II
The splendid work done by the Sacred Music Society of New York has been noticed in a previous chapter. Unfortunately the society did not live long. During the last five years of its existence it had a robust rival in the Musical Institute, a chorus of one hundred and twenty voices under the leadership of H. C. Timm, which has to its credit performances of Haydn's 'Seasons' (1846) and Schumann's 'Paradise and the Peri' (1848) among others.
In choral as in orchestral matters New York was suffering from too much competition. Out of the débris of the two chief competitors arose, in 1849, the New York Harmonic Society, which lived until 1863 under the successive conductorships of Timm, Eisfeld, Bristow, Bergmann, Morgan, Ritter, and James Peck. In its own way the Harmonic Society was just as important and efficient as the Philharmonic, but longevity decidedly was not a feature of New York choral organizations. Out of the remains of the Harmonic came the Mendelssohn Union, of which Bristow, Morgan, Bergmann, and Theodore Thomas were successively conductors, and then followed the Choral Music Association, a most exclusively fashionable organization.
The complaint from which New York choral societies were suffering at that time might accurately be diagnosed as anemia and it was fortunate that for several years previously there had been a large influx to the city of red Germanic blood. In 1847 a number of these lusty Germans got together and formed a male chorus which they called Deutscher Liederkranz. There was life in the Liederkranz, and art and sincerity and enthusiasm and everything that ought to be in a musical society. It gave a tremendous impulse to the art of choral singing in New York and the extent of its influence in the musical life of the community cannot easily be overestimated. The list of important works performed by it would be too long to quote here, but we may mention, as illustrating the quality of its taste, Mozart's Requiem, Mendelssohn's Walpurgisnacht, Haydn's Schöpfung, Schumann's Des Sänger's Fluch, Schubert's Chor der Geister über dem Wasser and Die Verschworenen, Liszt's Prometheus, Meyerbeer's 'Ninth Psalm,' Bruch's Odysseus, Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem and Schicksalslied, and Hoffman's Melusine and Aschenbrödel. There has been nothing anemic about the Liederkranz. In 1856 it admitted women to its choruses. This step had been contemplated for some years and in connection therewith there had been vigorous warfare within the ranks of the society. As a result the anti-feminist irreconcilables seceded in 1854 and formed the Männergesangverein Arion, which has since travelled at a musical pace as lively as that of its parent.
Unfortunately we have not space to speak of the splendid work accomplished by the Arion during the sixty years of its existence. Not the least of its services to music in America was the introduction of Dr. Leopold Damrosch, who conducted it for several years. In 1873 it occurred to Dr. Damrosch that New York needed a society which would give the larger forms of choral music in a competent fashion. The Mendelssohn Union and the Church Music Association still existed. Both had done excellent work, the latter having been responsible for the first performance in America of Beethoven's Mass in D. But, possibly because of their own peculiar lack of vigorous life, they failed to attract the public. That the need for such an organization as the Oratorio Society, which Dr. Damrosch founded in 1873, was very real is sufficiently proved by its rapid success. The new society avoided the mistake made by all its predecessors in starting too pretentiously and began with a few modest concerts of a miscellaneous nature. But by the time death deprived it of its founder in 1885 it had placed to its credit achievements in choral music such as had never been approached by any other organization in New York, or, in fact, elsewhere in America. These included the great choral classics: Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony,' Bach's 'St. Matthew's Passion,' Handel's 'Messiah' and 'Judas Maccabæus,' Mendelssohn's 'Elijah' and 'St. Paul,' Haydn's 'Creation,' Brahms' 'A German Requiem,' and others, together with first performances in America of Berlioz's Damnation de Faust and Requiem, Frederick H. Cowen's 'St. Ursula,' Leopold Damrosch's 'Ruth and Naomi' and 'Sulamith,' Kiel's Christus, and Liszt's Christus. We may also mention performances in concert form of Gluck's Orpheus, Berlioz's Les Troyens, and Wagner's Parsifal (excerpts).
American Pioneer Conductors: Anton Seidl, Theodore Thomas, Dr. Leopold Damrosch.
Dr. Damrosch was succeeded by his son Walter, who conducted the society until 1889, introducing to America Berlioz's Te Deum, his own 'Scarlet Letter' and 'Manila Te Deum,' Gounod's 'Redemption,' Edward Grell's Missa Solemnis, George Henschel's Stabat Mater, Gustav Mahler's 'Choral Symphony' (No. 2), Horatio Parker's 'St. Christopher,' Saint-Saëns' 'Samson and Delilah,' Heinrich Schütz's 'Seven Last Words,' Edgar Tinel's 'St. Francis of Assisi,' and Tschaikowsky's 'Legend,' Pater noster, and Eugen Onegin. He also gave a complete version in concert form of Parsifal. Frank Damrosch, another son of Dr. Damrosch, became conductor of the society in 1889. In the meantime Mr. Andrew Carnegie had become interested in the work and it was mainly this interest which led him to build the Carnegie Music Hall. The Oratorio Society, which had given its concerts successively in Steinway Hall, the Academy of Music, and the Metropolitan Opera House, moved to the new hall in 1891, celebrating the event with a festival made memorable by the presence of Tschaikowsky as a guest conductor. During his twelve years as conductor of the society Mr. Frank Damrosch raised its repertory to eighty-six compositions, adding fourteen works to the list. Several of these were given for the first time in America, including Sir Edward Elgar's 'The Apostles' and 'The Kingdom,' Gabriel Pierné's 'The Children's Crusade,' Strauss's 'Taillefer,' and Wolf-Ferrari's La vita nuova. Other important performances were Bach's 'B Minor Mass' and Beethoven's 'Mass in D.' Chicago anticipated the Oratorio Society by three days in the first American performance of Elgar's 'The Dream of Gerontius.' In 1912 it collaborated with the Symphony Society in a Brahms festival, singing 'Nenia,' the 'Triumphal Hymn,' and 'A German Requiem.' Frank Damrosch resigned in the same year and was succeeded by Louis Koemmenich. The novelties of Mr. Koemmenich's first two seasons were Otto Taubmann's Eine Deutsche Messe and Georg Schumann's 'Ruth,' and there were two performances of the 'Ninth Symphony' in conjunction with the Symphony Society at a Beethoven festival in 1914.
In 1893 Frank Damrosch organized a professional chorus under the title of the Musical Art Society, for the performance of a cappella works of Bach, the Palestrina school, and more modern masters. The society was quite different from any choral organization that had ever been formed in America, aiming at the interpretation of a style of music that is in the highest degree difficult and unusual. To cover acceptably the field of a cappella music from Josquin des Près, Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Eccard, Gabrieli and Orlando Gibbons to Debussy, d'Indy and Richard Strauss is an artistic enterprise which only a chorus of artists, one would think, would venture to undertake. The Musical Art Society has succeeded very well in its difficult task and its concerts are invariably among the most interesting events of the New York season. Its repertory to date includes the names of over one hundred composers, with special emphasis on Palestrina, Bach, and Brahms, and it includes also a large number of delightful old Minnelieder, mediæval hymns and German, Scandinavian, Scotch, French, Bohemian, and English folk-songs.
Similar work is done by the Schola Cantorum, under Kurt Schindler, which has given especially interesting programs of old troubadour songs and madrigals of the French renaissance. It was originally organized, under the auspices of the MacDowell Club, as the MacDowell Chorus. The Lambord Choral Society, organized under the conductorship of Benjamin Lambord in 1912, is devoted to the study and performance of small, rarely heard choral works by modern composers. During its first season its activities included a series of chamber music concerts, as well as a concert with chorus and orchestra in celebration of the centenary of Wagner's birth. The Modern Music Society was organized in 1913, with the Lambord Choral Society as one of its constituent parts. The new society made its first public appearance with a noteworthy concert devoted altogether to works of modern American composers, its avowed purpose being the encouragement of native composition.
Among other New York choral organizations may be mentioned the United Singers and the People's Choral Union, which may be cited as a prominent example of community music in a large city. The People's Choral Union and Singing Classes were established in 1892 by Frank Damrosch in close affiliation with the work of the Cooper Institute, established to disseminate knowledge and culture among the people, particularly working men and women.
In Brooklyn the Oratorio Society and the Choral Society are probably the best of a number of good choruses, though in Brooklyn, as in most big cities, there are several German singing societies which excel in their own particular field.
Considering its great musical activity, Philadelphia is not especially conspicuous for its choral organizations, but the Orpheus Club, a male chorus founded in 1872, the Cecilia Society, founded in 1875, and the Philadelphia Chorus Society are worthy of mention. By far the most interesting centre of choral music in Pennsylvania is the Moravian settlement of Bethlehem, which since its foundation in 1741 has been cultivating that branch of musical art with splendid sincerity and idealism. As early as 1811 Haydn's 'Creation' was performed there; Bach's great B minor Mass was given by the Bach Choir of Bethlehem for the first time in America in 1900, and in 1903 the choir held a Bach festival during which it performed the entire 'Christmas Oratorio,' the Magnificat, 'St. Matthew's Passion,' and the B minor Mass.
Of course, every city and town of any size in the East has one or more singing societies which do their own fair share in entertaining and improving it musically. It would be impossible to enumerate them. New England is, as it always has been, an especially lively centre of choral work, and such cities as Portland, Me., Springfield and Concord, Mass., Burlington, Vt., and New Haven, Conn., possess highly trained and efficient choruses. Of particular interest is the Worcester County Musical Association, of Worcester, Mass., an outgrowth of the old musical conventions held for the purpose of promoting church music. It was organized in 1863 and for a few years confined itself to psalm-tunes and simple, sentimental cantatas; but it soon graduated to Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Verdi, Gounod, and other serious composers of oratorios and masses. The annual festivals of the association now rank among the most important events of the American musical year.