Alfred George Robyn is the most popular composer St. Louis has developed. He was born in 1860, his father being William Robyn, who organized the first symphonic orchestra west of Pittsburg. Robyn was a youthful prodigy as a pianist; and, at the age of ten, he succeeded his father as organist at St. John's Church, then equipped with the best choir in the city. It was necessary for the pedals of the organ to be raised to his feet. At the age of sixteen he became solo pianist with Emma Abbott's company. As a composer Robyn has written some three hundred compositions, some of them reaching a tremendous sale. A few of them have been serious and worth while, notably a piano concerto, a quintette, four string quartettes, a mass, and several orchestral suites.
There are not many American composers that have had a fugue published, or have written fugues that deserve publication. It is the distinction of Ernest Richard Kroeger that he has written one that deserved, and secured, publication. This was his 41st opus. It is preceded by a prelude which, curiously enough, is thoroughly Cuban in spirit and is a downright Habanera, though not so announced. This fiery composition is followed by a four-voiced "real" fugue. The subject is genuinely interesting, though the counter-subject is as perfunctory as most counter-subjects. The middle-section, the stretto-work, and the powerful ending, give the fugue the right to exist.
Among other publications are a suite for piano (op. 33), in which a scherzo has life, and a sonata for violin and piano, in which, curiously enough, the violin has not one instance of double-stopping, and the elaborating begins, not with the first subject taken vigorously, but with the second subject sung out softly. The last movement is the best, a quaint and lively rondo. A set of twelve concert études show the influence of Chopin upon a composer who writes with a strong German accent. The étude called "Castor and Pollux" is a vigorous number with the chords of the left hand exactly doubled in the right; another étude, "A Romanze," is noteworthy for the practice it gives in a point which is too much ignored even by the best pianists; that is, the distinction between the importance of the tones of the same chord struck by the same hand. A work of broad scholarship, which shows the combined influence of Beethoven and Chopin, who have chiefly affected Kroeger, is his sonata (op. 40). A dominant pedal-point of fifty-eight measures, in the last movement, is worth mentioning. In a "Danse Négre" and a "Caprice Négre," he has evidently gone, for his Ethiopian color, not to the actual negro music, but to the similar compositions of Gottschalk. Kroeger was born in St. Louis, August 10, 1862. At the age of five he took up the study of the piano and violin. His theoretical tuition was all had in this country. He has written many songs, a piano concerto, sonatas for piano and viola, and piano and 'cello, two trios, a quintette, and three string quartettes, as well as a symphony, a suite, and overtures based on "Endymion," "Thanatopsis," "Sardanapalus" (produced by Anton Seidl, in New York), "Hiawatha," and "Atala."
CHAPTER V.
THE WOMEN COMPOSERS.
This is not the place to take up cudgels for a contest on the problem of woman's right to respect in the creative arts. There are some, it is true, who deny fervently that the feminine half of mankind ever has or can or ever will do original and important work there. If you press them too hard they will take refuge up this tree, that all women who ever have had success have been actually mannish of mind,—a dodge in question-begging that is one of the most ingenious ever devised; a piece of masculine logic that puts to shame all historic examples of womanly fallacy and sophistry. It seems to me that the question is easily settled on this wise: it is impossible for a rational mind to deny that the best work done in the arts by women is of better quality than the average work done by men. This lets the cat's head out of the bag, and her whole body follows pell-mell.
In a few instances it seems to me that the best things done by women equal the best things done by men in those lines. The best verses of Sappho, the best sonnets of Mrs. Browning, the best chapters of George Eliot, the best animal paintings of Rosa Bonheur, do not seem to me surpassed by their rivals in masculine work. If anything in verse of its sort is nobler than Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," it is still in manuscript. If there is any poet of more complete individuality than Emily Dickinson, I have not run across his books. In music I place two or three of Miss Lang's small songs among the chief of their manner.
All over the world the woman-mind is taking up music. The ban that led Fanny Mendelssohn to publish her music under her brother's name, has gone where the puritanic theory of the disgracefulness of the musical profession now twineth its choking coils. A publisher informs me that where compositions by women were only one-tenth of his manuscripts a few years ago, they now form more than two-thirds. From such activity, much that is worth while is bound to spring. Art knows no sex, and even what the women write in man-tone is often surprisingly strong, though it is wrongly aimed. But this effort is like the bombast of a young people or a juvenile literature; the directness and repose of fidelity to nature come later. The American woman is in the habit of getting what she sets her heart on. She has determined to write music.