m ft « ml VA\ M w m SVVM cviavE ESSAYS IN MUSIC BY v 0. G. SONNECK , 1 ml M m LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA FROM THE LIBRARY OF BERNARD HERRMANN ( /£ &t ^/Mesy^<^-~ ^ 'JJThqeles *(^ BU*CHARn SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC L SUUM CUIQUE ESSAYS IN MUSIC By O. G. SONNECK & G. SCHIRMER New York : 3 East 43d St. . London, W. : 18, Berners St. Boston : The Boston Music Co. Copyright, 1916, by G. Schirmer 26534 PREFATORY NOTE The articles forming this book have been reprinted by courteous permission of the original publishers and practically without change. That will account for in- consistencies of opinion, if such there be. I hope that to be the case, since chronic consistency is a virtue in mummies only. At any rate, no attempt was made to adjust earlier to later views. "Paris versions" are always anachronistic, even if better. Some readers may miss a reprint of such historical essays as that on " Early American Operas," occasionally confused with my book on "Early Opera in America." They are reserved for eventual publication in a second volume of selected assays. To Dr. Theodore Baker my hearty thanks are due for seeing the book through the press and for his masterly atmospheric translation of the German articles. O. G. Sonneck. CONTENTS Page Suum cuique 3 Music and Progress 15 National Tone-Speech versus Volapuk — Which? 25 The Musical Side of Our First Presidents 37 Benjamin Franklin's Musical Side 59 MacDowell versus MacDowell 87 A National Conservatory: Some Pros and Cons 107 A Survey of Music in America 121 Anton Beer-Walbrunn 157 Was Richard Wagner a Jew? 177 Signs of a New Uplift in Italy's Musical Life 215 SUUM CUIQUE SUUM CUIQUE ("Die Musik," 1907-8, Vol. VII, No. 10) Anarchy! Hypocrisy! Back to antiquity! Dash to the extreme left! Damocles' sword of beauty! De- generation! Regeneration! Pseudo-music! Celestial super-music! Hellish discords! — What a fine thing the slogan is, forsooth! It works like effervescent lemonade tablets; one sets them foaming according to his per- sonal taste and regales himself and others, but more especially posterity, who will wonder how it was pos- sible to label the latest querelle des bouffons with the poet Henckell's saying about our "mighty age." Be- sides, it is really comical how that repellantly-attractive young lady Salome is all at once shouldered with the responsibility for ideas which may have worn the charm of novelty some ten years ago. One surveying this scrimmage from a distance feels tempted to provide a prelude to Master Draeseke's now so familiar dictum: Confusion over the "confusion in music." In all this there is nothing mighty, save intolerance; while the angle of vision is of the narrowest. So hedged in by the bounds of the realm, that through it all one can hear the too-importunate cry "Neu-Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles!" (or "Beneath criticism!" as the case may be). In a word, it would seem that in Germany itself only a few members of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein might be mentioned who, by and large, have no cause to complain of the public, the critics, and the publishers. A sufficient reason for the more tolerant attitude of the antipodean Dioscuri Strauss and Reger, as contrasted with their opponents, towards even Mendelssohn, who, after all, was not wholly without talent. 3 4 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Now, what is all this hubbub about? At bottom, merely whether the so-called immutable canons of beauty in art permit one to write music as the laws of his being dictate. Whereupon music-history and musical aesthetics are forthwith brought into action — nota bene, by both sides — in order to solve a problem which is none. This prompts me to quote a paradox launched by the poet Georg Fuchs: "There is no art; there are only artists." For me there is far more wisdom in this flash of wit than in dogmas on the limitations and the true sphere of music, parading in their profundity as the sole means of grace. The artist has a right to express himself in tones as the spirit may move. Whoever, for any reason, finds no pleasure in the product, has an equal right to vent his displeasure through speech or pen, but he must not set up to be an art- pontiff or art-bailiff. No one man, not even a Bach, a Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, or Brahms, has yet possessed a monopoly in the development of music. No more have Richard Strauss, or Reger, and those who swell their train for reasons intrinsic or extrinsic. Each one simply contributes what his nature, influenced by the Zeitgeist, demands of him. Whether this is done in the flush of youthful zeal or with the cooler calculation of age, is unimportant. Nor does it matter whether he gains wealth and fame at a bound, or grows old hungering before his seed brings its harvest, or even has to await the music-historian, who in certain circles is painted as a kind of Satan with queue a la chinoise. It is equally immaterial, on what Master a composer is based or thinks he is based ; for even the wildest anar- chist is demonstrably descended from one or more masters, no matter whether he be afflicted with ill- assimilated Wagner or ill-digested Kucken. He must not even be forbidden to employ squeaking piglings as orchestral color, if only he can impose the impression on the hearer — no matter whether the latter otherwise SUUM CUIQUE likes or dislikes the work — that his musico-zoological cult is spontaneous and sincere. He may frame quad- ruple fugues, or fashion a musical projection of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, should the spirit irresistibly urge him thereto. Whether genius or botcher, Jove or ox, equal rights for all. One must not even dispute an artist's right to be tasteless from the very depths of his being. Let him therefore sow whatsoe'er he will. But when he brings the fruits of his spiritual travail to market, let him, in turn, be tolerant. He must not fly into a rage when hearers and critics weigh his product with the same sincerity which constrained him to shape his note-heads thus or so. One who is confronted with a work given over to publicity, and also takes art seriously, has precisely the same right as the artist to be an anar- chist or reactionary, according to his disposition; and the artist, too, has really no right to dispute his right to be tasteless from the very depths of his being. Not what the composer does, but how he does it — that is the point at issue. The form, the material, the plastic or philosophical subject-matter, is the foundation from which he throws out a bridge for the valuation of his work. This foundation is the given premise, the glass, through which the composer desires his work to be surveyed, and the question is simply whether or no he has attained what he aimed at. If you approach any given work with a set of preconceived artistic beliefs, you substitute an artificial premise for the natural one, and forgo in advance the possibility of impartial recep- tivity. Should your premise be the same as the artist's, an overvaluation of the work usually results; but if the two are antagonistic, the work is sure to be most despite- fully used. Two instances: When the composer an- nounces a quadruple fugue, the opponent of quadruple fugues should stay at home. But, if he does venture into the lion's den, he must be prepared to meet some- thing he dislikes. He can reasonably expect only a 6 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC quadruple fugue, and not a symphonic poem. The matter to be decided is solely to what extent the com- poser succeeded in writing a well-considered quadruple fugue. On the other hand, in case the composer takes it into his head to construct a musical projection of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the opponents of program-music may view this attempt with regret, but they have no right to expect a quadruple fugue. Contrariwise, they are most decidedly justified in demanding a demon- stration ad aures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa instead of, say, the two leaning towers of Bologna. Hence, let a quadruple fugue be a quadruple fugue; let program- music be program-music. But both must, above all else, be rich in musical invention! So this ^Esthetic of the Specific requires, so to speak, homoeopathic rather than allopathic criticism. Herewithal, war is by no means declared on either the passionate or dispassionate, objective discussion of aesthetic problems. But theories have nothing in common with an impartial estimate of a given work. They belong in another sphere of interest, which is, in its way, as important and necessary as artistic crea- tion — and this by virtue of the incontrovertible considera- tion that everything, that exists, evidently must exist. As far as the creative artist is concerned, historical, aesthetic and theoretical discussions bear instruction of chiefly technical value for him. They are adapted, like ball-playing for the muscles, to develop his technique on the side of harmony, form, etc., but more particu- larly in the matter of taste. It will hardly be denied that the creative artists themselves are not invariably persons of most refined taste; or — if this be not ad- mitted — at least that they hold no monopoly of good taste. And if even this be denied, it must surely be allowed that good taste, like any other human attribute, can be stunted or grow to maturity. He who by nature has no taste — and many otherwise gifted composers SUUM CUIQUE seem to suffer from this deficiency — can at least be taught to avoid glaring errors of taste, as the blind learn not to run against the wall. Now, who shall undertake the inculcation of taste? First of all, the Masters themselves, through the example of their works. True, the more magnetic their art, the more dangerous are they for composers still impressionable as wax, and many a gifted mind has become — not from lack of individuality, but on account of too early familiarity with patterns predesigned for him by Nature — a victim of the patent "process of dissimilitudinarization", by which the faithful disciples seek a further develop- ment of precisely what is perishable in the pattern, namely, the mannerisms. If only for this reason, the composers cannot claim an exclusive right to show the way to good taste through their works. Just as little can he claim this right, who has made it his lifework to excise the kernel — the representative types, as it were — from masterworks by means of investigations and comparisons in the history, technique and philosophy of art. The conclusions reached by such theoretical studies may be more or less ingenious, well grounded, shrewd and fascinating, but are not binding. At best, they merely crystallize the precipitate of personal taste into a confession of faith. They always are and must be subjective (at most, collectively subjective), and never of fundamental, universal applicability. More especially, with respect to the future. In any event, it is immaterial whether a theorist or critic (in the above sense) hits the mark with his prophecies or stultifies himself. He, too, precisely like the creative artist, can yield only what his own nature demands of him. His importance for art lies in the fact that his teachings, through the vibration of sympathetic chords in kindred souls, open the eyes of artists who yet are blind or pur- blind, and draw them to their predestined paths. While plotting this critical weather-report we must not be led 8 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC astray by the circumstance that the cleverest theorists sometimes cast the gauntlet before the most prosperous talents. However well-intentioned, the theorist simply can not make himself a universal guide to good taste; all that he can do is to provide a positive stimulus for the artist of kindred affects. Unless we aim at inbreed- ing, we should rejoice when all possible theoretical colors crowd our palette. Then each artist can select those which he lacks for the clear emblazonment of his artistic mission. When once the far-reaching benefit, for art, of such a tolerant conception is recognized in principle, any individual may be as intolerant toward any other as ever he pleases. Then we should have the free competition of contending forces instead of the em- bittered blind-alley feuds which so deplorably dis- tinguish us musicians from other artists. The labyrinthine and withal narrow way from the score to the concert-hall and the stage has the natural effect, that we musicians cannot have the same con- sideration for producers of dissimilar kind as we might willingly show, were the possibilities of "arriving" of a less complicated sort. Still, that is no reason for turn- ing a necessary evil into a disgraceful outrage. For an outrage it is when music, in the pretended interest of so-called progress and the thinly-veiled interests of a "spiritual coalition," is forced into the straitjacket of some few "tendencies," whether it be the tendency of the trilateral fortification Berlioz-Liszt-Wagner, or yet beyond them to Richard Strauss, or to Brahms and through him on to Reger. Music, now as ever, is a realm of unlimited possibilities. Beside her mountain- heights she has her hill-countries; she has her steppes, and also her forests; her rivers and her rivulets, her sunrise and her sunset. Such a wealth of diversified charms has she, that every taste may find what it seeks. Now some one digs a couple of canals and tries with might and main to lead taste — that is, the evolution SUUM CUIQUE of music — into them, without stopping to think that canals are artificial and gradually get choked with mud. Many ways lead to the Beautiful; precisely so many ways are there, as individualities. So with the notion of "tendency" we cannot go far, for it postulates a tablature of common characteristics, instead of finding the chief est charm in just those subtle divergences which do not permit of tabulation. Now, as that which is common must naturally form the groundfloor, we might say that the partisan of the aesthetics of "ten- dency" artificially obstructs sundry wellsprings of music, joins the union, and starts boycotting right and left. In this chamber of horrors two Procrustean beds occupy the place of honor; our so-called absolute music, and our no less so-called program-music. This limitation is masterly, but is further refined by those who consider only the one or the other of these two species to be admissible. Such renunciation of either species for one's aesthetic home-consumption assuredly has a certain charm and a certain value in educating one's taste; but whether one does (like your humble servant) or does not draw the line strictly between musical symbolics and musical symbolism, and is or is not able to follow all the contortions of certain programmists with pleasure, not to mention the academic parade-march of certain absolutists, no aesthetic casuistry can make away with the fact that these two species have existed side by side for centuries. And once again we stand face to face with the simple consideration that whatever exists evi- dently must exist. The high tides in the two species do not, however, always coincide, and our historians may sometime accept the view which I brought forward as long as ten years ago, which is, that a process of mutual inoculation goes on between the two species in their various seasons. Furthermore, since every separate entity perishes in order to bloom again — through regeneration or, if you prefer, through reincarnation — _10 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC in a new form, there is no reason for aesthetic anxiety. Program-music, which for the nonce is, so to say, the fashionable flower, will wither, will make room for the "absolute" music which it has fructified — until the pendulum again swings over to the other side. This renewal of growth will repeat itself till the millennium of music, although springing from the soil of fresh means and modes of expression. In brief, the style changes, the genus remains. There is, however, no metronome for this natural, automatic process, and not even the cleverest theorist has the slightest influence on its tempo. Whenever the development of music depends on any- thing tangible, we shall generally find some external condition, some circumstance of organization or climate, in the environment of the creative artist: his surround- ings while growing up, the composition of the orchestra, the support of the theatre by private or public means, the lack of concert-halls, the interest in choral singing, the influence of war or peace on the popular readiness to support musical enterprises, and other like matters of a purely economic nature. There are those who will find in these observations an undervaluation of the idea "tendency." Perhaps we can reach an agreement if a boundary-line be drawn between this idea and that of the "school." What is meant by this differentiation may be figuratively ex- pressed as follows: Whereas, in the case of the "school," the development can spread by radiation, with the "tendency" the rays are concentrated in one focus. By following up this conception you will find that the aesthetics of "tendency" must lead, on the one hand, to an overvaluation of congenial spirits, and, on the other, to pessimism with regard to one's own times. Otherwise I, for my part, am unable to explain the oft-repeated Jeremiads over the current poverty of invention. But these same Jeremiads are, in turn, only the expression of an unwholesome, chronic intolerance. He who seeks SUUM CUIQUE 11 after poverty with Diogenes' lantern, will find poverty. Whether we harbor in our midst geniuses of the incon- testable greatness of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Wagner, the future alone may show. However, the creative wealth of an epoch does not depend on the geniuses, but on the number of those gifted ones who possess a profile of their own. Of such there is certainly no scarcity to-day. On the contrary, our times, in that respect, are on a par with any other epoch. But we must really know our contemporaries. Of course, any one who is possessed of the tendency devil will pass by many with indifferent haste, or survey them from the wrong side, or pronounce a premature sentence on those who escape all classification and whose individuality hides behind their peculiarities as behind a hedge of thorns. Where, for example, will the aesthetics of ten- dency in Germany place Arnold Mendelssohn, Iwan Knorr, Anton Beer-Walbrunn? They belong to no category, and yet are striking types. But such artists of whom too little is known should not be contrasted with or weighed over against one another, neither ought one to reproach them with the "good old" times or the "better new" times, or even boycott them because their style is not controlled by the syndicate of Strauss & Co., and because they have a mind to go their own way apart. If the creative assets of our times are to be estimated according to such criterions, then, indeed, our cavillers at the actual are right. But the outside world, at all events, need not let itself be drawn into this unprofitable quarrel . And it must be most emphatically insisted upon, that Germany has no claims whatever to a monopoly of talent at the present day. Or is it claimed that Debussy, d'Indy, Faure, Dukas, Puccini, Martucci, Bossi, Elgar, Delius, Holbrooke, Bantock, MacDowell, Loeffler, Converse, Hadley, Chadwick, Parker, Stillman Kelley, Rimsky- Korsakow, Scriabine, Rebikoff , Rachmaninow, Balakirew, 12 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Stenhammar, Sjogren, Sibelius, Lange-M tiller, Nielson, Peterson-Berger, and many beside, who are culti- vating music after their own fashion, are Germans, or quite unworthy of mention when a review is held of the German artists by the grace of God? In music, as in other matters, Germany is only one great power among the great powers. The other lands have allowed themselves to be fructified by the Wagner-Liszt-Brahms epoch only in so far as was artistically necessary ; for the rest, they have found, either outside of Germany or at home, such inspiration for their music of the present or the future as comports with their national character. There is an inclination to poke fun at the average Italian, who, in conversation with forestieri, is fond of airing his next-of-kinship with Dante. Now, it is an unwelcome, unpalatable truth, which can not, of course, be appreciated to the full by the German himself, though all the better by outsiders, that for something like thirty years the average German musician has tested foreign compositions, first of all, for their German content. Should this latter be of little consequence, the whole work — for him — is apt to be thought of little consequence. Now, is the fact that the French, the Rus- sians, etc., found it easier than the Germans to tear themselves from the arms of the giant, Wagner, any reason for getting angry with them just for doing so? Such chauvinism is the height of intolerance. Honor your German masters, but do not deny other peoples the right, when they feel the power stirring within them, to follow their own devices after a century of Gefman tutelage. {Translated by Theodore Baker.) MUSIC AND PROGRESS MUSIC AND PROGRESS (New Music Review, 1908) The popular mind believes progress to be an irresistibly steady development from good to better, but progress is rather the prompt and logical adaptation to the exigencies of changing conditions. An individual or a nation ceases to be progressive when they adhere to the methods of the past without preparing for the future. Things come and go in a kind of counterpoint, and it is not always easy to distinguish between the germ of decay and the germ of development. Nor is it at all true that the new is always really better than the old. It is simply different, a matter of necessity, the logical result of the modulation into new conditions; and the inventors, prophets or discoverers of any idea, political, economic, artistic, technical, are merely those who scent this change. All this seems so obvious that I almost feel ashamed of having mentioned it. Yet this cold-blooded and perhaps prosaic attitude towards progress does not appeal to those — and they are in the majority — who ultimately expect another Eden. Nor is it a Christian attitude. Still, it is just as stimu- lating ethically as the "progress-equal-to-better" theory, and just as sensible. Indeed, if we weigh them both in matters of art, and particularly of music, it cannot be doubtful which of the two theories is the more correct and fruitful. Logically, the popular conception of progress would lead to the dogma that music is steadily becoming "better." In other words, sooner or later some composer without special talent would produce better music than Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Monteverdi, Palestrina, simply because he had the good fortune to be born a few centuries after them. The conclusion seems 15 16 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC inevitable, yet the absurdity is apparent. No, with all due respect for the lessons of our youth, progress is not a matter of chronology. It will be asked, Admitting that Monteverdi, for instance, was a creative genius of the first rank, that his innovations have not been sur- passed in daring, that his art appealed to his contempo- raries with the strongest possible force, that his insight into the esthetics of opera was amazingly keen — admit- ting all this, are not his operas primitive and crude as compared with those of Wagner? Is "Tristan und Isolde" really not an improvement on "Orfeo"? In many respects, unmistakably, and it would be foolish to deny a chronological improvement within a given form or species of music. But this admission immediately fixes the sphere of strength of the pet popular theory: it is relatively correct, not absolutely. And relatively correct only within narrow limits, inasmuch as, even in the field of opera, improvements do not progress chronologically in all eternity. Otherwise, again the absurd conclusion would force itself on us that some future opera composer would produce better operas than Wagner, not because he had the necessary genius, but because he came after Wagner. Or, looking into the past, are Mozart's operas really better than Gluck's,, and Wagner's better than Mozart's? Some people do not hesitate to say so, but they put on the scales not only the actual musical-dra- matic values, but also the taste of their own times, not to mention individual preferences. But changing taste is not necessarily a criterion of value. Once an art-form has passed the experimental stage, as in Monteverdi's case, and has attained maturity, as with Gluck or Mo- zart, the fact that a later generation, and naturally so, prefers the works of its own times, has precious little to do with the actual comparative value. Gluck's "Iphi- genia in Tauris," Mozart's "Don Giovanni," Verdi's "Falstaff" and Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" are merely different manifestations of mature genius in a MUSIC AND PROGRESS 17 mature form of art at different periods, but one is not better than the other. Exactly the same arguments prevail, if we approach the field of oratorio, symphony, chamber music, song, etc. I, for one, do not concede for a moment Beet- hoven's symphonies or quartets to be better than certain really inspired mature works by Haydn and Mozart, or those of Brahms and Cesar Franck to be better than those of Beethoven; though occasionally, when I feel the fascination of our times, they appeal to me more strongly than those of Beethoven, in whom, after all, a different "Zeitgeist" was at work. An expe- rience, which many worshippers at the shrine of the classics will share with me. Even in the matter of orchestration, it is doubtful whether the theory here attacked is sound. It would be carrying poverty to China to deny that Richard Strauss and Debussy are supreme masters of the orchestral palette, but does their orchestra really sound more beau- tiful than that of Mozart? Or, not to confuse the fine distinctions which alone prevent such discussions from leading us astray, does it sound more perfect? By vir- tue of his genius Mozart employed exactly that orches- tral medium which fitted his ideas; otherwise he would not have been a genius. No later master could essentially improve on his orchestration. A re-instrumentation would produce a glaring anachronism and would de- stroy the perfect balance between the style and spirit of his ideas and the proper vehicle for their expres- sion. In detail such an attempt might sound more beau- tiful, more opulent; but the whole, as a work of art perfect in itself, would suffer. On the other hand, an equally painful anachronism and stylistic caricature would be the result, if Mozart returned to life and re- instrumentated Strauss's "Heldenleben" in the manner of the Jupiter Symphony. Undoubtedly, Mozart's suc- cessors have expanded the orchestral possibilities, have 18 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC enriched the palette, have introduced new principles of orchestral coloring and have given us a world of orches- tral beauty quite beyond even a genius like Mozart. But there the comparison ceases to be fair; the fitness of things, and "progress," become incommensurable. The truth practically is, that Mozart's instrumentation fits his ideas beyond improvement, just as Wagner's instru- mentation fits Wagner's ideas. The same truth applies more or less to Mozart's con- temporaries and predecessors; for instance, Gluck, Haydn, Handel, Bach. Indeed, he who once has heard Bach's orchestra sound as it should sound, that is, with a well-preserved harpsichord as backbone of the whole, the wind-instruments doubled and trebled according to the esthetic tenets of his age, and other lost traditions revived (to which the legendary lack of dynamic subtle- ties certainly did not belong), will have come to the conclusion that Johann Sebastian Bach was as great a virtuoso on his orchestra as Richard Strauss is on his. Because it sounds different and somewhat unfamiliar to us, does not imply that it is less beautiful, and if two works of art sound equally beautiful, one cannot possibly be better than the other. The trouble merely is that we so seldom have occasion to hear the old masters properly. So many conductors shut their eyes with contempt born of ignorance to the plainest his- torical demands of style, disregard all proper proportion between the different groups of the orchestra, play the old works without instruments called for in the score, or smother the few wind-instruments under an ava- lanche of strings, and then lay it at the door of the old masters if their orchestra sounds primitive, crude, un- balanced and queer. From whatever quarter the chronological chronic-im- provement theory is approached, it fails and must fail because it does not take into account that each age is confronted by different problems which the genius of the MUSIC AND PROGRESS 19 age solves at the psychological moment. Once solved, this particular problem defies further solution. Thus Palestrina created works of art which neither Bach nor Wagner nor the unborn masters of the future could duplicate in the same self-sufficient perfection; and, of course, vice versa. And the lesson to be learned of this protest against a very sentimental and attractive but radically wrong theory? It leads to a coquettish, conceited over-estima- tion not of the present only, but, far worse, to a wilful neglect of the past, of the immediate past, even, and thereby becomes detrimental to the best interests of our art. That a sincere admiration for the beauties of the music of to-day and to-morrow may travel brotherly with a sincere admiration for the beauties of the music of yesterday, has been abundantly proved, but what is possible for a few is possible for many. Indeed, this tolerant attitude should be made the paramount issue in the development of musical taste. In the fine arts, this catholicity of taste is recognized as a fundamental principle. There nobody, unless he be a crank, operates with the term of "better" from a shaky chronological observatory. The pictures, the statues, the palaces, themselves bear testimony too potent against any such attempt. Of course, the fine arts have this enviable advantage, that, for instance, a picture needs but a wall and a nail to speak for itself, and to be permanently before the public eye, whereas in music the ways and means for public utterance are so costly and complicated that a similar immortality becomes a physical impossibility. The nearest approach to the art museum we have is in methodically developed musical libraries, though they furnish only a very poor substitute, as the scores are but the shadows of music. Yet music possesses one advantage over the fine arts for this very reason : the bulk of the works of every age and of every art are monuments of mediocrity and not worthy 20 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC of preservation. In the fine arts, thousands of these mediocrities and atrocities are dragged ruthlessly through the centuries together with the works of lasting art-value. In music, the survival of the fit and fittest is simplified by the otherwise deplorable difficulty of utterance. This granted, the question arises: Do we make the best of this advantage? Do we systematically build, as it were, dams and dikes to regulate the mael- strom of devastation and endeavor to save what should be saved? Hardly! It is not so much a question of revival as of survival. Our musical life is as yet too poorly organized to keep somewhere and somehow, in imitation of the art mu- seum, at least a modest selection of the representative music of all ages, nations and schools before the public and the musicians themselves. This dream of a museum of music rather than of scores may yet be realized, but until this "Stilbildungschule" becomes feasible (the problem is not at all so difficult or costly as it looks), we should attempt the next best thing. If a work com- posed thirty years ago, no matter whether Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt or Berlioz stood sponsor, was then really a beautiful work of art, it is still beautiful to-day, regardless of changes in "taste," and it deserves to survive and to be heard. If changes in "taste" militate against the survival, then it behooves those who shape taste to force the idea of taste into the proper channel. They must consistently and unceasingly preach the doctrine that beauty is eternal and good taste not synonymous with fickle fashion or fads. Ideas (in the Platonic sense) are the real and only moving forces. Once rooted in the soil of public principle, they become irresistible and their growth projects, as it were, all the latent consequences into our daily life. Accord- ingly, once the principle that musical beauty of any school or style should be made to survive, underlies our art-conduct, the ways and means for this survival will MUSIC AND PROGRESS 21 present themselves automatically in spite of all obstacles. The popular chronic-improvement theory is, unfor- tunately, one of these obstacles. It plainly tends to impoverish rather than to enrich us. Nor does the opportunistic attitude of those who pride themselves on their practical views of life and smile at us idealists, lead to tangible reforms. If people crave for the "better," they should not seek it at the esthetic notion counter, but where improvements are possible and necessary — in the organization and development of our musical life. Let them study, unbiased by personal preferences, as easiest accessible, the piano and song literature of the past fifty years, select what is unmistakably good, and then look for the names of the composers and the titles of the pieces on the current concert programs, in the studios of the teachers, in the homes of music-lovers. They will be amazed at the starvation rations of our musical diet, and they will be compelled to admit that "wilful neglect of the past" is more than the pessimistic slogan of cranky antiquarians and critics. NATIONAL TONE-SPEECH VERSUS VOLAPUK— WHICH? NATIONAL TONE-SPEECH VERSUS VOLAPUK— WHICH? {"Die Musik," 1903) The irradiation of national character yields what we are wont to call nationality in music. This is essentially different from so-called "local color," which is often merely a well-weighed spice and an effective device in art, even in the hand of a foreigner; whereas the former pervades the artist's very flesh and blood. Without overt action on his part, it lends his individuality a certain communistic tinge, and eludes superficial imi- tation. For music is no cosmopolitan growth, flourishing beyond time and space. And the musician likewise is rooted in Mother Earth. He is, like every individual, the product of environment and education, the more or less pronounced representative of his people. More- over, between the peoples and, to go a step further, between the races, there exist typical differences. Of this fact our daily experience, and comparative folklore, permit no doubt to arise. An Italian's gestures, even at a distance, strongly contrast with those of a German. Their temperaments, whose reflection the gestures are, have equally distinguishable characteris- tics. For example, the German Schwung is by no means equivalent to the Italian slancio, and both are distinctly dissimilar from the elan of the Frenchman or the cold- blooded dash and go of the American. The strange veering from melancholy to fierce passion, a national trait of the Russians, may have a pendant among other peoples, but its full equivalent is unknown to me. Some are fond of confuting the above considerations by pointing out that no people has remained racially pure, and that within the various peoples themselves 25 26 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC there subsist remarkable differences in character. True enough, a genuine Bavarian is not easily mistaken for a Pomeranian, and still less a genuine Irishman for an Englishman; but with such arguments one does not simplify the problem, but complicates it, together with all its inferences. It may be said that, in general, political connections, mixed marriages, common lan- guage, education and interests, leave their various impress on nations, so that dissimilarities within the political boundaries merely make the impression of dialects (if I may say so) of the folk-character. That the given folk-character may show, on analysis, a mixture of characters, makes little difference. By out- siders it is not apprehended as a mixture, but as a unity, just as green is, psychologically, a color in itself, being a mixture of yellow and blue only for the analytical mind. The total impression naturally depends on the stronger or weaker admixture of the several colors; thus the folk-character of the United States has an Anglo-Saxon stamp, for the reason that among its heterogeneous elements the Anglo-Saxon decidedly pre- dominates. If these things are of significance for the entire outward and inward life of the nations, they are so for music, too. It does not do to speak of an international musical language just because the nations which come into contact with our musical life use the same instruments, the same scale-degrees — in brief, the same raw material. Painters also work with the same material everywhere, and still a Frenchman expresses himself differently from a German. The paintings of a Besnard, even without his signature, could not dissemble their French origin, and those of a Franz Stuck would infallibly bear the mark: Made in Germany. Not even similarity of technique or similarity in construction can obliterate the folk-character which pervades the artist's indi- viduality. NATIONAL TONE-SPEECH VERSUS VOLAPUK 27 Attention has been called — and not by the shallowest of our connoisseurs — to peculiar characteristics in the works of our Semitic masters. There be those who smile at this view, and would seek to trace its source to studious race-hatred. Their ridicule is ill-directed. When the sounding symbols of the inner life — melody, harmony, rhythm, and the rest — pour forth from the folk-soul of the Magyar in form-types which are seem- ingly controlled by psychic laws, and which affect the Teuton or the Latin as foreign, why not the same with the Semite? However environment and artistic training may have overlaid the colors, it were strange and regrettable did they not show through here and there. The neo-Russians reproach Tschaikowsky with for- eignism. They look on him, in contrast to Mussorgsky and others, as no true representative of their nation. Now, Tschaikowsky was no musical ultra-patriot, no tinker of problems ; he did not seek to parade his Russian- ism; and, nevertheless, his predilection for the Italians and Mozart cannot disguise his Russian origin from us occidentals. We (as Riemann puts it) find in him a lyrically gifted, genuinely musical nature, but at the same time a good native Russian. The Bohemian String-Quartet affords another instance. It has been noticed by many that these four artists give a Slavic coloring to all the works they play. While they interpret Bohemian and Russian masters with an inimitable realism and truth to nature, their repro- duction of our classics has the effect of an exceedingly beautiful, charmful translation from the German into the Slavic. Under their hands, Beethoven becomes a kind of Dvo?ak. They themselves are probably unconscious of this. They cannot do otherwise, and any attempt at Teutonizing would be wrecked on natural laws over which they have no control. The same naturally applies to the interpretation of Italian or Russian works by Germans or Frenchmen. 28 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Any one trying to treat this problem in extenso, as far as heterogeneous races may be considered, would constitute himself an Apostle of Commonplaces. The champions of an international musical speech must, therefore, . confine themselves to Middle and Western Europe, if their theory (which is also their ideal) is to remain rational. This would limit us to those countries which for centuries have been continuously inter- changing their musical ideas. Now, it cannot be denied that England, the Nether- lands, France, Italy, Germany, etc., have had a so nearly similar schooling and have so mutually fructified each other that their individuality has not emerged uncompromised by this manifold intermingling. But there is a vast difference betwixt a blending and an obliteration of characteristic traits. So long as peoples differ one from the other in all remaining arts, we cannot for a moment suppose that the art of music will lose its diversified physiognomy — more especially not, so long as folk-songs present such strong contrasts as they now do, and illustrate the fact that the char- acteristics of language help to shape directly (and in the case of instrumental music indirectly) the national characteristics of music. It seems to me that what has really become international is, at bottom, only the tech- nique of our art-music. Beyond this, one should not sur- render himself to any acoustic illusion. And how little, in certain cases, this international technique is able to bridge over the antagonisms and dissimilarities between the national souls, we can see in Mozart. The course of his development made him, in many matters, the descendant of Italian masters, for which reason overly clever persons set him down for an Italian composer. But then, how does it happen that even to this day he has never gained a firm footing in Italy, despite his Italian airs? Is it because he was unworthy a triumphal progress across the Alps? Is it because he is a true NATIONAL TONE-SPEECH VERSUS VOLAPUK 29 German in Italian garb, and because the Italians penetrate his partial disguise and feel that he is not one of themselves, that he strikes chords not in con- sonance with their character? This last I believe to be true, and that the striking contradiction between the external and internal expression of his Italian operas, in particular, have conditioned Mozart's status in Italy. So, twist and turn as one will, the theory of an in- ternational musical speech is not tenable. And with this disappears its qualification as an ideal aim, and thus its applicability to our future musical activities. And should any one invoke the aid of music-history, with the assertion that the branches grafted on the tree of music have borne such an abundance of good fruits during the last five centuries, that their continuance in bearing is a necessity for musical progress, he is building a castle in cloudland. For such musical grafting has done at least as much harm as good. The good (as we have pointed out) consists in the interchange of technical acquirements; the harm, in a foreignism which disintegrates what it touches. So it came that the musical life of Germany in the eighteenth century presented a pitiable spectacle. The Italians were lords of the land. Musicians and public alike had to dance as they piped. It was the Golden Age for composers who not only learned from the Italians, but sedulously aped them. The offspring of the German Muse led the life of Cinderella. But the fairy tale came true! The former kind vanished with the fashion; while for those masters who, although acquiring the foreign technique, still stood fast-rooted in their native soil, the day of resurrection dawned slowly, but surely. And first of all for Johann Sebastian Bach! Yet even his works are not always pure in style — even he sometimes too greatly favored the fashion. However strongly his arias, for example, are imbued with his genius, they are 30 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC trimmed according to the French or Italian mode. This robs them in good part of their vitality. They form the — comparatively — weaker portion of his works. They are less satisfactory in effect, because less genuine, than the arias of many contemporary Italians, who in other matters seem almost like dwarfs beside Bach. This should furnish food for reflection! Then consider the history of English music. Down to Purcell, a flourishing period, during which the Eng- lish masters, despite Italian influences, reflect the character of their nation. Hereupon follows the Han- delian cult; and since then England has surrendered herself to the leading-strings of all imaginable outlandish idols. Almost two centuries of an unexampled musical revelry, and, at the same time, two centuries during which the creative powers of English composers have lain fallow. Is there no internal nexus between these two phenomena, no mutual conformity of cause and effect? Is it not significant, that, since an understanding of the situation has been making headway for some decades, the signs of a creative renaissance have plainly been multiplying in England? From the beginning of the nineteenth century, Italians and Germans have been contending for the leadership in musical affairs. For the last fifty years the Germans have undeniably been victorious along the whole line. So much so that Italy, already dependent on the French, has had to bear the German yoke into the bargain. Many Italian masters know their Wagner and their Brahms — not to mention Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann — with a thoroughness that might well astonish their German colleagues. But do not think for a moment that these musicians seek their salvation by following in the footsteps of the Germans. Imitation, for them, is but a means to an end. And their endeavor is to raise Italian music from the slough of obsolete and outworn forms of expression. Verdi's famous and NATIONAL TONE-SPEECH VERSUS VOLAPUK 31 redemptive phrase, "Torniamo all' antico!" is the watchword of all clearheaded Italians. Whoever views their longing for redemption from the Teutomania due to conditions now prevailing, as an outgrowth of vanity, is sadly mistaken. They enjoin recourse to the early Italian masters in the home, school and concert-hall as to a perpetual fountain of youth. They perceive that these old masters are much closer to their native temperament than the contemporary transalpine masters. So here again it is recognized that cosmopolitanism is a source of progress for the technique only, but the bane of free expression. Their general aim is to heal music from within outward by a treatment like that of the Young-Italian School of Poetry, which, under the lead of the lofty Giosue Carducci, is studying the poets of the trecento and quattrocento with burning zeal, in order to rid Italian literature at last of Gallicisms and other impurities. And there is no doubt that these efforts have already been crowned with success. When one, finally, turns his eyes towards the United States, the truth of all these pronouncements will become painfully evident. For over one hundred years the United States has been the happy hunting-ground of European musicians; not merely of those who emigrated hither, but of those who remain with us for a year or more to gather in gold and glory. English, French, Italian and German musicians have contributed more than the native artists toward the evolution, in a surprisingly short time, of an abounding musical activity; not working in succession, but side by side, except that now and then the centre of gravity of their influence was shifted. To-day they still play the principal role, and in most branches of musical art they have pushed their native colleagues far into the background. And first of all, the music-teachers have grafted their European naturel upon our music-making youth. Not only that; legions 32 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC of young Americans migrate to the European music- schools, and this usually at an age when, musically at least, their typical Americanism can be (and is) eradi- cated. What follows? The United States, as far as musical matters go, is still in great part a European colony. So here the theory of an international musical language has been reduced to practice. Now, if such a language were the alpha and omega of the music of the future, we should have ready to hand a touchstone of its advantages, and the Americans would have every reason to be satisfied with their musical life. But they are not at all satisfied. Our musicians, aside from those who themselves are Europeans, groan beneath the European yoke. They see with dismay what the systematic transfusion of European blood has accomplished — a stunted musical growth under a gilded exterior. Our architects, our painters and, in particular, our sculptors, have won admiration throughout the world because their mastership is different in essentials from that of their professional brethren beyond the ocean. Our poets, like Edgar Allan Poe, Emerson, Whittier, James Russell Lowell and Walt Whitman are typically American ornaments of universal literature, and already exercise an invigorating influence on poetry in Europe. These artists have sent down their roots deep into the national soul, and Americans regard them as towering bulwarks of the national life. Quite otherwise with the musicians. The people do not consider them with equal respect. Music, in the popular mind, is rather an imported article of fashion than an art which, on a par with poetry, can and should ennoble, instruct and invigorate a nation. To a European it seems fairly unbelievable that only a small minority of our singers are able to sing con- vincingly in the native tongue. Why, indeed, should they be able to? Most of them have been drilled to NATIONAL TONE-SPEECH VERSUS VOLAPUK 33 sing in Italian, or French, or German, only. The law of supply and demand so decides it. For our opera, in particular, is a cosmopolitan omnium gatherum. To hear and to enjoy the art of English song, one must patronize the operetta; for all attempts at an English opera have either been shipwrecked or forced down to the level of mediocrity, because the majority of our theatre-goers care less to understand what is sung than to intoxicate themselves with the charm of dearly- purchased voices. But the worst of it is that we have no composer whom we can call genuinely and consistently American in point of style; not one who sets the ideals of his people to music as the poets have done in their verse. Though certain writers — like Mr. Hughes in his fas- cinating book "Contemporary American Composers" — may maintain the contrary, their wish is father to the thought. Our best composers do actually stand on a level with the European in technique, to be sure, but we too seldom remark, by the mode and method with which they take hold of and elaborate their themes, that they are not the bondsmen of Europe rather than Americans bearing themselves independently and natur- ally. 1 International reminiscences swarm in their scores, and the individuality that makes itself felt here and there often struggles in vain to break through the jungle of acquired formulas. It is not lack of talent, but the calamitous, blood-wasting inoculation of an international musical speech, which has, for the time being, made it impossible for Americans to give the world masters like Brahms, Bizet, Tschaikowsky or i Is this statement substantially less true A. D. 1916 than A. D. 1903 when I wrote it? I shall accept an affirmative answer only when the younger generation of American composers produces, not as a rara avis, but as a matter of habit, pieces so thoroughly American in spirit as Mr. Chadwick's "A Vagrom Ballad" in his "Four Symphonic Sketches." But this gem of American musical humor, worthy of a Mark Twain, was composed in 1896, though not published until 1907! If certain of our younger composers brush aside such a piece as "old fogyish," they are welcome to this opinion as they are to their naive preferen- tial belief in the efficacy of French as against German measles as a musical beautifier. 34 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Sibelius. Europeans have a right, in a way, to look down upon our composers. Eclecticism is merely a euphemism for pilfering. It is demoralizing, does not carry far, and therefore is not an element of strength, but of weakness. Of this some of our musicians and writers on music are well aware. Their battle-cry, "Cut loose from Europe!" is of no new date. It has echoed and reechoed for years, and is growing ever louder. Precisely as in Italy, this yearning after a music of and for the American people is no creature of national hysteria, but the outcome of serious reflection, the result of comparative musico-historical study, of a wisdom born of sad experience. Italy, however, has the better of it. She can draw fresh life from her glorious past, while the Americans, having none, are obliged to lay the foun- dations for a place of unquestioned power in the music of the future. The practical application of all these considerations? It is simple and universally binding. Cultivate the good new masters of every nationality, so as not to fall hopelessly behind; also, the good old masters, so as to make timely escape from possible blind alleys; and take root in your native soil, that you may grow, and bring music so close to the hearts of your people that it shall watch over them as a mother over her child. Enjoy, compare, learn! But, of set purpose, cut the ground from under the feet of a would-be cosmopolitan art. For such art is merely the fetish of a spineless mediocrity. (Translated by Theodore Baker) THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS (New Music Review, 1907) For generations the lives of George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson have been described mainly from the standpoint of men of public affairs. In reading such biographies the conclusion «is almost forced on us that our first Presidents took interest in nothing but politics. How absurd such a notion is appears from the several "true" lives that have come to light in recent years. Indeed, the lesser sides of their character, their private life, their fancies and foibles, must be made to frame the historical picture if we would feel ourselves in the presence of human beings instead of political automatons. A modest nook in the biographical edifice should be reserved for music. To be sure, it will not be filled with the manuscripts of concertos or of operas written in competition with crowned com- posers. The musical items to be gathered from the writings of our first Presidents and from other historical sources are few. Yet they are sufficient to throw in- teresting sidelights on our early musical history. Of the three, John Adams seems to have been the least artistically inclined. At least, he himself assured Mrs. Mercy Warren (1795) that he had no pleasure or amusement which possessed any charms for him: "balls, assemblies, concerts, cards, horses, dogs never engaged any part of my [his] attention . . . business alone. . . . ;" and Peter Chardon, a young lawyer, won his respect because "his thoughts are not employed on songs and girls, nor his time on flutes, fiddles, con- certs and card tables; he will make something." But this was in 1758, when the Squire of Braintree had not 37 38 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC yet developed those aristocratic tendencies for which the Republicans in after years, without much reason, censured him. The very diary in which the entry stands belies his self-portrait as presented to Mrs. Warren. With an increasing fondness and appreciation of culinary pleasures, his ears became susceptible to the charms of music. In 1773 (August 30) he allowed himself to be "en- tertained" "upon the spinet" by two young ladies, and five years later, at Bordeaux, on his way to Paris, he acquired his first taste of opera. Says the future Presi- dent on April 1, 1778: "Went to the opera, where the scenery, the dancing, the music, afforded me a very cheerful, sprightly amusement, having never seen any- thing of the kind before." Again: "The music and dancing were very fine" when he and Franklin visited the Paris Opera House on May 19, 1778; and by the year 1782 his critical instinct had become so keen that he expressed his satisfaction with the "good" music upon hearing Gretry's "Le Jugement de Midas" at The Hague. Perhaps there was method in Adams's madness when putting concerts and dogs into the same category of nuisances, but leaving opera out; for of the famous Concert Spirituel at the Royal Gardens in Paris which he attended in 1778 he has nothing to say in his diary except that there "was an infinite number of gentle- men and ladies walking." Of one kind of music, John Adams was genuinely fond — church music. To the several quotations from his diary to that effect which Mr. Brooks has printed in his book on "Olden Time Music," several more might be added, and when it was not psalmody "in the old way, as we call it — all the drawling, quavering discord in the world," as at the old Presbyterian Society in New York, he generally used the word "sweet" to express his satisfaction. Two entries, not given by THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 39 Brooks, may be of interest here, one for its oddity and the other for an expression of opinion, quite ex- traordinary for a New Englander of Colonial times. On September 4, 1774, John Adams went to Christ Church, Philadelphia, where "the organ and a new choir of singers were very musical," and on October 9 of the same year he wrote: "Went, in the afternoon, to the Romish Chapel. The scenery and the music are so calculated to take in mankind that I wonder the Reformation ever succeeded. . . . . The chanting is exquisitely soft and sweet." Surely John Adams was not such a dried-up man of "business alone" as he would have Mrs. Warren believe; yet, taking him all in all, it is doubtful if John Adams really felt honored when Thomas Paine wrote his patriotic ode, "Adams and Liberty" (1798), to the tune of the English drinking-song "To Anacreon in Heaven," subsequently shanghaied for "The Star-Spangled Banner." Strange, that the children of John Adams should have been so musical! The writings of John Quincy Adams abound with critical remarks on the arts in general and on music in particular, and the letters of Abigail Adams show her to have been a veritable melomaniac. Here are a few delightful lines from a letter of hers to Mrs. Cranch, dated Auteuil,- February 20, 1785, and describing her impressions of the opera: And O! the music, vocal and instrumental: It has a soft, per- suasive power, and a dying sound. Conceive a highly decorated building, filled with youth, beauty, grace, ease, clad in all the most pleasing and various ornaments of dress which fancy can form; these objects singing like cherubs to the best tuned instru- ments most skilfully handled, the softest, tenderest strains; every attitude corresponding with the music; full of the God or Goddess whom they celebrate; the female voices accompanied by an equal number of Adonises. Think you that this city can fail of becoming a Cythera and this house the temple of Venus? No greater contrast than between John Adams and George Washington. The "General," as his contem- poraries used to call him, was, in the true sense of a 40 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC much abused term, a gentleman of the world, and he cared for all those things which his successor abhorred. Some persons severely criticised him for this attitude, but, on the whole, his mode of living only served to endear him to the hearts of a people not willing to be over- ascetic or to condemn the niceties of life as temptations of Satanas. Certainly there is an affinity between this and the fact that George Washington's praise was sung in countless songs. In fact, very few patriotic poems of those days did not wind up with the glorification of his beloved personality. The musicians, too, contributed their share of worship, and the literature of pieces written in his honor is not a small one, comparatively speaking. I allude, for instance, to the numerous Washington marches, one of which, the "President's March," was immortalised by furnishing the tune to Joseph Hopkinson's "Hail Columbia." Then again our first operatic • effort on allegorical-political lines, Francis Hopkinson's "Temple of Minerva" (1781), was practically a panegyric on Washington. But in this connection the first cyclus of songs, written and com- posed by a native American, is of particular interest. I mean the "Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or Forte Piano" (Philadelphia, 1788), by Francis Hopkinson, the first American composer. They were dedicated to George Washington, and in his graceful letter of ac- knowledgment, dated Mount Vernon, February 5, 1789 — by the way, one of the very few documents in which he shows a humoristic vein — our first President writes: I can neither sing one of the songs, nor raise a single note on any instrument to convince the unbelieving. But I have, however, one argument which will prevail with persons of true taste (at least, in America) : I can tell them that it is the production of Mr. Hopkinson. This statement destroys once for ever the legend that Washington knew how to "raise" the tones of the THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 41 flute and violin. If we find in his earliest account books the entry: "To cash pd. ye Musick Master for my Entrance, 3.9." this probably refers, to use the words of Paul Leicester Ford, to the singing-master whom the boys and girls of that day made the excuse for evening frolics. But the statement interferes not with the fact that George Washington was fond of dancing and music. We know from George Washington Park Custis's "Recollections," edited by Mr. Lossing, that the "General" was conspicuous for his graceful and elegant dancing of the minuet. He was admired for the last time in this capacity at a ball given at Fredericksburg in 1781 in honor of the French and American officers on their return from the triumphs of Yorktown. There is a natural connection between the love of dancing and the love of music, and an unmusical person would never have been sincerely admired for the elegant dancing of the minuet. But we possess more direct evidence to prove our point. Mr. Custis also recollects that Washington used to visit the theatre five or six times a season, if circumstances allowed it. This statement finds more than a corrobora- tion in Washington's ledger and diary which he kept from time to time. Mr. Paul Leicester Ford made copious use of these sources, important not only for the study of the "true" George Washington, but also for the history of the drama in Virginia and Maryland, in his masterly monograph on "Washington and the Theatre," published in 1899 by the Dunlap Society. From this book we may glean that the General, espe- cially in his younger days, would purchase "Play tickets" three, four, and five times a month. Certainly a con- vincing proof of his fondness of the theatre. Now, we must remember the peculiar character of the American stage of that period. The actors would take a part in a drama of Shakespeare or Sheridan to-night and would 42 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC sing in the fashionable ballad-operas the next, or even the same, evening, if they were given as "after-pieces." In addition, hardly a performance passed without some Thespian's singing popular songs or arias between the acts, and instrumental music was played at the theatres very much as it is to-day. Consequently, nobody with ears to hear could escape music if he ventured into a theatre. Had George Washington been indifferent to the charms of music, he certainly would not have cared to listen to operas. This, however, he did and continued to do until two years before his death. By combining the theatrical entries in his diary with the dates of performances at New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere, we learn that he was familiar with such ballad-operas as "The Poor Soldier," "Cymon and Sylvia," "Maid of the Mill," "The Romp," "The Far- mer," "Rosina." His favorite opera seems to have been William Shield's "Poor Soldier," first performed at London in 1783 and two years later introduced into the United States. At least, Charles Durang, in his "History of the Philadelphia Stage" (partly compiled from the papers of his father John, a ballet dancer in Washington's days), says so, and he adds that the "Poor Soldier" was often acted at the President's desire when he visited the theatre. We also know from Dunlap's "History of the American Theatre" that he witnessed the first performance of "Darby's Return" on November 24 (or December 9), 1789, at New York. This ballad-interlude, written by Dunlap as a sequel to the "Poor Soldier," in which Darby after various adventures in Europe and in the United States returns to Ireland and recounts the sights he had seen, was for years very popular. Of the first performance the author tells us this amusing story: "The remembrance of this performance is rendered pleasing from the recollection of the pleasure evinced by the first President of the United States, the immortal THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 43 Washington. The eyes of the audience were frequently bent on his countenance, and to watch the emotions produced by any particular passage on him was the simultaneous employment of all. When Wignell, as Darby, recounts what had befallen him in America, in New York, at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the inauguration of the President, the interest ex- pressed by the audience in the looks and the changes of countenance of this great man became intense. He smiled at these lines alluding to the change in govern- ment: " 'There, too, I saw some mighty pretty shows; A revolution, without blood or blows; For, as I understood, the cunning elves, The people, all revolted from themselves.' "But at the lines: " 'A man who fought to free the land from woe, Like me, had left his farm, a soldiering to go, But, having gain'd his point, he had, like me, Return'd his own potato ground to see. But there he could not rest. With one accord He's called to be a kind of — not a lord I don't know what. He's not a great man,' sure, For poor men love him just as he were poor. They love him like a father, or a brother, Dermot As we poor Irishmen love one another.' "the President looked serious. And when Kathleen asked : " 'How looked he, Darby? Was he short or tall?' "his countenance showed embarrassment, from the expectation of one of those eulogiums which he had been obliged to hear on many occasions, and which must doubtless have been a severe trial to his feelings; but Darby's answer that he had not seen him, because he had mistaken a man 'all lace and glitter, botherum and shine,' for him, until the show had passed, relieved the hero from apprehension of further personality, and 44 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC he indulged in that what was with him extremely rare, a hearty laugh." It is a peculiar coincidence that of the two allusions to opera to be found in Washington's diary, one should again deal with a sequel to the "Poor Soldier." During the Federal Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 he made the following entry on July 10: "Attended Convention, dined at Mr. Morris's, drank Tea at Mr. Bingham's and went to the play." By investigating the newspapers, we are enabled to add to this meagre statement: "Spectaculum Vitae: At the Opera House in South- wark This evening the 10th July, will be performed a Concert in the first Part of which will be introduced an entertainment, called the Detective, or, the Servants' Hall in an Uproar. To which will be added a Comic Opera in two acts, called Love in a Camp, or, Patrick in Prussia. ..." A curious advertisement, but familiar to the students of early Philadelphia papers. Its explanation is simple enough. The Quakers did their best to suppress all the theatrical entertainments after the war and would stop short of concerts only. The managers were forced to find a way out of the dilemma, and they evaded the law by giving performances under all sorts of disguises like the above. The most ingenious was that of "Ham- let" as "a moral and instructive tale" as "exemplified in the history of the Prince of Denmark." George Washington is stated to have opposed the narrow-minded restrictions against drama, and this is given somewhere as the main reason why he "went to the play" three times in rapid succession during the Federal Convention. At any rate, he went, and if he was brought into contact with the modern English THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 45 music of his day on July 10, he was carried back to the classical period on July 14. The "Spectaculum Vitae" — in the innocent disguise of a concert — presented on that day "An opera called the Tempest, or, the Enchanted Island (Altered from Shakespeare by Dryden). To conclude with a Grand Masque of Neptune and Amphi- trite: With entire new Scenery, Machinery, etc. The Music composed by Dr. Purcell." But George Washington not only attended such sham concerts. We know from various historical sources that he also went to regular concerts. Again, it is his ledger that furnishes the most valuable clues in this direction. Anno 1757 we find the entry: "March 17th —By Mr. Palmas Tickets, 52. 6." Mr. Ford remarks: "... presumably an expenditure made in Phila- delphia during the officer's visit there to meet Lord Loudon; but whether the tickets were for the theatre or for a lottery cannot be discovered. The second entry is more specific, being to the effect: 'April 27 — By Tickets to the Concert, 16.3.' " Information may here be added, overlooked by our eminent historian. In the first place, it appears from the Pennsylvania Gazette that said Mr. Palma was a musician, his Christian name being given as John, probably the anglicised form of the Italian "Giovanni." This John Palma gave a concert in Philadelphia at the Assembly Room in Lodge Alley on January 25, 1757. I find no further allusion to him, but it presumably was he who advertised in the Pennsylvania Journal on March 24, 1757: "By Particular Desire. To Morrow Evening, in the Assembly Room precisely at 7 o'clock, will be a Concert of Music. 46 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC "Tickets to be had at the Coffee-House at one Dollar each." Is it too farfetched to argue that George Washington purchased 52s. 6d. worth of tickets in advance for this concert? If not, then this concert would be the earliest on record as attended by the future father of our country. Otherwise it would be the one for which he purchased tickets on April 27, but to which I found no further allusion. A few years later we find these entries for expenditures made at Williamsburg, Va.: 1765 — "Apr. 2, By my Exps. to hear the Armonica, 3.9." 1767 — "Apr. 10, Ticket for the Concert, 5s." Of course, the Armonica was not the wretched instru- ment boys and sailors maltreat nowadays, but "the musical glasses without water, framed into a complete instrument capable of thoroughbass and never out of tune," as Philip Vicker Fithian (in 1774) called the then world-famous invention of a no less illustrious person than Benjamin Franklin. Whom George Wash- ington heard perform on the Armonica, we know not, as it seems impossible to trace the two concerts men- tioned. During the War for Independence the Commander- in-Chief had but scarce opportunity for attending plays, concerts and the like. Still, a few occasions are on record. For instance, he was the guest of honor when Luzerne, the Minister of France, celebrated the birthday of the Dauphin in July, 1782, with a concert, fire-works, a ball and a supper. But the entertainment given by the Minister in December, 1781, is by far more interesting to the students of "Americana." Under date of December 19, 1781, the Freeman's Journal, Philadelphia, reported: "On Friday evening of the 11th inst. his excellency the minister of France, who embraces every opportunity THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 47 to manifest his respect to the worthies of America, and politeness to its inhabitants, entertained his excel- lency general Washington and his lady; the lady of general Greene, and a very polite circle of the gentlemen and ladies, with an elegant Concert, in which an Oratorio, composed & set to music by a gentleman whose taste in the polite arts is well known, was introduced and afforded the most sensible pleasure." Mr. Ford certainly would have added in his charming style a few appropriate remarks had he known that this so-called "Oratorio" was identical with Francis Hopkinson's allegorical operatic sketch, celebrating the Franco-American alliance and entitled "The Temple of Minerva." I discovered their identity when studying certain manuscripts of our revolutionary poet, and I have described "The Temple of Minerva" at some length in my book on the musical career of Francis Hopkinson. In a similar manner George Washington may be traced as a concert-goer until the year 1797, from Charleston, S. C, up to Boston. There, in October, 1789, while on his inaugural tour, he was treated to a so-called "oratorio" under circumstances described in my book on "Early Concerts in America," and Jacob Hilzheimer narrates in his diary that he was present "with his lady" at a concert in the Lutheran Church at Philadelphia on January 8, 1791. At Philadelphia it also was where the President entered in his own diary under date of May 29, 1787: "Accompanied by Mrs. Morris to the benefit concert of a Mr. Juhan" — not Julian, as Mr. Ford erroneously gives the name. At Charleston, S. C, in May, 1791, the President entered : ". . . . Went to a Concert at the Exchange at wch. there were at least 400 ladies the number & appearance of wch. exceeded anything of the kind I had ever seen." 48 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC And on June 1, 1791, at Salem, N. C, a Moravian settlement: "Invited six of their principle people to dine with me — and in the evening went to hear them sing & perform on a variety of instruments Church music." And February 28, 1797, Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, announced that "The President and his family honor the Ladies' Concert with their presence this evening." In order to give an idea of the kind of music our first President would hear on such occasions, I quote from the Pennsylvania Packet, June 4, 1787, the remarkable program of Alexander Reinagle's concert, which Wash- ington, according to his diary, attended on June 12. Act I. Overture Bach (Of course the "London" Bach, not Joh. Seb.) Concerto Violoncelle Capron Song Sarti Act II. Overture Andre Concerto Violon Fiorillo Concerto Flute Brown Act III. Overture (La Buona Figliuola) Piccini Sonata Pianoforte Reinagle A new Overture (in which is introduced a Scotch Strathspey) Reinagle It is highly probable that Alexander Reinagle, like Capron and Brown, excellent European musicians settled at Philadelphia, was engaged to give Nelly Custis harpsichord lessons. George Washington had presented to his adopted daughter a fine instrument at the cost of a thousand dollars — it is now at Mount Vernon in the drawing-room — and it was one of his great pleasures to have Nelly sing and play to him such songs as "The Wayworn Traveller," with which THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 49 he kept her constantly supplied. To poor Nelly, how- ever, the instrument became one of torture, for her grandmother made her practice upon it four and five hours a day, as her brother tells us in his "Re- collections." Few as these glimpses are into George Washington's private life, they will have sufficed to show that he was not indifferent to music, and that he by no means "appears more as a patron or an escort to the ladies than as a lover of music," as Mr. Tower has it in his "Excerpts from Account Books of Washington." Turning to Thomas Jefferson, we gain terra firma, and are no longer obliged to rely upon circumstantial evidence. In fact, music was a passion with him. His own words and numerous anecdotes go to prove this. Especially his skillful violin playing has become traditional. But grandmothers in Virginia, who heard the truth from the preceding generation, quote an early authority as saying that Patrick Henry was the worst fiddler in the colony with the exception of Thomas Jefferson. So Mr. Curtis informs us in his delightful book on the "true" Thomas Jefferson. The truth probably lies between the two traditions. At any rate, Jefferson acquired in early youth a certain proficiency on the violin. It was his constant companion; it helped to mitigate the exactions of his public duties, and even as President he would continue to practice. He used to play duets with Patrick Henry, John Tyler and other friends, and widow Martha Skelton's fondness of music surely was one of the attractions that finally, in 1772, led to her marriage with Jefferson. There is even a romance connected with his favorite instrument. If ever the history of the Cremonese violins in America should be written, it will be well not to forget the name of Jefferson, for it is possible that he owned one of the earliest Cremonese instruments brought to our country. At least, it is 50 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC certain that John Randolph, the son of the King's Attor- ney-General, had bought a costly violin in Italy. Once Thomas Jefferson laid his eyes on his friend's coveted treasure and listened to its tones, it became the ambition of his life to possess it. He rested not until the owner agreed to part with it under certain conditions. The contract — for it was a contract, duly signed, sealed, witnessed and recorded in the general court of Will- iamsburg — reads : "It is agreed between John Randolph and Thomas Jefferson, that in case the said John shall survive the said Thomas, the executors of the said Thomas shall deliver to the said John the value of Eighty Pounds Sterling of the books of the said Thomas, the same to be chosen by the said John, and in case the said Thomas shall survive the said John, the executors of the said John shall deliver to the said Thomas the violin which the said John brought with him into Virginia, together with all his music composed for the violin." If the others considered this agreement a joke, not so Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Mr. Curtis assures us that he added a codicil to his will, which he wrote as soon as he became of age, providing for the fulfilment of the compact by the executors. But the Revolutionary War interfered with the stipulations of the contract and will. Said John returned to England in 1775 and sold his precious instrument to said Thomas for the paltry sum of thirteen pounds. That Jefferson was not proficient on the harpsichord, he plainly states in a letter to Francis Hopkinson in 1785 ; but it also appears from his correspondence that he was constantly on the lookout for a keyed instrument which would satisfy his tastes. For instance, he begs Thomas Adams under date of Monticello, February 20, 1771: THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 51 "... to hasten particularly the Clavichord which I have directed to be purchased in Hamburg, because they are better made there and much cheaper." A highly interesting remark, if it be remembered that not the German, but the English instruments, especially those of Kirkman in London, were then generally considered the best. If Thomas Adams has- tened to comply with Jefferson's request, he must have felt embarrassed upon receiving this second letter, dated June 1, 1771: " . . . I wrote . . for a Clavichord. I have since seen a Fortepiano and am charmed with it. Send me this instrument, then, instead of the Clavichord. Let the case be of fine mahogany, solid, not veneered, the compass from Double G to F in alt., a plenty of spare strings; and the workmanship of the whole very hand- some and worthy of the acceptance of a lady for whom I intend it. [Martha Skelton?] . . . By this change of the Clavichord into a Fortepiano and addition of other things, I shall be brought into debt to you to discharge which I will ship you of the first tobacco I get to the warehouse in the fall . . as soon as you receive this . . and particularly the Fortepiano for which I shall be very impatient." It is but natural that a man whose love of music was so pronounced should have laid stress upon a musical education for his children. This side of their proverbially excellent education seems to have been a matter of grave concern to him. Words like "Do not neglect your music. It will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of your life," run like a motto through the letters to his daughters, letters written with such paternal affection that they cannot fail to move whoever reads them. He constantly urged Mary and Patsy, as he called his daughter Martha, to keep 52 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC him well informed of their musical progress, and when the young ladies preferred to neglect this wish they were sure to receive a mild scolding. Jefferson was most exacting in such matters. Though he detested pro- fessional soldiery, he certainly was a strict disciplinarian in family life. At times he would go to extremes and become almost pedantic. Of this, a letter written to his "dear Patsy" from Annapolis on November 28, 1783, when on his way to Paris, is a characteristic example : "•..-.. With respect to the distribution of your time, the following is what I should approve: "From 8 to 10 practice music. "From 10 to 1 dance one day and draw another. "From 1 to 2 draw on the day you dance and write a letter next day. "From 3 to 4 read French. "From 4 to 5 exercise yourself in music. "From 5 till bedtime read English, write, etc. "I expect you to write me by every post. Inform me what books you read, what tunes you learn and enclose me your best copy in every lesson of drawing. . . . Poor Patsy! Her father was actually starving her to death, as this wonderfully systematic distribution of time did not provide for meals. Not lacking in the sense of humor like her father, Patsy probably smiled when receiving the letter and amended the plan to give proportionate rights to body and soul. During his long residence at Paris, Thomas Jefferson, of course, had ample opportunity for gratifying his love of music. It is but necessary to peruse his volum- inous correspondence as preserved in autograph at the Library of Congress to prove this. That he was person- ally acquainted with such men as Piccinni we know from his letters to Francis Hopkinson, and these letters — extracts from them are to be found in my book on THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 53 Hopkinson — also prove that Jefferson took a lively and intelligent interest in his friend's "improved method of quilling a harpsichord" not only, but in his exciting project to apply a keyboard to the Armonica or Musical Glasses. Indeed, improvements of musical instruments seem to have attracted his attention whenever he heard of such. For instance, one of Jefferson's letters con- tains a detailed description with a careful diagram of Krumpholtz's "Foot-bass," alias Pedalharp, and in another letter he suggested to Hopkinson how to im- prove "the staccado with glass bars instead of wooden ones, and with keys applied to it," which "pretty little instrument" Franklin, as Jefferson adds, was in the habit of carrying with him. As a specimen of the kind of musical letter that would pass between the two friends I quote here a letter from Francis Hopkinson to Thomas Jefferson under date of Philadelphia, October 23, 1788. Though preserved at the Library of Congress, I discovered it too late for publication in my book on "Francis Hop- kinson and James Lyon." "The compositions alluded to are, of course, Hopkinson's "Seven Songs," that exasperatingly scarce publication of his dedicated to George Washington, the father of our country, by him who in the dedicatory preface claimed "the Credit of being the first Native of the United States who has produced a Musical Composition." I wonder if the millennium will record as last American composer a Member of Congress, as was the first. "I have amused myself with composing six easy and simple Songs for the Harpsichord — Words and Music all my own. The Music is now engraving, when finish'd I will do myself the Pleasure of sending a Copy to Miss Jefferson. The best of them is that they are so easy that any Person who can play at all, may perform them without much Trouble, and I have endeavoured to 54 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC make the Melodies pleasing to the untutor'd Ear. My new Method of quilling or rather tonguing the Harpsi- chord has had the Test of Time and answers perfectly well in every Respect — both my Daughters play, one of them very well. The Harpsichord is forever in Exercise and yet my Tongues stand unimpaired, and my Harps d is always in Order, in that Respect." The contrast in matters musical between here and abroad would naturally impress itself forcibly upon Jefferson's mind, especially after his return from Paris. To be sure, our musical life made great progress after the war, and by far greater than our historians have been in the habit of describing it, yet it remained very provincial and crude if compared with that at Paris. During the war it was crushed almost entirely. Cer- tainly no music-lover deplored this more than Jefferson, but he was not willing to quietly submit to the logic of conditions. Music he must have, and that after the fashion of the grand seigneur of Europe. Only a Vir- ginian Cavalier — and they all loved music — would have dreamed in those dark days of formulating plans such as Jefferson did in a letter addressed to an anonymous friend, probably a Parisian, from Williamsburg on June 8, 1778. It is to be found in Paul Leicester Ford's edition of Jefferson's writings, published by Putnam's Sons, and it reads in part thus: " . . . If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world, it is to your country its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul & fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism. I shall ask your assistance in procuring a substitute, who may be proficient in singing & on the Harpsichord. I should be contented to receive such a one two or three years hence when it is hoped he may come more safely and find here a greater plenty of those useful things which commerce alone can furnish. THE MUSICAL SIDE OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENTS 55 The bounds of an American fortune will not admit the indulgence of a domestic band of musicians, yet I have thought that a passion for music might be reconciled with that economy which we are obliged to observe. I retain, for instance, among my domestic servants a gardener (Ortolano), a weaver (Tessitore di lino e lin), a cabinet maker (Stipeltaio) and a stone cutter (Scal- petino laborante in piano) to which I would add a vigneron. In a country where like yours music is culti- vated and practised by every class I suppose there might be found persons of those trades who could perform on the French horn, clarinet or hautboy & bassoon, so that one might have a band of two French horns, two clarinets & hautboys & a bassoon, without enlarging their domestic expenses. A certainty of em- ployment for a half dozen years, and at the end of that time to find them if they choose a conveyance to their own country might induce them to come here on reason- able wages. Without meaning to give you trouble, perhaps it might be practicable for you in [your] or- dinary intercourse with your people to find out such men disposed to come to America. Sobriety and good nature would be desirable parts of their character. If you think such a plan practicable and will be so kind as to inform me what will be necessary to be done on my part, I will take care that it shall be done. ..." Whether the plan was carried out, I do not know. Probably this combination of the useful and pleasing was found to be impracticable. Had the bounds of an American fortune of those days permitted the indulgence in a domestic band, who knows but that Monticello would have become the American Eisenstadt? En miniature, of course, and with this slight difference: that Thomas Jefferson probably would not have had, like Prince Esterhazy, a Joseph Haydn as musical factotum. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE {Paper read in 1903 and based on my article in "Music," 1900) Benjamin Franklin's polyhistoric erudition was not merely of a receptive kind. Like Leonardo da Vinci, our "patriot and sage," as Franklin was called in eulogies, never received without giving. He suggested inventions and improvements whenever he became in- terested in a subject, whether in electricity, book- printing, flying machines — the latter in the modern sense of the term, not fast stage-coaches, as in the terminology of the eighteenth century — optics, chemis- try, submarine boats, stoves, eye-glasses, street-cleaning, and so forth. Strangely enough, the invention of the musical glasses, generally attributed to Franklin, was not abso- lutely his. He only suggested some improvements, so important and radical, however, that the instrument appeared to be original. As a matter of fact [see Grove], the power of producing musical sounds from basins or drinking glasses by the application of the moistened finger, and of tuning them so as to obtain concords from two at once, was known as early as the middle of the 17th century, since it is alluded to in Harsdorffer's "Mathematische und philosophische Erquickungen" (Nuremberg, 1677, II, 147). And long before Franklin paid any attention to the improvement of the musical glasses, they were known and heard in public. No less a composer than Gluck performed on them in London in 1746, as appears from the following oft-quoted advertisement in the General Advertiser for March 31, 1746: At Mr. Hickford's Great Room in Brewer's-street, on Monday, April 14, Signor Gluck, Composer of the Operas, will exhibit a Concert of Musick. He will play a Concert upon Twenty-six Drinking Glasses, tuned with Spring water, accompanied with the whole Band, being a new Instrument of his own Invention, upon 59 60 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC which he performs whatever may be done on a Violin or Harpsi- chord; and therefore hopes to satisfy the Curious, as well as the Lovers of Musick. To begin at Half an hour after Six. Tickets Half a guinea each. Maybe Gluck really did invent a practicable instru- ment made of drinking glasses filled with water, but Franklin certainly did not base his experiments on Gluck. His part in the history of the now obsolete instrument seems to have been well known in Phila- delphia, for I found in a "History of the Life and Character of Benjamin Franklin," published in the form of a eulogy in the Columbian Magazine for January, 1791, pp. 55-56, this passage: The tone produced by rubbing the brim of a drinking glass with a wet finger had been generally known. A Mr. Puckeridge, an Irishman, by placing on a table a number of glasses of different sizes, and tuning them by partly filling them with water, endeavoured to form an instrument, capable of playing tunes. He was prevented by an untimely end, from bringing his invention to any degree of perfection. After his death, some improvements were made upon his plan. The sweetness of the tones induced Dr. Franklin to make a Variety of experiments ; and he at length formed that elegant instrument, which he has called the ARMONICA. These statements coincide with a detailed description of the instrument given by Franklin himself to John Baptist Beccaria of Turin, under date of London, July 13, 1762: You have doubtless heard the sweet tone that is drawn from a drinking glass by passing a wet finger round its brim. One Mr. Puckeridge, a gentleman from Ireland, was the first who thought of playing tunes, formed of these tones. He collected a number of glasses of different sizes, fixed them near each other on a table, and tuned them by putting into them water more or less as each note required. The tones were brought out by passing his fingers round their brims. He was unfortunately burned here, with his instrument, in a fire which consumed the house he lived in. Mr. E. Delaval, a most ingenious member of our Royal Society, made one in imitation of it, with a better choice and form of glasses, which was the first I saw or heard. Being charmed by the sweet- ness of its tones, and the music he produced from it, I wished only to see the glasses disposed in a more convenient form, and brought together in a narrower compass, so as to admit of a greater number of tones, and all within reach of hand to a person sitting before the instrument, which I accomplished, after various trials and less commodious forms, both of glasses and construction, in the following manner. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 61 The glasses are blown as near as possible in the form of hemi- spheres, having each an open neck or socket in the middle. (See Plate II, Figure 1.) The thickness of the glass near the brim about a tenth of an inch, or hardly quite so much, but thicker as it comes nearer the neck, which in the largest glasses is about an inch deep and an inch and a half wide within, these dimensions lessening, as the glasses themselves diminish in size, except that the neck of the smallest ought not to be shorter than half an inch. The largest glass is nine inches in diameter, and the smallest three inches. Between these two are twenty-three different sizes, differing from each other a quarter of an inch in diameter. To make a single instrument there should be at least six glasses blown of each size; and out of this number one may probably pick thirty-seven glasses (which are sufficient for three octaves with all the semitones) that will be each either the note one wants or a little sharper than that note, and all fitting so well into each other as to taper pretty regu- larly from the largest to the smallest. It is true there are not thirty-seven sizes, but it often happens that two of the same size differ a note or half note in tone, by reason of a difference in thick- ness, and these may be placed one in the other without sensibly hurting the regularity of the taper form. The glasses being chosen, and every one marked with a diamond the note you intend it for, they are to be tuned by diminishing the thickness of those that are too sharp. This is done by grinding them round from the neck towards the brim, the breadth of one or two inches, as may be required; often trying the glass by a well tuned harpsichord, comparing the tone drawn from the glass by your finger with the note you want, as sounded by that string of the harpsichord. When you come nearer the matter, be careful to wipe the glass clean and dry before each trial, because the tone is something flatter when the glass is wet than it will be when dry; and grinding a very little between each trial, you will thereby tune to great exactness. The more care is necessary in this, because, if you go below your required tone, there is no sharpening it again but by grinding somewhat off the brim, which will afterwards require polishing, and thus increase the trouble. The glasses thus tuned, you are to be provided with a case for them, and a spindle on which they are to be fixed. (See Plate II., Figure 2.) My case is about three feet long, eleven inches every way wide within at the biggest end, and five inches at the smallest end; for it tapers all the way, to adapt it better to the conical figure of the set of glasses. This case opens in the middle of its height, and the upper part turns up by hinges fixed behind. The spindle, which is of hard iron, lies horizontally from end to end of the box within, exactly in the middle, and is made to turn on brass gudgeons at each end. It is round, an inch in diameter at the thickest end, and tapering to a quarter of an inch at the smallest. A square shank comes from its thickest end through the box, on which shank a wheel is fixed by a screw. This wheel serves as a fly to make the motion equable, when the spindle, with the glasses, is turned by the foot like a spinning-wheel. My wheel is of maho- gany, eighteen inches in diameter, and pretty thick, so as to conceal near its circumference about twenty-five pounds of lead. An ivory pin is fixed in the face of this wheel, and about four inches frcm the axis. Over the neck of this pin is put the loop of the 62 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC string that comes up from the movable step to give it motion. The case stands on a neat frame with four legs. To fix the glasses on the spindle, a cork is first to be fitted in each neck pretty tight, and projecting a little without the neck, that the neck of one may not touch the inside of another when put together, for that would make a jarring. These corks are to be perforated with holes of different diameters, so as to suit that part of the spindle on which they are to be fixed. When a glass is put on, by holding it stiffly between both hands, while another turns the spindle, it may be gradually brought to its place. But care must be taken that the hole be not too small, lest, in forcing it up, the neck should be split; nor too large, lest the glass, not being firmly fixed, should turn or move on the spindle, so as to touch and jar against its neighbouring glass. The glasses thus are placed one in another, the largest on the biggest end of the spindle, which is to the left hand; the neck of this glass is towards the wheel, and the next goes into it in the same position, only about an inch of its brim appearing beyond the brim of the first; thus proceeding, every glass when fixed . shows about an inch of its brim (or three quarters of an inch, or half an inch, as they grow smaller) beyond the brim of the glass that contains it; and it is from these exposed parts of each glass that the tone is drawn, by laying a finger upon one of them as the spindle and glasses turn round. My largest glass is G, a little below the reach of a common voice, and my highest G, including three complete octaves. To distinguish the glasses the more readily to the eye, I have painted the apparent parts of the glasses within side, every semitone white, and the other notes of the octave with the seven prismatic colors, viz., C, red; D, orange; E, yellow; F, green; G, blue; A, indigo; B, purple, and C, red again; so that glasses of the same color (the white excepted) are always octaves to each other. This instrument is played upon, by sitting before the middle of the set of glasses as before the keys of a harpsichord, turning them with the foot, and wetting them now and then with a spunge and clean water. The fingers should be first a little soaked in water, and quite free from all greasiness; a little fine chalk upon them is sometimes useful, to make them catch the glass and bring out the tone more readily. Both hands are used, by which means different parts are played together. Observe, that the tones are best drawn out when the glasses turn from the ends of the fingers, not when they turn to them. The advantages of this instrument are, that its tones are incom- parably sweet beyond those of any other; that they are swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures of the finger, and continued to any length, and that the instrument, being once well tuned, never again wants tuning. In honor of your musical language, I have borrowed from it the name of this instrument, calling it the Armonica. With great esteem and respect, I am, &c, B. Franklin.* ♦See Bigelow, "The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin. . . Vol. Ill, pp. 198-204. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1887. In 1769 an Italian version of this letter was published in pamphlet form (8 leaves, 12 mo.) The title reads: "L'Ar- monica. Lettera del Signor Beniamino Franklin al padre Giambattista Beccaria regio professore di fisica nell'Universita di Torino dall'Inglese recata nell'Italiano. Nella reale stamperia di Torino." A copy of this extremely scarce pamphlet is in the Liceo Musicale of Bologna. Is there a copy in America, and is the publication known to American Franklin bibliographers? BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 63 Our knowledge of Franklin's share in the development of the Armonica rests on this letter and one dated London, December 8, 1772, answering the queries of M. Dubourg concerning the best method of playing the instrument. As the outlines of Franklin's autobiography included a descriptive history of the Armonica, it is to be regretted that the book remained a torso. The ingenious instrument soon aroused widespread interest. The Hannoversche Magazin and the Leipziger Wochentliche Nachrichten die Musik betreffend both con- tained descriptions of it as early as 1766. The Musika- lischer Almanack fur Deutschland auf das Jahr 1782 said: Of all musical inventions, the one of Mr. Franklin has created perhaps the greatest excitement. Concerning the way of producing tones, it is an entirely new kind of instrument. By that time the Armonica had become fashionable. We remember the delightful passage in the Vicar of Wakefield: They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived com- pany; with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shake- speare and the musical glasses. Goldsmith's masterwork was published in 1761; it might be asked why I bring his words into connection with Franklin's musical glasses. Certain chronological reasons will offer an explanation. The musical glasses were not played in private circles only, but in concerts, and the names of several Armonica virtuosos have come down to posterity. Miss Marianne Davies, the daughter of a relative of Franklin, must have been the first virtuoso on the in- strument, as she evidently used the first instrument built by Franklin. This fact appears from a communi- cation printed under date of "London, Jan. 12, 1762" 64 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC in the Bristol Journal and reprinted in the Magazine of American History (1883). We find advertised: The celebrated Glassy-Chord, invented by Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia; who has greatly improved the Musical Glasses, and formed them into a compleat Instrument to accompany the Voice; capable of a thorough Bass, and never out of Tune. Miss Davies, from London, was to perform in the Month of January, several favourite Airs, English, Scotch and Italian, on the Glassychord (being the only one of the kind that has yet been produced) accompanied occasionally with the Voice and German Flute. Vivat Rex & Regina. This advertisement helps us in two directions. In the first place, it shows that the original name of the instrument was Glassy-Chord, and not Armonica. This, of course, interferes in no way with Franklin's statement to Padre Beccaria that he named it Armonica in honor of the musical Italian language. In the second place, the advertisement proves that Franklin must have built his first instrument prior to 1762 and after 1757, as otherwise he would have men- tioned the fact in his autobiography. Now, Miss Davies certainly did not appear in public as a performer on the Glassy-Chord without being proficient on it. Proficiency requires practice and practice requires time. Furthermore, the Glassy-Chord is already spoken of as a celebrated instrument. It could not very well become celebrated over night. Therefore, we might approxi- mately fix the date of Franklin's invention as not later than 1761; and thus it appears why I brought Gold- smith's words into connection with Franklin's Musical Glasses. After creating quite a sensation in England, Miss Davies went to the Continent with her sister Cecilia, a vocalist of some fame. The performances of the two sisters took the Continental public by storm. Especially in Vienna they were received with the utmost appro- bation. Metastasio, the court poet, in a letter dated Jan. 16, 1772, described the beautiful tone of the instru- ment and the admirable manner in which Cecilia BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 65 assimilated her voice to it, so as to render it difficult to distinguish the one from the other (see Grove). Mr. Jared Sparks informs us in his life of Franklin (1840, p. 264) that the two sisters performed an Ode, written by Metastasio and composed by the not less famous Hasse, in the presence of the Imperial Court of Vienna at the celebration of the nuptials of the Duke of Parma and the Arch-Duchess of Austria, and he printed the Ode from a manuscript copy found among Franklin's papers. POESIA Per L'Occasione Delle Nozze Del Real Infante Duca Di Parma Con L'Archiduchessa D'Austria, Cantata In Vienna Dalla Cecilia Davies, Detta L'Inglesina, Sorella Dell'Eccellente Sonatrice Del Nuovo Istrumento L'Armonica, Inventato Dal Celebre Dottore Franklin. Ah perche col canto mio, Dolce all' alma ordir catena Pe che mai non posso anch'io, Filomena, al par di te? S'oggi all'aure un labbro spande Rozzi accenti, e troppo audace; Ma, se tace in di si grande, Men colpevole non e. Ardir, germana; a tuoi sonori adatta Volubili cristalli L'esperta mano; e ne risveglia il raro Concento seduttor. Col canto anch' io Tentero d'imitarne L'amoroso tenor. D'applausi e voti Or che la Parma e l'lstro D'Amalia e di Fernando Agli augusti imenei tutto risuona, Saria fallo il tacer. Ne te del nuovo Armonica strumento Renda dubbiosa il lento, II tenue, il flebil suono. Abbiasi Marte I suoi d'ire ministri Strepitosi oricalchi; una soave Armonia, non di sdegni Ma di teneri affetti eccitatrice, Piii conviene ad amor'; meglio accompagna Quel che dall' alma bella Si trasfonde sul volto Alia Sposa Real placido lume, II benigno costume, La dolce maesta. Benche sommesso 66 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Lo stil de' nostri accenti A Lei grato sara; che l'umil suono Non e colpo o difetto; E sempre in suono umil parla il rispetto. Alia stagion de' fiori E de' novelli amori E grato il molle fiato D'un zeffiro leggier. gema tra le fronde, O lento increspi l'onde; Zeffiro in ogni lato Compagno e del piacer. Questa cantata fu scritta dal Abate Pietro Metastasio, e messa in musica da Giovanni Adolfo Hasse, detto il Sassone. Gradually Marianne's nerves became so seriously affected by her performance on the Armonica (so frequent a result of continued performance on the instrument as to have occasioned official prohibition of its use in many Continental towns), that she was compelled to retire from her profession. She died in 1792. It is quite in keeping with the sensation created by the Armonica that Miss Davies did not remain without rivals. The Almanack fur Deutschland auf das Jahr 1782 mentions among "Clever instrumental artists in Ger- many" who performed on the Armonica one Fricke, Court Organist of the Markgraf von Baden-Baden, and a certain Rollig and Marianna Kirchgaessner, a blind musician born 1770 in Waldhausel near Bruchsal, who seems to have been hardly less popular than Miss Marianne Davies. Of course, the Armonica was not unknown in our country. Though I do not know how the Northern Colonies took to it before the war, I have at least evi- dence that it was looked upon with favor and interest in the Middle and Southern Colonies. Naturally we turn to gay old Virginia if we desire to find the latest English fads and fashions imported to the Colonies. We look into Glenn's charming work on Colonial BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 67 Mansions, and read on every page that the Cavaliers of Virginia, their dames and damsels, laid much stress upon being as little provincial as possible; and in the description of Councillor Robert Carter's mansion Nomini Hall we find a passage in Mr. Carter's notebook where he graphically describes one of the wonderful new instruments, invented by Mr. B. Franklin of Philadelphia an Armonica, being the musical glasses without water, framed into a complete instrument capable of thorough bass and never out of tune. That the Councillor was proficient on "the musical glasses without water," and loved them, we know from an equally delightful book, Philip Vickers Fithian's "Journal and Letters." Fithian was tutor at Nomini Hall from 1773 to 1774, and his Journal abounds in musical items showing that if there ever lived a sincere lover of music it was the Councillor. "He has a good ear for Music, "says Fithian, "a vastly delicate Taste and keeps good Instruments; he has here at Home a Harpsi- chord, Forte Piano, Harmonica, Guitar & German Flute, & at Williamsburg has a good Organ, he himself also is indefatigable in the Practice." In the person of Mr. Stadley he seems to have had, we might say, a court musician of no mean ability, he too being a skilled performer on the Armonica. That the two gentlemen, whether playing solos or duets, had an attentive and enthusiastic listener in Fithian, his journal proves on more than one page, and the Musical Glasses especially seem to have impressed him deeply. I cannot refrain from quoting his naive opinion of the same, as it is a proof that Franklin's instrument found fervent admirers in our country as well as abroad: Wednesday, 22 Dec. (1773) . . . Evening. Mr. Carter spent in playing on the Harmonica; It is the first time I have heard the Instrument. The Music is charming! The notes are clear and in- expressibly soft, they swell, and are inexpressibly grand; and 68 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC either it is because the sounds are new, and therefore pleased me, or it is the most captivating Instrument I have ever heard. The sounds very much resemble the human voice^ and in my opinion they far exceed even the swelling Organ. But, about ten years prior to Fithian's enthusiastic criticism, the music-lovers of Philadelphia had occasion to thank Benjamin Franklin personally for the pleasure his instrument afforded them. I copied from the Pennsylvania Gazette, Philadelphia, Dec. 27, 1764, the following advertisement: For the Benefit of Mr. Forage, and other Assistant Performers at the Subscription Concert in this city, on Monday, the 31st. of this instant December, at the Assembly Room in Lodge Alley, will be performed A CONCERT OF MUSIC: consisting of a Variety of the most celebrated Pieces now in Taste, in which also will be introduced the famous Armonica, or Musical Glasses, so much admired for the great Sweetness and Delicacy of its Tone. Tickets at 7s. 6d. each. Mr. Forage seems to have been the first musician to introduce the Armonica in our country, and it is quite possible that we owe to him George Washington's entry for April 2, 1765, at Williamsburg, Va., "By my Exps. to hear the Armonica, 3. 9." In 1774 a Signora Castella appeared in concert on the instrument at Charleston, S. C. About the same time, and later, George James L' Argeau made a specialty of it for many years. He taught at his "Musical Room" in Baltimore Violencello, Bassoon, Harpsichord, Pianoforte, German Flute, Oboe, Clarionet, French Horn, and Guitar. — a really formidable array of instruments — besides dancing and fencing ; and he advertised in the Maryland Gazette (Annapolis, October 6, 1774) his intention of performing on the Musical Glasses That harmonic instrument every day, between the hours of 3 and 6 in the afternoon, next door to Mr. Aikman's circulating library. . . half a dollar each. And as late as 1790 he ends an advertisement in the Maryland Journal, Baltimore, July 23, by saying: The Musical Glasses are performed to any Number of Ladies and Gentlemen, by giving timely Notice. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 69 A few years later, the versatile P. A. Van Hagen played at a concert at New York in March, 1794, his own "Concerto (by particular desire) on the Carillion, or Musical Glasses," the "or" being a little puzzling since carillons are not exactly made of glass, but perhaps the added i made all the difference in the world between a carillon and a carrillion. Then there was also Mr. John Christopher Moller, who, with Messrs. Capron, Carr, Gillingham and Reinagle, played a prominent part in the musical life of Philadelphia, advertised in Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser, 1795, May 4th, for the following day a "Miscellaneous Concert. . . under the direction of Mr. Moller at which will be introduced the Harmonica." The interesting program reads : Act I. Overture Haydn Song arranged for Harmonica by Moller Quintetto Pleyel Concerto Violin Gillingham Full Piece Pleyel Act II. Overture Pleyel Quartetto, Harmonica, Two Tenors and Violincello by.... Moller Concerto Violincello Manell [Menel] Fantasia Pianoforte Moller Finale Haydn Mr. Forage's instrument certainly was a copy of Franklin's, and Mr. Moller's instrument might already have shown some of the improvements attempted by the Abbe Mazzuchi on account of "the many and great inconveniences in the Harmonica of the celebrated Dr. Franklin," for Moller adds to his remarks quoted from the Phila. Gazette, April 3, 1795, This instrument since so much improved in Europe, by the first artists, is, in point of tone and sweet harmony, second to none, and in performance of modulation from which it derives its name not excelled by any other. That Mons. Jacobus Pick used one of Mazzuchi's instruments for his performances on the Musical Glasses 70 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC at Boston and elsewhere, from 1792 on, appears probable from his playing a "Sonata on the Italian Harmonica with several known airs" at Petersburg, Va., June 25, 1795. One of the principal modifications, according to Forkel's Mus. Krit. Bibliothek (1779), was to produce the tones with a fiddle-bow instead of using the fingers. Mazzuchi also made experiments with wooden boxes, which are said to have produced tones similar to those of the flute. Equally ingenious was the above- mentioned Fricke's project (1769) to apply a keyboard to the instrument. That the same idea occurred in 1786, independently, to Francis Hopkinson, I have demonstrated in my book on him. The arch-democrat Thomas Jefferson was so pleased with his project that in his opinion (expressed in a letter from Paris, December 23, 1786) its success would be "the greatest present which has been made to the musical world this century, not excepting the pianoforte." Hopkinson claimed a few months later, in his letters to Jefferson, that he had successfully "applied Keys to the Glasses, furnished with artificial Fingers"; but he also admitted partial failure because "it required too much Address in the manner of wetting the Cushions for Common Use." Whether or no he resumed his experiments after Jefferson (in his letter from Paris, May, 8, 1788) told him of having seen "a very simple improvement" in the matter of wetting the glasses ("by a piece of woolen cloth pasted on the edge of the case in front and touching the glasses"), I do not know. All this, and the fact that the Armonica formed part of the Court Orchestra at Darmstadt, that C. F. Pohl was engaged there exclusively for the instrument as late as 1818, that Johann Gottlieb Naumann, a famous composer of the eighteenth century, played it and wrote six sonatas for it, that Mozart composed — probably in 1780 — an Adagio for Harmonica in C BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 71 major, and, on May 23d, 1791, for Marianna Kirch- gaessner, an unpublished "Adagio und Rondo fur Har- monica, Flote, Oboe, Viola und Violoncello" which his biographer Otto Jahn calls remarkable for the blending of the instruments, — I mention all this, and that even Beethoven composed a little melodramatic piece for the Armonica for the "Leonora Prohaska" of his friend Duncker in 1814 or 1815, published for the first time in Grove's Dictionary, because these facts show the remarkable influence Franklin and his Armonica once had on the lovers of musical curiosities. Those interested in further particulars concerning the history of the instrument, obsolete for the past eighty years, will find them in the "History of the Harmonica" published by Karl Ferdinand Pohl, (the son of . the virtuoso) in 1862, though he is silent on Hopkinson's ingenious experiments. Undoubtedly, Franklin himself was proficient on his instrument. But if the Armonica ruined the nerves of other performers — and this probably was the main reason for its short life of only sixty years — Franklin seems not to have suffered from these bad effects. The late Paul Leicester Ford, devoting four pages in his book on the Many-Sided Franklin to the musical side, wrote : He himself took great pleasure in playing upon it, and an amusing glimpse is obtained of him during his last years through a paragraph in one of his letters, in which he says: "Mr. Pagin did me the honor of visiting me yesterday. He is assuredly one of the best men possible, for he had the patience to listen to me playing an air on the Armonica, and to hear it to the end." Again, Mme. Brillon, seeking to tempt him to her home, promises that "Father Pagin will play the God of Love on the violin, I the march on the piano, you Little Birds on the harmonica"; and the same writer, in describing their future life in heaven, prophesies that "Mr. Mesmer will be contented with playing on the har- monica without boring us with electric fluid." Finally, while Mr. Sparks informed us that Metastasio was officially called upon to write an ode in honor of Marianne Davies, I am able to furnish an ode written 72 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC in praise of Franklin's own performances on the Ar- monica — and not par ordre de Mufti. It might not be interesting as a poetical effort, but is interesting in this connection and as a poetical effusion of one of our earliest American poets. It is to be found in Nathaniel Evans' "Poems on Several Occasions — Philadelphia, Printed by John Dunlap, in Market Street, 1772"; and reads: TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, ESQ., LL.D. Occasioned by hearing him playing on the Harmonica. In grateful wonder lost, long had we view'd Each gen'rous act thy patriot soul pursu'd; Our little State resounds thy just applause, And, pleas'd, from thee new fame and honour draws; In thee those various virtues are combin'd, That form the true preeminence of mind. What wonder struck us when we did survey The lambent lightnings innocently play, And down thy rods beheld the dreaded fire In a swift flame descend — and then expire; While the red thunders, roaring loud around, Burst the black clouds, and harmless smite the ground. Blest use of art! apply'd to serve mankind, The noble province of the sapient mind! For this the soul's best faculties were giv'n, To trace great nature's laws from earth to heav'n! Yet not these themes alone thy thoughts command, Each softer SCIENCE owns thy fostering hand; Aided by thee, Urania's heav'nly art, With finer raptures charms the feeling heart; Th' HARMONICA shall join the sacred choir, Fresh transports kindle, and new joys inspire. Hark! the soft warblings, sounding smooth and clear, Strike with celestial ravishment the ear, Conveying inward, as they sweetly roll, A tide of melting music to the soul; And sure, if aught of mortal-moving strain Can touch with joy the high angelic train, 'Tis this enchanting instrument of thine, Which speaks in accents more than half divine! The Armonica, however, was not the only instru- ment Franklin enjoyed and knew how to play. Mr. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 73 Ford claims that previous to the development of the Armonica he also knew how to play on the harp, the guitar, and the violin; and Mr. Parton adds to these instruments the violoncello. I have been unable to verify Franklin's proficiency on the violoncello and violin, but he may have been a harpist, for in France a friend wrote him that he had "searched for harps everywhere without being able to find any." Certainly, Franklin, like most gentlemen of his time, knew how to play on the guitar. "I shall never touch the strings of the British lyre without remembering my British friends, and particularly the kind giver of the instru- ment," he wrote from Philadelphia (Dec. 7, 1762) to Mr. Whiteford, who congratulated him upon the marriage of his son William. He even offered his services as a guitar-teacher to Leigh Hunt's mother, but she was too bashful to become his pupil — so her son informs us in his autobiography. So much on Benjamin Franklin as the "inventor" of the Armonica and as a "virtuoso." But what did he mean in his letter to Padre Beccaria by "Italian music — of the soft and plaintive kind"? As this letter was written in 1762, his knowledge of Italian music naturally was restricted to what was. known of it in the colonies, and especially in Philadelphia. The opinion has prevailed that the musical life of America was exceedingly primitive during the eighteenth century, but a few degrees less so in sacred music than in secular. To be sure, our early musical life had a rather provincial aspect if compared with that of Lon- don, Paris, Vienna or Rome, but it was by no means so primitive as historians usually picture it. As a rule, they make the great mistake of observing things through a New England church window instead of studying more than superficially the secular music of "y e olden time" in the Middle and Southern Colonies. Their treatment of the subject did more harm than good. 74 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Our early musical life was provincial, but not so primi- tive as to deserve to be ridiculed. And if it is to be called primitive and crude, our early sacred music de- serves this verdict more than the secular. We had more x>r less regular operatic seasons in New- York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Annapolis, Charleston, the repertoire consisting, of course, mostly of English ballad-operas and, later, a few French and Italian operas translated into English, for instance Pergolesi's "La Serva Padrona." We had regular orchestral subscrip- tion or amateur concerts; we had musical societies; we did not neglect chamber music, and music played a prominent part at all College Commencements. The German flute, the guitar, the harpsichord — the fashion- able instruments of the time — the pianoforte, the violin, the bass-viol, were not missing in well-to-do families of Colonial times. Not even the strolling Italian and French virtuosos were wanting, nor the blessed "Wun- derkinder." About 1760 the musical life of Philadelphia depended more or less on such "imported" musicians as Albert, Bremner, Fyring, John Schneider, Forage and Gualdo, and native amateur musicians like Governor Penn and Francis Hopkinson, the first American composer. It is easy to ridicule their talent and ability, but it is difficult to deny the fact that under their guidance the music of Leo, Galuppi, Pergolesi, Corelli, Geminiani, not to mention minor lights, or of the then fashionable British composers, or of the German masters Gluck, Hasse, Handel, was sold, taught, played and enjoyed in America. These facts throw some light upon Franklin's seeming- ly odd words. At least they go to show what kind of music he might have known and enjoyed, if really in- terested in music. If his share in a musical invention alone renders his interest undeniable, it can be traced through all his writings. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 75 While at Bethlehem in 1757, studying the institutions of the Moravians, he evidently took an interest in their highly developed musical life. He says in his auto- biography : I was at their church, where I was entertained with good musick, the organ being accompanied with violins, hautboys, flutes, clarinets, etc. From a household letter, written to his wife, June 22, 1767, in London, we know that even his house was not without relations to music. He gives her instructions about the "blue room," telling her to "let the papier mache musical figures be tacked to the middle of the ceiling." If his various instruments were located in this "blue room," as we may suppose, it must have had quite a musical atmosphere, especially when crowded with friends who came to hear him perform on the musical glasses. That Franklin attended concerts and operatic per- formances while abroad is certain, and it seems as if he saw Handel conduct The Messiah for the last time, eight days before his death, on the sixth of April, 1759. At least, I reach this conclusion from the following remarks in Mr. James Parton's biography of Franklin (I, pp. 260-262, 397): Franklin was just in time to see the sublime old man, one of the sturdiest characters of modern times, led to the organ for the last time, and conduct one of his own works. He heard Handel's oratorios and his now forgotten operas, always with admiration, but not with blind admiration. The same historian lays some stress upon the fact that Franklin was fond of social gatherings and always ready to do his part with jest, anecdote and song, and that he was especially fond of Scotch songs. Three songs that he used to sing are known to us. One was the "The Old Man's Wish," which he says he sang "a thousand times in his singing days." 76 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Another of his songs was "My Plain Country Joan," a long ditty, written by himself in praise of his own wife. Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate, I sing my plain country Joan, These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, Blest day that I made her my own. (etc.) Another song, written by Franklin in the Junto days, and often sung by him at the Junto rooms, the entire club joining in the chorus, is in a different strain. Franklin, when seventy years of age, mentioned this third song in a letter to the Abbe de la Roche: "I have," he writes, "run over, my dear friend, the little book of poetry by M. Helvetius, with which you presented me. The poem on 'Happiness' pleased me much, and brought to my recollection a little drinking song which I wrote forty years ago, upon the same subject, and which is nearly on the same plan, with many of the same thoughts, but very concisely expressed. It is as follows: Singer: Fair Venus calls; Her voice obey. In beauty's arms spend night and day. The joys of love all joys excell And loving 's certainly doing well. Chorus: Oh! No! Not so! For honest souls know Friends and a bottle still bear the bell." And so on between singer and chorus. I do not know whether Franklin himself or one of our early composers ever tried to compose this jolly drinking song, or, following the custom of the time, tried to adapt some popular tune to it. I believe the latter, and doubt very much that Franklin ever tried his hand at com- position, as Mr. Ford was inclined to believe on the strength of a letter written by Mme. Brillon, in which she acknowledges the receipt of "your music engraved in America." Mr. Ford adds "that it has not been possible to identify the piece." I fancy that our eminent historian BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 77 was discovering too many sides in Franklin and that, even if the piece should be identified, the discovery would not reveal Franklin as a composer. Probably Mme. Brillon's words refer either to some music be- longing to Franklin and engraved in America, or to some music engraved by Franklin himself. Perhaps some of the works mentioned as printed by Franklin in Mr. James Warrington's "Short Titles of Books relating to or illustrating the History and Practice of Psalmody in the United States, 1620-1820 (1898, Philadelphia)" contained music engraved in his office. At any rate, it would not surprise me to find Franklin an engraver of music. He might have had some knowledge of the trade, having been a journeyman at the office of John Watts of Lincoln's Inn Fields, a British music-publisher who printed a "Musical Miscellany" in six volumes between 1729 and 1731, that is, during Franklin's employment as his journeyman. It would have been easy enough for Franklin to find a composer, as he took a lively and encouraging interest in the beginnings of our artistic life, and as he, from some letters, appears to have been personally acquainted with our early painters, poets and musicians. An extract from his letters to Mary Stevenson, Phila- delphia, March 25, 1763, may prove this. He writes: After the first cares of the necessaries of life are over, we shall come to think of the embellishments. Already some of our young geniuses begin to lisp attempts at painting, poetry and music. The manuscript piece is by a young friend of mine, and was oc- casioned by the loss of one of his friends, who lately made a voyage to Antigua to settle some affairs previous to an intended marriage with an amiable young lady here, and unfortunately died there. I send it to you because the author is a great admirer of Mr. Stanley's musical compositions, and has adapted this piece to an air in the sixth concerto of that gentleman, the sweet solemn movement of which he is quite enraptured with. He has attempted to compose a recitative for it, but not being able to satisfy himself in the bass, wishes I could get it supplied. If Mr. Stanley would condescend to do that for him, he would esteem it as one of the highest honors, and it would make him excessively happy. You will say that a recitative can be but a poor specimen of our music. It is the best and all I have at present, but you may see better hereafter. 78 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Inasmuch as James Lyon and Francis Hopkinson, both in Philadelphia in 1763, had already won some reputation in America as composers and compilers, it may seem strange that Franklin does not mention them, though he, as a printer, must have noticed the publication of Lyon's "Urania" in 1762 and Hopkinson's "An Exercise" in 1761. Perhaps he did not think it worth while to mention their crude efforts when talking of a fashionable European composer like John Stanley, to whom the great Handel bequeathed part of his library. I have dwelt upon all these minor details in order to show that Benjamin Franklin possessed a keen interest for music and a certain knowledge of its litera- ture. But so far, with exception of his traditional invention of the musical glasses, he did not surpass the many other lovers of music in colonial America. The two following documents, however, place him high above the average amateur, not only of his own country and time, but of Europe and to-day. The first letter was addressed from London, June 2, 1765, to the philosopher and bet esprit Lord Karnes of Edinborough. It is, in my opinion, a surprisingly original and important document. Here the American sage appears as an ardent admirer of a folk-lore pure and simple, not embellished or overloaded with modern "Verschlimmbesserungen," long before our historians brought similar theories into practice. Moreover, Franklin expresses ideas on melody, usually considered of newest date, and which it took the psychologists of music more than a century to explain, prove and develop. When this extremely interesting letter was first reprinted in Dwight's Journal of Music and other reviews from Spark's edition of Franklin's works in 1856, if I remember the year correctly, it was done with a benevolent" smile. The letter was spoken of as an antediluvian curiosity and as a corpus delicti of Franklin's BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 79 musical illiteracy. How surprised would these writers be to hear that similar theories, though in a clearer and more elaborate form and without certain deviations from the correct path, have been formulated by such eminent scientists as Karl Stumpf and Hugo Riemann! Benjamin Franklin wrote, one hundred and thirty-five years ago: In my passage to America I read your excellent work, "The Elements of Criticism," in which I found great entertainment. I only wish that you had examined more carefully the subject of music, and demonstrated that the pleasure artists feel in hearing much of that composed in the modern taste is not the natural pleasure arising from melody or harmony of sounds, but of the same kind with the pleasure we feel on seeing the surprising feats of tumblers and rope-dancers, who execute difficult things. For my part, I take this really to be the case, and suppose it to be the reason why those who are unpracticed in music, and therefore unacquainted with those difficulties, have little or no pleasure in hearing this music. I have sometimes, at a concert, attended by a common audience, placed myself so as to see all their faces, and observed no signs of pleasure in them during the performance of a great part that was admired by the performers themselves; while a plain old Scotch tune, which they disdained, and could scarcely be prevailed on to play, gave manifest and general delight. Give me leave, on this occasion, to extend a little the sense of your position, that "melody and harmony are separately agreeable and in union delightful," and to give it as my opinion that the reason why the Scotch tunes have lived so long, and will probably live forever (if they escape being stifled in modern affected orna- ment), is merely this, that they are really compositions of melody and harmony united, or rather that their melody is harmony. I mean the simple tunes sung by a single voice. As this will appear paradoxical, I must explain my meaning. In common acceptation, indeed, only an agreeable succession of sounds is called melody, and only the coexistence of agreeable sounds harmony. But, since the memory is capable of retaining for some moments a perfect idea of the pitch of a past sound, so as to compare with it the pitch of a succeeding sound, and judge truly of their agreement or disagreement, there may and does arise from thence a sense of harmony between the present and past sounds equally pleasing with that between two present sounds. Now, the construction of the old Scotch tunes is this, that almost every succeeding emphatical note is a third, a fifth, an octave, or, in short, some note that is in concord with the pre- ceding note. Thirds are chiefly used, which are very pleasing concords. I use the word emphatical to distinguish those notes which have a stress laid on them in singing the tune, from the lighter connecting notes that serve merely, like grammar articles in common speech, to tack the whole thing together. That we have a most perfect idea of sound just passed, I might appeal to all acquainted with music, who know how easy it is 80 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC to repeat a sound in the same pitch with one just heard. In tuning an instrument, a good ear can as easily determine that two strings are in unison by sounding them separately as by sounding them together; their disagreement is also as easily, I believe I may say more easily and better, distinguished, when sounded separately, for when sounded together, though you know by the beating that one is higher than the other, you cannot tell which it is. I have ascribed to memory the ability of comparing the pitch of a present tone with that of one past. But if there should be, as possibly there may be, something in the ear, simi- lar to what we find in the eye, that ability would not be entirely owing to memory. Possibly the vibrations given to the auditory nerves by a particular sound may actually continue some time after the cause of those vibrations is past, and the agreement or disagreement of a subsequent sound becomes by comparison with them more discernible. [Franklin for a moment leaves the musical subject and explains similar optical phenomena, stating that it is easier to retain the impression of lines than of colors.] Farther, when we consider by whom these ancient tunes were composed and how they were first performed, we shall see that such harmonical successions of sounds were natural, and even necessary, in their construction. They were composed by the minstrels of those days to be played on the harp, accompanied by the voice. The harp was strung with wire, which gives a sound of long continuance, and had no contrivance like that in the modern harpsichord, by which the sound of the preceding could be stopped the moment a succeeding note began. To avoid actual discord it was therefore necessary that the succeeding emphatical note should be a chord with the preceding, as their sounds must exist at the same time. Hence arose that beauty in those tunes that has so long pleased, and will please forever, though men scarce know why. That they were originally composed for the harp, and of the most simple kind, I mean a harp without any half notes but those in the natural scale and with no more than two octaves of strings, from C to C, I conjecture from another circumstance, which is, that not one of those tunes, really ancient, has a single artificial half note in it, and that in tunes where it was most con- venient for the voice to use the middle notes of the harp and place the key in F, then the B, which, if used, should be a B flat, is always omitted by passing over it with a third. The connoisseurs in modern music will say I have no taste, but I cannot help adding that I believe our ancestors, in hearing a good song, distinctly articulated, sung to one of those tunes and accompanied by the harp, felt more real pleasure than is communicated by the generality of modern operas, exclusive of that arising from the scenery and dancing. Most tunes of late composition, not having this natural harmony united with their melody, have recourse to the artificial harmony of a bass and other accompanying parts. This support, in my opinion, the old tunes do not need, and are rather confused than aided by it. Whoever has heard James Oswald play these on his violoncello will be less inclined to dispute this with me. I have more than once seen tears of pleasure in the eyes of his auditors; and yet, I think, even his playing those tunes would please more, if he gave them less modern ornament. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 81 It goes without saying that Franklin's excursion into the history of music was not very lucky and that his philippics against the artificial harmony in operas must not be taken too literally; but his closing remarks certainly prove that he possessed an uncommonly clear idea of the true character of folk-songs and of the best way of performing them. This same critical faculty appears in a letter addressed to Peter Franklin of Newport. It is without date, but Bigelow rightly published it among the London letters of 1765. It was first published in the Massachusetts Magazine for July, 1790 (p. 412-414), under the title "Criticism on Musick." As a "Criticism on Modern Musick. . . " it appeared in the Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine for August, 1790 (p. 97-99). It reads as follows: Dear Brother: I like your ballad, and think it well adapted for your purpose of discountenancing expensive foppery and en- couraging industry and frugality. If you can get it generally sung in your country, it may probably have a good deal of the effect you hope and expect from it. But as you aimed at making it general, I wonder you chose so uncommon a measure in poetry that none of the tunes in common use will suit it. Had you fitted it to an old one, well known, it must have spread much faster than I doubt it will do from the best new tune we can get composed for it. I think, too, that if you had given it to some country girl in the heart of Massachusetts, who has never heard any other than psalm tunes or "Chevy Chase," the "Children in the Woods," the "Spanish Lady," and such old, simple ditties, but has naturally a good ear, she might more probably have made a pleasing popular tune for you than any of our masters here, and more proper to the purpose, which would best be answered if every word could, as it is sung, be understood by all that hear it, and if the emphasis you intend for particular words could be given by the singer as well as by the reader; much of the force and impression of the song depending on those circumstances. I will, however, get it as well done for you as I can. Do not imagine that I mean to depreciate the skill of our com- posers of music here; they are admirable at pleasing practiced ears and know how to delight one another, but in composing for songs the reigning taste seems to be quite out of nature, or rather the reverse of nature, and yet, like a torrent, hurries them all away with it; one or two, perhaps, only excepted. You, in the spirit of some ancient legislators, would influence the manners of your country by the united powers of poetry and music. By what I can learn of their songs, the music was simple, conformed itself to the usual pronunciation of words, as to measure, cadence or emphasis, etc., never disguised and confounded the 82 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC language by making a long syllable short, or a short one long, when sung; their singing was only a more pleasing because a melo- dious manner of speaking, it was capable of all the graces of prose oratory, while it added the pleasure of harmony. A modern song, on the contrary, neglects all the proprieties and beauties of common speech, and in their place introduces its defects and absurdities as so many graces. I am afraid you will hardly take my word for this, and therefore I must endeavour to support it by proof. Here is the first song I lay my hand on. It happens to be a composition of one of our greatest masters, the ever famous Handel. It is not one of his juvenile performances, before his taste could be improved and formed; it appeared when his reputation was at the highest, is greatly admired by all his admirers, and is really excellent in its kind. It is called, "The additional favorite Song in Judas Maccabeus." Now I reckon among the defects and improprieties of common speech the following, viz.: 1. Wrong placing the accent or emphasis by laying it on words of no importance or on wrong syllables. 2. Drawling; or extending the sound of words or syllables beyond their natural length. 3. Stuttering; or making many syllables of one. 4. Unintelligibleness; the result of the three foregoing united. 5. Tautology; and 6. Screaming without cause. For the wrong placing of the accent or emphasis, see it on the word their instead of being on the word vain, with their- vain,_ mys - te - rious art And from the word from, and the wrong syllable like, God- like wis - dom from a - bove For the drawling, see the last syllable of the word wounded. r tg r T£2 Nor_ can heal_ the wound-ed heart. And in the syllable wis, and the word from and the syllable bove : r rr I M God-like wis - dom from. a - bove. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MUSICAL SIDE 83 For tr e stuttering, see the words ne'er relieve in: — -T* J Cm • ■ — | 1 tr • — | m ~-**' mag-ic. charms can ne'er. re - lieve you Here are four syllables made of one, and eight of three; but this is moderate. I have seen in another song, that I cannot now find, seventeen syllables made of three, and sixteen of one. The latter, I remember, was the word charms, viz., cha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a- a-a-a-a-a-a-a-arms. Stammering with a witness! For the unin- telligibleness, give this whole song to any taught singer, and let her sing it to any company that have never heard it. You shall find they will not understand three words in ten. It is, therefore, that at the oratorios and operas one sees with books in their hands all those who desire to understand what they hear sung by even our best performers. For the tautology, you have, with their vain, mysterious art, twice repeated; magic charms can ne'er relieve you, three times; Nor can the wounded heart, three times; God-like wisdom from above, twice, and this alone can ne'er deceive you, twice or three times. But this is reasonable when compared with the Monster Polypheme, the Monster Polypheme, a hundred times over and over in his admired "Acis and Galatea." As to the screaming, perhaps I cannot find a fair instance in this song; but whoever has frequented our operas will remember many. And yet there, methinks, the words no and e'er, when sung to these notes, have a little of the air of screaming, and would actually be screamed by some singers. I send you enclosed the song with its music at length. Read the words without the repetitions. Observe how few they are, and what shower of notes attend them; you will then, perhaps, be inclined to think with me that, though the words might be the principal part of an ancient song, they are of small importance in a modern one. They are, in short, only a pretence for singing. I am, as ever, your affectionate brother, Benjamin Franklin. P. S. — I might have mentioned inarticulation among the defects in common speech that are assumed as beauties in modern singing. But as that seems more the fault of the singer than of the com- poser, I omitted it in what related merely to the composition. The fine singer, in the present mode, stifles all the hard consonants and polishes away all the rougher parts of words that serve to distinguish them one from another; so that you can hear nothing but an admirable pipe, and understand no more of the song than you would from its tune played on any other instrument. If ever it was the ambition of musicians to make instruments that should imitate the human voice, that ambition seems now reversed, the voice aiming to be like an instrument. Thus wigs were first made to imitate a good natural head of hair; but when they became fashionable, though in unnatural forms, we have seen natural hair dressed to look like wigs. 84 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC No doubt, Franklin shows a remarkably pure taste in this polemical essay. Very few critics and professional musicians had or have equally independent esthetical reasoning powers, and probably contemporaneous ar- tists, when "talking shop" with Franklin, haughtily sneered at his provincial ideas. The modern historian, however, will side with Franklin and agree with the lexicographers Gerber, Fetis, and Grove, who report that he possessed a deep insight into musical acoustics and esthetics. But this insight certainly was not due only to the improvisatory genius and instinct of a many- sided man. It is clear that Franklin must have given much critical thought to problems in music. We there- fore regret that his writings contain comparatively so little on this art and that his discussions of musical matters with friends musical and unmusical have not been preserved. Probably his remarks on other sub- jects besides folk-songs and the harmonic structure of melodies were not less original. Perhaps he foresaw the music of the future in more than one respect, for to-day it is generally admitted that Handel's musical declamation was indeed often faulty, like that of many of his contemporaries. If the composers of the nine- teenth century, especially the song-composers of the last thirty years, have improved upon the masters of the eighteenth century, it is not because they possess greater creative powers, but, in part, because they pay more attention to the artistic intermarriage of poetry and music, that is, because they seek to avoid the defects and improprieties of musical speech so ably pointed out, in the music of his time, by Benjamin Franklin. MACDOWELL VERSUS MACDOWELL MACDOWELL VERSUS MACDOWELL A STUDY IN FIRST EDITIONS AND REVISIONS {Proceedings of the Music Teachers' National Association for 1911) Remembering that as yet no library possesses a complete file of the first editions of our classics, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc., I conceived the plan, some years ago, of assembling in the Library of Congress, as a precautionary measure at least, a complete file of the first editions of Edward MacDowell, the foremost American composer. No serious obstacles were anti- cipated at the time, but the simple statement that we have not yet reached the goal permits the inference that the task cannot be so easy as it looked at first. Surely an amazing statement, in view of the fact that MacDowell's earliest published work, the First Modern Suite, op. 10, appeared in 1883, and his last, the New England Idyls, op. 62, in 1902. The succeeding years, until his pitifully tragic end in 1908, saw the inception of several new works, but not the completion of any. Op. 1-9 (an overture for orchestra, pieces for violin and piano, etc.), were suppressed. A waltz for piano was advertised as op. 8 in 1894 and 1895, but not published, and the "Two Old Songs," published as op. 9, were really composed about ten years after op. 10. Add to the pieces published with opus-numbers the seven published under the pseudonym of Edgar Thorn, seven works under MacDowell's own name, without opus-numbers, some twenty part-songs, and about forty piano pieces arranged or edited by him, and the output is still far from voluminous. Under normal circum- stances it would be a fairly easy matter to collect the first editions of about one hundred works of any com-. poser, published, as it were, under our own eyes, ad- 87 88 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC vertised in musical magazines, duly listed in the biblio- graphic tools of the music-dealer and musician, and many deposited in the Library of Congress for purposes of copyright. Under the fascinating influence of MacDowell's in- terpretation of his own works — a revelation to any one who might have had his doubts as to MacDowell's genius as a composer — I took up what, at its worst, looked like the task of a few months. Hardly had I commenced compiling a preliminary list of MacDowell's works when the puzzles began to crowd each other. In my despair, I took the shortest way imaginable out of the difficulties, and in 1904 submitted the list to Mr. MacDowell for suggestions, corrections, and additions. Ever ready to help and to encourage others, MacDowell, tired — indeed, tired to death — as he was, complied with my request. It was after the receipt of his marginal notes that I first fully realized the hornet's nest of annoying, trivial, evasive problems which I had ap- proached too closely. Neither MacDowell himself, nor the music-dealers and publishers to whom we subse- quently gave purchasing orders, quite understood our object. With remarks like "new edition will soon appear," "will be revised by me," "only new edition is valuable," "all these are now A. P. Schmidt" (to whom P. L. Jung's copyright had been assigned in 1899), "these belong to me," "no copyright for the U. S. A.," "nicht eingetragen," "no copyright in America at that time," he brushed aside (with the best of intentions, of course) the very things which I desired to know. But MacDowell's marginal notes also showed that there really was occasion for a by no means dry piece of bibliographic research-work which might also have a practical value beyond the merely bibliographic sphere of interest. Here is a concrete example. The Library of Congress had ordered the first edition of MacDowell's "Erste MACDOWELL VERSUS MACDOWELL 89 moderne Suite," op. 10, published by Breitkopf & Hartel of Leipsic in 1883 with the publishers' plate number 16205. The date of publication, in pursuance of the old and often-deplored policy of music-publishers, does not appear on the title-page. Our agent therefore insisted that the copy sent us was of the desired first edition because it contained the original plate-number 16205. He overlooked the fact that the opening page of the suite's "Praeludium" contained the claim "Copy- right by E. A. MacDowell, 1891." This is the copyright- date of the "Neue Ausgabe" of the "Praeludium" published separately in that year. Yet this particular copy of the Suite, though it included the "Neue Ausgabe" of the "Praeludium," could not have been published even in 1891, much less, of course, in 1883. And this for another reason overlooked by our usually very careful agent. The title-page, one of the collective title-pages so popular with music-publishers, refers to E. R. Kroeger's Suite, op. 33, which was not copyrighted until the year 1896. Consequently, this particular issue of MacDowell's first suite, though printed from the plates of the first edition of 1883, was not struck off until 1896 at the earliest. Now, in 1891 there appeared, also separately, the "Intermezzo" from the suite, op. 10, but in a "Neue, vom Componisten umgearbeitete Ausgabe." This revised edition, augmented from 86 to 132 bars, was not included in the (circa) 1896 issue of the complete suite, but it was included in the edition copyrighted in 1906. The other movements, too, now contained numerous revisions and alterations. The fact of revision is not mentioned on the title-page, which is exactly the same as the title-page of the (circa) 1896 issue, and it appears only in the following rather confusing — because partly impossible — marginal claim on the opening page of the "Praeludium": "Revised by Edward MacDowell, 1906. Copyright by Edward Mac- Dowell, 1891. Copyright, 1906, by Breitkopf & Hartel." 90 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC Wherein the revisions consist, only he can tell who happens to compare the three editions, bar for bar, which is not likely to occur outside of the innermost circle of MacDowell specialists. Yet such a comparison bears directly on the interpretation of MacDowell's suite. The following, not at all far-fetched, hypothetical case may serve to illustrate this. Supposing pianist A, one of the older generation, has studied the suite in the first edition of 1883, and plays it thus publicly. In his audience sits pianist B, who has studied the suite in the issue of 1896, and the critic C, who knows the suite in the version of 1906. Would it not be entirely human for B and C to accuse A of having taken extra- ordinary, inexcusable liberties with MacDowell's com- position? On exchanging, in detail, their views on A's vandalism or lack of memory, would not B and C begin to form some rather decided opinions of each other's ignorance, until they found out that the dissension was due only to the pardonable ignorance of A, B, and C of the complicated history of MacDowell's suite? For just such pitfalls as these, the bibliography of MacDowell's works is perhaps the most complicated of recent times. At any rate, an example for the truth that modern music, too, is replete with bibliographic puzzles, and of a kind quite foreign to older music. In MacDowell's case, "Copyright" and "Revised editions" are the principal instruments which, singly or in com- bination, have twisted his musical output into such a confusing mass of conflicting details. MacDowell was one of those composers who retain a fatherly interest in their works even after publication. Eminently of a self-critical turn of mind, he would detect flaws in his published compositions and found no rest until he had given them that finish of detail which is so characteristic of his art at its best. This desire for improvement, this (one might almost say) mania for revision, in itself does not usually help to complicate MACDOWELL VERSUS MACDOWELL 91 matters. Such revisions, as a rule, remain hidden in the composer's private copies and do not reach the public. In the first place, comparatively few compo- sitions sell well enough to warrant new editions; in the second place, publishers, unless moved by strong com- mercial reasons, dread the expense of printed revised editions. Ordinarily they prefer simply to strike off a fresh supply of copies from the unchanged plates, adding only a new title-page for the purposes of more effective advertisement. Perhaps the steadily growing popularity of Mac- Dowell's works in the smaller forms would have furnished a sufficient commercial incentive to his publishers to deviate from the rule, and to risk the expense of printing new editions with all those revisions and improvements which MacDowell's maturing mind wished to embody in his earlier compositions. However, the same result was effected by considerations of a more practical nature. These were considerations of copyright. Until our copyright-agreements with certain foreign governments went into effect on July 1, 1891, music by foreign composers published in foreign countries could not be protected in our country by copyright. This provision of the law was clear, at least by inference. Nevertheless, it was not always properly understood. Hence, if, for instance, as far back as 1846, Schumann's "Vierzig Clavierstiicke fur die Jugend," published abroad, contain a "New York Southern District" copyright-claim in the name of Schuberth & Co. of New York, this claim is nothing more or less than a copyright curiosity, and quite naturally no entry will be found in the records of our Copyright Office. Entirely different was the situation with composers who were citizens of the United States. The law did not stipulate that their compositions must have been published in the United States in order to be amenable to United States copyright. If the composer was an American 92 SUUM CUIQUE: ESSAYS IN MUSIC citizen, his works could be copyrighted in our country, no matter where they were published, provided only that certain formalities of registration had been observed, and that the copyright was taken out, not in the name of the foreign publisher, but in "that of the American composer or in the name of any other American citizen to whom the composer assigned the copyright. There- fore, while it was impossible for a foreign publisher to claim a United States copyright on his publications of American compositions, it was entirely possible for the American composer himself or an American publisher acting as his copyright assignee to do so. If this liberality of the copyright law as in force before July 1, 1891, had been properly understood by all the different foreign publishers of MacDowell's early works, there would have been no necessity later to rush to cover, and it would not be a fact that Mac- Dowell was powerless to prevent reprints by the whole- sale of certain of his early works, simply because the European publishers did not avail themselves of Mac- Dowell's rights as an American citizen. Some of his publishers abroad, however, realized their and his danger, and availed themselves of the law's opportun- ities. This explains why they printed title-pages with dated United States copyright-claims in the name of G. Schirmer of New York below their own imprint. Although MacDowell, in his marginal notes mentioned above, says of his "Idyllen," op. 28, "nicht eingetragen" (not registered), it is nevertheless a fact that the original edition bears Schirmer's copyright- claim of 1887, that the work was duly registered, that the "Vier Stucke," op. 24, were copyrighted in the same year, "Hamlet-Ophelia," op. 22, in 1885; and that a copyright-claim in MacDowell's own name appears on the title-page of the Pianoforte Solostimme of the Second Concerto, op. 23 (1888), and of op. 25, "Lancelot and Elaine" (1888), etc. MACDOWELL VERSUS MACDOWELL