Carlos Troyer, (January 12, 1837 – July 26, 1920) bornCharles Troyer, was an American composer known for hismusical arrangements of traditionalNative American melodies.
Born inFrankfurt,Germany, Troyer settled inSan Francisco sometime before 1871, where he became known as a violinist, pianist and teacher of music and began using the name Carlos.
In 1880 he performed the wedding march atMichael Henry de Young's wedding.[1] In the late 1880s he composed the music for a number of charity revues produced and written byElla Sterling Cummins.[2] He taught Cummins' daughter Viva D. Cummins, who eventually launched a series of concerts on the east coast presenting various Indian music in costume.[3]
Troyer held an interest in the natural sciences. In 1874, Troyer was elected a life member of theCalifornia Academy of Sciences.[4] For most of the 1880s and 1890s he was its librarian.[5][6] During a naturalist expedition to Baja for the Academy,Gustav Eisen attempted to name a peak in theSierra de la Laguna after Troyer and fellow Academy trustee E. J. Molera.[7][8] He was a member of the San Francisco Microscopical Society.[9]
In 1886, his publication of a transcription/adaptation ofApache Chief Geronimo's Own Medicine Song marked the beginning of a long professional interest in Native American music. Throughout the 1880s he published several transcriptions and arrangements of Native American songs, including those recounted byFrank Hamilton Cushing.[10] Eventually, his works became further romanticized and amerindian, culminating in his final published piece,Midnight Visit to the Sacred Shrines, a Zuñian Ritual.
He is frequently included in the list of theIndianist composers;Farwell'sWa-Wan Press published many of his transcriptions/harmonizations.[11] Many of his earlier compositions were published by A. Waldteufel in San Francisco; later in his life Theodore Presser Co published many of his Native American transcriptions and songs.
A brief autobiography, provided with his 1913 published lecture notes on Native American music, indicates he spent time "in the field" with the Zunis and Apaches recording and transcribing their music, possibly while employed for the government, and mentioned similar travels to Brazil.[12][13] Contemporaries includingCharles Lummis andFrederick W. Hodge noted these claims as lies or exaggerations, intended to boost credibility for his lecture tours later in life. With the possible exception ofBarbara Tedlock in herSongs of the Zuni, modern critical analysis of the ethnographic value of Troyer's transcriptions are negative.[14]
Several of Troyer's transcriptions have been identified as likely sources of musical borrowing byPuccini for themes inLa Fanciulla del West.[15]
He taught at Mills College. He died inBerkeley, California at the age of 83. His wife Virginia died shortly after.[13]
The Spider and the Fly (1882)[16] for two voices, dedicated to Lena Hamilton and Lottie Calsing.
Songs of the Sunset Land (Published in San Francisco in 1884 by A. Waldteufel)[17] Includes the following musical settings:
Song of the Sunset Land (originally composed for the 1884 Admission Day celebrations for California's 34th anniversary of admittance to the Union[18])
Lead Thy Mother Tenderly
The Funny Old Man in the Moon
Swing Song (text byWilliam Neale Lockington, fellow officer of the California Academy of Sciences)
Song of the Little People
Baby Bye
'Tis Time I Should Forget
The Raftman's Song
Slumber Song
I Love the Old Songs Most
Mooley Cow
Fortune's Wheel
Apache ChiefGeronimo's Own Medicine Song (1886) (This was later arranged for chorus by Albert Israel Elkus[19])
A Children's Night (1888) (operetta, lyrics byElla Sterling Cummins, premiered at a children's party hosted by Alpheus Bull)[2]
Princess of Topolobampo (1888) (comic operetta, lyrics by Ella Sterling Cummins, composed for a benefit concert for the Occidental Kindergarten in San Francisco)[20]
Millenium March, (1890) (written for a charity revue for the San Francisco kindergarten system)[21]
Arabian Nights Entertainment and Merchants' Caravan, (1891) (music written for a charity revue for Home for Incurables, produced by Ella Sterling Cummins and theKing's Daughters).[22] Included the songWhy He Left Town, which Troyer self-published the next month.[23]
Two Zuñi Songs (1893) (Lover's Wooing or Blanket Song, Zunian Lullaby). Transcriptions and harmonizations of songs recounted to Troyer by Frank Hamilton Cushing during Cushing's lectures at the California Academy of Sciences.[24]
The Golden Corn, anthemic setting ofEdna Dean Proctor's poem Columbia's Emblem, premiered May 3 1895 at the annual ball of the St. Andrew's Society.[25][26]
The Star-Spangled Banner Concert Paraphrase, piano variations, winner ofThe Etude composition prize. (1898)
Hymn to the Sun: An Ancient Jubilee Song of the Sun-Worshippers, with Historical Account of the Ceremony and the Derivation of Music from the Sun's Rays (1909, published by Wa-Wan)
Lebensfreude (1910)
Midnight Visit to the Sacred Shrines, a Zuñian Ritual: a Monody for Two Flute-trumpets of High and Low Pitch (Clarinet and Oboe); a Traditional Chant of Melodic Beauty, and Parting Song on Leaving the Shrines, with English and Indian Texts … the Accompaniment may be played on the Piano.
In the Silence: a psychic tone-picture
Traditional Songs of the Zuni Indians (Published in 1914 by Theodore Presser Co):
