V
It is seldom that a serious American composer trains all his batteries upon the target of a single musical form, but this is what Sidney Homer has done with respect to the song. In consequence he has attained a high development of his individuality in the song form, as well as having produced many examples of it, his published songs numbering nearly eighty. His work shows immense range of character, from a veritable drama in song form, such as the stormily emotional 'How's My Boy?' (Dobell), to childhood songs of the utmost simplicity, such as the 'Seventeen Lyrics from Sing-Song,' by Christina Rossetti, containing the charming 'Boats Sail on the Rivers.' While Homer frequently makes elaborate tone-poems of his accompaniments, he does not follow the modern French vocal declamatory style, but aims rather at what might be termed dramatic melody. He seeks an intimate union of music not only with the general emotional character and fluctuations, but also with the particular verbal shadings of the text. German in technical foundation, his individuality is well defined, and he is thoroughly emancipated from dependence upon the German idiom. 'Infant Sorrow,' an impassioned plaint of babyhood, is interestingly representative of the type of dramatic song which Homer has developed. It is one of two settings from the 'Songs of Experience' of the undying, yet strangely living, William Blake, the other, 'The Sick Rose,' being peculiarly poignant in its melody, which is almost entirely constituted of the intervals of the minor second and major seventh. The harsh 'Pauper's Drive' (Noël), and the bold challenge, 'To Russia' (Joaquin Miller), are in the dramatic tone-poem style, while the whimsical 'Fiddler of Dooney' (Yeats) more nearly approaches being a downright tune. To the writing of sheer tunes Homer has devoted also a considerable share of his effort, with signal success, as the popularity of 'A Banjo Song' and 'Uncle Rome' testifies. Widely known, also, are his deeply felt setting of Stevenson's 'Requiem,' the charming and humorous 'Ferry me across the water,' on Christina Rossetti's poem, and the warmly melodious 'Dearest' (Henley), and Hood's 'Song of the Shirt.'
Almost exclusively devoted to vocal writing is Henry Clough-Leighter, who has over one hundred published songs and nearly an equal number of choral works, including settings of the Anglican Service. Exceptions are in the form of duets and studies for piano. In the classification somewhat loosely undertaken in the present chapter Clough-Leighter would be regarded as an eclectic. His work shows the influence of the various modern schools without leaning overheavily upon the individuality of any one of them, albeit there is evidence of a considerable influence from the Germany of Richard Strauss. He lays tumultuous siege to the strongholds of modern harmony and especially modulation, in which latter respect he is bold sometimes to a fault, inclining to a tonal restlessness that will not bear too much insistence. His harmonic fluency is unusual, and his workmanship immaculate. Among Clough-Leighter's most important choral works are: 'The Righteous Branch' (opus 32), 'Christ Triumphant' (opus 35), and 'Psalm of Trust,' all contrapuntal in treatment and requiring a large chorus of skilled voices. There are a number of song cycles, including 'Youth and Spring' (opus 5), 'Rossetti-Lyrics' (opus 58), 'Two Lyrics' of Victor Hugo (opus 53), all with piano accompaniment; 'Love-Sorrow' (opus 44) with accompaniment of violin, 'cello, and piano, and 'The Day of Beauty' (opus 48), for high voice, string quartet, and piano. 'Lasca,' a symphonic ballad for tenor and orchestra, is one of the best and most dramatic of the composer's works. 'Seven Songs' (opus 57) show a wealth of emotion and fancy, Requiescat (Oscar Wilde) attaining a considerable distinction of mood. Clough-Leighter is a native of Washington, D. C. (b. 1874), and held organists' posts there and in Providence. Latterly he has been head of the editorial department of the Boston Music Company, and has made Boston his home.
Marshall Kernochan, though his output has not been large, has written a number of songs possessing qualities of distinction. He is among those brave souls who have essayed Walt Whitman and in his two Whitman settings, indeed, he has come off with an unusual measure of success. These are: 'Out of the rolling ocean the crowd' and 'We two together.' While neither of these songs reveals striking originality or more than a mild modernism so far as harmony goes, they are conceived with a breadth and carried through with a power that lift them out of the usual run of contemporary native songs. The composer has made the most of the lyrical possibilities of the lines, and has done well with the less singable phrases by a careful attention to syllabic accent and duration. 'We Two Together' has an exquisite middle section and a very powerful climax, and will require a singer of heroic mold. 'Lilacs' (Armitage Livingston) is a little work of true delicacy and possesses style, and its companion, 'A Child's Song' (Richard Hovey), treats sympathetically a little masterpiece of childhood poetry. Among the composer's other songs are four on poems by Browning, 'A Serenade at the Villa,' 'Round Us the Wild Creatures,' from 'Ferishta's Fancies,' 'At the Window,' and 'Give a Rouse.'
Homer Norris has not been without an influence upon the development of ultra-modernism in America by virtue of being one of the first teachers of theory in this country to receive his training in Paris. Moreover, he was writing songs revealing modern French influence at a time when probably Loeffler and Gilbert were the only others in America who knew what was happening to musical evolution in France. His richly harmonized 'Twilight' is a song of much beauty, and more daring than successful, probably, is 'Peace' (Sill), the accompaniment of which consists of nothing but slow descending scales of C. Interesting, also, as a bit of early French influence is the Maeterlinck Et s'il revenait un jour? of delicate mood. Norris has also a sacred cantata, 'Nain,' and a cycle for vocal quartet on words chosen from Whitman and entitled 'The Flight of the Eagle.'
Gena Branscombe is one of the very few women composers of America who have established for themselves a genuine creative musical individuality. Even among this few Miss Branscombe holds a position of distinction, partly through the intensity of her personality and partly through her approach to harmonic ultra-modernism, a field to which most women composers, being only melodists, are strangers. There would be no occasion to refer to the question of sex in the present instance except that when it is stated to be feminine it commonly implies an inevitable discount upon attainment and is urged as an excuse for feeble work, which circumstance entitles a woman composer for whom such excuse need not be made, as in the case of Miss Branscombe, to a measure of corrective credit. Inexhaustible buoyancy, a superlative emotional wealth, and a wholly singular gift of musical intuition are the qualities which have shaped the composer's musical personality. Being a woman, it may be said at once that structural ideals do not interest her. Her work is an outpouring of moods, moods of an intensity and richness which demand a high musical color scheme. This, not science—though Miss Branscombe is well grounded in theory—but a startling character of intuition, provides her withal. Her impatient melodies leap and dash with youthful life, while her accompaniments abound in harmonic hair-breadth escapes. No considered harmonic or modularity scheme gives her music its richness of color; she continually leaps into apparently remote progressions without looking before, and the same intuition which suggested the hazard suggests also the way out, which comes with surprising facility. She is best known for her many songs, among them the dreamful and haunting 'Krischna' and 'Dear Little Hut by the Rice Fields,' both Laurence Hope's poems, also Hope's 'Just in the Hush,' 'The Deserted Gypsy,' and the stirring 'Dear Is My Inlaid Sword'; the rich and impassioned Browning settings, 'There's a Woman Like a Dewdrop,' 'Serenade,' from 'In a Gondola,' 'Boot and Saddle,' etc.; the sombre 'Sleep, Then, Ah, Sleep!' (Le Gallienne); the fanciful and exotic little cycle 'A Lute of Jade' (Crammer-Byng), and many others. Miss Branscombe has written a very spirited 'Festival March' for orchestra, which was produced at the Peterboro Festival in 1914; an extended Concertstück for piano and orchestra; part-songs for women's voices; and a number of compositions for violin and piano. Miss Branscombe is Canadian by birth.
Alexander Russell is the composer of a number of songs of strong emotional appeal. He first became known for his setting of Lanier's 'Sunset,' a warmly colored work, but somewhat over-Wagnerized. 'My Heaven' (Harry S. Lee) also has lyrical intensity and bears out the chromatic scheme of the other. 'The Sacred Fire' (Alice Duer Miller) has more distinction of mood as well as greater unity of design, and 'Expectation' (John Hay) also shows an advance in style and individuality. 'In Fountain Court' (Arthur Symons) is perhaps his most mature and characteristic expression. Among other songs are 'Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog' (Goldsmith), 'The Prayer Perfect' (Riley), 'My True Love Lies Asleep' (Lizette Reese), and 'A Gypsy Song' (Braley). Russell's work shows chiefly the influence of the modern German school.
James Philip Dunn is a militant ultra-modern realist. He was first known by an extremely vigorous quintet for pianoforte and strings, in G minor, which was heard at one of the concerts of the New York Manuscript Society. It is of considerable thematic, and particularly of dramatic, interest, though scarcely revealing a settled style. Strauss, Wagner, Tschaikowsky, and Puccini have all influenced him strongly, with Strauss leading, but what ultimate personality will issue from this strenuously boiling melting-pot it is too early to say. The far from bashful realism of Dunn's setting of Poe's 'Annabel Lee,' for voice and orchestra, which was sung by Frank Ormsby at a People's Symphony Concert in the season of 1913-14, somewhat shocked the sensibilities of the critics, for futurism was still merely a name (Schoenberg's quartet not yet having arrived on the scene) and realism could still hold terrors for the sensitive. The goal of realism is the stage, and so in fact Dunn's latest works are designed for the theatre. They are called 'Lyric Scenes' and consist of two short and superlatively intense musical stage episodes, 'The Fountain,' after Charles McMillan, and the grewsome 'A Kiss in the Dark,' after Maurice Lavelle. They are truly amazing in musical structure and emotional content and may well be considered to represent the dernier cri in realism, after which can come only the deluge—or futurism. The composer has also a sonata for violin and piano in G major and a piano tarantella and minuet.
Alexander Hull, whose great quantity of work is accessible as yet only through one book of ten songs, is a composer who is likely to be heard more of in the future. These songs reveal influences ranging from Schubert to Hugo Wolf, but, of much greater importance, they reveal also a richly endowed creative musical personality, even if one that has only begun to find itself in terms of a matured art. One will look far for a clearer spiritual beauty than that of the 'Wanderer's Night Song' (Goethe), or for a fleeting spontaneity and dissolving charm surpassing that of the little 'Blue, Blue, Floweret Mine.' 'My Love Is Lovelier than the Sprays' (Ezra Pound) has moments of magical and haunting beauty, though it runs the risk that Hull not infrequently takes of sacrificing simplicity and clarity of the voice part to harmonic interest in the accompaniment. 'Within the Convent Close' (Wilbur Underwood) reveals the composer's power to establish and maintain a mood and it also hints at the unexploited possibilities of the secondary seventh chords. Hull experiments; he is quite willing to be unsuccessful, but he insists upon the essay and is thus strongly creative. He admits many influences, and therefore will find his own mature style tardily. He has written over one hundred songs, a symphony, a suite for string orchestra, a fantasia for orchestra with piano, violin compositions, a suite for piano, a piano sonata, choral, and other works.