to the "Elijah" chorus, "Thanks be to God, He laveth the thirsty
land," his instructions were more than usually explicit. The chorus,
however, did not get the beat, and for a moment there was danger
of a catastrophe. Zerrahn left his stand as quick as a rocket, and,
waving his baton, went down into the chorus. The electricity of his
manner fused the discordant elements, and with "The waters gather
they rush along," all were together. Zerrahn remained at his post,
and Schultze took the orchestra in hand, with his bow for baton, and
the two batons moved like magic, and chorus and orchestra played
like magic to the end, sweeping through the jubilant number like the
march of a storm. If the chorus had never sung any thing else this
would have paid for the difficulties of organization and been a rich
remuneration for all the labors.
Miss Phillipps made her second appearance of the season, and was
cordially greeted. She sang the familiar "Lascia Pianga" of Handel's,
which is one of her concert favorites. She appeared to much better
advantage than on Tuesday, mainly because the selection was in better
taste; but, sitting even as near as I did, her voice seemed hard and
cold and she was evidently singing with great effort. At the close,
the enthusiasm of the chorus, joined with that of the audience,
secured her an _encore_, which she acknowledged by repeating the air,
and singing part of it to the chorus.
The programme was closed with the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah,
the whole chorus, orchestra and audience rising to their feet while
it was performed. In spite of its inherent difficulties and broken
time, it was carried through superbly, and as the final "Amen" pealed
out with majestic power, the Jubilee was at an end, so far as the
great chorus was concerned.
* * * * *
June 19, 1869.
The day of Jubilee has gone. The great Peace Festival has passed
into the annals of musical history. The outside halo of peace which
encircled it shone so dimly that I do not conceive any national
significance attaches to it. It is to be judged purely as a musical
event, and it will take its place in musical annals as an ambitious
and bold experiment, and, in large degree, as a grand success. There
were points open to honest criticism, and some of these points I have
indicated in these letters; but many of these defects were beyond
the remedy either of conductor or chorus. It was a musical success,
because it has shown that ten thousand people can sing together and
one thousand instruments play together, not only both in time and
tune, but also with sufficient expression to make effects. It is
not to be denied that some very paltry music has been played--in
fact, the whole programme of Thursday was devoted just to this class
of music--and that many of the numbers in each day were purely
meretricious and sensational. But the bare fact of the organization
and manipulation of such a vast chorus and orchestra stands now,
and will always stand, as a monument of which the projector and his
assistants have a right to be proud.
The great chorus dispersed last evening, having accomplished its
arduous work. Exhausted as they must have been with the four days'
task, I doubt whether any one of the ten thousand singers closed his
or her book without regret. It was something to be proud of to have
sung and played at this Jubilee. I can appreciate the feelings of a
prominent Chicago bass singer, who had been only a listener during
a portion of the programme on Friday. The next number was the grand
chorus, "Thanks be to God," from "Elijah." He hurried over to me,
and, seizing me by the collar, said: "Tell me how I can get into that
chorus. I cannot stand this any longer. I _must_ sing the Elijah
piece." I directed him how to get admission, and the next I saw of
him he was in the front rank of the bassos, joining his voice with
the thousands around him in the grand swelling anthem of praise.
To-day has been given almost exclusively to the school-children. It
was a grand sight to look at the adult chorus, but it was a beautiful
sight to look at the children. Eight thousand of them were gathered
together from the public schools. The girls were clad in white, and
filled the wings, the boys occupying the places of the tenors and
bassos. The children arrived promptly--do they ever arrive any other
way?--and took their places without a particle of disorder. The white
dresses of the girls, trimmed with ribbons of varied colors, their
fresh young faces, and the eager, enthusiastic faces of the boys,
made up a picture of beauty not often looked upon. It was like a huge
garden _parterre_ of flowers, and, as great shafts of sunlight shot
in through the windows and bathed them with gold, and fans waved in
the happy throng like the wings of a multitude of birds, it made a
sight which may be the sight of a lifetime. The audience also was
an immense one, completely filling the building, and thus the _coup
d'oeil_ was fully as beautiful, if not as imposing, as on any day
during the week.
The performance commenced with the overture to "William Tell," which
was rendered with more animation than on Wednesday. The effects of
the cellos, headed by Wulf Fries, were particularly striking. Never
before have I heard this noblest of all instruments develop the human
voice tones as it has to-day. The applause had hardly subsided when
Eichberg rapped the juvenile chorus to attention with his baton.
The rising of the children was not like that of the adults. The
latter invariably rose slowly and successively, rank after rank.
The children, in their impatience, fairly sprang to their feet, and
stood, books in hand, eager for the signal. When it was given, they
took the beat together grandly, and commenced "Hail Columbia" in
unison. As they progressed, however, the instruments were quicker
than they, and there was some lagging, but the effect was very novel
and striking. Although the girls outnumbered the boys, the latter's
voices were much stronger and made themselves most clearly heard. The
freshness, purity and clearness of the voices easily rendered them
superior to the orchestra, and even the organ seemed to affect them
but little. There was no difficulty in hearing them, for each one
of the little people was singing for dear life and working with all
the zest and enthusiasm of a child's nature. By some process known
only to children, they came out together at the end of each stanza,
although they sometimes diverged widely in the middle.
Think of children singing Mercadante's music! But they did it, and
superbly, too. His chorus, "Now the Twilight Softly Stealing," was
given by them admirably. It was arranged as a solo for sopranos and
altos, and then taken in unison by the full chorus, and I have no
musical memory sweeter than the cadences of that chorus, which were
given with such beauty and freshness by these children.
Miss Phillipps is set down for the next number, and, as she advances
down through the musicians to the stand, the children give her a
handsome ovation, the girls waving their handkerchiefs and the
boys cheering as only boys can cheer. She is going to sing the
_brindisi_ from Lucrezia Borgia--"II Segreto." Everybody has heard
her sing it in the bewitching _role_ of _Maffeo Orsini_, but we may
never hear her sing it again under circumstances like these, for
she is now singing it to at least forty thousand people. Eichberg
was cool enough with the children, but he is very nervous now, and
he gives the _tempo_ so fast to the orchestra that Rosa and half a
dozen others look up in surprise. Adelaide herself grows pale and
says to him, "Too fast, too fast." The baton moves slower--and how
marvelously the instruments obey! It is all right. Adelaide does not
look much like _Maffeo_ in her high-necked white dress, but she sings
the famous drinking-song in excellent taste, and succeeds in making
her voice heard throughout the hall better than she has heretofore.
She gets a hearty _encore_, and repeats the aria, accompanying it
this time with a prolonged trill, which was superbly formed.
Again, the children are on their feet. Brinley Richards' solo and
chorus "So Merrily over the Ocean Spray," are the numbers. The air is
given with a rocking, undulating rhythm, which is admirably preserved
by the children, and the effect gains in intensity as the full chorus
and organ add their volume of sound.
Almost before the children are in their seats, the tall form of
Ole Bull comes down the aisle, and they rise and give him a hearty
reception. He chooses his little _andante_ minor melody, the
"Mother's Prayer," bends his head over his violin, closes his eyes,
and plays away, ravishingly sweet, but so _pianissimo_ that only the
orchestra and a few of the front rows can hear him. Those who do hear
him have a great treat, and the orchestra is so charmed that it raps
lustily upon the backs of its violins.
Parepa, clad in an elegant black moire-antique, receives an
enthusiastic ovation. She sings "Let the Glad Seraphim," which she
sang the other day when poor Mrs. Dunlap was dying, accompanied
by Arbuckle whose cornet needs only a few tricks of tonguing to
be superior to Levy's. What superb responses the cornet makes to
her, and how perfectly voice and instrument match each other! It
is something to remember, this duo. But there is another duo even
better. It is Rossini's matchless _Quis est Homo_. And who is to
sing it? Only Parepa and Adelaide Phillipps! Aren't you glad now
you came to the Jubilee? I will wager something you will never hear
this sung again as these two women sing it. I am afraid hereafter
I shall listen to the amateurs practising the great duo with less
than my usual patience. I never expect to hear it sung better. I
never expected it would be allowed me to hear it sung so well. What
expression! What style! What artistic method! What a rare and rich
vocal blending! Even the orchestra gets enthusiastic, and some
of the old veterans look up in absolute surprise at this alto in
white and this soprano in black, as they reach the _cadenza_ in a
magnificent burst of melody, which starts people to their feet, wild
with enthusiasm, crying bravo, waving handkerchiefs, hats, canes and
umbrellas. Of course, they have to repeat it, and of course everybody
gets wild again.
And then the children sing Old Hundred, and the audience rising,
sings it with them. And they sing well, for there are only 9,000 of
the choristers in the audience. Isn't it sublime?
"Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost."
And the Jubilee is over. The music is hushed. The voice of the great
organ is silent. The great waves of the chorus have subsided. The
singers and the players have gone, but I think, to their latest day,
they will not tire of telling their children that they sang and
played at the great Peace Jubilee.
There are a few parting incidents in the press room, and among them a
very graceful deed upon the part of the orchestra in presenting Mr.
Gilmore with an elegant watch and chain. And then everybody gives
Gilmore three cheers.
The man who has carried this thing in his head two years, and finally
organized it into a success, smilingly says:
"_Gentlemen_: We propose to repeat this Jubilee as a centennial--one
hundred years hence. You are all engaged."
One hundred years hence! Every heart in the great sea of humanity
which has surged in and out of the Coliseum this week will be silent
then. We shall all be silent then. We shall all be sleeping the sleep
of the just, with a stone at our heads and a stone at our feet,
where no sound of music can reach us. Other voices will sing above
us, and other instruments play, and little shall we reck of it. The
record of the Jubilee will outlive us all. But will they have in
the music of the future anything better, anything grander, anything
sublimer than the music of this week has been?
I think not. And so to the great chorus whose sound has been as
the voice of many waters; to the great orchestra which has given
us the immortal Fifth Symphony as Beethoven never heard it given;
to the mighty pulsation of the great organ heart; to the voices of
the children in their sweet, fresh unison; to her that died in the
midst of the music, and was translated to the heavens in a chariot
of harmony, whose beauty, and loveliness, and true womanliness will
be forever sacred to those who knew her; to the Peace Jubilee, with
all its pleasant associations and grand accomplishments, hail and
farewell.
"Let us have peace."
_THE DOUBLE LIFE._
I write from the pleasant little hamlet of Cherry Valley, under
the grateful shade of the locusts and poplars. Scarlet fuschias,
pendant from their curved stems, are swaying in the gentle west
wind, which is the favorite wind of the flowers. The odorous breath
of the geranium and sweet-briar loads the languid air with fragrant
blessing. The leaves of the trees overhead just ripple in the wind,
like little green waves, and sometimes seem to be whispering together
about some of those secrets of nature which you and I can never know,
as our ears are too gross--the same secrets which little bugs tell
each other in the grass--which the lightnings tell the clouds, as
they dart in and out their ragged fringes, like swallows darting in
and out the eaves--which the night-winds tell the mountain-tops in
the solemn darkness--which the birds sing to each other in umbrageous
tree-tops--which the fairies above the earth and gnomes under the
earth tell to each other at sunrise and set--the secrets which the
Faun knew when he called the animals to him. Some drowsy birds in
the trees are piping summer songs to each other. A magic stillness
broods in the air in this enchanted valley. Enchanted, because all
sounds--the patter of the leaves, the songs of birds, the laughter
of children, the lowing of herds, even the drowsy hum of the
house-fly--somehow seem to you to be at a distance and, in traveling
the distance, come to you fraught with suggestions of music and like
veiled spirits of sound, rather than the real substance. The leaves
of the corn are flashing like green blades in the sunshine, and the
grain-fields on these fertile hill-sides map the country in alternate
strips of green and emerald. And overhead, the great concave of the
sky, which shuts down upon this valley like a cover, is enameled in
blue and white, and scrolled with tufts and whirls of fleecy clouds,
past the skill of all cunning architects.
You see, Old Blobbs and Mrs. Blobbs, and Mignon and Celeste, and
Aurelia and the baby, and even Boosey and Fitz-Herbert, are all out
here together. The circle is complete, save the link that was broken
last winter, when the Maiden Aunt went to rejoin him she had mourned
so long and for whom she had waited so patiently. But, somehow, we
never think of her as gone, although she is sleeping in sound of
the surf she loved to hear and in sight of the waves which used to
talk to her, in the nights when the storms were all abroad and great
ships hurried by in the darkness, like cloudy ghosts of argosies
long since rotted in the sands. She seems always to be with us, she
was so lovable, so closely bound to us, so gentle in soul, and yet
so mysterious in her life--or, rather, in her double life; for I do
not think she lived altogether here. Have you never had the feeling
come over you, suddenly as a flash leaps from a cloud, that your
soul has left the body--that you have shed, as it were, the physical
shell which has hemmed you in, and that you are no longer confined
within the bounds of matter, but are free as a bird to roam through
space? I sometimes think this must be the feeling when death severs
the connection between soul and body, and that the effect must be
ecstatic to a degree of which we have little comprehension, when
every emotion is tempered with this "vesture of decay." I think the
Maiden Aunt lived this double life. Sometimes she was intensely
human, and her love and care for us all were unbounded. But again
there came a strange expression in her eyes and a strange look in
her face, as if a chink in the heavens had suddenly opened, and the
glamor of its light shone upon her, and through the cloudy rent
she were talking with some familiar friend who had gone before. At
such times, she did not seem to see us, or even to be aware of our
presence. Her eyes had that far-off, penetrating look which you
sometimes see in children; and we always left her alone at such
times, for she was then very sacred to us.
In the sunset light last evening--and what a sunset it was!--the
whole West a sea of rare transparent greenish-blue, flecked with
clouds of gold, and purple, and pink, and mother-of-pearl, which
floated in it like islands, melting into all fanciful shapes, as the
ferns, and palms, and turrets melt in the mirage, the whole landscape
bathed in a translucent flood of golden light--in such a sunset, we
took one of the Maiden Aunt's letters, which we keep tied up with a
lock of her dark and silver-sprinkled hair, and I read therefrom an
extract, in which she says:
"I think we live two lives. One of them is the life of this world,
a thoroughly material and physical life. It is made up of toils
and cares, burdens and pains. It grows out of the lives of others,
is closely interwoven with them, and almost depends upon them for
its existence. It attaches itself, sometimes, to one other life, as
a vine attaches itself to the tree; sometimes it draws sustenance
from many. It is, more or less, a superficial life, although it may
accomplish great deeds and suffer heroic sufferings. It is of the
earth, however, and never soars beyond it. No mystery attaches to
it, for it is never called upon to perform mysterious deeds. It is
comprised within the limits of threescore-and-ten, and has no past or
future. Its mission belongs to the body, and when the body perishes,
its mission ends. It has no recollections coming from any time before
itself. It makes no prophecies of events in the future.
"The other life we live in ourselves, and it is as mysterious as
was the enigma of the Sphinx in the solemn silence of the desert.
It takes no thought for the body, for it is the life of the soul.
We cannot explain this life to others, for we do not understand it
ourselves. It is a starry stranger, imprisoned within the corporeal
bars and of mysterious origin and destiny. The fates who weave the
fabric of our lives, and Atropos, who stands by with the unerring
shears to sever the thread, have no power over it. Have we not lived
this life before, and shall we not live it again when the light of
this physical life is snuffed out like a farthing rush? If not, how
is it that sometimes a sweet strain of music we have never heard
before, a solemn voice in the wash of the waves, a perfume of some
flower by the wayside, a tone in some human voice, will recall the
dim image of something we are confident has never happened in this
physical life? If not in this physical life, when and where did it
happen? Have we ever lived before this life, and shall we live in it
again after this body has decayed? Do we fulfil the mission of this
world in the brief span of one life-time? If our life has no end, has
it ever had a beginning? Has immortality or eternity a commencement?
These are questions which occur to me, especially after those moments
when, as I confidently believe, the soul leaves the body, and expands
into space and embraces the infinite. I acknowledge that I cannot
answer these questions. They are a part of the great mystery of
life, which not only envelopes us, but all nature, in its cloud, and
reaches, in its influences and its developments, from the grain of
sand on the sea-shore up to the Throne of God.
"I think this life, also, is not altogether of itself. Other lives,
other fates and other natures are working together in us to add to
its mystery. These mysterious influences at work within us compel
us to commit acts, which we call impulses, for which we are no more
accountable than the hurricane for its destruction. They give us
moments when we are filled with a joy almost hysterical, for which
we cannot account; and other moments when we are sunk into depths
of despair, and all the world seems veiled in black, although we
know the sun is shining. At such times, others are acting in us and
through us. It may be some old ancestor, who died hundreds of years
ago, whose life was so strong in some trait that he sent it down
through the years from this one to that one, and it makes its first
appearance in you. He or she--he whose life was lost in the passion
of some great ecstasy, or she whose life was eclipsed in a cloud of
despair which dethroned reason--is speaking with your tongue, and
is looking out of your eyes. At such times, your voice assumes a
tone not your own; your eyes show a light which is foreign to you.
Another has entered and taken possession of you. You cannot estimate
the great influence which all those men and women who hang upon your
walls and look down upon you from their dim canvasses exercise upon
you.
"And this life also manifests itself in sleep, when it takes us into
the gorgeous cloudland of dreams, and paints such fantastic images,
and unveils a world of which we get glimpses in no other manner--a
world of prophecies and strange presentiments, in which, freed from
the trammels of the body, the soul roams at will, and sees what has
passed and what is to come; in which we suffer tortures keener than
those of earth, and enjoy the beatitudes of the blest; in which
the poor man is richer than Dives, and Lazarus finds rest from his
troubles; and in which all of us get compensation for the loss of all
we held precious, in communion with and possession of them, although
only for a little moment."
This is the substance of what the Maiden Aunt said in her letter, and
we all talked about it in the fast-fading light until the darkness
set in and the rain commenced to patter down upon the lilac leaves
with a dreamy sort of sound. We gathered about the piano, and sang
those four-part _Lieder_ of Felix Mendelssohn's, and then we pledged
the memory of the Maiden Aunt in the golden Verzenay and drank the
good night willie wacht, and thus we spent a memorial day at Cherry
Valley, nestling down in the hollow of the hills like a callow robin
in its nest, and we slept the sleep of the just, lulled to rest by
the rain-drops playing merry fantasies on the shingles, each of us
agreeing that the day was one to be tied up with white ribbon and
laid away among the precious keepsakes. And in our dreams came to
each the form of a loved one, and our sleep was made beautiful with
all pleasant images.
July 17, 1869.
_LOVE AND THE BLUE FLOWER._