Bartlett was born at Olive, N.Y., December 28, 1846. His ancestry runs far back into New England, his mother being a descendant of John Rogers, the martyr. Bartlett is said to have "lisped in numbers," singing correctly before he could articulate words. The violin was his first love, and at the age of eight he was playing in public. He took up the piano and organ also, and in his fourteenth year was a church organist. He studied the piano with S.B. Mills, Emil Guyon (a pupil of Thalberg), and Alfred Pease. The organ and composition he studied with O.F. Jacobsen and Max Braun. With the exception of a musical pilgrimage in 1887, Bartlett has not come nearer the advantages of Europe than study here under men who studied there. He has resided for many years in New York as organist and teacher. As a composer he has been one of our most prolific music-makers. His work shows a steady development in value, and the best is doubtless yet to come.
He finds a congenial field in the orchestra. Seidl played his instrumentation of Chopin's "Military Polonaise" several times. As the work seemed to need a finale in its larger form, Bartlett took a liberty whose success was its justification, and added a finish made up of the three principal themes interwoven. A recent work is his "Concertstück," for violin and orchestra. It is not pianistic in instrumentation, and will appeal to violinists. While not marked with récherchés violin tricks, or violent attempts at bravura, it has both brilliance and solidity, and is delightfully colored in orchestration. There are no pauses between the movements, but they are well varied in their unity.
There is an unfinished oratorio, "Samuel," an incomplete opera, "Hinotito," and a cantata of which only the tenor solo, "Khamsin," is done. This is by far the best work Bartlett has written, and displays unexpected dramatic powers. The variation of the episodes of the various phases of the awful drought to the climax in "The Plague," make up a piece of most impressive strength. The orchestration is remarkably fine with effect, color, and variety. If the cantata is finished on this scale, its production will be a national event.
The New England farmer is usually taken as a type of sturdy Philistinism in artistic matters. It was a most exceptional good fortune that gave C.B. Hawley a father who added to the dignity of being a tiller of the soil the refinements of great musical taste and skill. His house at Brookfield, Conn., contained not only a grand piano, but a pipe organ as well; and Hawley's mother was blessed with a beautiful and cultivated voice.
At the age of thirteen (he was born St. Valentine's Day, 1858) Hawley was a church organist and the conductor of musical affairs in the Cheshire Military Academy, from which he graduated. He went to New York at the age of seventeen, studying the voice with George James Webb, Rivarde, Foederlein, and others, and composition with Dudley Buck, Joseph Mosenthal, and Rutenber.
His voice brought him the position of soloist at the Calvary Episcopal Church, at the age of eighteen. Later he became assistant organist at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, under George William Warren. For the last fourteen years he has had charge of the summer music at St. James Chapel, in Elberon, the chapel attended by Presidents Grant and Garfield. For seventeen years he has been one of the leading spirits of the Mendelssohn Glee Club, and for ten years a member of the Mendelssohn Quartet Club. Most of his part songs were written for the club and first sung at its concerts. He is also a successful teacher of the voice, and has been too busy to write a very large volume of compositions. But those published show the authentic fire.
Notable features of Hawley's compositions are the taking quality of the melody, its warm sincerity, and the unobtrusive opulence in color of the accompaniment. This is less like an answering, independent voice than like a many-hued, velvety tapestry, back-grounding a beautiful statue. It is only on second thought and closer study that one sees how well concealed is the careful and laborious polish ad unguem of every chord. This is the true art of song, where the lyrics should seem to gush spontaneously forth from a full heart and yet repay the closer dissection that shows the intellect perfecting the voice of emotion.
Take, for example, his "Lady Mine," a brilliant rhapsody, full of the spring, and enriched with a wealth of color in the accompaniment till the melody is half hidden in a shower of roses. It required courage to make a setting of "Ah, 'Tis a Dream!" so famous through Lassen's melody; but Hawley has said it in his own way in an air thrilled with longing and an accompaniment as full of shifting colors as one of the native sunsets. I can't forbear one obiter dictum on this poem. It has never been so translated as to reproduce its neatest bit of fancy. In the original the poet speaks of meeting in dreams a fair-eyed maiden who greeted him "auf Deutsch" and kissed him "auf Deutsch," but the translations all evade the kiss in German.
"The Ring," bounding with the glad frenzy of a betrothed lover, has a soaring finale, and is better endowed with a well polished accompaniment than the song, "Because I Love You, Dear," which is not without its good points in spite of its manifest appeal to a more popular taste. "My Little Love," "An Echo," "Spring's Awakening," and "Where Love Doth Build His Nest," are conceived in Hawley's own vein.
The song, "Oh, Haste Thee, Sweet," has some moments of banality, but more of novelty; the harmonic work being unusual at times, especially in the rich garb of the words, "It groweth late." In "I Only Can Love Thee," Hawley has succeeded in conquering the incommensurateness of Mrs. Browning's sonnet by alternating 6-8 and 9-8 rhythms. His "Were I a Star," is quite a perfect lyric.