Scan 13
Musical Courier 1901-12-11: Vol 43 Iss 1133, 1901
39 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 14. See the scan on archive.org.
A town on its own line is one of the directory's headings. That is where the town on a maker's page comes from.
1BOSTON
2PHILIP HALE.
4BOSTON, Mass., December 8, 1901.
6HERE were several concerts last week. At the Kneisel concert, December 2, Ernest Hutchison, of Baltimore, made his début here as a pianist in Chadwick's Quintet for piano and strings. He proved himself to be an excellent ensemble player, a pianist of clean, agreeable touch, well developed technic and self-controlled musical spirit. The quartets were Borodin's in D and Beethoven's, op. 135.
8There were two recitals the afternoon of December 2. Max Bendix, violinist, played at Steinert Hall Händel's Sonata in A; Tartini's Variations on a Gavotte Theme of Corelli; the first movement of Beethoven's Concerto; Wieniawski's Air Varié, op. 15, and pieces by Arensky, Ogareff, D'Ambrosea, Hubay, Paganini, Lauterbach and Bendix. He played with breadth, feeling and general mastery. I did not hear Mr. Sherwood's piano recital at Chickering Hall.
10Francis Rogers, baritone, gave a song recital December 4, and Mr. Kubelik made his first appearance here at Symphony Hall the evening of that day. Josef Hofmann gave recitals December 5 and 7.
12I wrote you a week or so ago that the concert audiences thus far have been small. The statement still holds good. The singers and players have been known and applauded, or they were strangers of reputation, so that curiosity at least might count in their favor. They were well advertised in advance, in shop windows, on billboards and in the newspapers. But even Mr. Kubelik, who apparently has at his control the cable, telegraph and telephone systems of the world, had a small audience. The visiting pianists have not been treated according to their deserts.
14Is it possible that the private musical clubs, the subscription recitals, interfere with the professional musicians? A woman, for instance, who has finally worked her way into the outer circle of society, sings in this or that parlor, and as she sings for little or nothing her mediocre performance is applauded by the fashionable ignorant. It occurs to her that she may make money by giving a series of subscription and exclusive recitals. A patroness passes the favoring word. Many who wish to stand in her good graces eagerly pay $5 or $6 for a course ticket. And these calls are so many that subscribers shrink from spending $1.50 or $2 for that which is truly worthy or interesting. Money is spent on the musical clubs—which are life saving stations of mediocrity—and the members are anxious to hear Miss Jumperdown, of an old Boston family, maltreat the keyboard; but they could not be persuaded to hear Mrs. Bloomfield-Zeisler, Hofmann or Slivinski. An engagement with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a pronounced triumph at one of the concerts promise nothing for success in recital. Time and time again a pianist or a violinist has been recalled three or four times, and has been the talk of the town for at least twenty-four hours. The poor wretch, emboldened to give recitals, has met empty benches or veterans of the noble army of deadheads.
16Some say that the scale of prices is too high; that few Bostonians or suburbanites are willing to pay $2 or $1.50. Others say that the order of concerts is not well arranged, that too many of a like nature are crowded into the same week, that persons of moderate means are confused in their regret and anxiety, and since they cannot hear all, hear none.
18The two chief events of the week were the first performances here of Bach's Mass in B minor as a whole, and Richard Strauss' "Heldenleben."
20Portions of the huge Mass were sung by the Handel and Haydn in 1887, when Lilli Lehmann was one of the solo singers. As John S. Dwight, the laudatory chronicler, wrote that Madame Lehmann had no solo, we may infer that the dull and difficult "Laudamus te" was omitted.
22Nor do I see why the whole of this Mass should ever be given in a city where there are other amusements and the full exhibition of the strenuous life. In a town like Bethlehem, Pa., where choristers are willing to work in a devout spirit under an enthusiast and able conductor like Mr. Wolle, I can understand how such performances are for the public good; the preparation occupies the mind and tires the body; it keeps the young from mischief; the older tenors and basses are not urged by the tedium of daily routine to seek relief in wood alcohol or Jamaica ginger. They kill time, and thus Bach is as a city club.
24The furious Bachite is more objectionable than the Wagnerite, or even the Brahmsite. To him every scrap of counterpoint in organ work of doubtful authenticity, every measure of an aria with obligato for an obsolete instrument, the dreariest choral waste is an instance of plenary inspiration. Music died with Bach. Palestrina was a Dago. Händel—fie on him; he wrote for male sopranos and singing jades. The Bachite sees in every bit of imitation the title of a Kempis' book. He will not endure the thought of mutilation. Any singer that is willing to sacrifice vocal reputation on the altar in this Gothic cathedral is a great artist. She that shrinks and says "I cannot and I find the music impossible" is fit only for "La Traviata," and idle songs of light o' loves. Examine closely, and you will find the most aggravated, maniacal cases have no knowledge of historical perspective.
26It was the fashion in Bach's time to think in contrapuntal language. A fugue was religious per se. A direct dramatic stroke was impossible. Even the magnificent Händel, the man of infinite melody, whose operas are a vast treasure house of wondrous songs—and he that is acquainted only with the oratorios of Händel knows not Händel—even the magnificent Händel stooped in his pride to sneer at Gluck because he was not a master of counterpoint. Now counterpoint is only a means, it is not the end. The freest, the most radical composers are often those who have the science at their immediate command. Yet to-day I see reviews in German music journals condemning choral compositions, because there is no fugue in them.
28The fugue may be of imperishable beauty when there is no text. It may suggest regret, love, melancholy, despair, devotion. There are fugues in "The Well Tempered Clavichord" that are more devout than nine-tenths of the choruses in Bach's sacred compositions. The Fugue in E major (Vol. II, No. 9) is an example. It is not too much to say that the character of Fesca's music is admirably reflected in Rheinberger's little known organ fugue F-ES-C-A—a gentle, plaintive, shy, twilight fugue.
30Furthermore, it was the custom in Bach's time to set music to words with the indifference that in Rossini has been described as Olympian. Take this Mass. The Bachite dreams of his revered master as writing it on his knees, with a prayer over each measure, with the thought only of consecration to the Lord.
32What are the facts?
34The sections of the Mass were written at various times without any unity of purpose, and for no particular occasion. Bach took the Kyrie and the Gloria with him to Dresden to gain the favor of Frederick Augustus, Prince of Poland and Lithuania and Duke of Saxony. He wrote to this ruler a letter which if it had been written by some starving maker of operas would be dubbed sniveling and cringing. He belittled the worth of his work; he told the story of a diminished income at Leipzig; and if he could only be given the title "Praedicat" he would be ever grateful, and he would compose in the honor of the ruler cantatas and all sorts of music forever and forever, amen. The august monarch paid no attention to him at the time, nor did he show any willingness to hear the two portions of the Mass.
36Furthermore, Bach did not always write this music for the particular words. The Gratias is taken from a cantata to celebrate the election of a municipal council at Leipzig in 1731. We elect a mayor here next Tuesday, and Mr. Lang would have done well if he had kept the Mass for the civic result. The music would then have voiced the joy of the victor. The Crucifixus is taken from a Jubilate—of all things in the world. The Agnus Dei is from an Ascension cantata.
38And how inappropriate, incongruous—at least to the feeling of this period—is much of the music. Is there any
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