“Crawford’s statue seems to be listening to the music,” my mother whispered, as the organist struck the keys and a lovely air of Palestrina’s rolled from the organ, shaking the souls of the men and women gathered in this temple of the arts. Music must have its commercial side, like all other arts; but in those days, if it were there, it was hidden. The men who built the Music Hall, and who made Boston the musical center it still remains, were true servants of Apollo.
Mr. Dwight had access to Music Hall at all times. So devouring was his thirst for music that it was not enough to hear all the concerts by the Handel and Hayden, Harvard Musical, Cecilia, and other societies; he must hear all the rehearsals too. Not finished performances, like the so-called Friday afternoon rehearsals of the present Boston Symphony orchestra, but the working rehearsals, when Carl Zerrahn, our favorite leader, schooled his musicians, scolded his chorus, and made them repeat difficult passages over and over again. Mr. Dwight’s attitude towards his fellow man was one of gentle toleration, with one exception,—for those who set up false gods in the house of music, he had no mercy. He drove them from the temple with the scourge of his bitter pen. Dwight’s Journal arrived at our house every Saturday; its contents were discounted by those who had sat beside the oracle at the week’s concerts and already knew his opinion of artists and composers. It developed, even to my intelligence, that the oracle was but yet a man. When he wrote about a pretty woman, like that bewitching girl pianist, Adelaide Topp, his style showed a warmth that was lacking when he spoke of the black-avised Fraulein Osterauer, with nothing but her technique to recommend her. During intermissions, or at close of concerts, we went to the greenroom, to meet the artists. In this way, I have shaken hands with most of the great artists of the time. To see Christine Nilsson close, and catch the strange glint in those eyes of heavenly blue, was an unforgettable experience. Her pale gold hair was more beautiful even than on the stage; her beauty, like her voice, spoke of her own northland, gleaming ice peaks, frozen fiords, diamond-bright winter stars, moonlight upon snow.
Madame Essipoff—Russian, I think—though not beautiful, had a sympathetic personality.
“No woman ever had such a left hand for the piano,” our Nestor said of her. We highly approved of Camilla Urso, then in her early fame, and Theresa Carreño, a beautiful young woman, who fingered her instrument with the grace of a Fra Angelico angel. The oracle set his face sternly against certain male virtuosi; musical fireworks were not tolerated by Dwight’s Journal. When I hung entranced upon Ole Bull’s playing of some composition, written expressly to show the amazing dexterity of his bowing, the oracle frowned and exclaimed, “Claptrap!”
Mr. Dwight was severely classical in his taste and admitted new composers grudgingly. He lived in a world created by the early composers and loved, I think, above all others, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. To opera, he was not only indifferent, but hostile; unless it was “Don Giovanni”, “Fidelio”, the “Magic Flute”, or “Orpheus and Eurydice.” He spoke of the opera as the “siren.” Ravenously as I devoured the immense store of musical knowledge he so generously shared with me, I could not stop my ears to the siren’s voice. He never forgave me for going to “Ernani”, when he had invited me to Bach’s “Passion Music.” As an exception to his rule, Mr. Dwight took the keenest interest in a performance of “Oberon”, at the Music Hall, with Madame Parepa in the soprano part. We went to all the rehearsals. In the overture, “the horns of elfland faintly blowing” are heard, first at a great distance, then nearer, and last, just outside the castle gate. To produce the effect of distance, the trumpeter was sent to a remote part of the building to sound his horn. At the first rehearsal there was a pause at this point; Zerrahn looked up to the part of the balcony where we sat, and asked:
“How was that?”
“Not quite faint enough,” said the oracle. “No, no, not half faint enough,” murmured his adopted mother, much puffed up with pride.
There were other occasions at Music Hall even more exciting than the oratorios and symphony concerts,—the prize drills and declamations of the Boston Latin School. As my father and my brother Harry were both Latin School boys, we felt bound to uphold this institution and look down upon its upstart rival, the English High School.
On the floor of the Music Hall, the boys in blue presented arms, carried arms, shouldered arms, wheeled and marched, and wheeled again. I see their shining schoolboy faces, set and serious, their slim young bodies strained and alert, moving in perfect rhythm to the word of command. The galleries bloomed with schoolgirls in fresh Easter finery, gazing eagerly down at the marching lads. The battalion had four companies that drilled regularly during the autumn and winter, in the armory over the old Boylston Market. In the spring the drilling took place on the Common. The Prize Drill of the year 1871 was of especial interest on account of the officers. The Colonel was Lester W. Clark; Adjutant, George Monks; First Lieutenant, Francis Dumaresq; Second Lieutenant, Henry Warren. The Colonel had borrowed, for the occasion, a gold-mounted sword and a crimson sash; I well remember how becoming they were!
Girls who had brothers sometimes attended the monthly Public Saturday at the old Latin School on Bedford Street. At the end of the hall stood an allegorical figure by my friend, the sculptor, Mr. Richard Greenough, commemorating the graduates who fell in the Civil War. The speaker’s platform was just in front of this memorial. Parents, friends, and girls occupied the benches, facing the rostrum. I remember one of the Saturday mornings, when Lester Clark recited Mrs. Norton’s “Bingen on the Rhine” and Frank Dumaresq gave, with great effect, the Tower Scene from “King John.”