters of George
Eliot, the best animal paintings of Rosa Bonheur, do not seem to me
surpassed by their rivals in masculine work. If anything in verse of
its sort is nobler than Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," it
is still in manuscript. If there is any poet of more complete
individuality than Emily Dickinson, I have not run across his books.
In music I place two or three of Miss Lang's small songs among the
chief of their manner.
All over the world the woman-mind is taking up music. The ban that led
Fanny Mendelssohn to publish her music under her brother's name, has
gone where the puritanic theory of the disgracefulness of the musical
profession now twineth its choking coils. A publisher informs me that
where compositions by women were only one-tenth of his manuscripts a
few years ago, they now form more than two-thirds. From such activity,
much that is worth while is bound to spring. Art knows no sex, and
even what the women write in man-tone is often surprisingly strong,
though it is wrongly aimed. But this effort is like the bombast of a
young people or a juvenile literature; the directness and repose of
fidelity to nature come later. The American woman is in the habit of
getting what she sets her heart on. She has determined to write
music.
With an ardor that was ominous of success, Miss Amy Marcy Cheney,
after a short preliminary course in harmony, resolved to finish her
tuition independently. As an example of the thoroughness that has
given her such unimpeachable knowledge of her subject, may be
mentioned the fact that she made her own translation of Berlioz and
Gavaert. She was born in New Hampshire, of descent American back to
colonial times. At the age of four she wrote her opus 1. She is a
concert pianist as well as a frequent composer in the largest forms.
She is now Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.
[Illustration: MRS. H.H.A. BEACH.]
Not many living men can point to a composition of more maturity and
more dignity than Mrs. Beach' "Jubilate," for the dedication of the
Woman's Building at the Columbian Exposition. The work is as big as
its name; it is the best possible answer to skeptics of woman's
musical ability. It may be too sustainedly loud, and the infrequent
and short passages piano are rather breathing-spells than contrasting
awe, but frequently this work shows a very magnificence of power and
exaltation. And the ending is simply superb, though I could wish that
some of the terrific dissonances in the accompaniment had been put
into the unisonal voices to widen the effect and strengthen the final
grandeur. But as it is, it rings like a clarion of triumph,--the cry
of a Balboa discovering a new sea of opportunity and emotion.
Another work of force and daring is the mass in E flat (op. 5), for
organ and small orchestra. It is conventionally ecclesiastic as a
rule, and suffers from Mrs. Beach' besetting sin of over-elaboration,
but it proclaims a great ripeness of technic. The "Qui Tollis" is
especially perfect in its sombre depth and richness. The "Credo" works
up the cry of "crucifixus" with a thrilling rage of grief and a
dramatic feeling rare in Mrs. Beach' work. This work was begun at the
age of nineteen and finished three years later. It was given with
notable effect in 1892 by the Haendel and Haydn Society of Boston.
Mrs. Beach' "Valse Caprice" has just one motive,--to reach the maximum
of technical trickiness and difficulty. There is such a thing as
hiding one's light under a bushel, and there is such a thing as
emptying a bushel of chaff upon it.
"Fireflies" is a shimmering and flitting caprice of much ingenuity,
but it keeps in the field of dissonance almost interminably, and clear
harmony is not so much the homing-place of its dissonance, as an
infrequent glint through an inadvertent chink. This neat composition
is one of four "Sketches for the Piano," of which "Phantoms" is
delightful with ghostliness. "In Autumn" is a most excellent
tone-poem, and "Dreaming" is a well-varied lyric. As a colorist Mrs.
Beach is most original and studious. Her tireless hunt for new tints
often diverts her indeed from the direct forthright of her meaning,
but the "Danse des Fleurs" is rich in its gorgeousness. The flowing
grace of the "Menuet Italien" makes it an uncharacteristic but
charming work.
[Music: PHANTOMS.
"Toute fragiles fleurs, sitot mortes que nees."
Victor Hugo.
Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.
Copyright, 1892, by Arthur P. Schmidt.
A FRAGMENT.]
Horace, you know, promises to write so that any one will think him
easy to equal, though much sweat will be shed in the effort. It is the
transparency of her studiousness, and the conspicuous labor in
polishing off effects and mining opportunity to the core, that chiefly
mars the work of Mrs. Beach, in my opinion. One or two of the little
pieces that make up the half-dozen of the "Children's Carnival" are
among her best work, for the very cheery ease of their look.
"Pantalon," "Harlequin," "Columbine," and "Secrets" are infinitely
better art than a dozen valse-caprices.
Both the defects and effects of her qualities haunt Mrs. Beach' songs.
When she is sparing in her erudition she is delightful. Fourteen of
her songs are gathered into a "Cyclus." The first is an "Ariette,"
with an accompaniment imitating the guitar. It is both tender and
graceful. Probably her best song is the setting of W.E. Henley's fine
poem, "Dark is the Night." It is of the "Erl-King" style, but highly
original and tremendously fierce and eerie. The same poet's "Western
Wind" is given a setting contrastingly dainty and serene. "The
Blackbird" is delicious and quite unhackneyed. "A Secret" is bizarre,
and "Empress of the Night" is brilliant. With the exception of a
certain excess of dissonance for a love-song, "Wilt Thou Be My
Dearie?" is perfect with amorous tenderness. "Just for This!" is a
delightful vocal scherzo of complete originality and entire success.
"A Song of Love" is passionate and yet lyric, ornamented but not
fettered. "Across the World" has been one of Mrs. Beach' most popular
songs; it is intense and singable. "My Star" is tender, and the
accompaniment is richly worked out on simple lines. Three Vocal Duets
are well-handled, but the long "Eilende Wolken" has a jerky recitative
of Haendelian _naivete_, to which the aria is a welcome relief. Her
sonata for piano and violin has been played here by Mr. Kneisel, and
in Berlin by Mme. Carreno and Carl Halir.
Besides these, Mrs. Beach has done not a little for the orchestra. Her
"Gaelic Symphony" is her largest work, and it has been often played by
the Boston Symphony, the Thomas, and other orchestras. It is
characterized by all her exuberant scholarship and unwearying energy.
[Illustration: MARGARET RUTHVEN LANG.]
Margaret Ruthven Lang, the daughter of B.J. Lang, is American by birth
and training. She was born in Boston, November 27, 1867. She has
written large works, such as three concert overtures, two of which
have been performed by the Thomas and the Boston Symphony Orchestras,
though none of them are published. Other unpublished works are a
cantata, two arias with orchestral accompaniment, and a rhapsody for
the piano. One rhapsody has been published, that in E minor; in spite
of its good details, it is curiously unsatisfying,--it seems all
prelude, interlude, and postlude, with the actual rhapsody
accidentally overlooked. A "Meditation" is bleak, with a strong, free
use of dissonance.
"The Jumblies" is a setting of Edward Lear's elusive nonsense, as full
of the flavor of subtile humor as its original. It is for male chorus,
with an accompaniment for two pianos, well individualized and erudite.
It is in her solo songs, however, that her best success is reaped.
When I say that Mrs. Beach' work is markedly virile, I do not mean it
as compliment unalloyed; when I find Miss Lang's work supremely
womanly, I would not deny it great strength, any more than I would
deny that quality to the sex of which Joan of Arc and Jael were not
uncharacteristic members.
Such a work as the "Maiden and the Butterfly" is as fragile and rich
as a butterfly's wing. "My Lady Jacqueminot" is exquisitely,
delicately passionate. "Eros" is frail, rare, ecstatic. "Ghosts" is
elfin and dainty as snowflakes. The "Spinning Song" is inexpressibly
sad, and such music as women best understand, and therefore ought to
make best. But womanliness equally marks "The Grief of Love," which is
in every sense big in quality; marks the bitterness of "Oh, What Comes
over the Sea," the wailing Gaelic sweetness of the "Irish Love Song,"
and the fiery passion of "Betrayed," highly dramatic until its rather
trite ending. "Nameless Pain" is superb. Her "Lament" I consider one
of the greatest of songs, and proof positive of woman's high
capabilities for composition. Miss Lang has a harmonic individuality,
too, and finds out new effects that are strange without strain.
[Music: GHOSTS.
Words by Munkittrick.
MARGARET RUTHVEN LANG.
Out in the misty moonlight, the first snow flakes I see,
As they frolic among the leafless boughs of the apple tree.
Faintly they seem to whisper, as round the boughs they wing;
"We are the ghosts of the flowers who died in the early spring,
Who died in the early spring."
Copyright, 1889, by Arthur P. Schmidt & Co.]
"My Turtle Dove," among the "Five Norman Songs," in fearlessness and
harmonic exploration shows two of the strongest of Miss Lang's traits.
Her _recherches_ harmonies are no pale lunar reflection of masculine
work. Better yet, they have the appearance of spontaneous ease, and
the elaborateness never obtrudes itself upon the coherence of the
work, except in a few such rare cases as "My Native Land," "Christmas
Lullaby," and "Before My Lady's Window." They are singable to a degree
unusual in scholarly compositions. To perfect the result Miss Lang
chooses her poems with taste all too rare among musicians, who seem
usually to rate gush as feeling and gilt as gold. Her "Oriental
Serenade" is an example of weird and original intervals, and "A Spring
Song," by Charlotte Pendleton, a proof of her taste in choosing words.
Her opus 32 is made up of two songs, both full of fire and
originality. Opus 33 is a captivating "Spring Idyl" for the piano, for
which she has also written a "Revery," of which the exquisiteness of
sleep is the theme. The music is delicious, and the ending is a rare
proof of the beautiful possibilities of dissonance.
Personally, I see in Miss Lang's compositions such a depth of
psychology that I place the general quality of her work above that of
any other woman composer. It is devoid of meretriciousness and of any
suspicion of seeking after virility; it is so sincere, so true to the
underlying thought, that it seems to me to have an unusual chance of
interesting attention and stirring emotions increasingly with the
years.
An interesting and genuine individuality will transpire through the
most limited amount of creative art. This has been the case with the
few published works of a writer, whose compositions, though
unpretentious in size and sentiment, yet reveal a graceful fancy, and
a marked contemplation upon the details of the moods.
Irene Baumgras was born at Syracuse, New York, and studied the piano
at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where she took the Springer
gold medal in 1881. She studied in Berlin with Moszkowski and Oscar
Raif. She was married in Berlin, in 1884, to Philip Hale, the
distinguished Boston musical critic.
Her devotion to her art was so great that her health broke down from
overwork, and she was compelled to give up piano playing. Some of her
compositions have been published under the name of "Victor Rene." Her
15th opus is made up of three "Morceaux de Genre," of which the
"Pantomime" is a most volatile harlequinade, with moods as changeful
as the key; a remarkably interesting composition. Four "Pensees
Poetiques" make up opus 16. They include a blithe "Chansonette" and a
"Valse Impromptu," which, unlike the usual impromptu, has the _ex
tempore_ spirit. Of her songs, "Mystery" is a charming lyric; "Maisie"
is faithful to the ghoulish merriment of the words; and "An Opal
Heart" is striking for interesting dissonances that do not mar the
fluency of the lyric.
Of much refinement are the fluent lyrics of Mrs. Mary Knight Wood.
They show a breadth in little, and a fondness for unexpected harmonies
that do not disturb the coherence of her songs. They possess also a
marked spontaneity. An unexpected effect is gained by the brave E flat
in her "Serenade." Her popular "Ashes of Roses" also has a rich
harmonic structure. Among other songs, one with an effective obbligato
for the violoncello deserves special praise. She has written also for
the violin and piano, and trios for 'cello, violin, and piano.
Other women who have written certain works of serious intention and
worthy art, are Mrs. Clara A. Korn, Laura Sedgwick Collins, the
composer of an ingenious male quartette, "Love is a Sickness," and
many excellent songs, among them, "Be Like That Bird," which is
ideally graceful; Fanny M. Spencer, who has written a collection of
thirty-two original hymn tunes, a good anthem, and a Magnificat and
Nunc Dimittis of real strength; Julie Rive-King, the author of many
concert pieces; Patty Stair, of Cleveland; Harriet P. Sawyer, Mrs.
Jessie L. Gaynor, Constance Maud, Jenny Prince Black, Charlotte M.
Crane, and Helen Hood.