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American Choral ReviewJournal of The American Choral Foundation, published by Chorus America | James John, Editor

Volume 53 Number 2 Summer/Fall 2011

Editorial

With this issue, we mark the 50th anniver-sary of the American Choral Review, and welcome James John as its third editor.

Dr. John, an active scholar, conductor, and teacher at the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College– CUNY, has been one of the country’s most active voices in promoting choral scholarship of all kinds.

I am most fortunate in having found Jim as a

successor. His scholarly and critical acumen, diplo-matic skills, and good humor are well-known in the choral world. In recent years, the ACDA forums he has organized for young scholars have been helpful to more clearly formulate many research projects, and in bringing many of them to fruition. May his tenure in this new position be long and rewarding.

Alfred Mann, our founding editor, wrote in 1999

that this journal “is the only one to have the privilege of dealing with our material from the perspective of choral history only.” That situation has been altered slightly with the advent of the new online journal The Choral Scholar, but it indeed has remained a fascinating privilege for me to see the continuing investigation of our choral heritage from this unique perspective. And our view of history continues to broaden as the past recedes; repertoire that was novel and performance practices that were accepted as the norm when this publication was founded in 1961 are now the stuff of doctoral dissertations on choral history. Choral repertoire and the information about it—scores, documents, recordings, and video mate-rial—are more copious and accessible than ever before; more researchers are exploring it, and more energetic and curious performers than ever are eager to learn about it. The future for a publication such as ours is bright.

William Weinert

I am delighted and honored to be assuming editor-ship of the American Choral Review. Just over a decade ago, as a doctoral student at the Eastman

School of Music, I had the good fortune to study with both William Weinert and Alfred Mann. These encounters changed my life, giving me insight into what it means to be a conductor-scholar, and igniting my desire to combine the highest standards of performance with the highest standards of schol-arship. Little did I know that one day I would be asked to follow in their footsteps as the third editor of this publication.

Over the past several years I have been involved in efforts to foster choral scholarship on regional and national levels through the American Choral Direc-tors Association, and I am inspired by the wealth of new ideas and topics that I have encountered. The next generation of choral scholars is fast emerging, and at a time when there is more information avail-able at our fingertips than ever before, the American Choral Review has a crucial role to play in disseminat-ing research and cultivating new scholarship. As a stimulating source of well-written, thought-provok-ing articles about choral music it is certain to remain a valuable resource for our profession, and I look for-ward to shepherding its growth as we celebrate the beginning of this publication’s next fifty years.

The feature article in this issue examines Arthur Farwell’s role in the community singing movement of the early 1900s. The compositions Farwell wrote for New York City’s “Song and Light Festival” of 1916, as well as his passion for large-group singing, provide an intriguing glimpse into a little-known aspect of American choral history, and his ideas still have resonance today.

James John

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1 See, for example: Edith Borroff, Music Melting Round: A History of Music in the United States (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2003); Gilbert Chase, America’s Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1955); Jean Ferris, America’s Musical Landscape (New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2002); H. Wiley Hitchcock, Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1988); Charles Hamm, Music in the New World (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1983); and Daniel Kingman, American Music: A Panorama (New York: Schirmer Books, 1990). With the exception of Chase, Farwell is given little recognition in these texts besides his work with the Wa-Wan Press and his interest in developing an American music. 2 Three major contributions to Farwell scholarship are: Evelyn Davis Culbertson, He Heard America Singing: Arthur Farwell, Composer and Crusading Music Educator (New Jersey and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1992); Edgar Lee Kirk, “Toward American Music: A Study of the Life and Music of Arthur George Farwell,” (Ph.D. diss., Eastman School of Music, 1958); and Thomas Stoner, “ ‘The New Gospel of Music’: Arthur Farwell’s Vision of Democratic Music in America,” American Music 9, no. 2 (1991): 183-208.3 Claude Bragdon, More Lives Than One (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938), 70.4 Ibid., 70.5 Ibid., 72.6 Ibid., 73.

Although often relegated to an obligatory para-graph or two in written histories, Arthur Farwell (1872–1952) was an important figure in American music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-turies. He was particularly well known as an advocate for community music and music of Native American cultures.1 A native of Minnesota, Farwell earned a de-gree in electrical engineering in 1893 from the Massa-chusetts Institute of Technology. While in Boston he became interested in music. He travelled to Europe at the end of the nineteenth century where he studied composition with a variety of well-known compos-ers, including Engelbert Humperdinck. Returning to the United States, Farwell settled in Massachusetts, where in 1901 he founded the Wa-Wan Press, a pub-lishing company devoted to circulating music writ-ten by American composers. By 1910 this important advocate of American music was in New York City, where he was the Supervisor of Municipal Concerts.

Besides a monograph and dissertation on his life and work, the amount of scholarly research devoted to Farwell is surprisingly sparse.2 In this paper, I will examine Farwell’s thoughts about community music, as exemplified by an all-but-forgotten Song and Light Festival that occurred in New York City’s Central Park on September 13, 1916. Following a description of the event is an analysis of two pieces by Farwell that were premiered at the Festival. The paper con-cludes with questions about the impact of Farwell’s community music ideals on current choral practice in the United States.

The Origins of the FestivalCommunity singing and the concept of a commu-

nity chorus as envisioned by Farwell, had its origins in Rochester, New York. Two of Farwell’s colleagues, Harry Barnhart and Claude Bragdon, played promi-nent roles in the public manifestation of Farwell’s ideals, the Song and Light Festival. Harry Barnhart,

originally famous as a vaudeville performer, was mu-sic director of what was probably the first community chorus in Rochester. Architect Claude Bragdon, in his memoir More Lives Than One, reported that in the win-ter of 1913 Barnhart noticed a free concert with a large crowd in the audience. Barnhart asked the Mayor of Rochester for “permission to lead the crowd on the fol-lowing Sunday in the singing of popular songs.”3 The following week during the afternoon concert Barnhart had the band play melodies from popular songs (e.g., Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home”) and then asked the audience to sing them. The audience was so enthusiastic that Barnhart immediately created a community chorus, which met every week.4 While no records exist of its size, from the description of the original event it seems reasonable to estimate that at least one hundred members participated.

In 1915, Bragdon and his wife decided to “give a party to end all parties.”5 In Rochester’s historic, one-hundred-fifty-acre Highland Park, “A Festival of Song and Light” took place on September 30th. Harry Barnhart, as musical director, was dubbed “Master of Song.” Claude Bragdon, having created unique lighting fixtures for the event, was dubbed “Master of Light.” Bragdon reported that the event was re-peated the following year (1916), and that “on both of these occasions there was real community singing, the crowd joining with the chorus in favourite and familiar songs.”6

Having experienced success with a community chorus in Rochester, Barnhart turned his attention to community singing in New York City, where Farwell had been serving as Supervisor of Munici-pal Concerts. In the summer of 1916, Barnhart held rehearsals, open to the public, for the New York Com-munity Chorus in Central Park on Sunday afternoons. Farwell was President of the chorus and sang in the bass section.

Arthur Farwell’s New York City “Song and Light Festival”By Alden Snell

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Following is a description of the group from a program for a Madison Square Garden performance in December 1916:

The New York Community Chorus means and provides for the free, regular meeting of the people of New York, any or all, irrespective of previous musical knowledge or training of any kind, winter and summer, indoors and out, in public halls and parks, to sing together for the joy of singing and for what song can do to awaken and inspire the community spirit.7

Note the emphasis on previous knowledge and training not being necessary. According to the New York Telegraph, thousands participated in the community sings on Sunday afternoons throughout the summer of 1916.8 The New York Times reported,

The Community Chorus … is an organization of persons whose motto is: “Every one can sing—and wants to.” All Summer it has been rehearsing— if you can call it that—by the bandstand in the Central Park Mall, and any one who happened by was entitled to sit down and join in, which act constituted him or her a member of the chorus on the spot. There are no voice trials, no examina-tions as to musical ability, and no dues. You sim-ply sing the best you can, and let it go at that.9

Following a rehearsal on September 4, 1916, a member of the chorus reflected:

The soul is dead that is not quickened by the experiences of such a rehearsal. Good will abounds. Smiles are all around. The people are loathe to go. They delay, linger and wait.10

The reflection goes on to say that the singers in the ensemble had a variety of musical backgrounds: a Countess from Germany who at one time sang Wagnerian opera, an Italian man, and a “broken spec-tator” who told Barnhart that he enjoyed singing “the old songs that we used to sing on the back step.”11 A chorus made up of such variety required a flexible conductor who felt—as the chorus’s motto states—

that “everyone can sing.” The chorus’s repertoire needed to be varied enough to appeal to both opera singers and average singers whose only singing expe-rience was “on the back step.”

The Sunday afternoon “sings,” as they were called, were so popular that Barnhart and Bragdon (in con-sultation with Farwell) decided to produce a large-scale event similar to what they had done in Rochester the previous two years. The Song and Light Festival would be the culmination of a summer of enthusiastic music making by anyone who wanted to sing.

The PerformanceThe last public event of the New York Commu-

nity Chorus was the “Song and Light” festival in Central Park on the evenings of September 13 and 14, on each of which occasions the audience was estimated at 60,000 people. The audience, which assembled on the south shore of the lake at 72nd Street, listened to the Chorus and orchestra, which were placed on the north shore, and joined with the Chorus in Community singing. The scene was illuminated by a new system of artistic lighting devised by Claude Bragdon, of Rochester. A memorable impression was made by the responsive singing of chorus and audience on the opposite side of the Lake.12

New York City’s Song and Light Festival took place in Central Park on Wednesday evening, September 13, 1916, near the lake at the end of the park’s Mall. The printed program stated that the Fes-tival was “A free expression of Beauty by and for the People.”13 (See Figure 1, page 4) An unknown newspa-per account reported that when the concert began, “the majority of the lights were turned on, bringing out heavy applause. For twenty yards on either side of the platform and for forty behind it the light was strong enough for some of those in the audience to read by.”14 Claude Bragdon created lighting effects for the New York City event that were similar to the Song and Light Festivals in Rochester: “Colorful glass shields and Japanese-style lanterns that, lit by electricity, evoked a ‘cathedral without walls.’”15

7 Program for the New York Community Chorus’s performance of “The ‘Messiah’ in New York,” December 26, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 1.8 New York Telegraph, September 14, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.9 The New York Times, September 14, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.10 From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31. The reflection was read at Harry Barnhart’s funeral in 1948.11 Ibid.12 Program for New York Community Chorus’s performance of “The ‘Messiah’ in New York,” December 26, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 1.13 Program for “Song and Light Festival” from Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.14 Unknown newspaper account in Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.15 Exhibit Guide, “Episodes from an Unwritten History: Claude Bragdon & Fritz Trautman.” Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York.

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“Elizabeth’s Song of Greeting” (“Dich, teure Halle”) from Tannhäuser, featuring soprano Alma Simpson of the Metropolitan Opera. The New York Herald’s review of the Festival noted the connection between the lakeside performance in Central Park, and the allusions to water in “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” and the “Blue Danube.”17

The concert opened with two orchestral pieces: “America” by James J. McCabe (District Superinten-dent of New York City Public Schools),16 and Chabrier’s spirited “Marche Joyeuse.” Aside from works by Offenbach and Strauss, the remainder of the first part of the program was comprised of excerpts from Wagner’s operas, culminating in a performance of

Figure 1 (From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31)

16 This was probably not an arrangement of the traditional patriotic song “America” (“My Country ‘Tis of Thee”) but rather a “New National Air” composed by McCabe himself. See James J. McCabe, “Our National Songs,” Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine 50, no. 1 (1917): 10-11. In this short article McCabe argues that unlike other well-known national songs (such as “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Hail Columbia”), the words for “America” are inescabably associated with the British national anthem, “God Save the King.” McCabe goes on to say that it is time for an American to supply an original melody for this famous text—and then presents his own four-part setting as an example. The “Star Spangled Banner” was not officially designated the U.S. national anthem until 1931.17 From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.

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him wish he were “in an aeroplane” above the lake to experience the sound.20 All in all, the performance was so well received that the entire festival was spon-taneously repeated the following evening.

Reactions to the “Song and Light Festival” The aesthetics of the Song and Light Festival were

widely and favorably reported on, including this description in the New York Herald:

Central Park in the neighborhood of the lake and the Bethesda fountain looked like a fairy garden last night. From the fountain the effect of the lights upon the chorus across the water was magical. The lighting was arranged by Claude Bragdon, a Rochester architect.21

Bragdon had “been working for three years on the highly imaginative and artistic panels and huge globes through which the lights shone,”22 and his design garnered another enthusiastic review in the New York Telegraph:

No two of these colored panels were alike. One half million candle power of electric illumination was used by the engineers of the New York Edi-son Company in the lighting scheme. The effect was soft, fanciful and delicate. The singers were seated in a luminous and colorful proscenium across the lake from the Bethesda Fountain. It seemed like a miniature chorus framed in soft light. In the distance not a single soft light could be seen—each was covered and concealed.23

New York City Commissioner of Parks Cabot Ward had this to say about the Festival:

I have been interested in the work of the Com-munity Chorus from its beginning, as I have be-lieved that here existed an opportunity to bring together and to unify many citizen movements. Each Sunday thousands have flocked into the park to unite and participate in a form of recre-ation new to New York—the expression in song of a real community spirit. The influence has been a helpful one. The Song and Light Festival has been a worthy celebration.24

This “worthy celebration,” begun in Rochester and transplanted to New York City, led to more Song and

The audience was then invited to sing along on three numbers: Stephen Adams’s “Nancy Lee,” and Stephen Foster’s “Old Black Joe” and “My Old Kentucky Home.” Press coverage indicated that people were not familiar with “Nancy Lee,” but they readily and enthusiasti-cally sang both Foster melodies. The New York Times reported on a remarkable moment during this part of the concert, when the chorus stopped singing just before the refrain of “Old Black Joe,” and then,

Those gathered around the platform could hear from the woods across the lake a mighty chorus of

I’m coming! I’m coming! And my head is bending low!As the song rolled across the water from the

absolutely invisible thousands, it had a strangely stirring effect, something that could not be du-plicated in a thousand years of concert halls and opera houses. It seemed as if all the 60,000 were trying their best as the old melody of Stephen Foster rolled out, now one front and now an-other of the unseen singers sounding louder at different parts of the lake.18

An unidentified newspaper review noted that the

audience reaction was so positive to the Foster tunes that they both received immediate encores.19 The New York Herald further reported that there was a re-quest from the audience for the Stephen Foster song, “Swanee River,” which the chorus promptly honored.

For the last section of the program, entitled “People’s Hymns,” various well-known works were interspersed between three pieces written specifically for the occa-sion: two by Farwell and one by Augusta Stetson, a leader of the Christian Science Church in New York City in the early twentieth century. Farwell’s “March! March!” and “Joy! Brothers, Joy!” were performed first, followed by Mozart’s “Gloria” from The Twelfth Mass (now believed to be spurious) and Haydn’s “The Heavens are Telling” from The Creation—after which the audience joined-in on the hymn “Nearer my God to Thee.” Next came Saint-Saëns’s “Bacchanale” from Samson and Delilah and Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” preceding the premiere of Stetson’s “Our America.” Finally, the evening culminated with a rousing rendi-tion of The Star Spangled Banner. A reviewer for Musi-cal America noted that audience participation on this patriotic anthem, as well as the Foster songs, made

18 The New York Times, September 14, 1916.19 Unidentified Newspaper. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.20 Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.21 New York Herald, September 14, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.22 New York Telegraph, September 14, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.23 Ibid.24 New York Herald, September 14, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.

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“March! March!” and “Joy! Brothers, Joy!”Farwell’s two hymns—“March! March!” and “Joy!

Brothers, Joy!”—which were premiered at the Song and Light Festival, have a clear connection to the United States’ pending entry into World War I.

“March! March!” is strophic in form and only thirty-two measures long. (See Figures 2a and 2b)

Light Festivals throughout the northeastern United States. Bragdon and Barnhart went on to produce similar events in Syracuse, Buffalo and Plainfield, New Jersey.25 It is sadly ironic that the country’s entrance into World War I in 1917 dampened the mood for these uplifting musical evenings, and the Song and Light Festivals faded away at precisely the time they might have provided greatest value.

25 Claude Bragdon, More Lives Than One (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938), 74-75.

Figure 2a (Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 5, Folder 25)

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although there are a variety of interesting tonal sequences and tonicizations. The rhythm is not com-plicated and would likely have been easily learned.

The text is a call to war, which must have resonat-ed with a 1916 audience well aware of World War I

Written for unison voices, the final two measures divide into four-part harmony, providing a strong musical conclusion to each verse. The piano accom-paniment doubles the melody in the right hand and generally keeps a steady “march beat” in the left. Tonally, the song does not stray far from Eb Major,

Figure 2b (Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 5, Folder 25)

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belief that the choral parts for the arrangement could be sight-read raises questions about basic musical literacy: the tonicizations in “March! March!” are not complicated for a trained musician, but they would likely require extra rehearsing and special care if a community-based chorus were preparing the song. One wonders how easy it actually was for a com-munity chorus in the 1910s and 1920s to sight-read Farwell’s music.

“Joy! Brothers, Joy!” provides even more musical challenges. Though shorter than “March! March!” it is written in four parts, and is much slower and more chromatic. (See Figures 3a, 3b and 3c on pages 9–11.) Written in Bb major, its succinct, sixteen-bar design is essentially straight forward, including a half cadence in measure eight, a deceptive cadence to g minor in measure twelve, and an imperfect authentic cadence at the conclusion. Within this standard structure, however, is a frequent augmented F chord. While in-teresting aurally, it is not what one would expect in a straightforward hymn, especially one that the com-poser hoped would be sung by amateur community choral groups around the country. Farwell’s use of chromaticism follows standard voice-leading princi-ples for the most part (especially in the inner voices), yet the C-sharp in the soprano voice makes the melo-dy less smooth. This creates an angularity that does not necessarily reflect the joyous nature of the text. The piece is also filled with dotted rhythms— and while they could be interpreted as celebratory, in combination with the unexpected harmonies, chro-maticism, and angularity of the melody, the overall impression is somewhat forced—as if Farwell is try-ing too hard—rather than allowing the lyrics and a simpler harmonic structure to communicate joy.

Overall, the text of “Joy! Brothers, Joy!” is more transcendental than inspiring, especially when com-pared to the popular wartime songs Over There and I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. Its references to joy, love and “endless peaceful days” make sense when paired with the idea of victory expressed in the concluding verse of “March! March!” As a stand-alone hymn, however, its text, melody, and harmony do not make it memorable.

raging in Europe. The first verse describes a battle that must be won “for man;” the second verse asks for the “Prince of Peace” to help fight on “Armageddon’s field;” the third verse concludes with confidence that the battle will be won and the world built “anew.” While such hyperbole may seem anachronistic to twenty-first century readers, it is useful to recall that the carnage and destruction caused by World War I was on a scale never before witnessed by humanity.

Farwell thought highly of “March! March!” Brice Farwell, his son, reported that the composer was always disappointed that it did not become more pop-ular. Kirk’s opinion was that while Farwell “tried to capture the spirit of the era,”26 the piece nevertheless:

Seem[ed] to indicate that Farwell had no conception of the popular idiom of his time. Neither the melody nor the rhythm of the song is of such a nature as to capture the public fancy; and even less likely to do so is the poem, which inclines toward maudlin spirituality rather than the buoyantly militant feeling of Over There or I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy.27

While clearly not as popular as Over There or I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, “March! March!” must have had some commercial success, as evidenced by the composer’s orchestral adaptation, “Symphonic Hymn on ‘March! March!’” This expanded version of the piece featured two sections where the audience was expected to sing the melody, and was first performed in Los Angeles on March 18, 1923. Farwell also created a similar arrangement of “Old Black Joe,” which according to Culbertson was well received in California when Farwell moved there following his time in New York.28

Farwell’s notes on the performance of his “Sym-phonic Hymn” indicate that he did not feel the piece was difficult: “This work, while adapted for orches-tra performance alone, is intended for festivals of the community music movement or similar occasions…it can be very quickly learned by any audience, and can be sung at sight by any chorus or choir.”29 His

26 Kirk, “Toward American Music,” 46.27 Ibid., 46.28 Culbertson, He Heard America Singing, 757.29 Performance Notes for “Symphonic Hymn on ‘March! March!’” From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 26.

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Figure 3a (Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 5, Folder 27)

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Figure 3b (Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 5, Folder 27)

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Figure 3c (Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 5, Folder 27)

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30 The New York Times, September 14, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.31 New York Telegraph, September 14, 1916. From Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 23, Folder 31.32 Claude Bragdon, More Lives Than One (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938), 71.33 Ibid.34 Ibid.35 Ibid., 71-72.36 Arthur Farwell Collection, Sibley Music Library, Box 24, Folder 34. The remaining points Farwell makes in this document revolve around the orchestra, opera, and musical high culture, each of which Farwell takes issue with.37 Recognition of the importance of singing in worship led to the first attempts at music education in the United States. Singing’s primary role in music education is made explicit as one of the nine National Standards for Arts Education in Dance, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts: What Every Young American Should Know and Be Able to Do in the Arts (Reston, VA: MENC: 1994), 98.38 Culbertson, He Heard America Singing, 164-165.

3. You have heard that people cannot sing in parts without a knowledge of sight reading. I tell you that people sang in parts before notes and staff were even invented.36

Current choral directors may benefit from consid-

ering both Farwell’s “New Teaching” guidelines and Barnhart’s teaching techniques. Singing is a natu-ral human activity that people yearn for, and is the first music standard specified in the National Learn-ing Standards for the Arts.37 Barnhart’s technique of singing in unison before singing in parts is sound pedagogy, moving from simple to more complex activity. Farwell’s passionate belief in the capacity of untrained musicians to sing beautifully in large groups is inspiring.

His successful approach emphasized the singing of familiar repertoire, and being satisfied at first with people simply singing the best they can. Over time, singing skills became more refined so that ultimately his choruses could perform a variety of choral reper-toire, including works such as the pieces examined in this article. It was important to both Farwell and Barnhart to have the audience participate in the pro-gram, and that there be no audition to participate in the mass chorus. Culbertson summarizes Farwell’s efforts as “fulfill[ing] his vision of bringing uplifting music to the people through ways in which they could participate and enjoy—another phase of his crusade for the ‘democratization of music.’”38

Although Farwell strongly believed in music for all, there appears to have been a hierarchy of skill levels present at the Song and Light Festival. The orchestra was composed of professional musicians, while the Community Chorus was a volunteer organization without strict requirements for participating; in ad-dition, the audience was expected to take part. With three distinct ability levels participating in the event, was it actually democratic? Is it possible that Farwell’s belief in mass appreciation of music and its potential connection to aesthetic education actually intensified the divide between performers and listeners?

Principles of Community SingingThe motto of the New York Community Chorus

was “Everyone can sing—and wants to.”30 When inter-viewed for the New York Telegraph report on the Song and Light Festival, conductor Harry Barnhart stated:

Community singing must start in the heart of every individual who talks it, becoming a part of his own life first. Community music, in the light that we are promoting it in New York City, is the greatest power that we have to deal with today in making articulate our sincere selves.31

Barnhart felt that “singing is in the nature of a uni-versal human function, like thinking, breathing, or di-gesting, though atrophied in almost everyone through lack of exercise.”32 He reasoned that to inspire people to want to sing, it was necessary to encourage them, direct them, and help them overcome their self-con-sciousness. According to Bragdon, Barnhart helped people do this though a gradual approach that moved from unison singing into part-singing, and provided everyone with printed music “so that those who can-not read may learn to do so by following the score.”33 Further, Barnhart emphasized the use of classic folk songs such as Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home,” which corresponded to Bragdon’s belief that people respond best to music that “has survived the winnowing effect of time.”34 Finally, Barnhart felt that crowds didn’t sing off-key, and that there is a “char-acteristic quality or timbre in mass singing which is peculiar to itself alone, and strangely moving.”35

Farwell echoes these views in a handwritten, undated document entitled “New Teaching,” which includes the following points:

1. You have heard that people cannot sing without vocal training. I tell you that the most wonderful trained voice in the world is not as beautiful as the voice of any crowd of the people.

2. You have heard that many persons cannot sing in tune, and so how can the singing of a crowd be musical. I tell you that you never heard a great crowd sing off the key, and you never will.

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member, it seems reasonable to conclude that while Farwell aimed optimistically for a democratic, mass-appreciating, musical public, in the end he also recognized the need for some level of skilled musician, if for no other reason than to lead his large, democratic community choruses.

Alden Snell is the Choir Director and Organist for the Brockport First Baptist Church in Brockport, New York, and a doctoral candidate in Music Education at the Eastman School of Music.

Clearly, The New York Times reviewer was unim-pressed with the rehearsal technique of the Commu-nity Chorus and its lax requirements for membership.39

Yet despite that criticism, press coverage of the event was overwhelmingly positive, placing more emphasis on the beauty of the audience’s participation than on the contribution of the Community Chorus or professional orchestra. Though the differing levels of musicianship among the gathered forces may have unintentionally reinforced the divide between profes-sional musician, volunteer performer and audience

39 The New York Times, September 14, 1916. Quoted on pg. 3 of this article. See fn 9 for full citation.

Barenreiter has issued a very fine new edition, by David Friddle, of Liszt’s sprawling oratorio, Christus. On hearing of this my first thought was “Why?” But on more thoughtful consideration and, especially, on studying Friddle’s work I have come to the conclusion that this edition is a good thing to have; not only for the music itself, but also because of the exhaustive (and exhausting!) preface. The new scores of Christus uphold the very high standards we have come to ex-pect from Bärenreiter in regard to printing, binding and easy-to-read typeface. The vocal score, which con-tains Liszt’s own piano reduction, also includes his fingerings. The German pronunciation of Latin, in the International Phonetic Alphabet, is provided in type so unobtrusively small as to be almost unreadable.

Liszt maintained that Christus was conceived as a whole, even though it was composed—in fits and starts—over a period of years, with excerpts being successfully performed several times before the com-plete work was premiered in Weimar in 1873. In fact, two movements, “Seligkeiten” and “Pater Noster” were published as independent pieces by C. F. Kahnt in the early 1860s. The completed oratorio was published by J. Schuberth & Co. in 1872, before the premiere. Kahnt purchased the rights from Schuberth and reis-sued Christus either in 1873 or 1874 (depending on whether you believe Friddle’s Foreword or his Critical Notes). Even though Liszt oversaw both publications, neither adequately reflects the composer’s intentions: he complained bitterly of Schuberth’s editorial slack-ness and, much later, provided Kahnt with an errata sheet (which, unfortunately, is lost). Furthermore, the vocal score published by Editio Musica Budapest in 1972 cannot be considered authoritative since it provides only program notes as preface, is devoid of any editorial comment and seems to rely entirely on Schuberth and Kahnt.

David Friddle, however, was able to study Liszt’s manuscript score, as well as one of the composer’s fair copies, and discovered many discrepancies between them and the published editions, not the least of which were the omission from the published scores of many expression and phrasing indications. Friddle’s edi-tion therefore reinstates them. And herein is my one complaint about his editorial procedures. Liszt had not one, but two chances to produce a correct edition. And, while he was obviously a very lazy proof reader, it is also quite possible that he chose to omit from the published score certain instructions that exist in the manuscript. Without having the errata sheet that he produced for Kahnt it is impossible for us to know for sure. For this reason I wish that Friddle had found a way to exactly indicate in the score those notations that had previously existed only in the manuscript, so that conductors might easily decide for themselves which marks to follow, rather than simply reinstating the marks and relegating information about them to editorial notes in the back.

Friddle’s Preface concerns itself totally with nine-teenth-century conducting technique (especially as demonstrated by Liszt himself) and performance practice. It examines, in excruciating detail, differ-ences between nineteenth century instruments and those of today, as well as the techniques of playing them; it discusses placement of performers, rehearsal techniques (some instituted by Liszt), articulation, ornamentation, vibrato, portamento, phrasing and tempo. It talks at length about tempo rubato and the particularly exaggerated way Liszt, as a performer, employed it as a means of musical expression. He bemoans that information concerning nineteenth-century choral performance is practically nonexis-tent, except that composers and conductors alike seemed to hold chorus masters in universal disdain.

Recent BooksliSzt’S Christus: A new Bärenreiter edition

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It is comprehensive, detailed and contains as much useable information as one can possibly imagine. It is a valuable contribution to the conductor’s arsenal.

And yet, the Preface seems to float around the surface as something detached from its roots. It seems to me that Friddle presents his material as if the nineteenth century existed in a performance practice vacuum, owing little, or virtually nothing, to the eighteenth, and being grossly misunderstood by the twentieth. He is betrayed by his own research, which, with only three exceptions—a reference to Charles Burney’s de-scription of the 1784 Handel commemorative concert in Westminster Abbey and one comment each by the Mozarts (father and son) on vibrato—appears to be confined either to nineteenth-century sources writing on the current state of affairs, or to twentieth century writers discussing nineteenth-century issues. This weakens his discussion. For example, in defending his view that a Germanic pronunciation of Latin should be used for Christus (hence the vocal score’s inclusion of the International Phonetic Alphabet) Friddle states that “it is probable that a similar Germanic pronuncia-tion of Latin would have been common in nineteenth-century German-speaking countries.” Had he been aware of Richard Maunder’s study of text underlay in Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore he would have known that this was, in fact, the case; nor does he think it important to acknowledge Liszt’s (and other nineteenth century composers) debt to F. J. Haydn in regard to the use of the wedge as a symbol for an accented, very short, staccato.

Unfortunately, Friddle’s opinion of twentieth and

twenty-first century conductors seems to be one of condescension; this comes across more sharply in the severely abbreviated vocal score Preface than in the full score. However, while reading the complete Preface I still could not escape the impression that the author felt he was presenting entirely new mate-rial on performance practice, information that, like a good revival sermon, was destined to convert all conductors who were, if I may paraphrase him, “me-chanical, mindless time-beaters.” But this is not the case, as all the issues Friddle raises are well known. And when he expresses his desire that “Romantic music [be] finally cleansed of the yellowish varnish of 20th- and 21st-century sensibilities” he is in fact articulating a misunderstanding of the nature of per-formance practice, which is not static for an age, but rather exists as part of a continuum: vast changes oc-curred throughout the nineteenth century owing to technical improvements in instruments, increases in the size of ensembles, the beginning of standardized conducting gestures, expansion of musical rhetoric (which resulted not only from the creativity of com-

posers but from the social and political upheavals of the industrial revolution as well), and so on. Similar forces, new to the people of the time, fueled the per-formance practices and compositional rhetoric of all previous centuries and, more recently, of the twenti-eth century as well. This is why we now speak of “his-torically informed” performance practice rather than “correct” performance practice. One need only listen to recordings of nineteenth-century music conduct-ed by Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, or Leonard Bernstein to be reassured, after reading Friddle, that we have recently had (and most certainly still have) conductors in our midst who thoroughly understood Romantic style, even though they performed with modern instruments and sat in stage configurations different from those used in Liszt’s day.

So the value of Friddle’s Preface is not in discover-ing important new material, but rather in having all this information in one meticulously researched and well articulated document. For this we thank him. If a single volume on choral performance practice across the centuries is ever written, he should prob-ably be the author.

In spite of its exemplary qualities, this edition, in my opinion, is unlikely to result in many perfor-mances of the complete work. When Arnold Schoen-berg wrote glowingly of Christus there probably were many people, as he surmised, interested in devotional music; but I doubt this is the case today, the success of Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna not withstanding. Liszt, for all his innovative genius, had severe diffi-culties with large forms. Christus is a series of devo-tional set-pieces—each capable of standing alone in lovely splendor (“The Announcement of the Angels” being my personal favorite)—often organized chron-ologically according to Jesus’s life, and connected by use of themes derived from Gregorian chant (some of which reappear in the final movement). Friddle calls them “tone-poems.” I prefer thinking of them as very large motets. In any case, there is nothing, really, to create any sense of forward motion from one to the next. While a previous age may have heard this as de-votional, I fear that modern audiences will hear only three hours of dramatic inertia. On the other hand, the anti-dramatic music of Louis Andriessen is now very popular among the new music crowd, so it could be that the climate is ripe for a revival of Christus. In any case, David Friddle’s new edition gives conduc-tors a fine opportunity to study all of its parts, per-haps with the intention of performing excerpts. Liszt would not mind.

Nick Strimple University of Southern California, Los Angeles

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Multiple back issues of the AMERICAN CHORAL REVIEW and RESEARCH MEMORANDUM SERIES are available through Chorus America. Back issues of the AMERICAN CHORAL REVIEW are available to members at $7.50; back issues of the RESEARCH MEMORANDUM SERIES at $2.00. Bulk prices will be quoted on request. All requests for back issues and index listings should be made to the American Choral Foundation, c/o Chorus America, 1156 15th Street NW, Suite 310, Washington, D.C. 20005. (202) 331-7577. An index to all volumes of the American Choral Review can be found at <chorusamerica.org>. Proposals for articles may be addressed to James John, D.M.A., Associate Professor, Aaron Copland School of Music. Queens College-CUNY, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, NY 11367, or <jmsjhn@aol.com>.

James John, Editor Aaron Copland School of Music

Queens College, The City University of New York

Editorial Board

Michael Anderson Eastman School of Music

David DeVenney West Chester University

William Weinert Eastman School of Music

Solo VocAl workS on JewiSh themeS: A BiBliogrAphy of JewiSh compoSerS

I was quite please when I heard, several years ago, that Kenneth Jaffe was preparing an annotated bibli-ography of Jewish works for solo voice and orchestra for Scarecrow Press, because I knew that many such works also contained chorus. And with the current, and increasing, interest in Jewish choral repertoire I thought that this could be a valuable resource for conductors looking for works that could be per-formed alongside, or instead of, Ernest Bloch’s Sacred Service, or Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. I also thought that such a book would be particularly valuable for non-Jewish conductors, both choral and instrumental, because nothing like it had ever existed, and most Jewish composers, though perhaps house-hold names within synagogues and Yiddish theater groups, were virtually unknown outside the Jewish community. I was immediately reminded of a lun-cheon at which Geraldine Auerbach, Director of the Jewish Music Heritage Trust in London, told me that an aging cantor had once commented to her that if Jewish music was to be saved from oblivion, it would not be by the Jews. How could we goyim save this (mostly) wonderful music if we did not know where to find it? Kenneth Jaffe’s book would be a Godsend.

So I was quite surprised, if not disappointed, when I saw the book and read the title: Solo Vocal Works on Jewish Themes: a Bibliography of Jewish Composers. The title itself is a can of worms because it works against itself: what, exactly are Jewish themes? And who, for the purposes of this book, is considered Jewish? Lastly, there is no mention of orchestra in the title and I could tell just by looking at it that it was not thick enough to deal with all of the Jewish art song repertoire.

As it turns out, the book includes, more-or-less,

exactly what Kenneth Jaffe originally intended to cover: vocal works, with or without chorus, accom-panied by orchestra or other kinds of instrumental ensemble. Needless to say, critics within the Jew-ish musical community have ripped Jaffe to shreds, mostly because of what is omitted: he does not deal at all with music accompanied only by piano, including

the art song (although some song cycles accompanied by instrumental ensembles are listed). He does not mention secular works by great theatrical composers of Jewish heritage such as Richard Rodgers or Irving Berlin. And he does not include works on obviously Jewish themes, or in Hebrew, by non-Jewish compos-ers such as Sergei Prokofieff or Eric Whitaker. So he struck a kind of middle ground between his initial concept and what were probably a number of outside pressures, thereby assuring that no one within the Jewish community would be pleased, and giving the rest of us pause. After all, with this title how can one possibly omit Mordechai Gebirtig?

However, all is not lost. The book is still eminent-

ly useable by conductors looking for interesting and mostly unknown (outside the Jewish community, any-way) choral/orchestral repertoire. It is organized with cross-references listing works by composers, themes (Biblical, Jewish Holidays, Children’s Choir, Yiddish Theater, Zionism, etc.) and by solo voice types. In most cases durations are given. It includes compositions of an inter-racial nature, such as Robert Kaplow’s Elijah’s Angel, a piece about the friendship of a Jewish boy and a black woodcarver (which requires an African Ameri-can bass, boy soprano, children’s chorus and orchestra or 10 piece ensemble); and also some interfaith works, such as Issachar Miron’s oratorio Golden Gates of Joy, which involves a Protestant Minister, a Catholic Priest and a Rabbi, as well as soloists, mixed chorus, three narrators, percussion, organ and double bass.

One drawback for the choral conductor is that only

large, cantata-like or stage works are included. No critical judgments are offered on any of the 3,000 en-tries, so the uninitiated person, browsing through the book, has no idea as to the quality of specific pieces (or composers). Still, this is a valuable reference work once one understands its actual parameters. Every music library should acquire it.

Nick Strimple University of Southern California, Los Angeles