What a compact wall the tree-tops make! They seem impervious even
to the sharpest lightning. Their forms give you every diversity
of surface. Their outlines are never harsh or rugged, but always
undulating and graceful. As the train sweeps along, now you get only
the bold, precipitous wall of one mountain side. In a minute you get
a view of another face. Now a chain of mountains group themselves
together in a superb tableau. Now they form the gigantic setting of
a peaceful green valley with a river laughing in its face, with here
and there the dot of a house, and the column of thin, blue smoke no
bigger than that which curls up from your cigar. The next instant the
pretty vision is swept out of sight. You are thundering along on the
edge of a curve right in the clutches of these Titans. The motion
of the train impresses you with the idea that they are moving down
upon it with resistless might, and that they will crush it like an
egg-shell. You are surrounded with dense shadows. The mountains are
bowing down their shaggy heads. You almost feel their weight pressing
down upon you, and their breath, full of the bracing essence of
life, in your face. It seems almost profanation to speak with such a
presence near you, and you can only think thoughts too deep for the
fashion of words. But anon, the train speeds through the sulphurous
blackness of a tunnel, and you emerge into the sunlight, rolling
in great waves of gold up the mountain sides, and giving you weird
effects of light and shade, and constantly changing emerald tints
that would mock the finest frenzy of the artist. I believe the clouds
love to deck the mountains, as the sea loves to deck the shore with
shells and sea-flowers. A sunrise or sunset in those mountains when
the heavens are full of clouds, shows what dyes nature can use, and
what forms she can mould, as you will see them nowhere else.
July 3, 1869.
_THE JUBILEE._
BOSTON, June 15, 1869.
The day of Jubilee has come.
Boston has been in a flutter of agitation and excitement to-day; for,
truth to say, Boston herself has not been over sanguine as to the
success of the Jubilee. It is probable that not a person in the city
has regarded the experiment in the light of an unquestioned success,
except Mr. Gilmore, in whose fertile brain the Jubilee was conceived,
and by whom it has been pushed forward, in the face of obstacles,
to a successful birth. When Mr. Gilmore offered the Jubilee to New
York, the Manhattanites laughed at him, and gently insinuated that
he had gone clean daft, whereupon Mr. Gilmore took his embryonic
Jubilee to Boston, and, undaunted by obstacles, and unannoyed by
the gibes and jeers of the faithless, he worked in season and out
of season, put this wheel and that wheel together, got this man and
that man interested in it, melted even the adamantine hearts of the
musicians themselves, and at last got his project so far advanced
that it became a matter of city pride to put the municipal shoulder
to the wheel and help Gilmore out with his mammoth undertaking. And
Boston did help him right royally. Once provided with the ducats and
with the collaterals, which guaranteed him financial safety, the
foundations of the enterprise were laid, and the superstructure grew
rapidly. Singers and instruments, big singers and little singers,
big fiddles and little fiddles, poured in as fast and as thick as
the dogs and cats in Beard's picture. I myself saw, riding on a boat
of Commodore Fisk's, from New York to Fall River, _en route_ to the
Jubilee, sixty double basses ranged along on the deck, like coffins
swathed in green bags, and to-day I saw them again manipulated in the
vast orchestra, to show that I do not lie.
The material was, at last, all in his hands, and the material was
composed of one thousand instruments--a big organ, ten thousand
singers, a Coliseum, and sundry properties by way of appendices, such
as a battery of artillery, church bells, and anvils. And the question
immediately arose:
What will he do with them?
This is the question which has agitated Boston to-day, from the
harbor to the Back Bay, and from Bunker Hill to Jamaica Plain. When
Boston woke up this morning, notwithstanding her doubts, she dressed
herself in festal garments of streamers, flags and bunting, to do
honor to the occasion, and to properly impress the strangers within
her borders with the fact that she was out for a holiday, and was
bound to enjoy herself. And there were strangers enough within her
borders. Every other man you met upon the narrow sidewalks was a
carpet-bagger, and every other woman had a roll of music in her
hands. Band musicians in all sorts of uniforms, carrying all sorts of
odd-looking boxes, met you and jostled you at every turn, for it is
impossible for two people to pass each other upon a Boston sidewalk,
especially if one has a box or a carpet-bag in his hands. Every
train and every boat which has arrived to-day was loaded down with
musical freight, and all the morning they filed down Boylston street
to the Coliseum, in water-proof cloaks with their rolls of music. The
hotels are filled with them. The boarding houses are full, both in
the city and in the suburbs, and even some of the public halls have
been provided with cots, to accommodate the melodious strangers, who
have come here to lift up their voices in the grand chorus.
And it is a grand chorus. In 1836, Mendelssohn, the great master,
led 536 performers, and ten years later led his own "Elijah," with
a chorus of 700 before him. In 1862 a chorus of 4,000 voices sang
together at the Crystal Palace in London; and last year Costa led
4,500 in the same building. It was considered a great event--an
episode in the history of music. Julien, that eccentric little
conductor, conceived the idea of increasing upon this number, but
the very magnitude of his operations turned his brain, and he died
in a mad-house--his disordered mind, even in his dying moments,
being occupied with an imaginary orchestra. It has been left for Mr.
Gilmore to eclipse them all. What was some time a problem is now a
fixed fact; and the annals of music can show no grander triumph than
that which this daring, hard working man has achieved this day. When
Mr. Gilmore's baton closed the final chord of the massive Martin
Luther choral, he had done something which was worth living for. He
had a right to be proud of his work.
The Coliseum in which the Jubilee is given, is upon the made lands of
the Back Bay. Upon its site young Boston has fished in the summer,
and skated in the winter. When Boston had filled out to the water's
edge, it did what Canute could not do. It commenced to drive back the
sea, and each step that the sea receded was filled up and built upon.
Aristocracy turned its eyes thitherward, and went there to build its
free-stone fronts, and made it the handsomest part of the city. The
Coliseum is on the newest of this land, where it has not yet been
divided off into lots. Its immediate surroundings, therefore, are
not very attractive. The exterior of the building is not remarkably
beautiful, and the fine Natural History rooms, and other elegant
buildings near by, provoke architectural comparisons not particularly
favorable to it. It has a cheerful, pleasant appearance, however,
and derives a certain sort of brilliancy from the little flags of
divers colors which flutter in the breeze from every salient point.
The hucksters and venders of notions, who have improved the occasion
to turn an honest or dishonest penny, as the case may be, have not
improved the _ensemble_ with their scores of board shanties and
canvas tents, which have been dumped down upon the crude ground in
every direction. Their name is almost literally legion. There are
venders of ice creams, which are mushy and sloppy; of soda water with
gaudily colored syrups; of innocent vegetable beer, for the hard hand
of the law forbids the sale of anything stronger; of domestic cigars
compounded of innocuous herbs; of oranges, and pop corn, and bananas,
and photographs, and fans. At this shanty you may get revolving heels
placed upon your boots, and at that one you can get key tags stamped.
Here the wild men of Borneo are delighting a crowd, and there you
may see a two-headed monkey cheap. Blind men are selling ballads.
Small girls are vending hot roasted peanuts. Here is a shooting
gallery, and there a fandango. The old buxom Irish women of the
common, who have been accustomed to drowse away their days under the
elms, have suddenly become imbued with the enterprise of the hour,
and are driving sharp bargains on the Back Bay in oranges and candy,
and puff away at their dhudeens with an air of self congratulation.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, the Coliseum admirably
answers the purposes for which it was built. It is large enough
to accommodate all who will go. Its ventilation is excellent; its
acoustic properties good, and its conveniences perfect as they can
be. The interior is beautifully decorated with bunting, streamers,
flags, and various paintings and devices. The sub-rooms, especially
the reception room, are exquisitely adapted to the purposes for
which they were designed. The latter room, this morning, presented a
perfect wilderness of flowers, and its walls were hung with elegant
paintings. Its seating capacity is, I should judge, between thirty
and forty thousand, exclusive of the chorus and orchestra. The
roughness and blank appearance of unfinished wood-work, has been
concealed by drapery and bunting very gracefully arranged, and from
one end of the Coliseum to the other, the eye is attracted by the
brightest of colors.
It is now my task to describe to you the opening concert, and I
freely confess my inability to do so. As I write you, the deep
diapason of that mighty organ, the surging waves of harmony from the
largest orchestra and the marvelous sublimity of the largest chorus
the world has ever known, are still in my ears, and it seems to me
that I can find no words to describe it. I can feel it, but I cannot
make you feel it with poor words. It almost seems a profanation to
attempt it. To see that multitude alone is electrifying. It makes
your blood stir within you, to look upon that great sea of faces
stretching off into the distance, and to know that one man holds them
in his hand, and with his little baton guides and sways them at his
will. One man in that vast throng is only as one drop in the sea--one
grain of sand upon the shore. His voice is indistinguishable, but
the aggregate, you feel within you, will be as the on-coming of the
mighty storm.
Picture to yourself the scene. Immediately before you is the
orchestra, one thousand strong, occupying the level platform. The
brasses are at the rear, as you may easily perceive, by a strip as of
gold, which runs through the sombre black, and right between them is
a huge bass drum, looming up like the wheel of a steamboat. From this
level platform, on three sides, rises an amphitheatre, which holds
the great chorus, ten thousand strong. The sopranos are on the left,
the altos on the right, and the tenors and bassos in the centre,
and up from their midst rise the open pipes of the great organ,
the player of which sits facing the conductor, at some distance
from the organ, communicating with him by means of speaking tubes.
Sub-conductors are also located near each of the choral parts, who
convey the instructions of the main conductors. Just at the right of
the conductor there is an electrical battery which communicates with
a section of artillery at a distance. The instrumental performers
are arranged in the orchestra. The first, the chorus orchestra, is
made up as follows:
_Stringed._ _Wind._
First Violins 115 | Flutes 8
Second Violins 100 | Clarionets 8
Violoncellos 65 | Oboes 8
Violas 65 | Bassoons 8
Double Basses 85 | Horns 12
---- | Trumpets 8
430 | Trombones 9
74 | Tubas 3
---- | Drums 10
Total, 504 | --
74
The grand orchestra is composed of the following instruments, in
addition to those specified above:
Piccolos and Flutes 25
E-flat Clarionets 20
B-flat Clarionets 50
E-flat Cornets 50
B-flat Cornets 75
E-flat Alto Horns 75
B-flat Tenor Horns 25
Tenor Trombones 50
Bass Trombones 25
B-flat Baritones 25
E-flat Basso Tubas 75
Small Drums 50
Bass Drums 25
Cymbals 10
Triangles 10
----
590
Chorus Orchestra 504
----
Total 1094
The players and singers are all in their places. The organ sounds a
few chords, and the players tune their instruments therefrom. Ole
Bull comes in and takes his seat at the head of the first violinists,
amid applause from all parts of the house, and the veteran Norwegian
cavalier sits there, with his bow upon his violin, as straight and as
lordly as one of his own pines, watching the conductor with flashing
eyes. It is Mr. Gilmore who has just followed him, and as he takes
the stand, enthusiasm breaks out in every part of the vast building,
and the applause is loud and long. When it has subsided, he raises
his baton. The chorus rises, and there is something stirring even
in the rising of such a vast throng. The audience is hushed, and,
for an instant, there is perfect stillness. The baton descends, and
chorus, orchestra and organ sound in a mighty chord of harmony the
opening note of Martin Luther's grand old choral. As they sweep
along through its slow and solemn movement as regularly as the swing
of a pendulum, the organ's mighty diapason upholding the whole and
keeping them together, it is like the voice of many waters. It is not
a chaos of noise, as I had dreamed it would be; not a mere volume
of sound without music. The voices come to you blended together as
the sounds of nature--the songs of the birds, the blasts of the
winds and the rushings of the torrents--blend. The instruments are
powerful, but smooth. In that vast array you lose the scrape of the
strings and the blare of the brasses. They are toned down into pure
harmony, and through all, in all, and about all, come the mighty
voices of the organ as the thunders come in the storm. The tears are
in your eyes before you know it. The audience before you disappears.
You are lifted, as it were, upon the great waves of music into the
very presence of the infinite, and the outside world, with all its
petty cares and troubles, is forgotten. On the repeat, the choral
is commenced _pianissimo_, and the music comes to you as if from
afar over the water. Gradually it approaches you, and, with a superb
_crescendo_, in which the organ carries everything along with it, the
cadenza is reached in a burst of harmony you have never heard before.
You may never hear it again. The conductor steps down from his stand
amid thunders of applause. It is at last proven that the Jubilee will
be a musical success.
Such singing and such playing I have never heard before. I do not
believe anything like it has ever been heard in the world. At first,
it seems to you that the choruses are not in time, for, from first to
last, they have not been with the conductor's beat, to one sitting at
some distance. Of course, you see the beat before you hear the sound,
as you see the wood-chopper's axe descend upon the distant hillside
before you hear the blow, and thus the chorus seems to be behind,
when, in reality, it is with the conductor.
Julius Eichberg, who wrote the pretty little "Doctor of Alcantara,"
next takes the baton, and the grand orchestra addresses itself to
the unraveling of Wagner's Tannhauser overture. The massing of
instruments in the opening of the overture is superb, and the main
theme is delivered with remarkable beauty. Soon they are lost in the
intricate modulations and chaotic discords of this musician of the
future; but when they begin to emerge into the chromatic violin runs,
and return once more to something which has a resemblance to melody
and a meaning in it, it is with a splendid burst of power; and one is
almost compelled to acknowledge that there is method in this Bavarian
madman, after all.
Once more, the chorus rises, and Carl Zerrahn takes the baton--the
flute-player of the old Germania orchestra, and one of the most
accomplished musicians living. He is a great favorite, both for his
musical and his gentlemanly qualities, and he is greeted with a very
storm of applause. The "Gloria" from Mozart's "Twelfth Mass" is next
on the programme. He is a very easy and graceful, and yet forcible
leader, and, notwithstanding the intricacy of the accompaniment and
the difficulty of the vocal score, under the magical influence of his
baton, the sublimity of the "Gloria" finds a graphic illustration.
Gounod's "Ave Maria," so full of suggestions of "Faust," is the next
number, and Parepa comes forward to sing it, dressed in pure white.
She receives a perfect ovation. In the morning, at rehearsal, she had
been very nervous. The vast orchestra and chorus before her almost
terrified her, and she was confident she could but make her voice
heard for a short distance. The "Ave Maria" is not a fair test of the
capabilities of her voice, however, as she has only an accompaniment
of _two hundred violins_ to do the _obligato_. She bows to the
audience, and, turning, acknowledges the hearty welcome which the
chorus has given her. Every tone of her voice is audible, even in the
most distant parts of the hall. Its absolute purity, and the entire
absence of woodiness in it, make it heard, and give you confidence
that you will also hear it in the "Inflammatus," where she will have
a severe test.
The "Star-Spangled Banner" is the next feature. It has been arranged
differently for this occasion, which may account for a slight _faux
pas_ which happened. The tenors and bassos take the first verse, and
the sopranos and altos the second verse in unison, which gives you
an excellent opportunity of hearing the various parts of the great
chorus by themselves. It would be difficult to say which was the
best, although I am inclined to give the palm to the tenors, and
yet I think no one who heard them can ever forget the other parts.
A serious mistake occurred in the accompaniment. The trumpets are
badly out. Some of the other brasses follow, and draw off some of the
violins. The chorus begins to waver. There is danger of a disastrous
breakdown. Gilmore, who is at the baton, is growing nervous; he
fairly jumps up and down in his anxiety. And still it is running
away, when suddenly Wilcox opens all the great organ, and with a
crash of sound and an obstinately right _tempo_, brings all the
discordant elements together again. The artillery peals in with its
thunder in perfect time, and as the last measure closes, the whole
audience rise unanimously to their feet at once, and the most intense
excitement prevails. Thousands of handkerchiefs are waved by the
ladies and flutter in the air like white doves. Men wave their hats
and clap their hands, and the air is filled with bravos and cheers,
which are kept up until the _encore_ is given.
Parepa has the next number, and it is her favorite number--the
"Inflammatus" from the Stabat Mater. Her voice has now a test such
as it has never had before; for in the last few measures she has to
sing against the full choral accompaniment of ten thousand voices,
the thousand instruments, and the organ. She passes through the
ordeal bravely. In the most distant part of the house you can hear
her voice. The sustaining of the upper C and the trills were superbly
done; and as she closed, her sustained high tones were as pure and as
beautiful as those of a bird singing in the distance. It was a grand
triumph for her, and the audience evidently regarded it in the same
manner, for they gave her a very hearty and unmistakable _encore_, to
which she replied with a repetition of the same. The absolute purity
of her voice was never better tested than upon this occasion.
Verdi should have been present to have heard his Anvil Chorus
performed. He is pre-eminently the great apostle of noise, and
ten thousand voices, one thousand instruments, one hundred
anvils--pounded by two hundred stalwart firemen in perfect time--and
a battery of artillery, adding to the din and marking the time
without a break, could not but have delighted him. The effect was
simply indescribable. The aggregate of sound was gigantic. The
firemen had been well trained, without the orchestra, by Mr. Gilmore
himself, and, although the whole affair was more or less sensational
and noisy, the effect was very stirring, and the audience insisted
upon an _encore_. Oliver Wendell Holmes' Hymn, set to the music of
Keller's "American Hymn;" the overture to "William Tell," which was
deliciously given; the Coronation March from the "Prophet," and the
national air, "America," completed this remarkable performance.
There were probably few among unprejudiced persons who did not
anticipate a musical failure upon this occasion. Many considered
it a piece of Boston braggadocio, and others a musical experiment,
in which all the chances were unfavorable. The result, however,
has proved just the reverse. With the exception, here and there,
of slight mistakes, in which some instruments got out of time and
occasioned variations which were so trifling that they did not
interfere with the effect, the whole affair was a musical success.
* * * * *
June 16, 1869.
The weather yesterday was purely Bostonian: wind from the southeast,
drizzling rains, dull, leaden clouds hurrying up from the salt water,
a sultry, humid atmosphere, and muddiest of all muddy flag-stones. It
was an inauspicious atmospherical commencement for the Jubilee, but
to-day the motto of the festival is granted, and we have peace. The
skies are bright, the air cool and bracing, and those little green
oases in the brick and stone desert, the Common and Public Gardens,
are as pleasant to the eye and as grateful to the senses as the
gardens of Paradise. The trees are alive with birds, the fountains
are glistening in the sunshine, and the cool walks are crowded with
pleasure-seekers and curiosity-hunters.
It is a gala day in Boston; for, in view of the arrival of the
President, the City Fathers have proclaimed a holiday, and all
Boston and the rest of the universe which revolves around it,
including Saugus Centre and Newton Four Corners, have turned out to
see General Grant and each other, eat popcorn and bananas, hear
the great chorus, and get all bedraggled and tired out by sunset.
The city is dressed out gaily in the red, white and blue, and, true
to the American characteristics, as much business as possible is
combined with it in the way of advertising. The American Eagle is
made to carry a fearful commercial weight upon his generous back in
Boston to-day, from the squat female Hibernian dealer in fly-specked
candies, even, to sundry granite-fronted, wholesale, solid men who
live in the omnipresent free-stone houses on the Back Bay. The
streets are literally crammed with people. Locomotion is a tedious
affair upon these ribbons of sidewalks, and the surging crowd
sometimes carries you, whether you will or no, into all sorts of
alleys and by-ways and serpentine streets, which are sure to land you
at somebody's front door. Fourth of July, the Saints' Day of Boston,
is in danger of its multitudinous laurels, for it has never witnessed
greater crowds than the magic baton of Gilmore has brought here.