The age-herald., 1901-12-15
Good Progress Made in Re-
 hearsals for Festival
ALL AMERICAN COMPOSERS
Compositions to Be Sung By Choral Society Bear the Native Brand. Will Not Attempt
 Oratorlo.


 tival next spring. There will be no oratorlo, but instead several short choral works, all new in Birmingham. Theodore Thomas will have, of course, a brilliant orchestral programme.
 In selecting the choral music for the next festival, Mr. Guckenberger, the chorus director, discovered that by strange coincidence all of his selection were by Americans or to be more ac- curate. two of the three are by native born Americans and the other is by an American by adoption.
 Said a member of the choral society yesterday: MT. Guckenberger is es- pecially happy over the fact that his selections are by Americans, because they can compare not only favorably with the best music of their class written by the more prominent European composers. but what Is more, one of the selections, Tiara Novissima," Is far superior to any thing of its kind written by any composer of the present time
 The American Composer.
 When it is considered how the Ameri- can musician had and still has to fight against the foreign invasion, both as composer and executor, 1t is small won der that we have heard so little of him. It is only too true that the American good natured soul, likes to be humbugged. and for the sake of hearing some singer or musician with a name having for eign accent he will pay most fabulous prices, even though he be swindled and imposed upon by so doing, as witness the recent Grau opera fiasco in this city. New Orleans American artists with bet ter training and especially more modesty, will not draw handful of people, as witness the recent concert by MT. Evan Williams in our city. There is no finer tenor in this entire broad country of ours than Williams, yet he was handicapped with too English 8 name. Farinelli or Plumpeffsky would have drawn much bet ter than plain "Williams." Still, there is a change at hand, and you cannot keep the American artist or composer back any longer.
 ''Mr. Guckenberger, being native born himself, believes earnestly in the Ameri- can musician. Modesty has too long been the drawback of our native musician and while 1t is, of course, a most beauti- full virtue, still excess of it is hurtful and dangerous As Shakespeare's Florio's Montague has 1t: We may so seize on virtue that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may be- come vitious.'
 From MT. Guckenberger' personal ex- perience with American composers he knows that they are. one and all that is the great ones), guilty of demeaning themselves in their cause.
 Is More Persistent.
 "The American painter has won more European acceptance than any of our other artists because he has been more persistent in forcing a recognition at the art centers of Paris, Munich, Dresden and Berlin. However, a prominent Ger man critic has recently put himself on record as accepting the founding of an American school of music as 'fait ac compli." No real student of music who keeps abreast of the times-and that is what American composers are doing at present-need feel ashamed or discour- aged at the outlook, but rather he can look with pride at our musical future, when American composers can create such work as will be performed at Bir- minghams next festival
 "The three choral works are The Skeleton in Armor.' by Arthur Foote; flora Novissima.' by Horatio w. Parker, and TO the Conservation of the Arts by Dr. N.eJ. Elsenheimer.
 MT. Foote was born in Salem, Mass, and received all his training in Boston, where he still resides Of his Skeleton in Armor MT. Hughes says: It is an elab- crate setting of Longfellows poem, and Is full of vigor and generally sturdy in treatment, especially in its descriptions of viking war and seafaring. The storm scenes, as inc MT. Foote's Wreck of the Hesperus" seem faintly to suggest Wag- merriam "Donner und Blitzen," but in gem !. al MT. Foote has resisted the universal tendency sS copy the mannersms so many take to be thu zeal essence of the Bayreuthian. A pretty brt. of fancy is the use of a spinning wheel ao, ''upani- ment to the love song. Indeed the sp.n- ming Is treated as a characteristic motIt, for the Norsemans bride, somewhat as 1t is Senta's motif in "The Flying Dutch man.
 What a cristic Says.
 "Of Parker's flora Novissima, the dis tinguished critic Henry E. Krehbiel re- gently said, upon the occasion of the eel ebration of the 200th anniversary of Yale University: It was (the performance) a notable demonstration of the strong and lovely vitality of Prof. Parker's oratorio. It is still a child in years compared with the choral masterpieces which the world knows, but during the eight years of it's existence it has gone on triumphantly conquering community after community atnd fixed itself more and more firmly in the admiration of its original friends Flora Novissma" is one of the bright and virile facts of American music; fine achievement glorious promise
 ''W J. Henderson, another famous and careful critic, was moved to write this of Flora Novissima" and its composer; His melodic ideas are not only plentiful but they are beautiful, graceful and some times splendidly vigorous. There is an a capella chorus which Is one of the finest specimens of pure church ipolyphony that has been produced in recent years. It might have been written by Hobrecht. Brunei, or even Josquin des Pres. It is impossible to write higher praise than this. The orchestration Is extraordinarily rich. As a whole the composition may be set down as one of the finest achieve ments of the present day. J.
 Philip Hale, a most discriminating musical critic of Boston. described the chorus 'Pars Mea' as "a masterpiece, true music of the church, to which any &C., knowledged master of composition in Eu- rope would gladly sign his name For the capella chorus there is nothing but unbounded praise. Weighing words as counters. do not hesitate to say that I know of no one in this country or in Eng land who could bby nature and by stu dents sweat have written those eleven pages 1 have spoken of Mir Parker's quosi operatic tendency; now he is a mod ern. He has shown in this very work his appreciation and his mastery of antique religious musical art. But as a modern he is compelled to feel the force of the dramatic in religious music But his most far-reaching, his most. exalted and rapt conception of the bliss beyond is fex-