David Patterson

Concerts
BSO Chamber Players Create Gorgeous Music
Uncorked Vintage Oeuvres from Denève
BSO Apr 16 2011 Master(ful) Class in Electroacoustic Music

CDs
Olivier Messiaen 100th Anniversary Box Set- EMI Composer Boxes 217466214 discs
John Adams Son of Chamber Symphony; String Quartet  Nonesuch label
Works of Lili Boulanger Igor Markevitch, Orchestre Lamoureux Everest label

Mark DeVoto

CDs:
Marc-André Hamelin playing his own works, with special emphasis on his Twelve Etudes
The Grainger Edition, including most Percy Grainger’s works in various versions; 19 discs
Organ works by Alexis Chauvet, on two French instruments by Carolyn Shuster

Concerts:
Morlot Endorsement
BoCo’s Shoenberg

David Dominique

CDs:
Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus
Os Mutantes by Os Mutantes
Kurtag: Kafka Fragments by Tony Arnold

Concerts:
Jon Damian featuring Allan Chase and Bob Nieske at Outpost 186, Cambridge.
Professor Bad Trip”, by Fausto Romitelli, presented by Argento Chamber Ensemble in LA
Charles Ives: The Astonishing Pioneer, conducted by Gunther Schuller and presented by Alea III at BU.

Andrew Sammut

Concerts:
Newton Baroque with CPE Bach
L’Academie with Charpentier
MOPR’s “Winter’s Cheer”

CDs
Ricardo Kanji and Cesar Villavicencio’s recorder duos
Europa Galante’s “La Stravaganza” (Walsh’s 1728 edition
Patricia Petibon: “Rosso” Italian Baroque arias

Michael Rocha

Concerts:
Dust Blown Off Zesty Zelenka
Rock-Solid Borromeo in Rockport
Gossamer to Rugged Ravel from Thibaudet

Lee Eiseman

Concerts:
BSO in Bartok: Bluebeard’s Castle
Spectrum Singers Patriotic Program
The Lure of Hamelin

BluRay Videos:
Sunrise 1927
Metropolis
Operas on Bluray by Opus Art

David Shengold

Concerts
Opera Boston – CARDILLAC
Boston Lyric Opera AGRIPPINA
Boston Baroque -DIE SCHOEPFUNG

CDs
Porpora: Arias – Karina Gauvin: Alan Curtis (ATMA Classique)
Schubert: Three Sonatas, Impromptus – Paul Lewis (Harmonia Mundi)
Vivaldi: Farnace – Diego Fasolis (Virgin Classics)

Geoff Wieting

Concerts:
NEC’s YPO Ben Zander, playing Tchaikovsky and Mahler, June 3
Niobe, Regina di Tebe by Steffani, at the Boston Early Music Festival, June 12
Audra McDonald at Symphony Hall (Celebrity Series), October 2

Susan Miron

Concerts:
Audra McDonald- Celebrity Series
Marc-André Hamelin – Rockport Music
Philipe Jaroussky (with Apollo’s Fire) Boston Early Music Festival

CDs:
Philipe Jaroussky “Vivaldi Heroes”
Cecilia Bartoli   “Maria”
Jean-Yves Thibaudet  ”Aria: Opera without Words”

Fred Bouchard

Concerts:
BLO (Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream)
BSO (Prokofiev, Sibelius, Newhouse
Discovery (Ravel, etc., Lewis)

Most Regretted Misses:
BSO (Berlioz Requiem, Dutoit)
Alea III (Ives Concert, G. Schuller)

Tom Delbanco

Concerts:
8/20 “Fish and Fanfare…”
9/21 Denk and Miro…
10/29 Kremer and BSO…

CDs:
Schubert piano trios: Beaux Arts Trio (1967, with Guilet, Greenhouse, Pressler)
Beethoven violin sonatas: Szigeti and Arrau (1944)
Bartok:  Violin concerto # 2 (Menuhin and Dorati) (1957)

Liane Curtis

Concert:
Sofonisba by Maria Teresa Agnesi, presented by La Donna Musicale.

CDs:
Complete piano music by Luisa Adolpha le Beau
In Praise of Woman: 150 Years of English Women Composers

Vance Koven

Concerts:
BSO/Morlot, with Harbison 4, Mahler 1 and Ravel D&C 2
Don Berman and friends doing Schoenberg and Shostakovich
New England Philharmonic featuring Mahler 10 and works by Earl Kim, Donald Erb and Andy Vores.

CD:
BBC Concert Orchestra under Keith Lockhart doing the American Sketches and other orchestral works by Frederick Shepherd Converse

Cashman Kerr Prince

Concerts:
Jeremy Denk – Goldberg Variations & Ligeti Etudes, book 1 @ Gardner off-site
Serkin, Eschenbach, BSO – All-Brahms at Tanglewood
Bang on a Can All-Stars at Kresge Auditorium

CDs:
Daniel Müller-Schott & Julia Fischer, Brahms Double Concerto
Jean-Guihen Queyras, Britten Suites for Solo Cello
Bruckner, Symphony 4 – Orchestre Métropolitain, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, cond

Geoff Wieting

CDs:
All-Night Vigil (Vespers), Sergei Rachmaninoff USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir
“An American Masterpiece” Thomas Murray, organ, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Boston
Daphnis et Chloe, Maurice Ravel Montreal Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/Charles Dutoit

Santa Sabina interior

Composer Andrew Norman finds in “the rhythm of the brownstones” —  the stoops, the windows, and the doors that line the streets where he lives in Brooklyn — “music that is just waiting to be written.”

Boston Modern Opera Project (BMOP) had just announced that this young gifted artist will be the Music Alive Composer-in-Residence for two years, from now until 2013. His Air: Concerto for Theremin (2011), with Dalit Warshaw on theremin, will be performed at the January 27 concert at Jordan Hall. BMOP, the adventurous Boston music group, was one of five orchestras nationwide selected for an extended residency under a program of Meet the Composer and the American Symphony Orchestra League.

The young Norman (he is 32), who has already been a fellow in two European academies of music and has received a number of commissions, has absorbed his life-long interest in architecture with the compositional techniques to create his style — or, more accurately, multitude of styles.

Composer Andrew Norman (Christian Steiner photo)

“My music comes out differently every time. Musically speaking, a part of me is super-interested in mid-century extended techniques, Penderecki, crazy sounds. But I am also a lyric composer like Samuel Barber. A lyrical moment is something we can hold onto and remember. … We relate to lyricism because it is such a human thing. … Over the course of my life, I have been naturally inclined to be a lyrical composer, but there are other ways of approaching music. I am trying to embrace everything, an eclecticism of my music. I am interested in it as a composition tool. Sort of  Babbitt with Bernstein, or Barber with Xenakis.”

Completed work already includes three pieces for orchestra; five for chamber music with various combinations of instruments; three solo pieces, one for viola or cello and two for piano; and one vocal piece, a lullaby. His appointment as Composer-in-Residence at the Academy of Rome, in 2006-07, resulted in Companion Guide to Rome, with each of its nine movements intended to invoke the Eternal city’s lesser known architectural gems. The ninth movement, for Santa Sabina, was the only one composed while he still was in Rome and was actually played in the church. The rest of the movements — Santa Maria della Vittoria (which Norman calls “over-the-top Baroque), San Benedetto, Santa Susanna, Tempietto Bramante, St. Ivo, San Clemente, San Lorenzo Oltre Le Mure, and Santa Cecilia — were written in Berlin, where he also was a fellow at its academy. A similarly appealingly titled composition is Garden of Follies for saxophone and piano, commissioned by the Society of Composers, Inc. and ASCAP. “Follies” here, too, refers to the often extravagant architectural conceits in lavishly landscaped gardens of England, France, and Italy — subsequently imported, of course, to America. Another piece is Farnsworth: Four Portraits of a House.

Norman is a strong advocate for live performance, alluded to in his comment, “What is special about the kind of music I make is that it is live, and that this piece will only happen once. It will be there for ten minutes, and then it won’t be there any  more. And that kind of transience is really special to me, that element of chance, and surprise, that things will happen differently. This is what I find really interesting and exciting,  about writing music and about listening to live music.”

This is what Norman will be doing, and the audience will be hearing, in Boston, starting with a performance of his piece on the January 27th Jordan Hall program. His residency at BMOP will involve him in all its concerts; and he will participate in pre-concert discussions and out-reach programs.

Thibaudet has enjoyed the partnerships with other charismatic women with gorgeous voices — Reneé Fleming (their “Night Songs” is magical) and Cecilia Bartoli come to mind — and after hearing him with  Kirchschlager, I completely understand why these female superstars love to partner with him. He’s able to do whatever they like, and has the musical wits to know exactly what he likes and thinks each song should sound like.

The Celebrity Series of Boston should rethink their policy of not supplying program notes. With the exception of the first four songs by Brahms, there were no opus numbers or information on the other eight Brahms songs, and nothing about the seven Liszt songs. Also, the songs mentioned no poets, just the translators. It’s good, but expected, to have the texts in well-translated German and English (many by Emily Ezust, one by Paul Hindemith(!), “Im Rhein, im schönen Strome”).

Jordan Hall was about half full, whereas when Thibaudet plays solo, there is usually a big crowd. (This is his first appearance in Boston since his trifecta of Ravel performances at Tanglewood last summer). Perhaps this is because Kirchschlager’s career is mostly in Europe, and few Bostonians knew of her. They should. By the end of this concert, she had easily won over the whole audience.

The recital’s program focused more on vocal numbers than on piano solos, which were relegated to famous pieces by Brahms and Liszt to give the singer a breather. Had he desired, Thibaudet could have spent his career simply being the one of the best vocal partner in the business. Lieder of Brahms and Liszt are quite technically challenging, but Thibaudet played as if he were born playing them. The first four Brahms pieces, taken from the “Deutsche Volkslieder,” a set of twenty-eight songs for solo voice and piano composed in 1856, are full of yearning and sadness of parting. The last of these,”Feinsliebchen, du sollst” is a rollicking allegro with a romantic dialogue between a rich man and an honorable poor girl, with lots of la la la las between each verse- until she gets his gold ring. Kirchschlager sang it with easy charm.

She is not a singer who immediately knocks you over. Her delivery is unfussy, hands and head quite still. It’s her beautiful voice that eventually wows you with its perfectly pitched high notes, her dusky low notes, and her keen sensitivity to the text (which was, of course, in her native language). Before I knew it, she and Thibaudet had me spellbound.

Near the halfway point of the Brahms, Thibaudet played Opus 118, #2 in A Major, one of the most ravishing of all the Brahms intermezzi. (Musicologist Jan Swafford posits that all twenty of Brahms Opuses 116-119, of 1892-3, were love songs to the many lost women in his life). As four people I know consider this their favorite Brahms piece (I spent much of last year learning it on the harp), there must have been many in the audience who love it as well. Oddly, although Thibaudet accompanied the Brahms lieder absolutely beautifully, I was unmoved by his performance. It somehow felt stiff and unimaginative.

Eight Brahms songs followed, all in some way about love and loss (“Life and love — how they flew by!” “Über die Heide” ends — oh Romantic misery!) “Meine Liebe ist grün” (“My love is as green”) was a Christmas present to Clara Schumann, a passionate setting of her son Felix’s lyrics, something the composer did again in his setting of Felix’s “Wenn um den Holunder.” “Nachtwandler” (“Night Wanderer”) received a spectacular performance from Kirchslager, vocally and dramatically. While not seeming to be about love, its lyrics warn to leave the wanderer to his painful yearning (“sein schmerzliches Verlangen.”) The dramatic “Von Ewiger Liebe” (“Of Eternal Love”) dating from 1864, from a folk text (“Iron and steel can be recast by the smith, But who would transform our love?”), has the singer (a maiden) bursting into passion, loudly declaring that their love will have to last forever! Not in Lieder World.

Brahms once said in awe of Liszt, “Whoever has not heard of Liszt cannot even speak of piano playing.” Even in this wall-to-wall Liszt year, but there have been few vocal recitals with so much Liszt (not counting Matthew Polenzani and Julius Drake). After hearing these seven, I couldn’t understand why. Thibaudet played another Liszt crowd pleaser, “Consolation #3, and this time, he played wonderfully, with a perfectly calibrated touch.

Some of Liszt’s songs are still only in manuscript; others exist in four versions. The foremost authority on the songs, Rene Meuller, puts the number at eighty-seven for voice and piano and fourteen for voice and orchestra. Liszt wrote Lieder throughout his life, and on the basis of the ones Kirchschlager sang, I would have loved to have heard more. A very short song, with simple broken chords in the piano, “Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh,” grows more agitated then eerily warns, “soon you will rest as well,” with simple chords again. “Vergiftet sind meine Lieder” featured another dramatic piano part and a dramatic vocal part as well, “Poisoned are my songs. How could it be otherwise? You have poured poison Into my blossoming life.” Kirchschlager was in gorgeous, often operatic voice throughout the Liszt as she was during the two encores, the second of which was a Brahms lullaby her mother had sung to her. A perfect, calm ending to a recital featuring so much Stürm und Drang.

Susan Miron is a book critic, essayist, and harpist. Her last two CDs featured her transcriptions of keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti.

Boston Cecilia’s Music Director Donald Teeters conducted Bach’s “other” intact Passion as a reflective dialog rather than a theatrical exploration. His calm, reverential reading didn’t lack in drama but balanced that drama with finesse. Modest tempos never dragged, allowing for precise articulation of words as well as melodic and rhythmic lines. Teeters’s direction was largely hands-off, with notable pushes during choral passages at the beginning and end of the work’s two parts as well as the devotional aria for bass, “Mache dich, mein Herze.” Instead of relentlessly driving Christ’s trials forward, Teeters relied upon Bach’s contrapuntal textures and transparent orchestration and his own vocalists and instrumentalists.

Tenor William Hite and bass Ronald Williams were consistently strong as The Evangelist and Jesus Christ. They sang scripture as poetry, and when joined by other characters, acted out gripping exchanges rather than filler between arias and choruses. Hite’s golden upper register and moving inflection made miniature soliloquies of Judas betraying Jesus, the cock crowing and Peter weeping after his denial of Jesus. Williams’s resonant bass and excessive vibrato at first almost overpowered the text, but he offered ominous warnings to his betrayers, as well as an eerily pitiable “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

The remaining soloists sang their roles and commentaries with passion as well as elegance. Jolle Greenleaf’s bright yet honeyed soprano stood out during “Blute nur, du liebes Herz!” while blending seamlessly alongside other voices. Tenor Aaron Sheehan cultivated a pure tone, forceful then soothing, alongside the rich grain of a viola da gamba for “Geduld, Geduld!” Thea Lobo’s rich, attractively plaintive mezzo handled Bach’s many arias for alto; her shimmering entrance alongside two flutes for the recitative “Du lieber Heiland du” was followed by a well articulated “Buss und Reu,” and “Erbarme Dich,” despite some opening shortness of breath, turned into a fine example of discreet gut-wrenching. Baritone Bradford Gleim and Bass Robert Honeysucker contributed concise, telling performances as Peter and Pilate, sustaining both the narrative as well as emotional thread of the work.

Alongside the singers, The Boston Cecilia Period Instrument Orchestra seamlessly dispatched Bach’s array of solo, obbligato, and background instrumentals with the same exemplary proportion of energy and restraint. Woodwind with string textures streamed subtly under “So ist mein Jesu nun gefangen,” while the sonority of two oboes with viola da gamba enhanced the recitative “Mein Jesu schweigt zu falschen Lugen stille.” Throughout the work, bassoons, cellos, and basses provided firm but flexible underpinning, and the distinctly tangy sound of the strings reinforced the text’s more unnerving moments (yet some strangely mistuned violins threatened to derail Lobo in “Konnen Tranen meiner Wangen”). Similarly, the reeds displayed a uniquely gauzy surface that supported (rather than competed with) the vocal and choral parts.

The choruses of Music Sacra and The Boston Cecilia constructed a firm vocal tapestry that never overwhelmed the music or the text. Rather than resorting to sheer volume, their rich blend and tasteful balances proved far more impressive. Bach’s harmonically rich chorales were sung with a warm, ethereal sheen, with colorful winds making “O Mensch, bewein dein Sunde gross” into an event of its own. While at some points their articulation could have been more incisive, and some limp entrances on “Ach, nun ist mein Jesus hin!” undermined momentum, overall these twin choruses maintained a tight, reflective atmosphere that brought Bach’s masterpiece down to human scale.

Not that they also didn’t wail to the heavens! The pleading choral fugue that opens St. Matthew showcased the choruses’ translucent sound as well as their ability to stay powerful and light on their feet, while exclamations for Jesus’ execution proved deliciously spine tingling. This whole performance illustrated that a little restraint goes a long way; in fact, it makes moments of abandon seem all the more real.

Andrew J. Sammut also writes for Early Music America and All About Jazz, and blogs on a variety of music at clefpalette.wordpress.com. He also plays clarinet and lives in Cambridge.

Don Teeters accepts applause after "St. Matthew Passion" (George Imirzian photo)

Karosi addressed the audience with a prepared speech in which he addressed Liszt’s legacy today. “Liszt still surprises and fascinates audiences around the world, and he has no tolerance for dogma.” He assured the audience that “this concert will take us from the ninth circle of hell to the light of heaven.” The promise was kept.

The “Prelude” from the oratorio, The Legend of Holy Elizabeth, in transcription for organ, opened the program and foreshadowed the chiaroscuro and the logic of the rest of the evening. A set of four works for organ and voices followed, introducing the audience to the composer’s deeply cherished world of Roman Catholic spirituality. The texts are mostly well known, “Ave Maria,” “Sancta Caecilia,” “O Salutaris Hostia,” and “The Beatitudes,” but it was the seamless balance achieved between choir and organ accompaniment that is a rarity. Clare McNamara’s creamy alto voice was welcome in the piece dedicated to the patroness of music. Jonas Budris’s rich baritone color as the voice of Jesus seemed to negate the fact that he is in fact a tenor. Canto Armonico exercised a kind of subtle restraint throughout the evening that painted a romantic world of devotion that must have characterized the Cecilian movement of the 19th century, a sort of iconostasis that stood alongside the better-known dramatic spectacle of Lisztian virtuosity.

Karosi effectively framed the first half as a musical and topological triptych by closing the first half with a second transcription of an orchestral work for organ, “Prelude, Fugue and Magnificat.” The work is extracted from Lizst’s Dante Symphony and the transcription had been carried out under the careful watch of the composer, as had been the first piece of the program. As Karosi’s program notes claim, “The organ version starts in the [sic] Purgatorio with the soaring recitativo of souls that do not recognize they are in darkness. The fugue represents a transpiercing light that gradually grows into the gleaming Magnificat, and eternal light.” His organ registrations skillfully made the ascent, fully utilizing the tonal resources of this organ. Liszt avoided anything trite and superficial in the two Christmas choral pieces, “Christ is Born,” and “O Holy Night,” that followed. Church musicians take note: the latter would make a welcome substitute in church services for the worn-out setting by Adolphe Adam.

The Hungarian composer’s “Evocation à la Chapelle Sixtine,” for organ is a fantastical appropriation of two emblematically Catholic choral pieces, Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus,” and Allegri’s “Miserere.” They were first sung by Canto Armonico apparently to make the musical sources of the organ work explicit. The Mozart was utter perfection, but the singers hit a bump in the road with the Allegri, saving the performance with stylishly French Baroque ornaments at the cadences. “Evocation” is orchestral in concept, particularly with its opening duo for double basses. It brought to mind César Franck and his harmonic progressions and overall symphonic conception of the organ. Lizst refers less directly to Allegri with its static harmonies, but actually inserts the Mozart, whole and intact; Karosi treats it with flutes and a tremulant, a veritable flötenuhr.

The final choral set of three pieces was for unmixed voices. It featured a work for female choir and organ, “Tantum Ergo,” and two for male choir and organ, “Anima Christi” and “Tu es Petrus.” Lizst had apparently written the first piece as an 11-year-old under the tutelage of Salieri; it had been lost, but he later rewrote it from memory. Its simplicity contrasted with the chromaticism and episodic nature of “Anima Christi” (“Soul of Christ”). The third piece refers to Peter, and in this case Pope Leo XIII, as the title would suggest, but was extracted from the composer’s oratorio, Christus. Conductor Cheryl Ryder’s thoughtful interpretation must owe a debt of gratitude to her decades-long experience as a soprano in the choir of the Church of the Advent under Edith Ho. It was demonstrated in the singers’ subtlety of diction and clarity of tone, but less so in Ryder’s technical ability as conductor.

The final piece is the only one on the program that is both often performed and most associated with Liszt as an organist and virtuoso. Karosi’s reading of the rhapsodic “Prelude and fugue on B-A-C-H” was both flamboyant and intelligent, exhibiting exciting accelerandi and flawlessly executed rapid passages.

A door opened to an experience rarely heard by even the most experienced concert-goers in Boston. It showed a treasure chest holding works of a forgotten canon that deserves greater representation in church and on stage. Lizst’s “other side” was exposed. He was shown to be a composer of austerity, devotion and conservatism. Balint Karosi, Canto Armonico, and probably several others deserve tremendous credit for their programming insight and aesthetic vision in bringing out this memorable concert.

Richard Bunbury, Ph.D., has been teaching musicology and music education, first at the Boston Conservatory, and since 2007 at Boston University, while serving a large church as an organist and music director.

While Levine will continue in his position as Music Director, Fabio Luisi has been named the Met’s Principal Conductor, with the new appointment taking effect immediately. In April 2010, Luisi was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Met. He will replace Levine for most of the fall performances, conducting the new productions of Don Giovanni (premiering October 13) and Siegfried (premiering October 27), as well as the MET Orchestra concert at Carnegie Hall on October 16.

“While Jim’s latest setback is hugely disappointing for all of us, he joins me in welcoming Fabio’s larger role,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s General Manager. “I am very pleased that Fabio was able to rearrange his fall schedule, and I appreciate the understanding of those companies with whom he was scheduled to conduct.”

In order to replace Levine, Luisi had to cancel performances with the Rome Opera, the Genoa Opera, the Vienna Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony.

“I am honored to have been asked to take on these additional responsibilities, but my thoughts are also with Maestro Levine,” said Luisi.

Luisi will conduct the first five performances of Don Giovanni on October 13, 17, 22, 25, and 29 matinee, and Siegfried on October 27 and November 5 matinee. Louis Langrée will conduct the remaining four performances of Don Giovanni on October 31, November 3, 7, and 11. Derrick Inouye will conduct Siegfried on November 1.

Levine hopes to recover in time to return to the Met in January for the new production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (premiering January 27, 2012), as well as for the full cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen in April and May.

Luisi made his Met debut in 2005 with Verdi’s Don Carlo and has also conducted  a new production of Richard Strauss’s Die Ägyptische Helena (2007), as well as revivals of Simon Boccanegra, Turandot, Elektra, Le Nozze di Figaro, Hansel and Gretel, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Rigoletto with the company. In addition, he has previously stepped in for Levine to conduct performances of Tosca (April 2010), Lulu (May 2010), Das Rheingold (March/April 2011), and, in the June 2011 tour of Japan, Don Carlo, La Bohème, and a concert with the MET Orchestra. He also conducted the MET Orchestra in concert with Natalie Dessay as soloist at Carnegie Hall in May of this year, again replacing Levine. This season, Luisi also conducts a new production of Massenet’s Manon (March 26-April 23, 2012) starring Anna Netrebko and a revival of La Traviata (April 6-May 2, 2012) with Dessay in the title role for the first time at the Met.

Luisi, a native of Genoa, is currently Chief Conductor of the Vienna Symphony and Artistic Director of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. He served as General Music Director of Dresden State Opera and Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra from 2007 to 2010, Artistic Director of the MDR Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig from 1999 to 2007, Music Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande from 1997 to 2002, and Chief Conductor of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna from 1995 to 2000. He has appeared with many of the world’s most renowned orchestras and opera companies, including the New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia Symphony Orchestras, NHK Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Deutsche Oper, and Berlin State Opera. He made his Salzburg Festival debut in 2002.

Levine has had previous surgeries to address spinal stenosis, the most recent on May 31 and July 20 of this year. He is scheduled to conduct Götterdämmerung from January 27 to February 11, Das Rheingold on April 4, and three complete cycles of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen between April 7 and May 12. He is also scheduled to conduct concerts with the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on January 15and May 20. Levine, who made his Met debut on June 5, 1971 conducting Tosca, celebrated his 40^th anniversary with the Met last season.

The program opened with a short Anthem for chorus alone by Cleveland composer Andrew Rindfleisch (b. 1963). This was commissioned by Burleigh for the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, which she also conducts, and premiered at the Library of Congress in February, 2009. The text is “an English version of Psalm 130,” according to the composer’s brief program note. Although this was an a capella piece, and the CPM’s diction is excellent, it was a shame that the chosen text (same or different from the English of Luther’s — see below) was not printed in the program, as was the case with the other works. It was a tough but grateful opener because of the need to maintain shimmering, sustained Debussy-like harmonies; even so, the chorus excelled. A chorus member sounded a minor third on the piano, and off they went, simply declaiming the text as softly as possible. The ending was stunning on the text, “Amen:” the altos sang a long sustained pitch, then taken over by the sopranos, as if one voice (even though a different color), using circular breathing. Such a simple, unusual, and successful device!

The next work, also a capella, was Francis Poulenc’s Exultate Deo, based on Psalm 81. Composed in 1941, it reflects his earlier deep study of Bach’s chorales and accordingly presents the brief but joyful text — all about the timbrel, psaltery, lute, and trumpet — in a declamatory fashion. The CPM did it proud.

Felix Mendelssohn’s Aus tiefer Noth schrei’ ich zu Dir (“Out of deep distress I call to you”), Psalm 130, was written in Rome in October, 1830. It is the only one of a number of his “Bachian chorale cantatas” that was published during his lifetime, as the first in his Drei Kirchenmusiken op.23 (Bonn, 1832). It is in five movements, of which the third and fourth were omitted in this performance, probably because of the solo voices and organ required. The first movement is a straightforward, fourteen-bar setting of the chorale, with German text as translated by Martin Luther. The second, using the same text, treats the chorale tune fugally, beginning with the basses and working straight up to the sopranos (although only the basses and the sopranos have the tune). The fifth movement is again a straightforward, but different setting of the same chorale, using the text of the second verse. Again the large chorus of seventy-five members enunciated clearly. Inevitably the individual chorale parts were not as crystal clear as one would hope, but admirable given the large numbers of non-professional singers.

The central work of the evening was a CPM commission, Expectans expectavi, composed by Minneapolis-based Abbie Betinis (b. 1980), premièred on this occasion. She was asked to write a piece that would complement Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. The fact that she is a three-time cancer survivor affected both the composition and the performance; CPM offered 200 free tickets to friends, staff, family, and cancer survivors of  the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the Lymphoma Research Foundation, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  The text, of the piece, in Latin, is selected from Psalms 38, 39 and 40, blaming God, yet pleading for deliverance. The work is scored for soprano soloist (Bonnie Gleason), full chorus, flutes, oboe, English horn, bassoon, French horns, harp, timpani, trumpet, trombone, tuba, piano, bass drum, cellos and basses — i.e., generally a low instrumental timbre without clarinets, violins or violas. The work is a palindrome, beginning and ending quietly with the title text (in English, “I waited patiently for the Lord”). After repeating that line many times at the start, the music builds rapidly to a fortissmo, then softens briefly (“Hear my prayer, O Lord”) before introducing the soprano solo, “O Lord, make me know my end.” Again a rise to fortissimo on “Hear me, hear me, hear me.” The final plaint, actually the kernel or generating text, “Amove a me plagas tuas” (“Remove your scourges from me”) is set apart just before the piece ends with slow, quiet, sustained phrases in the winds, softly punctuated with pizzicati in the strings, and finally only the latter. It is a striking and dramatic piece, full of dissonance, as one might expect, with the chorus and instruments forging separate paths.

After intermission the composer took to the stage to deliver informal remarks about the generative musical devices in the piece, and then the work was performed again, to standing ovation, including previously overlooked recognition of Bonnie Gleason’s fine if brief performances in the central sections, soaring above the low instruments.

The afternoon culminated with Igor Stravinsky’s magnificent Symphony of Psalms, commissioned by Sergei Koussevitzky for the 50th anniversary of the BSO in 1930, on that occasion performed with the members of the Cecilia Society. It uses two verses from Psalm 38, three from Psalm 39 (including “Expectans, expectavi dominum”), and almost all of Psalm 150 (numbering from the Vulgate). As Stravinsky has said, “It is not a symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing of the Psalms that I am symphonizing.” The instrumentation is a fuller version of Betinis’s work, i.e. same instruments but more of them. In this performance they sometimes overwhelmed the chorus. But the instruments have a lot to say in this piece — many repetitions of same or similar motives, sudden punctuation, and then on to something else. The opening of the second Psalm, a difficult fugal play among flutes and oboes, beginning with two parts and swelling to six, was perfectly executed with the verve it needs. Nothing, however is as memorable as the altos’ opening and persistent half-step (e-f-f-e) on “Exaudi orationem meam, Domine” (“Hear my prayer, O Lord”), or the chorus’s opening of the third Psalm with the tentative, ethereal, “Alleluia,” followed by a rest, and then the tenors and basses, chanting in unison a firm, almost hammering, “Laudate,” repeatedly. A brief reminiscence of these two phrases closes the work poignantly, yet powerfully. This caring, nurturing performance certainly did it justice.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

She has organized a concert at Trinity Church, Boston on Sunday, April 16, at 3 pm. The program, to be conducted by Donald Teeters, music director of The Boston Cecilia, will feature Gabriel Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine, J.S. Bach’s Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein, BWV 668, and the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré. The soloists will be Jessica Cooper, soprano, and Robert Honeysucker, baritone, with Barbara Bruns as organist. One hundred percent of receipts will go to benefit earthquake and tsunami victims.

“This concert idea originated as an open sing when I first approached Don and Barbara,” Yui Anzai said. “With their and president Jen Hendrey’s help, it quickly evolved into something much larger, allowing us to do more to benefit those in need. So many people didn’t even hesitate to lend their hand, and that for me has been very encouraging.”

In addition to members of The Boston Cecilia, Anzai has enrolled singers from a phenomenal list of local singing organizations: Back Bay Chorale, Boston Baroque, Cantilena, Chorus pro Musica, Coro Allegro, De Varonistas (made up of a group of singers from Longy who are fans of the legendary choral music director), Masterworks Chorale, MIT Meridian Singers, New England Classical Singers, New World Chorale, Newton Choral Society, Salisbury Singers of Worcester, Schola Nocturna, Silktones, Spectrum Singers, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, The Paul Madore Chorale, Women Song, and church choirs in Andover, Boston, Cambridge, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Lincoln, Milton, and Weston. They also acknowledge the donated  performances of professional instrumentalists of the Boston Musicians’ Association

John O’Donnell and Masumi Homma O’Donnell, as well as the Japanese Bostonians Support Line, are underwriting the operating costs. Trinity Church is donating the space, and all the performers are donating their services, as did David Garrett from NonprofitDesign.com, 48HourPrint.com, Makepeace Digital Imaging and Boston Metro.

In addition to the concert, the benefit organizers are running an advance online raffle, with numerous prizes donated by local businesses and music organizations. Visit The Boston Cecilia’s website for information on donations and the raffle.

Then as now, the chorus was comprised of capable musical amateurs (with emphasis on the root of that word), although the numbers have been reduced from whatever it took to occupy the ample full stage of Boston’s Music Hall in 1874, to fifty-two in 2011. This number is nevertheless still slightly larger than the size of performing forces consistent with what scholars have determined is Handel’s general practice (chorus and instruments combined, about sixty).

On Saturday Boston Cecilia’s Period Instrument Orchestra included exactly the types of wind instruments Handel calls for (two each of traversi, oboes, bassoons, natural horns, trumpets) plus strings (in this case 6-6-4-3-1), and continuo (organ with chorus, harpsichord with soloists), or a total of thirty-one. (Actually there were thirty-two, with the addition of timpani, sparingly used with the chorus in Acts I and III, that Handel did not specify in his score). This is a larger number of strings than would have been heard in Handel’s time but was required by Cecilia’s larger chorus. All the violins played during each of the arias, but usually very softly and adeptly, with incredible grace, on many occasions almost as one gentle sound. Handel used his instrumentation to assist in characterizing the changing roles of the soloists as the oratorio developed. The violas mostly sat out during the arias, although Handel calls for a viola with arias by only the male characters in the first act, and later, as the libretto and music become more agitated, with all the arias. According to the score, the traversi accompany only two of the arias, by women’s voices, while the oboes (doubling the violins), play in only one, with the countertenor, Hamor. The bassoons double the contrabass in the choruses. The horns play with only one chorus in the first act, and the trumpets with the first and last chorus. So the instrumental sound was chiefly violins and continuo, with winds (and timpani) for accent and dramatic effect. The concert-master was Daniel Stepner.

Originating in a few verses in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Judges about a minor biblical figure (Jephtha), the libretto by Thomas Morell (1703-1759) significantly changes both the characters and the dire outcome to a so-called “happy ending.” The story in Judges involves only Jephtha, the outcast son of a harlot, who, when asked by the Elders to lead the Israelites in war against the Ammonites, accepts on the condition that he will remain the Israelites’ leader. He also vows that if victorious, the first person who greets him upon his return will be sacrificed. That turns out to be his (unnamed) daughter. A 16th-century tragedy, Jephte sive votum (1557), by Scottish poet George Buchanan (1506-1582), named the daughter Iphis and added the characters Storgé, Jephtha’s wife, and Zabul, his brother. Morell’s elaboration goes well beyond, adding Hamor, Iphis’s lover, and an angelus ex machina in Act III, who tells Jephtha that his vow can be fulfilled by dedicating his daughter to a “pure and virgin state forever.” There follows much rejoicing. Some critics say Morell’s elaboration is more in keeping with eighteenth-century writings on virginity, filial devotion, and patriotism, and that Handel celebrates these values with his light-hearted dance forms, not only in the instrumental interludes, but also in some of the arias — Iphis’s first aria in Act II, scene 3 (“Welcome as the cheerful light”) is marked, A tempo di gavotta in the score, which only heightens the horror as she welcomes her father back from the war.

Teeters’s conducting was by turns vigorous and sometimes seemingly hunched over, caressing this music he knows so well, which was performed with all the notated repeats. The pontificating choruses are long and sometimes overbalanced the orchestra. The opening and closing choruses are marked Allegro, but the others all Grave, or Adagio, with only one Alla breve (relatively quick). Most were homophonic, but some were energetically fugal, with exposed entrances by section, which the chorus members managed well.

The role of Jephtha was magnificently filled by tenor Aaron Sheehan. His clear, nearly vibrato-less voice has enough richness to carry well over the accompanying textures, and he himself has enough dramatic flair to project the role’s needed pride, angst, remorse, and joy by turns. His second-act recitative and aria, “Zabul, thy deeds were valiant, . .  His mighty arm, with sudden blow,” earned spontaneous applause from the otherwise “correct” audience. Baritone Ron Williams has a much deeper, more resonant voice, which worked well for the role of  Zabul, who functions as a more frequent, agile commentator than does the chorus. Boy soprano Ryan Williams (the Angel), nearly brought the house down with the sheer simplicity of his clear voice telling the news of Iphis’s reprieve. The other soloists, all of whom have fine voices, may have been miscast. Mezzo-soprano Deborah Rentz-Moore (Storgé) has a warm, clear, voice that seems perfect for this music, except that she seemed lacking, especially toward the end, in the kind of vocal energy necessary to impress the poignancy of her laments and her subsequent relief. Soprano Teresa Wakim (Iphis), on the other hand, has a large voice with ringing vibrato; although she demonstrated she is capable of dramatically reduced hushed tones, in general she overwhelmed the piece. (Both of these singers are active in early music performances, and I look forward to hearing them elsewhere.) Handel created the role of Hamor, a soldier in love with Iphis, as a contralto, whereas counter-tenor Martin Near’s Fach more nearly approaches that of a piercing lyric soprano. For the most part his voice was jarring in this context, with one amazing exception: his duet with Teresa Wakim in the first act—that’s “a keeper”!

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

BMInt staff photo

Since Donald Teeters assumed the directorship of Boston Cecilia in 1968 (Then The Cecilia Society) he has brought 19 Handel oratorios to grateful Boston audiences. In his 43^rd year, and with but one year remaining in his tenure, he has decided to return to his favorite, “Jephtha,” Handel’s last, perhaps greatest, oratorio, in a stylish, uncut performance.

Tenor Aaron Sheehan will be Jephtha, joined by additional distinguished soloists: Teresa Wakim, soprano; Deborah Rentz-Moore, mezzo-soprano; Martin Near, countertenor; Ron Williams, baritone Daniel Stepner, concertmaster of The Boston Cecilia Period Instrument Orchestra Chorus and Period Instrument Orchestra under the direction of Handel scholar Donald Teeters at Jordan Hall on Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 2:30 PM Sharp! Please note the unusual start time.

Lee Eiseman of BMInt recently spoke with Don Teeters.

BMInt: We’re about to celebrate your 43rd anniversary as conductor of Boston Cecilia. Tell us how you got here in 1968, what Boston and Cecilia were like and how you transformed Cecilia into what it is today.

Well, first of all, I had been in Boston for 12 years before 1968, so I was familiar with the city. I had gone to school there at New England Conservatory, and I had been selected by Thomas Dunn to be his assistant conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society. One major difference between then and now: my first concert with Boston Cecilia had five reviews; the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald Traveller, the Record American, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Harvard Crimson. Fortunately they were good reviews. The group was very young.

The group goes back to…

… 1876, the official founding. The first conductor, BJ Lang, conducted for 30-some years, and then during the ‘30s and ‘40s, Arthur Fiedler was conductor. Interims between those times and the time when I came were rocky. Sometimes very rocky. Sometimes caused by management failures. There was a period when there was a very strong president who was hiring and firing a conductor each year, because the conductor was not meeting the president’s view of what the group should be doing. There was a longing to reestablish a contact with the BSO, which had been a regular reliable activity during Fiedler’s tenure.

I was lucky in that they had been through these bad times; my immediate predecessor was James Cunningham, who was choral conductor at BU. He had weeded out all the old timers. He had a great following because he was well established on the North Shore, so he had brought in a lot of young singers from there into Cecilia. So it had become a very young, very lively group. But then he was offered a job at Berkeley in California, so he was only a one-year, then they hired me. It was kind of a very nice situation to come into…

He had broken all the china and you didn’t have to.

And I didn’t have to do any bending. So I told them — they didn’t have a lot of budget — I’m not interested in conducting outside the center of the city. I really want to be part of music-making in the very heart of Boston or in venues that are recognized as concert venues, like Cambridge. My being young and they so young, they just said, “Sure, let us do that.” The first season, as I said, we got the five reviews, but there was a good response throughout the first season. We did some Bach and we did some Stravinsky. We did kind of diverse programming.

That was before the early-music focus.

In Cecilia. The early music movement in Boston was well established. Thomas Dunn, with whom I had worked and still worked with when I went with Cecilia, was a real proponent of stylistic approach to pre-nineteenth-century music. His love for that repertoire, particularly Bach and Handel, really did bleed into me in a serious way.

He was your mentor?

Very much a mentor. I found his approach so refreshing, especially with Handel. What little I knew of Handel was from performances that were so heavy and so slow and ponderous, and such large scale. When I was young, there was a radio program called The Voice of Firestone, and every year at about Easter time Eleanor Steber would come on and sing “I know that my redeemer liveth”; it took nearly the whole half hour of the program, the tempo was so slow. I could never figure out why that was such a sad piece. Tom Dunn explained to me that it wasn’t a sad piece, it was a happy piece. It had to be reflective of what the tempo was about, particularly at that point in the oratorio.

Sometimes the early-music movement errs on the side of losing emotion for musical textural accuracy, and it’s more about dotted rhythms than it is about conveying the meaning of the words.

That’s because it was an early aspect of the early instrument period. People really only had scholarly writings to guide them about performance style of pre-nineteenth-century music. What happened very quickly was that people studied the scholarship but also they learned from other performers. Boston has been so rich to have so many musicians who are interested in exploring all kinds of things musically.

You don’t have to react against those overblown performance practices anymore.

The reason Tom didn’t go to period instruments is he didn’t think the city was well enough equipped to play in the style he wanted. When I went to Cecilia, I started doing Handel early on, and Bach, but used modern instruments, because I had the same feeling. By 1980, that situation had changed, and there were enough players in the city who really were first-rank players of period instruments. You could hire an orchestra and feel comfortable. You didn’t have to apologize. Ever since then I could never consider doing a pre-nineteenth-century piece with anything other than the instruments that were appropriate for the style.

It doesn’t answer all the problems and there is no one way to perform any great composer’s music. I’m sure of that. In Boston we’re lucky, almost unique in the world, because we have a tight community of instrumentalists and singers, now several generations of singers who have devoted themselves particularly to Handel’s style and to Bach’s style, singing, listening to each other, a small group of conductors who are hiring the same people all the time. So the conductors are learning, the singers are learning, the instrumentalists are learning by performance.

How many instrumentalists are exclusively playing early music instruments?

Not too many. That’s a great sign. The problem that so many string players have had and seem to have conquered is the playing at the different pitch level. Modern instruments generally play at A=440 and period instruments, by some sort of universal international convention, play at A=415, a half a step lower.

So for somebody with absolute pitch, they have to think about it in a different key. Of course wind players probably don’t have that problem because they’re used to having the note sound at a different pitch from what’s written….

So you have one more year as conductor of Cecilia. Jephtha is your choice for one of your major swansongs. Is this a piece that means a lot to you?

It’s a very important piece to me. We’ve done it once before. Most of the big oratorios we’ve only been able to do one time, mostly for economic reasons. I chose Jephtha, because Jephtha is Handel’s last oratorio. For me it is a very poignant association. When he was writing it he was very much showing signs of age. This was in 1751. His health was failing and – of great importance – his eyes were failing. At the end of the second act there is a chorus that I think may be the best choral sequence in all of Handel. It begins with the text “How dark, o Lord, are thy decrees.” As you look at a facsimile of the manuscript score, the notes become blurrier, the stems look less and less straight. He gets to near the end of the first part of this chorus and he writes a little note at the bottom of the page “13 February 1751, I must leave off because I can no longer see to write.” Just thinking about that makes me tear up. A few days later on the 23rd of February, there’s a note on the next page, saying things are a bit better. It was his 66th birthday. He was able to finish the act; then he had to take a month or so off. This was very unusual for Handel. He was writing this very fast. Then that was the last completed full work of his. He was able to do some editing of some pieces later and adapting of some pieces to different purpose. That was his last major creative enterprise. To me that’s very significant. I can’t think of a better way to end my career with Cecilia than to pick up Handel’s farewell gesture.

We have a wonderful cast of singers. It’s a good band. The librettist gave Handel all kinds of opportunities to let these singers and these characters reveal who they are early on. This is not unusual in that era in opera and in oratorio. In the first act, the characters introduce themselves and set up the plot. The plot develops in the second act and in the third act, resolves. That’s in theatre, opera, and oratorio. Handel was lucky to get a librettist who could set up the structure that way. It happens here. The choruses are wonderful. The chorus only plays Israelites. Handel often liked to have competing choruses. Pagan choruses against Israelites, for instance, because he has a chance to really characterize…

And next year, your last season?

It’s already set. We’re going to begin with the St. Matthew Passion. My final concert with Cecilia will be a newly commissioned piece from Scott Wheeler. It’s going to be love songs choruses for piano four hands. Does that remind you of any composer’s efforts? Obviously he’s taken the idea from the Brahms. I don’t know what he’s going to write. He’s going to help me as curator of that concert, help me find pieces that will be sympathetic to Brahms. Scott and I have had a long relationship; I just love his music. Our recording of his opera Construction of Boston is a wonderful achievement of a couple of years ago.

Has Cecilia done a lot of recording over its long history?

Not as much as we should have. We try to be faithful particularly to local composers We’ve commissioned James Woodman in past season.  Again, it’s not enough. It should always be more. My predecessor B.J. Lang, was wonderful in that regard.

Of course there were living composers whom one wanted to hear in those days.

What was not popular was when he tried to introduce Bach, because who wants to hear those antique composers? … And then even Brahms caused controversy

So is there life for you after Cecilia?

Well I certainly hope so! One of the problems of my life is that because of my church work and because of Cecilia and my teaching, I’ve been really tied to Boston. I’d like to be a guest conductor. With my experience in Handel I think I have some good opportunities both in the country and abroad to do some Handel performances or other things. Bach and Handel are central to my life, but I’d also like to explore some other repertoire that hasn’t been suited. I’d like to conduct Meistersinger …but I’m probably   not going to have a chance to do that.

I’ll continue with my church work for another couple of years and I’ll continue teaching at the Conservatory as long as the students take my courses and as long as they pay me. That offers me a lot of freedom after that. After a couple of years I will have a lot of freedom, if my health holds.

You made your debut in 1936?

Not my debut as a conductor- my debut on earth. I tell people I conduct the Boston Cecilia which is now in its 135th season, and no I’m not the founding conductor.

The “ceremony” got off to a bracing start with English composer Peter Wishart’s “Alleluya, A New Work is come on Hand,” full of rhythm games and harmonic surprises. The chorus sang with transparent tone and good blend, delineating the various rhythmic currents clearly and finishing with a ringing first-inversion chord.

After a reading of the Genesis creation story, Peter Warlock’s “Adam lay ybounden” was sung with Barbara Bruns’ skilful organ accompaniment. The sopranos and altos gently alternated with tenors and basses until the final, fourth verse, when all united in a dramatic crescendo to the climactic “Deo gratias!” Warlock’s colorful harmonies emerged with clarity, thanks to the excellent blend and balance of Boston Cecilia.

The prophecy of Micah was read next, telling of little Bethlehem’s future glory, and the Cecilia sang Giovanni Palestrina’s “Canite tuba” (“Sound the trumpet”). Teeters chose, unconventionally, to keep the dynamic largely piano throughout. Perhaps this was a musical metaphor for seeing the glory of Bethlehem from a distant remove, as Micah did. Unfortunately, it also made it easier for the chorus’s pitch to sink slightly, though the counterpoint was admirably clear.

Following the reading of the Annunciation story from Luke, the choir gave us the austerity of a plainsong “Magnificat” (Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel’s announcement that she would bear the Son of God), punctuated by hand-bell chords. Here the goal was monasticism rather than expressiveness, and it was convincingly realized.

The story from Luke of Jesus’ birth was then read, followed by Ralph Vaughan Williams’ setting of “O My Dear Heart” (also known as “Balulalow”), probably composed in 1943 but only published last year; this was likely its first Boston performance. It uses not the text that Benjamin Britten set in his “Ceremony of Carols,” but instead a poem by Ursula Vaughan Williams. Scored for women’s voices, it opens with triads wafting through the air like angels singing, soon joined by additional women singing a melodic line. The work features delectable, bittersweet harmonies, a gently iambic rhythm, and a particularly lovely, sweet ending. Its ethereal quality also applied, regrettably, to the diction at times, but otherwise this performance demonstrated what a jewel this carol is and how mystifying that it was withheld from the world for over sixty years.

After another reading of Luke — Jesus worshipped by angels and shepherds — we heard a rendering of Francisco Guerrero’s “Pastores loquebantur” (“The shepherds said to each other”), an especially attractive example of Spanish Renaissance polyphony, limned with the Cecilia’s customary clarity. The individual parts stayed mostly mezzo-piano, the dynamic allowed to rise or fall simply by the addition or subtraction of voice parts. Where the text mentioned the baby Jesus, however, there was a quite apt subito piano, depicting the shepherds’ awe.

Evett read St. Matthew’s story of the Wise Men following the star, and Part I concluded with Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Christmas Carols,” accompanied artfully by Barbara Bruns and featuring a fine soloist from the chorus, baritone Ron Williams. This yuletide standard is based on three carols, the first somberly reflective, the other two celebratory. It was sung expressively, with all the choral virtues heretofore noted, but also with a curious New England Puritan detachment: even in the joyous final section it was all but impossible to detect a smile from any chorus member, though Williams himself sang with full involvement. Nonetheless, the choral climax on “And we wish them a happy New Year” was stirring, and there was an atmospheric tapering off to the serene conclusion.

Part II began with three works of living composer John Tavener. “Annunciation” is written for antiphonal quartet and chorus. The quartet — Cecilia members positioned behind the audience at the opposite end of the nave from the chorus —  represents Mary’s initial response to Gabriel’s news that she will bear the son of God: “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” This question, sung in dissonant harmonies perhaps reflecting Mary’s awed confusion, recurs intermittently between Gabriel’s “Hail” statements. The interplay between the two characters was vividly realized in the contrast of the smaller quartet sound with the forte grandeur of the angel. “Hymn to the Mother of God” was a logical successor, a paean to the Virgin Mary for two choirs which sing in canon at the unison, three beats apart. Good balance and minimal vibrato for clarity are essential to the success of this piece, and the Cecilia delivered again. Their rendering generated considerable power through the fascinating alternation of harmonic clashes with resolutions. Rounding off the set was one of Tavener’s best known works, “The Lamb.” Teeters took a daringly slow tempo that his chorus sustained admirably, while also passing the piece’s stern test of intonation. The refrains were especially haunting.

Concluding the concert were two works of Herbert Howells. “A Spotless Rose” featured again the rich solo baritone of Ron Williams. Both chorus and soloist depicted winter winds vividly with expressive rising and falling. Particularly noteworthy was the immaculate tuning of the chilling harmonies on the final “cold, cold winter’s” and the warming resolution on “night.” To finish, the Cecilia chorus and Barbara Bruns at the organ gave a superb account of Howells’ “Magnificat for St. Paul’s, London.” Chorus and organist worked together hand-in-glove under Teeters’ seasoned direction. Dynamics were wonderfully nuanced, from the exciting crescendo of “He hath showed strength” to the gentle handling of “He remembering his mercy.” To cite a favorite high point, the long, legato lines of “As it was in the beginning”, continuing to the end, seemed to burst earthly bounds and soar into infinity, finally punctuated by a powerfully accented last chord. This concert was surely a fine Christmas gift from Donald Teeters and the Boston Cecilia.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. Currently, he sings in the choir of Trinity Church and accompanies the Boston Choral Ensemble under Miguel Felipe.

Aptly enough for a recital falling on Hallowe’en, the program opened with the Toccata and Fugue in d minor by J.S. Bach (or, more likely, by one of his contemporaries). Janet Hunt, organist at St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, gave a dark and dramatic account of the toccata with growling reed-stops and a freewheeling, improvisatory feel. For the contrasting fugue, upper-work was added and the reeds retired in order to allow the counterpoint to be heard clearly. The scintillating series of cadenzas at the end brought back the reed choruses with the “big guns” saved for the final, thrilling chord. It is a challenge to make this much-played piece sound fresh, but Hunt succeeded.

Heinrich Christensen, organist at King’s Chapel, Boston, contributed some much less familiar music, beginning with two of Robert Schumann’s Sketches, Op. 58 for pedal piano. The first (No. 3), in ABA form, is a rather turbulent affair, and the chosen registration in the A sections with chorus reeds but little upper-work led to less than ideal clarity in the massive cathedral acoustic. The B section, however, full of delicious harmonies and leaving out the reeds, fared better. The second selection (No. 4), also in ABA form, featured a sicilienne rhythm and a fetching tune in the outer sections; Christensen employed a lovely solo reed in the B section. He finished with twentieth-century Danish composer Einar Traerup Sark’s Toccata Primi Toni, using a wide array of tone colors, some pleasingly unconventional, in a persuasive performance.

Three movements of the Suite Médiévale by the famous blind Parisian composer/organist Jean Langlais were handsomely played by Laurence Carson, organist at St. John the Evangelist, Wellesley Hills. Conceived for a setting much like the cathedral, this music was very much at home here. We heard such characteristic Langlais devices as simulated organum and bare octave acclamations, soon filled in by pungent harmonies. Particularly delicious was the Tiento which unusually combined the vox humana and clarinet stops.

Richard Clark, organist at St. Cecilia Parish, Boston, favored us with his own suite Ascent to Freedom. Its five movements are quite accessible, sometimes displaying a French influence. The last three movements made imaginative use of, respectively, the Lutheran chorale If You But Trust in God to Guide You, the spiritual Go Down, Moses, and the hymn How Can I Keep From Singing. There was some compelling musical illustration in the spiritual movement when tortured chromaticism and crunchy reed chords gave way suddenly to diatonic harmonies on the solo clarinet accompanied by string celeste: the effect was like a release from bondage.

After intermission we heard from the cathedral’s titulaire, Leo Abbott, playing the second movement, Choral, of Symphonie II by Louis Vierne, organist of Notre Dame de Paris from 1900 to 1937. This movement places a serene major-mode chorale melody (initially in the pedal and later in soprano/alto range) in opposition to a stormy minor-mode section under-girded by triplet motion in chromatic harmonies. After much alternation between the two opposing forces — light and darkness, if you like — there is a build-up to the peroration. Abbott here gave us a truly symphonic crescendo leading to the thrilling moment when the triplets shifted to the major and the chorale melody triumphed in the heights.

Next came more Schumann, played by Rosalind Mohnsen, organist at Immaculate Conception Parish, Malden. Schumann was only one of many composers to pay tribute to J.S. Bach by using his name musically. (In German nomenclature B is B flat and H is B natural.) Schumann wrote six well-contrasted fugues on B-A-C-H for pedal piano, of which Mohnsen performed the fifth and second. The fifth was a nimble dance on sweet flute stops in triplet rhythms, proving that even a grand cathedral organ can be “light on its feet” when played by a gifted organist. The second fugue’s subject features dotted rhythms and delightfully abrupt pauses that help make it identifiable, even when the polyphony becomes more complex. Mohnsen began with a clear, “à la baroque” registration. Several times she seemed to be building up to the conclusion, only to quiet down again and “delay our gratification.” Finally, after a series of tonic and dominant chords interspersed with dramatic rests, the majestic coda arrived, the final chord capped by the brilliant chorus reeds.

The program had opened with an improvisatory-sounding piece, and it was fitting that it closed with the real thing. A renowned improviser, Peter Krasinski, organist at First Church of Christ, Scientist, Providence, RI, extemporized on the “Dies Irae”, another theme used by many composers. (He also worked in a reference to B-A-C-H early on.) Mr. Krasinski treated the organ orchestrally, using a huge variety of tone colors: cascading flutes, snarling chorus reeds, and a quietly rumbling thirty-two-foot pedal stop, to cite just three. Towards the end we heard a lovely “hymntune” on the string celeste, soon warmed by the vox humana, and gradually, during a stretch of unexpected harmonic progressions, growing to full organ. As Krasinski reached his splendid coda, a sudden burst of sunshine beamed in through the cathedral’s stained glass windows. Perhaps someone beyond the audience was doffing his/her hat to an inspired performer and his
distinguished colleagues.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. Currently, he sings in the choir of Trinity Church and accompanies the Boston Choral Ensemble under Miguel Felipe.

The program got under way with Stravinsky’s caustic, feisty, and quite brief Fanfare for a New Theatre (1964) for two unaccompanied trumpets. Veteran trumpeters Paul Perfetti and Bruce Hall, who would not be heard from again for over an hour, shattered the humming quiet of the full church with spare cascades of seconds and sevenths, and then yielded the spotlight to Emmanuel Music’s new president, Kate Kush. She welcomed all and introduced the organization’s new music director in a very few words — long-of-wind board speechmakers, kindly take note!

Sizable Handel choral pieces begin with overtures, the one for Alexander’s Feast being both typical and charming. We immediately had a good idea of Ryan Turner’s sure, communicative style at the helm, which made use of finely chosen tempi, sensible bowings, deft relative weighting of orchestral sections, and thoroughly enjoyable attacca bridges to project a clear sense of pace and a greater architecture. The central event, though more alluded to than specifically sketched, is conquering Alexander’s torching of “the most beautiful city in the world”, defeated Darius’s Persepolis, at the mad urging of his daughter, Thais. Vocal soli — accompagnati, in recitativo, and in arias or duos — succeeded one another, telling the classic tale of Alexander’s succumbing first to the temptress, then to her disturbed and destructive whim, and finally (this being a literary era detached from inconvenient realities) to the sweet, all-conqu’ring essence of the blessed muse, St. Cecilia. At signal thresholds, as in all such Handel works, the choir bursts forth in proclamation. What better formula could there be for enjoyment, success, and service of the original than John Dryden’s text of 1697? On his decades-long, businesslike way from Italian opera endeavors to the full-blown English oratorio, adoptive Londoner Handel suffused a breathtaking number of musical forms with his living breath of brilliant melody and deeply touching writing for strings and obligati. No finer example of the composer’s fascinating musical peregrination has persisted in concert than Alexander’s Feast. Called an ode, it is essentially an oratorio with a trim anatomy.

Ryan Turner’s supple, even liquid shaping of phrase was the most remarkable part of the evening. Superb singing by bass Dana Whiteside, soprano Kendra Colton, peripatetically busy tenor Jason McStoots, and bass Donald Wilkinson stood out as much through Mr. Turner’s molding as through these singers’ always delightful talents. Cellist Rafael Popper-Keiser is incapable of playing without fervor, spot-on intonation, and a heavenly projection of the affect his solos and occasional continuo highlights bring to the fore. He is among Boston’s distinguished instrumentalists, and for good reason. Vividly rhetorical harpsichordist Michael Beattie, sometimes audible through the familiarly muzzy Emmanuel acoustic, always brought off his continuo and obligato statements with panache and sparkle. As Donald Teeters quipped in his entertaining pre-concert lecture, Handel is prone to dotting beautiful obligato writing among his scores, requiring pairs of winds to sit for eons through the production, deliver their exquisite sunbursts in a single movement, and resubmerge. The rich horn parts and the paired trumpet writing were marvelous — and so was the playing.

Donald Teeters declared that “authentic” is a terrible word in music. He cited the almost unguided ease with which the instruments of Handel’s day balance within an ensemble, with and without voices, but he cannily dodged the small matter of Emmanuel’s four decades of success with modern instrumentation. A thrust of his illuminating, entertaining comments was that Handel’s intrinsic mastery of the score assures that the minor figurations and structures of each movement add up to a terrific vehicle for the all-important text, and that this particular ode, graciously included by most Handelians under the broader wings of the big oratorios that preceded and followed it, is a stellar example of the format.

In Ryan Turner’s debut performance for Emanuel Music, we were never left in doubt of the overarching shape and great beauty of Alexander’s Feast. His impeccable technique in leading the band and singers, and in communicating clearly with soli, came in part out of unequivocal starts for all, with brief, clear advance telegraphing of the pace and a truly refreshing communication of the intimacy of his concept of ensemble playing. Mr. Turner moves vigorously and tosses out straightforward emotional cues when the affect requires these, but the comfort of singers and players, at least in this performance, obviously came from detailed and ample rehearsal among musicians sharing a common musical language. As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Turner’s preferred attacca transitions, never edging toward the abrupt, maintain energy and focus well. This deeply enjoyable Alexander’s Feast augurs well for Boston, as it does for Emmanuel Music.

Alas, I must close in saying that Emmanuel Church’s stuffy, tired air must be original to the building, or perhaps to the time of the post-fire renovations. This historic Anglican congregation and its ecumenical colleague groups are no doubt accustomed to the unchanging fug in the sanctuary. But over the many years of Emmanuel, the Boston Early Music Festival, and other major city music events, audiences have sweltered and perspiringly endured. This is not a call for noisy, costly air conditioning, please note, but for regular, no-cost ventilation to take daily advantage of the cooler night air. It’s just outside, sealed out.

Veteran recording engineer Christopher Greenleaf collaborates with chamber, early, and keyboard musicians in natural acoustic venues on both sides of the Atlantic. He is active as a writer, translator, photographer, and acoustic consultant.

When an organization so intimately associated with its director takes on the task on continuing under different leadership, it is tricky business. The death almost three years ago of Craig Smith, Emmanuel Music’s founder and charismatic leader for 37 years, left this organization with one tough act to follow.

After considerable thought, Emmanuel took a valid approach — appointing as the new artistic director someone who has been affiliated with the organization for a number of years. Ryan Turner has been a tenor with the choir since 1997, often as soloist, and since 2006 has been a guest conductor for a repertoire that has included Bach, Palestrina, Primosch, Schein and Schütz.

Another way to proceed under new direction is to inaugurate new ideas.

Ryan Turner at Emmanuel Church (Toddi J. Norum photo)

Emmanuel has no intention of changing its popular format, Bach cantatas at the Sunday morning church service, evening concerts with chorus, soloists and orchestra, Sunday afternoon chamber series (this season focused on Beethoven), and regular noontime chapel concerts during Lent, but the organization is offering a new twist: For every concert date this coming season, Emmanuel has negotiated a special deal with its next-door neighbor, the Taj Hotel: a three-course dinner for $30, for ticket holders. In fact, Emmanuel has dubbed its new season “When Innovation Meets Tradition.”

On September 24, Emmanuel begins its season with a fitting blockbuster: George Frideric Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, a setting of a poem by John Dryden written in honor of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. In keeping with the theme, Donald Teeters, music director of The Boston Cecilia, will give a pre-concert lecture at 7 pm.

“Alexander’s Feast expresses the power of music that is embodied in the artistry of the Emmanuel Music ensemble,” comments legendary Boston Globe music critic Richard Dyer, long associated in many ways with Emmanuel Music.

The music calls for a large orchestra, with horns, trumpets and drums, and soloists. Familiar Emmanuel Music names are still there, as well as among Emmanuel’s singers.

Turner, raised in Texas and educated at Southern Methodist University, arrived in Boston in 1995 to study for a Masters Degree at The Boston Conservatory and now lives in Exeter, NH, with his wife, soprano Susan Consoli and their son, Aidan. He is currently in his fifth year as Director of Choral Activities at Phillips Exeter Academy and has also been Acting Director of the SongFest Bach Institute in California (founded by Craig Smith), Music Director of the Concord Chorale and Chamber Orchestra, Assistant Director of Choral Activities at the University of Rhode Island, Interim Director of Choral Activities at Plymouth State University, and Music Director of the Concord Chorus.

He has sung in Handel’s L’Allegro with the Mark Morris Dance Group, six seasons at the Carmel Bach Festival, Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte with Opera Aperta conducted by Craig Smith and over 40 Bach cantatas with Emmanuel Music. Turner’s discography includes the role of Metagenes in Kapsberger’s Apotheosis with Ensemble Abendmusik for DORIAN, and for KOCH, works by Praetorius with Apollo’s Fire and Bach BWV 76 with Emmanuel Music.

You get the idea: same fine group, new directions.

Although that anthem was not part of the splendid “When Britten Met Haydn” concert offered by Boston Cecilia on Friday evening, April 16, St Cecilia, Britten and Haydn must all have been smiling down as this brilliantly conceived and executed program unfolded so memorably.

Boston Cecilia and Donald Teeters are as venerable as it gets in Boston, but hardly rest on their laurels. So the challenge of this review is to express adequately just what a fine program this was. Teeters’s cogent, informed, and urbane program notes explained the connection between Haydn and Britten and addressed issues of sublimity. Such inexpressible things can be elusive, but these musicians unobtrusively, thoughtfully, and vividly allowed the music to speak for itself.

Teeters’ cogent, informed and urbane program notes explained the connection between Haydn and Britten and spoke about issues of sublimity. Such inexpressible things can be elusive, but In such an opulent evening, Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings was the standout. Tenor Aaron Sheehan, joined by BSO principal horn James Sommerville and an orchestra of some of Boston’s finest-free lance players, all under Teeters’s baton, delivered a performance of transcendent beauty in the gracious acoustic of All Saints’ Church, Brookline. To my ears, the spirit of Pears and Britten was palpable, and this glorious music could not have been more compelling. Sommerville’s secure handling of the valve-less horn demands of Britten’s score was perfection, highlighted by “hand-stopping,” a technique which creates other-worldly harmonics, a “muted” effect . The texture of this remarkable music was heart-stopping in the spacious intimacy of the church. Sheehan negotiated both the linear and acrobatic elements of the tenor line with complete confidence and penetrating artistry. Is this what heaven might be like?

Leading off the evening was Haydn’s brief and lovely “Little Organ Mass,” Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo, in a clear and transparent reading. Although the chorus, orchestra and soloist sounded brilliant, no aggressive “points” were being made; it was all about the music. Barbara Bruns’s clear and subtle playing on the sweet positive organ spun a web through the orchestra and chorus, and Haydn’s music soared. Teresa Wakim’s soprano was luminous, and Teeters enabled everything to do just what it was meant to do.

After the break, Haydn’s Salve Regina was a pleasant discovery, as indeed Teeters’s notes indicated it had been when he unearthed it from the Cecilia archives. Although originally written for soloists only, here the conductor took the liberty of redistributing some of the material to the chorus, which worked beautifully. The program note said “Pace, Papa Haydn.” Indeed!

Britten’s Cantata Misericordium is a curious, penetrating piece informed by the composer’s pacifist leanings that extols the generous virtue of compassion — the real practice of it, not just the sentiment. A traveler in the desert is attacked and left to die, shunned by the priest and Levite, and saved only by the Good Samaritan. Williams brought stunning, even shocking power and depth to the role of the traveler, and Aaron Sheehan again got it exactly right with every phrase. Meanwhile, the Cecilia chorus, so sweet-voiced in the Haydn pieces, morphed into a crowd of angry power here and kind compassion there, always reflecting on the events at hand. This is demanding music, but at every moment the confidence of chorus, soloists and orchestra made this the “art that conceals art.”

How can a reviewer do justice to a program and performance this fine? Presiding over the entire occasion was the generous spirit, intelligence and musicianship of Donald Teeters, one of Boston’s musical treasures. Because of him the music carried the evening, as indeed it always should. In this age of shallow glamor and glitzy personalities, it is a life-changing privilege to experience an evening so focused and full of integrity. Headed to my car in the rain, I would happily have walked back and listened to it all over again.

This post was edited in response to the first comment.

Brian Jones is Emeritus Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston, where he directed an acclaimed program from 1984-2004. He is active as an organ solo artist and guest conductor, and has performed widely in the United States, Canada, England, Mexico, and Bermuda. He is Director of the Copley Singers, a Boston-based chorus, and his work with the Trinity Choir may be heard on the London-Polygram, Dorian and Gothic labels.

Conductor Federico Cortese is very well known and valued for one niche in classical-music Boston — teaching serious music students; but he is not adequately recognized in another, as Music Director of New England String Ensemble. His upcoming NESE concert on April 17 at Jordan Hall should help rectify that. The program includes Sir Michael Tippett, Concerto for Double String Orchestra; Antonio Vivaldi Stabat Mater; Henry Purcell, “When I am Laid in Earth” from Dido and Aeneas; George Benjamin, Upon Silence; and Benjamin Britten, Simple Symphony. Mezzo-soprano Abigail Nims is soloist in the Vivaldi, Purcell, and Benjamin.

For the program notes Cortese wrote, “Choosing a concert program is a rather enjoyable process that often results in some unforeseen fruits. The connections among the pieces of tonight ended up being, on many levels, even closer than I had imagined.  Like some other programs we performed this season, this program is a little journey around the baroque style. The other clearly noticeable common element in today’s varied repertory is that it is an almost entirely British concert, featuring mostly music written by very young English composers. … To break this British monopoly I inserted one of Vivaldi’s most beautiful sacred pieces. … A certain meditative depth and sadness are common to all the vocal pieces in the program and, I think, create a vibrant contrast with the rhythmic energy and liveliness of both Tippett’s and Britten’s music that frames them. After all, concerts, as all musical compositions, are built on the dialectics between affinity and contrast.”

Catherine Weiskel, executive director of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, when asked for her opinion of Cortese as music director of that organization, responded immediately, “That’s pretty easy. I have enormous respect and admiration for him. He transformed this institution in the last 10 years. We now have by far the largest budget and one of the most comprehensive programs in the United States. The orchestra now is at a completely different level than when he took it over. The kids adore him. I don’t think they would give him the level of commitment they do if they didn’t admire him. He identifies with the kids because that’s the kind of kid he was.”

That’s true. At age five, he joined a boys’ choir, and later he studied voice, composition, and conducting at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome. From 17 to 23, he sang early music as a professional baritone and countertenor, but also could sing tenor. In addition, he played the oboe and studied piano.

His parents are not professional musicians; his mother was an antiques expert and his father taught medieval history and law. (Cortese also has a law degree from La Sapienza University.)

Sharon Malt, former board member and still active supporter of BYSO, also had an immediate response when asked for her opinion: “I love him. He’s passionate about music.”

We hear he shouts, sometimes.

“Yes, he yells at the kids,” Malt laughed, “but they are not threatened by it. They respond. They love him. They even have a kind of nickname for him: The Fed.”

Last year, “The Fed” was also appointed Music Director of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. During intermission of his first concert as conductor in October, students were asked what they thought of him. The most commonly heard description was, “Fabulous.”

“He really takes us through the paces. We are learning a lot,” said one. An article by Victoria Ascheim HC ’10 (a notably talented percussionist for the orchestra) in Harvard Arts, an on-line in-house journal, noted “Maestro Federico Cortese paves his aspirations for us as an ensemble.”

Effectively teaching serious music students, whether they intend to pursue professional careers or a maintain a life-long side interest, is a strong point of  Cortese. But it’s not the only one.

After taking over the New England String Ensemble during a rocky period and working hard to re-establish its credentials as a major music force in Boston, Cortese has molded a fine group. Repertoire has become both more interesting and more challenging. The program for April 17 is a case in point.

Music critic Steven Ledbetter, in the program notes, has written of the Tippett,

The Concerto for Double String Orchestra is Tippett’s first mature work for an ensemble of more than chamber-music size. English music had seen a rich tradition of string orchestra pieces, going all the way back to Handel’s concerti grossi and including their twentieth-century echoes in Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Vaughan Williams’ Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, and Benjamin Britten’s recent Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. … The character of the concerto, especially in its fast outer movements, resembles a wrestling match in which strongly contrasted themes are pitted against and then complement one another. … The upper strings of the first orchestra, playing in octaves, are ranged against the lower strings of the second orchestra, also in octaves. Neither of these two themes heard in the opening bars follows a simple rhythmic pattern; each has its own complex syncopations against the beat and against the other line. The independence of these lines and the rhythmic variety both come from Tippett’s close familiarity with Renaissance music, though here pressed into a level of energetic activity that would not have been conceived four centuries ago.

for the Vivaldi Stabat Mater,

The text … is a poetic depiction of the Virgin Mary’s painful experience of watching her son die on the Cross. … Of the many settings of the Stabat mater over the centuries, this one by Vivaldi is the darkest and most somber, moving always in slow tempos and in the keys of F minor and C minor. The only touch of brightening comes on the very last chord of the piece, which finally offers an F major. … Following its performance in Brescia in 1711, the Stabat mater remained forgotten and unperformed until … the composer Alfredo Casella (who had been conductor of Boston’s Pops concerts in the late 1920s) brought the work to light again, once more suggesting that Vivaldi’s religious commitment was deeper than had previously been thought.

Abigail Nims (Chris Carroll photo)

of the Purcell Dido and Aeneas,

Few composers have ever shown such inventiveness in creating music that expresses the emotions of the characters in memorable musical phrases and at the same time expresses the language in which it is written in such a way as to make it at once audible and clear to the audience. (Virtually every composer of the last three centuries with a reputation for setting the English language clearly and effectively acknowledges having studied the works of Purcell.)  Dido’s lament is one of the great examples of a genre in which Purcell excelled, the ostinato aria, in which a short musical phrase is repeated over and over in the bass line, while the voice sings a soaring melody that (in the best examples, such as here) seems to unfold freely over the seemingly restrictive bass. The entire 17^th-century, which saw the invention of opera, has only a few examples to match this one in expressivity.

and of the Britten:

The Simple Symphony has established itself as a genial and unpretentious masterpiece of charm and wit whose composer need not adopt the Petrarchan stance that it was composed “by a different man than the one I am now.”

Benjamin wrote of his own composition, “Upon Silence sets Long-Legged Fly, a late poem of Yeats which portrays three momentous figures in history absorbed in silent contemplation: Julius Caesar planning a crucial military campaign, Helen of Troy as an adolescent in Sparta, and Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. The verses are set in a syllabic manner, while each successive chorus is set to increasingly lengthy melismas as, like the long-legged fly above the water, the voice hovers above the strings’ now turbulent, now still stream of sound.”

Bettina A. Norton, executive editor of Boston Musical Intelligencer, admits to a strong bias. She is vice president of the board of New England String Ensemble.

The February 11th  program was superbly challenging: Alban Berg’s Three Pieces for orchestra, op. 6; Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs; and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.  As my Tufts colleague Joseph Auner explained, in an expertly organized pre-concert talk, all of these works have social, personal, and national kinships; all the composers knew each other and each other’s work, and the three works frame the most historically important years of central Europe in the past century.

I’m not going to say much here about Berg’s Three Pieces, because I wrote the extensive notes about them in the BSO program book; I have already published two long and thorny analytical articles which anyone is welcome to fight through on my website at www.tufts.edu/mdevoto/DreiOrch-English.pdf and www.tufts.edu/mdevoto/MarcheMacabre.pdf .  The Three Pieces, dating from 1914-1915, are among the most complicated and difficult works ever written for orchestra; they are rich in extraordinary imagination, with wonderful, visionary musical ideas that often can’t be heard at all.  For these reasons they are seldom performed, but just a month ago I heard them expertly played by the New York Philharmonic directed by Alan Gilbert, and there’s no doubt that despite their daunting difficulty for performers and audience alike, they will endure.  Last night’s stunning performance was eloquent testimony to how much James Levine loves this music, how well he was able to communicate this love to the players, and how much of the Three Pieces’ terrible complexity he was able to transmit to the audience.

I looked for a few special details, trivial in themselves but perhaps useful for specialists.  First, although Berg’s revised version calls for the first trombonist to play the tenor trombone, I was relieved to see that the nearly impossible high E-flat in the Präludium was played on an alto trombone, as the original version of the score specified; Stravinsky called this “one of the noblest sounds Berg or anyone else ever caused to be heard in an orchestra.”  Another small detail: the “heavy hammer with nonmetallic sound” that Berg asked for turned out to be a long-handled gavel that looked like a croquet mallet.  (Mahler wrote for the same kind of hammer in the finale of his Sixth Symphony.  This is hardly surprising, because Berg’s third piece, the Marsch, seems directly inspired by that Mahler symphony.)

Strauss’s Four Last Songs, composed in 1948 when the composer was 84 years old — he outlived Mahler by 38 years, Berg by 13 — were his farewell to the world.  But whereas his Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings, completed in March 1945, are an in memoriam of despair for his own beloved Germany that lay in ruins at the end of World War II, the Four Last Songs are an old man’s tender reflection and love for what had been a richly varied life.

Maestro James Levine applauds Renee Fleming following Mahler's Symphony No. 4 (Michael J. Lutch)

Renee Fleming’s performance, bold and sensitive at the same time, brought out the fine poetic subtleties of Hermann Hesse’s and Josef von Eichendorff’s romantic texts.  The orchestral accompaniment could not have been more fitting; James Levine had perfect control of every moment.  One could perceive Strauss’s undiminished mastery not only of expressive tonal harmony, freely chromatic in connecting distantly-related triads, but also of the unerring orchestral sense that he had acquired from the ground up as a teenager and as a lifelong conductor around central Europe.  From time to time I have rudely suggested that Richard Strauss seldom took the opportunity to write one note if 200 could be made to do the same job.  But in these peaceful and reflective last songs, every note tells.  Most commentators remark on Strauss’s recall, in the final song, of the Transfiguration theme from his early tone poem Tod und Verklärung (1889).  This was plain enough, and satisfying, but what I especially loved was the music depicting the two larks: two piccolos playing soft trills in their lowest, most delicate register.

Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, completed in 1901, is the least typical of his nine completed symphonies.  Except for the First Symphony in its revised version, the Fourth is Mahler’s shortest symphony; its instrumentation asks for expanded woodwinds and percussion but unlike all his other symphonies has no trombones or tuba, and thus is closer in spirit to the eighteenth-century orchestra of the later Haydn, and by extension Beethoven and early Schubert, that the genial and sometimes rustic melodic style of the first movement suggests.  Mahler’s characteristic use of chamber-music styles in the orchestra, where so many players have prominent solo roles in a carefully balanced sound, is apparent throughout the entire symphony, but especially in this first movement.  As Joseph Auner mentioned in his pre-concert talk, the movement is in sonata form, but one could never call it a conventional sonata form — the Exposition and its repeat are easy enough to distinguish, and the second-theme key change, but beyond that the outlines are blurred with sublime ingenuity.  There are at least a dozen important motives (Schoenberg’s pupil Erwin Stein remarked about this movement that Mahler “shuffles the themes like a pack of cards”) that are constantly developed in every section of the movement.  The Development section itself is quite long and ends shortly after the biggest climax in the movement but Mahler intentionally runs it into the Recapitulation by overlapping and distorting the expected beginning.  The listener needs to search in the complex orchestral sound for the opening staccato flutes and sleigh bells, which are superposed on some of the strangest counterpoint Mahler or anybody else ever wrote.  (For those with a score in hand, look for the fifth bar after no. 17.)  The Recapitulation is beautifully developed even while it is significantly shortened to just the right proportions.  James Levine approached the last two pages of the Coda by holding back the tempo very close to the point of collapse — the score is marked Langsam (slow) followed by molto ritenuto, and then a tempo — Sehr langsam und etwas zögernd (somewhat hesitating); it’s not as though Mahler didn’t ask for such dangerous breadth, although he did also mark it Grazioso.  As for the general tempo of the movement, every recording I’ve heard has very close to the same tempo that Levine used last night — and we remember that Mahler, after his very earliest works, never included metronome markings.  Something about this, at least, has been well understood in the past 99 years.

For the second movement, a strange Scherzo in 3/8 meter, the concertmaster, Malcolm Lowe, followed Mahler’s explicit directions in using another violin, kept on the bench at his side, for the Devil’s solos — the score stipulates that this violin have all four strings tuned up a whole step to make it sound “like a cheap fiddle,” and the exaggerated accents, bowings and dynamics contributed in like manner to the overall style.  Mahler certainly must have heard Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre but this devilish scherzo is much more subtle.  One could spend many hours analyzing the complex C minor harmony with its abundance of augmented triads that don’t seem to resolve properly.  (It’s too bad that Debussy probably never heard this work.  Apparently his only contact with Mahler was in 1910, when he walked out of the Second Symphony.)  I could go on and on about the amazing orchestral subtleties of just this movement, including the constantly-exploited differences between high- and low-register horns (the former alternately singing and boisterous, the latter serious and even sinister), the punctuational roles of the harp and timpani, the solo-string sounds that reappear and disappear (there is even one moment for a solo string quartet).

I was interested to read that Mahler felt that the third movement of the Fourth was his finest slow movement.  Certainly it is the dramatic centerpiece of the symphony, with the most deeply felt melodic expression.  Beginning with pp divided violas and cellos, the melody slowly moves upward, then into the second violins (seated on the right of the stage, as they must have been in Mahler’s own orchestra); as a single oboe joins the strings in the middle of the texture, the first violins enter and soar all the way up to high D as the horns and bassoons support the middle of the texture — this is a first glimpse of the “Joy in Heaven” to which the entire symphony pays homage.  The overall form has been called a double variation form, in two keys, G major and E minor, and in this regard it goes far beyond what was its likely model, the slow movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.  After a series of highly developed variations in alternation, the meter changes from 4/4 to 3/4 as the G major theme is resumed, and then “without the slightest preparation, suddenly the new tempo,” Allegretto subito — nicht eilen (don’t hurry), in 3/8 meter, as abruptly the style of the second movement appears, though it was left behind fifteen minutes earlier.  It continues pp for 25 bars, and then we are seemingly in the first movement once more, Allegro subito, 2/4 meter, staccato woodwinds, muted trumpets and triangle like a Schrammelmusik orchestra, then Allegro molto with added glockenspiel and a sudden crescendo to ff that just as suddenly dies down to the original Ruhevoll (Poco adagio) slow tempo.  The long movement is gradually easing into a G major close; but then there is an explosion, an enormous E major triad, fff, for no apparent reason.  In the middle of it, the trumpets and then the horns blaze out a pair of motives from the first movement.  The outburst is short-lived, and the movement gradually dies away (pppp) in the “heaven-reaching” top register of violin harmonics, on a D major harmony, the dominant of G.

The finale follows immediately, beginning with a pp G major triad, like the resolution of all that went before in the slow movement.  Mahler had written this eight years earlier, as a seventh movement of the already 90-minutes-long Third Symphony, and was wise to detach it.  Yet in constructing the entire symphony he knew that the final movement, a child’s vision of Heaven, had to be the culmination of three previous “earthly” movements.  Renee Fleming had sat impassively for three movements with arms folded before she could sing, and smiled at every felicitous turn of orchestral sound, but in the fourth movement she was able to get down to business, and her sound was as ravishing as it had been in the Strauss.  The score calls for her to be accompanied at all times extremely discreetly.  Mahler’s text, from the famous folk anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn, is preoccupied in three verses with all the good food there is to eat in Heaven.  (I disagree with Michael Steinberg’s translation of Fisolen as “string beans.”  The word is in none of my dictionaries, but when I got to Vienna in 1986 I found them as white beans — navy beans — at the Brunnenmarkt.  They are probably cognate with Italian fagioli.)  Once again the orchestration is sheer sorcery; to mention just one detail, when the oxen are being slaughtered for dinner, their cries for mercy are depicted by grace-note sighs in unison bass clarinet, very low horn, and solo double bass (in the line just before, the slaughtered lamb cries out in the oboe, three octaves higher).  The most obvious cyclic connection with the rest of the symphony is the repeated notes in flutes with sleigh bells, as at the  beginning of the first movement.  (How many works by anyone, besides this symphony and Mozart’s German Dances K. 600/602/605, use sleigh bells?)

The heavenly dimension concludes the fourth movement with the setting of the last verse of text, whose subject is not food but heavenly music: “There is no music on earth that can compare with ours.”  “St. Cecilia and her relatives are excellent court musicians” brings back harmony that we heard before in the second movement, but here in 4/4.  And it is concluding verse that explains the big E major outburst of the third movement: the entire last section of the symphony is in E major, ppp, “very quiet and mysterious to the end,” all the way to the repeated low E in the harp, in unison with the double basses alone.  The voice begins the verse after four superb instrumental gestures at the end of a slow but steady orchestral prelude:

There is much more I could say about this incomparably rich and expressive performance but I’m just going to stop.

Mark DeVoto, musicologist and composer, is an expert in Alban Berg, also Ravel and Debussy. A graduate of Harvard College (1961) and Princeton (PhD, 1967), he has published extensively on these composers and many music subjects, most notably, music harmony.

The Cecilia, under the baton of Donald Teeters with Barbara Bruns at the organ, excelled at interpreting the works of Woodman. His music is grounded in a highly tonal sensibility with some extended harmonies that colorfully enrich the text. Furthermore, his text setting seemed to be of a different age, like many of the Renaissance composers, where the marriage of text and music are intricately bound together by a cohesive understanding of implied and explicit meaning. And the Cecilia beautifully portrayed these intricacies. Whether it be the stark transitions of homophony to heterophony to polyphony in Divinum Mysterium, or the concluding text of The Midwife’s Tale; where the words “child, born of sunlight, radiant, laughing, perfect, eyes flashing lightning!” seem to effervesce from the choir as if being spontaneously contrived as an act of creation or genesis. Which, incidentally, is the essence of the text and message conveyed by Woodman. And this is probably where the concert should have ended.

Yet, there are obligations to be met when it comes to Christmas concerts: carols familiar and new, foreign and native. This is where the Cecilia lost some of its luster. Besides the cursory mistake in the program that categorizes Silent Night as an English carol, not Austrian/German, other parts of the performance were not as compelling as the first half. Most of this came from the 16th-century Spanish carols. There was a certain amount of awkwardness with the singers who were simultaneously playing percussion instruments while singing. There were several times, especially in Rìu Rìu Chìu, where it was hard to find the beat in the music and Teeters (with the tambourine) would bring things back together. The Spanish pronunciation seemed a bit muddled throughout as well. This ambitious program probably could have used some trimming, most of which could have been a lot of the last half. It is great to see, however, that in its 134th season, the Boston Cecilia is dedicated to performing works of living composers. Yet, it is a precarious path to navigate a balance between performing what is familiar (especially with Christmas music) and premiering what is new.

C.A. Gentry, an Arizona native, is a composer and piano teacher in the Boston area, where he resides with his wife, son, and dog.

This year Musica Sacra is celebrating its 50^th anniversary, and though a “mere” half century may seem like a modest duration in the face of an organization (H&H) completing its second century, by the standards of the experience of any one singer (or audience member), 50 years is a long time for an organization to grow, develop, stabilize, and flourish — a period well worth celebrating. There is an additional reason for festivity on this occasion, because Musica Sacra’s highly regarded director, Mary Beekman, is also celebrating 30 years at the head of the ensemble — an experience scarcely unknown among Boston’s durable cast of leading choral conductors, but nonetheless worthy of special attention.

To begin its 50^th season, Musica Sacra chose one of the best-loved works of the romantic choral repertory, Johannes Brahms’s German Requiem, the work with which Brahms himself first attained a general success, and one that quickly became a standard repertory work for chorus and orchestra.  Since Musica Sacra has  always been a chorus of moderate size (27 members were listed in the program for this concert), the organization chose to invite the somewhat larger Boston Cecilia (47 members, of whom one was a member of both groups) to join them in the performance with orchestra.

The program for the afternoon also included two works for unaccompanied chorus, presented as “Before” Brahms and “Beyond” him.  These two short pieces, taking up less than a quarter hour of performing time, opened the program (with the orchestra offstage); then, after a short break to bring on the orchestra, the Brahms work continued without intermission.

The opening piece was a special touch:  A setting of the same text that Brahms set in the last movement of the German Requiem in an a cappella version by one of his greatest forebears, Heinrich Schütz. Brahms, one of the most historically knowledgeable of composers, certainly knew the Schütz setting, which might, indeed, have suggested the Biblical passage (Revelation14:13) for his own work. It was performed elegantly by the Musica Sacra singers, with a fine balance of voices and a clear, expressive presentation of the text.

Then the Musica Sacra singers were joined by the Boston Cecilia singers for a modern choral work sung unaccompanied, Sleep, set by the young composer Eric Whitacre, who has in recent years composed a series of choral works of lush, expressive harmonies and rich choral sonorities. The extraordinary blend of the voices gave luminous expression to Whitacre’s harmonic colors.

The pièce de résistance of the afternoon was marked by the same qualities of clarity, balance, and expression. From the opening movement’s “Selig sind, die da Leid tragen,” the singers shaped their lines with superb attention to the composer’s demands with regard to swelling crescendos and diminuendos, which can look finicky  on the page, but which bring the phrases vividly to life when presented as naturally as they were here. A minor quibble in the opening movement was that the small number of lower strings offered a slightly frail sonority from Brahms’s calm opening measures (the violins—a larger group—are silent until the beginning of the second movement).  But once the entire orchestra was taking part, the balance worked better and supported the chorus very creditably.

Mary Beekman presented an overall shaping of the work’s feeling of motion, from the weary, dragging sound of the second movement’s lament that “all flesh is as grass” to the very energetic explosion of the “last trumpet” in movement six, bringing with it the exciting, high-energy cry “Death, where is your sting?” Along the way baritone Dana Whiteside was suitably urgent in the tense anticipation of death and the last judgement (in the third and sixth movements), while Emily Hindrichs floated the long-breathed, high soprano lines of the movement that Brahms added in memory of his own mother after completing the rest of the piece, and she did so with superb (and welcome) diction.

The closing measures of the score (which echo the very opening, though  now with the full orchestra and brighter lyricism, brought the afternoon to a touching, tranquil conclusion, that led — after an extended moment of breathless silence from the audience — to a thoroughly well-deserved round of applause.

Steven Ledbetter, a free-lance writer and lecturer on music, was program annotator for the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1997. He is a graduate of Pomona College and got his PhD in Musicology from New York University.

In April, 1851, Harvard Musical Association issued a circular soliciting from the public and its membership commitments of funds to build a grand music hall seating 3,000 people. Sixty days later, $100,000 had been raised— much from the HMA Directors and members. The Boston Music Hall opened on November 20, 1853 with a miscellaneous benefit concert dedicated to raising monies for a Great Organ.

Jabez Baxter Upham, president of the Boston Music Hall Association and Treasurer of the Harvard Musical Association, spent the next several years campaigning on behalf of acquiring “the greatest organ in America” for the Boston Music Hall. His exploratory trips to Europe convinced him that the firm of E. F. Walcker of the Kingdom of Wurtemberg should build the great instrument. The firm, Herter Brothers of New York, was chosen to construct the heroic and magnificent casework of American Walnut.

On November 2, 1863, the largest organ in America was introduced to the press and public in one of the the greatest musical media events of 19^thcentury Boston. This is the account from Dwight’s Journal of Music:

Dwight’s Journal of Music

Boston, Nov. 14, 1863

Completion of the Great Organ-A Week of Musical Festivities.

The “Great instrument,” complete now in majesty and beauty, and flooding the Music Hall with harmony, has swept into its strong, sonority currently nearly all the musical interest of the past week or two. The subject is so much more interesting than any other that can just now come unto us, and is at the same time so large, as to almost monopolize our columns. In spite of ourselves, therefore, and at the risk of being called the organ of the Organ, we make this an Organ number of our paper. We have first of all to put on record the incidents of the Inaugura­tion, which embraced a whole week of festivities, public or private, musical or social. And this precludes the continuation in this number of our formal description of the Organ, which has al­ready run through two numbers–we shall re­sume that in our next. The first and in some re­spects the most remarkable of these experiences was

THE “PRIVATE TEST.”

This occurred on Saturday evening, Oct. 31, in the presence of the subscribers and the stock­holders of the Music Hall Association, members of the city government, and other invited guests, numbering about a thousand gentlemen. Never were hospitable doors besieged with greater ea­gerness. A huge green curtain was all that met the first inquiring glance toward the stage end of the hall, veiling the great instrument in mystery:-shall we be allowed to see the wonder, or is the sense of hearing to be the only test at present? Meanwhile all eyes are wandering with pleasure over the renovated walls and ceil­ing of the hall, for years so dingy and discolored. Thanks to Mr. William J. McPherson, the well-known decorative painter, it is all clean and fresh and beautiful again, as if touched by magic. The tone of coloring is changed, and for the bet­ter. That delicate and rather timid roseate tint, that used to flush the walls with a faint sunset light, was beautiful, but, like the sunset, it had too soon faded out. Now, to harmonize the hall with the Organ, the walls have been made some­what darker and the ceiling lighter. In the words of the Advertiser,

“The groundwork of the diamond paneling in the ceiling has been changed to a sea-green color, with mouldings of buff and cream color, finished with a semi-circular gold-finish moulding, of high reflective power, and knotted, at the intersections, with hand­some rosettes of full gilt. The wall panels are finish­ed in brown drab as also is the niche wherein the statue stands. Heavy gilt mouldings have taken the place of the narrow strips before used and under the brilliant jets from the cornice serve very materially to diffuse the light throughout the hall, Much of the superfluous gilding about the doorways has been changed to the sober, serviceable drab; in this in­stance as in countless others which occur to the ob­server, betraying that mixture of good sense and just appreciation of the times to which the hall is to be de­voted, with a refined and artistic taste, which places Mr. McPherson’s name chief among those of his calling.

“The old and excellent system of lighting the hall by Cornice Jet is still adhered to, although a 2½-inch main pipe has been substituted for the 1½-inch in the lighting gallery. The burners are all new, and by the new pipe a supply of gas is at com­mand for the most brilliant display requisite for any occasion. Another and hardly less noticeable feature of the renovation is the reseating of the hall. The loss of room on account of the platform space taken by the Organ is amply compensated by bringing the gallery, which ran behind the first balcony, into the hall. This change, desirable for more reasons than one, allows the seats at the end of the balcony, heretofore on a steep incline to be placed on a grade uniform with other seats and other rows to be placed along with them. The clock has been removed to the sec­ond (upper) balcony-a little change producing a great effect on the general appearance of this end of the hall. The seats have been newly upholstered and covered with dark red enamel cloth. They are numbered by an entirely new set of porcelain plates….. The whole number of seats in the hall is 2,654……

“The system of renovation which has bestowed so much care and expense upon the hall proper has also extended to the entrance-hall, corridors, and ante-rooms.  New orchestral rooms, very convenient to the Organ, have been arranged, and the waiting and cloaking rooms enlarged, newly papered, painted, carpeted and furnished, and the lower rooms im­mediately connected with the upper by a circular stairway. In a word, every thing about the hall looks clean and fresh. The eye delights to dwell on the new arrangement of colors, especially in the even­ing, when they reflect the light with such clear splen­dor. Incongruous as the associations of delicate light coloring and gilt with a massive black-walnut structure may seem, the combination cannot offend the eye. On the contrary, the effect is so pleasing as to excite general admiration, as was the case on Sat­urday night.”

There was no set programme of the music. But while all were wondering and waiting and surveying the improvements in the hall, a soft strain arose behind the curtain-invisible, imper­sonal, as befits organ music-and rapidly grew into a sublime crescendo, and then sank and wan­dered on in sweet and careless voluntary,-no composition, to be sure, but fascinating and ex­citing for the time, as the first sounds from the great mysterious instrument must naturally have been. For a quarter of an hour or more, the au­dience sat listening, in the dim light, perhaps studying to make out the two cherub faces that seemed to have climbed to the top of the screen, and to be looking over upon us, when suddenly the gaslights flashed forth, and the curtain began slowly and majestically to descend, revealing first the full length of the cherubs with their gild­ed instruments surmounting the domes of the two central towers; then the chaste beauty of the ribbed and rounded domes; then the triple col­umns of huge silvery pipes, with St. Cecilia throned in beauty on the summit of the arch be­tween; and so little by little the whole breadth and grandeur of the superb façade, with its grand caryatids, its figures, heads, and wealth of carv­ings. As the rare symmetry and harmony devel­oped into wonderful completeness, a perfect music to the sight, a symphony in wood and metal, the silence of the rapt audience gave way to a mur­mur of delight; then round on round of applause swelled in a long crescendo with each new phase of the disclosure, all rising to their feet uncon­sciously. In the excitement of the scene, none saw how silently the fallen screen was gathered up upon the platform and conveyed away; it seemed as if it had vanished through the floor. From the work to the author; three cheers were called for, rousing ones, and given with a will, for Dr. J. B. Upham, to whose first suggestion, enthusiasm, wise and persistent energy, in the face of one may imagine how much incredulity and worse, for seven long years, the whole enter­prise, now crowned with such complete success, is mainly due.

The enthusiasm of that moment was as unique as it was perfect: the like thereof can hardly have been known before. It was a fresh and sudden inspiration; every body was surprised by his own feeling, and knew that every body shared it. The old world has many a great Organ built away into the architectural wildernesses of its great cathedrals; but was there ever an Organ cheered and clapped before in the assembly of the people? This outburst was in strange contrast with the reverent demeanor of churches, where organs hitherto have properly belonged; yet none the less was there religion in it ; for was it not in some sense a recognition of the divine, the hailing of a new triumph of our civilization, of a new type and instrument of that ideal harmony of a more free and perfect life, which is the aspiration of our institutions, never felt so keenly by the true American as in this hour of their peril and the new break of day!

After the applause had subsided, Mr. Morgan, organist of Grace Church, New York, was intro­duced and performed the “Tell” overture, giving an appetizing foretaste of the orchestral effects, the variety and contrasts of the many stops in the wonderful instrument; in short, gratifying the general curiosity to know its sounds, which probably was stronger at that moment than any pure­ly musical desire for organ music in the highest sense of Art. Mr. Morgan’s mastery of the in­strument, even with this short opportunity of studying its peculiarities, was striking and was much applauded. Dr. Upham, as President of the Music Hall Association and Chairman of the Organ Committee, then rendered a most appro­priate account of his stewardship, by reading the interesting Report, which we give in full in an­other part of this paper (with the last revisions of the author), of the seven years labor of the committee, with a history of the whole organ pro­ject up to this joyous hour of its completion. By this Report the Instrument was formally trans­ferred to the Music Hall Association, and the tenure of the property defined. The solemn charge conveyed in the closing sentences is in­deed an earnest dedication of the instrument to high and worthy uses, and in this spirit should be kept by those who have accepted it. No profa­nation of so grand an instrument; no un-artistic trifling, no courting of a low popularity, no mere mammon worship, with that which in its whole plan and structure, and by its grand outward presence, always suggests the high and the eter­nal. Dr. Upham was often interrupted by ap­plause, especially when he referred to persons who had rendered signal aid to the enterprise, and above all to Mr. Walcker, the builder, and his son, who sat upon the stage, who rose and modestly bowed during the enthusiastic applause at the mention of his name; also to Herr Sturm, his faithful foreman; to the younger Herter, the designer of the organ house, &c. One of the pleasantest features of the scene was to see this little group of Walcker and his workmen, Her­ter, &c., seated on the stage, a little apart from the group of Music Hall Directors. The artist spirit shone in the faces of these artisans,-that spirit which has reigned in every department, every detail of the work, from the beginning, and which is the surest guaranty that the Organ is a solid success, that it has more sweet and sterling virtues in it than the first week’s or the first year’s trials can bring out.

After the address, Mr. Lang played a sweet Andante of Mendelssohn, and a part of Rink’s flute concerto, tickling the ear of the curious. Cleverly and tastefully he did it; but so far there bad been no great organ music, nothing of that in which the organ is supreme. All this skir­mishing with fancy stops, orchestral imitations, &c., was well enough for such an informal occa­sion, when (as we have said) curiosity and not Art was the motive; but, if one thought of it, it was almost in flat contradiction with the earnest closing appeal of the President. One deeply mu­sical soon wearies of all the pretty fluting and mixing of tone-colors, merely to try effects, of all the sentimental solo-singing upon this stop and that stop, making a Vox humana of each one of them, and ear and soul begin to crave the grand, rich volume of the full organ, infinite and satisfy­ing as the ocean, rolling out the great thoughts of God, and swallowing in oblivion all the little wearying personalities of the smaller music. It was a comfort, therefore, when Mr. Paine un­stopped the full organ, and in strong and lusty tones with grand unfathomable basses, (such as those colossal pipes there promise), poured out the roaring, foaming, lifesome tide of Bach’s Toccata in D minor. Many at first may find the continued sound of the full organ confusing and monotonous but, depend upon it, the ear learns to love and crave such glorious great sonority; it cannot be too great, provided it be musical, its tones all pure, well blended and proportioned, as they here are.

Mr. Trayer, of Worcester, played a Marche Triumphale of his own, and Mr. Willcox, with his usual skill, which seems like an instinct, wove together various stops in pleasing combinations, part selected, part impromptu.

The evening ended with a general flocking of the company toward the stage, for a nearer ex­amination of the beautiful details of the work. They seemed a crowd of worshippers going up to a cathedral; and the bronze Beethoven looking down benignly in the very focus of all that archi­tectural beauty,-how beautiful he looked, seemed like the idol of their homage. [The Beethoven statue now stand at Jordan Hall]

We have already described the organ front so fully, that we need only notice a few added de­tails here. The mouths of the tin front pipes have been gilded; those of the six great ones in the towers have quaint, antique-looking singing faces, painted on a gold ground, the whole taking a shell-like shape. The spaces in the end tow­ers (hereafter to be filled each by a large pipe), were covered by an ornamental device for the time being,-a series of circular shields contain­ing the opening lines from Dryden’s Ode to St.Cecilia:

From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony

The universal frame began, &c.

The middle space behind Bach, over which the St. Cecilia sits, was dressed with the flags of Wurtemburg and the United States, a gold wreath over Bach’s head, &c., but this space will be better filled when its destined pipes arrive. The whole, however, is quite tasteful as it stands. And so passed a most delightful and unprecedented evening. All went away ex­tremely pleased with what they had seen and heard of the great Organ, eagerly hoping to hear more.

THE INAUGURATION.

The great occasion, the long expected formal opening, took place on Monday evening, Nov. 2. The tickets at three dollars (it might safely have been five) had been rapidly sold, with the understanding that the proceeds should go to the Organ fund; and the Hall was completely filled with such an audience as only fine occasions can assemble, remarkable for character, distinction, beauty, fashion and fine dress­es. Organists and music-lovers from almost every State were present. The great green curtain, as be­fore, withheld the desire of all eyes until the appoint­ed moment; nor was the expectation of the ear much piqued or gratified by the weak strains that oozed lazily forth from the veiled oracle. There was no pretense of really playing, or of showing off the in­strument, it was simply to fill the time while people waited; had it been ever so good, it would have still been a mistake, because an organ voluntary, before a whole concert of organ music, can only be like eat­ing while one waits for dinner. Silence had been better, until the proper time for music; the rambling and superfluous prelude brushed some of the bloom off from the fine fruit significantly grouped together in the programme.

The Ode “by a lady of Boston” (now understood to be Mrs. James T. Fields) came not more providentially than did the gifted, noble woman who recited it, upon the very eve of her return to Europe. Miss Cushman’s delivery was fervent, graceful and impressive, entering heartily into the elevated thought and spirit of the poem. Plainly the Organ load inspired the poem; its “lofty rhyme” was “builded” with enthusiasm, with a fine, if an untutored, sense of the significance and the grand uses of the instru­ment, fitly connecting it with the social destiny of our free nation. Such an ode would do honor to a much more practised and distinguished authorship; with all its inequalities occasional weak lines, and so forth, we think, with a writer in the Transcript, that it is, “in poetic conception and expression, far superior to the great majority of similar productions in England and the United States,” in the qualities of structure and imaginative poise and verbal expression of high thought conspicuously excellent.” But the best about it is, for that occasion, that the poem finds to much of poetry in the labor which planned and built the Organ, that it appreciates the organ in its wide relations “Circle into circle breaking, Wider circles still awaking,” &c; that it demands that it be kept true to the dignity and grandeur of its design, and that only the earnest artist use it in Art’s pure, soulful, self-forgetting service.

Let the musician come,

Fresh from that star where Genius has its home,

Whose sympathetic soul ways like the wind-swept grain,

To human-joy or pain.

And yet no passions trample to their base control.

And thus was this notable instrument once more con­secrated by this Ode to earnest uses as it already was by the earnest appeal at the close of the President’s report; as it was by the earnest character of the musical programme of the inauguration; as it is by the grand bust of Bach forever looking earnestly out from the centre of his house, by the earnest style of the organ architecture, by the earnestness of its entire design and of all the thought and labor that have pa­tiently produced it.

The Ode was thus the formal, earnest act of con­secration; for true effect, the earnest music should immediately have followed. But the dramatic stir-price, which at this moment intervened, while it was a disturbing element so far as the opening of the stately music was concerned, was interesting in itself, as well as rendered necessary for certain reasons.- After Miss Cushman had sealed herself amid vigor­ous applause, screened behind the immense bouquet presented by the President, soft strains again rose from within the Organ, swelling louder and louder as the curtain slowly descended in the came manner as before; and there was unbounded demonstration of enthusiasm, ladies waving their handkerchiefs (though it was not in the nature of things that such a pitch as that of Saturday could be reached twice), and Herr Friedrich Walcker was seen seated at the keyboards. Being led forward and introduced to the audience by Dr. Upham, amid most loud and cordial greeting he modestly declined to do more than touch a few chords on the organ, not deeming himself an organist and having been induced to do this little rather in the sense of accepting a just compliment as representing the builder, end of simply drawing a few sounds from the finished instrument in the act of formally delivering it to those for whom it had been made. We are careful to say this, in justice to Mr. Walcker  because some of the correspondents of New York newspapers have stupidly and cruelly entered into criti­cism of his performance, when no “performance” was pretended or intended, more than the modest little that was done.

As Mr. Walcker rejoined the little group of his associates upon the stage, the powerful rays of an electric light were thrown upon the organ front, bringing out much of its detail with great clearness. The effect was startling, brilliant, but disturbing to the more important portion of the musical exercises which then came to order. Even the un-screening of the organ at that moment was somewhat fatal to true musical enjoyment, which requires silence and a quiet state of mind. But now all was flutter and excite­ment, all were wondering and exclaiming at the glo­rious sight so suddenly revealed, pointing out its beauties one to another, and so forth all which would have had its hour and have subsided, had the front been visible from the beginning. But now this dazzling, unquiet, tremulous light was a new and on irresistible distraction, and it lasted long enough to render the larger part of the audience insensible to more than the mere sound of the whole first part of the music, which was all by Bach the master of masters in the true organ music-the fittest of all music to follow immediately upon the Ode in this solemnity, and constituting par excellence the musical consecration of the great instrument. Not until that nervous jack-o’lantern got its quietus, did the mass of the audience really begin to listen and appre­ciate. Such effects should he reserved to the end of a programme; on a musical occasion let sight-seeing wait the convenience of hearing.

Amid these disturbing circumstances it was that Mr. Paine, in his quiet and sincere artist spirit, with reverence for the organ and the master and the task, sat down to play the Toccata and the Sonata Trio. Those who knew how good it was and therefore lis­tened were pleased and edified. They did not find the Toccata all a great roaring and fatiguing noise, but felt its mighty inspiration, its refreshing grandeur, its inexhaustible suggestion as of the ocean roiling in upon the beach. Nor did they hearken so indifferent­ly and so obtusely as to confound the Trio Sonata in their memory afterwards in one unremitting blare of full organ with the Toccata-calling it all “fugue” too-when in fact the Sonata was played on soft stops, with alternation and contrast of voices, as well use of tempo in else several movements. The only fugue, strictly speaking, was the glorious G minor played by Mr. Thayer, which made the proper bal­ance and finale to the appropriate trilogy (so to speak) of great works of Bach. Both of these young ar­tists acquitted themselves admirably, the latter doing credit to himself and to his teacher who preceded him.

Part II was more miscellaneous, although many of the smart newspaper reporters have complained of the whole programme as “heavy,” they betting only on the “light weights.” But what was the main de­sign of the programme what was the meaning of the whole occasion? The music was not chosen, nor ought it to have been chosen, with mere regard to the momentary entertainment. The object was to inaugurate the organ, to pledge and consecrate it to its high and noble uses, to sound, as it were, the key­note of its central purpose, of its future influence for good, from which it frequently may modulate to light­er variations but to which it must remain ever loyal and continually return. It was not built for a hand-organ. The programme, therefore, was so selected as to be worthy of the Occasion, interpretative of the true worth of this new possession, and such as night he read with pride hereafter in the story of our Or­gan. It was not made to amuse, nor to gratify mere curiosity about new sounds and stops, nor to show off the skill of the performers or institute any comparisons  between them nor to provoke encores, nor to try to beat the fashionable virtuosos and “monster” concert” givers at their own poor game; but it was made so as to interpret the principal worthy schools of organ music, so far as available organists and time and opportunity admitted of it, and, above all, to reveal something of the proper grandeur and beauty of the Organ in its impersonality. And it is much to the honor of the organists on that occasion that they so cheerfully and reasonably consented to merge their own personalities in the unity of that design, forget­ting themselves in the 0rgan and its great mission, not thrusting themselves between it and the people. This they did so truly, that criticism of their individual performances is out of place. Suffice it to say that every one did his work well, and every one gave pleasure, just in proportion as he was truly listened to. One more to one class and one more to another o’ course, according to the various tastes and culture of an audience rather too fashionable to partake of the musical leaven so generally as we sometimes find on more everyday occasions.

Mr. Morgan tolled out the great 32-foot basses with superb effect in those  ”Israel in Egypt” chorus­es, and had to answer to an irresistible recall. This again disturbed the programme and more than it need have done, had he simply responded with another piece of Handel, at once in keeping and in contrast with what he had played–for his part was indeed too short; but the introduction just there of the “Star Spangled Banner” with fantastic variations with the Fourth of July illumination of the flag and the outburst of patriotism in the wrong place made all confused and heterogeneous artistic unity seas gone beyond recovery, fluttered away like frightened birds. And yet again he was recalled and played. No wonder the people were delighted with the brilliant execution; he is the most experienced and clever master of the instrument we have, perhaps, and he does all goodnaturedly and tellingly; it was not his fault but the public’s, if he had to overstep the proprieties of the occasion. Mr. Lang’s choice of stops in the Mendelssohn Sonata was most appropriate and re­vealed rare beauties in the organ as well as in the composition; it was richly enjoyed. Dr. Tuckerman had for his task to discourse a little of the music of the grand old Italian church school and of the old English school which builds upon it; pieces not written for the organ, but yet in the organ spirit. Although he had just risen from a long illness, his favorite music did not suffer in his hands. The Offertoire performed so admirably by Mr. Willcox had more of thought and serious purpose in it than most of the French music and was a very effective specimen of that school. It served well his particular talent for contrasting and combining various stops; the leading melody several times recurring showed how finely characteristic are some of the tones of the new organ, as the flutes, the softer reeds (hautboy and bassoon, Vox angelica &c. ), and the firm, ringing quality of thee trumpet in the great organ. Mr. W. also was encored. His is the art to mix stops as the painter mixes and tries colors on his palette. What he did was done gracefully and modestly. Handel’s “Hallelujah” made a fit and welcome close to an occasion, which, like some other great things, Niagara for instance, will be even greater in the memory hereafter than it was in the actual presence.

Almost all purely vocal music, some of the selections, including “Festival Te Deum,” involved the church’s historic Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ, played by Barbara Bruns. Soprano soloist Genevieve Hendrey showed a voice strikingly like that of a boy soprano: pure, clean, vibrato-free, a straight-on sound the church’s acoustics helped to broadcast. In Advent’s large space, over and above the organ and chorus, the tones she made pierced the air as you might expect on a cold winter’s night.

Donald Teeters commanded unordinary refinement of choral singing. This could be heard to great effect in the two variations from Britten’s “A Boy Was Born.” Throughout these wintry pieces, neat choral phrases depicting the “frosty wind made moan” swirled about the church. Soprano soloist Barbara Hill added her own chilling phrases shaped artistically and poetically.

Four vocalists including a countertenor make up Exultemus, founded in 2003 by Andover native Shannon Canavin. Their sound, too, was highly refined; “ringing,” is a term often associated with a kind of singing that this quartet pursues. The idea is to produce harmonies tuned in a certain way as to create overtones. (Barber Shop and its female equivalent, Sweet Adelines, are examples of vocal harmonies that have a special “ring.”) While Exultemus’ singing of the “Coventry Carol” demonstrated an early period type of ring often in ear-boggling fashion, it did so with little effect. A nuance to the word “raging” (“Herod the king in his raging”) was just not enough; the listener really had to go looking for it.

Not so with “Ther is no rose of swych vertu.”  Dance rhythm in quick triple time and repetition of phrases seemed to have served as a springboard for this group’s achieving real physical movement, if not a larger sense of what we know as the musical experience. This was a festive, accessible performance.

As with winter in New England, so did these many Christmas songs finally begin to take their toll. That feeling of cabin fever and of wanting a change kept creeping in. Not that there were not beautiful sounds everywhere, but that there were not enough colors in the singing, not enough drama, or life, in a word.  The finely tuned sonorities with their smoothly contoured melodies became too much. What seems to have been forgotten in the pursuit of artful singing is what we, the listeners, really depend on and that is feeling.

The Boston Celia returned to complete the program with more moderns. Walton’s “What Cheer” and Vaughn Williams’ festive “Wassail Song” again showed the precision and passion for singing these talented and devoted voices enjoy. I sensed, though, that the audience, while fully appreciating their formidable accomplishment, nonetheless felt its own unfamiliarity with the a cappella format and perhaps even more so with the early period music of the likes of Taverner, Tallis and Byrd.

This celebration of Christmas took the ear to the sublime. I am afraid, though, at times it did not reach the heart or spirit to carry us away or, at least, to help us find our way.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and Chairman of the Department at U. Mass Boston for the past 15 years, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award in Teaching and the Chancellor’s Distinction in Teaching Award. Also a composer, he lives in Watertown.

The first half was not without its moments.  The concert opened with a grand fanfare featuring the works: organ, brass, full choir – a massive, intense sound that filled the church.  Second on the program was the well known Christmas favorite, but with a refreshing twist:  Philip Brunelle’s innovative arrangement of Coventry Carol was filled with interesting diversions from the traditional harmonies – a far more beautiful (and difficult) version, performed a capella with elegance.  Guitarist John Muratore took the spotlight for a couple of solo numbers, then accompanied the choir for Alf Houkom’s The Rune of Hospitality, with a notable performance from both the choir and the instrumentalists.  Gabrieli’s Sonata Pian’ e Forte featured a wildly out-of-tune brass section, which managed to pull together for the William Mathias’s A Babe is Born, which featured a wonderful blend of organ, brass, and voices.  The more rhythmically complex and contrapuntal moments of the piece tended unfortunately to get lost in the reverberation of the church.

After intermission the Brass ensemble performed another work of Gabrieli, opting for the rich sound of modern instruments.  Gabrieli’s Canzon Septimi Toni No.2 was an impressive performance.  The true highlight of the evening was Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, an extremely difficult piece sung with the utmost regard for contrast, shifting with seamless control from the most delicate to powerful passages.  Multiple soloists were featured, but soprano Robyn Sanderson and bass Dana Whiteside truly stood out. Above a fairly dense texture of voices for most solos, even in the 20th century repertoire, Sanderson’s unwavering voice cut through the ensemble with a sense of haunting beauty – a captivating performance, and a voice that really delivers the post-bel canto sound.  Whiteside’s performance was equally powerful, reverberating the church with stentorian tone and sending chills throughout the audience.

Two pieces by Daniel Pinkham were featured on the second half.  The first, A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, was a bit disorienting.  The piece, though sung with accuracy and sensitivity, shifted between a generally modern sounding form of extended-tonality supported by the organ, and a completely different idiom of more “choir-friendly” music.  The result was much like listening to a conversation in two different languages.  The piece did provide many moments of interesting music, and signifies a respectable inclination towards adventurous programming. Soprano soloist Laura Serafino Harbert  delivered a noteworthy performance.  The second piece by Pinkham, To St. Cecilia, was much easier to swallow, but not quite as memorable.

The final piece, Norman Dello Joio’s To Saint Cecilia, was largely a setting of the same text as the first (and later composed) Daniel Pinkham piece A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day. It might have been more interesting to hear these pieces directly next to each other on the program, as they both displayed two very different interpretations of the 1687 text by John Dryden.  The Dello Joio, both intriguing and impressive, closed the concert with pertinent and powerful lines:

“The dead shall live, the living die,

And Music shall untune the sky.”

Peter Van Zandt Lane is a composer and bassoonist who performs regularly in the Boston area. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Music Composition and Theory at Brandeis University.

Granted, the quartet has gone through quite a few personnel changes since it was founded in 1969, and only one of its original members, the violist Kazuhide Isomura, is still with the ensemble. Second violinist Kikuei Ikeda joined in 1974, cellist Clive Greensmith arrived in 1990, and founding first violinist Koichiro Harada was replaced by a succession of players: Peter Oundjian (1981), Andrew Dawes (1995), Mikhail Kopelman (1996), and the current leader, Martin Beaver (2002). Judging by what we heard this night, the quartet has lost none of its trademark clarity and precision.

Their program opened with Haydn’s String Quartet in G major, op. 76, no. 1. Haydn started writing quartets as a young man in his 20s, and he didn’t stop until 1803, at the age of 71, when he composed part of the String Quartet in D minor, op. 103. Failing health prevented Haydn from completing this work, and when it was published in 1806 with only two movements, he asked them to print a reproduction of his visiting card at the end. The words on that card, which come from Haydn’s own song Der Greis (The Old Man), are particularly fitting: “Gone forever is my strength, old and weak am I.”

In opus 76, no. 1, however, we find Haydn in full command of his genius and abilities, and the Tokyo String Quartet rose to the occasion. The quartet was particularly impressive in the final movement, playing Haydn’s surprising pauses and melodic and harmonic shifts with refinement and a subtle sense of humor. There were, however, a few unintentional surprises.  One was an occasional lapse in intonation, something that happens to all of us who are human. Of greater concern, however, was the lack of a consistent legato and sustaining power in Mr. Beaver’s bow arm. This often caused him to be overbalanced by the other members of the quartet.

The second work on the program was to have been Bartok’s fifth string quartet, but instead we heard Beethoven’s String Quartet in G major, op. 18, no. 2. The decision to replace the Bartok was completely understandable: Mr. Isomura had undergone surgery in San Franciso only the week before to repair a partially detached retina, and it is difficult enough to play the “Bulgarian” rhythms of 4-2-3 and 3-2-2-3 in the Scherzo of the Bartok with two good eyes!

The quartet’s performance of the Beethoven was energetic and powerful, although a bit too straight-ahead for my tastes. One might have hoped for a bit more passion and freedom, and a better sense of the architectural elements and rhetorical gestures that make a Beethoven work so meaningful. Nevertheless, Mr. Isomura’s skills seemed undiminished by his surgery, and the cello playing of Mr. Greensmith was exquisite, in this work and throughout the concert.

The program concluded with a spirited performance of Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in D major, op. 44, no. 1, written in 1838. This was a happy and peaceful time in Mendelssohn’s life, especially because he had just married his wonderful wife Cécilia, and a decidedly classical feeling pervades many of his works from the period. No longer do we hear the soaring melodic lines and youthful romantic exuberance of the Octet for Strings in E-flat major, op. 20 or the overture to Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 21. In the String Quartet, op. 44, no. 1 the opening melody spans only a tenth and is written in three symmetrical phrases of four-bar units. It is as if, to quote the noted Mendelssohn biographer Larry Todd, “Puck has matured…into a respectable complacent Bürger.”

Mark Kroll, a harpsichordist well known to Boston music audiences, has toured extensively as performer, lecturer, and leader of master classes in Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East. He has an extensive discography and list of publications. His website is www.markkroll.com

VALEDICTORY

This is the last appearance of the Journal of Music which has so long borne our name. For needed rest, as well as to gain time for the solution of certain practical problems (out of which however, nothing has yet come), this post mortem number (so to speak, considering how many obituary eulogies and lessons it has called forth) has been delayed beyond our original intention. In the last number (July 16) we frankly gave the reasons for the discontinuance: namely, ‘that the paper does not pay, ‘but actually entails a loss upon it editor, and that said editor, conscious of his own shortcomings, is heartily weary of the struggle to keep the thing alive within such economical limits as render it impossible to make such a journal as he has desired.

The truth is, we have for some time been convinced that there is not in this country now, and never has been, any adequate demand or support for a musical journal of the highest tone and character. The last experiment of any praise, the Musical Review, established in New York less than three years ago, was unable to complete its second year. The musical papers that live and flourish financially are those that serve the interests of music trade and manufacture, and which abound in endless columns of insignificant three- line items of intelligence or news; the slang term “newsy” is a description which they covet. A journal which devotes itself to art for art’s sake, and strives to serve the ends of real culture, however earnestly and ably, gets praise and compliment, but not support.
Besides, such is the spirit of competition, that the moment a paper seems to be beginning to succeed, instead of concentrating forces upon it to build it up to self-sustaining strength, others, roused by its example, start some new and rival enterprise, dividing the support which might have gone to one really good, important journal, or to two or three good ones. When we began in 1852, there were barely three or four musical journals in this country. Now they count by the hundred, almost every important music-dealer publishing his own organ.

Again, when we began, musical literature of any consequence, in the English language, was extremely meagre. We had to translate largely from the German and the French, to furnish valuable matter for our readers. All this is changed. Musical writers, criticisms, biographies, histories, analyses of great musical works, abound. Especially has the attention paid to music in the daily and weekly press increased of late, while in their quality the newspaper criticisms show a very marked improvement. Musical journals as such, therefore, such as may have been indispensable to culture and the public taste some years ago, now naturally seem almost superfluous. So long as the average music-loving, or music-curious, citizen can read the notice of the last night’s concert, fresh and early, as he takes his buckwheats, smoking hot, over his breakfast-table, he is not apt to trouble himself to look into a specialist paper once or twice a month to keep him up to the true pitch of opinion. Of course it is useless for a slow, fortnightly journal, limited to eight pages, to compete with the daily newspaper in its speciality of news.

Then, too, there is no putting out of sight the fact, that the great themes for discussion, criticism, literary exposition and description, which inspired us in this journal’s prime, the master- works and character and meaning of the immortal ones like Bach and Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and the rest, although they cannot be exhausted, yet inevitably lose the charm of novelty. We have said our say about them all so often, and so fully, have preached so many sermons on these glorious texts, that it is hard to find anything new to say. What more can one write, for instance, about the five and sixtieth Christmas performance of the Messiah?—except to compare the singers, or to criticise the execution, and those are matters of but momentary consequence. In a few years it will be the same with the Passion Music of Bach. The thoughts we then insisted on from inmost conviction, with a zeal for inciting others to seek, and helping others to appreciate the divine power and beauty and great meaning of those inspired art creations, are now become the common property of all the world. Of course we never owned them, but we felt them and endeavored, somewhat successfully within a narrow, slowly widening circle to make others feel their truth. All true thought, truly stated, inevitably crumbles in the course of time into the smallest current coin. Lacking the genius to make the old seem new, we candidly confess that what now challenges the world as new in music fails to stir us to the same depths of soul and feeling that the old masters did and doubtless always will. Startling as the new composers are, and novel, curious, brilliant, beautiful at times, they do not inspire us as we have been inspired before, and do not bring us nearer heaven (in fact “the other place” is where some of them seem most at home!) We feel no inward call to the proclaiming of the new gospel. We have tried to do justice to these works as they have claimed our notice, and have omitted no intelligence of them which came within the limits of our columns, but we lack motive for entering their doubtful service; we are not ordained their prophet. If these had been enthroned the Dii majores of the musical Olympus, and there had been no greater gods: if the contributions of the past thirty years to musical production were the whole of music, we never should have dreamed of establishing a musical journal, nor would Music have been able to seduce us from other paths, in which, by persevering, we night possibly have done more good. It may be all a prejudice; perhaps we are one- sided; perhaps too steady contemplation of the glory of the great age has seared our eyeballs for the modern splendors; but we prefer to leave these and their advocacy to “whom it may concern.” Doubtless here is one secret of much of the indifference to this journal: the “disciples of the newness” feel that it has not been in sympathy with what they would call the new musical spirit of the times, and innocent inquirers take the cue from them. But we revenge ourselves with pointing to the unmistakable fact, that in the concert-giving experience of to-day, at least in Boston, the prurient appetite for novelty (new fashions) seems to have reached its first stage of satiety, and that programmes must in the main be classical to secure good audiences in the long run. If we in any humble way have helped to bring about this good result, we may at least feel that our labor has not been entirely thrown away.
But whatever may have been the causes of our failure to make this journal what it should be, we are disposed to find them mostly in the editor himself. We cannot endorse the too kind suggestion of the sympathizing writer in the Springfield Republican, that Boston, or that the musical public anywhere, has been “ungrateful” to us. Surely we can complain of no “ingratitude” on the part of the press; its treatment has been almost uniformly generous and appreciative; witness the “obituaries” we have copied, not omitting frank and honest strictures on our course. We have long realized that we were not made for the competitive, sharp enterprise of modern journalism. That turn of mind which looks at the ideal rather than the practicable, and the native indolence of temperament which sometimes goes with it, have made our movements slow. Hurry who will, we rather wait and take our chance. The work which could not be done at leisure, and in disregard of all immediate effect, we have been too apt to feel was hardly worth the doing. To be first in the field with an announcement, or a criticism, or an idea, was no part of our ambition; how can one recognize competitors, or enter into competition, and at the same time keep his eye upon the truth? If one have anything worth saying, will it not be as good to-morrow as to-day? A poor qualification for the journalistic scramble of this year 1881! Indeed we cannot scramble. And, far from making any boast of it, we must accuse ourself of great omissions and procrastinations not in accordance with the modern idea of an editor, even in the quiet field of Art. Yet somehow we feel that we have performed a considerable amount of labor, such as it was, in our day.
One of our frank contemporaries, whom we copy elsewhere, says that this has never been a “peoples’” paper. Yes, you have us there. To be a tribune of the people, in your sense, we never felt to be our mission. Non omnia possumus omnes. We do not believe in writing down to people. We have been perhaps too sensitively unwilling to insult the popular intelligence by thinking anything too good — any thought, or view of Art, or any music — for the average listener or reader. “State the best that there is in you and the great world will come round to you;” that, in effect, is the Emersonian maxim which has saved many an ingenuous young mind from renouncing its birthright. The few, the most appreciative (and they are not always the most technically prepared ones) must be reached first; what these see, feel and approve, will surely make its way to wider and wider acceptance. This at least has been the lesson of our life. Now if you begin with trying to ingratiate the general mass, “the people,” you are in danger either of talking baby talk to them, or of turning your art journal into a musical primer and A B C book, or of chopping everything up into that poor mincemeat (too often dogs’ meat) of small paragraphs and items, which so abound in many musical papers, and which catch the idle eye, but do not inform the mind; or of running into petty personalities, which may “spice” a paper, while they sink its dignity; or finally, you fall into the temptation of always striving after and proclaiming the exceptional, when wholesome daily bread is the thing most wanted. On this point we make our own confession without shame. In the lower stages of culture, the people, especially we Americans, are easily stirred up to “seek a sign,” to be on the qui vive for every so-called “big thing.” World’s fairs are on the brain, and threaten us so frequently that the exceptional spreads over all, and there is no room, time or thought left for the common. It tends to be all mountain with no valleys; all excitement, no repose; all exception and no rule. In music, too, we have our monster festivals and Peace Jubilees, each seeking to surpass the other by its unprecedented scale of magnitude, as if the measure of value were mere size. We have borne our share of satire and rebuke in times past for our cold response to such appeals. We think the world shows signs of coming round to our unpopular way of thinking. And we congratulate our Boston, at least, that she has outgrown such childish ambitions, and has settled down upon regular triennial oratorio festivals (like those of Birmingham and the Rhine cities), within the limits of artistic taste and common-sense.
It only remains for us to return our heartfelt thanks to our faithful and able contributors and correspondents, with all of whom it has been a labor of love, a service of sincere devotion to the good cause in music, to help us make the Journal useful and attractive. Some of these have stood by us from the first and proved themselves true friends. The same may be said of many of our subscribers. On their account especially it makes us sad to feel that the little bark, which they have helped so long to keep afloat, cheering our loneliness in the long work, must now go down before reaching the end of its thirtieth annual voyage. They have not the comfort, which we shall have, of a great sense of rest and freedom when the burden is rolled off from our shoulders.
But we do not despair of musical journalism. If it is impracticable within the narrow limits of a little one-man organ like our own, without capital, without the means of enlargement, and unwilling to avail itself of questionable and distasteful ways for gaining circulation, it is still possible that some day somebody will furnish the means for building up a journal upon a much broader foundation, with capital, with room for greater variety of matter in its columns, with means of commanding first-class paid contributors, and with not merely one to do all the editorial work, but with a corps of editors, each responsible in his department, and representing, it may be, various sides in some of the great questions, as of old and new school. Such a journal would absorb any rivals worth absorbing; it would have news enough, well-sifted news, in spite of the newspapers, while it could afford to treat at length, without fear or favor, questions of principle and taste in Art. All this combined under one experienced, catholic and comprehensive head, who need not feel always bound to write himself on every topic, would be a musical journal worth the while. It is essentially the plan suggested by our unknown warm sympathizer in the Springfield Republican. We doubt not it will come. Some music-loving millionaire, not content with guarantying orchestras and building splendid music-halls, will some day feel the need of a great, many-sided, high-toned musical journal. We may live to see it after the springs of active energy are dried up in ourselves. But Art is long, though life is short. And so we humbly take our leave.
John S. DWIGHT.

MUSIC IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

What follows was intended for the concluding portion of a chapter of Musical History prepped for the “Memorial History of Boston.” That chapter has grown to such unexpected length that much of it will have to be omitted for the present, leaving us free to give this portion in this final number of our Journal. It must be understood that this is history, and not criticism. We do not enter into any discussion of the mooted questions about Tonic Sol-Fa, “absolute pitch,” or the “movable Do.” We only aim to show what has been done, and show the promise of the future.
Let us step down for a moment from the heights and the high schools of art, from symphony and oratorio, and from the university, and watch beginnings in the very nursery. Let us look into the public schools, where singing has been taught on a progressive system, from the youngest primaries upward, both by rote and note, for at least forty years. This movement started rather vaguely to be sure, contenting itself at first with demonstrating that all children, with a very few exceptions, only enough to “prove the rule,” can be taught to sing. It was the assertion of a faith, rejected by our Puritan forefathers, in the musical nature of man. It has grown up into something which can properly be called a Boston institution; and if its principle is sound, the germ of a musical future is contained in it.
It dates back to the early days of the old Academy of Music, (1833—41), and to the impression made upon the mind of Mr. Wm. C. Woodbridge, by what he heard and saw in the schools of Germany and Holland, where vocal music was taught as one of the elements of common education. After his return to Boston he stated his experience and his conviction before a meeting of the friends of education. This was in 1830. In January, 1832, on the recommendation of a report made by the Chairman of the Primary School Committee, Mr. George H. Snelling, it was voted that the experiment should be tried in one school of each primary district. In 1836, in response to a memorial from the Academy, time School Committee voted to have music taught in four of the grammar schools, under the direction of the Academy. That meant practically under the direction of Dr. Lowell Mason, and according to the Pestalozzian, or inductive, method, first applied to music by Nägeli of Zurich, and embodied in Mason’s Academy Manual. For some time the brave resolution was not seconded by prompt and adequate municipal appropriations. But meanwhile Dr. Mason devoted himself with such zeal and tact, gratuitously, to testing the plan in a single school, and with such success, that it was voted to employ a salaried teacher of singing, for not more than two hours each week, in each of the grammar schools. This the Academy’s Report for 1839 declared to be “the Magna Charta of musical education in this country.”
So the work went on, under the personal instruction of Messrs. Mason, Webb, and others, steadily and slowly gaining ground, despite the intermittent faith and sympathy of new School Committees. In 1846, ten of the schools were assigned to Dr. Mason, and ten to Mr. B. F. Baker, as head music teacher.
In 1848, two half-hour lessons were required each week for every pupil; and in some schools the regular female teachers and ushers were so- far initiated into the method as to enable them to carry on the lessons between the visits of the musical instructors. Pianos also were provided. Vain efforts had been made for years to revive the attention paid to music in the primary schools, beginning at the root of the matter; for in the earliest years, almost in infancy, the ear should be made familiar with musical tones and acquire some practice both in singing and in reading them from notes, as a foundation for all further progress. Let the little child learn properly to sing even the simplest melody; let him identify each tone which he delights to hear and make with corresponding characters upon the staff, and with those syllables, numbers, letters which conventionally denote the relations of the tones to one another and to a common key-tone; let him feel every day the rhythmical delight of singing with his fellows in good time and tune; let him be led unconsciously to know concord from discord, to feel the beauty of a perfect chord, and to some slight extent to sing in parts with other voices, — and his interest in music is secured for life; he will grow up sensitive, attentive to the music made about him, even if he should not become much of a singer himself. This is the time for loosening the soil, so that any latent germs of native talent may find an outlet to the light. The older schools were taught at disadvantage until this preparatory period was provided for.
It was not until the first musical school festival held in time Music Hall at the close of the school year in 1858, that the true value of such an element in early education vividly impressed most of the believers in our public schools as the palladium of our free institutions. The lovely spectacle, together with the inspiring thrill of the united fresh and silvery voices of twelve hundred children, in cheerful songs, or in sustained tones of solemn chorals, brought the truth of the matter home to all present. Those annual festivals, due in a great measure to the forethought, zeal and organizing faculty of one member of the School Committee, Dr. J. B. Upham, grew more and more impressive year by year, and told of steady progress, so that it became an easier matter to secure the sanction of the whole committee and of Boston for complete and systematic measures. From that year (1858) a standing subcommittee on music, of five members, became a part of the annual distribution of functions in the school committee. Dr. Upham was the chairman of the five. It was ordered that two hours weekly’ should be given in each grammar school to singing, practice of notation, scales and reading simple music, under the teachers of the several districts, Messrs. Butler, Bruce and Drake. In the primaries there was to be singing at the opening and close of each school session, with what more might be thought expedient. Mr. Zerrahn was employed in the Girls’ High and Normal Schools, partly to the end of qualifying the pupils to teach music as well as the other usual branches.
We need not follow the wavering policy of successive school committees regarding both the musical instruction and the annual Festivals; these inspiring exhibitions have been greatly missed for seven or eight years past. More than once the work of years was undone by some uneasy change of measures, and hope deferred, though not discouraged.
At last, in 1864, a most important step was taken: the problem of musical instruction in the primary schools was met in earnest. A man appeared with the peculiar gift for such a task, possessed with the genius of love and patience for it, full of enthusiasm and unbounded devotion, full of invention, and with a remarkable tact for the adaptation of means to ends,—Mr. Luther W. Mason, whose labors in the schools of Cincinnati had attracted much attention. He managed soon to interest the smallest children. The casual visitor would find them singing naturally and sweetly, — nearly all of them — first simple tunes by ear or imitation, and gradually by note. He prepared useful charts, in large characters, containing the essential progressive exercises. He also had translated and printed in convenient little books the successive parts of “Hobmann’s Practical Course,” containing a progressive series of songs, duets, etc., as well as exercises, suited to the different ages of the children. A professor of gymnastics and of elocution was employed, so that the right posture of the body and the right way of breathing were made auxiliary to the production of a full, true, sustained tone. In one year Mr. Mason had established his system in 185 of the 250 primary schools. It was not long before they began to sing in parts of simple harmony, and to take delight in holding out the tones of a full chord. Essentially the same method was adopted and developed further in the grammar schools by Mr. Sharland, Mr. Holt, and others, who have shown astonishing results in the ease and certainty with which pupils read at sight, name the tones which the teacher or visitor bums to them or strikes on the piano, and even analyze a chord when struck. In the Girls’ High and Normal Schools, Mr. Eichberg, who for some years has held the position of superintendent of musical instruction in all the public schools of Boston, has carried the development still farther, so that it is really an artistic pleasure to hear his classes of young ladies, many of them destined to become teachers in their turn, sing from the choice collection of pieces in three and four part harmony which he has prepared for their use.
In 1868 Mr. Eichberg was commissioned to visit time schools abroad, and made an elaborate report upon the music teaching he had witnessed in Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Dresden, Frankfort, and Bavaria, to which was appended a very full list of suitable works for such instruction.
In 1870 a complete progressive course was mapped out, from the lowest primary to time highest grammar class. But the good work done in the Girls’ High Schools was not, and is not yet, extended into time English High and Latin Schools for boys. In the Vienna Exposition of 1873 the educational system of the Boston public schools was fully represented under the direction of Mr. John D. Philbrick, superintendent of Public Schools. Its his report he says: “The system of musical instruction in our schools, as represented by the last report of the Chairman of the Committee op Music, Dr. J. Baxter Upham, the programme for musical instruction in the different grades of schools, the musical text-books by Messrs. Eichberg, Sharland, Holt, and Mason, and especially the four series of musical charts by Luther W. Mason, was unanimously and emphatically declared by the able committee of experts on this subject to be the best in existence. The charts, which are the fruit of many years of labor and experiments by Mr. Mason, were regarded as vastly superior to everything else of the kind known to exist, and accordingly their author was honored by the award of a Medal of Merit.” At the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia (1876) these music charts and method were much admired by foreign visitors, especially by the Japanese Commissioners, whose glowing report to the educational authorities of their own government led to an invitation to Mr. Mason to introduce his system personally in the government schools of Japan. For several years, with every convenience placed at his disposal, lie has been teaching the young Japanese in Tokio to sing and read music according to our system, adding three notes to their imperfect scale, and with a success most gratifying to the Empress and the Japanese, but greatly to the loss of the primary schools of Boston, which now rely for musical instruction on the regular school teachers. We read, however, in the school report for 1872 that in the 335 primary schools there was rarely found a teacher not competent to teach elementary music.
Doubtless much remains yet to be done. Only ideally can the system be called complete. As practically embodied it is like those ancient maps, in which great regions, unexplored, are only vaguely outlined. Questions have arisen, and wavering policy has been pursued. Fits of municipal economy have interfered, if not destructively, at least obstructively. Indeed the whole method is in controversy still. Some would abolish staff notation, and have children taught upon the “Tonic Sol-Fa” plan; and there is outcry against what is called the “movable Do,” in practice in our schools from the beginning. With all these questions this history has no concern. Suffice it to say, that the teachers work in essential unity of principle and method, while each is free to test and follow out his own suggestions. What is certain is, that the lessons are progressive, while the teaching is objective. The child is led to recognize and feel the tones as mental objects (so Mr. Holt expresses it); while whatever of technical theory, or musical grammar, or arbitrary conventional signs and devices may be involved in the process, he gets it all unconsciously, as one learns to know the streets, with the shop signs, by often passing through and by them. He is not dumbfounded with theory, and with dry memorizing, before he has begun to know music, which would be like the old absurdity of acquiring English grammar, most abstract of studies, at the unmetaphysical age of early childhood.
Music in the schools has gone so far that it cannot go hack. Generations are growing up sensitive to musical tunes, knowing concord from discord, attentive to music when they hear it, interested in it, able to sing somewhat with pleasure to themselves and others, and to read simple music. What a contrast to the dearth of opportunity in those old Puritanic days when a child, had he the genius of a Beethoven in him, found not the slightest sympathy to call it out! Look on that picture, and on this. There pleasantness was sin, and the undying musical nature of man (as real as the religious, the intellectual, the social nature) was only part of the original depravity. Here you have stepped into a public school, say in one of the poorer quarters of the city, during the lesson by Mr. Holt, or Mr. Sharland, and you hear the singing and catch the quick, intelligent replies of class after class of girls of eight, nine, ten years old, whose pale complexions tell of homes of poverty in crowded lanes; this is the bright hour of their week; the hour of higher life and consciousness, of innocent delight and sense of a new power and freedom. And they gain more and more of this inspiring and uplifting resource as they pass through the older grammar and the High School classes, until they are prepared to be absorbed into the vocal clubs, and renovate the oratorio chorus with fresh voices and more skill in music than their fathers had. Surely we have made progress; and so long as we are faithful to our public schools, music, and music’s benign influence, will not die out among us.

BOSTON MUSIC HALL

Mr. Henry Lee Higginson, not content with giving us a fine orchestra and a series of twenty symphony concerts at cheap prices for the coming year, has further added to the public obligation by purchasing a controlling interest in our noble Music Hall. This ensures a new administration of the Hall and its restoration to the artistic uses for which it was originally intended. The following, from the Gazette, is right in sentiment, and will be read with interest.
We are only sorry that what is gained by the new entrance from Hamilton Place is to be offset to some extent by the closing up of the present covered passage-way through what was Bumstead Place, that right of way having been sold out to advantage, we are told. On the other hand we are assured that the new entrance will be much wider than the present one, and will afford more safety to a crowd in any panic that might be apprehended. Now could the narrow eastern corridor be widened, or at least gain a passage into Bromfield Street, the means of exit would be perfect!
But the greatest improvement still demanded in the Music Hall would be the reconstruction of the stage in permanent chorus seats rising amphitheatrically about the organ, whereby the Handel and Haydn and other choral bodies might rehearse in the same seats in which they were to sing before the public. This would require, of course, the bringing of the stage a little further forward and to a lower point in front, for it is still too high for that part of the audience who sit well forward on the floor. When not occupied by chorus, those seats would be excellent for audience in many kinds of concerts, especially to listen to and watch the fingers of a Rubinstein or a Joseffy. But now for the Gazette.
This noble building has long been a source of satisfaction and of pride to the musical public of our city. Its ample size and fine proportions, its convenient entrances, its seclusion from noise and from the garish light of day, its even temperature, perfect ventilation, its picturesque light, and above all its perfect adaptation for the proper effects of music, render it one of the first halls in the world. The orator standing in his place at one of the foci of the ellipse is heard by a full house in his natural voice without effort. The softest of the prima donna’s pianissimos or the lightest touch of the pianist is audible everywhere. The organ, too, has served important purposes. It has been a model for organ-builders, a perennial delight for audiences, and, what is more, it has furnished so-called jokers of other less fortunate cities with an unfailing topic for ridicule. When an editor has been hard up for a paragraph be has been able to tickle himself and those of his own calibre amazingly by some crack upon our “big organ.”
The conception of the Music Hall and its organ dates from a certain dinner of the Harvard Musical Association. The original subscribers had more thought of the public benefit than their own profit. They wanted a temple of musical art. Year by year it has been adorned, and it has now the noblest statue and some of the finest busts in America. It is also full of associations that touch the hearts of all cultivated people. The annual oratorios, the symphony concerts, the splendid civic balls, and the long series of vocal and instrumental performances by great singers and players, will be forever associated in the minds of the present generation with the Music Hall.
But high ideals and pure art are not often remunerative. Music, like poetry and virtue, must be its own exceeding great reward. When we plant our money for dividends we don’t project music halls; we would rather discover a new “Calumet and Hecla.” For many years the ball was not a source of profit. And to this fact was due a change in its management that let in the malodorous shows of unhappy dogs and cats, and the brutal set-tos of wrestlers and boxers. People who remember the high and pure idea for which the beautiful hall was created were sad at the thought that Beethoven and Bach, Handel and Mozart should look down upon scenes fitter for the blood-thirsty public of ancient Rome than for refined audiences in a cultivated city. The charm of the place was gone.
Then the proposed extension of Hamilton Place threatened to destroy the hall, and the controlling interest was in hands that could not hold it and were ready to give it up. The hall was supposed to be doomed.
The whole situation was changed when Mr. Henry L. Higginson, after establishing a series of orchestral concerts on a scale of unprecedented liberality, crowned his beneficent undertaking by purchasing a majority of the shares of the Music Hall corporation. Mr. Higginson has made no announcement of his plans, but it is well understood that the ball will be used only for purposes consistent with the idea of a temple of the fine arts. There will be no more heterogeneous shows, nor walking matches.
The interior of the building is now undergoing a rejuvenation, under the direction of Mr. George Snell, the accomplished architect who planned it. New colors and gilding, new upholstery and other adornments will make it more beautiful than ever. Other changes are also anticipated, such as re-formation of the lobbies and a new entrance from Hamilton Place.

THE MUSICAL OUTLOOK

There can be no fear lest Boston will not have enough, especially of orchestral music in the season of 1881—2. There would rather seem to be a danger of too much of a good thing, of “running it into the ground.” But we shall see and learn. What with the Higginson-Henschel twenty concerts and twenty public rehearsals, and with the other orchestral societies, the vocal clubs, the oratorios, and miscellaneous and virtuoso concerts of all kinds, there are already looming above the horizon more than one hundred concerts such as commonly tempt large audiences. Let the Transcript count them up for us: —
From present appearances there will be more musical entertainments of a high order during the coming season in Boston than ever before. Those by the clubs and societies will number as follows:

Apollo Club …………………………………………………………………………… 6 concerts.

Boylston Club ………………………………………………………………………… 5          “

Handel and Haydn Society ………………………………………………………. 4          “

Harvard Musical Association ……………………………………………………. 5          “

Philharmonic Society ……………………………………………………………… 8          “

*Cecilia …………………………………………………………………………………. 4          “

*Euterpe ……………………………………………………………………………….. 5          “

*Arlington Club …………………………………………………………………….. 4          “

*probably.                                                                                            41        “

Then there will be the series of twenty concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (as the band to be directed by Mr. Henschel will be known), possible concerts by the old Philharmonic orchestra, under Mr. Listemauus direction, and eight by the New England Conservatory orchestra, a new scheme under the direction of Mr. Zerrahn. All of these concerts will be given by resident musicians, players or singers from other cities only appearing as soloists or assistants. But this is not all. Four concerts of a mixed sort, with famous soloists, will be included in the lecture courses; two performances of Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet will be given under Mr. Thomas’s direction; two concerts are announced by Manricio Dengremont, one by Mme. Gerster, and last, not least in importance, five by Mme. Adelina Patti. With these we have a grand total of nearly a hundred musical entertainments of a high class, and that without enumerating the twenty public rehearsals of Mr. Henschel’s orchestra, and the eight public rehearsals of the Philharmonic Society’s orchestra. There are few cities in the world, and none in America, which can make a better showing in number, quality and variety of concerts offered for the delectation of amateurs and connoisseurs of the tuneful art. The concerts of the Arlington and Cecilia Clubs will be given in Tremont Temple, the Euterpe will probably occupy the Melodeon, the Harvards will use the Boston Museum, and the other societies and organizations will appear in Music Hall. Mr. Zerrahn will remain in his post of director of the concerts by the Handel and Haydn Society and the Harvard Musical Association; Mr. Lang will continue to direct the entertainments of the Apollo and Cecilia Clubs, and Mr. Osgood and Mr. W. J. Winch will retain their positions as directors of the Boylston and Arlington Clubs, respectively. The Philharmonic society’s concerts will be under the direction of Mr. Louis Mass. The schemes of the opera managers are not yet divulged. It is given out that Mr. Mapleson will come to the Boston Theatre with a stronger company than he has yet brought here, and that Mr. Strakosch will bring a troupe to the Globe Theatre, with Mme. Gerster as its prima donna. No less than six English opera or operetta troupes will add still further variety to the attractions of the season, and some important novelties will be brought out by them, Lortzing’s Czar and Carpenter and Varney’s Musketeers being in the list of promises.

LOCAL ITEMS

— THE WORCESTER MUSICAL FESTIVAL. The great annual event of its kind in this region maintains this fall the customary high and abundant provision for the musical appetite: it will last five days, September 26—30, and comprise, besides three important choral works entire, a large variety of music, vocal, orchestral and organ. Verdi’s Manzoni Requiem will be given the third evening, the Creation the following afternoon, and to conclude Friday evening Elijah entire, for the first time in Worcester; the chorus, “The Fire Descends from Heaven,” heretofore omitted because of its extreme difficulty, being already rehearsed. A new thing in this festival will be a noon “organ lecture concert,” by Frederick Archer, the English organist, composer and lecturer; but Mr. Archer should beware of Jerome Hopkins, who has a lien on that title for his own entertainment, The artists already engaged include Clara Louise Kellogg, who sings there for the first time in America after a European absence of two years; Annie Louise Cary, M. W. Whitney, Tom Karl, Emily Winant, — her first singing in Worcester, — Franz Remmertz, Charles H. Adams; also Mrs. Emma R. Dexter, Miss Hattie Louise Simms, Miss Alice Ward, Mrs. Grace Hilts Gleason of Chicago and Mrs. H. F. Knowles, sopranos; and the Schubert company from the Boston Apollo Club. The violinist Therese Liebe and her brother Theodore, said to be a fine violoncellist, who will make a concert tour of the country the coming season, appear first together at this festival, hastening their departure from Europe a month. The promise of the foregoing facts is very generous and assures an excellent festival. There are some who will regret the repetition of Verdi’s noisy requiem, but the chorus cannot possibly afford to dismiss it with one rendering after the severe discipline of its study; It would be a quite insufficient recompense.
—The Handel and Haydn Society will begin, as usual, their concerts on Christmas night with a performance of the Messiah; on Good Friday Bach’s “Passion Music, according to St. Matthew” will be sung, and on Easter Sunday the oratorio of the Creation. Previous to these last two a concert will be given on Feb. 5, and Handel’s Utrecht “Jubilate” and Mendelssohn’s “Hymn of Praise” are to be sung. Mr. Carl Zerrahn will lead the chorus and orchestra, and Miss Annie Louise Cary and Mr. Myron W. Whitney will be two of the principal soloists.
—James Edward Ditson, youngest son of Oliver Ditson, the well-known music publisher of Boston, and a member of the firm of which his father is the head, died at Upper Saint Regis Lake, Adirondack Mountains, Sunday, Aug. 7, aged 28 years. He was a young man of genial character, and was universally beloved. The parents have the sympathy of a very wide circle of friends in this trying bereavement.
—We are sorry to learn that Mr. Edward B. Perry, the pianist, is disabled for all concert work during the coming winter by a lame wrist. Meanwhile he has accepted a position as piano instructor at Oberlin College, in Ohio.
—We have only room to call attention to Madame Seller’s Flourishing School of Vocal Art in Philadelphia. Its annual reports of ‘cork and progress have been interesting, and this year more than ever.
—You can detect a false note in the playing of the music of Mozart as readily as a finger print on burnished silver; but in one of the “romantic” symphonies of the “intense” school, a madman might be fiddling away meanwhile, and nobody would suspect that it was not “consummate.”—Chas. Dudley Warner.
—Mr. Thomas was to end his Chicago engagement on Aug. 22. During the following week he gave concerts in Milwaukee, and a week later he will be in Cincinnati fur a series of concerts. He has received from Galveston, Tex., an offer for a week of concerts-in that city. Mr. Thomas will return to New York on Sept. 5.

MUSICAL CORRESPONDENCE

CHICAGO, July 27. In closing my correspondence with Dwight’s Journal of Music, I may be pardoned for expressing a few words of sincere regret. Every indication that points to a retrograde movement in the progress of the art of music cannot but be regarded sorrow with sorrow by every honest musician or true lover of music. The cause of music in this country suffers from a number of serious hindrances. One of these drawbacks is poor and incompetent criticism from the writers on musical matters in many of our daily papers. As we read the vast amount of illogical criticism that the daily press offers to its readers, every musician realizes that the writers of the articles knew little or nothing about the subject. They either depend upon some hand-book on music for their information, or else I deal with the subject in meaningless terms, that will not stand the test of reason. Any reporter may write upon this subject, and his musical qualifications seem to be of very little account, as long as he can fill up a certain space under the bead of Amusements. I know of many cases where the so-called musical critic has mistaken even the work he was hearing, and perchance learnedly commented upon the masterly performance of Wagner’s Tannhäuser overture, when the popular one to Rossini’s William Tell was played. This kind of musical criticism is what the daily press calls a proper acknowledgment of the art interests of a country. What we need is good, honest utterances in behalf of art, from a mind that has both ability and knowledge. A writer must possess a positive and extended knowledge of his subject, to be entitled to any respect. Such criticism as the progress of art demands seems hardly possible from the daily press, and it is only in a good musical journal that we may expect the best opinions on art matters. It is then a matter of great regret that Dwight’s Journal is forced to stop its usefulness, simply because of a want of support. It is true that the Journal was a small paper, and yet its quality, was worthy of appreciation, and its honest utterances entitled to full respect. The only thing in regard to music that receives its full compensation is the trade in instruments and publications. Large fortunes have been made in these industries. What have these people, that have become rich out of musical merchandise, done for the art that has given them their Have they ever started a good music school, or supported a representative musical journal? We have a number of papers that live as advertising mediums, it is true, but their influence is of that character that belongs mostly to trade. This class of journal is generally published in the interests of some house. Why should not the trade interests give a little of their wealth to the support of a worthy art journal? Any benefit to the progress of art is a help to even the trade. When we observe the positive advancement that Boston is making in regard to concerts, schools, and the orchestral work, it seems astonishing that it can be so unmindful of the Journal of Music, Is not an organ that may give its entire activity to the education of the people in music worthy of support? If the cultivated people of Boston will not support a journal that is representative of their class, is it not an indication that their accomplishments are more assumed than real? But in the mean time we must wait for a better public and a more hopeful condition of our social life, before what is best in music can have a hearty support in this country.
In this city we are having a delightful season of summer night concerts, by Mr. Theodore Thomas and his orchestra. This series of entertainments was a part of a plan that the late Mr. George B. Carpenter had arranged for our musical enjoyment. Mr. Milward Adams, the young gentleman who has followed in the steps of Mr. Carpenter, by his business tact and good management has been able to carry on the enterprise. It takes very much skill and a clear judgment to bring such successful returns for even well-considered plans. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Adams for this season of rich entertainment, and we can hot wish him a great success in all his future work. The great festival which comes next spring will have to depend for its financial success largely upon the management that this gentleman will give it. He will have the influence of every musical person in the city, however, and time culmination of our hopes, a festival, seems near at hand. But to return to Mr. Thomas, —the programmes for these concerts have been as a whole very pleasing. We have had composers’ evenings, and symphony performances, and also programmes made up of lighter things. The Mendelssohn night gave us the Italian Midsummer-Night’s Dream music, overture Calm Sea and Happy Voyage, the fairy overture, Melusina, Scherzo from the Reformation Symphony, and two smaller pieces. The Beethoven night programme was made op of the Pastoral Symphony, the overture to Coriolanus, Septet Op. 20, and the ballet music to Prometheus. The symphony programmes gave us the Schumann, in fl-minor, and Brahms’s No.2, in fl-major. Every evening the programme is made interesting, while new and old works are very artistically arranged so as to give pleasure. It is a pleasing sight to see the large audiences that gather, evening after evening, to listen to these concerts. The place has been as well arranged as possible for the music. The garden that has been made, of plants, flowers and evergreens, has turned the Exposition Building into a vast conservatory, in which a pretty fountain plays, and charming music maybe heard, and it almost makes the stay-at-home people of our city think that Chicago is indeed a pleasant summer home. The orchestra that Mr. Thomas has formed is made up of some fifty men, many of whom are our home players; yet there have been additions from New York and Cincinnati, which have given a new and better formation to the band. It pleases me to say that this orchestra is doing some very good work. It has not time finish of Mr. Thomas’s old band, nor are the brass instruments quite what they ought to be; but the educational influences that are at work with the men will do much to mould them into a better form. It is a wise thing to develop a good orchestra in the West, for as we attempt the performance of a large number of great works in the course of a season, a fine band is a necessity. In the closing concerts of this season of six weeks, I shall endeavor to make some mention of the improvement that will doubtless be made in the playing of this band, while under the able direction of Mr. Thomas.
C. H. BRITTAN.

BALTIMORE, JULY 27.—Mr. John S. Dwight:—Dear Sir, — Allow me to express my sincere regret at the notice in your last issue that the publication of the Journal is to be discontinued. For the past three years I have had the pleasure of writing an occasional notice for your paper, and I can scarcely express bow unhappy it makes me feel to know that I have written my last letter to Dwight’s Journal. I did fancy that at least one musical publication with the best and highest interests of the art in view would be able to hold its own in this country. It seems not.
To all earnest friends of musical progress there remains but the hope that at some future day the better class of the American people will open their eyes, their ears and their hearts and begin to understand that there are a few objects in this world worth living for besides the accumulation of dollars and cents.
With sentiments of the highest regard and appreciation, I am, dear sir,
Yours very truly,
CHAS. A. FISHER.

MUSIC ABROAD

LONDON. Colonel J. H. Mapleson has written an open latter in which he formally withdraws from the Loudon operatic field. Ever since the year 1874, competition has been carried on, except in a few years when Messrs. Gye and Mapleson combined forces, between the Italian operatic impresarios at Covent Garden and Drury Lane or Her Majesty’s. Mr. Mapleson became almost hopelessly involved, and the elder Gye’s backers sank a fortune in the larger house. Of late years, under the management of the brothers Gye, Covent Garden has increased its reputation, but without reaping a financial reward. Time conclusion was reached that London cannot support two Italian houses during the season, and a syndicate was formed recently for converting Covent Garden into a limited liability company, with Gye as manager at a salary. The company then endeavored to secure Her Majesty’s, and this they attempted to do by seeking to gain possession of the premises through the lessor by means of an action of ejectment. Finding himself involved in costly legal proceedings, Mr. Mapleson determined to accept the offers made him by the syndicate, and an arrangement has now been made by which he sells out his entire interest in Her Majesty’s, with the object of devoting his attention entirely, in future, to the United Slates. Mr. Mapleson receives £80,000, and when his liabilities are deducted from this he will be left with more than sufficient capital to enable him to open an energetic campaign next season in America. Mr. Mapleson has secured certain concessions from the new company, among others the call on Covent Garden for all new operas, artists, scenery and costumes which he may require. In fact, Covent Garden will be henceforth the recruiting-house for his American season. — Figaro.

FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAINE. — The prize offered by the Corporation for the best opera is awarded to Kütchen von Heilbronn music by Carl Rheinthaler, libretto by Heinrich Bulthaupt. The successful work will be produced early next season at the New Stadt- theater.

BERLIN. Von Buelow recently played a gigantic programme at Berlin. It consisted wholly of Liszt’s compositions. Sonata (dedicated to Schumann), four selections from the “Années de Pelerinage,” the legend, “St. Francois de Paule Marchant Sur Les Flots,” four Etudes, Ballade (No. 2), a Polonaise Mazurka, Valse Impromptu and Scherzo, and March in D-minor. It is said that Buelow fairly surpassed himself.