New England Conservatory of Music - Neume Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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CLASS OF NINETEEN SEVENTEEN was purchased and converted to the uses of the Conservatory, including the new departments and home. During the fifteen years at the Music Hall Building, the Conservatory had become a well-paying private institution, Dr. Tourjee necessarily profiting thereby but in order to realize his ideals in connection with this new enterprise and for the sake of perpetuating this school of his heart, our founder turned over his entire property, amounting to about $50,000 in its behalf, and voluntarily gave it all into the hands of a board of trustees. That his hopes and ambitions were well-founded, and his investment timely, is proved by the fact that during the first year in the new building the number of pupils more than doubled itself, the enrollment amounting to over 1600. hile these closely related, but not strictly musical, departments of oratory, fine arts, etc., were entirely successful and productive of great good, study along those lines has gradually, during the development of the school, been relegated to those other schools which have later come into existence, specializing along these same lines, and the Conservatory has rightly conformed to the spirit of the times in itself specializing as a school of music. It is always timely, and especially so at the end of this brimming half-century, to look backward with affectionate gratitude to the one who gave life to our be- loved school; and let us never forget that in creating for us this fair heritage, Dr. Tourjee gave not only his time, his unflagging efforts, his exceptional enthu- siasm, but all he possessed, and finally his own life. What greater offering can man make? Page eleven

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NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC latter commanded such prices for their services as to put them beyond the reach of the poor. The conservatory system of Europe was without illustration in this country; and its later discovery was to me a revelation. The possibilities of which I undertook to realize to my countrymen. Dr. TourK e ' s first effort to establish the class system for musical education was made at Fall River, Mass., in 1853. In 1859 he obtained a charter for and organized a musical institute in connection with the Academy at Fast Greenwich, R. I. In 1863, Dr. Tourjee made a trip to Furope and personally studied in and investigated the methods of the European conservatories, which fired him with enthusiasm on his return to start a larger school, which he did at Providence, R.I., in 1864. However, his constant ambition was to establish a music-school in Boston, and finally his dream was realized when on Monday, February 18th, 1867, the New Fngland Conservatory opened its first classes in the Central Music Hall Building of Boston. The faculty of this new school included the foremost musicians of the day, being as follows: pianoforte, Otto Dresel, B. J. Lang, Frnst Perabo, Stephen A. Fmery, Robert Goldbeck; harmony and composition, Messrs. Goldbeck and Fmery; instrumentation, Carl Zerrahn; vocal culture, Signor Dama, Messrs. Zerrahn and Tourjee; organ, S. P. Tuckerman, George F. Whiting; violin, VV. H. Schultze; violoncello, Wulf Fries; contrabass, August Stein. In 1870 the New Fngland Conservatory was incorporated, and in that year the first class was graduated. The school remained in the Music Hall building until 1882, when, indeed, it had grown to be a flourishing institution with an enrollment of about 700 stu- dents, an extremely significant fact when we stop to think of the striking contrast offered between conditions for music-study existing in the homes then and now. Today the most modest of homes possesses its piano as a matter of course, while in those days even the more pretentious homes could boast of nothing better than a cabinet organ; today music-study is regarded as a necessary part of every child ' s education, whereas then it was still considered as an accomplish- ment to be cultivated almost exclusively by the affluent leisure-class. It is such schools as this that have wrought the change. The year 1SS2 found Dr. Tourjee still pushing on with a never-waning enthu- siasm toward the development of a school still larger and covering an even broader held of instruction, for it was his theory that perfect education requires the symmetrical development of all the faculties. In accordance with this idea, he desired to add to the courses already included in the curriculum, departments of oratory, fine arts, and physical culture, and also to establish a home for women students in the school. For this purpose the St. James Hotel in Franklin Square Page ten

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j Director Chadwick and Our Curriculum By LOUIS C. ELSON N THE September-October issue of the New England Conser- vatory Magazine-Review, the present writer published an ap- preciation of the character and the compositions of Mr. Chad- wick. On the completion of the 20th year of his directorship there still remains much to be said about the work that he has done within our Conservatory. If some of the old students of Franklin Square days were to attend the examinations which have recently been held, or acquaint themselves with the re- quirements of a full course, they would realize that, thanks to Mr. Chadwick, the Conservatory has become much more of a College, or even a University, than it pretended to be in the olden times. Let us examine but a few of these advances. The lectures have a much wider scope than of yore and there are examinations upon them which make their val- uable information an integral part of the course. Most especially Mr. Chadwick labored to bring the Institution out of the piano rut into which it was drifting. The piano department is as powerful as ever (even more so), but a piano education alone is not tolerated in the grad- uate. Mr. Chadwick insisted upon ensemble work in many ways. The great annual piano competition was due to the generosity of the Mason Hamlin Co., but the artistic position of Mr. Chadwick made it possible for him to obtain as judges the leading conductors, composers and musicians, on this and other occasions. The director ' s high position in the musical world has resulted in the co-operation of many great personages in the artistic and the commercial world, men who once looked askance at our Alma Mater, or at least held aloof from it. This change of sentiment was largely due to the confidence in the standard which Mr. Chadwick was establishing. He never aimed at big- ness merely. Quality not quantity was his motto, and because of the quality of the new curriculum the quantity followed in its wake. Of course Piano and Voice are the chief studies in every Conservatory in the world, but Mr. Chadwick saw to it that none of the other points of musical study were neglected. Every orchestral instrument has its professor within our walls. The vocal department had an important adjunct added in chorus training. Most artistic and advanced of all was the orchestra which this eminent composer- conductor founded. Not an amateur organization, but one which has given most classical as well as most modern works. These are a few of the advances which the Conservatory has made under Mr. Chadwick ' s regime, and the end is by no means attained, for there is constant advance made from year to year. We have already attained a rank which is equal to that of the best European Conservatories before the war, and, with the favorable conditions for the United States at present, and with the continued guidance of our broadminded and artistic conductor, we may yet hope to have the very best Conservatory in the world. Page twelve