Arthur Nevin would be deemed an out-and-out romanticist were it not that the authorship of so significant a work as an Indian opera, drawing freely upon Indian songs for thematic material, places him in the ranks of those who have proved the existence of available sources of aboriginal folk-music in America. Nevin is not, however, a nationalist, avowed or otherwise, but with the freedom and experimental eclecticism which has come to be so general a characteristic with American composers, he is ready to draw upon any promising new source of musical suggestion or inspiration. The opera in question, 'Poia,' text by Randolph Hartley, is based upon a sun legend of the Blackfeet Indians of Montana, with whom the composer spent the summers of 1903 and 1904 collecting material. 'Poia' was produced at the Royal Opera, Berlin, Dr. Karl Muck conducting, on April 23, 1910, under stormy circumstances, due to the violent opposition of an anti-American element in the audience. The composer was, nevertheless, many times recalled at the close. The orchestral score is elaborate and modern in instrumental treatment. While Nevin acknowledges Wagner as the chief formative influence upon his musical character, the music of 'Poia' presents little or nothing in the way of obvious Wagnerisms. It is freely lyrical, often very melodious, and, where not boldly characterized by Indian themes, is built on modern German lines. A second opera, 'Twilight,' in one act, has not been performed.
'The Djinns,' a cantata on the metrical fancy of the same name by Victor Hugo, won, with the a cappella chorus, 'The Fringed Gentian' (Bryant), the divided first prize of the Mendelssohn Club of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1912. The cantata is composed for mixed chorus accompanied by two pianos. The composer has chosen not to follow in his musical rhythms the metrical caprice of the poet, but to employ the words freely in a piece of modern musical tone-painting, following the single emotional crescendo and decrescendo of which the poem consists. The work is thoroughly representative of the restless energy of Nevin's muse and contains examples of the sustained lyricism and melodic and rhythmic charm which characterize much of his music. The miniature orchestral suite, 'Love Dreams,' had its first performance, under the composer's direction, at the Peterboro Festival in 1914. Other works of the composer are a pianoforte suite, 'Edgeworth Hills,' 'Two Impromptus' for piano, two mixed choruses on poems by Longfellow, 'At Daybreak' and 'Chrysoar,' and many songs of much charm, including a very direct and sincere piece of expression, 'Love of a Day,' the well-known 'Egyptian Boat Song,' and the exquisite 'Indian Lullaby' on a Blackfeet Indian melody. A piano trio in C major and a string quartet in D minor are in manuscript.
Charles Wakefield Cadman, despite his sympathetic and successful entrance—successful, very likely, because sympathetic—into the field of Indian music, can scarcely be justly classed as a downright nationalist. None of the reputed 'nationalist' composers of America, for that matter, will bear strict analysis as such, for in all cases their compositions upon aboriginal or other primitive melodies peculiar to America constitute but one department of their endeavor, and represent but one element of their ideal. Cadman, nevertheless, had he composed nothing beyond the famous Indian song, 'From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water,' would have done enough to prove the most important and valuable contention included in the nationalist creed, which is that aboriginal American folk-songs may be a stimulus to the making of good music of a new sort, and that there is nothing inherent in Indian melodies to repulse popular sympathy. Like other American nationalists, Cadman is at heart an eclectic. The nationalism of Grieg, Tschaikowsky, and Puccini interests him, but not so much as the American freedom of choice.
The song mentioned is one of a set of four which first brought the composer into public notice, in 1907. The others are 'Far Off I Hear a Lover's Flute,' 'The Moon Drops Low,' and 'The White Dawn is Stealing.' In his treatment of these Indian themes he does not accentuate their aboriginal character, but enfolds them naturally in a normally modern harmonic matrix, with very pleasing effect. These songs were followed by 'Sayonara,' a Japanese romance, for one or two voices; 'Three Songs to Odysseus,' with orchestral accompaniment (opus 52); 'Idyls of the South Sea'; and 'Idealized Indian Themes,' for the piano—revealing various phases of the composer's versatility and fertile fancy. A representative recent work is the 'Trio in D Major' (opus 56), for violin, violoncello, and piano, of which the leading characteristics are melodic spontaneity and freshness of musical impulse. Everywhere are buoyancy, directness of expression, motion, but little of thematic involution or harmonic or formal sophistication. It is the trio of a lyrist; from the standpoint of modern chamber music it might be called naïve, but the strength, sincerity and beauty of its melodies claim, and sometimes compel, one's attention. There are strong occasional suggestions of Indian influence, probably unintentional on the composer's part, as there is no evidence revealing this work as one of nationalistic intention. The trio has been widely performed.
Cadman has a completed three-act Indian opera, 'The Land of Misty Water,' libretto by Francis La Flesche and Nelle Richmond Eberhart. Forty-seven actual Indian melodies form its thematic basis. Other works are 'The Vision of Sir Launfal,' a cantata for male voices; 'The Morning of the Year,' a cycle for vocal quartet; and many works in various small forms. Cadman won the second prize in its class in the National Federation of Musical Clubs Prize Competition of 1911 with a song, 'An Indian Nocturne,' and one of the 'Four Indian Songs' was awarded a prize in a Pittsburgh Art Society competition.
The recent sudden appearance of John Alden Carpenter among American composers, with work of singularly well-defined individuality and notable maturity of style, is a phenomenon which calls to mind Minerva springing full-grown from the head of Jove. Except for a sonata for violin and piano, Carpenter's published work consists wholly of songs. The first set, 'Eight Songs for a Medium Voice,' show forth at once the unique personality of the composer. It is Carpenter's distinction, in a sense, to have begun where others have left off. He is a personality of the new musical time with its new and transformed outlook upon the art. The margin of advance gained by the most recent developments of modernity, more especially from the French standpoint, becomes his main territory, while it would be well-nigh impossible, from his work, to suspect that the old ground of tradition and formula had ever existed. Far from his modernity meaning complexity, it is attained generally by means of a veritably startling simplicity. It is the principles of modernity which interest him, and he seeks the simplest means of their exemplification. Above all, he takes high rank in the sensitive perception of beauty. These characteristics are all manifest in the 'Eight Songs' which comprise the richly beautiful 'The Green River' (Lord Douglas), a limpid setting of Stevenson's 'Looking-Glass River,' a setting of the Blake 'Cradle Song' which combines science and poetry in a remarkable degree in view of the simplicity of treatment, the somewhat overweighted 'Little Fly' (Blake), the lusty Dorsetshire dialect song, 'Dont Ceäre' (Barnes), a crisp interpretation of Stevenson's 'The Cock Shall Crow,' and characteristic settings of Waller's 'Go, Lovely Rose' and Herrick's 'Bid Me to Live.' Of four highly modernized and colorful Verlaine songs, Le Ciel and 'Il Pleure dans mon Cœur,' attain the most modern scheme of musical thought with astonishingly simple means; the Chanson d'Automne is sympathetically set, and 'Dansons la Gigue' is sufficiently sardonic. 'Four Songs for a Medium Voice' contain the mysterious tone-painting 'Fog Wraiths' (Mildred Howells), 'To One Unknown' (Helen Dudley), and two poems by Wilde, Les Silhouettes and 'Her Voice.'
In the somewhat elaborate settings of poems from Tagore's 'Gitanjali' Carpenter wrestles with the problem of setting prose poetry to music, often with felicitous effect and yet not always convincingly, despite the intrinsic beauty of his musical ideas. The violin sonata in its themes, its strikingly individual harmonic intuitions, and its structure generally, is of great beauty and interest. The composer was born in Illinois in 1876, graduated at Harvard and studied music with Bernard Ziehn and Sir Edward Edgar. In 1897 he entered the business established by his father in Chicago and has since directed it.