Scan 16
Musical Courier 1903-01-28: Vol 46 Iss 1192, 1903
18 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
1one, are matters left to the clergy, churchwardens and town councillors, and I don't know whether the parson, the church warden or the town councillor is the least competent to deal with such things. I do know that not one of them will buy a new one till the old begins to tumble about their ears. Soup kitchens, blankets, coals, new things for the altar, new pews for the congregation—all these must come before the organ. And even when there is money to spare only one argument influences them. That argument is the organ is not big enough. Big, big, big! that is the great thing, and the result is that wretched bogus builders get jobs and put in huge blatant machines with dozens of useless sham stops, with mechanism that goes to the devil in six months and that never have, from the beginning, any quality of tone. I know fifty churches in London where the organs are much too big, with organs that ought to be taken down and promptly burnt and replaced by smaller and really beautiful instruments. A good organ is, I repeat, a rarity, and our organists are doomed for many years to come to sweat at things on which none but the most primitive music can be played. The organ is often called the king of instruments. A bad, old fashioned organ is a tyrant. He makes slaves of the greatest masters; great and little are one to him. But especially he detests modern masters. The most skillful player cannot persuade him to let an arrangement of a modern piece of music sound anything like the real thing.
3So much for the organs—let us consider the work at which the church organist is kept all his days. It goes without saying that most organists are church organists; there are few towns which pay their organist, even if they have one; only the churches pay, and often pay preposterously low salaries. I figured it out recently that one of the largest London churches paid at the rate of about one shilling an hour. The church organist sits down and plays a voluntary while the members of the congregation enter more or less noisily; then he plays harmonized chants some fifty or sixty times over—a deadly, monotonous business into which he can only put a little variety by drawing and shoving in his stops, and thus changing his tone colors; he also accompanies anthems—and tedious affairs our English anthems are—and he plays various harmonized hymn tunes half a dozen times or more apiece. Then he has the satisfaction of playing a noisy piece to cover the row made as the congregation disperses. I know there are churches where set "services" are sung; but they are poor things as a rule, and at best he is in no better position than an accompanist at a vocal concert. Great pianists are not made by keeping young men at accompanying singers—no one will do that work if he can get anything more interesting to do. Yet it is all the organist may look forward to. Is it surprising that the most brilliant youngsters speedily grow dull, that all life goes out of their playing and all ambition out of themselves?
5There, then, we have the whole matter; poor instruments, mainly dull routine work to do on it, and in consequence on the one hand a few brilliant players such as those I have mentioned and Mr. Eddy, and on the other hand a number of poor players who have lost any musicianship they may ever have possessed. Also, another consequence, nothing but mediocre music. Nothing could well be less interesting than the pieces contained in the program given above. Whether, now that fine and manageable organs are being built, musicians will take up the instrument and composers write fresh and original music for it, is a question concerning which I will not risk prophecy. My impression is that they won't; for the organ is an Old World instrument, invented for and adapted to the expression of Old World feeling; for the expression of our modern fevers it is not adapted. The next twenty or thirty years will show. JOHN F. RUNCIMAN.
7CHARLES WILLEBY.
9THOSE in this country who have watched the progress of things musical in Europe during the last two years cannot fail to have remarked the sure and rapid advancement to the very front rank of contemporary song composers of Charles Willeby. Beginning unostentatiously without heralding of any kind, this young musician has forged ahead until now he stands conspicuous among his fellows not only as a fine composer but as a successful one, and by that we mean successful at once artistically and commercially; a rare achievement, indeed. The quality and quantity of the artists who have taken up his songs of late is of itself extraordinary. Albani, Lillian Blauvelt, Blanche Marchesi, Ada Crossley, Kirkby Lunn, Agnes Nicholls, David Bispham, William Green, Dr. Theo. Lierhammer (the great Viennese baritone) represent the very flower of European artists, and they are only a fraction of those who have been singing Charles Willeby during the past year. At this moment Madame Albani is singing two of his greatest successes, "Four Leaf Clover" and "The Birds Go North Again" (which, although published no more than some twelve months ago, have already appeared on more than 1,000 concert programs), at every concert on her Canadian tour. Mme. Lillian Blauvelt is singing "Stolen Wings" (his latest and perhaps in some respects his best effort) at the majority of her forthcoming engagements, while from the programs of Miss Ada Crossley Charles Willeby's name is seldom absent. Indeed, she it is who may be said in the first instance to have drawn serious attention to the composer's work. She brings with her to this country a new contralto song written especially for her, entitled "Summer Rain"—a song which will leave an impression upon all who hear it.
11"Summer Rain" (which is dedicated to the Princess of Wales) is a sequel to the first work of this composer, which commanded the well nigh universal admiration of the London press—a song cycle entitled "Hawthorn and Lavender," the verse of which is of the very cream of William Ernest Henley's genius. Writing in the London Pall Mall Gazette, the critic of that journal has this to say: "We have before now discussed in this column what may be called the material ethics of song writing. We have, however, quite recently been brought en face with the work of an English song writer who, as it seems to us, to a large extent fulfils our ideal of how so slender and fugitive a thing as a lovely casual lyric may be made marmoreal by the fixing witchery of music. Charles Willeby is a musician of whom the world has not so far as his song writing goes heard a great deal; nevertheless, he has contributed to the lyrical and musical thought of today a body of work which really belongs to a separately attractive art. He knows, in a word, how to write the 'song.' * * * Mr. Willeby has gone to an excellent source for his musical inspiration, for quite his best things are identified with some of the most exquisite verses written by W. E. Henley. * * * Mr. Henley writes literature that is almost music, and Mr. Willeby writes music that seems almost to possess a literary quality. There you have a combination that is almost ideal. Mr. Willeby has no part or share in the modern ballad. He has no sympathy with the ridiculous formulas which regulate the machinery of an absurd song under purely conventional conditions. In his setting of a cycle of six songs of W. E. Henley's he proves his musicianship no less than his originality of attitude. In a word, Mr. Willeby understands the genius of the song."
13It is interesting to look into the specimens of the composer's work with a view to ascertaining just where his songs excel. First it seems his choice of verse is something more than careful. These are no mere "words," but invariably poems. "Four Leaf Clover," "The Birds Go North Again," "Summer Rain" and "Stolen Wings," all are representative of their composer. In each case there is an exquisite poetic theme, logically worked out to its climax, without dissertation, but with all the fancy imaginable; in short, a beautiful lyric. And it is clothed with music which seems to spring from the very heart of it, so sympathetic it is, so full of the quality of atmosphere. Then, again, the writing for the voice is remarkable—it is lovingly careful. The composer knows his voices. Whether he be writing for soprano or contralto, tenor or bass—and he invariably writes for one particular voice—it is all as vocal as can be; the tessitura is on the voice.
15The secret of this is in large measure a natural gift, but in the case of Charles Willeby that gift has been perfected by a careful course of vocal study in Italy with the elder Lamperti. From him the composer learned all that there is to know about the capabilities and disabilities of the human voice. And this in a degree explains the partiality which vocalists of a high order have for his songs.
17But though their worth in these respects is great, their absolute musical value is their greatest value. Melodically they are fresh, original and delightful; harmonically, full of charm, color and diversity, and of great technical beauty. They were favorite songs with the late Sir Arthur Sullivan. Add to this that they are best when they are least complex, and you arrive at some understanding of the qualities which combine to give them the great vogue they are having, and to make Charles Willeby the most popular song composer among the younger men in England at the present time. His publishers are the John Church Company, of Cincinnati and London.
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