Chapter XV · THE LIGHTER VEIN

Sources of American popular music—Its past and present phases—American comic opera: Reginald de Koven; Victor Herbert; John Philip Sousa; other writers of light opera—The decline of light opera and the present state of theatrical music.

It cannot be too often reiterated that, however highly developed an art a nation's music may become, it inevitably springs from the germ of popular expression that voices itself in the simple songs of its masses, the folk-music. In this lies the essence of its being and to this it owes its vitality. America's history has been such as to deprive her in a great measure of a folk-music in the true sense of the word. Many causes have contributed to this; the decidedly non-idyllic character of its early phases and the suppressing hand of Puritanism were undoubtedly potent factors, but the fundamental reason lies in the absence of a national consciousness, which is necessarily lacking in a country of mixed peoples developing a borrowed civilization. Now that America is able to boast the beginnings of a sophisticated art, it is beginning to be more deplored that there is not present the rich vein of folk-music to lend to our native art that vital and distinctive touch that should give it its place among the nation's music.

The course of our national life has brought, however, from time to time, certain moments when there has emanated from the people a voice more distinctly local in its suggestions, not entirely lacking the influence of a borrowed expression, but blending with it a certain flavor of its own and thereby creating a sort of music in the folk-manner. Such were the songs of Stephen Foster, and such were the patriotic songs of the Civil War times, and in these two contributions to our native music we have the most genuinely and deeply emotional expressions that have yet sprung from Americans of European origin. Previous to the appearance of these, the complexion of our music had been almost entirely English, consisting as it did of patriotic or sentimental songs either actually imported from England or locally written songs which copied the English models so slavishly as to lose all distinction.

The negro element began at an early epoch to bear an influence on our expressions. As the one keenly suffering people in our midst, leading a life of elemental toil and possessing richly endowed musical natures, the negro, with his intensely emotional expression, was bound to make himself heard and felt throughout the land, and his songs entered largely into the fibre of our own expression. But even the most ardent supporter of the practice of employing the negro element as a basis for American music must admit that there is much of the exotic about it, and that by its employment alone our native art will never attain to that desideratum of the American composer, a nationalistic feeling.

It has already been remarked in commenting on this subject how Dvořák in handling this negro element remained unequivocally Slavic in idiom, and it has been noted, also, with what scant success our own composers have pursued the same efforts toward concocting what would seem an indigenous art. That such a nationalistic art, when it does finally evolve, will contain a strong strain of these various influences is undoubtedly the case, but the tinge of real local atmosphere which will constitute its nationalism will be an intangible quality not existing in any defined formula. It will not possess salient external features which our own composers may seize upon, but it will be charged with a consciousness that shall be inherent in the composers themselves and shall find unconscious voicing in their melodies. It is not unreasonable to suppose that it is from what we generally designate as our 'popular music' that such an art will emanate; from the street, the theatre, the dance hall, and more particularly from the sentimentalities of the popular songs which periodically hold the affections of such a vast public. Ephemeral as is the mass of this music that annually sweeps over our country, each phase of it leaves its mark, some deeper than others, but all contributing to the upbuilding of the national character of our music.

I

Let us turn our attention to a brief survey of some of these phases of the popular music, both past and present.

Generally speaking, the bulk of this music may be classified into the two form-divisions which distinguish the main orders of all musical art—the dance and the song form, the rhythmic and the lyric. While the latter predominated in the popular music of past decades, the present-day tendencies give greater importance to the dance and even the larger part of our popular songs are set to the more enlivening rhythms of the prevailing dance measures. We have seen that the 'minstrel show' provided the medium whereby the first purveyors of popular music reached the public. It was through the means of this popular entertainment that many of the early favorites reached fame. With the rise of the vaudeville or 'variety show' the character of popular music underwent a considerable change. The introduction of the comic song brought a new element into its nature and then came that slough of sentimentalism which was to remove from our popular music the naïve but sincere appeal of the old ballads and replace them with the more sophisticated but vulgar frivolities.

The sentimental song has, however, never entirely disappeared from the popular répertoire; it has, indeed, persistently maintained a considerable place in the affections of every period. Even the younger of our own generation can recall the phase of popular taste that existed just before the inauguration of a new order in the appearance of 'ragtime.' Almost all of the then popular melodies consisted of songs replete with the so-called 'heart quality.' The mild eroticism of 'Sweet Marie' and 'The Sweetest Story ever Told' shared the popular favor with the patriotically sentimental 'Comrades' and 'Just Break the News to Mother,' songs in which the memory of the war lingered and which were prompted by the success of the military drama. While the popularity of these songs has been great, the public has been indifferent to the composers, and they have had to be content with an almost anonymous fame. Some of the men who represent this past decade of the sentimental song are: Charles K. Harris, whose greatest success was 'After the Ball'; Charles Graham, Felix McGlennon, H. W. Petrie, and Paul Dresser.

The reappearance of the negro-element in the form of the 'coon song' marks an important epoch in the evolution of our popular music. The 'coon song' presents to us the light-hearted side of the negro; the pathos of the slave is never presented in these later negro songs—only the 'darky's' picturesqueness, his quasi-humorous vagabondage, and, in the more vulgarized types, his frenzied ribaldry.

The coon song has passed through a number of development stages. The first examples, such as 'Kentucky Babe' and 'Little Alabama Coon,' were of a naïve variety which contained but the merest suggestion of the real negro element. There has been a subsequently wider utilization of the syncopated rhythms which constitute the popularities of 'ragtime' and present-day examples, such as 'Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee,' represent a rather complicated and decidedly more characteristic type than do the coon songs of preceding seasons.

Following the success of the coon song there was an exploitation of the 'Indian' song. These songs were even less genuine in origin than their antecedents. The Indian element was often obtained by the employment of a sort of garbled Oriental ragtime or of a disguised Celtic idiom, and only the titles revealed these compositions as Indian. 'Hiawatha' and 'Tammany' were among the first of these songs, and they were followed by a large number of imitations.

Besides these two principal classes of popular music employing a local color in its idiom, countless experiments have been made with other varieties. The Oriental has been much used and the refrain of the once popular 'Streets of Cairo' has served as the 'leitmotif' of a thousand and one pieces partaking of a pseudo-Orientalism. The Irish song has had a persistent vogue; it has several representative types; the sentimental 'Annie Rooney' and 'Maggie Murphy' of earlier days have been succeeded by the more boisterous 'Bedelia' and the perennial 'Mr. Dooley.' There is usually a saving grace of humor in these Hibernian offerings which palliates even their most patent vulgarity.

The vogue of the more recent popular music has been dictated by the various dance fads which have lately seized the public fancy. First the 'turkey trot' and 'barn dance' brought forth such originalities as 'Alexander's Rag Time Band' and 'Everybody's Doin' It,' these to be followed by an avalanche of various 'glides' and 'rags.' The music of the dances and dance songs is unique in its blending of certain negro qualities of rhythm and melody with a strange indeterminate sense of something Slavic or Oriental in their abandon. The last aspect of popular dance music is that furnished by the importation of the 'tango,' maxixe and other Latin American dances. Most of the more popular tunes to which these steps are danced are pronouncedly Spanish and have in most cases been imported with the dances themselves.

An ingenious procedure on the part of the popular composer has been to weave into the verse or refrain of a song a few measures of some well-known popular classic. One of the first and perhaps the best known example is the use of Mendelssohn's 'Spring Song' in the refrain of the song so disrespectfully called 'That Mendelssohn Rag.' Following this there have appeared many such appropriations and nearly the entire list of the popular melodies of the standard classics has been thus utilized.

Viewed as a whole, the popular music of to-day presents an expression far in advance of that of even a few years ago. Some of it contains subtleties of harmonic and rhythmic design that would have been caviar to the public of yesterday. It is to be regretted that this advance in form has been made at the sacrifice of the more ingenious spirit of the early popular music, and that the tone of most of our popular music to-day is so uniformly vulgar.

II

There is a middle world of music that touches, on its one side, the more elevated regions of art, while, on the other, it does not lose its hold on the larger world of popular taste. This is the world of comic opera—using the term in its general sense of a stage piece with music of a lighter variety.

The American public was early taught to appreciate this form of artistic amusement; the history of opera in this country shows a continuous record of the production of such works in all the larger cities. Important agencies in the popularizing of comic opera were the early performances of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, the brilliant seasons of French and Viennese opera at the Casino Theatre in New York, and the excellent services of the Bostonians in presenting ideally some of the most charming of the standard répertoire, besides revealing the merit of our native composers, in giving with success some of the first American comic operas to reach public hearing.

Up to the time of the Bostonians' championship of the American light opera composer there has been but an occasional performance of some work of local interest. Julius Eichberg is generally accredited with being America's first comic opera composer, his fame resting largely on a popular work entitled 'The Doctor of Alcantara' that was produced in Boston in 1862. Eichberg could be called an American composer only in that an American city happened to be the scene of his activities. There is nothing about his work to give it any special significance as American.

In fact, as we look over the entire product of our light opera composers, we are forced again to deplore the lack of a distinctive vein or local sense that would put the national seal on America's many and notable achievements in this field. Even England, whose cultivated art is almost as devoid of a national feeling as is America's, has, in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, works of a truly national significance. Mr. Krehbiel has observed that George Ade has the requisite equipment of an American Gilbert, but that as yet there has not been found the composer who could be his Sullivan.

To assert convincingly America's claims to having contributed largely and valuably to the world's comic operas we have only to put forward these names: Reginald de Koven, Victor Herbert, and John Philip Sousa. The first name in this group is of one who is perhaps more closely identified with the comic opera stage than any other living composer. Reginald de Koven was born in 1861 at Middletown, Conn. After graduating at Oxford University in 1880 he began his career as a musician by studying in several European cities. The studies which were to bear the greatest fruit were those pursued under that master of comic opera, Suppé. On returning to America Mr. de Koven resided for some years in Chicago, where he did musical journalism and wrote the experimental scores that preceded his first and greatest success, 'Robin Hood.' Mr. de Koven's career since coming into the fame to which this work has brought him has been too familiar to need recounting. He is as well known for his songs as for his operas and his place in the lists of American lyricists is noted in Chapter XII.

If any of our younger composers of comic opera are possessed of an artistic ideal, doubtless in nine out of ten cases it is to write an opera that shall combine the sterling worth of good music with telling popular qualities in the measure that 'Robin Hood' does it. It is too late a day to write either a description or analysis of a work every page of which is familiar to the great majority of our music-loving public. It alone, of all the successes of past years, survives in the popular affection; and it is reassuring to those who fear an ultimate total depravity of taste that his work of charming grace and color can still hold the boards. 'Robin Hood' was the third opera which de Koven wrote. It was produced in 1890 by the Bostonians. Its success was not at first marked, but it did not take long for it to find its place, and it is estimated that the work now has over three thousand performances to its credit.

De Koven in this appealing work has successfully simulated the hale and hearty style of the English ballad and the idyllic simplicity of the country dance and pastoral scene. With these qualities he has combined the richer warmth of a glowing romantic melodiousness and a graceful and lilting gaiety after methods of the Viennese and French schools. Vocally stirring and effective in both its solo parts and ensembles, colorful if not brilliant in its orchestration, 'Robin Hood' is a masterpiece of its genre. Withal de Koven is always natural and spontaneously straightforward—traits that have laid him open to the accusation of persistent plagiarism. Mr. de Koven does at times employ themes that suggest other works, but this is true of many another composer whose integrity is unquestioned, and there is much truth in Mr. Hughes' designation of de Koven as 'the best abused composer in America.'

Since the success of 'Robin Hood' Mr. de Koven has been in the unfortunate position of a man attempting to repeat a success along similar lines. Once only has he made any near approach to it and that in his seventh opera, 'Rob Roy' (produced in 1894). There is in this score much of the same freshness that characterizes 'Robin Hood,' and its melodies are not too reminiscent of the earlier works. The same cannot be said of many of de Koven's other operas, for in his less inspired moments the composer's heartiness becomes a rather too square pomposity and his lighter moments often descend to a banality unworthy of his best style. The following are among the other operas of de Koven, with the dates of their productions: 'The Begum' (1887), 'Don Quixote' (1889), 'The Fencing Master' (1892), 'The Knickerbockers' (1893), 'The Algerian' (1893), 'The Tsigane' (1895), 'The Mandarin' (1896), 'The Paris Doll' (1897), 'The Highwayman' (1897).

Victor Herbert in his comic operas has contrived to write in a vein somewhat more varied than de Koven. While he has never achieved a success to equal that of 'Robin Hood,' his operas taken as a whole exhibit a more sustained power of invention and inspiration than those of de Koven. Herbert's style is more marked by piquancy and lightness, but he is not lacking in a melodic sense both charming and natural.

Herbert's style has undergone an evolution since his entrance into the comic opera field. His earlier works, such as 'The Wizard of the Nile,' 'The Serenade,' and 'The Idol's Eye,' are very simple in structure, while in some of his later works he employs an ambitious scheme that the laity are wont to identify with 'grand' opera. Some of Herbert's later scores are: 'The Red Mill,' 'Mlle. Modiste,' 'Algeria,' and 'Sweethearts.' Mr. Herbert was born in Ireland in 1859, was musically educated in Germany, and came to America at about the age of twenty-seven as solo 'cellist to the Metropolitan Opera House. His 'Americanism' is, therefore, acquired.

John Philip Sousa's fame, as is well known, is not primarily that of an opera composer. As the 'march king' Mr. Sousa's fame is as unique as it is deserved. Sousa is of German-Spanish descent. He was born in Washington in 1859. His career has been one of rich practical experience and opportunity, leading to an engagement as the leader of the United States Marine Band. In 1892 he organized the band which bears his own name and that organization has, perhaps, a more world-wide fame than any other feature of our musical life.

Mr. Sousa has been often held up as the most representative of American composers, an estimate that is not without considerable truth. An analogy has been made between the Strauss waltzes and the Sousa marches: the latter have not perhaps so much art as the former, but they are all admirable pieces of composition, solid in harmonic structure, and stirring in their melodic directness. 'The Washington Post,' 'The Liberty Bell,' 'The High School Cadets,' and 'King Cotton' have each, in turn, inspired the land with their martial vigor, while 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' has become permanent in the people's affections, being, indeed, a national anthem more eloquent in Americanism than many of the tunes that bear the official seal as such.

Sousa has written several comic operas. One only of these, 'El Capitan,' has met with success. It contains much music of an agreeable brilliancy and gracefulness, notably one of the best examples of the composer's marches. There is lacking, however, in Sousa's music a quality very essential to the rounding out of a successful opera score. We refer to the more sensuous melodic line which lends color to the sustained portions of a work. Later operas of Sousa include: 'The Bride Elect,' 'The Charlatan,' 'Chris and the Wonderful Lamp,' and 'The Glass Blowers,' and it may be added that Mr. Sousa has made several incursions into the field of more serious music, having written a symphonic poem and several other works for orchestra.

One of the most prolific composers of American light opera was Julian Edwards (1855-1910). Mr. Edwards' list of about twenty operas includes the names of several that have had remarkable success. 'Brian Boru' and 'Dolly Varden' are more than names to many. In 1904 Mr. Edwards wrote the opera 'Love's Lottery,' which served as the vehicle whereby Mme. Schumann-Heink entered the comic opera field.

Ludwig Englander and Gustav Luders are other names endeared to American comic opera lovers. Both are of foreign birth, however. The operas of the latter include 'King Dodo,' 'Grand Mogul,' and 'The Prince of Pilsen,' all works which, though neither marked by originality nor over-refined, contained enough of musical vitality to have won a place in the public esteem.

Less known writers who have from time to time added their quota to the country's enlivening and tuneful music include: G. Thorne, whose opera, 'A Maid of Plymouth,' was one of the first in the répertoire of the Bostonians; Henry Waller, the composer of 'Olgallalas,' which was also produced by the Bostonians; Carl Pflueger, who wrote '1492,' given by the Boston Cadets, an amateur organization, in one of their excellent productions; and Barnet, whose 'Jack and the Beanstalk' was also sung at one of the Cadets' 'shows.'

Several of the more serious composers have essayed the comic opera, not always successfully. George W. Chadwick's 'Tabasco,' first produced by the Boston Cadets, had a fair success when subsequently given professionally, but Edgar Stillman-Kelley's 'Puritania' and Henry Hadley's 'Nancy Brown' were decided failures. One of the recent successes was Deems Taylor's 'The Echo,' originally written as a college 'show' but achieving a long run on New York's Broadway.

Viewed in the light of present-day conditions and compared with the class of works that constitute the large part of modern musical stage-works, most of the foregoing operas may be classed as hopelessly old-fashioned and passé. The decline of comic opera commenced with the ascendency of the English 'musical comedy.' There are, it is true, many works of the latter order that contain pages of music far better than what is to be found in many of the more strictly operatic works. Such works as 'Florodora' and 'The Geisha,' as well as many later ones, have had much charm and refinement. It is the tendency of these works to abolish the romantic strain of the old-fashioned opera that constitutes its baneful influence. The play and the music have become gradually more and more divorced and to-day the musical portions of such a work have little or no bearing on the action or the scene, but consist almost entirely of topical songs introduced in much the same irrelevant manner in which they are so ingeniously brought into a vaudeville 'act.' Paraphrasing Voltaire, the majority of this degenerate class is neither musical nor comic.

This is the direction followed by our lighter musical plays of most recent times. It is to be regretted that the grace and refinement that marks many of the English musical comedies is so entirely lacking in the American imitations of the same class. A note of vulgarity insinuates itself unfailingly into the bulk of our contemporaneous popular music. Flagrant examples of the ultimate type of musical play above described are those of George M. Cohan, in whose inspiration some have seen the first manifestation of the American 'genius.' The titles of some of Mr. Cohan's plays, such as 'Yankee Doodle Boy,' 'Little Johnny Jones,' and 'George Washington, Jr.,' reveal the jingoistic qualities of his inspirations. The musical numbers of these works are expressed in terms more or less Mr. Cohan's own. He has utilized 'ragtime' largely and in the rhythmical excitement of his songs lies their strongest appeal. Other authors whose works follow generally either the Americanized form of the English musical comedy or the more distinctly native form of Mr. Cohan's 'musical shows' are: Jean Schwartz, Silvio Hein, Gus Edwards, Manuel Klein, Raymond Hubbel, and Robert H. Bowers.

It is to be hoped that there will be a return to the more legitimate forms of lighter operas and that a revival of taste for the more refined forms of stage work may soon offer again to the American composer opportunities to demonstrate the very suitable field which this branch of the art offers to his talent. An optimistic observer of present conditions may see in the unqualified vulgarity of our popular music to-day only the token of a vitality which, when softened by the refining touch of the next decade, shall result in an expression of individual charm.

B. L.