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THE ART OF MUSIC

The Art of Music

A Comprehensive Library of Information
for Music Lovers and Musicians

Editor-in-Chief

DANIEL GREGORY MASON
Columbia University

Associate Editors

EDWARD B. HILL LELAND HALL
Harvard University Past Professor, Univ. of Wisconsin

Managing Editor

CÉSAR SAERCHINGER
Modern Music Society of New York

In Fourteen Volumes
Profusely Illustrated

NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC

Edward Alexander MacDowell

After a photo from life

THE ART OF MUSIC: VOLUME FOUR

Music in America

Department Editors:

ARTHUR FARWELL

AND

W. DERMOT DARBY

Introduction by

ARTHUR FARWELL

Associate Editor 'Musical America'
Formerly Lecturer on Music, Cornell University, and
Supervisor of Municipal Concerts, City of New York

NEW YORK
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC

Copyright, 1915, by
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF MUSIC, Inc.
[All Rights Reserved]

MUSIC IN AMERICA

INTRODUCTION

Prophecy, not history, is the most truly important concern of music in America. What a new world, with new processes and new ideals, will do with the tractable and still unformed art of music; what will arise from the contact of this art with our unprecedented democracy—these are the questions of deepest import in our musical life in the United States. The past has consisted chiefly of a tasting of the musical art and traditions of the old world. The present is divided between imitation of the old and searching for the new, both in quality and application. The fruitage of our national musical life is still for the future. Intense as are the activities of the present, they are still merely the preparation of the soil for a future growth the nature and extent of which we can only guess at to-day. The stream of musical evolution in America, in the present transitional period, is rapidly overflowing its wonted banks, and passing the boundaries of the traditional musical world. The many are striving to obtain that which has been the exclusive possession of the few, and in this endeavor are not only extending, but also actually transforming the art. The paramount issues change with the passing of the seasons. One imported European sensation gives way to another. The problem of the true basis of American music dissolves overnight, and gives way to the problem of the specific evaluation of individual composers, whatsoever their tendency. The questions of the narrow concert world dwindle before the greater question of a broad musical administration for the people. We stand, in fact, in a state of chaos with respect of musical activities and ideals, and only the clearest thinkers are able to catch the truer and larger drift of the national evolution, or effectively direct it. Too many persons are ready to suppose that the issues of music in America lie wholly within the scope of purely musical considerations, and that they do not depend, as is actually the case in certain important respects, upon the nature of the national ideals and tendencies. The national need will condition the supply, and the more truly and deeply a national need is fulfilled, the more vital will be the result. For this reason it is important that the general national condition with respect of music be carefully studied, and that misconceptions and theories be relinquished in favor of a knowledge of facts.

If now we set out to glance over the circumstances which have eventually brought about the present condition of music in America, we find that this history, taken in its largest outlines, has a threefold aspect, the features of which may be roughly termed appreciation, creation, and administration. The degree in which the new world has grasped and understood the facts of musical development in the old must constitute a chief factor in any consideration of its musical evolution, and this subject will naturally include a reference to musical culture in America. The second general division of the subject relates to American composers and the creative musical output of the nation. The matter of the appreciation of this output will best be touched upon in connection with this aspect of the subject. With the question of administration we approach a phase of the subject which has of late assumed momentous proportions, touching directly, as it does, the great question of the relation of music to the people—the reaction of democracy to the art of music. The divisions of Appreciation and Administration are, of course, very closely related, and some chapters, such as that on Education, embody both aspects in almost equal degree. Hence the line cannot be very sharply drawn. Our sequence of chapters, while emphasizing the three aspects here set forth, has therefore been arranged with a view to presenting as continuous a story as possible. The chapters reviewing the creative activities of American composers have accordingly been placed together at the end of the volume.

We can not deeply consider the matter of the appreciation of the musical art of the old world by the new, without coming to the realization that it is complete. This, it must be recognized, is a matter which does not ultimately depend upon the numerical extent of the appreciators, but upon the quality of appreciation existing within the nation. Were this not so, we could not affirm the existence of a complete appreciation of its musical art by any nation of the world. In the broad sense in which we must necessarily speak in dealing only with the major facts of civilization and evolution, we may say that German musical art is appreciated by the German nation, even if only here or there someone is found who understands precisely the principles of Beethoven's form, or Wagner's harmony. In the practical progress of the world it is general acceptance and use, together with a sufficient artistic appreciation, technical and otherwise, on the part of certain individuals, which constitutes national appreciation of art. The knowledge and action of such preëminent individuals qualify the appreciative life of the nation. The evolution of the world to-day resides in the evolution of the progressive thought of individuals. Such thought outdistances the slower mental operations of the mass, which is nevertheless drawn along into ever new sets of changing conditions, through the modern development of the means of communication and the corresponding rapidity of both material and spiritual advance.

Such conditions of appreciation exist in a signal manner in the America of to-day. It is the simplest and most obvious of facts that there is a general acceptance and use of European musical art, old and new, throughout the 'musical world' of America. The relation of that 'musical world' to the whole population will be considered later. It is equally obvious to the qualified observer that no point of European musical art is without its thorough-going students and appreciators, and ardent conservators, in America. From Bach and Haydn, nay, from the Gregorian chant, the Greek enharmonic, the Oriental scale, down through every intermediate period and personality to the present day of Stravinsky and Schönberg, every phase of musical history and life has its students and its champions in the new world. America has, in truth, summed up the musical life of the ages and reflects it daily in the multitudinous activities of her musical world. The quality of American appreciation has one advantage of the greatest significance over that of any other land, in that it is without national or racial prejudice. Being without history or unity, with respect of race, the American people are without a racial folk-song, and hence are bound by no ancient racial sympathy or habit to a particular fundamental conception of the character of music. German music, French, Russian, Bohemian, Scandinavian, Italian—all are accepted with equal eagerness and sympathy. In America the world's music falls on fresh ears, with the result that a catholicity of taste prevails such as is to be found in no other land, and with the further result that a unique and broadly inclusive national impression of musical character in general has been gained. This in turn is leading to a national creative musical output which, if it has not converged upon any one distinctive national character, is, on the other hand, wholly free from dependence upon the traditional character of the music of any other nation, and could have been produced by no other nation.

The upshot of the status of American appreciation of musical art is that, although the work of more extensively familiarizing the population with the world's music must continue, the evolution, broadly, of America as an appreciative nation has been fulfilled, and it can from now on find no true musical progress except as a creative nation. Not only has it studied, at home and abroad, all that the outside world has produced, but it has now thoroughly studied the various phases of aboriginal music which exist upon its own soil. The national life has passed beyond its school days and entered the period where it has no alternative but to face judgment as a musically productive nation with legitimate pretensions to maturity.

In view of the intense musical interest and eagerness of the American people, of the vigorous and very rapidly expanding development of musical life in the United States since the Civil War, and the enormous sums which the nation spends annually for musical education, both at home and abroad, it would be irrational to expect anything less than the results above indicated. Musical education, which has played so vast a part in this development, shares, nevertheless, the general chaotic condition of American musical life. The absence of a National Academy of Music leaves the country still without any official standard of musical education, although high ideals and thorough courses are maintained in the music departments of the larger universities. There are several independent musical academies and conservatories of high standing, with a sufficiently broad and well ordered curriculum, and an unnumbered mass of nondescript music schools innocent of all normal standards. The same scale, from the highest excellence to downright charlatanism, is to be found in the field of private instruction, and one of the greatest educational problems which the nation faces is to bring some element of standardization into this field. This is a matter for state action, and in several states a movement is well under way for the licensing of music teachers. The development of music in the public schools, well grounded in the early part of the last century, has of late years been pushed with vigor and intelligence, and has led to unprecedented studies in the adaptation of music to the child, as well as to the composition of a great quantity of new and appropriate children's songs of excellent quality. The chief difficulty with national musical progress through the public schools lies in the fact that such a minute proportion of public school scholars go to high school and college, most of them losing all contact with musical education before reaching an age when their interest in it can be firmly established. This circumstance is now happily being continually more widely met from extra-educational quarters, in the present movement for music for the people through various channels to be referred to later. Professional educators are inclined to lay too much stress on school education as a means of developing appreciation in the mass, forgetting that the time must come when the chief musical training of the people, with respect of their ultimate enjoyment of music, must consist in a general public hearing of music of the highest order.

In centres of highly refined musical culture, America, from East to West, is not lacking. An aristocracy of musical appreciation has followed upon the establishment of symphonic and chamber music organizations in a number of cities. This culture is, however, almost exclusively devoted to the maintenance of traditional European standards, and is inclined to take slight cognizance of the native and democratic developments in which the true national progress of the present lies. The presence of such a culture in America is therefore not altogether an unmixed blessing; in fact it may lead to certain results of positive evil. The presence of retrospective hyper-refinement in a nation at a time when rugged creative strength, even if crude in its artistic results, should be manifested, may be harmful in its effect upon normal creative progress, especially when, with the backing of wealth, the press, and the academy, it arrogates to itself the possession of the true vision of artistic standards.

If, then, the tide of musical appreciation in America has reached a normal level, in accordance with the general civilization of the world of to-day, if the appreciative era, purely as such, is past, the creative epoch has only fairly begun. America, in musical composition, already reckons a historical sequence approaching to a classical, a romantic and an ultra-modern period, exhibiting the strange spectacle of most of the founders of the first period living to see the flowering of the last, during their active lifetime. In fact, some of the pioneers have actively engaged in fostering the issues of all three epochs. The truth of this curious condition is that this triple-aspected development of the past fifty years can not in reality be said to represent even the beginning of the actual creative epoch of the nation. As the child is said to pass through phases corresponding to the entire ancient history of the race, so this chapter in American music represents the rapid passage of the youthful America through the previous history of the art; it has represented the desire to catch up with the world at large. Even if some works of lasting value have been produced, as is undoubtedly the case, this period has in actuality represented a mere reflex of European musical civilization, a surface agitation, to be followed by an authentic and original national productivity along the lines of its own needs and ideals.

So irregular and tumultuous have been the conditions of musical development in America, that early influences have been of relatively small qualitative importance in determining the ultimate issues of American music. There are but two such early influences of importance to record, and one of these has become wholly negligible with relation to our independent art of music, finding its only resultant effect in the church music of America. This, attributable in the first instance to the Netherland school of the Renaissance, appeared as the early English contrapuntal school of Purcell, becoming associated with the music of the Protestant Church in England, and finally becoming diluted to the productions of the school of Billings and Hopkinson in America. American hymnology undoubtedly owes its character to this evolutionary sequence, although in the end American church music has become inundated with the German influence in its more sentimental aspects, and presents in general a profound degeneration too momentous for discussion in the present brief review. The one great original influence acknowledged by the nation, in its musically creative life, is the mighty German tradition of the epoch of Beethoven. It is significant and fortuitous that America was colonized, musically, at the time when the influence of that tradition was paramount in the world. It was the emigrating German music teacher, in every city and town of the United States, who implanted the fundamental conception of musical art in American civilization. Accepted and consulted everywhere, he determined the character of music in America in the period of reconstruction and educational expansion after the Civil War. His influence was solidified by the character of symphonic and choral enterprise, and by that of the performances of German musical artists touring in America. The Italian was the accredited opera singer and nothing more; the German was the teacher.

In the subsequent course of developments, two matters have militated against the ultimate domination of the German influence in American composition. One is the extensive change which has since occurred in the racial nature of the population. Continued immigration from all lands has eventually produced a population too diverse to accept and perpetuate, as its dominant musical character, the tradition of any one nation, however musically great. The other is the amazing musical awakening of all Europe since the epoch of Beethoven, and especially since Wagner, and the consequent deluge of modern music from various nations which has poured in upon American musical life. In view of the infinity of newly revealed possibilities, the American composer has been unwilling to continue to reflect merely the one tradition with which his nation was formerly acquainted, in howsoever high honor that tradition was held. It is to be said, however, that the substantial character of German formal musical construction has exerted, as it should, a permanent influence upon the American attitude toward composition, and one which is certain to operate beneficially upon the creative musical life of the nation. The American point of departure has been one not so much of technical system and ideals generally, as of temperament.

A third matter qualifying this emancipation of American music is the unearthing of the mass of aboriginal folk music peculiar to America, particularly that of the Indian and the negro. This has had a far more significant and widespread influence upon composers in America than critics in general have been willing to admit, and many of the strongest works now appearing in this country acknowledge an influence from these sources.

The 'American folk-song' discussion arose after what has been termed the classical period of American music, of which J. K. Paine may be considered the founder, and during the period in which the romantic influence, culminating in the work of MacDowell, was beginning to yield to the influence of the ultra-moderns. The factors which broke the exclusive German domination in America were, on one hand, the following up on this side of the water of the musical individuality gained by other European nations, and, on the other hand, the movement for the development of aboriginal folk-song in America. To these causes, some may add a spontaneous climatic influence, but of this there has as yet been no material demonstration.

The gist of the folk-song discussion was the question as to whether the basis of a characteristic national American musical art was to be found in the music of the negroes or Indians. This discussion arose after Antonin Dvořák's proclamation of such a possibility during his sojourn in America in the years 1892-95, and rose to its height several years after the foundation in 1901, by the writer, of The Wa-Wan Press, a movement for the attainment of a greater freedom in American music along both modern European and American aboriginal lines. As in all such matters, the question was answered by the degree and quality of creativeness in the works brought forward in exemplification of the principle. Good works on Indian or negro themes have lived, and bad ones have died. It soon became plainly evident that there was no popular prejudice against music drawing upon the characteristics of these native aboriginal sources; on the contrary, much interest was evinced, as has frequently been shown by the attitude of audiences listening to such works and by the popularity which certain of them have attained. The subject has also been made one for special study by numerous musical clubs throughout the country. What was asked was merely that the result should be good music. The influence of Indian and negro music upon American composition has thus spontaneously come to be recognized as a national and acceptable one, and the reflection of it by American composers to-day arouses scarcely a murmur of comment. That only a certain proportion of composers in America would respond to these influences was soon perceived, and with the readiness of the people to accept this kind of work, it became merely a question of the proportion of American musical art which should exhibit these tendencies. There appears to be no diminution of the tendency of many composers to draw upon these apparently inexhaustible aboriginal sources, and with the constant advance of creative musical art in America, and with its eagerness to press to a conclusion every available phase of music susceptible of development, there is every reason to believe that this influence, now generally recognized, will lead to a very considerable mass of achievement of a high character. America is too diverse in its sympathies and ideals to acknowledge any one national or racial influence as paramount in its musical art, but absolute creative freedom is essential to its national character.

Upon the original German influence, which has been rapidly modified in America by the work of Wagner and Strauss, there has followed chiefly the influence of modern France. Many American composers have lent themselves with avidity to the assimilation of the new technical resources revealed by Debussy and his colleagues, with excellent results so long as they considered these merely as accretions to their previous resource, but in general with equal failure where they have thought to create in the spirit of the French idiom. The directness of Russian musical expression has made its appeal to American composers, though its influence upon the color of American music has been inconsiderable in comparison with the French. The one cumulative effect of the many influences, from within and without, which have qualified the nature of American music, especially during the last two decades, has been to wrench it free from the uninspiring and nationally inappropriate character which it had acquired as the result of its original exclusive early German influence, without, it is to be noted, leading it into imitative subservience to the particular character of the musical art of any other nation. In other words, America has gained its creative musical freedom, even if still too new to that condition to manifest its ultimate results. With this widened horizon, the true creative epoch of American music has only now begun. The handful of American composers of serious ideals and noteworthy ability who could be named a few years ago has increased to scores, and new names appear in such rapid succession that the fairly definite knowledge which America had of its chief composers of the 'classical' and 'romantic' epochs can give only the feeblest conception of the present condition of composition in America. The best of the newer work shows a loftiness of ideals, a breadth of outlook, a definiteness of purpose, a freshness of color, a sense of the beautiful and an esprit which argue strongly for the future honor of American music. The chief danger which threatens the American composer is the tendency to accept and conform to the standards of the centres of conventional and fashionable musical culture, especially in unsubstantial modern aspects, and to fail to study out the real nature and musical needs of the American people. Such a tendency naturally lingers with the lingering domination of Europe over the standards and the machinery of American musical life. Conformity means representation and a certain sort of acclaim for the composer; nonconformity means severance from the usual and conventional centres and institutions of musical culture. Critical approbation does not mean the response of the people; the composers most highly acclaimed by the critics can by no means be said to have come closest to touching the national heart. The attitude of the world of musical 'culture' in America is still cold toward the native producer; this narrow American 'culture' world pays for the maintenance of fashionable foreign standards, and resents any interference with this course. Concert singers are seldom heard in American songs worthy of their artistry, and orchestral conductors seldom give, on their own initiative, successful native orchestral works, an isolated performance of which has been arduously procured elsewhere.

With the people generally, however, the matter is quite otherwise. The people of the nation have never shown a disposition to receive otherwise than cordially the work of their own composers. From Stephen Foster, through the ranks of popular music composers, to MacDowell, to many song composers of the present, and latterly to the composers of music for popular festivals and pageants—wherever the composer has gone directly to the people and served their needs, whether in the sphere of lesser or greater ideals, he has found a ready welcome and a hearty response. The pathway of true creativity, of healthy growth and achievement for the composer in America to-day, lies in abandoning the competition with European sensationalists and ultra-modernists in the narrow arena of the concert halls of 'culture', and turning to the fulfilment of national needs in the broadest and deepest sense.

The accomplishment of this matter is linked with the third and last general division of our main subject, the question of administration. As a natural consequence of events in American musical history, dating from the earliest days, there has arisen the so-called 'musical world' of America to-day, the well-defined national system of concert, recital and operatic life. This system arose normally to supply the new world with the products of the highly developed musical art of the old, and in such a capacity it has admirably served its purpose. In the course of time, however, and with the increasing wealth and musical culture of America, the harvest to be reaped by the commercial exploitation of foreign artists has not remained unperceived by a country not naturally backward in the perception of commercial advantage. It is quite natural that those who took into their hands the management of these affairs should seek the greatest profit which they could be made to yield. This, it will readily be seen, was not to come from the broad development of a given locality, which would involve education and a departure from the centres of wealth, but from the exploitation of the narrow circle of wealth and culture which existed in every community of importance. Thus a great circuit was established throughout the country, by which a process of skimming the cream from as many communities as possible was set in operation, in the presentation of famous foreign artists to what has been allowed to pass as the American public. Thus a system established originally as a service to the people has finally degenerated to the condition of a commercial enterprise which is utterly without regard to the broader interests of the people. The true condition of affairs is made evident to-day by the fact that when a resident of any moderate-sized prosperous American city starts to inaugurate some local musical enterprise for the benefit of the whole community, and calling for the entire community's support, he learns that the concert and recital life of his city, its 'musical world,' reaches and is supported by but from three to five per cent. of the entire population. The other ninety-five to ninety-seven per cent. find the regular musical events beyond their means, as well as beyond the facts of their culture, though in the latter respect America is now rapidly learning that the enjoyment of the best music is far less dependent upon special education than has commonly been supposed.

Meanwhile, by phonograph and player-piano, by newspaper and magazine, by high-class municipal concerts and occasional chance glimpses into the world of greater musical possibilities, the mass of the people have begun to become awakened to the existence of the larger musical world which they do not see and the larger musical life which they do not share, and to crave participation in it. Finally, therefore, we have the spectacle of an American 'musical world' which is no longer true to American conditions and which does not serve the people. In short, we have finally come face to face with the problem of the reaction of musical art and democracy.

With this question the nation has of late begun to deal in no half-hearted or uncertain manner. In fact, the national response to this situation involves the greatest American musical movement of the day. In its earlier phase the question asked was: Will the people, under democracy, rise to the accepted standards of musical culture? A negative answer to this question has been generally entertained, and among cultured people it has been commonly supposed that democracy would drag down the standards of musical culture. That a wholly new and multifold phase of musical life would arise to meet the requirements of a civilization such as that of America seems to have been earlier suspected or foreseen only by a few thinking students of conditions, who recognized the fact that the exact meeting of the mass, as it became more enlightened, with the conditions of traditional musical culture was not the solution which was to be expected or even desired. The plain fact was that the people at large were not enjoying the benefits, the pleasure, recreation, or inspiration, as the case might be, of all that the world prizes as music in any of its forms above that of popular songs and dances. Neither the educational system, on the one hand, nor the cultural system, on the other, provided them with it. One merely gave a little elementary training of the most primitive sort, and for a short time, to children, and the other did not reach beyond the extremely restricted sphere of culture and wealth. A movement was needed which should bring music in all of its forms directly to the masses of the people, and in the nation-wide campaign for what may be termed 'music for the people' such a movement has arisen. Experiments on every hand have shown that the people have needed only to be brought in contact with the higher forms of music, under advantageous conditions, to rise spontaneously to the enjoyment of it. The movement, in its activities, has assumed no particular form, but has taken a variety of forms according to the possibilities of local conditions. The 'Forest Festival,' or 'Midsummer High Jinks,' of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, while not open to the general public, has nevertheless shown the potent appeal of outdoor musical dramatic festivals to a large number of persons not commonly in touch with musical life. Municipal concerts on a scale not hitherto attempted, such as those in Central Park, New York, presenting not band, but orchestral concerts of the world's greatest music, have met with an astonishing and enthusiastic response on the part of the masses who have hitherto had no opportunity of hearing anything above the popular music of the streets, the dance halls, and the 'movies.' The musical phase of the social centre movement has assumed vast and national proportions, making use of the public school halls for concerts and recitals for thousands of persons who were previously without musical opportunities. Certain towns, such as Bethlehem, Pa., Lindsburg, Kans., and the towns of the 'Litchfield County Choral Union,' Conn., have established choral enterprises which include in the choruses practically the entire population. In two years the custom of Christmas trees with music, free to the people, has become almost a national movement. The 'community chorus,' such as that established in Rochester, N. Y., with a membership of nearly one thousand drawn from the people at large, and singing in the public parks and school halls, should prove a desirable form of people's musical enterprise in many places. Standard symphony orchestras in various cities are branching out extensively in the direction of giving concerts involving the highest order of music to the people at popular prices, and in some cities the organization of symphony orchestras for popular price concerts is threatening the existence of the regular orchestra. And well-nigh surpassing in significance most other phases of the general movement, and certainly in their popular inclusiveness, are the pageants or 'community dramas' with music, which are now constituting a feature of community life throughout the country.

If, then, the appreciative epoch along the older lines, is concluded in America, it may be said that the nation is coming to a new appreciation of music, as a whole, in its relation to humanity. The new movement will call forth new and larger efforts on the part of American composers, who, with their present thorough assimilation of the various musical influences of the world, will lead the nation into a new and mature creative epoch.

Arthur Farwell.

August, 1914.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME FOUR

MUSIC IN AMERICA

CHAPTER I
OUR ENGLISH INHERITANCE

The foundation of American musical culture—State of English musical culture in the seventeenth century—The Virginia colonists—The Puritans in England and in America; New England psalmody.

Whatever else the American music-lover may be, he is decidedly not chauvinistic. Deprecatingly he is wont to speak of native artistic accomplishment, and, however much he may be disposed to vaunt the stellar achievements of our few great opera houses and orchestras, he is content to draw a veil of modest silence over that part of our musical history which precedes the advent of those de luxe organizations. Hence it is, perhaps, that the searchlight of the historian has played but fitfully upon the early musical life of America—for, although popular interest may not inspire the writing of history, it is not without its influence on the publication thereof. Possibly the musical life of pre-Revolutionary America has had little to do with shaping the ultimate artistic destinies of the nation, yet it formed the matrix into which our subsequent musical culture has been embedded and as such it is of both interest and importance to those who would follow a phase of our national development, as yet regrettably neglected.

It is a peculiar tendency of the American historian to lay the foundation of our national history squarely on the Rock of Plymouth. A solid foundation, truly, but not a very broad one. The predominant influence of New England in the industrial and commercial development of the United States can hardly be gainsaid. That its influences on the country's æsthetic development have been equally predominant is questionable. More especially in musical matters are we inclined to call it into dispute. If we might judge from American popular music, we should be disposed to infer that such influences as may have been active in the shaping of it came chiefly from the South. Nor is popular music a negligible criterion in this respect, for in it have always lain the germs of truly national art. Of course, our knowledge of the state of musical culture in the early colonies does not enable us to say definitely and dogmatically just where and how American musical development first began. It will probably appear eventually that the early musical life of the colonies has had very little to do with our musical culture of to-day. But, purely as a matter of historic justice, it might be pointed out that unqualified statements, such as the assertion of Ritter that 'the first steps of American musical development may be traced back to the first establishment of English Puritan colonies in New England,' are, to say the least, somewhat premature.[1]

I

A consideration of music among the Indians is not germane to our present purpose. As far as we are concerned Indian music is an exotic, and it is only of recent years that American composers have turned to it in a conscious search for national color which is, perhaps, the first real symptom of aspiration toward characteristically national expression. From the point of view of musical history the development of American music must be considered as beginning among the first white settlers on these shores, and it may be said at once that those beginnings, like Guy of Warwick's death, are still 'wrop in mystery.' Regarding musical life in the colonies before the year 1700 our information is so slight as to be negligible. For almost a century preceding that year white men—many of them men of culture—had been settled in America.[2] That these men completely forgot the art in which so many of them found pleasure, and in which at least a few of them must have possessed some skill, is a supposition too absurd to be seriously entertained. As to the nature and proportions of their musical activities we have no exact evidence and, in default of such, it is necessary for us to dip a little into comparative history.

In England the curtain of the seventeenth century rose on a country that as yet knew not cropped heads nor Geneva cloaks nor steeple-crowned hats nor the snuffling drone of Hop-on-High-Bomby mournfully mouthing the sinfulness of the flesh and the menace of the wrath to come. England still deserved its old-time appellation of 'merrie.' It still ate and drank, sang and swore, bussed and wantoned blithely, lustily, as befitted a country with a full purse, a sound constitution, and a healthy indifference to the disturbing subtleties of theology and metaphysics. It was a robust, Falstaffian England, still unregenerate, still addicted to sack and loose company, but with a mind as clearly keen as a Sheffield blade and a heart as soft and impressionable as its own Devonshire butter—'pitiful-hearted butter that melted at the sweet tale of the sun.' In short, a normal, vigorous, able-bodied, human country, not yet soured by the virus of an acidulated Puritanism, nor devitalized by the distemper of a cultivated licentiousness; a country in whose fertile soil the seeds of art might well germinate and flourish apace. And, as a matter of fact, English music, like English drama and poetry, was then approaching the culmination of its golden age. In Italy, Palestrina had just died; Peri and Monteverdi were shaping the beginnings of opera; the madrigal, the mystery, the morality and the masque were the prevailing media of secular musico-literary expression, while popular instrumental music was represented by Pavans, Galliards, Allmains, Courantes, and other courtly-sounding forms. The stern, strict god of polyphony was already stooping to flirt with the light and wayward muse of the people, making the first tentative advances toward a union from which was destined to spring a seductively human art. Never since has England stood so high musically among the nations of Europe. Never since has she produced composers who so closely rivalled the greatest of their contemporaries. There was William Byrd 'a Father of Musicke,' as the Cheque-book of the Chapel Royal has it—one of the most learned contrapuntists of his time and unequalled by any of his contemporaries in compositions for the virginals. There was John Dowland, 'whose heavenly touch upon the lute doth ravish human sense.' There was Orlando Gibbons, one of the greatest composers of his period, who was then in the beginning of his distinguished career. These, and many other English composers of scarcely lesser note, were as highly honored abroad as they were at home. Their influence on the development of German music has been admitted even by German critics.[3] In England the madrigal flourished then as it did nowhere else in Europe and reached a degree of perfection hitherto unattained even by the best madrigalists of Italy and the Netherlands. What Peri and Monteverdi were doing successfully in Italy in the pseudo-Grecian music-drama, the English were attempting to do, more characteristically though less successfully, in the masque. Some of the most famous of English popular songs—like 'The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington,' 'The Three Ravens,' and 'Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes'—have come down to us from that period. Indeed, the musical vitality of the England of that time was truly remarkable, and thousands of madrigals, motets, anthems, ayres, and ballets remain as eloquent witnesses to its teeming fecundity. English instrumentalists were then rated the best in Europe and were as commonly employed in the courts of Germany as German instrumentalists are now employed in the restaurants of London.

Nor was this noteworthy musical activity confined to the small class of professional musicians. If we may believe Morley,[4] and read aright the references of Shakespeare and other contemporary writers, music was sedulously practised by all classes in England, from the sovereign to the beggar. Queen Elizabeth, we find, played excellently on the virginals and the poliphant, though it does not appear that her dour successor took very kindly to such exercises. It seems to have been a matter of course that every well-reared girl should sing at sight and play acceptably on the virginals, the flute, and the cittern. Sight-reading—alas for our degenerate days—was apparently a universal accomplishment, at least among people of the better classes. After viols were introduced, every gentleman's house contained a chest of them and the chance visitor was expected to take his part at sight in the impromptu concerts which were a favorite form of social diversion. 'Tinkers sang catches,' says Chappell, 'milkmaids sang ballads; carters whistled; each trade, and even the beggars had their special songs; the bass-viol hung in the drawing-room for the amusement of waiting visitors; and the lute, cittern, and virginals, for the amusement of waiting customers, were the necessary furniture of the barber-shop. They had music at dinner; music at supper; music at weddings; music at funerals; music at night, music at dawn; music at work; music at play.'

II

From this intensely musical England came the band of colonists who landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. About half of them were 'gentlemen' and the remainder were soldiers and servants. The proportion of gentlemen—'unruly gallants,' as Capt. John Smith calls them—was less in later emigrations, though it was always comparatively high. Many soldiers came, and some convicts and young vagrants picked up in the streets of London were sent out as servants. Starvation, disease, and the attacks of Indians left very few survivors among those who came to Virginia during the first ten years. Afterward the population grew very rapidly and contained, on the whole, representative elements of all classes in England, with a comparatively large proportion of the upper classes. In 1619, as we learn from a statement of John Rolfe, quoted in John Smith's 'Generali Historie,' the first negro slaves were introduced into Virginia. A description in the 'Briefe Declaration' shows Virginia about two years later as a country already in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity. 'The plenty of these times,' says the writer, 'unlike the old days of death and confusion, was such that every man gave free entertainment to friends and strangers.' About that time land was laid out for a free school at Charles City and for a university and college at Henrico, but the project was not then carried through. As yet, however, there was not any pressing demand for public educational advantages, as the proportion of children was still very small. Later years saw a great increase in the population, both native and English born. During the Civil War there was a large exodus from England of cavaliers, as well as merchants, yeomen, and other substantial people, who found the troubles at home little to their taste or profit. There must have been little to distinguish the Virginia society about the middle of the seventeenth century from English society of the same period. The colonists lived well; they were prosperous; they had good, substantial houses equipped with good, substantial English furniture; they entertained with open-handed freedom and generosity. 'The Virginia planter,' says George Park Fisher, 'was essentially a transplanted Englishman in tastes and convictions and imitated the social amenities and culture of the mother country. Thus in time was formed a society distinguished for its refinement, executive ability and generous hospitality for which the Ancient Dominion is proverbial.'[5]

The population of Virginia always remained largely rural, but nevertheless there was social life aplenty. Education was mainly in the hands of the clergy, who, as a rule, were Englishmen of culture. But steps toward public education were taken at a very early period. The attempt of 1621 failed, as we have noticed, but in 1635—three years before John Harvard made his bequest—Benjamin Syms left an endowment for a free school in Virginia. This, to quote a recent writer, 'was the first legacy by a resident of the American plantations for the promotion of education.' Another free school was established in 1655 by Captain Henry King, and two in 1659 by Thomas Eaton and Captain William Whittingdon. In 1670, according to a report from Sir William Berkeley to the Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, the population of Virginia consisted of 40,000 persons, of whom 2,000 were negro slaves and 5,000 white servants. The 2,000 negro slaves probably included a number of mulattoes, for even then there must have been traffic between white men and negro women, as we may infer from the law which gave to a child the status of its mother. The remainder of the population was almost exclusively English. What we have said of Virginia in the seventeenth century applies also in a general way to Maryland and Carolina, both as to population and conditions, though the Huguenot emigration to Carolina in 1685 made a decided difference in the character of the population there subsequent to that date.

This brief incursion into general history has been made, not to prove anything, but to bring forward a few facts which may be found suggestive. The Southern colonists during the seventeenth century were predominantly English people of the first and second generations. They were fairly representative of contemporary English society, though the proportion of 'gentlemen' was higher among them than at home. They came, as we have seen, from a country where music was practised enthusiastically by all classes. It is preposterous to think that in the new country they discarded their musical tastes like a worn-out garment. There is no reason why they should have done so. After the first years of famine and turmoil and death they were comparatively peaceful and prosperous. There were among them, it is true, a certain number of stern-faced Puritans, melancholy preachers of the sinfulness of pleasure; but on the whole the attitude of the Southern colonists toward life was that of the gay, gallant, laughter-loving cavaliers. There is little doubt that these same gallant gentlemen kept up in the colonies that devotion to the joyeuse science for which they had been famed since the days of Cœur de Lion. In the announcements of the early concerts at Charleston in the first half of the eighteenth century we find that the orchestra was often composed in part of neighboring gentlemen, who were good enough to lend their services for the occasion, or sometimes that certain gentlemen, of their courtesy, obliged with instrumental or vocal selections. Whence we may infer that the custom of keeping a chest of viols in his house for the use of his family and his guests, so generally observed by the English gentleman at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was still honored by the colonial gentleman at the beginning of the eighteenth.

The cultured colonists followed English fashions very closely in all things, and the music they played was doubtless the music in vogue in London drawing-rooms and concert halls. The humble colonists, presumably, were less concerned with the mode, and sang and played the old English tunes which they and their fathers and their grandfathers had brought across the sea. American historians have taken for granted, with a good deal of smug complacency, that there was no real musical life among these people. The assumption seems to be based—if it has any basis—on the fact that the population of the South was preëminently rural. But that there was little urban life does not mean that there was little community life. On the contrary, life in the South was much more intimately gregarious than is usual in towns and cities, and it is in hospitable social gatherings rather than in stiff-backed attendance at concerts and operas that the musical soul of a people finds real expression. Furthermore, the Southern colonists had a communal consciousness, as we may see from their early essays in public education, and it is probable that this consciousness expressed itself in other ways of which we have no evidence. The churches brought them together, also, perhaps for social as well as religious gatherings. It is, indeed, a plausible surmise that musical reunions of some sort, apart from purely private entertainments, were not unknown to them.

The music of the colonial proletariat was English, that of the gentlefolk largely so. Among the common people this music may have undergone some alteration in the course of time, and certain gifted ones among them may have made original music of their own. We can conceive that the gentlefolk occasionally occupied themselves with musical composition, and some of their efforts, perchance, percolated through the classes and became the property of all the people. We cannot say, but it is possible; it is even probable. If English music did not undergo a change in Virginia and Maryland and Carolina, we can be sure that it altered somewhat in the hands of the pioneers who carried it to Kentucky, to Missouri, to Texas. One hears in the Southwest many quaint, characteristic old songs and tunes of unmistakably English origin. We can safely assume that by the time they reached Missouri and Texas from England they had absorbed quite a little local color.

Nor must we forget that the music of the American negroes is the music of the English colonists strained through the African temperament; or perhaps we should say the African temperament strained through the music of the English colonists. In any case, Afro-American music is a blend, and the mixing, we may suppose, began with the beginning of slavery in the Southern colonies. The negro slaves were an ignorant, impressionable people set down in the middle of a white civilization from which they naturally and immediately began to absorb the things that were appreciable to their senses. The most easily appreciable, perhaps, of these things was music, and such music as the negroes heard among the white people they absorbed and, to some extent, assimilated.[6]

Just how much all this has to do with American music we cannot say, any more than we can say just what is American music. National music, we take it, is the composite musical inheritance of a people, molded and colored by their composite characteristics, inherited and acquired. And the music of the South is undoubtedly part of the musical inheritance of the American people. How much of that inheritance we have rejected and how much retained will not appear until some historian arises with enough scholarship to analyze our musical heritage in detail; with enough genius in research to trace its elements to their sources; and with enough patriotic enthusiasm to lend him patience for the task. In the meantime, surface conditions fail to justify the arbitrary ruling out of the South as an utterly negligible factor in our musical development.

III

In approaching the history of the New England Puritans one is in danger of making serious mistakes, due to temperamental prejudices and to a misconception of the Puritan attitude toward life. The term Puritan itself is more or less indeterminate, covering all sorts and conditions of men with a wide diversity of views on things spiritual and temporal.[7] There is a very general impression, totally unsupported by historic evidence, that the Puritans frowned intolerantly on every worldly diversion, including music. Many of the zealots did, it is true—in every movement there are extremists—and the general trend of thought was influenced somewhat by their thunderous denunciations of all appearance of frivolity. In such circumstances the average human being, uncertain how far he may safely go, is inclined to avoid the vicinity of danger and seek the haven of a strictly negative attitude toward everything about which may hang the very slightest suspicion of impropriety. We have many instances in history of this same tendency. The early Christians, taking Christ's warning against the world and the flesh in its most extreme literalness, adopted a course for avoiding hell and gaining heaven which, if consistently followed, would soon have left the world barren of any beings from whom the population either of heaven or of hell might be recruited. We are apt, however, to exaggerate the self-denying habits of the Puritans. On many points of conduct and dogma they were fiercely and uncompromisingly intolerant. Their Sabbath observance was strict to the point of absurdity. But in general they were not disposed to deprive the world of innocent pleasure.

The New England Puritans were more or less of a piece with their English brethren, and we have every evidence that the latter tolerated music, even cultivated it with assiduity. Milton's love of music is well known.[8] John Bunyan, a typical lower-class Puritan, speaks of it frequently and appreciatively in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' 'That musicke in itself is lawfull, usefull and commendable,' says Prynne in his 'Histrio-mastix,' 'no man, no Christian dares deny, since the Scriptures, Fathers and generally all Christian, all Pagan Authors extant do with one consent averre it.' Even the anonymous author of the 'Short Treatise against Stage-Playes' (1625) admits that 'musicke is a cheerful recreation to the minde that hath been blunted with serious meditations.' Not only Cromwell, but many other Parliamentary officers, including Hutchinson, Humphrey, and Taylor, were sincere devotees of the art. Colonel Hutchinson, one of the regicides, 'had a great love to music,' according to the 'Memoirs' of his wife, and often diverted himself with a viol, 'on which he played masterly; he had an exact ear and judgment in other music.' In the retinue of Balustrode Whitelocke, who was sent by Cromwell as ambassador to Queen Christina of Sweden in 1653, were two persons included 'chiefly for music,' besides two trumpeters. Whitelocke himself was 'in his younger days a master and composer of music.' On one occasion, during his stay at the Swedish court, the queen's musicians 'played many lessons of English composition,' and on another occasion, after the ambassador's party had played for her, Christina declared that 'she never heard so good a concert of music and of English songs; and desired Whitelocke, at his return to England, to procure her some.'

Ecclesiastical music was indeed vigorously suppressed, but solely for reasons touching the propriety of its employment in the worship of God. Outside the churches the Puritans showed no particular objection to the art. In fact, the practice of music was common enough among them, if we are to believe the statement of Solomon Eccles, a professional musician, who was successively a Presbyterian, an Independent, a Baptist, and an Antinomian, and always found it easy to make a living by his profession. Notwithstanding the ban on theatres, public operatic performances were inaugurated in London in 1656 and were continued without interference. The publishing of music flourished under the Commonwealth as it never did before in England, and large collections of Ayres, Dialogues, and other pieces remain to us from that period. Such activity in music publishing could have been stimulated only by a corresponding demand, and a demand for printed music could not have co-existed with a neglect of musical practice.[9]

However, we must not jump to the conclusion that the American Puritans were as freely inclined to the practice of music as their brethren across the sea. As a matter of fact, they had no musical life whatsoever. There are some points in the psychology and condition of the New England colonists which may help to explain this seeming anomaly. A large proportion of the people of England were Puritans merely because it was not safe or convenient for them to be anything else, and they changed their moral and theological complexions just as soon as a change in fashion rendered the transformation desirable. Many of the most prominent members of the Parliamentary party were drawn into the movement more through political ambition or democratic ideals than for religious reasons. Cromwell's famous 'Trust in God and keep your powder dry' might well express the mental attitude of more than a few of them. Even among the religious leaders were a goodly number whose only desire was to reform what they considered the ritualistic abuses in the English church of their time and who had not the slightest ambition to suppress the harmless pleasures of life or the ordinary manifestations of human instincts. The New England Puritans, on the other hand, were a select group of people who were driven across an inhospitable ocean to the barren shores of a strange land by the indomitable zeal of their convictions, the stern intractability of their consciences and the adamantine obstinacy of their independence. They were not Puritans merely in externals; they were Puritans to the core. Their view of life was uncompromisingly serious. The world was not to them a place for dalliance; it was a place for work, for the earnest sowing of seeds that might bring forth a harvest of grace and godliness, a harvest worthy to be garnered by the Master into His eternal storehouse. So, however kindly they may have looked upon music, they could not conscientiously have allowed it to engage much of their attention. They could with consistence postpone the gratification of their musical tastes to the next world, where, for all eternity, the practice of music would be their chief occupation. Besides, the life of the first settlers in New England was not such as to encourage any indulgence in unnecessary relaxation. What with the stubborn barrenness of the soil, the ferocity of the Indians, and the extreme inclemency of the climate, they had little opportunity for the cultivation of those gentler arts toward which by taste and temperament they were not, in any case, very strongly inclined.

And, indeed, from such information as we are able to gather on the subject, it would appear that the practice of music, even in its simplest forms, was practically unknown to the New England Puritans before the end of the seventeenth century, though some of the Leyden colonists, according to Winslow, were 'very expert in music.' Out of the forty-odd psalm tunes in use among the Pilgrims only five were generally known to New England congregations a generation later, and, even of these five, no congregation could ever perform one with any approach to unanimity. 'In the latter part of the seventeenth and the commencement of the eighteenth centuries,' says Hood, 'the congregations throughout New England were rarely able to sing more than three or four tunes. The knowledge and use of notes, too, had so long been neglected that the few melodies sung became corrupted until no two individuals sang them alike.' The Rev. Thomas Symmes, in an essay published in 1723, tells us that 'in our congregations we us'd frequently to have some people singing a note or two after the next had done. And you commonly strike the notes not together, but one after another, one being half-way thro' the second note, before his neighbor had done with the first. This is just as melodious to a well-tuned musical ear as Æsop was beautiful to a curious eye.' 'It's strange,' he comments further on, 'that people that are so set against stated forms of prayer should be so fond of singing half a dozen tunes, nay one tune from Sabbath to Sabbath; till everybody nauseates it, that has any relish of singing.' In fact, the reverend gentleman confesses that if anything could drive him to Quakerism or Popery it would be the style of singing in vogue among his co-religionists. John Eliot, son of the Indian apostle, in an essay published in 1725, says that 'often at lectures, and especially at ordinations, where people of many congregations met together, their ways of singing are so different that 'tis not easy to know what tune is sung, and in reality there is none. 'Tis rather jumble and confusion. Altho' they all doubtless intend some tune or other, and, it may be, the same, yet they differ almost as much as if, everyone sung a different tune.' The effect must have been delightful. Samuel Sewall, who was precentor of his church for twenty-four years, makes the following plaintive entry in his diary for February 6, 1715: 'This day I set Windsor tune, and the people at the second going over into Oxford, do what I could.' Under date of February 23, 1718, he writes: 'I set York tune, and the congregation went out of it into St. David's in the very 2nd going over. They did the same three weeks be.' Certainly the vocal efforts of the New England saints must have been excruciating when they moved the Reverend Thomas Walter to declare that the singing of his congregation 'sounded like five hundred different tunes roared out at the same time.' It is almost unbelievable that people of intelligence, as most of the early New Englanders were, should be so utterly callous to ear-splitting discords of that kind, but the testimony of their own pastors puts the matter beyond doubt.

Now much of this extraordinary chaos in the congregational singing of the seventeenth century New England colonists was probably due to the prevailing doubt as to whether singing was, after all, quite proper to the worship of God. Until well into the eighteenth century the propriety of singing psalms in church was a subject of heated controversy. John Cotton published a tract in defense of the custom in 1647 ('Singing of Psalms a Gospel Ordinance'), and, as late as 1723, a number of clergymen published a tract called 'Cases of Conscience about Singing Psalms, briefly considered and resolved,' in which we find the proposition: 'Whether you do believe that singing Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs is an external part of Divine Worship, to be observed in and by the assembly of God's people on the Lord's Days, as well as on other occasional meetings of the Saints, for the worshipping of God....' Those who had taken singing in church as a matter of course, and had made of it such a cacophantic horror as is described by Eliot, Walter, and others, characteristically championed their own style of singing, which they called 'the old way,' and zealously opposed any attempt to sing by rule as a step toward Popery.

But, apart from all differences of opinion upon church singing as such, no people who were in the habit of practising music, even in the most elementary way, could make such a hopeless mess of ensemble singing in unison, when the tunes were so old and familiar and the number of them so limited. Ensemble singing by a mixed gathering of untrained people is likely to be pretty bad in any case, but even among a heterogeneous and untutored crowd there are always a number whose accuracy of ear and intonation suffices to keep the others more or less close to the melody—especially when it is a familiar one. Among New England colonists, however, the ability to sing must have been about as common as the ability to dance on the tight rope. The Rev. Thomas Symmes assures us that he was present 'in a congregation, when singing was for a whole Sabbath omitted, for want of a man able to lead the assembly in singing.' Certainly the good people of that congregation on the whole must not have counted singing among their diversions—if they had any. We have no ground for stating flatly that the New Englanders of the seventeenth century absolutely abstained from singing on all occasions; but if they did sing it was in a most primitive and haphazard fashion.

Instrumental music certainly was taboo to them. As far as we know there was not a musical instrument in New England before the year 1700. If there was, it has shown remarkable ingenuity in escaping detection. Before leaving this world for a better one, the New England colonist was meticulously careful in making out a full and exact inventory of his material possessions. He told in painful detail just how many pots and pans, bolsters, pillows, tables and chairs he had been blessed with and in just what condition he bequeathed them to posterity. Nothing detachable in the house was too small nor of too little value to escape his conscientious enumeration. But of musical instruments the testamentary literature of New England contains no mention. The first suggestion we find of the existence of such a thing is a laconic reference in the diary of the Rev. Joseph Green under date of May 29, 1711: 'I was at Mr. Thomas Brattle's, heard ye organs and saw strange things in a microscope.' We have no means of knowing, unfortunately, what were the musical qualities of Mr. Thomas Brattle's 'organs'; perhaps they were as strange as the things the reverend diarist saw in the microscope. Anyhow, as far as we can discover, they were unique in New England. Perhaps they were the same that Mr. Brattle bequeathed to the Brattle Square Church of Boston in 1713. The congregation of the church did not 'think it proper to use the same in the public worship of God,' and the instrument was consequently given to King's Chapel, where it was introduced in the services, to the consternation, anger and disgust of Dr. Cotton Mather and the greater part of the population of New England. This organ is still preserved for the benefit of the curious, and, though its musical possibilities apparently were limited, it at least marked a precedent which, as we shall see in a later chapter, was followed by good results.

It has been mentioned that most of the New England congregations, at the end of the seventeenth century, knew not more than five psalm-tunes. Those, it is assumed, were the psalms called 'Old Hundred,' 'York,' 'Hackney,' 'Windsor,' and 'Martyrs.' The early Pilgrims, presumably, were more eclectic. They used the volume of tunes compiled by the Rev. Henry Ainsworth, of Amsterdam. The version of Sternhold and Hopkins was used in Ipswich and perhaps elsewhere. In 1640 both the Ainsworth and the Sternhold and Hopkins versions were generally superseded by the 'Bay Psalm Book,' though Ainsworth's psalter was retained by the churches of Salem and Plymouth for some time longer. The 'Bay Psalm Book' was compiled by a number of Colonial clergymen, including Rev. Thomas Weld, Rev. John Eliot, of Roxbury, and Rev. Richard Mather, of Dorchester. It is interesting chiefly as containing some of the quaintest verses ever written. Thus:

'And sayd he would them waste; had not
Moses stood (whom he chose)
'fore him i' the breach: to turn his wrath
lest that he should waste those.'

and again:

'Like as the heart panting doth bray
after the water-brooks,
even in such wise, O God, my soule
after Thee panting looks.'

The settings of the tunes in the New England psalm-books were those of Playford and Ravenscroft, but, as we have seen, the congregations habitually introduced original harmonizations of their own. The general method of singing those psalms was known as 'lining out.' That is to say, the minister or deacon first sang each line, to give the key, and the congregation followed his lead—more or less. The results of this system were often ludicrous. For instance, there is the well-known example, cited by Hood, where the deacon declares cryptically:

'The Lord will come and he will not,'

and follows this up with the perplexing injunction:

'Be silent, but speak out.'

Owing to the efforts of John Cotton and other cultured clergymen the people as a whole soon came to accept singing as proper to divine service, but many decades passed before they could be persuaded that the cultivation of the voice or the use of any outward means to acquire skillfulness in singing was decent or godly. Not to the outward voice, they argued, but to the voice of the heart did God lend ear; and, though their singing was verily as the bellowing of the bulls of Bashan, it mattered not except to the ears of their neighbors, who, in truth, must have been sufficiently calloused to the discord of harsh sounds. This peculiar attitude lasted until well into the eighteenth century. Even as late as 1723 the 'Cases of Conscience,' to which we have referred, contained such questions as:

'Whether you do believe that singing in the worship of God ought to be done skillfully?' and 'whether you do believe that skillfulness in singing may ordinarily be gained in the use of outward means by the blessing of God?' By the efforts of enlightened clergymen like Mather, Symmes, Dwight, Eliot, Walter, and Stoddard the people of New England were finally brought to a realization of the fact that their praise would be just as acceptable to God if offered on the key; but their conversion was a slow and painful process. Two decades of the eighteenth century had passed before they began to pay any attention to the cultivation of church music, and, as we shall see in the next chapter, this awakening interest coincided with the first faint stirrings of a general musical life in the Puritan colonies.

W. D. D.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The sentence quoted opens Frederic Louis Ritter's 'Music in America.' In the next sentence the author admits the prior arrival of the Cavaliers on these shores, but hastens to add that they exercised very little influence on American musical development. 'It is a curious historical fact,' he says, 'that earnest interest in musical matters was first taken by the psalm-singing Puritans.' It is curious. We quote further: 'From the crude form of a barbarously sung, simple psalmody there rose a musical culture in the United States which now excites the admiration of the art-lover, and at the same time justifies the expectation and hope of a realization, at some future epoch, of an American school of music.' Quantum sufficit. Louis C. Elson, in his 'History of American Music,' also tells us that 'the true beginnings of American music ... must be sought in ... the rigid, narrow, and often commonplace psalm-singing of New England.' If these things be so, well may the American composer exclaim in the words of the immortal Sly 'Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!'

[2] We are leaving out of consideration the Spanish settlement of Florida as well as the French settlement of Quebec, and have in mind only those early colonies which formed the nucleus of the United States.

[3] See Max Seiffert in Vierteljahrschrift für Musikwissenschaft, 1891.

[4] Thomas Morley, 'A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke,' 1597.

[5] 'The Colonial Era,' in the American History Series, New York, 1892-1902.

[6] See Chapter XI for a further treatment of negro music.

[7] Strictly speaking the Pilgrims who came from Leyden to Plymouth were not Puritans. They were Separatists, and their movement antedated the Puritan movement per se. It would be highly inconvenient, however, in a work of this character to draw constant distinctions between Pilgrims and Puritans and we shall consequently speak of them in general as one.

[8] Cf. Sigmund Spaeth: 'Milton's Knowledge of Music,' New York, 1913.

[9] For a full statement of the Puritan case in respect to music, see Henry Davey: 'History of English Music,' Chap. VII. London, 1895.

CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNINGS OF MUSICAL CULTURE IN AMERICA

Composite elements of American music—New England's musical awakening; early publications of psalm-tunes; reform of church singing—Early concerts in Boston—New York, Philadelphia, the South—The American attitude toward music—The beginnings of American music: Hopkinson, Lyon, Billings and their contemporaries.

The whole history of early musical culture in America—obscure enough at best—is additionally obfuscated by the persistent illusion of American historians that the New England psalm-tunes formed the absolute basis of our musical development. This illusion may be part of the widespread impression that the church has been the exclusive fons et origo of musical art. Thus Ritter: 'Musical culture in America, as in the great musical countries of Europe—Italy, France, Germany—took its starting point from the church.'[10] As a consequence of this view of things we find the early chapters of all existing histories of American music strewn with 'psalm-tunes,' 'church choirs,' and 'clergymen,' as thick as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. All of which would be perfectly desirable if the importance of these factors in our musical development were apparent. Neither in our popular music nor in works of our serious composers can we trace the influence of New England psalmody, though we can trace the influence of German folk-songs and Scotch reels and Irish jigs and negro tunes and the writings of every European composer, from Bach to Brahms.

We have no desire to belittle the achievements of New England or the magnitude of its part in the history of the country. But—owing perhaps to the fact that literary production in America was for many generations confined almost exclusively to the New England states—we have had imposed on us a habit of thought which is a sort of historical synecdoche—New England being the figurative whole. Of course, it does not make a particle of difference to American music what we may think or say about its parentage. But, as long as history is to be written, it is well that it shall be written with some attempt at a disinterested attitude, and assumptions that the genesis of our music lay in New England or in any other circumscribed locality are entirely ex parte. Most of our composers have been disciples of some recognized European school or eclectic students of several schools. We can point in them to the influence of Bach or Mozart, of Beethoven or Brahms, of Schubert, Mendelssohn or Grieg, of Wagner, Strauss or Debussy, just as we can point to such influences in the writings of every European composer, great or small. The musical inheritance of the American composer is not American; it is universal. For a variety of reasons we have not yet developed a distinctively national school, but, among our younger composers who are unmistakeably American, where are the traces of Puritan psalmody? The ethical influence of Puritanism is still strong in the land; it still colors our literature, art and public life; it even colors our music. But purely æsthetic influence is quite a different thing. Frankly, we believe that the music of colonial New England has had no more influence on our music of to-day than the writings of Cotton Mather have had on the work of O. Henry.

These prefatory remarks are made simply to emphasize the fact that the following sketch of the beginnings of musical culture in New England and elsewhere is intended only as a statement of historical facts and not as an argument for the influence of the New England colonies, or of any other colonies, in the development of American music. Little information is obtainable concerning the musical life of America before the end of the eighteenth century, and in these early chapters we are merely trying to arrive at an approximate estimate of what that musical life may have been, leaving philosophical deductions therefrom to those skilled in the drawing of such. If a predominating amount of space is given to the New England colonies it is chiefly because our available information concerning them is very much fuller than that which we possess concerning the rest of the country.

I

We have already seen that up to the end of the seventeenth century there were not, as far as we can discover, even the most elementary attempts at a musical life in New England. The writer of 'Observations Made by the Curious in New England,' published in London in 1673, remarks that there were then in Boston 'no musicians by trade.' It is to be assumed that there were none elsewhere in New England. The installation of Mr. Thomas Brattle's organ in King's Chapel forty years later necessitated the importation of a 'sober person to play skillfully thereon with a loud noise.' This person was a Mr. Price, who appears to have been the first professional musician in New England. He was followed by Mr. Edward Enstone, of England, who came over as organist in 1714. To augment his salary of £30 a year, Mr. Enstone, on Feb. 21, 1714, filed a petition 'for liberty of keeping a school as a Master of Music and a Dancing Master,' but the petition was 'disallowed by ye Sel. men.' In the Boston 'News Letter' of April 16-23, 1716, the same Mr. Enstone inserted the following explicit advertisement:

"This is to give notice that there is lately sent over from London, a choice Collection of Musickal Instruments, consisting of Flageolets, Flutes, Haut-Boys, Bass-Viols, Violins, Bows, Strings, Reads for Haut-Boys, Books of Instructions for all these Instruments, Books of ruled Paper. To be Sold at the Dancing School of Mr. Enstone in Ludbury Street near to Orange Tree, Boston.

"'Note. Any person may have all Instruments of Musick mended, or Virginalls and Spinnets Strung and tuned at a reasonable Rate, and likewise may be taught to Play on any of those Instruments above mentioned; dancing taught by a true and easier method than has been heretofore.'"

Mr. Enstone was a person of versatility. Apparently he triumphed over 'ye Sel. men,' and, in addition to this gratifying fact, we may infer from his advertisement that musical instruments were used to an extent in Boston prior to 1716. If Mr. Enstone's consignment were the first he would hardly have failed to mention it. He is exhaustively informative. The allusion to the mending of musical instruments also suggests that already they were not uncommon. 'Virginalls and Spinnets' were strung and tuned by Mr. Enstone, though they were not included in his imported collection. We have been unable to discover any information which would throw light on the extent to which musical instruments were used in New England during the first half of the eighteenth century. Even toward the end of the century their use was not very common. But probably they were used to some extent among people of culture as early as the year 1700, and to an increasing extent as time advanced and old prejudices weakened.

Among the people at large the most potent factor in developing a musical life was the formation of singing societies for the cultivation of a proper method of singing psalms. This reformation had long been advocated by the most enlightened clergymen of the colony. Prominent among them was the Rev. Thomas Symmes, who thus interrogatively argues his cause:

'Would it not greatly tend to promote singing of psalms if singing schools were promoted? Would not this be a conforming to scripture pattern? Have we not as much need of them as God's people of old? Have we any reason to expect to be inspired with the gift of singing, any more than that of reading? Or to attain it without suitable means, any more than they of old, when miracles, inspirations, etc., were common? Where would be the difficulty, or what the disadvantages, if people who want skill in singing would procure a skillful person to instruct them, and went two or three evenings in the week, from five or six o'clock to eight, and spend the time in learning to sing? Would not this be an innocent and profitable recreation, and would it not have a tendency, if prudently managed, to prevent the expense of time on other occasions? Has it not a tendency to divert young people, who are most proper to learn, from learning idle, foolish, yea pernicious songs and ballads, and banish all such trash from their minds? Experience proves this. Would it not be proper for school masters in country parishes to teach their scholars? Are not they very unwise who plead against learning to sing by rule, when they can't learn to sing at all unless they learn by rule? Has not the grand enemy of souls a hand in this who prejudices them against the best means of singing? Will it not be very servisible in ministers to encourage their people to learn to sing? Are they not under some obligation by virtue of their office to do so? Would there not, at least in some places, appear more of that fear of man, which brings a snare, than of true Christian prudence in omitting this? And, as circumstances may allow, would it not be very useful and profitable if such ministers as are capable would instruct their people in this art?'

The introduction of Satan as the protagonist of unskillful singing is an ingenious and appropriate touch. One might infer from the allusion to idle, foolish and pernicious songs and ballads that the young people of New England were not unlike young people of less godly places and expressed their feelings in ways that might have shocked their proper elders. If they did, it is a pity that some of their songs and ballads have not come down to us, be they never so pernicious. The advice of the Rev. Mr. Symmes, however, appears to have been followed, for we find that about the year 1720 singing societies began to sprout in various parts of New England. At first these were concerned exclusively with church music, but the elementary musical training they afforded was helpful in developing a capacity for the practice and appreciation of other music.

The growth of singing societies naturally created a demand for some sort of musical literature and inspired the publication of many books of psalm-tunes and instructions. This demand was anticipated as early as 1712 by the Rev. John Tufts, pastor of the Second Church in Newbury, who published in that year 'A very Plain and Easy Instruction to the Art of Singing Psalm tunes; with the Cantos or Trebles of twenty-eight Psalm tunes, contrived in such a manner as that the Learner may attain the Skill of Singing them with the greatest ease and speed imaginable.' About two years later he published 'An Introduction to the singing of Psalm Tunes, in a plain and easy method. With a collection of Tunes in Three Parts.' The essence of the 'plain and easy method' seems to have been the substitution of letters for the customary musical notation, together with lessons 'to assist in Raising and Falling of notes either gradual or by leaps, the groundwork of all good singing, and is not to be obtained ordinarily without help of some Skilful Person, or of an Instrument.' 'But being attained and observing the few foregoing Rules,' the reverend author continues encouragingly, 'you will be able to leap with your voice from one note to another, as they occur in various distances, and with a little practice to sing all tunes in this book, or other prick'd after this method in all their parts, with ease and pleasure.' The tunes and their arrangements were taken by the Rev. Mr. Tufts from Playford's 'Book of Psalms.'

In 1721 the Rev. Thomas Walter, of Roxbury, Mass., published a book comprehensively entitled 'The Grounds and Rules of Musick explained. Or an introduction to the Art of singing by Note: Fitted to the meanest capacity. By Thomas Walter, A.M. Recommended by Several Ministers.' As illustrating the Rev. Mr. Walter's qualifications to explain 'the Grounds and Rules of Musick' we would quote the following delightful and illuminating disquisition: 'There are in Nature but seven distinct sounds, every eighth Note being the same. Thus when a tune is sung by another upon a Key too low for the Compass of my Voice, if I will sing with the Person, it must be all the Way, eighth Notes above him. I naturally sound an Eighth higher. So a Woman naturally strikes eighth notes above the grum and low sounding Voice of a Man, and it makes no more Difference than the singing of two Persons upon an Union or a Pitch. So, on the contrary, when we sing with a Voice too High and shrill for us, we strike very naturally into an Octave or Eighth below. And here let it be observed that the Height of a note and the Strength of singing it are too different Things. Two notes of equal Height may be sounded with different degrees of Strength so as that one shall be heard much further than the other.' This book has the honor of containing the 'first music printed with bars in America,' Mr. Tufts having omitted in his works the bars marking the measures.[11] The arrangements were taken from Playford.

In 1741 Dr. Watts' 'Psalms' were printed in Boston, and an edition of Watts' 'Hymns' were printed in the same year by Dr. Franklin in Philadelphia. The next important publication was a part of Tansur's collection,[12] which was printed by William Bailey at Newburyport, Mass., in 1755, under the title of 'A Complete Melody in Three Parts.' In 1761 there was published in Philadelphia a large work called 'Urania, or a Choice Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns. From the most approv'd Authors with some entirely new: In Two, Three and Four Parts. The Whole peculiarly adapted to the use of Churches, and Private Families. To which are prefix'd the Plainest and most Necessary Rules of Psalmody. By James Lyon, A.B....' Three years later appeared in Boston 'A Collection of the best Psalm Tunes, in two, three and four parts; from the most approved authors, fitted to all measures, and approved by the best masters in Boston, New England; the greater part of them never before printed in America. Engraved by Paul Revere, printed and sold by him and Jos. Flagg.' In his preface Flagg, with admirable patriotism, pointed out that, though most of the tunes in his book came from across the Atlantic, the paper on which they were written was of American manufacture; and he hoped that the fact would recommend his book 'even to those who have no peculiar relish for the music.' We shall have more to say of Flagg in a later chapter. Daniel Bailey, of Newburyport, published in 1764 'A new and complete Introduction to the Grounds and Rules of Music in two books,' of which the first is taken from Williams and the second from Tansur. In 1769-71 Bailey issued a two-volume work called 'The American Harmony.' The first volume is a reprint of Tansur's 'Royal Melody,' together with 'A new and correct Introduction to the Grounds of Musick, Rudimental, Practical and Technical,' also taken from Tansur. The second volume is a reprint of Aaron Williams' 'New Universal Psalmodist.'[13]

Most of the music in the collections of Lyons, Flagg, and Bailey was the work of contemporary English church-composers. Some of it may have been written by Americans, but there has been identified only the anthem called 'Liverpool,' in Lyon's collection, which is the work of William Tuckey, of New York. This is only pseudo-American, however, as Tuckey was an Englishman. It is merely an imitation of the weak style of verse anthem then popular in England, and the same is true of the other compositions which may be American. Notwithstanding the poor quality of the music, the success of Bailey's collections serves to show the advance which church singing must have made in New England. The florid 'fuguing choruses' and canons, popular among the hymn-writers who followed Purcell in England, were not very noble or inspiring music, but their performance entailed a degree of musical expertness far removed from the cacophantic crudity of which the Rev. Thomas Symmes and his contemporaries so plaintively spoke. At the same time it may be pointed out that these early collections of psalm-tunes are full of errors, due to the lack of persons competent to read proofs of musical works, and, if the leaders of church choirs were not musicians enough to correct such errors in the rendering, either their ears were yet imperfectly trained or they had a sense of free harmony far in advance of their age. Furthermore, it was very late in the eighteenth century before the reform in church singing became general throughout New England. In the 'History of Worcester' we read of an energetic duel on August 5th, 1779, between the old deacon and the singers, in which the deacon read the psalm according to the 'lining-out' method, while the choir simultaneously sang the verse without pause, according to the new system. Force of numbers and noise finally overpowered the doughty old champion of tradition, who, we are informed, 'retired from the meeting-house in tears.' It was as late as 1785 before the parish of Rowley joined the march of progress, as we find the following entry under that date in the 'History of Rowley': 'The parish desire the singers, both male and female, to sit in the gallery and will allow them to sing once on each Lord's day without reading by the deacon.'

II

We may assume that musical culture made noticeable progress in New England in the second half of the eighteenth century. Among the mass of the people it remained somewhat primitive, but among the cultivated classes in Boston and the larger cities the best contemporary music was heard frequently and with appreciation. As we shall see in a later chapter, public concerts were held in Boston at least as early as 1731, and they seem to have compared favorably with similar functions in European cities. But of musical life in the intimate sense there was still comparatively little. Brissot de Warville writes from Boston in 1788: 'You no longer meet here that Presbyterian austerity which interdicted all pleasure, even that of walking, which forbade travelling on Sunday, which persecuted men whose opinions were different from their own. The Bostonians unite simplicity of morals with that French politeness and delicacy of manners which render virtue more amiable. They are hospitable to strangers and obliging to friends; they are tender husbands, fond and almost idolatrous parents, and kind masters. Music, which their teachers formerly proscribed as a diabolical art, begins to make part of their education. In some houses you hear the forte-piano. This art, it is true, is still in its infancy; but the young novices who exercise it are so gentle, so complaisant and so modest, that the proud perfection of art gives no pleasure equal to what they afford.'

There were at that time very few pianos in New England and we find from the newspaper advertisements that the teacher usually lent his own piano to his pupils for practice. We have it on the authority of Mr. Elson that the efforts of the pupils were customarily confined to Gyrowetz, or to 'Washington's March,' 'The Battle of Prague,' or the Sonata pour le Clavecin ou Forte-piano, qui représente la bataille de Rossbach. Composée par M. Bach—not the majestic Johann Sebastian, of course. Ritter has copied the following titles from a manuscript book of the late eighteenth century: Ça Ira, 'White Cockade,' 'Irish Howl,' 'French March,' 'Hessian Camp,' 'Duchess of Brunswick,' 'Duetto' by Mancinelli, 'Water Rice,' 'Nancy of the Mill,' 'O Bessy Bell,' 'German Spaw,' 'Ossian's Ghost,' 'Duke of York's March,' 'Duetto,' by Dr. Arne, 'Every Inch a Soldier,' 'Quick March of the Twenty-sixth Regiment,' 'March,' 'Poor Soldier,' 'Sound Alarm,' 'When Nichola first to court began,' 'Sweet Village of the Valley,' 'Minuetto,' 'Dead March in Saul,' 'Bright Phœbus,' 'Ode to Harmony,' 'Swedish Air,' 'Quick March,' 'King of Sweden's March,' Marche des Marseillais, 'Hessian Air,' 'Baron Steuben's March,' 'Prince Frederick's March,' 'Sonata from Minuetto in Samson,' 'March in Joseph,' 'Trio' by Humphrey.

It may be of interest to note some of the secular music published in New England at that time. We find the following advertisement in the 'Columbian Centinel' of Boston in 1798. 'Just published, price one dollar, neatly bound and lettered, sold by E. Larkin, No. 47, Cornhill, "The Columbian Songster and Free Mason's Pocket Companion." A Collection of the newest and most celebrated Sentimental, Convivial, Humorous, Satirical, Pastoral, Hunting, Sea and Masonic Songs, being the largest and best collection ever published in America. Selected by S. Larkin.' In the same year there appeared in Northampton, Mass., 'The American Miscellany.' From the foreword of the ingenuous editor we learn that in this work 'a general preference has been given to American productions, and perhaps nothing will more effectually exhibit the progress of the human mind in the refinements which characterize the age, than the songs which, from general consent, are now in vogue.' The exhibit is not very complimentary to the 'progress of the human mind.' Most of the songs contained in these collections are flatly commonplace, many of them are cheap and tawdry in the extreme. It would hardly be fair to look upon such publications as reflecting the musical taste of the cultured class in New England. Just what proportion that class bore to the total population we cannot say. We can safely assume, however, that the concerts given in Boston and elsewhere during the second half of the eighteenth century fairly indicate the taste of the musical elect in New England. The citation of a few programs in this place will, consequently, not prove amiss.

A concert in honor of President Washington's visit to Boston, given on the 27th October, 1789, is advertised as follows:

FOR PUBLIC ORNAMENT
An Oratorio
or Concert of Sacred Musick

will be performed at Stone Chapel, Boston, in presence
of the President of the United States.

First Part

1. A Congratulatory Ode to the President

2. A favourite Air in the 'Messiah' (composed by the celebrated Handel) 'Comfort ye my People.' By Mr. Rea

3. Organ Concerto By Mr. Shelby

4. The favourite Air in the Oratorio of Samson (composed by the celebrated Mr. Handel) By Mr. Rea

5. Anthem from 100th Psalm, composed by Mr. Selby

Part the Second

The Oratorio of Jonah

Complete. The Solos by Messrs. Rea, Fay, Brewer, and
Dr. Rogerson.

The Choruses by the Independent Musical Society; The Instrumental parts of a Society of Gentlemen, with the band of his Most Christian Majesty's Fleet.[14]

As the above Oratorio has been highly applauded by the best judges, and has never been performed in America; and as the first Performers of this country will be joined by the excellent band of his Most Christian Majesty's squadron, the Publick will have every reason to expect a more finished and delightful performance than ever was exhibited in the United States.'

In Salem on the 15th May, 1798, was given the following concert:

Part 1st

Grand Symphony Pleyel

Song: 'On by the Spur of Valour goaded.' Mr. Collins, Shield

Clarinet Quartette Vogel
Messrs. Granger, Laumont, von Hagen and Graupner

Song: 'He pipes so sweet.' Mrs. Graupner Hook

Concerto on the French Horn. Mr. Rosier Ponton

A favourite new Song: 'Little Sally's wooden ware' Arnold

Miss Solomon

Full Piece Hayden[?]

Part 2nd

Quartetto: 'Who shall deserve the glowing Praise?' Linly
Mrs. Graupner, Mr. Granger, Mr. Collins and Mr. Mallett

Concerto on the Clarinet, composed and performed by Mr. Schaffer

A new favourite echo Song: 'How do you do?' Hook
Mrs. Graupner, and accompanied on the hautboy by Mr. Graupner

Concerto on the Violin. Laumont Foder[?]

A Comic Irish song: 'Boston News' Mr. Collins

Concerto on the Hautboy, the composition of the celebrated Fisher Mr. Graupner

Duet: 'They Dance to the Fiddle and Tabor,' from the much admired Opera of the 'Lock and Key'
Mrs. Graupner and Mr. Collins

Finale Pleyel

Audiences in those days must have had Gargantuan musical appetites. Mr. Mallet, a French musician resident in Boston, gave a concert there on the 19th May, 1801, which included two overtures, four concertos (for clarinet, violin, bass and oboe, respectively), six solo vocal pieces and one duet!

III

No doubt these concerts show that the musical taste even of cultured New England was somewhat indiscriminate. But the tendency to serve strangely mixed programs was not confined to America. We find, too, that concerts were very frequently a medium for the exploitation of compositions by the concert givers or their friends. This custom was not confined to America either, nor was it confined to the eighteenth century. On the whole, and considering all the circumstances, the concert life of New England speaks well for the musical culture of its people. The same may be said of concert-life elsewhere in America. Unfortunately our information concerning general musical culture in other parts of the country is extremely scanty, but we may assume that the inhabitants of the Middle and Southern colonies enjoyed a fuller musical life than was possible in New England, where it was retarded by conditions that were not operative elsewhere. In Pennsylvania, it is true, Quakerism must have exercised a repressive influence, though, from the evidence at our disposal, we find that Philadelphia at the end of the eighteenth century was more advanced musically than any other city in America. Practically our only sources of information concerning early musical life in New York, Philadelphia and the South are the records of operatic and concert performances, and, while we shall speak of those activities more fully in later chapters, we may be pardoned for referring briefly to them here.[15]

In New York English opera was heard perhaps as early as the year 1702, but performances did not become common until about 1750. After the production of the 'Beggar's Opera' in the latter year 'all the most popular ballad-operas,' to quote Ritter,[16] 'successively appeared on the New York stage. Besides these most of the musical farces, melodramas, pantomimes, which proved successful in London, were also produced in New York.' Concerts became increasingly common in the second half of the century and some of the programs were remarkably interesting. By way of illustration we quote the following program of a concert given on the 9th February, 1770, for the benefit of Mr. Stotherd:

Act 1st

1st. Overture of Bach, opera prima
3d. Concerto of Avison, opera quarta
A Hunting Song—Black Sloven
A French Horn Concerto, by Mr. Stotherd
4th Concerto of Stanley
Duet on the French Horn
8th Periodical Overture.

Act 2d

Overture of Saul[17]
Select pieces for four French Horns
2d Concerto of Humphries
A Hunting Song
A French Horn Concerto by Mr. Stotherd
3d Concerto of Corelli
Overture of Atalanta

In January, 1770, a large part of Handel's 'Messiah' was given in New York for the benefit of William Tuckey, with the assistance of 'a considerable number of ladies and gentlemen.' The program of a concert given by gentlemen of the army and navy in April, 1782, reads:

Act I

Sinfonie of Toeschi
Quartetto of Davaux for Violins
Song by Mrs. Hyde 'Soldiers tir'd of War's alarms'
Violino Concerto of Borchay
Quintetto of C. Bach for Flauto
Sinfonie of Stamitz

Act II

Sinfonie of Haydn
Quartetto of Kammell, for violino
Song by Mrs. Hyde, 'If 'tis joy to wound a lover'
Hoboy Solo Concerto of C. Fisher
Quartetto of Vanhall for Flauto
Sinfonie of Haydn

Act III

Sinfonie of Bach
Quartetto of Davaux for violino
Clarinetto Solo Concerto of Mahoy
Quartetto of Toeschi for Flauto
Sinfonie of Mardino

Of course, all the concerts given in New York were not on an equally high plane. Many of them were frankly popular and many mixed judiciously the popular with the serious. A large proportion of these were given at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Columbia and other public gardens where it was necessary to cater to the taste of an assorted assemblage. On the whole, however, the musical taste of the New York public was remarkably good. Haydn seems to have been the favorite composer of the time and after him we notice most frequently the names of Pleyel, Handel, Corelli, Gossec, Stamitz, Gyrowetz, and Bach.[18]

The musical life of Philadelphia during the second half of the eighteenth century was apparently richer than in any other American city. There are no records of public concerts there before the year 1757, but after that date they became so suddenly common and maintained such a relatively high standard that the musical soil in which they grew must have been extremely fertile—notwithstanding the Quakers. Indeed, the musical taste of the Philadelphians seems to have been at once more eclectic and more discriminating than that of the citizens of Boston and New York. Besides Haydn, Pleyel, Handel, and the rest we find in their programs the names of Grétry, Boccherini, Viotti, Kreutzer, Paesiello, Sacchini, Cimarosa, Piccini, Gluck, and Mozart.[19] The programs were much less mixed than was customary in Boston and New York. We find fewer comic numbers and fewer songs to Mars and Bacchus, to larks and pining hearts and sighing breezes. And quite as much consideration was shown to the native American composer as is shown by the concert-givers of to-day. Consider the following program of the first Uranian Concert, given at the Reformed Church, in Race Street, on the 12th April, 1787:

Syllabus Authors

I. Martini's celebrated Overture

II. Jehovah reigns: an anthem from 97th Psalm Tuckey

III. Te Deum laudamus Arnold

IV. Violin Concerto By Mr. Phile of New York

V. I heard a great voice: an Anthem from Rev. XIV Billings

VI. Vital Spark: An Anthem on Mr. Pope's ode 'The dying Christian to his Soul' Billings

VII. Overture Artaxerxes Arne

VIII. Friendship thou charmer of the mind: From Watts' Lyric Poems Lyon

IX. The Rose of Sharon: an Anthem from 2d of Canticles Billings

X. Flute Concerto By the Chevalier du Ponceau

XI. Sundry Scriptures: an Anthem on the nativity of Christ Williams

XII. The Hallelujah chorus: on the extent and duration of Christ's Government
(from the 'Messiah') Handel

We may mention here the extraordinary Grand Concert given at the Reformed Church in Race Street on May 4, 1786, with a chorus of two hundred and twenty and an orchestra of fifty. Of course, such concerts were unusual in Philadelphia. Choruses of two hundred and twenty and orchestras of fifty were not then common, even in European capitals. But, as Mr. Sonneck has observed, such undertakings were not possible 'without a logical evolution of conditions,' and this concert throws a very favorable light on musical conditions in Philadelphia. Incidentally, we learn that nearly one thousand tickets were sold for the event, a remarkable showing for a city of about 40,000 people.

There was a very active musical life in the South during the eighteenth century, and it was much more diffused than in the Middle or New England colonies. A peculiar feature of the public concerts in the South was the frequency with which amateurs appeared as performers. We find the vocal part in one concert was taken by 'a gentleman who does it merely to oblige on this occasion.' In the advertisement of another we read that 'the gentlemen who are the best Performers, both in Town and Country, are so obliging as to assist ... on this Occasion.' Again we notice the announcement of a 'Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Musick to be performed by Gentlemen of the place, for the entertainment of all lovers of Harmony.' Such announcements were common. Of course, amateurs sometimes took part in concerts in the North, especially before the Revolution. As a rule, they were gentlemen of the king's army and navy, among whom the practice of music seems to have been sedulously cultivated. But it would appear that the proportion of practical amateur musicians was much greater in the South than elsewhere in America, and that fact alone speaks volumes for the culture of the Old Dominion.

Charleston was beyond doubt the leading Southern city in musical matters. We know definitely that public concerts were given there as early as 1732, and it is quite probable that they were given earlier. In 1762 was formed the St. Cæcilia Society,[20] an organization devoted to the cultivation of the best in music. It was the first musical society formed in America. The following program, given on the 6th March, 1794, under its patronage, will illustrate the taste of the people of Charleston:

Act 1st

Sinfonie Pleyel
Song, Mr. Chambers
Quartett Violin Pleyel
Song, Mr. Clifford
Overture Gretrie[?]

Act 2nd

Grand Overture (la Chasse) Gossec
Song, Mr. West
Sonata Pianoforte, Rondo, by Mrs. Sully
Duett, Mr. Chambers and Mrs. Chambers

Act 3d

Grand Overture Haydn
Song, Mr. Chambers
Concerto Violin, by Mr. Petit Viotti
Glee, Mr. Chambers, Mrs. Chambers and Mr. West.

It is noteworthy to find a symphony of Mozart on a program of March 9, 1797.

It would appear that the citizens of Baltimore were not quite so refined in their musical taste as their neighbors in Carolina. Nevertheless they enjoyed an active musical life. Concerts of fair quality were common enough, and we read also of such interesting things as the production in English of Pergolesi's Serva Padrona in 1790.[21]

In Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Petersburg, Norfolk, Alexandria and elsewhere in Virginia there were public concerts given at an early period. Unfortunately there has not yet been unearthed much documentary evidence which would throw light on the early musical life of these cities. But from what we know of Charleston and Baltimore and from our general knowledge of conditions among the Southern colonists we should be inclined to say that the Virginia cities possessed a musical life quite creditable in proportion to their size. The same is true of Savannah and New Orleans. It must not be forgotten that, with the exceptions of Charleston and Baltimore, no Southern city had a population of more than ten thousand people. Most of them had very considerably less. Obviously it would be unfair to expect that they enjoyed metropolitan conditions.

IV

Enough, perhaps, has been said to show that the American colonists were not the musical barbarians they are so frequently and complacently pictured. Of course, European writers visiting the colonies almost invariably took occasion to incorporate in their literary works slighting references to the state of culture in America. The custom still obtains among literary visitors to these shores. Since the time of Columbus, apparently, it has been an unwritten law that European travellers must speak slightingly of American culture, just as American travellers must make uncomplimentary remarks about European hotel accommodations and transportation systems. Such comments are usually the result of a congenital incapacity to see more than one thing at one time. As a rule they are accurate, but they do not mean what they seem to mean. They are sentences detached from their context. A statement that there is no first-class symphony orchestra in New York would have a very different significance from a statement that there is no first-class symphony orchestra in Oskaloosa—though both sound alike to one who knows nothing about either New York or Oskaloosa. Equally ridiculous are the well-meant attempts to demonstrate the growth of our artistic stature by drawing parallels between the musical activity of the colonies and the musical activities of America to-day. In 1750 the population of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, and Charleston combined was less than one hundred thousand, and even as late as 1800 it was little over two hundred thousand. If we are to be fair to the American colonists, we must take into consideration the conditions under which they lived, the youth of the country, its comparative isolation from the old-established centres of culture, the many and complex circumstances that operated to retard its æsthetic development. And if we take these things into consideration, we cannot fairly persevere in our supercilious attitude toward the musical life of eighteenth-century America.

There is another side to the picture, however. In spite of the undeniable growth of musical culture among the American people of the eighteenth century, it cannot be said that music had a really intimate meaning for them, that they had woven it into the web of their lives, that they had found in it a necessary form of expression. Art is created that way. It may be the folk-song of an ignorant peasant or the symphony of a Mozart or Beethoven. But always it is born of a need for personal expression. Music was not personal to the American colonists; it was still an exotic, a pleasure supplied from outside sources, a diversion which serious men might occasionally enjoy but to which they could not afford to devote serious attention. Even among a certain class of Americans of the present day this attitude persists to some degree. Music is not yet generally regarded as a profession for men. Men go into business; they become brokers, lawyers, or politicians; they even become newspaper reporters—but not musicians. Music is still par excellence the avocation of long-haired, libidinous foreigners. We may, perhaps, without injustice trace this attitude to Puritan New England. The aristocracy of the South had the aristocratic point of view. Most Southern gentlemen were practical musicians. They were not, of course, professional musicians—gentlemen did not adopt professions, except that of arms. But music had a certain personal meaning for them. It was a graceful and elegant medium for the expression of their gallant, romantic and courtly sentiments. They could sing of arms and the red glow of wine and the red lips of women—all frankly important things in their lives, all supposedly unimportant things in the lives of the upright New Englanders. But, as a vehicle for the expression of profound and fundamental emotions, music had no meaning to them.

The aristocratic Southern point of view, however, did not impress itself on the mass of the American people; the New England point of view did. The psychological effect of New England on the rest of the country has been extraordinary. Certainly the New Englanders were fond of music; they encouraged it; they had considerable taste; they were glad to have their daughters take music lessons—music was a thoroughly ladylike accomplishment. When Priscilla spilled the 'Battle of Prague' con brio over the 'forte piano' her performance brought undiluted joy to the parental heart. When Fil Trajetto played a concerto of Corelli the more cultivated Bostonian could justly appreciate the virtues of the composition and its performance. The people of New England had relatively as much taste and culture as the same class of people elsewhere. Nevertheless they did not feel music as a serious and necessary thing.

V

Such an attitude was most unfavorable to the growth of a native art. During the eighteenth century there were few native American musicians by profession. In the South the professional musicians were chiefly French, in the North chiefly English. As a consequence there were few American composers. Of course, many Americans manufactured music. Every civilized man at some period of his life has composed a tune or a poem or a play. It is as inevitable as the measles. The American colonists did not escape the infection. Many American compositions lie unidentified in the early collections of hymns and anthems; many more undoubtedly were denied even such an anonymous burial. We have already alluded to William Tuckey, whose anthem was included in the collection of James Lyon. Tuckey was organist of Trinity Church, New York. He has sometimes been called the first American composer, and he would be did he not happen to be born in Somersetshire, England. Many of Tuckey's contemporaries, such as Flagg, and undoubtedly others whose names have been forgotten, composed church music in the style of the period—the weak, insipid, undistinguished style of Tansur and Williams. We can easily afford to forget their efforts.

There are, however, a few American composers of this period whom we cannot afford to forget It is really impossible to say who was the first American composer, but the right to the title seems to be divided between Francis Hopkinson and James Lyon, natives of Philadelphia and Newark, N. J., respectively. Certainly they were the first of any importance. Hopkinson, a lawyer, poet, musician, inventor, painter, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was one of the most remarkable men of his time. He was born in 1737, was graduated at the College of Philadelphia, received the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Laws from that institution and the degree of Master of Arts, gratiæ causa, from the College of New Jersey. After his admission to the bar he held a number of public offices, became a delegate to the first Continental Congress and was appointed by that body to 'execute the business of the Navy under their direction.' He presided over the Admiralty Court of Pennsylvania from 1779 until its jurisdiction became vested in the United States and took an important part in the debates of the convention which framed the Constitution. We know little of his musical education, but the most important part of it seems to have been guided by James Bremner, while his taste was undoubtedly polished by subsequent visits to Europe. He was an able harpsichordist, we learn, and often deputized for Brenner as organist of Christ Church. In spite of his official duties he found time to promote musical education, to give concerts and to participate in frequent musicales at the home of Governor John Penn. His inventive turn found expression in an improved method of quilling a harpsichord, the application of a keyboard to the harmonica and a 'contrivance for the perfect measurement of time,' known as the Bell-harmonic.

The most important thing about Francis Hopkinson from our point of view, however, is that his song 'My Days Have Been so Wondrous Free,' dated 1759, is, as far as we know, the earliest secular American composition extant. It is included in a collection of songs made by Hopkinson which contains also several other specimens of his muse. They are pretty, simple, graceful, and somewhat amateurish. Among them is an anthem with figured bass—a rarity in early American music. Possibly Hopkinson was editor and part author of the 'Collection of Psalm Tunes with a few Anthems and Hymns' published in 1763 for the use of Christ and St. Peter's churches. He has been credited with the authorship of one of the numerous 'Washington's Marches,' though which of them he wrote—if he wrote any—his sole and painstaking biographer[22] has been unable to discover. Mr. Sonneck, however, has succeeded in proving that he composed 'The Temple of Minerva, a Musical Entertainment performed in Nov., 1781, by a Band of Gentlemen and Ladies at the hotel of the Minister of France in Philadelphia.' The music of this piece, unfortunately, is not extant. A collection of eight songs by Hopkinson, with accompaniments for harpsichord or pianoforte, was published in Philadelphia in 1788. Speaking of these Mr. Sonneck says: 'As a composer Francis Hopkinson did not improve greatly during the twenty years which separate this song collection from his earliest efforts. His harmony is still faulty at times, and he possesses not an original musical profile. To claim the adjective of beautiful or important for these songs or his other compositions would mean to confuse the standpoint of the musical critic with that of the antiquarian. But even the critic who cares not to explain and pardon shortcomings from a historical point of view will admit that Hopkinson's songs are not without grace and that our first poet-composer obeyed the laws of musical declamation more carefully than a host of fashionable masters of that period. Artistically, of course, he resembles his contemporaries. His musical world, like theirs, was an untrue Arcadia, populated with over-sentimental shepherds and shepherdesses, or with jolly tars, veritable models of sobriety and good behavior, even when filling huge bumpers for drinking-bouts. Then again we notice in Francis Hopkinson's music the studied simplicity of that age for which treble and bass had become the pillars of the universe. This and much more is antiquated to-day. But why should we criticize at all our first "musical compositions?" It becomes us better to look upon these primitive efforts as upon venerable documents of the innate love of the American people for the beauties of music and as documents of the fact that among the signers of the Declaration of Independence there was at least one who proved to be a "successful Patron of Arts and Sciences."'

It is a peculiar coincidence that in 1759, the same year in which Hopkinson's first songs were written, an ode, set to music by James Lyon, a student at Nassau Hall, was performed at the college commencement. This, perhaps the earliest of American commencement-odes, is unfortunately not extant. Lyon was graduated from Princeton in 1759 and took up his residence in Philadelphia. There he seems to have founded or taught in a singing school where one of his anthems was performed in 1761—'an elegant anthem,' according to the 'Pennsylvania Gazette.' In 1762 he received the degree of M.A. from Princeton and perhaps wrote the music for an entertainment entitled 'The Military Glory of Great Britain' which was performed at the commencement. Subsequently he was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian church and preached the gospel in Nova Scotia, Maine, and elsewhere until his death in 1794.

We have already adverted to Lyon's 'Urania, or a choice Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns from the most approved Authors, with some entirely new.' This collection exercised an important influence on subsequent early American psalmodists.[23] The six tunes marked as new were composed by Lyon. These, together with settings of the 17th and 19th psalms, a setting of one of Watts' lyric poems, 'Friendship,' and a 'Marriage Hymn,' are all the known works of Lyon still extant. 'Their study,' says Mr. Sonneck, 'will induce no critic to call Lyon a composer of real merit or even a musician fully conversant with musical grammar. His music, viewed from an æsthetic standpoint, is in no way remarkable. He certainly gave his best in the Hymn to Friendship, the minor movement of which contains a few unexpected rays of beauty. This movement, and the fact that Lyon energetically occupied himself with music, when music was in its infancy in colonial America, prove that he possessed some inborn musical talent. For nobody will compose in a musical wilderness, no matter how valueless the compositions may be, if not forced to do so by latent creative powers. Had Lyon been educated in England, Germany, or Italy his talents would have developed to greater advantage, and his name might figure in musical dictionaries, these mausoleums of celebrity, none of which to-day mentions him. But his importance lies not in the sphere of æsthetics; it lies rather in the sphere of retrospective history. Not the absolute, but the relative merits of his music attract our attention. He was a pioneer and thereupon rests his lasting glory.'

In 1746 was born in Boston a man who bore the undistinguished name of William Billings. Billings was a tanner by profession and a musician by instinct. It is unfortunate that this pioneer American composer should have become the butt of so much ridicule; yet one must admit that he invited ridicule. There was something ludicrous even in his personal appearance.

'He was somewhat deformed,' says Ritter, 'blind of one eye, one leg shorter than the other, one arm somewhat withered, and he was given to the habit of continually taking snuff. He carried this precious article in his coat pocket made of leather, and every few minutes would take a pinch, holding the snuff between the thumb and clinched hand. To this feature we must add his stentorian voice, made, no doubt, rough as a saw by the effects of the quantity of snuff that was continually rasping his throat.'[24] His zeal continually outran his discretion. Even in church his voice drowned those of his neighbors. He was of the temperament that cannot approve without giving three cheers. The very titles of his works provoke a smile. For instance:

'The New England Psalm Singer: or American Chorister
Containing a number of Psalm-tunes, Anthems and Canons.
In four or five parts. (Never Before Published.)
Composed by William Billings, a native of Boston, in
New England.
Matt. 12. 16. "Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings hast
thou Perfected Praise."
James 5. 13. "Is any Merry? Let him sing Psalms."

"O, praise the Lord with one consent
And in this grand design
Let Britain and the Colonies
Unanimously join."

Boston: New England, Printed by Edes and Gill.'

Nevertheless Hillings was an original genius with an unaffected, fervent and sincere love of his art. His very naïveté is refreshing in an age which artistic artificiality had rendered almost sterile. Of musical knowledge he possessed very little. What knowledge he had he picked up himself from such limited sources as were at his disposal. In the preface to his 'New England Psalm-Singer' he confesses ingenuously: 'For my own part, as I don't think myself confined to any Rules for Composition laid down by any that went before me, neither should I think (were I to pretend to lay down rules) that any who comes after me were anyways obligated to adhere to them any further than they should think proper: so in fact I think it is proper for every composer to be his own learner. Therefore, upon this consideration, for me to dictate or to prescribe Rules of the Nature for others, would not only be very unnecessary but also a very great Vanity.' Later he frankly confessed the immaturity that dictated those statements. He set himself more humbly to the study of rules for composition and developed an enthusiasm for counterpoint, of which he speaks in the following terms: 'It has more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes; each foot straining for mastery and victory, the audience entertained and delighted, their minds surpassingly fluctuated, sometimes declaring for one part and sometimes for another. Now the solemn bass demands their attention—next the manly tenor—now, the lofty counter—now, the volatile treble. Now here—now there, now here again. O, ecstatic! Rush on, you sons of Harmony!' Even the tremendous earnestness of the man does not save this from being funny. It is poor Billings' fate to be funny under nearly all circumstances.

The 'New England Psalm-Singer' appeared in 1770. It may be recalled that Beethoven was born in the same year. Eight years later Billings published 'The Singing Master's Assistant,' a revision of his first work, which attained wide popularity in New England and was known as 'Billings' Best.' Following came 'Music in Miniature,' 1779; 'The Psalm-Singer's Amusement,' 1781; 'The Suffolk Harmony,' 1786; and 'The Continental Harmony,' 1794. Besides these Billings published singly a number of anthems and other compositions. All of his works show a most primitive conception of the art of composition and a very hazy knowledge of the rules of harmony and counterpoint. But they contain melodic and rhythmic force and originality. Billings could not write a good fugue, but he could write a good tune. Many of his compositions became very popular in New England. Although he had invited Britain and the Colonies to join 'unanimously' when he published his first collection, he was one of the most fiery of patriots when the Revolution broke out. Nothing could surpass the fierce ardor of his zeal. He expressed in dynamic terms his love of country and contempt for his enemies, and he called down all the wrath of an omnipotent deity on his unworthy head if he should ever prove untrue to Boston—meaning America. What were written originally as psalm-tunes he had no difficulty in turning into ringing patriotic songs. Many of them were sung by the New England soldiers throughout the war, and the tune known as 'Chester' was a favorite with the Continental fifers.

Billings is said to have introduced the use of the 'pitch-pipe' into New England choirs—where it was badly needed—and he is supposed to have been the first in New England to use the violoncello in church. According to Ritter, 'he is credited with the merit of having originated concerts or musical exhibitions in New England'; but concerts or musical exhibitions were originated there before he was born. Billings' merit is that he was the first musician of really independent and original talent that America produced. He was handicapped by lack of technical knowledge and lack of a suitable milieu. He wrote some good tunes which passed into the musical life of the people. He is a noteworthy figure, but his importance is not overwhelming.

Among Billings' contemporaries may be mentioned Oliver Holden, Andrew Law, Jacob Kimball, Jr., Samuel Holyoke, Samuel Read, and Lowell Mason. None of these possessed much more musical knowledge than Billings and all of them, with one exception, possessed much less talent. Holden is known chiefly for his 'Coronation' hymn, which is still popular. He published 'The American Harmony' in 1792. Law was the author of a collection of anthems and hymns, besides some compilations on musical theory. His taste was better than the average of his time, but his information and creative capacity were limited. One of his hymns, 'Archdale,' acquired wide popularity. There is nothing particular to say about Kimball, Holyoke or Read. They were of about the same stamp as Holden and Law—mediocre writers of uninspired and conventional psalm-tunes.

Lowell Mason stands out above the rest as a musician in the truer sense of the word. The earnest valor with which he combated the condition prevalent in the New England churches, flooded with 'fugue tunes' in imitation of the imported variety but devoid of any musical value, must be recognized. He was a pioneer in the work of substituting for this worthless stuff tunes at once simple and noble, in accordance with the principles of harmony, and symmetrical in form. Mason was born in 1792, at Medfield, Mass., and died in 1872 at Orange, N. J. He went to Savannah, Ga., and divided his time between banking and musical study under F. L. Abell. In 1822 he returned to Boston and published the 'Boston Handel-Haydn Society's Collection of Church Music,' containing a number of his own compositions. The most familiar of his tunes are probably 'Corinth' ('I love to steal a while away'), 'Cowper' ('There is a fountain filled with blood'), 'Bethany' ('Nearer, my God, to Thee'), 'The Missionary Hymn' ('From Greenland's Icy Mountains'), and 'Mount Vernon' ('Sister thou wert mild and lovely'). After 1827 Dr. Mason (the degree of Mus.D. was conferred on him by New York University) took charge of the music in no less than three churches, but subsequently confined his labors to Dr. Lyman Beecher's Bowdoin Street Church, whither pilgrimages were soon made from all over the country 'to hear the wonderful singing.' His training of boys' voices particularly was a marvel to his generation. Mason's educational work is indeed of uncommon importance and will be touched upon in a later chapter. With Professors Park and Phelps he edited the 'Sabbath Hymn Book' (1858) and in 1830 he issued the 'Juvenile Lyrics,' said to be the earliest collection of songs for secular schools published in America.

Except for the rugged originality of the ludicrous Billings, the opening of the nineteenth century had still disclosed nothing of American composition that might be considered other than commonplace. But at least the pioneer work had been done with commendable earnestness and under very real handicaps. The actual achievements of pioneers are never very great, but the value of their work is incalculable. To the pioneers of American composition we can at least tender our respect for the undoubted sincerity of their efforts.

W. D. D.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Op. cit., p. 54.

[11] Hood: 'History of Music in New England.' See also Ritter: 'Music in America' and Elson: 'History of American Music.'

[12] William Tansur was a contemporary English Church composer. His collection, 'The Royal Melody Complete,' here alluded to, appeared in 1754.

[13] Aaron Williams was an English music engraver, publisher and composer. 'The New Universal Psalmodist' appeared in 1763.

[14] The French fleet, of course.

[15] For the following information concerning concerts in New York, Philadelphia and the South we are indebted wholly to O. G. Sonneck's scholarly and trustworthy work, 'Early Concert Life in America,' Leipzig, 1907.

[16] Op. cit., Chap. VIII.

[17] Handel.

[18] This was Christian Bach, known as 'the London Bach.' As far as we can discover Americans left the great J. S. Bach severely alone.

[19] Mr. Sonneck has pointed out that the name of Mozart appeared infrequently on concert programs before the year 1800, even in Vienna.

[20] The name was spelled thus for several years. Later it became Cecilia, as it is at present. Recruited from among the social leaders of Charleston, the Society naturally became an exclusive organization in which social considerations eventually predominated.

[21] In those days proof-reading was a fine art. The announcement to which we refer speaks of 'music by the celebrated Italian, Père Golaise.'

[22] Mr. O. G. Sonneck, whose excellent monograph on Francis Hopkinson is our authority.

[23] For a detailed discussion of 'Urania,' together with some very interesting reflections on early American sacred music, see Mr. Sonneck's monograph on James Lyon: 'Francis Hopkinson and James Lyon: Two Studies in Early American Music,' Washington, 1905.

[24] Op. cit., Chap. III.

CHAPTER III
EARLY CONCERT LIFE

Sources of information—Boston Concerts of the eighteenth century; New England outside of Boston—Concerts in New York—Concerts in Philadelphia; open-air concerts—Concert life of the South; Charleston, Baltimore, etc.; conclusion.

In our last chapter we spoke to some extent of concert life in America during the eighteenth century, and it may be well to complete the record here as far as the information at our disposal will allow. The importance of concerts as reflecting the musical culture of a people can very easily be overestimated. At best, they represent the taste of merely a small portion of the community; at worst they serve simply as occasions for social display and for the indulgence of various forms of snobbery. It is very difficult at a distance to judge a true from a false artistic life. For aught we know to the contrary, the concerts of the American colonists represented chiefly their ideas of what was socially correct. On the other hand, we are equally justified in assuming that these concerts reflected accurately the musical taste of the people. The truth is that we must accept the record of early concert life in America purely for its historic interest. Such deductions as we may draw from it must always be presumptive. On the surface, as we have already said, it speaks well for the state of musical culture in America of the eighteenth century. It would be futile—perhaps disappointing—to pry further into its possible significance.

A certain characteristic indifference to the importance of historical remains has lost to us irretrievably much documentary evidence that would be of great value in compiling a complete history of music in America. Of our earliest newspapers, such as the 'Boston News Letter,' the 'New York Gazette,' the 'American Weekly Mercury,' and the 'South Carolina Gazette,' no complete files seem to have been preserved, and there is an irritating poverty of other documents that would supplement the information contained therein or fill out such lacunæ as the lost numbers may have left. For our information on early concerts in America we are almost totally dependent on old newspaper files. Even if these files were complete it would not follow by any means that the information obtainable from them would be exhaustive, for it is not probable that the newspapers mentioned all the concerts given. A few diaries and similar documents have been discovered which throw a little added light on the subject, but there still remain many dark corners.[25]

I

We cannot say when or where the first public concert was given in America. The first of which we have any record was advertised in the Boston 'Weekly News Letter' of December 16-23, 1731. It was 'a Concert of Music on sundry Instruments at Mr. Pelham's great Room, being the house of the late Doctor Noyes near the Sun Tavern.' Further than that we know nothing about it. We find notices of other concerts at intervals for several years, but nothing is said about the music played or the people who took part in them. In 1744 a concert was given at the historic Faneuil Hall, which had been built two years earlier and which was apparently the favorite place for such functions until about the year 1755, when it was supplanted by the newly erected Concert Hall in Queen Street.[26]

Most of the concerts at Faneuil Hall were given for the benefit of the poor and were held, it would appear, only by express permission of the selectmen. In 1755 we first notice concerts given for the benefit of private individuals and presumably without the permission of the selectmen. One was given for John Rice, organist of Trinity Church, and several for Thomas Dipper, organist of King's Chapel. We know nothing about these concerts except that they consisted of 'select pieces by the best masters.' It is possible that there existed from about the year 1744 a musical organization of which a Mr. Stephen Deblois was treasurer and which gave frequent concerts. The minutes of the Boston selectmen meetings, as reprinted in the 'Boston Town Records,' contain an entry under date of Nov. 21, 1744, to the effect that 'Mr. William Sheafe and a number of gentlemen desire the Use of Faneuil Hall for a Concert of Musick ... the Benefit arising by the Tickets to be for the Use of the Poor of the Town....' On Dec. 12, it was reported that 'the Selectmen received of Mr. Stephen Deblois two hundred and five pounds five shillings old Tenor being collected by a Concert of Musick in Faneuil Hall for the Use of the Poor of the Town'—obviously the same concert for which permission was granted to 'Mr. William Sheafe and a number of gentlemen.' In September, 1754, Stephen Deblois purchased Concert Hall for two thousand pounds, with the result that concerts immediately shifted there from Faneuil Hall. Thomas Dipper, for whom so many benefits were given, apparently had a hand in the organization, if there was one. We find an announcement in January, 1761, that 'Mr. Dipper's Public Concert will begin on Tuesday the 20th instant.' This suggests that there may have been also a series of private concerts for subscribers, as the term 'public' concert was very unusual in Colonial times. We read in the Boston 'News Letter' of April 29, 1762: 'The members of the Concert, usually performed at Concert Hall, are hereby notified that the same is deferred to the end of the Summer months. And it is desired that in the meantime each member would settle his respective arrearage with Stephen Deblois, with whom the several accounts are lodged for that purpose.' We are, in fact, confronted with suggestions of a musical organization which held a series of concerts for members and another for non-members. Whether such an organization existed or not, it is at least certain that Boston enjoyed the luxury of subscription concerts as early as 1761.

The 'Massachusetts Gazette' of October 2, 1766, advertised a series of concerts to begin on October 7, and 'to be continued every Tuesday evening for eight months.' The concerts were to be held at Concert Hall and intending subscribers were referred to Stephen Deblois. Beginning with the year 1770, several series were given by William Turner, Thomas Hartley, and David Propert, the latter promising in his announcement selections 'out of Mr. Handel's oratorios' besides 'select pieces upon the harpsichord with accompaniment compos'd by the most celebrated masters of Italy and London.' W. S. Morgan also gave some concerts immediately before the war. It had not yet become customary to announce the programs in detail and we are consequently in the dark as to the nature of most of them. Some of the concerts apparently were merely operas in concert form. An announcement of June 20, 1770, speaks of a vocal entertainment of three acts. 'The songs (which are numerous) are taken from a new celebrated opera, call'd "Lionel and Clarissa."' In the diary of John Rowe there is the following entry under date of March 23, 1770: 'In the evening I went to the Concert Hall to hear Mr. Joan read the Beggar's Opera and sing the songs....'

We find, however, a very fine program announced for May 17, 1771, by Josiah Flagg—the same of whom we have already spoken as a prominent compiler of psalm-tunes. Flagg was for many years a most conspicuous figure in the musical life of Boston. Besides publishing two good collections of psalm-tunes, he founded and trained a militia band and was active in promoting concerts of remarkably high quality. As he was the first to publish programs we cannot well compare his musical taste with that of his contemporaries, but it is doubtful if the average concert of the time rose to the level of the following:

Act I. Overture Ptolemy Handel
Song 'From the East breaks the morn'
Concerto 1st Stanley
Symphony 3d Bach
Act II. Overture 1st Schwindl
Duetto 'Turn fair Clora'
Organ Concerto
Periodical Symphony Stamitz
Act III. Overture 1st Abel
Duetto 'When Phœbus the tops of the hills'
Solo Violin
A new Hunting Song, set to music by Mr. Morgan
Periodical Symphony Pasquale Ricci

The other concerts given by Flagg were of about the same standard. He seems to have disappeared from Boston about the year 1773. His most important successor in the promotion of music in Boston was William Selby, an Englishman, who came over as organist of King's Chapel, Boston, in 1772, or perhaps earlier. Selby threw himself into the musical life of his adopted country with an enthusiasm for the cause which seems always to have been exclusively confined to foreigners. He played and taught the harpsichord and organ, composed prolifically, promoted concerts of fine quality, and was the leading spirit in the Musical Society which did much for music in Boston between 1785 and 1790. His devotion to choral music was especially noteworthy and he promoted some choral concerts of an artistic quality far beyond anything yet heard in America. We find announced for April 23, 1782, a concert under his direction, to consist of 'Musica Spiritualis, or Sacred Music, being a collection of Airs, Duetts, and Choruses, selected from the oritories [?] of Mr. Stanly, Mr. Smith and the late celebrated Mr. Handel; together with a favorite Dirge, set to music by Thomas Augustus Arne, Doctor in Music. Also, a Concert on the Organ, by Mr. Selby.' In the 'Massachusetts Gazette' of January 2, 1786, there is announced a remarkable concert to be given by the Musical Society on January 10. Besides prayers, psalms, and the Doxology, 'as set to musick by Mr. Selby,' the program consisted of the overture to Handel's 'Occasional Oratorio'; the recitative 'Comfort ye my people,' from the 'Messiah,' and the aria, 'Every valley shall be exalted,' from the same work; the fourth Concerto of Amizon, musica da capella, op. 7; 'Let the bright Cherubims,' from 'Samson,' and 'The trumpet shall sound,' from the 'Messiah'; the second organ concerto of Handel; 'a Solo, Piano, on the organ,' by Mr. Selby; and 'a favourite overture by Mr. Bach,' performed by 'the musical band.' A similar program was repeated on January 16, 1787, at a 'Spiritual Concert for the benefit of those who have known better Days.' The 'Hallelujah Chorus' from the 'Messiah' was included in the latter program, as was also Piccini's overture to La buona figliuola, a solo from the oratorio 'Jonah,' composed by Felsted, and a 'favourite overture' of Carlo Ditters,[27] played by 'the musical band.'

The Musical Society gave many concerts up to the year 1790—mostly in subscription series and always, it would seem, under the leadership of Selby. Apparently there were other musical societies in Boston as early as the year 1787, for the 'Massachusetts Centinel' on September 22 of that year announced a 'concert of Sacred Musick to assist in rebuilding the Meeting House in Hollis Street, agreeably to the generous intentions of the Musical Societies in this town.' The name of William Billings appears twice on the program of this concert. We have already mentioned the concert in honor of Washington's visit to Boston at which Felsted's oratorio, 'Jonah,' was given in its entirety—the first time that a complete oratorio had been given in Boston.[28]

The last mention of Selby's name in connection with a concert was in 1793 when the following program was given for his benefit and that of Jacobus Pick:

The Overture of Henry IVth[29]
A French Song by Mr. Mallet
A Clarinet Concerto by M. Foucard
A French Song by Madame Douvillier
A Violin Concerto, by Mr. Boullay
An Italian Duetto, by Messrs. Pick and Mallet
A Flute Concerto by Mr. Stone
La Chasse, composed by Hoffmeister
A Piano Forte Sonata, by Mr. Selby
A French Trio, by Madame Douvillier, Messrs. Pick and Mallet
A Duetto on the Harmonica, by Messrs. Pick & Petit
A Symphony, composed by Pichell

This program is important as marking a sharp transition in the style of Boston concerts. Due partly to the influx of theatrical companies, following the lifting of the ban on dramatic productions, and partly to the sudden increase in the number of French musicians, concerts in Boston after the year 1790 entirely lost their old dignified and solid demeanor and acquired a strange new lightness, a transatlantic frivolity, a cosmopolitan air, a flavor of complete worldliness. The 'late celebrated Mr. Handel' disappears entirely from the concert programs of a city to which he had for long been the musical mainstay, and in his stead enter Pleyel, Grétry, Gluck, and 'the celebrated Haydn.'

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century the leading figures in the concert life of Boston were Messrs. Pick and Mallet, Mrs. Pownall, and Dr. Berkenhead. The most important of these was Mallet, a French gentleman, who is supposed to have come to America with Lafayette and to have served in the army of the Revolution. In addition to his concert activities he taught music, played the organ for the 'Rev. Mr. Kirkland's congregation,' and was one of the first music publishers in Boston. After the year 1793 we find his name infrequently on concert programs, and after that year, too, we notice a decided decline in both the number and the quality of Boston concerts.

That the concert-life of New England was not altogether confined to Boston we gather from the old records and newspaper files of Cambridge, Salem, Newport, Providence, Newburyport, Hartford, New Haven, and other towns. On the whole, the concerts given in those towns followed closely the taste of Boston. As far as we can discover, they were not very frequent; but, when it is considered that as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century none of the towns named possessed as many as two thousand inhabitants and some of them contained less than half that number, it would be unreasonable to expect that they could have supported serious concerts to any great extent. Indeed, it is surprising that they should have lent their patronage to symphonies of Haydn, Pleyel, and Stamitz; overtures, concertos, quartets, and other numbers constituting what in the eighteenth century were 'heavy' programs; and we are not prepared to say how much patronage would be forthcoming for concerts of the same relative 'heaviness' in American towns of the same size to-day.

II

Turning to New York, we find that concert life began there about the same time as it did in Boston. In fact, wherever the first concert in America may have been held—a disputed point which is not of vital importance—the impulse to give such musical entertainments seems to have affected the whole country almost, if not quite, simultaneously. That there were concerts held in New York as early as 1733 appears from the publication in the New York 'Gazette' for December 24-31 of that year of a fearfully bad poem 'written at a Concert of Music where there was a great Number of Ladies.' In spite of the indiscriminate taste of the 'Gazette' it is unfortunate that we have preserved a very few numbers between 1725, when it first appeared, and 1733, when Zenger's New York 'Weekly Journal' was started. Possibly it said something in intelligible prose about such concerts as may have been given before the latter date. We first get on solid ground in 1736 with the announcement for January 21 of 'a Consort of Musick, Vocal and Instrumental for the Benefit of Mr. Pachelbell, the Harpsichord Part performed by himself. The Songs, Violins and German Flutes by private Hands.' For nearly twenty years following there is trace of only two concerts, concerning which no particulars have been vouchsafed us. Then we read in the New York 'Mercury' of January, 1754, that Mr. Charles Love gave 'a Concert of vocal and instrumental Musick. To which will be added several select pieces on the hautboy by Mr. Love. After the concert will be a Ball.' In the following year William Tuckey advertised in the 'Weekly Post Boy' a 'Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Musick' of which he was good enough to indicate partially the program. Among other things he promised 'the celebrated dialogue between Damon and Chloe, compos'd by Mr. Arne. A two part Song, in Praise of a Soldier, by the late famous Mr. Henry Purcell. An "Ode on Masonry"[30] never perform'd in this country, nor ever in England but once in publick. And a Solo on the German flute by Mr. Cobham.' Mr. Tuckey's sympathies were pronouncedly English, but his taste was good. A concert given in 1756 featured a new organ built by a New Yorker named Gilfert Ash and two songs composed by Mr. Handel, one of them being 'in praise of musick, particularly of an organ.' There is no further mention of concerts in the newspapers until 1760 and, except there was a conspiracy of silence on the part of the press, the concert life of New York up to that year must have been extremely meagre.

It would appear, however, that subscription series started in 1760, for we find a notice in the New York 'Gazette' of January 14 that 'the Subscription Concert will be opened on Thursday next, the 15th instant,' and that 'those gentlemen that intend to subscribe to the said concert, are desired to send their names to Messrs. Dienval and Hulett who will wait on them with tickets, for the season.' In 1762 Messrs. Leonard and Dienval announced 'a publick and weekly Concert of Musick,' probably a continuation of the subscription series inaugurated in 1762, though there is no announcement for 1763. Apparently there were subscription concerts every year until 1767, presumably under the same auspices. Then there is a hiatus until 1773, when subscription concerts were revived.

John Jones, in the meantime, had given summer concerts at his Ranelagh Gardens from 1765 until the enterprise failed in 1768. Also, Edward Bardin started a tri-weekly concert of music at his 'King's Arms Garden in the Broadway' in 1766. We do not know how long he continued his musical entertainments; we only know that he went out of business in 1769. Undeterred by the failure of Jones and Bardin, Samuel Francis opened Vaux Hall Gardens in 1769. He announced a concert of music, vocal and instrumental, to be given twice a week, but it would appear that he met with no greater success than his predecessors.

Besides summer concerts at the various gardens and the subscription concerts already alluded to, there were between 1760 and 1775 a number of benefit concerts, as well as a few performances by military bands and theatrical companies. The fine program given at Mr. Stotherd's benefit on February 9, 1770, has been quoted in the preceding chapter. About the same year French and Italian virtuosi began to settle in New York and their presence soon made itself felt.

The only musician in New York at this period who stands out prominently is William Tuckey and, though he gave some benefit concerts, he was concerned mainly with the development of church music. However, it is worthy of note that he was the first to introduce the 'Messiah' to America, the occasion being a concert of sacred music in 1770, devoted largely to excerpts from that oratorio, including 'the overture and sixteen other pieces, viz. air, recitatives and choruses.' During the war there were a number of concerts in New York given by officers of the British army and navy. William Brown, who also appears in the concert life of Philadelphia and the South, gave a subscription series in New York in 1783 and again in 1785. Subsequently there seems to have been a lull in the musical affairs of the city until 1788, when subscription concerts were revived under the direction of Alexander Reinagle, 'member of the Society of Musicians in London,' and Henri Capron, a pupil of Gaviniés. They were continued by Mr. and Mrs. Van Hagen, 'lately from Amsterdam.' Pleyel, Stamitz, Dittersdorf, Martini, and Haydn shared the chief honors on the programs of that period, and we find a duet of Mozart on a program offered by Reinagle and Capron in 1789.

Beginning about the year 1797 the concert season in New York shifted from the winter to the summer, and regular subscription concerts consequently declined. Their place was taken by concerts which the enterprising proprietors of public gardens offered as special attractions to their patrons. It would seem at first blush that the musical taste of the people at large was exceptionally good when concerts of high grade really proved attractive, but the public gardens of that period usually did not cater to the masses. After the failure of Samuel Francis's Vaux Hall Gardens, enterprises of the kind seem to have lost favor. In 1793 we find Mrs. Armory running a Vaux Hall in Great George Street and announcing a concert of 'the most favourite overtures and pieces from the compositions of Fisher and Handel ... the orchestra being placed in the middle of a large tree.' Joseph Delacroix in the following year gave a very fine concert under the leadership of James Hewitt at his 'Salloon,' the Ice House Garden, No. 112 Broadway. Three years later he announced concerts of vocal and instrumental music to be given with an orchestra of fifteen of the best musicians three times a week at his newly decorated Vaux Hall Gardens. In 1798 he raised the number of his concerts to four a week, but in the following year, unfortunately, he had to abandon the enterprise. The concerts given by Delacroix were invariably of the highest grade, according to later eighteenth-century standards.

During the summers of 1798 and 1799 there were given nightly concerts of 'vocal and instrumental' music at B. Ishewood's Ranelagh Garden near the Battery. The programs were made up almost entirely of popular songs. Joseph Corre, who opened Columbia Garden, opposite the Battery, in 1798, and Mount Vernon Garden on Leonard Street in 1800, hit upon the idea of attracting both æsthete and philistine by a judicious mixture of serious and popular programs. His serious concerts were similar to those given by Joseph Delacroix; his popular programs contained the same sort of stuff as was offered at Ranelagh Gardens.

Besides these summer garden concerts and the winter subscription series already mentioned there were many single benefit concerts after the war. The first of these, apparently, was given by William Brown in 1786, and in the same year Alexander Reinagle gave a Gargantuan affair that included three Haydn overtures, five excerpts from the 'Messiah' and 'Samson,' a concerto for violin, a sonata for pianoforte, a duet for violin and 'cello, and ten miscellaneous vocal numbers. Between that year and the end of the century benefit concerts were given by Henri Capron, the Van Hagens, John Christopher Moller, Jane Hewitt, George Edward Saliment, Mrs. Pownall, Mrs. Hodgkinson, Mme. De Sèze, and others. As a rule these concerts followed the prevailing fashion in the make-up of their programs. Haydn, Pleyel, Stamitz, Sacchini, Martini, Wranitzky, Kozeluch, and Clementi furnished the pièces de résistance for programs otherwise consisting of songs, concerts, sonatas and lesser instrumental forms by unidentified composers. The presence of a French operatic troupe in 1790 gave a theatrical tinge to a few concerts in which they participated.

Outside of New York City there was practically no concert life, either in New York or New Jersey. Occasionally some musician on his way between New York and Philadelphia or the South would give a concert in Princeton, Newark, Trenton, or New Brunswick. One concert in the last-named town featured 'speaking and elegant dancing between the parts.' Albany, presumably, had the benefit of a few concerts, perhaps by visiting musicians from New York. Mr. Sonneck has discovered the announcement of a creditable concert given there in 1797 by J. H. Schmidt, 'formerly organist of the cathedral of Schiedam in Holland,' also formerly of Charleston and Baltimore. On the whole, however, New York and New Jersey, except for New York City, were musically very backward compared with New England.

III

Nothing, perhaps, could better illustrate the contradictory complexity of environmental influences than the state of musical culture in eighteenth-century Philadelphia. Compared with the Quaker attitude toward music, that of the Puritans was almost indecently liberal. Yet Philadelphia was beyond doubt musically the most cultured city in eighteenth-century America. The cause is not apparent, but we have ample evidence of the fact. As in the case of other American cities, it is impossible to say when public concerts started in Philadelphia. The first mention of concerts there, so far discovered, is in Gottlieb Mittelberger's Reise nach Pennsylvanien im Jahre 1750. But these, the author states, were private concerts 'auf dem Spinnet oder Klavicymbel.' No announcements of public concerts appear in the Philadelphia newspapers until 1757, when the 'Pennsylvania Gazette' announces one under the direction of Mr. John Palma. The same gentleman gave another concert a few months later, as we find from the ledger of George Washington, who bought tickets for it. No more public concerts appear before 1764 and, indeed, they seem to have been far from common until after the war. During the last years of the century the musical life of Philadelphia was extremely rich, both as to public concerts and otherwise.

We know nothing about the concert of 1764 except that it was under the direction of James Bremner.[31] Another concert under the same direction was given in the following year. It was announced as a 'Performance of Solemn Music,' the 'vocal parts chiefly by young Gentlemen educated in this Seminary' (College of Philadelphia), and accompanied by the organ. It was a very fine concert, and the fact that it was highly successful is eloquent of the state of musical culture in Philadelphia at that time. Besides a chorus and airs set to scriptural texts the program included a Stamitz overture, the Sixth Concerto of Geminiani, an overture by the Earl of Kelly, Martini's Second Overture, the overture to Arne's 'Artaxerxes,' a sonata on the harpsichord, and a solo on the violin. Two orations were added for good measure. A series of subscription concerts was inaugurated on Thursday, January 19, 1764, and continued every Thursday until May 24 following. Apparently these also were under the direction of James Bremner and there is prima facie evidence that Francis Hopkinson was connected with them in some capacity. A second series was advertised to begin on Thursday, November 8, 1764, and to be continued until March 14 following. The programs of these concerts were not printed in the newspapers, as admission was confined to subscribers, and it seems to have been customary to print programs for distribution with the tickets—an eminently sane and praiseworthy custom which fortunately still survives in America.

A concert given in 1764 by Stephen Forrage for his own benefit and that of other 'assistant performers at the Subscription Concert,' may be mentioned, were it only for the fact that Mr. Forrage appeared as soloist on Benjamin Franklin's 'famous Armonica, or Musical Glasses, so much admired for their great Sweetness and Delicacy of its tone.' We trust he had more respect for the musical proprieties than he evidently entertained for the grammatical ones. After 1765 no concerts appear until November, 1769, when Giovanni Gualdo gave a 'Grand Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Musick ... directed by Mr. Gualdo, after the Italian method'—whatever that may have been. Most of the program consisted of compositions by Mr. Gualdo, and there were two overtures by the Earl of Kelly.[32] In the same month a subscription series was started—'The Vocal Music by Messieurs Handel, Arne, Giardini, Jackson, Stanley, and others. The instrumental Music by Messieurs Geminiani, Barbella, Campioni, Zanetti, Pellegrino, Abel, Bach, Gualdo, the Earl of Kelly and others.' Gualdo gave two benefit concerts in 1770 and one in 1771. He died soon after. In the latter year also Mr. John McLean, instructor on the German flute, gave a concert 'performed by a full Band of Music, with Trumpets, Kettle Drum, and every instrument that can be introduced with Propriety,' and 'interspersed with the most pleasing and select Pieces, composed by approved authors.' A concert of popular songs by a Mr. Smith in 1772 was apparently the only public attempt to break the musical monotony of Philadelphia until Signior Sodi, 'first dancing master of the opera in Paris and London,' gave a grand affair at which a Mr. Vidal, 'musician of the Chambers of the King of Portugal,' played 'on divers instruments of music,' while Signior Sodi, Miss Sodi, and Mr. Hullett (of New York) danced minuets, a louvre, a 'new Philadelphia cotillion,' a rigadoon, an allemande, a jigg, and a hompipe. In the same year 'Mr. Victor, musician to her late Royal Highness the Princess of Wales and Organist of St. George's, London,' advertised a performance on 'his new musical instruments ... the one he calls tromba doppio con tympana, on which he plays the first and second trumpet and a pair of annexed kettle drums with the feet, all at once; the other is called cymbaline d'amour, which resembles the musical glasses played by harpsichord keys, never subject to come out of tune, both of his own invention.'

From all of which appears that for a short time before the war musical life in Philadelphia degenerated sadly. Presumably the people were too much interested in the big and burning issues of the day to lend substantial support to concert givers. Likewise during the war they were too much occupied with more vital and disturbing affairs. While Lord Howe's army occupied Philadelphia there were, according to Capt. Johann Heinrich of the Hessian Jäger Corps, 'assemblies, concerts, comedies, clubs, and the like,' but it would hardly be patriotic to consider these activities of the enemy. Apart from them there were no public performances during the war until, on December 11, 1781, Lucerne, the French minister, gave an 'elegant concert' in honor of Generals Washington and Greene 'and a very polite circle of gentlemen and ladies,' at which was performed Francis Hopkinson's patriotic 'oratorial entertainment "Temple of Minerva".'

After the war, however, the musical life of Philadelphia awoke with a bound. The revival was inaugurated by a fortnightly series of city concerts in 1783 under the leadership of John Bentley. A second series under the same leadership followed in 1784. Bentley promised for his second season 'a more elegant and perfect entertainment than it was possible (from the peculiar circumstances of the time) to procure during the last winter,' and he felt encouraged in his enterprise by 'the rising taste for music, and its improved state in Philadelphia.' Bentley discontinued his concerts in 1785-86 and apparently that season was barren of such entertainments. In 1786, however, there came the advent of Alexander Reinagle. Together with Henri Capron, William Brown, and Alexander Juhan he started in that year a series of twelve fortnightly concerts, the programs of which were all announced in the newspapers. Certainly there could have been no lack of musical culture among the Philadelphians when they supported an extended series of such concerts as were given by Reinagle et al. The concerts were continued in the winter of 1787-88 and then apparently discontinued until 1792, when they were revived by Messrs. Reinagle and Capron in conjunction with John Christopher Moller. In these the high standard of the preceding concerts was well maintained.

Meanwhile a Mr. Duplessis, who kept an English school for young gentlemen, started a series of fourteen concerts on his own account in 1786, but we do not know how many he succeeded in giving. In the same year an amateur subscription series was started, apparently under the auspices of a society called the 'Musical Club,' and was continued every season until 1790-91. Then, it seems, there was a consolidation of amateurs and professionals in 1794, with Reinagle as the guiding spirit. They gave a season of six subscription concerts with programs devoted largely to Haydn, Pleyel, and Handel. No further subscription series are discoverable before the end of the century, with the exception of those given by Mrs. Grattan, who, in 1797, announced eight subscription concerts. As she referred to these as 'the second Ladies Concert' the inference is that she had already given a series in 1796. Mrs. Grattan confined her activities chiefly to chamber and vocal music, but as we find Handel, Haydn, Pleyel, Paesiello, Viotti, and Sacchini figuring on her programs, it is evident that the public taste had not degenerated. She gave another season in 1797-98, after which she left Philadelphia for Charleston, appearing later in New York. In addition to regular subscription concerts there were, after the Revolution, an increasing number of affairs given for private profit, for charity, and for other purposes. Especially noteworthy are the activities of Andrew Adgate, who was a real pioneer of artistic choral music in Philadelphia. In 1784 Adgate founded by subscription 'The Institution for the Encouragement of Church Music,' which became known in 1785 as the Uranian Society and in 1787 as the Uranian Academy of Philadelphia.

In the preceding chapter we mentioned the Grand Concert given on May 4, 1786, with a chorus of 230 and an orchestra of 50, as well as the concert of April 12, 1787. Both were given under the auspices of the Uranian Society, with Adgate as conductor. It is worthy of note that the syllabus of the second concert was accompanied by remarks on the pieces to be performed—probably the first example of annotated programs in America. The Uranian Academy was actually opened in 1787 and its second annual concert was held in 1788. How long afterward it survived we cannot say, as no further references to it are found in the newspapers. According to Scharf and Westcott's 'History of Philadelphia,' however, it was active until after 1800.

After 1788 the sacred choral concerts—or 'oratorios,' as they were called—gradually approximated the style of the purely secular vocal and instrumental concerts, and after 1790 they seem to have disappeared altogether.

The arrival in 1790 of the French company of which we have already spoken introduced a strikingly novel note into the concert life of Philadelphia. In contrast to the style of thing done by Bremner, Hopkinson, Reinagle, and other men of severe taste their programs do not strike us too favorably. Indeed, their concerts marked the beginning of a curious corruption in the public taste and of a tendency toward indiscriminate program-making which has not yet completely disappeared from our midst. From this time until the end of the century hardly a program appears that does not contain a theatrical composition of Monsigny, Paesiello, Sacchini, Cimarosa, Cherubini, or some other operatic writer of this period, and, as we draw nearer to the nineteenth century, the more miscellaneous become the programs. During those years the concert-life of Philadelphia was dominated largely by French musicians, most of whom, it would appear, were men who had received the best European training. We notice, for instance, that Joseph César was 'a pupil of the celebrated Signor Viotti and first violin of the theatre in Cape François,' and that Victor Pelissier was 'first French horn in the theatre in Cape François.' Perhaps the fact that so many of the French musicians were virtuosi inspired the making of programs devoted to medleys, ariettes, 'favourite sonatas,' and concertos for every instrument that could possibly be employed solo. Yet even such a thorough artist as Alexander Reinagle descended—perforce, we presume—to the inclusion in his programs of such vocal gems as 'Kiss me now or never,' 'Poor Tom Bowling,' 'My Poll and my partner Joe,' 'A Smile from the girl of my heart,' and so forth. Mr. and Mrs. Hodgkinson, Mrs. Pownall, Miss Broadhurst and others gave concerts with programs equally miscellaneous, and it must be admitted that all this points to a distinct musical retrogression in Philadelphia during the last decade of the eighteenth century.

There remain to be mentioned the summer concerts given in public gardens which became very popular toward the beginning of the nineteenth century. They were inaugurated, it would seem, by a Mr. Vincent M. Pelosi, proprietor of the Pennsylvania Coffee House, who proposed for the summer season of 1786 'to open a Concert of Harmonial Music,' to be continued weekly from the first Thursday of June to the last Thursday of September. His example was followed in 1789 by Messrs. George and Robert Gray, proprietors of 'Gray's Gardens,' who gave weekly concerts from May to October, and continued that feature until about 1793. As their programs included compositions of Haydn, Stamitz, Martini, and Abel, it may be seen that they adhered to the prevailing standard. George Esterley started concerts at his 'Vauxhall Harrowgate' in 1789, engaging as soloist 'a lady from Europe who has performed in all the operas in the theatres Royal of Dublin and Edinburgh.' The announcement has a very modern ring. As far as we know Esterley continued his enterprise at least until 1796, presenting somewhat the same programs as Messrs. Gray. In 1797 Messrs. Bates and Darley opened Bush Hill or Pennsylvania Tea Gardens with vocal and instrumental music as a feature, but were obliged to dissolve partnership in the same year. John Mearns, proprietor of the Centre House Tavern and Gardens, announced in 1799 that he would add 'to the entertainment his house afforded ... at a very great expense ... a grand organ of the first power and tone, which [would] be played every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening during the summer.' He added regular concerts in the following summer.

IV

It is not a far-fetched surmise that concerts, in the broadest acceptation of the term, were known in the South earlier than in any other part of the country. The colonial cavalier, who, after the fashion of English gentlemen at the time, kept a chest of viols in his house, must occasionally have found among his visitors a sufficient number of competent players to form an ensemble of some sort. As the population increased and the opportunities for social intercourse improved these occasions undoubtedly became frequent, and, without any sacrifice of historical probability, one can easily imagine social gatherings at which the most skillful musicians performed concerted pieces for the entertainment of the other guests. The picture is quite in accord with what we know of English and Southern colonial society in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Certainly, in Charleston and other centres of Southern society and culture, it is hard to imagine that private musical affairs were not quite common at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Indeed, a large proportion of the earlier public concerts in Charleston were given by amateurs with the assistance of professional musicians, and it is reasonable to assume that a habit of giving private concerts preceded the custom of giving public ones.

The first public concert we find trace of in Charleston was a benefit given for Mr. John Salter in 1732. Several other benefit concerts were given in the same year. We know nothing about them except that they consisted of vocal and instrumental music and were usually followed by a ball. Mr. Sonneck thinks it probable that they were devoted to 'more or less skillful renditions of Corelli, Vivaldi, Purcell, Abaco, Handel, Geminiani, and such other masters whose fame was firmly established in Europe.' Probably subscription concerts started in 1732 or 1733, for in the latter year we find 'N. B.'s' to concert advertisements to the effect that 'This will be the last Concert' and 'This is the first time on the subscription.' These subscription seasons apparently continued until 1735. From that year until 1751 there are no concerts advertised except a benefit for John Salter and one for Charles Theodore Pachelbel. A benefit concert in 1751, one in 1755, and one in 1760 brings us through years of famine to 1765 and Mr. Thomas Pike. Mr. Pike was a talented person who played the French horn and the bassoon, and also taught ladies and gentlemen 'very expeditiously on moderate terms in Orchesography (or the art of dancing by characters and demonstrative figures)'. He gave a concert in 1765 with the assistance of 'gentlemen of the place,' and was obliging enough to publish the program, which was devoted to horn, violoncello, harpsichord, and bassoon concertos, a song, a trio, and the overture of Handel's 'Scipio.'

In 1767 Messrs. Bohrer, Morgan and Comp started weekly concerts at their Charleston Vauxhall. They did not include tea and coffee in the price of the tickets, but on one extraordinary occasion when 'four or five pieces' were exhibited between the parts of the concert 'by a person who is confident very few in town ever saw, or can equal, his performance,'—on that extraordinary occasion tea and coffee were included in the expense 'till the person above mentioned begins.' Unfortunately we do not know the nature of the person's performance. He was, it seems, a very exclusive person and refused to appear more than once in Charleston, 'unless by the particular desire of a genteel company.' Nevertheless the enterprise of Messrs. Bohrer, Morgan and Comp does not seem to have succeeded. Peter Valton gave a benefit concert in 1768 and a subscription concert in 1769. In the meantime the St. Cæcilia Society, which was founded in 1762, had been giving regular subscription seasons since 1766 or perhaps earlier. That these St. Cæcilia Concerts were important affairs is evident from an advertisement inserted by the society in the New York, Philadelphia, and Boston papers in 1771, calling for a first and second violin, two hautboys, and a bassoon, and offering to such, if 'properly qualified,' a one-, two-, or three-year contract. The society continued to give regular concerts all during the century, but we have no information as to their nature.

Outside the St. Cæcilia concerts we find in 1772 only one, 'the vocal part by a gentleman, who does it merely to oblige on this occasion,' and, in 1773, two at which a Mr. Saunders exhibited 'his highest dexterity and grand deception.' In 1774 a Mr. Francheschini, who seems to have been a violinist of the St. Cæcilia Society, announced a concert for his benefit by express permission of that organization. Mr. Van Hagen, of Rotterdam, who afterward appeared in New York and Boston, gave a concert in the same year, at which Signora Castella performed on the musical glasses. Then the war intervened, putting practically a complete quietus on music for the time being.

So far, the concert-life of Charleston, from what we know of it, does not at all compare with that of contemporary New York, Philadelphia, or Boston. After the war it improved somewhat, but the intrusion of theatrical people into the concert field immediately following the war was very unfortunate from a musical point of view. With the exception of a subscription series started in 1786 by Joseph Lafar, and concerning which we have no particulars, there do not appear to have been any concerts worthy of the name until after 1790. They were simply scrappy theatrical entertainments, disguised sufficiently to evade the law which seems to have existed in restraint of such. The following advertisement shows the modus operandi, which is very suggestive of the 'Sacred Concerts' given on Sundays in many of our present-day vaudeville houses. 'On Saturday evening at the Lecture Room, late Harmony Hall, will be a Concert, between the parts will be rehearsed (gratis) the musical piece of Thomas and Sally. To which will be added, a pantomime, called Columbia, or Harlequin Shipwreck'd.'

Even acrobatic performances were introduced into the concerts of this period. Several concerts for charity were given in 1791, and may have been real concerts, though we have no particulars concerning them. George Washington attended one in that year, at which, he says, 'there were at least 400 ladies the number and appearance of which exceeded anything of the kind I had ever seen.' Excusably enough, perhaps, he was not sufficiently interested in the music to say anything about it.

From 1793 on, however, the concert-life of Charleston was very rich. Resides the subscription concerts of the St. Cecilia[33] Society, there were regular series by the Harmonic Society, which appeared in 1794, as well as frequent concerts given by individual musicians. Much of this activity was due to the influx of French musicians following the revolutions in France and St. Domingo. We find most of the benefit concerts from 1793 to the end of the century given by people with French names, and there is a decided leaning toward French composers, such as Grétry, Gossec, Davaux, Michel, La Motte, Guenin, and Gluck. However, the concerts on the whole were sufficiently eclectic, featuring also the compositions of Haydn, Pleyel, Stamitz, Gyrowetz, Corelli, Giornovichi, Hoffmeister, Viotti, Martini, dementi, Sacchini, Jarnovick, Krumpholtz. Handel, Cimarosa, and even Mozart.[34] Certainly the music lovers of Charleston did not suffer from lack of variety.

Mrs. Pownall, whom we have already met, gave a concert in 1796 which was somewhat out of the ordinary. It was advertised as a Grand Concert Spiritualé[!], and was devoted almost exclusively to 'overtures, songs and duets, selected from the most celebrated of Handel's oratorios: the "Messiah," "Judas Maccabæus," "Esther," etc., etc.' In the same year there was advertised a 'Grand Musical Festival,' which is interesting for many reasons. Probably it was the first musical affair in America to which the term 'Festival' was applied; it employed an orchestra of over thirty performers, which was an unusually large ensemble for that time, and it included among the numbers on its program the overture to Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide and Haydn's Stabat Mater—'the celebrated Stabat Mater of Doctor Haydn,' as the announcement puts it. Apart from these, there were no further concerts in the last decade of the century which call for special mention. Two attempts were made to revive the Vaux Hall, one by 'Citizen' Cornet in 1795 and one by Mons. Placide in 1799, but they do not seem to have added much of value to the musical life of the city. On the whole, in Charleston, as elsewhere in America, the beginning of the nineteenth century saw a perceptible decline in the public demand for music of the best kind.

Our information on early concert-life in other Southern cities does not enable us to say much about it. In Maryland, Annapolis probably took the lead musically until after the middle of the century, but no sources have been disclosed which would supply us with any details of its musical life. We are a little better informed on musical affairs in Baltimore subsequent to the year 1780 and it would seem that toward the end of the century that city resembled Charleston very closely in the number and quality of its concerts. Also to Baltimore as to Charleston there was a large influx of French musicians after 1790, and with similar results. We know nothing about concerts in Baltimore prior to the year 1784, when William Brown demonstrated his 'superior talents on the German flute.' A couple of concerts, one of instrumental music only, are advertised for 1786, and in the same year we find the first notice of a subscription season. As far as we can discover subscription concerts were a regular feature of the musical life of the city until the end of the century. In 1790 Ishmail Spicer, who conducted a singing school for the improvement of church music, exhibited his pupils in a concert of sacred music. Then came the French musicians with their overtures of Grétry and their ariettes of Dalayrac. Like their compatriots in Charleston, they proved commendably catholic in their tastes, and, in addition to French compositions, gave frequent examples of Haydn, Pleyel, Stamitz, Bach, and Gyrowetz (whose name they never succeeded in spelling correctly). Though they practically monopolized musical affairs in Baltimore for many years, they collaborated freely with English, German, and Italian musicians, all of which made for the musical good of the city. It may be mentioned that Alexander Reinagle gave some concerts in Baltimore in 1791 and 1792, with programs of a quality which might be expected from an artist of his superior attainments, and he seems to have been the only non-French musician who counted much in the concert life of Baltimore in the last decade of the century. As elsewhere in America, there were open-air concerts in summer at such resorts of the Baltimore fashionables as Gray's Gardens and Chatsworth Gardens, and, as elsewhere in America, the musical life of the people degenerated sadly with the opening of the nineteenth century.

Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Norfolk, Richmond, Alexandria, Savannah and other Southern cities apparently had a musical life as rich as could reasonably be expected in communities of their size. We possess little information concerning them, but there have been unearthed by Mr. Sonneck a number of references to concerts in these cities, sometimes with programs quoted in full, which show that they heard the best contemporary music occasionally, and perhaps even frequently. Many of the concerts were given by visiting musicians, such as Mrs. Pick, Mrs. Sully, Mrs. D. Hemard, Mr. Graupner, Mr. Shaw, and others whose names appear on the concert programs of Charleston, Philadelphia, and Roston. Rut it is certain that there was also in most of these cities a musical life which functioned quite independently of such visitors. Fredericksburg, we know, had a Harmonic Society in 1784, which gave concerts 'the third Wednesday evening in each month,' and it is not improbable that similar societies existed in other towns where there was much social intercourse between people of culture, refinement and exceeding leisure. Among the music-loving, pleasure-loving, gregarious gentlefolk of the old South, unhampered by the fetters of occupation and confronted merely with the task of making life pass as pleasantly as possible, the formation of such societies must have been inevitable. Perhaps among the families of their descendants scattered all over the country there may be preserved many old documents that would throw a welcome light on their musical life, but until such documents do appear we must rest content with the surmise, based upon the little information we possess, that musical culture in the South, if it did not quite reach the standard attained in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, was at least more widely diffused than elsewhere in America.

A comparison between the eighteenth-century concert life of America and of Europe will easily show that this country, even considering its many disadvantages, was not very far behind the older continent. Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, and perhaps a few other German cities like Mannheim and Hamburg, were ahead of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston in the quality of their concerts, but not so very far ahead as to make the American cities look provincial in comparison. When we consider the wealth of tradition behind the musical life of Europe and the many difficulties which confronted early concert givers in America the difference appears still less. But, as we pointed out in the last chapter, there was one very profound and important difference—the European cities were productive, the American cities were not. And, after all, the artistic stature of a country must finally be measured not by what it appreciates, but by what it creates. Thus measured, America of the eighteenth century was still a musical infant.

W. D. D.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] The only published work devoted specifically to this subject is O. G. Sonneck's 'Early Concert Life in America,' which seems to have exhausted all available sources of information. We have used it freely as our authority for the facts on early American concerts set forth in this and the preceding chapters.

[26] The Concert Hall was probably built in 1754, though the exact date of its erection is unknown. It was torn down in 1869 to allow the widening of Hanover Street.

[27] Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.

[28] Samuel Felsted. Practically nothing is known about his life. His oratorio, 'Jonah,' was published in London in 1775.

[29] By Martini il Tedesco (1741-1816), whose real name was Paul Ægidius Schwartzenburg. His opera, 'Henri IV,' was produced in 1774.

[30] In Mr. Sonneck's opinion the 'Ode on Masonry' was unquestionably composed by Tuckey.

[31] Bremner was a relative of the Scottish music publisher, composer, and editor, Robert Bremner. He came to Philadelphia in 1763, conducted a music school, was for a time organist of Christ Church, and was the teacher of Francis Hopkinson.

[32] Thomas Alexander Erskine, sixth earl of Kelly (1732-81), pupil of Stamitz and an amateur composer and violinist of some celebrity in his day. He wrote a number of minuets, overtures and symphonies, the most popular of which was an overture called 'The Maid of the Mill' (1765).