Graduate of Harvard and of the Munich Royal School
of Music (1898), pupil of Paine and Chadwick, Converse had one eminent
'hit' in the shape of the Indianist opera The Pipe of Desire.
This was the first American opera to be performed at the Met (1905).
Later operatic success eluded him though he kept plugging away for over
a decade with The Sacrifice (1911), The Immigrants (1914)
and Sinbad the Sailor (1917). There were various concert overtures
and tone poems from c.1905 to 1917 with titles ‘on the run’ from the
Bantock catalogue (Euphrosyne, Ormazad, Festival of
Pan, Ave Atque Vale).
For this disc we turn from the operas to three orchestral
fantasies. The Mystic Trumpeter (premiered by Fritz Scheel
in Philadelphia on 5 March 1905 and published by Schirmers in 1907)
takes us into Whitman territory also possessed by Holst in his work
of the same name for soprano and orchestra. The Converse version is
a discursively succulent tone poem, heady in the manner of a passionate
Tchaikovskian ballet score but also showing a kinship with Charles Martin
Loeffler's A Pagan Poem after Virgil (premiered in a chamber
version in Boston in 1901 and then in orchestral form in 1907) and early
Scriabin. The themes, including the slow and noble nodding horn waves
at 09.03, are fresh if the manner is redolent of the people I have mentioned.
Tchaikovskian touches are not uncommon and there is a welter of them
towards the end when we are reminded of moments from 1812, Swan
Lake and Romeo and Juliet. The philosophical plot coasts
close to the synoptic approach of Strauss in Don Quixote and
Also Sprach Zarathustra and of Scriabin in the Poem of Ecstasy.
The five episodes played attacca are: 1) Mystery and
Peace (Moderato molto e tranquillo): Hark, some wild trumpeter; some
strange musician, hovering unseen in air; vibrates capricious tunes
to-night I hear thee trumpeter, listening alert I catch thy notes, now
pouring, whirling like a tempest round me….thou freest, launchest me,
floating and basking upon heaven's lake. 2) Love (Poco più
moto, amoroso): Blow again trumpeter! And for thy theme, take now
the enclosing theme of all, the solvent and the setting - Love, that
is pulse of all, the sustenance and the pang, the heart of man and woman
all for love, no other theme but love - knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing
love. 3) War and Struggle (Allegro con molto fuoco): Blow again
trumpeter - conjure war's alarums Swift to thy spell a shuddering hum
like distant thunder rolls - Lo, where the arm'd men hasten -Lo, mid
the clouds of dust the glint of bayonets, I see the grime-faced cannoneers,
I mark the rosy flash amid the smoke, I hear the cracking of the guns;
4) Humiliation (Adagio lamentoso): O trumpeter, methinks I am
myself the instrument thou playest, thou melt'st my heart, my brain
- thou movest, drawest, changest them at will; And now thy sullen notes
send darkness through me...I feel the measureless shame and humiliation
of my race…Utter defeat upon me weighs…Yet 'mid the ruins Pride colossal
stands unshaken... resolution to the last. 5) Joy (Poco largamente,
Grazioso, Allegro molto): Now trumpeter for thy close, vouchsafe
a higher strain than any yet, sing to my soul, renew its languishing
faith and hope, rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the
future, give me for once its prophecy and joy...O glad, exulting, culminating
song!… Joy! joy! all over joy!
We are told by Edward Yadzinski's notes that Flivver
was inspired by Honegger's Pacific 231. Do not however
expect a naturalistic suggestion of the sound of a car although there
are motor horn calls, a Daphnic wind machine, factory whistle and the
clang of hammer and anvil. Neither is the music like Honegger's. This
is a picaresque mood-piece written around incidents in the life of the
car (the ‘Flivver’) and its entwining with social and family life in
North America’; more Caprenter’s Adventures in a Perambulator than
Mossolov’s Iron Foundry. It is all pretty fanciful stuff prefiguring
at one point David Barry's music for the amorous scene between the monster
and Jessica Lange in the 1978 King Kong remake. Converse is not
averse to throwing in the odd fragment of popular tune either - both
Mystic Trumpeter and Flivver contain a reference to Yankee
Doodle and there are sporadically wispy hints of other tunes as
well; nothing intrusive or kitsch.
Flivver is scored as a series of eight musical
vignettes played without pause: 1 Dawn in Detroit (sunrise over
the city); 2 The Call to Labor (the auto workers report to work);
3 The Din of the Builders (factory noises); 4 The Birth of
the Hero - He Tries His Metal (the car wanders off into the great
world in search of adventure); 5 May Night by the Roadside - America's
Romance (love music via solo violin); 6 The Joy Riders - America's
Frolic (happy, have-a great-time music); 7 The Collision -America's
Tragedy (poignant, sad intonations); 8 Phoenix Americanus - The
hero, righted and shaken, proceeds on his way with redoubled energy,
typical of the indomitable spirit of America. (great fun)
The Endymion Narrative was first aired
in Boston on 11 April 1903 and published by H.W. Gray six years later.
It is rather Franckian in the manner of Les Djinns, Les Eolides
and Psyché - delicate, sensuous without being impressionistic.
It is as if the silkiest gestures from a Tchaikovsky ballet had been
extrapolated and interspersed with emphatic Brahmsian material. The
touch of Tchaikovsky is not hard to find but try 05.01 for a start.
Truth to tell this is a rhapsodic piece - meandering and garrulous.
There is plenty more Converse to record. The violin
concerto is from the turn of the century. In concertante form there
are two Whitman poems (piano, 1905), a fantasy for piano and orchestra
as well as a piano concertino (1932). The symphonies are also likely
to be promising prospects: 1 in D minor (1898, later discarded and the
others renumbered accordingly), 2 in C minor (1920), 3 in E minor (1922),
4 in F major and 5 in F minor (1941). David Ewen's American Composers
- A Biographical Dictionary claims a Sixth (I cannot reconcile this
with the listing in Grove 5) but says it was premiered posthumously
on 7 November 1940 by the Indianapolis Symphony conducted by Fabien
Sevitsky. The violin sonata has been recorded on New World but let's
not forget that there are also two string quartets (1902, 1904). In
1924 he provided the music for a film of Percy Mackaye's The Scarecrow.
The Naxos recording is fine. The playing is good though
no doubt more polished performances are not out of the question. Most
listeners with an audacious exploring mind and late-romantic leanings
will find a great deal to appreciate in this. There are some wondrously
conjured dynamic contrasts.
One small criticism. I am not a great one for literary
props and subtexts. However both the Whitman and 'Ford' pieces have
a distinct text backdrop and a sectional outline: five in Trumpeter
and eight in Flivver. These are printed in full in the insert
but the music is not separately tracked. A pity; though frankly, a small
detail.
Mr Converse’s music is not exactly numerous in the
catalogue. However you can sample his violin sonata alongside two by
Daniel Gregory Mason on a recital by Kevin Lawrence (violin) and Phillip
Bush (piano) (New World Records- 80591-2)
I do hope that Naxos have not forgotten Loeffler and
Farwell.
Rob Barnett
Buffalo PO/JoAnn Falletta