History of Salt Lake City, Part 102

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194

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Mr. Young's first lessons in music were received from Professor George Care- less. He also studied the piano with Professor Orson Pratt, Jun. In May, 1879, he went to London to study music in general and especially the art of singing, taking with him letters of introduction to a great London musical publisher. He entered the national training school for music, of which Sir Arthur Sullivan was principal. Signor Albert Visette, principal professor of singing, examined him and gave the opinion that he would make a fine artist.

Mr. Young was admitted in the school as a paying pupil; and by merit in the second year obtained a free sholarship, which was renewed in the third year, lasting till the close of the school in 1882, when he was appointed professor of singing at the Watford school of music. He now began to receive engagements for concerts, and sang before the Prince of Wales at the Duke of Edinburgh's concerts. Last year he sang at the Crystal Palace concerts and at other noted places ; and at the production of Wagner's " Parcifol" in London, in Novem- ber, 1884, he was selected to sing one of the baritone parts, in the execution of which he won from the professors especial praise for his voice, pronounciation and phrasing, it being sung in German. His singing has mostly been confined to the concert platform, but last winter he sang with the English opera company with marked success.

Since Mr. Young's return to his native city he and Madame Young have given concerts in which he has been favorably received by the Salt Lake public as a professional vocalist. He is only twenty-nine years of age and will doubtless yet be known on the lyric stage.

Madame Mazzucato Young was born in Milan, Italy, in 1846. Her mother was Donna Teresa Bolza, daughter of Count Bolza. Her father was the Chev-

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alier Alberto Mazzucato, whose name became celebrated throughout Europe as a musician and as a teacher of music ; and by his compositions and his essays on the esthetics of music. Among his pupils as vocalists may be chiefly mentioned Mr. Sims Reeves, and among those as composers Signor Boito. He was professor at the Milan Conservatory of music forty years and finally become director of that famous institution, a position he held at the time of his death.

Mme. Young began the study of music under her father when she was eight years old ; but her father being constantly engaged with his appointment at the conservatoire and at the theatre of La Scala (where he was musical director for about eighteen years), and with his writings, he was not able to give her regular lessons. He would, however, provide her with heaps of music to read, encour- aging her constantly and giving her invaluable advice every day.

At the age of fourteen she began to play operatic accompaniments for her father's pupils. At about that time her mother died and her father began to take her to almost all the rehearsals (which he conducted) and to the performances at the Scala, then the leading opera house of Europe, so that she had opportunities of hearing repeatedly the best operas as sung by the greatest singers.

She soon began also to attend classical concerts, and these became her chief pleasure.

She studied singing (always under her father's direction) not for the purpose of appearing in public, but so as to know the art thoroughly and become an ear- nest teacher. After her father's death most of his pupils asked her to continue their lessons, but she soon left Milan with her brother to settle in London, where before a year was over she was appointed professor of singing at the National Training School of music, which position she held till he close of the school in 1882. The next year the Royal College of music was inaugurated by the Prince of Wales, when she was again appointed professor of singing, with such associates as Signor Visetti, Mr. Deugon and Madame Jenny Lind. Mme. Young met Mr. B. B. Young in London in 1880; was married to him three years afterward, and came to Salt Lake City with her husband in January, 1885.

Evan Stephens, under the patronage of the Church, has wrought a general movement in class teaching of Sunday schools in several principal counties, as well as in this City, resulting in repeated concerts at the Tabernacle. In this movement he found an earnest, influential patron in George Goddard, general assistant superintendent of Sunday schools. Crowned with success in this juv- cnile mission, Mr. Stephens recently left for training and study in the New Eng- land Conservatory of Music, in Boston, and it may be reasonably expected that when he shall return with his diploma of professor. which his talent and perse- verance will doubtless earn, he will engage in class teaching of a higher grade, passing the practical work of the Sunday schools over to assistants, should he still hold their general musical superintendence. Evan Stephens is the only man who has had the opportunity of taking up the movement laid down by Mr. Calder, and this he has done so far as Sunday schools are concerned, and that, too, with the old notation and a system of his own for class teaching. He has been pushed forward and fairly supported by a similar patronage to that which made David O. Calder potent, and he has the extra advantage of being a practical musician and

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composer, of considerable native genius, and after professional study and training in the colleges East, he may be expected to return a finished master. And should Evan Stephens on his return undertake the accomplishment of that which David O. Calder undertook in 1861, there will be in Utah, in the Mormon Church, before another decade has passed, a vast improvement in the musical status of the people.

A. C. Smyth is one of the elder members of the Salt Lake profession ; and, though unassuming and modest to a fault, he is generally esteemed a sound mu- sician, both in theory and practice. Mr. Smyth received his early training at Manchester Cathedral, and it is said that he could read music before his alphabet. The gentleman has made some very fine singers from the local talent of Salt Lake, and is highly respected as a leader and choir instructor. Some few years ago he trained a company of children so well that they played with immense success the operas of " H. M. S. Pinafore," "Grand Duchess," and the " Pirates of Pen- zance." He is equally at home in musical composition, both sacred and secular, and has taken several first class prizes, at home and abroad.

Willard Erastus Weihe, the present leader of the Salt Lake Theatre orchestra, was born in Christiana, Norway, in the year 1856. He began the study of the violin at a very early age, receiving instruction from some of the best masters of that instrument in that country. When only ten years of age he played for the world-renowned Ole Bull, who was so delighted with his performance that he of- fered to take him to Paris and have him educated at the Musical Conservatory, free of expense to his parents, but they rejected the kind offer because of his youth. In 1871 he emigrated to Salt Lake City, and being introduced to the the public by Clawson and Caine as a protege of Ole Bull, though so young he quickly became locally famous as a solo violinist. In December, 1877, he went to the Conservatory at Brussels. He at once passed a successful examination, which admitted him to the very highest class, where he had the celebrated violinist, H. Vieuxtemps, for a tutor. This master soon became so interested in him that he gave him private lessons free of charge. He studied one year at the Conservatory at Brussels, and returned to Salt Lake City in May, 1879. After his return he appeared at the jubilee concert given in the Tabernacle, and he has appeared in all the principal concerts up to the present time. In 1885, he took the position of conductor of the Salt Lake theatre orchestra, which enjoys at present a first- class reputation.

W. C. Clive is the first violin. He is is the son of Claude Clive, of old-time theatrical memory. His lamented sister, Little Miss Clive, will be remembered by the public as their favorite dancer.

Mr. Anton Pederson, the talented conductor of the Walker Opera House Orchestra, is a native of Norway, and though young, he has won considerable local fame. He commenced the study of the violin and piano when quite young and made very rapid progress. Later on he studied the organ under one of Ger- many's great masters. Mr. Pederson came to this country about ten years ago, and established himself at once as a teacher of violin, piano, organ and brass in- struments. As a composer he ranks high, and possesses much ability and knowl-

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edge of the requirements of orchestral and local music. Magnus Olsen is the first violin of this orchestra, and George Hedger, the flutist, is an instrumentalist of considerable local fame.

The foregoing embodies a tolerably complete history of the rise and progress of music in Salt Lake City, with sufficient biographical notes of the professors whose lives have been compounded in that history and who have given it caste and the present musical status of the City as illustrated in the profession of both the vocal and instrumental branches of the art.

CHAPTER LXXXVII.

LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS. UTAH AUTHORS AND POETS. SPECI MENS. SALT LAKE PAINTERS. OUR YOUNG SCULPTORS. ART DESCRIPTION :- "OUR DESOLATE SHORES."

In treating of literature and the poets of Utah, the reviewer must chiefly pre- sent the works and authors of Mormon origin ; for though there are classic Gen- tile pens among us, their scintillations belong to general literature rather than to local authorship and local art.

The first name which presents itself is that of Parley P. Pratt, the Isaiah of the Mormon people and one of the founders of Salt Lake City. He was endowed pre-eminently with that quality of poetic genius typically classified as the Hebraic genius ; and though its exaltation in his nature and works may be somewhat as- cribed to his apostolic endowment and ministry, yet was it derived from an or- ganic quality and instinct. His little book entitled the " Voice of Warning," not only dealt with the lofty subjects and themes of the ancient Hebrew prophets, but the poetic fire and treatment were closely akin to those subjects and themes of which he wrote. It is a prose Hebrew poem adapted to the " Latter-day Dispen- sation," rather than a mere theological treatise ; and so great was its charm over kindred minds that its reading and study brought into the Mormon Church thou- sands of converts. Perhaps there never was a book published in the English lan- guage excepting the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, of which so much can be said, not even of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, which has been a sort of a sacred novel for the reading of pious folks ; but Parley P. Pratt's " Voice of Warning " was as a veritable Testament of a new dispensation, converting thou- sands of souls, and infusing new thoughts and inspirations into the minds of its readers.

A book of such a character and with such a history must be pronounced a wonderful book ; and the less that is ascribed to its subject of these well-known results of the book, the more must be ascribed to the book itself, and to the au- thor's rare genius in a certain line of poetic composition.

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Another feature of this prose poem of Parley P. Pratt's on the Hebrew proph . ets is that the book is a specimen of almost pure Saxon, and this merit of his con- positions was not from poverty of words, or his illiteracy, but from choice and real art appreciation, for Parley P. Pratt was profuse in language and a natural orator, as well as poet, from whose tongue inspired thoughts and rich fancies took a world of forms.

An elaborate review of Parley I'. Pratt's works-" Voice of Warning " and "Key to Theology" is not necessary in a general chapter on Utah literature. To those works themselves the reader is referred ; but to his Autobiography must be given enough pages for its examples, introduced with a brief exposition of the species of authorship to which Parley P. Pratt's Autobiography belongs.

Biographies and autobiographies, when they are worthy in subject and excel- lent in authorship, are ranked among the first class works of a nation's literature. They are, however, of a class which, unless the personal subject be one of great dignity and reputation, and the work wrought by a master hand, produces more disgust in the public mind than any other species of writings. The most famous example of the biographical species, ready to the memory of the English or Amer- ican reader, is "Boswell's Life of Johnson." Dr. Samuel Johnson was as the thundering Jove of his club, and in his presence seated a galaxy-such personages as Edmund Burke, statesman and Parliamentary orator ; Gibbon the historian ; Goldsmith the matchless poet of his day ; Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great English painter ; Garrick, the actor ; Sheridan, the statesman and "wit," and Boswell the note-taker of the club, endowed by Nature with a sort of classical sycophancy which produced a graphic book of the personages who created the English litera- ture of his times. Bourrienne's Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte is a similar book. It is rarely that such books can be written, worthy of rank as standard works.

The autobiography is still a more difficult composition and even more liable to provoke public contempt rather than public admiration ; for this species of au- thorship requires not only a worthy subject, but the author himself must be nearly equal to it in his own personal character and life,-that is to say, his book must have a principal subject superior to himself, notwithstanding it is an autobiog- raphy, yet himself scarcely inferior to it, while the execution of his work must show the noble simplicity of a great mind. The autobiography of Parley P. Pratt is of such a character. In this sense of authorship it is the best and highest class work produced by any of the authors of the Mormon people.

In the opening of his manhood, reverses befall him, but they are as the ways of Providence, leading on to the mission of his apostolic career. In his narra- tive he says:

" Time passed ; harvest came ; a fine crop, but no market ; and consequently the payment came due on our land and there was no means of payment.

" The winter rolled round ; spring came again ; and with it a prosecution on the part of Mr. Morgan for money due on land.

" The consequence was that all our hard earnings, and all our improvements in the wilderness, were wrested from us in a moment. Mr. Morgan retained the land, the improvements and the money paid.

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" Weary and disconsolate, I left the country and my father, who took charge of our crops and all unsettled business.

" I spent a few months with my uncles, Ira and Allen Pratt, in Wayne county, N. Y., and in the autumn of 1826 I resolved to bid farewell to the civil ized world-where I had met with little else but disappointment, sorrow and un- rewarded toil ; and where sectarian divisions disgusted and ignorance perplexed me-and to spend the remainder of my days in the solitudes of the great West, among the natives of the forest.

" There, at least, thought I, there will be no buying and selling of lands, -no law to sweep all the hard earnings of years to pay a small debt,-no wranglings about sects, and creeds, and doctrines. I will win the confidence of the red man; I will learn his language ; I will tell him of Jesus; I will read to him the Scrip- tures ; I will teach him the arts of peace ; to hate war, to love his neighbor, to fear and love God, and to cultivate the earth. Such were my resolutions.

" In October, 1826, I took leave of my friends and started westward. I paid most of my money in Rochester for a small pocket Bible, and continued my jour- ney as far as Buffalo. At this place I engaged a passage for Detroit, on board a steamer ; as I had no money, I agreed to work for the same.

" After a rough passage and many delays, I was at length driven by stress of weather to land at Erie, in Pennsylvania; from whence I traveled by land till I came to a small settlement about thirty miles west of Cleveland, in the State of Ohio. The rainy season of November had now set in; the country was covered with a dense forest, with here and there a small opening made by the settlers, and the surface of the earth one vast scene of mud and mire ; so that traveling was now very difficult, if not impracticable.

Alone in a land of strangers, without home or money, and not yet twenty years of age, I became discouraged, and concluded to stop for the winter ; I pro- cured a gun from one of the neighbors ; worked and earned an axe, some bread- stuff and other little extras and retired two miles into a dense forest and prepared a small hut, or cabin, for the winter. Some leaves and straw in my cabin served for my lodging, and a good fire kept me warm. A stream near my door quenched my thirst ; and fat venison, with a little bread from the settlements, sustained me for food. The storms of winter raged around me ; the wind shook the forest, the wolf howled in the distance, and the owl chimed in harshly to complete the dole- ful music which seemed to soothe me, or bid me welcome to this holy retreat. But in my little cabin the fire blazed pleasantly, and the Holy Scriptures and a few other books occupied my hours of solitude. Among the few books in my cabin were Mckenzie's Travels in the Northwest, and Lewis and Clark's Tour up the Missouri and down the Columbia Rivers.

Spring came on again ; the woods were pleasant, the flowers bloomed in their richest variety, the birds sang pleasantly in the groves ; and, strange to say, my mind had become attached to my new abode. I again bargained for a piece of forest land ; again promised to pay in a few years, and again commenced to clear a farm and build a house.

" I was now twenty years of age. I resolved to make some improvements and preparations, and then return to my native country, from which I had been

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absent several years. There was one there whom my heart had long loved, and from whom I would not have been so long separated, except by misfortune.

" It was the Fourth of July, 1827. The morning was beautiful and gay, the sun rose without a cloud over the pine-clad hills of my native land, where in boy- hood I had often toiled and sported, just as I came within a mile of the farm of my good old aunt Van Cott, of Canaan, Columbia County, after an absence of three years. I had, during this time, exchanged the features of the bashful boy for those of the man ; and, instead of a laughing careless countenance, a forehead of marble and a cheek of rose, stern care had marked me as her child, and the sun had given a shade of brown to my features ; these added to a heavy growth of beard and whiskers, disguised me so far that I could pass through the neighbor- hood of people, known and familiar to me, unnoticed and unknown.

" With a quick step, a beating heart, and an intense, indescribable feeling of joy, sorrow, hope, despondency and happiness, I approached the door of Mr. Halsey, and knocked ; it was opened by an aged female, a stranger to me ; I en- tered, and inquired for Miss Thankful Halsey -- in a moment more she had me by the hand, with a look of welcome which showed she had not forgotten me.

" I spent the day and evening with her ; explained to her all my losses, my poverty and prospects, and the lone retreat where I had spent the previous win- ter ; and the preparations I had made for a future home. I also opened my relig- ious views to her, and my desire, which I sometimes had, to try and teach the red man.

" ' In view of these things,' said I to her, ' If you still love me and desire to share my fortune you are worthy to be my wife. If not, we will agree to be friends forever ; but part to meet no more in time.' 'I have loved you during three years' absence,' said she, 'and I never can be happy without you.'

" Eighteen months," he wrote, " had passed since our settlement in the wil- derness. The forest had been displaced by the labors of the first settlers for some distance around our cottage. A small frame house was now our dwelling, a gar- den and a beautiful meadow were seen in front, flowers in rich profusion were clustering about our door and windows; while in the background were seen a thriving young orchard of apple and peach trees, and fields of grain extending in the distance, beyond which the forest still stood up in its own primeval grandeur, as a wall to bound the vision and guard the lovely scene. Other houses and farms were also in view, and some twenty children were returning from the school actu- ally kept by my wife, upon the very spot where two years before I had lived for months without seeing a human being. About this time one Mr. Sidney Rigdon came into the neighborhood as a preacher, and it was rumored that he was a kind of Reformed Baptist, who, with Mr. Alexander Campbell, of Virginia, a Mr. Scott, and some other gifted men, had dissented from the regular Baptists, from whom they differed much in doctrine. At length I went to hear him, and what was my astonishment when I found he preached faith in Jesus Christ, repentance towards God, and baptism for remission of sins, with the promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost to all who would come forward, with all their hearts, and obey this doctrine !

" Here was the ancient gospel in due form. Here were the very principles

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which I had discovered years before ; but could find no one to minister in. But still one great link was wanting to complete the chain of the ancient order of things; and that was, the authority to minister in holy things-the apostleship, the power which should accompany the form. This thought occurred to me as soon as I heard Mr. Rigdon make proclamation of the gospel.

" Peter proclaimed this gospel and baptised for remission of sins, and prom- ised the gift of the Holy Ghost, because he was commissioned so to do by a cru- cified and risen Savior. But who is Mr. Rigdon ? Who is Mr. Campbell ? Who commissioned them? Who baptised them for remission of sins ? Who ordained them to stand up as Peter ? Of course they were baptized by the Baptists, and ordained by them, and yet they had now left them because they did not administer the true gospel. And it was plain that the Baptists could not claim the apostolic office by succession, in a regular, unbroken chain from the Apostles of old, pre- serving the gospel in its purity, and the ordinances unchanged, from the very fact that they were now living in the perversion of some, and the entire neglect of others of these ordinances ; this being the very ground of difference between the old Baptists and these reformers.

" Again, these reformers claimed no new commission by revelation, or vision from the Lord, while they had not the least shadow of claim by succession.

" It might be said, then, with propriety : ' Peter I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye ?' However, we were thankful for even the forms of truth, as none could claim the power, and authority, and gifts of the Holy Ghost-at least so far as we knew.

" After hearing Mr. Rigdon several times, I came out, with a number of others, and embraced the truths which he taught. We were organized into a society, and frequently met for public worship.

" About this time I took it upon me to impart to my neighbors, from time to time, both in public and in private, the light I had received from the Scriptures concerning the gospel, and also concerning the fulfillment of the things spoken by the holy prophets. I did not claim any authority as a minister ; I felt the lack in this respect ; but I felt in duty bound to enlighten mankind, so far as God had enlightened me.

" At the commencement of 1830, I felt drawn out in an extraordinary man- ner to search the prophets, and to pray for an understanding of the same. My prayers were soon answered, even beyond my expectations; the prophecies of the holy prophets were opened to my view ; I began to understand the things which were coming on the earth-the restoration of Israel, the coming of the Messiah, and the glory that should follow. I was so astonished at the darkness of myself and mankind on these subjects that I could exclaim with the prophet : surely, "darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the poople."

" I was all swallowed up in these things. I felt constrained to devote my time in enlightening my fellow men on these important truths, and in warning them to prepare for the coming of the Lord. x

" In August, 1830, I had closed my business, completed my arrangements, and we bid adieu to our wilderness home and never saw it afterwards. On settling up, at a great sacrifice of property, we had about ten dollars left in cash. With this

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History of Salt Lake City, Part 102

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194