Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

grandmothers the satisfaction of thus uniting even at the expense of an influenza-in the homage which was so justly paid to the transcendent character and incomparable services of Washington, and of enjoying a personal view of his majestic form and features? It is a fact of no little interest, and not perhaps generally known, that a young German artist of that day, then settled in Boston, by the name of Gullagher, seated himself, under the protection of the Rev. Dr. Belknap, in a pew in the chapel, where he could observe and sketch those features and that form, and that having followed up his opportunities afterwards, not without the knowledge and sanction of Washington himself, — he completed a portrait which is still in the possession of Dr. Belknap's family, and which, though it may never be allowed to supersede the likeness which has become classical on the glowing canvas of the gifted Stuart, may still have something of peculiar interest in the musical world, as the Boston Oratorio portrait of Washington.

But I must not detain you longer, my friends, with these historical reminiscences of the music of Boston in its earlier days,

interesting as I am sure they must be to us all. I pass at once, and without a word of comment, over a period of a full quarter of a century. Washington has now completed his two terms of civil administration, with a brilliancy of success by no means inferior to that which had distinguished his military career. Death has at length set its seal upon the surpassing love in which he was held by the whole American Nation, and he has gone down to a grave, which,-rescued from all danger of desecration by the loyalty of Virginia women and the eloquence of at least one Northern Statesman, is destined to be more and more a place of devout pilgrimage and reverent resort for the friends of civil liberty and free government, from all climes and in all generations. The country, meanwhile, which owed him so inestimable a debt, has gone through with many vicissitudes of condition since his death, all, as we believe, providentially arranged or permitted to discipline our youthful vigor, and to develop the institutions and consolidate the Union which it had cost so much blood and treasure to establish. A second war with Great Britain has been waged, sometimes called the second War of Independ

[ocr errors]

ence,

and now at length the bow of peace and promise is once more seen spanning "the wide arch of our ranged empire." Beneath its genial radiance we are about to enter upon a period of prosperity and progress such as the world has never before witnessed.

On Christmas Eve, in the year 1814, the Treaty of Peace between England and the United States was signed at Ghent, a worthy commemoration of that blessed event when the Herald Angels were heard singing to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem, "Peace on earth, good will towards men." But that Treaty was not known on this side of the ocean for six or seven weeks after its date. The great battle of New Orleans, as you well know, was fought at least two weeks after that Treaty of Peace was signed. Our modern system of railroads and steamers and telegraphs might have saved that effusion of fraternal blood; — might have deprived individual heroes — might have deprived our country and its history of all the glory which belonged to that really great victory. If that gigantic Ocean Harp, which is at this moment in process of being strung, whose deep diapason is destined to produce a more magical music on the sea than old mythology or modern fable ever ascribed to siren, mermaid, or Arion, if the mysterious gamut of that profound submarine chord had been in successful operation then, as we hope it soon will be, between St. John's and Valentia Bay,—those cotton-bag ramparts at New Orleans might never have been celebrated in history; while, of those who so gallantly defended them, many would not have been laid so low, and some, perhaps, would hardly have risen so high.

The news of Peace, however, at length reached New York on the 11th of February, 1815, and was brought on to Boston by Express, with what was then called unexampled despatch, in about thirty-two hours. The celebration of the event, under the auspices of the State Legislature which was then in session, and under the immediate direction of our venerable fellow-citizen, JOSIAH QUINCY,-whose always welcome presence we hail with peculiar gratification on this occasion,-as Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, took place on the 22d of February following. And never was Washington's birthday more appropri

ately and nobly celebrated. I have myself a vivid remembrance of the brilliancy and sparkle of the illumination and fireworks in the evening, and my maturer eyes have often sought in vain for their match in all the dazzling demonstrations of later holidays. But the full heart of Boston could find no adequate utterance for itself but in music. Nothing but a "Te Deum Laudamus" could satisfy the emotions of that hour, and the great feature of the occasion was a service of thanksgiving and praise, without orations or sermons, -in the old Stone Chapel, where, after prayer by the Rev. Dr. Lathrop, then the aged and respected pastor of the Second Church, the Duet of "Lovely Peace" was sung by Colonel Webb and Miss Graupner, and a part of the Dettingen Te Deum and the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel were executed by nearly two hundred and fifty vocal and instrumental performers. The newspapers of the day not yet inured to any thing of indiscriminate or venal puffing-pronounce it, by all admission, the very best music ever heard in Boston.

And now, my friends, it can hardly be doubted that the impressive musical services of that Peace Jubilee gave the primary impulse to the establishment of the Association, which is signalizing to-day the forty-second year of its active existence by the Festival we are assembled to inaugurate. Its echoes had hardly died away, four weeks, indeed, had scarcely elapsed since it was held, before a notice was issued by Gottlieb Graupner, Thomas Smith Webb, and Asa Peabody, for a meeting of those interested in the subject "of cultivating and improving a correct taste in the performance of sacred music." In that meeting, held on the 30th of March, 1815, the Handel and Haydn Society originated. On the 20th of April, their Constitution was adopted, and signed by at least one of the members of the very Board of Directors by whom I am at this moment surrounded, the worthy Treasurer of the Society, Matthew Stanley Parker, Esq.,-whose family name is so honorably associated both with the past history and the future hopes of the music of Boston. The following MayDay witnessed their first private practising from the old Lock Hospital Collection, and on the succeeding Christmas evening, at the same consecrated Chapel, where Washington attended that memorable Public Concert a quarter of a century before, and

where that solemn Jubilee of Peace had been so recently celebrated, their first Grand Oratorio was given, to a delighted audience of nine hundred and forty-five persons, with the Russian Consul, the well-remembered Mr. Eustaphieve, assisting as one of the performers in the Orchestra.

From that day to this, the Handel and Haydn Society has been one of the recognized and cherished institutions of Boston. Their progress is illustrated by the signal improvement which has been witnessed in the musical services of all our churches, and in the growing taste and skill which have rendered the singing of sacred music one of the most familiar and delightful recreations of the domestic circle. Their history is written, still more conspicuously, in the records of the nearly five hundred Public Oratorios, besides almost as many less formal concerts, which the Society have performed, and of the numerous civic and religious ceremonials at which they have assisted. To them we have owed one of the most effective and attractive features of not a few of our grandest Anniversary Festivals, our first centennial celebration of Washington's birthday, and our second centennial celebration of the Birthday of Boston. To them we have owed one of the most grateful and graceful compliments which have been paid to the distinguished guests who from time to time have visited our city, to Presidents Monroe and Jackson and Tyler, and to Henry Clay, all of whom have accepted their invitations and attended their Oratorios. By them, too, have been performed the Funeral Dirges for our illustrious dead. It was to their swelling peal that our own Webster alluded at Faneuil Hall, in his magnificent eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, when he said, "I catch that solemn song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth evermore.' And their funeral chant was heard again, when Faneuil Hall was once more shrouded in black, and when that matchless orator was himself the subject of heartfelt lamentation and eulogy. To them we have been indebted for the first production in our country of not a few of the sublimest compositions of the great Masters of Europe, and to them we have owed the opportunity of hearing the most exquisite and inspiring airs of those compositions, executed by an Incledon or

a Phillips, a Horn, a Braham, or a Caradori Allan. I may not attempt to name the more recent vocalists, foreign or domestic, whom they have successively brought forward, and some of whom are here to add brilliancy to the present occasion. Incited by their example, too, other Associations have been organized in our own city and in the neighboring towns, as well as in various other parts of our Commonwealth and country, the Academy of Music, the Musical Education Society, the Mendelssohn Choral Society, and many others, which have rendered efficient service in a common cause, and which deserve the grateful remembrance of every lover of harmony.

When this Society was originally instituted, the music of Boston, of New England, and I may say of all America, both sacred and secular, was in a most crude and disorganized condition. Aretinian Societies and Independent Musical Societies had done a little for it, and then died out. Occasional concerts, like those to which I have alluded, may be found scattered at long and dreary intervals along the previous half century. A worthy son of the Old Colony, too, whence so many good things have sprung, had already commenced the publication of "the Bridgewater Collection.” * But there was no systematic and permanent organization for the improvement of musical taste, skill, or science, in any of our large communities; and there was but little of either taste, skill, or science to be improved. I have heard the late JOHN QUINCY ADAMS- an intense lover of music himself, and whose comprehensive acquirements embraced a knowledge of this particular subject which would have been extraordinary in anybody else—tell a story, which may serve as an illustration of the state of American music at that precise period. During the negotiation, at Ghent, of that treaty of peace to which I have just alluded, a Festival or Banquet, or it may have been a Ball, was about to take place, at which it was proposed to pay the customary musical compliment to all the Sovereigns who were either present or represented on the occasion. The Sovereign People of the United States-represented there, as you remember, by Mr. Adams himself, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Clay, Mr. Jonathan Russell, and Mr. Gallatin were, of course, not

*The late Hon. Nahum Mitchell.

« ZurückWeiter »