CHAPTER NINE: MARGARET RUTHVEN LANG-1893-1925. SC. (G) Word Count: 15,881 07/20/2021.
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CONTACT JAMES JOHNSTON: langjwj@earthlink.net
- Topics: Dramatic Overture and Witichis. Dramatic Overture and Witichis Reviews.
- Specific Characteristics: Dramatic Overture 1883 World Columbian Exposition. Song Performances. Missing Pieces. Irish Love Song. Missing Symphony. Concert Arias, Three.
- Chaminade of America.
- Performances c. 1899.
- Frances’ Stand. “Opposing Electrocution.” Brimmer Street House Described.
- Royalties: Margaret Contacts Her Publisher. More MRL Song Performances. House Warming: Harvard Musical Association. Heavenly Noel, The.
In reviewing her career to this point (1893) Margaret wrote that since returning from studying in Europe in 1887 she had written “30 or 40 songs and also part-songs for male and for female chorus and for mixed voices” which had been published and performed. “My part-songs have been sung by the Apollo and Cecilia Societies of Boston,” and she reports having heard of performances “in England, France, and Canada.” But, she goes on to say that “All my songs have been the expression of my musical thought and with the exception of the above-mentioned orchestra compositions [two orchestral overtures], yet my desire is to write for orchestra and until I have accomplished something of real worth in that direction, I shall not be content.” (Autobiographical reply May 22, 1893 to Mr. Krehbiel)
DRAMATIC OVERTURE and WITICHIS REVIEWS.
When Margaret was twenty-five the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered her first large orchestral work-the Dramatic Overture, Opus 12 conducted by Nikisch which opened the concert on April 8, 1893 (and 21st. rehearsal April 7 at 2:30 PM) which was the 23rd. Rehearsal/Concert of its 12th.. Season. This was the first time since its founding twelve years before that the BSO had played a work by a woman composer.
Photo below-Niksich in 1890 (New England Magazine, February 1890), probably as he looked when he conducted Margaret’s Overture.
Niksich in 1890 (New England Magazine, February 1890), probably as he looked when he conducted Margaret’s Overture.
Arthur Nikisch from Elson, 1904, 57
The Dramatic Overture was finished in November 1892 and sent to Nikisch for his opinion. Nothing was heard until the spring of 1893 when he sent word that he would “have the orchestra perform the piece in rehearsal so that Lang would be able to hear the full scale of her work.” (Baer, 20) If Nikisch was working under his usual system of never opening a new score until the rehearsal, he, the orchestra and the composer were hearing the work for the first time. Based on that hearing, he asked to perform the piece at a regular BSO concert (Ibid, based on a letter MRL sent to Chadwick) Margaret asked to attend the orchestral rehearsals during concert week and his reply was that there was a rule against that. But, he then said exceptions prove the rule. “therefore, if you wish to come to our rehearsals tomorrow and Thursday you will be admitted with the greatest pleasure. The piece will be played on both mornings at about 10 o’clock. Most sincerely yours, Arthur Nikisch.” (Note in the collection of the Boston Athenaeum) Frances wrote: “Nickish [sic] played Maidie’s 2d Overture at eleven o’clock this A.M. by appointment. Lel couldn’t be there but I went and was disappointed. I thought it sounded better on the piano. Nickish told Maidie that he would perform it perhaps at the next but one concert.” (Diary 2, Winter 1893) And, so he did. “That Mr. Nikisch considers this second overture of music in any way worthy of performance at a symphony concert makes me of course wildly happy and I can hardly wait for next Saturday evening.” (Lang to Chadwick, Baer, 26)
It seems that Margaret had not shown the Dramatic Overture to Chadwick, who, after all, was her composition teacher, while she was composing it. His first knowledge of the piece came after Nikisch agreed to perform the work with the BSO. Lang wrote to Chadwick: “[Nikisch] did not acknowledge it for so long that I dared not tell you of it lest you should jeer at my temerity but now that it has won its way this far I want your good wishes and I want above all to thank you.” This event was obviously a very important one for Margaret, and she wanted Chadwick’s approval. “It is a very little thing for me to make so much of and I suppose you will laugh at me, but a symphony concert has been a mile-stone I have longed to reach. I am afraid that when Saturday comes you will say that I do not deserve it. Will you please tell me frankly after the concert. I shall be very downcast and humble and this effusion is joy, not pride.” (Baer, 21)
Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archive.
Her work was described as having strong contrasts between the principal and subordinate themes. “It has some strong contrasts, especially between the chief theme and the subordinate. The first is grim and medieval, the second tender and human. To place these two in juxtaposition in itself gives something of dramatic power, and the development of both is singularly unconventional.” (Elson, History American Music, 306) Francis H. Jenks in his Musical Herald review described the work as “an ingeniously devised and constructed composition with evidences of thought at every turn.” Philip Hale reported that the overture was applauded, but the attempt to call the composer forward was in vain. Seventy-four years later Miss Lang remembered the incident well: “I crept up to the balcony and hid.” Hale’s specific comments were probably a trial for the young composer. After listing the program, he wrote: “Miss Lang’s overture is perhaps a creditable work for a young student. Whether it deserved a place in a Symphony concert is another question. Although Miss Lang in certain songs has shown in the past a pretty melody, the themes of the overture are not of marked originality or striking effect. There are ingenious passages in the detail, but there is a general lack of definite purpose in the conception and in the carrying out. The composer seems to be pricked by the desire of extracting ideas from the orchestral instruments in turn. As a result, there is occasional piquancy, and there are pleasing measures, but this dramatic overture is a promise rather than a fulfillment. It is as though the composer deliberately set about to see what she could do in this line; there was nothing musical within that forced its way irresistibly and assumed orchestral shape and color.” (Scrapbook, Musical Courier, April 12, 1893) Hugo Leichtentritt attended this concert-he was a junior at Harvard. Mark DeVoto has translated his Diary entry, originally written in German. “Symphony Concert…At the beginning there was a Dramatic Overture by Miss Lang, a young Boston lady. The beginning is very grandiose and I was already worried that a woman might have written something significant, but let it be said to my shame that I soon discovered that the work lacked spiritual content: short-winded phrases instead of broadly dramatic development. The whole thing skillfully worked out, not at all student-like. +++ ++++++ [two words illegible-possibly “The piece”] succeeded melodiously, even dramatically, but not entirely, nothing sublime in it.” (Letter to Johnston, January 14, 2012) Chadwick made the most specific comments in a letter to Margaret written just after the concert. “I like your main motif extremely, – it is grim, and the cantilena that leads over into G major is lovely. That broken chord for the first horn is a great success. The brass is [sic] very discreet, perhaps a little too discreet. I would like to see the score very much. Please write me another lovely letter and tell me when I can see it. G. W. Chadwick.” (150th. Birthday Exhibit curated by Fletcher DuBois, hampsongfoundation.org)
Elson wrote in 1925, 32 years after the work’s premiere: “It has some strong contrasts, especially between the chief theme and the subordinate. The first is grim and medieval, the second tender and human. To place these two in juxtaposition in itself gives something of dramatic power and the development of both is singularly unconventional.” (Amer. Music, 306)
William F. Apthorp’s program note began with a short biographical note:
Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archive.
On April 2, 1893 Apthorp typed a letter to Margaret at 12.43 A.M. [working late?] “Dear Maidie: If you find in the programme-books that I have made a botch of your overture, it is really not my fault. I am a poor score-reader, at best-although I can get at the inwardness of anything you please, if I only have time-and manuscript is just the point where the worm in my brain turns! A MS. score is to me like a MS. Story; I have to read it three times, where I should have to read it once in print. The Expiring Phoenix (Chadwick) always laughed at me for my helplessness in this matter, saying that a good MS. was just as good as engraving. But his laughing did not help me. There is something in handwriting that seems to kill all consecutive perception in me; it is just as bad in words as in music. But I must say that I really and thoroughly enjoyed reading your score-in an incoherent sort of way, letting each measure tell for the moment, just as any idiot listens to music at a concert-and look forward to finding my impression strengthened at the hearing. Where did you get the idea of reinforcing the effect of those jumps from C major to E minor, and E major to A minor, by that Scharfrichter’s rhythm? I don’t know when I have heard that ‘Meyerbeer’ snap of the two short notes and a long one sound so new, and so little as if Meyerbeer had written it. I have also great hopes for the place where the third horn comes in against the twiddle-twiddle in the violins. And how stunning of you to have kept your trombones and trumpets for the preaching, and made your big crashes without them! I hope Nikisch will follow his native bent and give the final ‘pa-pa-pum——-pum!’ as it looks in the score. Ever so many thanks, yrs., &c., &c., &c.” (Scrapbook)
REVIEWS.
One review began: “This is, we believe, the first time that an orchestral composition by a woman has been played at one of our symphony concerts. It is rather odd how exceedingly little women have done in music-save in the way as singing and playing.” The review continues in the same vein, finishing the idea with, “Upon the whole, the record is not brilliant.” But then the attitude changed, and the author wrote that “Miss Lang now comes forward with a work which must certainly stand very high indeed among compositions by women; indeed, there is no special need of bringing her sex into the question at all, for this overture of hers does not need to be ranked in a special class in order to have good said about it. The beginning is particularly impressive-a grim phrase is given out by the trumpets and trombones in octaves, interrupted by syncopated thuds on the kettledrums, and is followed by a most effective piece of harmony in the strings-a chord of C-major is struck, and then merges into a passing harmony, which you expect to lead, by a half cadence, directly to the dominant chord of B-major; but no! instead of leading to the dominant, it leads to the tonic chord of E-minor. The effect of this sudden appearance of the chord of E-minor is startling, the chord seems to come from a hundred miles away, the effect is as unearthly as on ”et lux” in Verdi’s ”Manzoni” Requiem. If there is perhaps no other stroke in the overture that equals this in originality and force, what follows it has nonetheless conspicuous merit of its own. The thematic material is natural and unforced, the treatment coherent, often strikingly ingenious. Only once towards the latter part of the overture does the composer seem to lose her way for a moment in the maze of working-out; but she soon finds it again and pushes on to the end with a very sure step. The general character of the work is passionate, with a warmth that seems wholly genuine and unsought-for, and now and then with more idyllic moments of much beauty. The instrumentation is brilliant, always skillfully managed, if not precisely what one would call masterly…Miss Lang’s varied play of color seems at moments more fitful and fantastic than her musical form and thematic development. Yet, in one respect, her scoring shows a very fine instinct; unlike most young composers, she is singularly thrifty in her use of orchestral material and does not waste her heavy artillery on effects of sheer dynamic force where it can be more wisely spent on effects of contrast. Upon the whole, she in no wise lays herself open to the criticism once passed on Augusta Holmes by a Paris musician: that,” like most women, she tries to prove her own virility by making a tremendous noise,” The overture was admirably played and most enthusiastically received. Mr. Nikisch being called out three times after it.” (Anonymous, undated review, courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
Another review devoted 75 percent of its content to the new piece: “Of the composition itself there is not much be said that is pleasant in the saying. It is creditable as the result of a laudable ambition to essay an important work, and it may be pronounced a promising first attempt; but it is scarcely of worth to warrant its performance, unless, indeed, to afford the composer an opportunity to hear it, and to profit by the experience. In the first place, it is hardly an overture, as the term is generally understood, and it is not dramatic in any sense. It has more the character of an orchestral fantasie. Nothing is clearly defined, nothing is completed. It is one long effort to say something, without any very clear idea of what is to be said. The general effect is spasmodic and fragmentary; and the work does not hang well together. The orchestration is vigorous but is without richness or character. It has strong color here and there, but is never closely knit, and is often foggy. The pervading fault of the work, however, is that its meaning is not made apparent…As an evidence of its composer’s serious study and its application, it is very commendable, but it is immature, and should not have been submitted to public criticisms. It is not gratifying to be compelled to write thus discouragingly of the work of a young composer, but no good is to be accomplished by glossing over the truth, and we are sure that it is wiser and kinder to point out the shortcomings of the composition than to indulge in insincerity and to damn it with faint praise. The audience received it in a very kind spirit and applauded heartily. An effort was made to call the composer forward, but it was unsuccessful.” (Unsigned review, courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
A review of April 9, 1893 credited to the Courier began with a paragraph about Margaret’s background and education and then followed that with a second paragraph of 14 lines concerning the work performed. This formed less than one-fourth of the complete review-quite a contrast to the review cited above. The reviewer wrote: “The overture while evidently the work of a skillful, and refined musician is nevertheless a very characteristic sample of kapelmeistermusik. There is a certain benign composure and nobility of intent in the writing of it, that is all too conspicuous, but the work appears to contain but a single well-defined theme which is very reminiscent of the oriental music in Verdi’s Aida. This theme is so tautologically treated and so frequently repeated that the prevailing impression created by it is one of monotony and languor. Perhaps the most praiseworthy feature of the overture is in the orchestral coloring of its harmonic development which is altogether excellent.” (Unsigned review, courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
Philip Hale: New York Public Library Digital Library.
Philip Hale in the April 12, 1893 Musical Courier wrote: “Miss Lang’s overture is perhaps a creditable work for a young student. Whether it deserved a place in a Symphony concert is another question. Although Miss Lang in certain songs has shown in the past a pretty melody, the themes of the overture are not of marked originality or striking effect. There are ingenious passages in the detail, but there is a general lack of definite purpose in the conception and in the carrying out. The composer seems to be pricked by the desire of extracting ideas from the orchestral instruments in turn. As a result, there is occasional piquancy, and there are pleasing measures, but this dramatic overture is a promise rather than a fulfillment. It is as though the composer deliberately set about to see what she could do in this line, there was nothing musical within that forces its was irresistibly and assumed orchestral shape and color.” (Scrapbook, Musical Courier, April 12, 1893)
Hale also wrote in the Boston Home Journal: “The phrase Place aux dames should be without meaning on the concert stage. The conductor of an orchestra should judge the fitness of a composition proposed for performance without consideration of the sex of the composer. Sex is here an accident.” (Fox, Sexual, 10) Hale spent two-thirds for his review damning the work in every way that he could: “Her themes are neither of marked originality nor of musical importance…there is not one dramatic stroke in the whole work, nor is there a climax. As a fantastic tone poem, it is vague. Miss Lang finds at her disposal the orchestral paint box, and she colors her themes with this instrumental tablet and with that one; thus she gains, occasionally, a piquant effect, a pleasing passage, but the whole lacks coherency and, is diffuse. In a word, this composition might well please the eye of a prudent and skilled teacher. He might look kindly at the pupil.” (Unsigned, but by Hale, review attributed to the Journal, courtesy Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
Louis C. Elson wrote in the Advertiser wrote that: “It is the reviewer’s task to state that this work was not up to the level of these concerts. Miss Lang has won some deserved successes at the Apollo Club concerts in the field of chorus composition and has written some graceful bits of instrumental music which have achieved the dignity of publication, but it is a long stride from this to orchestral work in a large form, and to make the first public attempt in a concert course which is supposed to present the finest music that the world affords, to enter a programme which presented selections by Haydn, Dvorak and Moszkowski, was little less than rash…One may pay tribute to an evident tact in the matter of orchestral coloring that holds forth good promise for the future, but it may be at once added that these concerts are not supposed to be devoted to the presentation of incipient greatness. As the work was entitled a ”dramatic overture,” one need not quarrel with the fact that its form was not powerful enough to sustain interest, nothing was carried to a logical conclusion, much was spasmodic, and at times the whole case could only be diagnosed as orchestral hysteria.” This represented one-fourth of the total review. (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
Warren Davenport in the Globe wrote that: “It would be a pleasant task to speak in praise of Miss Lang’s orchestral piece but the results gained would not warrant such a course. Miss Lang has written many pretty songs and has shown talent in the pieces written for male voices and sung by the Apollo Club, but the step from this grade of material to the writing of a dramatic overture of sufficient worth to claim a place upon a symphonic concert programme is quite a long one. The effort of this ”dramatic overture” was a purposeless one, and it could as well be called the ”Babes in the Wood,” as far as any dramatic significance is concerned. Any capable student can make such music as this who has a little invention at hand, and to write similarly for the orchestra is not so difficult either, with the hundreds of stereotyped formulas that are available in the works of modern composers and student-writers. The first thing to be considered is what is the musical value of a composition? Has it form; has it a defined purpose? Miss Lang should not be discouraged because of this failure to compose a dramatic overture. Through the ill advice of her friends and the lack of discrimination upon the part of the person who arranges the programmes for the Symphony concerts, this youthful composer has had her inability to reach certain heights made plain, and the lesson should be a profitable one. It should not dampen her ambition, however. Her case is not an isolated one. The audience applauded the playing loudly.” These comments took up about one-third of the review. (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archive)
Another review devoted one-half of its space to Margaret’s work, all of which was complimentary. “Miss Margaret Ruthven Lang’s new dramatic overture was given for the first time at the Symphony last week, the composition by our talented townswoman proving to be of great merit. In the beginning, two themes are developed, one somber and of an antique character, the other passionate and modern treatment, each played against the other and producing a dramatic effect original but melodic. The working out is concise and beautifully harmonizes, and the return to the first part is gradual and regular, without harsh cdences or Wagnerian style of orchestration. The young composer has treated the stronger instruments of the orchestra very effectively, utilizing them for special themes in several instances, which gives a marked tonal color and contrast to the gentler fortissimo passages. The work received a most flattering reception, and Mr. Nikisch’s orchestra gave a delightful interpretation of the number.” (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archive)
The American Biographical Library entry quotes an unnamed critic as saying: “The general character of the work is passionate, with a warmth that seems wholly genuine and unsought; and now and then with more idyllic moments of much beauty; and the orchestration is brilliant.” Levy quotes from a letter from Edward MacDowell to his wife: “Wasn’t Apthorpe [sic] shameless about Miss Lang’s overture? And he didn’t say a word about Chadwick. He ought to be kicked.” Another letter said: “Apthorpe, after his slobber act over Miss Lang’s overture (had to) even it up by doing at least likewise with his friend Arthur Foote’s work. I aunt patient.” (Levy, p. 90) However, MacDowell’s judgment may be questioned as the critic of the Boston Beacon, Howard Ticknor wrote that MacDowell “so hates Apthorpe that Apthorpe’s good criticism would be sufficient to make him take the opposite side.” (Levy, 91) Apthorp had also made an error in Margaret’s biography saying that she had studied with MacDowell. She wrote a stiff note to him correcting this, and also asked her father to write a note to Chadwick on this same subject: “Maidie is troubled by an error in Apthorp’s programme today.” B. J. continued that should the work be a failure, Chadwick would not mind being left out as Margaret’s teacher, but if it were a success, “it will take but a few hours to” correct the matter. B. J. ended by saying that “A misstatement corrected is usually more fully noted than if it were correct from the start.” (Chadwick Archive, NEC) The Monday before the performance Margaret had written to Chadwick telling him of her “good news,” and saying: “I have wanted to tell you about it because I feel so grateful to you for the lessons that helped me so far as even this point.” There is a note from Chadwick to Margaret suggesting a time for her lesson, it seems that this lesson was her first with him; “I shall hope to see many pretty compositions from your pen as well as (?) strict counterpoint.” (Boston Athenaeum) The rest of the letter mentions that she wrote it during November of the previous year, sent it to Nikisch, but then did not hear anything for a long time. “I dared not tell you of it lest you should jeer at my temerity.” It would seem that her lessons were not concerned with this specific work. She ended with: “I want your good wishes, and I want above all to thank you.” She then asked for his comments after the concert. (Chadwick Archive, NEC) Chadwick seems to have replied in a positive manner. In another letter to him, she began: “Your very kind and most charitable letter was an inexpressible relief and pleasure to me, for I had imagined all kinds of horrible things going on in your mind until it came. I want very much to show you the score and hear a sermon.” She then invited Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick to an evening of billiards, “and then you will talk to me about it. Indeed, I have so much to say to you that I shall not know how to begin or when to finish.” (Chadwick Archive, NEC)
Margaret’s friend, Amy Beach, sent a note dated April 9th. “I wish to send you my heartiest congratulations upon your success, last evening of your interesting overture, as a woman I cannot help feeling gratified that all your hard work should be so fully recognized and appreciated, and your composition given a place on our symphony program. Its superb performance must have gladdened your heart, while it gave great pleasure to the audience. With all good wishes for your future success, believe me.) (Baer, 26)
SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS: DRAMATIC OVERTURE. “I like your main motif extremely, – it is grim, and the cantilena that leads over into G major is lovely. That broken chord for the first horn is a great success. The brass is [sic] very discreet, perhaps a little too discreet.” (Chadwick note to Margaret) Her work was described as having strong contrasts between the principal and subordinate themes. “It has some strong contrasts, especially between the chief theme and the subordinate. The first is grim and medieval, the second tender and human. To place these two in juxtaposition in itself gives something of dramatic power, and the development of both is singularly unconventional.” (Elson, History American Music, 306)
Apthorp BSO Program Book.
The beginning is particularly impressive-a grim phrase is given out by the trumpets and trombones in octaves, interrupted by syncopated thuds on the kettledrums, and is followed by a most effective piece of harmony in the strings-a chord of C-major is struck, and then merges into a passing harmony, which you expect to lead, by a half cadence, directly to the dominant chord of B-major; but no! instead of leading to the dominant, it leads to the tonic chord of E-minor. The effect of this sudden appearance of the chord of E-minor is startling, the chord seems to come from a hundred miles away, the effect is as unearthly as on ”et lux” in Verdi’s ”Manzoni” Requiem. If there is perhaps no other stroke in the overture that equals this in originality and force, what follows it has nonetheless conspicuous merit of its own. The thematic material is natural and unforced, the treatment coherent, often strikingly ingenious. Only once towards the latter part of the overture does the composer seem to lose her way for a moment in the maze of working-out; but she soon finds it again and pushes on to the end with a very sure step. The general character of the work is passionate, with a warmth that seems wholly genuine and unsought-for, and now and then with more idyllic moments of much beauty. The instrumentation is brilliant, always skillfully managed, if not precisely what one would call masterly…Miss Lang’s varied play of color seems at moments more fitful and fantastic than her musical form and thematic development. Yet, in one respect, her scoring shows a very fine instinct; unlike most young composers, she is singularly thrifty in her use of orchestral material and does not waste her heavy artillery on effects of sheer dynamic force where it can be more wisely spent on effects of contrast. Upon the whole, she in no wise lays herself open to the criticism once passed on Augusta Holmes by a Paris musician: that,” like most women, she tries to prove her own virility by making a tremendous noise,”(Unsigned review)
Perhaps the most praiseworthy feature of the overture is in the orchestral coloring of its harmonic development which is altogether excellent.” (Unsigned review, courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
In the beginning, two themes are developed, one somber and of an antique character, the other passionate and modern treatment, each played against the other and producing a dramatic effect original but melodic. The working out is concise and beautifully harmonizes, and the return to the first part is gradual and regular, without harsh cadences or Wagnerian style of orchestration. The young composer has treated the stronger instruments of the orchestra very effectively, utilizing them for special themes in several instances, which gives a marked tonal color and contrast to the gentler fortissimo passages. (Unsigned review)
Theme A (grim: trombones and trumpets in octaves, interrupted by timpani thuds; C major string chord; then instead of B major, surprise, go to E minor-this probably best bit; jumps from C major to E minor and then E major to A minor in the Scharfrichter’s rhythm.) Theme B (Antique) played against each other. Beautiful harmonies, fine scoring, orchestral coloring, trumpets and trombones often not used in forte passages-saved for special effects.
Ryan, 179. Probably from the mid-1890s.
1883 WORLD COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.
Music Hall. Theodore Thomas, Autobiography, Vol. II, facing 282.
The exposition in honor of Columbus’ discovery of the New World ran six months from May 1 until October 30, 1893. Over 28 million tickets were sold (the population of the United States was 63 million at that time), and this was even during an economic depression. The goal of the organizers was to outdo the Paris Exposition of 1889 which featured the Eiffel Tower. Chicago’s answer was to create a city-within-a-city that hosted 65,000 exhibits. On view were “The world’s first Ferris Wheel-with cars the size of buses” and full-size replicas of Columbus” three ships which had been sailed from Spain to Chicago. (Bolotin and Laing, vii) At the end of the event, it was found that a profit of $1,000,000 dollars had been achieved! Margaret’s overture Witichis was selected for performance at the Chicago World’s Fair. George H. Wilson who was the Secretary of the Bureau of Music and thus the person making all the decisions on anything musical that was to appear at the Exposition had been a tenor in B. J.’s Apollo Club. (Herald (April 23, 1893): 20, GB)
There seems to be no record of Theodore Thomas seeing the Dramatic Overture, Opus 12 but her overture Witichis, Opus 10 was chosen (along with two others-one of which was by the fellow Boston composer, Coerne) from among twenty-one works presented for consideration to be performed at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. One interesting aspect was that B.J. Lang was a member of the reviewing committee!
This article from the November 1893 issue of Music-A Monthly Magazine summarizes “American Music at the Exposition.”
The reviewer for the American Art Journal stated that it was the largest crowd that he had seen yet in Music Hall and praised Powell’s playing of the Mendelssohn. He credited Lang’s work with ”originality and earnestness of purpose” as well as ”considerable continuity and sustained power. ”He went on to state that the orchestration showed lack of experience but pointed out that even Brahms had similar problems with some of his orchestrations. This review was unusual in that the critic treated an orchestral composition by a woman seriously, without any comments reflecting gender bias.” (Bomberger, 138-139) “A prominent Chicago critic, writing of Margaret Ruthven Lang’s contribution to the American compositions heard at the exposition concerts, says Miss Margaret Ruthven Lang’s overture to Witichis is a real work, a great deal to say of a young woman’s composition…Taste predominates Miss Lang’s overture. At times the meaning is not easy to follow; there is a good deal of ambitious striving for effect rather than for embodiment of idea. But throughout the music is noble and pure in conception, if the conception is not always concrete.” (Herald (August 13, 1893): 18, GB) From the Fourteenth Columbian Letter: “This program [July 29] is worthy of passing mention, as it brought the overture Witichitis [sic] by Miss Lang, who is certainly developing in a perfectly logical and satisfactory manner. She began with the smaller forms and is ambitiously working her way into the larger forms. The Opus 10 of Miss Lang is more than we had expected of this lady, and I should not be surprised to hear a symphony from her pen ere a year is over our head.” The second performance of Witichis was July 29, 1893 at a Pops Concert held not in the Women’s Building, but in the main concert hall of the Exposition. (Feldman, 7) The overture was included at the third concert under Max Bendix: Wednesday, August 30, 12 noon. “Popular Orchestral Concerts,” Exposition Orchestra of 100. Max Bendix had been the concertmaster of the Festival Orchestra, but after Theodore Thomas resigned, Bendix was selected to conduct the rest of the concerts at the Exposition. A third overture entitled Totila, Opus 23 was composed in 1901 and premiered in Baltimore. (Theodore Thomas, Autobiography, Vol. II, facing page 282)
SONG PERFORMANCES.
Among performances during 1894 was the song for baritone Hjarlis sung by Mr. Grant Odell on Monday, February 5 at the 29th. Private Meeting of the “Manuscript Society of New York” held in Room 8 of Carnegie (Music) Hall (this may have been its premier). “A very charming reception was given to Mr. B. J. Lang and the altos of ”The Cecilia” last Monday evening, at the home of Mrs. Cilley, 175 Beacon Street, Mrs. Dimick of ”The Cecilia;” being hostess.” (Herald (April 8, 1894): 27, GB) Part of the musical program included Bedtime Song by Margaret sung by Miss Griggs. A concert in Boston on Saturday, December 1 at 11 AM presented by Miss Orvis as part of her “Concerts for Young People” (five per season) included B. J. Lang playing Petit Roman followed by six of the Nonsense Rhymes (Filey, Man Cape Horn, Man Skye, When Little, Said well, and Riga) sung by Mrs. Henrietta Hassall. The concert ended with the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto played by Franz Kneisel with the orchestral accompaniment played by B. J. on the piano. The Nonsense Rhymes must have been well received as they were repeated at the concert on Saturday, February 23, 1895. The same six Nonsense Rhymes were sung by Mrs. Hassall a year later (December 7, 1895) as part of the series of “Concerts for Young People” given in Newton Center by Mrs. Bird-B. J. also played his Caprice as part of the concert. This December 1st. performance of Petit Roman was less than a month after its premiere which was given by Mrs. Edward Dudley Marsh at the November 6, 1894 meeting of the “Tuesday Musicale” of Rochester, N. Y. -a note in the program mentions that Margaret wrote both the music and the story. (Scrapbook) Others quickly learned the work-Miss Mary Black included it in her program at Chickering Hall on December 18, 1894.
A short article that was probably a “filler” appeared in a California newspaper early in 1894, having been originated by the Boston Herald. With a heading of “Young Women Composers,” it began: “Two charming and talented young women composers who are making their mark are Helen Hood and Margaret Ruthven Lang. Both of whom have for some years been known as writers of songs of far above musical qualities.” The article then notes their New England connections and finishes with: “It is not a little remarkable that both of these talented girls, whose gifts bear so close a resemblance to each other, can look back not only to a New England ancestry, but to ancestors whose lives touched closely in the same little Massachusetts town of Lynnfield three-quarters of a century ago, and it is not uninteresting to note that the first musical instruction which the grandfather of Margaret Lang received was given to him by the grandfather of Helen Hood.” (Riverside Daily Press, Riverside, CA (February 9, 1894): 1, GB) Another interesting connection with Lynnfield is that some sources state that B. J.’s first organ position was in a small church in Lynnfield-is it possible that Helen Hood’s grandfather had something to do with this?
The piano suite, Petit Roman was also part of a June concert given in Worcester, MA at the “pretty studio of Mrs. Carrie King Hunt [which] was the scene of one of the most delightful entertainments that has been heard in Worcester for very many days.” The society writer gave the full story of the sections of the piece which she probably took from the program book or copied quickly from the performer’s score. She began: “This tells a story-a medieval kind of tale in six chapters, each written in an appropriate and peculiar tempo. The first tells how the chevalier goes to call upon the princess and makes love.” (Worcester Daily Spy (June 20, 1895): 1, GB) No need for five more chapters in this version. In the program notes of the recent CD recording, it reads: “The first piece tells of the knight’s initial visit to the princess, during which he ”speaks of love.”” (Delos DE 3433, notes by Lindsay Koob) Mrs. Hunt learned the piece at the request of B. J. with whom she had been studying for the past year. (Spy, Op. cit.)
In 1895 The Cecilia performed Love Plumes His Wings at the January 16 and 17 concerts while at the Apollo Club concert of May 8, 1895 Margaret’s Boatman’s Hymn was heard. This piece had been first performed by the club in January 1893, and for this second appearance, Apthorp in the Transcript wrote: Miss Lang’s Boatman’s Hymn shows all the young composer’s habitual poetry of feeling and imaginative coloring; from a purely musical point of view, too, it shows itself as one of the best things she has done in this line.” (Scrapbook)
Not all critics were as favorable. Philip Hale in the Musical Courier of January 23, 1895 wrote- “I confess I am amazed at the daring of Mrs. Richard Blackmore Jr. who will give a song recital in a fortnight. She will sing songs by Bizet, Massenet, Cornelius, Mozart, Mascagni, and others; but, mirabile dictu, she announces no song by Miss Lang or Mr. Clayton Jones. You should live here to fully realize the courage of this singer.” (Scrapbook-review destroyed, but written in pen on the scrapbook page.) This attitude had been reflected earlier in the month by Hale’s review in the Journal of January 16, 1895 commenting on Lena Little’s performance of the Norman Songs, Opus 19. “Miss Lang’s songs seemed all of a familiar piece, with the exception of The Grief of Love, which has stuff in it. She is too fertile. She is young and art is long. Why be in such a hurry, even though singers and publishers knock at the door. Study and write, Miss Lang, for you have talent. But practice the Horatian maxim. You will find it in ”The Art of Poetry.” “However the reviewer in the Transcript wrote: “The group of songs by Miss Lang contain much that is charming, and are admirably effective for the singer; there are much vitality and poetry of sentiment in them too. Miss Lang is beginning to show more and more of distinct individuality in her writing, in spite of a sometimes treacherous memory which at moments leads her to make use of material not entirely her own. But she recasts it in her own mold, and the writing bears her stamp. Miss Little sang the songs capitally.”(Scrapbook) The Herald did not mention the Norman Songs by title, but did say that “the songs by Miss Lang seemed far more congenial to the conceptive intuitions of the artist, and were very creditably interpreted.” Miss Little’s performance was part of a series of concerts organized by Mr. Arthur Whiting. (Herald (January 16, 1895): 4, GB)
MISSING PIECES.
In 1893 Frances writes in her Diary: “Maidie is writing out a Fugue she has just composed.” (Diary 2, Summer 1893) At the “Ladies’ Musical Club” on Saturday, April 25, 1895, Mrs. Emma K. Von Seggern performed two pieces for violin, Andante and Allegro Moderato. (Scrapbook 1887-1906) Another missing piece is the song, She Is False that was presented at the Cambridge Art Conference, October 31, 1897. An article (c. 1895) in the Winchester Star (MA) mentioned that at a “Women Composers” program presented to the Fortnightly Club, “One of the best numbers of the programme was an unpublished Andante for violin and piano composed by Miss Margaret Ruthven Lang, daughter of Mr. B. J. Lang of Boston, and loaned to Mrs. Bryant in manuscript.” Possibly this is the same andante that was performed above. Margaret “completed a Mass, which was performed at least once at King’s Chapel under the direction of B. J. Lang in November 1898.” (Baer, 28 and 29)
IRISH LOVE SONG.
1895 saw the publishing of Margaret’s most successful song-Irish Love Song, Op. 22. The song was sung and recorded by the very best singers of its day. The first recording was in 1908 by Ernestine Schumann-Heink followed by Dan Beddoe a year later. Both Alma Gluck and Mary Garden recorded the song c. 1912 while Richard Crooks’ in 1924 was possibly his first record! An article in the Detroit News said: “These American ditties have a charm all their own when sung by Schumann-Heink, with her explosive Germanized dentals and her z-ified final s’s. It was droll, but pleasant still, to hear the German-American version of Margaret Lang’s Irish Love Song with ”Ma – foor – r -r- neen” trolling from the singer’s tongue.” (Scrapbook 1887-1907) “Musically, Lang’s Irish Love Song is set in the simple style of most popular songs. Though it has no refrain, it consists of three verses set strophically. It is quite short, 34 measures in total, but because it is strophic there are actually only 14 measures of music. The phrases are symmetrical and balanced, with essentially two four-bar melodic phrases. The range of the vocal line is essentially an octave. The accompaniment is simple and doubles the vocal line. As in most popular song, the melodic line stands out as the most important musical feature. It is, of course, a love song and, like the popular type, has an intense emotional content. A song of longing, the musical climaxes come at the end of each verse as the melody rises to the last statement of ‘Mavourneen,’ as in mm. 11-12 (‘Mavourneen’ is an Irish Gaelic word meaning ‘my darling’). The climactic drive is to the end of each phrase and ultimately the end of the song, thus emphasizing not only the longing of the thematic content but the heightened emotional state.” (Blunsom, 210) Cipolla noted that “the total U. S. press run for Margaret Ruthven Lang’s Irish Love Song was 120,835 copies, almost 20,000 copies more than for MacDowell’s best-loved song, The Beaming Eyes.”(Cipolla, 91)
Mrs. Crosby Adams reported in 1896 that Margaret found it difficult to work at home without interruption, so she rented a room near her home to use as a studio. It held a shelf full of rejected manuscripts. The Musical Courier reported that this room was at 90 Pinckney Street, just around the corner and three blocks away from the family home at 8 Brimmer Street. (Musical Courier, January 1895) During this time she also went to see various members of the BSO to discuss the capabilities of their instruments so that she might write better for them. The Musical Courier article of January 1895 had reported “Miss Lang spends the morning until one o’clock in work and study, having a studio where no one can interrupt her.” Frances noted: “Maidie has engaged a room at 90 Pinckney St. at $2.50 per week where she can work.” (Diary 2, Fall 1893)
In 1939, out of the blue Margaret received a letter from Irving Berlin Inc. “with regard to your renewal rights to your song.” The song listed was An Irish Mother’s Lullaby, not an Irish Love Song. The letter continues with copyright information in Europe and America, and then becomes rather self-righteous about how other publishers try to steal songs at the renewal point and how their company never does this. However, the next paragraph begins: “We are interested in acquiring your renewal copyright.” They do acknowledge the original publisher’s rights, but push for their company. “The prestige, character and reputation of our firm…are well known.” Margaret forwarded this letter to Schmidt who replied: “As the renewals on the various numbers become due we make the necessary entries at Washington in your name.” Margaret then forwarded the Schmidt letter to Irwing Berlin Inc. and nothing more was heard of the matter. This does speak to the continued popularity of even a less well-known song by Margaret, even just before 1940.
Below: 90 Pinckney Street.
January 29, 1896 saw a performance of the piano Rhapsody at the Rhode Island Women’s Club while on February 5th. at the Matinee Musicale of Indianapolis Indiana, Ghosts was sung by Miss Schrader, and the Maiden and the Butterfly was performed by four solo voices and piano. (Scrapbook) At the February 12, 1896 concert of the Cecilia, Mrs. Jeannie Crocker Follett performed the Irish Love Song, and at their April 29 and 30, 1896 concerts In a Garden was sung by Mrs. Alice Bates Rice. Margaret also served as a translator; at the March 19, 1896 concert of The Cecilia, The Shepherds Decked Him For the Dance (scene from Goethe’s Faust) by Moszkowski was presented as translated by Margaret. As part of the 25th. Anniversary Concert of the Apollo Club on May 6, 1896, Mrs. A. Sophia Marlee sang Betrayed. By 1896 Margaret’s songs were well enough known and thought of that Ghosts, first published in 1889, was included in the January 1896 issue of Godey’s Magazine, the monthly women’s publication. (Cook, 175) For the Third Concert of Miss Orvis’s “Five Concerts for Young People” presented in Chickering Hall on Saturday morning, December 1, 1896, B. J. played Margaret’s Petit Roman sur le Piano en Six Chapitres: also included was her Six Nonsense Rhymes. At the May 7, 1897 concert of The Cecilia Bonnie Run the Burnie Down was programmed. For the January 25 and 26, 1899 concerts of The Cecilia, Love Blumes His Wings for women’s voices and The King Is Dead were performed.
A MISSING SYMPHONY?
An article in the Globe of March 15, 1896 with the headline “Tuneful Minds” was an interview with Margaret Lang and Mrs. H. H. A. Beach. Lang was asked how she composed a piece. “Little songs and smaller compositions generally take definite and permanent shape in my mind before I touch my pencil. In greater works, I often find it necessary to deviate somewhat from my original idea when it comes to the actual scoring.” The reporter asked what part the piano had in composing. “I think very few composers work at the piano, and often the idea is as spontaneous as a smile or a sigh. I remember once when MacDowell was staying with us, he suddenly learned that it was the anniversary of my mother’s wedding day. He immediately turned to me and said: ‘Let us play them a triumphal march at dinner,’ and, seating himself at the desk, wrote out in about ten minutes a march that had all the fire, color, balance and poise of a work of art. We played it at dinner to the great delight of the family.” (Globe (March 15, 1896): 31) In the same article Lang was asked how often she changed a piece after hearing it, and in her answer reference is made to her SYMPHONY. “I have an absurd prejudice against working a composition over which I have once considered finished…After the Boston orchestra rehearsed my symphony for the first time, the conductor requested me to make a considerable cut in one of the movements. Very much against my wishes, I did so,” and after the concert one of the violinists in the orchestra told her that she should not have allowed the cut. “I knew how true this was, and if I had been a little older, I should have refused to submit to the cutting process, even if it meant the withdrawing of the symphony.” (Op. cit.) The first paragraphs of the article had all been about Margaret Lang, and the next paragraph after the quote cited above began with: “The reporter next called on Mrs. H. A. Beach,” and he asked the same general questions of Mrs. Beach as he had asked of Miss Lang. (Op. cit.) therefore, one would assume that the reporter got his notes confused, mingly some of his notes about Beach with those of Lang. Is there any other explanation? But, Beach’s Gaelic Symphony was not premiered until October of 1896, and this article was from March 1896 and so the story about allowing the cut and having an orchestra player mention it after the concert can not apply. Lang’s Dramatic Overture had been premiered by the BSO on April 7, 1893, Nikisch conducting, but I know of no references to that work having been cut. Also, she mentioned “symphony” twice and also said “one of the movements.” therefore, it would not seem that the work being spoken about was not the Dramatic Overture. We are left with a mystery!
THREE CONCERT ARIAS.
Sappho’s Prayer to Aphrodite: Three concert arias were composed in the mid-1890s. The first, Sappho’s Prayer to Aphrodite for contralto was performed in New York on October 24, 1895 at a concert by the Manuscript Society at Chickering Hall on October 24, 1895. Miss Zora G. Horlocker was the soloist and Adolph Neuendorff the conductor of an orchestra of fifty men. The Herald began: “Miss Zora G. Horlocker, who is gifted with a rich alto voice sang “Margaret’s composition. “The orchestra overpowered the singer. The composition was uninteresting.” However, the review had begun with “several [works] deserving of high praise, none of them without merit.” (Herald (October 25, 1895); 7, GB) A review by Reginald de Koven said “ It was a pity that Miss Lang wrote her song ‘Sappho’ for a contralto voice and scored it for a soprano, for on this account it was ineffective.” The review continued that the soloist was “submerged in the orchestra wave. And yet the song is written in a musicianly way, and has color and both poetic and dramatic feelings.” The New York Times review of October 25, 1895 commended her, and suggested that she fell short as she used Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation rather than John Addington Symonds, “and even that falls far short of the original, which’s simply majestic.” The review ended by saying that the piece was badly sung! it would seem that the piano reduction was destroyed along with the orchestral parts! (Scrapbook) Soon after, on January 29, 1896, it was sung by Mrs. H. E. Sawyer at a concert at 265 Beacon Street where the accompanist was Arthur Foote; it would seem that the piano reduction was also destroyed along with the full score and parts. A Musical Courier article of January 1895 said that this piece had been written for Lena Little who had done earlier songs by Margaret [i.e. Norman Songs] (Scrapbook). She sang the piece at the “Concert in Aid of the Free Hospital for Women” on March 26th. at 104 Beacon Street.
Armida: The BSO performed the second aria, Armida for soprano on January 13, 1896 with Gertrude Franklin as the soloist and Emil Paur conducting. Elson felt that this was “made from aversion that deals rather too freely with Tasso. The setting is by no means as dramatic as its poetic subject, and the composer seems to have missed the majestic power of the great death-scene.” Margaret also wrote a third aria for baritone which was entitled Phoebus’ Denunciation of the Furies At His Delphian Shrine.
Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archive.
Also on the program were:
Tchaikovsky-Symphony #6
Bruch-Fantasia on Scotch folk-melodies, for Violin, Opus 46
Berlioz-Corsair Overture, Opus 21 (to end the concert)
The order of the concert was: Tchaikovsky, Bruch, Lang, and Berlioz. This was the first time for Lang and Berlioz. Margaret’s composition was listed as Opus 24 and called a Concert Aria. Miss Franklin had an ad in the program book as a soprano soloist and vocal instructor at 149A Tremont Street. Miss Franklin seems to have been a favorite BSO soloist, appearing eight times during the first fifteen seasons – she sang under Henschel, Gericke, Nikisch and Paur. The previous December Frances had written in her Diary: “Maidie has shortened her Armida aria, which Miss Franklin will sing in January.” (Diary 2, Fall 1895)
The review in the Gazette said: “Miss Lang’s concert aria is, in a sense, creditable to the young composer; it is scored with taste and knowledge. There is no trace of the old masters in the work, which is modern in idea and treatment, and hints that Miss Lang is an earnest and enthusiastic student of Wagner. She has entirely misunderstood the portion of the poem she set to music, and no skill in orchestration will hide the paucity of ideas. The cleverness is misplaced, and it is a pity that so much good work should be wasted on a subject in which there is not a trace of imagination or any of the qualities that go to the making of an enduring work of art. Miss Lang is clever, but it is impossible for even genius to say anything when it has nothing to say.” (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
The Journal review by Philip Hale said: “The chief trouble with Miss Lang’s concert aria is that while it deals with a dramatic subject, the thing itself is undramatic. Even in the orchestral accompaniment, which recalls the remark of Saint-Saens that when women write for orchestra they wish to prove their masculine mind by being noisier then men, there is no genuine dramatic feeling or accentuation of the text. There is neither a pivotal point nor a climax. Miss Lang took her verses from Tasso, but it seems, that poor Whiffen’s English translation was at times too ‘anti-musical.’ Miss Lang substituted then her own prose, and the singer was obliged last evening to declaim such intensely musical phrases as ‘persecution’s thrall’ and ‘great Chieftain.’ Inasmuch as this aria is without a point, without climax, without dramatic declamation, without appealing melody, I wonder at the causes that led Mr. Paur to welcome it to a Symphony concert in the Music hall. Miss Franklin displayed the purity of her voice and art; in other words, she made as much out of the aria as was in all possible. The audience appreciated her earnestness and her art and she was loudly applauded.” (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
The review in the Standard said: “Miss Franklin gave Miss Lang’s concert aria, and did the best she could with it. She was in excellent voice, but the orchestration was so vigorous that it at times destroyed the effect of what would otherwise have been a very enjoyable number. It cannot be said that the aria was musically strong. Miss Franklin’s efforts were rewarded with liberal applause, and she was twice recalled. ” (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
Another review took a more positive view: “Miss Lang’s new aria is a work to be considered very seriously. Without being in the least French in feeling, it is very much in the contemporary French dramatic style-a style in which, if the truth be told, we personally are just beginning to find our bearings. It seemed to us that, in her setting of this excerpt from Tasso’s ‘Gerusalemme liberata,’ Miss Lang had struck a very true note of dramatic musical expression; more so perhaps in the arioso portions than in the passages of recitative. Much of the melodic writing is very broad and noble, and the whole treatment of the orchestra admirable; it shows that Miss Lang appreciates well what the true gist of “modern orchestration” is, and that it means something far finer and more subtle than the mere massing together of numerous instruments. Miss Franklin sang the aria with devotion and sincerity; it seemed to us that the composition was conceived for a heavier voice and a larger, more heroic style of singing. But it is ill quarreling with an artist’s physique; let it be enough to say that Miss Franklin sang like an artist.” (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
Louis C. Elson in the Advertiser said: “Miss Lang’s new concert aria is by no means great enough for its subject, in spite of an easy leading of the parts, a fluency of orchestration. There is a lack of dramatic power in the work, certainly an absence of what sustained breadth which one might demand in a great aria. There were impressive moments but not an impressive whole. The beginning was striking enough and the monotony of sorrow which followed was at least permissible; there was a degree of melody at “Ask me no more” which was enhanced by the skill displayed in the imitations of the vocal part upon the violoncello, and there was enough of dissonance to satisfy the musical radicals; but sustained dramatic power there was not, and the great scene from Torquato Tasso’s ‘Jerusalem Delivered’ demands as mighty treatment as the abandonment of Dido (which it in some degree resembles) and the burning of the palace and the rushing to death in combat cannot be portrayed even by the most respectable music, for true dramatic instinct is here imperative. Of the queer alterations in the words, the contrast of earnest poetry and prose sentimentality we prefer not to speak. It must be added that Miss Lang’s work was placed in a position that would try any composer; it came after the most expressive and dramatic symphony of the modern repertoire and a most warlike and heroic fantasie, and it was followed by a very fiery overture. It is quite possible that heard with less trying surroundings, the work would make a more favorable impression.” (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
The Herald reviewer wrote: “The concert aria by Miss Lang is the most ambitious effort that the composer has placed before the public. While the composition is not without force and vigor, it is musically uninteresting and unimpressive by reason of the absence of any discoverable central point on which the whole should pivot. It is mainly florid recitative, interrupted once or twice by a brief moment of forced melody, but it all leads to nowhere in particular, and wanders about wildly and vaguely. It is carefully made, and the instrumentation is clever and effective in its way, but, as a rule, it is overheavy for the voice and frequently obliterates it by solid masses of tone that it piles up against it, especially, and, curiously enough, when the vocal part is written in the weaker of the middle register. Miss Lang will do better when she has outgrown the familiar propensity of the young musician to give way to the temptation of overloading a score. ” (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives) This was possibly written by Benjamin Woolf.
Another reviewer took the position that “The Armida aria, by Margaret Ruthven Lang, is not likely to become very popular. The scoring is rather elaborate, and in certain portions is dramatically effective, but there is much monotonous repetition on heavy, colorless themes.”
The reviewer of the Globe said: “The ‘eterna femina’ is so rare in her incursions upon the realms of music that a warm welcome was all in readiness for Margaret Ruthven Lang, whose new Armida aria was sung by Miss Gertrude Franklin. The orchestration is clean-cut, and once or twice rises to real dramatic force. Such ability as she certainly has will someday bear fruit of rarer sort. Miss Franklin did all that was possible with the aria, and almost raised its dry recitative to the point of interest.” (Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives)
However, Thomas Ryan in a letter to the Transcript printed January 13, 1896 wrote: “I think that every good musician who heard the concert aria entitled Armida by Miss Lang, at the last Symphony Concert, will agree with me that she has by that composition done the extraordinary. I can find no other word but that to fit the act. When listening to it last Friday afternoon, I had no programme. I did not know the words. I simply listened to the music, and it was my first hearing of any composition by the young lady, though I had often heard of her ability. I was delighted with the music from the beginning to the end. Its noble introduction and recitative was so elevated in style and character-and the cantabile part, from about the middle of the piece to the end, so perfectly beautiful and melodious-that I must confess to being deeply affected by it. I could not help saying to myself:‘Just listen to that lovely, warm melody-that perfect-sounding orchestration-it is quite astonishing.’ I deem it a pleasure as well as a duty to encourage the composer by public praise. And certainly, gallantry will help me to do homage to the ‘coming woman’ of genuine musical talent, our Boston girl, Miss Margaret Ruthven Lang.” (Scrapbook)
Phoebus’ Denunciation of the Furies at His Delphian Shrine for baritone was the third concert aria. No information has been found about this piece.
CHAMINADE OF AMERICA.
An article in a paper from Philadelphia dated December 26, 1897 began by calling Margaret “The Chaminade of America,” and described her as “an attractive and educated young woman [who] has already attained a position which puts her among the four leading women composers of the time, they being Holmes and Chaminade of Paris, Mrs. Beach and Miss Lang of Boston…In appearance Miss Lang is slight and rather under medium height, but bears a very intelligent forehead, well rounded by thought, and her eye discloses a dream of imagination which reflects the gentle tenderness with which she treats the greater number of her compositions. She is at present engaged in the preparation of several important works, the performance of which in the near future will gain her much additional and well-deserved fame.” (Scrapbook 1887-1906)
PERFORMANCES c. 1899.
Performances around the end of the century included Mrs. Stella Hadde-Alexander playing the Rhapsody on Wednesday, January 4, 1899 at the Transportation Club (of NYC?) On Wednesday, November 20, 1901, during the 12th. season of the “National Arts Club” (of Washington, DC?) the tenor Mr. Hobart Smock sang Orpheus. During the spring of 1903 Mavourneen and The Garden of Roses were sung by the soprano Mrs. Wardwell at the Carnegie Chamber Music Hall; while on Monday, March 28, 1904 at the Siegel-Cooper Auditorium the Irish Love Song was sung by the baritone Mr. John Perry Boruff.
In 1899 Ryan stated that Margaret had “attained a position which places her among the four foremost female composers of the world, the other three being Chaminade and Holmes of Paris and Mrs. Beach of Boston.” (Ryan, 86) Her orchestral Ballade in D minor, Opus 36 won much success at its premiere in the concert entitled “Women in Music Grand Concert” given by the Baltimore Symphony March 14, 1901. (New Grove, 2001)
Frances wrote: “Maidie has shown me a piano composition she has just finished which I like very much.” (Diary 2, Summer 1900) Possibly this was the Rhapsody in E minor that Miss Alice Coleman performed at Chickering Hall on February 19, 1901. On Easter Eve and Easter Day services at the Church of the Advent, the Te Deum in E flat major was sung. Frances proudly noted in her Diary: “Maidie’s Te Deum is to be sung at the Advent tomorrow.” (Diary 2, Spring 1901) November 20, 1901 saw the performance of Orpheus sung by Mr. Hobart Smock at the first meeting of the 12th. Season (1901-1902) of the Manuscript Society of New York, which was held at the National Arts Club. A singing teacher presented a recital where seven of her pupils each sang a different Lang song after an introductory “paper on the life and compositions of Margaret Ruthven Lang, the sweet songwriter” was presented by the teacher. Well-known songs were mixed with less well-known: Arcadie, I Knew the Flowers That Dreamed of You, Out of the Past, Hills O’Skye, Irish Love song, Northward Bound and A Thought were performed. (Times of Richmond, Virginia (December 16, 1902): 4, GB)
Frances makes note of a very interesting bit of history concerning concert performances. The question is if this concert included material by Margaret. “Maidie and Lel have gone to Buffalo…Letter from Maidie in Buffalo says that there were 3000 in the audience at the concert.” (Diary 2, Summer 1901) But, certainly Margaret’s pieces must have been included; why would both father and daughter have made the trip? Now, what was the occasion, and what were the compositions?
“Mrs. S. B. Field had a large and representative audience at the first of her three musicales, which she gave on Monday morning in the ballroom of the Somerset…Miss Alice Robbins Cole, contralto, was in splendid voice and looked charming in a white silk bodice, done in black velvet ribbons, and wore a large picture hat.” The article continued with a nineteen line list of important people who attended which included the wife of the BSO conductor, Mrs. Wilhelm Gericke, and “Mrs. B. J. Lang and her daughter Miss Rosamond Lang (whose sister, Miss Margaret Ruthven Lang, by the way, was among the composers represented on the program in Miss Cole’s list of songs).” (Boston Journal (March 8, 1903): 7, GB) Where was Margaret herself?
Margaret’s main publisher, Arthur Schmidt, publisher of a house magazine called the Musical World. This was monthly that included articles, reviews and usually five pieces of music, each for a different type of performer. The vocal solo composition for the August 1903 issue was An Irish Mother’s Lullaby which had just been published in 1900.
An article in the Saturday, January 16, 1904 issue of the Boston Evening News” entitled “ Boston’s Women Composers Take High Rank” began “Hers is a striking individuality and soon after talking with her one decides that Miss Lang is not quite like anyone else that one has ever met before. She has an original way of expressing herself, she is frank, sincere, yet very reserved, and {yet} there is a broad undercurrent of sympathy which makes one feel that she divines your intentions and thought.” The interviewer then asked her opinion of the state of music-“Music is decidedly on the wing in America. At the theaters, the best music is beginning to be appreciated.” Margaret then mentioned her dog “Mr. Dooley” whom she had trained to play the piano. “At dinner every night when the finger-bowls are brought on the table, ‘Mr. Dooley’ runs to the piano in the library or up to the music room and plays, then runs back again for his reward-a cracker. If I had space I would like to own sixty dogs…Cats I do not care so much for.”
“Bowler,” a beloved pet, painted c. 1895 by Margaret’s “very dear and close friend Catherine A. Codman, a well known artist. Photo by Justin Reinking. Bowler was still alive when this was painted in 1895, and there are several brief entries about him in the excerpts done by Rosamond Lang Galacar (MRL’s younger sister) from their mother Frances Morse Burrage Lang’s diaries. These excerpts include much fascinating family history including a few anecdotes about Bowler. Bowler’s eyes follow you when you walk past the picture.” Collection of Fletcher DuBois.
FRANCES’ STAND. “OPPOSING ELECTROCUTION.”
The Massachusetts Anti-Capital Punishment League had submitted petitions in opposition to death by the electric chair in previous years to the legislature, and this was done again in 1904. Frances signed the petition that year and her name joined those of two ex-Governors, many judges, many clergy, and many prominent people. This was but one of many events/causes that she supported. (Herald (January 19, 1904): 11)
BRIMMER STREET HOUSE DESCRIBED.
One article described the house: “The rows upon rows of books in the library were chiefly titled about music. There were pictures of Beethoven and other great musicians, hung about. Upstairs in the music room is a piano which belonged to Mendelssohn, which to Miss Lang of course is invaluable.” The section on Margaret ended with-“I am sorry not to tell you a great deal about myself. I like to read about others, but when it comes to me I get selfish and become a pig or a turtle though I do not want to appear picknickity, odd, or eccentric.” A later (1911) description of the house mentioned that “the reception room on the ground floor is a cozy study, lined with books. The bound volumes of the Century and of the Symphony programs crowding a heterogeneous mass of great music masters. Portraits of Mr. Lang abound on the walls and one of Lincoln reminds those who knew of the musician’s love for a great man. Open on the piano are Granville Bantock’s Jester songs and the score of the Girl of the Golden West. These things are a reminder of how this house with its story of musical Boston during its splendid period of progress, written in a hundred ways-in photographs, letters, records, collected programs and heaped piles of music-is yet a radiating center for the most modern thinking in music. No home in this country has more associations with the best and most honored and honorable past of music, with artists whose very name epitomizes all there is of the most conservative, most of an ancient regime, composition that stands on the white heights of classic art and faithful adherence everywhere to noble models; and yet no home in the world today speaks more for the progress or gives, in its mental outlook, on fresher woods and newer pastures for composer and artist alike.” (Christian Science Monitor ( March 25, 1911): 3). At the bottom of the article is a photo of the summer home in New Boston showing the house and the music shed by the river. A third article mentions: “In the little reception-room where ‘Bowler’ [Margaret’s dog] growls a salutation…the master greets you. How many great ones have been welcomed! Memorials of them cover its walls…Upstairs the grand piano is, of course, the special feature of the connecting drawing-rooms, though there are pianos all over the place almost, except in the billiard-room in the upper story. Here the pleasant Sunday afternoons [Open Houses] are held, where so informally and delightfully such good music is interspersed with such good talk.” (Gould Archival Book, HMA)
MARGARET CONTACTS HER PUBLISHER ABOUT HER ROYALTIES.
Margaret was of course aware of her success and all these performances. She “diligently tracked the public consumption of her songs, gathering data with which she could measure their commercial successes, as revealed in a letter to Schmidt of March 16, 1905:
I have been feeling considerable wonder this winter, concerning the irregularity of my songs which-to judge by programmes of private & public performances-must have had moderate success. For instance-Tryste Noel which has been sung considerably in church and in recitals-has apparently retired-having brought no returns since Feb. ’03, & since its publication in 1902-only on 290 copies. Of the set of four songs op. 40-published in the late winter of 1904-a year ago, three of which have had considerable use in public performance-there have been no returns on any of these at any time since their publication, except on Day is Gone which brought returns immediately (in May ’04) on 215 copies-but nothing since then; & yet it has been sung in various places of the U.S. Whereas the Song of the Lilac op. 41 (which has only just appeared) & has been sung less often in public, is more difficult & less pleasing, has brought already returns on twice as many copies, in a fourth less time. Perhaps these facts have surprised you as they have me; or can you account for it? I am especially struck by the comparison between the Song of the Lilac (new) & the comparatively popular Tryste Noel & Day is Gone.” (Copy of the letter provided by Fletcher DuBois.)
The situation eventually improved. Two royalty statements exist for 1924 and 1915 concerning the same song and the same edition. The song was the Medium Edition of An Irish Love Song which had sold 1,777 copies for the year ending 12/20/ 1924 paying her $88.85 at the standard rate of five cents per copy. A year later she received a statement dated 12/21/1925 for the same song, same edition reporting 1,015 copies sold during those twelve months creating a royalty of $50.75. In today’s money (2020) the first payment would be worth $1,352.95 and the second, $755.13. This was for one edition of one song-the popular songs were done in “high,” “medium,” and “low, and at this point, Margaret was receiving royalties on c. 130 songs-plus the choral works and piano works. Someone at her publisher, Arthur P. Schmidt recorded sales over a twenty-year period of a song that sold well-Tryste Noel. The “low” edition had sold 7134 copies, the “medium” 5567, and the “high” 7133, for a total of 19,834 copies. At the rate of five cents, her total royalty was $991.17 or $15,092.91 in 2020. Not a huge amount, but these were art songs, not popular ballads. They were sung by the important artists of the time: Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Alma Gluck, Mary Garden, Dan Beddoe, Richard Crooks and many others known well enough to have Victor, Columbia or Edison record them. In all, 20 recordings were made between 1907 and 1924, 19 out of 20 being of the Irish Love Song. (DAHR List-see Discography) Other royalty fees are listed in Addendum Two.
MORE MRL SONG PERFORMANCES.
Another All-Lang recital was given on April 28, 1904 at the home of Mrs. Josiah Millet’s at 150 Charles Street, Boston for which Margaret served as the accompanist.
The Hills o’ Skye, An Irish Mother’s Lullaby, The Sea Sobs Low (Ms.), The Dead Ship Miss Lucie Tucker
The Bird, Song in the Songless, Arcadie, Day is Gone Mrs. Alice Bates Rice
Tryste Noel, Summer Noon, Chinese Song, A Thought Miss Tucker
Somewhere, A Song of May, The Lilac (Ms.), Love is Everywhere Mrs. Rice
Mrs. Bertha Cushing Child and Miss Edith Chapman gave another all-Lang recital on August 26, 1905 at “The Ark.”
A note to Margaret dated February 26, 1906 from Philip Hale shows a different attitude from that which he had expressed in his January 23, 1895 Musical Courier column.
Dear Miss Lang,
I was very sorry not to hear your songs, but Monday and Tuesday are disgustingly busy days with me. I hear that the songs were beautiful and original and the Nonsense Songs very clever; that Miss Chapman – whom I have never heard – sang well. I should like to have been able to congratulate you personally.
Yours very truly,
Philip Hale
This refers to a concert given at Mr. Lang’s Studio, 6 Newbury Street on February 26, 1906 by Miss Edith Chapman. The program was:
The Bird, Song in the Songless, Day is Gone, The Lilac, Somewhere, Poplar Leaves – (ms.), A Thought Song of the Spanish Gypsies – (ms.).
Intermission.____Lear Nonsense Songs: The Man Who Said “well,” The Young Lady of Lucca, The Lady of Parma – (ms.), The Person of Cassel,
The Young Lady in White – (ms.), The Bee, The Man Who Said “Hush!” The Man With a Gong, The Lady of Riga – (Anon) (Scrapbook)
At the February 22, 1906 meeting of the Rossini Club of Portland Maine, Mrs. Morong sang Seven Nonsense Songs while at their March 15th. meeting/concert Miss Johnston sang The Hills O’ Skye. The April 2nd. and 10th. concerts by the Wellesley Hills Glee Club included Margaret’s cantata The Lonely Rose with Miss Sanborn as the soloist. April 1906 also saw Mabel L. Hastings including Lang material in her recital in Florence, Italy to benefit “Missione Medica”-the accompanist was Alberto Bimboni. May 1st. saw Mrs. Mary Montgomery Brackett include Poplar Leaves (ms.) at her 18 Saint Botolph Street studio recital-the singer sent Margaret a note saying that several people said it was “the gem of the program.” (Scrapbook)
The February ? 1907 issue of the Musical Courier reported that Margaret was suffering from a serious illness. The same column mentioned that Malcolm was to play on February at his studio a concert including Debussy’s Prelude in A-L’ Apres midi d’un Faune arranged for piano by Margaret. He also included this piece in his Concord Lyceum concert on December 18, 1907. This interest in French music reflects that of her father. At the Waltham Woman’s Club Music Lecture-Recital on March 8, 1907 her Meditation, Opus 26 was performed, and on April 7th the Vesper Service at the Church of the New Jerusalem on Bowdoin Street opened with Praise the Lord O My Soul, called an Antiphonal Anthem for Male Quartette and Chorus-a work that had just been published in 1905. [Was it published?]
Elson (1909), 296, and as late as in a newspaper in 1911.
The year 1908 included a number of different Lang performances. On January 13th. The Concord Woman’s Club presented Mrs. Edith Chapman Gould, accompanied by B. J. in a program, which ended with nine Nonsense Songs-the words for all nine were printed in the program. B. J. also included his own Spinning Song between two Chopin pieces, the Nocturne in C minor and the Scherzo in D flat major. The Tuesday Club concert on January 21st. was all-Lang- songs and piano pieces. On February 19th. Stephen Townsend included The Sea Sobs Low and Spring in his recital at Steinert Hall-this first song, also performed from manuscript in 1904, may not have ever been published. On March 8th. The Thursday Morning Musical Club sang at their Scholarship Concert in Jordan Hall NEC The Lonely Rose, Opus 43. The soprano soloist was Mrs. Marguerite Dietrick Quincy, and a note in the program said that this piece had been written for the club. The Cecilia performed Love Plumes His Wings, Opus 15 for women’s voices on March 31st., and a note in the program mentioned that this piece had been first published in 1892. John Philip Sousa’s sixty-five piece band included Irish Love Song, soloist Miss Lucy Allen, in their October 9th. concert “Devoted to Boston Composers.” Miss Katharine Foote [Arthur Foote’s daughter] sang The Bird at Chickering Hall on November 17, accompanied by Alfred DeVoto. (Scrapbook) Alfred DeVoto was also the accompanist for Mary Desmond “The English Contralto” who included My Turtle Dove and Summer Noon at her Steinert Hall recital. The year ended with a December 7, 1908 letter from the Manager of the “Bijou Dream” [a theater] which told Margaret that three of her Nonsense Songs would be sung on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons of that week. There was a Person of Filey, The Old Man in the Kettle, and The Old Man Who Said ”well” were sung three times each afternoon at c. 2:45, 4:10, and 5:20. Margaret had loaned three slides for use during the songs. (Scrapbook)
In 1908 Arthur Elson, son of the critic Louis Elson, was to write that Margaret was “another of Boston’s gifted musical women…Miss Lang has published a number of successful part-songs for men’s, women’s, and mixed voices…her piano music is also excellent.”He then goes on to ask: “Who is the greatest woman composer? It is hard to say, for not all have worked in the same direction. In our country, Mrs. Beach holds the foremost position at present, with Miss Lang a good second.” (Elson, A., 202 and 239) A short filler piece had appeared late in 1905 in such varied papers as the Evening Post of Charleston, SC and the Tampa Tribune of Tampa, Florida. “Malcolm Burrage Lang, who wrote the new Harvard song, has a sister, Margaret Ruthven Lang, who is one of the two foremost women composers of the United States today. Her Dramatic Overture [sic] has been played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Thomas Orchestra.” (Evening Post (December 15, 1908): 7, GB)
Late in March of 1908, Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Goodrich of “Carvel Court” presented a concert that included pieces by 27(!) women composers. Mr. Goodrich was the pianist and he also gave short introductions to each piece. Margaret’s Rhapsody was included in the program. “The guests were highly pleased by this novel recital.” (The Musical Courier, March 28, 18)
In 1909 she joined St. Cecilia and seven other women composers who were
well known at that time, on the cover of Etude magazine. With its national distribution, Etude was THE music magazine of its time. There were 20 different articles in this issue, none about any of the specific composers pictured on the cover. Instead, the titles covered general topics (except for an interview of Edward Grieg on Liszt’s piano playing!). In fact, looking at these general titles, I would suspect that you would not find any of the composers pictured mentioned at all, or, at least, in any depth.
The February 17, 1909 concert of the Apollo Club, then conducted by Emil Mollenhauer, included some of her Nonsense Songs that inspired the Treasurer of the choir, Thomas H. Hall to compose a special invitation to Margaret to attend this concert:
“Two Apollo men jogging along, After singing The Man With a Gong, Said ‘Miss Lang must hear us, For she surely will cheer us,’ And they hoped she would be in the throng.”
He finished his note by saying “for I know you will laugh and laugh and laugh again.”(Scrapbook) At this concert, there were forty-three tenors and thirty-six basses with only one original member left, George C. Wiswell. In another Lang gesture, the concert ended with a piece that B. J. had programmed so often, the Double Chorus from Mendelssohn’s Antigone.
The Harvard Glee Club sang The Old Man In a Tree and The Old Person from Ware at their December 2, 1910 concert.
On January 23, 1911 The Cecilia Society included The Wild Brier for women’s voices. At that time Max Fiedler was the conductor and Malcolm Lang the assistant conductor. The January 24, 1911 review in the Transcript said: “The old finess, the old transparency, the old delicate variations of volume and emphasis-the old beauty and the old suggestion in short-returned in the singing of Miss Lang’s little piece. The voices were as luminous or as shadowed as the music.”(Scrapbook) The group repeated this piece on March 18, 1915 at Jordan Hall with Arthur Mees as the conductor. The Transcript and Herald reviews were generally negative about the choir’s performance standards. The Transcript review said that there was “No clear definition of the colorful harmony and polyphony of Miss Lang’s Wild Brier.” (Scrapbook) The group performed the piece again on January 13, 1916. The year 1914 saw two groups performing the work: on February 25, 1914 the MacDowell Club sang the work with Malcolm Lang as accompanist, and two days later the Musical Art Club conducted by Arthur Shepard performed the piece at a concert at the Copley Plaza Hotel. (Scrapbook)
The Cecilia Society’s retirement gift to B. J. Lang had been a concert of Pierne’s Children’s Crusade to benefit the Industrial School for Crippled and Deformed Children on St. Botolph Street. Margaret had a similar interest. In February 1911 she wrote a letter to the Editor of the Herald in which she suggested that subscribers to the Boston Opera who were not going to use their tickets for the upcoming [Humperdink] Hansel and Gretel matinee should donate them to the School. She felt that the children would receive “great pleasure” from attending. (Herald (February 14, 1911): 6, GB) Another interest of Margaret’s was the National League of Women Workers. She was among ten women who sold tickets for a home concert in April 1915 to benefit the League. The performers were “Miss Nina Fletcher, violinist, and Miss Leila Holterhoff, the blind singer, lately returned from 10 years’ study in Europe.” (Herald (April 11, 1915): 28, GB) The family had known Edward MacDowell and his wife since their return from Europe in the late 1880s, and so it was natural that Margaret and other members of the family should be members of the Boston MacDowell Club. An article in January 1932 announcing the next concert by the group listed “many prominent members of the club.” (Herald (January 3, 1932): 42, GB) Included were Margaret, Mrs. Malcolm Lang, and listed among the officers was Miss Helen M. Ranney, Malcolm’s wife’s sister (?)
In November 1911 the Boston Chapter of the DAR gave a reception and musicale honoring four Boston women composers: Margaret, Mabel Daniels, Florence Spaulding and Grace Conant. “The composers were invited to play the accompaniments for their own songs,” but no vocal soloists were named. “A sketch on ‘The Progress of Music in New England’ by Miss Alice Warren Pope, was a feature.” (Journal (November 9, 1911): 7, GB)
Photo from an article in Music of March 9, 1912 by C. M. Hoover. Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books.
Early in 1912 the Musical Art Club MCMXII included as part of their Fourth Season Song in the Songless, Day is Gone, A Song of the Lilac, and Snowflakes (ms.) in their January 4th. concert at Steinert Hall-Margaret accompanied Mrs. Laura Comstock Littlefield. Then on March 28, 1912 the Steinert Hall song recital by Mrs. Littlefield (accompanist-Arthur Shepherd) included Day is Gone which prompted Philip Hale to report that the “Simpler songs were better done…She sang, for example, the songs of Mrs. Beach and Miss Lang with appropriate sentiment, and so effectively that the audience redemanded Day is Gone.” However, Hale’s first paragraph was a critique of her technique-his last paragraph a critique of her French songs. And, his final line was: “The audience applauded heartily.” (Scrapbook) Day is Gone became Margaret’s second best seller at 14,660 copies printed. (Cipolla 3/5/09 e-mail) The Chicago Mendelssohn Club opened the second half of their April 25, 1912 concert with Alastair MacAlastair. The next season they included three Nonsense Songs-The Old Person of Ware, The Old Man With a Gong, and The Young Lady of Parma at their December 11, 1913 concert. This choir of 62 singers was well balanced [at least on paper] with eighteen singers for each of the four parts-TTBB. 1913 also saw “The Greatest Italian Lyric Tenor” Signor Bonci include Day is Gone in his Symphony Hall concert on March 2nd. Another Italian performance was that given by Madame Linda Giorni who included Three Ships in her concert in aid of the Victoria Orphanage in Rome-Mr. Aurelio Giorni [husband?] was the accompanist. On November 27, 1911 Margaret was the “Guest of Honor” at the Manuscript Society of New York concert where the final two sections featured her songs. She accompanied soprano Edith Watkins Griswold in Song of [in] the Songless, Day is Gone, A Song of the Lilac, and contralto Adah Hussey in A Garden is a Lonesome Thing (ms.), Summer Noon, A Song of the Spanish Gypsies (ms.), An Even Psalm, and Spring. (Copy of program) The Daily Mail review of November 28, 1911 was very complimentary.
On May 2, 1913, The New York Manuscript Society presented a concert entirely of women composers at the National Arts Club. While this event, which “offered musical recognition to American composers” was being presented, the Suffragists were presenting a pageant at the Metropolitan Opera House. Four of Margaret’s songs were sung “with much expression” by the Armenian-American soprano, A. Angel Chopourian. “Snowflakes was a favorite in this group.” (Musical America (May 10, 1913): 32)
HARVARD MUSICAL ASSOCIATION HOUSE WARMING.
In 1913 the HMA received a bequest of $75,000 from the will of Julia M. Marsh. Her husband’s business partner, Eben Jordan, was a HMA member and Julia was probably a piano student of HMA member, B. J. Lang. This seems to be the connection that prompted the original gift of the house in 1892. This bequest required that the Association would “display and maintain her paintings and objects d’art and make her two pianos available to musicians for practicing.” (Program of the 2003 Concert) To celebrate the completion of the 1913 renovations, a “House Warming” was presented on Christmas Eve, 1913. Margaret’s The Night of the Star was part of the program, and ninety years later the HMA recreated that event on Friday, December 5, 2003. The Serbisches Liederspiel, Opus 32 by Georg Henschel was added to the original program, and Margaret’s piece was again performed as it had been in 1913. (Ibid) Paintings of Charles Marsh (painted by Herbert Herkomer who had also painted B. J.’s portrait) and Julia Marsh (painted by Benoni Irwin) watch over the Association’s activities. (Ibid)
Wind Opus 53 for double chorus of women’s voices with a text by John Galsworthy was commissioned and performed by the St. Cecilia Club of New York in 1914 and 1915 at the New York Philharmonic concerts (Musical America, Aug. 2, 1919). On April 27, 1915 Mrs. Rice gave a recital at her studio at 6 Newbury Street [where B. J. had his last teaching studio] devoted solely to Margaret’s songs with Margaret as the accompanist.The program included:
Somewhere, A Song of the Lilac, April Winter, Into My heart (ms.), The Bird–———-Song in the Songless, Candlemas, Poplar Leaves (ms.),
There Would I Be, Snowflakes, Chimes (ms.) (Scrapbook)
The Impromptu Club gave another all-Lang concert on January 19, 1916. Margaret conducted the chorus and accompanied. Singers throughout the country were performing her songs-the Irish Mother’s Lullaby was sung in Charles City, Iowa, while the Irish Love Song appeared in Aldie, Virginia, and Day Is Gone was programmed in Los Angeles.
Early in the 1900s Musical America ran a series of short biographies called “Contemporary American Musicians,” one in each issue. By 1919 the series had reached Number 77 which was “Margaret Ruthven Lang.” After her early years and education were covered, the article spent most of its space listing the titles of the instrumental works and the two late choral works which had been performed in New York by the St. Cecilia Club in 1914 and 1915, and at the New York Philharmonic.[?] Also listed were the fact that “She is a composing member of the New York Manuscript Society, an Honorary Member of the Musical Art Club of Boston, and Honorary Vice-President of the American Music Society. (Musical America, 1919) A certain New York perspective seems to be present.
THE HEAVENLY NOEL.
The Heavenly Noel (1916) Opus 57 with words by Richard Lawson Gales was performed by the Choral Music Society of Boston in 1917; this was a work for mezzo-soprano, women’s chorus, organ, piano, harp, and string quartet. The Thursday Morning Musicale gave another performance on February 15, 1917 with Margaret at the piano- In Praesepio and the Cradle Song of the War (Mrs. Frederick Foote, soloist) were also included. The Heavenly Noel was also sung by the MacDowell Club on March 7, 1917 by a chorus of thirteen with Margaret at the piano and acting as conductor; In the Manger was also on this program. Pittsburgh heard The Heavenly Noel on January 29, 1919 sung by the Tuesday Musical Club. The conductor, Charles Boyd, sent Margaret a copy of the program and a note saying: “So well received that we shall probably repeat it later this season.” The repeat was performed on January 27, 1920 with a note in that program: “Repeated by general desire of the Choral.” (Scrapbook) The Heavenly Noel was part of a concert given by the MacDowell Club of Boston at Jordan Hall on January 28, 1920. Margaret was the pianist, Malcolm played the organ, and Mrs. M. N. Foote was the alto soloist. (Herald (January 18, 1920): 34, GB)
“A formal portrait done by Bachrach Studios. [1920] This has been in our home at least since the early seventies, and it still has a very old frame.” Fletcher DuBois Collection. Original of the image above.
1921 saw a January 26th. performance of The Wild-brier by the MacDowell Club. This work and Song of the Three Sisters has been described as “a pair of settings for women’s voices on poems of John Vance Cheney, [which] evoke with wonderful success the dark, brooding nature of their language. In addition, they reveal to the fullest the immense range of her colorful harmonic palette, a late romantic chromaticism so slippery that analysts would often be hard-pressed to define tonal centers with absolute certainty. Her notational landscape is often littered with accidentals signifying a sense of almost perpetual transition.” (Osborne, 64)
Margaret obviously kept up with new musical styles-not only those that she heard at the BSO Friday afternoon concerts, but also such composers as Charles Ives. There are two notes in “The Charles Ives Papers” at Yale which thank Ives for sending her copies of his pieces. A card dated 7 March 1921 says that “I shall take great pleasure in playing it through, at the earliest opportunity,” while on 16 August 1922 Margaret wrote that “Miss Lang begs to thank Mr. Ives for his very interesting + original music so kindly sent, + just received.” (MSS 14, The Charles Ives Papers in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University)
In 1923 Charles Boyd continued to champion The Heavenly Noel by including it in the program for the June 11th. concert of the Festival Chorus of Asheville. Mabel Daniels sent the notice of this concert that she had seen in the Bulletin of the National Federation of Music Clubs-she wrote: “I have missed not seeing you at the Symphonies.” (Scrapbook) Four years later Mr. Boyd again programmed The Heavenly Noel at the National Federation of Music Clubs Fifteen National Convention on April 22, 1927.
Appreciation for Margaret’s works continued through the 1930s. In a letter dated March 13, 1936, Wallace Goodrich, Director of the New England Conservatory and organist of the Church of the Advent wrote to tell her “how much pleasure the singing of your anthem [Grant, We beseech Thee] gave me recently at the Church of the Advent. “The work inspired the choir to sing better than usual,” and he asked her to consider writing a setting of the mass for that church. (Scrapbook)
From Hughes, Contemporary American Composers, 520 published in 1900, and Mathews, The Great In Music.
The 1920 Census listed Margaret, aged 52 as daughter with Frances, aged 80 as the head of the household. Also listed as members of the household were three unmarried servants-Helen O’Brien, aged 32 born in Boston; Catherine McNulty, aged 55 from Ireland in 1889; and Margaret Magwil, aged 34, also from Ireland, but in 1906.
This pose is very much like the 1935 “Etude” photo.
In 1925 Margaret was asked by the General Federation of Music Clubs to prepare a concert of her own works; the Federation would then make available on loan the music for this program to its members. It is interesting to see what she selected:
This copy provided by Fletcher DuBois. Schmidt noted their edition number after all the choral compositions, and the fact that Love Plumes His Wings was not one of their publications. One set of this material was donated to the Boston Public Library on October 8, 1924, and each piece has the handwritten notation, “Gift of the composer through Mass. Federation of Music Clubs.”
1925 saw performances by the MacDowell Club [of Boston] on January 14 of the Song of the Three Sisters and Heavenly Noel. Charles Manney conducted both works, and Margaret played the piano in the piano, organ, harp and strings accompaniment of The Heavenly Noel. The same performers also performed The Heavenly Noel at the St. Botolph Club on March 29, 1925. In New York City the St. Cecilia Club programmed The Heavenly Noel for concerts on January 16th. and 20th. A letter from the group’s conductor, Victor Harris said: “It would interest you to know that we did the Heavenly Noel with an accompaniment of organ, piano, harp, and even chime. I introduced the latter into the section where St. Julian rings the bells, and also again at the end of the Sanctus.” (Scrapbook)
Drawing from the Washington, D. C. Star of August 26, 1923.
