Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1929-01)

January, 1929 The Phonograph Monthly Review 113 himself or the orchestra alone; he was working for an ideal, an ideal shared by many, but which he alone was able to bring to fruition. To his name must be added those of the other generous and great-spirited men and women who came forward and who are coming forward richly to provide the means to carry on the work. There must be added the names of the conductors and the players who have given much more than their merely technical services, a spirit and artistic understanding that make music a flowering of the emotion and not the skeleton of a science. The conductor and soloists enjoy some measure of public appreciation, but the men of the orchestra, often forgotten in the rush to shower praise on the more prominent figures, deserve much more of the credit than is commonly accorded them. There must be added again the names of those who so efficiently and wisely direct the management of the organization, planning out the ways by which it can be kept on a sound footing and be utilized to the greatest good. Finally are the countless numbers who hear the orchestra, some perhaps for a single time, but who are enabled to grow by that experience. Nor are they merely passive and receptive: listeners are as ne- cessary to music as the performers themselves; each audience gets much from the orchestra, but the orchestra receives in turn something from the audience, given in the moment of emotional and spiritual contact. First credit, then, must be given to the active founders and supporters, led so splendidly by Mr. Higginson. But the myriad others should not be forgotten, and never were for- gotten by Mr. Higginson who saw clearly the broad base on which the orchestra must be established in order to live, and in order to become that projection of the hopes and dreams of thousands of inarticulate, music hungry people for whom he worked. THE FOUNDATION During the nineteenth century, music in Boston gradually developed and began to grow out of the narrow bonds of psalmody which up to that time had encased it. At first, choral music predominated and the earliest important mu- sical organization, the famous Handel and Haydn Society, formed in 1815, was choral in nature. Musical magazines sprang up and the transcendentalists led the way in turning the attention of the people to the art of music, one sorely needed by the inhibition-bound Puritan of New England. In 1833 the Boston Academy of Music was established, later giving orchestral concerts. The Musical Fund Society took its place in 1847, while from 1849 to 1854 The Germania Orchestra gave visiting concerts, exerting a considerable ro- mantic and exotic influence on the previously somewhat prosaic status of music in Boston. It is curious to read in a reminiscence of William F. Apthorp about a “Railway Ga- lop” which was played by this organization, “during the playing of which a little mock steam-engine kept scooting about (by clock work?) on the floor of the hall, with black cotton wool smoke coming out of the funnel.” Evidently Honegger’s Pacific 231, introduced by Mr. Koussevitzky at his first concert, 1924, had a precursor! But despite the crudities of the public taste of those times —natural enough, of course, under the circumstances—the programs were already beginning to experience that change for the better which is so apparent today. To compare the programs of an organization of as much importance as that of Theodore Thomas with those of the present is extremely enlightening to those who profess to believe that no advance has been made in musical taste. Gradually more and more serious and symphonic works crept into the repertories to the exclusion of the lighter pieces. The early history of every orchestra contains many plaints and protestations against the conductors who make these changes, but the progress goes inevitably on. The famous Boston Music Hall was built in 1852, partly through the efforts of the Harvard Musical Association, led by John S. Dwight (another tremendous influence for good in the musical history of Boston). For half a century the old Music Hall was the center of the musical life of Boston; there, of course, were given the concerts furnished by the Philharmonic Society under Carl Zerrahn which were re- placed after the Civil War by the concerts of the Harvard Musical Association under the same conductor, which con- tinued until the establishment of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881. The latter organization has so far outshone the early orchestras and societies that they have been nearly forgotten in many cases. But the work that they did in preparing the soil was of inestimable value. The musical tastes of the peo- ple had to be educated by degrees up to symphonic stand- ards. As it was, the early days of the Boston Symphony were filled with multitudinous bewailments of the “heaviness” and dryness of the programs. “As dull as a symphony con- cert” was a fair simile to many people of those days. Then, of course, there were the usual jibes at the concerts as being social functions endured in silence by the aspiring. Such an attitude would probably have been shared by more people had not the earlier concerts and the work of the choral so- cieties proved to many New Englanders that music was not merely a cerebral or social exercise, nor yet the ’ work of the devil, but a legitimate art and emotional pleasure and necessity. In a pioneer country the proper attitude toward the arts is difficult to build up; it is a task of patience and infinite wisdom to bring a people whose artistic appetites have been so long denied to the state when they can begin to drink in and appreciate the great flow of health-giving and life-bringing music. How appropriate, and yet how remarkable, that it should have been a native New Englander who was to bring about the great change, who recognized the need so clearly that he would establish an orchestra and support it out of his own pocket. Patrons of the arts were at that time practically unknown in America; such “harmless insanity” was looked upon as the recreation exclusively of European princes. Through the example largely of Mr. Higginson and a few other far-sighted pioneers, many men and women who possess the means for doing untold good for their community and nation have learned that the greatest benefit they can pos- sibly confer is to encourage and support true artistic en- deavors, for which active help is so strongly needed. So many have learned this and so much has been done of recent years to further the arts in this country that it is hard to realize the revolutionary daring of the first ones to tread out the new path. Mr. M. A. De Wolfe Howe speaks of the founder of the Boston Symphony as follows: “Henry Lee Higginson, born in New York, November 18, 1834, of the New England stock wffiich for two centuries before his birth had done less for the arts than for the virtues, departed early from the accepted paths of the young men of his time and station. He ought to have graduated from Harvard College, which he entered in 1851 with the class to which Alexander Agassiz and Philips Brooks belonged. But lacking the best of health, he left it after two years. He ought to have continued—if precedent were to rule—in the Boston counting house of E. and E. Aus- tin, in which he then took employment, but before the end of 1856, he found himself in Europe, where he stayed for four years, devoting himself chiefly to the study of music at Vienna” Mr. M. A. De Wolfe Howe goes on to quote at length many interesting letters from Higginson to his father explaining fully his aims and ideals. Unfortunately, overwork at the piano, as in the case of many other over-ambitious young men of musical bent, had the result of effectually ruining his hopes of becoming a pianist, through the severe injury done to his arms. He himself states that it became clear to him that he had no talent for playing or composition, that “there was, in short, no soil in which to cultivate a garden.” And yet how fortunate for Boston and the world that he was unsuccessful in his ambitions of that time. His ambitions for himself, his egoistic love of music, developed into ambi- tions for others and a centrifugal love of music, finding its greatest pleasure in the pleasure of others. His failure at that time gave him a more poignant appreciation and love of music and the needs of musicians and music-lovers than anything else could have done. And naturally, the training and experiences he did get were of inestimable value to him in dealing with musicians and understanding musical pro- blems later on. Higginson returned to the United States to take part in the Civil War. At its conclusion, his marriage and the low state of his finances necessitated active devotion to the busi- ness of obtaining a livng. Within fifteen years, such was his energy and ability, the time came when he realized he could retire, well provided for. But he also saw that by continuing to work he could earn enough to realize the long-cherished