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48 PAGES.
With which is incorporated THE KEYNOTE.
VOL. XXVI.
No. 19.
Published Every Saturday at 3 East Fourteenth Street. New Tort, May 7,1898,
LITERARY ASPECTS OF flUSIC.
The recent and irreparable loss of Anton
Seidl, according- to Current Literature, sug-
gests certain animadversions on music; on
certain phases of it that are not always
taken into consideration by laymen; for
Seidl's relations with music were not di-
rectly those of a producer or executant,
although he certainly did, in one sense,
produce music of the supreme type, with
supreme art. But music is far more than
sound; more even than melody and har-
mony. There is more to music than the
ear discovers. To those that know it, one
of the most important qualities is its ap-
peal to the eye. Experts read a musical
classic as they do a famous poem or a
standard novel, and they skim or peruse
new music as they skim a newspaper.
They claim, indeed, to derive almost as
much pleasure from what is literally '' read-
ing " music, as from playing it or hearing
it played. One learns to read music as to
read books; picking out each note with
hesitant deliberation, as a beginner cons
the letters of his primer; constructing the
chords laboriously as a child groups the
letters into a w r ord, and combining the
chords into a phrase as a child builds up
its understanding of a sentence. In time
the reader of books learns to grasp a word
as a whole without any conscientious spell-
ing of it. Gradually he is able to take in
a whole sentence at a time without pausing
to study its separate words. So the prac-
ticed musician reads his notes, and such
a virtuoso as Liszt is said to have con-
stantly read eighteen measures ahead of
the measure he was playing. To the phys-
iological psychologist, one of the most
marvelous abilities of the human mind is
a trained pianist's rapid performance at
first sight of a brilliant composition. We
are too sadly accustomed to the ubiquitous
piano player either to realize or admire the
astounding ingenuity of his mind; but to
appreciate it thoroughly, one has only to
make a calculation of the myriad messages
and the lightning-like volitions required
for the playing, at a high rate of speed, of
complicated passages; for they are written
in two clefs and on a staff which serves for
any key, the performer being compelled
to alter the significance of every note
throiighout the piece according to the sig-
$2.00 PER YEAR.
SINGLE COPIES, 10 CENTS.
WHY JEFFERSON WAS HISSED.
nature of the key. The necessities for de-
ciding the time to be spent on each note,
NQ matter at what public gathering
the quality of tone to be produced, the nowadays the playing or singing of '' The
force of that tone and its relation to every- Star Spangled Banner " evokes the great-
thing that follows it or preceded it, or is est enthusiasm. The pulses of the people
struck simultaneously with it, are so ap- are quickened, and the wonderful influence
palling that one really ought to forgive the of music in great crises is demonstrated;
average pianist for not adding to the mir- yet it is a fact, strange but true, that there
acle by playing with large intellectuality is noticeable on all occasions an unfamil-
and emotion.
iarity with the words that is almost pain-
The reading of a piano composition is ful.
Mostly everyone mak£s a brave at-
wonderful enough, but there is something tempt at the start, but the first verse
stupefying about the reading of an orches- usually ends up in humming.
tral score. The composition is likely to be
This subject brings to mind a story told
quite as brilliant as most brilliant piano by Joseph Jefferson in the course of a
pieces, and it is scattered among a horde characteristic speech at a Philadelphia club
of instruments, the notes for which are a few weeks ago. "My friends, you ask
written in several different keys and clefs me if I was ever hissed on the stage," said
at the same time. The main theme is Mr. Jefferson. "Well, I have been, and
tossed about from one family of instru- the rendition of ' The Star Spangled Ban-
ments to another, and contra melodies of ner ' just now recalls to mind an instance.
all sorts and descriptions are thrown in at It was in just such stirring times as the
every crevice. Different instruments must present that I learned the words of ' The
be kept at different degrees of force and Star Spangled Banner.' I was fifteen
they must express different emotions at years old, and had been assigned to recite
the same time. The problems presented the hymn. For days I studied the words,
to an orchestral conductor at the first sight and I knew them so thoroughly that I
of a score for grand orchestra would seem- could recite them backward. At last the
ingly swamp the most agile intellect in fateful evening arrived, and when it was
existence; yet the trained student takes up my turn I went upon the stage. I recited
such a score with the lighthearted comfort the first line: ' Oh say, can you see.'
of a summer girl opening a paper-covered There I stuck. The audience waited for
romance to be read in a seaside hammock. me to go on. I started again and stuck
The musician sits back in his seat at home again. A girl, draped in the Stars and
or in a street car or a railroad train—or, Stripes, next to me, said: 'Go on you!'
perhaps, even in a carriage!—and reads but, after another attempt, ' you ' couldn't
rapidly and understandingly till the whole go on. I had forgotten it completely.
place about him- resounds and quivers with After one more attempt, in which I could
music that has no being except in the secret get no further, I was compelled to leave
porches of his soul. Many an old musician the stage amid the hisses of the entire au-
is brought to tears by this silent reading dience. But that day thoroughly taught
of page after page of orchestral score. me ' The Star Spangled Banner,' and I
Music that makes no appeal to the eye is have never forgotten it."
not likely to be music of much prominence.
Music that does so stir the reader is surely
Dudley Buck's Passion cantata, " T h e
a sort of exalted literature.
Story of the Cross " was rendered by the
*
choir of Grace Church, Middletown, N.
Eugene Ysaye, who is publicly talked of Y., under the direction of Mr. Harvey
as a leader for one of our orchestras, is Wickham, on the evening of April 5th.
said to be a believer in extending oppor- The soloists were Mrs. Harvey Wickham,
tunities to young American composers for Miss Julia Wickham, Messrs. Harry
the public presentation of their creations. Fisher, Zopher Green and David Eilen-
We have heard many such promises before, berger. The performance was very suc-
but they have rarely been followed by per- cessful and marks the third cantata given
formances.
by this choir during the present season.