George Whitefield Chadwick - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

George Whitefield Chadwick (November 13, 1854 – April 4, 1931) was an American composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. Along with Horatio Parker

Horatio Parker

Horatio William Parker was an American composer, organist and teacher. He was a central figure in musical life in New Haven, Connecticut in the late 19th century, and is best remembered as the teacher of Charles Ives....

, Amy Beach

Amy Beach

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Most of her compositions and performances were under the name Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.-Early years:Beach was born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker, New Hampshire into...

, Arthur Foote

Arthur Foote

Arthur William Foote was an American classical composer, and a member of the "Boston Six." The other five were George Whitefield Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker.The modern tendency is to view Foote’s music as “Romantic” and “European” in light of the...

, and Edward MacDowell

Edward MacDowell

Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...

, he was a representative composer of what can be called the New England School of American composers of the late 19th century—the generation before Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

. Chadwick's works are influenced by the Realist

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

movement in the arts, characterized by a down-to-earth depiction of people's lives. Many consider his music to portray a distinctively American style. His works included several operas, three symphonies, five string quartets, tone poems

Symphonic poem

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...

, incidental music

Incidental music

Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....

, songs and choral anthems. Along with a group of other composers collectively known as the Boston Six, Chadwick was one of those responsible for the first significant body of concert music by composers from the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The other five were Amy Beach

Amy Beach

, Arthur Foote

Arthur Foote

, Edward MacDowell

Edward MacDowell

, John Knowles Paine

John Knowles Paine

John Knowles Paine , was the first American-born composer to achieve fame for large-scale orchestral music.-Life:He studied organ, orchestration, and composition in Germany and toured in Europe for three years...

, and Horatio Parker

Horatio Parker

Early life

Born in a rural part of Lowell, Massachusetts

Lowell, Massachusetts

Lowell is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 106,519. It is the fourth largest city in the state. Lowell and Cambridge are the county seats of Middlesex County...

, Chadwick received some early musical training from organ lessons given by his older brother, Fitz Henry. He developed an independent, self-reliant character early in his life. Dropping out of high school in 1871, Chadwick assisted briefly in his father's insurance business. The experience enabled him to travel to Boston and other cities, where he attended concerts and cultural events that might have initiated his lifelong interest in the arts.

Student Days

Chadwick entered New England Conservatory as a "special student" in 1872, where he could study with the faculty without satisfying the rigorous entrance or degree requirements. However, he approached his studies more seriously and took advantage of what NEC offered. Chadwick studied organ with George E. Whiting (1840–1923), piano with Carlyle Petersilea (1844–1903), and theory with Stephen A. Emery (1841–1891), each of whom was well respected in the Boston music scene.

In 1876, Chadwick accepted a faculty position within the music program at Olivet College

Olivet College

Olivet College is a coeducational, liberal arts college located in Olivet, Michigan, United States, south of Lansing and west of Detroit. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, and accredited by the North Central...

and was a valued instructor as well as administrator. While at Olivet, Chadwick founded the Music Teachers National Association

Music Teachers National Association

-Membership:Its membership consists of approximately 22,000 independent and collegiate music teachers. MTNA headquarters are in downtown Cincinnati on the 31st floor of the Carew Tower.- MTNA structure :...

. The first evidence of his interest in composing appeared during this time, from a performance of his Canon in E-flat dated 6 November 1876.

Realizing that his musical career in the U.S. would be limited without further studies in Europe, Chadwick headed to Germany like many other composers of his generation. He studied in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

at the Royal Conservatory of Music

Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre

The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig is a public university in Leipzig . Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn as the Conservatory of Music, it is the oldest university school of music in Germany....

under Carl Reinecke

Carl Reinecke

Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist.-Biography:Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher...

(1824–1910) and Salomon Jadassohn

Salomon Jadassohn

Salomon Jadassohn was a German composer and a renowned teacher of piano and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory.-Life:...

(1830–1902). Chadwick's most significant compositions as a student there include two string quartets (no. 1 1877-8, no. 2 premiered 1879) and the concert overture Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle

"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. Written while Irving was living in Birmingham, England, it was part of a collection entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon...

. They helped confirm his position as a promising young American composer among his German contemporaries, from whom he received favorable critiques.

After his two-year stay in Leipzig, Chadwick traveled around Europe with a group of artists who called themselves the "Duveneck Boys". They were led by the young and charismatic Frank Duveneck

Frank Duveneck

Frank Duveneck was an American figure and portrait painter.-Youth:Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernard Decker. Decker died when Frank was only a year old and his widow remarried Joseph Duveneck...

, who was well-known for his portrait works in the style of Velázquez

Diego Velázquez

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...

. The group was based in Munich, then major culture center second to Paris. Chadwick also stayed in France with the group, where he was taken with the French lifestyle and influenced by the emerging Impressionist movement.

Chadwick resumed his compositional studies with Josef Rheinberger

Josef Rheinberger

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger was a German organist and composer, born in Liechtenstein.-Short biography:...

(1839–1901) at the Hochschule für Musik

Hochschule für Musik und Theater München

The Hochschule für Musik und Theater München is one of the most respected traditional vocational universities in Germany specialising in music and the performing arts. The seat of the Hochschule is the former Führerbau of the NSDAP, located at Arcisstraße 12, on the eastern side of the Königsplatz...

in Munich. Rheinberger was known as a skilled musical craftsman who incorporated polyphony with creativity and clarity. Thus Chadwick benefited from Rheinberger's extensive knowledge of the classics, both instrumental and choral.

Return to Boston

Chadwick returned to Boston in March 1880 and soon began establishing a career in the U.S. He opened a teaching studio and secured two performances of Rip Van Winkle. Chadwick also completed his First Symphony, which although not particularly inspired was a significant early contribution by an American composer. In addition to his compositional activities, Chadwick was also a performing organist and avid conductor. He served as the Music Director of the Springfield Festival from 1890 to 1899, and of the Worcester Music Festival from 1899 to 1901.

In 1897, Chadwick was appointed Director of New England Conservatory. Known in the Boston arts circle as talented, personable, and energetic, he was crucial in transforming NEC into a respectable school of music. Chadwick implemented features that resembled those of the German conservatories of his experience. He established a variety of performing ensembles, and students were required to take more music theory and history classes. He also invited members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra as private teachers to the students, along with being an inspiring teacher himself. His students described him as "demanding, though fair-minded and witty".

Involvement with Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity

He had some influence in the establishment of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is an American collegiate social fraternity for men with a special interest in music...

music fraternity, which was established at the conservatory in the fall of 1898, primarily through the recommendation of the name "Sinfonia" after a student organization to which he belonged in Liepzig. He was named an honorary member of the Alpha Chapter at the conservatory, and was later named a national honorary member of the Fraternity in 1909.

Works summary and analysis

Chadwick composed in almost every genre, including opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

, choral works, and songs, though he had a particular affinity for orchestral music. His music can be categorized into four style periods: (1) The Formative Period, 1879–1894; (2) The Americanism/Modernism Period, 1895–1909; (3) The Dramatic Period, 1910–1918; and (4) The Reflective Years, 1919-1931.

The Formative Period (1879–1894)

During this time, Chadwick utilized his training as a student in Leipzig, favoring sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

, diatonic harmony, and regular phrasing and rhythms. The Symphony No. 1 in C major, Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major, and Symphony in F (No. 3) followed the four-movement outline, model after composers like Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

, and Antonin Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

. Nonetheless, the Second and Third Symphonies exhibit original aspects such as pentatonic scales, along with the Scots-Irish folk style in the Second Symphony.

His important early overtures are Rip Van Winkle, Melpomene, and Thalia. Set around Washington Irving

Washington Irving

Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...

's tale of the same name, Rip Van Winkle was his first orchestral work that established his claim to fame in Europe and America. Melpomene is a rich and lush work reminiscent of Wagner, and the comedy overture Thalia is imitative of Mendelssohn's light and lively style. A choral/orchestral piece, The Lily Nymph, presents a mixture of techniques borrowed from Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

and Impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

.

Among his chamber works, the First String Quartet and Second String Quartet demonstrate a solid knowledge of developmental procedures as well as inventiveness, while the Third String Quartet (1882?-1886) displays more mastery in instrumentation. The Quintet for Piano and Strings is a lyrical work that show a melodic gift despite some awkward moments.

Chadwick's first work for the theatre was The Peer and the Pauper, an imitation of Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

operas which were then popular in the U.S. His "burlesque opera" Tabasco was an outlet for his own wry wit, featuring a humorous plot, comically-named characters, and popular-style music. It opened in New York 1894 and toured the United States for a year. The Grove Encyclopedia says it offered:

"…a veritable anthology of popular styles, including a ‘Plantation Ballad’, a Spanish ‘Bolero’, an Irish ‘Ditty’ and a French ‘Rigaudon’, most of them designed as set pieces to show off the talents of the first performers. But Chadwick also composed complex musical numbers that advance the plot and demonstrate his command of the extended finale as employed by Sullivan…."

The Americanism/Modernism Period (1895–1909)

Here Chadwick is asserting his own musical style more than previously, as in the concert overture Adonais. It includes multiple sections, muted strings, and harps to generate an ethereal quality, unconventional rhythms, and occasional chromaticism. The critic William Foster Apthorp stated,
"It is the most modern in spirit of anything I know from his pen… He has outgrown the classic idea… The very character of the thematic material in Adonais is modern, in sharp contrast to the classic reserve shown in the Melpomene overture

Overture

Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...

; the expression is more outspoken, more purely emotional and dramatic."

Chadwick further delved into the symphonic genre with his Symphonic Sketches

Symphonic Sketches

Symphonic Sketches was composed by George Whitefield Chadwick from about 1895 to 1904. Each of the four movements is inspired by a scene depiction, much like snapshots in an album, drawings, or vignettes...

, Sinfonietta, and Suite Symphonique. All have the conventional four-movement pattern, but he created a gossamer atmosphere with humorous themes, programmaticism, modality (pentatonic melodies), and Impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

. The orchestration

Orchestration

Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...

contains unexpected elements such as bass clarinet

Bass clarinet

The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...

cadenzas, saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

solos

Solo (music)

In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

, extended brass

Brass instrument

A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...

solos, and large percussion batteries.

His Fourth String Quartet, composed around the same time as Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

's String Quartet in F

String Quartet No. 12 (Dvorák)

The American string quartet, opus 96 in F major, is the 12th string quartet composed by Antonín Dvořák. It was written in 1893, during Dvořák's visit to the United States. Dvořák wrote that the quartet - one of the most popular in the chamber music repertoire - is influenced by American folk music...

(op. 96, "American"), displays a more American folk style than his Fifth String Quartet, with catchy tunes and pentatonic third-movement fiddle melodies.

Chadwick composed more stage works, notably Judith, based on the tale from the Aprocrypha of Judith and Holofernes. The piece is melodic and exotic, much like Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

's Samson et Delilah.

In his Ecce jam noctis for chorus and orchestra composed for Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

's 1897 commencement ceremony, Chadwick weaved in rhythmic twists like triple-meter strings against the static and homophonical chorus. Lochinvar is another distinctive choral piece with a Celtic

Celtic music

Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...

flavor, featuring a baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

voice with a violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

solo just before the "Introduction of Strathspey" section.

The Dramatic Period (1910–1918)

During this period, Chadwick shifted from overtures and symphonies to a more dramatic and programmatic style. At this point, he was more interested in musical effects than in form and construction.

His two representative works are the tone poems Aphrodite and Tam O’Shanter, both for large orchestra. The compositions are both highly episodic, programmatic and well-orchestrated. Aphrodite evokes a majestic image of the sea, and Tam O’Shanter (based on the tale by Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

) is a work of musical story-telling of similar caliber as some of Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

's pieces, such as the latter's Don Quixote

Don Quixote (Strauss)

Don Quixote, Op. 35, is a composition by Richard Strauss for cello, viola and large orchestra. Subtitled Phantastische Variationen über ein Thema ritterlichen Charakters , the work is based on the novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. Strauss composed this work in Munich in 1897...

.

Chadwick's most important stage work from this period is The Padrone, based on the realistic plight of Italian immigrants in the North End of Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

. It has a distinctive verismo

Verismo

Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....

style (realistic action integrated with a lyrical score). Although Chadwick considered this to be one of his finer works, it was not performed until 1995, when it was premiered by the Waterbury Symphony at the Thomaston Opera House

Thomaston Opera House

The Thomaston Opera House in Thomaston, Connecticut was built in 1883. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.It has been restored....

.

He wrote a number of patriotic songs during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, including These to the Front, The Fighting Men, and perhaps his best known, Land of Our Hearts, first performed in the Norfolk Festival in June 1918, featuring a fluid syllabic setting of a poem by John Hall Ingram.

The Reflective Years (1919–1931)

By this time, Chadwick was a highly-regarded elder musician who was no longer writing as the energetically creative artist. The Anniversary Overture to celebrate his 25th anniversary as the director of New England Conservatory was considered "scholarly" but warm and congenial. His output significantly declined during these years, and he was more of a musical administrator and socialite among the elite Bostonians. He remained well respected until his death in 1931, after which his works became more obscure but nonetheless considered important contributions to the American music repertoire.

External links

Sound-bites from George Chadwick's String Quartets 1, 4 and 5 with some biographical information
Art of the States: George Whitefield Chadwick
List of Works: George Whitefield Chadwick
New England Composer Series: George Whitefield Chadwick
"Let not your heart be troubled" Boston: A. P. Schmidt, 1887. From Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
"Faith" words by Arthur Macy, music by G.W. Chadwick. Cincinnati: J. Church, 1899. From Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
Sheet Music for "O let night speak of me", A.P. Schmidt Company, 1897.

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