Moral Fire: Musical Portraits from America’s Fin de Siècle by Joseph Horowitz (review)

Abstract

Moral Fire: Musical Portraits from America's Fin de Siecle. By Joseph Horowitz. Berkeley: University of Cali - fornia Press, 2012. [xv, 263 p. ISBN 9780520267442. $39.95.] Illustrations, index.Moral Fire is book with mission. Like four individuals who comprise its portraits, Joseph Horowitz makes powerful case for music as valuable intellectual and cultural pursuit. His goal is to change our perspective on period that Mark Twain satirically labeled Gilded Age. For Horowitz, decades between Civil War and 1900 are characterized neither by self-absorbed wealthy nor proponents of genteel tradition (p. 6). On contrary, era burned with passion of civic idealism and melioristic vision. Individuals such as Henry Lee Higginson, founder of Boston Symphony Orches - tra (BSO); Laura Langford, creator of Brooklyn's Seidl Society; critic Henry Krehbiel; and composer Charles Ives epitomize this zeal. Their activities show the moral passion animating classical music at turn of twentieth century (p. 8).The origins of this project can be found in Horowitz's earlier studies, Wagner Nights (1994) and Classical Music in America: A History (2005), in which Higginson, Lang - ford, Krehbiel, and Ives made cameo appearances. As Moral Fire elaborates, their activities overlap in numerous ways, but especially through Anton Seidl and Antonin Dvorak, whose American visit spurred vigorous debate about formation of national school of composition. Another recurring theme is 1893 Columbian Exposition, which was visited by Dvorak, Krehbiel and Ives. Boston's musical horizon is repeatedly compared to New York's and found wanting by numerous figures, from critic J. S. Dwight, who poisonously personifies snobbish discomfort (p. 233) to inbred composers' community (p. 295) around John Knowles Paine.As an alternative to term Gilded Age, Horowitz calls years circa 1900 United States' de siecle. The latter term typically describes a dynamic moment in European culture . . . freighted with decadence that lasted from about 1880 to 1914 (p. 11). Just as Wagner Nights described specifically American response to Wagner's operas, Moral Fire posits distinctively American response to modernity at century's turn. What was shared across Atlantic was pursuit of intense experience. The difference is that Americans cloaked this desire in garb of moral improvement. Higginson, Kreh - biel, Langford, and Ives were all agents of upliftfor whom great art seemed . . . inherently ennobling (p. 226). It would be mistake, however, to characterize their actions as embrace of tradition. On contrary, their activities are signposts of an intense high culture in vigorous transition (p. 12). They were all fulcrum figures living in a moment in flux, American fin de siecle (p. 227).Horowitz's portrait of Higginson is an inspiring sketch of man who balanced profound musical interests with lucrative career in finance. The young Higginson dropped out of Harvard but spent several years studying music in Vienna. He returned to Boston just as Civil War began, and he served Union cause heroically. Having decided against musical career, he joined his family's modest firm and helped it become one of Boston's most prominent investment banks.In 1881, Higginson announced his intention to establish symphony orchestra offering twenty concerts each season. Its players would earn full-time salaries, relieving them of need to work for theaters and dances. Ticket prices were kept low, reviving Germania Musical Society's policies of 1850s. Anticipating that new organization was unlikely to survive through ticket sales, Higginson personally guaranteed payroll. He chose George Henschel and then Wilhelm Gericke as conductors and advised them closely on repertory. Although Higginson was sometimes seen as exercising an artistic dictatorship (p. …