Part 2
Comparisons are ever futile, and it is rarely profitable to compare one composer with another. Suffice it to say that we may claim Taylor as a native born composer, who needs no apology, no qualifying adjectives, no patriotic propaganda, no press agenting, and no circus methods for gaining recognition. He has gained recognition not because of or despite the fact that he is an American, but merely because he has written beautiful music, worthy to rank with the great works of the world.
On several occasions Taylor has given advice to young composers, either through interviews or articles written by himself. The doctrine he expounds is tersely summarised in an article in “The Musical Digest,” as follows:—
1. Get to be a professional. 2. Make everything you do count. 3. Try not to avoid criticism, and not to mind it. 4. Try not to make the same mistake twice.
This is not easily given advice to be disregarded by the giver; it is his own creed, reflected in every work in his list. He has written no “pot-boilers,” made no concessions to the caprice of a fickle public, followed no easy paths to a facile popularity.
In an interview in “The Musical Observer” he once stated: “I think this country will produce some very bad composers and a few very great ones. Bad ones, because it is so easy to be popular here. You can please so many people by attaining a certain level—a level which requires very small gifts. A few great ones because anyone who has the nerve to be a good composer in this country and is so recognized, must be big enough to appeal to everybody, as the popular composer is bad enough to appeal to everybody.”
VII
Taylor’s songs and choral works are by-words on recital programs and his shorter works are household words in concert hall and studio. Those that have had the greatest vogue are _Mayday Carol_ and _Captain Stratton’s Fancy_.
_Mayday Carol_ is a setting of an Essex folk-song in which the arranger has kept the warmth and simplicity of the original, and yet given it a sophisticated background. The harmonization is rich, and the counter melodies dextrously woven.
_Captain Stratton’s Fancy_ is a setting of the poem by John Masefield, and the combination has proved a song that has been the delight of hundreds of baritones. The spirit of the rum-loving pirate, “the old bold mate of Henry Morgan,” is rollickingly emphasized by the music.
_Banks o’ Doon_ to a poem of Robert Burns, shows Taylor’s lyric talent at its best. He has achieved the distinction of composing a melody which has all the attributes of a folk-song. There is simplicity, restraint, and yet a poignancy which brings out all the tender warmth of the exquisite poem.
For piano, Taylor has written only two pieces, _Two Studies in Rhythm_, Opus 5. These are a _Prelude_ in 7-8 time, and a _Poem_ in 5-8 time. The rhythms are never manufactured, or artificial; they are metric units written as conceived, spontaneous and natural. As in the 5-4 movement of the Tchaikovsky _Pathetique_, one forgets the unusual time divisions, because of the fluency of the rhythmic sequence.
As a writer of choral music, Taylor has earned an enviable distinction. Chief among his works for chorus are _The Chambered Nautilus_, a cantata for mixed chorus and orchestra, Opus 7; _The Highwayman_, a cantata for women’s voices and orchestra, Opus 8; and the sixty arrangements for women’s voices of _Traditional Airs_, which he made for the Schumann Club of New York. In reviewing these transcriptions, Sidney Grew, the English lecturer and critic, wrote as follows in “The Musical Standard” (London):
“In these arrangements of old-time pieces and folk-music Taylor seems to have his own idea of the psychology of the poems, and occasionally he is (to an Englishman’s mind) drawn away from the poetical idea of a piece and controlled by the objective power of music. But this remark I make no more than tentatively, because to prove it would require a very thoroughgoing study of matters not within the range of a reviewer. He has a good contrapuntal sense, but is not at all interested in contrapuntal subtleties. His harmonic sense is free, yet he does little to disturb even the purist. In most of the numbers he achieves or retains atmosphere; and in disposing the texts among long notes in the accompanying parts he generally modifies the phrases so as to make verbal sense. On the other hand, he often brings in a group of voices with quite instrumental freedom, giving to these whatever words happen to be going at the moment in the leading part. One point will please singers, Taylor’s arrangements have no meaningless reiteration of words, but are all intellectually clear and direct. Deems Taylor makes elaborate use of the humming voice, sometimes as choral accompaniment to a solo melody and sometimes as a meditative contrapuntal comment on the piece.”
The experience he gained in writing for voices has stood him in good stead in his opera _The King’s Henchman_, for his magnificent choruses are among its finest moments.
Of his orchestral works, the earliest was _The Siren Song_, Opus 2, written in 1912, but not performed until 1923, despite the fact that in 1913 it won the orchestral prize awarded by the National Federation of Women’s Clubs. Taylor’s opinion of the work is at variance with those of his fellow critics. At the time the Philharmonic played _The Siren Song_, as critic of the “World,” he wrote as follows:
“We thought it a promising work with a certain freshness of feeling and a disarming simplicity of utterance that partly atoned for its lack of well-defined individuality. It followed the program with clarity and a degree of dramatic effectiveness, although the music did not seem to reach very far beneath the surface of the subtle and rather neurotic poem whose mood it aimed to express.”
Henry T. Finck, writing in the “Post,” valued the work more highly:
“Deems Taylor’s _The Siren Song_ is marked Opus 2. It would be a remarkably interesting composition if it were an Opus 20, or beyond. To be sure it betrays the influence of Wagner, but that’s a most desirable influence. The three themes are distinctly recognizable and well worked out, with stunning climaxes and real dramatic and atmospheric sense for the sea and the siren. It is a fine mood picture and well worth keeping in the repertory.”
The piece is written after a poem by Joseph Tiers, Jr., which tells of mariners hearing the siren’s song, and either losing their souls, or resisting, being haunted by her voice forever. There are two principal themes, one representing the “Sea” and the other the “Siren,” followed by a martial passage in lighter vein.
VIII
_Through the Looking Glass_ was originally written in 1917-19 for strings, wind and piano, and performed by the New York Chamber Music Society. In 1921-22 Taylor rescored the suite for full orchestra, and it is now a regular feature of the repertoire of our leading orchestras. It is principally through this work that he first achieved his fame as a composer.
In reviewing the suite for the “New York Tribune,” Lawrence Gilman wrote:
“He is wit enough to know that the peculiar distinction of Carroll’s delicious masterpiece is the mood of half tender, half mocking detachment in which it is conceived; and he preserves this balance in his music with extraordinary skill and felicity. He neither burlesques nor sentimentalizes his subject. He touches it affectionately, even caressingly, as in the poetic and sensitive _Dedication_; but in his eye is a twinkle that is imperfectly suppressed. Incidentally, he has composed an admirable piece of music—distinguished in invention, ingenious in facture, and expertly scored.”
The suite is, of course, based on Lewis Carroll’s immortal nonsense tale _Through the Looking Glass_, and its four movements are selected from portions and episodes of the book.
The first movement is divided into two parts. It opens with the _Dedication_, and the score quotes the dedicatory verse of the author:
“Child of the pure, unclouded brow And dreaming eyes of wonder! Though time be fleet, and I and thou Are half a life asunder, Thy loving smile will surely hail The love-gift of a fairy-tale.”
A tenderly lyric theme, sung by a muted solo violin, is used to express the spirit of these lines:
[Music: Andante moderato
Solo Violin]
This melody is next given to the clarinets, and then again to the strings as its brief development leads to the second part of the first movement, _The Garden of Live Flowers_. Here Alice finds herself surrounded by talkative flowers, who, to quote the tigerlily, will speak “when there’s anybody worth talking to.” The music reflects the brisk chatter of the garden folk:
[Music: Allegro
3 Flutes]
The second movement, _Jabberwocky_, is without doubt the masterpiece of the suite, for in it Taylor shows his skill as a tonal narrator, his humor, and his consummate mastery of orchestration. After a seven measure introduction, a solo clarinet establishes the “brillig” atmosphere with this motive:
[Music]
The actual encounter with the Jabberwock is depicted by means of a fugue, started by the basses “burbling,” which an English writer described as sounding like “Bach gone wrong.”
[Music]
The fight ends with a series of xylophone glissandos telling us how “through and through the vorpal blade went snickersnack!” Then the dying agonies of the Jabberwock, a bassoon cadenza:
[Music]
The hero comes “galumphing back” to this figure, played by the piano:
[Music]
while the clarinet simultaneously sounds again the original heroic theme.
In the third movement, _Looking Glass Insects_, the composer again shows us his ability in orchestration, this time with more delicate touches. The several themes describe the bee-elephant, the rocking-horse-fly, the snap-dragon-fly, and the bread-and-butter-fly, but as the composer himself remarks, “there is no use trying to decide which insect any one of them stands for.”
The fourth movement tells of _The White Knight_, the “toy Don Quixote, mild, chivalrous, ridiculous, and rather touching,” who fell off in front when the horse stopped, and backwards when it went on again.
After a brief, galloping introduction, the first theme starts off bravely:
[Music]
but falls out of the saddle before very long:
[Music]
The first theme doubtless represents the Knight’s own conception of himself as something of a dare-devil, but three hard falls necessitate his giving way to the somewhat sentimental and pathetic second theme, in which a solo violoncello paints him as he really was:
[Music]
[Music: A page from the orchestra score
“Through the Looking Glass” - “Looking Glass Insects”]
The two themes, in various forms, alternate until the close, when Alice waves her handkerchief as the Knight rides off, for he thought it would encourage him if she did.
American critics have been practically unanimous in their praise of the _Looking Glass_ Suite, but when it was first played in London (1925) at the Queen’s Hall Promenade Concerts, the English writers were by no means unqualified in their approval. A perusal of their comments almost gives one the impression that they resented an American’s attempt to depict such characteristically British humor.
The reviewer of the “Evening Standard” said: “... his suite is curiously uneven. In places it is heavy and long-winded; Lewis Carroll was neither.”
The critic of the “Daily Express” was more complimentary, as was the “Daily Sketch,” but the writer for the “Morning Post” stated:
“... his capacity for detail misleads him. Instead of creating a vision by a wave of his hand, he fills in his picture inch by inch, carefully balancing his outlines and masses, and filling the whole of his rectangle with subject matter. A good musician, no doubt, but far from catching the white rabbit.”
With these adverse comments we cannot agree. The pages of the Suite are not smothered with detail, the episodes and pictures of the book are impressions clearly delineated, and painted with a sparkle and brilliance that prove irresistible and dazzling.
The _Portrait of a Lady_ was composed shortly after the _Looking Glass_ Suite, and rewritten in 1924. Ernest Newman wrote of it in the “Post”:
“... he stood up like a man to Schubert, Juon and Novak; and at the end of the concert only he and Schubert had survived.”
Lawrence Gilman of the “Tribune” said:
“Out of the empty, agitated air he conjured an image that had line and color and background, substance and character; something coherent, vivid, personal. And when he was through ... we found ourselves richer by an experience and a possession, and wondering, as we never fail to do, at the mysterious potency of the art of music.”
The work was composed for strings, wood-wind and piano, and, according to the composer, follows no definite program, but was designed to be “somewhat analogous to what a painter would call an ideal head; an attempt to convey the impression of a human personality in terms of music.” According to the music this personality has two phases: one grave, meditative and tender, the other capricious and somewhat worldly. The music has warmth and depth, and as W. J. Henderson wrote in the “Sun,” “makes one wish to see the woman.”
The incidental music to _Beggar on Horseback_ included the delightful pantomime _A Kiss in Xanadu_, to a scenario by Winthrop Ames. Taylor wrote this for two pianos, and we may well hope that he carries out his intention of scoring it for orchestra.
The music radiates moonlight and romance, and its humor enhances the spirit of satire. The opening measures establish the atmosphere with a 5-4 theme:
[Music]
The Royal Bedchamber episode is ushered in with this vigorous motive:
[Music]
The Princess is introduced with a Valse:
[Music]
In the public park incident, a stirring little march:
[Music]
leads to a more coquettish mood:
[Music]
The third scene finishes as the pantomime began, with a colorful reminiscence of the opening themes.
Taylor’s next important work is _Jurgen_, a symphonic work for full orchestra, based on Cabell’s famous novel. His own statement of his aims in regard to it are as follows:
“_Jurgen_ was originally planned as an orchestral suite that would follow as faithfully as possible the sequence of events in James Branch Cabell’s book. But when I started work on the music it became increasingly obvious that such a program was not only impracticable, but hardly to the point. It would take a cycle of suites to do adequate justice to the bewildering multitude of scenes, characters and episodes with which the pages of _Jurgen_ are crowded. Moreover, the importance of Cabell’s romance as a work of art lies, not in its qualities as a diverting tale of amorous adventure, but in the vividness, the sardonic gusto, the humor and wisdom and pathetic beauty with which the tale is told.
“So, _Jurgen_, annotated in terms of music, has come to be concerned much more with the man Jurgen than with his deeds. In brief, I have tried to show Jurgen, facing the unanswerable riddle of why things are as they are; Jurgen ‘clad in the armor of his hurt’, spinning giddily through life, strutting, posturing, fighting, loving, pretending; Jurgen proclaiming himself count, duke, king, emperor, god; Jurgen, beaten at last by the pathos and mystery of life, bidding farewell to that dream of beauty, which he had the vision to see, but not the strength to follow.”
Continuing his explanation of the work, Taylor writes:
“The music is built upon four themes. The first of these, which is Jurgen’s own, is announced at the outset, in its broadest and vaguest form, by the bass
[Music]
clarinet. The second follows immediately, a simple series of major and minor triads given out in turn by muted strings and muted brass. Its first appearance
[Music]
is also the first appearance of the third theme, which is really only a motto of four notes in length, which rises a major second and falls back a minor second.
[Music]
Neither of these themes can be assigned a very specific significance. Theme number two might be taken as symbolic of Koshchei, the Deathless, who made things as they are, just as theme number three is a reminder of Mother Sereda, who bleaches the color out of all things and renders life generally futile. The fourth theme, broadly lyric, is first heard in the cellos, at the beginning of the love scene that follows the first development of Jurgen’s theme. This might
[Music]
be called—again not too literally—Dorothy la Désirée, or Helen of Troy, or the vision of beauty; or what you will.”
_Jurgen’s_ performance in 1925 by the Symphony Society was met with mixed emotions on the part of the press reviewers. Mr. Chotzinoff, Taylor’s successor on the “World,” was laudatory with reservations; Mr. Henderson of the “Sun” felt that the score was too long, but added that this may have been because it followed Kallinikoff and Brahms on a lengthy program. He wrote:
“It is a broadly painted musical canvas which loses itself just a little too much in the philosophical depths of Jurgen’s nature. The reflective pages in the score are a little longer than the reflective mood of a typical audience. These pages are saturated with feeling, with poetic character, with musical emotion; but they are pages to be read in the shadows of the twilight.... These pages Mr. Taylor has composed with a splendid verve, with brilliant thematic conception, with opulence of color and his own unquenchable spirit of defiant humor. There is music in every page, music that should bring gladness to the American music lover in that it was made by an American.”
IX
No better introduction to a discussion of _The King’s Henchman_ could be found than another quotation from Mr. Gilman, written in the “Tribune” on the occasion of the opera’s première at the Metropolitan:
“Thus we came to the end of the best American opera we have ever heard, and so easily the best of the ten produced by Mr. Gatti-Casazza at the Metropolitan that there is none other in the running. Mr. Taylor has woven a deft and often lovely sounding score about a superb poetic text—a text pithy and glamorous and full of character; rich in humor and dramatic force, rich in imagery that is often startling in its beauty and its swift felicity. And this text is apt for voices or for viols. It clamors for vocal utterance and for enforcement by the instruments of the mirroring orchestra.
“Mr. Taylor’s score is in the worthiest sense theatrically planned and developed. It is obvious that he wrote with his eye on the stage, with his intelligence responsive to its tyrannous requirements. Furthermore, he has given musical voice to English words which, sung from the stage, are not only heard, but are expressive, and fitting, and often beautiful. The music, as music, “sounds”; it fills the ear, is richly textured, mellifluous, has grace and movement and flexibility. It is the writing of an expert craftsman, an artist of sensibility and warm responsiveness.”
For her libretto, Miss Millay went to the England of the ninth century for her setting, and, in authentic Anglo-Saxon verbiage tells us the story of Eadgar, King of England, a widower who wishes a second wife. Like King Mark in _Tristan_, he dispatches a trusted retainer, Aethelwold, to bring to him Aelfrida, daughter of the Thane of Devon, of whose beauty he has heard. Like Tristan and like John Alden, Aethelwold falls in love with the lady himself, and tragedy is inevitable.
It has often been remarked that the weaker the libretto, the better the opera. If any proof were needed to challenge so obvious a fallacy, _The King’s Henchman_ provides it, for here is a poetic drama which of itself stands in perfect security. In the “Tribune” Elinor Wylie wrote, after reading the poem:
“If this is not lyric dialogue of the true poetic water, why then has it such a magic in it that it has turned me into a fool and my taste into untruth.”
The story is grippingly told, the tragedy of it appalling, and the characters are limned with an insight that makes them real people, actuated by motives beyond their control.
Because of his wisdom in choosing his librettist, Taylor commenced his work with a drama that cried out for musical setting, for a tonal accompaniment to its atmosphere, and to the thoughts and actions of its people; and if in the making of it he has fallen under the spell of Wagner’s musical delineation of the kindred love-drama _Tristan_, or of Debussy, whose love scene in _Pelleas_ is akin to the forest scene in _The King’s Henchman_, who can blame him, for who could have avoided it? Taylor himself has said:
“Its form has undoubtedly been influenced by the methods of past masters ...; as to that, I can only hope that its spiritual grandfather may turn out to be Wagner rather than Puccini.”
The score of _The King’s Henchman_ makes frequent use of the _leit-motif_, to represent both actual characters, and abstract conceptions. The short prelude opens with the King (Eadgar) motive:
[Music]
This is frequently found, later in the action, in a broader, more lyric form:
[Music]
After a brief development, the curtain rises and reveals the hall of King Eadgar’s castle with the King and his nobles seated at the table, while Maccus, the harper, sings of deeds of valor. Then follows a choral response, with the words:
“Be the day far off, O harper When thy harp is unstrung! And thy hand still, And thy song sung.”
The Aelfrida motive is first introduced while she is being discussed as the King’s prospective bride:
[Music]
When Aethelwold is mentioned as the one to get her, we hear his sturdy motive:
[Music]
which is continued and developed while the knights dwell on his fitness for the task, for was it not true that
“He shunneth a fair maid As she were a foul marten And should a wench but breathe upon him in the dark, He would bury himself till the smell of her were off him!”
While they are talking about Aethelwold he enters, and the expedition is planned, the henchman receives his final instructions, the Archbishop gives his reluctant blessing, and, as the pledge is sealed we first hear the pledge motive:
[Music]
which is quoted frequently throughout the opera. As the knights drink Aethelwold’s health and bid him godspeed, there comes a rousing choral arrangement of the only folk-song used in the entire work:
[Music:
Oh. Caesar great wert thou! And Julius was thy name! That furrowed thy way through a fallow spray, And to stormy Britain came! But I would not stand in thy stead, For I’d liefer be quick than dead!]
and so on, through others of the Caesars involved in the Roman invasion of England: Claudius and Hadrian. The handling of voices and orchestra in this chorus is the most stunning choral writing Taylor has ever achieved. After this song, Aethelwold’s horse is brought in and he takes his departure as the curtain falls, and the orchestra sounds the Aethelwold motive as a salvo.
X
The second act is chiefly an extended love scene, and the impassioned prelude, commencing with the Aethelwold motive, establishes the mood and atmosphere. As the curtain rises, a forest in Devon is discovered, on the Eve of All Hallow Mass. A thick fog causes Aethelwold and Maccus, who accompanies him, to lose their way and become separated. The orchestra, with muted strings, weaves a background of forest murmurings as Aethelwold stretches himself beneath an oak. As he falls asleep a light appears, and we hear a theme which is later associated with the love scene:
[Music]