Among his published songs are to be noted the unusually good setting of Heine's "Wenn ich in deine Augen seh'" and of his less often heard "Sapphire sind die Augen dein," and "Der Schmetterling ist in die Rose verliebt." A deservedly popular work is "I Plucked a Quill from Cupid's Wing." Among so many morose or school-bound composers, Hadley is especially important for the fact that he is thrilled with a sane and jubilant music.
Adolph M. Foerster.
It has been fortunate for American song that it forsook the narrow, roystering school of English ballad and took for its national model the Lied of the later German school. It is true that the earlier English had its poetry-respecting music in the work of such a man as Henry Lawes, or Purcell, just as it had its composers who far preceded Bach in the key-roving idea of the "Well-tempered Clavier;" but that spirit died out of England, and found its latest avatar in such men as Robert Franz, who confessed that he had his first and fullest recognition from this country.
ADOLPH M. FOERSTER.
A correspondence with Franz was carried on for eighteen years by one of the solidest of American composers, Adolph M. Foerster, who gives distinction to the musical life of Pittsburg. He knew Franz personally, and has written an important appreciation of him for the magazine Music. Foerster was born at Pittsburg in 1854. After three years of commercial life, he took up music seriously, and spent the years from 1872 to 1875 at Leipzig,—studying the piano under Coccius and Wenzel, singing under Grill and Schimon, and theory under E.F. Richter and Papperitz. Returning to America, he connected himself with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Conservatory of Music, then under the direction of the beneficent inventor of the Virgil Clavier. A year later he returned to Pittsburg, where he has since remained. For awhile he was conductor of a symphonic society and a choral union, which are no longer extant. Since, he has devoted himself to teaching and composition.
Of Foerster's piano compositions opus 11 is a "Valse Brillante," warm and melodious. Opus 13 is a "Sonnet," based, after the plan of Liszt, upon a lyric of Petrarch's, a beautiful translation from his "Gli occhi di ch'io parlai si caldamente." It is full of passion, and shows a fine variety in the handling of persistent repetition. Opus 18 couples two sonatinas. The second has the more merit, but both, like most sonatinas, are too trivial of psychology and too formal even to be recommended for children's exercises. "Eros" is a fluent melody, with a scherzesque second part.
Opus 37 contains two concert études, both superb works. The first, "Exaltation," is very original, though neither the beginning nor the ending is particularly striking. The music between, however, has a fervor that justifies the title. This étude is, like those of Chopin, at the same time a technical study and a mood. The second, a "Lamentation," begins with a most sonorous downward harmony, with rushes up from the bass like the lessening onsets of a retreating tide. Throughout, the harmonies and emotions are remarkably profound and the climaxes wild. I should call it one of the best modern piano compositions.
Twelve "Fantasy Pieces" are included in opus 38. They are short tone-poems. The second, "Sylvan Spirits," is fascinating, and "Pretty Marie" has an irresistibly gay melody. He has dedicated the six songs of opus 6 to Robert Franz. These are written in a close unarpeggiated style chiefly, but they are very interesting in their pregnant simplicity. In two cases they are even impressive: the well-known lyric, "Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome," and "Meeresstille." Opus 12 is a notable group of three songs: "Mists" is superbly harmonious. Opus 25 includes "Ask Thou Not the Heather Gray," a rhapsody of the utmost ingenuity in melody and accompaniment. It has a catching blissfulness and a verve that make it one of the best American songs. Opus 28 is a book called "Among Flowers." The music is in every case good, and especially satisfactory in its emancipation from the Teutonism of Foerster's earlier songs. The song "Among the Roses" has a beautiful poem, which deserves the superb music. It ends hauntingly with an unresolved major ninth chord on the dominant of the dominant. So the frenzy of "In Blossom Time" is emotion of a human, rather than a botanical sort. "The Cradle Song" adapts the Siegfried Idyl, and the "Old Proverb" is rollicking. The two songs of opus 34 are fitted with words by Byron. The three songs of opus 44 also make use of this poet, now so little in vogue with composers. There are three songs in opus 42: a pathetic "Little Wild Rose," and "By the Seaside," which is full of solemnity. "The Shepherd's Lament" is one of his best lyrics, with a strange accompaniment containing an inverted pedal-point in octaves. There are also several part songs.