Contemporary American Composers Part 5

In common with most of those that pretend to love serious music, a certain person was for long guilty of the pitiful sn.o.bbery of rating march-tunes as the lowest form of the art. But one day he joined a National Guard regiment, and his first long march was that heart-breaking dress-parade of about fifteen miles through the wind and dust of the day Grant's monument was dedicated. Most of the music played by the band was merely rhythmical embroidery, chiefly in bugle figures, as helpful as a Clementi sonatina; but now and then there would break forth a magic elixir of tune that fairly plucked his feet up for him, put marrow in unwilling bones, and replaced the dreary doggedness of the heart with a great zest for progress, a stout martial fire, and a fierce _esprit de corps_; with patriotism indeed.

In almost every case, that march belonged to one John Philip Sousa.

It came upon this wretch then, that, if it is a worthy ambition in a composer to give voice to pa.s.sionate love-ditties, or vague contemplation, or the deep despair of a funeral cortege, it is also a very great thing to instil courage, and furnish an inspiration that will send men gladly, proudly, and gloriously through hards.h.i.+ps into battle and death. This last has been the office of the march-tune, and it is as susceptible of structural logic or embellishments as the fugue, rondo, or what not. These architectural qualities Sousa's marches have in high degree, as any one will find that examines their scores or listens a.n.a.lytically. They have the further merit of distinct individuality, and the supreme merit of founding a school.

It is only the plain truth to say that Sousa's marches have founded a school; that he has indeed revolutionized march-music. His career resembles that of Johann Strauss in many ways. A certain body of old fogies has always presumed to deride the rapturous waltzes of Strauss, though they have won enthusiastic praise from even the esoteric Brahms, and gained from Wagner such words as these: "One Strauss waltz overshadows, in respect to animation, finesse, and real musical worth, most of the mechanical, borrowed, factory-made products of the present time." The same words might be applied to Sousa's marches with equal justice. They have served also for dance music, and the two-step, borne into vogue by Sousa's music, has driven the waltz almost into desuetude.

There is probably no composer in the world with a popularity equal to that of Sousa. Though he sold his "Was.h.i.+ngton Post" march outright for $35, his "Liberty Bell" march is said to have brought him $35,000. It is found that his music has been sold to eighteen thousand bands in the United States alone. The amazing thing is to learn that there are so many bands in the country. Sousa's marches have appeared on programs in all parts of the civilized world. At the Queen's Jubilee, when the Queen stepped forward to begin the grand review of the troops, the combined bands of the household brigade struck up the "Was.h.i.+ngton Post." On other important occasions it appeared constantly as the chief march of the week. General Miles heard the marches played in Turkey by the military bands in the reviews.

The reason for this overwhelming appeal to the hearts of a planet is not far to seek. The music is conceived in a spirit of high martial zest. It is proud and gay and fierce, thrilled and thrilling with triumph. Like all great music it is made up of simple elements, woven together by a strong personality. It is not difficult now to write something that sounds more or less like a Sousa march, any more than it is difficult to write parodies, serious or otherwise, on Beethoven, Mozart, or Chopin. The glory of Sousa is that he was the first to write in this style; that he has made himself a style; that he has so stirred the musical world that countless imitations have sprung up after him.

The individuality of the Sousa march is this, that, unlike most of the other influential marches, it is not so much a musical exhortation from without, as a distillation of the essences of soldiering from within. Sousa's marches are not based upon music-room enthusiasms, but on his own wide experiences of the feelings of men who march together in the open field.

And so his band music expresses all the nuances of the military psychology: the exhilaration of the long unisonal stride, the grip on the musket, the pride in the regimentals and the regiment,--_esprit de corps_. He expresses the inevitable foppery of the severest soldier, the tease and the taunt of the evolutions, the fierce wish that all this ploying and deploying were in the face of an actual enemy, the mania to reek upon a tangible foe all the joyous energy, the blood-thirst of the warrior.

These things Sousa embodies in his music as no other music writer ever has. To approach Sousa's work in the right mood, the music critic must leave his stuffy concert hall and his sober black; he must flee from the press, don a uniform, and march. After his legs and spirits have grown aweary under the metronomic tunes of others, let him note the surge of blood in his heart and the rejuvenation of all his muscles when the bra.s.ses flare into a barbaric Sousa march. No man that marches can ever feel anything but grat.i.tude and homage for Sousa.

Of course he is a trickster at times; admitted that he stoops to conquer at times, yet in his field he is supreme. He is worthy of serious consideration, because his thematic material is almost always novel and forceful, and his instrumentation full of contrast and climax. He is not to be judged by the piano versions of his works, because they are abominably thin and inadequate, and they are not _klavierma.s.sig_. There should be a Liszt or a Taussig to transcribe him.

When all's said and done, Sousa is the pulse of the nation, and in war of more inspiration and power to our armies than ten colonels with ten braw regiments behind them.

Like Strauss', Mr. Sousa's father was a musician who forbade his son to devote himself to dance music. As Strauss' mother enabled him secretly to work out his own salvation, so did Sousa's mother help him. Sousa's father was a political exile from Spain, and earned a precarious livelihood by playing a trombone in the very band at Was.h.i.+ngton which later became his son's stepping-stone to fame. Sousa was born at Was.h.i.+ngton in 1859. His mother is German, and Sousa's music shows the effect of Spanish yeast in st.u.r.dy German rye bread.

Sousa's teachers were John Esputa and George Felix Benkert. The latter Mr. Sousa considers one of the most complete musicians this country has ever known. He put him through such a thorough theoretical training, that at fifteen Sousa was teaching harmony. At eight he had begun to earn his own living as a violin player at a dancing-school, and at ten he was a public soloist. At sixteen he was the conductor of an orchestra in a variety theatre. Two years later he was musical director of a travelling company in Mr. Milton n.o.bles' well-known play, "The Phoenix," for which he composed the incidental music.

Among other incidents in a career of growing importance was a position in the orchestra with which Offenbach toured this country. At the age of twenty-six, after having played, with face blacked, as a negro minstrel, after travelling with the late Matt Morgan's Living Picture Company, and working his way through and above other such experiences in the struggle for life, Sousa became the leader of the United States Marine Band. In the twelve years of his leaders.h.i.+p he developed this unimportant organization into one of the best military bands in the world.

In 1892 his leaders.h.i.+p had given him such fame that he withdrew from the government service to take the leaders.h.i.+p of the band carrying his own name.

A work of enormous industry was his collection and arrangement, by governmental order, of the national and typical tunes of all nations into one volume, an invaluable book of reference.

Out of the more than two hundred published compositions by Sousa, it is not possible to mention many here. Though some of the names are not happily chosen, they call up many episodes of parade gaiety and jauntiness, or warlike fire. The "Liberty Bell," "Directorate," "High School Cadets," "King Cotton," "Manhattan Beach," "'Sound Off!'"

"Was.h.i.+ngton Post," "Picador," and others, are all stirring works; his best, I think, is a deeply patriotic march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." The second part of this has some bra.s.s work of particular originality and vim.

In ma.n.u.script are a few works of larger form: a symphonic poem, "The Chariot Race," an historical scene, "Sheridan's Ride," and two suites, "Three Quotations" and "The Last Days of Pompeii."

The "Three Quotations" are:

(_a_) "The King of France, with twenty thousand men, Marched up a hill and then marched down again,"

which is the motive for a delightful scherzo-march of much humor in instrumentation;

(_b_) "And I, too, was born in Arcadia,"

which is a pastorale with delicious touches of extreme delicacy;

(_c_) "In Darkest Africa,"

which has a stunning beginning and is a stirring grotesque in the negro manner Dvorak advised Americans to cultivate. All three are well arranged for the piano.

The second suite is based on "The Last Days of Pompeii." It opens with a drunken revel, "In the House of Burbo and Stratonice;" the bulky brutishness of the gladiators clamoring for wine, a jolly drinking-song, and a dance by a jingling clown make up a superbly written number. The second movement is named "Nydia," and represents the pathetic reveries of the blind girl; it is tender and quiet throughout.

The third movement is at once daring and masterly. It boldly attacks "The Destruction," and attains real heights of graphic suggestion. A long, almost inaudible roll on the drums, with occasional thuds, heralds the coming of the earthquake; subterranean rumblings, sharp rushes of tremor, toppling stones, and wild panic are insinuated vividly, with no cheap attempts at actual imitation. The roaring of the terrified lion is heard, and, best touch of all, under the fury of the scene persists the calm chant of the Nazarenes, written in one of the ancient modes. The rout gives way to the sea-voyage of Glaucus and Ione, and Nydia's swan-song dies away in the gentle splash of ripples.

The work is altogether one of superb imagination and scholarly achievement.

Sousa, appealing as he does to an audience chiefly of the popular sort, makes frequent use of devices shocking to the conventional. But even in this he is impelled by the enthusiasm of an experimenter and a developer. Almost every unconventional novelty is hooted at in the arts. But the sensationalism of to-day is the conservatism of to-morrow, and the chief difference between a touch of high art and a trick is that the former succeeds and the latter does not. Both are likely to have a common origin.

The good thing is that Sousa is actuated by the spirit of progress and experiment, and has carried on the development of the military band begun by the late Patrick S. Gilmore. Sousa's concert programs devote what is in fact the greater part of their s.p.a.ce to music by the very best composers. These, of course, lose something in being translated over to the military band, but their effect in raising the popular standard of musical culture cannot but be immense. Through such instrumentality much of Wagner is as truly popular as any music played. The active agents of such a result should receive the heartiest support from every one sincerely interested in turning the people toward the best things in music. Incidentally, it is well to admit that while a cheap march-tune is almost as trashy as an uninspired symphony, a good march-tune is one of the best things in the best music.

Though chiefly known as a writer of marches, in which he has won glory enough for the average human ambition, Sousa has also taken a large place in American comic opera. His first piece, "The Smugglers," was produced in 1879, and scored the usual failure of a first work. His "Katherine" was never produced, his "Desiree" was brought out in 1884 by the McCaull Opera Company, and his "Queen of Hearts," a one-act piece, was given two years later. He forsook opera then for ten years; but in 1896 De Wolf Hopper produced his "El Capitan" with great success.

The chief tune of the piece was a march used with Meyerbeerian effectiveness to bring down the curtain. The stout verve of this "El Capitan" march gave it a large vogue outside the opera. Hopper next produced "The Charlatan," a work bordering upon opera comique in its first version. Both of these works scored even larger success in London than at home.

[Music: Used by permission of the John Church Company, owners of the copyright.

A PAGE FROM "EL CAPITAN," BY JOHN PHILIP SOUSA.]

In "The Bride Elect," Sousa wrote his own libretto, and while there was the usual stirring march as the piece de resistance, the work as a whole was less clangorous of the cymbal than the operas of many a tamer composer. In "Chris and the Wonderful Lamp," an extravaganza, the chief ensemble was worked up from a previous march, "Hands Across the Sea."

But Sousa can write other things than marches, and his scoring is full of variety, freedom, and contrapuntal brilliance.

_Henry Schoenefeld._

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY SCHOENEFELD.]

Long before Dvorak discovered America, we aboriginals had been trying to invent a national musical dialect which should identify us as completely to the foreigner as our nasal intonation and our fondness for the correct and venerable use of the word "guess." But Dvorak is to credit for taking the problem off the shelf, and persuading our composers to think. I cannot coax myself into the enthusiasm some have felt for Dvorak's own explorations in darkest Africa. His quartette (op. 96) and his "New World" symphony are about as full of accent and infidelity as Mlle. Yvette Guilbert's picturesque efforts to sing in English. But almost anything is better than the phlegm that says, "The old ways are good enough for all time;" and the Bohemian missionary must always hold a place in the chronicle of American music.

A disciple of Dvorak's, both in advance and in retrospect, is Henry Schoenefeld, who wrote a characteristic suite (op. 15) before the Dvorakian invasion, and an overture, "In the Sunny South," afterward.

The suite, which has been played frequently abroad, winning the praises of Hanslick, Nicode, and Rubinstein, is scored for string orchestra. It opens with an overly reminiscent waltz-tune, and ends conventionally, but it contains a movement in negro-tone that gives it importance. In this the strings are abetted by a tambourine, a triangle, and a gong. It is in march-time, and, after a staccato prelude, begins with a catchy air taken by the second violins, while the firsts, divided, fill up the chords. A slower theme follows in the tonic major; it is a jollificational air, dancing from the first violins with a bright use of harmonics. Two periods of loud chorale appear with the gong clanging (to hint a church-bell, perhaps). The first two themes return and end the picture.

The overture (op. 22) has won the high esteem of A.J. Goodrich, and it seems to me to be one of the most important of native works, not because of its nigrescence, but because of its spontaneity therein. It adds to the usual instruments only the piccolo, the English horn, the tambourine, and triangle and cymbals. The slow introduction gives forth an original theme in the most approved and most fetching darky pattern. The strings announce it, and the wood replies. The flutes and clarinets toss it in a blanket furnished by an interesting pa.s.sage in the 'cellos and contraba.s.ses. There is a choral moment from the English horn, the ba.s.soons, and a clarinet. This solemn thought keeps recurring parenthetically through the general gaiety. The first subject clatters in, the second is even more jubilant. In the development a dance _misterioso_ is used with faithful screaming repet.i.tions, and the work ends regularly and brilliantly. There is much syncopation, though nothing that is strictly in "rag-time;"

banjo-figurations are freely and ingeniously employed, and the whole is a splendid fiction in local color. Schoenefeld's negroes do not speak Bohemian.

His determined nationalism is responsible for his festival overture, "The American Flag," based on his own setting of Rodman Drake's familiar poem. The work opens with the hymn blaring loudly from the antiphonal bra.s.s and wood. The subjects are taken from it with much thematic skill, and handled artfully, but the hymn, which appears in full force for coda, is as trite as the most of its kith.

Schoenefeld was born in Milwaukee, in 1857. His father was a musician, and his teacher for some years. At the age of seventeen Schoenefeld went to Leipzig, where he spent three years, studying under Reinecke, Coccius, Papperitz, and Grill. A large choral and orchestral work was awarded a prize over many compet.i.tors, and performed at the Gewandhaus concerts, the composer conducting. Thereafter he went to Weimar, where he studied under Edward La.s.sen.

In 1879 he came back to America, and took up his residence in Chicago, where he has since lived as a teacher, orchestra leader, and composer.

He has for many years directed the Germania Mannerchor.

Schoenefeld's "Rural Symphony" was awarded the $500 prize offered by the National Conservatory. Dvorak was the chairman of the Committee on Award, and gave Schoenefeld hearty compliments. Later works are: "Die drei Indianer," an ode for male chorus, solo, and orchestra; a most beautiful "Air" for orchestra (the air being taken by most of the strings,--the first violins haunting the G string,--while a harp and three flutes carry the burden of the accompaniment gracefully); a pleasant "Reverie" for string orchestra, harp, and organ; and two impromptus for string orchestra, a "Meditation" representing Cordelia brooding tenderly over the slumbering King Lear,--art ministering very tenderly to the mood,--and a cleverly woven "Valse n.o.ble."

Only a few of Schoenefeld's works are published, all of them piano pieces. It is no slur upon his orchestral glory to say that these are for the most part unimportant, except the excellent "Impromptu" and "Prelude." Of the eight numbers in "The Festival," for children, only the "Mazurka" is likely to make even the smallest child think. The "Kleine Tanz Suite" is better. The six children's pieces of opus 41, "Mysteries of the Wood," make considerable appeal to the fancy and imagination, and are highly interesting. They show Grieg's influence very plainly, and are quite worth recommending. This cannot be said of his most inelegant "Valse elegante," or of his numerous dances, except, perhaps, his "Valse Caprice."

He won in July, 1899, the prize offered to American composers by Henri Marteau, for a sonata for violin and piano. The jury was composed of such men as Dubois, Pierne, Diemer, and Pugno. The sonata is _quasi fantasia_, and begins strongly with an evident intention to make use of negro-tone. The first subject is so vigorously declared that one is surprised to find that it is elastic enough to express a sweet pathos and a deep gloom. It is rather fully developed before the second subject enters; this, on the other hand, is hardly insinuated in its relative major before the rather inelaborate elaboration begins. In the romanza, syncopation and imitation are much relied on, though the general atmosphere is that of a nocturne, a trio of dance-like manner breaking in. The final rondo combines a clog with a choral intermezzo.

The work is noteworthy for its deep sincerity and great lyric beauty.

_Maurice Arnold._

The plantation dances of Maurice Arnold have an intrinsic interest quite aside from their intrinsic value. Arnold, whose full name is Maurice Arnold-Strothotte, was born in St. Louis in 1865. His mother was a prominent pianist and gave him his first lessons in music. At the age of fifteen he went to Cincinnati, studying at the College of Music for three years. In 1883 he went to Germany to study counterpoint and composition with Vierling and Urban in Berlin. The latter discouraged him when he attempted to imbue a suite with a negro plantation spirit.