Contemporary American Composers: Being a Study of the Music of This Country, Its Present; Conditions and Its Future, with Critical Estimates and; Biographies of the Principal Living Composers; and an; Abundance of Portraits, Fac-simile Musical Autographs, and; CompositionsHughes, Rupert
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Contemporary American Composers: Being a Study of the Music of This Country, Its Present; Conditions and Its Future, with Critical Estimates and; Biographies of the Principal Living Composers; and an; Abundance of Portraits, Fac-simile Musical Autographs, and; Compositions
Hughes, Rupert
Composers -- United States -- Biography; Music -- United States -- History and criticism
In his setting of these lines of Crane's, Schuyler has attacked a
difficult problem in an ideal manner. To three of the short poems he
has given a sense of epic vastitude, and to two of them he has given a
tantalizing mysticism. The songs, which have been published privately,
should be reproduced for the wide circulation they deserve.
Another writer of small songs displaying unusual individuality is
George Clifford Vieh, who was born in St. Louis and studied there
under Victor Ehling. In 1889, he went to Vienna for three years,
studying under Bruckner, Robert Fuchs, and Dachs. He graduated with
the silver medal there, and returned to St. Louis, where he has since
lived as a teacher and pianist.
Alfred George Robyn is the most popular composer St. Louis has
developed. He was born in 1860, his father being William Robyn, who
organized the first symphonic orchestra west of Pittsburg. Robyn was a
youthful prodigy as a pianist; and, at the age of ten, he succeeded
his father as organist at St. John's Church, then equipped with the
best choir in the city. It was necessary for the pedals of the organ
to be raised to his feet. At the age of sixteen he became solo pianist
with Emma Abbott's company. As a composer Robyn has written some three
hundred compositions, some of them reaching a tremendous sale. A few
of them have been serious and worth while, notably a piano concerto, a
quintette, four string quartettes, a mass, and several orchestral
suites.
There are not many American composers that have had a fugue published,
or have written fugues that deserve publication. It is the distinction
of Ernest Richard Kroeger that he has written one that deserved, and
secured, publication. This was his 41st opus. It is preceded by a
prelude which, curiously enough, is thoroughly Cuban in spirit and is
a downright Habanera, though not so announced. This fiery composition
is followed by a four-voiced "real" fugue. The subject is genuinely
interesting, though the counter-subject is as perfunctory as most
counter-subjects. The middle-section, the stretto-work, and the
powerful ending, give the fugue the right to exist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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