IV
The German immigration was in full force in the forties, cities such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee becoming the homes of great numbers of this music-loving people. In the broad sense of the term, they formed the greatest educational influence in music that the country had yet received. It is said that wherever two Germans settled in America they organized themselves into a Sängerbund. Tyrolese and Swiss singers and bell-ringers began to tour the country in 1840 and delighted Americans of every class—even now they are popular in the Chautauqua circles. However, when, lured by the success of the jodlers, really fine German bands, such as the Steiermarkers, Gungl's band, the Saxonia and Germania, came over in quest of American dollars, they met with consistent failure, and were forced to dissolve—to the great benefit of American musical education, for the individual members generally became teachers of instrumental music in the localities where they were stranded. It was only by playing dance music and popular airs that the bands met with any success whatsoever. Gungl (whose 'Railroad Galop,' an imitative composition, was the most popular in his répertoire) wrote home to a musical journal in Berlin that music 'lies still in the cradle here and nourishes herself on sugar-teats.'
The sentimental strain in German vocal music of the period made it more popular than German instrumental music, in that the American palate had been prepared for sentimentality by a saccharine sort of psalmody and secular music which was being sprinkled over the country by a second generation of Yankee music teachers of the Billings order. Elijah K. Prouty and Moses E. Cheney were leading representatives of this class. Prouty was a peddler, singing teacher, and piano tuner. Cheney was a leader of a church choir. In 1839 they organized and conducted a musical 'convention' at Montpelier, Vt., at which, with shrewd perception of popular interest in novelty and variety, they practised 'unusual tunes, anthems, male quartets, and duets and solos for both sexes.' For the secular music they used the 'Boston Glee Book and Social Choir,' compiled by George Kingsley. In order to attract the attendance of non-musical people, in the intervals between performances short debates were held between the local ministers, lawyers, and other prominent citizens.
In May, 1848, another musical convention was held in Chicago, which discussed the general question of musical education and the specific one of music in the public schools. Four years later William B. Bradbury led a similar but larger convention. At this convention the 'Alpine Glee Singer,' a compilation by Bradbury, was used for secular music, indicating the strong influence which the elementary sentimentality of German popular music exerted upon Americans. Sugared American psalmody, flavored with German sentimentality, and colored with a crudity of technique almost aboriginal produced that sort of musical candy which we know as the Sunday-school song. Bradbury was a pioneer in the composition and publication of such music, although, to do him justice, the especially deleterious coloring of the mixture was added by his successors, among whom Ira D. Sankey and P. P. Bliss may be mentioned as chief offenders. The collections of this school of musical composers must be reckoned by thousands in editions and millions in numbers of copies. Bradbury alone compiled more than fifty singing books, containing many of his own compositions. Of these collections 'The Jubilee,' published in 1857, sold 200,000 copies; 'Fresh Laurels' (1867), 1,200,000 copies; and a series known as the 'Golden Series,' 2,000,000 copies.
This flood of sentimentality, completely inundating the Sunday-school, poured into the public school, and almost swamped the ark of juvenile education in music which careful hands had just committed to that great stream of popular culture. When music became recognized as an essential element of education, it was inevitable that the only available juvenile songs, those of the Sunday-school, should be introduced in the public schools. Indeed, the singing of anything in the schools was preferable to the entire absence of song, and so this order of music, representing, as it did, the popular taste of the time, marks, although we are loath to say it, an important step forward.
Dr. Lowell Mason was the chief assistant at an event which marks an epoch in American musical education, namely, the birth of the normal musical institute from the so-called musical convention. This occurred in 1856 at North Reading, Mass., where an annual musical convention of the usual sort was converted into a school of a fortnight's duration for instructing its members, particularly teachers, in both musical theory and practice. The example was followed all over the country to the great benefit of musical pedagogy. Associated with Dr. Mason in this work of popularizing music was George F. Root, who journeyed over the country conducting conventions, lecturing, etc.[58]