Part 18

Before I tell you of this second day of the Jubilee, I have a few incidents of interest wherewith to prelude it. And first, the organ itself is a noteworthy feature here, for it is the back-bone of the music, which holds the ribs and small bones of the Jubilee, keeps them in place, and prevents fracture. The organ was manufactured by the Messrs. Hook, expressly for the occasion, in the short space of four weeks, and was built with the design in view of combining strength and volume of tone with the least possible space in occupancy. The instrument has a very novel appearance, for the reason that it stands without a case. Above a very slight casing of chestnut and walnut, all the pipes of the "flute a Pavilion" are displayed--a stop which answers to the "Open Diapason." Behind these and others are the pipes of the "Bombarde," a sixteen-feet reed stop, and, still behind these, the vast wooden pipes of the "Grand Sub Bass," which form a double wall across the rear of the organ. On each side are the pipes of the "Pedale Posanne." The grouping of the pipes is very symmetrical, and presents quite as imposing, if not so beautiful an appearance as an elaborate case. The width of the organ across the front is twenty-two feet, and the height thirty feet. The wind-pressure used is at least four times that of ordinary organs, requiring four thousand pounds weight upon the bellows. Notwithstanding its great power, the tone is by no means harsh, but very agreeably rich and pleasant, and combines great intensity and solidity with the most brilliant seriousness conceivable. Its marvelous power and volume were specially manifested yesterday, when the orchestra began to break in the "Star-Spangled Banner." Mr. Wilcox, for a moment, seemed to be gathering up the resources of the organ in his hands, and then let it out in a manner which resembled the rushing of a storm more than anything else; but it had the effect to bring order out of chaos, and when once more he gathered back and restrained its powers, the instruments were playing like a charm.

Individuals count but little in this vast assemblage of singers and players, and yet there are notable people there whose superb solo singing and playing have been familiar to the public in concert rooms and opera for years. Look among the first violinists and you will see Ole Bull, prince of them all, fired with the spirit of the occasion. In the aggregate of sound you cannot hear a tone from his violin, and yet you know from his manner that the old Scandinavian is playing as he never played before. There is Carl Rosa, the _petite_ Hamburger, a boy among them in appearance, wielding his bow with the general enthusiasm of the occasion. There is Schultze, who, years ago--how many leaves have fallen since then--stood at the head of the first violinists in the old Germania Orchestra, and distracted the ladies with the fine tinge of his cheeks and his "Sounds from Home;" and Zerrahn, who stood opposite him in that same organization, playing the flute, is now wielding the baton for his old compatriot. There is Julius Eichberg, who wrote the charming "Doctor of Alcantara" and the "Two Cadis," a most accomplished musician; and there are Grill and Mollenhauer, Besig and Moll, of New York. In the second violins you will find Carl Meisel, of the Mendelssohn Quintette; Eichler, of Boston; Reichardt, Ritter, Conrad and others, of New York. Thomas Ryan has dropped his clarionet and Heindl has dropped his flute, and both have taken violas in the grand orchestra. Wulf Fries and Suck and Henry Mollenhauer have their violoncellos before them, and Muller and Stein their double basses. Koppitz, Zohler and Carlo are blowing their flutes. Among the oboes you will find De Ribas, Mente and Taulwasser. And glorious Arbuckle sends the clarion blasts of his cornet shivering through the music as a flash of lightning cuts through a cloud.

Among the singers also, you will find notable names. Among the sopranos are the matchless Parepa, Mrs. H. M. Smith, Mrs. Sophia Mozart, Miss Gates, Miss Annie Granger, Miss Graziella Ridgway, Mrs. D. C. Hall, Miss S. W. Barton and Mrs. J. W. Weston. Among the altos are Adelaide Phillipps, Mrs. Drake, Miss Addie S. Ryan, Mrs. C. A. Barry, and Mrs. Guilmette. Among the tenors are the two Whitneys, L. W. Wheeler and James P. Draper. There are prominent singers also among the bassos, such names as Rudolphsen, Powers, McLellan, Ardavani, Perkins, Kimball, M. W. Whitney and Dr. Guilmette.

The telegraph will have anticipated me concerning the movements of General Grant. His arrival, and the fact that he would be present at the Coliseum, swelled the crowd about that building and in the vicinity to enormous proportions. The streets were one swaying, surging mass of humanity. Vehicles were jammed together in inextricable confusion. The horse-cars found it impossible to proceed, and, being piled together in long lines, sometimes a mile in length, added to the general distraction. The Hub was in a hubbub. I made the journey from the Coliseum to the State House, ordinarily a five minutes' walk, in exactly one hour by the Park Street Church clock, which never lies. As the time approached for the opening of the concert, the rush was fearful. At every one of the twelve entrances to the Coliseum, thousands of people were jammed together, pushing and fairly trampling upon one another. The efforts of the police, efficient as they have been, were of no avail. Hundreds and hundreds of people who had tickets turned and went away, rather than face that crowd. Women became timid and shrank from it. There were some, however, who resolutely went in, and some of them came out squeezed. Some fainted and were, with difficulty, extricated. Not one of them but had rumpled feathers, smashed _paniers_, dishevelled hair and flushed, perspiring faces, when they had fairly effected an entrance. For an hour at least this terrible crush continued. It was such a crowd as Boston has never seen before. It is doubtful whether any city has ever witnessed the like. And all this while all the streets, even the spacious Common, were densely packed, so that walking was impossible. The trees bore human fruit in black clusters. The fences were selvedged with humanity. All the doorsteps of the palatial stone fronts stood disgusted with the loads of country cousins they were compelled to bear.

The audience inside the Coliseum was a scene for a lifetime. It gave you an idea of the sublimity of humanity such as is rarely afforded. There must have been, including the performers, 50,000 people inside that building. Far as you could see, and you can see a great way in that building, was one vast sea of human faces. It was a sublime sight, and it was a beautiful sight as well, for the blues and purples of the ladies' apparel catching the sunlight which streamed in through the windows, made it seem like a garden of gorgeous flowers, and shine in splendid contrast with the reds and yellows of the flags and streamers, and when, in a moment of sudden applause, the waving of handkerchiefs fluttered over this vast crowd, it was hard to convince yourself that they were not white-winged birds, flying over the throng. For a time, the rush inside the Coliseum was almost as terrific as that outside.

Some delay was experienced in waiting for the President and his staff, and when they did enter, the whole audience had become seated. Their appearance was the signal for a general uprising. The great organ pealed out above the multitudinous din, "See the Conquering Hero Comes." He advanced to his seat, in the centre of the house, amid a perfect storm of applause, waving of handkerchiefs, bravos and cheers, and standing upon his sofa acknowledged them.

When the President had taken his seat and order was restored, Carl Zerrahn took the conductor's stand to lead the festival overture, based upon the Luther Choral, _Ein Feste Berg ist unser Gott_, the simple theme of which had been sung the day before. The arrangement is by Nicolai, and is in fugue treatment, opening with the theme for all parts. The fugue is then taken by the orchestra and superbly worked up. The chorus anon takes the same fugue, and closes by returning to the original theme, which was given with immense power and effect. The programme was mainly of an oratorio character, and this school of music probably never before had such a magnificent illustration. The dignity, grandeur and sublimity, and the solemn power of the great oratorio master-pieces could never before have been fully felt. The first selections were the "Glory to God in the Highest," and the chorus, "And the Glory of the Lord shall be Revealed," from the "Messiah," which were given with admirable effect and with better singing than characterized the first day's concert.

The next number on the programme was the recitative and aria, "_Non piu di fiori_," from Mozart's "La Clemenza di Tito," for Miss Adelaide Phillipps, and as that lady came forward she was received with very hearty applause, but not with that cordiality of greeting I had expected to witness from a Boston audience to a Boston singer. Her selection was a most unfortunate one. It was too florid in character and marred the unity of the oratorio nature of the performance. It would have been in much better taste also to have selected something in English than in Italian. It is but simple truth also to say that her singing was no better than her taste in selection. She was not able to cope with the obstacles of the house and the audience. But one tone of her voice was thoroughly distinct at the rear of the hall. Her singing, at a distance, was so very expressionless that it fell utterly cold and flat, and people talked and turned uneasily in their seats. And perhaps it was worse than all else that she did not sing true, and at one time was almost hopelessly floating along upon a discord. Every advantage was afforded her, for only a handful of instruments accompanied her, and these were toned down to _pianissimo_. Her fine chest voice, which is so effective on the operatic stage, was almost inaudible beyond the centre of the hall. A flutter of applause ran over the audience when she had finished, and then came Mendelssohn's magnificent chorus from "Elijah"--"He watching over Israel." Zerrahn leaves the orchestra in the hand of another conductor, and takes his place in the centre of the vast chorus with baton in hand. There must be no mistake made in Felix Mendelssohn's music. Its ineffable beauty must not be marred by a single spot or flaw. And it was not. The two conductors' batons moved as if they were in the hands of one, and, from first to last, the chorus and orchestra were together in perfect time and with the most tender regard for light and shade. I could not help wishing that Felix Mendelssohn himself could have been there. How small and feeble would the 500 Birmingham performers have seemed to him in the presence of this vast multitude! How his great heart would have rejoiced within him to have heard this chorus, so full of dignity, and piety, and beauty, sung by such a massing of voices and instruments! What letters he would have written to his sister! To have heard that performance was the event of a lifetime, for it may never be done again. Had I been Carl Zerrahn, it seems to me, I should have been the happiest man in the world. If spirits are allowed to visit this lower world, then certainly the spirit of Mendelssohn must have been in that hall, and must have guided and inspired that baton, for it held the singers, organ and instruments together like magic, and when it had made its last beat, the audience broke out into loud and long continued applause.

Parepa came upon the platform for the next number, "Let the Bright Seraphim," from Handel, and received an ovation which even eclipsed that given to the President. Arbuckle took his place beside her, to play the trumpet _obligato_, using the cornet as players invariably do. The instrument and voice were twins in time and tone, and the responses of the singer to the trumpet came every time, as truthful as an echo. I have never heard a more marvelously beautiful piece of singing with an instrument, and, when it was finished, the applause was almost deafening in every part of the vast building, the chorus joining in with the audience. The cheers and bravos, which compelled an _encore_, fairly shook the building.

In the interim, between the two parts, the Star-Spangled Banner and the Anvil Chorus were repeated, for the gratification of the President. In the second part, the C major symphony of Schubert was given. The hour was growing late, and only the Andante and Finale were played. "The Heavens are Telling," sung with immense effect, closed the concert.

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June 17, 1869.

The sudden death of Mrs. George L. Dunlap, of Chicago, during the concert yesterday, has caused a widespread feeling of sadness here, even among those who were not acquainted with her; while those who did know her, and were familiar with her many lovely traits of character, deeply feel this sudden bereavement. She passed away in the twinkling of an eye, literally without warning, and expired in the arms of one of her dearest friends, Mrs. Ellis, of Chicago. It was a startling fact in the midst of so much life! Fifty thousand hearts pulsating to the sublime music from the great chorus, and one is suddenly stilled forever! No one among the many thousands who were present yesterday entered with lighter heart, more buoyant spirits, or apparently better health; and if you had been asked to select the one in that great throng whom Death would strike first, she would have been the last you would have selected. I saw her on Tuesday as she sat in her place, her face beaming with delight as she listened to the music, and I saw her again on yesterday, as she suddenly fell into the arms of her brother like a rose snapped from its stem; and I can scarcely yet comprehend that she is dead. She breathed her last breath as Parepa was singing the angelic song, "Let the Bright Seraphim," and she passed from among us and joined those seraphim and continued the song. And it seems to me, if I had been permitted to look into that far country, that I should have seen her sitting by the side of the angelic old master, Handel, telling him of the celestial song which so suddenly died upon her ears in the presence of the vast multitude, whose song was as the voice of many waters, and that I should have seen him bending forward, with a thoughtful look, and listening to her as she told him of the "Messiah," which she had heard on the day before she died. I know that she and the master will be friends through all eternity, and thus the majesty of genius and the beauty of loveliness will be joined together forever.

And to him who sits in bereavement to-day, may there come consolation and the gift of the tender pity of the Great Father, and may the darkened homes in Boston and Chicago be made holy for all his and their coming days, with the recollections of her loveliness and true womanly character.

It is a clear, cloudless day, and had that man Gilmore, with the steam engine inside of him, made special arrangements with the weather-clerk, he could not have secured a more auspicious day. The crowd yesterday was great, but the crowd to-day is greater.

The programme to-day is purely a popular one. There are the overture to Fra Diavolo, a Peace March composed for the occasion by Janotta, whoever he is, which is not original and very tiresome; the inevitable Anvil Chorus, with the artillery and bells; a sensational and rather commonplace overture, built up by C. C. Converse, on "Hail Columbia;" and national airs, which the orchestra flounder through rather than play. Indeed, if you watch Wulf Fries, Rosa, Schultze, or any of the leading players, you see their faces all scowled up as they wade through so much musical swash, so unworthy of the great orchestra. In fact, there is no atmosphere of art here to-day. The only feature of interest in the Fra Diavolo overture is the trumpet solo, which is taken by fifty instruments instead of one, and gives out a clarion blast which might wake the dead. The rest of the overture, however does not go well. The second violins are shocking. Gilmore has not got them well in hand. In the Grand March, done by Janotta for the occasion, there are reminiscences all the way through, of Tannhauser, the Coronation and the Wedding March, and the connecting links are very weak, sometimes almost stupid. The man who writes marches for such an orchestra should be inspired. He should feel the electricity of the great audience tingling through his veins. Heavens! If only Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Handel, Haydn, Meyerbeer, Rossini, anybody, were living to write for this organ and orchestra. We want columbiads and have got pop-guns--a mountain thunder-storm, and we have a silly April rain--a Jeremiah, and we have nothing better than Daniel Pratt. Converse's trivial arrangement of "Hail Columbia" is no better, perhaps not so good. It is profanation to devote a thousand instruments and an organ four times the power of that in the Music Hall to such commonplaces. The old masters would have died contented once to have got the _baton_ in their hands with such a massing of instruments and voices for the production of their works. Then, again, we are treated to Bilse's "_Marche Militaire_," to the "Star Spangled Banner," the "Harp that Once thro' Tara's Halls," and the overture to "Stradella," all good enough in their way and in their place. But how feeble, how purposeless, how silly they all are in this place! What does Hercules want of a wax doll? Or Samson of a child's grasp to carry off the gates of Gaza?

We have again the "Anvil Chorus." To be sure, it goes well. The artillery is fired with strict precision, because it can't be fired any other way. It emphasizes the initial notes of the bars very grandly and very effectively, but then what is the use of emphasizing such stuff at all? The firemen pound their anvils very precisely, and on the very second of time, and make a very hearty cling-clang; but it would be to more purpose were a hundred horses waiting to be shod. There is no music in all this. It is noisy; it is sensational; it is humbug; it is anything you please--but music. And yet the audience is hugely delighted and they demand the _bis_ each day; and this, too, in Boston, where the purists live--where art is supposed to have its home and flourish like the green bay tree. Tell it not in Gath that a Boston audience has _encored_ Verdi's Anvil Chorus, performed by red-shirted firemen, batteries of artillery, etc., and allowed the grand chorals of Luther and "He Watching Over Israel," which were done as they have never been done before--which were so full of sublimity and majesty and dignity, and so musically excellent in their treatment that it made one's heart fairly stop beating--to go by almost without recognition. It seemed to me that all possibilities of life and all conditions of the hereafter were bound up in that performance of Mendelssohn's chorus. Zerrahn himself approached it with fear and trembling. The organ was silenced. The instruments were toned down. He would not even trust himself upon the conductor's stand, but took his place right in the heart of the vast chorus. How sweetly the sopranos take the opening of the theme, and then come the tenors alone--"Shouldst thou walking in grief." How sublimely that prayer is delivered? Then how part after part rises in splendid climax and finally dies away in a soft _piano_, with just the faintest ripple of sounding, like the plashing of waves on a beach, stealing across the orchestra! There is a slapping of hands among the audience as if the music had been tolerated, but they will go crazy when the Anvil Chorus comes.

To-day, I have sat within three rows of the conductor's stand. The effect is very grand, but it is more noise than music, and you can put nothing together. If you go to the rear of the hall, you get a better harmonic blending and less noise. Indeed, a thousand performers in Farwell Hall would make just as much noise as the ten thousand performers do in the Coliseum, or, rather, the effect would strike you with equal power. It is probable that no amount of technical skill upon the part of the conductor, or of force and fidelity upon the part of the singers, could change this. It is impossible for such a great body of sound, occupying such a vast space, to reach a single ear with anything like its full force, or even with any degree of regularity; and if you watch the conductor, you will be still more confused, for, apparently, he is beating ahead of time--such is the discrepancy of time between the blow of the baton and the speed with which time travels. The chorus may, and with trivial exceptions does, follow the beat of the conductor with great precision, but the confusion is always noticeable. Again, the distance from those in the rear of the chorus to the front ranks is very large, and, although all may start upon the beat, by the time the sounds reach you, there is a difference, very slight, it is true, but nevertheless perceptible, especially in words ending with "s," "t," or any harsh letter. In the long notes of the chorals which are decidedly _the_ features of the concert, you do not notice it so much, but, in many of the quick choruses, sometimes everything seems at sea to you, when, in reality, it is going very smoothly. With so vast a chorus, also, it is very difficult to preserve the delicate transitions. You can get a _fortissimo_ or a _pianissimo_, but it is extremely difficult to get the _forte_ and _piano_. The tendency of this multitude is either to sing too loud or too soft, and there is the same fact noticeable upon the part of the orchestra. With the organ it is different. Mr. Wilcox, at any moment he pleases, has the power in his hands to drown chorus and orchestra both, with its thunder. Its tones fairly pierce through and through the aggregate of sound at times with almost startling effect, and, wherever there is a weak spot, it can be covered up without difficulty. In the chorals, the power is specially manifested. In the hands of a skillful person, one beat of a baton would be all that was necessary to keep the chorus to its work. It could not get away from that organ if it tried--the pedal bass is so immense, so uplifting and so sustaining.

I think there is a universal disappointment in regard to the volume of sound to be produced by this chorus. People have imagined that the sound of ten thousand voices in the Coliseum, for instance, would be ten times as loud as one thousand voices in the Music Hall; but in reality it is no louder. They did not make calculations for the increased size of the building and the obstacles placed in the way of the traveling of sound and grasping it with the ear. My own disappointment has been a happy one. I had thought the noise would be simply noise, but the noise has been music. It has now been thoroughly proved that a chorus and orchestra of this size can be manipulated and not only be made to sing and play together, but to sing and play with expression and even approximate to a certain degree of light and shade. But yet, apart from the magnetism, there is in such a vast human presence, I do not see that the increase in numbers is really an advantage in making effects. It was a splendid experiment to try, however, and it speaks volumes for the skill of Mr. Gilmore, who conceived and organized it, and for Mr. Zerrahn, who has conducted the oratorio and classical parts of the programme.

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June 18, 1869.