Boston City (part 15 of 67)

" For, be it remembered, the first great awakening of the musical instinct here was when the C-minor Sympho?iy of Beethoven was played, thirty years ago or more, in that old theatre, long since vanished from the heart of the dry-goods part of Boston, which had been converted into an Od£on, where an Academy of Music gave us some first glimpses of the glories of great orchestral music. Some may yet remember how young men and women of the most cultured circles, whom the new intellectual day-spring had made thoughtful and at the same time open and impressible to all appeals of art and beauty, used to sit there through the concert in that far-off upper gallery, or sky-parlor, secluded in the shade, and give themselves up completely to the influence of the sublime harmonies that sank into their souls, enlarging and coloring thenceforth the whole horizon of their life. Then came the Brook Farm experiment ; and it is equally a curious fact, that music, and of the best kind - the Beethoven Sonatas, the Masses of Mozart and Haydn - got at, indeed, in a very humble, home-made, and imper¬ fect way, was one of the chief interests and refreshments of tho^e halcyon days. Nay, it was among the singing por¬ tion of those plain farmers, teachers, and (but for such cheer) domestic drudges, that the first example sprang up of the so-called Mass Clubs, once so much in vogue among small knots of amateurs. They met to practise music which to them seemed heavenly, after the old hack¬ neyed glees and psalm-tunes, - though little many of them thought or cared about the creed embodied in the Latin words that formed the convenient vehicle for tones so thrill¬ ing. The music was quite innocent ofcreed, except that of the heart and of the common deepest wants and aspirations of all souls, darkly locked up in formulas, till set free by the subtile solvent < f the delicious harmonies. And our genial friend who sits in Harper's 1 Easy Chair' has lately told the world what parties from 'the Farm ' (and he was ' one of them ') w'ould come to town to drink in the symphonies, and then walk back the whole way (seven miles) at night, elated and unconscious of fatigue, carrying home with them a new good genius, beautiful and strong, to help them through the next day's labors. Then, too, and among the same class of minds (the same 'Transcendental set'), began the w'riting and the lecturing on music and its great masters, treating it from a high spiritual point of view, and seeking (too imaginatively, no doubt) the key and meaning to the symphony, but anyhow establishing a vital, true affinity between the great tone-poems and all great ideals of the human mind. In the Harbinger (really in music the embryo of Dwight's Jourtial ), for years printed at Brook Farm ; in the Dial , which told the time of day so far ahead ; in the writings of Maigaret Fuller and others, - these be¬ came favorite and glowing topics of discourse; and such discussion did, at least, contribute much to make music more respected, to lift it in the esteem of thoughtful per¬ sons to a level w'ith the rest of the 1 humanities ' of cult¬ ure, and especially to turn attention to the nobler compo¬ sitions, and away from that which is but idle, sensual, and vulgar." teacher's Manual , and a translation ofFetis's useful treatise, Music Explained to the World. It probably created an inducement for other good publica¬ tions, like that long series of Gems of German Song, carried on for years by G. P. Reed. It gave lectures on music. It created a higher kind of interest in music, and prompted a number of young men (one or two of them gradu¬ ates of Harvard) to seek an artistic education in the schools of Europe. It multiplied concerts until our city became a point of attraction to travelling artists from abroad, like the violinists Nagel and Herwig, the violoncellists Knoop and Bohrer, and those pioneers to us of the best classical and mod¬ ern piano-forte music, the Brothers Rackemann, who were the first to give us Thalberg, Henselt, Chopin, Liszt, Stephen Heller, as well as the sonatas of Beethoven. It was harder for pretenders to gain ground here after that. Then in 1844 came two of the most famous virtuosos of the violin, - Ole Bull, who charmed the multitude, and Vieuxtemps, who won the cultivated ear and taste; followed in 1846-47 by Sivori, one of the most genial inter¬ preters of classical composers. Henri Herz, about the same time, played for us in person those ornate and flowery piano-forte fantasias and varia¬ tions which were already much in vogue in parlors.

The Academy Concerts came to an end in the spring of 1847 (the very year when the Siren of Italian Opera began to work her countercharm!), and were succeeded in the fall by those of the Musical Fund Society. This was an organization of the musicians themselves, for mutual encourage¬ ment and for the establishment of a relief fund. They formed an orchestra more numerous than select, and gave' concerts every season to the end of our present period (1852), and for some years later in the new Boston Music Hall, under the direction for some years of Mr. C. H. Miiller and Mr. Thomas Comer. It was a league of interest. Managed by musicians who looked to music for their daily bread, it did not, at the outset, trust itself to follow in the classical and unrewarding path of the Academy, but made large concessions to that popular taste already fed by miscellaneous " Philharmonic " programmes, and now exposed to the more irresistible temptation of the Italian Siren. For a time singers were of more con¬ sequence than symphonies, and virtuosity more honored and admired than art.

A glance at the Fund's old programmes is suggestive. Symphony seems to have been voted a bugbear. There was none at all in the first concert (November, 1847), but four overtures, with songs, duets, etc. The second and third concerts offered, for a startling novelty, the one piece of mere sensational "effect" music which Beethoven ever condescended to write, and that to oblige his friend Maelzel, - the Battle of Vittoria symphony, so called, but not one ever mentioned with the nine ! With it, however, were coupled two of the overtures which never lose their interest, - Rossini's to William Tell , and Sterndale Bennett's Naiades. One other symphony was ventured upon that season, chiefly for its curious history, - the Farewell, by Haydn. There were plenty of overtures; solos and quartet for flutes; piano solos; once, a piano quartet with violins, etc., in which the then noted singer and composer Charles E. Horn took the principal part; and there was a Mozart aria, sung by Miss Anna Stone, already for some years famous in the oratorios.

In the following years, that refined and classical musician Mr. George J. Webb being the conductor, the great symphonies recovered their place. The Eroica and the Fourth were added to the six already familiar ones of Beethoven; the Italian to the Scotch of Mendelssohn; also Mozart's model Symphony in G -minor, and the Surprise of Haydn. Other additions to the repertoire were Beethoven's great Leonore Overture; Hummel's Septet, with Mr. H. Perabeau for pianist; Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, played by August Fries; a Concerto by Hummel, and Mendelssohn's Capriccio in A-minor, played by William Scharfenberg ; Beethoven's C-minor Piano Concerto (Mr. G. F. llayter) ; a Concert Overture by Gade ; and the overture to Waverly, by Berlioz. On two occasions organ fugues of Bach were played by Mr. J. E. Goodson, from England. Among the singers who appeared were Mine. Biscaccianti, Signor Corelli, Mr. J. L. Hatton, Signor Novelli, Signora Truffi, Mme. Stephani, Signor Perelli, Mr. Arthurson (a fine English tenor and a model in pure recitative), Mme. Anna Thillon, and Mrs. Bostwick. The Musical Fund Concerts were commonly given in the old Tremont Temple, then the largest hall in Boston. Public afternoon rehearsals, too, were given at a low price of admission, placing such music within the reach of all who cared for it; so that, although they had swerved for a season from the classical traditions of the Academy, these Fund Con¬ certs must have contributed essentially to the creation of a taste among our people for the music of the masters. They were continued through eight seasons; the last of which we find mention was in April, 1855, and in the new Boston Music Hall.

The weakness of the orchestra of that day was the want of finished tech¬ nical performance, and of an infusion of young life and spirit into the conductorship, respectable and high-toned as it was. Already there had come to us a quickening example, from which something could be learned. That miniature but model orchestra from Germany, the Germania Musical Society, began to visit Boston in the spring of 1849. It soon supplanted its forerunners, which made flying visits here, - the Steyermarkers (under F. Rziha) in 1846; the Saxonians (Kotzschmar) in 1848; and Gungl's Waltz Band in 1847-48. There was a romantic flavor in the mutual devotion of the Germanians. They were young men, friends, who had been drawn together in a little social orchestra in Berlin. This was in 1848, the year of social revolution. By much playing together they had grown expert in the interpretation, or at least the expressive outlining, of the master composi¬ tions ; they were at home in Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Gade, and even Liszt, Berlioz, and Wagner. They organized for an extended concert tour in America, - the land of freedom, their ideal! Their union had a communistic character, in a pure sense; the individual merged his private interests in the whole ; their motto was, " One for all, and all for one." They arrived in New York in September, 1848, and at once excited great enthusiasm by their fine and delicate per¬ formance, particularly of the fairy Shakespeare overture of Mendelssohn. After giving eighteen concerts there, and some in Philadelphia, they made their first appearance in Boston April 14, 1849, where they gave twentytwo concerts in the Melodeon in six weeks. The effect was magical. The Midsummer Night's Dream Overture had to be repeated thirty-nine times, such was the exquisite precision, delicacy, and poetic beauty of the rendering. Yet they only numbered twenty-three musicians; they had but pairs of violins, violas, basses, as of reeds and flutes, and but a single vio¬ loncello. They had excellent conductors, first in Carl Lenschow, afterward in Carl Bergmann. It was the fraternal spirit of their union, with their selfsacrificing zeal for art, each member feeling bound to merge himself in the ensemble of performance, - it was this "art religion," so to speak, that gave them an immense advantage over all the larger orchestras in every city where they let themselves be heard. In three winter seasons they performed here nearly all the great orchestral compositions. In one season they gave more than twenty concerts, besides filling the Music Hall, mostly with young ladies, by their public afternoon rehearsals. With the Handel and Haydn Society they gave to Boston its first two hearings of the Ninth (Choral) Symphony of Beethoven. Every concert offered a whole sym¬ phony, a classical overture, and frequently a concerto, and solos vocal and instrumental. Distinguished artists were employed; many piano-forte con¬ certos were played by Alfred Jaell, Otto Dresel, Robert Heller, and Karl Muller; violin solos by Camilla Urso; and in the list of vocalists we find Adelaide Phillipps, Elise Hensler, Caroline Lehmann, Mme. Devries, Sig¬ nora Tedesco, August Kreissmann, J. F. Rudolphsen, and others. In the eighty or ninety concerts which they gave here, the little orchestra was sometimes doubled by the addition of the best resident musicians. In the United States the Germania gave over seven hundred orchestral concerts, besides about one hundred concerts of chamber-music, - sonatas, trios, quartets, etc.

The disbanding of the Germania in 1854 (some of its members wish¬ ing to exchange their bachelor Wanderjahre for a more fixed domestic life) was seriously regretted by all lovers of good music. It had done good mis¬ sionary work throughout the Union, spreading the gospel of pure, noble music. Nowhere more than in Boston did it find the soil (already loosened by the efforts of the Academy and Fund) receptive to the good seed of its sowing; nowhere did it produce a greater list of master compositions, or find them hailed with more enthusiasm. It came at the right moment, and has left a lasting influence. Its departure threw us once more on our own resources, only to find that we were all the stronger for the momen¬ tary perturbation which this bright little wanderer had caused in our own waning stellar group.

The Musical Fund Orchestra plucked up new courage and persevered through several seasons more of useful concerts, not resting until it had accumulated a library and a fund, which is still a source of benefit to fami¬ lies of members in distress.

Let us glance now at a kindred, though a smaller, field of choicest influ¬ ence, - that of Chamber Concerts; of quartets, quintets, trios, etc., in clas¬ sical sonata form, for the violin family of instruments. These appeal to select circles in small halls or parlors, and wherever established they become living springs of pure, sincere, refined, and thoughtful love of music. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their followers have bequeathed much of their most imaginative conception and consummate art in these forms; indeed, often anticipating their own riper periods in their earlier creations of this kind: the very freedom and seclusion, from all outward ends, of such pure music-making seems to have tempted them above themselves, beyond the limits of routine. Boston owes its foretastes of such art to the three short series of Chamber Concerts given by the Harvard Musical Association (of which hereafter) at Chickering's warerooms, between 1844 and 1850; though a few concerts in the same direction had been enjoyed at Cambridge two years earlier. The first series of eight was led by the violinist Herwig, much regretted in the second series of six. Mr. Lange was the excellent pianist; sometimes also the young William Mason and Mr. William Scharfenberg of New York. The last series of four concerts was given at Cochituate Hall, with Carl Hohnstock as leading violinist, and his sister Adele as the charming singer.

This appetite once awakened, there was soon call for a more permanent organization, devoted to this special field; and in the winter of 1849-50 the Mendelssohn Quintette Club, still alive and active, first came into notice. It sprang, like many other clubs, from social practice in a private house, and drew the enthusiastic nucleus of an audience with it. For a number of years it was composed of August Fries, first violin; Rziha, second; Leh¬ mann and Thomas Ryan, violas; and Wulf Fries, 'cello. Theirs were the most classical of programmes, - quintets, quartets, octets, etc., for strings, varied by piano sonatas, trios, and the like; with such pianists as J. L. Hatton, Scharfenberg, Jaell, Dresel ; and such singers as Miss Adele Hohn¬ stock, Fanny Frazer, Anna Stone, August Kreissmann, and many others of the best available. No winter passed for many years without from six to ten such concerts at Cochituate Hall, at the Masonic Temple, at Chick¬ ering's tasteful little hall, at the Meionaon, and other convenient places. In nine years (to anticipate) this club went far toward exhausting the standard library of classical chamber-music.1 All this between 1849 and 1858, and

1 It gave : of Bach, one of the triple concertos, ten quartets, six piano trios, two concertos, sevthe Violin Chaconne, etc.; of Haydn, thirteen eral sonata duos, - all repeatedly ; Hummel, three string quartets, - from two to eight times each ; piano trios, two concertos; Cherubini, Quartet in Mozart, seven quintets, ten quartets, two sextets, E-Jlat, - four times ; Schubert, two quartets, two and several trios with piano, - most of them piano trios ; Spohr, three quintets, and clarinet over and over; Beethoven, three quintets, sextet, concerto; Onslow, eight quintets and a four-hand all the best of it repeatedly ! Admitting that it was mostly the exclusive privilege of the few, an audience seldom exceeding two hundred persons, and sometimes not half that number, yet was not the good influence sure to make itself felt in ever widening circles? And, indeed, through frequent excursions of the club the seeds found lodgement in various local soils throughout New England.

Meanwhile the vocal societies kept on their way. The Handel and Haydn, a slender stream where we left it in 1840, wras widening and deep¬ ening; enlarging its chorus, - that poor average of fifty singers having per¬ haps quadrupled itself; enlarging its orchestra, - a natural consequence of all those Academy, Musical Fund, and Germania concerts, - in fact at one time employing the Germania, to the chagrin of " resident musicians ; " availing itself of European vocalists of note; and learning many new works, now standard oratorios, now " sops to Cerberus " from operas with Bible subjects. To Handel's Messiah and Dettingen Tc Deum it added, in 1845, Samson , which it has since given nearly forty times; in 1847, Judas Maccabceus (at least twenty times). Spohr's Last Judgment was sung in 1842, and eight times in two years. But an era in its history was the taking up of Mendelssohn's Si. Paul in 1843 (it had first been sung in Trinity Church), followed by the Elijah in 1848. The former received ten repre¬ sentations, the latter forty-four, before 1879; it proving here, as in England, the most popular, after the Messiah , of all oratorios. Rossini's Stabat Mater was added to the list in 1843, and has been sung many times since then; and Moses in Egypt , adapted from the opera, in 1845. This figured forty-five times down to 1868. Donizetti's Martyrs , another adapted opera, was sung seven times in 1849 and 1850. The first conductor by election was the well known English singer and composer Charles E. Horn (1847 - 49). Mr. Charles C. Perkins (who now again for several years has been the president) assumed the baton in 1850. Mr. J. E. Goodson, the English organist, was chosen conductor for one year in 185 1. The organists through nearly all this period were the Messrs. Hayter, father and son. The prin¬ cipal solos were commonly entrusted to the best resident singers, some of whom won more than a local reputation, - notably Miss Anna Stone (now Mrs. Dr. Eliot, in New York), whose clarion soprano voice, and free, bril¬ liant execution in "Let the bright Seraphim," as well as in Moses in Egypt , and the like, are still quoted with enthusiasm. There wras also Mrs. Frank¬ lin and, among other young sopranos, the Misses Taylor, Frost, Doane, and Webb, and the contralto Miss Humphrey. The veteran artistic tenor James Sharpe still held out. Among the basses figured Mr. Thomas Ball the sculptor (notably in Elijah ), and Mr. Aiken. Of foreign celebrities the sonata; Mendelssohn, quintets in A and in B-flat three quartets; besides many works of Mos- (the latter the club's corner-stone), both a dozen cheles, Ries, Weber, Chopin, Gade, Kalliwoda, times, seven string quartets, and three with V. Lachner, Veit, F. David, Gouvy, Brahms, piano, two piano trios, the Octet, four sonata and several quartets and quintets composed duos, etc. ; Schumann, two quartets, the piano by members and friends of the club, quintet, Romcinzas with clarinet; Rubinstein, first was the great English tenor Braham, in 1841, the richness, power, and volume of whose voice, though past its prime, and whose grand style, especially in musical declamation, made the liveliest impression. Then there was the English tenor Jones, in Samson , and Henry Phillipps (1844), and our own Eliza Biscaccianti, and Miss Frazer, and the clever J. L. Hatton, Signor Perelli, Signor Rosi, and many more. The oratorios were still given in the Melodeon ; the chorus, in numbers, balance, dis¬ cipline, effectiveness, was far below the present standard, yet its course was upward.

Other choral societies were still active, especially the Musical Education Society, which, under the direction of Mr. Webb, in the spring of 1849, gave probably the first performance in America of Handel's Alexander' s Feast, with the aid of the Musical Fund Orchestra and of five young so¬ prano singers, two of them, Miss Frost and Miss Doane, pupils of that sterling artist and sweet tenor singer August Kreissmann, who took part himself. The same society, in the two following years, was the first to give us Handel's Jephthah and the sublime Israel in Egypt. In January, 1848, Mr. A. U. Hayter announced the performance on successive Saturday eve¬ nings of those genial secular creations of Handel, L' Allegro ed il P ensieroso , Acts and Galatea , and Alexander s Feast, but was discouraged by the small attendance at the first.

The tendency of all these movements thus far had been mainly toward the German music. We have now to recognize a counter-current. In the spring of 1847 (the very year, as we have said, in which the symphonies of the Academy shrank into silence) the Italian Opera came with potent charm, and conquered. Then arose conflict of opinions and tastes, - end¬ less discussion, often heated, often idle, of the rival merits of the Italian and the German music. Boston, before this time, had witnessed only some occasional slight skirmishes of wandering lyric troupes, - sporadic cases of the opera fever, but no epidemic ; small companies of English singers sang translated German, French, and Italian operas, or thin and threadbare sketches of them, as well as works of English manufacture.

We pass them all and come to the advent of Signor Marti's Havana troupe of Italian singers, who made that little Howard Athenaeum1 a classi¬ cal temple of the Muse for two successive seasons. They opened, April 23, 1847, with the first strong blast of Verdi's music, which was like a north¬ west wind after the tropical and languid melodies of Donizetti and Bellini. The piece was Ernani ; the singers, Signorina Tedesco, Signors Perelli, Vita, and Novelli. Other leading artists of the company were Mme. Caranti -Vita, Mme. Rainieri, Signors Severi, F. Badiali (tenor), etc. Among the pieces given were Verdi's I Lombardi, Pacini's Saffo, Bellini's Montecchi e Capuletti , Rossini's Mose, etc.; and, of more consequence than all, if

1 In 1845, tlle world having failed to come to atic cradle, under the name of Howard Athean end according to prediction, the " Millerite nasum, which it still holds as a popular " Va- Tabernacle " was converted into Boston's oper- riety " theatre, so to speak.

not widely popular at once, Mozart's Don Giovanni, with funny Sanquirico as Leporello. Undoubtedly Italian Opera was uppermost for the time being; and the enthusiasm about it was something for which youth may be envied. With many it was the first musical awakening. Sensibilities thus roused became alive to even nobler music in the course of time. Many might have lived and died insensible to Beethoven, had not gentle Bellini first seduced them from the prose and commonplace of life into the won¬ der-world of song.

In the following year the queenly Truffi, with the manly tenor Benedetti, the stentorian Beneventano, Rosi, Rossi-Corsi, and others, wrought an equal charm in Mercadante's II Giuramento , in Lucrezia Borgia, and Ljicia ; and Mme. Biscaccianti joined them in Sonnambula, Lucia, and Ernani. In 1849 Mr Fry of Philadelphia brought us the French singers M. and Mme. Labordc, M. Dubreuil, etc., giving Lucia, L' Elisir d' Amove, Verdi's Nabucco and Lombardi, etc. The summer of 1851 is memorable for the first appearance of Max Maretzek's troupe, - Truffi, Bettini, Marini, Beneventano, Lorini, and Mme. Parodi, who had been imported in the vain hope of eclipsing Jenny Lind. Their spirited performance of La Favorita created a furore out of all proportion to the intrinsic value of the music. Let us not forget, too, the rare combination in 1850 of that " bright particular star" (by many esteemed only next in glory to the Lind) Mme. Angiolina Bosio, with the noble tenors Salvi and Bettini, and the superb baritone and basso, Badiali and Marini.

So much for those visitations of the Siren. The record is but frag¬ mentary and somewhat confused. For more exact details there is no room, - in fact, no need; for these wandering constellations did not favor Boston more than other cities, and constitute no portion of her musical peculium. Opera, not yet established here, can count but incidentally in the direct line of influences which have placed this city where it stands to-day in music, and it is with these influences mainly that this sketch is concerned.

Third Period, 1852-66. - At the entrance to this third period stands the figure of the great singer and great artist Jenny Lind. The want of a hall large enough and fit for her to sing in led to the erection of the Boston Music Hall, which opened a new chance for great music in our city. In the same year (1852) was begun the publication of Boston's only long-lived musical periodical, Dwight' s fournal of Music. Both of these sprang from the little society of musical graduates of Harvard College which called itself the Harvard Musical Association. The great Swedish singer's career in this country was in the years 1850-52. We need not recall the wonderful impression which her song produced, and the new interest and faith in music as an art divine which she inspired. Boston only shared this fine experience with other cities, although it is something pleas¬ ant to remember that her marriage to Otto Goldschmidt took place in a Boston family.

The Music Hall project had first been agitated in the council of the Mu¬ sical Fund Society, at the earnest suggestion of Dr. J. Baxter Upham, whose name has always been identified with its whole history. Failing there, the idea was revived at the annual meeting of the Harvard Musical Association (Jan. 31, 1851), in the course of some informal conversation at the suppertable, resulting in the appointment of a committee (Messrs. C. C. Perkins, R. E. Apthorp.J. B. Upham, George Derby, and J. S. Dwight) to consider the subject practically. A subsequent committee determined the site and general plan of the proposed edifice, selected Mr. George Snell as architect, and canvassed for subscriptions to its stock, raising funds to the amount of $100,000 in sixty days. Among the largest subscribers stand the names of Perkins, Curtis, Upham, Chickering, and Apthorp. The Hon. C. P. Curtis was the first president of the board of seven directors, but soon resigned the place to Dr. Upham, who has held it ever since. The main hall is sixty feet in height, one hundred and twenty feet in length, and eighty feet in width, and comfortably seats two thousand seven hundred persons. It is grand in its proportions, chaste and noble in its style ; and with the imposing front of its great organ, with Crawford's statue of Beethoven in rich Munich bronze, with the admirable bas-reliefs on the opposite wall, the gift of Charlotte Cushman, and with the beauty of its general aspect, it is a place where all suggestions to the eye are in aesthetic keeping with, and predisposing to, the full enjoyment of fine music. Experience from the first has proved it ad¬ mirably good for sound, the only objection being that, unless the musical forces are upon a scale commensurate with so large a space, some of the finer, effects are lost, or not sufficiently intense. The new hall was inaugurated on Saturday evening, Nov. 20, 1852, with a grand musical festival, before two thousand five hundred people, fitly opening with Mozart's Zaitbcrflote Over¬ ture , by the Fund Orchestra, who also played the overture to Oberon , and the andante to the C-minor Symphony of Beethoven. The Handel and Haydn Society sang the Hallelujah Chorus and " The Heavens are Telling;" the Musical Education Society contributed the lovely chorus " Happy and Blest," from St. Paul ; the German Liederkranz, under Mr. Kreissmann, some beautiful part-songs. Mme. Alboni's large and lus¬ cious tones told upon every ear with roundness and distinctness in music of her countrymen ; and the Germania Serenade Band played A Greeting to the Fatherland. On the next (Sunday) evening a sacred concert was given there by another of the world's great singers, Mme. Sontag, with the Handel and Haydn Society; and it was remarked that her softest pianissimo tones, her finest fioriture, were heard with perfect distinctness in the remot¬ est corners of the hall beneath the balcony. From that time the new hall became the scene of countless musical performances, many of them of the noblest character, such as would otherwise have been denied to Boston. From that time she could offer a more tempting hospitality to famous artists from abroad. On Feb. 5, 1853, its walls resounded for the first time with the sublime Choral Symphony of Beethoven, given by the Germania, with Handel and Haydn chorus. On March I, 1856, there was a Beethoven Festival, for the inauguration of Crawford's noble statue, - the gift of our townsman Charles C. Perkins. There was an inspiring ode, written and recited by another townsman living for many years in Rome, - the sculptor William W. Story. The music consisted of the three instrumental move¬ ments of the Ninth Symphony , the great soprano scena and aria from Fidclio , sung by Mrs. J. H. Long; the " Quartet in Canon," from the same (Mrs. Wentworth, Mrs. Harwood, Mr. Low, and Mr. Wetherbee) ; the Violin Concerto (Mr. August Fries) ; the hallelujah chorus, from the Mount of Olives ; and the choral fantasia, in Praise of Harmony , in which the donor of the statue himself played the piano- forte part. On New Year's Day, 1863, at noon, that hall was the scene of the memorable jubilee con¬ cert in honor of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, when Emerson first read his famous Boston Hymn for prologue ; and the music consisted of the Egmont Overture ; the solo and chorus from the Hymn of Praise, - "Watchman, will the Night soon Pass?" (Mr. Kreissmann) and the response, "The Night is Departing," in which the clear clarion tones of Miss Houston (Mrs. West) made a thrilling impression; Beethoven's E-flat Concerto, played by Otto Dresel; Dr. Holmes's Army Hymn, composed for solo and chorus by Dresel; the Fifth Symphony ; the chorus "He, Watch¬ ing over Israel," from Elijah; Handel's Hallehijah Chorus, and the over¬ ture to William Tell, - all music up to the true pitch and sense of the occasion.

There was still wanting, to complete the Music Hall, especially for ora¬ torios, that " temple within temple," the Great Organ. For this, too, we are indebted to the indefatigable energy and zeal of Dr. Upham. It was years in process of construction, and then kept back by the dangers of transportation during the war. It was from the celebrated manufactory of Walcker & Son, at Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart. Its four manuals and pedal command eighty-nine registers and five thousand four hundred and seventy-four pipes, including three thirty-two foot stops. It was at that time by far the largest organ on this continent, and one of the three or four largest in the world. It was dedicated Nov. 2, 1863, when an ode by Mrs. James T. Fields was recited by Miss Charlotte Cushman, followed by some of the noblest organ works of Bach, Handel, Palestrina, Mendelssohn, and Lefebure Wely, played by Messrs. J. K. Paine, G. W. Morgan, B. J. Lang, S. P. Tuckerman, Eugene Thayer, and J. H. Wilcox. Fortunately the re¬ turn, shortly before this time, of Mr. Paine from his studies in Germany, full of the music and traditions of Sebastian Bach, brought that greatest of all organ music into frequent hearing through the medium of this new gigantic instrument, and his efforts found emulous and able seconding in several of the organists just named. It must be confessed, with some shame now, that those organ concerts for a year or two gave far more of the highest class of organ compositions than we have had a chance to hear more recently.

Of the Journal of Music , above named, it is not for the present writer to say more than this, that it has had a longer career than any other jour¬ nal of the kind in this country (from April, 1852, until September, 1881) ; that it has been recognized at home and abroad as generally faithful to the highest standard in art, and has the credit of having contributed something to the musical culture, taste, and character of Boston ; its forty volumes contain a much completer record of the musical events and growth of Boston for the past thirty years than it is possible to condense into a chapter like this.

Here seems to be the place to speak of the Harvard Musical Associa¬ tion, which gave the first start and godspeed to the Music Hall and Jour¬ nal ; which, as we have seen, set the first public example of Chamber Concerts in this city ; and the influence of which, although it is for the most part but a private, social union, has been felt in many ways, directly or indirectly, as a promoter of musical progress and refinement. It is a child of Harvard University, and was organized, in the autumn of 1837, among the alumni who had been members of the little college club called the Pierian Sodality, which used to make the music at the college exhibi¬ tions, besides serenading and playing together for mutual pleasure and improvement. Music at that period did not stand high in favor with the teachers or the parents of most students. To have a weakness for a flute or viol, or to sing aught but "sacred" music, was a thing "suspect" and leading to temptation. The idea that music is an art of intellectual and spiritual consequence, that it should be respected and placed upon an equal footing with the recognized " humanities " of a liberal education, would have been dismissed as one of the wildest and most dangerous of dreams. But not so thought the more earnest of the musical young men, and some of the older graduates who knew about it from their own experience. Sev¬ eral of these were present on one of those exhibition days, and partook of a sociable collation as the guests of the immediate members of the Sodality, some of them just then upon the point of graduation; and the idea oc¬ curred that it would be a pleasant and perhaps a useful thing to form a permanent society of old and young Pierians. There would be at least the pleasure of from time to time reviving the musical memories of college life ; while a league, in the name and interest of music, of so many collegeeducated men, would in itself tend to raise the art in general respect, par¬ ticularly among the authorities of the College. The immediate end was social and sentimental, but it was foreseen that in these reunions opportu¬ nities and motives would arise for helping the cause of music in more ways than one. For one thing, a united force of opinion would be brought to bear in favor of some practical recognition of music as a branch of college education, and the way prepared for the establishment of a musical profes¬ sorship, - all which has come about. Lectures were given upon music, mostly in its aesthetic aspects, by several members, in the college chapel during the Commencement week, for half-a-dozen years ; and on the com- pletion of the year 1850 an elaborate and interesting address was delivered before the association, at Cochituate Hall, by Mr. Samuel Jennison, Jr., on the "Music of the past Half-century." Social glee-clubs were formed, with instrumental music for variety. A musical library was begun, which has now grown to several thousand volumes, including the complete works of many of the masters, besides a. large representation of the musical lit¬ erature, both books and periodicals, in English, German, French, Italian, etc., and a large collection of vocal and orchestral " parts." It is prob¬ ably one of the three or four fullest and most valuable musical libraries in America; and its example has led to liberal provision for the musical department in the Boston Public Library, the library at Harvard, and some others.1 The respect for music among educated men has unconsciously obeyed the concentration of still magnetic force in this association. Before entering the field of public concert-giving, it has helped to raise the tone of musical activity around us, and has lent encouragement, if not the first vital impulse, to not a few good works and movements in furtherance of the art which is its bond of union. Even when it has found nothing visible to put its hand to, it has not been without its silent influence. Its most im¬ portant public work belongs to the period after the War of the Rebellion, when it began those annual series of Symphony Concerts which have con¬ tinued to this day. Of these hereafter. It now numbers about one hun¬ dred and forty members, including some of the most honored alumni of Harvard and other universities, besides many of the most refined and gifted of the musical profession.

Foremost and most constant among the societies which availed them¬ selves of the new Music Hall Was the Handel and Haydn Society, whose progress we have briefly sketched thus far. In such a hall for oratorio upon a grander scale, with conveniences for rehearsal in the Bumstead Hall beneath, it soon took a new start. The chorus gradually increased in numbers, although it was some years yet before it averaged two hundred in performance. In 1858-59 from three hundred to three hundred and twentyfive singers were reported in the seats, including, however, many who had not attended rehearsals. What first raised the standard in numbers and efficiency was the first bold venture of a three-days' Musical Festival, after the model of those at Birmingham and other towns in England. This was in May, 1857. For this the chorus was increased to over five hundred voices, with an orchestra of seventy-eight. Out of the recruits for this and later festivals many of course became interested in the work and spirit of the society, and from year to year were added to its list of members. That Festival, though not remunerative, gave new life and energy and larger pur¬ pose to the old society. There was an opening address by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, from which we have already quoted. Three oratorios - the three most popular, the Creation , Elijah , and the Messiah - were given, Carl Zerrahn conducting. The principal singers were: soprano , Mrs. Eliot

(Anna Stone) of New York, Mrs. J. H. Long, Mrs. Mozart and Mrs. Hill; alto , Miss Adelaide Phillipps and Miss J. Twichell; tenor , Mr. Simpson of New York and Mr. C. R. Adams; bass, Mr. Leach and Dr. Guilmette. There were, besides, three miscellaneous orchestral and vocal concerts, with programmes of high character, including symphonies, etc., never before heard in Boston with so large and fine an orchestra. This was during the presidency of Mr. C. F. Chickering, with Mr. L. B. Barnes for the efficient adjutant and secretary. Another Festival was given, on a yet larger scale, on the fiftieth anniversary of the society, in May, 1865. It lasted a whole week, and there were nearly seven hundred singers in the chorus, and one hundred and twelve musicians in the orchestra. The choral works were : Nicolai's Festival Overture, with chorus, on Luther's Chorale, " Ein' feste Burg;" Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise (first time); the Creation; Israel in Egypt ; and Elijah. The afternoon concerts presented Beethoven's Eroica and Seventh Symphony ; the great Syinphony in C by Schubert ; the Scotch by Mendelssohn; the overtures to Leonore, Coriolan, Midsummer Night's Dream, Bennett's Naiads, Rossini's William Tell, etc. ; and Liszt's "symphonic poem," Les Preludes; with vocal selections by the various solo singers in the oratorios, - Miss Flouston, Mrs. Van Zandt, Miss Brainerd, Mme. Frederici Himmer, Mrs. Kempton, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Cary, Herren Himmer, Hermanns, and others. The society had proved the feas¬ ibility of musical festivals in this country; but festivals did not become a periodical feature in its plan until our fourth and last period.

In 1861 Dr. J. B. Upham became president of the Handel and Haydn, inspiring it with the same sort of zeal and energy with which he had carried through the project of the Music Hall and Organ, and the Public School Festivals (which came to a too early end). He held the office for ten years, during all which period his efforts were ably seconded by the same secretary, Mr. Barnes, who became his successor. In 1852 Mr. Carl Bergmann, of the Germania, had succeeded Mr. Webb as conductor; and in 1854 Mr. Carl Zerrahn (of the same society) assumed the baton, which he has since wielded with so much discretion, power, and honor to this day.

The principal additions to the repertoire in these years were: Handel's Solomon, Israel in Egypt, and St. Cecilia' s Day (for the choral inauguration of the Great Organ); Costa's Eli; Beethoven's Choral Symphony, and Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise. A patriotic concert was given in April, 1861, in aid of the Government, at the outbreak of the Rebellion; and another on March 1, 1862, when the Dettingen Te Deum and the Hymn of Praise were sung in joy and gratitude for Union victories.

The Musical Education Society gave Christmas performances of the Messiah in 1852 and 1853 ; also selections from Handel's Joshua and Jephthah, and from Mendelssohn's St. Paul in the spring of the latter year. In October, 1853, was formed the Mendelssohn Choral Society, under the presidency of that vigorous organizer in choral as in military matters, the late General B. F. Edmands. It gave the Messiah on the following Christ- mas, with Bergmann for conductor, the Germania Orchestra, and Miss Stone, Mrs. Wentworth, Miss Humphrey, Mr. S. B. Ball, and Mr. F. Meyer for the solo singers. In November, 1854, it gave the Widow of Nain by Lindpaintner ; and during the remainder of its existence (through 1857) several more performances of the Messiah , and several good programmes of selections.

The orchestral concerts during this whole period were tentative and wavering, changing form and method of attack repeatedly, although they never altogether ceased. Those of the Musical Fund were continued until 1855. In November, 1854, a small occasional orchestra was made up by some of the musicians (" the cream of the Musical Fund," several of the disbanded Germania, and the Mendelssohn Quintette Club), which gave cheap afternoon concerts, combining symphony and lighter things in fair proportions. These concerts, easily given, inexpensive, very moderately re¬ munerative to the musicians, were kept alive through periods when all else failed. Indeed, a series of them was given every year down to the spring of 1868. In 1855 a course of six subscription concerts was arranged by a committee of gentlemen, - Messrs. Perkins, Upham, Edward Grattan (British Consul), Dwight, and C. F. Chickering, - with Carl Zerrahn con¬ ducting fifty-four musicians. The programmes were as choice as the taste and means at the disposal of the committee could make them. In 1856 M. Jullien, with his famous travelling orchestra, gave brilliant and sensa¬ tional performances in the Boston Music Hall, exciting wonder and applause. We have, already mentioned the Beethoven Statue Festival of that year. An earnest attempt was made to establish a Beethoven Concert Society with a very large orchestra, but it failed for lack of the one thousand five hundred subscribers it required. The problem of a complete and perma¬ nent orchestra for Boston was agitated even then ; but its day had not arrived. In 1857 Mr. Zerrahn began his annual seasons of Philharmonic Concerts, keeping alive the interest in classical symphony-music, relieved byl ighter or more brilliant works, and introducing not a little that was new. To him we were indebted for our best privileges in this kind, almost stead¬ ily until the spring of 1863. Then the nation was in the middle of the great war, and subscriptions naturally fell off. Shining bait for the more general public was held up in programmes, but with only this result, that the stanch supporters of the classical - the sole sure nucleus of any audi¬ ence for the highest kind of music - lost their confidence ; and the supply ceased altogether, with the exception of the little Orchestral Union after¬ noon concerts, or " rehearsals," and the occasional nice entertainments to which friends were invited by a little amateur orchestra, the Mozart Club, during 1860-64 and later. This club had been long in existence under other names, keeping wholly in the shade, - possibly the same Alpheus- Arethusa stream of the old Graupner " Philo-harmonic" finding its way un¬ derground to reappear in a new form at this time. None of these acorns grew to a great oak. There was renewed call for the " Grand Boston Or- chestra " which should make summer of " the winter of our discontent." Conductor Zerrahn was inexhaustible in conjuring up new schemes and programmes; but the time was not yet: we must wait until the war is over ! Then perhaps - ?

Meanwhile in smaller circles much was done for music. Choice spirits were the centres of such circles. That year of promise with which this period opened, with a rainbow on the cloud from the departing Swedish singer, - the year 1852, which gave us the Music Hall, and in which appeared an organ for the frank and honest utterance and interchange of opinion, for the expression of the best earnest thought and aspiration of the true friends of music, - was also happy in the abiding presence here of several artist teachers of the true stamp. One particularly, a Ger¬ man who had been under the immediate influence of Mendelssohn and Schumann ; one of the finest instances of Leipsic culture, embodying the best traditions of that school ; at home in Bach and Beethoven, in Schumann and Chopin ; an eminently poetic, genial interpreter of their piano-forte compositions, - Otto Dresel, took up his abode here in the autumn of that year. By taste and temperament he shrank from publicity. He preferred to work in private and congenial circles, where alike by his performance and by his remarkable critical intelligence, seconded by rare powers of conver¬ sation, he soon began to exercise an influence which can hardly be over¬ rated. He became unprofessedly, by silent and unconscious magnetism, a teacher of teachers. All the best younger artists drew inspiration from his thought and his example. He entered with self-sacrificing earnestness, and with a vividness of insight, an intensity of will and work, into every musical movement here which he could see was really for good. In his own little concerts and recitals, which were frequent nearly every season through this period and later, he set the model of pure, interesting pro¬ grammes, often calling in the aid of brother artists - violinists, 'cellists, the Quintette Club, etc. - to bring out trios and quartets ; or other pianists, as once Jaell and Scharfenberg in the production for the first time here of the Triple Concertos of Sebastian Bach. Probably no other person has ever introduced among us so large and choice a repertoire of the finest works of the master composers from Bach to Chopin, and even later. He often contributed a fine rendering of a Beethoven or a Mendelssohn concerto in the orchestral concerts. He formed private vocal clubs, which met in houses, and under his severe, inspiring discipline, studied cantatas, choruses, etc. of Bach, Gluck, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Robert Franz, and others quite unknown in America before; and these gave quickening sug¬ gestion to other singing-clubs which have sprung up from time to time. But one of his greatest services, a work peculiarly his own, was his intro¬ duction of the poetic songs of Robert Franz, of whom he has been the confidential friend and fellow-laborer, in the secret of the first conception and elaboration of these songs from the beginning, as well as of the admi¬ rable work which Franz has done in the completion of the Bach and Handel scores. Nowhere, even in Germany, have the songs of Franz become so widely known, so keenly appreciated, and so much in vogue in parlor and in concert room, as here, through Mr. Dresel's influence, in Boston. Very many, perhaps one half of these two or three hundred songs, have been republished here with English and German words. If this seems like post obit eulogy, it may be excused on the ground that the subject of it has for some years past, it may be feared for an indefinite period, withdrawn him¬ self from Boston, and is now living and teaching in Leipsic, as well as working and studying with his old friend Franz, now totally deaf, in Handel's birthplace, Halle; also on the ground that the object of this paper is to trace the influences which have brought Boston where it stands to-day in music, and that such an influence. as we have just described, so quickening and far-reaching although individual, cannot be ignored.

Fortunate was it for us also that we had, already settled here for several years, one of the best interpreters of the Franz songs in the musician¬ like, expressive, genial singer, August Kreissmann, whose long painful ill¬ ness and recent death in Germany has been so seriously deplored. He was a master also in the songs and arias of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann ; the leader for many years of the Orpheus singing-club of Germans, and the teacher of some of our best public singers during the time of which we speak.

There was another gentle, modest artist at the same time, strong in artistic faith and character, - the young pianist Joseph Trenkle, whose ex¬ ample was all in the right direction, but whose health compelled him after a few years to emigrate to San Francisco, where he was held in great esteem, and died Nov. 19, 1878. A little later, in 1856, came another young pianist, also from the Leipsic school, - Hugo Leonhard, who has done much here to inspire an interest in the works of Beethoven and the other great ones, but especially of Schumann; but, alas! as it was with Schumann, so it was finally with this enthusiastic follower; his reason was beclouded, and his too short career was closed in the autumn of 1879. In 1858 came, from New York, Julius Eichberg, an artistic violinist and a thorough musician of the Belgian School, who has been identified in many useful ways in the whole musical progress here from that time to this. Of his work, more hereafter.

These all came from Germany. In 1854 two of our own Boston aspi¬ rants brought home fruits of study from the Conservatorium of Leipsic. Mr. J. C. D. Parker was the first son of Harvard to forsake a dry profession (the Law) and follow the ruling passion of his life, devoting it profession¬ ally to the " higher law" of music. He at once became quietly but stead¬ ily active as pianist, organist, composer, teacher, and director of a vocal club. His taste and influence have been wholly classical and most uncom¬ promising. He has given trio concerts, played in the best symphony and chamber courses, and has been and is a valued though a quiet member in the councils of the most important movements. His vocal club (the Parker

Club) of amateurs, mixed voices, formed in 1862, for many years gave interesting concerts to invited audiences in the old Chickering Hall, and was the means of introducing numerous important works (though only with piano-forte accompaniment), among others the Coma/a of Gade, the Walpurgis Night of Mendelssohn, the Flight into Egypt of Berlioz, Schu¬ mann's Paradise and the Peri and Pilgrimage of the Rose , etc., besides many choice part-songs, some of the favorites being of Mr. Parker's own composition. The other young Bostonian who came back that year was the pianist William Mason (son of Dr. Lowell Mason), who after a few seasons settled in New York, where he ranks among the foremost teachers and pianists. Another young pianist and organist, who had removed here from Salem shortly before this, Mr. B. J. Lang, was beginning to make his mark in concert rooms, and giving promise of the prominent position he has since attained. In 1861 the young organist John K. Paine, now the honored Musical Professor at Harvard, returned from his severe and patient studies in Berlin, equipped at all points in the armor of complete musicianship, as he has since proved by his numerous compositions in the least and largest forms. At that time he was our chief exponent, practically, of the great organ music of Bach, and of Thiele, Ritter, and the other more im¬ portant recent German writers for the organ, not neglecting Mendelssohn. Of native singers it is enough to name Miss Adelaide Phillipps and Mr. Charles R. Adams, both of whom have had careers abroad, the latter having held the position of principal tenor in the Imperial Opera at Vienna for nine years.

All these have been more or less important factors in the movement which has tended to make Boston musical. Among the transient stars that shed light upon us in this period were the pianists Alfred Jaell (1851-54), Scharfenberg of New York, Gottschalk (1853), Robert Heller (1854), Satter (1855 and later), and Thalberg (1857); the organist G. W. Mor¬ gan of New York (1856) ; the violinists, Ole Bull (second visit, 1853), the young Paul Julien and Camilla Urso (about 1852); and of singers, Mme. Alboni and Mme. Sontag (1852), Mme. Lagrange (1855), Mme. Johannsen (1857), and Carl Formes (1858). More names will occur in connection with the opera.

Chamber-concerts, in various forms, kept up a certain interest through all this period ; those given by the pianists being sometimes of the highest interest. The Mendelssohn Quintette Club persevered in its good work, adding, among other things, to the rich repertoire already summarized several of the latest ( posthumous ) quartets of Beethoven. Its season of 1864-65, however, its sixteenth venture, was doubtfully and tardily deter¬ mined on. In 1856 and 1857 the German Trio (Messrs. Gartner, Hause, and Jungnickel) gave programmes, mostly classical, for piano, violin, and 'cello. In 1857 Thalberg was delighting refined audiences at Chickering's. In 1859 Messrs. Eichberg and Leonhard gave choice concerts of violin and piano music at the Meionaon ; and in 1861 the same artists associated with them the singer Mr. Kreissmann. Mr. Dresel's masterly and subtile illustra¬ tions of the true piano-forte poets were a continual attraction. In the season of 1864-65 he gave two series, one of five and one of eight concerts, playing the two triple concertos of Bach with his confreres Parker, Lang, and Leonhard, Mr. Kreissmann contributing fresh flowers of song by Schu¬ bert, Schumann, Franz, and others.

Flying visits of the opera, Italian and even German, were seldom long to wait for. Even the war created here, as war has elsewhere done in other anxious, gloomy crises, a thirst for this intoxicating innocent diversion in " the times that tried men's souls." We were never for a whole year with¬ out the opera in some shape. In the spring of 1853 we had both the Alboni and the Sontag party at the Howard Athenaeum. The "year of promise" brought these also. In September, 1854, the large and sumptuous new Bos¬ ton Theatre, one of the noblest in the world, was opened, - a second waif from the same tidal wave of musical enthusiasm which gave us the great Music Hall two years before. Then came Louisa Pyne, with Harrison, the younger Reeves, and others, bringing operas in English, - Crown Diamoyids, Fra Diavolo, the old Beggar's Opera, etc. The early weeks of 1855 are me¬ morable for the eagerly thronged performances of that famous lyric couple, Grisi and Mario, with Badiali and Susini ; who, besides the usual run of well worn Italian pieces, gave us Don Giovanni (with our own Lorini-Whiting for Zerlina), and such a con arnore, thoroughly delightful rendering of the immortal Barber , before a mere handful of an afternoon audience, as one may hardly hope to see and hear again. In May of that year came Maretzek, with Mme. Steffanone, Mme. Bertucca-Maretzek, Mile. Vestvali, and Signors Badiali, Brignoli, etc., bringing us Rossini's Tell for once, - also the first inoculation of the Rigoletto-Trovatore-Traviata epidemic. In June, Mme. Lagrange appeared in Nonna ; and again in January, 1856, with Nantier-Didiee, Elise Hensler, Salviani, Morelli, etc., she brought out Don Giovanni , Semirarnide , and, for the first time, Meyerbeer's Prophete. The same parties came once or twice more that year. From this point troupes and singers multiply so fast as to crowd each other out of the brief hasty record. The most important works first introduced here by one or the other of these parties were the Huguenots , Marriage of Figaro, Magic Flute, Der Freyschiitz, Martha, and Gounod's Faust.

More significant, more suggestive of a future, because tending in the same direction with all our elevating experiences of great choral and orchestral music, was our beginning of acquaintance with the one opera of Beethoven, Fidelio. Rude and inadequate as was its first presentation (April, 1857) through the artistic but impatient zeal of Carl Bergmann, who had little to rely upon for its success besides the nobly dramatic, thrill¬ ing impersonation of the heroic wife by Mme. Johannsen, yet it was an event in the musical life of Boston. The intrinsic depth and beauty of the music made itself felt by those, at least, who meet the intention of a composer half-way when it is only half brought out ; and when it came again in

May and in October, 1864, in the German Opera seasons of Anschutz and of Grover, each with a company much more complete, although composed essentially of the same singers (Johannsen, Frederici, Canissa, Himmer, Habelmann, Hermanns, Formes, etc.), it got a lasting hold upon the sym¬ pathies of all true music lovers. These companies, besides Fidelio, gave Don Juan, Zauberjlote, Freys chilis, The Huguenots , Robert le Diable, Die Weisse Dame, Faust, Die Jiidinn, Nicolai's Lustige Weiber, Flotow's Stradella, and parts of Wagner's Tannhduser and Gounod's Mireille. But the promise ended there, the happy combination was soon scattered to the winds. Even so it has been with all experiences of opera, exotic charmer, here and in all this country, with the exception of the French Opera in New Orleans. Nowhere has it taken root and grown into a self-supporting institution ; and therefore even the few words here spent upon it might have been spared in view of the little it has contributed to real prog¬ ress here in musical taste and culture, to say nothing of original produc¬ tion. Yet it has not been without its influence, as we have said before. It has introduced a great variety of more or less beautiful and genial arias, scenas, and concerted vocal pieces into the common currency of concert room and parlor, and made glad the (re)publishers. It has given us shining models of good singing, and sharpened the critical perception of the listen¬ ers. It has kept alive a certain musical enthusiasm at times when most ears and souls were dull to any other music ; and it has kept from dying out the dream, the hope of a " good time coming," when we shall have opera, true opera, as an established national and local institution, even should it have to be indigenous and native to the soil. Then it will mean something here, and will fulfil its meaning, building up its rightful, glorious side of the com¬ plete living temple of an undying art-religion here and in other centres of this great Republic.

Fourth Period, 1865-81. - The war is over! There is now time to think again of music. And the first problem which presents itself is that of the Orchestra. Are we to have any symphonies? The little Orchestral Union was all that we had left, and that did not furnish what the old Academy, the Fund, the Germania, and Mr. Zerrahn's Philharmonics had accustomed us to look to as the best part of our musical birthright. A new hope dawned, and in a quarter not professional. At one of the annual dinners of the Harvard Musical Association (January, 1865) the matter was discussed, and it was agreed to give six symphony concerts in the winter of 1866-67, 1° be entirely under the control of a committee of its members, who should select the conductor and the orchestra, procure a guarantee subscription, and arrange the programmes. The orchestral means of Boston, to be sure, were limited. To make the most of such means as there were, and to employ them in the gratification and improvement of the taste for what is best, - the master-works in symphony, concerto, overture, etc, - this was the design and only motive; this would delight and educate good music lovers, and at the same time give our drudging, multifariously preoccupied musicians some chance and encouragement to work together now and then as artists in the nobler spirit of their art. The first step in the working-plan was to bespeak for them the best kind of audience, its nucleus to be members of the Association and their friends, who were sup¬ posed to have social influence enough, besides the musical attraction, to insure a well-filled hall. The strength of the enterprise lay in these guar¬ antees : i. Disinterestedness: it was not a money-making speculation; it had no motive but good music and the hope of doing a good thing for art in Boston; - in that, it took up the tradition of the old Academy. 2. The guarantee of the nucleus of fit audience, - persons of taste and culture, subscribing beforehand to make the concerts financially safe, and likely to increase the number by the attraction of their own example. 3. Pure pro¬ grammes, above all need of catering to low tastes; here should be at least one set of concerts in which we might hear only composers of unques¬ tioned excellence, and into which should enter nothing vulgar, coarse, " sensational," but only such as outlives fashion. 4. The guarantee to the musicians both of a better kind of work and somewhat better pay than they were wont to find. It was hoped that the experiment would " pave the way to a permanent organization of orchestral concerts, whose periodical recur¬ rence and high, uncompromising character might be always counted on in Boston." It was in fact a plan whereby the real lovers of good music should take the initiative in such concerts and control them, keeping the pro¬ grammes up to a higher standard than they are likely to conform to in the hands of those who give concerts only to make money.

There was an orchestra of fifty musicians, and Mr. Carl Zerrahn was appointed to the conductorship, which he has honorably held to this day. The first season was a marked success; a new interest was awakened, - so much so that the number of concerts was increased to eight the second year, and afterward to ten. For six or eight years the audience steadily in¬ creased, - more than one season yielding a surplus of several thousand dollars. This was set aside, partly for the purchase of music, but mainly as a concert fund, which has made good all losses since the public patronage began to fall off ; so that in fact for sixteen years these concerts have been self-sup¬ porting, and will still go on. In ten seasons (1865-75) the Association had given just one hundred concerts, including several benefits.1 In the tenth

1 These hundred programmes contained : - Symphonies. - All the nine of Beethoven, repeatedly; twelve by Haydn; six by Mozart; the Weihe der Tone , by Spohr ; Schubert's, in C (six times), and the Unfinished ; Mendels¬ sohn's Scotch, Italian , and Reformation ; the four of Schumann, three or four times round, besides the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale; Gade, Nos. x, 2, 3, and 4. Nearly all of these repeatedly, and many of them for the first time in Boston.

Overtures. - Gluck : Iphigenia. Mozart : Idomeneo, Figaro, Zauberflote, Tito. Beethoven : Prometheus , Conolan, Fgmont, Leonore (Nos. i, 2, and 3), Fidelia, Namensfeier, and Weihe des Houses. Cherubini : Anacreon, Wassertrager,Les Abencerrages, Medea, Faniska, Loaoiska. Spohr; Jessonda, Faust. Schubert : Fierabras, Alfonso and Estrella. W eber : Ruler of the Spirits, Preciosa, Freyschutz, Oberon, Euryanthe, Jubilee. Spontini : La Vestale. Rossini : Tell. Men¬ delssohn : Midsummer Night's Dream, Hebrides, season (1874) an effort was made to increase the interest of the concerts by incorporating a new feature, - a large chorus of mixed voices (which was called the Cecilia, with Mr. Lang for its conductor), to relieve the instru¬ mental uniformity by the occasional performance of cantatas, and other larger and smaller works for solo voices, orchestra, and chorus. This lasted for two seasons, during which were sung (with more satisfaction to the hear¬ ers than the singers, who could not feel themselves at home, surrounded as they were, and " covered up " by the strange " overpowering" element, the orchestra) Mendelssohn's Walpurgis Night (twice), Lorelei fragments, motet, Laudate Pucri , for female voices; Schumann's Paradise and the Peri ; the Magnificat by Durante; finale to the first act of Weber's Euryanthe ; Cade's Spring's Greeting and Coniala ; Schubert's Twenty-third

Melusina, Ruy Bias, Meeresstille, etc., Athalie, Trumpet Overture. Schumann : Genoi'eva, Man¬ fred. Gade : Ossian, Im Hochland, Concert Over¬ ture, opus 14. Sterndale Bennett: Naiads, Wood Nymph, Paradise and Peri. Taubert: Tausend und eine Nacht. Rietz : Concert Overture. Wag¬ ner : Tannhauser, Lohengrin. Reinecke : Dame Kobo/d. Bargiel : Medea. Goldmark : Sakuntala. Dudley Buck: Don Munio. Most of these repeatedly, and at least half of them for the first time here.

Miscellaneous for Orchestra. - J. S. Bach : Suite in D : Organ Toccata in F, and Passacaglia, arranged by Esser. Handel : Pastoral Syi?iphony. Gluck: Chaconne, from Orfco. Beet¬ hoven : Adagio and Andante, from Prometheus ; Turkish March ; March from Fidelio. Cheru¬ bini : Introduction to fourth act of Medea. Mendelssohn : Priest's March from Athalie. Schumann : Entr'acte and Incantation from Manfred. F. Lachner : First Orchestral Suite, D-minor. Liszt : Les Preludes, Tasso. Raff : Suite in C.

Concertos. - Handel: For Oboe, G-minor. Mozart: For two Pianos (Lang and Parker); No. 20, in D (H. Daum) ; No. 8, D-minor (Miss Mehlig, Richard Hoffman) ; in C-minor (Leon¬ hard) ; in B-flat (J. C. D. Parker) ; Sinfonie Concertante for Violin and Viola (C. N. Allen and H. Heindl) ; Violin in D (Camilla Urso). Beet¬ hoven : Violin (Carl Rosa, Mme. Urso, B. Listeinann) ; For Piano ; No. i in C (B. J. Lang) ; No. 2, B-flat (B. J. Lang) ; No. 3, C-minor (Lang, Alice Dutton, Parker) ; No. 4, in G (H. Leonhard, five times) ; No. 5, E-flat (Dresel, Perabo, Miss Mehlig, Miss Krebs, Mme. Schil¬ ler) ; Triple Concerto (Lang, Perabo) ; Choral Fantasia (Perabo). Hummel : Piano, A-minor (Parker); Septet (Perabo). Schubert-Liszt : Fantasia, opus 15 (Lang). Weber: Concertstiick (Miss Dutton, Miss Mehlig); For Clarinet Aflat (G. Weber). Moscheles: G-minor (Parker).

Mendelssohn ; Piano in G-minor (Lang, Parker) ; D-minor (Dresel, Parker, Mehlig) ; Serenade and Allegro- Giojoso (Parker, Leonhard); Rondo, opus 29 (Perabo) ; Capriccio (Miss Finkenstiidt) ; Violin (Rosa, Urso, Miss Teresa Liebe). Schu¬ mann : A-minor (Dresel, Leonhard, Marie Krebs) ; Concertstiick (Lang, twice). Chopin : E-minor (Leonhard, Miss Alide Topp, Miss Mehlig, Mme. Schiller) ; F-minor (Mehlig, Leon¬ hard, G. W. Sumner) ; Andante Spianato and Polonaise (Leonhard) ; Krakowiak (Leonhard, twice). Henselt : F-minor (C. Petersilea). Norbert Burgmuller : Piano (Perabo). Bennett: No. 4, F-minor (Perabo) ; Capriccio in E (Lang). Rietz : For Oboe, F-minor (A. Ivutzleb). Lipinski : Military, iolin ( B. Listemann). Vieuxtemps : Ballade and Polonaise, Violin (Urso). F. David : Andante and Scherzo (Miss Liebe). Joachim : Hungarian Concerto, first movement (Listemann). Rubinstein: Piano, No. 3, in G (Lang). Goltermann : For 'cello, A-minor (A. Hartdegen). Gernsheim : C-minor (Perabo). Svendsen : Violin in A (August Fries).

Singers like Mme. Rudersdorff, Miss Clara Doria (Mrs. II. M. Rogers), Mme. Johannsen, Mrs. Houston-West, the lamented Miss A. S. Whitten, Miss Whinnery, Mrs. Flora E. Barry, Miss Alice Fairman, Mrs. Kempton, Miss Ryan, Messrs. Kreissmann, George L. Osgood, Nelson Varley, C. Gloggner-Castelli, M. W. Whitney, P. H. Powers, and F. Rudolphsen furnished a rare collection, mostly new to our concert-rooms, of arias from Bach's cantatas, Christmas Oratorio and Passion ; many from Handel's Italian operas, his L' Allegro, etc.; many of Mozart's concert arias, as well as from his operas; and songs by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Robert Franz, etc., with unsurpassed piano-forte accompanists. In the earlier seasons there were sometimes choruses for male voices from Mendelssohn's Antigone and CEdipus, from the Magic Flute, the Ruins of Athens, etc.

cantata, Ich liatte viel Bekiimmerniss ; besides some madrigals and partsongs. After this the Cecilia withdrew, and became a concert-giving society upon its own account.

From the year 1872, and onward, the Harvard Concerts began to lose somewhat of their prestige; and very naturally, since until then they had occupied the field alone. This advantage could not last forever. Their suc¬ cess invited competition both in their own and other fields, and in other kinds of musical attraction. Their triumphant tide was checked in several ways ; as ( 1 ) By the necessity of afternoon instead of evening concerts, owing to the engagements of musicians in the theatres ; (2) Jealousy caused by the privilege of the " nucleus," or guarantee subscribers, in the choice of seats ;

(3) A diversion of the tide of sympathy for a time toward the new vocal clubs (Apollo, etc.), in which so many young men could take active part themselves, while their invited or "associate member" friends preferred to hear glees and part-songs rehearsed to the utmost finesse of expression, to the greatest symphonies by a half disciplined, imperfect orchestra; and

(4) An orchestra too small and of inadequate intensity of tone for the great spaces of the Music Hall. But more than all, there had already come re¬ peated visitations of a better orchestra, one trained to sensitive and abso¬ lute obedience to a masterly and most energetic leader, Theodore Thomas ; an orchestra whose performance, in unity, precision, all the technical refine¬ ments, light and shade, and unmistakable expression, contrasted greatly to the disadvantage of our local band, made up as it had to be of musicians who worked in the theatre, street, arid ball room, or perhaps in teaching, for their daily bread, and who could only give a few jaded hours now and then for the rehearsal of programmes full of difficulty. If the brilliant example turned attention somewhat from the programme to the nicety of execution, making the manner more regarded than the matter, yet there was no denying that it was just the example which Boston needed. It was Germania versus Musical Fund again, upon a larger scale. It was a needed lesson. Here was the kind of orchestra for which Boston concert-goers had so often sighed. Here was an orchestra always, the whole year round an orchestra, with this for the one business of its members' lives. Such had we longed for, but almost without hope, for our own. Never was the want so keenly felt; for Boston, to become in truth a musical city, must be selfdependent in this great matter of orchestral music, and not have to take its symphonies as it takes its operas, by the chance favor, not always timely, of travelling impresarios and artists.

The Thomas Concerts have contributed to musical development in Bos¬ ton. They have sharpened musical perception. They have created a new audience and a new interest for orchestral music in hundreds dead to it before. They have greatly raised the standard of excellence in execution. They have made the public demand more, and our own conductors and musicians try more. The effect is seen in the improvement, year by year, of our home orchestra. Moreover, the Thomas Concerts have to a great extent chosen a field so distinctive in respect to programmes as almost to render competition idle. While they have not slighted tastes conservative and classical, they have ministered largely to the curiosity to know more about the famous new composers, introducing many strange and brilliant novelties of the most modern school. We may or may not come home again with a new relish to our old favorites ; it is well to have the oppor¬ tunity of choice, to see and judge each for himself, - "try all things, and hold fast to that which is good."

Ihe Harvard Musical Association has, as we have seen, chosen for itself the conservative ground in its concerts. Whatever else of good or evil may come up, there can be no doubt that somebody should hold that ground. We have only here to complete the record of its work. With all the new quickening influences, and under all discouragements of fluctuating and inadequate support, it has continued to seek the approbation of the few, if it could not attract the many. Not only has it kept the immortal mas¬ ter-works within thought and hearing, but also in the concerts of the last six years, since conservatism can so well afford to be generous, it has pre¬ sented what it conceived to be a judicious, on the whole a large, allowance of the modern works.1

1 In the list of symphonies have figured two by Raff, the two by Brahms, the Ocean by Ru¬ binstein, the Symphonic Fantastique by Berlioz, the Second , in A-minor , by Saint-Saens, the Post¬ humous Symphony in F by Goetz ; also the two by our own Harvard professor, J. K. Paine, and the Second ( Sardanapalus ) Symphony by Dr. F. L. Ritter, the learned and genial musical profes¬ sor at Vassar College ; also several by older mas¬ ters, here given for the first time, - as Schubert's Grand Duo , opus 140, arranged as symphony by Joachim; Spohr's Irdisches und Gottliches, for double orchestra ; three of the less known by Haydn, including that written for his degree at Oxford. Of overtures, for the first time here, may be named that by Rietz, called Hero and Leander ; Paine's to As You Like It ; J. C. D. Parker's to Hiawatha ; Schubert's to Rosamunde ; Schu¬ mann's to fu/ius C cesar ; Gluck's to Alceste ; Goldmark's to Penthesilea ; G. W. Chadwick's Rip Van Winkle ; and a Concert Overture (1S70) by Henschel. Of miscellaneous orchestral works, - Bach, Pastorale, from the Christmas Orato¬ rio, and Violin Chaconne in D-minor, adapted by Raff; Weber, ballet music from Preciosa ; Schubert, orchestral arrangements of the Heroic March in A-minor , and of the Reiter Marsch (the latter by Liszt) ; Mendelssohn's Octet (by all the strings) ; the Phaeton of Saint-Saens; Wagner's Siegfried Idyl ; Marche Nocturne, by Berlioz, etc. The piano concertos added in these years have included: Hummel, Concerto in B-minor (played by Mme. Schiller) ; Saint-Saens, No. 2, G-minor (Mr. Lang, Mme. Rive-King), No. 4, C-minor (J.

A. Preston); Schumann, Concert Allegro (II. G. Tucker) ; Rubinstein, No. 4, D-minor (C. Petersilea) ; Grieg, A-minor (William IT. Sherwood) ; Mozart, Concerto in A (Tucker) ; Liszt, Hunga¬ rian Fantaisie (F. Rummel) ; L. Brassin, Con¬ certo in F (Miss Cochran) ; H. von Bronsart, Concerto in F-sharp minor (Lang) ; Liszt, No. 2, in A (Max Pinner); L. Maas, Concerto in Cminor, played by himself. Also the Bach Con¬ certo for three pianos, in C, has been played by Messrs. Lang, Parker, and Foote, and that in D-minor by Messrs. Sumner, Foote, and Pres¬ ton. The First Violin Concerto of Max Bruch has been played by Mr. T. Adamowski, and a Con¬ certo for violoncello of Saint-Saens, by Mr. Wulf Fries. Many important opera and concert arias by Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendels¬ sohn, Rossini, Schubert, and others, owe their first hearing in Boston to the Symphony Con¬ certs of these six years, and to such singers as Miss Thursby, Miss T'annie Kellogg, Mme. Emma Dexter, Miss Lillian Bailey, Miss Lizzie Cronyn, Miss Ita Welsh, Miss Emily Wi'nant, Miss Louie Homer, Miss Fannie L. Barnes, Miss May Bryant, Mr. Georg Henschel, Dr. Langmaid, Mr. Alfred Wilkie, and others ; also fresh bou¬ quets of song from Schubert, Schumann, Franz, Grieg, Jensen, and many more. We are sum¬ ming up the account of what Boston has been doing for herself in this way, through her own Symphony Society. It would be easy to show a very rich list also of the works which we have heard performed by the fine orchestra of Mr. Thomas.

The " orchestral problem " has become here one of urgency , so much so that its practical solution cannot be far off. New organizations are already in the field, pursuing the same end with the Harvard, but by differ¬ ent business plans. Another Philharmonic Society, begun on a small scale by Mr. Bernhard Listemann, has been taken up by a large committee of amateurs and musicians, and placed upon the footing of associate-mem¬ bership subscriptions, whereby concerts, at a low price, and by a large and well trained orchestra, are made to fill the largest hall. Its first year has proved successful. More important is the generous movement of a publicspirited and wealthy friend of music, Mr. Henry Lee Higginson, who, selfinspired and at his sole risk, undertakes the whole burden, for the next year at least, of a course of twenty classical orchestral concerts, with twenty public rehearsals, for which Mr. Georg Henschel is to be the conductor of an orchestra of over sixty musicians kept in constant practice, and with the prices of admission on so low a scale as to place this rare resource within the reach of the most slender purses. This looks like the beginning of a permanent first-class orchestra for Boston. The three orchestras will be essentially identical, though under different names and leaders, inasmuch as the sixty men whom Mr. Henschel has to train will also constitute the working force of both the Philharmonic and the Harvard concerts. Together the three bodies offer about sixty concerts (with a symphony in every one) for the next season ; so that the musicians will be kept busier than ever before in work worthy of their best artistic skill and effort. Thus Boston will be self-dependent in this important sphere of musical activity, which naturally holds the primacy among all the rest.

With our old Oratorio Society this has been a period of triennial festi¬ vals. The successful experiments of 1857 and 1865 led to their regular recurrence, as an institution , at intervals of three years, after the manner of those at Birmingham. Five have been given in the Music Hall, and all with gratifying success, resulting in a well-invested trust fund, now amount¬ ing to about $22,000, which guarantees their future. The first was in May, 1868, which occupied six days, and consisted of five oratorios, four miscel¬ laneous, and one organ concert. There was a chorus of seven hundred voices, an orchestra of over one hundred instruments, with Mr. Lang at the Great Organ, and Carl Zerrahn, conductor. The leading singers were Mme. Parepa-Rosa and Miss Houston; Miss Adelaide Phillipps and Miss Cary; Messrs. George Simpson and James Whitney; Messrs. M. W. Whitney, J. F. Winch, J. F. Rudolphsen, and PI. Wilde. There were piano¬ forte solos by Miss Alide Topp, and for the violin by Carl Rosa. The pro¬ grammes included Nicolai's Choral Fest Overture ; Mendelssohn's St. Paul, Hymn of Praise, and Ninety-fifth Psalm; Handel's Samson, and Messiah ; Haydn's Creation ; Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Mendelssohn's Reforma¬ tion Symphony ; and a great variety of vocal, orchestral, and organ music.

In the four succeeding festivals the chorus has varied from seven hun¬ dred to five hundred voices ; the instrumentalists from one hundred to about seventy ; and the number of day and evening concerts from nine to five, - the riper judgment tending to the shorter term and number. Experience teaches the society that quality is of more consequence than quantity; that three days may be more inspiring than a whole week of the exceptional ; and that five hundred, or even four hundred, true, effective, well-trained voices may do better work in chorus than one thousand. The real and enduring good residing in these stated festivals is that they stand before the singers as high-water marks for their ambition to surpass themselves in better and better work. They keep up the standard of thoroughness in study and excellence in performance. Best of all, they incite to study and performance of great works, before unattempted, both by old and new com¬ posers. The additions to the repertoire during these fifteen years have been mainly owing to the festivals. Far above all these attempts, in intrin¬ sic value and unfailing inspiration, has been that most courageous venture in the history of this or any choral body in America, - its resolute grappling with the difficulties and the doubtful popularity of the St. Matthew Passion Music of Sebastian Bach. After many intermittent hours of practice and rehearsal, selections from this great work (less than half of it) were first brought out in the second triennial, May 13, 1871. More generous selec¬ tions were given in 1874; and finally, in April, 1881, by far the larger part of the whole work was interpreted more admirably than before, Mr. Georg Henschel lending his artistic and expressive talent in the recitatives of "Jesus," with the co-operation of other excellent singers, - notably Miss Annie Louise Cary. But it was not in a festival, - it was on Good Friday, 1879, that this Passion Music was given here with a completeness such as we do not read of even in Germany or England. In two performances on that one day the entire Part I., and the entire Part II. without omission 01- abridgment of a single number, were performed before two audiences which filled the Music Hall to overflowing. The spiritual depth and tenderness, the wonderful sublimity and beauty, the dramatic vividness and truth of the Bach music has at length made it felt and loved among us. His exquisite Christmas Oratorio likewise was introduced (Parts I. and II.) in the Festival of 1877, and has been repeated in several concerts of the society.1

Perhaps the best lesson and best influence of these Triennial, regularly instituted Oratorio Festivals is that they show the true limits of great fes-

1 Among other choral novelties which have Hymn. These have not prevented frequent come up in these festivals are Handel's Utrecht reproduction of the well known grandest ora- Jubilate ; Marcello's Eighteenth Psalm; Men- torios, besides great symphonies, etc. Besides delssohn's Christies, and several Psalms ; Ber- the leading singers already named, the follioz's Flight into Egypt ; Costa's Nadman ; lowing distinguished artists have lent lustre Bennett's Woman of Samaria; Hiller's Song of to the festivals and concerts: Mme. Ruders- Victory ; the Noel, by Saint-Saens ; Sullivan's dorff, Mme. Christine Nilsson, Miss Edith Prodigal Son ; Verdi's Manzoni Requiem; while Wynne, Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, Miss of the works of our own native composers, first Emma C. Thursby, Mme. Patey, Miss Antoihearings have been accorded to Professor Paine's nette Sterling, Miss Emily Winant, Mr. W. PI. oratorio, St. Peter, to Dudley Buck's Forty-sixth Cummings, Signor Campanini, Mr. William Psalm, and to J. C. D. Parker's Redemption Courtney, and Mr. Santley.

tivals, and what a proper musical festival should be. They form at once the safety-valve and steady-going balance-wheel for the protection of musi¬ cal art against the wildfire enthusiasm and extravagance of " monster " festivals like the Peace Jubilees of 1869 and 1872, which try to do things on a larger scale than the conditions of true art permit. Such worldchallenging exceptions prove the rule, - the wholesome, common, modest rule, - which institutions like the Handel and Haydn Society, at once pro¬ gressive and conservative, have wisely chosen to observe.

A prominent feature of this fourth period has been the springing up and prosperous continuance of so many vocal clubs, composed mainly but not entirely of amateurs. The three most important - the Apollo, the Boylston, and the Cecilia - have done not a little to improve the style of chorus singing, to create a love for this refining, wholesome, social practice, and to introduce to general acquaintance many beautiful creations of musi¬ cal genius, of which the interest will not soon wear out. Originally partsong clubs, for male voices, they have soon found out the limitations and monotony of that small form, and have by preference devoted themselves to the more rewarding study of larger compositions, like cantatas ; and not content with the mere outline accompaniment of the piano-forte, they have sought to produce such works in their full character with orchestra. The business organization of these clubs, beginning with the Apollo, has been original and fruitful. These enthusiastic amateurs knew well the interest their friends would take in their endeavors and achievements, and to them they made appeal for the material support and guarantee, upon the system of "associate membership," - the associates paying an annual fee for the privilege of a certain number of admissions to all concerts and rehearsals. The plan has uniformly insured full audiences and sympathy unfailing.

In former days we had the numerous glee-clubs in Boston, Cam¬ bridge, but especially in Salem, whose glee-club, under the quickening lead of General H. K. Oliver, then a distinguished classical teacher and fitter of boys for college, had a long and genial career, with an almost exhaustive library of all the famous English madrigal and glee composers. But the immediate forerunner of the present Boston clubs was the first Liedertafel club of our German fellow-citizens, founded many years ago, now called the Orpheus Musical Society. It was purely a part-song club, true to the traditional associations of the male part-song with beer and smoke and un¬ conventional good-fellowship. For some years it has ceased to be a con¬ cert-giving society; but in the older days, under the inspiring leadership of Kreissmann, it often sang choice programmes to delighted listeners, some¬ times including choral works of magnitude.1

1 We are tempted here, in view of the recent a few evenings before by Otto Dresel, in which notable achievement in the Sanders Theatre at the Orpheus sang choruses from Antigone and Cambridge, to introduce a sentence we have CEdipus , the editor remarks : " The three Greek chanced to light upon in turning over an old vol- choruses were certainly in place; they were ume of Dwight's Journal of Music (April 28,1860), greatly relished by the audience, and especially where, in noticing a concert given in Cambridge by the genial president, late Greek professor

The Apollo Club (male voices) was formed in July, 1871. Some fifty gentlemen, of the youthful and the middle period of life, - the best of the singers in oratorios, choirs, and glee-clubs, - were drawn together by the de¬ sire to practise vocal harmony with' an aim to the highest technical perfec¬ tion and expression, and to realize, if possible, an exquisite refinement in the sphere of song to which they were attracted. And their success has been acknowledged first and last. The number of active members is now seventy-one. The number of associate members reached at once the pre¬ scribed limit of five hundred, which it has always kept. To the careful training and conductorship of Mr. B. J. Lang the club has always owed a great part of its success. It has given sixty-eight concerts to its associates and friends, besides singing on several patriotic and memorial occasions.1

In the selection of its active members the Apollo has been most exacting as to quality of voices, facility in reading music, musical temperament and feeling, and esprit du corps. In its recent public efforts a striking feature has been a certain Anacreontic freshness, alike of voice and enthusiasm, well preserved among its oldest members.

The Boylston Club (formed May, 1873) was purely a male part-song club of younger men, who rehearsed for a long time privately under Mr. J. B. Sharland. It kept within the modest sphere of the part-song and chorale until it reached rare excellence in execution. It took a fresh start and en¬ tered on a wider field in 1875, when that accomplished singer and musician Mr. George L. Osgood took the helm as teacher and conductor. The choir then numbered about a hundred male voices, and, besides the choice part-songs with which it was continually replenishing its store, it attacked some larger works, - as the "Dies Iras," from Cherubini's Second Requiem, an Adoramus Te by Palestrina, Schumann's Gipsy Life , etc. In 1877 the club mated itself with an equally large and select choir of female voices, so that it could present works either for male, or female, or mixed chorus.2 The

[C. C. Felton], whose administration might well signalize itself by the production, some day, of an entire tragedy of Sophocles, with Mendels¬ sohn's noble music, by the students under his charge. His enjoyment would have been still more perfect, no doubt, had the choruses been sung in Greek instead of German."

1 To show how its scope has become enlarged from mere unaccompanied part-songs, we take the following summary from the programme-book of its tenth anniversary concert (April, 1881) : " The club has brought out the following works, some of them for the first time in this country : the Antigone, by Mendelssohn ; CEdipus at Colonus , by Mendelssohn ; The Luck of Edcnhall , by Schu¬ mann ; The Flower Net, by Goldmark ; Chorus of Dervishes, by Beethoven ; A Vintage Song, by Mendelssohn ; Scenes from the Frithjof-Saga, by Max Bruch ; selections from A Night at Sea, byTschirch; The Warder Song, by Raff; Forest¬ ers' Chorus , by Schumann ; To the Sons of Art, by

Mendelssohn ; Morning, bv Rubinstein ; A Ro¬ man Song of Triumph, by Max Bruch ; The Nun of Nidaros, by Dudley Buck ; Night on the Ocean , by Brambach ; The Almighty, by Schubert ; Cho¬ rus of Pilgrims, by Wagner; La Marseillaise, with instrumentation by Berlioz ; and the Song of the Spirits over the Waters, by Schubert; also, with piano-forte accompaniment instead of fm orchestra, the Prisoners' Chorus, from Fidelio, by Beethoven; Easter Morning, by Hiller; Sa¬ lami's, by Gernsheim ; a part of Cherubini's Requiem; Evening, by Lachner ; LLope, by Hil¬ ler; and Alcestis, by Brambach."

2 Among the more important works which, through Mr. Osgood's zeal, it has produced are Palestrina's Mass for the Dead ( a capella ), twice ; an Eight-part motet by Bach ; Astorga's Stabat Mater ; the Choral IFymn, by Brahms; Schubert's Night Song in the Forest, with four horns; and the posthumous psalm, By the Waters of Baby¬ lon, by Goetz, - this last alone with orchestra.

club in both its branches has reached a degree of excellence in singing which compares well with any of its rivals. Mr. Osgood s tenor solos, some¬ times in part-songs of his own composing, have often added interest.

The Cecilia, as an independent body, with Mr. Lang as musical direc¬ tor, gave its first concert in January, 1877* singing The Crusaders , by Gade.1 The Cecilia has employed an orchestra rather as the rule than the excep¬ tion. The printed annual reports of its president, Mr. S. L. Thorndike, full of thoughtful comment on its work and progress, may be counted among its valuable contributions to the musical movement of our city.

Each of these clubs has done much to raise the standard of good chorus¬ singing; to introduce larger works, in the form of secular cantata, etc. (in their integrity, with orchestra), which lie out of the range of oratorio so¬ cieties; and to bring forward promising young solo talent, which there is no room to enumerate, and which need not yet pass into history. They have called into existence a great crop of similar clubs, both here and elsewhere, - witness the Loring Club in San Francisco, whose founder and leader, Mr. David W. Loring, was one of the zealous members of our own Apollo, and carried the good seed with him when he emigrated thither.

This period has been the heyday (high day) of pianists. Of Dresel, Parker, Leonhard, we need not speak again. Ernst Perabo, just out of boy¬ hood, returned from study in Leipsic in 1866, and made a brilliant impres¬ sion in the closing concert of the first symphony season ; since which day he has always held his own among the ablest interpreters of great piano music, drawn, evidently with peculiar love, to the sonatas of Beethoven and of Schubert, and the fugues, partitas, suites, etc., of Bach. Of visiting artists, Miss Alide Topp (1869), Miss Anna Mehlig (1870-72), Miss Marie Krebs (1871), and Mme. Arabella Goddard (in the Jubilee of 1872), were the fair harbingers of those two giants, Rubinstein and Hans von Bulow, who came in 1872 and 1875, - great suns who set the piano-playing and adoring world revolving round them, and aroused the passionate ambition of many a sleepless young Themistocles of either sex. Meanwhile, in De¬ cember, 1873, that attractive lady and pianist of the most finished Leipsic school, Mme. Madeline Schiller, made her debut in the Symphony Con¬ certs, and remained here, much sought as a teacher and always a sure at¬ traction as performing artist, until the early summer of 1878. Boston could claim her as its own through all those years. Later (1877) came the but no doubt the Boylston will soon come to that. Numerous cantatas, etc., of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, etc., have been sung by this as by the other clubs. The accompani¬ ments (piano-forte) have commonly been played by Mr. Carlyle Petersilea, and the programmes have been varied with choice instrumental music and with solo airs.

1 It has since produced, - of Bach, two can¬ tatas, with orchestra, and several chorals ; Han¬ del's Acis and Galatea , and selections (with or¬ chestra) from L' Allegro, etc.; Mendelssohn's