This book, assembling the musical writings of Philip Hale, draws
principally upon the programme books for which he wrote descriptive
notes for thirty-two years of concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Since the notes were addressed to audiences approaching the music with,
presumably, open minds, the writer judiciously withheld his individual
opinion. This opinion he freely expressed in his newspaper reviews of
the same concerts, extending over an even longer period, and it has
seemed advisable, by combining the two, to bring together the critic and
the historian. The editor has found, in the newspaper files, pertinent
critical paragraphs which are here used to introduce the programme notes
about each particular work. The transition from criticism to descriptive
note is indicated by a typographical ornament.
In going through the scrapbooks in the Allen A. Brown Room of the Boston
Public Library, wherein the newspaper criticisms of Philip Hale’s forty
active years are carefully preserved, the editor came across this
observation by him, in the Boston _Herald_ of March 13, 1912: “In 1945
some student in the Brown Room of the Public Library will doubtless be
amused by opinions expressed by us all, of works first heard in 1912.
Some of us will not then be disturbed by his laughter or by quotations
ornamented with exclamation marks of contempt or wonder.”
There is cause for wonder, to a student at a time ten years short of the
year Mr. Hale mentioned; wonder, however, at his quick perception of
essential values upon first hearing what time has since proved a
masterpiece, or considerably less than a masterpiece, as the case may
be. Few indeed are the professional judges of music who are not glad to
leave undisturbed in the dust of the newspaper files some skeletons of
their past—appalling errors of denunciation or proclamation. Again and
again, when his fellow critics of another day wrote laughably of a then
new tone poem of Richard Strauss or pastel of Claude Debussy, Philip
Hale delivered a sane and still quotable judgment.
No attempt has been made to modify by omissions Mr. Hale’s frank
expressions of personal preferences among the composers. This writer
never spoke as a major prophet, but as one who might be discussing a
favorite subject over a demi-tasse. Anyone is privileged to disagree,
and those insisting upon their eternal verities are referred to any one
of a hundred books where the musical monuments are enshrined in ringing
platitudes of praise. When this critic wrote, with the very opposite of
solemnity, about Bach, or Brahms, or Wagner, his ridicule was always
directed against a certain snobbish element in his public—a genus which
sat at the feet of these composers. “There is, it is true, a gospel of
Johannes Brahms,” he wrote as long ago as 1896, “but Brahms, to use an
old New England phrase, is often a painful preacher of the word.—Brahms
is a safe play in Boston. Let me not be unthankful; let me be duly
appreciative of my educational opportunities in this town.”
It is a joyful privilege to be the agent of bringing the treasure of
Philip Hale’s musical knowledge and commentary within the permanence and
general accessibility of two covers. It was at first hoped that the
author could assist in the compilation, but, failing in health, he was
unable to give more than his whole-hearted assent to the project. His
death, November 30, 1934, came before the book was far under way.
The material drawn upon is of vast proportions. From the autumn of 1901
through the spring of 1933, Philip Hale contributed programme notes for
everything played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in its regular
concerts—upward of a thousand works. As music critic, Mr. Hale commented
upon these and many more. He wrote for the Boston _Home Journal_ from
1889 to 1891; the Boston _Journal_ (like the other publication, long
since extinct), from 1891 to 1903; and from then until his retirement in
1933 for the Boston _Herald_. There were also the editorials on various
musical topics which he contributed anonymously to the _New Music
Review_ for many years. Acknowledgment is due for the quotations made
from all of these publications; in particular the Boston Symphony
Orchestra Concert Bulletins, which have provided the bulk of this book,
and the Boston _Herald_, from which by far the larger number of critical
paragraphs are drawn. To these should be added the innumerable writers
to whom Mr. Hale himself has referred in the course of his programme
notes. The helpful advice of Mrs. Philip Hale in the choice of the
frontispiece is gratefully acknowledged.
The problem of selecting from the vast accumulation of Philip Hale’s
writings became somewhat less formidable when a large number of works
now forgotten, and others still current but of lesser importance, were
eliminated. One hundred and twenty-five works have been chosen, with the
aim of including those most often encountered upon symphony programmes.
The works of recent composers were necessarily limited to those which
had been played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and therefore
described in its programmes, up to April, 1933. They are still further
limited by the exigencies of space. The quoted reviews have been kept
clear, for the sake of continuity, of dates and sources; documentation
in the programme notes has been minimized. These notes are given in the
form in which they most recently appeared. Their partial curtailment is
justified by the readiness of their author to adjust them to the space
of the programme in hand. To have used each note in its fullest form
would have reduced the number of works which the book could contain. As
regards the newspaper quotations, they are largely of recent years, and
in any case represent the writer’s reconsidered opinion. A disproportion
in the space given to a certain composer or certain work may be set down
to the fact that in a few instances Mr. Hale did not happen at any time
to write one of his inimitable essays in miniature which could be
detached from the discussion of the occasion and the performance.