USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 55
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431
THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.
The Musical Fund Orchestra plucked up new courage and persevered through several seasons more of useful concerts, not resting until it had accumulated a library and a fund, which is still a source of benefit to fami- lies of members in distress.
Let us glance now at a kindred, though a smaller, field of choicest influ- ence, - that of Chamber Concerts; of quartets, quintets, trios, etc., in clas- sical sonata form, for the violin family of instruments. These appeal to select circles in small halls or parlors, and wherever established they become living springs of pure, sincere, refined, and thoughtful love of music. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their followers have bequeathed much of their most imaginative conception and consummate art in these forms; indeed, often anticipating their own riper periods in their earlier creations of this kind: the very freedom and seclusion, from all outward ends, of such pure music-making seems to have tempted them above themselves, beyond the limits of routine. Boston owes its foretastes of such art to the three short series of Chamber Concerts given by the Harvard Musical Association (of which hereafter) at Chickering's -warerooms, between 1844 and 1850; though a few concerts in the same direction had been enjoyed at Cambridge two years earlier. The first series of eight was led by the violinist Herwig, much regretted in the second series of six. Mr. Lange was the excellent pianist; sometimes also the young William Mason and Mr. William Scharf- enberg of New York. The last series of four concerts was given at Cochit- uate Hall, with Carl Hohnstock as leading violinist, and his sister Adele as the charming singer.
This appetite once awakened, there was soon call for a more permanent organization, devoted to this special field; and in the winter of 1849-50 the Mendelssohn Quintette Club, still alive and active, first came into notice. It sprang, like many other clubs, from social practice in a private house, and drew the enthusiastic nucleus of an audience with it. For a number of years it was composed of August Fries, first violin; Rziha, second; Leh- mann and Thomas Ryan, violas; and Wulf Fries, 'cello. Theirs were the most classical of programmes,-quintets, quartets, octets, etc., for strings, varied by piano sonatas, trios, and the like; with such pianists as J. L. Hatton, Scharfenberg, Jaell, Dresel; and such singers as Miss Adele Hohn- stock, Fanny Frazer, Anna Stone, August Kreissmann, and many others of the best available. No winter passed for many years without from six to ten such concerts at Cochituate Hall, at the Masonic Temple, at Chick- ering's tasteful little hall, at the Meionaon, and other convenient places. In nine years (to anticipate) this club went far toward exhausting the standard library of classical chamber-music .! All this between 1849 and 1858, and
1 It gave : of Bach, one of the triple concertos, the Violin Chaconne, etc .; of Haydn, thirteen string quartets, -from two to eight times each ; Mozart, seven quintets, ten quartets, two sextets, and several trios with piano, - most of them over and over ; Beethoven, three quintets, scxtet,
ten quartets, six piano trios, two concertos, sev- eral sonata duos, -all repeatedly; Hummel, three piano trios, two concertos ; Cherubini, Quartet in E-flat,-four times ; Schubert, two quartcts, two piano trios ; Spohr, thrce quintets, and clarinct concerto; Onslow, eight quintets and a four-hand
432
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
all the best of it repeatedly! Admitting that it was mostly the exclusive privilege of the few, an audience seldom exceeding two hundred persons, and sometimes not half that number, yet was not the good influence sure to make itself felt in ever widening circles? And, indeed, through frequent excursions of the club the seeds found lodgement in various local soils throughout New England.
Meanwhile the vocal societies kept on their way. The Handel and Haydn, a slender stream where we left it in 1840, was widening and deep- ening ; enlarging its chorus, -that poor average of fifty singers having per- haps quadrupled itself; enlarging its orchestra, - a natural consequence of all those Academy, Musical Fund, and Germania concerts, - in fact at one time employing the Germania, to the chagrin of "resident musicians; " availing itself of European vocalists of note; and learning many new works, now standard oratorios, now " sops to Cerberus " from operas with Bible subjects. To Handel's Messiah and Dettingen Te Deum it added, in 1845, Samson, which it has since given nearly forty times; in 1847, Fudas Maccabæus (at least twenty times). Spohr's Last Judgment was sung in 1842, and eight times in two years. But an era in its history was the taking up of Mendelssohn's St. Paul in 1843 (it had first been sung in Trinity Church), followed by the Elijah in 1848. The former received ten repre- sentations, the latter forty-four, before 1879; it proving here, as in England, the most popular, after the Messiah, of all oratorios. Rossini's Stabat Mater was added to the list in 1843, and has been sung many times since then; and Moses in Egypt, adapted from the opera, in 1845. This figured forty-five times down to 1868. Donizetti's Martyrs, another adapted opera, was sung seven times in 1849 and 1850. The first conductor by election was the well known English singer and composer Charles E. Horn ( 1847-49). Mr. Charles C. Perkins (who now again for several years has been the. president) assumed the bâton in 1850. Mr. J. E. Goodson, the English organist, was chosen conductor for one year in 1851. The organists through , nearly all this period were the Messrs. Hayter, father and son. The prin- .cipal solos were commonly entrusted to the best resident singers, some of whom won more than a local reputation, - notably Miss Anna Stone (now Mrs. Dr. Eliot, in New York), whose clarion soprano voice, and free, bril- liant execution in "Let the bright Seraphim," as well as in Moses in Egypt, and the like, are still quoted with enthusiasm. There was also Mrs. Frank- lin and, among other young sopranos, the Misses Taylor, Frost, Doane, and Webb, and the contralto Miss Humphrey. The veteran artistic tenor James Sharpe still held out. Among the basses figured Mr. Thomas Ball the sculptor (notably in Elijah), and Mr. Aiken. Of foreign celebrities the
sonata; Mendelssohn, quintets in A and in B-flat (the latter the club's corner-stone), both a dozen times, seven string quartets, and three with piano, two piano trios, the Octet, four sonata duos, etc. ; Schumann, two quartets, the piano quintet, Romanzas with clarinet; Rubinstein,
three quartets ; besides many works of Mos- cheles, Ries, Weber, Chopin, Gade, Kalliwoda, V. Lachner, Veit, F. David, Gouvy, Brahms, and several quartets and quintets composed by members and friends of the club.
433
THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.
first was the great English tenor Braham, in 1841, the richness, power, and volume of whose voice, though past its prime, and whose grand style, especially in musical declamation, made the liveliest impression. Then there was the English tenor Jones, in Samson, and Henry Phillipps (1844), and our own Eliza Biscaccianti, and Miss Frazer, and the clever J. L. Hatton, Signor Perelli, Signor Rosi, and many more. The oratorios were still given in the Melodeon; the chorus, in numbers, balance, dis- cipline, effectiveness, was far below the present standard, yet its course was upward.
Other choral societies were still active, especially the Musical Education Society, which, under the direction of Mr. Webb, in the spring of 1849, gave probably the first performance in America of Handel's Alexander's Feast, with the aid of the Musical Fund Orchestra and of five young so- prano singers, two of them, Miss Frost and Miss Doane, pupils of that sterling artist and sweet tenor singer August Kreissmann, who took part himself. The same society, in the two following years, was the first to give us Handel's Fephthal and the sublime .Israel in Egypt. In January, 1848, Mr. A. U. Hayter announced the performance on successive Saturday eve- nings of those genial secular creations of Handel, L'Allegro ed il Pensieroso, Acis and Galatea, and Alexander's Feast, but was discouraged by the small attendance at the first.
The tendency of all these movements thus far had been mainly toward the German music. We have now to recognize a counter-current. In the spring of 1847 (the very year, as we have said, in which the symphonies of the Academy shrank into silence) the Italian Opera came with potent charm, and conquered. Then arose conflict of opinions and tastes, - end- less discussion, often heated, often idle, of the rival merits of the Italian and the German music. Boston, before this time, had witnessed only some occasional slight skirmishes of wandering lyric troupes, - sporadic cases of the opera fever, but no epidemic; small companies of English singers sang translated German, French, and Italian operas, or thin and threadbare sketches of them, as well as works of English manufacture.
We pass them all and come to the advent of Signor Marti's Havana troupe of Italian singers, who made that little Howard Athenæum1 a classi- cal temple of the Muse for two successive seasons. They opened, April 23, 1847, with the first strong blast of Verdi's music, which was like a north- west wind after the tropical and languid melodies of Donizetti and Bellini. The piece was Ernani ; the singers, Signorina Tedesco, Signors Perelli, Vita, and Novelli. Other leading artists of the company were Mme. Car- anti - Vita, Mme. Rainieri, Signors Severi, F. Badiali (tenor), etc. Among the pieces given were Verdi's I Lombardi, Pacini's Saffo, Bellini's Montec- chi e Capuletti, Rossini's Mosé, etc .; and, of more consequence than all, if
1 In 1845, the world having failed to come to an end according to prediction, the “ Millerite Tabernacle " was converted into Boston's oper-
VOL. IV. - 55.
atic cradle, under the name of Howard Athe- næum, which it still holds as a popular " Va- riety " theatre, so to speak.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
not widely popular at once, Mozart's Don Giovanni, with funny Sanquirico as Leporello. Undoubtedly Italian Opera was uppermost for the time being; and the enthusiasm about it was something for which youth may be envied. With many it was the first musical awakening. Sensibilities thus roused became alive to even nobler music in the course of time. Many might have lived and died insensible to Beethoven, had not gentle Bellini first seduced them from the prose and commonplace of life into the won- der-world of song.
In the following year the queenly Truffi, with the manly tenor Bene- · detti, the stentorian Beneventano, Rosi, Rossi-Corsi, and others, wrought an equal charm in Mercadante's Il Giuramento, in Lucrezia Borgia, and Lucia ; and Mme. Biscaccianti joined them in Sonnambula, Lucia, and Ernani. In 1849 Mr. Fry of Philadelphia brought us the French singers M. and Mme. Laborde, M. Dubreuil, etc., giving Lucia, L'Elisir d' Amore, Verdi's Nabucco and Lombardi, etc. The summer of 1851 is memorable for the first appearance of Max Maretzek's troupe, - Truffi, Bettini, Marini, Beneventano, Lorini, and Mme. Parodi, who had been imported in the vain hope of eclipsing Jenny Lind. Their spirited performance of La Favorita created a furore out of all proportion to the intrinsic value of the music. Let us not forget, too, the rare combination in 1850 of that " bright particular star " (by many esteemed only next in glory to the Lind) Mme. Angiolina Bosio, with the noble tenors Salvi and Bettini, and the superb baritone and basso, Badiali and Marini.
So much for those visitations of the Siren. The record is but frag- mentary and somewhat confused. For more. exact details there is no room, -in fact, no need; for these wandering constellations did not favor Boston more than other cities, and constitute no portion of her musical peculium. Opera, not yet established here, can count but incidentally in the direct line of influences which have placed this city where it stands to-day in music, and it is with these influences mainly that this sketch is concerned.
THIRD PERIOD, 1852-66 .- At the entrance to this third period stands the figure of the great singer and great artist Jenny Lind. The want of a hall large enough and fit for her to sing in led to the erection of the Boston Music Hall, which opened a new chance for great music in our city. In the same year (1852) was begun the publication of Boston's only long-lived musical periodical, Dwight's Journal of Music. Both of these sprang from the little society of musical graduates of Harvard College which called itself the Harvard Musical Association. The great Swedish singer's career in this country was in the years 1850-52. We need not recall the wonderful impression which her song produced, and the new interest and faith in music as an art divine which she inspired. Boston only shared this fine experience with other cities, although it is something pleas- ant to remember that her marriage to Otto Goldschmidt took place in a Boston family.
435
THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.
The Music Hall project had first been agitated in the council of the Mu- sical Fund Society, at the earnest suggestion of Dr. J. Baxter Upham, whose name has always been identified with its whole history. Failing there, the idea was revived at the annual meeting of the Harvard Musical Association (Jan. 31, 1851), in the course of some informal conversation at the supper- table, resulting in the appointment of a committee (Messrs. C. C. Perkins, R. E. Apthorp, J. B. Upham, George Derby, and J. S. Dwight) to consider the subject practically. A subsequent committee determined the site and general plan of the proposed edifice, selected Mr. George Snell as architect, and canvassed for subscriptions to its stock, raising funds to the amount of $100,000 in sixty days. Among the largest subscribers stand the names of Perkins, Curtis, Upham, Chickering, and Apthorp.' The Hon. C. P. Curtis was the first president of the board of seven directors, but soon resigned the place to Dr. Upham, who has held it ever since. The main hall is sixty feet in height, one hundred and twenty feet in length, and eighty feet in width, and comfortably seats two thousand seven hundred persons. It is grand in its proportions, chaste and noble in its style; and with the imposing front of its great organ, with Crawford's statue of Beethoven in rich Munich bronze, with the admirable bas-reliefs on the opposite wall, the gift of Charlotte Cushman, and with the beauty of its general aspect, it is a place where all suggestions to the eye are in æsthetic keeping with, and predisposing to, the full enjoyment of fine music. Experience from the first has proved it ad- mirably good for sound, the only objection being that, unless the musical forces are upon a scale commensurate with so large a space, some of the finer effects are lost, or not sufficiently intense. The new hall was inaugurated on Saturday evening, Nov. 20, 1852, with a grand musical festival, before two thousand five hundred people, fitly opening with Mozart's Zauberflöte Over- ture, by the Fund Orchestra, who also played the overture to Oberon, and the andante to the C-minor Symphony of Beethoven. The Handel and Haydn Society sang the Hallelujah Chorus and " The Heavens are Telling; " the Musical Education Society contributed the lovely chorus " Happy and Blest," from St. Paul; the German Liederkranz, under Mr. Kreissmann, some beautiful part-songs. Mme. Alboni's large and lus- cious tones told upon every ear with roundness and distinctness in music of her countrymen; and the Germania Serenade Band played A Greeting to the Fatherland. On the next (Sunday) evening a sacred concert was given there by another of the world's great singers, Mme. Sontag, with the Handel and Haydn Society ; and it was remarked that her softest pianissimo tones, her finest fioriture, were heard with perfect distinctness in the remot- est corners of the hall beneath the balcony. From that time the new hall became the scene of countless musical performances, many of them of the noblest character, such as would otherwise have been denied to Boston. From that time she could offer a more tempting hospitality to famous artists from abroad. On Feb. 5, 1853, its walls resounded for the first time with the sublime Choral Symphony of Beethoven, given by the Germania,
436
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
with Handel and Haydn chorus. On March 1, 1856, there was a Beethoven Festival, for the inauguration of Crawford's noble statue, - the gift of our townsman Charles C. Perkins. There was an inspiring ode, written and recited by another townsman living for many years in Rome,-the sculptor William W. Story. The music consisted of the three instrumental move- ments of the Ninth Symphony, the great soprano scena and aria from Fidelio, sung by Mrs. J. H. Long; the " Quartet in Canon," from the same (Mrs. Wentworth, Mrs. Harwood, Mr. Low, and Mr. Wetherbee) ; the Violin Concerto (Mr. August. Fries) ; the hallelujah chorus, from the Mount of Olives ; and the choral fantasia, in Praise of Harmony, in which the donor of the statue himself played the piano-forte part. On New Year's Day, 1863, at noon, that hall was the scene of the memorable jubilee con- cert in honor of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, when Emerson first read his famous Boston Hymn for prologue; and the music consisted of the Egmont Overture ; the solo and chorus from the Hymn of Praise, -" Watchman, will the Night soon Pass?" (Mr. Kreissmann) and the response, "The Night is Departing," in which the clear clarion tones of Miss Houston (Mrs. West) made a thrilling impression ; Beethoven's E-flat Concerto, played by Otto Dresel; Dr. Holmes's Army Hymn, composed for solo and chorus by Dresel; the Fifth Symphony; the chorus "He, Watch- ing over Israel," from Elijah; Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, and the over- ture to William Tell, -all music up to the true pitch and sense of the occasion.
There was still wanting, to complete the Music Hall, especially for ora- torios, that "temple within temple," the Great Organ. For this, too, we are indebted to the indefatigable energy and zeal of Dr. Upham. It was years in process of construction, and then kept back by the dangers of transportation during the war. It was from the celebrated manufactory of Walcker & Son, at Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart. Its four manuals and pedal command eighty-nine registers and five thousand four hundred and seventy-four pipes, including three thirty-two foot stops. It was at that time by far the largest organ on this continent, and one of the three or four largest in the world. It was dedicated Nov. 2, 1863, when an ode by Mrs. James T. Fields was recited by Miss Charlotte Cushman, followed by some of the noblest organ works of Bach, Handel, Palestrina, Mendelssohn, and Lefebure Wely, played by Messrs. J. K. Paine, G. W. Morgan, B. J. Lang, S. P. Tuckerman, Eugene Thayer, and J. H. Wilcox. Fortunately the re- turn, shortly before this time, of Mr. Paine from his studies in Germany, full of the music and traditions of Sebastian Bach, brought that greatest of all organ music into frequent hearing through the medium of this new gigantic instrument, and his efforts found emulous and able seconding in several of the organists just named. It must be confessed, with some shame now, that those organ concerts for a year or two gave far more of the highest class of organ compositions than we have had a chance to hear more recently.
437
THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.
Of the Journal of Music, above named, it is not for the present writer to say more than this, that it has had a longer career than any other jour- nal of the kind in this country (from April, 1852, until September, 1881) ; that it has been recognized at home and abroad as generally faithful to the highest standard in art, and has the credit of having contributed something to the musical culture, taste, and character of Boston; its forty volumes contain a much completer record of the musical events and growth of Boston for the past thirty years than it is possible to condense into a chapter like this.
Here seems to be the place to speak of the Harvard Musical Associa- tion, which gave the first start and godspeed to the Music Hall and Four- nal; which, as we have seen, set the first public example of Chamber Concerts in this city; and the influence of which, although it is for the most part but a private, social union, has been felt in many ways, directly or indirectly, as a promoter of musical progress and refinement. It is a child of Harvard University, and was organized, in the autumn of 1837, among the alumni who had been members of the little college club called the Pierian Sodality, which used to make the music at the college exhibi- tions, besides serenading and playing together for mutual pleasure and improvement. Music at that period did not stand high in favor with the teachers or the parents of most students. To have a weakness for a flute or viol, or to sing aught but " sacred " music, was a thing " suspect" and leading to temptation. The idea that music is an art of intellectual and spiritual consequence, that it should be respected and placed upon an equal footing with the recognized " humanities " of a liberal education, would have been dismissed as one of the wildest and most dangerous of dreams. But not so thought the more earnest of the musical young men, and some of the older graduates who knew about it from their own experience: Sev- eral of these were present on one of those exhibition days, and partook of a sociable collation as the guests of the immediate members of the Sodality, some of them just then upon the point of graduation; and the idea oc- curred that it would be a pleasant and perhaps a useful thing to form a permanent society of old and young Pierians. There would be at least the pleasure of from time to time reviving the musical memories of college life ; while a league, in the name and interest of music, of so many college- educated men, would in itself tend to raise the art in general respect, par- ticularly among the authorities of the College. The immediate end was social and sentimental, but it was foreseen that in these reunions opportu- nities and motives would arise for helping the cause of music in more ways than one. For one thing, a united force of opinion would be brought to bear in favor of some practical recognition of music as a branch of college education, and the way prepared for the establishment of a musical profes- sorship, - all which has come about. Lectures were given upon music, mostly in its æsthetic aspects, by several members, in the college chapel during the Commencement week, for half-a-dozen years; and on the com-
438
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
pletion of the year 1850 an elaborate and interesting address was delivered before the association, at Cochituate Hall, by Mr. Samuel Jennison, Jr., on the "Music of the past Half-century." Social glee-clubs were formed, with instrumental music for variety. A musical library was begun, which has now grown to several thousand volumes, including the complete works of many of the masters, besides a large representation of the musical lit- erature, both books and periodicals, in English, German, French, Italian, etc., and a large collection of vocal and orchestral "parts." It is prob- ably one of the three or four fullest and most valuable musical libraries in America; and its example has led to liberal provision for the musical department in the Boston Public Library, the library at Harvard, and some others.1 The respect for music among educated men has unconsciously obeyed the concentration of still magnetic force in this association. Before entering the field of public concert-giving, it has helped to raise the tone of musical activity around us, and has lent encouragement, if not the first vital impulse, to not a few good works and movements in furtherance of the art which is its bond of union. Even when it has found nothing visible .to put its hand to, it has not been without its silent influence. Its most im- portant public work belongs to the period after the War of the Rebellion, when it began those annual series of Symphony Concerts which have con- tinued to this day. Of these hereafter. It now numbers about one hun- dred and forty members, including some of the most honored alumni of Harvard and other universities, besides many of the most refined and gifted of the musical profession.
Foremost and most constant among the societies which availed them- selves of the new Music Hall was the Handel and Haydn Society, whose progress we have briefly sketched thus far. In such a hall for oratorio upon a grander scale, with conveniences for rehearsal in the Bumstead Hall beneath, it soon took a new start. The chorus gradually increased in numbers, although it was some years yet before it averaged two hundred in performance. In 1858-59 from three hundred to three hundred and twenty- five singers were reported in the seats, including, however, many who had not attended rehearsals. What first raised the standard in numbers and efficiency was the first bold venture of a three-days' Musical Festival, after the model of those at Birmingham and other towns in England. This was in May, 1857. For this the chorus was increased to over five hundred voices, with an orchestra of seventy-eight. Out of the recruits for this and' later festivals many of course became interested in the work and spirit of the society, and from year to year were added to its list of members. That Festival, though not remunerative, gave new life and energy and larger pur- pose to the old society. There was an opening address by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, from which we have already quoted. Three oratorios - the three most popular, the Creation, Elijah, and the Messiah - were given, Carl Zerrahn conducting. The principal singers were : soprano, Mrs. Eliot
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