MUSIC.
AUGUST MARRS.
Twonaw Sir August Manna had withdrawn from the musical arena for several seasons, his interest in the art he had served so long and faithfully remained unimpaired to the end. Within the last year he had acted as external examiner of the orchestral class at one of our chief musical schools, and performed his duties not only conscientiously but with obvious enjoyment. He passed away on March 1st full of years, his old age was happy, and official recognition of his services was not wanting. Yet the present generation of concert-goers, who have come to regard symphony concerts as an integral part of the amenities of modern life, hardly realise the extent and value of the pioneer services rendered in this connexion by Maims. What we now take for granted as part of the week's entertainment in Central London, amateurs now old or middle- aged could only secure in their earlier days by making a pilgrimage to Sydenham. There were, it is true, the Philhar- monic Concerts, but they were less than half as numerous as the Saturday Concerts at the Crystal Palace, and decidedly less catholic in the framing of their programmes. Richter's advent belongs almost to a later generation; and Manna laboured under several drawbacks as compared with his contemporary, Charles Halle, whose famous Manchester concerts were started within two years of the Crystal Palace series. In the first place, Halle had the support of the rich and cultivated German colony in Man- chester; secondly, there was the greater keenness of the middle and artisan classes of Lancashire and Yorkshire; and thirdly, for the performance of choral works he had a practically unlimited supply of good voices. He also had the inestimable advantage of a splendid concert-hall, admirable in its acoustic properties, and capable of seating two thousand persons. Manna was hampered by the geographical draw- back of a suburban position, by a train service which it would be rank flattery to describe as efficient, by a makeshift concert-hall, and by the fact that the Saturday Concerts were never a commercial success, however much they may have enhanced the prestige of the Crystal Palace. For the last ten or more years of their existence reports of their discontinuance were constantly being heard. On at least one occasion the public-spirited conductor actually paid out of his own pocket for the extra rehearsals necessary to secure an efficient performance of a very difficult and complicated modern composition. It was that spirit of devotion, coupled with a fiery zeal and a masterful personality, that enabled Manna to keep the concerts going for more than forty years. And if he was fortunate in his temperament and equipment, he was not less so in having George Grove, for many years secretary to the Crystal Palace, as his colleague, backer, and programme-writer. Grove's greater versatility and his dis- tinction in the world of letters naturally appealed to a wider audience, but he certainly never attempted to appropriate any of the credit due to his colleague.
Manna was already sixty when the present writer first saw him conduct, but the Saturday Concerts in the mid " eighties " showed little, if any, signs of decadence. The band—the usual permanent orchestra of the Crystal Palace—enlarged for the Saturday Concerts to more than twice its numbers, was slightly smaller than Halle's band in Manchester, and, as we have already said, the acoustic properties of the concert-room were far inferior to those of the Free-Trade Hall. The quality of the orchestra, however, was excellent, and the very best London instrumental players were always well represented at its leading desks. At the time we speak of it was especially strong in the wood-wind. Wells, the principal flute, was an excellent player, and his colleague rejoiced in the ideal name of Tootill. The first clarinet was Clinton, a fine performer ; Mr. Malsch, who succeeded another admirable artist, M. Dubrncq, was then what he happily is still, an oboe player of classical excellence, notable alike for beauty of tone and purity of phrasing; and the bassoons were led by the inimitable Wotton the elder, a notable figure at these concerts from his genially patriarchal appearance. It was his happy gift to be able to produce the finest effects from his instrument with the minimum expenditure of effort, and his playing of the wonder- ful bassoon passage in the last movement of the Choral Sym- phony was an ever-recurring delight to those who were lucky enough to hear it. The horns and trombones were excellent, and the latter always rose to the opportunities given them in Schubert's C major Symphony. Nor should we fail to mention J. A. Smith, the drummer, a dexterous performer, who used to elicit a beautifully round and well-tuned tone from his timpani. There were many other excellent players and good artists amongst the strings, some of them happily still in the active pursuit of their calling, and the balance and tone of the band left little room for complaint except in one particular. From whatever cause, cornets were (except on special occasions) employed instead of valve trumpets, with results which never failed to disconcert, and even disgust, the ears of purists. Why Manna exhibited this heretical and Philistine preference for the most ignoble of all instruments we have never been able to make out, unless it was that he Considered the superior precision of the cornet to compensate for its inherent vulgarity. But it is ungenerous to dwell further on the only serious flaw in the organisation of an orchestra associated for upwards of forty years with the interpretation of the hest musics in accordance with the best traditions. The repertory of the Crystal Palace Concerts, a full account of which is to be found in the pamphlet published a dozen or more years back, is a really splendid record of the consistent pursuit of high ideals in the face of considerable difficulties. It was the happy union of Manns and Grove, the expert and the amateur, both of them enthusiasts, which rendered the achievement possible, and drew Saturday after Saturday a contingent of London music-lovers to swell the numbers of the Sydenham audience. The concert-room had no architectural beauties, but on Saturdays it had many personal features of interest, not the least remarkable being the presence and the rapt attention of the blind students from the Normal College. The best place for hearing was the gallery at the back of the hall, in the back row of which Grove for many years was the centre of a group of his special musical associates and friends.
As a conductor, Maims wean gallant and picturesque figure, with his velvet coat, his snowy hair, his waxed moustaches, keen features, and alert gestures. As a young man he had been the bandmaster of a crack Prussian regiment, and he retained his martial bearing to the close of his long life. He had not the Olympian calm of Richter ; the sweep of his beat was generally restrieted and its motion fidgety, though it was remarkable to note how successfully he adapted his methods to the requirement of the huge band and chorus at the Handel Festivals. But those who have played trailer him declare that what appeared to be tricks of manner had their meaning and value. Certainly he must have known exactly what he wanted, or he would never have got such admirable results out of his men. As for his" readings," we have no hesitation in saying that Schubert was never played with greater sympathy or poetry, or in a manner better designed to make the audience realise the point of Schumann's remark that Schubert made his instruments sound like human voices. The annual performance of the great C major Symphony was a red-letter day for many seasons at the Crystal Palace, and nowhere have we heard its "heavenly length" sound more celestial. Grove used to tell, with deep satisfac- tion, how one of his friends, a successful business man, who combined a love of music with a passion for the chase, once gave up a day's hunting to hear the C major, and we are sure the sacrifice was well repaid. Manna was also a great conductor of Schumann, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn; and if in his earlier days his sympathy with Wagner was imperfect, and his readings at variance with tradition, his admiration grew steadily with advancing years. He retained his spirit of adventure to the last, and was never put off by anything because it was new or difficult or unpopular. The spirit with which he championed Schubert and Schumann in the " fifties " and " sixties " impelled him to pioneer the cause of Brahms in the " seventies " and "eighties," and to tackle Richard Strauss at the very end of his career. And all along he was a true and constant friend to British composers. The encourage- ment that he lent Sullivan at the outset of his career he extended to many others. Indeed, it would be bard to mention a single native orchestral composer of established repute who did not get his first or an early hearing from Manna, and it is therefore peculiarly appropriate that the appeal for subscrip- tions to a memorial in his honour which recently appeared in these columns should have emanated from the Society of
British Composers. It is premature to discuss the precise form which the memorial should take, but we may at least express the hope that it will include some visible means of keeping his memory green at the Crystal Palace, within whose walls, if we except the concerts in Scotland which he conducted for a number of seasons beginning in the year 1879, he laboured continuously in the cause of his art for
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