His "Redemption Hymn" is one of his most important works, and was produced in Boston by the Handel and Haydn Society in 1877. He also composed other works for orchestra and chorus, and many brilliant piano compositions.
An interesting method of writing duets is that employed in the "Children's Festival," by Charles Dennée. The pupil plays in some places the primo, and in others the secondo, his part being written very simply, while the part to be played by the teacher is written with considerable elaboration, so that the general effect is not so narcotic as usual with duets for children. Dennée has written, among many works of little specific gravity, a "Suite Moderne" of much skill, a suite for string orchestra, an overture and sonatas for the piano and for the violin and piano, as well as various comic operas. He was born in Oswego, N.Y., September 1, 1863, and studied composition with Stephen A. Emery.
A composer of a genial gaiety, one who has written a good minuet and an "Evening Song" that is not morose, is Benjamin Lincoln Whelpley, who was born at Eastport, Me., October 23, 1863, and studied the piano at Boston with B.J. Lang, and composition with Sidney Homer and others. He also studied in Paris for a time in 1890. He has written a "Dance of the Gnomes," that is characteristic and brilliantly droll, and a piano piece, called "Under Bright Skies," which has the panoply and progress of a sunlit cavalcade.
Ernest Osgood Hiler has written some good music for the violin, a book of songs for children, "Cloud, Field, and Flower," and some sacred music. He studied in Germany for two years.
The Chicago Colony.
Most prominent among Chicago's composers is doubtless Frederic Grant Gleason, who has written in the large forms with distinguished success. The Thomas Orchestra has performed a number of his works, which is an excellent praise, because Thomas, who has done so much for American audiences, has worried himself little about the American composer. At the World's Fair, which was, in some ways, the artistic birthday of Chicago, and possibly the most important artistic event in our national history, some of Gleason's works were performed by Thomas' organization, among them the Vorspiel to an opera, "Otho Visconti" (op. 7), for which Gleason wrote both words and music.
FREDERIC GRANT GLEASON.
This Vorspiel, like that to "Lohengrin," is short and delicate. It begins ravishingly with flutes and clarinets and four violins, pianissimo, followed by a blare of brass. After this introductory period the work runs through tenderly contemplative musing to the end, in which, again, the only strings are the four violins, though here they are accompanied by the brass and wood-winds and tympani, the cymbals being gently tapped with drumsticks. The introduction to the third act of the opera is more lyrical, but not so fine. Another opera is "[Montezuma]" (op. 16). Gleason is again his own librettist. Of this opera I have been privileged to see the complete piano score, and much of the orchestral.