Grove Koger

Over the years, I’ve “collected” classical music associated with the places I’ve visited (or would like to), and one of the pieces on my list is the nocturne “Ragusa” by American composer Ernest Schelling, who died on December 8, 1939.

In his heyday, Schelling was a renowned pianist, composer, and conductor. Born in New Jersey in 1876 to an English mother and a Swiss father, he debuted at the age of four at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. He went on to study in Europe with several prominent musicians, including famed Polish pianist and patriot Ignace Paderewski, whose friend he quickly became. The relationship was a factor in Schelling’s decision to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War I, and led to his working in Poland (which had been occupied by Germany and Austria) with Paderewski, who served as that country’s prime minister at war’s end. But fame is fleeting, and I probably would never have learned of Schelling if I hadn’t heard “Ragusa” on YouTube.

Before I proceed, however, here’s a bit of information about the place that inspired Schelling. Ragusa is the historical name of the city of Dubrovnik, which was a domain of the Venetian Empire from 1000 to 1030 and again from 1205 to 1358. Dubrovnik lies in Dalmatia, which was once a Roman province and which formed part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 to 1918, when it became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Since the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, it’s been the unofficial name of the southern region of Croatia.

Schelling’s interest in the region was inspired by a cruise down the Dalmatian coast, although I haven’t been able to determine its date. As he explained in a letter in 1928, he was “deeply impressed” by the coast’s “melancholy beauty” and was inspired to write down his impressions. “Mr. Paderewski did me the honor to ask me to write for him a short Barcarolle to be played on his programs for his tour,” continued Schelling, “and so I wrote this Nocturne.” When the piece was published in 1926, Schelling dedicated it “To my master, I.J. Paderewski.”

The first page of the published work bears the lines of a poem by an unidentified author, who I suspect was Schelling himself working in an archaizing mode (as he was in choosing his title): “Chapels of the Dalmatian Coast half hidden on the rugged heights / Send out a silvery vesper call, / Ragusa of haunting charm and glorious past, / Its flickering lights lit one by one, / Mirage of  Venice adrift / Across the Sapphire Sea.”

“Ragusa” quickly became one of Paderewski’s favorites, and during the 1924 season alone, he performed it 78 times. He also recorded it for Victor Records three years later, and that’s the version you can hear on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pqWelrMsSM.

In her notes to a 1996 selection of Schelling’s works on Albany Records, pianist Mary Louise Boehm wrote of the work’s “haunting mood, the gradual emergence of sparkling rhythms, its shifting colors and dramatic dynamics, ranging from softest pianissimo to full sonorous fortissimo. Here Schelling creates a tone poem almost orchestral, with the sound of bells, first in the distance and then climaxing in the deep tones of the bourdon. The music fades away on soft, dreamy glissandi, alternatingly on the black and the white keys.” A bourdon, by the way, is the lowest bell in a set.

I can’t help repeating Boehm’s adjective: Schelling’s composition is indeed haunting, and I’m amazed it isn’t better known. I’ve been lucky enough to have sailed up and down the Dalmatian coast several times myself, and the somber beauty of its rugged limestone profile at twilight (the time of Vespers, or Evening Prayer) is beyond my ability to express credibly in words. But Schelling was able to capture it in music.

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The painting “View of the Bay of Ragusa” is by Edward Lear. The photograph of Schelling and his dog aboard ship dates from about 1915 and is reproduced courtesy of the George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, and Cunard Archives. The American stamp honoring Paderewski dates from 1960. Frustratingly enough, I haven’t been able to identify the painting attached to the YouTube recording, and while it probably doesn’t depict the Dalmatian coast, it fits the mood of the piece perfectly.

Update 12/8/20: My friend Elaine Watson has identified the image attached to the YouTube video as Nocturne, Lake Como, a pastel by Charles Warren Eaton (1857-1937). At least it’s the right continent!