Scan 14
Musical Courier 1901-12-11: Vol 43 Iss 1133, 1901
50 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 15. See the scan on archive.org.
1spirit of prayer in the "Quisedes"—"Thou that sitteth at the right hand"? Is there any entreaty for mercy? The alto sings an ornamented air, with four measures or more of running passages on the syllable "se," while an oboe d'amore plays an obligato. I am not speaking of the value of the air as music without association of words. The air is one of the finest—and they are few—in the Mass. But the sentiment as felt by Bach and the men of his generation is as obsolete as the oboe d'amore itself.
3So there are choruses, pages of them, that are without aesthetic or religious significance. They are long sandy stretches, through which the singers plod their weary way. Study for a moment the passage in the Creed which begins with the announcement of the descent from heaven and includes the incarnation and the crucifixion. Is there even a mood of contemplation suggested? Or take the setting of "Et in terra pax hominibus."
5The orchestration soon becomes intolerable. Think of the endless treadmill of the 'cellos and basses, so monotonous as are the cadences themselves. How many rigid lines in this music instead of curves; how many geometric effects! Look at that painful solo "Laudamus te!" which the singer may well read "We praise Thee—because we are through with it without a breakdown." How many pages that are purely didactic!
7I am not so foolish as to deny the splendor, the sublimity of certain pages, but why should not one discriminate in the case of Bach as in that of Händel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi, Tschaikowsky, Richard Strauss?
9For this performance by the Cecilia oboi d'amore, high trumpets and a corno da caccia were borrowed. The solo for the unusual oboe was exquisitely played by Mr. Lenom, and the trumpets were effective; but even with these instruments it is impossible for us to hear the orchestra as Bach heard it. Flutes were different in his day; he had no 'cellos as we understand them. He had the viol da gamba and the violoncello-piccolo, which was probably tuned to the octave of the violin. He did not make much of the bassoon, and he generally used it to double the "basso continuo," although he was perhaps the first to put it in unison with his substitute for 'cello. In many of his cantatas the orchestration is ingenious and constantly varied; but I submit respectfully that in the Mass it is generally heavy and tiresome.
11Why should the Mass, I repeat, be sung as a whole? Some of the choruses and one or two solos are enough.
13The performance of the chorus was accurate, sonorous, brilliant at times in tonal body and lustre. It was not expressive, for there was little or no nuancirung. At times there was ugly and grotesque accentuation, for the sake no doubt of keeping the singers together. The atrociously difficult solos were sung by Mrs. Kathrin Hilke, Miss Adelaide Griggs, Miss Adah Hussey, Messrs. Van Hoose, Townsend, Hay. one of two readings
14The performance of the chorus was accurate, sonorous, brilliant at times in tonal body and lustre. It was not expressive, for there was little or no nuancirung. At times there was ugly and grotesque accentuation, for the sake no doubt of keeping the singers together. The atrociously difficult solos were sung by Mrs. Kathrin Hilke, Miss Adelaide Griggs, Miss Adah Hussey. Messrs. Van Hoose, Townsend, Hay. one of two readings
16One of the chorus asked me: "But was it not a good performance, when you take into consideration the fact that we rehearsed only for a comparatively short time." When it was decided to perform this Mass at a Paris Conservatory concert (1891) seventy picked singers studied the music for two years. To sing many notes courageously, accurately and at times with a noble shout is not all.
18Let me here note a singular fact. Lorée, of Paris, has tried to imitate the old oboe d'amour. His instrument has fine qualities, but the skilled in these matters say that absolute imitation is impossible. The primitive voice, as Constant Pierre puts it, is lost. Pierre goes so far as to claim that old instruments owe their particular timbre to rudimentary construction. "The more rationally they are made, the more the deviation of the holes has been suppressed or increased in number, the more has the sound been modified." The reed was stronger and coarser in those days. I am tempted to add that certain modern clarinets sound more and more like flutes and oboes like clarinets.
20The program of the Symphony concert last night was as follows:
22Overture, Don Giovanni………………………………………Mozart
23Concerto in A minor, No. 5………………………………….Vieuxtemps
24Ein Heldenleben…………………………………………………Strauss
25Symphony No. 2…………………………………………………Beethoven
27This was a singularly arranged program. Was the purpose to rebuke the obstreperous Strauss by the suavity of Beethoven? The overture to "Don Giovanni" is ineffective, futile outside of a small theatre. And after the Violin Concerto of Vieuxtemps came a tone poem in which there are long, bizarre, extremely difficult passages for the first concertmaster.
29Strauss' colossal work was loudly applauded. A novelty of simpler and immediately pleasing structure and decoration has seldom if ever been received here so enthusiastically.
31"Ein Heldenleben" has been carefully reviewed in THE MUSICAL COURIER by Mr. Floersheim and Mr. Huneker. I do not propose to go over the ground. Yet I cannot refrain from recording my wonder, admiration, enthusiasm. There are unforgettable, amazing passages. The section of the hero is surely sufficiently orthodox for the most hardened formalist. The musical characterization of the foes of the hero is a masterpiece of grim, sardonic humor. And those tubas which, as they say, give out in fifths the portentous objection of a certain Leipsic doctor to Strauss' music. The first part of the love music, where the beloved one is coy and coquetish, seems after one hearing too long, and—uninteresting. But there are beautiful measures in this section. I know of few such glorious bursts as the hymn of victory that follows the battle. And from there to the finale is a succession of eloquent, gorgeous, deeply moving pages. How wonderful the weaving together of the quotations from earlier works. The mood of the finale is that of Beethoven in contemplation, brooding as Buddha.
33In former works of Strauss there has been too often an absence of fundamental bass. The structure has seemed as in the air. This reproach cannot be brought against "Ein Heldenleben"; the bass is here granitic, as though it reached far down into the bowels of the earth.
35And why do some object to the battle scene? Why should not tonalities war one against the other in a portrayal of the din and shock of the fight? Such music must necessarily be more or less panoramic, but Strauss' music is much more than this. Years ago Beethoven's "Battle of Vittoria" was produced here—I think by J. L. Hatton, with the advertisement that all the proper effects would be supplied. What do the gentlemen miss in Strauss' scene? Cannon and the groans of the dying? Let them play neatly on the piano "The Battle of Prague." But to object because this music is discordant, or because certain "modulations are forced"—.
37Whether a battle should be portrayed in music or not is another question. The ancient Romans had an expression "to dance a tragedy" (saltare tragedeum). But "saltare" was something more than dancing as commonly understood among us, for the dancer made important use of arms rather than legs; and this dancing was the mute action of a man who translated by his gestures the idea that another expresses by words. Thus we find Coleridge speaking of the pleasure he felt in "beholding the combat of the Horatii and Curatii most exquisitely danced in Italy to the music of Cimarosa."
39Slavish imitation will not serve the purpose. And I commend to doubters about the art of Strauss this passage from De Quincey:
41"If a man * * * should say that he would 'whistle Waterloo'—that is by whistling connected with pantomime would express the passion and the charges of Waterloo—it would be monstrous to refuse him his postulate on the pretense that 'people did not whistle at Waterloo.' * * * It is the very worst objection in the world to say that the strife of Waterloo did not reveal itself through whistling. Undoubtedly it did not; but that is the very ground of the man's art. He will reproduce the fury and the movements as to the only point which concerns you, viz, the effect upon your own sympathies, through a language that seems without any relation to it; he will set before you what was at Waterloo through that which was not at Waterloo—whereas any direct factual imitation, resting upon painted figures dressed up in regimentals, and worked by watchwork through the whole movements of the battle, would have been no art whatsoever in the sense of a Fine Art, but a base mechanic mimicry."
43Mr. Gregorowitsch played the concerto by Vieuxtemps with full technical mastery, pure and sustained sentiment, and rare elegance.
45AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS.—The sixteenth public service of the American Guild of Organists (the first of the present season) will be held at St. Bartholomew's Church, Thursday evening, December 12, under the direction of Richard Henry Warren, organist and choirmaster.
47The choir will sing a "Magnificat" and "Nunc Dimittis," by Palestina, a "Pater Noster," by Henry Holden Huss, and "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place," Brahms. The organ voluntary will be played by Clarence Eddy.
49ERSKINE PORTER.—Master Erskine Porter, the gifted boy soprano, sang at a meeting of the Cambridge Club, of Brooklyn, on December 2. The sweet little singer delighted the members and astonished them, too, for his numbers showed that the little artist has intelligence as well as a rare voice. The songs included "The Trout," by Schubert; "Hush, My Little One," by Benjamin; "Songs My Mother Taught Me," Dvorák; "Summer," by Chaminade.
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