The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-18
MRS. LENK DISCUSSES
 CHAMBER MUSIC

MRS. LENK DISCUSSES
 CHAMBER MUSIC
 Especially appropriate for reading to- day. since it may be considered prep aration for the lovely recital which Miss Llla Ormond is to give this afternoon as third in Mrs. Aldrichs series of Sun day concerts, is the paper which Mrs. John Herbert Phillips presented at this weeks meeting of the Music Study club. The paper is splendid treatise on Chamber Music" It was written by Mrs Maurice Lenk, one of the brainest women in Birmingham former president of the Council of Jewish Women. Mrs, Lenk went to Philadelphia last week, leav- ing her paper to he read at the meet ing of the Music Study club. which oc- cured in the Chalifoux studios Accord ing to the request of several musicians
 who regard 1t as particularly meritorious
 and timely, it IFS reproduced here in full
 thus:
 The term chamber music might be
 called relic of kingly days. In the
 time of the Frankish Kings, royalty took
 up the cultivation of music as a private,
 not as a court function, and the concerts
 given for the entertainment of the royal
 family took place in the Kings chamber
 CT private room. The musicians were
 nothing more or less than servants in the royal household.
 At the time of It's invention chamber music meant music designed especially for the delectation of the most eminent patrons of the art; that Is, the kings and nobles whose love for music gave it maintenance and encouragement.
 Joseph Hayden, about 1760, was vice capellmeister to Prince Anton Esterhazy, I, bod tf.o f,O ing in the princess ante-room to receive orders concerning the dinner music and other entertainments of the day During this period in the life of Hayden he wrote the most wonderful and varied col lection of musical compositions for all court occasions. He was the father of the string quartet. writing while in the employ of Prince Esterhazy, chamber music for two violins, cello and viola: dance music, songs and instrumental solos. The awe and respect with which we listen today to the wonderful compo- sitions of Hayden and then read the his tory of Hayden's sojourn at E,sterhazy palace where he was the princess mu- sical servant. his appointment and the agreement which Is set forth In writing are really to our modern ideas of hu- memory of the princes atti- tude toward the great master. Out or this cultivation of music in the private chamber grew the characteristics of chamber music, which we must consider if we would enjoy 1t ourselves and un- derstand the reverence which the grea V masters have always felt for it.
 About as early as the fifteenth century it became customary to introduce instru- mental music al banquets of the wealthier classes, and what may be regarded as chamber music was used as a stimulus and cover for conversation-a practice not even yet quite obsolete.
 Hayden, as the servant of princes, created a form of chamber music of sin oere artistic maturity. The pleasure or the player was more studied than that of the auditor
 Beethoven was the first great democrat among musicians. He would have none of the shaekles which Hayden wore, but compelled the aristicracy of birth to bow to aristocrcy of genius. But such was his reverence for the style of music which had grown up in the chambers ot the great. that he devoted the last three years of his life almost exclusively to US Beethoven has left us heritage of undying beauty in every ce- partment of his art, but especially In chamber music. The quartets which Bee thoven wrote in the evening of ms hte are holiest things to the chamber mu- sieians of today Chamber music we ad- mire for it's cleverness, we enjoy It TOT it's sweetness and tenderness and It's fresh melodic symmetry, but it is only Tn very rare moments that the accent or emot'onal is given. It is like the con of some highly gifted person. which, while lasting perhaps Tor only few minutes, nevertheless anoros us rlimnse into a remarkable personality, and fingers in our memory as a heetihs revelation of the divine soil
 As early as 1690 lucrative concerts TOT the nractice of chamber music were neid in London. These concerts were adVer- t;sed in the London Gazette. and were held in room rented for musical pur- noses. where the best performers and com n, sitious were heard. These concerts were called Music Meetings In Pepys Diary it Is interesting and amusing to note tne enthusiasm of that time. Pepys wr.es p ehruary. 27, 1esS, With my wife to the Ixinp,s house to see The Virgin Martyr; ii was mighty pleasant not that the play Is worth much, but 1t is freely acted py Rock Marshall But that did please me most in the whole world was the winu musicoue when the angel comes ooW"' ,vhich Is so sweet that it ravished me, and indeed In a word. did wrap up my soul so that it made me really sicn' inst as I have been 1ormeriS MhTf - love with my wife. that neither then nor all the evening going home, and at no,ne. I wa s<,,nable to think of anything, put ren,ained all night transported so as could not believe that any musicaue hatn the real command over the soul of man as did this unon me. and makes me re- solve to practice wind musicaue ana 'o make my wife do the like.
 Frederick the Great wrote much anu directed his own chamber music. ana played the flute as well. The eari'es. forms of instrumental chamber musie were the dance tunes. and the collection VI dance tunes called suites. Great aua,. t,es os these exist for various combina- tions of instruments. but the most well known are for "clavier' alone. These were, however. the forerunners or the