V
Aside from purely orchestral organizations there has been in recent years, especially in the larger cities, an increasing number of societies devoted to the study of special phases of musical art and which give occasional illustrative concerts with orchestra. As these are quasi-social in their activities and somewhat restricted in their appeal, their influence on the musical culture of the country generally is not of much account. Quite the opposite, however, is true of the large number of important ensembles devoted to the performance of chamber music. The growth of public interest in the smaller instrumental forms promoted by these ensembles is not the least interesting and significant feature of musical conditions in present-day America. It might not, perhaps, be extreme to say that a real appreciation of chamber music is the identifying mark of true musical cultivation, and the ever-increasing public which patronizes the concerts of chamber music organizations in this country is one of the most encouraging signs patriotic American music-lovers could wish to see.
Probably we must go back to our charming old friends, the cavaliers of Virginia, with their 'chests of viols' and their compositions of Boccherini and Vivaldi, to find the beginnings of chamber-music in America. Undoubtedly small private ensembles antedated orchestras in this country as they did everywhere else. We know that at Governor Penn's house in Philadelphia Francis Hopkinson and his friends met together frequently for musical entertainment, and such gatherings must have been numerous in New York, Boston, Charleston, and other colonial centres of culture. However, we must grope along until well into the nineteenth century before we find a public appearance in America of a chamber music ensemble. The pioneer, as far as we can discover, was a string quartet brought together in 1843 by Uriah C. Hill, founder of the New York Philharmonic. Samuel Johnson, an original member of the Philharmonic, writes about this quartet as follows: 'A miserable failure, artistically and financially. It would be gross flattery to call Mr. Hill a third-rate violinist; Apelles was a good clarinet, but a poor violinist.... Lehmann was a good second flute; Hegelund was a bassoon player and naturally best adapted to that instrument; he was a very small-sized man, with hands too small to grasp the neck of the 'cello. The whole enterprise was dead at its conception.' But perhaps Mr. Johnson did not like Mr. Hill. Richard Grant White said that the soirées of the Hill Quartet 'were well attended and successful.'
In 1846, however, New York was treated to a quartet headed by the great Sivori. 'This was something like a real quartet' according to Samuel Johnson. Three years later Saroni's 'Musical Times' arranged a series of four chamber music concerts in which the best artists in New York appeared. The program of the first concert included Mozart's D minor string quartet, Beethoven's B flat piano trio, and Mendelssohn's D minor piano trio—rather a choice dish. Then came Theodore Eisfeld, who, in 1851, established a string quartet that set a very high mark for its successors to shoot at. At its first concert it presented Haydn's Quartet, No. 78, in B flat, Mendelssohn's trio in D minor, and Beethoven's quartet No. 1, in F major. Eisfeld maintained that standard for several years, clinging religiously to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Spohr. And, furthermore, his soirées were well patronized. Beyond question he created a real demand for that sort of thing, so that in 1855, at the suggestion of Dr. William Mason, Carl Bergmann instituted a series of soirées for the performance of chamber music and organized a quartet consisting of himself, Theodore Thomas, Joseph Mosenthal, and George Matzka. Mason was pianist. These concerts, known first as the Mason and Bergmann and then as the Mason and Thomas series, were continued every season (except that of 1856-57) until 1866. They improved considerably on the work done by Eisfeld, adding to the names of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven on their programs those of Schumann, Rubinstein, Brahms, Raff, and other contemporaries.
Boston in the meantime had been initiated into the beauties of chamber music by the Harvard Musical Association, which gave a regular series of soirées there every year between 1844 and 1850. Stimulated by the success of these affairs, five professional musicians—August Fries, Francis Riha, Edward Lehman, Thomas Ryan, and Wulf Fries, to wit—organized the Mendelssohn Quintet Club. This was the first important chamber music ensemble in America and for nearly fifty years it continued to cultivate its chosen field, not only in Boston, but all over the United States. Its first concert included Mendelssohn's Quintet, op. 8, a concertante of Kalliwoda for flute, violin and 'cello, and Beethoven's Quintet, op. 4. The Mendelssohn Quintet Club was an active and progressive organization, keeping well up with contemporary composition and frequently augmenting its members so as to give sextets, septets, octets, nonets, and other larger chamber-music forms.
The next noteworthy chamber music organization in the East was the Beethoven Quintet Club formed in Boston in 1873. Then came the era of what we might call the Boston Symphony graduates, viz., the Kneisel Quartet, the Hoffman Quartet, the Adamowski Quartet, and the Longy Club (wind instruments)—all offshoots of the same great orchestra. Of these perhaps the most notable is the Kneisel Quartet (founded in 1884), which has won a deservedly high reputation as well for its splendid interpretations of standard compositions as for its frequent presentation of interesting novelties. Since 1905 the Kneisel Quartet has made New York its headquarters and like the Flonzaleys and other organizations tours the entire country every season. In 1904 Mr. Kneisel's successor as concertmeister of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Prof. Willy Hess, founded the Boston Symphony Quartet, which has since then given concerts of very high standard in Boston and elsewhere. The Longy Club of wind instruments (founded in 1899) is also a noteworthy organization and does work of the highest artistic excellence in a field but slightly exploited. Among other chamber music ensembles which have seen the light in Boston may be mentioned the Theodorowicz Quartet, the Olive Mead Quartet, the Eaton-Hadley Trio, and the Bostonia Quintet Club, composed of string quartet and clarinet.
New York is not quite so well favored in this respect, but it possesses several chamber music organizations of some distinction. Chief of them is the Flonzaley Quartet, which in point of individuality has probably no peer in America. The Barrère Ensemble of woodwinds, headed by George Barrère, first flutist of the New York Symphony Society, is also an organization of exceptional excellence, though it does not possess the perfect balance and all-round finish of the Longy Club. Among others, the Marum Quartet, the Margulies Trio, and the New York Trio are worthy of note.
In Chicago the principal chamber music organizations are the Heerman Quartet and the Chicago String Quartet. Practically every other city of importance in the country has one or more such ensembles, some of them professional, some of them semi-professional and some of them amateur. While the private performance of chamber music in any community usually precedes the institution of public concerts, regular professional bodies follow as a rule the establishment of large orchestras; hence it would be futile to look for good chamber music ensembles outside the principal cities.
The activities of the musical clubs all over the country include in a majority of cases the occasional performance of chamber music works. In the small towns these are usually private, social affairs; in the large cities they often succeed in reaching a wide public. There are literally thousands of such clubs in the United States and their influence in the promotion of musical appreciation is very great. Of course, many of them are namby-pamby pink tea gatherings, leaning languidly toward the Godard's Berceuse style of composition and conversational clap-trap touching art and artists. But the majority of them, we are inclined to believe, are serious in aim and accomplish an amount of good in their immediate environment. It is worthy of remark that a very large proportion of them are composed exclusively of women.
W. D. D.
CHAPTER IX
CHORAL ORGANIZATIONS AND MUSIC FESTIVALS
The Handel and Haydn and other Boston societies—Choral organizations in New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere—Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago, and the Far West—Music festivals.