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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17474-8.txt b/17474-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7abfb29 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8731 @@ +Project Gutenberg's How to Listen to Music, 7th ed., by Henry Edward Krehbiel + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. + Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art + +Author: Henry Edward Krehbiel + +Release Date: January 7, 2006 [EBook #17474] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC, 7TH ED. *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC + +HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS TO UNTAUGHT LOVERS OF THE ART + +BY + +HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL + +_Author of "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," "Notes on the Cultivation +of Choral Music," "The Philharmonic Society of New York," etc._ + +_SEVENTH EDITION_ + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1897 + +COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +TROW DIRECTORY +PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY +NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +TO + +W.J. HENDERSON + +WHO HAS HELPED ME TO RESPECT MUSICAL CRITICISM + + * * * * * + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE + + +The author is beholden to the Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission +to use a small portion of the material in Chapter I., the greater part +of Chapter IV., and the Plates which were printed originally in one of +their publications; also to the publishers of "The Looker-On" for the +privilege of reprinting a portion of an essay written for them +entitled "Singers, Then and Now." + + + + +CONTENTS + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. I.] + +_Introduction_ + +Purpose and scope of this book--Not written for professional +musicians, but for untaught lovers of the art--neither for careless +seekers after diversion unless they be willing to accept a higher +conception of what "entertainment" means--The capacity properly to +listen to music as a touchstone of musical talent--It is rarely found +in popular concert-rooms--Travellers who do not see and listeners who +do not hear--Music is of all the arts that which is practised most and +thought about least--Popular ignorance of the art caused by the lack +of an object for comparison--How simple terms are confounded by +literary men--Blunders by Tennyson, Lamb, Coleridge, Mrs. Harriet +Beecher Stowe, F. Hopkinson Smith, Brander Matthews, and others--A +warning against pedants and rhapsodists. _Page 3_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. II.] + +_Recognition of Musical Elements_ + +The dual nature of music--Sense-perception, fancy, and +imagination--Recognition of Design as Form in its primary stages--The +crude materials of music--The co-ordination of tones--Rudimentary +analysis of Form--Comparison, as in other arts, not +possible--Recognition of the fundamental elements--Melody, Harmony, +and Rhythm--The value of memory--The need of an +intermediary--Familiar music best liked--Interrelation of the +elements--Repetition the fundamental principle of Form--Motives, +Phrases, and Periods--A Creole folk-tune analyzed--Repetition at the +base of poetic forms--Refrain and Parallelism--Key-relationship as a +bond of union--Symphonic unity illustrated in examples from +Beethoven--The C minor symphony and "Appassionata" sonata--The +Concerto in G major--The Seventh and Ninth symphonies. _Page 15_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. III.] + +_The Content and Kinds of Music_ + +How far it is necessary for the listener to go into musical +philosophy--Intelligent hearing not conditioned upon it--Man's +individual relationship to the art--Musicians proceed on the theory +that feelings are the content of music--The search for pictures and +stories condemned--How composers hear and judge--Definitions of the +capacity of music by Wagner, Hauptmann, and Mendelssohn--An utterance +by Herbert Spencer--Music as a language--Absolute music and Programme +music--The content of all true art works--Chamber music--Meaning and +origin of the term--Haydn the servant of a Prince--The characteristics +of Chamber music--Pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep +learning--Its chastity--Sympathy between performers and listeners +essential to its enjoyment--A correct definition of Programme +music--Programme music defended--The value of titles and +superscriptions--Judgment upon it must, however, go to the music, not +the commentary--Subjects that are unfit for music--Kinds of Programme +music--Imitative music--How the music of birds has been utilized--The +cuckoo of nature and Beethoven's cuckoo--Cock and hen in a seventeenth +century composition--Rameau's pullet--The German quail--Music that is +descriptive by suggestion--External and internal attributes--Fancy and +Imagination--Harmony and the major and minor mode--Association of +ideas--Movement delineated--Handel's frogs--Water in the "Hebrides" +overture and "Ocean" symphony--Height and depth illustrated by acute +and grave tones--Beethoven's illustration of distance--His rule +enforced--Classical and Romantic music--Genesis of the terms--What +they mean in literature--Archbishop Trench on classical books--The +author's definitions of both terms in music--Classicism as the +conservative principle, Romanticism as the progressive, regenerative, +and creative--A contest which stimulates life. _Page 36_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. IV.] + +_The Modern Orchestra_ + +Importance of the instrumental band--Some things that can be learned +by its study--The orchestral choirs--Disposition of the players--Model +bands compared--Development of instrumental music--The extent of an +orchestra's register--The Strings: Violin, Viola, Violoncello, and +Double-bass--Effects produced by changes in manipulation--The +wood-winds: Flute, Oboe, English horn, Bassoon, Clarinet--The Brass: +French Horn, Trumpet and Cornet, Trombone, Tuba--The Drums--The +Conductor--Rise of the modern interpreter--The need of him--His +methods--Scores and Score-reading. _Page 71_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. V.] + +_At an Orchestral Concert_ + +"Classical" and "Popular" as generally conceived--Symphony Orchestras +and Military bands--The higher forms in music as exemplified at a +classical concert--Symphonies, Overtures, Symphonic Poems, Concertos, +etc.--A Symphony not a union of unrelated parts--History of the +name--The Sonata form and cyclical compositions--The bond of union +between the divisions of a Symphony--Material and spiritual links--The +first movement and the sonata form--"Exposition, illustration, and +repetition"--The subjects and their treatment--Keys and nomenclature +of the Symphony--The _Adagio_ or second movement--The _Scherzo_ and +its relation to the Minuet--The Finale and the Rondo form--The latter +illustrated in outline by a poem--Modifications of the symphonic form +by Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Saint-Saëns and +Dvorák--Augmentation of the forces--Symphonies with voices--The +Symphonic Poem--Its three characteristics--Concertos and Cadenzas--M. +Ysaye's opinion of the latter--Designations in Chamber music--The +Overture and its descendants--Smaller forms: Serenades, Fantasias, +Rhapsodies, Variations, Operatic Excerpts. _Page 122_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. VI.] + +_At a Pianoforte Recital_ + +The Popularity of Pianoforte music exemplified in M. Paderewski's +recitals--The instrument--A universal medium of music study--Its +defects and merits contrasted--Not a perfect melody instrument--Value +of the percussive element--Technique; the false and the true estimate +of its value--Pianoforte literature as illustrated in recitals--Its +division, for the purposes of this study, into four periods: Classic, +Classic-romantic, Romantic, and Bravura--Precursors of the +Pianoforte--The Clavichord and Harpsichord, and the music composed for +them--Peculiarities of Bach's style--His Romanticism--Scarlatti's +Sonatas--The Suite and its constituents--Allemande, Courante, +Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet, and Gavotte--The technique of the +period--How Bach and Handel played--Beethoven and the Sonata--Mozart +and Beethoven as pianists--The Romantic composers--Schumann and Chopin +and the forms used by them--Schumann and Jean Paul--Chopin's Preludes, +Études, Nocturnes, Ballades, Polonaises, Mazurkas, Krakowiak--The +technique of the Romantic period--"Idiomatic" pianoforte +music--Development of the instrument--The Pedal and its use--Liszt and +his Hungarian Rhapsodies. _Page 154_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. VII.] + +_At the Opera_ + +Instability of popular taste in respect of operas--Our lists seldom +extend back of the present century--The people of to-day as +indifferent as those of two centuries ago to the language used--Use +and abuse of foreign languages--The Opera defended as an art-form--Its +origin in the Greek tragedies--Why music is the language of emotion--A +scientific explanation--Herbert Spencer's laws--Efforts of Florentine +scholars to revive the classic tragedy result in the invention of the +lyric drama--The various kinds of Opera: _Opera seria_, _Opera buffa_, +_Opera semiseria_, French _grand Opéra_, and _Opéra +comique_--Operettas and musical farces--Romantic Opera--A popular +conception of German opera--A return to the old terminology led by +Wagner--The recitative: Its nature, aims, and capacities--The change +from speech to song--The arioso style, the accompanied recitative and +the aria--Music and dramatic action--Emancipation from set forms--The +orchestra--The decay of singing--Feats of the masters of the Roman +school and La Bastardella--Degeneracy of the Opera of their +day--Singers who have been heard in New York--Two generations of +singers compared--Grisi, Jenny Lind, Sontag, La Grange, Piccolomini, +Adelina Patti, Nilsson, Sembrich, Lucca, Gerster, Lehmann, Melba, +Eames, Calvé, Mario, Jean and Edouard de Reszke--Wagner and his +works--Operas and lyric dramas--Wagner's return to the principles of +the Florentine reformers--Interdependence of elements in a lyric +drama--Forms and the endless melody--The Typical Phrases: How they +should be studied. _Page 202_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. VIII.] + +_Choirs and Choral Music_ + +Value of chorus singing in musical culture--Schumann's advice to +students--Choristers and instrumentalists--Amateurs and +professionals--Oratorio and _Männergesang_--The choirs of Handel and +Bach--Glee Unions, Male Clubs, and Women's Choirs--Boys' voices not +adapted to modern music--Mixed choirs--American Origin of amateur +singing societies--Priority over Germany--The size of choirs--Large +numbers not essential--How choirs are divided--Antiphonal +effects--Excellence in choir singing--Precision, intonation, +expression, balance of tone, enunciation, pronunciation, +declamation--The cause of monotony in Oratorio performances--_A +capella_ music--Genesis of modern hymnology--Influence of Luther and +the Germans--Use of popular melodies by composers--The +chorale--Preservation of the severe style of writing in choral +music--Palestrina and Bach--A study of their styles--Latin and +Teuton--Church and individual--Motets and Church Cantatas--The +Passions--The Oratorio--Sacred opera and Cantata--Epic and +Drama--Characteristic and descriptive music--The Mass: Its +secularization and musical development--The dramatic tendency +illustrated in Beethoven and Berlioz. _Page 253_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. IX.] + +_Musician, Critic and Public_ + +Criticism justified--Relationship between Musician, Critic and +Public--To end the conflict between them would result in +stagnation--How the Critic might escape--The Musician prefers to +appeal to the public rather than to the Critic--Why this is +so--Ignorance as a safeguard against and promoter of +conservatism--Wagner and Haydn--The Critic as the enemy of the +charlatan--Temptations to which he is exposed--Value of popular +approbation--Schumann's aphorisms--The Public neither bad judges nor +good critics--The Critic's duty is to guide popular +judgment--Fickleness of the people's opinions--Taste and judgment not +a birthright--The necessity of antecedent study--The Critic's +responsibility--Not always that toward the Musician which the latter +thinks--How the newspaper can work for good--Must the Critic be a +Musician?--Pedants and Rhapsodists--Demonstrable facts in +criticism--The folly and viciousness of foolish rhapsody--The Rev. Mr. +Haweis cited--Ernst's violin--Intelligent rhapsody approved--Dr. John +Brown on Beethoven--The Critic's duty. _Page 297_ + + * * * * * + +PLATES + +I. VIOLIN--(CLIFFORD SCHMIDT).--II. VIOLONCELLO--(VICTOR +HERBERT).--III. PICCOLO FLUTE--(C. KURTH, JUN.).--IV. OBOE--(JOSEPH +ELLER).--V. ENGLISH HORN--(JOSEPH ELLER).--VI. BASSOON (FEDOR +BERNHARDI).--VII. CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER).--VIII. BASS +CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER).--IX. FRENCH HORN--(CARL PIEPER).--X. +TROMBONE--(J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER).--XI. BASS TUBA--(ANTON +REITER).--XII. THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE. _Page 325_ + +INDEX _Page 351_ + + + + +How to Listen to Music + + + + +I + +_Introduction_ + + +[Sidenote: _The book's appeal._] + +This book has a purpose, which is as simple as it is plain; and an +unpretentious scope. It does not aim to edify either the musical +professor or the musical scholar. It comes into the presence of the +musical student with all becoming modesty. Its business is with those +who love music and present themselves for its gracious ministrations +in Concert-Room and Opera House, but have not studied it as professors +and scholars are supposed to study. It is not for the careless unless +they be willing to inquire whether it might not be well to yield the +common conception of entertainment in favor of the higher enjoyment +which springs from serious contemplation of beautiful things; but if +they are willing so to inquire, they shall be accounted the class +that the author is most anxious to reach. The reasons which prompted +its writing and the laying out of its plan will presently appear. For +the frankness of his disclosure the author might be willing to +apologize were his reverence for music less and his consideration for +popular affectations more; but because he is convinced that a love for +music carries with it that which, so it be but awakened, shall +speedily grow into an honest desire to know more about the beloved +object, he is willing to seem unamiable to the amateur while arguing +the need of even so mild a stimulant as his book, and ingenuous, +mayhap even childish, to the professional musician while trying to +point a way in which better appreciation may be sought. + +[Sidenote: _Talent in listening._] + +The capacity properly to listen to music is better proof of musical +talent in the listener than skill to play upon an instrument or +ability to sing acceptably when unaccompanied by that capacity. It +makes more for that gentleness and refinement of emotion, thought, and +action which, in the highest sense of the term, it is the province of +music to promote. And it is a much rarer accomplishment. I cannot +conceive anything more pitiful than the spectacle of men and women +perched on a fair observation point exclaiming rapturously at the +loveliness of mead and valley, their eyes melting involuntarily in +tenderness at the sight of moss-carpeted slopes and rocks and peaceful +wood, or dilating in reverent wonder at mountain magnificence, and +then learning from their exclamations that, as a matter of fact, they +are unable to distinguish between rock and tree, field and forest, +earth and sky; between the dark-browns of the storm-scarred rock, the +greens of the foliage, and the blues of the sky. + +[Sidenote: _Ill equipped listeners._] + +Yet in the realm of another sense, in the contemplation of beauties +more ethereal and evanescent than those of nature, such is the +experience which in my capacity as a writer for newspapers I have made +for many years. A party of people blind to form and color cannot be +said to be well equipped for a Swiss journey, though loaded down with +alpenstocks and Baedekers; yet the spectacle of such a party on the +top of the Rigi is no more pitiful and anomalous than that presented +by the majority of the hearers in our concert-rooms. They are there to +adventure a journey into a realm whose beauties do not disclose +themselves to the senses alone, but whose perception requires a +co-operation of all the finer faculties; yet of this they seem to know +nothing, and even of that sense to which the first appeal is made it +may be said with profound truth that "hearing they hear not, neither +do they understand." + +[Sidenote: _Popular ignorance of music._] + +Of all the arts, music is practised most and thought about least. Why +this should be the case may be explained on several grounds. A sweet +mystery enshrouds the nature of music. Its material part is subtle and +elusive. To master it on its technical side alone costs a vast +expenditure of time, patience, and industry. But since it is, in one +manifestation or another, the most popular of the arts, and one the +enjoyment of which is conditioned in a peculiar degree on love, it +remains passing strange that the indifference touching its nature and +elements, and the character of the phenomena which produce it, or are +produced by it, is so general. I do not recall that anybody has ever +tried to ground this popular ignorance touching an art of which, by +right of birth, everybody is a critic. The unamiable nature of the +task, of which I am keenly conscious, has probably been a bar to such +an undertaking. But a frank diagnosis must precede the discovery of a +cure for every disease, and I have undertaken to point out a way in +which this grievous ailment in the social body may at least be +lessened. + +[Sidenote: _Paucity of intelligent comment._] + +[Sidenote: _Want of a model._] + +It is not an exaggeration to say that one might listen for a lifetime +to the polite conversation of our drawing-rooms (and I do not mean by +this to refer to the United States alone) without hearing a symphony +talked about in terms indicative of more than the most superficial +knowledge of the outward form, that is, the dimensions and apparatus, +of such a composition. No other art provides an exact analogy for this +phenomenon. Everybody can say something containing a degree of +appositeness about a poem, novel, painting, statue, or building. If he +can do no more he can go as far as Landseer's rural critic who +objected to one of the artist's paintings on the ground that not one +of the three pigs eating from a trough had a foot in it. It is the +absence of the standard of judgment employed in this criticism which +makes significant talk about music so difficult. Nature failed to +provide a model for this ethereal art. There is nothing in the natural +world with which the simple man may compare it. + +[Sidenote: _Simple terms confounded._] + +It is not alone a knowledge of the constituent factors of a symphony, +or the difference between a sonata and a suite, a march and a mazurka, +that is rare. Unless you chance to be listening to the conversation of +musicians (in which term I wish to include amateurs who are what the +word amateur implies, and whose knowledge stands in some respectable +relation to their love), you will find, so frequently that I have not +the heart to attempt an estimate of the proportion, that the most +common words in the terminology of the art are misapplied. Such +familiar things as harmony and melody, time and tune, are continually +confounded. Let us call a distinguished witness into the box; the +instance is not new, but it will serve. What does Tennyson mean when +he says: + + "All night have the roses heard + The flute, violin, bassoon; + All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd + To the dancers dancing in tune?" + +[Sidenote: _Tune and time._] + +Unless the dancers who wearied Maud were provided with even a more +extraordinary instrumental outfit than the Old Lady of Banbury Cross, +how could they have danced "in tune?" + +[Sidenote: _Blunders of poets and essayists._] + +Musical study of a sort being almost as general as study of the "three +Rs," it must be said that the gross forms of ignorance are utterly +inexcusable. But if this is obvious, it is even more obvious that +there is something radically wrong with the prevalent systems of +musical instruction. It is because of a plentiful lack of knowledge +that so much that is written on music is without meaning, and that +the most foolish kind of rhapsody, so it show a collocation of fine +words, is permitted to masquerade as musical criticism and even +analysis. People like to read about music, and the books of a certain +English clergyman have had a sale of stupendous magnitude +notwithstanding they are full of absurdities. The clergyman has a +multitudinous companionship, moreover, among novelists, essayists, and +poets whose safety lies in more or less fantastic generalization when +they come to talk about music. How they flounder when they come to +detail! It was Charles Lamb who said, in his "Chapter on Ears," that +in voices he could not distinguish a soprano from a tenor, and could +only contrive to guess at the thorough-bass from its being +"supereminently harsh and disagreeable;" yet dear old Elia may be +forgiven, since his confounding the bass voice with a system of +musical short-hand is so delightful a proof of the ignorance he was +confessing. + +[Sidenote: _Literary realism and musical terminology._] + +But what shall the troubled critics say to Tennyson's orchestra +consisting of a flute, violin, and bassoon? Or to Coleridge's "_loud_ +bassoon," which made the wedding-guest to beat his breast? Or to Mrs. +Harriet Beecher Stowe's pianist who played "with an airy and bird-like +touch?" Or to our own clever painter-novelist who, in "Snubbin' +through Jersey," has Brushes bring out his violoncello and play "the +symphonies of Beethoven" to entertain his fellow canal-boat +passengers? The tendency toward realism, or "veritism," as it is +called, has brought out a rich crop of blunders. It will not do to +have a character in a story simply sing or play something; we must +have the names of composers and compositions. The genial gentleman who +enriched musical literature with arrangements of Beethoven's +symphonies for violoncello without accompaniment has since +supplemented this feat by creating a German fiddler who, when he +thinks himself unnoticed, plays a sonata for violin and contralto +voice; Professor Brander Matthews permits one of his heroines to sing +Schumann's "Warum?" and one of his heroes plays "The Moonlight +Concerto;" one of Ouida's romantic creatures spends hours at an organ +"playing the grand old masses of Mendelssohn;" in "Moths" the tenor +never wearies of singing certain "exquisite airs of Palestrina," which +recalls the fact that an indignant correspondent of a St. Louis +newspaper, protesting against the Teutonism and heaviness of an +orchestra conductor's programmes, demanded some of the "lighter" works +of "Berlioz and Palestrina." + +[Sidenote: _A popular need._] + +Alas! these things and the many others equally amusing which Mr. G. +Sutherland Edwards long ago catalogued in an essay on "The Literary +Maltreatment of Music" are but evidences that even cultured folk have +not yet learned to talk correctly about the art which is practised +most widely. There is a greater need than pianoforte teachers and +singing teachers, and that is a numerous company of writers and +talkers who shall teach the people how to listen to music so that it +shall not pass through their heads like a vast tonal phantasmagoria, +but provide the varied and noble delights contemplated by the +composers. + +[Sidenote: _A warning against writers._] + +[Sidenote: _Pedants and rhapsodists._] + +Ungracious as it might appear, it may yet not be amiss, therefore, at +the very outset of an inquiry into the proper way in which to listen +to music, to utter a warning against much that is written on the art. +As a rule it will be found that writers on music are divided into two +classes, and that neither of these classes can do much good. Too often +they are either pedants or rhapsodists. This division is wholly +natural. Music has many sides and is a science as well as an art. Its +scientific side is that on which the pedant generally approaches it. +He is concerned with forms and rules, with externals, to the +forgetting of that which is inexpressibly nobler and higher. But the +pedants are not harmful, because they are not interesting; strictly +speaking, they do not write for the public at all, but only for their +professional colleagues. The harmful men are the foolish rhapsodists +who take advantage of the fact that the language of music is +indeterminate and evanescent to talk about the art in such a way as to +present themselves as persons of exquisite sensibilities rather than +to direct attention to the real nature and beauty of music itself. To +them I shall recur in a later chapter devoted to musical criticism, +and haply point out the difference between good and bad critics and +commentators from the view-point of popular need and popular +opportunity. + + + + +II + +_Recognition of Musical Elements_ + + +[Sidenote: _The nature of music._] + +Music is dual in its nature; it is material as well as spiritual. Its +material side we apprehend through the sense of hearing, and +comprehend through the intellect; its spiritual side reaches us +through the fancy (or imagination, so it be music of the highest +class), and the emotional part of us. If the scope and capacity of the +art, and the evolutionary processes which its history discloses (a +record of which is preserved in its nomenclature), are to be +understood, it is essential that this duality be kept in view. There +is something so potent and elemental in the appeal which music makes +that it is possible to derive pleasure from even an unwilling hearing +or a hearing unaccompanied by effort at analysis; but real +appreciation of its beauty, which means recognition of the qualities +which put it in the realm of art, is conditioned upon intelligent +hearing. The higher the intelligence, the keener will be the +enjoyment, if the former be directed to the spiritual side as well as +the material. + +[Sidenote: _Necessity of intelligent hearing._] + +So far as music is merely agreeably co-ordinated sounds, it may be +reduced to mathematics and its practice to handicraft. But recognition +of design is a condition precedent to the awakening of the fancy or +the imagination, and to achieve such recognition there must be +intelligent hearing in the first instance. For the purposes of this +study, design may be held to be Form in its primary stages, the +recognition of which is possible to every listener who is fond of +music; it is not necessary that he be learned in the science. He need +only be willing to let an intellectual process, which will bring its +own reward, accompany the physical process of hearing. + +[Sidenote: _Tones and musical material._] + +Without discrimination it is impossible to recognize even the crude +materials of music, for the first step is already a co-ordination of +those materials. A tone becomes musical material only by association +with another tone. We might hear it alone, study its quality, and +determine its degree of acuteness or gravity (its pitch, as musicians +say), but it can never become music so long as it remains isolated. +When we recognize that it bears certain relationships with other tones +in respect of time or tune (to use simple terms), it has become for us +musical material. We do not need to philosophize about the nature of +those relationships, but we must recognize their existence. + +[Sidenote: _The beginnings of Form._] + +Thus much we might hear if we were to let music go through our heads +like water through a sieve. Yet the step from that degree of +discrimination to a rudimentary analysis of Form is exceedingly short, +and requires little more than a willingness to concentrate the +attention and exercise the memory. Everyone is willing to do that much +while looking at a picture. Who would look at a painting and rest +satisfied with the impression made upon the sense of sight by the +colors merely? No one, surely. Yet so soon as we look, so as to +discriminate between the outlines, to observe the relationship of +figure to figure, we are indulging in intellectual exercise. If this +be a condition precedent to the enjoyment of a picture (and it plainly +is), how much more so is it in the case of music, which is intangible +and evanescent, which cannot pause a moment for our contemplation +without ceasing to be? + +[Sidenote: _Comparison with a model not possible._] + +There is another reason why we must exercise intelligence in +listening, to which I have already alluded in the first chapter. Our +appreciation of beauty in the plastic arts is helped by the +circumstance that the critical activity is largely a matter of +comparison. Is the picture or the statue a good copy of the object +sought to be represented? Such comparison fails us utterly in music, +which copies nothing that is tangibly present in the external world. + +[Sidenote: _What degree of knowledge is necessary?_] + +[Sidenote: _The Elements._] + +[Sidenote: _Value of memory._] + +It is then necessary to associate the intellect with sense perception +in listening to music. How far is it essential that the intellectual +process shall go? This book being for the untrained, the question +might be put thus: With how little knowledge of the science can an +intelligent listener get along? We are concerned only with his +enjoyment of music or, better, with an effort to increase it without +asking him to become a musician. If he is fond of the art it is more +than likely that the capacity to discriminate sufficiently to +recognize the elements out of which music is made has come to him +intuitively. Does he recognize that musical tones are related to each +other in respect of time and pitch? Then it shall not be difficult for +him to recognize the three elements on which music rests--Melody, +Harmony, and Rhythm. Can he recognize them with sufficient +distinctness to seize upon their manifestations while music is +sounding? Then memory shall come to the aid of discrimination, and he +shall be able to appreciate enough of design to point the way to a +true and lofty appreciation of the beautiful in music. The value of +memory is for obvious reasons very great in musical enjoyment. The +picture remains upon the wall, the book upon the library shelf. If we +have failed to grasp a detail at the first glance or reading, we need +but turn again to the picture or open the book anew. We may see the +picture in a changed light, or read the poem in a different mood, but +the outlines, colors, ideas are fixed for frequent and patient +perusal. Music goes out of existence with every performance, and must +be recreated at every hearing. + +[Sidenote: _An intermediary necessary._] + +Not only that, but in the case of all, so far as some forms are +concerned, and of all who are not practitioners in others, it is +necessary that there shall be an intermediary between the composer and +the listener. The written or printed notes are not music; they are +only signs which indicate to the performer what to do to call tones +into existence such as the composer had combined into an art-work in +his mind. The broadly trained musician can read the symbols; they stir +his imagination, and he hears the music in his imagination as the +composer heard it. But the untaught music-lover alone can get nothing +from the printed page; he must needs wait till some one else shall +again waken for him the + + "Sound of a voice that is still." + +[Sidenote: _The value of memory._] + +This is one of the drawbacks which are bound up in the nature of +music; but it has ample compensation in the unusual pleasure which +memory brings. In the case of the best music, familiarity breeds +ever-growing admiration. New compositions are slowly received; they +make their way to popular appreciation only by repeated performances; +the people like best the songs as well as the symphonies which they +know. The quicker, therefore, that we are in recognizing the melodic, +harmonic, and rhythmic contents of a new composition, and the more apt +our memory in seizing upon them for the operation of the fancy, the +greater shall be our pleasure. + +[Sidenote: _Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm._] + +[Sidenote: _Comprehensiveness of Melody._] + +In simple phrase Melody is a well-ordered series of tones heard +successively; Harmony, a well-ordered series heard simultaneously; +Rhythm, a symmetrical grouping of tonal time units vitalized by +accent. The life-blood of music is Melody, and a complete conception +of the term embodies within itself the essence of both its companions. +A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect +element in music; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic +regulation but are void of rhythm. The beauty and expressiveness, +especially the emotionality, of a musical composition depend upon the +harmonies which either accompany the melody in the form of chords (a +group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously), or are latent in +the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively). Melody is +Harmony analyzed; Harmony is Melody synthetized. + +[Sidenote: _Repetition._] + +[Sidenote: _A melody analyzed._] + +The fundamental principle of Form is repetition of melodies, which are +to music what ideas are to poetry. Melodies themselves are made by +repetition of smaller fractions called motives (a term borrowed from +the fine arts), phrases, and periods, which derive their individuality +from their rhythmical or intervallic characteristics. Melodies are +not all of the simple kind which the musically illiterate, or the +musically ill-trained, recognize as "tunes," but they all have a +symmetrical organization. The dissection of a simple folk-tune may +serve to make this plain and also indicate to the untrained how a +single feature may be taken as a mark of identification and a +holding-point for the memory. Here is the melody of a Creole song +called sometimes _Pov' piti Lolotte_, sometimes _Pov' piti Momzelle +Zizi_, in the patois of Louisiana and Martinique: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Motives, phrases, and periods._] + +It will be as apparent to the eye of one who cannot read music as it +will to his ear when he hears this melody played, that it is built up +of two groups of notes only. These groups are marked off by the heavy +lines across the staff called bars, whose purpose it is to indicate +rhythmical subdivisions in music. The second, third, fifth, sixth, and +seventh of these groups are repetitions merely of the first group, +which is the germ of the melody, but on different degrees of the +scale; the fourth and eighth groups are identical and are an appendage +hitched to the first group for the purpose of bringing it to a close, +supplying a resting-point craved by man's innate sense of symmetry. +Musicians call such groups cadences. A musical analyst would call each +group a motive, and say that each successive two groups, beginning +with the first, constitute a phrase, each two phrases a period, and +the two periods a melody. We have therefore in this innocent Creole +tune eight motives, four phrases, and two periods; yet its material is +summed up in two groups, one of seven notes, one of five, which only +need to be identified and remembered to enable a listener to recognize +something of the design of a composer if he were to put the melody to +the highest purposes that melody can be put in the art of musical +composition. + +[Sidenote: _Repetition in music._] + +Repetition is the constructive principle which was employed by the +folk-musician in creating this melody; and repetition is the +fundamental principle in all musical construction. It will suffice for +many merely to be reminded of this to appreciate the fact that while +the exercise of memory is a most necessary activity in listening to +music, it lies in music to make that exercise easy. There is +repetition of motives, phrases, and periods in melody; repetition of +melodies in parts; and repetition of parts in the wholes of the larger +forms. + +[Sidenote: _Repetition in poetry._] + +The beginnings of poetic forms are also found in repetition; in +primitive poetry it is exemplified in the refrain or burden, in the +highly developed poetry of the Hebrews in parallelism. The Psalmist +wrote: + + "O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, + Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure." + +[Sidenote: _Key relationship._] + +Here is a period of two members, the latter repeating the thought of +the former. A musical analyst might find in it an admirable analogue +for the first period of a simple melody. He would divide it into four +motives: "Rebuke me not | in thy wrath | neither chasten me | in thy +hot displeasure," and point out as intimate a relationship between +them as exists in the Creole tune. The bond of union between the +motives of the melody as well as that in the poetry illustrates a +principle of beauty which is the most important element in musical +design after repetition, which is its necessary vehicle. It is because +this principle guides the repetition of the tone-groups that together +they form a melody that is perfect, satisfying, and reposeful. It is +the principle of key-relationship, to discuss which fully would carry +me farther into musical science than I am permitted to go. Let this +suffice: A harmony is latent in each group, and the sequence of groups +is such a sequence as the experience of ages has demonstrated to be +most agreeable to the ear. + +[Sidenote: _The rhythmical stamp._] + +[Sidenote: _The principle of Unity._] + +In the case of the Creole melody the listener is helped to a quick +appreciation of its form by the distinct physiognomy which rhythm has +stamped upon it; and it is by noting such a characteristic that the +memory can best be aided in its work of identification. It is not +necessary for a listener to follow all the processes of a composer in +order to enjoy his music, but if he cultivates the habit of following +the principal themes through a work of the higher class he will not +only enjoy the pleasures of memory but will frequently get a glimpse +into the composer's purposes which will stimulate his imagination and +mightily increase his enjoyment. There is nothing can guide him more +surely to a recognition of the principle of unity, which makes a +symphony to be an organic whole instead of a group of pieces which are +only externally related. The greatest exemplar of this principle is +Beethoven; and his music is the best in which to study it for the +reason that he so frequently employs material signs for the spiritual +bond. So forcibly has this been impressed upon me at times that I am +almost willing to believe that a keen analytical student of his music +might arrange his greater works into groups of such as were in process +of composition at the same time without reference to his personal +history. Take the principal theme of the C minor Symphony for example: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _A rhythmical motive pursued._] + +This simple, but marvellously pregnant, motive is not only the kernel +of the first movement, it is the fundamental thought of the whole +symphony. We hear its persistent beat in the scherzo as well: + +[Music illustration] + +and also in the last movement: + +[Music illustration] + +More than this, we find the motive haunting the first movement of the +pianoforte sonata in F minor, op. 57, known as the "Sonata +Appassionata," now gloomily, almost morosely, proclamative in the +bass, now interrogative in the treble: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Relationships in Beethoven's works._] + +[Sidenote: _The C minor Symphony and "Appassionata" sonata._] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's G major Concerto._] + +Schindler relates that when once he asked Beethoven to tell him what +the F minor and the D minor (Op. 31, No. 2) sonatas meant, he received +for an answer only the enigmatical remark: "Read Shakespeare's +'Tempest.'" Many a student and commentator has since read the +"Tempest" in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents +which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly +associated, only to find himself baffled. It is a fancy, which rests +perhaps too much on outward things, but still one full of suggestion, +that had Beethoven said: "Hear my C minor Symphony," he would have +given a better starting-point to the imagination of those who are +seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means +music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those +psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more +to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship +of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the +word tempests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven +himself said indicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the +door of human existence, is common to two works which are also related +in their spiritual contents. Singularly enough, too, in both cases the +struggle which is begun in the first movement and continued in the +third, is interrupted by a period of calm reassuring, soul-fortifying +aspiration, which in the symphony as well as in the sonata takes the +form of a theme with variations. Here, then, the recognition of a +simple rhythmical figure has helped us to an appreciation of the +spiritual unity of the parts of a symphony, and provided a commentary +on the poetical contents of a sonata. But the lesson is not yet +exhausted. Again do we find the rhythm coloring the first movement of +the pianoforte concerto in G major: + +[Music illustration] + +Symphony, concerto, and sonata, as the sketch-books of the master +show, were in process of creation at the same time. + +[Sidenote: _His Seventh Symphony._] + +Thus far we have been helped in identifying a melody and studying +relationships by the rhythmical structure of a single motive. The +demonstration might be extended on the same line into Beethoven's +symphony in A major, in which the external sign of the poetical idea +which underlies the whole work is also rhythmic--so markedly so that +Wagner characterized it most happily and truthfully when he said that +it was "the apotheosis of the dance." Here it is the dactyl, [dactyl +symbol], which in one variation, or another, clings to us almost as +persistently as in Hood's "Bridge of Sighs:" + + "One more unfortunate + Weary of breath, + Rashly importunate, + Gone to her death." + +[Sidenote: _Use of a dactylic figure._] + +We hear it lightly tripping in the first movement: + +[Music illustration] and [Music illustration]; + +gentle, sedate, tender, measured, through its combination with a +spondee in the second: + +[Music illustration]; + +cheerily, merrily, jocosely happy in the Scherzo: + +[Music illustration]; + +hymn-like in the Trio: + +[Music illustration] + +and wildly bacchanalian when subjected to trochaic abbreviation in the +Finale: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Intervallic characteristics._] + +Intervallic characteristics may place the badge of relationship upon +melodies as distinctly as rhythmic. There is no more perfect +illustration of this than that afforded by Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. +Speaking of the subject of its finale, Sir George Grove says: + + "And note--while listening to the simple tune itself, before + the variations begin--how _very_ simple it is; the plain + diatonic scale, not a single chromatic interval, and out of + fifty-six notes only three not consecutive."[A] + +[Sidenote: _The melodies in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony._] + +Earlier in the same work, while combating a statement by Lenz that the +resemblance between the second subject of the first movement and the +choral melody is a "thematic reference of the most striking +importance, vindicating the unity of the entire work, and placing the +whole in a perfectly new light," Sir George says: + + "It is, however, very remarkable that so many of the + melodies in the Symphony should consist of consecutive + notes, and that in no less than four of them the notes + should run up a portion of the scale and down + again--apparently pointing to a consistent condition of + Beethoven's mind throughout this work." + +[Sidenote: _Melodic likenesses._] + +Like Goethe, Beethoven secreted many a mystery in his masterpiece, but +he did not juggle idly with tones, or select the themes of his +symphonies at hap-hazard; he would be open to the charge, however, if +the resemblances which I have pointed out in the Fifth and Seventh +Symphonies, and those disclosed by the following melodies from his +Ninth, should turn out through some incomprehensible revelation to be +mere coincidences: + +From the first movement: + +[Music illustration] + +From the second: + +[Music illustration] + +The choral melody: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Design and Form._] + +From a recognition of the beginnings of design, to which +identification of the composer's thematic material and its simpler +relationships will lead, to so much knowledge of Form as will enable +the reader to understand the later chapters in this book, is but a +step. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," p. 374. + + + + +III + +_The Content and Kinds of Music_ + + +[Sidenote: _Metaphysics to be avoided herein._] + +Bearing in mind the purpose of this book, I shall not ask the reader +to accompany me far afield in the region of ćsthetic philosophy or +musical metaphysics. A short excursion is all that is necessary to +make plain what is meant by such terms as Absolute music, Programme +music, Classical, Romantic, and Chamber music and the like, which not +only confront us continually in discussion, but stand for things which +we must know if we would read programmes understandingly and +appreciate the various phases in which music presents itself to us. It +is interesting and valuable to know why an art-work stirs up +pleasurable feelings within us, and to speculate upon its relations to +the intellect and the emotions; but the circumstance that +philosophers have never agreed, and probably never will agree, on +these points, so far as the art of music is concerned, alone suffices +to remove them from the field of this discussion. + +[Sidenote: _Personal equation in judgment._] + +Intelligent listening is not conditioned upon such knowledge. Even +when the study is begun, the questions whether or not music has a +content beyond itself, where that content is to be sought, and how +defined, will be decided in each case by the student for himself, on +grounds which may be said to be as much in his nature as they are in +the argument. The attitude of man toward the art is an individual one, +and in some of its aspects defies explanation. + +[Sidenote: _A musical fluid._] + +The amount and kind of pleasure which music gives him are frequently +as much beyond his understanding and control as they are beyond the +understanding and control of the man who sits beside him. They are +consequences of just that particular combination of material and +spiritual elements, just that blending of muscular, nervous, and +cerebral tissues, which make him what he is, which segregate him as +an individual from the mass of humanity. We speak of persons as +susceptible or insusceptible to music as we speak of good and poor +conductors of electricity; and the analogy implied here is +particularly apt and striking. If we were still using the scientific +terms of a few decades ago I should say that a musical fluid might yet +be discovered and its laws correlated with those of heat, light, and +electricity. Like them, when reduced to its lowest terms, music is a +form of motion, and it should not be difficult on this analogy to +construct a theory which would account for the physical phenomena +which accompany the hearing of music in some persons, such as the +recession of blood from the face, or an equally sudden suffusion of +the same veins, a contraction of the scalp accompanied by chilliness +or a prickling sensation, or that roughness of the skin called +goose-flesh, "flesh moved by an idea, flesh horripilated by a +thought." + +[Sidenote: _Origin of musical elements._] + +[Sidenote: _Feelings and counterpoint._] + +It has been denied that feelings are the content of music, or that it +is the mission of music to give expression to feelings; but the +scientific fact remains that the fundamental elements of vocal +music--pitch, quality, and dynamic intensity--are the results of +feelings working upon the vocal organs; and even if Mr. Herbert +Spencer's theory be rejected, it is too late now to deny that music is +conceived by its creators as a language of the emotions and so applied +by them. The German philosopher Herbarth sought to reduce the question +to an absurdity by expressing surprise that musicians should still +believe that feelings could be "the proximate cause of the rules of +simple and double counterpoint;" but Dr. Stainer found a sufficient +answer by accepting the proposition as put, and directing attention to +the fact that the feelings of men having first decided what was +pleasurable in polyphony, and the rules of counterpoint having +afterward been drawn from specimens of pleasurable polyphony, it was +entirely correct to say that feelings are the proximate cause of the +laws of counterpoint. + +[Sidenote: _How composers hear music._] + +It is because so many of us have been taught by poets and romancers to +think that there is a picture of some kind, or a story in every piece +of music, and find ourselves unable to agree upon the picture or the +story in any given case, that confusion is so prevalent among the +musical laity. Composers seldom find difficulty in understanding each +other. They listen for beauty, and if they find it they look for the +causes which have produced it, and in apprehending beauty and +recognizing means and cause they unvolitionally rise to the plane +whence a view of the composer's purposes is clear. Having grasped the +mood of a composition and found that it is being sustained or varied +in a manner accordant with their conceptions of beauty, they occupy +themselves with another kind of differentiation altogether than the +misled disciples of the musical rhapsodists who overlook the general +design and miss the grand proclamation in their search for petty +suggestions for pictures and stories among the details of the +composition. Let musicians testify for us. In his romance, "Ein +Glücklicher Abend," Wagner says: + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's axiom._] + + "That which music expresses is eternal and ideal. It does + not give voice to the passion, the love, the longing of this + or the other individual, under these or the other + circumstances, but to passion, love, longing itself." + +Moritz Hauptmann says: + +[Sidenote: _Hauptmann's._] + + "The same music will admit of the most varied verbal + expositions, and of not one of them can it be correctly said + that it is exhaustive, the right one, and contains the whole + significance of the music. This significance is contained + most definitely in the music itself. It is not music that is + ambiguous; it says the same thing to everybody; it speaks to + mankind and gives voice only to human feelings. Ambiguity + only then makes its appearance when each person attempts to + formulate in his manner the emotional impression which he + has received, when he attempts to fix and hold the ethereal + essence of music, to utter the unutterable." + +[Sidenote: _Mendelssohn's._] + +[Sidenote: _The "Songs without Words."_] + +Mendelssohn inculcated the same lesson in a letter which he wrote to a +young poet who had given titles to a number of the composer's "Songs +Without Words," and incorporated what he conceived to be their +sentiments in a set of poems. He sent his work to Mendelssohn with the +request that the composer inform the writer whether or not he had +succeeded in catching the meaning of the music. He desired the +information because "music's capacity for expression is so vague and +indeterminate." Mendelssohn replied: + + "You give the various numbers of the book such titles as 'I + Think of Thee,' 'Melancholy,' 'The Praise of God,' 'A Merry + Hunt.' I can scarcely say whether I thought of these or + other things while composing the music. Another might find + 'I Think of Thee' where you find 'Melancholy,' and a real + huntsman might consider 'A Merry Hunt' a veritable 'Praise + of God.' But this is not because, as you think, music is + vague. On the contrary, I believe that musical expression is + altogether too definite, that it reaches regions and dwells + in them whither words cannot follow it and must necessarily + go lame when they make the attempt as you would have them + do." + +[Sidenote: _The tonal language._] + +[Sidenote: _Herbert Spencer's definition._] + +[Sidenote: _Natural expression._] + +[Sidenote: _Absolute music._] + +If I were to try to say why musicians, great musicians, speak thus of +their art, my explanation would be that they have developed, farther +than the rest of mankind have been able to develop it, a language of +tones, which, had it been so willed, might have been developed so as +to fill the place now occupied by articulate speech. Herbert Spencer, +though speaking purely as a scientific investigator, not at all as an +artist, defined music as "a language of feelings which may ultimately +enable men vividly and completely to impress on each other the +emotions they experience from moment to moment." We rely upon speech +to do this now, but ever and anon when, in a moment of emotional +exaltation, we are deserted by the articulate word we revert to the +emotional cry which antedates speech, and find that that cry is +universally understood because it is universally felt. More than +speech, if its primitive element of emotionality be omitted, more than +the primitive language of gesture, music is a natural mode of +expression. All three forms have attained their present stage of +development through conventions. Articulate speech has led in the +development; gesture once occupied a high plane (in the pantomimic +dance of the ancients) but has now retrograded; music, supreme at the +outset, then neglected, is but now pushing forward into the place +which its nature entitles it to occupy. When we conceive of an +art-work composed of such elements, and foregoing the adventitious +helps which may accrue to it from conventional idioms based on +association of ideas, we have before us the concept of Absolute music, +whose content, like that of every noble artistic composition, be it of +tones or forms or colors or thoughts expressed in words, is that high +ideal of goodness, truthfulness, and beauty for which all lofty +imaginations strive. Such artworks are the instrumental compositions +in the classic forms; such, too, may be said to be the high type of +idealized "Programme" music, which, like the "Pastoral" symphony of +Beethoven, is designed to awaken emotions like those awakened by the +contemplation of things, but does not attempt to depict the things +themselves. Having mentioned Programme music I must, of course, try to +tell what it is; but the exposition must be preceded by an explanation +of a kind of music which, because of its chastity, is set down as the +finest form of absolute music. This is Chamber music. + +[Sidenote: _Chamber music._] + +[Sidenote: _History of the term._] + +[Sidenote: _Haydn a servant._] + +In a broad sense, but one not employed in modern definition, Chamber +music is all music not designed for performance in the church or +theatre. (Out-of-door music cannot be considered among these artistic +forms of aristocratic descent.) Once, and indeed at the time of its +invention, the term meant music designed especially for the +delectation of the most eminent patrons of the art--the kings and +nobles whose love for it gave it maintenance and encouragement. This +is implied by the term itself, which has the same etymology wherever +the form of music is cultivated. In Italian it is _Musica da Camera_; +in French, _Musique de Chambre_; in German, _Kammermusik_. All the +terms have a common root. The Greek [Greek: kamara] signified an arch, +a vaulted room, or a covered wagon. In the time of the Frankish kings +the word was applied to the room in the royal palace in which the +monarch's private property was kept, and in which he looked after his +private affairs. When royalty took up the cultivation of music it was +as a private, not as a court, function, and the concerts given for +the entertainment of the royal family took place in the king's +chamber, or private room. The musicians were nothing more nor less +than servants in the royal household. This relationship endured into +the present century. Haydn was a _Hausofficier_ of Prince Esterhazy. +As vice-chapelmaster he had to appear every morning in the Prince's +ante-room to receive orders concerning the dinner-music and other +entertainments of the day, and in the certificate of appointment his +conduct is regulated with a particularity which we, who remember him +and reverence his genius but have forgotten his master, think +humiliating in the extreme. + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's Chamber music._] + +Out of this cultivation of music in the private chamber grew the +characteristics of Chamber music, which we must consider if we would +enjoy it ourselves and understand the great reverence which the great +masters of music have always felt for it. Beethoven was the first +great democrat among musicians. He would have none of the shackles +which his predecessors wore, and compelled aristocracy of birth to bow +to aristocracy of genius. But such was his reverence for the style of +music which had grown up in the chambers of the great that he devoted +the last three years of his life almost exclusively to its +composition; the peroration of his proclamation to mankind consists of +his last quartets--the holiest of holy things to the Chamber musicians +of to-day. + +[Sidenote: _The characteristics of Chamber music._] + +Chamber music represents pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep +learning. These attributes are encouraged by the idea of privacy which +is inseparable from the form. Composers find it the finest field for +the display of their talents because their own skill in creating is to +be paired with trained skill in hearing. Its representative pieces are +written for strings alone--trios, quartets, and quintets. With the +strings are sometimes associated a pianoforte, or one or more of the +solo wind instruments--oboe, clarinet, or French horn; and as a rule +the compositions adhere to classical lines (see Chapter V.). Of +necessity the modesty of the apparatus compels it to forego nearly +all the adventitious helps with which other forms of composition gain +public approval. In the delineative arts Chamber music shows analogy +with correct drawing and good composition, the absence of which cannot +be atoned for by the most gorgeous coloring. In no other style is +sympathy between performers and listeners so necessary, and for that +reason Chamber music should always be heard in a small room with +performers and listeners joined in angelic wedlock. Communities in +which it flourishes under such conditions are musical. + +[Sidenote: _Programme music._] + +[Sidenote: _The value of superscriptions._] + +[Sidenote: _The rule of judgment._] + +Properly speaking, the term Programme music ought to be applied only +to instrumental compositions which make a frank effort to depict +scenes, incidents, or emotional processes to which the composer +himself gives the clew either by means of a descriptive title or a +verbal motto. It is unfortunate that the term has come to be loosely +used. In a high sense the purest and best music in the world is +programmatic, its programme being, as I have said, that "high ideal of +goodness, truthfulness, and beauty" which is the content of all true +art. But the origin of the term was vulgar, and the most contemptible +piece of tonal imitation now claims kinship in the popular mind with +the exquisitely poetical creations of Schumann and the "Pastoral" +symphony of Beethoven; and so it is become necessary to defend it in +the case of noble compositions. A programme is not necessarily, as +Ambros asserts, a certificate of poverty and an admission on the part +of the composer that his art has got beyond its natural bounds. +Whether it be merely a suggestive title, as in the case of some of the +compositions of Beethoven, Schumann, and Mendelssohn, or an extended +commentary, as in the symphonic poems of Liszt and the symphonies of +Berlioz and Raff, the programme has a distinct value to the composer +as well as the hearer. It can make the perceptive sense more +impressible to the influence of the music; it can quicken the fancy, +and fire the imagination; it can prevent a gross misconception of the +intentions of a composer and the character of his composition. +Nevertheless, in determining the artistic value of the work, the +question goes not to the ingenuity of the programme or the clearness +with which its suggestions have been carried out, but to the beauty of +the music itself irrespective of the verbal commentary accompanying +it. This rule must be maintained in order to prevent a degradation of +the object of musical expression. The vile, the ugly, the painful are +not fit subjects for music; music renounces, contravenes, negatives +itself when it attempts their delineation. + +A classification of Programme music might be made on these lines: + +[Sidenote: _Kinds of Programme music._] + +I. Descriptive pieces which rest on imitation or suggestion of natural +sounds. + +II. Pieces whose contents are purely musical, but the mood of which is +suggested by a poetical title. + +III. Pieces in which the influence which determined their form and +development is indicated not only by a title but also by a motto which +is relied upon to mark out a train of thought for the listener which +will bring his fancy into union with that of the composer. The motto +may be verbal or pictorial. + +IV. Symphonies or other composite works which have a title to indicate +their general character, supplemented by explanatory superscriptions +for each portion. + +[Sidenote: _Imitation of natural sounds._] + +[Sidenote: _The nightingale._] + +[Sidenote: _The cat._] + +[Sidenote: _The cuckoo._] + +The first of these divisions rests upon the employment of the lowest +form of conventional musical idiom. The material which the natural +world provides for imitation by the musician is exceedingly scant. +Unless we descend to mere noise, as in the descriptions of storms and +battles (the shrieking of the wind, the crashing of thunder, and the +roar of artillery--invaluable aids to the cheap descriptive writer), +we have little else than the calls of a few birds. Nearly thirty years +ago Wilhelm Tappert wrote an essay which he called "Zooplastik in +Tönen." He ransacked the musical literature of centuries, but in all +his examples the only animals the voices of which are unmistakable are +four fowls--the cuckoo, quail (that is the German bird, not the +American, which has a different call), the cock, and the hen. He has +many descriptive sounds which suggest other birds and beasts, but only +by association of idea; separated from title or text they suggest +merely what they are--musical phrases. A reiteration of the rhythmical +figure called the "Scotch snap," breaking gradually into a trill, is +the common symbol of the nightingale's song, but it is not a copy of +that song; three or four tones descending chromatically are given as +the cat's mew, but they are made to be such only by placing the +syllables _Mi-au_ (taken from the vocabulary of the German cat) under +them. Instances of this kind might be called characterization, or +description by suggestion, and some of the best composers have made +use of them, as will appear in these pages presently. The list being +so small, and the lesson taught so large, it may be well to give a few +striking instances of absolutely imitative music. The first bird to +collaborate with a composer seems to have been the cuckoo, whose notes + +[Music illustration: Cuck-oo!] + +had sounded in many a folk-song ere Beethoven thought of enlisting the +little solo performer in his "Pastoral" symphony. It is to be borne in +mind, however, as a fact having some bearing on the artistic value of +Programme music, that Beethoven's cuckoo changes his note to please +the musician, and, instead of singing a minor third, he sings a major +third thus: + +[Music illustration: Cuck-oo!] + +[Sidenote: _Cock and hen._] + +As long ago as 1688 Jacob Walter wrote a musical piece entitled +"Gallina et Gallo," in which the hen was delineated in this theme: + +[Music illustration: _Gallina._] + +while the cock had the upper voice in the following example, his clear +challenge sounding above the cackling of his mate: + +[Music illustration: _Gallo._] + +The most effective use yet made of the song of the hen, however, is in +"La Poule," one of Rameau's "Pičces de Clavecin," printed in 1736, a +delightful composition with this subject: + +[Music illustration: Co co co co co co co dai, etc.] + +[Sidenote: _The quail._] + +The quail's song is merely a monotonic rhythmical figure to which +German fancy has fitted words of pious admonition: + +[Music illustration: Fürch-te Gott! Lo-be Gott!] + +[Sidenote: _Conventional idioms._] + +[Sidenote: _Association of ideas._] + +[Sidenote: _Fancy and imagination._] + +[Sidenote: _Harmony and emotionality._] + +The paucity of examples in this department is a demonstration of the +statement made elsewhere that nature does not provide music with +models for imitation as it does painting and sculpture. The fact that, +nevertheless, we have come to recognize a large number of idioms based +on association of ideas stands the composer in good stead whenever he +ventures into the domain of delineative or descriptive music, and this +he can do without becoming crudely imitative. Repeated experiences +have taught us to recognize resemblances between sequences or +combinations of tones and things or ideas, and on these analogies, +even though they be purely conventional (that is agreed upon, as we +have agreed that a nod of the head shall convey assent, a shake of the +head dissent, and a shrug of the shoulders doubt or indifference), the +composers have built up a voluminous vocabulary of idioms which need +only to be helped out by a suggestion to the mind to be eloquently +illustrative. "Sometimes hearing a melody or harmony arouses an +emotion like that aroused by the contemplation of a thing. Minor +harmonies, slow movements, dark tonal colorings, combine directly to +put a musically susceptible person in a mood congenial to thoughts of +sorrow and death; and, inversely, the experience of sorrow, or the +contemplation of death, creates affinity for minor harmonies, slow +movements, and dark tonal colorings. Or we recognize attributes in +music possessed also by things, and we consort the music and the +things, external attributes bringing descriptive music into play, +which excites the fancy, internal attributes calling for an exercise +of the loftier faculty, imagination, to discern their meaning."[B] The +latter kind is delineative music of the higher order, the kind that I +have called idealized programme music, for it is the imagination +which, as Ruskin has said, "sees the heart and inner nature and makes +them felt, but is often obscure, mysterious, and interrupted in its +giving out of outer detail," which is "a seer in the prophetic sense, +calling the things that are not as though they were, and forever +delighting to dwell on that which is not tangibly present." In this +kind of music, harmony, the real seat of emotionality in music, is an +eloquent factor, and, indeed, there is no greater mystery in the art, +which is full of mystery, than the fact that the lowering of the +second tone in the chord, which is the starting-point of harmony, +should change an expression of satisfaction, energetic action, or +jubilation into an accent of pain or sorrow. The major mode is "to +do," the minor, "to suffer:" + +[Sidenote: _Major and minor._] + +[Music illustration: Hur-rah! A-las!] + +[Sidenote: _Music and movement._] + +How near a large number of suggestions, which are based wholly upon +experience or association of ideas, lie to the popular fancy, might be +illustrated by scores of examples. Thoughts of religious functions +arise in us the moment we hear the trombones intone a solemn phrase in +full harmony; an oboe melody in sixth-eighth time over a drone bass +brings up a pastoral picture of a shepherd playing upon his pipe; +trumpets and drums suggest war, and so on. The delineation of +movement is easier to the musician than it is to the poet. Handel, who +has conveyed the sensation of a "darkness which might be felt," in a +chorus of his "Israel in Egypt," by means which appeal solely to the +imagination stirred by feelings, has in the same work pictured the +plague of frogs with a frank _naďveté_ which almost upsets our +seriousness of demeanor, by suggesting the characteristic movement of +the creatures in the instrumental accompaniment to the arioso, "Their +land brought forth frogs," which begins thus: + +[Sidenote: _Handel's frogs._] + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The movement of water._] + +We find the gentle flux and reflux of water as if it were lapping a +rocky shore in the exquisite figure out of which Mendelssohn +constructed his "Hebrides" overture: + +[Music illustration] + +and in fancy we ride on mighty surges when we listen to the principal +subject of Rubinstein's "Ocean" symphony: + +[Music illustration] + +In none of these instances can the composer be said to be imitative. +Music cannot copy water, but it can do what water does, and so suggest +water. + +[Sidenote: _High and low._] + +Some of the most common devices of composers are based on conceptions +that are wholly arbitrary. A musical tone cannot have position in +space such as is indicated by high or low, yet so familiar is the +association of acuteness of pitch with height, and gravity of pitch +with depth, that composers continually delineate high things with +acute tones and low things with grave tones, as witness Handel in one +of the choruses of "The Messiah:" + +[Music illustration: Glo-ry to God in the high-est, and peace on +earth.] + +[Sidenote: _Ascent, descent, and distance delineated._] + +Similarly, too, does Beethoven describe the ascent into heaven and the +descent into hell in the Credo of his mass in D. Beethoven's music, +indeed, is full of tone-painting, and because it exemplifies a double +device I make room for one more illustration. It is from the cantata +"Becalmed at Sea, and a Prosperous Voyage," and in it the composer +pictures the immensity of the sea by a sudden, extraordinary spreading +out of his harmonies, which is musical, and dwelling a long time on +the word "distance" (_Weite_) which is rhetorical: + +[Music illustration: In der un-ge-heu-'ren Wei-te.] + +[Sidenote: _Bald imitation bad art._] + +[Sidenote: _Vocal music and delineation._] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's canon._] + +The extent to which tone-painting is justified is a question which +might profitably concern us; but such a discussion as it deserves +would far exceed the limits set for this book, and must be foregone. +It cannot be too forcibly urged, however, as an aid to the listener, +that efforts at musical cartooning have never been made by true +composers, and that in the degree that music attempts simply to copy +external things it falls in the scale of artistic truthfulness and +value. Vocal music tolerates more of the descriptive element than +instrumental because it is a mixed art; in it the purpose of music is +to illustrate the poetry and, by intensifying the appeal to the fancy, +to warm the emotions. Every piece of vocal music, moreover, carries +its explanatory programme in its words. Still more tolerable and even +righteous is it in the opera where it is but one of several factors +which labor together to make up the sum of dramatic representation. +But it must ever remain valueless unless it be idealized. Mendelssohn, +desiring to put _Bully Bottom_ into the overture to "A Midsummer +Night's Dream," did not hesitate to use tones which suggest the bray +of a donkey, yet the effect, like Handel's frogs and flies in +"Israel," is one of absolute musical value. The canon which ought +continually to be before the mind of the listener is that which +Beethoven laid down with most painstaking care when he wrote the +"Pastoral" symphony. Desiring to inform the listeners what were the +images which inspired the various movements (in order, of course, that +they might the better enter into the work by recalling them), he gave +each part a superscription thus: + +[Sidenote: _The "Pastoral" symphony._] + + I. "The agreeable and cheerful sensations awakened by + arrival in the country." + + II. "Scene by the brook." + + III. "A merrymaking of the country folk." + + IV. "Thunder-storm." + + V. "Shepherds' song--feelings of charity combined with + gratitude to the Deity after the storm." + +In the title itself he included an admonitory explanation which should +have everlasting validity: "Pastoral Symphony; more expression of +feeling than painting." How seriously he thought on the subject we +know from his sketch-books, in which occur a number of notes, some of +which were evidently hints for superscriptions, some records of his +convictions on the subject of descriptive music. The notes are +reprinted in Nottebohm's "Zweite Beethoveniana," but I borrow Sir +George Grove's translation: + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's notes on descriptive music._] + + "The hearers should be allowed to discover the situations." + + "Sinfonia caracteristica, or a recollection of country + life." + + "All painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a + failure." + + "Sinfonia pastorella. Anyone who has an idea of country life + can make out for himself the intentions of the author + without many titles." + + "People will not require titles to recognize the general + intention to be more a matter of feeling than of painting in + sounds." + + "Pastoral symphony: No picture, but something in which the + emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by the + pleasure of the country (or), in which some feelings of + country life are set forth."[C] + +As to the relation of programme to music Schumann laid down an +admirable maxim when he said that while good music was not harmed by a +descriptive title it was a bad indication if a composition needed one. + +[Sidenote: _Classic and Romantic._] + +There are, among all the terms used in music, no words of vaguer +meaning than Classic and Romantic. The idea which they convey most +widely in conjunction is that of antithesis. When the Romantic School +of composers is discussed it is almost universally presented as +something opposed in character to the Classical School. There is +little harm in this if we but bear in mind that all the terms which +have come into use to describe different phases of musical development +are entirely artificial and arbitrary--that they do not stand for +anything absolute, but only serve as platforms of observation. If the +terms had a fixed meaning we ought to be able, since they have +established themselves in the language of history and criticism, to +describe unambiguously and define clearly the boundary which separates +them. This, however, is impossible. Each generation, nay, each +decade, fixes the meaning of the words for itself and decides what +works shall go into each category. It ought to be possible to discover +a principle, a touchstone, which shall emancipate us from the +mischievous and misleading notions that have so long prompted men to +make the partitions between the schools out of dates and names. + +[Sidenote: _Trench's definition of "classical."_] + +The terms were borrowed from literary criticism; but even there, in +the words of Archbishop Trench, "they either say nothing at all or say +something erroneous." Classical has more to defend it than Romantic, +because it has greater antiquity and, in one sense, has been used with +less arbitrariness. + + "The term," says Trench, "is drawn from the political + economy of Rome. Such a man was rated as to his income in + the third class, such another in the fourth, and so on, and + he who was in the highest was emphatically said to be of the + class, _classicus_, a class man, without adding the number + as in that case superfluous; while all others were _infra + classem_. Hence by an obvious analogy the best authors were + rated as _classici_, or men of the highest class; just as in + English we say 'men of rank' absolutely for men who are in + the highest ranks of the State." + +Thus Trench, and his historical definition, explains why in music also +there is something more than a lurking suggestion of excellence in the +conception of "classical;" but that fact does not put away the quarrel +which we feel exists between Classic and Romantic. + +[Sidenote: _Romantic in literature._] + +[Sidenote: _Schumann and Jean Paul._] + +[Sidenote: _Weber's operas._] + +[Sidenote: _Mendelssohn._] + +As applied to literature Romantic was an adjective affected by certain +poets, first in Germany, then in France, who wished to introduce a +style of thought and expression different from that of those who +followed old models. Intrinsically, of course, the term does not imply +any such opposition but only bears witness to the source from which +the poets drew their inspiration. This was the imaginative literature +of the Middle Ages, the fantastical stories of chivalry and knighthood +written in the Romance, or Romanic languages, such as Italian, +Spanish, and Provençal. The principal elements of these stories were +the marvellous and the supernatural. The composers whose names first +spring into our minds when we think of the Romantic School are men +like Mendelssohn and Schumann, who drew much of their inspiration from +the young writers of their time who were making war on stilted +rhetoric and conventionalism of phrase. Schumann touches hands with +the Romantic poets in their strivings in two directions. His artistic +conduct, especially in his early years, is inexplicable if Jean Paul +be omitted from the equation. His music rebels against the formalism +which had held despotic sway over the art, and also seeks to disclose +the beauty which lies buried in the world of mystery in and around us, +and give expression to the multitude of emotions to which unyielding +formalism had refused adequate utterance. This, I think, is the chief +element of Romanticism. Another has more of an external nature and +genesis, and this we find in the works of such composers as Von Weber, +who is Romantic chiefly in his operas, because of the supernaturalism +and chivalry in their stories, and Mendelssohn, who, while distinctly +Romantic in many of his strivings, was yet so great a master of form, +and so attached to it, that the Romantic side of him was not fully +developed. + +[Sidenote: _A definition of "Classical" in music._] + +[Sidenote: _The creative and conservative principles._] + +[Sidenote: _Musical laws of necessity progressive._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach and Romanticism._] + +[Sidenote: _Creation and conservation._] + +If I were to attempt a definition it would be this: Classical +composers are those of the first rank (to this extent we yield to the +ancient Roman conception) who have developed music to the highest +pitch of perfection on its formal side and, in obedience to generally +accepted laws, preferring ćsthetic beauty, pure and simple, over +emotional content, or, at any rate, refusing to sacrifice form to +characteristic expression. Romantic composers are those who have +sought their ideals in other regions and striven to give expression to +them irrespective of the restrictions and limitations of form and the +conventions of law--composers with whom, in brief, content outweighs +manner. This definition presents Classicism as the regulative and +conservative principle in the history of the art, and Romanticism as +the progressive, regenerative, and creative principle. It is easy to +see how the notion of contest between them grew up, and the only harm +which can come from such a notion will ensue only if we shut our eyes +to the fact that it is a contest between two elements whose very +opposition stimulates life, and whose union, perfect, peaceful, +mutually supplemental, is found in every really great art-work. No law +which fixes, and hence limits, form, can remain valid forever. Its end +is served when it enforces itself long enough to keep lawlessness in +check till the test of time has determined what is sound, sweet, and +wholesome in the innovations which are always crowding eagerly into +every creative activity in art and science. In art it is ever true, as +_Faust_ concludes, that "In the beginning was the deed." The laws of +composition are the products of compositions; and, being such, they +cannot remain unalterable so long as the impulse freshly to create +remains. All great men are ahead of their time, and in all great +music, no matter when written, you shall find instances of profounder +meaning and deeper or newer feeling than marked the generality of +contemporary compositions. So Bach frequently floods his formal +utterances with Romantic feeling, and the face of Beethoven, serving +at the altar in the temple of Beauty, is transfigured for us by divine +light. The principles of creation and conservation move onward +together, and what is Romantic to-day becomes Classic to-morrow. +Romanticism is fluid Classicism. It is the emotional stimulus +informing Romanticism which calls music into life, but no sooner is it +born, free, untrammelled, nature's child, than the regulative +principle places shackles upon it; but it is enslaved only that it may +become and remain art. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," p. 22. + +[C] "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," by George Grove, C.B., 2d +ed., p. 191. + + + + +IV + +_The Modern Orchestra_ + + +[Sidenote: _The orchestra as an instrument._] + +[Sidenote: _What may be heard from a band._] + +The most eloquent, potent, and capable instrument of music in the +world is the modern orchestra. It is the instrument whose employment +by the classical composers and the geniuses of the Romantic School in +the middle of our century marks the high tide of the musical art. It +is an instrument, moreover, which is never played upon without giving +a great object-lesson in musical analysis, without inviting the eye to +help the ear to discern the cause of the sounds which ravish our +senses and stir up pleasurable emotions. Yet the popular knowledge of +its constituent parts, of the individual value and mission of the +factors which go to make up its sum, is scarcely greater than the +popular knowledge of the structure of a symphony or sonata. All this +is the more deplorable since at least a rudimentary knowledge of these +things might easily be gained, and in gaining it the student would +find a unique intellectual enjoyment, and have his ears unconsciously +opened to a thousand beauties in the music never perceived before. He +would learn, for instance, to distinguish the characteristic timbre of +each of the instruments in the band; and after that to the delight +found in what may be called the primary colors he would add that which +comes from analyzing the vast number of tints which are the products +of combination. Noting the capacity of the various instruments and the +manner in which they are employed, he would get glimpses into the +mental workshop of the composer. He would discover that there are +conventional means of expression in his art analogous to those in the +other arts; and collating his methods with the effects produced, he +would learn something of the creative artist's purposes. He would find +that while his merely sensuous enjoyment would be left unimpaired, and +the emotional excitement which is a legitimate fruit of musical +performance unchecked, these pleasures would have others consorted +with them. His intellectual faculties would be agreeably excited, and +he would enjoy the pleasures of memory, which are exemplified in music +more delightfully and more frequently than in any other art, because +of the rôle which repetition of parts plays in musical composition. + +[Sidenote: _Familiar instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _The instrumental choirs._] + +The argument is as valid in the study of musical forms as in the study +of the orchestra, but it is the latter that is our particular business +in this chapter. Everybody listening to an orchestral concert +recognizes the physical forms of the violins, flutes, cornets, and big +drum; but even of these familiar instruments the voices are not always +recognized. As for the rest of the harmonious fraternity, few give +heed to them, even while enjoying the music which they produce; yet +with a few words of direction anybody can study the instruments of the +band at an orchestral concert. Let him first recognize the fact that +to the mind of a composer an orchestra always presents itself as a +combination of four groups of instruments--choirs, let us call them, +with unwilling apology to the lexicographers. These choirs are: first, +the viols of four sorts--violins, violas, violoncellos, and +double-basses, spoken of collectively as the "string quartet;" second, +the wind instruments of wood (the "wood-winds" in the musician's +jargon)--flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons; third, the wind +instruments of brass (the "brass")--trumpets, horns, trombones, and +bass tuba. In all of these subdivisions there are numerous variations +which need not detain us now. A further subdivision might be made in +each with reference to the harmony voices (showing an analogy with the +four voices of a vocal choir--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass); +but to go into this might make the exposition confusing. The fourth +"choir" (here the apology to the lexicographers must be repeated with +much humility and earnestness) consists of the instruments of +percussion--the kettle-drums, big drum, cymbals, triangle, bell chime, +etc. (sometimes spoken of collectively in the United States as "the +battery"). + +[Illustration: SEATING PLAN OF THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.] + +[Sidenote: _How orchestras are seated._] + +[Sidenote: _Plan of the New York Philharmonic._] + +The disposition of these instruments in our orchestras is largely a +matter of individual taste and judgment in the conductor, though the +general rule is exemplified in the plan given herewith, showing how +Mr. Anton Seidl has arranged the desks for the concerts of the +Philharmonic Society of New York. Mr. Theodore Thomas's arrangement +differed very little from that of Mr. Seidl, the most noticeable +difference being that he placed the viola-players beside the second +violinists, where Mr. Seidl has the violoncellists. Mr. Seidl's +purpose in making the change was to gain an increase in sonority for +the viola part, the position to the right of the stage (the left of +the audience) enabling the viola-players to hold their instruments +with the F-holes toward the listeners instead of away from them. The +relative positions of the harmonious battalions, as a rule, are as +shown in the diagram. In the foreground, the violins, violas, and +'cellos; in the middle distance, the wood-winds; in the background, +the brass and the battery; the double-basses flanking the whole body. +This distribution of forces is dictated by considerations of sonority, +the most assertive instruments--the brass and drums--being placed +farthest from the hearers, and the instruments of the viol tribe, +which are the real backbone of the band and make their effect by a +massing of voices in each part, having the place of honor and greatest +advantage. Of course it is understood that I am speaking of a concert +orchestra. In the case of theatrical or operatic bands the arrangement +of the forces is dependent largely upon the exigencies of space. + +[Sidenote: _Solo instruments._] + +Outside the strings the instruments are treated by composers as solo +instruments, a single flute, oboe, clarinet, or other wind instrument +sometimes doing the same work in the development of the composition as +the entire body of first violins. As a rule, the wood-winds are used +in pairs, the purpose of this being either to fill the harmony when +what I may call the principal thought of the composition is consigned +to a particular choir, or to strengthen a voice by permitting two +instruments to play in unison. + +[Sidenote: _Groupings for harmony effects._] + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's instrumental characterization._] + +[Sidenote: _An instrumental language._] + +Each choir, except the percussion instruments, is capable of playing +in full harmony; and this effect is frequently used by composers. In +"Lohengrin," which for that reason affords to the amateur an admirable +opportunity for orchestral study, Wagner resorts to this device in +some instances for the sake of dramatic characterization. _Elsa_, a +dreamy, melancholy maiden, crushed under the weight of wrongful +accusation, and sustained only by the vision of a seraphic champion +sent by Heaven to espouse her cause, is accompanied on her entrance +and sustained all through her scene of trial by the dulcet tones of +the wood-winds, the oboe most often carrying the melody. _Lohengrin's_ +superterrestrial character as a Knight of the Holy Grail is prefigured +in the harmonies which seem to stream from the violins, and in the +prelude tell of the bringing of the sacred vessel of Christ's passion +to Monsalvat; but in his chivalric character he is greeted by the +militant trumpets in a strain of brilliant puissance and rhythmic +energy. Composers have studied the voices of the instruments so long +and well, and have noted the kind of melodies and harmonies in which +the voices are most effective, that they have formulated what might +almost be called an instrumental language. Though the effective +capacity of each instrument is restricted not only by its mechanics, +but also by the quality of its tones--a melody conceived for one +instrument sometimes becoming utterly inexpressive and unbeautiful by +transferrence to another--the range of effects is extended almost to +infinity by means of combination, or, as a painter might say, by +mixing the colors. The art of writing effectively for instruments in +combination is the art of instrumentation or orchestration, in which +Berlioz and Wagner were Past Grand Masters. + +[Sidenote: _Number of instruments._] + +The number of instruments of each kind in an orchestra may also be +said to depend measurably upon the music, or the use to which the band +is to be put. Neither in instruments nor in numbers is there absolute +identity between a dramatic and a symphonic orchestra. The apparatus +of the former is generally much more varied and complex, because of +the vast development of variety in dramatic expression stimulated by +Wagner. + +[Sidenote: _Symphony and dramatic orchestras._] + +The modern symphony, especially the symphonic poem, shows the +influence of this dramatic tendency, but not in the same degree. A +comparison between model bands in each department will disclose what +is called the normal orchestral organization. For the comparison (see +page 82), I select the bands of the first Wagner Festival held in +Bayreuth in 1876, the Philharmonic Society of New York, the Boston +Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. + +[Sidenote: _Instruments rarely used._] + +Instruments like the corno di bassetto, bass trumpet, tenor tuba, +contra-bass tuba, and contra-bass trombone are so seldom called for in +the music played by concert orchestras that they have no place in +their regular lists. They are employed when needed, however, and the +horns and other instruments are multiplied when desirable effects are +to be obtained by such means. + +[Sidenote: _Orchestras compared._] + + New York +Instruments Bayreuth. Philharmonic. Boston. Chicago. + +First violins 16 18 16 16 +Second violins 16 18 14 16 +Violas 12 14 10 10 +Violoncellos 12 14 8 10 +Double-basses 8 14 8 9 +Flutes 3 3 3 3 +Oboes 3 3 2 3 +English horn 1 1 1 1 +Clarinets 3 3 3 3 +Basset-horn 1 0 0 0 +Bassoons 3 3 3 3 +Trumpets or cornets 3 3 4 4 +Horns 8 4 4 4 +Trombones 3 3 3 3 +Bass trumpet 1 0 0 1 +Tenor tubas 2 0 2 4 +Bass tubas 2 1 2 1 +Contra-bass tuba 1 0 1 0 +Contra-bass trombone 1 0 0 1 +Tympani (pairs) 2 2 2 2 +Bass drum 1 1 1 1 +Cymbals (pairs) 1 1 1 1 +Harps 6 1 1 2 + +[Sidenote: _The string quartet._] + +[Sidenote: _Old laws against instrumentalists._] + +[Sidenote: _Early instrumentation._] + +[Sidenote: _Handel's orchestra._] + +The string quartet, it will be seen, makes up nearly three-fourths of +a well-balanced orchestra. It is the only choir which has numerous +representation of its constituent units. This was not always so, but +is the fruit of development in the art of instrumentation which is the +newest department in music. Vocal music had reached its highest point +before instrumental music made a beginning as an art. The former was +the pampered child of the Church, the latter was long an outlaw. As +late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries instrumentalists were +vagabonds in law, like strolling players. They had none of the rights +of citizenship; the religious sacraments were denied them; their +children were not permitted to inherit property or learn an honourable +trade; and after death the property for which they had toiled +escheated to the crown. After the instruments had achieved the +privilege of artistic utterance, they were for a long time mere +slavish imitators of the human voice. Bach treated them with an +insight into their possibilities which was far in advance of his time, +for which reason he is the most modern composer of the first half of +the eighteenth century; but even in Handel's case the rule was to +treat them chiefly as supports for the voices. He multiplied them just +as he did the voices in his choruses, consorting a choir of oboes and +bassoons, and another of trumpets of almost equal numbers with his +violins. + +[Sidenote: _The modern band._] + +The so-called purists in England talk a great deal about restoring +Handel's orchestra in performances of his oratorios, utterly unmindful +of the fact that to our ears, accustomed to the myriad-hued orchestra +of to-day, the effect would seem opaque, heavy, unbalanced, and +without charm were a band of oboes to play in unison with the violins, +another of bassoons to double the 'cellos, and half a dozen trumpets +to come flaring and crashing into the musical mass at intervals. Gluck +in the opera, and Haydn and Mozart in the symphony, first disclosed +the charm of the modern orchestra with the wind instruments +apportioned to the strings so as to obtain the multitude of tonal +tints which we admire to-day. On the lines which they marked out the +progress has been exceedingly rapid and far-reaching. + +[Sidenote: _Capacity of the orchestra._] + +[Sidenote: _The extremes of range._] + +In the hands of the latter-day Romantic composers, and with the help +of the instrument-makers, who have marvellously increased the capacity +of the wind instruments, and remedied the deficiencies which +embarrassed the Classical writers, the orchestra has developed into an +instrument such as never entered the mind of the wildest dreamer of +the last century. Its range of expression is almost infinite. It can +strike like a thunder-bolt, or murmur like a zephyr. Its voices are +multitudinous. Its register is coextensive in theory with that of the +modern pianoforte, reaching from the space immediately below the sixth +added line under the bass staff to the ninth added line above the +treble staff. These two extremes, which belong respectively to the +bass tuba and piccolo flute, are not at the command of every player, +but they are within the capacity of the instruments, and mark the +orchestra's boundaries in respect of pitch. The gravest note is almost +as deep as any in which the ordinary human ear can detect pitch, and +the acutest reaches the same extremity in the opposite direction. + +[Sidenote: _The viols._] + +[Sidenote: _The violin._] + +With all the changes that have come over the orchestra in the course +of the last two hundred years, the string quartet has remained its +chief factor. Its voice cannot grow monotonous or cloying, for, +besides its innate qualities, it commands a more varied manner of +expression than all the other instruments combined. The viol, which +term I shall use generically to indicate all the instruments of the +quartet, is the only instrument in the band, except the harp, that can +play harmony as well as melody. Its range is the most extensive; it is +more responsive to changes in manipulation; it is endowed more richly +than any other instrument with varieties of timbre; it has an +incomparable facility of execution, and answers more quickly and more +eloquently than any of its companions to the feelings of the player. A +great advantage which the viol possesses over wind instruments is +that, not being dependent on the breath of the player, there is +practically no limit to its ability to sustain tones. It is because +of this long list of good qualities that it is relied on to provide +the staff of life to instrumental music. The strings as commonly used +show four members of the viol family, distinguished among themselves +by their size, and the quality in the changes of tone which grows out +of the differences in size. The violins (Appendix, Plate I.) are the +smallest members of the family. Historically they are the culmination +of a development toward diminutiveness, for in their early days viols +were larger than they are now. When the violin of to-day entered the +orchestra (in the score of Monteverde's opera "Orfeo") it was +specifically described as a "little French violin." Its voice, Berlioz +says, is the "true female voice of the orchestra." Generally the +violin part of an orchestral score is two-voiced, but the two groups +may be split into a great number. In one passage in "Tristan und +Isolde" Wagner divides his first and second violins into sixteen +groups. Such divisions, especially in the higher regions, are +productive of entrancing effects. + +[Sidenote: _Violin effects._] + +[Sidenote: _Pizzicato._] + +[Sidenote: _"Col legno dall'arco."_] + +[Sidenote: _Harmonics._] + +[Sidenote: _Vibrato._] + +[Sidenote: _"Con sordino."_] + +The halo of sound which streams from the beginning and end of the +"Lohengrin" prelude is produced by this device. High and close +harmonies from divided violins always sound ethereal. Besides their +native tone quality (that resulting from a string stretched over a +sounding shell set to vibrating by friction), the violins have a +number of modified qualities resulting from changes in manipulation. +Sometimes the strings are plucked (_pizzicato_), when the result is a +short tone something like that of a banjo with the metallic clang +omitted; very dainty effects can thus be produced, and though it +always seems like a degradation of the instrument so pre-eminently +suited to a broad singing style, no less significant a symphonist than +Tschaikowsky has written a Scherzo in which the violins are played +_pizzicato_ throughout the movement. Ballet composers frequently +resort to the piquant effect, but in the larger and more serious forms +of composition, the device is sparingly used. Differences in quality +and expressiveness of tone are also produced by varied methods of +applying the bow to the strings: with stronger or lighter pressure; +near the bridge, which renders the tone hard and brilliant, and over +the end of the finger-board, which softens it; in a continuous manner +(_legato_), or detached (_staccato_). Weird effects in dramatic music +are sometimes produced by striking the strings with the wood of the +bow, Wagner resorting to this means to delineate the wicked glee of +his dwarf _Mime_, and Meyerbeer to heighten the uncanniness of +_Nelusko's_ wild song in the third act of "L'Africaine." Another class +of effects results from the manner in which the strings are "stopped" +by the fingers of the left hand. When they are not pressed firmly +against the finger-board but touched lightly at certain places called +nodes by the acousticians, so that the segments below the finger are +permitted to vibrate along with the upper portion, those peculiar +tones of a flute-like quality called harmonics or flageolet tones are +produced. These are oftener heard in dramatic music than in +symphonies; but Berlioz, desiring to put Shakespeare's description of +Queen Mab, + + "Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs; + The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; + The traces, of the smallest spider's web; + The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams--" + +into music in his dramatic symphony, "Romeo and Juliet," achieved a +marvellously filmy effect by dividing his violins, and permitting some +of them to play harmonics. Yet so little was his ingenious purpose +suspected when he first brought the symphony forward in Paris, that +one of the critics spoke contemptuously of this effect as sounding +"like an ill-greased syringe." A quivering motion imparted to the +fingers of the left hand in stopping the strings produces a +tremulousness of tone akin to the _vibrato_ of a singer; and, like the +vocal _vibrato_, when not carried to excess, this effect is a potent +expression of sentimental feeling. But it is much abused by solo +players. Another modification of tone is caused by placing a tiny +instrument called a sordino, or mute, upon the bridge. This clamps +the bridge, makes it heavier, and checks the vibrations, so that the +tone is muted or muffled, and at times sounds mysterious. + +[Sidenote: _Pizzicato on the basses._] + +[Sidenote: _Tremolo._] + +These devices, though as a rule they have their maximum of +effectiveness in the violins, are possible also on the violas, +violoncellos, and double-basses, which, as I have already intimated, +are but violins of a larger growth. The _pizzicato_ is, indeed, +oftenest heard from the double-basses, where it has a much greater +eloquence than on the violins. In music of a sombre cast, the short, +deep tones given out by the plucked strings of the contra-bass +sometimes have the awfulness of gigantic heart-throbs. The difficulty +of producing the other effects grows with the increase of difficulty +in handling the instruments, this being due to the growing thickness +of the strings and the wideness of the points at which they must be +stopped. One effect peculiar to them all--the most used of all +effects, indeed, in dramatic music--is the _tremolo_, produced by +dividing a tone into many quickly reiterated short tones by a rapid +motion of the bow. This device came into use with one of the earliest +pieces of dramatic music. It is two centuries old, and was first used +to help in the musical delineation of a combat. With scarcely an +exception, the varied means which I have described can be detected by +those to whom they are not already familiar by watching the players +while listening to the music. + +[Sidenote: _The viola._] + +The viola is next in size to the violin, and is tuned at the interval +of a fifth lower. Its highest string is A, which is the second string +of the violin, and its lowest C. Its tone, which sometimes contains a +comical suggestion of a boy's voice in mutation, is lacking in +incisiveness and brilliancy, but for this it compensates by a +wonderful richness and filling quality, and a pathetic and inimitable +mournfulness in melancholy music. It blends beautifully with the +violoncello, and is often made to double that instrument's part for +the sake of color effect--as, to cite a familiar instance, in the +principal subject of the Andante in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. + +[Sidenote: _The violoncello._] + +[Sidenote: _Violoncello effects._] + +The strings of the violoncello (Plate II.) are tuned like those of +the viola, but an octave lower. It is the knee-fiddle (_viola da +gamba_) of the last century, as the viola is the arm-fiddle (_viola da +braccio_), and got its old name from the position in which it is held +by the player. The 'cello's voice is a bass--it might be called the +barytone of the choir--and in the olden time of simple writing, little +else was done with it than to double the bass part one octave higher. +But modern composers, appreciating its marvellous capacity for +expression, which is next to that of the violin, have treated it with +great freedom and independence as a solo instrument. Its tone is full +of voluptuous languor. It is the sighing lover of the instrumental +company, and can speak the language of tender passion more feelingly +than any of its fellows. The ravishing effect of a multiplication of +its voice is tellingly exemplified in the opening of the overture to +"William Tell," which is written for five solo 'celli, though it is +oftenest heard in an arrangement which gives two of the middle parts +to violas. When Beethoven wished to produce the emotional impression +of a peacefully rippling brook in his "Pastoral" symphony, he gave a +murmuring figure to the divided violoncellos, and Wagner uses the +passionate accents of four of these instruments playing in harmony to +support _Siegmund_ when he is pouring out the ecstasy of his love in +the first act of "Die Walküre." In the love scene of Berlioz's "Romeo +and Juliet" symphony it is the violoncello which personifies the +lover, and holds converse with the modest oboe. + +[Sidenote: _The double-bass._] + +The patriarchal double-bass is known to all, and also its mission of +providing the foundation for the harmonic structure of orchestral +music. It sounds an octave lower than the music written for it, being +what is called a transposing instrument of sixteen-foot tone. Solos +are seldom written for this instrument in orchestral music, though +Beethoven, with his daring recitatives in the Ninth Symphony, makes it +a mediator between the instrumental and vocal forces. Dragonetti and +Bottesini, two Italians, the latter of whom is still alive, won great +fame as solo players on the unwieldy instrument. The latter uses a +small bass viol, and strings it with harp strings; but Dragonetti +played a full double-bass, on which he could execute the most +difficult passages written for the violoncello. + +[Sidenote: _The wood-winds._] + +Since the instruments of the wood-wind choir are frequently used in +solos, their acquaintance can easily be made by an observing amateur. +To this division of the orchestra belong the gentle accents in the +instrumental language. Violent expression is not its province, and +generally when the band is discoursing in heroic style or giving voice +to brave or angry emotion the wood-winds are either silent or are used +to give weight to the body of tone rather than color. Each of the +instruments has a strongly characteristic voice, which adapts itself +best to a certain style of music; but by use of different registers +and by combinations among them, or with the instruments of the other +choirs, a wide range of expression within the limits suggested has +been won for the wood-winds. + +[Sidenote: _The flute._] + +[Sidenote: _The piccolo flute._] + +[Sidenote: _Janizary music._] + +[Sidenote: _The story of the flute._] + +The flute, which requires no description, is, for instance, an +essentially soulless instrument; but its marvellous agility and the +effectiveness with which its tones can be blended with others make it +one of the most useful instruments in the band. Its native character, +heard in the compositions written for it as a solo instrument, has +prevented it from being looked upon with dignity. As a rule, +brilliancy is all that is expected from it. It is a sort of _soprano +leggiero_ with a small range of superficial feelings. It can +sentimentalize, and, as Dryden says, be "soft, complaining," but when +we hear it pour forth a veritable ecstasy of jubilation, as it does in +the dramatic climax of Beethoven's overture "Leonore No. 3," we marvel +at the transformation effected by the composer. Advantage has also +been taken of the difference between its high and low tones, and now +in some romantic music, as in Raff's "Lenore" symphony, or the prayer +of _Agathe_ in "Der Freischütz," the hollowness of the low tones +produces a mysterious effect that is exceedingly striking. Still the +fact remains that the native voice of the instrument, though sweet, +is expressionless compared with that of the oboe or clarinet. Modern +composers sometimes write for three flutes; but in the older writers, +when a third flute is used, it is generally an octave flute, or +piccolo flute (Plate III.)--a tiny instrument whose aggressiveness of +voice is out of all proportion to its diminutiveness of body. This is +the instrument which shrieks and whistles when the band is playing at +storm-making, to imitate the noise of the wind. It sounds an octave +higher than is indicated by the notes in its part, and so is what is +called a transposing instrument of four-foot tone. It revels in +military music, which is proper, for it is an own cousin to the +ear-piercing fife, which annually makes up for its long silence in the +noisy days before political elections. When you hear a composition in +march time, with bass and snare drum, cymbals and triangle, such as +the Germans call "Turkish" or "Janizary" music, you may be sure to +hear also the piccolo flute. The flute is doubtless one of the oldest +instruments in the world. The primitive cave-dwellers made flutes of +the leg-bones of birds and other animals, an origin of which a record +is preserved in the Latin name _tibia_. The first wooden flutes were +doubtless the Pandean pipes, in which the tone was produced by blowing +across the open ends of hollow reeds. The present method, already +known to the ancient Egyptians, of closing the upper end, and creating +the tone by blowing across a hole cut in the side, is only a +modification of the method pursued, according to classic tradition, by +Pan when he breathed out his dejection at the loss of the nymph +Syrinx, by blowing across the tuneful reeds which were that nymph in +her metamorphosed state. + +[Sidenote: _Reed instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _Double reeds._] + +The flute or pipe of the Greeks and Romans was only distantly related +to the true flute, but was the ancestor of its orchestral companions, +the oboe and clarinet. These instruments are sounded by being blown in +at the end, and the tone is created by vibrating reeds, whereas in the +flute it is the result of the impinging of the air on the edge of the +hole called the embouchure, and the consequent stirring of the column +of air in the flue of the instrument. The reeds are thin slips or +blades of cane. The size and bore of the instruments and the +difference between these reeds are the causes of the differences in +tone quality between these relatives. The oboe or hautboy, English +horn, and the bassoon have what are called double reeds. Two narrow +blades of cane are fitted closely together, and fastened with silk on +a small metal tube extending from the upper end of the instrument in +the case of the oboe and English horn, from the side in the case of +the bassoon. The reeds are pinched more or less tightly between the +lips, and are set to vibrating by the breath. + +[Sidenote: _The oboe._] + +[Sidenote: _The English horn._] + +The oboe (Plate IV.) is naturally associated with music of a pastoral +character. It is pre-eminently a melody instrument, and though its +voice comes forth shrinkingly, its uniqueness of tone makes it easily +heard. It is a most lovable instrument. "Candor, artless grace, soft +joy, or the grief of a fragile being suits the oboe's accents," says +Berlioz. The peculiarity of its mouth-piece gives its tone a reedy or +vibrating quality totally unlike the clarinet's. Its natural alto is +the English horn (Plate V.), which is an oboe of larger growth, with +curved tube for convenience of manipulation. The tone of the English +horn is fuller, nobler, and is very attractive in melancholy or dreamy +music. There are few players on the English horn in this country, and +it might be set down as a rule that outside of New York, Boston, and +Chicago, the English horn parts are played by the oboe in America. No +melody displays the true character of the English horn better than the +_Ranz des Vaches_ in the overture to Rossini's "William Tell"--that +lovely Alpine song which the flute embroiders with exquisite ornament. +One of the noblest utterances of the oboe is the melody of the funeral +march in Beethoven's "Heroic" symphony, in which its tenderness has +beautiful play. It is sometimes used effectively in imitative music. +In Haydn's "Seasons," and also in that grotesque tone poem by +Saint-Saëns, the "Danse Macabre," it gives the cock crow. It is the +timid oboe that sounds the A for the orchestra to tune by. + +[Sidenote: _The bassoon._] + +[Sidenote: _An orchestral humorist._] + +[Sidenote: _Supernatural effects._] + +The grave voice of the oboe is heard from the bassoon (Plate VI.), +where, without becoming assertive, it gains a quality entirely unknown +to the oboe and English horn. It is this quality that makes the +bassoon the humorist _par excellence_ of the orchestra. It is a reedy +bass, very apt to recall to those who have had a country education the +squalling tone of the homely instrument which the farmer's boy +fashions out of the stems of the pumpkin-vine. The humor of the +bassoon is an unconscious humor, and results from the use made of its +abysmally solemn voice. This solemnity in quality is paired with +astonishing flexibility of utterance, so that its gambols are always +grotesque. Brahms permits the bassoon to intone the _Fuchslied_ of the +German students in his "Academic" overture. Beethoven achieves a +decidedly comical effect by a stubborn reiteration of key-note, fifth, +and octave by the bassoon under a rustic dance intoned by the oboe in +the scherzo of his "Pastoral" symphony; and nearly every modern +composer has taken advantage of the instrument's grotesqueness. +Mendelssohn introduces the clowns in his "Midsummer-Night's-Dream" +music by a droll dance for two bassoons over a sustained bass note +from the violoncellos; but when Meyerbeer wanted a very different +effect, a ghastly one indeed, in the scene of the resuscitation of the +nuns in his "Robert le Diable," he got it by taking two bassoons as +solo instruments and using their weak middle tones, which, Berlioz +says, have "a pale, cold, cadaverous sound." Singularly enough, Handel +resorted to a similar device in his "Saul," to accompany the vision of +the Witch of Endor. + +[Sidenote: _The double bassoon._] + +In all these cases a great deal depends upon the relation between the +character of the melody and the nature of the instrument to which it +is set. A swelling martial fanfare may be made absurd by changing it +from trumpets to a weak-voiced wood-wind. It is only the string +quartet that speaks all the musical languages of passion and emotion. +The double-bassoon is so large an instrument that it has to be bent on +itself to bring it under the control of the player. It sounds an +octave lower than the written notes. It is not brought often into the +orchestra, but speaks very much to the purpose in Brahms's beautiful +variations on a theme by Haydn, and the glorious finale of Beethoven's +Fifth Symphony. + +[Sidenote: _The clarinet._] + +[Sidenote: _The bass clarinet._] + +The clarinet (Plate VII.) is the most eloquent member of the wood-wind +choir, and, except some of its own modifications or the modifications +of the oboe and bassoon, the latest arrival in the harmonious company. +It is only a little more than a century old. It has the widest range +of expression of the wood-winds, and its chief structural difference +is in its mouth-piece. It has a single flat reed, which is much wider +than that of the oboe or bassoon, and is fastened by a metallic band +and screw to the flattened side of the mouth-piece, whose other side +is cut down, chisel shape, for convenience. Its voice is rich, mellow, +less reedy, and much fuller and more limpid than the voice of the +oboe, which Berlioz tries to describe by analogy as "sweet-sour." It +is very flexible, too, and has a range of over three and a half +octaves. Its high tones are sometimes shrieky, however, and the full +beauty of the instrument is only disclosed when it sings in the middle +register. Every symphony and overture contains passages for the +clarinet which serve to display its characteristics. Clarinets are +made of different sizes for different keys, the smallest being that in +E-flat, with an unpleasantly piercing tone, whose use is confined to +military bands. There is also an alto clarinet and a bass clarinet +(Plate VIII.). The bell of the latter instrument is bent upward, pipe +fashion, and its voice is peculiarly impressive and noble. It is a +favorite solo instrument in Liszt's symphonic poems. + +[Sidenote: _Lips and reeds._] + +[Sidenote: _The brass instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _Improvements in brass instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _Valves and slides._] + +The fundamental principle of the instruments last described is the +production of tone by vibrating reeds. In the instruments of the brass +choir, the duty of the reeds is performed by the lips of the player. +Variety of tone in respect of quality is produced by variations in +size, shape, and modifications in parts like the bell and mouth-piece. +The _forte_ of the orchestra receives the bulk of its puissance from +the brass instruments, which, nevertheless, can give voice to an +extensive gamut of sentiments and feelings. There is nothing more +cheery and jocund than the flourishes of the horns, but also nothing +more mild and soothing than the songs which sometimes they sing. There +is nothing more solemn and religious than the harmony of the +trombones, while "the trumpet's loud clangor" is the very voice of a +war-like spirit. All of these instruments have undergone important +changes within the last few score years. The classical composers, +almost down to our own time, were restricted in the use of them +because they were merely natural tubes, and their notes were limited +to the notes which inflexible tubes can produce. Within this century, +however, they have all been transformed from imperfect diatonic +instruments to perfect chromatic instruments; that is to say, every +brass instrument which is in use now can give out all the semitones +within its compass. This has been accomplished through the agency of +valves, by means of which differing lengths of the sonorous tube are +brought within the command of the players. In the case of the +trombones an exceedingly venerable means of accomplishing the same end +is applied. The tube is in part made double, one part sliding over the +other. By moving his arm, the player lengthens or shortens the tube, +and thus changing the key of the instrument, acquires all the tones +which can be obtained from so many tubes of different lengths. The +mouth-pieces of the trumpet, trombone, and tuba are cup-shaped, and +larger than the mouth-piece of the horn, which is little else than a +flare of the slender tube, sufficiently wide to receive enough of the +player's lips to form the embouchure, or human reed, as it might here +be named. + +[Sidenote: _The French horn._] + +[Sidenote: _Manipulation of the French horn._] + +The French horn (Plate IX.), as it is called in the orchestra, is the +sweetest and mellowest of all the wind instruments. In Beethoven's +time it was but little else than the old hunting-horn, which, for the +convenience of the mounted hunter, was arranged in spiral +convolutions that it might be slipped over the head and carried +resting on one shoulder and under the opposite arm. The Germans still +call it the _Waldhorn_, _i.e._, "forest horn;" the old French name was +_cor de chasse_, the Italian _corno di caccia_. In this instrument +formerly the tones which were not the natural resonances of the +harmonic division of the tube were helped out by partly closing the +bell with the right hand, it having been discovered accidentally that +by putting the hand into the lower end of the tube--the flaring part +called the bell--the pitch of a tone was raised. Players still make +use of this method for convenience, and sometimes because a composer +wishes to employ the slightly muffled effect of these tones; but since +valves have been added to the instrument, it is possible to play a +chromatic scale in what are called the unstopped or open tones. + +[Sidenote: _Kinds of horns._] + +[Sidenote: _The trumpet._] + +[Sidenote: _The cornet._] + +Formerly it was necessary to use horns of different pitch, and +composers still respect this tradition, and designate the key of the +horns which they wish to have employed; but so skilful have the +players become that, as a rule, they use horns whose fundamental tone +is F for all keys, and achieve the old purpose by simply transposing +the music as they read it. If these most graceful instruments were +straightened out they would be seventeen feet long. The convolutions +of the horn and the many turns of the trumpet are all the fruit of +necessity; they could not be manipulated to produce the tones that are +asked of them if they were not bent and curved. The trumpet, when its +tube is lengthened by the addition of crooks for its lowest key, is +eight feet long; the tuba, sixteen. In most orchestras (in all of +those in the United States, in fact, except the Boston and Chicago +Orchestras and the Symphony Society of New York) the word trumpet is +merely a euphemism for cornet, the familiar leading instrument of the +brass band, which, while it falls short of the trumpet in the quality +of its tone, in the upper registers especially, is a more easily +manipulated instrument than the trumpet, and is preferable in the +lower tones. + +[Sidenote: _The trombone._] + +Mendelssohn is quoted as saying that the trombones (Plate X.) "are too +sacred to use often." They have, indeed, a majesty and nobility all +their own, and the lowest use to which they can be put is to furnish a +flaring and noisy harmony in an orchestral _tutti_. They are +marvellously expressive instruments, and without a peer in the whole +instrumental company when a solemn and spiritually uplifting effect is +to be attained. They can also be made to sound menacing and +lugubrious, devout and mocking, pompously heroic, majestic, and lofty. +They are often the heralds of the orchestra, and make sonorous +proclamations. + +[Sidenote: _Trombone effects._] + +[Sidenote: _The tuba._] + +The classic composers always seemed to approach the trombones with +marked respect, but nowadays it requires a very big blue pencil in the +hands of a very uncompromising conservatory professor to prevent a +student engaged on his _Opus 1_ from keeping his trombones going half +the time at least. It is an old story how Mozart keeps the instruments +silent through three-fourths of his immortal "Don Giovanni," so that +they may enter with overwhelming impressiveness along with the +ghostly visitor of the concluding scene. As a rule, there are three +trombones in the modern orchestra--two tenors and a bass. Formerly +there were four kinds, bearing the names of the voices to which they +were supposed to be nearest in tone-quality and compass--soprano, +alto, tenor, and bass. Full four-part harmony is now performed by the +three trombones and the tuba (Plate XI.). The latter instrument, +which, despite its gigantic size, is exceedingly tractable can "roar +you as gently as any sucking dove." Far-away and strangely mysterious +tones are got out of the brass instruments, chiefly the cornet and +horn, by almost wholly closing the bell. + +[Sidenote: _Instruments of percussion._] + +[Sidenote: _The xylophone._] + +[Sidenote: _Kettle-drums._] + +[Sidenote: _Pfund's tuning device._] + +[Sidenote: _Pitch of the drums._] + +[Sidenote: _Qualifications of a drummer._] + +The percussion apparatus of the modern orchestra includes a multitude +of instruments scarcely deserving of description. Several varieties of +drums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, steel bars (_Glockenspiel_), +gongs, bells, and many other things which we are now inclined to look +upon as toys, rather than as musical instruments, are brought into +play for reasons more or less fantastic. Saint-Saëns has even utilized +the barbarous xylophone, whose proper place is the variety hall, in +his "Danse Macabre." There his purpose was a fantastic one, and the +effect is capital. The pictorial conceit at the bottom of the poem +which the music illustrates is Death, as a skeleton, seated on a +tombstone, playing the viol, and gleefully cracking his bony heels +against the marble. To produce this effect, the composer uses the +xylophone with capital results. But of all the ordinary instruments of +percussion, the only one that is really musical and deserving of +comment is the kettle-drum. This instrument is more musical than the +others because it has pitch. Its voice is not mere noise, but musical +noise. Kettle-drums, or tympani, are generally used in pairs, though +the vast multiplication of effects by modern composers has resulted +also in the extension of this department of the band. It is seldom +that more than two pairs are used, a good player with a quick ear +being able to accomplish all that Wagner asks of six drums by his +deftness in changing the pitch of the instruments. This work of tuning +is still performed generally in what seems a rudimentary way, though a +German drum-builder named Pfund invented a contrivance by which the +player, by simply pressing on a balanced pedal and watching an +indicator affixed to the side of the drums, can change the pitch to +any desired semitone within the range of an octave. + +The tympani are hemispherical brass or copper vessels, kettles in +short, covered with vellum heads. The pitch of the instrument depends +on the tension of the head, which is applied generally by key-screws +working through the iron ring which holds the vellum. There is a +difference in the size of the drums to place at the command of the +player the octave from F in the first space below the bass staff to F +on the fourth line of the same staff. Formerly the purpose of the +drums was simply to give emphasis, and they were then uniformly tuned +to the key-note and fifth of the key in which a composition was set. +Now they are tuned in many ways, not only to allow for the frequent +change of keys, but also so that they may be used as harmony +instruments. Berlioz did more to develop the drums than any composer +who has ever lived, though Beethoven already manifested appreciation +of their independent musical value. In the last movement of his Eighth +Symphony and the scherzo of his Ninth, he tunes them in octaves, his +purpose in the latter case being to give the opening figure, an octave +leap, of the scherzo melody to the drums solo. The most extravagant +use ever made of the drums, however, was by Berlioz in his "Messe des +Morts," where he called in eight pairs of drums and ten players to +help him to paint his tonal picture of the terrors of the last +judgment. The post of drummer is one of the most difficult to fill in +a symphonic orchestra. He is required to have not only a perfect sense +of time and rhythm, but also a keen sense of pitch, for often the +composer asks him to change the pitch of one or both of his drums in +the space of a very few seconds. He must then be able to shut all +other sounds out of his mind, and bring his drums into a new key while +the orchestra is playing--an extremely nice task. + +[Sidenote: _The bass drum._] + +The development of modern orchestral music has given dignity also to +the bass drum, which, though definite pitch is denied to it, is now +manipulated in a variety of ways productive of striking effects. Rolls +are played on it with the sticks of the kettle-drums, and it has been +emancipated measurably from the cymbals, which in vulgar brass-band +music are its inseparable companions. + +[Sidenote: _The conductor._] + +[Sidenote: _Time-beaters and interpreters._] + +[Sidenote: _The conductor a necessity._] + +In the full sense of the term the orchestral conductor is a product of +the latter half of the present century. Of course, ever since +concerted music began, there has been a musical leader of some kind. +Mural paintings and carvings fashioned in Egypt long before Apollo +sang his magic song and + + "Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers," + +show the conductor standing before his band beating time by clapping +his hands; and if we are to credit what we have been told about Hebrew +music, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, when they stood before their +multitudinous choirs in the temple at Jerusalem, promoted synchronism +in the performance by stamping upon the floor with lead-shodden feet. +Before the era which developed what I might call "star" conductors, +these leaders were but captains of tens and captains of hundreds who +accomplished all that was expected of them if they made the performers +keep musical step together. They were time-beaters merely--human +metronomes. The modern conductor is, in a sense not dreamed of a +century ago, a mediator between the composer and the audience. He is a +virtuoso who plays upon men instead of a key-board, upon a hundred +instruments instead of one. Music differs from her sister arts in many +respects, but in none more than in her dependence on the intermediary +who stands between her and the people for whose sake she exists. It is +this intermediary who wakens her into life. + + "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard + Are sweeter," + +is a pretty bit of hyperbole which involves a contradiction in terms. +An unheard melody is no melody at all, and as soon as we have music in +which a number of singers or instrumentalists are employed, the taste, +feeling, and judgment of an individual are essential to its +intelligent and effective publication. In the gentle days of the long +ago, when suavity and loveliness of utterance and a recognition of +formal symmetry were the "be-all and end-all" of the art, a +time-beater sufficed to this end; but now the contents of music are +greater, the vessel has been wondrously widened, the language is +become curiously complex and ingenious, and no composer of to-day can +write down universally intelligible signs for all that he wishes to +say. Someone must grasp the whole, expound it to the individual +factors which make up the performing sum and provide what is called an +interpretation to the public. + +[Sidenote: _"Star" conductors._] + +That someone, of course, is the conductor, and considering the +progress that music is continually making it is not at all to be +wondered at that he has become a person of stupendous power in the +culture of to-day. The one singularity is that he should be so rare. +This rarity has had its natural consequence, and the conductor who can +conduct, in contradistinction to the conductor who can only beat time, +is now a "star." At present we see him going from place to place in +Europe giving concerts in which he figures as the principal +attraction. The critics discuss his "readings" just as they do the +performances of great pianists and singers. A hundred blowers of +brass, scrapers of strings, and tootlers on windy wood, labor beneath +him transmuting the composer's mysterious symbols into living sound, +and when it is all over we frequently find that it seems all to have +been done for the greater glory of the conductor instead of the glory +of art. That, however, is a digression which it is not necessary to +pursue. + +[Sidenote: _Mistaken popular notions._] + +[Sidenote: _What the conductor does._] + +[Sidenote: _Rests and cues._] + +Questions and remarks have frequently been addressed to me indicative +of the fact that there is a widespread popular conviction that the +mission of a conductor is chiefly ornamental at an orchestral +concert. That is a sad misconception, and grows out of the old notion +that a conductor is only a time-beater. Assuming that the men of the +band have played sufficiently together, it is thought that eventually +they might keep time without the help of the conductor. It is true +that the greater part of the conductor's work is done at rehearsal, at +which he enforces upon his men his wishes concerning the speed of the +music, expression, and the balance of tone between the different +instruments. But all the injunctions given at rehearsal by word of +mouth are reiterated by means of a system of signs and signals during +the concert performance. Time and rhythm are indicated by the +movements of the bâton, the former by the speed of the beats, the +latter by the direction, the tones upon which the principal stress is +to fall being indicated by the down-beat of the bâton. The amplitude +of the movements also serves to indicate the conductor's wishes +concerning dynamic variations, while the left hand is ordinarily used +in pantomimic gestures to control individual players or groups. +Glances and a play of facial expression also assist in the guidance of +the instrumental body. Every musician is expected to count the rests +which occur in his part, but when they are of long duration (and +sometimes they amount to a hundred measures or more) it is customary +for the conductor to indicate the entrance of an instrument by a +glance at the player. From this mere outline of the communications +which pass between the conductor and his band it will be seen how +indispensable he is if music is to have a consistent and vital +interpretation. + +[Sidenote: _Personal magnetism._] + +The layman will perhaps also be enabled, by observing the actions of a +conductor with a little understanding of their purposes, to appreciate +what critics mean when they speak of the "magnetism" of a leader. He +will understand that among other things it means the aptitude or +capacity for creating a sympathetic relationship between himself and +his men which enables him the better by various devices, some +arbitrary, some technical and conventional, to imbue them with his +thoughts and feelings relative to a composition, and through them to +body them forth to the audience. + +[Sidenote: _The score._] + +[Sidenote: _Its arrangement._] + +[Sidenote: _Score reading._] + +What it is that the conductor has to guide him while giving his mute +commands to his forces may be seen in the reproduction, in the +Appendix, of a page from an orchestral score (Plate XII). A score, it +will be observed, is a reproduction of all the parts of a composition +as they lie upon the desks of the players. The ordering of these parts +in the score has not always been as now, but the plan which has the +widest and longest approval is that illustrated in our example. The +wood-winds are grouped together on the uppermost six staves, the brass +in the middle with the tympani separating the horns and trumpets from +the trombones, the strings on the lowermost five staves. The example +has been chosen because it shows all the instruments of the band +employed at once (it is the famous opening _tutti_ of the triumphal +march of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony), and is easy of comprehension by +musical amateurs for the reason that none of the parts requires +transposition except it be an octave up in the case of the piccolo, +an instrument of four-foot tone, and an octave down in the case of the +double-basses, which are of sixteen-foot tone. All the other parts are +to be read as printed, proper attention being given to the alto and +tenor clefs used in the parts of the trombones and violas. The ability +to "read score" is one of the most essential attributes of a +conductor, who, if he have the proper training, can bring all the +parts together and reproduce them on the pianoforte, transposing those +which do not sound as written and reading the different clefs at sight +as he goes along. + + + + +V + +_At an Orchestral Concert_ + + +[Sidenote: _Classical and Popular._] + +[Sidenote: _Orchestras and military bands._] + +In popular phrase all high-class music is "classical," and all +concerts at which such music is played are "classical concerts." Here +the word is conceived as the antithesis of "popular," which term is +used to designate the ordinary music of the street and music-hall. +Elsewhere I have discussed the true meaning of the word and shown its +relation to "romantic" in the terminology of musical critics and +historians. No harm is done by using both "classical" and "popular" in +their common significations, so far as they convey a difference in +character between concerts. The highest popular conception of a +classical concert is one in which a complete orchestra performs +symphonies and extended compositions in allied forms, such as +overtures, symphonic poems, and concertos. Change the composition of +the instrumental body, by omitting the strings and augmenting the reed +and brass choirs, and you have a military band which is best employed +in the open air, and whose programmes are generally made up of +compositions in the simpler and more easily comprehended +forms--dances, marches, fantasias on popular airs, arrangements of +operatic excerpts and the like. These, then, are popular concerts in +the broadest sense, though it is proper enough to apply the term also +to concerts given by a symphonic band when the programme is light in +character and aims at more careless diversion than should be sought at +a "classical" concert. The latter term, again, is commended to use by +the fact that as a rule the music performed at such a concert +exemplifies the higher forms in the art, classicism in music being +defined as that principle which seeks expression in beauty of form, in +a symmetrical ordering of parts and logical sequence, "preferring +ćsthetic beauty, pure and simple, over emotional content," as I have +said in Chapter III. + +[Sidenote: _The Symphony._] + +[Sidenote: _Mistaken ideas about the form._] + +As the highest type of instrumental music, we take the Symphony. Very +rarely indeed is a concert given by an organization like the New York +and London Philharmonic Societies, or the Boston and Chicago +Orchestras, at which the place of honor in the scheme of pieces is not +given to a symphony. Such a concert is for that reason also spoken of +popularly as a "Symphony concert," and no confusion would necessarily +result from the use of the term even if it so chanced that there was +no symphony on the programme. What idea the word symphony conveys to +the musically illiterate it would be difficult to tell. I have known a +professional writer on musical subjects to express the opinion that a +symphony was nothing else than four unrelated compositions for +orchestra arranged in a certain sequence for the sake of an agreeable +contrast of moods and tempos. It is scarcely necessary to say that the +writer in question had a very poor opinion of the Symphony as an +Art-form, and believed that it had outlived its usefulness and should +be relegated to the limbo of Archaic Things. If he, however, trained +in musical history and familiar with musical literature, could see +only four unrelated pieces of music in a symphony by Beethoven, we +need not marvel that hazy notions touching the nature of the form are +prevalent among the untaught public, and that people can be met in +concert-rooms to whom such words as "Symphony in C minor," and the +printed designations of the different portions of the work--the +"movements," as musicians call them--are utterly bewildering. + +[Sidenote: _History of the term._] + +[Sidenote: _Changes in meaning._] + +[Sidenote: _Handel's "Pastoral Symphony."_] + +The word symphony has itself a singularly variegated history. Like +many another term in music it was borrowed by the modern world from +the ancient Greek. To those who coined it, however, it had a much +narrower meaning than to us who use it, with only a conventional +change in transliteration, now. By [Greek: symphônia] the Greeks +simply expressed the concept of agreement, or consonance. Applied to +music it meant first such intervals as unisons; then the notion was +extended to include consonant harmonies, such as the fifth, fourth, +and octave. The study of the ancient theoreticians led the musicians +of the Middle Ages to apply the word to harmony in general. Then in +some inexplicable fashion it came to stand as a generic term for +instrumental compositions such as toccatas, sonatas, etc. Its name was +given to one of the precursors of the pianoforte, and in Germany in +the sixteenth century the word _Symphoney_ came to mean a town band. +In the last century and the beginning of this the term was used to +designate an instrumental introduction to a composition for voices, +such as a song or chorus, as also an instrumental piece introduced in +a choral work. The form, that is the extent and structure of the +composition, had nothing to do with the designation, as we see from +the Italian shepherds' tune which Handel set for strings in "The +Messiah;" he called it simply _pifa_, but his publishers called it a +"Pastoral symphony," and as such we still know it. It was about the +middle of the eighteenth century that the present signification +became crystallized in the word, and since the symphonies of Haydn, in +which the form first reached perfection, are still to be heard in our +concert-rooms, it may be said that all the masterpieces of symphonic +literature are current. + +[Sidenote: _The allied forms._] + +[Sidenote: _Sonata form._] + +[Sidenote: _Symphony, sonata, and concerto._] + +I have already hinted at the fact that there is an intimate +relationship between the compositions usually heard at a classical +concert. Symphonies, symphonic poems, concertos for solo instruments +and orchestra, as well as the various forms of chamber music, such as +trios, quartets, and quintets for strings, or pianoforte and strings, +are but different expressions of the idea which is best summed up in +the word sonata. What musicians call the "sonata form" lies at the +bottom of them all--even those which seem to consist of a single +piece, like the symphonic poem and overture. Provided it follow, not +of necessity slavishly, but in its general structure, a certain scheme +which was slowly developed by the geniuses who became the law-givers +of the art, a composite or cyclical composition (that is, one +composed of a number of parts, or movements) is, as the case may be, a +symphony, concerto, or sonata. It is a sonata if it be written for a +solo instrument like the pianoforte or organ, or for one like the +violin or clarinet, with pianoforte accompaniment. If the +accompaniment be written for orchestra, it is called a concerto. A +sonata written for an orchestra is a symphony. The nature of the +interpreting medium naturally determines the exposition of the form, +but all the essential attributes can be learned from a study of the +symphony, which because of the dignity and eloquence of its apparatus +admits of a wider scope than its allies, and must be accepted as the +highest type, not merely of the sonata, but of the instrumental art. +It will be necessary presently to point out the more important +modifications which compositions of this character have undergone in +the development of music, but the ends of clearness will be best +subserved if the study be conducted on fundamental lines. + +[Sidenote: _What a symphony is._] + +[Sidenote: _The bond of unity between the parts._] + +The symphony then, as a rule, is a composition for orchestra made up +of four parts, or movements, which are not only related to each other +by a bond of sympathy established by the keys chosen but also by their +emotional contents. Without this higher bond the unity of the work +would be merely mechanical, like the unity accomplished by sameness of +key in the old-fashioned suite. (See Chapter VI.) The bond of +key-relationship, though no longer so obvious as once it was, is yet +readily discovered by a musician; the spiritual bond is more elusive, +and presents itself for recognition to the imagination and the +feelings of the listener. Nevertheless, it is an element in every +truly great symphony, and I have already indicated how it may +sometimes become patent to the ear alone, so it be intelligently +employed, and enjoy the co-operation of memory. + +[Sidenote: _The first movement._] + +[Sidenote: _Exposition of subjects._] + +[Sidenote: _Repetition of the first subdivision._] + +It is the first movement of a symphony which embodies the structural +scheme called the "sonata form." It has a triple division, and Mr. +Edward Dannreuther has aptly defined it as "the triune symmetry of +exposition, illustration, and repetition." In the first division the +composer introduces the melodies which he has chosen to be the +thematic material of the movement, and to fix the character of the +entire work; he presents it for identification. The themes are two, +and their exposition generally exemplifies the principle of +key-relationship, which was the basis of my analysis of a simple folk +tune in Chapter II. In the case of the best symphonists the principal +and second subjects disclose a contrast, not violent but yet distinct, +in mood or character. If the first is rhythmically energetic and +assertive--masculine, let me say--the second will be more sedate, more +gentle in utterance--feminine. After the two subjects have been +introduced along with some subsidiary phrases and passages which the +composer uses to bind them together and modulate from one key into +another, the entire division is repeated. That is the rule, but it is +now as often "honored in the breach" as in the observance, some +conductors not even hesitating to ignore the repeat marks in +Beethoven's scores. + +[Sidenote: _The free fantasia or "working-out" portion._] + +[Sidenote: _Repetition._] + +The second division is now taken up. In it the composer exploits his +learning and fancy in developing his thematic material. He is now +entirely free to send it through long chains of keys, to vary the +harmonies, rhythms, and instrumentation, to take a single pregnant +motive and work it out with all the ingenuity he can muster; to force +it up "steep-up spouts" of passion and let it whirl in the surge, or +plunge it into "steep-down gulfs of liquid fire," and consume its own +heart. Technically this part is called the "free fantasia" in English, +and the _Durchführung_--"working out"--in German. I mention the terms +because they sometimes occur in criticisms and analyses. It is in this +division that the genius of a composer has fullest play, and there is +no greater pleasure, no more delightful excitement, for the +symphony-lover than to follow the luminous fancy of Beethoven through +his free fantasias. The third division is devoted to a repetition, +with modifications, of the first division and the addition of a close. + +[Sidenote: _Introductions._] + +[Sidenote: _Keys and Titles._] + +First movements are quick and energetic, and frequently full of +dramatic fire. In them the psychological story is begun which is to +be developed in the remaining chapters of the work--its sorrows, +hopes, prayers, or communings in the slow movement; its madness or +merriment in the scherzo; its outcome, triumphant or tragic, in the +finale. Sometimes the first movement is preceded by a slow +introduction, intended to prepare the mind of the listener for the +proclamation which shall come with the _Allegro_. The key of the +principal subject is set down as the key of the symphony, and unless +the composer gives his work a special title for the purpose of +providing a hint as to its poetical contents ("Eroica," "Pastoral," +"Faust," "In the Forest," "Lenore," "Pathétique," etc.), or to +characterize its style ("Scotch," "Italian," "Irish," "Welsh," +"Scandinavian," "From the New World"), it is known only by its key, or +the number of the work (_opus_) in the composer's list. Therefore we +have Mozart's Symphony "in G minor," Beethoven's "in A major," +Schumann's "in C," Brahms's "in F," and so on. + +[Sidenote: _The second movement._] + +[Sidenote: _Variations._] + +The second movement in the symphonic scheme is the slow movement. +Musicians frequently call it the Adagio, for convenience, though the +tempi of slow movements ranges from extremely slow (_Largo_) to the +border line of fast, as in the case of the Allegretto of the Seventh +Symphony of Beethoven. The mood of the slow movement is frequently +sombre, and its instrumental coloring dark; but it may also be +consolatory, contemplative, restful, religiously uplifting. The +writing is preferably in a broadly sustained style, the effect being +that of an exalted hymn, and this has led to a predilection for a +theme and variations as the mould in which to cast the movement. The +slow movements of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies are made up +of variations. + +[Sidenote: _The Scherzo._] + +[Sidenote: _Genesis of the Scherzo._] + +[Sidenote: _The Trio._] + +The Scherzo is, as the term implies, the playful, jocose movement of a +symphony, but in the case of sublime geniuses like Beethoven and +Schumann, who blend profound melancholy with wild humor, the +playfulness is sometimes of a kind which invites us to thoughtfulness +instead of merriment. This is true also of some Russian composers, +whose scherzos have the desperate gayety which speaks from the music +of a sad people whose merrymaking is not a spontaneous expression of +exuberant spirits but a striving after self-forgetfulness. The Scherzo +is the successor of the Minuet, whose rhythm and form served the +composers down to Beethoven. It was he who substituted the Scherzo, +which retains the chief formal characteristics of the courtly old +dance in being in triple time and having a second part called the +Trio. With the change there came an increase in speed, but it ought to +be remembered that the symphonic minuet was quicker than the dance of +the same name. A tendency toward exaggeration, which is patent among +modern conductors, is threatening to rob the symphonic minuet of the +vivacity which gave it its place in the scheme of the symphony. The +entrance of the Trio is marked by the introduction of a new idea (a +second minuet) which is more sententious than the first part, and +sometimes in another key, the commonest change being from minor to +major. + +[Sidenote: _The Finale._] + +[Sidenote: _Rondo form._] + +The final movement, technically the Finale, is another piece of large +dimensions in which the psychological drama which plays through the +four acts of the symphony is brought to a conclusion. Once the purpose +of the Finale was but to bring the symphony to a merry end, but as the +expressive capacity of music has been widened, and mere play with +ćsthetic forms has given place to attempts to convey sentiments and +feelings, the purposes of the last movement have been greatly extended +and varied. As a rule the form chosen for the Finale is that called +the Rondo. Borrowed from an artificial verse-form (the French +_Rondeau_), this species of composition illustrates the peculiarity of +that form in the reiteration of a strophe ever and anon after a new +theme or episode has been exploited. In modern society verse, which +has grown out of an ambition to imitate the ingenious form invented by +medićval poets, we have the Triolet, which may be said to be a rondeau +in miniature. I choose one of Mr. H.C. Bunner's dainty creations to +illustrate the musical refrain characteristic of the rondo form +because of its compactness. Here it is: + +[Sidenote: _A Rondo pattern in poetry._] + + "A pitcher of mignonette + In a tenement's highest casement: + Queer sort of a flower-pot--yet + That pitcher of mignonette + Is a garden in heaven set, + To the little sick child in the basement-- + The pitcher of mignonette, + In the tenement's highest casement." + +[Sidenote: _Other forms for the Finale._] + +If now the first two lines of this poem, which compose its refrain, be +permitted to stand as the principal theme of a musical piece, we have +in Mr. Bunner's triolet a rondo _in nuce_. There is in it a threefold +exposition of the theme alternating with episodic matter. Another form +for the finale is that of the first movement (the Sonata form), and +still another, the theme and variations. Beethoven chose the latter +for his "Eroica," and the choral close of his Ninth, Dvorák, for his +symphony in G major, and Brahms for his in E minor. + +[Sidenote: _Organic Unities._] + +[Sidenote: _How enforced._] + +[Sidenote: _Berlioz's "idée fixe."_] + +[Sidenote: _Recapitulation of themes._] + +I am attempting nothing more than a characterization of the symphony, +and the forms with which I associated it at the outset, which shall +help the untrained listener to comprehend them as unities despite the +fact that to the careless hearer they present themselves as groups of +pieces each one of which is complete in itself and has no connection +with its fellows. The desire of composers to have their symphonies +accepted as unities instead of compages of unrelated pieces has led to +the adoption of various devices designed to force the bond of union +upon the attention of the hearer. Thus Beethoven in his symphony in C +minor not only connects the third and fourth movements but also +introduces a reminiscence of the former into the midst of the latter; +Berlioz in his "Symphonie Fantastique," which is written to what may +be called a dramatic scheme, makes use of a melody which he calls +"_l'idée fixe_," and has it recur in each of the four movements as an +episode. This, however, is frankly a symphony with programme, and +ought not to be treated as a modification of the pure form. Dvorák in +his symphony entitled "From the New World," in which he has striven to +give expression to the American spirit, quotes the first period of his +principal subject in all the subsequent movements, and then +sententiously recapitulates the principal themes of the first, second, +and third movements in the finale; and this without a sign of the +dramatic purpose confessed by Berlioz. + +[Sidenote: _Introduction of voices._] + +[Sidenote: _Abolition of pauses._] + +In the last movement of his Ninth Symphony Beethoven calls voices to +the aid of his instruments. It was a daring innovation, as it seemed +to disrupt the form, and we know from the story of the work how long +he hunted for the connecting link, which finally he found in the +instrumental recitative. Having hit upon the device, he summons each +of the preceding movements, which are purely instrumental, into the +presence of his augmented forces and dismisses it as inadequate to the +proclamation which the symphony was to make. The double-basses and +solo barytone are the spokesmen for the tuneful host. He thus achieves +the end of connecting the Allegro, Scherzo, and Adagio with each +other, and all with the Finale, and at the same time points out what +it is that he wishes us to recognize as the inspiration of the whole; +but here, again, the means appear to be somewhat extraneous. +Schumann's example, however, in abolishing the pauses between the +movements of the symphony in D minor, and having melodic material +common to all the movements, is a plea for appreciation which cannot +be misunderstood. Before Schumann Mendelssohn intended that his +"Scotch" symphony should be performed without pauses between the +movements, but his wishes have been ignored by the conductors, I fancy +because he having neglected to knit the movements together by +community of ideas, they can see no valid reason for the abolition of +the conventional resting-places. + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's "choral" symphony followed._] + +Beethoven's augmentation of the symphonic forces by employing voices +has been followed by Berlioz in his "Romeo and Juliet," which, though +called a "dramatic symphony," is a mixture of symphony, cantata, and +opera; Mendelssohn in his "Hymn of Praise" (which is also a composite +work and has a composite title--"Symphony Cantata"), and Liszt in his +"Faust" symphony, in the finale of which we meet a solo tenor and +chorus of men's voices who sing Goethe's _Chorus mysticus_. + +[Sidenote: _Increase in the number of movements._] + +A number of other experiments have been made, the effectiveness of +which has been conceded in individual instances, but which have failed +permanently to affect the symphonic form. Schumann has two trios in +his symphony in B-flat, and his E-flat, the so-called "Rhenish," has +five movements instead of four, there being two slow movements, one in +moderate tempo (_Nicht schnell_), and the other in slow (_Feierlich_). +In this symphony, also, Schumann exercises the license which has been +recognized since Beethoven's time, of changing the places in the +scheme of the second and third movements, giving the second place to +the jocose division instead of the slow. Beethoven's "Pastoral" has +also five movements, unless one chooses to take the storm which +interrupts the "Merry-making of the Country Folk" as standing toward +the last movement as an introduction, as, indeed, it does in the +composer's idyllic scheme. Certain it is, Sir George Grove to the +contrary notwithstanding, that the sense of a disturbance of the +symphonic plan is not so vivid at a performance of the "Pastoral" as +at one of Schumann's "Rhenish," in which either the third movement or +the so-called "Cathedral Scene" is most distinctly an interloper. + +[Sidenote: _Further extension of boundaries._] + +[Sidenote: _Saint-Saëns's C minor symphony._] + +Usually it is deference to the demands of a "programme" that +influences composers in extending the formal boundaries of a symphony, +and when this is done the result is frequently a work which can only +be called a symphony by courtesy. M. Saint-Saëns, however, attempted +an original excursion in his symphony in C minor, without any +discoverable, or at least confessed, programmatic idea. He laid the +work out in two grand divisions, so as to have but one pause. +Nevertheless in each division we can recognize, though as through a +haze, the outlines of the familiar symphonic movements. In the first +part, buried under a sequence of time designations like this: +_Adagio_--_Allegro moderato_--_Poco adagio_, we discover the customary +first and second movements, the former preceded by a slow +introduction; in the second division we find this arrangement: +_Allegro moderato_--_Presto_--_Maestoso_--_Allegro_, this multiplicity +of terms affording only a sort of disguise for the regulation scherzo +and finale, with a cropping out of reminiscences from the first part +which have the obvious purpose to impress upon the hearer that the +symphony is an organic whole. M. Saint-Saëns has also introduced the +organ and a pianoforte with two players into the instrumental +apparatus. + +[Sidenote: _The Symphonic Poem._] + +[Sidenote: _Its characteristics._] + +Three characteristics may be said to distinguish the Symphonic Poem, +which in the view of the extremists who follow the lead of Liszt is +the logical outcome of the symphony and the only expression of its +ćsthetic principles consonant with modern thought and feeling. +_First_, it is programmatic--that is, it is based upon a poetical +idea, a sequence of incidents, or of soul-states, to which a clew is +given either by the title or a motto; _second_, it is compacted in +form to a single movement, though as a rule the changing phases +delineated in the separate movements of the symphony are also to be +found in the divisions of the work marked by changes in tempo, key, +and character; _third_, the work generally has a principal subject of +such plasticity that the composer can body forth a varied content by +presenting it in a number of transformations. + +[Sidenote: _Liszt's first pianoforte concerto._] + +The last two characteristics Liszt has carried over into his +pianoforte concerto in E-flat. This has four distinct movements (viz.: +I. _Allegro maestoso_; II. _Quasi adagio_; III. _Allegretto vivace, +scherzando_; IV. _Allegro marziale animato_), but they are fused into +a continuous whole, throughout which the principal thought of the +work, the stupendously energetic phrase which the orchestra proclaims +at the outset, is presented in various forms to make it express a +great variety of moods and yet give unity to the concerto. "Thus, by +means of this metamorphosis," says Mr. Edward Dannreuther, "the +poetic unity of the whole musical tissue is made apparent, spite of +very great diversity of details; and Coleridge's attempt at a +definition of poetic unity--unity in multiety--is carried out to the +letter." + +[Sidenote: _Other cyclical forms._] + +[Sidenote: _Pianoforte and orchestra._] + +It will readily be understood that the other cyclical compositions +which I have associated with a classic concert, that is, compositions +belonging to the category of chamber music (see Chapter III.), and +concertos for solo instruments with orchestral accompaniment, while +conforming to the scheme which I have outlined, all have individual +characteristics conditioned on the expressive capacity of the +apparatus. The modern pianoforte is capable of asserting itself +against a full orchestra, and concertos have been written for it in +which it is treated as an orchestral integer rather than a solo +instrument. In the older conception, the orchestra, though it +frequently assumed the privilege of introducing the subject-matter, +played a subordinate part to the solo instrument in its development. +In violin as well as pianoforte concertos special opportunity is +given to the player to exploit his skill and display the solo +instrument free from structural restrictions in the cadenza introduced +shortly before the close of the first, last, or both movements. + +[Sidenote: _Cadenzas._] + +[Sidenote: _Improvisations by the player._] + +[Sidenote: _M. Ysaye's opinion of Cadenzas._] + +Cadenzas are a relic of a time when the art of improvisation was more +generally practised than it is now, and when performers were conceded +to have rights beyond the printed page. Solely for their display, it +became customary for composers to indicate by a hold ([fermata +symbol]) a place where the performer might indulge in a flourish of +his own. There is a tradition that Mozart once remarked: "Wherever I +smear that thing," indicating a hold, "you can do what you please;" +the rule is, however, that the only privilege which the cadenza opens +to the player is that of improvising on material drawn from the +subjects already developed, and since, also as a rule, composers are +generally more eloquent in the treatment of their own ideas than +performers, it is seldom that a cadenza contributes to the enjoyment +afforded by a work, except to the lovers of technique for technique's +sake. I never knew an artist to make a more sensible remark than did +M. Ysaye, when on the eve of a memorably beautiful performance of +Beethoven's violin concerto, he said: "If I were permitted to consult +my own wishes I would put my violin under my arm when I reach the +_fermate_ and say: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the cadenza. +It is presumptuous in any musician to think that he can have anything +to say after Beethoven has finished. With your permission we will +consider my cadenza played.'" That Beethoven may himself have had a +thought of the same nature is a fair inference from the circumstance +that he refused to leave the cadenza in his E-flat pianoforte concerto +to the mercy of the virtuosos but wrote it himself. + +[Sidenote: _Concertos._] + +[Sidenote: _Chamber music._] + +Concertos for pianoforte or violin are usually written in three +movements, of which the first and last follow the symphonic model in +respect of elaboration and form, and the second is a brief movement +in slow or moderate time, which has the character of an intermezzo. As +to the nomenclature of chamber music, it is to be noted that unless +connected with a qualifying word or phrase, "Quartet" means a string +quartet. When a pianoforte is consorted with strings the work is +spoken of as a Pianoforte Trio, Quartet, or Quintet, as the case may +be. + +[Sidenote: _The Overture._] + +[Sidenote: _Pot-pourris._] + +The form of the overture is that of the first movement of the sonata, +or symphony, omitting the repetition of the first subdivision. Since +the original purpose, which gave the overture its name (_Ouverture_ = +aperture, opening), was to introduce a drama, either spoken or +lyrical, an oratorio, or other choral composition, it became customary +for the composers to choose the subjects of the piece from the +climacteric moments of the music used in the drama. When done without +regard to the rules of construction (as is the case with practically +all operetta overtures and Rossini's) the result is not an overture at +all, but a _pot-pourri_, a hotch-potch of jingles. The present +beautiful form, in which Beethoven and other composers have shown +that it is possible to epitomize an entire drama, took the place of an +arbitrary scheme which was wholly aimless, so far as the compositions +to which they were attached were concerned. + +[Sidenote: _Old styles of overtures._] + +[Sidenote: _The Prelude._] + +[Sidenote: _Gluck's principle._] + +[Sidenote: _Descriptive titles._] + +The earliest fixed form of the overture is preserved to the current +lists of to-day by the compositions of Bach and Handel. It is that +established by Lully, and is tripartite in form, consisting of a rapid +movement, generally a fugue, preceded and followed by a slow movement +which is grave and stately in its tread. In its latest phase the +overture has yielded up its name in favor of Prelude (German, +_Vorspiel_), Introduction, or Symphonic Prologue. The finest of these, +without borrowing their themes from the works which they introduce, +but using new matter entirely, seek to fulfil the aim which Gluck set +for himself, when, in the preface to "Alceste," he wrote: "I imagined +that the overture ought to prepare the audience for the action of the +piece, and serve as a kind of argument to it." Concert overtures are +compositions designed by the composers to stand as independent pieces +instead of for performance in connection with a drama, opera, or +oratorio. When, as is frequently the case, the composer, nevertheless, +gives them a descriptive title ("Hebrides," "Sakuntala"), their +poetical contents are to be sought in the associations aroused by the +title. Thus, in the instances cited, "Hebrides" suggests that the +overture was designed by Mendelssohn to reflect the mood awakened in +him by a visit to the Hebrides, more particularly to Fingal's Cave +(wherefore the overture is called the "Fingal's Cave" overture in +Germany)--"Sakuntala" invites to a study of Kalidasa's drama of that +name as the repository of the sentiments which Goldmark undertook to +express in his music. + +[Sidenote: _Serenades._] + +[Sidenote: _The Serenade in Shakespeare._] + +A form which is variously employed, for solo instruments, small +combinations, and full orchestra (though seldom with the complete +modern apparatus), is the Serenade. Historically, it is a contemporary +of the old suites and the first symphonies, and like them it consists +of a group of short pieces, so arranged as to form an agreeable +contrast with each other, and yet convey a sense of organic unity. +The character of the various parts and their order grew out of the +purpose for which the serenade was originated, which was that +indicated by the name. In the last century, and earlier, it was no +uncommon thing for a lover to bring the tribute of a musical +performance to his mistress, and it was not always a "woful ballad" +sung to her eyebrow. Frequently musicians were hired, and the tribute +took the form of a nocturnal concert. In Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen +of Verona," _Proteus_, prompting _Thurio_ what to do to win _Silvia's_ +love, says: + + "Visit by night your lady's chamber window + With some sweet concert: to their instruments + Tune a deploring dump; the night's dread silence + Will well become such sweet complaining grievance." + +[Sidenote: _Out-of-doors music._] + +[Sidenote: _Old forms._] + +[Sidenote: _The "Dump."_] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's Serenade, op. 8._] + +It was for such purposes that the serenade was invented as an +instrumental form. Since they were to play out of doors, _Sir +Thurio's_ musicians would have used wind instruments instead of +viols, and the oldest serenades are composed for oboes and bassoons. +Clarinets and horns were subsequently added, and for such bands Mozart +wrote serenades, some of which so closely approach the symphony that +they have been published as symphonies. A serenade in the olden time +opened very properly with a march, to the strains of which we may +imagine the musicians approaching the lady's chamber window. Then came +a minuet to prepare her ear for the "deploring dump" which followed, +the "dump" of Shakespeare's day, like the "dumka" of ours (with which +I am tempted to associate it etymologically), being a mournful piece +of music most happily characterized by the poet as a "sweet +complaining grievance." Then followed another piece in merry tempo and +rhythm, then a second _adagio_, and the entertainment ended with an +_allegro_, generally in march rhythm, to which we fancy the musicians +departing. The order is exemplified in Beethoven's serenade for +violin, viola, and violoncello, op. 8, which runs thus: _March_; +_Adagio_; _Minuet_; _Adagio_ with episodic _Scherzo_; _Polacca_; +_Andante_ (variations), the opening march repeated. + +[Sidenote: _The Orchestral Suite._] + +[Sidenote: _Ballet music._] + +The Suite has come back into favor as an orchestral piece, but the +term no longer has the fixed significance which once it had. It is now +applied to almost any group of short pieces, pleasantly contrasted in +rhythm, tempo, and mood, each complete in itself yet disclosing an +ćsthetic relationship with its fellows. Sometimes old dance forms are +used, and sometimes new, such as the polonaise and the waltz. The +ballet music, which fills so welcome a place in popular programmes, +may be looked upon as such a suite, and the rhythm of the music and +the orchestral coloring in them are frequently those peculiar to the +dances of the countries in which the story of the opera or drama for +which the music was written plays. The ballets therefore afford an +excellent opportunity for the study of local color. Thus the ballet +music from Massenet's "Cid" is Spanish, from Rubinstein's "Feramors" +Oriental, from "Aďda" Egyptian--Oriental rhythms and colorings being +those most easily copied by composers. + +[Sidenote: _Operatic excerpts._] + +[Sidenote: _Gluck and Vestris._] + +The other operatic excerpts common to concerts of both classes are +either between-acts music, fantasias on operatic airs, or, in the case +of Wagner's contributions, portions of his dramas which are so +predominantly instrumental that it has been found feasible to +incorporate the vocal part with the orchestral. In ballet music from +the operas of the last century, some of which has been preserved to +the modern concert-room, local color must not be sought. Gluck's +Greeks, like Shakespeare's, danced to the rhythms of the seventeenth +century. Vestris, whom the people of his time called "The god of the +dance," once complained to Gluck that his "Iphigénie en Aulide" did +not end with a chaconne, as was the rule. "A chaconne!" cried Gluck; +"when did the Greeks ever dance a chaconne?" "Didn't they? Didn't +they?" answered Vestris; "so much the worse for the Greeks." There +ensued a quarrel. Gluck became incensed, withdrew the opera which was +about to be produced, and would have left Paris had not Marie +Antoinette come to the rescue. But Vestris got his chaconne. + + + + +VI + +_At a Pianoforte Recital_ + + +[Sidenote: _Mr. Paderewski's concerts._] + +No clearer illustration of the magical power which lies in music, no +more convincing proof of the puissant fascination which a musical +artist can exert, no greater demonstration of the capabilities of an +instrument of music can be imagined than was afforded by the +pianoforte recitals which Mr. Paderewski gave in the United States +during the season of 1895-96. More than threescore times in the course +of five months, in the principal cities of this country, did this +wonderful man seat himself in the presence of audiences, whose numbers +ran into the thousands, and were limited only by the seating capacity +of the rooms in which they gathered, and hold them spellbound from two +to three hours by the eloquence of his playing. Each time the people +came in a gladsome frame of mind, stimulated by the recollection of +previous delights or eager expectation. Each time they sat listening +to the music as if it were an evangel on which hung everlasting +things. Each time there was the same growth in enthusiasm which began +in decorous applause and ended in cheers and shouts as the artist came +back after the performance of a herculean task, and added piece after +piece to a programme which had been laid down on generous lines from +the beginning. The careless saw the spectacle with simple amazement, +but for the judicious it had a wondrous interest. + +[Sidenote: _Pianoforte recitals._] + +[Sidenote: _The pianoforte's underlying principles._] + +I am not now concerned with Mr. Paderewski beyond invoking his aid in +bringing into court a form of entertainment which, in his hands, has +proved to be more attractive to the multitude than symphony, oratorio, +and even opera. What a world of speculation and curious inquiry does +such a recital invite one into, beginning with the instrument which +was the medium of communication between the artist and his hearers! +To follow the progressive development of the mechanical principles +underlying the pianoforte, one would be obliged to begin beyond the +veil which separates history from tradition, for the first of them +finds its earliest exemplification in the bow twanged by the primitive +savage. Since a recognition of these principles may help to an +understanding of the art of pianoforte playing, I enumerate them now. +They are: + +1. A stretched string as a medium of tone production. + +2. A key-board as an agency for manipulating the strings. + +3. A blow as the means of exciting the strings to vibratory action, by +which the tone is produced. + +[Sidenote: _Their Genesis._] + +[Sidenote: _Significance of the pianoforte._] + +Many interesting glimpses of the human mind and heart might we have in +the course of the promenade through the ancient, medićval, and modern +worlds which would be necessary to disclose the origin and growth of +these three principles, but these we must forego, since we are to +study the music of the instrument, not its history. Let the knowledge +suffice that the fundamental principle of the pianoforte is as old as +music itself, and that scientific learning, inventive ingenuity, and +mechanical skill, tributary always to the genius of the art, have +worked together for centuries to apply this principle, until the +instrument which embodies it in its highest potency is become a +veritable microcosm of music. It is the visible sign of culture in +every gentle household; the indispensable companion of the composer +and teacher; the intermediary between all the various branches of +music. Into the study of the orchestral conductor it brings a +translation of all the multitudinous voices of the band; to the +choir-master it represents the chorus of singers in the church-loft or +on the concert-platform; with its aid the opera director fills his +imagination with the people, passions, and pageantry of the lyric +drama long before the singers have received their parts, or the +costumer, stage manager, and scene-painter have begun their work. It +is the only medium through which the musician in his study can +commune with the whole world of music and all its heroes; and though +it may fail to inspire somewhat of that sympathetic nearness which one +feels toward the violin as it nestles under the chin and throbs +synchronously with the player's emotions, or those wind instruments +into which the player breathes his own breath as the breath of life, +it surpasses all its rivals, save the organ, in its capacity for +publishing the grand harmonies of the masters, for uttering their +"sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." + +[Sidenote: _Defects of the pianoforte._] + +[Sidenote: _Lack of sustaining power._] + +This is one side of the picture and serves to show why the pianoforte +is the most universal, useful, and necessary of all musical +instruments. The other side shows its deficiencies, which must also be +known if one is to appreciate rightly the many things he is called +upon to note while listening intelligently to pianoforte music. +Despite all the skill, learning, and ingenuity which have been spent +on its perfection, the pianoforte can be made only feebly to +approximate that sustained style of musical utterance which is the +soul of melody, and finds its loftiest exemplification in singing. To +give out a melody perfectly, presupposes the capacity to sustain tones +without loss in power or quality, to bind them together at will, and +sometimes to intensify their dynamic or expressive force while they +sound. The tone of the pianoforte, being produced by a blow, begins to +die the moment it is created. The history of the instrument's +mechanism, and also of its technical manipulation, is the history of +an effort to reduce this shortcoming to a minimum. It has always +conditioned the character of the music composed for the instrument, +and if we were not in danger of being led into too wide an excursion, +it would be profitable to trace the parallelism which is disclosed by +the mechanical evolution of the instrument, and the technical and +spiritual evolution of the music composed for it. A few points will be +touched upon presently, when the intellectual activity invited by a +recital is brought under consideration. + +[Sidenote: _The percussive element._] + +[Sidenote: _Melody with drum-beats._] + +[Sidenote: _Rhythmical accentuation._] + +[Sidenote: _A universal substitute._] + +It is to be noted, further, that by a beautiful application of the +doctrine of compensations, the factor which limits the capacity of +the pianoforte as a melody instrument endows it with a merit which no +other instrument has in the same degree, except the instruments of +percussion, which, despite their usefulness, stand on the border line +between savage and civilized music. It is from its relationship to the +drum that the pianoforte derives a peculiarity quite unique in the +melodic and harmonic family. Rhythm is, after all, the starting-point +of music. More than melody, more than harmony, it stirs the blood of +the savage, and since the most vital forces within man are those which +date back to his primitive state, so the sense of rhythm is the most +universal of the musical senses among even the most cultured of +peoples to-day. By themselves the drums, triangles, and cymbals of an +orchestra represent music but one remove from noise; but everybody +knows how marvellously they can be utilized to glorify a climax. Now, +in a very refined degree, every melody on the pianoforte, be it played +as delicately as it may, is a melody with drum-beats. Manufacturers +have done much toward eliminating the thump of the hammers against the +strings, and familiarity with the tone of the instrument has closed +our ears against it to a great extent as something intrusive, but the +blow which excites the string to vibration, and thus generates sound, +is yet a vital factor in determining the character of pianoforte +music. The recurrent pulsations, now energetic, incisive, resolute, +now gentle and caressing, infuse life into the melody, and by +emphasizing its rhythmical structure (without unduly exaggerating it), +present the form of the melody in much sharper outline than is +possible on any other instrument, and much more than one would expect +in view of the evanescent character of the pianoforte's tone. It is +this quality, combined with the mechanism which places all the +gradations of tone, from loudest to softest, at the easy and +instantaneous command of the player, which, I fancy, makes the +pianoforte, in an astonishing degree, a substitute for all the other +instruments. Each instrument in the orchestra has an idiom, which +sounds incomprehensible when uttered by some other of its fellows, but +they can all be translated, with more or less success, into the +language of the pianoforte--not the quality of the tone, though even +that can be suggested, but the character of the phrase. The pianoforte +can sentimentalize like the flute, make a martial proclamation like +the trumpet, intone a prayer like the churchly trombone. + +[Sidenote: _The instrument's mechanism._] + +[Sidenote: _Tone formation and production._] + +In the intricacy of its mechanism the pianoforte stands next to the +organ. The farther removed from direct utterance we are the more +difficult is it to speak the true language of music. The violin player +and the singer, and in a less degree the performers upon some of the +wind instruments, are obliged to form the musical tone--which, in the +case of the pianist, is latent in the instrument, ready to present +itself in two of its attributes in answer to a simple pressure upon +the key. The most unmusical person in the world can learn to produce a +series of tones from a pianoforte which shall be as exact in pitch and +as varied in dynamic force as can Mr. Paderewski. He cannot combine +them so ingeniously nor imbue them with feeling, but in the simple +matter of producing the tone with the attributes mentioned, he is on a +level with the greatest virtuoso. Very different is the case of the +musician who must exercise a distinctly musical gift in the simple +evocation of the materials of music, like the violinist and singer, +who both form and produce the tone. For them compensation flows from +the circumstance that the tone thus formed and produced is naturally +instinct with emotional life in a degree that the pianoforte tone +knows nothing of. + +[Sidenote: _Technical manipulation._] + +[Sidenote: _Touch and emotionality._] + +In one respect, it may be said that the mechanics of pianoforte +playing represent a low plane of artistic activity, a fact which ought +always to be remembered whenever the temptation is felt greatly to +exalt the technique of the art; but it must also be borne in mind that +the mechanical nature of simple tone production in pianoforte playing +raises the value of the emotional quality which, nevertheless, stands +at the command of the player. The emotional potency of the tone must +come from the manner in which the blow is given to the string. +Recognition of this fact has stimulated reflection, and this in turn +has discovered methods by which temperament and emotionality may be +made to express themselves as freely, convincingly, and spontaneously +in pianoforte as in violin playing. If this were not so it would be +impossible to explain the difference in the charm exerted by different +virtuosi, for it has frequently happened that the best-equipped +mechanician and the most intellectual player has been judged inferior +as an artist to another whose gifts were of the soul rather than of +the brains and fingers. + +[Sidenote: _The technical cult._] + +[Sidenote: _A low form of art._] + +The feats accomplished by a pianoforte virtuoso in the mechanical +department are of so extraordinary a nature that there need be small +wonder at the wide prevalence of a distinctly technical cult. All who +know the real nature and mission of music must condemn such a cult. It +is a sign of a want of true appreciation to admire technique for +technique's sake. It is a mistaking of the outward shell for the +kernel, a means for the end. There are still many players who aim to +secure this admiration, either because they are deficient in real +musical feeling, or because they believe themselves surer of winning +applause by thus appealing to the lowest form of appreciation. In the +early part of the century they would have been handicapped by the +instrument which lent itself to delicacy, clearness, and gracefulness +of expression, but had little power. Now the pianoforte has become a +thing of rigid steel, enduring tons of strain from its strings, and +having a voice like the roar of many waters; to keep pace with it +players have become athletes with + + "Thews of Anakim + And pulses of a Titan's heart." + +[Sidenote: _Technical skill a matter of course._] + +They care no more for the "murmurs made to bless," unless it be +occasionally for the sake of contrast, but seek to astound, amaze, +bewilder, and confound with feats of skill and endurance. That with +their devotion to the purely mechanical side of the art they are +threatening to destroy pianoforte playing gives them no pause +whatever. The era which they illustrate and adorn is the technical era +which was, is, and ever shall be, the era of decay in artistic +production. For the judicious technique alone, be it never so +marvellous, cannot serve to-day. Its possession is accepted as a +condition precedent in the case of everyone who ventures to appear +upon the concert-platform. He must be a wonder, indeed, who can +disturb our critical equilibrium by mere digital feats. We want +strength and velocity of finger to be coupled with strength, velocity, +and penetration of thought. We want no halting or lisping in the +proclamation of what the composer has said, but we want the contents +of his thought, not the hollow shell, no matter how distinctly its +outlines be drawn. + +[Sidenote: _The plan of study in this chapter._] + +[Sidenote: _A typical scheme of pieces._] + +The factors which present themselves for consideration at a pianoforte +recital--mechanical, intellectual, and emotional--can be most +intelligently and profitably studied along with the development of the +instrument and its music. All branches of the study are invited by +the typical recital programme. The essentially romantic trend of Mr. +Paderewski's nature makes his excursions into the classical field few +and short; and it is only when a pianist undertakes to emulate +Rubinstein in his historical recitals that the entire pre-Beethoven +vista is opened up. It will suffice for the purposes of this +discussion to imagine a programme containing pieces by Bach, D. +Scarlatti, Handel, and Mozart in one group; a sonata by Beethoven; +some of the shorter pieces of Schumann and Chopin, and one of the +transcriptions or rhapsodies of Liszt. + +[Sidenote: _Periods in pianoforte music._] + +Such a scheme falls naturally into four divisions, plainly +differentiated from each other in respect of the style of composition +and the manner of performance, both determined by the nature of the +instrument employed and the status of the musical idea. Simply for the +sake of convenience let the period represented by the first group be +called the classic; the second the classic-romantic; the third the +romantic, and the last the bravura. I beg the reader, however, not to +extend these designations beyond the boundaries of the present study; +they have been chosen arbitrarily, and confusion might result if the +attempt were made to apply them to any particular concert scheme. I +have chosen the composers because of their broadly representative +capacity. And they must stand for a numerous _epigonoi_ whose names +make up our concert lists: say, Couperin, Rameau, and Haydn in the +first group; Schubert in the second; Mendelssohn and Rubinstein in the +third. It would not be respectful to the memory of Liszt were I to +give him the associates with whom in my opinion he stands; that matter +may be held in abeyance. + +[Sidenote: _Predecessors of the pianoforte._] + +[Sidenote: _The Clavichord._] + +[Sidenote: _"Bebung."_] + +The instruments for which the first group of writers down to Haydn and +Mozart wrote, were the immediate precursors of the pianoforte--the +clavichord, spinet, or virginal, and harpsichord. The last was the +concert instrument, and stood in the same relationship to the others +that the grand pianoforte of to-day stands to the upright and square. +The clavichord was generally the medium for the composer's private +communings with his muse, because of its superiority over its fellows +in expressive power; but it gave forth only a tiny tinkle and was +incapable of stirring effects beyond those which sprang from pure +emotionality. The tone was produced by a blow against the string, +delivered by a bit of brass set in the farther end of the key. The +action was that of a direct lever, and the bit of brass, which was +called the tangent, also acted as a bridge and measured off the +segment of string whose vibration produced the desired tone. It was +therefore necessary to keep the key pressed down so long as it was +desired that the tone should sound, a fact which must be kept in mind +if one would understand the shortcomings as well as the advantages of +the instrument compared with the spinet or harpsichord. It also +furnishes one explanation of the greater lyricism of Bach's music +compared with that of his contemporaries. By gently rocking the hand +while the key was down, a tremulous motion could be communicated to +the string, which not only prolonged the tone appreciably but gave it +an expressive effect somewhat analogous to the vibrato of a violinist. +The Germans called this effect _Bebung_, the French _Balancement_, and +it was indicated by a row of dots under a short slur written over the +note. It is to the special fondness which Bach felt for the clavichord +that we owe, to a great extent, the cantabile style of his music, its +many-voicedness and its high emotionality. + +[Sidenote: _Quilled instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _Tone of the harpsichord and spinet._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach's "Music of the future."_] + +The spinet, virginal, and harpsichord were quilled instruments, the +tone of which was produced by snapping the strings by means of plectra +made of quill, or some other flexible substance, set in the upper end +of a bit of wood called the jack, which rested on the farther end of +the key and moved through a slot in the sounding-board. When the key +was pressed down, the jack moved upward past the string which was +caught and twanged by the plectrum. The blow of the clavichord tangent +could be graduated like that of the pianoforte hammer, but the quills +of the other instruments always plucked the strings with the same +force, so that mechanical devices, such as a swell-box, similar in +principle to that of the organ, coupling in octaves, doubling the +strings, etc., had to be resorted to for variety of dynamic effects. +The character of tone thus produced determined the character of the +music composed for these instruments to a great extent. The brevity of +the sound made sustained melodies ineffective, and encouraged the use +of a great variety of embellishments and the spreading out of +harmonies in the form of arpeggios. It is obvious enough that Bach, +being one of those monumental geniuses that cast their prescient +vision far into the future, refused to be bound by such mechanical +limitations. Though he wrote _Clavier_, he thought organ, which was +his true interpretative medium, and so it happens that the greatest +sonority and the broadest style that have been developed in the +pianoforte do not exhaust the contents of such a composition as the +"Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue." + +[Sidenote: _Scarlatti's sonatas._] + +The earliest music written for these instruments--music which does +not enter into this study--was but one remove from vocal music. It +came through compositions written for the organ. Of Scarlatti's music +the pieces most familiar are a Capriccio and Pastorale which Tausig +rewrote for the pianoforte. They were called sonatas by their +composer, but are not sonatas in the modern sense. Sonata means +"sound-piece," and when the term came into music it signified only +that the composition to which it was applied was written for +instruments instead of voices. Scarlatti did a great deal to develop +the technique of the harpsichord and the style of composing for it. +His sonatas consist each of a single movement only, but in their +structure they foreshadow the modern sonata form in having two +contrasted themes, which are presented in a fixed key-relationship. +They are frequently full of grace and animation, but are as purely +objective, formal, and soulless in their content as the other +instrumental compositions of the epoch to which they belong. + +[Sidenote: _The suite._] + +[Sidenote: _Its history and form._] + +[Sidenote: _The bond between the movements._] + +The most significant of the compositions of this period are the +Suites, which because they make up so large a percentage of _Clavier_ +literature (using the term to cover the pianoforte and its +predecessors), and because they pointed the way to the distinguishing +form of the subsequent period, the sonata, are deserving of more +extended consideration. The suite is a set of pieces in the same key, +but contrasted in character, based upon certain admired dance-forms. +Originally it was a set of dances and nothing more, but in the hands +of the composers the dances underwent many modifications, some of them +to the obvious detriment of their national or other distinguishing +characteristics. The suite came into fashion about the middle of the +seventeenth century and was also called _Sonata da Camera_ and +_Balletto_ in Italy, and, later, _Partita_ in France. In its +fundamental form it embraced four movements: I. Allemande. II. +Courante. III. Sarabande. IV. Gigue. To these four were sometimes +added other dances--the Gavotte, Passepied, Branle, Minuet, Bourrée, +etc.--but the rule was that they should be introduced between the +Sarabande and the Gigue. Sometimes also the set was introduced by a +Prelude or an Overture. Identity of key was the only external tie +between the various members of the suite, but the composers sought to +establish an artistic unity by elaborating the sentiments for which +the dance-forms seemed to offer a vehicle, and presenting them in +agreeable contrast, besides enriching the primitive structure with new +material. The suites of Bach and Handel are the high-water mark in +this style of composition, but it would be difficult to find the +original characteristics of the dances in their settings. It must +suffice us briefly to indicate the characteristics of the principal +forms. + +[Sidenote: _The Allemande._] + +The Allemande, as its name indicates, was a dance of supposedly German +origin. For that reason the German composers, when it came to them +from France, where the suite had its origin, treated it with great +partiality. It is in moderate tempo, common time, and made up of two +periods of eight measures, both of which are repeated. It begins with +an upbeat, and its metre, to use the terms of prosody, is iambic. The +following specimen from Mersenne's "Harmonie Universelle," 1636, well +displays its characteristics: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Iambics in music and poetry._] + +Robert Burns's familiar iambics, + + "Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, + How can ye bloom sae fair? + How can ye chant, ye little birds, + And I sae fu' o' care!" + +might serve to keep the rhythmical characteristics of the Allemande in +mind were it not for the arbitrary changes made by the composers +already hinted at. As it is, we frequently find the stately movement +of the old dance broken up into elaborate, but always quietly +flowing, ornamentation, as indicated in the following excerpt from the +third of Bach's English suites: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Courante._] + +The Courante, or Corrente ("Teach lavoltas high and swift corantos," +says Shakespeare), is a French dance which was extremely popular in +the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries--a polite dance, +like the minuet. It was in triple time, and its movement was bright +and brisk, a merry energy being imparted to the measure by the +prevailing figure, a dotted quarter-note, an eighth, and a quarter in +a measure, as illustrated in the following excerpt also from Mersenne: + +[Music illustration] + +The suite composers varied the movement greatly, however, and the +Italian Corrente consists chiefly of rapid running passages. + +[Sidenote: _The Sarabande._] + +The Sarabande was also in triple time, but its movement was slow and +stately. In Spain, whence it was derived, it was sung to the +accompaniment of castanets, a fact which in itself suffices to +indicate that it was originally of a lively character, and took on its +solemnity in the hands of the later composers. Handel found the +Sarabande a peculiarly admirable vehicle for his inspirations, and one +of the finest examples extant figures in the triumphal music of his +"Almira," composed in 1704: + +[Sidenote: _A Sarabande by Handel._] + +[Music illustration] + +Seven years after the production of "Almira," Handel recurred to this +beautiful instrumental piece, and out of it constructed the exquisite +lament beginning "_Lascia ch'io pianga_" in his opera "Rinaldo." + +[Sidenote: _The Gigue._] + +[Sidenote: _The Minuet._] + +[Sidenote: _The Gavotte._] + +Great Britain's contribution to the Suite was the final Gigue, which +is our jolly and familiar friend the jig, and in all probability is +Keltic in origin. It is, as everybody knows, a rollicking measure in +6-8, 12-8, or 4-4 time, with twelve triplet quavers in a measure, and +needs no description. It remained a favorite with composers until far +into the eighteenth century. Shakespeare proclaims its exuberant +lustiness when he makes _Sir Toby Belch_ protest that had he _Sir +Andrew's_ gifts his "very walk should be a jig." Of the other dances +incorporated into the suite, two are deserving of special mention +because of their influence on the music of to-day--the Minuet, which +is the parent of the symphonic scherzo, and the Gavotte, whose +fascinating movement is frequently heard in latter-day operettas. The +Minuet is a French dance, and came from Poitou. Louis XIV. danced it +to Lully's music for the first time at Versailles in 1653, and it soon +became the most popular of court and society dances, holding its own +down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was long called +the Queen of Dances, and there is no one who has grieved to see the +departure of gallantry and grace from our ball-rooms but will wish to +see Her Gracious Majesty restored to her throne. The music of the +minuet is in 3-4 time, and of stately movement. The Gavotte is a +lively dance-measure in common time, beginning, as a rule, on the +third beat. Its origin has been traced to the mountain people of the +Dauphiné called Gavots--whence its name. + +[Sidenote: _Technique of the Clavier players._] + +[Sidenote: _Change in technique._] + +The transferrence of this music to the modern pianoforte has effected +a vast change in the manner of its performance. In the period under +consideration emotionality, which is considered the loftiest attribute +of pianoforte playing to-day, was lacking, except in the case of such +masters of the clavichord as the great Bach and his son, Carl Philipp +Emanuel, who inherited his father's preference for that instrument +over the harpsichord and pianoforte. Tastefulness in the giving out of +the melody, distinctness of enunciation, correctness of phrasing, +nimbleness and lightness of finger, summed up practically all that +there was in virtuosoship. Intellectuality and digital skill were the +essential factors. Beauty of tone through which feeling and +temperament speak now was the product of the maker of the instrument, +except again in the case of the clavichord, in which it may have been +largely the creation of the player. It is, therefore, not surprising +that the first revolution in technique of which we hear was +accomplished by Bach, who, the better to bring out the characteristics +of his polyphonic style, made use of the thumb, till then considered +almost a useless member of the hand in playing, and bent his fingers, +so that their movements might be more unconstrained. + +[Sidenote: _Bach's touch._] + +[Sidenote: _Handel's playing._] + +[Sidenote: _Scarlatti's style._] + +Of the varieties of touch, which play such a rôle in pianoforte +pedagogics to-day, nothing was known. Only on the clavichord was a +blow delivered directly against the string, and, as has already been +said, only on that instrument was the dynamic shading regulated by the +touch. Practically, the same touch was used on the organ and the +stringed instruments with key-board. When we find written praise of +the old players it always goes to the fluency and lightness of their +fingering. Handel was greatly esteemed as a harpsichord player, and +seems to have invented a position of the hand like Bach's, or to have +copied it from that master. Forkel tells us the movement of Bach's +fingers was so slight as to be scarcely noticeable; the position of +his hands remained unchanged throughout, and the rest of his body +motionless. Speaking of Handel's harpsichord playing, Burney says that +his fingers "seemed to grow to the keys. They were so curved and +compact when he played that no motion, and scarcely the fingers +themselves, could be discovered." Scarlatti's significance lies +chiefly in an extension of the technique of his time so as to give +greater individuality to the instrument. He indulged freely in +brilliant passages and figures which sometimes call for a crossing of +the hands, also in leaps of over an octave, repetition of a note by +different fingers, broken chords in contrary motion, and other devices +which prefigure modern pianoforte music. + +[Sidenote: _The sonata._] + +That Scarlatti also pointed the way to the modern sonata, I have +already said. The history of the sonata, as the term is now +understood, ends with Beethoven. Many sonatas have been written since +the last one of that great master, but not a word has been added to +his proclamation. He stands, therefore, as a perfect exemplar of the +second period in the scheme which we have adopted for the study of +pianoforte music and playing. In a general way a sonata may be +described as a composition of four movements, contrasted in mood, +tempo, sentiment, and character, but connected by that spiritual bond +of which mention was made in our study of the symphony. In short, a +sonata is a symphony for a solo instrument. + +[Sidenote: _Haydn._] + +When it came into being it was little else than a convenient formula +for the expression of musical beauty. Haydn, who perfected it on its +formal side, left it that and nothing more. Mozart poured the vessel +full of beauty, but Beethoven breathed the breath of a new life into +it. An old writer tells us of Haydn that he was wont to say that the +whole art of composing consisted in taking up a subject and pursuing +it. Having invented his theme, he would begin by choosing the keys +through which he wished to make it pass. + + "His exquisite feeling gave him a perfect knowledge of the + greater or less degree of effect which one chord produces + in succeeding another, and he afterward imagined a little + romance which might furnish him with sentiments and colors." + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven._] + +[Sidenote: _Mozart's manner of playing._] + +Beethoven began with the sentiment and worked from it outwardly, +modifying the form when it became necessary to do so, in order to +obtain complete and perfect utterance. He made spirit rise superior to +matter. This must be borne in mind when comparing the technique of the +previous period with that of which I have made Beethoven the +representative. In the little that we are privileged to read of +Mozart's style of playing, we see only a reflex of the players who +went before him, saving as it was permeated by the warmth which went +out from his own genial personality. His manipulation of the keys had +the quietness and smoothness that were praised in Bach and Handel. + + "Delicacy and taste," says Kullak, "with his lifting of the + entire technique to the spiritual aspiration of the idea, + elevate him as a virtuoso to a height unanimously conceded + by the public, by connoisseurs, and by artists capable of + judging. Clementi declared that he had never heard any one + play so soulfully and charmfully as Mozart; Dittersdorf + finds art and taste combined in his playing; Haydn + asseverated with tears that Mozart's playing he could never + forget, for it touched the heart. His staccato is said to + have possessed a peculiarly brilliant charm." + +[Sidenote: _Clementi._] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven as a pianist._] + +The period of C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, and Mozart is that in which the +pianoforte gradually replaced its predecessors, and the first real +pianist was Mozart's contemporary and rival, Muzio Clementi. His chief +significance lies in his influence as a technician, for he opened the +way to the modern style of play with its greater sonority and capacity +for expression. Under him passage playing became an entirely new +thing; deftness, lightness, and fluency were replaced by stupendous +virtuosoship, which rested, nevertheless, on a full and solid tone. He +is said to have been able to trill in octaves with one hand. He was +necessary for the adequate interpretation of Beethoven, whose music is +likely to be best understood by those who know that he, too, was a +superb pianoforte player, fully up to the requirements which his last +sonatas make upon technical skill as well as intellectual and +emotional gifts. + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's technique._] + +[Sidenote: _Expression supreme._] + +Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven, has preserved a fuller account +of that great composer's art as a player than we have of any of his +predecessors. He describes his technique as tremendous, better than +that of any virtuoso of his day. He was remarkably deft in connecting +the full chords, in which he delighted, without the use of the pedal. +His manner at the instrument was composed and quiet. He sat erect, +without movement of the upper body, and only when his deafness +compelled him to do so, in order to hear his own music, did he +contract a habit of leaning forward. With an evident appreciation of +the necessities of old-time music he had a great admiration for clean +fingering, especially in fugue playing, and he objected to the use of +Cramer's studies in the instruction of his nephew by Czerny because +they led to what he called a "sticky" style of play, and failed to +bring out crisp staccatos and a light touch. But it was upon +expression that he insisted most of all when he taught. + +[Sidenote: _Music and emotion._] + +More than anyone else it was Beethoven who brought music back to the +purpose which it had in its first rude state, when it sprang +unvolitionally from the heart and lips of primitive man. It became +again a vehicle for the feelings. As such it was accepted by the +romantic composers to whom he belongs as father, seer, and prophet, +quite as intimately as he belongs to the classicists by reason of his +adherence to form as an essential in music. To his contemporaries he +appears as an image-breaker, but to the clearer vision of to-day he +stands an unshakable barrier to lawless iconoclasm. Says Sir George +Grove, quoting Mr. Edward Dannreuther, in the passages within the +inverted commas: + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven a Romanticist._] + + "That he was no wild radical altering for the mere pleasure + of alteration, or in the mere search for originality, is + evident from the length of time during which he abstained + from publishing, or even composing works of pretension, and + from the likeness which his early works possess to those of + his predecessors. He began naturally with the forms which + were in use in his days, and his alteration of them grew + very gradually with the necessities of his expression. The + form of the sonata is 'the transparent veil through which + Beethoven seems to have looked at all music.' And the good + points of that form he retained to the last--the 'triune + symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,' which + that admirable method allowed and enforced--but he permitted + himself a much greater liberty than his predecessors had + done in the relationship of the keys of the different + movements, and parts of movements, and in the proportion of + the clauses and sections with which he built them up. In + other words, he was less bound by the forms and musical + rules, and more swayed by the thought which he had to + express, and the directions which that thought took in his + mind." + +[Sidenote: _Schumann and Chopin._] + +It is scarcely to be wondered at that when men like Schumann and +Chopin felt the full force of the new evangel which Beethoven had +preached, they proceeded to carry the formal side of poetic +expression, its vehicle, into regions unthought of before their time. +The few old forms had now to give way to a large variety. In their +work they proceeded from points that were far apart--Schumann's was +literary, Chopin's political. In one respect the lists of their pieces +which appear most frequently on recital programmes seem to hark back +to the suites of two centuries ago--they are sets of short +compositions grouped, either by the composer (as is the case with +Schumann) or by the performer (as is the case with Chopin in the hands +of Mr. Paderewski). Such fantastic musical miniatures as Schumann's +"Carnaval" and "Papillons" are eminently characteristic of the +composer's intellectual and emotional nature, which in his university +days had fallen under the spell of literary romanticism. + +[Sidenote: _Jean Paul's influence._] + +[Sidenote: _Schumann's inspirations._] + +While ostensibly studying jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Schumann +devoted seven hours a day to the pianoforte and several to Jean Paul. +It was this writer who moulded not only Schumann's literary style in +his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in +music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was +the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but +give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn +the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. +Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn +Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular +mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find +an imitator in so ardent an apostle as young Schumann, and, therefore, +we have such compositions as "Papillons," "Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," +"Phantasiestücke," and the rest. Almost always, it may be said, the +pieces which make them up were composed under the poetical and +emotional impulses derived from literature, then grouped and named. To +understand their poetic contents this must be known. + +[Sidenote: _Chopin's music._] + +[Sidenote: _Preludes._] + +Chopin's fancy, on the other hand, found stimulation in the charm +which, for him, lay in the tone of the pianoforte itself (to which he +added a new loveliness by his manner of writing), as well as in the +rhythms of the popular dances of his country. These dances he not only +beautified as the old suite writers beautified their forms, but he +utilized them as vessels which he filled with feeling, not all of +which need be accepted as healthy, though much of it is. As to his +titles, "Preludes" is purely an arbitrary designation for +compositions which are equally indefinite in form and character; +Niecks compares them very aptly to a portfolio full of drawings "in +all stages of advancement--finished and unfinished, complete and +incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed +indiscriminately together." So, too, they appeared to Schumann: "They +are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you will, ruins, single +eagle-wings, all strangely mixed together." Nevertheless some of them +are marvellous soul-pictures. + +[Sidenote: _Études._] + +[Sidenote: _Nocturnes._] + +The "Études" are studies intended to develop the technique of the +pianoforte in the line of the composer's discoveries, his method of +playing extended arpeggios, contrasted rhythms, progressions in thirds +and octaves, etc., but still they breathe poetry and sometimes +passion. Nocturne is an arbitrary, but expressive, title for a short +composition of a dreamy, contemplative, or even elegiac, character. In +many of his nocturnes Chopin is the adored sentimentalist of +boarding-school misses. There is poppy in them and seductive poison +for which Niecks sensibly prescribes Bach and Beethoven as antidotes. +The term ballad has been greatly abused in literature, and in music is +intrinsically unmeaning. Chopin's four Ballades have one feature in +common--they are written in triple time; and they are among his finest +inspirations. + +[Sidenote: _The Polonaise._] + +Chopin's dances are conventionalized, and do not all speak the idiom +of the people who created their forms, but their original +characteristics ought to be known. The Polonaise was the stately dance +of the Polish nobility, more a march or procession than a dance, full +of gravity and courtliness, with an imposing and majestic rhythm in +triple time that tends to emphasize the second beat of the measure, +frequently syncopating it and accentuating the second half of the +first beat: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Mazurka._] + +National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas. Unlike the +Polonaise this was the dance of the common people, and even as +conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in +the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive +rhythm: + +[Music illustration] or [Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Krakowiak._] + +The Krakowiak (French _Cracovienne_, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating +specimen in his "Humoresques de Concert," op. 14) is a popular dance +indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name. Its rhythmical +elements are these: + +[Music illustration] and [Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Idiomatic music._] + +[Sidenote: _Content higher than idiom._] + +In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on +the part of the composers to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. No +music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic. Frequently in +Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of +expression; we feel that the thought would have had better expression +had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte. We may +well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and +its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been +pronounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique's +sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of +the newer charm. "Idiomatic of the pianoforte" is a good enough phrase +and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring +something like discredit to the instrument. It would be a pity if +music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty, +should fail of appreciation simply because it had been observed that +the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effective +vehicle for its publication--a pity for the pianoforte, for therein +would lie an exemplification of its imperfection. So, too, it would be +a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been +clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that +reason good pianoforte music, _i.e._, "idiomatic" music, irrespective +of its content. + +[Sidenote: _Development of the pianoforte._] + +In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument +compared with the grand of to-day. Its capacities were but beginning +to be appreciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now +are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English +manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six +octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's +pianoforte. In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half +octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in +1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material +improvement to the instrument. This extension of compass, however, is +far from being the most important improvement since the classic +period. The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been +much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use. + +[Sidenote: _The Pedals._] + +[Sidenote: _Shifting pedal._] + +[Sidenote: _Damper pedal._] + +Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the +music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The shifting +pedal was invented by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied +it to an instrument which he named "Saiten-harmonika." Before then +soft effects were obtained by interposing a bit of felt between the +hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square +pianofortes. The shifting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly +called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only +one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate +sympathetically. Beethoven was the first to appreciate the +possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in +G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin, +and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especially that of the +damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the +vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of +tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody +and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the +dampers and utilizing the ethereal sounds which rise from the strings +when they vibrate sympathetically. + +[Sidenote: _Liszt._] + +[Sidenote: _A dual character._] + +It is no part of my purpose to indulge in criticism of composers, but +something of the kind is made unavoidable by the position assigned to +Liszt in our pianoforte recitals. He is relied upon to provide a +scintillant close. The pianists, then, even those who are his +professed admirers, are responsible if he is set down in our scheme as +the exemplar of the technical cult. Technique having its unquestioned +value, we are bound to admire the marvellous gifts which enabled Liszt +practically to sum up all the possibilities of pianoforte mechanism in +its present stage of construction, but we need not look with unalloyed +gratitude upon his influence as a composer. There were, I fear, two +sides to Liszt's artistic character as well as his moral. I believe he +had in him a touch of charlatanism as well as a magnificent amount of +artistic sincerity--just as he blended a laxity of moral ideas with a +profound religious mysticism. It would have been strange indeed, +growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, +if he had not accustomed himself to sacrifice a little of the soul of +art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling +to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented. +But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the +presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the +music of Beethoven that he sank all thought of self and rose to a +peerless height as an interpreting artist. + +[Sidenote: _Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies._] + +[Sidenote: _Gypsies and Magyars._] + +Liszt's place as a composer of original music has not yet been +determined, but as a transcriber of the music of others the givers of +pianoforte recitals keep him always before us. The showy Hungarian +Rhapsodies with which the majority of pianoforte recitals end are, +however, more than mere transcriptions. They are constructed out of +the folk-songs of the Magyars, and in their treatment the composer has +frequently reproduced the characteristic performances which they +receive at the hands of the Gypsies from whom he learned them. This +fact and the belief to which Liszt gave currency in his book "Des +Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hongrie" have given rise to the +almost universal belief that the Magyar melodies are of Gypsy origin. +This belief is erroneous. The Gypsies have for centuries been the +musical practitioners of Hungary, but they are not the composers of +the music of the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress not +only on the melodies, but also on popular taste. The Hungarian +folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the national character of the +Magyars, and some have been traced back centuries in their literature. +Though their most marked melodic peculiarity, the frequent use of a +minor scale containing one or even two superfluous seconds, as thus: + +[Sidenote: _Magyar scales._] + +[Music illustration] + +may be said to belong to Oriental music as a whole (and the Magyars +are Orientals), the songs have a rhythmical peculiarity which is a +direct product of the Magyar language. This peculiarity consists of a +figure in which the emphasis is shifted from the strong to the weak +part by making the first take only a fraction of the time of the +second, thus: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Scotch snap._] + +[Sidenote: _Gypsy epics._] + +In Scottish music this rhythm also plays a prominent part, but there +it falls into the beginning of a measure, whereas in Hungarian it +forms the middle or end. The result is an effect of syncopation which +is peculiarly forceful. There is an indubitable Oriental relic in the +profuse embellishments which the Gypsies weave around the Hungarian +melodies when playing them; but the fact that they thrust the same +embellishments upon Spanish and Russian music, in fact upon all the +music which they play, indicates plainly enough that the impulse to do +so is native to them, and has nothing to do with the national taste of +the countries for which they provide music. Liszt's confessed purpose +in writing the Hungarian Rhapsodies was to create what he called +"Gypsy epics." He had gathered a large number of the melodies without +a definite purpose, and was pondering what to do with them, when it +occurred to him that + + "These fragmentary, scattered melodies were the wandering, + floating, nebulous part of a great whole, that they fully + answered the conditions for the production of an harmonious + unity which would comprehend the very flower of their + essential properties, their most unique beauties," and + "might be united in one homogeneous body, a complete work, + its divisions to be so arranged that each song would form at + once a whole and a part, which might be severed from the + rest and be examined and enjoyed by and for itself; but + which would, none the less, belong to the whole through the + close affinity of subject matter, the similarity of its + inner nature and unity in development."[D] + +[Sidenote: _The Czardas._] + +The basis of Liszt's Rhapsodies being thus distinctively national, he +has in a manner imitated in their character and tempo the dual +character of the Hungarian national dance, the Czardas, which consists +of two movements, a _Lassu_, or slow movement, followed by a _Friss_. +These alternate at the will of the dancer, who gives a sign to the +band when he wishes to change from one to the other. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[D] Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," p. 197. + + + + +VII + +_At the Opera_ + + +[Sidenote: _Instability of taste._] + +[Sidenote: _The age of operas._] + +Popular taste in respect of the opera is curiously unstable. It is +surprising that the canons of judgment touching it have such feeble +and fleeting authority in view of the popularity of the art-form and +the despotic hold which it has had on fashion for two centuries. No +form of popular entertainment is acclaimed so enthusiastically as a +new opera by an admired composer; none forgotten so quickly. For the +spoken drama we go back to Shakespeare in the vernacular, and, on +occasions, we revive the masterpieces of the Attic poets who +flourished more than two millenniums ago; but for opera we are bounded +by less than a century, unless occasional performances of Gluck's +"Orfeo" and Mozart's "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Magic Flute" be +counted as submissions to popular demand, which, unhappily, we know +they are not. There is no one who has attended the opera for +twenty-five years who might not bewail the loss of operas from the +current list which appealed to his younger fancy as works of real +loveliness. In the season of 1895-96 the audiences at the Metropolitan +Opera House in New York heard twenty-six different operas. The oldest +were Gluck's "Orfeo" and Beethoven's "Fidelio," which had a single +experimental representation each. After them in seniority came +Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," which is sixty-one years old, and +has overpassed the average age of "immortal" operas by from ten to +twenty years, assuming Dr. Hanslick's calculation to be correct. + +[Sidenote: _Decimation of the operatic list._] + +[Sidenote: _Dependence on singers._] + +The composers who wrote operas for the generation that witnessed +Adelina Patti's _début_ at the Academy of Music, in New York, were +Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Thanks to his progressive +genius, Verdi is still alive on the stage, though nine-tenths of the +operas which made his fame and fortune have already sunk into +oblivion; Meyerbeer, too, is still a more or less potent factor with +his "Huguenots," which, like "Lucia," has endured from ten to twenty +years longer than the average "immortal;" but the continued existence +of Bellini and Donizetti seems to be as closely bound up with that of +two or three singers as was Meleager's life with the burning billet +which his mother snatched from the flames. So far as the people of +London and New York are concerned whether or not they shall hear +Donizetti more, rests with Mesdames Patti and Melba, for Donizetti +spells "Lucia;" Bellini pleads piteously in "Sonnambula," but only +Madame Nevada will play the mediator between him and our stiff-necked +generation. + +[Sidenote: _An unstable art-form._] + +[Sidenote: _Carelessness of the public._] + +[Sidenote: _Addison's criticism._] + +[Sidenote: _Indifference to the words._] + +Opera is a mixed art-form and has ever been, and perhaps must ever be, +in a state of flux, subject to the changes of taste in music, the +drama, singing, acting, and even politics and morals; but in one +particular the public has shown no change for a century and a half, +and it is not quite clear why this has not given greater fixity to +popular appreciation. The people of to-day are as blithely +indifferent to the fact that their operas are all presented in a +foreign tongue as they were two centuries ago in England. The +influence of Wagner has done much to stimulate a serious attitude +toward the lyric drama, but this is seldom found outside of the +audiences in attendance on German representations. The devotees of the +Latin exotic, whether it blend French or Italian (or both, as is the +rule in New York and London) with its melodic perfume, enjoy the music +and ignore the words with the same nonchalance that Addison made merry +over. Addison proves to have been a poor prophet. The +great-grandchildren of his contemporaries are not at all curious to +know "why their forefathers used to sit together like an audience of +foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted before +them in a tongue which they did not understand." What their +great-grandparents did was also done by their grandparents and their +parents, and may be done by their children, grandchildren, and +great-grandchildren after them, unless Englishmen and Americans shall +take to heart the lessons which Wagner essayed to teach his own +people. For the present, though we have abolished many absurdities +which grew out of a conception of opera that was based upon the +simple, sensuous delight which singing gave, the charm of music is +still supreme, and we can sit out an opera without giving a thought to +the words uttered by the singers. The popular attitude is fairly +represented by that of Boileau, when he went to hear "Atys" and +requested the box-keeper to put him in a place where he could hear +Lully's music, which he loved, but not Quinault's words, which he +despised. + +[Sidenote: _Past and present._] + +It is interesting to note that in this respect the condition of +affairs in London in the early part of the eighteenth century, which +seemed so monstrously diverting to Addison, was like that in Hamburg +in the latter part of the seventeenth, and in New York at the end of +the nineteenth. There were three years in London when Italian and +English were mixed in the operatic representations. + + "The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian and + his slaves answered him in English; the lover frequently + made his court and gained the heart of his princess in a + language which she did not understand." + +[Sidenote: _Polyglot opera._] + +At length, says Addison, the audience got tired of understanding half +the opera, "and to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of +thinking, so ordered it that the whole opera was performed in an +unknown tongue." + +[Sidenote: _Perversions of texts._] + +There is this difference, however, between New York and London and +Hamburg at the period referred to: while the operatic ragout was +compounded of Italian and English in London, Italian and German in +Hamburg, the ingredients here are Italian, French, and German, with no +admixture of the vernacular. Strictly speaking, our case is more +desperate than that of our foreign predecessors, for the development +of the lyric drama has lifted its verbal and dramatic elements into a +position not dreamed of two hundred years ago. We might endure with +equanimity to hear the chorus sing + +[Sidenote: _"Robert le Diable."_] + + "_La soupe aux choux se fait dans la marmite, + Dans la marmite on fait la soupe aux choux_" + +at the beginning of "Robert le Diable," as tradition says used to be +done in Paris, but we surely ought to rise in rebellion when the +chorus of guards change their muttered comments on Pizarro's furious +aria in "Fidelio" from + +[Sidenote: _"Fidelio."_] + + _"Er spricht von Tod und Wunde!"_ + +to + + _"Er spricht vom todten Hunde!"_ + +as is a prevalent custom among the irreverent choristers of Germany. + +Addison confesses that he was often afraid when seeing the Italian +performers "chattering in the vehemence of action," that they were +calling the audience names and abusing them among themselves. I do not +know how to measure the morals and manners of our Italian singers +against those of Addison's time, but I do know that many of the things +which they say before our very faces for their own diversion are not +complimentary to our intelligence. I hope I have a proper respect for +Mr. Gilbert's "bashful young potato," but I do not think it right +while we are sympathizing with the gentle passion of _Siebel_ to have +his representative bring an offering of flowers and, looking us full +in the face, sing: + + _"Le patate d'amor, + O cari fior!"_ + +[Sidenote: _"Faust."_] + +[Sidenote: _Porpora's "Credo."_] + +It isn't respectful, and it enables the cynics of to-day to say, with +the poetasters and fiddlers of Addison's day, that nothing is capable +of being well set to music that is not nonsense. Operatic words were +once merely stalking-horses for tunes, but that day is past. We used +to smile at Brignoli's "_Ah si! ah si! ah si!_" which did service for +any text in high passages; but if a composer should, for the +accommodation of his music, change the wording of the creed into +"_Credo, non credo, non credo in unum Deum_," as Porpora once did, we +should all cry out for his excommunication. + +As an art-form the opera has frequently been criticised as an +absurdity, and it is doubtless owing to such a conviction that many +people are equally indifferent to the language employed and the +sentiments embodied in the words. Even so serious a writer as George +Hogarth does not hesitate in his "Memoirs of the Opera" to defend this +careless attitude. + +[Sidenote: _Are words unessential?_] + + "The words of an air are of small importance to the + comprehension of the business of the piece," he says; "they + merely express a sentiment, a reflection, a feeling; it is + quite enough if their general import is known, and this may + most frequently be gathered from the situation, aided by the + character and expression of the music." + +[Sidenote: _"Il Trovatore."_] + +I, myself, have known an ardent lover of music who resolutely refused +to look into a libretto because, being of a lively and imaginative +temperament, she preferred to construct her own plots and put her own +words in the mouths of the singers. Though a constant attendant on the +opera, she never knew what "Il Trovatore" was about, which, perhaps, +is not so surprising after all. Doubtless the play which she had +fashioned in her own mind was more comprehensible than Verdi's medley +of burnt children and asthmatic dance rhythms. Madame de Staël went so +far as to condemn the German composers because they "follow too +closely the sense of the words," whereas the Italians, "who are truly +the musicians of nature, make the air and the words conform to each +other only in a general way." + +[Sidenote: _The opera defended as an art-form._] + +[Sidenote: _The classic tragedy._] + +Now the present generation has witnessed a revolution in operatic +ideas which has lifted the poetical elements upon a plane not dreamed +of when opera was merely a concert in costume, and it is no longer +tolerable that it be set down as an absurdity. On the contrary, I +believe that, looked at in the light thrown upon it by the history of +the drama and the origin of music, the opera is completely justified +as an art-form, and, in its best estate, is an entirely reasonable and +highly effective entertainment. No mean place, surely, should be given +in the estimation of the judicious to an art-form which aims in an +equal degree to charm the senses, stimulate the emotions, and persuade +the reason. This, the opera, or, perhaps I would better say the lyric +drama, can be made to do as efficiently as the Greek tragedy did it, +so far as the differences between the civilizations of ancient Hellas +and the nineteenth century will permit. The Greek tragedy was the +original opera, a fact which literary study would alone have made +plain even if it were not clearly of record that it was an effort to +restore the ancient plays in their integrity that gave rise to the +Italian opera three centuries ago. + +[Sidenote: _Genesis of the Greek plays._] + +Every school-boy knows now that the Hellenic plays were simply the +final evolution of the dances with which the people of Hellas +celebrated their religious festivals. At the rustic Bacchic feasts of +the early Greeks they sang hymns in honor of the wine-god, and danced +on goat-skins filled with wine. He who held his footing best on the +treacherous surface carried home the wine as a reward. They contended +in athletic games and songs for a goat, and from this circumstance +scholars have surmised we have the word tragedy, which means +"goat-song." The choric songs and dances grew in variety and beauty. +Finally, somebody (tradition preserves the name of Thespis as the man) +conceived the idea of introducing a simple dialogue between the +strophes of the choric song. Generally this dialogue took the form of +a recital of some story concerning the god whose festival was +celebrating. Then when the dithyrambic song returned, it would either +continue the narrative or comment on its ethical features. + +[Sidenote: _Mimicry and dress._] + +The merry-makers, or worshippers, as one chooses to look upon them, +manifested their enthusiasm by imitating the appearance as well as the +actions of the god and his votaries. They smeared themselves with +wine-lees, colored their bodies black and red, put on masks, covered +themselves with the skins of beasts, enacted the parts of nymphs, +fauns, and satyrs, those creatures of primitive fancy, half men and +half goats, who were the representatives of natural sensuality +untrammelled by conventionality. + +[Sidenote: _Melodrama._] + +Next, somebody (Archilocus) sought to heighten the effect of the story +or the dialogue by consorting it with instrumental music; and thus we +find the germ of what musicians--not newspaper writers--call +melodrama, in the very early stages of the drama's development. +Gradually these simple rustic entertainments were taken in hand by the +poets who drew on the legendary stores of the people for subjects, +branching out from the doings of gods to the doings of god-like men, +the popular heroes, and developed out of them the masterpieces of +dramatic poetry which are still studied with amazement, admiration, +and love. + +[Sidenote: _Factors in ancient tragedy._] + +The dramatic factors which have been mustered in this outline are +these: + +1. The choric dance and song with a religious purpose. + +2. Recitation and dialogue. + +3. Characterization by means of imitative gestures--pantomime, that +is--and dress. + +4. Instrumental music to accompany the song and also the action. + +[Sidenote: _Operatic elements._] + +[Sidenote: _Words and music united._] + +All these have been retained in the modern opera, which may be said to +differ chiefly from its ancient model in the more important and more +independent part which music plays in it. It will appear later in our +study that the importance and independence achieved by one of the +elements consorted in a work by nature composite, led the way to a +revolution having for its object a restoration of something like the +ancient drama. In this ancient drama and its precursor, the +dithyrambic song and dance, is found a union of words and music which +scientific investigation proves to be not only entirely natural but +inevitable. In a general way most people are in the habit of speaking +of music as the language of the emotions. The elements which enter +into vocal music (of necessity the earliest form of music) are +unvolitional products which we must conceive as co-existent with the +beginnings of human life. Do they then antedate articulate speech? Did +man sing before he spoke? I shall not quarrel with anybody who chooses +so to put it. + +[Sidenote: _Physiology of singing._] + +Think a moment about the mechanism of vocal music. Something occurs to +stir up your emotional nature--a great joy, a great sorrow, a great +fear; instantly, involuntarily, in spite of your efforts to prevent +it, maybe, muscular actions set in which proclaim the emotion which +fills you. The muscles and organs of the chest, throat, and mouth +contract or relax in obedience to the emotion. You utter a cry, and +according to the state of feeling which you are in, that cry has +pitch, quality (_timbre_ the singing teachers call it), and dynamic +intensity. You attempt to speak, and no matter what the words you +utter, the emotional drama playing on the stage of your heart is +divulged. + +[Sidenote: _Herbert Spencer's laws._] + +The man of science observes the phenomenon and formulates its laws, +saying, for instance, as Herbert Spencer has said: "All feelings are +muscular stimuli;" and, "Variations of voice are the physiological +results of variations of feeling." It was the recognition of this +extraordinary intimacy between the voice and the emotions which +brought music all the world over into the service of religion, and +provided the phenomenon, which we may still observe if we be but +minded to do so, that mere tones have sometimes the sanctity of words, +and must as little be changed as ancient hymns and prayers. + +[Sidenote: _Invention of Italian opera._] + +[Sidenote: _Musical declamation._] + +The end of the sixteenth century saw a coterie of scholars, +art-lovers, and amateur musicians in Florence who desired to +re-establish the relationship which they knew had once existed between +music and the drama. The revival of learning had made the classic +tragedy dear to their hearts. They knew that in the olden time +tragedy, of which the words only have come down to us, had been +musical throughout. In their efforts to bring about an intimacy +between dramatic poetry and music they found that nothing could be +done with the polite music of their time. It was the period of highest +development in ecclesiastical music, and the climax of artificiality. +The professional musicians to whom they turned scorned their theories +and would not help them; so they fell back on their own resources. +They cut the Gordian knot and invented a new style of music, which +they fancied was like that used by the ancients in their stage-plays. +They abolished polyphony, or contrapuntal music, in everything except +their choruses, and created a sort of musical declamation, using +variations of pitch and harmonies built up on a simple bass to give +emotional life to their words. In choosing their tones they were +guided by observation of the vocal inflections produced in speech +under stress of feeling, showing thus a recognition of the law which +Herbert Spencer formulated two hundred and fifty years later. + +[Sidenote: _The music of the Florentine reformers._] + +[Sidenote: _The solo style, harmony, and declamation._] + +[Sidenote: _Fluent recitatives._] + +The music which these men produced and admired sounds to us monotonous +in the extreme, for what little melody there is in it is in the +choruses, which they failed to emancipate from the ecclesiastical art, +and which for that reason were as stiff and inelastic as the music +which in their controversies with the musicians they condemned with +vigor. Yet within their invention there lay an entirely new world of +music. Out of it came the solo style, a song with instrumental +accompaniment of a kind unknown to the church composers. Out of it, +too, came harmony as an independent factor in music instead of an +accident of the simultaneous flow of melodies; and out of it came +declamation, which drew its life from the text. The recitatives which +they wrote had the fluency of spoken words and were not retarded by +melodic forms. The new style did not accomplish what its creators +hoped for, but it gave birth to Italian opera and emancipated music in +a large measure from the formalism that dominated it so long as it +belonged exclusively to the composers for the church. + +[Sidenote: _Predecessors of Wagner._] + +[Sidenote: _Old operatic distinctions._] + +[Sidenote: _Opera buffa._] + +[Sidenote: _Opera seria._] + +[Sidenote: _Recitative._] + +Detailed study of the progress of opera from the first efforts of the +Florentines to Wagner's dramas would carry us too far afield to serve +the purposes of this book. My aim is to fix the attitude proper, or at +least useful, to the opera audience of to-day. The excursion into +history which I have made has but the purpose to give the art-form a +reputable standing in court, and to explain the motives which prompted +the revolution accomplished by Wagner. As to the elements which +compose an opera, only those need particular attention which are +illustrated in the current repertory. Unlike the opera audiences of +two centuries ago, we are not required to distinguish carefully +between the various styles of opera in order to understand why the +composer adopted a particular manner, and certain fixed forms in each. +The old distinctions between _Opera seria_, _Opera buffa_, and _Opera +semiseria_ perplex us no more. Only because of the perversion of the +time-honored Italian epithet _buffa_ by the French mongrel _Opéra +bouffe_ is it necessary to explain that the classic _Opera buffa_ was +a polite comedy, whose musical integument did not of necessity differ +from that of _Opera seria_ except in this--that the dialogue was +carried on in "dry" recitative (_recitativo secco_, or _parlante_) in +the former, and a more measured declamation with orchestral +accompaniment (_recitativo stromentato_) in the latter. So far as +subject-matter was concerned the classic distinction between tragedy +and comedy served. The dry recitative was supported by chords played +by a double-bass and harpsichord or pianoforte. In London, at a later +period, for reasons of doubtful validity, these chords came to be +played on a double-bass and violoncello, as we occasionally hear them +to-day. + +[Sidenote: _Opera semiseria._] + +[Sidenote: _"Don Giovanni."_] + +Shakespeare has taught us to accept an infusion of the comic element +in plays of a serious cast, but Shakespeare was an innovator, a +Romanticist, and, measured by old standards, his dramas are irregular. +The Italians, who followed classic models, for a reason amply +explained by the genesis of the art-form, rigorously excluded comedy +from serious operas, except as _intermezzi_, until they hit upon a +third classification, which they called _Opera semiseria_, in which a +serious subject was enlivened with comic episodes. Our dramatic tastes +being grounded in Shakespeare, we should be inclined to put down "Don +Giovanni" as a musical tragedy; or, haunted by the Italian +terminology, as _Opera semiseria_; but Mozart calls it _Opera buffa_, +more in deference to the librettist's work, I fancy, than his own, +for, as I have suggested elsewhere,[E] the musician's imagination in +the fire of composition went far beyond the conventional fancy of the +librettist in the finale of that most wonderful work. + +[Sidenote: _An Opera buffa._] + +[Sidenote: _French Grand Opéra._] + +[Sidenote: _Opéra comique._] + +[Sidenote: _"Mignon."_] + +[Sidenote: _"Faust."_] + +It is well to remember that "Don Giovanni" is an _Opera buffa_ when +watching the buffooneries of _Leporello_, for that alone justifies +them. The French have _Grand Opéra_, in which everything is sung to +orchestra accompaniment, there being neither spoken dialogue nor dry +recitative, and _Opéra comique_, in which the dialogue is spoken. The +latter corresponds with the honorable German term _Singspiel_, and one +will not go far astray if he associate both terms with the English +operas of Wallace and Balfe, save that the French and Germans have +generally been more deft in bridging over the chasm between speech and +song than their British rivals. _Opéra comique_ has another +characteristic, its _dénouement_ must be happy. Formerly the _Théatre +national de l'Opéra-Comique_ in Paris was devoted exclusively to +_Opéra comique_ as thus defined (it has since abolished the +distinction and _Grand Opéra_ may be heard there now), and, therefore, +when Ambroise Thomas brought forward his "Mignon," Goethe's story was +found to be changed so that _Mignon_ recovered and was married to +_Wilhelm Meister_ at the end. The Germans are seldom pleased with the +transformations which their literary masterpieces are forced to +undergo at the hands of French librettists. They still refuse to call +Gounod's "Faust" by that name; if you wish to hear it in Germany you +must go to the theatre when "Margarethe" is performed. Naturally they +fell indignantly afoul of "Mignon," and to placate them we have a +second finale, a _dénouement allemand_, provided by the authors, in +which _Mignon_ dies as she ought. + +[Sidenote: _Grosse Oper._] + +[Sidenote: _Comic opera and operetta._] + +[Sidenote: _Opéra bouffe._] + +[Sidenote: _Romantic operas._] + +Of course the _Grosse Oper_ of the Germans is the French _Grand Opéra_ +and the English grand opera--but all the English terms are ambiguous, +and everything that is done in Covent Garden in London or the +Metropolitan Opera House in New York is set down as "grand opera," +just as the vilest imitations of the French _vaudevilles_ or English +farces with music are called "comic operas." In its best estate, say +in the delightful works of Gilbert and Sullivan, what is designated as +comic opera ought to be called operetta, which is a piece in which the +forms of grand opera are imitated, or travestied, the dialogue is +spoken, and the purpose of the play is to satirize a popular folly. +Only in method, agencies, and scope does such an operetta (the +examples of Gilbert and Sullivan are in mind) differ from comedy in +its best conception, as a dramatic composition which aims to "chastise +manners with a smile" ("_Ridendo castigat mores_"). Its present +degeneracy, as illustrated in the _Opéra bouffe_ of the French and the +concoctions of the would-be imitators of Gilbert and Sullivan, +exemplifies little else than a pursuit far into the depths of the +method suggested by a friend to one of Lully's imitators who had +expressed a fear that a ballet written, but not yet performed, would +fail. "You must lengthen the dances and shorten the ladies' skirts," +he said. The Germans make another distinction based on the subject +chosen for the story. Spohr's "Jessonda," Weber's "Freischütz," +"Oberon," and "Euryanthe," Marschner's "Vampyr," "Templer und Jüdin," +and "Hans Heiling" are "Romantic" operas. The significance of this +classification in operatic literature may be learned from an effort +which I have made in another chapter to discuss the terms Classic and +Romantic as applied to music. Briefly stated, the operas mentioned are +put in a class by themselves (and their imitations with them) because +their plots were drawn from the romantic legends of the Middle Ages, +in which the institutions of chivalry, fairy lore, and supernaturalism +play a large part. + +[Sidenote: _Modern designations._] + +[Sidenote: _German opera and Wagner._] + +These distinctions we meet in reading about music. As I have +intimated, we do not concern ourselves much with them now. In New York +and London the people speak of Italian, English, and German opera, +referring generally to the language employed in the performance. But +there is also in the use of the terms an underlying recognition of +differences in ideals of performance. As all operas sung in the +regular seasons at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House are +popularly spoken of as Italian operas, so German opera popularly means +Wagner's lyric dramas, in the first instance, and a style of +performance which grew out of Wagner's influence in the second. As +compared with Italian opera, in which the principal singers are all +and the _ensemble_ nothing, it means, mayhap, inferior vocalists but +better actors in the principal parts, a superior orchestra and chorus, +and a more conscientious effort on the part of conductor, stage +manager, and artists, from first to last, to lift the general effect +above the conventional level which has prevailed for centuries in the +Italian opera houses. + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's "Musikdrama."_] + +[Sidenote: _Modern Italian terminology._] + +In terminology, as well as in artistic aim, Wagner's lyric dramas +round out a cycle that began with the works of the Florentine +reformers of the sixteenth century. Wagner called his later operas +_Musikdramen_, wherefore he was soundly abused and ridiculed by his +critics. When the Italian opera first appeared it was called _Dramma +per musica_, or _Melodramma_, or _Tragedia per musica_, all of which +terms stand in Italian for the conception that _Musikdrama_ stands for +in German. The new thing had been in existence for half a century, and +was already on the road to the degraded level on which we shall find +it when we come to the subject of operatic singing, before it came to +be called _Opera in musica_, of which "opera" is an abbreviation. Now +it is to be observed that the composers of all countries, having been +taught to believe that the dramatic contents of an opera have some +significance, are abandoning the vague term "opera" and following +Wagner in his adoption of the principles underlying the original +terminology. Verdi called his "Aďda" an _Opera in quattro atti_, but +his "Otello" he designated a lyric drama (_Dramma lirico_), his +"Falstaff" a lyric comedy (_Commedia lirica_), and his example is +followed by the younger Italian composers, such as Mascagni, +Leoncavallo, and Puccini. + +[Sidenote: _Recitative._] + +In the majority of the operas of the current list the vocal element +illustrates an amalgamation of the archaic recitative and aria. The +dry form of recitative is met with now only in a few of the operas +which date back to the last century or the early years of the present. +"Le Nozze di Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" +are the most familiar works in which it is employed, and in the +second of these it is used only by the bearers of the comedy element. +The dissolute _Don_ chatters glibly in it with _Zerlina_, but when +_Donna Anna_ and _Don Ottavio_ converse, it is in the _recitativo +stromentato_. + +[Sidenote: _The object of recitative._] + +[Sidenote: _Defects of the recitative._] + +[Sidenote: _What it can do._] + +In both forms recitative is the vehicle for promoting the action of +the play, preparing its incidents, and paving the way for the +situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and +dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the +play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue +to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. +Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most +monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. +Unless one is familiar with Italian and desirous of following the +conversation, which we have been often told is not necessary to the +enjoyment of an opera, its everlasting use of stereotyped falls and +intervallic turns, coupled with the strumming of arpeggioed cadences +on the pianoforte (or worse, double-bass and violoncello), makes it +insufferably wearisome to the listener. Its expression is +fleeting--only for the moment. It lacks the sustained tones and +structural symmetry essential to melody, and therefore it cannot +sustain a mood. It makes efficient use of only one of the fundamental +factors of vocal music--variety of pitch--and that in a rudimentary +way. It is specifically a product of the Italian language, and best +adapted to comedy in that language. Spoken with the vivacity native to +it in the drama, dry recitative is an impossibility in English. It is +only in the more measured and sober gait proper to oratorio that we +can listen to it in the vernacular without thought of incongruity. Yet +it may be made most admirably to preserve the characteristics of +conversation, and even illustrate Spencer's theory of the origin of +music. Witness the following brief example from "Don Giovanni," in +which the vivacity of the master is admirably contrasted with the +lumpishness of his servant: + +[Sidenote: _An example from Mozart._] + +[Music illustration: _Sempre sotto voce._ + +DON GIOVANNI. LEPORELLO. +_Le-po-rel-lo, o-ve sei? Son qui per_ +Le-po-rel-lo, where are you? I'm here and + + D.G. LEP. +_dis-gra-zi-a! e vo-i? Son qui. Chi č_ +more's the pit-y! and you, Sir? Here too. Who's + + D.G. +_mor-to, voi, o il vec-chio? Che do-_ +been killed, you or the old one? What a + + LEP. +_man-da da bes-tia! il vec-chio. Bra-vo!_ +ques-tion, you boo-by! the old one. Bra-vo!] + +[Sidenote: _Its characteristics._] + +Of course it is left to the intelligence and taste of the singers to +bring out the effects in a recitative, but in this specimen it ought +to be noted how sluggishly the disgruntled _Leporello_ replies to the +brisk question of _Don Giovanni_, how correct is the rhetorical pause +in "you, or the old one?" and the greater sobriety which comes over +the manner of the _Don_ as he thinks of the murder just committed, and +replies, "the old one." + +[Sidenote: _Recitative of some sort necessary._] + +[Sidenote: _The speaking voice in opera._] + +I am strongly inclined to the belief that in one form or the other, +preferably the accompanied, recitative is a necessary integer in the +operatic sum. That it is possible to accustom one's self to the change +alternately from speech to song we know from the experiences made with +German, French, and English operas, but these were not true lyric +dramas, but dramas with incidental music. To be a real lyric drama an +opera ought to be musical throughout, the voice being maintained from +beginning to end on an exalted plane. The tendency to drop into the +speaking voice for the sake of dramatic effect shown by some tragic +singers does not seem to me commendable. Wagner relates with +enthusiasm how Madame Schroeder-Devrient in "Fidelio" was wont to give +supreme emphasis to the phrase immediately preceding the trumpet +signal in the dungeon scene ("Another step, and you are _dead_!") by +speaking the last word "with an awful accent of despair." He then +comments: + + "The indescribable effect of this manifested itself to all + like an agonizing plunge from one sphere into another, and + its sublimity consisted in this, that with lightning + quickness a glimpse was given to us of the nature of both + spheres, of which one was the ideal, the other the real." + +[Sidenote: _Wagner and Schroeder-Devrient._] + +I have heard a similar effect produced by Herr Niemann and Madame +Lehmann, but could not convince myself that it was not an extremely +venturesome experiment. Madame Schroeder-Devrient saw the beginning of +the modern methods of dramatic expression, and it is easy to believe +that a sudden change like that so well defined by Wagner, made with +her sweeping voice and accompanied by her plastic and powerful acting, +was really thrilling; but, I fancy, nevertheless, that only Beethoven +and the intensity of feeling which pervades the scene saved the +audience from a disturbing sense of the incongruity of the +performance. + +[Sidenote: _Early forms._] + +[Sidenote: _The dialogue of the Florentines._] + +The development which has taken place in the recitative has not only +assisted in elevating opera to the dignity of a lyric drama by saving +us from alternate contemplation of the two spheres of ideality and +reality, but has also made the factor itself an eloquent vehicle of +dramatic expression. Save that it had to forego the help of the +instruments beyond a mere harmonic support, the _stilo +rappresentativo_, or _musica parlante_, as the Florentines called +their musical dialogue, approached the sustained recitative which we +hear in the oratorio and grand opera more closely than it did the +_recitative secco_. Ever and anon, already in the earliest works (the +"Eurydice" of Rinuccini as composed by both Peri and Caccini) there +are passages which sound like rudimentary melodies, but are charged +with vital dramatic expression. Note the following phrase from +_Orpheus's_ monologue on being left in the infernal regions by +_Venus_, from Peri's opera, performed A.D. 1600, in honor of the +marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV. of France: + +[Sidenote: _An example from Peri._] + +[Music illustration: + + _E voi, deh per pie-tŕ, del mio mar-ti-re + Che nel mi-se-ro cor di-mo-ra e-ter-no, + La-cri-ma-te al mio pian-to om-bre d'in-fer-no!_] + +[Sidenote: _Development of the arioso._] + +[Sidenote: _The aria supplanted._] + +[Sidenote: _Music and action._] + +Out of this style there grew within a decade something very near the +arioso, and for all the purposes of our argument we may accept the +melodic devices by which Wagner carries on the dialogue of his operas +as an uncircumscribed arioso superimposed upon a foundation of +orchestral harmony; for example, _Lohengrin's_ address to the swan, +_Elsa's_ account of her dream. The greater melodiousness of the +_recitativo stromentato_, and the aid of the orchestra when it began +to assert itself as a factor of independent value, soon enabled this +form of musical conversation to become a reflector of the changing +moods and passions of the play, and thus the value of the aria, +whether considered as a solo, or in its composite form as duet, trio, +quartet, or _ensemble_, was lessened. The growth of the accompanied +recitative naturally brought with it emancipation from the tyranny of +the classical aria. Wagner's reform had nothing to do with that +emancipation, which had been accomplished before him, but went, as we +shall see presently, to a liberation of the composers from all the +formal dams which had clogged the united flow of action and music. We +should, however, even while admiring the achievements of modern +composers in blending these elements (and I know of no more striking +illustration than the scene of the fat knight's discomfiture in +_Ford's_ house in Verdi's "Falstaff") bear in mind that while we may +dream of perfect union between words and music, it is not always +possible that action and music shall go hand in hand. Let me repeat +what once I wrote in a review of Cornelius's opera, "Der Barbier von +Bagdad:"[F] + +[Sidenote: _How music can replace incident._] + + "After all, of the constituents of an opera, action, at + least that form of it usually called incident, is most + easily spared. Progress in feeling, development of the + emotional element, is indeed essential to variety of musical + utterance, but nevertheless all great operas have + demonstrated that music is more potent and eloquent when + proclaiming an emotional state than while seeking to depict + progress toward such a state. Even in the dramas of Wagner + the culminating musical moments are predominantly lyrical, + as witness the love-duet in 'Tristan,' the close of 'Das + Rheingold,' _Siegmund's_ song, the love-duet, and _Wotan's_ + farewell in 'Die Walküre,' the forest scene and final duet + in 'Siegfried,' and the death of _Siegfried_ in 'Die + Götterdämmerung.' It is in the nature of music that this + should be so. For the drama which plays on the stage of the + heart, music is a more truthful language than speech; but it + can stimulate movement and prepare the mind for an incident + better than it can accompany movement and incident. Yet + music that has a high degree of emotional expressiveness, by + diverting attention from externals to the play of passion + within the breasts of the persons can sometimes make us + forget the paucity of incident in a play. 'Tristan und + Isolde' is a case in point. Practically, its outward action + is summed up in each of its three acts by the same words: + Preparation for a meeting of the ill-starred lovers; the + meeting. What is outside of this is mere detail; yet the + effect of the tragedy upon a listener is that of a play + surcharged with pregnant occurrence. It is the subtle + alchemy of music that transmutes the psychological action of + the tragedy into dramatic incident." + +[Sidenote: _Set forms not to be condemned._] + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's influence._] + +[Sidenote: _His orchestra._] + +[Sidenote: _Vocal feats._] + +For those who hold such a view with me it will be impossible to +condemn pieces of set forms in the lyric drama. Wagner still +represents his art-work alone, but in the influence which he exerted +upon contemporaneous composers in Italy and France, as well as +Germany, he is quite as significant a figure as he is as the creator +of the _Musikdrama_. The operas which are most popular in our Italian +and French repertories are those which benefited by the liberation +from formalism and the exaltation of the dramatic idea which he +preached and exemplified--such works as Gounod's "Faust," Verdi's +"Aďda" and "Otello," and Bizet's "Carmen." With that emancipation +there came, as was inevitable, new conceptions of the province of +dramatic singing as well as new convictions touching the mission of +the orchestra. The instruments in Wagner's latter-day works are quite +as much as the singing actors the expositors of the dramatic idea, and +in the works of the other men whom I have mentioned they speak a +language which a century ago was known only to the orchestras of Gluck +and Mozart with their comparatively limited, yet eloquent, vocabulary. +Coupled with praise for the wonderful art of Mesdames Patti and Melba +(and I am glad to have lived in their generation, though they do not +represent my ideal in dramatic singing), we are accustomed to hear +lamentations over the decay of singing. I have intoned such jeremiads +myself, and I do not believe that music is suffering from a greater +want to-day than that of a more thorough training for singers. I +marvel when I read that Senesino sang cadences of fifty seconds' +duration; that Ferri with a single breath could trill upon each note +of two octaves, ascending and descending, and that La Bastardella's +art was equal to a perfect performance (perfect in the conception of +her day) of a flourish like this: + +[Sidenote: _La Bastardella's flourish._] + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Character of the opera a century and a half ago._] + +[Sidenote: _Music and dramatic expression._] + +I marvel, I say, at the skill, the gifts, and the training which could +accomplish such feats, but I would not have them back again if they +were to be employed in the old service. When Senesino, Farinelli, +Sassarelli, Ferri, and their tribe dominated the stage, it strutted +with sexless Agamemnons and Cćsars. Telemachus, Darius, Nero, Cato, +Alexander, Scipio, and Hannibal ran around on the boards as +languishing lovers, clad in humiliating disguises, singing woful arias +to their mistress's eyebrows--arias full of trills and scales and +florid ornaments, but void of feeling as a problem in Euclid. Thanks +very largely to German influences, the opera is returning to its +original purposes. Music is again become a means of dramatic +expression, and the singers who appeal to us most powerfully are those +who are best able to make song subserve that purpose, and who to that +end give to dramatic truthfulness, to effective elocution, and to +action the attention which mere voice and beautiful utterance received +in the period which is called the Golden Age of singing, but which was +the Leaden Age of the lyric drama. + +[Sidenote: _Singers heard in New York._] + +For seventy years the people of New York, scarcely less favored than +those of London, have heard nearly all the great singers of Europe. +Let me talk about some of them, for I am trying to establish some +ground on which my readers may stand when they try to form an estimate +of the singing which they are privileged to hear in the opera houses +of to-day. Madame Malibran was a member of the first Italian company +that ever sang here. Madame Cinti-Damoreau came in 1844, Bosio in +1849, Jenny Lind in 1850, Sontag in 1853, Grisi in 1854, La Grange in +1855, Frezzolini in 1857, Piccolomini in 1858, Nilsson in 1870, Lucca +in 1872, Titiens in 1876, Gerster in 1878, and Sembrich in 1883. I +omit the singers of the German opera as belonging to a different +category. Adelina Patti was always with us until she made her European +début in 1861, and remained abroad twenty years. Of the men who were +the artistic associates of these _prime donne_, mention may be made of +Mario, Benedetti, Corsi, Salvi, Ronconi, Formes, Brignoli, Amadeo, +Coletti, and Campanini, none of whom, excepting Mario, was of +first-class importance compared with the women singers. + +[Sidenote: _Grisi._] + +[Sidenote: _Jenny Lind._] + +[Sidenote: _Lilli Lehmann._] + +Nearly all of these singers, even those still living and remembered by +the younger generation of to-day, exploited their gifts in the operas +of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, the early Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Grisi +was acclaimed a great dramatic singer, and it is told of her that once +in "Norma" she frightened the tenor who sang the part of _Pollio_ by +the fury of her acting. But measured by the standards of to-day, say +that set by Calvé's _Carmen_, it must have been a simple age that +could be impressed by the tragic power of anyone acting the part of +Bellini's Druidical priestess. The surmise is strengthened by the +circumstance that Madame Grisi created a sensation in "Il Trovatore" +by showing signs of agitation in the tower scene, walking about the +stage during _Manrico's_ "_Ah! che la morte ognora_," as if she would +fain discover the part of the castle where her lover was imprisoned. +The chief charm of Jenny Lind in the memory of the older generation is +the pathos with which she sang simple songs. Mendelssohn esteemed her +greatly as a woman and artist, but he is quoted as once remarking to +Chorley: "I cannot think why she always prefers to be in a bad +theatre." Moscheles, recording his impressions of her in Meyerbeer's +"Camp of Silesia" (now "L'Étoile du Nord"), reached the climax of his +praise in the words: "Her song with the two concertante flutes is +perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that +can possibly be heard." She was credited, too, with fine powers as an +actress; and that she possessed them can easily be believed, for few +of the singers whom I have mentioned had so early and intimate an +association with the theatre as she. Her repugnance to it in later +life she attributed to a prejudice inherited from her mother. A vastly +different heritage is disclosed by Madame Lehmann's devotion to the +drama, a devotion almost akin to religion. I have known her to go into +the scene-room of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and search +for mimic stumps and rocks with which to fit out a scene in +"Siegfried," in which she was not even to appear. That, like her +super-human work at rehearsals, was "for the good of the cause," as +she expressed it. + +[Sidenote: _Sontag._] + +Most amiable are the memories that cluster around the name of Sontag, +whose career came to a grievous close by her sudden death in Mexico in +1854. She was a German, and the early part of her artistic life was +influenced by German ideals, but it is said that only in the music of +Mozart and Weber, which aroused in her strong national emotion, did +she sing dramatically. For the rest she used her light voice, which +had an extraordinary range, brilliancy, and flexibility, very much as +Patti and Melba use their voices to-day--in mere unfeeling vocal +display. + + "She had an extensive soprano voice," says Hogarth; "not + remarkable for power, but clear, brilliant, and singularly + flexible; a quality which seems to have led her (unlike most + German singers in general) to cultivate the most florid + style, and even to follow the bad example set by Catalani, + of seeking to convert her voice into an instrument, and to + astonish the public by executing the violin variations on + Rode's air and other things of that stamp." + +[Sidenote: _La Grange._] + +[Sidenote: _Piccolomini._] + +[Sidenote: _Adelina Patti._] + +[Sidenote: _Gerster._] + +[Sidenote: _Lucca and Nilsson._] + +[Sidenote: _Sembrich._] + +Madame La Grange had a voice of wide compass, which enabled her to +sing contralto rôles as well as soprano, but I have never heard her +dramatic powers praised. As for Piccolomini, read of her where you +will, you shall find that she was "charming." She was lovely to look +upon, and her acting in soubrette parts was fascinating. Until Melba +came Patti was for thirty years peerless as a mere vocalist. She +belongs, as did Piccolomini and Sontag, to the comic _genre_; so did +Sembrich and Gerster, the latter of whom never knew it. I well +remember how indignant she became on one occasion, in her first +American season, at a criticism which I wrote of her _Amina_ in "La +Sonnambula," a performance which remains among my loveliest and most +fragrant recollections. I had made use of Catalani's remark concerning +Sontag: "_Son genre est petit, mais elle est unique dans son genre_," +and applied it to her style. She almost flew into a passion. "_Mon +genre est grand!_" said she, over and over again, while Dr. Gardini, +her husband, tried to pacify her. "Come to see my _Marguerite_ next +season." Now, Gounod's _Marguerite_ does not quite belong to the +heroic rôles, though we can all remember how Lucca thrilled us by her +intensity of action as well as of song, and how Madame Nilsson sent +the blood out of our cheeks, though she did stride through the opera +like a combination of the _grande dame_ and Ary Scheffer's spirituelle +pictures; but such as it is, Madame Gerster achieved a success of +interest only, and that because of her strivings for originality. +Sembrich and Gerster, when they were first heard in New York, had as +much execution as Melba or Nilsson; but their voices had less +emotional power than that of the latter, and less beauty than that of +the former--beauty of the kind that might be called classic, since it +is in no way dependent on feeling. + +[Sidenote: _Melba and Eames._] + +[Sidenote: _Calvé._] + +[Sidenote: _Dramatic singers._] + +[Sidenote: _Jean de Reszke._] + +[Sidenote: _Edouard de Reszke and Plançon._] + +Patti, Lucca, Nilsson, and Gerster sang in the operas in which Melba +and Eames sing to-day, and though the standard of judgment has been +changed in the last twenty-five years by the growth of German ideals, +I can find no growth of potency in the performances of the +representative women of Italian and French opera, except in the case +of Madame Calvé. For the development of dramatic ideals we must look +to the singers of German affiliations or antecedents, Mesdames +Materna, Lehmann, Sucher, and Nordica. As for the men of yesterday and +to-day, no lover, I am sure, of the real lyric drama would give the +declamatory warmth and gracefulness of pose and action which mark the +performances of M. Jean de Reszke for a hundred of the high notes of +Mario (for one of which, we are told, he was wont to reserve his +powers all evening), were they never so lovely. Neither does the +fine, resonant, equable voice of Edouard de Reszke or the finished +style of Plançon leave us with curious longings touching the voices +and manners of Lablache and Formes. Other times, other manners, in +music as in everything else. The great singers of to-day are those who +appeal to the taste of to-day, and that taste differs, as the clothes +which we wear differ, from the style in vogue in the days of our +ancestors. + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's operas._] + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's lyric dramas._] + +[Sidenote: _His theories._] + +[Sidenote: _The mission of music._] + +[Sidenote: _Distinctions abolished._] + +[Sidenote: _The typical phrases._] + +[Sidenote: _Characteristics of some motives._] + +A great deal of confusion has crept into the public mind concerning +Wagner and his works by the failure to differentiate between his +earlier and later creations. No injustice is done the composer by +looking upon his "Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," and "Lohengrin" as +operas. We find the dramatic element lifted into noble prominence in +"Tannhäuser," and admirable freedom in the handling of the musical +factors in "Lohengrin," but they must, nevertheless, be listened to as +one would listen to the operas of Weber, Marschner, or Meyerbeer. +They are, in fact, much nearer to the conventional operatic type than +to the works which came after them, and were called _Musikdramen_. +"Music drama" is an awkward phrase, and I have taken the liberty of +substituting "lyric drama" for it, and as such I shall designate +"Tristan und Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," "Der Ring des Nibelungen," +and "Parsifal." In these works Wagner exemplified his reformatory +ideas and accomplished a regeneration of the lyric drama, as we found +it embodied in principle in the Greek tragedy and the _Dramma per +musica_ of the Florentine scholars. Wagner's starting-point is, that +in the opera music had usurped a place which did not belong to it.[G] +It was designed to be a means and had become an end. In the drama he +found a combination of poetry, music, pantomime, and scenery, and he +held that these factors ought to co-operate on a basis of mutual +dependence, the inspiration of all being dramatic expression. Music, +therefore, ought to be subordinate to the text in which the dramatic +idea is expressed, and simply serve to raise it to a higher power by +giving it greater emotional life. So, also, it ought to vivify +pantomime and accompany the stage pictures. In order that it might do +all this, it had to be relieved of the shackles of formalism; only +thus could it move with the same freedom as the other elements +consorted with it in the drama. Therefore, the distinctions between +recitative and aria were abolished, and an "endless melody" took the +place of both. An exalted form of speech is borne along on a flood of +orchestral music, which, quite as much as song, action, and scenery +concerns itself with the exposition of the drama. That it may do this +the agencies, spiritual as well as material, which are instrumental in +the development of the play, are identified with certain melodic +phrases, out of which the musical fabric is woven. These phrases are +the much mooted, much misunderstood "leading motives"--typical phrases +I call them. Wagner has tried to make them reflect the character or +nature of the agencies with which he has associated them, and +therefore we find the giants in the Niblung tetralogy symbolized in +heavy, slowly moving, cumbersome phrases; the dwarfs have two phrases, +one suggesting their occupation as smiths, by its hammering rhythm, +and the other their intellectual habits, by its suggestion of brooding +contemplativeness. I cannot go through the catalogue of the typical +phrases which enter into the musical structure of the works which I +have called lyric dramas as contra-distinguished from operas. They +should, of course, be known to the student of Wagner, for thereby will +he be helped to understand the poet-composer's purposes, but I would +fain repeat the warning which I uttered twice in my "Studies in the +Wagnerian Drama:" + +[Sidenote: _The phrases should be studied._] + + "It cannot be too forcibly urged that if we confine our + study of Wagner to the forms and names of the phrases out of + which he constructs his musical fabric, we shall, at the + last, have enriched our minds with a thematic catalogue + and--nothing else. We shall remain guiltless of knowledge + unless we learn something of the nature of those phrases by + noting the attributes which lend them propriety and fitness, + and can recognize, measurably at least, the reasons for + their introduction and development. Those attributes give + character and mood to the music constructed out of the + phrases. If we are able to feel the mood, we need not care + how the phrases which produce it have been labelled. If we + do not feel the mood, we may memorize the whole thematic + catalogue of Wolzogen and have our labor for our pains. It + would be better to know nothing about the phrases, and + content one's self with simple sensuous enjoyment than to + spend one's time answering the baldest of all the riddles of + Wagner's orchestra--'What am I playing now?' + +[Sidenote: _The question of effectiveness._] + + "The ultimate question concerning the correctness or + effectiveness of Wagner's system of composition must, of + course, be answered along with the question: 'Does the + composition, as a whole, touch the emotions, quicken the + fancy, fire the imagination?' If it does these things, we + may, to a great extent, if we wish, get along without the + intellectual processes of reflection and comparison which + are conditioned upon a recognition of the themes and their + uses. But if we put aside this intellectual activity, we + shall deprive ourselves, among other things, of the + pleasures which it is the province of memory to give; and + the exercise of memory is called for by music much more + urgently than by any other art, because of its volatile + nature and the rôle which repetition plays in it." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[E] "But no real student can have studied the score deeply, or +listened discriminatingly to a good performance, without discovering +that there is a tremendous chasm between the conventional aims of the +Italian poet in the book of the opera and the work which emerged from +the composer's profound imagination. Da Ponte contemplated a _dramma +giocoso_; Mozart humored him until his imagination came within the +shadow cast before by the catastrophe, and then he transformed the +poet's comedy into a tragedy of crushing power. The climax of Da +Ponte's ideal is reached in a picture of the dissolute _Don_ wrestling +in idle desperation with a host of spectacular devils, and finally +disappearing through a trap, while fire bursts out on all sides, the +thunders roll, and _Leporello_ gazes on the scene, crouched in a comic +attitude of terror, under the table. Such a picture satisfied the +tastes of the public of his time, and that public found nothing +incongruous in a return to the scene immediately afterward of all the +characters save the reprobate, who had gone to his reward, to hear a +description of the catastrophe from the buffoon under the table, and +platitudinously to moralize that the perfidious wretch, having been +stored away safely in the realm of Pluto and Proserpine, nothing +remained for them to do except to raise their voices in the words of +the "old song," + + _"Questo č il fin di chi fa mal: + E dei perfidi la morte + Alla vita č sempre ugual."_ + +"New York Musical Season, 1889-90." + +[F] "Review of the New York Musical Season, 1889-90," p. 75. + +[G] See "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," chapter I. + + + + +VIII + +_Choirs and Choral Music_ + + +[Sidenote: _Choirs a touchstone of culture._] + +[Sidenote: _The value of choir singing._] + +No one would go far astray who should estimate the extent and +sincerity of a community's musical culture by the number of its chorus +singers. Some years ago it was said that over three hundred cities and +towns in Germany contained singing societies and orchestras devoted to +the cultivation of choral music. In the United States, where there are +comparatively a small number of instrumental musicians, there has been +a wonderful development of singing societies within the last +generation, and it is to this fact largely that the notable growth in +the country's knowledge and appreciation of high-class music is due. +No amount of mere hearing and study can compare in influence with +participation in musical performance. Music is an art which rests on +love. It is beautiful sound vitalized by feeling, and it can only be +grasped fully through man's emotional nature. There is no quicker or +surer way to get to the heart of a composition than by performing it, +and since participation in chorus singing is of necessity unselfish +and creative of sympathy, there is no better medium of musical culture +than membership in a choir. It was because he realized this that +Schumann gave the advice to all students of music: "Sing diligently in +choirs; especially the middle voices, for this will make you musical." + +[Sidenote: _Singing societies and orchestras._] + +[Sidenote: _Neither numbers nor wealth necessary._] + +There is no community so small or so ill-conditioned that it cannot +maintain a singing society. Before a city can give sustenance to even +a small body of instrumentalists it must be large enough and rich +enough to maintain a theatre from which those instrumentalists can +derive their support. There can be no dependence upon amateurs, for +people do not study the oboe, bassoon, trombone, or double-bass for +amusement. Amateur violinists and amateur flautists there are in +plenty, but not amateur clarinetists and French-horn players; but if +the love for music exists in a community, a dozen families shall +suffice to maintain a choral club. Large numbers are therefore not +essential; neither is wealth. Some of the largest and finest choirs in +the world flourish among the Welsh miners in the United States and +Wales, fostered by a native love for the art and the national +institution called Eisteddfod. + +[Sidenote: _Lines of choral culture in the United States._] + +The lines on which choral culture has proceeded in the United States +are two, of which the more valuable, from an artistic point of view, +is that of the oratorio, which went out from New England. The other +originated in the German cultivation of the _Männergesang_, the +importance of which is felt more in the extent of the culture, +prompted as it is largely by social considerations, than in the music +sung, which is of necessity of a lower grade than that composed for +mixed voices. It is chiefly in the impulse which German _Männergesang_ +carried into all the corners of the land, and especially the impetus +which the festivals of the German singers gave to the sections in +which they have been held for half a century, that this form of +culture is interesting. + +[Sidenote: _Church and oratorio._] + +[Sidenote: _Secular choirs._] + +The cultivation of oratorio music sprang naturally from the Church, +and though it is now chiefly in the hands of secular societies, the +biblical origin of the vast majority of the texts used in the works +which are performed, and more especially the regular performances of +Handel's "Messiah" in the Christmastide, have left the notion, more or +less distinct, in the public mind, that oratorios are religious +functions. Nevertheless (or perhaps because of this fact) the most +successful choral concerts in the United States are those given by +oratorio societies. The cultivation of choral music which is secular +in character is chiefly in the hands of small organizations, whose +concerts are of a semi-private nature and are enjoyed by the associate +members and invited guests. This circumstance is deserving of notice +as a characteristic feature of choral music in America, though it has +no particular bearing upon this study, which must concern itself with +choral organizations, choral music, and choral performances in +general. + +[Sidenote: _Amateur choirs originated in the United States._] + +[Sidenote: _The size of old choirs._] + +Organizations of the kind in view differ from instrumental in being +composed of amateurs; and amateur choir-singing is no older anywhere +than in the United States. Two centuries ago and more the singing of +catches and glees was a common amusement among the gentler classes in +England, but the performances of the larger forms of choral music were +in the hands of professional choristers who were connected with +churches, theatres, schools, and other public institutions. Naturally, +then, the choral bodies were small. Choirs of hundreds and thousands, +such as take part in the festivals of to-day, are a product of a later +time. + +[Sidenote: _Handel's choirs._] + + "When Bach and Handel wrote their Passions, Church Cantatas, + and Oratorios, they could only dream of such majestic + performances as those works receive now; and it is one of + the miracles of art that they should have written in so + masterly a manner for forces that they could never hope to + control. Who would think, when listening to the 'Hallelujah' + of 'The Messiah,' or the great double choruses of 'Israel in + Egypt,' in which the voice of the composer is 'as the voice + of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and + as the voice of many thunderings, saying, "Alleluia, for the + Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"' that these colossal + compositions were never heard by Handel from any chorus + larger than the most modest of our church choirs? At the + last performance of 'The Messiah' at which Handel was + advertised to appear (it was for the benefit of his favorite + charity, the Foundling Hospital, on May 3, 1759--he died + before the time, however), the singers, including + principals, numbered twenty-three, while the + instrumentalists numbered thirty-three. At the first great + Handel Commemoration, in Westminster Abbey, in 1784, the + choir numbered two hundred and seventy-five, the band two + hundred and fifty; and this was the most numerous force ever + gathered together for a single performance in England up to + that time. + +[Sidenote: _Choirs a century ago._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach's choir._] + + "In 1791 the Commemoration was celebrated by a choir of five + hundred and a band of three hundred and seventy-five. In + May, 1786, Johann Adam Hiller, one of Bach's successors as + cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipsic, directed what + was termed a _Massenaufführung_ of 'The Messiah,' in the + Domkirche, in Berlin. His 'masses' consisted of one hundred + and eighteen singers and one hundred and eighty-six + instrumentalists. In Handel's operas, and sometimes even in + his oratorios, the _tutti_ meant, in his time, little more + than a union of all the solo singers; and even Bach's + Passion music and church cantatas, which seem as much + designed for numbers as the double choruses of 'Israel,' + were rendered in the St. Thomas Church by a ludicrously + small choir. Of this fact a record is preserved in the + archives of Leipsic. In August, 1730, Bach submitted to the + authorities a plan for a church choir of the pupils in his + care. In this plan his singers numbered twelve, there being + one principal and two ripienists in each voice; with + characteristic modesty he barely suggests a preference for + sixteen. The circumstance that in the same document he asked + for at least eighteen instrumentalists (two more if flutes + were used), taken in connection with the figures given + relative to the 'Messiah' performances, gives an insight + into the relations between the vocal and the instrumental + parts of a choral performance in those days."[H] + +[Sidenote: _Proportion of voices and instruments._] + +This relation has been more than reversed since then, the orchestras +at modern oratorio performances seldom being one-fifth as large as the +choir. This difference, however, is due largely to the changed +character of modern music, that of to-day treating the instruments as +independent agents of expression instead of using them chiefly to +support the voices and add sonority to the tonal mass, as was done by +Handel and most of the composers of his day. + +[Sidenote: _Glee unions and male choirs._] + +I omit from consideration the Glee Unions of England, and the +quartets, which correspond to them, in this country. They are not +cultivators of choral music, and the music which they sing is an +insignificant factor in culture. The male choirs, too, need not detain +us long, since it may be said without injustice that their mission is +more social than artistic. In these choirs the subdivision into parts +is, as a rule, into two tenor voices, first and second, and two bass, +first and second. In the glee unions, the effect of whose singing is +fairly well imitated by the college clubs of the United States +(pitiful things, indeed, from an artistic point of view), there is a +survival of an old element in the male alto singing above the melody +voice, generally in a painful falsetto. This abomination is unknown to +the German part-songs for men's voices, which are written normally, +but are in the long run monotonous in color for want of the variety in +timbre and register which the female voices contribute in a mixed +choir. + +[Sidenote: _Women's choirs._] + +There are choirs also composed exclusively of women, but they are +even more unsatisfactory than the male choirs, for the reason that the +absence of the bass voice leaves their harmony without sufficient +foundation. Generally, music for these choirs is written for three +parts, two sopranos and contralto, with the result that it hovers, +suspended like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth. When a +fourth part is added it is a second contralto, which is generally +carried down to the tones that are hollow and unnatural. + +[Sidenote: _Boys' choirs._] + +The substitution of boys for women in Episcopal Church choirs has +grown extensively within the last ten years in the United States, very +much to the promotion of ćsthetic sentimentality in the congregations, +but without improving the character of worship-music. Boys' voices are +practically limitless in an upward direction, and are naturally clear +and penetrating. Ravishing effects can be produced with them, but it +is false art to use passionless voices in music conceived for the +mature and emotional voices of adults; and very little of the old +English Cathedral music, written for choirs of boys and men, is +preserved in the service lists to-day. + +[Sidenote: _Mixed choirs._] + +The only satisfactory choirs are the mixed choirs of men and women. +Upon them has devolved the cultivation of artistic choral music in our +public concert-rooms. As we know such choirs now, they are of +comparatively recent origin, and it is a singular commentary upon the +way in which musical history is written, that the fact should have so +long been overlooked that the credit of organizing the first belongs +to the United States. A little reflection will show this fact, which +seems somewhat startling at first blush, to be entirely natural. Large +singing societies are of necessity made up of amateurs, and the want +of professional musicians in America compelled the people to enlist +amateurs at a time when in Europe choral activity rested on the +church, theatre, and institute choristers, who were practically +professionals. + +[Sidenote: _Origin of amateur singing societies._] + +[Sidenote: _The German record._] + +[Sidenote: _American priority._] + +[Sidenote: _The American record._] + +As the hitherto accepted record stands, the first amateur singing +society was the Singakademie of Berlin, which Carl Friedrich Fasch, +accompanist to the royal flautist, Frederick the Great, called into +existence in 1791. A few dates will show how slow the other cities of +musical Germany were in following Berlin's example. In 1818 there were +only ten amateur choirs in all Germany. Leipsic organized one in 1800, +Stettin in 1800, Münster in 1804, Dresden in 1807, Potsdam in 1814, +Bremen in 1815, Chemnitz in 1817, Schwäbisch-Hall in 1817, and +Innsbruck in 1818. The Berlin Singakademie is still in existence, but +so also is the Stoughton Musical Society in Stoughton, Mass., which +was founded on November 7, 1786. Mr. Charles C. Perkins, historian of +the Handel and Haydn Society, whose foundation was coincident with the +sixth society in Germany (Bremen, 1815), enumerates the following +predecessors of that venerable organization: the Stoughton Musical +Society, 1786; Independent Musical Society, "established at Boston in +the same year, which gave a concert at King's Chapel in 1788, and took +part there in commemorating the death of Washington (December 14, +1799) on his first succeeding birthday;" the Franklin, 1804; the +Salem, 1806; Massachusetts Musical, 1807; Lock Hospital, 1812, and the +Norfolk Musical, the date of whose foundation is not given by Mr. +Perkins. + +[Sidenote: _Choirs in the West._] + +When the Bremen Singakademie was organized there were already choirs +in the United States as far west as Cincinnati. In that city they were +merely church choirs at first, but within a few years they had +combined into a large body and were giving concerts at which some of +the choruses of Handel and Haydn were sung. That their performances, +as well as those of the New England societies, were cruder than those +of their European rivals may well be believed, but with this I have +nothing to do. I am simply seeking to establish the priority of the +United States in amateur choral culture. The number of American cities +in which oratorios are performed annually is now about fifty. + +[Sidenote: _The size of choirs._] + +[Sidenote: _Large numbers not essential._] + +[Sidenote: _How "divisions" used to be sung._] + +In size mixed choirs ordinarily range from forty voices to five +hundred. It were well if it were understood by choristers as well as +the public that numbers merely are not a sign of merit in a singing +society. So the concert-room be not too large, a choir of sixty +well-trained voices is large enough to perform almost everything in +choral literature with good effect, and the majority of the best +compositions will sound better under such circumstances than in large +rooms with large choirs. Especially is this true of the music of the +Middle Ages, written for voices without instrumental accompaniment, of +which I shall have something to say when the discussion reaches choral +programmes. There is music, it is true, like much of Handel's, the +impressiveness of which is greatly enhanced by masses, but it is not +extensive enough to justify the sacrifice of correctness and finish in +the performance to mere volume. The use of large choirs has had the +effect of developing the skilfulness of amateur singers in an +astonishing degree, but there is, nevertheless, a point where +weightiness of tone becomes an obstacle to finished execution. When +Mozart remodelled Handel's "Messiah" he was careful to indicate that +the florid passages ("divisions" they used to be called in England) +should be sung by the solo voices alone, but nowadays choirs of five +hundred voices attack such choruses as "For unto us a Child is Born," +without the slightest hesitation, even if they sometimes make a +mournful mess of the "divisions." + +[Sidenote: _The division of choirs._] + +[Sidenote: _Five-part music._] + +[Sidenote: _Eight part._] + +[Sidenote: _Antiphonal music._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach's "St. Matthew Passion."_] + +The normal division of a mixed choir is into four parts or +voices--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass; but composers sometimes +write for more parts, and the choir is subdivided to correspond. The +custom of writing for five, six, eight, ten, and even more voices was +more common in the Middle Ages, the palmy days of the _a capella_ +(_i.e._, for the chapel, unaccompanied) style than it is now, and, as +a rule, a division into more than four voices is not needed outside of +the societies which cultivate this old music, such as the Musical Art +Society in New York, the Bach Choir in London, and the Domchor in +Berlin. In music for five parts, one of the upper voices, soprano or +tenor, is generally doubled; for six, the ordinary distribution is +into two sopranos, two contraltos, tenor, and bass. When eight voices +are reached a distinction is made according as there are to be eight +real parts (_a otto voci reali_), or two choruses of the four normal +parts each (_a otto voci in due cori reali_). In the first instance +the arrangement commonly is three sopranos, two contraltos, two +tenors, and one bass. One of the most beautiful uses of the double +choir is to produce antiphonal effects, choir answering to choir, both +occasionally uniting in the climaxes. How stirring this effect can be +made may be observed in some of Bach's compositions, especially those +in which he makes the division of the choir subserve a dramatic +purpose, as in the first chorus of "The Passion according to St. +Matthew," where the two choirs, one representing _Daughters of Zion_, +the other _Believers_, interrogate and answer each other thus: + + I. "Come, ye daughters, weep for anguish; + See Him! +II. "Whom? + I. "The Son of Man. + See Him! +II. "How? + I. "So like a lamb. + See it! +II. "What? + I. "His love untold. + Look! +II. "Look where? + I. "Our guilt behold." + +[Sidenote: _Antiphony in a motet._] + +Another most striking instance is in the same master's motet, "Sing ye +to the Lord," which is written for two choirs of four parts each. (In +the example from the "St. Matthew Passion" there is a third choir of +soprano voices which sings a chorale while the dramatic choirs are +conversing.) In the motet the first choir begins a fugue, in the midst +of which the second choir is heard shouting jubilantly, "Sing ye! Sing +ye! Sing ye!" Then the choirs change rôles, the first delivering the +injunction, the second singing the fugue. In modern music, composers +frequently consort a quartet of solo voices, soprano, contralto, +tenor, and bass, with a four-part chorus, and thus achieve fine +effects of contrast in dynamics and color, as well as antiphonal. + +[Sidenote: _Excellence in choral singing._] + +[Sidenote: _Community of action._] + +[Sidenote: _Individualism._] + +[Sidenote: _Dynamics._] + +[Sidenote: _Beauty of tone._] + +[Sidenote: _Contralto voices._] + +The question is near: What constitutes excellence in a choral +performance? To answer: The same qualities that constitute excellence +in an orchestral performance, will scarcely suffice, except as a +generalization. A higher degree of harmonious action is exacted of a +body of singers than of a body of instrumentalists. Many of the parts +in a symphony are played by a single instrument. Community of voice +belongs only to each of the five bodies of string-players. In a chorus +there are from twelve to one hundred and fifty voices, or even more, +united in each part. This demands the effacement of individuality in a +chorus, upon the assertion of which, in a band, under the judicious +guidance of the conductor, many of the effects of color and expression +depend. Each group in a choir must strive for homogeneity of voice +quality; each singer must sink the _ego_ in the aggregation, yet +employ it in its highest potency so far as the mastery of the technics +of singing is concerned. In cultivating precision of attack (_i.e._, +promptness in beginning a tone and leaving it off), purity of +intonation (_i.e._, accuracy or justness of pitch--"singing in tune" +according to the popular phrase), clearness of enunciation, and +careful attention to all the dynamic gradations of tone, from very +soft up to very loud, and all shades of expression between, in the +development of that gradual augmentation of tone called _crescendo_, +and the gradual diminution called _diminuendo_, the highest order of +individual skill is exacted from every chorister; for upon individual +perfection in these things depends the collective effect which it is +the purpose of the conductor to achieve. Sensuous beauty of tone, even +in large aggregations, is also dependent to a great degree upon +careful and proper emission of voice by each individual, and it is +because the contralto part in most choral music, being a middle part, +lies so easily in the voices of the singers that the contralto +contingent in American choirs, especially, so often attracts attention +by the charm of its tone. Contralto voices are seldom forced into the +regions which compel so great a physical strain that beauty and +character must be sacrificed to mere accomplishment of utterance, as +is frequently the case with the soprano part. + +[Sidenote: _Selfishness fatal to success._] + +[Sidenote: _Tonal balance._] + +Yet back of all this exercise of individual skill there must be a +spirit of self-sacrifice which can only exist in effective potency if +prompted by universal sympathy and love for the art. A selfish +chorister is not a chorister, though possessed of the voice of a Melba +or Mario. Balance between the parts, not only in the fundamental +constitution of the choir but also in all stages of a performance, is +also a matter of the highest consideration. In urban communities, +especially, it is difficult to secure perfect tonal symmetry--the rule +is a poverty in tenor voices--but those who go to hear choral concerts +are entitled to hear a well-balanced choir, and the presence of an +army of sopranos will not condone a squad of tenors. Again, I say, +better a well-balanced small choir than an ill-balanced large one. + +[Sidenote: _Declamation._] + +[Sidenote: _Expression._] + +[Sidenote: _The choruses in "The Messiah."_] + +[Sidenote: _Variety of declamation in Handel's oratorio._] + +I have not enumerated all the elements which enter into a meritorious +performance, nor shall I discuss them all; only in passing do I wish +to direct attention to one which shines by its absence in the choral +performances not only of America but also of Great Britain and +Germany. Proper pronunciation of the texts is an obvious requirement; +so ought also to be declamation. There is no reason why characteristic +expression, by which I mean expression which goes to the genius of the +melodic phrase when it springs from the verbal, should be ignored, +simply because it may be difficult of attainment from large bodies of +singers. There is so much monotony in oratorio concerts because all +oratorios and all parts of any single oratorio are sung alike. Only +when the "Hallelujah" is sung in "The Messiah" at the gracious +Christmastide is an exaltation above the dull level of the routine +performances noticeable, and then it is communicated to the singers by +the act of the listeners in rising to their feet. Now, despite the +structural sameness in the choruses of "The Messiah," they have a +great variety of content, and if the characteristic physiognomy of +each could but be disclosed, the grand old work, which seems hackneyed +to so many, would acquire amazing freshness, eloquence, and power. +Then should we be privileged to note that there is ample variety in +the voice of the old master, of whom a greater than he said that when +he wished, he could strike like a thunderbolt. Then should we hear the +tones of amazed adoration in + +[Music illustration: Be-hold the Lamb of God!] + +of cruel scorn in + +[Music illustration: He trust-ed in God that would de-li-ver Him, let +him de-li-ver him if he de-light in him.] + +of boastfulness and conscious strength in + +[Music illustration: Let us break their bonds a-sun-der.] + +and learn to admire as we ought to admire the declamatory strength +and truthfulness so common in Handel's choruses. + +[Sidenote: _Medićval music._] + +[Sidenote: _Madrigals._] + +There is very little cultivation of choral music of the early +ecclesiastical type, and that little is limited to the Church and a +few choirs specially organized for its performance, like those that I +have mentioned. This music is so foreign to the conceptions of the +ordinary amateur, and exacts so much skill in the singing of the +intervals, lacking the prop of modern tonality as it does, that it is +seldom that an amateur body can be found equal to its performance. +Moreover, it is nearly all of a solemn type. Its composers were +churchmen, and when it was written nearly all that there was of +artistic music was in the service of the Church. The secular music of +the time consisted chiefly in Madrigals, which differed from +ecclesiastical music only in their texts, they being generally erotic +in sentiment. The choristers of to-day, no less than the public, find +it difficult to appreciate them, because they are not melodic in the +sense that most music is nowadays. In them the melody is not the +privileged possession of the soprano voice. All the voices stand on +an equal footing, and the composition consists of a weaving together, +according to scientific rules, of a number of voices--counterpoint as +it is called. + +[Sidenote: _Homophonic hymns._] + +[Sidenote: _Calvin's restrictive influence._] + +Our hymn-tunes are homophonic, based upon a melody sung by one voice, +for which the other voices provide the harmony. This style of music +came into the Church through the German Reformation. Though Calvin was +a lover of music he restricted its practice among his followers to +unisonal psalmody, that is, to certain tunes adapted to the versified +psalms sung without accompaniment of harmony voices. On the adoption +of the Genevan psalter he gave the strictest injunction that neither +its text nor its melodies were to be altered. + + "Those songs and melodies," said he, "which are composed for + the mere pleasure of the ear, and all they call ornamental + music, and songs for four parts, do not behoove the majesty + of the Church, and cannot fail greatly to displease God." + +[Sidenote: _Luther and the German Church._] + +Under the influence of the German reformers music was in a very +different case. Luther was not only an amateur musician, he was also +an ardent lover of scientific music. Josquin des Pres, a contemporary +of Columbus, was his greatest admiration; nevertheless, he was anxious +from the beginning of his work of Church establishment to have the +music of the German Church German in spirit and style. In 1525 he +wrote: + +[Sidenote: _A German mass._] + + "I should like to have a German mass, and I am indeed at + work on one; but I am anxious that it shall be truly German + in manner. I have no objection to a translated Latin text + and Latin notes; but they are neither proper nor just (_aber + es lautet nicht artig noch rechtschaffen_); text and notes, + accent, melodies, and demeanor must come from our mother + tongue and voice, else will it all be but a mimicry, like + that of the apes." + +[Sidenote: _Secular tunes used._] + +[Sidenote: _Congregational singing._] + +In the Church music of the time, composed, as I have described, by a +scientific interweaving of voices, the composers had got into the +habit of utilizing secular melodies as the foundation on which to +build their contrapuntal structures. I have no doubt that it was the +spirit which speaks out of Luther's words which brought it to pass +that in Germany contrapuntal music with popular melodies as +foundations developed into the chorale, in which the melody and not +the counterpoint was the essential thing. With the Lutheran Church +came congregational singing; with congregational singing the need of a +new style of composition, which should not only make the participation +of the people in the singing possible, but should also stimulate them +to sing by freeing the familiar melodies (the melodies of folk-songs) +from the elaborate and ingenious, but soulless, counterpoint which +fettered them. + +[Sidenote: _Counterpoint._] + +[Sidenote: _The first congregational hymns._] + +The Flemish masters, who were the musical law-givers, had been using +secular tunes for over a century, but only as stalking-horses for +counterpoint; and when the Germans began to use their tunes, they, +too, buried them beyond recognition in the contrapuntal mass. The +people were invited to sing paraphrases of the psalms to familiar +tunes, it is true, but the choir's polyphony went far to stifle the +spirit of the melody. Soon the free spirit which I have repeatedly +referred to as Romanticism, and which was powerfully encouraged by +the Reformation, prompted a style of composition in which the admired +melody was lifted into relief. This could not be done until the new +style of writing invented by the creators of the opera (see Chapter +VII.) came in, but as early as 1568 Dr. Lucas Ostrander published +fifty hymns and psalms with music so arranged "that the congregation +may join in singing them." This, then, is in outline the story of the +beginning of modern hymnology, and it is recalled to the patrons of +choral concerts whenever in Bach's "Passion Music" or in Mendelssohn's +"St. Paul" the choir sings one of the marvellous old hymns of the +German Church. + +[Sidenote: _The Church and conservatism._] + +[Sidenote: _Harmony and emotion._] + +Choral music being bound up with the Church, it has naturally +participated in the conservatism characteristic of the Church. The +severe old style has survived in the choral compositions of to-day, +while instrumental music has grown to be almost a new thing within the +century which is just closing. It is the severe style established by +Bach, however, not that of Palestrina. In the Church compositions +prior to Palestrina the emotional power of harmony was but little +understood. The harmonies, indeed, were the accidents of the +interweaving of melodies. Palestrina was among the first to feel the +uplifting effect which might result from a simple sequence of pure +consonant harmonies, and the three chords which open his famous +"Stabat Mater" + +[Sidenote: _Palestrina's "Stabat Mater."_] + +[Sidenote: _Characteristics of his music._] + +[Music illustration: Sta-bat ma-ter] + +are a sign of his style as distinct in its way as the devices by means +of which Wagner stamps his individuality on his phrases. His melodies, +too, compared with the artificial _motivi_ of his predecessors, are +distinguished by grace, beauty, and expressiveness, while his command +of ćtherial effects, due to the manner in which the voices are +combined, is absolutely without parallel from his day to this. Of the +mystery of pure beauty he enjoyed a wonderful revelation, and has +handed it down to us in such works as the "Stabat Mater," "Missa Papć +Marcelli," and the "Improperia." + +[Sidenote: _Palestrina's music not dramatic._] + +[Sidenote: _A churchman._] + +[Sidenote: _Effect of the Reformation._] + +This music must not be listened to with the notion in mind of dramatic +expression such as we almost instinctively feel to-day. Palestrina +does not seek to proclaim the varying sentiment which underlies his +texts. That leads to individual interpretation and is foreign to the +habits of churchmen in the old conception, when the individual was +completely resolved in the organization. He aimed to exalt the mystery +of the service, not to bring it down to popular comprehension and make +it a personal utterance. For such a design in music we must wait until +after the Reformation, when the ancient mysticism began to fall back +before the demands of reason, when the idea of the sole and sufficient +mediation of the Church lost some of its power in the face of the +growing conviction of intimate personal relationship between man and +his creator. Now idealism had to yield some of its dominion to +realism, and a more rugged art grew up in place of that which had +been so wonderfully sublimated by mysticism. + +[Sidenote: _The source of beauty in Palestrina's music._] + +It is in Bach, who came a century after Palestrina, that we find the +most eloquent musical proclamation of the new régime, and it is in no +sense disrespectful to the great German master if we feel that the +change in ideals was accompanied with a loss in sensuous charm, or +pure ćsthetic beauty. Effect has had to yield to idea. It is in the +flow of the voices, the color effects which result from combination +and registers, the clarity of the harmonies, the reposefulness coming +from conscious ease of utterance, the loveliness of each individual +part, and the spiritual exaltation of the whole that the ćsthetic +mystery of Palestrina's music lies. + +[Sidenote: _Bach._] + +Like Palestrina, Bach is the culmination of the musical practice of +his time, but, unlike Palestrina, he is also the starting-point of a +new development. With Bach the old contrapuntal art, now not vocal +merely but instrumental also and mixed, reaches its climax, and the +tendency sets in which leads to the highly complex and dramatic art of +to-day. Palestrina's art is Roman; the spirit of restfulness, of +celestial calm, of supernatural revelation and supernal beauty broods +over it. Bach's is Gothic--rugged, massive, upward striving, human. In +Palestrina's music the voice that speaks is the voice of angels; in +Bach's it is the voice of men. + +[Sidenote: _Bach a German Protestant._] + +[Sidenote: _Church and individual._] + +[Sidenote: _Ingenuousness of feeling._] + +Bach is the publisher of the truest, tenderest, deepest, and most +individual religious feeling. His music is peculiarly a hymning of the +religious sentiment of Protestant Germany, where salvation is to be +wrought out with fear and trembling by each individual through faith +and works rather than the agency of even a divinely constituted +Church. It reflects, with rare fidelity and clearness, the essential +qualities of the German people--their warm sympathy, profound +compassion, fervent love, and sturdy faith. As the Church fell into +the background and the individual came to the fore, religious music +took on the dramatic character which we find in the "Passion Music" of +Bach. Here the sufferings and death of the Saviour, none the less an +ineffable mystery, are depicted as the most poignant experience of +each individual believer, and with an ingenuousness that must forever +provoke the wonder of those who are unable to enter into the German +nature. The worshippers do not hesitate to say: "My Jesus, +good-night!" as they gather in fancy around His tomb and invoke sweet +rest for His weary limbs. The difference between such a proclamation +and the calm voice of the Church should be borne in mind when +comparing the music of Palestrina with that of Bach; also the vast +strides made by music during the intervening century. + +[Sidenote: _The motet._] + +Of Bach's music we have in the repertories of our best choral +societies a number of motets, church cantatas, a setting of the +"Magnificat," and the great mass in B minor. The term Motet lacks +somewhat of definiteness of the usage of composers. Originally it +seems likely that it was a secular composition which the Netherland +composers enlisted in the service of the Church by adapting it to +Biblical and other religious texts. Then it was always unaccompanied. +In the later Protestant motets the chorale came to play a great part; +the various stanzas of a hymn were given different settings, the +foundation of each being the hymn tune. These were interspersed with +independent pieces, based on Biblical words. + +[Sidenote: _Church cantatas._] + +The Church Cantatas (_Kirchencantaten_) are larger services with +orchestral accompaniment, which were written to conform to the various +religious festivals and Sundays of the year; each has for a +fundamental subject the theme which is proper to the day. Again, a +chorale provides the musical foundation. Words and melody are +retained, but between the stanzas occur recitatives and metrical airs, +or ariosos, for solo voices in the nature of commentaries or +reflections on the sentiment of the hymn or the gospel lesson for the +day. + +[Sidenote: _The "Passions."_] + +[Sidenote: _Origin of the "Passions."_] + +[Sidenote: _Early Holy Week services._] + +The "Passions" are still more extended, and were written for use in +the Reformed Church in Holy Week. As an art-form they are unique, +combining a number of elements and having all the apparatus of an +oratorio plus the congregation, which took part in the performance by +singing the hymns dispersed through the work. The service (for as a +service, rather than as an oratorio, it must be treated) roots in the +Miracle plays and Mysteries of the Middle Ages, but its origin is even +more remote, going back to the custom followed by the primitive +Christians of making the reading of the story of the Passion a special +service for Holy Week. In the Eastern Church it was introduced in a +simple dramatic form as early as the fourth century A.D., the +treatment being somewhat like the ancient tragedies, the text being +intoned or chanted. In the Western Church, until the sixteenth +century, the Passion was read in a way which gave the service one +element which is found in Bach's works in an amplified form. Three +deacons were employed, one to read (or rather chant to Gregorian +melodies) the words of Christ, another to deliver the narrative in the +words of the Evangelist, and a third to give the utterances and +exclamations of the Apostles and people. This was the _Cantus +Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christe_ of the Church, and had so strong +a hold upon the tastes of the people that it was preserved by Luther +in the Reformed Church. + +[Sidenote: _The service amplified._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach's settings._] + +Under this influence it was speedily amplified. The successive steps +of the progress are not clear, but the choir seems to have first +succeeded to the part formerly sung by the third deacon, and in some +churches the whole Passion was sung antiphonally by two choirs. In the +seventeenth century the introduction of recitatives and arias, +distributed among singers who represented the personages of sacred +history, increased the dramatic element of the service which reached +its climax in the "St. Matthew" setting by Bach. The chorales are +supposed to have been introduced about 1704. Bach's "Passions" are the +last that figure in musical history. That "according to St. John" is +performed occasionally in Germany, but it yields the palm of +excellence to that "according to St. Matthew," which had its first +performance on Good Friday, 1729, in Leipsic. It is in two parts, +which were formerly separated by the sermon, and employs two choirs, +each with its own orchestra, solo singers in all the classes of +voices, and a harpsichord to accompany all the recitatives, except +those of _Jesus_, which are distinguished by being accompanied by the +orchestral strings. + +[Sidenote: _Oratorios._] + +[Sidenote: _Sacred operas._] + +In the nature of things passions, oratorios, and their secular +cousins, cantatas, imply scenes and actions, and therefore have a +remote kinship with the lyric drama. The literary analogy which they +suggest is the epic poem as contra-distinguished from the drama. While +the drama presents incident, the oratorio relates, expounds, and +celebrates, presenting it to the fancy through the ear instead of +representing it to the eye. A great deal of looseness has crept into +this department of music as into every other, and the various forms +have been approaching each other until in some cases it is become +difficult to say which term, opera or oratorio, ought to be applied. +Rubinstein's "sacred operas" are oratorios profusely interspersed with +stage directions, many of which are impossible of scenic realization. +Their whole purpose is to work upon the imagination of the listeners +and thus open gate-ways for the music. Ever since its composition, +Saint-Saëns's "Samson and Delilah" has held a place in both theatre +and concert-room. Liszt's "St. Elizabeth" has been found more +effective when provided with pictorial accessories than without. The +greater part of "Elijah" might be presented in dramatic form. + +[Sidenote: _Influence of the Church plays._] + +[Sidenote: _Origin of the oratorio._] + +[Sidenote: _The choral element extended._] + +[Sidenote: _Narrative and descriptive choruses._] + +[Sidenote: _Dramatization._] + +Confusing and anomalous as these things are, they find their +explanation in the circumstance that the oratorio never quite freed +itself from the influence of the people's Church plays in which it had +its beginning. As a distinct art-form it began in a mixture of +artistic entertainment and religious worship provided in the early +part of the sixteenth century by Filippo Neri (now a saint) for those +who came for pious instruction to his oratory (whence the name). The +purpose of these entertainments being religious, the subjects were +Biblical, and though the musical progress from the beginning was along +the line of the lyric drama, contemporaneous in origin with it, the +music naturally developed into broader forms on the choral side, +because music had to make up for the lack of pantomime, costumes, and +scenery. Hence we have not only the preponderance of choruses in the +oratorio over recitative, arias, duets, trios, and so forth, but also +the adherence in the choral part to the old manner of writing which +made the expansion of the choruses possible. Where the choruses left +the field of pure reflection and became narrative, as in "Israel in +Egypt," or assumed a dramatic character, as in the "Elijah," the +composer found in them vehicles for descriptive and characteristic +music, and so local color came into use. Characterization of the solo +parts followed as a matter of course, an early illustration being +found in the manner in which Bach lifted the words of Christ into +prominence by surrounding them with the radiant halo which streams +from the violin accompaniment. In consequence the singer to whom was +assigned the task of singing the part of _Jesus_ presented himself to +the fancy of the listeners as a representative of the historical +personage--as the Christ of the drama. + +[Sidenote: _The chorus in opera and oratorio._] + +The growth of the instrumental art here came admirably into play, and +so it came to pass that opera and oratorio now have their musical +elements of expression in common, and differ only in their application +of them--opera foregoing the choral element to a great extent as being +a hindrance to action, and oratorio elevating it to make good the +absence of scenery and action. While oratorios are biblical and +legendary, cantatas deal with secular subjects and, in the form of +dramatic ballads, find a delightful field in the world of romance and +supernaturalism. + +[Sidenote: _The Mass._] + +[Sidenote: _Secularization of the Mass._] + +Transferred from the Church to the concert-room, and considered as an +art-form instead of the eucharistic office, the Mass has always made a +strong appeal to composers, and half a dozen masterpieces of missal +composition hold places in the concert lists of the singing societies. +Notable among these are the Requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, +and the Solemn Mass in D by Beethoven. These works represent at one +and the same time the climax of accomplishment in the musical +treatment and the secularization of the missal text. They are the +natural outcome of the expansion of the office by the introduction of +the orchestra into the Church, the departure from the _a capella_ +style of writing, which could not be consorted with the orchestra, and +the growth of a desire to enhance the pomp of great occasions in the +Church by the production of masses specially composed for them. Under +such circumstances the devotional purpose of the mass was lost in the +artistic, and composers gave free reign to their powers, for which +they found an ample stimulus in the missal text. + +[Sidenote: _Sentimental masses._] + +[Sidenote: _Mozart and the Mass._] + +[Sidenote: _The masses for the dead._] + +[Sidenote: _Gossec's Requiem._] + +The first effect, and the one which largely justifies the adherents of +the old ecclesiastical style in their crusade against the Catholic +Church music of to-day, was to make the masses sentimental and +operatic. So little regard was had for the sentiment of the words, so +little respect for the solemnity of the sacrament, that more than a +century ago Mozart (whose masses are far from being models of +religious expression) could say to Cantor Doles of a _Gloria_ which +the latter showed him, "_S'ist ja alles nix_," and immediately sing +the music to "_Hol's der Geier, das geht flink!_" which words, he +said, went better. The liberty begotten by this license, though it +tended to ruin the mass, considered strictly as a liturgical service, +developed it musically. The masses for the dead were among the +earliest to feel the spirit of the time, for in the sequence, _Dies +irć_, they contained the dramatic element which the solemn mass +lacked. The _Kyrie_, _Credo_, _Gloria_, _Sanctus_, and _Agnus Dei_ are +purely lyrical, and though the evolutionary movement ended in +Beethoven conceiving certain portions (notably the _Agnus Dei_) in a +dramatic sense, it was but natural that so far as tradition fixed the +disposition and formal style of the various parts, it should not be +disturbed. At an early date the composers began to put forth their +powers of description in the _Dies irć_, however, and there is extant +in a French mass an amusing example of the length to which +tone-painting in this music was carried by them. Gossec wrote a +Requiem on the death of Mirabeau which became famous. The words, +_Quantus tremor est futurus_, he set so that on each syllable there +were repetitions, _staccato_, of a single tone, thus: + +[Music illustration: Quan-tus tre---mor, tre-- etc.] + +This absurd stuttering Gossec designed to picture the terror inspired +by the coming of the Judge at the last trumpet. + +[Sidenote: _The orchestra in the Mass._] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven and Berlioz._] + +The development of instrumentation placed a factor in the hands of +these writers which they were not slow to utilize, especially in +writing music for the _Dies irć_, and how effectively Mozart used the +orchestra in his Requiem it is not necessary to state. It is a safe +assumption that Beethoven's Mass in D was largely instrumental in +inspiring Berlioz to set the Requiem as he did. With Beethoven the +dramatic idea is the controlling one, and so it is with Berlioz. +Beethoven, while showing a reverence for the formulas of the Church, +and respecting the tradition which gave the _Kyrie_ a triple division +and made fugue movements out of the phrases "_Cum sancto spiritu in +gloria Dei patris--Amen_," "_Et vitam venturi_," and "_Osanna in +excelsis_," nevertheless gave his composition a scope which placed it +beyond the apparatus of the Church, and filled it with a spirit that +spurns the limitations of any creed of less breadth and universality +than the grand Theism which affectionate communion with nature had +taught him. + +[Sidenote: _Berlioz's Requiem._] + +[Sidenote: _Dramatic effects in Haydn's masses._] + +[Sidenote: _Berlioz's orchestra._] + +Berlioz, less religious, less reverential, but equally fired by the +solemnity and majesty of the matter given into his hands, wrote a work +in which he placed his highest conception of the awfulness of the +Last Judgment and the emotions which are awakened by its +contemplation. In respect of the instrumentation he showed a far +greater audacity than Beethoven displayed even in the much-mooted +trumpets and drums of the _Agnus Dei_, where he introduces the sounds +of war to heighten the intensity of the prayer for peace, "_Dona nobis +pacem_." This is talked about in the books as a bold innovation. It +seems to have escaped notice that the idea had occurred to Haydn +twenty-four years before and been realized by him. In 1796 Haydn wrote +a mass, "In Tempore Belli," the French army being at the time in +Steyermark. He set the words, "_Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi_," +to an accompaniment of drums, "as if the enemy were already heard +coming in the distance." He went farther than this in a Mass in D +minor, when he accompanied the _Benedictus_ with fanfares of trumpets. +But all such timid ventures in the use of instruments in the mass sink +into utter insignificance when compared with Berlioz's apparatus in +the _Tuba mirum_ of his Requiem, which supplements the ordinary +symphonic orchestra, some of its instruments already doubled, with +four brass bands of eight or ten instruments each, sixteen extra +drums, and a tam-tam. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[H] "Notes on the Cultivation of Choral Music," by H.E. Krehbiel, p. +17. + + + + +IX + +_Musician, Critic, and Public_ + + +[Sidenote: _The newspapers and the public._] + +I have been told that there are many people who read the newspapers on +the day after they have attended a concert or operatic representation +for the purpose of finding out whether or not the performance gave +them proper or sufficient enjoyment. It would not be becoming in me to +inquire too curiously into the truth of such a statement, and in view +of a denunciation spoken in the introductory chapter of this book, I +am not sure that it is not a piece of arrogance, or impudence, on my +part to undertake in any way to justify any critical writing on the +subject of music. Certain it is that some men who write about music +for the newspapers believe, or affect to believe, that criticism is +worthless, and I shall not escape the charge of inconsistency, if, +after I have condemned the blunders of literary men, who are laymen in +music, and separated the majority of professional writers on the art +into pedants and rhapsodists, I nevertheless venture to discuss the +nature and value of musical criticism. Yet, surely, there must be a +right and wrong in this as in every other thing, and just as surely +the present structure of society, which rests on the newspaper, +invites attention to the existing relationship between musician, +critic, and public as an important element in the question How to +Listen to Music. + +[Sidenote: _Relationship between musician, critic, and public._] + +[Sidenote: _The need and value of conflict._] + +As a condition precedent to the discussion of this new element in the +case, I lay down the proposition that the relationship between the +three factors enumerated is so intimate and so strict that the world +over they rise and fall together; which means that where the people +dwell who have reached the highest plane of excellence, there also are +to be found the highest types of the musician and critic; and that in +the degree in which the three factors, which united make up the sum +of musical activity, labor harmoniously, conscientiously, and +unselfishly, each striving to fulfil its mission, they advance music +and further themselves, each bearing off an equal share of the good +derived from the common effort. I have set the factors down in the +order which they ordinarily occupy in popular discussion and which +symbolizes their proper attitude toward each other and the highest +potency of their collaboration. In this collaboration, as in so many +others, it is conflict that brings life. Only by a surrender of their +functions, one to the other, could the three apparently dissonant yet +essentially harmonious factors be brought into a state of complacency; +but such complacency would mean stagnation. If the published judgment +on compositions and performances could always be that of the +exploiting musicians, that class, at least, would read the newspapers +with fewer heart-burnings; if the critics had a common mind and it +were followed in concert-room and opera-house, they, as well as the +musicians, would have need of fewer words of displacency and more of +approbation; if, finally, it were to be brought to pass that for the +public nothing but amiable diversion should flow simultaneously from +platform, stage, and press, then for the public would the millennium +be come. A religious philosopher can transmute Adam's fall into a +blessing, and we can recognize the wisdom of that dispensation which +put enmity between the seed of Jubal, who was the "father of all such +as handle the harp and pipe," and the seed of Saul, who, I take it, is +the first critic of record (and a vigorous one, too, for he +accentuated his unfavorable opinion of a harper's harping with a +javelin thrust). + +[Sidenote: _The critic an Ishmaelite._] + +[Sidenote: _The critic not to be pitied._] + +[Sidenote: _How he might extricate himself._] + +[Sidenote: _The public like to be flattered._] + +We are bound to recognize that between the three factors there is, +ever was, and ever shall be _in sćcula sćculorum_ an irrepressible +conflict, and that in the nature of things the middle factor is the +Ishmaelite whose hand is raised against everybody and against whom +everybody's hand is raised. The complacency of the musician and the +indifference, not to say ignorance, of the public ordinarily combine +to make them allies, and the critic is, therefore, placed between two +millstones, where he is vigorously rasped on both sides, and whence, +being angular and hard of outer shell, he frequently requites the +treatment received with complete and energetic reciprocity. Is he +therefore to be pitied? Not a bit; for in this position he is +performing one of the most significant and useful of his functions, +and disclosing one of his most precious virtues. While musician and +public must perforce remain in the positions in which they have been +placed with relation to each other it must be apparent at half a +glance that it would be the simplest matter in the world for the +critic to extricate himself from his predicament. He would only need +to take his cue from the public, measuring his commendation by the +intensity of their applause, his dispraise by their signs of +displeasure, and all would be well with him. We all know this to be +true, that people like to read that which flatters them by echoing +their own thoughts. The more delightfully it is put by the writer the +more the reader is pleased, for has he not had the same idea? Are they +not his? Is not their appearance in a public print proof of the +shrewdness and soundness of his judgment? Ruskin knows this foible in +human nature and condemns it. You may read in "Sesame and Lilies:" + + "Very ready we are to say of a book, 'How good this + is--that's exactly what I think!' But the right feeling is, + 'How strange that is! I never thought of that before, and + yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, + some day.' But whether thus submissively or not, at least be + sure that you go at the author to get at his meaning, not to + find yours. Judge it afterward if you think yourself + qualified to do so, but ascertain it first." + +[Sidenote: _The critic generally outspoken._] + +As a rule, however, the critic is not guilty of the wrong of speaking +out the thought of others, but publishes what there is of his own +mind, and this I laud in him as a virtue, which is praiseworthy in the +degree that it springs from loftiness of aim, depth of knowledge, and +sincerity and unselfishness of purpose. + +[Sidenote: _Musician and Public._] + +[Sidenote: _The office of ignorance._] + +[Sidenote: _Popularity of Wagner's music not a sign of intelligent +appreciation._] + +Let us look a little into the views which our factors do and those +which they ought to entertain of each other. The utterances of +musicians have long ago made it plain that as between the critic and +the public the greater measure of their respect and deference is given +to the public. The critic is bound to recognize this as entirely +natural; his right of protest does not accrue until he can show that +the deference is ignoble and injurious to good art. It is to the +public that the musician appeals for the substantial signs of what is +called success. This appeal to the jury instead of the judge is as +characteristic of the conscientious composer who is sincerely +convinced that he was sent into the world to widen the boundaries of +art, as it is of the mere time-server who aims only at tickling the +popular ear. The reason is obvious to a little close thinking: +Ignorance is at once a safeguard against and a promoter of +conservatism. This sounds like a paradox, but the rapid growth of +Wagner's music in the admiration of the people of the United States +might correctly be cited as a proof that the statement is true. Music +like the concert fragments from Wagner's lyric dramas is accepted +with promptitude and delight, because its elements are those which +appeal most directly and forcibly to our sense-perception and those +primitive tastes which are the most readily gratified by strong +outlines and vivid colors. Their vigorous rhythms, wealth of color, +and sonority would make these fragments far more impressive to a +savage than the suave beauty of a symphony by Haydn; yet do we not all +know that while whole-hearted, intelligent enjoyment of a Haydn +symphony is conditioned upon a considerable degree of culture, an +equally whole-hearted, intelligent appreciation of Wagner's music +presupposes a much wider range of sympathy, a much more extended view +of the capabilities of musical expression, a much keener discernment, +and a much profounder susceptibility to the effects of harmonic +progressions? And is the conclusion not inevitable, therefore, that on +the whole the ready acceptance of Wagner's music by a people is +evidence that they are not sufficiently cultured to feel the force of +that conservatism which made the triumph of Wagner consequent on many +years of agitation in musical Germany? + +[Sidenote: _"Ahead of one's time."_] + +In one case the appeal is elemental; in the other spiritual. He who +wishes to be in advance of his time does wisely in going to the people +instead of the critics, just as the old fogy does whose music belongs +to the time when sensuous charm summed up its essence. There is a good +deal of ambiguity about the stereotyped phrase "ahead of one's time." +Rightly apprehended, great geniuses do live for the future rather than +the present, but where the public have the vastness of appetite and +scantness of taste peculiar to the ostrich, there it is impossible for +a composer to be ahead of his time. It is only where the public are +advanced to the stage of intelligent discrimination that a Ninth +Symphony and a Nibelung Tetralogy are accepted slowly. + +[Sidenote: _The charlatan._] + +[Sidenote: _Influencing the critics._] + +Why the charlatan should profess to despise the critic and to pay +homage only to the public scarcely needs an explanation. It is the +critic who stands between him and the public he would victimize. Much +of the disaffection between the concert-giver and the +concert-reviewer arises from the unwillingness of the latter to enlist +in a conspiracy to deceive and defraud the public. There is no need of +mincing phrases here. The critics of the newspaper press are besieged +daily with requests for notices of a complimentary character touching +persons who have no honest standing in art. They are fawned on, +truckled to, cajoled, subjected to the most seductive influences, +sometimes bribed with woman's smiles or manager's money--and why? To +win their influence in favor of good art, think you? No; to feed +vanity and greed. When a critic is found of sufficient self-respect +and character to resist all appeals and to be proof against all +temptations, who is quicker than the musician to cite against his +opinion the applause of the public over whose gullibility and +ignorance, perchance, he made merry with the critic while trying to +purchase his independence and honor? + +[Sidenote: _The public an elemental force._] + +[Sidenote: _Critic and public._] + +[Sidenote: _Schumann and popular approval._] + +It is only when musicians divide the question touching the rights and +merits of public and critic that they seem able to put a correct +estimate upon the value of popular approval. At the last the best of +them are willing, with Ferdinand Hiller, to look upon the public as an +elemental power like the weather, which must be taken as it chances to +come. With modern society resting upon the newspaper they might be +willing to view the critic in the same light; but this they will not +do so long as they adhere to the notion that criticism belongs of +right to the professional musician, and will eventually be handed over +to him. As for the critic, he may recognize the naturalness and +reasonableness of a final resort for judgment to the factor for whose +sake art is (_i.e._, the public), but he is not bound to admit its +unfailing righteousness. Upon him, so he be worthy of his office, +weighs the duty of first determining whether the appeal is taken from +a lofty purpose or a low one, and whether or not the favored tribunal +is worthy to try the case. Those who show a willingness to accept low +ideals cannot exact high ones. The influence of their applause is a +thousand-fold more injurious to art than the strictures of the most +acrid critic. A musician of Schumann's mental and moral stature could +recognize this and make it the basis of some of his most forcible +aphorisms: + + "'It pleased,' or 'It did not please,' say the people; as if + there were no higher purpose than to please the people." + + "The most difficult thing in the world to endure is the + applause of fools!" + +[Sidenote: _Depreciation of the critic._] + +[Sidenote: _Value of public opinion._] + +The belief professed by many musicians--professed, not really +held--that the public can do no wrong, unquestionably grows out of a +depreciation of the critic rather than an appreciation of the critical +acumen of the masses. This depreciation is due more to the concrete +work of the critic (which is only too often deserving of condemnation) +than to a denial of the good offices of criticism. This much should be +said for the musician, who is more liable to be misunderstood and more +powerless against misrepresentation than any other artist. A line +should be drawn between mere expression of opinion and criticism. It +has been recognized for ages--you may find it plainly set forth in +Quintilian and Cicero--that in the long run the public are neither bad +judges nor good critics. The distinction suggests a thought about the +difference in value between a popular and a critical judgment. The +former is, in the nature of things, ill considered and fleeting. It is +the product of a momentary gratification or disappointment. In a much +greater degree than a judgment based on principle and precedent, such +as a critic's ought to be, it is a judgment swayed by that variable +thing called fashion--"_Qual piům' al vento._" + +[Sidenote: _Duties of the critic._] + +[Sidenote: _The musician's duty toward the critic._] + +But if this be so we ought plainly to understand the duties and +obligations of the critic; perhaps it is because there is much +misapprehension on this point that critics' writings have fallen under +their own condemnation. I conceive that the first, if not the sole, +office of the critic should be to guide public judgment. It is not for +him to instruct the musician in his art. If this were always borne in +mind by writers for the press it might help to soften the asperity +felt by the musician toward the critic; and possibly the musician +might then be persuaded to perform his first office toward the critic, +which is to hold up his hands while he labors to steady and dignify +public opinion. No true artist would give up years of honorable esteem +to be the object for a moment of feverish idolatry. The public are +fickle. "The garlands they twine," says Schumann, "they always pull to +pieces again to offer them in another form to the next comer who +chances to know how to amuse them better." Are such garlands worth the +sacrifice of artistic honor? If it were possible for the critic to +withhold them and offer instead a modest sprig of enduring bay, would +not the musician be his debtor? + +[Sidenote: _The critic should steady public judgment._] + +[Sidenote: _Taste and judgment must be achieved._] + +Another thought. Conceding that the people are the elemental power +that Hiller says they are, who shall save them from the changeableness +and instability which they show with relation to music and her +votaries? Who shall bid the restless waves be still? We, in America, +are a new people, a vast hotch-potch of varied and contradictory +elements. We are engaged in conquering a continent; employed in a mad +scramble for material things; we give feverish hours to win the +comfort for our bodies that we take only seconds to enjoy; the moments +which we steal from our labors we give grudgingly to relaxation, and +that this relaxation may come quickly we ask that the agents which +produce it shall appeal violently to the faculties which are most +easily reached. Under these circumstances whence are to come the +intellectual poise, the refined taste, the quick and sure power of +analysis which must precede a correct estimate of the value of a +composition or its performance? + + "A taste or judgment," said Shaftesbury, "does not come + ready formed with us into this world. Whatever principles or + materials of this kind we may possibly bring with us, a + legitimate and just taste can neither be begotten, made, + conceived, or produced without the antecedent labor and + pains of criticism." + +[Sidenote: _Comparative qualifications of critic and public._] + +Grant that this antecedent criticism is the province of the critic and +that he approaches even remotely a fulfilment of his mission in this +regard, and who shall venture to question the value and the need of +criticism to the promotion of public opinion? In this work the critic +has a great advantage over the musician. The musician appeals to the +public with volatile and elusive sounds. When he gets past the +tympanum of the ear he works upon the emotions and the fancy. The +public have no time to let him do more; for the rest they are willing +to refer him to the critic, whose business it is continually to hear +music for the purpose of forming opinions about it and expressing +them. The critic has both the time and the obligation to analyze the +reasons why and the extent to which the faculties are stirred into +activity. Is it not plain, therefore, that the critic ought to be +better able to distinguish the good from the bad, the true from the +false, the sound from the meretricious, than the unindividualized +multitude, who are already satisfied when they have felt the ticklings +of pleasure? + +[Sidenote: _The critic's responsibilities._] + +[Sidenote: _Toward the musician._] + +[Sidenote: _Position and power of the newspaper._] + +But when we place so great a mission as the education of public taste +before the critic, we saddle him with a vast responsibility which is +quite evenly divided between the musician and the public. The +responsibility toward the musician is not that which we are accustomed +to hear harped on by the aggrieved ones on the day after a concert. It +is toward the musician only as a representative of art, and his just +claims can have nothing of selfishness in them. The abnormal +sensitiveness of the musician to criticism, though it may excite his +commiseration and even honest pity, should never count with the critic +in the performance of a plain duty. This sensitiveness is the product +of a low state in music as well as criticism, and in the face of +improvement in the two fields it will either disappear or fall under a +killing condemnation. The power of the press will here work for good. +The newspaper now fills the place in the musician's economy which a +century ago was filled in Europe by the courts and nobility. Its +support, indirect as well as direct, replaces the patronage which +erstwhile came from these powerful ones. The evils which flow from the +changed conditions are different in extent but not in kind from the +old. Too frequently for the good of art that support is purchased by +the same crookings of "the pregnant hinges of the knee" that were once +the price of royal or noble condescension. If the tone of the press at +times becomes arrogant, it is from the same causes that raised the +voices and curled the lips of the petty dukes and princes, to flatter +whose vanity great artists used to labor. + +[Sidenote: _The musician should help to elevate the standard of +criticism._] + +[Sidenote: _A critic must not necessarily be a musician._] + +[Sidenote: _Pedantry not wanted._] + +The musician knows as well as anyone how impossible it is to escape +the press, and it is, therefore, his plain duty to seek to raise the +standard of its utterances by conceding the rights of the critic and +encouraging honesty, fearlessness, impartiality, intelligence, and +sympathy wherever he finds them. To this end he must cast away many +antiquated and foolish prejudices. He must learn to confess with +Wagner, the arch-enemy of criticism, that "blame is much more useful +to the artist than praise," and that "the musician who goes to +destruction because he is faulted, deserves destruction." He must stop +the contention that only a musician is entitled to criticise a +musician, and without abating one jot of his requirements as to +knowledge, sympathy, liberality, broad-mindedness, candor, and +incorruptibility on the part of the critic, he must quit the foolish +claim that to pronounce upon the excellence of a ragout one must be +able to cook it; if he will not go farther he must, at least, go with +the elder D'Israeli to the extent of saying that "the talent of +judgment may exist separately from the power of execution." One need +not be a composer, but one must be able to feel with a composer before +he can discuss his productions as they ought to be discussed. Not all +the writers for the press are able to do this; many depend upon +effrontery and a copious use of technical phrases to carry them +through. The musician, alas! encourages this method whenever he gets a +chance; nine times out of ten, when an opportunity to review a +composition falls to him, he approaches it on its technical side. Yet +music is of all the arts in the world the last that a mere pedant +should discuss. + +But if not a mere pedant, then neither a mere sentimentalist. + +[Sidenote: _Intelligence versus emotionalism._] + + "If I had to choose between the merits of two classes of + hearers, one of whom had an intelligent appreciation of + music without feeling emotion; the other an emotional + feeling without an intelligent analysis, I should + unhesitatingly decide in favor of the intelligent + non-emotionalist. And for these reasons: The verdict of the + intelligent non-emotionalist would be valuable as far as it + goes, but that of the untrained emotionalist is not of the + smallest value; his blame and his praise are equally + unfounded and empty." + +[Sidenote: _Personal equation._] + +[Sidenote: _Exact criticism._] + +So writes Dr. Stainer, and it is his emotionalist against whom I +uttered a warning in the introductory chapter of this book, when I +called him a rhapsodist and described his motive to be primarily a +desire to present himself as a person of unusually exquisite +sensibilities. Frequently the rhapsodic style is adopted to conceal a +want of knowledge, and, I fancy, sometimes also because ill-equipped +critics have persuaded themselves that criticism being worthless, what +the public need to read is a fantastic account of how music affects +them. Now, it is true that what is chiefly valuable in criticism is +what a man qualified to think and feel tells us he did think and feel +under the inspiration of a performance; but when carried too far, or +restricted too much, this conception of a critic's province lifts +personal equation into dangerous prominence in the critical activity, +and depreciates the elements of criticism, which are not matters of +opinion or taste at all, but questions of fact, as exactly +demonstrable as a problem in mathematics. In musical performance these +elements belong to the technics of the art. Granted that the critic +has a correct ear, a thing which he must have if he aspire to be a +critic at all, and the possession of which is as easily proved as that +of a dollar-bill in his pocket, the questions of justness of +intonation in a singer or instrumentalist, balance of tone in an +orchestra, correctness of phrasing, and many other things, are mere +determinations of fact; the faculties which recognize their existence +or discover their absence might exist in a person who is not "moved by +concord of sweet sounds" at all, and whose taste is of the lowest +type. It was the acoustician Euler, I believe, who said that he could +construct a sonata according to the laws of mathematics--figure one +out, that is. + +[Sidenote: _The Rhapsodists._] + +[Sidenote: _An English exemplar._] + +Because music is in its nature such a mystery, because so little of +its philosophy, so little of its science is popularly known, there has +grown up the tribe of rhapsodical writers whose influence is most +pernicious. I have a case in mind at which I have already hinted in +this book--that of a certain English gentleman who has gained +considerable eminence because of the loveliness of the subject on +which he writes and his deftness in putting words together. On many +points he is qualified to speak, and on these he generally speaks +entertainingly. He frequently blunders in details, but it is only when +he writes in the manner exemplified in the following excerpt from his +book called "My Musical Memories," that he does mischief. The reverend +gentleman, talking about violins, has reached one that once belonged +to Ernst. This, he says, he sees occasionally, but he never hears it +more except + +[Sidenote: _Ernst's violin._] + + "In the night ... under the stars, when the moon is low and + I see the dark ridges of the clover hills, and rabbits and + hares, black against the paler sky, pausing to feed or + crouching to listen to the voices of the night.... + + "By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hollow murmurs, + like the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the beach.... + + "In some still valley in the South, in midsummer. The + slate-colored moth on the rock flashes suddenly into crimson + and takes wing; the bright lizard darts timorously, and the + singing of the grasshopper--" + +[Sidenote: _Mischievous writing._] + +[Sidenote: _Musical sensibility and sanity._] + +Well, the reader, if he has a liking for such things, may himself go +on for quantity. This is intended, I fancy, for poetical hyperbole, +but as a matter of fact it is something else, and worse. Mr. Haweis +does not hear Ernst's violin under any such improbable conditions; if +he thinks he does he is a proper subject for medical inquiry. Neither +does his effort at fine writing help us to appreciate the tone of the +instrument. He did not intend that it should, but he probably did +intend to make the reader marvel at the exquisite sensibility of his +soul to music. This is mischievous, for it tends to make the +injudicious think that they are lacking in musical appreciation, +unless they, too, can see visions and hear voices and dream fantastic +dreams when music is sounding. When such writing is popular it is +difficult to make men and women believe that they may be just as +susceptible to the influence of music as the child Mozart was to the +sound of a trumpet, yet listen to it without once feeling the need of +taking leave of their senses or wandering away from sanity. Moreover, +when Mr. Haweis says that he sees but does not hear Ernst's violin +more, he speaks most undeserved dispraise of one of the best violin +players alive, for Ernst's violin now belongs to and is played by Lady +Hallé--she that was Madame Norman-Neruda. + +[Sidenote: _A place for rhapsody._] + +[Sidenote: _Intelligent rhapsody._] + +Is there, then, no place for rhapsodic writing in musical criticism? +Yes, decidedly. It may, indeed, at times be the best, because the +truest, writing. One would convey but a sorry idea of a composition +were he to confine himself to a technical description of it--the +number of its measures, its intervals, modulations, speed, and rhythm. +Such a description would only be comprehensible to the trained +musician, and to him would picture the body merely, not the soul. One +might as well hope to tell of the beauty of a statue by reciting its +dimensions. But knowledge as well as sympathy must speak out of the +words, so that they may realize Schumann's lovely conception when he +said that the best criticism is that which leaves after it an +impression on the reader like that which the music made on the hearer. +Read Dr. John Brown's account of one of Hallé's recitals, reprinted +from "The Scotsman," in the collection of essays entitled "Spare +Hours," if you would see how aptly a sweetly sane mind and a warm +heart can rhapsodize without the help of technical knowledge: + +[Sidenote: _Dr. Brown and Beethoven._] + + "Beethoven (Dr. Brown is speaking of the Sonata in D, op. + 10, No. 3) begins with a trouble, a wandering and groping in + the dark, a strange emergence of order out of chaos, a wild, + rich confusion and misrule. Wilful and passionate, often + harsh, and, as it were, thick with gloom; then comes, as if + 'it stole upon the air,' the burden of the theme, the still, + sad music--_Largo e mesto_--so human, so sorrowful, and yet + the sorrow overcome, not by gladness but by something + better, like the sea, after a dark night of tempest, falling + asleep in the young light of morning, and 'whispering how + meek and gentle it can be.' This likeness to the sea, its + immensity, its uncertainty, its wild, strong glory and play, + its peace, its solitude, its unsearchableness, its + prevailing sadness, comes more into our minds with this + great and deep master's works than any other." + +That is Beethoven. + +[Sidenote: _Apollo and the critic--a fable._] + +[Sidenote: _The critic's duty to admire._] + +[Sidenote: _A mediator between musician and public._] + +[Sidenote: _Essential virtues._] + +Once upon a time--it is an ancient fable--a critic picked out all the +faults of a great poet and presented them to Apollo. The god received +the gift graciously and set a bag of wheat before the critic with the +command that he separate the chaff from the kernels. The critic did +the work with alacrity, and turning to Apollo for his reward, received +the chaff. Nothing could show us more appositely than this what +criticism should not be. A critic's duty is to separate excellence +from defect, as Dr. Crotch says; to admire as well as to find fault. +In the proportion that defects are apparent he should increase his +efforts to discover beauties. Much flows out of this conception of his +duty. Holding it the critic will bring besides all needful knowledge a +fulness of love into his work. "Where sympathy is lacking, correct +judgment is also lacking," said Mendelssohn. The critic should be the +mediator between the musician and the public. For all new works he +should do what the symphonists of the Liszt school attempt to do by +means of programmes; he should excite curiosity, arouse interest, and +pave the way to popular comprehension. But for the old he should not +fail to encourage reverence and admiration. To do both these things he +must know his duty to the past, the present, and the future, and +adjust each duty to the other. Such adjustment is only possible if he +knows the music of the past and present, and is quick to perceive the +bent and outcome of novel strivings. He should be catholic in taste, +outspoken in judgment, unalterable in allegiance to his ideals, +unswervable in integrity. + + + + +PLATES + +[Illustration: PLATE I + +VIOLIN--(CLIFFORD SCHMIDT)] + +[Illustration: PLATE II + +VIOLONCELLO--(VICTOR HERBERT)] + +[Illustration: PLATE III + +PICCOLO FLUTE--(C. KURTH, JUN.)] + +[Illustration: PLATE IV + +OBOE--(JOSEPH ELLER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE V + +ENGLISH HORN--(JOSEPH ELLER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE VI + +BASSOON--(FEDOR BERNHARDI)] + +[Illustration: PLATE VII + +CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE VIII + +BASS CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE IX + +FRENCH HORN--(CARL PIEPER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE X + +TROMBONE--(J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE XI + +BASS TUBA--(ANTON REITER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE XII + +THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE] + + + + +INDEX + + +Absolute music, 36 + +Academy of Music, New York, 203 + +Adagio, in symphony, 133 + +Addison, 205, 206, 208 + +Allegro, in symphony, 132 + +Allemande, 173, 174 + +Alto clarinet, 104 + +Alto, male, 260 + +Amadeo, 241 + +Ambros, August Wilhelm, 49 + +Antiphony, 267 + +Archilochus, 213 + +Aria, 235 + +Arioso, 235 + +Asaph, 115 + + +Bach, C.P.E., 180, 185 + +Bach, Johann Sebastian, 69, 83, 148, 167, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176, + 180, 181, 184, 192, 257, 259, 267, 268, 278, 281, 282, 283, 286, + 287, 289; + his music, 281 _et seq._; + his technique as player, 180, 181, 184; + his choirs, 257, 259; + compared with Palestrina, 278; + "Magnificat," 283; + Mass in B minor, 283; + Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, 171; + Suites, 174, 176; + "St. Matthew Passion," 267, 278, 282, 286, 289; + Motet, "Sing ye to the Lord," 268; + "St. John Passion," 286 + +_Balancement_, 170 + +Balfe, 223 + +Ballade, 192 + +Ballet music, 152 + +_Balletto_, 173 + +Bass clarinet, 104 + +Bass trumpet, 81, 82 + +Basset horn, 82 + +Bassoon, 74, 82, 99, 101 _et seq._ + +Bastardella, La, 239 + +Bayreuth Festival orchestra, 81, 82 + +_Bebung_, 169, 170 + +Beethoven, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 44, 46, 47, 49, 53, 60, + 62, 63, 70, 92, 94, 101, 102, 103, 106, 113, 120, 125, 131, 132, + 133, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 146, 147, 151, 167, 182, 184, 186, + 187, 193, 195, 196, 203, 208, 232, 292, 321, 322; + likenesses in his melodies, 33, 34; + unity in his works, 27, 28, 29; + his chamber music, 47; + his sonatas, 182; + his democracy, 46; + not always idiomatic, 193; + his pianoforte, 195; + his pedal effects, 196; + missal compositions, 292, 294; + his overtures, 147; + his free fantasias, 131; + his technique as a player, 186; + "Eroica" symphony, 100, 132, 136; + Fifth symphony, 28, 29, 30, 31, 92, 103, 120, 125, 133; + "Pastoral" symphony, 44, 49, 53, 62, 63, 94, 102, 132, 140, 141; + Seventh symphony, 31, 32, 132, 133; + Eighth symphony, 113; + Ninth symphony, 33, 34, 35, 94, 133, 136, 138, 305; + Sonata, op. 10, No. 3, 321; + Sonata, op. 31, No. 2, 29; + Sonata "Appassionata," 29, 30, 31; + Pianoforte concerto in G, 31; + Pianoforte concerto in E-flat, 146; + Violin concerto, 146; + "Becalmed at Sea," 60; + "Fidelio," 203, 208, 232; + Mass in D, 60, 292, 294; + Serenade, op. 8, 151 + +Bell chime, 74 + +Bellini, 203, 204, 242, 245; + "La Sonnambula," 204, 245; + "Norma," 242 + +Benedetti, 242 + +Berlin _Singakademie_, 262 + +Berlioz, 49, 80, 87, 89, 90, 94, 100, 102, 104, 113, 137, 138, 139, + 294, 295; + "_L'idée fixe_," 137; + "Symphonie Fantastique," 137; + "Romeo and Juliet," 90, 94, 139; + Requiem, 113, 294, 295 + +Bizet, "Carmen," 238, 242 + +Boileau, 206 + +Bosio, 241 + +Boston Symphony Orchestra, 81, 82, 108 + +Bottesini, 94 + +Bourrée, 173 + +Brahms's "Academic overture," 101 + +Branle, 173 + +Brass instruments, 74, 104 _et seq._ + +Brignoli, 209, 242 + +Broadwood's pianoforte, 195 + +Brown, Dr. John, 321 + +_Bully Bottom_ in music, 61 + +Bunner, H.C., 136 + +Burns's "Ye flowery banks," 175 + + +Caccini, "Eurydice," 234 + +Cadences, 23 + +Cadenzas, 145 + +Calvé, Emma, 242, 247 + +Calvin and music, 275 + +Campanini, 242 + +Cantatas, 290 + +Cat's mew in music, 52 + +Catalani, 245, 246 + +Chaconne, 153 + +Chamber music, 36, 44 _et seq._, 144 + +Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 81, 82, 108 + +Choirs, 253 _et seq._; + size of, 257 _et seq._, 264, 271; + men's, 255, 260; + boys', 261; + women's, 261; + mixed, 262, 264; + division of, 260, 266; + growth of, in Germany, 262; + history of, in America, 263; + in Cincinnati, 264; + contralto voices in, 270 + +Choirs, orchestral, 74 + +Chopin, 167, 188, 190, 191, 192, 196; + his romanticism, 188; + Preludes, 190; + Études, 191; + Nocturnes, 191; + Ballades, 192; + Polonaises, 192; + Mazurkas, 192; + his pedal effects, 196 + +Choral music, 253 _et seq._; + antiphonal, 267; + medićval, 274; + Calvin on, 275; + Luther's influence on, 276; + congregational, 277; + secular tunes in, 276, 277; + Romanticism, influence on, 277; + preponderance in oratorio, 289; + dramatic and descriptive, 289 + +Chorley, H.F., on Jenny Lind's singing, 243 + +Church cantatas, 284 + +Cicero, 309 + +Cincinnati, choirs in, 264 + +Cinti-Damoreau, 241 + +Clarinet, 47, 74, 78, 82, 103 _et seq._, 151 + +Classical concerts, 122 _et seq._ + +Classical music, 36, 64, 122 _et seq._ + +Clavichord, 168, 181 + +_Clavier_, 171, 173 + +Clementi, 185, 195 + +Cock, song of the, 51, 53, 54 + +Coleridge, 11, 144 + +Coletti, 242 + +Comic opera, 224 + +Composers, how they hear music, 40 + +Concerto, 128, 144 _et seq._ + +Conductor, 114 _et seq._ + +Content of music, 36 _et seq._ + +Contra-bass trombone, 81, 82 + +Contra-bass tuba, 81, 82 + +Co-ordination of tones, 17 + +Coranto, Corrente, 173, 176 + +Cornelius, "Barbier von Bagdad," 236 + +Cornet, 73, 82, 108 + +Corno di bassetto, 81, 82 + +Corsi, 242 + +Couperin, 168 + +Courante, 173, 176 + +Covent Garden Theatre, London, 224, 226 + +Cowen, "Welsh" and "Scandinavian" symphonies, 132 + +Cracovienne, 193 + +Creole tune analyzed, 23, 24 + +Critics and criticism, 13, 297 _et seq._ + +Crotch, Dr., 322 + +Cuckoo, 51, 52, 53 + +Cymbals, 74, 82 + +Czardas, 201 + +Czerny, 186 + + +Dactylic metre, 31 + +Dance, the ancient, 43, 212 + +Dannreuther, Edward, 129, 144, 187 + +Depth, musical delineation of, 59, 60 + +De Reszke, Edouard, 248 + +De Reszke, Jean, 247 + +Descriptive music, 51 _et seq._ + +Design and form, 16 + +De Staël, Madame, 210 + +D'Israeli, 315 + +Distance, musical delineation of, 60 + +Dithyramb, 212, 213 + +"Divisions," 265 + +Doles, Cantor, 292 + +Donizetti, 203, 204, 242; + "Lucia," 203, 204 + +Double-bass, 74, 78, 82, 94 + +Double-bassoon, 103 + +Dragonetti, 94 + +Dramatic ballads, 290 + +Dramatic orchestras, 81, 82 + +_Dramma per musica_, 227, 249 + +Drummers, 113 + +Drums, 73, 74, 82, 110 _et seq._ + +Duality of music, 15 + +"Dump" and _Dumka_, 151 + +_Durchführung_, 131 + +Dvorák, symphonies, "From the New World," 132, 138; + in G major, 136 + + +Eames, Emma, 247 + +Edwards, G. Sutherland, 12 + +Elements of music, 15, 19 + +Emotionality in music, 43 + +English horn, 82, 99, 100 + +English opera, 223 + +Ernst's violin, 320 + +Esterhazy, Prince, 46 + +Euler, acoustician, 317 + +Expression, words of, 43 + + +Familiar music best liked, 21 + +Fancy, 15, 16, 58 + +Farinelli, 240 + +Fasch, C.F., 262 + +Feelings, their relation to music, 38 _et seq._, 215, 216 + +Ferri, 239, 240 + +Finale, symphonic, 135 + +First movement in symphony, 131 + +Flageolet tones, 89 + +Florentine inventors of the opera, 217, 227, 234, 249 + +Flute, 73, 74, 78, 82, 95 _et seq._ + +Form, 16, 17, 22, 35 + +Formes, 242, 248 + +Frederick the Great, 263 + +Free Fantasia, 131 + +French horn, 47, 106 _et seq._ + +Frezzolini, 242 + +_Friss_, 201 + +Frogs, musical delineation of, 58, 62 + + +"Gallina et Gallo," 53 + +Gavotte, 173, 179 + +German opera, 226 + +Gerster, Etelka, 242, 245 + +Gesture, 43 + +Gigue, 173, 174, 178 + +Gilbert, W.S., 208, 224 + +Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas, 224 + +_Glockenspiel_, 110 + +Gluck, 84, 148, 153, 202, 203, 238; + his dancers, 153; + his orchestra, 238; + "Alceste," 148; + "Iphigénie en Aulide," 153; + "Orfeo," 202, 203 + +Goethe, 34, 140, 223 + +Goldmark, "Sakuntala" overture, 149 + +Gong, 110 + +Gossec, Requiem, 293 + +Gounod, "Faust," 209, 224, 238, 246 + +_Grand Opéra_, 223, 224 + +Greek Tragedy, 211 _et seq._ + +Grisi, 241, 242 + +_Grosse Oper_, 224 + +Grove, Sir George, 33, 63, 141, 187 + +Gypsy music, 198 _et seq._ + + +Hallé, Lady, 320 + +Hamburg, opera in, 206, 207 + +Handel, 58, 60, 62, 83, 102, 126, 148, 174, 177, 178, 181, 182, 184, + 256, 257, 258, 259, 265, 272; + his orchestra, 84; + his suites, 174; + his overtures, 148; + his technique as a player, 181, 182, 184; + his choirs, 257; + Commemoration, 258; + his _tutti_, 258; + "Messiah," 60, 126, 256, 257, 265, 272; + "Saul," 102; + "Almira," 177; + "Rinaldo," 178; + "Israel in Egypt," 58, 62, 257, 259, 289; + "_Lascia ch'io pianga_," 178 + +Hanslick, Dr. Eduard, 203 + +Harmonics, on violin, 89 + +Harmony, 19, 21, 22, 218 + +Harp, 82 + +Harpsichord, 168, 170 + +Hauptmann, M., 41 + +Hautboy, 99 + +Haweis, the Rev. Mr., 318 _et seq._ + +Haydn, 46, 84, 100, 127, 168, 183, 295; + his manner of composing, 183; + dramatic effects in his masses, 295; + "Seasons," 100 + +Hebrew music, 114; + poetry, 25 + +Height, musical delineation of, 59, 60 + +Heman, 115 + +Hen, song of, in music, 52, 53, 54 + +Herbarth, philosopher, 39 + +Hiller, Ferdinand, 307, 310 + +Hiller, Johann Adam, 258 + +Hogarth, Geo., "Memoirs of the Opera," 210, 245 + +Horn, 82, 105, 106 _et seq._, 151 + +Hungarian music, 198 _et seq._ + +Hymn-tunes, history of, 275 + + +Iambics, 175 + +"_Idée fixe_," Berlioz's, 137 + +Identification of themes, 35 + +Idiomatic pianoforte music, 193, 194 + +Idioms, musical, 44, 51, 55 + +Imagination, 15, 16, 58 + +Imitation of natural sounds, 51 + +Individual attitude of man toward music, 37 + +Instrumental musicians, former legal status of, 83 + +Instrumentation, 71 _et seq._; + in the mass, 293 _et seq._ + +Intelligent hearing, 16, 18, 37 + +Intermediary necessary, 20 + +_Intermezzi_, 221 + +Interrelation of musical elements, 22 + + +Janizary music, 97 + +Jean Paul, 67, 189, 190 + +Jeduthun, 115 + +Jig, 179 + +Judgment, 311 + + +Kalidasa, 149 + +Kettle-drums, 111 _et seq._ + +Key relationship, 26, 129 + +Kinds of music, 36 _et seq._ + +_Kirchencantaten_, 284 + +Krakowiak, 193 + +Kullak, 184 + + +Lablache, 248 + +La Grange, 241, 245 + +Lamb, Charles, 10 + +Language of tones, 42, 43 + +_Lassu_, 201 + +Laws, musical, mutability of, 69 + +Lehmann, Lilli, 233, 244, 247 + +Lenz, 33 + +Leoncavallo, 228 + +Lind, Jenny, 241, 243 + +Liszt, 132, 140, 142, 143, 167, 168, 193, 197, 198, 228; + his music, 168, 193, 197; + his transcriptions, 167; + his rhapsodies, 167, 198; + his symphonic poems, 142; + "Faust" symphony, 132, 140; + Concerto in E-flat, 143; + "St. Elizabeth," 288 + +Literary blunders concerning music, 9, 10, 11, 12 + +Local color, 152, 153 + +London opera, 206, 207, 226 + +Louis XIV., 179 + +Lucca, Pauline, 242, 246, 247 + +Lully, his overtures, 148; + minuet, 179; + "Atys," 206 + +Luther, Martin, 276 + +Lyric drama, 231, 234, 237, 251 + + +Madrigal, 274 + +Magyar music, 198 _et seq._ + +Major mode, 57 + +Male alto, 260 + +Male chorus, 255, 260 + +Malibran, 241 + +_Männergesang_, 255, 260 + +Marie Antoinette, 153 + +Mario, 242, 247, 271 + +Marschner, "Hans Heiling," 225; + "Templer und Jüdin," 225; + "Vampyr," 225; + his operas, 248 + +Mascagni, 228 + +Mass, the, 290 _et seq._ + +Massenet, "Le Cid," 152 + +Materials of music, 16 + +Materna, Amalia, 247 + +Matthews, Brander, 11 + +Mazurka, 192 + +Melba, Nellie, 204, 238, 245, 247, 271 + +Melody, 19, 21, 22, 24 + +Memory, 19, 21, 73 + +Mendelssohn, 41, 42, 49, 59, 61, 67, 102, 109, 132, 139, 140, 149, + 168, 243, 278, 288, 289, 322; + on the content of music, 41, 42; + his Romanticism, 67; + on the use of the trombones, 109; + opinion of Jenny Lind, 243; + "Songs without Words," 41; + "Hebrides" overture, 59, 149; + "Midsummer Night's Dream," 61, 102; + "Scotch" symphony, 132, 139; + "Italian" symphony, 132; + "Hymn of Praise," 140; + "St. Paul," 278; + "Elijah," 288, 289 + +Mersenne, "Harmonie universelle," 175, 176 + +Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 203, 224, 226, 244 + +Meyerbeer, 89, 102, 203, 204, 208, 242, 243, 244; + "L'Africaine," 89; + "Robert le Diable," 102, 208, 244; + "Huguenots," 204; + "L'Étoile du Nord," 243 + +Military bands, 123 + +Minor mode, 57 + +Minuet, 134, 151, 173, 179 + +Mirabeau, 293 + +Model, none in nature for music, 8, 180 + +Monteverde, "Orfeo," 87 + +Moscheles, on Jenny Lind's singing, 243 + +Motet, 283 + +Motives, 22, 24 + +Mozart, 84, 109, 132, 145, 151, 168, 183, 184, 195, 202, 203, 221, + 224, 228, 230, 238, 244, 265, 292; + his pianoforte technique, 184; + on Doles's mass, 292; + his orchestra, 238; + his edition of Handel's "Messiah," 265; + on cadenzas, 145; + his pianoforte, 195; + his serenades, 151; + "Don Giovanni," 109, 202, 221, 222, 228, 230; + "Magic Flute," 203; + G-minor symphony, 132; + "Figaro," 202, 228 + +_Musica parlante_, 234 + +Musical instruction, deficiencies in, 9 + +Musician, Critic, and Public, 297 + +_Musikdrama_, 227, 238, 249 + + +Neri, Filippo, 288 + +Nevada, Emma, 204 + +Newspaper, the modern, 297, 298, 313 + +New York Opera, 206, 226, 241 + +Niecks, Frederick, 192 + +Niemann, Albert, 233 + +Nightingale, in music, 52 + +Nilsson, Christine, 242, 246, 247 + +Nordica, Lillian, 247 + +Norman-Neruda, Madame, 320 + +Notes not music, 20 + +Nottebohm, "Beethoveniana," 63 + + +Oboe, 47, 74, 78, 82, 84, 98 _et seq._ + +Opera, descriptive music in, 61; + history of, 202 _et seq._; + language of, 205; + polyglot performances of, 207 _et seq._; + their texts perverted, 207 _et seq._; + words of, 209, 210; + elements in, 214; + invention of, 216 _et seq._; + varieties of, 220 _et seq._; + comic elements in, 221; + action and incident in, 236; + singing in, 239; + singers compared, 241 _et seq._ + +_Opéra bouffe_, 220, 221, 225 + +_Opera buffa_, 220 + +_Opéra comique_, 223 + +_Opéra, Grand_, 223 + +_Opera in musica_, 228 + +_Opera semiseria_, 221 + +_Opera seria_, 220 + +_Opus_, 132 + +Oratorio, 256, 287 _et seq._ + +Orchestra, 71 _et seq._ + +Ostrander, Dr. Lucas, 278 + +"Ouida," 12 + +Overture, 147 _et seq._, 174 + + +Paderewski, his recitals, 154 _et seq._; + his Romanticism, 167; + "Krakowiak," 193 + +Painful, the, not fit subject for music, 50 + +Palestrina and Bach, 278 _et seq._; + his music, 279 _et seq._; + "Stabat Mater," 279, 280; + "Improperia," 280; + "Missa Papć Marcelli," 280 + +Pandean pipes, 98 + +Pantomime, 43 + +Parallelism, 25 + +Passepied, 173 + +"Passions," 284 _et seq._ + +Patti, Adelina, 203, 204, 238, 242, 245, 247 + +Pedals, pianoforte, 195, 196 + +Pedants, 13, 315 + +Percussion instruments, 110 _et seq._ + +Peri, "Eurydice," 234 + +Periods, musical, 22, 24 + +Perkins, C.C., 263 + +Pfund, his drums, 112 + +Philharmonic Society of New York, 76, 77, 81, 82 + +Phrases, musical, 22, 24 + +Physical effects of music, 38 + +Pianoforte, history and description of, 154 _et seq._; + its music, 154 _et seq._, 166 _et seq._; + concertos, 144; + trios, 147 + +Piccolo flute, 85, 97 + +Piccolomini, 242, 245 + +Pictures in music, 40 + +_Pifa_, Handel's, 126 + +_Pizzicato_, 88, 91 + +Plançon, 248 + +Polonaise, 192 + +Polyphony and feelings, 39 + +Popular concerts, 122 + +Porpora, 209 + +"_Pov' piti Momzelle Zizi_," 23 + +Preludes, 148, 174 + +Programme music, 36, 44, 48 _et seq._, 64, 142 + +Puccini, 228 + + +Quail, call of, in music, 51, 54 + +Quartet, 147 + +Quilled instruments, 170 + +Quinault, "Atys," 206 + +Quintet, 147 + +Quintillian, 309 + + +Raff, 49, 96, 132; + "Lenore" symphony, 96, 132; + "Im Walde" symphony, 132 + +Rameau, 168 + +Recitative, 219, 220, 228 _et seq._ + +Reed instruments, 98 _et seq._ + +Reformation, its influence on music, 275, 278, 280 + +Refrain, 25 + +Register of the orchestra, 85 + +Repetition, 22, 25 + +Rhapsodists among writers, 13, 315 _et seq._ + +Rhythm, 19, 21, 26, 160 + +"_Ridendo castigat mores_," 225 + +Rinuccini, "Eurydice," 234 + +Romantic music, 36, 64 _et seq._, 71, 277 + +Romantic opera, 225 + +Ronconi, 242 + +Rondeau and Rondo, 135 + +Rossini, 147, 228, 242; + his overtures, 147; + "Il Barbiere," 228; + "William Tell," 93, 100 + +Rubinstein, 59, 152, 167, 168, 287; + his historical recitals, 167; + his sacred operas, 287; + "Ocean" symphony, 59; + "Feramors," 152 + +Ruskin, John, 302 + +Russian composers, 134 + + +Sacred Operas, 287 + +Saint-Saëns, "Danse Macabre," 101, 111; + symphony in C minor, 141; + "Samson and Delilah," 288 + +Salvi, 242 + +Sarabande, 173, 174, 177 + +Sassarelli, 240 + +Scarlatti, D., 167, 172, 182; + his technique, 172; + "Capriccio" and "Pastorale," 172 + +Scheffer, Ary, 246 + +Scherzo, 133, 179 + +Schröder-Devrient, 232 + +Schubert, 168 + +Schumann, 49, 64, 132, 133, 139, 140, 141, 167, 188, 189, 190, 196, + 254, 308, 310; + his Romanticism, 188; + and Jean Paul, 189; + his pedal effects, 196; + on popular judgment, 308, 310; + symphony in C, 132; + symphony in D minor, 139; + symphony in B-flat, 140; + "Rhenish" symphony, 140, 141; + "Carnaval," 189, 190; + "Papillons," 189, 190; + "Kreisleriana," 190; + "Phantasiestücke," 190 + +Score, 120 + +"Scotch snap," 52, 200 + +Second movement in symphony, 133 + +Seidl, Anton, 77 + +Sembrich, Marcella, 242, 245 + +Senesino, 239, 240 + +Sense-perception, 18 + +Serenade, 149 _et seq._ + +Shaftesbury, Lord, 311 + +Shakespeare, his dances, 153, 179; + his dramas, 202; + a Romanticist, 221; + "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 150; + Queen Mab, 90 + +Singing, physiology of, 215, 218; + operatic, 239; + choral, 268 + +Singing Societies, 253 _et seq._ + +_Singspiel_, 223 + +Smith, F. Hopkinson, 11 + +_Sonata da Camera_, 173 + +Sonata, 127, 182, 183 + +Sonata form, 127 _et seq._ + +Sontag, 241, 244, 245, 246 + +Sordino, 90 + +Space, music has no place in, 59 + +Speech and music, 43 + +Spencer, Herbert, 39, 43, 216, 218, 230 + +Spinet, 168, 170 + +Spohr, "Jessonda," 225 + +Stainer, Dr., 39, 316 + +Stein, pianoforte maker, 196 + +_Stilo rappresentativo_, 234 + +Stories, in music, 40 + +Strings, orchestral, 74, 82, 86 _et seq._, 102 + +Sucher, Rosa, 247 + +Suite, 129, 152, 173 _et seq._ + +Symphonic poem, 142 + +Symphonic prologue, 148 + +Symphony, 124 _et seq._, 183 + +Syrinx, 98 + + +Talent in listening, 4 + +Tambourine, 110 + +Tappert, "Zooplastik in Tönen," 51 + +Taste, 311 + +Technique, 163 _et seq._ + +Tennyson, 9 + +Terminology, musical, 8 + +_Théatre nationale de l'Opéra-Comique_, 223 + +Thespis, 212 + +Thomas, "Mignon," 223 + +_Tibia_, 98 + +Titiens, 242 + +Tonal language, 42, 43 + +Tones, co-ordination of, 17 + +Touch, 163 _et seq._ + +_Tragedia per musica_, 227 + +Tremolo, 91 + +Trench, Archbishop, 65, 66 + +Triangle, 74, 110 + +Trio, 134 + +Triolet, 136 + +Trombone, 82, 105, 106, 109 _et seq._ + +Trumpet, 105, 108 + +Tschaikowsky, 88, 132; + "Symphonie Pathétique," 132 + +Tuba, 82, 85, 106, 108 + +"Turkish" music, 97 + +Tympani, 82, 111 _et seq._ + + +Ugly, the, not fit for music, 50 + +United States, first to have amateur singing societies, 257, 262; + spread of choral music in, 263 + +Unity in the symphony, 27, 137 + + +Vaudevilles, 224 + +Verdi, 152, 203, 210, 228, 236, 238, 242, 243; + "Aďda," 152, 228, 238; + "Il Trovatore," 210, 243; + "Otello," 228, 238; + "Falstaff," 228, 236; + Requiem, 290 + +Vestris, 153 + +Vibrato, 90 + +Vile, the, unfit for music, 50 + +Viola, 74, 77, 82, 92, 93 + +_Viole da braccio_, 93 + +_Viole da gamba_, 93 + +Violin, 73, 74, 77, 82, 86 _et seq._, 144, 162 + +Violin concertos, 145 + +Violoncello, 74, 77, 82, 92, 93, 94 + +Virginal, 168, 170 + +Vocal music, 61, 215 + +_Vorspiel_, 148 + +Wagner, 41, 79, 80, 81, 88, 89, 94, 111, 205, 206, 219, 226, 227, 232, + 235, 237, 238, 244, 248, 249, 250, 251, 303, 305, 314; + on the content of music, 41; + his instrumentation, 80, 111; + his dramas, 219, 226, 227, 248; + _Musikdrama_, 227, 249; + his dialogue, 235; + his orchestra, 238, 250; + his operas, 248; + his theories, 249; + endless melody, 250; + typical phrases, 250; + "leading motives," 250; + popularity of his music, 303; + on criticism, 314; + "Flying Dutchman," 248; + "Tannhäuser," 248; + "Lohengrin," 79, 88, 235, 248; + "Die Meistersinger," 249; + "Tristan und Isolde," 87, 237, 249; + "Rheingold," 237; + "Die Walküre," 94, 237; + "Siegfried," 237, 244; + "Die Götterdämmerung," 237; + "Ring of the Nibelung," 249, 251, 305; + "Parsifal," 249 + +_Waldhorn,_ 107 + +Wallace, W.V., 223 + +Walter, Jacob, 53 + +Water, musical delineation of, 58, 59 + +Weber, 67, 96, 244, 248; + his Romanticism, 67; + "Der Freischütz," 96, 225; + "Oberon," 225; + "Euryanthe," 225 + +Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," 201 + +Welsh choirs, 255 + +Wood-wind instruments, 74, 77, 78, 95 + + +Xylophone, 111 + + +Ysaye, on Cadenzas, 146 + + + + +SOME MUSICAL BOOKS + + +THE LETTERS OF FRANZ LISZT. Edited and collected by LA MARA. +With portraits. Crown 8vo, 2 vols., $6.00. + +RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS to his Dresden Friends--Theodore Uhlig, +Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine. Translated by J.S. SHEDLOCK. +Crown 8vo, $3.50. + +JENNY LIND THE ARTIST, 1820-1851. Memoir of Madame Jenny +Lind-Goldschmidt. Her Art Life and Dramatic Career, from original +documents, etc. By CANON H.S. HOLLAND and W.S. ROCKSTRO. With +illustrations, 12mo, $2.50. + +WAGNER AND HIS WORKS. The Story of his Life, with Critical Comments. +By HENRY T. FINCK. Third edition. With portraits. 2 vols., +12mo, $4.00. + +CHOPIN AND OTHER MUSICAL ESSAYS. By HENRY T. FINCK. 12mo, +$1.50. + +A CONCISE HISTORY OF MUSIC, from the Commencement of the Christian Era +to the present time. By H.G.B. HUNT. With numerous tables. +12mo, $1.00. + +CHARLES GOUNOD, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES, with Family Letters +and Notes on Music. Translated by the HON. W. HUTCHINSON. +With portrait. 8vo, $3.00. + +THE GREAT MUSICIANS SERIES. Edited by F. HUEFFER. 14 vols., +12mo, each, $1.00. + +THE STUDENT'S HELMHOLTZ. Musical Acoustics, or the Phenomena of Sound. +By JOHN BROADHOUSE. With musical illustrations and examples. +12mo, $3.00. + +CYCLOPEDIA OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS. Edited by JOHN DENISON CHAMPLIN, +JR. Critical editor, W.F. APTHORP. Popular edition. Large octavo, 3 +vols., $15.00 net. + +LETTERS OF A BARITONE. By FRANCIS WALKER. 16mo, $1.25. + +MUSICIANS AND MUSIC LOVERS, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By W.F. APTHORP. 12mo, +$1.50. + +THE WAGNER STORY BOOK. Firelight Tales of the Great Music-Dramas. By +W.H. FROST. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. + +MASTERS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC. 4 vols., 12mo. Illustrated. Each, +$1.75. Masters of English Music, by Charles Willeby; Masters of French +Music, by Arthur Hervey; Masters of German Music, by J.A. +Fuller-Maitland; Masters of Italian Music, by R.A. Streatfield. + +THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH MUSIC. By Rev. F.L. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. + Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art + +Author: Henry Edward Krehbiel + +Release Date: January 7, 2006 [EBook #17474] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC, 7TH ED. *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC</h1> + +<h2>HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS<br /> +TO UNTAUGHT LOVERS OF THE ART</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Author of "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," "Notes on the Cultivation +of Choral Music," "The Philharmonic Society of New York," etc.</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>SEVENTH EDITION</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +NEW YORK<br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br /> +1897<br /> +</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1896, by</span><br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br /> +<br /> +TROW DIRECTORY<br /> +PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY<br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>TO</h3> + +<h2>W.J. HENDERSON</h2> + +<h3>WHO HAS HELPED ME TO RESPECT MUSICAL CRITICISM</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AUTHORS_NOTE" id="AUTHORS_NOTE"></a>AUTHOR'S NOTE</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> author is beholden to the Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission +to use a small portion of the material in <a href="#I">Chapter I.</a>, the greater part +of <a href="#IV">Chapter IV.</a>, and the <a href="#PLATES">Plates</a> which were printed originally in one of +their publications; also to the publishers of "The Looker-On" for the +privilege of reprinting a portion of an essay written for them +entitled "Singers, Then and Now."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Transcriber's Note:</i> The music images and + MIDI sound files in this e-text were created using Lilypond version 2.6.3. Click on the links after each music image to hear the MIDI file or view the + Lilypond source file.</p></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco01.png" alt="decoration" width="300" height="80" /> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p> +<a href="#AUTHORS_NOTE">AUTHOR'S NOTE</a></p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. I.</span></div> + +<p> +<b> +<i><a href="#I">Introduction</a></i></b></p> +<p> +Purpose and scope of this book—Not written for professional +musicians, but for untaught lovers of the art—neither +for careless seekers after diversion unless they +be willing to accept a higher conception of what "entertainment" +means—The capacity properly to listen to music +as a touchstone of musical talent—It is rarely found in +popular concert-rooms—Travellers who do not see and +listeners who do not hear—Music is of all the arts that +which is practised most and thought about least—Popular +ignorance of the art caused by the lack of an object for +comparison—How simple terms are confounded by literary +men—Blunders by Tennyson, Lamb, Coleridge, +Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, F. Hopkinson Smith, Brander +Matthews, and others—A warning against pedants and +rhapsodists. <a href="#Page_3"><i>Page 3</i></a> +</p> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. II.</span></div> + +<p> +<b> +<i><a href="#II">Recognition of Musical Elements</a></i></b></p> +<p> +The dual nature of music—Sense-perception, fancy, +and imagination—Recognition of Design as Form in its +primary stages—The crude materials of music—The co-ordination +of tones—Rudimentary analysis of Form—Comparison, +as in other arts, not possible—Recognition +of the fundamental elements—Melody, Harmony, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>Rhythm—The value of memory—The need of an intermediary—Familiar +music best liked—Interrelation of the +elements—Repetition the fundamental principle of Form—Motives, +Phrases, and Periods—A Creole folk-tune analyzed—Repetition +at the base of poetic forms—Refrain +and Parallelism—Key-relationship as a bond of union—Symphonic +unity illustrated in examples from Beethoven—The +C minor symphony and "Appassionata" sonata—The +Concerto in G major—The Seventh and Ninth symphonies. <i> +<a href="#Page_15">Page 15</a></i> +</p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. III.</span></div> + +<p> +<b> +<i><a href="#III">The Content and Kinds of Music</a></i></b></p> +<p> +How far it is necessary for the listener to go into musical +philosophy—Intelligent hearing not conditioned upon +it—Man's individual relationship to the art—Musicians +proceed on the theory that feelings are the content of music—The +search for pictures and stories condemned—How +composers hear and judge—Definitions of the capacity of +music by Wagner, Hauptmann, and Mendelssohn—An utterance +by Herbert Spencer—Music as a language—Absolute +music and Programme music—The content of all +true art works—Chamber music—Meaning and origin of +the term—Haydn the servant of a Prince—The characteristics +of Chamber music—Pure thought, lofty imagination, +and deep learning—Its chastity—Sympathy between +performers and listeners essential to its enjoyment—A +correct definition of Programme music—Programme music +defended—The value of titles and superscriptions—Judgment +upon it must, however, go to the music, not the commentary—Subjects +that are unfit for music—Kinds of Programme +music—Imitative music—How the music of birds +has been utilized—The cuckoo of nature and Beethoven's +cuckoo—Cock and hen in a seventeenth century composition—Rameau's +pullet—The German quail—Music that +is descriptive by suggestion—External and internal attributes—Fancy +and Imagination—Harmony and the major +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span>and minor mode—Association of ideas—Movement delineated—Handel's +frogs—Water in the "Hebrides" overture +and "Ocean" symphony—Height and depth illustrated +by acute and grave tones—Beethoven's illustration +of distance—His rule enforced—Classical and Romantic +music—Genesis of the terms—What they mean in literature—Archbishop +Trench on classical books—The author's +definitions of both terms in music—Classicism as +the conservative principle, Romanticism as the progressive, +regenerative, and creative—A contest which stimulates +life. <i><a href="#Page_36">Page 36</a></i> +</p> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. IV.</span></div> + +<p> +<b> +<i><a href="#IV">The Modern Orchestra</a></i></b></p> +<p> +Importance of the instrumental band—Some things +that can be learned by its study—The orchestral choirs—Disposition +of the players—Model bands compared—Development +of instrumental music—The extent of an orchestra's +register—The Strings: Violin, Viola, Violoncello, +and Double-bass—Effects produced by changes in +manipulation—The wood-winds: Flute, Oboe, English +horn, Bassoon, Clarinet—The Brass: French Horn, Trumpet +and Cornet, Trombone, Tuba—The Drums—The Conductor—Rise +of the modern interpreter—The need of him—His +methods—Scores and Score-reading. <a href="#Page_71"> <i>Page 71</i> </a> +</p> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. V.</span></div> + +<p> +<b> +<i><a href="#V">At an Orchestral Concert</a></i></b></p> +<p> +"Classical" and "Popular" as generally conceived—Symphony +Orchestras and Military bands—The higher +forms in music as exemplified at a classical concert—Symphonies, +Overtures, Symphonic Poems, Concertos, +etc.—A Symphony not a union of unrelated parts—History +of the name—The Sonata form and cyclical compositions—The +bond of union between the divisions of a Symphony—Material +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>and spiritual links—The first movement and the +sonata form—"Exposition, illustration, and repetition"—The +subjects and their treatment—Keys and nomenclature +of the Symphony—The <i>Adagio</i> or second movement—The +<i>Scherzo</i> and its relation to the Minuet—The +Finale and the Rondo form—The latter illustrated in outline +by a poem—Modifications of the symphonic form by +Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Saint-Saëns +and Dvořák—Augmentation of the forces—Symphonies +with voices—The Symphonic Poem—Its three +characteristics—Concertos and Cadenzas—M. Ysaye's +opinion of the latter—Designations in Chamber music—The +Overture and its descendants—Smaller forms: Serenades, +Fantasias, Rhapsodies, Variations, Operatic Excerpts. <a href="#Page_122"> <i>Page 122</i> +</a> +</p> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. VI.</span></div> + +<p> +<b> +<i><a href="#VI">At a Pianoforte Recital</a></i></b></p> +<p> +The Popularity of Pianoforte music exemplified in M. +Paderewski's recitals—The instrument—A universal medium of music +study—Its defects and merits contrasted—Not +a perfect melody instrument—Value of the percussive +element—Technique; the false and the true estimate +of its value—Pianoforte literature as illustrated in recitals—Its +division, for the purposes of this study, into four +periods: Classic, Classic-romantic, Romantic, and Bravura—Precursors +of the Pianoforte—The Clavichord and Harpsichord, +and the music composed for them—Peculiarities +of Bach's style—His Romanticism—Scarlatti's Sonatas—The +Suite and its constituents—Allemande, Courante, +Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet, and Gavotte—The technique +of the period—How Bach and Handel played—Beethoven +and the Sonata—Mozart and Beethoven as pianists—The +Romantic composers—Schumann and Chopin and the +forms used by them—Schumann and Jean Paul—Chopin's +Preludes, Études, Nocturnes, Ballades, Polonaises, Mazurkas, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span>Krakowiak—The technique of the Romantic period—"Idiomatic" +pianoforte music—Development of +the instrument—The Pedal and its use—Liszt and his +Hungarian Rhapsodies. <i><a href="#Page_154">Page 154</a></i> +</p> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. VII.</span></div> + +<p> +<b> +<i><a href="#VII">At the Opera</a></i></b></p> +<p> +Instability of popular taste in respect of operas—Our +lists seldom extend back of the present century—The people +of to-day as indifferent as those of two centuries ago +to the language used—Use and abuse of foreign languages—The +Opera defended as an art-form—Its origin in +the Greek tragedies—Why music is the language of emotion—A +scientific explanation—Herbert Spencer's laws—Efforts +of Florentine scholars to revive the classic tragedy +result in the invention of the lyric drama—The various +kinds of Opera: <i>Opera seria</i>, <i>Opera buffa</i>, <i>Opera semiseria</i>, +French <i>grand Opéra</i>, and <i>Opéra comique</i>—Operettas and +musical farces—Romantic Opera—A popular conception +of German opera—A return to the old terminology led by +Wagner—The recitative: Its nature, aims, and capacities—The +change from speech to song—The arioso style, +the accompanied recitative and the aria—Music and dramatic +action—Emancipation from set forms—The orchestra—The +decay of singing—Feats of the masters of the +Roman school and La Bastardella—Degeneracy of the +Opera of their day—Singers who have been heard in New +York—Two generations of singers compared—Grisi, Jenny +Lind, Sontag, La Grange, Piccolomini, Adelina Patti, +Nilsson, Sembrich, Lucca, Gerster, Lehmann, Melba, +Eames, Calvé, Mario, Jean and Edouard de Reszke—Wagner +and his works—Operas and lyric dramas—Wagner's +return to the principles of the Florentine reformers—Interdependence +of elements in a lyric drama—Forms +and the endless melody—The Typical Phrases: How they +should be studied. <i><a href="#Page_202">Page 202</a></i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. VIII.</span></div> + +<p><b><i><a href="#VIII">Choirs and Choral Music</a></i></b></p> + +<p> +Value of chorus singing in musical culture—Schumann's +advice to students—Choristers and instrumentalists—Amateurs +and professionals—Oratorio and <i>Männergesang</i>—The +choirs of Handel and Bach—Glee Unions, +Male Clubs, and Women's Choirs—Boys' voices not adapted +to modern music—Mixed choirs—American Origin of +amateur singing societies—Priority over Germany—The +size of choirs—Large numbers not essential—How choirs +are divided—Antiphonal effects—Excellence in choir singing—Precision, +intonation, expression, balance of tone, +enunciation, pronunciation, declamation—The cause of +monotony in Oratorio performances—<i>A capella</i> music—Genesis +of modern hymnology—Influence of Luther and +the Germans—Use of popular melodies by composers—The +chorale—Preservation of the severe style of writing +in choral music—Palestrina and Bach—A study of their +styles—Latin and Teuton—Church and individual—Motets +and Church Cantatas—The Passions—The Oratorio—Sacred +opera and Cantata—Epic and Drama—Characteristic +and descriptive music—The Mass: Its secularization +and musical development—The dramatic tendency +illustrated in Beethoven and Berlioz. <i><a href="#Page_253">Page 253</a></i> +</p> +<p> </p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><span class="smcap">Chap. IX.</span></div> + +<p><b><i><a href="#IX">Musician, Critic and Public</a></i></b></p> + +<p> +Criticism justified—Relationship between Musician, +Critic and Public—To end the conflict between them +would result in stagnation—How the Critic might escape—The +Musician prefers to appeal to the public rather than +to the Critic—Why this is so—Ignorance as a safeguard +against and promoter of conservatism—Wagner and +Haydn—The Critic as the enemy of the charlatan—Temptations +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>to which he is exposed—Value of popular approbation—Schumann's +aphorisms—The Public neither bad +judges nor good critics—The Critic's duty is to guide popular +judgment—Fickleness of the people's opinions—Taste +and judgment not a birthright—The necessity of antecedent +study—The Critic's responsibility—Not always that +toward the Musician which the latter thinks—How the +newspaper can work for good—Must the Critic be a Musician?—Pedants +and Rhapsodists—Demonstrable facts in +criticism—The folly and viciousness of foolish rhapsody—The +Rev. Mr. Haweis cited—Ernst's violin—Intelligent +rhapsody approved—Dr. John Brown on Beethoven—The +Critic's duty. <a href="#Page_297"> <i>Page 297</i> </a> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p style="text-align: center"><b><a href="#PLATES">PLATES</a></b></p> + +<p> +<span class="smcap"><a href="#PLATE_I">I. Violin</a>—(Clifford Schmidt).—<a href="#PLATE_II">II. Violoncello</a>—(Victor</span> +<span class="smcap">Herbert).—<a href="#PLATE_III">III. Piccolo Flute</a>—(C. Kurth,</span> +<span class="smcap">Jun.).—<a href="#PLATE_IV">IV. Oboe</a>—(Joseph Eller).—<a href="#PLATE_V">V.</a></span><a href="#PLATE_V"> +<span class="smcap">English Horn</span></a><span class="smcap">—(Joseph Eller).—<a href="#PLATE_VI">VI. Bassoon</a></span> +<span class="smcap">(Fedor Bernhardi).—<a href="#PLATE_VII">VII. Clarinet</a>—(Henry</span> +<span class="smcap">Kaiser).—<a href="#PLATE_VIII">VIII. Bass Clarinet</a>—(Henry Kaiser).—<a href="#PLATE_IX">IX.</a></span><a href="#PLATE_IX"> +<span class="smcap">French Horn</span></a><span class="smcap">—(Carl Pieper).—<a href="#PLATE_X">X. Trombone</a>—(J.</span> +<span class="smcap">Pfeiffenschneider).—<a href="#PLATE_XI">XI. Bass Tuba</a>—(Anton</span> +<span class="smcap">Reiter).—<a href="#PLATE_XII">XII. The Conductor's Score</a>.</span> <i> +<a href="#Page_325">Page 325</a></i> +</p> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p> +<b> +<a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></b> <a href="#Page_351"> <i>Page 351</i> </a> +</p> + + + +<p> +<a href="#SOME_MUSICAL_BOOKS">SOME MUSICAL BOOKS</a></p> + + + +<p> +<a href="#FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>How to Listen to Music</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco02.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="67" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h2><i>Introduction</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The book's appeal.</i></div> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="smcap">his</span> book has a purpose, which is as simple as it is plain; and an +unpretentious scope. It does not aim to edify either the musical +professor or the musical scholar. It comes into the presence of the +musical student with all becoming modesty. Its business is with those +who love music and present themselves for its gracious ministrations +in Concert-Room and Opera House, but have not studied it as professors +and scholars are supposed to study. It is not for the careless unless +they be willing to inquire whether it might not be well to yield the +common conception of entertainment in favor of the higher enjoyment +which springs from serious contemplation of beautiful things; but if +they are willing so to inquire, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> shall be accounted the class +that the author is most anxious to reach. The reasons which prompted +its writing and the laying out of its plan will presently appear. For +the frankness of his disclosure the author might be willing to +apologize were his reverence for music less and his consideration for +popular affectations more; but because he is convinced that a love for +music carries with it that which, so it be but awakened, shall +speedily grow into an honest desire to know more about the beloved +object, he is willing to seem unamiable to the amateur while arguing +the need of even so mild a stimulant as his book, and ingenuous, +mayhap even childish, to the professional musician while trying to +point a way in which better appreciation may be sought.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Talent in listening.</i></div> + +<p>The capacity properly to listen to music is better proof of musical +talent in the listener than skill to play upon an instrument or +ability to sing acceptably when unaccompanied by that capacity. It +makes more for that gentleness and refinement of emotion, thought, and +action which, in the highest sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> of the term, it is the province of +music to promote. And it is a much rarer accomplishment. I cannot +conceive anything more pitiful than the spectacle of men and women +perched on a fair observation point exclaiming rapturously at the +loveliness of mead and valley, their eyes melting involuntarily in +tenderness at the sight of moss-carpeted slopes and rocks and peaceful +wood, or dilating in reverent wonder at mountain magnificence, and +then learning from their exclamations that, as a matter of fact, they +are unable to distinguish between rock and tree, field and forest, +earth and sky; between the dark-browns of the storm-scarred rock, the +greens of the foliage, and the blues of the sky.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Ill equipped listeners.</i></div> + +<p>Yet in the realm of another sense, in the contemplation of beauties +more ethereal and evanescent than those of nature, such is the +experience which in my capacity as a writer for newspapers I have made +for many years. A party of people blind to form and color cannot be +said to be well equipped for a Swiss journey, though loaded down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> with +alpenstocks and Baedekers; yet the spectacle of such a party on the +top of the Rigi is no more pitiful and anomalous than that presented +by the majority of the hearers in our concert-rooms. They are there to +adventure a journey into a realm whose beauties do not disclose +themselves to the senses alone, but whose perception requires a +co-operation of all the finer faculties; yet of this they seem to know +nothing, and even of that sense to which the first appeal is made it +may be said with profound truth that "hearing they hear not, neither +do they understand."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Popular ignorance of music.</i></div> + +<p>Of all the arts, music is practised most and thought about least. Why +this should be the case may be explained on several grounds. A sweet +mystery enshrouds the nature of music. Its material part is subtle and +elusive. To master it on its technical side alone costs a vast +expenditure of time, patience, and industry. But since it is, in one +manifestation or another, the most popular of the arts, and one the +enjoyment of which is conditioned in a peculiar degree on love, it +remains passing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> strange that the indifference touching its nature and +elements, and the character of the phenomena which produce it, or are +produced by it, is so general. I do not recall that anybody has ever +tried to ground this popular ignorance touching an art of which, by +right of birth, everybody is a critic. The unamiable nature of the +task, of which I am keenly conscious, has probably been a bar to such +an undertaking. But a frank diagnosis must precede the discovery of a +cure for every disease, and I have undertaken to point out a way in +which this grievous ailment in the social body may at least be +lessened.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Paucity of intelligent comment.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Want of a model.</i></div> + +<p>It is not an exaggeration to say that one might listen for a lifetime +to the polite conversation of our drawing-rooms (and I do not mean by +this to refer to the United States alone) without hearing a symphony +talked about in terms indicative of more than the most superficial +knowledge of the outward form, that is, the dimensions and apparatus, +of such a composition. No other art provides an exact analogy for this +phenomenon. Everybody can say something contain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>ing a degree of +appositeness about a poem, novel, painting, statue, or building. If he +can do no more he can go as far as Landseer's rural critic who +objected to one of the artist's paintings on the ground that not one +of the three pigs eating from a trough had a foot in it. It is the +absence of the standard of judgment employed in this criticism which +makes significant talk about music so difficult. Nature failed to +provide a model for this ethereal art. There is nothing in the natural +world with which the simple man may compare it.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Simple terms confounded.</i></div> + +<p>It is not alone a knowledge of the constituent factors of a symphony, +or the difference between a sonata and a suite, a march and a mazurka, +that is rare. Unless you chance to be listening to the conversation of +musicians (in which term I wish to include amateurs who are what the +word amateur implies, and whose knowledge stands in some respectable +relation to their love), you will find, so frequently that I have not +the heart to attempt an estimate of the proportion, that the most +common words<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> in the terminology of the art are misapplied. Such +familiar things as harmony and melody, time and tune, are continually +confounded. Let us call a distinguished witness into the box; the +instance is not new, but it will serve. What does Tennyson mean when +he says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"All night have the roses heard<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The flute, violin, bassoon;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the dancers dancing in tune?"</span> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Tune and time.</i></div> + +<p>Unless the dancers who wearied Maud were provided with even a more +extraordinary instrumental outfit than the Old Lady of Banbury Cross, +how could they have danced "in tune?"</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Blunders of poets and essayists.</i></div> + +<p>Musical study of a sort being almost as general as study of the "three +Rs," it must be said that the gross forms of ignorance are utterly +inexcusable. But if this is obvious, it is even more obvious that +there is something radically wrong with the prevalent systems of +musical instruction. It is because of a plentiful lack of knowledge +that so much that is written on music is with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>out meaning, and that +the most foolish kind of rhapsody, so it show a collocation of fine +words, is permitted to masquerade as musical criticism and even +analysis. People like to read about music, and the books of a certain +English clergyman have had a sale of stupendous magnitude +notwithstanding they are full of absurdities. The clergyman has a +multitudinous companionship, moreover, among novelists, essayists, and +poets whose safety lies in more or less fantastic generalization when +they come to talk about music. How they flounder when they come to +detail! It was Charles Lamb who said, in his "Chapter on Ears," that +in voices he could not distinguish a soprano from a tenor, and could +only contrive to guess at the thorough-bass from its being +"supereminently harsh and disagreeable;" yet dear old Elia may be +forgiven, since his confounding the bass voice with a system of +musical short-hand is so delightful a proof of the ignorance he was +confessing.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Literary realism and musical terminology.</i></div> + +<p>But what shall the troubled critics say to Tennyson's orchestra +consisting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> of a flute, violin, and bassoon? Or to Coleridge's "<i>loud</i> +bassoon," which made the wedding-guest to beat his breast? Or to Mrs. +Harriet Beecher Stowe's pianist who played "with an airy and bird-like +touch?" Or to our own clever painter-novelist who, in "Snubbin' +through Jersey," has Brushes bring out his violoncello and play "the +symphonies of Beethoven" to entertain his fellow canal-boat +passengers? The tendency toward realism, or "veritism," as it is +called, has brought out a rich crop of blunders. It will not do to +have a character in a story simply sing or play something; we must +have the names of composers and compositions. The genial gentleman who +enriched musical literature with arrangements of Beethoven's +symphonies for violoncello without accompaniment has since +supplemented this feat by creating a German fiddler who, when he +thinks himself unnoticed, plays a sonata for violin and contralto +voice; Professor Brander Matthews permits one of his heroines to sing +Schumann's "Warum?" and one of his heroes plays "The Moonlight +Concer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>to;" one of Ouida's romantic creatures spends hours at an organ +"playing the grand old masses of Mendelssohn;" in "Moths" the tenor +never wearies of singing certain "exquisite airs of Palestrina," which +recalls the fact that an indignant correspondent of a St. Louis +newspaper, protesting against the Teutonism and heaviness of an +orchestra conductor's programmes, demanded some of the "lighter" works +of "Berlioz and Palestrina."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A popular need.</i></div> + +<p>Alas! these things and the many others equally amusing which Mr. G. +Sutherland Edwards long ago catalogued in an essay on "The Literary +Maltreatment of Music" are but evidences that even cultured folk have +not yet learned to talk correctly about the art which is practised +most widely. There is a greater need than pianoforte teachers and +singing teachers, and that is a numerous company of writers and +talkers who shall teach the people how to listen to music so that it +shall not pass through their heads like a vast tonal phantasmagoria, +but provide the varied and noble delights contemplated by the +composers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A warning against writers.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pedants and rhapsodists.</i></div> + +<p>Ungracious as it might appear, it may yet not be amiss, therefore, at +the very outset of an inquiry into the proper way in which to listen +to music, to utter a warning against much that is written on the art. +As a rule it will be found that writers on music are divided into two +classes, and that neither of these classes can do much good. Too often +they are either pedants or rhapsodists. This division is wholly +natural. Music has many sides and is a science as well as an art. Its +scientific side is that on which the pedant generally approaches it. +He is concerned with forms and rules, with externals, to the +forgetting of that which is inexpressibly nobler and higher. But the +pedants are not harmful, because they are not interesting; strictly +speaking, they do not write for the public at all, but only for their +professional colleagues. The harmful men are the foolish rhapsodists +who take advantage of the fact that the language of music is +indeterminate and evanescent to talk about the art in such a way as to +present themselves as persons of exquisite sensibilities rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> than +to direct attention to the real nature and beauty of music itself. To +them I shall recur in a later <a href="#IX">chapter</a> devoted to musical criticism, +and haply point out the difference between good and bad critics and +commentators from the view-point of popular need and popular +opportunity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco03.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="75" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h2><i>Recognition of Musical Elements</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The nature of music.</i></div> + +<p><span class="dropcap">M</span><span class="smcap">usic</span> is dual in its nature; it is material as well as spiritual. Its +material side we apprehend through the sense of hearing, and +comprehend through the intellect; its spiritual side reaches us +through the fancy (or imagination, so it be music of the highest +class), and the emotional part of us. If the scope and capacity of the +art, and the evolutionary processes which its history discloses (a +record of which is preserved in its nomenclature), are to be +understood, it is essential that this duality be kept in view. There +is something so potent and elemental in the appeal which music makes +that it is possible to derive pleasure from even an unwilling hearing +or a hearing unaccompanied by effort at analysis;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> but real +appreciation of its beauty, which means recognition of the qualities +which put it in the realm of art, is conditioned upon intelligent +hearing. The higher the intelligence, the keener will be the +enjoyment, if the former be directed to the spiritual side as well as +the material.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Necessity of intelligent hearing.</i></div> + +<p>So far as music is merely agreeably co-ordinated sounds, it may be +reduced to mathematics and its practice to handicraft. But recognition +of design is a condition precedent to the awakening of the fancy or +the imagination, and to achieve such recognition there must be +intelligent hearing in the first instance. For the purposes of this +study, design may be held to be Form in its primary stages, the +recognition of which is possible to every listener who is fond of +music; it is not necessary that he be learned in the science. He need +only be willing to let an intellectual process, which will bring its +own reward, accompany the physical process of hearing.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Tones and musical material.</i></div> + +<p>Without discrimination it is impossible to recognize even the crude +materials<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> of music, for the first step is already a co-ordination of +those materials. A tone becomes musical material only by association +with another tone. We might hear it alone, study its quality, and +determine its degree of acuteness or gravity (its pitch, as musicians +say), but it can never become music so long as it remains isolated. +When we recognize that it bears certain relationships with other tones +in respect of time or tune (to use simple terms), it has become for us +musical material. We do not need to philosophize about the nature of +those relationships, but we must recognize their existence.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The beginnings of Form.</i></div> + +<p>Thus much we might hear if we were to let music go through our heads +like water through a sieve. Yet the step from that degree of +discrimination to a rudimentary analysis of Form is exceedingly short, +and requires little more than a willingness to concentrate the +attention and exercise the memory. Everyone is willing to do that much +while looking at a picture. Who would look at a painting and rest +satisfied with the impression made upon the sense of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> sight by the +colors merely? No one, surely. Yet so soon as we look, so as to +discriminate between the outlines, to observe the relationship of +figure to figure, we are indulging in intellectual exercise. If this +be a condition precedent to the enjoyment of a picture (and it plainly +is), how much more so is it in the case of music, which is intangible +and evanescent, which cannot pause a moment for our contemplation +without ceasing to be?</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Comparison with a model not possible.</i></div> + +<p>There is another reason why we must exercise intelligence in +listening, to which I have already alluded in the <a href="#I">first chapter</a>. Our +appreciation of beauty in the plastic arts is helped by the +circumstance that the critical activity is largely a matter of +comparison. Is the picture or the statue a good copy of the object +sought to be represented? Such comparison fails us utterly in music, +which copies nothing that is tangibly present in the external world.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>What degree of knowledge is necessary?</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Elements.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Value of memory.</i></div> + +<p>It is then necessary to associate the intellect with sense perception +in listening to music. How far is it essential that the intellectual +process shall go?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> This book being for the untrained, the question +might be put thus: With how little knowledge of the science can an +intelligent listener get along? We are concerned only with his +enjoyment of music or, better, with an effort to increase it without +asking him to become a musician. If he is fond of the art it is more +than likely that the capacity to discriminate sufficiently to +recognize the elements out of which music is made has come to him +intuitively. Does he recognize that musical tones are related to each +other in respect of time and pitch? Then it shall not be difficult for +him to recognize the three elements on which music rests—Melody, +Harmony, and Rhythm. Can he recognize them with sufficient +distinctness to seize upon their manifestations while music is +sounding? Then memory shall come to the aid of discrimination, and he +shall be able to appreciate enough of design to point the way to a +true and lofty appreciation of the beautiful in music. The value of +memory is for obvious reasons very great in musical enjoyment. The +picture remains<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> upon the wall, the book upon the library shelf. If we +have failed to grasp a detail at the first glance or reading, we need +but turn again to the picture or open the book anew. We may see the +picture in a changed light, or read the poem in a different mood, but +the outlines, colors, ideas are fixed for frequent and patient +perusal. Music goes out of existence with every performance, and must +be recreated at every hearing.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>An intermediary necessary.</i></div> + +<p>Not only that, but in the case of all, so far as some forms are +concerned, and of all who are not practitioners in others, it is +necessary that there shall be an intermediary between the composer and +the listener. The written or printed notes are not music; they are +only signs which indicate to the performer what to do to call tones +into existence such as the composer had combined into an art-work in +his mind. The broadly trained musician can read the symbols; they stir +his imagination, and he hears the music in his imagination as the +composer heard it. But the untaught music-lover alone can get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> nothing +from the printed page; he must needs wait till some one else shall +again waken for him the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sound of a voice that is still."</span> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The value of memory.</i></div> + +<p>This is one of the drawbacks which are bound up in the nature of +music; but it has ample compensation in the unusual pleasure which +memory brings. In the case of the best music, familiarity breeds +ever-growing admiration. New compositions are slowly received; they +make their way to popular appreciation only by repeated performances; +the people like best the songs as well as the symphonies which they +know. The quicker, therefore, that we are in recognizing the melodic, +harmonic, and rhythmic contents of a new composition, and the more apt +our memory in seizing upon them for the operation of the fancy, the +greater shall be our pleasure.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Comprehensiveness of Melody.</i></div> + +<p>In simple phrase Melody is a well-ordered series of tones heard +successively; Harmony, a well-ordered series heard simultaneously; +Rhythm, a symmetrical grouping of tonal time units<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> vitalized by +accent. The life-blood of music is Melody, and a complete conception +of the term embodies within itself the essence of both its companions. +A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect +element in music; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic +regulation but are void of rhythm. The beauty and expressiveness, +especially the emotionality, of a musical composition depend upon the +harmonies which either accompany the melody in the form of chords (a +group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously), or are latent in +the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively). Melody is +Harmony analyzed; Harmony is Melody synthetized.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Repetition.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A melody analyzed.</i></div> + +<p>The fundamental principle of Form is repetition of melodies, which are +to music what ideas are to poetry. Melodies themselves are made by +repetition of smaller fractions called motives (a term borrowed from +the fine arts), phrases, and periods, which derive their individuality +from their rhythmical or intervallic characteristics. Melodies are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +not all of the simple kind which the musically illiterate, or the +musically ill-trained, recognize as "tunes," but they all have a +symmetrical organization. The dissection of a simple folk-tune may +serve to make this plain and also indicate to the untrained how a +single feature may be taken as a mark of identification and a +holding-point for the memory. Here is the melody of a Creole song +called sometimes <i>Pov' piti Lolotte</i>, sometimes <i>Pov' piti Momzelle +Zizi</i>, in the patois of Louisiana and Martinique:</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> + +<img src="images/music01.png" width="758" height="187" alt="Creole song" /></p><p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music01.midi">Listen</a>  +<a href="music/music01.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Motives, phrases, and periods.</i></div> + +<p>It will be as apparent to the eye of one who cannot read music as it +will to his ear when he hears this melody played, that it is built up +of two groups of notes only. These groups are marked off by the heavy +lines across the staff called bars, whose purpose it is to indicate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +rhythmical subdivisions in music. The second, third, fifth, sixth, and +seventh of these groups are repetitions merely of the first group, +which is the germ of the melody, but on different degrees of the +scale; the fourth and eighth groups are identical and are an appendage +hitched to the first group for the purpose of bringing it to a close, +supplying a resting-point craved by man's innate sense of symmetry. +Musicians call such groups cadences. A musical analyst would call each +group a motive, and say that each successive two groups, beginning +with the first, constitute a phrase, each two phrases a period, and +the two periods a melody. We have therefore in this innocent Creole +tune eight motives, four phrases, and two periods; yet its material is +summed up in two groups, one of seven notes, one of five, which only +need to be identified and remembered to enable a listener to recognize +something of the design of a composer if he were to put the melody to +the highest purposes that melody can be put in the art of musical +composition.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Repetition in music.</i></div> + +<p>Repetition is the constructive principle which was employed by the +folk-musician in creating this melody; and repetition is the +fundamental principle in all musical construction. It will suffice for +many merely to be reminded of this to appreciate the fact that while +the exercise of memory is a most necessary activity in listening to +music, it lies in music to make that exercise easy. There is +repetition of motives, phrases, and periods in melody; repetition of +melodies in parts; and repetition of parts in the wholes of the larger +forms.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Repetition in poetry.</i></div> + +<p>The beginnings of poetic forms are also found in repetition; in +primitive poetry it is exemplified in the refrain or burden, in the +highly developed poetry of the Hebrews in parallelism. The Psalmist +wrote:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure."</span> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Key relationship.</i></div> + +<p>Here is a period of two members, the latter repeating the thought of +the former. A musical analyst might find in it an admirable analogue +for the first period of a simple melody. He would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> divide it into four +motives: "Rebuke me not | in thy wrath | neither chasten me | in thy +hot displeasure," and point out as intimate a relationship between +them as exists in the Creole tune. The bond of union between the +motives of the melody as well as that in the poetry illustrates a +principle of beauty which is the most important element in musical +design after repetition, which is its necessary vehicle. It is because +this principle guides the repetition of the tone-groups that together +they form a melody that is perfect, satisfying, and reposeful. It is +the principle of key-relationship, to discuss which fully would carry +me farther into musical science than I am permitted to go. Let this +suffice: A harmony is latent in each group, and the sequence of groups +is such a sequence as the experience of ages has demonstrated to be +most agreeable to the ear.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The rhythmical stamp.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The principle of Unity.</i></div> + +<p>In the case of the Creole melody the listener is helped to a quick +appreciation of its form by the distinct physiognomy which rhythm has +stamped upon it; and it is by noting such a character<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>istic that the +memory can best be aided in its work of identification. It is not +necessary for a listener to follow all the processes of a composer in +order to enjoy his music, but if he cultivates the habit of following +the principal themes through a work of the higher class he will not +only enjoy the pleasures of memory but will frequently get a glimpse +into the composer's purposes which will stimulate his imagination and +mightily increase his enjoyment. There is nothing can guide him more +surely to a recognition of the principle of unity, which makes a +symphony to be an organic whole instead of a group of pieces which are +only externally related. The greatest exemplar of this principle is +Beethoven; and his music is the best in which to study it for the +reason that he so frequently employs material signs for the spiritual +bond. So forcibly has this been impressed upon me at times that I am +almost willing to believe that a keen analytical student of his music +might arrange his greater works into groups of such as were in process +of composi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>tion at the same time without reference to his personal +history. Take the principal theme of the C minor Symphony for example:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music02.png" alt="Beethoven C minor symphony" width="206" height="121" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music02.midi">Listen</a>  <a href="music/music02.ly">View +Lilypond</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A rhythmical motive pursued.</i></div> + +<p>This simple, but marvellously pregnant, motive is not only the kernel +of the first movement, it is the fundamental thought of the whole +symphony. We hear its persistent beat in the scherzo as well:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music03.png" alt="Beethoven C minor symphony scherzo" width="728" height="94" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + + <a href="music/music03.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music03.ly">View +Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>and also in the last movement:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music04.png" alt="Beethoven C minor symphony last movement" width="740" height="126" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music04.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music04.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>More than this, we find the motive haunting the first movement of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +pianoforte sonata in F minor, op. 57, known as the "Sonata +Appassionata," now gloomily, almost morosely, proclamative in the +bass, now interrogative in the treble:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music05.png" alt="Sonata Appassionata" width="741" height="141" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music05.midi">Listen</a>  <a href="music/music05.ly">View +Lilypond</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Relationships in Beethoven's works.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The C minor Symphony and "Appassionata" sonata.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven's G major Concerto.</i></div> + +<p>Schindler relates that when once he asked Beethoven to tell him what +the F minor and the D minor (Op. 31, No. 2) sonatas meant, he received +for an answer only the enigmatical remark: "Read Shakespeare's +'Tempest.'" Many a student and commentator has since read the +"Tempest" in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents +which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly +associated, only to find himself baffled. It is a fancy, which rests +perhaps too much on outward things, but still one full of suggestion, +that had Beethoven said: "Hear my C minor Symphony," he would have +given a better starting-point to the imagina<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>tion of those who are +seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means +music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those +psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more +to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship +of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the +word tempests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven +himself said indicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the +door of human existence, is common to two works which are also related +in their spiritual contents. Singularly enough, too, in both cases the +struggle which is begun in the first movement and continued in the +third, is interrupted by a period of calm reassuring, soul-fortifying +aspiration, which in the symphony as well as in the sonata takes the +form of a theme with variations. Here, then, the recognition of a +simple rhythmical figure has helped us to an appreciation of the +spiritual unity of the parts of a symphony, and provided a commentary +on the poetical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> contents of a sonata. But the lesson is not yet +exhausted. Again do we find the rhythm coloring the first movement of +the pianoforte concerto in G major:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music06.png" alt="Beethoven G minor piano concerto" width="745" height="160" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music06.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music06.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>Symphony, concerto, and sonata, as the sketch-books of the master +show, were in process of creation at the same time.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>His Seventh Symphony.</i></div> + +<p>Thus far we have been helped in identifying a melody and studying +relationships by the rhythmical structure of a single motive. The +demonstration might be extended on the same line into Beethoven's +symphony in A major, in which the external sign of the poetical idea +which underlies the whole work is also rhythmic—so markedly so that +Wagner characterized it most happily and truthfully when he said that +it was "the apotheosis of the dance." Here it is the dactyl, +<img src="images/dactyl.png" width="50" height="21" alt="dactyl" />, which in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> one variation, or another, clings to us almost as +persistently as in Hood's "Bridge of Sighs:"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"One more unfortunate<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Weary of breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rashly importunate,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gone to her death."</span> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Use of a dactylic figure.</i></div> + +<p>We hear it lightly tripping in the first movement:</p> + + <table border="0" summary="rhythms" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="75%" id="AutoNumber1"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td> + <img src="images/music07.png" alt="rhythm" width="100" height="53" /><p> + <a href="music/music07.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music07.ly">View Lilypond</a></p></td> + <td>and</td> + <td> + <img src="images/music08.png" alt="rhythm" width="133" height="50" /><p> + <a href="music/music08.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music08.ly">View Lilypond</a></p></td> + </tr> + </tbody> + </table> + +<p>gentle, sedate, tender, measured, through its combination with a +spondee in the second:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music09.png" alt="rhythm" width="157" height="53" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music09.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music09.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>cheerily, merrily, jocosely happy in the Scherzo:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music10.png" alt="rhythm" width="102" height="67" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music10.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music10.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>hymn-like in the Trio:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music11.png" alt="rhythm" width="130" height="55" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music11.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music11.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>and wildly bacchanalian when subjected to trochaic abbreviation in the +Finale:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music12.png" alt="rhythm" width="141" height="58" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music12.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music12.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Intervallic characteristics.</i></div> + +<p>Intervallic characteristics may place the badge of relationship upon +melodies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> as distinctly as rhythmic. There is no more perfect +illustration of this than that afforded by Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. +Speaking of the subject of its finale, Sir George Grove says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"And note—while listening to the simple tune itself, before +the variations begin—how <i>very</i> simple it is; the plain +diatonic scale, not a single chromatic interval, and out of +fifty-six notes only three not consecutive."<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The melodies in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.</i></div> + +<p>Earlier in the same work, while combating a statement by Lenz that the +resemblance between the second subject of the first movement and the +choral melody is a "thematic reference of the most striking +importance, vindicating the unity of the entire work, and placing the +whole in a perfectly new light," Sir George says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is, however, very remarkable that so many of the +melodies in the Symphony should consist of consecutive +notes, and that in no less than four of them the notes +should run up a portion of the scale and down +again—apparently pointing to a consistent condition of +Beethoven's mind throughout this work."</p></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Melodic likenesses.</i></div> + +<p>Like Goethe, Beethoven secreted many a mystery in his masterpiece, but +he did not juggle idly with tones, or select the themes of his +symphonies at hap-hazard; he would be open to the charge, however, if +the resemblances which I have pointed out in the Fifth and Seventh +Symphonies, and those disclosed by the following melodies from his +Ninth, should turn out through some incomprehensible revelation to be +mere coincidences:</p> + +<p>From the first movement:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music13.png" alt="Beethoven 9th symphony 1st movement" width="737" height="80" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music13.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music13.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>From the second:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music14.png" alt="Beethoven 9th symphony 2d movement" width="741" height="184" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music14.midi">Listen</a>  +<a href="music/music14.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<img src="images/music15.png" alt="Beethoven 9th symphony 2d movement" width="742" height="71" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music15.midi">Listen</a>  +<a href="music/music15.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<img src="images/music16.png" alt="Beethoven 9th symphony 2d movement" width="736" height="77" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music16.midi">Listen</a>  +<a href="music/music16.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p>The choral melody:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music17.png" alt="Beethoven 9th symphony choral melody" width="743" height="73" /></p> + + <p style="text-align: center"> + +<a href="music/music17.midi">Listen</a>  +<a href="music/music17.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Design and Form.</i></div> + +<p>From a recognition of the beginnings of design, to which +identification of the composer's thematic material and its simpler +relationships will lead, to so much knowledge of Form as will enable +the reader to understand the later chapters in this book, is but a +step.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco04.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="80" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h2><i>The Content and Kinds of Music</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Metaphysics to be avoided herein.</i></div> + +<p><span class="dropcap">B</span><span class="smcap">earing</span> in mind the purpose of this book, I shall not ask the reader +to accompany me far afield in the region of æsthetic philosophy or +musical metaphysics. A short excursion is all that is necessary to +make plain what is meant by such terms as Absolute music, Programme +music, Classical, Romantic, and Chamber music and the like, which not +only confront us continually in discussion, but stand for things which +we must know if we would read programmes understandingly and +appreciate the various phases in which music presents itself to us. It +is interesting and valuable to know why an art-work stirs up +pleasurable feelings within us, and to speculate upon its relations to +the intellect and the emotions; but the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> circumstance that +philosophers have never agreed, and probably never will agree, on +these points, so far as the art of music is concerned, alone suffices +to remove them from the field of this discussion.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Personal equation in judgment.</i></div> + +<p>Intelligent listening is not conditioned upon such knowledge. Even +when the study is begun, the questions whether or not music has a +content beyond itself, where that content is to be sought, and how +defined, will be decided in each case by the student for himself, on +grounds which may be said to be as much in his nature as they are in +the argument. The attitude of man toward the art is an individual one, +and in some of its aspects defies explanation.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A musical fluid.</i></div> + +<p>The amount and kind of pleasure which music gives him are frequently +as much beyond his understanding and control as they are beyond the +understanding and control of the man who sits beside him. They are +consequences of just that particular combination of material and +spiritual elements, just that blending of muscular, nervous, and +cerebral tissues, which make him what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> he is, which segregate him as +an individual from the mass of humanity. We speak of persons as +susceptible or insusceptible to music as we speak of good and poor +conductors of electricity; and the analogy implied here is +particularly apt and striking. If we were still using the scientific +terms of a few decades ago I should say that a musical fluid might yet +be discovered and its laws correlated with those of heat, light, and +electricity. Like them, when reduced to its lowest terms, music is a +form of motion, and it should not be difficult on this analogy to +construct a theory which would account for the physical phenomena +which accompany the hearing of music in some persons, such as the +recession of blood from the face, or an equally sudden suffusion of +the same veins, a contraction of the scalp accompanied by chilliness +or a prickling sensation, or that roughness of the skin called +goose-flesh, "flesh moved by an idea, flesh horripilated by a +thought."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Origin of musical elements.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Feelings and counterpoint.</i></div> + +<p>It has been denied that feelings are the content of music, or that it +is the mission of music to give expression to feel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>ings; but the +scientific fact remains that the fundamental elements of vocal +music—pitch, quality, and dynamic intensity—are the results of +feelings working upon the vocal organs; and even if Mr. Herbert +Spencer's theory be rejected, it is too late now to deny that music is +conceived by its creators as a language of the emotions and so applied +by them. The German philosopher Herbarth sought to reduce the question +to an absurdity by expressing surprise that musicians should still +believe that feelings could be "the proximate cause of the rules of +simple and double counterpoint;" but Dr. Stainer found a sufficient +answer by accepting the proposition as put, and directing attention to +the fact that the feelings of men having first decided what was +pleasurable in polyphony, and the rules of counterpoint having +afterward been drawn from specimens of pleasurable polyphony, it was +entirely correct to say that feelings are the proximate cause of the +laws of counterpoint.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>How composers hear music.</i></div> + +<p>It is because so many of us have been taught by poets and romancers to +think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> that there is a picture of some kind, or a story in every piece +of music, and find ourselves unable to agree upon the picture or the +story in any given case, that confusion is so prevalent among the +musical laity. Composers seldom find difficulty in understanding each +other. They listen for beauty, and if they find it they look for the +causes which have produced it, and in apprehending beauty and +recognizing means and cause they unvolitionally rise to the plane +whence a view of the composer's purposes is clear. Having grasped the +mood of a composition and found that it is being sustained or varied +in a manner accordant with their conceptions of beauty, they occupy +themselves with another kind of differentiation altogether than the +misled disciples of the musical rhapsodists who overlook the general +design and miss the grand proclamation in their search for petty +suggestions for pictures and stories among the details of the +composition. Let musicians testify for us. In his romance, "Ein +Glücklicher Abend," Wagner says:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Wagner's axiom.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"That which music expresses is eternal and ideal. It does +not give voice to the passion, the love, the longing of this +or the other individual, under these or the other +circumstances, but to passion, love, longing itself."</p></div> + +<p>Moritz Hauptmann says:</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Hauptmann's.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The same music will admit of the most varied verbal +expositions, and of not one of them can it be correctly said +that it is exhaustive, the right one, and contains the whole +significance of the music. This significance is contained +most definitely in the music itself. It is not music that is +ambiguous; it says the same thing to everybody; it speaks to +mankind and gives voice only to human feelings. Ambiguity +only then makes its appearance when each person attempts to +formulate in his manner the emotional impression which he +has received, when he attempts to fix and hold the ethereal +essence of music, to utter the unutterable."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mendelssohn's.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The "Songs without Words."</i></div> + +<p>Mendelssohn inculcated the same lesson in a letter which he wrote to a +young poet who had given titles to a number of the composer's "Songs +Without Words," and incorporated what he conceived to be their +sentiments in a set of poems. He sent his work to Mendelssohn with the +request that the composer inform the writer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> whether or not he had +succeeded in catching the meaning of the music. He desired the +information because "music's capacity for expression is so vague and +indeterminate." Mendelssohn replied:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"You give the various numbers of the book such titles as 'I +Think of Thee,' 'Melancholy,' 'The Praise of God,' 'A Merry +Hunt.' I can scarcely say whether I thought of these or +other things while composing the music. Another might find +'I Think of Thee' where you find 'Melancholy,' and a real +huntsman might consider 'A Merry Hunt' a veritable 'Praise +of God.' But this is not because, as you think, music is +vague. On the contrary, I believe that musical expression is +altogether too definite, that it reaches regions and dwells +in them whither words cannot follow it and must necessarily +go lame when they make the attempt as you would have them +do."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The tonal language.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Herbert Spencer's definition.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Natural expression.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Absolute music.</i></div> + +<p>If I were to try to say why musicians, great musicians, speak thus of +their art, my explanation would be that they have developed, farther +than the rest of mankind have been able to develop it, a language of +tones, which, had it been so willed, might have been developed so as +to fill the place now occupied by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> articulate speech. Herbert Spencer, +though speaking purely as a scientific investigator, not at all as an +artist, defined music as "a language of feelings which may ultimately +enable men vividly and completely to impress on each other the +emotions they experience from moment to moment." We rely upon speech +to do this now, but ever and anon when, in a moment of emotional +exaltation, we are deserted by the articulate word we revert to the +emotional cry which antedates speech, and find that that cry is +universally understood because it is universally felt. More than +speech, if its primitive element of emotionality be omitted, more than +the primitive language of gesture, music is a natural mode of +expression. All three forms have attained their present stage of +development through conventions. Articulate speech has led in the +development; gesture once occupied a high plane (in the pantomimic +dance of the ancients) but has now retrograded; music, supreme at the +outset, then neglected, is but now pushing forward into the place +which its nature entitles it to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> occupy. When we conceive of an +art-work composed of such elements, and foregoing the adventitious +helps which may accrue to it from conventional idioms based on +association of ideas, we have before us the concept of Absolute music, +whose content, like that of every noble artistic composition, be it of +tones or forms or colors or thoughts expressed in words, is that high +ideal of goodness, truthfulness, and beauty for which all lofty +imaginations strive. Such artworks are the instrumental compositions +in the classic forms; such, too, may be said to be the high type of +idealized "Programme" music, which, like the "Pastoral" symphony of +Beethoven, is designed to awaken emotions like those awakened by the +contemplation of things, but does not attempt to depict the things +themselves. Having mentioned Programme music I must, of course, try to +tell what it is; but the exposition must be preceded by an explanation +of a kind of music which, because of its chastity, is set down as the +finest form of absolute music. This is Chamber music.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Chamber music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>History of the term.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Haydn a servant.</i></div> + +<p>In a broad sense, but one not employed in modern definition, Chamber +music is all music not designed for performance in the church or +theatre. (Out-of-door music cannot be considered among these artistic +forms of aristocratic descent.) Once, and indeed at the time of its +invention, the term meant music designed especially for the +delectation of the most eminent patrons of the art—the kings and +nobles whose love for it gave it maintenance and encouragement. This +is implied by the term itself, which has the same etymology wherever +the form of music is cultivated. In Italian it is <i>Musica da Camera</i>; +in French, <i>Musique de Chambre</i>; in German, <i>Kammermusik</i>. All the +terms have a common root. The Greek <span lang="el" title="Greek: kamara">καμαρα</span> signified an arch, +a vaulted room, or a covered wagon. In the time of the Frankish kings +the word was applied to the room in the royal palace in which the +monarch's private property was kept, and in which he looked after his +private affairs. When royalty took up the cultivation of music it was +as a private, not as a court, function, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> concerts given for +the entertainment of the royal family took place in the king's +chamber, or private room. The musicians were nothing more nor less +than servants in the royal household. This relationship endured into +the present century. Haydn was a <i>Hausofficier</i> of Prince Esterhazy. +As vice-chapelmaster he had to appear every morning in the Prince's +ante-room to receive orders concerning the dinner-music and other +entertainments of the day, and in the certificate of appointment his +conduct is regulated with a particularity which we, who remember him +and reverence his genius but have forgotten his master, think +humiliating in the extreme.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven's Chamber music.</i></div> + +<p>Out of this cultivation of music in the private chamber grew the +characteristics of Chamber music, which we must consider if we would +enjoy it ourselves and understand the great reverence which the great +masters of music have always felt for it. Beethoven was the first +great democrat among musicians. He would have none of the shackles +which his predecessors wore, and compelled aristocracy of birth to bow +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> aristocracy of genius. But such was his reverence for the style of +music which had grown up in the chambers of the great that he devoted +the last three years of his life almost exclusively to its +composition; the peroration of his proclamation to mankind consists of +his last quartets—the holiest of holy things to the Chamber musicians +of to-day.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The characteristics of Chamber music.</i></div> + +<p>Chamber music represents pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep +learning. These attributes are encouraged by the idea of privacy which +is inseparable from the form. Composers find it the finest field for +the display of their talents because their own skill in creating is to +be paired with trained skill in hearing. Its representative pieces are +written for strings alone—trios, quartets, and quintets. With the +strings are sometimes associated a pianoforte, or one or more of the +solo wind instruments—oboe, clarinet, or French horn; and as a rule +the compositions adhere to classical lines (see <a href="#V">Chapter V.</a>). Of +necessity the modesty of the apparatus compels it to fore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>go nearly +all the adventitious helps with which other forms of composition gain +public approval. In the delineative arts Chamber music shows analogy +with correct drawing and good composition, the absence of which cannot +be atoned for by the most gorgeous coloring. In no other style is +sympathy between performers and listeners so necessary, and for that +reason Chamber music should always be heard in a small room with +performers and listeners joined in angelic wedlock. Communities in +which it flourishes under such conditions are musical.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Programme music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The value of superscriptions.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The rule of judgment.</i></div> + +<p>Properly speaking, the term Programme music ought to be applied only +to instrumental compositions which make a frank effort to depict +scenes, incidents, or emotional processes to which the composer +himself gives the clew either by means of a descriptive title or a +verbal motto. It is unfortunate that the term has come to be loosely +used. In a high sense the purest and best music in the world is +programmatic, its programme being, as I have said, that "high ideal of +goodness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> truthfulness, and beauty" which is the content of all true +art. But the origin of the term was vulgar, and the most contemptible +piece of tonal imitation now claims kinship in the popular mind with +the exquisitely poetical creations of Schumann and the "Pastoral" +symphony of Beethoven; and so it is become necessary to defend it in +the case of noble compositions. A programme is not necessarily, as +Ambros asserts, a certificate of poverty and an admission on the part +of the composer that his art has got beyond its natural bounds. +Whether it be merely a suggestive title, as in the case of some of the +compositions of Beethoven, Schumann, and Mendelssohn, or an extended +commentary, as in the symphonic poems of Liszt and the symphonies of +Berlioz and Raff, the programme has a distinct value to the composer +as well as the hearer. It can make the perceptive sense more +impressible to the influence of the music; it can quicken the fancy, +and fire the imagination; it can prevent a gross misconception of the +intentions of a composer and the character of his composi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>tion. +Nevertheless, in determining the artistic value of the work, the +question goes not to the ingenuity of the programme or the clearness +with which its suggestions have been carried out, but to the beauty of +the music itself irrespective of the verbal commentary accompanying +it. This rule must be maintained in order to prevent a degradation of +the object of musical expression. The vile, the ugly, the painful are +not fit subjects for music; music renounces, contravenes, negatives +itself when it attempts their delineation.</p> + +<p>A classification of Programme music might be made on these lines:</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Kinds of Programme music.</i></div> + +<p>I. Descriptive pieces which rest on imitation or suggestion of natural +sounds.</p> + +<p>II. Pieces whose contents are purely musical, but the mood of which is +suggested by a poetical title.</p> + +<p>III. Pieces in which the influence which determined their form and +development is indicated not only by a title but also by a motto which +is relied upon to mark out a train of thought for the listener which +will bring his fancy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> into union with that of the composer. The motto +may be verbal or pictorial.</p> + +<p>IV. Symphonies or other composite works which have a title to indicate +their general character, supplemented by explanatory superscriptions +for each portion.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Imitation of natural sounds.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The nightingale.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The cat.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The cuckoo.</i></div> + +<p>The first of these divisions rests upon the employment of the lowest +form of conventional musical idiom. The material which the natural +world provides for imitation by the musician is exceedingly scant. +Unless we descend to mere noise, as in the descriptions of storms and +battles (the shrieking of the wind, the crashing of thunder, and the +roar of artillery—invaluable aids to the cheap descriptive writer), +we have little else than the calls of a few birds. Nearly thirty years +ago Wilhelm Tappert wrote an essay which he called "Zooplastik in +Tönen." He ransacked the musical literature of centuries, but in all +his examples the only animals the voices of which are unmistakable are +four fowls—the cuckoo, quail (that is the German bird, not the +American, which has a different call), the cock, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> the hen. He has +many descriptive sounds which suggest other birds and beasts, but only +by association of idea; separated from title or text they suggest +merely what they are—musical phrases. A reiteration of the rhythmical +figure called the "Scotch snap," breaking gradually into a trill, is +the common symbol of the nightingale's song, but it is not a copy of +that song; three or four tones descending chromatically are given as +the cat's mew, but they are made to be such only by placing the +syllables <i>Mi-au</i> (taken from the vocabulary of the German cat) under +them. Instances of this kind might be called characterization, or +description by suggestion, and some of the best composers have made +use of them, as will appear in these pages presently. The list being +so small, and the lesson taught so large, it may be well to give a few +striking instances of absolutely imitative music. The first bird to +collaborate with a composer seems to have been the cuckoo, whose notes</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music18.png" alt="Music: Cuckoo!" width="174" height="96" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music18.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music18.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>had sounded in many a folk-song ere Beethoven thought of enlisting the +little solo performer in his "Pastoral" symphony. It is to be borne in +mind, however, as a fact having some bearing on the artistic value of +Programme music, that Beethoven's cuckoo changes his note to please +the musician, and, instead of singing a minor third, he sings a major +third thus:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music19.png" alt="Music: Cuckoo!" width="143" height="91" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music19.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music19.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Cock and hen.</i></div> + +<p>As long ago as 1688 Jacob Walter wrote a musical piece entitled +"Gallina et Gallo," in which the hen was delineated in this theme:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music20.png" alt="Music: Gallina" width="733" height="173" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music20.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music20.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p>while the cock had the upper voice in the following example, his clear +challenge sounding above the cackling of his mate:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music21.png" alt="Music: Gallo" width="683" height="151" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music21.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music21.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p>The most effective use yet made of the song of the hen, however, is in +"La Poule," one of Rameau's "Pièces de Clavecin," printed in 1736, a +delightful composition with this subject:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music22.png" alt="Music: Co co co co co co co dai, etc." width="732" height="102" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music22.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music22.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The quail.</i></div> + +<p>The quail's song is merely a monotonic rhythmical figure to which +German fancy has fitted words of pious admonition:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music23.png" alt="Music: Fürchte Gott! Lobe Gott!" width="734" height="92" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music23.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music23.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Conventional idioms.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Association of ideas.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Fancy and imagination.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Harmony and emotionality.</i></div> + +<p>The paucity of examples in this department is a demonstration of the +state<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>ment made elsewhere that nature does not provide music with +models for imitation as it does painting and sculpture. The fact that, +nevertheless, we have come to recognize a large number of idioms based +on association of ideas stands the composer in good stead whenever he +ventures into the domain of delineative or descriptive music, and this +he can do without becoming crudely imitative. Repeated experiences +have taught us to recognize resemblances between sequences or +combinations of tones and things or ideas, and on these analogies, +even though they be purely conventional (that is agreed upon, as we +have agreed that a nod of the head shall convey assent, a shake of the +head dissent, and a shrug of the shoulders doubt or indifference), the +composers have built up a voluminous vocabulary of idioms which need +only to be helped out by a suggestion to the mind to be eloquently +illustrative. "Sometimes hearing a melody or harmony arouses an +emotion like that aroused by the contemplation of a thing. Minor +harmonies, slow movements, dark tonal col<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>orings, combine directly to +put a musically susceptible person in a mood congenial to thoughts of +sorrow and death; and, inversely, the experience of sorrow, or the +contemplation of death, creates affinity for minor harmonies, slow +movements, and dark tonal colorings. Or we recognize attributes in +music possessed also by things, and we consort the music and the +things, external attributes bringing descriptive music into play, +which excites the fancy, internal attributes calling for an exercise +of the loftier faculty, imagination, to discern their meaning."<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> The +latter kind is delineative music of the higher order, the kind that I +have called idealized programme music, for it is the imagination +which, as Ruskin has said, "sees the heart and inner nature and makes +them felt, but is often obscure, mysterious, and interrupted in its +giving out of outer detail," which is "a seer in the prophetic sense, +calling the things that are not as though they were, and forever +delighting to dwell on that which <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>is not tangibly present." In this +kind of music, harmony, the real seat of emotionality in music, is an +eloquent factor, and, indeed, there is no greater mystery in the art, +which is full of mystery, than the fact that the lowering of the +second tone in the chord, which is the starting-point of harmony, +should change an expression of satisfaction, energetic action, or +jubilation into an accent of pain or sorrow. The major mode is "to +do," the minor, "to suffer:"</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Major and minor.</i></div> + +<p> +<img src="images/music24.png" alt="Music: Hurrah! Alas!" width="217" height="94" /></p> + +<p><a href="music/music24.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music24.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Music and movement.</i></div> +<div class="sidenote"><i>Handel's frogs.</i></div> + + +<p>How near a large number of suggestions, which are based wholly upon +experience or association of ideas, lie to the popular fancy, might be +illustrated by scores of examples. Thoughts of religious functions +arise in us the moment we hear the trombones intone a solemn phrase in +full harmony; an oboe melody in sixth-eighth time over a drone bass +brings up a pastoral picture of a shepherd playing upon his pipe; +trumpets and drums suggest war, and so on. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> delineation of +movement is easier to the musician than it is to the poet. Handel, who +has conveyed the sensation of a "darkness which might be felt," in a +chorus of his "Israel in Egypt," by means which appeal solely to the +imagination stirred by feelings, has in the same work pictured the +plague of frogs with a frank <i>naïveté</i> which almost upsets our +seriousness of demeanor, by suggesting the characteristic movement of +the creatures in the instrumental accompaniment to the arioso, "Their +land brought forth frogs," which begins thus:</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music25.png" alt="Handel's frogs" width="740" height="131" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music25.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music25.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The movement of water.</i></div> + +<p>We find the gentle flux and reflux of water as if it were lapping a +rocky shore in the exquisite figure out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> which Mendelssohn +constructed his "Hebrides" overture:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music26.png" alt="Hebrides Overture" width="740" height="138" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music26.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music26.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p>and in fancy we ride on mighty surges when we listen to the principal +subject of Rubinstein's "Ocean" symphony:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music27.png" alt="Ocean Symphony" width="739" height="153" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music27.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music27.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p>In none of these instances can the composer be said to be imitative. +Music cannot copy water, but it can do what water does, and so suggest +water.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>High and low.</i></div> + +<p>Some of the most common devices of composers are based on conceptions +that are wholly arbitrary. A musical tone cannot have position in +space such as is indicated by high or low, yet so familiar is the +association of acuteness of pitch with height, and gravity of pitch +with depth, that composers continually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> delineate high things with +acute tones and low things with grave tones, as witness Handel in one +of the choruses of "The Messiah:"</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music28.png" alt="Music: Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth" width="736" height="97" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music28.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music28.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Ascent, descent, and distance delineated.</i></div> + +<p>Similarly, too, does Beethoven describe the ascent into heaven and the +descent into hell in the Credo of his mass in D. Beethoven's music, +indeed, is full of tone-painting, and because it exemplifies a double +device I make room for one more illustration. It is from the cantata +"Becalmed at Sea, and a Prosperous Voyage," and in it the composer +pictures the immensity of the sea by a sudden, extraordinary spreading +out of his harmonies, which is musical, and dwelling a long time on +the word "distance" (<i>Weite</i>) which is rhetorical:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music29.png" alt="Music: In der ungeheu'ren Weite" width="744" height="176" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music29.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music29.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bald imitation bad art.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Vocal music and delineation.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven's canon.</i></div> + +<p>The extent to which tone-painting is justified is a question which +might profitably concern us; but such a discussion as it deserves +would far exceed the limits set for this book, and must be foregone. +It cannot be too forcibly urged, however, as an aid to the listener, +that efforts at musical cartooning have never been made by true +composers, and that in the degree that music attempts simply to copy +external things it falls in the scale of artistic truthfulness and +value. Vocal music tolerates more of the descriptive element than +instrumental because it is a mixed art; in it the purpose of music is +to illustrate the poetry and, by intensifying the appeal to the fancy, +to warm the emotions. Every piece of vocal music, moreover, carries +its explanatory programme in its words. Still more tolerable and even +righteous is it in the opera where it is but one of several factors +which labor together to make up the sum of dramatic representation. +But it must ever remain valueless unless it be idealized. Mendelssohn, +desiring to put <i>Bully Bottom</i> into the overture to "A Midsummer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +Night's Dream," did not hesitate to use tones which suggest the bray +of a donkey, yet the effect, like Handel's frogs and flies in +"Israel," is one of absolute musical value. The canon which ought +continually to be before the mind of the listener is that which +Beethoven laid down with most painstaking care when he wrote the +"Pastoral" symphony. Desiring to inform the listeners what were the +images which inspired the various movements (in order, of course, that +they might the better enter into the work by recalling them), he gave +each part a superscription thus:</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The "Pastoral" symphony.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I. "The agreeable and cheerful sensations awakened by +arrival in the country."</p> + +<p>II. "Scene by the brook."</p> + +<p>III. "A merrymaking of the country folk."</p> + +<p>IV. "Thunder-storm."</p> + +<p>V. "Shepherds' song—feelings of charity combined with +gratitude to the Deity after the storm."</p></div> + +<p>In the title itself he included an admonitory explanation which should +have everlasting validity: "Pastoral Symphony; more expression of +feeling than painting." How seriously he thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> on the subject we +know from his sketch-books, in which occur a number of notes, some of +which were evidently hints for superscriptions, some records of his +convictions on the subject of descriptive music. The notes are +reprinted in Nottebohm's "Zweite Beethoveniana," but I borrow Sir +George Grove's translation:</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven's notes on descriptive music.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The hearers should be allowed to discover the situations."</p> + +<p>"Sinfonia caracteristica, or a recollection of country +life."</p> + +<p>"All painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a +failure."</p> + +<p>"Sinfonia pastorella. Anyone who has an idea of country life +can make out for himself the intentions of the author +without many titles."</p> + +<p>"People will not require titles to recognize the general +intention to be more a matter of feeling than of painting in +sounds."</p> + +<p>"Pastoral symphony: No picture, but something in which the +emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by the +pleasure of the country (or), in which some feelings of +country life are set forth."<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> +<p>As to the relation of programme to music Schumann laid down an +admirable maxim when he said that while good music was not harmed by a +descriptive title it was a bad indication if a composition needed one.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Classic and Romantic.</i></div> + +<p>There are, among all the terms used in music, no words of vaguer +meaning than Classic and Romantic. The idea which they convey most +widely in conjunction is that of antithesis. When the Romantic School +of composers is discussed it is almost universally presented as +something opposed in character to the Classical School. There is +little harm in this if we but bear in mind that all the terms which +have come into use to describe different phases of musical development +are entirely artificial and arbitrary—that they do not stand for +anything absolute, but only serve as platforms of observation. If the +terms had a fixed meaning we ought to be able, since they have +established themselves in the language of history and criticism, to +describe unambiguously and define clearly the boundary which separates +them. This, however, is im<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>possible. Each generation, nay, each +decade, fixes the meaning of the words for itself and decides what +works shall go into each category. It ought to be possible to discover +a principle, a touchstone, which shall emancipate us from the +mischievous and misleading notions that have so long prompted men to +make the partitions between the schools out of dates and names.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Trench's definition of "classical."</i></div> + +<p>The terms were borrowed from literary criticism; but even there, in +the words of Archbishop Trench, "they either say nothing at all or say +something erroneous." Classical has more to defend it than Romantic, +because it has greater antiquity and, in one sense, has been used with +less arbitrariness.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The term," says Trench, "is drawn from the political +economy of Rome. Such a man was rated as to his income in +the third class, such another in the fourth, and so on, and +he who was in the highest was emphatically said to be of the +class, <i>classicus</i>, a class man, without adding the number +as in that case superfluous; while all others were <i>infra +classem</i>. Hence by an obvious analogy the best authors were +rated as <i>classici</i>, or men of the highest class; just as in +English we say 'men of rank'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> absolutely for men who are in +the highest ranks of the State."</p></div> + +<p>Thus Trench, and his historical definition, explains why in music also +there is something more than a lurking suggestion of excellence in the +conception of "classical;" but that fact does not put away the quarrel +which we feel exists between Classic and Romantic.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Romantic in literature.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Schumann and Jean Paul.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Weber's operas.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mendelssohn.</i></div> + +<p>As applied to literature Romantic was an adjective affected by certain +poets, first in Germany, then in France, who wished to introduce a +style of thought and expression different from that of those who +followed old models. Intrinsically, of course, the term does not imply +any such opposition but only bears witness to the source from which +the poets drew their inspiration. This was the imaginative literature +of the Middle Ages, the fantastical stories of chivalry and knighthood +written in the Romance, or Romanic languages, such as Italian, +Spanish, and Provençal. The principal elements of these stories were +the marvellous and the supernatural. The composers whose names first +spring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> into our minds when we think of the Romantic School are men +like Mendelssohn and Schumann, who drew much of their inspiration from +the young writers of their time who were making war on stilted +rhetoric and conventionalism of phrase. Schumann touches hands with +the Romantic poets in their strivings in two directions. His artistic +conduct, especially in his early years, is inexplicable if Jean Paul +be omitted from the equation. His music rebels against the formalism +which had held despotic sway over the art, and also seeks to disclose +the beauty which lies buried in the world of mystery in and around us, +and give expression to the multitude of emotions to which unyielding +formalism had refused adequate utterance. This, I think, is the chief +element of Romanticism. Another has more of an external nature and +genesis, and this we find in the works of such composers as Von Weber, +who is Romantic chiefly in his operas, because of the supernaturalism +and chivalry in their stories, and Mendelssohn, who, while distinctly +Romantic in many of his strivings, was yet so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> great a master of form, +and so attached to it, that the Romantic side of him was not fully +developed.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A definition of "Classical" in music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The creative and conservative principles.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Musical laws of necessity progressive.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach and Romanticism.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Creation and conservation.</i></div> + +<p>If I were to attempt a definition it would be this: Classical +composers are those of the first rank (to this extent we yield to the +ancient Roman conception) who have developed music to the highest +pitch of perfection on its formal side and, in obedience to generally +accepted laws, preferring æsthetic beauty, pure and simple, over +emotional content, or, at any rate, refusing to sacrifice form to +characteristic expression. Romantic composers are those who have +sought their ideals in other regions and striven to give expression to +them irrespective of the restrictions and limitations of form and the +conventions of law—composers with whom, in brief, content outweighs +manner. This definition presents Classicism as the regulative and +conservative principle in the history of the art, and Romanticism as +the progressive, regenerative, and creative principle. It is easy to +see how the notion of contest between them grew up, and the only harm +which can come from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> such a notion will ensue only if we shut our eyes +to the fact that it is a contest between two elements whose very +opposition stimulates life, and whose union, perfect, peaceful, +mutually supplemental, is found in every really great art-work. No law +which fixes, and hence limits, form, can remain valid forever. Its end +is served when it enforces itself long enough to keep lawlessness in +check till the test of time has determined what is sound, sweet, and +wholesome in the innovations which are always crowding eagerly into +every creative activity in art and science. In art it is ever true, as +<i>Faust</i> concludes, that "In the beginning was the deed." The laws of +composition are the products of compositions; and, being such, they +cannot remain unalterable so long as the impulse freshly to create +remains. All great men are ahead of their time, and in all great +music, no matter when written, you shall find instances of profounder +meaning and deeper or newer feeling than marked the generality of +contemporary compositions. So Bach frequently floods his formal +utterances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> with Romantic feeling, and the face of Beethoven, serving +at the altar in the temple of Beauty, is transfigured for us by divine +light. The principles of creation and conservation move onward +together, and what is Romantic to-day becomes Classic to-morrow. +Romanticism is fluid Classicism. It is the emotional stimulus +informing Romanticism which calls music into life, but no sooner is it +born, free, untrammelled, nature's child, than the regulative +principle places shackles upon it; but it is enslaved only that it may +become and remain art.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco05.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="102" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h2><i>The Modern Orchestra</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The orchestra as an instrument.<br /> +What may be heard from a band.</i></div> + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="smcap">he</span> most eloquent, potent, and capable instrument of music in the +world is the modern orchestra. It is the instrument whose employment +by the classical composers and the geniuses of the Romantic School in +the middle of our century marks the high tide of the musical art. It +is an instrument, moreover, which is never played upon without giving +a great object-lesson in musical analysis, without inviting the eye to +help the ear to discern the cause of the sounds which ravish our +senses and stir up pleasurable emotions. Yet the popular knowledge of +its constituent parts, of the individual value and mission of the +factors which go to make up its sum, is scarcely greater than the +popular knowledge of the structure of a sym<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>phony or sonata. All this +is the more deplorable since at least a rudimentary knowledge of these +things might easily be gained, and in gaining it the student would +find a unique intellectual enjoyment, and have his ears unconsciously +opened to a thousand beauties in the music never perceived before. He +would learn, for instance, to distinguish the characteristic timbre of +each of the instruments in the band; and after that to the delight +found in what may be called the primary colors he would add that which +comes from analyzing the vast number of tints which are the products +of combination. Noting the capacity of the various instruments and the +manner in which they are employed, he would get glimpses into the +mental workshop of the composer. He would discover that there are +conventional means of expression in his art analogous to those in the +other arts; and collating his methods with the effects produced, he +would learn something of the creative artist's purposes. He would find +that while his merely sensuous enjoyment would be left unimpaired, and +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> emotional excitement which is a legitimate fruit of musical +performance unchecked, these pleasures would have others consorted +with them. His intellectual faculties would be agreeably excited, and +he would enjoy the pleasures of memory, which are exemplified in music +more delightfully and more frequently than in any other art, because +of the rôle which repetition of parts plays in musical composition.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Familiar instruments.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The instrumental choirs.</i></div> + +<p>The argument is as valid in the study of musical forms as in the study +of the orchestra, but it is the latter that is our particular business +in this chapter. Everybody listening to an orchestral concert +recognizes the physical forms of the violins, flutes, cornets, and big +drum; but even of these familiar instruments the voices are not always +recognized. As for the rest of the harmonious fraternity, few give +heed to them, even while enjoying the music which they produce; yet +with a few words of direction anybody can study the instruments of the +band at an orchestral concert. Let him first recognize the fact that +to the mind of a composer an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> orchestra always presents itself as a +combination of four groups of instruments—choirs, let us call them, +with unwilling apology to the lexicographers. These choirs are: first, +the viols of four sorts—violins, violas, violoncellos, and +double-basses, spoken of collectively as the "string quartet;" second, +the wind instruments of wood (the "wood-winds" in the musician's +jargon)—flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons; third, the wind +instruments of brass (the "brass")—trumpets, horns, trombones, and +bass tuba. In all of these subdivisions there are numerous variations +which need not detain us now. A further subdivision might be made in +each with reference to the harmony voices (showing an analogy with the +four voices of a vocal choir—soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass); +but to go into this might make the exposition confusing. The fourth +"choir" (here the apology to the lexicographers must be repeated with +much humility and earnestness) consists of the instruments of +percussion—the kettle-drums, big drum, cymbals, triangle, bell chime, +etc. (sometimes spoken of collectively in the United States as "the +battery").</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/image01.png" alt="SEATING PLAN OF THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY" width="600" height="343" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><b>SEATING PLAN OF THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.</b></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>How orchestras are seated.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Plan of the New York Philharmonic.</i></div> + +<p>The disposition of these instruments in our orchestras is largely a +matter of individual taste and judgment in the conductor, though the +general rule is exemplified in the plan given herewith, showing how +Mr. Anton Seidl has arranged the desks for the concerts of the +Philharmonic Society of New York. Mr. Theodore Thomas's arrangement +differed very little from that of Mr. Seidl, the most noticeable +difference being that he placed the viola-players beside the second +violinists, where Mr. Seidl has the violoncellists. Mr. Seidl's +purpose in making the change was to gain an increase in sonority for +the viola part, the position to the right of the stage (the left of +the audience) enabling the viola-players to hold their instruments +with the F-holes toward the listeners instead of away from them. The +relative positions of the harmonious battalions, as a rule, are as +shown in the diagram. In the foreground, the violins, violas, and +'cellos; in the middle distance, the wood-winds; in the back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>ground, +the brass and the battery; the double-basses flanking the whole body. +This distribution of forces is dictated by considerations of sonority, +the most assertive instruments—the brass and drums—being placed +farthest from the hearers, and the instruments of the viol tribe, +which are the real backbone of the band and make their effect by a +massing of voices in each part, having the place of honor and greatest +advantage. Of course it is understood that I am speaking of a concert +orchestra. In the case of theatrical or operatic bands the arrangement +of the forces is dependent largely upon the exigencies of space.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Solo instruments.</i></div> + +<p>Outside the strings the instruments are treated by composers as solo +instruments, a single flute, oboe, clarinet, or other wind instrument +sometimes doing the same work in the development of the composition as +the entire body of first violins. As a rule, the wood-winds are used +in pairs, the purpose of this being either to fill the harmony when +what I may call the principal thought of the composition is consigned +to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> particular choir, or to strengthen a voice by permitting two +instruments to play in unison.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Groupings for harmony effects.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Wagner's instrumental characterization.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>An instrumental language.</i></div> + +<p>Each choir, except the percussion instruments, is capable of playing +in full harmony; and this effect is frequently used by composers. In +"Lohengrin," which for that reason affords to the amateur an admirable +opportunity for orchestral study, Wagner resorts to this device in +some instances for the sake of dramatic characterization. <i>Elsa</i>, a +dreamy, melancholy maiden, crushed under the weight of wrongful +accusation, and sustained only by the vision of a seraphic champion +sent by Heaven to espouse her cause, is accompanied on her entrance +and sustained all through her scene of trial by the dulcet tones of +the wood-winds, the oboe most often carrying the melody. <i>Lohengrin's</i> +superterrestrial character as a Knight of the Holy Grail is prefigured +in the harmonies which seem to stream from the violins, and in the +prelude tell of the bringing of the sacred vessel of Christ's passion +to Monsalvat; but in his chivalric character he is greeted by the +mili<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>tant trumpets in a strain of brilliant puissance and rhythmic +energy. Composers have studied the voices of the instruments so long +and well, and have noted the kind of melodies and harmonies in which +the voices are most effective, that they have formulated what might +almost be called an instrumental language. Though the effective +capacity of each instrument is restricted not only by its mechanics, +but also by the quality of its tones—a melody conceived for one +instrument sometimes becoming utterly inexpressive and unbeautiful by +transferrence to another—the range of effects is extended almost to +infinity by means of combination, or, as a painter might say, by +mixing the colors. The art of writing effectively for instruments in +combination is the art of instrumentation or orchestration, in which +Berlioz and Wagner were Past Grand Masters.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Number of instruments.</i></div> + +<p>The number of instruments of each kind in an orchestra may also be +said to depend measurably upon the music, or the use to which the band +is to be put. Neither in instruments nor in numbers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> is there absolute +identity between a dramatic and a symphonic orchestra. The apparatus +of the former is generally much more varied and complex, because of +the vast development of variety in dramatic expression stimulated by +Wagner.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Symphony and dramatic orchestras.</i></div> + +<p>The modern symphony, especially the symphonic poem, shows the +influence of this dramatic tendency, but not in the same degree. A +comparison between model bands in each department will disclose what +is called the normal orchestral organization. For the comparison (see +page <a href="#Page_82">82</a>), I select the bands of the first Wagner Festival held in +Bayreuth in 1876, the Philharmonic Society of New York, the Boston +Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Instruments rarely used.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Orchestras compared.</i></div> + +<p>Instruments like the corno di bassetto, bass trumpet, tenor tuba, +contra-bass tuba, and contra-bass trombone are so seldom called for in +the music played by concert orchestras that they have no place in +their regular lists. They are employed when needed, however, and the +horns and other instruments are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> multiplied when desirable effects are +to be obtained by such means.</p> + +<p> </p> + + <table border="1" summary="Orchestras Compared" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="100%" id="AutoNumber5"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td><b>Instruments</b></td> + <td><b>Bayreuth.</b></td> + <td><b>New York Philharmonic.</b></td> + <td><b>Boston.</b></td> + <td><b>Chicago.</b></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>First violins</td> + <td>16</td> + <td>18</td> + <td>16</td> + <td>16</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Second violins</td> + <td>16</td> + <td>18</td> + <td>14</td> + <td>16</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Violas</td> + <td>12</td> + <td>14</td> + <td>10</td> + <td>10</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Violoncellos</td> + <td>12</td> + <td>14</td> + <td> 8</td> + <td>10</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Double-basses</td> + <td> 8</td> + <td>14</td> + <td> 8</td> + <td> 9</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Flutes</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Oboes</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 2</td> + <td> 3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>English horn</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Clarinets</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Basset-horn</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 0</td> + <td> 0</td> + <td> 0</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bassoons</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Trumpets or cornets</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 4</td> + <td> 4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Horns</td> + <td> 8</td> + <td> 4</td> + <td> 4</td> + <td> 4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Trombones</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + <td> 3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bass trumpet</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 0</td> + <td> 0</td> + <td> 1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tenor tubas</td> + <td> 2</td> + <td> 0</td> + <td> 2</td> + <td> 4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bass tubas</td> + <td> 2</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 2</td> + <td> 1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Contra-bass tuba</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 0</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 0</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Contra-bass trombone</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 0</td> + <td> 0</td> + <td> 1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tympani (pairs)</td> + <td> 2</td> + <td> 2</td> + <td> 2</td> + <td> 2</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bass drum</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cymbals (pairs)</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Harps<br /> + </td> + <td> 6</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 1</td> + <td> 2</td> + </tr> + </tbody> + </table> + +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The string quartet.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Old laws against instrumentalists.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Early instrumentation.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Handel's orchestra.</i></div> + +<p>The string quartet, it will be seen, makes up nearly three-fourths of +a well-balanced orchestra. It is the only choir which has numerous +representation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> its constituent units. This was not always so, but +is the fruit of development in the art of instrumentation which is the +newest department in music. Vocal music had reached its highest point +before instrumental music made a beginning as an art. The former was +the pampered child of the Church, the latter was long an outlaw. As +late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries instrumentalists were +vagabonds in law, like strolling players. They had none of the rights +of citizenship; the religious sacraments were denied them; their +children were not permitted to inherit property or learn an honourable +trade; and after death the property for which they had toiled +escheated to the crown. After the instruments had achieved the +privilege of artistic utterance, they were for a long time mere +slavish imitators of the human voice. Bach treated them with an +insight into their possibilities which was far in advance of his time, +for which reason he is the most modern composer of the first half of +the eighteenth century; but even in Handel's case the rule was to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +treat them chiefly as supports for the voices. He multiplied them just +as he did the voices in his choruses, consorting a choir of oboes and +bassoons, and another of trumpets of almost equal numbers with his +violins.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The modern band.</i></div> + +<p>The so-called purists in England talk a great deal about restoring +Handel's orchestra in performances of his oratorios, utterly unmindful +of the fact that to our ears, accustomed to the myriad-hued orchestra +of to-day, the effect would seem opaque, heavy, unbalanced, and +without charm were a band of oboes to play in unison with the violins, +another of bassoons to double the 'cellos, and half a dozen trumpets +to come flaring and crashing into the musical mass at intervals. Gluck +in the opera, and Haydn and Mozart in the symphony, first disclosed +the charm of the modern orchestra with the wind instruments +apportioned to the strings so as to obtain the multitude of tonal +tints which we admire to-day. On the lines which they marked out the +progress has been exceedingly rapid and far-reaching.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Capacity of the orchestra.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The extremes of range.</i></div> + +<p>In the hands of the latter-day Romantic composers, and with the help +of the instrument-makers, who have marvellously increased the capacity +of the wind instruments, and remedied the deficiencies which +embarrassed the Classical writers, the orchestra has developed into an +instrument such as never entered the mind of the wildest dreamer of +the last century. Its range of expression is almost infinite. It can +strike like a thunder-bolt, or murmur like a zephyr. Its voices are +multitudinous. Its register is coextensive in theory with that of the +modern pianoforte, reaching from the space immediately below the sixth +added line under the bass staff to the ninth added line above the +treble staff. These two extremes, which belong respectively to the +bass tuba and piccolo flute, are not at the command of every player, +but they are within the capacity of the instruments, and mark the +orchestra's boundaries in respect of pitch. The gravest note is almost +as deep as any in which the ordinary human ear can detect pitch, and +the acutest reaches the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> same extremity in the opposite direction.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The viols.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The violin.</i></div> + +<p>With all the changes that have come over the orchestra in the course +of the last two hundred years, the string quartet has remained its +chief factor. Its voice cannot grow monotonous or cloying, for, +besides its innate qualities, it commands a more varied manner of +expression than all the other instruments combined. The viol, which +term I shall use generically to indicate all the instruments of the +quartet, is the only instrument in the band, except the harp, that can +play harmony as well as melody. Its range is the most extensive; it is +more responsive to changes in manipulation; it is endowed more richly +than any other instrument with varieties of timbre; it has an +incomparable facility of execution, and answers more quickly and more +eloquently than any of its companions to the feelings of the player. A +great advantage which the viol possesses over wind instruments is +that, not being dependent on the breath of the player, there is +practically no limit to its ability to sustain tones.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> It is because +of this long list of good qualities that it is relied on to provide +the staff of life to instrumental music. The strings as commonly used +show four members of the viol family, distinguished among themselves +by their size, and the quality in the changes of tone which grows out +of the differences in size. The violins (<a href="#PLATES">Appendix</a>, <a href="#PLATE_I">Plate I</a>.) are the +smallest members of the family. Historically they are the culmination +of a development toward diminutiveness, for in their early days viols +were larger than they are now. When the violin of to-day entered the +orchestra (in the score of Monteverde's opera "Orfeo") it was +specifically described as a "little French violin." Its voice, Berlioz +says, is the "true female voice of the orchestra." Generally the +violin part of an orchestral score is two-voiced, but the two groups +may be split into a great number. In one passage in "Tristan und +Isolde" Wagner divides his first and second violins into sixteen +groups. Such divisions, especially in the higher regions, are +productive of entrancing effects.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Violin effects.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pizzicato.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Col legno dall'arco."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Harmonics.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Vibrato.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Con sordino."</i></div> + +<p>The halo of sound which streams from the beginning and end of the +"Lohengrin" prelude is produced by this device. High and close +harmonies from divided violins always sound ethereal. Besides their +native tone quality (that resulting from a string stretched over a +sounding shell set to vibrating by friction), the violins have a +number of modified qualities resulting from changes in manipulation. +Sometimes the strings are plucked (<i>pizzicato</i>), when the result is a +short tone something like that of a banjo with the metallic clang +omitted; very dainty effects can thus be produced, and though it +always seems like a degradation of the instrument so pre-eminently +suited to a broad singing style, no less significant a symphonist than +Tschaikowsky has written a Scherzo in which the violins are played +<i>pizzicato</i> throughout the movement. Ballet composers frequently +resort to the piquant effect, but in the larger and more serious forms +of composition, the device is sparingly used. Differences in quality +and expressiveness of tone are also produced by varied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> methods of +applying the bow to the strings: with stronger or lighter pressure; +near the bridge, which renders the tone hard and brilliant, and over +the end of the finger-board, which softens it; in a continuous manner +(<i>legato</i>), or detached (<i>staccato</i>). Weird effects in dramatic music +are sometimes produced by striking the strings with the wood of the +bow, Wagner resorting to this means to delineate the wicked glee of +his dwarf <i>Mime</i>, and Meyerbeer to heighten the uncanniness of +<i>Nelusko's</i> wild song in the third act of "L'Africaine." Another class +of effects results from the manner in which the strings are "stopped" +by the fingers of the left hand. When they are not pressed firmly +against the finger-board but touched lightly at certain places called +nodes by the acousticians, so that the segments below the finger are +permitted to vibrate along with the upper portion, those peculiar +tones of a flute-like quality called harmonics or flageolet tones are +produced. These are oftener heard in dramatic music than in +symphonies; but Berlioz, desiring to put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Shakespeare's description of +Queen Mab,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The traces, of the smallest spider's web;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams—"</span> +</div></div> + +<p>into music in his dramatic symphony, "Romeo and Juliet," achieved a +marvellously filmy effect by dividing his violins, and permitting some +of them to play harmonics. Yet so little was his ingenious purpose +suspected when he first brought the symphony forward in Paris, that +one of the critics spoke contemptuously of this effect as sounding +"like an ill-greased syringe." A quivering motion imparted to the +fingers of the left hand in stopping the strings produces a +tremulousness of tone akin to the <i>vibrato</i> of a singer; and, like the +vocal <i>vibrato</i>, when not carried to excess, this effect is a potent +expression of sentimental feeling. But it is much abused by solo +players. Another modification of tone is caused by placing a tiny +instrument called a sordino, or mute, upon the bridge. This clamps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +the bridge, makes it heavier, and checks the vibrations, so that the +tone is muted or muffled, and at times sounds mysterious.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pizzicato on the basses.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Tremolo.</i></div> + +<p>These devices, though as a rule they have their maximum of +effectiveness in the violins, are possible also on the violas, +violoncellos, and double-basses, which, as I have already intimated, +are but violins of a larger growth. The <i>pizzicato</i> is, indeed, +oftenest heard from the double-basses, where it has a much greater +eloquence than on the violins. In music of a sombre cast, the short, +deep tones given out by the plucked strings of the contra-bass +sometimes have the awfulness of gigantic heart-throbs. The difficulty +of producing the other effects grows with the increase of difficulty +in handling the instruments, this being due to the growing thickness +of the strings and the wideness of the points at which they must be +stopped. One effect peculiar to them all—the most used of all +effects, indeed, in dramatic music—is the <i>tremolo</i>, produced by +dividing a tone into many quickly reiterated short tones by a rapid +motion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> of the bow. This device came into use with one of the earliest +pieces of dramatic music. It is two centuries old, and was first used +to help in the musical delineation of a combat. With scarcely an +exception, the varied means which I have described can be detected by +those to whom they are not already familiar by watching the players +while listening to the music.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The viola.</i></div> + +<p>The viola is next in size to the violin, and is tuned at the interval +of a fifth lower. Its highest string is A, which is the second string +of the violin, and its lowest C. Its tone, which sometimes contains a +comical suggestion of a boy's voice in mutation, is lacking in +incisiveness and brilliancy, but for this it compensates by a +wonderful richness and filling quality, and a pathetic and inimitable +mournfulness in melancholy music. It blends beautifully with the +violoncello, and is often made to double that instrument's part for +the sake of color effect—as, to cite a familiar instance, in the +principal subject of the Andante in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The violoncello.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Violoncello effects.</i></div> + +<p>The strings of the violoncello (<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93" href="#PLATE_II">Plate<span class="pagenum">[Pg 93]</span> II.</a>) are tuned like those of +the viola, but an octave lower. It is the knee-fiddle (<i>viola da +gamba</i>) of the last century, as the viola is the arm-fiddle (<i>viola da +braccio</i>), and got its old name from the position in which it is held +by the player. The 'cello's voice is a bass—it might be called the +barytone of the choir—and in the olden time of simple writing, little +else was done with it than to double the bass part one octave higher. +But modern composers, appreciating its marvellous capacity for +expression, which is next to that of the violin, have treated it with +great freedom and independence as a solo instrument. Its tone is full +of voluptuous languor. It is the sighing lover of the instrumental +company, and can speak the language of tender passion more feelingly +than any of its fellows. The ravishing effect of a multiplication of +its voice is tellingly exemplified in the opening of the overture to +"William Tell," which is written for five solo 'celli, though it is +oftenest heard in an arrangement which gives two of the middle parts +to violas. When Beethoven wished to produce the emo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>tional impression +of a peacefully rippling brook in his "Pastoral" symphony, he gave a +murmuring figure to the divided violoncellos, and Wagner uses the +passionate accents of four of these instruments playing in harmony to +support <i>Siegmund</i> when he is pouring out the ecstasy of his love in +the first act of "Die Walküre." In the love scene of Berlioz's "Romeo +and Juliet" symphony it is the violoncello which personifies the +lover, and holds converse with the modest oboe.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The double-bass.</i></div> + +<p>The patriarchal double-bass is known to all, and also its mission of +providing the foundation for the harmonic structure of orchestral +music. It sounds an octave lower than the music written for it, being +what is called a transposing instrument of sixteen-foot tone. Solos +are seldom written for this instrument in orchestral music, though +Beethoven, with his daring recitatives in the Ninth Symphony, makes it +a mediator between the instrumental and vocal forces. Dragonetti and +Bottesini, two Italians, the latter of whom is still alive, won great +fame as solo players on the unwieldy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> instrument. The latter uses a +small bass viol, and strings it with harp strings; but Dragonetti +played a full double-bass, on which he could execute the most +difficult passages written for the violoncello.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The wood-winds.</i></div> + +<p>Since the instruments of the wood-wind choir are frequently used in +solos, their acquaintance can easily be made by an observing amateur. +To this division of the orchestra belong the gentle accents in the +instrumental language. Violent expression is not its province, and +generally when the band is discoursing in heroic style or giving voice +to brave or angry emotion the wood-winds are either silent or are used +to give weight to the body of tone rather than color. Each of the +instruments has a strongly characteristic voice, which adapts itself +best to a certain style of music; but by use of different registers +and by combinations among them, or with the instruments of the other +choirs, a wide range of expression within the limits suggested has +been won for the wood-winds.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The flute.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The piccolo flute.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Janizary music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The story of the flute.</i></div> + +<p>The flute, which requires no descrip<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>tion, is, for instance, an +essentially soulless instrument; but its marvellous agility and the +effectiveness with which its tones can be blended with others make it +one of the most useful instruments in the band. Its native character, +heard in the compositions written for it as a solo instrument, has +prevented it from being looked upon with dignity. As a rule, +brilliancy is all that is expected from it. It is a sort of <i>soprano +leggiero</i> with a small range of superficial feelings. It can +sentimentalize, and, as Dryden says, be "soft, complaining," but when +we hear it pour forth a veritable ecstasy of jubilation, as it does in +the dramatic climax of Beethoven's overture "Leonore No. 3," we marvel +at the transformation effected by the composer. Advantage has also +been taken of the difference between its high and low tones, and now +in some romantic music, as in Raff's "Lenore" symphony, or the prayer +of <i>Agathe</i> in "Der Freischütz," the hollowness of the low tones +produces a mysterious effect that is exceedingly striking. Still the +fact remains that the native voice of the in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>strument, though sweet, +is expressionless compared with that of the oboe or clarinet. Modern +composers sometimes write for three flutes; but in the older writers, +when a third flute is used, it is generally an octave flute, or +piccolo flute (<a href="#PLATE_III">Plate III.</a>)—a tiny instrument whose aggressiveness of +voice is out of all proportion to its diminutiveness of body. This is +the instrument which shrieks and whistles when the band is playing at +storm-making, to imitate the noise of the wind. It sounds an octave +higher than is indicated by the notes in its part, and so is what is +called a transposing instrument of four-foot tone. It revels in +military music, which is proper, for it is an own cousin to the +ear-piercing fife, which annually makes up for its long silence in the +noisy days before political elections. When you hear a composition in +march time, with bass and snare drum, cymbals and triangle, such as +the Germans call "Turkish" or "Janizary" music, you may be sure to +hear also the piccolo flute. The flute is doubtless one of the oldest +instruments in the world. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> primitive cave-dwellers made flutes of +the leg-bones of birds and other animals, an origin of which a record +is preserved in the Latin name <i>tibia</i>. The first wooden flutes were +doubtless the Pandean pipes, in which the tone was produced by blowing +across the open ends of hollow reeds. The present method, already +known to the ancient Egyptians, of closing the upper end, and creating +the tone by blowing across a hole cut in the side, is only a +modification of the method pursued, according to classic tradition, by +Pan when he breathed out his dejection at the loss of the nymph +Syrinx, by blowing across the tuneful reeds which were that nymph in +her metamorphosed state.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Reed instruments.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Double reeds.</i></div> + +<p>The flute or pipe of the Greeks and Romans was only distantly related +to the true flute, but was the ancestor of its orchestral companions, +the oboe and clarinet. These instruments are sounded by being blown in +at the end, and the tone is created by vibrating reeds, whereas in the +flute it is the result of the impinging of the air on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> edge of the +hole called the embouchure, and the consequent stirring of the column +of air in the flue of the instrument. The reeds are thin slips or +blades of cane. The size and bore of the instruments and the +difference between these reeds are the causes of the differences in +tone quality between these relatives. The oboe or hautboy, English +horn, and the bassoon have what are called double reeds. Two narrow +blades of cane are fitted closely together, and fastened with silk on +a small metal tube extending from the upper end of the instrument in +the case of the oboe and English horn, from the side in the case of +the bassoon. The reeds are pinched more or less tightly between the +lips, and are set to vibrating by the breath.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The oboe.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The English horn.</i></div> + +<p>The oboe (<a href="#PLATE_IV">Plate IV.</a>) is naturally associated with music of a pastoral +character. It is pre-eminently a melody instrument, and though its +voice comes forth shrinkingly, its uniqueness of tone makes it easily +heard. It is a most lovable instrument. "Candor, artless grace, soft +joy, or the grief of a fragile being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> suits the oboe's accents," says +Berlioz. The peculiarity of its mouth-piece gives its tone a reedy or +vibrating quality totally unlike the clarinet's. Its natural alto is +the English horn (<a href="#PLATE_V">Plate V.</a>), which is an oboe of larger growth, with +curved tube for convenience of manipulation. The tone of the English +horn is fuller, nobler, and is very attractive in melancholy or dreamy +music. There are few players on the English horn in this country, and +it might be set down as a rule that outside of New York, Boston, and +Chicago, the English horn parts are played by the oboe in America. No +melody displays the true character of the English horn better than the +<i>Ranz des Vaches</i> in the overture to Rossini's "William Tell"—that +lovely Alpine song which the flute embroiders with exquisite ornament. +One of the noblest utterances of the oboe is the melody of the funeral +march in Beethoven's "Heroic" symphony, in which its tenderness has +beautiful play. It is sometimes used effectively in imitative music. +In Haydn's "Seasons," and also in that grotesque tone poem by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +Saint-Saëns, the "Danse Macabre," it gives the cock crow. It is the +timid oboe that sounds the A for the orchestra to tune by.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The bassoon.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>An orchestral humorist.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Supernatural effects.</i></div> + +<p>The grave voice of the oboe is heard from the bassoon (<a href="#PLATE_VI">Plate VI.</a>), +where, without becoming assertive, it gains a quality entirely unknown +to the oboe and English horn. It is this quality that makes the +bassoon the humorist <i>par excellence</i> of the orchestra. It is a reedy +bass, very apt to recall to those who have had a country education the +squalling tone of the homely instrument which the farmer's boy +fashions out of the stems of the pumpkin-vine. The humor of the +bassoon is an unconscious humor, and results from the use made of its +abysmally solemn voice. This solemnity in quality is paired with +astonishing flexibility of utterance, so that its gambols are always +grotesque. Brahms permits the bassoon to intone the <i>Fuchslied</i> of the +German students in his "Academic" overture. Beethoven achieves a +decidedly comical effect by a stubborn reiteration of key-note, fifth, +and octave by the bassoon under a rus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>tic dance intoned by the oboe in +the scherzo of his "Pastoral" symphony; and nearly every modern +composer has taken advantage of the instrument's grotesqueness. +Mendelssohn introduces the clowns in his "Midsummer-Night's-Dream" +music by a droll dance for two bassoons over a sustained bass note +from the violoncellos; but when Meyerbeer wanted a very different +effect, a ghastly one indeed, in the scene of the resuscitation of the +nuns in his "Robert le Diable," he got it by taking two bassoons as +solo instruments and using their weak middle tones, which, Berlioz +says, have "a pale, cold, cadaverous sound." Singularly enough, Handel +resorted to a similar device in his "Saul," to accompany the vision of +the Witch of Endor.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The double bassoon.</i></div> + +<p>In all these cases a great deal depends upon the relation between the +character of the melody and the nature of the instrument to which it +is set. A swelling martial fanfare may be made absurd by changing it +from trumpets to a weak-voiced wood-wind. It is only the string +quartet that speaks all the musical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> languages of passion and emotion. +The double-bassoon is so large an instrument that it has to be bent on +itself to bring it under the control of the player. It sounds an +octave lower than the written notes. It is not brought often into the +orchestra, but speaks very much to the purpose in Brahms's beautiful +variations on a theme by Haydn, and the glorious finale of Beethoven's +Fifth Symphony.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The clarinet.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The bass clarinet.</i></div> + +<p>The clarinet (<a href="#PLATE_VII">Plate VII.</a>) is the most eloquent member of the wood-wind +choir, and, except some of its own modifications or the modifications +of the oboe and bassoon, the latest arrival in the harmonious company. +It is only a little more than a century old. It has the widest range +of expression of the wood-winds, and its chief structural difference +is in its mouth-piece. It has a single flat reed, which is much wider +than that of the oboe or bassoon, and is fastened by a metallic band +and screw to the flattened side of the mouth-piece, whose other side +is cut down, chisel shape, for convenience. Its voice is rich, mellow, +less reedy, and much fuller and more limpid than the voice of the +oboe,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> which Berlioz tries to describe by analogy as "sweet-sour." It +is very flexible, too, and has a range of over three and a half +octaves. Its high tones are sometimes shrieky, however, and the full +beauty of the instrument is only disclosed when it sings in the middle +register. Every symphony and overture contains passages for the +clarinet which serve to display its characteristics. Clarinets are +made of different sizes for different keys, the smallest being that in +E-flat, with an unpleasantly piercing tone, whose use is confined to +military bands. There is also an alto clarinet and a bass clarinet +(<a href="#PLATE_VIII">Plate VIII.</a>). The bell of the latter instrument is bent upward, pipe +fashion, and its voice is peculiarly impressive and noble. It is a +favorite solo instrument in Liszt's symphonic poems.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Lips and reeds.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The brass instruments.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Improvements in brass instruments.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Valves and slides.</i></div> + +<p>The fundamental principle of the instruments last described is the +production of tone by vibrating reeds. In the instruments of the brass +choir, the duty of the reeds is performed by the lips of the player. +Variety of tone in respect of quality is produced by variations in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +size, shape, and modifications in parts like the bell and mouth-piece. +The <i>forte</i> of the orchestra receives the bulk of its puissance from +the brass instruments, which, nevertheless, can give voice to an +extensive gamut of sentiments and feelings. There is nothing more +cheery and jocund than the flourishes of the horns, but also nothing +more mild and soothing than the songs which sometimes they sing. There +is nothing more solemn and religious than the harmony of the +trombones, while "the trumpet's loud clangor" is the very voice of a +war-like spirit. All of these instruments have undergone important +changes within the last few score years. The classical composers, +almost down to our own time, were restricted in the use of them +because they were merely natural tubes, and their notes were limited +to the notes which inflexible tubes can produce. Within this century, +however, they have all been transformed from imperfect diatonic +instruments to perfect chromatic instruments; that is to say, every +brass instrument which is in use now can give out all the semitones +within its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> compass. This has been accomplished through the agency of +valves, by means of which differing lengths of the sonorous tube are +brought within the command of the players. In the case of the +trombones an exceedingly venerable means of accomplishing the same end +is applied. The tube is in part made double, one part sliding over the +other. By moving his arm, the player lengthens or shortens the tube, +and thus changing the key of the instrument, acquires all the tones +which can be obtained from so many tubes of different lengths. The +mouth-pieces of the trumpet, trombone, and tuba are cup-shaped, and +larger than the mouth-piece of the horn, which is little else than a +flare of the slender tube, sufficiently wide to receive enough of the +player's lips to form the embouchure, or human reed, as it might here +be named.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The French horn.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Manipulation of the French horn.</i></div> + +<p>The French horn (<a href="#PLATE_IX">Plate IX.</a>), as it is called in the orchestra, is the +sweetest and mellowest of all the wind instruments. In Beethoven's +time it was but little else than the old hunting-horn, which, for the +convenience of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> mounted hunter, was arranged in spiral +convolutions that it might be slipped over the head and carried +resting on one shoulder and under the opposite arm. The Germans still +call it the <i>Waldhorn</i>, <i>i.e.</i>, "forest horn;" the old French name was +<i>cor de chasse</i>, the Italian <i>corno di caccia</i>. In this instrument +formerly the tones which were not the natural resonances of the +harmonic division of the tube were helped out by partly closing the +bell with the right hand, it having been discovered accidentally that +by putting the hand into the lower end of the tube—the flaring part +called the bell—the pitch of a tone was raised. Players still make +use of this method for convenience, and sometimes because a composer +wishes to employ the slightly muffled effect of these tones; but since +valves have been added to the instrument, it is possible to play a +chromatic scale in what are called the unstopped or open tones.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Kinds of horns.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The trumpet.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The cornet.</i></div> + +<p>Formerly it was necessary to use horns of different pitch, and +composers still respect this tradition, and designate the key of the +horns which they wish to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> have employed; but so skilful have the +players become that, as a rule, they use horns whose fundamental tone +is F for all keys, and achieve the old purpose by simply transposing +the music as they read it. If these most graceful instruments were +straightened out they would be seventeen feet long. The convolutions +of the horn and the many turns of the trumpet are all the fruit of +necessity; they could not be manipulated to produce the tones that are +asked of them if they were not bent and curved. The trumpet, when its +tube is lengthened by the addition of crooks for its lowest key, is +eight feet long; the tuba, sixteen. In most orchestras (in all of +those in the United States, in fact, except the Boston and Chicago +Orchestras and the Symphony Society of New York) the word trumpet is +merely a euphemism for cornet, the familiar leading instrument of the +brass band, which, while it falls short of the trumpet in the quality +of its tone, in the upper registers especially, is a more easily +manipulated instrument than the trumpet, and is preferable in the +lower tones.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The trombone.</i></div> + +<p>Mendelssohn is quoted as saying that the trombones (<a href="#PLATE_X">Plate X.</a>) "are too +sacred to use often." They have, indeed, a majesty and nobility all +their own, and the lowest use to which they can be put is to furnish a +flaring and noisy harmony in an orchestral <i>tutti</i>. They are +marvellously expressive instruments, and without a peer in the whole +instrumental company when a solemn and spiritually uplifting effect is +to be attained. They can also be made to sound menacing and +lugubrious, devout and mocking, pompously heroic, majestic, and lofty. +They are often the heralds of the orchestra, and make sonorous +proclamations.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Trombone effects.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The tuba.</i></div> + +<p>The classic composers always seemed to approach the trombones with +marked respect, but nowadays it requires a very big blue pencil in the +hands of a very uncompromising conservatory professor to prevent a +student engaged on his <i>Opus 1</i> from keeping his trombones going half +the time at least. It is an old story how Mozart keeps the instruments +silent through three-fourths of his immortal "Don Giovanni," so that +they may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> enter with overwhelming impressiveness along with the +ghostly visitor of the concluding scene. As a rule, there are three +trombones in the modern orchestra—two tenors and a bass. Formerly +there were four kinds, bearing the names of the voices to which they +were supposed to be nearest in tone-quality and compass—soprano, +alto, tenor, and bass. Full four-part harmony is now performed by the +three trombones and the tuba (<a href="#PLATE_XI">Plate XI.</a>). The latter instrument, +which, despite its gigantic size, is exceedingly tractable can "roar +you as gently as any sucking dove." Far-away and strangely mysterious +tones are got out of the brass instruments, chiefly the cornet and +horn, by almost wholly closing the bell.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Instruments of percussion.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The xylophone.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Kettle-drums.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pfund's tuning device.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pitch of the drums.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Qualifications of a drummer.</i></div> + +<p>The percussion apparatus of the modern orchestra includes a multitude +of instruments scarcely deserving of description. Several varieties of +drums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, steel bars (<i>Glockenspiel</i>), +gongs, bells, and many other things which we are now inclined to look +upon as toys, rather than as musical instruments, are brought into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +play for reasons more or less fantastic. Saint-Saëns has even utilized +the barbarous xylophone, whose proper place is the variety hall, in +his "Danse Macabre." There his purpose was a fantastic one, and the +effect is capital. The pictorial conceit at the bottom of the poem +which the music illustrates is Death, as a skeleton, seated on a +tombstone, playing the viol, and gleefully cracking his bony heels +against the marble. To produce this effect, the composer uses the +xylophone with capital results. But of all the ordinary instruments of +percussion, the only one that is really musical and deserving of +comment is the kettle-drum. This instrument is more musical than the +others because it has pitch. Its voice is not mere noise, but musical +noise. Kettle-drums, or tympani, are generally used in pairs, though +the vast multiplication of effects by modern composers has resulted +also in the extension of this department of the band. It is seldom +that more than two pairs are used, a good player with a quick ear +being able to accomplish all that Wagner asks of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> six drums by his +deftness in changing the pitch of the instruments. This work of tuning +is still performed generally in what seems a rudimentary way, though a +German drum-builder named Pfund invented a contrivance by which the +player, by simply pressing on a balanced pedal and watching an +indicator affixed to the side of the drums, can change the pitch to +any desired semitone within the range of an octave.</p> + +<p>The tympani are hemispherical brass or copper vessels, kettles in +short, covered with vellum heads. The pitch of the instrument depends +on the tension of the head, which is applied generally by key-screws +working through the iron ring which holds the vellum. There is a +difference in the size of the drums to place at the command of the +player the octave from F in the first space below the bass staff to F +on the fourth line of the same staff. Formerly the purpose of the +drums was simply to give emphasis, and they were then uniformly tuned +to the key-note and fifth of the key in which a composition was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> set. +Now they are tuned in many ways, not only to allow for the frequent +change of keys, but also so that they may be used as harmony +instruments. Berlioz did more to develop the drums than any composer +who has ever lived, though Beethoven already manifested appreciation +of their independent musical value. In the last movement of his Eighth +Symphony and the scherzo of his Ninth, he tunes them in octaves, his +purpose in the latter case being to give the opening figure, an octave +leap, of the scherzo melody to the drums solo. The most extravagant +use ever made of the drums, however, was by Berlioz in his "Messe des +Morts," where he called in eight pairs of drums and ten players to +help him to paint his tonal picture of the terrors of the last +judgment. The post of drummer is one of the most difficult to fill in +a symphonic orchestra. He is required to have not only a perfect sense +of time and rhythm, but also a keen sense of pitch, for often the +composer asks him to change the pitch of one or both of his drums in +the space of a very few seconds. He must then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> be able to shut all +other sounds out of his mind, and bring his drums into a new key while +the orchestra is playing—an extremely nice task.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The bass drum.</i></div> + +<p>The development of modern orchestral music has given dignity also to +the bass drum, which, though definite pitch is denied to it, is now +manipulated in a variety of ways productive of striking effects. Rolls +are played on it with the sticks of the kettle-drums, and it has been +emancipated measurably from the cymbals, which in vulgar brass-band +music are its inseparable companions.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The conductor.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Time-beaters and interpreters.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The conductor a necessity.</i></div> + +<p>In the full sense of the term the orchestral conductor is a product of +the latter half of the present century. Of course, ever since +concerted music began, there has been a musical leader of some kind. +Mural paintings and carvings fashioned in Egypt long before Apollo +sang his magic song and</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers,"</span> +</div></div> + +<p>show the conductor standing before his band beating time by clapping +his hands; and if we are to credit what we have been told about Hebrew +music,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, when they stood before their +multitudinous choirs in the temple at Jerusalem, promoted synchronism +in the performance by stamping upon the floor with lead-shodden feet. +Before the era which developed what I might call "star" conductors, +these leaders were but captains of tens and captains of hundreds who +accomplished all that was expected of them if they made the performers +keep musical step together. They were time-beaters merely—human +metronomes. The modern conductor is, in a sense not dreamed of a +century ago, a mediator between the composer and the audience. He is a +virtuoso who plays upon men instead of a key-board, upon a hundred +instruments instead of one. Music differs from her sister arts in many +respects, but in none more than in her dependence on the intermediary +who stands between her and the people for whose sake she exists. It is +this intermediary who wakens her into life.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are sweeter,"</span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>is a pretty bit of hyperbole which involves a contradiction in terms. +An unheard melody is no melody at all, and as soon as we have music in +which a number of singers or instrumentalists are employed, the taste, +feeling, and judgment of an individual are essential to its +intelligent and effective publication. In the gentle days of the long +ago, when suavity and loveliness of utterance and a recognition of +formal symmetry were the "be-all and end-all" of the art, a +time-beater sufficed to this end; but now the contents of music are +greater, the vessel has been wondrously widened, the language is +become curiously complex and ingenious, and no composer of to-day can +write down universally intelligible signs for all that he wishes to +say. Someone must grasp the whole, expound it to the individual +factors which make up the performing sum and provide what is called an +interpretation to the public.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Star" conductors.</i></div> + +<p>That someone, of course, is the conductor, and considering the +progress that music is continually making it is not at all to be +wondered at that he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> become a person of stupendous power in the +culture of to-day. The one singularity is that he should be so rare. +This rarity has had its natural consequence, and the conductor who can +conduct, in contradistinction to the conductor who can only beat time, +is now a "star." At present we see him going from place to place in +Europe giving concerts in which he figures as the principal +attraction. The critics discuss his "readings" just as they do the +performances of great pianists and singers. A hundred blowers of +brass, scrapers of strings, and tootlers on windy wood, labor beneath +him transmuting the composer's mysterious symbols into living sound, +and when it is all over we frequently find that it seems all to have +been done for the greater glory of the conductor instead of the glory +of art. That, however, is a digression which it is not necessary to +pursue.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mistaken popular notions.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>What the conductor does.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Rests and cues.</i></div> + +<p>Questions and remarks have frequently been addressed to me indicative +of the fact that there is a widespread popular conviction that the +mission of a conductor is chiefly orna<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>mental at an orchestral +concert. That is a sad misconception, and grows out of the old notion +that a conductor is only a time-beater. Assuming that the men of the +band have played sufficiently together, it is thought that eventually +they might keep time without the help of the conductor. It is true +that the greater part of the conductor's work is done at rehearsal, at +which he enforces upon his men his wishes concerning the speed of the +music, expression, and the balance of tone between the different +instruments. But all the injunctions given at rehearsal by word of +mouth are reiterated by means of a system of signs and signals during +the concert performance. Time and rhythm are indicated by the +movements of the bâton, the former by the speed of the beats, the +latter by the direction, the tones upon which the principal stress is +to fall being indicated by the down-beat of the bâton. The amplitude +of the movements also serves to indicate the conductor's wishes +concerning dynamic variations, while the left hand is ordinarily used +in pantomimic gestures to control indi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>vidual players or groups. +Glances and a play of facial expression also assist in the guidance of +the instrumental body. Every musician is expected to count the rests +which occur in his part, but when they are of long duration (and +sometimes they amount to a hundred measures or more) it is customary +for the conductor to indicate the entrance of an instrument by a +glance at the player. From this mere outline of the communications +which pass between the conductor and his band it will be seen how +indispensable he is if music is to have a consistent and vital +interpretation.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Personal magnetism.</i></div> + +<p>The layman will perhaps also be enabled, by observing the actions of a +conductor with a little understanding of their purposes, to appreciate +what critics mean when they speak of the "magnetism" of a leader. He +will understand that among other things it means the aptitude or +capacity for creating a sympathetic relationship between himself and +his men which enables him the better by various devices, some +arbitrary, some technical and conventional, to imbue them with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +thoughts and feelings relative to a composition, and through them to +body them forth to the audience.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The score.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Its arrangement.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Score reading.</i></div> + +<p>What it is that the conductor has to guide him while giving his mute +commands to his forces may be seen in the reproduction, in the +<a href="#PLATES">Appendix</a>, of a page from an orchestral score (<a href="#PLATE_XII">Plate XII</a>). A score, it +will be observed, is a reproduction of all the parts of a composition +as they lie upon the desks of the players. The ordering of these parts +in the score has not always been as now, but the plan which has the +widest and longest approval is that illustrated in our example. The +wood-winds are grouped together on the uppermost six staves, the brass +in the middle with the tympani separating the horns and trumpets from +the trombones, the strings on the lowermost five staves. The example +has been chosen because it shows all the instruments of the band +employed at once (it is the famous opening <i>tutti</i> of the triumphal +march of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony), and is easy of comprehension by +musical amateurs for the reason that none of the parts requires +transpo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>sition except it be an octave up in the case of the piccolo, +an instrument of four-foot tone, and an octave down in the case of the +double-basses, which are of sixteen-foot tone. All the other parts are +to be read as printed, proper attention being given to the alto and +tenor clefs used in the parts of the trombones and violas. The ability +to "read score" is one of the most essential attributes of a +conductor, who, if he have the proper training, can bring all the +parts together and reproduce them on the pianoforte, transposing those +which do not sound as written and reading the different clefs at sight +as he goes along.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco06.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="67" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<h2><i>At an Orchestral Concert</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Classical and Popular.<br /> +Orchestras and military bands.</i></div> + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="smcap">n</span> popular phrase all high-class music is "classical," and all +concerts at which such music is played are "classical concerts." Here +the word is conceived as the antithesis of "popular," which term is +used to designate the ordinary music of the street and music-hall. +Elsewhere I have discussed the true meaning of the word and shown its +relation to "romantic" in the terminology of musical critics and +historians. No harm is done by using both "classical" and "popular" in +their common significations, so far as they convey a difference in +character between concerts. The highest popular conception of a +classical concert is one in which a complete orchestra performs +symphonies and extended compositions in allied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> forms, such as +overtures, symphonic poems, and concertos. Change the composition of +the instrumental body, by omitting the strings and augmenting the reed +and brass choirs, and you have a military band which is best employed +in the open air, and whose programmes are generally made up of +compositions in the simpler and more easily comprehended +forms—dances, marches, fantasias on popular airs, arrangements of +operatic excerpts and the like. These, then, are popular concerts in +the broadest sense, though it is proper enough to apply the term also +to concerts given by a symphonic band when the programme is light in +character and aims at more careless diversion than should be sought at +a "classical" concert. The latter term, again, is commended to use by +the fact that as a rule the music performed at such a concert +exemplifies the higher forms in the art, classicism in music being +defined as that principle which seeks expression in beauty of form, in +a symmetrical ordering of parts and logical sequence, "preferring +æsthetic beauty, pure and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> simple, over emotional content," as I have +said in <a href="#III">Chapter III</a>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Symphony.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mistaken ideas about the form.</i></div> + +<p>As the highest type of instrumental music, we take the Symphony. Very +rarely indeed is a concert given by an organization like the New York +and London Philharmonic Societies, or the Boston and Chicago +Orchestras, at which the place of honor in the scheme of pieces is not +given to a symphony. Such a concert is for that reason also spoken of +popularly as a "Symphony concert," and no confusion would necessarily +result from the use of the term even if it so chanced that there was +no symphony on the programme. What idea the word symphony conveys to +the musically illiterate it would be difficult to tell. I have known a +professional writer on musical subjects to express the opinion that a +symphony was nothing else than four unrelated compositions for +orchestra arranged in a certain sequence for the sake of an agreeable +contrast of moods and tempos. It is scarcely necessary to say that the +writer in question had a very poor opinion of the Symphony as an +Art-form, and be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>lieved that it had outlived its usefulness and should +be relegated to the limbo of Archaic Things. If he, however, trained +in musical history and familiar with musical literature, could see +only four unrelated pieces of music in a symphony by Beethoven, we +need not marvel that hazy notions touching the nature of the form are +prevalent among the untaught public, and that people can be met in +concert-rooms to whom such words as "Symphony in C minor," and the +printed designations of the different portions of the work—the +"movements," as musicians call them—are utterly bewildering.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>History of the term.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Changes in meaning.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Handel's "Pastoral Symphony."</i></div> + +<p>The word symphony has itself a singularly variegated history. Like +many another term in music it was borrowed by the modern world from +the ancient Greek. To those who coined it, however, it had a much +narrower meaning than to us who use it, with only a conventional +change in transliteration, now. By <span lang="el" title="Greek: symphônia">συμφωνια</span> the Greeks +simply expressed the concept of agreement, or consonance. Applied to +music it meant first such intervals as unisons; then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> the notion was +extended to include consonant harmonies, such as the fifth, fourth, +and octave. The study of the ancient theoreticians led the musicians +of the Middle Ages to apply the word to harmony in general. Then in +some inexplicable fashion it came to stand as a generic term for +instrumental compositions such as toccatas, sonatas, etc. Its name was +given to one of the precursors of the pianoforte, and in Germany in +the sixteenth century the word <i>Symphoney</i> came to mean a town band. +In the last century and the beginning of this the term was used to +designate an instrumental introduction to a composition for voices, +such as a song or chorus, as also an instrumental piece introduced in +a choral work. The form, that is the extent and structure of the +composition, had nothing to do with the designation, as we see from +the Italian shepherds' tune which Handel set for strings in "The +Messiah;" he called it simply <i>pifa</i>, but his publishers called it a +"Pastoral symphony," and as such we still know it. It was about the +middle of the eigh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>teenth century that the present signification +became crystallized in the word, and since the symphonies of Haydn, in +which the form first reached perfection, are still to be heard in our +concert-rooms, it may be said that all the masterpieces of symphonic +literature are current.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The allied forms.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Sonata form.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Symphony, sonata, and concerto.</i></div> + +<p>I have already hinted at the fact that there is an intimate +relationship between the compositions usually heard at a classical +concert. Symphonies, symphonic poems, concertos for solo instruments +and orchestra, as well as the various forms of chamber music, such as +trios, quartets, and quintets for strings, or pianoforte and strings, +are but different expressions of the idea which is best summed up in +the word sonata. What musicians call the "sonata form" lies at the +bottom of them all—even those which seem to consist of a single +piece, like the symphonic poem and overture. Provided it follow, not +of necessity slavishly, but in its general structure, a certain scheme +which was slowly developed by the geniuses who became the law-givers +of the art, a composite or cyclical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> composition (that is, one +composed of a number of parts, or movements) is, as the case may be, a +symphony, concerto, or sonata. It is a sonata if it be written for a +solo instrument like the pianoforte or organ, or for one like the +violin or clarinet, with pianoforte accompaniment. If the +accompaniment be written for orchestra, it is called a concerto. A +sonata written for an orchestra is a symphony. The nature of the +interpreting medium naturally determines the exposition of the form, +but all the essential attributes can be learned from a study of the +symphony, which because of the dignity and eloquence of its apparatus +admits of a wider scope than its allies, and must be accepted as the +highest type, not merely of the sonata, but of the instrumental art. +It will be necessary presently to point out the more important +modifications which compositions of this character have undergone in +the development of music, but the ends of clearness will be best +subserved if the study be conducted on fundamental lines.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>What a symphony is.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The bond of unity between the parts.</i></div> + +<p>The symphony then, as a rule, is a composition for orchestra made up +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> four parts, or movements, which are not only related to each other +by a bond of sympathy established by the keys chosen but also by their +emotional contents. Without this higher bond the unity of the work +would be merely mechanical, like the unity accomplished by sameness of +key in the old-fashioned suite. (See <a href="#VI">Chapter VI</a>.) The bond of +key-relationship, though no longer so obvious as once it was, is yet +readily discovered by a musician; the spiritual bond is more elusive, +and presents itself for recognition to the imagination and the +feelings of the listener. Nevertheless, it is an element in every +truly great symphony, and I have already indicated how it may +sometimes become patent to the ear alone, so it be intelligently +employed, and enjoy the co-operation of memory.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The first movement.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Exposition of subjects.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Repetition of the first subdivision.</i></div> + +<p>It is the first movement of a symphony which embodies the structural +scheme called the "sonata form." It has a triple division, and Mr. +Edward Dannreuther has aptly defined it as "the triune symmetry of +exposition, illustration, and repetition." In the first division the +composer introduces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> the melodies which he has chosen to be the +thematic material of the movement, and to fix the character of the +entire work; he presents it for identification. The themes are two, +and their exposition generally exemplifies the principle of +key-relationship, which was the basis of my analysis of a simple folk +tune in <a href="#II">Chapter II</a>. In the case of the best symphonists the principal +and second subjects disclose a contrast, not violent but yet distinct, +in mood or character. If the first is rhythmically energetic and +assertive—masculine, let me say—the second will be more sedate, more +gentle in utterance—feminine. After the two subjects have been +introduced along with some subsidiary phrases and passages which the +composer uses to bind them together and modulate from one key into +another, the entire division is repeated. That is the rule, but it is +now as often "honored in the breach" as in the observance, some +conductors not even hesitating to ignore the repeat marks in +Beethoven's scores.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The free fantasia or "working-out" portion.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Repetition.</i></div> + +<p>The second division is now taken up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> In it the composer exploits his +learning and fancy in developing his thematic material. He is now +entirely free to send it through long chains of keys, to vary the +harmonies, rhythms, and instrumentation, to take a single pregnant +motive and work it out with all the ingenuity he can muster; to force +it up "steep-up spouts" of passion and let it whirl in the surge, or +plunge it into "steep-down gulfs of liquid fire," and consume its own +heart. Technically this part is called the "free fantasia" in English, +and the <i>Durchführung</i>—"working out"—in German. I mention the terms +because they sometimes occur in criticisms and analyses. It is in this +division that the genius of a composer has fullest play, and there is +no greater pleasure, no more delightful excitement, for the +symphony-lover than to follow the luminous fancy of Beethoven through +his free fantasias. The third division is devoted to a repetition, +with modifications, of the first division and the addition of a close.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Introductions.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Keys and Titles.</i></div> + +<p>First movements are quick and energetic, and frequently full of +dramatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> fire. In them the psychological story is begun which is to +be developed in the remaining chapters of the work—its sorrows, +hopes, prayers, or communings in the slow movement; its madness or +merriment in the scherzo; its outcome, triumphant or tragic, in the +finale. Sometimes the first movement is preceded by a slow +introduction, intended to prepare the mind of the listener for the +proclamation which shall come with the <i>Allegro</i>. The key of the +principal subject is set down as the key of the symphony, and unless +the composer gives his work a special title for the purpose of +providing a hint as to its poetical contents ("Eroica," "Pastoral," +"Faust," "In the Forest," "Lenore," "Pathétique," etc.), or to +characterize its style ("Scotch," "Italian," "Irish," "Welsh," +"Scandinavian," "From the New World"), it is known only by its key, or +the number of the work (<i>opus</i>) in the composer's list. Therefore we +have Mozart's Symphony "in G minor," Beethoven's "in A major," +Schumann's "in C," Brahms's "in F," and so on.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The second movement.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Variations.</i></div> + +<p>The second movement in the symphonic scheme is the slow movement. +Musicians frequently call it the Adagio, for convenience, though the +tempi of slow movements ranges from extremely slow (<i>Largo</i>) to the +border line of fast, as in the case of the Allegretto of the Seventh +Symphony of Beethoven. The mood of the slow movement is frequently +sombre, and its instrumental coloring dark; but it may also be +consolatory, contemplative, restful, religiously uplifting. The +writing is preferably in a broadly sustained style, the effect being +that of an exalted hymn, and this has led to a predilection for a +theme and variations as the mould in which to cast the movement. The +slow movements of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies are made up +of variations.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Scherzo.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Genesis of the Scherzo.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Trio.</i></div> + +<p>The Scherzo is, as the term implies, the playful, jocose movement of a +symphony, but in the case of sublime geniuses like Beethoven and +Schumann, who blend profound melancholy with wild humor, the +playfulness is sometimes of a kind which invites us to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> thoughtfulness +instead of merriment. This is true also of some Russian composers, +whose scherzos have the desperate gayety which speaks from the music +of a sad people whose merrymaking is not a spontaneous expression of +exuberant spirits but a striving after self-forgetfulness. The Scherzo +is the successor of the Minuet, whose rhythm and form served the +composers down to Beethoven. It was he who substituted the Scherzo, +which retains the chief formal characteristics of the courtly old +dance in being in triple time and having a second part called the +Trio. With the change there came an increase in speed, but it ought to +be remembered that the symphonic minuet was quicker than the dance of +the same name. A tendency toward exaggeration, which is patent among +modern conductors, is threatening to rob the symphonic minuet of the +vivacity which gave it its place in the scheme of the symphony. The +entrance of the Trio is marked by the introduction of a new idea (a +second minuet) which is more sententious than the first part, and +sometimes in another key,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> the commonest change being from minor to +major.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Finale.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Rondo form.</i></div> + +<p>The final movement, technically the Finale, is another piece of large +dimensions in which the psychological drama which plays through the +four acts of the symphony is brought to a conclusion. Once the purpose +of the Finale was but to bring the symphony to a merry end, but as the +expressive capacity of music has been widened, and mere play with +æsthetic forms has given place to attempts to convey sentiments and +feelings, the purposes of the last movement have been greatly extended +and varied. As a rule the form chosen for the Finale is that called +the Rondo. Borrowed from an artificial verse-form (the French +<i>Rondeau</i>), this species of composition illustrates the peculiarity of +that form in the reiteration of a strophe ever and anon after a new +theme or episode has been exploited. In modern society verse, which +has grown out of an ambition to imitate the ingenious form invented by +mediæval poets, we have the Triolet, which may be said to be a rondeau +in minia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>ture. I choose one of Mr. H.C. Bunner's dainty creations to +illustrate the musical refrain characteristic of the rondo form +because of its compactness. Here it is:</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A Rondo pattern in poetry.</i></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A pitcher of mignonette<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In a tenement's highest casement:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Queer sort of a flower-pot—yet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That pitcher of mignonette<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is a garden in heaven set,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To the little sick child in the basement—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pitcher of mignonette,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the tenement's highest casement."</span> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Other forms for the Finale.</i></div> + +<p>If now the first two lines of this poem, which compose its refrain, be +permitted to stand as the principal theme of a musical piece, we have +in Mr. Bunner's triolet a rondo <i>in nuce</i>. There is in it a threefold +exposition of the theme alternating with episodic matter. Another form +for the finale is that of the first movement (the Sonata form), and +still another, the theme and variations. Beethoven chose the latter +for his "Eroica," and the choral close of his Ninth, Dvořák, for his +symphony in G major, and Brahms for his in E minor.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Organic Unities.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>How enforced.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Berlioz's "idée fixe."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Recapitulation of themes.</i></div> + +<p>I am attempting nothing more than a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> characterization of the symphony, +and the forms with which I associated it at the outset, which shall +help the untrained listener to comprehend them as unities despite the +fact that to the careless hearer they present themselves as groups of +pieces each one of which is complete in itself and has no connection +with its fellows. The desire of composers to have their symphonies +accepted as unities instead of compages of unrelated pieces has led to +the adoption of various devices designed to force the bond of union +upon the attention of the hearer. Thus Beethoven in his symphony in C +minor not only connects the third and fourth movements but also +introduces a reminiscence of the former into the midst of the latter; +Berlioz in his "Symphonie Fantastique," which is written to what may +be called a dramatic scheme, makes use of a melody which he calls +"<i>l'idée fixe</i>," and has it recur in each of the four movements as an +episode. This, however, is frankly a symphony with programme, and +ought not to be treated as a modification of the pure form.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> Dvořák in +his symphony entitled "From the New World," in which he has striven to +give expression to the American spirit, quotes the first period of his +principal subject in all the subsequent movements, and then +sententiously recapitulates the principal themes of the first, second, +and third movements in the finale; and this without a sign of the +dramatic purpose confessed by Berlioz.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Introduction of voices.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Abolition of pauses.</i></div> + +<p>In the last movement of his Ninth Symphony Beethoven calls voices to +the aid of his instruments. It was a daring innovation, as it seemed +to disrupt the form, and we know from the story of the work how long +he hunted for the connecting link, which finally he found in the +instrumental recitative. Having hit upon the device, he summons each +of the preceding movements, which are purely instrumental, into the +presence of his augmented forces and dismisses it as inadequate to the +proclamation which the symphony was to make. The double-basses and +solo barytone are the spokesmen for the tuneful host. He thus achieves +the end of connecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> the Allegro, Scherzo, and Adagio with each +other, and all with the Finale, and at the same time points out what +it is that he wishes us to recognize as the inspiration of the whole; +but here, again, the means appear to be somewhat extraneous. +Schumann's example, however, in abolishing the pauses between the +movements of the symphony in D minor, and having melodic material +common to all the movements, is a plea for appreciation which cannot +be misunderstood. Before Schumann Mendelssohn intended that his +"Scotch" symphony should be performed without pauses between the +movements, but his wishes have been ignored by the conductors, I fancy +because he having neglected to knit the movements together by +community of ideas, they can see no valid reason for the abolition of +the conventional resting-places.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven's "choral" symphony followed.</i></div> + +<p>Beethoven's augmentation of the symphonic forces by employing voices +has been followed by Berlioz in his "Romeo and Juliet," which, though +called a "dramatic symphony," is a mixture of symphony, cantata, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +opera; Mendelssohn in his "Hymn of Praise" (which is also a composite +work and has a composite title—"Symphony Cantata"), and Liszt in his +"Faust" symphony, in the finale of which we meet a solo tenor and +chorus of men's voices who sing Goethe's <i>Chorus mysticus</i>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Increase in the number of movements.</i></div> + +<p>A number of other experiments have been made, the effectiveness of +which has been conceded in individual instances, but which have failed +permanently to affect the symphonic form. Schumann has two trios in +his symphony in B-flat, and his E-flat, the so-called "Rhenish," has +five movements instead of four, there being two slow movements, one in +moderate tempo (<i>Nicht schnell</i>), and the other in slow (<i>Feierlich</i>). +In this symphony, also, Schumann exercises the license which has been +recognized since Beethoven's time, of changing the places in the +scheme of the second and third movements, giving the second place to +the jocose division instead of the slow. Beethoven's "Pastoral" has +also five movements, unless one chooses to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> the storm which +interrupts the "Merry-making of the Country Folk" as standing toward +the last movement as an introduction, as, indeed, it does in the +composer's idyllic scheme. Certain it is, Sir George Grove to the +contrary notwithstanding, that the sense of a disturbance of the +symphonic plan is not so vivid at a performance of the "Pastoral" as +at one of Schumann's "Rhenish," in which either the third movement or +the so-called "Cathedral Scene" is most distinctly an interloper.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Further extension of boundaries.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Saint-Saëns's C minor symphony.</i></div> + +<p>Usually it is deference to the demands of a "programme" that +influences composers in extending the formal boundaries of a symphony, +and when this is done the result is frequently a work which can only +be called a symphony by courtesy. M. Saint-Saëns, however, attempted +an original excursion in his symphony in C minor, without any +discoverable, or at least confessed, programmatic idea. He laid the +work out in two grand divisions, so as to have but one pause. +Nevertheless in each division we can recognize, though as through a +haze, the outlines of the fa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>miliar symphonic movements. In the first +part, buried under a sequence of time designations like this: +<i>Adagio</i>—<i>Allegro moderato</i>—<i>Poco adagio</i>, we discover the customary +first and second movements, the former preceded by a slow +introduction; in the second division we find this arrangement: +<i>Allegro moderato</i>—<i>Presto</i>—<i>Maestoso</i>—<i>Allegro</i>, this multiplicity +of terms affording only a sort of disguise for the regulation scherzo +and finale, with a cropping out of reminiscences from the first part +which have the obvious purpose to impress upon the hearer that the +symphony is an organic whole. M. Saint-Saëns has also introduced the +organ and a pianoforte with two players into the instrumental +apparatus.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Symphonic Poem.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Its characteristics.</i></div> + +<p>Three characteristics may be said to distinguish the Symphonic Poem, +which in the view of the extremists who follow the lead of Liszt is +the logical outcome of the symphony and the only expression of its +æsthetic principles consonant with modern thought and feeling. +<i>First</i>, it is programmatic—that is, it is based upon a poetical +idea,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> a sequence of incidents, or of soul-states, to which a clew is +given either by the title or a motto; <i>second</i>, it is compacted in +form to a single movement, though as a rule the changing phases +delineated in the separate movements of the symphony are also to be +found in the divisions of the work marked by changes in tempo, key, +and character; <i>third</i>, the work generally has a principal subject of +such plasticity that the composer can body forth a varied content by +presenting it in a number of transformations.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Liszt's first pianoforte concerto.</i></div> + +<p>The last two characteristics Liszt has carried over into his +pianoforte concerto in E-flat. This has four distinct movements (viz.: +I. <i>Allegro maestoso</i>; II. <i>Quasi adagio</i>; III. <i>Allegretto vivace, +scherzando</i>; IV. <i>Allegro marziale animato</i>), but they are fused into +a continuous whole, throughout which the principal thought of the +work, the stupendously energetic phrase which the orchestra proclaims +at the outset, is presented in various forms to make it express a +great variety of moods and yet give unity to the concerto. "Thus, by +means of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> metamorphosis," says Mr. Edward Dannreuther, "the +poetic unity of the whole musical tissue is made apparent, spite of +very great diversity of details; and Coleridge's attempt at a +definition of poetic unity—unity in multiety—is carried out to the +letter."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Other cyclical forms.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pianoforte and orchestra.</i></div> + +<p>It will readily be understood that the other cyclical compositions +which I have associated with a classic concert, that is, compositions +belonging to the category of chamber music (see <a href="#III">Chapter III.</a>), and +concertos for solo instruments with orchestral accompaniment, while +conforming to the scheme which I have outlined, all have individual +characteristics conditioned on the expressive capacity of the +apparatus. The modern pianoforte is capable of asserting itself +against a full orchestra, and concertos have been written for it in +which it is treated as an orchestral integer rather than a solo +instrument. In the older conception, the orchestra, though it +frequently assumed the privilege of introducing the subject-matter, +played a subordinate part to the solo instrument in its development. +In violin as well as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> pianoforte concertos special opportunity is +given to the player to exploit his skill and display the solo +instrument free from structural restrictions in the cadenza introduced +shortly before the close of the first, last, or both movements.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Cadenzas.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Improvisations by the player.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>M. Ysaye's opinion of Cadenzas.</i></div> + +<p>Cadenzas are a relic of a time when the art of improvisation was more +generally practised than it is now, and when performers were conceded +to have rights beyond the printed page. Solely for their display, it +became customary for composers to indicate by a hold +<img src="images/fermata.png" alt="fermata" width="39" height="21" /> a place where the performer might indulge in a flourish of +his own. There is a tradition that Mozart once remarked: "Wherever I +smear that thing," indicating a hold, "you can do what you please;" +the rule is, however, that the only privilege which the cadenza opens +to the player is that of improvising on material drawn from the +subjects already developed, and since, also as a rule, composers are +generally more eloquent in the treatment of their own ideas than +performers, it is seldom that a cadenza<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> contributes to the enjoyment +afforded by a work, except to the lovers of technique for technique's +sake. I never knew an artist to make a more sensible remark than did +M. Ysaye, when on the eve of a memorably beautiful performance of +Beethoven's violin concerto, he said: "If I were permitted to consult +my own wishes I would put my violin under my arm when I reach the +<i>fermate</i> and say: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the cadenza. +It is presumptuous in any musician to think that he can have anything +to say after Beethoven has finished. With your permission we will +consider my cadenza played.'" That Beethoven may himself have had a +thought of the same nature is a fair inference from the circumstance +that he refused to leave the cadenza in his E-flat pianoforte concerto +to the mercy of the virtuosos but wrote it himself.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Concertos.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Chamber music.</i></div> + +<p>Concertos for pianoforte or violin are usually written in three +movements, of which the first and last follow the symphonic model in +respect of elaboration and form, and the second is a brief move<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>ment +in slow or moderate time, which has the character of an intermezzo. As +to the nomenclature of chamber music, it is to be noted that unless +connected with a qualifying word or phrase, "Quartet" means a string +quartet. When a pianoforte is consorted with strings the work is +spoken of as a Pianoforte Trio, Quartet, or Quintet, as the case may +be.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Overture.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pot-pourris.</i></div> + +<p>The form of the overture is that of the first movement of the sonata, +or symphony, omitting the repetition of the first subdivision. Since +the original purpose, which gave the overture its name (<i>Ouverture</i> = +aperture, opening), was to introduce a drama, either spoken or +lyrical, an oratorio, or other choral composition, it became customary +for the composers to choose the subjects of the piece from the +climacteric moments of the music used in the drama. When done without +regard to the rules of construction (as is the case with practically +all operetta overtures and Rossini's) the result is not an overture at +all, but a <i>pot-pourri</i>, a hotch-potch of jingles. The present +beautiful form, in which Beethoven and other composers have shown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +that it is possible to epitomize an entire drama, took the place of an +arbitrary scheme which was wholly aimless, so far as the compositions +to which they were attached were concerned.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Old styles of overtures.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Prelude.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Gluck's principle.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Descriptive titles.</i></div> + +<p>The earliest fixed form of the overture is preserved to the current +lists of to-day by the compositions of Bach and Handel. It is that +established by Lully, and is tripartite in form, consisting of a rapid +movement, generally a fugue, preceded and followed by a slow movement +which is grave and stately in its tread. In its latest phase the +overture has yielded up its name in favor of Prelude (German, +<i>Vorspiel</i>), Introduction, or Symphonic Prologue. The finest of these, +without borrowing their themes from the works which they introduce, +but using new matter entirely, seek to fulfil the aim which Gluck set +for himself, when, in the preface to "Alceste," he wrote: "I imagined +that the overture ought to prepare the audience for the action of the +piece, and serve as a kind of argument to it." Concert overtures are +compositions designed by the composers to stand as independent pieces +in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>stead of for performance in connection with a drama, opera, or +oratorio. When, as is frequently the case, the composer, nevertheless, +gives them a descriptive title ("Hebrides," "Sakuntala"), their +poetical contents are to be sought in the associations aroused by the +title. Thus, in the instances cited, "Hebrides" suggests that the +overture was designed by Mendelssohn to reflect the mood awakened in +him by a visit to the Hebrides, more particularly to Fingal's Cave +(wherefore the overture is called the "Fingal's Cave" overture in +Germany)—"Sakuntala" invites to a study of Kalidasa's drama of that +name as the repository of the sentiments which Goldmark undertook to +express in his music.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Serenades.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Serenade in Shakespeare.</i></div> + +<p>A form which is variously employed, for solo instruments, small +combinations, and full orchestra (though seldom with the complete +modern apparatus), is the Serenade. Historically, it is a contemporary +of the old suites and the first symphonies, and like them it consists +of a group of short pieces, so arranged as to form an agreeable +con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>trast with each other, and yet convey a sense of organic unity. +The character of the various parts and their order grew out of the +purpose for which the serenade was originated, which was that +indicated by the name. In the last century, and earlier, it was no +uncommon thing for a lover to bring the tribute of a musical +performance to his mistress, and it was not always a "woful ballad" +sung to her eyebrow. Frequently musicians were hired, and the tribute +took the form of a nocturnal concert. In Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen +of Verona," <i>Proteus</i>, prompting <i>Thurio</i> what to do to win <i>Silvia's</i> +love, says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Visit by night your lady's chamber window<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With some sweet concert: to their instruments<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tune a deploring dump; the night's dread silence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will well become such sweet complaining grievance."</span> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Out-of-doors music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Old forms.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The "Dump."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven's Serenade, op. 8.</i></div> + +<p>It was for such purposes that the serenade was invented as an +instrumental form. Since they were to play out of doors, <i>Sir +Thurio's</i> musicians would have used wind instruments in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>stead of +viols, and the oldest serenades are composed for oboes and bassoons. +Clarinets and horns were subsequently added, and for such bands Mozart +wrote serenades, some of which so closely approach the symphony that +they have been published as symphonies. A serenade in the olden time +opened very properly with a march, to the strains of which we may +imagine the musicians approaching the lady's chamber window. Then came +a minuet to prepare her ear for the "deploring dump" which followed, +the "dump" of Shakespeare's day, like the "dumka" of ours (with which +I am tempted to associate it etymologically), being a mournful piece +of music most happily characterized by the poet as a "sweet +complaining grievance." Then followed another piece in merry tempo and +rhythm, then a second <i>adagio</i>, and the entertainment ended with an +<i>allegro</i>, generally in march rhythm, to which we fancy the musicians +departing. The order is exemplified in Beethoven's serenade for +violin, viola, and violoncello, op. 8, which runs thus: <i>March</i>; +<i>Adagio</i>; <i>Minuet</i>; <i>Adagio</i> with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> episodic <i>Scherzo</i>; <i>Polacca</i>; +<i>Andante</i> (variations), the opening march repeated.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Orchestral Suite.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Ballet music.</i></div> + +<p>The Suite has come back into favor as an orchestral piece, but the +term no longer has the fixed significance which once it had. It is now +applied to almost any group of short pieces, pleasantly contrasted in +rhythm, tempo, and mood, each complete in itself yet disclosing an +æsthetic relationship with its fellows. Sometimes old dance forms are +used, and sometimes new, such as the polonaise and the waltz. The +ballet music, which fills so welcome a place in popular programmes, +may be looked upon as such a suite, and the rhythm of the music and +the orchestral coloring in them are frequently those peculiar to the +dances of the countries in which the story of the opera or drama for +which the music was written plays. The ballets therefore afford an +excellent opportunity for the study of local color. Thus the ballet +music from Massenet's "Cid" is Spanish, from Rubinstein's "Feramors" +Oriental, from "Aïda" Egyptian—Oriental rhythms and colorings being +those most easily copied by composers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Operatic excerpts.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Gluck and Vestris.</i></div> + +<p>The other operatic excerpts common to concerts of both classes are +either between-acts music, fantasias on operatic airs, or, in the case +of Wagner's contributions, portions of his dramas which are so +predominantly instrumental that it has been found feasible to +incorporate the vocal part with the orchestral. In ballet music from +the operas of the last century, some of which has been preserved to +the modern concert-room, local color must not be sought. Gluck's +Greeks, like Shakespeare's, danced to the rhythms of the seventeenth +century. Vestris, whom the people of his time called "The god of the +dance," once complained to Gluck that his "Iphigénie en Aulide" did +not end with a chaconne, as was the rule. "A chaconne!" cried Gluck; +"when did the Greeks ever dance a chaconne?" "Didn't they? Didn't +they?" answered Vestris; "so much the worse for the Greeks." There +ensued a quarrel. Gluck became incensed, withdrew the opera which was +about to be produced, and would have left Paris had not Marie +Antoinette come to the rescue. But Vestris got his chaconne.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco07.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="75" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<h2><i>At a Pianoforte Recital</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mr. Paderewski's concerts.</i></div> + +<p><span class="dropcap">N</span><span class="smcap">o</span> clearer illustration of the magical power which lies in music, no +more convincing proof of the puissant fascination which a musical +artist can exert, no greater demonstration of the capabilities of an +instrument of music can be imagined than was afforded by the +pianoforte recitals which Mr. Paderewski gave in the United States +during the season of 1895-96. More than threescore times in the course +of five months, in the principal cities of this country, did this +wonderful man seat himself in the presence of audiences, whose numbers +ran into the thousands, and were limited only by the seating capacity +of the rooms in which they gathered, and hold them spellbound from two +to three hours by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> the eloquence of his playing. Each time the people +came in a gladsome frame of mind, stimulated by the recollection of +previous delights or eager expectation. Each time they sat listening +to the music as if it were an evangel on which hung everlasting +things. Each time there was the same growth in enthusiasm which began +in decorous applause and ended in cheers and shouts as the artist came +back after the performance of a herculean task, and added piece after +piece to a programme which had been laid down on generous lines from +the beginning. The careless saw the spectacle with simple amazement, +but for the judicious it had a wondrous interest.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pianoforte recitals.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The pianoforte's underlying principles.</i></div> + +<p>I am not now concerned with Mr. Paderewski beyond invoking his aid in +bringing into court a form of entertainment which, in his hands, has +proved to be more attractive to the multitude than symphony, oratorio, +and even opera. What a world of speculation and curious inquiry does +such a recital invite one into, beginning with the instrument which +was the medium of communica<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>tion between the artist and his hearers! +To follow the progressive development of the mechanical principles +underlying the pianoforte, one would be obliged to begin beyond the +veil which separates history from tradition, for the first of them +finds its earliest exemplification in the bow twanged by the primitive +savage. Since a recognition of these principles may help to an +understanding of the art of pianoforte playing, I enumerate them now. +They are:</p> + +<p>1. A stretched string as a medium of tone production.</p> + +<p>2. A key-board as an agency for manipulating the strings.</p> + +<p>3. A blow as the means of exciting the strings to vibratory action, by +which the tone is produced.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Their Genesis.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Significance of the pianoforte.</i></div> + +<p>Many interesting glimpses of the human mind and heart might we have in +the course of the promenade through the ancient, mediæval, and modern +worlds which would be necessary to disclose the origin and growth of +these three principles, but these we must forego, since we are to +study the music of the instrument, not its history. Let the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> knowledge +suffice that the fundamental principle of the pianoforte is as old as +music itself, and that scientific learning, inventive ingenuity, and +mechanical skill, tributary always to the genius of the art, have +worked together for centuries to apply this principle, until the +instrument which embodies it in its highest potency is become a +veritable microcosm of music. It is the visible sign of culture in +every gentle household; the indispensable companion of the composer +and teacher; the intermediary between all the various branches of +music. Into the study of the orchestral conductor it brings a +translation of all the multitudinous voices of the band; to the +choir-master it represents the chorus of singers in the church-loft or +on the concert-platform; with its aid the opera director fills his +imagination with the people, passions, and pageantry of the lyric +drama long before the singers have received their parts, or the +costumer, stage manager, and scene-painter have begun their work. It +is the only medium through which the musician in his study can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +commune with the whole world of music and all its heroes; and though +it may fail to inspire somewhat of that sympathetic nearness which one +feels toward the violin as it nestles under the chin and throbs +synchronously with the player's emotions, or those wind instruments +into which the player breathes his own breath as the breath of life, +it surpasses all its rivals, save the organ, in its capacity for +publishing the grand harmonies of the masters, for uttering their +"sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Defects of the pianoforte.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Lack of sustaining power.</i></div> + +<p>This is one side of the picture and serves to show why the pianoforte +is the most universal, useful, and necessary of all musical +instruments. The other side shows its deficiencies, which must also be +known if one is to appreciate rightly the many things he is called +upon to note while listening intelligently to pianoforte music. +Despite all the skill, learning, and ingenuity which have been spent +on its perfection, the pianoforte can be made only feebly to +approximate that sustained style of musical utterance which is the +soul of melody, and finds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> its loftiest exemplification in singing. To +give out a melody perfectly, presupposes the capacity to sustain tones +without loss in power or quality, to bind them together at will, and +sometimes to intensify their dynamic or expressive force while they +sound. The tone of the pianoforte, being produced by a blow, begins to +die the moment it is created. The history of the instrument's +mechanism, and also of its technical manipulation, is the history of +an effort to reduce this shortcoming to a minimum. It has always +conditioned the character of the music composed for the instrument, +and if we were not in danger of being led into too wide an excursion, +it would be profitable to trace the parallelism which is disclosed by +the mechanical evolution of the instrument, and the technical and +spiritual evolution of the music composed for it. A few points will be +touched upon presently, when the intellectual activity invited by a +recital is brought under consideration.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The percussive element.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Melody with drum-beats.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Rhythmical accentuation.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A universal substitute.</i></div> + +<p>It is to be noted, further, that by a beautiful application of the +doctrine of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> compensations, the factor which limits the capacity of +the pianoforte as a melody instrument endows it with a merit which no +other instrument has in the same degree, except the instruments of +percussion, which, despite their usefulness, stand on the border line +between savage and civilized music. It is from its relationship to the +drum that the pianoforte derives a peculiarity quite unique in the +melodic and harmonic family. Rhythm is, after all, the starting-point +of music. More than melody, more than harmony, it stirs the blood of +the savage, and since the most vital forces within man are those which +date back to his primitive state, so the sense of rhythm is the most +universal of the musical senses among even the most cultured of +peoples to-day. By themselves the drums, triangles, and cymbals of an +orchestra represent music but one remove from noise; but everybody +knows how marvellously they can be utilized to glorify a climax. Now, +in a very refined degree, every melody on the pianoforte, be it played +as delicately as it may, is a melody with drum-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>beats. Manufacturers +have done much toward eliminating the thump of the hammers against the +strings, and familiarity with the tone of the instrument has closed +our ears against it to a great extent as something intrusive, but the +blow which excites the string to vibration, and thus generates sound, +is yet a vital factor in determining the character of pianoforte +music. The recurrent pulsations, now energetic, incisive, resolute, +now gentle and caressing, infuse life into the melody, and by +emphasizing its rhythmical structure (without unduly exaggerating it), +present the form of the melody in much sharper outline than is +possible on any other instrument, and much more than one would expect +in view of the evanescent character of the pianoforte's tone. It is +this quality, combined with the mechanism which places all the +gradations of tone, from loudest to softest, at the easy and +instantaneous command of the player, which, I fancy, makes the +pianoforte, in an astonishing degree, a substitute for all the other +instruments. Each instrument in the orchestra has an idiom,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> which +sounds incomprehensible when uttered by some other of its fellows, but +they can all be translated, with more or less success, into the +language of the pianoforte—not the quality of the tone, though even +that can be suggested, but the character of the phrase. The pianoforte +can sentimentalize like the flute, make a martial proclamation like +the trumpet, intone a prayer like the churchly trombone.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The instrument's mechanism.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Tone formation and production.</i></div> + +<p>In the intricacy of its mechanism the pianoforte stands next to the +organ. The farther removed from direct utterance we are the more +difficult is it to speak the true language of music. The violin player +and the singer, and in a less degree the performers upon some of the +wind instruments, are obliged to form the musical tone—which, in the +case of the pianist, is latent in the instrument, ready to present +itself in two of its attributes in answer to a simple pressure upon +the key. The most unmusical person in the world can learn to produce a +series of tones from a pianoforte which shall be as exact in pitch and +as varied in dynamic force as can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Mr. Paderewski. He cannot combine +them so ingeniously nor imbue them with feeling, but in the simple +matter of producing the tone with the attributes mentioned, he is on a +level with the greatest virtuoso. Very different is the case of the +musician who must exercise a distinctly musical gift in the simple +evocation of the materials of music, like the violinist and singer, +who both form and produce the tone. For them compensation flows from +the circumstance that the tone thus formed and produced is naturally +instinct with emotional life in a degree that the pianoforte tone +knows nothing of.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Technical manipulation.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Touch and emotionality.</i></div> + +<p>In one respect, it may be said that the mechanics of pianoforte +playing represent a low plane of artistic activity, a fact which ought +always to be remembered whenever the temptation is felt greatly to +exalt the technique of the art; but it must also be borne in mind that +the mechanical nature of simple tone production in pianoforte playing +raises the value of the emotional quality which, nevertheless, stands +at the command of the player. The emotional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> potency of the tone must +come from the manner in which the blow is given to the string. +Recognition of this fact has stimulated reflection, and this in turn +has discovered methods by which temperament and emotionality may be +made to express themselves as freely, convincingly, and spontaneously +in pianoforte as in violin playing. If this were not so it would be +impossible to explain the difference in the charm exerted by different +virtuosi, for it has frequently happened that the best-equipped +mechanician and the most intellectual player has been judged inferior +as an artist to another whose gifts were of the soul rather than of +the brains and fingers.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The technical cult.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A low form of art.</i></div> + +<p>The feats accomplished by a pianoforte virtuoso in the mechanical +department are of so extraordinary a nature that there need be small +wonder at the wide prevalence of a distinctly technical cult. All who +know the real nature and mission of music must condemn such a cult. It +is a sign of a want of true appreciation to admire technique for +technique's sake. It is a mistaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> of the outward shell for the +kernel, a means for the end. There are still many players who aim to +secure this admiration, either because they are deficient in real +musical feeling, or because they believe themselves surer of winning +applause by thus appealing to the lowest form of appreciation. In the +early part of the century they would have been handicapped by the +instrument which lent itself to delicacy, clearness, and gracefulness +of expression, but had little power. Now the pianoforte has become a +thing of rigid steel, enduring tons of strain from its strings, and +having a voice like the roar of many waters; to keep pace with it +players have become athletes with</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Thews of Anakim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pulses of a Titan's heart."</span> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Technical skill a matter of course.</i></div> + +<p>They care no more for the "murmurs made to bless," unless it be +occasionally for the sake of contrast, but seek to astound, amaze, +bewilder, and confound with feats of skill and endurance. That with +their devotion to the purely mechanical side of the art they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> are +threatening to destroy pianoforte playing gives them no pause +whatever. The era which they illustrate and adorn is the technical era +which was, is, and ever shall be, the era of decay in artistic +production. For the judicious technique alone, be it never so +marvellous, cannot serve to-day. Its possession is accepted as a +condition precedent in the case of everyone who ventures to appear +upon the concert-platform. He must be a wonder, indeed, who can +disturb our critical equilibrium by mere digital feats. We want +strength and velocity of finger to be coupled with strength, velocity, +and penetration of thought. We want no halting or lisping in the +proclamation of what the composer has said, but we want the contents +of his thought, not the hollow shell, no matter how distinctly its +outlines be drawn.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The plan of study in this chapter.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A typical scheme of pieces.</i></div> + +<p>The factors which present themselves for consideration at a pianoforte +recital—mechanical, intellectual, and emotional—can be most +intelligently and profitably studied along with the development of the +instrument and its music.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> All branches of the study are invited by +the typical recital programme. The essentially romantic trend of Mr. +Paderewski's nature makes his excursions into the classical field few +and short; and it is only when a pianist undertakes to emulate +Rubinstein in his historical recitals that the entire pre-Beethoven +vista is opened up. It will suffice for the purposes of this +discussion to imagine a programme containing pieces by Bach, D. +Scarlatti, Handel, and Mozart in one group; a sonata by Beethoven; +some of the shorter pieces of Schumann and Chopin, and one of the +transcriptions or rhapsodies of Liszt.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Periods in pianoforte music.</i></div> + +<p>Such a scheme falls naturally into four divisions, plainly +differentiated from each other in respect of the style of composition +and the manner of performance, both determined by the nature of the +instrument employed and the status of the musical idea. Simply for the +sake of convenience let the period represented by the first group be +called the classic; the second the classic-romantic; the third the +romantic, and the last the bravura. I beg the reader, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>ever, not to +extend these designations beyond the boundaries of the present study; +they have been chosen arbitrarily, and confusion might result if the +attempt were made to apply them to any particular concert scheme. I +have chosen the composers because of their broadly representative +capacity. And they must stand for a numerous <i>epigonoi</i> whose names +make up our concert lists: say, Couperin, Rameau, and Haydn in the +first group; Schubert in the second; Mendelssohn and Rubinstein in the +third. It would not be respectful to the memory of Liszt were I to +give him the associates with whom in my opinion he stands; that matter +may be held in abeyance.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Predecessors of the pianoforte.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Clavichord.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Bebung."</i></div> + +<p>The instruments for which the first group of writers down to Haydn and +Mozart wrote, were the immediate precursors of the pianoforte—the +clavichord, spinet, or virginal, and harpsichord. The last was the +concert instrument, and stood in the same relationship to the others +that the grand pianoforte of to-day stands to the upright and square. +The clavichord was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> generally the medium for the composer's private +communings with his muse, because of its superiority over its fellows +in expressive power; but it gave forth only a tiny tinkle and was +incapable of stirring effects beyond those which sprang from pure +emotionality. The tone was produced by a blow against the string, +delivered by a bit of brass set in the farther end of the key. The +action was that of a direct lever, and the bit of brass, which was +called the tangent, also acted as a bridge and measured off the +segment of string whose vibration produced the desired tone. It was +therefore necessary to keep the key pressed down so long as it was +desired that the tone should sound, a fact which must be kept in mind +if one would understand the shortcomings as well as the advantages of +the instrument compared with the spinet or harpsichord. It also +furnishes one explanation of the greater lyricism of Bach's music +compared with that of his contemporaries. By gently rocking the hand +while the key was down, a tremulous motion could be communicated to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +the string, which not only prolonged the tone appreciably but gave it +an expressive effect somewhat analogous to the vibrato of a violinist. +The Germans called this effect <i>Bebung</i>, the French <i>Balancement</i>, and +it was indicated by a row of dots under a short slur written over the +note. It is to the special fondness which Bach felt for the clavichord +that we owe, to a great extent, the cantabile style of his music, its +many-voicedness and its high emotionality.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Quilled instruments.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Tone of the harpsichord and spinet.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach's "Music of the future."</i></div> + +<p>The spinet, virginal, and harpsichord were quilled instruments, the +tone of which was produced by snapping the strings by means of plectra +made of quill, or some other flexible substance, set in the upper end +of a bit of wood called the jack, which rested on the farther end of +the key and moved through a slot in the sounding-board. When the key +was pressed down, the jack moved upward past the string which was +caught and twanged by the plectrum. The blow of the clavichord tangent +could be graduated like that of the pianoforte hammer, but the quills +of the other instruments always plucked the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> strings with the same +force, so that mechanical devices, such as a swell-box, similar in +principle to that of the organ, coupling in octaves, doubling the +strings, etc., had to be resorted to for variety of dynamic effects. +The character of tone thus produced determined the character of the +music composed for these instruments to a great extent. The brevity of +the sound made sustained melodies ineffective, and encouraged the use +of a great variety of embellishments and the spreading out of +harmonies in the form of arpeggios. It is obvious enough that Bach, +being one of those monumental geniuses that cast their prescient +vision far into the future, refused to be bound by such mechanical +limitations. Though he wrote <i>Clavier</i>, he thought organ, which was +his true interpretative medium, and so it happens that the greatest +sonority and the broadest style that have been developed in the +pianoforte do not exhaust the contents of such a composition as the +"Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Scarlatti's sonatas.</i></div> + +<p>The earliest music written for these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> instruments—music which does +not enter into this study—was but one remove from vocal music. It +came through compositions written for the organ. Of Scarlatti's music +the pieces most familiar are a Capriccio and Pastorale which Tausig +rewrote for the pianoforte. They were called sonatas by their +composer, but are not sonatas in the modern sense. Sonata means +"sound-piece," and when the term came into music it signified only +that the composition to which it was applied was written for +instruments instead of voices. Scarlatti did a great deal to develop +the technique of the harpsichord and the style of composing for it. +His sonatas consist each of a single movement only, but in their +structure they foreshadow the modern sonata form in having two +contrasted themes, which are presented in a fixed key-relationship. +They are frequently full of grace and animation, but are as purely +objective, formal, and soulless in their content as the other +instrumental compositions of the epoch to which they belong.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The suite.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Its history and form.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The bond between the movements.</i></div> + +<p>The most significant of the compositions of this period are the +Suites, which because they make up so large a percentage of <i>Clavier</i> +literature (using the term to cover the pianoforte and its +predecessors), and because they pointed the way to the distinguishing +form of the subsequent period, the sonata, are deserving of more +extended consideration. The suite is a set of pieces in the same key, +but contrasted in character, based upon certain admired dance-forms. +Originally it was a set of dances and nothing more, but in the hands +of the composers the dances underwent many modifications, some of them +to the obvious detriment of their national or other distinguishing +characteristics. The suite came into fashion about the middle of the +seventeenth century and was also called <i>Sonata da Camera</i> and +<i>Balletto</i> in Italy, and, later, <i>Partita</i> in France. In its +fundamental form it embraced four movements: I. Allemande. II. +Courante. III. Sarabande. IV. Gigue. To these four were sometimes +added other dances—the Gavotte, Passepied, Branle, Minuet, Bourrée, +etc.—but the rule was that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> they should be introduced between the +Sarabande and the Gigue. Sometimes also the set was introduced by a +Prelude or an Overture. Identity of key was the only external tie +between the various members of the suite, but the composers sought to +establish an artistic unity by elaborating the sentiments for which +the dance-forms seemed to offer a vehicle, and presenting them in +agreeable contrast, besides enriching the primitive structure with new +material. The suites of Bach and Handel are the high-water mark in +this style of composition, but it would be difficult to find the +original characteristics of the dances in their settings. It must +suffice us briefly to indicate the characteristics of the principal +forms.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Allemande.</i></div> + +<p>The Allemande, as its name indicates, was a dance of supposedly German +origin. For that reason the German composers, when it came to them +from France, where the suite had its origin, treated it with great +partiality. It is in moderate tempo, common time, and made up of two +periods of eight measures, both of which are repeated. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> begins with +an upbeat, and its metre, to use the terms of prosody, is iambic. The +following specimen from Mersenne's "Harmonie Universelle," 1636, well +displays its characteristics:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music30.png" alt="Harmonie Universelle" width="740" height="436" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music30.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music30.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Iambics in music and poetry.</i></div> + +<p>Robert Burns's familiar iambics,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How can ye bloom sae fair?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How can ye chant, ye little birds,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And I sae fu' o' care!"</span> +</div></div> + +<p>might serve to keep the rhythmical characteristics of the Allemande in +mind were it not for the arbitrary changes made by the composers +already hinted at. As it is, we frequently find the stately movement +of the old dance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> broken up into elaborate, but always quietly +flowing, ornamentation, as indicated in the following excerpt from the +third of Bach's English suites:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music31.png" alt="Bach 3rd English Suite" width="734" height="80" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music31.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music31.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Courante.</i></div> + +<p>The Courante, or Corrente ("Teach lavoltas high and swift corantos," +says Shakespeare), is a French dance which was extremely popular in +the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries—a polite dance, +like the minuet. It was in triple time, and its movement was bright +and brisk, a merry energy being imparted to the measure by the +prevailing figure, a dotted quarter-note, an eighth, and a quarter in +a measure, as illustrated in the following excerpt also from Mersenne:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music32.png" alt="Mersenne" width="737" height="159" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music32.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music32.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>The suite composers varied the movement greatly, however, and the +Italian Corrente consists chiefly of rapid running passages.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Sarabande.</i></div> +<div class="sidenote"><i>A Sarabande by Handel.</i></div> + +<p>The Sarabande was also in triple time, but its movement was slow and +stately. In Spain, whence it was derived, it was sung to the +accompaniment of castanets, a fact which in itself suffices to +indicate that it was originally of a lively character, and took on its +solemnity in the hands of the later composers. Handel found the +Sarabande a peculiarly admirable vehicle for his inspirations, and one +of the finest examples extant figures in the triumphal music of his +"Almira," composed in 1704:</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music33.png" alt="Almira" width="752" height="654" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music33.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music33.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>Seven years after the production of "Almira," Handel recurred to this +beautiful instrumental piece, and out of it constructed the exquisite +lament beginning "<i>Lascia ch'io pianga</i>" in his opera "Rinaldo."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Gigue.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Minuet.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Gavotte.</i></div> + +<p>Great Britain's contribution to the Suite was the final Gigue, which +is our jolly and familiar friend the jig, and in all probability is +Keltic in origin. It is, as everybody knows, a rollicking measure in +6-8, 12-8, or 4-4 time, with twelve triplet quavers in a measure, and +needs no description. It remained a favorite with composers until far +into the eighteenth century. Shakespeare proclaims its exuberant +lustiness when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> he makes <i>Sir Toby Belch</i> protest that had he <i>Sir +Andrew's</i> gifts his "very walk should be a jig." Of the other dances +incorporated into the suite, two are deserving of special mention +because of their influence on the music of to-day—the Minuet, which +is the parent of the symphonic scherzo, and the Gavotte, whose +fascinating movement is frequently heard in latter-day operettas. The +Minuet is a French dance, and came from Poitou. Louis XIV. danced it +to Lully's music for the first time at Versailles in 1653, and it soon +became the most popular of court and society dances, holding its own +down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was long called +the Queen of Dances, and there is no one who has grieved to see the +departure of gallantry and grace from our ball-rooms but will wish to +see Her Gracious Majesty restored to her throne. The music of the +minuet is in 3-4 time, and of stately movement. The Gavotte is a +lively dance-measure in common time, beginning, as a rule, on the +third beat. Its origin has been traced to the moun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>tain people of the +Dauphiné called Gavots—whence its name.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Technique of the Clavier players.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Change in technique.</i></div> + +<p>The transferrence of this music to the modern pianoforte has effected +a vast change in the manner of its performance. In the period under +consideration emotionality, which is considered the loftiest attribute +of pianoforte playing to-day, was lacking, except in the case of such +masters of the clavichord as the great Bach and his son, Carl Philipp +Emanuel, who inherited his father's preference for that instrument +over the harpsichord and pianoforte. Tastefulness in the giving out of +the melody, distinctness of enunciation, correctness of phrasing, +nimbleness and lightness of finger, summed up practically all that +there was in virtuosoship. Intellectuality and digital skill were the +essential factors. Beauty of tone through which feeling and +temperament speak now was the product of the maker of the instrument, +except again in the case of the clavichord, in which it may have been +largely the creation of the player. It is, therefore, not surprising +that the first revolution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> in technique of which we hear was +accomplished by Bach, who, the better to bring out the characteristics +of his polyphonic style, made use of the thumb, till then considered +almost a useless member of the hand in playing, and bent his fingers, +so that their movements might be more unconstrained.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach's touch.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Handel's playing.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Scarlatti's style.</i></div> + +<p>Of the varieties of touch, which play such a rôle in pianoforte +pedagogics to-day, nothing was known. Only on the clavichord was a +blow delivered directly against the string, and, as has already been +said, only on that instrument was the dynamic shading regulated by the +touch. Practically, the same touch was used on the organ and the +stringed instruments with key-board. When we find written praise of +the old players it always goes to the fluency and lightness of their +fingering. Handel was greatly esteemed as a harpsichord player, and +seems to have invented a position of the hand like Bach's, or to have +copied it from that master. Forkel tells us the movement of Bach's +fingers was so slight as to be scarcely noticeable; the position of +his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> hands remained unchanged throughout, and the rest of his body +motionless. Speaking of Handel's harpsichord playing, Burney says that +his fingers "seemed to grow to the keys. They were so curved and +compact when he played that no motion, and scarcely the fingers +themselves, could be discovered." Scarlatti's significance lies +chiefly in an extension of the technique of his time so as to give +greater individuality to the instrument. He indulged freely in +brilliant passages and figures which sometimes call for a crossing of +the hands, also in leaps of over an octave, repetition of a note by +different fingers, broken chords in contrary motion, and other devices +which prefigure modern pianoforte music.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The sonata.</i></div> + +<p>That Scarlatti also pointed the way to the modern sonata, I have +already said. The history of the sonata, as the term is now +understood, ends with Beethoven. Many sonatas have been written since +the last one of that great master, but not a word has been added to +his proclamation. He stands, therefore, as a perfect exemplar of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +second period in the scheme which we have adopted for the study of +pianoforte music and playing. In a general way a sonata may be +described as a composition of four movements, contrasted in mood, +tempo, sentiment, and character, but connected by that spiritual bond +of which mention was made in our study of the symphony. In short, a +sonata is a symphony for a solo instrument.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Haydn.</i></div> + +<p>When it came into being it was little else than a convenient formula +for the expression of musical beauty. Haydn, who perfected it on its +formal side, left it that and nothing more. Mozart poured the vessel +full of beauty, but Beethoven breathed the breath of a new life into +it. An old writer tells us of Haydn that he was wont to say that the +whole art of composing consisted in taking up a subject and pursuing +it. Having invented his theme, he would begin by choosing the keys +through which he wished to make it pass.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"His exquisite feeling gave him a perfect knowledge of the +greater or less degree of effect which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> one chord produces +in succeeding another, and he afterward imagined a little +romance which might furnish him with sentiments and colors."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mozart's manner of playing.</i></div> + +<p>Beethoven began with the sentiment and worked from it outwardly, +modifying the form when it became necessary to do so, in order to +obtain complete and perfect utterance. He made spirit rise superior to +matter. This must be borne in mind when comparing the technique of the +previous period with that of which I have made Beethoven the +representative. In the little that we are privileged to read of +Mozart's style of playing, we see only a reflex of the players who +went before him, saving as it was permeated by the warmth which went +out from his own genial personality. His manipulation of the keys had +the quietness and smoothness that were praised in Bach and Handel.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Delicacy and taste," says Kullak, "with his lifting of the +entire technique to the spiritual aspiration of the idea, +elevate him as a virtuoso to a height unanimously conceded +by the public, by connoisseurs, and by artists capable of +judging. Clementi declared that he had never heard any one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +play so soulfully and charmfully as Mozart; Dittersdorf +finds art and taste combined in his playing; Haydn +asseverated with tears that Mozart's playing he could never +forget, for it touched the heart. His staccato is said to +have possessed a peculiarly brilliant charm."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Clementi.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven as a pianist.</i></div> + +<p>The period of C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, and Mozart is that in which the +pianoforte gradually replaced its predecessors, and the first real +pianist was Mozart's contemporary and rival, Muzio Clementi. His chief +significance lies in his influence as a technician, for he opened the +way to the modern style of play with its greater sonority and capacity +for expression. Under him passage playing became an entirely new +thing; deftness, lightness, and fluency were replaced by stupendous +virtuosoship, which rested, nevertheless, on a full and solid tone. He +is said to have been able to trill in octaves with one hand. He was +necessary for the adequate interpretation of Beethoven, whose music is +likely to be best understood by those who know that he, too, was a +superb pianoforte player, fully up to the requirements which his last +sonatas make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> upon technical skill as well as intellectual and +emotional gifts.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven's technique.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Expression supreme.</i></div> + +<p>Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven, has preserved a fuller account +of that great composer's art as a player than we have of any of his +predecessors. He describes his technique as tremendous, better than +that of any virtuoso of his day. He was remarkably deft in connecting +the full chords, in which he delighted, without the use of the pedal. +His manner at the instrument was composed and quiet. He sat erect, +without movement of the upper body, and only when his deafness +compelled him to do so, in order to hear his own music, did he +contract a habit of leaning forward. With an evident appreciation of +the necessities of old-time music he had a great admiration for clean +fingering, especially in fugue playing, and he objected to the use of +Cramer's studies in the instruction of his nephew by Czerny because +they led to what he called a "sticky" style of play, and failed to +bring out crisp staccatos and a light touch. But it was upon +expression that he insisted most of all when he taught.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Music and emotion.</i></div> + +<p>More than anyone else it was Beethoven who brought music back to the +purpose which it had in its first rude state, when it sprang +unvolitionally from the heart and lips of primitive man. It became +again a vehicle for the feelings. As such it was accepted by the +romantic composers to whom he belongs as father, seer, and prophet, +quite as intimately as he belongs to the classicists by reason of his +adherence to form as an essential in music. To his contemporaries he +appears as an image-breaker, but to the clearer vision of to-day he +stands an unshakable barrier to lawless iconoclasm. Says Sir George +Grove, quoting Mr. Edward Dannreuther, in the passages within the +inverted commas:</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven a Romanticist.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"That he was no wild radical altering for the mere pleasure +of alteration, or in the mere search for originality, is +evident from the length of time during which he abstained +from publishing, or even composing works of pretension, and +from the likeness which his early works possess to those of +his predecessors. He began naturally with the forms which +were in use in his days, and his alteration of them grew +very gradually with the necessities of his expression. The +form of the sonata is 'the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> transparent veil through which +Beethoven seems to have looked at all music.' And the good +points of that form he retained to the last—the 'triune +symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,' which +that admirable method allowed and enforced—but he permitted +himself a much greater liberty than his predecessors had +done in the relationship of the keys of the different +movements, and parts of movements, and in the proportion of +the clauses and sections with which he built them up. In +other words, he was less bound by the forms and musical +rules, and more swayed by the thought which he had to +express, and the directions which that thought took in his +mind."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Schumann and Chopin.</i></div> + +<p>It is scarcely to be wondered at that when men like Schumann and +Chopin felt the full force of the new evangel which Beethoven had +preached, they proceeded to carry the formal side of poetic +expression, its vehicle, into regions unthought of before their time. +The few old forms had now to give way to a large variety. In their +work they proceeded from points that were far apart—Schumann's was +literary, Chopin's political. In one respect the lists of their pieces +which appear most frequently on recital programmes seem to hark back +to the suites of two centu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>ries ago—they are sets of short +compositions grouped, either by the composer (as is the case with +Schumann) or by the performer (as is the case with Chopin in the hands +of Mr. Paderewski). Such fantastic musical miniatures as Schumann's +"Carnaval" and "Papillons" are eminently characteristic of the +composer's intellectual and emotional nature, which in his university +days had fallen under the spell of literary romanticism.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Jean Paul's influence.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Schumann's inspirations.</i></div> + +<p>While ostensibly studying jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Schumann +devoted seven hours a day to the pianoforte and several to Jean Paul. +It was this writer who moulded not only Schumann's literary style in +his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in +music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was +the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but +give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn +the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. +Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> Thorn +Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular +mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find +an imitator in so ardent an apostle as young Schumann, and, therefore, +we have such compositions as "Papillons," "Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," +"Phantasiestücke," and the rest. Almost always, it may be said, the +pieces which make them up were composed under the poetical and +emotional impulses derived from literature, then grouped and named. To +understand their poetic contents this must be known.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Chopin's music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Preludes.</i></div> + +<p>Chopin's fancy, on the other hand, found stimulation in the charm +which, for him, lay in the tone of the pianoforte itself (to which he +added a new loveliness by his manner of writing), as well as in the +rhythms of the popular dances of his country. These dances he not only +beautified as the old suite writers beautified their forms, but he +utilized them as vessels which he filled with feeling, not all of +which need be accepted as healthy, though much of it is. As to his +titles, "Preludes" is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> purely an arbitrary designation for +compositions which are equally indefinite in form and character; +Niecks compares them very aptly to a portfolio full of drawings "in +all stages of advancement—finished and unfinished, complete and +incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed +indiscriminately together." So, too, they appeared to Schumann: "They +are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you will, ruins, single +eagle-wings, all strangely mixed together." Nevertheless some of them +are marvellous soul-pictures.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Études.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Nocturnes.</i></div> + +<p>The "Études" are studies intended to develop the technique of the +pianoforte in the line of the composer's discoveries, his method of +playing extended arpeggios, contrasted rhythms, progressions in thirds +and octaves, etc., but still they breathe poetry and sometimes +passion. Nocturne is an arbitrary, but expressive, title for a short +composition of a dreamy, contemplative, or even elegiac, character. In +many of his nocturnes Chopin is the adored sentimentalist of +boarding-school misses. There is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> poppy in them and seductive poison +for which Niecks sensibly prescribes Bach and Beethoven as antidotes. +The term ballad has been greatly abused in literature, and in music is +intrinsically unmeaning. Chopin's four Ballades have one feature in +common—they are written in triple time; and they are among his finest +inspirations.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Polonaise.</i></div> + +<p>Chopin's dances are conventionalized, and do not all speak the idiom +of the people who created their forms, but their original +characteristics ought to be known. The Polonaise was the stately dance +of the Polish nobility, more a march or procession than a dance, full +of gravity and courtliness, with an imposing and majestic rhythm in +triple time that tends to emphasize the second beat of the measure, +frequently syncopating it and accentuating the second half of the +first beat:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music34.png" alt="polonaise" width="326" height="64" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music34.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music34.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Mazurka.</i></div> + +<p>National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas. Unlike the +Polonaise this was the dance of the common peo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>ple, and even as +conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in +the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive +rhythm:</p> + +<table border="0" summary="Mazurka" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="75%" id="AutoNumber2"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td> <img src="images/music35.png" alt="mazurka" width="220" height="69" /><p style="text-align: center"> + <a href="music/music35.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music35.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + + </td> + <td>or</td> + <td> <img src="images/music36.png" alt="mazurka" width="219" height="69" /><p style="text-align: center"> + <a href="music/music36.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music36.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + + </td> + </tr> +</tbody> +</table> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Krakowiak.</i></div> + +<p>The Krakowiak (French <i>Cracovienne</i>, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating +specimen in his "Humoresques de Concert," op. 14) is a popular dance +indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name. Its rhythmical +elements are these:</p> + +<table border="0" summary="Krakowiak" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="75%" id="AutoNumber3"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td> <img src="images/music37.png" alt="Krakowiak" width="239" height="55" /><p style="text-align: center"> + <a href="music/music37.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music37.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + + </td> + <td>and</td> + <td> <img src="images/music38.png" alt="Krakowiak" width="95" height="55" /><p> + <a href="music/music38.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music38.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + + </td> + </tr> +</tbody> +</table> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Idiomatic music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Content higher than idiom.</i></div> + +<p>In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on +the part of the composers to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. No +music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic. Frequently in +Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of +expression; we feel that the thought would have had better expression +had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte. We may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and +its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been +pronounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique's +sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of +the newer charm. "Idiomatic of the pianoforte" is a good enough phrase +and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring +something like discredit to the instrument. It would be a pity if +music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty, +should fail of appreciation simply because it had been observed that +the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effective +vehicle for its publication—a pity for the pianoforte, for therein +would lie an exemplification of its imperfection. So, too, it would be +a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been +clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that +reason good pianoforte music, <i>i.e.</i>, "idiomatic" music, irrespective +of its content.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Development of the pianoforte.</i></div> + +<p>In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument +compared with the grand of to-day. Its capacities were but beginning +to be appreciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now +are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English +manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six +octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's +pianoforte. In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half +octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in +1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material +improvement to the instrument. This extension of compass, however, is +far from being the most important improvement since the classic +period. The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been +much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Pedals.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Shifting pedal.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Damper pedal.</i></div> + +<p>Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the +music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The shifting +pedal was invented<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied +it to an instrument which he named "Saiten-harmonika." Before then +soft effects were obtained by interposing a bit of felt between the +hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square +pianofortes. The shifting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly +called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only +one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate +sympathetically. Beethoven was the first to appreciate the +possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in +G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin, +and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especially that of the +damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the +vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of +tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody +and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the +dampers and utilizing the ethereal sounds which rise from the strings +when they vibrate sympathetically.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Liszt.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A dual character.</i></div> + +<p>It is no part of my purpose to indulge in criticism of composers, but +something of the kind is made unavoidable by the position assigned to +Liszt in our pianoforte recitals. He is relied upon to provide a +scintillant close. The pianists, then, even those who are his +professed admirers, are responsible if he is set down in our scheme as +the exemplar of the technical cult. Technique having its unquestioned +value, we are bound to admire the marvellous gifts which enabled Liszt +practically to sum up all the possibilities of pianoforte mechanism in +its present stage of construction, but we need not look with unalloyed +gratitude upon his influence as a composer. There were, I fear, two +sides to Liszt's artistic character as well as his moral. I believe he +had in him a touch of charlatanism as well as a magnificent amount of +artistic sincerity—just as he blended a laxity of moral ideas with a +profound religious mysticism. It would have been strange indeed, +growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, +if he had not accustomed himself to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> sacrifice a little of the soul of +art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling +to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented. +But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the +presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the +music of Beethoven that he sank all thought of self and rose to a +peerless height as an interpreting artist.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Gypsies and Magyars.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Magyar scales.</i></div> + +<p>Liszt's place as a composer of original music has not yet been +determined, but as a transcriber of the music of others the givers of +pianoforte recitals keep him always before us. The showy Hungarian +Rhapsodies with which the majority of pianoforte recitals end are, +however, more than mere transcriptions. They are constructed out of +the folk-songs of the Magyars, and in their treatment the composer has +frequently reproduced the characteristic performances which they +receive at the hands of the Gypsies from whom he learned them. This +fact and the belief to which Liszt gave currency in his book "Des +Bohémiens et de leur musique en Hon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>grie" have given rise to the +almost universal belief that the Magyar melodies are of Gypsy origin. +This belief is erroneous. The Gypsies have for centuries been the +musical practitioners of Hungary, but they are not the composers of +the music of the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress not +only on the melodies, but also on popular taste. The Hungarian +folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the national character of the +Magyars, and some have been traced back centuries in their literature. +Though their most marked melodic peculiarity, the frequent use of a +minor scale containing one or even two superfluous seconds, as thus:</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music39.png" alt="Magyar scale" width="739" height="67" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music39.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music39.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p>may be said to belong to Oriental music as a whole (and the Magyars +are Orientals), the songs have a rhythmical peculiarity which is a +direct product of the Magyar language. This peculiarity consists of a +figure in which the emphasis is shifted from the strong to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> weak +part by making the first take only a fraction of the time of the +second, thus:</p> + +<table border="0" summary="Magyar rhythms" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="75%" id="AutoNumber4"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td> <img src="images/music40.png" alt="Magyar rhythm" width="87" height="58" /><p> + <a href="music/music40.midi">Listen</a> <a href="music/music40.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + + </td> + <td>or</td> + <td> + <img src="images/music41.png" alt="Magyar rhythm" width="85" height="53" /><p> <a href="music/music41.midi">Listen</a> + <a href="music/music41.ly">View Lilypond</a></p></td> + </tr> +</tbody> +</table> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Scotch snap.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Gypsy epics.</i></div> + +<p>In Scottish music this rhythm also plays a prominent part, but there +it falls into the beginning of a measure, whereas in Hungarian it +forms the middle or end. The result is an effect of syncopation which +is peculiarly forceful. There is an indubitable Oriental relic in the +profuse embellishments which the Gypsies weave around the Hungarian +melodies when playing them; but the fact that they thrust the same +embellishments upon Spanish and Russian music, in fact upon all the +music which they play, indicates plainly enough that the impulse to do +so is native to them, and has nothing to do with the national taste of +the countries for which they provide music. Liszt's confessed purpose +in writing the Hungarian Rhapsodies was to create what he called +"Gypsy epics." He had gathered a large number of the melodies without +a definite purpose, and was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> pondering what to do with them, when it +occurred to him that</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"These fragmentary, scattered melodies were the wandering, +floating, nebulous part of a great whole, that they fully +answered the conditions for the production of an harmonious +unity which would comprehend the very flower of their +essential properties, their most unique beauties," and +"might be united in one homogeneous body, a complete work, +its divisions to be so arranged that each song would form at +once a whole and a part, which might be severed from the +rest and be examined and enjoyed by and for itself; but +which would, none the less, belong to the whole through the +close affinity of subject matter, the similarity of its +inner nature and unity in development."<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Czardas.</i></div> + +<p>The basis of Liszt's Rhapsodies being thus distinctively national, he +has in a manner imitated in their character and tempo the dual +character of the Hungarian national dance, the Czardas, which consists +of two movements, a <i>Lassu</i>, or slow movement, followed by a <i>Friss</i>. +These alternate at the will of the dancer, who gives a sign to the +band when he wishes to change from one to the other.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco08.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="76" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<h2><i>At the Opera</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Instability of taste.<br /> +The age of operas.</i></div> + +<p><span class="dropcap">P</span><span class="smcap">opular</span> taste in respect of the opera is curiously unstable. It is +surprising that the canons of judgment touching it have such feeble +and fleeting authority in view of the popularity of the art-form and +the despotic hold which it has had on fashion for two centuries. No +form of popular entertainment is acclaimed so enthusiastically as a +new opera by an admired composer; none forgotten so quickly. For the +spoken drama we go back to Shakespeare in the vernacular, and, on +occasions, we revive the masterpieces of the Attic poets who +flourished more than two millenniums ago; but for opera we are bounded +by less than a century, unless occasional performances of Gluck's +"Orfeo" and Mozart's "Figaro," "Don Giovanni,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> and "Magic Flute" be +counted as submissions to popular demand, which, unhappily, we know +they are not. There is no one who has attended the opera for +twenty-five years who might not bewail the loss of operas from the +current list which appealed to his younger fancy as works of real +loveliness. In the season of 1895-96 the audiences at the Metropolitan +Opera House in New York heard twenty-six different operas. The oldest +were Gluck's "Orfeo" and Beethoven's "Fidelio," which had a single +experimental representation each. After them in seniority came +Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," which is sixty-one years old, and +has overpassed the average age of "immortal" operas by from ten to +twenty years, assuming Dr. Hanslick's calculation to be correct.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Decimation of the operatic list.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Dependence on singers.</i></div> + +<p>The composers who wrote operas for the generation that witnessed +Adelina Patti's <i>début</i> at the Academy of Music, in New York, were +Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Thanks to his progressive +genius, Verdi is still alive on the stage, though nine-tenths of the +operas which made his fame and fortune<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> have already sunk into +oblivion; Meyerbeer, too, is still a more or less potent factor with +his "Huguenots," which, like "Lucia," has endured from ten to twenty +years longer than the average "immortal;" but the continued existence +of Bellini and Donizetti seems to be as closely bound up with that of +two or three singers as was Meleager's life with the burning billet +which his mother snatched from the flames. So far as the people of +London and New York are concerned whether or not they shall hear +Donizetti more, rests with Mesdames Patti and Melba, for Donizetti +spells "Lucia;" Bellini pleads piteously in "Sonnambula," but only +Madame Nevada will play the mediator between him and our stiff-necked +generation.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>An unstable art-form.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Carelessness of the public.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Addison's criticism.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Indifference to the words.</i></div> + +<p>Opera is a mixed art-form and has ever been, and perhaps must ever be, +in a state of flux, subject to the changes of taste in music, the +drama, singing, acting, and even politics and morals; but in one +particular the public has shown no change for a century and a half, +and it is not quite clear why this has not given greater fixity to +popular appre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>ciation. The people of to-day are as blithely +indifferent to the fact that their operas are all presented in a +foreign tongue as they were two centuries ago in England. The +influence of Wagner has done much to stimulate a serious attitude +toward the lyric drama, but this is seldom found outside of the +audiences in attendance on German representations. The devotees of the +Latin exotic, whether it blend French or Italian (or both, as is the +rule in New York and London) with its melodic perfume, enjoy the music +and ignore the words with the same nonchalance that Addison made merry +over. Addison proves to have been a poor prophet. The +great-grandchildren of his contemporaries are not at all curious to +know "why their forefathers used to sit together like an audience of +foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted before +them in a tongue which they did not understand." What their +great-grandparents did was also done by their grandparents and their +parents, and may be done by their children, grandchildren, and +great-grandchildren after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> them, unless Englishmen and Americans shall +take to heart the lessons which Wagner essayed to teach his own +people. For the present, though we have abolished many absurdities +which grew out of a conception of opera that was based upon the +simple, sensuous delight which singing gave, the charm of music is +still supreme, and we can sit out an opera without giving a thought to +the words uttered by the singers. The popular attitude is fairly +represented by that of Boileau, when he went to hear "Atys" and +requested the box-keeper to put him in a place where he could hear +Lully's music, which he loved, but not Quinault's words, which he +despised.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Past and present.</i></div> + +<p>It is interesting to note that in this respect the condition of +affairs in London in the early part of the eighteenth century, which +seemed so monstrously diverting to Addison, was like that in Hamburg +in the latter part of the seventeenth, and in New York at the end of +the nineteenth. There were three years in London when Italian and +English were mixed in the operatic representations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian and +his slaves answered him in English; the lover frequently +made his court and gained the heart of his princess in a +language which she did not understand."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Polyglot opera.</i></div> + +<p>At length, says Addison, the audience got tired of understanding half +the opera, "and to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of +thinking, so ordered it that the whole opera was performed in an +unknown tongue."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Perversions of texts.</i></div> + +<p>There is this difference, however, between New York and London and +Hamburg at the period referred to: while the operatic ragout was +compounded of Italian and English in London, Italian and German in +Hamburg, the ingredients here are Italian, French, and German, with no +admixture of the vernacular. Strictly speaking, our case is more +desperate than that of our foreign predecessors, for the development +of the lyric drama has lifted its verbal and dramatic elements into a +position not dreamed of two hundred years ago. We might endure with +equanimity to hear the chorus sing</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Robert le Diable."</i></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>La soupe aux choux se fait dans la marmite,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Dans la marmite on fait la soupe aux choux</i>"<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>at the beginning of "Robert le Diable," as tradition says used to be +done in Paris, but we surely ought to rise in rebellion when the +chorus of guards change their muttered comments on Pizarro's furious +aria in "Fidelio" from</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Fidelio."</i></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>"Er spricht von Tod und Wunde!"</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>to</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>"Er spricht vom todten Hunde!"</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>as is a prevalent custom among the irreverent choristers of Germany.</p> + +<p>Addison confesses that he was often afraid when seeing the Italian +performers "chattering in the vehemence of action," that they were +calling the audience names and abusing them among themselves. I do not +know how to measure the morals and manners of our Italian singers +against those of Addison's time, but I do know that many of the things +which they say before our very faces for their own diversion are not +complimentary to our intelligence. I hope I have a proper respect for +Mr. Gilbert's "bashful young potato," but I do not think it right +while we are sympathizing with the gentle passion of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> <i>Siebel</i> to have +his representative bring an offering of flowers and, looking us full +in the face, sing:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>"Le patate d'amor,<br /></i></span><i> +<span class="i0">O cari fior!"</span></i> +</div></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Faust."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Porpora's "Credo."</i></div> + +<p>It isn't respectful, and it enables the cynics of to-day to say, with +the poetasters and fiddlers of Addison's day, that nothing is capable +of being well set to music that is not nonsense. Operatic words were +once merely stalking-horses for tunes, but that day is past. We used +to smile at Brignoli's "<i>Ah si! ah si! ah si!</i>" which did service for +any text in high passages; but if a composer should, for the +accommodation of his music, change the wording of the creed into +"<i>Credo, non credo, non credo in unum Deum</i>," as Porpora once did, we +should all cry out for his excommunication.</p> + +<p>As an art-form the opera has frequently been criticised as an +absurdity, and it is doubtless owing to such a conviction that many +people are equally indifferent to the language employed and the +sentiments embodied in the words. Even so serious a writer as George<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +Hogarth does not hesitate in his "Memoirs of the Opera" to defend this +careless attitude.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Are words unessential?</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The words of an air are of small importance to the +comprehension of the business of the piece," he says; "they +merely express a sentiment, a reflection, a feeling; it is +quite enough if their general import is known, and this may +most frequently be gathered from the situation, aided by the +character and expression of the music."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Il Trovatore."</i></div> + +<p>I, myself, have known an ardent lover of music who resolutely refused +to look into a libretto because, being of a lively and imaginative +temperament, she preferred to construct her own plots and put her own +words in the mouths of the singers. Though a constant attendant on the +opera, she never knew what "Il Trovatore" was about, which, perhaps, +is not so surprising after all. Doubtless the play which she had +fashioned in her own mind was more comprehensible than Verdi's medley +of burnt children and asthmatic dance rhythms. Madame de Staël went so +far as to condemn the German composers because they "follow too +closely the sense of the words," whereas the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> Italians, "who are truly +the musicians of nature, make the air and the words conform to each +other only in a general way."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The opera defended as an art-form.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The classic tragedy.</i></div> + +<p>Now the present generation has witnessed a revolution in operatic +ideas which has lifted the poetical elements upon a plane not dreamed +of when opera was merely a concert in costume, and it is no longer +tolerable that it be set down as an absurdity. On the contrary, I +believe that, looked at in the light thrown upon it by the history of +the drama and the origin of music, the opera is completely justified +as an art-form, and, in its best estate, is an entirely reasonable and +highly effective entertainment. No mean place, surely, should be given +in the estimation of the judicious to an art-form which aims in an +equal degree to charm the senses, stimulate the emotions, and persuade +the reason. This, the opera, or, perhaps I would better say the lyric +drama, can be made to do as efficiently as the Greek tragedy did it, +so far as the differences between the civilizations of ancient Hellas +and the nine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>teenth century will permit. The Greek tragedy was the +original opera, a fact which literary study would alone have made +plain even if it were not clearly of record that it was an effort to +restore the ancient plays in their integrity that gave rise to the +Italian opera three centuries ago.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Genesis of the Greek plays.</i></div> + +<p>Every school-boy knows now that the Hellenic plays were simply the +final evolution of the dances with which the people of Hellas +celebrated their religious festivals. At the rustic Bacchic feasts of +the early Greeks they sang hymns in honor of the wine-god, and danced +on goat-skins filled with wine. He who held his footing best on the +treacherous surface carried home the wine as a reward. They contended +in athletic games and songs for a goat, and from this circumstance +scholars have surmised we have the word tragedy, which means +"goat-song." The choric songs and dances grew in variety and beauty. +Finally, somebody (tradition preserves the name of Thespis as the man) +conceived the idea of introducing a simple dialogue between the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +strophes of the choric song. Generally this dialogue took the form of +a recital of some story concerning the god whose festival was +celebrating. Then when the dithyrambic song returned, it would either +continue the narrative or comment on its ethical features.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mimicry and dress.</i></div> + +<p>The merry-makers, or worshippers, as one chooses to look upon them, +manifested their enthusiasm by imitating the appearance as well as the +actions of the god and his votaries. They smeared themselves with +wine-lees, colored their bodies black and red, put on masks, covered +themselves with the skins of beasts, enacted the parts of nymphs, +fauns, and satyrs, those creatures of primitive fancy, half men and +half goats, who were the representatives of natural sensuality +untrammelled by conventionality.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Melodrama.</i></div> + +<p>Next, somebody (Archilocus) sought to heighten the effect of the story +or the dialogue by consorting it with instrumental music; and thus we +find the germ of what musicians—not newspaper writers—call +melodrama, in the very early stages of the drama's de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>velopment. +Gradually these simple rustic entertainments were taken in hand by the +poets who drew on the legendary stores of the people for subjects, +branching out from the doings of gods to the doings of god-like men, +the popular heroes, and developed out of them the masterpieces of +dramatic poetry which are still studied with amazement, admiration, +and love.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Factors in ancient tragedy.</i></div> + +<p>The dramatic factors which have been mustered in this outline are +these:</p> + +<p>1. The choric dance and song with a religious purpose.</p> + +<p>2. Recitation and dialogue.</p> + +<p>3. Characterization by means of imitative gestures—pantomime, that +is—and dress.</p> + +<p>4. Instrumental music to accompany the song and also the action.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Operatic elements.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Words and music united.</i></div> + +<p>All these have been retained in the modern opera, which may be said to +differ chiefly from its ancient model in the more important and more +independent part which music plays in it. It will appear later in our +study that the importance and independence achieved by one of the +ele<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>ments consorted in a work by nature composite, led the way to a +revolution having for its object a restoration of something like the +ancient drama. In this ancient drama and its precursor, the +dithyrambic song and dance, is found a union of words and music which +scientific investigation proves to be not only entirely natural but +inevitable. In a general way most people are in the habit of speaking +of music as the language of the emotions. The elements which enter +into vocal music (of necessity the earliest form of music) are +unvolitional products which we must conceive as co-existent with the +beginnings of human life. Do they then antedate articulate speech? Did +man sing before he spoke? I shall not quarrel with anybody who chooses +so to put it.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Physiology of singing.</i></div> + +<p>Think a moment about the mechanism of vocal music. Something occurs to +stir up your emotional nature—a great joy, a great sorrow, a great +fear; instantly, involuntarily, in spite of your efforts to prevent +it, maybe, muscular actions set in which proclaim the emo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>tion which +fills you. The muscles and organs of the chest, throat, and mouth +contract or relax in obedience to the emotion. You utter a cry, and +according to the state of feeling which you are in, that cry has +pitch, quality (<i>timbre</i> the singing teachers call it), and dynamic +intensity. You attempt to speak, and no matter what the words you +utter, the emotional drama playing on the stage of your heart is +divulged.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Herbert Spencer's laws.</i></div> + +<p>The man of science observes the phenomenon and formulates its laws, +saying, for instance, as Herbert Spencer has said: "All feelings are +muscular stimuli;" and, "Variations of voice are the physiological +results of variations of feeling." It was the recognition of this +extraordinary intimacy between the voice and the emotions which +brought music all the world over into the service of religion, and +provided the phenomenon, which we may still observe if we be but +minded to do so, that mere tones have sometimes the sanctity of words, +and must as little be changed as ancient hymns and prayers.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Invention of Italian opera.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Musical declamation.</i></div> + +<p>The end of the sixteenth century saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> a coterie of scholars, +art-lovers, and amateur musicians in Florence who desired to +re-establish the relationship which they knew had once existed between +music and the drama. The revival of learning had made the classic +tragedy dear to their hearts. They knew that in the olden time +tragedy, of which the words only have come down to us, had been +musical throughout. In their efforts to bring about an intimacy +between dramatic poetry and music they found that nothing could be +done with the polite music of their time. It was the period of highest +development in ecclesiastical music, and the climax of artificiality. +The professional musicians to whom they turned scorned their theories +and would not help them; so they fell back on their own resources. +They cut the Gordian knot and invented a new style of music, which +they fancied was like that used by the ancients in their stage-plays. +They abolished polyphony, or contrapuntal music, in everything except +their choruses, and created a sort of musical declamation, using +variations of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> pitch and harmonies built up on a simple bass to give +emotional life to their words. In choosing their tones they were +guided by observation of the vocal inflections produced in speech +under stress of feeling, showing thus a recognition of the law which +Herbert Spencer formulated two hundred and fifty years later.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The music of the Florentine reformers.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The solo style, harmony, and declamation.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Fluent recitatives.</i></div> + +<p>The music which these men produced and admired sounds to us monotonous +in the extreme, for what little melody there is in it is in the +choruses, which they failed to emancipate from the ecclesiastical art, +and which for that reason were as stiff and inelastic as the music +which in their controversies with the musicians they condemned with +vigor. Yet within their invention there lay an entirely new world of +music. Out of it came the solo style, a song with instrumental +accompaniment of a kind unknown to the church composers. Out of it, +too, came harmony as an independent factor in music instead of an +accident of the simultaneous flow of melodies; and out of it came +declamation, which drew its life from the text.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> The recitatives which +they wrote had the fluency of spoken words and were not retarded by +melodic forms. The new style did not accomplish what its creators +hoped for, but it gave birth to Italian opera and emancipated music in +a large measure from the formalism that dominated it so long as it +belonged exclusively to the composers for the church.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Predecessors of Wagner.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Old operatic distinctions.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Opera buffa.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Opera seria.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Recitative.</i></div> + +<p>Detailed study of the progress of opera from the first efforts of the +Florentines to Wagner's dramas would carry us too far afield to serve +the purposes of this book. My aim is to fix the attitude proper, or at +least useful, to the opera audience of to-day. The excursion into +history which I have made has but the purpose to give the art-form a +reputable standing in court, and to explain the motives which prompted +the revolution accomplished by Wagner. As to the elements which +compose an opera, only those need particular attention which are +illustrated in the current repertory. Unlike the opera audiences of +two centuries ago, we are not required to distinguish carefully +between the vari<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>ous styles of opera in order to understand why the +composer adopted a particular manner, and certain fixed forms in each. +The old distinctions between <i>Opera seria</i>, <i>Opera buffa</i>, and <i>Opera +semiseria</i> perplex us no more. Only because of the perversion of the +time-honored Italian epithet <i>buffa</i> by the French mongrel <i>Opéra +bouffe</i> is it necessary to explain that the classic <i>Opera buffa</i> was +a polite comedy, whose musical integument did not of necessity differ +from that of <i>Opera seria</i> except in this—that the dialogue was +carried on in "dry" recitative (<i>recitativo secco</i>, or <i>parlante</i>) in +the former, and a more measured declamation with orchestral +accompaniment (<i>recitativo stromentato</i>) in the latter. So far as +subject-matter was concerned the classic distinction between tragedy +and comedy served. The dry recitative was supported by chords played +by a double-bass and harpsichord or pianoforte. In London, at a later +period, for reasons of doubtful validity, these chords came to be +played on a double-bass and violoncello, as we occasionally hear them +to-day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Opera semiseria.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Don Giovanni."</i></div> + +<p>Shakespeare has taught us to accept an infusion of the comic element +in plays of a serious cast, but Shakespeare was an innovator, a +Romanticist, and, measured by old standards, his dramas are irregular. +The Italians, who followed classic models, for a reason amply +explained by the genesis of the art-form, rigorously excluded comedy +from serious operas, except as <i>intermezzi</i>, until they hit upon a +third classification, which they called <i>Opera semiseria</i>, in which a +serious subject was enlivened with comic episodes. Our dramatic tastes +being grounded in Shakespeare, we should be inclined to put down "Don +Giovanni" as a musical tragedy; or, haunted by the Italian +terminology, as <i>Opera semiseria</i>; but Mozart calls it <i>Opera buffa</i>, +more in deference to the librettist's work, I fancy, than his own, +for, as I have suggested elsewhere,<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> the musician's <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>imagination in +the fire of composition went far beyond the conventional fancy of the +librettist in the finale of that most wonderful work.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>An Opera buffa.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>French Grand Opéra.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Opéra comique.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Mignon."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Faust."</i></div> + +<p>It is well to remember that "Don Giovanni" is an <i>Opera buffa</i> when +watching the buffooneries of <i>Leporello</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> for that alone justifies +them. The French have <i>Grand Opéra</i>, in which everything is sung to +orchestra accompaniment, there being neither spoken dialogue nor dry +recitative, and <i>Opéra comique</i>, in which the dialogue is spoken. The +latter corresponds with the honorable German term <i>Singspiel</i>, and one +will not go far astray if he associate both terms with the English +operas of Wallace and Balfe, save that the French and Germans have +generally been more deft in bridging over the chasm between speech and +song than their British rivals. <i>Opéra comique</i> has another +characteristic, its <i>dénouement</i> must be happy. Formerly the <i>Théatre +national de l'Opéra-Comique</i> in Paris was devoted exclusively to +<i>Opéra comique</i> as thus defined (it has since abolished the +distinction and <i>Grand Opéra</i> may be heard there now), and, therefore, +when Ambroise Thomas brought forward his "Mignon," Goethe's story was +found to be changed so that <i>Mignon</i> recovered and was married to +<i>Wilhelm Meister</i> at the end. The Germans are seldom pleased with the +transformations which their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> literary masterpieces are forced to +undergo at the hands of French librettists. They still refuse to call +Gounod's "Faust" by that name; if you wish to hear it in Germany you +must go to the theatre when "Margarethe" is performed. Naturally they +fell indignantly afoul of "Mignon," and to placate them we have a +second finale, a <i>dénouement allemand</i>, provided by the authors, in +which <i>Mignon</i> dies as she ought.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Grosse Oper.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Comic opera and operetta.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Opéra bouffe.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Romantic operas.</i></div> + +<p>Of course the <i>Grosse Oper</i> of the Germans is the French <i>Grand Opéra</i> +and the English grand opera—but all the English terms are ambiguous, +and everything that is done in Covent Garden in London or the +Metropolitan Opera House in New York is set down as "grand opera," +just as the vilest imitations of the French <i>vaudevilles</i> or English +farces with music are called "comic operas." In its best estate, say +in the delightful works of Gilbert and Sullivan, what is designated as +comic opera ought to be called operetta, which is a piece in which the +forms of grand opera are imitated, or travestied, the dialogue is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +spoken, and the purpose of the play is to satirize a popular folly. +Only in method, agencies, and scope does such an operetta (the +examples of Gilbert and Sullivan are in mind) differ from comedy in +its best conception, as a dramatic composition which aims to "chastise +manners with a smile" ("<i>Ridendo castigat mores</i>"). Its present +degeneracy, as illustrated in the <i>Opéra bouffe</i> of the French and the +concoctions of the would-be imitators of Gilbert and Sullivan, +exemplifies little else than a pursuit far into the depths of the +method suggested by a friend to one of Lully's imitators who had +expressed a fear that a ballet written, but not yet performed, would +fail. "You must lengthen the dances and shorten the ladies' skirts," +he said. The Germans make another distinction based on the subject +chosen for the story. Spohr's "Jessonda," Weber's "Freischütz," +"Oberon," and "Euryanthe," Marschner's "Vampyr," "Templer und Jüdin," +and "Hans Heiling" are "Romantic" operas. The significance of this +classification in operatic literature may be learned from an effort +which I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> have made in +<a href="#III">another chapter</a> to discuss the terms Classic and +Romantic as applied to music. Briefly stated, the operas mentioned are +put in a class by themselves (and their imitations with them) because +their plots were drawn from the romantic legends of the Middle Ages, +in which the institutions of chivalry, fairy lore, and supernaturalism +play a large part.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Modern designations.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>German opera and Wagner.</i></div> + +<p>These distinctions we meet in reading about music. As I have +intimated, we do not concern ourselves much with them now. In New York +and London the people speak of Italian, English, and German opera, +referring generally to the language employed in the performance. But +there is also in the use of the terms an underlying recognition of +differences in ideals of performance. As all operas sung in the +regular seasons at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House are +popularly spoken of as Italian operas, so German opera popularly means +Wagner's lyric dramas, in the first instance, and a style of +performance which grew out of Wagner's influence in the second. As +compared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> with Italian opera, in which the principal singers are all +and the <i>ensemble</i> nothing, it means, mayhap, inferior vocalists but +better actors in the principal parts, a superior orchestra and chorus, +and a more conscientious effort on the part of conductor, stage +manager, and artists, from first to last, to lift the general effect +above the conventional level which has prevailed for centuries in the +Italian opera houses.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Wagner's "Musikdrama."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Modern Italian terminology.</i></div> + +<p>In terminology, as well as in artistic aim, Wagner's lyric dramas +round out a cycle that began with the works of the Florentine +reformers of the sixteenth century. Wagner called his later operas +<i>Musikdramen</i>, wherefore he was soundly abused and ridiculed by his +critics. When the Italian opera first appeared it was called <i>Dramma +per musica</i>, or <i>Melodramma</i>, or <i>Tragedia per musica</i>, all of which +terms stand in Italian for the conception that <i>Musikdrama</i> stands for +in German. The new thing had been in existence for half a century, and +was already on the road to the degraded level on which we shall find +it when we come to the subject of operatic singing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> before it came to +be called <i>Opera in musica</i>, of which "opera" is an abbreviation. Now +it is to be observed that the composers of all countries, having been +taught to believe that the dramatic contents of an opera have some +significance, are abandoning the vague term "opera" and following +Wagner in his adoption of the principles underlying the original +terminology. Verdi called his "Aïda" an <i>Opera in quattro atti</i>, but +his "Otello" he designated a lyric drama (<i>Dramma lirico</i>), his +"Falstaff" a lyric comedy (<i>Commedia lirica</i>), and his example is +followed by the younger Italian composers, such as Mascagni, +Leoncavallo, and Puccini.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Recitative.</i></div> + +<p>In the majority of the operas of the current list the vocal element +illustrates an amalgamation of the archaic recitative and aria. The +dry form of recitative is met with now only in a few of the operas +which date back to the last century or the early years of the present. +"Le Nozze di Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" +are the most familiar works in which it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> is employed, and in the +second of these it is used only by the bearers of the comedy element. +The dissolute <i>Don</i> chatters glibly in it with <i>Zerlina</i>, but when +<i>Donna Anna</i> and <i>Don Ottavio</i> converse, it is in the <i>recitativo +stromentato</i>.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The object of recitative.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Defects of the recitative.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>What it can do.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>An example from Mozart.</i></div> + +<p>In both forms recitative is the vehicle for promoting the action of +the play, preparing its incidents, and paving the way for the +situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and +dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the +play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue +to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. +Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most +monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. +Unless one is familiar with Italian and desirous of following the +conversation, which we have been often told is not necessary to the +enjoyment of an opera, its everlasting use of stereotyped falls and +intervallic turns, coupled with the strumming of arpeggioed cadences +on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> the pianoforte (or worse, double-bass and violoncello), makes it +insufferably wearisome to the listener. Its expression is +fleeting—only for the moment. It lacks the sustained tones and +structural symmetry essential to melody, and therefore it cannot +sustain a mood. It makes efficient use of only one of the fundamental +factors of vocal music—variety of pitch—and that in a rudimentary +way. It is specifically a product of the Italian language, and best +adapted to comedy in that language. Spoken with the vivacity native to +it in the drama, dry recitative is an impossibility in English. It is +only in the more measured and sober gait proper to oratorio that we +can listen to it in the vernacular without thought of incongruity. Yet +it may be made most admirably to preserve the characteristics of +conversation, and even illustrate Spencer's theory of the origin of +music. Witness the following brief example from "Don Giovanni," in +which the vivacity of the master is admirably contrasted with the +lumpishness of his servant:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music42.png" alt="Don Giovanni recitativo" width="742" height="375" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music42.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music42.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Its characteristics.</i></div> + +<p>Of course it is left to the intelligence and taste of the singers to +bring out the effects in a recitative, but in this specimen it ought +to be noted how sluggishly the disgruntled <i>Leporello</i> replies to the +brisk question of <i>Don Giovanni</i>, how correct is the rhetorical pause +in "you, or the old one?" and the greater sobriety which comes over +the manner of the <i>Don</i> as he thinks of the murder just committed, and +replies, "the old one."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Recitative of some sort necessary.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The speaking voice in opera.</i></div> + +<p>I am strongly inclined to the belief<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> that in one form or the other, +preferably the accompanied, recitative is a necessary integer in the +operatic sum. That it is possible to accustom one's self to the change +alternately from speech to song we know from the experiences made with +German, French, and English operas, but these were not true lyric +dramas, but dramas with incidental music. To be a real lyric drama an +opera ought to be musical throughout, the voice being maintained from +beginning to end on an exalted plane. The tendency to drop into the +speaking voice for the sake of dramatic effect shown by some tragic +singers does not seem to me commendable. Wagner relates with +enthusiasm how Madame Schroeder-Devrient in "Fidelio" was wont to give +supreme emphasis to the phrase immediately preceding the trumpet +signal in the dungeon scene ("Another step, and you are <i>dead</i>!") by +speaking the last word "with an awful accent of despair." He then +comments:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The indescribable effect of this manifested itself to all +like an agonizing plunge from one sphere into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> another, and +its sublimity consisted in this, that with lightning +quickness a glimpse was given to us of the nature of both +spheres, of which one was the ideal, the other the real."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Wagner and Schroeder-Devrient.</i></div> + +<p>I have heard a similar effect produced by Herr Niemann and Madame +Lehmann, but could not convince myself that it was not an extremely +venturesome experiment. Madame Schroeder-Devrient saw the beginning of +the modern methods of dramatic expression, and it is easy to believe +that a sudden change like that so well defined by Wagner, made with +her sweeping voice and accompanied by her plastic and powerful acting, +was really thrilling; but, I fancy, nevertheless, that only Beethoven +and the intensity of feeling which pervades the scene saved the +audience from a disturbing sense of the incongruity of the +performance.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Early forms.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The dialogue of the Florentines.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>An example from Peri.</i></div> + +<p>The development which has taken place in the recitative has not only +assisted in elevating opera to the dignity of a lyric drama by saving +us from alternate contemplation of the two spheres of ideality and +reality, but has also made the factor itself an eloquent vehi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>cle of +dramatic expression. Save that it had to forego the help of the +instruments beyond a mere harmonic support, the <i>stilo +rappresentativo</i>, or <i>musica parlante</i>, as the Florentines called +their musical dialogue, approached the sustained recitative which we +hear in the oratorio and grand opera more closely than it did the +<i>recitative secco</i>. Ever and anon, already in the earliest works (the +"Eurydice" of Rinuccini as composed by both Peri and Caccini) there +are passages which sound like rudimentary melodies, but are charged +with vital dramatic expression. Note the following phrase from +<i>Orpheus's</i> monologue on being left in the infernal regions by +<i>Venus</i>, from Peri's opera, performed A.D. 1600, in honor of the +marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV. of France:</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music43.png" alt="Orpheus" width="742" height="185" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music43.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music43.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Development of the arioso.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The aria supplanted.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Music and action.</i></div> + +<p>Out of this style there grew within a decade something very near the +arioso, and for all the purposes of our argument we may accept the +melodic devices by which Wagner carries on the dialogue of his operas +as an uncircumscribed arioso superimposed upon a foundation of +orchestral harmony; for example, <i>Lohengrin's</i> address to the swan, +<i>Elsa's</i> account of her dream. The greater melodiousness of the +<i>recitativo stromentato</i>, and the aid of the orchestra when it began +to assert itself as a factor of independent value, soon enabled this +form of musical conversation to become a reflector of the changing +moods and passions of the play, and thus the value of the aria, +whether considered as a solo, or in its composite form as duet, trio, +quartet, or <i>ensemble</i>, was lessened. The growth of the accompanied +recitative naturally brought with it emancipation from the tyranny of +the classical aria. Wagner's reform had nothing to do with that +emancipation, which had been accomplished before him, but went, as we +shall see presently, to a liberation of the composers from all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> the +formal dams which had clogged the united flow of action and music. We +should, however, even while admiring the achievements of modern +composers in blending these elements (and I know of no more striking +illustration than the scene of the fat knight's discomfiture in +<i>Ford's</i> house in Verdi's "Falstaff") bear in mind that while we may +dream of perfect union between words and music, it is not always +possible that action and music shall go hand in hand. Let me repeat +what once I wrote in a review of Cornelius's opera, "Der Barbier von +Bagdad:"<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>How music can replace incident.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"After all, of the constituents of an opera, action, at +least that form of it usually called incident, is most +easily spared. Progress in feeling, development of the +emotional element, is indeed essential to variety of musical +utterance, but nevertheless all great operas have +demonstrated that music is more potent and eloquent when +proclaiming an emotional state than while seeking to depict +progress toward such a state. Even in the dramas of Wagner +the culminating musical moments are predominantly lyrical, +as witness the love-duet in 'Tristan,' the close of 'Das +Rheingold,' <i>Sieg<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>mund's</i> song, the love-duet, and <i>Wotan's</i> +farewell in 'Die Walküre,' the forest scene and final duet +in 'Siegfried,' and the death of <i>Siegfried</i> in 'Die +Götterdämmerung.' It is in the nature of music that this +should be so. For the drama which plays on the stage of the +heart, music is a more truthful language than speech; but it +can stimulate movement and prepare the mind for an incident +better than it can accompany movement and incident. Yet +music that has a high degree of emotional expressiveness, by +diverting attention from externals to the play of passion +within the breasts of the persons can sometimes make us +forget the paucity of incident in a play. 'Tristan und +Isolde' is a case in point. Practically, its outward action +is summed up in each of its three acts by the same words: +Preparation for a meeting of the ill-starred lovers; the +meeting. What is outside of this is mere detail; yet the +effect of the tragedy upon a listener is that of a play +surcharged with pregnant occurrence. It is the subtle +alchemy of music that transmutes the psychological action of +the tragedy into dramatic incident."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Set forms not to be condemned.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Wagner's influence.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>His orchestra.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Vocal feats.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>La Bastardella's flourish.</i></div> + + +<p>For those who hold such a view with me it will be impossible to +condemn pieces of set forms in the lyric drama. Wagner still +represents his art-work alone, but in the influence which he exerted +upon contemporaneous composers in Italy and France, as well as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +Germany, he is quite as significant a figure as he is as the creator +of the <i>Musikdrama</i>. The operas which are most popular in our Italian +and French repertories are those which benefited by the liberation +from formalism and the exaltation of the dramatic idea which he +preached and exemplified—such works as Gounod's "Faust," Verdi's +"Aïda" and "Otello," and Bizet's "Carmen." With that emancipation +there came, as was inevitable, new conceptions of the province of +dramatic singing as well as new convictions touching the mission of +the orchestra. The instruments in Wagner's latter-day works are quite +as much as the singing actors the expositors of the dramatic idea, and +in the works of the other men whom I have mentioned they speak a +language which a century ago was known only to the orchestras of Gluck +and Mozart with their comparatively limited, yet eloquent, vocabulary. +Coupled with praise for the wonderful art of Mesdames Patti and Melba +(and I am glad to have lived in their generation, though they do not +represent my ideal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> in dramatic singing), we are accustomed to hear +lamentations over the decay of singing. I have intoned such jeremiads +myself, and I do not believe that music is suffering from a greater +want to-day than that of a more thorough training for singers. I +marvel when I read that Senesino sang cadences of fifty seconds' +duration; that Ferri with a single breath could trill upon each note +of two octaves, ascending and descending, and that La Bastardella's +art was equal to a perfect performance (perfect in the conception of +her day) of a flourish like this:</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music44.png" width="739" height="375" alt="La Bastardella's flourish" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music44.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music44.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Character of the opera a century and a half ago.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Music and dramatic expression.</i></div> + +<p>I marvel, I say, at the skill, the gifts, and the training which could +accomplish such feats, but I would not have them back again if they +were to be employed in the old service. When Senesino, Farinelli, +Sassarelli, Ferri, and their tribe dominated the stage, it strutted +with sexless Agamemnons and Cæsars. Telemachus, Darius, Nero, Cato, +Alexander, Scipio, and Hannibal ran around on the boards as +languishing lovers, clad in humiliating disguises, singing woful arias +to their mistress's eyebrows—arias full of trills and scales and +florid ornaments, but void of feeling as a problem in Euclid. Thanks +very largely to German influences, the opera<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> is returning to its +original purposes. Music is again become a means of dramatic +expression, and the singers who appeal to us most powerfully are those +who are best able to make song subserve that purpose, and who to that +end give to dramatic truthfulness, to effective elocution, and to +action the attention which mere voice and beautiful utterance received +in the period which is called the Golden Age of singing, but which was +the Leaden Age of the lyric drama.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Singers heard in New York.</i></div> + +<p>For seventy years the people of New York, scarcely less favored than +those of London, have heard nearly all the great singers of Europe. +Let me talk about some of them, for I am trying to establish some +ground on which my readers may stand when they try to form an estimate +of the singing which they are privileged to hear in the opera houses +of to-day. Madame Malibran was a member of the first Italian company +that ever sang here. Madame Cinti-Damoreau came in 1844, Bosio in +1849, Jenny Lind in 1850, Sontag in 1853, Grisi in 1854, La Grange in +1855,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> Frezzolini in 1857, Piccolomini in 1858, Nilsson in 1870, Lucca +in 1872, Titiens in 1876, Gerster in 1878, and Sembrich in 1883. I +omit the singers of the German opera as belonging to a different +category. Adelina Patti was always with us until she made her European +début in 1861, and remained abroad twenty years. Of the men who were +the artistic associates of these <i>prime donne</i>, mention may be made of +Mario, Benedetti, Corsi, Salvi, Ronconi, Formes, Brignoli, Amadeo, +Coletti, and Campanini, none of whom, excepting Mario, was of +first-class importance compared with the women singers.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Grisi.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Jenny Lind.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Lilli Lehmann.</i></div> + +<p>Nearly all of these singers, even those still living and remembered by +the younger generation of to-day, exploited their gifts in the operas +of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, the early Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Grisi +was acclaimed a great dramatic singer, and it is told of her that once +in "Norma" she frightened the tenor who sang the part of <i>Pollio</i> by +the fury of her acting. But measured by the standards of to-day, say +that set by Calvé's <i>Carmen</i>, it must have been a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> simple age that +could be impressed by the tragic power of anyone acting the part of +Bellini's Druidical priestess. The surmise is strengthened by the +circumstance that Madame Grisi created a sensation in "Il Trovatore" +by showing signs of agitation in the tower scene, walking about the +stage during <i>Manrico's</i> "<i>Ah! che la morte ognora</i>," as if she would +fain discover the part of the castle where her lover was imprisoned. +The chief charm of Jenny Lind in the memory of the older generation is +the pathos with which she sang simple songs. Mendelssohn esteemed her +greatly as a woman and artist, but he is quoted as once remarking to +Chorley: "I cannot think why she always prefers to be in a bad +theatre." Moscheles, recording his impressions of her in Meyerbeer's +"Camp of Silesia" (now "L'Étoile du Nord"), reached the climax of his +praise in the words: "Her song with the two concertante flutes is +perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that +can possibly be heard." She was credited, too, with fine powers as an +actress; and that she possessed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> them can easily be believed, for few +of the singers whom I have mentioned had so early and intimate an +association with the theatre as she. Her repugnance to it in later +life she attributed to a prejudice inherited from her mother. A vastly +different heritage is disclosed by Madame Lehmann's devotion to the +drama, a devotion almost akin to religion. I have known her to go into +the scene-room of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and search +for mimic stumps and rocks with which to fit out a scene in +"Siegfried," in which she was not even to appear. That, like her +super-human work at rehearsals, was "for the good of the cause," as +she expressed it.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Sontag.</i></div> + +<p>Most amiable are the memories that cluster around the name of Sontag, +whose career came to a grievous close by her sudden death in Mexico in +1854. She was a German, and the early part of her artistic life was +influenced by German ideals, but it is said that only in the music of +Mozart and Weber, which aroused in her strong national emotion, did +she sing dramatically. For the rest she used her light voice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> which +had an extraordinary range, brilliancy, and flexibility, very much as +Patti and Melba use their voices to-day—in mere unfeeling vocal +display.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"She had an extensive soprano voice," says Hogarth; "not +remarkable for power, but clear, brilliant, and singularly +flexible; a quality which seems to have led her (unlike most +German singers in general) to cultivate the most florid +style, and even to follow the bad example set by Catalani, +of seeking to convert her voice into an instrument, and to +astonish the public by executing the violin variations on +Rode's air and other things of that stamp."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>La Grange.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Piccolomini.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Adelina Patti.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Gerster.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Lucca and Nilsson.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Sembrich.</i></div> + +<p>Madame La Grange had a voice of wide compass, which enabled her to +sing contralto rôles as well as soprano, but I have never heard her +dramatic powers praised. As for Piccolomini, read of her where you +will, you shall find that she was "charming." She was lovely to look +upon, and her acting in soubrette parts was fascinating. Until Melba +came Patti was for thirty years peerless as a mere vocalist. She +belongs, as did Piccolomini and Sontag, to the comic <i>genre</i>; so did +Sembrich and Gerster, the latter of whom never knew it. I well +remember how indignant she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> became on one occasion, in her first +American season, at a criticism which I wrote of her <i>Amina</i> in "La +Sonnambula," a performance which remains among my loveliest and most +fragrant recollections. I had made use of Catalani's remark concerning +Sontag: "<i>Son genre est petit, mais elle est unique dans son genre</i>," +and applied it to her style. She almost flew into a passion. "<i>Mon +genre est grand!</i>" said she, over and over again, while Dr. Gardini, +her husband, tried to pacify her. "Come to see my <i>Marguerite</i> next +season." Now, Gounod's <i>Marguerite</i> does not quite belong to the +heroic rôles, though we can all remember how Lucca thrilled us by her +intensity of action as well as of song, and how Madame Nilsson sent +the blood out of our cheeks, though she did stride through the opera +like a combination of the <i>grande dame</i> and Ary Scheffer's spirituelle +pictures; but such as it is, Madame Gerster achieved a success of +interest only, and that because of her strivings for originality. +Sembrich and Gerster, when they were first heard in New York, had as +much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> execution as Melba or Nilsson; but their voices had less +emotional power than that of the latter, and less beauty than that of +the former—beauty of the kind that might be called classic, since it +is in no way dependent on feeling.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Melba and Eames.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Calvé.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Dramatic singers.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Jean de Reszke.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Edouard de Reszke and Plançon.</i></div> + +<p>Patti, Lucca, Nilsson, and Gerster sang in the operas in which Melba +and Eames sing to-day, and though the standard of judgment has been +changed in the last twenty-five years by the growth of German ideals, +I can find no growth of potency in the performances of the +representative women of Italian and French opera, except in the case +of Madame Calvé. For the development of dramatic ideals we must look +to the singers of German affiliations or antecedents, Mesdames +Materna, Lehmann, Sucher, and Nordica. As for the men of yesterday and +to-day, no lover, I am sure, of the real lyric drama would give the +declamatory warmth and gracefulness of pose and action which mark the +performances of M. Jean de Reszke for a hundred of the high notes of +Mario (for one of which, we are told, he was wont to reserve his +powers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> all evening), were they never so lovely. Neither does the +fine, resonant, equable voice of Edouard de Reszke or the finished +style of Plançon leave us with curious longings touching the voices +and manners of Lablache and Formes. Other times, other manners, in +music as in everything else. The great singers of to-day are those who +appeal to the taste of to-day, and that taste differs, as the clothes +which we wear differ, from the style in vogue in the days of our +ancestors.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Wagner's operas.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Wagner's lyric dramas.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>His theories.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The mission of music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Distinctions abolished.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The typical phrases.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Characteristics of some motives.</i></div> + +<p>A great deal of confusion has crept into the public mind concerning +Wagner and his works by the failure to differentiate between his +earlier and later creations. No injustice is done the composer by +looking upon his "Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," and "Lohengrin" as +operas. We find the dramatic element lifted into noble prominence in +"Tannhäuser," and admirable freedom in the handling of the musical +factors in "Lohengrin," but they must, nevertheless, be listened to as +one would listen to the operas of Weber, Marschner, or Meyerbeer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +They are, in fact, much nearer to the conventional operatic type than +to the works which came after them, and were called <i>Musikdramen</i>. +"Music drama" is an awkward phrase, and I have taken the liberty of +substituting "lyric drama" for it, and as such I shall designate +"Tristan und Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," "Der Ring des Nibelungen," +and "Parsifal." In these works Wagner exemplified his reformatory +ideas and accomplished a regeneration of the lyric drama, as we found +it embodied in principle in the Greek tragedy and the <i>Dramma per +musica</i> of the Florentine scholars. Wagner's starting-point is, that +in the opera music had usurped a place which did not belong to it.<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a> +It was designed to be a means and had become an end. In the drama he +found a combination of poetry, music, pantomime, and scenery, and he +held that these factors ought to co-operate on a basis of mutual +dependence, the inspiration of all being dramatic expres<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>sion. Music, +therefore, ought to be subordinate to the text in which the dramatic +idea is expressed, and simply serve to raise it to a higher power by +giving it greater emotional life. So, also, it ought to vivify +pantomime and accompany the stage pictures. In order that it might do +all this, it had to be relieved of the shackles of formalism; only +thus could it move with the same freedom as the other elements +consorted with it in the drama. Therefore, the distinctions between +recitative and aria were abolished, and an "endless melody" took the +place of both. An exalted form of speech is borne along on a flood of +orchestral music, which, quite as much as song, action, and scenery +concerns itself with the exposition of the drama. That it may do this +the agencies, spiritual as well as material, which are instrumental in +the development of the play, are identified with certain melodic +phrases, out of which the musical fabric is woven. These phrases are +the much mooted, much misunderstood "leading motives"—typical phrases +I call them. Wagner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> has tried to make them reflect the character or +nature of the agencies with which he has associated them, and +therefore we find the giants in the Niblung tetralogy symbolized in +heavy, slowly moving, cumbersome phrases; the dwarfs have two phrases, +one suggesting their occupation as smiths, by its hammering rhythm, +and the other their intellectual habits, by its suggestion of brooding +contemplativeness. I cannot go through the catalogue of the typical +phrases which enter into the musical structure of the works which I +have called lyric dramas as contra-distinguished from operas. They +should, of course, be known to the student of Wagner, for thereby will +he be helped to understand the poet-composer's purposes, but I would +fain repeat the warning which I uttered twice in my "Studies in the +Wagnerian Drama:"</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The phrases should be studied.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It cannot be too forcibly urged that if we confine our +study of Wagner to the forms and names of the phrases out of +which he constructs his musical fabric, we shall, at the +last, have enriched our minds with a thematic catalogue +and—nothing else. We shall remain guiltless of knowledge +un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>less we learn something of the nature of those phrases by +noting the attributes which lend them propriety and fitness, +and can recognize, measurably at least, the reasons for +their introduction and development. Those attributes give +character and mood to the music constructed out of the +phrases. If we are able to feel the mood, we need not care +how the phrases which produce it have been labelled. If we +do not feel the mood, we may memorize the whole thematic +catalogue of Wolzogen and have our labor for our pains. It +would be better to know nothing about the phrases, and +content one's self with simple sensuous enjoyment than to +spend one's time answering the baldest of all the riddles of +Wagner's orchestra—'What am I playing now?'</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The question of effectiveness.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The ultimate question concerning the correctness or +effectiveness of Wagner's system of composition must, of +course, be answered along with the question: 'Does the +composition, as a whole, touch the emotions, quicken the +fancy, fire the imagination?' If it does these things, we +may, to a great extent, if we wish, get along without the +intellectual processes of reflection and comparison which +are conditioned upon a recognition of the themes and their +uses. But if we put aside this intellectual activity, we +shall deprive ourselves, among other things, of the +pleasures which it is the province of memory to give; and +the exercise of memory is called for by music much more +urgently than by any other art, because of its volatile +nature and the rôle which repetition plays in it."</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco09.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="68" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<h2><i>Choirs and Choral Music</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Choirs a touchstone of culture.<br /> +The value of choir singing.</i></div> + +<p><span class="dropcap">N</span><span class="smcap">o</span> one would go far astray who should estimate the extent and +sincerity of a community's musical culture by the number of its chorus +singers. Some years ago it was said that over three hundred cities and +towns in Germany contained singing societies and orchestras devoted to +the cultivation of choral music. In the United States, where there are +comparatively a small number of instrumental musicians, there has been +a wonderful development of singing societies within the last +generation, and it is to this fact largely that the notable growth in +the country's knowledge and appreciation of high-class music is due. +No amount of mere hearing and study can compare in influence with +participa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>tion in musical performance. Music is an art which rests on +love. It is beautiful sound vitalized by feeling, and it can only be +grasped fully through man's emotional nature. There is no quicker or +surer way to get to the heart of a composition than by performing it, +and since participation in chorus singing is of necessity unselfish +and creative of sympathy, there is no better medium of musical culture +than membership in a choir. It was because he realized this that +Schumann gave the advice to all students of music: "Sing diligently in +choirs; especially the middle voices, for this will make you musical."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Singing societies and orchestras.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Neither numbers nor wealth necessary.</i></div> + +<p>There is no community so small or so ill-conditioned that it cannot +maintain a singing society. Before a city can give sustenance to even +a small body of instrumentalists it must be large enough and rich +enough to maintain a theatre from which those instrumentalists can +derive their support. There can be no dependence upon amateurs, for +people do not study the oboe, bassoon, trombone, or double-bass for +amusement. Amateur violinists and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> amateur flautists there are in +plenty, but not amateur clarinetists and French-horn players; but if +the love for music exists in a community, a dozen families shall +suffice to maintain a choral club. Large numbers are therefore not +essential; neither is wealth. Some of the largest and finest choirs in +the world flourish among the Welsh miners in the United States and +Wales, fostered by a native love for the art and the national +institution called Eisteddfod.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Lines of choral culture in the United States.</i></div> + +<p>The lines on which choral culture has proceeded in the United States +are two, of which the more valuable, from an artistic point of view, +is that of the oratorio, which went out from New England. The other +originated in the German cultivation of the <i>Männergesang</i>, the +importance of which is felt more in the extent of the culture, +prompted as it is largely by social considerations, than in the music +sung, which is of necessity of a lower grade than that composed for +mixed voices. It is chiefly in the impulse which German <i>Männergesang</i> +carried into all the corners of the land, and especially the impetus +which the festi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>vals of the German singers gave to the sections in +which they have been held for half a century, that this form of +culture is interesting.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Church and oratorio.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Secular choirs.</i></div> + +<p>The cultivation of oratorio music sprang naturally from the Church, +and though it is now chiefly in the hands of secular societies, the +biblical origin of the vast majority of the texts used in the works +which are performed, and more especially the regular performances of +Handel's "Messiah" in the Christmastide, have left the notion, more or +less distinct, in the public mind, that oratorios are religious +functions. Nevertheless (or perhaps because of this fact) the most +successful choral concerts in the United States are those given by +oratorio societies. The cultivation of choral music which is secular +in character is chiefly in the hands of small organizations, whose +concerts are of a semi-private nature and are enjoyed by the associate +members and invited guests. This circumstance is deserving of notice +as a characteristic feature of choral music in America, though it has +no particular bearing upon this study, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> must concern itself with +choral organizations, choral music, and choral performances in +general.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Amateur choirs originated in the United States.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The size of old choirs.</i></div> + +<p>Organizations of the kind in view differ from instrumental in being +composed of amateurs; and amateur choir-singing is no older anywhere +than in the United States. Two centuries ago and more the singing of +catches and glees was a common amusement among the gentler classes in +England, but the performances of the larger forms of choral music were +in the hands of professional choristers who were connected with +churches, theatres, schools, and other public institutions. Naturally, +then, the choral bodies were small. Choirs of hundreds and thousands, +such as take part in the festivals of to-day, are a product of a later +time.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Handel's choirs.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"When Bach and Handel wrote their Passions, Church Cantatas, +and Oratorios, they could only dream of such majestic +performances as those works receive now; and it is one of +the miracles of art that they should have written in so +masterly a manner for forces that they could never hope to +control. Who would think, when listening to the 'Hallelujah' +of 'The Messiah,' or the great double choruses of 'Israel in +Egypt,' in which the voice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> of the composer is 'as the voice +of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and +as the voice of many thunderings, saying, "Alleluia, for the +Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"' that these colossal +compositions were never heard by Handel from any chorus +larger than the most modest of our church choirs? At the +last performance of 'The Messiah' at which Handel was +advertised to appear (it was for the benefit of his favorite +charity, the Foundling Hospital, on May 3, 1759—he died +before the time, however), the singers, including +principals, numbered twenty-three, while the +instrumentalists numbered thirty-three. At the first great +Handel Commemoration, in Westminster Abbey, in 1784, the +choir numbered two hundred and seventy-five, the band two +hundred and fifty; and this was the most numerous force ever +gathered together for a single performance in England up to +that time.</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Choirs a century ago.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach's choir.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In 1791 the Commemoration was celebrated by a choir of five +hundred and a band of three hundred and seventy-five. In +May, 1786, Johann Adam Hiller, one of Bach's successors as +cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipsic, directed what +was termed a <i>Massenaufführung</i> of 'The Messiah,' in the +Domkirche, in Berlin. His 'masses' consisted of one hundred +and eighteen singers and one hundred and eighty-six +instrumentalists. In Handel's operas, and sometimes even in +his oratorios, the <i>tutti</i> meant, in his time, little more +than a union of all the solo singers; and even Bach's +Passion music and church cantatas, which seem as much +designed for numbers as the double choruses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> of 'Israel,' +were rendered in the St. Thomas Church by a ludicrously +small choir. Of this fact a record is preserved in the +archives of Leipsic. In August, 1730, Bach submitted to the +authorities a plan for a church choir of the pupils in his +care. In this plan his singers numbered twelve, there being +one principal and two ripienists in each voice; with +characteristic modesty he barely suggests a preference for +sixteen. The circumstance that in the same document he asked +for at least eighteen instrumentalists (two more if flutes +were used), taken in connection with the figures given +relative to the 'Messiah' performances, gives an insight +into the relations between the vocal and the instrumental +parts of a choral performance in those days."<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a></p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Proportion of voices and instruments.</i></div> + +<p>This relation has been more than reversed since then, the orchestras +at modern oratorio performances seldom being one-fifth as large as the +choir. This difference, however, is due largely to the changed +character of modern music, that of to-day treating the instruments as +independent agents of expression instead of using them chiefly to +support the voices and add sonority to the tonal mass, as was done by +Handel and most of the composers of his day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Glee unions and male choirs.</i></div> + +<p>I omit from consideration the Glee Unions of England, and the +quartets, which correspond to them, in this country. They are not +cultivators of choral music, and the music which they sing is an +insignificant factor in culture. The male choirs, too, need not detain +us long, since it may be said without injustice that their mission is +more social than artistic. In these choirs the subdivision into parts +is, as a rule, into two tenor voices, first and second, and two bass, +first and second. In the glee unions, the effect of whose singing is +fairly well imitated by the college clubs of the United States +(pitiful things, indeed, from an artistic point of view), there is a +survival of an old element in the male alto singing above the melody +voice, generally in a painful falsetto. This abomination is unknown to +the German part-songs for men's voices, which are written normally, +but are in the long run monotonous in color for want of the variety in +timbre and register which the female voices contribute in a mixed +choir.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Women's choirs.</i></div> + +<p>There are choirs also composed ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>clusively of women, but they are +even more unsatisfactory than the male choirs, for the reason that the +absence of the bass voice leaves their harmony without sufficient +foundation. Generally, music for these choirs is written for three +parts, two sopranos and contralto, with the result that it hovers, +suspended like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth. When a +fourth part is added it is a second contralto, which is generally +carried down to the tones that are hollow and unnatural.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Boys' choirs.</i></div> + +<p>The substitution of boys for women in Episcopal Church choirs has +grown extensively within the last ten years in the United States, very +much to the promotion of æsthetic sentimentality in the congregations, +but without improving the character of worship-music. Boys' voices are +practically limitless in an upward direction, and are naturally clear +and penetrating. Ravishing effects can be produced with them, but it +is false art to use passionless voices in music conceived for the +mature and emotional voices of adults; and very little of the old +English Cathedral music, written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> for choirs of boys and men, is +preserved in the service lists to-day.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mixed choirs.</i></div> + +<p>The only satisfactory choirs are the mixed choirs of men and women. +Upon them has devolved the cultivation of artistic choral music in our +public concert-rooms. As we know such choirs now, they are of +comparatively recent origin, and it is a singular commentary upon the +way in which musical history is written, that the fact should have so +long been overlooked that the credit of organizing the first belongs +to the United States. A little reflection will show this fact, which +seems somewhat startling at first blush, to be entirely natural. Large +singing societies are of necessity made up of amateurs, and the want +of professional musicians in America compelled the people to enlist +amateurs at a time when in Europe choral activity rested on the +church, theatre, and institute choristers, who were practically +professionals.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Origin of amateur singing societies.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The German record.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>American priority.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The American record.</i></div> + +<p>As the hitherto accepted record stands, the first amateur singing +society was the Singakademie of Berlin, which Carl Friedrich Fasch, +accompanist to the roy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>al flautist, Frederick the Great, called into +existence in 1791. A few dates will show how slow the other cities of +musical Germany were in following Berlin's example. In 1818 there were +only ten amateur choirs in all Germany. Leipsic organized one in 1800, +Stettin in 1800, Münster in 1804, Dresden in 1807, Potsdam in 1814, +Bremen in 1815, Chemnitz in 1817, Schwäbisch-Hall in 1817, and +Innsbruck in 1818. The Berlin Singakademie is still in existence, but +so also is the Stoughton Musical Society in Stoughton, Mass., which +was founded on November 7, 1786. Mr. Charles C. Perkins, historian of +the Handel and Haydn Society, whose foundation was coincident with the +sixth society in Germany (Bremen, 1815), enumerates the following +predecessors of that venerable organization: the Stoughton Musical +Society, 1786; Independent Musical Society, "established at Boston in +the same year, which gave a concert at King's Chapel in 1788, and took +part there in commemorating the death of Washington (December 14, +1799) on his first succeeding birthday;" the Franklin, 1804;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> the +Salem, 1806; Massachusetts Musical, 1807; Lock Hospital, 1812, and the +Norfolk Musical, the date of whose foundation is not given by Mr. +Perkins.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Choirs in the West.</i></div> + +<p>When the Bremen Singakademie was organized there were already choirs +in the United States as far west as Cincinnati. In that city they were +merely church choirs at first, but within a few years they had +combined into a large body and were giving concerts at which some of +the choruses of Handel and Haydn were sung. That their performances, +as well as those of the New England societies, were cruder than those +of their European rivals may well be believed, but with this I have +nothing to do. I am simply seeking to establish the priority of the +United States in amateur choral culture. The number of American cities +in which oratorios are performed annually is now about fifty.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The size of choirs.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Large numbers not essential.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>How "divisions" used to be sung.</i></div> + +<p>In size mixed choirs ordinarily range from forty voices to five +hundred. It were well if it were understood by choristers as well as +the public that numbers merely are not a sign of merit in a singing +society. So the concert-room be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> not too large, a choir of sixty +well-trained voices is large enough to perform almost everything in +choral literature with good effect, and the majority of the best +compositions will sound better under such circumstances than in large +rooms with large choirs. Especially is this true of the music of the +Middle Ages, written for voices without instrumental accompaniment, of +which I shall have something to say when the discussion reaches choral +programmes. There is music, it is true, like much of Handel's, the +impressiveness of which is greatly enhanced by masses, but it is not +extensive enough to justify the sacrifice of correctness and finish in +the performance to mere volume. The use of large choirs has had the +effect of developing the skilfulness of amateur singers in an +astonishing degree, but there is, nevertheless, a point where +weightiness of tone becomes an obstacle to finished execution. When +Mozart remodelled Handel's "Messiah" he was careful to indicate that +the florid passages ("divisions" they used to be called in England) +should be sung by the solo voices alone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> but nowadays choirs of five +hundred voices attack such choruses as "For unto us a Child is Born," +without the slightest hesitation, even if they sometimes make a +mournful mess of the "divisions."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The division of choirs.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Five-part music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Eight part.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Antiphonal music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach's "St. Matthew Passion."</i></div> + +<p>The normal division of a mixed choir is into four parts or +voices—soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass; but composers sometimes +write for more parts, and the choir is subdivided to correspond. The +custom of writing for five, six, eight, ten, and even more voices was +more common in the Middle Ages, the palmy days of the <i>a capella</i> +(<i>i.e.</i>, for the chapel, unaccompanied) style than it is now, and, as +a rule, a division into more than four voices is not needed outside of +the societies which cultivate this old music, such as the Musical Art +Society in New York, the Bach Choir in London, and the Domchor in +Berlin. In music for five parts, one of the upper voices, soprano or +tenor, is generally doubled; for six, the ordinary distribution is +into two sopranos, two contraltos, tenor, and bass. When eight voices +are reached a distinction is made according as there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> are to be eight +real parts (<i>a otto voci reali</i>), or two choruses of the four normal +parts each (<i>a otto voci in due cori reali</i>). In the first instance +the arrangement commonly is three sopranos, two contraltos, two +tenors, and one bass. One of the most beautiful uses of the double +choir is to produce antiphonal effects, choir answering to choir, both +occasionally uniting in the climaxes. How stirring this effect can be +made may be observed in some of Bach's compositions, especially those +in which he makes the division of the choir subserve a dramatic +purpose, as in the first chorus of "The Passion according to St. +Matthew," where the two choirs, one representing <i>Daughters of Zion</i>, +the other <i>Believers</i>, interrogate and answer each other thus:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I. "Come, ye daughters, weep for anguish;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See Him!</span><br /> +II. "Whom?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I. "The Son of Man.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See Him!</span><br /> +II. "How?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I. "So like a lamb.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See it!</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>II. "What?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I. "His love untold.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Look!</span><br /> +II. "Look where?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I. "Our guilt behold."</span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Antiphony in a motet.</i></div> + +<p>Another most striking instance is in the same master's motet, "Sing ye +to the Lord," which is written for two choirs of four parts each. (In +the example from the "St. Matthew Passion" there is a third choir of +soprano voices which sings a chorale while the dramatic choirs are +conversing.) In the motet the first choir begins a fugue, in the midst +of which the second choir is heard shouting jubilantly, "Sing ye! Sing +ye! Sing ye!" Then the choirs change rôles, the first delivering the +injunction, the second singing the fugue. In modern music, composers +frequently consort a quartet of solo voices, soprano, contralto, +tenor, and bass, with a four-part chorus, and thus achieve fine +effects of contrast in dynamics and color, as well as antiphonal.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Excellence in choral singing.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Community of action.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Individualism.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Dynamics.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beauty of tone.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Contralto voices.</i></div> + +<p>The question is near: What constitutes excellence in a choral +performance? To answer: The same qualities that constitute excellence +in an orches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>tral performance, will scarcely suffice, except as a +generalization. A higher degree of harmonious action is exacted of a +body of singers than of a body of instrumentalists. Many of the parts +in a symphony are played by a single instrument. Community of voice +belongs only to each of the five bodies of string-players. In a chorus +there are from twelve to one hundred and fifty voices, or even more, +united in each part. This demands the effacement of individuality in a +chorus, upon the assertion of which, in a band, under the judicious +guidance of the conductor, many of the effects of color and expression +depend. Each group in a choir must strive for homogeneity of voice +quality; each singer must sink the <i>ego</i> in the aggregation, yet +employ it in its highest potency so far as the mastery of the technics +of singing is concerned. In cultivating precision of attack (<i>i.e.</i>, +promptness in beginning a tone and leaving it off), purity of +intonation (<i>i.e.</i>, accuracy or justness of pitch—"singing in tune" +according to the popular phrase), clearness of enuncia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>tion, and +careful attention to all the dynamic gradations of tone, from very +soft up to very loud, and all shades of expression between, in the +development of that gradual augmentation of tone called <i>crescendo</i>, +and the gradual diminution called <i>diminuendo</i>, the highest order of +individual skill is exacted from every chorister; for upon individual +perfection in these things depends the collective effect which it is +the purpose of the conductor to achieve. Sensuous beauty of tone, even +in large aggregations, is also dependent to a great degree upon +careful and proper emission of voice by each individual, and it is +because the contralto part in most choral music, being a middle part, +lies so easily in the voices of the singers that the contralto +contingent in American choirs, especially, so often attracts attention +by the charm of its tone. Contralto voices are seldom forced into the +regions which compel so great a physical strain that beauty and +character must be sacrificed to mere accomplishment of utterance, as +is frequently the case with the soprano part.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Selfishness fatal to success.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Tonal balance.</i></div> + +<p>Yet back of all this exercise of individual skill there must be a +spirit of self-sacrifice which can only exist in effective potency if +prompted by universal sympathy and love for the art. A selfish +chorister is not a chorister, though possessed of the voice of a Melba +or Mario. Balance between the parts, not only in the fundamental +constitution of the choir but also in all stages of a performance, is +also a matter of the highest consideration. In urban communities, +especially, it is difficult to secure perfect tonal symmetry—the rule +is a poverty in tenor voices—but those who go to hear choral concerts +are entitled to hear a well-balanced choir, and the presence of an +army of sopranos will not condone a squad of tenors. Again, I say, +better a well-balanced small choir than an ill-balanced large one.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Declamation.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Expression.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The choruses in "The Messiah."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Variety of declamation in Handel's oratorio.</i></div> + +<p>I have not enumerated all the elements which enter into a meritorious +performance, nor shall I discuss them all; only in passing do I wish +to direct attention to one which shines by its absence in the choral +performances not only of America but also of Great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Britain and +Germany. Proper pronunciation of the texts is an obvious requirement; +so ought also to be declamation. There is no reason why characteristic +expression, by which I mean expression which goes to the genius of the +melodic phrase when it springs from the verbal, should be ignored, +simply because it may be difficult of attainment from large bodies of +singers. There is so much monotony in oratorio concerts because all +oratorios and all parts of any single oratorio are sung alike. Only +when the "Hallelujah" is sung in "The Messiah" at the gracious +Christmastide is an exaltation above the dull level of the routine +performances noticeable, and then it is communicated to the singers by +the act of the listeners in rising to their feet. Now, despite the +structural sameness in the choruses of "The Messiah," they have a +great variety of content, and if the characteristic physiognomy of +each could but be disclosed, the grand old work, which seems hackneyed +to so many, would acquire amazing freshness, eloquence, and power. +Then should we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> be privileged to note that there is ample variety in +the voice of the old master, of whom a greater than he said that when +he wished, he could strike like a thunderbolt. Then should we hear the +tones of amazed adoration in</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music45.png" alt="Music: Behold the Lamb of God!" width="730" height="103" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music45.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music45.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>of cruel scorn in</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music46.png" alt="Music: He trusted in God that he would deliver him" width="735" height="194" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music46.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music46.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>of boastfulness and conscious strength in</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music47.png" alt="Music: Let us break their bonds asunder" width="731" height="94" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music47.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music47.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + +<p>and learn to admire as we ought to admire the declamatory strength +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> truthfulness so common in Handel's choruses.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mediæval music.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Madrigals.</i></div> + +<p>There is very little cultivation of choral music of the early +ecclesiastical type, and that little is limited to the Church and a +few choirs specially organized for its performance, like those that I +have mentioned. This music is so foreign to the conceptions of the +ordinary amateur, and exacts so much skill in the singing of the +intervals, lacking the prop of modern tonality as it does, that it is +seldom that an amateur body can be found equal to its performance. +Moreover, it is nearly all of a solemn type. Its composers were +churchmen, and when it was written nearly all that there was of +artistic music was in the service of the Church. The secular music of +the time consisted chiefly in Madrigals, which differed from +ecclesiastical music only in their texts, they being generally erotic +in sentiment. The choristers of to-day, no less than the public, find +it difficult to appreciate them, because they are not melodic in the +sense that most music is nowadays. In them the melody is not the +privileged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> possession of the soprano voice. All the voices stand on +an equal footing, and the composition consists of a weaving together, +according to scientific rules, of a number of voices—counterpoint as +it is called.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Homophonic hymns.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Calvin's restrictive influence.</i></div> + +<p>Our hymn-tunes are homophonic, based upon a melody sung by one voice, +for which the other voices provide the harmony. This style of music +came into the Church through the German Reformation. Though Calvin was +a lover of music he restricted its practice among his followers to +unisonal psalmody, that is, to certain tunes adapted to the versified +psalms sung without accompaniment of harmony voices. On the adoption +of the Genevan psalter he gave the strictest injunction that neither +its text nor its melodies were to be altered.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Those songs and melodies," said he, "which are composed for +the mere pleasure of the ear, and all they call ornamental +music, and songs for four parts, do not behoove the majesty +of the Church, and cannot fail greatly to displease God."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Luther and the German Church.</i></div> + +<p>Under the influence of the German reformers music was in a very +different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> case. Luther was not only an amateur musician, he was also +an ardent lover of scientific music. Josquin des Pres, a contemporary +of Columbus, was his greatest admiration; nevertheless, he was anxious +from the beginning of his work of Church establishment to have the +music of the German Church German in spirit and style. In 1525 he +wrote:</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A German mass.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I should like to have a German mass, and I am indeed at +work on one; but I am anxious that it shall be truly German +in manner. I have no objection to a translated Latin text +and Latin notes; but they are neither proper nor just (<i>aber +es lautet nicht artig noch rechtschaffen</i>); text and notes, +accent, melodies, and demeanor must come from our mother +tongue and voice, else will it all be but a mimicry, like +that of the apes."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Secular tunes used.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Congregational singing.</i></div> + +<p>In the Church music of the time, composed, as I have described, by a +scientific interweaving of voices, the composers had got into the +habit of utilizing secular melodies as the foundation on which to +build their contrapuntal structures. I have no doubt that it was the +spirit which speaks out of Luther's words which brought it to pass +that in Ger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>many contrapuntal music with popular melodies as +foundations developed into the chorale, in which the melody and not +the counterpoint was the essential thing. With the Lutheran Church +came congregational singing; with congregational singing the need of a +new style of composition, which should not only make the participation +of the people in the singing possible, but should also stimulate them +to sing by freeing the familiar melodies (the melodies of folk-songs) +from the elaborate and ingenious, but soulless, counterpoint which +fettered them.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Counterpoint.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The first congregational hymns.</i></div> + +<p>The Flemish masters, who were the musical law-givers, had been using +secular tunes for over a century, but only as stalking-horses for +counterpoint; and when the Germans began to use their tunes, they, +too, buried them beyond recognition in the contrapuntal mass. The +people were invited to sing paraphrases of the psalms to familiar +tunes, it is true, but the choir's polyphony went far to stifle the +spirit of the melody. Soon the free spirit which I have repeatedly +referred to as Romanticism, and which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> was powerfully encouraged by +the Reformation, prompted a style of composition in which the admired +melody was lifted into relief. This could not be done until the new +style of writing invented by the creators of the opera (see <a href="#VII">Chapter +VII.</a>) came in, but as early as 1568 Dr. Lucas Ostrander published +fifty hymns and psalms with music so arranged "that the congregation +may join in singing them." This, then, is in outline the story of the +beginning of modern hymnology, and it is recalled to the patrons of +choral concerts whenever in Bach's "Passion Music" or in Mendelssohn's +"St. Paul" the choir sings one of the marvellous old hymns of the +German Church.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Church and conservatism.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Harmony and emotion.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Palestrina's "Stabat Mater."</i></div> + +<p>Choral music being bound up with the Church, it has naturally +participated in the conservatism characteristic of the Church. The +severe old style has survived in the choral compositions of to-day, +while instrumental music has grown to be almost a new thing within the +century which is just closing. It is the severe style established by +Bach, however, not that of Palestrina. In the Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> compositions +prior to Palestrina the emotional power of harmony was but little +understood. The harmonies, indeed, were the accidents of the +interweaving of melodies. Palestrina was among the first to feel the +uplifting effect which might result from a simple sequence of pure +consonant harmonies, and the three chords which open his famous +"Stabat Mater"</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music48.png" alt="Music: Stabat mater" width="240" height="154" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music48.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music48.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Characteristics of his music.</i></div> + +<p>are a sign of his style as distinct in its way as the devices by means +of which Wagner stamps his individuality on his phrases. His melodies, +too, compared with the artificial <i>motivi</i> of his predecessors, are +distinguished by grace, beauty, and expressiveness, while his command +of ætherial effects, due to the manner in which the voices are +combined, is absolutely without parallel from his day to this. Of the +mystery of pure beauty he enjoyed a wonderful revelation, and has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +handed it down to us in such works as the "Stabat Mater," "Missa Papæ +Marcelli," and the "Improperia."</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Palestrina's music not dramatic.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A churchman.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Effect of the Reformation.</i></div> + +<p>This music must not be listened to with the notion in mind of dramatic +expression such as we almost instinctively feel to-day. Palestrina +does not seek to proclaim the varying sentiment which underlies his +texts. That leads to individual interpretation and is foreign to the +habits of churchmen in the old conception, when the individual was +completely resolved in the organization. He aimed to exalt the mystery +of the service, not to bring it down to popular comprehension and make +it a personal utterance. For such a design in music we must wait until +after the Reformation, when the ancient mysticism began to fall back +before the demands of reason, when the idea of the sole and sufficient +mediation of the Church lost some of its power in the face of the +growing conviction of intimate personal relationship between man and +his creator. Now idealism had to yield some of its dominion to +realism, and a more rugged art grew up in place of that which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +been so wonderfully sublimated by mysticism.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The source of beauty in Palestrina's music.</i></div> + +<p>It is in Bach, who came a century after Palestrina, that we find the +most eloquent musical proclamation of the new régime, and it is in no +sense disrespectful to the great German master if we feel that the +change in ideals was accompanied with a loss in sensuous charm, or +pure æsthetic beauty. Effect has had to yield to idea. It is in the +flow of the voices, the color effects which result from combination +and registers, the clarity of the harmonies, the reposefulness coming +from conscious ease of utterance, the loveliness of each individual +part, and the spiritual exaltation of the whole that the æsthetic +mystery of Palestrina's music lies.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach.</i></div> + +<p>Like Palestrina, Bach is the culmination of the musical practice of +his time, but, unlike Palestrina, he is also the starting-point of a +new development. With Bach the old contrapuntal art, now not vocal +merely but instrumental also and mixed, reaches its climax, and the +tendency sets in which leads to the highly complex and dramatic art of +to-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>day. Palestrina's art is Roman; the spirit of restfulness, of +celestial calm, of supernatural revelation and supernal beauty broods +over it. Bach's is Gothic—rugged, massive, upward striving, human. In +Palestrina's music the voice that speaks is the voice of angels; in +Bach's it is the voice of men.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach a German Protestant.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Church and individual.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Ingenuousness of feeling.</i></div> + +<p>Bach is the publisher of the truest, tenderest, deepest, and most +individual religious feeling. His music is peculiarly a hymning of the +religious sentiment of Protestant Germany, where salvation is to be +wrought out with fear and trembling by each individual through faith +and works rather than the agency of even a divinely constituted +Church. It reflects, with rare fidelity and clearness, the essential +qualities of the German people—their warm sympathy, profound +compassion, fervent love, and sturdy faith. As the Church fell into +the background and the individual came to the fore, religious music +took on the dramatic character which we find in the "Passion Music" of +Bach. Here the sufferings and death of the Saviour, none the less an +ineffable mys<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>tery, are depicted as the most poignant experience of +each individual believer, and with an ingenuousness that must forever +provoke the wonder of those who are unable to enter into the German +nature. The worshippers do not hesitate to say: "My Jesus, +good-night!" as they gather in fancy around His tomb and invoke sweet +rest for His weary limbs. The difference between such a proclamation +and the calm voice of the Church should be borne in mind when +comparing the music of Palestrina with that of Bach; also the vast +strides made by music during the intervening century.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The motet.</i></div> + +<p>Of Bach's music we have in the repertories of our best choral +societies a number of motets, church cantatas, a setting of the +"Magnificat," and the great mass in B minor. The term Motet lacks +somewhat of definiteness of the usage of composers. Originally it +seems likely that it was a secular composition which the Netherland +composers enlisted in the service of the Church by adapting it to +Biblical and other religious texts. Then it was always unaccompanied. +In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> the later Protestant motets the chorale came to play a great part; +the various stanzas of a hymn were given different settings, the +foundation of each being the hymn tune. These were interspersed with +independent pieces, based on Biblical words.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Church cantatas.</i></div> + +<p>The Church Cantatas (<i>Kirchencantaten</i>) are larger services with +orchestral accompaniment, which were written to conform to the various +religious festivals and Sundays of the year; each has for a +fundamental subject the theme which is proper to the day. Again, a +chorale provides the musical foundation. Words and melody are +retained, but between the stanzas occur recitatives and metrical airs, +or ariosos, for solo voices in the nature of commentaries or +reflections on the sentiment of the hymn or the gospel lesson for the +day.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The "Passions."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Origin of the "Passions."</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Early Holy Week services.</i></div> + +<p>The "Passions" are still more extended, and were written for use in +the Reformed Church in Holy Week. As an art-form they are unique, +combining a number of elements and having all the apparatus of an +oratorio<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> plus the congregation, which took part in the performance by +singing the hymns dispersed through the work. The service (for as a +service, rather than as an oratorio, it must be treated) roots in the +Miracle plays and Mysteries of the Middle Ages, but its origin is even +more remote, going back to the custom followed by the primitive +Christians of making the reading of the story of the Passion a special +service for Holy Week. In the Eastern Church it was introduced in a +simple dramatic form as early as the fourth century A.D., the +treatment being somewhat like the ancient tragedies, the text being +intoned or chanted. In the Western Church, until the sixteenth +century, the Passion was read in a way which gave the service one +element which is found in Bach's works in an amplified form. Three +deacons were employed, one to read (or rather chant to Gregorian +melodies) the words of Christ, another to deliver the narrative in the +words of the Evangelist, and a third to give the utterances and +exclamations of the Apostles and people. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> the <i>Cantus +Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christe</i> of the Church, and had so strong +a hold upon the tastes of the people that it was preserved by Luther +in the Reformed Church.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The service amplified.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Bach's settings.</i></div> + +<p>Under this influence it was speedily amplified. The successive steps +of the progress are not clear, but the choir seems to have first +succeeded to the part formerly sung by the third deacon, and in some +churches the whole Passion was sung antiphonally by two choirs. In the +seventeenth century the introduction of recitatives and arias, +distributed among singers who represented the personages of sacred +history, increased the dramatic element of the service which reached +its climax in the "St. Matthew" setting by Bach. The chorales are +supposed to have been introduced about 1704. Bach's "Passions" are the +last that figure in musical history. That "according to St. John" is +performed occasionally in Germany, but it yields the palm of +excellence to that "according to St. Matthew," which had its first +performance on Good Friday, 1729, in Leipsic. It is in two parts,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +which were formerly separated by the sermon, and employs two choirs, +each with its own orchestra, solo singers in all the classes of +voices, and a harpsichord to accompany all the recitatives, except +those of <i>Jesus</i>, which are distinguished by being accompanied by the +orchestral strings.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Oratorios.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Sacred operas.</i></div> + +<p>In the nature of things passions, oratorios, and their secular +cousins, cantatas, imply scenes and actions, and therefore have a +remote kinship with the lyric drama. The literary analogy which they +suggest is the epic poem as contra-distinguished from the drama. While +the drama presents incident, the oratorio relates, expounds, and +celebrates, presenting it to the fancy through the ear instead of +representing it to the eye. A great deal of looseness has crept into +this department of music as into every other, and the various forms +have been approaching each other until in some cases it is become +difficult to say which term, opera or oratorio, ought to be applied. +Rubinstein's "sacred operas" are oratorios profusely interspersed with +stage directions, many of which are im<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>possible of scenic realization. +Their whole purpose is to work upon the imagination of the listeners +and thus open gate-ways for the music. Ever since its composition, +Saint-Saëns's "Samson and Delilah" has held a place in both theatre +and concert-room. Liszt's "St. Elizabeth" has been found more +effective when provided with pictorial accessories than without. The +greater part of "Elijah" might be presented in dramatic form.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Influence of the Church plays.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Origin of the oratorio.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The choral element extended.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Narrative and descriptive choruses.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Dramatization.</i></div> + +<p>Confusing and anomalous as these things are, they find their +explanation in the circumstance that the oratorio never quite freed +itself from the influence of the people's Church plays in which it had +its beginning. As a distinct art-form it began in a mixture of +artistic entertainment and religious worship provided in the early +part of the sixteenth century by Filippo Neri (now a saint) for those +who came for pious instruction to his oratory (whence the name). The +purpose of these entertainments being religious, the subjects were +Biblical, and though the musical progress from the beginning was along +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> line of the lyric drama, contemporaneous in origin with it, the +music naturally developed into broader forms on the choral side, +because music had to make up for the lack of pantomime, costumes, and +scenery. Hence we have not only the preponderance of choruses in the +oratorio over recitative, arias, duets, trios, and so forth, but also +the adherence in the choral part to the old manner of writing which +made the expansion of the choruses possible. Where the choruses left +the field of pure reflection and became narrative, as in "Israel in +Egypt," or assumed a dramatic character, as in the "Elijah," the +composer found in them vehicles for descriptive and characteristic +music, and so local color came into use. Characterization of the solo +parts followed as a matter of course, an early illustration being +found in the manner in which Bach lifted the words of Christ into +prominence by surrounding them with the radiant halo which streams +from the violin accompaniment. In consequence the singer to whom was +assigned the task of singing the part of <i>Jesus</i> presented himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> to +the fancy of the listeners as a representative of the historical +personage—as the Christ of the drama.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The chorus in opera and oratorio.</i></div> + +<p>The growth of the instrumental art here came admirably into play, and +so it came to pass that opera and oratorio now have their musical +elements of expression in common, and differ only in their application +of them—opera foregoing the choral element to a great extent as being +a hindrance to action, and oratorio elevating it to make good the +absence of scenery and action. While oratorios are biblical and +legendary, cantatas deal with secular subjects and, in the form of +dramatic ballads, find a delightful field in the world of romance and +supernaturalism.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Mass.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Secularization of the Mass.</i></div> + +<p>Transferred from the Church to the concert-room, and considered as an +art-form instead of the eucharistic office, the Mass has always made a +strong appeal to composers, and half a dozen masterpieces of missal +composition hold places in the concert lists of the singing societies. +Notable among these are the Requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, +and the Solemn Mass in D by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> Beethoven. These works represent at one +and the same time the climax of accomplishment in the musical +treatment and the secularization of the missal text. They are the +natural outcome of the expansion of the office by the introduction of +the orchestra into the Church, the departure from the <i>a capella</i> +style of writing, which could not be consorted with the orchestra, and +the growth of a desire to enhance the pomp of great occasions in the +Church by the production of masses specially composed for them. Under +such circumstances the devotional purpose of the mass was lost in the +artistic, and composers gave free reign to their powers, for which +they found an ample stimulus in the missal text.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Sentimental masses.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mozart and the Mass.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The masses for the dead.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Gossec's Requiem.</i></div> + +<p>The first effect, and the one which largely justifies the adherents of +the old ecclesiastical style in their crusade against the Catholic +Church music of to-day, was to make the masses sentimental and +operatic. So little regard was had for the sentiment of the words, so +little respect for the solemnity of the sacrament, that more than a +century ago<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Mozart (whose masses are far from being models of +religious expression) could say to Cantor Doles of a <i>Gloria</i> which +the latter showed him, "<i>S'ist ja alles nix</i>," and immediately sing +the music to "<i>Hol's der Geier, das geht flink!</i>" which words, he +said, went better. The liberty begotten by this license, though it +tended to ruin the mass, considered strictly as a liturgical service, +developed it musically. The masses for the dead were among the +earliest to feel the spirit of the time, for in the sequence, <i>Dies +iræ</i>, they contained the dramatic element which the solemn mass +lacked. The <i>Kyrie</i>, <i>Credo</i>, <i>Gloria</i>, <i>Sanctus</i>, and <i>Agnus Dei</i> are +purely lyrical, and though the evolutionary movement ended in +Beethoven conceiving certain portions (notably the <i>Agnus Dei</i>) in a +dramatic sense, it was but natural that so far as tradition fixed the +disposition and formal style of the various parts, it should not be +disturbed. At an early date the composers began to put forth their +powers of description in the <i>Dies iræ</i>, however, and there is extant +in a French mass an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> amusing example of the length to which +tone-painting in this music was carried by them. Gossec wrote a +Requiem on the death of Mirabeau which became famous. The words, +<i>Quantus tremor est futurus</i>, he set so that on each syllable there +were repetitions, <i>staccato</i>, of a single tone, thus:</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/music49.png" alt="Music: Quantus tremor" width="741" height="193" /></p> + + +<p style="text-align: center"><a href="music/music49.midi">Listen</a> +<a href="music/music49.ly">View Lilypond</a></p> + + +<p>This absurd stuttering Gossec designed to picture the terror inspired +by the coming of the Judge at the last trumpet.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The orchestra in the Mass.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Beethoven and Berlioz.</i></div> + +<p>The development of instrumentation placed a factor in the hands of +these writers which they were not slow to utilize, especially in +writing music for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> the <i>Dies iræ</i>, and how effectively Mozart used the +orchestra in his Requiem it is not necessary to state. It is a safe +assumption that Beethoven's Mass in D was largely instrumental in +inspiring Berlioz to set the Requiem as he did. With Beethoven the +dramatic idea is the controlling one, and so it is with Berlioz. +Beethoven, while showing a reverence for the formulas of the Church, +and respecting the tradition which gave the <i>Kyrie</i> a triple division +and made fugue movements out of the phrases "<i>Cum sancto spiritu in +gloria Dei patris—Amen</i>," "<i>Et vitam venturi</i>," and "<i>Osanna in +excelsis</i>," nevertheless gave his composition a scope which placed it +beyond the apparatus of the Church, and filled it with a spirit that +spurns the limitations of any creed of less breadth and universality +than the grand Theism which affectionate communion with nature had +taught him.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Berlioz's Requiem.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Dramatic effects in Haydn's masses.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Berlioz's orchestra.</i></div> + +<p>Berlioz, less religious, less reverential, but equally fired by the +solemnity and majesty of the matter given into his hands, wrote a work +in which he placed his highest conception of the awfulness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> of the +Last Judgment and the emotions which are awakened by its +contemplation. In respect of the instrumentation he showed a far +greater audacity than Beethoven displayed even in the much-mooted +trumpets and drums of the <i>Agnus Dei</i>, where he introduces the sounds +of war to heighten the intensity of the prayer for peace, "<i>Dona nobis +pacem</i>." This is talked about in the books as a bold innovation. It +seems to have escaped notice that the idea had occurred to Haydn +twenty-four years before and been realized by him. In 1796 Haydn wrote +a mass, "In Tempore Belli," the French army being at the time in +Steyermark. He set the words, "<i>Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi</i>," +to an accompaniment of drums, "as if the enemy were already heard +coming in the distance." He went farther than this in a Mass in D +minor, when he accompanied the <i>Benedictus</i> with fanfares of trumpets. +But all such timid ventures in the use of instruments in the mass sink +into utter insignificance when compared with Berlioz's apparatus in +the <i>Tuba mirum</i> of his Requiem, which supplements the or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>dinary +symphonic orchestra, some of its instruments already doubled, with +four brass bands of eight or ten instruments each, sixteen extra +drums, and a tam-tam.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/deco10.png" alt="Decoration" width="300" height="74" /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + +<h2><i>Musician, Critic, and Public</i></h2> + + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The newspapers and the public.</i></div> + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> have been told that there are many people who read the newspapers on +the day after they have attended a concert or operatic representation +for the purpose of finding out whether or not the performance gave +them proper or sufficient enjoyment. It would not be becoming in me to +inquire too curiously into the truth of such a statement, and in view +of a denunciation spoken in the <a href="#I">introductory chapter</a> of this book, I +am not sure that it is not a piece of arrogance, or impudence, on my +part to undertake in any way to justify any critical writing on the +subject of music. Certain it is that some men who write about music +for the newspapers believe, or affect to believe, that criticism is +worthless, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> I shall not escape the charge of inconsistency, if, +after I have condemned the blunders of literary men, who are laymen in +music, and separated the majority of professional writers on the art +into pedants and rhapsodists, I nevertheless venture to discuss the +nature and value of musical criticism. Yet, surely, there must be a +right and wrong in this as in every other thing, and just as surely +the present structure of society, which rests on the newspaper, +invites attention to the existing relationship between musician, +critic, and public as an important element in the question How to +Listen to Music.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Relationship between musician, critic, and public.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The need and value of conflict.</i></div> + +<p>As a condition precedent to the discussion of this new element in the +case, I lay down the proposition that the relationship between the +three factors enumerated is so intimate and so strict that the world +over they rise and fall together; which means that where the people +dwell who have reached the highest plane of excellence, there also are +to be found the highest types of the musician and critic; and that in +the degree in which the three factors,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> which united make up the sum +of musical activity, labor harmoniously, conscientiously, and +unselfishly, each striving to fulfil its mission, they advance music +and further themselves, each bearing off an equal share of the good +derived from the common effort. I have set the factors down in the +order which they ordinarily occupy in popular discussion and which +symbolizes their proper attitude toward each other and the highest +potency of their collaboration. In this collaboration, as in so many +others, it is conflict that brings life. Only by a surrender of their +functions, one to the other, could the three apparently dissonant yet +essentially harmonious factors be brought into a state of complacency; +but such complacency would mean stagnation. If the published judgment +on compositions and performances could always be that of the +exploiting musicians, that class, at least, would read the newspapers +with fewer heart-burnings; if the critics had a common mind and it +were followed in concert-room and opera-house, they, as well as the +musicians,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> would have need of fewer words of displacency and more of +approbation; if, finally, it were to be brought to pass that for the +public nothing but amiable diversion should flow simultaneously from +platform, stage, and press, then for the public would the millennium +be come. A religious philosopher can transmute Adam's fall into a +blessing, and we can recognize the wisdom of that dispensation which +put enmity between the seed of Jubal, who was the "father of all such +as handle the harp and pipe," and the seed of Saul, who, I take it, is +the first critic of record (and a vigorous one, too, for he +accentuated his unfavorable opinion of a harper's harping with a +javelin thrust).</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The critic an Ishmaelite.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The critic not to be pitied.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>How he might extricate himself.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The public like to be flattered.</i></div> + +<p>We are bound to recognize that between the three factors there is, +ever was, and ever shall be <i>in sæcula sæculorum</i> an irrepressible +conflict, and that in the nature of things the middle factor is the +Ishmaelite whose hand is raised against everybody and against whom +everybody's hand is raised. The complacency of the musician and the +indifference, not to say ignorance, of the public<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> ordinarily combine +to make them allies, and the critic is, therefore, placed between two +millstones, where he is vigorously rasped on both sides, and whence, +being angular and hard of outer shell, he frequently requites the +treatment received with complete and energetic reciprocity. Is he +therefore to be pitied? Not a bit; for in this position he is +performing one of the most significant and useful of his functions, +and disclosing one of his most precious virtues. While musician and +public must perforce remain in the positions in which they have been +placed with relation to each other it must be apparent at half a +glance that it would be the simplest matter in the world for the +critic to extricate himself from his predicament. He would only need +to take his cue from the public, measuring his commendation by the +intensity of their applause, his dispraise by their signs of +displeasure, and all would be well with him. We all know this to be +true, that people like to read that which flatters them by echoing +their own thoughts. The more delightfully it is put by the writer the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> +more the reader is pleased, for has he not had the same idea? Are they +not his? Is not their appearance in a public print proof of the +shrewdness and soundness of his judgment? Ruskin knows this foible in +human nature and condemns it. You may read in "Sesame and Lilies:"</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Very ready we are to say of a book, 'How good this +is—that's exactly what I think!' But the right feeling is, +'How strange that is! I never thought of that before, and +yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, +some day.' But whether thus submissively or not, at least be +sure that you go at the author to get at his meaning, not to +find yours. Judge it afterward if you think yourself +qualified to do so, but ascertain it first."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The critic generally outspoken.</i></div> + +<p>As a rule, however, the critic is not guilty of the wrong of speaking +out the thought of others, but publishes what there is of his own +mind, and this I laud in him as a virtue, which is praiseworthy in the +degree that it springs from loftiness of aim, depth of knowledge, and +sincerity and unselfishness of purpose.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Musician and Public.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The office of ignorance.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Popularity of Wagner's music not a sign of intelligent +appreciation.</i></div> + +<p>Let us look a little into the views which our factors do and those +which they ought to entertain of each other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> The utterances of +musicians have long ago made it plain that as between the critic and +the public the greater measure of their respect and deference is given +to the public. The critic is bound to recognize this as entirely +natural; his right of protest does not accrue until he can show that +the deference is ignoble and injurious to good art. It is to the +public that the musician appeals for the substantial signs of what is +called success. This appeal to the jury instead of the judge is as +characteristic of the conscientious composer who is sincerely +convinced that he was sent into the world to widen the boundaries of +art, as it is of the mere time-server who aims only at tickling the +popular ear. The reason is obvious to a little close thinking: +Ignorance is at once a safeguard against and a promoter of +conservatism. This sounds like a paradox, but the rapid growth of +Wagner's music in the admiration of the people of the United States +might correctly be cited as a proof that the statement is true. Music +like the concert fragments from Wagner's lyric dramas is accepted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +with promptitude and delight, because its elements are those which +appeal most directly and forcibly to our sense-perception and those +primitive tastes which are the most readily gratified by strong +outlines and vivid colors. Their vigorous rhythms, wealth of color, +and sonority would make these fragments far more impressive to a +savage than the suave beauty of a symphony by Haydn; yet do we not all +know that while whole-hearted, intelligent enjoyment of a Haydn +symphony is conditioned upon a considerable degree of culture, an +equally whole-hearted, intelligent appreciation of Wagner's music +presupposes a much wider range of sympathy, a much more extended view +of the capabilities of musical expression, a much keener discernment, +and a much profounder susceptibility to the effects of harmonic +progressions? And is the conclusion not inevitable, therefore, that on +the whole the ready acceptance of Wagner's music by a people is +evidence that they are not sufficiently cultured to feel the force of +that conservatism which made the triumph of Wag<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>ner consequent on many +years of agitation in musical Germany?</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"Ahead of one's time."</i></div> + +<p>In one case the appeal is elemental; in the other spiritual. He who +wishes to be in advance of his time does wisely in going to the people +instead of the critics, just as the old fogy does whose music belongs +to the time when sensuous charm summed up its essence. There is a good +deal of ambiguity about the stereotyped phrase "ahead of one's time." +Rightly apprehended, great geniuses do live for the future rather than +the present, but where the public have the vastness of appetite and +scantness of taste peculiar to the ostrich, there it is impossible for +a composer to be ahead of his time. It is only where the public are +advanced to the stage of intelligent discrimination that a Ninth +Symphony and a Nibelung Tetralogy are accepted slowly.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The charlatan.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Influencing the critics.</i></div> + +<p>Why the charlatan should profess to despise the critic and to pay +homage only to the public scarcely needs an explanation. It is the +critic who stands between him and the public he would victimize. Much +of the disaffection be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>tween the concert-giver and the +concert-reviewer arises from the unwillingness of the latter to enlist +in a conspiracy to deceive and defraud the public. There is no need of +mincing phrases here. The critics of the newspaper press are besieged +daily with requests for notices of a complimentary character touching +persons who have no honest standing in art. They are fawned on, +truckled to, cajoled, subjected to the most seductive influences, +sometimes bribed with woman's smiles or manager's money—and why? To +win their influence in favor of good art, think you? No; to feed +vanity and greed. When a critic is found of sufficient self-respect +and character to resist all appeals and to be proof against all +temptations, who is quicker than the musician to cite against his +opinion the applause of the public over whose gullibility and +ignorance, perchance, he made merry with the critic while trying to +purchase his independence and honor?</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The public an elemental force.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Critic and public.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Schumann and popular approval.</i></div> + +<p>It is only when musicians divide the question touching the rights and +merits of public and critic that they seem able<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> to put a correct +estimate upon the value of popular approval. At the last the best of +them are willing, with Ferdinand Hiller, to look upon the public as an +elemental power like the weather, which must be taken as it chances to +come. With modern society resting upon the newspaper they might be +willing to view the critic in the same light; but this they will not +do so long as they adhere to the notion that criticism belongs of +right to the professional musician, and will eventually be handed over +to him. As for the critic, he may recognize the naturalness and +reasonableness of a final resort for judgment to the factor for whose +sake art is (<i>i.e.</i>, the public), but he is not bound to admit its +unfailing righteousness. Upon him, so he be worthy of his office, +weighs the duty of first determining whether the appeal is taken from +a lofty purpose or a low one, and whether or not the favored tribunal +is worthy to try the case. Those who show a willingness to accept low +ideals cannot exact high ones. The influence of their applause is a +thousand-fold more injuri<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>ous to art than the strictures of the most +acrid critic. A musician of Schumann's mental and moral stature could +recognize this and make it the basis of some of his most forcible +aphorisms:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'It pleased,' or 'It did not please,' say the people; as if +there were no higher purpose than to please the people."</p> + +<p>"The most difficult thing in the world to endure is the +applause of fools!"</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Depreciation of the critic.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Value of public opinion.</i></div> + +<p>The belief professed by many musicians—professed, not really +held—that the public can do no wrong, unquestionably grows out of a +depreciation of the critic rather than an appreciation of the critical +acumen of the masses. This depreciation is due more to the concrete +work of the critic (which is only too often deserving of condemnation) +than to a denial of the good offices of criticism. This much should be +said for the musician, who is more liable to be misunderstood and more +powerless against misrepresentation than any other artist. A line +should be drawn between mere expression of opinion and criticism. It +has been recognized for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> ages—you may find it plainly set forth in +Quintilian and Cicero—that in the long run the public are neither bad +judges nor good critics. The distinction suggests a thought about the +difference in value between a popular and a critical judgment. The +former is, in the nature of things, ill considered and fleeting. It is +the product of a momentary gratification or disappointment. In a much +greater degree than a judgment based on principle and precedent, such +as a critic's ought to be, it is a judgment swayed by that variable +thing called fashion—"<i>Qual piùm' al vento.</i>"</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Duties of the critic.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The musician's duty toward the critic.</i></div> + +<p>But if this be so we ought plainly to understand the duties and +obligations of the critic; perhaps it is because there is much +misapprehension on this point that critics' writings have fallen under +their own condemnation. I conceive that the first, if not the sole, +office of the critic should be to guide public judgment. It is not for +him to instruct the musician in his art. If this were always borne in +mind by writers for the press it might help to soften the asperity +felt by the musician toward the critic; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> possibly the musician +might then be persuaded to perform his first office toward the critic, +which is to hold up his hands while he labors to steady and dignify +public opinion. No true artist would give up years of honorable esteem +to be the object for a moment of feverish idolatry. The public are +fickle. "The garlands they twine," says Schumann, "they always pull to +pieces again to offer them in another form to the next comer who +chances to know how to amuse them better." Are such garlands worth the +sacrifice of artistic honor? If it were possible for the critic to +withhold them and offer instead a modest sprig of enduring bay, would +not the musician be his debtor?</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The critic should steady public judgment.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Taste and judgment must be achieved.</i></div> + +<p>Another thought. Conceding that the people are the elemental power +that Hiller says they are, who shall save them from the changeableness +and instability which they show with relation to music and her +votaries? Who shall bid the restless waves be still? We, in America, +are a new people, a vast hotch-potch of varied and contradictory +elements. We are engaged in conquering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> a continent; employed in a mad +scramble for material things; we give feverish hours to win the +comfort for our bodies that we take only seconds to enjoy; the moments +which we steal from our labors we give grudgingly to relaxation, and +that this relaxation may come quickly we ask that the agents which +produce it shall appeal violently to the faculties which are most +easily reached. Under these circumstances whence are to come the +intellectual poise, the refined taste, the quick and sure power of +analysis which must precede a correct estimate of the value of a +composition or its performance?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A taste or judgment," said Shaftesbury, "does not come +ready formed with us into this world. Whatever principles or +materials of this kind we may possibly bring with us, a +legitimate and just taste can neither be begotten, made, +conceived, or produced without the antecedent labor and +pains of criticism."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Comparative qualifications of critic and public.</i></div> + + +<p>Grant that this antecedent criticism is the province of the critic and +that he approaches even remotely a fulfilment of his mission in this +regard, and who shall venture to question the value and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> the need of +criticism to the promotion of public opinion? In this work the critic +has a great advantage over the musician. The musician appeals to the +public with volatile and elusive sounds. When he gets past the +tympanum of the ear he works upon the emotions and the fancy. The +public have no time to let him do more; for the rest they are willing +to refer him to the critic, whose business it is continually to hear +music for the purpose of forming opinions about it and expressing +them. The critic has both the time and the obligation to analyze the +reasons why and the extent to which the faculties are stirred into +activity. Is it not plain, therefore, that the critic ought to be +better able to distinguish the good from the bad, the true from the +false, the sound from the meretricious, than the unindividualized +multitude, who are already satisfied when they have felt the ticklings +of pleasure?</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The critic's responsibilities.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Toward the musician.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Position and power of the newspaper.</i></div> + +<p>But when we place so great a mission as the education of public taste +before the critic, we saddle him with a vast responsibility which is +quite evenly divided<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> between the musician and the public. The +responsibility toward the musician is not that which we are accustomed +to hear harped on by the aggrieved ones on the day after a concert. It +is toward the musician only as a representative of art, and his just +claims can have nothing of selfishness in them. The abnormal +sensitiveness of the musician to criticism, though it may excite his +commiseration and even honest pity, should never count with the critic +in the performance of a plain duty. This sensitiveness is the product +of a low state in music as well as criticism, and in the face of +improvement in the two fields it will either disappear or fall under a +killing condemnation. The power of the press will here work for good. +The newspaper now fills the place in the musician's economy which a +century ago was filled in Europe by the courts and nobility. Its +support, indirect as well as direct, replaces the patronage which +erstwhile came from these powerful ones. The evils which flow from the +changed conditions are different in extent but not in kind from the +old. Too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> frequently for the good of art that support is purchased by +the same crookings of "the pregnant hinges of the knee" that were once +the price of royal or noble condescension. If the tone of the press at +times becomes arrogant, it is from the same causes that raised the +voices and curled the lips of the petty dukes and princes, to flatter +whose vanity great artists used to labor.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The musician should help to elevate the standard of +criticism.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A critic must not necessarily be a musician.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Pedantry not wanted.</i></div> + +<p>The musician knows as well as anyone how impossible it is to escape +the press, and it is, therefore, his plain duty to seek to raise the +standard of its utterances by conceding the rights of the critic and +encouraging honesty, fearlessness, impartiality, intelligence, and +sympathy wherever he finds them. To this end he must cast away many +antiquated and foolish prejudices. He must learn to confess with +Wagner, the arch-enemy of criticism, that "blame is much more useful +to the artist than praise," and that "the musician who goes to +destruction because he is faulted, deserves destruction." He must stop +the contention that only a musician is entitled to criticise a +musician, and without abat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>ing one jot of his requirements as to +knowledge, sympathy, liberality, broad-mindedness, candor, and +incorruptibility on the part of the critic, he must quit the foolish +claim that to pronounce upon the excellence of a ragout one must be +able to cook it; if he will not go farther he must, at least, go with +the elder D'Israeli to the extent of saying that "the talent of +judgment may exist separately from the power of execution." One need +not be a composer, but one must be able to feel with a composer before +he can discuss his productions as they ought to be discussed. Not all +the writers for the press are able to do this; many depend upon +effrontery and a copious use of technical phrases to carry them +through. The musician, alas! encourages this method whenever he gets a +chance; nine times out of ten, when an opportunity to review a +composition falls to him, he approaches it on its technical side. Yet +music is of all the arts in the world the last that a mere pedant +should discuss.</p> + +<p>But if not a mere pedant, then neither a mere sentimentalist.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Intelligence versus emotionalism.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"If I had to choose between the merits of two classes of +hearers, one of whom had an intelligent appreciation of +music without feeling emotion; the other an emotional +feeling without an intelligent analysis, I should +unhesitatingly decide in favor of the intelligent +non-emotionalist. And for these reasons: The verdict of the +intelligent non-emotionalist would be valuable as far as it +goes, but that of the untrained emotionalist is not of the +smallest value; his blame and his praise are equally +unfounded and empty."</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Personal equation.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Exact criticism.</i></div> + +<p>So writes Dr. Stainer, and it is his emotionalist against whom I +uttered a warning in the <a href="#I">introductory chapter</a> of this book, when I +called him a rhapsodist and described his motive to be primarily a +desire to present himself as a person of unusually exquisite +sensibilities. Frequently the rhapsodic style is adopted to conceal a +want of knowledge, and, I fancy, sometimes also because ill-equipped +critics have persuaded themselves that criticism being worthless, what +the public need to read is a fantastic account of how music affects +them. Now, it is true that what is chiefly valuable in criticism is +what a man qualified to think and feel tells us he did think and feel +under the inspira<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>tion of a performance; but when carried too far, or +restricted too much, this conception of a critic's province lifts +personal equation into dangerous prominence in the critical activity, +and depreciates the elements of criticism, which are not matters of +opinion or taste at all, but questions of fact, as exactly +demonstrable as a problem in mathematics. In musical performance these +elements belong to the technics of the art. Granted that the critic +has a correct ear, a thing which he must have if he aspire to be a +critic at all, and the possession of which is as easily proved as that +of a dollar-bill in his pocket, the questions of justness of +intonation in a singer or instrumentalist, balance of tone in an +orchestra, correctness of phrasing, and many other things, are mere +determinations of fact; the faculties which recognize their existence +or discover their absence might exist in a person who is not "moved by +concord of sweet sounds" at all, and whose taste is of the lowest +type. It was the acoustician Euler, I believe, who said that he could +construct a so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>nata according to the laws of mathematics—figure one +out, that is.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The Rhapsodists.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>An English exemplar.</i></div> + +<p>Because music is in its nature such a mystery, because so little of +its philosophy, so little of its science is popularly known, there has +grown up the tribe of rhapsodical writers whose influence is most +pernicious. I have a case in mind at which I have already hinted in +this book—that of a certain English gentleman who has gained +considerable eminence because of the loveliness of the subject on +which he writes and his deftness in putting words together. On many +points he is qualified to speak, and on these he generally speaks +entertainingly. He frequently blunders in details, but it is only when +he writes in the manner exemplified in the following excerpt from his +book called "My Musical Memories," that he does mischief. The reverend +gentleman, talking about violins, has reached one that once belonged +to Ernst. This, he says, he sees occasionally, but he never hears it +more except</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Ernst's violin.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In the night ... under the stars, when the moon is low and +I see the dark ridges of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> clover hills, and rabbits and +hares, black against the paler sky, pausing to feed or +crouching to listen to the voices of the night....</p> + +<p>"By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hollow murmurs, +like the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the beach....</p> + +<p>"In some still valley in the South, in midsummer. The +slate-colored moth on the rock flashes suddenly into crimson +and takes wing; the bright lizard darts timorously, and the +singing of the grasshopper—"</p></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Mischievous writing.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Musical sensibility and sanity.</i></div> + +<p>Well, the reader, if he has a liking for such things, may himself go +on for quantity. This is intended, I fancy, for poetical hyperbole, +but as a matter of fact it is something else, and worse. Mr. Haweis +does not hear Ernst's violin under any such improbable conditions; if +he thinks he does he is a proper subject for medical inquiry. Neither +does his effort at fine writing help us to appreciate the tone of the +instrument. He did not intend that it should, but he probably did +intend to make the reader marvel at the exquisite sensibility of his +soul to music. This is mischievous, for it tends to make the +injudicious think that they are lacking in musical appreciation, +unless they, too,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> can see visions and hear voices and dream fantastic +dreams when music is sounding. When such writing is popular it is +difficult to make men and women believe that they may be just as +susceptible to the influence of music as the child Mozart was to the +sound of a trumpet, yet listen to it without once feeling the need of +taking leave of their senses or wandering away from sanity. Moreover, +when Mr. Haweis says that he sees but does not hear Ernst's violin +more, he speaks most undeserved dispraise of one of the best violin +players alive, for Ernst's violin now belongs to and is played by Lady +Hallé—she that was Madame Norman-Neruda.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A place for rhapsody.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Intelligent rhapsody.</i></div> + +<p>Is there, then, no place for rhapsodic writing in musical criticism? +Yes, decidedly. It may, indeed, at times be the best, because the +truest, writing. One would convey but a sorry idea of a composition +were he to confine himself to a technical description of it—the +number of its measures, its intervals, modulations, speed, and rhythm. +Such a description would only be comprehensible to the trained +musician, and to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> would picture the body merely, not the soul. One +might as well hope to tell of the beauty of a statue by reciting its +dimensions. But knowledge as well as sympathy must speak out of the +words, so that they may realize Schumann's lovely conception when he +said that the best criticism is that which leaves after it an +impression on the reader like that which the music made on the hearer. +Read Dr. John Brown's account of one of Hallé's recitals, reprinted +from "The Scotsman," in the collection of essays entitled "Spare +Hours," if you would see how aptly a sweetly sane mind and a warm +heart can rhapsodize without the help of technical knowledge:</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Dr. Brown and Beethoven.</i></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Beethoven (Dr. Brown is speaking of the Sonata in D, op. +10, No. 3) begins with a trouble, a wandering and groping in +the dark, a strange emergence of order out of chaos, a wild, +rich confusion and misrule. Wilful and passionate, often +harsh, and, as it were, thick with gloom; then comes, as if +'it stole upon the air,' the burden of the theme, the still, +sad music—<i>Largo e mesto</i>—so human, so sorrowful, and yet +the sorrow overcome, not by gladness but by something +better, like the sea, after a dark night of tempest, falling +asleep in the young light of morning, and 'whispering how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> +meek and gentle it can be.' This likeness to the sea, its +immensity, its uncertainty, its wild, strong glory and play, +its peace, its solitude, its unsearchableness, its +prevailing sadness, comes more into our minds with this +great and deep master's works than any other."</p></div> + +<p>That is Beethoven.</p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Apollo and the critic—a fable.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The critic's duty to admire.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>A mediator between musician and public.</i></div> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>Essential virtues.</i></div> + +<p>Once upon a time—it is an ancient fable—a critic picked out all the +faults of a great poet and presented them to Apollo. The god received +the gift graciously and set a bag of wheat before the critic with the +command that he separate the chaff from the kernels. The critic did +the work with alacrity, and turning to Apollo for his reward, received +the chaff. Nothing could show us more appositely than this what +criticism should not be. A critic's duty is to separate excellence +from defect, as Dr. Crotch says; to admire as well as to find fault. +In the proportion that defects are apparent he should increase his +efforts to discover beauties. Much flows out of this conception of his +duty. Holding it the critic will bring besides all needful knowledge a +fulness of love into his work. "Where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> sympathy is lacking, correct +judgment is also lacking," said Mendelssohn. The critic should be the +mediator between the musician and the public. For all new works he +should do what the symphonists of the Liszt school attempt to do by +means of programmes; he should excite curiosity, arouse interest, and +pave the way to popular comprehension. But for the old he should not +fail to encourage reverence and admiration. To do both these things he +must know his duty to the past, the present, and the future, and +adjust each duty to the other. Such adjustment is only possible if he +knows the music of the past and present, and is quick to perceive the +bent and outcome of novel strivings. He should be catholic in taste, +outspoken in judgment, unalterable in allegiance to his ideals, +unswervable in integrity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PLATES" id="PLATES"></a>PLATES</h2> + +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_I">PLATE I</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate01.jpg" alt="Violin - Clifford Schmidt" width="250" height="383" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">VIOLIN—(Clifford Schmidt)</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_II">PLATE II</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate02.jpg" alt="Violoncello - Victor Herbert" width="240" height="384" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">VIOLONCELLO—(Victor Herbert)</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_III">PLATE III</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate03.jpg" alt="Piccolo flute - C. Kurth, Jun." width="265" height="384" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">PICCOLO FLUTE—(C. Kurth, Jun.)</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_IV">PLATE IV</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate04.jpg" alt="Oboe - Joseph Eller" width="272" height="387" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">OBOE—(Joseph Eller)</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_V">PLATE V</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate05.jpg" alt="English Horn - Joseph Eller" width="248" height="384" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">ENGLISH HORN—(Joseph Eller)</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_VI">PLATE VI</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate06.jpg" alt="Bassoon - Fedor Bernhardi" width="259" height="384" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">BASSOON—(Fedor Bernhardi)</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_VII">PLATE VII</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate07.jpg" alt="Clarinet - Henry Kaiser" width="231" height="380" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">CLARINET—(Henry Kaiser)</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_VIII">PLATE VIII</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate08.jpg" alt="Bass Clarinet - Henry Kaiser" width="230" height="383" /> </p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">BASS CLARINET—(Henry Kaiser)</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_IX">PLATE IX</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate09.jpg" alt="French horn - Carl Pieper" width="280" height="381" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">FRENCH HORN—(Carl Pieper</span>)</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_X">PLATE X</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate10.jpg" alt="Trombone - J. Pfeiffenschneider" width="303" height="381" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">TROMBONE—(J. Pfeiffenschneider</span>)</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_XI">PLATE XI</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate11.jpg" alt="Bass tuba - Anton Reiter" width="278" height="380" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">BASS TUBA—(Anton Reiter</span>)</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"> </p> + +<h3><a name="PLATE_XII">PLATE XII</a></h3> + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<img src="images/plate12.png" alt="Conductor's score" width="728" height="979" /></p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><b>THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE</b></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + + +<p> +<span class="smcap">Absolute</span> music, <a href="#Page_36">36</a><br /> +<br /> +Academy of Music, New York, <a href="#Page_203">203</a><br /> +<br /> +Adagio, in symphony, <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br /> +<br /> +Addison, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a><br /> +<br /> +Allegro, in symphony, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br /> +<br /> +Allemande, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a><br /> +<br /> +Alto clarinet, <a href="#Page_104">104</a><br /> +<br /> +Alto, male, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br /> +<br /> +Amadeo, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br /> +<br /> +Ambros, August Wilhelm, <a href="#Page_49">49</a><br /> +<br /> +Antiphony, <a href="#Page_267">267</a><br /> +<br /> +Archilochus, <a href="#Page_213">213</a><br /> +<br /> +Aria, <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br /> +<br /> +Arioso, <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br /> +<br /> +Asaph, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Bach</span>, C.P.E., <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a><br /> +<br /> +Bach, Johann Sebastian, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>,</span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his music, <a href="#Page_281">281</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his technique as player, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his choirs, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compared with Palestrina, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Magnificat," <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mass in B minor, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suites, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"St. Matthew Passion," <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Motet, "Sing ye to the Lord," <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"St. John Passion," <a href="#Page_286">286</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Balancement</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Balfe, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +Ballade, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br /> +<br /> +Ballet music, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Balletto</i>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Bass clarinet, <a href="#Page_104">104</a><br /> +<br /> +Bass trumpet, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Basset horn, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Bassoon, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Bastardella, La, <a href="#Page_239">239</a><br /> +<br /> +Bayreuth Festival orchestra, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br />, +<i>Bebung</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Beethoven, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>,</span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>,</span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">likenesses in his melodies, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">unity in his works, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his chamber music, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his sonatas, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his democracy, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">not always idiomatic, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pianoforte, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pedal effects, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">missal compositions, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his overtures, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">his free fantasias,</span> <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his technique as a player, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Eroica" symphony, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fifth symphony, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Pastoral" symphony, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seventh symphony, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eighth symphony, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ninth symphony, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sonata, op. 10, No. 3, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sonata, op. 31, No. 2, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sonata "Appassionata," <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pianoforte concerto in G, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pianoforte concerto in E-flat, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Violin concerto, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Becalmed at Sea," <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Fidelio," <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mass in D, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Serenade, op. 8, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Bell chime, <a href="#Page_74">74</a><br /> +<br /> +Bellini, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"La Sonnambula," <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Norma," <a href="#Page_242">242</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Benedetti, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Berlin <i>Singakademie</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a><br /> +<br /> +Berlioz, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<i>L'idée fixe</i>," <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Symphonie Fantastique," <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Romeo and Juliet," <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Requiem, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Bizet, "Carmen," <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Boileau, <a href="#Page_206">206</a><br /> +<br /> +Bosio, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br /> +<br /> +Boston Symphony Orchestra, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br /> +<br /> +Bottesini, <a href="#Page_94">94</a><br /> +<br /> +Bourrée, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Brahms's "Academic overture," <a href="#Page_101">101</a><br /> +<br /> +Branle, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Brass instruments, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Brignoli, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Broadwood's pianoforte, <a href="#Page_195">195</a><br /> +<br /> +Brown, Dr. John, <a href="#Page_321">321</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Bully Bottom</i> in music, <a href="#Page_61">61</a><br /> +<br /> +Bunner, H.C., <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br /> +<br /> +Burns's "Ye flowery banks," <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Caccini</span>, "Eurydice," <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Cadences, <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br /> +<br /> +Cadenzas, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br /> +<br /> +Calvé, Emma, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Calvin and music, <a href="#Page_275">275</a><br /> +<br /> +Campanini, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Cantatas, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br /> +<br /> +Cat's mew in music, <a href="#Page_52">52</a><br /> +<br /> +Catalani, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br /> +<br /> +Chaconne, <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br /> +<br /> +Chamber music, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a><br /> +<br /> +Chicago Symphony Orchestra, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br /> +<br /> +Choirs, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">size of, <a href="#Page_257">257</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">men's, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">boys', <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">women's, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mixed, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">division of, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growth of, in Germany, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">history of, in America, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">contralto voices in, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Choirs, orchestral, <a href="#Page_74">74</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>Chopin, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his romanticism, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Preludes, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Études, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nocturnes, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ballades, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Polonaises, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mazurkas, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pedal effects, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Choral music, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">antiphonal, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mediæval, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Calvin on, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Luther's influence on, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">congregational, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">secular tunes in, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Romanticism, influence on, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">preponderance in oratorio, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dramatic and descriptive, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Chorley, H.F., on Jenny Lind's singing, <a href="#Page_243">243</a><br /> +<br /> +Church cantatas, <a href="#Page_284">284</a><br /> +<br /> +Cicero, <a href="#Page_309">309</a><br /> +<br /> +Cincinnati, choirs in, <a href="#Page_264">264</a><br /> +<br /> +Cinti-Damoreau, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br /> +<br /> +Clarinet, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br /> +<br /> +Classical concerts, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Classical music, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Clavichord, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Clavier</i>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Clementi, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a><br /> +<br /> +Cock, song of the, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br /> +<br /> +Coleridge, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a><br /> +<br /> +Coletti, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Comic opera, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +Composers, how they hear music, <a href="#Page_40">40</a><br /> +<br /> +Concerto, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Conductor, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Content of music, <a href="#Page_36">36</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Contra-bass trombone, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Contra-bass tuba, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Co-ordination of tones, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br /> +<br /> +Coranto, Corrente, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a><br /> +<br /> +Cornelius, "Barbier von Bagdad," <a href="#Page_236">236</a><br /> +<br /> +Cornet, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br /> +<br /> +Corno di bassetto, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Corsi, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Couperin, <a href="#Page_168">168</a><br /> +<br /> +Courante, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a><br /> +<br /> +Covent Garden Theatre, London, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a><br /> +<br /> +Cowen, "Welsh" and "Scandinavian" symphonies, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br /> +<br /> +Cracovienne, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br /> +<br /> +Creole tune analyzed, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br /> +<br /> +Critics and criticism, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Crotch, Dr., <a href="#Page_322">322</a><br /> +<br /> +Cuckoo, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br /> +<br /> +Cymbals, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Czardas, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br /> +<br /> +Czerny, <a href="#Page_186">186</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Dactylic</span> metre, <a href="#Page_31">31</a><br /> +<br /> +Dance, the ancient, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br /> +<br /> +Dannreuther, Edward, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a><br /> +<br /> +Depth, musical delineation of, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a><br /> +<br /> +De Reszke, Edouard, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br /> +<br /> +De Reszke, Jean, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Descriptive music, <a href="#Page_51">51</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Design and form, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br /> +<br /> +De Staël, Madame, <a href="#Page_210">210</a><br /> +<br /> +D'Israeli, <a href="#Page_315">315</a><br /> +<br /> +Distance, musical delineation of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>Dithyramb, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a><br /> +<br /> +"Divisions," <a href="#Page_265">265</a><br /> +<br /> +Doles, Cantor, <a href="#Page_292">292</a><br /> +<br /> +Donizetti, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Lucia," <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Double-bass, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a><br /> +<br /> +Double-bassoon, <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br /> +<br /> +Dragonetti, <a href="#Page_94">94</a><br /> +<br /> +Dramatic ballads, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br /> +<br /> +Dramatic orchestras, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Dramma per musica</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br /> +<br /> +Drummers, <a href="#Page_113">113</a><br /> +<br /> +Drums, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Duality of music, <a href="#Page_15">15</a><br /> +<br /> +"Dump" and <i>Dumka</i>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Durchführung</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br /> +<br /> +Dvořák, symphonies, "From the New World," <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in G major, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Eames, Emma</span>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Edwards, G. Sutherland, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br /> +<br /> +Elements of music, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a><br /> +<br /> +Emotionality in music, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +English horn, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a><br /> +<br /> +English opera, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +Ernst's violin, <a href="#Page_320">320</a><br /> +<br /> +Esterhazy, Prince, <a href="#Page_46">46</a><br /> +<br /> +Euler, acoustician, <a href="#Page_317">317</a><br /> +<br /> +Expression, words of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Familiar</span> music best liked, <a href="#Page_21">21</a><br /> +<br /> +Fancy, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a><br /> +<br /> +Farinelli, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br /> +<br /> +Fasch, C.F., <a href="#Page_262">262</a><br /> +<br /> +Feelings, their relation to music, <a href="#Page_38">38</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a><br /> +<br /> +Ferri, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br /> +<br /> +Finale, symphonic, <a href="#Page_135">135</a><br /> +<br /> +First movement in symphony, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br /> +<br /> +Flageolet tones, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br /> +<br /> +Florentine inventors of the opera, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br /> +<br /> +Flute, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Form, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a><br /> +<br /> +Formes, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br /> +<br /> +Frederick the Great, <a href="#Page_263">263</a><br /> +<br /> +Free Fantasia, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br /> +<br /> +French horn, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Frezzolini, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Friss</i>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br /> +<br /> +Frogs, musical delineation of, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +"<span class="smcap">Gallina et Gallo</span>," <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br /> +<br /> +Gavotte, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br /> +<br /> +German opera, <a href="#Page_226">226</a><br /> +<br /> +Gerster, Etelka, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br /> +<br /> +Gesture, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +Gigue, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a><br /> +<br /> +Gilbert, W.S., <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Glockenspiel</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Gluck, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his dancers, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his orchestra, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Alceste," <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Iphigénie en Aulide," <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Orfeo," <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Goethe, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +Goldmark, "Sakuntala" overture, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br /> +<br /> +Gong, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Gossec, Requiem, <a href="#Page_293">293</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>Gounod, "Faust," <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Grand Opéra</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +Greek Tragedy, <a href="#Page_211">211</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Grisi, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Grosse Oper</i>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +Grove, Sir George, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a><br /> +<br /> +Gypsy music, <a href="#Page_198">198</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Hallé</span>, Lady, <a href="#Page_320">320</a><br /> +<br /> +Hamburg, opera in, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br /> +<br /> +Handel, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his orchestra, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his suites, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his overtures, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his technique as a player, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his choirs, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Commemoration, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his <i>tutti</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Messiah," <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Saul," <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Almira," <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Rinaldo," <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Israel in Egypt," <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"<i>Lascia ch'io pianga</i>," <a href="#Page_178">178</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Hanslick, Dr. Eduard, <a href="#Page_203">203</a><br /> +<br /> +Harmonics, on violin, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br /> +<br /> +Harmony, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a><br /> +<br /> +Harp, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Harpsichord, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Hauptmann, M., <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br /> +<br /> +Hautboy, <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br /> +<br /> +Haweis, the Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_318">318</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Haydn, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his manner of composing, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dramatic effects in his masses, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Seasons," <a href="#Page_100">100</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Hebrew music, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">poetry, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Height, musical delineation of, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a><br /> +<br /> +Heman, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br /> +<br /> +Hen, song of, in music, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br /> +<br /> +Herbarth, philosopher, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br /> +<br /> +Hiller, Ferdinand, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a><br /> +<br /> +Hiller, Johann Adam, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br /> +<br /> +Hogarth, Geo., "Memoirs of the Opera," <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br /> +<br /> +Horn, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br /> +<br /> +Hungarian music, <a href="#Page_198">198</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Hymn-tunes, history of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Iambics</span>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br /> +<br /> +"<i>Idée fixe</i>," Berlioz's, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br /> +<br /> +Identification of themes, <a href="#Page_35">35</a><br /> +<br /> +Idiomatic pianoforte music, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a><br /> +<br /> +Idioms, musical, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a><br /> +<br /> +Imagination, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a><br /> +<br /> +Imitation of natural sounds, <a href="#Page_51">51</a><br /> +<br /> +Individual attitude of man toward music, <a href="#Page_37">37</a><br /> +<br /> +Instrumental musicians, former legal status of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br /> +<br /> +Instrumentation, <a href="#Page_71">71</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the mass, <a href="#Page_293">293</a> <i>et seq.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +Intelligent hearing, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a><br /> +<br /> +Intermediary necessary, <a href="#Page_20">20</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Intermezzi</i>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br /> +<br /> +Interrelation of musical elements, <a href="#Page_22">22</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Janizary</span> music, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +Jean Paul, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>Jeduthun, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br /> +<br /> +Jig, <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br /> +<br /> +Judgment, <a href="#Page_311">311</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Kalidasa</span>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br /> +<br /> +Kettle-drums, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Key relationship, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a><br /> +<br /> +Kinds of music, <a href="#Page_36">36</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +<i>Kirchencantaten</i>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a><br /> +<br /> +Krakowiak, <a href="#Page_193">193</a><br /> +<br /> +Kullak, <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Lablache</span>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br /> +<br /> +La Grange, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br /> +<br /> +Lamb, Charles, <a href="#Page_10">10</a><br /> +<br /> +Language of tones, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Lassu</i>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br /> +<br /> +Laws, musical, mutability of, <a href="#Page_69">69</a><br /> +<br /> +Lehmann, Lilli, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Lenz, <a href="#Page_33">33</a><br /> +<br /> +Leoncavallo, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><br /> +<br /> +Lind, Jenny, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a><br /> +<br /> +Liszt, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his music, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his transcriptions, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his rhapsodies, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his symphonic poems, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Faust" symphony, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Concerto in E-flat, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"St. Elizabeth," <a href="#Page_288">288</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Literary blunders concerning music, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br /> +<br /> +Local color, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br /> +<br /> +London opera, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a><br /> +<br /> +Louis XIV., <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br /> +<br /> +Lucca, Pauline, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Lully, his overtures, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">minuet, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Atys," <a href="#Page_206">206</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Luther, Martin, <a href="#Page_276">276</a><br /> +<br /> +Lyric drama, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Madrigal</span>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br /> +<br /> +Magyar music, <a href="#Page_198">198</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Major mode, <a href="#Page_57">57</a><br /> +<br /> +Male alto, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br /> +<br /> +Male chorus, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br /> +<br /> +Malibran, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Männergesang</i>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br /> +<br /> +Marie Antoinette, <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br /> +<br /> +Mario, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a><br /> +<br /> +Marschner, "Hans Heiling," <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Templer und Jüdin," <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Vampyr," <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his operas, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Mascagni, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><br /> +<br /> +Mass, the, <a href="#Page_290">290</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Massenet, "Le Cid," <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br /> +<br /> +Materials of music, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br /> +<br /> +Materna, Amalia, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Matthews, Brander, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br /> +<br /> +Mazurka, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br /> +<br /> +Melba, Nellie, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a><br /> +<br /> +Melody, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br /> +<br /> +Memory, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a><br /> +<br /> +Mendelssohn, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the content of music, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his Romanticism, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the use of the trombones, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinion of Jenny Lind, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Songs without Words," <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Hebrides" overture, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Midsummer Night's Dream," <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Scotch" symphony,</span> <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Italian" symphony, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Hymn of Praise," <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"St. Paul," <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Elijah," <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Mersenne, "Harmonie universelle," <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a><br /> +<br /> +Metropolitan Opera House, New York, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a><br /> +<br /> +Meyerbeer, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"L'Africaine," <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Robert le Diable," <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Huguenots," <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"L'Étoile du Nord," <a href="#Page_243">243</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Military bands, <a href="#Page_123">123</a><br /> +<br /> +Minor mode, <a href="#Page_57">57</a><br /> +<br /> +Minuet, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br /> +<br /> +Mirabeau, <a href="#Page_293">293</a><br /> +<br /> +Model, none in nature for music, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br /> +<br /> +Monteverde, "Orfeo," <a href="#Page_87">87</a><br /> +<br /> +Moscheles, on Jenny Lind's singing, <a href="#Page_243">243</a><br /> +<br /> +Motet, <a href="#Page_283">283</a><br /> +<br /> +Motives, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br /> +<br /> +Mozart, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pianoforte technique, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Doles's mass, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his orchestra, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his edition of Handel's "Messiah," <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on cadenzas, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pianoforte, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his serenades, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Don Giovanni," <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Magic Flute," <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">G-minor symphony, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Figaro," <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Musica parlante</i>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Musical instruction, deficiencies in, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br /> +<br /> +Musician, Critic, and Public, <a href="#Page_297">297</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Musikdrama</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Neri, Filippo</span>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br /> +<br /> +Nevada, Emma, <a href="#Page_204">204</a><br /> +<br /> +Newspaper, the modern, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a><br /> +<br /> +New York Opera, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br /> +<br /> +Niecks, Frederick, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br /> +<br /> +Niemann, Albert, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br /> +<br /> +Nightingale, in music, <a href="#Page_52">52</a><br /> +<br /> +Nilsson, Christine, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Nordica, Lillian, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Norman-Neruda, Madame, <a href="#Page_320">320</a><br /> +<br /> +Notes not music, <a href="#Page_20">20</a><br /> +<br /> +Nottebohm, "Beethoveniana," <a href="#Page_63">63</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Oboe</span>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Opera, descriptive music in, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">history of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">language of, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">polyglot performances of, <a href="#Page_207">207</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their texts perverted, <a href="#Page_207">207</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">words of, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">elements in, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">invention of, <a href="#Page_216">216</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">varieties of, <a href="#Page_220">220</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">comic elements in, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">action and incident in, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">singing in, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">singers compared, <a href="#Page_241">241</a> <i>et seq.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Opéra bouffe</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Opera buffa</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Opéra comique</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Opéra, Grand</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span><i>Opera in musica</i>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Opera semiseria</i>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Opera seria</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Opus</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br /> +<br /> +Oratorio, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Orchestra, <a href="#Page_71">71</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Ostrander, Dr. Lucas, <a href="#Page_278">278</a><br /> +<br /> +"Ouida," <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br /> +<br /> +Overture, <a href="#Page_147">147</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Paderewski</span>, his recitals, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his Romanticism, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Krakowiak," <a href="#Page_193">193</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Painful, the, not fit subject for music, <a href="#Page_50">50</a><br /> +<br /> +Palestrina and Bach, <a href="#Page_278">278</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his music, <a href="#Page_279">279</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Stabat Mater," <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Improperia," <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Missa Papæ Marcelli," <a href="#Page_280">280</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Pandean pipes, <a href="#Page_98">98</a><br /> +<br /> +Pantomime, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +Parallelism, <a href="#Page_25">25</a><br /> +<br /> +Passepied, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +"Passions," <a href="#Page_284">284</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Patti, Adelina, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Pedals, pianoforte, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br /> +<br /> +Pedants, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a><br /> +<br /> +Percussion instruments, <a href="#Page_110">110</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Peri, "Eurydice," <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Periods, musical, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br /> +<br /> +Perkins, C.C., <a href="#Page_263">263</a><br /> +<br /> +Pfund, his drums, <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br /> +<br /> +Philharmonic Society of New York, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br /> +<br /> +Phrases, musical, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a><br /> +<br /> +Physical effects of music, <a href="#Page_38">38</a><br /> +<br /> +Pianoforte, history and description of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its music, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">concertos, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trios, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Piccolo flute, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +Piccolomini, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br /> +<br /> +Pictures in music, <a href="#Page_40">40</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pifa</i>, Handel's, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Pizzicato</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br /> +<br /> +Plançon, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br /> +<br /> +Polonaise, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br /> +<br /> +Polyphony and feelings, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br /> +<br /> +Popular concerts, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br /> +<br /> +Porpora, <a href="#Page_209">209</a><br /> +<br /> +"<i>Pov' piti Momzelle Zizi</i>," <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br /> +<br /> +Preludes, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a><br /> +<br /> +Programme music, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a><br /> +<br /> +Puccini, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Quail</span>, call of, in music, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br /> +<br /> +Quartet, <a href="#Page_147">147</a><br /> +<br /> +Quilled instruments, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Quinault, "Atys," <a href="#Page_206">206</a><br /> +<br /> +Quintet, <a href="#Page_147">147</a><br /> +<br /> +Quintillian, <a href="#Page_309">309</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Raff</span>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Lenore" symphony, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Im Walde" symphony, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Rameau, <a href="#Page_168">168</a><br /> +<br /> +Recitative, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Reed instruments, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Reformation, its influence on music, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a><br /> +<br /> +Refrain, <a href="#Page_25">25</a><br /> +<br /> +Register of the orchestra, <a href="#Page_85">85</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>Repetition, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a><br /> +<br /> +Rhapsodists among writers, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Rhythm, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br /> +<br /> +"<i>Ridendo castigat mores</i>," <a href="#Page_225">225</a><br /> +<br /> +Rinuccini, "Eurydice," <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Romantic music, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a><br /> +<br /> +Romantic opera, <a href="#Page_225">225</a><br /> +<br /> +Ronconi, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Rondeau and Rondo, <a href="#Page_135">135</a><br /> +<br /> +Rossini, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his overtures, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Il Barbiere," <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"William Tell," <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Rubinstein, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his historical recitals, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his sacred operas, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Ocean" symphony, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Feramors," <a href="#Page_152">152</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Ruskin, John, <a href="#Page_302">302</a><br /> +<br /> +Russian composers, <a href="#Page_134">134</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Sacred Operas</span>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a><br /> +<br /> +Saint-Saëns, "Danse Macabre," <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">symphony in C minor, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Samson and Delilah," <a href="#Page_288">288</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Salvi, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Sarabande, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br /> +<br /> +Sassarelli, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br /> +<br /> +Scarlatti, D., <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his technique, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Capriccio" and "Pastorale," <a href="#Page_172">172</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Scheffer, Ary, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br /> +<br /> +Scherzo, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a><br /> +<br /> +Schröder-Devrient, <a href="#Page_232">232</a><br /> +<br /> +Schubert, <a href="#Page_168">168</a><br /> +<br /> +Schumann, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his Romanticism, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Jean Paul, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his pedal effects, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on popular judgment, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">symphony in C, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">symphony in D minor, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">symphony in B-flat, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Rhenish" symphony, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Carnaval," <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Papillons," <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Kreisleriana," <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Phantasiestücke," <a href="#Page_190">190</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Score, <a href="#Page_120">120</a><br /> +<br /> +"Scotch snap," <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br /> +<br /> +Second movement in symphony, <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br /> +<br /> +Seidl, Anton, <a href="#Page_77">77</a><br /> +<br /> +Sembrich, Marcella, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br /> +<br /> +Senesino, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br /> +<br /> +Sense-perception, <a href="#Page_18">18</a><br /> +<br /> +Serenade, <a href="#Page_149">149</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Shaftesbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_311">311</a><br /> +<br /> +Shakespeare, his dances, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his dramas, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a Romanticist, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Two Gentlemen of Verona," <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Queen Mab, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Singing, physiology of, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">operatic, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">choral, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Singing Societies, <a href="#Page_253">253</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +<i>Singspiel</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +Smith, F. Hopkinson, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sonata da Camera</i>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Sonata, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br /> +<br /> +Sonata form, <a href="#Page_127">127</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Sontag, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br /> +<br /> +Sordino, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br /> +<br /> +Space, music has no place in, <a href="#Page_59">59</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>Speech and music, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +Spencer, Herbert, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a><br /> +<br /> +Spinet, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Spohr, "Jessonda," <a href="#Page_225">225</a><br /> +<br /> +Stainer, Dr., <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a><br /> +<br /> +Stein, pianoforte maker, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Stilo rappresentativo</i>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Stories, in music, <a href="#Page_40">40</a><br /> +<br /> +Strings, orchestral, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a><br /> +<br /> +Sucher, Rosa, <a href="#Page_247">247</a><br /> +<br /> +Suite, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Symphonic poem, <a href="#Page_142">142</a><br /> +<br /> +Symphonic prologue, <a href="#Page_148">148</a><br /> +<br /> +Symphony, <a href="#Page_124">124</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br /> +<br /> +Syrinx, <a href="#Page_98">98</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Talent in listening</span>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br /> +<br /> +Tambourine, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Tappert, "Zooplastik in Tönen," <a href="#Page_51">51</a><br /> +<br /> +Taste, <a href="#Page_311">311</a><br /> +<br /> +Technique, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Tennyson, <a href="#Page_9">9</a><br /> +<br /> +Terminology, musical, <a href="#Page_8">8</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Théatre nationale de l'Opéra-Comique</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +Thespis, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br /> +<br /> +Thomas, "Mignon," <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tibia</i>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a><br /> +<br /> +Titiens, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Tonal language, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a><br /> +<br /> +Tones, co-ordination of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br /> +<br /> +Touch, <a href="#Page_163">163</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +<i>Tragedia per musica</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a><br /> +<br /> +Tremolo, <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br /> +<br /> +Trench, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a><br /> +<br /> +Triangle, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Trio, <a href="#Page_134">134</a><br /> +<br /> +Triolet, <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br /> +<br /> +Trombone, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +Trumpet, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br /> +<br /> +Tschaikowsky, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Symphonie Pathétique," <a href="#Page_132">132</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Tuba, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br /> +<br /> +"Turkish" music, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +Tympani, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Ugly</span>, the, not fit for music, <a href="#Page_50">50</a><br /> +<br /> +United States, first to have amateur singing societies, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spread of choral music in, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Unity in the symphony, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Vaudevilles</span>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +Verdi, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Aïda," <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Il Trovatore," <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Otello," <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Falstaff," <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Requiem, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Vestris, <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br /> +<br /> +Vibrato, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br /> +<br /> +Vile, the, unfit for music, <a href="#Page_50">50</a><br /> +<br /> +Viola, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Viole da braccio</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Viole da gamba</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a><br /> +<br /> +Violin, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a><br /> +<br /> +Violin concertos, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br /> +<br /> +Violoncello, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a><br /> +<br /> +Virginal, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br /> +<br /> +Vocal music, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span><i>Vorspiel</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Wagner</span>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the content of music, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his instrumentation, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his dramas, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Musikdrama</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his dialogue, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his orchestra, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his operas, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his theories, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">endless melody, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">typical phrases, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"leading motives," <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popularity of his music, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on criticism, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Flying Dutchman," <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Tannhäuser," <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Lohengrin," <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Die Meistersinger," <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Tristan und Isolde," <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Rheingold," <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Die Walküre," <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Siegfried," <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Die Götterdämmerung," <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Ring of the Nibelung," <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Parsifal," <a href="#Page_249">249</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Waldhorn,</i> <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br /> +<br /> +Wallace, W.V., <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +Walter, Jacob, <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br /> +<br /> +Water, musical delineation of, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a><br /> +<br /> +Weber, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his Romanticism, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Der Freischütz," <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Oberon," <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Euryanthe," <a href="#Page_225">225</a></span><br /> +<br /> +Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br /> +<br /> +Welsh choirs, <a href="#Page_255">255</a><br /> +<br /> +Wood-wind instruments, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Xylophone</span>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Ysaye</span>, on Cadenzas, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br /> +</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="SOME_MUSICAL_BOOKS" id="SOME_MUSICAL_BOOKS"></a>SOME MUSICAL BOOKS</h2> + + +<p>THE LETTERS OF FRANZ LISZT. Edited and collected by <span class="smcap">La Mara</span>. +With portraits. Crown 8vo, 2 vols., $6.00.</p> + +<p>RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS to his Dresden Friends—Theodore Uhlig, +Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine. Translated by <span class="smcap">J.S. +Shedlock</span>. Crown 8vo, $3.50.</p> + +<p>JENNY LIND THE ARTIST, 1820-1851. Memoir of Madame Jenny +Lind-Goldschmidt. Her Art Life and Dramatic Career, from original +documents, etc. By <span class="smcap">Canon H.S. Holland</span> and <span class="smcap">W.S. +Rockstro</span>. With illustrations, 12mo, $2.50.</p> + +<p>WAGNER AND HIS WORKS. The Story of his Life, with Critical Comments. +By <span class="smcap">Henry T. Finck</span>. Third edition. With portraits. 2 vols., +12mo, $4.00.</p> + +<p>CHOPIN AND OTHER MUSICAL ESSAYS. By <span class="smcap">Henry T. Finck</span>. 12mo, +$1.50.</p> + +<p>A CONCISE HISTORY OF MUSIC, from the Commencement of the Christian Era +to the present time. By <span class="smcap">H.G.B. Hunt</span>. With numerous tables. +12mo, $1.00.</p> + +<p>CHARLES GOUNOD, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES, with Family Letters +and Notes on Music. Translated by the <span class="smcap">Hon. W. Hutchinson</span>. +With portrait. 8vo, $3.00.</p> + +<p>THE GREAT MUSICIANS SERIES. Edited by <span class="smcap">F. Hueffer</span>. 14 vols., +12mo, each, $1.00.</p> + +<p>THE STUDENT'S HELMHOLTZ. Musical Acoustics, or the Phenomena of Sound. +By <span class="smcap">John Broadhouse</span>. With musical illustrations and examples. +12mo, $3.00.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + +<p>CYCLOPEDIA OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS. Edited by <span class="smcap">John Denison +Champlin, Jr.</span> Critical editor, <span class="smcap">W.F. Apthorp</span>. Popular +edition. Large octavo, 3 vols., $15.00 net.</p> + +<p>LETTERS OF A BARITONE. By <span class="smcap">Francis Walker</span>. 16mo, $1.25.</p> + +<p>MUSICIANS AND MUSIC LOVERS, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By <span class="smcap">W.F. +Apthorp</span>. 12mo, $1.50.</p> + +<p>THE WAGNER STORY BOOK. Firelight Tales of the Great Music-Dramas. By +<span class="smcap">W.H. Frost</span>. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</p> + +<p>MASTERS OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC. 4 vols., 12mo. Illustrated. Each, +$1.75. Masters of English Music, by Charles Willeby; Masters of French +Music, by Arthur Hervey; Masters of German Music, by J.A. +Fuller-Maitland; Masters of Italian Music, by R.A. Streatfield.</p> + +<p>THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH MUSIC. By Rev. <span class="smcap">F.L. Humphreys</span>, 12mo, +$1.75 net.</p> + +<p>THE STORY OF BRITISH MUSIC, from the Earliest Times to the Tudor +Period. By <span class="smcap">F.J. Crowest</span>. Illustrated. 8vo, $3.50.</p> + +<p>THE HISTORY OF MUSIC, from the Earliest Times to the Time of the +Troubadours. By <span class="smcap">J.F. Rowbotham</span>. 12mo, $2.50.</p> + +<p>THE LEGENDS OF THE WAGNER DRAMA. Studies in Mythology and Romance. By +<span class="smcap">Jessie L. Weston</span>. 12mo, $2.25.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center"><i>A Descriptive List of Musical Books (112 pages) sent upon +application.</i></p> + +<p style="text-align: center">Charles Scribner's Sons, Publishers,</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">153-157 Fifth Ave., New York.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3><a name="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</a></h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," p. 374.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," by George Grove, +C.B., 2d ed., p. 191.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," p. 197.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> "But no real student can have studied the score deeply, +or listened discriminatingly to a good performance, without +discovering that there is a tremendous chasm between the conventional +aims of the Italian poet in the book of the opera and the work which +emerged from the composer's profound imagination. Da Ponte +contemplated a <i>dramma giocoso</i>; Mozart humored him until his +imagination came within the shadow cast before by the catastrophe, and +then he transformed the poet's comedy into a tragedy of crushing +power. The climax of Da Ponte's ideal is reached in a picture of the +dissolute <i>Don</i> wrestling in idle desperation with a host of +spectacular devils, and finally disappearing through a trap, while +fire bursts out on all sides, the thunders roll, and <i>Leporello</i> gazes +on the scene, crouched in a comic attitude of terror, under the table. +Such a picture satisfied the tastes of the public of his time, and +that public found nothing incongruous in a return to the scene +immediately afterward of all the characters save the reprobate, who +had gone to his reward, to hear a description of the catastrophe from +the buffoon under the table, and platitudinously to moralize that the +perfidious wretch, having been stored away safely in the realm of +Pluto and Proserpine, nothing remained for them to do except to raise +their voices in the words of the "old song," +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>"Questo è il fin di chi fa mal:<br /></i></span><i> +<span class="i0">E dei perfidi la morte<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alla vita è sempre ugual."</span></i><span class="i0"><br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +"New York Musical Season, 1889-90."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> "Review of the New York Musical Season, 1889-90," p. 75.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> See "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," chapter I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> "Notes on the Cultivation of Choral Music," by H.E. +Krehbiel, p. 17.</p></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Listen to Music, 7th ed., by +Henry Edward Krehbiel + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC, 7TH ED. *** + +***** This file should be named 17474-h.htm or 17474-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/4/7/17474/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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+melody = \relative c' { + \key f \minor + \time 4/4 + \clef treble + af'8.[ g16 f8 f8] af8[ af8] c4 | g8.[ f16 e8 e8] g8[ g8] c4 | af8.[ g16 f8 f8] af8[ af8] c4 | g8[ bf8 e,8 g8] f4 r4 | c'8.[ bf16 af8 af8] c[ c] ef4 | bf8.[ af16 g8 g8] bf8[ bf8] ef4 | af,8.[ g16 f8 f8] af8[ af8] c4 | g8[ bf8 e,8 g8] f4 r4 \bar "||" + } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music01.midi b/17474-h/music/music01.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3440ab --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music01.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music02.ly b/17474-h/music/music02.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c30e2ee --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music02.ly @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \key c \minor + \time 2/4 + \once \override TextScript #'padding = #2.5 + r8 \ff^ \markup { \italic {Allegro con brio.}} + g'[ g g] | ef2^\fermataMarkup | + } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 150} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music02.midi b/17474-h/music/music02.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..129e2a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music02.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music03.ly b/17474-h/music/music03.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19b2eca --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music03.ly @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \key c \minor + \time 3/4 + << s\ff^ \markup { \italic {Allegro.}} g'4-. >> + g-. g-. | g2.-> | g4-. g-. g-. | + g2.-> | g4-. g-. g-. | g2. | \stemUp bf4_( af) g | f2. | + } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 2 = 120} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music03.midi b/17474-h/music/music03.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d1612a --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music03.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music04.ly b/17474-h/music/music04.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0a168d --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music04.ly @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \once \override TextScript #'padding = #3 + \partial 2 s4\f^ \markup { \italic {Allegro.}} \stemUp \set tupletSpannerDuration = #(ly:make-moment 1 4) \times 2/3 {a'8_( b c)} | \stemDown d4 \times 2/3 {b8( c d)} e4 \times 2/3 {e8( fs g)} | d2. \times 2/3 {d8\p( c b)} | \stemUp a4 \stemDown \times 2/3 {c8( b a)} \stemUp g4 \times 2/3 {b8( a g)} | fs4 \times 2/3 {fs8( g a)} \dynamicUp d,8\< s8\! \bar "" +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 160} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music04.midi b/17474-h/music/music04.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9ae723 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music04.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music05.ly b/17474-h/music/music05.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3aa5a06 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music05.ly @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\relative c'' << + \override Score.SpacingSpanner #'spacing-increment = #2.5 + \new Staff { + \key f \minor + \time 12/8 + \partial 8*10 s8_\markup { \italic \bold {poco rit.} } r4 r8 r4 r8 <e g-.> <e g-.> <e g-.> | <g bf>4 \bar ""} + \new Staff { + \key f \minor + \clef bass + s8 df,,,8-. df-. df-. c4 r8 r4 r8 | r4 \bar "" } +>> + + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music05.midi b/17474-h/music/music05.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6676cb --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music05.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music06.ly b/17474-h/music/music06.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ca9db9 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music06.ly @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\relative c' << + \new Staff {\key g \major \time 4/4 + \partial 2 * 1 s2_\markup{ \italic \bold {p dolce.} } | \bar "" + <b d g b>2~ + <b d g b>8^(\noBeam <b' d,-. g>) <d,-. g b> <d-. g b> \bar "|" | + << \once \override Voice.Beam #'positions = #'(3 . 3) + {<g b>8( <fs a>) <fs a>^. <fs a>^. <fs a>( <g b>) <g b>^. <g b>^.^"etc."} \\ + {d4 d8 d d4 d8 d} + >> \bar "|" | + } + \new Staff { \key g \major \clef bass \partial 2 * 1 s2 + <g,, b g' d>2~ <g b g' d>8^(\noBeam <g' b-. >8) <g b>^. <g b> ^. | + <g b>( <d a'>) <d a'>^. <d a'>^. <d a'>( <b g'>) <b g'>^. <b g'>^.} +>> + + \midi { \tempo 4 = 130 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music06.midi b/17474-h/music/music06.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e7c91d --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music06.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music07.ly b/17474-h/music/music07.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04b292a --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music07.ly @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +\version "2.6.3" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\autoBeamOff +d8.[ d16 d8] +} + \layout { + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music07.midi b/17474-h/music/music07.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e0288d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music07.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music08.ly b/17474-h/music/music08.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..764a5c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music08.ly @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +\version "2.6.3" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\autoBeamOff +d4.~ d8.[ d16 d8] +} + \layout { + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music08.midi b/17474-h/music/music08.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1502ed --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music08.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music09.ly b/17474-h/music/music09.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9faca5b --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music09.ly @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +\version "2.6.3" + +\score { + \context RhythmicStaff { + \time 2/4 + \autoBeamOff + d4 d8[ d8] | d4 d4 \bar "" + } + \layout { + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music09.midi b/17474-h/music/music09.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..132c979 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music09.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music10.ly b/17474-h/music/music10.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c72c95c --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music10.ly @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +\version "2.6.3" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\autoBeamOff +d4^^ d4 d4 +} + \layout { + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music10.midi b/17474-h/music/music10.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9175f9d --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music10.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music11.ly b/17474-h/music/music11.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3582e85 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music11.ly @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +\version "2.6.3" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\time 3/4 +\autoBeamOff +d2~ d8[ d8] | d4 +} + \layout { + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music11.midi b/17474-h/music/music11.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc15561 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music11.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music12.ly b/17474-h/music/music12.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5890517 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music12.ly @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +\version "2.6.3" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\time 4/4 +\autoBeamOff +d8.[ d16 d8. d16] +} + \layout { + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music12.midi b/17474-h/music/music12.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2add48 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music12.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music13.ly b/17474-h/music/music13.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..74b0138 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music13.ly @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \time 2/4 + \key d \minor + \fatText ef'4._ \markup { \italic "dolce." } (f16 g\p) | g8( f16 ef ef8) d16 c | +d4.( ef16 f) | f8( ef16 d) d8( c16 bf)| ef4.^"etc." \bar "" +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music13.midi b/17474-h/music/music13.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4a9a49 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music13.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music14.ly b/17474-h/music/music14.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5f9403 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music14.ly @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \time 3/4 + \key d \minor + a''4.^\markup{ \italic { (a) } } \pp a,8 a4 | d-| e-| f-| | e-| f-| g-| | \break + f-| e-| d-| | c-| b-| a-| | gs-| a-| \stemUp b_\staccatissimo^"etc." | +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 2 = 150} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } +}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music14.midi b/17474-h/music/music14.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ba473a --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music14.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music15.ly b/17474-h/music/music15.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7dd7676 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music15.ly @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \time 3/4 + \key d \minor + c'2^\markup{ \italic { (b) } } ( d8 e) | f4-| r e-| | d-| r c | d-| r b-| | e2( f8 g) | a4^"etc." \bar "" +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 2 = 150} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } +}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music15.midi b/17474-h/music/music15.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b47ec13 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music15.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music16.ly b/17474-h/music/music16.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..309052f --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music16.ly @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \time 4/4 + \key d \major + d'1~^\markup{ \italic { (c) } } | d2 e2 | fs2.( g8 a) | g4 g fs fs | e2 d2~ | d2^"etc." +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 2 = 150} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } +}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music16.midi b/17474-h/music/music16.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..789fed7 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music16.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music17.ly b/17474-h/music/music17.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..492386b --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music17.ly @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c { + \clef bass + \key d \major + fs2( g4 a) | a( g fs e) | d2( e4 fs) | fs4. e8 e2^"etc." +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 150 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} + diff --git a/17474-h/music/music17.midi b/17474-h/music/music17.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6945dbe --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music17.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music18.ly b/17474-h/music/music18.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a291c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music18.ly @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c'' { + \override Staff.TimeSignature #'transparent = ##t + \time 2/4 + \key g \major + r8 d8 \stemUp b4 \bar "" +} + +\addlyrics { Cuck -- oo! } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t }
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music18.midi b/17474-h/music/music18.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e0ddf9 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music18.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music19.ly b/17474-h/music/music19.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af90e1f --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music19.ly @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c '' { + \time 2/4 + \key bf \major + \autoBeamOff + d8 bf8 \bar "" +} + +\addlyrics { Cuck -- oo! } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 92 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff + \remove "Time_signature_engraver" + } + } +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music19.midi b/17474-h/music/music19.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..40674fd --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music19.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music20.ly b/17474-h/music/music20.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c53a37 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music20.ly @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c '' { + \time 3/4 + \key d \major + \once \override TextScript #'padding = #2.5 + r4^\markup{ \italic {a. Gallina} } d8-. d-. d-. d-. | fs8.( a16) d,8-. d-. d-. d-. | d-.[ d-.] fs8.[( a16)] d,8-.[ d-.] \break + fs8.( a16) fs8.( a16) d,8-. d-. | fs8.( a16) d,8-. d-. d-. d-. |fs8.( a16) d,8-. d-. d-. d-. \bar "||" +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 120} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music20.midi b/17474-h/music/music20.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6afc805 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music20.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music21.ly b/17474-h/music/music21.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d4b561 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music21.ly @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\relative c' << + \new Staff { + \key d \major + \time 3/4 + \clef treble + R2.^\markup{ \italic {Gallo.} } a''4. a8 a4 b2.~ b2 a4 fs4 r2 + } + + \new Staff { + \key d \major + \time 3/4 + \clef bass + d,4 d,8-. [d8-. d8-. d8-.] fs8 ([a8]) d,8-. [d8-. d8-. d8-.] g8 ([b8]) d,8-. [d8-. d8-. d8-.] b'8 ([d8]) g,8 ([b8]) cs8 ([e8]) d4 d,8-. [d8-. d8-. d8-.] } +>> + +\score { + \midi { \tempo 4 = 130 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music21.midi b/17474-h/music/music21.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc047f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music21.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music22.ly b/17474-h/music/music22.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bec3c76 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music22.ly @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c'' \context Voice = "lyrics" { + \key g \minor + \time 6/8 + \clef treble + \autoBeamOff + r8 g8 g8 g8 g8 g8 | \stemUp g32[ bf32 d8.] g,8 g8 g8 g8 | \stemDown g32[ bf32 d32 g32] \bar "" +} + +ignoreMelisma = \set ignoreMelismata = ##t + +firstVerse = \lyricmode { + Co co co co co + \ignoreMelisma + co co dai, etc. } + +\score { +<< + \new Staff \melody + \lyricsto "lyrics" \new Lyrics \firstVerse +>> + \midi { \tempo 4 = 116 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff + \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music22.midi b/17474-h/music/music22.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b1dfc43 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music22.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music23.ly b/17474-h/music/music23.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..252d597 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music23.ly @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +ďťż%%coding: utf-8 +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c'' \context Voice = "lyrics" { + \clef treble + \time 2/4 + \autoBeamOff + r8 g16. g32 g8 r8 | r8 g16. g32 g8 r8 \bar "|" +} + +firstVerse = \lyricmode { + FĂźrch -- te Gott! Lo -- be Gott! +} + +\score { +<< + \new Staff \melody + \lyricsto "lyrics" \new Lyrics \firstVerse +>> + \midi { \tempo 4 = 80} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff + \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music23.midi b/17474-h/music/music23.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4184ed --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music23.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music24.ly b/17474-h/music/music24.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b63fd86 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music24.ly @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \time 2/4 + r8 <c e g c>8 <c e g c>4 | r8 <c ef g c>8 <c ef g c>4 \bar "||" +} + +\addlyrics { Hur -- rah! A -- las! } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 60} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff + \remove "Time_signature_engraver" + } + } +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t }
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music24.midi b/17474-h/music/music24.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..34504db --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music24.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music25.ly b/17474-h/music/music25.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31c8946 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music25.ly @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { + \relative c' { << + \new Staff { + \key ef \major + \time 3/4 + r8.^\markup { \italic {Andante.} } bf'16[ g8. ef'16 bf8. g'16] | f8.[ d16 bf8. d16 f,8. bf'16]| ef,8.[ c16 a8. c16 f,8. ef'16] | \stemDown d8. f,16^"etc." \bar "" + } + + \new Staff { + \clef bass + \key ef \major + ef,4 r ef' | r r d | r r a \bar "||" r \bar "" + } + >> + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 96 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music25.midi b/17474-h/music/music25.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e55263 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music25.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music26.ly b/17474-h/music/music26.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..33968f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music26.ly @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\relative c' << + \new Staff { + \key d \major + \time 4/4 + \clef treble + \once \override TextScript #'padding = #1.5 + r8\p^\markup { \italic {Allegro moderato.}} fs'8 (d8[ cs16 d16] b4 fs4) r8 fs'8 (d8[ cs16 d16] b4 fs4) \bar "|" + } + \new Staff << + \key d \major + \time 4/4 + \clef bass + { fs,1~ fs1 } \\ + { b,2 r2 b2 r2 } \bar "|" >> +>> + + \midi { \tempo 4 = 126 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music26.midi b/17474-h/music/music26.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f969034 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music26.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music27.ly b/17474-h/music/music27.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c47bff --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music27.ly @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\relative c' { << + \new Staff << + \time 3/2 + \clef treble + \autoBeamOff + { \times 2/3 {r8 _(g'8[ c8]} \times 2/3 {e8[ g8 c8]} c4.) c8 c2 \times 2/3 {r8 g,8[ c8]} \times 2/3 {e8[\p g8 c8]} b4. b8 b2 }\\ + { r2 f2\mp c2 r2 <b d>2 c2 } \bar "|" + >> + + \new Staff { + \time 3/2 + \clef treble + \repeat "tremolo" 4 {<c, e>16 g'16} \repeat "tremolo" 4 {c,16 a'16} \repeat "tremolo" 4 {c,16 g'16} \repeat "tremolo" 4 {<c, e>16 g'16} \repeat "tremolo" 4 {c,16 f16} \repeat "tremolo" 4 {c16 e16} \bar "|" } + >> } + + \midi { \tempo 4 = 126 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music27.midi b/17474-h/music/music27.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..89b958b --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music27.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music28.ly b/17474-h/music/music28.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..471b773 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music28.ly @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative { + \key d \major + \autoBeamOff + d'4 d8. e16 fs4 fs8 fs8 | d1 | fs2 r2 | r2 r4 a,4 | a2. a,4 | a2 \bar "||" +} + +\addlyrics { Glo -- ry to God in the high -- est, and peace on earth. } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 130 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music28.midi b/17474-h/music/music28.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cfbd862 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music28.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music29.ly b/17474-h/music/music29.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..426fbe5 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music29.ly @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +global = { + \key d \major + \time 4/4 + \autoBeamOff +} + +noFlag = \once \override Stem #'flag-style = #'no-flag + +sopMusic = \relative c' { + e8 e8 e8 e8 e4. e8 a'1 ~ a1 ~ a2 a2 +} + +altoMusic = \relative c' { + d8 d8 d8 d8 d4. cs8 cs'1\f \melisma cs1 cs2_\markup { \italic {dim.}} \melismaEnd cs2 +} + +altoWords = \lyricmode { + In der un -- ge -- heu -- 'ren Wei -- te. +} + +tenorMusic = \relative c' { + \stemDown \noFlag b8 \noFlag b8 \noFlag b8 \noFlag b8 b4. \stemUp a8 e'1 ~ e1 ~ \stemDown e2 e2 +} + +bassMusic = \relative c' { + gs8 gs8 gs8 gs8 gs4. g8 g,1 ~ g1 ~ g2 g2 +} + +\score { + \context ChoirStaff << + \context Staff = women << + \context Voice = + sopranos { \voiceOne << \global \sopMusic >> } + \context Voice = + altos { \voiceTwo << \global \altoMusic >> } + >> + \context Lyrics = altos { s1 } + \context Staff = men << + \clef bass + \context Voice = + tenors { \voiceOne <<\global \tenorMusic >> } + \context Voice = + basses { \voiceTwo <<\global \bassMusic >> } +>> + \context Lyrics = altos \lyricsto altos \altoWords +>> + + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 126 } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music29.midi b/17474-h/music/music29.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e455b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music29.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music30.ly b/17474-h/music/music30.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50a935a --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music30.ly @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c' { + \key c \major + \time 4/2 + \partial 4*2 c'4( d4) | e2 e2 e2 d2 | e2. d4 c2 g'2 \break + f2 e2 d2. c4 | d1 r2 c4( d4) | e2 e2 e2 d2 | e2. d4 c2 g'2 \break + f2 e2 d4( c4) d2 | c1. \bar ":|:" f2 \bar "|" f2 e2 f2 g2 \break + a2. g4 f2 g2 | a2 bf4( a4) g4( f4) g2 | f1. e4( f4) \break + g2 a2 g2 f2 | e2. d4 c2 g'2 | f2 e2 d4( c4) d2 | c1. \bar ":|" +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 2 = 100 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} +%%Transcriber's note: Original text indicates 2/2 time, but there are 4 half-notes to the bar.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music30.midi b/17474-h/music/music30.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d274a0d --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music30.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music31.ly b/17474-h/music/music31.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10227bf --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music31.ly @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { + \relative c' << + \new Staff << + \time 4/4 + \key bf \major + \clef treble + { \partial 16 bf'16 | bf4( bf16) g'16 fs16 g16 c,4( c16) a'16 g16 a16 | \stemDown d,16 g,16 bf16 d16 g16 bf16 a16 g16 fs16 g16 a16 ef16 d16 c16 bf16 a16^"etc." }\\ + { \partial 16 s16 | g4 r4 a4 r4 } \bar "|" + >> + >> + + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music31.midi b/17474-h/music/music31.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..77eb91d --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music31.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music32.ly b/17474-h/music/music32.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d913b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music32.ly @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c'' { + \key bf \major + \time 3/4 + \clef treble + bf4. c8 d4 | \stemUp bf4 g4. \stemDown g'8 | f4 d4 bf'4 \break + a4 g4. a8 | a4. g8 f8 ef8 | d4 c4. \stemUp bf8 | bf2.~ bf2. \bar ":|" +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 150 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music32.midi b/17474-h/music/music32.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..692b862 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music32.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music33.ly b/17474-h/music/music33.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..418f3d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music33.ly @@ -0,0 +1,76 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +global = { + \key f \major + \time 3/2 +} + +i = \context Staff \relative c' { + \context Voice = "i" + \voiceOne + %191 voice 1 treble + <f a>2\pp <f a>2 b4\rest <f a>4 | <f bf>2 <f bf>2 b4\rest <f bf>4 | g2 <e c'>2 b'4\rest <e, bf'>4 | bf'4( a4) <f a>2 b2\rest \break + <d, f d'>2\mf <d f d'>2 e'4 f8 g8 | c,2 c2 r4 f4 | a,4 g4 <f a>2 g4( f4) | f1.^\markup { \italic {Fine.}} \bar "||" \break + %192 voice 1 treble + <f a>2 <a f'>2. <f d'>4 | b4 a4 <d, g>2 b'2\rest | <g d'>2 <b g'>2. <b e>4 \break + c4 b4 <a c>2 r4 <a f'>4\f | s4 d4 <c e>2 <a d>4 <e c'>4_\markup { \italic {dim.}} | <e c'>1.^\markup { \italic {D.C. al fine.} } \bar "|." +} + +ii = \context Staff \relative c' { + \context Voice = "ii" + \voiceTwo + % 191 voice 2 treble + s2 s2 s4 s4 | s2 s2 s4 s4 | f2 s2 s4 s4 | f2 s2 s2 | + s2 s2 r2 | e2 <f a>2 r2 | f2 s2 e2 | s1. | + %192 voice 2 treble + s2 s2. s4 | d2 b2 s2 | s2 g'2. g4 | + <e a>2 e2 r2 | <g e'>4 c4 g2 b2 | s1. +} + +iii = \context Staff \relative c { + \context Voice = "iii" + \voiceOne + \autoBeamOff + %191 voice 1 bass + s2 s2 s4 s4 | s2 s2 s4 s4 | s2 s2 s4 s4 | s2 c'2 r2 | + bf,2 s2 s2 | s2 s2 s2 | s2 c'2 s2 | a1. | + %192 voice 1 bass + s2 s2. s4 | s2 g,2 s2 | s2 s2. s4 | s2 s2 s2 | s2 s2 s2 | c2 s4 s4 s4 s4 +} + +iv = \context Staff \relative c { + \context Voice = "iv" + \voiceTwo + %191 voice 2 bass + <f c'>2 <f c'>2 f4\rest <f c'>4 | <g bf>2 <g bf>2 f4\rest <g bf>4 | <c, c'>2 <c c'>2 f4\rest <c c'>4 | <f c'>2 f4 e4 d4 c4 | + s2 bf'2 f2\rest | bf2 a2 f2\rest | <bf d>2 c2 <c, bf'>2 | f1. | + %192 voice 2 bass + <f c'>2 <d d'>2. <f d'>4 | g2 s2 f2\rest | <g b>2 e2. g4 | + a2 a2 f2\rest | g2 g,1 | s2 c'4 bf4 a4 g4 +} + +\score { + \context PianoStaff << + \context Staff = "treble" << + \global + \clef treble + \i + \ii + >> + \context Staff = "bass" << + \global + \clef bass + \iii + \iv + >> + >> + \midi { \tempo 4 = 126 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music33.midi b/17474-h/music/music33.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2815998 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music33.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music34.ly b/17474-h/music/music34.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1acd088 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music34.ly @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +\version "2.6.4" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\time 3/4 +\autoBeamOff +d8 d4^> d16[ d16] d8[ d8] | d16[ d16 d16 d16] d4. d16[ d16]^"etc." \bar "" +} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music34.midi b/17474-h/music/music34.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a051fc5 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music34.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music35.ly b/17474-h/music/music35.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..873f4d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music35.ly @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +\version "2.6.4" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\time 3/4 +\autoBeamOff +d4 d4.^> d8 | d8.[ d16] d2 +} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music35.midi b/17474-h/music/music35.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..818c0c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music35.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music36.ly b/17474-h/music/music36.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01dd173 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music36.ly @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +\version "2.6.4" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\time 3/4 +\autoBeamOff +d8.[ d16] d4. d8 | d4 d2^"etc." \bar "" +} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music36.midi b/17474-h/music/music36.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5492fff --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music36.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music37.ly b/17474-h/music/music37.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09cd73b --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music37.ly @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +\version "2.6.4" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\time 2/4 +\autoBeamOff +d8[ d8 d8 d8] | d8[ d16 d16 d8 d8] \bar "" +} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music37.midi b/17474-h/music/music37.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8295386 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music37.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music38.ly b/17474-h/music/music38.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..79f7699 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music38.ly @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +\version "2.6.4" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { +\context RhythmicStaff { +\time 2/4 +\autoBeamOff +d8 d4 d8 \bar "" +} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music38.midi b/17474-h/music/music38.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7756ce4 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music38.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music39.ly b/17474-h/music/music39.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..63e6411 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music39.ly @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative c'' { +\cadenzaOn + a4 b c ds e f gs a +} + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff + \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music39.midi b/17474-h/music/music39.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8107e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music39.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music40.ly b/17474-h/music/music40.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0edb2b --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music40.ly @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { + \context RhythmicStaff { + \autoBeamOff + d16[ d8.] + } + + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100 } +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music40.midi b/17474-h/music/music40.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b6efad --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music40.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music41.ly b/17474-h/music/music41.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6141f57 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music41.ly @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { + \context RhythmicStaff { + \autoBeamOff + d8 d4. + } + + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100 } +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t } diff --git a/17474-h/music/music41.midi b/17474-h/music/music41.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d84fce7 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music41.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music42.ly b/17474-h/music/music42.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..414b1e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music42.ly @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { + \new Staff { + \clef bass + \key f \major + \time 4/4 + \autoBeamOff + \once \override TextScript #'padding = #2.5 + r8^\markup { \italic {Sempre sotto voce.}} d16^\markup {Don Giovanni.} d16 g8 g16 fs16 g8 g8 r8^\markup {Leporello.} g8 | + bf8 bf8 a8 bf8 g8 g8 r8 d8 | g8 g8 r8^\markup {D.G.} g8 e4 r8^\markup {Lep.} e8 | + g8 g8 g8 r16 c'16 c'8 g8 r8^\markup {D.G.} g16 g16 | + g8 g16 c'16 c'8 g8 r8 g8 e8 e8 | g8^\markup {Lep.} c8 \bar ""} + +\addlyrics { \override LyricText #'font-shape = #'italic + + Le -- po -- rel -- lo,_o -- ve se -- i? Son qui per mia dis -- gra -- zia! e vo -- i? Son qui. Chi_è mor -- to, voi o_il vec -- chio? Che do -- man -- da da bes -- tia! il vec -- chio. Bra -- vo! +} + +\addlyrics { +Le -- po -- rel -- lo, where are you? I'm here and more's the pit -- y! and you, Sir? Here too. Who's been killed, you or_the old one? What a ques -- tion, you boo -- by! the old one. Bra -- vo! +} + + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff \remove Key_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 100 } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music42.midi b/17474-h/music/music42.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d218aa7 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music42.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music43.ly b/17474-h/music/music43.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a49f1d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music43.ly @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { + \new Staff { + \clef treble + \key f \major + \time 4/2 + \autoBeamOff + \cadenzaOn + g'2 a'1 \bar "|" c''4 \stemUp b'8 a'8 a'8 g'8 fs'8 e'8 fs'2 fs'2 \bar "|" + r4 a'8 a'8 a'4 a'8 a'8 a'2 bf'4 \tieDown bf'4~ \bar "|" bf'4 a'4 a'1 a'2 r2 + fs'4 fs'4 \bar "|" a'2. g'8 fs'8 fs'2 fs'4 r4 \bar "|" d''1 fs'4 g'4 g'4.^( fs'8) \bar "|" g'1 \bar "||" + } + +\addlyrics { \override LyricText #'font-shape = #'italic +E voi, deh per pie -- ta, del mio mar -- ti -- re +Che nel mi -- se -- ro cor di -- mo -- ra_e -- ter -- no, +La -- cri -- ma -- te_al mio pian -- to om -- bre d'in -- fer -- no! +} + + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff + \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } + + \midi { \tempo 2 = 92 } +} + +%%Transcriber's note: This transcription accurately reflects the original, which had inconsistent time values in each bar.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music43.midi b/17474-h/music/music43.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f68529d --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music43.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music44.ly b/17474-h/music/music44.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1f1d81 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music44.ly @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +\version "2.6.4" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { + \new Staff { + \autoBeamOff + g''4 r8 d''8 g''4 a''4 | b''4 r8 a''8( b''8)[ b''8( c'''8 b''8)] | + d'''4 r8 b''8(c'''8)[ c'''8( d'''8 c'''8)] | e'''4 r8 d'''8 e'''8[ e'''8 fs'''8 fs'''8] | + g'''8[ d'''8] d'''8^\trill[ c'''16 d'''16] g'''4 e''8[ c''8] | \stemDown b'16[ g'16 a'16 b'16] c''16[ d''16 e''16 fs''16] g''16[ a''16 b''16 c'''16] d'''16[ e'''16 fs'''16 g'''16] | \stemUp d'2 a'2^\trill | g'4 r4 r2 | c'''1\startTrillSpan | d'''1 | + +%254 + e'''1 | f'''2 \stopTrillSpan a'2 | g'2 f'2 | e'4 r4 r2 | \stemDown c''2 r16 \stemUp c'16[ d'16 e'16] f'16[ g'16 a'16 b'16] | + \stemDown c''2 r16 \stemUp e'16[ f'16 g'16] a'16[ b'16 c''16 d''16] | \stemDown e''2 r16 d''16[c''16 b'16] c''16[ d''16 e''16 f''16] | + g''2 r16 g''16[ f''16 e''16] f''16[ g''16 a''16 b''16] | c'''2 r16 b''16[ a''16 g''16] a''16[ b''16 c'''16 d'''16] | + e'''2 r16 d'''16[ c'''16 b''16] c'''16[ d'''16 e'''16 f'''16] | g'''2 r8 f'''16[ e'''16] f'''16[ g'''16 a'''16 b'''16] | c''''1 \bar "||" +} + \midi { \tempo 4 = 120} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music44.midi b/17474-h/music/music44.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd52209 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music44.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music45.ly b/17474-h/music/music45.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0799bba --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music45.ly @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative { + \key bf \major + \autoBeamOff r4\p^\markup {\italic {Largo.}} r8 g8 g'8. f16 ef8. d16| d4 \bar "" +} + +\addlyrics { Be -- hold the Lamb of God! } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 48} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music45.midi b/17474-h/music/music45.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a4bdff --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music45.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music46.ly b/17474-h/music/music46.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02631c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music46.ly @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative { + \clef bass + \key ef \major + \autoBeamOff + \dynamicUp r4\f g4^\markup { \italic {Allegro.}} c,4 \stemUp d8 d | \stemDown ef8 \stemUp c \stemDown f4. ef16[ d(] ef8) f8 | \break + g8 ef8 af4 r8 g8 g g | c f, f4 \break + r8 af g f | ef4 \stemUp d c \bar "" +} + +\addlyrics { He trust -- ed in God that he would __ de -- + liv -- er Him, let him de -- liv -- er him + if he de -- light in him. } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 140 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music46.midi b/17474-h/music/music46.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4f8747 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music46.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music47.ly b/17474-h/music/music47.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da16046 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music47.ly @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +melody = \relative { + \time 3/4 + \autoBeamOff + r4 g''8^\staccatissimo d^\staccatissimo e^\staccatissimo b^\staccatissimo | c^\staccatissimo g^\staccatissimo a16[( b]) c8 \bar "" +} + +\addlyrics { Let us break their bonds a -- sun -- der. } + +\score { + \new Staff \melody + \midi { \tempo 4 = 130} + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music47.midi b/17474-h/music/music47.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..13f6d77 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music47.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music48.ly b/17474-h/music/music48.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e83223d --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music48.ly @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +\score { + \relative << + \new Staff { + \time 2/2 + \cadenzaOn <e a>1 <g b> \bar "|" <f a c> << { <a c>2 } \\ <f>2 >> \bar "" + } + \new Staff { + \clef bass + \cadenzaOn <a, cs>1 <g d'> \bar "|" f <<f2>> \bar "" + } + \new Lyrics \lyricmode { Sta1 -- bat ma -- ter2 } +>> + + \midi { \tempo 4 = 120 } + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + } +} +\paper { raggedright = ##t }
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/17474-h/music/music48.midi b/17474-h/music/music48.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5f6a65 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music48.midi diff --git a/17474-h/music/music49.ly b/17474-h/music/music49.ly new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6cec843 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music49.ly @@ -0,0 +1,59 @@ +\version "2.6.3" +\include "english.ly" + +global = { + \key bf \major + \time 4/4 +} + +sopMusic = \relative c' { + a'8-. a8-. a8-. a8-. a8-. a8-. a8-. a8-. | g8-. g8-. g8-. g8-. g8-. g8-. g8-. g8-. | fs8-. fs8-. fs8-. fs8-. g8-. g8-. g8-. g8-. | a8-. a8-. a8-. a8-. fs8-. fs8-. fs8-. fs8-.^\markup {etc.} +} + +altoMusic = \relative c' { + c8\pp\melisma c8 c8 c8\melismaEnd c8\melisma c8 c8 c8\melismaEnd | c8\melisma c8 c8 c8\melismaEnd cs8\melisma cs8 cs8 cs8\melismaEnd | d8\melisma d8 d8 d8 cs8 cs8 cs8 cs8 | c8 c8 c8 c8 c8 c8 c8 c8\melismaEnd +} + +altoWords = \lyricmode { + Quan -- tus tre -- mor, tre __ +} + +tenorMusic = \relative c' { + f,8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 | ef8 ef8 ef8 ef8 ef8 ef8 ef8 ef8 | d8 d8 d8 d8 ef8 ef8 ef8 ef8 | d8 d8 fs8 fs8 a8 a8 a8 a8 +} + +bassMusic = \relative c' { + f,8-. f8-. f8-. f8-. f8-. f8-. f8-. f8-. | ef8-. ef8-. ef8-. ef8-. ef8-. ef8-. ef8-. ef8-. | d8-. d8-. d8-. d8-. ef8-. ef8-. ef8-. ef8-. | d8-. d8-. d8-. d8-. d8-. d8-. d8-. d8-. +} + +\score { + \context ChoirStaff << + \context Staff = women << + \context Voice = + sopranos { \voiceOne << \global \sopMusic >> } + \context Voice = + altos { \voiceTwo << \global \altoMusic >> } + >> + \context Lyrics = altos { s1 } + \context Staff = men << + \clef bass + \context Voice = + tenors { \voiceOne <<\global \tenorMusic >> } + \context Voice = + basses { \voiceTwo <<\global \bassMusic >> } +>> + \context Lyrics = altos \lyricsto altos \altoWords +>> + + \layout { + indent = 0.0\cm + \context { + \Score + \remove Bar_number_engraver + } + \context { + \Staff \remove Time_signature_engraver + } + } + \midi { \tempo 4 = 126 } +} diff --git a/17474-h/music/music49.midi b/17474-h/music/music49.midi Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a12b6e --- /dev/null +++ b/17474-h/music/music49.midi diff --git a/17474.txt b/17474.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3178025 --- /dev/null +++ b/17474.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8731 @@ +Project Gutenberg's How to Listen to Music, 7th ed., by Henry Edward Krehbiel + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. + Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art + +Author: Henry Edward Krehbiel + +Release Date: January 7, 2006 [EBook #17474] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC, 7TH ED. *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC + +HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS TO UNTAUGHT LOVERS OF THE ART + +BY + +HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL + +_Author of "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," "Notes on the Cultivation +of Choral Music," "The Philharmonic Society of New York," etc._ + +_SEVENTH EDITION_ + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1897 + +COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +TROW DIRECTORY +PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY +NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +TO + +W.J. HENDERSON + +WHO HAS HELPED ME TO RESPECT MUSICAL CRITICISM + + * * * * * + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE + + +The author is beholden to the Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission +to use a small portion of the material in Chapter I., the greater part +of Chapter IV., and the Plates which were printed originally in one of +their publications; also to the publishers of "The Looker-On" for the +privilege of reprinting a portion of an essay written for them +entitled "Singers, Then and Now." + + + + +CONTENTS + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. I.] + +_Introduction_ + +Purpose and scope of this book--Not written for professional +musicians, but for untaught lovers of the art--neither for careless +seekers after diversion unless they be willing to accept a higher +conception of what "entertainment" means--The capacity properly to +listen to music as a touchstone of musical talent--It is rarely found +in popular concert-rooms--Travellers who do not see and listeners who +do not hear--Music is of all the arts that which is practised most and +thought about least--Popular ignorance of the art caused by the lack +of an object for comparison--How simple terms are confounded by +literary men--Blunders by Tennyson, Lamb, Coleridge, Mrs. Harriet +Beecher Stowe, F. Hopkinson Smith, Brander Matthews, and others--A +warning against pedants and rhapsodists. _Page 3_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. II.] + +_Recognition of Musical Elements_ + +The dual nature of music--Sense-perception, fancy, and +imagination--Recognition of Design as Form in its primary stages--The +crude materials of music--The co-ordination of tones--Rudimentary +analysis of Form--Comparison, as in other arts, not +possible--Recognition of the fundamental elements--Melody, Harmony, +and Rhythm--The value of memory--The need of an +intermediary--Familiar music best liked--Interrelation of the +elements--Repetition the fundamental principle of Form--Motives, +Phrases, and Periods--A Creole folk-tune analyzed--Repetition at the +base of poetic forms--Refrain and Parallelism--Key-relationship as a +bond of union--Symphonic unity illustrated in examples from +Beethoven--The C minor symphony and "Appassionata" sonata--The +Concerto in G major--The Seventh and Ninth symphonies. _Page 15_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. III.] + +_The Content and Kinds of Music_ + +How far it is necessary for the listener to go into musical +philosophy--Intelligent hearing not conditioned upon it--Man's +individual relationship to the art--Musicians proceed on the theory +that feelings are the content of music--The search for pictures and +stories condemned--How composers hear and judge--Definitions of the +capacity of music by Wagner, Hauptmann, and Mendelssohn--An utterance +by Herbert Spencer--Music as a language--Absolute music and Programme +music--The content of all true art works--Chamber music--Meaning and +origin of the term--Haydn the servant of a Prince--The characteristics +of Chamber music--Pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep +learning--Its chastity--Sympathy between performers and listeners +essential to its enjoyment--A correct definition of Programme +music--Programme music defended--The value of titles and +superscriptions--Judgment upon it must, however, go to the music, not +the commentary--Subjects that are unfit for music--Kinds of Programme +music--Imitative music--How the music of birds has been utilized--The +cuckoo of nature and Beethoven's cuckoo--Cock and hen in a seventeenth +century composition--Rameau's pullet--The German quail--Music that is +descriptive by suggestion--External and internal attributes--Fancy and +Imagination--Harmony and the major and minor mode--Association of +ideas--Movement delineated--Handel's frogs--Water in the "Hebrides" +overture and "Ocean" symphony--Height and depth illustrated by acute +and grave tones--Beethoven's illustration of distance--His rule +enforced--Classical and Romantic music--Genesis of the terms--What +they mean in literature--Archbishop Trench on classical books--The +author's definitions of both terms in music--Classicism as the +conservative principle, Romanticism as the progressive, regenerative, +and creative--A contest which stimulates life. _Page 36_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. IV.] + +_The Modern Orchestra_ + +Importance of the instrumental band--Some things that can be learned +by its study--The orchestral choirs--Disposition of the players--Model +bands compared--Development of instrumental music--The extent of an +orchestra's register--The Strings: Violin, Viola, Violoncello, and +Double-bass--Effects produced by changes in manipulation--The +wood-winds: Flute, Oboe, English horn, Bassoon, Clarinet--The Brass: +French Horn, Trumpet and Cornet, Trombone, Tuba--The Drums--The +Conductor--Rise of the modern interpreter--The need of him--His +methods--Scores and Score-reading. _Page 71_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. V.] + +_At an Orchestral Concert_ + +"Classical" and "Popular" as generally conceived--Symphony Orchestras +and Military bands--The higher forms in music as exemplified at a +classical concert--Symphonies, Overtures, Symphonic Poems, Concertos, +etc.--A Symphony not a union of unrelated parts--History of the +name--The Sonata form and cyclical compositions--The bond of union +between the divisions of a Symphony--Material and spiritual links--The +first movement and the sonata form--"Exposition, illustration, and +repetition"--The subjects and their treatment--Keys and nomenclature +of the Symphony--The _Adagio_ or second movement--The _Scherzo_ and +its relation to the Minuet--The Finale and the Rondo form--The latter +illustrated in outline by a poem--Modifications of the symphonic form +by Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Saint-Saens and +Dvorak--Augmentation of the forces--Symphonies with voices--The +Symphonic Poem--Its three characteristics--Concertos and Cadenzas--M. +Ysaye's opinion of the latter--Designations in Chamber music--The +Overture and its descendants--Smaller forms: Serenades, Fantasias, +Rhapsodies, Variations, Operatic Excerpts. _Page 122_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. VI.] + +_At a Pianoforte Recital_ + +The Popularity of Pianoforte music exemplified in M. Paderewski's +recitals--The instrument--A universal medium of music study--Its +defects and merits contrasted--Not a perfect melody instrument--Value +of the percussive element--Technique; the false and the true estimate +of its value--Pianoforte literature as illustrated in recitals--Its +division, for the purposes of this study, into four periods: Classic, +Classic-romantic, Romantic, and Bravura--Precursors of the +Pianoforte--The Clavichord and Harpsichord, and the music composed for +them--Peculiarities of Bach's style--His Romanticism--Scarlatti's +Sonatas--The Suite and its constituents--Allemande, Courante, +Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet, and Gavotte--The technique of the +period--How Bach and Handel played--Beethoven and the Sonata--Mozart +and Beethoven as pianists--The Romantic composers--Schumann and Chopin +and the forms used by them--Schumann and Jean Paul--Chopin's Preludes, +Etudes, Nocturnes, Ballades, Polonaises, Mazurkas, Krakowiak--The +technique of the Romantic period--"Idiomatic" pianoforte +music--Development of the instrument--The Pedal and its use--Liszt and +his Hungarian Rhapsodies. _Page 154_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. VII.] + +_At the Opera_ + +Instability of popular taste in respect of operas--Our lists seldom +extend back of the present century--The people of to-day as +indifferent as those of two centuries ago to the language used--Use +and abuse of foreign languages--The Opera defended as an art-form--Its +origin in the Greek tragedies--Why music is the language of emotion--A +scientific explanation--Herbert Spencer's laws--Efforts of Florentine +scholars to revive the classic tragedy result in the invention of the +lyric drama--The various kinds of Opera: _Opera seria_, _Opera buffa_, +_Opera semiseria_, French _grand Opera_, and _Opera +comique_--Operettas and musical farces--Romantic Opera--A popular +conception of German opera--A return to the old terminology led by +Wagner--The recitative: Its nature, aims, and capacities--The change +from speech to song--The arioso style, the accompanied recitative and +the aria--Music and dramatic action--Emancipation from set forms--The +orchestra--The decay of singing--Feats of the masters of the Roman +school and La Bastardella--Degeneracy of the Opera of their +day--Singers who have been heard in New York--Two generations of +singers compared--Grisi, Jenny Lind, Sontag, La Grange, Piccolomini, +Adelina Patti, Nilsson, Sembrich, Lucca, Gerster, Lehmann, Melba, +Eames, Calve, Mario, Jean and Edouard de Reszke--Wagner and his +works--Operas and lyric dramas--Wagner's return to the principles of +the Florentine reformers--Interdependence of elements in a lyric +drama--Forms and the endless melody--The Typical Phrases: How they +should be studied. _Page 202_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. VIII.] + +_Choirs and Choral Music_ + +Value of chorus singing in musical culture--Schumann's advice to +students--Choristers and instrumentalists--Amateurs and +professionals--Oratorio and _Maennergesang_--The choirs of Handel and +Bach--Glee Unions, Male Clubs, and Women's Choirs--Boys' voices not +adapted to modern music--Mixed choirs--American Origin of amateur +singing societies--Priority over Germany--The size of choirs--Large +numbers not essential--How choirs are divided--Antiphonal +effects--Excellence in choir singing--Precision, intonation, +expression, balance of tone, enunciation, pronunciation, +declamation--The cause of monotony in Oratorio performances--_A +capella_ music--Genesis of modern hymnology--Influence of Luther and +the Germans--Use of popular melodies by composers--The +chorale--Preservation of the severe style of writing in choral +music--Palestrina and Bach--A study of their styles--Latin and +Teuton--Church and individual--Motets and Church Cantatas--The +Passions--The Oratorio--Sacred opera and Cantata--Epic and +Drama--Characteristic and descriptive music--The Mass: Its +secularization and musical development--The dramatic tendency +illustrated in Beethoven and Berlioz. _Page 253_ + + +[Sidenote: CHAP. IX.] + +_Musician, Critic and Public_ + +Criticism justified--Relationship between Musician, Critic and +Public--To end the conflict between them would result in +stagnation--How the Critic might escape--The Musician prefers to +appeal to the public rather than to the Critic--Why this is +so--Ignorance as a safeguard against and promoter of +conservatism--Wagner and Haydn--The Critic as the enemy of the +charlatan--Temptations to which he is exposed--Value of popular +approbation--Schumann's aphorisms--The Public neither bad judges nor +good critics--The Critic's duty is to guide popular +judgment--Fickleness of the people's opinions--Taste and judgment not +a birthright--The necessity of antecedent study--The Critic's +responsibility--Not always that toward the Musician which the latter +thinks--How the newspaper can work for good--Must the Critic be a +Musician?--Pedants and Rhapsodists--Demonstrable facts in +criticism--The folly and viciousness of foolish rhapsody--The Rev. Mr. +Haweis cited--Ernst's violin--Intelligent rhapsody approved--Dr. John +Brown on Beethoven--The Critic's duty. _Page 297_ + + * * * * * + +PLATES + +I. VIOLIN--(CLIFFORD SCHMIDT).--II. VIOLONCELLO--(VICTOR +HERBERT).--III. PICCOLO FLUTE--(C. KURTH, JUN.).--IV. OBOE--(JOSEPH +ELLER).--V. ENGLISH HORN--(JOSEPH ELLER).--VI. BASSOON (FEDOR +BERNHARDI).--VII. CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER).--VIII. BASS +CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER).--IX. FRENCH HORN--(CARL PIEPER).--X. +TROMBONE--(J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER).--XI. BASS TUBA--(ANTON +REITER).--XII. THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE. _Page 325_ + +INDEX _Page 351_ + + + + +How to Listen to Music + + + + +I + +_Introduction_ + + +[Sidenote: _The book's appeal._] + +This book has a purpose, which is as simple as it is plain; and an +unpretentious scope. It does not aim to edify either the musical +professor or the musical scholar. It comes into the presence of the +musical student with all becoming modesty. Its business is with those +who love music and present themselves for its gracious ministrations +in Concert-Room and Opera House, but have not studied it as professors +and scholars are supposed to study. It is not for the careless unless +they be willing to inquire whether it might not be well to yield the +common conception of entertainment in favor of the higher enjoyment +which springs from serious contemplation of beautiful things; but if +they are willing so to inquire, they shall be accounted the class +that the author is most anxious to reach. The reasons which prompted +its writing and the laying out of its plan will presently appear. For +the frankness of his disclosure the author might be willing to +apologize were his reverence for music less and his consideration for +popular affectations more; but because he is convinced that a love for +music carries with it that which, so it be but awakened, shall +speedily grow into an honest desire to know more about the beloved +object, he is willing to seem unamiable to the amateur while arguing +the need of even so mild a stimulant as his book, and ingenuous, +mayhap even childish, to the professional musician while trying to +point a way in which better appreciation may be sought. + +[Sidenote: _Talent in listening._] + +The capacity properly to listen to music is better proof of musical +talent in the listener than skill to play upon an instrument or +ability to sing acceptably when unaccompanied by that capacity. It +makes more for that gentleness and refinement of emotion, thought, and +action which, in the highest sense of the term, it is the province of +music to promote. And it is a much rarer accomplishment. I cannot +conceive anything more pitiful than the spectacle of men and women +perched on a fair observation point exclaiming rapturously at the +loveliness of mead and valley, their eyes melting involuntarily in +tenderness at the sight of moss-carpeted slopes and rocks and peaceful +wood, or dilating in reverent wonder at mountain magnificence, and +then learning from their exclamations that, as a matter of fact, they +are unable to distinguish between rock and tree, field and forest, +earth and sky; between the dark-browns of the storm-scarred rock, the +greens of the foliage, and the blues of the sky. + +[Sidenote: _Ill equipped listeners._] + +Yet in the realm of another sense, in the contemplation of beauties +more ethereal and evanescent than those of nature, such is the +experience which in my capacity as a writer for newspapers I have made +for many years. A party of people blind to form and color cannot be +said to be well equipped for a Swiss journey, though loaded down with +alpenstocks and Baedekers; yet the spectacle of such a party on the +top of the Rigi is no more pitiful and anomalous than that presented +by the majority of the hearers in our concert-rooms. They are there to +adventure a journey into a realm whose beauties do not disclose +themselves to the senses alone, but whose perception requires a +co-operation of all the finer faculties; yet of this they seem to know +nothing, and even of that sense to which the first appeal is made it +may be said with profound truth that "hearing they hear not, neither +do they understand." + +[Sidenote: _Popular ignorance of music._] + +Of all the arts, music is practised most and thought about least. Why +this should be the case may be explained on several grounds. A sweet +mystery enshrouds the nature of music. Its material part is subtle and +elusive. To master it on its technical side alone costs a vast +expenditure of time, patience, and industry. But since it is, in one +manifestation or another, the most popular of the arts, and one the +enjoyment of which is conditioned in a peculiar degree on love, it +remains passing strange that the indifference touching its nature and +elements, and the character of the phenomena which produce it, or are +produced by it, is so general. I do not recall that anybody has ever +tried to ground this popular ignorance touching an art of which, by +right of birth, everybody is a critic. The unamiable nature of the +task, of which I am keenly conscious, has probably been a bar to such +an undertaking. But a frank diagnosis must precede the discovery of a +cure for every disease, and I have undertaken to point out a way in +which this grievous ailment in the social body may at least be +lessened. + +[Sidenote: _Paucity of intelligent comment._] + +[Sidenote: _Want of a model._] + +It is not an exaggeration to say that one might listen for a lifetime +to the polite conversation of our drawing-rooms (and I do not mean by +this to refer to the United States alone) without hearing a symphony +talked about in terms indicative of more than the most superficial +knowledge of the outward form, that is, the dimensions and apparatus, +of such a composition. No other art provides an exact analogy for this +phenomenon. Everybody can say something containing a degree of +appositeness about a poem, novel, painting, statue, or building. If he +can do no more he can go as far as Landseer's rural critic who +objected to one of the artist's paintings on the ground that not one +of the three pigs eating from a trough had a foot in it. It is the +absence of the standard of judgment employed in this criticism which +makes significant talk about music so difficult. Nature failed to +provide a model for this ethereal art. There is nothing in the natural +world with which the simple man may compare it. + +[Sidenote: _Simple terms confounded._] + +It is not alone a knowledge of the constituent factors of a symphony, +or the difference between a sonata and a suite, a march and a mazurka, +that is rare. Unless you chance to be listening to the conversation of +musicians (in which term I wish to include amateurs who are what the +word amateur implies, and whose knowledge stands in some respectable +relation to their love), you will find, so frequently that I have not +the heart to attempt an estimate of the proportion, that the most +common words in the terminology of the art are misapplied. Such +familiar things as harmony and melody, time and tune, are continually +confounded. Let us call a distinguished witness into the box; the +instance is not new, but it will serve. What does Tennyson mean when +he says: + + "All night have the roses heard + The flute, violin, bassoon; + All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd + To the dancers dancing in tune?" + +[Sidenote: _Tune and time._] + +Unless the dancers who wearied Maud were provided with even a more +extraordinary instrumental outfit than the Old Lady of Banbury Cross, +how could they have danced "in tune?" + +[Sidenote: _Blunders of poets and essayists._] + +Musical study of a sort being almost as general as study of the "three +Rs," it must be said that the gross forms of ignorance are utterly +inexcusable. But if this is obvious, it is even more obvious that +there is something radically wrong with the prevalent systems of +musical instruction. It is because of a plentiful lack of knowledge +that so much that is written on music is without meaning, and that +the most foolish kind of rhapsody, so it show a collocation of fine +words, is permitted to masquerade as musical criticism and even +analysis. People like to read about music, and the books of a certain +English clergyman have had a sale of stupendous magnitude +notwithstanding they are full of absurdities. The clergyman has a +multitudinous companionship, moreover, among novelists, essayists, and +poets whose safety lies in more or less fantastic generalization when +they come to talk about music. How they flounder when they come to +detail! It was Charles Lamb who said, in his "Chapter on Ears," that +in voices he could not distinguish a soprano from a tenor, and could +only contrive to guess at the thorough-bass from its being +"supereminently harsh and disagreeable;" yet dear old Elia may be +forgiven, since his confounding the bass voice with a system of +musical short-hand is so delightful a proof of the ignorance he was +confessing. + +[Sidenote: _Literary realism and musical terminology._] + +But what shall the troubled critics say to Tennyson's orchestra +consisting of a flute, violin, and bassoon? Or to Coleridge's "_loud_ +bassoon," which made the wedding-guest to beat his breast? Or to Mrs. +Harriet Beecher Stowe's pianist who played "with an airy and bird-like +touch?" Or to our own clever painter-novelist who, in "Snubbin' +through Jersey," has Brushes bring out his violoncello and play "the +symphonies of Beethoven" to entertain his fellow canal-boat +passengers? The tendency toward realism, or "veritism," as it is +called, has brought out a rich crop of blunders. It will not do to +have a character in a story simply sing or play something; we must +have the names of composers and compositions. The genial gentleman who +enriched musical literature with arrangements of Beethoven's +symphonies for violoncello without accompaniment has since +supplemented this feat by creating a German fiddler who, when he +thinks himself unnoticed, plays a sonata for violin and contralto +voice; Professor Brander Matthews permits one of his heroines to sing +Schumann's "Warum?" and one of his heroes plays "The Moonlight +Concerto;" one of Ouida's romantic creatures spends hours at an organ +"playing the grand old masses of Mendelssohn;" in "Moths" the tenor +never wearies of singing certain "exquisite airs of Palestrina," which +recalls the fact that an indignant correspondent of a St. Louis +newspaper, protesting against the Teutonism and heaviness of an +orchestra conductor's programmes, demanded some of the "lighter" works +of "Berlioz and Palestrina." + +[Sidenote: _A popular need._] + +Alas! these things and the many others equally amusing which Mr. G. +Sutherland Edwards long ago catalogued in an essay on "The Literary +Maltreatment of Music" are but evidences that even cultured folk have +not yet learned to talk correctly about the art which is practised +most widely. There is a greater need than pianoforte teachers and +singing teachers, and that is a numerous company of writers and +talkers who shall teach the people how to listen to music so that it +shall not pass through their heads like a vast tonal phantasmagoria, +but provide the varied and noble delights contemplated by the +composers. + +[Sidenote: _A warning against writers._] + +[Sidenote: _Pedants and rhapsodists._] + +Ungracious as it might appear, it may yet not be amiss, therefore, at +the very outset of an inquiry into the proper way in which to listen +to music, to utter a warning against much that is written on the art. +As a rule it will be found that writers on music are divided into two +classes, and that neither of these classes can do much good. Too often +they are either pedants or rhapsodists. This division is wholly +natural. Music has many sides and is a science as well as an art. Its +scientific side is that on which the pedant generally approaches it. +He is concerned with forms and rules, with externals, to the +forgetting of that which is inexpressibly nobler and higher. But the +pedants are not harmful, because they are not interesting; strictly +speaking, they do not write for the public at all, but only for their +professional colleagues. The harmful men are the foolish rhapsodists +who take advantage of the fact that the language of music is +indeterminate and evanescent to talk about the art in such a way as to +present themselves as persons of exquisite sensibilities rather than +to direct attention to the real nature and beauty of music itself. To +them I shall recur in a later chapter devoted to musical criticism, +and haply point out the difference between good and bad critics and +commentators from the view-point of popular need and popular +opportunity. + + + + +II + +_Recognition of Musical Elements_ + + +[Sidenote: _The nature of music._] + +Music is dual in its nature; it is material as well as spiritual. Its +material side we apprehend through the sense of hearing, and +comprehend through the intellect; its spiritual side reaches us +through the fancy (or imagination, so it be music of the highest +class), and the emotional part of us. If the scope and capacity of the +art, and the evolutionary processes which its history discloses (a +record of which is preserved in its nomenclature), are to be +understood, it is essential that this duality be kept in view. There +is something so potent and elemental in the appeal which music makes +that it is possible to derive pleasure from even an unwilling hearing +or a hearing unaccompanied by effort at analysis; but real +appreciation of its beauty, which means recognition of the qualities +which put it in the realm of art, is conditioned upon intelligent +hearing. The higher the intelligence, the keener will be the +enjoyment, if the former be directed to the spiritual side as well as +the material. + +[Sidenote: _Necessity of intelligent hearing._] + +So far as music is merely agreeably co-ordinated sounds, it may be +reduced to mathematics and its practice to handicraft. But recognition +of design is a condition precedent to the awakening of the fancy or +the imagination, and to achieve such recognition there must be +intelligent hearing in the first instance. For the purposes of this +study, design may be held to be Form in its primary stages, the +recognition of which is possible to every listener who is fond of +music; it is not necessary that he be learned in the science. He need +only be willing to let an intellectual process, which will bring its +own reward, accompany the physical process of hearing. + +[Sidenote: _Tones and musical material._] + +Without discrimination it is impossible to recognize even the crude +materials of music, for the first step is already a co-ordination of +those materials. A tone becomes musical material only by association +with another tone. We might hear it alone, study its quality, and +determine its degree of acuteness or gravity (its pitch, as musicians +say), but it can never become music so long as it remains isolated. +When we recognize that it bears certain relationships with other tones +in respect of time or tune (to use simple terms), it has become for us +musical material. We do not need to philosophize about the nature of +those relationships, but we must recognize their existence. + +[Sidenote: _The beginnings of Form._] + +Thus much we might hear if we were to let music go through our heads +like water through a sieve. Yet the step from that degree of +discrimination to a rudimentary analysis of Form is exceedingly short, +and requires little more than a willingness to concentrate the +attention and exercise the memory. Everyone is willing to do that much +while looking at a picture. Who would look at a painting and rest +satisfied with the impression made upon the sense of sight by the +colors merely? No one, surely. Yet so soon as we look, so as to +discriminate between the outlines, to observe the relationship of +figure to figure, we are indulging in intellectual exercise. If this +be a condition precedent to the enjoyment of a picture (and it plainly +is), how much more so is it in the case of music, which is intangible +and evanescent, which cannot pause a moment for our contemplation +without ceasing to be? + +[Sidenote: _Comparison with a model not possible._] + +There is another reason why we must exercise intelligence in +listening, to which I have already alluded in the first chapter. Our +appreciation of beauty in the plastic arts is helped by the +circumstance that the critical activity is largely a matter of +comparison. Is the picture or the statue a good copy of the object +sought to be represented? Such comparison fails us utterly in music, +which copies nothing that is tangibly present in the external world. + +[Sidenote: _What degree of knowledge is necessary?_] + +[Sidenote: _The Elements._] + +[Sidenote: _Value of memory._] + +It is then necessary to associate the intellect with sense perception +in listening to music. How far is it essential that the intellectual +process shall go? This book being for the untrained, the question +might be put thus: With how little knowledge of the science can an +intelligent listener get along? We are concerned only with his +enjoyment of music or, better, with an effort to increase it without +asking him to become a musician. If he is fond of the art it is more +than likely that the capacity to discriminate sufficiently to +recognize the elements out of which music is made has come to him +intuitively. Does he recognize that musical tones are related to each +other in respect of time and pitch? Then it shall not be difficult for +him to recognize the three elements on which music rests--Melody, +Harmony, and Rhythm. Can he recognize them with sufficient +distinctness to seize upon their manifestations while music is +sounding? Then memory shall come to the aid of discrimination, and he +shall be able to appreciate enough of design to point the way to a +true and lofty appreciation of the beautiful in music. The value of +memory is for obvious reasons very great in musical enjoyment. The +picture remains upon the wall, the book upon the library shelf. If we +have failed to grasp a detail at the first glance or reading, we need +but turn again to the picture or open the book anew. We may see the +picture in a changed light, or read the poem in a different mood, but +the outlines, colors, ideas are fixed for frequent and patient +perusal. Music goes out of existence with every performance, and must +be recreated at every hearing. + +[Sidenote: _An intermediary necessary._] + +Not only that, but in the case of all, so far as some forms are +concerned, and of all who are not practitioners in others, it is +necessary that there shall be an intermediary between the composer and +the listener. The written or printed notes are not music; they are +only signs which indicate to the performer what to do to call tones +into existence such as the composer had combined into an art-work in +his mind. The broadly trained musician can read the symbols; they stir +his imagination, and he hears the music in his imagination as the +composer heard it. But the untaught music-lover alone can get nothing +from the printed page; he must needs wait till some one else shall +again waken for him the + + "Sound of a voice that is still." + +[Sidenote: _The value of memory._] + +This is one of the drawbacks which are bound up in the nature of +music; but it has ample compensation in the unusual pleasure which +memory brings. In the case of the best music, familiarity breeds +ever-growing admiration. New compositions are slowly received; they +make their way to popular appreciation only by repeated performances; +the people like best the songs as well as the symphonies which they +know. The quicker, therefore, that we are in recognizing the melodic, +harmonic, and rhythmic contents of a new composition, and the more apt +our memory in seizing upon them for the operation of the fancy, the +greater shall be our pleasure. + +[Sidenote: _Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm._] + +[Sidenote: _Comprehensiveness of Melody._] + +In simple phrase Melody is a well-ordered series of tones heard +successively; Harmony, a well-ordered series heard simultaneously; +Rhythm, a symmetrical grouping of tonal time units vitalized by +accent. The life-blood of music is Melody, and a complete conception +of the term embodies within itself the essence of both its companions. +A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect +element in music; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic +regulation but are void of rhythm. The beauty and expressiveness, +especially the emotionality, of a musical composition depend upon the +harmonies which either accompany the melody in the form of chords (a +group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously), or are latent in +the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively). Melody is +Harmony analyzed; Harmony is Melody synthetized. + +[Sidenote: _Repetition._] + +[Sidenote: _A melody analyzed._] + +The fundamental principle of Form is repetition of melodies, which are +to music what ideas are to poetry. Melodies themselves are made by +repetition of smaller fractions called motives (a term borrowed from +the fine arts), phrases, and periods, which derive their individuality +from their rhythmical or intervallic characteristics. Melodies are +not all of the simple kind which the musically illiterate, or the +musically ill-trained, recognize as "tunes," but they all have a +symmetrical organization. The dissection of a simple folk-tune may +serve to make this plain and also indicate to the untrained how a +single feature may be taken as a mark of identification and a +holding-point for the memory. Here is the melody of a Creole song +called sometimes _Pov' piti Lolotte_, sometimes _Pov' piti Momzelle +Zizi_, in the patois of Louisiana and Martinique: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Motives, phrases, and periods._] + +It will be as apparent to the eye of one who cannot read music as it +will to his ear when he hears this melody played, that it is built up +of two groups of notes only. These groups are marked off by the heavy +lines across the staff called bars, whose purpose it is to indicate +rhythmical subdivisions in music. The second, third, fifth, sixth, and +seventh of these groups are repetitions merely of the first group, +which is the germ of the melody, but on different degrees of the +scale; the fourth and eighth groups are identical and are an appendage +hitched to the first group for the purpose of bringing it to a close, +supplying a resting-point craved by man's innate sense of symmetry. +Musicians call such groups cadences. A musical analyst would call each +group a motive, and say that each successive two groups, beginning +with the first, constitute a phrase, each two phrases a period, and +the two periods a melody. We have therefore in this innocent Creole +tune eight motives, four phrases, and two periods; yet its material is +summed up in two groups, one of seven notes, one of five, which only +need to be identified and remembered to enable a listener to recognize +something of the design of a composer if he were to put the melody to +the highest purposes that melody can be put in the art of musical +composition. + +[Sidenote: _Repetition in music._] + +Repetition is the constructive principle which was employed by the +folk-musician in creating this melody; and repetition is the +fundamental principle in all musical construction. It will suffice for +many merely to be reminded of this to appreciate the fact that while +the exercise of memory is a most necessary activity in listening to +music, it lies in music to make that exercise easy. There is +repetition of motives, phrases, and periods in melody; repetition of +melodies in parts; and repetition of parts in the wholes of the larger +forms. + +[Sidenote: _Repetition in poetry._] + +The beginnings of poetic forms are also found in repetition; in +primitive poetry it is exemplified in the refrain or burden, in the +highly developed poetry of the Hebrews in parallelism. The Psalmist +wrote: + + "O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, + Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure." + +[Sidenote: _Key relationship._] + +Here is a period of two members, the latter repeating the thought of +the former. A musical analyst might find in it an admirable analogue +for the first period of a simple melody. He would divide it into four +motives: "Rebuke me not | in thy wrath | neither chasten me | in thy +hot displeasure," and point out as intimate a relationship between +them as exists in the Creole tune. The bond of union between the +motives of the melody as well as that in the poetry illustrates a +principle of beauty which is the most important element in musical +design after repetition, which is its necessary vehicle. It is because +this principle guides the repetition of the tone-groups that together +they form a melody that is perfect, satisfying, and reposeful. It is +the principle of key-relationship, to discuss which fully would carry +me farther into musical science than I am permitted to go. Let this +suffice: A harmony is latent in each group, and the sequence of groups +is such a sequence as the experience of ages has demonstrated to be +most agreeable to the ear. + +[Sidenote: _The rhythmical stamp._] + +[Sidenote: _The principle of Unity._] + +In the case of the Creole melody the listener is helped to a quick +appreciation of its form by the distinct physiognomy which rhythm has +stamped upon it; and it is by noting such a characteristic that the +memory can best be aided in its work of identification. It is not +necessary for a listener to follow all the processes of a composer in +order to enjoy his music, but if he cultivates the habit of following +the principal themes through a work of the higher class he will not +only enjoy the pleasures of memory but will frequently get a glimpse +into the composer's purposes which will stimulate his imagination and +mightily increase his enjoyment. There is nothing can guide him more +surely to a recognition of the principle of unity, which makes a +symphony to be an organic whole instead of a group of pieces which are +only externally related. The greatest exemplar of this principle is +Beethoven; and his music is the best in which to study it for the +reason that he so frequently employs material signs for the spiritual +bond. So forcibly has this been impressed upon me at times that I am +almost willing to believe that a keen analytical student of his music +might arrange his greater works into groups of such as were in process +of composition at the same time without reference to his personal +history. Take the principal theme of the C minor Symphony for example: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _A rhythmical motive pursued._] + +This simple, but marvellously pregnant, motive is not only the kernel +of the first movement, it is the fundamental thought of the whole +symphony. We hear its persistent beat in the scherzo as well: + +[Music illustration] + +and also in the last movement: + +[Music illustration] + +More than this, we find the motive haunting the first movement of the +pianoforte sonata in F minor, op. 57, known as the "Sonata +Appassionata," now gloomily, almost morosely, proclamative in the +bass, now interrogative in the treble: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Relationships in Beethoven's works._] + +[Sidenote: _The C minor Symphony and "Appassionata" sonata._] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's G major Concerto._] + +Schindler relates that when once he asked Beethoven to tell him what +the F minor and the D minor (Op. 31, No. 2) sonatas meant, he received +for an answer only the enigmatical remark: "Read Shakespeare's +'Tempest.'" Many a student and commentator has since read the +"Tempest" in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents +which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly +associated, only to find himself baffled. It is a fancy, which rests +perhaps too much on outward things, but still one full of suggestion, +that had Beethoven said: "Hear my C minor Symphony," he would have +given a better starting-point to the imagination of those who are +seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means +music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those +psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more +to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship +of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the +word tempests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven +himself said indicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the +door of human existence, is common to two works which are also related +in their spiritual contents. Singularly enough, too, in both cases the +struggle which is begun in the first movement and continued in the +third, is interrupted by a period of calm reassuring, soul-fortifying +aspiration, which in the symphony as well as in the sonata takes the +form of a theme with variations. Here, then, the recognition of a +simple rhythmical figure has helped us to an appreciation of the +spiritual unity of the parts of a symphony, and provided a commentary +on the poetical contents of a sonata. But the lesson is not yet +exhausted. Again do we find the rhythm coloring the first movement of +the pianoforte concerto in G major: + +[Music illustration] + +Symphony, concerto, and sonata, as the sketch-books of the master +show, were in process of creation at the same time. + +[Sidenote: _His Seventh Symphony._] + +Thus far we have been helped in identifying a melody and studying +relationships by the rhythmical structure of a single motive. The +demonstration might be extended on the same line into Beethoven's +symphony in A major, in which the external sign of the poetical idea +which underlies the whole work is also rhythmic--so markedly so that +Wagner characterized it most happily and truthfully when he said that +it was "the apotheosis of the dance." Here it is the dactyl, [dactyl +symbol], which in one variation, or another, clings to us almost as +persistently as in Hood's "Bridge of Sighs:" + + "One more unfortunate + Weary of breath, + Rashly importunate, + Gone to her death." + +[Sidenote: _Use of a dactylic figure._] + +We hear it lightly tripping in the first movement: + +[Music illustration] and [Music illustration]; + +gentle, sedate, tender, measured, through its combination with a +spondee in the second: + +[Music illustration]; + +cheerily, merrily, jocosely happy in the Scherzo: + +[Music illustration]; + +hymn-like in the Trio: + +[Music illustration] + +and wildly bacchanalian when subjected to trochaic abbreviation in the +Finale: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Intervallic characteristics._] + +Intervallic characteristics may place the badge of relationship upon +melodies as distinctly as rhythmic. There is no more perfect +illustration of this than that afforded by Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. +Speaking of the subject of its finale, Sir George Grove says: + + "And note--while listening to the simple tune itself, before + the variations begin--how _very_ simple it is; the plain + diatonic scale, not a single chromatic interval, and out of + fifty-six notes only three not consecutive."[A] + +[Sidenote: _The melodies in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony._] + +Earlier in the same work, while combating a statement by Lenz that the +resemblance between the second subject of the first movement and the +choral melody is a "thematic reference of the most striking +importance, vindicating the unity of the entire work, and placing the +whole in a perfectly new light," Sir George says: + + "It is, however, very remarkable that so many of the + melodies in the Symphony should consist of consecutive + notes, and that in no less than four of them the notes + should run up a portion of the scale and down + again--apparently pointing to a consistent condition of + Beethoven's mind throughout this work." + +[Sidenote: _Melodic likenesses._] + +Like Goethe, Beethoven secreted many a mystery in his masterpiece, but +he did not juggle idly with tones, or select the themes of his +symphonies at hap-hazard; he would be open to the charge, however, if +the resemblances which I have pointed out in the Fifth and Seventh +Symphonies, and those disclosed by the following melodies from his +Ninth, should turn out through some incomprehensible revelation to be +mere coincidences: + +From the first movement: + +[Music illustration] + +From the second: + +[Music illustration] + +The choral melody: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Design and Form._] + +From a recognition of the beginnings of design, to which +identification of the composer's thematic material and its simpler +relationships will lead, to so much knowledge of Form as will enable +the reader to understand the later chapters in this book, is but a +step. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," p. 374. + + + + +III + +_The Content and Kinds of Music_ + + +[Sidenote: _Metaphysics to be avoided herein._] + +Bearing in mind the purpose of this book, I shall not ask the reader +to accompany me far afield in the region of aesthetic philosophy or +musical metaphysics. A short excursion is all that is necessary to +make plain what is meant by such terms as Absolute music, Programme +music, Classical, Romantic, and Chamber music and the like, which not +only confront us continually in discussion, but stand for things which +we must know if we would read programmes understandingly and +appreciate the various phases in which music presents itself to us. It +is interesting and valuable to know why an art-work stirs up +pleasurable feelings within us, and to speculate upon its relations to +the intellect and the emotions; but the circumstance that +philosophers have never agreed, and probably never will agree, on +these points, so far as the art of music is concerned, alone suffices +to remove them from the field of this discussion. + +[Sidenote: _Personal equation in judgment._] + +Intelligent listening is not conditioned upon such knowledge. Even +when the study is begun, the questions whether or not music has a +content beyond itself, where that content is to be sought, and how +defined, will be decided in each case by the student for himself, on +grounds which may be said to be as much in his nature as they are in +the argument. The attitude of man toward the art is an individual one, +and in some of its aspects defies explanation. + +[Sidenote: _A musical fluid._] + +The amount and kind of pleasure which music gives him are frequently +as much beyond his understanding and control as they are beyond the +understanding and control of the man who sits beside him. They are +consequences of just that particular combination of material and +spiritual elements, just that blending of muscular, nervous, and +cerebral tissues, which make him what he is, which segregate him as +an individual from the mass of humanity. We speak of persons as +susceptible or insusceptible to music as we speak of good and poor +conductors of electricity; and the analogy implied here is +particularly apt and striking. If we were still using the scientific +terms of a few decades ago I should say that a musical fluid might yet +be discovered and its laws correlated with those of heat, light, and +electricity. Like them, when reduced to its lowest terms, music is a +form of motion, and it should not be difficult on this analogy to +construct a theory which would account for the physical phenomena +which accompany the hearing of music in some persons, such as the +recession of blood from the face, or an equally sudden suffusion of +the same veins, a contraction of the scalp accompanied by chilliness +or a prickling sensation, or that roughness of the skin called +goose-flesh, "flesh moved by an idea, flesh horripilated by a +thought." + +[Sidenote: _Origin of musical elements._] + +[Sidenote: _Feelings and counterpoint._] + +It has been denied that feelings are the content of music, or that it +is the mission of music to give expression to feelings; but the +scientific fact remains that the fundamental elements of vocal +music--pitch, quality, and dynamic intensity--are the results of +feelings working upon the vocal organs; and even if Mr. Herbert +Spencer's theory be rejected, it is too late now to deny that music is +conceived by its creators as a language of the emotions and so applied +by them. The German philosopher Herbarth sought to reduce the question +to an absurdity by expressing surprise that musicians should still +believe that feelings could be "the proximate cause of the rules of +simple and double counterpoint;" but Dr. Stainer found a sufficient +answer by accepting the proposition as put, and directing attention to +the fact that the feelings of men having first decided what was +pleasurable in polyphony, and the rules of counterpoint having +afterward been drawn from specimens of pleasurable polyphony, it was +entirely correct to say that feelings are the proximate cause of the +laws of counterpoint. + +[Sidenote: _How composers hear music._] + +It is because so many of us have been taught by poets and romancers to +think that there is a picture of some kind, or a story in every piece +of music, and find ourselves unable to agree upon the picture or the +story in any given case, that confusion is so prevalent among the +musical laity. Composers seldom find difficulty in understanding each +other. They listen for beauty, and if they find it they look for the +causes which have produced it, and in apprehending beauty and +recognizing means and cause they unvolitionally rise to the plane +whence a view of the composer's purposes is clear. Having grasped the +mood of a composition and found that it is being sustained or varied +in a manner accordant with their conceptions of beauty, they occupy +themselves with another kind of differentiation altogether than the +misled disciples of the musical rhapsodists who overlook the general +design and miss the grand proclamation in their search for petty +suggestions for pictures and stories among the details of the +composition. Let musicians testify for us. In his romance, "Ein +Gluecklicher Abend," Wagner says: + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's axiom._] + + "That which music expresses is eternal and ideal. It does + not give voice to the passion, the love, the longing of this + or the other individual, under these or the other + circumstances, but to passion, love, longing itself." + +Moritz Hauptmann says: + +[Sidenote: _Hauptmann's._] + + "The same music will admit of the most varied verbal + expositions, and of not one of them can it be correctly said + that it is exhaustive, the right one, and contains the whole + significance of the music. This significance is contained + most definitely in the music itself. It is not music that is + ambiguous; it says the same thing to everybody; it speaks to + mankind and gives voice only to human feelings. Ambiguity + only then makes its appearance when each person attempts to + formulate in his manner the emotional impression which he + has received, when he attempts to fix and hold the ethereal + essence of music, to utter the unutterable." + +[Sidenote: _Mendelssohn's._] + +[Sidenote: _The "Songs without Words."_] + +Mendelssohn inculcated the same lesson in a letter which he wrote to a +young poet who had given titles to a number of the composer's "Songs +Without Words," and incorporated what he conceived to be their +sentiments in a set of poems. He sent his work to Mendelssohn with the +request that the composer inform the writer whether or not he had +succeeded in catching the meaning of the music. He desired the +information because "music's capacity for expression is so vague and +indeterminate." Mendelssohn replied: + + "You give the various numbers of the book such titles as 'I + Think of Thee,' 'Melancholy,' 'The Praise of God,' 'A Merry + Hunt.' I can scarcely say whether I thought of these or + other things while composing the music. Another might find + 'I Think of Thee' where you find 'Melancholy,' and a real + huntsman might consider 'A Merry Hunt' a veritable 'Praise + of God.' But this is not because, as you think, music is + vague. On the contrary, I believe that musical expression is + altogether too definite, that it reaches regions and dwells + in them whither words cannot follow it and must necessarily + go lame when they make the attempt as you would have them + do." + +[Sidenote: _The tonal language._] + +[Sidenote: _Herbert Spencer's definition._] + +[Sidenote: _Natural expression._] + +[Sidenote: _Absolute music._] + +If I were to try to say why musicians, great musicians, speak thus of +their art, my explanation would be that they have developed, farther +than the rest of mankind have been able to develop it, a language of +tones, which, had it been so willed, might have been developed so as +to fill the place now occupied by articulate speech. Herbert Spencer, +though speaking purely as a scientific investigator, not at all as an +artist, defined music as "a language of feelings which may ultimately +enable men vividly and completely to impress on each other the +emotions they experience from moment to moment." We rely upon speech +to do this now, but ever and anon when, in a moment of emotional +exaltation, we are deserted by the articulate word we revert to the +emotional cry which antedates speech, and find that that cry is +universally understood because it is universally felt. More than +speech, if its primitive element of emotionality be omitted, more than +the primitive language of gesture, music is a natural mode of +expression. All three forms have attained their present stage of +development through conventions. Articulate speech has led in the +development; gesture once occupied a high plane (in the pantomimic +dance of the ancients) but has now retrograded; music, supreme at the +outset, then neglected, is but now pushing forward into the place +which its nature entitles it to occupy. When we conceive of an +art-work composed of such elements, and foregoing the adventitious +helps which may accrue to it from conventional idioms based on +association of ideas, we have before us the concept of Absolute music, +whose content, like that of every noble artistic composition, be it of +tones or forms or colors or thoughts expressed in words, is that high +ideal of goodness, truthfulness, and beauty for which all lofty +imaginations strive. Such artworks are the instrumental compositions +in the classic forms; such, too, may be said to be the high type of +idealized "Programme" music, which, like the "Pastoral" symphony of +Beethoven, is designed to awaken emotions like those awakened by the +contemplation of things, but does not attempt to depict the things +themselves. Having mentioned Programme music I must, of course, try to +tell what it is; but the exposition must be preceded by an explanation +of a kind of music which, because of its chastity, is set down as the +finest form of absolute music. This is Chamber music. + +[Sidenote: _Chamber music._] + +[Sidenote: _History of the term._] + +[Sidenote: _Haydn a servant._] + +In a broad sense, but one not employed in modern definition, Chamber +music is all music not designed for performance in the church or +theatre. (Out-of-door music cannot be considered among these artistic +forms of aristocratic descent.) Once, and indeed at the time of its +invention, the term meant music designed especially for the +delectation of the most eminent patrons of the art--the kings and +nobles whose love for it gave it maintenance and encouragement. This +is implied by the term itself, which has the same etymology wherever +the form of music is cultivated. In Italian it is _Musica da Camera_; +in French, _Musique de Chambre_; in German, _Kammermusik_. All the +terms have a common root. The Greek [Greek: kamara] signified an arch, +a vaulted room, or a covered wagon. In the time of the Frankish kings +the word was applied to the room in the royal palace in which the +monarch's private property was kept, and in which he looked after his +private affairs. When royalty took up the cultivation of music it was +as a private, not as a court, function, and the concerts given for +the entertainment of the royal family took place in the king's +chamber, or private room. The musicians were nothing more nor less +than servants in the royal household. This relationship endured into +the present century. Haydn was a _Hausofficier_ of Prince Esterhazy. +As vice-chapelmaster he had to appear every morning in the Prince's +ante-room to receive orders concerning the dinner-music and other +entertainments of the day, and in the certificate of appointment his +conduct is regulated with a particularity which we, who remember him +and reverence his genius but have forgotten his master, think +humiliating in the extreme. + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's Chamber music._] + +Out of this cultivation of music in the private chamber grew the +characteristics of Chamber music, which we must consider if we would +enjoy it ourselves and understand the great reverence which the great +masters of music have always felt for it. Beethoven was the first +great democrat among musicians. He would have none of the shackles +which his predecessors wore, and compelled aristocracy of birth to bow +to aristocracy of genius. But such was his reverence for the style of +music which had grown up in the chambers of the great that he devoted +the last three years of his life almost exclusively to its +composition; the peroration of his proclamation to mankind consists of +his last quartets--the holiest of holy things to the Chamber musicians +of to-day. + +[Sidenote: _The characteristics of Chamber music._] + +Chamber music represents pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep +learning. These attributes are encouraged by the idea of privacy which +is inseparable from the form. Composers find it the finest field for +the display of their talents because their own skill in creating is to +be paired with trained skill in hearing. Its representative pieces are +written for strings alone--trios, quartets, and quintets. With the +strings are sometimes associated a pianoforte, or one or more of the +solo wind instruments--oboe, clarinet, or French horn; and as a rule +the compositions adhere to classical lines (see Chapter V.). Of +necessity the modesty of the apparatus compels it to forego nearly +all the adventitious helps with which other forms of composition gain +public approval. In the delineative arts Chamber music shows analogy +with correct drawing and good composition, the absence of which cannot +be atoned for by the most gorgeous coloring. In no other style is +sympathy between performers and listeners so necessary, and for that +reason Chamber music should always be heard in a small room with +performers and listeners joined in angelic wedlock. Communities in +which it flourishes under such conditions are musical. + +[Sidenote: _Programme music._] + +[Sidenote: _The value of superscriptions._] + +[Sidenote: _The rule of judgment._] + +Properly speaking, the term Programme music ought to be applied only +to instrumental compositions which make a frank effort to depict +scenes, incidents, or emotional processes to which the composer +himself gives the clew either by means of a descriptive title or a +verbal motto. It is unfortunate that the term has come to be loosely +used. In a high sense the purest and best music in the world is +programmatic, its programme being, as I have said, that "high ideal of +goodness, truthfulness, and beauty" which is the content of all true +art. But the origin of the term was vulgar, and the most contemptible +piece of tonal imitation now claims kinship in the popular mind with +the exquisitely poetical creations of Schumann and the "Pastoral" +symphony of Beethoven; and so it is become necessary to defend it in +the case of noble compositions. A programme is not necessarily, as +Ambros asserts, a certificate of poverty and an admission on the part +of the composer that his art has got beyond its natural bounds. +Whether it be merely a suggestive title, as in the case of some of the +compositions of Beethoven, Schumann, and Mendelssohn, or an extended +commentary, as in the symphonic poems of Liszt and the symphonies of +Berlioz and Raff, the programme has a distinct value to the composer +as well as the hearer. It can make the perceptive sense more +impressible to the influence of the music; it can quicken the fancy, +and fire the imagination; it can prevent a gross misconception of the +intentions of a composer and the character of his composition. +Nevertheless, in determining the artistic value of the work, the +question goes not to the ingenuity of the programme or the clearness +with which its suggestions have been carried out, but to the beauty of +the music itself irrespective of the verbal commentary accompanying +it. This rule must be maintained in order to prevent a degradation of +the object of musical expression. The vile, the ugly, the painful are +not fit subjects for music; music renounces, contravenes, negatives +itself when it attempts their delineation. + +A classification of Programme music might be made on these lines: + +[Sidenote: _Kinds of Programme music._] + +I. Descriptive pieces which rest on imitation or suggestion of natural +sounds. + +II. Pieces whose contents are purely musical, but the mood of which is +suggested by a poetical title. + +III. Pieces in which the influence which determined their form and +development is indicated not only by a title but also by a motto which +is relied upon to mark out a train of thought for the listener which +will bring his fancy into union with that of the composer. The motto +may be verbal or pictorial. + +IV. Symphonies or other composite works which have a title to indicate +their general character, supplemented by explanatory superscriptions +for each portion. + +[Sidenote: _Imitation of natural sounds._] + +[Sidenote: _The nightingale._] + +[Sidenote: _The cat._] + +[Sidenote: _The cuckoo._] + +The first of these divisions rests upon the employment of the lowest +form of conventional musical idiom. The material which the natural +world provides for imitation by the musician is exceedingly scant. +Unless we descend to mere noise, as in the descriptions of storms and +battles (the shrieking of the wind, the crashing of thunder, and the +roar of artillery--invaluable aids to the cheap descriptive writer), +we have little else than the calls of a few birds. Nearly thirty years +ago Wilhelm Tappert wrote an essay which he called "Zooplastik in +Toenen." He ransacked the musical literature of centuries, but in all +his examples the only animals the voices of which are unmistakable are +four fowls--the cuckoo, quail (that is the German bird, not the +American, which has a different call), the cock, and the hen. He has +many descriptive sounds which suggest other birds and beasts, but only +by association of idea; separated from title or text they suggest +merely what they are--musical phrases. A reiteration of the rhythmical +figure called the "Scotch snap," breaking gradually into a trill, is +the common symbol of the nightingale's song, but it is not a copy of +that song; three or four tones descending chromatically are given as +the cat's mew, but they are made to be such only by placing the +syllables _Mi-au_ (taken from the vocabulary of the German cat) under +them. Instances of this kind might be called characterization, or +description by suggestion, and some of the best composers have made +use of them, as will appear in these pages presently. The list being +so small, and the lesson taught so large, it may be well to give a few +striking instances of absolutely imitative music. The first bird to +collaborate with a composer seems to have been the cuckoo, whose notes + +[Music illustration: Cuck-oo!] + +had sounded in many a folk-song ere Beethoven thought of enlisting the +little solo performer in his "Pastoral" symphony. It is to be borne in +mind, however, as a fact having some bearing on the artistic value of +Programme music, that Beethoven's cuckoo changes his note to please +the musician, and, instead of singing a minor third, he sings a major +third thus: + +[Music illustration: Cuck-oo!] + +[Sidenote: _Cock and hen._] + +As long ago as 1688 Jacob Walter wrote a musical piece entitled +"Gallina et Gallo," in which the hen was delineated in this theme: + +[Music illustration: _Gallina._] + +while the cock had the upper voice in the following example, his clear +challenge sounding above the cackling of his mate: + +[Music illustration: _Gallo._] + +The most effective use yet made of the song of the hen, however, is in +"La Poule," one of Rameau's "Pieces de Clavecin," printed in 1736, a +delightful composition with this subject: + +[Music illustration: Co co co co co co co dai, etc.] + +[Sidenote: _The quail._] + +The quail's song is merely a monotonic rhythmical figure to which +German fancy has fitted words of pious admonition: + +[Music illustration: Fuerch-te Gott! Lo-be Gott!] + +[Sidenote: _Conventional idioms._] + +[Sidenote: _Association of ideas._] + +[Sidenote: _Fancy and imagination._] + +[Sidenote: _Harmony and emotionality._] + +The paucity of examples in this department is a demonstration of the +statement made elsewhere that nature does not provide music with +models for imitation as it does painting and sculpture. The fact that, +nevertheless, we have come to recognize a large number of idioms based +on association of ideas stands the composer in good stead whenever he +ventures into the domain of delineative or descriptive music, and this +he can do without becoming crudely imitative. Repeated experiences +have taught us to recognize resemblances between sequences or +combinations of tones and things or ideas, and on these analogies, +even though they be purely conventional (that is agreed upon, as we +have agreed that a nod of the head shall convey assent, a shake of the +head dissent, and a shrug of the shoulders doubt or indifference), the +composers have built up a voluminous vocabulary of idioms which need +only to be helped out by a suggestion to the mind to be eloquently +illustrative. "Sometimes hearing a melody or harmony arouses an +emotion like that aroused by the contemplation of a thing. Minor +harmonies, slow movements, dark tonal colorings, combine directly to +put a musically susceptible person in a mood congenial to thoughts of +sorrow and death; and, inversely, the experience of sorrow, or the +contemplation of death, creates affinity for minor harmonies, slow +movements, and dark tonal colorings. Or we recognize attributes in +music possessed also by things, and we consort the music and the +things, external attributes bringing descriptive music into play, +which excites the fancy, internal attributes calling for an exercise +of the loftier faculty, imagination, to discern their meaning."[B] The +latter kind is delineative music of the higher order, the kind that I +have called idealized programme music, for it is the imagination +which, as Ruskin has said, "sees the heart and inner nature and makes +them felt, but is often obscure, mysterious, and interrupted in its +giving out of outer detail," which is "a seer in the prophetic sense, +calling the things that are not as though they were, and forever +delighting to dwell on that which is not tangibly present." In this +kind of music, harmony, the real seat of emotionality in music, is an +eloquent factor, and, indeed, there is no greater mystery in the art, +which is full of mystery, than the fact that the lowering of the +second tone in the chord, which is the starting-point of harmony, +should change an expression of satisfaction, energetic action, or +jubilation into an accent of pain or sorrow. The major mode is "to +do," the minor, "to suffer:" + +[Sidenote: _Major and minor._] + +[Music illustration: Hur-rah! A-las!] + +[Sidenote: _Music and movement._] + +How near a large number of suggestions, which are based wholly upon +experience or association of ideas, lie to the popular fancy, might be +illustrated by scores of examples. Thoughts of religious functions +arise in us the moment we hear the trombones intone a solemn phrase in +full harmony; an oboe melody in sixth-eighth time over a drone bass +brings up a pastoral picture of a shepherd playing upon his pipe; +trumpets and drums suggest war, and so on. The delineation of +movement is easier to the musician than it is to the poet. Handel, who +has conveyed the sensation of a "darkness which might be felt," in a +chorus of his "Israel in Egypt," by means which appeal solely to the +imagination stirred by feelings, has in the same work pictured the +plague of frogs with a frank _naivete_ which almost upsets our +seriousness of demeanor, by suggesting the characteristic movement of +the creatures in the instrumental accompaniment to the arioso, "Their +land brought forth frogs," which begins thus: + +[Sidenote: _Handel's frogs._] + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The movement of water._] + +We find the gentle flux and reflux of water as if it were lapping a +rocky shore in the exquisite figure out of which Mendelssohn +constructed his "Hebrides" overture: + +[Music illustration] + +and in fancy we ride on mighty surges when we listen to the principal +subject of Rubinstein's "Ocean" symphony: + +[Music illustration] + +In none of these instances can the composer be said to be imitative. +Music cannot copy water, but it can do what water does, and so suggest +water. + +[Sidenote: _High and low._] + +Some of the most common devices of composers are based on conceptions +that are wholly arbitrary. A musical tone cannot have position in +space such as is indicated by high or low, yet so familiar is the +association of acuteness of pitch with height, and gravity of pitch +with depth, that composers continually delineate high things with +acute tones and low things with grave tones, as witness Handel in one +of the choruses of "The Messiah:" + +[Music illustration: Glo-ry to God in the high-est, and peace on +earth.] + +[Sidenote: _Ascent, descent, and distance delineated._] + +Similarly, too, does Beethoven describe the ascent into heaven and the +descent into hell in the Credo of his mass in D. Beethoven's music, +indeed, is full of tone-painting, and because it exemplifies a double +device I make room for one more illustration. It is from the cantata +"Becalmed at Sea, and a Prosperous Voyage," and in it the composer +pictures the immensity of the sea by a sudden, extraordinary spreading +out of his harmonies, which is musical, and dwelling a long time on +the word "distance" (_Weite_) which is rhetorical: + +[Music illustration: In der un-ge-heu-'ren Wei-te.] + +[Sidenote: _Bald imitation bad art._] + +[Sidenote: _Vocal music and delineation._] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's canon._] + +The extent to which tone-painting is justified is a question which +might profitably concern us; but such a discussion as it deserves +would far exceed the limits set for this book, and must be foregone. +It cannot be too forcibly urged, however, as an aid to the listener, +that efforts at musical cartooning have never been made by true +composers, and that in the degree that music attempts simply to copy +external things it falls in the scale of artistic truthfulness and +value. Vocal music tolerates more of the descriptive element than +instrumental because it is a mixed art; in it the purpose of music is +to illustrate the poetry and, by intensifying the appeal to the fancy, +to warm the emotions. Every piece of vocal music, moreover, carries +its explanatory programme in its words. Still more tolerable and even +righteous is it in the opera where it is but one of several factors +which labor together to make up the sum of dramatic representation. +But it must ever remain valueless unless it be idealized. Mendelssohn, +desiring to put _Bully Bottom_ into the overture to "A Midsummer +Night's Dream," did not hesitate to use tones which suggest the bray +of a donkey, yet the effect, like Handel's frogs and flies in +"Israel," is one of absolute musical value. The canon which ought +continually to be before the mind of the listener is that which +Beethoven laid down with most painstaking care when he wrote the +"Pastoral" symphony. Desiring to inform the listeners what were the +images which inspired the various movements (in order, of course, that +they might the better enter into the work by recalling them), he gave +each part a superscription thus: + +[Sidenote: _The "Pastoral" symphony._] + + I. "The agreeable and cheerful sensations awakened by + arrival in the country." + + II. "Scene by the brook." + + III. "A merrymaking of the country folk." + + IV. "Thunder-storm." + + V. "Shepherds' song--feelings of charity combined with + gratitude to the Deity after the storm." + +In the title itself he included an admonitory explanation which should +have everlasting validity: "Pastoral Symphony; more expression of +feeling than painting." How seriously he thought on the subject we +know from his sketch-books, in which occur a number of notes, some of +which were evidently hints for superscriptions, some records of his +convictions on the subject of descriptive music. The notes are +reprinted in Nottebohm's "Zweite Beethoveniana," but I borrow Sir +George Grove's translation: + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's notes on descriptive music._] + + "The hearers should be allowed to discover the situations." + + "Sinfonia caracteristica, or a recollection of country + life." + + "All painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a + failure." + + "Sinfonia pastorella. Anyone who has an idea of country life + can make out for himself the intentions of the author + without many titles." + + "People will not require titles to recognize the general + intention to be more a matter of feeling than of painting in + sounds." + + "Pastoral symphony: No picture, but something in which the + emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by the + pleasure of the country (or), in which some feelings of + country life are set forth."[C] + +As to the relation of programme to music Schumann laid down an +admirable maxim when he said that while good music was not harmed by a +descriptive title it was a bad indication if a composition needed one. + +[Sidenote: _Classic and Romantic._] + +There are, among all the terms used in music, no words of vaguer +meaning than Classic and Romantic. The idea which they convey most +widely in conjunction is that of antithesis. When the Romantic School +of composers is discussed it is almost universally presented as +something opposed in character to the Classical School. There is +little harm in this if we but bear in mind that all the terms which +have come into use to describe different phases of musical development +are entirely artificial and arbitrary--that they do not stand for +anything absolute, but only serve as platforms of observation. If the +terms had a fixed meaning we ought to be able, since they have +established themselves in the language of history and criticism, to +describe unambiguously and define clearly the boundary which separates +them. This, however, is impossible. Each generation, nay, each +decade, fixes the meaning of the words for itself and decides what +works shall go into each category. It ought to be possible to discover +a principle, a touchstone, which shall emancipate us from the +mischievous and misleading notions that have so long prompted men to +make the partitions between the schools out of dates and names. + +[Sidenote: _Trench's definition of "classical."_] + +The terms were borrowed from literary criticism; but even there, in +the words of Archbishop Trench, "they either say nothing at all or say +something erroneous." Classical has more to defend it than Romantic, +because it has greater antiquity and, in one sense, has been used with +less arbitrariness. + + "The term," says Trench, "is drawn from the political + economy of Rome. Such a man was rated as to his income in + the third class, such another in the fourth, and so on, and + he who was in the highest was emphatically said to be of the + class, _classicus_, a class man, without adding the number + as in that case superfluous; while all others were _infra + classem_. Hence by an obvious analogy the best authors were + rated as _classici_, or men of the highest class; just as in + English we say 'men of rank' absolutely for men who are in + the highest ranks of the State." + +Thus Trench, and his historical definition, explains why in music also +there is something more than a lurking suggestion of excellence in the +conception of "classical;" but that fact does not put away the quarrel +which we feel exists between Classic and Romantic. + +[Sidenote: _Romantic in literature._] + +[Sidenote: _Schumann and Jean Paul._] + +[Sidenote: _Weber's operas._] + +[Sidenote: _Mendelssohn._] + +As applied to literature Romantic was an adjective affected by certain +poets, first in Germany, then in France, who wished to introduce a +style of thought and expression different from that of those who +followed old models. Intrinsically, of course, the term does not imply +any such opposition but only bears witness to the source from which +the poets drew their inspiration. This was the imaginative literature +of the Middle Ages, the fantastical stories of chivalry and knighthood +written in the Romance, or Romanic languages, such as Italian, +Spanish, and Provencal. The principal elements of these stories were +the marvellous and the supernatural. The composers whose names first +spring into our minds when we think of the Romantic School are men +like Mendelssohn and Schumann, who drew much of their inspiration from +the young writers of their time who were making war on stilted +rhetoric and conventionalism of phrase. Schumann touches hands with +the Romantic poets in their strivings in two directions. His artistic +conduct, especially in his early years, is inexplicable if Jean Paul +be omitted from the equation. His music rebels against the formalism +which had held despotic sway over the art, and also seeks to disclose +the beauty which lies buried in the world of mystery in and around us, +and give expression to the multitude of emotions to which unyielding +formalism had refused adequate utterance. This, I think, is the chief +element of Romanticism. Another has more of an external nature and +genesis, and this we find in the works of such composers as Von Weber, +who is Romantic chiefly in his operas, because of the supernaturalism +and chivalry in their stories, and Mendelssohn, who, while distinctly +Romantic in many of his strivings, was yet so great a master of form, +and so attached to it, that the Romantic side of him was not fully +developed. + +[Sidenote: _A definition of "Classical" in music._] + +[Sidenote: _The creative and conservative principles._] + +[Sidenote: _Musical laws of necessity progressive._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach and Romanticism._] + +[Sidenote: _Creation and conservation._] + +If I were to attempt a definition it would be this: Classical +composers are those of the first rank (to this extent we yield to the +ancient Roman conception) who have developed music to the highest +pitch of perfection on its formal side and, in obedience to generally +accepted laws, preferring aesthetic beauty, pure and simple, over +emotional content, or, at any rate, refusing to sacrifice form to +characteristic expression. Romantic composers are those who have +sought their ideals in other regions and striven to give expression to +them irrespective of the restrictions and limitations of form and the +conventions of law--composers with whom, in brief, content outweighs +manner. This definition presents Classicism as the regulative and +conservative principle in the history of the art, and Romanticism as +the progressive, regenerative, and creative principle. It is easy to +see how the notion of contest between them grew up, and the only harm +which can come from such a notion will ensue only if we shut our eyes +to the fact that it is a contest between two elements whose very +opposition stimulates life, and whose union, perfect, peaceful, +mutually supplemental, is found in every really great art-work. No law +which fixes, and hence limits, form, can remain valid forever. Its end +is served when it enforces itself long enough to keep lawlessness in +check till the test of time has determined what is sound, sweet, and +wholesome in the innovations which are always crowding eagerly into +every creative activity in art and science. In art it is ever true, as +_Faust_ concludes, that "In the beginning was the deed." The laws of +composition are the products of compositions; and, being such, they +cannot remain unalterable so long as the impulse freshly to create +remains. All great men are ahead of their time, and in all great +music, no matter when written, you shall find instances of profounder +meaning and deeper or newer feeling than marked the generality of +contemporary compositions. So Bach frequently floods his formal +utterances with Romantic feeling, and the face of Beethoven, serving +at the altar in the temple of Beauty, is transfigured for us by divine +light. The principles of creation and conservation move onward +together, and what is Romantic to-day becomes Classic to-morrow. +Romanticism is fluid Classicism. It is the emotional stimulus +informing Romanticism which calls music into life, but no sooner is it +born, free, untrammelled, nature's child, than the regulative +principle places shackles upon it; but it is enslaved only that it may +become and remain art. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," p. 22. + +[C] "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," by George Grove, C.B., 2d +ed., p. 191. + + + + +IV + +_The Modern Orchestra_ + + +[Sidenote: _The orchestra as an instrument._] + +[Sidenote: _What may be heard from a band._] + +The most eloquent, potent, and capable instrument of music in the +world is the modern orchestra. It is the instrument whose employment +by the classical composers and the geniuses of the Romantic School in +the middle of our century marks the high tide of the musical art. It +is an instrument, moreover, which is never played upon without giving +a great object-lesson in musical analysis, without inviting the eye to +help the ear to discern the cause of the sounds which ravish our +senses and stir up pleasurable emotions. Yet the popular knowledge of +its constituent parts, of the individual value and mission of the +factors which go to make up its sum, is scarcely greater than the +popular knowledge of the structure of a symphony or sonata. All this +is the more deplorable since at least a rudimentary knowledge of these +things might easily be gained, and in gaining it the student would +find a unique intellectual enjoyment, and have his ears unconsciously +opened to a thousand beauties in the music never perceived before. He +would learn, for instance, to distinguish the characteristic timbre of +each of the instruments in the band; and after that to the delight +found in what may be called the primary colors he would add that which +comes from analyzing the vast number of tints which are the products +of combination. Noting the capacity of the various instruments and the +manner in which they are employed, he would get glimpses into the +mental workshop of the composer. He would discover that there are +conventional means of expression in his art analogous to those in the +other arts; and collating his methods with the effects produced, he +would learn something of the creative artist's purposes. He would find +that while his merely sensuous enjoyment would be left unimpaired, and +the emotional excitement which is a legitimate fruit of musical +performance unchecked, these pleasures would have others consorted +with them. His intellectual faculties would be agreeably excited, and +he would enjoy the pleasures of memory, which are exemplified in music +more delightfully and more frequently than in any other art, because +of the role which repetition of parts plays in musical composition. + +[Sidenote: _Familiar instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _The instrumental choirs._] + +The argument is as valid in the study of musical forms as in the study +of the orchestra, but it is the latter that is our particular business +in this chapter. Everybody listening to an orchestral concert +recognizes the physical forms of the violins, flutes, cornets, and big +drum; but even of these familiar instruments the voices are not always +recognized. As for the rest of the harmonious fraternity, few give +heed to them, even while enjoying the music which they produce; yet +with a few words of direction anybody can study the instruments of the +band at an orchestral concert. Let him first recognize the fact that +to the mind of a composer an orchestra always presents itself as a +combination of four groups of instruments--choirs, let us call them, +with unwilling apology to the lexicographers. These choirs are: first, +the viols of four sorts--violins, violas, violoncellos, and +double-basses, spoken of collectively as the "string quartet;" second, +the wind instruments of wood (the "wood-winds" in the musician's +jargon)--flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons; third, the wind +instruments of brass (the "brass")--trumpets, horns, trombones, and +bass tuba. In all of these subdivisions there are numerous variations +which need not detain us now. A further subdivision might be made in +each with reference to the harmony voices (showing an analogy with the +four voices of a vocal choir--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass); +but to go into this might make the exposition confusing. The fourth +"choir" (here the apology to the lexicographers must be repeated with +much humility and earnestness) consists of the instruments of +percussion--the kettle-drums, big drum, cymbals, triangle, bell chime, +etc. (sometimes spoken of collectively in the United States as "the +battery"). + +[Illustration: SEATING PLAN OF THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY.] + +[Sidenote: _How orchestras are seated._] + +[Sidenote: _Plan of the New York Philharmonic._] + +The disposition of these instruments in our orchestras is largely a +matter of individual taste and judgment in the conductor, though the +general rule is exemplified in the plan given herewith, showing how +Mr. Anton Seidl has arranged the desks for the concerts of the +Philharmonic Society of New York. Mr. Theodore Thomas's arrangement +differed very little from that of Mr. Seidl, the most noticeable +difference being that he placed the viola-players beside the second +violinists, where Mr. Seidl has the violoncellists. Mr. Seidl's +purpose in making the change was to gain an increase in sonority for +the viola part, the position to the right of the stage (the left of +the audience) enabling the viola-players to hold their instruments +with the F-holes toward the listeners instead of away from them. The +relative positions of the harmonious battalions, as a rule, are as +shown in the diagram. In the foreground, the violins, violas, and +'cellos; in the middle distance, the wood-winds; in the background, +the brass and the battery; the double-basses flanking the whole body. +This distribution of forces is dictated by considerations of sonority, +the most assertive instruments--the brass and drums--being placed +farthest from the hearers, and the instruments of the viol tribe, +which are the real backbone of the band and make their effect by a +massing of voices in each part, having the place of honor and greatest +advantage. Of course it is understood that I am speaking of a concert +orchestra. In the case of theatrical or operatic bands the arrangement +of the forces is dependent largely upon the exigencies of space. + +[Sidenote: _Solo instruments._] + +Outside the strings the instruments are treated by composers as solo +instruments, a single flute, oboe, clarinet, or other wind instrument +sometimes doing the same work in the development of the composition as +the entire body of first violins. As a rule, the wood-winds are used +in pairs, the purpose of this being either to fill the harmony when +what I may call the principal thought of the composition is consigned +to a particular choir, or to strengthen a voice by permitting two +instruments to play in unison. + +[Sidenote: _Groupings for harmony effects._] + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's instrumental characterization._] + +[Sidenote: _An instrumental language._] + +Each choir, except the percussion instruments, is capable of playing +in full harmony; and this effect is frequently used by composers. In +"Lohengrin," which for that reason affords to the amateur an admirable +opportunity for orchestral study, Wagner resorts to this device in +some instances for the sake of dramatic characterization. _Elsa_, a +dreamy, melancholy maiden, crushed under the weight of wrongful +accusation, and sustained only by the vision of a seraphic champion +sent by Heaven to espouse her cause, is accompanied on her entrance +and sustained all through her scene of trial by the dulcet tones of +the wood-winds, the oboe most often carrying the melody. _Lohengrin's_ +superterrestrial character as a Knight of the Holy Grail is prefigured +in the harmonies which seem to stream from the violins, and in the +prelude tell of the bringing of the sacred vessel of Christ's passion +to Monsalvat; but in his chivalric character he is greeted by the +militant trumpets in a strain of brilliant puissance and rhythmic +energy. Composers have studied the voices of the instruments so long +and well, and have noted the kind of melodies and harmonies in which +the voices are most effective, that they have formulated what might +almost be called an instrumental language. Though the effective +capacity of each instrument is restricted not only by its mechanics, +but also by the quality of its tones--a melody conceived for one +instrument sometimes becoming utterly inexpressive and unbeautiful by +transferrence to another--the range of effects is extended almost to +infinity by means of combination, or, as a painter might say, by +mixing the colors. The art of writing effectively for instruments in +combination is the art of instrumentation or orchestration, in which +Berlioz and Wagner were Past Grand Masters. + +[Sidenote: _Number of instruments._] + +The number of instruments of each kind in an orchestra may also be +said to depend measurably upon the music, or the use to which the band +is to be put. Neither in instruments nor in numbers is there absolute +identity between a dramatic and a symphonic orchestra. The apparatus +of the former is generally much more varied and complex, because of +the vast development of variety in dramatic expression stimulated by +Wagner. + +[Sidenote: _Symphony and dramatic orchestras._] + +The modern symphony, especially the symphonic poem, shows the +influence of this dramatic tendency, but not in the same degree. A +comparison between model bands in each department will disclose what +is called the normal orchestral organization. For the comparison (see +page 82), I select the bands of the first Wagner Festival held in +Bayreuth in 1876, the Philharmonic Society of New York, the Boston +Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. + +[Sidenote: _Instruments rarely used._] + +Instruments like the corno di bassetto, bass trumpet, tenor tuba, +contra-bass tuba, and contra-bass trombone are so seldom called for in +the music played by concert orchestras that they have no place in +their regular lists. They are employed when needed, however, and the +horns and other instruments are multiplied when desirable effects are +to be obtained by such means. + +[Sidenote: _Orchestras compared._] + + New York +Instruments Bayreuth. Philharmonic. Boston. Chicago. + +First violins 16 18 16 16 +Second violins 16 18 14 16 +Violas 12 14 10 10 +Violoncellos 12 14 8 10 +Double-basses 8 14 8 9 +Flutes 3 3 3 3 +Oboes 3 3 2 3 +English horn 1 1 1 1 +Clarinets 3 3 3 3 +Basset-horn 1 0 0 0 +Bassoons 3 3 3 3 +Trumpets or cornets 3 3 4 4 +Horns 8 4 4 4 +Trombones 3 3 3 3 +Bass trumpet 1 0 0 1 +Tenor tubas 2 0 2 4 +Bass tubas 2 1 2 1 +Contra-bass tuba 1 0 1 0 +Contra-bass trombone 1 0 0 1 +Tympani (pairs) 2 2 2 2 +Bass drum 1 1 1 1 +Cymbals (pairs) 1 1 1 1 +Harps 6 1 1 2 + +[Sidenote: _The string quartet._] + +[Sidenote: _Old laws against instrumentalists._] + +[Sidenote: _Early instrumentation._] + +[Sidenote: _Handel's orchestra._] + +The string quartet, it will be seen, makes up nearly three-fourths of +a well-balanced orchestra. It is the only choir which has numerous +representation of its constituent units. This was not always so, but +is the fruit of development in the art of instrumentation which is the +newest department in music. Vocal music had reached its highest point +before instrumental music made a beginning as an art. The former was +the pampered child of the Church, the latter was long an outlaw. As +late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries instrumentalists were +vagabonds in law, like strolling players. They had none of the rights +of citizenship; the religious sacraments were denied them; their +children were not permitted to inherit property or learn an honourable +trade; and after death the property for which they had toiled +escheated to the crown. After the instruments had achieved the +privilege of artistic utterance, they were for a long time mere +slavish imitators of the human voice. Bach treated them with an +insight into their possibilities which was far in advance of his time, +for which reason he is the most modern composer of the first half of +the eighteenth century; but even in Handel's case the rule was to +treat them chiefly as supports for the voices. He multiplied them just +as he did the voices in his choruses, consorting a choir of oboes and +bassoons, and another of trumpets of almost equal numbers with his +violins. + +[Sidenote: _The modern band._] + +The so-called purists in England talk a great deal about restoring +Handel's orchestra in performances of his oratorios, utterly unmindful +of the fact that to our ears, accustomed to the myriad-hued orchestra +of to-day, the effect would seem opaque, heavy, unbalanced, and +without charm were a band of oboes to play in unison with the violins, +another of bassoons to double the 'cellos, and half a dozen trumpets +to come flaring and crashing into the musical mass at intervals. Gluck +in the opera, and Haydn and Mozart in the symphony, first disclosed +the charm of the modern orchestra with the wind instruments +apportioned to the strings so as to obtain the multitude of tonal +tints which we admire to-day. On the lines which they marked out the +progress has been exceedingly rapid and far-reaching. + +[Sidenote: _Capacity of the orchestra._] + +[Sidenote: _The extremes of range._] + +In the hands of the latter-day Romantic composers, and with the help +of the instrument-makers, who have marvellously increased the capacity +of the wind instruments, and remedied the deficiencies which +embarrassed the Classical writers, the orchestra has developed into an +instrument such as never entered the mind of the wildest dreamer of +the last century. Its range of expression is almost infinite. It can +strike like a thunder-bolt, or murmur like a zephyr. Its voices are +multitudinous. Its register is coextensive in theory with that of the +modern pianoforte, reaching from the space immediately below the sixth +added line under the bass staff to the ninth added line above the +treble staff. These two extremes, which belong respectively to the +bass tuba and piccolo flute, are not at the command of every player, +but they are within the capacity of the instruments, and mark the +orchestra's boundaries in respect of pitch. The gravest note is almost +as deep as any in which the ordinary human ear can detect pitch, and +the acutest reaches the same extremity in the opposite direction. + +[Sidenote: _The viols._] + +[Sidenote: _The violin._] + +With all the changes that have come over the orchestra in the course +of the last two hundred years, the string quartet has remained its +chief factor. Its voice cannot grow monotonous or cloying, for, +besides its innate qualities, it commands a more varied manner of +expression than all the other instruments combined. The viol, which +term I shall use generically to indicate all the instruments of the +quartet, is the only instrument in the band, except the harp, that can +play harmony as well as melody. Its range is the most extensive; it is +more responsive to changes in manipulation; it is endowed more richly +than any other instrument with varieties of timbre; it has an +incomparable facility of execution, and answers more quickly and more +eloquently than any of its companions to the feelings of the player. A +great advantage which the viol possesses over wind instruments is +that, not being dependent on the breath of the player, there is +practically no limit to its ability to sustain tones. It is because +of this long list of good qualities that it is relied on to provide +the staff of life to instrumental music. The strings as commonly used +show four members of the viol family, distinguished among themselves +by their size, and the quality in the changes of tone which grows out +of the differences in size. The violins (Appendix, Plate I.) are the +smallest members of the family. Historically they are the culmination +of a development toward diminutiveness, for in their early days viols +were larger than they are now. When the violin of to-day entered the +orchestra (in the score of Monteverde's opera "Orfeo") it was +specifically described as a "little French violin." Its voice, Berlioz +says, is the "true female voice of the orchestra." Generally the +violin part of an orchestral score is two-voiced, but the two groups +may be split into a great number. In one passage in "Tristan und +Isolde" Wagner divides his first and second violins into sixteen +groups. Such divisions, especially in the higher regions, are +productive of entrancing effects. + +[Sidenote: _Violin effects._] + +[Sidenote: _Pizzicato._] + +[Sidenote: _"Col legno dall'arco."_] + +[Sidenote: _Harmonics._] + +[Sidenote: _Vibrato._] + +[Sidenote: _"Con sordino."_] + +The halo of sound which streams from the beginning and end of the +"Lohengrin" prelude is produced by this device. High and close +harmonies from divided violins always sound ethereal. Besides their +native tone quality (that resulting from a string stretched over a +sounding shell set to vibrating by friction), the violins have a +number of modified qualities resulting from changes in manipulation. +Sometimes the strings are plucked (_pizzicato_), when the result is a +short tone something like that of a banjo with the metallic clang +omitted; very dainty effects can thus be produced, and though it +always seems like a degradation of the instrument so pre-eminently +suited to a broad singing style, no less significant a symphonist than +Tschaikowsky has written a Scherzo in which the violins are played +_pizzicato_ throughout the movement. Ballet composers frequently +resort to the piquant effect, but in the larger and more serious forms +of composition, the device is sparingly used. Differences in quality +and expressiveness of tone are also produced by varied methods of +applying the bow to the strings: with stronger or lighter pressure; +near the bridge, which renders the tone hard and brilliant, and over +the end of the finger-board, which softens it; in a continuous manner +(_legato_), or detached (_staccato_). Weird effects in dramatic music +are sometimes produced by striking the strings with the wood of the +bow, Wagner resorting to this means to delineate the wicked glee of +his dwarf _Mime_, and Meyerbeer to heighten the uncanniness of +_Nelusko's_ wild song in the third act of "L'Africaine." Another class +of effects results from the manner in which the strings are "stopped" +by the fingers of the left hand. When they are not pressed firmly +against the finger-board but touched lightly at certain places called +nodes by the acousticians, so that the segments below the finger are +permitted to vibrate along with the upper portion, those peculiar +tones of a flute-like quality called harmonics or flageolet tones are +produced. These are oftener heard in dramatic music than in +symphonies; but Berlioz, desiring to put Shakespeare's description of +Queen Mab, + + "Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs; + The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; + The traces, of the smallest spider's web; + The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams--" + +into music in his dramatic symphony, "Romeo and Juliet," achieved a +marvellously filmy effect by dividing his violins, and permitting some +of them to play harmonics. Yet so little was his ingenious purpose +suspected when he first brought the symphony forward in Paris, that +one of the critics spoke contemptuously of this effect as sounding +"like an ill-greased syringe." A quivering motion imparted to the +fingers of the left hand in stopping the strings produces a +tremulousness of tone akin to the _vibrato_ of a singer; and, like the +vocal _vibrato_, when not carried to excess, this effect is a potent +expression of sentimental feeling. But it is much abused by solo +players. Another modification of tone is caused by placing a tiny +instrument called a sordino, or mute, upon the bridge. This clamps +the bridge, makes it heavier, and checks the vibrations, so that the +tone is muted or muffled, and at times sounds mysterious. + +[Sidenote: _Pizzicato on the basses._] + +[Sidenote: _Tremolo._] + +These devices, though as a rule they have their maximum of +effectiveness in the violins, are possible also on the violas, +violoncellos, and double-basses, which, as I have already intimated, +are but violins of a larger growth. The _pizzicato_ is, indeed, +oftenest heard from the double-basses, where it has a much greater +eloquence than on the violins. In music of a sombre cast, the short, +deep tones given out by the plucked strings of the contra-bass +sometimes have the awfulness of gigantic heart-throbs. The difficulty +of producing the other effects grows with the increase of difficulty +in handling the instruments, this being due to the growing thickness +of the strings and the wideness of the points at which they must be +stopped. One effect peculiar to them all--the most used of all +effects, indeed, in dramatic music--is the _tremolo_, produced by +dividing a tone into many quickly reiterated short tones by a rapid +motion of the bow. This device came into use with one of the earliest +pieces of dramatic music. It is two centuries old, and was first used +to help in the musical delineation of a combat. With scarcely an +exception, the varied means which I have described can be detected by +those to whom they are not already familiar by watching the players +while listening to the music. + +[Sidenote: _The viola._] + +The viola is next in size to the violin, and is tuned at the interval +of a fifth lower. Its highest string is A, which is the second string +of the violin, and its lowest C. Its tone, which sometimes contains a +comical suggestion of a boy's voice in mutation, is lacking in +incisiveness and brilliancy, but for this it compensates by a +wonderful richness and filling quality, and a pathetic and inimitable +mournfulness in melancholy music. It blends beautifully with the +violoncello, and is often made to double that instrument's part for +the sake of color effect--as, to cite a familiar instance, in the +principal subject of the Andante in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. + +[Sidenote: _The violoncello._] + +[Sidenote: _Violoncello effects._] + +The strings of the violoncello (Plate II.) are tuned like those of +the viola, but an octave lower. It is the knee-fiddle (_viola da +gamba_) of the last century, as the viola is the arm-fiddle (_viola da +braccio_), and got its old name from the position in which it is held +by the player. The 'cello's voice is a bass--it might be called the +barytone of the choir--and in the olden time of simple writing, little +else was done with it than to double the bass part one octave higher. +But modern composers, appreciating its marvellous capacity for +expression, which is next to that of the violin, have treated it with +great freedom and independence as a solo instrument. Its tone is full +of voluptuous languor. It is the sighing lover of the instrumental +company, and can speak the language of tender passion more feelingly +than any of its fellows. The ravishing effect of a multiplication of +its voice is tellingly exemplified in the opening of the overture to +"William Tell," which is written for five solo 'celli, though it is +oftenest heard in an arrangement which gives two of the middle parts +to violas. When Beethoven wished to produce the emotional impression +of a peacefully rippling brook in his "Pastoral" symphony, he gave a +murmuring figure to the divided violoncellos, and Wagner uses the +passionate accents of four of these instruments playing in harmony to +support _Siegmund_ when he is pouring out the ecstasy of his love in +the first act of "Die Walkuere." In the love scene of Berlioz's "Romeo +and Juliet" symphony it is the violoncello which personifies the +lover, and holds converse with the modest oboe. + +[Sidenote: _The double-bass._] + +The patriarchal double-bass is known to all, and also its mission of +providing the foundation for the harmonic structure of orchestral +music. It sounds an octave lower than the music written for it, being +what is called a transposing instrument of sixteen-foot tone. Solos +are seldom written for this instrument in orchestral music, though +Beethoven, with his daring recitatives in the Ninth Symphony, makes it +a mediator between the instrumental and vocal forces. Dragonetti and +Bottesini, two Italians, the latter of whom is still alive, won great +fame as solo players on the unwieldy instrument. The latter uses a +small bass viol, and strings it with harp strings; but Dragonetti +played a full double-bass, on which he could execute the most +difficult passages written for the violoncello. + +[Sidenote: _The wood-winds._] + +Since the instruments of the wood-wind choir are frequently used in +solos, their acquaintance can easily be made by an observing amateur. +To this division of the orchestra belong the gentle accents in the +instrumental language. Violent expression is not its province, and +generally when the band is discoursing in heroic style or giving voice +to brave or angry emotion the wood-winds are either silent or are used +to give weight to the body of tone rather than color. Each of the +instruments has a strongly characteristic voice, which adapts itself +best to a certain style of music; but by use of different registers +and by combinations among them, or with the instruments of the other +choirs, a wide range of expression within the limits suggested has +been won for the wood-winds. + +[Sidenote: _The flute._] + +[Sidenote: _The piccolo flute._] + +[Sidenote: _Janizary music._] + +[Sidenote: _The story of the flute._] + +The flute, which requires no description, is, for instance, an +essentially soulless instrument; but its marvellous agility and the +effectiveness with which its tones can be blended with others make it +one of the most useful instruments in the band. Its native character, +heard in the compositions written for it as a solo instrument, has +prevented it from being looked upon with dignity. As a rule, +brilliancy is all that is expected from it. It is a sort of _soprano +leggiero_ with a small range of superficial feelings. It can +sentimentalize, and, as Dryden says, be "soft, complaining," but when +we hear it pour forth a veritable ecstasy of jubilation, as it does in +the dramatic climax of Beethoven's overture "Leonore No. 3," we marvel +at the transformation effected by the composer. Advantage has also +been taken of the difference between its high and low tones, and now +in some romantic music, as in Raff's "Lenore" symphony, or the prayer +of _Agathe_ in "Der Freischuetz," the hollowness of the low tones +produces a mysterious effect that is exceedingly striking. Still the +fact remains that the native voice of the instrument, though sweet, +is expressionless compared with that of the oboe or clarinet. Modern +composers sometimes write for three flutes; but in the older writers, +when a third flute is used, it is generally an octave flute, or +piccolo flute (Plate III.)--a tiny instrument whose aggressiveness of +voice is out of all proportion to its diminutiveness of body. This is +the instrument which shrieks and whistles when the band is playing at +storm-making, to imitate the noise of the wind. It sounds an octave +higher than is indicated by the notes in its part, and so is what is +called a transposing instrument of four-foot tone. It revels in +military music, which is proper, for it is an own cousin to the +ear-piercing fife, which annually makes up for its long silence in the +noisy days before political elections. When you hear a composition in +march time, with bass and snare drum, cymbals and triangle, such as +the Germans call "Turkish" or "Janizary" music, you may be sure to +hear also the piccolo flute. The flute is doubtless one of the oldest +instruments in the world. The primitive cave-dwellers made flutes of +the leg-bones of birds and other animals, an origin of which a record +is preserved in the Latin name _tibia_. The first wooden flutes were +doubtless the Pandean pipes, in which the tone was produced by blowing +across the open ends of hollow reeds. The present method, already +known to the ancient Egyptians, of closing the upper end, and creating +the tone by blowing across a hole cut in the side, is only a +modification of the method pursued, according to classic tradition, by +Pan when he breathed out his dejection at the loss of the nymph +Syrinx, by blowing across the tuneful reeds which were that nymph in +her metamorphosed state. + +[Sidenote: _Reed instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _Double reeds._] + +The flute or pipe of the Greeks and Romans was only distantly related +to the true flute, but was the ancestor of its orchestral companions, +the oboe and clarinet. These instruments are sounded by being blown in +at the end, and the tone is created by vibrating reeds, whereas in the +flute it is the result of the impinging of the air on the edge of the +hole called the embouchure, and the consequent stirring of the column +of air in the flue of the instrument. The reeds are thin slips or +blades of cane. The size and bore of the instruments and the +difference between these reeds are the causes of the differences in +tone quality between these relatives. The oboe or hautboy, English +horn, and the bassoon have what are called double reeds. Two narrow +blades of cane are fitted closely together, and fastened with silk on +a small metal tube extending from the upper end of the instrument in +the case of the oboe and English horn, from the side in the case of +the bassoon. The reeds are pinched more or less tightly between the +lips, and are set to vibrating by the breath. + +[Sidenote: _The oboe._] + +[Sidenote: _The English horn._] + +The oboe (Plate IV.) is naturally associated with music of a pastoral +character. It is pre-eminently a melody instrument, and though its +voice comes forth shrinkingly, its uniqueness of tone makes it easily +heard. It is a most lovable instrument. "Candor, artless grace, soft +joy, or the grief of a fragile being suits the oboe's accents," says +Berlioz. The peculiarity of its mouth-piece gives its tone a reedy or +vibrating quality totally unlike the clarinet's. Its natural alto is +the English horn (Plate V.), which is an oboe of larger growth, with +curved tube for convenience of manipulation. The tone of the English +horn is fuller, nobler, and is very attractive in melancholy or dreamy +music. There are few players on the English horn in this country, and +it might be set down as a rule that outside of New York, Boston, and +Chicago, the English horn parts are played by the oboe in America. No +melody displays the true character of the English horn better than the +_Ranz des Vaches_ in the overture to Rossini's "William Tell"--that +lovely Alpine song which the flute embroiders with exquisite ornament. +One of the noblest utterances of the oboe is the melody of the funeral +march in Beethoven's "Heroic" symphony, in which its tenderness has +beautiful play. It is sometimes used effectively in imitative music. +In Haydn's "Seasons," and also in that grotesque tone poem by +Saint-Saens, the "Danse Macabre," it gives the cock crow. It is the +timid oboe that sounds the A for the orchestra to tune by. + +[Sidenote: _The bassoon._] + +[Sidenote: _An orchestral humorist._] + +[Sidenote: _Supernatural effects._] + +The grave voice of the oboe is heard from the bassoon (Plate VI.), +where, without becoming assertive, it gains a quality entirely unknown +to the oboe and English horn. It is this quality that makes the +bassoon the humorist _par excellence_ of the orchestra. It is a reedy +bass, very apt to recall to those who have had a country education the +squalling tone of the homely instrument which the farmer's boy +fashions out of the stems of the pumpkin-vine. The humor of the +bassoon is an unconscious humor, and results from the use made of its +abysmally solemn voice. This solemnity in quality is paired with +astonishing flexibility of utterance, so that its gambols are always +grotesque. Brahms permits the bassoon to intone the _Fuchslied_ of the +German students in his "Academic" overture. Beethoven achieves a +decidedly comical effect by a stubborn reiteration of key-note, fifth, +and octave by the bassoon under a rustic dance intoned by the oboe in +the scherzo of his "Pastoral" symphony; and nearly every modern +composer has taken advantage of the instrument's grotesqueness. +Mendelssohn introduces the clowns in his "Midsummer-Night's-Dream" +music by a droll dance for two bassoons over a sustained bass note +from the violoncellos; but when Meyerbeer wanted a very different +effect, a ghastly one indeed, in the scene of the resuscitation of the +nuns in his "Robert le Diable," he got it by taking two bassoons as +solo instruments and using their weak middle tones, which, Berlioz +says, have "a pale, cold, cadaverous sound." Singularly enough, Handel +resorted to a similar device in his "Saul," to accompany the vision of +the Witch of Endor. + +[Sidenote: _The double bassoon._] + +In all these cases a great deal depends upon the relation between the +character of the melody and the nature of the instrument to which it +is set. A swelling martial fanfare may be made absurd by changing it +from trumpets to a weak-voiced wood-wind. It is only the string +quartet that speaks all the musical languages of passion and emotion. +The double-bassoon is so large an instrument that it has to be bent on +itself to bring it under the control of the player. It sounds an +octave lower than the written notes. It is not brought often into the +orchestra, but speaks very much to the purpose in Brahms's beautiful +variations on a theme by Haydn, and the glorious finale of Beethoven's +Fifth Symphony. + +[Sidenote: _The clarinet._] + +[Sidenote: _The bass clarinet._] + +The clarinet (Plate VII.) is the most eloquent member of the wood-wind +choir, and, except some of its own modifications or the modifications +of the oboe and bassoon, the latest arrival in the harmonious company. +It is only a little more than a century old. It has the widest range +of expression of the wood-winds, and its chief structural difference +is in its mouth-piece. It has a single flat reed, which is much wider +than that of the oboe or bassoon, and is fastened by a metallic band +and screw to the flattened side of the mouth-piece, whose other side +is cut down, chisel shape, for convenience. Its voice is rich, mellow, +less reedy, and much fuller and more limpid than the voice of the +oboe, which Berlioz tries to describe by analogy as "sweet-sour." It +is very flexible, too, and has a range of over three and a half +octaves. Its high tones are sometimes shrieky, however, and the full +beauty of the instrument is only disclosed when it sings in the middle +register. Every symphony and overture contains passages for the +clarinet which serve to display its characteristics. Clarinets are +made of different sizes for different keys, the smallest being that in +E-flat, with an unpleasantly piercing tone, whose use is confined to +military bands. There is also an alto clarinet and a bass clarinet +(Plate VIII.). The bell of the latter instrument is bent upward, pipe +fashion, and its voice is peculiarly impressive and noble. It is a +favorite solo instrument in Liszt's symphonic poems. + +[Sidenote: _Lips and reeds._] + +[Sidenote: _The brass instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _Improvements in brass instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _Valves and slides._] + +The fundamental principle of the instruments last described is the +production of tone by vibrating reeds. In the instruments of the brass +choir, the duty of the reeds is performed by the lips of the player. +Variety of tone in respect of quality is produced by variations in +size, shape, and modifications in parts like the bell and mouth-piece. +The _forte_ of the orchestra receives the bulk of its puissance from +the brass instruments, which, nevertheless, can give voice to an +extensive gamut of sentiments and feelings. There is nothing more +cheery and jocund than the flourishes of the horns, but also nothing +more mild and soothing than the songs which sometimes they sing. There +is nothing more solemn and religious than the harmony of the +trombones, while "the trumpet's loud clangor" is the very voice of a +war-like spirit. All of these instruments have undergone important +changes within the last few score years. The classical composers, +almost down to our own time, were restricted in the use of them +because they were merely natural tubes, and their notes were limited +to the notes which inflexible tubes can produce. Within this century, +however, they have all been transformed from imperfect diatonic +instruments to perfect chromatic instruments; that is to say, every +brass instrument which is in use now can give out all the semitones +within its compass. This has been accomplished through the agency of +valves, by means of which differing lengths of the sonorous tube are +brought within the command of the players. In the case of the +trombones an exceedingly venerable means of accomplishing the same end +is applied. The tube is in part made double, one part sliding over the +other. By moving his arm, the player lengthens or shortens the tube, +and thus changing the key of the instrument, acquires all the tones +which can be obtained from so many tubes of different lengths. The +mouth-pieces of the trumpet, trombone, and tuba are cup-shaped, and +larger than the mouth-piece of the horn, which is little else than a +flare of the slender tube, sufficiently wide to receive enough of the +player's lips to form the embouchure, or human reed, as it might here +be named. + +[Sidenote: _The French horn._] + +[Sidenote: _Manipulation of the French horn._] + +The French horn (Plate IX.), as it is called in the orchestra, is the +sweetest and mellowest of all the wind instruments. In Beethoven's +time it was but little else than the old hunting-horn, which, for the +convenience of the mounted hunter, was arranged in spiral +convolutions that it might be slipped over the head and carried +resting on one shoulder and under the opposite arm. The Germans still +call it the _Waldhorn_, _i.e._, "forest horn;" the old French name was +_cor de chasse_, the Italian _corno di caccia_. In this instrument +formerly the tones which were not the natural resonances of the +harmonic division of the tube were helped out by partly closing the +bell with the right hand, it having been discovered accidentally that +by putting the hand into the lower end of the tube--the flaring part +called the bell--the pitch of a tone was raised. Players still make +use of this method for convenience, and sometimes because a composer +wishes to employ the slightly muffled effect of these tones; but since +valves have been added to the instrument, it is possible to play a +chromatic scale in what are called the unstopped or open tones. + +[Sidenote: _Kinds of horns._] + +[Sidenote: _The trumpet._] + +[Sidenote: _The cornet._] + +Formerly it was necessary to use horns of different pitch, and +composers still respect this tradition, and designate the key of the +horns which they wish to have employed; but so skilful have the +players become that, as a rule, they use horns whose fundamental tone +is F for all keys, and achieve the old purpose by simply transposing +the music as they read it. If these most graceful instruments were +straightened out they would be seventeen feet long. The convolutions +of the horn and the many turns of the trumpet are all the fruit of +necessity; they could not be manipulated to produce the tones that are +asked of them if they were not bent and curved. The trumpet, when its +tube is lengthened by the addition of crooks for its lowest key, is +eight feet long; the tuba, sixteen. In most orchestras (in all of +those in the United States, in fact, except the Boston and Chicago +Orchestras and the Symphony Society of New York) the word trumpet is +merely a euphemism for cornet, the familiar leading instrument of the +brass band, which, while it falls short of the trumpet in the quality +of its tone, in the upper registers especially, is a more easily +manipulated instrument than the trumpet, and is preferable in the +lower tones. + +[Sidenote: _The trombone._] + +Mendelssohn is quoted as saying that the trombones (Plate X.) "are too +sacred to use often." They have, indeed, a majesty and nobility all +their own, and the lowest use to which they can be put is to furnish a +flaring and noisy harmony in an orchestral _tutti_. They are +marvellously expressive instruments, and without a peer in the whole +instrumental company when a solemn and spiritually uplifting effect is +to be attained. They can also be made to sound menacing and +lugubrious, devout and mocking, pompously heroic, majestic, and lofty. +They are often the heralds of the orchestra, and make sonorous +proclamations. + +[Sidenote: _Trombone effects._] + +[Sidenote: _The tuba._] + +The classic composers always seemed to approach the trombones with +marked respect, but nowadays it requires a very big blue pencil in the +hands of a very uncompromising conservatory professor to prevent a +student engaged on his _Opus 1_ from keeping his trombones going half +the time at least. It is an old story how Mozart keeps the instruments +silent through three-fourths of his immortal "Don Giovanni," so that +they may enter with overwhelming impressiveness along with the +ghostly visitor of the concluding scene. As a rule, there are three +trombones in the modern orchestra--two tenors and a bass. Formerly +there were four kinds, bearing the names of the voices to which they +were supposed to be nearest in tone-quality and compass--soprano, +alto, tenor, and bass. Full four-part harmony is now performed by the +three trombones and the tuba (Plate XI.). The latter instrument, +which, despite its gigantic size, is exceedingly tractable can "roar +you as gently as any sucking dove." Far-away and strangely mysterious +tones are got out of the brass instruments, chiefly the cornet and +horn, by almost wholly closing the bell. + +[Sidenote: _Instruments of percussion._] + +[Sidenote: _The xylophone._] + +[Sidenote: _Kettle-drums._] + +[Sidenote: _Pfund's tuning device._] + +[Sidenote: _Pitch of the drums._] + +[Sidenote: _Qualifications of a drummer._] + +The percussion apparatus of the modern orchestra includes a multitude +of instruments scarcely deserving of description. Several varieties of +drums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, steel bars (_Glockenspiel_), +gongs, bells, and many other things which we are now inclined to look +upon as toys, rather than as musical instruments, are brought into +play for reasons more or less fantastic. Saint-Saens has even utilized +the barbarous xylophone, whose proper place is the variety hall, in +his "Danse Macabre." There his purpose was a fantastic one, and the +effect is capital. The pictorial conceit at the bottom of the poem +which the music illustrates is Death, as a skeleton, seated on a +tombstone, playing the viol, and gleefully cracking his bony heels +against the marble. To produce this effect, the composer uses the +xylophone with capital results. But of all the ordinary instruments of +percussion, the only one that is really musical and deserving of +comment is the kettle-drum. This instrument is more musical than the +others because it has pitch. Its voice is not mere noise, but musical +noise. Kettle-drums, or tympani, are generally used in pairs, though +the vast multiplication of effects by modern composers has resulted +also in the extension of this department of the band. It is seldom +that more than two pairs are used, a good player with a quick ear +being able to accomplish all that Wagner asks of six drums by his +deftness in changing the pitch of the instruments. This work of tuning +is still performed generally in what seems a rudimentary way, though a +German drum-builder named Pfund invented a contrivance by which the +player, by simply pressing on a balanced pedal and watching an +indicator affixed to the side of the drums, can change the pitch to +any desired semitone within the range of an octave. + +The tympani are hemispherical brass or copper vessels, kettles in +short, covered with vellum heads. The pitch of the instrument depends +on the tension of the head, which is applied generally by key-screws +working through the iron ring which holds the vellum. There is a +difference in the size of the drums to place at the command of the +player the octave from F in the first space below the bass staff to F +on the fourth line of the same staff. Formerly the purpose of the +drums was simply to give emphasis, and they were then uniformly tuned +to the key-note and fifth of the key in which a composition was set. +Now they are tuned in many ways, not only to allow for the frequent +change of keys, but also so that they may be used as harmony +instruments. Berlioz did more to develop the drums than any composer +who has ever lived, though Beethoven already manifested appreciation +of their independent musical value. In the last movement of his Eighth +Symphony and the scherzo of his Ninth, he tunes them in octaves, his +purpose in the latter case being to give the opening figure, an octave +leap, of the scherzo melody to the drums solo. The most extravagant +use ever made of the drums, however, was by Berlioz in his "Messe des +Morts," where he called in eight pairs of drums and ten players to +help him to paint his tonal picture of the terrors of the last +judgment. The post of drummer is one of the most difficult to fill in +a symphonic orchestra. He is required to have not only a perfect sense +of time and rhythm, but also a keen sense of pitch, for often the +composer asks him to change the pitch of one or both of his drums in +the space of a very few seconds. He must then be able to shut all +other sounds out of his mind, and bring his drums into a new key while +the orchestra is playing--an extremely nice task. + +[Sidenote: _The bass drum._] + +The development of modern orchestral music has given dignity also to +the bass drum, which, though definite pitch is denied to it, is now +manipulated in a variety of ways productive of striking effects. Rolls +are played on it with the sticks of the kettle-drums, and it has been +emancipated measurably from the cymbals, which in vulgar brass-band +music are its inseparable companions. + +[Sidenote: _The conductor._] + +[Sidenote: _Time-beaters and interpreters._] + +[Sidenote: _The conductor a necessity._] + +In the full sense of the term the orchestral conductor is a product of +the latter half of the present century. Of course, ever since +concerted music began, there has been a musical leader of some kind. +Mural paintings and carvings fashioned in Egypt long before Apollo +sang his magic song and + + "Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers," + +show the conductor standing before his band beating time by clapping +his hands; and if we are to credit what we have been told about Hebrew +music, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, when they stood before their +multitudinous choirs in the temple at Jerusalem, promoted synchronism +in the performance by stamping upon the floor with lead-shodden feet. +Before the era which developed what I might call "star" conductors, +these leaders were but captains of tens and captains of hundreds who +accomplished all that was expected of them if they made the performers +keep musical step together. They were time-beaters merely--human +metronomes. The modern conductor is, in a sense not dreamed of a +century ago, a mediator between the composer and the audience. He is a +virtuoso who plays upon men instead of a key-board, upon a hundred +instruments instead of one. Music differs from her sister arts in many +respects, but in none more than in her dependence on the intermediary +who stands between her and the people for whose sake she exists. It is +this intermediary who wakens her into life. + + "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard + Are sweeter," + +is a pretty bit of hyperbole which involves a contradiction in terms. +An unheard melody is no melody at all, and as soon as we have music in +which a number of singers or instrumentalists are employed, the taste, +feeling, and judgment of an individual are essential to its +intelligent and effective publication. In the gentle days of the long +ago, when suavity and loveliness of utterance and a recognition of +formal symmetry were the "be-all and end-all" of the art, a +time-beater sufficed to this end; but now the contents of music are +greater, the vessel has been wondrously widened, the language is +become curiously complex and ingenious, and no composer of to-day can +write down universally intelligible signs for all that he wishes to +say. Someone must grasp the whole, expound it to the individual +factors which make up the performing sum and provide what is called an +interpretation to the public. + +[Sidenote: _"Star" conductors._] + +That someone, of course, is the conductor, and considering the +progress that music is continually making it is not at all to be +wondered at that he has become a person of stupendous power in the +culture of to-day. The one singularity is that he should be so rare. +This rarity has had its natural consequence, and the conductor who can +conduct, in contradistinction to the conductor who can only beat time, +is now a "star." At present we see him going from place to place in +Europe giving concerts in which he figures as the principal +attraction. The critics discuss his "readings" just as they do the +performances of great pianists and singers. A hundred blowers of +brass, scrapers of strings, and tootlers on windy wood, labor beneath +him transmuting the composer's mysterious symbols into living sound, +and when it is all over we frequently find that it seems all to have +been done for the greater glory of the conductor instead of the glory +of art. That, however, is a digression which it is not necessary to +pursue. + +[Sidenote: _Mistaken popular notions._] + +[Sidenote: _What the conductor does._] + +[Sidenote: _Rests and cues._] + +Questions and remarks have frequently been addressed to me indicative +of the fact that there is a widespread popular conviction that the +mission of a conductor is chiefly ornamental at an orchestral +concert. That is a sad misconception, and grows out of the old notion +that a conductor is only a time-beater. Assuming that the men of the +band have played sufficiently together, it is thought that eventually +they might keep time without the help of the conductor. It is true +that the greater part of the conductor's work is done at rehearsal, at +which he enforces upon his men his wishes concerning the speed of the +music, expression, and the balance of tone between the different +instruments. But all the injunctions given at rehearsal by word of +mouth are reiterated by means of a system of signs and signals during +the concert performance. Time and rhythm are indicated by the +movements of the baton, the former by the speed of the beats, the +latter by the direction, the tones upon which the principal stress is +to fall being indicated by the down-beat of the baton. The amplitude +of the movements also serves to indicate the conductor's wishes +concerning dynamic variations, while the left hand is ordinarily used +in pantomimic gestures to control individual players or groups. +Glances and a play of facial expression also assist in the guidance of +the instrumental body. Every musician is expected to count the rests +which occur in his part, but when they are of long duration (and +sometimes they amount to a hundred measures or more) it is customary +for the conductor to indicate the entrance of an instrument by a +glance at the player. From this mere outline of the communications +which pass between the conductor and his band it will be seen how +indispensable he is if music is to have a consistent and vital +interpretation. + +[Sidenote: _Personal magnetism._] + +The layman will perhaps also be enabled, by observing the actions of a +conductor with a little understanding of their purposes, to appreciate +what critics mean when they speak of the "magnetism" of a leader. He +will understand that among other things it means the aptitude or +capacity for creating a sympathetic relationship between himself and +his men which enables him the better by various devices, some +arbitrary, some technical and conventional, to imbue them with his +thoughts and feelings relative to a composition, and through them to +body them forth to the audience. + +[Sidenote: _The score._] + +[Sidenote: _Its arrangement._] + +[Sidenote: _Score reading._] + +What it is that the conductor has to guide him while giving his mute +commands to his forces may be seen in the reproduction, in the +Appendix, of a page from an orchestral score (Plate XII). A score, it +will be observed, is a reproduction of all the parts of a composition +as they lie upon the desks of the players. The ordering of these parts +in the score has not always been as now, but the plan which has the +widest and longest approval is that illustrated in our example. The +wood-winds are grouped together on the uppermost six staves, the brass +in the middle with the tympani separating the horns and trumpets from +the trombones, the strings on the lowermost five staves. The example +has been chosen because it shows all the instruments of the band +employed at once (it is the famous opening _tutti_ of the triumphal +march of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony), and is easy of comprehension by +musical amateurs for the reason that none of the parts requires +transposition except it be an octave up in the case of the piccolo, +an instrument of four-foot tone, and an octave down in the case of the +double-basses, which are of sixteen-foot tone. All the other parts are +to be read as printed, proper attention being given to the alto and +tenor clefs used in the parts of the trombones and violas. The ability +to "read score" is one of the most essential attributes of a +conductor, who, if he have the proper training, can bring all the +parts together and reproduce them on the pianoforte, transposing those +which do not sound as written and reading the different clefs at sight +as he goes along. + + + + +V + +_At an Orchestral Concert_ + + +[Sidenote: _Classical and Popular._] + +[Sidenote: _Orchestras and military bands._] + +In popular phrase all high-class music is "classical," and all +concerts at which such music is played are "classical concerts." Here +the word is conceived as the antithesis of "popular," which term is +used to designate the ordinary music of the street and music-hall. +Elsewhere I have discussed the true meaning of the word and shown its +relation to "romantic" in the terminology of musical critics and +historians. No harm is done by using both "classical" and "popular" in +their common significations, so far as they convey a difference in +character between concerts. The highest popular conception of a +classical concert is one in which a complete orchestra performs +symphonies and extended compositions in allied forms, such as +overtures, symphonic poems, and concertos. Change the composition of +the instrumental body, by omitting the strings and augmenting the reed +and brass choirs, and you have a military band which is best employed +in the open air, and whose programmes are generally made up of +compositions in the simpler and more easily comprehended +forms--dances, marches, fantasias on popular airs, arrangements of +operatic excerpts and the like. These, then, are popular concerts in +the broadest sense, though it is proper enough to apply the term also +to concerts given by a symphonic band when the programme is light in +character and aims at more careless diversion than should be sought at +a "classical" concert. The latter term, again, is commended to use by +the fact that as a rule the music performed at such a concert +exemplifies the higher forms in the art, classicism in music being +defined as that principle which seeks expression in beauty of form, in +a symmetrical ordering of parts and logical sequence, "preferring +aesthetic beauty, pure and simple, over emotional content," as I have +said in Chapter III. + +[Sidenote: _The Symphony._] + +[Sidenote: _Mistaken ideas about the form._] + +As the highest type of instrumental music, we take the Symphony. Very +rarely indeed is a concert given by an organization like the New York +and London Philharmonic Societies, or the Boston and Chicago +Orchestras, at which the place of honor in the scheme of pieces is not +given to a symphony. Such a concert is for that reason also spoken of +popularly as a "Symphony concert," and no confusion would necessarily +result from the use of the term even if it so chanced that there was +no symphony on the programme. What idea the word symphony conveys to +the musically illiterate it would be difficult to tell. I have known a +professional writer on musical subjects to express the opinion that a +symphony was nothing else than four unrelated compositions for +orchestra arranged in a certain sequence for the sake of an agreeable +contrast of moods and tempos. It is scarcely necessary to say that the +writer in question had a very poor opinion of the Symphony as an +Art-form, and believed that it had outlived its usefulness and should +be relegated to the limbo of Archaic Things. If he, however, trained +in musical history and familiar with musical literature, could see +only four unrelated pieces of music in a symphony by Beethoven, we +need not marvel that hazy notions touching the nature of the form are +prevalent among the untaught public, and that people can be met in +concert-rooms to whom such words as "Symphony in C minor," and the +printed designations of the different portions of the work--the +"movements," as musicians call them--are utterly bewildering. + +[Sidenote: _History of the term._] + +[Sidenote: _Changes in meaning._] + +[Sidenote: _Handel's "Pastoral Symphony."_] + +The word symphony has itself a singularly variegated history. Like +many another term in music it was borrowed by the modern world from +the ancient Greek. To those who coined it, however, it had a much +narrower meaning than to us who use it, with only a conventional +change in transliteration, now. By [Greek: symphonia] the Greeks +simply expressed the concept of agreement, or consonance. Applied to +music it meant first such intervals as unisons; then the notion was +extended to include consonant harmonies, such as the fifth, fourth, +and octave. The study of the ancient theoreticians led the musicians +of the Middle Ages to apply the word to harmony in general. Then in +some inexplicable fashion it came to stand as a generic term for +instrumental compositions such as toccatas, sonatas, etc. Its name was +given to one of the precursors of the pianoforte, and in Germany in +the sixteenth century the word _Symphoney_ came to mean a town band. +In the last century and the beginning of this the term was used to +designate an instrumental introduction to a composition for voices, +such as a song or chorus, as also an instrumental piece introduced in +a choral work. The form, that is the extent and structure of the +composition, had nothing to do with the designation, as we see from +the Italian shepherds' tune which Handel set for strings in "The +Messiah;" he called it simply _pifa_, but his publishers called it a +"Pastoral symphony," and as such we still know it. It was about the +middle of the eighteenth century that the present signification +became crystallized in the word, and since the symphonies of Haydn, in +which the form first reached perfection, are still to be heard in our +concert-rooms, it may be said that all the masterpieces of symphonic +literature are current. + +[Sidenote: _The allied forms._] + +[Sidenote: _Sonata form._] + +[Sidenote: _Symphony, sonata, and concerto._] + +I have already hinted at the fact that there is an intimate +relationship between the compositions usually heard at a classical +concert. Symphonies, symphonic poems, concertos for solo instruments +and orchestra, as well as the various forms of chamber music, such as +trios, quartets, and quintets for strings, or pianoforte and strings, +are but different expressions of the idea which is best summed up in +the word sonata. What musicians call the "sonata form" lies at the +bottom of them all--even those which seem to consist of a single +piece, like the symphonic poem and overture. Provided it follow, not +of necessity slavishly, but in its general structure, a certain scheme +which was slowly developed by the geniuses who became the law-givers +of the art, a composite or cyclical composition (that is, one +composed of a number of parts, or movements) is, as the case may be, a +symphony, concerto, or sonata. It is a sonata if it be written for a +solo instrument like the pianoforte or organ, or for one like the +violin or clarinet, with pianoforte accompaniment. If the +accompaniment be written for orchestra, it is called a concerto. A +sonata written for an orchestra is a symphony. The nature of the +interpreting medium naturally determines the exposition of the form, +but all the essential attributes can be learned from a study of the +symphony, which because of the dignity and eloquence of its apparatus +admits of a wider scope than its allies, and must be accepted as the +highest type, not merely of the sonata, but of the instrumental art. +It will be necessary presently to point out the more important +modifications which compositions of this character have undergone in +the development of music, but the ends of clearness will be best +subserved if the study be conducted on fundamental lines. + +[Sidenote: _What a symphony is._] + +[Sidenote: _The bond of unity between the parts._] + +The symphony then, as a rule, is a composition for orchestra made up +of four parts, or movements, which are not only related to each other +by a bond of sympathy established by the keys chosen but also by their +emotional contents. Without this higher bond the unity of the work +would be merely mechanical, like the unity accomplished by sameness of +key in the old-fashioned suite. (See Chapter VI.) The bond of +key-relationship, though no longer so obvious as once it was, is yet +readily discovered by a musician; the spiritual bond is more elusive, +and presents itself for recognition to the imagination and the +feelings of the listener. Nevertheless, it is an element in every +truly great symphony, and I have already indicated how it may +sometimes become patent to the ear alone, so it be intelligently +employed, and enjoy the co-operation of memory. + +[Sidenote: _The first movement._] + +[Sidenote: _Exposition of subjects._] + +[Sidenote: _Repetition of the first subdivision._] + +It is the first movement of a symphony which embodies the structural +scheme called the "sonata form." It has a triple division, and Mr. +Edward Dannreuther has aptly defined it as "the triune symmetry of +exposition, illustration, and repetition." In the first division the +composer introduces the melodies which he has chosen to be the +thematic material of the movement, and to fix the character of the +entire work; he presents it for identification. The themes are two, +and their exposition generally exemplifies the principle of +key-relationship, which was the basis of my analysis of a simple folk +tune in Chapter II. In the case of the best symphonists the principal +and second subjects disclose a contrast, not violent but yet distinct, +in mood or character. If the first is rhythmically energetic and +assertive--masculine, let me say--the second will be more sedate, more +gentle in utterance--feminine. After the two subjects have been +introduced along with some subsidiary phrases and passages which the +composer uses to bind them together and modulate from one key into +another, the entire division is repeated. That is the rule, but it is +now as often "honored in the breach" as in the observance, some +conductors not even hesitating to ignore the repeat marks in +Beethoven's scores. + +[Sidenote: _The free fantasia or "working-out" portion._] + +[Sidenote: _Repetition._] + +The second division is now taken up. In it the composer exploits his +learning and fancy in developing his thematic material. He is now +entirely free to send it through long chains of keys, to vary the +harmonies, rhythms, and instrumentation, to take a single pregnant +motive and work it out with all the ingenuity he can muster; to force +it up "steep-up spouts" of passion and let it whirl in the surge, or +plunge it into "steep-down gulfs of liquid fire," and consume its own +heart. Technically this part is called the "free fantasia" in English, +and the _Durchfuehrung_--"working out"--in German. I mention the terms +because they sometimes occur in criticisms and analyses. It is in this +division that the genius of a composer has fullest play, and there is +no greater pleasure, no more delightful excitement, for the +symphony-lover than to follow the luminous fancy of Beethoven through +his free fantasias. The third division is devoted to a repetition, +with modifications, of the first division and the addition of a close. + +[Sidenote: _Introductions._] + +[Sidenote: _Keys and Titles._] + +First movements are quick and energetic, and frequently full of +dramatic fire. In them the psychological story is begun which is to +be developed in the remaining chapters of the work--its sorrows, +hopes, prayers, or communings in the slow movement; its madness or +merriment in the scherzo; its outcome, triumphant or tragic, in the +finale. Sometimes the first movement is preceded by a slow +introduction, intended to prepare the mind of the listener for the +proclamation which shall come with the _Allegro_. The key of the +principal subject is set down as the key of the symphony, and unless +the composer gives his work a special title for the purpose of +providing a hint as to its poetical contents ("Eroica," "Pastoral," +"Faust," "In the Forest," "Lenore," "Pathetique," etc.), or to +characterize its style ("Scotch," "Italian," "Irish," "Welsh," +"Scandinavian," "From the New World"), it is known only by its key, or +the number of the work (_opus_) in the composer's list. Therefore we +have Mozart's Symphony "in G minor," Beethoven's "in A major," +Schumann's "in C," Brahms's "in F," and so on. + +[Sidenote: _The second movement._] + +[Sidenote: _Variations._] + +The second movement in the symphonic scheme is the slow movement. +Musicians frequently call it the Adagio, for convenience, though the +tempi of slow movements ranges from extremely slow (_Largo_) to the +border line of fast, as in the case of the Allegretto of the Seventh +Symphony of Beethoven. The mood of the slow movement is frequently +sombre, and its instrumental coloring dark; but it may also be +consolatory, contemplative, restful, religiously uplifting. The +writing is preferably in a broadly sustained style, the effect being +that of an exalted hymn, and this has led to a predilection for a +theme and variations as the mould in which to cast the movement. The +slow movements of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies are made up +of variations. + +[Sidenote: _The Scherzo._] + +[Sidenote: _Genesis of the Scherzo._] + +[Sidenote: _The Trio._] + +The Scherzo is, as the term implies, the playful, jocose movement of a +symphony, but in the case of sublime geniuses like Beethoven and +Schumann, who blend profound melancholy with wild humor, the +playfulness is sometimes of a kind which invites us to thoughtfulness +instead of merriment. This is true also of some Russian composers, +whose scherzos have the desperate gayety which speaks from the music +of a sad people whose merrymaking is not a spontaneous expression of +exuberant spirits but a striving after self-forgetfulness. The Scherzo +is the successor of the Minuet, whose rhythm and form served the +composers down to Beethoven. It was he who substituted the Scherzo, +which retains the chief formal characteristics of the courtly old +dance in being in triple time and having a second part called the +Trio. With the change there came an increase in speed, but it ought to +be remembered that the symphonic minuet was quicker than the dance of +the same name. A tendency toward exaggeration, which is patent among +modern conductors, is threatening to rob the symphonic minuet of the +vivacity which gave it its place in the scheme of the symphony. The +entrance of the Trio is marked by the introduction of a new idea (a +second minuet) which is more sententious than the first part, and +sometimes in another key, the commonest change being from minor to +major. + +[Sidenote: _The Finale._] + +[Sidenote: _Rondo form._] + +The final movement, technically the Finale, is another piece of large +dimensions in which the psychological drama which plays through the +four acts of the symphony is brought to a conclusion. Once the purpose +of the Finale was but to bring the symphony to a merry end, but as the +expressive capacity of music has been widened, and mere play with +aesthetic forms has given place to attempts to convey sentiments and +feelings, the purposes of the last movement have been greatly extended +and varied. As a rule the form chosen for the Finale is that called +the Rondo. Borrowed from an artificial verse-form (the French +_Rondeau_), this species of composition illustrates the peculiarity of +that form in the reiteration of a strophe ever and anon after a new +theme or episode has been exploited. In modern society verse, which +has grown out of an ambition to imitate the ingenious form invented by +mediaeval poets, we have the Triolet, which may be said to be a rondeau +in miniature. I choose one of Mr. H.C. Bunner's dainty creations to +illustrate the musical refrain characteristic of the rondo form +because of its compactness. Here it is: + +[Sidenote: _A Rondo pattern in poetry._] + + "A pitcher of mignonette + In a tenement's highest casement: + Queer sort of a flower-pot--yet + That pitcher of mignonette + Is a garden in heaven set, + To the little sick child in the basement-- + The pitcher of mignonette, + In the tenement's highest casement." + +[Sidenote: _Other forms for the Finale._] + +If now the first two lines of this poem, which compose its refrain, be +permitted to stand as the principal theme of a musical piece, we have +in Mr. Bunner's triolet a rondo _in nuce_. There is in it a threefold +exposition of the theme alternating with episodic matter. Another form +for the finale is that of the first movement (the Sonata form), and +still another, the theme and variations. Beethoven chose the latter +for his "Eroica," and the choral close of his Ninth, Dvorak, for his +symphony in G major, and Brahms for his in E minor. + +[Sidenote: _Organic Unities._] + +[Sidenote: _How enforced._] + +[Sidenote: _Berlioz's "idee fixe."_] + +[Sidenote: _Recapitulation of themes._] + +I am attempting nothing more than a characterization of the symphony, +and the forms with which I associated it at the outset, which shall +help the untrained listener to comprehend them as unities despite the +fact that to the careless hearer they present themselves as groups of +pieces each one of which is complete in itself and has no connection +with its fellows. The desire of composers to have their symphonies +accepted as unities instead of compages of unrelated pieces has led to +the adoption of various devices designed to force the bond of union +upon the attention of the hearer. Thus Beethoven in his symphony in C +minor not only connects the third and fourth movements but also +introduces a reminiscence of the former into the midst of the latter; +Berlioz in his "Symphonie Fantastique," which is written to what may +be called a dramatic scheme, makes use of a melody which he calls +"_l'idee fixe_," and has it recur in each of the four movements as an +episode. This, however, is frankly a symphony with programme, and +ought not to be treated as a modification of the pure form. Dvorak in +his symphony entitled "From the New World," in which he has striven to +give expression to the American spirit, quotes the first period of his +principal subject in all the subsequent movements, and then +sententiously recapitulates the principal themes of the first, second, +and third movements in the finale; and this without a sign of the +dramatic purpose confessed by Berlioz. + +[Sidenote: _Introduction of voices._] + +[Sidenote: _Abolition of pauses._] + +In the last movement of his Ninth Symphony Beethoven calls voices to +the aid of his instruments. It was a daring innovation, as it seemed +to disrupt the form, and we know from the story of the work how long +he hunted for the connecting link, which finally he found in the +instrumental recitative. Having hit upon the device, he summons each +of the preceding movements, which are purely instrumental, into the +presence of his augmented forces and dismisses it as inadequate to the +proclamation which the symphony was to make. The double-basses and +solo barytone are the spokesmen for the tuneful host. He thus achieves +the end of connecting the Allegro, Scherzo, and Adagio with each +other, and all with the Finale, and at the same time points out what +it is that he wishes us to recognize as the inspiration of the whole; +but here, again, the means appear to be somewhat extraneous. +Schumann's example, however, in abolishing the pauses between the +movements of the symphony in D minor, and having melodic material +common to all the movements, is a plea for appreciation which cannot +be misunderstood. Before Schumann Mendelssohn intended that his +"Scotch" symphony should be performed without pauses between the +movements, but his wishes have been ignored by the conductors, I fancy +because he having neglected to knit the movements together by +community of ideas, they can see no valid reason for the abolition of +the conventional resting-places. + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's "choral" symphony followed._] + +Beethoven's augmentation of the symphonic forces by employing voices +has been followed by Berlioz in his "Romeo and Juliet," which, though +called a "dramatic symphony," is a mixture of symphony, cantata, and +opera; Mendelssohn in his "Hymn of Praise" (which is also a composite +work and has a composite title--"Symphony Cantata"), and Liszt in his +"Faust" symphony, in the finale of which we meet a solo tenor and +chorus of men's voices who sing Goethe's _Chorus mysticus_. + +[Sidenote: _Increase in the number of movements._] + +A number of other experiments have been made, the effectiveness of +which has been conceded in individual instances, but which have failed +permanently to affect the symphonic form. Schumann has two trios in +his symphony in B-flat, and his E-flat, the so-called "Rhenish," has +five movements instead of four, there being two slow movements, one in +moderate tempo (_Nicht schnell_), and the other in slow (_Feierlich_). +In this symphony, also, Schumann exercises the license which has been +recognized since Beethoven's time, of changing the places in the +scheme of the second and third movements, giving the second place to +the jocose division instead of the slow. Beethoven's "Pastoral" has +also five movements, unless one chooses to take the storm which +interrupts the "Merry-making of the Country Folk" as standing toward +the last movement as an introduction, as, indeed, it does in the +composer's idyllic scheme. Certain it is, Sir George Grove to the +contrary notwithstanding, that the sense of a disturbance of the +symphonic plan is not so vivid at a performance of the "Pastoral" as +at one of Schumann's "Rhenish," in which either the third movement or +the so-called "Cathedral Scene" is most distinctly an interloper. + +[Sidenote: _Further extension of boundaries._] + +[Sidenote: _Saint-Saens's C minor symphony._] + +Usually it is deference to the demands of a "programme" that +influences composers in extending the formal boundaries of a symphony, +and when this is done the result is frequently a work which can only +be called a symphony by courtesy. M. Saint-Saens, however, attempted +an original excursion in his symphony in C minor, without any +discoverable, or at least confessed, programmatic idea. He laid the +work out in two grand divisions, so as to have but one pause. +Nevertheless in each division we can recognize, though as through a +haze, the outlines of the familiar symphonic movements. In the first +part, buried under a sequence of time designations like this: +_Adagio_--_Allegro moderato_--_Poco adagio_, we discover the customary +first and second movements, the former preceded by a slow +introduction; in the second division we find this arrangement: +_Allegro moderato_--_Presto_--_Maestoso_--_Allegro_, this multiplicity +of terms affording only a sort of disguise for the regulation scherzo +and finale, with a cropping out of reminiscences from the first part +which have the obvious purpose to impress upon the hearer that the +symphony is an organic whole. M. Saint-Saens has also introduced the +organ and a pianoforte with two players into the instrumental +apparatus. + +[Sidenote: _The Symphonic Poem._] + +[Sidenote: _Its characteristics._] + +Three characteristics may be said to distinguish the Symphonic Poem, +which in the view of the extremists who follow the lead of Liszt is +the logical outcome of the symphony and the only expression of its +aesthetic principles consonant with modern thought and feeling. +_First_, it is programmatic--that is, it is based upon a poetical +idea, a sequence of incidents, or of soul-states, to which a clew is +given either by the title or a motto; _second_, it is compacted in +form to a single movement, though as a rule the changing phases +delineated in the separate movements of the symphony are also to be +found in the divisions of the work marked by changes in tempo, key, +and character; _third_, the work generally has a principal subject of +such plasticity that the composer can body forth a varied content by +presenting it in a number of transformations. + +[Sidenote: _Liszt's first pianoforte concerto._] + +The last two characteristics Liszt has carried over into his +pianoforte concerto in E-flat. This has four distinct movements (viz.: +I. _Allegro maestoso_; II. _Quasi adagio_; III. _Allegretto vivace, +scherzando_; IV. _Allegro marziale animato_), but they are fused into +a continuous whole, throughout which the principal thought of the +work, the stupendously energetic phrase which the orchestra proclaims +at the outset, is presented in various forms to make it express a +great variety of moods and yet give unity to the concerto. "Thus, by +means of this metamorphosis," says Mr. Edward Dannreuther, "the +poetic unity of the whole musical tissue is made apparent, spite of +very great diversity of details; and Coleridge's attempt at a +definition of poetic unity--unity in multiety--is carried out to the +letter." + +[Sidenote: _Other cyclical forms._] + +[Sidenote: _Pianoforte and orchestra._] + +It will readily be understood that the other cyclical compositions +which I have associated with a classic concert, that is, compositions +belonging to the category of chamber music (see Chapter III.), and +concertos for solo instruments with orchestral accompaniment, while +conforming to the scheme which I have outlined, all have individual +characteristics conditioned on the expressive capacity of the +apparatus. The modern pianoforte is capable of asserting itself +against a full orchestra, and concertos have been written for it in +which it is treated as an orchestral integer rather than a solo +instrument. In the older conception, the orchestra, though it +frequently assumed the privilege of introducing the subject-matter, +played a subordinate part to the solo instrument in its development. +In violin as well as pianoforte concertos special opportunity is +given to the player to exploit his skill and display the solo +instrument free from structural restrictions in the cadenza introduced +shortly before the close of the first, last, or both movements. + +[Sidenote: _Cadenzas._] + +[Sidenote: _Improvisations by the player._] + +[Sidenote: _M. Ysaye's opinion of Cadenzas._] + +Cadenzas are a relic of a time when the art of improvisation was more +generally practised than it is now, and when performers were conceded +to have rights beyond the printed page. Solely for their display, it +became customary for composers to indicate by a hold ([fermata +symbol]) a place where the performer might indulge in a flourish of +his own. There is a tradition that Mozart once remarked: "Wherever I +smear that thing," indicating a hold, "you can do what you please;" +the rule is, however, that the only privilege which the cadenza opens +to the player is that of improvising on material drawn from the +subjects already developed, and since, also as a rule, composers are +generally more eloquent in the treatment of their own ideas than +performers, it is seldom that a cadenza contributes to the enjoyment +afforded by a work, except to the lovers of technique for technique's +sake. I never knew an artist to make a more sensible remark than did +M. Ysaye, when on the eve of a memorably beautiful performance of +Beethoven's violin concerto, he said: "If I were permitted to consult +my own wishes I would put my violin under my arm when I reach the +_fermate_ and say: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the cadenza. +It is presumptuous in any musician to think that he can have anything +to say after Beethoven has finished. With your permission we will +consider my cadenza played.'" That Beethoven may himself have had a +thought of the same nature is a fair inference from the circumstance +that he refused to leave the cadenza in his E-flat pianoforte concerto +to the mercy of the virtuosos but wrote it himself. + +[Sidenote: _Concertos._] + +[Sidenote: _Chamber music._] + +Concertos for pianoforte or violin are usually written in three +movements, of which the first and last follow the symphonic model in +respect of elaboration and form, and the second is a brief movement +in slow or moderate time, which has the character of an intermezzo. As +to the nomenclature of chamber music, it is to be noted that unless +connected with a qualifying word or phrase, "Quartet" means a string +quartet. When a pianoforte is consorted with strings the work is +spoken of as a Pianoforte Trio, Quartet, or Quintet, as the case may +be. + +[Sidenote: _The Overture._] + +[Sidenote: _Pot-pourris._] + +The form of the overture is that of the first movement of the sonata, +or symphony, omitting the repetition of the first subdivision. Since +the original purpose, which gave the overture its name (_Ouverture_ = +aperture, opening), was to introduce a drama, either spoken or +lyrical, an oratorio, or other choral composition, it became customary +for the composers to choose the subjects of the piece from the +climacteric moments of the music used in the drama. When done without +regard to the rules of construction (as is the case with practically +all operetta overtures and Rossini's) the result is not an overture at +all, but a _pot-pourri_, a hotch-potch of jingles. The present +beautiful form, in which Beethoven and other composers have shown +that it is possible to epitomize an entire drama, took the place of an +arbitrary scheme which was wholly aimless, so far as the compositions +to which they were attached were concerned. + +[Sidenote: _Old styles of overtures._] + +[Sidenote: _The Prelude._] + +[Sidenote: _Gluck's principle._] + +[Sidenote: _Descriptive titles._] + +The earliest fixed form of the overture is preserved to the current +lists of to-day by the compositions of Bach and Handel. It is that +established by Lully, and is tripartite in form, consisting of a rapid +movement, generally a fugue, preceded and followed by a slow movement +which is grave and stately in its tread. In its latest phase the +overture has yielded up its name in favor of Prelude (German, +_Vorspiel_), Introduction, or Symphonic Prologue. The finest of these, +without borrowing their themes from the works which they introduce, +but using new matter entirely, seek to fulfil the aim which Gluck set +for himself, when, in the preface to "Alceste," he wrote: "I imagined +that the overture ought to prepare the audience for the action of the +piece, and serve as a kind of argument to it." Concert overtures are +compositions designed by the composers to stand as independent pieces +instead of for performance in connection with a drama, opera, or +oratorio. When, as is frequently the case, the composer, nevertheless, +gives them a descriptive title ("Hebrides," "Sakuntala"), their +poetical contents are to be sought in the associations aroused by the +title. Thus, in the instances cited, "Hebrides" suggests that the +overture was designed by Mendelssohn to reflect the mood awakened in +him by a visit to the Hebrides, more particularly to Fingal's Cave +(wherefore the overture is called the "Fingal's Cave" overture in +Germany)--"Sakuntala" invites to a study of Kalidasa's drama of that +name as the repository of the sentiments which Goldmark undertook to +express in his music. + +[Sidenote: _Serenades._] + +[Sidenote: _The Serenade in Shakespeare._] + +A form which is variously employed, for solo instruments, small +combinations, and full orchestra (though seldom with the complete +modern apparatus), is the Serenade. Historically, it is a contemporary +of the old suites and the first symphonies, and like them it consists +of a group of short pieces, so arranged as to form an agreeable +contrast with each other, and yet convey a sense of organic unity. +The character of the various parts and their order grew out of the +purpose for which the serenade was originated, which was that +indicated by the name. In the last century, and earlier, it was no +uncommon thing for a lover to bring the tribute of a musical +performance to his mistress, and it was not always a "woful ballad" +sung to her eyebrow. Frequently musicians were hired, and the tribute +took the form of a nocturnal concert. In Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen +of Verona," _Proteus_, prompting _Thurio_ what to do to win _Silvia's_ +love, says: + + "Visit by night your lady's chamber window + With some sweet concert: to their instruments + Tune a deploring dump; the night's dread silence + Will well become such sweet complaining grievance." + +[Sidenote: _Out-of-doors music._] + +[Sidenote: _Old forms._] + +[Sidenote: _The "Dump."_] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's Serenade, op. 8._] + +It was for such purposes that the serenade was invented as an +instrumental form. Since they were to play out of doors, _Sir +Thurio's_ musicians would have used wind instruments instead of +viols, and the oldest serenades are composed for oboes and bassoons. +Clarinets and horns were subsequently added, and for such bands Mozart +wrote serenades, some of which so closely approach the symphony that +they have been published as symphonies. A serenade in the olden time +opened very properly with a march, to the strains of which we may +imagine the musicians approaching the lady's chamber window. Then came +a minuet to prepare her ear for the "deploring dump" which followed, +the "dump" of Shakespeare's day, like the "dumka" of ours (with which +I am tempted to associate it etymologically), being a mournful piece +of music most happily characterized by the poet as a "sweet +complaining grievance." Then followed another piece in merry tempo and +rhythm, then a second _adagio_, and the entertainment ended with an +_allegro_, generally in march rhythm, to which we fancy the musicians +departing. The order is exemplified in Beethoven's serenade for +violin, viola, and violoncello, op. 8, which runs thus: _March_; +_Adagio_; _Minuet_; _Adagio_ with episodic _Scherzo_; _Polacca_; +_Andante_ (variations), the opening march repeated. + +[Sidenote: _The Orchestral Suite._] + +[Sidenote: _Ballet music._] + +The Suite has come back into favor as an orchestral piece, but the +term no longer has the fixed significance which once it had. It is now +applied to almost any group of short pieces, pleasantly contrasted in +rhythm, tempo, and mood, each complete in itself yet disclosing an +aesthetic relationship with its fellows. Sometimes old dance forms are +used, and sometimes new, such as the polonaise and the waltz. The +ballet music, which fills so welcome a place in popular programmes, +may be looked upon as such a suite, and the rhythm of the music and +the orchestral coloring in them are frequently those peculiar to the +dances of the countries in which the story of the opera or drama for +which the music was written plays. The ballets therefore afford an +excellent opportunity for the study of local color. Thus the ballet +music from Massenet's "Cid" is Spanish, from Rubinstein's "Feramors" +Oriental, from "Aida" Egyptian--Oriental rhythms and colorings being +those most easily copied by composers. + +[Sidenote: _Operatic excerpts._] + +[Sidenote: _Gluck and Vestris._] + +The other operatic excerpts common to concerts of both classes are +either between-acts music, fantasias on operatic airs, or, in the case +of Wagner's contributions, portions of his dramas which are so +predominantly instrumental that it has been found feasible to +incorporate the vocal part with the orchestral. In ballet music from +the operas of the last century, some of which has been preserved to +the modern concert-room, local color must not be sought. Gluck's +Greeks, like Shakespeare's, danced to the rhythms of the seventeenth +century. Vestris, whom the people of his time called "The god of the +dance," once complained to Gluck that his "Iphigenie en Aulide" did +not end with a chaconne, as was the rule. "A chaconne!" cried Gluck; +"when did the Greeks ever dance a chaconne?" "Didn't they? Didn't +they?" answered Vestris; "so much the worse for the Greeks." There +ensued a quarrel. Gluck became incensed, withdrew the opera which was +about to be produced, and would have left Paris had not Marie +Antoinette come to the rescue. But Vestris got his chaconne. + + + + +VI + +_At a Pianoforte Recital_ + + +[Sidenote: _Mr. Paderewski's concerts._] + +No clearer illustration of the magical power which lies in music, no +more convincing proof of the puissant fascination which a musical +artist can exert, no greater demonstration of the capabilities of an +instrument of music can be imagined than was afforded by the +pianoforte recitals which Mr. Paderewski gave in the United States +during the season of 1895-96. More than threescore times in the course +of five months, in the principal cities of this country, did this +wonderful man seat himself in the presence of audiences, whose numbers +ran into the thousands, and were limited only by the seating capacity +of the rooms in which they gathered, and hold them spellbound from two +to three hours by the eloquence of his playing. Each time the people +came in a gladsome frame of mind, stimulated by the recollection of +previous delights or eager expectation. Each time they sat listening +to the music as if it were an evangel on which hung everlasting +things. Each time there was the same growth in enthusiasm which began +in decorous applause and ended in cheers and shouts as the artist came +back after the performance of a herculean task, and added piece after +piece to a programme which had been laid down on generous lines from +the beginning. The careless saw the spectacle with simple amazement, +but for the judicious it had a wondrous interest. + +[Sidenote: _Pianoforte recitals._] + +[Sidenote: _The pianoforte's underlying principles._] + +I am not now concerned with Mr. Paderewski beyond invoking his aid in +bringing into court a form of entertainment which, in his hands, has +proved to be more attractive to the multitude than symphony, oratorio, +and even opera. What a world of speculation and curious inquiry does +such a recital invite one into, beginning with the instrument which +was the medium of communication between the artist and his hearers! +To follow the progressive development of the mechanical principles +underlying the pianoforte, one would be obliged to begin beyond the +veil which separates history from tradition, for the first of them +finds its earliest exemplification in the bow twanged by the primitive +savage. Since a recognition of these principles may help to an +understanding of the art of pianoforte playing, I enumerate them now. +They are: + +1. A stretched string as a medium of tone production. + +2. A key-board as an agency for manipulating the strings. + +3. A blow as the means of exciting the strings to vibratory action, by +which the tone is produced. + +[Sidenote: _Their Genesis._] + +[Sidenote: _Significance of the pianoforte._] + +Many interesting glimpses of the human mind and heart might we have in +the course of the promenade through the ancient, mediaeval, and modern +worlds which would be necessary to disclose the origin and growth of +these three principles, but these we must forego, since we are to +study the music of the instrument, not its history. Let the knowledge +suffice that the fundamental principle of the pianoforte is as old as +music itself, and that scientific learning, inventive ingenuity, and +mechanical skill, tributary always to the genius of the art, have +worked together for centuries to apply this principle, until the +instrument which embodies it in its highest potency is become a +veritable microcosm of music. It is the visible sign of culture in +every gentle household; the indispensable companion of the composer +and teacher; the intermediary between all the various branches of +music. Into the study of the orchestral conductor it brings a +translation of all the multitudinous voices of the band; to the +choir-master it represents the chorus of singers in the church-loft or +on the concert-platform; with its aid the opera director fills his +imagination with the people, passions, and pageantry of the lyric +drama long before the singers have received their parts, or the +costumer, stage manager, and scene-painter have begun their work. It +is the only medium through which the musician in his study can +commune with the whole world of music and all its heroes; and though +it may fail to inspire somewhat of that sympathetic nearness which one +feels toward the violin as it nestles under the chin and throbs +synchronously with the player's emotions, or those wind instruments +into which the player breathes his own breath as the breath of life, +it surpasses all its rivals, save the organ, in its capacity for +publishing the grand harmonies of the masters, for uttering their +"sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." + +[Sidenote: _Defects of the pianoforte._] + +[Sidenote: _Lack of sustaining power._] + +This is one side of the picture and serves to show why the pianoforte +is the most universal, useful, and necessary of all musical +instruments. The other side shows its deficiencies, which must also be +known if one is to appreciate rightly the many things he is called +upon to note while listening intelligently to pianoforte music. +Despite all the skill, learning, and ingenuity which have been spent +on its perfection, the pianoforte can be made only feebly to +approximate that sustained style of musical utterance which is the +soul of melody, and finds its loftiest exemplification in singing. To +give out a melody perfectly, presupposes the capacity to sustain tones +without loss in power or quality, to bind them together at will, and +sometimes to intensify their dynamic or expressive force while they +sound. The tone of the pianoforte, being produced by a blow, begins to +die the moment it is created. The history of the instrument's +mechanism, and also of its technical manipulation, is the history of +an effort to reduce this shortcoming to a minimum. It has always +conditioned the character of the music composed for the instrument, +and if we were not in danger of being led into too wide an excursion, +it would be profitable to trace the parallelism which is disclosed by +the mechanical evolution of the instrument, and the technical and +spiritual evolution of the music composed for it. A few points will be +touched upon presently, when the intellectual activity invited by a +recital is brought under consideration. + +[Sidenote: _The percussive element._] + +[Sidenote: _Melody with drum-beats._] + +[Sidenote: _Rhythmical accentuation._] + +[Sidenote: _A universal substitute._] + +It is to be noted, further, that by a beautiful application of the +doctrine of compensations, the factor which limits the capacity of +the pianoforte as a melody instrument endows it with a merit which no +other instrument has in the same degree, except the instruments of +percussion, which, despite their usefulness, stand on the border line +between savage and civilized music. It is from its relationship to the +drum that the pianoforte derives a peculiarity quite unique in the +melodic and harmonic family. Rhythm is, after all, the starting-point +of music. More than melody, more than harmony, it stirs the blood of +the savage, and since the most vital forces within man are those which +date back to his primitive state, so the sense of rhythm is the most +universal of the musical senses among even the most cultured of +peoples to-day. By themselves the drums, triangles, and cymbals of an +orchestra represent music but one remove from noise; but everybody +knows how marvellously they can be utilized to glorify a climax. Now, +in a very refined degree, every melody on the pianoforte, be it played +as delicately as it may, is a melody with drum-beats. Manufacturers +have done much toward eliminating the thump of the hammers against the +strings, and familiarity with the tone of the instrument has closed +our ears against it to a great extent as something intrusive, but the +blow which excites the string to vibration, and thus generates sound, +is yet a vital factor in determining the character of pianoforte +music. The recurrent pulsations, now energetic, incisive, resolute, +now gentle and caressing, infuse life into the melody, and by +emphasizing its rhythmical structure (without unduly exaggerating it), +present the form of the melody in much sharper outline than is +possible on any other instrument, and much more than one would expect +in view of the evanescent character of the pianoforte's tone. It is +this quality, combined with the mechanism which places all the +gradations of tone, from loudest to softest, at the easy and +instantaneous command of the player, which, I fancy, makes the +pianoforte, in an astonishing degree, a substitute for all the other +instruments. Each instrument in the orchestra has an idiom, which +sounds incomprehensible when uttered by some other of its fellows, but +they can all be translated, with more or less success, into the +language of the pianoforte--not the quality of the tone, though even +that can be suggested, but the character of the phrase. The pianoforte +can sentimentalize like the flute, make a martial proclamation like +the trumpet, intone a prayer like the churchly trombone. + +[Sidenote: _The instrument's mechanism._] + +[Sidenote: _Tone formation and production._] + +In the intricacy of its mechanism the pianoforte stands next to the +organ. The farther removed from direct utterance we are the more +difficult is it to speak the true language of music. The violin player +and the singer, and in a less degree the performers upon some of the +wind instruments, are obliged to form the musical tone--which, in the +case of the pianist, is latent in the instrument, ready to present +itself in two of its attributes in answer to a simple pressure upon +the key. The most unmusical person in the world can learn to produce a +series of tones from a pianoforte which shall be as exact in pitch and +as varied in dynamic force as can Mr. Paderewski. He cannot combine +them so ingeniously nor imbue them with feeling, but in the simple +matter of producing the tone with the attributes mentioned, he is on a +level with the greatest virtuoso. Very different is the case of the +musician who must exercise a distinctly musical gift in the simple +evocation of the materials of music, like the violinist and singer, +who both form and produce the tone. For them compensation flows from +the circumstance that the tone thus formed and produced is naturally +instinct with emotional life in a degree that the pianoforte tone +knows nothing of. + +[Sidenote: _Technical manipulation._] + +[Sidenote: _Touch and emotionality._] + +In one respect, it may be said that the mechanics of pianoforte +playing represent a low plane of artistic activity, a fact which ought +always to be remembered whenever the temptation is felt greatly to +exalt the technique of the art; but it must also be borne in mind that +the mechanical nature of simple tone production in pianoforte playing +raises the value of the emotional quality which, nevertheless, stands +at the command of the player. The emotional potency of the tone must +come from the manner in which the blow is given to the string. +Recognition of this fact has stimulated reflection, and this in turn +has discovered methods by which temperament and emotionality may be +made to express themselves as freely, convincingly, and spontaneously +in pianoforte as in violin playing. If this were not so it would be +impossible to explain the difference in the charm exerted by different +virtuosi, for it has frequently happened that the best-equipped +mechanician and the most intellectual player has been judged inferior +as an artist to another whose gifts were of the soul rather than of +the brains and fingers. + +[Sidenote: _The technical cult._] + +[Sidenote: _A low form of art._] + +The feats accomplished by a pianoforte virtuoso in the mechanical +department are of so extraordinary a nature that there need be small +wonder at the wide prevalence of a distinctly technical cult. All who +know the real nature and mission of music must condemn such a cult. It +is a sign of a want of true appreciation to admire technique for +technique's sake. It is a mistaking of the outward shell for the +kernel, a means for the end. There are still many players who aim to +secure this admiration, either because they are deficient in real +musical feeling, or because they believe themselves surer of winning +applause by thus appealing to the lowest form of appreciation. In the +early part of the century they would have been handicapped by the +instrument which lent itself to delicacy, clearness, and gracefulness +of expression, but had little power. Now the pianoforte has become a +thing of rigid steel, enduring tons of strain from its strings, and +having a voice like the roar of many waters; to keep pace with it +players have become athletes with + + "Thews of Anakim + And pulses of a Titan's heart." + +[Sidenote: _Technical skill a matter of course._] + +They care no more for the "murmurs made to bless," unless it be +occasionally for the sake of contrast, but seek to astound, amaze, +bewilder, and confound with feats of skill and endurance. That with +their devotion to the purely mechanical side of the art they are +threatening to destroy pianoforte playing gives them no pause +whatever. The era which they illustrate and adorn is the technical era +which was, is, and ever shall be, the era of decay in artistic +production. For the judicious technique alone, be it never so +marvellous, cannot serve to-day. Its possession is accepted as a +condition precedent in the case of everyone who ventures to appear +upon the concert-platform. He must be a wonder, indeed, who can +disturb our critical equilibrium by mere digital feats. We want +strength and velocity of finger to be coupled with strength, velocity, +and penetration of thought. We want no halting or lisping in the +proclamation of what the composer has said, but we want the contents +of his thought, not the hollow shell, no matter how distinctly its +outlines be drawn. + +[Sidenote: _The plan of study in this chapter._] + +[Sidenote: _A typical scheme of pieces._] + +The factors which present themselves for consideration at a pianoforte +recital--mechanical, intellectual, and emotional--can be most +intelligently and profitably studied along with the development of the +instrument and its music. All branches of the study are invited by +the typical recital programme. The essentially romantic trend of Mr. +Paderewski's nature makes his excursions into the classical field few +and short; and it is only when a pianist undertakes to emulate +Rubinstein in his historical recitals that the entire pre-Beethoven +vista is opened up. It will suffice for the purposes of this +discussion to imagine a programme containing pieces by Bach, D. +Scarlatti, Handel, and Mozart in one group; a sonata by Beethoven; +some of the shorter pieces of Schumann and Chopin, and one of the +transcriptions or rhapsodies of Liszt. + +[Sidenote: _Periods in pianoforte music._] + +Such a scheme falls naturally into four divisions, plainly +differentiated from each other in respect of the style of composition +and the manner of performance, both determined by the nature of the +instrument employed and the status of the musical idea. Simply for the +sake of convenience let the period represented by the first group be +called the classic; the second the classic-romantic; the third the +romantic, and the last the bravura. I beg the reader, however, not to +extend these designations beyond the boundaries of the present study; +they have been chosen arbitrarily, and confusion might result if the +attempt were made to apply them to any particular concert scheme. I +have chosen the composers because of their broadly representative +capacity. And they must stand for a numerous _epigonoi_ whose names +make up our concert lists: say, Couperin, Rameau, and Haydn in the +first group; Schubert in the second; Mendelssohn and Rubinstein in the +third. It would not be respectful to the memory of Liszt were I to +give him the associates with whom in my opinion he stands; that matter +may be held in abeyance. + +[Sidenote: _Predecessors of the pianoforte._] + +[Sidenote: _The Clavichord._] + +[Sidenote: _"Bebung."_] + +The instruments for which the first group of writers down to Haydn and +Mozart wrote, were the immediate precursors of the pianoforte--the +clavichord, spinet, or virginal, and harpsichord. The last was the +concert instrument, and stood in the same relationship to the others +that the grand pianoforte of to-day stands to the upright and square. +The clavichord was generally the medium for the composer's private +communings with his muse, because of its superiority over its fellows +in expressive power; but it gave forth only a tiny tinkle and was +incapable of stirring effects beyond those which sprang from pure +emotionality. The tone was produced by a blow against the string, +delivered by a bit of brass set in the farther end of the key. The +action was that of a direct lever, and the bit of brass, which was +called the tangent, also acted as a bridge and measured off the +segment of string whose vibration produced the desired tone. It was +therefore necessary to keep the key pressed down so long as it was +desired that the tone should sound, a fact which must be kept in mind +if one would understand the shortcomings as well as the advantages of +the instrument compared with the spinet or harpsichord. It also +furnishes one explanation of the greater lyricism of Bach's music +compared with that of his contemporaries. By gently rocking the hand +while the key was down, a tremulous motion could be communicated to +the string, which not only prolonged the tone appreciably but gave it +an expressive effect somewhat analogous to the vibrato of a violinist. +The Germans called this effect _Bebung_, the French _Balancement_, and +it was indicated by a row of dots under a short slur written over the +note. It is to the special fondness which Bach felt for the clavichord +that we owe, to a great extent, the cantabile style of his music, its +many-voicedness and its high emotionality. + +[Sidenote: _Quilled instruments._] + +[Sidenote: _Tone of the harpsichord and spinet._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach's "Music of the future."_] + +The spinet, virginal, and harpsichord were quilled instruments, the +tone of which was produced by snapping the strings by means of plectra +made of quill, or some other flexible substance, set in the upper end +of a bit of wood called the jack, which rested on the farther end of +the key and moved through a slot in the sounding-board. When the key +was pressed down, the jack moved upward past the string which was +caught and twanged by the plectrum. The blow of the clavichord tangent +could be graduated like that of the pianoforte hammer, but the quills +of the other instruments always plucked the strings with the same +force, so that mechanical devices, such as a swell-box, similar in +principle to that of the organ, coupling in octaves, doubling the +strings, etc., had to be resorted to for variety of dynamic effects. +The character of tone thus produced determined the character of the +music composed for these instruments to a great extent. The brevity of +the sound made sustained melodies ineffective, and encouraged the use +of a great variety of embellishments and the spreading out of +harmonies in the form of arpeggios. It is obvious enough that Bach, +being one of those monumental geniuses that cast their prescient +vision far into the future, refused to be bound by such mechanical +limitations. Though he wrote _Clavier_, he thought organ, which was +his true interpretative medium, and so it happens that the greatest +sonority and the broadest style that have been developed in the +pianoforte do not exhaust the contents of such a composition as the +"Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue." + +[Sidenote: _Scarlatti's sonatas._] + +The earliest music written for these instruments--music which does +not enter into this study--was but one remove from vocal music. It +came through compositions written for the organ. Of Scarlatti's music +the pieces most familiar are a Capriccio and Pastorale which Tausig +rewrote for the pianoforte. They were called sonatas by their +composer, but are not sonatas in the modern sense. Sonata means +"sound-piece," and when the term came into music it signified only +that the composition to which it was applied was written for +instruments instead of voices. Scarlatti did a great deal to develop +the technique of the harpsichord and the style of composing for it. +His sonatas consist each of a single movement only, but in their +structure they foreshadow the modern sonata form in having two +contrasted themes, which are presented in a fixed key-relationship. +They are frequently full of grace and animation, but are as purely +objective, formal, and soulless in their content as the other +instrumental compositions of the epoch to which they belong. + +[Sidenote: _The suite._] + +[Sidenote: _Its history and form._] + +[Sidenote: _The bond between the movements._] + +The most significant of the compositions of this period are the +Suites, which because they make up so large a percentage of _Clavier_ +literature (using the term to cover the pianoforte and its +predecessors), and because they pointed the way to the distinguishing +form of the subsequent period, the sonata, are deserving of more +extended consideration. The suite is a set of pieces in the same key, +but contrasted in character, based upon certain admired dance-forms. +Originally it was a set of dances and nothing more, but in the hands +of the composers the dances underwent many modifications, some of them +to the obvious detriment of their national or other distinguishing +characteristics. The suite came into fashion about the middle of the +seventeenth century and was also called _Sonata da Camera_ and +_Balletto_ in Italy, and, later, _Partita_ in France. In its +fundamental form it embraced four movements: I. Allemande. II. +Courante. III. Sarabande. IV. Gigue. To these four were sometimes +added other dances--the Gavotte, Passepied, Branle, Minuet, Bourree, +etc.--but the rule was that they should be introduced between the +Sarabande and the Gigue. Sometimes also the set was introduced by a +Prelude or an Overture. Identity of key was the only external tie +between the various members of the suite, but the composers sought to +establish an artistic unity by elaborating the sentiments for which +the dance-forms seemed to offer a vehicle, and presenting them in +agreeable contrast, besides enriching the primitive structure with new +material. The suites of Bach and Handel are the high-water mark in +this style of composition, but it would be difficult to find the +original characteristics of the dances in their settings. It must +suffice us briefly to indicate the characteristics of the principal +forms. + +[Sidenote: _The Allemande._] + +The Allemande, as its name indicates, was a dance of supposedly German +origin. For that reason the German composers, when it came to them +from France, where the suite had its origin, treated it with great +partiality. It is in moderate tempo, common time, and made up of two +periods of eight measures, both of which are repeated. It begins with +an upbeat, and its metre, to use the terms of prosody, is iambic. The +following specimen from Mersenne's "Harmonie Universelle," 1636, well +displays its characteristics: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Iambics in music and poetry._] + +Robert Burns's familiar iambics, + + "Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, + How can ye bloom sae fair? + How can ye chant, ye little birds, + And I sae fu' o' care!" + +might serve to keep the rhythmical characteristics of the Allemande in +mind were it not for the arbitrary changes made by the composers +already hinted at. As it is, we frequently find the stately movement +of the old dance broken up into elaborate, but always quietly +flowing, ornamentation, as indicated in the following excerpt from the +third of Bach's English suites: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Courante._] + +The Courante, or Corrente ("Teach lavoltas high and swift corantos," +says Shakespeare), is a French dance which was extremely popular in +the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries--a polite dance, +like the minuet. It was in triple time, and its movement was bright +and brisk, a merry energy being imparted to the measure by the +prevailing figure, a dotted quarter-note, an eighth, and a quarter in +a measure, as illustrated in the following excerpt also from Mersenne: + +[Music illustration] + +The suite composers varied the movement greatly, however, and the +Italian Corrente consists chiefly of rapid running passages. + +[Sidenote: _The Sarabande._] + +The Sarabande was also in triple time, but its movement was slow and +stately. In Spain, whence it was derived, it was sung to the +accompaniment of castanets, a fact which in itself suffices to +indicate that it was originally of a lively character, and took on its +solemnity in the hands of the later composers. Handel found the +Sarabande a peculiarly admirable vehicle for his inspirations, and one +of the finest examples extant figures in the triumphal music of his +"Almira," composed in 1704: + +[Sidenote: _A Sarabande by Handel._] + +[Music illustration] + +Seven years after the production of "Almira," Handel recurred to this +beautiful instrumental piece, and out of it constructed the exquisite +lament beginning "_Lascia ch'io pianga_" in his opera "Rinaldo." + +[Sidenote: _The Gigue._] + +[Sidenote: _The Minuet._] + +[Sidenote: _The Gavotte._] + +Great Britain's contribution to the Suite was the final Gigue, which +is our jolly and familiar friend the jig, and in all probability is +Keltic in origin. It is, as everybody knows, a rollicking measure in +6-8, 12-8, or 4-4 time, with twelve triplet quavers in a measure, and +needs no description. It remained a favorite with composers until far +into the eighteenth century. Shakespeare proclaims its exuberant +lustiness when he makes _Sir Toby Belch_ protest that had he _Sir +Andrew's_ gifts his "very walk should be a jig." Of the other dances +incorporated into the suite, two are deserving of special mention +because of their influence on the music of to-day--the Minuet, which +is the parent of the symphonic scherzo, and the Gavotte, whose +fascinating movement is frequently heard in latter-day operettas. The +Minuet is a French dance, and came from Poitou. Louis XIV. danced it +to Lully's music for the first time at Versailles in 1653, and it soon +became the most popular of court and society dances, holding its own +down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was long called +the Queen of Dances, and there is no one who has grieved to see the +departure of gallantry and grace from our ball-rooms but will wish to +see Her Gracious Majesty restored to her throne. The music of the +minuet is in 3-4 time, and of stately movement. The Gavotte is a +lively dance-measure in common time, beginning, as a rule, on the +third beat. Its origin has been traced to the mountain people of the +Dauphine called Gavots--whence its name. + +[Sidenote: _Technique of the Clavier players._] + +[Sidenote: _Change in technique._] + +The transferrence of this music to the modern pianoforte has effected +a vast change in the manner of its performance. In the period under +consideration emotionality, which is considered the loftiest attribute +of pianoforte playing to-day, was lacking, except in the case of such +masters of the clavichord as the great Bach and his son, Carl Philipp +Emanuel, who inherited his father's preference for that instrument +over the harpsichord and pianoforte. Tastefulness in the giving out of +the melody, distinctness of enunciation, correctness of phrasing, +nimbleness and lightness of finger, summed up practically all that +there was in virtuosoship. Intellectuality and digital skill were the +essential factors. Beauty of tone through which feeling and +temperament speak now was the product of the maker of the instrument, +except again in the case of the clavichord, in which it may have been +largely the creation of the player. It is, therefore, not surprising +that the first revolution in technique of which we hear was +accomplished by Bach, who, the better to bring out the characteristics +of his polyphonic style, made use of the thumb, till then considered +almost a useless member of the hand in playing, and bent his fingers, +so that their movements might be more unconstrained. + +[Sidenote: _Bach's touch._] + +[Sidenote: _Handel's playing._] + +[Sidenote: _Scarlatti's style._] + +Of the varieties of touch, which play such a role in pianoforte +pedagogics to-day, nothing was known. Only on the clavichord was a +blow delivered directly against the string, and, as has already been +said, only on that instrument was the dynamic shading regulated by the +touch. Practically, the same touch was used on the organ and the +stringed instruments with key-board. When we find written praise of +the old players it always goes to the fluency and lightness of their +fingering. Handel was greatly esteemed as a harpsichord player, and +seems to have invented a position of the hand like Bach's, or to have +copied it from that master. Forkel tells us the movement of Bach's +fingers was so slight as to be scarcely noticeable; the position of +his hands remained unchanged throughout, and the rest of his body +motionless. Speaking of Handel's harpsichord playing, Burney says that +his fingers "seemed to grow to the keys. They were so curved and +compact when he played that no motion, and scarcely the fingers +themselves, could be discovered." Scarlatti's significance lies +chiefly in an extension of the technique of his time so as to give +greater individuality to the instrument. He indulged freely in +brilliant passages and figures which sometimes call for a crossing of +the hands, also in leaps of over an octave, repetition of a note by +different fingers, broken chords in contrary motion, and other devices +which prefigure modern pianoforte music. + +[Sidenote: _The sonata._] + +That Scarlatti also pointed the way to the modern sonata, I have +already said. The history of the sonata, as the term is now +understood, ends with Beethoven. Many sonatas have been written since +the last one of that great master, but not a word has been added to +his proclamation. He stands, therefore, as a perfect exemplar of the +second period in the scheme which we have adopted for the study of +pianoforte music and playing. In a general way a sonata may be +described as a composition of four movements, contrasted in mood, +tempo, sentiment, and character, but connected by that spiritual bond +of which mention was made in our study of the symphony. In short, a +sonata is a symphony for a solo instrument. + +[Sidenote: _Haydn._] + +When it came into being it was little else than a convenient formula +for the expression of musical beauty. Haydn, who perfected it on its +formal side, left it that and nothing more. Mozart poured the vessel +full of beauty, but Beethoven breathed the breath of a new life into +it. An old writer tells us of Haydn that he was wont to say that the +whole art of composing consisted in taking up a subject and pursuing +it. Having invented his theme, he would begin by choosing the keys +through which he wished to make it pass. + + "His exquisite feeling gave him a perfect knowledge of the + greater or less degree of effect which one chord produces + in succeeding another, and he afterward imagined a little + romance which might furnish him with sentiments and colors." + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven._] + +[Sidenote: _Mozart's manner of playing._] + +Beethoven began with the sentiment and worked from it outwardly, +modifying the form when it became necessary to do so, in order to +obtain complete and perfect utterance. He made spirit rise superior to +matter. This must be borne in mind when comparing the technique of the +previous period with that of which I have made Beethoven the +representative. In the little that we are privileged to read of +Mozart's style of playing, we see only a reflex of the players who +went before him, saving as it was permeated by the warmth which went +out from his own genial personality. His manipulation of the keys had +the quietness and smoothness that were praised in Bach and Handel. + + "Delicacy and taste," says Kullak, "with his lifting of the + entire technique to the spiritual aspiration of the idea, + elevate him as a virtuoso to a height unanimously conceded + by the public, by connoisseurs, and by artists capable of + judging. Clementi declared that he had never heard any one + play so soulfully and charmfully as Mozart; Dittersdorf + finds art and taste combined in his playing; Haydn + asseverated with tears that Mozart's playing he could never + forget, for it touched the heart. His staccato is said to + have possessed a peculiarly brilliant charm." + +[Sidenote: _Clementi._] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven as a pianist._] + +The period of C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, and Mozart is that in which the +pianoforte gradually replaced its predecessors, and the first real +pianist was Mozart's contemporary and rival, Muzio Clementi. His chief +significance lies in his influence as a technician, for he opened the +way to the modern style of play with its greater sonority and capacity +for expression. Under him passage playing became an entirely new +thing; deftness, lightness, and fluency were replaced by stupendous +virtuosoship, which rested, nevertheless, on a full and solid tone. He +is said to have been able to trill in octaves with one hand. He was +necessary for the adequate interpretation of Beethoven, whose music is +likely to be best understood by those who know that he, too, was a +superb pianoforte player, fully up to the requirements which his last +sonatas make upon technical skill as well as intellectual and +emotional gifts. + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven's technique._] + +[Sidenote: _Expression supreme._] + +Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven, has preserved a fuller account +of that great composer's art as a player than we have of any of his +predecessors. He describes his technique as tremendous, better than +that of any virtuoso of his day. He was remarkably deft in connecting +the full chords, in which he delighted, without the use of the pedal. +His manner at the instrument was composed and quiet. He sat erect, +without movement of the upper body, and only when his deafness +compelled him to do so, in order to hear his own music, did he +contract a habit of leaning forward. With an evident appreciation of +the necessities of old-time music he had a great admiration for clean +fingering, especially in fugue playing, and he objected to the use of +Cramer's studies in the instruction of his nephew by Czerny because +they led to what he called a "sticky" style of play, and failed to +bring out crisp staccatos and a light touch. But it was upon +expression that he insisted most of all when he taught. + +[Sidenote: _Music and emotion._] + +More than anyone else it was Beethoven who brought music back to the +purpose which it had in its first rude state, when it sprang +unvolitionally from the heart and lips of primitive man. It became +again a vehicle for the feelings. As such it was accepted by the +romantic composers to whom he belongs as father, seer, and prophet, +quite as intimately as he belongs to the classicists by reason of his +adherence to form as an essential in music. To his contemporaries he +appears as an image-breaker, but to the clearer vision of to-day he +stands an unshakable barrier to lawless iconoclasm. Says Sir George +Grove, quoting Mr. Edward Dannreuther, in the passages within the +inverted commas: + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven a Romanticist._] + + "That he was no wild radical altering for the mere pleasure + of alteration, or in the mere search for originality, is + evident from the length of time during which he abstained + from publishing, or even composing works of pretension, and + from the likeness which his early works possess to those of + his predecessors. He began naturally with the forms which + were in use in his days, and his alteration of them grew + very gradually with the necessities of his expression. The + form of the sonata is 'the transparent veil through which + Beethoven seems to have looked at all music.' And the good + points of that form he retained to the last--the 'triune + symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,' which + that admirable method allowed and enforced--but he permitted + himself a much greater liberty than his predecessors had + done in the relationship of the keys of the different + movements, and parts of movements, and in the proportion of + the clauses and sections with which he built them up. In + other words, he was less bound by the forms and musical + rules, and more swayed by the thought which he had to + express, and the directions which that thought took in his + mind." + +[Sidenote: _Schumann and Chopin._] + +It is scarcely to be wondered at that when men like Schumann and +Chopin felt the full force of the new evangel which Beethoven had +preached, they proceeded to carry the formal side of poetic +expression, its vehicle, into regions unthought of before their time. +The few old forms had now to give way to a large variety. In their +work they proceeded from points that were far apart--Schumann's was +literary, Chopin's political. In one respect the lists of their pieces +which appear most frequently on recital programmes seem to hark back +to the suites of two centuries ago--they are sets of short +compositions grouped, either by the composer (as is the case with +Schumann) or by the performer (as is the case with Chopin in the hands +of Mr. Paderewski). Such fantastic musical miniatures as Schumann's +"Carnaval" and "Papillons" are eminently characteristic of the +composer's intellectual and emotional nature, which in his university +days had fallen under the spell of literary romanticism. + +[Sidenote: _Jean Paul's influence._] + +[Sidenote: _Schumann's inspirations._] + +While ostensibly studying jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Schumann +devoted seven hours a day to the pianoforte and several to Jean Paul. +It was this writer who moulded not only Schumann's literary style in +his early years, but also gave the bent which his creative activity in +music took at the outset. To say little, but vaguely hint at much, was +the rule which he adopted; to remain sententious in expression, but +give the freest and most daring flight to his imagination, and spurn +the conventional limitations set by rule and custom, his ambition. +Such fanciful and symbolical titles as "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn +Pieces," "Titan," etc., which Jean Paul adopted for his singular +mixtures of tale, rhapsody, philosophy, and satire, were bound to find +an imitator in so ardent an apostle as young Schumann, and, therefore, +we have such compositions as "Papillons," "Carnaval," "Kreisleriana," +"Phantasiestuecke," and the rest. Almost always, it may be said, the +pieces which make them up were composed under the poetical and +emotional impulses derived from literature, then grouped and named. To +understand their poetic contents this must be known. + +[Sidenote: _Chopin's music._] + +[Sidenote: _Preludes._] + +Chopin's fancy, on the other hand, found stimulation in the charm +which, for him, lay in the tone of the pianoforte itself (to which he +added a new loveliness by his manner of writing), as well as in the +rhythms of the popular dances of his country. These dances he not only +beautified as the old suite writers beautified their forms, but he +utilized them as vessels which he filled with feeling, not all of +which need be accepted as healthy, though much of it is. As to his +titles, "Preludes" is purely an arbitrary designation for +compositions which are equally indefinite in form and character; +Niecks compares them very aptly to a portfolio full of drawings "in +all stages of advancement--finished and unfinished, complete and +incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed +indiscriminately together." So, too, they appeared to Schumann: "They +are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you will, ruins, single +eagle-wings, all strangely mixed together." Nevertheless some of them +are marvellous soul-pictures. + +[Sidenote: _Etudes._] + +[Sidenote: _Nocturnes._] + +The "Etudes" are studies intended to develop the technique of the +pianoforte in the line of the composer's discoveries, his method of +playing extended arpeggios, contrasted rhythms, progressions in thirds +and octaves, etc., but still they breathe poetry and sometimes +passion. Nocturne is an arbitrary, but expressive, title for a short +composition of a dreamy, contemplative, or even elegiac, character. In +many of his nocturnes Chopin is the adored sentimentalist of +boarding-school misses. There is poppy in them and seductive poison +for which Niecks sensibly prescribes Bach and Beethoven as antidotes. +The term ballad has been greatly abused in literature, and in music is +intrinsically unmeaning. Chopin's four Ballades have one feature in +common--they are written in triple time; and they are among his finest +inspirations. + +[Sidenote: _The Polonaise._] + +Chopin's dances are conventionalized, and do not all speak the idiom +of the people who created their forms, but their original +characteristics ought to be known. The Polonaise was the stately dance +of the Polish nobility, more a march or procession than a dance, full +of gravity and courtliness, with an imposing and majestic rhythm in +triple time that tends to emphasize the second beat of the measure, +frequently syncopating it and accentuating the second half of the +first beat: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Mazurka._] + +National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas. Unlike the +Polonaise this was the dance of the common people, and even as +conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in +the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive +rhythm: + +[Music illustration] or [Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Krakowiak._] + +The Krakowiak (French _Cracovienne_, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating +specimen in his "Humoresques de Concert," op. 14) is a popular dance +indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name. Its rhythmical +elements are these: + +[Music illustration] and [Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Idiomatic music._] + +[Sidenote: _Content higher than idiom._] + +In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on +the part of the composers to the peculiarities of the pianoforte. No +music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic. Frequently in +Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of +expression; we feel that the thought would have had better expression +had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte. We may +well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and +its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been +pronounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique's +sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of +the newer charm. "Idiomatic of the pianoforte" is a good enough phrase +and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring +something like discredit to the instrument. It would be a pity if +music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty, +should fail of appreciation simply because it had been observed that +the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effective +vehicle for its publication--a pity for the pianoforte, for therein +would lie an exemplification of its imperfection. So, too, it would be +a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been +clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that +reason good pianoforte music, _i.e._, "idiomatic" music, irrespective +of its content. + +[Sidenote: _Development of the pianoforte._] + +In Beethoven's day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument +compared with the grand of to-day. Its capacities were but beginning +to be appreciated. Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now +are known to every amateur. The instrument which the English +manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six +octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart's +pianoforte. In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half +octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in +1851. Since 1851 three notes have been added without material +improvement to the instrument. This extension of compass, however, is +far from being the most important improvement since the classic +period. The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been +much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use. + +[Sidenote: _The Pedals._] + +[Sidenote: _Shifting pedal._] + +[Sidenote: _Damper pedal._] + +Very significant, too, in their relation to the development of the +music, were the invention and improvement of the pedals. The shifting +pedal was invented by a Viennese maker named Stein, who first applied +it to an instrument which he named "Saiten-harmonika." Before then +soft effects were obtained by interposing a bit of felt between the +hammers and the strings, as may still be seen in old square +pianofortes. The shifting pedal, or soft pedal as it is popularly +called, moves the key-board and action so that the hammer strikes only +one or two of the unison strings, leaving the other to vibrate +sympathetically. Beethoven was the first to appreciate the +possibilities of this effect (see the slow movement of his concerto in +G major and his last sonatas), but after him came Schumann and Chopin, +and brought pedal manipulation to perfection, especially that of the +damper pedal. This is popularly called the loud pedal, and the +vulgarest use to which it can be put is to multiply the volume of +tone. It was Chopin who showed its capacity for sustaining a melody +and enriching the color effects by releasing the strings from the +dampers and utilizing the ethereal sounds which rise from the strings +when they vibrate sympathetically. + +[Sidenote: _Liszt._] + +[Sidenote: _A dual character._] + +It is no part of my purpose to indulge in criticism of composers, but +something of the kind is made unavoidable by the position assigned to +Liszt in our pianoforte recitals. He is relied upon to provide a +scintillant close. The pianists, then, even those who are his +professed admirers, are responsible if he is set down in our scheme as +the exemplar of the technical cult. Technique having its unquestioned +value, we are bound to admire the marvellous gifts which enabled Liszt +practically to sum up all the possibilities of pianoforte mechanism in +its present stage of construction, but we need not look with unalloyed +gratitude upon his influence as a composer. There were, I fear, two +sides to Liszt's artistic character as well as his moral. I believe he +had in him a touch of charlatanism as well as a magnificent amount of +artistic sincerity--just as he blended a laxity of moral ideas with a +profound religious mysticism. It would have been strange indeed, +growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, +if he had not accustomed himself to sacrifice a little of the soul of +art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling +to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented. +But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the +presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the +music of Beethoven that he sank all thought of self and rose to a +peerless height as an interpreting artist. + +[Sidenote: _Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies._] + +[Sidenote: _Gypsies and Magyars._] + +Liszt's place as a composer of original music has not yet been +determined, but as a transcriber of the music of others the givers of +pianoforte recitals keep him always before us. The showy Hungarian +Rhapsodies with which the majority of pianoforte recitals end are, +however, more than mere transcriptions. They are constructed out of +the folk-songs of the Magyars, and in their treatment the composer has +frequently reproduced the characteristic performances which they +receive at the hands of the Gypsies from whom he learned them. This +fact and the belief to which Liszt gave currency in his book "Des +Bohemiens et de leur musique en Hongrie" have given rise to the +almost universal belief that the Magyar melodies are of Gypsy origin. +This belief is erroneous. The Gypsies have for centuries been the +musical practitioners of Hungary, but they are not the composers of +the music of the Magyars, though they have put a marked impress not +only on the melodies, but also on popular taste. The Hungarian +folk-songs are a perfect reflex of the national character of the +Magyars, and some have been traced back centuries in their literature. +Though their most marked melodic peculiarity, the frequent use of a +minor scale containing one or even two superfluous seconds, as thus: + +[Sidenote: _Magyar scales._] + +[Music illustration] + +may be said to belong to Oriental music as a whole (and the Magyars +are Orientals), the songs have a rhythmical peculiarity which is a +direct product of the Magyar language. This peculiarity consists of a +figure in which the emphasis is shifted from the strong to the weak +part by making the first take only a fraction of the time of the +second, thus: + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _The Scotch snap._] + +[Sidenote: _Gypsy epics._] + +In Scottish music this rhythm also plays a prominent part, but there +it falls into the beginning of a measure, whereas in Hungarian it +forms the middle or end. The result is an effect of syncopation which +is peculiarly forceful. There is an indubitable Oriental relic in the +profuse embellishments which the Gypsies weave around the Hungarian +melodies when playing them; but the fact that they thrust the same +embellishments upon Spanish and Russian music, in fact upon all the +music which they play, indicates plainly enough that the impulse to do +so is native to them, and has nothing to do with the national taste of +the countries for which they provide music. Liszt's confessed purpose +in writing the Hungarian Rhapsodies was to create what he called +"Gypsy epics." He had gathered a large number of the melodies without +a definite purpose, and was pondering what to do with them, when it +occurred to him that + + "These fragmentary, scattered melodies were the wandering, + floating, nebulous part of a great whole, that they fully + answered the conditions for the production of an harmonious + unity which would comprehend the very flower of their + essential properties, their most unique beauties," and + "might be united in one homogeneous body, a complete work, + its divisions to be so arranged that each song would form at + once a whole and a part, which might be severed from the + rest and be examined and enjoyed by and for itself; but + which would, none the less, belong to the whole through the + close affinity of subject matter, the similarity of its + inner nature and unity in development."[D] + +[Sidenote: _The Czardas._] + +The basis of Liszt's Rhapsodies being thus distinctively national, he +has in a manner imitated in their character and tempo the dual +character of the Hungarian national dance, the Czardas, which consists +of two movements, a _Lassu_, or slow movement, followed by a _Friss_. +These alternate at the will of the dancer, who gives a sign to the +band when he wishes to change from one to the other. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[D] Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," p. 197. + + + + +VII + +_At the Opera_ + + +[Sidenote: _Instability of taste._] + +[Sidenote: _The age of operas._] + +Popular taste in respect of the opera is curiously unstable. It is +surprising that the canons of judgment touching it have such feeble +and fleeting authority in view of the popularity of the art-form and +the despotic hold which it has had on fashion for two centuries. No +form of popular entertainment is acclaimed so enthusiastically as a +new opera by an admired composer; none forgotten so quickly. For the +spoken drama we go back to Shakespeare in the vernacular, and, on +occasions, we revive the masterpieces of the Attic poets who +flourished more than two millenniums ago; but for opera we are bounded +by less than a century, unless occasional performances of Gluck's +"Orfeo" and Mozart's "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Magic Flute" be +counted as submissions to popular demand, which, unhappily, we know +they are not. There is no one who has attended the opera for +twenty-five years who might not bewail the loss of operas from the +current list which appealed to his younger fancy as works of real +loveliness. In the season of 1895-96 the audiences at the Metropolitan +Opera House in New York heard twenty-six different operas. The oldest +were Gluck's "Orfeo" and Beethoven's "Fidelio," which had a single +experimental representation each. After them in seniority came +Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," which is sixty-one years old, and +has overpassed the average age of "immortal" operas by from ten to +twenty years, assuming Dr. Hanslick's calculation to be correct. + +[Sidenote: _Decimation of the operatic list._] + +[Sidenote: _Dependence on singers._] + +The composers who wrote operas for the generation that witnessed +Adelina Patti's _debut_ at the Academy of Music, in New York, were +Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Thanks to his progressive +genius, Verdi is still alive on the stage, though nine-tenths of the +operas which made his fame and fortune have already sunk into +oblivion; Meyerbeer, too, is still a more or less potent factor with +his "Huguenots," which, like "Lucia," has endured from ten to twenty +years longer than the average "immortal;" but the continued existence +of Bellini and Donizetti seems to be as closely bound up with that of +two or three singers as was Meleager's life with the burning billet +which his mother snatched from the flames. So far as the people of +London and New York are concerned whether or not they shall hear +Donizetti more, rests with Mesdames Patti and Melba, for Donizetti +spells "Lucia;" Bellini pleads piteously in "Sonnambula," but only +Madame Nevada will play the mediator between him and our stiff-necked +generation. + +[Sidenote: _An unstable art-form._] + +[Sidenote: _Carelessness of the public._] + +[Sidenote: _Addison's criticism._] + +[Sidenote: _Indifference to the words._] + +Opera is a mixed art-form and has ever been, and perhaps must ever be, +in a state of flux, subject to the changes of taste in music, the +drama, singing, acting, and even politics and morals; but in one +particular the public has shown no change for a century and a half, +and it is not quite clear why this has not given greater fixity to +popular appreciation. The people of to-day are as blithely +indifferent to the fact that their operas are all presented in a +foreign tongue as they were two centuries ago in England. The +influence of Wagner has done much to stimulate a serious attitude +toward the lyric drama, but this is seldom found outside of the +audiences in attendance on German representations. The devotees of the +Latin exotic, whether it blend French or Italian (or both, as is the +rule in New York and London) with its melodic perfume, enjoy the music +and ignore the words with the same nonchalance that Addison made merry +over. Addison proves to have been a poor prophet. The +great-grandchildren of his contemporaries are not at all curious to +know "why their forefathers used to sit together like an audience of +foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted before +them in a tongue which they did not understand." What their +great-grandparents did was also done by their grandparents and their +parents, and may be done by their children, grandchildren, and +great-grandchildren after them, unless Englishmen and Americans shall +take to heart the lessons which Wagner essayed to teach his own +people. For the present, though we have abolished many absurdities +which grew out of a conception of opera that was based upon the +simple, sensuous delight which singing gave, the charm of music is +still supreme, and we can sit out an opera without giving a thought to +the words uttered by the singers. The popular attitude is fairly +represented by that of Boileau, when he went to hear "Atys" and +requested the box-keeper to put him in a place where he could hear +Lully's music, which he loved, but not Quinault's words, which he +despised. + +[Sidenote: _Past and present._] + +It is interesting to note that in this respect the condition of +affairs in London in the early part of the eighteenth century, which +seemed so monstrously diverting to Addison, was like that in Hamburg +in the latter part of the seventeenth, and in New York at the end of +the nineteenth. There were three years in London when Italian and +English were mixed in the operatic representations. + + "The king or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian and + his slaves answered him in English; the lover frequently + made his court and gained the heart of his princess in a + language which she did not understand." + +[Sidenote: _Polyglot opera._] + +At length, says Addison, the audience got tired of understanding half +the opera, "and to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of +thinking, so ordered it that the whole opera was performed in an +unknown tongue." + +[Sidenote: _Perversions of texts._] + +There is this difference, however, between New York and London and +Hamburg at the period referred to: while the operatic ragout was +compounded of Italian and English in London, Italian and German in +Hamburg, the ingredients here are Italian, French, and German, with no +admixture of the vernacular. Strictly speaking, our case is more +desperate than that of our foreign predecessors, for the development +of the lyric drama has lifted its verbal and dramatic elements into a +position not dreamed of two hundred years ago. We might endure with +equanimity to hear the chorus sing + +[Sidenote: _"Robert le Diable."_] + + "_La soupe aux choux se fait dans la marmite, + Dans la marmite on fait la soupe aux choux_" + +at the beginning of "Robert le Diable," as tradition says used to be +done in Paris, but we surely ought to rise in rebellion when the +chorus of guards change their muttered comments on Pizarro's furious +aria in "Fidelio" from + +[Sidenote: _"Fidelio."_] + + _"Er spricht von Tod und Wunde!"_ + +to + + _"Er spricht vom todten Hunde!"_ + +as is a prevalent custom among the irreverent choristers of Germany. + +Addison confesses that he was often afraid when seeing the Italian +performers "chattering in the vehemence of action," that they were +calling the audience names and abusing them among themselves. I do not +know how to measure the morals and manners of our Italian singers +against those of Addison's time, but I do know that many of the things +which they say before our very faces for their own diversion are not +complimentary to our intelligence. I hope I have a proper respect for +Mr. Gilbert's "bashful young potato," but I do not think it right +while we are sympathizing with the gentle passion of _Siebel_ to have +his representative bring an offering of flowers and, looking us full +in the face, sing: + + _"Le patate d'amor, + O cari fior!"_ + +[Sidenote: _"Faust."_] + +[Sidenote: _Porpora's "Credo."_] + +It isn't respectful, and it enables the cynics of to-day to say, with +the poetasters and fiddlers of Addison's day, that nothing is capable +of being well set to music that is not nonsense. Operatic words were +once merely stalking-horses for tunes, but that day is past. We used +to smile at Brignoli's "_Ah si! ah si! ah si!_" which did service for +any text in high passages; but if a composer should, for the +accommodation of his music, change the wording of the creed into +"_Credo, non credo, non credo in unum Deum_," as Porpora once did, we +should all cry out for his excommunication. + +As an art-form the opera has frequently been criticised as an +absurdity, and it is doubtless owing to such a conviction that many +people are equally indifferent to the language employed and the +sentiments embodied in the words. Even so serious a writer as George +Hogarth does not hesitate in his "Memoirs of the Opera" to defend this +careless attitude. + +[Sidenote: _Are words unessential?_] + + "The words of an air are of small importance to the + comprehension of the business of the piece," he says; "they + merely express a sentiment, a reflection, a feeling; it is + quite enough if their general import is known, and this may + most frequently be gathered from the situation, aided by the + character and expression of the music." + +[Sidenote: _"Il Trovatore."_] + +I, myself, have known an ardent lover of music who resolutely refused +to look into a libretto because, being of a lively and imaginative +temperament, she preferred to construct her own plots and put her own +words in the mouths of the singers. Though a constant attendant on the +opera, she never knew what "Il Trovatore" was about, which, perhaps, +is not so surprising after all. Doubtless the play which she had +fashioned in her own mind was more comprehensible than Verdi's medley +of burnt children and asthmatic dance rhythms. Madame de Stael went so +far as to condemn the German composers because they "follow too +closely the sense of the words," whereas the Italians, "who are truly +the musicians of nature, make the air and the words conform to each +other only in a general way." + +[Sidenote: _The opera defended as an art-form._] + +[Sidenote: _The classic tragedy._] + +Now the present generation has witnessed a revolution in operatic +ideas which has lifted the poetical elements upon a plane not dreamed +of when opera was merely a concert in costume, and it is no longer +tolerable that it be set down as an absurdity. On the contrary, I +believe that, looked at in the light thrown upon it by the history of +the drama and the origin of music, the opera is completely justified +as an art-form, and, in its best estate, is an entirely reasonable and +highly effective entertainment. No mean place, surely, should be given +in the estimation of the judicious to an art-form which aims in an +equal degree to charm the senses, stimulate the emotions, and persuade +the reason. This, the opera, or, perhaps I would better say the lyric +drama, can be made to do as efficiently as the Greek tragedy did it, +so far as the differences between the civilizations of ancient Hellas +and the nineteenth century will permit. The Greek tragedy was the +original opera, a fact which literary study would alone have made +plain even if it were not clearly of record that it was an effort to +restore the ancient plays in their integrity that gave rise to the +Italian opera three centuries ago. + +[Sidenote: _Genesis of the Greek plays._] + +Every school-boy knows now that the Hellenic plays were simply the +final evolution of the dances with which the people of Hellas +celebrated their religious festivals. At the rustic Bacchic feasts of +the early Greeks they sang hymns in honor of the wine-god, and danced +on goat-skins filled with wine. He who held his footing best on the +treacherous surface carried home the wine as a reward. They contended +in athletic games and songs for a goat, and from this circumstance +scholars have surmised we have the word tragedy, which means +"goat-song." The choric songs and dances grew in variety and beauty. +Finally, somebody (tradition preserves the name of Thespis as the man) +conceived the idea of introducing a simple dialogue between the +strophes of the choric song. Generally this dialogue took the form of +a recital of some story concerning the god whose festival was +celebrating. Then when the dithyrambic song returned, it would either +continue the narrative or comment on its ethical features. + +[Sidenote: _Mimicry and dress._] + +The merry-makers, or worshippers, as one chooses to look upon them, +manifested their enthusiasm by imitating the appearance as well as the +actions of the god and his votaries. They smeared themselves with +wine-lees, colored their bodies black and red, put on masks, covered +themselves with the skins of beasts, enacted the parts of nymphs, +fauns, and satyrs, those creatures of primitive fancy, half men and +half goats, who were the representatives of natural sensuality +untrammelled by conventionality. + +[Sidenote: _Melodrama._] + +Next, somebody (Archilocus) sought to heighten the effect of the story +or the dialogue by consorting it with instrumental music; and thus we +find the germ of what musicians--not newspaper writers--call +melodrama, in the very early stages of the drama's development. +Gradually these simple rustic entertainments were taken in hand by the +poets who drew on the legendary stores of the people for subjects, +branching out from the doings of gods to the doings of god-like men, +the popular heroes, and developed out of them the masterpieces of +dramatic poetry which are still studied with amazement, admiration, +and love. + +[Sidenote: _Factors in ancient tragedy._] + +The dramatic factors which have been mustered in this outline are +these: + +1. The choric dance and song with a religious purpose. + +2. Recitation and dialogue. + +3. Characterization by means of imitative gestures--pantomime, that +is--and dress. + +4. Instrumental music to accompany the song and also the action. + +[Sidenote: _Operatic elements._] + +[Sidenote: _Words and music united._] + +All these have been retained in the modern opera, which may be said to +differ chiefly from its ancient model in the more important and more +independent part which music plays in it. It will appear later in our +study that the importance and independence achieved by one of the +elements consorted in a work by nature composite, led the way to a +revolution having for its object a restoration of something like the +ancient drama. In this ancient drama and its precursor, the +dithyrambic song and dance, is found a union of words and music which +scientific investigation proves to be not only entirely natural but +inevitable. In a general way most people are in the habit of speaking +of music as the language of the emotions. The elements which enter +into vocal music (of necessity the earliest form of music) are +unvolitional products which we must conceive as co-existent with the +beginnings of human life. Do they then antedate articulate speech? Did +man sing before he spoke? I shall not quarrel with anybody who chooses +so to put it. + +[Sidenote: _Physiology of singing._] + +Think a moment about the mechanism of vocal music. Something occurs to +stir up your emotional nature--a great joy, a great sorrow, a great +fear; instantly, involuntarily, in spite of your efforts to prevent +it, maybe, muscular actions set in which proclaim the emotion which +fills you. The muscles and organs of the chest, throat, and mouth +contract or relax in obedience to the emotion. You utter a cry, and +according to the state of feeling which you are in, that cry has +pitch, quality (_timbre_ the singing teachers call it), and dynamic +intensity. You attempt to speak, and no matter what the words you +utter, the emotional drama playing on the stage of your heart is +divulged. + +[Sidenote: _Herbert Spencer's laws._] + +The man of science observes the phenomenon and formulates its laws, +saying, for instance, as Herbert Spencer has said: "All feelings are +muscular stimuli;" and, "Variations of voice are the physiological +results of variations of feeling." It was the recognition of this +extraordinary intimacy between the voice and the emotions which +brought music all the world over into the service of religion, and +provided the phenomenon, which we may still observe if we be but +minded to do so, that mere tones have sometimes the sanctity of words, +and must as little be changed as ancient hymns and prayers. + +[Sidenote: _Invention of Italian opera._] + +[Sidenote: _Musical declamation._] + +The end of the sixteenth century saw a coterie of scholars, +art-lovers, and amateur musicians in Florence who desired to +re-establish the relationship which they knew had once existed between +music and the drama. The revival of learning had made the classic +tragedy dear to their hearts. They knew that in the olden time +tragedy, of which the words only have come down to us, had been +musical throughout. In their efforts to bring about an intimacy +between dramatic poetry and music they found that nothing could be +done with the polite music of their time. It was the period of highest +development in ecclesiastical music, and the climax of artificiality. +The professional musicians to whom they turned scorned their theories +and would not help them; so they fell back on their own resources. +They cut the Gordian knot and invented a new style of music, which +they fancied was like that used by the ancients in their stage-plays. +They abolished polyphony, or contrapuntal music, in everything except +their choruses, and created a sort of musical declamation, using +variations of pitch and harmonies built up on a simple bass to give +emotional life to their words. In choosing their tones they were +guided by observation of the vocal inflections produced in speech +under stress of feeling, showing thus a recognition of the law which +Herbert Spencer formulated two hundred and fifty years later. + +[Sidenote: _The music of the Florentine reformers._] + +[Sidenote: _The solo style, harmony, and declamation._] + +[Sidenote: _Fluent recitatives._] + +The music which these men produced and admired sounds to us monotonous +in the extreme, for what little melody there is in it is in the +choruses, which they failed to emancipate from the ecclesiastical art, +and which for that reason were as stiff and inelastic as the music +which in their controversies with the musicians they condemned with +vigor. Yet within their invention there lay an entirely new world of +music. Out of it came the solo style, a song with instrumental +accompaniment of a kind unknown to the church composers. Out of it, +too, came harmony as an independent factor in music instead of an +accident of the simultaneous flow of melodies; and out of it came +declamation, which drew its life from the text. The recitatives which +they wrote had the fluency of spoken words and were not retarded by +melodic forms. The new style did not accomplish what its creators +hoped for, but it gave birth to Italian opera and emancipated music in +a large measure from the formalism that dominated it so long as it +belonged exclusively to the composers for the church. + +[Sidenote: _Predecessors of Wagner._] + +[Sidenote: _Old operatic distinctions._] + +[Sidenote: _Opera buffa._] + +[Sidenote: _Opera seria._] + +[Sidenote: _Recitative._] + +Detailed study of the progress of opera from the first efforts of the +Florentines to Wagner's dramas would carry us too far afield to serve +the purposes of this book. My aim is to fix the attitude proper, or at +least useful, to the opera audience of to-day. The excursion into +history which I have made has but the purpose to give the art-form a +reputable standing in court, and to explain the motives which prompted +the revolution accomplished by Wagner. As to the elements which +compose an opera, only those need particular attention which are +illustrated in the current repertory. Unlike the opera audiences of +two centuries ago, we are not required to distinguish carefully +between the various styles of opera in order to understand why the +composer adopted a particular manner, and certain fixed forms in each. +The old distinctions between _Opera seria_, _Opera buffa_, and _Opera +semiseria_ perplex us no more. Only because of the perversion of the +time-honored Italian epithet _buffa_ by the French mongrel _Opera +bouffe_ is it necessary to explain that the classic _Opera buffa_ was +a polite comedy, whose musical integument did not of necessity differ +from that of _Opera seria_ except in this--that the dialogue was +carried on in "dry" recitative (_recitativo secco_, or _parlante_) in +the former, and a more measured declamation with orchestral +accompaniment (_recitativo stromentato_) in the latter. So far as +subject-matter was concerned the classic distinction between tragedy +and comedy served. The dry recitative was supported by chords played +by a double-bass and harpsichord or pianoforte. In London, at a later +period, for reasons of doubtful validity, these chords came to be +played on a double-bass and violoncello, as we occasionally hear them +to-day. + +[Sidenote: _Opera semiseria._] + +[Sidenote: _"Don Giovanni."_] + +Shakespeare has taught us to accept an infusion of the comic element +in plays of a serious cast, but Shakespeare was an innovator, a +Romanticist, and, measured by old standards, his dramas are irregular. +The Italians, who followed classic models, for a reason amply +explained by the genesis of the art-form, rigorously excluded comedy +from serious operas, except as _intermezzi_, until they hit upon a +third classification, which they called _Opera semiseria_, in which a +serious subject was enlivened with comic episodes. Our dramatic tastes +being grounded in Shakespeare, we should be inclined to put down "Don +Giovanni" as a musical tragedy; or, haunted by the Italian +terminology, as _Opera semiseria_; but Mozart calls it _Opera buffa_, +more in deference to the librettist's work, I fancy, than his own, +for, as I have suggested elsewhere,[E] the musician's imagination in +the fire of composition went far beyond the conventional fancy of the +librettist in the finale of that most wonderful work. + +[Sidenote: _An Opera buffa._] + +[Sidenote: _French Grand Opera._] + +[Sidenote: _Opera comique._] + +[Sidenote: _"Mignon."_] + +[Sidenote: _"Faust."_] + +It is well to remember that "Don Giovanni" is an _Opera buffa_ when +watching the buffooneries of _Leporello_, for that alone justifies +them. The French have _Grand Opera_, in which everything is sung to +orchestra accompaniment, there being neither spoken dialogue nor dry +recitative, and _Opera comique_, in which the dialogue is spoken. The +latter corresponds with the honorable German term _Singspiel_, and one +will not go far astray if he associate both terms with the English +operas of Wallace and Balfe, save that the French and Germans have +generally been more deft in bridging over the chasm between speech and +song than their British rivals. _Opera comique_ has another +characteristic, its _denouement_ must be happy. Formerly the _Theatre +national de l'Opera-Comique_ in Paris was devoted exclusively to +_Opera comique_ as thus defined (it has since abolished the +distinction and _Grand Opera_ may be heard there now), and, therefore, +when Ambroise Thomas brought forward his "Mignon," Goethe's story was +found to be changed so that _Mignon_ recovered and was married to +_Wilhelm Meister_ at the end. The Germans are seldom pleased with the +transformations which their literary masterpieces are forced to +undergo at the hands of French librettists. They still refuse to call +Gounod's "Faust" by that name; if you wish to hear it in Germany you +must go to the theatre when "Margarethe" is performed. Naturally they +fell indignantly afoul of "Mignon," and to placate them we have a +second finale, a _denouement allemand_, provided by the authors, in +which _Mignon_ dies as she ought. + +[Sidenote: _Grosse Oper._] + +[Sidenote: _Comic opera and operetta._] + +[Sidenote: _Opera bouffe._] + +[Sidenote: _Romantic operas._] + +Of course the _Grosse Oper_ of the Germans is the French _Grand Opera_ +and the English grand opera--but all the English terms are ambiguous, +and everything that is done in Covent Garden in London or the +Metropolitan Opera House in New York is set down as "grand opera," +just as the vilest imitations of the French _vaudevilles_ or English +farces with music are called "comic operas." In its best estate, say +in the delightful works of Gilbert and Sullivan, what is designated as +comic opera ought to be called operetta, which is a piece in which the +forms of grand opera are imitated, or travestied, the dialogue is +spoken, and the purpose of the play is to satirize a popular folly. +Only in method, agencies, and scope does such an operetta (the +examples of Gilbert and Sullivan are in mind) differ from comedy in +its best conception, as a dramatic composition which aims to "chastise +manners with a smile" ("_Ridendo castigat mores_"). Its present +degeneracy, as illustrated in the _Opera bouffe_ of the French and the +concoctions of the would-be imitators of Gilbert and Sullivan, +exemplifies little else than a pursuit far into the depths of the +method suggested by a friend to one of Lully's imitators who had +expressed a fear that a ballet written, but not yet performed, would +fail. "You must lengthen the dances and shorten the ladies' skirts," +he said. The Germans make another distinction based on the subject +chosen for the story. Spohr's "Jessonda," Weber's "Freischuetz," +"Oberon," and "Euryanthe," Marschner's "Vampyr," "Templer und Juedin," +and "Hans Heiling" are "Romantic" operas. The significance of this +classification in operatic literature may be learned from an effort +which I have made in another chapter to discuss the terms Classic and +Romantic as applied to music. Briefly stated, the operas mentioned are +put in a class by themselves (and their imitations with them) because +their plots were drawn from the romantic legends of the Middle Ages, +in which the institutions of chivalry, fairy lore, and supernaturalism +play a large part. + +[Sidenote: _Modern designations._] + +[Sidenote: _German opera and Wagner._] + +These distinctions we meet in reading about music. As I have +intimated, we do not concern ourselves much with them now. In New York +and London the people speak of Italian, English, and German opera, +referring generally to the language employed in the performance. But +there is also in the use of the terms an underlying recognition of +differences in ideals of performance. As all operas sung in the +regular seasons at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera House are +popularly spoken of as Italian operas, so German opera popularly means +Wagner's lyric dramas, in the first instance, and a style of +performance which grew out of Wagner's influence in the second. As +compared with Italian opera, in which the principal singers are all +and the _ensemble_ nothing, it means, mayhap, inferior vocalists but +better actors in the principal parts, a superior orchestra and chorus, +and a more conscientious effort on the part of conductor, stage +manager, and artists, from first to last, to lift the general effect +above the conventional level which has prevailed for centuries in the +Italian opera houses. + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's "Musikdrama."_] + +[Sidenote: _Modern Italian terminology._] + +In terminology, as well as in artistic aim, Wagner's lyric dramas +round out a cycle that began with the works of the Florentine +reformers of the sixteenth century. Wagner called his later operas +_Musikdramen_, wherefore he was soundly abused and ridiculed by his +critics. When the Italian opera first appeared it was called _Dramma +per musica_, or _Melodramma_, or _Tragedia per musica_, all of which +terms stand in Italian for the conception that _Musikdrama_ stands for +in German. The new thing had been in existence for half a century, and +was already on the road to the degraded level on which we shall find +it when we come to the subject of operatic singing, before it came to +be called _Opera in musica_, of which "opera" is an abbreviation. Now +it is to be observed that the composers of all countries, having been +taught to believe that the dramatic contents of an opera have some +significance, are abandoning the vague term "opera" and following +Wagner in his adoption of the principles underlying the original +terminology. Verdi called his "Aida" an _Opera in quattro atti_, but +his "Otello" he designated a lyric drama (_Dramma lirico_), his +"Falstaff" a lyric comedy (_Commedia lirica_), and his example is +followed by the younger Italian composers, such as Mascagni, +Leoncavallo, and Puccini. + +[Sidenote: _Recitative._] + +In the majority of the operas of the current list the vocal element +illustrates an amalgamation of the archaic recitative and aria. The +dry form of recitative is met with now only in a few of the operas +which date back to the last century or the early years of the present. +"Le Nozze di Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" +are the most familiar works in which it is employed, and in the +second of these it is used only by the bearers of the comedy element. +The dissolute _Don_ chatters glibly in it with _Zerlina_, but when +_Donna Anna_ and _Don Ottavio_ converse, it is in the _recitativo +stromentato_. + +[Sidenote: _The object of recitative._] + +[Sidenote: _Defects of the recitative._] + +[Sidenote: _What it can do._] + +In both forms recitative is the vehicle for promoting the action of +the play, preparing its incidents, and paving the way for the +situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and +dwelt upon in the set music pieces. Its purpose is to maintain the +play in an artificial atmosphere, so that the transition from dialogue +to song may not be so abrupt as to disturb the mood of the listener. +Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most +monotonous. It is not music, but speech about to break into music. +Unless one is familiar with Italian and desirous of following the +conversation, which we have been often told is not necessary to the +enjoyment of an opera, its everlasting use of stereotyped falls and +intervallic turns, coupled with the strumming of arpeggioed cadences +on the pianoforte (or worse, double-bass and violoncello), makes it +insufferably wearisome to the listener. Its expression is +fleeting--only for the moment. It lacks the sustained tones and +structural symmetry essential to melody, and therefore it cannot +sustain a mood. It makes efficient use of only one of the fundamental +factors of vocal music--variety of pitch--and that in a rudimentary +way. It is specifically a product of the Italian language, and best +adapted to comedy in that language. Spoken with the vivacity native to +it in the drama, dry recitative is an impossibility in English. It is +only in the more measured and sober gait proper to oratorio that we +can listen to it in the vernacular without thought of incongruity. Yet +it may be made most admirably to preserve the characteristics of +conversation, and even illustrate Spencer's theory of the origin of +music. Witness the following brief example from "Don Giovanni," in +which the vivacity of the master is admirably contrasted with the +lumpishness of his servant: + +[Sidenote: _An example from Mozart._] + +[Music illustration: _Sempre sotto voce._ + +DON GIOVANNI. LEPORELLO. +_Le-po-rel-lo, o-ve sei? Son qui per_ +Le-po-rel-lo, where are you? I'm here and + + D.G. LEP. +_dis-gra-zi-a! e vo-i? Son qui. Chi e_ +more's the pit-y! and you, Sir? Here too. Who's + + D.G. +_mor-to, voi, o il vec-chio? Che do-_ +been killed, you or the old one? What a + + LEP. +_man-da da bes-tia! il vec-chio. Bra-vo!_ +ques-tion, you boo-by! the old one. Bra-vo!] + +[Sidenote: _Its characteristics._] + +Of course it is left to the intelligence and taste of the singers to +bring out the effects in a recitative, but in this specimen it ought +to be noted how sluggishly the disgruntled _Leporello_ replies to the +brisk question of _Don Giovanni_, how correct is the rhetorical pause +in "you, or the old one?" and the greater sobriety which comes over +the manner of the _Don_ as he thinks of the murder just committed, and +replies, "the old one." + +[Sidenote: _Recitative of some sort necessary._] + +[Sidenote: _The speaking voice in opera._] + +I am strongly inclined to the belief that in one form or the other, +preferably the accompanied, recitative is a necessary integer in the +operatic sum. That it is possible to accustom one's self to the change +alternately from speech to song we know from the experiences made with +German, French, and English operas, but these were not true lyric +dramas, but dramas with incidental music. To be a real lyric drama an +opera ought to be musical throughout, the voice being maintained from +beginning to end on an exalted plane. The tendency to drop into the +speaking voice for the sake of dramatic effect shown by some tragic +singers does not seem to me commendable. Wagner relates with +enthusiasm how Madame Schroeder-Devrient in "Fidelio" was wont to give +supreme emphasis to the phrase immediately preceding the trumpet +signal in the dungeon scene ("Another step, and you are _dead_!") by +speaking the last word "with an awful accent of despair." He then +comments: + + "The indescribable effect of this manifested itself to all + like an agonizing plunge from one sphere into another, and + its sublimity consisted in this, that with lightning + quickness a glimpse was given to us of the nature of both + spheres, of which one was the ideal, the other the real." + +[Sidenote: _Wagner and Schroeder-Devrient._] + +I have heard a similar effect produced by Herr Niemann and Madame +Lehmann, but could not convince myself that it was not an extremely +venturesome experiment. Madame Schroeder-Devrient saw the beginning of +the modern methods of dramatic expression, and it is easy to believe +that a sudden change like that so well defined by Wagner, made with +her sweeping voice and accompanied by her plastic and powerful acting, +was really thrilling; but, I fancy, nevertheless, that only Beethoven +and the intensity of feeling which pervades the scene saved the +audience from a disturbing sense of the incongruity of the +performance. + +[Sidenote: _Early forms._] + +[Sidenote: _The dialogue of the Florentines._] + +The development which has taken place in the recitative has not only +assisted in elevating opera to the dignity of a lyric drama by saving +us from alternate contemplation of the two spheres of ideality and +reality, but has also made the factor itself an eloquent vehicle of +dramatic expression. Save that it had to forego the help of the +instruments beyond a mere harmonic support, the _stilo +rappresentativo_, or _musica parlante_, as the Florentines called +their musical dialogue, approached the sustained recitative which we +hear in the oratorio and grand opera more closely than it did the +_recitative secco_. Ever and anon, already in the earliest works (the +"Eurydice" of Rinuccini as composed by both Peri and Caccini) there +are passages which sound like rudimentary melodies, but are charged +with vital dramatic expression. Note the following phrase from +_Orpheus's_ monologue on being left in the infernal regions by +_Venus_, from Peri's opera, performed A.D. 1600, in honor of the +marriage of Maria de' Medici to Henry IV. of France: + +[Sidenote: _An example from Peri._] + +[Music illustration: + + _E voi, deh per pie-ta, del mio mar-ti-re + Che nel mi-se-ro cor di-mo-ra e-ter-no, + La-cri-ma-te al mio pian-to om-bre d'in-fer-no!_] + +[Sidenote: _Development of the arioso._] + +[Sidenote: _The aria supplanted._] + +[Sidenote: _Music and action._] + +Out of this style there grew within a decade something very near the +arioso, and for all the purposes of our argument we may accept the +melodic devices by which Wagner carries on the dialogue of his operas +as an uncircumscribed arioso superimposed upon a foundation of +orchestral harmony; for example, _Lohengrin's_ address to the swan, +_Elsa's_ account of her dream. The greater melodiousness of the +_recitativo stromentato_, and the aid of the orchestra when it began +to assert itself as a factor of independent value, soon enabled this +form of musical conversation to become a reflector of the changing +moods and passions of the play, and thus the value of the aria, +whether considered as a solo, or in its composite form as duet, trio, +quartet, or _ensemble_, was lessened. The growth of the accompanied +recitative naturally brought with it emancipation from the tyranny of +the classical aria. Wagner's reform had nothing to do with that +emancipation, which had been accomplished before him, but went, as we +shall see presently, to a liberation of the composers from all the +formal dams which had clogged the united flow of action and music. We +should, however, even while admiring the achievements of modern +composers in blending these elements (and I know of no more striking +illustration than the scene of the fat knight's discomfiture in +_Ford's_ house in Verdi's "Falstaff") bear in mind that while we may +dream of perfect union between words and music, it is not always +possible that action and music shall go hand in hand. Let me repeat +what once I wrote in a review of Cornelius's opera, "Der Barbier von +Bagdad:"[F] + +[Sidenote: _How music can replace incident._] + + "After all, of the constituents of an opera, action, at + least that form of it usually called incident, is most + easily spared. Progress in feeling, development of the + emotional element, is indeed essential to variety of musical + utterance, but nevertheless all great operas have + demonstrated that music is more potent and eloquent when + proclaiming an emotional state than while seeking to depict + progress toward such a state. Even in the dramas of Wagner + the culminating musical moments are predominantly lyrical, + as witness the love-duet in 'Tristan,' the close of 'Das + Rheingold,' _Siegmund's_ song, the love-duet, and _Wotan's_ + farewell in 'Die Walkuere,' the forest scene and final duet + in 'Siegfried,' and the death of _Siegfried_ in 'Die + Goetterdaemmerung.' It is in the nature of music that this + should be so. For the drama which plays on the stage of the + heart, music is a more truthful language than speech; but it + can stimulate movement and prepare the mind for an incident + better than it can accompany movement and incident. Yet + music that has a high degree of emotional expressiveness, by + diverting attention from externals to the play of passion + within the breasts of the persons can sometimes make us + forget the paucity of incident in a play. 'Tristan und + Isolde' is a case in point. Practically, its outward action + is summed up in each of its three acts by the same words: + Preparation for a meeting of the ill-starred lovers; the + meeting. What is outside of this is mere detail; yet the + effect of the tragedy upon a listener is that of a play + surcharged with pregnant occurrence. It is the subtle + alchemy of music that transmutes the psychological action of + the tragedy into dramatic incident." + +[Sidenote: _Set forms not to be condemned._] + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's influence._] + +[Sidenote: _His orchestra._] + +[Sidenote: _Vocal feats._] + +For those who hold such a view with me it will be impossible to +condemn pieces of set forms in the lyric drama. Wagner still +represents his art-work alone, but in the influence which he exerted +upon contemporaneous composers in Italy and France, as well as +Germany, he is quite as significant a figure as he is as the creator +of the _Musikdrama_. The operas which are most popular in our Italian +and French repertories are those which benefited by the liberation +from formalism and the exaltation of the dramatic idea which he +preached and exemplified--such works as Gounod's "Faust," Verdi's +"Aida" and "Otello," and Bizet's "Carmen." With that emancipation +there came, as was inevitable, new conceptions of the province of +dramatic singing as well as new convictions touching the mission of +the orchestra. The instruments in Wagner's latter-day works are quite +as much as the singing actors the expositors of the dramatic idea, and +in the works of the other men whom I have mentioned they speak a +language which a century ago was known only to the orchestras of Gluck +and Mozart with their comparatively limited, yet eloquent, vocabulary. +Coupled with praise for the wonderful art of Mesdames Patti and Melba +(and I am glad to have lived in their generation, though they do not +represent my ideal in dramatic singing), we are accustomed to hear +lamentations over the decay of singing. I have intoned such jeremiads +myself, and I do not believe that music is suffering from a greater +want to-day than that of a more thorough training for singers. I +marvel when I read that Senesino sang cadences of fifty seconds' +duration; that Ferri with a single breath could trill upon each note +of two octaves, ascending and descending, and that La Bastardella's +art was equal to a perfect performance (perfect in the conception of +her day) of a flourish like this: + +[Sidenote: _La Bastardella's flourish._] + +[Music illustration] + +[Sidenote: _Character of the opera a century and a half ago._] + +[Sidenote: _Music and dramatic expression._] + +I marvel, I say, at the skill, the gifts, and the training which could +accomplish such feats, but I would not have them back again if they +were to be employed in the old service. When Senesino, Farinelli, +Sassarelli, Ferri, and their tribe dominated the stage, it strutted +with sexless Agamemnons and Caesars. Telemachus, Darius, Nero, Cato, +Alexander, Scipio, and Hannibal ran around on the boards as +languishing lovers, clad in humiliating disguises, singing woful arias +to their mistress's eyebrows--arias full of trills and scales and +florid ornaments, but void of feeling as a problem in Euclid. Thanks +very largely to German influences, the opera is returning to its +original purposes. Music is again become a means of dramatic +expression, and the singers who appeal to us most powerfully are those +who are best able to make song subserve that purpose, and who to that +end give to dramatic truthfulness, to effective elocution, and to +action the attention which mere voice and beautiful utterance received +in the period which is called the Golden Age of singing, but which was +the Leaden Age of the lyric drama. + +[Sidenote: _Singers heard in New York._] + +For seventy years the people of New York, scarcely less favored than +those of London, have heard nearly all the great singers of Europe. +Let me talk about some of them, for I am trying to establish some +ground on which my readers may stand when they try to form an estimate +of the singing which they are privileged to hear in the opera houses +of to-day. Madame Malibran was a member of the first Italian company +that ever sang here. Madame Cinti-Damoreau came in 1844, Bosio in +1849, Jenny Lind in 1850, Sontag in 1853, Grisi in 1854, La Grange in +1855, Frezzolini in 1857, Piccolomini in 1858, Nilsson in 1870, Lucca +in 1872, Titiens in 1876, Gerster in 1878, and Sembrich in 1883. I +omit the singers of the German opera as belonging to a different +category. Adelina Patti was always with us until she made her European +debut in 1861, and remained abroad twenty years. Of the men who were +the artistic associates of these _prime donne_, mention may be made of +Mario, Benedetti, Corsi, Salvi, Ronconi, Formes, Brignoli, Amadeo, +Coletti, and Campanini, none of whom, excepting Mario, was of +first-class importance compared with the women singers. + +[Sidenote: _Grisi._] + +[Sidenote: _Jenny Lind._] + +[Sidenote: _Lilli Lehmann._] + +Nearly all of these singers, even those still living and remembered by +the younger generation of to-day, exploited their gifts in the operas +of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, the early Verdi, and Meyerbeer. Grisi +was acclaimed a great dramatic singer, and it is told of her that once +in "Norma" she frightened the tenor who sang the part of _Pollio_ by +the fury of her acting. But measured by the standards of to-day, say +that set by Calve's _Carmen_, it must have been a simple age that +could be impressed by the tragic power of anyone acting the part of +Bellini's Druidical priestess. The surmise is strengthened by the +circumstance that Madame Grisi created a sensation in "Il Trovatore" +by showing signs of agitation in the tower scene, walking about the +stage during _Manrico's_ "_Ah! che la morte ognora_," as if she would +fain discover the part of the castle where her lover was imprisoned. +The chief charm of Jenny Lind in the memory of the older generation is +the pathos with which she sang simple songs. Mendelssohn esteemed her +greatly as a woman and artist, but he is quoted as once remarking to +Chorley: "I cannot think why she always prefers to be in a bad +theatre." Moscheles, recording his impressions of her in Meyerbeer's +"Camp of Silesia" (now "L'Etoile du Nord"), reached the climax of his +praise in the words: "Her song with the two concertante flutes is +perhaps the most incredible feat in the way of bravura singing that +can possibly be heard." She was credited, too, with fine powers as an +actress; and that she possessed them can easily be believed, for few +of the singers whom I have mentioned had so early and intimate an +association with the theatre as she. Her repugnance to it in later +life she attributed to a prejudice inherited from her mother. A vastly +different heritage is disclosed by Madame Lehmann's devotion to the +drama, a devotion almost akin to religion. I have known her to go into +the scene-room of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and search +for mimic stumps and rocks with which to fit out a scene in +"Siegfried," in which she was not even to appear. That, like her +super-human work at rehearsals, was "for the good of the cause," as +she expressed it. + +[Sidenote: _Sontag._] + +Most amiable are the memories that cluster around the name of Sontag, +whose career came to a grievous close by her sudden death in Mexico in +1854. She was a German, and the early part of her artistic life was +influenced by German ideals, but it is said that only in the music of +Mozart and Weber, which aroused in her strong national emotion, did +she sing dramatically. For the rest she used her light voice, which +had an extraordinary range, brilliancy, and flexibility, very much as +Patti and Melba use their voices to-day--in mere unfeeling vocal +display. + + "She had an extensive soprano voice," says Hogarth; "not + remarkable for power, but clear, brilliant, and singularly + flexible; a quality which seems to have led her (unlike most + German singers in general) to cultivate the most florid + style, and even to follow the bad example set by Catalani, + of seeking to convert her voice into an instrument, and to + astonish the public by executing the violin variations on + Rode's air and other things of that stamp." + +[Sidenote: _La Grange._] + +[Sidenote: _Piccolomini._] + +[Sidenote: _Adelina Patti._] + +[Sidenote: _Gerster._] + +[Sidenote: _Lucca and Nilsson._] + +[Sidenote: _Sembrich._] + +Madame La Grange had a voice of wide compass, which enabled her to +sing contralto roles as well as soprano, but I have never heard her +dramatic powers praised. As for Piccolomini, read of her where you +will, you shall find that she was "charming." She was lovely to look +upon, and her acting in soubrette parts was fascinating. Until Melba +came Patti was for thirty years peerless as a mere vocalist. She +belongs, as did Piccolomini and Sontag, to the comic _genre_; so did +Sembrich and Gerster, the latter of whom never knew it. I well +remember how indignant she became on one occasion, in her first +American season, at a criticism which I wrote of her _Amina_ in "La +Sonnambula," a performance which remains among my loveliest and most +fragrant recollections. I had made use of Catalani's remark concerning +Sontag: "_Son genre est petit, mais elle est unique dans son genre_," +and applied it to her style. She almost flew into a passion. "_Mon +genre est grand!_" said she, over and over again, while Dr. Gardini, +her husband, tried to pacify her. "Come to see my _Marguerite_ next +season." Now, Gounod's _Marguerite_ does not quite belong to the +heroic roles, though we can all remember how Lucca thrilled us by her +intensity of action as well as of song, and how Madame Nilsson sent +the blood out of our cheeks, though she did stride through the opera +like a combination of the _grande dame_ and Ary Scheffer's spirituelle +pictures; but such as it is, Madame Gerster achieved a success of +interest only, and that because of her strivings for originality. +Sembrich and Gerster, when they were first heard in New York, had as +much execution as Melba or Nilsson; but their voices had less +emotional power than that of the latter, and less beauty than that of +the former--beauty of the kind that might be called classic, since it +is in no way dependent on feeling. + +[Sidenote: _Melba and Eames._] + +[Sidenote: _Calve._] + +[Sidenote: _Dramatic singers._] + +[Sidenote: _Jean de Reszke._] + +[Sidenote: _Edouard de Reszke and Plancon._] + +Patti, Lucca, Nilsson, and Gerster sang in the operas in which Melba +and Eames sing to-day, and though the standard of judgment has been +changed in the last twenty-five years by the growth of German ideals, +I can find no growth of potency in the performances of the +representative women of Italian and French opera, except in the case +of Madame Calve. For the development of dramatic ideals we must look +to the singers of German affiliations or antecedents, Mesdames +Materna, Lehmann, Sucher, and Nordica. As for the men of yesterday and +to-day, no lover, I am sure, of the real lyric drama would give the +declamatory warmth and gracefulness of pose and action which mark the +performances of M. Jean de Reszke for a hundred of the high notes of +Mario (for one of which, we are told, he was wont to reserve his +powers all evening), were they never so lovely. Neither does the +fine, resonant, equable voice of Edouard de Reszke or the finished +style of Plancon leave us with curious longings touching the voices +and manners of Lablache and Formes. Other times, other manners, in +music as in everything else. The great singers of to-day are those who +appeal to the taste of to-day, and that taste differs, as the clothes +which we wear differ, from the style in vogue in the days of our +ancestors. + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's operas._] + +[Sidenote: _Wagner's lyric dramas._] + +[Sidenote: _His theories._] + +[Sidenote: _The mission of music._] + +[Sidenote: _Distinctions abolished._] + +[Sidenote: _The typical phrases._] + +[Sidenote: _Characteristics of some motives._] + +A great deal of confusion has crept into the public mind concerning +Wagner and his works by the failure to differentiate between his +earlier and later creations. No injustice is done the composer by +looking upon his "Flying Dutchman," "Tannhaeuser," and "Lohengrin" as +operas. We find the dramatic element lifted into noble prominence in +"Tannhaeuser," and admirable freedom in the handling of the musical +factors in "Lohengrin," but they must, nevertheless, be listened to as +one would listen to the operas of Weber, Marschner, or Meyerbeer. +They are, in fact, much nearer to the conventional operatic type than +to the works which came after them, and were called _Musikdramen_. +"Music drama" is an awkward phrase, and I have taken the liberty of +substituting "lyric drama" for it, and as such I shall designate +"Tristan und Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," "Der Ring des Nibelungen," +and "Parsifal." In these works Wagner exemplified his reformatory +ideas and accomplished a regeneration of the lyric drama, as we found +it embodied in principle in the Greek tragedy and the _Dramma per +musica_ of the Florentine scholars. Wagner's starting-point is, that +in the opera music had usurped a place which did not belong to it.[G] +It was designed to be a means and had become an end. In the drama he +found a combination of poetry, music, pantomime, and scenery, and he +held that these factors ought to co-operate on a basis of mutual +dependence, the inspiration of all being dramatic expression. Music, +therefore, ought to be subordinate to the text in which the dramatic +idea is expressed, and simply serve to raise it to a higher power by +giving it greater emotional life. So, also, it ought to vivify +pantomime and accompany the stage pictures. In order that it might do +all this, it had to be relieved of the shackles of formalism; only +thus could it move with the same freedom as the other elements +consorted with it in the drama. Therefore, the distinctions between +recitative and aria were abolished, and an "endless melody" took the +place of both. An exalted form of speech is borne along on a flood of +orchestral music, which, quite as much as song, action, and scenery +concerns itself with the exposition of the drama. That it may do this +the agencies, spiritual as well as material, which are instrumental in +the development of the play, are identified with certain melodic +phrases, out of which the musical fabric is woven. These phrases are +the much mooted, much misunderstood "leading motives"--typical phrases +I call them. Wagner has tried to make them reflect the character or +nature of the agencies with which he has associated them, and +therefore we find the giants in the Niblung tetralogy symbolized in +heavy, slowly moving, cumbersome phrases; the dwarfs have two phrases, +one suggesting their occupation as smiths, by its hammering rhythm, +and the other their intellectual habits, by its suggestion of brooding +contemplativeness. I cannot go through the catalogue of the typical +phrases which enter into the musical structure of the works which I +have called lyric dramas as contra-distinguished from operas. They +should, of course, be known to the student of Wagner, for thereby will +he be helped to understand the poet-composer's purposes, but I would +fain repeat the warning which I uttered twice in my "Studies in the +Wagnerian Drama:" + +[Sidenote: _The phrases should be studied._] + + "It cannot be too forcibly urged that if we confine our + study of Wagner to the forms and names of the phrases out of + which he constructs his musical fabric, we shall, at the + last, have enriched our minds with a thematic catalogue + and--nothing else. We shall remain guiltless of knowledge + unless we learn something of the nature of those phrases by + noting the attributes which lend them propriety and fitness, + and can recognize, measurably at least, the reasons for + their introduction and development. Those attributes give + character and mood to the music constructed out of the + phrases. If we are able to feel the mood, we need not care + how the phrases which produce it have been labelled. If we + do not feel the mood, we may memorize the whole thematic + catalogue of Wolzogen and have our labor for our pains. It + would be better to know nothing about the phrases, and + content one's self with simple sensuous enjoyment than to + spend one's time answering the baldest of all the riddles of + Wagner's orchestra--'What am I playing now?' + +[Sidenote: _The question of effectiveness._] + + "The ultimate question concerning the correctness or + effectiveness of Wagner's system of composition must, of + course, be answered along with the question: 'Does the + composition, as a whole, touch the emotions, quicken the + fancy, fire the imagination?' If it does these things, we + may, to a great extent, if we wish, get along without the + intellectual processes of reflection and comparison which + are conditioned upon a recognition of the themes and their + uses. But if we put aside this intellectual activity, we + shall deprive ourselves, among other things, of the + pleasures which it is the province of memory to give; and + the exercise of memory is called for by music much more + urgently than by any other art, because of its volatile + nature and the role which repetition plays in it." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[E] "But no real student can have studied the score deeply, or +listened discriminatingly to a good performance, without discovering +that there is a tremendous chasm between the conventional aims of the +Italian poet in the book of the opera and the work which emerged from +the composer's profound imagination. Da Ponte contemplated a _dramma +giocoso_; Mozart humored him until his imagination came within the +shadow cast before by the catastrophe, and then he transformed the +poet's comedy into a tragedy of crushing power. The climax of Da +Ponte's ideal is reached in a picture of the dissolute _Don_ wrestling +in idle desperation with a host of spectacular devils, and finally +disappearing through a trap, while fire bursts out on all sides, the +thunders roll, and _Leporello_ gazes on the scene, crouched in a comic +attitude of terror, under the table. Such a picture satisfied the +tastes of the public of his time, and that public found nothing +incongruous in a return to the scene immediately afterward of all the +characters save the reprobate, who had gone to his reward, to hear a +description of the catastrophe from the buffoon under the table, and +platitudinously to moralize that the perfidious wretch, having been +stored away safely in the realm of Pluto and Proserpine, nothing +remained for them to do except to raise their voices in the words of +the "old song," + + _"Questo e il fin di chi fa mal: + E dei perfidi la morte + Alla vita e sempre ugual."_ + +"New York Musical Season, 1889-90." + +[F] "Review of the New York Musical Season, 1889-90," p. 75. + +[G] See "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," chapter I. + + + + +VIII + +_Choirs and Choral Music_ + + +[Sidenote: _Choirs a touchstone of culture._] + +[Sidenote: _The value of choir singing._] + +No one would go far astray who should estimate the extent and +sincerity of a community's musical culture by the number of its chorus +singers. Some years ago it was said that over three hundred cities and +towns in Germany contained singing societies and orchestras devoted to +the cultivation of choral music. In the United States, where there are +comparatively a small number of instrumental musicians, there has been +a wonderful development of singing societies within the last +generation, and it is to this fact largely that the notable growth in +the country's knowledge and appreciation of high-class music is due. +No amount of mere hearing and study can compare in influence with +participation in musical performance. Music is an art which rests on +love. It is beautiful sound vitalized by feeling, and it can only be +grasped fully through man's emotional nature. There is no quicker or +surer way to get to the heart of a composition than by performing it, +and since participation in chorus singing is of necessity unselfish +and creative of sympathy, there is no better medium of musical culture +than membership in a choir. It was because he realized this that +Schumann gave the advice to all students of music: "Sing diligently in +choirs; especially the middle voices, for this will make you musical." + +[Sidenote: _Singing societies and orchestras._] + +[Sidenote: _Neither numbers nor wealth necessary._] + +There is no community so small or so ill-conditioned that it cannot +maintain a singing society. Before a city can give sustenance to even +a small body of instrumentalists it must be large enough and rich +enough to maintain a theatre from which those instrumentalists can +derive their support. There can be no dependence upon amateurs, for +people do not study the oboe, bassoon, trombone, or double-bass for +amusement. Amateur violinists and amateur flautists there are in +plenty, but not amateur clarinetists and French-horn players; but if +the love for music exists in a community, a dozen families shall +suffice to maintain a choral club. Large numbers are therefore not +essential; neither is wealth. Some of the largest and finest choirs in +the world flourish among the Welsh miners in the United States and +Wales, fostered by a native love for the art and the national +institution called Eisteddfod. + +[Sidenote: _Lines of choral culture in the United States._] + +The lines on which choral culture has proceeded in the United States +are two, of which the more valuable, from an artistic point of view, +is that of the oratorio, which went out from New England. The other +originated in the German cultivation of the _Maennergesang_, the +importance of which is felt more in the extent of the culture, +prompted as it is largely by social considerations, than in the music +sung, which is of necessity of a lower grade than that composed for +mixed voices. It is chiefly in the impulse which German _Maennergesang_ +carried into all the corners of the land, and especially the impetus +which the festivals of the German singers gave to the sections in +which they have been held for half a century, that this form of +culture is interesting. + +[Sidenote: _Church and oratorio._] + +[Sidenote: _Secular choirs._] + +The cultivation of oratorio music sprang naturally from the Church, +and though it is now chiefly in the hands of secular societies, the +biblical origin of the vast majority of the texts used in the works +which are performed, and more especially the regular performances of +Handel's "Messiah" in the Christmastide, have left the notion, more or +less distinct, in the public mind, that oratorios are religious +functions. Nevertheless (or perhaps because of this fact) the most +successful choral concerts in the United States are those given by +oratorio societies. The cultivation of choral music which is secular +in character is chiefly in the hands of small organizations, whose +concerts are of a semi-private nature and are enjoyed by the associate +members and invited guests. This circumstance is deserving of notice +as a characteristic feature of choral music in America, though it has +no particular bearing upon this study, which must concern itself with +choral organizations, choral music, and choral performances in +general. + +[Sidenote: _Amateur choirs originated in the United States._] + +[Sidenote: _The size of old choirs._] + +Organizations of the kind in view differ from instrumental in being +composed of amateurs; and amateur choir-singing is no older anywhere +than in the United States. Two centuries ago and more the singing of +catches and glees was a common amusement among the gentler classes in +England, but the performances of the larger forms of choral music were +in the hands of professional choristers who were connected with +churches, theatres, schools, and other public institutions. Naturally, +then, the choral bodies were small. Choirs of hundreds and thousands, +such as take part in the festivals of to-day, are a product of a later +time. + +[Sidenote: _Handel's choirs._] + + "When Bach and Handel wrote their Passions, Church Cantatas, + and Oratorios, they could only dream of such majestic + performances as those works receive now; and it is one of + the miracles of art that they should have written in so + masterly a manner for forces that they could never hope to + control. Who would think, when listening to the 'Hallelujah' + of 'The Messiah,' or the great double choruses of 'Israel in + Egypt,' in which the voice of the composer is 'as the voice + of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and + as the voice of many thunderings, saying, "Alleluia, for the + Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"' that these colossal + compositions were never heard by Handel from any chorus + larger than the most modest of our church choirs? At the + last performance of 'The Messiah' at which Handel was + advertised to appear (it was for the benefit of his favorite + charity, the Foundling Hospital, on May 3, 1759--he died + before the time, however), the singers, including + principals, numbered twenty-three, while the + instrumentalists numbered thirty-three. At the first great + Handel Commemoration, in Westminster Abbey, in 1784, the + choir numbered two hundred and seventy-five, the band two + hundred and fifty; and this was the most numerous force ever + gathered together for a single performance in England up to + that time. + +[Sidenote: _Choirs a century ago._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach's choir._] + + "In 1791 the Commemoration was celebrated by a choir of five + hundred and a band of three hundred and seventy-five. In + May, 1786, Johann Adam Hiller, one of Bach's successors as + cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipsic, directed what + was termed a _Massenauffuehrung_ of 'The Messiah,' in the + Domkirche, in Berlin. His 'masses' consisted of one hundred + and eighteen singers and one hundred and eighty-six + instrumentalists. In Handel's operas, and sometimes even in + his oratorios, the _tutti_ meant, in his time, little more + than a union of all the solo singers; and even Bach's + Passion music and church cantatas, which seem as much + designed for numbers as the double choruses of 'Israel,' + were rendered in the St. Thomas Church by a ludicrously + small choir. Of this fact a record is preserved in the + archives of Leipsic. In August, 1730, Bach submitted to the + authorities a plan for a church choir of the pupils in his + care. In this plan his singers numbered twelve, there being + one principal and two ripienists in each voice; with + characteristic modesty he barely suggests a preference for + sixteen. The circumstance that in the same document he asked + for at least eighteen instrumentalists (two more if flutes + were used), taken in connection with the figures given + relative to the 'Messiah' performances, gives an insight + into the relations between the vocal and the instrumental + parts of a choral performance in those days."[H] + +[Sidenote: _Proportion of voices and instruments._] + +This relation has been more than reversed since then, the orchestras +at modern oratorio performances seldom being one-fifth as large as the +choir. This difference, however, is due largely to the changed +character of modern music, that of to-day treating the instruments as +independent agents of expression instead of using them chiefly to +support the voices and add sonority to the tonal mass, as was done by +Handel and most of the composers of his day. + +[Sidenote: _Glee unions and male choirs._] + +I omit from consideration the Glee Unions of England, and the +quartets, which correspond to them, in this country. They are not +cultivators of choral music, and the music which they sing is an +insignificant factor in culture. The male choirs, too, need not detain +us long, since it may be said without injustice that their mission is +more social than artistic. In these choirs the subdivision into parts +is, as a rule, into two tenor voices, first and second, and two bass, +first and second. In the glee unions, the effect of whose singing is +fairly well imitated by the college clubs of the United States +(pitiful things, indeed, from an artistic point of view), there is a +survival of an old element in the male alto singing above the melody +voice, generally in a painful falsetto. This abomination is unknown to +the German part-songs for men's voices, which are written normally, +but are in the long run monotonous in color for want of the variety in +timbre and register which the female voices contribute in a mixed +choir. + +[Sidenote: _Women's choirs._] + +There are choirs also composed exclusively of women, but they are +even more unsatisfactory than the male choirs, for the reason that the +absence of the bass voice leaves their harmony without sufficient +foundation. Generally, music for these choirs is written for three +parts, two sopranos and contralto, with the result that it hovers, +suspended like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth. When a +fourth part is added it is a second contralto, which is generally +carried down to the tones that are hollow and unnatural. + +[Sidenote: _Boys' choirs._] + +The substitution of boys for women in Episcopal Church choirs has +grown extensively within the last ten years in the United States, very +much to the promotion of aesthetic sentimentality in the congregations, +but without improving the character of worship-music. Boys' voices are +practically limitless in an upward direction, and are naturally clear +and penetrating. Ravishing effects can be produced with them, but it +is false art to use passionless voices in music conceived for the +mature and emotional voices of adults; and very little of the old +English Cathedral music, written for choirs of boys and men, is +preserved in the service lists to-day. + +[Sidenote: _Mixed choirs._] + +The only satisfactory choirs are the mixed choirs of men and women. +Upon them has devolved the cultivation of artistic choral music in our +public concert-rooms. As we know such choirs now, they are of +comparatively recent origin, and it is a singular commentary upon the +way in which musical history is written, that the fact should have so +long been overlooked that the credit of organizing the first belongs +to the United States. A little reflection will show this fact, which +seems somewhat startling at first blush, to be entirely natural. Large +singing societies are of necessity made up of amateurs, and the want +of professional musicians in America compelled the people to enlist +amateurs at a time when in Europe choral activity rested on the +church, theatre, and institute choristers, who were practically +professionals. + +[Sidenote: _Origin of amateur singing societies._] + +[Sidenote: _The German record._] + +[Sidenote: _American priority._] + +[Sidenote: _The American record._] + +As the hitherto accepted record stands, the first amateur singing +society was the Singakademie of Berlin, which Carl Friedrich Fasch, +accompanist to the royal flautist, Frederick the Great, called into +existence in 1791. A few dates will show how slow the other cities of +musical Germany were in following Berlin's example. In 1818 there were +only ten amateur choirs in all Germany. Leipsic organized one in 1800, +Stettin in 1800, Muenster in 1804, Dresden in 1807, Potsdam in 1814, +Bremen in 1815, Chemnitz in 1817, Schwaebisch-Hall in 1817, and +Innsbruck in 1818. The Berlin Singakademie is still in existence, but +so also is the Stoughton Musical Society in Stoughton, Mass., which +was founded on November 7, 1786. Mr. Charles C. Perkins, historian of +the Handel and Haydn Society, whose foundation was coincident with the +sixth society in Germany (Bremen, 1815), enumerates the following +predecessors of that venerable organization: the Stoughton Musical +Society, 1786; Independent Musical Society, "established at Boston in +the same year, which gave a concert at King's Chapel in 1788, and took +part there in commemorating the death of Washington (December 14, +1799) on his first succeeding birthday;" the Franklin, 1804; the +Salem, 1806; Massachusetts Musical, 1807; Lock Hospital, 1812, and the +Norfolk Musical, the date of whose foundation is not given by Mr. +Perkins. + +[Sidenote: _Choirs in the West._] + +When the Bremen Singakademie was organized there were already choirs +in the United States as far west as Cincinnati. In that city they were +merely church choirs at first, but within a few years they had +combined into a large body and were giving concerts at which some of +the choruses of Handel and Haydn were sung. That their performances, +as well as those of the New England societies, were cruder than those +of their European rivals may well be believed, but with this I have +nothing to do. I am simply seeking to establish the priority of the +United States in amateur choral culture. The number of American cities +in which oratorios are performed annually is now about fifty. + +[Sidenote: _The size of choirs._] + +[Sidenote: _Large numbers not essential._] + +[Sidenote: _How "divisions" used to be sung._] + +In size mixed choirs ordinarily range from forty voices to five +hundred. It were well if it were understood by choristers as well as +the public that numbers merely are not a sign of merit in a singing +society. So the concert-room be not too large, a choir of sixty +well-trained voices is large enough to perform almost everything in +choral literature with good effect, and the majority of the best +compositions will sound better under such circumstances than in large +rooms with large choirs. Especially is this true of the music of the +Middle Ages, written for voices without instrumental accompaniment, of +which I shall have something to say when the discussion reaches choral +programmes. There is music, it is true, like much of Handel's, the +impressiveness of which is greatly enhanced by masses, but it is not +extensive enough to justify the sacrifice of correctness and finish in +the performance to mere volume. The use of large choirs has had the +effect of developing the skilfulness of amateur singers in an +astonishing degree, but there is, nevertheless, a point where +weightiness of tone becomes an obstacle to finished execution. When +Mozart remodelled Handel's "Messiah" he was careful to indicate that +the florid passages ("divisions" they used to be called in England) +should be sung by the solo voices alone, but nowadays choirs of five +hundred voices attack such choruses as "For unto us a Child is Born," +without the slightest hesitation, even if they sometimes make a +mournful mess of the "divisions." + +[Sidenote: _The division of choirs._] + +[Sidenote: _Five-part music._] + +[Sidenote: _Eight part._] + +[Sidenote: _Antiphonal music._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach's "St. Matthew Passion."_] + +The normal division of a mixed choir is into four parts or +voices--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass; but composers sometimes +write for more parts, and the choir is subdivided to correspond. The +custom of writing for five, six, eight, ten, and even more voices was +more common in the Middle Ages, the palmy days of the _a capella_ +(_i.e._, for the chapel, unaccompanied) style than it is now, and, as +a rule, a division into more than four voices is not needed outside of +the societies which cultivate this old music, such as the Musical Art +Society in New York, the Bach Choir in London, and the Domchor in +Berlin. In music for five parts, one of the upper voices, soprano or +tenor, is generally doubled; for six, the ordinary distribution is +into two sopranos, two contraltos, tenor, and bass. When eight voices +are reached a distinction is made according as there are to be eight +real parts (_a otto voci reali_), or two choruses of the four normal +parts each (_a otto voci in due cori reali_). In the first instance +the arrangement commonly is three sopranos, two contraltos, two +tenors, and one bass. One of the most beautiful uses of the double +choir is to produce antiphonal effects, choir answering to choir, both +occasionally uniting in the climaxes. How stirring this effect can be +made may be observed in some of Bach's compositions, especially those +in which he makes the division of the choir subserve a dramatic +purpose, as in the first chorus of "The Passion according to St. +Matthew," where the two choirs, one representing _Daughters of Zion_, +the other _Believers_, interrogate and answer each other thus: + + I. "Come, ye daughters, weep for anguish; + See Him! +II. "Whom? + I. "The Son of Man. + See Him! +II. "How? + I. "So like a lamb. + See it! +II. "What? + I. "His love untold. + Look! +II. "Look where? + I. "Our guilt behold." + +[Sidenote: _Antiphony in a motet._] + +Another most striking instance is in the same master's motet, "Sing ye +to the Lord," which is written for two choirs of four parts each. (In +the example from the "St. Matthew Passion" there is a third choir of +soprano voices which sings a chorale while the dramatic choirs are +conversing.) In the motet the first choir begins a fugue, in the midst +of which the second choir is heard shouting jubilantly, "Sing ye! Sing +ye! Sing ye!" Then the choirs change roles, the first delivering the +injunction, the second singing the fugue. In modern music, composers +frequently consort a quartet of solo voices, soprano, contralto, +tenor, and bass, with a four-part chorus, and thus achieve fine +effects of contrast in dynamics and color, as well as antiphonal. + +[Sidenote: _Excellence in choral singing._] + +[Sidenote: _Community of action._] + +[Sidenote: _Individualism._] + +[Sidenote: _Dynamics._] + +[Sidenote: _Beauty of tone._] + +[Sidenote: _Contralto voices._] + +The question is near: What constitutes excellence in a choral +performance? To answer: The same qualities that constitute excellence +in an orchestral performance, will scarcely suffice, except as a +generalization. A higher degree of harmonious action is exacted of a +body of singers than of a body of instrumentalists. Many of the parts +in a symphony are played by a single instrument. Community of voice +belongs only to each of the five bodies of string-players. In a chorus +there are from twelve to one hundred and fifty voices, or even more, +united in each part. This demands the effacement of individuality in a +chorus, upon the assertion of which, in a band, under the judicious +guidance of the conductor, many of the effects of color and expression +depend. Each group in a choir must strive for homogeneity of voice +quality; each singer must sink the _ego_ in the aggregation, yet +employ it in its highest potency so far as the mastery of the technics +of singing is concerned. In cultivating precision of attack (_i.e._, +promptness in beginning a tone and leaving it off), purity of +intonation (_i.e._, accuracy or justness of pitch--"singing in tune" +according to the popular phrase), clearness of enunciation, and +careful attention to all the dynamic gradations of tone, from very +soft up to very loud, and all shades of expression between, in the +development of that gradual augmentation of tone called _crescendo_, +and the gradual diminution called _diminuendo_, the highest order of +individual skill is exacted from every chorister; for upon individual +perfection in these things depends the collective effect which it is +the purpose of the conductor to achieve. Sensuous beauty of tone, even +in large aggregations, is also dependent to a great degree upon +careful and proper emission of voice by each individual, and it is +because the contralto part in most choral music, being a middle part, +lies so easily in the voices of the singers that the contralto +contingent in American choirs, especially, so often attracts attention +by the charm of its tone. Contralto voices are seldom forced into the +regions which compel so great a physical strain that beauty and +character must be sacrificed to mere accomplishment of utterance, as +is frequently the case with the soprano part. + +[Sidenote: _Selfishness fatal to success._] + +[Sidenote: _Tonal balance._] + +Yet back of all this exercise of individual skill there must be a +spirit of self-sacrifice which can only exist in effective potency if +prompted by universal sympathy and love for the art. A selfish +chorister is not a chorister, though possessed of the voice of a Melba +or Mario. Balance between the parts, not only in the fundamental +constitution of the choir but also in all stages of a performance, is +also a matter of the highest consideration. In urban communities, +especially, it is difficult to secure perfect tonal symmetry--the rule +is a poverty in tenor voices--but those who go to hear choral concerts +are entitled to hear a well-balanced choir, and the presence of an +army of sopranos will not condone a squad of tenors. Again, I say, +better a well-balanced small choir than an ill-balanced large one. + +[Sidenote: _Declamation._] + +[Sidenote: _Expression._] + +[Sidenote: _The choruses in "The Messiah."_] + +[Sidenote: _Variety of declamation in Handel's oratorio._] + +I have not enumerated all the elements which enter into a meritorious +performance, nor shall I discuss them all; only in passing do I wish +to direct attention to one which shines by its absence in the choral +performances not only of America but also of Great Britain and +Germany. Proper pronunciation of the texts is an obvious requirement; +so ought also to be declamation. There is no reason why characteristic +expression, by which I mean expression which goes to the genius of the +melodic phrase when it springs from the verbal, should be ignored, +simply because it may be difficult of attainment from large bodies of +singers. There is so much monotony in oratorio concerts because all +oratorios and all parts of any single oratorio are sung alike. Only +when the "Hallelujah" is sung in "The Messiah" at the gracious +Christmastide is an exaltation above the dull level of the routine +performances noticeable, and then it is communicated to the singers by +the act of the listeners in rising to their feet. Now, despite the +structural sameness in the choruses of "The Messiah," they have a +great variety of content, and if the characteristic physiognomy of +each could but be disclosed, the grand old work, which seems hackneyed +to so many, would acquire amazing freshness, eloquence, and power. +Then should we be privileged to note that there is ample variety in +the voice of the old master, of whom a greater than he said that when +he wished, he could strike like a thunderbolt. Then should we hear the +tones of amazed adoration in + +[Music illustration: Be-hold the Lamb of God!] + +of cruel scorn in + +[Music illustration: He trust-ed in God that would de-li-ver Him, let +him de-li-ver him if he de-light in him.] + +of boastfulness and conscious strength in + +[Music illustration: Let us break their bonds a-sun-der.] + +and learn to admire as we ought to admire the declamatory strength +and truthfulness so common in Handel's choruses. + +[Sidenote: _Mediaeval music._] + +[Sidenote: _Madrigals._] + +There is very little cultivation of choral music of the early +ecclesiastical type, and that little is limited to the Church and a +few choirs specially organized for its performance, like those that I +have mentioned. This music is so foreign to the conceptions of the +ordinary amateur, and exacts so much skill in the singing of the +intervals, lacking the prop of modern tonality as it does, that it is +seldom that an amateur body can be found equal to its performance. +Moreover, it is nearly all of a solemn type. Its composers were +churchmen, and when it was written nearly all that there was of +artistic music was in the service of the Church. The secular music of +the time consisted chiefly in Madrigals, which differed from +ecclesiastical music only in their texts, they being generally erotic +in sentiment. The choristers of to-day, no less than the public, find +it difficult to appreciate them, because they are not melodic in the +sense that most music is nowadays. In them the melody is not the +privileged possession of the soprano voice. All the voices stand on +an equal footing, and the composition consists of a weaving together, +according to scientific rules, of a number of voices--counterpoint as +it is called. + +[Sidenote: _Homophonic hymns._] + +[Sidenote: _Calvin's restrictive influence._] + +Our hymn-tunes are homophonic, based upon a melody sung by one voice, +for which the other voices provide the harmony. This style of music +came into the Church through the German Reformation. Though Calvin was +a lover of music he restricted its practice among his followers to +unisonal psalmody, that is, to certain tunes adapted to the versified +psalms sung without accompaniment of harmony voices. On the adoption +of the Genevan psalter he gave the strictest injunction that neither +its text nor its melodies were to be altered. + + "Those songs and melodies," said he, "which are composed for + the mere pleasure of the ear, and all they call ornamental + music, and songs for four parts, do not behoove the majesty + of the Church, and cannot fail greatly to displease God." + +[Sidenote: _Luther and the German Church._] + +Under the influence of the German reformers music was in a very +different case. Luther was not only an amateur musician, he was also +an ardent lover of scientific music. Josquin des Pres, a contemporary +of Columbus, was his greatest admiration; nevertheless, he was anxious +from the beginning of his work of Church establishment to have the +music of the German Church German in spirit and style. In 1525 he +wrote: + +[Sidenote: _A German mass._] + + "I should like to have a German mass, and I am indeed at + work on one; but I am anxious that it shall be truly German + in manner. I have no objection to a translated Latin text + and Latin notes; but they are neither proper nor just (_aber + es lautet nicht artig noch rechtschaffen_); text and notes, + accent, melodies, and demeanor must come from our mother + tongue and voice, else will it all be but a mimicry, like + that of the apes." + +[Sidenote: _Secular tunes used._] + +[Sidenote: _Congregational singing._] + +In the Church music of the time, composed, as I have described, by a +scientific interweaving of voices, the composers had got into the +habit of utilizing secular melodies as the foundation on which to +build their contrapuntal structures. I have no doubt that it was the +spirit which speaks out of Luther's words which brought it to pass +that in Germany contrapuntal music with popular melodies as +foundations developed into the chorale, in which the melody and not +the counterpoint was the essential thing. With the Lutheran Church +came congregational singing; with congregational singing the need of a +new style of composition, which should not only make the participation +of the people in the singing possible, but should also stimulate them +to sing by freeing the familiar melodies (the melodies of folk-songs) +from the elaborate and ingenious, but soulless, counterpoint which +fettered them. + +[Sidenote: _Counterpoint._] + +[Sidenote: _The first congregational hymns._] + +The Flemish masters, who were the musical law-givers, had been using +secular tunes for over a century, but only as stalking-horses for +counterpoint; and when the Germans began to use their tunes, they, +too, buried them beyond recognition in the contrapuntal mass. The +people were invited to sing paraphrases of the psalms to familiar +tunes, it is true, but the choir's polyphony went far to stifle the +spirit of the melody. Soon the free spirit which I have repeatedly +referred to as Romanticism, and which was powerfully encouraged by +the Reformation, prompted a style of composition in which the admired +melody was lifted into relief. This could not be done until the new +style of writing invented by the creators of the opera (see Chapter +VII.) came in, but as early as 1568 Dr. Lucas Ostrander published +fifty hymns and psalms with music so arranged "that the congregation +may join in singing them." This, then, is in outline the story of the +beginning of modern hymnology, and it is recalled to the patrons of +choral concerts whenever in Bach's "Passion Music" or in Mendelssohn's +"St. Paul" the choir sings one of the marvellous old hymns of the +German Church. + +[Sidenote: _The Church and conservatism._] + +[Sidenote: _Harmony and emotion._] + +Choral music being bound up with the Church, it has naturally +participated in the conservatism characteristic of the Church. The +severe old style has survived in the choral compositions of to-day, +while instrumental music has grown to be almost a new thing within the +century which is just closing. It is the severe style established by +Bach, however, not that of Palestrina. In the Church compositions +prior to Palestrina the emotional power of harmony was but little +understood. The harmonies, indeed, were the accidents of the +interweaving of melodies. Palestrina was among the first to feel the +uplifting effect which might result from a simple sequence of pure +consonant harmonies, and the three chords which open his famous +"Stabat Mater" + +[Sidenote: _Palestrina's "Stabat Mater."_] + +[Sidenote: _Characteristics of his music._] + +[Music illustration: Sta-bat ma-ter] + +are a sign of his style as distinct in its way as the devices by means +of which Wagner stamps his individuality on his phrases. His melodies, +too, compared with the artificial _motivi_ of his predecessors, are +distinguished by grace, beauty, and expressiveness, while his command +of aetherial effects, due to the manner in which the voices are +combined, is absolutely without parallel from his day to this. Of the +mystery of pure beauty he enjoyed a wonderful revelation, and has +handed it down to us in such works as the "Stabat Mater," "Missa Papae +Marcelli," and the "Improperia." + +[Sidenote: _Palestrina's music not dramatic._] + +[Sidenote: _A churchman._] + +[Sidenote: _Effect of the Reformation._] + +This music must not be listened to with the notion in mind of dramatic +expression such as we almost instinctively feel to-day. Palestrina +does not seek to proclaim the varying sentiment which underlies his +texts. That leads to individual interpretation and is foreign to the +habits of churchmen in the old conception, when the individual was +completely resolved in the organization. He aimed to exalt the mystery +of the service, not to bring it down to popular comprehension and make +it a personal utterance. For such a design in music we must wait until +after the Reformation, when the ancient mysticism began to fall back +before the demands of reason, when the idea of the sole and sufficient +mediation of the Church lost some of its power in the face of the +growing conviction of intimate personal relationship between man and +his creator. Now idealism had to yield some of its dominion to +realism, and a more rugged art grew up in place of that which had +been so wonderfully sublimated by mysticism. + +[Sidenote: _The source of beauty in Palestrina's music._] + +It is in Bach, who came a century after Palestrina, that we find the +most eloquent musical proclamation of the new regime, and it is in no +sense disrespectful to the great German master if we feel that the +change in ideals was accompanied with a loss in sensuous charm, or +pure aesthetic beauty. Effect has had to yield to idea. It is in the +flow of the voices, the color effects which result from combination +and registers, the clarity of the harmonies, the reposefulness coming +from conscious ease of utterance, the loveliness of each individual +part, and the spiritual exaltation of the whole that the aesthetic +mystery of Palestrina's music lies. + +[Sidenote: _Bach._] + +Like Palestrina, Bach is the culmination of the musical practice of +his time, but, unlike Palestrina, he is also the starting-point of a +new development. With Bach the old contrapuntal art, now not vocal +merely but instrumental also and mixed, reaches its climax, and the +tendency sets in which leads to the highly complex and dramatic art of +to-day. Palestrina's art is Roman; the spirit of restfulness, of +celestial calm, of supernatural revelation and supernal beauty broods +over it. Bach's is Gothic--rugged, massive, upward striving, human. In +Palestrina's music the voice that speaks is the voice of angels; in +Bach's it is the voice of men. + +[Sidenote: _Bach a German Protestant._] + +[Sidenote: _Church and individual._] + +[Sidenote: _Ingenuousness of feeling._] + +Bach is the publisher of the truest, tenderest, deepest, and most +individual religious feeling. His music is peculiarly a hymning of the +religious sentiment of Protestant Germany, where salvation is to be +wrought out with fear and trembling by each individual through faith +and works rather than the agency of even a divinely constituted +Church. It reflects, with rare fidelity and clearness, the essential +qualities of the German people--their warm sympathy, profound +compassion, fervent love, and sturdy faith. As the Church fell into +the background and the individual came to the fore, religious music +took on the dramatic character which we find in the "Passion Music" of +Bach. Here the sufferings and death of the Saviour, none the less an +ineffable mystery, are depicted as the most poignant experience of +each individual believer, and with an ingenuousness that must forever +provoke the wonder of those who are unable to enter into the German +nature. The worshippers do not hesitate to say: "My Jesus, +good-night!" as they gather in fancy around His tomb and invoke sweet +rest for His weary limbs. The difference between such a proclamation +and the calm voice of the Church should be borne in mind when +comparing the music of Palestrina with that of Bach; also the vast +strides made by music during the intervening century. + +[Sidenote: _The motet._] + +Of Bach's music we have in the repertories of our best choral +societies a number of motets, church cantatas, a setting of the +"Magnificat," and the great mass in B minor. The term Motet lacks +somewhat of definiteness of the usage of composers. Originally it +seems likely that it was a secular composition which the Netherland +composers enlisted in the service of the Church by adapting it to +Biblical and other religious texts. Then it was always unaccompanied. +In the later Protestant motets the chorale came to play a great part; +the various stanzas of a hymn were given different settings, the +foundation of each being the hymn tune. These were interspersed with +independent pieces, based on Biblical words. + +[Sidenote: _Church cantatas._] + +The Church Cantatas (_Kirchencantaten_) are larger services with +orchestral accompaniment, which were written to conform to the various +religious festivals and Sundays of the year; each has for a +fundamental subject the theme which is proper to the day. Again, a +chorale provides the musical foundation. Words and melody are +retained, but between the stanzas occur recitatives and metrical airs, +or ariosos, for solo voices in the nature of commentaries or +reflections on the sentiment of the hymn or the gospel lesson for the +day. + +[Sidenote: _The "Passions."_] + +[Sidenote: _Origin of the "Passions."_] + +[Sidenote: _Early Holy Week services._] + +The "Passions" are still more extended, and were written for use in +the Reformed Church in Holy Week. As an art-form they are unique, +combining a number of elements and having all the apparatus of an +oratorio plus the congregation, which took part in the performance by +singing the hymns dispersed through the work. The service (for as a +service, rather than as an oratorio, it must be treated) roots in the +Miracle plays and Mysteries of the Middle Ages, but its origin is even +more remote, going back to the custom followed by the primitive +Christians of making the reading of the story of the Passion a special +service for Holy Week. In the Eastern Church it was introduced in a +simple dramatic form as early as the fourth century A.D., the +treatment being somewhat like the ancient tragedies, the text being +intoned or chanted. In the Western Church, until the sixteenth +century, the Passion was read in a way which gave the service one +element which is found in Bach's works in an amplified form. Three +deacons were employed, one to read (or rather chant to Gregorian +melodies) the words of Christ, another to deliver the narrative in the +words of the Evangelist, and a third to give the utterances and +exclamations of the Apostles and people. This was the _Cantus +Passionis Domini nostri Jesu Christe_ of the Church, and had so strong +a hold upon the tastes of the people that it was preserved by Luther +in the Reformed Church. + +[Sidenote: _The service amplified._] + +[Sidenote: _Bach's settings._] + +Under this influence it was speedily amplified. The successive steps +of the progress are not clear, but the choir seems to have first +succeeded to the part formerly sung by the third deacon, and in some +churches the whole Passion was sung antiphonally by two choirs. In the +seventeenth century the introduction of recitatives and arias, +distributed among singers who represented the personages of sacred +history, increased the dramatic element of the service which reached +its climax in the "St. Matthew" setting by Bach. The chorales are +supposed to have been introduced about 1704. Bach's "Passions" are the +last that figure in musical history. That "according to St. John" is +performed occasionally in Germany, but it yields the palm of +excellence to that "according to St. Matthew," which had its first +performance on Good Friday, 1729, in Leipsic. It is in two parts, +which were formerly separated by the sermon, and employs two choirs, +each with its own orchestra, solo singers in all the classes of +voices, and a harpsichord to accompany all the recitatives, except +those of _Jesus_, which are distinguished by being accompanied by the +orchestral strings. + +[Sidenote: _Oratorios._] + +[Sidenote: _Sacred operas._] + +In the nature of things passions, oratorios, and their secular +cousins, cantatas, imply scenes and actions, and therefore have a +remote kinship with the lyric drama. The literary analogy which they +suggest is the epic poem as contra-distinguished from the drama. While +the drama presents incident, the oratorio relates, expounds, and +celebrates, presenting it to the fancy through the ear instead of +representing it to the eye. A great deal of looseness has crept into +this department of music as into every other, and the various forms +have been approaching each other until in some cases it is become +difficult to say which term, opera or oratorio, ought to be applied. +Rubinstein's "sacred operas" are oratorios profusely interspersed with +stage directions, many of which are impossible of scenic realization. +Their whole purpose is to work upon the imagination of the listeners +and thus open gate-ways for the music. Ever since its composition, +Saint-Saens's "Samson and Delilah" has held a place in both theatre +and concert-room. Liszt's "St. Elizabeth" has been found more +effective when provided with pictorial accessories than without. The +greater part of "Elijah" might be presented in dramatic form. + +[Sidenote: _Influence of the Church plays._] + +[Sidenote: _Origin of the oratorio._] + +[Sidenote: _The choral element extended._] + +[Sidenote: _Narrative and descriptive choruses._] + +[Sidenote: _Dramatization._] + +Confusing and anomalous as these things are, they find their +explanation in the circumstance that the oratorio never quite freed +itself from the influence of the people's Church plays in which it had +its beginning. As a distinct art-form it began in a mixture of +artistic entertainment and religious worship provided in the early +part of the sixteenth century by Filippo Neri (now a saint) for those +who came for pious instruction to his oratory (whence the name). The +purpose of these entertainments being religious, the subjects were +Biblical, and though the musical progress from the beginning was along +the line of the lyric drama, contemporaneous in origin with it, the +music naturally developed into broader forms on the choral side, +because music had to make up for the lack of pantomime, costumes, and +scenery. Hence we have not only the preponderance of choruses in the +oratorio over recitative, arias, duets, trios, and so forth, but also +the adherence in the choral part to the old manner of writing which +made the expansion of the choruses possible. Where the choruses left +the field of pure reflection and became narrative, as in "Israel in +Egypt," or assumed a dramatic character, as in the "Elijah," the +composer found in them vehicles for descriptive and characteristic +music, and so local color came into use. Characterization of the solo +parts followed as a matter of course, an early illustration being +found in the manner in which Bach lifted the words of Christ into +prominence by surrounding them with the radiant halo which streams +from the violin accompaniment. In consequence the singer to whom was +assigned the task of singing the part of _Jesus_ presented himself to +the fancy of the listeners as a representative of the historical +personage--as the Christ of the drama. + +[Sidenote: _The chorus in opera and oratorio._] + +The growth of the instrumental art here came admirably into play, and +so it came to pass that opera and oratorio now have their musical +elements of expression in common, and differ only in their application +of them--opera foregoing the choral element to a great extent as being +a hindrance to action, and oratorio elevating it to make good the +absence of scenery and action. While oratorios are biblical and +legendary, cantatas deal with secular subjects and, in the form of +dramatic ballads, find a delightful field in the world of romance and +supernaturalism. + +[Sidenote: _The Mass._] + +[Sidenote: _Secularization of the Mass._] + +Transferred from the Church to the concert-room, and considered as an +art-form instead of the eucharistic office, the Mass has always made a +strong appeal to composers, and half a dozen masterpieces of missal +composition hold places in the concert lists of the singing societies. +Notable among these are the Requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, +and the Solemn Mass in D by Beethoven. These works represent at one +and the same time the climax of accomplishment in the musical +treatment and the secularization of the missal text. They are the +natural outcome of the expansion of the office by the introduction of +the orchestra into the Church, the departure from the _a capella_ +style of writing, which could not be consorted with the orchestra, and +the growth of a desire to enhance the pomp of great occasions in the +Church by the production of masses specially composed for them. Under +such circumstances the devotional purpose of the mass was lost in the +artistic, and composers gave free reign to their powers, for which +they found an ample stimulus in the missal text. + +[Sidenote: _Sentimental masses._] + +[Sidenote: _Mozart and the Mass._] + +[Sidenote: _The masses for the dead._] + +[Sidenote: _Gossec's Requiem._] + +The first effect, and the one which largely justifies the adherents of +the old ecclesiastical style in their crusade against the Catholic +Church music of to-day, was to make the masses sentimental and +operatic. So little regard was had for the sentiment of the words, so +little respect for the solemnity of the sacrament, that more than a +century ago Mozart (whose masses are far from being models of +religious expression) could say to Cantor Doles of a _Gloria_ which +the latter showed him, "_S'ist ja alles nix_," and immediately sing +the music to "_Hol's der Geier, das geht flink!_" which words, he +said, went better. The liberty begotten by this license, though it +tended to ruin the mass, considered strictly as a liturgical service, +developed it musically. The masses for the dead were among the +earliest to feel the spirit of the time, for in the sequence, _Dies +irae_, they contained the dramatic element which the solemn mass +lacked. The _Kyrie_, _Credo_, _Gloria_, _Sanctus_, and _Agnus Dei_ are +purely lyrical, and though the evolutionary movement ended in +Beethoven conceiving certain portions (notably the _Agnus Dei_) in a +dramatic sense, it was but natural that so far as tradition fixed the +disposition and formal style of the various parts, it should not be +disturbed. At an early date the composers began to put forth their +powers of description in the _Dies irae_, however, and there is extant +in a French mass an amusing example of the length to which +tone-painting in this music was carried by them. Gossec wrote a +Requiem on the death of Mirabeau which became famous. The words, +_Quantus tremor est futurus_, he set so that on each syllable there +were repetitions, _staccato_, of a single tone, thus: + +[Music illustration: Quan-tus tre---mor, tre-- etc.] + +This absurd stuttering Gossec designed to picture the terror inspired +by the coming of the Judge at the last trumpet. + +[Sidenote: _The orchestra in the Mass._] + +[Sidenote: _Beethoven and Berlioz._] + +The development of instrumentation placed a factor in the hands of +these writers which they were not slow to utilize, especially in +writing music for the _Dies irae_, and how effectively Mozart used the +orchestra in his Requiem it is not necessary to state. It is a safe +assumption that Beethoven's Mass in D was largely instrumental in +inspiring Berlioz to set the Requiem as he did. With Beethoven the +dramatic idea is the controlling one, and so it is with Berlioz. +Beethoven, while showing a reverence for the formulas of the Church, +and respecting the tradition which gave the _Kyrie_ a triple division +and made fugue movements out of the phrases "_Cum sancto spiritu in +gloria Dei patris--Amen_," "_Et vitam venturi_," and "_Osanna in +excelsis_," nevertheless gave his composition a scope which placed it +beyond the apparatus of the Church, and filled it with a spirit that +spurns the limitations of any creed of less breadth and universality +than the grand Theism which affectionate communion with nature had +taught him. + +[Sidenote: _Berlioz's Requiem._] + +[Sidenote: _Dramatic effects in Haydn's masses._] + +[Sidenote: _Berlioz's orchestra._] + +Berlioz, less religious, less reverential, but equally fired by the +solemnity and majesty of the matter given into his hands, wrote a work +in which he placed his highest conception of the awfulness of the +Last Judgment and the emotions which are awakened by its +contemplation. In respect of the instrumentation he showed a far +greater audacity than Beethoven displayed even in the much-mooted +trumpets and drums of the _Agnus Dei_, where he introduces the sounds +of war to heighten the intensity of the prayer for peace, "_Dona nobis +pacem_." This is talked about in the books as a bold innovation. It +seems to have escaped notice that the idea had occurred to Haydn +twenty-four years before and been realized by him. In 1796 Haydn wrote +a mass, "In Tempore Belli," the French army being at the time in +Steyermark. He set the words, "_Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi_," +to an accompaniment of drums, "as if the enemy were already heard +coming in the distance." He went farther than this in a Mass in D +minor, when he accompanied the _Benedictus_ with fanfares of trumpets. +But all such timid ventures in the use of instruments in the mass sink +into utter insignificance when compared with Berlioz's apparatus in +the _Tuba mirum_ of his Requiem, which supplements the ordinary +symphonic orchestra, some of its instruments already doubled, with +four brass bands of eight or ten instruments each, sixteen extra +drums, and a tam-tam. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[H] "Notes on the Cultivation of Choral Music," by H.E. Krehbiel, p. +17. + + + + +IX + +_Musician, Critic, and Public_ + + +[Sidenote: _The newspapers and the public._] + +I have been told that there are many people who read the newspapers on +the day after they have attended a concert or operatic representation +for the purpose of finding out whether or not the performance gave +them proper or sufficient enjoyment. It would not be becoming in me to +inquire too curiously into the truth of such a statement, and in view +of a denunciation spoken in the introductory chapter of this book, I +am not sure that it is not a piece of arrogance, or impudence, on my +part to undertake in any way to justify any critical writing on the +subject of music. Certain it is that some men who write about music +for the newspapers believe, or affect to believe, that criticism is +worthless, and I shall not escape the charge of inconsistency, if, +after I have condemned the blunders of literary men, who are laymen in +music, and separated the majority of professional writers on the art +into pedants and rhapsodists, I nevertheless venture to discuss the +nature and value of musical criticism. Yet, surely, there must be a +right and wrong in this as in every other thing, and just as surely +the present structure of society, which rests on the newspaper, +invites attention to the existing relationship between musician, +critic, and public as an important element in the question How to +Listen to Music. + +[Sidenote: _Relationship between musician, critic, and public._] + +[Sidenote: _The need and value of conflict._] + +As a condition precedent to the discussion of this new element in the +case, I lay down the proposition that the relationship between the +three factors enumerated is so intimate and so strict that the world +over they rise and fall together; which means that where the people +dwell who have reached the highest plane of excellence, there also are +to be found the highest types of the musician and critic; and that in +the degree in which the three factors, which united make up the sum +of musical activity, labor harmoniously, conscientiously, and +unselfishly, each striving to fulfil its mission, they advance music +and further themselves, each bearing off an equal share of the good +derived from the common effort. I have set the factors down in the +order which they ordinarily occupy in popular discussion and which +symbolizes their proper attitude toward each other and the highest +potency of their collaboration. In this collaboration, as in so many +others, it is conflict that brings life. Only by a surrender of their +functions, one to the other, could the three apparently dissonant yet +essentially harmonious factors be brought into a state of complacency; +but such complacency would mean stagnation. If the published judgment +on compositions and performances could always be that of the +exploiting musicians, that class, at least, would read the newspapers +with fewer heart-burnings; if the critics had a common mind and it +were followed in concert-room and opera-house, they, as well as the +musicians, would have need of fewer words of displacency and more of +approbation; if, finally, it were to be brought to pass that for the +public nothing but amiable diversion should flow simultaneously from +platform, stage, and press, then for the public would the millennium +be come. A religious philosopher can transmute Adam's fall into a +blessing, and we can recognize the wisdom of that dispensation which +put enmity between the seed of Jubal, who was the "father of all such +as handle the harp and pipe," and the seed of Saul, who, I take it, is +the first critic of record (and a vigorous one, too, for he +accentuated his unfavorable opinion of a harper's harping with a +javelin thrust). + +[Sidenote: _The critic an Ishmaelite._] + +[Sidenote: _The critic not to be pitied._] + +[Sidenote: _How he might extricate himself._] + +[Sidenote: _The public like to be flattered._] + +We are bound to recognize that between the three factors there is, +ever was, and ever shall be _in saecula saeculorum_ an irrepressible +conflict, and that in the nature of things the middle factor is the +Ishmaelite whose hand is raised against everybody and against whom +everybody's hand is raised. The complacency of the musician and the +indifference, not to say ignorance, of the public ordinarily combine +to make them allies, and the critic is, therefore, placed between two +millstones, where he is vigorously rasped on both sides, and whence, +being angular and hard of outer shell, he frequently requites the +treatment received with complete and energetic reciprocity. Is he +therefore to be pitied? Not a bit; for in this position he is +performing one of the most significant and useful of his functions, +and disclosing one of his most precious virtues. While musician and +public must perforce remain in the positions in which they have been +placed with relation to each other it must be apparent at half a +glance that it would be the simplest matter in the world for the +critic to extricate himself from his predicament. He would only need +to take his cue from the public, measuring his commendation by the +intensity of their applause, his dispraise by their signs of +displeasure, and all would be well with him. We all know this to be +true, that people like to read that which flatters them by echoing +their own thoughts. The more delightfully it is put by the writer the +more the reader is pleased, for has he not had the same idea? Are they +not his? Is not their appearance in a public print proof of the +shrewdness and soundness of his judgment? Ruskin knows this foible in +human nature and condemns it. You may read in "Sesame and Lilies:" + + "Very ready we are to say of a book, 'How good this + is--that's exactly what I think!' But the right feeling is, + 'How strange that is! I never thought of that before, and + yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, + some day.' But whether thus submissively or not, at least be + sure that you go at the author to get at his meaning, not to + find yours. Judge it afterward if you think yourself + qualified to do so, but ascertain it first." + +[Sidenote: _The critic generally outspoken._] + +As a rule, however, the critic is not guilty of the wrong of speaking +out the thought of others, but publishes what there is of his own +mind, and this I laud in him as a virtue, which is praiseworthy in the +degree that it springs from loftiness of aim, depth of knowledge, and +sincerity and unselfishness of purpose. + +[Sidenote: _Musician and Public._] + +[Sidenote: _The office of ignorance._] + +[Sidenote: _Popularity of Wagner's music not a sign of intelligent +appreciation._] + +Let us look a little into the views which our factors do and those +which they ought to entertain of each other. The utterances of +musicians have long ago made it plain that as between the critic and +the public the greater measure of their respect and deference is given +to the public. The critic is bound to recognize this as entirely +natural; his right of protest does not accrue until he can show that +the deference is ignoble and injurious to good art. It is to the +public that the musician appeals for the substantial signs of what is +called success. This appeal to the jury instead of the judge is as +characteristic of the conscientious composer who is sincerely +convinced that he was sent into the world to widen the boundaries of +art, as it is of the mere time-server who aims only at tickling the +popular ear. The reason is obvious to a little close thinking: +Ignorance is at once a safeguard against and a promoter of +conservatism. This sounds like a paradox, but the rapid growth of +Wagner's music in the admiration of the people of the United States +might correctly be cited as a proof that the statement is true. Music +like the concert fragments from Wagner's lyric dramas is accepted +with promptitude and delight, because its elements are those which +appeal most directly and forcibly to our sense-perception and those +primitive tastes which are the most readily gratified by strong +outlines and vivid colors. Their vigorous rhythms, wealth of color, +and sonority would make these fragments far more impressive to a +savage than the suave beauty of a symphony by Haydn; yet do we not all +know that while whole-hearted, intelligent enjoyment of a Haydn +symphony is conditioned upon a considerable degree of culture, an +equally whole-hearted, intelligent appreciation of Wagner's music +presupposes a much wider range of sympathy, a much more extended view +of the capabilities of musical expression, a much keener discernment, +and a much profounder susceptibility to the effects of harmonic +progressions? And is the conclusion not inevitable, therefore, that on +the whole the ready acceptance of Wagner's music by a people is +evidence that they are not sufficiently cultured to feel the force of +that conservatism which made the triumph of Wagner consequent on many +years of agitation in musical Germany? + +[Sidenote: _"Ahead of one's time."_] + +In one case the appeal is elemental; in the other spiritual. He who +wishes to be in advance of his time does wisely in going to the people +instead of the critics, just as the old fogy does whose music belongs +to the time when sensuous charm summed up its essence. There is a good +deal of ambiguity about the stereotyped phrase "ahead of one's time." +Rightly apprehended, great geniuses do live for the future rather than +the present, but where the public have the vastness of appetite and +scantness of taste peculiar to the ostrich, there it is impossible for +a composer to be ahead of his time. It is only where the public are +advanced to the stage of intelligent discrimination that a Ninth +Symphony and a Nibelung Tetralogy are accepted slowly. + +[Sidenote: _The charlatan._] + +[Sidenote: _Influencing the critics._] + +Why the charlatan should profess to despise the critic and to pay +homage only to the public scarcely needs an explanation. It is the +critic who stands between him and the public he would victimize. Much +of the disaffection between the concert-giver and the +concert-reviewer arises from the unwillingness of the latter to enlist +in a conspiracy to deceive and defraud the public. There is no need of +mincing phrases here. The critics of the newspaper press are besieged +daily with requests for notices of a complimentary character touching +persons who have no honest standing in art. They are fawned on, +truckled to, cajoled, subjected to the most seductive influences, +sometimes bribed with woman's smiles or manager's money--and why? To +win their influence in favor of good art, think you? No; to feed +vanity and greed. When a critic is found of sufficient self-respect +and character to resist all appeals and to be proof against all +temptations, who is quicker than the musician to cite against his +opinion the applause of the public over whose gullibility and +ignorance, perchance, he made merry with the critic while trying to +purchase his independence and honor? + +[Sidenote: _The public an elemental force._] + +[Sidenote: _Critic and public._] + +[Sidenote: _Schumann and popular approval._] + +It is only when musicians divide the question touching the rights and +merits of public and critic that they seem able to put a correct +estimate upon the value of popular approval. At the last the best of +them are willing, with Ferdinand Hiller, to look upon the public as an +elemental power like the weather, which must be taken as it chances to +come. With modern society resting upon the newspaper they might be +willing to view the critic in the same light; but this they will not +do so long as they adhere to the notion that criticism belongs of +right to the professional musician, and will eventually be handed over +to him. As for the critic, he may recognize the naturalness and +reasonableness of a final resort for judgment to the factor for whose +sake art is (_i.e._, the public), but he is not bound to admit its +unfailing righteousness. Upon him, so he be worthy of his office, +weighs the duty of first determining whether the appeal is taken from +a lofty purpose or a low one, and whether or not the favored tribunal +is worthy to try the case. Those who show a willingness to accept low +ideals cannot exact high ones. The influence of their applause is a +thousand-fold more injurious to art than the strictures of the most +acrid critic. A musician of Schumann's mental and moral stature could +recognize this and make it the basis of some of his most forcible +aphorisms: + + "'It pleased,' or 'It did not please,' say the people; as if + there were no higher purpose than to please the people." + + "The most difficult thing in the world to endure is the + applause of fools!" + +[Sidenote: _Depreciation of the critic._] + +[Sidenote: _Value of public opinion._] + +The belief professed by many musicians--professed, not really +held--that the public can do no wrong, unquestionably grows out of a +depreciation of the critic rather than an appreciation of the critical +acumen of the masses. This depreciation is due more to the concrete +work of the critic (which is only too often deserving of condemnation) +than to a denial of the good offices of criticism. This much should be +said for the musician, who is more liable to be misunderstood and more +powerless against misrepresentation than any other artist. A line +should be drawn between mere expression of opinion and criticism. It +has been recognized for ages--you may find it plainly set forth in +Quintilian and Cicero--that in the long run the public are neither bad +judges nor good critics. The distinction suggests a thought about the +difference in value between a popular and a critical judgment. The +former is, in the nature of things, ill considered and fleeting. It is +the product of a momentary gratification or disappointment. In a much +greater degree than a judgment based on principle and precedent, such +as a critic's ought to be, it is a judgment swayed by that variable +thing called fashion--"_Qual pium' al vento._" + +[Sidenote: _Duties of the critic._] + +[Sidenote: _The musician's duty toward the critic._] + +But if this be so we ought plainly to understand the duties and +obligations of the critic; perhaps it is because there is much +misapprehension on this point that critics' writings have fallen under +their own condemnation. I conceive that the first, if not the sole, +office of the critic should be to guide public judgment. It is not for +him to instruct the musician in his art. If this were always borne in +mind by writers for the press it might help to soften the asperity +felt by the musician toward the critic; and possibly the musician +might then be persuaded to perform his first office toward the critic, +which is to hold up his hands while he labors to steady and dignify +public opinion. No true artist would give up years of honorable esteem +to be the object for a moment of feverish idolatry. The public are +fickle. "The garlands they twine," says Schumann, "they always pull to +pieces again to offer them in another form to the next comer who +chances to know how to amuse them better." Are such garlands worth the +sacrifice of artistic honor? If it were possible for the critic to +withhold them and offer instead a modest sprig of enduring bay, would +not the musician be his debtor? + +[Sidenote: _The critic should steady public judgment._] + +[Sidenote: _Taste and judgment must be achieved._] + +Another thought. Conceding that the people are the elemental power +that Hiller says they are, who shall save them from the changeableness +and instability which they show with relation to music and her +votaries? Who shall bid the restless waves be still? We, in America, +are a new people, a vast hotch-potch of varied and contradictory +elements. We are engaged in conquering a continent; employed in a mad +scramble for material things; we give feverish hours to win the +comfort for our bodies that we take only seconds to enjoy; the moments +which we steal from our labors we give grudgingly to relaxation, and +that this relaxation may come quickly we ask that the agents which +produce it shall appeal violently to the faculties which are most +easily reached. Under these circumstances whence are to come the +intellectual poise, the refined taste, the quick and sure power of +analysis which must precede a correct estimate of the value of a +composition or its performance? + + "A taste or judgment," said Shaftesbury, "does not come + ready formed with us into this world. Whatever principles or + materials of this kind we may possibly bring with us, a + legitimate and just taste can neither be begotten, made, + conceived, or produced without the antecedent labor and + pains of criticism." + +[Sidenote: _Comparative qualifications of critic and public._] + +Grant that this antecedent criticism is the province of the critic and +that he approaches even remotely a fulfilment of his mission in this +regard, and who shall venture to question the value and the need of +criticism to the promotion of public opinion? In this work the critic +has a great advantage over the musician. The musician appeals to the +public with volatile and elusive sounds. When he gets past the +tympanum of the ear he works upon the emotions and the fancy. The +public have no time to let him do more; for the rest they are willing +to refer him to the critic, whose business it is continually to hear +music for the purpose of forming opinions about it and expressing +them. The critic has both the time and the obligation to analyze the +reasons why and the extent to which the faculties are stirred into +activity. Is it not plain, therefore, that the critic ought to be +better able to distinguish the good from the bad, the true from the +false, the sound from the meretricious, than the unindividualized +multitude, who are already satisfied when they have felt the ticklings +of pleasure? + +[Sidenote: _The critic's responsibilities._] + +[Sidenote: _Toward the musician._] + +[Sidenote: _Position and power of the newspaper._] + +But when we place so great a mission as the education of public taste +before the critic, we saddle him with a vast responsibility which is +quite evenly divided between the musician and the public. The +responsibility toward the musician is not that which we are accustomed +to hear harped on by the aggrieved ones on the day after a concert. It +is toward the musician only as a representative of art, and his just +claims can have nothing of selfishness in them. The abnormal +sensitiveness of the musician to criticism, though it may excite his +commiseration and even honest pity, should never count with the critic +in the performance of a plain duty. This sensitiveness is the product +of a low state in music as well as criticism, and in the face of +improvement in the two fields it will either disappear or fall under a +killing condemnation. The power of the press will here work for good. +The newspaper now fills the place in the musician's economy which a +century ago was filled in Europe by the courts and nobility. Its +support, indirect as well as direct, replaces the patronage which +erstwhile came from these powerful ones. The evils which flow from the +changed conditions are different in extent but not in kind from the +old. Too frequently for the good of art that support is purchased by +the same crookings of "the pregnant hinges of the knee" that were once +the price of royal or noble condescension. If the tone of the press at +times becomes arrogant, it is from the same causes that raised the +voices and curled the lips of the petty dukes and princes, to flatter +whose vanity great artists used to labor. + +[Sidenote: _The musician should help to elevate the standard of +criticism._] + +[Sidenote: _A critic must not necessarily be a musician._] + +[Sidenote: _Pedantry not wanted._] + +The musician knows as well as anyone how impossible it is to escape +the press, and it is, therefore, his plain duty to seek to raise the +standard of its utterances by conceding the rights of the critic and +encouraging honesty, fearlessness, impartiality, intelligence, and +sympathy wherever he finds them. To this end he must cast away many +antiquated and foolish prejudices. He must learn to confess with +Wagner, the arch-enemy of criticism, that "blame is much more useful +to the artist than praise," and that "the musician who goes to +destruction because he is faulted, deserves destruction." He must stop +the contention that only a musician is entitled to criticise a +musician, and without abating one jot of his requirements as to +knowledge, sympathy, liberality, broad-mindedness, candor, and +incorruptibility on the part of the critic, he must quit the foolish +claim that to pronounce upon the excellence of a ragout one must be +able to cook it; if he will not go farther he must, at least, go with +the elder D'Israeli to the extent of saying that "the talent of +judgment may exist separately from the power of execution." One need +not be a composer, but one must be able to feel with a composer before +he can discuss his productions as they ought to be discussed. Not all +the writers for the press are able to do this; many depend upon +effrontery and a copious use of technical phrases to carry them +through. The musician, alas! encourages this method whenever he gets a +chance; nine times out of ten, when an opportunity to review a +composition falls to him, he approaches it on its technical side. Yet +music is of all the arts in the world the last that a mere pedant +should discuss. + +But if not a mere pedant, then neither a mere sentimentalist. + +[Sidenote: _Intelligence versus emotionalism._] + + "If I had to choose between the merits of two classes of + hearers, one of whom had an intelligent appreciation of + music without feeling emotion; the other an emotional + feeling without an intelligent analysis, I should + unhesitatingly decide in favor of the intelligent + non-emotionalist. And for these reasons: The verdict of the + intelligent non-emotionalist would be valuable as far as it + goes, but that of the untrained emotionalist is not of the + smallest value; his blame and his praise are equally + unfounded and empty." + +[Sidenote: _Personal equation._] + +[Sidenote: _Exact criticism._] + +So writes Dr. Stainer, and it is his emotionalist against whom I +uttered a warning in the introductory chapter of this book, when I +called him a rhapsodist and described his motive to be primarily a +desire to present himself as a person of unusually exquisite +sensibilities. Frequently the rhapsodic style is adopted to conceal a +want of knowledge, and, I fancy, sometimes also because ill-equipped +critics have persuaded themselves that criticism being worthless, what +the public need to read is a fantastic account of how music affects +them. Now, it is true that what is chiefly valuable in criticism is +what a man qualified to think and feel tells us he did think and feel +under the inspiration of a performance; but when carried too far, or +restricted too much, this conception of a critic's province lifts +personal equation into dangerous prominence in the critical activity, +and depreciates the elements of criticism, which are not matters of +opinion or taste at all, but questions of fact, as exactly +demonstrable as a problem in mathematics. In musical performance these +elements belong to the technics of the art. Granted that the critic +has a correct ear, a thing which he must have if he aspire to be a +critic at all, and the possession of which is as easily proved as that +of a dollar-bill in his pocket, the questions of justness of +intonation in a singer or instrumentalist, balance of tone in an +orchestra, correctness of phrasing, and many other things, are mere +determinations of fact; the faculties which recognize their existence +or discover their absence might exist in a person who is not "moved by +concord of sweet sounds" at all, and whose taste is of the lowest +type. It was the acoustician Euler, I believe, who said that he could +construct a sonata according to the laws of mathematics--figure one +out, that is. + +[Sidenote: _The Rhapsodists._] + +[Sidenote: _An English exemplar._] + +Because music is in its nature such a mystery, because so little of +its philosophy, so little of its science is popularly known, there has +grown up the tribe of rhapsodical writers whose influence is most +pernicious. I have a case in mind at which I have already hinted in +this book--that of a certain English gentleman who has gained +considerable eminence because of the loveliness of the subject on +which he writes and his deftness in putting words together. On many +points he is qualified to speak, and on these he generally speaks +entertainingly. He frequently blunders in details, but it is only when +he writes in the manner exemplified in the following excerpt from his +book called "My Musical Memories," that he does mischief. The reverend +gentleman, talking about violins, has reached one that once belonged +to Ernst. This, he says, he sees occasionally, but he never hears it +more except + +[Sidenote: _Ernst's violin._] + + "In the night ... under the stars, when the moon is low and + I see the dark ridges of the clover hills, and rabbits and + hares, black against the paler sky, pausing to feed or + crouching to listen to the voices of the night.... + + "By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hollow murmurs, + like the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the beach.... + + "In some still valley in the South, in midsummer. The + slate-colored moth on the rock flashes suddenly into crimson + and takes wing; the bright lizard darts timorously, and the + singing of the grasshopper--" + +[Sidenote: _Mischievous writing._] + +[Sidenote: _Musical sensibility and sanity._] + +Well, the reader, if he has a liking for such things, may himself go +on for quantity. This is intended, I fancy, for poetical hyperbole, +but as a matter of fact it is something else, and worse. Mr. Haweis +does not hear Ernst's violin under any such improbable conditions; if +he thinks he does he is a proper subject for medical inquiry. Neither +does his effort at fine writing help us to appreciate the tone of the +instrument. He did not intend that it should, but he probably did +intend to make the reader marvel at the exquisite sensibility of his +soul to music. This is mischievous, for it tends to make the +injudicious think that they are lacking in musical appreciation, +unless they, too, can see visions and hear voices and dream fantastic +dreams when music is sounding. When such writing is popular it is +difficult to make men and women believe that they may be just as +susceptible to the influence of music as the child Mozart was to the +sound of a trumpet, yet listen to it without once feeling the need of +taking leave of their senses or wandering away from sanity. Moreover, +when Mr. Haweis says that he sees but does not hear Ernst's violin +more, he speaks most undeserved dispraise of one of the best violin +players alive, for Ernst's violin now belongs to and is played by Lady +Halle--she that was Madame Norman-Neruda. + +[Sidenote: _A place for rhapsody._] + +[Sidenote: _Intelligent rhapsody._] + +Is there, then, no place for rhapsodic writing in musical criticism? +Yes, decidedly. It may, indeed, at times be the best, because the +truest, writing. One would convey but a sorry idea of a composition +were he to confine himself to a technical description of it--the +number of its measures, its intervals, modulations, speed, and rhythm. +Such a description would only be comprehensible to the trained +musician, and to him would picture the body merely, not the soul. One +might as well hope to tell of the beauty of a statue by reciting its +dimensions. But knowledge as well as sympathy must speak out of the +words, so that they may realize Schumann's lovely conception when he +said that the best criticism is that which leaves after it an +impression on the reader like that which the music made on the hearer. +Read Dr. John Brown's account of one of Halle's recitals, reprinted +from "The Scotsman," in the collection of essays entitled "Spare +Hours," if you would see how aptly a sweetly sane mind and a warm +heart can rhapsodize without the help of technical knowledge: + +[Sidenote: _Dr. Brown and Beethoven._] + + "Beethoven (Dr. Brown is speaking of the Sonata in D, op. + 10, No. 3) begins with a trouble, a wandering and groping in + the dark, a strange emergence of order out of chaos, a wild, + rich confusion and misrule. Wilful and passionate, often + harsh, and, as it were, thick with gloom; then comes, as if + 'it stole upon the air,' the burden of the theme, the still, + sad music--_Largo e mesto_--so human, so sorrowful, and yet + the sorrow overcome, not by gladness but by something + better, like the sea, after a dark night of tempest, falling + asleep in the young light of morning, and 'whispering how + meek and gentle it can be.' This likeness to the sea, its + immensity, its uncertainty, its wild, strong glory and play, + its peace, its solitude, its unsearchableness, its + prevailing sadness, comes more into our minds with this + great and deep master's works than any other." + +That is Beethoven. + +[Sidenote: _Apollo and the critic--a fable._] + +[Sidenote: _The critic's duty to admire._] + +[Sidenote: _A mediator between musician and public._] + +[Sidenote: _Essential virtues._] + +Once upon a time--it is an ancient fable--a critic picked out all the +faults of a great poet and presented them to Apollo. The god received +the gift graciously and set a bag of wheat before the critic with the +command that he separate the chaff from the kernels. The critic did +the work with alacrity, and turning to Apollo for his reward, received +the chaff. Nothing could show us more appositely than this what +criticism should not be. A critic's duty is to separate excellence +from defect, as Dr. Crotch says; to admire as well as to find fault. +In the proportion that defects are apparent he should increase his +efforts to discover beauties. Much flows out of this conception of his +duty. Holding it the critic will bring besides all needful knowledge a +fulness of love into his work. "Where sympathy is lacking, correct +judgment is also lacking," said Mendelssohn. The critic should be the +mediator between the musician and the public. For all new works he +should do what the symphonists of the Liszt school attempt to do by +means of programmes; he should excite curiosity, arouse interest, and +pave the way to popular comprehension. But for the old he should not +fail to encourage reverence and admiration. To do both these things he +must know his duty to the past, the present, and the future, and +adjust each duty to the other. Such adjustment is only possible if he +knows the music of the past and present, and is quick to perceive the +bent and outcome of novel strivings. He should be catholic in taste, +outspoken in judgment, unalterable in allegiance to his ideals, +unswervable in integrity. + + + + +PLATES + +[Illustration: PLATE I + +VIOLIN--(CLIFFORD SCHMIDT)] + +[Illustration: PLATE II + +VIOLONCELLO--(VICTOR HERBERT)] + +[Illustration: PLATE III + +PICCOLO FLUTE--(C. KURTH, JUN.)] + +[Illustration: PLATE IV + +OBOE--(JOSEPH ELLER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE V + +ENGLISH HORN--(JOSEPH ELLER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE VI + +BASSOON--(FEDOR BERNHARDI)] + +[Illustration: PLATE VII + +CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE VIII + +BASS CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE IX + +FRENCH HORN--(CARL PIEPER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE X + +TROMBONE--(J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE XI + +BASS TUBA--(ANTON REITER)] + +[Illustration: PLATE XII + +THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE] + + + + +INDEX + + +Absolute music, 36 + +Academy of Music, New York, 203 + +Adagio, in symphony, 133 + +Addison, 205, 206, 208 + +Allegro, in symphony, 132 + +Allemande, 173, 174 + +Alto clarinet, 104 + +Alto, male, 260 + +Amadeo, 241 + +Ambros, August Wilhelm, 49 + +Antiphony, 267 + +Archilochus, 213 + +Aria, 235 + +Arioso, 235 + +Asaph, 115 + + +Bach, C.P.E., 180, 185 + +Bach, Johann Sebastian, 69, 83, 148, 167, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176, + 180, 181, 184, 192, 257, 259, 267, 268, 278, 281, 282, 283, 286, + 287, 289; + his music, 281 _et seq._; + his technique as player, 180, 181, 184; + his choirs, 257, 259; + compared with Palestrina, 278; + "Magnificat," 283; + Mass in B minor, 283; + Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, 171; + Suites, 174, 176; + "St. Matthew Passion," 267, 278, 282, 286, 289; + Motet, "Sing ye to the Lord," 268; + "St. John Passion," 286 + +_Balancement_, 170 + +Balfe, 223 + +Ballade, 192 + +Ballet music, 152 + +_Balletto_, 173 + +Bass clarinet, 104 + +Bass trumpet, 81, 82 + +Basset horn, 82 + +Bassoon, 74, 82, 99, 101 _et seq._ + +Bastardella, La, 239 + +Bayreuth Festival orchestra, 81, 82 + +_Bebung_, 169, 170 + +Beethoven, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 44, 46, 47, 49, 53, 60, + 62, 63, 70, 92, 94, 101, 102, 103, 106, 113, 120, 125, 131, 132, + 133, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 146, 147, 151, 167, 182, 184, 186, + 187, 193, 195, 196, 203, 208, 232, 292, 321, 322; + likenesses in his melodies, 33, 34; + unity in his works, 27, 28, 29; + his chamber music, 47; + his sonatas, 182; + his democracy, 46; + not always idiomatic, 193; + his pianoforte, 195; + his pedal effects, 196; + missal compositions, 292, 294; + his overtures, 147; + his free fantasias, 131; + his technique as a player, 186; + "Eroica" symphony, 100, 132, 136; + Fifth symphony, 28, 29, 30, 31, 92, 103, 120, 125, 133; + "Pastoral" symphony, 44, 49, 53, 62, 63, 94, 102, 132, 140, 141; + Seventh symphony, 31, 32, 132, 133; + Eighth symphony, 113; + Ninth symphony, 33, 34, 35, 94, 133, 136, 138, 305; + Sonata, op. 10, No. 3, 321; + Sonata, op. 31, No. 2, 29; + Sonata "Appassionata," 29, 30, 31; + Pianoforte concerto in G, 31; + Pianoforte concerto in E-flat, 146; + Violin concerto, 146; + "Becalmed at Sea," 60; + "Fidelio," 203, 208, 232; + Mass in D, 60, 292, 294; + Serenade, op. 8, 151 + +Bell chime, 74 + +Bellini, 203, 204, 242, 245; + "La Sonnambula," 204, 245; + "Norma," 242 + +Benedetti, 242 + +Berlin _Singakademie_, 262 + +Berlioz, 49, 80, 87, 89, 90, 94, 100, 102, 104, 113, 137, 138, 139, + 294, 295; + "_L'idee fixe_," 137; + "Symphonie Fantastique," 137; + "Romeo and Juliet," 90, 94, 139; + Requiem, 113, 294, 295 + +Bizet, "Carmen," 238, 242 + +Boileau, 206 + +Bosio, 241 + +Boston Symphony Orchestra, 81, 82, 108 + +Bottesini, 94 + +Bourree, 173 + +Brahms's "Academic overture," 101 + +Branle, 173 + +Brass instruments, 74, 104 _et seq._ + +Brignoli, 209, 242 + +Broadwood's pianoforte, 195 + +Brown, Dr. John, 321 + +_Bully Bottom_ in music, 61 + +Bunner, H.C., 136 + +Burns's "Ye flowery banks," 175 + + +Caccini, "Eurydice," 234 + +Cadences, 23 + +Cadenzas, 145 + +Calve, Emma, 242, 247 + +Calvin and music, 275 + +Campanini, 242 + +Cantatas, 290 + +Cat's mew in music, 52 + +Catalani, 245, 246 + +Chaconne, 153 + +Chamber music, 36, 44 _et seq._, 144 + +Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 81, 82, 108 + +Choirs, 253 _et seq._; + size of, 257 _et seq._, 264, 271; + men's, 255, 260; + boys', 261; + women's, 261; + mixed, 262, 264; + division of, 260, 266; + growth of, in Germany, 262; + history of, in America, 263; + in Cincinnati, 264; + contralto voices in, 270 + +Choirs, orchestral, 74 + +Chopin, 167, 188, 190, 191, 192, 196; + his romanticism, 188; + Preludes, 190; + Etudes, 191; + Nocturnes, 191; + Ballades, 192; + Polonaises, 192; + Mazurkas, 192; + his pedal effects, 196 + +Choral music, 253 _et seq._; + antiphonal, 267; + mediaeval, 274; + Calvin on, 275; + Luther's influence on, 276; + congregational, 277; + secular tunes in, 276, 277; + Romanticism, influence on, 277; + preponderance in oratorio, 289; + dramatic and descriptive, 289 + +Chorley, H.F., on Jenny Lind's singing, 243 + +Church cantatas, 284 + +Cicero, 309 + +Cincinnati, choirs in, 264 + +Cinti-Damoreau, 241 + +Clarinet, 47, 74, 78, 82, 103 _et seq._, 151 + +Classical concerts, 122 _et seq._ + +Classical music, 36, 64, 122 _et seq._ + +Clavichord, 168, 181 + +_Clavier_, 171, 173 + +Clementi, 185, 195 + +Cock, song of the, 51, 53, 54 + +Coleridge, 11, 144 + +Coletti, 242 + +Comic opera, 224 + +Composers, how they hear music, 40 + +Concerto, 128, 144 _et seq._ + +Conductor, 114 _et seq._ + +Content of music, 36 _et seq._ + +Contra-bass trombone, 81, 82 + +Contra-bass tuba, 81, 82 + +Co-ordination of tones, 17 + +Coranto, Corrente, 173, 176 + +Cornelius, "Barbier von Bagdad," 236 + +Cornet, 73, 82, 108 + +Corno di bassetto, 81, 82 + +Corsi, 242 + +Couperin, 168 + +Courante, 173, 176 + +Covent Garden Theatre, London, 224, 226 + +Cowen, "Welsh" and "Scandinavian" symphonies, 132 + +Cracovienne, 193 + +Creole tune analyzed, 23, 24 + +Critics and criticism, 13, 297 _et seq._ + +Crotch, Dr., 322 + +Cuckoo, 51, 52, 53 + +Cymbals, 74, 82 + +Czardas, 201 + +Czerny, 186 + + +Dactylic metre, 31 + +Dance, the ancient, 43, 212 + +Dannreuther, Edward, 129, 144, 187 + +Depth, musical delineation of, 59, 60 + +De Reszke, Edouard, 248 + +De Reszke, Jean, 247 + +Descriptive music, 51 _et seq._ + +Design and form, 16 + +De Stael, Madame, 210 + +D'Israeli, 315 + +Distance, musical delineation of, 60 + +Dithyramb, 212, 213 + +"Divisions," 265 + +Doles, Cantor, 292 + +Donizetti, 203, 204, 242; + "Lucia," 203, 204 + +Double-bass, 74, 78, 82, 94 + +Double-bassoon, 103 + +Dragonetti, 94 + +Dramatic ballads, 290 + +Dramatic orchestras, 81, 82 + +_Dramma per musica_, 227, 249 + +Drummers, 113 + +Drums, 73, 74, 82, 110 _et seq._ + +Duality of music, 15 + +"Dump" and _Dumka_, 151 + +_Durchfuehrung_, 131 + +Dvorak, symphonies, "From the New World," 132, 138; + in G major, 136 + + +Eames, Emma, 247 + +Edwards, G. Sutherland, 12 + +Elements of music, 15, 19 + +Emotionality in music, 43 + +English horn, 82, 99, 100 + +English opera, 223 + +Ernst's violin, 320 + +Esterhazy, Prince, 46 + +Euler, acoustician, 317 + +Expression, words of, 43 + + +Familiar music best liked, 21 + +Fancy, 15, 16, 58 + +Farinelli, 240 + +Fasch, C.F., 262 + +Feelings, their relation to music, 38 _et seq._, 215, 216 + +Ferri, 239, 240 + +Finale, symphonic, 135 + +First movement in symphony, 131 + +Flageolet tones, 89 + +Florentine inventors of the opera, 217, 227, 234, 249 + +Flute, 73, 74, 78, 82, 95 _et seq._ + +Form, 16, 17, 22, 35 + +Formes, 242, 248 + +Frederick the Great, 263 + +Free Fantasia, 131 + +French horn, 47, 106 _et seq._ + +Frezzolini, 242 + +_Friss_, 201 + +Frogs, musical delineation of, 58, 62 + + +"Gallina et Gallo," 53 + +Gavotte, 173, 179 + +German opera, 226 + +Gerster, Etelka, 242, 245 + +Gesture, 43 + +Gigue, 173, 174, 178 + +Gilbert, W.S., 208, 224 + +Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas, 224 + +_Glockenspiel_, 110 + +Gluck, 84, 148, 153, 202, 203, 238; + his dancers, 153; + his orchestra, 238; + "Alceste," 148; + "Iphigenie en Aulide," 153; + "Orfeo," 202, 203 + +Goethe, 34, 140, 223 + +Goldmark, "Sakuntala" overture, 149 + +Gong, 110 + +Gossec, Requiem, 293 + +Gounod, "Faust," 209, 224, 238, 246 + +_Grand Opera_, 223, 224 + +Greek Tragedy, 211 _et seq._ + +Grisi, 241, 242 + +_Grosse Oper_, 224 + +Grove, Sir George, 33, 63, 141, 187 + +Gypsy music, 198 _et seq._ + + +Halle, Lady, 320 + +Hamburg, opera in, 206, 207 + +Handel, 58, 60, 62, 83, 102, 126, 148, 174, 177, 178, 181, 182, 184, + 256, 257, 258, 259, 265, 272; + his orchestra, 84; + his suites, 174; + his overtures, 148; + his technique as a player, 181, 182, 184; + his choirs, 257; + Commemoration, 258; + his _tutti_, 258; + "Messiah," 60, 126, 256, 257, 265, 272; + "Saul," 102; + "Almira," 177; + "Rinaldo," 178; + "Israel in Egypt," 58, 62, 257, 259, 289; + "_Lascia ch'io pianga_," 178 + +Hanslick, Dr. Eduard, 203 + +Harmonics, on violin, 89 + +Harmony, 19, 21, 22, 218 + +Harp, 82 + +Harpsichord, 168, 170 + +Hauptmann, M., 41 + +Hautboy, 99 + +Haweis, the Rev. Mr., 318 _et seq._ + +Haydn, 46, 84, 100, 127, 168, 183, 295; + his manner of composing, 183; + dramatic effects in his masses, 295; + "Seasons," 100 + +Hebrew music, 114; + poetry, 25 + +Height, musical delineation of, 59, 60 + +Heman, 115 + +Hen, song of, in music, 52, 53, 54 + +Herbarth, philosopher, 39 + +Hiller, Ferdinand, 307, 310 + +Hiller, Johann Adam, 258 + +Hogarth, Geo., "Memoirs of the Opera," 210, 245 + +Horn, 82, 105, 106 _et seq._, 151 + +Hungarian music, 198 _et seq._ + +Hymn-tunes, history of, 275 + + +Iambics, 175 + +"_Idee fixe_," Berlioz's, 137 + +Identification of themes, 35 + +Idiomatic pianoforte music, 193, 194 + +Idioms, musical, 44, 51, 55 + +Imagination, 15, 16, 58 + +Imitation of natural sounds, 51 + +Individual attitude of man toward music, 37 + +Instrumental musicians, former legal status of, 83 + +Instrumentation, 71 _et seq._; + in the mass, 293 _et seq._ + +Intelligent hearing, 16, 18, 37 + +Intermediary necessary, 20 + +_Intermezzi_, 221 + +Interrelation of musical elements, 22 + + +Janizary music, 97 + +Jean Paul, 67, 189, 190 + +Jeduthun, 115 + +Jig, 179 + +Judgment, 311 + + +Kalidasa, 149 + +Kettle-drums, 111 _et seq._ + +Key relationship, 26, 129 + +Kinds of music, 36 _et seq._ + +_Kirchencantaten_, 284 + +Krakowiak, 193 + +Kullak, 184 + + +Lablache, 248 + +La Grange, 241, 245 + +Lamb, Charles, 10 + +Language of tones, 42, 43 + +_Lassu_, 201 + +Laws, musical, mutability of, 69 + +Lehmann, Lilli, 233, 244, 247 + +Lenz, 33 + +Leoncavallo, 228 + +Lind, Jenny, 241, 243 + +Liszt, 132, 140, 142, 143, 167, 168, 193, 197, 198, 228; + his music, 168, 193, 197; + his transcriptions, 167; + his rhapsodies, 167, 198; + his symphonic poems, 142; + "Faust" symphony, 132, 140; + Concerto in E-flat, 143; + "St. Elizabeth," 288 + +Literary blunders concerning music, 9, 10, 11, 12 + +Local color, 152, 153 + +London opera, 206, 207, 226 + +Louis XIV., 179 + +Lucca, Pauline, 242, 246, 247 + +Lully, his overtures, 148; + minuet, 179; + "Atys," 206 + +Luther, Martin, 276 + +Lyric drama, 231, 234, 237, 251 + + +Madrigal, 274 + +Magyar music, 198 _et seq._ + +Major mode, 57 + +Male alto, 260 + +Male chorus, 255, 260 + +Malibran, 241 + +_Maennergesang_, 255, 260 + +Marie Antoinette, 153 + +Mario, 242, 247, 271 + +Marschner, "Hans Heiling," 225; + "Templer und Juedin," 225; + "Vampyr," 225; + his operas, 248 + +Mascagni, 228 + +Mass, the, 290 _et seq._ + +Massenet, "Le Cid," 152 + +Materials of music, 16 + +Materna, Amalia, 247 + +Matthews, Brander, 11 + +Mazurka, 192 + +Melba, Nellie, 204, 238, 245, 247, 271 + +Melody, 19, 21, 22, 24 + +Memory, 19, 21, 73 + +Mendelssohn, 41, 42, 49, 59, 61, 67, 102, 109, 132, 139, 140, 149, + 168, 243, 278, 288, 289, 322; + on the content of music, 41, 42; + his Romanticism, 67; + on the use of the trombones, 109; + opinion of Jenny Lind, 243; + "Songs without Words," 41; + "Hebrides" overture, 59, 149; + "Midsummer Night's Dream," 61, 102; + "Scotch" symphony, 132, 139; + "Italian" symphony, 132; + "Hymn of Praise," 140; + "St. Paul," 278; + "Elijah," 288, 289 + +Mersenne, "Harmonie universelle," 175, 176 + +Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 203, 224, 226, 244 + +Meyerbeer, 89, 102, 203, 204, 208, 242, 243, 244; + "L'Africaine," 89; + "Robert le Diable," 102, 208, 244; + "Huguenots," 204; + "L'Etoile du Nord," 243 + +Military bands, 123 + +Minor mode, 57 + +Minuet, 134, 151, 173, 179 + +Mirabeau, 293 + +Model, none in nature for music, 8, 180 + +Monteverde, "Orfeo," 87 + +Moscheles, on Jenny Lind's singing, 243 + +Motet, 283 + +Motives, 22, 24 + +Mozart, 84, 109, 132, 145, 151, 168, 183, 184, 195, 202, 203, 221, + 224, 228, 230, 238, 244, 265, 292; + his pianoforte technique, 184; + on Doles's mass, 292; + his orchestra, 238; + his edition of Handel's "Messiah," 265; + on cadenzas, 145; + his pianoforte, 195; + his serenades, 151; + "Don Giovanni," 109, 202, 221, 222, 228, 230; + "Magic Flute," 203; + G-minor symphony, 132; + "Figaro," 202, 228 + +_Musica parlante_, 234 + +Musical instruction, deficiencies in, 9 + +Musician, Critic, and Public, 297 + +_Musikdrama_, 227, 238, 249 + + +Neri, Filippo, 288 + +Nevada, Emma, 204 + +Newspaper, the modern, 297, 298, 313 + +New York Opera, 206, 226, 241 + +Niecks, Frederick, 192 + +Niemann, Albert, 233 + +Nightingale, in music, 52 + +Nilsson, Christine, 242, 246, 247 + +Nordica, Lillian, 247 + +Norman-Neruda, Madame, 320 + +Notes not music, 20 + +Nottebohm, "Beethoveniana," 63 + + +Oboe, 47, 74, 78, 82, 84, 98 _et seq._ + +Opera, descriptive music in, 61; + history of, 202 _et seq._; + language of, 205; + polyglot performances of, 207 _et seq._; + their texts perverted, 207 _et seq._; + words of, 209, 210; + elements in, 214; + invention of, 216 _et seq._; + varieties of, 220 _et seq._; + comic elements in, 221; + action and incident in, 236; + singing in, 239; + singers compared, 241 _et seq._ + +_Opera bouffe_, 220, 221, 225 + +_Opera buffa_, 220 + +_Opera comique_, 223 + +_Opera, Grand_, 223 + +_Opera in musica_, 228 + +_Opera semiseria_, 221 + +_Opera seria_, 220 + +_Opus_, 132 + +Oratorio, 256, 287 _et seq._ + +Orchestra, 71 _et seq._ + +Ostrander, Dr. Lucas, 278 + +"Ouida," 12 + +Overture, 147 _et seq._, 174 + + +Paderewski, his recitals, 154 _et seq._; + his Romanticism, 167; + "Krakowiak," 193 + +Painful, the, not fit subject for music, 50 + +Palestrina and Bach, 278 _et seq._; + his music, 279 _et seq._; + "Stabat Mater," 279, 280; + "Improperia," 280; + "Missa Papae Marcelli," 280 + +Pandean pipes, 98 + +Pantomime, 43 + +Parallelism, 25 + +Passepied, 173 + +"Passions," 284 _et seq._ + +Patti, Adelina, 203, 204, 238, 242, 245, 247 + +Pedals, pianoforte, 195, 196 + +Pedants, 13, 315 + +Percussion instruments, 110 _et seq._ + +Peri, "Eurydice," 234 + +Periods, musical, 22, 24 + +Perkins, C.C., 263 + +Pfund, his drums, 112 + +Philharmonic Society of New York, 76, 77, 81, 82 + +Phrases, musical, 22, 24 + +Physical effects of music, 38 + +Pianoforte, history and description of, 154 _et seq._; + its music, 154 _et seq._, 166 _et seq._; + concertos, 144; + trios, 147 + +Piccolo flute, 85, 97 + +Piccolomini, 242, 245 + +Pictures in music, 40 + +_Pifa_, Handel's, 126 + +_Pizzicato_, 88, 91 + +Plancon, 248 + +Polonaise, 192 + +Polyphony and feelings, 39 + +Popular concerts, 122 + +Porpora, 209 + +"_Pov' piti Momzelle Zizi_," 23 + +Preludes, 148, 174 + +Programme music, 36, 44, 48 _et seq._, 64, 142 + +Puccini, 228 + + +Quail, call of, in music, 51, 54 + +Quartet, 147 + +Quilled instruments, 170 + +Quinault, "Atys," 206 + +Quintet, 147 + +Quintillian, 309 + + +Raff, 49, 96, 132; + "Lenore" symphony, 96, 132; + "Im Walde" symphony, 132 + +Rameau, 168 + +Recitative, 219, 220, 228 _et seq._ + +Reed instruments, 98 _et seq._ + +Reformation, its influence on music, 275, 278, 280 + +Refrain, 25 + +Register of the orchestra, 85 + +Repetition, 22, 25 + +Rhapsodists among writers, 13, 315 _et seq._ + +Rhythm, 19, 21, 26, 160 + +"_Ridendo castigat mores_," 225 + +Rinuccini, "Eurydice," 234 + +Romantic music, 36, 64 _et seq._, 71, 277 + +Romantic opera, 225 + +Ronconi, 242 + +Rondeau and Rondo, 135 + +Rossini, 147, 228, 242; + his overtures, 147; + "Il Barbiere," 228; + "William Tell," 93, 100 + +Rubinstein, 59, 152, 167, 168, 287; + his historical recitals, 167; + his sacred operas, 287; + "Ocean" symphony, 59; + "Feramors," 152 + +Ruskin, John, 302 + +Russian composers, 134 + + +Sacred Operas, 287 + +Saint-Saens, "Danse Macabre," 101, 111; + symphony in C minor, 141; + "Samson and Delilah," 288 + +Salvi, 242 + +Sarabande, 173, 174, 177 + +Sassarelli, 240 + +Scarlatti, D., 167, 172, 182; + his technique, 172; + "Capriccio" and "Pastorale," 172 + +Scheffer, Ary, 246 + +Scherzo, 133, 179 + +Schroeder-Devrient, 232 + +Schubert, 168 + +Schumann, 49, 64, 132, 133, 139, 140, 141, 167, 188, 189, 190, 196, + 254, 308, 310; + his Romanticism, 188; + and Jean Paul, 189; + his pedal effects, 196; + on popular judgment, 308, 310; + symphony in C, 132; + symphony in D minor, 139; + symphony in B-flat, 140; + "Rhenish" symphony, 140, 141; + "Carnaval," 189, 190; + "Papillons," 189, 190; + "Kreisleriana," 190; + "Phantasiestuecke," 190 + +Score, 120 + +"Scotch snap," 52, 200 + +Second movement in symphony, 133 + +Seidl, Anton, 77 + +Sembrich, Marcella, 242, 245 + +Senesino, 239, 240 + +Sense-perception, 18 + +Serenade, 149 _et seq._ + +Shaftesbury, Lord, 311 + +Shakespeare, his dances, 153, 179; + his dramas, 202; + a Romanticist, 221; + "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 150; + Queen Mab, 90 + +Singing, physiology of, 215, 218; + operatic, 239; + choral, 268 + +Singing Societies, 253 _et seq._ + +_Singspiel_, 223 + +Smith, F. Hopkinson, 11 + +_Sonata da Camera_, 173 + +Sonata, 127, 182, 183 + +Sonata form, 127 _et seq._ + +Sontag, 241, 244, 245, 246 + +Sordino, 90 + +Space, music has no place in, 59 + +Speech and music, 43 + +Spencer, Herbert, 39, 43, 216, 218, 230 + +Spinet, 168, 170 + +Spohr, "Jessonda," 225 + +Stainer, Dr., 39, 316 + +Stein, pianoforte maker, 196 + +_Stilo rappresentativo_, 234 + +Stories, in music, 40 + +Strings, orchestral, 74, 82, 86 _et seq._, 102 + +Sucher, Rosa, 247 + +Suite, 129, 152, 173 _et seq._ + +Symphonic poem, 142 + +Symphonic prologue, 148 + +Symphony, 124 _et seq._, 183 + +Syrinx, 98 + + +Talent in listening, 4 + +Tambourine, 110 + +Tappert, "Zooplastik in Toenen," 51 + +Taste, 311 + +Technique, 163 _et seq._ + +Tennyson, 9 + +Terminology, musical, 8 + +_Theatre nationale de l'Opera-Comique_, 223 + +Thespis, 212 + +Thomas, "Mignon," 223 + +_Tibia_, 98 + +Titiens, 242 + +Tonal language, 42, 43 + +Tones, co-ordination of, 17 + +Touch, 163 _et seq._ + +_Tragedia per musica_, 227 + +Tremolo, 91 + +Trench, Archbishop, 65, 66 + +Triangle, 74, 110 + +Trio, 134 + +Triolet, 136 + +Trombone, 82, 105, 106, 109 _et seq._ + +Trumpet, 105, 108 + +Tschaikowsky, 88, 132; + "Symphonie Pathetique," 132 + +Tuba, 82, 85, 106, 108 + +"Turkish" music, 97 + +Tympani, 82, 111 _et seq._ + + +Ugly, the, not fit for music, 50 + +United States, first to have amateur singing societies, 257, 262; + spread of choral music in, 263 + +Unity in the symphony, 27, 137 + + +Vaudevilles, 224 + +Verdi, 152, 203, 210, 228, 236, 238, 242, 243; + "Aida," 152, 228, 238; + "Il Trovatore," 210, 243; + "Otello," 228, 238; + "Falstaff," 228, 236; + Requiem, 290 + +Vestris, 153 + +Vibrato, 90 + +Vile, the, unfit for music, 50 + +Viola, 74, 77, 82, 92, 93 + +_Viole da braccio_, 93 + +_Viole da gamba_, 93 + +Violin, 73, 74, 77, 82, 86 _et seq._, 144, 162 + +Violin concertos, 145 + +Violoncello, 74, 77, 82, 92, 93, 94 + +Virginal, 168, 170 + +Vocal music, 61, 215 + +_Vorspiel_, 148 + +Wagner, 41, 79, 80, 81, 88, 89, 94, 111, 205, 206, 219, 226, 227, 232, + 235, 237, 238, 244, 248, 249, 250, 251, 303, 305, 314; + on the content of music, 41; + his instrumentation, 80, 111; + his dramas, 219, 226, 227, 248; + _Musikdrama_, 227, 249; + his dialogue, 235; + his orchestra, 238, 250; + his operas, 248; + his theories, 249; + endless melody, 250; + typical phrases, 250; + "leading motives," 250; + popularity of his music, 303; + on criticism, 314; + "Flying Dutchman," 248; + "Tannhaeuser," 248; + "Lohengrin," 79, 88, 235, 248; + "Die Meistersinger," 249; + "Tristan und Isolde," 87, 237, 249; + "Rheingold," 237; + "Die Walkuere," 94, 237; + "Siegfried," 237, 244; + "Die Goetterdaemmerung," 237; + "Ring of the Nibelung," 249, 251, 305; + "Parsifal," 249 + +_Waldhorn,_ 107 + +Wallace, W.V., 223 + +Walter, Jacob, 53 + +Water, musical delineation of, 58, 59 + +Weber, 67, 96, 244, 248; + his Romanticism, 67; + "Der Freischuetz," 96, 225; + "Oberon," 225; + "Euryanthe," 225 + +Weitzmann, "Geschichte des Clavierspiels," 201 + +Welsh choirs, 255 + +Wood-wind instruments, 74, 77, 78, 95 + + +Xylophone, 111 + + +Ysaye, on Cadenzas, 146 + + + + +SOME MUSICAL BOOKS + + +THE LETTERS OF FRANZ LISZT. Edited and collected by LA MARA. +With portraits. Crown 8vo, 2 vols., $6.00. + +RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS to his Dresden Friends--Theodore Uhlig, +Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine. Translated by J.S. SHEDLOCK. +Crown 8vo, $3.50. + +JENNY LIND THE ARTIST, 1820-1851. Memoir of Madame Jenny +Lind-Goldschmidt. Her Art Life and Dramatic Career, from original +documents, etc. By CANON H.S. HOLLAND and W.S. ROCKSTRO. With +illustrations, 12mo, $2.50. + +WAGNER AND HIS WORKS. The Story of his Life, with Critical Comments. +By HENRY T. FINCK. Third edition. With portraits. 2 vols., +12mo, $4.00. + +CHOPIN AND OTHER MUSICAL ESSAYS. By HENRY T. FINCK. 12mo, +$1.50. + +A CONCISE HISTORY OF MUSIC, from the Commencement of the Christian Era +to the present time. By H.G.B. HUNT. With numerous tables. +12mo, $1.00. + +CHARLES GOUNOD, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMINISCENCES, with Family Letters +and Notes on Music. Translated by the HON. W. 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HUMPHREYS, 12mo, +$1.75 net. + +THE STORY OF BRITISH MUSIC, from the Earliest Times to the Tudor +Period. By F.J. CROWEST. Illustrated. 8vo, $3.50. + +THE HISTORY OF MUSIC, from the Earliest Times to the Time of the +Troubadours. By J.F. ROWBOTHAM. 12mo, $2.50. + +THE LEGENDS OF THE WAGNER DRAMA. Studies in Mythology and Romance. By +JESSIE L. WESTON. 12mo, $2.25. + +_A Descriptive List of Musical Books (112 pages) sent upon +application._ + +Charles Scribner's Sons, Publishers, + +153-157 Fifth Ave., New York. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Listen to Music, 7th ed., by +Henry Edward Krehbiel + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC, 7TH ED. *** + +***** This file should be named 17474.txt or 17474.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/4/7/17474/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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