The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-01-20
THREE GREAT BS.
Frederic Dean Lectures at
Hasbrouck in Bach,
Brahms and Beet
hOVen.
A SUCCESS THROUGHOUT,
Four Artists Contribute to the
P~rogramme-News Of the
Week in Society.
A SUCCESS THROUGHOUT,

called upon to record an evening OF music
in which there has been no Eaw, d pro-
ramm as harmonious in its whole as
the members In their parts. When such
an event does take place and it is sadly
true that it happens about once in a dec
ade-it is no more than just that the fact
should be stated plainly. The lecture py
Mr.. Frederic Dean OIL "bach, Beethoven
and Brahms," at Hasbrouck Institute last
night, with its illustrations by prominent
musicians, left nothing more TO DE de-
sired. Perfection is a large word, but an
evening of this kind, that completely Iui-
filed it's object, has earned even tnls
characterization.
Mr.. Deans reputation as a ecturer is
too well established to need 1urtner
strengthening. Better than this, ne Is a
thorough musician, VINO speaks i[otn Inc
fulness of his convictions. and with an ar
of sinking his own personality in his pre-
sentation of the subject. His manner Is
in no way that of u platform orator, put
rather of a man so much Impressed Win
a great work that he feels lmpeIled TO Tell
MS personal friends about it. He said
little or nothing about the separate
coInpositions of the three masters. leav-
ing that TO the competent hands in which
they had been placed; he sketc he'd the
surroundings of each, the influences at
work upon mind and method; he put the
inner self of the composer before MS
listeners, he created an atmosphere. and
in that atmosphere, the illustrators sang
and played and the audience listened and
comprehended, as they had never done
before.
HAsBRoUCK's FINE SHOWING.
The Faculty of the Hasbrouck school of
Music directly or indirectly supplied the
vobal and Instrumental music. Mr..
Victor Baier, Superintendent OF the
school was the accompauist as we'll as
one of the pianists; Mr.. Henry Lincoln
case proved his double talent i'll his
tenor solo and his violin obligato; MI.
Gustav L. Becker played alone and with
Mr. Baier, and Miss Florence x Turner,
| craduate of the school, gave the soprano
solo. The chapel of the institute was
we'll filled, in spite of the uptown %attrac-
| ttons. and applause greeted Mr.. Dan.
when at the close of Principal g. G.
Stfmets's introductory remarks, ne be-
! gan his talk
| sheets of grabbed manuscript music by
| the light of the moon through his garrett
| window, that Mr.. Dean introduced the
ssFather of Modern Music" Johann
| Sebastian Bach. He told the pathetic
| story of the little lad. starved for IL sight
of the rare old scores that his brother
had hidden from him, longing for the
chance to copy the notes that held SO
riuch of magic to his musicinn's soul.
He managed at last to Carry off the prize
to his little attic chamber, and there, by
the only light that was his-the rays OF
the moon-ne copied with ~iniulte toll the
precious notes. And, as he finished the
last page, his elder brother reached over
his shoulder, seized tine laborious copy,
and flung it into The lire.
There is something i'll Mr.. Deans way
of dropping his voice and telling such
stories as if they made his heart ache,
that makes them more pathetic than ever.
Then the lecturer went on 10 tell of the
remarkable history OF the Bach family.
whose musical supremacy began with
one Welt Bach. the village miller and
baker, who Tired Of his home life and
went travelling, coming back with a
cuitar-like instru ent on which he
played with skill, SO that the village folk
maryelled. And his descendants were so
gifted iu the making of music that the
village fiddlers around EiseDach were
called the Bachs" long after the great
family had left Saxouy. So long as the
family rem aimed in the village that was
| It's ancestral home, its eminence in musi-
| cal matters continued; when 1t departed.
| its power ceased, so that with Bach's
| sons the genius of the family terminated.
his, however,, vas due less to the ill.,
| huence of the locality han to the fact
that the natural elimination of the race
was at Johann Sebastian, and that be-
| yond him nature could no further go.
FRANCE r GERMANY.
The lecturer sketched mis- life as a choir
boy at Eisenach, as a student t ArnstadJ,
| aud as a master at Leipsic. He told how
he met and ~vanquished Louis Marchand,
who had been deposed from the position
| of court organisI at Versailles for his dis
| solute habits, and had been received with
applause by the reigning Duke at
| Weimar. The Kapeilmelster sent for
| Bach to defeat n drive away the inter
| loper. Tney mel at a concert at Weimar,
| Babh sitting i%nc0gnitO in the audience,
| Marchard played "a French air with
! twelve Li~mprovised variations. Then IL
/ was Bach's turn, and he repeated the
twelve variations. added twelve more,
| and rising from the piano, handed The
astonished organist a written challenge
to compete for the place OF honor. A day
| was set, a fashionable audience assem-
bled, but Marchand, alarmed. had fled
the city, and Bach was proclaimed court
| organisJ. This was iu 170S.
MIR. Dean remarked that Bach set the
sous in music, charging a louis
dor for each that he gave. He
told the pitiful story of his last days,
| wnen his eyes, that had never recovered
| from the moonlight copying OF his boy
| mood, began to fail, until at last he died
| blind. The lecturer paid a high tribute
| to the spotIess character, lofty ideals and
gentle kindliness of his disposition, and
| declared that it was fitting That n sketch
of three representative musicians should
begin one whose life would bear no less
| rigorous examination tnan his works.
He referred TO the Bach GesellcnafI, that
has preserved so much of his work, and
to the production of the Passion Music
revived after a hundred years by Felix
| Mendelssohn Bartholdy, now given on
Tuesday of Passion Week in st. Paui's
| Cathedral, by the united choirs under
DR., Strainer. He sat from half past two
to eight P. NJ. Preserving" his seat,
| and au hour before the time
set, 1900 people packed the place.
Three times the chorale, 20
| Sacred Heart Now Wounded"
is given in the Passion music and at each
the audience is requested to Use aud
sing. The first time perhaps 500 sang,
the second there were thousands. and
| the third every throat was tuned to its
vast harmonies. II felt" said he, "as il
my wings has just been wired gu and !
was soaring above the earth, borne OH
tina, majestic rush OF sound-until a ulau
uext TO me pulled my coattail aud said