Dance at Bougival / Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1882-1883)

Have you ever noticed how many of our cherished cultural traditions were considered disreputable and shocking when they were first introduced? Here are three dance forms from three different countries that had to overcome strong objections before they became respectable. Two of them remain as staples of ballroom dancing.

Waltz

The German verb waltzen appeared long before the waltz as a specific dance. It refers to the whirling movements of various dances that arose among the peasants of the German-speaking regions of Bavaria, Austria, and Bohemia. These dances were known in Vienna and throughout Europe simply as German dances. Besides the whirling, their most distinguishing characteristic is that couples hold each other in a close embrace.

Waltz steps are simpler and much easier to learn than such courtly dances as the minuet. Being easy to learn undoubtedly contributed to its growing popularity at the end of the eighteenth century, when the middle class began to supplant the aristocracy as social trendsetters.

Court dancing masters opposed the waltz as a threat to their profession. The complex figures of court dances required considerable practice, as well as suitable postures and deportment. The medical profession disapproved of the waltz for the speed at which couples whirled around the room.

Not only that, but many found the close hold shocking. Physical contact in other dances, if any, was strictly limited. At least in part because of these moral considerations, the courts stoutly resisted the waltz.

Meanwhile, all this antagonism merely served to make it popular among the bourgeoisie. In fact, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the aristocracy’s distaste for it made it practically a patriotic necessity. Paris had more than 700 dance halls.

A German visitor to Paris in 1804 noted, “This love for the waltz and this adoption of the German dance is quite new and has become one of the vulgar fashions since the war, like smoking.” British papers complained about it past mid-century, even though Queen Victoria was an enthusiastic and expert waltzer.

The excellence of the waltz music that Johann Strauss, Sr. and Franz Lanner provided for their dance orchestras further boosted the waltz’ popularity. To this day, Strauss waltzes have not been accepted as suitable for symphony orchestra concerts. But waltzes by Tchaikovsky and too many other symphonic composers to mention have become staples of the concert repertoire.

Tango

Tango dancers

Like “waltz,” the word tango did not originally refer to a specific dance or music. By 1853, when Argentina outlawed slavery, it had come to mean a place for African slaves and free blacks to dance. As the century progressed, tangos attracted mostly poor men of mixed ancestry known as compadritos. Their dress, slouch hats, loose bandanas, high-heeled boots, and knives tucked in their belts, testified to their low social status.

Argentina experienced massive immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of the new residents were single men, typically poor and probably lonely, hoping to make a lot of money and either return home or bring their families to Argentina.

By this time “tango” may have become not only a place for dancing, but a native African-Argentine dance that had developed there. Like all the various European immigrants, the compadritos flocked to Buenos Aires.

They took the nascent tango dance with them. In dance halls, bars, and brothels, this native dance met other dance traditions that had come from all over the world. Soon enough, new dance steps and musical characteristics formed the beginning of the tango as we know it.

The tango was probably more scandalous than the waltz at a similar stage of development. The man not only placed his hand on the woman’s back, but the two danced cheek to cheek, chest to chest, with their legs entangled as well.

And that’s just for the dance steps. Many couples added flirtatious looks and caresses. Lyrics of early tango songs were full of obscenities and crude references to sex, for which the dance was often merely a prelude.

Ascent from these disreputable venues came in slow increments. Respectable immigrants, who kept their families away from such places, lived in rooming houses, but occasionally asked musicians at weddings or other festive occasions to play tango music. After a while, couples became brave enough to dance a cleaned up, expurgated version of the dance.

It took even longer for the tango to penetrate to the middle and upper class families, but their young men liked to sneak out to the slums to find adventure. It would have been impossible for them to miss the tango. Eventually, they took it home and taught their sisters and other female family members and neighbors how to dance the more nearly acceptable version.

Early in the 20th century, substantial numbers of these young people went to Paris to further their education and introduced the tango there. Paris has a centuries-long reputation as a fount of new dances. Like so many dances before it, the tango became an international sensation after Parisian society embraced it. The Argentine elite who had earlier spurned the tango now found themselves forced to embrace it as a source of national pride.

Ragtime

Ragtime dance

Ragtime, an American musical style of black origin, refers to the effect of a syncopated melodic line against a strictly regular bass line. While it is easy enough to find a similar juxtaposition in other music, this rhythmic collision is the entire basis of the ragtime style.

The origins of the ragtime style are lost in the mist of time. In 1847, Louis Moreau Gottschalk wrote a piano piece, La bamboula that certainly evokes the ragtime style. It must be older than that. African slaves probably began to meld African rhythms with European melody and harmony in colonial times.

The word ragtime appeared in the middle of the 19th century as a contraction of  “ragged time.” It predates published ragtime music and most likely refers to the practice of improvising pianists and banjo players of breaking up a conventional melody by syncopating it while keeping a steady, regular bass line.

It appears that the pianists copied the style of banjo playing—neither the first time in history nor the last that a keyboard instrument imitated the style of a plucked string instrument.

The style and structure of piano rags developed years before they became popular enough for publication. Mostly black pianists, including Scott Joplin, Eubie Blake, and Jelly Roll Morton, worked out the formal details in the parlors of brothels.

Given the racial climate of the time, as well as general disapproval of red light districts, it is surprising that rags ever saw publication, but Joplin and others had played them at the much more respectable venue of the Midway at the World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago, May-October 1893). 27 million people attended.

“Coon songs,” parodies of black culture and speech, began to introduce syncopated accompaniments as early as 1896. A white bandmaster, William H. Krell, published the first piano rag, Mississippi Rag in 1897. Scott Joplin’s first published rag, Maple Leaf Rag, appeared in 1899 and promptly sold a million copies.

Joplin had some formal musical training, which gave him the knowledge of conventional orthography and the ability to compose more sophisticated content, complete with classical phrase structures and use of dynamics. It looks like real music on the page, and that must have helped the entire genre.

Commercial success does not confer respectability. The youth liked it immediately, something that has upset elders since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. The elders objected to the unfamiliar musical looseness of the constant syncopation. It reminded them of the looseness of morals in the brothels and saloons where ragtime grew up, as well as black culture, which they considered disreputable on its own.

The rag, as a dance form, hasn’t fared as well as the waltz or the tango. Could it be because no one introduced it to Paris? It began to go into decline in the mid 1910s when recordings began to supplant the piano and player piano as the home entertainment center. Jazz, equally disreputable in origin, incorporated all the major elements of ragtime and simply became more popular.

Sources:
Waltz / Jake Fuller
Argentine tango: a brief history / Susan August Brown
A short history of Argentine tango / by Tomás Alberto García
History of Ragtime / Library of Congress

Photo credits:
Renoir’s painting is public domain.
Source of the others unknown.

Hutchinson Family

On January 17, 1862 the Hutchinson family intended to perform for the First New Jersey Regiment at Fairfax Courthouse, Virginia, but members of other units crowded into the room, too. The Hutchinsons were evangelical Christians with a passion for temperance, women’s rights, and the abolition of slavery. They did not sing merely to entertain and amuse. They sought to deter their audiences from sin and also influence their politics.

A new, unpublished song

That night in Fairfax they sang a setting of “We Wait beneath the Furnace Blast,” a recent abolitionist poem by John Greenleaf Whittier that he wrote to protest General George B. McClellan’s policy of refusing to interfere with slavery in Virginia.

Not everyone in the army appreciated these abolitionist views. At the end of this song, an army surgeon began to hiss. He had expected national and patriotic airs, and did not welcome listening to divisive abolitionist sentiment. His behavior offended a major, who stood and threatened to evict anyone who interfered with the performance. The surgeon shouted back, and it was with some difficulty that a lieutenant colonel restored order.

Audience members continued to argue well into the night. A duel was narrowly averted. The surgeon took his case to General Philip Kearny, the brigade’s commanding officer. Kearny summoned John Hutchinson and scolded him for not submitting the program to him in advance. He had as much contempt for abolitionists as for rebels.

He forbade the Hutchinsons to sing for the army any more, despite the fact that Secretary of War Simon Cameron had personally approved the program. Kearney’s superior consulted with McClellan and endorsed the order.

Hutchinson went to Washington to meet with his friend Salmon Chase, the Secretary of Treasury, who had Whittier’s poem read at a cabinet meeting.  President Lincoln and the entire cabinet unanimously endorsed Cameron’s approval of the program.

The new song’s influence

Hutchinson quartet

As a result, the Fairfax incident became widely known. The Hutchinsons became standard bearers not only for abolitionism, but also opposition to McClellan. They continued to perform “We Wait beneath the Furnace Blast,” which continued to show political divisions within audiences.

The Fairfax incident shows the power of music. Not only did one song cause a single audience to break out into an argument that stopped just short of violence. Kearny’s (and by implication McClellan’s) attempt to suppress the song and its performers contributed to McClellan’s eventual downfall. One Union soldier claimed that the incident began the discussion within the army of whether emancipation would be one of the Union’s war aims.

Surely if someone had simply given an abolitionist speech to that same audience, he would have been angrily rejected. No one would have thought further about it, and no one outside of Fairfax would have ever heard of it. But a family of popular entertainers could sing an incendiary new song and influence the entire course of the war. Many people who wavered in their attitudes toward slavery found themselves wholly committed to abolitionism when they heard the song.

Publication history

And it wasn’t even published yet! Public demand made that situation short lived. The Boston firm Oliver Ditson soon released a setting by W.O. Perkins. The following year, the Chicago form of H.M. Higgins issued another setting by T. Martin Towne. The Hutchinsons probably sang Perkins’ setting. Higgins probably published Towne’s to take advantage of the continuing popularity of Whittier’s poem.

After McClellan’s dismissal, new issues captured the public’s imagination. Whittier’s poem no longer spoke to them. I can’t say that the poem passed out of public consciousness, but neither song setting had enough musical merit to survive such a topical poem’s inevitable eclipse.

Here is a recent video of Perkins’ song. It is certainly the more singable of the two. I have no idea what attracted the performer to the song, It certainly had an influence and historical importance that long outlasted its short popularity.

I usually like to use sheet music covers as illustrations, but neither cover is very interesting or attractive. According to the White House Historical Association, the Hutchinsons sang at the White House for seven different Presidents, beginning with John Tyler. I have not found dates associated with either the picture of them I found there or any others I have located.

Sources: Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War / Christian McWhirter (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, (2012)
Hutchinson Family Singers: America’s First Protest Singers 
Digitized sheet music at Library of Congress.
Photos are public domain.

Illustration by Charles Reinhardt for an 1875 story in Harper’s Magazine about a man with the misfortune to live upstairs from a trombonist.

In 1861, Dwight’s Journal of Music reprinted a notice from an unnamed English journal: Moritz Nabich was moving to Paris. His long-suffering English neighbors would no longer have to listen to him practicing that musical menace, the trombone. Parisians would suffer instead. Who was Nabich, and why would a Boston-based magazine print this notice?

The well-traveled and world famous Moritz Nabich was the foremost trombone soloist of his day. His name and reputation would have been familiar even in musical cities that he never visited. He carried on the work of his illustrious predecessors Friedrich August Belcke and Carl Traugott Queisser. Queisser died in 1846 and Belcke had apparently retired as a soloist by that time.

Nabich’s career

The first press notice I have found of Nabich was a concert announcement in the Allgemeine Wiener musikalische Zeitung in 1847. The following year he made his solo debut in Queisser’s Leipzig and then found employment at the Weimar court, where Franz Liszt was music director. He remained there until 1855.

Nabich’s employment in Weimar must have allowed him to travel, because the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris reported a concert appearance in Paris in 1851. He also appeared in London in both January and June of 1853.

At the behest of the great promenade conductor Jullien, Nabich left his court appointment and moved to London in 1855. He performed there frequently until 1861, when, as the article Dwight quoted gleefully announced, he moved to Paris.

I find only a single mention of Nabich in the French press at this time, a concert in Rouen in 1863. By 1864 he had apparently returned to Germany.  He appeared with the Leipzig Euterpe orchestra in 1864 and the Gewandhaus in 1867. The papers also report performances in Dresden, Vienna, and Amsterdam. He eventually retired to Leipzig, where he died in 1893.

How good was Nabich?

A well-known caricature of Berlioz by Andreas Geiger, depicting a common complaint about orchestral brass.

Apparently Nabich was good enough to maintain a concert career for more than 20 years, but not good enough to bear comparison with other trombonists or to inspire composers to write new music for him.

Ferdinand David wrote his Concertino for Queisser. It immediately became the concerto that every other trombonist had to master. No other 19th-century trombone concerto achieved that status. It was an important enough work in David’s output that it was performed at his funeral (by August Bruns) in 1873.

After a performance by Robert Müller in 1876 it disappeared from the Gewandhaus repertoire and eventually from “serious” concerts everywhere else. It remained a staple music festivals, promenades, and other low-brow concerts well into the 20th century.

The review by Henri Blanchard of Nabich’s Paris concert in 1851 commended his soft playing, but complained that he was not a master of his breath and that his intonation was not always good. These faults, opined Blanchard, were inherent in the trombone. On this occasion, Nabich was one of three soloists.

Blanchard also found fault with the pianist and the violinist. Perhaps he disliked German musicians as much as he liked the trombone. He didn’t mention what any of them played, but he did mention with some favor the concluding fantasy that featured all three of the soloists.

When Nabich performed David’s Concertino in London in 1853, the Times noted:

The other new solo player was Herr Nabich, a member of the private band of the Duke of Saxe Weimar, who executed a “grand concerto” (so-styled, although it was only a single movement) on the trombone, the composition of Herr David–of Leipsic, we presume–with orchestral accompaniments.

So much has been said of this gentleman that much more was expected of him than he achieved last night. He is, however, a performer of unquestionable talent; and, in spite of a prevailing monotony of style, and an occasional flippancy of expression, he manages both to surprise and please–to surprise by his easy command of so cumbersome an instrument, by the clearness of his articulation, and the stamina of his lungs; to please by the mellowness of his tone and the extreme softness of his piano.

In other points–that of bravura execution, for example–Herr Nabich did nothing last night to authorize us at present in comparing him with Signor Cioffi, who has shown himself so great an adept in that line. The “grand concerto” was greatly applauded, but an attempt to encore it was opposed.

Nevertheless, Herr Nabich, pleased with the manner in which his talents had been appreciated, after the intervention of a vocal piece, volunteered to perform “A small solo of airs of Lucia”–as the gentlemen of the committee who made the speech somewhat quaintly described it. This Herr Nabich accomplished, with much applause, although his first performance was beyond comparison the best.

The review of Nabich’s performance of the same piece in Leipzig in 1864 complained that he didn’t play it as well as Queisser, who by that time had been dead for 18 years. On the other hand, Reifsnyder notes a review of a concert in Dresden by Bruns that compares him favorably to Nabich, Belcke, and Queisser.

So it appears that the only trombone soloist besides Belcke and Queisser deemed important enough for an entry in Hugo Riemann’s Musik-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1882) did not enjoy the critical success of even lesser-known soloists.

In common with every other nineteenth-century trombonist, he had to succeed despite near universal critical skepticism that the trombone was a suitable solo instrument for classical music.  Apparently concert audiences welcomed him anyway.

Sources:

Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 7 (1847): 360
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 2nd series  2 (1864): 782
Dwight’s Journal of Music 18 (1861): 388
Revue et gazette musicale de Paris 18 (1851): 108; 30 (1863): 14
“The Romantic Trombone and Its Place in the German Solo Tradition” by Robert Reifsnyder. ITA Journal (Spring 1987): 21
Times (London). January 23; June 8, 1853. — July 14, 1855. — March 6; April 9, 22; June 6, 1856 — April 4; December 24, 1857. – May 24, 1858. – September 12, 1859. – February 20; March 20, 1860.

And a tip of the hat to Will Kimball’s Trombone History Timeline, which includes a spectacular collection of images.

I have been so busy lately I haven’t had time to read and write as much as I would like. It’s times like these when I really appreciate the videos that I get by email. I don’t have to explain anything! I hope you have as much fun watching as I did—and as these people had making it.

Oh, and tell all of us about it in the comments.

Rendering of Firebird costume by Léon Bakst, 1910

In 1909, Serge Diaghilev, director of the Ballet Russe, had a ballet based on two Russian legends in mind. Neither his resident composer Nikolai Tcherepnin nor Anatoly Lyadov accepted his request to compose the music. Therefore he turned to the virtually unknown Igor Stravinsky. The resulting ballet, Firebird, turned out to be a turning point in the careers of both men and one of the most successful pieces of twentieth-century music.

Diaghilev had encountered Stravinsky’s music before, having asked him to orchestrate some Chopin pieces for an earlier ballet. But Stravinsky’s teacher and mentor Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who had only recently died, detested ballet. Nothing in Stravinsky’s lessons prepared him to compose one, but he shared a love of ballet with another of his idols, Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Stravinsky cheerfully accepted the commission and went to Paris for the premiere, which took place on June 25, 1910.

Composition and reception of Firebird

Rimsky-Korsakov’s influence on Firebird can be seen in the luminous orchestration, the use of Russian folk tunes, and especially the way the music portrays human characters with diatonic music [derived from ordinary major and minor scales] and legendary creatures with an exotic chromaticism [derived from the so-called octatonic scale, with its alternation of whole and half steps.]

Some original touches, explored much more fully in his next two ballets Petrushka and Rite of Spring, include primitivism, metric irregularity, ostinatos, and dissonant harmonies.

Stravinsky used an orchestration of Wagnerian proportions, including the use of a pair of Wagner tubas, three of each standard woodwind (with E-flat and bass clarinets and two contrabassoons), 3 harps, and a piano.

Like most Russian composers of his and earlier generations, Stravinsky turned to Russian folk music for some of his melodies. The oboe theme in the “Ronde des princesses” and the horn solo that open the finale are both Russian folk tunes taken from Rimsky-Korsakov’s 100 Russian Folk Songs (1876). Diaghilev was shocked to learn that the former was not Stravinsky’s own melody.

The song associated with Prince Ivan also sounds like a folksong, but it is not part of Rimsky-Korsakov’s anthology or any other identified source.  Stravinsky must have written it himself.

The first performance was a spectacular success and gave the young composer his first taste of international acclaim. He quickly became one of the most influential composers in the world. As it turns out, he never returned to Russia until he was an old man. He was living in Switzerland at the time of the Russian Revolution.

Firebird: the ballet and the suites

The story of Firebird combines two Russian legends, one of the prince and the firebird and the other of an immortal ogre.

Prince Ivan, lost at night while hunting, finds himself in an enchanted garden. There, he sees the beautiful Firebird taking golden apples from a tree in its center. Ivan captures Firebird, but she pleads for her release and gives him one of her feathers. She promises that she will give him magic assistance if he ever needs it.

In the morning, Ivan notices that the garden is the courtyard of a huge castle. Thirteen princesses come out of the castle to play with the apples, and Ivan falls in love with one of them. He learns that the lord of the castle, Kashchei the Immortal, has enchanted them. The evil Kashchei has turned to stone every other prince who has come to rescue him. He has hidden his soul in an egg, and until someone finds and destroys it, the princesses have no hope.

After the princesses complete their dance and return to the castle, Kashchei emerges with a horde of fantastic creatures to add Ivan to their collection of statuary. Ivan waves the feather and Firebird appears. Firebird forces Kashchei and his monsters to dance until they drop. She puts Kaschei to sleep with a lullaby and leads Ivan to the tree stump where the egg is hidden.

Kashchei awakens, but not in time to prevent Ivan from destroying the egg. As soon as the egg is smashed, Kashchei dies. His retainers and the evil castle disappear. All the petrified knights come back to life and the princess’ enchantments also come to an end. Firebird flies over Ivan and his chosen bride, and of course, they all live happily ever after.

Like Tchaikovsky before him, Stravinsky extracted concert suites from the ballet. In the case of Firebird, there are three.

• Concert Suite no. 1 (1911). Selected movements, ending with Kashchei’s Infernal Dance, that differ from the ballet only by having new endings written for them.
• Concert Suite no. 2 (1919). A different selection of movements, including the “Lullaby” and the “Finale,” with the orchestra reduced to a more normal size.
• Ballet Suite for Orchestra (1945).  Adds six movements to the 1919 suite between the “Firebird’s Variation” and “Kashchei’s Infernal Dance” and further simplifies the orchestration.

Sources:
The Firebird, 100 years on/ Sarah Kirkup, Barry Wordsworth
The Firebird / Orriin Howard
Strawinski, The Firebird – the borrowings / Daan Admiraal
The Firebird (complete ballet) / Richard Freed
Igor Stravinsky, The Firebird Ballet, 1910 / Classical Cat

Photo credit: Public domain, from Wikimedia Commons

Four slave states, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware voted down attempts to secede from the Union. They became known as Border States. Pro-Union and pro-Confederate sentiment ran high in all of these states, and troops from all of them served on both sides of the war. Is it any wonder that music publishers and other businesses also showed divided loyalties?

The Border States were hardly unique in having a sharply divided public opinion. White soldiers from every southern state except South Carolina served in the Union army, while southern Indiana became a hot spot in the Democratic Party’s opposition to the Lincoln administration. Some individual counties in southern Indiana actually voted to secede from the Union.

David Faulds and his company

At least eight music publishers set up shop in Louisville, Kentucky at some time in the 19th century. Most of them also manufactured pianos. David Faulds established his business in 1854. His last publication appeared in 1882, but he continued to manufacture pianos for the rest of the century. According to his obituary in 1903, his firm published some 2,500 pieces.

Between 1855 and 1871, Faulds (among other Louisville publishers) was member of the Board of Music Trade of the United States of America. He became its Vice President in 1860 and subsequently its President. At least four of Faulds’ clerks or bookkeepers established their own businesses as music publishers, with his active encouragement.

In 1856 Faulds apparently bought out George Washington Brainard. Brainerd, brother of Silas Brainerd of Cleveland, had come from Cleveland in 1851 to take advantage of the significant market, but ultimately failed to break in with his own firm. He returned to Cleveland, and Faulds continued to sell Brainerd publications in his store.

During the nineteenth century, music publishers in one city routinely developed relationships with those in other cities. In that way, they increased both the market for their own publications and the variety of merchandise in their own stores.

Besides the Brainerds of Cleveland, Faulds established ties with Oliver Ditson (Boston), Wm. Hall & Son (New York), Root & Cady (Chicago), Balmer & Weber (St. Louis), Bonner & Sapper (Richmond, Va.), Lee & Walker (Philadelphia) among others. Faulds also had his own office in Chicago, which appears on a few covers. In fact, on one of the songs listed below (“Song of the Union troops”) the Chicago address is printed above and in larger print than the Louisville office.

Civil War songs published by Faulds

Most of my Civil War posts are based on spreadsheets of Union and Confederate music as identified in the Library of Congress’ Performing Arts Encyclopedia.

In preparing this list, I have discovered that not all of the songs in the Civil War collection contain notes that the piece represents the Union or Confederate viewpoint. The database contains 26 pieces published by Faulds, three of which lack explicit notes of association.

If other publishers appear on the covers, I have noted them here. There are no entries for them in the Library of Congress database. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the collection contains pieces on which Faulds is an extra publisher on someone else’s imprint.

Music associated with the Confederate side

• That southern wagon / by Will S. Hays (Louisville, Chicago: D.P. Faulds, n.d.)
• Way down in Dixie / by Jr. Dixie (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1860)
• Song of the South / by James H. Huber (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1861) + Jas.A. McClure (Nashville & Memphis); Blackmar & Bro. (Vicksburg & New Orleans)
• Stars shine for every life / by J. Steeg (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1864)
• Hobson waltz / by D.W. Haley (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1865) + Bonner & Sapper (Richmond, Va.)
• The unhappy contraband / by Will S. Hays (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1865)
• We know that we were rebels, or Why can we not be brothers / by Charlie L. Ward (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1865) + Blelock & Co. (no place printed); Bonner & Sapper (Richmond, Va.)
• Bright southern star / Anon., words by B.F. Chase (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1866)
• The conquered flag / Charlie L. Ward (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1866)
• Faded gray jacket / Charlie L. Ward (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1866) + Blelock & Co. (Memphis & New Orleans); Bonner & Sapper (Richmond, Va.)
• Gen. Beauregard waltzes / [Charlie L.] Ward (Louisville: David P. Faulds, 1866) Higgins Bros. (illegible, but certainly not the Chicago firm); Balmer & Weber (St. Louis); W.C. Peters & Sons (Cincinnati)
• General Hardee quick step / W.J. Landram (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1866)

Music associated with the Union side

• The American flag / by Will S. Hays (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1863)
• Burnside quickstep / by C.E. Bright (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1863)
• The Constitution as it is, the Union as it was / by Will S. Hays (Louisville, Chicago: D.P. Faulds, 1863)
• The drummer boy of Antietam / by Albert Fleming (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1866)
• Benny Haven’s o / by Noble Butler (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1864)
• Hurrah for the boys of the army / by A.D. Ennek (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1864)
• McClellan mazurka / by T. Edwin Bayley (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1864) + Root & Cady (Chicago); Balmer & Weber (St. Louis); A.C. Peters & Bro. (Cincinnati)
• The old sergeant / by Will S. Hays (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1864) + Root & Cady (Chicago); Balmer & Weber (St. Louis); Lee & Walker (Philadelphia)
• The coat of faded grey / by H.M. Hall (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1866)

Music unidentified by a note

• Song of the Union troops [cover title: Cheer, boys, cheer] / arr. by James Perry , (Chicago, Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1861) +
• I’m looking for him home / by Will S Hays (Louisville: D.P. Faulds, 1865) + J.A. McClure; C.D. Benson (Nashville–2 different firms?); Balmer & Webb (St. Louis); Lee & Walker (Philadelphia); Firth Pond & Co. (New York)
• The drummer boy [of Shiloh] / by Will S Hays (Louisville, Chicago: D.P. Faulds, 1865)

Source: Salut à Louisville : Music from Louisville During the Nineteenth Century / Marion Korda
Cover images are public domain from the Library of Congress

American song writers have chosen cities as subject matter at least since 1831, when J. A. Gairdner composed and published “New York, O! What a Charming City.” I have no idea what might be the first song about a state, but Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home” appeared well before the Civil War.

If writing songs about states got started in the 19th century, the habit of designating one as the official state song started only in the 20th. One S. H. M. Byers wrote a poem called “The Song of Iowa” to fit the tune “O Tannenbaum” in 1897. The Iowa state legislature designated it the official state song in 1911. Since then, every state except New Jersey has adopted at least one official state song.

An overview of state songs

Iowa, as noted, adopted a poem about the state set to a familiar tune. Everyone in the world knows the tune. Probably no one outside Iowa—and not many in Iowa—knows or cares about the words. I suppose it is used on important ceremonial occasions.

Plenty of states have likewise chosen songs not likely to be well known outside the state. Hawaii’s official song, for example, was once its national anthem. King Kalahaua wrote the words and his bandmaster supplied the music.

Other states have attempted to make sure that their state songs are well known. Connecticut designated “Yankee Doodle” in 1978. Kentucky made a similarly safe choice, “My Old Kentucky Home,” in 1928. Choosing a popular song is risky, however. They don’t always stay popular.

In 1915 the Colorado legislature adopted “Where the Columbines Grow,” a song written by A.J. Flynn in 1896 as he rode through the state on a train. The lyrics describe the state’s spectacular scenery, but never mention it by name. Flynn’s song must have become popular, but hasn’t remained so.

So Colorado adopted an additional song in 2007, John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High.” Some residents wondered about the adoption of a drug song, but at least everyone knows it. Sooner or later, everyone will probably forget it. At that time, Colorado will have two once-popular songs that no one remembers.

Ohio’s state song is likewise a once-popular song that no one knows.

Beautiful Ohio, the popular song

“Beautiful Ohio” appeared in 1918, with words by Ballard MacDonald and music by Mary Earl. MacDonald and his lyrics are straightforward enough. He was a successful Tin Pan Alley lyricist who also wrote the words to “Second Hand Rose” and other hits. Besides his work with such outstanding Tin Pan Alley composers as Sigmund Romberg, Albert Von Tilzer, and George Gershwin. He also supplied lyrics for numerous Hollywood films.

His text, a fairly standard love song, concerns two lovers drifting down the Ohio River in a canoe. That’s the Ohio River. It starts in Pennsylvania defines one border of five other states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, and Kentucky. In other words, the lovers could have been drifting along parts of the river that don’t touch Ohio at all.

In contrast, there is not much straightforward about Mary Earl. That’s a pen name for Robert A. “Bobo” King. That, in turn is a pen name for Robert Keiser. I would be tempted to think that Robert Keiser decided to become known as Robert King a German-sounding name during the First World War. Except that as near as I can tell, he published his first song, “Anona” (1903) as King.

I also have no idea why he chose Mary Earl as a pen name. I do have an idea why he used pen names. By 1918,the year of “Beautiful Ohio,” he was under contract to the publishing firm of Shapiro-Bernstein to product four songs a month. That’s a lot of music. Some customers might be suspicious of the quality of songs that could come from such a prolific composer. Writing as King, Earl, Keiser (among other identities) enabled him to honor his contract without risking credibility.

Like MacDonald, he was very successful. Songs that you may recognize include “Toot, Toot, Tootsie” (1922), “I’ve Got the Yes! We Have No Banana Blues” (1923), and “I Scream You Scream We All Scream For Ice Cream” (1925).

Beautiful Ohio, the state song

The Ohio Legislature officially adopted “Beautiful Ohio” in 1969. The Tin Pan Alley era of American popular music had only recently begun to come to a close. Many people in the state probably had at least some familiarity with the song.

Less than twenty years later, a younger generation had probably never known it. The Ohio legislature approved a new official rock song, “Hang on Sloopy” in 1985. Four years later, it upgraded “Beautiful Ohio and replaced the original lyrics with new words by an attorney from Youngstown named Wilbert McBride.

McBride replaced not only MacDonald’s lovers, but the river as well. MacDonald’s verse describes the little red canoe; McBride’s describes crossing the ocean looking for a place and finding it. His chorus then describes what the state is all about, from the factories in great cities to the farms to the beauty of its flowers.

“That old chestnut,” as the legislature described “Beautiful Ohio” in the resolution adopting “Hang On Sloopy,” is now fitted with words deemed more suitable for the official ceremonies at which it is sung.

Each official state song has its own history. Stay tuned.

Sources:
List of U.S. State Songs
Ballard MacDonald / Songwriters Hall of Fame
Mary Earl / Parlor Songs
List of Works by Robert A. King
Ohio’s State Song – Beautiful Ohio / Ohio History Central

Portrait of Mozart wearing the Order of the Golden Spur that he received in 1770 in Rome from Pope Clement XIV / contemporary copy of lost original, artist and copyists unknown

Mozart’s Requiem, the last piece he ever worked on, has a trombone solo in the Tuba mirum movement. So far as I know, there is nothing like it anywhere in the standard sacred music repertoire. The important word in that sentence is “standard.”

People who wrote about musical performances in the nineteenth century were all too aware of the uniqueness of that solo. Throughout the century in every country from which I have seen magazine or newspaper articles, critics rarely mentioned the trombones in classical music except to complain that they were too loud. Along with more than one author of music books, they declared that a trombone solo was one of Mozart’s innovations they were glad no one else picked up.

What made them so sure it was an innovation?

They knew nothing of the generations of Austrian church music before Mozart and Haydn. That music had made no impact internationally when it was new. Although nineteenth-century audiences appreciated Mozart’s mature masterpieces, they showed little interest in the music of his youth and childhood. Mozart himself seems to have been little interested in sacred music after he left Salzburg.

Mozart’s Waisenhauskirche Mass

Recent photo of the Waisenhauskirche in Vienna

In 1768, a new orphanage church was dedicated in Vienna. Twelve-year-old Mozart of Salzburg composed the dedicatory mass. (Waisenhaus is German for orphanage; Kirche is German for church, so the name means orphanage church mass in English.)

A person of any age writing his first example of any genre will not stray very far from tradition. Tradition, in fact, provides the necessary models. In idiom, the Waisenhauskirche Mass is a so-called “cantata mass,” a form developed by Italian composers whose style dominated Austrian church music.

In a cantata mass, the text of the five movements of the mass ordinary is broken up into small chunks. Successive bits of text display different kinds of compositional structure: choral movements in strict counterpoint; other choral movements in a more declamatory, homophonic style with most of the melodic and contrapuntal interest in the orchestra; and solo numbers in a style familiar and well-loved from contemporary operas.

Likewise, the orchestration of the Waisenhauskirche Mass differs little from that of any typical mass of the time. Strings formed the backbone of the orchestra. Whatever winds Austrian composers selected to join the strings, they routinely used trombones to double the choral parts.

Solo instruments often joined vocal soloists. Second only to the violin, the trombone was the most common of these. Having the trombones play brief passages independent of the chorus must have also been fairly routine, because that’s what Mozart did in his very first mass composition.

Some regional differences are detectable. Vienna and Salzburg must have had a different pitch standard. Whatever they defined as the note A must have been about half a step apart. Everything written in Salzburg with a soloistic trombone part is in a sharp key. In Vienna it’s all in flat keys. In Salzburg, trombones doubled the alto, tenor, and bass lines in the chorus. Viennese composers used only two trombones, preferring to double the basses with a bassoon.

Young Mozart shows his awareness of Viennese pitch by his choice of C minor, with three flats, for the key. He uses three trombones for the independent parts, but supplied no bass trombone line for doubling the chorus. It seems odd to require a third trombone for just a few measures, though. Modern performances, at least use all three trombones to double the singers.

Aside from whatever he thought about composing his first mass, Mozart had no particular reason to value the piece. It was an occasional piece, more festive than what would be suitable for an ordinary mass in church. Touches that made it appropriate for performance in Vienna would have likewise been out of place back in Salzburg.

Mozart: Missa Solemnis KV 139, “Waisenhaus-Messe” / Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Claudio Abbado conducting.

Mozart’s other sacred music

As long as Mozart served the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, composing sacred music was an important part of his job description. Much of it uses trombones, but only to double the chorus.

After he left Salzburg, he never completed another sacred piece in his life. His best known sacred work, besides the Requiem, is his reorchestration of Handel’s Messiah. He started one mass and completed four of the five sections, and then lost interest. He started the Requiem, but of course died before completing it.

All three of these pieces require three trombones. Mozart must have considered trombones a necessary part of a sacred orchestra. Although the question of how much of the orchestration of the Requiem Mozart complete himself is to complex to try to describe here, the infamous solo is not the way he used trombones for something more independent than mere doubling.

The vogue for trombone solos in Austrian sacred music peaked in about 1770. By 1780, for various reasons including the Emperor’s reforms of church music, there were not enough new trombone solos or enough opportunity to perform old ones to maintain the standard of technique needed to play them. Accordingly, Mozart’s solo is much more dignified and less florid than most that came before.

Why, late in his life and after the vogue had passed, did he decide to write a trombone solo? I have no idea, but unlike nineteenth-century commentators, I’m glad he did.

Illustrations are public domain, the photo of the church from Wikimedia Commons and the paintings from Music with Ease

Illustration from Dieppo’s trombone method

Antoine Dieppo’s name is familiar as the first professor of trombone at the Paris Conservatory upon the trombone class’ official formation in 1836. He deserves to be known as more than a name on a list, however. As it turns out, he obtained that position, and also that of principal trombonist of Paris’ principal orchestra by displacing established incumbents.

He wrote a method book, which was the required text for his students. It has not maintained its place in the modern teaching literature, however. Thompson and Lemke note only a volume of nine etudes still readily available. I have a photocopy of the original edition, which gives a good idea not only of his teaching methods, but of the quality of his trombone playing.

Dieppo the performer

The Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, ancestor of the Orchestre de Paris, gave its first public concert in 1828. Its original trombonists were Jules Barbier, René Bénard, and Dévise (first name unknown). In 1835, Bénard and Dévise were dismissed so that the orchestra could improve its trombone section. They were replaced by Dieppo and a timpanist!

When Dieppo became principal trombonist of the Conservatory orchestra, he completed a trifecta of the most prestigious trombone positions in town. He was already principal trombonist at the Opéra and a band member in the Chapelle Royale. He was 27 years old.

Over the course of the French Revolution, the trombone had become essentially a military instrument. Its principal musical duty was to reinforce the bass line. Whatever refinements French trombonists had developed during the instrument’s sporadic appearances in operatic orchestras before the Revolution quickly became coarsened into a raucous and musically vacant loud noise.

Felix Vobaron became the first French trombonist to play a trombone solo in public, a set of variations he wrote himself. That piece is evidently lost, but it must have grown from the military style, inspired by what virtuosos on other instruments were doing. Dieppo’s method, on the other hand, includes extensive etudes that emulate operatic singers, a very different style and idiom indeed.

By the 1830s, the music loving public of the upper social classes was divided between what one critic called “classicists and Rossinists.” William Weber has called the latter High Status Popular Music, whose audience sought novelty and soon tired of hearing the same music too often.

Trombone soloists of the early 19th century all represented this popular tradition. There were no classical trombone solos and, until Ferdinand David composed his Concertino for Leipzig’s Carl Traugott Queisser, no one thought to compose a trombone piece suitable for that audience.

French dance orchestra conductor Philippe Musard invented one of the mainstays of what Weber calls Low Status music, the promenade concert, in 1833. These concerts presented a mixture of dance music, popular soloists, and classical music at a price the working class could afford.

Most of Dieppo’s solo performances took place at promenade concerts conducted by Musard and the various rivals who sprang up. One rival, Jullien, had to leave Paris to find success. He began a series of promenade concerts in London. Dieppo and other French trombone soloists performed there as well.

French journals did not chronicle the performances and accomplishments of popular trombone soloists with nearly the enthusiasm or thoroughness of the German journals that tell us so much about Queisser and his compatriots, but we know a fair amount about Dieppo because of Berlioz’ enthusiasm. Berlioz sat in on his classes at the Conservatory.

On his tour of Germany, he lamented that no German orchestra had trombonists as good as Dieppo. (Queisser, by the way, played viola or violin in Leipzig’s orchestras, not trombone.) We can deduce from Berlioz that Dieppo had not only dazzling technique as a soloist, but excellent musicianship as a member of a classical orchestra.

Dieppo the teacher

Illustration from Dieppo’s trombone method

The original faculty of the Paris Conservatory when it was founded in 1795 included three trombonists. By 1802, for some reason, the school abandoned teaching the trombone. Nevertheless, operas and cavalry bands, at least, required good trombones. The need only grew greater with the formation of the orchestra in 1828.

A clarinetist and military composer named Frédéric Berr publicly lamented that it was impossible to study such an instrument at the Conservatory. Victor Cornette published a trombone method in 1831 and probably accepted private students. The Conservatory finally established a preliminary trombone class under Vobaron’s direction in 1833. Vobaron’s method appeared in 1834 and in many respects improves on Cornette’s.

The preliminary class proved the viability of a permanent trombone class. But apparently either the Conservatory’s administration was not pleased with Vobaron as a teacher or Vobaron did not enjoy teaching. Only Cornette and Dieppo contended for the permanent position, and Dieppo was the unanimous choice of the judges appointed to decide.

By the time of Dieppo’s appointment, he and Berr had already published a trombone method. Dieppo soon repudiated it and issued his own method book. The verbal description was far superior to that in earlier method books. As stated, the exercises included several to develop an operatic, singing style not attempted by previous methods.

In 1856, Dieppo found his teaching load increased by the closure of the Gymnase Musical Militaire. Military music then became part of the Conservatory curriculum, and Dieppo was assigned to teach the trombonists. At that time, the French military had recently adopted reforms proposed by Adolphe Sax. And so military trombonists were required to play Sax’s trombones with six independent valves.

Sax’s design was the sort of new gadget all professional trombonists were eager to try, but nearly all of them realized that its radical new design provided no advantages to offset either its considerable weight or the adjustments required to learn to play it. I imagine that Dieppo did not take on his new duties with any real enthusiasm. His student and successor Paul Delise simply refused to allow valve trombones in his studio.

The legacy of a good teacher is his or her students. I can think of no better way to illustrate the impression Dieppo’s students made than to quote Jules Rivière, a conductor of a successful series of promenade concerts, as he recalled a novelty he proposed to Dieppo:

Chatting with Dieppo one day, I learnt he had arranged some trombone quartetts, and it occurred to me that I might make something of a sensation by introducing them at my concerts with three players to each part, making twelve in all. And as, for such a scheme, I needed good performers, I engaged only those who had obtained a first prize in Dieppo’s class at the Conservatoire.

My plan delighted the handsome Dane, and it was arranged that he should himself conduct on this occasion. The three pieces selected were the septuor from Lucie, the Fisherman’s Prayer from Masaniello, and Johann Strauss’s valse Philomelen. Playing a valse on a trombone was certainly a tour de force, but it was most successfully accomplished, and the performance was a triumph. . .

Many years after, I repeated this performance at the Alhambra, on the occasion of one of my annual benefits, but I did not again venture upon a valse. I replaced it by the quartett from Rigoletto

Sources:
A History of the Trombone / David M. Guion (Scarecrow Press, 2010) and source material used in writing it
Trombone / Trevor Herbert (Yale University Press, 2006)
French Music for Low Brass Instruments / J. Mark Thompson and Jeffrey Jon Lemke (University of Indiana Press, 1994)
My Musical Life and Recollections / Jules Rivière (Sampson, Low, Marston, 1893)

Eaglebrook Middle School band concert, 2012. Sorry, but their Flickr profile doesn’t identify where they are located.

Three interesting and important stories about music education have come to my attention over the last couple of months. Then came the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. As it turns out, there is a connection.

Just before Christmas, I heard an interesting interview on the radio, found it on line, and emailed it to myself. Somehow, I couldn’t find it the first time I looked for it, but it turned up the other day when I was looking for something else.

It’s an interview between NPR’s Scott Simon and Marin Alsop, conductor of both the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Sao Paolo Symphony Orchestra. Last summer, the latter had become the first Brazilian orchestra to play for the Proms in London.

Music education in South America

With that, South America took a new position on classical music’s world stage. But it’s not a new beginning. Alsop calls it “a moment and a long gestation period.” It is the culmination of years of work in South American music education, which has borne fruit internationally.

Years ago, Brazilian nuns began a program called Goree. It is a more than simply classical music education. It has always aimed at shaping the fabric of society by shaping the way young people interact.

Brazil is hardly unique in using classical music that way in its educational system. Well-known conductor Gustavo Dudamel is the product of a similar Venezuelan program called El Sistema. Among his other accomplishments, his worldwide tour with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra brought Danzon no. 2 by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez to international acclaim.

Last week, I wrote about one aspect of Luis Szarán’s more recently started efforts in Paraguay to bring not only the joy of participating in classical music, but simple dignity to the poorest of the poor.

Music education in the US

American music education used to revolve around classical music. Then one bunch of ignoramuses figured that music programs in the schools cost too much money and another bunch started to complain that classical music is elitist and appeals only to people of a certain economic class.

If that’s the case, how did a young teacher in Brooklyn get his classes of primary students so excited to sing from a Rossini opera in the original Italian? And then attend a dress rehearsal of the same opera at the Met with such rapt attention?

But here is the connection with Sandy Hook: music education in South America is about quality of life, not just some expensive add-on for rich kids. Alsop cited a young Venezuelan who, after being taught to play clarinet, said that it felt very different from a gun.

What does music education have to do with guns?

Am I saying that learning classical music would prevent mass shootings? Of course not. But it probably would prevent a lot of the street shootings that happen so often that they’re never reported except locally.

Paul Hindmith observed, “People who make music together cannot be enemies, at least not while the music lasts.” And people who learn cooperation as children seem less likely to shoot at each other over petty squabbles when they grow up.

In this country, people often hold up sports as an example of how the discipline of teamwork helps to build good citizens. That’s true. And for anyone thinking of the spectacular murders and crimes committed by professional athletes, keep in mind that classical musicians occasionally behave just as badly. It’s just that none of them are famous enough to justify national coverage when they do.

But why, may you ask, do I point only to classical music in this post? What about popular music?

1. As I have pointed out in several earlier posts, Italian opera started out as popular music. I’m thinking of a line from Music Man: “rag time—shameless music that’ll grab your son, your daughter, with the arms of the jungle. . .” Back when that story was set, ragtime was popular music. Does it get much play on pop stations? Or hasn’t it somehow morphed into classical music, just like Rossini has?
2. Popular music has never required musical literacy—the ability to read and write musical notation. It has never required understanding of music theory or music education. In short, it has never required any education. That is not to say that musicians with impeccable training have not gravitated to popular music. But there’s nothing much about it to teach.
3. Traditional orchestra, chorus, and band programs depend on larger ensembles than modern pop ensembles. Am I the only one who thinks it strange that a series of summer band concerts with nearly a hundred performers on stage can end by banishing 80% of them so that the series can end with a 17-piece “big” band? On the other hand, when has there ever been a vogue for 17-piece rock bands?

Bands, especially jazz bands, have never properly come under the heading of classical music. But on the other hand, they along with orchestras and choruses, require not only musical literacy, but cooperation among the members of a large number of people in order to produce music that is structurally more complex than recent popular music.

That statement is not offered as a value judgment, but as a description of the greater level of discipline and cooperation necessary to prepare a concert of classical music for performance.

How about if we leave off mindless squabbling about gun control (mindless because everyone seems to have set talking points but hardly anyone seems to have any listening points)?

How about if we restore orchestra, chorus, and band to their rightful place in our schools—and not just the rich suburbs, but especially the ones in our poorest and most hopeless neighborhoods? After all, music programs used to thrive in some of them.

How about if we add to the best of our own tradition the South American emphasis on dignity and quality of life, on changing the hopeless mindset that perpetuates poverty and violence?

Yeah. Dream on. But if we actually do all that, we’d soon find ourselves living in a more peaceful, secure, and equitable society no matter what happens with gun control.

Photo credits:
Eaglebrook School band. Some rights reserved by Eaglebrook School.
Crime scene tape. Source unknown