John A Hugo 1873-1945

[giles.enders]

Does anyone know anything about this chap. Born in the USA, he composed four piano concertos, three before 1914.  He also composed a Concert de Societe for piano and orchestra.

[Alan Howe]

Grove online has this:

Hugo, John Adam
(b Bridgeport, ct, 5 Jan 1873; d Bridgeport, 29 Dec 1945). American composer. He entered the Stuttgart Conservatory in 1888 and later appeared as a concert pianist in Europe. In 1899 he returned to the USA, where he taught in Baltimore and from 1906 devoted his time to composition and private teaching in his native city. Hugo's student work The Hero of Byzanz (composed in 1891–3 to his own libretto) was never produced, but his one-act opera The Temple Dancer, to a libretto by Jutta Bell-Ranske after her story of a Hindu woman who loves a man not of her faith, was first performed at the Metropolitan on 12 March 1919 and won the David Bispham Medal in 1925. A picturesque use of modal harmony and exotic percussion lightly flavour the otherwise conventional idiom of this and of Hugo's third and last (unperformed) opera, The Sun God (1925; B. James), a full-length work about the Incas of Peru. Hugo's MSS are in the Bridgeport Public Library, Connecticut.
Michael Meckna

[edurban]

Good G*d...the Beethoven of Bridgeport!  He can join Anthony Phillip Heinrich, the Beethoven of Louisville, Ky and Horace Wadham Nicholl, the Beethoven of Pittsburgh, Pa.  I grew up (to age 12) in Bridgeport and it could use a creative muse of its own.  Forty years ago it still lived up to its nickname "the Park City", since then it's gone bankrupt and really slid into the abyss.  Hugo wouldn't recognise it...

I wonder if the Bridgeport Symphony knows about Hugo?

David

[giles.enders]

Does this mean that there are four pastiche Beethoven piano concertos lurking in Bridgeport public libraries ?

[edurban]

These American "Beethovens" are a legacy of the unfortunate/silly/amusing 19th century American boosterism that tried to prove that everything Europe did, we were bound to do better.  A good example would be Silas Gamaliel Pratt informing Wagner that he was "the Silas G Pratt of Europe."  Harmless, I guess.

David

[chill319]

Easy for us to sneer at early Americans, but a study of the life history of a Homann followed by a listen to the Rasumovsky-inspired quality of his string quartets leaves me, for one, impressed.

[edurban]

No sneering about the musicians or their music is going on here.  The claims that we Americans had "Beethovens in our midst" invariably popped up in the 19th century press and had nothing to do with esthetics.

Nor do I sneer at Silas Pratt for thinking he was Wagner's equal, though even a cursory look at Pratt's opera Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra is enough to make you wonder what he was thinking.  Maybe he was delusional, or maybe there was a little sly P. T. Barnum-type humor in his madness...

David

[giles.enders]

Now if some patriotic American were to record or have performed something of John A Hugo's we could make up our minds.

[Amphissa]

 
Well, of course, the acknowledged greatest of the American Beethovens was John Knowles Paine, who was the first this side of the pond to achieve acclaim for his orchestral works. Just a frew moments listening to one of his symphonies justifies the appellation. Not that he's in the same league as Beethoven, of course, but he did learn a lot studying in Germany, including the compositional style of Beethoven.

[giles.enders]

Perhaps a start in resurrecting these composers could be made by listing their opus numbers and where the scores are, if known.  At least we would know what was there to follow up on.

[Amphissa]

John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), was a member of the "Boston Six", which included George Chadwick, Horatio Parker, Arthur Foote, Edward MacDowell, and Amy Beach. The music of Foote, Chadwick and Beach has been discussed in Unsung threads on several occasions, and is well worth hearing. I'm especially fond of Foote's chamber music, which is very good indeed. However, I don't remember any of them being compared to Beethoven. That was reserved for Knowles, who was on the Harvard faculty.

Of knowles' orchestral works, there are CDs available that include:

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 23
Symphony #2 in A major "In Spring" op. 34
along with some overtures and preludes for orchestra

Also a Mass and assorted organ works are available on CD, although I've not heard them. The symphonies are not Beethoven, just as Herzogenberg is not Brahms, but they are still good listening.

[chill319]

"The kindlier view of any man is apt to be the truer view." W. D. Howells, 1887.

Not quite sure how this intersects with having critical standards that amount to more than moods or habits. But Howells certainly had them.

And I have often enough changed my opinion about a work after I got to know it -- having thought I already knew it. Input from forum members has been most helpful and heartening in this regard.

[giles.enders]

It would appear that out of 'The Boston Six', Hugo is the least known, all of the others have a reasonable amount of their music recorded.  Are there any recordings of anything of his out there?

[JimL]

Hugo wasn't in the Boston Six, Giles.  Do a recount of Amphissa's list.  Hugo was in Bridgeport, anyway.

[giles.enders]

Ah, my mistake, it only shows how far off the original topic some get.