Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXV, no. 2 (Summer 1999)
Performances of Note
Reclaiming the Past: Musical Boston a Century Ago
A Conference at the New England Conservatory, 4-11 March 1999, Director, Joseph Horowitz
In the highly informative conference booklet, Joseph Horowitz, Director of the conference, discusses
the cultural profile of Boston a century ago, stating, "what Arthur Foote called 'a golden time' maps
a world of feeling and experience" that commands our attention. Following the cultural upheaval
caused by the first world war, when German music was banned by some the works of the Boston
Romanticists began to gather dust on library shelves. Now, in our postmodern world, "rediscovering
musicla Boston can refine our understanding of our musical past [if we can] overcome the stubborn
prejudices about American music in relation to its European parents, and about nineteenth-century
American music in relation to its rebellious twentieth century progeny."
Although most programs of this conference took place at the New England Conservatory, two afternoon
programs took place at Northeastern University, including works by Arthur Foote, Amy Beach, and others,
played by Virginia Eskin, piano, Helgo Thorarinsdottir, viola, and the University's Choral Society,
Joshua Jacobson, director, with talks by Laurie Blunsom and Judith Tick. An organ recital by
William Porter at Old West Church offered Ives's Celestial Country and an Organ Sonata
by Horatio Parker. Evening concerts, starting on from 8 to 11 March, took place in the New England
Conservatory's Jordan Hall with pre-concert alks by Michael Beckerman, Michael Pisani, and Steven
Ledbetter and post-concert panel sessions that generated lively discussions with audiences.
The first evening concert at NEC opened with a welcoming address by conservatory president Robert Freeman,
and a talk by radio host Christopher Lydon. The program began with a performance by Michael Gowan,
tenor, of a traditional Gaelic folk melody used int he second movement of Beach's Symphony in
E-minor ("Gaelic"), op. 32 (1896), which was played by the NEC Festival Orchestra and followed
by the last movement of that symphony. During the panel discussion that followed the concert,
Adrian Fried Block discussed the significance of Beach's use of Irish Gaelic melodies in her
symphony, pointing out that in the 1890s the Irish people constituted a majority in Boston. A strong
political presence, in 1885 they had elected Boston's first Irish mayor. Irish music was very much a part
not only of Boston's cultural life, but of America's musical mainstream, having been brought from
the British Isles by performers in the musical theater, and made available from 1810 by successive
publications of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies. In addition, the presence of Irish entertainers
in black-face minstrel shows and on the popular stage, rendered Irish music ubiquitous in American life.
According to Block, that made the folk melodies Beach chose as themes for her "Gaelic" Symphony
as American as the traditional melodies of any ethnic group in the United States.
For those eager to hear more music by Boston composers, the conference offered afternoon recitals
and evening concerts featuring the works of John Knowles Paine, Foote, George Whitefield Chadwick, and
Beach. The New England Conservatory gave admirable performances under the batons of Richard Hoenich, John
Heiss, and for the final evening concert, Gunther Schuller. There was music by non-Bostonians as
well including Charles Wakefield Cadman, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, John Philip Sousa, and Charles
Ives, whose Symphony no. 1 was also given. Chamber music included Amy Beach's Sonata for Pianoforte
and Violin, op. 34, given a fine performance by two graduate students, her Quartet for Strings
in One Movement and Variations for Flute and String Quartet with Fenwick Smith, flautist,
in superb performances by Smith and the Borromeo, NEC's Quartet in Residence. From Paine's Piano
Trio, the NEC Honors Piano Trio gave the Larghetto and Scherzo. Works by Arthur Foote were given on
an afternoon concert at Northeastern University by Helga Thorarinsdottir, viola, and Virginia
Eskin, piano. Even while being branded as Germanic, Boston romanticists Beach, Chackwick, and Foote took
part in the search for an American music. They explored the compositional uses of traditional
music in their environment, borrowing from Native-, African-, and Irish-American sources. It was
this aspect that was the focus of the conference, which presented works that embodied ethnic
elements, considering as well the role of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak in sparking this search for an
American style.
The third day was titled "The Indianists," largely after the name given by Gilbert Chase to Farwell
and others at the turn of the last cetnury who took an interest in adapting the Indian transcriptions
of Baker, Fletcher, Curtis, and others. Like other days at the Festival, there were two major events:
1) an afternoon concert of student performers with talks interspersed and concluding with a panel
discussion; and 2) an evening concert in Jordan Hall with the Festival Orchestra conducted by
Gunther Schuller.
The afternoon event in NEC's Williams Hall featured excellent performances by outstanding
young graduate students of NEC. As audience members entered the hall, they were already thrust into
a provocative frame of mind with David MacAllester's taped compilation of "Indian music," a selection
ranging from Plains pow-wow music to Navajo rock and polka bands. The panel consisted of Robert
Labaree, Michael Pisano, Peter Row, and MacAllester.
The concert-presentation consisted of three sections, organized by topic. The first section was dedicated
to Longfellow's Hiawatha and its influence on composers, ca. 1858-1900. It featured two
excerpts from Robert Stoepel's Hiawatha: An Indian Symphony (1858): 'The Dance of Pau-Puk-Keewis,"
played by Maho Nabeshima and Kazuha Nakahara in Michael Pisani's four-hand piano arrangement, and
the "Cradle Song," delicately song by mezzo-soprano Jessica Bowers and accompanied by Jean Anderson Collier
at the piano. Pisani then spoke about a number of later Hiawatha settings. Most unusual perhaps
was his illustration of Arthur Foote's The Farewell of Hiawatha (1888). Foote's modal
accompaniements revealed remarkable similarities with those of his contemporary Mussorgsky and
Foote's "folkish" setings at times seemed to anticipate Mahler in its use of modally set
pentatonicism to convey a "farewell tone."
The second part of the afternoon centered on settings for piano and voice of transcriptions of
Indian songs (these transcriptions only becoming available through publications in the 1880s and
1890s). The Boston-based Arthur Farwell naturally emerged as a central figure. The program also
included Cadman's ubiquitous and charming Four American Indian Songs (1909), meltingly sung by
tenor Jonathan Boxer. Nobody would have been able to preduct that the student performances of Farwell's
character pieces would pack the punch they did. Clearly these students took these works seriously
by performing from memory and with technical polish. Pianist Stefan Wirth created a powerful
Listzian storm with The Domain of Hurakan (1902). Shorter, but no less demanding works were
Pawness Horses (1905), played by Kazuha Nakahara, Navajo War Dance (1905) played by
Maho Naebshima, and Navajo War Dance No. 2 (1908?), played with wonderful rhythmic energy
by Hillet van den Berg. Before the keyboard "war dances," MacAllester taught the audience the
words and melody to a Navajo war dance.
The third section was dedicated to large-scale works that used transcribed Indian melodies as generative
thematic ideas. MacAllester began with a moving talk on the Hako Ceremony. This was followed by the
first performance in over seventy years of Farwell's one-movement Hako Quartet in A Major
(1922). This twenty-two minute work was played passionately and lyrically by violinists Miguel Perez-Espejo
Cardenas and Hsin-Lin Tsai, violist Andy Tsai, and cellist Damien Ventula. Farwell's quartet alternates
between brisk, quietly entergetic passagework and slower, more powerfully yearning sections. Pisani
then introducted the Griffes Two Sketches on Indian Themes for string quartet. This work,
one of the finest compositions derived from Native American source material, was movingly played
by violinists Nellie Kim and Marlena Chow, violist Julie Thompson, and cellist Nicole Coriglia.
Unlike the afternoon event, the evening's concert in Jordan Hall was structured around
ensemble rather than thematically. (With the exception of Adrienne Fried Block, who introduced the
Beach Quartet, there were no outside lecturer-presenters between pieces.) The concert opened
with the one-movement Amy Beach quartet played with commitment and a certain sternness of character
by the Borromeo Quartet, NEC's quartet-in-residence. The NEC Festival Wind Ensemble under William
Drury played John Philips Sousa's Dwellers in the Western World (1910), one movement of
which was The Red Man, and the march Powhattan's Daughter (1907). Since neither piece used any
Indian themes and since Sousa had nothing to do with New England, the inclusion of these pieces
on the concert seemed mysterious. But the "Wild West" quality of Sousa's "Red Man" served as a
reminder of the kind of music that Beach, Farwell, and others would have been writing to counter.
The second half of the concert was dedicated to three "Indian" works by Ferruccio Busoni, who taught
at the New England conservatory from 1891 to 1893. Each of the works was based on one or more
melodies he obtained from Natalie Curtis. The NEC Orchestra under Schuller opened the second half
with the Boston premiere of The Indian Diary, Book II (1915), a peculiar, scherzando-like work.
This was followed by The Indian Diary, Book I, a set of four pieces for piano played with great
pathos and bravura by Jon Sakata. (Mr. Sakata repeated his performance of this work a few days later
at the Sonneck Society Conference in Fort Worth.) The climax of the concert was the Indian Fantasy
for piano and orchestra, also a Boston premiere, with Randall Hodgkinson providing the fire at the
keyboard. While the first two works have virtually nothing to suggest an "American" quality about
them (net even Busoni's use of the Indian themes), the Fantasy at times breaks out in what sounds like
music for a film Western. Some of the audience stayed to address the panel, and Schuller, Block, MacAllester,
Labaree, Row, Pisani, and Nicholas Kitchen (first violinist of the Borromeo Quartet) each had a
few moments to speak about the nature of American composers' interest in Native Americana.
On Thursday, the final day, the afternoon session was devoted to the influence of African-American,
parlor,a nd band music, this last played by the NEC Festival Wind Ensemble, conducted by Frank L.
Battisti. The final evening concert was titled "Should American Music Sound American?" and offered
music by Beach, Chadwick, and Paine. As a prelude, Ledbetter talked about Henry Lee Higginson, organizer
and sole patron of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, from 1881 to 1918. Higginson, as Ledbetter pointed
out, was a member of the much intermarried circle of First Families, but without the usual inherited
wealth. Indeed, his support of the BSO, the resulf of his profound commitment of providing Boston with
a first-rate orchestra and the best music, was made despite periodic financial strain, even borrowing.
Furthermore, reflecting Brahmin commitment to make culture available across class lines, he required that
low-priced tickets be offered to ensure that the less privileged have access to uplifting music.
Unlike Higginson, George Whitefield Chadwick had lower-middle class origins. That, Ledbetter
implied, may eplain his use of vernacular elements derived from Irish, Scottish, and black music,
this last via the musical theater. Like Amy Beach, Chadwick was not related to the Cabots, the
Lowells, or any other of the First Families of Boston, but rather was an adoptive Brahmin. Both composers,
however, were accepted by Boston's elite because of their musical gifts, and both had their works
done by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, undoubtedly with the approval of its patron. The final
concert suggested that not all American music sounds American, even when composed by Bostonians such
as Paine, represented by the Larghetto and Scherzo of 1877 and an excerpt from his opera Azara,
completed in 1898, and by Beach, represented by her most Germanic-sounding composition, the violin and
piano Sonata of 1896. Chadwick's "Scherzo" from his Symphony No. 2 (1884), "Romanza" form the Suite
Symphonique (1905-09), and "Jubilee" from the Symphonic Sketches provided an American-sounding
finale to the conference. These were played in fine style by the Festival Orchestra conducted by
Gunther Schuller
--Adrienne Fried Block
City University of New York
--Michael Pisani
Vassar College
Updated 09/10/99