From: The Dial, Vol. I, No. I (July 1840).
Author:
Published: Weeks Jordan and Company 1840 Boston
MUSIC has made a decided progress in our city this last winter. This has appeared in the popularity of the concerts, compared with other amusements, and in the unusual amount of good music, which has not been wholly thrown away upon us. Of course many a lover of the art could not but look skeptically upon all this; could not fail to see that people were determined to this or that concert by fashion rather than by taste, and that the cheap contrivances of Russell always carried away the crowd, while the artist sang or played to the few. We cannot flatter ourselves for a moment that we of Boston are, or shall be for years to come, a musical people. The devoted lover of the art is only beginning to be countenanced and recognised as one better than an idler. He must still keep apologizing to his incredulous, practical neighbors for the heavenly influence which haunts him. He does not live in a genial atmosphere of music, but in the cold east wind of utility; and meets few who will acknowledge that what he loves has anything to do with life. Still we are confident we feel a progress. There is a musical element in the people; for there is certainly a religious sentiment, a restlessness, which craves more than the actual affords, an aspiration and yearning of the heart for communion, which cannot take place through words and thoughts, but only through some subtler medium, like music. It is not nature’s fault, if we want the musical sense or organ. Slow, but sure development, under proper culture, will prove this. Singing is taught in schools embracing thousands, without much consciousness, to be sure, of the higher meaning of music, but with great success in producing quick and correct ears, and pure, flexible voices, and in making the number of those who can sing and read music, and of those who can enjoy and appreciate it, vastly greater than it was. This creates audiences for the oratorios and concerts; there is a looking that way; and the art bids fair sooner or later to have justice done it.
Next to thorough drilling in the rudiments, we want inspiring models. We want to hear good music. In the schools the surface of the soil is loosened: it is time that good seeds should be dropped into it. The Psalmody of the country choir and the dancing master’s fiddle, the waltzes and variations of the music-shop, Russell’s songs, and “Jim Crow,” and “Harrison Melodies,” are not apt to visit the popular mind with the deep emotions of true music. Handel should be heard more, and Haydn, and Mozart, and Beethoven. The works of true genius, which cannot be too familiar, since they are always new like nature, should salute our cars until the nobler chords within our souls respond. We should be taught the same reverence for Bach and Handel as for Homer; and, having felt the spell of their harmonies upon us, should glow at the mention of their names. Every opportunity of hearing good music is to be hailed as an angel’s visit in our community. It is in this view that we look back with pleasure upon the concerts of the past season.
That music of any kind draws crowds, is encouraging. But we have been more than encouraged, on looking over our old concert bills, which we have kept through the winter as a record of pleasant hours, to see how much genuine classic music has been brought out, with more or less success, at the various concerts:—music, which the few devoutly musical had heard of, and longed to hear, with but a faint hope that they should soon be so blest;—music, which introduces us within the charmed precincts of genius, like Beethoven’s. In attempting to single out the most significant from such a multitude of performances, we shall of course omit much that was praiseworthy; for our opportunity of hearing was limited, nor is our memory sure, nor our space sufficient.
Most worthy of mention were the Oratorios of the Handel and Haydn Society. We had “The Messiah” twice, and “The Creation” several times. Neukomm’s “David” had the greatest run, as usual. It is brilliant and variegated, and had been more thoroughly practised and learned than the other pieces. But as a composition it should not be mentioned with them. Its interest fades away, when it is repeated beyond a certain point, while that of “The Messiah” steadily increases. To the former we owe some bright hours, to the latter an influence for life. We feel tempted to call “The Messiah” the only Oratorio, and to doubt if there will ever be another. “David” is something halfway between the Oratorio and the Opera; it is too dramatic, too individual and personal, too circumstantial to be sublime. “The Messiah” was brought out this winter for the first time in a manner which made it felt, and conveyed some idea or presentiment of its true grandeur, depth, and beauty. Many hearers then, for the first time, discovered what a treasure the world contained, and were moved to try to appreciate it. This effect was owing in great part to the Society’s new hall, the Melodéon, which gives ample scope to the great choruses. The orchestra, though small, was uncommonly good. Much as we loved this music before, we were not properly aware until now of the surpassing beauty of the accompaniments. They were sketched by Handel, when instrumentation was limited, and filled out with a glorious warmth of coloring by Mozart. To have done it so well his soul must have become impregnated with the very spirit of the original. Handel seems to have monopolized the one subject for an Oratorio, Humanity’s anticipation of its Messiah. This properly is the one theme of all pure music; this is the mysterious promise which it whispers; this is the hope with which it fills us as its tones seem to fall from the blue sky, or to exhale through the earth’s pores from its secret divine fountains. Music is the aspiration, the yearnings of the heart to the Infinite. It is the prayer of faith, which has no fear, no weakness in it. It delivers us from our actual bondage; it buoys us up above our accidents, and wafts us on waves of melody to the heart’s ideal home. This longing of the heart, which is a permanent fact of human life, and with which all know how to sympathize has received its most perfect historical form in the Jewish expectation of a Messiah. The prediction and coming of Jesus stand as a type forever of the divine restlessness, the prophetic yearning of the heart of humanity. Has any poet found words for this feeling to match with those of the Psalmist and the Prophets of old? With wonderful judgment Handel called out the noblest of those grand sentences, and constructed them into a complete and epic unity. They are almost the only words we know, which do not limit the free, world-permeating, ever-shifting, Protean genius of music. Words, the language of thoughts, are too definite, and clip the wings and clog the graceful movements of this unresting spirit: she chants forgetfulness of limits, and charms us along with her to the Infinite; she loves to wander through the vague immense, and seems everywhere at once; then only is she beautiful. With the growth of the musical taste, therefore, one acquires a more and more decided preference for instrumental music rather than song; music pure, rather than music wedded with another art, which never can be quite congenial. We prefer a Beethoven’s Symphony to anything ever sung, with the single exception of Handel’s Messiah. In that the words seem one with the music,—as eternal, as sublime, as universal and impersonal. They set no limit to the music, but contain in themselves seeds of inexhaustible harmonies and melodies. We could not spare a word, or suffer any change. “The Messiah” always must have meaning to all men, it is so impersonal. Its choruses are the voice of nil humanity. Its songs are the communion of the solitary soul with the Infinite. But there is no Duct or Trio in it, no talking of individual with individual. Either it is the sublime of the soul merged in the multitude, or it is the sublime of the soul alone with God. And then its depths of sadness!—from such depths alone could roll those mighty ocean-choruses of triumph, the “Hallelujah” chorus, the “Wonderful” chorus, and “Worthy the Lamb.” “The Messiah” will always stand, in its stern simplicity, as one of the adopted of Nature.
How different “The Creation”! We are in another element, with another man, with Haydn, that sunny, genial, busy nature. If with Handel all is unity, grandeur, bold simplicity, universality; here all is variety, individuality, profusion of detail. If with Handel it is aspiration to the Unknown, here it is description of the Known. If one forebodes another world, the other lovingly reflects the hues of this world. Handel with bold hand sketches gigantic shadows, which lose themselves in infinite space. With Haydn everything is happily planned within the limits of certainty, and conscientiously and gracefully finished. It is the perfection of art. A work of Haydn’s is a Grecian temple: there it stands complete in itself and fully executed, and suggests no more. A work of Handel’s, (still more of Beethoven’s,) is a Gothic cathedral, which seems never finished, but becoming, growing, yearning and striving upwards, the beginning only of a boundless plan, whose consummation is in another world. We enjoy with Haydn the serene pleasure of doing things, the ever fresh surprise of accomplishment. With him we round off and finish one thing after another, and look upon it and pronounce it good; but we do not lift our eyes away and yearn for what is beyond. Constant, cheerful activity was the element of Haydn. Hence the Creation was the very subject for the man; his whole nature chose it for him. In “The Creation” the instrumental accompaniments are prominent, and the voices secondary. The orchestra weaves the picture; the voices but hint its meaning. Literal description of nature is carried even too far in it. Beautiful and surprising as those imitations are, of Chaos, and the birth of Light, and rolling ocean, and smooth meadows, and brooks, and birds, and breezes, monsters of the deep and of the forest, and insects sparkling like gold dust in the sunny air,—yet often they seem too mechanical and curious, and out of the province of Art, which should breathe the pervading spirit of Nature, as a whole, and not copy too carefully the things that are in it. Whoever has studied the Pastoral Symphony, or the Pastoral Sonata of Beethoven, will feel the difference between music which flows from an inward feeling of nature, from a common consciousness (as it were) with nature, and the music which only copies, from without, her single features. These pieces bring all summer sensations over you, but they do not let you identify a note or a passage as standing for a stream, or a bird. They do not say; look at this or that, now imagine nightingales, now thunder, now mountains, and now sunspots chasing shadows; but they make you feel as you would if you were lying on a grassy slope in a summer’s afternoon, with the melancholy leisure of a shepherd swain, and these things all around you without your noticing them. Haydn paints you this or that by means of various qualities and combinations of tone, and various movements; with wonderful success he calls up images; you admire the ingenuity and the beauty, but are not inspired. We were glad to hear the opening symphony, representing chaos, performed by the orchestra so as to give us some dim conception of what it might be when given by a great and practised orchestra abroad. Here, of course, these things are done upon a small scale. Still they afford the lover of music an opportunity to study the great works, of which he has heard, and thus prepare himself to hear them understandingly whenever he shall be blessed with a hearing of them in their full proportions. We do feel that we grow familiar with “The Messiah,” though we have only heard it here. The characteristic and eternal features of the composition as it was in the mind of Handel, seem to come out more and more clearly as we think it over, and remain in our mind long after the accidents of an inadequate performance are forgotten. An ideal of what “The Messiah” in itself must be is nourished in us by “The Messiah,” as we have heard it under such comparatively poor advantages. For this we thank the Handel and Haydn Society. We congratulate them on the success of their last performances; and think the interest with which a crowded audience listened, a sign of some significance in a community only beginning to be musical. Would it not have been better to have repeated “The Messiah” again and again, and then “The Creation,” as long as audiences would come, that so our people might study and get to appreciate this grand music? They require to be heard many times, until their melodies wander through our vacant minds unconsciously as we walk and as we work. A repeated performance of “The Messiah,” as good as the two given last winter, would do more to bring out the latent musical taste of the people, than anything else, unless it were a very perfect opera, which we cannot have.
Next to the oratorios, we remember with most pleasure the two concerts of Mr, Rackemann, and the two of Mr. Kossowski, the distinguished pianists. These gentlemen are both artists; the former superior in chaste elegance and finish of execution, the latter in fire and energy. The former seems to have accomplished most; the latter promises most,—there is inspiration, as well as skill in his performance. They have introduced us to the new school of Piano Forte playing, and have let us hear some of the wonderful feats of Thalberg, Dohler, Chopin, Henselt, and Listz. These masters have given a new meaning to the Piano Forte, having, by indefatigable practice superadded to more or less of genius, attained to a mastery of its powers, and bringing out the peculiar soul (as it were) of the instrument, in a way unknown before. Their compositions are peculiarly Piano Forte compositions, and adapted to the display of their new arts of astonishing execution. It was a satisfaction to hear them. They certainly have a great deal of character, and are interesting in their kind. We can enjoy them for what they are, without complaining that they are not something else. They are rich, brilliant, wild, astonishing. They revel in insatiable rapture and rage of all fantastic motions. They are the heaving of the billowy deep, now dark, now lit by gleams of lightning; they are the sweeping breeze of the forest; they are the flickering aurora; they are the cool flow of the summer evening zephyr; they are the dance of the elves by moonlight; they are everything marvellous and exquisite. There is marked individuality, too, in the works of each. There is sweet pathos in the Notturnes of Chopin. There is a fond, dreamy home-sickness in the “Souvenir de Varsovie,” by Henselt; and in his “If I were a bird I’d fly to thee,” how the soul dissolves and floats away!—the instrument becomes fluid. The “Galope Chromatique” of Listz, was altogether the wildest and most original thing of all, and displayed a genius which we might expect from this devout admirer of Beethoven. We can admire too, though without much lasting soul-satisfaction, the massive, gorgeous constructiveness of Thalberg. One of the novelties of this style of playing, which is highly expressive, consists in carrying on an air in the middle of the instrument, with a florid accompaniment playing around it, above and below. The story seems transacted betwixt earth and sky. In this way the whole length of the Piano Forte speaks at once, and it becomes quite an orchestra in itself. It is with pleasure that we record these things, and we hope to have an opportunity to appreciate them better, that we may judge them more discriminatingly. But we should have been much more pleased to have heard the Sonatas of Beethoven, the “Concert-Stück” of Weber, and such true classic works, not written for the sake of displaying the Piano Forte, but for the sake of music. The pianists of the day show too much of ambition, too little of inspiration, of true art-feeling, in their playing and their choice of subjects. These performances were varied by two Trios of Beethoven, for Piano, Violin, &c., given in the best style of our young German professors, who always play as if they breathed an element which we do not. These were rare sounds in our concert rooms. The few artists who cultivate this diviner music, seem to keep it to themselves, and to feel that it would be casting pearls before swine to produce it before audiences, which can be enraptured about Russell. But was not the result in these trials encouraging? There was profound silence in the room, followed by a gleam of pure satisfaction on most faces as we looked round;—or was it only the fancied reflection of our own mood? We think not. Let us have more of this. How can we ever have taste enough to keep musicians warm, if they will risk nothing upon us, and never give us a chance to hear the best?
Mr. Knight’s last concert deserves particular notice as being the first and the only promiscuous concert in this place, composed entirely of classic pieces’ from great masters. It was music for the few, who, we trust, are gradually becoming more; and we were surprised that all the lovers of good music did not come out. Here we had Beethoven’s “AdƐläide;” which, however, we were sorry to hear transposed into an English song, “Rosalie,” which is not nearly so beautiful, and is moreover an entire change of subject, not the theme which first inspired the music. Mr. Knight sang it in his usual chaste and true style; though with hardly enough of feeling. The second movement, too, was sung much too rapidly; it did not give the ear time to dwell upon those magnificent chords of the accompaniment, which is as wonderful as the part for the voice. But for a just criticism of this and of the whole concert we would refer to the excellent “Musical Magazine” of Mr. Hach,—a work which we are glad to notice in passing; for, next to good music itself, good musical criticism should be hailed as among the encouraging signs. Mr. Knight also sang with great effect “The Gravedigger,” by Kalliwoda, and “The Erl-King,” by Schubert, two genuine flowers of German song. Then there was a Canzonet of Haydn, a “Gratias Agimus,” by Guglielmi, a Septuor of Haydn’s, and another of Mozart’s, and several more pieces of that order. Mr. Knight is perhaps the most accomplished musician of all the singers who have visited us. Some of his own compositions are original and highly intellectual. His skill in accompaniment is remarkable. For a promiscuous audience his singing of a common sentimental song is too cold, and fails to move; but his singing of such music as the songs in “The Creation,” is more than faultless. If he remains with us, we trust he will continue to presume upon the growing taste of the public, and to labor for Art more than popularity. Such efforts will in time be rewarded by the formation of a sure and appreciating audience.
The “Amateur Orchestra” have cultivated the higher classic music with encouraging success, and by the concerts to which they invite their friends occasionally, do much to create a taste for the best Symphonies and Overtures. On the last occasion they were assisted by the “Social Glee Club.” The performances of both were excellent, and the selection of pieces such as would interest an audience of musicians. The house was crowded. The grand and dark Overtures of Kalliwoda, another by Romberg, that of Tancredi, and a Symphony by Ries, the pupil of Beethoven, were given with much effect, and evidently felt by the crowd. Of a similar character, though more miscellaneous, was the complimentary concert got up by the members of the musical corps for Mr. Asa Warren, the modest and deserving leader for many years of the Handel and Haydn Orchestra. Enthusiasm for the man brought together the largest orchestra, which has yet appeared in our city. The Overture to “La Gazza Ladza” was admirably executed; it is worth noticing, that this was the first instance we remember of an Overture’s being repeated at the call of an audience. This promises something. We could not but feel that the materials, that evening collected, might, if they could be kept together through the year, and induced to practise, form an Orchestra worthy to execute the grand works of Haydn and Mozart. Orchestra and audience would improve together, and we might even hope to hear one day the “Sinfonia Eroica,” and the “Pastorate” of Beethoven.
The Boston Academy have been very lately giving a short series of public performances, which should be among the most attractive and popular, if there is any charm in the names of Haydn, Sebastian Bach, Fesca, Pasiello, &c. But the audience was not worthy of the occasion. The general public, those who go to concerts for amusement or from the fashion of the thing, had doubtless been wearied out with concerts long before. Still worse, those who went seemed not to be mainly of the musical class; and a magnificent Organ Fugue of Bach, performed by Mr. Müller, the most accomplished organist who has been among us, was thrown away upon a yawning, talking assembly. The “Spring,” from Haydn’s “Seasons,” was better appreciated because of its sprightliness. The Academy want Solo singers. Moreover, their style of singing seems too merely mechanically precise, without glow, and a common consciousness blending instruments and voices into one. Our people are not yet so musical that they can be attracted by a piece without regard to the performer. They will go to hear Caradori, Rackemann, &c. sooner than they will to hear Mozart or Haydn. But we hope the Academy will persevere in producing what they can of the great music. The audience one day will come round.
Much more might be mentioned. But we have not space. And it was our purpose only to mention what stood out in our memory most prominently as signs of real progress. Looking back over this wide field of concerts, we note the few sunny spots. Our “Dial” does not tell the time of day, except the sun shine. It ignores what is dull and merely of course, and proclaims the signs of hope.
Were this the proper place, we might say much of what has been done in a quieter way in private musical circles. Much of the choicest music, of what the English call “Chamber music,” has been heard and enjoyed in various houses by the few. Were all these little circles brought together it would form a musical public, which no artist need despise. This leads us to make a few suggestions in view of a coming concert season.
We want two things. Frequent public performances of the best music, and a constant audience, of which the two or three hundred most musical persons in the community shall be the nucleus. Good music has been so rare, that when it comes, those, who know how to enjoy such, do not trust it, and do not go.
To secure these ends, might not a plan of this kind be realized. Let a few of our most accomplished and refined musicians institute a series of cheap instrumental concerts, like the Quartette Concerts, or the “Classic Concerts” of Moscheles in England. Let them engage to perform Quartettes, &c., with occasionally a Symphony, by the best masters and no other. Let them repeat the best and most characteristic pieces enough to make them a study to the audience. To ensure a proper audience there should be subscribers to the course. The two or three hundred, who are scattered about and really long to hear and make acquaintance with Beethoven and Haydn, could easily be brought together by such an attraction, and would form a nucleus to whatever audience might be collected, and would give a tone to the whole, and secure attention. Why will not our friends, Messrs. Schmidt, Hach, Isenbech, &c. undertake this? It might be but a labor of love at the outset; but it would create in time the taste which would patronize it and reward it.
Might not a series of lectures too, on the different styles and composers be instituted under the auspices of the Academy, or some other association, parallel with the musical performances. A biography and critical analysis of the musical genius of Handel, for instance, would add interest to the performance of “The Messiah.”
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