Johannes Brahms: A Brief Guide to His Life and Music
(Originally published in 1903 as a portion of the author’s...)
Originally published in 1903 as a portion of the author’s larger “From Grieg to Brahms: Studies of Some Modern Composers and Their Art,” this Kindle edition, equivalent in length to a physical book of approximately 16 pages, describes the life and work of German composer Johannes Brahms.
Sample passage:
It is hard to say whether the unique greatness of Brahms depends more on this emotional wholesomeness and simplicity or on the intellectual breadth and synthetic power with which it is combined. Probably the truth is that true greatness requires the interaction of the two. At any rate, Brahms is equally remarkable, whether considered as a man or as a musician, for both. In his personal character frankness, modesty, simple and homely virtue were combined with the widest sympathy, the most far-ranging intelligence, extreme catholicity and tolerance. In music he prized equally the simplest elements, like the old German folksongs and the Hungarian dances, and the most complex artistic forms that are evolved from them by creative genius.
About the author:
Daniel Gregory Mason (1873-1953) was an American composer and music critic. Other works include “Beethoven and His Forerunners,” “The Orchestral Instruments,” and “A Child’s Guide to Music.”
(Excerpt from The Chamber Music of Brahms
All the chamber...)
Excerpt from The Chamber Music of Brahms
All the chamber music works except the seven duet sonatas (three for Violin, two for Violoncello, and two for clarinet) are obtainable in the excellently edited miniature scores of the Eulenberg Edition. The sonatas are published in the Simrock Edition. Brahms himself arranged as piano duets (for one piano, four hands) the two Sextets, the Piano Quartets in G minor and A maj or (but not the C minor), all three String Quartets, and the two Viola Quintets. The Piano Quintet he published also as a Sonata for Two Pianos, opus 34, b. The Clarinet Sonatas he issued for Violin and piano as Well as for Viola and piano. Other of the chamber music works have been arranged, both for one piano, four hands and for two pianos, four hands - most of them published by Simrock. Even for piano solo Paul Klengel has made a few highly effective tran scriptions, notably the Horn Trio, the two Viola Quintets, and the Clarinet Quintet.
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The Art of Music: A Comprehensive Library of Information for Music Lovers and Musicians Volume 1
(This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)
This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for kindle devices. We have endeavoured to create this version as close to the original artefact as possible. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we believe they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
(The list includes composers who have made a significant i...)
The list includes composers who have made a significant impact on the world of classical music since 2001, whether through major festivals and promoters of contemporary music, broadcast media or commercial recording on widely distributed labels. These composers work in the tradition of classical music.
Daniel Gregory Mason was an American composer, educator, and author.
Background
Daniel Gregory Mason was born on November 20, 1873 in Brookline, Massachussets, the son of Henry Mason, a founder of the Mason and Hamlin organ company, and Helen Augusta Palmer Mason, Beginning with Barachias Mason (1723 - 1783), teacher of music in Medfield, Massachussets, one man in each generation of his family was a professional musician. The dynasty included the hymnodist and educator Lowell Mason (1792 - 1872) and his brother Timothy; its later members were publishers and teachers of music, manufacturers of musical instruments, concert artists, and composers. While each was conservative in temperament, social attitudes, and musical taste, any lack of originality was compensated for by substantial talent assiduously directed to practical goals.
Education
Mason played the piano and composed from the age of seven. While at Harvard he wrote an operetta with Winthrop Ames that was produced by the Hasty Pudding Club. After graduation with the A. B. in 1895, he made a walking tour of Europe with William Vaughan Moody, his lifelong friend. Upon his return to Boston, Mason studied music with Clayton Johns, Ethelbert Nevin, Arthur Whiting, George W. Chadwick, and Percy Goetschius before moving to New York, where he was a lecturer and teacher and helped to organize the first adult education classes sponsored by the Board of Education.
Career
He taught at Princeton from 1902 to 1904. Mason's first book, From Grieg to Brahms (1902), derived from articles in Outlook, was one of the earliest works by an American to explain music on a popular level, as well as a markedly conservative voice confronting the challenge of avant-garde idioms then coming to the fore with great rapidity. These factors explain Mason's standing as "the most widely read author in America of books about music and its composers. " He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1909 and became an associate professor in 1914. A year of study in 1913 with Vincent d'Indy at the composer's home in Ardèche and in Paris left an indelible impression on Mason's thought and work while enabling him to perfect his compositional techniques. Because one of his arms was partially paralyzed, a handicap he ultimately overcame, others played Mason's works for pianoforte notably Elegy (Opus 2), which was performed by Ossip Gabrilówitsch, a close friend. Mason won gratifying recognition as a composer. Leopold Stokowski conducted his First Symphony at Philadelphia on February 18, 1916, and Josef Stransky presented a revised version with the New York Philharmonic in 1922; the Second Symphony was introduced at Boston on Mar. 16, 1928, conducted by Fritz Reiner in Cincinnati on November 7, 1930, and later played by the New York Philharmonic under Bruno Walter. The Third Symphony had its premiere under Sir John Barbirolli at New York on November 17, 1937. (The Second, which Mason considered his best, still has not been either published or recorded. ) Of six quartets, the Quartet on Negro Themes (Opus 19) is a gracious and lively work; and the Chanticleer Overture (Opus 27) is frequently played. a Mason became MacDowell professor and chairman of the music department of Columbia in 1929. He remained there until 1942. Mason also edited The Art of Music (fourteen volumes, 1915 - 1917). His lectures were biographical in approach, a conventional formula in days preceding extensive phonograph recording but inadequate thereafter, and took no account of more recent musicological disciplines. Mason's persistent industry kept him in public favor until the mid-1920's, when a more positive attitude toward contemporary music became necessary. As a former student put it, "Professor Mason never quite made it into the twentieth century. " Mason wrote eighteen books of a historical, instructional, or aesthetic nature, culminating in Music in My Time and Other Reminiscences (1938). These writings amply convey his ideas. "If you wish immediate opularity, you must imitate current models. That is not, to be sure, the path to excellence, " he wrote in Artistic p Ideals (1925). His interests extended from Bach through Brahms but not much beyond, while his adherence to the traditions of Emerson, Thoreau, and Lincoln was more professed than actual. Mason died at Greenwich, Connecticut.
Achievements
Mason's many compositions, half a dozen works, including Serenade for String Quartet (1931) and Passacaglia and Fugue for Organ (Opus 10), represent a creditable oeuvre for a conservative composer in this era. In the composer's heritage of Mason there are three symphonies, a piano and two string quartets, violin and clarinet sonatas, piano and organ compositions, songs.
Mason's presumption of speaking for American composers is both irritating and unfounded. He was condescending toward mass production and "unashamed vulgarity. " In Dilemma of American Music (1928) he wrote: "It is a decrepit, senescent, decadent art that we see all about us, slowly dying of hardening of the arteries". The book also has a chapter entitled "Stravinsky as a Symptom. " In Contemporary Composers (1918) he claimed that Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Max Reger, Alexander Scriabin, and Leo Ornstein (an odd combination) had "tendencies toward degradation, " and that "no sincere lover of music can regard with anything but the gravest apprehension such tendencies toward decadence. " He equated a taste for jazz with a penchant for chewing gum. Tune In, America (1931) carefully analyzes orchestral repertoires, but the high moral tone is unpleasing. He wrote an article, "Music for the Radio, " for the Columbia University Quarterly in which he admits some progress but castigates the passive attitudes of "ordinary people. " The ill-concealed motivation for much of this diatribe is anti-Semitism, clearly expressed in strong statements in Tune In, America. As a composer Mason was only superficially related to the "Boston Academics. "
Personality
His conservatism, associations, and social attitudes were his own, and increasingly in the minority. His entire career was spent in New York, where the conservative element was more deeply ingrained than in Boston. His personal associations with the Boston group appear to have been nil. Notwithstanding the less commendable aspects of Mason's career, his music reveals an impeccable craftsmanship, a subtle humor, and a willingness to foster the American tradition by use of black and Indian melodies. He constantly revised his scores, making them easier to play and free of difficult jointures. His ideas, however, are commonplace; there are no experiments with harmonies or forms, and instrumentation follows the Brahmsian model that was his ideal. In these respects Mason's music, although affording agreeable listening, lacks individuality; there is no single aspect of texture or sound by which one may identify him.
Connections
On October 8, 1904, he married Mary Lord Taintor Mason, the widow of his brother Edward.
