.AND aAHENCE DICKINSON Sttjaca. ^tta lark BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 ISIC Cornell University Ubrary ML 160.D551 3 1924 022 267 425 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022267425 Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. Angel Playing Organ. (Note the clamp pedal.) EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY BY HELEN A. DICKINSON. M.A.. Ph.D. AND CLARENCE DICKINSON, M.A. Mus. Dcxi ^ NEW YORK THE H. W. GRAY CO. SOLE AGENTS FOR NOVELLO & CO.. LTD.. uu- Dedicated TO A. P. L. AND A. R. L. AND E. L. B. FOREWORD THIS book is intended for any reader who is interested in music. It has been our aim to make it readable and popular in the sense of being easily comprehended by those who do not possess a technical knowledge of music but who are interested in it as a cultural factor and an art. Our idea has been to include, in untechnical language, much informa- tion for everyday use, much that the concert-goer wants to know and that is either not given or is hidden away in the volumes of histories and encyclopaedias which must cover the whole field of music. The "Excursions" are made into social or intellectual periods, such as the reigns of Louis XV, Frederick the Great, the period of the Reformation, American Music and so on, or into subjects which are constantly presenting themselves to our notice, such as Tonality, Sacred Folk Song, Sonata Form, and others, of which the historical development is traced; frequently the parallel development of the other arts is also indicated. The serious student and the musician may find in these " Excur- sions" information which will add to their store of historical and theoretical knowledge, especially as it is here brought into relation to great intellectual and religious movements. CONTENTS EXCURSION PAGE I. — Music at the Court of Louis XV . . . i II. — Music at the Court of Frederick the Great . 12 III. — Music at the Court of Elizabeth, as Reflected IN Shakespeare's Plays . . .21 IV. — The Organ 33 V. — Fifteen Famous Bachs 48 VI. — The Sonata 61 VII. — Program Music 70 VIII. — Transcriptions 81 IX. — Epochs in the Development of Sacred Choral Music 89 X. — Spiritual Folk-Songs 100 XI. — Music and Some Great Religious Movements 114 XII. — Music and the Reformation .... 129 XIII. — ^Tonality 139 XIV. — Music in America 153 Appendices 171 Index 205 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGB Angel Playing Organ .... Frontispiece Detail from the Ghent Altar by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck FRANgois Couperin the Great 2 Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sans Souci 12 Portrait of Dr. John Bull 26 Roman Water Organ; Pneumatic Organ from the Obelisk of Theodosia 34 Monks Playing and Blowing Positive; Two XIVth Century Portable Organs ..... 36 Man and Wife Playing House Organ . . 38 Prom an Engraving by Israel Van Meckenem Monk Playing XVIth Century Organ, Church of the Osservanza, Siena 42 Johann Sebastian Bach at the Organ . •. 56 Philipp Emanuel Bach 68 Dinner Party with Concert ..... 72 Prom an Engraving, 1571 Sacred Choral Music 90 Detail from a Picture by Boccati da Camerino, in the Pinacoteca, Siena George Frederick Handel . .... 98 Earliest known Portrait A Christmas Carol 104 Painting by Hans Multscher in the City Hall, Stertzing ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Minnesingers 148 Prom the Manessian Codex, Heidelberg University Library ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT PACB Two ' ' Organ Beaters " " Blowing up the Blowers " . 39 Bohemian Flail, Carried by Ziska's Warriors. . 125 MUSICAL ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT Bird Calls in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony . . 75 Canon, "Three in One," Johannes Okeghem . . 92 Song of the Nuns of Coventry .... 105 "Hez, Sire Asnes,Hez!" ("Hail, Sir Ass, Hail!"). . 106 Hussite Battle Hymn, the Flail Song . . . 126 First Gregorian Tone : " H^ec est Domus Domini " . 142 Organum : "Sit Gloria Domini, " by Hucbald . . 143 Faux Bourdon :" Deus Creator Omnium " . . .145 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY Excursions in Musical History EXCURSION I MUSIC AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV THE great-grandfather of Louis XV, Louis XIII, was not only a patron of music but a performer on the organ, harp- sichord, and drums, and a composer of such gifts that those compositions which remain still appeal to us through the purity of their melody and an indefinable charm. The grand- father of the King, Louis XIV, maintained the musical renown of the French Court by attracting to it not only the greatest com- posers in France but foreign musicians of distinction, especially those of Italy, which was then in the van of musical progress. But it was in the reign of Louis XV, the "Well Beloved, " as he was called throughout the earlier part of his reign, that French music reached the greatest height of power and beauty it Was to know until our own day ; and this it achieved at first through the devoted patronage of the King and later through the sympathy and enthusiasm of the lovely Dauphiness, Marie Antoinette. Of the musicians the King inherited from his grandfather the greatest was Frangois Couperin, organist at the Church of Saint Gervais, clavecinist of the King's chamber, and organist of the Chapel Royal. The Couperin family was so famous in music that it might well have been the same case with them in France as with the Bachs in Thuringia, where, it was said, any musician was commonly spoken of as a "Bach. " Especially has the fame 2 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAI. HISTORY of nine of its members come down to us in history, beginning with Louis Couperin who was viola player to Louis XIII, and Louise who, in the reign of Louis XIV, was the first woman to be appointed a royal musician, and who was renowned both as a singer and player on the harpsichord, and continuing to Armand Louis Couperin, who was organist at Notre Dame Cathedral at the outbreak of the Revolution and whose wife, Elizabeth An- toinette, lived through all that turbulent period and was still a noted concert organist and clavecinist at the age of eighty-one. Their two sons succeeded to the father's posts and were the last of a line renowned throughout two centuries. But of all these distinguished Couperins the most famous was Frangois, who was sumamed "the Great," and noted both as organist and clavecinist, who was the first to make free use of the thumb in playing, an innovation of which Bach and Scarlatti were quick to take advantage. His method of playing he set down in his book L'Art de Toucher du Clavecin, which was published in 1 71 7. Moreover, he was the first great composer for the harp- sichord, the instrument which was the predecessor of our modem piano, for which he wrote four books of pieces in addition to choral works and compositions for other instruments. The form he invented for his compositions may also be said to mark a mile- stone in the development of the Sonata as a musical form. He wrote, not in Suites, as was the almost universal practice of the age, but in what he called " Ordres. " The Ordre resembled the Suite in so far as every piece or division that it comprised was written in the same key, but it contained the promise of the fuller freedom of the Sonata in that some of its divisions were written in major and some in minor, and that movements were intro- duced which were not dances. His compositions are, for the most part, descriptive pieces and bear such titles as La Precieuse, La Soeur Monique, Les IdSes Heureuses, Les Abeilles, Les PUerins. They are all marked by grace and purity of melodic line and by a rare poetic beauty. A second great musician inherited by Louis XV from his grandfather was Louis Nicholas Cl^rambault, the most famous member of a family with a long roll of distinguished musicians Franf ois Couperin the Great. MUSIC AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV 3 "who had been in the royal service and favor since the reign of Louis XIII. From the position of conductor of Madame de Maintenon's orchestra and court organist to Louis XIV, Louis Nicholas succeeded to that of organist to Louis XV and retained as well his post as organist at the Church of Saint Sulpice. He must have been one of the first organists on the Continent to enjoy the great development in organ playing effected by Abra- ham Jordan, senior and jimior, of London, in 1712. We must re- member that at this time all tones of the organ were alike big, because when the wind entered the pipes they sounded forth in full strength. Now Mr. Jordan conceived the idea of setting the pipes in a box with shutter sides, which were connected with a pedal by a pulley, so that the organist with his foot on the pedal could gradually open the shutters to swell the tone to full volimie, then, closing the shutters, let it die away again. Something of the joyous excitement with which this invention was greeted by the organists is reflected in Handel's letters to friends in Germany and in Dr. Burney's account of' it. As Cl^rambault was about thirty-five years old at this time and at the height of his powers, we may assimie that he was one of the first to profit by the great discovery and to ravish the ears of his hearers with it. A third inherited musician at the Court of Louis XV, Louis Claude Daquin, had been only six years old when he electrified the old King Louis XIV and his Court by his musicianship and amazing virtuosity upon the harpsichord. At twelve he was; appointed organist of Saint Antoine's, to which the people thronged to hear him play. In 1727 he obtained the post of organist of St. Paul's, Paris, where he remained for the rest of his life, although in addition he was one of the four organists each of whom played quarterly at N6tre Dame Cathedral. Like all composers of his time, he wrote many descriptive pieces, such as The Cuckoo. Among his published works are a cantata, a book of pieces for the harpsichord, and, most attractive of all, a book of Noels, or Christmas pieces, which are charming in melody and spontaneous as folk songs. But when we consider the music at the Court of Louis XV it is not to these isolated and independent composers that our ^,'," . gwir! 4 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY thoughts turn, but to the two great movements which directly- affected the music not only of that period but of the future, and to the chief personages in these movements. These two move- ments were in essence one, for out of the first sprang the second. Well known to all students of French history and literature is the intellectual movement of the Encyclopaedists led by Vol- taire, Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, Grimm, and De La Motte. Out of it grew the impulse toward reform in music, and especially in the most important and popular music of the time, the Opera, which was led by Rousseau, vigorously supported by D'Alembert and Grimm, and which found the realization of its ideal in Gluck. Opera had its real though not its historical or active beginning in France, for it was a Frenchman, Adam de la Hale, who, back in the thirteenth century, about 1285, departed for the first time from the traditional religious theme for a Mystery Play and wrote an operetta entitled Le Jeu de Robin et Alarion. But charming as was this musical play it seems to have had no successors in the same vein, and it was about 1600 before, in the house of one of the Bardi in Florence, the poets Bardi and Rinuccini and themusicians Peri and Caccini conceived the idea of writing musical dramas in the manner of the Greek tragedies with music, in the form which later received the name of Opera. This did not mean that there was any less enthusiasm for the presentation of musical plays with sacred subjects. Under the influence of the new opera style they became larger in form, more elevated and impressive in manner, and, from the circtmistance that many of them were studied and performed in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Rome, the form received the name of Oratorio. In 1639 there came to France one who as a youth had been brought up bj^ the Fathers of this Oratory of St. Philip Neri, who was gifted musically and had frequently taken part in the presentation of their oratorios. This was Cardinal Mazarin, appointed to succeed Cardinal Richelieu. It was natural that his patronage should attract to Paris famous Italian oratorio and opera singers, and when, seven years later, he was joined by the Pope's nephews, the exiled Bar- berini, there came in their train a great composer also, Luigi Rossi, who wrote the first French operas. MUSIC AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV 5 The next to come was a Florentine, who became the greatest French opera composer of the century, Jean Baptiste de LuUy. So high did he rise in the royal favor that he was elevated by Louis XIV above the mere nobility to the rank of Conseiller Secretaire. His son was baptized in the Palace at Fontainebleau and the King was the boy's godfather. For his operas some of the greatest writ- ers of the age arranged the texts, among them Comeille, Boileau, Quinault. He could refuse a libretto from La Fontaine because it did not altogether please him. Madame de S^vignd wrote in praise of his " sublime Miserere"; the Te Deum he wrote for the baptism of his own son was sung at the marriage of the King's daughter; it is still given upon occasion at Saint Sulpice. LuUy was indeed supreme and unapproachable and withal so thorough- going a Frenchman that he secured the exclusion of all Italian and other foreign composers by a royal mandate. A distin- guished fellow-countryman, the great violinist Arcangelo Corelli, who established the principles of bowing for violin which gave us our present uniformity, came to Paris. He was only twenty years old and was already famous both as performer and com- poser. The story goes that LuUy was far from cordial to him, indeed the legend runs that he was so jealous that he obtained a decree from the King ordering Corelli to quit Paris on pain of the Bastile. Although this is only a legend, the fact remains that Corelli did shortly quit Paris. After both of them died, Frangois Couperin the Great wrote an Apotheosis for each of them, Par- nassus, or the Apotheosis of Corelli, in 1724, and, in 1725, for two violins, cello, and bass, an Apotheosis of LuUy, whom he character- izes as "the immortal and incomparable," "the greatest name in music that the preceding century produced." In his music Couperin pictures Lully in the Elysian fields making music, surprised by the coming of Mercury, the herald of Apollo. Pres- ently Apollo himself appears, gives his violin to Lully, and con- ducts him to Parnassus. The friends and admirers of Lully left behind in the Elysian fields discuss the situation in murmur- ing music and bemoan their loss in an exquisite Lamentation. In concord on Parnassus, Lully with the French muses meets Corelli and the Italian muses, and they set to work so to fuse the Italian 6 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY and French styles as to make "the perfect music. " Supposedly in this fused style they end by playing a Sonata in trio all together, Lully and the French muses with Corelli and the Italian muses. The place of Lully as the dictator of French opera passed to a native composer, Jean Philippe Rameau, who was bom at Dijon in 1683. Like so many of the world's greatest virtuosi and com- posers, he was a "wonder child." At the age of seven he could play at sight on the harpsichord anything that was set before him. After prolonged musical study and travels in Italy and France, during which he won a reputation as an organist and was first violin of a traveling opera troupe, he went to Paris, where he became organist of the Church of St. Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, and was soon acknowledged the greatest of all artists upon his instrument. Presently he began writing operas. Voltaire wrote the text for his first, Samson, which, however, was barred from the Opera because of its Biblical subject. Quite a change has come over the spirit of the Opera since the seventeenth century! Now, Samson and Delilah, in the setting by Saint-Saens, is one of the most popular operas on its boards! So it happened that Rameau was fifty years old before his great success with Hippolyte et Aricie, which was followed by many others, among them Zoro- astre and Platee, and of which Castor and Pollux was the master- piece, which held its own even after the operas of Gluck became the reigning fashion. Rousseau wrote of him, "Rameau has brightened up the orchestra and the opera, which was suffering from paralysis." The superiority of his operas over those by Lully was very evident in the richness and variety of the harmon- ization and orchestration. The King created for him the position of Cabinet Composer and elevated him to the peerage. As a theorist, too, his fame spread over all Europe; indeed his writings on harmony are of interest to-day. Diderot, the mathe- matician of the Encyclopedia, who was also a musician and the friend and counselor of many composers, wrote The Method of Rameau to set forth in a form universally comprehensible the great theorist's principles and the methods and results of his researches in acoustics, and D'Alembert compiled The Elements MUSIC AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV 7 • of Theoretical and Practical Music According to the Principles of Mr. Rameau, a book which was translated into German by the great historian of music and theorist at the Cotirt of Frederick the Great, Friedrich Marpurg. The growing importance of the Opera and the establishment by the King of the notable series known as the Concerts Spirituels attracted to Paris many composers and players upon various in- struments, some of whom were the first artists to play instruments newly invented to meet the needs of the orchestra. Among these were Jacques Aubert, violinist of the King's Chamber and concert master of the "Spiritual Concerts. " He has left a goodly num- ber of compositions, chiefly dance movements written for the opera, one of which, a Forlane, has the same theme as the opening phrases of the choral section of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Another member of the group, Michel Pignolet de Mont^clair, was the first known player on the instrument we call the double bass. Before this time the heavier string part in the orchestra was supplied by an instrtiment called the violone, or great viol. Our violoncello is a diminutive of this instrument, the word being directly derived, not from violin, as is sometimes supposed, but from violone. This first artist on the double bass was also a com- poser of note; several of his compositions were produced at the opera; his Requiem Mass was sung at Saint Sulpice, his chorus "The Earth trembled before the Lord" from his oratorio Jephthah, is still sung. He wrote a book on musical theory entitled A Method for Hearing Music which contains tables for transposition which were in their day considered very useful. It was dedi- cated to Francois Couperin the Great. Mont^clair disagreed with Rameau on the principles of a fundamental or ground bass advanced in Rameau's epoch-making book, and the two carried on a long controversy in the columns of the Mercure de France. Another artist who found his way to Paris from Florence, where he was bom supposedly of German or Austrian parentage, was Jean Baptiste Struck, known as "Batistin." He was, with Labb^, the first to play the instrument we know as the violoncello or 'cello. He wrote several operas, many ballets, four books of chorales, and several Collections of Modern Airs. 8 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY And now there came a change in the current of French thought which was to effect a corresponding change in the manner and standards of living and to reflect itself in the art and music of the age. Diderot and D'Alembert and' the others had championed free thought and had put forth scathing criticisms of conditions political, social, and moral. Voltaire, too, had blazed and scorched, but the really effectual influence was Rousseau's new philosophy. Here among the intellectuals was a sensitive, as the French would call him ; a thinker perhaps, a dreamer most cer- tainly; and more than all the most just criticisms or the soundest intellectual theories of the Encyclopsedists did the emotional elements of his gospel take hold of the people. ' ' Man is naturally pure and good and noble," he proclaimed; so-called civilization and false education have made him bad. With the acquisition of property and the importance attached to it have come inequality and the caste system. ' ' Let us return to Nature, ' ' cried Rousseau the prophet, as he urged men to throw off the encumbrances with which a false social standard had weighted them, to forget caste and conventions and, putting aside all the complicated machinery of social life, to busy themselves with natural, elemental occupa- tions out of doors, and thus regain sanity and purity. All over Europe people who had not entirely lost their ideals took up the thought and in greater or lesser degree modeled their lives and their systems of education for living on the new teaching. At the French Court its external features made an immediate appeal and life became professedly idyllic. The lovely Dauphiness, Marie Antoinette, and the ladies of her Court became shepherdesses and dairy maids. Art and architecture reflected the new faith. The out-of-door setting for the new life was made to conform to its theory, and formal French parks gave place to semi-wild, English "natural" gardens. Nor did music remain unaffected. Rous- seau wrote on a village theme his opera Le Devin du Village (" The Village Soothsayer") which remained on the boards of the Paris Opera House for about sixty years, and from which some of the songs and the graceful Minuet Are still favorites on concert pro- grams. Rameau, too, wrote many songs which reflect the Arca- dian court life, such as the dignified and melodious La Guirlande, MUSIC AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV 9 the setting for which is all out of doors, with PhUomele and Echo and the n5miphs, with lovely maidens gathering flowers, just as in a picture by Lancret. Turning their attention to the Opera, the Encyclopaedists found it false to the new ideals and began to protest loudly that it was no longer true to life or nature. ' ' We must bring opera back to nature," insisted D'Alembert. Rousseau wrote Houdart de la Motte, " It is to be hoped that a musician may yet be found who will study nature before trying to depict." "Lyric art can never be good where there is no intention to imitate nature," wrote Diderot. The trouble seems to have been not so much with the music, as, in the first place with the text, and in the second with the manner of presentation. The librettists had fallen into the habit of hyperbole which was quite common among the dramatists of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They de- picted human beings as unbelievably passionate or wicked, and marked by characteristic attributes to a degree altogether in- human; they insisted upon expressing depths of feeling which were inexpressible. The interpretation of such characters, the depicting of such passion, induced violent exaggeration in the acting. Rameau's "brightening up of the opera" had gone too far. In the Nouvelle Heloise Rousseau describes a performance in which "the actresses were almost in convulsions, uttering loud cries, and with inflamed countenances"; "but," he adds, "they were loudly applauded by a deaf people." The orchestra he characterizes as an unending clatter of instruments which would give one a headache in half an hour. Its conductor he dubs "the wood-cutter" because he wielded his baton with such violence. The English Dr. Bumey on a visit to Paris recorded much the same impression of opera there. He found the performances terribly noisy and the yelling of the singers beyond all musical bounds. Then there were given in Paris some little Italian masterpieces such as Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona (' ' The Servant as Mistress ") clear and simple in plot, tuneful, entirely without effort, and with a melodious quality that was enchanting. Rousseau gave them •his unqualified admiration, and as in proportion as he admired 10 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY them he developed an aversion for everything French, no ad- jectives were too strong to use in praise of the Italian operas or in censure of the French. Soon every musician, every writer, every Parisian took sides. An opera war was on. Rousseau was burned in efBgy at the Paris Opera House. Rameau succeeded for a time in influencing the King to expel all the Italian composers from Paris. But the new operas had come to stay; the people craved the simpler plots and pure, flowing melodies. Rameau was a scientist and a great theorist in music, and it was natural that he should attach more importance to harmony than to melody. He held the theory that "while the fine harmonic progression is directly related to the understanding, melody does not go beyond the ear. Melody is only subordinate, giving an empty and fleeting pleasure to the ear. " Against this the Encyclopasdists protested that "we do not seek in music primarily food for the understand- ing, " and affirmed that "the natural accents of the human voice reach the soul. " At this juncture there arrived in Paris the man who, without adopting the ideal of the Italian opera or its scheme of composi- tion, was to effect the desired reform in French opera, Christoph Willibald von Gluck. But we must not fail to recognize the fact that the reform was not due to Gluck's genius alone, but to the impulse of the age. For twenty years the Encylopasdists had been prophesying it and preparing the way for it. Gluck was the son of a gamekeeper in Franconia, and poor in this world's goods, but he had the inestimable advantage of being brought up out of doors, as it were, among the trees of the forest. As a young man writing for the Vienna Opera he read and was deeply affected by Rousseau's writings. Upon his arrival in Paris, therefore, ignoring the attentions showered upon him by the nobility, he made haste to get into touch with the philosopher and began at once to work along the lines indicated by his theories. He bent all his energies towards gejiting the words, the music, the setting, the orchestra, and the dances to bear a definite relation to the theme of the musical drama and to make that theme simple and easily comprehended, to depict emotions truly and without exaggeration, and to write music which should fittingly set forth MUSIC AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV ii the situation and convey the emotions. As he himself put it, " I wished that every part of a theme should be related: the poem, the action, the music, the color, the light and shade. " Avowedly he took for his model Greek tragedy, saying that it was his aim "to write, not Salon music, but music for wide spaces like the Greek theatre. " This sentence alone is enough to show how alien were his aims to those of the Italian opera composers of the type to which we have referred. In the reign of Louis XVI, under the patron- age of Marie Antoinette, and after the death of Rameau, the Italian Piccini appeared in Paris as the champion of the Italian aria simply accompanied as against the dramatic declamation and fuller orchestration of Gluck's operas, and the opera war con- tinued, this time with Gluck as the representative of French opera and Piccini of Italian. But Piccini was so inferior to Gluck as hardly to be comparable with him. Rameati, on the other hand, can command a place as his equal in rank ; indeed one of the most famous composers of the present day, Debussy, writes that in his judgment "Rameau's style is marked by delicacy, tenderness, fitting accents without exaggeration, so that compared with it Gluck's style seems pompous and heavy. " A careful study of the operas of the period leads one to believe that it was the presentation which was chiefly at fault; the manner rather than the matter. The habit of exaggeration had become fixed upon librettists, actors, and singers. Ultra realism had be- come the standard, performances were marked by a vehemence which would prove detrimental to all artistic interpretation as to all sustained melody. These evils Gluck avoided; without sacri- ficing dramatic forcefulness he was able to secure artistic clarity, balance and tmity, and to maintain in his music the long, flowing, melodic line. Of his operas perhaps the best known to-day are Orpheus, Ipkigenia in Aulis, and Armide, from which we hear i most frequently the aria "Che faro senza Eviridice," the Go-' votte, and the Minuet "In the Elysian Fields." • EXCURSION II MUSIC AT THE COURT OF FREDERICK THE GREAT THE music at the Court of Frederick the Great began before there was a court, when in defiance of his father's stem command the young Prince studied music in secret and gathered about him a group of famous performers and composers. His father had forbidden him to study, practise, or even hear music, but his mother encouraged him, and as he resided, in the main, not in Berlin but at Ruppin, was able to make arrangements for him to continue his studies in secret. Quantz, the famous flutist, came over from Dresden and spent part of every year giving the Prince lessons on the flute; the great violinist, Benda, was engaged for his orchestra, as were the two Grauns, Carl Hein- rich, and his younger brother Johann Gottlieb. The Prince fre- quently met his musicians hunting or had concerts in a forest or cave. Upon his accession to the throne all this was changed. His master, Quantz, was lured over from the royal service in Dresden for all time, and a circle comprising many of the most distin- guished composers in Germany was formed at the court. The new royal palace at Potsdam was built so that in the King's apartment and in those of every member of his family there was a room devoted to music, with music books, stands for the players, a harpsichord, and other instrument?. In the palace of Sans Souci, also at Potsdam, was a concert room, in which the King, who lived for the most part at Potsdam, had a concert daily from five to six o'clock. The English historian of music. Dr. S 3 o m cd W 0) o. ft O o MUSIC AT THE COURT OF FREDERICK THE GREAT 13 Bumey, father of Evelina Bttrney, the novelist, has left us a description of such a concert, at which he was present. He was first "carried to an apartment in which were the members of the orchestra " ; as it was contiguous to the concert room he could hear the King practising in preparation and repeating the most difficult passages. Then a messenger stimmoned the players and the concert began. The King played three concertos by Quantz, executing the solo parts brilliantly, with pure and simple taste- fulness. He played the allegro movements with fine execution, the adagios with expression ; in short. Dr. Bumey concludes, "his performance surpassed in many respects anything I have heard among amateurs or even professionals. " At these daily concerts it was the King's custom to play solos of his own composition or by his teacher Quantz, and concertos by himself or Quantz, who had composed for him more than three hundred, none of which was published during the King's lifetime, in order that he might have the exclusive use of them. At the particular concert which Dr. Bumey attended, Quantz did not play with the orchestra or alone, but merely indicated the tempo at the beginning of each movement, and cried "Bravo" occa- sionally after the solo parts. As for the King's own prolific com- posingy the only reference made to it is in an account of the hours he kept : "He rose at four in stmuner and five in winter, and retired at ten, after which he frequently composed music for his flute. " Many of his compositions remain to us and reveal an attractive gift of melody and thorough knowledge of his instrument. For these concerts and for the Royal Opera in Berlin, Frederick the Great assembled the most famous performers on all instru- ments and the most distinguished composers. Among those who were world renowned and whose fame still endures were Nichel- mann the harpsichord player, Marpurg the historian, Agricola the organist and singing teacher, the two Grauns, and the five Bendas, violinists, Carl Fasch and Philipp Emanuel Bach, pian- ists, Kimberger the organist, and Quantz the flutist. And, prob- ably because the atmosphere of the court was intellectual and the prevailing tendency was to reduce everything to facts and theory, almost all these men have left us books on methods, 14 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY theory, or history of music. Thus Christoph Nichelmann, who as a boy had been in Bach's St. Thomas's School in Leipsic, has left us not only several interesting Suites for harpsichord or clavichord and a pastoral play with music, Galatea, for which he wrote the airs together with Quantz and the King, and Graun wrote the overture and the recitatives, but a theoretical " work Melody, its Character and Properties. Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg wrote for the harpsichord and piano compositions marked by dignity and solid musicianship, among which perhaps the most interesting is a Prelude and Caprice which he dedi- cated to his friend Philipp Emanuel Bach. But he is best known to-day as the greatest historian of German music, of whom. Dr. Bumey wrote "he is a most polite, accessible, communicative man of the world, whose writings surpass in number and utility the writings of any other one author on the subject. " His works comprise five volumes of Essays and Dissertations, a two-volume work on How to Play the Piano and a History of Ancient Music. It was Marpurg who translated into German D'Alembert's Elements of Theoretical and Practical Music According to the Principles of Mr. Rameau. His literary and musical activities came to an end, however, when the King appointed him Counselor of War and Director of the Royal Lottery. Then ther| was Philipp Emanuel Bach who wrote The Art of Playing upon Keyed Instruments and who collaborated with Johann Friedrich Agricola, the noted organist and singing teacher, a cousin of Handel and a former pupil of J. S. Bach at Leipsic, in compiling The Necrology in which we find some of the most interesting records of the life and work of his famous father. Kimberger contributed to the literary output of the group the Musical Institutes and several other theoretical works. Quantz wrote the still useful Art of Playing the Flute. Quite a remarkable circle even so far as writ- ing words went, not taking into account their music! But Frederick the Great's interest in music did not confine itself to his concerts at Sans Souci; the musicians who lived and played with him and composed for him there were also connected with his Opera in Berlin, the director of which was Carl Heinrich Graun. There was another Graun at court, his brother JohaniL MUSIC AT THE COURT OF FREDERICK THE GREAT 15 Gottlieb, who was a great violinist and a composer "in the style of LuUy." Carl Heinrich Graun began his musical career in Dresden as a boy soprano. After his voice changed he became an operatic tenor but almost at once conceived the idea of writing an opera himself and within a year had achieved a pronounced success with Polidoro. Soon the Prince Frederick, who was still enjoying his music only in the greatest secrecy for fear of his father, persuaded Graun to join him. He set to music many of the cantatas written by the Prince with French texts. On Frederick's accession to the throne Graun was commissioned to establish Italian Opera in Berlin. For it he himself wrote some twenty-eight operas which were in such favor with the King that he would not permit any others to be sung there except a few by Agricola and Hasse. Few of the composers at the court wrote any sacred music, as the King did not approve. If he suspected anyone of having wandered into that field, he would remark of his next composition, "That smells of the Church." Yet this one of his greatest favorites, Graun, wrote two sets of Church melodies for every day in the year, a Te Deum, two Pas- sion Cantatas, twenty Latin Motets to be sung unaccompanied, and about twenty-five sacred cantatas with orchestra. His greatest sacred composition, a Passion Oratorio, The Death of Christ, is still performed annually in Berlin. It is a very beautiftd work, unhackneyed in its melodies and harmonies, sincere and impressive, and deserves more frequent presentation in all coim- tries. Although the flute was the instrument of the King's predilec- tion, he attracted to the court some of the most widely renowned violinists of the day, among them the Benda family, Bohemians by birth, consisting of Franz Benda, his brothers Johann and Joseph, his son Friedrich Wilhehn, and his nephew Carl Hermann Heinrich, who in the course of time was the teacher of Frederick "William III. Of these Franz Benda was famous throughout all the countries of Europe. As a boy he was such a beautiful singer that he was enticed away from home to the Elector of Saxony's chapel in Dresden. Getting homesick there he started for Prague i6 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY with a lighterman. But going up the Elbe, as the old story runs, "not being used to the water and the night being cold he lost his voice. " However, he very soon developed an alto or counter- tenor voice and sang in the Jesuit Seminary in Prague, where he was one of the singers at the Coronation of Charles VI as King of Bohemia in 1723. There, too, he began to apply himself to composition. After a time he lost his voice again and began to play the violin, playing for dances and composing the music himself. Resolving suddenly to become a really great player he shut himself up in a garret in Prague where, as he said, he "prac- tised two things: music and temperance." Emerging, he traveled about playing in Breslau, Warsaw, and finally in Dresden, where he received a letter from Quantz inviting him into the service of Prince Frederick at Ruppin. For forty years he remained with Frederick the Great as leader of his orchestra, and in that time he played with him about fifty thousand concertos. He is described by contemporaries as having a pure tone, clear, full, and sweet, and a wonderful canta- bile style, which he had modeled on the beautiful cantabile of a famous singer at the Opera. He said that in composing he en- deavored to make almost every passage such as the himian voice coidd sing. Of his works we possess about a dozen solos for violin and one for flute, besides symphonies and concertos, many of which have not yet been published. Other musicians at the court besides Nichelmann and Agri- cola had come from the great Bach of Leipsic, among them his own son Philipp Emanuel, the son of his old friend Fasch, and the well-known organist and violinist Johann Philipp Kimberger. Philipp Emanuel Bach had been for some time established at the court when he found it necessary to have an assistant or second player upon the harpsichord or the newly invented piano. His thoughts turned to Carl Fasch, son of an old friend of the family in Leipsic. Father Fasch, so the story goes, "was now seventy years old and had lived with the fear of God before his eyes, so that he was most unwilling to permit his son to enter the service of the infidel King." But Philipp Emanuel wrote to him, ' ' Though the King is not religious, on that very account he esteems MUSIC AT THE COURT OF FREDERICK THE GREAT 17 everyone alike and one may believe what one likes at his court and in his land." He went on to say that he would receive young Fasch into his own house and "protect him as much as possible from corruption. " Accordingly Carl Friedrich Christian became a member of the court circle. After the withdrawal of his friend Philipp Emanuel Bach to Hamburg, he became director of the Royal Opera; after the King's death he founded and conducted the Singakademie, which has continued until this day. Contem- porary critics wrote of Fasch that he was an excellent performer and that his compositions revealed both fire and delicacy. Those which remain to us amply bear out this assertion. Johann Philipp Kimberger did not come to the court directly from Bach of Leipsic but spent some ten intervening years teach- ing in Poland and studying violin in Dresden. He then joined the Royal Orchestra in Berlin and was shortly afterwards ap- pointed concert master to Princess Amalia. Besides several important theoretical works already referred to, Kimberger wrote many compositions for organ, and songs, one of which, Fair Are Roses and Jasmin, a favorite number on the programs of the late Amalia Joachim, begins with the same musical strain as Schubert's Who is Sylvia ? The most notable representative of the Leipsic school was Philipp Emanuel, the second surviving and most distinguished son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach. He had been intended by his father for the law, but turned away from it to follow music- His first composition of importance, written the year he matricu- lated at the University, attracted wide-spread attention because it had to be played by crossing the hands. In the course of a few years he became the most noted harpsichord player of the eigh- teenth century. In 1737 he was appointed court player to Fred- erick the Great, which post he held until the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, when he went to Hamburg as organist of its principal church. To him has been given an honored position as the "Father of Modem Pianoforte Playing"; his important work on fingering has already been mentioned. Furthermore he has come down to us in history as the originator of sonata form. He has left us a 18 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY large body of works for various instruments and many songs secular and sacred, almost all of which are marked by consider- able musical beauty and unusual dramatic power. But, after all, the music of the court must have centered about that great old man who was the King's teacher, Johann Joachim Quantz, whom Dr. Bumey described when over seventy years old beating time and crying out "Bravo" after the solo passages of his royal pupil, the only one at court to whom this liberty was permitted. Marpurg gives a full account of Quantz's life in his Musical Essays. He was the son of a blacksmith who had him at work at the anvil before he was nine years old; but on holidays he went off with his brother to neighboring villages, playing at eight years of age the brother's accompaniment on the bass viol, without know- ing a note of music. He liked this so much that he decided to forsake the smithy and become a musician. Choosing the violin as his instrument, he set out for Dresden, where, he reports, he "learned that it was not sufficient for a musician to execute the mere notes which the composer had set on paper, and for the first time began to be sensible of the existence of taste and expression. " As he was desirous of hearing much music, he fiddled his way through Silesia, Moravia, and Austria to Vienna, then back through Prague to Dresden, but said he learned more about geography than about the violin. When he reached Dresden it was the year 1717 and they were celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, so Quantz played at the celebra- tion, this time on the trumpet. He then obtained a post in the Royal Chapel Orchestra, which had just been instituted, and played the oboe. But there were other fine oboe players in the orchestra whom he could not hope to rival for many years. The only instrument which had no one attached to it who was dis- tinguished by special gifts was the flute, so he took up the flute with ardor and devotion. In 1 723 he went with Graun to Prague to the Coronation of Charles VI, then on to Italy, and thence to London, where opera was flourishing under Handel's direction. They tried to keep him there, but he returned to the Royal MUSIC AT THE COURT OF FREDERICK THE GREAT 19 Chapel at Dresden and by secret arrangement with the Queen of Prussia went over to Ruppin to give Prince Frederick lessons on the flute. On the Prince's accession to the throne he became attached to his court, where every honor was paid him. Finding a scarcity of flutes, he began to bore them himself and developed a most lucrative business. He improved the • instrument by applying an additional key and making changes in the mouth- piece. For the King he composed more than three himdred flute concertos and about the same number of solos. For a long time King Frederick had been trying to induce the great Bach of Leipsic to visit him; his son Philipp Emanuel, too, had used his influence, but nothing had come of it. One day at that concert which was played between five and six o'clock in the concert room at Sans Souci, after the orchestra had been summoned in from the antechamber and the King had his fl-ute in his hand ready to play, a message was handed to him. Laying down his flute, he turned to those assembled: "Gentle- men," said he, "old Bach is come!" The great musician was summoned. The King personally escorted him through the Palace and was much interested in having him try the newly in- vented instrument, the piano, of which he had just acquired several examples made by Silbermann. He was very desirous of hearing Bach improvise and suggested a theme. When this had been done, he expressed a longing he had entertained for a great while, to hear a fugue in six parts; whereupon Bach im- provised on the King's theme a fugue in six voices, the King ex- claiming in amazement over each of the performances, "There is only one Bach!" And surely it is impossible to hear this fugue in six parts, to follow as the theme enters, first in the soprano, then in the alto, and so on, in six separate and distinct voices, beginning and ceas- ing, weaving in and out, without feeling the stupendous greatness of the man who could have composed it at all, let alone improvised it! After his return to Leipsic, Bach worked out the theme more fully, added other movements, and presented the whole to the King under the title of Musical Offering. He had developed his 20 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY improvisation into a fugue in three voices; a fugue in six voices; eight diverse canons, one of which is especially interesting because peculiarly ingenious. It is a retrograde canon, that is to say, one which can be played backwards as well as forwards. Besides the regular signature at the beginning there is what appears to be a signature upside down, but when you turn the music upside down you still cannot decipher it. But when you turn it upside down before a mirror you get another canon which may be played from left to right in the ordinary way. Following the eight diverse canons is a fugue in canon form ; he evidently intended to fully satisfy the King's curiosity about and passion for fugues! There follows a sonata for flute, violin, and bass; we can picture to ourselves its presentation at a court con- cert, with the King playing the flute part and Franz Benda and Philipp Emanuel Bach at the other instruments. Then, after all this, not satisfied with the wealth of scholarship, ingenuity, and invention already spent upon this Musical Offering, he composed as a last movement a perpetual canon, which can go on forever; there is no necessity for it ever to come to a stop ! EXCURSION III MUSIC AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH, AS REFLECTED IN SHAKE- SPEARE'S PLAYS ONE of the old arguments of the Baconians in the Shake- speare-Bacon controversy was based upon the fact that the poet's amazing knowledge of law, and the frequency and assurance of his legal references, made it easy to perceive that he was that learned lawyer, Sir Francis Bacon. Upon such a ground musicians might deduce that John Dowland, composer and lutenist, scholar, courtier, cavalier, intimate of princes and poets, must have written the works of the Shakespeare who shows such perfect familiarity with musical terms and practices, reports the latest musical news, reveals a very real understanding of music and deep feeling for it, and who voices its beauties so exquisitely. We cannot here refer to or make even a beginning of quoting the many passages of rare beauty in which Shakespeare refers to music in general; some of them come to our minds instantly upon the association of the two names "Shakespeare" and "Music"; such exquisite lines as these of Lorenzo to Jessica in the Merchant of Venice: " Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony; Sit Jessica; look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with pa tines of bright gold; There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims." 21 22 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY In music, as indeed in every other department of learning or art, the age of Shakespeare, the reign of the learned and brilliant Elizabeth, knew the full realization of the high promises of the reign of her father Henry VIII, that monarch who was not only scholarly and gifted himself but the enthusiastic and generous patron of all who could enhance the glory of arts and letters in his kingdom. The erudite and courtly Sir Thomas More wrote of him to Erasmus: "What, my dear Erasmus, may you not look for from this prince, whose great qualities no one knows better than yourself! Could you but see how nobly he .is bearing him- self, how wise he is, his love for all that is good and right, and especially his love for men of learning! I was lately in his pres- ence. .He said he regretted that he was still so ignorant; I told him that the nation did not want him to be himself learned but only to encourage learning. He replied that without knowledge life would not be worth our having. " After he had spent some time in England, Erasmus wrote home to his friend and fellow reformer, Ulrich von Hutten : " If you were here in England, my dear Huttep, you would leave off abusing courts; a galaxy of distinguished men now surrounds the English throne. " A further comment made in one of Erasmus's letters is interesting by reason of its reference to the music of this time. "The English," he wrote, " challenge the prerogative of having the most handsome women, of keeping the best tables, and of being most accomplished in the skill of music. " The King himself was not without a certain creative musical gift, if we are to judge from compositions attributed to him, such as the choral setting of his own poem Lord the Maker of all Thing. The mother of Queen Elizabeth, the radiant, tmfor- ttinate Anne Boleyn, in Shakespeare's Henry VII described by Cardinal Wolsey as " Virtuous, well deserving, but a spleeny Luthermi," and by King Henry as " The fairest hand I ever touched O beauty Till now I never knew thee!' ' MUSIC AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH 23 was also musically gifted. It is on record that she "doated on the compositions of Josqvun de Pres, ' ' the great Flemish master, and that she "had a book of them especially compiled for her own use." It might well have been one of these calmly beautiful works to which the Duke referred in Twelfth Night as "That old and antique song we heard last night, Methought it did relieve my passion much. More than light airs and recollected tunes Of these most brisk and giddy-pacfed times." After her downfall she found in music a certain solace and before her execution is said to have written the mournful ballad: "O Deathe, O Deathe, rock me asleepe! Bring me to quiet rest; Let me passe my weary, giltless ghost Out of my carefull breast. Tole on, thou passing bell. Ringing my doleful knell. Let thy sound my deathe tell, For I must dye. There is no remedye. " Alone in prison stronge, I wayle my destenye. Wo worth this cruel hap that I Should taste this miserye, Tole on, thou passing bell. Ringing my doleful knell. Let thy sound my deathe tell. For I must dye. There is no remedye." Shakespeare refers to this song in King Henry V. It is particu- larly interesting musically because it is the earliest song known that was written with an independent accompaniment. Up to this time an accompaniment consisted simply of chords which con- tained the notes of the melody; but this has a purpose and charac- ter of its own, in its suggestion of the ringing of the death knell. It is without doubt the most mournful song ever written, in re- spect to words, air, and the ceaseless tolling of the bell. Since both her royal father and mother fostered and wrote 24 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY music, it is not to be wondered at that the age of Elizabeth and heir immediate successors was the most brilliant period in English music before that in which Henry Purcell lived and worked. It is of considerable interest to place side by side the names of the great poets and great musicians of the age. Among poets there were Spenser, Marlowe, Bacon, Sir Philip Sidney, Greene, Peele, Johnson, Beaumont, Fletcher; among musicians John Bull, William Byrd, John Dowland, Thomas Morley, Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tallis, Martin Peerson, Richard Farrant, Ravenscroft, Weelkes, Ford. Yet there was no crowning genius among the musicians to be compared with Shakespeare among the poets, since the most gifted of English composers, Henry Purcell, was not born until half a century later. Most of their music has come down to us in the two largest Elizabethan collections Parthenia, or the Maydenhead of Musick and the Fiiz-WilUam Virginal Book, or in the smaller Virginal books that belonged to various persons at the court. The vir- ginal — usually written virginals — was a small, stringed instru- ment, in general on the order of the piano, save that what we call the hammers of the piano were "jacks" which plucked the strings instead of hitting them- It is supposed to have received its name of virginal in compliment to the Virgin Queen, who was reputed a very fine performer on that instrument. A complete list of the musical instruments in use is given by a contemporary of Shakespeare, Michael Drayton, in an accotint of a musical contest between the English and the Welsh, which is given with great detail in his historical poem Poly-Olbion. With all the instruments on this long list Shakespeare was evidently familiar, and he refers to them in a manner which reveals knowl- edge of technique and acquaintance with the music played on them. Of the singer's art, too, he knew much and speaks easily and familiarly of various points which we might think Would be known only to a professional musician. Nothing that went on in the musical world escaped him or passed without a reference in his plays. In 1605, Thomas Dallam set up in King's College, Cam- bridge, the first complete two-manual organ in England, with MUSIC AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH 25 some tremendous pedal pipes (which, it is said, are still used). Shortly afterwards, in The Tempest, Shakespeare put into the mouth of Alonzo the words " The thunder. That deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced The name of Prosper. It did bass my trespass." A new psalter was published in which the words of the Psalms were set to gay, lilting times, with the result that psalm singing became almost universally popular; and Shakespeare does not fail to report that his world is "singing psalms to hornpipes. " We are all familiar with the poet's most harsh judgment, directed against those to whom music means nothing, " The man that hath no music in his soul Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." But have you thought that there is no trouble, anxiety, sor- row, longing, no joy, no spirit of revelry, of which Shakespeare does not find music the most adequate expression and therefore the most perfect satisfaction? While Bassanio is considering the caskets, trying to make the lucky choice upon which all his future happiness depends, Portia commands " Let music sound while he doth make his choice." Armado begs Moth: " Warble child; make passionate my sense of hearing! " What a wonderful description of the intent of music to "make passionate" the sense of hearing! The lonely Duke, in Twelfth Night, half sick for love of the lady who scorns his passion, requests " If music be the food of love, play on; Oh it came o'er my ear like the sweet South That breathes upon a bank of violets. Stealing and giving odoia-." 26 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY Viola, in her disguise, loving where it is ttnrequited, on being asked about music finds " It gives a very echo to the seat where love is throned." Old Sir Toby and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, indulging in loud revelrj', decide " To rouse the night owl with a catch," so they join in boisterously singing the famous old rotmd " Thou knave, hold thy peace: thou knave . . ." King Henry IV, dying, is asked in his last moments if there is any service those about him can render: " Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends. Unless some dull and favorable hand Will Whisper music to my weary spirit." It is a natural association of ideas that the first name that oc- curs to us when we think of English music, and in particular of the music of the Elizabethan age, is that of John Bull, organist to Queen Elizabeth and her successor James I, and to whom is generally attributed the English national anthem. Doctor Bull's title of Doctor of Music was conferred on him by Oxford Uni- versity, where also he was appointed the first Gresham Professor of Music and was required to "deliver a solemn music lecture twice a week. " In Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors an incident at court is described. "While the king sat down to dinner. Doctor Bull, who was free of that company, being in citi- zen's gowne, cappe and hood, played most excellent melodic upon a payre of organs placed there for that purpose only. " Bull was a great virtuoso, the master of all his contemporaries in technique, and in composition easily in advance of his whole age. The story goes that once when he was traveling incognito for his health, he met at St. Omer a composer who showed him some music he had just written in forty parts and who said tri- umphantly that he would challenge anyone to add even one part From the Portrait in Oxford University. John BuU. MUSIC AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH 27 more. Bull took the music, sat down, and shortly added forty parts more, whereupon the composer exclaimed, "Now I know that you are Doctor Bull or the devil; no other could have done this!" In 1607 Doctor BuU married and was obliged to resign his Oxford post, which could be held only by a bachelor. Crossing to the Contihent, he became organist of the Cathedral in Antwerp ; during his incumbency there he died and was buried in the Cathedral. It seems most unnatural that the bones of the original and personal John Bull should rest anywhere outside of England and Westminster Abbey. His portrait hangs in the gallery at Oxford, painted when he was twenty-seven years of age. Around the frame runs the homely rhyme " The Bull by force In field doth raigne, But Bui by skill Good will doth gayne." Queen Elizabeth's teacher on the virginals was William Byrd, who had been organist of Lincoln Cathedral before he was called to the Chapel Royal. He is referred to in the Queen's household expense book as "William Byrd, a Father of Musick. " As a composer he won wide renown through his many sacred composi- tions as well as madrigals and pieces for the organ and for the virginals. Many of the latter were in the dance forms and rhythms which were the usual media of composers of that age; the Earl of Salisbury's Pavan is perhaps his best known instrumental composition. Another favorite is the old Sellenger's ^ound, probably the oldest folk-dance tune extant, which he arranged for the virginals for Queen Elizabeth. A glimpse of the Queen's • pleasure in music is given us through an entry in the diary of Sir James Melvill, Ambassador from France to the English Court- He tells that, on one occasion, hearing wondrously beautiful strains of music in a room in the palace, he pushed aside the tap- estry and entered. It was the Queen, who was playing upon the virginals, and who frowned upon him in great displeasure at his intrusion, saying that she "was not playing for anyone, but when 28 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY solitary to shun melancholy. " The Ambassador apologized most humbly, offering as his excuse that at the Court of France it was always permitted to enter where music was being played ; where- upon she forgave him and (he goes on) "inquired whether my Queen or she played best. In that, I foimd myself obliged to give her the praise. " Byrd is also credited with the invention of Vari^ions as a form of composition. He wrote several sets of them, using as foundation melodies old well-known ballads. One of the most interesting sets is that composed on the ancient " Fortune my foe, why dost thou frown on me?" to which Falstaff refers in The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was known as the hangman's tune, for his grim work was in those days accompanied by the singing of the crowds of spectators who joined in this ballad or in another composed for the occasion but sung to this same tune. In The Penitent Traitor, written in 1641, a Devonshire gentleman about to be executed for treason laments that his infamy is sure to svs- vive in ballads "sung to that preaching tune ' Fortune my foe. ' " The tune was used, too, for another favorite ballad The Judgment of God shown upon Dr. John Faustus, which was published in 1588 and illustrated with a woodcut of Faust signing the contract with the devil. The old ballad Titus Andronicus, upon the theme of which Shakespeare founded his play of that name, was also stmg to this tune. In 1682 Forbes set sacred words to it and turned it into a hjonn, Satan my Foe, Full of Iniquity. A composer mentioned by Johnson, Fletcher, Massinger, and Shakespeare is John Dowland. In The Passionate Pilgrim we find his name linked with Edmund Spenser's: " If music and sweet poetry agree, As they needs must, the sister and the brother, Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such As, passing all conceit, knows no defense." His translation from the Latin of The Micrologus of Andreas Omithoparcus is signed "John Dowland, Lutenist and Bachelor MUSIC AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH 29 of Music in both Universities." In a quite lengthy preface, "To the Courteous Reader, " which he wrote for his first book of songs, he tells of his travels in many lands and of the marked attention bestowed on him by musicians, people, and rulers alike. "From these travels, " he continues, "I have returned home to remain at my house in Fetter Lane, where, too, I have the favor of the Court and of both Universities. " Of his works perhaps the largest and most important is the LachrymcB, which bears the explanatory sub-title, " Or Seven Tears Figured in Seven Passionate Pavans. " Such alliterative titles were greatly in vogue at the time. William Byrd published a collection Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets for Services of Sadness and Piety and James HunniSj A Handful of Hunnis-Suckles, or Seven Sobs of a Passionate Soul for Sin. Seven was a favorite number. It is quite interesting to see how old churchly superstitions have left their stamp on music as everywhere else. Triple time was the perfect time because it symbolized the Trinity; the "perfect" seven was the favorite number for collections of pieces or variations; thirty-nine was the preferred number of entrances for a fugue theme, because St. Paul in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians wrote, "Of the Jews, five times have I received forty stripes save one. " An English priest, Peter Philips, who lived for the most part in the Nether- lands, carefully numbered the thirty-nine entrances of the theme in his Fugue in one of the virginal books, so that his conformity would not pass without notice. This little superstition doubtless persisted even in the minds of the framers of the "Thirty-nine Articles" of the Church of England. A curious musical composition which is found quite frequently in the wginal books and is several times referred to by Shakespeare is the Dimip. In Two Gentlemen of Verona Proteus advises Thurio " Visit by night your lady's chamber window With some sweet concert; to their instruments Frame a deploring dump." Compositions in this form are spoken of as "doleful Dumps," an expression which, after three hundred years, is still common. 30 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY The word seems to be of Scandinavian derivation ; at least there is a Swedish dialect word Dumpa which means to dance awkwardly; a Bohemian term Dunka appears in one of Dvorak's symphonies where it signifies a sort of elegy. A Dump is, in any case, very mournful music; but as the Irish manage to infuse some elements of gaiety even into a "Wake" so the Irish Dump is the most cheerful of all Dumps! Hence Peter, in Romeo and Juliet, is either speaking paradoxically or he is thinking of the Irish when he begs the musicians "Play me some merry dump to comfort me." The only foreign composer who is represented in the Eliza- bethan virginal books is Jan Pieters Sweelinck of Amsterdam, organist of the great church there and a famous composer of vocal and instrumental music. To him is attributed the com- position of the first fugue in larger form. In the sixteenth cen- tury what we now call a fugue was commonly known as a Phantasia or Ricercare, or in England as a "Fancy." The ex- ample of a fugue given by Morley in the early seventeenth cen- tury is what we should call a canon. That bj'^ the second part of the century the form was in general use and the word commonly understood we infer from Paradise Lost, Book II: " The sound Of instruments that made melodious chime Was heard; of harp and organ, and who moved Their stops and chords was seen; his volant touch, Instinct through all proportions low and high, Fled, and pursued transverse the resonant fugue." But it is, perhaps, vocal music which has been most enriched by the age of Shakespeare. Dignified choral compositions by Richard Farrant, Orlando Gibbons, and others of the period have an established and permanent place in our church services; popu- lar ballads and charming songs such as Martin Peerson's " Upon my Lap my Soveraigne sits" are still favorites. And what rich treasure our song literature has found in the lyrics of Shakes? peare, whether sung to the tunes he knew or to settings made by great composers all down the ages! MUSIC AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH 31 Of the songs still sung to the tunes of his day perhaps the best known are "An that I was a little tiny boy," " Where the bee sucks there suck I," which is the song of the sprite Ariel in The Tempest and "Willow, Willow," a popular folksong incorporated by Shakespeare in Othello. It refers to the ancient custom spoken of by Swan in the Speculum Mundi, in 1635, " It is a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a willow garland. " Spenser, Sir John Lyly^ and others refer to this custom and Fuller notes, "The willow is a sad tree, whereof such who have lost their love make their mourning garlands and we know what exiles hung up their harps upon such doleful supporters. " Hence the refrain "Sing willow, willow, a green willow shall be my garland." It is an old song known to the common people, which rings in Desde- mona's ears as she had heard it sung by a servant in her mother's household. Oppressed by the premonition lof impending disas- ter she tells Emilia : " My mother had a maid called Barbara ; She was in love; and he she loved proved mad, And did forsake her; she had a song of willow; An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune, And she died singing it. That song to-night Will not go from my mind; I have much to do But to hang my head all on one side And sing it, like poor Barbara." The songs set to music by later composers are too numerous to mention ; there are such old favorites as " I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows," Thomas Ame's setting of Amien's song in As You Like It, "Blow, blow, thou winter wind," and above all, the lovely Schubert settings, of which the best known are " Who is Sylvia?" which is the song Thurio sings to his lady in Two Gentlemen of Verona, and " Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings, ' ' which is the ' ' wonderful sweet air with admirable rich words to it " which Cloten asks the musicians to sing in Cymbeline, and for which it is said that Schubert, when a friend showed it to him one day at luncheon, immediately upon reading it foimd the melody which matched its exquisite lyric beauty and wrote it down on the back of a menu card, the only paper available. 32 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY But it is not possible to make even a beginning of enumerating here the musical settings of Shakespeare texts. For example, the lyric ' 'Who is Sylvia ? ' ' has been set to music by eighteen composers of reputation. The Tempest has been set fourteen times as an opera. Then there are Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, Tschaikowsky's overture phantasy Romeo and Juliet, and num- berless others. Besides the many known compositions we can have no idea how many that give no indication of it have been inspired by scenes in Shakespeare. To give only one instance: Beethoven said that in composing the Adagio in the String Quar- tette in F Major, Opus i8, No. i, he thought of the tomb scene in Romeo and Juliet. Then he added, it would seem inconse- quentially, "music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. " EXCURSION IV THE ORGAN THE organ is the instrument of greatest mystery. All others are open and plain to behold ; we can see the strings of the vioHn respond to the touch of the bow, and the hammers of the piano strike the strings in answer to the demands of the fingers upon the keys. But from somewhere in hidden recesses behind the carved case of the organ there issue, mysteriously, wondrous harmonies. The organ is also the oldest keyed instrument in the modem world. As an instnmient of pipes it had its origin in one of the most ancient of all instruments of music, the flute, a wind or "flue" instrument which doubtless suggested itself to primitive man when he discovered that he could make a musical sound by blowing through a stalk of bamboo or other reed, and which is un- doubtedly the oldest musical instrument; with the exception of the drtun. One of the earliest representations of the flute is to be found in the relief of a flute concert, ' on a pyramid at Gizeh, which shows the instrument as a long straight pipe. The Greeks increased its musical possibilities first of aU by doubling it. In a scene represented on a Greek vase we see a reclining player, who has ceased playing for a moment and who holds his double flute in his hands while he gives some directions to the dancer." That he really did blow both flutes at the same time is established by many scenes on Grecian vases and by Cy- priote figures. This was no easy matter, but necessitated such a strain as to occasion great pain in the cheeks of the musicians; » Figures in text refer to notes in Appendix B, 3 33 34 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY indeed they were obliged to wear a leather harness,^ somewhat like a baseball mask, to keep their cheeks from bursting open ! Gradually other pipes were added, of different lengths and bound together"* to form the instrument known as the Syrinx or Pipes of Pan. These pipes were played with much less effort, as is shown in Arnold Bocklin's picture Amaryllis and Daphne. Variety of pitch was obtained by making the pipes of different lengths, as the shorter the pipe the higher the pitch of the tone it gives forth. This is the principle on which our modem flute is constructed, but instead of having a lot of flutes of different lengths, as in the Pipes of Pan, holes are bored along the side of one pipe, and the player by putting his finger on these holes can lengthen or shorten his pipe at will. The pitch of the note will change with the length of the pipe; the shorter the pipe the higher the pitch. The next advance was a step in the direction of the transfer of labor from men to machinery. The Syrinx player set his Pan's Pipes on a box and attached to it a bellows to do the blowing.* The old Greek Syrinx with its bellows does not greatly differ in appearance from a portable organ of the fifteenth century.* The bellows themselves had long been in use; an ancient sculptured relief shows them in an Egyptian smithy.' The men tread the bellows just as they did for the organs in the Middle Ages, and as they still do in some of the European cathedrals in which the method of furnishing the wind supply has not been changed since the sixteenth centvuy. About 250 B. c. the Alexandrian Ctesibius invented a quite large organ.' The body of it was about as high as a man's shoulder and on top were ten pipes. From a terra-cotta model which was found in the ruins of Carthage in 1885 and which is now in the Museum there, we can form quite a definite idea of the instrument and its workings. After this model Rev. F. W. Galpin of Harlow, England, has reconstructed the instrument so successfully that he can play it. The body of this organ was a large barrel-like vase in which was set an inverted funnel which was connected by a pipe with a flat box above which served as wind chest. On each side of the Roman Water Organ or Hydraulus. Pneumatic Organ; Relief on the Obelisk of Theodosia. THE ORGAN 35 vase were pumps and from these ptimps tubes or cylinders reached to the bell of the inverted funnel. At the top there were valves hanging by movable chains. When it was necessary to fill the cylinders with air, the lever or ptunp-handle, worked by man power, was raised and the valve descended and through the hole the air rushed into the cylinder. Then the lever was pumped downwards and the air was sent rushing up the cylinder and immediately forced the valve shut so that the air, finding no escape there, was forced through the tubes into the central vase and down into the barrel of the funnel. From there, with re- . doubled force, it was driven up the funnel pipe into the wind chest, which, you will remember, was on top of the barrel-vase. In this wind chest were set the three rows of bronze pipes, the bottoms of which were closed by slides, and these slides were con- nected with the iron keys ' of the instrtunent by ropes. When the finger pressed the key it pulled the rope and lifted the slide so that the air which had rushed up the ftmnel through the wind chest coidd escape through the pipes, making a musical sound." But the feature about this organ which struck the poets' fancy and captivated the popular imagination was that the barrel vase was kept half full of water, from which fact also the instru- ment derived its name Hydraulus, or water organ. The water was there in reality only to steady the wind pressure, through weight and resistance, on the same principle as that which moved the Emperor Nero to sleep with plates of lead on his chest in order to steady his breath control for singing. The instrument found tremendous favor. A medal which was given to one Laurentius, winner in the Games in the reign of Nero, shows on one side the head of Nero, on the other the athlete standing beside a water organ." Poets of the time, perhaps as deeply moved by its pic- turesque appearance as by its music, wrote many lines about "rousing the struggling waters to song." The Emperor Julian about 330 A. D. , poetized : " I see reeds of a new species, the growth of another and brazen soil, such as are agitated not by wind, but by a blast that rushes up from a leathern cavern beneath their roots, while a mortal, running with swift fingers over the keys 36 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY which are the concordant rulers of the pipes, makes them give forth nielodious sounds. " In later organs the water was dispensed with and heavy stone weights were introduced to steady the wind pressure which was created by the bellows. Organs were no longer hydraulic but pneumatic; " such an one is pictured on the obelisk of Theodosia in Constantinople.'^ In the first century or two of its existence the Christian Church did not make use of the organ, in part because the circumstances of secret worship prohibited it, and in part because it was asso- ciated with worship in the pagan temples and with the theaters. The credit of inventing the organ was therefore given to Saint Cecilia in the third century; she has been portrayed with her instrument again and again, the most famous representation being that in Raphael's Saint Cecilia,^* in which she stands surrounded by musical instruments and holding in her hand a small portable organ. St. Augustine, writing in the fourth century, says that all musical instruments used in the church were referred to as organs. The references are frequent enough to show that the organ was often used, but its part in the church service was first officially sanctioned by Vitalian about the year 690. "We read that the Greek Emperor sent one as a present to Pepin in 757 and that Charlemagne received one as a gift from Haroun Al-Raschid (of Arabian Nights' fame) in 822. Aldhelm, writing in 709, delights in the beauty and the volume of tone of the English organs : ' ' The ear is soothed by the windy bellows of the enormous organs with a thousand blasts," he exclaims, "while the other portions shine in the golden case. " Besides the large organ the small portable organ or Portative was in common use. One of the earliest pictures of this organ outside the missals is to be found in Simone Martini's fresco'^ The Arts and Sciences at the Feet of Thomas Aquinas, -which was painted in the fifteenth century in the vSpanish chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Music is seated and holds in her lap a Portative, which she plays with one hand and blows with the other. At her feet is Tubal Cain, the Father of Har- Monks Playing and Blowing Positive. Two XTV Century Portable Organs From the Peterborough and Cambridge Psalters. THE ORGAN 37 mony, looking very much like a baboon ; Mr. Ruskin interprets this as a suggestion that all men are in the baboon stage until the advent of music. A sixteenth century drawing '* which represents Polyhymnia shows the muse playing the instrument with one hand and pumping its bellows with the other. The Portatives were carried in procession by means of a strap over the shoulder and many of them were quite beautifully de- corated.'^ As instruments of music they were, however, very simple. Two fourteenth century miniatures in the Peterborough and Cambridge Psalters'* present two slightly different types of Portatives of the period, one of which has pegs for keys, while the other is fitted with flat keys. When pressed, the key pulled open a slide or valve by means of a metal spring, let into the pipe the air pumped by the bellows, and called forth sound. When the finger was removed- the slide sprang shut and the sound ceased. On these organs there were only white keys, that is to say only naturals, no flats and sharps. In Spain some sixteenth century organs remain of which the pedal has this same keyboard, made up of white keys only. The Portative was used in the main to accompany the choir and was so valuable in its processions that we find it frequently referred to as a "Portative Processional." Pictures of these instniments remaining to us show that the large ones possessed both metal and wooden pipes. Because this instrument was so commonly used to "regulate" the choir it came to be known also as a Regal," that is to say a "regtilator" from the Latin regular e, to regulate. The Regal usually differed slightly from other Portatives in having more reeds among its pipes. Perhaps it was for the sake of suitability to the choir processional that the Regal was frequently built in the form of a book^° and was known as a Bible Regal. Many very handsome Regals are shown in pictures or in such engravings^' as Dinner Party with Concert, in which a very beautiful Regal is one of the instruments of the orchestra. There is also a very elegant example ^^ which belongs to the Diike of Athol and is loaned to the South Kensington Museum. Quite 38 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY similar in appearance is a cabinet organ of 1598 which is now in the Crosby-Brown collection, Metropolitan Museum of New York; ^5 it received its name because of the cabinet drawers. For the largest Regals and Portatives temporary supports^* were made, a provision which must have been a great comfort to the organist at a mystery play, for instance, at a harvest or other popular festival, at all of which Portatives and Regals were greatly in demand. From the Portative or Regal set on a temporary support to the stationary organ was but a step. When it was thus placed in a fixed position the organ was known as a Positive, ^s that is to say, "an organ in fixed position." The bellows were placed on top of the instrument, ^ * underneath, ^ ' or, rarely, inside it. When they were inside, the top was occasionally ornamented^* or en- livened with marionettes which doubtless kept time to the music. Since the Positive was stationary there was no reason why it should not be quite a large instrument. But in that case no one man could manipulate both the keys and the bellows ; the organist had to have the assistance of a blower. A miniature in an ancient missal pictures two monks making music on a Positive;^' one of them is playing the instrument, the other is working the hand bellows. Hard, hot work it was. too, for the old description says "he did sweat exceedingly." In a Family Scene ^° by the great engraver Israel va,n Meckenem the organist's wife is proving herself the true help- meet of her husband, as, seated on the table,, she blows his organ for him. But the Positive was not merely an instrument of predilection in the church and the family ; it was in high favor at the most bril- liant courts in Europe. In one of his engravings^' for the Tri- umphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian — one of those great artistic enterprises of the Emperor upon which Durer, Baldung Griin, Cranach, Altdorfer, Beck, and other famous artists of the age were engaged — Hans Burgkmair introduces us to the court organist, Paul Hofhaimer, who rides in the procession in a richly decorated car, playing a handsome Positive. One of the exquisite tapestries'* in the series "The Lady Israel Van Meckenen Man and Wife Playing House Organ. THE ORGAN 39 and the Unicorn" in the Cluny Museum, Paris, presents the Lady against a background of countless flowers, playing a handsome organ which her lady-in-waiting is blowing for her. Sometimes the blowers of the organ did not furnish wind enough to suit the player, an experience which almost all organists have had at some time when depending on the human element. A quaint old woodcut '^ gives us a glimpse of a troubled scene in which two organists are most vigorously "blowing up the blow- ers. " The blower has indeed always been exceedingly important. TWO ORGAN BEATERS " BLOWING UP THE BLOWERS " Not long after the late King Edward's Coronation I was one day in "Westminster Abbey when a very haughty personage went down the aisle in a gorgeous uniform, not unlike that worn by the Beef- eaters. So impressive was he that I sought out the verger to ascertain his rank. "Oh, that's the K. O. B. ! " he informed me. " He's so haughty since he got his decoration! " "The K. O. B.?" I repeated, puzzled. "Why, the King's Organ Blower, don't you know; he blew the organ for the Coronation and got decorated!" For organs too large to be blown by hand the wind was sup- plied by treading the bellows.''' The men held to a bar above to gain support in the great effort of steadily treading the bellows under their feet. The wind bags ' ' were made of elephants' hides or the hides of white horses, and were a very considerable item 40 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY of expense, as they wore out quickly. Wooden frames for them were not used until the sixteenth century when they were in- vented by Hans Lobsinger of Nuremberg. In such an organ as that at Halberstadt,^* or in the one in N6tre Dame Cathedral, Paris, you can still see the men treading the bellows after the mediaeval fashion; the labor is not quite so heavy, however, as there is a reservoir of wind. Whether the small organ grew larger and larger until it be- came the great organ of the cathedral, or whether the great organ had been used all the time together with the Portatives and Positives or even earlier than these is a question upon which there is some difference of opinion. In the chronicles we find frequent references to large organs as early as the ninth century. These had very large broad keys, ^' which were lettered and there- fore called Alphabets. 3* When the player put down a key it piilled a rope attached to a long shaft which opened a slide or valve to the pipe, which slide was on a metal spring. The pressure of air was very strong; we read that there were organs which, when pumped full, would last all through the Creed! Think of the strength required to put down that key against such air pressure! It was impossible to do it except by striking it with the clenched fist. Players upon the organ were therefore called "organ beat- ers." The instrument was evidently very fashionable, for an old historian tells us that when the painter Jacob Eisner went to Nuremberg and it was found that he could play the lute he was received into intimacy with the exclusive Sebastian Imhof and other organ beaters from patrician families in the city. After harmonization was demanded in music, it took two men to "beat" the organ, as the two brothers who were "blowing up the blowers" who were, fortimately, as the chronicle assures us, " of a concordant mind. " To provide wind for such an instrument was no light task. An organ with two reservoirs of elephants' hides (symbolizing the Old and New Testaments), twelve pairs of bellows (the twelve apostles), and fifteen pipes (the patriarchs and prophets) is re- ferred to as a very small organ. In Winchester there was one with four hundred pipes, ten to each one of the forty slides, for THE ORGAN 41 which the wind supply came from twenty-six bellows, in two rows, at which, as the chronicler records, "Seventy strong men did labor with their arms and covered with the effects of their efforts, yet did each incite his fellows to drive up the wind with all their might. " In these organs there was no way. to regulate the sound; when a key was put down all the pipes on that slide sounded at once so that the noise was overwhelming. "In a slow subject when the bass rolls forth," says an ancient writer, "there is no denying it, it -is like the fiat of the Omnipotent." Prastorius, the famous organist, composer, and historian, writing in the six- teenth century, describes the music of the old organs as "a deep roar and fearsome grumbling, to which the little pipes added an overpowering noise and mighty scream." But in the sixteenth century an organist in the Netherlands conceived the idea of setting some of the pipes in a spring box which could be opened or closed by levers on the side of the organ. When the box was closed the wind was "stopped" from entering those pipes and they could not sound. The levers were therefore called ' ' Stops ' ' as they are to-day. Even small Positives received this addition of stops. " In his picture The Virgin and Child with Angels and Saints the Ferrara master, Cosimo Tura, introduces in the orchestra of the angelic concert at the foot of the throne a small Positive built in the form of a tower, which is played by one angel and blown by another; on the side of it there are three stops. These stops were at first very large; there are some still re- maining on a sixteenth century organ in the Mosque at Cordova, Spain, which pull out about five inches, and as the name of the stop is not on the end but on the side, the organist has to draw the stop the whole five inches in order to see its name. As it soimds from the moment it is drawn the effect produced by an organist who plays that organ for the first time is amazing, as you can well imagine. A kind of primitive coupler was also in use before the six- teenth century."" Praetorius describes organs with ropes or wires attached to the bass notes, which could be drawn down by the 42 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY feet. Such organs may be seen at the present day; there is one. in good working order in the Chapel of the Osservanza, near Siena. The keys gradually grew smaller as mechanical control of the wind pressure was developed, so that the organist could play even the largest instrtmient with his fingers instead of beating the keys with his fists, but it was not until the sixteenth or seven- teenth century that they became approximately the size they are now. The next great advance was announced in the London Spec- tator of February 8, 17 12: "Whereas Mr. Abraham Jordan, Senior and Junior, have with their own hands, joinery excepted, made and erected a very large organ at the foot of London Bridge, consisting of four sets of keys, one of which is adapted to the art of emitting sounds by swelling the notes, which was never in any organ before, this organ will be pubhckly opened on Sunday next." "What Mr. Jordan did was to fit the spring box of our Flemish friend with shuttered sides, which could be opened and shut gradually by ropes attached to a pedal, and so could give the effect of swelling and diminishing the tone. One of the organists who took advantage of the invitation to inspect this organ was Handel, who admired it immensely and wrote a minute descrip- tion of it to German organist friends, strongly advising the in- stallation of the new device. The organ shut up in a box so that it sounded far away was known as the Echo Organ ; the organ in the box with shutters as the Swelling Organ or Swell. In a cathedral there' was a Great Organ, within which were also the Echo Organ and the Swelling Organ, which were oper- ated from different banks of keys; and there was a Positive Organ, which, because it was used solely to accompany the choir, became known as the Choir Organ, "i' In order that one organist might suffice, this Positive or Choir Organ was, in many instances, moved up behind the bench of the player upon the Great Organ, so that he could play his solo ntimbers upon the Great Organ, then swing around on his bench and accompany the choir upon the Choir Organ or Positive. At last some person as yet anony- mous hit upon the idea of incorporating the Choir Organ in the Photograph by C. D. Moak Playing XVI Century Organ. Church of the Osservanza, Siena. THE ORGAN 43 big Organ,"' giving it a keyboard of its own just as the Swelling Organ had its own manual. Henceforth the organist was spared the inconvenience of having to swing around on his bench, as he could play all his organs from the different keyboards on the con- sole in front of him. But to this day the Choir Organ is known in Germany as the " Ruckpositif " or " organ at the organist's back. " On older organs you occasionally find it in that position still. In the modem organ, then, the names of the different manuals are to this day descriptive of their former fvmctions ; the first, or lowest, is called the Choir; the second, the Great; the third, the Swell. If there is a fourth it usually contains the solo stops or Echo; a fifth is the Echo organ. Thus you frequently hear an organist say, "I played it on the Swell," which is the old Swell- ing Organ; or on the "Choir," which is the old Positive; or on the " Great, " which is the big old solo instrument. And now to turn our attention to another part of the in- strument, the Pedal Organ. A picture''^ from the great Ghent altarpiece painted by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck in the fifteenth century shows the idea in its inception. We are told that skilful organists who wished to get a sustained bass tone held a note down with the knee; in the "Angelic Concert" in the Van Eyck picture the note has been separated slightly from the keyboard and clamped down with a metal clamp.''" In the Cathedral in Burgos, Spain, I found a pedal which clamped down, in this same fashion, two notes at once, producing such a rumbling that it was called the Thunder Pedal. To add naturalness they had on that organ a very shrill, shrieking piccolo stop, which was known as Lightning. The invention of the real pedal as distinct from the clamp has been variously attributed to Albert Van Os, organist of St. Nicholas's Church, Utrecht, in 1120, and the earliest organ builder of whom we have any record, and with more show of probabiUty to Bemhard, the German organist of St. Mark's, Venice, who in 1470 put several keys in the floor in such a manner that they could be worked by the feet and would draw down keys on the manuals by means of ropes. " ' For several years it was necessary, however, to build organs with clamp pedals also, "for such organists as 44 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY were not accustomed to use their feet. " These old pedals were round-topped metal pegs, like the alarms the street-car conductors used to pound with their feet. In an ancient organ in Cadiz, Spain, I found these rotind pegs which were set in the floor in a row. The next step was to give these pedal keys independent inner works, an organ all their own. The pegs gave place ta long flat keys which gradually became of the convenient size in use to-day. Flats and sharps were added to this pedal keyboard in due course. Now the Pedal Organ ^^ is complete in itself, so that not only melodies, but even chords of five notes can be played on it with the feet alone. Compositions are written for it exclusively, as De Bricqueville's Etude and Middelschulte's Perpetuum mobile; many others, as Bach's Toccata in F, contain large sections for pedal alone. As the organ grew in size and complexity its case grew more imposing and beautiful. It was usually fitted with wooden shiit- ters,"' painted like the wings of altarpieces, which closed over the pipes and hid them from view when the organ was not in use, and which served to keep out the dust. A small Positive in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, is furnished with these wings, upon which scenes are painted.''* For the shutters of a Vene- tian organ Tintoretto painted a Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple; for the organ in Basle Cathedral Holbein painted the shutters,'" representing Emperor Henry II and Empress Kunigunde with saints and an orchestra of angels and Bamberg Cathedral, which they had built. Statues, too, were added on the organ case and even comic figures. Writers in the sixteenth century frequently protested against the jokes in the organ case, such as figures of monks who would suddenly appear and disappear, angels waving trumpets, a fox's tail, which, when a certain stop was pulled, would dart out and brush the organist's face. In some of the organs remaining to us from that period, as the one in Cadiz, the keys and stops are beautifully inlaid with mother of pearl. And now we have, to all intents and purposes, reached the modem organ, '" with its case, its several manuals for Choir, Great, Swell, and Echo organs; its Stops and Pedals. The greatest THE ORGAN 45 recent advances have been made along the lines of the pneumatic or electric action, and the blowing, which is done by electricity- A point of construction which adds greatly to the convenience of handling is the equipment by which an organist can set up com- binations of stops and manipulate them by means of knobs and pistons, instead of having to draw by hand each of the many stops in a large modem organ. The size of the modem organ, the variety of tone obtainable, and yet the perfect control, are all things to wonder at ! The appearance of the modem organ in itself recalls the Pipes of Pan in which it originated, for it too consists of a set of pipes graduated in length, because the pitch depends upon the length of pipe. The flute player has holes bored in the side of his flute which he can stop with his finger, thus changing the length of his pipe at will, but the organist cannot do that, so he must have a pipe of every length, a different pipe for each pitch. He controls, in an instrument of moderate size, an orchestra of probably seventy-two flutes, seventy-two oboes, seventy-two clarionets, seventy-two violoncellos, and the same number of double basses, French horns, violins, and so on. We have in this country several organs with more than ten thousand pipes. These pipes vary in length from an inch and a half to sixty-four feet and in circumference ' ' from the small round ones the size of a lead pencil to the square wooden ones in which a pony can stand. The materials used for the pipes are, for the most part, tin, wood, and spotted metal, which is a mixture of tin and lead. All sorts of materials have been used at different times; there was an organ with gold pipes in the Escurial in Spain, and one ^vith silver pipes in Milan Cathedral. The old chroniclers tell us that a very beautiful organ with pipes of Venetian glass was made to celebrate the visit of the Portuguese ambassador to Venice in the sixteenth century. In the Museo Civico in Venice there is one which dates from the fifteenth century which has paper pipes. In Japan bamboo has been used for the purpose, but the best ma- terials for steady wear are tin, wood, and spotted metal. We might briefly notice the principal stops. The Diapason is the most natural tone, free and unobstructed. The Flute is 46 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY what its name suggests. The ears projecting on either side of the openings in the pipes keep the tone from spreading, as you would put your hands up to your mouth in the same position when calling someone. As its pitch depends on the length, the tuning of a pipe is a matter of making it longer or shorter. For this purpose the tuner used to work with hammer and hatchet. * ^ Now he uses a cone, which bends down or lifts up the sides of the pipe to make it longer or shorter. Or there is in the pipe itself what is called a "tuner, " which is a separate piece of metal on the side of the pipe which may be curved back or straightened according as it is desired to lengthen or shorten the pipe. The Flute Celeste is obtained, as are all celeste stops, by tuning two flutes together at a slightly different pitch. What we call the Stopped Diapason is really a Flute; by stopping the pipe with a piece of wood the air is forced to travel back the length of the pipe; we thus get a column of air twice the length of the open pipe and a restdtant pitch an octave lower. The reeds on an organ, as the Oboe and Clarinet, emit their reedy tones because of a tongue set in the pipe, which vibrates in the wind. The most familiar example of a reed is the little instrument familiarly known as the Jew's Harp. Inside the reed pipes of the organ is just such a tongue as is in the Jew's Harp. The Vox Humana, the stop which sounds like the human voice, is a reed which is enclosed in a box to give the soimd distance. We have seen with what labor the ancient organs were blown by men pumping by hand or treading, and both these methods are still in use, although less commonly. Water power is some- times used, and in Albert Hall, London, the organ is blown by a steam engine. But the most usual method of furnishing the wind is, briefly, by electric fans. The modem action is pneumatic or, more generally now, electric. The organist puts his finger on a key'^ and instead of that pulling a rope which jerks open a slidie with a very heavy spring which has been closing the bottom of the pipe, the touched key is an electric button, as it were; it completes the circuit; magnets magnetize the armatures at the bases of the pipes THE ORGAN 47 and let the air into them. It is, therefore, incomparably easier to play a great modem organ with ten thousand pipes'* than an old one with ten. In a large organ there may be thirty miles of electric wire and as many as three thousand magnets. On the old organs sometimes a slide would not quite close and the air could leak in so that the pipe would sound of itself. This is often the case with the modem organs also; you will suddenly hear a tone which sounds and insists upon sounding when it has no business to, perhaps before the organist has even touched it, or after he has finished. This is due to improper magnetization, to warping of the cover at the. base of the pipe, or to some such cause which permits the wind to leak into the pipe without any- one pressing the key to it. This unhappy condition is known as a cipher. It was long the prevailing idea that the cipher was the fault of the organist and due to his maltreatment of the instru- ment. The poet of the Lekingfelde Proverbe, in the reign of Henry VII, admonished organists: "The sweete organ pipis comforteth a quiet mynde; Wrong handlyng of the stoppes may cause them sypher from their kynde. But he that playeth of pipis, where so grete number is, Must handill the keys all lyke, that by misgovemance they soimd not so amyss. ' ' EXCURSION V FIFTEEN FAMOUS BACKS SO many Bachs were well-known musicians in Thioringia in the seventeenth century that the word "Bach" came to be used instead of the word " musician," and any musician was called a "Bach." So many distinguished members of the family, whose works have come down to us, will figure in this chap- ter that it has seemed necessary to insert, as a sort of dramatis persona, a condensed genealogical table of The Bach Family showing the descent of the most famous members of the family, whose works are accessible: Veit Bach (c. 1SS0-1619) Hans Bacli (Died 1626) J. Heinrich Johann J. Christoph I J. Christoph J. Michael J. ^gidius Ambrosius J. Bernhard J. Sebastian Wilhelm Friedemann C. Philipp Emanuel J, Christoph Friedrich J. Christian ph] Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst The ancestor of this family was Veit or Vitus Bach, bom about 1550 or perhaps some years earlier. His son, Hans Bach, had three musical sons, Heinrich, Johann, and Christoph. 48 FIFTEEN FAMOUS BACHS 49 Heinrich had two gifted sons, Johaim Christoph and Johann Michael. Johann was the grandfather of the distinguished com- poser Johann Bemhard, and from the other son, Christoph, after two generations, the great Johann Sebastian was descended, whose sons Wilhekn Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel were world- famous in music, while his younger sons J. Christoph Friedrich and J. Christian, and his grandson Wilhehn Friedrich Ernst, were also widely renowned. In referring to them we shall drop the name Johann for they all have it. Old Hans Bach was a merry old sotd and thought it quite a joke to call all his sons Johann, but it is a trifle confusing. It is also quite an undertaking to differentiate the various Johann Christophs, as the name appears fifteen times in the Bach family, five times in Sebastian Bach's generation alone. The great'Bach — Sebastian — mentions as the forefather of his family Veit Bach, a miller and baker of Wechmar, in Thuringia. This Veit Bach loved and practised music. "He had his greatest pleasure," wrote Sebastian, "in a small cithara, which he even took into the mill with him, and played on while the mill worked. How sweetly they must have sounded together!" he continues; "this was, as it were, the beginning of music among his descend- ants." Veit Bach's son Hans showed such a taste for music that his father decided to let him become a "player," that is to say, a "Spielmann," by profession, a term with which we have be- come more familiar through the Spielmann in Humperdinck's Konigskinder. Hans was sent to Gotha to learn from the city musician there, who was also a Bach. He lived in the Guildhall tower and must have played the chorales from the tower at certain hours, according to long usage. After serving his apprenticeship, Hans returned to Wechmar and took up the trade of carpet-weaving in addition to his music, but can hardly have had much time to spend at it, as his fame soon spread and he was greatly in demand in all the other towns of Thuringia, to play on festal occasions. He twice had his por- trait done, a great distinction in those days. Philipp Emanuel Bach possessed these portraits of his great-great-grandfather. 50 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY so that we know what sort of man he was. In one of them he was shown playing the viohn, with a big bell on his shoulder, and a jester's cap under his mantle; on the picture was written this jesting rhyme: "Here you see, fiddling, stands Hans Bach, To hear him play would make you laugh; He plays, you must know, in a way of his own, And wears a fine beard, by which he is known."' It was this jovial "Spielmann, " who named all his sons Johann! Three of these sons were musicians and the ancestors of still greater musicians. The second, Johann Heinrich, was a great favorite with his father, who taught him violin playing and often took him on trips with him when he went to other t9wns to play. On one of these journeys the young Heinrich heard an organ for the first time — there was none in Wechmar — and was so fascin- ated, that every Sunday he would run off to some other town or village where he could hear that instrimient. Soon he went to Schweinfurth to live with his elder brother Johann, and studied there and later in Erfurt, where he also played in the City Orchestra. Finally he received the appointment of organist in Amstadt. The Thirty Years' War was raging and he soon found it a difficult matter to subsist. His salary had not been paid for a year; the war taxes were heavy and the soldiers helped themselves to anything they wanted. So at last Heinrich was forced to pro- test to Count vSchwarzburg, representing to him that, "By the strahge visitation of God I know not where to find bread for my wife and young family, seeing that no money has been paid me for more than a year." The Count took up the matter and issued a strict command that Bach was to be paid at once and never again have cause to complain. That he was a great favor- ite is attested by a note in the city records, in which he is referred to as "the beloved and good Heinrich Bach. " That he possessed something of his father's sense of humor is suggested by an in- cident that occurred when he was asked to choose an organist for FIFTEEN FAMOUS BACKS 51 the church in Rockhausen. After hearing the candidate, his sole commetit was, "He is good enough for the salary!" He was evidently a prolific composer, for Olearius, in his funeral oration, mentioned among his works chorales, motets, concertos, preludes, and fugues, a list which included practically all the forms employed at that time in Church music. Those which remain to us, as the Chorale Vorspiel, Erharme Dich, Herre Gott — "Have Mercy, Lord God" — are very pleasing in a certain simplicity and quality of naiveness. Of his children, the two who survived him, Christoph and Michael, also became famous organists and composers. The elder son, Johann Christoph, who began his musical studies with his father, was appointed organist at Eisenach in 1665, and re- mained there until the end of his life. Another organist in Eisenach at the time, from whom, doubtless, he learned much, was the great Pachelbel ; when he moved to Erftirt in 1678, Chris- toph Bach succeeded him as Court Organist, and went to live in the Prince's Mint, where seven living rooms were set apart for his use, as well as stabling for two horses. He wrote many composi- tions in all forms, but his greatest fame rests upon his choral music, that is to say, upon his motets. He also composed a small ora- torio picturing the strife between the Archangel Michael and Satan, a work which Sebastian Bach admired so greatly that he had it performed in Leipsic, where, according to Philipp Emanuel, it called forth great amazement and produced a stirring effect. Philipp Emanuel's admiration for Christoph Bach was unbounded; he refers to him as "the great and impressive composer. " Heinrich Bach's other surviving son, Michael, was long his father's assistant at Amstadt. In 1673 he received an appoint- ment to Gehren and must have been most satisfactory in this post, for the minister and committee gave especial thanks for the "quiet, modest, and experienced artist. " His income in Gehren consisted of seventy-two gulden, 18 cords of wood, 5 measures of corn, 9 measures of barley, 3^2 barrels of beer, a piece of pas- ture land, and a free house. This house, by the way, is now the deacon's residence. Michael Bach was fond of making instruments; he built 52 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY several clavichords and violins, some of which are still preserved. He died when only forty-six years of age, leaving six children; his youngest daughter later became the wife of the great Sebastian Bach, her cousin. As a composer he introduced into choral music the new idea of uniting several passages of Scripture relating to a given theme with verses of chorales composed upon that theme, an innova- tion wnich foreshadowed the cantatas of Sebastian Bach. All his compositions are melodious and their treatment is graceful. We often feel, it is true, that his intentions are far beyond his technical powers, that is to say, that his conceptions are much greater than his ability to express theto. Of his works there remain to us the Cantata Stay with us Lord Jesus, twelve motets, and some seventy-two Chorale Preludes. No one who takes even a casual glance at the music written by the Bachs and other composers of this period can fail to be struck by the number of compositions that are based on chorales, as Chorale Preludes and Variations. It is a fact that the form of composition common to all organists in the Lutheran Church, was the Chorale Prelude, as it was a matter of necessity in the conduct of the service. In the Roman Catholic Church there was prac- tically no congregational singing; the Gregorian Chants and other canticles or service numbers were sung by the priests ; the funda- mental idea of the service was, indeed, that of a service for the people and not of or through the people. There were hymns, to be sure, splendid, noble hsmins that were written by Fathers of the Church, or that grew out of the sincere religious feeling of the people themselves and bore the character of folk songs, but these were not sung in the Church ; they were sung by the Brothers in the various orders, by the Crusaders on their marches to the Holy Land, by the people in their homes; occasionally one was intro- duced into a less important service of the Church, such as Vespers, but always qualified by many restrictions, so that there was little encouragement for the people to take part. And none of these hymns was admitted at the high solemnity of the Mass. The priests offered that sacrifice for the. people, since the priests were those set apart for that function in a Church which was conceived FIFTEEN FAMOUS BACKS 53 of as mediator, as a channel for and dispenser of the grace of God to man. In Protestantism all this was changed. The fact that Luther was the father of congregational hymn-singing was but one mani- festation of his fatherhood of the Protestant Church. For in the Protestant Church the intermediatory priesthood between God and man was set aside; Christ was conceived of as the only mediator, the offices of worship were taken from the priests and became the right and privilege of each believer or of the body of believers. Congregational singing in the language of the people occupied an important place in the service. "Otir dear Lord," said Luther, "speaks with us through His Holy Word, and we speak with Him through prayer and song. " As soon as he had finished translating the New Testament he began to write hymns, and many other leaders of the Reformation also hastened to use their gifts for the enrichment of the service. As there were no hymnals with times, the organist was re- quired to play the tune over before the singing, that the congregation might know which one to sing. From the be- ginning, apparently, it was the practice to embellish it with interludes, and gradually, in the hands of great organists and composers, these simple chorale times developed into important musical compositions. These Chorale Preludes were, therefore, the signs of the times! Another son of the jovial fiddler Hans Bach — the oldest son — was Johann Bach, just plain Johann, who traveled much with his father as a violinist, but presently took up the organ, and spent the greater part of his life as organist of St. Peter's Church, Erfurt. He was there at the time of the conclu- sion of the Peace of Westphalia; in recognition of it, in all the churches, the most beautiful compositions by Praetorius, Schuetz, Scheldt, and other great composers were sung, and an "Actus" was given out of doors, entitled What Is brought by Peace and War. Years later Johann Bach's grandson, Bemhard Bach, became organist at Erfurt, but presently went to Magdeburg, where he was appointed also Court Musician to the Duke of Sax-Eisenach. 54 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY He received such a very large salary, for those days, that he must have been an unusually fine player. As a composer, he is known through four suites for orchestra, several pieces for clavi- chord, and a series of Chorale Preludes for organ, which reveal him one of the ablest writers of his time. The adjective applied by his contemporaries to Bemhard Bach's compositions was "elegant." It remained for yet another son of Hans the fiddler, J. Christoph Bach, to found the branch of the family from which should spring the greatest of the name. Christoph was born in "Wechmar in 1613 and became a musician like his two brothers, Heinrich and Johann, but, unlike them, he exercised his gifts in the field of secular music. He was for some years Court Musician at Weimar, then Court and City Musician at Amstadt. His son Ambrosius was the father of the great Sebastian. Ambrosius Bach was a violinist and was City Musician at Eisen- ach when his thirteenth son, Johann Sebastian, was born, in the charming and picturesque house which is now the Bach Museum. He was evidently a man of considerable fame and held in high esteem, for in a sermon preached at their sister's funeral, the rector referred to him and his twin brother as "gifted with a good understanding, with art and skill which make them respected and listened to in the chtu-ches, schools, and in all the country, so that through them the Master's work is praised. " Sebastian was only nine years old when his mother died, and his father survived her only a year. His older brother, another Johann Christoph, who was established as organist at Ohrdruf, took the ten-year-old boy into his home. He had a very fine soprano voice and had been taught by his father to play the violin. His brother now taught him to plaj'' the clavichord and organ; and so marvelous was the lad's progress, that, for some reason, perhaps through a kind of jealousy, the brother would not let him have any more music to play from, although the boy begged hard. You all know the story of how the little hand of the boy could squeeze through the wire grating over the front of the book-case in which brother Christoph kept his music, and FIFTEEN FAMOUS BACHS 55 how, night after night, the lad crept down and copied piece after piece, by Pachelbel, Froberger, and other famous masters, there in the moonUght. Sebastian also studied music in the school in Ohrdruf, as well as Theology, Latin, and New Testament Greek. Then one day word came that a soprano boy was needed in St. Michael's Church, Liineburg, and that the appointee would receive free keep and education. About Easter 1700 he went on there and sang in the choir until his voice changed, after which he played the harpsichord at rehearsals and the violin on festival occasions, and also played in the orchestra and on the organ. At that church they presented much fine music, for which there was liberal financial provision. There was an excellent musical li- brary, in which, by the way, there were compositions by Heinrich and by Johann Christoph Bach, and the Cantor was Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius. Sebastian Bach soon became so skilful an organist that his fame reached Amstadt, where a great organ had just been built in the new church. He received the ap- pointment as its organist. At Amstadt he began to write assiduously, revealing from the first a .wonderful sense of form. He was such an enthusiastic student and so receptive! When he was still hardly more than a boy there was in Hamburg a very famdus organist, Reinken. Bach set out for Hamburg to hear him and to learn what he could of profit to his art. Several times he took the long journey on foot. Once when he was returning, and was reduced to his very last penny, he sat down in front of an inn, almost starving as he smelled the good things cooking within. Suddenly some one threw two herrings' heads out of the window; Bach ran and gathered them up, and found in each a Danish ducat. So he had something more to eat and saved the rest, that he might be able to go again to Hamburg to hear Reinken. When he was organist at Amstadt, the great Dietrich Bux- tehude was at Lubeck, so Bach journeyed the fifty miles on foot to hear his Abendmusiken or "Twilight Musicales." He had a leave of absence of four weeks from his church, but once in Lubeck with Buxtehude he seems to have forgotten all about 56 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY Amstadt and remained sixteen weeks, returning only after the sharpest reproaches had been addressed to him. It was not long before he was called from Amstadt to St. Blasius's Church, Miihlhausen, a post which had become very- important by virtue of the many famous men who had filled it. Bach remained there only a year, however, when he accepted the appointment of Court Musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst at Weimar, quitting this to be chapebnaster to the Duke of Cothen. Then, on the death of Kuhnau, he was appointed to succeed him in St. Thomas's Church, Leipsic, which position he held until his death. He retained also the post of chapelmaster to the Duke of Cothen and Weissenfels, and received the further appointment of Composer to his Majesty the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. For a long time Bach's life in Leipsic was far from a happy one. He was not provided with the necessary singers or players to give satisfactorily the great motet services, which are still given every Saturday at noon in St. Thomas's Church; although he was world famous, the vestry insisted upon the performance of his smallest and most irksome duties in the choir school, such as teaching Latin to junior grades; and this although they had promised, if Bach would accept the post, that they would engage an assistant to attend to these matters. The rector seems to have had no appreciation of Bach's greatness either, and made everything as tmpleasant as possible for him, agreeing, doubtless, with the ves- try, which said, " Herr Bach is a great musician, no doubt, but we want a schoolmaster. " In the end Bach was obliged to appeal to the King of Saxony to obtain a fulfilment of the agreement. After that matters progressed more smoothly, and after the coming of the new Rector, Gesner, he was able to feel joy in his work. For Gesner, though not a musician, greatly appreciated and admired Bach. In his copy of the Institutions of Quintilian, where refer- ence is made to a man's ability to do several things at once, Gesner wrote this note on a blank page: "All this, my dear Fabius, you would consider very trivial, could you but rise from the dead and hear Bach, how he, with both hands and using all his fingers on a keyboard which is many lyres in one, here with Prom the Collection of Mr. Frank Taft. Johann Sebastian Bach. FIFTEEN FAMOUS BACHS 57 his hands and there with almost equal celerity with his feet, elicits many of the most various yet harmonious sounds ; I say, could you only see him presiding over thirty or forty performers all at once, recalling this one by a nod, that by a stamp of his foot, another with a warning finger, keeping time and tune! Great admirer as I am of antiquity, yet I am of the opinion that my Bach unites within himself many Orpheuses and twenty Arions!" The fame of the great master in Leipsic grew and spread throughout all lands. His son Emanuel wrote: "No master of music would willingly pass through this town without making my father's acquaintance and obtaining permission to play for him. " But as the master advanced in age, his eyes, which had been strained so constantly reading and composing music, ever since the time the little boy copied his brother's Book of Music by moonlight, finally could give no further service, and he became wholly blind. In suffering and in blindness, as in practically all the other experiences of his life, he expressed his inmost emotions through a chorale, and wrote In Deep Distress I Come to Thee. On his deathbed he dictated to his son-in-law, Altnikol, an organ chorale which he had composed some time before and called When we are in Direst Need and which he desired to complete and perfect. But now he changed the text of the chorale and wrote Before Thy Throne with this I Come. In the preface to his Principles of Thoroughbass, in 1738, Bach expressed his conception or ideal of music: "The ultimate end and aim of thoroughbass should only be the glory of God and recreation of the mind. Where these are not kept in mind there can be no real music, but only an infernal jingling and bellowing." The body of his work is almost incredibly large, as he com- posed much instrumental, vocal, and orchestral music that was secular in character, besides numbers fitting for every day of the Church Year, and for all festivals. A glance at his works shows about 13 large masses and "Passions"; 198 sacred cantatas, some of which are for solo voice; 21 secular cantatas; 9 motets; 6 sonatas for organ; 190 large compositions for organ; 9 suites or concertos for orchestra and about 300 for clavichord; 14 con- 58 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY certos for keyed instruments with accompaniment, and 57 concertos for other instnmients, as the flute, violin, etc. It is interesting to recall that after Bach's works had fallen in large measure into disuse owing, doubtless, in part to the growing popularitj' of opera, it was Mendelssohn who directed the atten- tion of the world to them again, and who, with an organ recital in Bach's old St. Thomas's Church in Leipsic, started the fund for the Bach Memorial in that city. Johann Sebastian Bach was twice married ; the first time to his cousin Maria Barbara, daughter of Michael Bach; the second time to Anna Magdalena Wtilken, a famous singer. Four children of the first marriage lived to grow up, of whom two became famous musicians, the oldest son and his father's favorite Wilhelm Friedemann, and the second 'surviving son Carl Philipp Emanuel, from whose Necrology, which was written in collaboration with Agricola, we derive much of our information about the whole family and in particular about his great father. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach matriculated into Leipsic Uni- versity in 1723 and there distinguished himself in mathematics. His greatest interest was, however, in music, in which his father considered him the most talented of all his sons, and for the com- pletion of whose education he wrote six organ sonatas. It was Bach's method of teaching to compose for each pupil pieces which would meet and overcome the individual difficulties of that pupil. In 1733 Wilhelm Friedemann received the important appointment of Organist of the Sophienkirche in Dresden, which he left to go to Halle in 1746. His brother Philipp Emanuel wrote of him, "Friedemann is better able to fill the place of our father than all the rest of us together. ' ' But Friedemann was of a very indolent, indeed idle disposition and of a nature that dreamed rather than accomplished. It was told of him in Halle that he was so absent- minded that sometimes he would start to play a Chorale Prelude, and, forgetting all aboiit the service and the congregation, play on and on, entirely oblivious to all attempts that were being made to stop him that the service might proceed. Although he attained great fame as an organist and especially as a- player of fugues, his works that have come down to us are not so important in FIFTEEN FAMOUS BACHS 59 respect either to quality or quantity as are those of his younger brother. Philipp Emanuel was the most distinguished member of the family of Sebastian Bach. He was appointed Court Player to Frederick the Great and won the reputation of being the most brilliant performer on the harpsichord in Germany; upon the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War he went to Hamburg as or- ganist of its principal church and was accounted one of the lead- ing artists on his instrument. He has come down to us in history as the father of modem pianoforte playing and the originator of sonata form. The family life in the home in which these two grew to man- hood must have been very engaging and delightful. Father Bach had an excellent library, and there were five claviers, a little spinet, a lute, a viola da gamba, besides viojins, violas, and cellos enough for concerted music of the simpler kinds, and everyone in the family could play and doubtless others besides the mother could sing. Two sons of Sebastian Bach's second marriage were also dis- tinguished musicians. Johann Christoph Friedrich, his ninth son, who was bom in Leipsic in 1732, studied law at the University there but decided to follow music, so accepted an appointment as Director at Luneburg. He wrote several compositions for instruments, sacred cantatas, an oratorio The Resurrection of Lazarus, a secular cantata Pygmalion, and an opera Die Ameri- kanerin. Johann Christian Bach, Sebastian's eleventh son, was only fifteen years old when his father died, so he went to Berlin to live and study with his half brother Philipp Emanuel. At the age of nineteen he became organist of Milan Cathedral ; five years later he went to London where he was appointed Concert Director and Musician to the Queen. Several of his operas were produced there and received with great favor, especially Orione or Diana Vindicated. To him in London came Wilhehn Friedrich Ernst Bach, the son of his brother Johann Christoph Friedrich, who shortly won distinction as a pianist and an organist. After his uncle's death 6o EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY In 1782 he went to Paris to give concerts, and from there to the Court of Friedrich Wilhelm II, where he was appointed Director of Music and Court Pianist to the beautiful and beloved Queen Louise. He wrote compositions for piano, songs, and cantatas, but as yet few of his works have been published. He was the last of the direct line to win renown in music. EXCURSION VI THE SONATA THE name Sonata in its derivation conveys its own meaning; from the Italian suonare to sound, a Sonata is a "Sound Piece." In his Syntagma Musicum, written about 1615, Praetorius says: "Senate, a Sonando, are so called because they are not to be done with voices but only with instruments. " The name was there- fore manifestly given to distinguish the instrumental piece, sounded on an instrument, from the sung piece, the Cantata. The earliest form of instrumental music was, in all probability, a dance. At first it was united with vocal music, as in the Greek choragic dances. You will remember that, to the Greeks, a hymn meant a static song, that is, one not accompanied by the dance; other songs of worship and praise of the gods were accom- panied by the rhythmic movements known as dancing. In the course of time the songs became more or less disasso- ciated from dances, which, with the development of instruments, became forms of instrumental music, although in many cases they still retained as themes the old song melodies. After a time, in the natural course of events, dance music was written purely for instru- ments. As early as the thirteenth century, such instrumental pieces were played on the viol or vielle, the ancestor of the violin. In the first place they were folk dances, then there were introduced some society dances, and all were affected by the developing musical knowledge and technique so that they gradually became harmonious and musical instead of merely rhjrthmic. Indeed, as 6i 62 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY instnmients were perfected and harmony developed, these com- positions ceased to resemble the actual dances at all, retaining only the name and the time signature proper to each, with the characteristic rhythm. Of the compositions retaining the name and rhythm of the dance, the Pavan, a native of Padua — whence its name Paduano, or Pavana — was a favorite in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies, especially, it appears, in Italy and England. It is a slow moving, stately measure, written in four-foxir time. At an early date there became associated with it another dance form, the Gal- liard; so constantly associated with it, indeed, that in the Eliza- bethan virginal books every Pavan has its Galliard. Thomas Morley wrote in 1597 : "After every Pavan we set a Galliard (that is a kind of music made out of the other) causing it to go by a mea- sure which the learned call Trochaicam rationem, consisting of a long and a short stroke successively. It consists of the same nlmiber of strains as a Pavan, but is lighter and more stirring, and looke, how many fours of semi-briefs you put in the strain of your Pavan so many times six minims must you put in the strain of your Galliard. " That is to say, in modern language, the Galliard had the same tune and the same harmony as its own Pavan, but the quadruple time of the Pavan was changed in the Galliard to triple time. Here, in the very beginning, we have a perfect though simple example of what we call the development of a theme in the most modern sense, the employment of the same melody and scheme of harmonization, with alteration of rhythm. Pavans and their inseparable complements, Galliards, are found in the works of all Elizabethan composers; to King Henry VIII himself quite a famous Pavan is attributed. Shakespeare's old Sir Toby protests "after a Passy or a Pavan I hate a drunken rogue!" In Parthenia and the other virginal books of the period we find these dance forms set down by the best known composers, as Byrd, Dowland, Gibbons, and by others who are hardly known to us though of great importance in their own day, as Thomas Warrock, whose name was later spelled Warwick; he was the father of Sir Philip Warwick. In Elizabeth's reign he was organ- ist of Hereford Cathedral and under James I succeeded Orlando THE SONATA 63 Gibbons at the Chapel Royal. Judging from the song in forty- parts which he wrote for Charles I he seems not to have been behind the most facile composers among his contemporaries, in technical skill at least. These old dance forms were very short, so the custom early arose of putting several together, en suite, as it were. The Branle, or Brawl, was adopted from France, the Coranto from Italy, the Sarabande from Spain, the Jig from England, and these with still other dance forms were strung together, although not in any definite or unvarying succession. It was, however, usual to begin the group with the Pavan and its accompanying Galliard, and very shortly the custom arose of closing it with the Gigue, whose lively measures attracted not only all the English com- posers but the French as well, as practically all the well-known musicians of the period in France, Rameau, Couperin, Rousseau, and others have left us compositions in this form. In Germany the dances which were combined at the earliest date were called, instead of Pavan and Galliard, Tanz and Nach- Tanz, which latter was the Italian dance, the Salterella, which was known, too, as a Proportio because its proportion to the time of the first movement was three-four to four-four, as was that of the Galliard to the Pavan. But these loosely arranged dance forms were nothing more than a set of dances until the German com- posers arranged them definitely in a Suite, or as they called it, using the Italian name, a Partita. There seems to have been but one native German dance form suitable for use in such sets, the Allemande. So the German composers in creating the definite form of the Suite placed first, after a Prelude, their own native dance, the Allemande; it was then followed by a Coranto, or Sarabande, Minuet, or other dance, and the Suite closed according to the old custom with a Gigue. Soon all the world adopted this as the definite form of the Suite. First after the Prelude came the Allemande. For the second movement the widest latitude was permitted in the choice of dances, but the favorite was the Cor- anto, which is the second dance in all the Suites of Bach. Shake- speare's Sir Toby gives a hint of its tempo and character when he speaks of going to church in a Galliard and returning home in a 64 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY Coranto. The third movement was usually a Sarabande, or other slow movement, and the Suite ended with the Gigue. The Concerto of the period, such as the Concerto Grosso of Arcangelo Corelli, did not differ in form from the Suite; it, too, comprised a succession of dances all in the same key. Later, it developed along the same lines as the Sonata and the Sym- phony, its distinguishing characteristic being the employment of a solo instrument, or solo instruments, in concert with, that is to say consorted with, others. But the Suite was, after all, very limited in its powers of ex- pression, as all its movements were derived from dance forms, and rather monotonously in the same key. Other developments were taking place in music and soon other forms besides dance forms began to insinuate themselves into the Suite. Johann Kuhnau, Bach's predecessor at Leipsic, the composer of the first Sonata for the harpsichord, which was the immediate ancestor of our piano, wrote concerning his Sonatas, "In composing them I have kept in mind all kinds of inventions and changes by which Sonatas are superior to mere Suites"; which, being interpreted, means that in naming his compositions Sonatas, he proclaimed himself free to introduce into them any musical form he wished instead of being confined to dance forms as he would have been had he named them Suites. Some of the innovations he wished to introduce he owed to the great development which had taken place in organ music. The churchly Prelude furnished to the new Sonata an introduc- tory movement usually slow, dignified, or even solemn in charac- ter. Such an opening movement is still characteristic of violin sonatas and is found quite frequently in those written for other instruments. A second form, of which Kuhnau made use in his first Sonata, and which also had attained its earliest and fullest development on the organ was the Fugue. It has ceased to be employed in the modern Sonata, save in sonatas for organ. Another important musical development which was at this time making itself felt in instrumental music was that of vocal music, the influence of which was pronounced in two qtiite differ- ent particulars. The secular madrigal or part-song for voices THE SONATA 65 had developed early and had reached a considerable degree of complexity; we have already referred to such a part-song written by Thomas Warrock in forty parts. When these songs were played on an instrument, even by way of support for the voices, they occasionally contained such a degree of promise that com- posers devoted themselves to developing them and to writing instrumental compositions on the same model, known as instru- mental Canzone. Composers who were seeking to get away from the dance rhythm of the Suite adopted the instrumental Canzone and incorporated it in the Sonata where it became the solid Allegro which is the first regular movement in the modem Sonata or Symphony. A second notable development in vocal music was the Opera, and from it the composers for instruments borrowed the Aria, the solo number with accompaniment, which they introduced as the slow movement of the Sonata, the Adagio, or Andante which is its heart and its emotional climax, as we realize most fully if we consider the Adagio movements in the Beethoven Sonatas. We must not, however, make the mistake of thinking that dance forms were banished from the Sonata. Indeed, Marpurg, writing as late as 1762 of the various kinds of music then in vogue, says of them, "Sonatas are pieces in three or four movements marked merely Allegro, Adagio, etc., although in character they may as well be Allemande, Coranto, and Gigue. " In truth, however, it was gradually coming to pass that the dances were held in reserve until the last movement or movements. If a Sonata had four or five movements, the third or fourth would be a Minuet or a Scherzo in dance rhjrthm; if only three, the last movement was bright, quick, and gay and almost invariably betrayed its dance origin. The development of the Sonata progressed through about two hundred years, irregularly, but quite clearly, under the influences cited. It might not be amiss to recapitulate them very briefly. Firstly, the influence of the ecclesiastical, especially of organ music, to which it owes the slow Prelude and the Fugue, which is now, however, almost confined to the Organ Sonata; secondly, the influence of vocal music to which it owes its opening movement. 66 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY the Allegro which is derived from the madrigal or part song by way of the instrumental Canzone, and its rniddle movement, the Adagio or Andante, which is borrowed from the solo aria in the opera or cantata and which forms the emotional climax of the Sonata; thirdly, the influence of the dance forms of the Suite, to which the Sonata owes its extra movement, the Minuet or the Scherzo, or the character of its last movement the Allegro con brio, or Presto — ^whicli bears decided traces of its origin. In taking over these various elements the Sonata enjoyed a great liberty which had never been permitted to the Suite, in that its different movements were written in different keys, whereas all the dances that made up a Suite were invariably in the same key. True, Frangois Couperin the Great, in the reign of Louis XV of France, had written the movements of his Suites, or Ordres as he called them, some in major and some in minor; but he was also one of the first to introduce into them music not in dance rhjrthm. But it is not only in the character of its movements and in the fact that they may all be written in difierent keys that the Sonata differs from the Suite. One of the most characteristic fea- tures of the Sonata is the structure of its first movement, which we have called the solid Allegro. It must be composed on two themes, a primary and a secondary.. The primary theme is enunciated in a certain key, the secondary in a related key but never in the same key. There follows a free section, after which, that is to say at the close of the movement, the composer must return to the original key, the key of the primary subject. Even in Kuhnau's First Sonata he followed this general plan, although the secondary subject is so very indefinite as to be little more than a cadence in a different key. For the last movement, or the extra movement, if there is one, ' interesting variations of dance forms occur. In one case the Chaconne or Gavotte will become the Rondo; or, and this is perhaps the most usual and the most important, the old Galliard of the Suite, in triple time, is converted into two sections, the Minuet and the Trio. A little later the Minuet fre- quently changed its name and appeared as the Scherzo, or fanci- THE SONATA 67 ful musical joke. Nor does the modem composer confine himself to ancient dance rhythms; Tschaikowsky introduces the Waltz into his Fifth Symphony. But in them all we cannot fail to note how far the dance forms under pturely musical influences have departed from the dance. As to who should receive the credit of the very first Sonata the opinions of historians differ. Dr. Bumey believed it was Turini, the organist of Brescia Cathedral about 1634; but Banchieri of Venice had already published two Sonatas in 161 1 and Giovanni Gabrieli, organist of St. Mark's in Venice from 1556 to 1586, called some of his compositions Sonate da Chiesa, or Church Sonatas. These early Sonatas were written for several instnmients playing together, as two viols and a bass, or a violin, violone, and organ. We do know, however, that the earliest sonata for harpsichord was written by Johann Kuhnau, Bach's predecessor at St. Thomas's Church, Leipsic. To a book of his compositions he appended tliis First Sonata to which he made reference in his preface, "I have added at the end a Sonata in B flat which will please music lovers ; for why should not such things be attempted on the clavier?" As he had foreseen, it did please, and shortly afterwards he pub- lished seven more Sonatas under the title Fresh Fruits. As the clavier was not by nature suited to sustain the long notes in the slow movements, many grace notes and ornamental trills were introduced in the Fresh Fruits, and these Kuhnau referred to as "Sugar to sweeten the fruits. " These seven Sonatas he wrote, as he tells us he had set himself to do, in seven days, beginning Mon- day morning and finishing on the following Monday morning, attending to his duties as a practising lawyer and organist of St. Thomas's Church the while. The form of the Sonata in these early days varied greatly. There was the Sonata da Chiesa, or Church Sonata, which origi- nated with Giovanni Gabrieli, at St. Mark's, Venice, and which was little more than an instrumental Canzone, in which the in- struments in use in the Church were contrasted as fully as possible, the violins with the comets and trumpets. Then there was the Sonata da Camera, or Chamber Sonata, which was developed by Arcangelo Corelli, the great violinist. 68 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY His earliest compositions in this fonn consisted of two move- ments, one of which offered a special opportunity for the solo violin ; later he used a form in three movements, which found its way back into the church, where the organ was used to accom- pany it. Domenico Scarlatti, the great player upon the harpsichord, composed Sonatas based on the song form, with free ornamenta- tion; he was probably the first to introduce the slow movement or aria which we know as the Adagio or Andante of the modem Sonata. We read also of a Sonata di Balletto, which was doubtless a. Sonata da Camera in which dance rhythms predominated or were used exclusively. The first to mold his compositions according to the outlines of our modern Sonata, or Symphony, was Philipp Emanuel Bach, in six Sonatas dedicated to Frederick the Great and published in 1742. The first movement of each consists of a principal theme, a short section in which he works out the theme in another key and a conclusion in which he returns to the original key. He breaks almost entirely with the old pol3rphonic style of writing, and, taking passages from his original melody works them out as themes through changes of pitch, modulations, and other devices, in a manner which amounts to a musical exposition of his idea. His example was speedily followed by his contemporary Johann Karl Stamitz, who wrote six delightful Sonatas for violin and harpsichord and twelve for violin and bass, and by his son Karl Stamitz, who besides much music for violin composed three important symphonies. Haydn and Mozart both took up the new form and enriched it, and by the close of the centijry it had found its fullest development at the hands of Beethoven. Just here we must remind ourselves that when we speak of the form of the modern Sonata we include the S3miphony, as there is no difference save that a Sonata may be for a single instrument or solo instrument with accompaniment, whereas a Symphony demands the playing of several instruments concertedly. The fixed form of the Sonata has occasioned difficulties for composers some of which are rather amusing. Kuhnau tells of From the Collection of Mr. Frank Taft THE S0NAT4. 69 a friend of his who wrote a medical sonata, The Doctor. The first movements expressed the sickness and nervousness of the patient and the alarm of his friends who ran for the doctor ; the last move- ment was a Gigue with this superscription: "The patient greatly- improved, but not yet fully recovered. " Now people mocked at this and said the composer was a poor musician and not skilful enough to make the sick man perfectly well. "But," said Kuhnau, "the composer really could not help himself. He began the Sonata in D Minor, then modulated into G and, at the end, for the finale, was obliged by the rules of the Sonata to return to his original key of D Minor. The ear is not satisfied ; it is impossible to have complete abandon of joy in D minor; therefore, the only possible interpretation was that, though the patient was re- covering, he was not yet entirely well!" There is a grain of truth at the bottom of the himior of this story. It is a fact that many of our modem writers have turned away from the Sonata to other forms in which they can allow themselves greater liberties. Lig^t, for example, wrote that he found that the symphonic poem "leaves the composer freer, since in classical music the return of themes and the progress of the- matic development are determined by express rules which are considered inviolable, although the composers who originated them had no other precept for them than their own imagination, and themselves made the formal disposition which people wish now to set up as a law." Edward MacDowell complained that if he had an idea which was too large to fit the sonata form he was obliged to "cut off the child's legs to make it fit its bed" lest the critics should say of him, as they did of Chopin, that he was "weak in sonata form!" Most of the greatest composers have permitted themselves considerable liberty within the established form; Beethoven, for instance, gave such free rein to the poetic idea in his Opus 27, No. 2, known as the Moonlight Sonata, that he felt constrained to name it Sonata Quasi Fantasia. Liszt's rule must be, after all, the guiding principle for critic and composer alike, "The master is master of his work. " EXCURSION vir PROGRAM MUSIC PROGRAM music may be most simply defined as music which bears a descriptive title, as The Cuckoo, Consola- tion; or the various sections of which are characterized by verbal descriptions or analyses, as, for instance, Kuhnau's Biblical Sonatas or Bach's Capriccio on the Departure of my Brother. This simple definition does not, however, wholly define program music. Lesueur, the teacher of Berlioz, averred that all music is program music; that the object of music must always be imitation. Beethoven, who frequently wrote music that is distinctly program music, or, even, occasionally, imitative music, advanced as his opinion that " all painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a failure. " We have many reviewers and critics to-day who condemn all program music and are fond of speaking of it as a thing only occasionally written and then inevitably in- clined towards the banal, and who declare that what is termed ' ' ab- solute" music is the only music worthy of serious consideration. It is the same old question of the nature and function of art; and apparently there will always be some who hold that the func- tion of any art is to reproduce nature, who will most admire and loudest exclaim over painted hares so lifelike that the hounds bark at them; and' others who as positively hold that art is art and has little, if anything, to do with nature; and yet others who hold the middle ground that art is not an imitation of nature nor a denial of nature but a record of an emotional impression or ex- perience of nature or of life. 70 PROGRAM MUSIC 71 After a study of the methods of work of the great composers, it is difficult not to arrive at the conclusion that almost all music is, in a sense, program music and that its opposite — what is under- stood as absolute music — ^is most rare, if, indeed, there is such a thing. The great example of the composer of absolute music usually cited is Brahms; there are no descriptive titles, such as The Storm, The Nightingale, affixed to his compositions or the divisions of them; all is "pure" music, set down in allegro, an- dante, adagio movements. Yet, in a letter to Clara Schumann; accompanying the manuscript of one of these compositions, he writes: "I would like some better name for these; they ought to be called 'Dreams,' for that is what they really are; but I am afraid of giving the public the wrong impression, so I have pre- ferred simply to characterize them thus"; which only goes to show that much that is absolute music to the public which has not been let into the secret, is program music to the composer. How frequently Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is quoted as absolute - music and, therefore, as so much nobler than the Pastoral Symphony which is program music ! Yet, when Bee- thoven played for his friends those ominous opening notes at the beginning of the Fifth, he exclaimed: "'Tis thus Fate knocks at the door!" It cannot, however, be denied that music such as that of the Fifth Symphony is nobler music than that which is made up of imitations of nattu-al sounds; and this brings us to the consider- ation of the fact that there are two classes of program music. The first class is simply and frankly imitative and devotes itself to reproducing natural sounds, such as the call of the cuckoo or the nightingale, the splashing of water, and so on. The second kind, which might be called interpretative, may be in turn divided into two classes. The first of these aims to represent, not actual sights or sounds, but their effect upon the composer, the emotions stirred in his soid by certain sights, sounds, thoughts, or memories. Such a composition is Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony as a whole, although a few passages are in the other class, purely imitative. The second kind of interpretative music is the expression of 72 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY some fancy or dream or emotion within the composer's soul ; such a revelation is Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Most of the great composers seem to have had before them very definite pictures when composing. Haydn thus describes his method of work: "I sit down to the pianoforte and begin to extemporize, sadly or joyously, gravely or playfully, as my mood happens to be; and when I have laid hold of an idea, my whole endeavor is aimed at elaborating and sustaining it in accordance -with the rules of art. In one of my oldest symphonies the idea was how God spoke with a hardened sinner and begged him to mend his ways, but without making any impression. '.' Liszt, who is frequently referred to as the "father of program music," and who invented or gave a name to one form of it, the Symphonic Poem, never put forth any argument for descriptive titles or analytical sub-titles save the one incontrovertible one: "The master is master of his work; he can have created it under the influence of certain impressions of which he would like to make the hearer conscious." In such a composition as his St. Francis of Assist preaching to the Birds, imitative and inter- pretative program music are united. We have already referred to the fact that much of the earliest music was imitative. Plato speaks of flutists who reproduced all sounds of nature and of a duet between the flute and cithara which was supposed to picture the combat between Apollo and the Python. But most of the Greek music which remains to us has advanced beyond the purely imitative stage, although it contains many imitative elements. Such a song as, for example, the Hymn to Apollo, which was written two centuries before Christ, pictures the Athenian artists and artisans assembling at Delphi for the worship of Apollo; the music tries to reproduce the scene; it mounts with the mounting flames on the altar; it suggests "the lotus reed's clear singing" and the "sound of many stringed instriunents " which accompany the chorus in praise of the son of mighty Zeus. But again, such songs as Dionysos' Ode to Calliope or the hjmm from the tombstone of Seikilos, contain no imitative music. As for modern music in the western world, it may be said to PROGRAM MUSIC 73 have begun to establish itself noticeably as an independent art and not merely a handmaid of theology, in the sixteenth century, and the two principal forms of musical expression then employed were dance forms and imitative music. In the realm of imitative music, the battle piece was one of the earliest compositions and vfas very popular. Vocal music took the lead, with Clement Jannequin's four-part chorus describing the Battle of Marignano, which was fought in 15 15. It is full of imitations of fifes, drtmis, bugles, musket reports, and all the other noises of war. In the same vein are his Taking of Boulogne, and Siege of Metz; more gentle but just as frankly imitative are his The Chatter of the Ladies, The Cries of Paris, The Nightingale, The Swallow, and many others. The battle piece was first introduced in instrtmiental music by the Elizabethan composer, William B>Td. Next in favor on the virginals of that age were "Storm" pieces. One composer in- serts as a direction to the performer that to get really effective thunder he should put down the whole left hand on the bass notes. A young woman performer, who made a great hit with a "Storm, " had the lid of her instrument open when playing and so arranged that when she came to a thunder clap and struck the bass notes fortissimo, down came the Hd of the instrument with a mighty crash which lent a very realistic touch. The Elizabethan composer John Munday varied these storm pieces somewhat in his Fantasia on the Weather by depicting before the "Thunder- storm," "Fair Weather," and, after it, "A Clear Day." Weather music has never gone entirely out of fashion. One of its largest monuments is the "Frost Scene" from Henry Purcell's King Arthur, which was written to Dryden's text in 1691. The scene is laid in the depth of winter and is for the most part a dialogue between Cupid and Cold, the Genius of the Clime, whom the little god "is trying to awaken from his sleep beneath the hills of snow. Every note is sung with a shiver; the scene is one con- tinuous shake. The realistic quality of the music is too extreme to be altogether artistic, but the work as a whole evidently made a most favorable impression when it was first presented, for Downes reviewed it: " King Arthur, wrote by Mr. Dryden, was excellently 74 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY adorned with scenes and machines, the musical part by famous Mr. Henry Purcell, pleased the Court and the City, and, being well performed, was very gainful." An Elizabethan writer, Giles Farnaby, some fifty of whose compositions are in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, wrote a quaint, charming bit of program music, which belongs to the interpretative class, Giles Farnaby's Dream. It is in three movements: his Dream; his Rest; his Humor, that is to say, his Wayward Fancy. His Dream is in the dance rhythm and time of a Pavan; his Rest, of a Galliard; while his Htunor is in no set form, but is just a "wayward fancy. " Of the writer of this whimsical composition we know little beyond the facts that he was born in Truro and was made a Bachelor of Music of Oxford University in 1592, "having studied music twelve years." Another favorite theme for imitation in music has always been the notes of the birds; indeed, some historians find in the imitation of bird notes the source of the whole art of music. The compositions in which they occur are numberless. Jannequin, of battle-piece fame, wrote also The Nightingale and The Swallow; Beethoven introduced the notes of the nightingale, thrush, and cuckoo in the Pastoral Symphony; one of the most popular pieces of our present-day composer Saint-Saens is The Nightingale and the Rose. The great Italian organist, Frescobaldi, he who played to an audience of thirty thousand in St. Peter's Church, Rome, wrote an interesting Capriccio around the notes of the cuckoo. Even humbler and less poetic birds strayed into music's pleasant fields. Rameau, the greatest of French organists and composers, wrote an Andante for which he used as his theme the notes of that humble bird, the hen. He reproduced in it as exactly as possible the hen's cackle, but united his repetitions of the theme with one of the loveliest movements imaginable, so pure in tone, so altogether attractive in melody and harmony. ' If one listens only to the hen, the piece may seem purely humorous; if one lis- tens to all the music, it will be found by no means lacking in beaaty and charm. It is well to follow always Schumann's rule, "Do not tax your brains to follow the program, but enjoy, if only there is music and independent melody. " PROGRAM MUSIC 75 THE BIRD CALLS FROM THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY Nightingale. Bhkthovxn. Great Flute t/i^ Manual. A famous contemporary of Rameau, Frangois Couperin the Great, affixed to almost all his compositions descriptive titles such as Les PMerins, Les Abeilles, La Saur Monique, La PrS- cieuse, La Couperin, and so on. That he conceived them as program music is established by his own statement in the preface to his first book, published in 171 3: "I have always had an object in composing the following pieces; different occasions have furnished me with it; thus the titles correspond to the ideas I have had, and I may dispense with giving any other account of them. Among them is a species of portrait that has sometimes been found like enough under my fingers. " In these compositions, Couperin, who paints in miniature, as it were, gives us qxiite as clear an impression of the people he depicts, in the streets of Paris or the gardens of Versailles, as that which we receive from the pictures of his younger contemporaries, Lancret and Watteau. A novel and original theme for story-telling music was adopted 76 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY by Bach's predecessor at St. Thomas's Church, Leipsic, Johann Kuhnau. He was an original soul, who wrote the first of all sonatas for clavier, so that we are not surprised to find him enter- ing a new field in descriptive music. He took for his theme the dramatic stories of the Old Testament, such as David and Goliath, David and the mad King Saul, and composed about them a series which he named Biblical Sonatas. The music is naively imitative. In the "David and Goliath" story, we hear first of all Goliath snorting in bravado and causing the Israelites to shiver with terror, through which the steady, pleading strains of their prayer are heard; then follows the preliminary discussion between the giant and the shepherd lad, marked by taunts on the one side and modest but calm confidence on the other. We hear the whizzing of the stone as it leaves the sling, and the heavy bump, bump of the giant as he falls; in scurrying canon the Philistines flee; the children of Israel join in a gay minuet of joy in victory, the maidens sing in praise of David, to the accompaniment of the fifes and drums, and the sonata ends with a full joyous movement expressive of general exultation. In the preface to his Biblical Sonatas, Kuhnau outlines the motive that had prompted him in their composition and publica- tion. "The Egyptian picture of Mennon, " he writes, "was a curious work of art. When it was lighted by the sun's rays, it gave forth musical sounds and spake words distinctly; but if it was kept in the shade, it remained utterly silent. ' Here I bring copies of some pictures, the originals of which were done by no artists of that dark Egyptian heathendom, but by the Master of naasters, who lives in light and is the creator of the sun and who has made these pictures so radiant with his light that they must speak and sound forth forever. I mean by this, the pictures and stories inspired by the Holy Spirit. These I have, sb to speak, endeavored to make to sound and to speak through my music. "I am. not the first in the field of descriptive music; it is well known that since antiquity Music has concerned herself with trying to express what the orators, scholars, and painters have said; and in some of these respects, she must grant these arts the pre-eminence. Every child, even of three or four years old, PROGRAM MUSIC 77 can guess what the chisel or the brush of the master is trying to indicate, as the ancients said of Zeuxis that he painted his grapes so naturally that the birds flew to eat them. But this art of music gives us not only the outer physiognomy but the inner emotion. Besides, we must not deprive music of too much. Orpheus and Amphion accomplished marvelous things through music; and Savil was restored and the walls of Jericho fell. Few there are who realize that it is within the province of the musician to guide the emotions of the listener at will, to move them to joy or sorrow, love or hatred, cruelty or mercy." That the composer not only can awaken such feelings in others through his music, but that he also uses his music rather than words as the vehicle for the expression of his own feelings, we see from such a record as Mendelssohn's Song without Words, No. 8, in B flat minor, which he sent home in a letter, June 26, 1830, with the sole annotation: "I felt thus when I received yovir half-anxious, half-cheerful letter. " And that he, too, wanted to get into his music much of the simplicity and direct pictorial quality of the Kuhnau Sonatas, we may deduce from his letter explaining why the presentation of his Hebrides Overture in London must be delayed. "The middle part does not yet suit me, " he writes; "it smells more of counterpoint than of blubber, gulls, and salted cod." Just such musical description as that with which Kuhnau made vivid the Bible stories, Johann Sebastian Bach wove about a happening in his own family. His brother, Johann Jakob, having served his apprenticeship as a town musician in Eisenach, at the age of twenty-two made up his mind to enter the Swedish Guard of Charles XII as an oboe player. Upon the occasion of his departure, his younger brother, Johann Sebastian, then nine- teen years of age, wrote a Capriccio on the Departure of my Be- loved Brother. The theme of the first movement is most caressing ; family and friends cajole and flatter, trying to persuade brother Johann Jakob to remain at home. This theme almost speaks words; the teasing phrase seems to say over and over: " Bleibe doch" — " Do stay here, " " Do stay here. " Failing in this, they try to frighten him from the undertaking by depicting the perils 78 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY of the journey and the dangers in foreign lands. All is of no avail, so there follows a general lamentation, the theme of which is the same as that used by the composer, years later, in the Cruci- fixus of the B Minor Mass. The stage is at the door and family and friends must take hasty leave of the departing; the postilion's horn sounds. He is gone; and Johann Sebastian, left alone, writes a double fugue on the theme of the postilion's horn. To those who know only the sterner side of Bach, his great Mass in B Minor, his Passion music, and his fugues, an acquaint- ance with his lighter side as revealed in this Capriccio with its fresh, delicious humor, comes with something of the quality of a revelation. This is the young Bach who later wrote the sara- bandes, gavottes, suites, and the gay secular cantatas such as The Strife of Phcebus and Pan, The Coffee Cantata, and The Peasant Cantata. Another theme which has always intrigued composers is the delineation of character or personality. Frangois Couperin wrote many such sketches, as The Affected Woman and Sister Monica; Elgar, in the Enigma Variations, has but recently intro- duced us to "Dorabella" and to many others among his friends and acquaintances; Ernest Schelling in his Portrait Sketches, por- trays several public personages, such as Karl Muck, conductor of the Boston Sjrmphony Orchestra. There are many compositions which give no indication of it which were originally composed as just such delineations. When the young Mozart was in Mann- heim, at the age of seventeen, he wrote to his father that he had composed a sonata for Cannabich's daughter. Rose, a beautiful and amiable girl of fifteen, and that, on being asked by someone, after finishing the first movement, how he should write the Andante, he had replied: "I shall compose it after the character of Mile. Rose; she is exactly like the Andante." - This was probably the lovely, quiet movement in the Sonata in C Major (Kochel 309)- Robert Schumann was the originator of a new development in program music, the composition of music to accompany a. poem which is read. He wrote such music for Hebbel's Schon Hedwig, Shelley's The Fugitive, Byron's Manfred, and other poems. PROGRAM MUSIC 79 In this he has been followed by many great composers, such as Richard Strauss, who wrote the well-known interpretative ac- companiment for Tennyson's Enoch Arden. Even in the case of compositions not thus written to follow the lines of a poem, it is quite usual to find them prefaced by a verse; this happens fre- quently in the instrumental pieces of Edward MacDowell, such as A Song, The Deserted Farm, and very many others. It is quite natural that it should have been Schumann who invented this new form; his genius seems almost always to have been urged to musical expression by some definite happening or concrete thing. In one of his letters to Clara Wieck, the noble woman and great artist who afterwards became his wife, he wrote : "Everything that goes on in the world affects me: politics, litera- ture, men; in my own way I meditate on ever3rthing and after- wards it vents itself in music. " Sometimes the titles of his work suggest this, but usually they fail to give us any conception of just how definite and concrete were the images in the composer's mind. Die Nacht ("Night") as a title is fairly descriptive but we happen to know from one of his letters just what he was thinking of when he wrote it. "In writing Night I always thought of Leander, swimming across the Hellespont, calling to his loved one, who answers. ... At last they are united; but soon they must separate. Through the black waters he returns, leaving only darkness." Of the number called Fantasia, Opus 17, he writes to Clara Wieck: "I do not think I ever wrote anything more impassioned than the first movement ; it is a profound lament about you. " Of the Kreisleriana he wrote to her: "How you will smile when you recognize yourself in them ! In some parts of them lies a veritable wild love, your life and mine, and many a look of yours. " When he sent her the Scenes of Childhood, in which is the well known and well loved Traumerei, she wrote: "Your whole nature reveals itself in these themes. The touching simplicity of the 'Praying Child'! One sees it with folded hands; and the ' Child Falling Asleep ' — ^it is impossible to close the eyes more beautifully; the 'Kamin' is a real fireplace; Traumerei is a beautifxil dream. " 8o EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY Schumann also bears testimony that events and emotions were similarly reflected in the music of Franz Schubert. In 1829, when a student at Heidelberg, he wrote: "What a diary is to others, in which they enter their htimors, music paper, to which he confided all his emotions, was to Schubert. His wholly musical soul wrote notes where others use words. " Yet another species of descriptive writing occupies an im- portant place in music, the Overture. The introductory music for the earliest operas, before Gluck's, was only a sort of discon- nected instrumental prelude, but practically every overture since that time has been program music which has discharged one of two functions, that of setting forth in outline the contents of the opera, or that of creating its atmosphere without directly pic- turing its course. To the fir-st or descriptive class belong such overtures as Rossini's to William Tell or Wagner's to Tannhduser; to the second or atmopheric class, the overture to Tristan und Isolde, and the prelude to Lohengrin. EXCURSION VIII TRANSCRIPTIONS ORGANISTS axe surely the most conscientious of all musi- cians; they are constantly agitating the question of whether, musically, it is entirely honorable as well as artistically permissible to play on the organ transcriptions of compositions written for other instruments, a matter which does not awaken any concern in the breast of the performer on any other instrument. Pianists, from the least unto the greatest, play transcriptions and very frequently transcriptions of numbers written for the organ, as the Bach Organ Preludes and Fugues, while they seldom play any of the compositions Bach originally composed for the clavier. Violinists and cellists take what pleases them from musical literature and use it freely without regard to what instrument it was composed for originally. The foremost conductors play orchestral arrangements of operatic numbers in which the vocal parts are given to instruments. Against their doing so protests are practically never raised, while the uneasiness of musical conscience suffered bj^ the organists has communicated itself to reviewers and critics so that con- stantly criticisms are written, speeches made, and articles pub- lished for and against the organist's use of transcriptions. It is not to be gainsaid that, as a rule, a composition is better suited to the instrument for which it is written than to any other, although this is by no means always the case. Sometimes a composer had a broad, massive musical idea but because the virginals or harpsichord or violin happened to be his instrument, 6 8i 82 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY or because he had an artist at hand to play it on one of those instru- ments, he suited his composition to the medium of its interpre- tation. Such a composition may gain much by being transcribed, through the breadth and massiveness of the organ. Composers frequently become aware that a certain composition is better suited to another instrument, or at least as well suited to it as to the one for which it was originally written, and make such trans- criptions themselves. Besides the question of advantage there is the matter of expediency. For example, in a community in which opera is giv.en constantly and at a price within the reach of everyone, there is little reason for playing transcriptions of music in the operas, whereas in a country like America, in which it is given very rarely in proportion to the number of possible hearers, and at prohibitive prices, these transcriptions must be made or the people are immeasurably poorer. For the very few who hear the Pilgrims' Chorus in opera with voices and orchestra, great num- bers can hear it if it is transcribed for orchestra alone, and these ntunbers are multiplied thousands of times when it is transcribed for organ or piano. There is, however, one compelling restriction upon transcrip- tion, that the number transcribed shall be suitable for the instru- ment for which it is transcribed. Kreisler's arrangement of Louis XIII's song Tu crois beau soleilis altogether fitting for the violin, but Wagner's Pilgrims' Chorus would be entirely unsuited to that instrument, whereas its rich harmonies can be effectively retained on the organ. A review of the history of transcriptions amounts to a survey of the history of modern music. The earliest music to develop was the choral music used in the church service, first as unison music, then with simple harmonization in fifths and fourths, which invited descant, or the free ornamentation of the second part; and Baux Bourdon or False Bass by which harmonization in thirds and sixths crept in. Choral music thus arrived at the period of the unaccompanied motet. Meanwhile, alongside it the churchly instrument, the organ, was developing as an instru- ment and coming into more general use, and transcription TRANSCRIPTIONS 83 began with the adapting of the choral motets and chorales so that they could be played on it. Pierre Attaignant, one of the earliest organists whose work remains to us, and who was also famous as a printer of books and the first in Paris to tise movable type, thus transcribed his own choral compositions such as "Dulcis arnica dei, " from his Thirteen Musical Motets, in 153 1. Of course the composition itself is of the simplest character. It bears no time signature, sharps are indicated by a dot under the note, flats by a & in front of the note, as we indicate a fiat to-day. The reason for this is that b was the first note flatted; the scale originally contained a b flat but not a b natural; when it was admitted the Germans named it h while we called it b natural, and to indicate a b flat wrote the two bbs, one smaller than the other. This small b was then adopted as the sign of a flat no matter where it occurred. The dot with which Attaignant marked a sharp presently gave place to the Greek sign of a sharp, the double cross of St. Andrew, which is the sign we use to-day. Our sharp sign is a double cross of St. Andrew because the Greeks used the single cross to indicate a raise of a quarter tone and the double cross the raise of a half tone, which is the meaning we attach to a sharp. In his harmonization Attaignant feels his way very carefully, hardly venturing away from a simple succession of chords. With the perfecting of other keyed instruments, as the vir- ginals, clavichord, harpsichord, secular choral numbers, that is to say part songs and madrigals, were transcribed for them. As they could not sustain long tones, the longer notes were fre- quently broken up into shorter ones or were ornamented by the insertion of many grace notes and of decorative turns. This transcription of choral niunbers for keyed instruments was the most important factor in furnishing the opening allegro move- ment of the musical form known as the sonata. Upon the development of the violin as an instrument and the appearance of artists who were at once great performers on that instrument and composers for it, organists, in common with all other musicians, arranged these compositions for their instru- ments. When Johann Sebastian Bach was Court Musician to 84 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY Diike Wilhelm Ernst at Weimar in the years between 1708 and 1 7 15, instrumental chamber music received especial encourage- ment through the presence at court of a young nephew of the Duke who had considerable talent for playing clavichord, harpsi- chord, and violin, and also for composition. So devotedly did he love music that during his last long illness, of which he died at the age of eighteen, the musician Walther used to sit with him all night teaching him composition and playing with him or for him. Bach, too, frequently cancelled other engagements to play to the young Prince. In common with the rest of the Court he was fond of Italian music; among his greatest favorites were the compositions of Vivaldi, the Concert Master of the Ospedale della Piet^ in Venice, who had been for some time violinist to the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Of his violin concertos Bach transcribed sixteen for clavichord and three for organ, and set one a second time for organ. In making these transcriptions Bach had the great advantage of a thorough knowledge not only of the organ but also of the violin, which was the first instrument he had learned to play as a boy. A composition by another famous violinist who composed for harpsichord, which has recently been done over into a violin niunber by one of our greatest violin virtuosi, Fritz Kreisler, is a Pavane by Louis Couperin. Couperin, who was born in 1630, a member of a distinguished French musical family renowned through two centuries, was violinist to King Louis XIII. Al- though the violin was his instrument, his compositions were written for harpsichord and it is one of these, a Pavane, a stately dance movement, that Kreisler has transcribed for violin. It is impossible not to let imagination run riot here a moment to picture Louis Couperin, the violinist, listening to the great modern master as he plays this Pavane for harpsichord on the violin! With this number, which is short, Kreisler has combined his transcription of the charming old song Tu crois beau soldi which the King himself is supposed to have written and which is known as Chanson Louis XIII. Although probably none of them has ever reached the popu- larity in transcription accorded to Handel's ' ' Largo ' ' from Xerxes, TRANSCRIPTIONS 85 of which in one edition there are ninety-two different transcrip- tions, the works of Bach have been transcribed over and over again and for every instrument, a proceeding for which the master himself established a precedent when he arranged the Vivaldi concertos for clavichord and organ and his own Organ Fugue in D minor for violin. Nor have transcriptions of Bach been con- fined to the adaptation of works composed for one instrument to use on another. Among the most noted is Franz Liszt's arrange- ment of the orchestral prelude and chorus from the cantata, Ich hatte viel Bekummernis (" I was sore afHicted ") as a Prelude and Fugue for organ. One of the most widely known and popular transcriptions of Bach gives words to an instrumental composition, in Gounod's arrangement of one of his Preludes written for clavichord, as a song, the Ave Maria, with accom- paniment of violin, harp, and organ. It is true that this is an arrangement rather than in any exact sense a transcrip- tion, for the original Prelude for clavichord appears only in the harp part. Perhaps because he was one of the most sympathetic souls the world has known and possessed above all others the power of putting himself in another's place, knowing how that other felt and how he rejoiced or sorrowed, and what were his aims and desires, Franz Liszt was one of the most skilful in making tran- scriptions of the works of others. We have already referred to his transcriptions of Bach; his arrangement of the "Pilgrims* Chorus" from Tannhduser was the first to bring it to the many thousands of people who could never have heard it in its original setting in the opera. The great piano pieces of Liszt have been in turn freely transcribed. And one of these transcriptions which is most skilful as well as one which awakens an almost universal re- sponse, is that made for organ by Saint-Saens of the descriptive piece St. Francis of Assisi preaching to the Birds. The music was inspired by the charming legend which reveals the Saint's love for all God's creattires, his "brothers," and their answering love for him. The legend runs that when Ser Orlando of Chiusi gave him the mountain of Alvema, that tree-crowned, rocky 86 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY height which may be seen for miles in almost any direction, and which from its summit commands the marvelous view over the Casentino, it was as "a place of silence and utter seclusion, very devout and apt for contemplation." So St. Francis decided to spend there the Lent of St. Michael. As he was too weak in body to make the long, steep, and difficult ascent on foot, as did the two brothers who accompanied him, he rode on a donkey which was led by the peasant who owned it. But when they came to a turn, not far from the top, beholding the very steep ascent ahead, the Saint was too weak to ride farther and must needs rest under an oak tree. Suddenly a multitude of birds came from every quarter, singing and beating their wings as if for joy. They perched on his head and shoulders and arms, while his compan- ions and the amazed peasant who led the donkey stood wondering. "Dearest brothers," said the Saint, "I think it must be pleasing to our Lord Jesus Christ that we should dwell in this solitary place since our brothers and sisters the birds are so glad of our coming. " It was upon this mountain top that St. Francis re- ceived the stigmata. Once when he was going through a wood where there were many birds they all waited and bent their heads on the branches as in a listening attitude, so that he addressed to them this sermon: "My brothers the birds, how whole-souledly you must praise your Creator who has clothed you with feathers and given you wings wherewith to fly. In His love He cares for you, so that you have no need to take care for yourselves. " The birds, in great joy, spread their wings, opened their beaks, and listened most attentively. At last he made the sign of the cross and dismissed them, whereupon they all flew away at once. His companions who were waiting for him saw all this and marveled. In the music the twittering of the birds in the forest is heard; then the serious harmonies of the sermon during which they sub- side into silence, then again a twittering like a joyous commen- tary on the preaching, in soft notes' which grow fainter as the birds fly away into the distance. Saint-Saens in his turn has seen many of his works arranged for other instruments than those for which they were written. TRANSCRIPTIONS 87 among them also many descriptive pieces, as The Nightingale and the Rose and the well-known favorite The Swan which was transcribed for organ by his friend, the great French organist, Alexandre Guilmant. One of the most important legitimate activities of transcrip- tion to-day is the resurrection of ancient compositions which were written for instruments now obsolete, or which are better adapted to some other instrument as it has developed in the course of the centuries than to the instrument for which they were written. Another is the adaptation to a single instrument, in some cases the piano, but especially the organ, of choruses and orchestral numbers from the operas and of similar compositions in large form, such as tone poems, all of which might as well not exist in their original form so far as the average, even highly musical person is concerned, as they are so seldom presented even on or- chestral programs. How often, in this coimtry, is it possible to hear Tschaikowsky's Overture Fantasy Romeo and Juliet or The Tempest, Strauss's Tone Poem Don Juan, D'Indy's Ferwaal Prelude, and many others we could mention? Once in several years at most, if one happens to live in one of our few large cities and to be at the particular concert at which these numbers are given. Few things have had so great an efEect on the development of the organ as an instrument as transcribing for it the great works for orchestra. It has given such a stimulus to composers for organ that they have revealed in writing for this instnuiient the same command of all the resources of harmony and technique they would employ in composing for orchestra and have suc- ceeded in investing their works with the same power, or color, light and shade. This, in turn, has reacted on the builders of the instrument, whom it compels to provide a medium suited to the interpretation of these compositions; as, for instance, beautiful and colorful solo stops or an equipment of "strings" sufficient to produce the string tone essential to orchestral color and most useful in strict organ compositions as well. These two develop- ments have, inevitably, affected the organists who interpret these works, who have come to realize the need of great technical EXCURSION IX EPOCHS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED CHORAL MUSIC JUST what was the character of the music of the Christian Church in the first centuries we have no means of knowing, but it Was probably more elaborate than we are accus- tomed to imagine it, although undoubtedly it varied greatly in the different communities. Here and there in writings of that age we pick up such scattered bits of information as that the singing was either antiphonal or concerted, that both men and women sang, that there were solo numbers in the service, and that the music at the celebration of the Last Supper was sung to an accompaniment of flutes. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan in the fourth century, was the first to order with any degree of definiteness the music of the Western Church and to arrange a system of chanting which was doubtless influenced largely by both Greek and Oriental music. According to his system a long syllable had a long note and a short syllable a short note, which resulted in more or less measured and rhythmical music. But Pope Gregory the Great, about the year 600, ordered, or at least sanctioned, a much stricter and more austere system based on the Greek modes, of which he adopted four and developed four and to which later two more were added, making ten in all, which were called Tones. In these ten Tones what we call Gregorian chants were written, that is to say, in ten scales instead of the two — major and minor — ^that we now use. These chants were sung in unison. Gregory was strenuously opposed to accent and rhythm in church music; he ignored the length of the syllables in the text, thus 89 90 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY eliminating the metrical quality and with it the rhythm. Am- brose's rh3rthmical chants were anathema to him, so that Charle- magne, in 774, commanded that they should all be burned, and we would never have known what they were like had not a disciple, Eugenius by name, managed to secrete a copy and thus save it for us. The texts to which this music was sung were, of course, the Psalms in Latin. After the Psalm, the Gloria was sung, the Lesser Doxology as it was called in the early Church to distin- guish it from the Greater Doxology, which was the Gloria in Excelsis or Angelic Song. Its purpose was to bridge over from the Old to the New Testament, to connect the Psalms, in which there was only Jehovah, God the Father, with the Christian faith by including with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost in the one attribution of praise, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." In the fourth century, after the defeat of Arianism at the Council of Nicsea, another sentence was added to the Gloria Patria. Arius and his followers had found it impossible to recon- cile with monotheism the conception of a Triune God. God must be one only, supreme, isolated, iinapproachable. How then ex- plain the Christ? As a sort of emanation from the mind of God; and the Holy Ghost as proceeding from Christ, as Christ pro- ceeded from God. Although they could not limit the Eternal, or materialize the divine generation by introducing the idea of time at all, they affirmed "there was when God was not yet Father, when the Son existed only potentially in his council." In denial of this doctrine, after Arius was defeated and excom- municated at the Council of NicaEa,the Church added to the Gloria the affirmation of Christ's co-eternity with God, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end"; a posi- tive assertion of belief in the eternal three-in-oneness of the three equal persons in the Godhead. For three centuries these Gregorian chants were sung in uni' son, so that when, about the year 900, following the leadership of the Flemish monk Hucbald, music harmonized in fifths and fourths began to be used in the churches, the innovation was 3 S DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED CHORAL MUSIC 91 attended with great interest. It was but a short time before the singers began to ornament the second or harmonized part, and thus began the development of what is known as counterpoint, or the art of singing or playing two or more melodies simultan- eousl}' without breaking the rtdes of harmony. But in the begin- ning it was just the art of adding parts above or below the melody of the chant, which was known as the Cantus Firmus. At first these melodies always moved parallel with each other, but gradu- ally composers acquired more freedom and the favorite idea was to imitate in one part, as the bass, a passage already used in the treble, while the Cantus Firmus was still going on its steady way. Tliis is the form known as Canon, most familiar to us all from childhood in such a round as Three Blind Mice. The earliest example of this imitative canon in sacred music is the Posui adjutorum of Perotin, organist at N6tre Dame Cathe- dral, Paris, about 1200;. the form was developed by the Flemish master Johannes Okeghem, in the fifteenth century, and became a thing of beauty in the hands of his fellow coimtryman, Josquin de Pr^s, in the first half of the sixteenth century. The most famous early secular canon is the English Sumer is Icumen in, which was written about the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. The favorite number of voices or parts in the churchly canon was three, in fulfillment of the ever present and involved symbol- ism of the age, in conformity with which one of the constant aims in art as in life was in everything to bring to remembrance the Trinity of the Godhead. You may remember the legend of St. Barbara, who was imprisoned by her pagan father in the tower which in all pictures she carries as her emblem. Jacobus k Voragine tells us that "when she saw in the new bathroom which her father was having built for her that there were only two windows, she asked the builders, "Why have you built me only two windows? " " Because your father so commanded," they re- plied. "Then malce me another window, " she demanded. ' ' We are afraid of yoia- father's wrath," they objected. "Nay," re- sponded Barbara, "do as I bid you; I shall explain to my father that there are three persons in the Godhead. " It seems almost 92 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY From Glarbanus ; BODBCACHORDON. CANON Three in one. lORAHMBS OkBGHBM. (c X430-X495) Termonde. Sw. Sirs, i/t Fl. 4ft Coup. i6fl. Gt. Diap. i6ft Fl. 4ft. Oct. 4ft to Ch. Ch. Quint. Dul. Fl. 4ft CI. to Gt. Fed. Violone, Ged. Dul. Fl. 8/1 & Str. Sft. O Sw, Manual. Pedal. ^ Gt. ^=£: — T — m^^ ^ j^i. •p- 1 ^ =g-g>-^- DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED CHORAL MUSIC 93 blasphemous to us to-day; but it really only shows how intimately these Christians associated the mystic symbols with everyday life. We have a survival of this in the popular superstition about mis- fortunes always happening three in succession, and in the proverb, "All good things come in threes." It is not greatly to be wondered at, therefore, that churchly music must conform in every possible particular to this idea of the Trinity. Nor was it only in the number of voices that composers had an opportunity to use the sjmibol ; for many years the time signature for church music must contain a three. The perfect time was triple time and received as its sign the Pythagorean sjonbol of perfection, the circle. Time that did not contain any three was considered imperfect and unfit for use in sacred music, so was relegated to the troubadours and composers of secular music. Its symbol was the imperfect circle, the left half of a circle, which we still use as the sign of four-four or common time. The practice of discant by church singers, that is to say the habit of improvising a part to ornament the melody of the chant, led to various abuses. The tenor sang the Gregorian Plain Song, but the singers who improvised often sang other words, even those of popular songs, or no words at all but "notes, as the birds sing." These performances were a disgrace and a scandal in the Chtirch, but they might have continued much longer had it not been for the attention directed toward the music of the Church by the Lutheran Reformation. At any rate, so the legend runs, — it is probably only a legend — the Council of Trent took up the con- sideration of this condition of affairs in the years 1 545-1 563, and ordered the elimination of all secular elements from church songs. 94 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY The reigning Pope, Paul IV, despairing of ever being able to re- tain polyphonic or harmonized music and at the same time get- ting rid of these abuses, proclaimed himself in favor of banishing such music from the church service and returning to simple Gre- gorian chants, sung in unison. It was decided, however, that before this should be done Palestrina should be given an oppor- tunity to write some harmonized music which should be entirely suitable for the church service, dignified and devotional, if this were possible. Palestrina was thirty-eight years of age when he received the Papal command in 1564; he had been Chapelmaster of the Vatican and the Lateran churches, and was at that time in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. He had already written the great Improperia, the "Reproaches of the Crucified Christ to his Church," a number which has been sung in the Sis- tine Chapel every Good Friday since the year 1560. It was natural, therefore, that he should be the composer chosen to give polyphonic music its last opportunity in the Church. In response to the Papal request he wrote three Masses, which were so noble and so devotional that the idea of banishing' such music from divine worship was definitely abandoned. Palestrina's music reveals a marked advance over that of his predecessors, even of such a master as Josquin de Pr^s, in smooth- ness, simplicity, purity, and finish. In the earlier masters we are frequently conscious of what we might call the machinery of com- position and can see the skeleton upon which the arrangements of notes are hung, but in Palestrina we are aware only of suavity and devotional beauty. Much of his music was written for two choruses answering back and forth, that is to say singing antiphonally, a practice which the Christian Church inherited from the Jewish Temple. In such numbers, motets as they were called, the parts were sometimes multiplied so that they required three, four, or even more choruses for their presentation ; they were written in the con- trapuntal style by composers all over Europe. There were, speaking generally, three kinds of choral compositions in use: one in which not all the parts of necessity had words, but in which some just sang notes "as the birds sing"; a second in DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED CHORAL MUSIC 95 which all the parts had the same words; and a third in which each part had its own words. This last was the original concep- tion of a motet; in a famous old one written in the fifteenth cen- tury one of the choirs sings a prayer to the Virgin while another offers its petition to St. George for the protection of King Henry VI of England. This idea of using different words did not, how- ever, long persist; it could not survive the Reformation, which brought about many reforms in church music, and which insisted upon greater simplicity, together with clearness and due expression of the sentiment of the text. The motet was brought to perfection by the German, Hein- rich Schuetz, who developed it as a form to the full extent of its possibilities; even Bach could go no farther in respect to form, except to write larger motets. Schuetz had enjoyed the advantage of study in Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli, who wrote many compositions for two and three choirs, for use in St. Mark's. After the completion of his studies there he returned to Cassel as Court Organist, became Chapelmaster to the Elector of Saxony, and Conductor of the Dresden Orchestra, but officiated for some time as Conductor in Copenhagen, when, on account of the Thirty Years' War, the Dresden Orchestra gave no concerts for six years. Not only was he the composer of the first German opera. Daphne, but he intro- duced important innovations in sacred music. He composed the first Passion in the manner later perfected by Bach in his Passion according to St. Matthew and Passion according to St. John. In this lay singers, using the dialect of the people, not merely related the Bible story but sang solo arias, with texts which formed a commentary oii it; and the congregation joined in the singing of the chorales. ' He also originated the dramatic musical composi- tion known as the Biblical Scene, in which, in solos and choruses, one single story from the Bible is told, such as that of " The Pharisee and the Publican." Half -a century later a choral form developed which was closely akin to the Passion. This was the Cantata, a shorter composi- tion which was based upon a chorale, but contained arias and choruses which dramatically set forth the idea at the heart of the 96 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY chorale. This form of composition is said to have originated with Johann Michael Bach, cousin and father-in-law of the great Bach who wrote in this form about two hundred cantatas for church use. From the Biblical Scene of Heinrich Schuetz it is not a far cry to the Oratorio. Indeed both forms probably had their origin in, or were suggested by, the Sacred Representations which on festivals were given in the churches, in the chapter houses of the confraternities, and at the shrines, with the purpose of presenting in most vivid form the stories in the Bible to people who could not read and who, for that matter, had no books. Every confra- ternity in Italy seems to have had its equipment of scenes and costtmies for the presentation of these dramas. Between the scenes the preacher addressed the congregation, pointing out the moral of what had been presented or preparing their minds for what was to come. The musical settings for these representa- tions became more and more elaborate as the art of music developed, until they attracted the attention of the most gifted composers. In order to purify and ennoble them, and also to attract young people to his Oratory in Rome, St. Philip Neri adopted them as a sort of form of service "to be used after ser- mons and other devotions. " In these presentations the spoken parts were dispensed with, so that they became wholly musi- cal dramas. From the Oratory which was the place of their presentation they received the name Oratorio. Then the new art of Opera developed and its influence was speedily manifest in the musical settings of the dramatic scenes from the Bible. The aria and arioso took the place of the intoned chant; dramatic choruses superseded those written in the more restrained polyphonic style; the narrator of the Passion was dis- pensed with, and the story left to unfold itself after the fashion of the secular drama. The only bit of narrative in Handel's Mes- siah is "There were shepherds abiding in the field" and the suc- ceeding passages. At first the presentation was enlivened with gestures ; the choruses were occasionally accompanied with danc- ing "sedately and reverentially, " and a ballet was introduced when it was suitable. DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED CHORAL MUSIC 97 The first oratorios of note were written by Giovanni Carissimi who produced Jephthah, The Judgment of Solomon, Belshazzar, David and Jonathan, and others. He managed to infuse more life into the recitatives and more dramatic \'igor into the choruses. In these particulars further progress was made by his pupil Marc Antonio Cesti and by Alessandro Stradella. They favored the substitution for the old careful counterpoint, of rhythm, simple rhythm, a device which is most conspicuously employed in such a chorus as "Let their celestial concerts all unite," in Handel's Samson, in which the effect depends not on the harmonies, which are exceedingly simple, but on the rh3rthm of the repeated notes. We must not fail to bear in mind, however, that the influence of opera on oratorio at this time was hardly more marked than the influence of oratorio on opera. It was Carissimi 's pupil, Marc Antonio Cesti, writer of several successful operas, who first carried over his master's oratorio style into the opera and im- pressed it upon it so strongly that many airs from the operas of this period are so serious and dignified that they may fittingly be joined to sacred texts; indeed, Handel occasionally took over a melody from one of his operas into one of his oratorios. In the hands of Alessandro Scarlatti the recitatives and arias of the oratorio took another long step towards the dramatic expressiveness of the opera. But it was in the works of George Frederick Handel that it was to reach its full development. Han- del had been organist in Halle, had composed a motet for every Sunday for three years, and had played the violin in the orchestra in Hamburg, before he went to Italy, where he was at once at- tracted by the new form and composed two oratorios. The Resur- rection and The Triumph of Time. On his return to Germany he became Chapelmaster to the Elector of Hanover; later he ob- tained leave to go to England to the Court of Queen Anne, out- stayed his leave of absence, so was already there when his old Hanoverian patron succeeded to the English throne. He wrote several operas, but his most important musical activity was writing oratorios, which were presented, however, without scen- ery or acting, as the Bishop of London had forbidden these about 1732, as too suggestive of the theater and the opera, which by 7 98 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY that time had fallen rather seriously into disrepute. In The Messiah the climax is reached of the oratorio as a development of the Sacred Representations by way of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri and under the influence of Italian opera. Somewhat more than a century later another master was to effect a fusion of the two great dramatic forms of sacred music, the Oratorio and the Passion, and of the styles of Bach and Handel. In the St. Paul but especially in the Elijah Mendelssohn created a religious musical drama in which we find the commentary chorus, the chorales and, occasionally, the narrator, as in Bach's Passions, together with the arias and the dramatic recitatives and choruses of Handel, all united in drawing the characters and picturing the situations finely and strongly and in musical lines of noble beauty and melody. Meanwhile, largely through the influence and requirements of opera, the orchestra had developed. In addition to accompani- ments for the singers and ballets, the orchestra, since the days of Lully, played a "symphony before the opera," or what became known later as an Overture. These overtures were frequently played as independent instrumental numbers at concerts also, and lent a powerful impetus to the development of the Sym- phony, which in turn made demands on the orchestra that necessitated its enrichment. Familiarity with orchestral effects has enlarged the demands made by composers on singers, and motets and other choral ntiinbers, for the most part without ac- companiment, have been and are being written, in which the effect aimed at is that of a vocal orchestra which gives the fullest and most dramatic interpretation of the text possible. Among the greatest composers of this sort of sacred choral music are Georg Schumann, Siegmund von Hausegger, Edward Elgar, Hugo Wolf. Of late years yet another influence has made itself powerfully felt in choral music, that of the music of the Russian church. This, too, is sung without accompaniment and is composed for any ntmiber of parts, the favorite being nine, of which the extra part is the low bass which gives their opportunity to the amazing Russian low bass voices, which, in their exceeding depth and rich- Earliest Known Portrait. George Frederick Handel. DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED CHORAL MUSIC 99 ness, give almost the effect of an organ diapason. Tschaikowsky Gretchaninoff, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, and indeed practically all the greatest modem composers of Russia have made important contributions to sacred music in this style. It has also exercised a marked effect on the sacred music composed elsewhere, as the unaccompanied choruses of T. Tertius Noble and of many of the English and American writers. EXCURSION X SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS IN one of the- Little Journeys the traveler tells of reaching a desolate land that had "no foolish little songs; a dull and barren land that had no foolish little songs. " Unfortunate indeed the land that has no treasury of folk songs ! It is interesting to notice that whenever folk music is heard on a program of instrumental or vocal music someone asks, "But who wrote it?" And sometimes the questioner still looks puz- zled when the answer is given, "No one; it is a folk song, tradi- tional." The symbol of the folk song is Topsy, who "jes' growed." Rude singers from among the people expressed in song the experiences or emotions which were affecting them and the people around them, or told stories they loved, simply and naturally, with no conscious art. "Folk song composes itself," said Hermann Grimm; "it is the song of the people, and the music of it has come into being v/ithout the influence of conscious art, marked by certain peculiarities of rhjrthm, form, and melody, traceable to racial temperament, to climatic or other conditions. " The body of folk songs of any people shows, therefore, quite marked racial or national characteristics in subject matter, melody, or rhythm. So the Russian with the peculiar rhythm, often energetic and boisterous, but with the ever-present minor note; the Scandinavian with steady lines and the plaintive ; quality as of the moaning sea; the active, wholesome music of the apprentices and shepherds of Germany; the pure melody and dramatic quality of the French folk songs. SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS loi But how are folk songs made ? How do they come to compose themselves? Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson tells a tale which is illuminating in this connection. Once when he was down South, as he was being rowed across to an island off the shore and the boatmen were singing, he said to a bright looking boy who was rowing, "How do you suppose such songs were ever made in the first place?" "Oh," said the young darky, "most of them are started jes' out ob curiosity. " "Out of curiosity? " exclaimed the Colonel. "Yes sir," said the lad, "I bin a-raise a sing myself once. A lot of us were goin' along totin' an awful heavy load of cotton and dat ole nigger driber kept a hurryin' us on an' makin' us go fas' with that heavy load of cotton, an' I said at last, ' Oh, dat ole nigger driber ' ! and the man next to me said, ' Fust thing my mother ever tole me, There's nothin' so bad as an ole nigger driber'; so I raise a sing: ' O dat ole nigger driber, (Gwine away home) Fust thing my mother tole me, (Gwine away home) There's nothin' so bad as an ole nigger driber, (Gwine away home)' " — and so on and on. Manifestly, any and every daily experience could be woven into such a song. The refrain calls for all who are carrying that cotton to join in, and afterwards for all the plantation. This one song shows how almost every folk song has been made, without study or art, spontaneously, out of native dramatic and musical sense and the fullness of an experience or emotion. In French Canada, on festive occasions, I have heard singers from out the crowd who, in the excitement of the hour, would compose a song, and all the people, without any notice or pre-knowledge, would join in the oft-repeated refrain. Since folk songs compose themselves among the people they are everywhere and invariably marked by certain quahties. They are always vividly pictorial, therefore the language is always simple and concrete. Scenes are described and ex- I02 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY periences related at first hand without the introduction of any secondary element, such as reasoning or deduction. The lan- guage used is picturesque; it is the dialect of the people, not the book language of the educated minority. At a time when Latin was the language of the church service and of the church music, songs were occasionally sung by the people composed in a mixture of both Latin and the vernacular, as the Song to the Donkey and the old carol In dulcijubilo; but as a rule folk songs are written in the dialect of the people. Like ballads they are usually made with a refrain, which, as it is sung over and over, is soon memorized by all the people. As they tell their stories in greatest detail they frequently comprise very many verses. As to the music, the rhythm is the all important thing, for it is through the rhythm first of all that a song makes its appeal to the people. The rhythm, too, reveals the nationality of the song quite as readily as does the character of the melody. The occasions which have called forth the greatest body of folk songs have been the periods of religious revivals or of Church festivals, when the hearts of all the people were touched by vivid re-tellings of Bible stories; the presentation of mystery plays, which heightened their sense of the pictorial qualities of scenes from the Life of Christ ; the Crusades and pilgrimages to shrines, in which many people associated themselves together and must pass the time with story and song. The theme of by far the greatest number of these sacred folk songs is the Nativity, with all the various attendant incidents and the legends clustered around it. This was natural, as in the Christian church even from earliest times, Christmas was the chief of all festivals. Clement, in the first century, admonished the priests, "Brethren, keep diligently the feast days and above all the day of Christ's birth. " Telesphorus, who became Bishop of Rome in 129, inaugurated the custom of celebrating the Na- tivity with the singing of carols. A song that was never omitted on these occasions was the Angels' Song, the first of all Christmas carols, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men. " But the songs of the people were also sung, and, later, when the different countries developed their own languages. SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS 103 these were sung in dialect. Ahh6 Lebeuf notes that "these songs of the people were sung in the night of the Nativity in the provinces and churches of France from the ninth century on, that is from the time the Latin language began to give place to the vernacular." The principal themes of the songs relating directly to the Nativity were the Annunciation, the Angels' Message, the Lullaby, and the Coming of the Shepherds. The songs about the Annunciation and the Advent of the Holy Babe were usually composed around legends that were as well known to the people as the words of the Evangelists, as the legend of the cherry tree that bowed down so that the Virgin might gather its fruit. In a mystical age when allegories were the favorite form of story telling in pictorial art as well as in literature, the Advent was pictured in such a familiar old song as "I saw three ships come sailing in On Christmas Day in the morning. And what was in those ships so fair On Christmas Day in the morning? Our Saviour Christ and his Ladye, On Christmas Day in the morning" — and so on for many stanzas. Songs about the babe in the manger such as II est ne le divin Enfant, Le Petit Jesus, Lo! in a Manger Cold and Drear, are in- numerable in every language. The lullaby was as common in sacred folk song as pictures of the Madonna and Child in color art. It, too, knew many var- iants from the simple lullaby. In one of these the baby Christ is pictured as fretful and unwilling to go to sleep, but as yielding iirmediately when a tear glistens in his mother's eye. In another, Mary calls on Joseph to share her blessed privilege: "Joseph, tender Joseph mine, Help me rock my Babe divine. " Almost as numerous are the songs about the coming of the shepherds, a scene which appealed to the country folk as so natural that they constantly added their own details to enrich the 104 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY story. In an old Austrian song in dialect one shepherd calls upon his fellows, "Shepherds, now go we to yon fair Bethlehem town, Where in a manger the Lord Christ has come down. " He pictures the whole situation and tells them how to behave, cautioning them, "Enter ye soft, lest the babe be asleep, Mary,- his mother, her watch o'er him doth keep. " He suggests that they take along a lamb as a gift, as it will fur- nish food for the family and the fleece will keep the babe warm in the wintry weather in that cold stable. It also occurred to the people to think what a stir the birth of Christ must have made in the little village of Bethlehem. This was a subject which painters, too, especially those of Germany, were fond of picturing. They present a stable in which are Mary, Joseph, and the babe and the ox and ass; it is open on at least one side; the little plot around it is enclosed by a low fence of braided withes. Outside this fence the whole village is assembled to watch the Holy Family; opened-eyed, in some cases open- mouthed, it is evident from their gestures that they are excitedly commenting on the scene. In songs the same sort of picture is presented. An old French folk song describes a villager who hears the stir and rushes forth to inquire the news from his neighbor and learns from him that the Christ has been bom in his little village: "Good neighbor, tell me why that soxmd, That noisy tumult rising round. Awaking all in slumber lying? Truly disturbing are these cries All through the quiet village fl3'ing, O come, ye shepherds, wake, arise! "What, neighbor, then do ye not know, God hath appeared on earth below? And now is born in manger lowly! In himible guise he came this night, Simple and meek, this infant holy. Yet how divine in beauty bright! Hans Multschi? A Christmas Carol. SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS 105 "Good neighbor, I must make amend, Forthwith to bring him will I send. And Joseph with the gentle mother; When to my home these three I bring, Then will it far outshine all other, A palace fair for greatest king! " The picturesque and dramatic incident of the Flight into Egypt was related in song after song. Sometimes, as in the so- called Song of the Nuns of Coventry they simply tell the story and express deep sympathy for the peril and discomfort of the situa- tion: ■ SONG OF THE NUNS OF COVENTRY i^i,3 J =F 1- =F=h ^ -1 ■ J — 1 — 1- =1= 1591. =#^7- 1. Lul A fe..a r- ■ly. 1 -f-- lul A -la, you A — f^ lit 1 1^- - tie tiny child ; rY 1 — - By, A 2- -— 1 '^ lul-ly, lul - A^ AA -f^ 35 s-^^-S-l — -1 -t — ' — 1 — trz -t=^ F 4 — =E= =^'[^ ' dint. lay. You lit-tle tiny child ; Lully, lul - la. By, by, lul-ly, lul - lay. A A'^A^ A^ jj^^. AA J A ^ 2 O sisters too, how may we do 3 Herod the king in his raging. For to preserve this day. Charged he hath this day. This poor youngling for whom we do sing. His men of might in his own sight By, by, lully, lullay. All young cUldren to slay. 4 That woe is me, poor child, for thee. And ever mourn and say. For thy parting neither say nor sing. By, by, lully, lullay. Again, the people sing of their joy that the Holy Child es- caped on the donkey with his mother and Joseph and all were safe in Egypt. It is easy enough to picture the people at a mystery play, when the tale is told or scene enacted of the terrible " Mas- io6 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY sacre of the Innocents," as we have seen it so often in pictures. What! All the babies in Bethlehem slain! But what of Jesus? Anxiously they wait and watch. Then suddenly the donkey with its precious burden comes into sight. "There he comes!" cries some one; "There comes the donkey!" "How beautiful he is !" cries another, " And so sturdy and strong ; he will get them all safely to Egypt!" And the shout goes up, as we would say to-day "Hurrah for the donkey! Hurrah!" The song tells the story: "Out of the East the donkey comes, beautiful and very strong, well fitted for his burden. Hail, Sir Ass, Hail! " HEZ! SIRE ASNES, HEZ I XII Cbntuby Latin. Or i - en - tis par - ti - bus. Ad - ven - ta vit - 1 - nus. Pul - cher et for - tis - si - mus, Sar - ci - nis ap - tis - si- mus. Hez! Sire As - nes, Hez! At a later date, in some sections, notably at Sens, France, this honoring of the donkey became a festival. The donkey, richly caparisoned, was sprinkled with Holy Water, and led into the church and the ensuing worship was nothing short of heathenish. But doubtless we all know of ceremonies which were simple and beautiful in their inception and which degenerated, in the course of time, into something utterly foreign to their original signifi- cance. When Christmas greens were adopted on the feast of the Na- tivity for decorations and as symbols of its meaning, many folk songs were sting about them. The evergreen tree was one, the symbol of that life everlasting which Christ Jesus brought to men; its best known song is the German Tannenbaum. Then there were the lights in the greens, the candles, symbolic of the SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS 107 Star that guided to the Christ Child; the mistletoe, which was the Druidical symbol of "All-heal," and which was laid on the altar at the celebration of Christmas festivals in the early Chvirch ; the holly and the ivy, both 'of which meant life beautiful and fadeless. About these many quaint songs have clustered: "The holly and the ivy Now both are full well grown. Of all the trees within the Wood The holly bears the crown. Refrain: " On the rising of the sun, The running of the deer. The playing of the merry organ. Sweet singing in the quire. "The holly bears a blossom. As sweet as any flower, And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ To be our sweet Saviour. "The holly bears a berry, As red as any blood, And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ To do poor sinners good. " The parallelism continues through many stanzas. The songs that sing of the boyhood of Christ have, of necessity, legendary themes. There is a curious allegorical tale of the chil- dren who played a ball game with Christ in which ■ "They tossed it up so high They tossed it down so low, They tossed it over in the Jews' garden, Where the Jews laid down the law. " Up steps one of the Jews' daughters. Clothed all in green, Said, 'You come here, my fair, pretty boy, And you shall have your ball. ' " ' Oh no, no, no, my pretty maid. My playmate is no well. ' They showed him an apple as green as grass. And 'ticed him in at last. io8 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY "They showed him a cherry as red as blood, They gave him sugar sweet, They laid him in some dresser drawer. And stabbed him like a sheep. " O put a Bible at my head. And a Testament at my feet. If my poor mother was to pass by me, O, pray tell her I'm asleep. " This is a strange symbolism and so foreign to us that it may be incomprehensible that it should have been so familiar to the common people and so readily used by them. But we must remember that the language of allegory was universal; the people spoke in it, and heard it constantly, and very many of the pictures with which they were so familiar presented allegorical subjects. Another song of Christ's boyhood has for its theme the simple story with which we are so familiar in Tschaikowsky's modem setting, "Christ when a child a garden made," which goes on to tell how the other children destroyed that garden and took all the flowers, leaving to the Christ only the thorns and "for roses, drops of blood instead. " This and many other songs of His childhood are prophetic of His sacrifice and differ very slightly from those composed aroxmd the opening hours of His Passion such as "Christ Jesus entered the garden of pain, And there began His sufiering and shame; Then sorrowed all things that were there, All creatures, leaves, the flowers fair. The fig tree branches bowed in pain The hard, hard rocks were rent in twain. The sun did veil its light for long, The birds all ceased from their sweet song. " The Easter festival, too, stimulated the composition of folk songs. They were not related directly to the fact of the Re- surrection, however, as that was too sublime and supernatural, but depicted the scenes in the garden, the women who went bearing precious spices, the empty tomb, the white-robed angel, SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS 109 Mary and the gardener, and the other human features of that glorious morning. The story usually begins in this wise, "By early morning light, Ere yet the day was bright. Three women came to seek their Lord; ' But what their joy to hear, The Angel's message clear: Fear not! For Christ the Lord is risen!" and continues with great nainuteness of detail through the familiar human events subsequent to the Resurrection. Another incentive to the invention of folk songs was the celebration of Saints' days; most of these songs were based on legends, some few on the Bible stories, while others, as the song about the first Christian martyr, tell a tale half scriptural, half legendary : "St. Stephen was a clerk in Herod's hall. And served him with bread and cloth as ever king befall. " Stephen out of kitchen came with boar's head on hand. He said a star was fair and bright over Bedlem land. "He cast adown the boar's head and went into the hall: 'I forsake thee. King Herod, and thy works all. "'I forsake thee. King Herod, and thy works all; There is a child in Bedlem bom is better than we all.' "'What aileth thee, Stephen? What doth thee befall? Lacketh thee either meat or drink in King Herod's hall? "'Lacketh me neither meat nor drink in King Herod's hall, There is a child in Bedlem bom is better than we all.' "'What aileth thee, Stephen? Art thou wode or thou 'ginst to brede? Lacketh thee either gold or fee, or any rich weed? ' "'Lacketh not either gold nor fee, nor no rich weed. There is a child in Bedlem bom shall helpen us in our need.' no EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY "'That is all so soth, Stephen, all so soth I wish ' As that this capon crowe shall that Ueth here in my dish. "That word was not so soon said, that word in that hall, The capon crew Christus natus est among the lords all. "Riseth up my tormentors by two and all by one And leadeth Stephen out of this town and stonfed him with stone. "Taken they Stephen and stoned him in the way, And therefore is his Even on Christmas Day. " A constant theme for meditation and song was the attitude of the Soul to Christ; very many are the metaphorical songs written about this theme, such as, Psyche invites the Lord Christ into her Garden, or The Dialogue of the Soul and Christ over the Need of bearing the Cross. The fate of a soul after death is naturally a never failing subject for songs, which are frequently quasi- dramatic and written in dialogue form. One of the scenes pic- tured over and over again is the Soul at the gate of Heaven; all these songs bear a close resemblance to one another in text: "So fearful and trembling, at Heaven's gate fair. There stands a poor lonely Soul, dares not enter there." An Angel sings: "Oh enter, oh enter, the glory of Heaven, Through faith in the Lord Jesus thy sins are forgiven; Come out from thy darkness into Jesus' glad light, His great love has cleansed thy garments and made them snow white." The Soul: "Snow white? Snow white?" The Angel: "Yes, as white as the snow! And together, to His presence, we'll jojrfully go." The picture is one painted over and over by Fra Angelico and the Rhenish master, Stefan Lochner, and in the same spirit. ■ Besides the folk songs relating to the stories of the Lives of Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints, and to the human soul and a SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS iii futtire life, there are many that emanate from the life of the family, such as songs of a ntirse to her children, and songs of children who worship the Christ Child. Then there are those suggested by the world of nature, of which a frequent form is a series of questions, how many stars are there in the sky, how many leaves in the forest, waves in the sea, sands on the shore, hours in eternity, with the refrain which points the moral : As these are countless, ' ' count- less times should our God be praised. " In America we have a rich and beautiful treasure of sacred folk songs; it is true that we may not consider them native or indigenous, but they are a rich treasure all the same, and it is a ground for congratulation that so many of the gifted men of the negro race are collecting these genuine folk songs of their people, so that they may not all be forgotten and lost. The most fruitful periods of their production have been those of religious revivals or camp meetings. These simple folk lived very close in thought and imagination to the heavenly world; it was easy for them to call it up before them in all the details of its topography and all the beauty of its furnishing. Probably because this world was so hard, they lived in the thought of the joys of the world to come. A great ntunber of their songs are "Spirituals," because after conversion it was accounted a sin to sing anything else; and because they lived with heaven just next door they found it perfectly natural to associate angels and archangels and even God and Christ with all sorts of petty hap- penings in every day life. It was perfectly natural that a boatman's song should be "Michael (that is to say Archangel Michael) row that boat ashore"; it was perfectly natural that the sight of a child in a fruit tree should suggest "My brother sittin' in the Tree of Life. " The conceptions are naive, even childish; otherwise the ideas could not be so simple and the real- ization so vivid. The harmonies are primitive but beautiful, most singable and appealing. Mr. Moton, the successor of Booker T. Washington as President of Tuskegee, has said of the Spirit- uals: "They are the life of the soul manifesting itself in rude words, wild strains, and curious but beautiful harmonies." In these Spirituals no marked partiality has been shown for 112 EXCURSIONS EST MUSICAL HISTORY any one period of life or for any particular section of the Bible or special sort of Bible story. The amazingly keen and always responsive dramatic sense of the negro people rejoiced in any picturesque or dramatic scene; "Didn't old Pharaoh get lost in the Red Sea? " " Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel? " Such songs called up whole scenes before them. Their songs bring to mind the blending of the realistic and the humorous in the old mystery and miracle plays. One of the tenth century English plays is founded on the story of the Flood. It opens with the building of the ark. When all is ready and the animals all in, it is time for the family to go on board, but Mrs. Noah flatly refuses. She is having a good time and does not wish to be disturbed; "I will not leave my gossips," she announces positively, and it takes considerable whacking and the combined efforts of the men of the family to put her aboard by force. A Spiritual in the same vein pictures the world left outside the ark : "Oh it rained forty days, forty nights 'out stoppin', Noah wasn't busy 'bout de rain stop droppin' Till he hear de angels moanin', 'Didn't it rain, Tell me, my Lord, didn't it rain?' " Some at de winder, some at de do,' Some cried 'Noah, ain't you takin' any more? Noah wasn't busy 'bout takin' any more Till he hear de angels moanin', 'Didn't it rain, Tell me, my Lord, didn't it rain?' "' There is almost invariably in their songs the moral lesson either plainly drawn or implied which is frequently absent from the miracle and mystery plays and from the folk songs of the Euro- pean peoples. Every vivid situation in life and story seems to have interested these people and to have inspired their folk songs; but above all the dramatic quality of the moment of death has caught their imagination, so that there is a whole class, and a very large one, of what might be called " D5ang Songs, " among which are some of the most beautiful folk songs in the world. Such are "Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home" ; or. SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS 113 "Dig my grave long and narrow! Make my coflSn long and strong! Bright angels to my feet, Bright angels to my head, Bright angels to carry me when I'm dead. Oh, my little soul gwine shine, shine, Oh, my little soul gwine shine like a star. Good Lord, I'm bound to Heav'n at last, " — or that one with the exqtdsite melody, "Oh, deep River, my home is over Jordan! Lord, I want to cross over into camp-ground. Oh, don't you want to go to that gospel feast. That promis'd land where all is peace? Oh, deep River." EXCURSION XI MUSIC AND SOME GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS ALL great religious movements have exercised a direct, usually an immediate influence on the music of the Church. Eyen the more notable and widespread heresies of the early Christian centuries, such as the Gnostic and Arian heresies, did not fail to affect the music of the orthodox. Every religious movement, whether in the nature of a reformation or a . heresy or a so-called heresy, means that men are thinking for themselves or feeling for themselves, spontaneously and individ- ually and not in response to the dictates of authority or tradition ; and every one of them finds in music the most satisfying outlet for emotion, and the strongest appeal to the hearts of men, as well as the greatest force in attracting to its ranks. In general, their effect upon music itself has been to make it more subjective in content, that is to say, more personal, as it is called upon to express in- dividual faith and need, or personal emotion, rather than, im- personally, formulated creeds and doctrines. The inevitable effect on musical form has been to encourage freedom, to per- mit innovations, and so to open the way for the development of modern music and for its use in the Church. In the early Christian Church the singing of hymns appears to have been an important part of the simple service of worship. Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan before the year A.D. no, "The Christians rise before day to sing a hymn." Tertullian, in the second century, describing the Agapae, or Love Feasts, says that "after washing hands and bringing in lights, 114 MUSIC AND GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS 115 each man was invited to come forward and sing a h3min in praise of God, either from the Scriptures or of his own composition." A description remaining to us of a service on All Saints' Day presents large choirs of men and women, singing heartily both antiphonally and concertedly. The music of the early Church was one of its most powerful agencies of evangelization; it is on record that "the singing brought many pagans into the Church. " But in the course of time, with the formulation of a ritual, the singing gradually ceased to be the office of the congregation. At first the Church opposed the dictation of men who, having risen to be its Bishops, moved in the direction of taking the service from the people and giving it into the hands of the clergy. Thus, Paul of Samosata, that Bishop who was the first to appear in pomp under a baldachin, was deposed from the See of Antioch by the Council of the Syrian Church about the year 265, because he would not permit the inspirational singing of hymns, but pro- hibited all composition to non-Biblical texts. Yet only a himdred years after this the Western Church had swimg so far from democracy that the Coimcil of Laodicea, in the year 364, for- bade anyone to sing hymns except canonical psalmists who had the right to movint into the pulpit. But so powerful was the hold of the singing upon the people that when the Gnostics advanced the heretical teaching that Christ was God only and never really man, but only in appearance was bom and walked this earth and died, they found the singing their chief aid in proselytizing. In self-defense the Church was forced to restore some congregational singing to its service, and so great was the influence of Gnostic song that Xanthopulus noted that the music of the Syrian Church was largely borrowed or adapted from theirs. Bardesanes, a famous Gnostic of the third century, is said to have created in Syria this new style of singing, which received relatively definite form when his son, Harmonicus, devised a system of notation in which the music cotdd be recorded. To these tunes orthodox poets, among them Ephraem Syriacus, one of the most famous hymn writers of the early Church, adapted poems which were doctrinally correct. Naturally, these hymns which were written as a protest against Ii6 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY the heresy of the denial of the Incarnation, laid emphasis on the human qualities of Christ. As another measure of self-defense, St. Chrysostom, finding that the singing of the heretics was drawing many away from the Church, organized a system of nightly processionals in which the choirs marched singing hymns and bearing silver crosses and wax tapers. This marks, doubtless, the inception of the Choir Processional, of the crucifer as an ele- ment of the processional, and of the Service of Lights, which is still celebrated or has been revived in many churches at the present time. Another great heresy in the early Church, the Arian Heresy, owed to its hymnody its enormous spread and influence through- out both West and East. We have seen that in order to hold its own members, the orthodox Church in the East had been forced to introduce sing- ing into the liturgy; so that when, about the year 363, BeisiI — afterwards St. Basil — was tried for the heresy of writing h3niins, he defended himself by saying that it was no innovation, but had long been the custom in the churches of Egypt, Sj^ria, Lybia, Thebes, Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Mesopotamia. So it came to pass that in Constantinople Arians and orthodox Chris- tians could be heard singing the same melody to different words. Riots and murders appear to have been features of the debate between the two parties, but the popular singing went on in both of them. From the East the revival of hymn singing spread to the West, where Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, known as the "Hammer of the Arians," wrote, in addition to his polemical treatise on the doctrine of the Trinity, a book of Hymns or Cantiones. Within the formal liturgy of the Church itself some changes were introduced, such as that in the choral response the Gloria Patri. Originally this response consisted only of "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost"; but when the Arians denied the co-eternity of Christ and God, affirming that "there was when Christ was not" and regarding Christ and the Holy Spirit as in the nature of later emanations from God, the Church, in the Council of Nicsea, deemed it necessary to add MUSIC AND GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS 117 to the Gloria its aifirmation of belief in the co-eternity of Christ and the Holy Ghost with God the Father: "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. " Unfortunately the music of these earliest hjmins is lost, or at least has not been unearthed from the libraries and treasuries of those ancient monasteries in which it may lie buried. More satisfying to the musician, therefore, is the inquiry into two great religious movements which in the twelfth century had their immediate origin and seat in France, the Albigensian and Wal- densian movements. The Albigenses called themselves Johannites, or Sons of John the Apostle, and traced their origin to Patmos and the Seven Churches of Asia. Historically, their church in France was organized by Bishop Nicetas, who came from the Balkans to Toulouse in 1167. It was set up as a Church of the Spirit, of Love of the Paraclete; although we find that some of them adored the Incarnate Word, their worship was at heart that of the Spirit, incorporeal Love. Albigensianism was the first great protest against the real paganism and corruption of Rome. The heretical province was Aquitaine, the capital Toulouse; the plains of the South were the battlefields soaked with the blood of many crusades against them, which they withstood xmder their banner of the Lamb and the Lion; the Pyrenees were their fortresses and asylums of refuge when they fought for twenty years against two^ millions and bore the shock of a hundred crusades directed to- wards their extermination. Almost contemporaneously with the establishment of Albi- gensianism, Peter Waldo, a citizen of Lyons, was drawing to himself the great following of which we shall shortly speak as the Waldenses, whose patron and example was St. Paul; and the "True Church" of St. Peter at Rome was stirred to its depths at the thought of the perils impending through the encroachments of these disciples of St. John and St. Paul. The Archbishop of Narbonne held a Council and Appealed to King Louis VII for aid; "The ship of St. Peter" he cried, "is so badly rocked by heresies, that it is on the point of being submerged." King Louis VII came to the succor of the ship; a crusade was launched ii8 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY with Simon de Montfort in command. There followed terrible heresy trials; property was confiscated, great men were exiled, terribly tortured, burned at the stake ; and all to the great intoned chant of the heresy trials, King Robert's Veni Sancte Spiritus, " Come Holy Spirit, Light Divine." Heretical towns were wiped out by general massacres, as B^ziers in 1209, when fifteen thou- sand people were put to death. "Kill them all, God can choose His own, " was the order to the assassins. During Bishop Nicetas's stay in Toulouse he had won many of the barons to the new faith and with them the troubadours, for was not Aquitaine the land of the troubadours, where were established the Courts of Love? And was not Toulouse the shrine to which the greatest minstrels made pilgrimages? And was not this a very religion for troubadours? It was a church of aristocrats, elegant, chivalrous, poetic; it was a faith of poets and dreamers. The foundation principles of the troubadours were in essence Albigensian; sacrifice the essence of love; true love the love of the ideal, therefore pure and spiritual. Earthly love is but the counterpart of heavenly love; love of the beloved maid is, therefore, hardly to be distinguished from the love of the Holy Maid, the Virgin, or from the love of that Bride of Christ, the Church, or even from the love of Christ Himself. Here then, in Albigensianism, was a religion which was as if made for the troubadours. In every point it appealed to them, as it expressed them. The Albigensian Church enrolled such great names as Armand d'Amel, called by Petrarch "the Grand Master of Love, " Bernard de Ventadour, Bertran de Born, and many others who fought and suffered for the cause, so that a great historian could write, "Poetry was the wings of the heresy angel; the two great- est forces of the century were the lance and the harp. " Many of the songs of these troubadours, as, later, of the Ger- man Minnesingers, were made sacred or secular by the simple process of changing two or three words; others could be inter- preted in either way without any change in the text. Such songs as the Minnelied AW Meiu Gedanken sind bei Dir ("All the Thoughts of my Heart are with Thee ") might well be sacred both in melody and in text, and might with equal propriety be MUSIC AND GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS 119 addressed to the Virgin Mary, to an earthly lover, or to Christ Himself; they differ very slightly in feeling and form of expres- sion from such a hymn as "Jesus, the very thought of Thee, With sweetness fills my breast. " Others, again, like the anonjonous Le Paradis are whoUy sacred in character and intention. In the great religious movements of the Middle Ages the troubadours. Minnesingers, and after them the Mastersingers, could play almost as important a part as the preachers in teaching the people the Bible, which was to replace all other authority as a guide to living. It is told of several famous preachers that when they desired to emphasize a certain point they would say, "If there be any ballad maker in the congregation let him take these words and put them into a song. " Many of these Bible- teaching songs remain to us, such as the old Mastersinger song In Matthew Eighth is Written, which is the stoiy of the Storm at Sea. We have already referred to the great Waldensian movement for reformation which, at the same time as Albigensianism, spread through the south of France. Although many writers of its history claim for it great antiquity, we concern ourselves only with its history after the twelfth century, when it was founded as a western Church by Peter Waldo, a successful merchant of Lyons. The story rtins that, deeply affected by the death of a friend and by the song of a ballad singer, he consulted his priest as to how he might enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Surely it must have been thoughtlessly that the priest quoted Christ's words to the rich young man, "Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, take up thy cross and follow me. " This was in 1 1 73. Immediately Waldo made arrangements for the distribution of his money in food to the people who were then suffering from a famine. Seeking more light he could not find it; for the Bible, when read at all in the chtuch, was read only in Latin, and the reading was seldom intelligent or intelligible. So he associated with him two ecclesiastics, who, for money, helped him to trans- 120 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY late the Bible into the dialect of his people. He committed whole gospels to memory and the people thronged to hear him repeat and explain them. So9n the Chiirch forbade him to preach; but he insisted that Christ said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel"; and that he must "obey God rather than man. " In 1 1 83 the first bull was launched against the Waldenses by the Pope at the Council of Verona, because they preached with- out "being sent"; for do not the Scriptures say, "How shall ye preach without being sent? " and the Chtirch had not sent them! Many of them took refuge in the Alps, others spread through the South and even into the North. It was" believed that Waldo himself went into Bohemia, where he remained until his death, and where his teachings exercised a powerful influence on such a pre-Hussite leader as Peter of Cheliczky; moreover, the first Moravian ministers were ordained by the laying on of Waldensian hands. Nor were the Waldenses without their troubadours. One Rayounard, in the Noble Leczon, written near the end of the twelfth century, sang of them: "If there be anyone of whom it is said that he will not slander, nor swear, nor lie, nor be guilty of dishonesty or theft, nor give himself up to dissoluteness, nor revenge himself on his enemies, they call him a Vaudois, that is a Waldensian, and cry 'Death to him!'" In i486 a bull of extermination was formulated by Pope Innocent VIII. Then began the crusades against them which were to last through two hundred years of massacres, tortures, wasting imprisonments, burnings at the stake. For what? These were their articles of faith; the absolute authority of the Bible; the Trinity of the Godhead; the sinful state of man; free salvation through Jesus Christ; faith working by love. In these last two doctrines lay the heresy — free salvation and faith work- ing by love — for the corner-stone of the churchly hierarchy was this, "God is merciful only through His nainisters, according to His word ' Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them.'" Finally, after two centuries of incredible hardships of which MUSIC AND GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS 121 it is almost impossible for us to-day to bear the details, permission was given for them to leave the country, to go to Switzerland over the Mont Cenis Pass. In the bitter cold of winter they set out with Pastor Henri Arnaud as their chief leader. Half clothed, half fed, feeble old men from the prisons, and helpless children set forth with the others for Geneva. Many died by the wayside; many died even between the outer and inner gates of the city of Geneva when they had just reached the Promised Land. And yet that weary remnant of the faithful burst into song when they entered the gates of Geneva, singing that famous Waldensian chorale on Psahn LXXIV, that Psalm of fugitive Israel which Theodore de Beza had translated into their language : " Faut4l, Dieu, gue nous soyons Spars/" "O God, why hast thou cast thy people off? And why against them bums thine anger sore?" Splendid hospitality was shown them in Switzerland, and in Geneva thpy found again their famous exiled leader, Janavel. But they v/ere not long happy away from their own mountains and valleys. After three years of exile they completed plans with Janavel to return secretly. Led by the same Pastor Arnaud, five hundred men crossed the lake in the night and advanced across the country, through the mountains, following the high peaks only for safety, to find their way back to their own land. After almost unthinkable hardships from cold, ex- haustion, illness, and attack, they gloriously re-entered their own country, and on the 25th or 28th of August, 1689, they saw the Valley of Pragela at their feet. In holy joy they gave thanks to God, says the old narrative left us by Pastor Arnaud, "and whilst the Vaudois gave thanks to God on the mountain tops neath the vault of heaven, in that glorious temple, the work of nature and not of human hands, aU the CathoUc priests of the Valley of Pragela abandoned their parishes and took to flight, on the report of the glorious return of the exiles whom they had so grievously persecuted . ' ' And the hymn they sang then was the 122 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY same hymn that had been sung when the weary exiles entered the gates of Geneva, this time siirely with a note of trivimph, espe- cially when they reached its climax, "Arise O God, in power, plead Thine own cause!" This was not the end of the persecution by any means; but this is not a history of persecutions. The Waldensian Church is still flourishing in the Valley of Piedmont to-day, in Italy, es- pecially in the Abruzzi valley, and in America. A great recent triumph is the erection of a Waldensian Church in Rome itself, for the building of which an American woman had the honor of pro\'iding the necessary money. Closely aUied with the Albigensian and Waldensian movements in point of locality and in natural association was the Reformation movement headed by John Calvin. Calvin had been converted to Protestantism about 1533 or 1534. After publishing his first important work, he desired greatly to visit the famous Protestant Duchess, Ren^e of Ferrara, widely renowned for her piety. An opportunity was not long in presenting itself, for Calvin found himself chased from Basle and not welcome in Geneva. For five years he sojourned at the Court of Ferrara. Two other interesting people were there at the same time; one was Vittoria Colonna, the friend of Michael Angelo, the other was the famous poet Clement Marot, who had become one of the first disciples of the Reformation in France. Now Calvin wished to give his followers sacred songs to sing, which, as he himself wrote, "shall be not merely dignified but holy ; which shall be as spurs to incite us to pray to and praise God, to meditate on His works, to love, fear, honor, and glorify Him. " But where to find one to write such sacred songs? Here, at the Court of Ferrara, he found his poet right to hand. Marot undertook the translation of the Psalms into French verse. Many were his ups and downs. There was a period when his Psalms were in such great favor at the Courts of Francis I and Henry II that every courtier and lady chose a favorite Psalm which was known as his or her Psalm, just as the old dances were known, for instance, as "The Earl of MUSIC AND GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS 123 Salisbiary's Pavan, " "Lady Carey's Diimp," and so on. These Psalms they sang to popular tunes of the day. Then came a reversal of fortune and Marot's long exile; his years in Geneva with Calvin; his Italian sojourn which ended in Turin in 1554 with his sudden death, generally believed to have been due to poison administered in the interests of true religion. Of his works many remain to us; metrical versions of Psalms for Calvin, such as By theWaters of Babylon, and very many others, as well as such charming troubadour songs as Plus ne suis ce que j'ai ete. Marot, the courtier and poet, had found it a little difificult, in his later years, to get on with a severity in Calvin which frequently amounted to intolerance, so that even before his death Theodore de Beza had taken up the work of the metrical transla- tion of the Psalms into French, which he finished in 1558. And now for the composer to set to music worthily these metrical Psalms ! Claude Goudimel, from Avignon, an excellent musician, founder and director of a famous music school in Rome, in which his most distinguished pupil was Palestrina, was a devoted Protestant. He took up the work of composing the music to the Psalms and set them in the form of motets, in four, five, six, and eight parts. Goudimel was a victim of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. His work was taken up by Louis Bourgeois, the Paris com- poser, who lived with Calvin at Geneva for the twelve years from 1545 to 1557, and who harmonized more simply the melodies of Goudimel. Bourgeois is best known to us through a response which is sung almost every Sunday in almost all churches in all Protestant countries in the world, the Long Meter Doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow. " As this is variously attributed, in our hj'mnals, to Goudimel and Bourgeois, it is undoubtedly the same case with it as with many of the metrical Psalm tunes; the melodies are Goudimel's, the harmonization is by Bourgeois. To their reforms in music more extended refer- ence will be made later. Calvin established in Geneva a school which was maintained 124 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY at the expense of the State for the purpose of teaching the young to sing, to qualify for leading the music in the church. We have already referred to the fact that Waldensians had ■taken refuge in Bohemia. They must have gone in fairly large numbers, for we learn that in 1254 there were forty-one schools in the diocese of Passau. Besides the Waldensian influence, that of the English reformer, Wyclif , made itself powerfully felt there. But Bohemia had her own great reformer, the patriot-preacher, John Huss, who from his pulpit in Bethlehem Chapel thundered denunciations against the abuses in the Church, especially against selling indulgences for money and against the crusades waged by Christians against Christians. He defended the use of the Cup in Communion, as opposed to communion in one kind only; which was the practice in the Roman Church. The Cup and the Bible are the emblems of the Bohemian Church to-day. Huss, too, found in music a great aid to the spiritual life. He established a school for singers in connection with his Bethlehem Chapel and he compiled the first Protestant Hjnnn Book. Excommunication and interdict were not long delayed. Then, in 1414, the Pope, under the dictation of Emperor Sigis- mund, called the great Council of Constance, before which Huss was summoned to answer for his heresies. Huss's journey to Con- stance was in the nature of a Triumphal Progress, so glad were all the people by the way to see him and to hear his words; but in Constance there was nothing waiting for him but chains and imprisonment of the most dreadful kind, long days without food, illness without care, interminable disputations which, in his tor- tured condition, it was marvelous that he could support. The conclusion of the whole matter was that, because he refused to recant an error he never held, in spite of the Emperor's safe con- duct, John Huss was deemed worthy of death by fire and was burned at the stake July 6, 1415. When the news of the martyrdom of Huss reached Bohemia the nobles sent a letter to the Council of Constance accusing them of a great sin in putting to death that holy man and assert- ing, "We hold it perpetual infamy and disgrace to our most Chris- tian Kingdom of Bohemia and the most renowned Mark of MUSIC AND GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS 125 Moravia, as well as of us aU. " The great military leader, John de Trocznow, known as Ziska (the One-Eyed) , won the consent of King Wen- zel to avenge "the griev- ous affront which the punishment of John Huss hath offered to the Bohemian nation. " Ziska drew all men after him. The decrees of Coun- cils or Pope provoked only wrath in Bohemia and not awe; it soon became evident that it could be reduced only by force of arms. A crusade was launched against it. Ziska held up the Cup before the army and cried, "Behold your standard!" He armed his men, not with unaccus- tomed swords, but with their own great iron flails, which every man of them had known how to use from the time he was big enough to swing one. Wherever it came to bat- tle the troops of Ziska were victorious. The Pope called on all Christian Europe to oppose them; they fought for sixteen years against the armies of all Europe, when the forces stood twenty to one against them, and never lost a decisive battle. Ziska, the One-Eyed, had that one good eye pierced by an arrow, but in the black darkness of utter blindness he still led his armies on to never-failing victory. In terror of their iron flails were the armies of Christian Europe, and time and again as they advanced to battle singing the great Hussite war song, with its hammering accents like the resounding blows of the flail, the enemy would turn and run without striking a blow. "Warriors who for God are fighting, " they sang, and swung their flails like Jehoshaphat against the Edomites, and the enemy fled. BOHE- An offshoot from the Hussite Church, but more gentle **iAN and mild than the warlike Bohemians of its Taborite and FLAIL Qaijxtine sections, was the sect of the Moravian Brethren which in later years was to make Hermhut the center of the first great missionary movement of modem times. Their first pres- 126 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY English Translation by Rev. Dr. Vincent Pisbk. Tenor. HUSSITE HYMN Harmonization by Bedrich Smbtana. ZlSKA, CI415) Organ. Kdoz jste bo - zi Warriors, who for bo-jov-ni - ci God are fight - ing. a x&- ko - na and for His di - vine ho ; pros - tez od law. Fray that His Bo help ha po - mo - ci be vouchsafed you ; adou-fej-tez vnfi - ho ze ko-ne8 - nS snim vzdycky zvf-t8- with trust un-to Him draw ; With Him you con - quer, in your foes in- / ^^=r=rr^,r='^^ ^^^^^^^ MUSIC AND GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS 127 zf - te ze ko - neC - nS snim vzdycki zvf - tS zf - te. spire awe ; With Him you con - quer. In your foes in -spire awe. byters were ordained by Waldensian bishops. Then as now, music played a large and important part in their worship and it was their singing, in which he joined when he crossed with them on the ship t'o America, which affected most profoundly the spiritual life and evangehcal ideals of John Wesley. Several of these same hymns are still sung, among them none more beautiful than the fifteenth century Evening Hymn of the Moravian Breth- ren, which has also been made the theme of a simple but attrac- tive set of Variations by the Dutch . organist and composer, Johannes Barend Litzau. But the noblest musical monument of the great Bohemian Reformation is the tone poem Ma Vlast (" My Country") written by the renowned Bohemian composer, Smetana, the teacher of Dvofik, on the theme of the Hussite battle hjonn, "the flail song," Warriors who for God are Fighting. The first movement is called "Tabor," after Ziska's armed camp on the top of Mt. Tabor which gave its name to a whole section of the Hussite believers, the Taborites. The second movement is called "Blanik, " after Mt. Blanik, within which, legend says, the old Bohemian King Wenceslas sleeps through the centuries, to be awakened some day when his country's need is greatest and to come to its succor. But Smetana has not used in this move- ment the Wenceslas chorale but the Hussite chorale, in the 128 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY conviction that only through Protestant Christianity can Bohemia be saved. I might add that the performance of this composition is now forbidden in Bohemia. EXCURSION XII MUSIC AND THE REFORMATION IN following the course of great religious movements one is struck by the emphasis laid on music as an important factor in evangelization, as a means of attracting to their ranks, and as a most powerful aid in touching the hearts of the people and awakening emotional response. There have been few re- formers who have not given special attention to music. John Wyclif has left us no evidence of his interest in or use of sacred songs to further his movement of reform, but his followers, his "poor priests," who went about singing their Gospel into the hearts of the people, were known as Lollards, a nickname derived from the old Anglo-Saxon verb, lullen, to sing, the root of our word lullaby. The great reformation movement in Bohemia, so strongly influenced by Wyclif, of which the leader was John Huss, gave to the world the first Protestant hymnal, for w;hich Huss himself wrote hymns in Latin and Czech. Of his followers the Utraquists or Calixtines published a Czech hymnal in 1501, and the United Brethren in 1505, or twenty years before Luther. These hym- nals were based on poetic versions of the Psalms, old Latin hymns, religious songs in the vernacular, and secular songs. Both Huss and Calvin established schools of sacred music in connec- tion with their respective churches. The Swiss reformer, Zwingli, was perhaps the most highly cul- tivated musically of all the reformers, a? even in his childhood he had astonished his fellow-students and his masters by his great 9 129 I30 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY talent in instrumental and vocal music. He could play seven instnaments and is known as the composer of several Reformation hymns. His advice to students was, " Do not fail to study music, for nothing is more fitting to rejoice the heart of man troubled by chagrin, or wearied with too severe studies; nothing makes a man more of a man." His enemies called him the "Evangelical Flute" and said of him, "He goes through the land, this new Orpheus, leading the beasts." They said this in derision; he might have gloried in the truth of it, in the power to lift men above bestial levels through his teachings and his music. The greatest of all reformation movements, the most extended in its influence, was the movement led by Martin Luther; its supreme importance is recognized by the mere fact that it is referred to simply as "The Reformation. " Naturally and inevi- tably this movement exercised also the most powerful and far- reaching effect on sacred music. While it was still in its infancy Luther became acutely conscious that one of the most urgent needs of the new Church was the need of something to sing. He wrote Nicholas Hausmann, Pastor at Zwickau: "I would we had many German songs which the people could sing during the Mass. But we lack German poets and musicians, or they are unknown to us, who are able to make Christian and 'spiritual songs, ' as Paul called them, which are of such value that they can be used daily in the house of God. " This condition of affairs was short-lived. Many soon ap- peared to supply the want. Luther himself, after the comple- tion of his translation of the New .Testament, turned his attention to writing hymns which avoided dogma, and which were sincere, spontaneous outpourings of the heart to God. He wrote to Spalatin in 1524, "I propose after the example of the Prophets and of the early Fathers, to write for the people some German hymns and spiritual songs, so that, by the help of song, the Word of God may abide among them." That the Word of God did in large measure abide among the people through the help of song we have ample evidence in the writings of Luther's adversaries. "The people are singing themselves into the new doctrines, " wrote one of them; "Luther's songs have damned MUSIC AND THE REFORMATION 131 more souls than all his books and speeches," said a Jesuit priest. The first evangelical hymnal, which was published in 1524 by Luther's friend, Johann Walther, was said to contain four of Luther's own hymns; during that same year he is reputed to have written fourteen more. So great was the activity in hymn writing that before Luther's death sixty collections of hymns had been issued. Luther did not establish a separate school for the learn- ing of Church music as did Huss and Calvin, but brought all his influence to bear on having music introduced into the day schools throughout the land. "The devil can't bear music," he wrote; "music is one of the most beautiful and glorious gifts of God and allied closely to theology. Kings and princes should favor it and encourage it. I have always loved it; it is absolutely necessarj' to encourage the study of it in our schools. " The tunes for these hymns in the Lutheran hymnals were com- posed for the hymnals, or were borrowed from earlier Latin hymns, Bohemian hymns, and sacred and secular folk songs. The French historian and critic, D'Anjou, writing about two centuries later could affirm, " Of a truth, Luther, in causing simple, easy, appeal- ing melodies to be adopted, learned in the schools, and sung with the organ, powerfully developed in Germany a feeling for music. " When we speak of the hymns of Martin Luther, our thoughts- turn at once to well-known stately chorales and, first of all, to- the great chorale which we have come to consider the marching song of the young Church, or as the German poet Heine called it, the " Marseillaise of the Reformation, " "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." In more than one sense was this hymn the marching song or the keynote of the Reformation. In a sense in which it retains importance for us it was a symbol of emancipation, for it was sung, not by priests or a canonical choir, but by all the people. Such chorales as an integral part of the service gave back to the people that participation in public worship which had been long denied them. In the gatherings of Christians in Apostolic times all joined in the praise of God. But the Church quite early in its history as an organized body had given the singing over to a canonical body of singers. It was fitting that this should be; 132 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY fitting, that is to say, to the conception of the significance of the service of the Mass insisted on by the Church. The service had come to be the vehicle of a sacrifice offered by the priest for the people. Faith had come to mean faith in the supernatural efficacy of the service or sacrifice of the Mass and in the mediatory power of the priest who celebrated it. Direct contact of the soul with God was held to be impossible for the masses of the people. The Church was the mediator, bearing the sins, the petitions, the praises, the offerings of the people to God, and distributing, according to desert, the favors of God to man, through the sacraments. In his A German Mass, in 1526, Luther set forth as" the new teaching of the Reformation: "The act of worship has n6 intrinsic or objective efficacy, but only the attitude of the heart. The only use of forms of worship is to induce the proper attitude of the soul to God. " Thus the idea of a media- tory priesthood was swept away and the people rejoiced in the new teaching, "Ye are all priests unto God." God alone can and will forgive sin through Jesus Christ, "a sacrifice offered up once for all unto salvation. " And how could the soul come into .this direct contact with God? "Our dear Lord," said Luther, "speaks to us through His Word and we speak to Him in prayer and song. " The congregational hymn like this "A Mighty Fort- ress" symbolized and gave voice to the article of faith that every man may come into direct contact with his God and Saviour. The expression of the quickened emotional life of all the people who were thus taking part in the service demanded, too, greater freedom in the form of the music. The music of the Roman Catholic Church was written strictly in the old modes arranged and sanctioned by Pope Gregory the Great and known as Gre- gorian Chant or Plain Song. This meant that music was com- posed in one of the eight scales or tones, which were unrelated to each other. If a composer wrote in a certain mode or tone, he wrote in it; he could not modulate out of one into another. In the sixteenth century physical experiment decided on the division of the octave into twelve parts, that is to say, twelve half-tones, as nearly equal as possible, but tempered so that they might stand in friendly relations with one another. This gave us our diatonic- MUSIC AND THE REFORMATION 133 chromatic scale, and made it possible for the composer to pass by modulation from one key to another. Music came to be written, not in eight modes but in two scales, major and minor. The great master who perceived the full possibilities of the new ar- rangement, and who so developed it as to deserve the title of "Father of Modern Harmony, " was Bach; but one of the very first to use it successfully, a pioneer who blazed the trail for his successors a half -century before Bach was bom, was the Protest- ant Adam Gumpeltzhaimer of Augsburg. His choral composi- tions were perhaps the earliest of those which, in their texts, set forth plainly the teachings of the Reformation and which were written for use in the Church in the new scales, in the vernacular and not in Latin. It is interesting and significant that the first miusicians to use the modem tonality in France were Goudimel, Bourgeois, and other writers in Calvin's Psalter, in which seventy- one of the numbers are written in major and minor scales and only five in the old Gregorian modes. A contemporary of Gumpeltzhaimer who collected the Church Music and Spiritual Songs of Dr. Martin Luther was Melchior Vulpius, of Weimar, who also wrote for the Reformed Church a book of musical settings of Sentences from the Gospel for Sabbath . Use, and compositions such as the Easter songs Praise to our God on Heaven's Throne, An Easter Hallelujah, and others, for the most part unaccompanied in the old style, and brilliant and effective through the beauty of the treatment of the voice parts. A powerful aid in the popularization of the Reformation was the singing of its teachings by the Mastersingers. In France troubadours rendered service of inestimable value to the re- formed faith; in Germany the Minnesingers were as "voices crying in the wilderness"; some of the greatest among them, as Walther von der Vogelweide and Hugo von Trimberg poured forth invectives against Rome and the corruption of the Church and pleaded for that reformation for which they in some measure paved the way. When it did come, the greatest of the Master- singers, Hans Sachs, was its intensely loyal adherent. With what joy he greeted the "Wittenberg Nightingale, " as he called Luther! ■ Henceforth many of his Master Songs were devoted to 134 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY impressing upon the people Luther's Gospel, which, through his music, doubtless reached many circles which otherwise might not have been touched by the new vision. One of the most outstanding innovations in the new Church, was, as we have seen, the restoration to the laity of a large and important part in the service, in their participation in singing the hymns or chorales. As it was almost indispensable in the sup- port of the singing of the congregation, the organ came into greater prominence, and as there were as yet few hymnals with tunes, the organist was required to play the tune before the sing- ing, that the congregation might know which one to sing. This "announcing the tune" was embellished with interludes, so that in the hands of great organists, these simple, chorale themes were frequently developed into notable musical compositions. Bach's great biographer, Philipp Spitta, presents the conception back of the creation of a Chorale Prelude, " It blossoms from the point where personal feeling meets the church melody. " The first to work out this idea of the Chorale Prelude in a style suited to the organ was Samuel Scheidt, the celebrated organist at Halle-on-the-Saale, who had been a pupil of the great Sweelinck at Amsterdam. Others followed in his footsteps, each of the gifted ones bringing some contribution to the enrichment of the Chorale Prelude as a form, until ^t reached its perfect develop- ment at the hands of the Bach family, especially of its most dis- tinguished member, the great Johann Sebastian. We must bear in mind that the Lutheran chorales were not merely hymns of sentiment, but that the articles of faith and the canticles or sentences that belonged definitely to the formal liturgy were voiced in them for all the people to sing. The Creed became the chorale "We all believe in one true God " ; the Kyrie, "0 Spotless Lamb of God!" It is true that the form used was discretionary, that is to say congregations might use either the Creed, Kyrie, and other responses, or the congregational chorales corresponding to them. But the part in musical worship now taken by the laity went much farther than just the participation in congregational sing- ing. As every man was a "priest unto God," and as every man MUSIC AND THE REFORMATION 135 must experience for himself the varying emotions of the soul in immediate contact with God and Christ, so every man pos- sessed the right to express those emotions. This meant that to lay singers were given the parts in mystery plays and Passions that had been sung exclusively by priests. In the many musical "Biblical Scenes " which were written to impress the Bible stories, such as Heinrich Schuetz's dramatic setting of The Pharisee and the Publican — "Two men went up to the Temple to pray" — with its text in the vernacular, we find the innovation of solos to be sung, not by priests, but by lay singers. In their choruses the soprano carries the air. The old churchly practice was to give it to the tenor, who indeed got his name — derived from the Latin tenere, to hold — from the fact that his was the voice that "held" the tune. As this change was apparently first made by the Pro- testant composers, and is consistently used by Goudimel, who, in Calvin's Psalter, gave the soprano the air in all but about a half dozen of his settings, it probably had its origin in a desire for greater ease and clearness, especially in congregational singing. Another sign of the times in these Biblical Scenes is the instru- mental accompaniment; choral numbers, such as the churchly motets, had hitherto been sung unaccompanied. Even presentations of "Passions" might now be given en- tirely by the laity. In the Roman Chtirch the Gospel texts of the Passions had been intoned in Latin to the prescribed Gre- gorian Tones, by three ecclesiastics, who represented Christ, the Evangelist, and the other personages. In the utterances of the people, "the crowd, " the choir joined, singing them in four parts in the severest polyphonic style. They were, therefore, not dramatic, but so much to the contrary as to awaken in Mendels- sohn, when he heard the Sistine Chapel Choir, the liveliest dis- taste, as he fotmd the most dramatic situations set to music which was wholly unimpassioned, as indeed it must be to be in keeping with the intoning of the soloists. But with the birth of intense feeling of the personal relation of every soul to a redeeming God, the music of Protestantism must express the sentiment of its text. It was felt, for instance, that a Psalm was not fitly set when the same music was used for all its 136 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY stanzas, which differed so greatly from one another in sentiment. Therefore the Calvinist composers, Goudimel, Bourgeois, La Jeune, and others, even back to the little known Pierre de Man- chicourt in 1544, set the different verses of a Psalm to different music. When this could happen to the Psalms, which had been so long wedded to Gregorian, it was not in the least surprising that the composers of the Protestant Passions should seek to give them settings which were as expressive as possible. Follow- ing the tradition, the words of Christ were given to a bass and the narrative of the Evangelist to a tenor, but there were recitatives and arias which were sung by other solo voices, which described the various scenes and pictured the attitude of the Christian to the supreme tragedy of Christ's sufferings and death, songs which revealed the believer's participation in the drama and its emotional effect on him. So, for example, in Bach's Passion According to St. John, when the Christ is about to be led before Caiaphas, the believer (soprano) sings, "I follow thee, also, my Saviour, with gladness"; when the procession starts to Calvary the soul (alto) pictures, lamenting, the scene on " Golgotha, unhappy Golgotha, " and mourns, ' ' with stricken soul the sight I see. ' ' There were also introduced chorales in which the congregation joined, and which were in the nature of a commentary on the scene described by the solo voice, or which expressed the perfect agreement of the whole body of believers with the sentiment expressed by the singer, or deduced some sort of lesson for living as "What my God wills is always best " ; or offers a prayer to the suffering Saviour as "Lord Jesus, thy dear angels send, whene'er this mortal life shall end. " On the chorale which forms so important a part of the Pas- sion was based a new form of choral work, the Cantata. Instead of the chorale being introduced in relation to the scenes portrayed, as in the Passion, the Cantata was built up in text as a sort of dramatization of the chorale, and with the chorale melody as its foundation. Such a chorale as "Come, Redeemer" was chosen, and the scene of the Lord's advent and its effect on the believing soul, as suggested by that chorale was portrayed by the singers in solo numbers, in Christ's appeal (bass) "Behold I stand at the door and knock, " to which the soul (soprano) makes MUSIC AND THE REFORIVIATION 137 answer, " Open wide my heart thy portals, Jesus enters into thee. " After this dramatic part the Cantata closed with the chorale on which it was fotmded. Similar in many respects to the Biblical Scene, the Passion, and the Cantata, although usually without the chorale which was so distinctive a feature of the last two, was the Oratorio, the great religious musical and dramatic form which was built up on words of Holy Scripttire, in solos and choruses all related to a central idea. As the years passed after the Reformation the subjective element in music grew stronger and stronger. Composers broke more completely with traditional forms, even as used by Bach, and held that, for vocal or choral music, suitability to the text was the first essential. As a logical outcome of the Reforma- tion sacred music grew steadily more subjective, even intro- spective; more intensely expressive of the personal relation of the soul to God, or of the congregation as a collection of souls. In the greatest oratorios, as The Messiah by Bach's contemporary, Handel, and the Elijah, St. Paul, and Hymn of Praise by Mendels- sohn, who, though of Jewish birth, was yet vividly conscious of the great spiritual impulse given to the world by the Reforma- tion — perhaps because his wife was the daughter of the Protest- ant pastor of the French Chiurch in Frankfort — ^the most poignant expression is given to the soul's deep emotions and longings in such a passionate appeal as "The sorrows of death had closed all around me, " or such a tender comforting strain as "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, " in the haunting insistence of the chorus "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, " the heavenly upUft in the angelic trio "Lift thine eyes," the tran- scendent exultation of the " Hallelujah Chorus." But the far-reaching influence of the Reformation did not stop with creating new forms; it has revivified the old ones. The unaccompanied motet which was the accepted choral form used in the Roman Catholic Church has been taken up again by such modern composers as Georg Schumann in his setting of Luther's version of Psahn XIII, Lord How Long Wilt Thou Forget Me, by Hugo Wolf and others, and so handled as to leave no doubt that 138 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY the governing idea is to bring out the meaning of the text with full dramatic power. Space fails me to tell of all the compositions belonging to or inspired by the Reformation. We must not forget, however, the altogether lovely carols composed by Luther, such as the ex- quisitely simple and tender Away in a Manger, no Crib for a Bed, which he wrote for his son "little Johnny Luther," and which dwells upon the personal tenderness of Christ, to whom even a little child may have direct access. Most of the great German composers have used Lutheran chorales as the foundation for important works, and especially the great "Marching Song of the Reformation," "A Mighty Fortress is our God." Besides its use in numberless Chorale Preludes, by composers all the way from the ancient Hans Leo Hassler to the modem Max Reger, we find it in a chorus in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, as the theme of a Raff overtxire, of the Nicolai-Liszt Festival Overture, and of Mendelssohn's Refor- mation Symphony. If we make a brief summary of the effects of the great religious movements on church music, we shall find them to be in the main : the revival of congregational singing; the establishment of the congregational hymn and of metrical versions of the Canticles which could be sung by the congregation; the departure from the Gregorian modes and the adoption of the diatonic-chromatic scale in composition, first used by Gumpeltzhaimer in Germany and by Goudimel and the other writers for Calvin's French Psalter; the taking of the air from the tenor and giving it to the soprano; the employment of lay singers; the use of soloists in the church service; the use of the organ as a churchly instrtmient in independent accompaniment and the resultant encouragement of its development as a solo instrument; the introduction of music as a study in day schools; the development of subjective, intro- spective, dramatic church music which led to the Protestant Cantata, Passion and Oratorio. The latter two did not originate in Protestantism but derived fromjt their character. EXCURSION XIII TONALITY IT is not often that we have stopped to think about scales; as children we have struggled with them, as adults we have largely ignored them, or we have taken them for granted. But we have Hved to see the day when the scale has been thrust upon our attention. Our old friend the diatonic scale is being attacked on all sides, by some declared inadequate, by others quite worthless. Because composers have worked within its limitations, a speaker recently referred to "the last two hundred and fifty years, the dark ages of music. " We are now to have new scales, and many of them, or we may have the unfettered liberty of having no scale at all ! What does all this mean ? It is, of course, but another expres- sion of the movement with which we are familiar in Impression- ism and Futurism in painting and in the Vers Libre of poetry. It constrains us to ask the questions: How did we get the scale we have? How can we change? What can we change to? Will it be of any advantage to us? Just here permit me to remind you that we have only one scale — or rather two, the major and the minor; we speak of practising scales, but we really mean practising the scale in different keys, that is to say at different pitches. It is impossible for most of us to even conceive of the ntmiber of tones in sound. We hear at best very imperfectly; we have expressed sound only in tones and half-tones. The Hindus are ^ degree more sensitive; they have quarter- tones. It is said that 139 140 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY Mozart could distinguish sixteenth tones. Acousticians assert that within the range of the eight notes which we call the octave there are about a hundred different tones. All peoples that have created any music have selected from this wealth a certain series of sounds, out of which they have built a ladder, or scale. Not all peoples have adopted the same series, however. The Hindus have one, the Turks another, the Scotch another, and so on. In one point only all agree; all have the octave. This is because it is impossible not to have the octave; it is in nature itself and cannot be avoided. Let but a man and a woman sing the same note and you have the octave, for although apparently singing the same note, they are in reality an octave apart because their voices are made that way. These are not two different tones they sing, but the same tone an octave apart. The octave is, therefore, the first overtone, the first s3Tiipathetic vibration. If you will go to your piano and hold down Middle C, for instance; do not strike it or make any sound at all but just put down the key so as to raise the little damper from the string and set it free to vibrate. Now strike the C an octave lower. Release it and listen to the sound that hangs on ; it is not the note you have struck that continues to sound, but the octave above. The octave is, therefore, the first overtone. Acoustically the reason is that the string struck vibrates not only as a whole, but in halves, in quarters, and so on ; the upper C string is just half the length of the lower C string and vibrates in response when the lower is struck. Try the next tones in the same manner. Hold down D, E, and F in succession and strike the lower C. You get no response from them. But hold down the key of the fifth, that is to say G, and strike the lower C; when you release it the sound you will hear holding on is not the C you have struck, but the G you have not struck at all, which is vibrating sympathetically. The fifth is therefore the second overtone in nature. The octave again is the third overtone. Then going on up the key-board, hold down the key of the third, which is E; do not sound it, just release the string from the damper. Again strike the lower C ; release it ; the sound which lingers, vibrating, is not C but E. TONALITY 141 The third is, therefore, the fourth overtone in nature. Now hold down all four overtones at once, the octave, fifth and third, that is to say C, G, E, and strike lower C; release it; you hear not C, but the whole chord. We have, therefore, arrived at the first succession of vibra- tions or overtones in nature. We do not create these; they are there. They give us C, C octave, and between them the fifth, G, and the third, E; thus the salient points of the scale are ar- rived at, its skeleton, so to speak. The arrangement of these tones and the steps between them has given us the series of tones we have used for the past three hundred years, a scale of eight steps made up of two whole tones and a half tone, followed by three whole tones and a half tone. We have already seen that the selection and order of the.tones in the space between the octave tones varied greatly with different peoples. The Scotch, for example, used only five ; the Turks seven ; while the Greeks did not stick to any one order. Their scales consisted of two tetrachords, or sets of four notes, so ordered that in each arrangement the half tones occurred in a different place, thus creating many scales, which they called Modes, and which they named after the different departments of Greece, Dorian, Lydian, Phrygian, and so on. The men who played the most important parts in formulating the Greek scales or modes were Pjrthagoras, first of all, in the sixth century B.C. — he who heard the music of the spheres; Aristoxenes, about B.C. 310, a disciple of Aristotle, who arranged and classified thirteen modes, to which one of his followers added two, making fifteen in all; and, five hvmdred years later, in the second century after Christ, Ptolemy, who simplified the scheme and the names to the seven modes which were natural as the seven possible arrangements of tones and half tones arrived at by beginning on each step within the octave. Several songs have been discovered of the period of the fifteen modes of Aristoxenes, of which the largest collection has been made accessible through Dr. Oskar Fleischer's Die Reste der Grie- chischen Tonkunst. Best known of the songs in this group is the one which was discovered on the tombstone of Seikilos, which dates from the first century after Christ and is in the Phrygian 142 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY mode. It is a cheerful song to a cheerful melody on the theme "Eat, drink, for to-morrow you die" : "A mortal's span dost thou live; vex not thyself with vain cares. Thy life doth endure but a short while; its ending will Time soon require of thee. " By the time the Christian Church was ready to define what should be the character of its music in the sanctuary Ptolemy's system of seven modes was in vogue. Of these Pope Gregory the Great, about the year 600, adopted four and developed four more. These modes were called Tones; indeed the Greek word had always been Tonoi. The system of music based on these tones is called Gregorian, or Plain Song. Its compositions are not built on our major or minor scale, but on modes like the Greek, so that instead of having only two scales, Gregorian Plain HAEC EST DOMU^ DOMINI Grbgortan Chant. Organ-Diapasons. Mode I. Song has eight. Such an ancient Gregorian chant as Hac est Domus Domini ("This is the House of the Lord") is written in the First Tone, that is to say in the Phrygian mode of the Greeks. Perhaps we ought to notice here that, in the Middle Ages, through some confusion of the modes, the Phrygian became known as the Dorian and the Dorian as the Phrygian ; Bach's Dorian Toccata, for instance, would have been called a Phrygian Toccata by the Greeks. Having arrived at scales on which melodies could be made and sung, the next step was to put two voices together to make a harmony. About 900 the monk Hucbald of St. Armand, in Flanders, wrote down harmonies he made on his organ in fifths and in fourths. It is probable that it was because these harmon- ies were effected at the organ that this harmonization process was called Organum. It is extremely interesting at the present mo- TONALITY 143 ment to consider this harmonization of the year 900, because, after having been quite taboo for five centuries because harmon- ization in fifths and fourths was not found pleasing to our ears, these harmonies are now one of the latest fashions! There are SIT GLORIA DOMINI Orgati'Diapasons. Vox organalis doubled at the octave above. HUCBALD. Sit glo - ri Vox principalis. Do mi ni in cu la Sit glo ri - a Do - mi ni in sae - cu la Vox principalis doubled at the Bve below. Sit glo - ri - a Do - mi - ni in sae - cu - la -_-z n — as— lae n - ta - bi - tur Do - mi - nus in - pe - ri - bus su - is. &-7- — -J=^ s>— ^kH-— ' H ST ^1. ■ ta - bi - tur Do - mi - nus in - pe - ri - bus su - is. \t — — J. ^« ■ ta - bi - tur Do - mi - nus in - pe - ri - bus su - is. S^z — ,s» *=^ c^— o' a> aj Hg^T" — ^ ^ — -;i=>-- .:;— ^ ^ IsB - ta - bi - tur Do - mi - nus pe ri - bus su - is. composers to-day who affirm that they can only really think and feel in fourths and fifths ! Hence it is that the harmonization of Hucbald's Sit Gloria Domini ("Unto God be the Glory"), which only a few years ago sounded so archaic, appeals to us now as right up to date, and we are ready to grant to the monk of Flanders his title "Father of Modem Harmony" or perhaps rather " Father of Ultra Modem Harmony!" 144 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY When they had learned to add a second part the singers began to ornament that part, to " descant " upon it, as it were, and thus originated what was known as Discant. This necessitated, however, the introduction of other har- monies besides those in fifths and fourths. But fifths and fourths were the only harmonies sanctioned by the church for the use of organists and singers. Hucbald himself considered other harmonies good enough but "profane" and, as he writes, "not , of the perfect sweetness on which I pride myself in church music. " A Papal bull of John XXII, issued from Avignon in 1322, ordered the suspension from office for eight days of any one using dis- cant, but continued, "yet it is not our intention to banish all harmonization, as octaves, fifths, and fourths, which add to the beauty of the music. " How get around this difficulty? Harmonization in thirds and sixths is so natural! Just how natural no one can fail to realize who listens to young men of a summer evening singing spontaneously and improvising the harmonies, or what they call "faking the tenor, " a sixth below the soprano; or if women are singing they improvise an alto a third below the soprano. These harmonizations are over sweet and apt to be weak, therefore must not be overdone in composition. But so strong was the inclination towards them that the Papal commands were evaded. The music was so written down as to give no indication to any- one looking at it of what the singers were really doing. The bass was written down to look like a real bass, a harmony in fifths; but what the singers really did was to sing the written notes of the bass an octave higher, which gave a sixth, or what we familiarly call a "faked tenor," instead of a fifth. Such a chant as the Deus Creator Omnium ("Oh Lord the Creator of all Things"), which was in use probably in the twelfth century, was written down to look as if it were harmonized in fifths, but was sung in sixths. This was known as Faux Bourdon, or False Bass, and thus harmonization in thirds and sixths insinuated itself into church music by an evasion. We read that the young King of France, Louis XIII, who was a gifted musician and composer, was enticed to a Mass to TONALITY 145 hear the music, but it turned out to be Gregorian Plain Song, which did not appeal to him at all. At his marriage the service was sung in Faux Bourdon! Until the sixteenth century, composers wrote in the molds of the different modes, although they gradually took greater liberties, especially at the organ, where the keyboard was a con- DEUS CREATOR OMNIUM Organ-Diapasons, Faulx Bourdon. (CANTUS) {6th & 3rd.) Pe-U3 ere - a - tor om-ni-um, Po - li - que rec - tor, ves - ti - ens —^ — ?^— Di-em de-co - ro lu - mi-ne, noc-tem so- po - ris gra - ti - a. Di - em de-co -ro lu-mi- ne, noc-tem so - po - ris gra - ti - a. stant temptation. So great a writer, for instance, as Bach's older contemporary, the famous Erfurt organist, Johann Pachel- bel, while writing in general within the modes, did so with the greatest freedom. Incidentally, an interesting discovery is that his Magnificat in the ancient Phrygian mode contains part of the theme of the "Prize Song" in the Meistersinger, with the identical harmonization we find in Wagner. But although the composers were feeling about, as it were, for greater freedom and larger possibilities, they stuck closely to the 146 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY key in which they were playing, not venturing more than an occasional accidental. We are apt to forget that previous to the sixteenth century G sharp and A flat, for instance, were two different tones, very close together, but still diflEerent tones, so that when a composer or performer passed from one key to an- other, as, for example, in our familiar passing from the key of four sharps to the key of four flats, the dissonance of the tones and of the overtones was tmbearable; all the more unbearable because the tones approached each other so closely'in pitch. Then in the sixteenth century the momentous compromise was made, vital to the future of music. These tones so close together were approximated into one tone; the octave was divided into twelve parts, as equal as possible. So we got the scale as- the keyboard of the piano now pictures it, starting, for instance, with C, C sharp or D flat; D, D sharp or E flat; E, E sharp or F; F sharp or G flat; G, G sharp or A flat; A sharp or B flat; B ; or what we call the chromatic scale. This compromise was called Temperament, because the pro- cess was that of tempering the notes one to another, and that not only through one octave but through many octaves; and the instnmient constructed on this principle was called "The Well- Tempered Clavichord. " The first to fully grasp the importance of the new system was Bach, who wrote his series called The Well-Tempered Clavichord as studies in the new scale for its new instrument, composing twenty-four Preludes for the major scale and twenty-four for the minor scale, or two for each half step of the scale. During this period, too, another point had settled itself; a point apparently very small, but one of the most important of all factors in the later development of music. The monk Hucbald had insisted on what he called "perfect sweetness" in his har- monization, to be obtained only by harmonizing in fifths and fourths. But there was one fourth that was never tolerated; it is not a perfect fourth but a large fourth, an augmented fourth, the only augmented fourth in the white keys of our piano key- board: F to B natural. This interval was considered an insup- portable discord. B natural was not used at all. was not on the TONALITY 147 old keyboards in fact. There are still ancient organs in Spain that have pedal keyboards with no B natural. B was flatted always, for which reason the letter b is the sign for a flat even until the present day. This interval was fought over for cen- turies; was known as the "Devil" in music — Diabolus — but finally it, too, insinuated itself and the discord F with B natural was admitted. But it was admitted as a discord, to heighten the effect of resultant harmonies ; the idea of Browning's ' ' Why rushed the discords in but that harmony might be felt!" It insists on consequent harmony; unfinished, suspended, it calls for resolu- tion. These then were the advantages the age of Bach possessed above preceding ages, of which the great composer was the first to make full use, and, which, in using, he developed and expanded. He had our modem keyboard and our modem scale, the possi- bilities of introducing all sharps and flats, of modulating from one key to another, of enriching his composition with dissonances which were to be resolved into harmonies. And now having followed through some ten centuries the gradual evolution of the modem scale through the efforts of the most learned of the musicians within the Church, we turn aside to look at the popular music outside the Church. There was always a sharp division drawn between the "Songs of Zion" and the "Songs of Babylon"; the people sang what was natural and melodious, and harmonized more or less instinctively and spon- taneously. Such songs as those of the troubadours Gaspard de Coinci, Bernard de Ventadour, or many of the anonymous writers of the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, or the " Merci Clamant " of that troubadour-crusader of the twelfth century, the Chatelain de Coucy, who was in the Holy Land with the English Richard the Lion-Hearted, and who died there, give an impres- sion entirely different from the music composed by their contemporaries for use in the church. The popular songs had, indeed, as Coussemaker wrote, "all the elements of modem tonal- ity even in the Middle Ages; the troubadours who found {trouve) everything, song, rhyme, melody, have all the stamp of modern- ity." 148 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY In the mystery plays, too, the people sang pure, simple, and spontaneous melodies. Songs such as the lovely little "Robins m'aime" from the musical play Robin et Marion which the Frenchman Adam de la Hile wrote in 1285 for the Court at Naples sound wholly modem. From the folk songs and the folk plays with music to the opera was not such a far cry, although the actual beginnings of opera were, as it happened, made with intention and artificially. You will recall that about 1600, when the era of the Renaissance had witnessed the rebirth of the arts and the revival of classical learn- ing, the poets Bardi and Rinuccini, with the musicians Peri and Caccini met at Bardi's house in Florence and conceived the idea of producing stately plays with music, on the order of the Greek tragedies. There was no question of a revival of Greek music; the idea was to write noble tragedies and in the music to provide a fitting vehicle for the dialogue. This music was allied much more closely to that of the troubadours and the mystery plays or folk songs than to the music of the Church, so that the airs of Peri and Caccini in Eurydice, Orpheus, or Daphne do not sound at all archaic to us to-day. The airs from the operas of their younger contemporary Claudio Monteverdi, such as Ariana's Lament or the Plaint of Orpheus seem entirely modem. Monteverdi was a daring spirit who not only did not hesitate to use freely that augmented fourth, which was the Diabolus in music, but took such liberties as to introduce the dominant seventh and other intervals hitherto unused. And this as early as the six- teenth century ! Which goes to show, what was indeed entirely natural and to be expected, that secular music, as the outgrowth of spontaneous popular music, advanced much faster than music within the Church, where it was inevitably greatly restricted by established practice and tradition. The Reformation was to set church music wholly free from the limitations thu"s imposed on it and to permit it perfect freedom of development within the Church. We have traced the process of formulating what we might call the language of musical composition in which Bach first wrote more or less freely, and which was the language of Mozart, From the Manessian Codex. Minnesmgers. TONALITY 149 Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, and those others of whom we speak as the classical writers. But now in our own day composers have suddenly fotmd that this accepted language is hampering us; that we have let this thing, which exists only because we established it for ourselves, fetter us so that we can- not think or feel music which does not conform to its specifications. They remind us againthat ours is not the only scale ; that there are, for instance, the Hindu scale, the Turkish scale, and the scale that has been the most widely used of any in the world, the scale of the Chinese, Hungarians, South Sea Islanders, Old Scandinavians and Scotch, among others: the Pentatonic Scale, which has only five steps instead of the seven of which ours is built up. It consists of the first three tones of our scale and the fifth and sixth. Any improvisation which confines itself to these five tones will give the more or less familiar impression of a Scotch song. But not only are we reminded that ours is not the only re- spectably old and established scale; new ones are being formu- lated. Claude Debussy has departed from the accepted scale and adopted for himself a new one, made up of whole tones only. If you ■^U improvise at your piano or organ, holding closely to the whole tones, you Mrill see how Debussy gets his effects. The at- mosphere created is one of vagueness, illusiveness, shimmer, because, as he has no half tones, he never resolves a chord, never brings it to rest, but leaves it, as it were, hanging in air, suspended.. Debussy has inspired a number of gifted composers, of whom per- haps the most important is Maurice Ravel. Others again among our contemporaries in music have per- ceived that we have been blind all this time to many possibilities that are suggested by our own old scale. Why should the black keys always be dependent on the white keys? Why should they not even have a name of their own? Nameless dependents of their white masters they are merely A sharp, A flat; D sharp, D flat and so on. And the cry has gone up for universal suf- frage of the keyboard, for the emancipation of the black keys, so to speak. We will have not a seven tone or heptatonic scale with dependencies, but a twelve tone or duodecuple scale in which all notes shall be free and equal. ISO EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY But, we may say, is not this the same as that chromatic scale of twelve equal parts which struggled into use in the sixteenth century ? The tones are indeed the same, but the attitude of him who uses them, as of him who listens to them, is different. That was a scale in which there were certain principal notes with de- pendents; as Niecks puts it, "the chromatic notes are only modifications of diatonic notes. " Instead, therefore, of basing compositions on the principals and permitting the others to enter as accidentals, the adoption of the duodecuple scale would banish accidentals altogether and abolish any suggestion of relationship between the black notes and the white ones. This would, of course, necessitate a new system of naming the notes of the keyboard. There are two schools of writers who are using the new scale. The former, as Strawinsky, Scriabine, and others, hold, for the most part, to the old plan of writing in a certain key and letting their compositions revolve, as it were, around a tonic centre. Much that Strawinsky has written is unintelligible, without fre- quent hearing at least; we are not yet all adjusted, for instance, to passing suddenly and without modulation from a chord in one key to one in an absolutely unrelated key. It is the same characteristic which we find so marked in painting to-daj', an irresistible tendency to use strong local colors utterly unblended with those about them. In this, indeed, the musicians sometimes feel that the painters have the advantage of them. Arnold Schonberg, discussing his Quartette said: "Here, I was unable to express what I felt by means of a chord. I should much have preferred to take a painter's brush and set down a spot of color." But, on the other hand, much of the music of this school and especially of its greatest representative, Strawinsky, gives the impression of delightful freshness and originality; in works such as The Bird of Fire, in which his theories are not allowed to obtrude, we are wholly charmed with the perfection of his art. Adherents of the second school of composers in the duode- cuple scale carry their theory to its ultimate, if entirely logical TONALITY 151 conclusion, and abolish key altogether. Music in their hands becomes what we might call ediatonic; it is written without signa- ture, because it it not composed in any key. It consists of any consecutive groupings of notes the composer chooses to set down. Leaders in this movement are Arnold Schonberg and Leo Omstein. In his Impressions of Ndtre Dame, for example, Ornstein takes in his right hand a handful of six notes, one for each finger and two for the thumb, all sharps except one natural, and in his left hand six other notes, all naturals except a couple of flats, and of these he makes a chord. A giant chord ! A dragon chord! Sometimes it is purely massive, tremendous, impressive. Again the sharps and flats tied together act like the traditional cat and dog tied together. When I was playing it over one day a student who happened in exclaimed, "Omstein was thinking of the gargoyles when he called that Impressions of Ndtre Darnel" One cannot deny a certain majesty, in parts at least, nor that, with the majesty, we get an impression wild and weird. What the final effect of these movements is to be it is too soon to foresee. It is indeed a question how much of this " new ' ' music will prove to have real and lasting value, how much of it pro- duces its effect through nervous shock due to purely physical reaction. We must admit, however, that taste in every department of life is largely a matter of cultivation, of habit. It is told that Rimsky-Korsakov said to Strawinsky about The Bird of Fire, "Don't play me any more of that horrid stviff or I shall end by liking it!" We may think that music is going to the dogs, but, as Dr. Bumey wrote in the eighteenth century, "No period can be named since the time of Plato, who likewise complained of the degeneracy of music, in which it has not been said to be corrupted by the modems." Nor should we forget that much that now ranks as our greatest music. was received with storms of criticism when it was first presented. To illustrate with just one example: it is not so very many years since the critics wrote of Tristan und Isolde, "Tristan is a tone chaos of heart- rending chords"; "Harmony is used in a way which scoffs at 152 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY the very name"; "The music produces insupportable nerve torture." And to-day it soothes our nerves after our modern music! In so short a time has the "insupportable" grown to be part of our lives, a wonder-work, not entirely comprehended, per- haps, but to which we are wholly responsive. EXCURSION XIV MUSIC IN AMERICA AMERICA cannot, in the very nature of things, claim a noble historic background of music; in the earUest days of New England music was of the very simplest, crudest type. The Puritans, who had quitted England in protest against Catholi- cism, or against the Estabhshed Church, objected to any and all those features of worship which they were accustomed to regard as savoring of "Popery." One might, perhaps, expect that in the Soiith, which was unhampered by any such prejudices, there would have been a fine, free, native development of music. But the South was perfectly content to bring singers and players upon instruments from England to provide pleasure, and seems not to have thought of creating a native art. In New England, the Puritans sang their Psalms in unison, with many tiuTis and quavers, so many, indeed, that the cultivated ministers who came to their congregations from Oxford and Cambridge began to protest against the length and tediousness of the singing as well as against the very limited number of Psahns sung. A movement started among the clergy to sing the Psalms correctly, ' ' by rule, ' ' but it met with intense opposition from many in the congregations. The congregations seem to have been very busy indeed discussing and arguing all sorts of points about the church service, one of weight being whether the women should join in singing the Psalms or not; St. Paul had said they should keep silence in meeting; was not joining in the singing an infringement of that rule? An- other serious question was whether it was permissible to sing in 153 154 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY praise of the Holy Ghost. All were agreed that songs in praise of the Father should be sung; there were some who doubted whether the name of the Son of God should be included in these, and there was a distinct party which was definitely opposed to praise of the Holy Ghost — as in the last line of the Long Meter Doxology, for instance — since it was not enjoined upon believers anywhere in the Scriptures. The ministers, who, on the whole, have always been on the side of progress and of the best in church music, kept preaching and writing on the subject of reform. Among others, John Eliot, son of the famous apostle to the Indians, wrote a book urging the singing of the Psalms by rule. Mr. Sjonmes, the minister at Brad- ford, Mass., established "singing meetings" in the town to teach the congregation to sing by note, that some other Psalms might be added to the five which were then in use in his chiu-ch. Members of the congregation objected that the next thing would be an organ ; to which he replied, " It is too chargeable a piece of worship ever to obtain in this congregation, which will not even go to the expense of a bell to call the people to worship; it will not be so extravagant as to lay out to buy organs and to pay an artist for playing on them. " Progress in "singing by rule" was furthered by the printing of music, which was begun in 1690, although the music then printed was very badly done indeed, in only two parts, and without any bars to divide it into measures. It was 1755 before music in three parts was composed and printed and the very first music in four parts was written the year Beethoven was born. In the meantime, organs were introduced into some of the churches, of which the first was brought over in 17 13, for King's Chapel, Boston, where it was used until 1756, when it was sold to St. Paul's Church in Newburyport, where it was played for eighty years and sold in 1836 to St. John's Church in Ports- mouth, New Hampshire, where the original pipes and wind chest are still in use. Church choirs were formed in the eighteenth century; the earliest of which there is a record was established in Rowley in 1752 when "the parish voted that those who had learned the art of singing might have liberty to sit in the front gallery. " When MUSIC IN AMERICA 155 the choirs sang badly they were held to strict account, and re- proved by the minister. Once when his choir sang in sad style. Dr. Bellamy said, "You must try again, for it is impossible to preach after such singing ! " So crude and elementary was the music in America in the middle of the eighteenth century! Music in Germany was reaching full maturity of power and beauty when the first feeble strains were sounded in the New World. The first composer to write in four parts, William Billings, was a Boston man, a tanner by profession; he attended singing school and shortly began to write music, using the sides of his leather foj music paper. His first book of compositions was published in 1770, with this pre- face: "Matth. xxi, 16: ' Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected praise;' James v, 13: 'Is any merry? Let him sing Psalms. ' ' O praise the Lord with one consent. And in this grand design, Let Britain and the Colonies Unanimously jine. ' Boston, New England, Printed by Edes and Gill. " Many of his compositions were inspired by the Psalms; such a title as By the Rivers of Watertown suggests a parallelism with only a change of local color. When the War of Independence broke out, he gave vent to his patriotism in music, and such songs as his Chester were sung in every church and family and every camp of soldiers in New England : "Let tyrants shake their iron rod. And Slavery clank her galling chains; We'll fear them not; well trust in God; New England's God forever reigns. The foe comes on with haughty stride; Our troops advance with martial noise; Their veterans flee before our arms. And generals shield to beardless boys. " 156 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY A disciple of Billings, one Jenks, composed Mount Vernon on the death of General George Washington in 1799, which was sung to these words: "What solemn sound the air invades? Prom Heaven the awful mandate flies; Where shall our country turn the eye? Our friend, protector, strength, and trust Lies low, and mouldering in the dust. " Directions for its performance indicates that the organ played a line alone; then the voices entered for a line; then followed another line from organ alone ; then the voices. This was prob- ably due to the almost universal habit of "lining out." The organ played while the minister read a line; which was then sung by the people; then the minister read another line, the organ play- ing all the time ; the congregation took up this line in song, and so on. It recalls to mind the days of the enormous organs before there were any stops, when all the pipes on any slide sounded at once and made such a terrific and deafening roar that it was im- possible for the organist to accompany the choir; it was usual then for the organ to play one line, the choir to sing the next, the organ to play the next, the choir to sing the next, and so on. This was even made the occasion of a papal edict to the effect that the TeDeum, Magnificat, and other service parts, should be so performed by the choir and organ, line about. The immediate necessity for the American system of "lining out," which was customary also in English churches for many years, was the scarcity of hymn books arid of Psalters containing the metrical versions of the Psalms. But even during the lifetime of William Billings the influence of European composers, and more especially of Handel, began to be felt in America. We read that in 1789, at a concert in honor of Washington's visit to Boston, " a favorite air from the Messiah, 'Comfort ye,'" an air from Samson, and an organ Concerto by Handel were performed. The Boston Philhahxionic Society was founded in 18 10 and was followed by the establishment of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston and of others throughout MUSIC IN AMERICA 157 the country, which presented programs of works of English com- posers with occasionally a few German works interspersed. The taste of many of the concert-goers was not particularly elevated. At a public concert in New York the small orchestra began to play a Haydn number when the gallery broke into protest and called out ," Aw, quit that; give us ' Bonyparte Cross- ing the Rhine.' " But acquaintance with good music gradually became more general and performers and composers began to go to Europe to study. It was in England that the musicians of America, in common with the painters, first sought instruction and inspira- tion, and the style of composition in church music both choral and instrumental, as well as the manner of organ playing, was dis- tinctly of the English school. With the establishment of orches- tras and the advent of many German musicians came an impulse towards Germany, with its resultant profound impression upon the composition and interpretation of music. Then, in France, which previously had not presented the same advantages to com- posers and organists of the Protestant churches, there sprang up a school of organists who excelled in facility and beauty of technique and in the art of improvisation, and who in their com- positions for the organ used all the riches of modem musical development, yet with classic restraint and a perfect sense of form, and the main stream of students began to flow to France. From each of these schools American music has taken much and has, so far, been able to contribute but little that is wholly original. It is true that our composers are marked by an indefinable some- thing which distinguishes their music from that of the schools in which they studied. The works of Edward MacDowell possess it in the most marked degree; even compositions of Ethelbert Nevin, as indeed of all the American composers, do not lack it. As nearly as it can be described it may be said to be a certain free, out-of-doors spirit, not altogether unrelated to that which marks the music of the Scandinavian composers, but youthful, exuber- ant, full of the joy of life. But it is with hesitancy that even so slight a reference is made to an individual quality in American music, for the body of our compositions cannot be said to be other than eclectic. Is it 158 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY always to remain so ? What is to be the future of American music ? But first of all there is a fundamental question that arises: "Will there be a music of the future? " Music there always has been and always will be, for it is as natural and spontaneous in the human heart and human throat as in the throats of the birds. True, our great cities are driving the birds and their music clear out of the lives of many millions; and the soul of the great cities, the industrial machine and the juggernaut of commerce are doing their best to crush the song out of human throats, as is so marvel- ously felt and spoken in Josephine Preston Peabody's The Singing Man. Therefore all folk song has become ' ' traditional, " a thing of past ages, of free spaces, natural lives, and spontaneous expression. Yet that is not what I mean, but rather: Is music to be the language of our age and country, and of the coming age and country? The voices have been different through which different periods of the world's emotional development have found expression. The Greeks, in an early and simple stage of the world's life, found in the perfection of form and proportion, that is, in sculpture, an adequate voice. The whole course of thought was for them objective rather than subjective or introspective; even their philosophy concerned itself with the question "What" rather than the question "Why, " and was all expressed in terms of the embodying of the Idea in the Form — a sculptural philosophy, one might call it. So adequately and suitably did this art express their emotional life, indeed, that their very dramas are sculptured groups. The Latin world, or, in the new era, the Italian world, in- herited the Greek ideal, but found it in a measure foreign to the age. Life had become fuller, more involved. Christianity had awakened into sensitiveness a whole new emotional universe and had furnished a new set of subjects to art. The gods, resolving themselves into one only and almighty God, had come down to earth in human form, to lift up and make like to Himself, man- kind, which had so long been striving to be as God. God became man that man might become as God. The whole new world of that God's human life, the worldly, natural situations, the MUSIC IN AMERICA 159 human affections which had hardly asserted themselves in Greek art became the theme of Italian art; and for their expression the cold perfection of marble was not suitable. Color, light, and shade must bring out all this glorification of daily life as they knew it, in the natural environment of home, or meadow, trees, and sky. Yet the inheritance of the Greek ideal marked also the new art, and Italian painting governed itself, as to the struc- ture of the human body and the composition, by Greek canons of perfection of line and proportion, and as to movement and expression, by Greek standards of restraint in art. Then came the Protestant Reformation, in which the theme was not so much the humanity of God-Christ as his suffering and death. Redemption was the keynote; redemption through atonement; not through intercession or through man's merits, but through the shedding of blood. The new demand upon art was not, therefore, for beauty, but rather for intensity of expression; even the artists of Italy who lived into the new era broke through all the hitherto accepted canons in an endeavor to voice the new universal emotion. In the last works of Michael Angelo, as for example the Joseph of ArimathcBa and Mary Magdalen supporting the Dead Christ, we are in another world altogether from that of the David or of the Pietci in St. Peter's, and it is impossible not to realize that he has endeavored in this work to express something beyond the power of his medium. The voices of painting and sculptvu-e were not adequate; a new art must develop. Add to this, that by that time the German nation was establishing itself as a new and fresh civilization, and that to the Germans, the people with the most highly emotional and sentimental nature of all peoples. Protes- tantism had come in fullest measure, through Luther. Luther, blindly, yet with what proved to be prophetic insight, made full use of the new art in its popular form. All the agony, the abase- ment, the exaltation, the love and longing, the yearning and despair, which painting and sculpture could not express, found voice in music. Moreover, life had become more and more complicated, socially and ethically; right and wrong more and more subtly interwoven and indistinguishable, and everywhere. i6o EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY as the world grew older, was manifest an increasing subjective- ness, an introspectiveness, which longed to speak out those vague yearnings, "blank questionings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized. " And how speak them? No voice but music's could convey them to the other thousands and tens of thousands of hearts, filled with the same emotions, the same vague and unspeakable and infinite questioning and longings, aspiration and despair. And so music, new-bom in the intense emotional life of the Reformation, became the voice of the western, modem world, through Bach and Beethoven, Mozart and]Wagner. And after this, what? From the Bayreuth circle the answer would be, "After Wagner, nothing, in music"; as Wagner had said, "After Beethoven, nothing in the Symphony; his last Sym- phony was the last ! " So the real disciples of Wagner believe that in music the last word has been said; it can say no more, for its vocabulary is exhausted and the limit of its expressive power has been reached. "We shall have a new art," say the Bayreuth disciples; not that music will cease or can cease, any more than sculpttire or pajnting, but that no more can be said. But they are silent, when asked what this new art can be. Always in the world's previous history, each period has held in itself the germ of the art of the succeeding period, as Greece knew the beginnings of painting, and Greece and Italy the beginnings of music; each art in turn has simply awaited the fullness of time. Two of the musicians of our time, gifted with insight as well as actual knowledge of their subject, offer entirely opposed answers to the question, "In music, what next?" Busoni suggests the enlarging of music's medium of expression, the acquisition of a different and more commodious vehicle, in a new scale in which we shall make use of many more of the sounds that lie between our tones, and thus develop a more delicate tonal sense, along with hitherto unrealized tonal possibilities. This is, of cotirse, nothing absolutely original, as it is found, in germ, in the quarter tones of Hindu music. So far, we have had no com- positions in this scale in western music; although Strauss instructs his singers, in Salome, for example, to sing certain notes a quarter of a tone sharp, in order to obtain more weird or startling effects. MUSIC IN AMERICA i6i Weingartner, on the other hand, conservatively asserts that music is still the voice of our age; that the only need is a return to a healthy, sane conception of music, and to renounce alike cheap realism and involved mechanical apparatus for the display of technical resources. He believes that to have something to say and to say it sincerely is all our music needs; whereas the truthful criticism might be made of only too many of our present productions, even with famous names attached, "They have nothing to say, but they say it with trumpets. " Suppose we grant, then, that music is still the voice of the age, or at least its most adequate expression, and with Wein- gartner, follow the old forms, or with Busoni, go oflf into a realm which promises new possibilities. What shall we find to be the state of music in America — creatively, not interpretatively? On the one hand we are handicapped because the world is so old and we are still so young. Such a wealth of music has al- ready enriched the world, that it is well-nigh impossible for the young composer from the young American people not to pit him- self, as it were, against it, and feel that his work does not deserve — as it undoubtedly and unfortunately will not receive — much consideration, unless it measures up to the greatness already known in music or else presents some startling, even bizarre effects which insist upon attention. We are in somewhat the same position as the Giants, as set forth in an article by Christy Mat- thewson, in which he advances as the real reason why the Giants have lost and keep on losing the baseball championship, season after season, in spite of the fact that they are, taken all in all, the best players that can be got together, that so much is ex- pected of them, and there is so much at stake that the men have no nerve. One of them told Matthewson that the first thought in his mind when he batted was, "There goes thirty thousand dollars!" The nervous tension is so terrible as to kill all spon- taneity and joy in the game ; while the Athletics, he declares, play ball with the zest of high school boys, as if the game were the greatest fun in the world and nothing more. The cases are analogous ; if we can learn to be not terrorized but inspired by the greatness of the musical game and of those i62 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY who have played it before us, if we can take our own tactics freely and joyously, we shall have gained much. If the age of the world is one handicap, our own youth is another. And yet youth is never so serious a handicap as it appears at first glance. For one thing, one usually recovers from it only too soon ; for another, it has, or it ought to have, rich compensations in itself, in its freshness, its opportunity for originality and independence, and all its untried possibilities. In so far as it is a handicap, it is so in two main directions: in the lack of thoroughness in musical education, and in the con- dition of not being sufficiently remote from the bare struggle for life to be able to produce great art. One of the most serious handicaps of our youth has been, and unfortunately still is, the lack of a general, thorough, musical education. Few of our writers are and have been from their youth up trained to a mas- tery of musical technique. They are not able to handle tones'with the ease and command with which the orator handles words, the sculptor clay. They cannot make of tones their tools, wholly under their hand, so that any inspiration which comes can take form and find fully satisfying expression. This is an inestimable loss in two ways. On the one hand, lacking absolute mastery of equipment, they keep on saying things which can be constrained within their limited creative technique. They cannot express the biggest things that come to them, for they lack the power, the mere control of the medium of expression. A young composer who had written some good things for violin told Theodore Thomas that he was contemplating learning to play the instru- ment, so that he would know better how to write for it. Mr. Thomas earnestly advised against it, sa3dng: "You will never be more than an indifferent player now and you will write down to your own pla3ang, instead of up to your imagination. " But not only does the lack of technical command prevent the expression of our greatest emotions ; it sets a limit to inspiration. Inspiration comes only to one in condition to receive it, and as we grow in power, we grow also in perception. If to every musician creative technique were as a toy and as easily manipulated, what an aid to perfection of expression and what an invitation to in- MUSIC IN AMERICA 163 spiration! Might we not with profit have more Harmony, Counterpoint, Fugue, Orchestration, taught in our schools and colleges, as well as, or instead of Algebra, Euclid, Trigonometry? Students there are always who ask, "What use are these?" and generation after generation of them is told: "To develop your mind"; "to exercise your memory." Would not Counterpoint do as well as an instrument of exercise? And would not almost every soul in a school get as much out of it. for his future life as out of Algebra, for instance? At least as many members of any given class in college follow music as pursue Integral Calculus ! For the mass of students there can be no comparison as to the degree of enrichment it would bring to their Uves. The Greeks recognized this, and Plato put Music alongside of Mathematics and Astronomy, Grammar and Philosophy on his school curriculum. If this does not yet seem feasible, we might at least let the children, the boys and girls, the young men and women hear more music. A child might love a Beethoven Minuet as well as a rag- time fancy, but when and where will he hear the Beethoven ? The French historian and critic D'Anjou said that Luther, by putting the best music in the schools, and letting the children hear it with the organ, did much towards making the Ger- mans a musical people. What is there in our school life or in our life out of school to put into any youth's head the idea of writing music? He thinks of business or science or teaching; these things are in the line of his daily work; he may even conceive the idea of writing prose or poetry, as he walks in the world of literature; but why should he think of writing music? Might we not open this world to him as near the beginning of life as possible, that he may master its grammar and language early, instead of waiting until he becomes old enough to choose it as a career before he possesses a mastery of even the elements of its formal language? The other handicap of youth is that we are not yet sufficiently removed from the struggle for existence to experience a great art era. We have been, so far, too much concerned with the primal necessities of life, with the pioneer work, not even yet really 1 64 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY behind us as a nation; the establishment of independence; the welding of a nation where no national feeling really existed ; the extension of that national sense over a great territory ; the build- ing up or adaptation of principles of government ; the regulation, of an industrial life and commercial opportunity unparalleled; and the exhilaration of accumulation in a territory untouched. All these things have absorbed the attention of the people. Even the desire for *he beauty and expressiveness of music is, in our cotintry, not so many years old! It is only a few years, after all, that we have heard oratorios, operas, and orchestras, and now there are brought to us the highest-priced interpreters from all over the Old World, who perform the beautiful music already in the world, and satisfy, or at least quiet, the desire for music which has been aroused. But hitherto it was too soon for the development of a really creative art. There has never been an era of creative art coincident with the preoccupation of a people with other things. True, as Richard Wagner has so well said, a great art era has place in the world's history when a whole people is conscious of a common, emotional need, a common longing which cries out for expression and will not be denied. Yet the art era does not coincide with that intense, emotional period, but develops afterwards. At the moment, the national or popular emotion is too intense or the suffering too poignant or the issues too vital. Only in dwelling upon it afterwards can the heart of the people find expression in an art. The teachings of St. Francis of Assisi, the bringing of God to man as a member of the human family, the awakening of the warm and tender love of the responsive Italian hearts for the Babe in the manger, called into being the golden age of painting, and brought to birth the Renaissance. But while the people still thronged out with their lanterns in the middle of the night to hear the Saint's preaching, and men and women on all sides gave themselves to the religious life and to the care of the sick, the plague-stricken and the lepers, Giotto did not yet paint his wonderful scenes from the lives of Christ, the Virgin and the Saint, and Jacopone da Todi did not yet sing of the possessing love of Christ and of the " Stabat Mater Dolorosa, " in those words that have inspired so many musicians. MUSIC IN AMERICA 165 But afterwards, when the first feverish emotion cahned, so that men could dwell upon the emotion and not upon the thing itself, there was a great new birth of poetry and painting and music. In the North, when Protestantism swept over Germany, and hearts were possessed by an emotion practically common to all the people, the people sang, it is true, their chorales, but it was generations later that Bach gave his colossal and imperishable works of religious art to the world, and the great age in German music dawned. It would seem as if the world were possessed at present by an emotion — or at least emotions — universal. What will be the artistic outcome remains to be seen, but for Europe, at present, it would appear, nothing; for, as Ernest Newman writes, "Among people actually engaged in conflict, it is very diflScult, almost impossible, to pamper the soul with deHcate sweet sotmds, while those men are out in the trenches, and the blood of Europe is being poured out ! " If there is to be a new art period it will come when it is all far enough away for the people, and the artists, to dwell upon the emotions awakened and not upon the horrible facts. "In the daily struggle with poverty, disease, or death there is always little time for looking beyond and within to the New Jerusalem." But it is doubtful even then if an art era will follow upon this emotional upheaval, for the crises which hitherto have called a great art into life have never been of hatred, but always of love. In Italy, painting was bom out of hearts full of love to the human God; in Germany, music out of love to the sacrificial, redeeming God. The people whose deepest feelings have been stirred with the least degree of hatred is the American people ; perhaps out of all this intensified sensitiveness to human su£Eering, this close kinship with the rest of the world which seems so much nearer to us than ever before, an impetus may be given to the higher things of the spirit among us, and in our shame at the placing of material advantage and gain above all else, we may turn to the things of our inner life as the vital things, and give expression to the deepest and greatest that is in us. If we gain nothing more from the period we are now passing through, it may deepen our serieusness. One of the obstacles to i66 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY the development of a great art among us, or to any man's becom- ing a creative artist, is our sense of humor. It is perhaps difficult to take one's creative work seriously if one has a sense of humor, but it is quite a different matter from taking oneself so seriously and attaching to oneself great importance, as some small souls do. No great work is ever accomplished if approached by the worker with other than the sincerest, most disinterested intentions, or for other than the noblest purposes. "Art," said Goethe, " must be based on a sort of religious feeling, on a deep and stead- fast earnestness. " But we are all too ready to make a joke of the emotions stirred by beauty, the infinite longing, and the sus- picion of infinite possibilities, called into consciousness by beauty in nature, art or music. Reserve, we call it ; is it not too often the fear of lack of understanding, dread of laughter, or a joke? It is foolishly easy to spoil a poem forever with a cheap parody which does not call for even cleverness for its making; it is common, in our boasted "sanity" and sense of humor to make a joke of things that should be sacred in our own spirits and shoidd be touched upon only as sacred things. And the effect of this so-called sanity and sense of humor on music? There are two possible effects : Either the compositions will be intellectual, studied and formal, or they will be marked by a brilliance that is somewhat hard, a cleverness that is somewhat commonplace. Against the former peril even Schonberg, to an understanding of whom in his most technical moments we have not yet arrived and may never arrive, warns in his Handbuch der Harmonielehre: "The artist must write what he feels compelled to write; he must go over his work and see that he was absolutely sincere when he wrote it. A true artist never uses novel, unwonted means, except to express something novel and un- wonted. I do not recommend that the student should use 'mod- em' means; he must simply learn how to use them, so as to be capable of doing so if ever his creative spirit calls for them. " On the whole, American composers are hardly in so much danger of becoming academic and overladen with technical or contrapuntal display in composition as they are prone to err on the side of superficial brilliancy. In art as well as in every branch MUSIC IN AMERICA 167 of science we are as a people better manipulators than creators ; we are more apt to copy the easily imitated mannerisms of a De- bussy than the ponderous scholasticism of a Reger. From both of which may we be delivered, to frankly, sincerely go on our way, in mastery of the means to express each his own emotion or vision ! From all sides obvious encouragement is now oflEered to the American composer and the favorite lure is the prize. Several drawbacks attach themselves as yet to this method of encourage- ment. One is the shortness of the time limit usually allowed, for it must be remembered that almost all competitors must work in the meantime to keep alive. A second is the awarding of an absolute prize of a certain sum of money to one man. Take, for example, an opera competition. One opera receives the favorable decision, one man receives a large sum of money. Others who have, owing to the shortness of time, been obliged to sacrifice everything to enter into .the competition are, perhaps, almost beggared, as well as discouraged and unable ever to make such an attempt again. The successful work only, of all the compositions submitted, receives a few performances. Another competition is opened and yet another, all isolated events. If, instead, these competitions should take on the character of standing and con- tinuous propositions, and if every man competing who is ad- judged to show real gifts, from whom our music might, perhaps, gain much in future years, were to receive from a prize fund a fair recompense for his labor, to help keep him alive while he pursues his work, the net result in the development and encourage- ment of music might be much greater. Let the winner only receive recompense in proportion and realize from the performance or performances of his work the usual royalties which any composer receives who is alive and able to fight for them. As to song com- petitions, they are perhaps less important, as not so much time and outlay are involved; but their great drawback is that the words are usually prescribed, with the result that only the writers enter to whom those words appeal. When works do reach performance, we as Americans appear to have little confidence in our musical taste; even our native artists appear to have no confidence in theirs. i68 EXCURSIONS IN MUSICAL HISTORY This is a rather singular condition, because usually one of the attributes of youth is a certain cocksureness, an unshakable self-confidence. We are diffident when it comes to art, how- ever, and apt to await anxiously what those say who are "supposed to know" before venturing an opinion. The Ameri- can audience does not bring even the same degree of inter- est to the hearing of American works as to those by European composers. Perhaps it is because many of them are mediocre; but so are many of the works by Europeans to which we listen with interest or at least with respectful tolerance. Conductors are therefore not encouraged to present them; if they are works that present any considerable difficulty it is quite impossible to get rehearsal time enough to prepare them for presentation, in the face of the fact that people have so little interest in hearing them — not even any curiosity about them. Yet the effect "being heard" may produce in the case of writers really gifted is evident from the way in which Balakirew, by producing their works in the first instance, turned the group of amateurs with which he was surrounded, into musicians, now world-famous: Moussorgsky, Cisar Cui, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Our singers and other interpretative artists, too, are not without blame, in that through a certain lack of confidence in their own musical judgment, they frequently put aside beautiful, musicianly songs by American writers which suit their voices to perfection, to sing something the visiting European artists have been doing all season or the season before. This leaves a small place indeed for the composer of serious songs and promises little hope for the development of a notable song literature. We need more of the self-confidence of youth and less of its self -consciousness, which makes us doubt our judgment and fear to express it, doubt ourselves and hesitate to permit our art to be serious. Yet we may have all outward things: thorough musical education; mastery of technical resources; sensible and wise apportionment of encouragement in the way of prize moneys to provide living expenses and leisure; appreciative interpreting artists and a responsive public; and it is but a hollow and vain show unless we have it in ourselves as individuals, as musi- MUSIC IN AMERICA 169 cians, and as a people. Just at present oiir poetry, color art, and music are, alike, things apart, which have no roots in our life as a people. We are young, but in one way we are too old in our youth. We remind ourselves of the Chinese sage who was eighty years old when he was born. Not one of our composers is satisfied to write like the youthful Schuetz, or like a young Mozart, nor is the public satisfied to let him. He must at once spring full-fledged into artistic perfection, like Minerva from the brain of Jove. Great symphonies, symphonic poems we are offered by our orchestra leaders; why not occasionally just bits of beauty? Not aU the world's great pictures are of large dimen- sions ; some gems of poetry are but a few lines long, yet the world would be immeasurably poorer without these. But in music, no one can be heard unless he builds up a work big in size — hence a very considerable demand for padding. "The region of the art of the simple feelings accessible to all is enormous, " says Tolstoi, "and it is as yet almost untouched. " Perhaps our real youth will assert itself thus : in a return to greater simplicity; stamped with the freshness, bigness, and breadth of our country ; with freedom and flow of melody and rhythm ; and with pure and simple beauty whether expressed within or beyond the traditional forms. When our outer life of mere existence and its needs shall have sufficientlj'^ regulated itself, and our social life shall have merged its various elements into a composite national character, if we have guarded well and nourished and deepened our inner life meanwhile, we shall have, of oui resultant riches, undoubtedly something great and real, elemental and universal, to contribute to the world's music. But whatever the outward circumstances or conditions, in the final issue all depends on our inner life and ideals as a people, for after aU "Art is but inner life, inner experience, made visible or audible." APPENDICES A. Introductory Note. B. List of Lantern Slides. C. Programs. 171 APPENDIX A INTRODUCTORY NOTE THESE "Excursions " are based on series of historical lecture recitals which have been given annually at the Union Theological Seminary, New York City. They were illus- trated by the programs which are here appended. The lectures occupied about thirty minutes, and the musical examples, which were given at the point at which reference was made to them in the lecture, required about an hour. Occasionally in the fore- going pages a subject has received slightly more extended consideration; and owing to the necessity of observing a some- what closer sequence in the reading matter references in the text to the musical ntimbers do not invariably occur in the exact order followed on the programs. The lecture on the Organ as an instrument may be illustrated with lantern slides also, which can be rented from the publisher. A list of the subjects represented on these slides is given in Appendix B ; each of the small figxares inserted in the text cor- responds to the number of the slide to be shown at that point. Much of the music on the programs which otherwise would not have been available has been brought to light and arranged especially for them by the authors and has been published by the H. W. Gray Co. (Novello) in two series, the Historical Recital Series and Sacred Choruses Ancient and Modern. 173 APPENDIX B LIST OF LANTERN SLIDES 1. Flute concert, Pyramid at Gizeh. 2. Playing the double flute for dancing; from a Greek vase. 3. Double flute player with harness. 4. Daphne and Amaryllis with Pipes of Pan, by Arnold Bocklin. 5. Pipes of Pan on box with bellows. 6. Portative organ of fifteenth century. 7. Bellows in Egyptian smithy; relief. 8. Roman Hydraulus or water organ. 9. Hydraulus showing keys. 10. Hydraulus showing barrels and what is left of the player. 11. Contortionate of the reign of Nero; medal for winner in the Games. 12. Pneumatic organ; relief from the obelisk of Theodosia, Constantinople. 13. Detail of pnetmiatic organ. 14. "Saint Cecilia," by Raphael (holding portable organ). 15. The Arts and Sciences at the Feet of Thomas Aquinas; detail of fresco by Simone Martini in the Spanish Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. 16. Polyhymnia carrying portable organ. 17. Portative with ornamented case. 18. Two fourteenth-century portatives with players; from the Peterborough and Cambridge Psalters. 174 APPENDIX B 175 19. Small regal. 20. Bible regal. 21. Dinner party with concert ; (note the regal) . 22. Duke of Athol's regal; loaned to South Kensington Museum. 23. Cabinet organ in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. 24. Regal on a temporary support. 25. Positive and portative. 26. Positive with bellows above. 27. Positive with bellows below. 28. Positive with marionettes. 29. Two monks playing and blowing organ. 30. Man and wife plajang and blowing organ; engraving by Israel van Meckenem. (Note the stops on the side.) 31. Paul Hofhaimer, court organist to Emperor Maximilian, playing a positive in the "Triumphal Procession," by Hans Burgkmair. 32. Lady playing positive blown by her lady-in-waiting. From the set of tapestries, "The Lady and the Unicorn," in the Cluny Museum, Paris. 33. Two "organ beaters" "blowing up the blowers. " 34. Treading the organ bellows. 35. Treading the wind bags in the thirteenth century. 36. Blowing the organ in Halberstad^. 37. Positive with broad keys, set in initial D. 38. Broad key from "Alphabet" keyboard. 39. Positive with "Stops" in Cosimo Tura's "Madonna and Child with Angels and Saints. " 40. Monk playing ancient organ in the Chapel of the Osser- vanza, at Siena. (Note the pedal organ coupled to the bass of the manual with ropes.) 41. Organ with positive or choir organ behind the organist. 42. Four manual organ. 43. Angel plajdng organ, from the Ghent Altar by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, fifteenth century. Note the stops and the clamp pedal. 44. Detail of foregoing, showing clamp pedal. 176 APPENDIX B 45. Organ in the Chapel of the Osservanza, Siena, showing bass notes held down by ropes. 46. Modern pedal keyboard of thirty-two notes. 47. Organ shutters, Nordlingen Parish Church. 48. Positive with shutters. Metropolitan Museum, New York. 49. Organ shutters from Basle Cathedral, painted by Hol- bein (now in the Museum there). 50. Modern organ showing four manuals, stops, couplers, pistons, and swell pedals. 51. Small metal organ pipe; large wooden one, big enough for a pony to stand in. 52. Ancient method of tuning, with hammer and hatchet. 53. Detail showing action of modern organ. 54. Large modern organ. APPENDIX C THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK I914-I917 HISTORICAL ORGAN LECTURE-RECITALS BY CLARENCE DICKINSON DIRECTOR OF MUSIC PROGRAM I January twenty-seventh, 1914, at five o'clock Part One the organ Chorale — "Rejoice, beloved Christians " Benedictus Ducis (1480-1544) Belgian Canzona Andrea Gabrielli (1510-1586) Italian Prayer . - . . . Giovanni Pierltiigi Palestrina (1526-1594) Italian H 177 178 APPENDIX C Pavane William Byrd (1538-1623) English Etude for Pedals Alone . . . . De Bricqueville f Jan Pieter Sweelinck Variations "s . J and Samuel Scheldt ( (1587-1654) Dutch — German Passacaglia Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1644) Italian Sceur Monique ..... Frangois Couperin (1668-1733) French Prelude and Fugue in D Major Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Part Two lecture on the evolution of the organ Illustrated with Stereopticon Views PROGRAM II February third, at four o'clock ENGLISH Assisting Artist, Mr. Frank Croxton, Bass Fantasia John Bull (1563-1628) Chaconne Henry Purcell (1658-1695) Sonata — Allegro Maestoso. Allegretto . Sir Edward Elgar Lullaby Sir Edward Elgar APPENDIX C 179 Songs — (a) Cassar's Lament (from Julius CcBsar) (b) "How "Willing My Paternal Love" {Samson) (c) "Arm, Arm, Ye Brave" {Judas Maccabeus) George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) Scherzo from Symphony I . . . Edwin H. Lemare Question) W. Wolstenholme Answer j Nuptial Benediction— ("H. E. B.") . . Alfred Hollins (Specially composed for the marriage of the Rev. Hugh Black, M. A., with Miss Edith Kerr) Concert Overture Alfred Hollins PROGRAM in February tenth, at foiu- o'clock FRENCH Assisting Artist, Miss Margaret Harrison, Soprano. DuLCis Amiga Dei .... Pierre Attaignant (From Treze Motetz Musiceaulx, 1531) Musette en Rondeau ) t t.i.m- ti , ,, t . . Jean Philippe Rameau Air Majestueux S (1683-1764) Minuet from "Le Devin d'u Village" Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Toccata . . . Jean Nicholas Le Froid de Mereaux (1745-1797) Fanfare Fugue . . • Jacques-Nicholas Lemmens (1823-1881) Songs— (a) Rossignoulet . . . Chanson B^arnais (b) "Les Trois Princesses" Chanson de la Franche-Comt6 (c) "La Procession" . . C6sar Franck Pl£:CE H^ROifQUE C^sar Franck (1822-1890) 1 80 APPENDIX C Prayer and Cradle Song Toccata from Symphony V Prelude Elves Serenade . Finale from Sjmiphony I Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) Charles-Marie Widor . Vincent d'Indy . Joseph Bonnet Gabriel Piem6 Louis Vierne PROGRAM IV February seventeenth, at four o'clock AMERICAN Assisting Artist, Mr. Charles W. Harrison, Tenor "Chester" "William Billings (1746-1800) "Mount Vernon" M:r. Jenks Composed on the death of General George Washington, 1799 Sonata — ^Allegro. Andante . . . Horatio Parker Song — "Urbs Sion Aurea" . . . Horatio Parker (From the Hora Novissima) Pastorai,e . . . . ■ . . Arthur Foote Toccata . . . . . . H. Alexander Matthews Andante Tristamente .... Ernest Kroeger Intermezzo ...... James Rogers Meditation ...... Ralph Kinder Song— "The Cross" Harriet Ware Dithyramb Clarence Lucas Song ...... Edward MacDowell "A merry song, a chorus brave, and yet a sigh regret." Minuet W. C. E. Seeboeck Fugue ON "Hail Columbia" . . Dudley Buck APPENDIX C i8i PROGRAM V February twenty-fourth, at four o'clock GERMAN Assisting Artists — Mrs. Agnes Kimball, Soprano Mrs. Grace Munson Allen, Contralto Mr. Alexander Saslavsky, Violinist AND A Choir of Women's Voices Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H . . Franz Liszt (i8ii-i886) Contralto Solo — Franz Liszt "Over all the hilltops is rest" (Goethe) Chorus — Franz Liszt "Alleluia! Let all mankind rejoice and sing!" (For women's voices) From the Oratorio Christus Andante from Sonata VI . . Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) Te Deum . .... Max Reger Berceuse ) -.1 t, , > Johannes Brahms Hungarian Dance (By request) (I 833-1 897) Abendstimmung (Chorin Cloister) . . Hugo Kaun At Evening Georg Schumann Spharenmusik ("Music of the spheres": A Christmas Song) Sigfrid Karg-Elert Soprano solo, with violin and organ Symphonic Canon .... Sigfrid Karg-Elert Fugue. Canzone. Epilogue with violin obligato and chorus of women's voices : ' ' Credo in vitam venturi saeculi. Amen. ' ' March from Tannhatiser . . . Richard Wagner (1813-1883) 1 82 APPENDIX C PROGRAM VI February second, 1915, at four o'clock MUSIC COMPOSED UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE LATIN CHURCH Assisting Artists — Mr. Andrea Sarto, Barytone AND The Choir of Union Theological Seminary Part One Organum Quadruplum — "Viderunt Omnes" Maltre P^rotin (c. 1200) French Canon — "Three in One" . . . Johannes Okeghem (c. 1430-1495) Flemish Verset on " Ave Maris Stella " . . Antonio de Cabegon (1510-1566) Spanish Capriccio Pastorale . . . Girolamo Frescobaldi (1587-1654) Italian Prelude .... Louis Nicholas CMrambault . (1676-1749) French Psalm XIX — "The Heavens are telling" Benedetto Marcello ( 1 686-1 739) Italian Evocation in the Sistine Chapel . . Franz Liszt (1811-1886) On themes from the Miserere of AUegri (1584-1662) and the Ave Verum of Mozart (1756-1791) Hymn to the Sun, by St. Francis of Assisi . . Franz Liszt Barytone solo, male chorus, and organ APPENDIX C 183 Part Two modern italian and french music Etude Symphonique .... Enrico Bossi Italian Andante — " Solo di Flauto " . . . Filippo Capocci Italian Song: "Confutatis Maledictus, " from the Requiem Mass Giuseppe Verdi Italian Pastorale ..... Alexandre Guilmant French Marche Pontificale . . . Charles Marie Widor French PROGRAM VII February ninth, at four o'clock MUSIC COMPOSED UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH Assisting Artist, Miss Mildred Potter, Contralto Part One Fantasia .... Johann Jakob Froberger (c. 1605-1667) Fugue in C . . . . . Dietrich Buxtehude (c. 1635-1706) " Von Himmel HocH " . . Johann Pachelbel (c. 1653-1706) (From Heaven high to Earth I come) Cathedral Prelude and Fugue Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Trio ...... Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780) Andante ...... Karl Stamitz (1746-1801) Song— "To the Infinite" ("DemUnendlichen") Franz Schubert (1808-1878) i84 APPENDIX C Part Two modern scandinavian music FiNLANDIA Finnish Jean Sibelius March of the Magi Otto Mailing Danish Songs— (a) Autumn Gale . Edvard Grieg (b) Light . Christian Binding Wedding Music Swedish August Sodermann War Rhapsody Norwegian PROGRAM VIII Christian Binding February sixteenth, at four o' clock THE BACH FAMILY FIFTEEN FAMOUS BACHS Assisting Artists — Miss Rose Bryant, Contralto Mr. Arthur Wilde, 'Cellist Choralvorspiel . . Johann Heinrich Bach (1615-1692) "Erbarme dich, Herre Gott" (Have mercy, O Lord God) Prelude and Fugue . . Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703) Choralvorspiel .... Johann Michael Bach (1648-1694) " Wenn mein Stundlein vorhanden ist" (When my last hour is at hand) VARtA.TiONS on A Chorale . Johann Bemhard Bach (1676-1749) "Du Friedenfurst" (Thou Prince of Peace) (a) Christmas Choralvorspiel . Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) "Indulci Jubilo" (b) Cantata— for Alto Voice— " Strike thou Hour" (with Bells) (c) LouRE, from Sonata III ) j. ,,. , „ /j\ A r o -^ • T-w r for Violoncello (d) Air from Smte in D ) APPENDIX C 1 8s Choralvorspiel . . . Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784) "Wir Christenleut " (We Christian people all rejoice) Songs — (a)," No Blade of Grass can flourish" Wilhelm Friedemann, Bach ??«"'S'"w " ^ 11- .. ] Cari Philipp Emanuel Bach (c) The Heavens are telhng j Fantasia and Fugue . Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) PROGRAM IX February twenty-third, at four o'clock TRANSCRIPTIONS Assisting Artists — Mrs. Louise MacMahan, Soprano Mr. Maurice Milcke, Violinist Mme. Regis-Rossini, Harpist Part One Composer Transcriber Attaignant Attaignant Sacred Song "H me suffit de tous" (c. 1530) tr. for Organ Vivaldi Bach Violin Concerto tr. for Organ Bach Liszt Chorus and Orchestra "Prelude and Fugue" tr. for Organ CouPERiN Kreisler "Chanson Louis XIII." "Pavane" tr. for Violin Liszt ....... Saint-Saens Piano "St. Francis preaching to the Birds" tr. for Organ Saint-Saens Guilmant Violoncello "La Cygne" tr. for Organ Bach Gounod Clavichord "Ave Maria " tr. for voice, violin, harp, and organ i86 APPENDIX C Wagner Liszt Chorus and Orchestra, " Pilgrims', Chorus " tr. for Organ. Wagner Oberthur Song with Orchestra "Preislied" tr. for Harp Part Two modern russian music Andante, from "Symphonic Path^tique" Nocturne Songs — (a) Lullaby . (b) Chanson Indoue Berceuse Prelude in C sharp minor Largo from Xerxes Tschaikowsky Karganof Gretchaninof Rimsky-Korsakov Iljinsky Rachmaninoff Handel For Violin, Harp, and Organ PROGRAM X March second, at four o'clock EPOCHS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SACRED CHORAL MUSIC Assisting Artists — Miss Inez Barbour, Soprano Miss Rose Bryant, Contralto Mr. Reed Miller, Tenor Mr. Frank Croxton, Bass AND The Choir of the Brick Church Part One Gregorian Chant .... Tonus Peregrinus Psalm CXIV — In exitu Israel Ave Verum — (Three Part Chorus) . . Josquin de Pr6s (Flemish, c. 1450-1521) APPENDIX C 187 Gloria Patri . . . Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Italian, 1526-1594) (For Double Chorus) " Saviour OF THE World " .... Palestrina Sing to the Lord .... Heinrich Schuetz (German, 1585-1672) Motet for Double Chorus Biblical Scene — "The Pharisee and the Publican" Heinrich Schuetz Bass, Tenor, and Chorus Jesus said unto them : Two men went to the Temple to pray; the one was a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee stood there and prayed within himself, and the publican stood afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast ; and they said : THE PHARISEE THE PUBLICAN I thank Thee, Lord God, that I God be merciful tome! Lord, I am not as other men are, robbers, am sinful, be Thou merciful to me ! unjust men, extortioners, nor even as this publican. I fast always twice in the week, and give the tenth of all that I possess. I say unto you: This man went from thence justified rather than the other. He that exalteth himself shall be abased and he that humbleth him- self shall be exalted. Soprano Aria and Chorale — "I follow Thee also" and "O Wondrous Love" . . . Johann Sebastian Bach (German, 1685-1750) From the Passion according to St. John Chorus ..... George Friedrich Handel (German-EngUsh, 1685-1759) From the Oratorio Samson Duet — for Soprano and Alto — Felix ■ Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (German, 1 809-1 847) With Chorus, from Elijah Organ— "Fantasia" ' .... Theodor Bubeck (Russian) i88 APPENDIX C Part Two MODERN FOUR A CAPPELLA CHORUSES Thy Will be Done Hugo Wolf (German) As Torrents in Summer .... Edward Elgar (English) Hymn to the Trinity . . . Sergei Rachmaninoff (Russian) NowELL (by request) . , . Clarence Dickinson (American) (Soprano, Tenor, Bass Solos and Chorus) PROGRAM XI February first, 1916, at four o'clock MUSIC COMPOSED BY ORGANISTS OF NEW YORK CITY Assisting Artists — Mr. James Stanley, Bass Mr. Arthur Wilde, 'Cellist Chorale, Introduction and Scherzo, from Suite in C Homer N. Bartlett (Recently retired) Cantabile ..... Clifford Demarest (Church of the Messiah) Fugue ...... Melville Charlton (Assistant Organist, Union Theological Seminary) (Organist, Sinai Temple) MEDITATION A Ste. Clothilde . . . Philip James (St. John's Episcopal Church) Toccata Gottfried H. Federlein (Society for Ethical Culture and Temple Emmanuel) Song— "The Sea of Sleep" . . C. Whitney Coombs (St. Luke's Episcopal Church) (With 'Cello Obligato) APPENDIX C 189 Autumn Sketch .... John Hyatt Brewer (Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Churdi, Brooklyn In Summer Charles A. Stebbins (Fourth Church of Christ Scientist) Fanfare d'Orgue . . . . Harry Rowe Shelley (Central Presby1;erian Church, Brooklyn Violoncello — (a) Lament } (b) Dreaming ) A Prayer for Peace Christmas in Sicily. Lullaby (by request) Songs — (a) Recompense . T. Tertius Noble (St. Thomas' Episcopal Church) . Paul Held (The Hebrew Tabernacle) Pietro Alessandro Yon (St. Francis Xavier Church) Clarence Dickinson William H. Hammond (First Reformed Church, Flatbush) (b) The Forget-me-not H. Huntington Woodman (First Presbyterian Church and Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn) (c) Invictus .... Bruno Huhn 'Plymouth Church, Brooklyn) Christmas Gaston M. Dethier (Institute of Musical Art) PROGRAM XII February eighth, at four o'clock THE SONATA Assisting Artist — Miss Rose Bryant, Contralto Examples of Early Forms of Instrumental Music (a) Pavan ) Thomas Warrock (b) Galliard ) (bom 1586) (c) Gigue ..... Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) Suite — Concerto Grosso . . . Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) Prelude, AUemande, Coranto, Minuet (Gigue) Sonata ....... Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722) Andante. (Fugue.) Adagio. Allegro (The first Sonata for harpsichord) igo APPENDIX C Cantata— for Alto Voice, "Strike thou Hour" (with Chimes) (By request) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Example of the Evolution and Variation of a Sonata Movement (a) Galliard . . . Biagio Marini (c. 1629) (b) Minuet — ^from Sonata in D major . Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809) (c) Scherzo — from Sonata, Opus 10, No. 2 ( Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) (d) Waltz — ^from Symphony V Peter Iljitch Tschaikowsky (1840-1893) Sonata quasi Fantasia (Adagio) . Ludwig van Beethoven Known as the Moonlight Sonata, Opus 27, No. 2 Pastoral Sonata . . . . Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901) Pastorale. Intermezzo. Fugue PROGRAM XIII February fifteenth, at four o'clock PROGRAM MUSIC Assisting Artists — Mr. Frank L. Gosnell, Barytone Mr. Herbert Dittler, Violinist AND The Choir of Union Theological Seminary Two Greek Hymns (a) Delphic Hymn to Apollo . Second Century B. C. (b) Ode to the Muse Dionysios, Second Century A. D. (Male Chorus) APPENDIX C 191 Giles Faenaby's Dream . . Giles Farnaby (c. 1592) His Dreme. His Rest. His Humour La Poule (The Hen) . . . Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) Biblical Sonata " David and Goliath " . Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722) The Bravado of Goliath. The Terror of the Israelites and their Prayer. The Courage of David. The Dispute and the Contest. The Stone is sent from the sling. Goliath falls. The Flight of the Philistines. The Joy of the Israelites. The Maidens sing and play in honor of David. General Exultation. Song: From the Frost Scene in King Arthur - Henry Purcell (1658-1695) Capriccio on the Departure of his beloved Brother Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) His Friends flatter the Brother to persuade him to stay at Home. The Dangers of the Journey. Lament at his Departure. The Postillion's Horn. Fugue on the Horn Theme. Violin — (a) La Pr^cieuse . Franjois Couperin (1668-1733) (b) Traumerei . . Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Andante from Sonata in C major (Kochel 309) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) "A Portrait of Mile. Rose" Legend — "A Deserted Farm" . Edward MacDowell (1861-1908) Overture to Tannhduser .... Richard Wagner (1813-1883) 192 APPENDIX C PROGRAM XIV February twenty-second, at foitr o'clock SHAKESPEARE AND MUSIC Music at the Court of Elizabeth as Reflected in Shake- speare's Plays IN commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary OF the death of SHAKESPEARE, APRIL 23, 1616 Assisting Artists — Miss Inez Barbour, Soprano Mr. Norris L. Tibbetts, Barytone The King's Hunt John Bull (1 563-1628) Song—" Lord the Maker of all Thing " . . Henry VIII Song — " Deathe, rocke me asleepe " . Anne Boleyn Ave Verum Josquin de Pr6s (c. 1450-1521) Fortune — "Fortune, my foe, why dost thou frown on me?" William Byrd (c. 1 540-1623) Two Doleful Dumps — (a) English (b) Irish Lachrym^ — Or " Seven Tears figured in Seven Passionate Pavans" ... ... John Dowland (1583-1626) Sellenger's Round .... William Byrd (c. 1540-1623) (Played by Queen Elizabeth on the Virginals) Songs — I. Shakespeare Lyrics as stmg in the Productions of his Plays in his own Time: (a) " Willow, willow " (from Othello) (b) ""Where the Bee sucks" (from The Tempest) II. A Tribute to Shakespeare, written by David Garrick APPENDIX C 193 " Thou Soft Flowing Avon " . . . Thomas Ame (1710-1778) Fantasia in D . Jan Pieters Sweelinck (1561-1621) (The first organ fugue in large form) Songs — Shakespeare Lyrics set to music by later composers : (a) "Blow, blow, thou Winter Wind " (from As You Like It) .... Thomas Ame (1710-1778) (b) "Who is Sylvia? " (from Two Gentlemen of Verona) (c) "Hark, Hark! the Lark" (from Cymbeline) Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Nocturne — for Midsummer Night's Dream Mendelssohn Shepherds' Dance — for Henry VIII . Edward German Overture Fantasy — Romeo and Juliet . Tschaikowsky PROGRAM XV February twenty-ninth, at four o'clock SPIRITUAL FOLK SONGS Assisting Artists — Miss Inez Barbour, Soprano Miss Rose Bryant, Contralto Mr. William Wheeler, Tenor Mr. Frank Croxton, Bass Mr. Maurice Milcke, Violinist Mr. Arthur Wilde, Violoncellist Mme. Regis-Rossini, Harpist AND The Choir of the Brick Church A SoLis Ortus Cardine ... V Century. Latin {A Cappella Chorus) Alla Trinita Beata . XIV Century. Italian {A Cappella Chorus) Arr. Dr. Btuney 13 194 APPENDIX C Sky so Bright Old German Arr. Nagler (y4 Cappella Chorus) Dialogue — "How the Sotil must bear the Cross, like Christ" XVII Century. German (Soprano and Tenor solos) Arr. Comer-Reimann "Gloria IN ExcELsis Deo" . . . Old English (Chorus) Arr. Knight From Heaven High . . . XVI Century. German Arr. Dickinson (Alto Solo and Chorus) The Shepherds' Christmas Song Old Austrian Arr. Reimaim-Dickinson (Soprano Solo and Chorus) The Neighbors at Bethlehem .... Old French Arr. Gevaert (A Cappella Chorus) Jesu! Thou Dear Babe Divine . . Haytian Arr. Dickinson (Soprano Solo and Chorus) In Dulci Jubilo ..... XIV Century Arr. Liszt-Dickinson Violin, 'Cello, Harp, and Organ Song of the Nuns of Coventry . . Old English (Alto Solo) Hez Sire Asnes, Hez ! . . . . XII Century (Hail, Sir Ass, Hail!) Negro Spirituals ...... American (a) Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit . Arr. Carl R. Diton (Bass Solo and Chorus) (b) Rain: "Oh it rained forty days." Transcribed by the Misses Turner . Arr. Henry Gideon (Bass Solo) APPENDIX C 195 (c) DigmyGra.e . . Arr. H. T. Burleigh (A Cappella Chorus) (d) Exhortation — A Negro Sermon "Will Marion Cook (Bass Solo) (e) Deep River .... Arr. H. T. Burleigh (A Cappella Chorus) Organ — Largo, from "The New World" Symphony Dvofdk The Soul at Heaven's Gate . . XV Century. German (Bass, Alto, and Soprano Solos) Fear Not, Christ is Risen . . XVII Century (Soprano Solo and Chorus) PROGRAM XVI February sixth, 191 7, at iovn o'clock MUSIC AT THE COURT OF LOUIS XV 1715-1773 Assisting Artists — Miss Margaret Abbott, Contralto Mr. Herbert Dittler, Violinist Mr. William Kroll, Violinist Mr. Elias Bronstein, Violoncellist Sarabande and Fughetta . . Frangois Couperin (1668-1733) PRi;LUDE .... Louis Nicholas Cl^rambaiilt (1676-1749) Noel ...... Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772) Minuet from Le Devin du Village . Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Air MAjESTxreux from Zoroastre . Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) 196 APPENDIX C Minuet from Platee . . . Jean Philippe Rameau Song— "LaGuirlande" (" The Garland ") Jean Philippe Rameau FoRLANE Jacques Aubert (1668-1753) Musette . . . Michel Pignolet de Mont^clair (1666-1737) Passepieds . . . Jean Baptist Struck (Batistin) (1680-1755) L'Apoth6ose de Lulli . . . Frangois Couperin (1668-1733) Two Violins, Violoncello, and Organ " Composed in memory of the immortal and incomparable M. de Lulli." "Lulli in the Elysian Fields makes music with the Ijrric shades. Mer- ciuy flies to the Elysian Fields to announce that Apollo is about to descend. Apollo descends, offers his violin to Lulli and his place on Par- nassus.' Excitement among Lulli's contemporaries below. Their lament.' Lulli's elevation to Mount Parnassus. Welcome extended to LuUi by Corelli and the Italian muses. Apollo persuades LuUi and Corelli that the union of French and Italian styles will bring about the perfect music. Lulli plays the air and Corelli accompanies him; Corelli plays the air in his turn and LuUi accompanies him. Peace is made on Parnassus on condition that when French is spoken the French names shall be used, as Sonade, SfeiNADE, etc., instead of the Italian terms. Sonade en trio; Lulli and the French muses, Corelli and the Italian muses. Song — "Che faro senza Euridice, " from Orfeo Christoph Wilibald von Gluck (1714-1787) Qavotte, frora Armide . .< . . . Gluck Minuet — "Les Champs Elys6es, " from Orfeo Gluck Two Violins, Violoncello, and Organ ' This number published for organ alone. APPENDIX C 197 PROGRAM XVII , February thirteenth, at four o'clock MUSIC AT THE COURT OF FREDERICK THE GREAT I 740-1 786 Assisting Artists — Mrs. Grace Northrup, Soprano Miss Lucile Collette, Violinist Mr, G. Roscoe Possell, Flutist Flute — Largo from Sonata No. 189 . Frederick the Great Organ — Suite .... Christoph Nichelmann (1717-1762) La Gailliarde; La Tendre; Sarabande; Gigue. Organ — Preludio e Capriccio . Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718-1795) Dedicated to Philipp Emmanuel Bach Song — " Gethsemane, " from The Passion Karl Heinrich Graun (170 1-1759) Violin — Pastorale Franz Benda (1718-1795) Organ — Fugue. . . Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch (1736-1800) Organ — "La Xenophone et La Sybille " Philipp Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788) Songs — (a) Fair are Roses . Johann Philipp Kimberger (1721-1783) (b) The Last Judgment Philipp Emmanuel Bach Flute — Sonata No. 333 . . Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773) Arioso. Presto. Musical Offering — to Frederick the Great Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Six Voice Fugue for Organ Largo for Flute, Violin, and Organ 198 APPENDIX C PROGRAM XVIII February twentieth, at four o'clock MUSIC AND SOME GREAT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Assisting Artists — Mrs. May Reddick Prina, Soprano Mr. Frank L. Gosnell, Barytone Mr. Norris L. Tibbetts, Sow Mr. Karel Leitner, Pianist Mr. Ladislav Urban, Pianist Mr. Vaclav Zajicek, Tympanist AND The Choir of Union Theological Seminary Gnostic— II-III Century A. D.— "O Shepherd, Thou Who dost ■■°~^^us Keep. " (Sung to the Gregorian "Veni Immanuel") AioAN — III-IV Century (Tonus Peregrinus) Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Albigensian — XII Century. (a) Troubadoiu- Song: "All my friends at Ventadour" (Soprano Solo) Bernard de Ventadour (Transcribed by Dr. Otto Kinkeldey) (b) Le Paradis Anonymous (Soprano Solo) (c) All Mein Gedanken .... Minnelied (Barytone Solo) APPENDIX C 199 (d) "In Matthew Eighth is Written" Meistersinger Lied (Barytone Solo and Chorus) Waldensian— XII Century— "0 God Why Hast Thou Cast Thy People ofiE?" . . . Claude Goudimd (1505-1572) (Chorus) (After Theodore de Beza's verses of Psalm LXXIV) Calvinist — XVI Century (a) Super Flumina Babylonis . . Clement Marot (1495-1544) (Soprano Solo) (b) Plus ne suis ce que j'ai 6t6 . . _^ Clement Marot (Soprano Solo) Hussite — XV Century (a) Hussite Battle Hjmin . . Attributed to Ziska (c. 1415) " Warriors who for God are fighting" (Male Chorus) (b) Evening Hymn of the Moravian Brethren . (c. 1460) (Male Chorus a Cappella) (c) Variations on the Moravian Evening Hymn Johannes Barend Litzau (1822-1893) (d) Ma Vlast. (My Cotmtry) . . . Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) Tabor. Blanik Symphonic Poem with Hussite War Song as theme. Arranged for four hands piano, organ, and tympani' by Ladislav Urban. ■ Also arranged for organ alone by Mr. Urban. 200 APPENDIX C PROGRAM XIX February twenty-seventh, at four o'clock MUSIC AND THE REFORMATION In Recognition of the Four Hundredth Anniversary OF THE Reformation Assisting Artists — Miss Inez Barbour, Soprano Miss Rose Bryant, Contralto Mr. Theo Karle, Tenor Mr. Frank Croxton, Bass AND The Choir of the Brick Church Chorale — "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" Martin Luther (1483-1546) "Jesus, unto Thee BE Praise" . Adam Gumpeltzhaimer (1559-1581) (Male Chorus) "Awake MY Heart's Beloved" . . Hans Sachs (1494-1576) (Bass Solo) " Christ IS Arisen FROM THE Dead " . Melchior Vulpius (1560-1616) (Double Chorus a Cappella) Choralevorsfiele — On Two Chorales by Martin Luther (Organ) (a) "Christ lag in Todesbanden" ("Christ lay in bonds of death") ..... Samuel Scheldt (1587-1654) (b) "Meine Seele erhebet den Herm" ("Magnificat") Delphin Strungk (1601-1664) APPENDIX C 20I Biblical Scene— "The Pharisee and the Publican" Heinrich Schuetz (1585-1672) (Tenor and Bass Solos and Chorus) The Passion — "Golgotha" (From the Passion according to St. John) ..... Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) (Alto Solo) The Cantata — "Behold I stand at the Door" Johann Sebastian Bach (Bass and Soprano Solos and Chorus) Carol — "Away in a Manger" . . Clarence Dickinson (Soprano Solo.) Text by Luther Oratorio — (a) "The Sorrows of Death" Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) (Tenor Solo) (b) "He shall feed His Flock" George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) (Alto Solo) Motet — " Herr wie lange " ("Lord how long wilt Thou forget me) ...... Georg Schumann Luther's version of Psalm XIII. (A Cappella Chorus) The Reformation Symphony Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (Organ) Andante. Allegro Vivace. Chorale' ' At this recital the first stanza of "A Mighty Portress" was sung at the close of the Chorale movement of the symphony, by the Choir in unison.with organ accompaniment. 202 APPENDIX C PROQRAM XX March sixth, at four o'clock TONALITY Assisting Artist — Mr. Louis Shenk, Barytone Mooes GREEK SONG . ► . I Century A. D. Tones "ttfic EST DOMUS DOMINI" . . VII Centtiry Gregorian Plain Song, First Tone ORGANUM — "sit GLORIA DOMINI" . . Hucbald (c. 900) Harmonization in Fifths and Fourths FAUX BOURDON — "DEUS CREATOR OMNIUM" . XII CcntUTy Harmonization in Thirds and Sixths MAGNIFICAT, in the First Tone . . Johann Pachelbel (c. 1653-1706) Diatonic Scale PRELUDE IN D MAJOR . . . Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Built on the Major Scale songs: (a) Merci Clamant . . Chatelain de Coucy (1180) (b) Robins m'aime . . Adam de la Hdle (1285) (c) "Non Piango, " from Euridice . Giulio Caccini (1550-1618) (d) "Dove t'en vai, " from Orfeo Claudio Monteverde (1567-1643) Pentatonic Scale song— "Of a' the Airts the Wind Can Blaw" Old Scotch Song APPENDIX C 203 Hexatonic Scale (whole tone) (a) PETITE PASTORALE . . . Maurice Ravel (b) SONG — Chevatix de Bois (The Merry-Go-Round) Claude Debussy DuoDECUPLE Scale l'oiseau de feu (The Bird of Fire) . Igor Strawinsky Ronde des Princesses Ediatonic impressions de n6tre dame . . Leo Omstein Prelude to Tristan and Isolde . . Richard Wagner INDEX Agricola, 13, 14, 15, 16, 58 Aldhelm, 36 AUegri, 182 Altdorfer, 38 Altnikol, 57 Amalia, Princess, 17 Ambrose, 89, 90 Angelico, Fra, no Aquinas, Thomas, 174 Aristotle, 141 Aristoxenes, 141 Anus, 90 Armand d'Amel, 118 Arnaud, 121 Ame, Thomas, 31, 193 Athol, Duke of, 37, 175 Attaignant, 83, 179, 185 Aubert, 7, 196 B Ambrosius, 48, 54 Anna Magdalena, 58 Carl Philipp Emanuel, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 48, 49, 51, 57.'!'58, 68, 185, 197 Hans, 48, 49, 53 Johann, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54 J. iEgidius, 48 J. Bernhard, 48, 49, 53, 184 Johann Christian, 48, 59 J. Christoph, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, Bach, Bach, Bach, 16, 59, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach, 184 Bach, J. Christoph Friedrich, 48, 49, 59 Bach, 55. Bach, Bach, Bach, J. Heinrich, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 184 Johann Jakob, 77 J. Michael, 48, 49, 51, 95, 184 J. Sebastian, 2, 14, 16, 17, 19, 48, 49. 51. 52. 54. 55, 57, 58, 59. 64, 70, 76. 77. 78, 81, 83, 84, 85, 95, 98, 133, 134. 136, 137. 142, 145, 146, 147, 148, 160, 178, 183, 184, 185, 187, 190, 191, 197, 201, 202 Bach, Maria Barbara, 58 Bach, Veit, 48, 49 Bach, Wilhekn Friedemann, 48, 49, 58, 185 Bach, Wilhekn Friedrich Ernst, 48, 49.59 Bacon, Francis, 21, 24 Balakirew, 168 Baldung Grun, 38 Banchieri, 67 Barberini, The, 4 Bardesanes, 115 Bardi, 4, 148 Bartlett, 188 Batistin, 7, 196 Beaumont, 24 Beck, 38 Beethoven, 32, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74. 149. 154. 160, 163, 190 Bellamy, 155 Benda, Carl Hermann Heinrich, 13, 15 Benda, Franz, 12, 13, 15, 20, 197 Benda, Friedrich Wilhelm, 13, 15 Benda, Johann, 13, 15 BerUoz, 70 Bernhard, 43 Bernard deVentadour, 118, 147, 198 Bertran de Bom, 118 Beza, Theodore de, 121, 123 Billings, 155, 156, 180 BockHn, 34, 174 Boileau, 5 Boleyn, Anne, 22, 192 Bonnet, 180 Borodin, 168 Bossi, 183 205 2o6 INDEX Boiurgeois, 123, 133, 136 Brahms, 71, 149, 181 Brewer, 189 Browning, 147 Buck, 180 Bull, John, 24, 26, 27, 178, 192 Burgkmair, 38 Burleigh, 195 Bumey, Dr., 3, 9, 13, 14, 18, 67, 151, 193 Bumey, Evelina, 13 Busoni, 160, 161 Buxtehude, 55, 183 Byrd, 24, 27, 29, 73, 178, 192 Byron, 78 Cabegon, 182 Caccini, 4, 148, 202 Calvin, 122, 123, 129, 131, 133, 135, 138 Cannabich, 78 Capocci, 183 Carissimi, 97 Cesti, 97 Charlemagne, 36 Charlton, 188 Chatelain de Coucy, 147, 202 ' Chopin, 69 Cl&ambault, 2, 3, 182, 195 Colonna, Vittoria, 122 Cook, 195 Coombs, 188 Corelli, 5, 6, 63, 67, 189, 196 Comeille, 5 Comer, 194 Couperin, Armand Louis, 2 Couperin, Elizabeth Antoinette, 2 Couperin, Frangois, i, 2, 63, 66, 75, 77, 178, 191, 195, 196 Couperin, Louis, 2, 84, 185 Couperin, Louise, 2 Coussemaker, 147 Cranach, 38 Crosby-Brown, 38 Ctesibius, 34 Cui, 168 D D'Alembert, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14 Dallam, 24 D'Anjou, 131, 163 Daquin, 3, 195 De Bricqueville, 178 Debussy, 11, 149, 167, 203 Demarest, 188 De Pt6s, Josquin, 23, 91, 94, 186, 192 Dethier, 189 Dickinson, 188, 189, 194, 201 t)iderot, 4, 6, 8 D'Indy, 87, 180 Diton, 194 Dowland, 21, 24, 28, 192 Downes, 73 Drayton, 24 Dryden, 73 Ducis, 177 Durer, 38 Dvofdk, 30, 128, 195 E Elgar, 78, 98, 178, 188 Elliot, 154 Eisner, 40 Ephraem Syrius or Syriacus, 115 Erasmus, 22 Eugenius, 90 P Farnaby, 74, 191 Farrant, Richard, 24, 30 Fasch, 13, 16, 17, 197 Federlein, 188 Fleischer, 141 Fletcher, 24, 28 Foote, 180 Ford, 24 Franck, C6sar, 88, 179 Frescobaldi, 74, 178, 182 Froberger, 55, 183 Puller, 31 Gabrieli, Andrea, 177 (Jabrieli, Giovanni, 67, 95 Galpin, 34 Gaspard de Coinci, 147 German, 193 Gesner, 56 Gevaert, 194 Gibbons, Orlando, 24, 30, 63 Gideon, 194 Giotto, 164 Glareanus, 92 Gluck, 4, 6, 10, II, 80, 196 Goethe, 166 Goudimel, 123, 133, 135, 136, 138, 199 Gounod, 85, 185 Graun, Carl Heinrich, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 197 INDEX 207 Graun, J. G., 12, 13, 15 Greene, 2^ GretchaninoS, 99, 186 Grieg, 184 Grimm, F. M., 4 Grimm, Hermami, 100 Guilmant, 87, 180, 183, 185 Gumpeltzhaimer, 133, 138, 200 H HMe, Adam de la, 4, 148, 202 Hammond, 189 Handel, 3, 14, 18, 42, 84, 96, 97, 98, 137. 156. 179. 186, 187, 201 Harmonicus, 115 Harotin al Raschid, 36 Hasse, 15 Hassler, 138 Hausegger, Sigmund von, 98 Hausmann, 130 Haydn, 68, 72, 157, 190 Hebbel, 78 Heine, 131 Held, 189 Higginson, loi Hilary of Poitiers, ri6 Hofhaimer, 38 Holbein, 44, 176 Hollins, 179 Hucbald, 142, 143, 144, 146, 202 Hugo von Trimberg, 90 Huhn, 189 Humperdmck, 49 Hunnis, 29 Huss, 124, 129, 131 Hutten, UWch von, 22 Iljinsky, 186 Imhof, 40 JacobuB k Voragine, 91 Jacopone da Todi, 164 James, 188 Janavel, 12 1 Jenks, 156, 180 Joachim, Amalia, 17 Johnson, 24, 28 Jordan, Abraham, 3, 42 Josquin de Pr&, 23, 91, 94, 186, 192 K Karganof, 186 Karg-Elert, 181 Kaun, 181 Kinder, 180 Kimberger, 13, 14, 16, 17, 197 Knight, 194 Kxebs, 183 Kreisler, Fritz, 82, 84, 185 Kroeger, 180 Kuhnau, 56, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 76, 77, 189, 191 Labb6, 7 La Fontaine, 5 La Jeime, 136 Lancret, 9, 75 Latirentius, 35 Lebeuf (Le Bceuf), 103 Le Froid de Mereaux, 179 Lemare, 179 Lemmens, 179 Lesueur, 70 Liszt, 69, 72, 85, 88, 138, 181, 182, 185, 186, 194 Litzau, 128, 199 Lobsinger, 40 Lochner, no Lucas, 180 Lully, 5, 6, 15, 98, 196 Luther (Hans, "Johnny"), 138 Luther, Martin, 53, 129, 130, 131, 132. 133. 137, 138, 159. 200 Lyiy. 31 M MacDowell, -69, 79, 157, 180, 191 Maintenon, Mme. de, 3 Mailing, 184 Manchicourt, Pierre de, 136 .Marcello, 182 Marie Antoinette, i, 8, 11 Marini, 190 Marlowe, 24 Marot, 122, 123, 199 Marpurg, 7, 13, 14, 18, 65, 197 Martini, Simone, 36, 174 Massinger, 28 Matthews, 180 Matthewson, 161 Mazarin, 4 Meckenem, 38, 175 Melvill, 27 Mendelssohn, 32, 58, 77, 98, 135, 137, 138, 181, 187, 193, 201 Meyerbeer, 138 2o8; mDEX Michael Angelo, 122, 159 Monteclair, 7, 196 Monteverde, 148, 202 Montfort, Simon de, 118 ^ More, Sir Thomas, 22 Morley, 24, 30, 62 Moton, III Motte, Houdart de la, 4, 9 Moussorgsky, 168 Mozart, 68, 78, 140, 148, 160, 169, 182, 191 Muck, Karl, 78 Munday, 73 N Nagler, 194 Neri, St. Philip, 4, 96, 98 Nevin, 157 Nicetas, 117, 118 Nichelmann, 13, 14, 16, 197 Nicolai, X38 Niecks, 150 Noble, 99, 189 Oberthur, 186 Okeghem, 91, 92, 182 Olearius, 51 Ornithoparcus, Andreas, 28 Omstein, 151, 203 Pachelbel, 51, 55, 145, 183, 202 Palestrina, 94, 177, 187 Parker, 180 Paul of Samosata, 115 Peabody, 158 Peele, 24 Peerson, 24, 30 Pepin, 36 Pergolesi, 9 Peri, 4, 148 Perotin, 91, 182 Peter of Cheliczky, 120 Petrarch, 118 Philips, 29 Piccini, II Piem6, 180 Pisek, 126 Plato, 72, 151, 163 Pliny the Younger, 1 14 Prffitorius, P. E., 55 Praetorius, Michael, 41, 53, 61 Ptolemy, 141, 142 Purcell, 24, 73, 74, 178, 191 Pythagoras, 141 Q Quantz, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 197 Quinault, 5 Rachmaninoff, 99, 186, 188 Raff, 138 Rameau, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 63, 74, 75. 179. 189. 191, 195. 196 Raphael, 36, 174 Ravel, 149, 203 Ravenscroft, 24 Rayounard, 120 Reger, 138, 167, 181 Reimann, 194 Reinken, 55 Ren^e of Ferrara, 122 Rheinberger, 190 Richeheu, Cardinal, 4 Rimsky-Korsakov, 99, 151, 168, 186 Rinuccini, 4 Rogers, 180 Rossi, Luigi, 4 Rossini, 80 Rousseau, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 63, 179, 195 Ruskin, 37 Sachs, Hans, 133, 200 Saint-Saens, 75, 85, 86, 185 Scarlatti, Alessandro, 2 Scarlatti, Domenico, 68 Scheldt, 53, 134, 178, 200 Schelling, 78 Schonberg, 150, 151, 166 Schubert, 17, 31, 80, 149, 183, 193 Schuetz, 53, 95, 96, 135, 169, 187, 201 Schumann, Clara, 71, 79 Schumann, Georg, 98, 137, 181 Schumann, Robert, 74, 78, 79, 80, 149, 191 Schwarzburg, Count, 50 Scriabine, 150 Seeboeck, 180 Seikilos, 72, 141 S^vign^, Mme. de, 5 Shakespeare, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 62, 63 Shelley, H. R., 189 Shelley, 78 Sibelius, 184 INDEX 209 Sidney, Sir Philip, 24 Silbermaun, 19 Sinding, 184 Smetana, 126, 128, 199 Sodermann, 184 Spalatin, 130 Spenser, 24, 31 Spitta, 134 Stamitz, J. K., 68 Stamitz, Karl, 68, 183 Stebbins, 189 Stradella, 97 Strauss, Richard, 79, 87, 160 Strawinsky, 150, 151, 203 Struck, dit Batistin, 7, 196 Strungk, 200 Swan, 31 Sweelinck, 30, 134, 178, 193 Symmes, 154 Tallis, 24 Telesphorus, 102 Tennyson, 79 Tertullian, 114 Thomas, Theodore, 162 Tintoretto, 44, 176 Tolstoi, 169 Trajan, 114 Trocznow, John de, see Ziska Tschaikowsky, 32, 67, 87, 99, 186, 190, 193 Tubal Cain, 36 Tura, Cosimo, 41, 175 Turini, 67 Turner, 194 U Urban, 199 Van Eyck, 43, 175 Van Meckenem. 38, 175 Van Os, 43 Verdi, 183 Vieme, 88, 180 Vitalian, 36 Vivaldi, 84, 85, 185 Voltaire, 4, 8 Vulpius, 133, 200 W Wagner, 80, 82, 145, 160, 164, 181, 186, 191, 203 Waldo, Peter, 117, 119, 120 Walther, Johann, 131 Walther, Johann Gottfried, 84 Walther von der Vogelweide, 133 Ware, 180 Warrock, 62, 65, 189 Warwick, 62 Washington, Booker T., no Watteau, 75 Weelkes, 24 Weingartner, 161 Wenceslas, 128 Wenzel, 125 Wesley, 128 Wider, 88, 180, 1 83 Wieck, Clara, see Schumann Wolf, Hugo, 98, 137, 188 Wolsey, Cardinal, 22 Wolstenholme, 179 Woodman, 189 Wulken, Anna Magdalena, 58 Wyclif, 124, 129 X Xanthopolus, 115 Yon, P. A., 189 Ziska, 125, 126, 128, 199 Zwingli, 129 %