"ENDYMION'S NARRATIVE," ROMANCE FOR ORCHESTRA: Op. 10

This is the second of Mr. Converse's symphonic poems, or "romances," based upon scenes in the "Endymion" of Keats (the first, "The Festival of Pan," is described in the preceding pages). "Endymion's Narrative" was composed in 1901. The following explanation of the purpose of the music was given by the composer at the time of the first performance of the work by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1903:

"... As I have remarked on the title-pages of these works, they were suggested by certain scenes from the poem. I meant by this that there was no desire or attempt to follow the text, slavishly and in detail, but merely to give a general reflection of its emotional phases. As a clew to 'Endymion's Narrative,' I would say that its idea was derived from the scene in the poem where Endymion, oppressed with melancholy feeling, and no longer cheered by the simple pleasures of his companions, is withdrawn from the Festival by Peona, his anxious sister, and led by her to a secluded part of the wood, where she strives to find the cause of his despondency and to soothe him with sisterly affection. Under her influence he reveals the cause of his sorrow. He then relates to her what seems to me the spiritual essence of the whole poem, the struggle of a mind possessed of an ideal beyond the common view, and yet bound by affection and devotion to conditions which confine and stifle its urging internal impulses.

"The piece begins with despondency and indecision. The hero is harassed by alluring glimpses of the ideal, and soothed by simple affection and love. There is a sort of dramatic growth of the various elements, until finally the ideal comes victorious out of the struggle, and the ungovernable impulse rushes exultantly on with the mad joy of determination." [32]

"NIGHT" AND "DAY," TWO POEMS FOR PIANOFORTE[33] AND ORCHESTRA: Op. 11

These tone-poems, composed in 1904, derive their inspiration from lines by Walt Whitman, which serve as mottoes for the music. For the first of the two, "Night," he has chosen this line from "A Clear Midnight" (in the section, "From Noon to Starry Night"):

"This is thy hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless."

"This," wrote Mr. Converse to the compiler of the Boston Symphony programme-books at the time of the first performance of the two poems,[34] "expresses quite completely the mood which I have tried to create in my music. Of 'Day,' Whitman says:

'Day full-blown and splendid—day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter.' [35]

"As far as it goes, this describes my [second] poem very well, but the real essence is lacking, although it was the best and most fitting quotation I could find for a motto. The moods of 'action,' 'ambition,' 'laughter,' and of love, too (for the erotic impulse is suggested in the poem), are all there, but strung upon and incident to the one predominant and insistent theme of the struggle of life. This restless, stirring, eternal energy ... is the main strain of the poem, and the other emotional phases are eddies momentarily emerging from it, but always being absorbed again in it, until at the end the tragedy of it becomes apparent and dominant. This is what I have tried to express."

He also points out that the titles are only symbolical; that he has had no intention "of expressing the physical characteristics of night and day"; his purpose was "to suggest their psychological meaning, to put into music the moods suggested by them."

CONCERT OVERTURE, "EUPHROSYNE" [36]: Op. 15

This overture, composed in 1903, is prefaced in the score with these lines from Milton's "L'Allegro":

"But come thou goddess fair and free,
In Heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth."

It has no other programme.