The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV, Part 58

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897, ed; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.), publisher
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Boston : Osgood
Number of Pages: 760

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The Boylston Club (formed May, 1873) was purely a male part-song club of younger men, who rehearsed for a long time privately under Mr. J. B. Sharland. It kept within the modest sphere of the part-song and chorale until it reached rare excellence in execution. It took a fresh start and en- tered on a wider field in 1875, when that accomplished singer and musician Mr. George L. Osgood took the helm as teacher and conductor. The choir then numbered about a hundred male voices, and, besides the choice part-songs with which it was continually replenishing its store, it attacked some larger works, -as the " Dies Ira," from Cherubini's Second Requiem, an Adoramus Te by Palestrina, Schumann's Gipsy Life, etc. In 1877 the club mated itself with an equally large and select choir of female voices, so that it could present works either for male, or female, or mixed chorus.2 The

[C. C. Felton], whose administration might well signalize itself by the production, some day, of an entire tragedy of Sophocles, with Mendels- sohn's noble music, by the students under his charge. His enjoyment would have been still more perfect, no doubt, had the choruses been sung in Greek instead of German."

1 To show how its scope has become enlarged from mere unaccompanied part-songs, we take the following summary from the programme-book of its tenth anniversary concert (April, 1881) : " The club has brought out the following works, some of them for the first time in this country : the Antigone, by Mendelssohn ; (Edipus at Colonus, by Mendelssohn; The Luck of Edenhall, by Schu- mann; The Flower Net, by Goldmark ; Chorus of Dervishes, by Beethoven ; A Vintage Song, by Mendelssohn ; Scenes from the Frithjof-Saga, by Max Bruch ; selections from A Night at Sea, by Tschirch ; The Warder Song, by Raff ; Forest- ers' Chorus, by Schumann ; To the Sons of Art, by

Mendelssohn ; Morning, by Rubinstein; A Ro- man Song of Triumph, by Max Bruch ; The Nun of Nidaros, by Dudley Buck ; Night on the Ocean, by Brambach ; The Almighty, by Schubert ; Cho- rus of Pilgrims, by Wagner; La Marseillaise, with instrumentation by Berlioz; and the Song of the Spirits over the Waters, by Schubert; also, with piano-forte accompaniment instead of an orchestra, the Prisoners' Chorus, from Fidelio, by Beethoven ; Easter Morning, by Hiller; Sa- lamis, by Gernsheim ; a part of Cherubini's Requiem ; Evening, by Lachner ; Hope, by Hil- ler ; and Alcestis, by Brambach."

2 Among the more important works which, through Mr. Osgood's zeal, it has produced are Palestrina's Mass for the Dead (a capella), twice ; an Eight-part motet by Bach; Astorga's Stabat Mater ; the Choral Hymn, by Brahms; Schubert's Night Song in the Forest, with four horns; and the posthumous psalm, By the Waters of Baby- lon, by Goetz, - this last alone with orchestra,

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

club in both its branches has reached a degree of excellence in singing which compares well with any of its rivals. Mr. Osgood's tenor solos, some- times in part-songs of his own composing, have often added interest.

The Cecilia, as an independent body, with Mr. Lang as musical direc- tor, gave its first concert in January, 1877, singing The Crusaders, by Gade.1 The Cecilia has employed an orchestra rather as the rule than the excep- tion. The printed annual reports of its president, Mr. S. L. Thorndike, full of thoughtful comment on its work and progress, may be counted among its valuable contributions to the musical movement of our city.

Each of these clubs has done much to raise the standard of good chorus- singing; to introduce larger works, in the form of secular cantata, etc. (in their integrity, with orchestra), which lie out of the range of oratorio so- cieties; and to bring forward promising young solo talent, which there is no room to enumerate, and which need not yet pass into history. They have called into existence a great crop of similar clubs, both here and elsewhere, - witness the Loring Club in San Francisco, whose founder and leader, Mr. David W. Loring, was one of the zealous members of our own Apollo, and carried the good seed with him when he emigrated thither.

This period has been the heyday (high day) of pianists. Of Dresel, Parker, Leonhard, we need not speak again. Ernst Perabo, just out of boy- hood, returned from study in Leipsic in 1866, and made a brilliant impres- sion in the closing concert of the first symphony season; since which day he has always held his own among the ablest interpreters of great piano music, drawn, evidently with peculiar love, to the sonatas of Beethoven and of Schubert, and the fugues, partitas, suites, etc., of Bach. Of visiting artists, Miss Alide Topp (1869), Miss Anna Mehlig (1870-72), Miss Marie Krebs (1871), and Mme. Arabella Goddard (in the Jubilee of 1872), were the fair harbingers of those two giants, Rubinstein and Hans von Bülow, who came in 1872 and 1875, - great suns who set the piano-playing and adoring world revolving round them, and aroused the passionate ambition of many a sleepless young Themistocles of either sex. Meanwhile, in De- cember, 1873, that attractive lady and pianist of the most finished Leipsic school, Mme. Madeline Schiller, made her début in the Symphony Con- certs, and remained here, much sought as a teacher and always a sure at- traction as performing artist, until the early summer of 1878. Boston could claim her as its own through all those years. Later (1877) came the

but no doubt the Boylston will soon come to that. Numerous cantatas, etc., of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, etc., have been sung. by this as by the other clubs. The accompani- ments (piano-forte) have commonly been played by Mr. Carlyle Petersilea, and the programmes have been varied with choice instrumental music and with solo airs.

1 It has since produced, - of Bach, two can- tatas, with orchestra, and several chorals ; Han- del's Acis and Galatea, and selections (with or- chestra) from L'Allegro, etc .; Mendelssohn's

Athalie, the Forty-third and Ninety-fifth Psalms, and the whole Midsummer Night's Dream music. with orchestra, and with the admirable reading of Mr. George Riddle ; Schumann's Manfred, with Mr. Howard Ticknor's reading, and scenes from Goethe's Faust, - both for the first time here, the latter twice, and with the aid of Mr. Hens- chel, Mr. C. R. Adams, Miss Gertrude Franklin, and other acceptable solo singers; Max Bruch's Odysseus and Fair Ellen ; H. Hoffmann's Fair Melusina ; and many fresh and well selected smaller works.

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THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.

charming and most graceful Russian lady, Mme. Essipoff, - by some mis- chance not sought here with so much enthusiasm as her rare artistic quali- ties deserved. In 1878-79 Franz Rummel paid us a few flying visits. In 1879 Rafael Joseffy gave us most plentifully out of his rich stores, and seemed to many to surpass all before. The last were Constantin Sternberg (Russian) and Oliver King, the young composer and pianist to the Princess Louise of Canada. Occasionally, too, came S. B. Mills and Richard Hoffman of New York, Mme. Rive-King, Mr. F. Boscovitz, and more.

In the mean time Boston has been rich in pianists of its own, among them three or four who are pre-eminent. Of Perabo we have already spoken. At about the same time with him, Carlyle Petersilea returned from Leipsic studies, who seems to have all the most difficult music at his fingers' ends, is equal to any task, whether in performance or accompani- ment, has many pupils, and indeed a flourishing Academy of Music, and would command many votes in any competition for the first rank. B. J. Lang, whom we have met all along the road in various useful functions, has grown year by year, by force of talent, unremitting industry, temperate self-control, practical wisdom, and high aim, to a position of the widest influence, perhaps, among all our resident musicians. He has probably taught more pupils than any other teacher. His days would hardly seem long enough for all these hours (Stunden), as the Germans call such les- sons; yet he has found time for a continual round of concerts and recitals, for the training and conducting of choral clubs, church choir, sometimes a symphony, for presiding at the organ in the oratorios, as well as at the piano in rehearsals, and for the bringing out of many new works of the larger kind. He, too, has been a teacher of teachers. It has been truly said of him that his pupils have become his disciples; they all espouse his cause, and he can always count upon their loyalty. Quite a group of these are among the most available and useful members of the active musical force of Boston, always ready in emergencies, where an able pianist, or three or four together (as in a Bach concerto), are required. The group includes Messrs. G. W. Sumner, G. A. Adams, H. G. Tucker, Arthur Foote, and J. A. Preston, all of whom give concerts and recitals of their own with programmes of great interest, and rank as excellent pianists ; and we must add (more on the ground of general musicianship and critical intelligence than of piano- playing as such) the name of William F. Apthorp. The youngest of these leading spirits, Mr. William H. Sherwood, came later (1876), and has had less time to carve out his quarter of the empire. His accomplished wife (Mrs. Mary Fay Sherwood, a gifted pupil of Dresel twenty years ago) shares his work and triumphs with him. Mr. Sherwood, a native of West- ern New York, is of the school of Kullak in Berlin, and won admiration there. His strong, vital touch and accent, the precision, fluency, and bril- liancy of his execution, and his almost boundless repertoire of masters old and new, have placed him among the foremost concert artists. He has an eager host of pupils, and he gets a deep hold on them if they have any

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

talent. Some of them have won distinction in their turn. Mr. Sherwood is always in demand for concerts, festivals, and Summer Normal Schools in other cities South and West. When we add to these the names of S. Lieb- ling, Otto Bendix, John Orth, H. P. Chelius, Edward B. Perry (a real artist, although robbed of sight), Miss S. Winslow (earnest pupil of the Stuttgart school), Miss Amy Fay (now in Chicago), Miss Josephine E. Ware, Mr. Warren Locke of Cambridge, Mr. T. P. Currier, and more too numerous to mention (for history must leave off unfinished in order to leave off at all), we find Boston amply provided with pianists, if with no other musical resources.

But while we count up all these hands and brains that have been weav- ing out before our hearing eyes so vividly and palpably the marvellous tone-poems of the piano-forte composers, let us not forget the instru- ment itself which has made this possible, and of whose manufacture and enormous multiplication Boston, from the first days of Jonas Chickering, has been one of the world's chief seats. If only to do honor to that name, which might have figured fitly and prominently in any one of the pre- ceding periods, we should dwell a moment here. Boston abounds in piano manufacturers, many of them prosperous and widely known, engaged in an extensive business; but all will heartily admit him, and the great house he has built up, to be the first and foremost of their craft. He did not live to enjoy our "heyday " of pianists (he died in December, 1853) ; but none the less has most of the music made here by the greater part of them been through the medium of the Chickering pianos. He "builded better than he knew." His superior intelligence, his inventive genius, and great moral force of character and purpose almost suffered in the general first impression that he made, from the remarkable development of all the kindly, generous, and gentle traits in him. He was a most simple, un- assuming, plain, and quiet person in his manner and appearance. The Irish singer, Henry Philips, in his Reminiscences (1843), having been engaged for the Handel and Haydn oratorios and invited to dine with the president of the society, says: "I had conceived Mr. Chickering to be a tall, stout man, somewhat proud and austere; good-hearted, but with an odd way of showing it. ... Judge of my astonishment, when a little thin person walked into the room, with a modest, ordinary, almost bashful cast of features, who shook me by the hand as if he had known me all his life, whose hard palm bore the evidence of labor, and whose dress might have been brushed with much advantage. He apologized for not being at home when I arrived; hoped I would pardon his appearance, for he had been hard at work in the warehouse. 'Mrs. Chickering will make up for my want of dress,' said he, with a smile; 'so I'll just polish my hands and we'll have dinner. Hayter will be here in a few minutes.'" And again : "How am I to speak of this man, whose affability, charity, hospitality, industry, humility, honor, and sobriety, all combined to render homage but a slight acknowledgment of his virtues."

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THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.

Do we not see the simple country lad, after he came to town, drawn to that Park Street choir, as the moth to the candle, and not quite happy until his voice could mingle in the harmony? Later we may see him, president- conductor, beating time for the Handel and Haydn chorus (1843-49) ; and again, in the days of his prosperity, extending hospitalities to musical artists, assisting young beginners, active in the councils of the Mechanics' Association, and a generous patron of all good charities and public enter- prises. Well and wittily was his health once given: "Jonas Chickering ! like his own pianos : Upright, Grand, and Square." 1

Of Chamber Music in the stricter sense of violin quartets, etc., during this period, there have been but flickering, though frequent, manifestations. The old Mendelssohn Quintette Club has grown more and more peripatetic, carrying the gospel of good music into distant parts, even to the Pacific coast; yet Boston has remained its home and starting-point, and all its " missionary work " has not prevented it from giving us, at the beginning or the end of every season, several rare feasts of the older and the new crea- tions in this form of art. , Its membership has changed repeatedly, Mr. Thomas Ryan alone maintaining the identity throughout. It was never, probably, in a more excellent condition than at present, - if its movement only were not so centrifugal !

In 1869 and in 1871 Mr. Bernhard Listemann undertook quartet mati- nées, which were too good to yield to first discouragements. Again in 1874-75 he formed a Philharmonic Quintette Club, which in its turn has dis- appeared. Several such Pleiad groups have sparkled for a while, and set too early. In 1873 Messrs. C. N. Allen, J. Mullaly, Wulf Fries, and others formed the Beethoven Quintette Club, which made good headway for a time; now, as a quartet club, with Mr. Gustav Dannreuther in the second place (sometimes alternating with the leader) it is doing excellent service, both in public and in " musicales " in private houses.

Most of the chamber-concerts of these years have been in the mixed form of trios or quartets in which the piano-forte holds the central place. Mr. J. C. D. Parker gave a course of trio-soirées in 1869; Mr. Arthur Foote another, every Saturday evening in February and March of the present year, assisted by Messrs. Allen, Dannreuther, Fries, etc., and with- choice song-selections; and the faithful teacher Mr. Junius Hill has for several years had trio practice carried on among his advanced pupils with the aid of professional artists. In all of these the programmes have been mainly

1 The magnitude and the importance of the piano-forte business in Boston has a signal illus- tration (since we have room for only one) in the note subjoined : -

DEAR SIR, - In reply to your request for statistics we will say, that Mr. Jonas Chickering began to manufacture Pianos in Boston, April 15, 1823. The first year he finished fifteen pianos. There were finished -

From 1823 to 1833

684 Pianos

= 1833 to 1843

4,170 "

VOL. IV .- 58.

From 1843 to 1853 1853 to 1863

7,546 Pianos.

11,393

" 1863 to 1873

7, 166 ,

Should the same number be finished in 1881 and 1882 that were produced last year, it will be safe to call the pro- duct from 1873 to 1883, 21,928. We anticipate an increase in this number.

Truly yours, CHICKERING & SONS.

[ See also Mr. Atkinson's chapter in the pres- ent volume. - ED.]

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

classical and most instructive. Other leading pianists - Perabo, Lang, Leonhard, etc. - have often introduced such trios, quartets, and quintets into their concerts and recitals; and the two Conservatories for years have ·kept up a continual round of chamber-matinées (mostly with piano and with singing) for the improvement of their throngs of pupils.

In 1879 was formed the Euterpe, a society having more of the elements of permanence. It holds itself free to choose its field in any form of music, but thus far it has devoted itself to the one form for which some institution was most needed, - to the violin, quartet, quintet, octet, and the like. Regard- ing such music as best suited to a comparatively small and select audience in a small hall, it has held a somewhat private and exclusive character, dispos- ing of its tickets personally, upon the " associate-membership " principle, and limiting the membership to one hundred and fifty subscribers, each entitled to two season tickets. It began Jan. 15, 1879, with a series of four concerts, and has since given two more series of five. Its policy has been to employ the best quartet parties of Boston and New York, alternately, in the inter- pretation of its strictly classical programmes, limited each time to two string compositions in sonata form.

Opera has still remained the beautiful exotic and capricious visitor it always was; the fever of a week or two, refusing any wholesome, permanent organic form. It has brought us in these fifteen years some famous singers, and given us first hearings of a few more or less important works. In 1867-68 there was the Strakosch Italian troupe, - Mme. Parepa-Rosa, Miss Phillipps, Signors Brignoli, Susini, etc .; afterward Mme. Lagrange; and there was a Maretzek troupe, including Mme. Rosa, Minnie Hauck, Ronconi, etc. In 1870 and in 1872 Mme. Rosa gave us good opera in English, with such singers as Mrs. Seguin, Miss Rose Hersée, Miss Clara Doria, Mlle. Van- zini, and Messrs. Castle, Lawrence, Tom Carl, Campbell, Cook, and others; and to her we owe the Oberon of Weber, the Water-Carrier of Cherubini, and Rossini's La Gazza Ladra, besides good familiar pieces. Then the Siren took the form of Christine Nilsson, in three several visits (1871-74), sup- ported by Miss Cary, Messrs. Capoul, Maurel, Jamet, etc., who for a novelty brought us Mignon by Ambroise Thomas; and we had Verdi's Aïda, sung by Mme. Torriani and Miss Cary, Signor Campanini, etc .; and at the new Globe Theatre three weeks of Mlle. Albani, who with Miss Cary, Signors Carpi, Del Puente, etc., gave us the first hearing of Wagner's Lohengrin (1875). In 1873 came Pauline Lucca, with Miss Kellogg and Mme. Di Murska; in 1876, for a few nights, the queenly Tietjens; and in the spring of 1877 there was vouchsafed to us the fresh sensation of a "Wagner Festival" of a whole week at the Boston Theatre, with Mmes. Pappenheim and Clara Perl, Herren Werrenrath, Bischoff, Blum, etc., who gave four specimens of the Wagnerian drama, - Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, the earlier Fliegende Hol- länder, and Die Walkyrie ; and, as an acceptable offset, Beethoven's Fidelio in a better style than we had had before. Finally there have been three short seasons of " Her Majesty's Opera," under the direction of Colonel

459

THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.

Mapleson, in which Italian opera has been given on a more complete scale than by any visiting company before; and the fascinating high soprano, Etelka Gerster, with Miss Hauck, Mme. Frapolli, the brilliant tenor Campa- nini, etc., in a long list of standard operas, have drawn enormous houses, - the principal novelty being Bizet's Carmen.

French opera bouffe has had its brief demoralizing day among us, and has found a speedy antidote in something full as light and popular, while innocent, and musically more original and fresh. But first we must not for- get to speak of several genial and charming comic operettas, composed by our own Julius Eichberg and popular before and since the French invasion ; namely, the Doctor of Alcantara, the Two Cadis, etc. The effective substi- tute and cure for the opera bouffe contagion appeared in the extraordinary popularity of Sullivan's Pinafore, which ran through all the theatres, and which, being easy music and within the musical and vocal means of many of our clever native singers, has resulted in numerous domestic companies for its performance, as well as in not a few imitative or half-original attempts at composition in a similar vein. Whether these bubbles, rising on all sides and glittering each for a brief spell in the gaslight of so many theatres, are any indication of an original creative principle below the surface, which may yet assert itself in really musical, imaginative, and noble lyric works both light and serious, and give us finally the native opera, the institution so long speculatively and vainly dreamed of, - time alone will show. Some of these playthings certainly are clever; some, on the other hand, show but the slightest symptoms of musicianship, being ingeniously made up for a pres- ent purpose, not composed ; yet the practice they involve begets a certain empirical routine-familiarity with knacks and processes, without which genius, even if it should abound, could not be operative. Perhaps it is the nursery for greater things in store.

Almost simultaneously the two Conservatories, so called, started on the race, - the Boston Conservatory on Feb. 11, 1867, and the New England Conservatory one week later at the Music Hall. The former was and is the enterprise of the accomplished artist and musician Julius Eichberg, who as director was assisted by Messrs. Kreissmann, Leonhard, and numerous able teachers since their time. It has always had a goodly number of pu- pils, to whom it has sought to impart a sound musical education, while it has not catered for the largest number. It has followed the economical system of teaching by classes, dividing the lesson among four pupils at a time; it has furnished good instruction in all the practical and theoretic branches; it enables its pupils in the course of every season to hear a great deal of good music, by providing chamber-concerts for their benefit. In one department, the Violin School, it is unique. Here Mr. Eichberg has accomplished wonders. Little girls and boys of six or eight, who look almost overweighted by the instrument, play music of considerable difficulty, with facile, finished execution and with good expression. The more ad- vanced among them do not shrink before the concertos of Spohr, the con-

460

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

cert-pieces of Ernst, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, or even the great Chaconne by Bach. This last-named masterwork has often been played together, in well-nigh perfect unison, by half-a-dozen of these pupils of both sexes. They also practise quartet playing, and know many of the string quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven by taking actual part in them. Indeed, a quartet club of four young lady-pupils (complete with 'cello and viola) is in continual demand for concerts; and several of the graduates from these classes have since been favorite pupils of great European masters like Joachim. Here is material for our future orchestras.

The New England Conservatory, founded by Dr. Eben Tourjee, after one or two similar experiments in his native Rhode Island, gathered from the first into its fold the greatest number of pupils. It has counted nearly fifteen hundred at once. It has taught by classes of six together. Its roll of teachers has included, from time to time, the name of nearly every leading Boston member of the musical profession. There is hardly a well-known pianist, organist, singer, contrapuntist, or orchestral player who has not, at one time or another, spent some hours of his busy day in the class-rooms of this populous Conservatory. Of course not all among these throngs of pupils expect to become musicians: many avail themselves of such facilities to learn, at small expense of time or money, to play or sing a little, to listen well, and talk intelligently of music. Among them also must be many who have talent, which they have earnestly and dili- gently cultivated with these aids; and have thus become fitted to go forth as teachers in their turn, - perhaps as artists. The Saturday concerts, in which leading artists often take part, -concerts which now count up to over six hundred in number, - have helped to familiarize the pupils with the best works of the best composers. The very atmosphere of such a thronged and busy musical beehive cannot be without some influence. This Conser- vatory has for several years been supplemented by a musical department in the Boston University, in which advanced pupils, - under the same director and essentially the same corps of teachers, - study with a view to practical musicianship. The piano-forte class, under the care of Mr. J. C. D. Parker, has shown sometimes remarkable proficiency.

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The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV, Part 58

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897, ed; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.), publisher Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Boston : Osgood Number of Pages: 760

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897, ed; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.), publisher
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Boston : Osgood
Number of Pages: 760