A Group of Modern Masters

When Mendelssohn's Elijah was first produced in Birmingham, England, in 1846, the musicians and singers when they first tried the famous chorus Thanks be to God refused to believe that Mendelssohn had intended the discords occasioned by the unexpected introduction of seconds in the vocal parts. The insisted that it was a mistake and, if they had their own way would have stricken out what now seems to many musicians one of the most beautiful passages in Mendelssohn's masterpiece.

History is filled with analogous instances of the refusal of cultured people to accept the unaccustomed in art. Indeed, it is often the refined man, the cultivated man, the educated man, who will hold longest to his conventions. The masses are often in advance of the so called intellectual classes, in that they have few conventions. They accept such unique but very natural musical rhapsodies as Stravinsky's Fire Bird and Mousorgsky's Boris Godounoff, while the trained musician often speculates upon whether it complies with the conventions that make for what he conceives as art. It is therefore very necessary for the musician, in judging a new and unusual art work, to divorce himself from his previous art principles and lend a thoroughly sympathetic ear to the new speaker. Perhaps he has a great and new message; Beethoven, Wagner, and Liszt had, even though they were ridiculed when they first brought it to the world. This group includes men with many striking new ideas and methods. It is highly necessary that the art worker to today become familiar with their productions.

Antonin Dvorak

Antonin Dvorak (pronounced Dvor-zhak), while an innovator in many, many ways, was not to be classed as an iconoclast. He was born September 8, 1841, at Muhlhausen (sometimes given in Bohemian as Nelahozeves), Bohemia. His father was a fairly successful butcher and dreamed of the time when Antonin would become his successor. The elder Dvorak also kept a tiny inn where the boy heard the traveling musicians play the national tunes of his native land.

The local school master taught him to sing and to play the violin. His talent was so pronounced that he was called upon to play in school and sing in church. When he was twelve, he was sent to another town under the care of his uncle. There he studied piano, organ, and theory with the local organist, A. Lichmann. When he was fourteen, Dvorak - who up to that time had spoken only Bohemian - was sent to Kamnitz to study German. There organist Hancke taught him for a year. He began to show some indications of ability as a composer, and his father was finally persuaded to consent to having his son turn from steaks and cutlets to sonatas and symphonies.

Accordingly, in October, 1857, he went to Prague to study at the Organ School for Church Music. His father's means were so slender that the boy was forced to earn his own living by playing viola in one of the local cafes. Later he became a member of the orchestra of the National Theater. Progress was slow in a land with so very many talented musicians. Nothing but genius could rise to the top. this Dvorak did, and became the greatest composer of his race. Smetana was the conductor of the National Theater and helped his young landsman immensely.

Dvorak was so poor during these days that he barely had money enough to buy the music he needed. One of his dreams was of the day when he should own a piano. Fortunately good friends assisted him now and then, and he went on writing and gaining in facility every day. When he was twenty-five he had completed a string quintet, two symphonies, a grand opera, and several songs. The opera did not come up to his standards and he promptly burnt it up.

By dint of playing and teaching he managed to eke out a meagre living; but it was not until 1873, when he was appointed organist of St. Adalbert's Church, that he was comfortable enough in his means to feel that he might get married. After the production of his opera - The King and the Collier - Dvorak received a small pension from the state, which gave him more leisure for composition. In 1878 he produced his Slavic Dances which became very popular in Germany.

In 1884, Dvorak was called to England to conduct his Stabat Mater, and in the next year he brought out his cantata the Spectre's Bride at the Birmingham Festival. In 1891 he received the honorary degree of Mus. Doc. at Cambridge University. In 1892 he was called to America as the director of the National Conservatory, in New York City. He remained in this country for three years. Among his American pupils are Harry Rowe Shelley, Harvey Worthington Loomis, Harry T. Burleigh, Harry Patterson Hopkins, and William Arms Fisher. Returning to Prague, he became the head of the National Conservatory. He died May 1, 1904.

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler remained in America from 1907 until the year of his death (1911), and during that time his genius was recognized by but a comparatively few people. In 1916 his Choral Symphony was produced in Philadelphia under the direction of Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra many times to crowded houses. In a short time his name was in nearly every paper in the United States. Only a few years previous in the same auditorium, Mahler conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to what might almost be termed empty benches. Such is fame. Like Smetana and Dvorak, Mahler was born in Bohemia. His parents were Jewish merchants. His natal town was Kalischt, and the date of his birth July 7, 1860. His first music lessons received at the age of six cost one penny a piece.

He was excellently educated at the Gymnasium at Prague and at the Vienna University. In 1877 his entered the Vienna Conservatory, and had among his masters Anton Bruckner. His great ability lay in the direction of conducting. No matter where he received a post - Cassel, Prague, Leipsic, Hamburg, London, Vienna or New York - he left the position with the orchestra on a higher level than ever before. As a conductor he was scholarly without being pedantic, authoritative without being stiff. In his young manhood, Mahler wrote two operas - Die Argonauten and Rubezahl. These have not survived in popularity.

His first symphony was produced in 1891, and others appeared at short intervals until the year of his death he had produced a series of notable works, including his famous Eighth Symphony - "The Symphony of a Thousand". This was first given in 1910 in Munich, and immediately made a deep impression. Mahler's cantata Das Klagende Lied is also one of his most noteworthy works. Mahler was a man of what might be called terrific energy, and he exhausted himself in his work. Mahler came to America in 1907 as a conductor for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1909 he became conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He returned to Europe and died May 18, 1911.

Friedrich Smetana

Smetana's position is unique. He was the first Bohemian composer of note. He was born March 2, 1824, at Leitomischl. His teachers were Prosch, at Prague, and Liszt. He first became known as a pianist and was a successful teacher in Prague. In 1856 he moved to Sweden, where he became director of the Philharmonic Society at Gothenburg. In 1866 he became director of the National Theater in Prague, and in that year his delightful opera - die Verkaufte Braul - was given with immense success. He wrote six other operas but none became as successful as The Bartered Bride. Deafness compelled him to resign his position at the opera house in 1874. It did not however deter him from continuing his work in composition. Of his symphonic poems, his Mein Vaterland is probably most worthy of notice. His string quartet in E minor - Aus meinem Leben is very popular with chamber music organizations. In his closing years Smetana was afflicted with insanity, and died in an asylum May 12, 1884.

Arnold Schoenberg

The leading anarchist in modern musical history is unquestionably Arnold Schoenberg. There are those who would have us believe that he is a fanatic or a maniac rather than a thinking man working out a new style of musical art. Arnold Schoenberg was born September 13 1874, in Vienna. He was a pupil of Zemlinksy, although he boasts of being mainly self taught in music. for a time he aspired to be a painter and an artist. In 1901 he moved to Berlin, to act as conductor of the Buntes Theater, a liberal movement in the German drama headed by the poet Wolzogen and others. For a time he was the harmony teacher in the noted Stern Conservatory in Berlin. His early works consist principally of songs, and are in a style suggesting a mixture of Brahms and Mendelssohn, and they contain nothing extreme or peculiar in any way to offend the most conventional ear. In 1903 he returned to Vienna, where with a group of enthusiasts he formed the "Society for Creative Artists", with Gustav Mahler as president. In 1910 he gave independent composition lectures at the Vienna Conservatorium. In 1911 we find him again in Berlin, where he succeeded in having published his 484 page dissertation upon harmony. This work appears only in the German language.

Comparatively few of Schoenberg's manuscripts have been printed, but what has been published is so radical as to excite curiosity at once, and bring the composer an astonishing amount of publicity in a very few years. His first songs (Opus 1, 2, 3, 6) and his first string quartets - Opus 7 and Opus 4 - are so normal that they indicate that Schoenberg was perfectly capable of going on and writing in a manner which even the most scholastic critic would admit to be excellent if not eventful. they have been compared with the works of Mahler and Bruckner. His second stage of development included such works as the Gurrelieder, (ponderous works for solo, orchestra and chorus); Pelleas and Melisande, a somewhat extenuated symphonic poem; a string quartet in F sharp minor. In 1908 he commenced to manifest his iconoclastic tendencies in a manner which invited wide attention. His Three Pianoforte Pieces, Opus 11, were declared unplayable, a meaningless bouncing over the piano keys, while some found a peculiar beauty in his oddities.

His subsequent works have done away with all the old conceptions of tonality, form, consonance or set ideas. It is music which evidently is designed to record the wild musical thoughts which might come from the mind during a fugitive dream. Discords, odd rhythms, concords, and meaningless jumbles of sound all follow without any apparent law or reason. Nevertheless Schoenberg has many admirers who declare this to be the only natural music. His famous quartet, in which he introduced in chamber music many of the tricks which solo players alone had employed, was played with great success in America by leading string quartets.

Max Reger

Max Reger was born at Brand in the Obergfalz (Germany), March 19, 1873. His birthplace is only  a short distance from that of Gluck. His father was the music teacher in a  nearby preparatory school. Bach was a kind of household god, and the boy was taught to play his works upon the piano and upon the harmonium. The boy was saturated during his youth with Brahms, Beethoven, Liszt and Wagner. His father desired him to become a teacher, but Reger after an eventful visit to Bayreuth - where he heard Parsifal and Meistersinger - determined to become a musician. He therefore became the pupil of the learned Dr. Hugo Riemann.

His first opus was a Sonata in D major for violin and piano. Strangely enough it was published in London rather than in Germany. In 1896 he was obliged to serve one year in the army. In 1901 he moved to Munich, and while his works were dubiously received by the critics, he made much progress in introducing them. He was amazingly prolific, and produced work after work with astonishing industry.

Unlike the other German composers, Reger gave little attention to the orchestra until he had produced his ninetieth opus. Songs, piano pieces, organ pieces, violin pieces made up the bulk of his work. All of his productions were of serious importance and demanded close study. It is probably for this reason that he failed to enjoy that popularity which has been so generously bestowed on his contemporary, Richard Strauss. Strauss, notwithstanding his intellectual and technical capacity for writing works of gigantic scope and difficulty, has nevertheless the ability to hit the popular fancy. Reger's style is very complex - yet he allows himself more liberties than does Strauss. Many critics feel that his organ music is greater than that of any German composer since the time of Bach.

Reger spent some of his time as a teacher of theory at the Munich Royal Academy, the Conservartory at Wiesbaden, and finally became the professor of music at the Leipsic University. He wrote an excellent work upon harmony and upon modulation. His Symphony, Sonfonietta, Orchestra Serenade and his concertos are rarely heard, but are greatly admired by many musicians. Reger died in 1916.

Engelbert Humperdinck

Blessed be Engelbert Humperdinck for producing a work that makes the wisest and soberest of us children again. Hansel and Gretel, the prettiest of all fairy operas, is now such a popular part of the operatic repertoire that it is regularly performed in all cities where opera is a part of the artistic life.

Humperdinck was born at Siegburg, Germany, September 1, 1854. He had the customary thorough German school training up to the gymnasium. Then he entered the Cologne Conservatory, then under the direction of Ferdinand Hiller. Later, in Munich, he studied with Lachner, and with Rheinberger at the Royal Music School. Winning the Mendelssohn prize in 1879, he went to Italy for further study. There fortune favored him; he met Richard Wagner in Naples. Wagner recognized the talent of the young composer and took him to Bayreuth to assist in the production of Parsifal. Next year, however, Humperdinck won the Meyerbeer prize in Berlin, and wisely spent more time in traveling in Italy, France, and Spain, becoming acquainted with different habits and different ways of living of the people of Latin countries.

For two years he was the professor of theory at the Conservatory at Barcelona. Returning to Germany, he became a professor at the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfort-am-Main, the teacher of harmony at Stockhausen's Vocal School, and a critic upon the Frankfurter  Zeitung. After producing some successful choral and orchestral works, he brought out his Hansel and Gretel in 1895, in Weimar. Since then he has produced no work which has attained anything like the popularity of his masterpiece, although his Koenigskinder (written in 1896 and revived later in New York at the Metropolitan) has had several successful performances. In 1900 Humperdinck went to reside in Berlin, where the Kaiser made him a member of the Senate of the Royal Academy of Art and head of the Meister Schule for Musical Composition. Among Humperdinck's other works at A Moorish Symphony, operas Dornorschen, Die Heimath Wieder Willen, and musical settings to the spectacle The Miracle. Humperdinck has the rare ability of combining naivete with technical skill of the highest character. At times he rises to real genius in the employment of folk tunes.

The Etude Magazine March 1917