Joseph Deems — Taylor
(Born at New York, December 22, 1885)
“Through the Looking Glass,” Suite, Five Pictures From Lewis Carroll, Op. 12
Ia. Dedication Ib. The Garden of Live Flowers II. Jabberwocky III. Looking-Glass Insects IV. The White Knight
It is a pleasure to find an American composer of talent who is willing to write music that is cheerful, not portentous; whose fancy is delicate; who uses a large orchestra discreetly, not chiefly to make a thunderous noise. Mr. Taylor for his inspiration went to a book that for years has pleased children from the tender age to that of white hair; he did not ransack the Grecian or the Scandinavian mythology; he had no thesis, no exposition of colors; he did not attempt to portray in music cave life and the rude rites of primitive man. Nor did he strive painfully to be ultra-modern in the French, Italian, or German manner. He remembered Lewis Carroll’s story. Pleasant and amusing musical thoughts came into his head, and he expressed them musically, without laboring after transliteration. Even his narration of the Jabberwock’s fate is not too realistic, and in this movement the measures that may be taken to picture the peaceful scene while the hero waited “with vorpal sword” in hand by the Tumtum tree the approach of the fearful monster are charged with poetic beauty. Charming also is the “Dedication.” The whole work shows genuine fancy, a gift of expression in an individual manner. Whether without titles the music would identify this or that episode is not to the point. The suite is frankly programme music, but of the better kind; natural, not pretentious; amusing, but as a man of talent amuses first himself, then those who are privileged to be with him.
This suite, inspired by Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-98), was written in 1917-19 for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, pianoforte, and strings. It was produced in this form at a concert of the New York Chamber Music Society in New York on February 18, 1919. The suite was then in three movements. In September, 1921, Mr. Taylor began to revise the suite for full orchestra. He added “The Garden of Live Flowers.” The first performance of the revised work was by the New York Symphony Orchestra in Brooklyn, March 10, 1923. The performance was repeated in New York the following afternoon.
The score, dedicated “To Katharine Moore Taylor from a difficult son,” calls for these instruments: three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, a set of three kettledrums, snare drum, tambourine, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, xylophone, pianoforte, and strings.
When the suite was produced by the Symphony Society of New York, the programme contained a description by Mr. Taylor:
“The suite needs no extended analysis. It is based on Lewis Carroll’s immortal nonsense fairy tale, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, and the five pictures it presents will, if all goes well, be readily recognizable to lovers of the book. There are four movements, the first being subdivided into two connected parts.”
Ia. Dedication
Carroll precedes the tale with a charming poetical foreword, the first stanza of which the music aims to express. It runs:
Child of the pure, unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet, and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love gift of a fairy tale.
A simple song theme, briefly developed, leads to
Ib. the Garden of Live Flowers
(The score contains this extract from the book:
“‘O Tiger Lily,’ said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, ‘I wish you could talk.’
“‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-Lily, ‘when there’s anybody worth talking to.’
“‘And can the flowers talk?’
“‘As well as you can,’ said the Tiger-Lily, ‘and a great deal louder.’”)
Shortly after Alice had entered the looking-glass country she came to a lovely garden in which the flowers were talking—in the words of the Tiger-Lily, “as well as you can, and a great deal louder.” The music, therefore, reflects the brisk chatter of the swaying, bright-colored denizens of the garden.
II. Jabberwocky
This is the poem that so puzzled Alice, and which Humpty-Dumpty finally explained to her. The theme of that frightful beast, the Jabberwock, is first announced by the full orchestra. The clarinet then begins the tale, recounting how on a “brillig” afternoon, the “slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” Muttered imprecations by the bassoon warn us to “beware the Jabberwock, my son.” A miniature march signalizes the approach of our hero, taking “his vorpal sword in hand.” Trouble starts among the trombones—the Jabberwock is upon us. The battle with the monster is recounted in a short and rather repellent fugue, the double basses bringing up the subject and the hero fighting back in the interludes. Finally his vorpal blade (really a xylophone) goes “snicker-snack” and the monster, impersonated by the solo bassoon, dies a lingering and convulsive death. The hero returns to the victorious strains of his own theme—“O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” The whole orchestra rejoices—the church bells are rung—alarums and excursions.
Conclusion. Once more the “slithy toves” perform their pleasing evolutions, undisturbed by the uneasy ghost of the late Jabberwock.
III. Looking-Glass Insects
(The score contains extracts from the dialogue of Alice and the gnat “about the size of a chicken” about various insects, among them the bread-and-butter-fly.
“‘And what does it live on?’
“‘Weak tea with cream in it.’
“‘Supposing it couldn’t find any?’
“‘Then it would die, of course.’
“‘But that must happen very often,’ said Alice thoughtfully.
“‘It always happens,’ said the gnat.”)
Here we find the vociferous diptera that made such an impression upon Alice—the Bee-elephant, the Gnat, the Rocking-horse-fly, the Snap-dragon-fly, and the Bread-and-butter-fly. There are several themes, but there is no use trying to decide which insect any one of them stands for.
IV. The White Knight
(The score contains extracts from the conversation of the White Knight, and an account of his leave-taking.)
He was a toy Don Quixote, mild, chivalrous, ridiculous, and rather touching. He carried a mouse-trap on his saddle-bow, “because, if they do come, I don’t choose to have them running about.” He couldn’t ride very well, but he was a gentle soul, with good intentions. There are two themes: the first, a sort of instrumental prance, being the Knight’s own conception of himself as a slashing, dare-devil fellow. The second is bland, mellifluous, a little sentimental—much more like the Knight as he really was. The first theme starts off bravely, but falls out of the saddle before very long, and has to give way to the second. The two alternate, in various guises, until the end, when the Knight rides off, with Alice waving her handkerchief—he thought it would encourage him if she did.