MUSIC.

ANTOINETTE STERLING.

.1usr as in the domain of letters there have been certain writers who have appealed with a special force to the members of their own calling—Gray, Stevenson, George Meredith, Pater, to choose a few names at random—so has it been in the realm of music with composers and their interpreters. But as might naturally be expected in the youngest of the arts, the gulf between the expert and the layman has here been wider than elsewhere, and the position of those who appealed to the uninstructed public has until recently been proportionately more exempt from criticism. The most conspicuous instances of what may be called illiterate musicians—i.e., those who achieved success and fame without ever having mastered more than the rudiments of their craft—have always been found in the ranks of singers. No violinist, for example, ever reached eminence with- out being a good reader. The instrumentalist has to go through the mill. But there have been plenty of great singers who have not only dispensed with all knowledge of theory, but to the end of their days learned their music largely by ear, and could never be trusted in an emergency to sing the simplest air at sight. The famous Grisi was a case in point, though in her case, as in that of others, lack of science was made good by quickness, industry, and an unusually retentive memory. But the whole trend of modern music towards complexity has rendered it in- creasingly difficult for singers to take part in music of any real significance without being trained musicians. The greatest com- posers of the past—Bach and Beethoven, to mention no others —showed scant consideration for vocalists ; but their uncom- promising attitude had the result of confining the appreciation of a great deal of their finest music to scholars and students, and deferring its general recognition until such time as the education of singers was partially levelled up to that of instru- mentalists. There were brilliant exceptions, it is true, but they were frequently amateurs, even in Germany, outside of which country the long domination of the old Italian opera enabled the prima donna and the primo tenpre to attain a maximum of success with a minimum expenditure of intellectual effort. It was, we take it, the triumph of Wagner that dealt the

death-blow to the illiterate singer, and rendered it henceforth impossible for a vocalist to achieve supreme distinction on the operatic boards without being a skilled musician. But in countries where opera is of secondary importance, amongst which England is the chief, the mere singer had still abundant opportunities left for achieving a wide popularity on the concert platform as an interpreter of music which makes but slight demands on musicianship. We use the past tense deliberately, because the progress of musical education and the improvement of musical taste, the great multiplication of orchestral concerts and the raising of the standard in regard to the choice of songs at recitals and chamber concerts, have of late years confined the activities of the " illiterate " singer within a much more restricted compass.

To say that the late Madame Antoinette Sterling, whose Memoir* has just been written by her son, belonged to this class would be an unduly harsh and ungenerous verdict on a woman of remarkable gifts and striking personality. But it is perhaps not too much to say that no singer is likely in the future to achieve such a position as she undoubtedly held with so limited a repertory or such disregard for the higher technical developments of the art. It cannot be said that this attitude was the result of imperfect training. In her youth she studied in Europe under three of the most famous teachers of the time, and on her return to America at the close of the " sixties," as her son reminds us, " almost her entire attention was devoted to classical music, and more especi- ally to German songs." She was the first to introduce groups

of Lieder at recitals in America, and delighted to sing Schumann's " Dichterliebe" and " Frauenliebe " cycles at her own concerts. A programme of one of these concerts given

early in the " seventies," and reproduced in this volume on pp. 58-59, includes songs by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Rubinstein, and Beethoven's " Wonne der Wehmuth," which the present writer well remembers hearing her sing in

London about the year 1878. At her debut in England in

November, 1873, she chose an aria from Bach's Christmas Oratorio, and in those early years was occasionally heard at festivals, taking the contralto part at the first performance of Macfarren's "St. John the Baptist." The cause of her sub-

sequent abandonment of German Lieder and oratorio for English ballads, chiefly of the modern, and occasionally of the most insipid, brand, is not clearly indicated in the

Memoir, but a certain amount of light is thrown on the subject by her biographer. Thus we are told that she was

"exhorted by her friends to give up the Lieder and take to English songs interspersed with an occasional Italian

aria, which the public did not object to so much." We gather that she resented this advice, or at any rate the recommendation, "if she must give the music of German com- posers, let her sing translations." But whatever were her feelings, she acted in accordance with the suggestion, and for the last twenty years of her career she devoted herself almost entirely to English ballads, notably those of Sir Arthur Sullivan, Dr. Cowen, and Messrs. "Stephen Adams" and J. L. Molloy. That she appreciated better music is evident, but her attachment to it was not of the uncompromising quality of the genuine devotee. Her instincts were heredi- tarily democratic, and she realised that the easier, simpler, and more obvious the melody, and the more conventional the sentiment of the words, the more swift and secure was the appeal to the emotions of the populace. Again, her style of singing was so individual that she found it hard to accom- modate herself to the wishes of a conductor, no matter how

eminent, and her attempts to sing with an orchestral accom- paniment were seldom satisfactory. Indeed, as years went on her views as to time and expression reached such a pitch of individualism that, as her son confesses in a curious passage, accompanists sometimes found her very difficult to follow at the piano:— "They would perhaps ask for a rehearsal, and then after the song had been gone through one way, they would at the concert find it taken with quite a different tempo at various points. Above all things in her singing she placed the words first in importance. If the music and words were at variance in a song, there was never any hesitation as to what was to be done. Should the phrasing of the music interfere with the true expression. of the poem, the music had to give way. Moreover, when the introduction to the song was over, she was very much against * Antoinette Sterling, and other Celebrities: Stories and Impressions of Artistic Circles. By M. Sterling Maeliinlay, M.A. Oxon. With 16 Portraits and Various Facsimiles. London : Hutchinson and Co. [16s. nat.] having more than a bar or two for the piano between the verses. Her feeling was that it distracted the thoughts of the listeners, and was apt to take away their interest from the story which she was telling. This tendency to delete any, to her mind, super- fluous bars of music increased as time went on, and latterly the actual accompaniments to the songs in her repertoire were cut down to the smallest possible limits. Particularly was this the case with her Scotch songs. In these the verses would practically go straight on without a break, the symphonies between the verses being almost entirely eliminated. Still more drastic, if possible, was her treatment of the finish of a piece. A couple of bars, played very quickly, were the utmost she would permit to be sounded after the voice had ceased. Woe betide the composer who had rounded off the close of his composition with several bars of haunting melody for the piano. The chances were that they would be slashed out bodily, and a single chord inserted in their place. Musicians often sighed at the liberties which she took with their work, but as these had the effect of turning the songs into big popular successes, it is a question whether the ruffled feelings were not adequately recompensed by the size of the cheques received on account of r royalties.' "

Her favourite dictum, we are told, was " More Heart and less Art." She did not discountenance serious study at the outset, but held that once command of the voice and the rules of artistic singing had been obtained, the singer should " go to Nature to cultivate heart, to find out how the rules which

had been learned might be broken with impunity." Her views as to the future of the art of song are set forth with refreshing naivete in the following passage:— "I think there will be a reaction from the modern preoccupa- tion and wild craving after technique, a return to simpler, more primitive conditions. I like more and more to sing without accompaniment. It makes me feel a greater freedom and ampli- tude, a completer possession of my own voice. A number of times I have passed thus into improvisation, the words and the music coming together and demanding utterance. It is the most wonderful, ecstatic sensation in the whole range of musical art. I have felt like one possessed, inspired! Now that seems to me the real thing. That was the method of the old bards and poets. Thus Homer chanted his epics ; thus sang the Hebrew prophets, and thus have been born the Folksongs of great nations. The memory of it still survives in the Eisteddfods, where poets are crowned and songs still improvised."

Of Madame Sterling's relations with her various teachers— Manuel Garcia, Madame Mathilde Marchesi, and Madame Pauline Viardot-Garcia—several illuminating anecdotes are given in these pages. According to Madame Marchesi, the American contralto was "a dear girl, but a perfect little devil to teach." On the only occasion on which she sang to the

accompaniment of Anton Rubinstein his comment was : " Sie haben nie geliebt." Her opinion of Brahms, of whom she saw a good deal when studying with Madame Viardot-Garcia at Baden-Baden, is given in the following characteristic reminiscence :—

"Herr Brahma would often come to see me, and sit down at the piano while I ran through some of his songs. He was very anxious for me to sing them, but I saw that they did not suit me at all, so had to refuse his request. One Lieder [sic] in particular was like a duet, being written very low in the first part, and very high in the second. 'What is more, I told him so."

What would one not give for Brahma's version of this inter- view! The anecdote which her son gives in illustration of the unromantic temper of Brahms is, we may add, rendered

suspect by the opening words : " When Brahma came over to England." Brahma, to the great regret of his many English admirers, never visited these shores.

Mr. MacKinlay's Memoir of his mother, written in a spirit of true filial piety, yet with refreshing candour, is well worth reading by amateurs as well as professionals. Singers in particular may derive profit from these pages if only they realise the dangers of attempting to carry into practice the anarchical and reactionary principles enunciated by, and acted on by, Madame Sterling. Her success cannot be regarded as establishing a precedent, because it was largely a triumph of personality, not of artistic method. She had great natural resources and advantages,—a noble voice, a striking appear- ance, and an unperturbed yet unaggressive self-confidence. Though she devoted her talents latterly to ephemeral and inferior music, she glorified and redeemed much of its banality by her earnestness and simplicity. The few great ballads in her repertory she sang splendidly : no one can ever forget her singing of " Caller Herrin' " or " The Twa Corbies." Off the platform she was a generous, impulsive, warm-hearted woman, amiable in her eccentricities, and deeply and passion-

ately interested in philanthropic work. But, for the reasons given above, we greatly doubt whether such an assemblage of

qualities, even if they were once more to be united in a singer, would in the altered conditions of public taste secure similar recognition for their possessor. C. L. G.