The same qualities of Parker's art which contribute to the success of Hora Novissima, the first work to bring him fame, are those which operate against the success of his latest and largest effort, the opera 'Mona.' The former offered to the composer the most suitable field for his scholarly but somewhat ascetic conceptions and by this same self-contained and poised loftiness of style, together with a rare skill in handling vocal masses in contrapuntal design, does he achieve in Hora Novissima a work of genuine strength and a valuable addition to the list of modern oratorios. The work, written in 1893 for the Church Choral Society of New York, received its first performance by that body. Performances by several other choral societies and at several musical festivals in America rapidly followed, and in 1899 it had the honor of being the first American work to appear upon the program of the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester, England, at which performance the composer conducted. Since that time it has assumed its place among the standard choral works of our day.
Parker's opera, 'Mona,' was awarded the prize offered by the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1911 in a contest of American composers. Its score reveals an enormous advance in the composer's mastery of resource, both as regards dramatic expression and orchestral color. There are an admirable freedom of line and sustained polyphonic interest, while the skill with which the orchestral color is distributed exhibits Parker's strongest feature. In spite of these merits the almost unanimous opinion of the music critics must be admitted, in a degree, as just. The opera, upon its production at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in 1911-12, was found to be lacking in a really convincing musical grip, due to the absence of an underlying emotional warmth and to the essentially unmelodic treatment of the solo voices. The choruses and mass effects proved the best features of the opera, again showing that Mr. Parker's first successes were in a field more suited to his talents than the domain of dramatic music. Another opera, 'Fairyland,' won another prize of ten thousand dollars in 1915.
Mrs. H. H. A. Beach stands quite in a class by herself as the only American woman who has essayed compositions in the larger form. Her success entitles her to a prominent place among the most serious of American composers. Her 'Gaelic Symphony' and her sonata for violin and piano are two long successful works, while recently she has had a most cordial and flattering reception in Europe for her piano concerto in which she herself played the solo part. Besides these works Mrs. Beach has written a Jubilate for chorus with orchestra, and a quantity of piano music and songs, of which some of the latter have achieved a wide popularity.
Mrs. Beach at her best writes in a broad and bold vein with a pulsing rhythmical sense, a natural melodic line, and she exhibits an extraordinary strength in the sustained and impassioned quality of her climaxes. On the other side, Mrs. Beach may be accused of having a harmonic sense rather too persistently conventional and in her less inspired moments her fault is that which Mr. Hughes[87] has pointed out, namely, a tendency to over-elaboration.
There are several other composers whose labors are identified with the musical life of Boston, although in some instances they have not been continuously resident there. Louis Adolphe Coerne received his early training at Harvard under Prof. Paine and was later awarded a doctor's degree in philosophy by the same university for his excellent book 'The Development of the Modern Orchestra.' Coerne's achievement in composition has been considerable; he is the author of two operas, one of which has been successfully performed in Germany. Other works include a symphonic poem on 'Hiawatha' and a ballet, 'Evadne.'
James C. D. Parker is one of the names associated with the older days of Boston's musical growth, for Mr. Parker graduated from Harvard in 1848 and his 'Redemption Hymn' was performed by the Handel and Haydn Society in 1877. He is best known by several melodious songs and by his church music.
George Whiting and George W. Marston are names which perhaps belong more properly in the list of church composers, as they were both closely identified with that field. The former, however, has written several works of large dimension, notably a cantata, 'The Golden Legend,' which has been much praised, while Mr. Marston's name is known outside of church circles by a surprisingly long list of songs, which, though slight in construction, are not without imaginative qualities.
Although not attaining to such a mastery of the more amplified forms as does Mrs. Beach, Margaret Ruthven Lang has made several successful essays in the form of orchestral overtures, which have been played. Miss Lang's best-known works, however, are her songs, the widespread popularity of certain ones of which has given her a real and lasting fame as a song writer.
III
In grouping the foregoing names and labelling them as the 'Boston group' it must not be understood to imply that the art of these writers forms a school in the sense of its having a common distinctive idiom or style. The group marks in some of its members, as has been said before, an early era of American composition. The fact that Boston became the birthplace of America's first serious musical art was probably due to the presence there of the largest and best permanent orchestra, to the establishment of the first university department of music (at Harvard), and doubtless also in no small degree to the general intellectual life of the New England metropolis.