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
History
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
On the occasion of its first performance in Cincinnati, in 1889,
Robert I. Carter wrote:
"It is preeminently a symphonic work, in which the piano is
used as a voice in the orchestra, and used with consummate
skill. The charm of the work lies in its simplicity. The
pianist will tell you at once that it is essentially
pianistic, a term that is much abused and means little. The
traditional cadenza is there, but it is not allowed to step
out of the frame, and so perfect is the relation to what
precedes and follows, that the average listener might claim
that it does not exist. Without wishing to venture upon any
odious grounds of comparison, I want to state frankly that it
is, to me, emphatically the best American concerto."
Huss is essentially a dramatic and lyric composer, though he seems to
be determined to show himself also a thematic composer of the old
school. In his trio, which I heard played by the Kaltenborn Quartette,
both phases of his activity were seen. There was much odor of the lamp
about the greater part of the trio, which seemed generally lacking
that necessary capillarity of energy which sometimes saturates with
life-sap the most formal and elaborate counterpoint of the
pre-romantic strata. The andante of the trio, however, displayed Huss'
singularly appealing gift of song. It abounded in emotion, and was--to
use the impossible word Keats coined--"yearnful." Huss should write
more of this sort of music. We need its rare spontaneity and truth, as
we do not need the all too frequent mathematics of those who compose,
as Tybalt fought, "by the book."
For the piano there are "Three Bagatelles:" an "Etude Melodique,"
which is rather harmonic than melodic; an "Albumblatt," a graceful
movement woven like a Schumann arabesque; and a "Pastoral," in which
the gracefulness of the music given to the right hand is annulled by
the inexplicable harshness of that given to the left.
For the voice, there is, of course, a setting of "Du bist wie eine
Blume," which, save for the fact that it looks as if the accompaniment
were written first, is a very pure piece of writing. The "Song of the
Syrens" is a strong composition with a big climax, the "Jessamine Bud"
is extremely delicate, and "They that Sow in Tears" has much dignity.
There are two songs from Tennyson, "There is Sweet Music Here" and
"Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead," with orchestral accompaniment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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