Of all art forms other than poetry, music had the deepest effect on Whitman. He once said that without having come in contact with opera, Leaves of Grass would not have been written. For those unwilling to take him at his word--he was not immune to exaggeration-- there is an abundance of convincing evidence in his work and life that confirms the primacy of music for him. This essay will first explore some of the music that influenced Whitman, after which we will discuss poem number 26 from Song of Myself, which deals with music exclusively.
Part I Musical Influences
A. Minstrels
Thomas D. Rice established his "Jim Crow" routine before 1830. He grew up in New York City; at that time there were few African Americans living in the North. He performed a wild dance, wearing rags and blackface. It was, of course, a crude caricature, but it caught on. In the 1840s, and for many decades later, minstrels, which included comedy skits and song and dance routines performed by whites in blackface, were well established and enormously popular, especially in the North. Very few objected to the racial stereotyping; not even Whitman had reservations, and, in fact, he enjoyed them.
The best known composer of minstrel songs was Stephen Foster. He had an extraordinary gift for melody; his lovely, simple albeit somewhat sentimental tunes are popular to this day. It is said that his songs humanized African Americans, and this is indeed true. They avoided derogatory depictions and showed much sympathy for the enslaved. But they were written as sentimental show-stoppers that enabled the white performers to touch the hearts of the audience; a minstrel show that consisted merely of comedy skits would have been much less entertaining. The songs were not written to help bring about emancipation.
Foster was probably the first American to try to make a living solely by writing popular songs. His distant heirs, such as Bob Dylan, were much more fortunate. They were no copyright laws in antebellum America; this perhaps encouraged his attachment to the promoters of minstrels, who paid him directly. He eventually became penniless, and died tragically alone, a few days after a minor accidental injury, at age 37.
Whitman would much later tell his friend Traubel that he thought Foster's Old Folks at Home was the best thing created by an American composer so far. He also said that he enjoyed African-American songs. (Like so many white Americans at the time, he used a more pejorative adjective than "African-American.")
B. The Hutchinson Family Singers
The first rock stars! (That’s what a wag called them. They came from a farming family in rural New Hampshire. They loved to sing, but their father forbade them to sing at home, since he deemed this activity to be diabolical. Thus, after working on the farm all day, they met at a large rock on their property, and sang in the evening into the night, stars under stars.) The Hutchinsons were a group of thirteen siblings; four of them founded the group around 1840. They began locally, but soon were a national success, even an international success. The Hutchinson Family Singers were the first successful singing group in the United States. At the height of their popularity, they would receive up to a thousand dollars per performance. This was no mean sum; Whitman paid $1,750 for his house in Camden, decades after the Hutchinsons first made their tours. They were the original Peter, Paul and Mary; many of the songs they sang were what would later be called 'protest songs.' Their music advocated temperance, women’s rights, and, especially, the emancipation of slaves.
As mentioned previously, the group was composed of four singing members. In true American style--this style lasted throughout the nineteenth century and was quintessentially American--one singer would sing a verse, followed by the whole group singing in closed harmony, much like a barber shop quartet. This pattern would then be repeated with a different singer leading the next verse.
The style of singing was rooted in Irish and English folksongs. The tempos were brisk; verse and chorus were repeated with little or no variation; the singing was simple, direct, and not very nuanced; the harmonies and melodies were nothing out of the ordinary. Many of the compositions were by Jesse, one of the brothers; he was not nearly as talented as Foster. But the music was lively, and no doubt resulted in a lot of clapping and toe-tapping. Unlike Foster’s, their music was of the times without in any way transcending it. If anyone performs their music today, it is more or less out of historical curiosity.
Whitman had the following to say about them: “Simple, fresh, and beautiful. we hope no spirit of imitation will ever induce them to engraft any “foreign airs” onto their “native graces.” We want this sort of starting point to mould something new and true in American music.” He contrasted their “heart music” with foreign “art music.” He would soon come in contact with the world of opera, which made him profoundly “change his tune” as we shall see.
C. Opera
The opera house, located in Astor Place in the East Village of New York City, opened in 1850 and remained there until 1890. He began attending performances--many performances--shortly after the opera house opened. I would like to have seen the expression on his face when he first heard the sophistication, beauty and emotional depth of opera. It transformed his inner life forever.
We will discuss this encounter with opera in the following analysis of poem 26 from Song of Myself. The poem follows.
Part ll An Analysis of Poem Number 26 from Song of Myself
Now I will do nothing but listen,
To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.
I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,
clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,
Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of
work-people at their meals,
The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick,
The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing
a death-sentence,
The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the
refrain of the anchor-lifters,
The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking
engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights,
The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,
The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two,
(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)
I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,)
I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.
I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,
Ah this indeed is music--this suits me.
A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,
The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
I hear the train'd soprano (what work with hers is this?)
The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd them,
It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent waves,
I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,
Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
And that we call Being.
The title Song of Myself would seem to indicate an autobiographcal poem. It is true that the first person singular appears many times throughout the poem; the name of the author is also mentioned. But this is deceptive. The "I" often refers to an objective camera-type observing eye, or to a transcendent "I" of wisdom itself. When the author mentions his own name, such as in the lines, there is little biographcal information:
Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding/
True, Whitman lived in New York City, but everyone is "a kosmos," and the adjectives seem to describe Whitman's ideal Everyman rather than himself. (Whitman hardly spent his time "eating, drinking and breeding.") This poem about music is a great exception. All the first person singulars of this poem refer to direct personal experience. Music affects nearly everyone; it was, for Whitman, something egalitarian which had a great potential for ennobling everyday people. It was important for him to write about music not only for political reasons, but also for very personal ones. Music, after all, had ennobled him. His own "I" had become a witness to the beauty and depth of this art form; it didn't need any help from an "I" that was not completely
Whitman's.
The first stanza is vintage Whitman. Great music is found in the wonderful, everyday sounds of the world, from birds to 'steam-whistles.' One is reminded of the compositions of John Cage, a composer active a century after Whitman's death--Whitman was ahead of his times in many areas. For John Cage,the timbre, the sounds themselves, were more important than melody, harmony and composition. The line, "I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice," reflects Whitman's view exactly. An emotional person like Whitman, as one might expect, was most moved by the most subtly emotional instrument of all.
I find it remarkable that after a stanza of cataloguing Whitman turns directly to opera. No mention of Foster, no mention of the Hutchinsons! He was a tireless promoter of things American; one would think that his political self would have demanded some mentioning of American music. But here his inner life, hooked on opera--a very European art form--took completely over.
I am convinced that the "violincello" he mentions refers to the beautiful cello solo that begins the overture to William Tell, an opera he knew well. The opening ascending phrase, not to mention that very moving melody that soon follows, undoubtedly had a great affect on him. It is a melody tinged with melancholy; a young man at the time, he undoubtedly related to it as his own "heart's lament."
As in the poem, the overture is followed by a chorus. The line "Ah this indeed is music--this suits me." is to be taken literally. This--and not the music of Foster nor of the Hutchinsons was for Whitman 'the real thing."
In Rossini's opera, as in the poem, the tenor comes next. The tessitura is high; high notes are sustained. "The orbic flex of his mouth" would be apparent to anyone observing a tenor singing this section of the opera . The tenor here is probably Alessandro Bettini, a great Italian tenor of the time. (Many of the singers Whitman heard were first-rate and internationally known.)
Next comes a reference to the singer whom he loved most of all, the great Marietta Alboni. Having been discovered by Rossini himself, Alboni had become a world-famous bel canto singer by the time she visited the United Sates. When she wasn't engaged in New York, Whitman would travel to neighboring cities to hear her. She apparently was down-to-earth, had a beautiful tone, an extensive range, technical prowess and, most important of all, was a singer of great emotional depth. The simple, homespun singing of American culture at the time provided no competition!
The original form of the line "I hear the traine'd soprano (what work of hers is this?)" was "I hear the train'd soprano...she convulses me like the climax of my love-grip." This is of course "over the top" and we are grateful for the revision. But it is significant to note that for Whitman, whose study of physiology and whose inner reflections led him to the conviction that sex was primary--a view not so obvious to his contemporaries--music had almost the same level of importance. (Whitman would undoubtedly have appreciated the joke, "What is the difference between Mozart's Piano Concerto Number 27 and sex? The concerto lasts longer.")
He may well have been referring to the "train'd soprano" singing a lovely, expressive aria from William Tell, Sombre Foret, or to other arias by composers whose operas he was familiar with, e.g. Donizetti, Bellini, Mozart, Verdi.
Whitman had also been deeply moved by other art forms, especially the theater. He was a passionate fan of the famous nineteenth century actor, Junius Brutus Booth. What he later wrote, however, is very telling: "For me, out of the whole list of stage deities of that period, not one meant as much to me as Alboni, as Booth: narrowing it further, I should say Alboni alone."
The last five lines of the poem are especially revealing; Whitman's stance here is a good way to separate those who merely like music from those who really love it. For the former music is simply a form of entertainment; for the latter, music, while still entertaining, brings the listener to the very depth of reality, to "the puzzle of puzzles,/ And that we call Being." Notice the capital B!
Summary
Even though Whitman never learned to play an instrument, his musical tastes were that of a first-rate musician. (For instance, Whitman was critical of Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale" who was much more popular in America than Alboni. She had great technical abilities, but apparently lacked emotional depth. Whitman criticized her superficial artistry; I have no doubt that this criticism was spot-on.)
It is no accident that his greatest poem series is called Song of Myself. Perhaps it was a good thing that Whitman never studied music formally; if he did, he might have become obsessed with practice and have neglected his obsession with words. If he had learned at any early age to love music too much, Leaves of Grass might never have been written. We can be grateful that things turned out as they did. Much of Leaves of Grass is masterly indeed.
For those who like music, there are many great passages in Whitman's poetry; for those who love music, and thus also are able to appreciate the sounds of his words, the appreciation goes even deeper.
Additional Reading
1. Whitman and Equality by Thomas Dorsett (Google title and author.)
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