Wilson G. Smith, Op. 39.
Copyright, 1889, by O. Ditson & Co.
What might be called a professorial simplicity is seen in many of Smith's songs. The almost unadorned, strictly essential beauty of his melodies and accompaniments is neither neglect nor cheapness; it is restraint to the point of classicism, and romanticism all the intenser for repression. Take, for example, that perfect song, "If I but Knew," which would be one of a score of the world's best short songs, to my thinking. Note the open fifths, horrifying if you thump them academically, but very brave and straightforward, fitly touched.
There is something of Haydn at his best in this and in the fluty "Shadow Song," in "The Kiss in the Rain," and "A Sailor's Lassie," for they are as crystalline and direct as "Papa's" own immortal "Schäferlied."
Smith has gone over to the great majority,—the composers who have set "Du bist wie eine Blume;" but he has joined those at the top. Two of Smith's songs have a quality of their own, an appeal that is bewitching: "Entreaty," a perfect melody, and "The Dimple in Her Cheek," which is fairly peachy in color and flavor.
A strange place in the world of music is that held by Johann H. Beck, whom some have not feared to call the greatest of American composers. Yet none of his music has ever been printed. In this he resembles B. J. Lang, of Boston, who keeps his work persistently in the dark, even the sacred oratorio he has written.
All of Beck's works, except eight songs, are built on very large lines, and though they have enjoyed a not infrequent public performance, their dimensions would add panic to the usual timidity of publishers. Believing in the grand orchestra, with its complex possibilities, as the logical climax of music, Beck has devoted himself chiefly to it. He feels that the activity of the modern artist should lie in the line of "amplifying, illustrating, dissecting, and filling in the outlines left by the great creators of music and the drama." He foresees that the most complicated scores of to-day will be Haydnesque in simplicity to the beginning of the next century, and he is willing to elaborate his best and deepest learning as far as in him lies, and wait till the popular audience grows up to him, rather than write down to the level of the present appreciation.
The resolve and the patient isolation of such a devotee is nothing short of heroic; but I doubt that the truest mission of the artist is to consider the future too closely. Even the dictionaries and encyclopædias of one decade, are of small use to the next. The tiny lyrics of Herrick, though, have no quarrel with time, nor has time any grudge against the intimate figurines of Tanagra. The burdened trellises of Richard Strauss may feel the frost long before the slender ivy of Boccherini's minuet.